Nuwe Hervorming Netwerk

deur Drewan D Baird

In the Introduction to his book "A Brief History of Time", Stephen Hawking alludes to the probably apocryphal anecdote of an old lady interrupting a speech by Bertrand Russell, on the cosmos, with the interjection, "that's all very clever, young man, very clever! But the Earth really is resting on the back of a giant turtle."

Russell, sometimes extraordinarily patient, responded, "what does the turtle stand on?"

Replied the old dear, "it's turtles all the way down!"

My thinking has been much influenced by Russell and I have learned from him what is probably not immediately evident from his character and conduct as an activist and a liberal agitator — that one cannot, arbitrarily, reject alternative positions.

This tale reduces my objections to organized religion to a single statement: I reject absolute conviction; arrogant certainty.

I subscribe to Current Truth inasmuch as it accounts for all epistemologically evaluated data. Right now, I do understand. It will change later today.  Karl Popper's,  "A theory is scientific, not in the extent to which it has been proved true — because that is impossible, in any case — but insofar as it is open to falsification" is a dictum with which I am comfortable. (1934, The Logic of Scientific Discovery.)

I am not in the habit of witnessing, but here goes!

I shall refer to myself as "Smile", [as a little wordplay on "Nors", also published on this site]. My earliest God-experience was playing in the Karoo dust and happening upon a termite nest. I declared myself god of the subjects crawling about my bare feet and killed hundreds of the little beings, just because I was able to kill them. That, to my toddler mind, was the reality of a fearful God.

Now, verily, I was raised a Seventh-Day Adventist in a Karoo town. My young life was one of obloquy, calumny, opprobrium, and the traducement of  Broeder teachers. I have carried a chip on my shoulder for longer than I care to remember, but I managed, even as a child, to reduce the chip from its initial rainforest size! Today, I credit my ability, even at a young age, to think independently and to hold alternative views, to the emotional calluses grown in my youth.

Generally, though, I was a happy kid. And in retrospect, I do in fact appreciate the lessons Religion taught me during my formative years, even though such teaching was inadvertent.

Now, imagine if you can, my shock and horror at the adult discovery that the "truths" (read dogmas) for which I bore the brunt of adolescent and teenage ridicule, were rather precariously perched on the precipice of reason. I remember being introduced to Hans Küng's "activism" at the seminary during the late 70's and early 80's. I recall my wonder at his chutzpah to challenge one of the pillars of his particular "maatskappy", the infallibility of the pope, and I remember my young and inexperienced agreement with the decision to ban him from teaching. Often, in retroflection, I have considered the Hans Küng "event" as catalytic to my thinking! If one does not play to the rules, can one play the game? Does one change the rules, or does one launch a new, exciting game?

I rejected the teachings of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. I could find no system of dogma with which to replace the rejected dogma. So I rejected God. I disapproved of the rules of "the Christian Church"; therefore I wasn't playin' no more! I was terrified.

I remained terrified for some 15 years. I joined the Dutch Reformed Church at the insistence of my wife, "because the children have to fit in at school." I recall my self loathing at listening to the Geloofsbelydenis at my acceptance into the church. Was I agreeing to this!?

I came to relative peace when I first read Kushner (again recently shared with me by a respected scholar),  "Losing faith in a childish understanding of God is not the same as losing faith in God." This realization liberated me from a malicious hegemony.

So I conclude that I have perhaps not rejected God, that I may well still experience spirituality.

Ek kan my gedagtes beter orden in Engels en ek hoop dat lesers my nie sal verkwalik as ek in Engels skryf nie. Maar ek wil graag iets in Afrikaans sê oor "Hervorming".

Luther het sy objeksies aan die buitekant(!) van die kerkdeure vasgespyker. Ek, in my ondervinding van Die Kerk en van die sakegemeenskap is daarvan oortuig dat daar NIE van binne af hervorm kan word NIE. Ek sou, as ek kon, God dank dat mense soos die stigters en ondersteuners van hierdie forum probeer (om verandering mee te bring), maar ek dink dat hierdie mense die bal opgetel het in 'n sokkerwedstryd en nou 'n nuwe spel speel. As 'n leek wat ook al lid was van die NGK, sou ek graag wou deel hê in die bevestiging van 'n gedagtegang wat God relevant kan maak, en met voortdurende evolusie relevant kan hou. Ek dink egter dat "Die Maatskappy", soos Maggie Thatcher van weleer, "is not for turning!"

Hiermee wil ek sê dat ek persoonlik, soos wat ek die missie om dissipels te gaan maak, nie kon aanvaar nie, nou ook nie die verantwoordelikheid wil opneem om getroue kerkgangers tot ander insigte te bring nie. Ek het jare gelede my oupa uit die Sewende-Dag Adventistekerk begrawe en ek moes terstond 'n graveside  woordewisseling voorkom toe die NG kontingent en die SDA kontingent wou slaags raak oor "Die Toestand van die Dode". Was oupa nou in die hemel, behoede dalk in die hel?, of het hy bloot lê wag vir die "Aartsengel se basuin aan die einde van tyd?" Wie was reg en wie verkeerd? As Salomo se bedrieëry hom nie so verdag by my gemaak het nie, sou ek sê dat ek sy wysheid aan die dag gelê het met "kom ons laat mekaar toe om op eiesoortige wyse vrede te maak met die verdriet van oupa se dood." Magtag!!

Die Kerk het 'n mistroostige geskiedenis met betrekking tot nuwe idees. Objektiwiteit en die kerk is per definisie onversoenbare begrippe. In die algemene omgang; in hierdie wêreld van moderne fisika, wetenskaplike metodiek, kritiese denke en 'n groeiende insig in die antieke tradisie moet Bybelterroriste se bekende aanmatigende aanslag, om in nederigheid die teenswoordige wysheid te wil oorheers met 'n "ons wèèt, want Die Bybel sê so", uitgewys word as geordende disinformasie, gerugsteun deur 'n Bestel wat  vooruitgang vertraag en insig dwarsboom.

Groetnis

"Smile"