Of This and Other Worlds

I've been remiss in not mentioning this to my f-list before, but if you're looking for a thoughtful and consistently updated blog about Christianity and Speculative Fiction, with a good variety of reviews, essays and talk about the craft and business of writing SF for the Christian market, Speculative Faith is a good place to start.

And last Friday (which I foolishly chose out of a handful of available dates, forgetting that it was the weekend of American Thanksgiving and hardly anybody would be reading) I had the opportunity to do a Guest Blog for them about why I chose to write for the general rather than the "Christian" market.

Primarily of interest to my co-religionists (as Lewis would say), but there it is.

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And now, more to shore up my own weak resolve than anything else, I am going to announce that December is going to be a No-Social-Networking month for me.

I have a major deadline coming up for Ultraviolet, and the more time I devote to working on that, the better -- plus, we all know how many other things go on in December, especially when you are involved in church activities, kids' music lessons, and are hosting your family's Christmas dinner.

So that's it. I am disappearing for the entire month of December, apart from checking e-mail and answering any really urgent requests that come up.

Have a great month, everybody! See you in January!

Okay, I have just come across the second book review in as many days which describes how, in the course of the story, a young person involved in an evangelical Christian church is struggling with doubts and goes to their pastor, a parent, or other trusted authority figure for advice. And what they are told, in both these books, is "Don't question, don't think, just pray and believe."

To which I say, what?

Now, to be fair, I'm sure this does actually happen in real life at times. I'm sure there are places where people are that ignorant, or that lacking in confidence about the integrity of their beliefs, that honest questions and doubts frighten them and they try to silence the questioner as soon as possible. So I'm not saying this scenario is implausible, as such.

That being said, I have spent my whole life attending conservative evangelical Christian churches, and I have NEVER heard anyone say anything like this. Not from the pulpit, not in small Bible studies, not in personal conversation. What I've always heard instead is that the Christian faith is reasonable and that there is good evidence for believing it, and that people who are struggling with doubts and questions need more information, not less.

( Usually this is what happens... )

When John the Baptist was in prison and began to doubt that Jesus was the Messiah (and the gospels tell us quite clearly that he did), Jesus didn't say, "Tell John I'm disappointed in him for his lack of faith." He didn't even say, "Tell John to remember what he saw with his own eyes when he baptized Me -- how the Spirit of God came down from heaven like a dove and the Father Himself declared that He was well pleased with Me." Instead, He performed a number of new miracles in the sight of John's disciples, and he said, "Go back and tell John what you have just seen -- how I have healed these people before your eyes. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me."

And then, instead of launching into a sermon on the evils of doubt using John as an example, Jesus turned to the crowds and began to talk about how great a prophet John was. He did not say one word of reproach against John for struggling with doubt. Instead, He gave John the encouragement -- and evidence -- that he needed to regain his confidence and hope.

That is a Biblical, Christian response to doubt.

Of course, if your whole point is to write a book about how Christianity is weak and unsatisfying and poisonous to the intellect, and how much happier you will be if you abandon it in favor of some other belief (because goodness knows people of other religions and philosophies never ever struggle with doubt or dissatisfaction about those beliefs, and it's not like self-questioning and uncertainty is endemic to mankind or anything) then I guess there's not going to be much room in the book to include things like counseling and apologetics, or any Christian characters who actually possess some degree of intellect, education and integrity.

But if you write a book like that, then I reserve the right to roll my eyes at your bigotry and walk away.

Yesterday, thanks to the kind offices of Twitter, I followed a link to an opinion piece about the recent controversy in the Montgomery County school system, where a teacher is being challenged and accused of corrupting young minds because of the inclusion of certain books in her classroom reading list.

No, that isn't what I'm going to rant about. Actually, the article made some quite good points about the dangers of judging these things hastily or leaping to wrong conclusions about the people or books involved, so there's not much to complain of there.

The column was nevertheless responsible for triggering this rant, however. Because halfway down the page I came across the following statement:

"I believe consenting adults should be able to write, publish, read or surf almost any loony material they please (with the exceptions of child pornography and nuclear secrets), just as I believe they ought to be free to worship anything from the fire-spewing God of the Old Testament to pet rocks."

Think you know what I'm going to rant about now? You're probably wrong. Actually, it was the "fire-spewing God of the Old Testament" part that got my dander up, and not much else.

Is the author of this piece (a pastor no less) actually saying that the God of the OT is completely different from the God of the NT, and one whom only "loony" people would worship? I would hope that I am misunderstanding him on that point, not least for the sake of my Jewish friends. But whether the author means what he appears to be saying or not, he's far from being the first to claim that the God of the Old Testament is somehow significantly different in temperament from the God described in the New. I've been hearing similar assertions from people -- not just skeptics trying to disparage the Bible, but professing believers as well -- all my life.

And quite frankly, it drives me crazy. Because I've been reading and studying the Bible since I was a child -- I've read it cover to cover several times and studied the major books of the Old and New Testament more times than I can count -- and based on everything I can see about God's character as revealed throughout the Bible, the idea that the Old Testament God is a big meanie and the New Testament God is jolly old Santa Claus is just not true.

( First, let's have a look at God's character in the Old Testament... )

( Not to mention the New Testament… )

You may or may not agree with any of this: you may not think the Bible historically accurate or even in some vague sense "spiritually true". It may be that as far as you've seen, you find both the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New to be unappealing and as such, the idea that they are one and the same hardly matters.

But I do hope this rant of mine makes it at least somewhat evident that the much-touted dividing line between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New is really no wider than a single thin, rustling page... and that the God of the Bible is -- to use a New Testament phrase -- "the same yesterday, and today, and forever," whether you choose to love and trust and worship Him for it or not.

First, let's watch a video. No worries, it's short. If you haven't seen it before, trust me, it's well worth watching; and even if you have seen it, I think it's worth watching again.



Right. Is your mind officially blown? I know mine was, when I first saw this and realized just how unimaginably huge VV Cephei is compared to… well, basically everything else in the clip, and yet how that single star is only one among countless others in this vast universe. I mean, space is big. Really big (thank you, Douglas Adams).

Which leads me to another video narrated by Carl Sagan entitled "Pale Blue Dot", which many have found to be similarly astounding and moving:



(Or if you're tired of watching videos you can just read the text of the monologue instead.)

What interests me about Sagan's monologue is that so much of it is undeniably true – and yet there's one crucial point on which I would have to disagree. Sagan, as many others have done before and after him, looks at the sheer inconceivable size and scope of the universe and comes to the conclusion that it is simply too big, and we are simply too small by comparison, for us to believe that our lives have any higher purpose, or that there is a God who cares about us.

To which I say, wait, what?

( Further thoughts... )

So while I view the video about the relative size of stars with open-mouthed awe and a chill running up my spine at the unbelievable immensity of it all, and while I am also moved by Carl Sagan's appeal for human beings to be good to each other because our world is so tiny and so alone, I can't mistake either of these things as evidence that there is no God, or that God is too big to be bothered with the needs and struggles of puny human beings.

Rather, I believe that because God is so great – so vast and complex indeed that the size of the universe is just a tiny picture of His greatness – He is also infinitely capable of noticing and caring about you and me, far more than we humans are capable of noticing and caring for even the people we love best in the world.

Which means I can watch those videos about the immensity of the universe and the apparent insignificance of the Earth and humanity in the cosmic scheme of things, and then, with no sense of irony or self-contradiction, I can tuck my children into bed and sing to them:

Jesus loves me, this I know,
For the Bible tells me so;
Little ones to Him belong,
They are weak, and He is strong.

Amen.

Did you know that Easter was not in fact a borrowed pagan holiday? I did not know this -- I myself had swallowed the line that Christianity took it over from some pagan spring festival. Hat tip to Jeff Overstreet for this one.

Also in the spirit of the season, tree_and_leaf pointed me to this fine article by John Polkinghorne on Motivated Belief and the Stringent Search for Truth. Which in turn reminded me of this poem, "Guard at the Sepulcher" by Edwin Markham:

I was a Roman soldier in my prime;
Now age is on me, and the yoke of time.
I saw your Risen Christ, for I am he
Who reached the hyssop to Him on the tree,
And I am one of two who watched beside
The sepulcher of Him we crucified.

All that last night I watched with sleepless eyes;
Great stars arose and crept across the skies.
The world was all too still for mortal rest,
For pitiless thoughts were busy in the breast.
The night was long, so long it seemed at last
I had grown old and a long life had passed.
Far off, the hills of Moab, touched with light,
Were swimming in the hallow of the night.
I saw Jerusalem all wrapped in cloud,
Stretched like a dead thing folded in a shroud.

Once in the pauses of our whispered talk
I heard a something on the garden walk.
Perhaps it was a crisp leaf lightly stirred --
Perhaps the dream-note of a waking bird.
Then suddenly an angel, burning white,
Came down with earthquake in the breaking light,
And rolled the great stone from the sepulcher,
Mixing the morning with a scent of myrrh.
And lo, the Dead had risen with the day:
The Man of Mystery had gone His way!

Years have I wandered, carrying my shame;
Now let the tooth of time eat out my name.
For we, who all the wonder might have told,
Kept silence, for our mouths were stopt with gold.

First, my brother just sent me a link to this article in the Times Online by an atheist reflecting on the place Christianity has in Africa, and as the daughter of a former missionary to Uganda (and also since I've been researching African missionary work for Wayfarer), I found it very interesting.

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Second, and I can't believe I almost forgot to blog this, I discovered something about my oldest son yesterday. He'd been insisting for months that Grade 3 (which he's in right now) wasImage via Wikipedia "a girl's grade". I thought when he first said so that he was trying to disparage it and say that it was too easy, the way that little (and some not-so-little) boys contemptuously dismiss things that aren't interesting to them as "girly". I corrected him and told him that Grade 3 was harder than Grade 2, and he hadn't said that Grade 2 was a girl's grade, so what was he talking about? He looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Of course not. 2 is a boy."

Light began to dawn. I asked him to run through the numbers from 1 to 10 and tell me what gender they were. Without hesitation he told me that 1 and 2 were boys, 3 was a girl, 4 was a boy, and so on. Then I asked him, "What color is 8?" and he promptly replied, "Orange." 7 was blood red, 6 was beige, and 1 was a color he couldn't even describe and called "googleplexia" for lack of any better name.

Ladies and gentlemen, my oldest son is a synaesthete.

Not a very strong one, mind. We did the tests on the Synesthesia Battery and he only has color associations with a very few letters and musical notes (and some people's names). He has no taste associations, and sounds don't make him see shapes. It's mostly just that numbers have color and gender for him. But still, I am delighted.

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And finally, my best wishes to all my online friends for a peaceful, happy and successful 2009!

Hee! Calling the two sections of his vlog on Science and Ethics "Intelligently Chosen Talks (Featured)" and "Naturally Selected Talks (Most Popular)" -- John Lennox, ILU.

And as someone who's memorized C.S. Lewis's poem "The Apologist's Evening Prayer", I especially enjoyed this short (2 min.) video on Argumentation: An Intellectual Game?

But really all the videos on Dr. Lennox's site are worth watching, I think.

Okay, I am not normally in the habit of inflicting random videos of other people's moppets on people, but this is actually quite amazing. Check out this two-year-old girl -- only a couple of months older than my own toddler -- singing "The Lord's Prayer":



I'm particularly fond of the conducting near the end.

If a godless totalitarian government ever takes over and forces us all to celebrate Take an Atheist to Lunch Day, I want dibs on Theodore Dalrymple. Mind you, that's assuming he's still available at that point, and not locked up as a traitor to the State.

Here's a sample from his recent essay on the books of Dawkins, Harris et al, "What the New Atheists Don’t See":

In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins quotes with approval a new set of Ten Commandments for atheists, which he obtained from an atheist website, without considering odd the idea that atheists require commandments at all, let alone precisely ten of them; nor does their metaphysical status seem to worry him. The last of the atheist’s Ten Commandments ends with the following: “Question everything.” Everything? Including the need to question everything, and so on ad infinitum?

Not to belabor the point, but if I questioned whether George Washington died in 1799, I could spend a lifetime trying to prove it and find myself still, at the end of my efforts, having to make a leap, or perhaps several leaps, of faith in order to believe the rather banal fact that I had set out to prove. Metaphysics is like nature: though you throw it out with a pitchfork, yet it always returns. What is confounded here is surely the abstract right to question everything with the actual exercise of that right on all possible occasions. Anyone who did exercise his right on all possible occasions would wind up a short-lived fool.

And another, in response to Christopher Hitchens' assertion that "Religion spoils everything":

It is surely not news, except to someone so ignorant that he probably wouldn’t be interested in these books in the first place, that religious conflict has often been murderous and that religious people have committed hideous atrocities. But so have secularists and atheists, and though they have had less time to prove their mettle in this area, they have proved it amply. If religious belief is not synonymous with good behavior, neither is absence of belief, to put it mildly.

In fact, one can write the history of anything as a chronicle of crime and folly. Science and technology spoil everything: without trains and IG Farben, no Auschwitz; without transistor radios and mass-produced machetes, no Rwandan genocide. First you decide what you hate, and then you gather evidence for its hatefulness. Since man is a fallen creature (I use the term metaphorically rather than in its religious sense), there is always much to find.

There are plenty more gems in the essay, but to appreciate Dalrymple's honesty as well as his dry wit, you really need to read the whole thing.

Thanks to wittingshire for the tip.

I want to feel happy and confident about my writing. I want to find an agent who is excited about my work. I want to see my books in print. But even without any of those things, I have a God who is faithful, and there is no excuse whatsoever for me not to be content.



*goes back to revising the opening pages of Indigo, just in case*