While the great and the good of the G20 nations were gathering in London to save the world from bankruptcy here in Dublin we were holding a conference to extol the virtues of religion. The underlying contention was that religion (the variety we have in Ireland) is good for you. An impressive amount of research was marshaled to emphasise the fact. The keynote speaker was Professor Casey who claimed: “What the scientific studies summarised in my report have done is to observe large numbers of people who practice religion and compare them with those who don’t practice religion.” She added that these repeatedly found that, with some exceptions “that religious believers live longer, have lower rates of mental illness, recover faster from physical illness, have lower rates of alcohol and drug abuse, lower rates of crime and lower levels of marriage breakdown”. With such benefits on offer one would be tempted to look into the merits of religion. What does the Bible have to say on the matter? Surprisingly there are only 4 references to religion in the New Testament and 3 of these are referred to by St Paul as the forms and ceremonies of his former life before he was converted to Christ. When St James uses the word he contrasts the vain with true religion – the latter having to do with changed conduct not forms and ceremonies. As Dick Lucas the Anglican Preacher put it; the Romans were open to religions provided their participants acknowledged allegiance to Caesar. They said, “Let a 1,000 religions flourish”, but they persecuted Christians. You could imagine a Roman speaking to his Christian neighbour; “I hear you have a new religion”. “Who is your god?” “Jesus is our God.” Roman, “Who is your Priest?” “Jesus is our Priest”. Roman “Where is your Temple?” “Jesus is our Temple.” Roman, “Where do you do your sacrifices?” “Jesus is our sacrifice.” Roman, what kind of religion is that? The answer is that it is not a religion. Christianity is a relationship with Jesus whereby a person is born again into the family of the living God. When Jesus died on the cross the curtain in the Temple was torn from top to bottom. It had been there from the beginning to prevent access to the holy place where God had presenced himself. By his death Jesus has provided a new way whereby the repentant sinner can come into the presence of God. As the writer to the Hebrews put it, “we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain”. Religion stitches the curtain up again permitting access only through forms and ceremonies which Jesus came to abolish. This is what we have been saved from! Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Category Archives: The Word on the Week
The Word on the Week
Jade Goody
Television has the ability to be creative when you least expect it. Indeed the “Big Brother” programme is compelling viewing for many simply because the unexpected may happen! It manages to so bond its viewers to the behaviour of the houseguests that the daily papers have little to write about but much to photograph. The headlines make for good sales and the followers get involved with the action in an artificial bubble of relationships which are larger than life. It allows for intimacy without the pain that normally goes with it. It permits opinions to be formed on the shallowest of evidence, accusing or excusing their antics and occasionally pouncing on some racist remarks such as those which caused Jade Goody to travel to India to apologise.
It was whilst she was there, on live TV, that she was told she had cervical cancer. The impact exceeded all the previous events in her life. The troubled childhood, the low achieving in “Big Brother” the two sons fathered by a TV presenter and her last boy-friend who was released from prison to marry her, all paled in the face of terminal cancer.
This was reality, not hyped “reality TV”. It focussed her mind and gave her the courage to play out the remaining weeks of her life in full public view. She milked the media for her children’s sake obtaining £800,000 for their future welfare. She went about putting her life in order by getting baptised along with her children and she got married a month before her death last week.
Her death was the occasion for an outburst of grief, reminiscent of that which followed the death of Princess Diane. In a similar way she had become part of the lives of many people who identified so closely with her that they almost knew her. Her highlighting of cervical cancer has produced what is known as the “Goody factor” as young women flock to get themselves tested.
What insights can we draw from all this? The main thing must surely be the desire for relationships. From the virtual variety of the “Big Brother” followers to the intensity of the real that surfaced after the cancer was diagnosed.
Jesus said there was nothing more important than good relationships, the vertical with God and the horizontal with each other. ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’” Jesus was speaking of real relationships and not the virtual ones. They are beyond us. Baptism cannot achieve them. We need a Saviour. One who has taken our broken relationships and by his death on the cross, “he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.”
Jesus has made a way, we need to follow him.
Josef Fritzl
Elizabeth Fritzl has had a hard life. She ran away 30 years ago, when she was 12, to escape her father’s sexual abuse and was brought back home by the Austrian police. Her father, Josef, was a friend of the Major of Amstetten, a respected man in a community that had chosen to forget his previous conviction for rape. Josef made sure she would not run away again by constructing a specially made cellar where she spent the next 24 years.
Some of their children first saw the light of day in April last year. The surviving twin, Alexander had the doubtful privilege of living upstairs with father and grandmother.
At his trial the court was told Fritzl used his daughter Elizabeth, “like his property” after imprisoning her. In an uncanny way this is reminiscent of societies where children were considered to be the property of their parents. In the ancient world, child sacrifice was a relatively common way of showing one’s respect for the gods. It was the ‘right’ thing to do. Yet in that context the Old Testament scriptures make it clear that God considers such behaviour as morally detestable (Leviticus 20:1-5).
In the postmodern world of today the truth is said to be different for everyone; in other words you are free to make up your own ethical rules. Even in these circles there is a deep-seated sense that some things are just wrong – not merely ‘wrong for me’, but objectively, universally, deeply wrong. I doubt if you could find anyone this weekend who will say that what Fritzl did would be ‘wrong for me’, but maybe it was ‘right for him’.
But if that is the case then we have to ask the question, what makes such things universally and objectively wrong? If we’re going to acknowledge that morality transcends my own beliefs and my own culture then the only possible origin for such a transcendent moral order is God. For if we think about it, there simply isn’t anything or anyone else other than God who can underpin a morality that is objective, timeless and universal. To put it bluntly: if we want to claim that Fritzl’s actions were wrong absolutely then we have to also acknowledge that only God makes that so.
Its time to jettison the popular notions of postmodernity and the “New Atheists” and listen to the One who speaks to us today through Jesus. “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe” (Hebrews 1:1-2).
Voice of Conscience
Conscience has sometimes been described as the voice of God in the soul of man. It is God’s ally. It checks the extremes of behaviour. A working conscience has saved many a red face.
But what happens when it has been disabled? What happens when its voice has been so effectively silenced that a person thinks they have done nothing wrong? Whether it be the paedophile who cannot see his guilt or the murderer, as occurred this week, who was so deaf to conscience that even at his appeal into the killing of his wife, he remained impassive.
When the tapes of his interview on the “Late Late Show” 3 weeks after he had brutally murdered her, were re-played he coolly appealed for help in tracing his wife’s killer. At the conclusion of his failed appeal there was no sign of remorse and no evidence of conscience whatsoever.
The main character in Walker Percy’s book, “Love in the Ruins” is called Tom. He has had an affair and attempted suicide when he meets his friend Max his psychiatrist who checks him out and finds that Tom feels no guilt for his behaviour. Even more puzzling for Max is Tom’s worry over the fact that he feels no guilt. “Why does that worry you?” “Because if I felt guilty I could get rid of it” is Tom’s reply which leaves Max floundering. “What I don’t see is that if there is no guilt after your affair, what is the problem?” “The problem is that if there is no guilt, contrition, and repentance, the sin cannot be forgiven”. “What does this mean, operationally speaking” the psychiatrist asks. “It means that you have no life in you”. “Life?” “Yes.” “I’m trying to see it.” “I know you are.”
Tom is saying that when the voice of conscience is gone and there is no guilt after sin, then nothing matters anymore. Nothing counts. Our actions don’t matter. There is nothing higher to live for. Life is emptied of meaning.
Tom had diagnosed himself correctly. He was in great danger. Like a ship without a rudder he had lost his way.
What Tom required is a conscience tutored by the word of God. A conscience purified, as the writer to the Hebrews puts it, from dead actions to serve the living God. Hebrews Chapter 9 verse 14. This comes from the work of the Holy Spirit to the person whose faith is in the power of the blood of Christ.
Tom, in the novel, saw his peril. We need, not just a good diagnosis, but to apply the remedy and turn to Christ.
Bank Robbers
In former times bank robberies were conducted from outside the bank. The attackers were easily identifiable by their clothing and weapons. Now it seems that robbers can also come from the inside, be well dressed and have their password to the computer system!
In fact our banking system seems to have supported quite a few of the latter variety whose annual bonus would have made the old style of armed robber green with envy. Their protests of innocence chime badly against the fact that these bonuses were being awarded while their banks were sinking beneath a mountain of dodgy loans.
But that was yesterday. In the real world of today it was encouraging to learn from one Bank CEO that he was taking a pay cut of €900,000. This praiseworthy act was tempered by the knowledge that he still had an income of €2,000,000 to get by on!
The culture which says its OK for one bank to window-dress the balance sheet of another bank by a temporary loan of multi-billions, but the way it was done i.e. disguising it as a deposit from a client, was wrong, needs a beginners course in ethics. The claim that it was in the national interest to shuffle the cash around, to create a false impression of growth, can only come out of a society which believes the only crime is in being caught.
You don’t need a bloodhound to sniff out self-interest of a high order.
The Bible has never had much time for greed. Jesus said: “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” St Paul draws out the meaning further in his letter to the Church at Colosse when he likens greed to the sin of idolatry.
Those in our society who follow our culture instead of Christ need a radical conversion to Christ. Only when He opens their eyes can modern idol worshippers see the enormity of their sin and turn to Him for mercy. If they do then they, like the robber Zacchaeus in Luke’s gospel, will find pardon and acceptance. In their delight they too may be led to get rid of the possessions that have possessed them for so long.
Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Cowen the Captain
The speech this week to the Dublin Chamber of Commerce given by our Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, has been hailed as the first signs of leadership since the recession began. One journalist likened it to Pilot Chesley Sullenberger’s crash landing of US Airways Airbus A320 Flight 1549 on the Hudson River on the 15th January. The black box flight recorder revealed, in excerpts played by the media yesterday, a cool Captain gliding his plane to a safe landing on the river. In the background was a cacophony of voices as various air controllers tried to understand what was happening and offer advice to the stricken craft. Captain Chesley’s voice was clear and concise as he explained that he did not have much time and the alternative airfields were outside his gliding range. As a country we do not have much time either. The cruel joke; “What is the difference between Iceland and Ireland?” The answer; “One letter and 6 months” is far too near the bone for comfort. In Iceland the top bankers are found today in the dole queues. In Ireland the suggestion has been put to their counterparts here that a salary decrease in the order of 25% would not be inappropriate. Banking is not difficult to understand. You simply have to ensure that you lend at a few % points higher than you pay for the money and that the borrowers can repay in the agreed timeframe. Alas defaulting on repayments has become the order of the day to such an extent that the banks have not been able to get the supply of new money to fund their operations and few want to lend to them. Our Government has granted a €7,000,000,000 re-capitalisation to the two main banks so that they can continue trading but no one knows how much of it will be written off against bad debts. As C S Lewis has pointed out that in the Bible and the Koran it is forbidden to use money to make money, i.e. to take interest — and that our entire modern western economy, and now more or less the global economy, is built on that system and nothing else. If we add in a liberal portion of greed whereby the rich get richer and the poor get poorer we have a situation where we need to change. As John Piper puts it, we need to rely on God…in his grace, not our goods, in his mercy, not our money, in his worth, not our wealth. St Paul knew something of this when he wrote to the church at Philippi, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” And it was Christ who enabled him so to live. May we recognise our need of Him in the months and years ahead.
St Brigid
With the 1st February, the Celtic feast day of Imbolc is upon us. The light is returning and the snowdrops are blooming. Let us escape from the current financial crises and turn our thoughts to St Brigid whose day it is. It is interesting that there seems to have been a Brigit (the old spelling) before there was a Brigid. She was said to be a pagan goddess of fire, smith-craft, healing, childbirth and poetry. One of the customs associated with her is the Bridie Doll. This is a sheaf of oats, dressed in women’s clothing and placed in the earth as part of a fertility rite. History is silent as to whether the pagan Brigit was converted to Christ and became St Brigid but the latter is renowned in Kildare for her negotiating skills. In dealing with the High King of Leinster for a place to build her monastery he said, dismissively, she could have the area covered by her cloak. This she readily agreed to and the deal was done. To the King’s dismay the cloak grew and grew until it covered an area of 5,000 acres in Co Kildare known today as the Curragh. Another feature of the times was the conversion of the old pagan wells, which were associated with fertility rites to holy wells, many called after St Brigid. Some of them were used to baptise converts to Christianity. It is perhaps for the St Brigid’s cross that the Saint is best remembered. This is a plaited four pronged cross made from reeds and is often fixed to the wall of a house in honour of the Saint. Legend has it she made the cross from rushes she found on the ground beside a dying man in order to convert him. I wonder if she used St Paul’s words from Colossians chapter 2, “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.” The cross was where Christ carried our sins. Did St Brigid use her cross to get the gospel message across to the dying man? There is probably no better use for it today.
Obama-ites
This is the Saviour of the world said the shop assistant referring to Obama as the radio brought the Presidential inauguration in Washington into the local chemist’s shop. For a moment I found myself agreeing! Such has been the momentum generated by the rhetoric and the welcome distraction it afforded from the chill economic winds that are blowing that there was a strong temptation to buy into it – lock, stock and barrel. Barack Hussein Obama carries with him into the Presidential office the hopes of a fairer society in the US and justice for the rest of the world. Perhaps never has one man had had so much expectation placed upon his shoulders. Perhaps never have such flimsy shoulders appeared to carry the burden so lightly. But then this is only the first week in office! The traditional oath of allegiance, taken in God’s name and sworn on the Bible, demonstrates the dependence the founding fathers had on God, his word and the solemnity of the task being undertaken. Indeed the wording is so crucial that in order to ensure its accuracy following a slip-up the first time, the oath was taken again the next day. Conceivably, no President has faced a more daunting task and never has the wisdom of Solomon been more necessary. The choice of Gene Robinson and Rick Warren to offer the inaugural prayers was no doubt symbolic, the first representing the gay community and the second evangelicals. Robinson was an unfortunate choice as he announced in advance that he was shocked by the Christian prayers offered at past inaugurations and that he would not offer a Christian prayer. Instead he prayed to a “god of many understandings” making it impossible to know which god he was talking to. Fortunately Warren prayed along the lines St Paul commanded Timothy. “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Saviour” 1 Timothy Chapter 2 verses 1-3. The shop assistant got mixed up on who is the real Saviour of the world. I trust that Obama and all who support him will not make the same mistake.
Millstones and Mercy Again
It is easier, Jesus said, for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God could be updated and how hard, we respond, for the Religious to show humility to the Laity. The rich? They have got it made. Their security is in their riches. The Religious? They have an “in” with God. Their security is in the establishment. As events unfolded of negligence in handling child abuse cases in the Diocese of Cloyne the hierarchical ranks closed this week with the oft repeated statement that lessons have been learned and the sense of denial was palpable. The sight of a lone Priest doing his walk of atonement from Cork to Dublin spoke volumes of the solitary walk of those who would like to speak out but are trapped within the system. I wrote the undernoted Blog in Nov.05 following the publication of the Report on Child Abuse in the Ferns Dioceses catalogued something of the horror many young people experienced at the hands of those they trusted. The broken lives of the victims and the unbearable guilt of the perpetrators when added to the anger and shame of their extended families constitute a colossal cry of pain. The veil of secrecy that has clouded these most clandestine of sins turns the perpetuators into addicts and the victims, although innocent, paralysed by guilt. Jesus is quoted in all three synoptic Gospels as recommending drowning with a millstone tied to the neck of these evil people. This seems to spellout a drastic remedy to rid society of such persons. Do millstones become tombstones? What else does the Bible teach? The Good News of the Gospel is that Christ died for sinners – not the righteous! St Paul couldn’t have put it any more plainly when he wrote that “God justifies the wicked” Romans ch. 4 verse 5. But how? When they repent is the answer. What does repentance look like for the child sexual abuser? The same as for any other sinner – a separation from the sin. This required boundaries to be put in place. Jesus said if your hand offends you cut it off. Clearly a change of behaviour and a change of career are required to remove the sinner from the temptation. It’s interesting that after the financial cheat Matthew was converted Jesus did not make him the treasurer! However forgiveness does not come through our repentance – 100 lifetimes wouldn’t be long enough. Its not penance, which is man’s attempt to balance the books, that the Bible has in view. It’s seeing God place your sins on Christ and He willingly bearing them. Christ’s blood then cleansing the repentant sinner and presenting him faultless before God – a forgiven person. Oh the inexpressible joy of the Good News! In the final analysis the sinners boast is not that he has renounced sin but that Christ has saved him from its consequences. There is a way back to God From the dark paths of sin, There is a door that is open And you may go in; At cavalry’s cross is where you begin When you come as a sinner to Jesus.
Godless in Gaza
There is nothing like a deadline to focus the mind and for Israel the 20th January could be it! The change in the US administration may well close the “window of opportunity” for their equivalent of a fatwa on Hamas. The rain of rockets had to be halted. You cannot live in a bomb shelter for ever. With an election looming, Israel had to do what Israel had to do. Hamas, with a little help from Iran, has been increasing her rocket range, now reaching Ashkelon with Jerusalem next stop. The last Palestinian election saw Hamas elected signalling that the majority agreed with its 1988 charter. This states, among other things, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it”. With such sentiments it must be difficult to “love your neighbour”! Territorial disputes and Israel have a long history. They go back four millennium! In fact Israel has been surrounded by enemies for as long as she has occupied the land. Outstanding among these were the Philistines whose territory ironically was in Gaza. It seems that the old adage applies here, that history repeats itself – it has to because nobody listens! The Bible looks forward to a day when there will be a turning of the Jews to Jesus Christ. St Paul writing his letter to the Church at Rome in the 11th chapter verse 26 says, “Israel has experienced a partial hardening until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come from Zion; he will banish ungodliness…. The Deliverer will come from Zion (Jerusalem) not Washington and we need to pray that He will come soon.