Mike's musings

Remembrance Services

I presided at a Remembrance Service at the 1000 today. It was a children-friendly family service - to which we're beginning to get more kids, I'm pleased to say - but worked rather well. Sally, my fellow curate, worked on the liturgy: she's excellent at it, and I had to point several people in her direction when they complimented me on the service.

In the afternoon, we had the Civic Remembrance Service, preceded by a service in the park at the WWII war memorial and parade up the town. There's something very special about walking in silence through the town, to led by pipers. Police stopped the traffic, and lots of people stopped what they were doing to watch. It was respectful and felt, well, just right.

Mark and Jen - who'd attended the service - came home for pancakes and to be mugged by the girls. Once they (the girls) were in bed, quick supper, and then a couple of hours' work. I'm now in a much better place, development-wise, and feeling much happier about deadlines generally.

Oh, and be humbled

Fantastic views of Hubble Ultra Deep Field. I'm never sure whether this sort of astonishing science makes me doubt my faith, or makes it stronger. But it certainly makes me humble.

Labels: science, services

"Why's that man got a gun, Mummy?"

These are not words you want to hear on a tube in London. We were stopped, with the doors open, at a station, and Jo and Moo were facing the platform, while I was facing away. You know when the adrenalin suddenly kicks in, and you start thinking very, very quickly? One of those times. Moo, answered, rather calmly, "he's in a film, Jo," and only then saw my reaction. It was, of course, just a poster, and a significant relief...

We were in London because Jo wanted to go to see the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum. Unluckily, Jo wasn't the only child to have this idea, and we weren't the only parents to agree to the plan. South Kensington tube station was closed due to over-crowding, so we got off at Gloucester Road tube, with hundreds of other people, from whence we walked to join the queues the stretched from the entrance, down the ramp, snaking round the grounds, and for about 100m on the pavement. It moved fairly quickly, and we decided not to join the queue that wound round the main hall towards the full dinosaur exhibit: another 150m or so, at a guess. Instead, we wandered round some of the other halls, saw some aquatic fossils, had some lunch (expensive, but good food), and then looked at the evolution exhibits. I gave Jo a quick lecture on evolution and how Charles Darwin (whose statue now sits on the stairs overlooking the main hall) is a hero. I'm not sure how much she understood about Australopithecus' relationship to modern humans, but she seemed interested and took some of it in.

Went home (via Gloucester Road again, as South Kensington tube was closed again), and Jo, who was on her knees with tiredness, fell asleep in the car. Back home for fish and chips with Miri (who was very pleased to see us!) and Mel. The girls fell asleep very, very quickly, and we've spent the rest of the evening to now wrapping presents, baking muffins, cakes and the rest and preparing for the party tomorrow. How can it be so much hard work?

A tiring day, but a good one.

Labels: Jo, London, science

Preaching against creationism and so-called "Intelligent Design"

Well, I've got people clamouring on Facebook to find out what I preached on. I they don't seem that interested in other issues, so I probably shouldn't talk about taking the girls swimming to Halstead pool, or how it was Miri who was a pain to get to sleep tonight, but it was Moo who ended up putting her to bed.

Well, I preached on the theory of evolution. I started by introducing Charles Darwin as a fervent abolitionist and also an agnostic, and then talked about how he wrote a book which many Christians have had problems with, but which has lots of mistakes in it. I then introduced the Bible, in particular the Book of Genesis, with which it is often compared. I then explained how although Darwin got quite a few things wrong, the theory that he came up with has stood the test of time, and has turned out to be very resilient. How could you expect him to get it all right when he didn't have all the benefits of modern genetics, or the evidence that people have been gathering to refine the theory over the 150 odd years since he published "Origin of the Species"? The theory of evolution is a strong, resilient theory which has been shown to be usable to make predictions, and which is almost universally accepted by the scientific community worldwide.

What about the Bible, and the account of creation in Genesis? First of all, I believe that it's fantastic poetry, but I don't read Hebrew at all, so I couldn't tell. Second, it's a description aimed at people who lived 3, maybe 4 thousand years ago. And third, it's not science, and neither was it ever meant to be. The idea of science as, well, a "thing", a "discipline", even an idea is completely alien to the Old Testament (well, the New Testament as well): this is not a scientific account, but an attempt to explain how God's love moved into our world through creation.

I then went on to explain that creationists, and those who espouse so-called "Intelligent Design", rather annoy me, because at least part of my background is as a scientist. The theory of evolution has passed the test of time and the scientific community: why are we worried by this, when the alleged "alternative" account was never meant to fulfill the same role at all? And more than that, the God who _I_ believe in is greater than the one they seem to believe in. The God I believe in can work through evolution, through the theories of Newton and Einstein, and isn't worried that we'll work out how the world works: creation, and His acting through it, is the out-working of his love, and this God is not so weak that He has to tweak evolution from time to time in order to make, for instance, the eye. I think that's poor theology, let alone poor science.

So, that's my sermon, give or take. I gave it twice - once at the 0800, and once at the 1000. Slightly different each time, as I wasn't using notes - and I got positive feedback both times. People _want_ to hear about these things, and as it's so rarely the liberal view which is expounded with any passion, hopefully I'm redressing the balance somewhat.

Labels: preaching, science, theology