Did Luke get Christmas wrong?

I've been chewing this over for a while now as I prepare to look at Luke 2 over Christmas

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.)

Luke 2: 1-2

I'm sure we all know some of the problems with this - e.g. King Herod (cf. Luke 1: 5 and Matthew 1-2) died before Quirnius was governor. Richard Dawkins takes great delight in highlighting them in The God Delusion.

In my mind there are three questions:

1. What is the correct translation of verse 2? Especially of 'prote' (= first above) - is it possible to translate it 'before Quirnius was governor'? Or is that merely an attempt to harmonise the gospel accounts with history?

(Herod died in 4BC, the census that was finalised under Quirnius happened 6/7 AD.)

2. What do we think is the most likely historical reconstruction of what happened? And in doing that, how do we weigh up conflicting accounts? With things like censi (is that the plural of census or a martial arts expert?) sometimes taking decades to complete are we reading a modern notion of history back into the text?

3. How does this all fit with Luke's introductory appeal to Theophilus? If Luke has got it all wrong then doesn't that seriously undermine his claim to have investigated eye-witness accounts?

This is not merely academic to me. At the moment my first point from Luke 2 is going to be - Jesus is a real person because he had a birth certificate. That comes from the text but I want to be able to preach that with confidence and integrity.

The Lure of Pornography

I was speaking to someone recently who struggle with internet porngraphy. This is a very common issue, especially amongst men, and therefore the first step to dealing with it is to admit to it. My guess would be that several guys at PBC struggle with this issue.

A recent article / sermon (from Proverbs 7) I read on the subject was really helpful - pornography unmasked.

Here are the 6 lures taken from it:


Lure #1: The Forbidden
One of the marketing strategies of pornography is to create settings and scenarios that present the lure of the forbidden.

Lure #2: The Physical Body

Lure #3: Passivity
Pornography’s message is that the man can take it easy; he can avoid the assertiveness of real relationships and reap the benefits of sexual pleasure anyway.

Lure #4: Comfort
One of the self-justifications we often use when we gear up to view pornography is that we want to unwind, we want to relax, and we want to reward ourselves after a hard day.

Lure #5: Ego-Fulfillment
The man that repeatedly returns to pornography is caught in the fantasy experience that the woman on the screen is selling to him: she wants him, she notices him and she makes him feel like a real man.

Lure #6: Secrecy
Often what makes porn so enticing is that it is viewed in secret.

The analysis is spot on. Read the original sermon for Biblical advice on how to deal with this sin.

Our beds are burning

We looked at a gospel response to Indigenous Australians on Sunday. The sermon should be on the website to listen to by now if you missed it. Likewise (on the PBC website) there should be a link to Peter Adam's excellent lecture on this topic at Morling College back in August. I'd recommend reading this first too.

We looked at Luke 19: 1-10 (Zacchaeus demonstrated his repentance by making recompense - saying sorry is not enough) and 1 Peter 2: 21-25 (the only hope for Australia is found in the cross).

However, the question is 'what should we do?' Several people at PBC have expressed my own feeling in preparation - this is such a huge issue, where do we start? We feel paralysed by the enormity of it.

So this post is an open invitation to think through some practical suggestions. It is incredibly tempting to simply ignore the issue - to feel a bit better that we've talked about it but then just move on having done nothing.

Right, here are a few brief reflections and then some practical proposals:

a) There is no need (anymore) for us to feel personally guilty for the past - Christ has dealt with that, once and for all, on the cross.

b) However, just because we have been forgiven (both individually and collectively) does not minimise our need to seek to make restitution. If we believe in a God of justice we will seek to do so. This is not instead of the cross but rather because of it. (Ephesians 2: 8-10)

c) We are only accountable for our response to the gospel. It is not our job to force Indigenous Australians to forgive the past (in Christ Jesus), our job is to demonstrate our repentance.

d) Following on from c) - different cultures will apply the gospel to their own culture. On the one hand we must not place culture above scripture (and thus beyond critique) but on the other we must not assume that an Aboriginal (or Torres Islander) response to the gospel of Jesus Christ will look exactly like ours. Hence one key aspect here is dialogue with Indigenous Australians. We may think we are helping them when we are not; we may think we are making restitution but may be doing so on our terms.

e) The gospel is the only way we can escape the natural human cycle of injustice. As Australians are treated as both villains and victims so we are able to draw a line under the past and move on. This means that all of us must stop blaming everyone else and take responsibility for our own lives and our own communities.

So, here are some practical suggestions for PBC to get the ball rolling:

1. Flags - I've bought an Australian flag and an Aboriginal flag for the church. Could we have them up often in church simply to symbolise that Christ is for all Australians - Indigenous and non-Indigenous. I know a flag is another gesture, rather than an action, but it is at least a start. Equally, I realise that the Australian flag itself is supposed to unite all Australians, but I still think that the symbolism of an Aboriginal flag says something about PBC welcoming Indigenous Australians.

(BTW I tried to buy an Aboriginal flag in a local mall. When I asked the shop assistant if they had any she replied, "Nah, only Australian ones." I knew what she meant, but the irony was not lost on me!)

2. Acknowledgement - is it worth putting something on the outline each week (quoting Psalm 24) ... that the earth is the Lord and so no one nation can claim rights to the land? Everyone who has lived in Petersham has done so dependent on the Lord's grace - first the Gadigal people and later immigrants from many nations. The wording would have to be carefully scripted but there must be some way to acknowledge the original inhabitants of Australia.

3. Church connections - we need to support gospel ministry amongst Aboriginals. Is there some project in Redfern or in the Northern Territories with which we can partner? Alongside the obvious gospel partnership this would surely develop our understanding and appreciation of Indigenous culture.

4. Campaigning - I haven't had time to read it all carefully but the website ANTar seems to have plenty of sensible campaigns and ideas how to help and support Indigenous Australians.


Right. Over to you...

MX reporting - tough love or lesbian love?

Since my wife works in town on Mondays and Tuesdays she brought back a copy of MX from the train today - the cream of Australian reportage.

Following my recent post she drew my attention to some recent research (quoted in MX) that suggests that lesbian couples are better than heterosexual couples in bringing up children.

Interested, I did a quick google search on the organisation that did the research (London's National Academy for Parenting Practitioners) and also the think tank that have picked it up - Demos.

I can't find any reference to this in UK media coverage or indeed on the NAPP or DEMOS websites. Or rather I can find plenty of coverage of the NAPP's report on parenting however all the newspaper coverage in the UK picks up on something else from the report. This is from The Independent on November 8th 2009 (just a week ago):

A generation of liberal parents has striven towards a utopian ideal: raising their children in a non-confrontational household, unfettered by strict rules. But a new study of 9,000 households found that children whose parents favoured this laissez-faire style of parenting were less likely to develop vital life skills – such as empathy, self-control and application – by the age of five than those whose parents took a traditional "tough love" approach.

While the "tough love" approach to parenting – defined as combining warmth with firm rules and clear boundaries – was thought to have gone out of fashion in the 1950s, researchers found that children with this upbringing were a third more likely to have well-developed "soft" skills than those with more relaxed parents.

In a blow to the huge numbers of parents who are divorced or remarried, the study also found that children with married parents were twice as likely to develop good skills as those living with stepfamilies or single parents.

And then later in the same article ...

The Building Character report, produced by the Demos think tank using data collected as part of the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS), found that parenting style is the most important factor in determining child character development, cancelling any differences in development between children from richer and poorer families.

Researchers found that tough-love parenting is less frequent in low-income households, with only 9.8 per cent of the poorest parents subscribing to it. Twelve per cent of parents in the lowest-income quintile were found to be disengaged. "The factors that get in the way of more effective parenting are found more frequently in families living in disadvantaged conditions," said Professor Stephen Scott, director for research for the National Academy for Parenting Practitioners. "These include a stressful lifestyle interrupted by events such as serious physical illness, domestic violence, poor housing and medical disorders such as depression and drug misuse."

Now, it is quite possible that the bit about Lesbian parenting is buried somewhere else in the report and it hasn't hit the headlines yet. Nevertheless it is quite interesting that here in Australia MX decided to pick up on this while ignoring what everyone else thinks is the thrust of the report. This is another example of the survey society we live in. The question is not even which survey do you trust, but can come down to which part of which survey is actually quoted.

As I said MX is the gold standard of reporting down under!?

The Survey says ...

This is something that has been bothering me for a while - it is especially relevant when trying to discuss social changes, e.g. to marriage. For the current sermon series on Aussie culture I've been re-reading Advance Australia ... where? by Hugh MacKay - a social researcher who gives an excellent summary of where Australia is 'at' today.

In his introduction, however, he makes the following two points by way of clarification about the study of attitudes:

1. It is very dangerous to assume too much from what people say: "we are all very good at saying one thing and doing another."
2. It is also dangerous to assume attitudes predict behaviour when it's usually the other way round. "Banners don't make the wind blow a certain way. Attitudes are an indicator of how we've reacted; they are not reliable predictors of how we might react to something that hasn't happened yet."

FWIW I agree with this. Now these comments are only by way of introduction. MacKay then goes to base his book on research and surveys etc. So he obviously sees the benefit of such studies, he is just wary about any over-reliance. Well I do wonder if we are becoming over-reliant. ISTM that whenever the government wants to do something they usually roll it out with some survey that (allegedly) proves what they want it to. I am very wary of this straight 'we must do what the survey says' approach precisely because of the two points above. I wish such research was used more as the start of a discussion rather than as the end of an argument.

So, is this a worrying trend in our culture or just another example of the on-set of grumpy old man syndrome (in me)?

more pilfering from The Gum Thief

"A few years back I had to organize my son Brendan's, funeral. Joan was completely wrecked, and I was barely keeping it together. I remember sitting there with the funeral director, trying to think of what to say in the death notice or whom I could invite to speak. I drew a blank, and the director, an older guy - white hair, a head shaped like a stone dug out of a Scottish field, a guy who'd been through a trench or two - suggested that no one had to speak and we could recite grade school stuff like the Lord's Prayer. He said that most people know it by heart, and we could all get through the proceedings with a sliver of dignity.

He must have smelled my breath-tequila-because he looked at me a moment, then went to his desk and pulled out some very peaty Scotch, almost like soil syrup, and poured both of us a few fingers. He told me that most people who come to arrange services don't believe in anything. He said that if he's learned anything from doing his job, it's that if you don't have a spiritual practice in place when times are good, you can't expect to suddenly develop one during a moment of crisis. He said we're told by TV and movies and Reader's Digest that a crisis will trigger massive personal change - and that those big changes will make the pain worthwhile. But from what he could see, big change almost never happens. People simply feel lost. They have no idea what to say or do or feel or think. They become messes and tend to remain messes. Having a few default hymns and prayers at least makes the lack of crisis-born insight bearable. The man was a true shepherd of souls. Why don't men like him run for public office?"

Extract from The Gum Thief, by Douglas Coupland.

Painfully insightful. Chillingly honest ... "if you don't have a spiritual practice in place when times are good, you can't expect to suddenly develop one during a moment of crisis."

Lessons in life:

#1 - growth through adversity is not automatic, it requires the right (disciplined and faithful) response to the adversity.

#2 - if a faithful attitude cannot be cultivated when times are good, don't expect it to magically appear when the going gets tough.

Conservatives & Politics

This has been an issue buzzing away in my brain ever since the comments about the definition of marriage and civil partnerships. Christians always seem to be protesting against gays but never protesting against the wrong treatment of gays.

I wonder if part of the problem is the current system of western politics - based around special interest lobbying.

Things get done in politics today by coalitions around issues. Human nature being what it is, it is really hard to get people to agree on anything these days - therefore the 'voice' put out by various groups is usually black and white, without any nuance.

Generally conservatives (politically and theologically) are opposed to gay marriage and feel they can impact public policy if they put up a united front. As soon as nuance is added to the debate coalitions get scared that they will lose the majority vote they think they need.

I want to be clear, I'm not at all trying to justify this - for example it is wrong that conservatives do not speak out enough against violence to homosexuals. I'm just saying that our whole political process makes that hard to do so. The bigger issue is the need to change how we do politics. (Indeed, I would argue that films like Milk protray how the gay rights movement only started to make ground when they started to adopt this style of politics themselves as well - it is the only way to get things done at the moment but it actively encourages division and factionism, the them and us mentality.)