So What?

Lent 12: Bill Bryson

Yellowstone, it turns out, is a supervolcano.  It sits on top of an enormous hot spot, a reservoir of molten rock which begins at least 200 kilometres down in the Earth and rises to near the surface, forming what is known as a superplume.  The heat from the hot spot is what powers all of Yellowstone's vents, geysers, hot springs and popping mud pots.  Beneath the surface is a magma chamber that is about 72 kilometres across - roughly the same dimensions as the park - and about 13 kilometres thick at its thickest point.  Imagine a pile of TNT about the size of an English county and reaching 13 kilometres into the sky, to about the height of the highest cirrus clouds, and you have some idea of what visitors to Yellowstone are shuffling around on top of.  The pressure that such a pool of exerts on the crust above has lifted Yellowstone and its surrounding territory about half a kilometre higher than they would otherwise be.  If it blew, the cataclysm is pretty well beyond imagining.  According to Professor Bill McGuire of University College London, 'you wouldn't be able to get within a thousand kilometres of it' while it was erupting.  The consequences that followed would be even worse.  (From A Short History of Nearly Everything , page 199)

I read this just after it came out, in 2003.  I had read Bryson's travel books before and enjoyed his sense of humour.  This book appealed to my interest in science and my belief that theologians who do not understand basic science, have no calling to be doing theology in todays world.  There is no excuse when there are books like this one readily available.  I suppose there's little chance of any significant change when so many Christians are scared of a proof that their treasured beliefs about God are wrong.

The section about Yellowstone is thrilling.  The whole story, as Bryson tells it, of cosmology and geology, puts us firmly in our place.  We may be at home in the universe but we are extremely lucky to be here.  We are led to reflect that our existence is conditional.  This is why I prefer to think of God as artist rather than designer.

Lent 11: John J Vincent

What can be meant by calling this a "secular" Gospel?  From our summary even so far, we see that Mark's purpose has been plainly to show that the life and ministry of Jesus on earth contained more than appeared on the surface - naturally, for Mark writes for those who, thirty years after, had never known Jesus "after the flesh"!  Consequently, what we might call the nonsecular references are already beginning to be heightened.  But the whole story is not about God, or heaven, or eternity, or ideas, or goodness, or providence, or anything else not available to ordinary man using his ordinary senses.  His whole story is about Jesus, walking, talking, getting into boats, doing controversial things, healing, getting into arguments, evading opponents, securing friends, explaining himself, explaining his teaching.  His whole story is about a secular event, an event within this world, which presupposes the limitations and opportunities of living in this world.  (From Secular Christ (1968), page 78)

John Vincent chose to live this story in Pitsmoor, Sheffield and has had a teaching ministry there ever since the late sixties, soon after this book was published.  For me, it is always John's teaching that springs to mind as I preach and exercise my own ministry.  I am one of what must amount to many thousands who have been influenced by him down the years.  I would certainly say his teaching has been more influential than his writing and indeed, I suspect his earlier writing has more significance than his later publications.  This in no way detracts from his, often controversial teachings, although it raises the question how influential he will be in 50 or 100 years time.  John has been responsible for several initiatives in Pitsmoor, the photo is of his latest, developed since his retirement.

Like Winstanley , John sees the Gospels from the point of view of the ordinary people who passed on the stories of Jesus.  John started as an academic and has remained an academic in the place he found himself, inner city Pitsmoor.  Perhaps his most profound teaching is that putting down roots in a particular time and place makes sense of the Gospel.  Perhaps we all need to reflect upon how engagement with what is real is central to our own faith. 

Lent 10: Diarmaid MacCulloch

I hope that this book will help readers stand back from Christianity, whether they love it or hate it, or are simply curious about it, and see it in the round.  The book is self-evidently not a work of primary-source research; rather, it tries to synthesise the current state of historical scholarship across the world.  It also seeks to be a reflection on it, a way of interpreting that scholarship for a large audience which is often bewildered by what is happening to Christianity and misunderstands how present structures and beliefs have evolved.  It can be no more than a series of suggestions to give shape to the past, but the suggestions are not random.  At some points in it, I have developed further the text of my previous book, Reformation, which was an attempt to tell part of this wider story, but which led me on to this attempt to put shapes on the greater picture.  My aim is to tell as clearly as possible an immensely complicated and varied tale, in ways which others will enjoy and find plausible.  Furthermore, I am not ashamed to affirm that although modern historians have no special capacity to be arbiters of the truth or otherwise of religion, they still have a moral task.  They should seek to promote sanity and to curb the rhetoric that promotes fanaticism.  There is no surer basis for fanaticism than bad history, which is invariably history oversimplified.  (A History of Christianity , page 12)

This is possibly the most recent book to feature in this series, indeed I am still reading it.  There is little wonder; I received it from Amazon on 30 November and have been reading it ever since.  It stands at 1016 pages and I have read as far as the counter-Reformation.  MacCulloch is a brilliant writer.  This history is never dull and always readable.  I'm still struggling with the exact nature of non-Chalcedon Christians but then, I suspect, so are most people.  I bought the book as a result of watching his BBC television series, based upon the book.  I have commented on this book in several posts on my ecumenical blog .

I think MacCulloch is right about fanaticism and the contribution made by oversimplified history.  Why do so many Christians seem terrified of being found wrong?  When we read this history, so much is placed in context, and helps us understand where our treasured beliefs originated.  Does this imply they are not reliable?  Or does it imply, God loves humanity in its errors and not just those who get it right (if any such exist).

Lent 9: Leo Tolstoy

'My father, too, laid out Bald Hills, and thought the place was his - that it was his land, his air, his peasants.  But Napoleon came along and swept him aside, unconscious of his existence, as he might brush a chip of wood from his path, and his Bald Hills and his whole life fell to pieces.  Princess Maria says that it is a trial sent from above.  What is the trial for, since he is no more and never will be?  He will never come back again!  He is no more!  So for whom is the trial intended?  The Fatherland, the destruction of Moscow!  And tomorrow I shall be killed, perhaps not even by a Frenchman but by one of our own side, by a soldier discharging a musket close to my ear, as one of them did yesterday; and the French will come along and take me by my head and my heels and pitch me into a hole that I may not stink under their noses; and life generally will go on under new conditions, just as natural in their turn as the old ones, and I shall not know about them, for I shall be no more.'  (from War and Peace , Book 3, Part 2, section 24.)

When I was in the sixth form, during the very early seventies, I read loads of science fiction.  One of the novels I read was Aldous Huxley's Brave New World .  So, I read another of his, Eyeless in Gaza  and discovered it was not science fiction!  Then I saw War and Peace, and thought, as I'd managed Eyeless in Gaza I might as well have a go at the longest novel in the world!  By the time I went to University in 1972, I had read many Russian authors including Dostoyevsky and Solzhenitsyn.  I still like science fiction!

Here Prince Andrei, on the eve of the Battle of Borodino, muses on his father's recent death.  Life will go on.  This passage is typical of Tolstoy and the way many of his characters think.  Andrei understands that just like his father, he will die and the world will continue without him.  There is a spiritual exercise where you imagine yourself in your coffin and that the world will continue without you. 

Lent 8: Thomas Cullinan

The word obedience means, in its origins, being a good listener.  And that connects with so much in the Gospel about watching, being sensitive to the signs of the times, and to what the spirit is saying to the churches - be an attentive listener.  So the opposite of obedience, in the Latin origins of these words, is, believe it or not, absurdity, being utterly deaf.  So we have only two options, in life: we are obedient or we are absurd.  (From The Passion of Political Love, 1987, Sheed & Ward, London, page 1)

This book, which appears to be out of print, was recommended by a friend in 1991.  I must confess, I have never really found my way beyond this paragraph on the first page but I have returned to it time and again.  It might seem to be saying: simply do what you think is right.  I don't think it is.  It is saying that acting with integrity is hard work.

These days, we might not be completely happy with the reference to deafness.  However, Cullinan's point is not that we merely listen.  We are invited to engage with all our senses in the world where we find ourselves; to engage in the here and now.  Or in the words of John Vincent, 'it's where your feet are'.  Rublev's icon of the Trinity, shows obedience as relationship.  There is no coercion to obey in this relationship and yet all three are obedient.

Lent 7: Abbot Christopher Jamieson

During one of the dialogues the Worth community have had recently with the Buddhist monks of Chithurst, we were discussing community life.  The Buddhist abbot told us that considerable numbers of people who came to him said they wanted to live as hermits; they did not want to live with the other monks but wanted to live on their own immediately.  He pointed out to them that the Buddha has much to say about community life and about learning to live with others.  Benedict's own life seems to have involved a similar excess of zeal for the hermit life: he left Rome as a student and went into the hills east of Rome to seek God on his own, in a cave.  While the Rule allows for monks who want to live as hermits, this is only for those 'who have come through the test of living in a monastery for a long time, and have passed beyond the first fervour of monastic life' (RB, 1: 3).  Benedict seems to have learned from his own youthful errors.  In the struggle for purity of heart, the great monastic goal, our reactions to other people teach us a great deal about ourselves.  Only when we have learnt those lessons are we 'ready  with God's help to grapple single-handed with the vices of body and mind'.  ( From finding sanctuary: Monastic Steps for Everyday Life , page 115)

You may remember the BBC TV programme The Monastery in May 2005, where five men with no experience of monastic life joined the community at Worth Abbey for forty days and forty nights.  The public interest was so great, the Abbot wrote this book on a secular imprint, to engage with the many viewers who had expressed interest.  It was published on 1 May 2006, Bank Holiday Monday.  Christopher Jamieson appeared on BBC Radio 4's Start the Week and then I travelled to Coventry Cathedral for the first ever Christian Body, Mind and Spirit Festival.  He led a workshop and I heard him speak.  We were told he would be signing copies in the Cathedral bookshop.  It turned out the books had not been delivered and so I ordered one from the late SPCK Bookshop in Sheffield.  They found the whole print run had sold out and so I had to wait for the next printing and obtained my copy on 27 May 2006.

The message is we are formed by the people with whom we live.  Jamieson argues we cannot know God and so what God reveals to us is the truth about ourselves.  He does this through our lives in community.  This is why I believe marriage is a spiritual discipline.  If the marriage (and family life) works it is because the couple have worked at living together.  In saying this I by no means wish to imply that marriage is some sacred institution.  It seems to me a lot  depends on whether those who do it understand at some level this is a spiritual discipline.  But what would I know as a lifelong single?

Lent 6: Saul Alinski

The means-and-ends moralists, constantly obsessed with the ethics of the means used by the Have-Nots against the Haves, should search themselves as to their real political position. In fact, they are passive — but real — allies of the Haves…. The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means... The standards of judgment must be rooted in the whys and wherefores of life as it is lived, the world as it is, not our wished-for fantasy of the world as it should be ... .  (from Rules for Radicals , 1971, page 25ish)

I really must get hold of this book!  I must have borrowed it from the library at the Urban Theology Unit in the early 80s and the memory has stayed with me.  Alinski's earlier book Reveille for Radicals  is also worth a look.  This is a too short excerpt but offers a flavour of Alinski's hard edged approached.  The Industrial Areas Foundation in the United States, bases its Citizens' Organising on the work of Alinski, and is supported primarily by the churches.

Alinski's mission was to empower the poor and he wrote of 'rubbing raw the sores of discontent'.  This cuts across the quiet calm ordered nature of so much of our religion.  And yet he was in that same tradition as Winstanley, aware that it is the carpenters and fishermen (and the unemployed!) who make change happen, not the politicians or the millionaires. 

Lent 5: Gerrard Winstanley

The Scriptures of the Bible were written by the experimental hand of shepherds, husbandmen, fishermen and such inferior men of the world.  And the university learned ones have got these men's writings, and flourishes their plain language over with their dark interpretation and glosses, as if it were too hard for ordinary men now to understand them: and thereby they deceive the simple and makes a prey of the poor, and cozens them of the earth, and of the tenth of their labours.  (Spring 1650)  (from A Radical Reader: The Struggle for change in England 1381 - 1914 , edited by Christopher Hampton (1984), page 237)

About two decades ago we regularly sang as members of the Liberation Congregation in Sheffield, the song that begins (from memory) "In 1649, to St George's Hill a ragged band they called the Diggers, came to do the peoples' will, they forswore their property, they forswore the law, they were the dispossessed reclaiming what was theirs."  In December, I saw the recently issued DVD of Kevin Brownlow's film Winstanley .  The film is of its time (1975) but certainly captures the relentless persecution of the Diggers by the landowners and military.

These days St George's Hill is a well to do estate whose inhabitants apparently do not wish to be reminded of its place in the history of English radicalism.  Perhaps it is worth asking how the memory lingers on even when many would prefer to forget.  There is something about these half remembered acted parables that invites us to make a similar commitment in our own time and place.

Lent 4: Jonathan Sacks

Just as the human situation would be impoverished and unsustainable if we were to eliminate all life forms except our own, so it would be reduced and fatally compromised if we were to eliminate all cultures and traditions except our own.  The idea that we fulfil God's will by waging war against the infidel, or forcing our specific practices on others, so that all humanity shares the same religion is an idea that - as I have tried to argue - owes much to the concept of empire and little to the heritage of Abraham, which Jews, Christians and Muslims claim as their own.  It was not until the Abrahamic faith came into contact with Greek and Roman imperialism that it developed into an aspiration to conquer or convert the world, and we must abandon it if we are to save ourselves from mutual destruction.  To repeat my formulation in an earlier chapter: fundamentalism, like imperialism, is the attempt to impose a single way of life on a plural world.  It is the Tower of Babel of our time.  (The Dignity of Difference  (2002), page 201)

Purchased on 4 January 2005 at the Cliff College Bookshop.  Perhaps some will think this is an unlikely venue but Sacks is arguably one of our greatest modern theologians.  He is pointing the way for Christian ecumenism, although we are still waiting for a theologian to translate his work for the specifics of our Christian churches.  (If you know of someone who has, do let me know who it is!)

It can be hard to live with the idea there are many truths, when our own seem so compelling.  But how can we test our own truths unless there are people with different truths to test them against?  It is not our beliefs that save us but our compassion.

Lent 3: Graham Dunstan Martin

Now let us emphasise this key point: the contemporary reductionist view is that, fundamentally, there is only matter.  Their definition of matter exactly corresponds to Berkeley's definition, namely that it is devoid of consciousness.  By their definition, consciousness is 'derived from it'.  Let us ponder this in the light of the distinction between percipere [the active verb to perceive] and percipi [the passive verb to be perceived].  If according to reductionists, consciousness must be a product of the mechanical processes of unconscious matter, that is seeing can be causally and logically derived form being seen, then according to them, seeing is not primary.  Being seen is primary.  Intuitively, one feels there is something wrong here.  How can reality be derived from a passive verb?  (From: Does It Matter? The Unsustainable World of the Materialists  (2005), page 49.)

This book was a gift in September 2008.  It confirmed so many of my own suspicions, I cannot resist returning to it over and again.  I have already written a sequence of posts  about it in my other blog.  The point is not that Martin clinches some argument against atheism, it is rather that he shows there are rational arguments on both sides.  There is no clinching argument about God because this debate about the existence of God poses the wrong question .

If consciousness is primary, then the whole universe is in a great conversation .  Things happen because there are other things.  So, where can God be found in the universe?  Somehow the intervention or incarnation of God in the world seems more credible, when we picture the creator in conversation with the created.  It is worth pondering what that conversation between the material world and God might be.