Review of The Four Legendary Kingdoms by Matthew Reilly

Matthew Reilly: The Four Legendary Kingdoms

Summary (language alert) – Let's get straight to the point: It is shit.

It is shit because Matthew Reilly's writing can be matched by any 15 year old with semi-competent sub-editors, and the world-view and 'true history' of the world in the book truly suck. It's Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code with an Australian accent and stick diagrams.

Firstly, the writing. For a taste, see the quotes below. I know its the prerogative of a fiction-writer to write fiction. Fiction is not necessarily 'true', but good fiction is necessarily truthful. For example, a good thriller thrills because it carries a sense of real risk or uncertainty; in other words, it is truthful to the concepts of risk and uncertainty, without which its thrill is emasculated.

The Four Legendary Kingdoms falls at this first hurdle. Its a thriller that bores (I read it over the course of three interminable evenings). The plot comprises the hero, Jack, undertaking a series of mortal-combat challenges. He prevails (of course) by doing the unexpected ('… Jack did something else that no-one would have expected' Page 339, in case you didn't get it), which is remarkable because these challenges had been meticulously planned by a supposedly intelligent cabal of privileged insiders in a secret, expertly furnished arena. I wish he'd done something truly unexpected by getting himself killed.

As a literary work, the highlight for me was finding that the word 'tautology' had been used correctly. However, it could have been inserted by a sub-editor in his or her desperation to alleviate the tedium of having to fix up this drivel.

Reilly's most annoying tick is his habit of explaining, rather then describing. His inability to furnish adequate text for his explanations is manifest in the number of stick-diagrams dispersed through the text. His feeble attempts to establish credibility rest on passing references to 'real' people (General Sir Peter Cosgrove, for example), but they are nothing but sops to a click-bait generation of social-media trolls.

Worse still, Reilly needs an interpreter to explain the whole thing, and so we get to meet Mae, Jack's mother and supposedly brilliant history teacher. Of course, she 'knows' everything, dogmatically and omnisciently. Her explanations are never allowed to be questioned or challenged, which seems to be to be about as remote from a real engagement with history as you can get. Surely, the veracity of one's opinion is strengthened if one allows for some self-doubt, but this kind of truthfulness never troubles the characters in the book.

Which brings me to my second point; the history. For reasons that escape me entirely, there are people in the world who insist in believing Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, which Reilly ransacks in this book, and which was based on the equally risible The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, by Michael Baigent. There's nothing new here, but when you look at it historically, there's actually nothing at all.

Allow me to illustrate by example, to give you an idea of the scale of the pretensions of Reilly, Brown, Baigent et al. Let us say, for example, that I knew the real reason for the construction of the Gabba cricket ground was to communicate with aliens in a remote universe. My reason – because it looks like a giant radio dish from the air (and it does). I am unshakeable in this belief, despite everything that the stadium builders and operators have said, despite the experiences of the thousands of people who have passed through the gates to watch cricket there, despite the cricketers who have actually performed on the pitch, despite all the marketing and messaging put forward on behalf of the venue through multiple media outlets. No. I believe what I believe because the Gabba stadium is symbolic of (looks like a) giant radio dish, and because that is true, everything else is a conspiracy.

That's the problem with basing your knowledge on symbols, or rather your interpretation of them. You can make them say anything you like. Surely, a reasonable attitude would be to ask the owners of these symbols what they mean to them. If, for instance, you have the slightest interest in understanding the symbolism of the Catholic Church, you would do well to ask a knowledgeable Catholic what they mean. Reilly, Brown and Baigent simply don't bother with these inconveniences (see second quote below), and plough a trench through all considered research with their myopic dogmatism.

This vacuous symbolism most obviously triumphs over all attempts at authenticity in its treatment of the historical Jesus Christ (see first quote below). In this religiously illiterate age, it might surprise many readers to find that there is reliable documented evidence of eye witness accounts of the life of Jesus. Surely, these should be the prime source of material for anyone wishing to understand what Jesus said about himself, even if he or she has no intention of agreeing with him. The New Testament (the last fifth of the modern Bible) was not written, as Dan Brown seems to think, after Leonardo Da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper (1495-1489), but about 1400 years' earlier, a few decades after Jesus' death. Even so, Brown seems to think that the Christian Gospel was informed by the symbolism in the painting, not the other way around, which gives him, and Reilly like him, licence to do whatever they like with it.

So, despite, the Gospel's insistence that the life of Jesus was an unveiling of God to the world, Reilly, Brown and Baigent insist that it was more about establishing a blood-line that would preserve a secret wisdom passed down from super-human patriarchs. In other words, Reilly, Brown and Baigent have re-badged paganism as Christianity, and Christianity as paganism.

This might appear to be theological nit-picking, but I believe there is no such thing as an impractical theology. The pagan world-view profoundly informs the plot of The Four Legendary Kingdoms, and not just in the indiscriminate references to pagan myth. C S Lewis, author of the Narnia tales and devout Christian apologist, used pagan characters all the time, but he did so to illustrate Christian teaching. You could convincingly argue that he was following the example of much of the Old Testament. No, its not the characters and myths that bothers me. Its the morality of paganism that's shit.

So, here's how the scenario in the Four Legendary Kingdoms plays out. We have fights to the death to prove the worthiness of the victor, and the killing of non-combatants as hostages. The whole thing is justified because planet earth is about to get swatted by a giant swastika of a galaxy, and a few token human sacrifices need to be made. The only people to know about this is a privileged uber-elite whose sole purpose in life is the preservation of its own privileges and uber-elite-ness. In winning his challenges (and killing a number of also-rans in the process), the hero, Jack, proves his worthiness, saves the world (again), and gets his friends out of jail (enough of them to set up another sequel in this dreary series). He also gets to kill a number of bad guys who are bad because, you know, they are bad. That obviously makes him a good guy, and justifies his violence. You could say Jack is an unwilling combatant, being forced to fight by the prospect of his friends and family being burned alive in a landslide of boiling mud. The fact that all the other combatants' friends and family suffer this fate as a consequence of his actions is entirely incidental. It is all the more remarkable because some of these idiots had actually volunteered to be there.

Contrast this with the (documented) teaching of Christ. The one who leaves the 99 sheep to rescue the one and in so doing ensures that no-one is lost. The one who surrendered his privileges, and abandoned his legitimate claims to self preservation, to sacrifice Himself for the unworthy, and in so doing, set the prime example of how we should consider our fellow human beings. The (pre da Vinci Code) King James translation of, probably, the first recorded Christian text in history, puts it poetically like this

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Despite the machinations of Reilly, Brown, Baigent, and a host of lazy, incompetent and belligerent supporters, Christianity and paganism remain poles apart in mutual opposition to each other. Readers would do well to understand why this is so, and how this is so, but The Four Legendary Kingdoms flatters to deceive.

In conclusion, Matthew Reilly's The Four Legendary Kingdoms has its place in literature in the same way that pus has its place in a boil. If I may take the liberty of restating it; it is shit.


A Secret History II – The True History of the World
Page 127 etc. 
Capitals and italics per the original text
Conversation between three characters; Stretch and Pooh-Bear (nick-names for body guards) and Mae (supposedly, a sharp-minded historian and mother of the hero, Jack).

'Who is God?' Stretch said doubtfully. 'Are you talking about the Muslim god, Allah? Egyptian gods? The Christian God who supposedly sent his only son to earth to be crucified and then rise from the dead? You do realise that Jack once found the tomb of Jesus Christ in a Roman salt mine with the body still in it.' 

Mae nodded. 'I'm talking about all of them. And, yes I am also aware that Jesus the Nazarene was very much a man even if a sizeable portion of mankind has made him into a god. Why do you think this has happened?' 

Stretch shrugged. 'He preached a popular philosophy. Peace, equality, be nice to others. He fed his followers with loaves and fishes. Healed the sick. And what we learned in 2008, he was also a member of a very ancient royal line ---' 

 'That's right,' Mae said quickly. 'He healed the sick and he was a member of an ancient royal line. Imagine you're living in the Roman province of Judea and a guy comes out of nowhere with advanced medical knowledge and starts healing the sick? It'd cause a sensation. Christ's royal lineage made him an even greater sensation and his fame spread. 

'It is my contention that a handful of royal lines have been privy to advanced superancient learning handed down to them by a mysterious civilisation from the distant past. This wisdom has given them a knowledge-advantage over the general population and allowed them to appear, so to speak, god-like. 

'Did you know that every single ancient civilisation mentions being visited by a white-skinned bearded man – it's always a man, he is always white and he always has a beard – who bestows on them advance wisdom and who often heals the sick? 

'The Egyptians, the Maya, the Cambodians, all of them were visited by such an individual. The Egyptians called him Virata, The Mayans, called him Viracocha. The Cambodians, Vicaya. Soudn consistent?' 

'I mean, if you're a simple society and someone comes to you and shows you how to build giant pyramids, predict solar eclipses, plant sustainable agriculture, and miraculously heals your ill, you'd think he was a god, wouldn't you?' 

'Sure,' Pooh Bear said. 

'My postulation,' Mae said, 'is that our gods of old – from Zeus to Poseidon, to Anubis and Isis – were all royal beneficiaries of the superancient civilisation that build the Machine. They were all members of a few high families who exist today as the four legendary kingdoms. The question of who or what God is inextricably linked to the four kingdoms that rule our world from the shadows.'

Page 145
Exchange between Lily (Jack's step-daughter) and Cardinal Ricardo Mandoza (Catholic Cardinal)

'Young madam, it is an honour of honours to meet the Oracle of Siwa!' he exclaimed, taking Lily's hand and bowing low. 

Of course he was honoured, Lily thought. She had known for some time that the Catholic Church was the modern incarnation of an ancient Egyptian sun-cult, the Cult of Ammon-Ra. From their priestly garments featuring blazing suns to the many obelisks decorating Rome and the Vatican, everything about the Church was devoted to the worship of the sun. For a Cardinal to meet someone directly descended from ancient Royalty would indeed be an honour.

A Toast to Evie on the Occasion of her 21st Birthday Party

Just over 21 years’ ago when Janna and I were choosing your name, we came up against the Teachers’ Curse. Every suitable name we could think of had already been assigned to a child. And not just any child, but the worst child in the worst class in the worst school in the entire universe. We couldn’t use any these names without the risk of bestowing some of that child’s qualities on to you.

Our deliberations might have gone on interminably, had it not been for the approach of a rather pressing deadline. We decided on Evangeline Sophia; Evangeline, meaning bringer of good news, and Sophia meaning Holy Wisdom.

Well, you can choose the name, but you can’t choose the child.

Fortunately, it has been our joy to see you live up to your name. You have brought good news to us, and our whole family, and it has been a wonderful privilege to have you grow up with us.

Shortly after you were born, we moved from the UK to Hong Kong. This is where I stalked you around the flat with a microphone as you learned to talk. All these years later, I used these recordings to assemble the EviePhon, and I invite you all to have a go. It’s not embarassing in the slightest, but you will get the full range of Evie.

You have a strong sense of fair play. We saw this early on when you insisted that noboby, no matter how big they were, no matter if they came from Europe, China or the Planet Krypton, would jump the queue at the slide in the playground at Kowloon Park.

We came to Australia and you went through Camp Hill State School, Somerville House and UQ. My fondest memories of those early days were of walking you to school. One morning, soon after we had watched the BBC documentary “The Legend of Big Al” (it was a reconstruction of the life of the titular Allosaurus) you asked me if Big Al went to heaven when he died. I didn’t know what to say then. I’m still thinking about it.

Much later, when helping you with your homework, I found how perceptive you were. Your essay on how the romantic composers, Claude Debussey and Eric Satie helped define the French National Identity in the pre-war years was particularly fascinating – and you were only Grade 7 at the time. (Sorry, I might have my timelines a little confused there).

With a few notable exceptions involving household chores, you have applied yourself to whatever has been given to you, whether it was study, music, drawing, or working in hospitalilty and retail.

However, it is not just about what you have achieved, its who you are as a person. You have been consistently fair and good to the people around you, especially your friends and family, to which all the people gathered here this evening, testify. Janna and I just hope we have given you the best in ourselves, so it is definitely not your father’s skill in cooking, or your mother’s skill in spreadsheets. (Though, if you had the choice, I suggest you’d be better off with Janna’s spreadsheets than my cooking.)

Now we get to the part where I’m supposed to dispense with some sage, fatherly advice. It’s a testament to your character that I’m quite lost for words. I don’t think I can tell you much that you don’t already know. If you can judge a person by the decisions he or she makes, then one of the highest compliments I can pay you is to say that you are good at making good decisions. Generally. You might still need some coaching in some areas, but you already know this.

What I will say to you, though, is that God is closer to you than you know, and that’s a good thing. If you’re like me, it will take you a lifetime to work out what that means, but it is worth it.

I don’t know, and nobody knows, what the next 21 years’ will bring you. They will probably bring you

Agonising anxiety
Bottomless boredom
Curious coincidences
Delightful diversions
Ineffible elation
Feindish frustrations
Great gastronomies
Heart-racing highs
Insufficient income
Jovial Jacobs’ jokes
Knowledgeable knaves
Luminous leitmotifs
Many misadventures
Nattering nannies
Odious obligations and ostentatious orations
Preposterous ponderings
Querulous queues
A rudimentary roof of your own
Sublime stupidity
Tepid tea
Uxorious unions
A very-expensive violin
Whacky weather
Xenophobic xylophones
Yonder yearnings yelling each year from your yokel-made yoghurt ...

... and finally, a zany zoo with zebra, zebu and zucchini at the zenith of your zone.

Knowing the person you have grown up to become, I am confident that, whatever these years bring you, you will bring to these years your own good news and Holy Wisdom.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Evangeline Sophia. We love you very, very much. Happy Birthday!

Lent

Some time ago, I heard the story of a man who checked into a religious retreat to recharge his soul. The brother monk showed him to his bare room and gave him the usual welcome with an unusual twist; “Here is your room. Toilets are down the corridor. If you find that you need anything, please let us know and we will teach you how to live without it.”

Everybody knows that Lent is known as a time of learning to live without things. However, not everybody understands why. This year, I have joined the Lenten-observers by giving up something, in an attempt to understand why. The 'why' is more important than the 'what', and you may find it surprising.

Firstly, and to answer the most obvious question, I have given up watching TV. You might say its not a great loss, and I would agree.

When my father died last December, when I was grieving, I found myself resenting TV. It was so intrusive, I could not stay in the same room and had to physically had to walk out. I needed to think my own thoughts, and feel my own feelings without an unthinking, unfeeling, programmed machine in the corner telling me what to think or feel. I resented the blue box telling me what was important and what was not. My father was certainly not important to the TV, and neither was my grief, or the overwhelming currents of love that swept me along at that time. I needed to feel the grief and the love, and could share neither with the TV's relentless drivel.

Since then, the TV and I have come to something of a cease-fire, though we may resume hostilities in future. Giving it up has not been a heroic burden of Herculean proportions to me. In fact, it's been quite a holiday.

You might also say that a better Martin will emerge from this Lenten journey, and you could be right. That would be a consequence of my self-imposed exile from TV-land, but its not the primary reason.

That reason is quite difficult to explain, especially in a world that revolves around the core value of self-satisfaction. Inspired by a Christianity Today article, I deliberately set out on this journey with the express purpose of avoiding a self-satisfaction or self-improvement program. I decided to shun anything that had self as a primary motivator, even self-improvement.

For example, I could have given up chocolate, or wine, with the aim of losing weight. These are good goals in themselves, and it that's your Lenten observance, I wish you all the best. But its not for me. I aim to get away from what Lent can do for me.

If one word were to summarize my reason for doing Lent, it would be “available”. I hope to make myself available. Call it a mental desk-clearing, if you like, or a de-cluttering, or becoming more present in the moment, or not pursuing a thousand TV crusades against this or that urgent cause. I aim to make room, in my head and in my schedule, and in doing so, to make myself available to whatever wanders by. I don't aim to perfect the art of silence, and if I were to try, I would find myself doing what I aimed not to do. I'm curious to discover who, or what, turns up at my door.

As this is a religious observance, my availability extends firstly in the God-direction. Will He wonder through my door, and sit down for a chat? Naturally, dispensing with the noise and distractions (and untruths) of the TV assists greatly in setting a congenial atmosphere, and I think its beginning to work.

My availability also extends in the human direction. Remarkably, this posture of not-seeking-self-improvement has improved things wonderfully in this area. The first thing I left behind was any notion that my self-improvement-program makes me a better, more worthy person than my neighbours. This is where the Pharisees, that Jesus roundly condemned, tripped up. It occurs to me that, fundamentally, they were doing religion for their own self-interests. What made Jesus so unpopular with them is that He exposed their motivations. The problem was not that they were doing the wrong religion (actually, Jesus and His followers didn't have a problem with Pharisees, but you'd have to read more of the New Testament to understand the issue there); the problem was that they were doing it for the wrong reasons. They were self-centred. You could say they worshipped self, instead of God.

In a more contemporary example, the announcement of my Lenten intentions was greeted by my family with a pressing practical concern. My wife immediately asked if my abstinence included the watching of films or movies. She had (very lovingly) planned a surprise indoor picnic for my birthday that would include a video. Had I been more concerned about sticking to the program for my own self-improvement, this would have presented the kind of dilemma I might have experienced if I had been offered a large, fatty sundae part way through a crash diet course. Because my Lent was not a religious excuse to get on an overdue diet, I easily accepted, and thoroughly enjoyed The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

Self-worship explains much of what we do, including our religious observances. For instance, it explains the suicide-bombers, who do what they do because they think they can get a better deal for themselves in the after-life. It also explains our non-religious, non-observances; we wonder what benefit we can get from religion, and are often persuaded that it is not worth the time and effort. I get that. We are finite; we only have so much time, energy and money, and we need to think carefully about how to spend them wisely.

Wisdom, the thing that seems most elusive in our foolhardy world, tells us of the profound paradox; love. Love is not self-centred; it is not interested in a program of self-improvement. 

As I am a very visual person, I need to see something to understand it. I can't grasp love as an abstract ideal, but I can visualise it in the life and person of Jesus. In my Lenten journey, I hope to join with Him on His. It leads to the cross, where all self-interests are brought to an end. At the cross, God gives Himself in the most irreversible, public, demonstrable, concrete, self-less way. He becomes available, at the ultimate cost of all He is and all He has. That's love in its purest, most original form. The end-point of God's Lenten journey at Easter, speaks to me of the start of mine. That's why I am doing it.

Review of 'The Future of God' by Deepak Chopra

I picked up this book from an airport bookstore in preparation for a long-haul flight. Had I thought I would write a review at the time, I would have been more careful in compiling my notes. But, I have lately come to the view that a review of, or response to the book is necessary, and so I have to do so in hindsight. My review therefore rests more on impression and leading arguments than carefully substantiated and balanced research. Notwithstanding my retrospective limitations, I trust the following is not inaccurate, and I hope it is of benefit to anyone who might read the book.

 

What I liked most about the book is Chopra’s fierce criticism of the New Atheists, led by Richard Dawkins (author of The God Delusion). Chopra rightly points out that Dawkins fails to subject his own beliefs to the same scrutiny that he applies to religion. Dawkins’ selectiveness with the data is neither scientific nor reasonable. In an epilogue, and typical to his style of writing, Chopra includes the following list, which I have reproduced below, with some comments of my own.

 

Ten Flaws in the Dawkins Delusion

1. His atheism attacks a Sunday School version of God as if there were no other. It lumps any kind of belief in with the excesses of extreme fanatics.
2. His atheism rests on the belief that the universe has no intelligent source. Yet a random universe is the least likely explanation for how intelligent life came about.
3. His atheism equates reality with the material world, as perceived by the five senses. This fails to account for the quantum revolution, which opened up reality far beyond the physical world.
4. His atheism traces all events back to the inflexible laws of nature but cannot explain why the laws of nature exist, or where they come from.
5. His atheism uses evolution as an argument against an intelligent source for life, even though survival of the fittest cannot explain the creation of life . [Note: I think this is a weak argument that sinks to the level of pseudo-science that both Dawkins and Chopra despise]
6. His atheism positions itself as rational but cannot explain the source of rationality. How does random brain activity produce order and logic? [I would prefer to frame this in terms of probability – what is the probability that a random universe can produce one single brain, i.e. Dawkins’, that perceives reality as it truly is. Why would the cosmos reveal itself to Dawkins’ brain and not the religious brains he so hates?]
7. His atheism claims that biology is the basis of consciousness without offering a theory of how molecules learned to think. [Pseudo-science again?]
8. His atheism views the brain as rigid cause-and-effect. All thought and behaviour is deterministic. He gives no explanation for free will, creativity and insight. [If all thought and behaviour is deterministic, how can any thought or behaviour be considered evil? Yet, Dawkins uses the term for all thought and behaviour that is expressed in a religious context.]
9. His atheism denies the existence of the self, considering it an illusion created by the brain. Yet neuroscience has never found a location for “I” anywhere in the brain.
10. His atheism cannot explain how the illusory self arrives at self-knowledge. [Good point – if our ‘self’ is illusory, how can we have any confidence that our understanding of our selves is itself an illusion? If atheism is true, we are locked into the blackest void with no hope of redemption.]

What I like least about the book is Chopra’s mangling of Christianity to get it to comply with his own dogma. I would prefer a much more honest approach; Chopra is a Buddhist (or, perhaps a Gnostic) who struggles with Christianity, and I wish he would say so at the outset so that readers would not have to get to the final chapters, armed with a considerable knowledge of comparative religion, to figure it out. I don’t object to Buddhists, or anyone else forming their own view of Christianity, but it irks me when they misrepresent it and then present their misrepresentations as if they were the real thing. It is much better, in my view, to say “I agree with this”, or “I disagree with that”, because it alerts the audience to the existence of a conflict between the differing world views and, preferably, provides some reliable information that would enable it to make an informed choice, which is its prerogative. Chopra, instead, denies all conflict in his extended sermon on Bhuddistic, Gnostic syncretism. Chopra dislikes dogma, which is unfortunate because it leads him to the untenable position of having to deny his own. I will lead with this in my list:

Ten Flaws in Chopra’s understanding of Christianity.

1. Chopra, like many people, misunderstand what is meant by dogma. Dogma, in my opinion, is something that is either true, or it isn’t. Most issues understood to be dogma, for instance the virgin birth of Jesus, actually lie downstream of true dogma, and flow out of it. In this case, the true dogma is whether there is a God who can work miracles (a subject Chopra explores in depth). If this is true, the virgin birth becomes possible; if it isn’t, it doesn’t. The observable fact (that the virgin birth actually happened, or it actually didn’t) is shaped by the dogma, not the other way around. This leads to another aspect of dogma, in that it is essentially untestable or unfalsifiable. Another example is whether life has meaning or purpose. If it does, we would experience life as it is but, what is equally valid is that the same would be true if it doesn’t. What is more, we could not change the dogma, even if we wanted to. I think it best, then, to identify your dogmas and own them as what they are – revelations, epiphanies, insights, hunches - because they inform your logic far more profoundly than you may realise. Chopra fails to recognise and describe his own dogmas. Finally, the Christian understanding of dogma is that it is “out there” – in God, or in the heavens if you like - and we need to adjust our thoughts and perceptions of the cosmos to align with it. (Incidentally, this very dogma underpins the whole scientific enterprise.) To the contrary, Chopra’s understanding of dogma is that it is “in here”, and the cosmos will align itself with our thoughts and perceptions. Dawkins would scoff.
2. Chopra cherry-picks Bible verses. The ones he doesn’t like are binned with all other “failed” scriptures. However, he likes Jesus’ assertion that “The Kingdom of God is within you” and uses it as a launching point for the inward journey to the Bhudda-nature within us all. He conveniently overlooks all the other verses that call us to look beyond ourselves, and to recognise that our inner selves are not the source of the light we seek. The curious thing about this kind of cherry-picking is that it comes with no explanation about why the cherry-picker prefers some passages and ignores others, especially when the cherry-picker is trying to make a point from the scriptures he has cherry-picked from.
3. Chopra titillates post-modern tendencies by claiming that the truth is found within us, as expressed in his exegesis of “the Kingdom of God is within you”. The Christian’s understanding of how the truth is not found within, but comes to us, is most vividly portrayed in the rite of the communion, or mass, or eucharist (a Greek word literally meaning “good gift”) in which the believer receives the bread and takes it into himself or herself. The fundamental direction is towards and into the believer, not from and out of the inner self, as Chopra claims.
4. Chopra refers to urban myth, rather than authoritative sources, particularly in dividing the Old Testament Jehovah, whose leading message is “smite” and the New Testament Jesus, whose leading message is “love”. Does Chopra not realise that the New Testament Jesus does, or promises to do, all the “smiting” of the Old Testament Jehovah? Or, that the Old Testament Jehovah does all the “loving” and sacrifice of the New Testament Jesus? There is a reason for that that Chopra’s dogma cannot embrace …
5. Chopra’s Christ is not God Incarnate in the exclusive sense that the New Testament describes. The reason Jesus does the smiting of Jehovah, and Jehovah does the loving of Jesus, is that the two are one and the same, according to the corpus of scriptures in the Bible. Further, because there is only One Jehovah (a.k.a . Elohim, God, Lord), there is only one Incarnation, which is Jesus Christ. Because Jesus is one person, and not another person or everything, God is one, and not everything, which Chopra’s dogma explicitly denies …
6. Chopra’s God is the universe. Technically, this is pantheism. Chopra’s dogma overlaps with Judaeo-Christian dogma in identifying God as the source of the universe, but it differs by claiming that God becomes the universe. The Judaeo-Christian tradition separates the Creator from His Creation. For instance, when the Bible talks about discarding the old (present) heaven and earth, what is God doing? If God becomes the universe, would He be amputating the limbs He grew. Thus, according to Chopra, God is the totality of everything, and Christian claims to the exclusivity of Jesus as the ultimate revelation of God are wrong and must be dismissed. Thus, according to Chopra, we can find God within ourselves, because we, too, are God. Thus, according to Chopra, we, being God, change reality around us through our Bhudda-consciousness.
7. Chopra gives no attention to the Trinity, which is the central core of Christian faith as described in the Christian scriptures. This is a pity, because in the Trinity, Chopra might find a Christian perspective that is not entirely hostile to his own, particularly in the little-understood realm of Theosis. This is a subject too big to explore here, but it is worth noting that in their meditations on the Trinity, several prominent Eastern Orthodox Church Fathers used the language of “becoming God” (the literal meaning of Theosis). A couple of points must be kept in view, though. The first is that the Orthodox Fathers viewed God as a noun and a verb, which overlaps with Chopra’s perspective, and it is right to do so, in my opinion. In this sense, “becoming God” can be understood as “doing God” and we “do” God whenever we “do” something good, like love. The second is that the Orthodox Fathers saw the Trinity as something that makes Theosis possible, not the other way round. I fear that a syncretistic approach would jump on the Trinity bandwagon as a means to justify its talk of becoming God. In other words, the Trinity could become the means to the end, rather than the dogma from which the outcome flows.
8. Chopra regards the resurrection of Christ as a mystical experience that is only of relevance to Christians after they have died. He fails to notice the physicality of the resurrected Christ who, on one notable occasion, cooked a meal of bread and fish (John 21). He also fails to acknowledge that the resurrection is not just a pointer to life after death; it is regarded by Christian Scripture as the ultimate vindication, verification and validation of God on the life of the man, Christ Jesus. The way to God’s vindication, verification and validation of our lives, therefore, is to follow Christ, and we had better do it while we are still alive.
9. Chopra makes rookie mistakes with the Christian scriptures. I have previously noted his skewed perspective on “the Kingdom of God is within you”, and his false division of Jehovah from Jesus. But, he makes other blunders that should not have got through the editing. For example, Chopra claims that the Gospel of John describes Jesus’ life without reference to miracles. I don’t know which version he has read (maybe Benjamin Franklin’s, after he cut out every reference to the miraculous with a pair of scissors?), because in my version I read about changing water into wine (Chapter 2), the healing of the man born blind (Chapter 9) the raising of Lazarus from the dead (Chapter 11), and many more, culminating in the resurrection of Christ Himself (Chapter 20).
10. Chopra would be better served by acknowledging the conflicts between his own dogmas and those of the Christianity he seeks to subsume. Rather than trying to claim that all is one and, in the process, damaging the dissenting world-views, an honest appraisal would leave them appreciably intact, which occurs to me to be the more respectful approach. Certainly, I would hope to use it if ever I were to critique or adopt aspects of a world-view that is different from my own.

 

There is more to consider in Chopra’s The Future of God than I have addressed here. Much of it is good, and Christians could learn from it. I hope, however, that they would not be misled into thinking that Chopra speaks for Christianity, because he doesn’t except where his dogma overlaps with Christian dogma. Chopra struggles with atheism, and for this I am grateful. He also struggles with Christianity, but makes the mistake of trying to absorb it into his own Bhuddism. He’s not the first to do so, and he will not be the last.

Eulogy for my Dad - Geoffrey Frank Jacobs

Read at the Thanksgiving Service at Christchurch Priory on Wednesday, 9 December 2015.

My name is Martin, and I was privileged to have Geoffrey as my father. Of course, I would like to claim some credit for that particular decision, but alas.

Dad’s life was not just an arrival at an end point. It was a long journey that intersected many lives. We remember the many meetings and intersections along the way, and we remember that they were good.

In the last few days, I have started to clear out the garage. I’m starting at its current state, or end-point. It was Dad’s shed; his man-cave. There was an outer crust of ‘I’ll just put this down there for the time being’ and stuff that would be sorted later, after a cup of tea.

Like an archaeological dig, the outer crust had to be removed in layers but, underneath, Dad’s workbench began to emerge. There were the screws and nails, sorted into boxes and jars, and used paint-brushes, standing in jars of turps, waiting for the next job. I found, to my dismay, that Dad had never assembled a piece of Ikea furniture, because, try as I might, I could find a hex key nowhere. Every piece of flat-pack furniture always comes with a hex key, and after a while of assembling these things you garner a small collection of hex keys, but Dad had none.

Of all the rooms in the house, Dad’s garage seems to be the place to remember him best. That was where he made things, fixed things, painted things, took things apart, and reassembled them with various degrees of success. It was where he solved problems.

Dad and I built a boat there. We or, rather, he started by laying out the plywood boards. Then we stitched them together with copper wire and sealed the joints with fibre-glass. Slowly, the thing took shape – the keel box, the buoyancy tanks, the rowlocks and rigging. We painted it a luminous fluro-yellow. Dad and I and assorted family and friends and enjoyed sailing it around Christchurch harbour. I remember, on one alarming occasion, looking down at the keel box and seeing the luminescent green sea through a hole, which then proceeded to fill the boat as water is wont to do. Time for some more of Dad’s repairs.

Whilst clearing the garage, I found a relic of that old boat and wondered about whether to bring it here today because it is such a pug-ugly thing. Here it is; a rudder pin, with its striking yellow paint.

I remember (or I think I remember) standing on Dad’s shoulders as a small boy. You can see the photo. He was big and strong, then. When he came home from the sea, we three boys would demand a romp and a wrestle with him on the sofa, and he would tie us up in giggling knots.

In later life, we got to know Dad further by his quiet deeds. Janna and I are always grateful for the support Dad and Anne gave to us as we started to build a life of our own. Dad’s generosity was not limited to material help, either. Dad, and Mum, never tried to keep us at home like household pets. They wanted us to go wild, and we did; to out and make our own way in the world, and that takes a particular kind of generosity. On the other hand they never closed the door to us whenever we needed a bolt-hole or a stopover or a cup of tea. Dad had a large and generous heart.

God is love, so the Bible says, and I believe it, in no small part because of Dad’s example. 

It’s a curious thing to say because love is a noun and a verb; something you have, and something you do. Is God a noun and a verb? Possibly. But trying to separate the noun from the verb is like trying to separate the journey from the thousand small steps, and each small step makes the whole journey.

I mention this because the small steps are important. Dad’s small steps of generosity, tolerance (which Dad valued highly), integrity, forgiveness, forbearance, giving others the benefit of the doubt, making space for others in your world; in a word, love. These small steps are important and there are too many to count, or remember here, but they are known to God.

Of course, a large number of these small steps are beyond my memories of Dad. For instance, I knew him as Dad, but his ship-mates would have known him as Captain, and you don’t get to Captain without mastering the sea and those that sail on it. I would have liked to have known more about Geoffrey as Boss, but I am content to believe he was a good one.

You have your own stories of Dad, your own memories. To conclude, I feel it is right to thank you, on Dad’s behalf, for loving him. Thank you, Dad, for loving us.

God is love, and love endures when all else has passed away.

Equality

When they swung the wrecking-ball through the cathedral,
the banner-wavers cheered and piped their congratulations.
Their rainbow chants flowed through the dull thuds
of rough weathered greystone landing on the very flagstones that I had trod,
my feet following ten thousand more, smoothing the way
until the memory of a dearly beloved wife or husband
had all but been worn from their faces.
The stone dust, once allowed to hover serenely in an undisturbed interior,
was now agitated by the invading raw elements into a choking smog.
The ancient masons' hands, now dust themselves,
brushed their art as ghosts, and kissed their hurried good-byes.
Oyster-shells, the remains of the builders' lunches,
and put to production as work-a-do shims,
were exposed once more to air as the arches' joints split and fell,
the same breath allowing the centuries-old lime mortar to finally set.
The books had long been been cleared out and pawned,
chains no longer needed to keep them at their desks.
But when the stained windows,
long hidden behind security mesh,
spilled onto the floor like broken bottle-glass,
the moment was posted onto Facebook
through a self-illuminated touch-screen phone

And I, fearful and mute, shrank into the shadows.

Death

“The reality”, said my Doctor today in a matter-of-fact voice, “is that men’s health drops off after the age of 80 and the best option is to pass away in your sleep between 80 and 85.”

I’m grateful for my Doctor’s blunt assessment because it brought to mind something we all know and mostly avoid thinking about – death. Up to now, I had managed to push it away from me into the distant future, but today it appeared as a tangible blip on the horizon.

How do you plan your life with the realisation that the best outcome from here on in is to pass away in your sleep between 80 and 85? That’s only 30 years away for me, about the same time since I left university. That blip on the horizon will never go away. In fact it will get bigger and bigger until it and I collide at some definite point in the foreseeable future.

This isn’t someone else’s death either. It’s mine. What do I do? How should I live?

As I think about this, I find that I’m less concerned with self-preservation than I was as a young man. No doubt the survival instinct is still there, but it now sits at the back patiently rather than thrusting forward at every opportunity like it once did. Even it won’t be able to steer a course around that blip on the horizon, though it might delay the inevitable.

Of course, we’ve had deaths in the family before. The occasion for my conversation with my doctor was the first of a measured program of check-ups and screenings initiated by the arrival of my fiftieth birthday, and we were discussing the health of my father, who is now frail and in what must be terminal decline. When loved ones had died previously, I was struck with the ephemerality of life, the importance of relationships and the fact that opportunities inexorably close. I kick myself for not fully appreciating how blessed I am by such a wonderful and wide circle of family and friends. Despite our wrangling and disagreements, we still consider each other to be valuable and worthwhile. That is, so valuable that it, and the individuals who make it up, is worth “wasting” my time with. 

“Waste” is such an inappropriate word here, especially when you take your bearings against that blip on the horizon. Who does the final assessment on what is "wasteful" and what is not?

Should I worry about the opportunities I have missed, the mistakes I have made? Yes, and no. Yes, because I could have done something good, but didn’t. To gloss over them would be dishonest and would not do justice to the good I failed to do. No, because there is a greater power at work, and it will prevail even though I failed.

It’s impossible to address this last question without getting theological. Early in my life, I came to terms with the concept that God sees everything about me. I could not, and still cannot, hide anything from Him, not the stuff I manage to hide from my closest and dearest, not even the stuff I hide from myself, nor the stuff that disappeared into the memory hole decades ago. My response to my past, therefore, can only be one of absolute open-ness, fully acknowledging my failures as well as my modest triumphs. 

How does God look at me, knowing absolutely everything about me? The question is not what He sees, but how He sees it.

Fortunately, I don’t need to die before I find out, because I can see the answer expressed in everyday life by my loved ones. I also see the ultimate example of this in the life of a remarkably ordinary human being, Jesus of Nazareth. Having gleaned some faint clue about how God looks at me from these observations, I now have the pattern of how I should look at others, and this shines a light on how I should live out my remaining, limited years. 

It’s a mystery. It's not survival of self at all costs, but a life lived outside and beyond my self for the good of others. At the risk of getting mystical and mysterious, I resolve to be taken up into that river that has been pouring itself out long before I came onto the scene and will continue to do so long after I have left. 

How do I describe this divine mystery? In a word, love.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:11-13

If Stephen Fry's atheism is true, God cannot be evil

Stephen Fry's response to the question about what he would say if he came face to face with God has caused quite a stir. I suspect it's not just the content of Fry's response, but the visceral hatred it conveys; shocking to many because of Fry's better-known on-screen persona as a knowledgeable, congenial host of a myriad of highly watchable TV shows.

It's not the first time Fry has vented his feelings on the subject. Look up his reaction to Ann Widdecome's questions on the Ten Commandments. (PS I wonder if Fry's YouTube speech demolishing the Catholic Church in 8 minutes 53 seconds was recorded the same evening.) Less obvious are his persistent barbs towards anything God-like in the quiz series QI. (To be fair, many are justified, but the emerging picture is a one-way street.)

Unfortunately for Fry, and many atheists like him, his argument does not stack up. It rests more on emotive appeal, made the more forceful by Fry's undeniable wit, charm, intelligence and popularity, than on reason. I can't help but notice the irony, because it is the exact reflection of the criticisms levelled at Christianity by atheists only a few decades ago.

Allow me to explain, but to do so, I'm going to invoke Anselm, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time of the Norman invasion of England in 1066. One of my reasons for raising Anselm's ghost is to demonstrate that these arguments are nothing new, but we quickly forget.

Anselm devised what he thought was an unbeatable argument for the existence of God. In a nutshell, he argued that God was the greatest conceivable being. That's a cursory summary that does the argument no justice, but most, if not all, philosophers have acknowledged the strength of Anselm's argument. Even so, we don't need to fully resolve it here. All we need, for the time-being, is the notion that God is the greatest conceivable being.

This is where Stephen Fry's objection shoots itself in the foot, and so do the same objections of most popular atheists, including Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Professor Lawrence Krauss and the late Richard Hitchins. They cannot believe in God, they say, because He has acted immorally.

What these atheists have done is to judge God according to a particular moral standard and found Him wanting. It is incidental that their particular moral standard encompasses the Gay Rights agenda, and it might as well be some other issue that has gained popular currency. Whatever the higher moral standard that is applied, the God of the Judaeo-Christian tradition is subjected to it. 

According to Anselm, the higher moral standard is greater than God. It follows, then, that God is not “God”; the higher moral standard is “God”. In other words, the higher moral standard is a God-pseudonym, and the “God” of the Judaeo-Christian tradition is demoted down the ranks. It's not an argument for a God-less cosmos, as atheism proper claims; it is actually an argument for a “God”. It's just not the “God” of the Judaeo-Christian tradition.

If we are to follow atheism proper, and jettison all beliefs in a purpose or direction for the universe, then we have no warrant to say that one thing is better than another. Even our sense of moral outrage is meaningless, because there are no morals that we could appeal to. In such a universe, we can justifiably say that we like this or that, or that some thing (God or religion) stops us getting what we want. But, we cannot justifiably say that that thing is “good” or “evil”, “right” or “wrong”. Even the argument against human suffering fails because there is nothing in the universe to say that human suffering is actually wrong; it's just inconvenient.

If there is no “evil”, then it is impossible to say that religion and/or God is “evil”. In other words, if atheism is true, God cannot be evil, even if He is fictional. By the same measure, atheism and the Gay Rights agenda cannot be good. It might be useful, it might even make the world a better place for people like Stephen Fry to live in. It is his prerogative to make the case, but that's not the same as claiming that it is “good” or “right”.

In an atheistic cosmos, then, Stephen Fry's outburst really does boil down to getting what he wants. There is nothing more to it than that. How can there be? Fry's appeals to morality only have substance in a theistic cosmos but, then, he would have to relinquish his avowed atheism. God gives us the warrant to make the kind of moral judgements that Fry has made. Without God, there is no morality to appeal to. Stephen Fry, and we, cannot have it both ways.

Scavenging

Unable to think,
out of habit,
I pick through the refuse of second-hand thoughts on social media.
Memes and expressions of outrage,
rag and bone,
tee shirt slogans
that beg to be picked up and waved
like tattered flags
rallying.

The week has left me tired.
Too much driving,
dodging the idiots
who think the safe gap between me and the car in front
is a vacuum they need to fill.

I groped my way home today.
The evening's conversation has safety gaps.

Incoming

You wonder why I don't react
When you point out the idiots who are
My brothers.

"Look at your brothers", you say
"Look at my brothers", my heart says.
"They are idiots", you say.
"They are idiots", my heart says.

I stand with them, ashamed.
They are my humanity.

The beanpole conundrum

Earlier today, I got pinged about what I referred to as the “abyss of popular atheism”. Here's a written response that, I hope, is better articulated than the verbal response that I fumbled through earlier.

Short version: Arguing for popular moralistic atheism is like arguing that your beanpole is more upright than my beanpole in a context where gravity does not exist. Where there is no gravity, there is no “up”, hence the abyss.

Much longer version: I can accept that some beanpoles are more upright than others. I can even accept that my beanpole might be heavily skewed and needs righting. However, I cannot accept your objection to the uprightness or otherwise of my beanpole in a context where gravity does not exist or is absent. If there is no gravity, the whole concept of uprightness is meaningless, and so the proposition that your beanpole is more upright than mine meaningless. In such a context, no beanpole can be more upright than any other beanpole, because there is no “up”.

It's a metaphor, of course, about what we choose to train our lives (bean-plants) on. What I'm trying to say is that the issue of the uprightness, or goodness of one beanpole or another (be it theism, atheism or whatever) only makes sense where gravity exists and is present. By gravity, I am referring to God, or at least a God-pseudonym. By God-pseudonym, I mean something along the lines of the ultimate truth or reality that sustains the cosmos in which we live, or perhaps the purpose and direction of life, the universe and everything.

My problem with popular atheism is that it often holds itself up as more upright than theism. You don't need to go far beyond the book titles from Richard Dawkins, Richard Hitchens, or the juvenile rants of I Love F******g Atheism to get that. This, to me, is utterly inconsistent with the intellectual constraints of atheism proper, but very few atheists seem to have thought it through to its logical conclusions. Or, if they have, they don't see a need to correct their colleagues.

These are not just my opinions. They are expressed by professors of philosophy who are far better informed than I, including Friedrich Nietsche on one side (if I understand him rightly) and the likes of William Lane Craig and Alvin Plantinga on the other. These guys are not intellectual lightweights, and it is irresponsible for popular atheism to gloss over them as if they had nothing relevant to say.

I'm not saying this because I dislike atheists. I genuinely cannot find a warrant for the moral superiority of anything in an atheistic cosmos. It's the problem of the uprightness of beanpoles where there is no gravity to point us “up”-ward.

Allow me to expand.

What I mean by meaning or morality is something fundamentally different to what I find significant or what I like. I accept that what I like is an expression of my genetic and sociological heritage. However, something that is good or right might well be something that I don't like – it doesn't necessarily map to the boundaries of my preferences and prejudices. So, my preferences and prejudices may need to be aligned to what is good and right, and you can name all manner of issues or scenarios in which this is true. I should align my beanpole to the true "up", not just whatever arbitrary direction your beanpole is pointing in.

Where it gets problematic is in what differentiates good from bad, up from down.

If atheism proper were true, then when we do good, we are only expressing our genetic and social heritage. The “only” part is important, because we cannot invoke a moral plane without crossing over into some kind of spirituality or theism, and that would annoy the hell out of Dawkins, Hitchens and I Love F******g Atheism.

However, it would also mean that when we do bad, we are only expressing our genetic and social heritage.

In other words, there is no difference, other than the differences that we perceive or project onto it.

But that doesn't solve it, because our perceptions are also only the expression of our genetic and social heritage. I like what I like because my genetic and social heritage tells me what I like, even if I get some degree of freedom in the matter (which is not as self-evident as you might suppose). The same goes for our our presuppositions, our prejudices and so on.

If this were the case, and atheism proper gives us no viable alternative, then there is nothing to commend one person's likes or dislikes over another's. We cannot say “you are wrong” because, in actuality, we just don't like what you are doing. Neither can we say “you are wrong” because what you're doing interferes with what we want or like. And, what we like broadens to encompass our self-survival which extends to the survival of our offspring. There's nothing to say that the survival of ourselves, or our offspring, is more morally justified than the survival of someone else and their offspring. In fact, we could even question the assumption that surviving and procreating is an inherently good thing. What I'm trying to say is that there is a very real problem in finding some kind of bedrock or warrant, apart from God, on which to build our moral edifices.

Its a confronting challenge, but who said that the ultimate reality of the situation would conform to our likes and preferences?

If we disabuse ourselves of sentimentality, we find with Nietsche that all objective morality collapses into the void, and we are left with nothing but the will to power. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that just as the moral universe collapses into the void, so the whole universe follows and we are left with nothing. We even find that our existence in the here and now is untenable.

You may counter by saying that that is not our experience. We know we are here. I could respond by saying that our experiences are nothing more than the delusions thrust upon us by our evolutionary heritage, and we actually know nothing at all, not even our own existence. That's what I mean by the abyss of atheism.

Or, I could respond by saying that as we are made in the image of our Creator, we have the capacity to perceive and reflect the ultimate reality that brought the cosmos into being. The difference between the two world-views is as profound as the difference between light and darkness.

Post-script: I sensed some resentment in the query I got earlier. If popular moralistic atheism makes someone happy, why not just leave them be? Why take such offence to it? Why not let sleeping dogs lie?

I think it's ironic that the shonky defences we theists used to put up against the challenges of atheism are now being put up against us.

Bad Sunday, good Sunday

Recently I was in a bad way emotionally. I've had a belly-full of being unemployed, suffering the humiliation of one job rejection after another, being unable to fulfil my hard-wired instincts to be a provider, and fighting off the thought that nobody wants what I have to offer. I was grumpy and depressed.

That same evening, my head had turned 180 degrees. None of my problems had gone away, and I knew I had to face them again the following morning. But, I had a different perspective and the feeling of hope. I actually enjoyed life. Morning-me was a crappy husband and father. Evening-me was a big improvement (still a long way to go, though). All this in the space of 12 hours.

So, what happened?

First, I got myself along to a Sails At Bayside event as a volunteer. It's a charity run under the auspices of the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane, and it provides sailing and life-skills experience to disadvantaged people and other groups. That Sunday morning, we were doing some kayaking with a church Sunday school group. When I turned up, I was just expecting to be another pair of hands to shift kayaks and stuff. However, we got to the point where everyone had got onto the water except for a mum with two young boys. She could take one, but needed someone else to take the other, who must have been about five years old. As I was available, I volunteered, so I sat him in the front and paddled from behind. He was terrified to start with, so we took it really slowly and easily. Slowly, he grew in confidence and started to enjoy it, especially as we paddled into the mangroves and talked about the trees that grew under the sea (it was high tide). We even paddled over the top of some of them, and dodged under the branches of others.

We then took a break, and I got talking to Helen, one of the older volunteers. She is a retired Maths Teacher- an intellectual and a Christian. She talked about recent studies that highlighted the damage our culture was doing to people - we tend to evaluate people by their extrinsic value (the value they have because of what they can give us) and, compared to more spiritually aware cultures, we are losing the ability to recognise intrinsic value (the value they have because of who they are). Call it the Consumer-Culture if you like, but it rules, and we let it. Yesterday, I had spent some time on a picnic with some blind people - some of whom also had learning difficulties - whom I knew from Church. These are people with little or no extrinsic value, yet they are of infinite worth because they have an indelible intrinsic value, and it's something we all share. It's something they need to hear, and I need to hear - we have value because we are made in the image of God (see Genesis 1:27) - all of us, including the people I don't necessarily like or admire or find useful. That's where we get our intrinsic value from - every one of us. If, as the secular forces in our culture would have us believe, we reduce ourselves to mere function (what we can offer), we lose the plot. Helen quoted Rene Descartes, who, when asked why as an intellectual, he still believed in God, replied that with God, there is hope, but without him, there is no hope. It's true. It's not a hope that things will miraculously turn out good by the wave of a magic wand, but that our lives have meaning and substance, even when things turn to crap. It's not saying that evil is good, but rather that our suffering, our ephemerality, our mortality has meaning, and it doesn't go unnoticed by a pitilessly indifferent cosmos (see what Richard Dawkins has to say on this - needless to say, I disagree).

After the break, my doughty five-year old came up to me and asked if we could go out on the kayak again. This is the same guy who was almost crying with fear when we first set out. How could I refuse! We had so much fun on the water together.

So, I have to thank the guys at Sails for their ministry (which is just a religious-sounding word for "service"). My five-year old kayaker got a boost, but I think I got the lion's share.

Then, I went church in the evening to play guitar with the music group. Again, we had fun, which even some of my badly misplaced chords could not stop.

Josh Dinale, our Rector, spoke about what it means to put down roots, based on the reflections of Psalm 1 - especially putting down roots into God. You could think of this as a loss of freedom because it means getting fixed in one place, and allowing yourself to become limited. However, it also means that you can grow, become established. It means you can become mature enough not just to withstand life's storms, but to be strong enough and big enough to offer shelter for others, should they want it. It means you can live a life of meaning and weight - true prosperity. Again, this is not meaning and weight that we have because of our extrinsic value (what we have to offer), but because of our intrinsic value - what we have because we bear the image of God (what we are). If you can sort out what you are, you can sort out what you can do.

Then, after the service, I got talking to a couple of people about the ministry and service they are offering to refugees - some of this is just being a friendly neighbour, or helping them understand English, or a rudimentary introduction to the practicalities of living in an unfamiliar country. Some of this is rock-climbing, or doing stuff that creates fun and friendships.

Now, I'm thinking I'd like to get my blind friends and refugees onto the kayaks and catamarans. I've got outside myself, and I prefer it outside. Yes, I'll get a buzz from it but, more importantly, they are worth it.

If you've read this far, thank you for following me as I unload.

That Sunday morning, I felt unwanted by the world. I realise that's harsh on the people who love me, and I apologise to them. However, there are far more people in this world who don't.

We live in a world that thinks God is either irrelevant, or that he is an evil imp that hides around corners ready to trip us up, or that he is an excuse to do bad stuff. That's not the God I believe in, and it hurts me when I get told by self-righteous atheist propaganda that it is. It's not the God my friends believe in. This isn't about God v Evolution (I'm OK with evolutionary processes, incidentally). Or, about feeling OK about the shit-ness of life because everybody's life is shit and they feel OK about it, too (an idiot's philosophy, undergirded by dogma, presumption and acquired tradition, but believed by millions). It's about whether life - my life, your life, the lives of those blind guys, the refugees, a scared 5 year old boy, an intellectual woman, the guys who can sing in church and the guys who can't - whether all these lives have value and meaning.

Yes they do.

Let's go exploring and find out what it is.

Confounded by God and the Trinity? Let the Song of Songs lead the way

I have read plenty of explanations and descriptions of God and the Trinity. It seems to me that many of them are unhelpful because they fail to address either the interactions between us, the world and God, or the different-ness of the Father from the Son from the Holy Spirit. It also seems to me that if we want to understand the meaning of the mystery of life, we need to bring all those concerns to the same place. I have a rudimentary instinct that the answer to all these concerns can be found in a Trinitarian perspective of God, but how do we even begin to understand it?

My suggestion, in this post, is to approach it from a new angle; this time through one of the most enigmatic books of the Bible – the Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon). This is not about presenting a commentary or an explanation of the book, but about using it to open up these confounding mysteries.

Firstly, what I suggest you do, if you're not already familiar with it, is to read through the Song of Songs in it's entirety. It's only eight chapters, and it won't take long. When you read it, keep in mind that it describes both an earthly scenario (the urgent, sexual tension between the two lovers, witnessed by their friends) and the heavenly reality that this scenario signifies.

Secondly, when you have read the Song of Songs, consider the following

• Do we see God in the origin, sustenance and validation of the scenario that the two lovers find themselves in? Yes, and in this we see something of God the Father
• Do we see God in the beloved prince; the one that the lover can tangibly and physically embrace and apprehend? Yes, and in this we see something of God the Son.
• Do we see God in the urgent, vibrant love that drips from the lovers' hands like myrrh, and fills their every breath with perfume? Yes, and in this we see something of God the Holy Spirit. 

In considering these questions, we might begin to understand the different-ness of God the Father from God the Son from God the Holy Spirit. The illustration does not allow us to think of them as three different “people”, because it is difficult to describe this kind of “Father” and this kind of “Holy Spirit” in the same way that we could describe the “Son”. Further, we would struggle to understand the three as different “faces” or “modes” of the same person. They are different, and an acknowledgement of their different-ness is fundamental to a basic understanding the Trinity.

Nor it is appropriate to think of them in terms of hierarchy. Which one of these three “persons” is in charge? Does the Son direct the Holy Spirit, or is he born along in it? (Incidentally, I generally dislike referring to the Holy Spirit as an “it”, but it's appropriate in this case.) The best we can say is that there is a reciprocation between the Son and the Holy Spirit. But, such a reciprocation can only occur if the Son is not the same “person” as the Holy Spirit. And yet, there are not three “gods”, but One (Deuteronomy 6:4 etc).

These meditations might seem somewhat theoretical and other-worldy, but I think they also open up the mystery of the relationships between us, the world and God. Thus, they become highly relevant and this-worldly.

It seems to me that the most popular understanding of God is that he is some kind of singular entity, closed in on himself, who occasionally invades and interferes with our existence (often to our detriment). Technically and historically, this is the Pythagorean view of God as a monad. By considering God as Trinity, we are presented, instead, with an open, reciprocal union that we are invited to join. The Trinity also provides us with the means to move from the negative descriptions of God to the positive; from descriptions like “closed”, “static”, “detached”, “uncreative”, to “open”, “dynamic”, “engaged”, “creative”. 

Most of all, as the Song of Songs describes, we see love, something that is only possible if the beloved is not the lover. In the Trinity, then, we find the fulfilment of our humanity and the essence of the God whose image we reflect (God is love, 1 John 4:8). That should be no surprise because, if Genesis 1:27 is right in saying that we are made in the image of God, it follows that we are made in the image of the Trinity.

Acknowledgement

I ought to acknowledge the inspiration for this blog, which came from my recent reading of the Song of Songs, and Boris Bobrinskoy's weighty theological tome The Mystery of the Trinity: Trinitarian Experience and Vision in the Biblical and Patristic Tradition. The following extract is Bobrinskoy's reflection on the Song of Songs;

… The Jews view the Song of Songs as the high point of Scripture. In the Introduction to his French Translation of the Song, André Chouraqui emphasises that, for the spiritual masters of Israel, it forms the crown of the Bible, its most necessary book. He quotes Rabbi Akiba as saying, “The world had neither value or meaning before the Song was given to Israel.” Likewise, the Zohar states

(In the song) is to be found that summary of the whole Torah, of the whole work of Creation, of the mystery of the Patriarchs, of the story of the Egyptian exile, and the Exodus therefrom, and of the Song of the Sea. It is the quintessence of the Decalogue, of the Sinaitic covenant, of the significance of Israel's wandering through the desert, until their arrival in the Promised Land and the building of the Temple. It contains the crowning of the Holy Name with love and joy, the prophecy of Israel's exile among the nations, of their redemption, of the resurrection of the dead and of all else until that Day which is 'Sabbath of the Lord.' All that was, and is, and shall be, is contained in it; and, indeed even that which will take place on the 'Seventh Day,' which will be the 'Lord's Sabbath,' is indicated in this song

Tradition tells us that when someone recites a verse from the Song as a profane verse, the Torah complains about it before the Holy One, as of a defilement. For the Kabbalists the Song is a synthesis of the mystery of oneness. It encompasses, at once, a cosmogony and and apocalypse.

The destiny of this theme from the Song, first in the Psalms and the prophets, and then in the New Testament is well known (see Eph 5).

Here, we should specify that the anthropological themes are not used to explain God according to psychological modes proper to us. They are not secondary, archaic, outdated metaphors. On the contrary, by donning works and feelings, God validates them, reveals their true ontology, manifests their infinite source and finality, describes man in his total natural reality, and attracts him to Himself through the alliance and the love in which God and man share the same feelings. The sentiment that best expresses the relation of God and man is that of sharing. In the Hellenistic vocabulary, faith (pistis) means only the faith man has in God. From a Semitic point of view, faith is reciprocal; God loves man first, and believes in him; and man finds the stability of his own faith in a reciprocal faithfulness. The same could be said of the benediction: God blesses, and we return His blessing to Him. It is always a matter of reciprocal knowledge, of a love that is shared.

This endeavour of sharing is, at the same time, unilateral, progressive and reciprocal. Unilateral, because God is first sovereign grace, hesed (mercy), creative paternal love, forgiveness. God has saved us, we who were in sin, and under His anger. These words are to be understood in the strong sense. God has loved us in our sin, like the adulterous wife whom the divine Bridegroom leads out into the desert to meet her once more. Unilateral, the grace of God comes like a refreshing dew, and appeasing breeze, a warming fire, a holiness that sanctifies, a glory that glorifies, a purity that purifies, a justice that justifies, a life that vivifies, a paternity that adopts, a maternity that gives birth and matures – and all this freely, without remuneration, just as a father behaves.

It is a progressive endeavour, because this grace is not poured into inert vessels; it transforms them gradually into itself, into light, fire, breath, it restores human progress.

Finally, it is a reciprocal endeavour, because this transformation of man into the divine life, this establishment of an ontological relation of man to God makes the fulfilment of the human being possible in a free, infinite reciprocity. Man – through the transformation, and not the abolishing of his humanity – becomes spirit, a breath of eternity. Here, the image of love is expressed in the multiple terms of a reciprocity of which the Song of Songs represents the culmination.

Arguing Folk

In defending theism, many theists have said some stupid things. I know. I've done it. I'll probably do it again, despite my best efforts.

Theism's noisiest opponents (Dawkins, Krauss, et al) frequently use this to attack any form of belief in God, or to defend their own belief in no God. It's what I call the Folk Argument. Does it work? My response is a qualified “no”.

Let me illustrate with an example. It seems to me that most people don't understand evolution, particularly when they say things like “I'm evolving into a better person”.

It's a hideous thing to say. If I were a proper atheist, I might even say it's blasphemous. Evolution does not make you (individual you, that is) into anything. What it does do is that if your children are better suited to the environment in which they find themselves, they are more likely to survive and produce more children with their genes. By the time any significant change has happened in the gene pool, you will be long dead.

Then, there's the whole problem of  “better”. What is "better"? Better suited to the environment? But that might mean a radical departure from the values that we hold dear. For instance, it might mean the removal of all inhibitions in killing your neighbour's children. That's a very unpleasant possibility that won't suit our current environment (for which I am very thankful). But, how do we know what possible future environments we might find ourselves in, and what makes these environments better or worse than ours? Why assume that what is “good” today will be “good” tomorrow? Are these future environments "better" because they suit us better? What an ironic inversion of evolutionary theory! 

I digress. My point is that though evolution is not making me (or anyone else) into a better person, many people believe it. It's a folk argument, but does it make evolution untrue? Of course, no.

(Incidentally, the only way you can argue that evolution or circumstance is making you into a better person is by believing that there is a purpose or meaning that has given rise to these processes and circumstances, and as soon as you do that, you assume that there is a God, or at least a God-pseudonym.)

Now, if we shouldn't use the folk-argument against evolution, we also shouldn't use it against theism. It's not an excuse to stop enquiry, but it does clear away much of the clutter. It's also wide-ranging in it's scope. It means that you cannot argue that belief in God is ridiculous because Mrs Smith believes that God always gives her a car-parking space whenever she goes to the shopping mall, and that's a ridiculous thing to believe. You also can't argue the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or the junk-yard of gods (where all the gods go after their respective religions have died out).

In fact, the next time an angry atheist holds forth on the folk-argument, I will be strongly tempted to respond with a folk-argument of my own – that most atheists believe that their criticism of religion serves some sort of meaningful purpose. It doesn't – if proper atheism (as distinct from folk atheism) were true, nothing would have meaning or purpose, including the atheists' dislike of religion. Our perceptions of meaning and purpose would be mere delusions that have been thrust on us randomly by a pitiless and indifferent universe that, frankly, could not care less about what you think, believe or do. The reason I might hold back with this strategy is that I know it is a folk argument.

So, the folk-argument does not settle the issue. It's good rhetoric, but poor logic.

But it does present a dilemma, hence the qualification to my initial “no”. 

The dilemma is this – it's easy to dismiss Mrs Smith's God-of-the-car-park as wishful thinking, or affirmation-bias, pattern-reinforcement or whatever you'd like to call it. But Mrs Smith is not qualitatively different from anyone else in her perceptions, including the finest Oxbridge dons. If Mrs Smith cannot perceive reality, can anyone? I'd like to think that we (that means all of us, including the Mrs Smiths and the finest Oxbridge dons of the world) have the capacity to perceive the reality, even though that capacity is often flawed and is necessarily limited. If we didn't, all our enquiries and all our science are necessarily doomed from the start. We would not be able to perceive anything because our perceptions are irredeemably lost and broken.

To me, this means two things; one is that we can, and should continue to search, and the other is that the ultimate goal of that search is God. Heaven help us find Him.

Start with why

Most people, it seems, approach questions of religion and Christianity from the starting point of their experiences of Church and Christians. It's no surprise, then, that their evaluations vary; some hate it, some love it, and many are somewhere in between, often moving from one position to another. Much depends on how their relationship develops with the people in the Church and its leadership, and their experiences are a common theme in their varied stories of conversion and deconversion.

Personal experience, however important, is not the whole story. Not according to the Judaeo-Christian world-view. There is a reason for everything – a “why” to our experiences, Church, religion and indeed life, death, the universe and everything. Why are these things here, and what possible purpose do they serve? In approaching our questions, we too should start with “why”.

It's a question atheism tries strenuously to avoid for a very simple and profound reason. If there is a fundamental “why”, or a reason for everything then, fundamentally, there must a God or, at the very least, a God-pseudonym. That God may be different than the God of someone else's religion, but that God is still there, and atheism (literally meaning “no-God”) is defeated. The only proper recourse available to the atheist, then, is to say that there is no “why” and everything is meaningless (including the atheist's own outrage at religion, ironically).

Cynics avoid the “why” question because they have failed to find a satisfactory answer. They are right, but only in part. I don't believe that any of us can fully comprehend the answer, which means that we will never be fully satisfied, but this says more about the limits of our comprehension than the “why” that we attempt to comprehend.

Much popular religion answers the “why” with generic response about making us into better people. This, I think, is lazy and narcissistic. It doesn't tell us why being a better person is a good thing (beyond the expedience of avoiding conflict), nor what a “better” person looks like, and it fails to inform you that being a better person only works up to the day when you get Alzheimer's. Indeed, it substitutes the “why” with a “how” or “what”. It also focuses your attention on yourself, as if the only person who needs to be satisfied with the outcomes is you. It tells us nothing about the value of people who are not “better” - the handicapped, the incapable, the failed people in life, the sinners. Furthermore, it assumes that if we are true to ourselves (2), then we would be intrinsically good, but there wasn't a tyrant in history who wasn't true to himself.

I find it tremendously significant that the Bible doesn't start with our experience, and it doesn't even start with the Church. In fact, it starts with “why”.

The opening verse of the first book, Genesis, starts with the reason for the creation of the entire cosmos

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1, NASB). 

The reason that there is a Cosmos is God (3). 

And here we are; by whatever process that got us here. We are here, ultimately, because of God. The rest of the Bible flows from this singular starting point, such that all history, experience, religion, politics, life and death is an outworking of this “why”. Of all God's good creatures, we humans are uniquely made in His image, which is why we search for the “why”.

In opening his Gospel, John echoes the words of Genesis, and expands them using the language of reason. Writing in Greek, he uses the word “logos” for the fundamental reason for everything, which we translate as “Word”. It's not an entirely accurate translation, because we think of words on a page, but John was thinking of the reason, or wisdom that brings these words into being (4). In the same way, the “logos” brings the Cosmos into being, and everything in it, including our experiences, Church, religion etc etc. John puts it like this

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. (John 1:1-4, NASB).

What does this "logos"/“why” look like? Is it something we can comprehend? Do we even have the faculties to comprehend it, or will it always be beyond our reach? Can we see God? John writes that although many tried, none fully succeeded (John 1:18, NASB), despite all the rites, experiences and revelations of the Old Testament, which goes all the way back to the beginning.

John's Gospel provides a revolutionary response to the question that nobody, in my opinion, has bettered. He starts with the abstract question “why” and brings it down to earth, where we can touch it, feel it, hear it, smell it, see it.

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14 NASB).

We might not comprehend all of the “why”, but now we know what it looks like. It is not a set of abstract laws or precepts, nor a system of belief, though it embodies law and belief. It intersects our experiences, but it also stands outside them as an independent entity. It is one thing, but not everything, though it lies beneath, behind and over every thing. It is not a culture, or religion, or a political system, a pattern of rites and rituals, though none of these things have meaning apart from it. It is the person of Jesus Christ, wholly human and, uniquely, wholly God. John tells us that we can see God, and we have seen God, because we have seen Jesus. The author of Hebrews says the same thing (Hebrews 1:1-2), and so does the remainder of the New Testament.

From this starting point, we can begin to answer the “what”. What are our experiences, if they are not our witness of God? What is Church, if it is not the human people who are gathered around the human person of Christ? What is religion, if it is not the marks we make on our lives to signify their meaning? What is politics, if it is not our attempt to create a better environment for our fellow humans, made in His image? What are our lives, if we are not the sons and daughters of God?

We can even begin to move on to the “how”. Critics of Christianity often point to disagreements between Christians, which, shamefully enough, have often triggered violent unrest (the Reformation Wars, for instance). The irony is that Christians and critics alike go to war on things that they believe best answers the “why”; it's just that they have arrived at opposing positions. In these conflicts, one side, or both, may be wrong, but the “why” remains.

We live in a time that strenuously attempts to minimise or avoid the “why”. Our media, for instance, never wants us to venture too near the question – it wants us to remain dumb and compliant to it's insistence that we buy a new car, or a different brand of pizza. Thinking New Atheists tell us it is the wrong question to ask (why?). Critics of Christianity and the Church want us to focus on the disparate outcomes, and give up asking. Popular religion tells us it already has the answer.

John's Gospel tells us that where any of these don't frame the question and the answer to “why” in the human person of Jesus Christ, they miss the mark.

The next time you think about religion, or about any of life's important questions, start with “why”.

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Footnotes

1: I borrowed the title from Simon Sinek, his book of the same title and on-line talk. He talks about business leadership, but it's a great question in all contexts, especially in religion.

2: The quote “to thine own self be true”, is not from the Bible (as some assume), but it comes from Shakespeare's Hamlet, as Polonius farewells his son Laertes prior to an intelligence-gathering mission. 

Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell, my blessing season this in thee!
(Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 75–82)

In context, then, Polonius is not talking about using one's internal conscience as a yard-stick to measure the truth of something, which is how we commonly understand it. He is actually advising Laertes to rely on his own material resources and not to get entangled in the business and politics of those on whom he is to observe, evaluate and report back on.

3: Not a semantic trick – God is the reason for Creation, and God gives the reason for the Creation.

4: Demonstrated in Genesis 1 in which God's creative acts are brought about by “... and God said ...” Genesis 1:3 etc.

Between night and day

After yesterday's dark post, I wondered if there could be an Easter Morning response. I thought it might come to me at our Easter service, and it did.

It's the difference between night and day, like nothing has changed but everything has changed. It's the same world and the same me living in it, but now there is the kind of light that no one, not even death, can put out.

Christ is risen.
God raised Him.
There is nothing we can do.

What if Easter Sunday never comes?

Most of the messages I've heard from Christian leaders this Easter relate to the hope that Easter brings. That's OK for them, but for some reason it's not resonating with me this Easter. It feels like they are skipping from A to C without going through B.

Spoilers.

How can you appreciate the glory of C without the desolation of B?

As far as the unfolding story of Holy Week goes, we're currently at B, the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. I wonder how they felt on that first Easter Saturday? They'd just seen their Messiah crucified. What next? They didn't know what tomorrow would bring. Just like us.

It was a Sabbath, a day of rest and worship, yet it must have felt strangely empty and void without the presence of Jesus, in whom they had placed their faith.

If God was going to do something, why the wait? As I mused yesterday, perhaps it was to allow us to come to terms with the consequences of our actions. And they were our actions -  it wasn't Judas who killed Jesus, or the Jews, or the Romans, or the disciples. All of them failed in some way, but they personified our failures - they were our representatives. If we had been there, would things have happened differently? I think not. We would have found ourselves somewhere in the narrative accusing, betraying, abusing, running away or ignoring what was going on.

So, in the spirit of the day after Good Friday and not knowing what Sunday would bring, let me offer the following reflection as a kind of in-the-moment alternative to the affirmative messages of hope you might otherwise hear.

God is dead.
We murdered Him.
There is nothing we can do.

Between Good Friday and Easter Sunday

At our Good Friday morning service, I found myself thinking through the narrative. Can we put out the Light of God? Evidently, yes. What happens when we do? In a word, darkness. Also chaos and death, thuggery and betrayal, undone-ness and lost-ness. In another word, Hell. Will God allow it to remain that way? Sunday hasn't come yet. Time to reflect on the gravity of our murder of God.

Why TV makes it so difficult to believe

Don’t grab your tinfoil hat quite yet. This isn’t a conspiracy theory.

However, it does deserve some thought as to why we have turned, in the space of a couple of hundred years, from finding it impossible to not believe to finding it possible to not believe to finding it impossible to believe in God. I blame it on TV.

Of course I would. It’s an easy target. What interests me is not how it does it, but why. Why the hostility toward God? Why does TV routinely trash belief in general, and Christianity in particular?

(I’m not going to presume to answer for other religions, but I’m sure they share much of this experience.)

If you say “so what?” let me ask you to be a little observant this Easter about who gets to say what, and how long they are given to say it. For instance, where I live, we’ve just had the trailers for a mini series of documentaries on the Secret Life of Breasts. I’m sure there’s plenty of good science in there, and most of the population will have their curiosity piqued either by having an interest in owning a pair or by having the chance to look at some.

I might have missed it, but I see nothing in the schedule about the meaning of Easter. Call me a pessimist, but the most I am looking forward to is a grudging acknowledgement that some people think Easter might be important (balanced with some views on why it isn’t) followed by a sound bite talking head with a dog collar. Don’t misunderstand me; I believe the talking head with a dog collar will do a good job with the sound bite that he (or she) has been given, but why limit it to a sound bite? It’s embarrassing. It’s like trying to compress the entire content of John’s Gospel into a Twitter.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only son that … Oh crap, we’ve run out of characters. Moving on to the football …

The answer to why TV and Christianity don’t mix very well might simply be that they are bitter rivals.

Back in the day before media, the Church was the media. If you wanted to know anything about the world, you went to Church to hear about it. If you were educated enough, you read the repository of writings kept in the Churches. Then came Gutenburg and his repeatable press, so that you didn’t have to go to Church to read the writings, but it still helped because there were Church people on hand to interpret the information. The Church knew this, and trained its people in the interpretation of the information. The good interpreters pointed their flocks down the good paths, and there was a sense that some paths were worth going down, even though they were not the easy paths. The Church was the repository of knowledge, and it interpreted that knowledge for their flocks so that their flocks knew how to live their lives for the better.

TV has moved into that role. TV is now the repository of knowledge and it interprets that knowledge for its consumers so that its consumers consume its products. When it points people down paths, it doesn’t care if they are good or bad paths, as long as they keep buying pizza.

The key thing here is that for TV to assume that role, it had to push aside the Church. Not all of this is good news. Allow me to expand a few thoughts;

1. TV trades on outrage. Nothing is as effective at getting you back to watch the fight. Pick a side, it doesn’t matter which one, as long as you stay long enough to hear the sponsor’s message. In short, TV is Coliseum 2.0.
2. TV hates tolerance. See 1. Opposing views are only worth expressing if they generate some camera-friendly conflict in a controlled studio environment.
3. TV is not answerable to you. You can turn it off, but you’ll have to pay tribute before it will listen to you. Anyway, TV is not interested if you or it is right after the event - why reflect on the past when the ratings have already been compiled? (I have some limited experience here)
4. TV is your peer group, family and friend. In the light of 3, the relationship can only be described as exploitative. There’s no interaction or negotiation here.
5. TV is the repository of all knowledge. Except that it isn’t. The key criterion for broadcast is not the quality of the content, but the presentation. It is worth noting that the leading philosophers on TV are, actually, the comedians.
6. TV personalities are carefully groomed. Understandably, they want to be liked. Understandably, this will get them to subjugate absolutely everything to the need to be liked by the widest possible audience. Virtue is nowhere near as important as image.
7. TV’s personality cult blocks out the ordinary, little people. If, like me, you are ordinary and little, you’re only chance to get on TV is to be a freak. Ordinary religious people can be freaks, but they are only worth filming when they are being freaks, not ordinary. Ergo, religious people are freaks. Don't become one.
8. TV doesn’t care how you live your life. Do what you want, as long as you buy pizza. By the way, TV knows that you’ll keep on grazing and browsing as long as it keeps flattering you with the soothing message that you’re doing the right thing. This might seem a contradiction until you realize that by “right” TV means whatever it takes to keep you buying pizza. Morality is banished like the friz under that must-have hair-straightener (postage extra).
9. TV is obsessed with keeping you. Heaven forbid that it should lose you to a rival, or that you disengage. To this end, TV is full of helpful hints and emotive images to keep you safely in its embrace.

That last point doesn’t just block out potentially competing messages, it denies the very possibility that there might even be competing messages out there. You see, if you knew that there were competing messages out there, you might go to a competing media outlet to find them, and so you would be lost. As the Church is a competing media outlet, this is the greatest sin in the whole of TV-land. It is better to deny the possibility of the competitor, but if that competitor cannot be denied, then it must be belittled, minimized and ignored at all costs. Who told you that that was what the Church did?

And so we come to the impossible-to-believe situation that we find ourselves in. How can we believe in God, when TV assumes a posture of utter indifference to belief in anything but itself?