Monbiot and Reducing Climate Change

I read George Monbiot's Heat last week (which makes this post very outdated indeed...). Its very good, everybody should read it. The thing is that it deals with how it is possible to, with a decent amount of probability, prevent that global warming goes into the beyond tolerable. It will be hard but doable.

The effect this book had on me is that I now feel ready to act. Monbiot basically shows what needs to be done, now we have to get about doing it. It won't be enough just to change one's own life, we have to start putting pressure on those in power.

Here is a good interview that will give you a good idea about what needs to be done (and why for those of you who do not know that). My favorite line is the one comparing what is required from us to face this crisis compared to WWII.

You say that flying less is a sacrifice too great for the people of this country to bear. But the last time the world was faced with an existential crisis - the rise of the Axis powers - millions of people were asked to sacrifice their lives to prevent it. Now, we are being asked to sacrifice our holidays in Florida and Thailand.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. (YouTube)

Now, there are some things about which I do not agree with Mr. Monbiot. They are not central to the argument. He essentially says that the controversy over what the scientific position on climate change is cause by people not understanding what science is. This I think is only part of the problem. Climate change reveals problems in the very scientific method itself. It clearly seems to be beyond what is possible for todays scientists to reach a scientific conclusion about the entire phenomenon. All the experts deal with small aspects in which the method works, but it seems that when it comes to compiling all this data it is no longer possible to keep the same methodical stringency. Hence the controversy over IPCC:s reports.

While there certainly does not exist any better tries as assessing the entire phenomenon then IPCC, it is still open to criticism, which sadly is used to prevent the needed the decisions to being taken.

More on Peak Oil and Climate Change

Here's a good article on the subject, by David Strahan. He discusses why Climate Change campaigners don't want to discuss Peak Oil and vice versa, despite the obvious interdependence of the two subjects.

Peak oil could also sabotage attempts to fight climate change by paradoxically increasing greenhouse gas emissions, if oil depletion forces us to exploit the wrong kinds of fuel. The alternatives to crude oil are all resource constrained and unlikely to fill the gap – at least not in time – but they still have the potential to do enormous climate damage. Burning rainforest and peatlands to create palm oil plantations for biofuels releases vast amounts of CO2, and has already turned Indonesia into the world’s third biggest emitter after America and China.[4] Synthetic transport fuels made from gas using the Fischer-Tropsch chemical process emit even more carbon on a well-to-wheels basis than conventional crude. When the feedstock is coal the emissions double. So in the unlikely scenario that we manage to replace more than half the yawning conventional deficit with coal-based fuel, but not all of it, we would still suffer fuel shortage while emitting even more CO2 than in the current business-as-usual forecast - the worst of all possible worlds.

Climate Change and Peak Oil

I'm no expert on neither Climate Change nor Peak Oil. However, The more you look into the two issues, I have to say that the more convinced I become that global warming is something we can do quite little about, while peak oil is something that is very real indeed. To be clear, it seems clear that the climate is changing, and that greenhouse gases play a role here (though probably not a decisive one). That we could make decisive changes to the climate in the coming decades by changing our behavior now (short of going cold turkey on fossil fuels) seems improbable.

But, it seems to be clear that energy prices will rise a lot in the coming years and that this will have effects on our lives comparable in gravity to those thought to be caused by climate change.

Still, it is climate change that has become a big issue in politics lately. Now, so far I have been of the opinion that this actually is not so big a problem, because the two problems are so closely related. Most sane actions taken to counter climate change reduces use of fossil fuels.

However, it seems that the politicians really can't do anything right when it comes to the environment. Rather than taking sane actions, like supporting the development of alternative - clean - sources of energy, we see Nuclear Power coming back on a big scale. We hear that it is carbon neutral and safe and clean. Obviously it is none of these things. Energy is used for transports both of Uranium and the waste. It is not safe nor clean: especially the mining of uranium is increasingly messy because it is found in so difficult places. And obviously the waste will be with us forever.

Even worse, the other solution now getting much more political momentum is coal plants that collect the carbon emissions. This is a solution typical of the generation that has always felt that problems out of sight are solved. There are no good solution for storing these emissions, and there are good reasons to believe such deposits will become new environmental hazards.

But putting real effort into developing real renewable energy sources or encouraging people to save energy, that is to much to expect.

The problem here is that future historians - if such will exist - will have a great problem of understanding why we put so much effort into a problem that we was not sure existed while at the same time ignoring a problem plane to see for anyone who cares to look, thus destroying our civilization ourselves.

Gustavo Gutierrez: We Drink from Our Own Wells

Let's get one thing straight right away: I think liberation theology is great and feel very strongly that all theology needs to be contextual to be relevant. That said, this book didn't do much for me. There are several reasons for this. I am familiar with most of the ideas central to liberation theology, so there were few "new ideas" here. More importantly this really is "spirituality of Latin America". It s not even supposed to be particularly relevant for me.

This is not criticism then, but rather an effort to clarify the major differences between the Latin American outlook of Gutierrez and my North European outlook.

Of course, poverty is a rather abstract thing for me. There is very little poverty in Finland, because we still have a great social security system. It is being torn down as we speak, but still extreme poverty is not something you encounter here. This means that I can agree in principle that God has a preference for the poor, it is not something that has much existential meaning for me.

This does not mean that all is well in the Republic of Finland, because the solution to poverty is not more money, but liberation. People in Finland, too, needs liberation, but not so much from poverty as from the tyranny of the accepted opinion, as one might call it. Sure, people in Finland are free to express their opinion (if they have one), and to live their life in any way (within reasonable limits), but most people still live a rather destructive life, destructive not only for the environment (only USA and some other country (was it Australia?) produce more CO2 per capita than Finland) but also for their own souls.

In a way - and I do not say this to in any way downplay the atrocity of extreme poverty - we are little better off, because most Finns have no idea they are oppressed, because we are oppressed by a system so efficient that it has made itself nearly invisible. Why use violence when there is television? Still, we are forced to live a life centered of producing value for the system, by working way more than is healthy and to put any creativity we still have after what is commonly called education to the service of that same system. What this means is that there is way too little joy in our lives, way too little beauty. Instead of joy we have entertainment.

Surely this is a situation where salvation is deeply needed.

Another thing that is difficult for me with Gutierrez book is that is so much a spirituality of a people. I just cannot relate to that. Here again our situation is so different. If they are a people oppressed by an elite, then we are oppressed in part by the idea of being a people. Nationalism is still strong in Finland, as in the rest of Europe, and it seems to be even worse in the US where it is called patriotism. Nationalism is clearly the most destructive idea in the history of mankind (only religion comes close in the amount of blood shed), and even though we have few wars today in this corner of the world, people still argue with this completely abstract notion of the nation as a basis. For example, we hear people argue that "we" must work so that "all Finns" will have a better life. How about all humans? All lifeforms? Why draw any line based on who belongs to this made up concept the Finnish nation? Well, of course the reason is to make it OK to exploit the others, ow wage war against them if need (such as high petrol prices) arises.

I really like how Gutierrez lifts up death as the central symbol for evil, in part replacing for example sin, that is always transformed into some abstract form of spiritual aids. Death is real; it is there. We can be made aware how poverty (in their case) or compliancy (in our) is death. You do not live when you're working 14 hours a day, be it because you have to to put food on your family's table or because a bigger car seems to be a good idea. That is death. From that we need salvation.

Gutierrez is in this book also concerned with dispelling the idea that liberation theology is merely thinly veiled Marxism. Of course it is not. I doubt anyone who believes that has read this far, but if this is the case, do read the book. For the rest of us, we need to keep on working on a liberation theology of our own.

Byron on Peak Oil

Byron has posten som thoughts on theology and Peak Oil.

The problem is that we have artificially inflated our needs to include cheap transport, easy energy, comfort and inordinate and ever-expanding wealth. And so the primary theological 'solution' to Peak Oil is thankfulness, which is the key to contentment. Listen to the Apostle Paul: I have learned to be content with whatever I have.

Conventional Theology

In conventional theology Jesus Christ takes the sins of the entire world - past, present and future - upon himself. Through his sacrificial death he achieves forgiveness for all sins; through his resurrection we are assured of eternal life. Since Jesus Christ is "fully God and fully human", the second person of the trinity, according to the orthodox position he can accomplish redemption: as God he has the power to do so and as man he stands for and includes all human beings in his saving death and life-giving resurrection. ....
Personally, I have never been able to believe it.
Sallie McFague: Life Abundant, p. 157-158.

Almost had you going there, eh? According to McFague this is a theology that today, for North-American Middle-class Christians, is "not believeable and bad theology". It does not correspond to today's understanding of reality. This kind of theology, she says, puts the "offense of Christ in the wrong place", that is, it makes faith about a conflict with science rather than with a conflict with a sinful way of life.

It is bad theology only from our particular perspective of course. It is bad because in this kind of Christology "Jesus does it all". It does not engage us in creation, it does not motivate us to get involved in the "project in which we join God in Christ to help all creature's flourish".

Radically Dependent

We need, then, first of all to reconceive ourselves. We need to think differently about who we are. The eighteenth-century individual, isolated from other people except through contracts and from nature except as the resource base from which to amass wealth, is false according to the picture of reality current in our time. The postmodern picture sees us as part and parcel of the earth, not only as dependent on it and its processes but since we are high on the food chain, as radically dependent. ... We are simply not who the reigning economic model says we are, so says our current story. We may be greedy, but more basically, we are needy, terribly needy.
Sallie McFague: Life Abundant, p. 102.

This book as actually rather brilliant. So far, McFague has given an analysis of the current economic model and how it is unable to provide humans with true fulfilment, and how it is responsible for the sorry state of planet earth. Even if I am not sure about the use of that term postmodern (is there anything this word cannot mean??!?) I think she is very right in saying that those that advocate free-market capitalism today are living in yesterdays world. Too bad they still hold the power.

I really look forward to the theological chapters that make up the second half of this book.

Liberating Theology

Let us look at this rather unattractive suggestion more carefully. It is unattractive because it is not like other liberation theologies. Other liberation theologies arise from the cries of the oppressed; but we are not oppressed. This theology will not liberate North Americans from chains of oppression (except, of course, the chains of consumerism!); rather, it implies that we are the oppressors and must, if we are Christians, liberate others from our domination. That is, a liberation theology for us North American Christians should be based on a cruciform lifestyle, expressing and embodying a way of life that will be liberating to others.
Sallie McFague: Life Abundant, p. 34.

First, I have to note that see anything in this paragraph that does not apply to North Europeans as well as Americans. It is perhaps a matter of difference in scale, certainly not in attitude.

Second, I think that even if I agree in general notion that a contextual theology for the Western World should be primarily about liberating the others (bringing freedom to the Middle East, for example, should primarily be about giving them freedom from us), there are some problems with this notion as well. On the one hand I think consumerism is only one of the things we actually need to be liberated. We need to be liberated from our belief in that our leaders are basically morally good and want what's best for us. We need to be liberated from the notion that competition in any area of life produces the best results (it brings out the alternative that is best at competing, nothing else), among other things. So even if the end result is the same, a western liberation theology should also be about liberating us, not only the others.

But a more difficult problem is that notion that the purpose of a western liberation theology is to liberate others risk falling in line with the age-old western belief that it is our purpose to help (read: civilize, Christianize, democratize... colonize), the rest of the world. There is an inherent belief in the supremacy of the White man contained in it. Of course this is not what McFague is intending, but it is still worth noting that liberation must come from within, not from without.

(Yes I chose this book (thanks, Chris!), but I still will chose one more, probably Hart...)

Global Dimming. You need to know about this.

You can watch this excellent but extremely scary BBC documentary free (legal) online. Follow this link, chose "get this film". You do not need to register, just chose to "view the sample movie HERE".

Global warming may be much worse than we thought.

Ideas for a Theology of Decline

Well, I am finished! Yesterdays post is the last in what is probably the very first - though very small - systematic theology of the blogosphere (if anyone can direct me to one that beat me to it, please do so, otherwise I claim my place in the history books).

Ok, obiously this isn't even comparable with the Barths and Pannebergs and Tillichs that take up over shelf-space, but this is a new medium and this is about the size adequate for this medium I think.

Also, part of the medium, I think, is the fact that it has been thought out as it was written. In other words, I did not have much of an idea of were it would end up when I started it. I just wanted to explore the idea of theology in the context of a culture in decline. This also means I have dealt quite briefly with some areas of the Christian doctrine (The trinity and Christology come to mind), because the guiding principle has been to treat those areas of the doctrine that are seem relevant in this context.

There has been much discussion of the texts as they have developed. This has been enormously helpful, and this obviously is a real strength of doing theology this way. Thanks to all who have taken their time to read my thoughts. If someone would want to take the time to read the whole thing through and post some thoughts on that, it would be incredibly fun.

Finally, Ill be doing some slight editing of the texts, mainly correcting bad spelling and adding some links forward. I'd like to apologise to my feed subscribers who will get a lot of old posts the coming days.

Anyway, here it is:

Ideas for a theology of Decline
Introduction

• About this blog
• The Need for a Theology of Decline

God and Creation

• God the Father and Creation in Crisis
• Creation Continued

Sin and the Forces of Evil

• Sin, Identity and Destructive Culture
• Original Sin
• Fighting Demons

The Eschatologial Nature of the Faith

• Why believe in God
• The Resurrection of the Body
• The Need for Eschatology
• The Church as an Icon of the Next World

The Human Existence and Salvation

• Identity, Death and Meaning
• The Problem of Identity
• The Problem of Death (part I)
• The Problem of Death (part II)
• The Problem of Meaning
• Guilt and Salvation
• Salvation as Growing Up

The Sacraments

• Sacraments and Ritual
• Baptism as New Beginning
• Communion and Community
• The Eucharist as an Exercise for the Next World
• The Body of Christ
• The Eucharist and Salvation

The Church

• Ways to See the Church
• What is good ecclesiology?
• Who belongs to the Church?
• Ten Propositions on Authority in the Church
• Where is the Church?
• The Church in a Declining World

The Church in a Declining World

In what way, then, is it helpful to participate in the Church when one is living in a culture that is in decline and even approaching its destruction?

Well, first of all, let me say that I do not believe that the Church will be able to do something very substantial towards reversing this trend, or even reducing its effects. I think we are beyond the point where there is very much that can be done, be it about the environment, the intellectual climate or the humanitarian situation. Obviously the Church have to do all it can in order to minimize the effects of this development, and especially in caring for those that will be most severely affected by it, i.e. the poor. But at this point, to hope that we will be able to "save" the world, is probably counter-productive.

What we need is a way of life that can handle living in a culture that is self-destructing. And it is this I think the Church can offer.

First, what does such a life look like? Obviously this is very speculative, but I think the key would be to found one's identity on values that are not threatened by the decline in culture. This is fairly obvious when it comes to material things. If owning fast cars and lot's of books (ouch!) are important to you, a collapsing economy will not be a pleasant place to be. But then I think humans are very adaptable when it comes to these things, so that will probably not be most critical aspect of decline. But in a situation where resources are lacking, any life that is built on what you do and what you have will be severely threatened.

On the other hand a person who's identity secured and fairly autonomous in relation to the workings of society will do much better. A person that is not depending on what other people think but rather is focused living one's life in open relationships with other humans will probably be able to deal with the difficulties that will come.

A person that has learned to find meaning in whatever he or she does will not loose the sense of purpose when society undergoes drastic changes. Such a person finds joy in even simple tasks, and can find encouragement in small things. That can be the key to surviving.

And obviously, a person that is working towards overcoming the fear of death will not be easily paralysed if bad times come. Such a person finds strength in the freedom of Christ, and is able to live life in a meaningful way even when society is collapsing.

In other words, a person that is living the reality of the future salvation here and now will be able to stand apart from the collapsing culture and not get - spiritually - dragged along with its fall.

As I have tried to show, this is the kind of person the Church can foster - this is the outcome of a person becoming transformed by the gospel. By entering into communion with others in the Church, we are reminded of another existence and we are able to see the relative value of this one. Thus we can separate ourselves from a culture that is destroying the creation, and together with God, the creator, give hope to other human beings who are suffering in this decline. This, too, creates meaning.

A person who is has overcome the problems of Identity, death and meaning will be able to stand against the forces that are bringing our world towards destruction. It may not be possible to stop them, but it may be possible not only to save one's own soul, but also the souls of our brothers and sisters from perishing in that destruction.

Where is the Church?

The Church, theologically, is not the same as the sum of people who are Christians. This is something agreed on by most. But how do we "locate" the Church without getting caught in some symbol-game, throwing around terms as "body of Christ", "Kingdom of God" and "People of God" without any obvious contact with that particular group of people? I will no return to this fundamental question of ecclesiology.

A person belongs to the Church if he or she participates in the life of the Church. This means that the person believes that the life of the Church is fundamentally significant for his or her own identity, as I said in an earlier post. There I used the formula "biblical narrative, sacraments and worship" in an attempt to be as inclusive as possible. Personally I am no sure that a congregation that focuses on the preaching of the Word of God can be equated with a congregation that focuses on the sacraments or on worship (clearly all three are present more or less in all Christian churches, with the exception of the sacraments, which is a real problem no matter how cool the Quakers generally are.) Personally I feel the Sacraments are the best way to preach the Word of God and worship. While focus on the Sacraments naturally includes (or should include) the Word of God and worship, this cannot be said about a service focused on the Word of God or worship. In such traditions the sacramental aspect is reduced.

That said, the Church is more that a "thing" where people preach, celebrate the Eucharist and sing hymns. And this is the heart of the problem: It is not these outer signs that constitutes the Church, but what they signify. This means that although the Church can be said to always be present where people meet to hear the Word of God, participate in the celebration of the sacraments and worship, this is not the only place where the Church is present. Because the true mark of the Church is the content of Word, Sacraments and Worship, the Gospel, the Church is present wherever the Gospel is interacting with people.

The Gospel is not something that can be easily put into words. I have tried to do so in this blog. A person that encounters the Gospel becomes more secure in his or her identity, overcomes fear and finds meaning in life. This is just one expression of the Gospel, there are other that are as valid or more so. The point is that the Gospel is bigger than any religious ideas about life. We have to believe that God with the gospel genuinely want to help people with their lives, not primarily turn them into Christians. This means that wherever people find themselves, security and meaning, there the gospel, and thus the Church is present. It may be in any organisation or institution, or in a group of close friends or in solitude reading a book or watching nature. The Church may be present anywhere, also in other religions than Christianity.

And obviously, there are many houses that says "Church" on the door where the church is seldom present, because the gospel has bee forgotten. Here again I think a sacrament-centred service is harder to "destroy" than another form of service.

Ten Propositions on Authority in the Church

Lists of propositions seem popular so here goes...

1. No particular way of governing the Church can be historically traced back to Jesus or the apostles.

2. The Church should at any particular time in history be governed in such a way that the method of government reflects the Gospel in that time.

3. Continuity throughout the ages is part of the identity of the Church, part of its message and part of its raison d'être. This can be communicated by the way the Church is governed, i.e. by a distinct continuity in its ministry.

4. The form of government in the Church is part of the spiritual Identity of the Church. It is not "merely administration". It must conform to the general rule that should always be a mark of the Church: that it reflects what the Church believes life will be like in the coming world.

5. The Church needs authority with various geographical scope. There needs to be governing with local, regional and global jurisdictions. The primary function of the different levels of Authority in the Church is to be a symbol of the catholicity of the Church.

6. The notion of a hierarchy in the sense of a ladder of power where everyone submits to those above and rules over those beneath is at odds with the general sense of just government today. Since it is not based on the bible it should be avoided in the Church today.

7. The notion that some people have authority over others based not on merits or insight but on office is incomprehensible today and should be avoided.

8. The general principle of distribution of power in the Church should be to try to minimize central authority and maximize local authority: The Church should trust its regional and local bodies to be able to make informed decisions that maintain orthodoxy. Again, the primary role of the global authority is symbolical.

9. The general principle of local authority should be to trust and support the individual to make choices in his or her personal spiritual life.

10. The Church should strive to reduce the power of individuals over other individuals in all areas and at all levels of the Church. This way she fulfils the commandment of the gospel that "if you want to be great, you must be the servant of all the others".

Who belongs to the Church?

Ecclesiology must try to answer not only What the Church is, but also the Who and the Where of the Church.

Who is a member of the Church? I think this question has to be answered differently depending on who asks the question. We need, on the one hand, some kind of objective answer that the Church can use do decide who is a member and who is not. But this answer may be different from the subjective answer to the question "Do I belong to the Church?".

Regarding the objective answer we must first ask why the Church as an institution needs an answer to this question. The reason must not be in order to know who to serve and who not: The Church must show the same kind of love to all humans regardless if they are Christians or not. A Church that turns away a person in need, spiritually or physically, is no church. This, I feel includes rituals such as the Eucharist. The Church can uphold a practice of admitting only Christians to the Table, but not turn away someone that wishes to participate based on some objective criterion.

The reason there needs to be a kind of objective criterion of Church membership is that the Church needs to respect that some people do not want to be treated as members by the Church. This refers to people belonging to other religions, as well as people that feel the need to protest against the Church for one reason or other. These feelings are rooted in a searching for identity, a search that the Church in such cases may support the best (thus fulfilling the Church's mission) by stepping back. But the Church should not deny anyone what it has to give in any situation. Love knows no other way. This objective criteria is obviously baptism, no other criteria is possible. (Churches that do not have baptism obviously must find some other solution)

The subjective answer to the question "do I belong to the Church?" is much more difficult to address. Here baptism is not enough, such an answer does not answer the problem formulated in the question. This is especially true because of the practice of paedobaptism. If a baptised person does not feel secure about being part of the Church, this is not a question about objective membership but a question of identity.

A person belongs to the Church if he or she believes that the use of the biblical narrative and the participation in the sacraments and worship of the Church is helpful in overcoming the existential problems encountered in life. This is a technical way of expressing what can in religious language be expressed as to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. The biblical narrative and the sacraments and worship ultimately aim at making the life story of Jesus Christ an internal part of the individuals life story.

There is room for variations of emphasis here: while one tradition puts the emphasis more on the "Word of God" another may emphasize the sacraments. The point is that I feel it is difficult to call someone a Christian (except in the sociological sense) unless a person believes that being Christian benefits him or her in some way. But there is no way of objectively establish who fulfils this criterion and the Church should not try to do so. There are obviously indicators ("holiness"), but these are not foolproof and the Church, as an institution should not base its practice on them.

Ways to See the Church

The concluding part of my "theology of decline" will be devoted to ecclesiology, that is, the doctrine of the Church. I feel this subject is extremely difficult, for it is my belief that if the present problems in the Christian Church is based on doctrine, it is in the notion of the Church that the heart of the problem lies. I can only hope that the 21st century will be the century of ecclesiology, much like the fourth was the century of discussion on the trinity, the fifth on Christology and the 20th was the century of discussion of the relevance of history for theology.

The problem of the Church is in theory very simple: We have this group of people. And we have this theological concept of the Church. How do we relate this group of human beings to the theological concept? This in essence in the ecclesiological question. In this first post I will approach the question negatively: I will point out the - rather obvious - problems with the current models. If there is anything left of my blog and theological self esteem after that, I will try to bring something positive to the table.

Now, I know that the below discussion is very simplified, it is not to be read as an accurate description of how the different denominations understand themselves. The names are of lesser importance, it is the ideas that count.

1. The Roman Catholic Model
The Church consist of people who belong to the worldwide institution of the Roman Catholic Church. You are a member if you are baptised and accept the authority of the hierarchy of the Church from the pope down, including in matters of doctrine and teaching. All those that confess unity with this organisation, personified by the Bishop of Rome make out the "people of God".

Now this model is in crisis today because people do not see the reason to accept this authority. People in our culture are thought that the right thing to do is to think for yourself and to make your own mind up about matters of faith, and it is thus difficult to see the reason that people belonging to the priesthood would have an inherent authority in such matters. Since the Roman Catholic Church has lost most of the "worldly" power it once had, people do not understand why they should submit to it in "spiritual" matters.

2. The Eastern Orthodox Model
The Church consist of all those people that express the true faith through the traditional liturgy that is more or less the same everywhere and always. The organisation that exists to uphold this tradition can look a bit different in different nations, but as long as it upholds the tradition from the fathers expressed by the continuity of the hierarchy it is considered part of the true Church. The authority in matters of doctrine lies in the hands of the entire Church: not even a synod of all the bishops of the Church can make a decision in a doctrinal question unless the Church as a whole (the believers) accept the decision.

I must confess that I'm partial to this model. However, history has shown that the autonomous "state churches" that make up the Orthodox Church do risk to become pawns in the hands of ruthless worldly rulers. Also, to make doctrinal decisions today is practically impossible, which may be a problem in face of the difficult questions that face believers today. Also, there is a tendency in the Orthodox tradition that shuns contact with culture, which makes it difficult for the Church to react to times of sudden change in the cultural climate.

3. The Protestant State Church
Far from being one model, this system has worked out different ways in different countries. At the core is at any rate a kind of opt-out system of membership as opposed to the opt-in of the other models. In other words, in countries such as England, Sweden or Finland, you belong to the State Church unless you decide not to. Of course, signs like baptism are present, but in reality you belong to the church in most cases based on the nationality of the land on which you happened to be born.

Since this is the predominant system of the my country I have obviously thought about it a bit, but I'll try to keep it short. The model has some clear advantages: Since the vast majority of the population are members, the servants of the Church can assume that all people they meet are members, which means that there is no "us and them" mentality, and all people will thus be treated with the same respect. However, the system has lead to a situation where ceremonies such as weddings and funerals are often seen as more important in the life of the Church than the services where the Eucharist is being celebrated. This is already a very serious ecclesiological problem. But it has also lead to a situation where a vast portion of the members do not feel related to the Church at all, even though they are members, and essentially see the Church as a kind of institution that offers services at certain times in life, without any sense of community at all.

4. The free Church model (traditional)
There are new models for being a church cropping up every minute, but this is the more traditional Congregational model. You belong to the church if you chose to accept the doctrine and lifestyle of the particular group you wish to join. The emphasis may vary, but usually there has been a rather strong emphasis on how ethics rather than dogmatics.

The model has the advantage that it very easy to say who is in and who is out. That's very practical. But the model has many deep flaws. First of all, the actual criteria that decides if a person is deemed acceptable can be almost arbitrary and often based on more on cultural prejudices than biblical teaching. The model often fosters an ugly "us vs. them" mentality and a black-and-white worldview to accompany it. Since the groups can be pretty isolated they can easily turn into sect-like scenarios if a person with an inflated ego becomes the leader. Finally, it seems that these kinds of congregations have a surprising difficulty to adapt to the changes of culture, and they thus tends to become pockets of backwards thinking in areas such as ethics, leadership and gender roles.

5. The free Church model (recent)
Under this heading I'd like to lump together a whole bunch of more recent ideas, that are being tried around the globe right now. The actual criteria are similar to the ones in the above model, but the actual group can look very different. For instance, some kind of network model can be used, thus combining the free church model with a catholic like hierarchy, where the unity of the church is guaranteed by the formal or informal connection to some leadership figure(s). These new models do not really escape the traps of the more traditional model, they are usually developed for different reasons such as church growth.

Well, as I said, these are all caricatures, so please do not be too offended. My point is just to illustrate how important this question is in the Church as a whole today.

The Eucharist and Salvation

I few weeks ago I wrote that salvation in the Christian sense of the word is to become free from those forces that threaten our identity, exploit our fears and rob our lives of meaning. I also noted that these forces are that same that are currently destroying our planet, in other words, very real political and economical institutions and powers.

Salvation is something that is properly attained only in the next life, but in faith we are able to receive some of this freedom already in this life. This is indeed the purpose of the Church: to make some of the future freedom present in this world.

In what way does the ritual of the Eucharist proclaim this freedom? In several ways.

When participating in the Eucharist we are strengthened in our identity, because we see ourselves as individuals interacting with others, in a communion not based on what we do or who we are, but on God's grace. If we learn to look at other people in this way, we can also learn to look at ourselves in this way. We also learn something about being human, that is, to be human is to receive rather than to act.

When participating in the Eucharist we are able to find relief from our fear of death, because we see how Christ's death and resurrection is connected to my death and resurrection. Again, it is my bread that is used in the celebration.

When participating in the Eucharist we are shown how our lives are meaningful, by highlighting how we are called to give what we receive to others. During the epiklesis the Spirit descends upon my bread and turns it into the Body of Christ. In the same way my life is transformed and becomes meaningful when I find my relation to God and to other people.

The Sacrament of the Eucharist, then, can help us to cope with our existential situation on many different levels. These are only examples of course, and serve to connect my ideas about the sacraments to the theological ideas of sin and salvation.

Next, I will attempt a discussion on Ecclesiology. I feel this is the most difficult part of the Christian doctrine, because it seems that all models we know have outlived their usefulness. How should we think the Church in a declining culture?

The Body of Christ

It helps to understand that the bread and wine used in the Eucharist is my bread and wine. As I already mentioned, in the early church it was customary that everybody brought a piece of bread to the Service.

It is my bread and wine that is turned into the body and blood of Christ. It is not something that I am a only a witness to, it is something that involves me directly. This is why I feel it is helpful to speak of a transformation in the Eucharist. The point really is that something changes.

A friend of mine taught me this (if anyone know where he got it from I'd be happy, although I may have modified the original idea): The bread and the wine represents, respectively, my work and my play, my seriousness and my joy. When I bring my bread and my wine to the altar, and break the bread, the Spirit descends on it and turns it into the Body and Blood of Christ. The Spirit changes its meaning. In the Eucharist my whole life (not just the serious part, but also all that stuff I do for joy only) into something meaningful. It is as if God takes my life looks at it, smiles and gives it back to me with approval.

Of course, when my work and my play is turned into the Body of Christ it also becomes the Church. I realize that my work and play becomes meaningful only when I recognize how it relates to other people. By itself it lacks spirit.

The Church, then, is the community of persons that want to see their lives connected to other persons. The Eucharist is there to help us recognize that our lives really are holy, to help us overcome sin by recognizing who we really are.

The Eucharist as an Exercise for the Next World

The celebration of the Eucharist is a type of the life in the next world. Theodore of Mopsuestia, one who perhaps more deeply than any of the Fathers understood the typological character of the Church emphasized this. The sacraments were given for to be able to learn to live after the manner of "Citizens of the Kingdom of God".

In other words, when we celebrate the Eucharist we are learning something about how life in the next world will be. I think one aspect of the Eucharist is the very special sense of communion we experience in it. As I wrote in my last post, it is not a communion with people we are similar to, with people we like or get along with. Rather, it is a communion with people we in this world find it difficult to love.

We we go to the altar to receive bread and wine, we are, within the borders of this ritual, allowed to let all those things we normally base our appreciation of other people go. When we gather around the table things like class, race, gender, political affiliation, manners, personality - all such things are of no importance because the communion is not based on human love but on divine giving. Within the ritual we carry out a kind of pre-practice of how we should relate to other people in real life. Because we have the safe framework of the ritual we can experience this kind of "heavenly" communion here in life, and then slowly learn to take this experience into our daily life and let it transform our relationships to those we meet.

The Mythology of Science III

Ok, so the title is completely misguiding by now, but I stick to it to show the continuity with the preceeding posts and the discussions caused by them.

What do I mean when I say that evolution, technology and (capitalistic) economy is, respectively, blind, stupid and destructive? Well, I do not mean that they are all utterly useless. Let me clarify.

My point is that society today models a significant part of its selfunderstanding on these three phenomena. We are basing the way we live on an assumption that the progress we see in these areas is somehow representations of a general feature of life, history and culture. In this way we base our morals on these three areas of life. When I say that evolution is blind, technology is stupid and economy is destructive, it is a way of saying that this is not a very wise thing to do.

Someone may say that it is absurd to even attribute some moral value to evolution , technology and economy. Except for in the case of the last (what other purpose could economy possibly have than to serve the quality of life in the most general way of humans?), this is true in one way, but what I'm talking about is how we interpret these pheonomena, and that is a reflection of our morals. The thing is, although evolution does not have morals, it does have an analogy to morals. The same is true for technology and economics.

The "moral good" of evolution is survival and ability to reproduce. An organism that is able to adapt to different environments is supirior to one that can't, and will therefore be mor advanced. Now, there are very different strategies to survival, and it seems that the most sucessful organisms is the most complex (humans) and the most simple (single cell organisms). Insects too, seem to do really well, at least in our garden. Well, anyway, my point is that evoloution is blind, because, it is not moving towards a goal, a perfect organism. It is just changing to adapt to environment. It is not going anywhere.

Technolgy also has its "moral good". It can usually be described with the word efficiency. Most technological advances are made to make some task more efficient. There are some other "values" that guide technology, the most important being the possibility of economic profit, which then makes technology not only stupid but destructive as well. There is also a drive in technology to make the (previously) impossible possible, that is, real innovation. This is a tiny part of all tecnological development, of course, but the most visible, because it is what we see as the "bleeding edge" of the technological development. And here's why it is stupid: There is no inherent mechanism in technology that decides what kinds of innovations are being made. If it is within the grasp of technology it will be invented, regardless of the effects it will have on human life and the environment. Technology cannot see beyond the current stage, and based on a prediction of what its current action will lead to, make decisions of how to act. This is the technological stupidity.

To show that (capitalistic) economics is destructive is very easy, we just have to look at the world. Most of the destruction we see, be it in the form of cut down rain forests, blown up mountains, spreading deserts, climate change and so on, all of it is done in the name of economical growth. And we don't have to look only at the environment, we can look at our selves too: people doing things they do not want to do (work) instead of what they want to do (spend time with family and friends, live in contact with nature, develop their creativity), all because of the demands of economy. Not to mention people pushed beyond what they can take: burn-out, depression, violence. But isn't economy neutral, something that just has been bent ot destructiveness by selfish people? Maybe, but the way capitalistic economy works is so that the selfish people will always make the decissions. (and dont get started about how a communist economy is no better. We all now that. This is not a right vs. left issue.)

There is one more "progress myth" that affects how we look at the world: the fact that individuals grow up. But to base a worldview of this and the three myths described above, to me seems difficult. To base a theory of how life works on three such immoral phenomena can only lead to trouble - in our case in all probability the destruction of our culture, and maybe the world with it.

What theology should do in this situation is what I am trying to work out in this blog.

The Mythology of Science II

Ok, my post last post was brief, and I was very tired when writing it, so that's why it wasn't very clear. Still, your interpretations aren't that wide off the mark.

My point was there are these three areas where there actually is a kind of progress. Evolution is a kind of progress, more complex forms of life evolve from less complex. But it is a blind progress, it is no way to say that later species are "better" than more primitive one's. Or is H5N1 a really good virus?

Technology is something that progresses, we do see new forms of technology being produced all the time. But this progress is stupid, exactly because there is no way to control if new technology actually improves life for humans (let alone the world). Nuclear weapons is only the most extreme example. A much more difficult issue is modes of transportation, cars and planes. They do make our life easier, but at a price we cannot grasp. New media is another issue. The new technology based media is more efficient than older forms, but do they actually make our lives better? Different, yes, but better? Sure those people that blame the new technology for the huge problems caused by stress and burnouts aren't widely off the mark?

Economy does grow in absolute numbers. But this growth too comes at a terrible price. Now, I'm no economist but I know that there is only two ways to create economic value: exploiting resources and labor. These are the only ways real growth is built. Both of these are limited factors, there is only a limited amount of resources on earth and the human being can only put in a certain amount of working hours. When economy, then keeps growing it is destructive, because it is eating up the reserve of resources (oil will not last more than 30 years, probably much less, water is becoming really scarce in some areas already) and are pressuring humans to work over the capacity.

Since these are the only real areas (besides personal growth) where we can actually observe some kind of progress, it is all the more strange that so many still deduce from these blind, stupid and destructive forces some kind of general rule of history (and, as Byron mentioned, morals), that our society will, if we put our trust in progress, will somehow overcome its problems in time.

Now, I want to ask those of you that find my science bashing misguided, to provide one example of how technology, economy, of biology (the last one would be difficult I know, but there is a popular belief in the power of "nature" to take anything we throw at it) have recently come up with something that would make it possible for us to sustain our present way of life without heading for a total destruction very fast. No science fiction please. One example with effects that we see kicking in now.