"Why you can trust the Bible" the tract in my letter box

Yesterday I received a Watchtower tract in the mail telling me why I could trust the Bible. The tract conveniently was called "Why you can Trust the Bible". According to the tract there were three reasons I could trust the Bible...

1) It doesn't contradict itself

2) It's Scientifically and Historically accurate

3) It accurately predicted the future

It struck me that I disagreed with everything (well almost everything) that the tract had to say.

Firstly the Bible does has contradictions and it's not hard to find lists like the 101 Clear Contradictions in the Bible by Shabir Ally. Now I don't agree with all of these but it's worth having a look and working things out for your self. Wether it's one of one hundred and one the point is there are some contradictions in the Bible.

Secondly the Bible is not scientifically accurate the entire Genesis creation account is written thinking that the world were a flat disc with a dome over the top of it.

Thirdly I don't think the Biblical writers (who were thinking Jesus may return in their lifetime) thought they were predicting 21st century events.

So why does this not bother me?

1) I believe in God and I follow Jesus not the Bible. This is a really important distinction. I believe the Bible is a record of God acting in history but it is not God itself. It was written by humans who could have made spelling mistakes and certainly wrote in light of their own cultural experience. So a lots of minor contradictions do not bother me, I look at the bigger picture of what it reveals about what God is like.

2) The Bible is not a scientific document, it is theological document. Someone once said being a scientist and trying to find out how the world was made is much like travelling through a desert passing dune after dune. At the top of each dune hoping to find the answer only to find another dune. But one day they will get there and as they approach that final dune they will find a group of people already there whom the scientists will ask "who are you?" and they will answer "we're the theologians, now that you've worked out how the world was made it's our job to work out why".

3) As far predictions of the future go I'm not sure if that's worth posting about in detail. I might if I get a question in the comments.

None the less the Bible is still the book I study more than any other, it shows me what God is like, what Jesus was like, and shows me how faith heroes lived in the light of what they knew of God. And this is what I want - I want to connect with God, I want to change and be more Christ like and contractions and scientific inaccuracy won't change that, neither will vague apocalyptic predictions of the future help either.

Vegies Ahoy!

Well after sweat tears and five stitches (see picture below) and lots of listening to Ross and Terri (season 1 website). I now have a vegie patch ready to fill with vegies.

This is what I Believe...

I recently read Bill Loader's book Dear Kim this is what I believe. After enjoying being a student under Bill I cannot believe it has taken me so long to get around to reading it! What I loved about is that for the most part what he believes I believe. The way he simply articulates Jesus principle of people before rules is great. He remains passionate about Christianity and avoids the arrogance of a stereo typed Evangelical and the wishy washyness of a stereo typed Liberal.

Bill, You Rock!!!

Church Surf update

Well I think I’ve stopped church surfing for a while and I’ve settled on a three prong approach. Consisting of the emerging church, the local church and the "a bit too far away church".

1) The Emerging church is, at this stage, a group of people from all over Perth thinking about how we can support each other, and do church a bit different – this is still in an embryonic stage.
2) The local church is the church that I mentioned in this post. Which may be a little to traditional and fundamental for my liking but had a really nice honest feel to it. The plan is to attend every fortnight
3) The “a bit too far away” church is the mentioned here, which after an excellent Jesus was a Refugee Christmas service I am hooked. I can see lots of potential in the way it reaches out to it’s local community – only problem is I’m not a part of the local community. They meet every fortnight for a service and do small groups on alternate Sundays. So, the plan is to attend every fortnight.

So now the Blog title could be a multi church faith, but really I'm still surviving by myself.

Not praying for car parking spaces

Recently listening to Radio National’s the the spirit of things I heard Sister Joan Chittister, America’s feistiest and perhaps funniest Benedictine nun said this…

Some believe for instance in a God of wrath, and so themselves become wrathful with others as a result. Some believe in a God who is indifferent to the world and when they find themselves alone as all of us do at some time or other, they shrivel up and die inside from the indifference they feel in the world around them.

Some believe in a God who makes traffic lights turn green, who turns lottery tickets into sweepstake winners, and turns rain on a picnic day into sun. And so they become the eternal adult children of magical coincidence in a world crying out for clear-eyed, hard-headed responsible shapers of this clay we’ve been given to call life.

Some believe in a God of laws, and they crumble in spirit and psyche when they themselves break those laws. Or else they become even more stern in demanding from others standards they themselves cannot keep. They can see that God is the manipulator of the universe rather than its ground. The part of the scene that works behind the objects in the front. They project unto God humanity’s own small desires and indignities and needs. Well I don’t know about you, but I know about me, and I have known all of those Gods one time or another in my own life, and they have all failed me.

(read the rest, hear the rest)

The kind of God we believe in determines the kind of people that we are. And praying for car parking spaces can often say much about the kind of God we might believe in. On the plus side this kind of God may be seen as deeply interested in every day life to the smallest detail.

On the negative side…

1. God may be seen as a vending machine that exclusively looks after Christians and never others. Which could be drastic for someone’s faith if they are going through hard times like Job.

2. Any good thing we come across, like a car parking space will be seen as a gift from God purely for us and not for sharing we might not even think to consider the disabled person behind us also looking for a car parking spot. This view of God could be devastating for those of us are born into the have third of the world and not the have not two thirds, if we were to see what we have as gifts for us alone rather than things we need to share or to give to those who need it more.

3. And as sister Joan says People “become the eternal adult children of magical coincidence in a world crying out for clear-eyed, hard-headed responsible shapers of this clay we’ve been given to call life.”

Me, I find myself praying for two things most of the time, wisdom and strength. The wisdom to know what to do or how to live and the strength to carry this out.

Who Hijacked Christmas?

Both Christmas and Easter have their roots in pagan festivals. That’s why we put wooden fruit on dormant trees at the winter solstice and why celebrate the fertility of rabbits at the beginning of spring Easter.

So when I hear Xns complaining that we have lost the true meaning of Christmas, I often wether we had a monopoly on the meaning of Christmas in the first place. Now more than ever the reality of Xmas (at least in my part of the world) is that Xmas is a multi faith celebration. With the most over represented faith probably being consumerism.

The question, I think, is not how can we get Xmas back to just a Xn festival but how can Xns make Christmas a Xn festival? Or, what is it that Xns do differently that makes a Xn Christmas different from the Christmas that other people have? Or, what is it that Xns do differently that makes a Xn Easter different from the Easter that other people have? Or, What is it that Xns do differently that makes a Xn Wedding different from the Wedding that other people have? Or, what is it that Xns do differently that makes a Xn life different from the life that other people have?