Unto Us…

Somewhere at some time
They committed themselves to me
And so, I was!
Small, but I WAS!
Tiny, in shape
Lusting to live
I hung in my pulsing cave.
Soon they knew of me
My mother — my father.
I had no say in my being
I lived on trust
And love
Tho' I couldn't think
Each part of me was saying
A silent 'Wait for me
I will bring you love!'
I was taken
Blind, naked, defenseless
By the hand of one
Whose good name
Was graven on a brass plate
in Wimpole Street,
and dropped on the sterile floor
of a foot operated plastic waste
bucket.
There was no Queens Counsel
To take my brief.
The cot I might have warmed
Stood in Harrod's shop window.
When my passing was told
My father smiled.
No grief filled my empty space.
My death was celebrated
With tickets to see Danny la Rue
Who was pretending to be a woman
Like my mother was.

— Spike Milligan

Tim Chevalier reposted this Tumblr post from Peter Brunton, which has been rattling around inside my head for a few weeks. It makes me really sad, because Peter says he grew up in a “genuinely loving, caring, utterly wonderful” church, but it seems like they didn’t tell him (or he didn’t hear) how to deal with the shame that he rightly felt. I say rightly, because the Bible tells us that sexual sin should cause us to feel shame (Romans 1:26-27). The key piece that’s missing is that the right way to deal with this is not to hide or deny the shame, but to repent and believe the gospel.

The same book of Romans which calls sexual sin shameful tells us:

As it is written: ‘See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame.’

Trusting in Christ leads us to not have to feel ashamed any more. And in Hebrews 12 we read:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy that was set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

The victory won by Jesus at the cross deals with our shame just as it dealt with the supposed shamefulness of what happened to him. Whatever we may have done, he wipes the slate clean, allowing us to throw off our sin and “run the race” of faith and obedience.

It is true that he calls people who are same-sex attracted to do something that is not easy, but if God truly works all things for our good (Romans 8:28) then following him is always by far our best choice. Our sexual preferences are not who we are – they don’t define us. If we are following Jesus, that is our identity, and it subsumes everything else. And if our church is truly loving and caring, its members will help us in that journey. I don’t know if Peter will ever read this, but I pray he will one day come to see that, as many others have.

In the last year or so there have been several occasions where it has been discovered that some words in books written by Christian authors were not their own words, but yet were not footnoted as being written by someone else. This occurrence is usually referred to as “plagiarism”. The publishers of the books in question have reacted by halting sales of the affected books, sometimes forever, or sometimes until this can be corrected. This both harms the public, who are deprived of the wisdom such books contain, and harms the reputation of the author, who is labelled a plagiarist. Therefore, it is important to be certain that the act the author has committed is, in fact, sinful. If it is, fair enough. But if it is not, both the removal from sale of the book and the loss of reputation are unwarranted and harmful.

Contemporary academic standards certainly see plagiarism as a serious misdemeanour. In a context where work has to be marked for credit, it’s clearly important that the marker knows which of the work is the student’s own, and which is taken from others. In this case, the act is clearly wrong – but one could argue either that it is wrong per se, or that it’s wrong because the student is breaking a promise they made to attribute all their quotations correctly – when the sin would be “not keeping one’s word”, rather than plagiarism.

Don Carson also writes that giving another’s sermon is also a sin. I would not agree with all his reasons but certainly would agree with reason number 3 – “you are not devoting yourself to the study of the Bible to the end that God’s truth captures you, molds you, makes you a man of God and equips you to speak for him”. Preachers should not use the words of others as a way of avoiding engaging in their God-given and weighty task.

However, I think plagiarism is not a sin in itself, and I base my argument on the construction of Scripture. Scripture contains many examples of what today would be called plagiarism – unattributed use of the words of another. Many of these are where words are taken from other places in Scripture, but there are also some where words are taken from outside Scripture. Not all such quotations are unattributed, but many are. Large examples include:

* The dependence of Kings on other books (e.g. (e.g. 2 Kings 18-20 is basically the same as Isaiah 36-39; 2 Kings 25 is nearly identical to Jeremiah 52)
* The dependence of Chronicles on Kings
* The dependence of Matthew on Mark (e.g. Mark 2:1-12 has strong similarities with Matthew 9:1-8)
* The dependence of Luke on Mark
* The dependence of 2 Peter on Jude (or the other way around, if you prefer)

And that’s before you consider Q (a proposed document also used by Luke and Matthew, so unattributed that scholars argue about its very existence), and all the times the New Testament quotes or alludes to the Old (most of which are unattributed). Paul quotes 3 Greek philosophers in various places; none of the quotes are attributed by name, even though Paul must have known the names. They are in quotation marks in our modern Bibles, but Greek does not have quotation marks. One could go on. Any one of these examples would prove my point.

If it is a sin in all circumstances to take the words of others and pass them off as your own, then the very construction of Scripture as we have it involved its authors doing this sinful act many times. While Scripture describes sins, and was written down by sinners, I don’t believe that God would have used sinful methods in the process of assembling his good and perfect word – because if the existence of something necessarily depends on sin, how can it be described as good and perfect? If God thinks that unattributed quotation is a sin, why would he not have caused the authors to attribute all their quotations, thereby setting us all a good example? If plagiarism is a sin, lack of attribution of quotations is a flaw in Scripture itself.

The idea that copying the work of others, either at all or without attribution, is unreasonable is a relatively recent one in history. Copyright has only been around since the Statute of Anne in 1707, and that was a measure designed at controlling publishers rather than restricting people’s ability to quote. More recently in history, such things have been thought about under the banner of “intellectual property”, a name which rather begs the question, as it’s not clear at all that such things should be treated in the same manner as physical property. This concept of a particular person “owning” a set of words or ideas was unknown until relatively recently. The fact that these ideas are innovative should certainly give us caution in suggesting that they are reflections of the moral will of God which humans had been unaware of until 300 years ago. Christians have always built on the wisdom God has given those before them, and we should be wary of any man-made laws which restrict that free flow of ideas forward in time.

Nevertheless, the law is the law – is plagiarism wrong because it’s a breach of copyright law as it stands today, and Christians are called to obey the law (Romans 13)? The answer is that it depends on the context and the level of copying. Copyright law has exceptions to try and balance its view that the author should have control of their work with what it sees as the legitimate rights and desires of the public. But the way copyright law works in the UK is that the law doesn’t provide actual affirmation that certain exempt acts are OK, it instead provides for defences in court. This means that the only way to know for certain whether a particular use is an infringement or not is to ask a judge. This is relevant because of the legal doctrine of de minimis – below a certain level, a court would undoubtedly refuse to waste its time with a copyright infringement.

Nevertheless, it is reasonable to ask if this behaviour seems to be covered by an exception. Exceptions unfortunately vary from country to country; in the UK, there is an exception for “criticism, review, quotation and news reporting“, which is certainly designed to permit quotation of one book in another. It does require “sufficient acknowledgement (unless this would be impossible for reasons of practicality or otherwise)” (section 30). It could certainly be argued that if you took notes 20 years ago and neglected to record the source, it is now practically impossible to acknowledge it. One might consider prosecution if attribution were intentionally left off; would a prosecutor really do so if it were done unintentionally?

Earlier, I noted that in some contexts, plagiarism can be sinful because it involves breaking a promise. Can that be the case in commercial publishing? There are two possible promises to consider – that of the author to his publisher, and that of the author (and publisher) to the readership.

Let us consider the author/publisher relationship first. Having not yet authored my first best-seller I am not familiar with the contracts that authors draw up with publishers. These may well contain a clause saying the author will attribute all quotations, or perhaps make a good faith effort to do so. However, someone’s culpability for breaking a promise depends significantly on intent and circumstances. If I promise my wife to be home by a certain time and my train is late (and I write this while waiting for a train after missing a connection due to a late incoming train), I would suggest only an unreasonable wife would take me to task for this. If an author deliberately plagiarises others when having promised not to do so, that is a clear case of a broken promise. If they do so accidentally, is pulping all copies of their book a proportionate response?

The second situation to consider is the possibility that an author makes an implicit promise to his readership. I think this argument is stronger in an academic work where the footnotes average a third of each page, than in a non-academic work which has 20 endnotes in total. There are different reader expectations in each case. But how normative are reader expectations? I expect books I buy to be written in good English, theologically sound, thought-provoking and enlightening. These expectations are, sadly, often not met, but I don’t expect the publisher to pulp the book in response to my complaint! To add to that, one is on shaky ground construing promises where no explicit promise has been made. Lastly, the point about what one does if a promise is broken accidentally (as opposed to wilfully) still stands.

Plagiarism may be problematic and unwise in certain circumstances. For example, it makes it harder to trace the history of an idea back to its source, which is often important in avoiding groupthink and validating “what everyone knows”. But we must avoid the genetic fallacy – the worthiness of an idea or thought is not connected to whose idea or thought it was. If a book explains the Trinity well, it does not suddenly do so less well if it’s discovered that some of the words were not written by the author named on the cover.

So I would suggest that the idea that plagiarism is always and everywhere wrong is a recent innovation and not a reflection of the moral will of God. Intentionally breaking one’s explicit promises is sinful; plagiarism itself alone is not.

I’m a fan of The Oatmeal, with the odd reservation. But one cartoon in particular gets pointed out to me a lot – “How to suck at your religion“.

The trouble with arguing with him is that he’s a popular cartoonist, and I’m not. Cartoons suffer from the Twitter/Facebook effect – a humourous pithy short attack or condemnation of something is far more interesting and retweetable than any nuanced response to it. And then, of course, you get accused of having no sense of humour. And if he ever reads this post and takes offence, there’ll be cartoons lampooning me. Still, Jesus had to endure being mocked, so that’s an OK risk to take.

So, then, a few thoughts in response:

So is judging people wrong, then? Because there seems to be plenty of judgement in this comic. If it is wrong, then who says so, and who died and made them king? It’s easy to mock the moral stance of others, but rather difficult (if your understanding of the world doesn’t include an omnipotent moral lawgiver) to figure out why the morality you are in favour of should apply to other people. Should I not judge because a “silly web cartoonist” (his words) tells me not to? Morality can’t be hung from skyhooks.

This is before we even talk about what Jesus actually meant, in context, by “Do not judge, or you too will be judged”.

The Galileo affair was not the best moment in the life of the church. But the second comic makes the error that so many bits of reporting on stem cells make that one would almost think people are trying to hide the truth. There are two main types of stem cells – adult, and embryonic. Adult stem cells come from, well, adults, and I’ve never heard of anyone who has any theological problem with them. Embryonic stem cells are harvested from embroyos, tiny people who are killed by the process. And that is a problem.

Thing is, which type of cells have been producing all the amazing treatments and treatment possibilities? Adult stem cells. A guy recently became able to walk again after they injected stem cells from his nose into his spine. That’s so awesome. By contrast, despite lots of positive talk, they can’t figure out how to stop the embryonic ones giving you cancer. And yet, every time there’s a “stem cell success” story, the church is castigated for “its opposition to stem cell research”, and people vow to continue the murder of microscopic human beings.

In the last panel, is he really asserting that anyone can make any old thing up, and the universe will bend to accommodate the wishes of the person concerned? Or just that it’s cool and righteous to affirm people in whatever rubbish they make up in their own minds? Also, no matter how politely phrased, “No-one really knows for sure” is dogma, plain and simple. All education is indoctrination – the question is simply “whose doctrine?”. What he is really saying is “don’t use your doctrine, use mine”.

I wonder if the Oatmeal had a kid, who was told “no-one really knows”, and who replied “well, I think God then decides who goes to heaven and who goes to hell, and I’m worried about your eternal soul”, he’d say “sure, sweetie”, or “NO. NO-ONE REALLY KNOWS FOR SURE AND THAT’S FINAL.” Given the rest of the comic’s antipathy towards Christianity…

My religion gives me no anxieties about my sexuality at all. However, what the Oatmeal is really saying is “any parameters religion puts around the correct use of sex are evil”. So is he in favour of no parameters at all (permitting every vile act one could imagine – you know I could list all the usual things which every country makes illegal) or does he just want to impose different parameters to the ones Christianity does? And if so, apart from the detail of what’s in and what’s out (ahem), how is his principle of imposing laws regarding the expression of sexuality any different from the principle that he mocks?

Christians who try and convince others that what they believe is true are not trying to “validate their beliefs”. There are no points from God for making more Christians. In fact, Christians can’t make more Christians – only God can do that. We don’t get any credit when it happens. Also, Christians are (or should be) specifically encouraged to avoid groupthink – the idea that if lots of people believe something, it must be true. (Incidentally, if you think Buddhists all leave people alone, read this and this.)

Fortunately, the real and true “awesome shit” is available to everyone. Including the Oatmeal.

Calling something ‘crazy’ is not an argument. It’s hard to refute a sneer. And, of course, his summary of what Christians believe is wrong in several places. If it’s such crazy nonsense, why not illustrate using the version Christianity teaches, rather than a straw man? Or is the real view not so crazy after all?

Amen to the general point here. Although the idea (which, I agree, is not his main point) that one should vote based on which policies are better for you personally is a sad, divisive and dangerous one. One should vote based on which policies are best for society as a whole. (For me, those are generally policies which make the law conform more closely to God’s law. YMMV.)

Yes, indeed. Je suis….

Yes, I would die for Jesus. Adam4d puts it well:

No, I would not kill for Jesus. However, the point of Christianity is not to “inspire people to help people” (although it does) or to make you happier (although it might) or to help you cope with the atheistic feeling of cosmic helplessness (although it does deal with it very effectively). Christianity is not utilitarian. The point is to have a real relationship with your Creator – to know Christ. Which is the most awesome thing in the world. Having experienced it, who would ever want to keep it to themselves?

When Muhammad is mocked, Islamic extremism kills and says:

We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad!

When Jesus is mocked, Christianity hopes and says:

And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

We are called not to avenge him, but to identify with him and accept the same disgrace.

Je Suis Charlie. Et Je Suis Jésus.