teachings of jesus christ

A robust intellectual basis for Christianity is not enough.

/ Minimalist Christian / 5 Comments

I like to understand why things are like they are. As a child I was taught that science provides the answers that I needed.

When in later life I became a Christian I thought that there was a conflict between science and God, but for a while reconciled this with the idea that ‘God can do anything’. A simple idea, but science and faith was not an area that I really wanted to explore.

We are given the impression that ‘science knows’, but we just haven’t been told yet. About five years ago I decided to find out. What does science know? What does it still not know? Are there things it can never know? Taking everything into account, what story best fits all the facts, a godless universe or one with a God?

I adopted an analytical approach, but avoided the temptation to dig too deeply into details of each field. I just tried to understand the underlying principles sufficiently to see what they contribute to the big picture. I found that most people feel uncomfortable outside of their specialist field, that few seem willing to take the necessary overview.

Having read a couple of books like ‘The Edge of Evolution” by the Intelligent Design proponents I began thinking that it may be possible to prove God exists. But then I read secular books on the origins of life and realised that everyone accepts the remarkable unlikelihood of life but that it doesn’t provide irrefutable proof – there are alternative explanations such as the multiverse theory.

I needed to find out where the Bible came from; could I trust it, and if so, why? I researched the source of the NT documents in particular, and some of the gospel accounts that are excluded from the Bible (the Da Vinci code stuff). I realised that the gospel accounts are not trying to prove who Jesus was and what he did, but that they wouldn’t have been written if he hadn’t done some amazing things. The accounts are simply people trying to capture what happened for future generations. The Bible is not a spells book: “Do this and God will do that for you”.

I reached a number of conclusions about how to understand and respond to the big picture of what’s going on. Realising that everything requires a level of faith (including science of course), I suggest a response which recognises that many religious and scientific dogmas are unproven and unprovable – but unnecessary. I call the response “Minimalist Christianity”. I wrote up what I found in “The Big Picture”, found a publisher and then set about marketing my masterpiece.

There is a robust intellectual basis for Christianity, and I would commend it to others, but I recently realised that in exploring it I was falling into a bit of a trap. Because I have necessarily spent several years testing and probing, viewing things sceptically, I let my personal spiritual life become analytical too. My reasoning has shown that God exists, and that he must have a ‘personality’ and want to interact with each of us, but I have not really been responding to the real God – just developing an intellectual one.

We need to ‘get to know God’ as more than an idea; I need to follow my own advice! It is from the integrity of that relationship that the power to fulfil our purpose will flow. We need analysis to know that we can trust, but then we need to act on that trust to complete the experience. Having determined that the rock exists, we need to actively build the house of our life on it!

“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock.” Jesus circa 30AD

“Here, there be dragons”

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Centuries ago many people used to live their entire lives within a few miles of where they were born. Occasionally travellers would pass through with tales of far-away places which held wonders, treasures and maybe ‘dragons’. But few would dare cross the borders surrounding their small world of familiarity.

Dragon-Linda_BlackWin24_JanssonNowadays many people again live their entire lives within a relatively small environment. Maybe it is not physical, since modern transportation puts the whole world within reach, but I’m speaking of relationships, culture and spirituality.

Our sphere of friends is gathered through encounters where we like to pass our time: work, the sports club, the toddler group or school, the pub. We meet like-minded people in comfortable environments and put down roots there. Occasional travellers pass through with tales of other lifestyles: we get peeps at them on the TV reality shows, a foreigner might join our band, or a tragedy might move us out of our comfortable world. But “few dare cross the borders of their small world of familiarity”, and most will lobby to maintain their personal utopia.

We understand how the world works through what we have learned through personal experience, the media and common sense.  With our Western worldview glasses we know such things as: the economy has to be healthy, everyone should be educated and democracy is the only system that works. And of course we should all have rights, to health, happiness and freedom, particularly freedom of speech. We seldom stop to question the basis on which we have decided that all of these ‘truths’ are correct. When we hear tales of other cultures we are fearful that they will invade our territory and bring unimaginable horrors and suffering.

But perhaps we are most fearful of uncharted spiritual seas. England used to be a Christian nation, although deeply divided between Protestant and Catholic, but has largely come to believe in Scientism; the religion that science can explain everything. It can be comforting to think that science can tell us why Grandma died, and to hope that in the future cancer will be conquered. Occasionally we will hear tales of a spiritual realm, something that is not simply made of ‘stuff’, and strangers will speak of God and tell us that we have a ‘soul’. A frequent response is to ignore such ramblings, or to accept that such things may be ‘okay’ for them, but I’m quite happy in my own ideas thank you very much.

Secretly, if we are bold enough to ask ourselves, we will admit that our small-world outlook is largely driven by fear. We are afraid that we will lose our basis for life, even if it doesn’t seem to be working too well for us at the moment. We would love to befriend those in different circles, experience different cultures, and reach a satisfying understanding of who we are spiritually; we yearn to find our soul and our purpose.

It is the beginning of a new year: 2015. Two thousand and fifteen years after a special baby was born. Who as a man spoke strange tales of a spiritual realm and a God. A man whose words gave us a rock to build our lives on. A man who willingly allowed himself to be crucified to show that death could not hold him – or us. A man who Christians call God. Perhaps it is time to take our courage in our hands and explore this strange new land? Many have gone there before, but few have returned with tales of dragons! Instead, they come back with stories of hope and fulfilled purpose; the promised land. Shall we go?

Do we worship the same God?

/ Minimalist Christian / 14 Comments

There is and can only be one God.

I am not going to defend that statement but to take it as read and see where it leads in the context of different religions.  If you don’t want to accept the statement, this post is not for you so please don’t waste your time and energy reading further.

There is and can only be one God.

That one God is love.  Without God there can be no love.  And so each and every act of love is an act of God.  If a Christian loves, that is God within them.  If a Moslem loves then that is God within them.  If an atheist loves that is God within them.

That one God created and sustained the universe. He sends the rain on the good and the bad.  His laws of science knit us together in our mother’s womb, allow us to experience the world, and present us with the alternatives of love or hate, good or evil.

That one God has made each of us as an individual.  Each of us is a ‘me’.  He has given us freedom to choose to love or hate, to be good or evil.  As individuals we choose.  If we choose to love we choose God whether we know it or not, whether we are Christian, Moslem, Hindu, atheist, agnostic or Jedi.

If someone prays to the single God, creator and sustainer of the universe, to the God who is love, the God who is goodness and power, does it matter what religion they are in?

If someone chooses love and goodness, does it matter what religion they are in?

What is religion? According to the Oxford dictionary it is:

“The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods”

and

“A particular system of faith and worship”

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/religion

A follower of one religion can challenge whether the “system of faith and worship” of another religion is accurate.  A Christian can reasonably challenge whether what Islam teaches about what is right and wrong is right – but can a Christian challenge which God a Moslem is praying to? Or vice versa?

Can a Christian say that a Moslem worships a different God?  Or can the Christian only say to the Moslem that “you don’t know God like I do”?

I don’t need to use Christians and Moslems for the example.  I could have used Evangelical and Liberal Christians, Protestants and Catholics.

I believe that the teaching of Christ is the best description of what God intends for each of us, and that Jesus life and death are the greatest demonstration of how God loves each and every one of us.  I can guide others to the same source of love and goodness that I have found, but am I to criticise and judge them if they do not understand the Bible in the same way that I do?  Isn’t my job to love, and aren’t I supposed to leave the judgement up to God?

Isn’t religions job to help me do my job?  Surely religion is not there to put obstacles in the way of me loving others?

What does God think of all the conflict that is caused by religious dogmatism about what he is like?  Does he simply want us to get on with loving Him, and loving our neighbour as ourselves?

Grace and love to you all.

War, religion, God, and why I write

/ Minimalist Christian / 3 Comments

I remember a discussion soon after I became a Christian where I was asked “so what about all the other religions?”  My reply was that they were simply mistaken.  I think the remark was taken to be rather arrogant.

I read the news today. I see the conflict, anger and fear; fighting between Moslems of different sects.  I see forced imposition of religious dogma; conversion to another religion punishable by death.  We all know that this is not as it should be. And I am reminded of my reply.

Reason and evidence tells me there is a God, and my whole being tells me that love is our ultimate purpose.  And when I find that love underpins and is at the heart of Jesus teaching I begin to see how it all fits together; how we are meant to be.

If I were God and someone from another religion was praying to me, I would not ignore them because they think I have a different name, I would not condemn them because they don’t understand my intentions for them.  I would be saddened that they are misled, I would try to teach them, and I would restrain some of their actions, but I would still love them.

As a mere human trying to follow God’s purpose, I don’t hate the Muslims, or even the Westborough Baptists, but I believe they are misled and mistaken.  I hate what they do, and I want them to stop.  I want them to understand the truth, and find their real purpose.  I want that for everyone.

If we all really understood Christ’s teaching, if we really loved God with all our heart, and loved our neighbour as ourselves, if we really were ready to forgive others and restore broken relationships we know that the world would be a better place.

That is why I write.  That is why I follow Christ.  That is my purpose.

What is yours?

Direct from the San Francisco Book Review

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The Big Picture – An Honest Examination of God, Science and Purpose
By P D Hemsley
eLectio Publishing, $4.99, 266 pages, Format: eBook

A former atheist/agnostic who gave God a chance offers open-minded readers this work which is both ambitious in scope and credible in approach: //The Big Picture: An Honest Examination of God, Science, and Purpose//.  Polarizing subject matter such as God and science, evolution, and intelligent design are revisited with the goal of gently challenging entrenched thinking on both sides.

Hemsley, a Chartered Engineer, “has lived on both sides of the faith fence.” His book is comparable to a technical presentation designed for a general audience. It is highly organized with stated goals, evidence, and the author’s conclusions. Fluid, straightforward writing helps the reader progress through several chapters or conclusions dealing with faith, science, purpose and design, quantum physics, free will, reason, Jesus, and more. Even so, those with less of a scientific bent will need to exercise their concentration skills in the scientific sections.

The strength of this book lies in complexity and compatibility. The chapters “Science Describes an Incredible Universe” and “The Universe Exhibits Design and Purpose” make for fascinating reading, especially the subsection where “challenged by the complexity of the biological machinery” Hemsley explores how a modern-day designer would engineer a human being and how long it would take. Additionally, the author’s version of the Genesis creation account featuring the compatibility of scientific discoveries and God’s design is an interesting interpretation to consider.

No emotional appeals are made to the atheist, agnostic, hardcore creationist, or plain honest seeker for a change in his or her worldview. In the words of the author, a self-described Minimalist Christian: “Whether you agree with my conclusion or not, I hope that many of the myths that currently inhibit so many of us will have been weakened or dispelled. I hope that a step can be taken towards finding purpose and experiencing life in abundance.”

http://citybookreview.com/the-big-picture-an-honest-examination-of-god-science-and-purpose/

Click HERE to buy a copy.

“The Big Picture” – an honest examination of God, science and purpose – OUT NOW

/ Minimalist Christian / 3 Comments

“I recommend this book to all thinking people – we might just change the world.” 

“This book will definitely make you think and then think again. Hemsley did his research for this book, and I received many answers to questions I’ve pondered over the years.”

“it is a welcome relief to come across a book that presents such a broad and balanced overview”

“This book covers an considerable amount of territory in its 253 pages.”

The Big Picture is a much-needed book that allows the reader to consider the big questions of life without feeling bludgeoned to adopt the author’s opinion. The book explains basics of science, philosophy and religion in a straightforward manner.

It will encourage all those who want to live a good and purposeful life and would like a sound basis for doing so. Such readers may find a resonance with the teaching of Jesus and this book will explore whether we can trust what has been recorded in the gospel accounts, and whether the findings of science and a reasoned understanding of the Bible are consistent or contradictory.

Many books in the arena of science and faith are hostile and adversarial. The authors set up straw men of their opponent’s arguments, dismantle them and then preach their own arguments to their disciples. The author of The Big Picture recognises that there are intelligent atheists and intelligent believers, and that a case can always be made for whatever someone wants to believe. The reader is therefore treated with respect

ebook

paperback

Amazon UK

The Big Picture - cover

Goodness – me!

/ Minimalist Christian / 13 Comments

Do you ever stop to think what you would like on your gravestone when you are dead?  It’s a good way of finding out what we really want to be like.  I don’t think any of us would like to see phrases like:

“Always selfish and greedy”

“Never had time for anyone else”

“Vindictive and hateful”

When we see a new baby, at a christening who would want to think that the baby would grow up to be a thief, or to have a string of husbands who she cheated on and deserted, or to be a child molester.

We know deep down that we want to be good.

In the 11th century, Anselm of Canterbury described how being good is possible through ‘goodness’, and how supreme goodness is God.  So that desire to be good is actually us wanting to be like God (supreme goodness), to act like God, to be in his image.

St John’s describes in his gospel that God is love.  So when we love one another, our love is possible through love, which is through God.  We are choosing to act like God, to be part of God.

Each of us has the essence of goodness in us, and the essence of love in us.  God is goodness and God is love, so we all have God within us.  Sometimes we choose to ignore goodness and love, and instead choose to be selfish, vindictive or hateful.  But that is not what we want to be – as we found at the start of this post.

The true Christian religion is about helping us to be what we want to be – good and loving.  It is about connecting with that goodness and love within us; God within us.  It is about learning from Christ what goodness and love looks like, and trying to imitate him.

And if you want to be good and loving, then that means that you want to be like God.  Jesus said that ‘if you have seen me then you have seen God’; Jesus represented supreme goodness and love in human form.  So if you want to be good and loving, since Jesus was supremely good and loving, then you want to be like Jesus, and if you want to be like Jesus you can call yourself a Christian.

Christians pray to help make that connection with goodness and love.  Here’s an example of a Celtic prayer from Lindisfarne:

Help me dear Lord to care too much

To love too freely

To pray unceasingly

To forgive endlessly

To laugh fearlessly

To question

To live

To be who I am

To be where I am

To be what I am

To hope

To believe

To reach out my hand

That’s a good prayer, isn’t it?  It’s about connecting with God within us.  It’s asking God to help us be who we want to be.

Do you want to be the sort of person that the prayer describes?  You can take a step closer by praying that prayer.

Related posts

https://philhemsley.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/an-argument-for-and-definition-of-god/

https://philhemsley.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/the-god-of-science/

 

Richard Miles – Archaeology: A Secret History

/ Minimalist Christian / 6 Comments

The description of this program on iPlayer is “Archaeologist Richard Miles presents a series charting the history of the breakthroughs and watersheds in our long quest to understand our ancient past. He begins by going back 2,000 years to explore how archaeology began by trying to prove a biblical truth – a quest that soon got archaeologists into dangerous water.”

Unfortunately the tone and style of presentation of the program was similar to the description.  The program frequently asserts that there is conflict between Archaeology and Biblical truth, and implies that Archaeology has proved the Bible to be wrong.  The church is presented as a dogma bound institution that can only consider that everything in the Bible is to be taken literally.  The church’s only contact with scientific methods was to use them to show that the world was created a few thousand years ago.  Isn’t he aware that different parts of the Bible are written in different genre’s?  Would he think that if archaeology could prove that there wasn’t a good Samaritan then that must show that Jesus was lying when he told the parable?  Does he think that Christians really believe that the Genesis account is to be taken literally?  As far back as the early fifth century St Augustine was forthright in his criticism of literal interpretation of Genesis.

The presenter, Dr Miles, frequently implies that archaeologists were ‘in dangerous water’ by thinking – thinking is something that is presumably not allowed by the church.  Doesn’t he know that many of the greatest minds have been and continue to be Christians?  Even the greatest secular scientists realize that questions of God are not trivial.

Dr Miles  appears dismissive of the approach of looking for evidence to support a theory (Empress Helena seeking for evidence of Jesus’ crucifixion) – isn’t he aware that this is precisely the scientific method – build a large Hadron collider to look for a Higgs bosun for instance?  

Dr Miles seems far happier to find something and then simply guess what it might mean.  He appeared disappointed that the speculations of John Frayre (sp?) who ‘instinctively knew’ that the triangular objects had been made by human hand were not immediately adopted.

So for me, the undercurrent of generating a false conflict between God and Archaeology/Science, and the implied rejection of ‘belief’ spoilt what could otherwise have been an interesting and enjoyable program.  I am disappointed that the BBC feel the need to generate some sort of conflict or controversy in so much of their programming.

Related posts:

https://philhemsley.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/things-that-a-minimalist-christian-does-not-have-to-believe-the-genesis-account-of-creation/

https://philhemsley.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/an-argument-for-and-definition-of-god/

https://philhemsley.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/how-far-should-we-trust-scientific-prediction/

Related articles

Proof of God?

/ Minimalist Christian / 7 Comments

A friend asked “Let us suppose it was absolutely certain there was no god but many people honestly believed there was – how different would the world look today?”

I could answer that if there was no God there would be no universe and no people to observe it.

Clearly, as we are both intelligent people we must be talking about something different when we say the word ‘god’.

The God that I conclude exists is a creator, and a God who sustains the universe.  Clearly the universe exists and continues to exist.  Ask a physicist why and he will probably say ‘because of the laws of physics’.  A rose is a rose by any other name, so at minimum my God is the laws of physics – we just choose to give it different names.

Perhaps my friend’s question is going beyond that definition of God.  Perhaps he is asking about a God who has ‘character’, a ‘me’-ness that I have.  (I know that I exist, there is an essence that is ‘me’).  What would things be like if there was not a God who had an essence of ‘me’?

It’s actually not easy to define what ‘I’ am.  Science of course shows that my brain has massively complex computational ability, but that doesn’t really help.  Literature and philosophy, and our daily experience tells me that there are things like love, joy, peace, thoughts, free will.  Let’s consider these as parts of ‘me’, and think – what if there were not a god who also had these characteristics.

But once again, the same sort of argument applies.  God is love, joy, peace.  Therefore without God there would be no love, joy or peace.  There would be no literature, there would be no mathematics, no equations, there would be not science.

Free will though is slightly different.  We know we have free will, and yet it is inexplicable by science.  It is inconsistent with the laws of physics.  Free will seems a bit of a paradox.  If God is the laws of physics, and free will is inconsistent with the laws of physics then how can that work?  A rational explanation is that free will is something that is a gift of God, that is not constrained by the laws of physics.  Therefore we begin to see what would be different in my friends question.  Without God we would have no free will, we would not be able to choose right from wrong, we would simply be robots who respond to stimuli.

But to explore the question further.  My last paragraph introduced right and wrong.  We know that there is right and wrong – even if we don’t always know what is right and what is wrong.  Right and wrong are different from free will, so let’s suppose that we were able to have free will but had no knowledge of right and wrong.  Clearly right and wrong exist.  Goodness and evil exist.  And yes, my definition of God includes ultimate goodness.  So without God we would have no constraint on what we do, we would simply live to serve ourselves.  The world would be governed simply by whoever was strongest.  We would be like most of the rest of the animal kingdom.  States like North Korea would be everywhere and left unchecked.  Anarchy would reign.  The world would be a very different place to live.

So have I proved God exists?  I think so (but I would) – simply because my definition of God includes everything that we know exists.  I define that it is not possible for anything to exist without God, and so anything which exists must be God.

My friend asked what if God didn’t exist but people believed that he did.  I hope that I have shown that such a question is not directly answerable, it is like the “can god make a thing so heavy that he cannot lift it” question, or “can God make something that doesn’t exist”.  But perhaps I’ve also been able to answer the questions behind the question.  Will it satisfy my friend?  I doubt it.  If any of us really doesn’t want to change our views then no amount of logical reasoning will make a difference.  But perhaps others will find the discussion interesting….

If you found this post interesting you might also like:

https://philhemsley.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/goodness-me/

https://philhemsley.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/the-god-of-science/

https://philhemsley.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/can-god-answer-prayer-in-a-universe-that-operates-according-to-the-laws-of-physics/

A vision and purpose for 2013

/ Minimalist Christian / 2 Comments

In the 2011 UK census, nearly 60% of the population want to be recognised as Christian.  Many other surveys show that the proportion of the population who regularly attend church services is between 5% and 15%.  (Tearfund report on churchgoing 2007, http://www.eauk.org/church/research-and-statistics/english-church-census.cfm, Religious Trends – Brieley)

This data shows that there are 45 – 55% of the UK population who want to be associated with Christianity but are not being supported by the various churches in the country.  To my mind this is not an acceptable situation.  Something must change.

The popular representation of Christians is that we are uncaring unloving people:  We are sexist, not allowing women bishops.  We are homophobic, not allowing gay marriage or gay clergy.  We are ignorant – ignoring scientific data and insisting that the world is 6000 years old and was created in six days.  We are hypocrites and child molesters.  We instantly jump to judge everyone else’s behaviour whilst being just as bad ourselves.  Our bottom line is that “you are going to Hell if you don’t believe what I believe”.  Of course, that’s complete b*****cks, but it certainly doesn’t encourage anyone to explore what Christianity is actually about.  I wrote my first book “The Leap” to address some of these issues.

So there is an image barrier that prevents the 55% exploring their spiritual roots.  But there are many other barriers. To name a few:

  • long working hours leave people exhausted (Nearly 20% of men and 6% of women work over 49 hours per week – 2011 census).  We want to relax and do something enjoyable at the weekend and the image of sitting in a cold uncomfortable church pew is not very attractive.
  • entertainment is at our fingertips in the comfort of our own homes, we don’t want to go to the trouble of going out.
  • nearly 50% of the population live alone (2011 census).  There’s all the housework to do. The barrier of going out alone can be immense, loneliness is a hard habit to break

Jesus came to bring life in abundance.  We are missing out!  We catch glimpses of what life in abundance might be in the spirit of the Olympics,  in the national celebrations and street parties of the Jubilee.  Neighbours got to know each other, perhaps speaking for the first time in years.  The hearts of the people in this nation are good – look at the response when Claire Squires died – nearly £1million donated. http://www.justgiving.com/Claire-Squires2

The church in the UK needs to provide opportunities for this spirit (which is a reflection of the spirit of God within all of us) to grow, for individuals to explore and develop their spiritual side, their humanity.

We need to fight against the materialist mindset that tells us we are simply a bunch of chemicals.

We need to fight against the economic mindset that tells use we are just consumers, human resources, a drain on the economy.

We need to free and inspire the hearts and minds of every man, woman and child to love one another, forgive one another, and love God – with all our hearts, minds and souls.

Let’s go for it! Let 2013 be a year we remember.