About Face

These days, my ears and eyes are readily tuned to take in all things Malaysian. Recently, a man at my church, who I presume must be Malaysian from the things he said, responded to a sermon about Jesus' death by commenting that, in a Muslim society, the idea of a suffering saviour is offensive. He was asking how we could present the Gospel in such a society. I don't remember the answer our pastor gave, but we did consider the question in our Bible study the following Tuesday night. What we agreed as a group was this: there's no escaping the fact that the Cross is offensive. It should be. We speculated if the fact of the matter is that we, as Christians, have simply lost sight of that offence, meaning that, in a sense, we have lost sight of what it really means. We shouldn't be avoiding offending people (I suggested as much, I think, a few months ago in a post I wrote at Christmas). Instead, we should recognise that the Gospel is offensive to those who are closed to its truth - a suffering saviour is the only one who is any good for us, but He's also the last thing many of us are looking for.

It did make me reflect on the "face saving" aspect of Malaysian culture, and the fear this demonstrates of being shamed. I remembered the principal of my school over there speaking about "taking off her face" in a conversation with a parent, in which she was required to be significantly humble. This phrase stood out for me, and it struck me that this is exactly what Paul tells us in Philippians 2:5-11 that Jesus did for us. In other words, if we try to hold onto our own sense of honour and moral dignity, we will be offended by what Jesus has done for us, and we will remain gloriously immune to His sacrifice. If, however, we accept our shame just as He bore it for us, then - biggest paradox of all - our shame will be taken away.

I wrote a poem about this while in Malaysia that seems relevant here. It isn't meant to be a direct allegory as such - bits of it won't make sense if you read it that way. But I more or less wrote it asking the question, "What if there were those who followed Jesus only for His status, and not for His sacrificial love?" This is what I produced. The name, "Giving Face", comes from a Chinese phrase which I had directly translated for me - it means, "Showing respect to", but often in a superficial kind of way. I wondered, and then wrote this poem to wonder, what true, deep "face-giving" would look like. Here is the result:

Giving Face

Tired of superficial looks,

bowed heads and insincere hearts,

he looked for a way beyond all this –

a way of speech deeper than the surface,

a way of looking much more penetrating than glances.

“I am sick,” he said,

“of respect that goes no further

than the start of my name.”

So he climbed the deepest of deep-deep wells,

far beyond mortal status-seeking and glory-clambering;

he went beyond the face-saving multitude

to a place where there lay the truest of faces.

Where did he go? the shy pilgrims ask.

Why, he jettisoned all he knew,

left this island behind.

He crossed over the sea, and out of his skin.

He shed all clothes and fine embroidery.

He went – do you know where it was?

He went,

(truest of true faces in store for him who overcame),

he went, pride discarded,

humility in hand,

to the hill of Calvary.

(Tawau, March 2010)

Autumn Leaves Revived

Well, autumn has hit Brunswick East, and probably other suburbs of Melbourne too.

Autumn is a funny sort of season in my fair city: it's more often a sequence of unpredictable, bipolar shifts between summer and winter, rather than an intermediate stage. Each extreme takes turns, until winter begins to be more dominant and eventually takes over altogether until some time between September and November (it changes each year). But, unpredictable though autumn tends to be, it's probably the most glorious time that Melbourne has to offer. The trees that line my street are, on cue, letting their half-green, half-golden leaves drop to the ground, and there are few sights more cosy and Melburnian than a street filled with fallen leaves. So I suppose it's the kind of time when, cliched though it is, you'll want to be listening to this jazz standard, performed here for your benefit by Stan Getz:

But when I strolled down my street early this afternoon, it occurred to me that autumn leaves, beautiful as they are, have actually died. Limited as my French may be, it's good enough to know that the original title of "Autumn Leaves", "Les Feuilles Mortes", means "The Dead Leaves". So, when I admire their beauty, I am essentially admiring the beauty of...well...death.

Now, I suppose we can take a poetic approach to the whole thing and say, as e.e. cummings said of a sunset, that if things have to die, they might as well do it beautifully. But isn't this attitude symptomatic of our death-ridden world, rather than necessarily true? We accept death as a reality, so we figure we should be stoic about the whole thing. But do we have to? Not many ages or cultures before us have felt the need to accept death. Chinese emperors drank mercury to avoid it. Alchemists devoted their lives to thwarting it. Death is horrible, and there's not much use pretending it isn't. No-one, when they die, looks like a falling autumnal leaf. In fact, if we're going to look at it that way, a much better musical description of the whole phenomenon might be the angsty - but strangely hopeful - reinterpretation by emo band Thursday, "Autumn Leaves Revisited".

In some traditions, death is seen as the beginning of something new, a necessary stage, a means to an end. This, to me, seems a much better way to think about it, and that is actually how the Christian faith views death - or is at least supposed to view it, though how we truly understand the whole process varies dramatically across the Christian church; and between professed beliefs and lived ones often, sadly, exists a vast chasm.

This is why, on searching the web for various things on returning home - versions of "Autumn Leaves" to link here, podcasts I might enjoy listening to over lunch - I was pleased to find this video of Bishop Tom Wright, a man who I always appreciate even when I don't agree with him.

The video is, naturally, very brief and very simplistic in how it represents what is, I'm sure a much more complex theory than we're getting here. There is, for instance, little or no reference made to actual Bible passages, something that I am sure Bishop Wright gives in his book, "Surprised By Hope", which I must read one day. But it is not an idea that is unfamiliar to me, nor is it quite as revolutionary as the presenter would have us think. That said, it is an idea that few Christians, I think, daily consider or apply in our lives: that God is most of all concerned with the renewal of this world rather than yanking us all out and taking us to heaven. The real life, he suggests, that we are heading for is the restoration of our world to what it should be.

Tom Wright calls it "life after life after death". I call it "autumn leaves revived", because, when I think about a new creation (an idea that baffles me as much as it's baffled almost anyone else in human history), it occurs to me that, beautiful as I find autumn leaves, when the new creation comes we'll be amazed to find that even they seem ugly compared to the beauty of the new leaves that replace them.

Music For Lent

In preparation for the most recent Christmas, I made a mix CD of Advent and Christmas-related songs and distributed it to friends, along with an Auden poem and one that I had written. I enjoyed doing it so much that I had grand plans of doing something similar for Lent, this time with 40 songs for each of the 40 days of Lent. That didn't happen - not on the scale I'd imagined - but with the help of Brian T. Murphy's New York Hymns to inspire and guide me, I came up with my own playlist of 15 Lent-related songs, in some kind of order. I've tried to find videos where possible, but sometimes I've had to go for a link to where the song is a free download. Of particular interest is the beautiful clip for David Potter's "Nothing But the Blood" - be sure to look at it.

And, for those of you who love poetry, here's an old favourite from Bruce Dawe that might make for good reading along with some of these songs.

1. Hammock - You May Emerge From This More Dead Than Alive

2. Cool Hand Luke - The Incomprehensible Sleep

3. New York Hymns - The cross is laid upon Jesus (Station 2)

4. Red Letter - What Wondrous Love Is This?

5. The Northern Conspiracy - What Have We Done?

6. Jars of Clay - Liquid

7. Red Mountain Church - There is a Fountain Filled With Blood

8. The Northern Conspiracy - Filthy Roman Cross

9. New York Hymns - Jesus' body is taken down from the cross (Station 13: Part 1)

10. Sufjan Stevens - To Be Alone With You

11. King's Kaleidoscope - Come Thou Fount

12. John Mark McMillan - Death in his Grave

13. David Potter - Nothing But the Blood

14. New York Hymns - Jesus' body is laid in the tomb (Station 14: Part 2)

15. Hammock - Take a Drink From My Hands

Temperamental Theology

There is a small group of teachers in my staffroom that often finds itself back at school after all other teachers have left. We don't plan it that way. We just all work late. But something happens, when we notice that it's just us left. Slowly at first, then more vigorously, the big theological questions come out. We talk reformed theology without needing to worry about offending anyone.

Of course, I'm making it all sound very clandestine, mostly because it amuses me to do so. It's just that, in a Christian school, it's important to focus on what unites us, rather than thinking about what divides us. Since we're united on the essentials, we are able to put aside other differences without too much concern. And yet, when we do talk theology more freely, we find ourselves getting quite passionate about those topics that we cannot discuss as openly with everyone. We care greatly about what the Bible has to say, and how we can know that we are interpreting the Bible accurately. These things do matter to us, and we wonder sometimes, I suppose, whether these matters that we discuss are what Paul would call "disputable matters" or if instead they are matters of...well...fact.

Yet it has made me wonder also about what factors lead to different people taking different theological positions. Naturally, everyone will say, "I believe this teaching because that's what the Bible says," but quite obviously more is going on than just that, otherwise the same Bible passage couldn't be used to justify two or more utterly different, and quite incompatible, positions. Certainly, some positions are justified when particular passages, and only those passages, are read in a fairly questionable way, in isolation from the rest of scripture, while other positions come from a more holistic reading. And I'm not going to say that "everyone has their own interpretation" as a way of avoiding the issue altogether. But it does make me think about the way that our experiences and personalities can, to an extent, be seen to dictate the theology that we end up espousing.

Look, for instance, at someone who is more melancholic, and see which books of the Bible they will most naturally relate to. They will probably appreciate Lamentations and Job. They will find great solace in Psalm 51. They will almost certainly keep returning to Romans 7. Then take an optimist, and watch them gravitate to the parts of the Bible that most uphold their generally positive view of human experience. (Notice that I'm clearly not an optimist. I can't even think, offhand, of what texts such a person would gravitate to!) Certainly, systematic and careful reading of the Bible can do much to counteract these kinds of issues of temperament and inclination. But I quite simply can't see myself becoming a triumphalist. My experiences of disappointment and pain at the hands of God are hardly going to make me preach about the constant, ongoing victory of the Christian walk. Part of this is because I don't think that's a doctrinally right position to take. But part of me just doesn't think that way. I doubt I'd be a triumphalist of any kind, whether or not I'd ever read the Bible.

And so thinking this brings a new dimension to how I feel about those reformed discussions we have in the A1 staffroom after school. Yes, I do feel that there are Bible passages that support our views. Yes, I think they are consistent with the whole of Scripture. But it reminds me of something important: that I am to give my whole person up to all of God to be transformed by all of Scripture, not just the parts that confirm my worldview. And there are triumphant parts just as there are pessimistic ones, and the same God inspired them both. Here's hoping I remember that next week, and the week after, and the week after that.

I think, therefore I blog

My housemate Phil declared, on seeing "The Social Network" with me last year, that it was THE film to capture our generation, and Phil knows about movies (he writes them) so I guess I'll trust him on that one. I certainly thought of it when reading this article from ChristianityToday on the impact of blogging and Web 2.0 on theological debate. Mostly I thought of it because the article directly referenced the film. But I also thought of it because, duh, it's an obvious connection.

In particular, I thought of it when I read this section of the article:

Social media relentlessly asks us to publish our personal opinions on anything and everything that happens. There is no time for reflection in prayer, no place for discussion with other flesh and blood image bearers, and no incentive to remain silent.

You must declare your position, and you must declare it now.

Which is, of course, where the film tells us that Mark Zuckerberg began: blogging about his breakup of that evening, and insulting his ex-girlfriend in the most public forum the world has ever known, the Internet. This was, of course, a practice that the said ex-girlfriend Erica later decries sarcastically:

As if every thought that tumbles through your head was so clever it would be a crime for it not to be shared. The Internet's not written in pencil, Mark, it's written in ink.

The problem with blogging is the very problem that Zuckerberg had that night: it's instantaneous, and encourages instantaneous, and thoughtless, comment. This, as the ChristianityToday article observes, is an approach to public discourse that is anathema to so much in the Bible, and thus should be anathema to church practice.

But wait a minute. The article makes an excellent point, and I don't want to defend it purely because I, as this very page demonstrates, am a blogger. No, I'm not interested in defending blogging, rather in refining what it should aim to do.

First of all, I would suggest that Paul's injunction to Timothy to "watch [his] life and doctrine closely" could be revised to, "watch your life and blogging closely". That's to say, do you think, or pray, before you blog? Do you aim for consistency in the life you live and the life you portray online? Do you embrace the anonymity of the internet to live a life, and to espouse a worldview, which those that know you best would laugh at you living and espousing?

I don't know how I would answer those questions. I am not writing this because I have any of this worked out. I cannot write this post at all without a fairly strong sense of the irony of every word I am typing. But blogging ain't going away, even if I decided, prayerfully, to suspend my blogging altogether. So I might as well use it to spread the word, that they who blog should be judged more harshly than they that keep their discreet mouths shut.

That said, if by prayerful reflection I did decide I should no longer blog, I would hopefully have the maturity and humility to do so. But for the time being, I say to everyone who both reads this and knows me: Don't just read what I blog. Look at how I live. If they don't match, tell me. I need to hear.

For the time being, I will try to pray more before I blog, and to think more, and to write only when I have something to say. That seems a good place to start.