Beware the "Theological Flummery"

I am not at all sure about prayer, and I know I'm not alone in this... 

What is prayer? What and who is it for? Does it get results? I'm not going to really try and answer these questions in this blog post, because I don't know the answers. I know what some of the answers a supposed to be, but they do not always ring true for me. Many answers to the above questions, can in my opinion, be put under the heading of "theological flummery" - a term I have borrowed from Phillip Adams (this week's "outsider")  and his Weekend Australian column from a few weeks ago, entitled "Island of the gods".

We have had a good week as far as prayers go. My mum has just had an operation to remove a cancer from her brain and hundreds of people across the country and world prayed that this operation would go well, and it did. What role did our prayers play in that? Would the operation not have gone well if people didn't pray? I'm not sure how it all works, but these are the kind of questions that jump into my mind, especially during tough times that draw me into prayer. Don't get me wrong, I was happy to pray in this last week and very happy with the outcome of the process. But... I also know that many prayers prayed by people this week did not get answered favourably, and this is what prompts my questions...

Lately, in a humorous attempt to deal with my own questions about prayer, I've been joking about praying to the "milk bottle" for things. This is a reference to a Youtube video I watched called "the best optical illusion in the world", where the narrator challenges the "thinking Christian" to pray to a milk jug for $1000 and see how it answers. The punchline is that it answers in the same way that God apparently does, with either a "yes", "no" or "wait". It's meant to be serious, but it is kind of funny, peppered with some potentially flawed assumptions about the purpose and nature of prayer and some spurious logic. But the value of videos like this, articles like "Island of the  gods" and the convictions of their authors, is that they give serious pray-ers an "outsider's" view into the world of prayer.

They help us to see that most people do not appreciate simple, inadequate answers to the complexities and disappointments of life, and that we should be suspicious of any such simple answers that come our way, as well as those peddling them.  They also challenge us to ask questions about the nature and purpose of prayer, and to reject any assumptions about prayer that reduce it to a "Christmas wish list" for our lives (no matter how important the wishes), and consequently, God as "Santa Claus". It is possible that something a little beyond that, and us ,is going on when it comes to prayer.

Life, disappointments, prayer - this is sacred ground. Beware the "theological flummery"...

Shalom

Steve

Challenging the Chaplains

I remember going to the cricket one day with a group of friends, and one of them asked me how work was going (I work in the training department of SU Qld, the largest employing authority for state school chaplains in Queensland). I got about one or two sentences into my reply when he said, "You know, I really wish you guys didn't do what you do. I mean I like you and all, but I don't like the idea that there are chaplains in schools." Quite an interesting conversation took place after that. It is not the last one I have had, nor am I the only person who has been having these conversations. There has been a bit going on about it in the media over the last few years. 

The first 'outsider' view I wanted to share as part of my blogging 'come back' is about chaplaincy - a subject that is close to my heart. Not only do I work for SU Qld, but I have also worked as a chaplain in a high school. Compass, the ABC program that looks at issues of spirituality and religion in Australia, recently did a program called "Challenging the Chaplains." It looks at both sides of the "Chaplaincy debate" and challenges the place and value of  School-based Chaplaincy. 

I haven't got any comments I want to make about the program particularly. Maybe just to encourage you to watch the video, read some of the comments that people have made afterwards and reflect on it yourself.

To go to the Compass website and watch the program, "Challenging the Chaplains", click here ...

Shalom

Steve

The View from the Outside...

Well, only one post in four months, and that one was really just an apology for not doing any posts... Not a great record in recent times, but one I hope to rectify over the next few months at least. My study is over for the year, and my plan is to allocate some of my freed-up mental real estate to greenspacey type things, at least between now and mid-Feb 2011 when it will all start up again...

There are a few things on my mind today, and they all relate to "outsider" views on faith and spirituality and so that is what I want to start up on today. I have spent quite a bit of energy in the last few years reading about and listening to views on faith and spirituality from those outside of it, and I have had a number of chats with people who currently sit in this place. For those who hold faith of some sort, this is an extremely worthwhile yet threatening experience. Worthwhile in the sense that there is nothing like an outsider to help you to see your blindspots, and threatening in the sense that their is nothing like an outsider to help you see your blindspots.

In the recent subject I taught at Christian Heritage College (WE301 - Reflections on Human Services) we looked a lot at Michel Foucault's ideas around "discourse", which is essentially about worldviews and ideologies, the associated power arrangements, and the concepts, language and structures infused in those ideas and associated power arrangements. You often hear the terms "dominant" discourse or "competing" discourses in the literature on this stuff. It is very post-modern... One of the quotes I loved was that any kind of ideology or worldview we adopt is a "kind of violence" done on reality, because as soon as we begin arranging 'what is' into some set of ideas about 'what is' we have to  do a fair bit of cutting, pasting, blocking out, focusing on, ignoring this and emphasising that etc etc to make it fit in well enough... So in this way, none of us can have it totally right and none of us can have it totally wrong...

Another related set of ideas we talked about was Paulo Friere's material on "dialogue", which is basically about a  way of approaching and engaging with the different ideas, worldviews and discourses of others. This is done in such a way so as to genuinely consider the views of others, what value they might have in themselves, and even what value they might have for ourselves. In some ways it is an acknowledgement that each of us only have a particular worldview or discourse on life  that we are working with, and that others might have picked up on something that we've missed - like a blindspot for example...

One of the things we talked about in this class was whether Christianity was simply another discourse; that is, another way in which the cosmos can be arranged in our minds, communicated to others, argued about and used as a power tool (so to speak)... Some thought this could be right, others thought that something like Christianity sits above all discourses. We considered the "Big T" truth claims of faiths like Christianity and put them up against the "little t" truth claims of postmodernism and tried to locate ourselves in this apparent dichotomy. I wonder if people of faith, at best, can claim that they believe in "Big T" Truth (EG - God, the Bible etc) but have to admit that they can only ever know this in a "little t" truth kind of way (IE - through their own set of 'life goggles'). There is nothing wrong with this position. But if it is "true", then it is a good thing to acknowledge. It might help to keep us humble, with our adopted truth claims in check, open to what God has been revealing to others about 'what is'.

Over the next few weeks, I want to blog on about some examples of outsider views that are out there at the moment and challenge us all to consider what it is that we might need to consider and take on from these views. After that, towards  the end of November, we're going to engage in a few reflections for Advent in the lead up to Christmas. You are most welcome to come along...

Shalom

Steve