Hope for all?

As I said in my last post, time has a strange habit. The discussion of the next life here occurs whilst thousands have died in Japan, and Libya, particularly, in two very different sets of circumstances- overwhelmed by nature, fighting against countrymen, whatever. To speak of God's wrath kindled against sinful humanity may sound fine in abstract, context-less theologyland, but how is it presented to a world that is ever-wracked by grief and disaster? So far, I have not seen a voice from the 'hellfire and perdition' brigade attempt to bridge the theology-pastoral gap that their doctrines really can create, and I would be interested to hear the account they give.

For my own part, I cannot deny there is a serious problem in the God that willingly lets at the very least, the honest and humble seekers and doubters, or the sincere and good believers of other faiths find are expected to find themselves sharing in the punishment of truly heinous people- should I somehow be fortunate enough to make it to paradise (whatever it is) how can my joy be complete knowing that those prayed for, those I forgave and thought worthy of forgiveness and non-judgement following the example of Christ, those I laughed and wept and lived with are out there suffering, perpetually and unrelentingly and more besides? Who in those circumstances would not like Paul or Moses, cry out to be cut off or blotted out in the place of others? How could anyone who has tried to follow God and goodness possibly resign themselves to such suffering?

Fortunately, I think, I hope, God may not do so, and what started this thought process is the reading of the Church Fathers- in particular Athanasius, who really set the ball rolling for me, and it is his understanding of salvation that has me cautiously shifting towards the idea that actually, there may be something substantial, rather than just my hope (or fear, perhaps) that means God may really have the final victory over all.

I rely quite heavily on his work De Incarnatione for this particular fragment of my recent thoughts- I intend to outline a brief sketch here of some key ideas and what they have challenged me to consider. Chiefly among the considerations are a serious engagement with what it means for creation to be good, and what it is for humans to be in the 'image' and 'likeness' of God, and just what an Incarnational faith might mean- after all, why do we make so much of the last week of his life; were those 33 prior years just by the by, even though they were 33 years of God being with us?

Like all Christian Theologians, Athanasius begins his account of salvation by going back to creation and the fall. There was a time yes, when humankind was better than it was before- but not perfect it seems, Athanasius insists that physical death is a biological fact of life, part of the created order- Adam's immortality springs from his contemplation of God- "For man is by nature mortal in that he was created from nothing. But because of his likeness to him who exists, if he had kept this through contemplating God, he would have blunted his natural corruption and would have remained incorruptable..." (DI 4). The Fall then represents humankind as turning away from the contemplation of eternal things to earthly things, that is things which tend to non-existence, and in Athansius (as in Augustine) evil is non-existence (existence being the product of God, and therefore good), for which we suffer the 'corruption' of death, physical and spiritual entropy - the collapse of our self effectively into dust. Hardly a befitting end for something created to share in the relationship of God in incorruptibility.

Humanity therefore started life living under grace, contemplating the word, but with the rupture of that link we turned to earthly things and became unable to escape this lower form of life. What is interesting to note is that this has very little at it's root to do with Sin. Death is not the decreed punishment for disobedience and death is not the merit of our misdeeds. Rather it is about our being, our nature being damaged, and an incapability to respond to the divine. Athanasius in fact specifically mentions this in chapter 7 "...what should God have done? Demand repentance from men for the transgression? ... Repentance gives no exemption form the consequences of nature, but merely looses sins. If therefore, there had been only sin and not its consequence of corruption, repentance would have been very well". It's not about satisfying the demands of justice or honour it seems - rather salvation is therapeutic in nature; making humanity right again. What I'm delighted to hear is that contemporary Orthodox also take this view of 'salvation as healing' as can be seen here and here for instance.

So what is going on in the plan of salvation? Well, with mankind now unable to see beyond earthly things, it becomes eminently necessary for the Son to take on flesh so that they might again turn to God. But there is something yet more important. Athanaisus of course is most famous for establishing the fully divine status of the Son against Arius, and the reason for this seems to stem in part from soteriological considerations- how could something not truly God fully do the will of God, and conversely how can someone not truly human act on behalf of all humans? Yet what I want to highlight here is that the important implication is that God actually, voluntarily particpates in human life, and being God thus transforms it. Since the fall, many things happen to man that are unknown to God, pain, fear, suffering, bodily desire and so on, and God remarkable rather despising these things, embraces them and so makes them proper to him. God acts as a re-creative agent- Christ transforms what was simply earthly into heavenly things, as Athanasius himself succinctly puts it- 'For what the human body of the Word suffered, this the Word, united to it, attributed it to himself, in order that we might be enabled to participate in the divinity of the Word” (Epistle to Epictetus)" The final thing to overcome of course being death itself.

This to me makes eminent sense, it identifies there is something deeper than sin going on; after all, God forgives sins in the Old Testament and Christ forgives sins before his death, furthermore its highly affirming of human existence and presents to us a God who doesn't expect us to transcend ourselves in order to reach him, try to hide our weaknesses (my mind turns to the Westboro Baptist Church as Louis Theroux presented them the other week) but instead really met us where we were and whom we can turn literally everything over to in the knowledge that he understands and can even see it in a holy light. Finally it also means that the whole life of Jesus in the gospels is not contingent- everything is important and grace begins upon arrival and not merely at the exit.

Now Athanasius supposedly wrote all this when he was in his early twenties, a staggering achievement if true. I myself can offer no such grand sweeping opus, but when I read all this it did spark one little thought: If the last word in Salvation is not 'justice' but 'restoration', if the work Christ is to transform humans back from disorder to order- how can the work be said to be finished if there exists in perpetuity a place of thorough disorder and baseness, namely hell - how can that place be proper to God? Can the work be really finished until all are redeemed? Particularly if we live in circumstances where our humanity is not so far from Divinity?

That last point though takes us closer to a real Universalist in Gregory of Nyssa, and I plan to stop with Athanasius.

After a long period of absence...

I return once more from the hectic merry-go-round that is the University term, and find myself brimming with things that I really wish I had written about, but just never managed to. I missed out on the sale of the forests, the shape of the AV campaign, the seemingly endless reports of examples in the Tory-Lib Dem plans where the rich get off far lighter than those who can ill-afford it, and of course the fracas in north Africa. There is the upcoming TUC march to consider- and there have been many interesting things emerging from my sojourn in Oxford- I've met the architect of the Anglican Covenant, there was an interesting talk over the treatment of asylum seekers and the possibility of the borderless world, I have gained a community organizing internship in East London for the summer, run by the same guys who trained Barack Obama. Exciting things indeed and hopefully I will cover those things in the upcoming weeks. But what do I turn to first midst this array of topics?

However I'm going to start strangely enough, with what I've been studying, which is patristics. That's right, long dead theologians splitting hairs over how Jesus can exactly be 'God' and 'Man' or how the Spirit relates to the Father and Son. Seemingly trying to square their splendidly jewish scriptures with the subtleties of greek philosophy in order to appear intellectually credible- I can see many a protestant purist seeing this period as the one of decline and contamination of the 'pure gospel' with pagan thought, and indeed a great many more not solely walking in Luther's footsteps questioning just how relevant any of it is.

Apart from humbly suggesting that many, many Christians are forever trying to make sense of the figure of Christ through paradigms, ideas and analogies they are familiar with, which often includes assumptions drawn from the surrounding culture[1], that ultimately, it is the work of these men that give much of Christianity its distinctive shape, ideas and flavour; their conclusions (summarised in Councils like Nicaea, Chacedon, Alexandria) still remain the litmus-test of Christian Orthodoxy. Every baptised church member (apparently) affirms the views they set forth.

All very well and good one might say, but what possible relation can one find to these ancient thinkers to something happening today in order to blog about it (I think it's fair to label this blog as more current events 'table talk' than a reflective summa theologiae or Institutes- that is when I write at all, of course). However providence moves in funny ways and I have learnt that at the end of the month Rob Bell is publishing a new book- 'love wins'.

LOVE WINS. - Available March 15th from Rob Bell on Vimeo.

Just watch it, look at what he's saying- he's not implying [stage whisper] universalism, is he?

Well, one can imagine the absolute brouhaha that would result with such a suggestion from such an influential figure in the contemporary Christian world and it meets with strong rebuttal from (I imagine) all over the web, though I cite just one example. What intrigues me is how the argument often seems to be that this is somehow moving away from 'tradition' it's an INSIDIOUS. LIBERAL. TREND. Both new and the result of nothing more than the pressures of the culture, forcing silly old Rob to sell out on the TRUTH.

I hope you can see where this is now heading. The synchronicity of providence never ceases to amuse and amaze- for it is just the case that actually, through reading the Church Fathers, I too am beginning to inch towards the Universalist position myself. There may just be, the possibility that the gift of grace is really extended to all, that salvation is something that extends to all humans, so that God may be all in all (1 Cor 15.28), and that God '...desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth' (1 Tim 2.4) because through the work of Christ 'God was pleased to reconcile himself to all things, whether on earth or in heaven... (Col 1.20). And it is there, right in the early days of the Church- as it formulates an understanding of the person of Christ, the nature of God and so on and so forth, many of the ancient fathers also seemed to embrace the total and all-pervading victory of God over chaos and evil. And if we can accept that we owe rather more to the Church Fathers than we'd care to admit in formulating the orthodoxy we recite today (even though we frequently fail to understand their thought today[2]) then perhaps we should also be listening carefully to what they say on other matters? After all the Church is an entity that grows organically, rather than being constantly reinvented, the past is never (entirely) thrown out, so who knows where welcoming the past back into our church more fully in this instance may lead us?

Given the length of this post already, I shall outline how I have reached this conclusion very soon, thus much of this post appears to be little more than a book promotion and note of apology. Having said that of course, I am very sorry for my silence and I do think that this latest book is definitely going to be one worth reading. However there is one more aspect- my own contribution on this topic is going to be tiny, underwhelming and related simply to the church Fathers. I was going to write it today, but I found that the truly excellent Richard Beck is also blogging about universalism.

At the current day of posting, there are six entries, the first of which can be found RIGHT HERE that will deal far more fully and generally with the subject of universal salvation and part of the reason I am refraining from writing my twopence today is because I think it would be worth my time as well to read them all, so for now I will leave it in his capable hands.

Hopefully, the gap between this post and the subsequent will be distinctly less than the one that preceeded this post!

[1] I think it is a given that we can neither escape our 'history' or our 'location', which I am labeling as conditions of our participation in a certain intellectual and social climate which stems from our physical selves being dimensionally finite and bound by temporality- such is human nature. Our thought is even shaped by our language and how we understand particular words, it's a real minefield!

[2] Most modern theologians tend to be loose on these doctrinal questions, sometimes even rejecting the conclusions- here one could cite the favouring of divine passability - whilst in the pulpits and congregation there seems to be a strong tendency to veer between modalism and tritheism in describing God in the western church.

Democracy and 'UK Democracy'...Still quite far apart.

Ah, the new year, there truly is no time like it- The unwelcome realization that you really shouldn't have left quite so much to do before Christmas, and you know you would have kept your resolutions better had you not suddenly found yourself presented with this festering mass of work to do before you could even think of improving yourself and so you start 2011 just like every other year; unready, confused, hungover.

With the possible exception of hungover, that description neatly ties in with how I would describe the 'Yes' and 'No' campaigns on this small constitutional matter of electoral reform in favour of AV (oh what seamless transition that was!). With the news that 114 LAbour MPs will not be backing it I have finally been motivated from my indifference to take a look at just what arguments are being put forward in this debate. Excitingly, this is my first 100% politics post, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I loathed writing it.

I rather wish I hadn't looked into it- call me cynical if you must, but all I can see is doublespeak and a certain patronising attitude towards the undecided reader, and I don't make these claims lightly.

The 'No' Campaign have of course already picked up on the big achille's heel of Yes campaign- namely that a great many on it do not actually think AV is actually a real replacement for FPTP- especially those who have secured this referendum, the Liberal Democrats- who have long argued in favour of a system of Proportional Representation, which AV is certainly not. One would think there would be some acknowledgement of this by the 'yes' crowd- but no, instead I am presented with all the glories of this system, how it is so much more democratic, gives the people more choice, more power- they make it feel like it's the answer to all their electoral-reforming prayers.

Really? Is it that good? Is this what you really want? The whole thing smacks of gimmicky compromise and it doesn't really give people much more choice than the original system. This actually is part-way acknowledged by the campaign- at no point do they assert that voting for your actual preferred party will count towards anything, merely that instead of purely tactical voting, your first choice will lose, but your vote can bolster support for someone you dislike slightly less than all the others.

According to the BBC, had AV been in place at the last election, Labour would have in fact picked up 4 MORE seats with just 29% of the vote than they did under FPTP- and whilst the Lib Dems would have gained far more seats, they'd still be tiny in comparison to the big 2. So much for breaking the stranglehold of the 'Punch and Judy Politics'. At no point do these people seem to face up to the question: Is it really worth so much effort for such little change?

However, if the Yes campaign appears to be in denial about what it stands for, the 'No' campaign is even weirder. When it comes to campaigning against AV there seems to be 2 obvious routes to proceed down, either opting to defend the merits of the present system and decrying AV as an innovation too far, or instead arguing that it doesn't go far enough in solving our 'democratic deficit' and opposing in favour of something considered better than either.

The thing with the 'No' Campaign is that they try to do both at once! If one looks at their 3 main reasons for voting no, the first two imply support for FPTP which in typical thought gives strong government, simplicity and clear majorities, yet the third argues that AV is not democratic solemnly averring at one point that 'A No vote will defend fair votes and is a call for real reform'.

Obviously 'doing nothing and keeping the system' cannot be anyone's definition of reform- although with the perplexing grammar ('A No vote stops minority party voters – like BNP supporters – getting more than one vote when the votes are counted') and the rather obvious falsehoods ('A No vote ensures people vote for who and what a candidate is, as opposed to who and what a candidate is not'), who knows what they really mean to mean?

If the 'No' group seem unclear in their thinking on their website their leaflet gives it away. If one is able to withstand the glare of the fluorescent purple and yellow one can see down the right hand side a column entitled 'WHY THE CURRENT SYSTEM WORKS'. So it would seem after all that our most democratic option is in fact FPTP.

Ri-ight...

Perhaps they really do think that a system in which a candidate can achieve less than half the votes and still win overall is fair, or believe a system where a party can achieve 29% of the vote and walk away with 39.7% of the seats, whilst third place on 23% of the vote get just 10.1% of the seats really reflects voter choice. Is it fair when in the 2005 election, 70% of the votes cast were wasted, either discounted or excess to need? As a voter who has yet to see their vote count towards anyone actually getting elected I can tell you it doesn't really feel like the system is working for me. The whole edifice seems a crime against both mathematics and common sense, but honest, it's fair and democratic! Tradition stands vindicated! It is the only system for the UK!

Except of course it isn't is it- amidst all these claims of extremists entering and turmoil in politics, the 'No' Campaigners seem to have forgotten how limited First Past the Post is in this country. Let's take a look. Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliamentary elections? They use the Additional Member System that keep constituencies yet also give more proportional results through 'top-up lists' selected through PR. The Northern Irish Assembly? Single Transferable Vote- pure PR which involves ranking candidates. London MAyoral elections? Supplementary Vote, where first and second preferences are listed, and for EU representatives we use the List System- another form of PR.

So why say that it would be too complicated or difficult to implement or would result in pandaemonium? Most of this country does just fine with it so why should we be denied a chance for our vote to actually count for something at national level?

I believe that anyone who honestly appraises the electoral systems in place in the UK would have to concede that they don't seem to be doing any harm at all, whist the system they're defending leads to tactical voting, safe seats, excludes smaller parties and racks up wasted votes. So what could possibly motivate these people to support it? These 114 MPs to defy their manifesto and oppose their leader?

I can only see one real reason, and perhaps this is where the cynicism bites hardest- the clue is perhaps in a sentence of the 'No' leaflet 'we think it is right to be suspicious why the party that is pushing in the change is the Liberal Democrats.' Could that be because they have most to gain from a change to the system perchance? Are these people opposing AV because it supports the Lib Dems and will weaken the two main parties?

Is it about scoring political points off rivals and maintaining a privileged position if not for the self, then for the Party you support in the legislature?

FPTP is a winner-takes-all system, which strongly encourages a two-party system- voting for a third candidate may see your least favourite choice gaining the seat- best to vote for the one most likely to beat them in that case. Could it be that these people are upholding FPTP because it keeps them in power, allows them to push their agenda unhindered- and never mind if John Public actually wants it or not Labour or the Conservatives (depending on which side one is on) knows what's best and you're just going to have to swallow whatever they give you.

I must admit I am a stalwart democrat at heart- a voter should vote for who they want to vote for, and if that's not Labour then so be it. Strong government can be derived from able politicians co-operating, as the current tory-led government shows- let us not for one moment pretend that much of what is happening now would not have done so had the Conservatives won outright. Able politicians make good government, not majorities delivered by unfair systems. By opening up real democratic choice, Labour runs the risk of being weakened, potentially even cast into electoral oblivion- but then if this party has so failed to show the people either its competence to govern, or that it really cares about they think then it deserves electoral oblivion. No party has the divine right to rule, and no party should honestly think it really has all the best answers to the hard questions- it is a shame if they should think that shutting out a wider range of opinion and insight actually enchances decision making.

It feels rather like the Spitting Image sketch: The two idiot system is here to stay!

This of course has not resolved which way I'm going to vote. I think it's a question of what will really get a genuinely democratic system to appear? Will a 'No' kill the dream of reform full-stop? Will a 'Yes' merely entrench a system that does not really solve the problems that I feel so strongly about?