My job here is to unpack the media cycle, not get caught up in theological debate.
As the week began I had hoped to look at how various media outlets are tackling the brewing political storm caused by the perceived urgency to both tackle climate change and the global financial crisis.
As my links above demonstrate here you'll get a very different perspective from the ABC, compared to the Australian .
Nevertheless, the Australian provides a nice summary of how the week unfolded and the mounting pressure on climate change minister, Senator Penny Wong.
I had wanted to particularly draw on Ross Gittins' excellent column - the one mentioned above in the Australian's summary - to make a silly, smarty-pants point about greenies’ works-righteousness approach to global salvation being pointless thanks to our 'messiah' PM.
My debate with Paul Grimmond
But as my mini-spat last week with the Sola Panel's Paul Grimmond over the relationship between 'statistics' and 'ethics' began to spill over onto other websites, I realised I had to get my interpretive model clear before I tackled such a vexed topic.
After all you cannot engage in any meaningful discussion of climate change without interacting with a host of potentially conflicting statistics and other data.
Indeed the whole framing of the debate is highly questionable from a Christian point of view, and for the very reason Paul Grimmond was I think trying to alert us to.
On the one hand the climate change debate is distorted by green-left scientism (the consequentialist thinking of Peter Singer underpins the philosophy of the Green movement in Australia).
And on the other hand it is distorted by equally problematic libertarian free-market thinking (Kevin Rudd in his recent Monthly article quotes Sir Nicholas Stern saying that neo-liberals dismiss the greatest market failure in human history because the answer is to prescribe interference in the market) .
Essentially I have been arguing that you cannot fully understand biblical ethics (the Christian life) in a purely theoretical vacuum, cut off from real-life practice and real-world information (such as statistics).
I think we see this to be true on the everyday, grassroots level.
For example: how do I know how to love my neighbour, if I don’t actually know them?
In theory I can know that I should be patient, kind, self-controlled, hospitable etc towards them. But how do I know if they need to be loved through a kind word, a casserole, a lift to work, or time spent minding their kids etc if I never speak to them?
To act in a loving way to others, requires the input of data from the real world.
Christians are not those people who merely know about godliness. We are those who seek in obedience to God's Word to be godly.
However, in talking this through with Paul Grimmond, I realised my metaphor likening the Bible to some sort of children's colouring book was not particularly helpful: saying the Bible 'provides the outline' while real life 'colours in the detail' is misleading.
While the Bible does not specifically address every ethical dilemma we may encounter, it does provide us with the tools we need - guided by the Holy Spirit - to navigate through any of life's pitfalls. Literally: a light to our path. To say otherwise is to undermine the great Reformation principle that Scripture contains all things necessary for salvation.
As Paul Grimmond put it to me: "The gospel message came with a picture of gospel living attached".
I'll have a second try: perhaps a better metaphor is Photoshop. The Bible emails us an image containing all the pixelised information we need to see the Christian life clearly. But when we begin, that image is blurry around the edges. Real life is like Photoshop's sharpening tool that brings our image of godliness into greater focus and clarity with every click.
So. have I got it right yet?
