2010/11 season a year in review

So Arsenal finished the 2010/11 season on a total of 68 points, with 8 losses and 11 draws. This was quite frankly unacceptable! For a very brief time we were number 1 in the league, which dropped to a respectable second before descending eventually by the end of the season into a precarious fourth place! Why is fourth place so precarious? The Premier League has been in a state of flux over the last few years - Tottenham and Manchester city have risen to prominence and this season saw the beginning of a resurgent Liverpool. Some question whether there is a traditional top four anymore to speak of and rather the Premier League must now be spoken of in top 6 terms. If Arsenal are not careful, with its current squad of injury prone players, lack of real leadership quality on the pitch and the ever turning rumour mill of a certain Spanish player's future, Arsenal are in danger of being lost in the mire and failing to qualify for the Champion's League. But that is all pessimistic speculation at this point. Back to the season just gone and well it has been nothing short of disappointing.

Don't get me wrong, I love Arsenal and am proud to wear the shirt and support the club; but yet again we failed to win silverware; yet again we choked all too often against 'lesser' clubs when we really needed to place pressure on our closest rivals in the hunt for the League title. This is why this season turned into a total nightmare. Our best chance at silverware this year came in the Carling Cup, a trophy the club has never truly persued with the same vigor and commitment of the League title or the Champion's League trophy but a trophy nevertheless that we were more than capable of winning. Yet we didn't turn up at the Final. We lost the final to a team that eventually was relegated! What does that tell you about the mentality of this current squad? All our fears were realised as Birmingham out played us with sheer heart. That is what this team has lacked all too often. It has lacked heart; it has lacked passion; it has lacked that drive and killer instinct to win and to be champions. It has been leveled at Arsenal's door by critics that the squad do not have a 'champions' mentality' and collectively I think that has proven to be true too often. Psychologically the team have choked and failed to perform to the best of their ability when it has really mattered, be that applying pressure to our closest rivals (namely Manchester United) or in winning trophies in other competitions.

However there were plenty of positives to take from this season - firstly the revelation of a rising star, Jack Wilshere. Our 19 year old midfielder proved he has a heart of lion on the pitch and was a key player for us this season. Wilshere has an ability to galvinise the team and to be an inspiration to other players with a never say die attitude. This season also saw the return of Aaron Ramsey originally from injury and then from loan deal. Although there was not enough of the season left to really impose himself, Ramsey will be a real asset to the team next season and is a very talented and charismatic young player. Then there was the incredible form of Robin Van Persie. RVP broke a couple of Premier League records this season, one of which was most away goals scored in successive games. RVP was the most in form striker in 2011 and was irreplacable for us in the second half of the season. We also managed huge wins over Manchester United, Chelsea (which I was at) and Barcelona at home. Those were three massive scalps to shout about.

So we look to next season, and we can look forward to it with much hope and promise. Next season Arsenal celebrate its 125th Anniversary as a professional football team and I have eagerly pre-ordered the new celebratory home shirt ready to wear to the Emirates. It is a thing of beauty no doubt about it with a reef surrounding the badge. Arsenal have a long and presitigious history. The Emirates is a celebration of the history of the club and a living monument to past success; now the shirt reflects this too.


Wenger has stated that he will be in the transfer market over the summer to strengthen our squad. This is vital if we are to win anything next season. We need strong, durable and talented players that are passionate about winning trophies with Arsenal football club if future success is to be guaranteed. Naturally there would be something wonderfully romantic and poetic about winning the Premier League again after so long on the 125th Anniversary of the club; yet as a fan trophies are not the be all and end all. What I found so frustrating and infuriating this season was not failing to win the 'big one' but the way in which we conceded defeat and failed to rise to the challenge and opportunity on so many occassions. There is no embarrassment finishing second; second is very respectable and something to be proud about as long as you know your team has done its utmost best. Arsenal could not say that this season and we finished fourth because of it. I just want to see 100% next season (which I believe will reward us with silverware).

I have seen where it grows

Without meaning to turn my blog purely into an apologetic medium I feel compelled to address the issue that humanists or scientists lay before Christians of 'cherry picking' what is morally and socially acceptable from the Bible and conveniently ignoring the more morally offensive elements (particularly in reference to the Old Testament). I take exception to this phrase 'cherry picking' in that it seems to have found acceptance in debates I have seen between Christians and atheists when discussing the interpretation and application of the Bible.

Firstly, many Christians do not 'cherry pick' Biblical principles. This ignores or does a huge disservice to the nature of the Bible itself. Atheists or humanists talk as if the Bible is one book that was written as a whole. This is not true. The Bible is a library of books written by several different authors over several hundred years. As in any library there are books of different genres - from history, law, prophecy, poetry and wisdom to historical narrative and theology. Collectively these books were canonized and form the Christian Bible (commonly known as the Old and New Testament). Therefore the historical and cultural context of any given book of the Bible must be taken into account before we draw practical application for how we should live our lives and treat others. This is known theologically as Hermeneutics: the study of interpretation theory.

Secondly, the interpretation and application of the Old Testament Law (or Torah) for Christians culminated in the person of Jesus. Jesus radically reinterpreted much of the Torah or the Law of Moses. For example Jesus enlightened his disciples to the principles underlying clean and unclean food and thus Christians see nothing wrong in eating pork or eating without first ritually cleansing their hands. As Jesus taught "it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person." Matthew 15:11. Why don't Christians stone adulterers or homosexuals? Because those judgements are obsolete in the context of the Cross. This is known theologically as Christology. Jesus taught: "Do not think I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." Matthew 5:17 (my emphasis added) As a Christian I believe that the Law of Moses finds its fulfilment in Jesus. Jesus lived a perfect life; Jesus was the only perfect human being to have ever lived and as such fulfilled the requirements of the Law. This is how Jesus' sacrifice upon the cross has the power and efficacy to heal and to save for all time. "For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us..." Romans 8:3-4 (my emphasis added).

But some atheists might mistakenly interpret Christ's fulfilling of the Law as reason to do away with the Old Testament. This is a misconception because as Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew he came not to abolish but fulfill. We still need the Old Testament (or the Hebrew Bible) to understand the person and divinity of Jesus. The Old Testament is replete with messianic prophecies regarding Jesus as God's anointed one who will bring salvation to His people. Indeed the apostle Paul calls God's callings as irrevocable (Romans 11:29). Christianity is rooted within Judaism and there is no Biblical mandate to sever that connection. It is from within the context of Judaism that Christianity's spiritual principles of sin and justice are founded: in the Monotheism of the Jewish heritage.

So what does this mean for the 21st century? Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. We do not go around judging, discriminating or punishing people of other lifestyles and religions; salvation is open to all through Jesus Christ. We all have free will to choose whether or not to confess and repent of our sin and believe in the sacrifice of Jesus for our redemption. As it says in Ephesians: "by grace you have been saved" Ephesians 2:5. In and through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ there is no mandate for bigotry or discrimination. Indeed Jesus teaches to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:44). Thus to conclude through the study and application of Hermenuetics and Christology Christians can reasonably and justifiably believe in and apply these Biblical principles to their lives without fear of hypocrisy or 'cherry picking'. 'Cherry picking' is such an unhelpful term when intellectually, academically and respectfully debating the relevance of Christianity or the Bible to the 21st Century.

There is one other issue I want to address in this blog and that is of the rationality of faith. As I watched the topical debating programme on BBC 1 this morning 'The Big Questions' one atheist representative in response to a Christian member of the panel retorted to his point about individual faith: "But I could believe in lepricorns but that does not make them true!" Underlying this remark is a critical attitude to the nature of faith and a subtle implication that all faith is irrational. To imply that 'faith' as a general term is irrational is indefensible in my opinion. The whole debate between religion and science over the flat earth theory or evolution for example is a fallacy. Galileo who was forced to renounce his scientific discovery was a man of faith himself! Scientists of the renaissance where not the vanguard of atheism. Historically science was born in the West from Christianity and was known as 'Natural Philosophy'. The issue the Catholic Church had with Galileo was not atheism but heresy as they understood the term to mean. Now heresy was often associated with atheism but they are not to be mistaken as synonymous. Indeed our present decimal system of mathematics has come from Islam. It was not until the Enlightenment of the 18th century that atheism started to become much more philosophically robust and defensible. Then again this was not so much the work of scientific progress (Newton himself was a theist) but in the anti-clericalism of the French philosophes. Human liberalism really has its roots in the Enlightenment when a revolution against the established Church led to more free thinkers in the form of theism, deism and atheism. Even Darwin later in the 19th century in his seminal work 'The Origins of the Species' was reluctant to emphasise the implications of his evolutionary theory to organised religion and the basis of many peoples' faith. Interestingly it was a Catholic Monk named Gregor Mendal who discovered laws of genetics while experimenting on pea plants around the same time as Darwin published his book on the Origin of the Species and he later posthumously became known as the 'Father of Genetics'. In the 20th Century Albert Einstein (famous for his pioneering work on the theory of relativity) believed in a 'Supreme Mind', which even if it wasn't the monotheistic Judao-Christian God was still a 'higher being' that strictly speaking atheism rejects.

So what does this mean? Well it means that science does not intrinsically lead to atheism or lack of faith in the Judao-Christian God. But rather atheists look to science to find reason for unbelief in God. If someone chooses not to believe in God (their worldview) then they can find support for this in science - in the theory of evolution; in 'the selfish gene' as Richard Dawkins puts it etc. Now I am not accusing all atheists of this sort of broadbrush discimination of faith (or Biblical faith to put it another way) as being both morally hypocritical, obsolete or irrational but I do feel very strongly when this is the impression that is given by atheist representatives on topical debating programmes. Faith is not irrational or obsolete - a study of history, philosophy and theology will tell you that!

Ascendency

“Inception, is it possible?”
“Of course not!”
“If you can steal an idea from someone’s mind, why can’t you plant one there instead?”
− Taken from the film Inception

Whether it is religion, philosophy or literature, ideas are a conscious, intangible, immaterial property. It was Karl Marx who famously said of religion that it was: “the opium of the masses”. Ideas are infectious, contagious, sometimes dangerous and sometimes life affirming and enriching; just as in the film Inception itself. From one generation to the next ideas transcend this material cosmos. Take, for example, Hinduism one of the oldest religions in the world – it is over 4 thousand years old; or the monotheism of Judaism, which again can trace its origin back thousands of years well before the Common Era. As one century passes into another, as one generation grows and passes on its tradition to the next ideas have moulded, shaped and sculpted the course of human history; and have given rise to a myriad of emotional, spiritual and intellectual expression though art, architecture, music, poetry and literature.

Many philosophers over the centuries such as Anselm, Thomas Aquinas and Descartes have put forward a very straight forward and intuitive argument commonly known as the Ontological Argument which deduces the existence of God from reason: 1. We can imagine a supremely perfect being 2. Necessary existence is perfection 3. Therefore, a supremely perfect being exists. This may at first seem like a very weak argument for the existence of God, but if there is such a thing as a non-material entity behind the creation of the universe it is not totally inconceivable due to the fact that we are all conscious beings who are able to create out of our consciousness. If we can design, build, manufacture and create using our imaginations and our conscious thoughts then surely this is proof that such consciousness exists. No-one doubts human consciousness, we see manifestations of it every day and everywhere. We have formed language to communicate our internal, conscious thoughts.

Individually our consciousness ceases to exist with the death of our material bodies in this reality. Yet our ideas can live on, well beyond our years. The arguments about the existence, nature and properties of God first put forward by the ancient Greek philosophers are still debated today among theists and atheists; the rights to Liberty, Fraternity and Equality first devised in France inspired the formalisation of the American constitution after their successful war of independence against Britain and led to the French Revolution that in itself inspired many other lesser revolutions. These rights have become the bedrock; the foundation to such international political bodies such as the European Union and the UN and continue to be manifested through the human rights each citizen of Britain enjoys. Certain ideas or ideals of how to achieve the perfect, peaceful human society are far reaching and profound. It is beyond question that ideas have a kind of transcendent quality to them that has allowed for the progression and advancement in human society.

Therefore I postulate (though this is not an original argument) that our very consciousness is proof that such immaterial properties exist and can have a physical impact upon our planet in space and time. I believe this has massive implications for the belief in the existence of God. The Bible teaches that God is Spirit. God by nature is not a physical being who is dependent on our material universe for His existence; otherwise by virtue of the very nature of the universe God would not be eternal and could not have created the universe. So God must transcend the material cosmos and therefore must be necessarily immaterial or to use biblical language ‘Spirit’. So immaterial properties do exist (i.e. our consciousness) and therefore from personal experience through the interaction with the manifestations of our collective consciences that have shaped whole civilizations both ancient and modern we can reasonably and rationally conclude that a Supreme Conscious or Mind does exist, which originally created the universe.