Last Monday a few of our parishioners watched (and were disappointed by) Q & A on the ABC. The program was to be a discussion between renowned Atheist – Richard Dawkins, and George Pell -Catholic Archbishop of Sydney. Fortunately I didn’t see the program when it first aired because; from all reports it was anything but compelling. I have since watched it so that I could comment, and would have to agree with those who said it was boring television … and disappointing. In fact I was embarrassed by the responses of Archbishop Pell. Both men were considered to be very “wishy washy” in their opinions. Unlike the archbishop of Canterbury who I quote below…
Speaking about Easter and the Resurrection he says “Easter raises an extra question, uncomfortable and unavoidable: perhaps ‘religion’ is more useful than the passing generation of gurus’ thought; but is it true?”
Oh, if only Pell had the eloquence and faith of Rowan Williams … for whom the answer was found, not in instant scientific analysis but in a longer measure of the effect of belief in the lives of believers: “How do we know that it is true? Not by some final knock-down would-be scientific proof, but by the way it works in us through the long story of a whole life and the longer story of the life of the community that believes it. We learn and assimilate its truth by the risk of living it; to those on the edge of it, looking respectfully and wistfully at what it might offer, we can only say, ‘you’ll learn nothing more by looking; at some point you have to decide whether you want to try to live with it and in it.'”
“And what’s the difference it makes? If God exists and is active, if his will and action truly raised Jesus from the dead, then what we think and do and achieve as human beings is not the only thing that the world’s future depends on. ”
Wow! The future of the world doesn’t depend on us! Hope rests not on our shoulders… but on the shoulders of he who has already carried the weight of the world… And that one man has already proved himself trustworthy and capable of bearing the weight. Alleluia!
Christ is risen, Alleluia! He is risen Indeed, Alleluia!
Many Blessings
Reverend Shan