The Questioning Christian

Del.icio.us Tagging

I’ve tweaked the TypePad templates for the Questioning Christian blog (hat tip to A VC for the pointer to the how-to page).  Look at the end of the text of each post, where you’d click to get the Permalink.  You’ll now also see a link to “Tag this post in del.icio.us.” 

This is an experiment to see for myself why all the fuss about del.icio.us.  The site bills itself as “ a social bookmarks manager. It allows you to easily add sites you like to your personal collection of links, to categorize those sites with keywords, and to share your collection not only between your own browsers and machines, but also with others.” 

It looks pretty interesting. As A VC put it, “[t]he audience generates the index.”

Help me out here:  When you read a post here that interests you, please click on the link and tag the post with whatever keywords occur to you.  If you haven’t already signed up for del.icio.us, you’ll have to do so, but it seems harmless, and a lot of people apparently have already done so.

Technorati claiming post

I’m posting this to “Technorati%20Profile' target=_blank>claim” this blog in Technorati.

Now This I'd Like to See: Mathematical Proof of Jesus's Divinity and Resurrection?

According to a posting today at SydneyAnglicans.net:

… an Oxford don is prepared to show Sydneysiders how probability formulas can prove Jesus was almost certainly his [God’s] son.

World renowned British philosopher Professor Richard Swinburne will be presenting his calculations next week at the University of New South Wales. 

Professor Swineburne says probability arguments using Bayes’s Theorem can show university students how they can be 97% certain of the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

His use of complex mathematics and historical evidence to transform matters of faith into fact have ignited a storm of controversy, and provided the central themes to his recent book The Resurrection of God Incarnate.

I’d read about Swinburne’s book but haven’t read the book itself, which was published in 2003.  Reading the Amazon excerpts makes me immediately wary.  On page 10, he claims, “That memories are to be trusted—i.e., that they make it probable that that which they report occurred—in the absence of counter-evidence is a fundamental a priori principle.”  Obviously the man has never taken a deposition or cross-examined a witness, or he’d know that “probable” is a very flexible term.

Here’s a review of the book.

Anglican Consultative Council Meeting in Progress

Links:

Kendall Harmon’s liveblog of the ECUSA presentation this morning, and a description of the Anglican Church of Canada presentation – great job Kendall!

ECUSA’s written submission, “To Set Our Hope on Christ” (135–page PDF document)

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’s address to the ACC yesterday, as posted on Kendall’s TitusOneNine blog

"Onward, Moderate Christian Soldiers"

I’m late in noting the much-cited op-ed piece of John Danforth, former Rcpublican senator from Missouri and Episcopal priest, although he always seems to identify himself as an Episcopal minister.  Excerpts (extra paragraphing added):

. . .  Many conservative Christians approach politics with a certainty that they know God's truth, and that they can advance the kingdom of God through governmental action.

So they have developed a political agenda that they believe advances God's kingdom, one that includes efforts to "put God back" into the public square and to pass a constitutional amendment intended to protect marriage from the perceived threat of homosexuality.

Moderate Christians are less certain about when and how our beliefs can be translated into statutory form, not because of a lack of faith in God but because of a healthy acknowledgement of the limitations of human beings. . . .

[We moderates] do not agree that our responsibility to live as Christians can be codified by legislators.  . . .  Aware that even our most passionate ventures into politics are efforts to carry the treasure of religion in the earthen vessel of government, we proceed in a spirit of humility lacking in our conservative colleagues.

The Bible or the Creeds -- Take Your Pick?

An interesting comment by The Anglican Scotist in a debate at the TitusOneNine blog (with extra paragraphing added):

Ironically, if you accept the Creeds, you go far beyond Scripture in interpreting Scripture, and set a precedent very friendly to gay activism.

But if you insist on a literal “plain sense” reading of Scripture to combat gay activism, since Aristotle is not in the Bible, you lose the Creeds.

Take your pick: keep the Creeds at the price of gay activism, or fend off gay activism at the price of the Creeds.

It’s an intriguing thought; but does it work?   Do any of our theologian / seminarian readers have any comments?

Favorite Theological Question # 2: "How Exactly Does That Help to Prove the Point?"

I’ve got a second favorite theological question:  “How exactly does that help to prove the point?”  It can be used in conjunction with the first favorite question I posted a couple of days ago (“how do you know that?”).   

For example: 

A trinitarian asserts:  God is a Trinity — not two persons, not four persons, but exactly three persons in one God.

I respond with Favorite Question # 1:  How do you know that? 

Trinitarian:  Because at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.[1] 

Me:  How exactly does that help to prove the point?  [Or, less politely, “so?”]

I’ve found that repeated application of these two questions can be useful in drilling down into various theological assertions.

Note:  [1] Either:

• Matthew is wrong and Jesus never actually said this; or
• he did say it, but his disciples forgot, or decided to disregard it; or
• the Book of Acts is wrong. 

That's because Acts consistently records that, when the apostles and other disciples baptized in anyone's name, it was always in the name of Jesus alone, not in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

What Do "Progressive" Christians Believe?

The Progressive Christian blog today reviews several statements of what we might call “liberal” Christianity.  He boils them down to what he says would fit on a bumper sticker (always a useful exercise):

So, what is my "take away" from all of this. A Progressive Christian has attempted to distill five particularly pithy and sloganlike guiding principles that should fit each of the approaches outlined above:

1. A Path, not a regime.
2. A Relationship, not a rulebook.
3. Inclusion, not exclusion.
4. Justice and Opportunity for all, not a few.
5. Stewardship, not dominion.

Which could fit on a bumpersticker as follows:
A Path, A Relationship, Inclusion, Justice, Stewardship.

Community Matters More Than Doctrine

A reader, MJD_NV, urges us to define Anglican Christianity by its beliefs.  He enumerates those beliefs as “the Old & New Testament, the Nicene & Apostles' Creed, the 39 Articles, and the witness of the Patristics.”   His remarks are in the comments to this posting; scroll down to the comment dated June 17, 2005, 9:38 AM.  I'm grateful to him for his thoughtful comments.

MJD_NV takes issue with “those people who insist on being part of a religion that defines itself by certain parameters, … then claim that they do NOT believe in the majority of these parameters, but say they are equal members of the organization.”   Clearly MJD_NV defines a religion — and by implication, a church — by its doctrines. 

But is doctrine the only way to define a church?  I think not.  In fact, I'm not sure doctrine is even a good way to do that.

Retitling Two Postings

I woke up this morning thinking I should try retitling two recent postings.  This is an experiment.  I put a good deal of thought into the two postings.  I had expected them to generate a fair number of hits and comments.  They haven't.  So we’ll see if tweaking the titles makes any difference.  I like to think I’m a passable, if pedestrian, writer, but I’m terrible at thinking up attention-getting titles. 

(No, it’s not a controlled experiment, but hey, we do the best we can ….)

New title:  Taking the Gospel of John with a Large Grain of Salt. 
Old title:  Why I Take the Fourth Gospel with a Large Grain of Salt.

New title:  Admit It: Life Is Indeed Getting Better. 
Old title:  Who’s Really Want to Live 100 Years Ago?