Understanding Abortion - part 2 - science and society

Understanding Abortion

The key issue is ‘when does life begin?’

If we look to the Old Testament, and the Jewish tradition, life is considered to begin at the first breath, just as Adam has his life through breath given in Genesis; or the armies rebuilt from the Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel 37 needing the breath of God to give them life.   This is seen in the legal distinction in Exodus 21 v 22 between the penalties for an attack leading to a miscarriage vs an attack where the pregnant woman dies.  The lives are not considered equal.

Science stuff

Conception is the joining together of cells that have already had been divided to be half of a future embryo.  During every ejaculation of sperm; and every period shedding, these potential new lives fail to come into being.  When an egg is penetrated by a sperm, they begin to multiple into more cells. But if that fertilised egg does not imbed into the uterus lining then pregnancy cannot proceed.  When a fertilised egg remains stuck in the fallopian tube then it cannot lead to life, and if not removed could lead to the death of the mother.  Even when in the uterus, it is estimated that 40% or more of pregnancies will naturally miscarry. This can be for a variety of reasons, including when the genetic mix from sperm and egg are incompatible with life.   When the foetus cells are viable they begin to take on different roles – some of those will form the placenta, an organ that is discarded at birth. Others will become the amniotic sac.   The placenta forms 3-4 weeks  after fertilisation which equates to a woman being told she is 5-6 weeks pregnant  (since dates are estimated from last period). 

The concept of consciousness is debated but varies from late pregnancy to early life  . Brain development to the level of feeling pain is in the third trimester. Any medical intervention that late includes anesthesia direct to the foetus as well as the mother. But these are rare and extreme cases.

When does life begin? 

Cells that divide and multiple can be regarded as alive.  A lot of cancer research has used the ‘immortal’ HeLa cell line – cancer cells taken from an individual patient  and as long as provided access to the relevant nutrients will continue to grow indefinitely. One definition of cancer is human cells dividing without control. 

So clearly a collection of dividing cells is not the same as a new life, although technically alive. An embryo though is a new mixture of genes, the potential for a distinct identity.  So does that new life begin at conception as some claim? Well if it did then we are left some with complex theological issues – are the 40% of pregnancies that are estimated to end before a pregnancy has even been confirmed actual souls that have identity but cast aside by biology?  Or the ectopic pregnancies that before medical intervention would kill the mother as well as the embryo?   Or on another track if the soul begins with conception – then what about when a single fertilised egg divides into identical twins, who despite genetic unity are very much individuals, how does that reflect a belief in conception as the beginning of the soul/identity?

So what?

There are implications to seeing abortion as murder, and that any embryo (including those from IVF treatment that are frozen at stages before cells differentiate, when those cells may yet be unable to embed in a womb, when they may form the placenta rather than the foetus) has personhood.   It quickly goes from seeing the foetus as equal to the mother; to campaigns to ‘defend’ the foetus from the mother. This has led to the various abortion bans in US states – leaving medical staff under threat of criminal action if they do anything related to the abortion process.  This has led to women with complex miscarriages; or haemorrhaging whilst a foetus incompatible with life outside the womb still has a heartbeat – not getting urgent medical treatment, and some have died, Sacrificed to single issue politics. Amber Nicole Thurman; Candi Miller and those whose families have not gone public.

Others like Kate Cox have been forced to travel huge distances to get medical help because the danger to her own life was not sufficiently advanced – despite the foetal diagnosis of a condition that meant death to the newborn within hours or days of birth - potentially in pain, both in utero and beyond. 

Pro-choice = pro abortion?

This is a key flaw in the pro-life lobby agenda. The pro-choice supporters are not about encouraging abortions. It is about allowing the option – to make it a matter between a woman and her doctor, not a legal ruling that makes medics afraid to do their jobs. 

Statistics show that abortions decrease when unplanned pregnancies decrease – this is proven to happen when there is good quality sex ed – including understanding consent; where there is access to birth control (all ages, the family who cannot afford an extra mouth to feed is very real); availability of the morning after pill especially in cases of assault.   Being in a place where the cost of pregnancy care is not a concern; or where there is social support for the child once born.   Medical costs and impact on existing family would also be a factor in choosing to go ahead with a pregnancy when a life limiting, high level care, diagnosis is made.  But the pro-life lobby also argue against these social level options - preferring to condemn individuals instead.

Abortions up to birth?

This is claimed by the prolife lobby.  The reality is that a woman wanting to not be pregnant seeks to end it as soon as possible. When abortion is accessible this will likely be within weeks of pregnancy confirmation. When access is limited  (lack of clinics and need to collect sufficient funds to travel to a facility) then they have to wait until the foetus is more developed.  In UK almost 90% of abortions are before 10 weeks   (see Fig 10 under Gestational time).  Given that it will be several weeks before a person knows they are pregnant, this shows the desire to act with urgency when an abortion is sought.

When it comes to cases when someone has carried a pregnancy for over 6 months – these rare abortion cases are from wanted children, but horrific diagnoses; or massive risk to the mother – maybe twins where one has died and their body infecting the other and the mother; or where there is no longer a heartbeat; or knowing that the baby cannot live outside of the support of the womb.  

Any intervention at this stage is palliative care for the foetus; anesthesia is used. And compares to carrying to term with potential levels of pain to the foetus, and certainly pain in any brief life outside the womb.  And the physical and emotional health of the mother knowing the child can't live, but waiting out those final weeks like that, with people expecting you to be positive and looking forward. 

Of course before modern medicine we had no way to know until birth; but now we do know - and that means we have to decide what to do with that knowing.  We have some amazing cases where that knowing enables pre-natal operations and medical miracles that save a foetus that would have previously died. But that is not an option for everything that might mean a foetus is not capable of life outside of the womb; away from the placental nurture.

People do not carry a child for 6-8 months and only then decide to abort.  Yet the US pro-life lobby would have its people believe that this is what the pro-choice advocates want to happen. Indeed Trump claims that 'abortion at birth is a reality' . And some supporters believe that this is actually happening in distant Democratic states. It is an example of the one dimensional position that is presented to those they claim to inform.

Pro life or pro birth?

When the pro-life lobby actively reject all the above proven ways to reduce levels of abortions -in favour of personal blame and individual condemnation  - then I feel that we need to question the agenda from the top.   Not from those who have only ever been given one point of view; but from those seeking to shape the agenda.  The message is one of control – of labelling individual women for getting pregnant; for seeking an abortion – rather than addressing cultural issues that mean a disabled child can mean medical bankruptcy, instead of a family worth the additional social support.

It is not enough to say that they are pro life by banning abortions (history shows that just takes them underground and less safe); they need to actively support children after their birth – tackling poverty; working parents still unable to feed their children; the social implications of the no abortion but also no birth control ideal that the US pro life lobby promotes. If they are to be born, then how does the pro life lobby seek to support them through childhood?

Why is the US teen pregnancy rate higher in the Bible Belt? Why does abstinence only sex ed lead to abuse when people did not understand what was happening to them? Why do churches consistently cover up sexual abuse?   (Since the Catholic church scandal; most denominations have faced their own histories – though too many white evangelicals in US, under cover of independence, have continued to protect abusers and blame teen girls for ‘tempting’ their predatory Youth Pastor).

Personal view

I recall coming home from uni for a holiday and hearing that someone who had been a close friend through school had had an abortion. I was told via others that my friend feared to tell me because of my Christian beliefs.  I went to knock on their door and simply hugged her. I have never felt it my business to judge, and wrestled with the idea that a friend would be afraid to be themselves with me due to my faith.  

Like most pro-choice people I do not see abortion as a good thing. Yet it can be the least worst thing; and that involves factors that are none of my business. But alongside support for abortion as a choice, I support policies that enable women to keep unplanned children; that give girls and women knowledge to protect themselves; and to empower themselves; and that challenges the condemnation heaped on single mothers. 

Abortion, Trump, and Christian Nationalism (part one)

Yes that is a sweeping title and each could be a topic in themselves, but they weave together into current election dynamics in the US. 

Abortion – the pro life lobby assert this as murder, no matter how early in the gathering clump of cells it happens.  They quote the 10 commandments ‘thou shalt not murder’ – yet even with that command from the Exodus journey, the Old Testament continues in the Promised Land with commands to wipe out whole populations of cities, or all except the virgin girls who could be taken as wives by the soldiers.   And those who proclaim themselves as pro-life also support the death penalty; as well as often standing against the welfare support of poor families with young children (‘citing ‘welfare queens’).   This is why some rename the pro-life lobby as ‘pro-birth’ without the interest in wellbeing beyond birth – but this doesn’t mean individuals see that as what they are doing, many have only ever heard one viewpoint. Which is part of my concern about bubble culture. An echo chamber gives us more of what we have already shown interest in; bubble culture is when we have never been aware of other views except as something evil. 

Trump – why do evangelical Christians, with strict moral values, support a man who has a track record of multiple divorces and infidelity; who has been convicted of trying to cover up pay offs regarding one of those relationships. Who will make allowances based on dismissing those details; yet support someone who has opening stated that he would call military force against ‘the enemy within – those leftist lunatics’   - ie ask the national guard/army to attack those who disagree with him.   Who has said that if voted back in as president of the US would remove the licence for broadcasters that don’t support him; and opening bragged that he was about to meet Rupert Murdoch to ask him to stop any advertising that is anti Trump. 

A large part of the answer is abortion – since the 1980s this has been hyped as a single issue to direct Christian right voters.  Support the candidate that is against abortion – inevitably that has been Republican, thus generations have grown up with a mindset that the Christian vote = a Republican vote.   The Democrats are seen as a threat – escalating to today in language of claiming the democratic party is demonic, a Satanic cabal sacrificing children and drinking their blood (a Qanon conspiracy).  Yes this is the extreme end of the mindset, certainly.  But it casts a shadow over the rest of the movement. 

Trump in 2016 promised to support the Evangelical Right’s agenda, and he did so by who he appointed to the US Supreme Court.  The effect was delayed, but when the challenge to Roe vs Wade (supporting the right of access to abortion) came it was during Biden’s era but as a result of the demographics Trump established in the Supreme Court.  Trump claims that sending the issue back to the states is his achievement.   Trump, who before standing for president had a pro choice position on abortion, standing as the one giving the single issue pro-life community what they craved.

When did this issue become the issue?

How did abortion become that single issue that claimed such support that anyone affirming anti abortion rules is accepted as God’s anointed one, regardless of their lifestyle and character? 

Abortion was not a significant issue for the US churches before 1980.  Even the very conservative Southern Baptist Convention declared in various reports through the 1970s that abortion was not a big issue, and something between a woman and her doctor.  They did not support ‘on demand’ but recognised that there are various reasons why an abortion would be the better option. (review here)

It was in the 1980s that the Moral Majority began to develop its influence and made abortion one of its key topics. This was the group behind political support for Reagan from the ‘religious vote’.  Before this many of the (esp southern) groups of evangelical right wing churches were more focussed on the race issue – many ‘Christian schools’  were established when public schools were integrated.  And the Christian Bob Jones University after being forced to accept Black students in 1975, finally stopped its rule about interracial dating in 2000  

When integration was unstoppable the focus shifted to abortion as the issue that divided the faithful from the heathen. The modern Christian Nationalist Project 2025 is the grandchild of the 1980's Moral Majority, and makes only one political position 'truly Christian'. When the reality is that there are many different issues to guide us when considering our vote - feeding the hungry; welcoming the needy; hope to the oppressed..... it is not just abortion.

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How the way we read the Bible feeds very real, 2023 suffering - 'the Promised Land' and war, a sermon

 This was the sermon I gave today - 

29^th Oct 2023

Lectionary Deut 34 v 1- 12 – Death of Moses, in sight of Promised Land, Joshua to lead people in

Context – war in Middle East after huge Hamas attack on Israel; and Israeli massive military response.

There are various different reasons why people might be ready to run me out of town after this sermon, but as we have church council after, I hope you can wait until after that. The challenge to preachers of using the lectionary is that we are confronted with passages we probably wouldn’t have chosen. This week’s reading all felt like the end of the story so far. And I wandered around other options instead, but came back to this one.

The saying for polite conversation is don’t mention religion or politics, well you came here for religion, but politics is also in everything. I couldn’t refer to this passage of the Israelites being on the verge of the Promised Land without mentioning what is happening in that very land today.

Firstly terrorist attacks are wrong; always wrong; yet also the resort of the desperate when radicalised. Secondly there is always a right to respond to violence and hold people to account for their crimes. However the casualties are the innocent, to use a Biblical verse “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.“ Matt 2 referring to Jeremiah 31 The wailing comes from Palestinian and Israeli mothers; from Muslim, Jewish and Christian fathers, and those with no faith. It comes from families of fighters and families of peaceseekers.

How did we get here? Well politics are complicated, in school for History GCSE [back in 1991] we had to look at a modern conflict for one of our units. We did the Arab/Israeli conflict. There are so many factors from the ending of the Ottoman Empire and the French and British mandate in the Middle East – Britain promising self rule to both Palestinians and Jews, offering the same land! Then post WW2 western cultural guilt about the Holocaust creating Israel, regardless of the varied mix of people in the land, and enforced on the local population.  [White Europeans deciding what happens and borders in lands far from their own home, see also the carve up of Africa in 1800s]

All of that and so much more got us to here and the suffering of the most vulnerable on all sides. But our Bible and how people read it is also part of the equation. And if the politics didn’t rile you, my views on the Bible might, and I don’t expect listeners to agree with me or accept what I say without question.

The first 5 books of our Bible start with 2 creation stories, through a flood judgement, to the start of the story of ‘God’s People’. Abraham is promised to be the father of nations – Arabs link themselves to Ishmael – with Isaac as the path to the Israelites. Through all those stories covered in sunday school – Jacob vs Esau, the 12 sons of Jacob and the story of Joseph of the fancy coat, centuries in Egypt and then Moses, saved from death, raised in royal circles, but called to lead his own people out of Egypt to the land promised to Abraham. Plagues in Egypt, parting the Red Sea, getting the Ten Commandments and years of wandering in the wilderness.

And then the Promised Land is in sight and the great leader Moses dies. In the next book in our Bible we see Joshua (one of the 2 good spies back in the day- song 12 spies went to spy on Canaan, 10 were bad and 2 were good)) taking over and leading the people across the River Jordan in a variation of the Red Sea crossing with the Ark of the Covenant, symbol of God’s presence, standing in the middle until all the people crossed over. Then we move on to conquest, Joshua’s army attacking cities, including the famous falling of the walls of Jericho (Song – Joshua fought the battle of Jericho...and the walls came tumbling down)

How we understand these old stories feeds into even modern politics – it is the Promised Land theology that has underpinned both where the Jews were offered a homeland, and the expansion policy of certain groups. Not all Jews are Zionists – there is one ultra orthodox group that was against the formation of Israel, as it was man made not from God. And not all Zionists are Jews – in my first circuit as a minister there was a ‘Prayer for Israel’ group in one of the churches that the leader guided as ‘may God smite all the Muslims in the ‘promised land’. He believed that despite hundreds of years of ancestry in a place, all Palestinians should move out in favour of Jews (except Palestinian Christians), because – the Promised Land. And in case anyone thinks that Christian Zionists are pro Israel, the underlying belief is that a restored nation of Israel is a key stage in the Last Days, the End Times which involves the end of Judaism. There is even a Christian group that has collected funding to help rebuild a Jewish temple in Jerusalem, because to them that is needed before the second coming of Christ.

These maps need to be put in context - before 1947 the land was under the British mandate and included Muslims, Christians and Jews.  Palestinians would be pushed out of the area to become Israel but also Jews left the Palestinian areas (compare the religious divide and horrors with the partition of India and Pakistan - also previously under British rule...) But the territorial changes since 1947 has been through wars and 'assertive settlements'

Expansionist zionism has massively reduced the area allocated by the UN partition for the Palestinian areas since 1948. And Biblically based ideas have fed this political view, and the atrocities that grow from it. This is why I say that how we read the Bible, how we interpret the stories we read, is so important. It doesn’t just shape our view of the past but is a real and powerful factor even in 2023.

The Bible gives a story of the conquest of Canaan that is God’s will, both in that the land is promised to the Israelites and because the Canaanites are so terribly sinful that they deserve to be annihilated. These are the stories that give glorification of the victory over Jericho (in Sunday school we/I were spared from the account of all people being slaughtered); or in later battles with the Philistines – cue Samson’s attacks or Gideon winning over a much bigger army with his 300 men.

But this is one of the sections of the Bible people can have the most problems with. How is the God of love and grace that Jesus spoke of the same God demanding that whole populations be wiped out, men, women, children, animals? Or in other cases saving the young unmarried women who could be taken as wives by the fighters?

A literal reading of the Bible presents us with so many issues like this. Noah’s ark is a beloved story even outside the church, the opportunity to introduce animal names and cuteness – but is actually about a massacre of everyone and all of nature except those on the boat. There are those, including well funded US projects (eg The Ark Encounter in Kentucky) that invest all their time in justifying a literalist view of the Bible, against all the science. What if that money and time was applied to feeding the hungry, giving shelter and provisions to the most vulnerable?

I however lean a different way. I see Genesis 1 as a beautiful poem, with echoing lines, and patterned to point to a 7 day week including a Sabbath. I see in Genesis 2/3 a narrative designed to wrestle with the question of ‘if there is a perfect creator, why is there evil and suffering?’ I see in the stories of Abraham to Moses to David and Solomon an origin story of a culture, including the emergence of their understanding of God, from one among other tribal, or regional deities, to the one God across nations and generations. Much of the early books of the Bible dealing with the earliest points in time are considered by scholars to have been written much later, during the time of the exile (when Babylonians and then Persians conquered Israel, and the elite were taken to live in a strange land – Psalm 137 and hit song ‘By the rivers of Babylon…’) This was a time to reaffirm national identity and gather together stories of the past and their right to their lands. Some scholars date these texts even later.

Archaeology and records recovered from other communities around affirm the later kings of Israel and Judah, but nothing about King David and earlier. Some of the cities listed as destroyed in Joshua have been located but scientific dating puts them centuries later.

Personally I read the Bible within the insight of these questions about dating, whilst still listening to God’s voice. I find more theological trouble with a literalist position, which in reality is in itself a particular interpretation. There is no such thing as the ‘clear sense’ when reading words transferred across languages, over thousands of years when the use of words change in meaning, divorced from the injokes and cultural clues of the time. When we don’t have an actual source text, but only manuscripts copied across a hundred years with differences between them and scholars spending careers trying to follow the trails towards what an original letter of St Paul might have said.

These things can challenge our faith, but I find that they can enrich my faith through glimpses of the human writers and their reasons for writing. Our Christian faith is in (at the beginning) God the creator, Christ the word; and the Holy Spirit who moved over the chaos; in God the father who loves like a mother hen; in Jesus the man who is God incarnate; in the Holy Spirit who is with us to the end of the age. The Bible does not claim to be God speaking, but something that God can speak through.

I respect that others may not agree with my approach to the Bible, but as I see the negative impact of certain interpretations on modern lives, be it fuelling the fires in the Middle East, or condemning people for who they love, or demanding that people must trust faith or science – a choice that leads many to reject faith – then I am reminded of ‘know them by their fruits’. If my Bible interpretation causes more suffering in this world; then I ask what is broken in my interpretation, for the God I have encountered loves all people.

Whatever you feel about what I have said, if I have provoked you to think about your faith experience, then that is positive. May we always question our assumptions, to prove them or find new understanding. God is with us in the wondering.

Reading the Bible - looking beyond the words

 There are different ways of approaching how we read the Bible. This isn’t to say any way is better than another. I merely offer a view that you may want to consider. Or maybe it is a way you have been looking at the Bible for a while.  Some times it can help to know that there are different ways of relating to the Bible that are equally faithful, and still inform our relationship with God.

There are those who consider the Bible to be inerrant – this can refer to the original languages or for others the translated words too. This view believes that God has protected the exact words down the ages and the translations. However we don’t have any original texts, only a range of manuscripts that are multiple copies down the line, and with differences between them.  Translation is also tricky (see over)

There is also the approach that the Bible is Inspired by God – this gives a very wide approach, from the writers being guided directly by God, to it being their own choices to write and record things and God uses what they wrote to speak to us.

Then there is the matter of what we do with the stories we find in the Bible. How do we deal with 2 different stories of the Creation – the first poetic where everything created was good, and the second a narrative to explain why there is badness in the world, the animals in Gen 1 are created before people, and in Gen 2 there are created after Adam who is asked to name them.   Likewise there are multiple points in the Old Testament where stories are repeated, or 2 versions run together like the flood.  Scholars think that what we have today is an amalgam of different writers (eg each creation story uses a different term for God).

As well as who wrote what, there is also when. It is generally agreed that the version of Genesis we have was mostly compiled when the Jews were in exile in Babylon, many years after all the kings such as David.  It is when people are away from their roots that the need to affirm their distinctiveness as a people seems more important. This opens up a way for the early events in Genesis  - creation to flood – to be influenced by even older stories from Mesopotamia, which predated the Babylonians in that land.  Does the fact that the Epic of Gilgamesh has a flood story with a man on a boat with animals mean that Genesis has nothing to say to us? I believe in the evidence for evolution and that the world is older than 6000yrs, and recognise that cultures with written records (writing began with balancing accounts and taxes – predictable?) have noted time before and after the flood with no record of a disaster. That and the geological evidence.

Do these stories have to be historically true for the Bible to carry meaning for us? I don’t think so, and actually I think that the message behind why these stories were told, what the writers wanted to say about God still has a message for us, and changed to a different message than the version of a flood story told in Babylon.

At some point after King Solomon’s descendants the list of kings are picked up by records found in other nations around them. Before that we have no archaeological evidence for eg mass slavery in Egypt; nor the great city massacres during the book of Joshua as the Israelites conquer Canaan.  For me that insight has been really helpful since those wars against the existing residents of the land are some of the most troubling parts of the Bible for me.

We read stories of cities being attacked and all the people being slaughtered, including children and even all animals, and this is cited as some kind of offering to God.  Reading this as written leaves us asking why God is asking for that total violence. Reading it as people writing about something that happened and they thought it was what God was asking for so they wrote in that he told them to do it. But if this was part of a national origin myth, then that is a very different point from which to ponder the points being made by the authors.

In the New Testament too there are questions. The gospels were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – those names were added later. Whilst only some of Paul’s letters are considered genuine. The letters to Timothy being among those written in his name but the style of Greek is different and they talk about a church that has developed further and is more structured with ministers and overseers/bishops. Hence the commands about how church should be governed.

There are many more aspects to this, for some what I am writing is abhorrent, a denial of God’s word. For the strictly inerrant believers I am already invalid as a woman preaching and a church minister. Others may say that if I accept this range of scholarly questioning of the Bible, then do I even see it as God’s word at all.

For me these insights actually invite me to seek deeper meanings, why is the writer saying this? What is hidden under the story or poetry? How does the timing of the writing affect the meaning to the immediate culture? (The book of Ruth is dated before King David but thought to be written around the return from exile – at the time were there were issues about separating from foreign wives for national purity a writer tells a story of a foreign woman marrying into the line of David himself).

This may not be your approach, but there are many ways of hearing God’s voice through the Bible, and being a faithful disciple is possible across many ways of seeking inspiration through the Bible.

However you read it, may you find deeper knowledge of God 

Letter to my biology teacher

Dear Mrs Evans,

You inspired my interest in the wonders of life. I had long since exhausted my parents with my ‘why?’ questions, and here in science class there were answers and insights.  I cherished getting the New Scientist magazine at a special rate. Reading that and watching TV on a Thursday night – for ‘Tomorrow’s World’ rather than many classmates wanting the update of ‘Top of the Pops’ fed my curious mind.  Chemistry was cool , whilst physics never starched the itch, biology however fascinated me. I would read ahead in the textbooks. Had I been a student in the internet age I would have been devouring science content, as I do now.

However, I was ‘that child’, the one who came to you proclaiming that I wanted to opt out of the evolution classes because of my faith. I even gave you a book that suggested the fossil record merely reflected the drowning sequence of creatures during the flood of Noah’s day.   Looking back I am not sure where my anti evolutionist stance came from – it was not part of the general message of my Methodist Church I had attended since infancy. Perhaps it was the books I was reading, and my young in faith enthusiasm.  It reflected my limited understanding of faith and of science. You responded with grace and I sat in the prep room during those classes. In reality I was reading up on evolution anyway should it come up in any exams!  I guess it was my way of ‘making a stance’ from my faith.

You continued as my biology teacher for years beyond that, through GCSEs and A level, and saw me depart for a degree course in Biochemistry with Microbiology.  And such is the nature of teaching, that you work with us closely and then set us loose into the wider world, without hearing back from where we end up.

I am not sure where or when I embraced the scientific evidence of evolution, or at least when I stopped fighting it.   I suspect it was when I was still in your classes, but I just didn’t recognise it at the time, like someone wandering in the borderlands. At Uni I embraced the wonder of life without trying to define how it came to be.

You may not be surprised that I ended up as a church minister, I hope you will be affirmed that I do so as someone who affirms the beautiful insights of scientific discovery.   That discovery was something that was rooted in what you taught.

Lost in translation - What does the Bible say?:

 In a visit home earlier this year, Mum asked if I knew about this 'new translation' - a few of her facebook friends had started to share Bible quotes from something called The Passion Translation (TPT), and she felt uncertain about  how things were worded.  I looked up their website and examples they showed of their version compared to others and we agreed that the TPT seemed to add bits that were not in any of the mainstream translations and seemed very skewed. 

Well time passes and I didn't hear of this version again, until this week.  I often listen to either an audiobook or a youtube video/podcast walking the dog or now in the car (since new to me car can play from my phone).  An internet 'rabbit hole' - a reference to Alice in Wonderland - can lead to unexpected places, and so I stumbled on posts about the same translation that my mum had mentioned months earlier.

(I started on one youtube video, then the playlist, but there is a combined collection here which includes the the written papers from the professional translators on their books of expertise, as well as the video interviews - which include clips from public sermons by TPT the author)

So with pricked up ears I started to listen. and various alarm bells rang loudly -

1. The author Brian Simmonds (an American preacher) claims that he had a visitation by Christ commissioning him to write, and he named the work after 'an angel named Passion', who looks after his ministry.  (clips then listen on to a translator/scholar's summary)

2. He claims that this is the most true translation, and with angelic help he has been given divine inspiration to allow him without language expertise to have 'downloads' from God about the meaning. (including God hiding meanings) 

3. He claims to have had revealed to him specific hidden secrets from the text that have not been available to readers and translators over the past 2000 years.  (first few minutes and then 16min 33sec)

4. He claims to be more true because he uses the 'Aramaic texts' and that Jesus spoke Aramaic. However scholarship is clear that that the books of the New Testament began in Greek. Whilst the writers may have had access to sources in Aramaic, the books we now have were in Greek - from having to explain the Aramaic terms included and playing with language, ( Eloi to Elijah at crucifixion; the pun in Greek in John 3 conversation with Nicodemus, that only works in Greek).

There are Biblical texts in Aramaic - eg parts of Daniel - which shows how this is not as old as claimed  since Aramaic was a later development than Hebrew. (Imagine modern English appearing in Chaucer)  But there is no 'original' Aramaic new testament.(see here re Ephesians) Rather the Greek was translated into a form of Aramaic and found in later Syrian texts, later than our earliest manuscripts in Greek.
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However we approach the Biblical texts, whether as those who see it as infallible, or those who see the hands of editors and reflections, there is still a core transmission. Generally modern translations use committees of scholars, who can be a check and balance to how the final version emerges.  There are paraphrases - be it The Living Bible or The Message - these are openly admitted to be such. Apparently Peterson did not want his reworking to have verse markers as he did not want to imply equality with the translations, but as something that makes them think.

In contrast The Passion Translation - despite expert translators saying it is even more creative than other paraphrases - claims for itself a direct, perfect for today,  revealing secrets from God for this age and should be people's primary Bible for study. link

Yet this Passion Translation is endorsed by big-crowd gathering preachers in certain corners of American Christianity. And it seems is gradually appearing in British contexts.

There is no translation that is free from interpretation; but this is interpretation claiming to be a translation, and claiming singular insights and special knowledge hidden to the rest of us over centuries. 

Whenever I hear - 'I have the only and best Word of God', then my instinct is to run. Whilst we each value our understanding of the Bible, most of us acknowledge that we can only see 'through the glass darkly' and that we have much to learn or relearn. This is why I preach and talk about asking questions, thinking about our faith, and comparing different views in forming our own.

 

Faith and politics part 5: when belief faces covid

The vaccines 

Rather than celebrating a major combined scientific achievement we see the lack of trust in science combine with growing strength of belief that ‘They’ are out to get us.  Whether the religious claim that the vaccine is ‘the mark of the beast’, and closing buildings in lockdown was anti Christian persecution; or the New World Order cabal that Hilary Clinton was accused of being part of when Trump was campaigning 2016; or Bill Gates and the microchip or nanobots.  Lack of understanding of science leads to confused ideas about the vaccine changing DNA.   No no no it doesn’t.

The vaccine uses messenger RNA technology. RNA is not DNA. DNA is the master copy, RNA is a print out to take out to the bits of the cell that use it to assemble whatever is needed.   The mRNA in the vaccine is a delivery system to give us the code for the protein spike of covid 19, not the illness bit of the virus but just a landmark. The idea is that the mRNA of the protein will mean our body briefly makes some of this inactive landmark until the mRNA breaks down.   The Immune system will recognise the protein as foreign, and create antibodies to attack them and break them down. The end result is an immune system that is primed with antibodies ready if they face the virus, whilst the vaccine mRNA and the proteins made using it are both metabolised out of your body.  Some of the symptoms of an immune response to something foreign – soreness at the area, inflammation etc can occur as the system learns to make the antibodies. Same as with other vaccines – it is symptoms of your defence system acting, not of the illness itself.  Yes you can get covid after vaccine – but your immunity has a head start so less dangerous.

Vaccine take up in the UK in 70% double jabbed and 40% boosted, with 96% for adults.

In US it varies state to state from 78% to less than 50% in 4 states, and half the states are less than 60% vaccinated. (at late Jan 2022 and does not account to county wide variations)

Vaccines work for individuals but also as the ‘herd’ – when enough are vaccinated there becomes a shortage of places for the virus to reproduce.  When the herd immunity levels are reached they offer protection for those who for medical reasons can’t have the vaccine themselves, and cut the recirculation of the illness. 

The mix of trends in parts of the US population do have impacts on the lives of others, not just in rejecting the herd effect, but also where alternative ‘cures’ and ‘protections’ are marketed some of which may be dangerous in themselves. Strange how those who claim the vaccine is untested experimentation, are happy to buy actually untested snake oil solutions.  Then there is the aggression towards medical professionals, retail workers enforcing mask mandates, and death threats to Dr Fauci  ( America’s Dr Whitty ).   And calls for conspiracy believers to dominate elected school boards and other local democracies with their anti science extreme right views.

I am on the left, medical care and welfare safety nets for the poor and the rich can afford to pay more tax and not see any dent in their wealth; others are conservative and see different ways to structure society. We are in a democracy and I support whatever you chose to vote for if you have carefully considered the party policies. No single party will be the perfect fit.  However the extreme right wing is a different matter, it trades in hate for minorities, and feed on the insecurities of people who have lost trust in normal society, rising conspiracies make fruitful recruiting grounds for these extremists. And the idea of them gaining dominance in any place is scary to me, especially somewhere as large and influential as America.

So between 6 day creationism,  conspiracies inc flat earthers, to anti vaxxers, these have become more than just personal belief or choice but something that has real world dangers in our covid world. Effects that will follow us post covid across world politics, as well as the impact on individuals.