Life in the pandemic XIX: Don’t follow the Christians…..

Most of the world has a lot more sense than to be interested in the going’s on in “Ravi Zacharias International Ministries” (RZIM for short). We are, after all, living through a global pandemic. And before going further it is also worth noting that there are a number of people who have been seriously damaged by what has been going on, including a number of victims of sexual abuse and exploitation; I have no desire to add to their suffering. That all said, the horrible tale of what we might call the RZIM scandal raises questions that are worth asking and contain lessons that are worth learning.

Ravi Zacharias was well known in the evangelical world (whatever that now is) and beyond as a teacher, author and apologist. After he died in 2020, accusations about his lifestyle and conduct led to an independent investigation. The investigation report was made public last week, and has been widely reported in both the secular (eg here or here) and Christian press (here) and in the blogosphere (eg here). To cut a long story short, what emerges is a picture of a clever and powerful man, who controlled a large and relatively wealthy organization, which he used, along with other means, to exploit individuals for his sexual gratification over a long period. He also used his power to make sure that his reputation was protected, even when this meant further vilification of, and damage to, his victims. He’s not the first prominent Christian to fall spectacularly, and sadly he probably won’t be the last. There are already articles discussing what went wrong and how it can be avoided in the future and no doubt there will be more. I confess I never heard the man speak, and have never read any of his books. But there is an aspect of this affair that caught my attention, and so here’s my tuppence worth.

Early out of the blocks was an article which appeared on The Gospel Coalition site, much of which I agree with. However, it referred to ‘the false assumption that the problem is “celebrity Christianity”'. To be fair the article also recognised that with celebrity came dangers even if that was not what it considered to be the main problem in the RZIM affair. Now, I am emphatically not assuming that "celebrity Christianity" is the problem that lies at the heart of this scandal, but I emphatically am stating that it is a problem, and a big one. And I am definitely asserting that it goes much wider and deeper than one man and one ministry. Here’s a starter for why 'celebrity Christianity' has to be a problem. Not all sinners are celebrities, but all celebrities are sinners, even if some of them have been transformed by the Gospel of grace, and are seeking to help out their fellow sinners in some way or another. This means that like every single one of us they are flawed, and prone to temptation and failure. But of course with celebrity comes a whole heap of new temptations and pressures. And the fall, if and when it comes, damages a lot of people (as it has in this case), and undermines the credibility of the Gospel in the minds of some (although mainly in the minds of those who don’t understand the Gospel). It is also worth pointing out that the scale of the celebrity is not a key issue (although big celebrity can mean big damage). Some people have international celebrity, and for others it's on a much more local scale. The height of the pedestal is not the issue. It’s the fact of the pedestal and who is occupying it. When it is a human being who’s hoisted up there, the results are rarely good.

The central reason this is not a good situation is that Christianity is not about any human being, it’s about a single unique person who is both God and man. You’ll find various characters in the Bible who at different times and in different circumstances became objects of celebrity, or in slightly different terms, worship. It happened to Paul and Barnabas in a town called Lystra (you’ll find the story in Acts 14), but they were quick to correct those who had pedestalized them. In a very different context, John records in Revelation 19 directing his worship at an (undoubtedly impressive) angel, only to be instantly corrected. The point being that neither men (even famous men) nor angels are suitable objects of worship. However, even in His humanity Jesus was different. He accepted worship (most famously perhaps as recorded in John 20:28), because it was (and is) appropriate. And this gets to the point. Respect and honour are fine (as is also argued in the TGC article referenced above). But to a large extent celebrity involves crossing a line. And in some cases it would seem that it reaches the level of idolatry, where in the minds of some a human being usurps the position of God. The thinking of those who do this is flat wrong. And any human being in such a position is also in trouble. 

The reason this is so pernicious, is that it taps into the problem right at the heart of the human condition. The big lie is that there are appropriate recipients for our worship other than the God who made us and who sustains us. Paul lays all of this out in Romans 1. By nature we are all wired up to identify and fixate on God replacements. And it is this that celebrity culture plays into, fuelled and amplified these days by social media.. None of this should be particularly controversial among Christians, particularly those who take their Bible seriously. In part the Gospel rescues us from this, and puts our focus back where it should be. This is one reason why occurrences like the RZIM affair, which occur within a Christian context, are so appalling and damaging – we of all people should all know better.

But apparently we don’t. Some years ago, another Christian celebrity created a ruckus. Mark Driscoll, who at the time was the Pastor of a large church in Seattle called “Mars Hill”, was quoted in an interview as saying: “Let’s just say this: right now, name for me the one young, good Bible teacher that is known across Great Britain. You don’t have one – that’s the problem. There are a bunch of cowards who aren’t telling the truth.” To be fair, he later claimed he had been misquoted, or at least misunderstood, and rowed back slightly from what he had said. It was perhaps the “cowards” bit that caused most offence at the time. But underlying this is the claim that on this side of the pond we didn’t have a crop of celebrity (‘known across Great Britain’) Bible teachers, similar to those so beloved (so it seemed) of Evangelicals in the US. In other words, more folk here, like him there. This is not entirely accurate of course. There are well known Bible teachers in the UK, it's just that they're not well known by Mark Driscoll, or the media. But that's not the point I want to make. The quote emerged in 2012. In 2014 Mark Driscoll resigned from Mars Hill, over a slew of allegations (some of which ended up in legal action). Shortly thereafter, Mars Hill Seattle was dissolved. Considerable damage was done to many lives.

Celebrity in the Church is a problem because it turns Jesus’ teaching on its head, essentially doing to Him what He explicitly sought to do to celebrity among His followers (eg see Mark 10:43 and the surrounding context). Although He was (and is) the proper object of worship, He set the pace among those initial followers when it came to humility. And with His impending death very much on His mind, He modelled exactly what He expected of them (and us if we claim to follow Him) by putting a towel round His waist and washing twelve stinking pairs of feet, including the feet of the one who would shortly betray Him (John 13). He was quite explicit that in doing this He was modelling both an attitude and actions that should mark those who follow Him. It was no pedestal he found Himself on within hours of this incident , it was a cross. His example is the antithesis of celebrity culture and all that goes with it.

As someone once said, the best of men are at best men. So don’t follow men, follow Jesus. Pastors and under-shepherds, don't seek celebrity, seek to follow the example and model of the Great Shepherd.

Life in the Pandemic XVIII: Truth in trouble…?

Truth is having a hard time. This statement of the obvious is worth stating for two reasons. Firstly, it implies that there is something called truth, and that, in my view, is something worth implying and indeed asserting. Given that you probably have a fairly instant and rough idea of what I mean (whether you agree with me or not), suggests that such a statement is neither incoherent or meaningless. The second reason that it’s worth stating is that while obvious, it alludes to the observation that something interesting is going on. On one level truth has always had a hard time. Defining and debating what “it” is, has kept busy both amateur and professional philosophers for thousands of years. And yet, as I’ve noted before, at least as far as public and political life in the West is concerned, we seem to have moved into a new phase of hardship.

In the US, the “big lie” is not yet dead. Nor has it yet been driven from the field by the “big truth”. According to CNN (not an entirely unbiased source of information I grant you), former president Trump has just had his impeachment legal team quit/fired because of a disagreement over strategy. This disagreement, it is claimed, comes about because Trump wants to maintain the fiction that the election was stolen from him. His lawyers apparently thought that this was not a viable strategy for the trial in the Senate that he now faces. It is unclear (at least to me) whether this is just about the narrow strategic issue, or because the lawyers understand that they cannot assert what they know to be manifestly untrue. However, at a minimum this shows a certain level of dedication to the lie on Trump’s part. Again, this could all be a strategy. But it could also be because he actually believes it. We shall probably never know the truth (as it were). Strength of belief, while often admirable, can’t turn a lie into the truth. Trump does still have his supporters, and they number in the tens of millions. This again is not sufficient to make the lie true. It just means that it’s a widely believed lie. Who knows which way this story is going to end. Is a complete partisan detachment from facts and truth simply going to become one more viable path to power with no accountability? Or will the political culture in the US revert to the more normal pattern of a commitment to at least the semblance of prizing and speaking the truth, with suitable wiggle room provided by the careful use of words?  So to this extent, in this particular context, the truth is still in trouble. It remains to be see whether this approach to life, this particular and brazen abuse of truth, will successfully spread to this side of the Atlantic.

Of course, some would maintain that either it already had, or in fact crossed from here to there – the “all politicians are liars” school of thought. But it appears that here there still is an interest in at least seeming to tell the truth. In Scotland, the First Minister, may be in big trouble for misleading the Scottish Parliament. The story is complicated and not particularly edifying. But if it turns out she has said x when in fact y is true, she will be greatly diminished, even if not completely finished. And the x’s and y’s in this case are themselves matters of detail. It’s the misleading, if it is proved, that will do the damage, not the content of the misleading itself. On the pandemic front, there is still liberal quoting of science and evidence, because accurate, truthful information matters, and science is still seen as a way of procuring it. So truth may be fighting back. Of course if it turns out that it’s all just carefully crafted propaganda, then things might turn again. The idea that it somehow doesn't matter has yet to gain much traction.

All of this comes against a background of “truth” not really having had any clear moorings for a while. Plato et al argued for truth that was universal, ideal and unchanging, belonging to a different realm from the one which we inhabit. These ideas were adopted and rejigged by Augustine and others, so that truth found its foundation in God. And indeed the Bible reveals that the basis of all truth is personal, not primarily rational. It is found in the God Who is both true and truth and intimately linked to His truthful, faithful and true person. The clear answer to Pilate’s question (“what is truth?”) was the person standing in front of him; a person who both claimed to be truth (Jn 14:6), and whose enemies recognised as “true” (Matt 22:16).

Things worked fairly well until this foundation was “abolished”. Nietzsche succinctly captured it with his “death of God” ramblings. He called it the most important of recent events “that ‘god is dead’, that the belief in the Christian God has become unworthy of belief..”. The retreat from truth, truth that is true everywhere for all time, gathered pace and in more recent times culminated in some of the more radical proposals of first existentialism and now postmodernism. And how is that all working out? Well apparently it's not just that we won't ever know, but we can't ever know!

Fortunately, Nietzsche’s (probably syphilitic) ramblings were just that. As the apocryphal graffiti on the walls of countless University Philosophy department walls attests, it is in fact Nietzsche who is dead (“signed God”). Dostoyevsky has Ivan Karamazov say that “Without God, everything is permitted” (although for some reason this is disputed in some quarters as false news; but see here). But as He is not dead, truth is still with is, and everything is not permitted. Hence the general idea (although again under assault) that truth is good and lies are bad. Even although such notions are inevitably inconvenient for all of us at some point, for most of us this should actually be a comfort. It is not necessary to walk in confusion, knowing nothing for sure and being able to communicate even less. Even in trouble, we can find and know truth. It’s to be found where it all has been, and always will be.

Life in the Pandemic XVII: Truth, like gravity, cannot forever be denied…

Time for the inevitable post-Christmas return to the pandemic. And while there was light at the end of the tunnel, it has dimmed somewhat. While this is partly down to the virus itself (i.e. with the emergence of new strains), it is also due to “human” factors. There has been a concatenation of politics and pandemic. And chickens, to change the metaphor from tunnels, have been coming home to roost. All this makes for a discomforting experience.

In the US we have had the outworking of four or five years of the lies and myths perpetrated by the outgoing President, his sycophants and his supporters. The biggest and most recent of the lies was of course that the US presidential election had been stolen from him. That big lie was laid on a carefully prepared foundation consisting of smaller lies repeated for months; that foundation rested on the bedrock of years of more lies about hoaxes, fake media, the perceived crimes of others in the Washington swamp (which is now much swampier) and the claimed manifest failures of his predecessors. Inspired by an almost entirely false narrative, the Donald assembled (in the words of Republican Congress-woman Liz Cheney), then roused a crowd to fever pitch and dispatched it to the Capitol. There then ensued mayhem, violence, death and (limited) destruction. The Capitol, of course, survived. The Congress, although interrupted, discharged its final duty of this presidential election cycle and counted and certified the votes of the electoral college that actually elects the US president and vice president. This act confirmed the truth of the situation: Biden won the election, and it wasn’t even particularly close. So US democracy, while somewhat bruised, also survived. Providence, it seems, has delivered large swathes of US evangelicalism from itself, and Donald Trump will have to slink south to his resort in Florida, probably around the 20^th January, the day of the inauguration the he predicted would never happen.

Much of this served to divert attention from what the virus was up to in the US. Apparently largely unaided by the new, more transmissible variant that has been afflicting the UK, infections, hospitalisations and deaths from COVID19 continued to climb; daily new cases of more than 200 000, daily deaths of the order of 4 000, with rates increasing. The credit that the Trump administration deserves for playing its role in the rapid development of vaccines, has been squandered by the spluttering vaccination effort. With the top of the Federal government apparently paralyzed by Trump’s fixation with the election steal that never was, the States and local authorities have struggled with the practicalities of vaccinating a population, a good proportion of which is, again, in denial. The incoming Biden administration hasn’t sought to minimize the scale of the tragedy that is unfolding and will begin its struggle shortly. But the situation is as bad as it is because of lies and denial.

Meanwhile, back here in Blighty, we’ve had a new lockdown to combat our very own new COVID19 variant. Things may now be stabilising or slightly improving. And vaccination efforts do seem to be proceeding well. Not without hiccups and a degree of argument of course. But credit where it’s due, progress is being made. It’s not pandemic lies that are the problem here, it’s the Brexit lies that are beginning to be revealed for what they were. This is evidenced by disrupted supply chains, major alterations in the economics of some type of business, actual (not virtual) barriers to trade, and empty supermarket shelves, particularly in Northern Ireland. All predictable, all predicted, and all dismissed as scaremongering. Of course it is claimed by some that these are just “teething problems”. It is also true that the pandemic has been further complicating matters. Whisper it softly, the pandemic will probably be blamed for some of the economic impact that should be laid at the door of Brexit. But the existence of the new non-tariff checks on goods flowing from GB to NI, forming precisely the type of “border in the Irish sea” that Boris and others claimed would never exist, has nothing to do with the pandemic.

Truth works a bit like gravity. Gravity can be difficult to describe and define. In part this is because it is just a given of our existence. We don’t usually need to give it much thought, and of course, for millennia, no-one did. It can be easily denied, although none of us really has any reason to deny it. But it is as easy as saying “gravity doesn’t exist”. If pushed, a gravity denier could think of situations which appear to provide evidence that it is a made up thing. After all, don’t aeroplanes rather give the lie to this all-pervading, all-encompassing force? Except of course, it turns out, that they don’t. Such a view would be based on ignorance about both gravity and aeroplanes. Ignorance of course, appears to not be a problem these days, and is positively encouraged by some. Sometimes, deniers resort not to denial, but to confusion and contradiction. It might seem that whether gravity does or does not exist isn’t something any of us should get upset about. If I believe it does exist, and you believe that it doesn’t, then provided you’re not hurting me or mine what does it matter? The problem with this is that sooner or later it will matter, and perhaps in a critical situation, like when standing at a precipice, or at the top of a flight of stairs. Gravity will exert its effects, regardless of denials. It is a way things are. There are true and untrue states of affairs; there is truth and the denial of truth – lies.

One can tell lies for a while, and to some advantage. The problem is that eventually truth, like gravity, will assert itself. That’s because it is woven into the fabric of the universe, and indeed the fabric of our minds. The basic notion of truth in absolute sense has been under attack for a surprising long time. One of the more obvious manifestations of this attack currently (other than almost anything Donald Trump claims) is the deconstructionist form of post-modernism. Truth even if it exists, if expressed in words is unknowable. The problem is deconstructionists expect their own words to successfully communicate their meaning of deconstructionism, they expect them to be regarded as true.  That is presumably why they seek to communicate their ideas in dense, indigestible, texts. Either they don’t really believe their own creed or is it self-defeating. In any case truth, while perhaps hard to define, and easy to abuse, as a concept continues to be understood and as a principle continues to operate. We will all find that in the long runs lies will not work, and they won’t satisfy.

Of course the issue of truth and lies goes to the very heart of the human condition. It was truth that was under attack in Eden; the apple was just a means to an end. Paul’s critique in the letter to the Romans is that humanity “..exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator..” (Romans 1:25). The answer was to send “truth” in the form of a person - Jesus (John 14:6). Sometime we are happier settling for the lie, or claiming that it’s all to difficult to work out what truth is. Even with truth literally standing in front of him, Pilot still asked “What is truth”? (John 18:38). Almost as pointless as asking “what is gravity” and trying to live as though it doesn’t apply to you.

Christmas 2020 (II): It was grim………

I’ve always struggled with “Christmas”. Don’t get me wrong, I can indulge in as much chocolate as the next man (more if it is Dairy Milk – apologies for the shameless plug). I enjoy the time off work, particularly after the last nine months of sitting in front of a laptop screen. It was nice to see the dinning room table revert to being a dining table on Christmas day. I do like the opportunity to get together with family and friends, although it is obviously somewhat restricted in current circumstances. But there is no necessary connection between any of these things and the most amazing event ever to occur in the history of this planet, not to say the universe. A big claim. But is seems bigger than it is because it is entirely subverted by what “Christmas” has become. Of course, this suits the culture at large. To my fellow strugglers I want to say that, on reflection, much of what occurred at and around that “first Christmas” is entirely appropriately remembered, meditated on and savoured this Christmas.

It was a short video by N.T. Wright that reminded me that the first Christmas emerges from “a very dark time when everything was pretty miserable”. So if you feel that things are grim now (and the pandemic hasn’t gone away), the true Christmas story, as opposed to the shallow jollity of the popular version, comes as a relief. It is fairly grim too. It is the story of the arrival of a young Jewish couple in the town of Bethlehem almost 2000 years ago. It should have been a happy time for them. Betrothal should have led to a happy marriage, soon followed by the birth of their first child. In that culture at that time, these twin events should have filled both them and their extended family with joy and excitement. And the  context would have enhanced this. The young woman concerned, Mary, had an older cousin named Elisabeth. Even although Elisabeth was well past having children, she had just produced a son. Everyone was cock-a-hoop. In fact the whole thing had caused quite a stir. There was talk of angels, miracles and prophecies and all sorts of things, but facts is facts, and Elisabeth and Zechariah were now parents. But for Mary and her intended (let’s call him Joe) life had become a tad complicated. And not in a good way.

Mary, although only engaged, was found to be pregnant. This was found, as opposed to announced, because Joe was not the father. A scandal was brewing and it was clear what should happen. Joe, for the sake of his own reputation should divorce her, and make a big thing of it. After all, by definition he wasn’t to blame for the situation. To make matters worse from the point of view of many observers, Mary went on about angels and not being pregnant because of any man. You can imagine the sneers. For cousin Elisabeth to talk in this way was bad enough, but at least she and her husband Zechariah were clear that the baby was theirs. For Mary to try and piggyback on this good news was just bad form. Everyone knew fine and well how babies were made. But Mary apparently stuck to her story, and then to cap it all, poor old gullible Joe had started talking about dreams and angels. Again, you can imagine the looks and sneers. You don’t need too much of an imagination to understand the pressure and unpleasantness all this likely caused. In our day and culture it would be bad enough. But in Mary and Joe’s time, grim would hardly cover it.

To social and psychological pressure was then added considerable physical discomfort. With Mary heavily pregnant, they had to travel from Mary’s home in Nazareth, south to Bethlehem. This was a journey of about 70 miles, that would take at least 4 days. While they didn't exactly travel under duress, it was in response to a legal edict. Neither the destination nor the timing were of their own choosing. It was an arduous journey by modern standards, uncomfortable and even dangerous. As well as the constant fear of miscarriage, they were travelling under a cloud of scandal, probably in a caravan with people who knew (and therefore could spread) the “story”. There was a far from warm welcome awaiting them. After all, do you suppose anyone really bought stories of angels and virgin births? Grim. And then there was a birth. The physical circumstances are unknown to us. We don’t know who attended Mary, we don’t know if Joe watched or helped (what was really going through his mind?). We do know that all that was available to put the new baby in was a feeding trough! Hardly an auspicious start. And from there things had a distinctly up and down feel.

Yes it is true that there was a visit from a group of strange, sweaty, but largely respectful shepherds not long after the birth. But, with all due respect, we’re hardly talking royal visit. And neither Joe nor Mary really knew what to make of them. They too had some story of angels, apparently lots of angels. A few weeks later when M & J went up to the temple at Jerusalem as prescribed by Jewish law, they had two encounters with rather sad characters, neither of which were particularly helpful or, at the time, illuminating. They had other things on their mind, like the embarrassment of only being able to afford the “poor people’s” sacrifice for their firstborn. However, one of the ups some months later, when things had begun to settle down, was the visit of well-heeled foreigners who actually brought gifts with them. Some of the gifts were quite valuable. But still, confusing.

Perhaps they thought that now things would calm down. They’d be able to settle, maybe in the civilized south somewhere around Bethlehem, or maybe in a Jerusalem suburb. Mary had recovered from the birth, and the child was healthy and growing well (always a relief in a time when infant and maternal mortality were much higher than they are now). Maybe some of the scandal was beginning to dissipate. But, again, things took a turn for the worse. The local government at the time was controlled by a paranoid brute called Herod. He had got wind of religious speculation that a “messiah” (ie a competitor) had been born. This started a train of events which meant that Joe and his (now) wife Mary, and the baby, had to run further south still, further from home and family, all the way to a foreign country (perhaps funded by the presents they had received). The child wasn’t yet two years old, and he was now both a political and religious refugee. Around the same time Herod sent his army into Bethlehem and the surrounding area to butcher male children aged two and under. Did Mary and Joe hear about this in exile? Was relief tinged with a certain guilt? Their exile only ended after Herod’s death perhaps months later. After another long journey they arrived back in Nazareth. Who knows what sort of welcome they received, if any welcome at all. They probably hoped for a quiet life. They were to be disappointed. Grim.

And yet the real event here is mind-blowing, with big implications for our here and now. A child was born in Bethlehem, in the midst of all that social and practical mayhem. But what only gradually emerged was that this was no ordinary child. It seemed as if He had lived before. Of course He had. Because while a child was born, the Son had been given. This was God becoming something different, the God-Man. What had been promised on the Old Testament, what is revealed in the New, is that there in Bethlehem “the Word became flesh”. It would take Christians about 400 hundred years to get their collective heads around this. They would have to find new concepts to put into words what had happened. But one of the things that can help us in our current circumstances is that it did not happen in a palace or in comfort or in safety. It happened in grubby and grim circumstances. It is in such circumstances that God often works out His purposes.

Never mind light at the end of the tunnel. This is light in the midst of darkness. It is light that we need now.

Christmas 2020: In the pandemic………

Twists and turns. Just a few days ago the exciting news of the roll out of COVID19 vaccinations had us all thinking that things were on the turn. Then came the twist: the virus has mutated in a way that makes it more transmissible, if not necessary more deadly. This has led to a tightening of restrictions in the UK around what we can and cannot do this Christmas. Arrangements made after the previous loosening of restrictions will have to be broken. We had one son in transit when the tightened restrictions were announced and a daughter north of the “closed” Scottish border in a quandary. I can think of worse places to be stuck, but it is an unwelcome and unpleasant quandary none-the-less. But all of this should remind us once again; life is fragile and we’re not entirely in control – any of us.

It should also prompt the asking of those big questions, what is going on and why? There are a whole load of different ways you could answer the first of those questions, depending on what you think is being asked. In recent months it has had, at least publicly for the politicians, a narrow focus. A pandemic has happened (as has frequently been predicted), but we are going to be fine eventually because science, technology and good logistics will come to our aid. There is a problem, but we can fix it, and most of us are going to return to some sort of  fairly acceptable “normality”. On this reading of the situation, the other question – why – also has a narrow focus. It distils down to a set of factual questions about what sparked the pandemic and how it developed. It can be answered with reference to wet markets in China (or even dodgy virology labs), and government inaction or incompetence. It can be padded out with reference to the proportion of the population infected and the number of lives lost. Economic damage can be quantified in the currency of your choice or in terms of the proportion of GDP lost. The methods used and the time taken to develop and deploy vaccines can be described and measured. In some ways this narrow approach has a lot to recommend it. At a time of stress and anxiety, it restores some sense of understanding and control. We have recovered from catastrophes before and life has gone on; it always does and it always has to.

Of course these narrow questions and their answers have the disadvantage that for most of us, even if we are comforted by them, we are also likely to be slightly disconcerted. They leave nagging doubts lurking in the recesses of our minds and imaginations. The narrow approach leaves out of the account other questions and answers, those that pertain to motives and values, deeper causes and their more troubling effects. This is where, as I’ve pointed out before, science is of limited help. Even before we get to what might be called questions of deep causation, we already have the questions raised by the crippling inequalities revealed by the pandemic. While some may fret because their Christmas skiing trip has had to be abandoned, there are parents wondering whether there will be food for both them and their children tomorrow lunchtime, or will they have to fast while their children eat? This is before we get to big cross-continent and cross planet issues like who gets which vaccine when and for how much. Are such inequalities inevitable? And even if they are, why are they? Why, in this world will the poor always be with us? It is easy to understand why the narrow approach is the more comforting one, even if the comfort it supplies is cold and tinged with guilt.

And yet, even this level of discourse still seems to miss something. Perhaps an outside perspective is needed. But where might we obtain a perspective which is outside all of humanity? The starting point is the realisation that we are not all there is, and we are not all that matters. To this end, it is this time of year that supplies some of the necessary resources. We should regard the appearance of the pandemic as a global signpost. But I’ve been obsessing about the signpost and not what it points to: precisely that humanity is in trouble and cannot fix itself. The world at all levels is neither what it could be, but beyond that is not as it should be. And of course there is somewhere I can turn that will explain this. The opening chapters of Genesis in the Bible are clear: this is a cursed world. In such a world, bad things happen. This implicates all of us, and we can do little but suffer the effects if we depend on out own resources. And yet into this cursed world, someone voluntarily comes who is Himself not cursed. That is what is going on in Bethlehem. But to stop at Bethlehem is to suffer from perpetual baby syndrome. Bethlehem was only a prelude to the main event in which Jesus, the man the baby became, was Himself cursed. That did not immediately remove the curse and its effects from the rest of us; pandemics obviously still happen. But it was the fulfilment of a long made promise that the curse would be dealt with and an escape provided. And at a time still future to us, it will be entirely removed in the establishment of a new (uncursed) heaven and earth. It is here that we find both the deeper questions, but also the answers to them.

Of course I know that my way of framing these issues is now somewhat counter-cultural (to say the least). In polite and educated circles, only "natural" questions and answers are allowed. Well, you can stick with the narrow, technical, natural approach if you wish. But in the promise delivered in Bethlehem is to be found the answer to both what and why whatever twists and turns lie ahead.

Life in the Pandemic XVI: The light at the end of the tunnel

The great sulk continues in the actual Whitehouse. The great contrast with the Bartlett Whitehouse continues (yes, I know it’s made up, but I’m still enjoying it). The great pandemic continues. Indeed in the land of the Whitehouse it is getting unbelievably worse. Each day in the US literally thousands are now dying, with the numbers still growing. No slick drama could cover this misery. Or the tearful frustration of healthcare workers at the end of their endurance pleading with people and politicians alike to do what can easily be done to ease the situation. We have our moments on this side of the Atlantic, and have endured our own share of political chaos and incompetence during the pandemic, but it does not seem to have reached quite the proportions of the Trumpian dystopia in the US. However, a light has now appeared at the end of the COVID tunnel.

Thanks to a remarkable effort and a ton of public money, there is now good evidence of no less than three effective vaccines, and slightly weaker evidence for at least two more. These have already been used on tens of thousands of people in various clinical trials. In the UK the first vaccine was authorised for use on the 2^nd December, and the needles were stuck in the first arms earlier this week. There are lots of people who deserve lots of credit for these achievements. Those who pioneered some of the underlying science behind the “Pfizer” and “Moderna” vaccines certainly deserve credit because they have come up with a new way of designing and producing vaccines which, at least in this case, appear to be amazingly effective. In the case of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine (not far from approval now), science plus some inspired guesswork appear to have produced the most usable of these initial vaccines. Because of its simpler production, ease of transport and robustness, this is the one that will perhaps have the most global impact. (Some) politicians and the regulators deserve credit too. There appears to have been little haggling over funding to push forward with trials, and real cooperation to expedite both trials and approvals without compromising safety. If there has been a conspiracy, it has been to advance as quickly and safely as possible, and it has achieved something of real and lasting benefit. And for once those on the outside of the rich, industrialised and wealthy world have not been forgotten. Yes, I’m sure grubby politics and grubbier economics will soon reassert themselves, but for now it’s worth smiling about much of this. But, of course, it is just the start.

There is a world of difference between a vaccine and vaccination. The real value of the work that has been done will only be realised when the vaccines end up in peoples’ arms. There are lots of other people we will need to rise to meet a whole different heap of challenges before we approach the end of the pandemic tunnel. Manufacturing enough vaccine for close to the whole human population of the planet is hardly trivial. Production problems have already reduced the rate at which the newly approved Pfizer vaccine can be rolled out in the UK. And after making the stuff, it has to be transported, and then distributed. For the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines this is a challenge because they appear to be rather delicate requiring very cold transportation and storage temperatures, and minimal handling. That's why it’s the Oxford vaccine, which is slightly more robust and happy at roomish temperatures, will probably have the global impact. Once all of these challenges have been overcome, there is the issue of the population’s willingness to bare their arms.

This will all take time. So for at least the next few months most of us will need to do what the media claims we’re all sick of doing. The routine of facemasks, social distancing, handwashing and lots of working from laptops at home where we can, will all have to continue. Restrictions on activities we all used to take for granted will also continue. And if we don’t stick to this, more people will die than would otherwise be the case. Maybe, just maybe, next summer we might be returning to something akin to what we used to think of as normality. The virus won’t have disappeared of course. And we don’t know how quickly our new-found, vaccine stimulated immunity will. So care will still be needed. There remain many unknowns. In reality we have a distance to travel in the tunnel, and the light, while reasonably bright, isn’t stellar yet.

Which brings me to what I’ve been reflecting on. The COVID tunnel is far from humanity’s longest or darkest. COVID vaccines, impressive as they are, are no solution to our biggest problem. Indeed, although they are vital, it would be a great mistake to indulge in any collective hubris about our achievements, before moving on to some other issue. After all, it was almost certainly human activity that led to the pandemic in the first place. And before most of us adopt a smug attitude because we know whose fault it all is (or think we do), there’s plenty of collective blame to go around for all sorts of abuses that have exacerbated the pandemic. Some of the very same things may well lead to the next global disaster. And that’s all before we get to other things like the climate crisis. It turns out that the inevitable progress of humanity has never been inevitable at all. And sometimes progress is not as progressive as is claimed. In economics, poverty abounds and seems only to shift rather than decline (although statistically until the pandemic progress had been made). In health as we’ve seen, old diseases may be conquered (if not eradicated) but new ones emerge. Even although poverty, illness, war and famine are avoidable, we manage not to avoid them. There are lots of good things that we can now do which previous generations didn’t even dream about. But for all that we appear to be largely stuck.

Maybe this is because fundamentally humanity’s big problems aren’t intellectual or technical. Therefore the really big issues do not have intellectual or technical solutions. The nub of our problems are moral, and beyond that, spiritual. The real tunnel we’re naturally stuck in is that we’re just not what or who we are supposed to be. But particularly at this time of year, we remember a light that appeared. And it appeared not at the end of our tunnel, but in the middle of it. It would be hard to put it better than John put it at the beginning of his Gospel:

^9 “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹ He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹² Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³ children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” John 1:9-13

Note to self: It’s time I stopped fixating on the pandemic, and considered again the events that culminated in the arrival in this very world of Jesus, who came to illuminate the way out of this very tunnel.

Life in the Pandemic XV: The big story…..

I’ve already confessed my liking for “The West Wing”, which for the record I’m continuing to enjoy. I know that at the very end of the umpteen seasons there will be an episode about the transition between the eponymous hero and his successor. It will of course, once again, stand as a stark contrast with the great sulk currently going on in the Whitehouse. If you need another reminder of just how different what is currently playing out is to previous US presidential elections, go online and watch the concession speeches of John McCain and Mitt Romney (both of the same party as the current occupant of the Whitehouse, conceding to a winner from the other party), or Al Gore (conceding to George W. after the Supreme Court halted the Florida recount). You’ll find a further contrast in how Obama and Biden handled the transition to Trump and Pence - they offered full and friendly cooperation, notwithstanding the nonsense, slander and ignorance that they’d endured for years from Trump.

Trump’s presidency began with chaos and incompetence. Apparently much of the transition advice and support offered to his transition team was spurned. Team Trump knew better and trusted nothing. They were the great disruptors, and didn’t need any advice from a corrupt Washington elite. It didn’t work out well, and it isn’t ending well. We then found ourselves listening to arguments about the size of the Trump crowd at his inauguration – poor Shawn Spicer had to insist that it was larger than Obama’s, when all the evidence was to the contrary (although Obama really wasn’t that bothered). This led to an early example of Trump double-speak introduced on his behalf by Kellyanne Conway – she of “alternative facts” fame. That all occupied a couple of weeks of Presidential and media attention while he should have been getting on with the business of governing. Some stuff didn’t get done. Other stuff (like the “Muslim ban”) was done sloppily and blocked, at least initially, in the courts. And then of course we had four more years of the same, ending with the grotesque incompetence of the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic. We can argue about the politics. But this last calumny has cost lives. It’s difficult to say how many, and all the blame should not be laid at Trump's door, but a big slice of it should. Now he apparently splits his time between sulking, tweeting and golfing. Meanwhile, more of his countrymen get sick, and more of them die.

Some will say, of course, that there have been real achievements in the US in the last four years, like a booming economy (arguable and now moot) and a much more conservative US Supreme Court (unarguable). But Mexico paid for no wall, the swamp was more than topped up, and US standing in the world was devalued (to the delight of autocrats and dictators everywhere). Partisan politics is one thing. But why over 70 million US voters find this so attractive a record that they voted for “four more years” has me stumped. I suppose at a minimum it shows that Trump has moved the dial with ongoing consequences for US and world politics when he goes (assuming he does). But does any of this matter? In a funny way I want to argue that in one sense that it really doesn’t. I should have my attention elsewhere.

It takes an effort to remember what life was like pre-Trump, just like it takes an effort to remember what life was like pre-pandemic. So much has apparently changed in a relatively short space of time. And I have to confess much of the detail of the period has sucked me in. That’s partly because of the nature of what’s going on, and partly because I’m me – I like the detail of stuff. With the benefit of the interweb and the twenty-four hour news cycle, those of us who are so inclined have been able to hang of every vote tally, from every state, in the US election (if we wanted to). We’ve been able to overdose on commentary, counter commentary, claim and nuance. Through the pandemic we’ve been able to see the numbers from across the world, compare first peaks and second peaks, argue about the true value of “r”, fret about the number of recruits to phase 3 vaccine studies. And on, and on. But there’s a bigger, deeper picture to be seen, and it’s the one that should have been holding my attention. I don’t mean that the instead of attending to the minutiae we should instead track and discuss big claimed cultural or intellectual shifts or economic and political trends instead. Such things may or may not be of interest. What I do mean is that underpinning the detail and the “big shifts” there is an even bigger story, and that’s the one I should be focused on.

Let me illustrate with what might seem like a digression. There’s a lot of history in the Old Testament. It’s not quite history as we would find it today in a history textbook. That’s not because what is recorded is untrue (although I admit this is contested), it’s because the Bible’s concern is about motive and meaning as much as it is about times, places, people, comings, goings and doings. Buried away in the book of 2 Kings, you’ll find an account of the reign of a king called Jeroboam II summed up in all of six verses (2 Kings 14:23-29). In many ways Jeroboam was very successful and effective. If you or I were writing a history of ancient Israel we would probably have lingered over him much longer than the writer of 2 Kings does. If you lived in Israel at the time of Jeroboam II, you might well have thought that things were going rather well. For many people at the time things seemed politically, economically and militarily stable at home and even abroad (a rare thing there and then). Politics in his day wasn’t quite the same as today of course, but no doubt Jeroboam and those around the royal court thought this had something to do with them. Spiritually, they had hedged their bets. There was certainly plenty of religion around, some designed to keep God placated, and some to keep other “deities” happy too. They should have known better, and indeed could have known better by paying attention to what God was saying in their day. What He had to say to them can be found in two or three other OT books (Hosea, Jonah and Amos). It does not make for comfortable reading. Underneath the detail of those days, was the Living God working out His purposes. And that was the bigger story that got completely missed. What you’ll find in Hosea, Amos and Jonah still speaks today.

That bigger story is still being told and those same purposes are still being worked out. While the connection between the nitty gritty detail and the big picture are from moment to moment fairly opaque (at least to me), I have a whole Bible that makes clear the big picture, the direction of travel, and the purposes of God, which it turns out are far from mysterious. As with so many areas of life, not being able to understand everything is not the same as understanding nothing. It is this story I should be fixated on. While the West Wing may be diverting entertainment, and  CNN (other news organisation are available) may be a useful stimulus to informed prayer, the big story is His story. That’s what underpins, shapes or critiques every other story. That is where my attention really should be.