Month: August 2010

Categories
Spirituality Theology

Sin and Brokenness

Daniel Kirk offers an excellent post on how the various ways we can speak of atonement relate to the various ways we can speak of sin.  I particularly like Dan’s conclusion:

once we’ve so expanded our vision of what living in a sinful world entails, we are confronted simultaneously with the various ways that we need all of Christ in every area of our lives.

If we have anger problems, that not only means we have guilt in our anger that needs to be forgiven, but likely some brokenness in our way of responding to the world and woundedness in our hearts that need to be healed before we can respond to our world with grace and patience. Moreover, if we have such a problem there is a power working to enslave us to this sinful passion from which we need to be freed.

And so I make the modest suggestion that when we deal with sex as a particular issue, we must anticipate that we will see evidence of sinful expressions that need to be forgiven, seemingly inescapable desires from which we need to be freed, and driving forces in broken and wounded hearts and bodies that need to be healed.

To claim that God is not concerned with what we do sexually is to revert to an insufficiently physical gnosticism. To cordon off sex from the realm of our humanity possibly marred by sin is to insufficiently recognize both the need for and extent of Christ’s atoning work.

Categories
Law and Policy Spirituality

Kenya's Constitution and the Church

A wide range of Christian churches in Kenya have issued a joint statement opposing Kenya’s proposed new Constitution, which is being voted on in a referendum on August 5. They argue that the new Constitution would expand abortion rights, and they oppose provisions that would allow Muslims to use khadi courts “for matters such as law relating to personal status, marriage, divorce or inheritance in proceedings in which all the parties profess the Muslim religion and submit to the jurisdiction of the Kadhi’s courts.”

I claim no expertise in the dynamics of the Kenyan Constitutional process or in Kenyan culture. I have to confess, however, that the issue of khadi courts generally seems more difficult and subtle than the Kenyan Church opposition suggests. Is it in the interests of religious liberty to require religious people to use government provided courts rather than also having access to the judicial system of their religion? Is a conflict between secular Western and Islamic views of justice inevitable in any democractic state with a Muslim population that desires to employ internal community / religious justice mechanisms?

I also have to confess a worry that America’s religious-cultural wars have been exported to the Global South through the influence of American fundamentalism on Kenya’s evangelical Christian groups. At least one Kenyan religious leader and civil rights activist, Rev. Timothy Njoya, feels the same way. Watch the clip below from about 2:00 to about 7:00 to get a flavor for Njoya’s views.

But then again, Njoya suggests that Kenya’s evangelical Christians should read Thomas Payne’s “The Age of Reason” — a strange choice to say the least — and makes some other outlandish claims. Moreover, it is not only Kenya’s evangelicals, but also the Catholic and Anglican Churches in Kenya, as well as Njoya’s own Presbyterian Church of East Africa, that oppose the new Constitution. And, if an amendment to the U.S. Constition were proposed that would allow abortion whenever it is “permitted by any other written law,” I would expect opposition from an equally wide range of Churches in the U.S., not only from fundamentalist groups.

I’d be very curious to hear from Islamic law and religion scholars about their views on this dispute. I’d also be curious to hear from anyone with more knowledge than myself of Kenyan politics and history about whether the opposition of these Kenyan churches has deeper historical and cultural roots that overshadow the influence of American culture war politics.

Categories
Science and Religion Spirituality

The Diversity of the Seas

Here’s a fascinating report on the recently concluded “ocean census” (full report here).  As one of the researchers notes:

“At the end of the Census of Marine Life, most ocean organisms still remain nameless and their numbers unknown,” said biologist Dr. Nancy Knowlton of the Smithsonian Institution, leader of the Census’ coral reef project.

“This is not an admission of failure. The ocean is simply so vast that, after 10 years of hard work, we still have only snapshots, though sometimes detailed, of what the sea contains. But it is an important and impressive start.” 

“And God said, ‘Let the waters teem with living creatures….'” (Gen. 1:20)