Tolerance and the public square…

I confess I’m not really sure what is meant these days by “the public square”. There probably isn’t just one, and it probably isn’t a physical square in a particular spatial location. But wherever and whatever it is, there’s been a debate going on about who has access to it, and what they can legitimately do once they get there. This has been occasioned by the furore surrounding Kate Forbes who is currently one of the candidates in the Scottish National Party’s leadership contest (and therefore a candidate for First Minister in the Scottish Parliament). She is also a Christian and a member of the Free Church of Scotland. As I suspected, both of these have led to considerable confusion in the media. At one point last week things got so bad that Dr James Eglinton, an academic in the Faculty of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh and also a member of the Free Church of Scotland, was prompted to offer to proof-read journalists’ copy before they further embarrassed themselves. They were not the only ones to be confused.

Apparently, Mhairi Black (the SNP’s deputy leader at Westminster) couldn't care less about someone’s religion until, that is, it actually affects them in any way. For should it affect the way a politician might vote for or against something Ms Black is against or for, that is “intolerance”. One of Forbes’ opponents, Humza Yousaf (Black’s preferred candidate) helpfully opined that religious views were fine if the person holding them “...were able to disassociate their view, and not let that interfere with policymaking or legislating…”. This is presumably the approach Mr Yousaf, a Muslim, has been taking all these years. Partly in response to such statements, the Scottish Association of Mosques issued a statement about the debate: “The tone of the debate around religious beliefs …. is deeply concerning. Some of those beliefs in question, are beliefs that Muslims also share.” The implication is that the Christian in the race is closer to many Muslims in Scotland than the Muslim in the race. They went on to say that it was “..refreshing to hear a political leader [i.e. Forbes] talk about their religious values and principles, in an open and transparent way.” So Black is confused about tolerance, and Yousaf is confused about the teachings of Islam. Both think that religious belief is fine, provided it leads to no discernible action. Anything else is a form of intolerance.

I always assumed that politicians held beliefs that influenced them, otherwise of what value are those beliefs? Now some beliefs might not lead to outward action if they concern abstract concepts (e.g. my belief that a square has four corners). But this type of belief is deeply uninteresting. When added to other kinds of information, it might turn out to be useful, but it’s not the sort of thing that is going to set the heather alight. Many beliefs however, do shape action. My belief that an umbrella can keep the rain off of me means that I am likely to reach for one on a rainy day. If my experience of umbrella use turns out to be positive then I am likely to want to tell you about it so that you might benefit from their use. In sharing this information (which is intimately connected to my beliefs about umbrellas) I am not oppressing or insulting you, although I could obviously share it in an insulting way. If I felt strongly, I might go into politics and argue that there should be pro-umbrella legislation so that society in general could benefit from such an innovation. Why should this be in any way problematic? If it turns out you are not convinced and think that I am acting from impure motives (e.g. I own shares in an umbrella manufacturer) then this should certainly be exposed and factored into the public debate. But that’s what a democracy is; people with different views, in open debate. Beliefs, motives and facts all play a role in this and everyone is entitled to participate. Or so I thought.

It turns out that certain kinds of beliefs are now to be ruled a priori as having no place in public debate. Mhairi Black has certain beliefs, and I dare say she is confident she can justify them. But even justified beliefs are still beliefs. I’m sure they influence how she votes, the positions she takes in debates, and how she seeks to legislate for others. I have no idea what all of her beliefs are, but I suspect I don’t share many of them. But I’m happy that she has them and agitates for them. Some of Yousef’s beliefs are intimately connected to his experience as a Muslim in a culture where Islam is not the majority view. He has said that this aspect of his experience does influence his politics and his actions as a legislator. As has been pointed out in the twitter-sphere and occasionally in other media, he has not yet been quizzed on those aspects of Muslim belief that do not appear to neatly cohere with his politics. But both Black and Yousef claim that religious belief should play no role in politics and presumably no role in public discourse in general. Private good (or at least currently allowed), public bad.

I have no beef with them holding precisely this view (belief) and expressing it. But exactly why should I accept their authority to pronounce on which beliefs are and are not to be expressed publicly, which beliefs are and are not to be allowed to shape behaviour, debate and politics (if such a thing were possible)? At least we know from whence Forbes’ views flow and on what they are based. One might take a dim view of both a Christian’s beliefs and the Bible from which they are drawn. But to exclude them even from scrutiny, from even being presented in the public square, to assert that their defence and justification should not even be attempted, betokens breath-taking intolerance.

Tim Farron, a man who knows a thing or two about expressing Christian beliefs in a political context (to his cost) suggested a much healthier model in a radio interview recently: “The fact is, there is no neutral space in the public square and a genuinely liberal society is one where we bump up against each other respectfully and are helpfully healthily curious about why people think things that are different.” 

That's a public square I'd happily take a stroll in any day.

A “Kennedy moment” in Scotland

I was on a train from Glasgow to Edinburgh last Wednesday, and had just logged on to the in-train Wi-Fi, when the news broke. Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister in the Scottish parliament, and leader of the Scottish National Party, had resigned. For one reason and another there will be few Scots for whom this did not constitute a “Kennedy moment”. An older generation will find it hard to understand that I now have to explain for the younger generation what this is. John F. Kennedy was both the US president and a towering and era-defining political figure. He was assassinated on 22^nd November, 1963. This event was so shocking that it became a memory anchor for a whole generation (or two). People would discus where they were and what they were doing when they heard that Kennedy had been shot. Now, it is true that, to slightly misquote a famous vice-presidential debate, Nicola Sturgeon “is no Jack Kennedy”. But in the relatively small world of Scottish politics, and more widely in the UK, she has been a major presence for more than twenty years.

It isn't hard to find reviews of her political career from friends and foes alike. Love her or loath her, all are agreed that she was (is?) a formidable political operator. Most are also agreed that she was head and shoulders above most of her Scottish opponents and more than a few of her UK ones (she has seen off Conservative UK Prime Ministers almost beyond counting). She has been a dominant figure in Scotland, particularity since she took over from Alex Salmond, her former mentor, after the independence/separation referendum was lost (from her point of view) in 2014. Her whole purpose in politics was to break up the political union that is the United Kingdom, and see Scotland take its place as an independent and sovereign state, one of the family of European nations. Unfortunately a solid majority of her fellow Scots did not agree, and voted 55% to 45% in favour of the status quo. But this of course was merely a temporary setback. Salmond resigned, Sturgeon took over, and began agitating. With Brexit, she saw an opportunity. This she claimed was a material change in circumstances and fundamental alteration in what the opponents of independence had been offering the Scottish people back in 2014. Indeed, when the Brexit vote was broken down by UK nation, Scotland had “voted” against leaving the European Union. This quietly ignores the issue that Scotland, as Scotland, wasn't being asked; it was a UK-wide vote. Just as both Glasgow and Edinburgh were both bound by the outcome of IndyRef1 although they voted differently, so Scotland was bound by the outcome of the Brexit referendum.

In truth it made little difference. Some pretext would have been found, some excuse advanced, as to why the agreed position in 2014, that IndyRef1 was a once-in-a-generation opportunity, wasn't. What few in England seem to have ever grasped is that this single aim was Sturgeon's (and is the SNP's) over-riding aim. Given the name and aim of her political party this is an elementary error. Over-riding means exactly that. To the SNP Independence is more important than educational performance, NHS budgets, drug deaths and tax policy, all of which are highly contentious in Scotland. And this is not only the case because independence is seen as a means to an end i.e. that all of these other problems will be more fixable in an independent Scotland. Even if Scotland were to be demonstrably poorer on its own, this would not matter to a true tartan nationalist. Theirs is a principled position, not a means to and end. Independence is what truly matters and everything else is secondary. Post-Brexit, this should not be that hard to understand in the rest of the UK. A lot of folk voted to leave the EU in the full knowledge that they would be worse off. They were told often enough that this would be one of the outcomes. And so it has transpired.

At the centre of all of this was wee Nicola. But no more. Out of a bright, blueish, Edinburgh sky, came the announcement on Wednesday that she was resigning. And so I shall ever remember that I was pulling out of Easterhouse station on my way to Edinburgh Waverley. But as with trains, life moves on. US politics motored along after JFK's assassination, and political life in Scotland and the UK will do too. And Nicola Sturgeon's true significance will be assessed and reassessed as time, like a train, rolls along. Inevitably, attention has now turned to who will replace her, and what this mean for both Scottish and constitutional politics.

So far, one name seems to be at, or near, the top of the pundits' lists: that of Kate Forbes. Ms Forbes is the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy in the SNP government, and is currently on maternity leave. Kate Forbes is a Christian, and this is clearly seen as a problem by at least some of the commentariat. Some, probably out of ignorance, reach for stereotypes. My suspicion is that few of the political team on the Times know the difference between, say, the Free Church of Scotland and the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, they are both “free” and “presbyterian” after all. But differences there are. For the record Forbes is a member of the Free Church. This, in the view of one of the scribblers at the Times is sufficient to qualify her as a “strict Christian” who belongs to “an austere Christian denomination” (the Times, 18/2/23, p9!). Others see trouble ahead particularly given that currently the SNP in Edinburgh are in cahoots with the Scottish Greens.

Forbes was spared any involvement in the Gender Recognition Reform Bill debates at Holyrood by virtue of her maternity leave. But differences with her party activists over this, abortion and homosexuality (if they exist) have all been highlighted as potential flashpoints. While at Westminster such issues are treated as matters of conscience and are rarely (if ever) whipped, the same is not true in Edinburgh. Only the Conservatives allowed their members a free vote on GRR. There are echoes here of the difficulties Tim Farron got into in the 2017 general election campaign (which I discussed at the time here). He found that he could not both lead a UK political party, and live as a faithful Christian because of the tensions between his Christian beliefs and some of his party's policies which he had to represent. He has also been admirably candid that this was largely because in publicly answering a number of key questions, he had been unwise in his approach. There are undoubtedly some in the media who are already dusting down some of the very same questions to put to Kate Forbes should she stand to be leader of her party and First Minister of Scotland. Such interactions, if and when they come, will tell us more about media, culture and society, than they will reveal anything about Kate Forbes and Christianity. 

Interesting times ahead then. But some of us will always remember where we were on the afternoon of Wednesday 15th February, 2023.

Remembering not to forget

Last night, at the close of Holocaust Memorial Day in the UK, I watched the film “Denial” again – it’s currently available on the BBC I-Player (which, unfortunately, is only available in the UK). It tells the story of the London deformation trial of Deborah Lipstadt, an historian, who defended a claim brought against her by a Holocaust denier. Some of the most moving scenes are when she visits Auschwitz, along with her senior and junior counsel, and some experts on the events that unfolded there. One of the experts suggests they walk the perimeter to get an idea of the scale of the place. Her senior council says he has already done that, and so they proceed to part of the complex where Jews were first undressed, and then led into gas chambers, passing pacifying signs saying they were on their way to the baths. Scale is an interesting idea in this context. What word is appropriate? Immense? Industrial? The physical and numerical dimensions of what was done, as horrific as they are, do not come close to encapsulating the events of the Holocaust. For while they reflect the evil intent of what occurred, and are the most accessible aspect of that intent, they do not come close to capturing the true ferocity of the hatred that was vented on ordinary and innocent men and women, boys and girls, the majority of whom were distinguished by one thing and one thing only – they were Jews.  

Others are much more qualified than me to attempt an explanation of that hatred. That there was an implacable, intense and fundamentally irrational hatred burning in the hearts of some of the perpetrators of the Holocaust is undeniable. Much ink has also been spilt on the mass complicity that was required to achieve their evil ends; the blind eyes and numbed hearts (and not all of them in Nazi Germany) that helped, or at least did not hinder, the venting of that hatred. That it grew from poisonous but relatively small beginnings, that it involved the crossing of many lines from the subtle to the gross, seems believable. Where it all ended up, in mass, organized, documented, industrial, attempted genocide, seems barely believable. That’s why it is important that we do not forget, that we do not let the events of the Holocaust become some kind of fantastic myth. There are those who would like it to be regarded in that way. In addition to being monumentally unjust, this would be madness, perhaps a madness that could lead to its repetition. There have, after all, been attempts to follow the same playbook.

It is a playbook that involves the “othering” of a minority. It is always easy to blame someone else for personal or societal ills. Having identified one group or another as a scapegoat, by caricature and innuendo they are made to be somehow less. First of all less than “us”; ultimately less than human. That makes their persecution all the easier and less troubling. This all has to be done in the abstract of course. It helps if “they” don’t really look like “us”. This is usually tricky because, when it comes down to it, we all look pretty similar. Hence the need for caricature, some of which goes beyond superficial differences like skin tone or facial appearance. But even although certain features or claimed attitudes and behaviors might be emphasized, it’s the depersonalized idea that is highlighted, rather than real individuals. It helps if the group in question can be segregated, lest “we” actually get to know some of “them”, for then the barriers might break down before they can be built up.  All of this takes effort. The tragedy is that humanity seems willing from time to time to make such an effort.

But for much of history it seems, Jewish people have been a particular target of such efforts. And there is no avoiding the fact that in my corner of the world those called “Christians” have occasionally been at the forefront of such efforts. While being called a Christian and actually being a Christian are two quite distinct things, it’s the irony that is so much starker than the distinction. You cannot begin to understand what a Christian is, even what the word entails, without an understanding and respect for the Jews and their history. A Christian is a Christ follower, and Christ is not a name, it’s a title. It’s simply the Greek way of saying Messiah, God’s servant promised in the Old Testament to His people the Jews. It is true that what divides Jews and Christians is a disagreement over the identity of the Messiah. But the debt that any nominal or actual Christian owes the Jews, and the obligations that flow from it, is incalculable.

Consider. It goes without saying that, notwithstanding centuries of European art, Jesus was a Jew, as were the twelve Apostles (thirteen, including Paul). It’s a profoundly odd view that says this is all just historically contingent and accidental detail. This was God’s choosing and doing, and is therefore significant. The New Testament story of the Church, post the pivotal events of Pentecost (itself a Jewish feast not a Christian invention) begins with Jews, who initially made up the overwhelming majority of Christians at the beginning. As Jews, they saw their new-found Christian faith a fulfillment of, rather than a repudiation of, what their Old Testament (simply “the Scriptures” to them) taught, and had taught them to expect. Indeed this belief was firmly based on what Jesus Himself had taught them; He had taken two of them to task for not taking their Scriptures seriously enough (you’ll find the story in Luke 24:13-35). Even when a parting of the ways came, with some elements of organized Judaism opposing the growing Gentile church, Paul reminds particularly Gentile Christians that they have been ingrafted into “the nourishing root of the olive tree” (Romans 11:17) and not to be arrogant or proud where God’s ancient people were concerned. Paul had a burning and intense desire that his own people might come to recognize Jesus for who He was, and that there might be no division between Jew and Gentile.

In early Church history there were those who sought to divorce Christianity from its Jewish roots, notably Maricon and his followers. But they were quickly identified as not teaching Christianity at all. There is also still a popular idea that the Bible somehow teaches two Gods opposed to, or at least different to, each other: the Old Testament nasty God, and the New Testament fluffy one. But this can only be maintained by not reading and taking seriously what the Bible, Old and New Testaments actually teaches. For my own part, I do feel debt to those Old Testament saints, the likes of Abraham, Moses, Samuel, David, Elijah, Nehemiah, Malachi, and many more beside. And not as just figures from someone else’s ancient history. They tell me about me, and us about us. Without wanting to be proprietorial about it, I do feel that I belong to them and they belong to me, and that we all belong to Christ. That even today some of their human descendants should be identified and abused for simply that reason (i.e. that they are Jews) is both appalling and revealing. We dare not forget where it can lead.

Starting in weakness…..

There is something arbitrary about identifying 1^st January every year as holding some significance, and yet we do (at least in this part of the world). It is not as though between 31^st December and the 1^st January there is a change of season. It’s not the winter solstice (the day with the shortest period of daylight, after which day length increases again); that was on the 21^st December. Yet every year the transition between the 31^st December and 1^st January induces reviews of the previous twelve months, predictions for the next twelve, and even manages to induce, in at least some of us, an incoherent and usually unwarranted optimism about what is to come. Not this year.

I started 2023 off with a dose of the ‘flu (the real thing, not the ‘man’ variety). It commenced on New Year’s day, and I went rapidly downhill from there. I’m assuming that if I had not had my ‘flu shot back in the autumn my experience would have been a lot worse. But it was bad enough. It is said that if you feel like you’re dying you have a cold; if you don’t care if you’re dying, it’s the ‘flu. So, instead of long forest or beach walks to clear the mind of Christmas fug, I spent the first week of the year unable to do much of anything, much of it in my bed, and I spent the second week recovering. And when I have the ‘flu it also always messes with my head. Admittedly I didn’t have any serious near-psychotic episodes this time, but there were weird dreams and the occasional loss of place and person. It was all very odd indeed. Bounce into the New Year I did not.

All in all it was a reminder of my frailty and fragility. After all I had been floored by what for someone of my age and generally good health was a fairly minor viral infection. However, as the pandemic reminded us all, frailty and fragility is part and parcel of our human lot. Perhaps partly as a coping mechanism, many of us avoid the reality of just how frail as human beings we are. The reason the pandemic was such a shock to many of us was that, initially there was nothing that could be done. We all had to stay home and hope we didn’t get the bug. And if we did get it, we had to hope it wouldn’t be too bad.  And of course for many it wasn’t. And yet intensive care units filled with people who couldn’t breathe, many of whom did not survive. I was scary. How quickly we forget and move on.

But there is value in starting the year off with a reminder of one’s fragility and indeed mortality. I admit this is partly a function of age. When I was twenty I doubt that even a bad dose of the ‘flu would have had much of an impact. There was lots of time to recover and move on, and no need to worry about anything as serious as death. But it is worth bearing in mind that it is only relatively recently that life expectancy has been long enough, and general healthcare good enough, for us to fool ourselves about mortality. Current male life expectancy in the UK is just over 80 years. Given this, my suspicion is that most of us probably spend about the first fifty years of our lives convinced implicitly that  we are invincible and immortal, even although we know that we really are not. But there are lots of things to engage with and to keep us busy and distracted. Any younger person whose mind takes a more sober turn is likely to branded morbid. But then one reaches a certain stage in life where contemplating one’s demise in this life becomes much easier. There is a realization that, all other things being equal, one is nearer one’s death than one’s birth (something I wrote about last January).

All of this would be depressing were it not for the fact that there is a bigger picture. As important as life in the here and now is, if I really thought that this was all there is, I’m not sure it would be enough. If I really thought that from this point all that faced me was an increasing propensity to succumb to disease or injury, until my resources (plus those of various health professionals) were exhausted and I was unable to make a recovery, what really would be the point? So it’s just as well that my conviction is that there really is a bigger picture. Our very weakness and fragility is a sign, a reminder, that we are created creatures, and our needs are no accident. The tragedy of Western individualism is that it has misdirected us, telling us that each of us is all that we need, when this is clearly not the case. To deny my creatureliness and my createdness is to deny that I have a Creator, and also to deny myself the resources that He has provided. Importantly, my Creator is not the remote watchmaker-type creator of the Deist, but a Creator who is self-described as Father. Henry Lyte captures the reality well in his famous hymn. As well as writing “Frail as summer’s flower we flourish; blows the wind and it is gone; but while mortals rise and perish, God endures unchanging on”  he writes: “Father-like he tends and spares us, well our human frame he knows”. My reality (and I would suggest yours too) is that I am dependent on Him and created to know Him.

The here and now matters; this physical life now is important. If the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity tells us anything, it is that there is value to these lives lived now in weakness, frailty and dependence. Jesus Himself lived a life like this (and paradoxically a life completely unlike it in other ways). The value of these lives lies partly in what we learn about how things really are, and what we really are or ought to be. To deny all of this is of course a common strategy that has been adopted by humanity from almost the beginning of everything. But such a denial never ends well. Reality has a way of asserting itself eventually and inescapably. So to begin a year by being reminded reality is no bad thing. To be reminded of my real physical and spiritual dependence on my Creator and Father, and to be reminded of His gracious provision of all that I need will keep my focus on exactly where it should be. 

It’s Christmas on Sunday…….

You wouldn’t think it was that big a deal that December 25^th happens to be a Sunday. And for most of the planet’s 8 billion inhabitants it probably isn’t. Many will neither recognize or celebrate Christmas regardless of when it falls, including those with no Christian interest or history, and those who as a matter of their atheistic principles will not want to have anything to do with it (and quite right too). After all, the (nominal) Christian world only makes up about 30% of the world’s total population. Within that 30% one might reasonably expect that Christmas falling on a Sunday would not lead to any dramas. However it turns out that there has been a bit of a tiz going on. Apparently, because it is Christmas day some places of worship (I hesitate to call them churches) have cancelled their services. While the debate probably started on Twitter (don’t they all these days?), and spread to the “Christian” press and websites (e.g. see “The Christian Post”), it eventually reached the New York Times, hardly an evangelical rag.

I should mention at this point that I have skin in this particular game. I come from a theologically fairly conservative background, and remember at least one childhood Christmas that fell on a Sunday. Because of my aged state I’m afraid I can’t remember the details of that particular Christmas day. But I do remember having the distinct impression that this was a Sunday to be spent like every other Sunday. Same meetings (with perhaps the exception of the Sunday afternoon Bible class), same content. Jesus' birth may have been mentioned, but only as the necessary prelude to His life, death and resurrection. The world may have been celebrating with its trees and tinsel, but that was nothing to do with us. There was also perhaps a touch of if the world was happy we had to be miserable. None of us can entirely escape our backgrounds, so I still find myself in two minds about all the Christmas hullabaloo (ie the trees and tinsel) and still sometimes find myself wondering what it has to do with me.

As an aside, there are those who end up in roughly the same place but come at it from the opposite direction. Self-confessed “cultural Christian” Poly Toynbee, likes goodwill, the idea of the poor inheriting the earth and the way “the stable stands for the homeless and refugees”. The rest of it (by which I think she means biblical Christianity) she finds “loathsome”. And so she should too. The theology of carols (like “veiled in flesh the Godhead see”) should strike her as bizarre. And there are all sorts of reasons to be appalled at a Saviour born to die on a cross (a “symbol of barbaric torture”). Christmas comes with “religious baggage we should shed” she says. Although one might be forgiven for pointing out that this confuses carts and horses - without the religious "baggage" there would, of course, be no Christmas. Her main motivation, though, appears to be that she wants religious opposition to the “right to die” removed. It is far from clear that is a sure fire way to ensure goodwill to all men. Time will tell. But certainly I can see why, from her point of view, there are logical reasons for a degree of ambivalence about Christmas.

But for me there is no ambivalence that applies to Sundays. I know what Sunday is about. Albeit the English name goes back to pagan times, it’s clear what Christians are to make of the first day of the week. It is the day on which our priority is to come together to focus on and remember Jesus. Maybe Greeks have the right idea (and not for the first time), naming Sunday “Κυριακή”, which is derived from “Κύριος” Lord. The Lord’s day, one that affords that opportunity for fellowship with other believers, with Jesus “in the midst” (as He put it Himself). A weekly opportunity to be provided with fuel for our living as we take our minds of our twitter and RSS feeds and fill them with His word. All of this is mandated; it marked the early Church and should mark churches today. So, on the one hand a (Christmas) day of ambivalence and on the other a (Lord’s) day I’m fairly clear about. Seems like a no brainer as to which should have prominence when the two coincide.

We would, in any case meet as a church on Christmas day, not something I have ever found a chore. But it did lead to a degree of mental and chronological confusion because it meant that a Monday, Tuesday or whatever would end up feeling like a Sunday, without actually being one. At least this year there will be no need for such dissonance. It will be like killing two birds with the one communal stone. This helpful aspect aside, it does seem strange to me that some who claim to be Christians seem keen not to meet, and the suspicion arises that it being Christmas day is an excuse not a reason. A bit like those who think that things like cup finals in which their favourite team is playing is a reason not to meet. This is to put church on the level of a hobby or diversion; it’s really not. This coming Christmas Sunday those of us who followers of Jesus have an extra reason to be together (not a reason for not gathering) to focus with others on what, or rather Who, really matters. And indeed not just His birth, as remarkable as that was. But on His life, death, resurrection, ascension and return.

It was, after all, the Saviour, Christ the Lord, that was born, not just a baby.

The Christmas movie channels popped up, unbidden, in September. TV adverts for Christmas food started in early October, and the John Lewis ad appeared at the beginning of November. By the beginning of December lots of houses around here had begun to sport inflatable, flashing reindeer, and illuminated fat men with long white beards, who were dressed in red suits. At night, houses began to be lit up like ….. well, Christmas trees! Yes it’s that time of year again where I try not to yell at the telly “But it’s only September (October, November etc)! To quote Noddy Holder, “it’s Christmas”.

Even in an economic downturn there are presents to be hunted down and bought, and in the midst of a bird flu pandemic there’s turkey to be procured. It is about preparations and as there’s lots to do and it takes lots of time, it’s important to start early (apparently). In our house, a Christmas tree appeared early in December and various gifts have now begun to appear beneath it, suitably wrapped and labelled. Much of the activity going on, perhaps this year more than most, is part displacement activity, part distraction. I suppose it is richly ironic that Christians who originally hijacked the end of December from their pagan predecessors complain when the pagans reacquire it for their own purposes. But this time of year, at least notionally, does have something to do with certain events in the ancient world concerning the birth of a particular individual.

Actually, the relative importance of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth has always been a bit ambiguous. It turns out that even for some of the Biblical writers, what we call “the Christmas story” wasn’t that important, or at least was not important enough for them to write about it. In their gospels, both John and Mark don’t tell us anything of the birth narratives of Jesus. Matthew starts his with a genealogy, and covers the actual birth story in just eight verses, although he does go on to tell us about the subsequent visit of the “wise men from the east”. It is Luke who, as part of his project to provide a full account of the birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension and continuing activity of Jesus in the world, provides the most detail, including Gabriel and choirs of angels singing to shepherds (probably without the tea towels so beloved of small children). And it is also Luke who details some of the preparatory activity that preceded the events in Bethlehem. Back to preparations again. But when did God start preparing for Christmas, or rather the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity?

When you begin to think about it, this turns out to be a tricky question. That is because it has to do with time. Time is a given for us because we are creatures. We think and live in terms of, and in between, beginnings and endings and the change implied by a constant succession of events. This is all absolutely basic to our existence. It is written into our biology at a basic level, as well as into our psychology. The past has meaning for us, precisely because it is past and can be meaningfully contrasted with the present and the future. We are able to anticipate events, and given the current state of affairs be aware that there are things to do “now” that will  maximize the benefit to us of “then”. And all of this is so given that we don’t think about it and are hardly aware of it. It’s the way things are. It's the way we are. And there’s the problem - God is different.

He is different by definition because where we are creatures, He is the Creator who gives and sustains our lives. And it is not only that He precedes us. Nor is it just that He has no beginning. For even without a beginning, He could have been as time-bound as we are, subject to a succession of states and events and therefore also subject to change. But apparently He is not like that. I say apparently because we are at the point where we are quite close to getting stuck. Whenever we think about what God is like, because we are inevitably using the language of time-bound creatures, we are also inevitably limiting Him. The pictures that we paint with our words are inaccurate, maybe even wildly inaccurate, right from the start. The whole exercise would be futile were it not for the fact that God has used words to describe Himself in terms that we can understand. We cannot know everything, or know completely, but we can know certain things, and we can know them correctly.

And so back to time, or rather eternity. There isn’t a thing called time that exists outside of God to which He is subject. Indeed, as space and time are intimately connected, time did not exist until God created, so that He created both space and time. But clearly time exists for us and always has. How is this time, our time, experienced by God? All we really know is that if it is experienced by Him, it must be experienced in a fundamentally different way to our experience as creatures. Beyond that, it is difficult to say. The Bible writers used our time-bound language to illustrate this: “…. with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” (2 Peter 3:8). But this doesn’t really help me understand how God experiences the time He created any more that I can understand what it is like to be everywhere in the same instant (another feature of His being). But what is clear is that God does interact with us “in time”. So we read: “in the fullness of time” (Galatians 4:4; i.e. “just at the right time”) Jesus was born.  Clearly this was an event that was not just a happy accident. It was planned. So when did God start planning?

Talk about one who was to come is easily found in the Old Testament. Although apparently it was just as easily missed, as Jesus Himself made clear to two of His early followers (see Luke 24:25-27). Passages from Isaiah will be read at many a carol service this year as every year, passages that date from long before Jesus’ actual birth (on which see this). These were written at the time Israel’s collective failure to live the way God had instructed them became apparent (particularly to them). Did God wait until a Plan A (Israel) failed before he began planning for Bethlehem? But then at the very start of the Bible, in words recorded thousands of years before the events that unfolded in Bethlehem, there are at least hints of what was to come, at least in terms of Jesus death, if not His birth (Genesis 3:15). Did God start planning Jesus’ entry into the world when things turned sour in Eden? Both seem unlikely. If God is eternal, He exists outside of time, even once He has created it. He knew about both Adam’s and Israel’s failure long before it occurred. Indeed, in a sense both were always before Him, as was the answer to this failure and the predicament that comes to all of us as a consequence. He knew that in the person of His Son, He would, amazingly, take on flesh and be born in time, at the right time. It was in eternity past that God began planning for the first Christmas.

Except that in eternity, there are no beginnings, because there is no time. He always was, and He always knew. And He accomplished all that was necessary for the events that we think of as Christmas, just at the right time.     

(Way) less than less than half….

No, the title is not a typo. It was inspired by the headline on a report on the BBC website last Tuesday, which also appeared in their main 10pm TV bulletin. On Wednesday, the Times got in on the act with a report (“End of an era for Christian Britain”), analysis on page 7, and a Leader. Thursday’s letters pages were full of opinions, advice and argument (here’s the Guardian’s as an example; the Times sits behind a paywall). This flurry of interest in the state of “Christianity” in the UK was prompted by the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) who are gradually working their way through the data produced by the 2021 census. They had just published data on “ethnic group, national identity, language and religion” for England and Wales (actually four separate statistical bulletins) on a relatively slow news day. Before thinking about what implications (if any) can be drawn from the numbers, it’s worth just noting some caveats. The particular focus of the discussion was analysis of the voluntary “religion” question in the census (first introduced in 2001); that was enough to prompt the ONS itself to urge caution when looking for trends. If you want to look a trends over time, there are precisely three data points. A trend is extractable; whether it means anything is the question. That said, in 2021 the question was answered by 56 million people, 94% of the estimated population of England and Wales.

What attracted the BBC’s attention was the change in the number of respondents reporting their “religion” as Christian between 2011 and 2021 which had dropped from 33.3M (59.3% of the population) to 27.5M (46.2%); hence the headline “Less than half of England and Wales population Christian, Census 2021 shows”. The story then started with the statement “For the first time fewer than half of people in England and Wales describe themselves as Christian, the Census 2021 has revealed” (italics mine). The reason I have italicized the first part of this sentence is that it struck me as odd. We have no real way of knowing when this state of affairs became true. And we cannot know if it was true before (it must have been at some point in history). But I’m being picky. We kind of also know the point that is being made.

Have we learned anything new and does it matter? We do not know what was in the minds of the millions who answered the question. This was self-reported religious affiliation that turns on the interpretation of words like "religion" and “Christian”. The two are not synonymous, nor would I argue is one necessarily a subset of the other. When challenged I am usually inclined to deny that I am religious. If “religion” is about humanity’s search for God (as it is occasionally defined in some dictionaries) then that does not apply to me, even although I am happy to accept the label of Christian. I was sought and found by God and am the recipient of outrageous grace. When I could do nothing for myself, God stepped in and rescued me – I am what I am because of Him, not me. And if “religion” names a set of institutions that the religious belong to, or rituals that they must practice, then again I deny that the word applies to me. There are institutions and practices that may be said to mark groups to which the label “Christian” can be attached. But these are neither defining nor obligatory for the Christian, the foundation of whose identity lies elsewhere. All of which raises the question of what a Christian actually is.

If for some reason you have had cause to refer to my blog profile, you’ll have noticed that I have qualified the word Christian. Qualification is needed precisely because the word means different things to different people. And this goes to the heart of the interpretation of the census results. I qualified it with “Biblical”, because that is where the term originates. When the early, mainly Jewish, followers of Jesus were driven by persecution away from Jerusalem (where they had congregated), some headed to Antioch and some spoke to non-Jews “preaching the Lord Jesus” (Acts 11:20, ESV). The result was the founding of a church in Antioch  (modern day Antakya in southern Turkey), and it was here that these disciples of Jesus were first called “Christians”, probably as an insult. This was the origination fo the word and it seems to me that it continues to be a sensible meaning of the word. It is those who are in personal relationship with the same Jesus, in response to the same Apostolic Gospel. It is less dangerous and insulting these days to be associated with Jesus (at least here and at least for now). But it is this relationship that was and is the heart and essence of Christianity.

Something is clearly in decline and this may have important consequences. But consider for a moment a counterfactual. Taken at face value, prior to the recently reported decline in the proportion of “Christians” in the UK, every second person I met would have been a Christian. But this has never been my experience. My experience is that people who are followers of Jesus, who are in personal relationship with Him, who seek to think as He thinks and live as He lived, have always been fairly thin on the ground. They were not commonly encountered day to day and certainly made up way less than half of those encountered. This has not changed in my thinking lifetime. Primarily what has declined is a different kind of thing and we might therefore usefully employ a different qualifying word, like “cultural”. What the census is picking up, consistent with other surveys, is a decline in cultural Christianity. The “Christian” veneer that has covered UK society, a veneer derived from values inherited from Biblical Christianity, has begun to slough off.

Veneer, of course, is only ever a covering, hiding an underlying substance that is usually something entirely different. Indeed the purpose of a veneer is to both cover and often conceal what lies beneath (like oak covering chipboard). If this covering is now being discarded, and at an increasing rate, then perhaps this is to be welcomed as something at least more honest. But one wonders what really is being revealed underneath and whether it will turn out to be all that agreeable.