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The Forum > Article Comments > 'The Plumb Trilogy' and the modern world > Comments

'The Plumb Trilogy' and the modern world : Comments

By Peter Sellick, published 25/11/2008

Such is the economy of religious thought that most seeming escapes from it lead back to it by another name.

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Yet another article Peter, that is sure to provoke much comment. I though I'd get my comment in before the usual fracas starts.

I don't necessarily believe that spirituality means believing in a god. I would consider myself spiritual, but not religious.

Last year walking in the mountains of Bhutan, I certainly felt peace and tranquility (but that could have been lack of oxygen!) looking at the majesty of the landscape, and also when in the remote monasteries. I found it spiritually enriching, but not a religious experience.

In such landscapes as mountains and deserts I can see where the thought of an overarching being came from as the open sky stretches for miles, but I can't believe in it myself.

On the point of tradition, there is nothing wrong with tradition, it gives structure to life and sometimes provides meaning. But, change is also good, as is uncertainty (my thoughts on this are in my article from last week), they help life become dynamic and interesting. So I don't think that holding on to tradition for the sake of it is a good thing. As the world changes we need to adapt to it, and holding on to traditions (albeit perhaps ones that have served humanity reasonably well) can sometimes hold us back, unless they themlseves can be adapted to the current situation.
Posted by Phil Matimein, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 9:17:21 AM
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Phil.

Two things. I certainly would not advocate a reading of the existence of God from nature. One may admire a sunset but then face a freezing night. Nature is ambivalent. Rather God is to be found in the expression of past truth in the present that creates a new future. Our understanding of past truth is always evolving, that is why theology is an active science and not a museum. We certainly do not cling to it for its own sake but because we believe that history has something to tell us.

Peter Sellick
Posted by Sells, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 9:43:50 AM
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Fiction is far easier to critique than reality. Nice book review.
Posted by Bugsy, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 10:04:15 AM
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Sells,
In your comment to Phil you state that theology is an active science. Theology is not a science at all. Science seeks the best evidence available like the vast evidence that shows the existence of gravity. Where is the similar vast evidence that any god exists or particularly the one you believe in?
I think Terry Lane hit the nail on the head when he asked years ago, “Where does God exist except in your own head?” He also commented that, “Theologians make it up as they go along” a view your comment seems to accept when you claim that theology is active.
Posted by Foyle, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 10:07:14 AM
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Peter,

I do enjoy your thought provoking articles. I know little about Christian theology and dogma, and next to nothing about other religions, but I have always felt Christianity to be an evolving relationship with God. My parents had an open and loving relationship with God and I have followed their example. As for theology not being a science, that could open up a whole debate on what is a science, such as math/physics. Many questions in math are still to be answered. And what about psychotherapy, much of which is based on observation?

I will not have the time to read The Plumb Trilogy, but thank you for bringing it to my attention.
Posted by annina, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 10:57:29 AM
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I have yet to read the trilogy of books promoted, and probably never will - however I note that they are distributed by a firm called 'Fantastic Fiction'. The books are of course fiction - hardly surprising when one considers that the author of this article draws most of his world view from the best known work of fiction of all. I refer of course to the (allegedly) Holy Bible. Now it seems that Dr Sellick is using fiction to substantiate fiction. What next I wonder - quotations from 'Bananas in Pyjamas?
Posted by GYM-FISH, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 11:05:04 AM
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Foyle is only repeating the opinion of many in our culture, a culture which tends to be blind to anything before the Enlightenment. Theology is most certainly a science; that is, a disciplined conversation and enquiry; and as a conversation which continues across time and in relation to a variety of cultures, naturally it is ongoing and develops.

The natural sciences (once called 'natural philosophy'!) do not simply gather 'evidence' but seek to understand the structures and processes of physical reality, through postulation and experimentation, provisional hypotheses, modelling and--yes--imagination. (The old joke goes, 'There's speculation, then wild speculation, then cosmology'.) The methodologies of different branches are not identical. The kinds of 'evidence' and the means of evaluating such evidence are varied and not always straightforward and certainly not open and obvious to 'everyman'. Those bodies of knowledge called 'sciences' all require involvement in a hard-won tradition, apprenticeship in the skills and practices requisite to their particular enquiry, and so forth. The scientist and philosopher Michael Polanyi has made that plainer than anyone else I know.

Theology, because its 'object' is not the structure or processes of the natural world, has different concerns to the various natural sciences. Its better analogues are history and philosophy though it is more than both. The 'question' of God appears for philosophers at the level of metaphysics (why and how this universe?) and in ethics but much more importantly for Jews and Christians in history - and this is the realm of testimony. Theology, as a 'science of convictions' looks at articulation and interrelation of these convictions and their relationship to everything else.

There's a lot more to this than the mere opinion of one Terry Lane.
Posted by packman, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 12:18:14 PM
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When is Sells going to get hip and truly sophisticated?
Doesnt the existence of Real God demand sophistication, especially from someone who works in a university.

His essay is about godless meat-body "religion" which reduces humankind to mortal meat-body existence only. And despite all the religion-speak he shares the same dismal reductionistic assumptions about what we as human beings as Dawkins & co.

Fear thus rules to here http://www.ispeace723.org/liberationfromego2.html

Therefore, true religion must retire to Light!
The heart must be permitted to achieve a universal feeling ecstasy!

What would Happen if all of humankind were--now, and forever hereafter--allowed complete, unobstructed, and Perfectly ecstatic access to Inherently egoless Truth Itself?

What would Happen if, instead of access merely to worldly, or gross "realist", or scientific materialist, or exclusively exoteric, and traditionally "official" and anti-ecstatic, and anti-magical, and anti-metaphysical, and anti-Spiritual ego-"truth" and pseudo-Ultimacy---all of humankind were, from now on, allowed complete and unobstructed and Perfectly ecstatic access to Inherently egoless Truth Itself?

What would Happen if--from now on--the political, social, economic, and cultural totality of humankind were allowed to establish and perpetuate itself entirely and only on the Perfectly ecstatic basis of the Inherently egoless Truth That IS Reality Itself?

Happiness is the now-and-forever Mystery that IS the Real Heart and the Only Real God of every one http://www.dabase.org/happytxt.htm

True Religion is the esoteric science, or luminous sacred process, of direct, and directly ego-transcending, investigation of, or enquiry into LIGHT itself. The method of true religion is devotional surrender of the total body-mind of the investigator to and into LIGHT, or the Self-Existing, Self-Radiant Conscious Light. Even to the degree of most perfect realization of indivisible oneness.

True religion is the esoteric science, or True Divine Way, of TRULY knowing, and, thereby BEING, the unbroken Light, Self-Radiant AS Love-Bliss itself.
Posted by Ho Hum, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 12:47:20 PM
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What Sells calls "religion" is a form of pious and childish consumerism. Full of posturing, bargain hunting, haggling, and deceitful practices of all kinds---whereby the separate "self", or the client like ego-"I", whetther as an individual or as a socially defined cultural collective, seeks to acquire what, from the egoic point of view is desired, or whatever it hopes that the santa-claus "god" can provide for the wanting-demanding ego-"I" itself.

The "religious" consumer ego wants and seeks, as if in a marketplace, what it can beg, take, somehow earn, or otherwise acquire from the presumed storeowning shopkeeper "god".

The proposing of "religious" myths and illusions has a traditional function in the domain of childhood---but the world of truly and responsibly adult life requires a mature and truly civilized culture, founded in REALITY itself.

"Religion" is a part of ancient culture which was in the public sphere based on illusionism. The culture of illusionism is the culture of make-believe, engaged for the purpose of pacifying primitive, or infantile, human emotions, especially the infantile fear of death.

Who or what is Truth?
Truth is not a person, or a thing, or a knowable object, or a thought.
Truth is a Process.
Who or what is "I"?
"I" is not a person, or a thing, or a knowable entity, or a thought.
"I" is a Process.
The Process that is Truth and the Process that is "I" are one and the same.
What is the Process that is "I" and that is Truth?
It is positive, or self-transcending, bodily submission into the Radiant, All-Pervadinf Life-Principle.
It is the bodily love of Life, done to the absolute degree, until their is only Radiant Existence-Being.
This is the Divine Law, and it is all you need to know.
Do this, be this, and you will Realize Happiness, Enjoyment, Health, Longevity, Wisdom, Joy, Freedom, Humour, Ecstasy, and the Radiant Way that leads beyond Man and beyond Earth.

Plus a unique novel which thoroughly investigates all of the usual dismal "answers" of ordinary life, "religion", and Spirituality.

http://global.adidam.org/books/mummery.html
Posted by Ho Hum, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 1:37:22 PM
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no, theology is not a science, any more than astrology is or numerology is. sellick can write his bait and switch articles until the cows come home (as if we could stop him), but he shouldn't puff up his silly musings with false labels.
Posted by bushbasher, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 1:54:31 PM
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Help OLO! Please limit the number of articles any author may have published each year in OLO. Sellick is grossly over-exposed as are the predictable responses to him. Enough, already. Please. No more until next financial year. Please.
Posted by Candide, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 2:51:56 PM
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"Dogma is just theology that the church for more than 2,000 years has decided is a firm basis for faith."

Whose church, Peter? Yours? The Catholics? Seventh-Day Adventists? Moslems? Hindus? Doesn't the fact that the numerous practitioners of 'theology' around the world can't even agree on the most fundamental aspects of the discipline indicate that it is an imaginary subject? Or are you going to offer some special pleading to indicate why your particular group of theologians are right and all those you disagree with are wrong?

Evidence, Peter, verifiable evidence. That's all we really want.
Posted by Jon J, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 3:44:16 PM
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I'll just say this: Science has saved more children, more pain and given more hope in 100 years than Christianity managed in 2000.
Science is like nature: neutral in its power and reliant on human wisdom to achieve good. I wish religion would focus on Good and leave God alone!
Quoting a work of fiction to expouse the "It's old but there is nothing better" opinion of religion is sort of meaningless. Well written though.
Posted by Ozandy, Wednesday, 26 November 2008 9:08:48 AM
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Sells you argue that it is the arrogance of modernity to dismiss a tradition that has refined itself over such a long time span yet is this not what we mean by learning from history. If we just accept all that has gone before man is forever destined to continue on making the same mistakes. Change is not always a negative. Change can bring about improvements in society or foster unity even if it dispels widely held myths or beliefs.

"...we can have any concept of God without talk about God or theology, is just silly. Dogma is just theology that the church for more than 2,000 years has decided is a firm basis for faith."

The trouble is there are many Churches, many dogmas and many versions of the story of God within Christianity. This would suggest that there has not been much refinement over time, only more division and confusion and yes even more power play.

I watched part of Foreign Correspondent last night about the effects of the famine in Ethiopia. In the face of all this one man spoke about God's will that they continue to produce more babies - it just made me shudder. This is what 'our' history has inflicted on these people. What devastating consequences our interference has meant for these communities. We can only suspect this is why people like Dawkins continue the fight for rationality and for compassion in the face of religious dogma
Posted by pelican, Wednesday, 26 November 2008 9:28:20 AM
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Pretty mild stuff for a change, Sells.

Where are the hellfires of yesteryear?

But I wish you would provide a little more depth at crucial moments, such as:

"Dogma is just theology that the church for more than 2,000 years has decided is a firm basis for faith. This is not a decision that has been made as some kind of power play to support the hierarchy of the church, or some practical measure to ensure that public morality is upheld, or indeed so that the weak-minded can have something to cling on to in the face of death, but an attempt at truthful speech."

You specifically deny the motivations usually attributed by opponents of organized religion - the power play, the morality control mechanism, the emotional crutch - without any supporting information.

Even a sentence would help. An example, perhaps.

Otherwise you leave yourself open to the "well he would say that, wouldn't he" observation.

Much of the available evidence is unfortunately against you.

On power: the entire Roman Catholic church relies upon rigid adherence to dogma - in their case, from a single, dictatorial source - as a form of power play to support their otherwise unsustainable organizational architecture.

On public morals: there are entire political parties, whose dogma-driven policies are transparently designed to uphold their own definition of public morality.

On weak-mindedness (your words) in the face of death: I'm afraid that you will find that the general public - as opposed to theological academics - regard the unique selling point of religious observance to be its comfort to them as they contemplate death.

>>It is the arrogance of modernity to dismiss a tradition that has refined itself over such a long time span, and has fought off heretical attacks that would corrupt the truth it seeks to enunciate<<

The process that you describe as refinement may also be characterized as evolution, as in the survival mechanism of a simple organism.

It is not a form of arrogance, to challenge such expedience.

Merely curiosity.
Posted by Pericles, Wednesday, 26 November 2008 10:06:31 AM
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The Unitarian Church Plumb(actually Rev J H G Chapple) established in Timaru only lasted about 10 years after he left. The Christian church group that took over the building in 1935 and preaches the Gospel still continues today. God is not mocked and has had the last laugh in Timaru. God is indeed alive and well today and the church he establishes will last. Those that look elsewhere fail to pass on anything read as the reviewer notes so well in his article.
Posted by kiwiluccio, Thursday, 27 November 2008 9:11:49 PM
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Kiwilucio
Thanks for the historical information. I had no idea that the novels were loosely based on an actual character.
Peter Sellick
Posted by Sells, Friday, 28 November 2008 9:31:52 AM
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What Pericles fails to acknowledge is the reality of the Church - the People of God here, firmly, on planet Earth. It began with an inner circle of followers ( ie people who responded to the call of Jesus the Nazarene to "come follow me". ) who gradually came to know him as the Lord amongst them who commissioned and entrusted them to reveal Him and His ways to the world. It is a great story that has flowed through history from amongst a particular people of history.

The subject and content of the last sentence has seen emerge from the human heart and mind of reason literally innumerable books, poems, sacred song, liturgy, invaluable human institutions, and a Truth that unfolds further with human advancement through the sciences, reflection and prayerful response.

Like all human exercise it is open to error, corruption and division. Yet it survived its early post Crucifixion years, formed in turbulent times and still exists across the millennia with a core unity.

The adherents to the rationalist, secular movements across the last three hundred years, the "enlightened" centuries, have little to show of their own. We can of course all share and have ownership in the virtue and benefit of evolving knowledge and practice that has seen the human and his/her world flourish.

I know not what particular element of rational thought alone will see us through the next century. From what flows the faith and hope we need as a people? Not as a strong particular instance of the people each of us may claim? From what story?

Pericles, you talk of power, control and exploitation of weak mindedness as being the Church's attributes. Let us apply some reasoned thought. This is hardly the behavioural properties for institutional success in the long term. Notwithstanding the obvious and acknowledged blots of wrong, unjust and at times perverse behaviour across time, a reasonable person would have to make some acknowledgement of such fact and evidence of long existence, and the goodness that has flowed within and from the Church to the human project of life. Truth.
Posted by boxgum, Sunday, 30 November 2008 2:26:23 PM
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so, "the reality of the Church" is at heart "the People of God here, firmly, on planet Earth" ?
hmm.

http://www.graveyardofthegods.org/deadgods/graveyard.html
Posted by bushbasher, Monday, 1 December 2008 12:27:09 AM
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Not so, boxgum.

>>What Pericles fails to acknowledge is the reality of the Church<<

Far from it, in fact.

I fully acknowledge that the church - or rather, the multiplicity of churches spanning countless different religions - is real.

If I didn't, I wouldn't spend nearly the amount of time that I do, trying to understand the people who follow them.

Sorry. It.

>>The adherents to the rationalist, secular movements across the last three hundred years, the "enlightened" centuries, have little to show of their own<<

Galileo might disagree. So might Darwin. Many significant scientific discoveries have had to fight their way into existence against the blind resistance of the church. Who, by the way, were never shy to recruit the forces of superstition to crush those whose theories diminished their power over the weak.

Ah yes. The weak.

>>Pericles, you talk of power, control and exploitation of weak mindedness as being the Church's attributes. Let us apply some reasoned thought. This is hardly the behavioural properties for institutional success in the long term.<<

Your "reasoned thought" is merely the unsupported assumption that I am wrong.

I would use precisely the longevity of the church to prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, that fear and superstition may be used to enslave the weak-minded, indefinitely.

In fact, I would suggest that control over the weak-minded is an infallible means to exert power and control, as tyrants have proved throughout the ages.

>>Notwithstanding the obvious and acknowledged blots of wrong, unjust and at times perverse behaviour across time, a reasonable person would have to make some acknowledgement of such fact and evidence of long existence, and the goodness that has flowed within and from the Church to the human project of life. Truth.<<

If you are trying to say, hey, we're not all bad, I will gladly and sincerely agree with you.

But I would also point out that there are good people in the world who do not attribute their goodness to a church.

So religion is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the "human project of life".
Posted by Pericles, Monday, 1 December 2008 12:50:44 PM
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"It is the arrogance of modernity to dismiss a tradition that has refined itself over such a long time span, and has fought off heretical attacks that would corrupt the truth it seeks to enunciate."

It is the same arrogance that motivated Galileo to suggest the earth was not the centre of the solar system. Calling it arrogance does not make the earth the centre.

Human beings are an evolving species. We have rejected many traditions over the centuries as we have come closer to understanding ourselves and our world. We cannot maintain integrity as human beings and deny all the evidence that our senses provide to us through scientific analysis. If we do not trust our senses then we can trust nothing including theology. How do we know that our eyes do not deceive us when we are reading the bible?
Posted by phanto, Monday, 1 December 2008 1:18:43 PM
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Pericles. Whilst your namesake in Ancient Greece was promoting himself and populist ideas in the Golden Age of Athens, the last of the Hebrew biblical texts were being written. Text that became fulfilled in the suffering-servant Jesus of Nazareth 400 years later. Long, long after the collapse of Pericles's Athens as a power. A power based on dominance and control.

Ancient Greece came and went. Its legacy of reasoned thought and civic development was absorbed into the early Christian theology ( faith seeking understanding) and later into its civic developments under Roman authority acceptance of it. Be mindful that Aristotle considered monarchy as the ideal form of civic government, though the matter of succession saw problems that brought them undone through assassination or revolt.

As well, Pericles, you confirm the point from my first post. You state that the Church has been a controller of weak minds through power and control, as has been the behaviour of tyrants throughout the ages. Here is the proof of your error and the crowning of my point. Tyrants do not last. They never have, as they bring about their own misery. They are a perversion of Aristotle's ideal monarchy. Therefore the goodness of what you agree exists in the Church must be something beyond the rational, emotional and contrived. It has to be real.

So what is this substance that enlivens such an institution as the Church that alone holds together our story to be related again in this new age of pessimism, despair and folly? Our story, from the time of Abraham, which has absorbed the unfolding truths uncovered through the sciences yet still links us to the origins of revelation that proclaim our human dignity in "imago dei". Our story that reveals a God of promises. That inspires and underpins the faithful to live the "good life" in fine Aristotelian tradition.

PS Phanto... Do read some Aquinas. It'll inform you.
Posted by boxgum, Tuesday, 2 December 2008 1:03:59 AM
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Boxgum said -
"PS Phanto... Do read some Aquinas. It'll inform you."

Now that is what I call arrogance!
Posted by phanto, Tuesday, 2 December 2008 8:28:36 AM
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boxgum, you will continue to alienate your audience if you insist upon using impenetrable circumlocutions.

It is generally the indicator of someone who has read a great deal, but understood little.

>>Text that became fulfilled in the suffering-servant Jesus of Nazareth 400 years later<<

Prophecies may be fulfilled. People who are successful at some venture may feel fulfilled. Texts cannot.

And what, precisely, is a "suffering-servant" (complete with its smug hyphen), if not a meaningless pseudo-biblical soundbite?

This is not communication, boxgum. It is the worst form of preaching - platitudinous, coyly-coded nonsense.

>>civic development was absorbed into the early Christian theology (faith seeking understanding) and later into its civic developments...<<

Babble.

How can civic development be "absorbed" into anything? Particularly into a theology? If you are trying to tell us that civic development became inseparable and indistinguishable from Christian theology, I would beg to differ. Particularly as you provide no evidence for this.

Or did you mean something else entirely? It isn't easy to tell.

>>You state that the Church has been a controller of weak minds through power and control, as has been the behaviour of tyrants throughout the ages. Here is the proof of your error and the crowning of my point. Tyrants do not last. They never have, as they bring about their own misery.<<

Poor logic.

Tyrants control weak minds. The Church controls weak minds. Therefore the Church is a tyrant (and tyrants don't last).

Strawberries are red. My car is red. My car is a strawberry.

Being a tyrant demands more than the ability to control weak minds. It is an attitude. I did not suggest the Church is tyrannical, merely that it sets out to control the weak.

>>Therefore the goodness of what you agree exists in the Church must be something beyond the rational, emotional and contrived. It has to be real<<

"Therefore", boxgum?

"Must?"

In the same helpful spirit that you suggest to Phanto that he read Aquinas, I commend that you begin to think a little for yourself, and resolve to eschew cut-and-paste argument that you clearly do not understand.
Posted by Pericles, Wednesday, 3 December 2008 7:58:13 AM
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Hey hang on Pericles. Where is your sense of charity? Where is your reasonableness?

This is a discussion. More in the form of a conversation than a scientific paper. In conversation we humans are generous creatures where we work what we hear to find the meaning intended. We do not demolish, rather we dialogue.

Suffering Servant? Do a Google.

Therein lies some of the mystery of the Church. Power is the handmaiden to service. Stalin, instead of being derisory of the Pope's battalions, would have done well to take instruction from him on servant leadership from the word of Jesus. It is not of this world! It works. The Church is. Pericles's Athens became dust. Communism became dust
Posted by boxgum, Thursday, 4 December 2008 8:18:04 AM
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Oh.

Sorry, boxgum.

>>In conversation we humans are generous creatures where we work what we hear to find the meaning intended<<

For some reason I had the idea that it was the responsibility of the speaker to make his meaning clear, not that of the listener to somehow tease it out.

Silly me.

>>The Church is. Pericles's Athens became dust. Communism became dust<<

There is no single church, boxgum, so the phrase "The Church is" must be questioned.

Do you mean "Churches are"?

Or perhaps "A church is"

Even in these more accurate forms, the phrase still leaves a great deal to be inferred.

Has "the Church", using your own interpretation of that word, not changed over the centuries? Have we not moved on from the world of indulgencies, or the Inquisition, or witch-burning?

If the intention of the phrase "The Church is", is to posit some form of stable and trustworthy framework, I'm afraid that history is not on your side.

Face it. "The Church" today is significantly distinguishable from its many earlier forms, let alone the multiplicity of alternative manifestations in other religions.

Which undermines this, just a tad:

>>Pericles's Athens became dust<<

Not at all.

The very fact that we still talk about Periclean Athens means that it has not died, but has been assimilated into the sum total of civic knowledge.

The reasons that Periclean Athens does not still exist in its original form are similar to those that distinguish modern churches and religions from medieval or ancient ones.

There is nothing at all unique about "the Church", boxgum. It's just another mental construct, amongst many, that allows some people to safely tag and file some of life's more challenging features.

And it, too, changes with the times. Pretending that it is somehow static and immovable is one of the more self-deluding concepts that Christians maintain.
Posted by Pericles, Thursday, 4 December 2008 8:58:00 AM
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Sells

The tradition of the Church is very poorly understood these days.
You need only observe the 'mangled' liturgy?? of many modern congregations to see that it owes relatively little to the great tradition.
Im not conservative in the sense that I feel it meritorious to conform slavishly to the patterns (or beliefs) of the past but at least the tradition had a regular form and words that made some sort of sense. Much of contemporary 'worship' consists of random chorus singing interspersed with idiotic, cliche-filled monologues from some poorly trained 'leader' with little or no theological import.
What people call spirituality these days, religious or otherwise, is mere instrospective sentimentality.
Christian spirituality is the strength that underlies the powerful call for justice and mercy. It is the strength of Christ to embrace the outcast, heal the sick and call the rulers to account.
The great tradition is better by far than the slops being dished up in most churches but I wonder if it does not require a radical transformation in order to speak to the 21st century situation.
I would rather, by far, to see 'justice and mercy flowing down like waters' than to see a million chorus-singing, hand-waving coxcombs.
Posted by waterboy, Saturday, 13 December 2008 6:38:04 PM
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Sells

Unitarianism is closely associated with the movement towards freedom of opinion in matters of religion. No doubt you, being Anglican, judge this movement negatively but you have to admit that it is a powerful idea that has caught on almost universally in the western world.
Given your argument that the tradition ".. has refined itself over such a long time span, and has fought off heretical attacks.. " it is pertinent to note that unitarian ideas have 'been refined' over a period of nearly 500 years and that they have been subjected to scrutiny by many careful thinkers over that time with the result that, at least in the west, the trinitarian churches are now waning. The tests of time and intellectual scrutiny seem to be swinging in favour of unitarianism and its associated ideas of freedom of opinion and universalism.
If you would defend trinitarianism then you are going to need a more convincing argument.
My view is that the trinitarian formula is metaphorical rather than 'scientific' language. Therefore it points to realities beyond itself without being literally true. The problem with unitarianism is that it lacks organising metaphors and symbols. You are entirely correct in your argument that unitarianism represents the loss of faith to enlightement thinking. That does not make untiarianism wrong but it does explain why unitarianism does not produce communities.
Posted by waterboy, Saturday, 13 December 2008 7:32:40 PM
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Waterboy.
Equivocating about the doctrine of the Trinity would be like a physicist equivocating about the laws of thermodynamics. We can certainly say that Unitarianism is wrong because it misses the centre of Christian faith and results in an attempt at universalising moralism. Because if the death of Jesus was not sufficient for the sins of the world that is all we have left, a religion of good intentions and no hope. I think orthodoxy has more truth and strength in it than anything put forward by the modern age. Rather than changing Christianity to suit the modern, the modern must be lead to the riches of orthodoxy. As we agree, Sunday worship at many churches is awful. My take on this is that it is the result of an accommodation to the modern sensibility. Sure, a tradition set concrete is a dead thing, but a practice that is rooted in the strong traditions of the church that has the flexibility to speak afresh holds much promise. The Roman church is to be congratulated, amid all of our dissatisfaction with many parts of it, for maintaining the form of the mass. This is central to Christian worship.

Peter Sellick
Posted by Sells, Sunday, 14 December 2008 8:50:06 AM
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Sells

You said"We can certainly say that Unitarianism is wrong because it misses the centre of Christian faith... ".
If the power of the Trinitarian formula lies in its metaphorical nature then it makes little sense to say it is right or wrong.To the extent that the 'orthodox' churches explore the rich depths of the trinity they have something of great value which the unitarians lack. To reduce the trinitarian formula to a concrete proposition with a simple truth value,however,is to remain as impoverished as the unitarians.

The enlightenment triggered a reaction to religion as a set of propositions. It has become necessary to make a clear distinction between the propositions of scientific language and'propositions'of religion. So, for example, evolution describes a set of propositions which scientists can observe and test while creation deals with the nature of being human in relationship to each other and to God. The propositions of evolution have proved to be very useful and it makes sense to consider and test their truth value as a way of moving scientific knowledge forwards.Creation,on the other hand,is not a proposition to be judged true or false but rather a narrative which exposes many truths about God and being human.

The trinity,likewise,is not a proposition to be judged true or false but rather and organising metaphor which exposes truths about God,Jesus,Church and being human in relation to God.Liturgy is a sacramental engagement with the complex of symbols,metaphors and signs that define orthodox christianity.It has, in some respects, a dream-like function, in that we bring the fragments of our broken lives (both individual and corporate) into the framework of those organising symbols and allow our lives to be ordered, judged and re-formed according to Gods will mediated through Word and Sacrament. This is not achieved by demanding common assent to certain propositions but by invitation to participate in the sacrament and respond to the Word.

As you say, we are too much concerned with the elightenment focus on facts and would do well to recover some of the Hebrew's facility with symbol, metaphor and theological narrative
Posted by waterboy, Monday, 15 December 2008 10:57:15 AM
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