Magic Statistics

Another brainstorm from the upper echelons of the Church of England.

Several CofE bishops, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, have “urged” churches to allow Muslims to proselytise “share their faith” with congregations.  This is an effort to improve understanding of Islam in the wake of the Abdul Rahman case which, bishops suggested, “could harm attempts to strengthen relations between the faiths”.  Ya think?

The Bishop of Hulme, the Rt Rev Stephen Lowe, said that the June Whit Walks, which “is at heart a Christian celebration”, could be made into a Walk of Faiths. “At a time when there is an effort to divide religious groups, wouldn’t it be good to see people of faith sharing this kind of witness?” he argued. “As people of faith we have something unique to offer in our understanding of the quality of life. We walk around as Christians to witness to our faith so why not witness to other faiths? We have a value system that we share and we should be celebrating that.” The Bishop of Bolton, the Rt Rev David Gillett, agreed that such walks would be a way of combating the tendency of society to highlight the division caused by religion, rather than its power to unite.

Lord, have mercy.  “Effort to divide religious groups”?  Who would do a thing like that?  “Why not witness to other faiths?”  I dunno; maybe this?

The Whit Walks are new to me, but I take it they are associated with Pentecost Sunday—the day the Holy Spirit descended upon the gathered disciples, giving birth to the church.  What else happened on the first Pentecost?  St Peter’s sermon?  The one where he proclaimed the crucified and resurrected Jesus as Lord and Christ?  Three thousand people baptised and added to the kingdom?  Does that ring any bells?

Islam absolutely and decisively rejects the gospel claim that Jesus was crucified, let alone resurrected.  And that stuff about him being the only-begotten Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary?  Don’t even think about going there. (See blog posts here and here and here.)

Bp Lowe says we should focus on the “value system” we “share” with other faiths, and Bp Gillett refers to religion’s “power to unite”.  Those early church martyrs must have been rather foolish to make such a to-do about Jesus.  They should have put a lid on the church’s proclamation of God’s unique and final revelation in the person of Jesus Christ.  If those early Christians had only been mindful of the “value system” they shared with upright pagans and “united” with them in religious observances, a whole lot of pain discomfort, suffering hurt feelings, and scandal negativity could have been avoided.

Those Anglican bishops understand Sharia Law better than do all those clerics in Afghanistan and other countries actually governed by Sharia.

Bishop Gillett, who is Chair of the Christian-Muslim Forum, wrote to Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, to state his anxiety over the plight of the Afghan Abdul Rahman. He said that conflict between Christianity and Islam abroad could have a negative impact on relations at home. The call for Mr Rahman to be executed under Sharia Law was not representative of Muslims’ views on apostasy, he stressed. “Many non-Muslims misunderstand Sharia Law. It is not a set of rules and regulations. In theory it’s a much more flexible system than an immutable legal code.”

Abdul Rahman’s capital trial for renouncing Islam was only theoretical?  That’s a relief!  I’m sure that Kanti Begum, the 16-year old Bangladeshi girl flogged for the crime of being raped—all according to “Islamic jurisprudence”—feels a whole lot better about the whole thing, too.  Likewise, 18-year old Iranian Nazanin, sentenced to hang for killing her would-be rapist.

At a dinner in Washington DC last week marking the fourth meeting of the Christian-Muslim Building Bridges seminar, Dr Williams called the Rahman trial “outrageous, unjust and exceptional” and stressed that dialogue was critical in resolving distrust between the West and the Islamic world.

I guess two out of three ain’t bad.  Outrageous?  Yep.  Unjust?  Got that right.  Exceptional?  Well, actually, no: it seems to be standard operating procedure over there.

The bishops can’t agree on whether Muslim nations should be expected to adopt bourgeois human rights.  Dr Williams says no.

Dialogue was not simply a “matter of the Islamic world being asked to adopt uncritically a ‘Western-model’, secular human rights framework,” he said, “but working out what it would be like to live in a world where different societies recognised the credibility, the justice and the legitimacy in each other”.

Bp Harries says yes.

Bishop Harries raised the issue in the House of Lords, highlighting the responsibility of Afghanistan to respect the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says that there must be freedom for people to change their religion.

Bp Gillett has his feet firmly planted on both sides of the fence.

Bishop Gillett agreed that this principle must be followed, but acknowledged that the issue of apostasy was particularly sensitive. “It can complicate relations, causing an element of discomfort with one another.

So, what’s more important?  Avoiding “discomfort” or insisting the other guys get over their “sensitivity” when a former Muslim chooses to follow the Lord Jesus?

Some Muslims in Britain have “apostasised” and don’t seem to be getting a lot of help from the CofE.

There are estimated to be around 3,000 Christians who have converted from Islam in the UK, and many of these are reported to face persecution for changing their religion. Nissar Hussain, a Christian from Bradford, became a high-profile victim. He suffered three years of harassment. His car was torched and rammed and bricks were thrown through his window. The Bishop of Bradford, the Rt Rev David James, said that the Church needed to be better equipped to deal with former Muslims wanting to find a “surrogate family”.

The church will never become “better equipped” as long as those bishops are leading the charge to the rear.

Dr Juan Coderch likes to write about current events in ancient Greek, and he’s decided to share his marvelous pastime with the world.  His website, Akropolis World News (AKWN), features the latest news stories written in the language of Plato and Aristotle.  Ancient Greek has not been spoken for two millennia, except in the theatre, but it still has its aficionados.

The biggest problem Dr Coderch had getting AKWN up and running was the lack of fonts for the unique language.  He has surmounted this problem by turning all the text of the articles into images, so anyone can see them in the proper script.

The latest news at the site includes reports on the DaVinci Code trial in London and anti-government protests in Belarus and France.  To report modern news, of course, new words have had to be invented, including interdíktuon (internet), autokíneton (car), tromokratía (terrorism), and petrélaion (petroleum).

Juan Coderch, a native of Spain, is now Senior Lector, Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford.  He has a deep love for both Greek and Latin and refuses to think of them as a “dead” languages: “Far from being ‘dead’, I consider them immortal languages”.

Oxford Today magazine has the whole story.

The popular press has made a big deal about The Gospel of Judas.  On Thursday, National Geographic released their translation of the document complete with a news story and a Lost Gospel Supersite.  Since then, multiple stories have appeared major newspapers around the world, including The New York Times , The Globe and Mail, the London Telegraph, and The Times of London.

The poorly preserved papyrus document depicts Judas Iscariot as Jesus’ favourite disciple.  This Judas received private instruction from Jesus and handed him over to the authorities as an act of obedience, not betrayal.  More than just overturning the New Testament’s presentation of Judas, the text embodies radically different understandings of God, Jesus, the world, salvation, and human existence than those incorporated in the Bible and Christian doctrine.  The Gospel of Judas is predicated upon a Gnostic worldview.  The material realm, including our physical bodies, is believed to be evil; salvation consists in escaping at death from the physical world into the purely spiritual world.  Only the few enlightened with secret knowledge, or gnosis, can hope to be saved.

Princeton professor Elaine Pagels claims that the document shows the early church in a new and hitherto-unknown light as a hotbed of theological ferment.

[T]he Gospel of Judas has joined the other spectacular discoveries [the Gnostic documents discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945] that are exploding the myth of a monolithic Christianity and showing how diverse and fascinating the early Christian movement really was.

One wonders where Dr Pagels heard of that “myth”.  The New Testament knows nothing of it, showing to the contrary that theological controversy is as old as the church itself.  Near the beginning of one of the earliest New Testament writings, St Paul castigates the Galatians for turning away from the true gospel to “a different gospel”. The first letter of St John warns against “many antichrists” who left the church, apparently because their teaching differed from the truth of Christ.  The first letter to Timothy refers to “what is falsely called ‘knowledge’”, in what is often understood as a condemnation of esoteric knowledge such as that taught in the Gospel of Judas.  Also understood as a rejection of secret knowledge is the memorable statement in 1 Corinthians: “’[K]nowledge’ puffs up but love builds up”.

Then there’s the first few centuries of church history when theological divergences proved so contentious that ecumenical councils were repeatedly convened to deal with Arianism and other Christological controversies.  So much for the “myth” of “monolithic Christianity”.

The real question, of course, concerns the validity of conflicting theological views.  Gnosticism contradicts the teachings of the canonical gospels.  They can’t both be right. Moreover, Gnosticism is a dangerous, yet perennially popular, perspective because it appeals to base aspects of human nature, as C. FitzSimons Allison explains in The Cruelty of Heresy.

The "elitism" of Gnosticism, in which only a few are "in the know" and able to understand and receive knowledge necessary for salvation, appeals to "superior" intellects in each age.  The intoxication of being one of the few to possess the secret, saving knowledge, together with the prospect of being freed from the frustrations of bodily existence, has much of the same appeal that drugs possess—escape.  The insistent theme of orthodoxy, that humanity needs redemption from the effects of its distorted and sometimes evil will rather than from the effects of an evil environment, is not nearly as appealing or seductive to the immature as the hope of escape by a change in venue, job, spouse, house—or religious itinerary.

Some media accounts spin the Gospel of Judas as “disturbing”, “unsettling”, and “troubling” to Christians and to the Christian Church.  I doubt many Christians will react in that way because it is patently obvious that its teachings are not compatible with Christianity.  So, excuse me if I don’t feel disturbed, unsettled, or troubled.

News stories have generally focused on only a few lines from the document.  The opening sentence:

The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week three days before he celebrated Passover.

Later on:

Knowing that Judas was reflecting upon something that was exalted, Jesus said to him, “Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom. It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal.

Near the end of the text, Jesus says to Judas:

But you will exceed all of them [those who have been baptised in Jesus’ name]. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.

These brief passages form the basis for suggesting that the Gospel of Judas poses some sort of threat to orthodox Christianity.  Taking them out of context in that way exaggerates the alleged challenge.  News stories that I have seen do not discuss the rest of the text.  Taken as a whole, however, the document is difficult to take seriously because most of it resembles bad science fiction.

Near the top of page 2 of the National Geographic text, Judas says to Jesus,

“I know who you are and where you have come from. You are from the immortal realm of Barbelo. And I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you.”

I’d never heard of Barbelo before; the name is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible.  So, who is that?  Says Wikipedia,

The Gnostic term Barbelo refers to the first emanation of God in the various Sethian gnostic cosmogonies. This figure is also variously referred to as 'Mother-Father' (a moniker that hints at her apparent androgyny), 'First Human Being', 'The Triple Androgynous Name', or 'Eternal Aeon’.

Yeah, that’s definitely a challenge to orthodoxy.

A long section of the document is given over to a convoluted cosmology: what happened when the first beings were created.  The story describes the creation of a heavenly hierarchy with countless angels and hundreds of heavens.  Here’s the summary:

The twelve aeons of the twelve luminaries constitute their father, with six heavens for each aeon, so that there are seventy-two heavens for the seventy-two luminaries, and for  each [of them five] firmaments, [for a total of] three hundred sixty [firmaments ...].  They were given authority and a [great] host of angels [without number], for glory and  adoration, [and after that also] virgin spirits, for glory and [adoration] of all the aeons and  the heavens and their firmaments.

That elaborate hierarchy of heavens and angels is a dead giveaway that the ideas in the Gospel of Judas did not originate with Judas Iscariot.  There is no evidence that anyone taught such schemes before the middle of the second century.  The document’s claim to incorporate teaching that Jesus privately delivered to Judas must be judged false.  As Simon Gathercole of Aberdeen University puts it, “An analogy would be finding a speech said to have been written by Queen Victoria, in which she talked about her CDs."

The best way to dispel the notion that the Gospel of Judas contains theological insights or historical information that will challenge the church is to read it for yourself.