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January 18, 2007

Fear not, God does reign - Garth George

I have been following, with increasing perplexity, the pronouncements of a relatively senior member of the Anglican clergy, and the discussion that has arisen apropos his remarks.
NZ Herald - Opinion 18.01.07

NZ Herald - Opinion 18.01.07
Garth George
www.nzherald.co.nz/search/story.cfm?storyid=00004BBA-9DDE-15AD-ABAC83027AF1010F

I have been following, with increasing perplexity, the pronouncements of a relatively senior member of the Anglican clergy, and the discussion that has arisen apropos his remarks.

Richard Randerson has admitted publicly that he has become an agnostic, which the Oxford Dictionary defines as a "person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God".

Mr Randerson, however, says he is an agnostic who believes in God but is more comfortable with God existing in forms such as "love" and "spirit" than as a supreme being.

He says he does not believe that Adam and Eve were real, or that there is any proof the Virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus in a "gynaecological miracle".

Yet he proclaims "I'm not just some wishy-washy non-believer as [some] would like to make out."

Now Mr Randerson is dean of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Parnell and thus is administrator and chief priest of a building not only erected to the glory of God the Father (and supreme being) but to the Holy Trinity consisting of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Also, Mr Randerson is assistant Bishop of Auckland, a position he was inducted into just over four years ago.

The Anglican Prayer Book service for the ordination of bishops contains these questions and answers.

Presiding bishop: "Do you believe that the Bible contains all that is essential for our salvation and reveals God's living word in Jesus Christ?"

Bishop-elect: "Yes, I do ... "

Presiding bishop: "Will you maintain the doctrines of the faith as this church has received them?"

Bishop-elect: "Yes, I will ... "

Immediately before these questions, the bishop-elect (and all present) recites the Nicene Creed, which begins: "We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen."

It continues: "We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God ... For us and for our salvation he ... became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man."

In the Prayer Book is a catechism, which contains the essential doctrines held by the Anglican Church. The catechism affirms both the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, and adds: " ... God creates all the worlds that are, and is sovereign over all" and " ... Jesus is the only Son of God, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary."

In the secular world the foregoing would be seen as the terms of employment to which prospective employees agree before taking up a position.

And it is taken for granted that if an employee disobeys or resiles from any of those conditions of employment, he or she would expect to face at best a warning or a request to leave, or at worst to be dismissed.

So my question is this: If as an ordained Anglican clergyman Mr Randerson no longer believes in God as the supreme being, and if he no longer believes in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, how come he is still dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral, vicar-general and assistant Bishop of Auckland?

I understand from conversations with genuine Anglicans who are familiar with the workings of their church that once a parson reaches a certain level of authority in the church it is well-nigh impossible to dislodge him (or her).

But that's irrelevant to my way of thinking. If I, as editor of a Christian newspaper, found myself no longer believing in that which my employers hold as fundamental Christian truth, the first thing I would do is resign.

Another cause for perplexity is Mr Randerson's activities as a member of the interfaith reference group which is looking at the framework for a national statement on religious diversity.

He has raised two questions which have surprised other members of the group, including the non-Christians who recognise that this is still traditionally a Christian country.

He has suggested the Parliamentary prayer should be reviewed; and that the prayers said at Anzac Day services should be stripped of specifically Christian references by omitting the concluding references to Jesus Christ.

His argument is that if Christian prayers are said in public in a country which has become multifaith and multicultural, people of other religions will feel excluded - although there is no evidence whatsoever that this is the case.

For those readers alarmed, disturbed or disheartened by all these goings on, here are a few words taken from a document released by the Catholic Church in New Zealand called Worshipping Under Southern Skies: Rediscovering the Beauty of the Mass.

It says (to all Christians, not just Catholics): "The life of God and the Church is an objective truth. Our growth in faith occurs when we allow ourselves to receive the revealed heart of this truth.

"We find our human health and happiness when we allow this truth to settle in the depth of our hearts. This is a tall order. People today have an inherent suspicion of anything promoted as unchanging truth or doctrine.

"The Church is not formed by our opinions and reflections. The Church is not even formed by our sound theological knowledge or just action.

"The Church is the Church of God, brought into existence by the will of God and maintained in time by the power of the Holy Spirit."

So be not afraid.

Garth George
NZ Herald

Posted by latimer at 08:05 PM | Comments (0)

January 16, 2007

Rev Michael Hewat: There's heresy afoot in this Christianity debate

Amid the current debate about diversity of belief there have been Perspectives articles from an atheist (Ernie Barrington), an agnostic (Richard Randerson) and an unbeliever who is neither an atheist nor a humanist nor a rationalist (John Roughan).
NZ Herald 16.01.07

NZ Herald - 16.01.07
www.nzherald.co.nz/search/story.cfm?storyid=00008AC7-012E-15AB-BEF783027AF1010F

By Guest Columnists

Michael Hewat: There's heresy afoot in this Christianity debate
Amid the current debate about diversity of belief there have been Perspectives articles from an atheist (Ernie Barrington), an agnostic (Richard Randerson) and an unbeliever who is neither an atheist nor a humanist nor a rationalist (John Roughan).

There have been references to Christianity and to "traditional Christians", but - as is so often the case - the "traditional"(or better, the "orthodox") Christian voice has not been heard.

One might well object that an Anglican bishop should be able to be counted on to provide just such an orthodox Christian perspective but sadly this has not been the case. If Christians from other denominations find this galling, as many of the letters to the editor indicate, imagine how Anglicans find it.

Most Anglicans believe in a supreme being, the trinitarian God of the creeds and The 39 Articles of Religion, and long to hear their leadership publicly affirm it.

The position Bishop Randerson has adopted, if I understand him correctly, is a rather hopeful intermediate one between atheism and what he calls "traditional Christian belief in a supreme being".

However, his use of the word agnostic has proven unhelpful to him because, while technically correct in the sense he uses it, it has placed him closer in most people's eyes - mine included - to atheism than to Christian belief.

Regardless of how hard Bishop Randerson has tried to nuance his position as a believer in god (with a little "g"), he has left little doubt that he no longer believes in the one God of the creeds. What is unclear is how what he does believe in - "love" or "spirit" - constitutes any form of divinity at all.

Christianity is a revealed religion. Christians, like Jews, believe that God is the creator and sustainer of the universe, and that he has revealed himself in his mighty acts in history. Unlike Jews, Christians believe that God's supreme revelation of himself was in his son, Jesus Christ, whose life, death, resurrection and ascension testify to God's great love for his whole creation, and his determination to deal with sin and evil and redeem creation according to his loving purposes.

The Bible records this as good news (the meaning of "gospel") and Christians are called to bear witness to it, in word and in deed, as they live lives transformed by the power of God's Holy Spirit.

That Christians have often failed miserably to do so does not alter the fact that what God has revealed of himself, and the way he has prescribed for humans to live, is wholly good.

The significance of Christianity being a revealed religion is that you must either accept its truths as revealed in history and recorded in the Bible, or reject them.

Christianity allows that everyone has the right to make that choice, albeit at their eternal peril.

The Christian is bound to respect the right of the atheist to reject God, and the agnostic to refuse to commit either way. Christians must also accept that people will choose to follow other gods.

Apropos the proposed national diversity statement, therefore; neither atheists nor agnostics, nor unbelievers, nor people of other faiths should have anything to fear from orthodox Christianity.

There is nothing in the New Testament which advocates the spread of the Gospel by force or oppression, or the suppression or persecution of other faiths. Those who have claimed or acted otherwise have erred badly.

Conversely, I do not see that Christians have anything to fear from the national diversity statement either, so long as it does all that Bishop Randerson claims it will do.

While Christianity allows individuals the right to freely accept or reject its teachings, it does not allow for those who profess Christian faith to pick and choose between the bits they like and the bits they don't.

Those who call themselves Christians but choose to reject essential tenets of the Christian faith have, from the beginning, been called heretics (from the Greek word meaning "able to choose").

A heretic is one who has chosen a different, and therefore wrong belief. So, to reject the doctrine of God's personhood, or that he is a supreme being, is heretical.

Orthodox Christianity is a coherent belief system. You simply cannot remove God the Father, replace him with an abstraction such as "love" or "spirit", and claim you have not lost anything.

Remove God from Christianity and all the central Christian doctrines fall over like dominoes. Not only is this true at a theological level, it is true of Christian praxis too.

How do you worship these substitutes for God? Why would you want to and what good would it do? What about prayer or Holy Communion? These no longer have any object or meaning.

No wonder those Christian churches which have abandoned orthodox faith are those which are in rapid decline while those which are not ashamed of the Gospel and believe in the love and power of God to save continue to experience dynamic growth.

All New Zealanders should welcome religious tolerance, but religious compromise is not something that should be required of anyone. All religions, atheism and agnosticism too, make their own exclusive truth claims.

There is no reason these should not be allowed to be respectfully expressed in public. I hope and pray that the national diversity statement will guarantee this.

* The Reverend Michael Hewat is vicar of the West Hamilton Anglican Parish.

Posted by latimer at 02:53 PM | Comments (0)

Bishop Randerson on 'agnosticism'

Bishop Randerson seeks to explain his views on God, Jesus, Bible Stories and Public Prayer further - read more:

To AnglicansAll www.duomo.ac.nz/acnz from Bishop Richard Randerson, re the “agnosticism” remark:

GOD : Because God is mystery we can only talk about God in terms of symbolism and imagery. There are many symbols of God, none of which can fully represent God. The traditional image is of God as supernatural creator, and some go further to claim such an entity is scientifically verifiable. It is SOLELY in relationship to that image of a scientifically verifiable entity that I used the word agnostic, meaning that you cannot prove the existence of such an entity one way or the other.
There are other images of God. The Bible says God is love, and God is spirit. These are images of God that I and many others feel much more helpful. I believe totally in God, and find these images of love and spirit more meaningful for me. But everyone needs to have an image that they feel is helpful to them, remembering that we are talking here about images, not the reality of God to which any image can only point.

JESUS : Although God is mystery we know the nature of God as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, whom we call Son of God. Through Jesus we find the nature of God to be one of love, forgiveness, justice, peace, and sacrifice for others.

BIBLE STORIES : There are different types of language. The language of science is a different type of language from the language of poetry and symbolism. Many of the Bible stories are of the latter kind, and to confuse symbolism with science is a category mistake (which both Richard Dawkins and fundamentalist Christians make). In reading many of the Bible stories the essential thing is to focus on the MEANING of the story, not to get side-tracked by debating the stories as to whether they are literally factual or non-factual. For example : A. The Creation stories do not offer us an alternative scientific view as to HOW the world was made (as Creationists claim). The MEANING of the stories is that we understand Creation as gift, and treasure it; every person and part of Creation needs to live in a relationship of inter-dependence or symbiosis, with God as the central reality; and as human beings we are called to act as stewards of the Creation to ensure its sustainability for all time. B. Jonah and the whale (literally ‘big fish’). This story tells us of God’s love for all people, in this case the people of Nineveh where Jonah was supposed to be going. C. The Virgin Birth : the meaning of this story lies in its expression of the truth that in Jesus both human and divine natures meet.

Prayer in Public : re-reading my article from Monday I see the word I used was NOT ‘embarrassed’ (as some have misquoted) but ‘uncomfortable’ (because of the excluding nature in a multi-faith setting). And by ‘public prayer’ I was not referring to prayer in a church service (where Christians gather voluntarily for Christian worship), but to prayer in a public setting such as in Parliament, or at an Anzac Day parade at the Cenotaph, where people of many faiths or of none gather..

Posted by latimer at 02:44 PM | Comments (0)

Bishop Randerson explains

"All I would ask is that they have respect for other views in the church that are just as conscientiously and passionately held," he said. "I'm not just some wishy-washy non-believer as they would like to make out."
NZ Herald 13.01.07

NZ Herald - 13.01.07
By Patrick Gower
www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10418965&ref=emailfriend

As one of New Zealand's most powerful Anglicans, Bishop Richard Randerson admits that his spiritual views may be seen by some as heresy.

He admits that he is an agnostic who does not believe Adam and Eve were real, or that there is any proof the Virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus in a "gynaecological miracle".

From an ordained priest of 42 years who is now dean of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Parnell and assistant bishop of Auckland, these are frank admissions.

He declared himself an agnostic in a column written for the Herald this week, saying the term could be used for someone who felt God's existence could not be scientifically proven one way or the other. "By that measure, I am an agnostic," he wrote.

The rebukes were swift: one letter-writer said his opinion piece was "frightening reading"; another warned "the Church must be careful lest it falls".

Bishop Randerson continued to describe himself as an agnostic in an interview with the Weekend Herald, saying he believed in God, but was more comfortable with God existing in forms such as "love" and "spirit" than as a supreme being.

He said he first believed in God as a supreme being but had changed his views over time.

He decided to speak openly of his agnosticism to rebut the "celestial teapot" thesis recently advanced by science writer and atheist Richard Dawkins: that belief in God is as silly as believing in a teapot.

Bishop Randerson said Dawkins had put up a "straw God" by attacking the traditional image of a supreme being and had been dishonest in failing to acknowledge that other views were widespread in Christianity.

The bishop added that Christians with traditional views - including strict Anglicans in his own congregation - could do just as much damage to the church as atheist attacks because they were "a real turn-off".

He knew his admission of agnosticism was "risky" and would upset some.

"For those who have grown up with a particular way, they will say that this is an abandonment of the faith. They will say: 'This is the way, we've always known this, you are saying something else, obviously we are right and you are wrong.'

"But I am also aware of those beyond the traditional believers who want to believe in God in categories that make sense to them."

Bishop Randerson said he was sensitive about how "agnostic" was defined and was uncomfortable with the Oxford Dictionary definition put to him by the Weekend Herald as a "person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God", which fits with common use of the word.

He preferred instead to focus on his doubts about God as a supreme being.

Such views are not new in the Anglican Church. In the 1960s, John A.T. Robinson, the bishop of Woolwich in England, wrote a book called Honest to God that challenged the ideas of "God up there" and "God out there". American John Spong, the retired bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, has called on Christians to rethink their views on God, Christ and the Bible.

In New Zealand, Lloyd Geering - a Presbyterian - has led the liberal charge. He was tried for heresy nearly 40 years ago after he admitted doubting the physical resurrection of Jesus.

Bishop Randerson could not name any other Anglican bishops who had gone as far as to publicly describe themselves as agnostic.

"But if you asked them, 'Do you believe in God as a scientifically provable entity?' the bulk of them would say probably say no," he said.

Bishop Randerson said he placed the resurrection in a different category from symbolic tales such as the virgin birth because the disciples had actually experienced it, even though it was hard to explain.

In his column Bishop Randerson also wrote that he felt "uncomfortable" leading prayers in public that had an exclusively Christian ending.

He said he was referring to gatherings where all faiths were present, such as Anzac Day, and the wording of the parliamentary prayer, which is under review. Prayers could have the same content without nailing it to one faith, so he had started leaving words "through Jesus Christ our Lord" off the end of prayers, saying "amen" instead.

"I would say to people who have difficulty with that to suppose the Anzac Day service was led entirely by Muslim clerics and every prayer had references to Muhammad and nothing else. They would say, 'Gosh, we're cut out of this."'

Why the bishop would marry a same-sex couple
Bishop Richard Randerson has criticised the Anglican Church's rejection of same-sex marriages, saying it "is not an expression of Christian love".

He said he would perform a civil union or same-sex marriage ceremony if it was permitted, but he did not think the church would change during his time.

During an interview with the Weekend Herald, Bishop Randerson cried as he spoke of the parents of gay and lesbian children who felt rejected by the church because of its stance and how they had thanked him for making them feel wanted through his opposition.

Bishop Randerson said he knew homosexuals in the church, including a close friend of 35 years, who had profound Christian conviction and "to say you've got it wrong, mate, I just couldn't do that".

He accepted it was not the church's view, but he believed the morality of a relationship was found by the love within it, not the gender of the people.

He believed the church would change its stance, but not for years.

By Patrick Gower, NZ Herald

Posted by latimer at 02:18 PM | Comments (0)

NZ Bishop Richard Randerson: Common ground where faiths meet

Atheism is understood to mean a denial of belief in a particular image of God as supernatural creator. Richard Dawkins' thesis that there is no proof of such a being as a scientifically verifiable entity is quite correct.
NZ Herald 08.01.07

NZ Herald
By Guest Columnists
www.nzherald.co.nz/search/story.cfm?storyid=00064373-7387-15A0-800E83027AF1010E

Three cheers for Ernie Barrington in his call for respect for atheists. I would go further and seek to remove the word from our vocabulary.

Far better that people be defined in terms of what they do believe rather than what they do not. Humanist is a better word for those who believe in human wellbeing but do not source their commitment from a religious base.

In terms of the existence of such a being, an atheist is construed as a non-believer, an agnostic as one who feels it cannot be proved one way or the other. By that measure, I regard myself as an agnostic.

To seek proof of the existence of God in scientific terms is a category mistake. Much of the language of the Bible is to be read in categories of poetry and image, not as a scientific textbook.

The concept of God is linked to timeless realities of human existence, such as compassion, reconciliation and relationship.

Barrington highlights the difficulty of leading a funeral service in a church context. It is always helpful when those who died indicated the type of service preferred.

One of the biggest challenges for clergy is in a situation where a family say they are not religious but want a service in a church because they want something that will address underlying questions such as the understanding of life and death, and how to come to terms with grief or the trauma of sudden death.

Such trauma is accentuated in the case of the untimely death of someone who is young, and questions of "Why?" arise.

In such circumstances people are seeking insights on matters that are broadly spiritual in nature, even if those insights are not expressed in the categories of traditional religious belief. As an example, a man dying of cancer told me he was an atheist in terms of traditional views of God, but that as he reflected on life he felt part of something bigger than himself, and this gave him comfort.

In such a context the expression by Prime Minister Helen Clark of a desire for a National Diversity Statement takes on added meaning. We live in a society where the affirmation of belief, be it religious or non-religious, is important, but the nature of that belief is not uniform.

Neither the suppression of belief, nor a search for some bland amalgam that satisfies no one, is a viable solution.

The proposed diversity statement seeks to affirm the rights of all New Zealanders to hold such religious, philosophical or humanist world-views which are theirs by conviction, to hold them without threat or attack, and to hold them in a way that does not threaten or attack the rights of others.

The statement is being developed by a small group of religious and human rights leaders as a basis for discussion, and is part of the broader search for inter-faith understanding being pursued at this time by Asian and Pacific nations.

Attacks on Jewish graves and Islamic mosques make such a statement timely as a reminder of what we aspire to as a nation.

The issue of the parliamentary prayer is also under review, as is the nature of the prayers used at Anzac Day services.

As a church leader I feel uncomfortable leading prayers in public that have an exclusively Christian ending, thus excluding people of other faiths.

There are prayers that are couched in more inclusive language, as well as a variety of other writings of an aspirational nature, that can catch the spirit of those values we share in common as New Zealanders.

* Richard Randerson is Dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Parnell, and assistant Anglican bishop of Auckland. He is a member of the drafting group of the proposed National Diversity Statement.

Posted by latimer at 02:14 PM | Comments (0)