Think Question Believe

Think Question Believe

By Kevin O'BrienReligion & SpiritualityChristianity
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Think Question Believe episodes

  • Spiritual growth is rooted in the courage to be vulnerable

    In the story of the feeding of the five thousand we need to look beyond the confines of conventional interpretations, beyond the banal limitations of time and place, and seek instead what are timeless, eternal truths.

    The gospel writers each use the same story to achieve different ends with different listeners in different Christian communities.
    We might therefore ask ourselves, with such a vastly greater separation of time and context from the action, how we might tell and interpret the story today, whilst still retaining, and indeed underscoring the resonances at its first telling.
    If we are to grow, if we are to progress in our spiritual life and experience of God, in our relationships with others and within ourselves, then we must be open to the entirely new.
    Jesus calls us to uneasiness and skepticism about well-worn paths, to reject the safety of the familiar, the pedestrian, the everyday. Spiritual growth does not take root in certainty and dogmatism, the sanctuary of the known and expected – it flourishes in the rich soil of humility, of vulnerability, of risk.

    12 min
  • Are we able to change?

    Is there a tendency, within the church, to revert to the Pharisee, to retreat into rules and constraints and the sanctuary of the few, the exclusive club, that cares more for law than the suffering of humanity?

    Do we allow the practice of our religion to smother and obscure with rules and regulations and prejudices of the past that which should be simple and uplifting and liberating?
    We must ask ourselves are we even hypocrites, actors who enact rituals and a certain religious theatre, who utter words of piety and devotion, yet do not take them to heart and demonstrate in our lives that they have made a true home there, that we have been changed inside as a result?

    14 min
  • Jesus the reality, not the fantasy

    ‘Now we see through a glass darkly’ said the Apostle Paul, for both our ability to understand, and the lenses through which we look are compromised, each in their own way.

    We might regard both the Bible and the church/churches, not as divinely perfect ordinations, divine products, but as the earnest attempt of humanity to witness to and express their experience and understanding of the divine reality, however flawed and insufficient those perceptions may be.
    Likewise, we might have sufficient humility to acknowledge that our fantasy images of the character of Jesus, might not survive an encounter with reality.

    14 min
  • The Psychology of Faith

    Donald Woods Winnicott who died in 1971 was an English paediatrician and psychoanalyst who was especially influential in the field of developmental psychology. He is best known for his ideas on the true self and the false self.

    In the 1980s the psychologist Richard Schwartz developed the concept that the mind is made up of different discrete subpersonalities, each with its own unique viewpoint and qualities. Not just one character on a stage – but a whole company of actors.
    Then there is the famous psychologist Victor Frankl, who survived the death camp in Auschwitz having learned a lesson that would stay with him for the rest of his life – and shape his entire future as a doctor, psychiatrist and philosopher.
    So, three psychologists, three philosophers of the human mind and personality, all who deeply influence my thinking, training and development as a priest, and as a therapist.
    But what light can they shed on our faith and the Gospel?

    14 min
  • No one takes the Bible literally

    Let’s be honest, no one takes the whole Bible literally, no one. Otherwise, they would already be in prison for murder or a fugitive from the law. We are all selective, and rightly so, in our reading of scripture.

    We no longer practice, support or condone slavery, prejudice against the disabled (at least in part) and the silencing and marginalisation of women in the Church (again at least to some extent - although injustices still remain).
    So why are particular texts still treated by some as first-order instructions to be obeyed and ruthlessly enforced (unlike many other instructions in the same books and letters that are no longer insisted upon)?
    So again, a selective interpretation has been made - a choice to perpetuate past cultural taboos and prejudices - for example against LGBTQIA people - but why?

    15 min
  • Embracing the Jewish Jesus

    Throughout the Gospel of John “the Jews” are presented as hostile to Jesus and to all who assert that he is the Christ. They are said to plot against him, to convince Pilate to execute him; even after his crucifixion they are said to oppose Pilate placing the sign ‘King of the Jews’; supposedly the disciples hid for fear of “the Jews”.

    In the past this has led to some terrible misunderstandings and crimes against the Jewish people:
    This toxic history has made some conclude that the language of John is so violently anti-Semitic that the time has now come to stop using the Gospel in today’s Christian churches – that we should lay John quietly to rest.
    However, so much scripture is culture bound within the first century, that were we to start editing and cutting the Bible to irradicate awkward passages we should never stop – so perhaps it is better to understand, to de-construct, to re-interpret.
    Particularly, we need to be very clear about the purpose of John’s Gospel and what is truly meant by this term “the Jews”.

    11 min
  • When science and religion agree

    It can be pleasing when you find a meeting of minds, as it were, between science and religion, after all, there is no need for them to be at odds, and at best they can act as a corrective and a refiner, one to the other.

    Religion can humanize science, can bring to it ethical and spiritual insights that otherwise it might lack. Science can bring to religion the challenge of intellectual rigour – otherwise Galileo would still be condemned and we would still think the world flat.
    But together, and working in harmony, they can bring so much to our understanding of the world and our place in it.
    In John's Gospel, and in the lesson of the grain of wheat, we find one such example – of the two working hand in hand.

    13 min
  • How can we ever be happy?

    J. John, the famous preacher speaks of how he was once asked at a funeral “Did your uncle leave much?” he replied “O yes - he left everything”.

    He also said that the problem of the rat race is, even if you win, you are still a rat.
    If you can’t take it with you, and you will never have enough - then the rat race itself better be fun - and I wonder if it is and for how many?
    Sadly, we have bought the great lie. The great deception.
    Schopenhauer, the 19th century philosopher said that this great lie is like seawater - the more we drink, the thirstier we become. Coveting is based on an illusion - it cannot deliver what it promises. We can of course experience temporary highs from presents, a new car, a pay rise - but how long does the effect last? How long before we are thirsty again?

    13 min
  • The miracle of a child

    Anyone who has held their newborn child in their arms knows that time, when nothing else is of any account,  when the miracle of new life is our total focus, when we become aware of the awesome continuity of it all.

    As any parent knows the journey through the pregnancy is one of hope, joy, worry, optimism, struggle, expectation and fear. In a way the birth becomes such a focal point that we can’t see past that day, everything is building up to the delivery almost as if time beyond that point doesn’t exist.

     

    But, of course, it does, and far from being a destination the new birth becomes just the start of such a change in our lives, inconceivable before; such a turning point, that you look back and hardly recognize yourself before.

    The birth of any child is momentous and precious, the birth of this child is of cosmic and timeless significance.

    And how infinitely more so with the coming of Jesus, a source of joy and hope not only to his parents and family, but soon to be a source of new hope to a world in desperate need. A tiny baby that grew up to be the most significant human being who has ever lived.

    11 min
  • How can we 'believe' the Bible?

    In the Gospels the writers report that Jesus warns of the times to come, of the apocalypse that his listeners should expect.

    The fact that the apocalypse didn’t happen as they felt Jesus had foretold, should not blind us to the truth that for them, at the time, it truly felt like the end. After the sacking of the city and Temple in AD70 Jerusalem was never the same again, the Jewish faith and the Jewish nation, were never the same again.
    In this way, the Gospel, is not so much mistaken, even if it is not exactly correct. Instead, we might regard the voice of Jesus, at least as reported by Matthew, as speaking the truth, rather than a fact.
    This is an important lesson to learn in our journey of faith, to distinguish the two. The Bible offers much insight and wisdom, and right guidance to us in our lives today, despite the distance of time. But like the parables told by Jesus, which convey much that is truthful, they do not necessarily need to be factual. There are, in fact, stories made up to convey the truth.
    We do the Bible a great disservice if we constrain it all within the smaller circle of fact, rather than let it live and breathe and grow within the larger circle of truth. We also need to accept that certain parts may no longer convey the truth today.

    13 min

About Think Question Believe

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This is the Think, Question, Believe podcast where we look at the Christian faith from a progressive and inclusive perspective - and that means taking the Bible seriously but not literally, honouring…