I thought the silly season for news stories ended when term started. But apparently not. On the other hand I may be unusual in thinking this is a complete non-story: Stephen Hawking apparently thinks scientific theory renders God redundant.

The journalist reporting this seems to take Hawking’s earlier reference to “the mind of God” – possibly the only words in A Brief History of Time that any popular writer has ever quoted – as a statement of theistic belief rather than a poetic metaphor. I was always under the impression that Hawking was at least agnostic verging on atheist, and expected that sooner or later a Theory of Everything would be worked out.

I am incapable of judging the quality of his science in this book, and not only because it isn’t published, but because I’m simply not that bright. However, I can’t see that any statement about how the non-universe was before [ed - after reading a comment I need to point out this is a non-temporal "before" – whatever one of those is!] the initial conditions of the Big Bang is any less speculative than any other. He’s quoted as saying:

Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.

At one level, of course, this indicates the way in which God is sometimes treated as the filler for the ultimate gap in a way continuous with older God-of-the-gaps theories. It has never been the best of arguments to use God as an explanation for things we can’t yet explain.

At another level, it would seem to me that Hawking’s view is as much a statement of faith in gravity as some kind of Platonic idea as it is anything truly scientific. Gravity is a necessary property of the universe. It’s not clear that it can be held to be a spontaneous cause of it. I’m tempted to wonder whether string theory isn’t appropriately so named because its answers are always as long as a piece of string.

At a deeper level, of course, the way in which some Christians, myself included, take the nature of the universe to point to a purposeful God rather than a random fluctuation is its intelligibility as the sort of universe it is, not its simple existence. Our human reasoning about reality is not an empty activity of imposing rational patterns on a fundamentally random and pointless cosmos, but a discerning of pattern and meaning which offers a true (but limited) testimony to a pattern-maker and meaning-giver.

But that a famous scientist thinks science renders God redundant as an explanation is a bit of non-story. It’s nor science, it’s not theology and it’s not exactly new.

This for Sam Norton.

Yes, it has its faults, and I have a good go at it from time to time. But it needs cherishing for so many good things, and above all defending against the pillaging hordes of Murdoch the Barbarian.

I’ve been trying to clarify some ideas for a sabbatical proposal in my own head. I’m all too aware that what I’m proposing deals with some controversial areas, and that by concentrating on one particular perspective I run the risk of being accused of bias. A sabbatical, however, is relatively short, and I think it needs to be focussed. This is, therefore, a first draft of what I hope to accomplish, limited though it be.

I would be quite interested in hearing constructive feedback here on the blog about what people think about how I might refine the proposal, or whether it is too narrow. I would also be grateful (in the comments or by private email) for any suggestions for contacts, places to stay or sources of grants. I either need good grants, or to do this on a shoestring.

Before commenting, remember, I know this is limited and partial. Here, however, is the broad detail:

The programme has an overarching aim, to explore and deepen my understanding of Judaism and Jewish identity in today’s world. Within that overall aim there are some key elements I wish to focus on:

• the complexity of Jewish identity between religious belief, ethnicity and geo-political realities
• the ways in which Jewish people both within Israel and in the UK perceive how that identity is represented in the international (but especially British) media
• the relationship between those identities and their media representations, and the Jewish experience of anti-Semitism.

I foresee several means of working In accomplishing those aims. I expect (funding and practicalities permitting) to carry out the following work:

• To spend between four and six weeks in Israel, ideally staying mainly in Jewish contexts and meeting a range of local Jewish people, religious and secular.
• In that same time to also listen to the voices of Christian (local Israeli Arab and Palestinian, rather than pilgrim) voices.
• To travel as widely as possible within Israel, but also into at least the West Bank (how do you describe something when all geographical terminology is politicised?)
• To meet staff working in the Israeli media
• To spend between four and six weeks in the UK, visiting different Jewish communities and meeting with representatives of them.
• To meet with people working in the media in the UK, especially Jewish journalists in the secular media and on the staff of, for example, the Jewish Chronicle.
• To meet with people working on inter-faith initiatives between Christians and Jews, especially those focussed around the reading of the Scriptures (Tanak and Christian Bible).

I shall be interested in hearing your views.

This post is part of a series I’m trying out. Details explaining why it’s the sort of post it is can be found on the series page, although I’m hoping each will stand in their own right.

One of the first things Christians should remember when talking about the first five books of the Bible is that we are speaking about the holiest books of Judaism. It’s very common in the Western Christian tradition to carry the Gospel book in procession because of the special significance given to the gospels. In the Jewish tradition, it is the first five books of the Bible – known by Jews as Torah – which get carried in procession (on the feast day of Simchat – “rejoicing with the” – Torah. Well, I say procession, but it is a dance rather than the solemn processions of much Christian worship.

The comparison is a reminder not only of similarities and differences in our worship, but of how important these books are to our Jewish brothers and sisters. It is also an overlooked but powerful reminder of how joyfully Judaism treats the Torah, and how different that is from many of those Christian stereotypes of the Law as an oppressive and guilt-inducing burden.

Torah is, in fact, not very well translated as Law, even though that translation has an ancient pedigree, and is effectively embedded in the New Testament. Torah really means something much more like “teaching” or “instruction”, but for some reason Greek-speaking Jews chose to translate it by the Greek word “nomos”. That word does mean law, although it has wider meanings of “custom” as well. By the time of the New Testament, “nomos” was well established as the normal word for the Torah, and subsequent translations into other languages have used their own words for Law.

Despite this translation, a quick glance through the books will show that there is a great deal of material that is not law at all, but story. Moreover, the story provides the context for the promulgating those laws which are in these books. The story, of creation made and marred; of a land to call home and a family to inherit it; of a divine rescue from slavery and injustice and a journey to the land that was promised. In that story, the actual laws are presented a means of living a free life, within a just society. Keeping them is about a faithful and grateful response to the rescuing grace of the God who kept faith with his promises. Some of them may sound very strange to modern ears (and some have been the subject of much Jewish and Christian re-interpretation), but taken as a whole they remind the reader or hearer that we need a holistic approach to life, and God is the God of the whole of life, not just religious ceremonies.

The translation of Torah as Law, which clearly has its problems, gained a new theological significance for Protestants through the work of Martin Luther at the Reformation, which has only recently come under sustained critique from a number of contemporary scholars. Luther developed a contrasting opposition between Law and Gospel which has coloured a great deal of Christian thinking about the Torah. It helped him mount a significant critique of what he saw as the legalism of late mediaeval Christianity, but it also helped create an historically inaccurate caricature of early Judaism, which helped feed anti-Semitism across Europe.

Paul, however, whose writings Luther primarily worked with, never makes this opposition between Law and Gospel. Paul’s distinction is between the Law and Christ, and Christ plays a similar part in Paul’s thinking to the part the Law plays in much Jewish thinking. For Paul as a Christian, Christ provides the pattern for an obedient and faithful life, just as beforehand he had looked to the Law to show him how to live. More importantly, Christ is now the central focus for meeting God and knowing God’s presence (not only his will), which before his conversion was part of the way Paul regarded Torah.

There are inescapable differences between Judaism and Christianity in the way they treat Torah, but it’s important not to caricature them to the denigration of Torah. In all sorts of ways the role of Torah in Judaism is like the role of Christ in Christianity. That similarity can be seen in the symbolism of our buildings and worship. In many churches there is a sacred cupboard (a tabernacle or aumbry) where the sacrament of Christ’s presence is kept, and in Jewish synagogues there is a sacred cupboard (an ark) where the Torah scrolls are kept.

While for Christians Christ himself is the focal point of humanity’s encounter with God, it is still possible to see Torah as a means of experiencing God’s presence. Similarly, while Christ is the pattern of faithful obedience and holy living, and we are called to imitate him in the Spirit, we can still appreciate God’s concern for the whole of life from the detailed commandments of Torah, and learn how much he desires faithful and obedient lives. That is why Christians continue to pray those great psalms which celebrate Torah as the means of loving God wholeheartedly. The psalmist leads us to a much deeper appreciation of how we should find great value in reading these books:

Oh, how I love your law!

It is my meditation all day long. (Ps 119:97)

I felt a need to add a disclaimer to the page for my projected new series:

There is one final but significant disclaimer. Everything on these pages is wrong – at least in someone’s eyes. The Bible and its interpretation – beyond a few fairly factual or platitudinous statements – is strongly, widely and passionately controverted. The sheer volume (in both senses of the word, quantitative and auditory) of the arguments over it give the lie to the apparent simplicity of the often stated introduction “The Bible says …”. A wide range of interpreters conclude that sentence with often mutually contradictory or incompatible statements. It is nonetheless my hope that serious interpreters, however much they disagree with what I’ve said, will at least see why I’ve said it and that is a reasonably defensible viewpoint with its own support.

It seems to me that it needs saying in a world where Christians like nothing more than to hit each other over the head with their Bibles, or excavate them – perhaps obsessively – for little text bombs that they can lob at the trenches of the so-called enemy.

You may relate this to any current piece of church news you wish.

This is part of an experimental set of simple introductions I’m trying out. Comments on what is unclear, what ought to be included, or changed, are welcome. The pieces are none of them intended to be longer than two sides of a typical book, so around 800-1000 words each. They are meant as simple guides for people who want to think about what they’re either reading or listening to in public worship, but who perhaps have neither the time nor inclination for actual study. Such listeners are highly unlikely to have study Bibles or notes, and their primary – and perhaps sole – exposure to any guidance on the content, context and meaning of the Scriptures comes from relatively short weekly homilies. Listeners like this perhaps make the majority of most English congregations.

These short introductions are written from and primarily for an Anglican context, but I hope they will be more widely useful. If the experiment bears fruit, they may form part of a first draft for a book. Or not. I will collect and list all of them on the series page here. On to the task.

The ways in which Christians read the Old Testament in worship say something about how it is regarded. When it is read at traditional services of Morning or Evening Worship, an Old Testament Reading comes before one from the New Testament. At one level, that’s an historical statement: it was written first. But it is also intended as a theological statement. The Old Testament is seen as providing part one of the story which is continued in the New Testament: the story of God and his people. That probably represents the most common positive Christian understanding of how the two testaments relate.  

It should also do something to counter the negative view of the Old Testament which is sadly all too common among many Christians: that the Old Testament somehow portrays a different, more primitive and vengeful God than the loving Father of Jesus. Seeing the two testaments as parts one and two of the same story emphasises them as the one story of one and the same God.

This way of looking at the relationship has also left its fingerprints on the shape of our Bibles. If you compare the table of contents of a Hebrew Bible with a Christian Old Testament you will see that the books come in a different order. (There are other differences between the contents pages which will be explored later.) In the Jewish list, the prophetic books come in the middle, followed by the poetic and wisdom writings. In the Christian list, the prophetic books come last, because they are held to be the ones that most clearly and explicitly prepare the way for Jesus the promised and prophesied Messiah.

There is another pattern which is also commonly used today. This was developed for use at the Eucharist (Holy Communion or Mass) and normally consists of an Old Testament reading, a psalm, New Testament reading and a Gospel reading. This replaced an older pattern in which the readings were Epistle (letter) and Gospel. A worked out pattern of readings – known as a lectionary, in this case the Revised Common Lectionary – which follows this sequence is in use in many different denominations around the world, with some local and seasonal variations.

The Old Testament reading is followed by a psalm. This psalm is known as a responsorial psalm, not because it has a response said by the congregation, but because it is a response to the reading. This means that at the start of the Liturgy of the Word, the congregation has used the words of the Bible’s own prayer book to respond to the “word of the Lord” in the Scriptures. Another (only slightly anachronistic) way of putting this might be to say that first we listen to the Bible Jesus read to listen to his Father, and then respond using the prayer book Jesus used to pray to his Father when he joined with his fellow worshippers in the synagogue.

Only after this do the readings move to the New Testament, and they do so in a way which is different to the order of the books as they’ve been collected in the Bible. At the Eucharist, the readings move from the Old Testament and Psalm to one of the New Testament letters, and only then come to the Gospel. There is also a common traditional ritual way of reading the Gospel which makes it different. The congregation typically sit for the Old Testament reading and the reading from one of the letters, but stand for the reading from one of the gospels.

In this context, the first two readings are treated like each other, but the one from the gospels is clearly differentiated. This illustrates another way Christians look at the Old Testament. The focus for the whole Bible is not a text, but a person, and Jesus is held to be present particularly in the stories of his life and teaching, as well as (later) in the gift of the sacrament. The word spoken through Moses and the prophets in Israel, or by the apostles and teachers in the Church is the most fully encountered not in a text, but in a very specific human life, which is also the full revelation of the divine life in this created world. In that sense, the Old and New Testaments are both to be seen as witnesses to the God who is found in Jesus, and unified in their ability to be vehicles leading to him.

I suggest this also has another practical consequence for what we do in church. Although the Revised Common Lectionary mentioned above provides an alternate set of Old Testament readings related to the Gospel, it is better to stick with the original pattern which reads the Old Testament books semi-continuously in ordinary time. This is the same way churches read the letters and the gospels. It takes the Old Testament books seriously in their own right as witnesses to God, and doesn’t subordinate them to being mere background for the New Testament.

Reading the Old Testament so that others may not only listen and understand, but may receive its witness to God, is as much a privilege as the prayerful and thoughtful reading of any other part of Scripture. It is neither a hurdle to be cleared, nor a preface to the main reading. It is to do in our congregations what Jesus did in his, so that we might have a fuller and richer encounter with God.

I decided to take advantage of my local GP surgery offer to sign up for online booking of appointments.

Step 1 struck me as a little odd: I had to go in to the practice and fill in a paper form. Oh, well, I reasoned. They wanted a real signature.

The form duly filled in, I enquired how long a period of time needed to elapse before I could make use of this online system. That was when I was introduced to Step 2. “We write you a letter within 24 hours explaining how to do it, and you have to come in and collect it from reception.”

Technology, hey? Bless.

MItchell and Webb address the conspiracy theorist nutters with this moon landing sketch. Now here’s hoping they’ll feature nutty Norman Baker and the Kelly conspiracists.

I am getting more and more irritated with the universality of sloppy journalism. Yesterday, as part of a media-wide curmudgeonly and petty denigration of Tony Blair’s £4m plus donation to charity, the BBC gave prominence to an anti-war campaigner:

Peter Brierley, whose son Lance Corporal Shaun Brierley was killed in Iraq, called the gift “blood money”.

Unfortunately, the “journalist” writing this story clearly failed to check even the BBC’s own archives. If they had, they would have read:

Lance Corporal Shaun Brierley, 29, from Batley, West Yorkshire, died from head injuries sustained when his Land Rover was involved in a road accident in Kuwait on Sunday.

Sorry, but an RTA in Kuwait is not getting killed in Iraq.

I don’t know what you think of the question in my title, but when it comes to reporting of the Iraq war, I increasingly think it’s deliberately biased and deceitful reporting and not simply carelessness.

At the end of last week the media were full of nine “experts” – none of whom were working pathologists – who had written a letter to the Times questioning Dr David Kelly’s suicide. Today hardly anyone reported a letter from a practicing forensic pathologist saying the conspiracy Nazgul’s letter was pretty ignorant.

It’s worth saying that at l;east the BBC reported both, but its getting harder and harder to trust their ability to cover some subjects rationally and accurately, and sadly, they’re better than most of their fellow media outlets. The pack mentality always prefers a conspiracy minded consensus to a sceptical and distinctive stance.

Following his post of feature requests for Lightroom, Scott Kelby – a Mac user and photographer who is also a renowned Photoshop guru and author – got deluged by comments from Apple fanboys saying he should simply switch to Aperture. Today he responds with a very clear post emphasising that Lightroom is the professionals’ choice, and why.

I had my own experience a few months back of the same kind of fanboyism. A colleague was extolling the virtues of Apple’s Aperture over what he persisted in referring to as Adobe Lightbox. He’d never used the Adobe software, yet he was convinced his Apple product was superior. Although I’m in no way a professional, I’ve used (and use) both. Lightroom has more of what I want both in the basics (like before and after comparisons) and the more advanced (like graduated filters), even though in some areas – and some only – Aperture is a better product.

I’m fine if my friend prefers to use Aperture. What annoyed me was that – like, I suspect, a number of the commenters on Kelby’s blog – he had never used the product he was dissing, and didn’t even know what it was called. All he had was a blind faith that anything made by Apple was the best, and didn’t even need to investigate the facts. That sounds sadly familiar to anyone whose argued with a fundamentalist.