The Infidel Guy

I've recently taken to downloading a few podcasts using iTunes. One of the more interesting weekly podcasts that I've been listening to is the Infidel Guy show.

This is basically a radio show, hosted by an atheist, who has various 'theist' and 'atheist' guests on to discuss various aspects of (mostly Christian) belief, the authority of the bible, who was Jesus?, etc.

Some of the issues raised in the show have set me thinking, so I'll probably post some 'responses' here over the next few weeks... so keep watching.

Homosexuality in the clergy

I am a member of a Scottish Episcopal church, which is the Scottish version of the Anglican church. A few months ago the issue of homosexuality in the clergy came to the fore in our part of the church and the debate that has arisen looks set to tear the church in two over this issue. I can't go into all the details here, but the news section of the Scottish Anglican website covers all the important bits.

The issue came onto the international scene last year when the American Anglican church appointed an openly practicing homosexual bishop. The worldwide Anglican church responded to this with the Windsor Report, to which many subsets of the church responded in turn. The Bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church included this text as part of their response:

"The Scottish Episcopal Church has never regarded the fact that someone was in a close relationship with a member of the same sex as in itself constituting a bar to the exercise of an ordained ministry."

Which pretty much implies that the Scottish Episcopal Church will ordain practicing homosexuals for the ministry. Furthermore it sounds like the Scottish Episcopal Church is siding with the American Anglicans and rejecting the Windsor Report.

Lots of clergy, churches and individuals within the church have reacted strongly against this. (See the Scottish Anglican website again for more details.) And the media have picked up on it too. They portray the debate as being divided into two opposing opinions which are:

1. The 'liberal' view that homosexual practice is not incompatible with being a minister of the church, and
2. The 'orthodox' view that homosexual practice is forbidden in the bible and therefore should not be tolerated amongst the clergy.

And once again I find myself stuck in the grey area between the two camps.

The thing that most annoys me about the 'liberal' view is that it is basically turning a blind eye to the wider issues. If unmarried practicing homosexual clergy are permitted in the church, why not unmarried practicing heterosexual clergy? There is an ineqaulity here; homosexual Christians seem to have greater sexual freedom that heterosexual ones. And if some forms of homosexual practice are acceptable for a Christian, surely the church should offer clear guidance on the issue, as it does for heterosexual Christians - presumably the 'chastity before marriage, fidelity within marriage' ideal applies to homosexuals as well as heterosexuals? But no guidance at all is on offer; if you are heterosexual you are expected to stick within the guidelines, but if you are homosexual you can do whatever you like. And if homosexual relationships are equal to heterosexual ones, why aren't the church leaders pushing for homosexual marriage (not merely 'blessings of union' but actual marriage)? I think the inequalities in this position are indefensible.

What it boils down to is this: if some forms of homosexual practice are not sin, then somebody needs to say so and be clear on this issue. But nobody on the liberal side is prepared to say what is or isn't sin, or what is or isn't acceptable.

However, the 'orthodox' position in this debate annoys me just as much. The opinion 'it is forbidden in the bible so it must remain forbidden today' doesn't work. There are heaps of things forbidden in the bible that we don't think twice before doing today.

Consider the story in Acts chapter 15. Here the issue of circumcision came to the fore in the early church - were gentile Christians required to be circumcised? After much debate the church leaders decided that no, gentile believers weren't required to be circumcised. Indeed, the church leaders went further than that and said that the gentile Christians should not have to 'carry the burden' of the old testament law - all that was required of gentile believers was:

1. Avoidance of food sacrificed to idols
2. Avoidance of blood consumption
3. Avoidance of meat from strangled animals
4. No sexual immorality

The rest of the old testament laws govening eating habits, clothes, interpersonal relationships, etc., etc. could be discarded.

There are (at least) three things in this passage which may give some guidance in the current situation.

The first (and possibly most important) thing that this passage tells me is that the 'church leaders' actually have the authority to over-rule what the bible says! The message of this passage is that Christians do not have to adhere to old testament law! By implication, it is clear that if the current leaders of the church were to decide that homosexuality is OK, then it would be OK! However, the 'church leaders' haven't made this decision yet, only some small subsets of the church are claiming this.

My second thought on this passage is that 'sexual immorality' is a particularly vague term which may or may not include homosexuality, depending on your interpretation of the words. Is morality an absolute or does it change? For example, having slaves was once considered OK, even for Christians, but today we would certainly class slavery as immoral. Is morality defined in terms of the contemprary culture? If so, perhaps homosexuality is not necessarily immoral.

My third thought on the passage is this: the early church leaders only placed four restrictions on believers. The thing that strikes me about this list is that item 1 no longer really applies to us today, and I do not know any Christians who adhere to rules 2 or 3 either. I know many Christians who eat black pudding (a blood product) and strangulation is a not unusual way of killing poultry - yet no-one I know stops to ask how the chicken they buy in the supermarket was killed? Given that we ignore three of the four rules, why do we stick so rigidly to the fourth?

Of course, all this does not solve the issue, but actually makes it more complex. The issue is not black and white but a kind of murky grey.

I cannot really ally myself to either side of the debate (or the third, silent, camp that acknowledges that there are homosexuals in the church, but think the issue should be swept under the carpet and ignored). One side appears to be saying 'come in, everything you do is fine by us' and the other side says 'stay out, we don't want you in our church' but neither of these approches sounds very like something that Jesus would say. He preached of a kingdom that was open to all, but that those who entered in to it would have to change their lives around. He would not turn any who came to him away, but he would give clear instructions on how people should behave.

Guided evolution?

Another of the misconceptions in the science vs. creation debate is the view, held by much of the 'theist' camp, that humanity - in its current form - is the pinnacle of creation, indeed, is the reason for creation. These people frequently assume that the reason God created everything in the first place was so that there would be a place for us.

I think this is sheer arrogance on our part.

There are two common schools of thought based on this (mis)conception.

The first is the strict creationist view that God created mankind - exactly as we are now - out of the dust, as described in Genesis.

The second view is that of 'guided evolution' - the theory that we have evolved from lower life forms, but that God guided the process so that we (and not some other creature) were the end result.

Atheistic scientists reject this theory totally as it is actually not 'evolution' in any way - there is no 'survival of the fittest' etc. But despite this, this theory is the one held by the majority of the American public in a recent survey (see New Scientist last month).

Despite being a Christian and a believer in evolution, I reject this theory as well. Evolution only works if there are no imposed guidelines. I believe that God created this universe so that life would evolve, develop, become self aware and ultimately enter into relationship with Himself. I don't believe that he constrained this process in any way in order that the 'ultimate' life would look like anything pre-determined, or have a pre-determined number of legs or anything.

It is only by holding to this belief that I can reconcile a belief in a creator with scientific discoveries like dinosaurs and other evolutionary 'dead-ends'. If evolution was guided there would be no point in dinosaurs or trilobites or anything else not present in the world as it is in our time.

Supernatural...

Following on from my thoughts on science vs. Christianity, I am annoyed by the use of cetain words used in the debate - mostly by the anti-theist camp.

The main word I object to the use of is "Supernatural".

It is frequently used to dismiss many aspects of belief. The argument goes that belief/faith rely on supernatural events, and if something is supernatural then it cannot be tested by science and so you can't, scientifically speaking, believe in it.

My opinion on all this is that everything that has ever happened is natural. There is no supernatural! Everything God does conforms to His own 'laws' or 'rules' and those rules define the natural world. If an apparently supernatural event appears to have happened, then it wasn't supernatural, it was merely a natural process that is either very rare or simply one we have not seen before.

Its just another instance of a hidden, incorrect, assumption being used to boost the arguement of one side or the other.

Intelligent Design vs Evolution

Can you be a scientist and believe in a creator God? Well, obviously yes. I do, and I know many others who do too.

The funny thing is that both sides in the latest science vs. religion debate seem to say "no".

The Intelligent Design (ID) camp essentially claim that all science is atheistic at heart (despite trying to take evolution on in the scientific arena) and some of the science camp are claiming that if there is a creator then all scientific endevour is fundamentally pointless.

Of course, there's (unstated) assumptions on both sides which invalidate both arguements (in my opinion).

The atheistic/science camp seem to make a lot of assumptions along the lines of "if there is a creator/god then he must be like..." [insert stereotype deity here]. What they end up saying is that science and a belief in their misconception of God are incompatible, which may be true. But doesn't say anything about whether real science is incompatible with the real God.

The other side in the debate has unstated assumptions about what science actually is. As far as I can see, the ID camp have a definite agenda to undermine certain bits of 'science' whilst totally avoiding others. But I won't go into this too much as it is all said elsewhere - see one of the issues of New Scientist magazine last month (July 2005).

So how can I, a scientist and a Christian, reconcile the two apparently incompatible world views? Well, its easy really: my experience of life has lead me to the absolute conviction that God exists and that he interacts with His people and His creation. My experirence of His creation is that it works according to certain testable and repeatable 'laws' which science is able to determine.

Science tells us how the world works. Sometimes it gets it wrong of course, but we eventually get it right. Science does not generally tell us why the world works in the way it does. Then again, Christianity frequently doesn't tell us that either - but it does tell of the person behind the 'why'. And you can experience that person for yourself.