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RELIGION

Cricket viewed from the Tower of Babel

  • 31 January 2008
Christians, like other people who have sacred books, commonly look for guidance on questions of everyday life. But it is notoriously difficult to find illumination about current issues. Take, for example, the ruckus after the second cricket test between India and Australia.

That is partly because we instinctively look first for direct and unequivocal statements. Thou shalt not steal, for example. Such statements let us know who is to blame for what. But it is usually hard to apply these statements helpfully to modern events like test matches.

Perhaps, though, deeper illumination is to be found in stories than in instructions, condemnations and exhortations. Stories do not offer instant judgments but different and provoking ways of looking at situations.

If you want to reflect on the conflict between the Indian and Australian teams, for example, you could do worse than detour past the Tower of Babel. It is one of a cycle of stories that tell how God's love always intervenes to rescue humanity from the destructive consequences of its bloody-mindedness.

The Tower of Babel is an image of the capacity of technology to disturb deep human values. In the story the discovery of bricks and mortar has made possible the construction of towers and the shaping of cities. New technology and a shared language inspire a concerted effort to build a tower that will reach to heaven — God's world. God responds to this vaulting ambition by confusing the people's languages.

At first sight, this story seems to say that a controlling God punishes human beings for their cheeky pride in technology and human progress. But in context it is more subtle. Although these early stories in the Book of Genesis represent God as intervening from outside, their deeper concern is to show the inner dynamics of human action. God is about relationships, and the stories return human beings to relationships.

The point of this story is that new technology focuses human beings narrowly on domination and on power. They see human fulfilment in these terms. The new technologies and the consequent change in economic relationships inspire great concerted projects. But the narrow focus on domination and technical expertise destroys the conditions that allow people to cooperate. They need to rediscover the priority of relationships, and particularly the relationship with God that relativises instrumental goals.

That brings us back to the recent test match.

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