"The Christmas story is a fact"

This weekend I spent some time working with a recording taken of the last five hours of Radio St. Helena.  I was editing it down for use on http://sainthelenaisland.info/radiosthelena.htm if it matters, which it doesn't really, except that it meant I ended up listening to an address by the "Lord Bishop" {stupid title - Bishops don't get to sit in the House of Lords, or at least, ours doesn't, I'm sure - but I digress.} Specifically I was listening to Bishop Fenwick's 2012 Christmas Address.

It's not something I would normally bother with. I try to avoid all official messages from any type of church leaders because they usually make me cross.  But this one made me laugh.  Out loud.  I woke up my son, Harry - he was not best pleased.  And what was the reason for this early morning hilarity?  It was the sentence "the Christmas story is a fact".

Yes, he really did say that - I rewound it and checked.

Now if he'd said "The Christmas story is a beautiful tale" I would not have batted an eyelid.  It is, after all, a fairly charming bit of nonsense.  But a fact?  Literally true.  All of it?  What, I found myself thinking, is this guy on?

So I listened a bit more and discovered that our Bishop professes to believe - and therefore probably does - that the events told in the Christmas story actually happened, exactly as described in the New Testament. Incredible!

I should say immediately that I have nothing against Bishop Fenwick as a person.  He seems to be a charming man.  It’s his beliefs I’m questioning.  And they wouldn't bother me if it wasn't for the fact [NB the verifiable fact] that the church here is allowed special privileges and is involved in the running of Government.  One of the vicars is, for example, on the Board that runs the 'Extractor', our Government-funded fishing boat which hasn't actually done any fishing for about six months because of a dispute between said Board and the fishermen who were supposed to crew it. I'm not sure why a churchman should be on this board. He has never, to my knowledge, been a fisherman, or maybe never even been fishing.  Maybe it's because Jesus is claimed to have said "I will make you fishers of men"?

My point is: do we really need people who believe the Christmas myth to be literal fact involved in running the island?  What next - mediums and astrologers? Didn't do the Romans much good, that didn't!

Still I suppose maybe it explains, at least partially, why our Government is in the mess it's in.

Newtonmass

Did you celebrate Christmas?  I didn't.  I celebrated Newtonmass. 

Isaac Newton, whose work on mechanics is still in use nearly 300 years after his death, was born on 25th December 1642.  He is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution. His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy"), first published in 1687, laid the foundations for classical mechanics. Newton made seminal contributions to optics, and he shares credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of calculus.

And the best thing is - he really WAS born on 25th December, unlike the other chap whose birth date is not truly known and whose birth is celebrated on 25th December simply because the early church took over an existing Pagan festival on the same(ish) date.

If you talk to God...

... then you're Religious, and there's nothing particularly wrong with that.

But if you believe God talks back to you, you probably have Psychosis and you need to see a doctor.

Just trying to be helpful ... !

A Lesbian Pope

As you may have gathered, the Church on St. Helena is making a fuss about the possible legalisation of same-sex marriage here.  I came across this picture, from the American campaign, which I like:

But the best comment was from my son, Andrew, who said the other day:
"I won't take the Catholics seriously until they elect a lesbian Pope."

Says it all, really ...

Is the Bible still useful in the 21st Century?

I don't know.  

But if you consider that it refers to Unicorns four times and Dragons thirty-six times it may be difficult to argue!

The Bible seems to promote killing

Just out of curiosity I got a .pdf copy of the entire King James Bible and did some scanning.

The phrase "thou shalt not kill" appears in four different places.

The instruction that someone should "be put to death"  appears a total of 57 times.

So please don't try to tell me that Christianity is all peace and love!

The Bible a definitive source - I think not!

In this week's Sentinel, Pastor Graham Beckett writes in the Faith Matters page:
"I am only interested in what the Bible has to say on the subject, anything else is 'suspect'."

This amused me because I can't imagine a more unreliable source!  Let me explain why.
(I'm going to quote extensively here from the Wikipedia.)

• There is no single "Bible" and many Bibles with varying contents exist.  Ever heard of the Apocrapha?  These are the books that were rejected by the  Council of Trent in 1545–1563 as being "not correct".  But there is no universal agreement among Christians worldwide as to which of these should be 'in' and which 'out'.  So, depending on which Christian church you belong to, you get a different Bible.
• There is precious little original text in the Bible.  What we have in the Bible that most Christians on St. Helena would recognize is an English translation from a collection of documents written in a variety of other languages, not one of which is demonstrably attributable to its original author. Take, for example, the Gospel of Matthew.  Supposedly written by one of Jesus' disciples, but apparently not!  "Most scholars believe the Gospel of Matthew was composed between 80 and 90. The anonymous author was probably a highly educated Jew, intimately familiar with the technical aspects of Jewish law, and the disciple Matthew was probably honored within his circle. According to the majority of modern scholars, the author drew on three main sources to compose his gospel: the Gospel of Mark; the hypothetical collection of sayings known as the Q source; and material unique to his own community, called "Special Matthew", or the M source."  The Gospel of Mark is no better. "Most modern scholars reject the tradition which ascribes it to Mark the Evangelist, the companion of Peter, and regard it as the work of an unknown author working with various sources including collections of miracle stories, controversy stories, parables, and a passion narrative." NOTHING was written by anyone who actually knew Jesus, let alone interacted with him!
• The old testament is no better.  Most of the events it portrays happened many centuries before they were written down.  What we have is based on hearsay - not one word of it would be accepted in court as evidence!
• When King James I in 1611 set out to create his Authorized Version England was in religious turmoil.  Henry VIII had abandoned Catholicism and set up the Church of England, then his heirs kept switching the country back and forwards between Protestantism (Edward VI), then back to Catholicism (Mary I) and then back to Protestantism (Elizabeth I).  The country was, to say the least, divided.  So what James 'authorized' was based far more on political expediency than it was on any sincere religious belief.  And yet all our modern translations of the bible are based on it.

I could go on but I think I've proved my point.  You could probably argue that the Bahai's are the only ones with demonstrably valid holy texts - their prophet was around in the middle 19th Century so what he said and did was documented at the time and even appeared in newspapers.

Pastor Beckett would probably say that the bible is inspired by God so it must be prefect, but that seems to be a circular argument:

• I know of God through the bible
• God created the bible so I could know about him

As Luke 1 puts it: "Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus,  that thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed."[my emphasis]

The bible isn't an objective document.  It was written by people who believed, to convince others to believe also.  It cannot possibly be considered a definitive source.