Two new academic posts in St Andrews Divinity school
We have today advertised two new posts, in Systematic and Historical Theology, and in Theological Ethics. The adverts are here (S&HT) and here (ethics). The posts are permanent, on the Lecturer scale. We’re hopeful of getting some good applicants and two outstanding new colleagues. This really is a great place to live and to work!
Read MoreThinking about social media
I’ve been a bit slow in blogging here, over the past few weeks, but I have been writing things elsewhere, particularly in the area of churches and social media. If you’ve not seen them, and are interested, I have three pieces on the Baptist Times website about this: What is ‘social media’? The future of social media A theology of social media I also did a video interview with the American site Ethics Daily on a similar...
Read MoreA truly ‘conservative’ evangelical account of gender and church office
I want here to take issue with the term ‘conservative evangelical’: a ‘conservative evangelical,’ if words retain any meaning, should necessarily be actively committed to promoting the equal ministry of women and men at every level of church office.
Read MoreAdaptive theologies for a changing climate
My friend Ruth Valerio has a typically thoughtful and well-written blog post up about the need for adaptive theologies in the face of our changing climate, to which she drew my attention when we were talking about something else. (If you don’t follow Ruth’s blog, you should; she offers intelligent and important comment, and also delicious recipes!) Ruth draws on a distinction now standard in discussions of climate change between ‘mitigation’ and ‘adaptation’. We can, and should, attempt to mitigate the damage done to the environment by radically reducing fossil fuel use, extensively planting trees, or whatever; at the same time, we have to acknowledge that climate change is already irreversible, and so there is a need to adapt our lives and practices for the new reality of a warmed world: we should ask what patterns of crop planting in tropical zones will be most resistant to spreading desertification as the temperature continues to rise, for example. In her post, Ruth suggests that most of our theological responses to climate change have so far been about mitigation: we have tried to highlight the issue, and to commend low-carbon strategies as a part of Christian discipleship. This is not wrong – indeed, it is profoundly right – but, Ruth suggests, we need to go further, and think about theology for a warmed world – an adaptive theological response. My initial reaction was to suggest to Ruth that what she was looking for was a Christian ethics more than a theology; I now think that reaction was wrong, or at least only half right. Clearly, there are ethical issues to do with adaptation: can we run conferences the way we do? is our practice of mission, even, which increasingly involves regular air travel, something that needs to be changed? should we already be thinking of alternatives to the ‘attractional’ church model, which assumes that people from a wide area will drive to a large building to enjoy an energy-hungry service? These, and broader, ethical issues have to be on the table. I think, however, that Ruth is right to suggest that there are theological issues also, and that I was wrong to try to deflect that suggestion. It is not possible to read the literature on climate change without quickly tripping over a third term added to ‘mitigation’ and ‘adaptation’; the third term is ‘suffering’. Every mission agency worthy of the name is already trumpeting the fact that climate change is causing serious suffering to the poorest people in tropical regions: patterns of subsistence farming that were precariously adequate are being rendered impossible by global warming. The suffering caused by our changing climate is destined only to increase, in one way or another: at worst, rich Western nations will be able to maintain our standards of living by inflicting astonishing levels of suffering on our sisters and brothers in less developed countries; at best, we will all share in a painful re-alignment of our patterns of life as part of our mitigation of, and adaptation to, the changing climate (and other realities, such as oil reserves running out). It is not hard to spot the general historical response to increased suffering theologically: Christian populations who find life hard in this world look increasingly to the next world, and to the promise of an easier time in the coming Kingdom. This is, of course, not wrong and, where the suffering was imposed from without, it can be read as a testimony to the explanatory power of the Christian worldview. Slaves in the southern states of America, for instance, constructed a spirituality (enshrined musically in the spirituals) that focused extensively on the promise of good things in heaven, and that spirituality enabled at least some to maintain their hope and dignity in the face of brutal injustice in their present life. Such a spirituality might be criticised for being too ‘other-worldly’, but the critic must acknowledge that the experience of suffering in the present is such that there is great theological power in holding out for a better future. There is a degree of distortion in such theologies, but for the one suffering brutally through no fault of her own, that distortion appears appropriate, and she should continue to preach in such terms to her congregation. What, however, if the suffering of the present life is caused precisely by our own culpable neglect of the Christian mandate for creation care? Here, I am talking not about people in Africa whose traditional agricultural practices are being rendered ineffective by climate change, but about people in Europe and North America whose lifestyle choices – en masse – have caused and are causing...
Read MoreA US election, social media, and Christian internationalism
In every country in the world bar one, thoughtful Christian people seem to be remarkably united in publicly expressing pleasure and relief at the re-election of Barack Obama as President of the USA; the single exception is the USA itself, where the reaction is considerably more mixed, and the majority position probably leans towards sadness at the outcome, with a significant minority expressing something like horror. How do we make any sense of that?
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