A thought about prayer

I was talking to my Jehovahs Witness friend at the station recently. He was rather enthusiastic about the fact that he saw me handing out tracts in Marrickville at the weekend. "It is always a good thing when people make the Bible more widely known," he told me.

We had a chat about being positive about others' efforts to reach out, but I had to go, as my train came in.

However, I said that I disagree with the JWs on many points -- obviously -- yet have to confess that they have played a positive part in some of the development of my own spiritual outlook. I would have liked to say more.

I am a convinced trinitarian. But, when I was converted, I knew, "God loves you, Jesus died for you, believe it and live as a believer." I didn't know if Baptists believed in the trinity or not.

Bill, where I worked, was not a trinitarian. He belonged to one of the cults which believe that God adopted Jesus as his "son" as a reward for his obedience, and we all may be adopted as sons if we are baptised, believe the tenets of this cult, and obey throughout our lives. Bill took me under his wing and tried to persuade me of his views.

The harder he tried, and the more he urged me to read the Bible, the more I read it and found exactly what he hoped I wouldn't find. A Christadelphian made a trinitarian of me. To cap it off, he tried to use Church History on me: "If you believe in the trinity, you side with the Catholics, and look at the dreadful things they did to Arians at Nicea." His account was so outrageous that I was sure he was wrong. So I found a great Church History text by a leading scholar, and read the story. Yes: both sides did some nasty things, but not what Bill alleged.

As I read Latourette's History further, I began to understand what the parties were saying, and why. It was the cap on my conversion to trinitarian faith.

With that in mind, I return to my Jehovahs Witness friend. He is a good-hearted man, with a generous spirit. Is he a saved man? I don't know -- but I know that salvation does not depend on accurate theology.

This takes me to the question of prayer.

For many years, our church has prayed for the other churches in Marrickville and beyond. We don't ask if they are Protestant, or if they are evangelical. It is part of our prayer for revival in our area. We need revival, and, no doubt, so do they. If they acknowledge Jesus as Lord, we pray for revival for them and for us. We pray that, wherever Jesus is proclaimed as Lord, there will be a God-honouring, Holy-Spirit led, Christ-focused revival.

This means that our prayers are for Anglicans, Catholics and Uniting Church as well as for our own Baptist brothers and sisters.

More recently we have added another group. If they earnestly seek Christ, even in a confused way, even if their beliefs about him are erroneous, we pray for them to find him and know him as he really is. I suppose we think this way about the Jehovahs Witnesses, but that doesn't seem, to me, a good reason not to pray for them.

I wonder what would happen if we really did start praying earnestly for each other, even if we don't like each other's ideas?

Answering the vulture and the earthworm

I was sad to see Senator Fielding on the ABC's Q&A panel together with Richard Dawkins. Senator Fielding does not have a good grasp on matters of fact outside his specific professional training, which clearly has little to do with science.

I was sad, too, to hear Professor Dawkins' cheap shot at the senator, as having the intellect of an earthworm. It is this kind of abusive arrogance which gives him -- and, by association, atheism -- a bad name. Dawkins writes eloquently and ignorantly about religious matters, which reveals, not that he is intellectually defective, but that he is lazy in assuming that a junior Sunday School understanding is sufficient to make him an expert. Not unlike Senator Fielding's position with science, really.

I have a growing concern that we Christians often tackle atheism inappropriately.

If I were a Muslim, I would definitely be troubled by Dawkins and his ilk. If I were a Jew, I would at least be uneasy. Neither religion has strong grounds to argue against atheism except on the grounds which atheism itself defines. It is hard to win an away game.

Of course, Dawkins has a point. Religious people can't provide proof of God's existence in the terms he demands. More accurately, science is incapable of determining whether or not God exists -- much like the question of the Higgs-Boson particle. This does not mean that God does not exit. It only means that God's existence is a question is outside the realm of science.

This is not, however, fatal to the question. There are many areas where science can contribute little. It can't tell us if Julius Caesar existed. At best, it may help sort through the evidence.

So why do Christians try to do battle in areas where Christian arguments tend to be weak, and atheist ones strong, yet ignore areas where the tables are turned?

It seems to me that we need to turn our focus back onto Jesus. Let's develop our arguments from a Christological base rather than a philosophical or a merely scientific base.

After all, there is a strong New Testament theme that Jesus makes the unknown, inaccessible God known.

John 1:18 tells us, No one has ever seen God; but God, the one and only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

In the 12th chapter (verse 41ff) we see that, in respect of his vision of the exalted Lord in the temple, Isaiah saw Jesus' glory and spoke about him.

John perhaps rounds it off with his quotation from Jesus, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father."

Similarly, the writer to the Hebrews tells us (Heb 1:3): The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

Paul, too, writing to the Colossians (1:15) describes Christ as ...the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

There is therefore a clear New Testament assertion that God the Father himself is beyond our direct knowledge or observation, but that Jesus is the revealer of God.

This suggests to me that teleological, ontological and such arguments are something of a waste of time for those who would convince those who argue that no case can be made for God's existence.

While this doesn't mean that there is no place for philosophical points, they are more of a further hint at God's existence than primary ingredients of a case. If a person wants to "see" or "see evidence for" God, surely the place to start is Jesus.

The question, then, is, "How does Jesus reveal God?"

The answer is that Christians are convinced that the attitudes and actions of Jesus show us something about the attitudes and actions of God. If we would know God's attitude to the outcasts of society, look at how Jesus treated them. If we want to know God's attitude to ethnic outsiders, look at Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. If we want to know about God's judgment, we will find more when we see Jesus attacking hypocrisy, exploitation and fruitlessness than we will learn merely from reading about the Israelites and the Amalekites in the Pentateuch.

I do not often find comments I find useful to repeat in the writings of Rev Fred Nile, but I believe he hits the mark in a recent newsletter:

"If you want to know if there is a God, start with Jesus Christ, who will reveal the truth about Himself and His Heavenly Father."

I'll say, "Amen!" to that.

The Netbook Phenomenon

I don't own a netbook, nor am I likely to in the near future. But I think that they are saying something about people's attitudes.

For those who are unfamiliar with these devices, they are tiny laptop computers. Where the average business laptop has about a 15" screen, netbooks have a screen half the size or slightly bigger. 12" is generally considered the upper limit.

But netbooks have other distinctive features. They generally have no CD/DVD drive, no more than 1GB of memory, and a not very large hard drive. Most use a single core processor running at below 1.7GHz. Most full-sized laptop computers have a DVD drive, 3 or 4GB of memory and dual core processors running at over 2.0GHz.

The idea behind the netbook is that it is capable of running basic programs (word processor, spreadsheet, basic photo editing) and, above all, of using the Internet. It is designed for travellers and people who make light use of a computer. And most are small enough to slip into a briefcase leaving plenty of room for a packed lunch.

The netbook phenomenon is important because it points to a shift in values.

People still go for the big, powerful computers, just as they still go for big, powerful cars. But a backlash is developing. People are beginning to realise that small works fine, that you don't necessarily need all the features and the "just in case" add-ons. Simple, straight-forward and, above all, portable, works fine. The Toyota Corolla offers some advantages over the Ford Fairlane.

Part of the reason is that extra power doesn't gain you much. In the 1950s, a Jaguar Mk VII capable of 160kph could cruise near that speed for hundreds of kilometres on the derestricted back roads, which was a great advantage over cars like my little Austin which struggled to reach 110 with a tail wind.

Today, the little 1.5litre sedan probably achieves 160 given a push, but only on the freeways is it permitted to reach 110 -- the same as the Jaguar driving alongside it.

Similarly, with computers, when the limiting factor is often disk speed or even the user's typing speed, how much processing speed do we really need? Is "grunt" more important, or a battery which lasts through the day? How often do we really need our CD drive?

With the netbook, the answer is coming down on the side of moderate speed, durable batteries, and plugging in a CD drive when it's necessary.

The netbook phenomenon suggests that, in technology, some people are beginning to accept E.F Schumacher's view that "Small is beautiful".

On the other hand, as the growth of netbook ownership is mainly as a second computer, we need to ask ourselves whether owning 1-1/2 computers is really the definition of smallness. Not that I should talk, of course.

When Jesus sent his disciples out, he told them not to take spare sandals or extra cash -- in effect, he told them to travel light, and discover that God is dependable. There is a radicalism in his approach from which we can all learn. His attitude coloured the early church's approach to poverty, where they sold off property to provide more resources to give to those who lacked. It was also very much the attitude of the early Franciscans, and a value prized by the evangelist, John Wesley.

Of course, for some people, the laptop and projector are part of the basic equipment; for others, that is mere indulgence. But the issue remains: are we acquiring and depending on goods because they are vital to what we do, or because we feel unprotected without them?