I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked

The project I'm writing at the moment is all about heaven, so you'd think it'd be lighting my heart and mind. Unfortunately it doesn't always work that way. I was visiting some friends who were up from Tassie a few weeks back. Ruth can smell a good deal at a thousand paces, so they'd secured a room in a fancy hotel overlooking Circular Quay. They took me to the roof to show me the swimming pool. It was a cute little pool, with a spa beside and seats for anyone who wished to while away the day looking out over the bridge, the Opera House and the Quay. I imagined the sort of people who would do this - they'd come home from their productive, stimulating, high status jobs to their aesthetically satisfying penthouse apartments where they'd spend the summer evenings in the company of sophisticated, glowing friends, drinking good wine and jumping in the pool. Actually now I'm starting to really think about the people, I'm not sure I'd enjoy their company; but the idea sprung to my mind in a flash, and I envied them and pitied my lot. To steady myself I said, "Maybe heaven will be like this," to which Ruth very helpfully replied "Well, it certainly won't be any worse."

Heaven. It certainly won't be any worse than the best thing you know.

What he says, as he says it

I reckon you need to approach the Bible with a bit of a laid-back attitude if you're to make good sense of what it says. The basic message's simple: Christ died for our sins as the Scriptures said he would, was buried, raised three days later as the Scriptures said he would be, and then he appeared to Peter and the Twelve. Laid-back or uptight, it's pretty clear.

But it's not all like that. God says different things in different places. And you've got to be attentive to genre, and to what's gone before and what's coming just after. There's order and systematisation to the whole thing, but there's also paradox and differing emphases and some things that are too glorious to really understand.

So you need a laid-back attitude and an open mind. You've got to go into the thing prepared to ditch what the good guys have thought for the last however many years. You've got to go: well, that doesn't sit at all comfortably with my culture and I don't see that anywhere around, but, heck, it's there in plain writing, so who am I to disbelieve? But if you go in hard, you'll end up wrangling all sorts of possibilities - it could mean this, it's open to that. But you're picking its bones - you're not honouring the tenor, the substance or the emphasis of what God had penned. You've got to sit back a little and let it say what it has to say. Of course, there's no point being dumb about it - if something's puzzling, if it doesn't add up, you need to think hard. You need to prod and pull and examine. But just don't start off like that - begin sitting back and stay that way until you see that there's something that needs to be checked.

But be careful of being too laid-back, assuming a lazy postmodernism that's open to all options because it can't be bothered seeking the truth. That's just as disrespectful as going in hard.

Humility, that's the key.

The better way

I met up with my pastor today and he asked me what I'm reading. I told him Jonathan Franzen's Freedom for next month's book club, which I'm really enjoying. It's yet another one of those novels in which everyone is wise to the ways of the world, marries for bad reasons and raises disfunctional children. So it's bleak but you almost forget to notice because you're carried along by the ironic, cynically humorous tone.

Don't you think it's sad how we're awash in irony and cynicism? How if a person were to speak of or treasure things like purity, joy and what is true, they would sound like a five year old? "Don't you think we moved on from that a while back?" Maturity's screwed. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

An Open Letter To My Blog

Dear Mr Blog,

I'm sorry I haven't been there for you like I should. I know I've been distant. Would you believe me if I said it wasn't personal? All these other things in life demand my energy and I just haven't been prioritising time with you. I'm sorry but it's the truth. I do enjoy our time together, thinking things through. And I can see a day approaching when I'll be there for you again. I know it's awful of me, but can I just ask you to wait another month? Things will be different then. I know they will.

From your old friend, confidant and sparring partner,
Fiona

Gomorra

Tonight I watched an amazing film called Gomorrah, about the Camorra of southern Italy. It's understated, real and has a beauty to it. The film's based on a book of the same name written by Roberto Saviano, an intensely streetwise and intelligent man. The interview with him in the extras is well worth a listen. His description (translated from the Italian) of what drives teenagers to murder is uncomfortably familiar:

On the one hand, it [murder] makes you feel like a man, macho. On the other hand, it feels like you are climbing the social ladder. This aspect is less understood by people who do not live that reality. When these kids approached the clans, during and after the feud - I had the chance to see it happen during the feud - they didn't really want to get rich. Nor did they want to become killers. They only wanted to be cool. They only wanted to show off. They wanted girls to turn around as they were passing on the street, saying, "See who that was?" Then it doesn't matter if you look like a loser, if you are one of those boys with a horrible grey line under your nose, you know, the first teenage moustaches. You may be an ugly teenager, but if you are part of the system, they will fear you and therefore respect you. And therefore desire you.

Here he speaks about what it is like to be born into this society:

The Camorra brands you forever with the idea that ethics is just a loser's excuse. If you say that you are a nobody because your hands are clean, or that you didn't achieve a certain position because you refused to compromise, the Camorrista will look at you and say, "You didn't make it. That's all." To say that something wasn't right is not seen as a choice, but as an excuse. If you want something, you take it and that's it. If you can't, it means you are a loser. There are no other ways to see this.

And finally, his reflections on (the perversion of) the entrepreneurial spirit:

Every boss is obsessed with cinema, not only in Naples, but I think also in Calabria, Sicily, the US and Nigeria. Very rarely does cinema look at crime. But it is very true that criminals watch films a lot. The most loved character is still Tony Montana. Tony loses everything. That's exactly the aim, as paradoxical as it sounds while I'm saying it, of every true man of power. He will grab the world and everything in it. Yet, he knows that he will have to lose everthing to pay for this choice. He'll lose his life, his family, love, everything. If you are not prepared to lose it all, you're a manager. Be a normal businessman. Where I'm from, they say, "You're rich without risk", meaning you're worthless. If power comes after your wife, your mistress, your children, your house, your holidays . . . no way you'll never be able, as Cutolo would say, to decide on other peoples' life and death.

This is the path that some men climb, and for very human motives.

Arguing, with love

The other day I updated my facebook status. 47 comments later and the thread was done. This was largely due to my provocative comments. It all began with: Fiona Lockett is pouring over the Catechism of the Catholic Church . . . as you do . . . I came back after a couple of days away and found friends saying all sorts of positive things about Catholicism. Here's how I responded:

I'm feeling conflicted here. On one hand I want to say a hearty "amen" to your experiences of meeting wonderful, faithful *Christian* Catholic people. I have had this too.

But on the other hand, I feel enormously uncomfortable about any sort of wholesale softening towards the Catholic church. I firmly believe that in a number of different ways Catholic doctrine undermines the sufficiency of Jesus' person and sacrifice, and, in so doing, cause him to be a little less worthy of our praise and a little less capable of winning our pardon. This is no small matter - it's the biggest deal there is.

I'll quote from one reply. Before I do so, I want to say that all my interlocutors have given their okay for me to do this. I have, however, sometimes shortened what they said and only occasionally have I provided the surrounding context. I have tried not to misrepresent anyone, but may have been unsuccessful. So, the reply:

I have certainly experienced much that is very carnal and idolatrous in the Pente fraternity... ranging from a totally anthropocentric "gospel" ("Come to Jesus SO THAT... He can save you, heal you, make you rich... etc") and the cult and worship of leaders... all the more dangerous, because most feligreses don't know (and would deny hotly) that they are doing so.

Fiona: My (still extremely limited) experience of the scene is that the closer you get (geographically, but especially doctrinally) to "Rome"... the worse are the anomalies and the undermining of Jesus' all-sufficiency - by politics, greed, self-protection and worse (Conspiracies reeking of the films "daVinci Code" and "Angels and Demons" really exist, I am convinced).

Contrarywise, the more you find an inspired, Spirit-Filled (whether he knows he is or not is immaterial) priest, under a bishop who gives freedom of individual expression to his underlings... to that degree will you find the very best that the RCC has to offer, with the least "Romanic" contamination.

Today, a GOOD Christian Catholic priest knows, lives, and preaches that Jesus did it all and does it all, and will point people away from any sort of worship either of saints, Mary, or iconry in general. Contemporary RCC teaching (admittedly, frowned upon heavily by the non-Christian Catholic heirarchy) says that all iconry, saints and even DEVOTION to (not worship of) Mary herself... are little more than windows through which our humanity can make meaningful, bilateral spirit-to-spirit contact with Divinity.

And here are some later responses:

Show me a Christian, any Christian, who is either ignorant of or perfectly at ease with their denominations doctrine and I'll show you a Christian with an agenda that goes well beyong following Jesus. Does that mean they are any more or less a Christian than you or I? Not for me to judge.

and:

Sifting the catechism is a good way to find things to ague with. It isn't a good way to access the richness of Catholic faith as it is lived. A question worth investigating: "What is the role and relative importance of doctrine in Catholic faith?"

which was followed by:

@A... GREAT comment! My point exactly: The very core of phariseism is seeking out those who were "doctrinally impure" and throwing stones at them - figuritively and otherwise. (NATURALLY... all for the glory of God, needless to say) ....

I don't read Jesus anywhere saying, "Blessed are the doctrinally pure, for they will see the Kingdom of Heaven" or, "Unless ye have your eschatology perfect, ye shall be cast into outer darness with much gnashing of teeth".

He DID speak a lot about Loving God, Loving one another as His disciples and like themes.

and finally:

I'd go as far as saying that if you died a hideous death as a convicted muderous thief who knew nothing of doctrine of any kind, or even Jesus except for a mysterious loving revelation in your final moments that brought you to a place where ... you could allow yourself to fall into the everlasting arms of the great I AM..., you'd still be saved. You know what? We are all that guy no matter Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu. And sadly, no matter wether we have followed the way our whole lives or just the last few seconds. We are not saved or damned by our understanding of doctrine. Our petty differences of opinion on points of law just get in the way of us accepting that we are accepted, by grace thorough Christ who is so much more.

To be honest with you, I found these replies profoundly disturbing. It is this that I would like to explore. At first I wasn't sure just what I was reacting to, but later I realised that I was troubled by the assumptions that my friends were working from. As I see it, they were thinking that: (a) doctrinal differences between Catholics and Protestants are no more serious than those between the various Protestant denominations; (b) doctrine has a limited role to play - sincere faith is more important; and (c) generalisations about the beliefs held by a group of people are hardly worth making - it is only really helpful to speak about the beliefs of individuals/smaller communities. (This last point stemming from a fourth assumption - that the belief of a group as-a-whole is likely to have limited impact on the individuals who make up that group.)

I, on the other hand, was assuming that: (a) doctrinal differences between Catholics and Protestants are way more serious - indeed fundamental - than those between Protestant denominations [I have included my reasons in small print below]; (b) sincerity of faith is never enough to save anyone - it has to be faith in something true, well, in someone true - the divine man Jesus Christ who died that people might be forgiven; (c) a group will always make demands on and affect its members - in diverse ways, to be sure, yet there will be common threads that make speaking about the group as-a-whole a profitable exercise. (This last may seem like a minor point, but the postmodern insistence on being able to find Truth only in an individual's experience has the lamentable effect of silencing discussion.)

Actually, when I said my friends' assumptions that distressed me, that wasn't quite true. What disturbed me most was that my claim that the Lord Jesus is dishonoured and belittled by the Catholic faith was never really at the heart of the discussion.

[The specific concerns I expressed about Catholic doctrine:
"I'm afraid I'm still feeling profoundly uncomfortable - firstly, because of the sort of thing that C applauded ("all iconry, saints and even DEVOTION to [not worship of] ...Mary herself... are little more than windows through which our humanity can make meaningful, bilateral spirit-to-spirit contact with Divinity."). I'm afraid that this is exactly the sort of thing that I see as undermining the sufficiency of Jesus' work in gaining us direct, personal access to the Father. So that's the first reason I'm feeling uncomfortable.

The second is that, even if this were resolved, there are a number of other ways in which I think Catholic doctrine diminishes Jesus. Here's some I can think of:
- the belief that conversion happens when you get baptised irrespective of whether you believe;
- the belief that participating in the sacraments is *essential* for a person to be saved;
- the belief that at least some confession and forgiveness *must* be mediated through a priest;
- the belief that you have to be good enough for God in this life, or else make it up in purgatory.

It seems to me that these things run dangerously close to turning Jesus into little more than a divine helper.

But I want to make it clear that I think that some/many Catholics are Christians and should be treated as brothers and sisters in Christ. But this is exactly my point - they are only Christian if they are either ignorant of the import of these sort of Catholic doctrines, or if they reject some of what the Catholic church teaches."]