A great difference

Last night I dreamt of Jacques Derrida. Not Derrida himself exactly, but his books, I dreamt of his books. I dreamt that he had written a new book and that someone had given me a copy as a gift. In the dream I unwrapped the paper, I held the book, and my joy was palpable. I took the new book to my shelf. It was a special shelf in my house, very precious to me because it contained in chronological order all the works of Jacques Derrida, my favourite author. 

I woke stricken, distraught, sick with confusion and remorse. Has the self no integrity? Is nothing true? Can one person become another in a dream? 

St Augustine was right: "The moment when I pass from wakefulness to sleep, or return again from sleep to wakefulness, marks a great difference in me."

The weird pedigree of biblical inspiration: Marcion, Origen, and the problem of the Old Testament

As far as I can tell it is Marcion who comes up with the first full-blown "Christian" theory of biblical inspiration. It is fundamental to Marcion's system that the Hebrew scriptures are divinely inspired. They are a perfect, utterly reliable revelation, word for word and letter for letter. But there's a sinister twist in this doctrine of inspiration. For these Hebrew scriptures are inspired not by a good God but by the Demiurge, the wicked god of the Jews. In Israel's scriptural writings this god has given us a completely reliable revelation of his (monstrous) deeds and character. Corresponding to Marcion's theory of inspiration is a commitment to literal interpretation. Read literally, the Hebrew scriptures plainly show the Jewish god to be a god of violence, wrath, jealousy, injustice, ineptitude, and petty legalism. 

So the function of divine inspiration in Marcion's system is clear: it's a way of forcing the problems of the Hebrew Bible out into the open. If every word is inspired then there's no way to escape the problematic texts. And when it comes to interpretation, there's no allegorical wiggle-room. In Marcion, biblical inspiration – with its correlate, literal interpretation – is an anchor for the all-important doctrine of the badness of the Jewish God (and, by implication, the badness of the Jewish people).

Writing a century later, Origen attacks the Marcionite system at its roots. He speaks of scripture as "One Testament" of Hebrew and Christian writings. He develops a science of textual criticism and produces the first Christian commentaries on entire books of Hebrew and Christian scripture, incorporating immense philological, archeological, and historical learning. Crucially, his exegesis aims to demonstrate that beneath the letter of scripture is a pervasive spiritual sense. Not just select passages but the whole of scripture invites christological interpretation. 

And this is where the theory of biblical inspiration comes into play. In authoring scripture, Origen argues, God has deliberately planted all sorts of interpretive obstacles: problems, difficulties, mistakes, morally objectionable stories, and so forth. These manifold obstacles lead us to press beneath the surface of the text and to search more deeply for its spiritual meaning. Such spiritual exegesis isn't just a scholarly technique. It requires ascetic purification, the spiritual transformation of the reader. So the problems in scripture – the same problems which Marcion takes as proof of divine wickedness – are planted there by God to lead us into the depths of spiritual life, just as a wise teacher might plant mistakes in a class discussion in order to lead the class, gently and unobtrusively, towards the truth. 

Origen's exegesis lays the foundations for all later Christian interpretation of scripture. His conclusions are as far removed from Marcion's as the east is from the west. But what's interesting is how much he takes over from Marcion. Like Marcion, Origen sees the scriptural text as divinely inspired. And like Marcion, he sees biblical inspiration not as a way of avoiding difficulties (à la some modern evangelicals!), but as a way of radicalising the problematic aspects of scripture.

But it is part of Origen's genius to assimilate the Marcionite theory of inspiration, to absorb it into his own system so completely and so systematically that the Marcionite reading of scripture seems not only exegetically superficial (in as much as Marcion sticks to the surface of the text) but also lacking in ascetic seriousness. When you recall that the whole appeal of the Marcionites was their commitment to asceticism, Origen's deployment of the theory of inspiration must be judged a tactical tour de force in the campaign against heresy.

Demented doodlings

by Kim Fabricius

Most hilarious Christmas holiday moment: Vincent Nichols, the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, accoutred in camp Christmas vestments, declaiming with the authority of vast ecclesial experience that the Government’s plans for gay marriage are “undemocratic” and “Orwellian”. 

Sure, prayer in schools would prevent gun crime. Look at the UK. Here a daily act of worship in schools is a legal requirement. And gun crime is rare. Admittedly, so too are guns. Oh, and belief in God. However, with the apocalyptic advent of gay marriage, the imminent collapse of the family, and the inevitable ensuing moral chaos, we will no doubt be renaming our local elementary educational establishment “OK Corral Primary School”.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. However, if it also thinks like a duck, it’s probably Mike DHuckabee.

Bread and circuses: twofers now available at Mars Hill Communion services.

Barak Obama, 

Building barns of bad karma,

Will reap what he has sown – 

With the drone.

They’re Muslim, foreign, far away; and, of course, they constitute collateral rather than targeted damage (thank God for the principle of double effect, right?). Perish the thought, then, that there might be a connection (not, to be sure, of lament) between the gunned-down children of Sandy Hook and the drone-dispatched children of Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan: that is, between our domestic and international culture of killing kids. Same principality/power: Arma.

A Shiite once started a war against Saddam Hussein. You could take out an i and the e.

Breaking news: Michael Bird reports on an “emerging consensus” that “women can share in the didactic ministry of the church” (January 22). I think he means may share. Still, there’s progress on Dr. Johnson’s mal mot that “a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”

I asked God, “What is the one thing needful?” She replied, “Multitasking.”

Suggested title for a short apologetic theology on the motherhood of God: Mère Christianity.

The greatest preacher and sermon I’ve ever heard? That’s easy: John Coltrane, A Love Supreme.

A lot of people, some big names included, are leaving Protestant churches and joining Rome. I understand the lure, I do. It’s like you’re on one of thousands of crappy little craft lost at sea when – “Ahoy!” – you spy this immense ship which promises stability, durability, and direction. Like an oil tanker.

How would I describe the way we, as a culture, treat people with dementia? Nazi-lite.

Someone says of someone with dementia, “If I get like that, shoot me.” And I think, “If I get like that, shoot me.”

I wish I could paint. I have two canvases in my mind’s eye. The first, The Crucified with Dementia at the moment of the “cry of non-recognition”. Then the prequel, set in Gethsemane at the moment of Mark 14:50: Christ with Dementia Forsaken by His Friends.

As Augustine (almost) said, love God and will what you do.

If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the love of contingency comes a close second (cf. Father Zosima).

Some say Judas lost his soul when he betrayed Jesus, others when he took his own life. Actually, it was when he became Secretary of (US) to (UK) the Treasury of the Twelve.

Alas, I fear that even an anti-theodicist turns out to be a theodicist.

The distinction between natural evil (otherwise known as Shit Happens) and moral evil may (or may not) be moot when it comes to theodicies, but it is absolutely crucial when it comes to the despicable scapegoating of pundits of the religious right in the aftermath of disasters. 

It’s not only that our God is far too small, it’s that our faith is much too big, fat.

One should regularly go on retreat. Think of it as “downsizing”.

When I’ve got to make a snap decision in a family crisis, I couldn’t care less about WWJD, but I pray for enlightenment about WWAD. (Angie is my wife.)

Remember, the journey of a thousand miles begins with an “Ah shit, I forgot my …”

Books, chapters, even paragraphs are beyond him. An aphorist is a person who spends a lifetime failing to write even one perfect sentence.

Audio sermon: Today this scripture is fulfilled..

On Sunday morning I preached at St Alban's Anglican Church on Luke 4:21, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing". It's available in audio.

On café loyalty cards

There comes a time in a man’s life when he understands that he can never again use a café loyalty card. Nowadays every self-respecting coffee retailer in Australia has its own loyalty card. Buy ten coffees get the next one free. The economics of the thing is excellent. A saving of thirty-five cents on every cup. The sociology of it is excellent. Producing one’s well-stamped loyalty card at the counter, one is able to enjoy a certain sense of entitlement, of belonging. I have seen some gentlemen swagger impressively, hands on hips, while their cards are stamped. They survey their surroundings with satisfaction. “Good, very good indeed, everything here seems to be in order,” you can almost hear them say. The theology of it is excellent too. There is a certain irrational pleasure that comes from getting things for free. Even if you know that you have purchased that eleventh coffee, that its cost (plus the cost of producing your loyalty card) was distributed evenly across the previous ten cups of coffee, even then you cannot help smiling, cannot help feeling that small tingle of religious gratification when the fellow at the cash register announces with surprise, “Well now, would you look at that, your next one’s free!”

I have used these cards, why should I deny it? I have crammed my wallet with documentary evidence of my loyalty to cafés around Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane, Byron Bay. I have collected stamps across four states. But there comes a day when you find you have grown weary of belonging to things. When your loyalty is spread too thin. When too many belongings seems the same as not belonging at all. When producing your loyalty card, watching them stamp it like a passport, sliding it back into the anonymous folds of your wallet – there comes a day when you cannot bear it anymore, when it is wrong and no amount of good economic sense can make it right.

In a moment of clarity – I nearly said a moment of righteousness – I unburdened my life of all these loyalties. I dumped them, all the cards and all their crooked little stamps, in the bottom drawer of my desk, down there with the bits of crumpled paper and broken pens and used envelopes and receipts from years ago that have faded back to their original virgin white. Down there I laid my loyalties to rest. It made me light and free, the way you feel sometimes after sex or church.

Tomorrow, I told myself, tomorrow I will empty the drawer into the rubbish bin, tomorrow I will throw it all away.

Today I lined up for coffee, I handed over the money, I took the change, I gave the card to the boy behind the counter. While I waited for him to stamp it I put my hands on my hips and swaggered rather impressively, surveying my surroundings with an air of satisfaction so that nobody would see how unhappy I was, how defeated, because of my loyalty. 

Five-year old cosmology

Five-year-old Jamie: "The stars! Just think of it! All the stars are little suns."