Viewing archives for Knowledge

Part 1

The key theme of science and religion regularly comes up in class, from upper primary years onwards (KS2 – KS4 especially); it is a fundamental part of any discussion of worldviews and so I hope to give some pointers here to help address some of the basic issues that need to be considered with a class so that the pupils learn to think clearly – a kind of critical thinking or ‘epistemological’ approach. My next resource piece will address the issue of how we might find out if Christianity is actually true.

My three issues are:

1. What are our underlying assumptions?
2. ‘How?’ and ‘Why?’ questions
3. What is the difference between evidence and proof?

1. Everyone has underlying assumptions about what they think reality, or the world/universe, actually is. Science takes it for granted (a) that this world is real, (b) that the methods of science are the correct ones for studying it, and (c) that science is progressing towards ultimately being able to explain everything. Pupils need to consider what they take for granted about the reality and reliability of the natural world, and why they think this – that’s a fair discussion, and requires some preparation by the teacher: https://www.stem.org.uk/resources/physical/resource/202448/science-and-religion-schools-support-cd-rom-ages-11-19 is a website link to substantial resources, or you could devise your own.

It is important to consider this as a basic, because underlying Christian assumptions add to these ones: Christians accept the reality of the world but say that the scientific methods are not enough – they’re good, but more methods are needed. Science has the right tools for scientific jobs, but to study morals, or spirituality, or God, you need other tools. A good comparison is to fishing: some nets catch some kinds of fish, but for lobsters you need pots…you need the right tools for the job! See further answer 2 below.

2.Religion asks ‘why are we here?’ ‘Why is there a universe at all?’ ‘Why should we behave well?’ Science asks ‘how did the universe evolve?’ How does the brain work?’ ‘How does gravity affect flight?’, and so on. Vital questions, but different ones. Something I have used with classes to show the difference between how and why questions is to ask a pupil ‘How did you come to school today?’ They answer maybe by car, on foot, etc. I then ask ‘Why did you come to school today?’ and I have got some fascinating answers! The why question is much more interesting than the how one, and the answers are totally different. ‘How?’ gives us a scientific or technological answer; ‘Why?’ gives a moral or intentional answer.

But….the answers do not contradict each other! They fit together: ‘I came to school by car (how), because my mother thinks it’s really important that I am educated (why)’. It’s just the same with religion and science: why we are here is far more important that how we got here. You need both science and religion or, to quote Einstein: ‘science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind’.

3.Briefly, pupils need to understand when they say, ‘there’s no proof’ what it is they are asking for. This is hard and takes time to get across, but is excellent critical thinking practice. Imagine this: your pupils come into the classroom and find a dead person on the floor. One fact – a dead body; lots of theories: a medical emergency, a murder, a suicide….? Each theory needs evidence – a bloodied dagger, footprints, a broken window, finger prints, etc. The theory that has the most evidence (i.e. most facts) is the first one to pursue. However, none of this amounts to proof, at best it gives us not just possibilities but probabilities. In order to be certain we need to identify the culprit (if our theory is murder) and obtain a proper confession – why did they do this, what were the motive and the cause? Many, many crimes remain unsolved because we cannot get this last clinching piece, there is not enough evidence to amount to proof. Most importantly we can often be led astray by following the wrong theory, missing a vital clue, or not asking the right questions (e.g. ‘who benefits most from this murder?’).

So with science and religion: if we are looking for God, what kinds of evidence would we be looking for? What facts? Which theories should we dismiss for lack of evidence? We have to remember that God is not the kind of Being you can find with a telescope (the very first Russian cosmonaut joked that he had not seen God when he went up in a rocket into space!). So what would your pupils accept as good evidence? And are they being reasonable? Of course, whether any religion is true is another discussion altogether, for another time!

Part 2

As promised before, here is a common-sense way of discussing how we might know if Christianity is actually true. I’ll start by highlighting some dangers:

‘Nothing-Buttery’ – this is where someone might say that Christianity is ‘nothing but’ an adaptive response to a scary environment, or it is nothing but ignorance of the facts of science, or ‘just’ a way to manipulate others by fear of hell. Always avoid ‘nothing but’ explanations because they hopelessly over-simplify difficult problems.

Historical scepticism – young people often think that the longer ago something happened, the less reliable accounts of it are, and so ‘legend’, ‘myth’, or, politely, ‘aetiological tale’ may be used. Granted all we know about fake news these days, it is good that historians these days know how to check the accuracy of past records and have a huge amount of scientific help (just think of TV history programmes).

A closed mind – our emphasis on worldviews should ensure we encourage young people to move beyond what their limited experience of the world can tell them, and to be open to multi-faceted truths and variant understandings. A fingers-in-the-ears approach to anything novel, like miracles, is no help!

Bad religion – there has been so much of this (in all Faiths) – tortures, massacres, abuses, superstition. Many people cannot see beyond this, but it is important to point out the far larger amount of good that has been done, often without publicity.

It can be interesting to test a class with ‘would I lie to you?’ type statements, and draw out from them whether, and why, they think they are true – before telling them the answer. https://www.johnlewis.com/would-i-lie-to-you-board-game-2019/p231601008 has a board game at £25 which could be a good investment.

There are three main ways that we can use to know if something is true, or at least highly likely:

a. Known facts – [Empiricism] this just means using testable, observable facts to construct a probable theory or explanation, avoiding the three dangers above. On this basis we can use contemporary accounts of Jesus from outside the Bible (there are a few); we can check the historical, geographical etc., references contained in the Gospels; and we can use resources like archaeology or classical literature to see if the story is corroborated. Archaeology has been a huge help here: published in 2018, ‘The Bible and Archaeology’ by Matthieu Richelle is very well informed, easy to read and cheap!

b. Reasoning – [Rationalism] this refers to thinking round the issues. We need to ask questions which are more imaginative but also profound: if there had been no Jesus, how and why did Christianity even start? If Jesus did not rise from the dead, where is his body now? Why is there no ‘tomb of the Messiah’ as there is, in Medina, the Tomb of the Prophet? Why would people deliberately die for a faith they knew was not true? If there were no Jesus, or no resurrection, why would anyone bother to invent such an amazing story and try to pass it off as true? These are valuable lessons in reasoning for class discussions.

c. Experience – this is the most difficult area. Most Christians would say they have experienced Jesus in their lives, and perhaps they would add that they have seen a miracle (miracles are a big discussion topic on exam specifications, so beware). A video resource like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlLD6ddWPXg can lead to a great discussion. For some people the truth of Christianity is an intuition which they find hard to put into words. Pupils should be encouraged to realise that intuitions play a large part in our lives (whom should I marry?) so should not be disregarded.

There are plenty of books and video clips backing all this up, but, as we know, the internet is awash not just with fake claims, but also with highly biased, sometimes offensive, sometimes just plain naïve information. Please don’t just set a ‘research this’ type homework without indicating the specific resources they must use.

This resource was written by Richard Coupe, one of RE:ONLINE’s Email a Believer team. 

Watching the news in January 2020 resulted in many of us praying for peace. This month I thought it would be appropriate to discuss the term peace in a general way.

Islam understands the relationship between God and the creation to be one of harmony and balance with everything in due order and in its rightful place. It is then in a state of security and safety; a state of deep and abiding peace. This comes about when the whole of creation functions according to the great designer’s plan; when everything is obedient to God.

Arabic is a language in which most words are based on three-letter roots. Such a root carries within it a whole range of meanings. All the words that are based on that root form a family of words with a shared set of meanings.

One such Arabic root is made up of the three letters slm. This root carries that range of meanings that were mentioned above. By adding vowels to the root, we can make a series of words as follows:

s l m

i s l a m

m u s l i m

s a l a m

We can see the three-letter root slm running through all three words.

Now we can ask:

What is islam?

And answer: islam is that natural state of the whole of creation in harmony, balance, justice, peace etc. with God and within itself, which is the way that God created things and the state in which God wants them to live. This can only come about when everything lives according to the designer’s plan, which for human beings means choosing to submit our wills to the revealed ethical divine will. Only then will we and all creation flourish in this world and the life hereafter. Our second word, muslim, is an adjective based on the same root; it describes something in the state of islam. We can say that God creates the universe in the state of islam.

You might also recognise the third of our words, salam, from the greeting that Muslims exchange: Salam ‘alaykum. This is often translated as, “Peace be with you” but we can now see its deeper meaning: “May you come ever more fully and completely into that state of perfect peace, which is islam, which will only come about when you submit to the divine will in every way” [Q. 33:44]

Salam requires that state of abiding islam that is built on justice, etc. This is not something that just happens but it is built and maintained by human beings struggling to learn, rationally understand and live out the requirements of the revealed ethical divine will. Thus, salam means more than a meagre “peace” describing the absence of war and want, it is something much more far-reaching: the Islamic understanding of peace is that state of the whole of creation in justice, harmony and obedience within itself and with the creator.

The Qur’an tells us that this life is a test; an opportunity for human beings to put into practice the guidance of God, to do good and keep away from wrong [Q. 18:7]. Temptation is to be resisted with all one’s strength. This struggle is first of all an inner one, against our own lower inclinations, our laziness, impatience and arrogance.

This resource was written by Aliya Azam, one of RE:ONLINE’s Email a Believer team. 

This resource will:

• explore this question of how reading relates to questions of truth and meaning
• equip teachers with an awareness of a range of reading practices
• invite teachers to consider how these different reading practices, or ‘theologies of reading’ can be applied in the classroom context

A paper by Dr Ruth Jackson Ravenscroft, David Thompson Research Fellow, Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge and Dr Kathryn Wright, CEO, Culham St Gabriel’s Trust.

Published January 2020.

“Should I work occasionally on Shabbat if I am struggling to find a job?” was a question sent to the Jewish Chronicle’s ‘Rabbi, I Have a Problem’ feature. The Orthodox rabbi’s response concentrated on the importance of staying true to the faith. “If you betray your principles by working on Shabbat, you will lose a part of yourself that will be very hard to reclaim. Be true to yourself and you can never go wrong.”

The Reform rabbi looked more practically at the matter, suggesting that the writer go to employment organisations that support people who keep Shabbat, or which are known for their flexible working conditions.  He also alluded to the German Reform Rabbi Leo Baeck’s concept of ‘Sabbath moments,’ not keeping the full Shabbat but elevating certain times, such as making Kiddush on Friday nights.

The area of work and Judaism is positive to explore in the classroom, as it puts the faith into a modern, living context. It also encourages practical peace-making – how can we find a solution to difficult dilemmas?  How can people from different beliefs and traditions work happily side by side?  How can we offer support to people who hold different beliefs when they face harassment and racism?

Some questions for pupils to discuss in groups could be:

I keep the kosher food rules but want to be a chef. What should I do? 

This dilemma was first mentioned to me by an ex-pupil, who had special needs and worried that his job choices would be even more limited if he could not taste certain foods. There are now far more vegan and vegetarian restaurants which would suit an employee who would want to keep away from ‘treif (non-kosher food)’ if they cannot get a job in the kosher sector. Also, I note that a famous TV chef – Tom Kerridge – has a shellfish allergy and lets others from his team taste these dishes. However, the answer is not, as one pupil suggested, just taste a little non-kosher food, as it won’t matter.

I am a doctor in A and E and usually don’t work on Saturday as I am Orthodox. However, this week no-one else can work on that day. What should I do?   

A key Jewish concept is ‘pikuach nefesh’ – preservation of life. This should always come first.  A Biblical quotation for this would be, ‘Do not stand by idly when a human life is in danger.’ (Leviticus 19:16). There is also the quotation used in Schindler’s List, “Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.” Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:1 (22a). Pupils can discuss how the doctor could have ‘Sabbath moments’, for example, saying Shabbat prayers in his break.

I wear a kippah and work in a recycling centre. Some of my work mates make fun of me every day. What should I do?

This is an opportunity to discuss workplace bullying and discrimination. Pupils should not feel it is acceptable for people to experience hatred at work simply because of their beliefs and there are laws (2010 Equalities Act) and procedures to deal with this. Role play could encourage pupils to show how to support someone who is facing anti-Semitic harassment at work.

I know someone who is poor. I don’t know whether to give them money or to help them get a job. What do you think?  

Here, Maimonides’ Ladder of Charity could be mentioned (Mishnah Torah 10:7-15). The highest level of charity is giving someone a gift or loan, or helping them into work, so that they don’t need to be dependent on charity anymore. The dignity of having a job is very important in Judaism.

I am an Orthodox woman who dresses modestly. My new manager at my hairdressers’ says I must wear a short skirt at work. What should I do?   

This is indirect discrimination and will be in breach of the 2010 Equalities Act. An employee would have to justify their decision on health and safety grounds, which is obviously not the case in the example. Pupils could discuss ‘tzniut’ – Jewish customs on modest dress – and how it connects with Muslim women’s dress code.

Finally, it is interesting to consider the whole area of Jewish workplace ethics. How should we behave at work?  Is it acceptable to gossip about workmates, take home stationery, use work time to sort out our social life, to tell lies in order to sell things?  Some key teachings are

• You should keep your distance from a falsehood – Exodus 23:7
• For one positive act leads to another positive act and one transgression leads to another transgression – Ethics of the Fathers 4:2
• What would be hateful to you do not do to others – Hillel, the Babylonian Talmud
• Even a good deed, if done (without permission) in the employer’s time is a sin – Path of the Just
• A good name is better than precious oil – Ecclesiastes 7:1

Jewish Principles in the Work-Place, a resource from JABE (Jewish Association for Business Ethics)      https://www.scojec.org/resources/files/workplace_ethics.pdf

The Employer’s Guide to Judaism, a resource from the Board of Deputies of British Jews  https://www.bod.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Employers-Guide-to-Judaism2.pdf

https://www.thejc.com/judaism/rabbi-i-have-a-problem/should-i-work-occasionally-on-shabbat-if-i-am-struggling-to-find-a-job-1.148045

https://www.scojec.org/resources/files/workplace_ethics.pdf

This resource was written by Hannah Mandelbaum, one of RE:ONLINE’s Email a Believer team. If your class would like to ask a Jewish representative any questions about their faith, or to see answers to previously asked questions please visit http://pof.reonline.org.uk/people-of-faith/judaism/

This resource was written by Hannah Mandelbaum, one of RE:ONLINE’s Email a Believer team.

Well, have you managed to avoid Slade, the Pogues, Michael Buble, Bing Crosby, Mariah Carey, Wham!, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, Chris Sievey, Cliff Richard, Elvis Presley, Band Aid……..?

Perhaps the only way to do this is to stay indoors with your fingers in your ears! I’m sure Ebenezer Scrooge would have avoided them all (‘Bah! Humbug!’), but I have just come across one school that is hosting a debate: this House believes Ebenezer Scrooge is a better role model for children than Father Christmas. What do you think? Being a Grumpy Old Man I might tend to agree with the motion, or, being a Grumpy Old Philosopher, I might prefer to change the motion and deny the validity of the binary choice……..

Either way, what is Christmas? I don’t mean what is the whole Biblical and traditional story(-ies), I mean what is it now for modern Britain? Thankfully the Daily Mail spoofs that to mention the word ‘Christmas’ would somehow cause offence to others are a thing of the past, but I have a friend who now insists on wishing me a happy vegetarian Winterval and urges me to engage more with the seasonal solstice and look forward in hope not evidently to the Christ-child but to more daylight. Hmmm.

There again, Advent is replaced by Black Friday and Cyber Week, carols by Jingle Bells, the joy of feasting by guilt over the poor, and the journey of the Magi by Elton John’s journey from his first piano. Is this all too negative? – no, but it is short-sighted. In a sense this is what Christmas always was – no wonder the Puritans banned it from 1644 to 1647! It has always been jolly and drunken for the majority. It started that way in ancient Rome, when Saturnalia moved to the 25th December. Its 4th Century AD rebranding as the birthday of Jesus followed a century of debate in the churches as to when Jesus was actually born (many days of the year suggested) but the replacement for Saturnalia became official soon after Constantine had embraced Christianity, of a sort, for the Empire.

Another origin is similar, the Sol Invicta cult of the Roman World, in which Constantine himself was brought up, which partied on 25th December, but the general idea is the same: a religious/secular festival in the gloom of midwinter. Plenty of other accretions to Christmas have come from similar festivals (Yuletide, for example), in the hope that ‘Christianising’ them would sanitise them.

So where does this place us today? Should we as Christians bow to what seems inevitable and have our Christmas whilst the world has its Xmas? I say a guarded ‘No’ to that. Why?

[i] There are many on the fringes of Faith, indeed adherents of other Faiths also, who want life to be more than shopping, reality to be explored, not turned Virtual; we can hold a candle for those people.
[ii] The Christmas stories are our cultural heritage, with a message of ‘Peace on earth’, of goodwill to all people, of remembering the rejected family with Baby in a manger about to become refugees in Egypt.
[iii] The staggering wealth of music, dramas and poetry speak of a society that desperately needs a central value beyond Brexit and the economy.
[iv] We need something better for our mental health than mere Mindfulness – we need something to be Mindful of, namely the hope that Bethlehem can bring us all as we explore its many meanings.

But the real Bethlehem today is a parable of the lives of so many people – under occupation by forces beyond its control, impoverished, walled in, drained of its Christian heritage, the Church of the Nativity in Manger Square commercially exploited – a parody at the heart of Christianity. One Bethlehem tours website (all-in package including Jerusalem and the Dead Sea) includes the comment that ‘For those not interested in Bethlehem there will be free time in Jerusalem’ – presumably the shopping malls of West Jerusalem? Bethlehem has now so little to offer even the commercial tourist.

In our schools we need to explore and exploit the nativity story: life under Roman occupation; an unpopular census for taxation purposes; an illegitimate pregnancy and family shame; an honourable carpenter protecting his young bride-to-be; the value of the family connections in their hometown of Bethlehem; the holy family squashed together in the animal quarter of a peasant house, occasioning ribald remarks from neighbours; the brutality and despotic fear of Herod and the child massacre that follows. Then there is the welcome from the lowly and near-dispossessed (shepherds); and from the wealthy overseas wise (the Magi), with their extraordinary royal gifts that must have seemed so inappropriate when they finally located Jesus, following the star to the Christ-child; then their refugee journey to Egypt.

If we can’t find parables in this shared narrative for our modern world then we seriously lack empathetic imagination.

So let us merge Christmas and Xmas (after all, X is the Greek letter at the start of Christ’s name), let us both use and celebrate the feast and give our gifts; and let us explore the depths of the narrative for our modern world, whose tinsel and plastic cribs are but a parody of reality.

This resource was written by Richard Coupe, one of RE:ONLINE’s Email a Believer team.

During National Interfaith week our Imam planted trees outside the mosque alongside the Chief Rabbi, this was part of Mitzvah day which is a day of faith-based action. I, along with some of my students, also participated. I think it is really important for our faith leaders to set examples for the rest of the community and images such as faith leaders working for the common good speaks volumes. Our students have linked up with young people from our neighbouring synagogue and have formed a social club

Outside mainstream education there is an impressive range of initiatives, projects, websites and resources, much of it galvanised by the excellent Inter Faith Network and their growing membership, who have been the pioneers and main inter-faith drivers for almost thirty years.

The Quran commands Muslims to “Vie, then, with one another in doing good works!” Planting trees in Islam is a form of charity and is a step in the right direction for helping reverse the effects of climate change. Muslims are required by Islam to keep the environment around them pure and clean. True Muslims are those who appreciate the beauty surrounding them. This may explain many of the Prophetic hadiths that talk about the merits of planting trees and other acts that benefit people.There is a hadith saying, “There is none amongst the Muslims who plants a tree or sows seeds, and then a bird, or a person or an animal eats from it, but is regarded as a charitable gift for him.” This is a form of sadaqah jariya which means that such an act will continue ton benefit a person after the person dies as well.

Inter-faith activity is defined as ‘the collaborative promotion of dialogue, co-operation, understanding and action of different faith groups in order to develop a more cohesive society’. 

A cohesive society is one where there is a common vision and sense of belonging for all communities; the diversity of people’s different backgrounds and circumstances is appreciated and positively valued; those from different backgrounds have similar opportunities; and strong and positive relations are being developed in the workplace, in schools, and within neighbourhoods.

A lot can be learned outside the classroom and young students can meet religious leaders and ask them questions about anything they like.

Visiting sacred space is another excellent way whereby students can get a feel of what it is like to be a follower of a faith. There is awe and wonder when entering the space that is sacred to people of other faiths. I visited East London mosque during a meeting of the Religious Education Council. I was amazed to hear that almost two thousand people use the mosque every day for their daily prayers. Whilst I was there three coffins were being brought in whereby after the mid-day prayers people would then take part in the funeral prayers of the deceased. The mosque had a minaret and there were loudspeakers that were used for the call of prayer. I remember how unusual it was to hear the call to prayer on the streets of London!

There were fantastic displays on the walls where a verse was cited about a particular topic like marriage for example and then a small image was painted to illustrate the topic. Visiting East London mosque was nice for me during National Interfaith week because it is not a mosque I normally go to because I go to a mosque which is nearer to where I live. It was interesting to learn that part of the building used to be a synagogue and before it was sold they there were very good relationships between the two communities illustrating the peace and harmony that can result when people respect each other regardless of their faith or belief.

This resource was written by Aliya Azam, one of RE:ONLINE’s Email a Believer team.

I am frequently asked how Jesus could be God. So this is a brief study, under the general title of Leaders and Prophets, about this central belief of Christianity.

Christianity believes that God really came into this real, material world, being fully human whilst never losing His deity: he was not just a prophet. How did Christians ever arrive at such an idea? First of all we can look to the Gospels:

• Jesus taught it: he said ‘I and the Father are one’ (John 10.30), ‘I am in the Father and the Father is in me’ (John 14.11)
• Jesus showed it: his many miracles – ‘it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you’ (Matt. 12.28) – healing the sick and raising the dead
• Jesus proved it by his resurrection

Secondly, after the resurrection, and the reception of the promised Holy Spirit (Jesus had said he himself would send the Spirit) the first Christians had a great deal of thinking to do, rather like this: Jesus must have been the Messiah, fulfilled Old Testament prophecy literally (‘Mighty God, everlasting Father’ – Isaiah 9.6) and be coming back again as he promised; only if he is really divine can he do all this. And when he said ‘before Abraham was, I Am’ (John 8.58) he made the most staggering claim: he is that Word of God, that Wisdom of God, that very image of God, through whom everything was made in the first place (Proverbs 3.19) and in whom we are made!

Thirdly, talk of God’s personified Wisdom and Word were current in Judaism at the time and, differently, in contemporary Stoicism – the divine Word (Logos) is the guiding principle, the inner formula, of the universe as a while. So John opens with the claim: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…..the Word became flesh and dwelt among us’.

St Paul articulated what this means in his letters to the Philippians and the Colossians: he identifies Jesus as pre-eminent over all creation (Colossians 1.15-20), the means by which creation was made and is sustained, and in whom ‘all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell’. He also explains (Philippians 2.4-11) that, in becoming man, Christ divested himself of divine privileges (omnipresence, omnipotence, etc.) and submitted to an ignoble death. So the incarnation is definitely in the Bible.

However, how this came to be understood over the ensuing centuries varied

Some Christians came to see Jesus as a man adopted by God because of his holiness, ‘Son’ of God in an exceptional way but not God in the flesh. Conversely some others were so keen on Jesus being God, or God’s Word, that the human element of Jesus was considered a mere minor addition, and possibly not really real anyway (Apollinaris, Sabellianism, Gnostics). Others argued over whether Jesus’ soul was divine, human, or both (Nestorius, Origen), and a major heresy argued that though he was divine and human together, God is so immutable and transcendent that the ‘god’ in Jesus must have been a lesser aspect of divinity, a special creation not eternal and not fully God (Arius). Did Jesus have just one unique nature (Monophysites) or two unmixed (orthodox definition)? Or two, unmixed indeed but actually separate (Cyril)? And so it went on!

It took the Councils of Nivea and Constantinople, in the 4th Century, to reach the most widely accepted definition in the Nicene Creed:

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.

Of course all these problems were caused by old views of humans – body and soul – and at a Platonic version of God, for whom matter was untouchable. Christianity had to break both moulds to get this definition of one Lord Jesus Christ, fully God and fully Man, a definition finally fully set out at Chalcedon in AD 451 – see http://anglicansonline.org/basics/chalcedon.html and note that even so there are variations within Christendom still. That’s the thing about God, He just won’t conform to our thinking! We have not got adequate categories to explain the Incarnation, that is clear, but it is the essential central mystery of Christianity.

Divided nature – what he does as God, what he does as man

This resource was written by Richard Coupe, one of RE:ONLINE’s Email a Believer team. 

The relationship between the LGBTQ+ community and large parts of organised religion is complex. Some members of the LGBTQ+ community have been hurt by their experiences of organised religion and this has led to distrust.

I would like to say that Paganism is different. That Paganism is fully accepting toward LGBTQ+ people. But I can’t say that.
I can, however, say that the majority of Pagans are accepting toward LGBTQ+ people.

I think it is fair to say, though, that even among the small minority of Pagans who do in some way discriminate against LGBTQ+ people, the number who claim to do it on religious grounds are even fewer. This is because there is very little in Paganism that can be taken as somehow religiously proclaiming that homosexuality, etc. is wrong. So, if you do encounter one of the few Pagans that have issues with such things, my view would be that their discrimination is entirely their own and not something that has been transmitted to them as a ‘Pagan teaching’.

In fact, there is a great deal in Paganism that not only signals an acceptance of homosexuality, transsexuality, etc. but actively recognises it as something that can be religiously recognised and celebrated.

A great amount of modern Paganism is constructed from features (both religious and social) of older cultures. It is no secret that the ancient Greeks and Romans, for example, had a rather progressive attitude toward homosexuality, at key points in their history. So it should come as little surprise that there are models within their religious and mythic traditions that can be taken as representative of LGBTQ+ qualities.
The God Dionysus, for example, was depicted as both an old man and as an effeminate youth. The God Pan is unapologetically pansexual. The deity Hermaphroditus (from where we get the word hermaphrodite) was the God of hermaphrodites and the effeminate and possessed both male and female physical features. Even the Goddess of Love herself, Aphrodite, was sometimes depicted with a beard and in Theselay she was celebrated with lesbian rites. And of course, Aphrodite is regularly invoked in the ancient poetry of Sapho, celebrating love between women.

But themes and concepts that can be significant to an LGBTQ+ expression of religion, are definitely not restricted to the Greeks and Romans. In Germanic mythology, we see a number of examples of gender-bending and switching of traditional gender roles and power structures.
In South America, the God Xochipili is the patron of male homosexuality.
Polynesia and the Pacific Islands contain a number of different deities and religious traditions involving gay relationships and bisexuality. Additionally, there are a number of examples of third-gender and gender-variant shamans. In fact, Shamanism generally has numerous examples of people, behaviours and practices worldwide, that fall under the umbrella of gender-variance.

There are actually more examples than I have space to list, but we can see that such themes are common across many ancient cultures, all over the world.

The degree to which LGBTQ+ themes are celebrated and discussed in the broader Pagan community will differ from place to place.
Paganism is a very personalised path and being as the majority of people are not a part of the LGBTQ+ community, it’s hardly surprising that those themes may not feature in the practices of a lot of people. Additionally, despite the broad acceptance of LGBTQ+ people, orientations, lifestyles, and love styles, there are large amounts of Paganism that are constructed in a very heteronormative way. They’re not exclusionary of LGBTQ+ themes and people, but at their most basic level they revolve around a certain core of celebrating the cycle of life as expressed through the female and male experience, and the union of the male and female to perpetuate life. Much of this has come out of the popularity of Wicca and other modern Witchcraft traditions.

So, while on the one hand Paganism is very inclusive, I could understand if the commonality of heteronormative themes might make an LGBTQ+ person feel excluded.

However, there are Pagan groups and paths that are exclusively LGBTQ+. For example, the Pagan tradition known as Radical Faerie, is exclusively made up of “lesbians, gay men, trans*, bisexuals, queer hetero people and anyone else in between” (quote from Radical Faeries of Albion: https://albionfaeries.org.uk ).

I think it is a strength of Paganism that it is not just LGBTQ+ inclusive, but that it possesses a wealth of myth, tradition, and iconography of an LGBTQ+ nature. That this creates even more opportunity for members of the LGBTQ+ community to not merely explore their spirituality among accepting people, but to explore a spiritual path that also reflects important aspects of who they are and can be celebrated with others who are also on a similar life journey.

Glossary
LGBTQ+ : Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans*, Queer, +others.

This resource was written by Luthaneal Adams, one of RE:ONLINE’s Email a Believer team.

Christians always look forward to Christmas, whatever our denominations, because it enables us to reflect once again on why we are Christians: we believe God decisively entered our world once and for all, in person, to redeem us; in so doing He had to become exactly one of us – and so begin the narratives in Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels.

However, we are less confident on the period leading up to Christmas, Advent. What’s it all about? Well, we know that four clear Sundays before Christmas Day (hence the moving date for Advent Sunday) we are to make spiritual preparations for the celebration of the Incarnation. Over the centuries customs have varied widely: some have Lent-like fasts, many put up Advent wreaths and lights, or share special calendars to count off the days; then there are Advent carols, Christingle, a specific wreath with five candles lit Sunday by Sunday in many churches to remember the spiritual history leading up to the arrival of Christ (‘Advent’ means ‘arrival’), and no doubt other customs. So, what are we missing?

The Collect in the ASB prayer book for Advent includes:
…so that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead, we may rise to life immortal…
The original creed of Nicaea, the contemporary product in AD325 of the great Council of Nicaea states:
…[he] will come to judge the living and the dead….
And the New Testament frequently makes reference to the Second Coming, Jesus himself making reference to it in the eschatological discourse (e.g. Luke 21. 25ff), through the message of the angels at the Ascension, the epistles right up to the buffers of Revelation: “Amen. Come Lord Jesus!” 

Why don’t we make more of this profound Hope? I suggest three main reasons:
a) Over the centuries we have seen so many ‘millenarian’ movements proclaiming the imminent end of the world – ‘The Pursuit of the Millennium’ is a fascinating yet worrying read;
b) Post-Enlightenment Christianity has become embarrassed to hold such a blatantly supernatural article of faith (Article IV of the 39 Articles, for example)
c) It hasn’t happened yet!

To tackle these in turn:
a) We know even from the pages of the New Testament that an imminent Return of Christ (Parousia) was often expected, and that hope had to be realigned to the realities of the Christian life (2 Thessalonians 3.10, for example). Enthusiastic movements such as the 2nd Century Montanists plainly had some such expectation, and right through to the Jehovah’s Witnesses today this belief has been a great inspiration, even though all predictions have proved futile. It does lead many to re-assess whether such a belief should have any place granted this history. The simple answer is ‘No’; just because some people have got it wrong, the overall belief is not invalidated though it may need more careful consideration.

b) Familiar rationalism has created liberalism, which has been a valuable antidote to modern Fundamentalism and mindless, superstitious ‘faith’; poor Anselm’s credo ut intelligam (‘believe in order that I may understand’) has been misused to make blind ‘faith’ a virtue, which not even Jesus proposed – he told us to watch and not to let anyone deceive us, being ourselves as ‘wise as serpents’.. Realised Eschatology, its roots in the Johannine tradition, took off in the 20th Century, reinterpreting ‘eternal life’ to mean a virtuous quality of life rather than an endless quantity of life, and of course there is much to be said for this in terms of the moral and spiritual teachings of the New Testament and of Jesus himself. Albert Schweizer’s famous conclusion that Jesus was a failed eschatological prophet who flung himself to the cross trying to make God see his point of view, probably sums up the basis for redirecting the Second Coming hope towards a more spiritual and reasonable hope. But by the time the supernatural has been removed from the Gospel, Christology become Adoptionism, eternity become excellence in this world, and God merely the Ground of Our Being and not Trinity, there is not much left! Christianity is fundamentally supernatural or it is nothing.

c) For some in New Testament times the delayed Parousia was already a problem: ‘Where is the promise of His coming’ (2 Peter 3.4). This could, of course, mean we have always got it wrong if doubts existed even then, but Peter’s answer in this epistle is helpful: God does not work on our timescale, and if the Parousia is delayed, it is to give us time to turn to God rather than face judgement too soon, so live as if the Parousia is tomorrow, but plan to be here a long time! We sometimes call this ‘Now, and not yet’. Unfortunately, there is an industry of speculation among evangelicals, often based precariously on the Book of Revelation, to construct the agenda and scheduling of the Last Days, but since Jesus himself said that only the Father knows the times, it does seem pointless to pursue the Millennium through literalism in that most troubling of books.

In conclusion, Christians must hold on to the faith of the creeds and New Testament, that this chapter, entitled ‘Spacetime’, will conclude and another chapter begin. It is His Story and not our history, Otherwise, to recycle St Paul, we are of all people the most to be pitied. Advent tells us there is a great Hope to be eagerly awaited, whenever it may come, and that the arrival of the Son of God in the first place, and later his resurrection, are God’s promises to us that the Hope will be fulfilled: he will come again to judge the living and the dead. And to refer again to 2 Peter ch. 3: in the light of the Parousia, what sort of people should we be?

Enjoy the fun and Hope of Advent!

This resource was written by Richard Coupe, one of RE:ONLINE’s Email a Believer team.

I think that we can all agree that while Christmas may be, essentially, a Christian holiday, the celebration of Christmas has expanded well beyond the boundaries of Christianity. These days it’s celebrated by people of many different faiths and those of none. Of course, the perception of the holiday may differ from one group to the next. A Muslim celebrating Christmas will have a different religious perception of the holiday, compared to a Christian, even though in many instances their days may appear very much alike. Likewise, secular Christmas, celebrated by the majority of Britons, is more or less the same from one household to the next, and still quite like the festivities of Christians, even though the secular, non-religious British citizen doesn’t share their faith.

Pagans, are really no different. Well, mostly.
We, generally speaking, are very happy to get in on the holiday spirit. Many Pagans have a secular Christmas. But a lot of us have other winter holidays that we either celebrate along with Christmas or instead of it. Though, even in those cases where Christmas is not celebrated, our own holidays have many similarities to a typical Christmas.

We shouldn’t be surprised by that, though. One thing that Pagans like about this time of year, is just how Pagan it is! Dozens of different traditions, many of them with Pagan roots, all weaving together into the modern Christmas.

There are a lot of theories about what aspects of Christmas have Pagan elements or origins. Part of Santa Claus’ character may have been adopted from old depictions of Odin. Bringing an evergreen tree into the house, to be decorated, a German tradition of uncertain origins, but it certainly seems very Pagan. Mistletoe, that sacred plant of the Druids, is also held in esteem in Heathen mythology. Even the ancient Romans exchanged gifts as a part of their Saturnalia festival, at this time of year. And having a big winter feast with lots of merriment and drinking, has been a part of mid-winter traditions all over Europe.
So, even those Pagans who engage with Christmas as a public, secular holiday, are still able to enjoy it through Pagan eyes.

Some of us, however, don’t ‘do’ Christmas. We have our own winter festivals, which typically fall around the same time.
In many instances, the placement of these festivals is determined by the winter solstice, which typically falls on December 21st (sometimes the 20th or 22nd). These are, in most instances, Yule celebrations, and are shared by several different Pagan faiths. Yule originally comes from the Germanic peoples of Europe (like the Norse and Anglo-Saxons) and was the whole month. Those who follow a Germanic Pagan faith, like Heathenry and Asatru, tend to celebrate Yule at around the same time as Christmas.

Wiccans also have Yule as a part of their ritual calendar and so it is common practice for them to have a Yule ritual, which marks and celebrates the winter solstice. Druids, likewise, also mark the winter solstice. Those who follow a Pagan path that draws from ancient Roman religion, may have a Saturnalia celebration. Traditionally, Saturnalia could last up to a couple of weeks, though for the modern Pagan who has a job to go to, needs to pay bills, etc. such celebrations may have to be skimmed down to a single party or gathering.

Despite having our own holidays, being a minority religion often means that taking part in holiday revelry has to be a small affair or, as can be the case at this time of year, it can mean that we have to fold our festivities into those of other people. So, Pagans from many different paths may all share a public Yule gathering. More notably though, Pagans may often have to blend their Paganism into the broader gatherings of friends and family. So, we might go to our family Christmas dinner, share in it as our “winter feast”, enjoying it from a Pagan perspective, even while our families enjoy it from their own (religious or non-religious) perspective.

That’s not always the case, though. Modern Paganism is now old enough that we can talk about generations of Pagans. Pagan parents raising their children with Pagan traditions. I know of a number of Pagan families who don’t celebrate Christmas, at all, but they do all celebrate Yule. The kids seem to be quite happy about this arrangement, as Yule tends to take place on December 21st, meaning that they get their presents before all their friends get theirs! Perhaps, as Paganism continues to grow and create more Pagan families, this will become more commonplace – or at least as common as the festivals of any other non-Christian religion in the UK.

For now, though…
Happy Yule – Merry Christmas – Io Saturnalia – Happy Hanukkah – Blessed Sol Invictus – Or whatever your tradition may be, have a good one!

This resource was written by Luthaneal Adams, one of RE:ONLINE’s Email a Believer team.