fidzbit

In mid-March President of the USA Donald Trump called for a national day of prayer . By early April he was confident there was light at the end of the tunnel . Yet a BBC report dated 29th April states that "The United States alone has more than one million confirmed cases - four times as many as any other country". So what does this mean for religion? Was God able to answer but didn't? Was God unable to hear? Did God create the coronavirus? Should all this cause Christians to question their faith? These sincere questions, asked respectfully by an long-term friend who is not a Christian, have had me thinking hard for several days. Rather than attempt a single answer which could get quite lengthy, I hope to explore this over a few shorter blogs. I want to start by turning the whole thing inside out, on its head, and flipping it around ! Inside out: these are  very important questions. The existence of suffering is something for which every religion an...

We are getting used to seeing the statistics. Of the people who get ill most will have relatively mild symptoms, some worse, a few will need to go to hospital. It will only prove to be fatal for a minority most of whom will have an underlying vulnerability because of age or pre-existing health conditions. There are, however, a number of young, fit, seemingly healthy people who have succumbed to the disease without being in any of the high-risk categories. So is it all just a roll of the dice? Is it a game of Russian roulette - every time you go to the shops to buy milk you take the chance, not knowing if, perhaps, there is a viral bullet in the chamber. In a sense, this is all that the theory of evolution offers people - survival of the fittest with the odd chance that sometimes the fittest will die too. In stark contrast, according to the Bible, life is not a game of odds. Rather, it is a gift from God: “God himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. A...

Jesus is a spiritual big brother for every Christian. Having suffered in  every way  like us He is able to sympathetically come alongside us with grace to help (Hebrews 2:17, 4:15-16). What is your greatest fear? Whether it is fear of snakes or fear of spiders, fear of closed spaces or fear of open spaces, fear of heights or fear of water, we all have our phobias. You might put a brave face on most of the time but sooner or later a ‘near death experience’ or a ‘close call’ will forcibly confront you with the fact that the clock is ticking and your life will not last for ever. Perhaps through the threat of this viral pandemic you have realised your own deep-seated fear of death - many people have. The Bible is realistic about this universal base-line fear. It calls death the last enemy .  Death is not a walk in the park. However, the Bible also makes it clear that death is a defeated enemy . Christians have a spiritual brother in Jesus who became like us in ever...

Jesus is a spiritual big brother for every Christian. Having suffered in  every way  like us He is able to sympathetically come alongside us with grace to help (Hebrews 2:17, 4:15-16). As Jesus approached the city of Nain he met a funeral procession. A crowd of people were following the bier but that was little comfort to the woman at the centre of the scene. Already a widow, she was about to bury her only son. This probably carried  a significant social stigma - she must have done something really bad to deserve this! I wonder if the mourners crowded about her or if they followed at a safe distance? Either way, she was now all alone in the world. I don’t know if anyone reading this can relate to this widow? Quarantine regulations mean that many people are experiencing painful isolation. Perhaps you have been recently bereaved and must attend the funeral alone because other family members are not allowed to travel. Perhaps it is the anniversary of an earlier berea...

Jesus is a spiritual big brother for every Christian. Having suffered in  every way  like us He is able to sympathetically come alongside us with grace to help (Hebrews 2:17, 4:15-16). This photograph appeared on the 5th April Telegraph  article reporting that “Covid-19 has killed more than 90 priests as well as dozens of missionaries, monks and nuns” in Italy. In contrast to the regular stories of power abuses by members of the Catholic clergy, this conjures up a much more positive image of the priesthood - identifying with the sick and vulnerable in order to pray with them even at great risk to their own lives. It also reminds me of some verses in the book of Hebrews: “For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed  to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness.” (Heb. 5:1-2). ‭‭ However, the tragic re...

This is the fourth and final part of a short series of blogs posts written from a definite Christian standpoint and interacting sympathetically and respectfully with the Dalai Lama's 'Time' article:  "' Prayer Is Not Enough.' The Dalai Lama on Why We Need to Fight Coronavirus With Compassion ". Click here to read the article. The earlier instalments of this short blog series have expressed appreciation for the Dalai Lama's humility and concern for compassion . These are values which are at the heart of Christian ethics too. Acknowledging that, on a practical level, Christians and Buddhists might show compassion in very similar ways we have nevertheless highlighted two areas where there are important differences. One of these has to do with our different ways of dealing with a failure to show compassion and the possibility of forgiveness . The other  considered the different underlying worldviews which motivate and catalyse Budd...

Jesus is a spiritual big brother for every Christian. Having suffered in  every way  like us He is able to sympathetically come alongside us with grace to help (Hebrews 2:17, 4:15-16). Some of our politicians have got themselves into trouble in the past few weeks by ignoring the social distancing regulations they have imposed on other people. Leaders who act as though they are above the law do not inspire confidence or admiration! The Bible makes big ethical demands on Christians and this sometimes leads to the perception that God is an angry dictator in the sky. This couldn’t be more wrong! When the Son of God came to live as a human being He did not flaunt His authority and excuse Himself. Instead He lived up to the standards which God has set for people perfectly . So now He can never ask us to do what He has not already done Himself. What is more, He has promised to be with and in every Christian by His Spirit so that we are never on our own. That is true whether...

This is the third of several blogs posts written from a definite Christian standpoint and interacting sympathetically and respectfully with the Dalai Lama's 'Time' article:  "' Prayer Is Not Enough.' The Dalai Lama on Why We Need to Fight Coronavirus With Compassion ". The first blog in this series can be read here:  https://fidzbit.blogspot.com/2020/04/2-dalai-lama-virus-conversation-prayer.html   The article can be read in full here:  https://time.com/5820613/dalai-lama-coronavirus-compassion/ . Both Christianity and Buddhism emphasise responding to human suffering, like this coronavirus pandemic, with compassion . Believers from both faiths would agree that to pray without helping, where we have the resources to do so, reveals a hollow hypocrisy in our religion. But where does compassion originate in Buddhism and Christianity? What motivates and catalyses compassion ? " We Buddhists" the Dalai Lama says, " believe that th...

Jesus is a spiritual big brother for every Christian. Having suffered in  every way  like us He is able to sympathetically come alongside us with grace to help (Hebrews 2:17, 4:15-16). You have just spent all day with sick people. You can’t remember what time you got up or whether you stopped for lunch. You are so tired you will probably fall into bed without speaking to anyone. When you wake tomorrow it will all start again! Jesus knows how you feel. Mark’s gospel records a day in Jesus’ life when he went to the synagogue to teach. A man who was under a terrible evil influence came seeking help. No doubt this was deeply troubling for Jesus to see and ministering to the man must have been exhausting. Jesus retreats to a friend’s house and is immediately called on to heal a sick woman. As the sun was going down the whole town gathered in the doorstep looking to Jesus to heal the sick and deliver the possessed. Yet early the next morning Jesus got up to pray... and th...

This is the second of several blogs posts written from a definite Christian standpoint and interacting sympathetically and respectfully with the Dalai Lama's 'Time' article:  "' Prayer Is Not Enough.' The Dalai Lama on Why We Need to Fight Coronavirus With Compassion ". The first blog in this series can be read here: https://fidzbit.blogspot.com/2020/04/1-dalai-lama-virus-conversation.html .  The article can be read in full here:  https://time.com/5820613/dalai-lama-coronavirus-compassion/ . The experience of suffering is central to all Buddhist thinking. " Every sentient being " the Dalai Lama says, " is acquainted with suffering and the truths of sickness, old age and death. " From the universality of death, it should be self-evident to us that everything is impermanent. We cannot hold anything as permanent because we do not last forever. Pain and suffering are caused and amplified by the fact that we are blind to this self-...

Jesus is a spiritual big brother for every Christian. Having suffered in every way like us He is able to sympathetically come alongside us with grace to help (Hebrews 2:17, 4:15-16). It is impossible to put the pain into words when you are prevented from attending a family funeral because of the quarantine regulations! What a terribly cruel and unexpected dimension of this viral pandemic. Does Jesus know how you feel? Yes, He does. Remember when Lazarus died, he had been in the tomb several days before Jesus arrived. Jesus knew God’s plan of redemption involved raising people from the dead. That gives us the hope that one day we will meet those who die in the Lord. But that hope does not take away our grief and it did not take away Jesus’ grief. The Bible simply says “Jesus wept ”. How much intensity and depth of feeling lies beneath that word? Where others might only imagine what you are going through Jesus knows exactly how you feel.

The 14th April, 2020, issue of 'Time' magazine carried an article by the spiritual head of the Tibetan Buddhist religion entitled "' Prayer Is Not Enough.' The Dalai Lama on Why We Need to Fight Coronavirus With Compassion ". Whilst I do not share the Dalai Lama's Buddhist beliefs, he often displays a down-to-earth practical wisdom which many people find attractive and helpful. That is again evident in this article and so, for the next couple of posts, I want to stand very definitely as a Christian  whilst taking the Dalai Lama as my conversation partner. The opening paragraph in his article is fascinating on a number of levels: "S ometimes friends ask me to help with some problem in the world, using some “magical powers.” I always tell them that the Dalai Lama has no magical powers. If I did, I would not feel pain in my legs or a sore throat. We are all the same as human beings , and we experience the same fears, the same hopes, t...

The Philistines had a fearsome champion, a giant of a man called Goliath. The whole battle depended on him being slain. No one in King Saul’s army wanted to fight him. Along came a young shepherd who was willing. He didn’t have any real weapons, just a sling and a few rocks. What he did have was a living faith in the living God. Wild animals were an occupational hazard for David and it seems that he had fought a fair few. As he went to fight the Philistine hulk David explained the source of his courage: “ The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from  the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. " David’s faith had an organic quality about it. It grew. Each time a bigger problem arose he could say “God helped me with that in the past, He will help me with this is the present”. Every obstacle became an opportunity to practice what he had learned before and a preparation for bigger problems that might arise in the future. Step by step,...