Rock solid

"I am the same yesterday, today and forever" - I have seen this verse and the blog title as an indication that the message of Christianity is a solid, unchanging one. Because rocks are solid and unchanging, aren't they?

I do wonder how the coastal residents of Devon and Cornwall especially feel about this, after the winter storms. Because quite a lot of the coastal rock was not solid, and tumbled into the sea. In truth, even the solid granite of Cornwall is being eroded - I remember when visiting Tintagel Castle that they were aware that the island was being eroded, and would eventually be washed away. "Solid Rock" seems rather less solid.

I think that is the point. rock is solid in the short term. For a while, it is unchanging and robust. But if you look over a longer period, rock is not solid. What is more, at certain times, rock is anything but solid - ask people in an earthquake zone. When you take a long-term chronological perspective, rock is not really very solid at all.

The truth is, we live on a living, changing planet. Over time, nothing stays the same. Nothing is really solid, nothing really stays still, stays the same. Everything changes. Sometime there are changes for the good, sometimes for the bad - without a volcano in the pacific, we wouldn't have Hawaii. Without the movement of the UK, we would not have the wide beaches on the East coast - or the erosion in places like Whitby.

The living, changing planet is crucial, because that is what gives us life. Without this, our planet would be dead, we would not exist. The same applies in our thinking, our ideas. They should never be considered defined, eternally sorted and answered, because things change. Christianity changes over time - as any other set of beliefs. Just because this is something we once believed, doesn't mean it therefore has to always be true - we once believed in 4 elements, in the indivisibility of the atom. As we understand more, learn more, question more, we find out more, and our understanding changes. That is the right way.

Of course, that does not mean that new ideas are automatically better - Dawlish was probably not improved by losing the railway line. It does mean that there will be changes, and we have to adjust to that. It means that our ideas, our beliefs will and should change over time. I know that there are things I used to believe that I no longer accept.

Because change is an indicator of life. Change or die is not a threat. It is a reality.

The UK weather is God's judgement on us

Whenever there are natural disasters, someone seems to be there, claiming that they are God's judgement on us for some perceived sinfulness - usually about gays. Which is, of course, utter drivel, for reasons that I have been into before, and will probably have to go into again.

It is interesting that there doesn't seem to be anyone claiming that the storms in the UK are Gods judgement on us because of the governments appalling treatment of the poor, the disabled, the strangers, those in need. The continual pampering to the rich, the powerful at the expense of the poor is, from a biblical perspective, a far more common reason for divine judgement. Again and again, God tells the people that behaving in a way that is very reminiscent of the current government will result in judgement.

In fact, if you want to take one thing from across the bible that is repeatedly, universally condemned and criticised, it is not homosexuality, it is greed, abuse of the poor and needy.

That is, of course, a very simplistic reading of the bible, and I disapprove of proof-texting things I agree with as much as ones I don't agree with.

However, what is also true is that I don't believe in this concept of "God's Judgement" - that God explicitly sends bad weather to a country because of its failings. I think that the biblical material can also be interpreted in different ways - it is not that I don't accept the biblical texts, but that the way we understand them may be different. It is more that the judgement is a result of the failing to behave in a responsible way.

I think that the same can be considered in the UK. The chaos that we see in the West Country especially can be seen as a result of the failure to invest in those parts of the country. The collapse of the mainline into Cornwall is - partly - the result of there being a single line down there. There have been calls even before this to provide an alternative route down into Cornwall. Now, the results are that the county is cut off from the rest of the country.

Failing to invest in the Somerset levels has been part of the cause of the massive flooding, and the evacuation there this weekend. Failing to acknowledge the environment impact of doing nothing, and of doing some of the things that have been done.

So is the storm chaos a judgement from God? No, not as that is properly understood. Is it a judgement on the blindness, arrogance, the self-serving attitude that this government shows.