February 13th, 2008
Wow. I attended a Goth Eucharist last night. Held in St. Edward King and Martyr Church, Cambridge, the birthplace of the English Reformation, it was a profound experience.
Sitting next to the pulpit where the first English reformers preached from. Listening to Pink Floyd and VNV Nation. Letting the words of the Anglican liturgy roll over me in a dark, candlelit nave. Going out to the bar afterwards to debate theology, artificial intelligence and quantum mechanics with a bunch of Cambridge post-grads. I only wish I’d found out about this service earlier.
While I wouldn’t classify myself as ‘goth’, I do appreciate the goth aesthetic. And it was both intriguing to attend church as a cultural ‘outsider’, and also to experience a service that didn’t require it’s congregants to reject their own culture before attending. In fact, it was perhaps the most accessible church event I’ve been to in a long time. I met people who described themselves variously as christian, agnostic and atheist, and yet everyone seemed able to engage with the service to the level they felt comfortable.
All in all a fascinating evening.
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December 4th, 2007
The book of Job is a study in theologians getting it dead wrong. Job asks the eternal question “why is their pain and suffering? How can this be the work of a just God?” and his friends try to answer. They don’t just trot out cheap aphorisms and continue on their way- they sit with Job for 7 days before speaking, if I recall correctly. And then they take a lot of chapters to construct a theodicy, a theology of suffering. But unfortunately, it basically boils down to ‘it must be your fault.’
I’m wondering if the book is basically a warning about the dangers of acting as God’s spokesman. Job’s friends are not thanked for their efforts to teach theology to Job or for defending God’s actions. God, it seems, does not need apologists.
Is it ok for Job to ask the questions, but not for his friends to answer them?
I suspect we need to be very careful in rushing to answer this type of question. Maybe it’s important for each individual to wrestle with God and the problems of pain and injustice, and in our hurry to tie up theological loose ends we truncate this process.
I suspect that God is less interested in what we think about these questions, than in how we react to them. But it’s probably easier to explain suffering than try to alleviate it.
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