Does child mortality really shatter faith?

I've just walked the dog in a historic cemetery in inner Sheffield. The cemetery was built when the population Sheffield was rising dramtically during the industrial revolution and too many people were dying for the parish graveyards to cope with. It's impossible not to be moved by what you see written on the gravestones - epitaphs to children who never became adults - and adults who never became old. The conditions in which the first steel workers lived and worked were grim and deadly and many died early and painful deaths.

Many people will look at these gravestones and ask themselves how there can be a God when ten year old children die. Theologically it's hard work, there's certainly no glib answer to this and we must take people seriously when they make this objection.

But if child mortality is so deadly to faith then why is that in the days when so many more children did die so many more people believed in God? When virtually every working class family was touched by this sort of tragedy why did the people then not say en masse, there can be no God in heaven!

And in those parts of the world where many children still die before ever growing up faith is strong. It's only in those parts of the world that have made child mortality very rare that the idea of child mortality makes people doubt whether there can be a God. The idea of child mortality certainly makes us question our faith but the reality of child mortality doesn't seem to have any such effect.

Why can this be?

Do parents think they are like God?

I'm reading Laurance A. Turner's commentary on Genesis and it's just turned up a very provacative question.

In Genesis 4:1 The first instance of human parenthood occurs after Adam 'knows' Eve and she gives birth to Cain. Now most Bibles describe this in an uncontroversial manner saying that Eve declares that she has created life with the help of the Lord.

But is Eve's cry in 4.1 actually a sinful cry of pride? Turner suggests that it should (or at least could) be translated 'I have created a man as well as the Lord'

This is very different from the NRSVtranslation: 'I have produced a man with the help of the Lord'; or 'with the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man' (NIV) or 'By the Lord's help I have acquired a son' (Good News); 'I have gotten a man with Yahweh's help' (WEB); 'I have gotten a man with the help of Jehovah' (ASV); or 'I have gotten a man from the Lord' (KJV)

None of these translations makes Eve anything other than humble and gracious in granting the true power of creation to God. But, according to Turner, this could in fact be evidence that the serpent's recent influence is lingering around her, still tempting her to become 'like God'

Obviously, he points out, she could not be saying that she has created the Lord, but she could be suggesting that she is equalling God in having created a man.

Now the suggestion that parenthood brings with it some sort of sinful pride, even a feeling of God-like power, will be offensive blasphemy to many. Many parents say that on becoming parents they feel humble, unworthy and daunted, quite the opposite of God-like.

But it's also true (uncomfortably so) that for many people becoming a parent means acquiring authority, status and dominion. How many people see the duty to provide for their children as an excuse to abdicate all other morality towards others? We like to think that parenthood makes people behave better but for some cowards and bullies it sets them up as gods in their own home.

I think parenthood does carry with it a temptation to set yourself up as a god, to know better than anyone else what to do with your children and to be immune from criticism. Ask any teacher who tries to speak to the parents of disruptive children!

Parents have 'sacred cow' status - it's the height of bad manners to suggest that someone is not a good parent, but there is a lot of terrible parenting out there. If there weren't society would be a lot nicer than it is.

And perhaps one of the causes of bad parenting is the all too human temptation to think that by creating life you become slightly God-like? Perhaps it's something that good parents recognise but bad parents give in to?

Is the Bible the Word of God?

We may as well cut to the chase here. If you believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, literal word of God you may as well know that I don't. I believe that the Bible is the witness of revelation, not revelation itself.

I believe that we live in a fallen world, separated from God by Sin and that we are redeemed from this estrangement through the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is how God communicates to us, by making these things happen – the Incarnation, the Resurrection, Pentecost – these are where we see God at work. God has done all this and he will do more, I believe in eternal life, I believe that his Kingdom will come. God has acted, he acts and he will act. The Bible is the human record of witnesses to this divine action. That means that it must be read with the utmost seriousness so that we may, as Barth puts it, discover the Word in the words. But it is the record of revelation, not revelation itself.

This doesn’t mean that it can be read in the same way as any other human text. We must take seriously that it is written by men who have heard or seen the Word of God but that does not make their own words divine. We need to reach beyond the words of Paul to the Word of God that was spoken to Paul. We must read the Bible with reverence and with faith but we must not make an idol of it. I don’t wish to insult those who believe in the doctrine of inspiration, what they believe is possible since all things are possible with God but I don’t think that it is necessary or even likely.

All of which makes me perfectly placed to be shot by both sides in the current theological climate. I take the content of the Bible far too seriously for most liberals but I know that evangelicals will find me equally suspect for not believing in total inspiration. The accusation will be that I don’t accept ALL of the Bible because I want to pick and choose from what God has to say to me. My answer would be that I am afraid that by reading the Bible in that way I would actually be importing human ideas into the Word of God by concentrating more on what is said by the apostles and prophets than on what is done that they witness. God acts and humans witness this. God’s ‘speech’ is in the events of revelation not in the texts which describe them.

Ultimately the Bible is important because Jesus is in it, not the other way round.

My view on this, as with many things, is broadly taken from Karl Barth, himself far too evangelical for the liberals and too liberal for the evangelicals. He commented "Were I driven to choose between the historical-critical method and the venerable doctrine of inspiration, I should without hesitation adopt the latter, which has a broader, deeper, more important justification. Fortunately, I am not compelled to choose between the two."

One of these quotes is published satire, one is an apocryphal quote and one was spoken on a radio phone-in the other week. There's not much between them, answers below.

A "If English is good enough for Jesus Christ it's good enough for me"

B "...when Jesus Christ founded his church in Canterbury..."

C "...with church leaders like that, Jesus Christ would be spinning in his grave"





Answers: A = apocryphal, B = from "The Agreeable World of Wallace Arnold" column by Craig Brown, C = Caller to Radio 5 live on the Archbishop of Canterbury's comments on Shar'iah law.