Words, texts and their mattering….

I like words. Sometimes it’s just the sound of individual words that I’m drawn to (like ‘flibbertigibbet’). You may well have your own favourites. But more often it’s words strung into sentences, usually with the aim of communicating something. Hence I’m sitting here typing. And, presumably, that’s why you’re sitting where you are, reading. You like words too. Mind you, spoken words and written words are not identical (I don’t know what ‘flibbertigibbet’ sounds like inside your head). But they do serve the same sort of purposes, the main one being to communicate meaning. But meaning is a word, and slippery one too. Linguists, philosophers, theologians and scientists have all tacked the issue of what meaning “is”, and have not always arrived at compatible definitions. Some have therefore concluded that there is no such thing as meaning. But that would seem to subvert the whole business of communicating with one another, something humans have actually been doing for a very long time, and with a fairly high degree of success (an observation I’ve commented on before). And it is a view that is, basically, self-refuting.

But what this does highlight is that in using words, whether as a sender or receiver, thought and care are often required. When precision is needed, we can usually achieve it. It does complicate matters and tends to slow communication down. And sometimes we can all get a bit impatient with this. But there is something here that is familiar from many areas of life and behaviour - a speed accuracy trade-off. So when I’m speaking quickly, without much thought, the precision I am communicating with is reduced. A similar thing happens when I sit down at a keyboard and with little thought I just begin to type. Stringing words together isn’t particularly difficult. But stringing them together coherently is a different matter. And of course prior to the words are the concepts that the words are supposed to convey. If I haven’t given these much thought, then prior to the lack of clarity in the words, will be a lack of clarity in the thoughts. The net effect will be ambiguity and uncertainty. This is sometimes a thoughtful intention, but that is probably the exception rather than the rule, and carries its own meaning.

On the other side of the communication process, the same sort of considerations must apply. A whole series of processes are going on in your head right now. Some of them are fairly low-level and not under your control (at least to any great extent) – things like resolving the words on the screen you’re looking at so they are clear enough to read, or extracting meaning from individual words. But at a higher level, implicitly or explicitly, you will have to decide how much work you’re going to put into understanding what I’ve written. If you’re not particularly interested, you will probably merely skim the text, perhaps alighting on the odd word here or there, following the narrative or the argument (such as it is) at a superficial level. If I were to write something obviously crazy at this point (like “raspberry”) you might notice. But then again you might not (in which case the entire point of what I’ve just written will be lost on you!). But if I’ve succeeded in catching your attention, and you’re interested in the meaning of meaning, or the meaning of words, or the business of communication, you’ll be working to understand both what is written and what is meant. That will take time on your part, time that you could have spent doing something else. That implies a price that you either will, or will not be prepared to pay.

To be sure, there are lots of reasons why you might not want to pay a particularly high price to extract the meaning from this particular text. It is after all, merely a blog post, one of many on this blog (this is #152), and there are of course many blogs (plus books, magazines etc). But we all have an innate idea that some texts are much more important than others. And with these we have a sense that it will pay to do the work. And there are those texts which claim (or are claimed) to be potentially life changing (not something I’d claim for my blog I hasten to add). If you are persuaded that this is the case, the words (and the sentences and paragraphs they make up) will matter a lot and you’ll want to do the work to get at the meaning. While such claims may be spurious, Benjamin Franklin (among others), he of “Give me 26 lead soldiers and I will conquer the world” certainly thought that words could matter.

Part of the human condition is that our time and resources are finite, so choices have to made. Given the slipperiness of words, the question arises as to how best to spend our finite resources. Because we know that some words matter more than others we direct variable degrees of attention towards the text of adverts, comic strips, headlines in tabloid newspapers and captions on TikTok compared to those in a textbook we need to study to pass an exam or a philosophy book making an argument that we really want to get to the bottom of. Experience, our own and that of others, can also be a guide. Where we know that others have claimed to find particular words truly transformative (sometimes transformations we ourselves may have witnessed), these will be the ones we really want to pay attention to and work at to understand.

There is a particular text in mind (of course). It is one of the most critically scrutinised in history. It has been pilloried and banned in some jurisdictions. It has been lauded and literally worshipped in others. This wide range of responses and attitudes itself is evidence (of a sort) that here is something worth exposing oneself to, reading, reflecting on and responding to. Given the range of reactions to it, and conflicting claims about it, it is clearly likely to have its complexities. This can’t all be down to the vagaries of the readers and hearers of it. So it is likely that work will indeed be required. But at least there is a prima facie case that here indeed are words that should be encountered first hand, as opposed to depending on second-hand, necessarily filtered accounts of it. And there does appear to be a coherent core meaning that both historically and now millions have extracted from it (as well as some crazy conclusions and consequently crazy behaviour).

If the Bible is what it and many of its previous readers have claimed, then here are words that matter. And perhaps they matter more than anything else.

One hundred and fifty years (and counting)

Just as we have done for the last few years at this point in the summer, we decamped to Keswick in the English Lake District. It’s a shortish hop for us (about two and a half hours north up the M6 – when open). There are lots of reasons to come to Keswick, most famously the majestic surrounding hills, the beautiful lake, the ice cream. But as readers of this blog will know (and apparently there are a few of you), these are but chocolate sprinkles on a very chocolaty chocolate cake. The real reason we’re here is the Keswick Convention which this year is 150 years old. I’ve written about the Convention before (in 2018, 2019 – the others are easy enough to find). Clearly, to last 150 years, it must be getting something right. But I wonder what it is?

Longevity is, of course, no necessary indication of value. Where human institutions are concerned, more than a few have lasted a long time. Those that do tend to be the ones that continue to meet some basic need or perform some useful function. But they do this by doing two apparently contradictory things successfully. First of all they remain the same to the degree that continuity through time can be observed, remaining identifiably a single institution rather than a succession of different ones. Yet life is change, so they must also change, grow or evolve as needs (either perceived or real) change. If there’s no change, then fossilisation and irrelevance develop. Too much change, and it begins to look like the particular institution in question doesn’t really qualify as such or that it has neither firm foundation or core of any value. It strikes me that Keswick has negotiated this conundrum rather well. The world (in both sacred and secular aspects) has changed over the the last 150 years. And so has the Keswick Convention. Yet it has a distinguishable DNA that has been constant.

The original aim of the Keswick Convention (which began with a tent for 1000 in Thomas Dundas Hartford-Battersby’s vicarage garden) was essentially to get serious about living out the Christian life. At the centre of it was Bible teaching. It’s worthwhile reflecting in what today is considered a “secular” culture, that the notion of taking the text of Scripture as being both authoritative and transforming seemed as odd to many in the final part of the nineteenth century as it does today. Although 19^th century Britain was well-churched, belief was beginning to become as shallow as it was broad. David Bebbington identifies the early 1870’s with the beginning of the ebb of evangelicalism on this side of the Atlantic. In the established Church of England there were many who rather looked down on taking Scripture and its call to transformed living too seriously. According to the historian Mark Noll there was a growth in “Broad Church opinion and the progress of High Church practices”. Classic evangelical views (i.e. historical, biblically orthodox belief) were increasing seen as out-of-date and in need of radical revision, and there were those in professional theology (who prepared the men who would fill the pulpits) who were only too eager to carry the revision out. The Robertson Smith case and Charles Briggs paper defending “Critical theories” (both in 1881) were harbingers of what was to come. Outside the Church of England, the theological drift that would soon engage Spurgeon in the “Downgrade” was well and truly underway among “independents”.

In contrast the post-enlightenment “inevitable progress” narrative (which could point to real advances in science, technology and medicine) gathered steam. And it was portrayed as the antithesis of classic, orthodox Christian belief; a competing, more successful and more “adult” narrative. Christianity (and Christian theology) was merely one superstition among many which was on the cusp of being banished for good. Human reason and its products were all that were needed. Long before the bloody 20^th century put paid to the myth of inevitable progress (although the odd still-twitching digit is occasionally  encountered today) Hartford-Battersby discovered for himself that true transformation occurred from the inside out, effected by the Word of God, through the Spirit of God. This is what he wanted to share with others. And so the Keswick Convention was born.

Of course, he and his friends had rediscovered something that had always been true. But truth has a way of sinking out of sight (or being obscured) before reappearing again (as it must). There is always a need for transforming truth. To use some jargon, the transformation that occurs when someone comes to faith in Christ (i.e. is converted, saved, becomes a Christian), while fundamental is not final in the sense that no further change is necessary or possible. There is a need to hear that we all begin in desperate need of rescuing (the kind of language used by Paul at the beginning of Galatians). Having been rescued, utterly and completely, in way that can only be accomplished by God Himself, a new life of gratitude begins. Our position is secure in Christ; our thinking and behaviour now have to change to be in conformity with this new position. And this needs to be shaped and directed. The motivation may be gratitude marked by changed appetites and attitudes, but it’s tempting to feel that it’s all then “over to us” to work out how we navigate our new way in a world and culture that now seems (and is) threatening and hostile. Fortunately, the needed help is on hand.

God’s great plan for His people does not end with their rescue any more than it begins with it. Thereafter he provides the resources required to lead the new life that has been inaugurated. And He is not somehow removed from this part of the struggle but is right in the thick of it. Hence the idea, taught by Jesus, and amplified by Paul, that He not only rescues us, but then resides in us, to provide the heft to swim against the tide. He resides in us to help us avail ourselves of His presence mediated by His Word (and vice versa). The much maligned Bible, the most heavily criticised and attacked of books, continues to be a means of not merely way-finding but of continued transformation as it is read, explained, heard and responded too. This continuing need was always at the heart of Keswick.

It remains so. In placing Scripture at the heart of what goes on for three weeks at the Convention each summer, it continues to meet what turns out to be the deepest of human needs. In presenting the Gospel, the good news of God’s rescue plan (that dead, cold, stony hearts can be made alive again) is presented to a culture which needs to know that such transformation (literally from death to life) is still possible. But for those that are newly alive, direction and instruction in the new life that follows is also made available. This explains the longevity of the convention. Real needs being met. Needs that are as old as fallen humanity and that will persist until God calls time on the world as it is. But many things about the Convention have observably changed. It has gone from one week to three, and from a tent for 1000 to one that holds nearer 3000. The location of the tent has moved around too. The number and style of talks has altered. Victorians were made of much sterner stuff compared to 21^st century Christians; substantial back to back sermons of some length were not unusual. Now there’s a single morning “Bible reading” and an evening “Celebration” (with added additional seminars and other types of session). The style and content of worship (though not its object) have changed. What were once innovations, like the separate youth programme, have continued to evolve. Inclusiveness and accessibility for those with disabilities or particular additional needs is receiving the attention it deserves. But important as all of this is, it is peripheral (though not trivial). At the centre is something as simple as it is profound. God is a speaking God. He speaks though His word and in His speaking accomplishes the impossible transformations that are our basic need.

Here’s to the next 150 years.

“Who does He think He is”?

This is a question that occurs to most of us at some point. It is usually unspoken, occasionally spluttered in indignation. It is most often prompted by the sayings or doings of someone else. Sometimes these sayings and doing only concern themselves. Occasionally they directly relate to us. Usually this question is rhetorical, prompting no great in-depth analysis. But I can think of one prime example of where this question has and is often asked, where analysis is possible and may even be a necessity for each and every one of us.

It is worth noting that the question asked above is first-cousin to another question: who is He? These are not identical. But in the case of the example I have in mind there is an important interplay between the two. The “He” is question is of course Jesus. Jesus, who although an historical figure, is being remembered today (“good” Friday) as having some continuing relevance to at least the billions of His (at least) nominal followers. That in itself is remarkable. Precisely because He is an historical figure, He can be investigated and has been. Indeed there have been concerted scholarly efforts to do so, often subsumed until the title “the quest for the historical Jesus”. Talk of “the” quest is, however, misleading. There’s an old quest that some argue was instigated by Reimarus in the eighteenth century. However, this produced a Jesus who sounded suspiciously exactly as you would expect him to depending on the philosophical convictions of whichever author you happened to be reading. The end result was a rather anaemic and a-historical Jesus. This quest was finally put out of its misery by Schweitzer in 1906 with the publication of his “The Quest of the Historical Jesus”. But while the “old” quest came to an end, the questing continued, suggesting that there was something important about these questions.

Just how one might parse the new questing that continued in the twentieth century, as a renewed quest, second quest, quest 1a, 1, etc is a matter of debate. But the continual interest in the question of who Jesus is, is remarkable given the view in some circles that we could know nothing directly of Him at all. In this popular mid-twentieth century view, what Jesus actually did and said had been lost entirely. The gospels were all slanted and mythological accounts that had little to do with history. They might tells us about the early church and the issues that were then current, but they could tell us little or nothing about Jesus Himself. Non-canonical writing about Jesus (ie writing outside the books of the New Testament) tended to be fragmentary or even less historically reliable, and much of this writing dated from well after the time of Jesus’ death. However, this turned out to be unsustainable because it simply ran counter to so much of the evidence. And there were two really big elephants in the room. The world was turned upside down by the events of around 30AD when Jesus died (so something remarkable was going on), and their was the multiply attested fact that Jesus continued to have real impacts on people’s lives right up to today.

Many will again have have found themselves contemplating Jesus’ death at the start of this Easter weekend. But many a great teacher has died a noble death (and arguably Jesus’ death was far from that). The classic example in the ancient world was Socrates, who accepted his death sentence, drank hemlock and died rather than live inconsistently with what he had taught. It is true that he has had a profound influence on Western thought (albeit mediated by Plato and others). Yet mention Socrates today, and many a mind will tend to remember a Brazilian footballer instead (“widely regarded as one of the greatest midfielders of all time”). In contrast, Jesus’ death was particularly cruel and appalling, and yet has been invested with such significance that many of us will have its instrument as an item of jewellery secreted about our person. And he steps right out of history in the story of contemporary men and women who claim not merely to know about Him, but to know Him. There is something in this that is more relevant to us than mere fascinating history.

And that’s where we come to the question that we actually started with. Given that there was an historical Jesus, is it possible to know who He thought He was? Well, it turns it out that what N.T. Wright calls “an impressive catalogue” of sayings are attributed to Jesus in the Gospels. Many of these are only explicable if they were actually originally said by Jesus. And it’s not just what He says, it’s what He does. The Gospel writers (and others such as Paul) are clear that they are communicating what was said and what was done. Do they do it as a twenty-first century journalist or historian would? Of course not (that would be a sure sign of something dodgy going on). They are clear and up front (in a way their critics are often not) that they are selecting from a much wider range of material that was available to them. They are organising their material to best effect. While all that academic questing was (or was not) going on, people continued to engage with their material, and found themselves engaging with Jesus Himself. And it turns out He was clear and consistent about who He thought He was. And so were the Gospel writers.

As an aside, I am not claiming that reading the Bible in general, or the Gospels in particular, can be done in some value free way such that some transparent meaning of the words on the page immediately moves into the mind of the reader. Reading doesn’t work like that. Text always has to be interpreted. And indeed, if the New Testament is being read in English, then the actual documents have already been interpreted once (by the translators). But by being aware of a few simple rules of thumb, many of which are known to us implicitly already, the question asked at the outset becomes clearly answerable from the Gospel accounts.

So who did Jesus think He was? In a very knowing way He speaks about His relationship with God the Father (whose name His original Jewish audience knew well), and does the sorts of things that they all knew only God could do. While distinct from God the Father, He also claims identity with Him. This so outrages His original audience, that they get ready to stone Him for blasphemy there and then (in part this is also the charge on which they eventually do get Him). He eventually heads to what looks like a very deliberate confrontation with both religious and political authority, knowing full well what this will entail for Him. But He apparently also believes that this is inevitable and necessary, and that His death will be the means by which life is secured for those who will align with Him, and only with Him. All because of who He is. If this is in any way near the historical reality, then only two response are left to us. One is the incredulous version of the question we started with, because He is clearly a crackpot or worse. He thinks He is someone He cannot possibly be. It doesn’t matter if He’s well-meaning if it turns out He’s just flat wrong about His own identity. But the second response is to take the question seriously, and look at the evidence in the round. But here it gets really interesting; that evidence does not end in His death.

If He only died, then He is simply another version of Socrates (or the Buddha, or Mohammed). All great and influential men in their way. But their most fervent admirers and supporters would all agree that they are dead. They didn’t make exactly the claims that Jesus made, and they didn’t die the death that Jesus died, but so far, so same. But that’s what makes Easter special. On Friday all is confusion. But Sunday’s coming, and with it clarity.

All at sea….

One of the more provocative and influential TV series produced about “religion” was aired by the BBC back in 1984. "Sea of Faith" was presented by an Anglican priest and academic, Don Cupitt, who died in January at the age of 90. It was part personal travelogue detailing a journey from orthodox belief to technical atheism and part historical romp explaining (and in some ways excusing) that very journey. Cupitt argued that the journey was inevitable, and he had felt personally compelled to undertake it, but it paralleled one that had been undertaken by society generally. One of the implications (actually explications in large measure) was that for Christian belief either in its individual or collective forms (i.e. the church) to survive in the modern world it had to change out of all recognition. Because, as it turned out, God didn’t exist (and had never existed) as an objectively real being, Jesus was (merely) a great and inspirational teacher (but obviously couldn’t be God), and religion, particularly Christianity, was simply a system of human ethics (rather like other systems of human ethics). I watched the series at the time – I had just embarked on my own journey as a PhD student. Candidly, I wasn’t impressed. Or rather perhaps I should say I wasn’t impressed with the argument (such as it was) and conclusions. Cupitt, as may of his obituaries have noted, was “a charismatic lecturer..an engaging speaker”; “a kind and encouraging teacher” who “never spoke an uncharitable word”. And in both his approach and conclusions he was neither alone not unique. His theological thrust was a familiar one from many whose thinking developed in the 60s and 70s. It was similar in many ways to that of Jon Robinson (of “Honest to God” fame) and David Jenkins (he of “more than a conjuring trick with bones”). Both were, interestingly, like Cupitt (until 2008), members of the Church of England. But rather than slip into Monty Python parody mode (“what’s the Church of England ever done for us?”), I got to wonder whether a misunderstanding of science might have been partly responsible for Cupitt's undoing.

I was intrigued to learn that, like others in theology (Alistair McGrath comes to mind), Cupitt initially set out to study science, originally studying “Natural Sciences” at Cambridge from 1952 to 1954. Science seems to loom large in bringing about the secularisation of (mainly) western thought as well as being a (the?) major reason why orthodox belief is no longer intellectually justifiable. But what he seems to have missed is that science and Christian belief were not seen as competitors by most actual practitioners of science until relatively recently. And the idea that there is an outright conflict between them is now accepted to be an invention of the late nineteenth century. It is mainly because the teaching of science in the English speaking world is so devoid of taking time to set it properly in its historical and philosophical context (to the detriment of many a science student and the scientists that they become) that we’ve had to endure the likes of the New Atheists and their ilk. It may be that Cupitt, having had a similar number perpetrated on him, was directed down what appears to be a false trail ending in the cul-de-sac of atheism. And the influence this then has on his approach to theology is to put him firmly in the camp of the capitulators, those who believe that in the light of the “triumph” of science, theology has to completely redefine its terms of trade. Because science, as it is legitimately practised, only deals in naturalistic and material categories, these are the only ones that are available to theology too. The problem is that theology’s object of study is (or should be) the infinite, immaterial God and his doings in the world. Something had to give. Many in theology seemed to decide, without too much argument, that what had to give was God, or at least anything like the orthodox teaching about God, as revealed in Scripture, debated and developed over 1800 years of providentially guided Christian thought.

To my mind this misunderstands and miss-states science, and it is an abuse of theology (and theologians ought to stop doing it). When I embarked on an experiment in my previous incarnation as a professional scientist I did so by seeking evidence to support or refute my current provisional explanation for the current object of study. In a recent series of experiments for example, the evidence in question was specific data (eye movement timings and such) collected in specific circumstances (the experiment). I was not after any kind of ultimate explanation of everything, and as in any experiment completely ignored lots of interesting phenomena that weren’t the focus of the experiment. In this particular experiment I was interested in a specific aspect of eye movement behaviour, but not really the personal motivation of my participants (beyond the £10 they received for participating). In a different experiment their motivation could have been the focus, but not in this particular one. Neither, as a scientist who is a Christian believer, was I pretending to be uncovering the activity of God in sustaining the particular part of His universe I was investigating, even although I believed (and still do) that He has revealed that He was active in precisely such a way. But neither my hypothesis (the provisional explanation I was investigating) nor my tools were appropriate for examining or explaining the mechanism of His sustaining activity. In fact I do not and did not posses such tools, but based my belief on His revealing the fact of His sustaining activity in His Word. To that extent my belief, like my science, was based on evidence albeit a different kind of evidence obtained in a different way. But there was no clash between these two different aspects of what was going on inside my head as a Christian scientist.

In my view the explanations generated by my particular experiment (to do with the measurement of how we stop ourselves doing things) were valid and useful. Whether this is really true will be demonstrated (or not) by the work of others and until then may be taken on trust or not. What they do not and cannot do is somehow trump what God has revealed about doing or not doing things; that’s a completely different box of frogs. To jump from the very limited perspective of the naturalistic explanations of science and claim that now theological explanations derived from revelation are overthrown is ridiculous. They are different approaches, even when applied to the same phenomena in this one material world.

Time has moved on since Cupitt’s TV series, and there is some evidence theology is getting its own mojo back. Some of the weaknesses of science as a human activity have come more into view (and that’s even before it is misapplied). Cupitt, who was clearly highly educated, intelligent and talented (and for all I know a really nice bloke), should have been able to work out that theology had its own domain and task. Dialogue with, not the hegemony of, science was what was required. But he didn’t get it and it left him all at sea. 

It’s still bright at 5pm…

One way or another I spend quite a lot of time looking out of my study window. While it does not afford a view of rolling hills, and I can only see one rather bare tree (at least for the time being), it is just after 5pm and I can see outside and don’t have to put my desk lamp on to read. All this is good news. Granted that there will be cloudy days to come when it will be duller at 5pm. But the days are now lengthening, another winter is almost behind us and that tree will not be bare for much longer. The mind turns to warmer as well as longer days and spring and summer plans; the whole mood lifts. My inner Calvinist whispers about the shorter, colder days that will follow, and a return to early darkening afternoons. But, for the moment I can enjoy the extra minutes of daylight and their promise while ignoring these darker promptings.

It is all a reminder that time is moving along. And the longer days are not the only such reminder. Just recently I’ve been at a number of funerals and thanksgiving services. One was that of a friend and exact contemporary; we had been undergraduates and PhD students in the University of Glasgow (he was much cleverer than me - his PhD was in nuclear physics). After working for a while as an engineer in the aerospace industry, he studied theology and was eventually called to be the minister of a Presbyterian church near Birmingham. Last summer we bumped into each other at the Catalyst conference in London, and although we hadn’t actually seen each other face to face for about thirty years, you would hardly have known it. Hearing about his death was a surprise on two levels. Firstly, it was unexpected. We all secretly think that only other people die even although this is patently absurd. But I no more anticipated his death than I anticipate my own (ie generally not at all). Secondly and additionally, because he was a close contemporary, the news inevitably evoked those feelings of personal mortality that lurk in the farthest reaches of the background to one’s thinking. It turns out that along with you and everyone else, as each day passes it passes for me; I am a little bit older. A further reminder of the passing of time.

Another occasion that sticks in the mind was the thanksgiving service of one of our friends in Liverpool, who had originally come to the city to study Physical Education. But during her studies she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. This meant a necessary change of direction, but did not mean despair. She went on to a successful career in business, although she had to retire on medical grounds relatively early in life. Without a word of complaint she continued to play an active role in family and church life, pouring herself into the lives of many others, including ours being an active part of one of the Church small groups we led for a while. At the service there was genuine thankfulness for a life well lived in the face of what was eventually severe disability. A life that had been of tremendous benefit to many of us and therefore a life of significance. But (and this was true of the other service too), in addition to looking back, we were collectively able to look forward. These occasions were far from solely concerned with the past.

Both of these individuals were Christians, with a firm hope that because they had placed their trust in a Saviour who had died but then been raised, they and those of their friends and family who shared their hope, could face death and know that it was not an end. In life they had known the same uncertainty of us all; we do not know the timing or manner of our death in any detail. In one case it came relatively swiftly, in the other after a protracted physical decline. But they had a security, indeed a certainty, in the midst of the uncertainty. Even death could not break the hold that their Saviour had upon them. So, facing both those known and unknown difficulties that lay ahead of them in life, they could do so with confidence. And we could meet after their deaths, with the implicit reminder of our mortal demise with a similar confidence. I don’t mean by this the sort of cocky bravado that insists on the paying of Sinatra’s “My Way” or the reciting of Henley’s “Invictus”. Both of them had sought to follow Jesus’ way because their souls had definitely been conquered by Him. And it was not with any naive and false bonhomie we sought the comfort of families who were truly grieving loss or sought it for ourselves. In the midst of the grief you would expect, there was that certain shared hope that this loss was not permanent. In time it will be trumped by a life together that is eternal. And time is passing.

In fact these occasions did more that note the passing of lives, and implicitly the passing of time. They did more than point forward to a future that was hypothetical. They evidenced that future and served as a deposit of it. Time is passing. But the future that was in view on these occasions is not merely waiting passively for us to arrive at it, it is making its way towards us. And that leads to both anticipation and a degree of restlessness. One of Rutherford’s hymns captures this. It no doubt will strike some as odd, depressing even and it can be parodied (and probably has been). It’s on my list for my funeral (which I’ll obviously be depending on others to organise) and begins with the following: 

“The sands of time are sinking;
the dawn of heaven breaks;
the summer morn I've sighed for,
the fair sweet morn awakes;
dark, dark has been the midnight,
but dayspring is at hand,
and glory, glory dwelleth
in Emmanuel's land.”

It’s well worth looking it up and reading the other verses. Being able to see out of my study window, it turns out, is just one more pointer to lighter and better days ahead.

Reading for 2025 (so far...)

 

How long does it take for a tradition to become a tradition? I have no idea. But I think I'll stick with one that began only twelve months ago, and commence the blogging year by mentioning some of the books that it is my intention to read in 2025. Some are part of ongoing projects and there are two complete series in view. And no doubt that there will be other "one-offs" that I’ve yet to encounter.

At the bottom of the pile (and still foundational in more than the obvious sense) is my Tyndale House Greek New Testament. The acutely observant with longish memories will remember that this was also at the bottom of last year's pile, but it was there perhaps more in hope than expectation. I had embarked on learning NT Greek with the help of resources from Union. At the time I thought I might eventually embark on further, formal language study. But alas my progress was rather slower than I had hoped (and slower than was necessary to undertake the courses I had in mind). However, by last September I had made sufficient progress to join a local group that met online once a week to read and translate the NT. So, for an hour each Wednesday morning that’s what we’ve been doing. Reading our way through John’s Gospel, there have already been some lightbulb moments. I confess that some are a bit nerdy; a verb in a tense freighted with meaning that is missed in the English. Others have come as a result of feeling the full force of the language John reports Jesus as using (albeit in his translation from Aramaic to Greek). The clarity with which Jesus claims not merely to be a prophet but God Himself was not lost on His original hearers who, in John 8:59, are literally ready to stone Him to death (ie they’ve got to the stone picking-up stage). But while this is clear in English translation, Jesus constantly taking up the language of Exodus 3:14 (I am) comes through loud and clear in the Greek. In the same section at least one other person uses the same words (once), but the context and repetition on Jesus’ part emphasise His claim.

My strategy for our sessions is to try to do several verses of translation each day over the preceding week, allowing me to spot difficult vocabulary or grammar (of which there’s still a lot) ahead of time. I am still very much in the foothills, but the Tyndale “Reader’s Addition” helpfully lists less familiar words in footnotes at the bottom of each page, meaning that one doesn’t constantly have to refer to a separate lexicon or the interweb, thus saving lots of time. This year I’ve also been trying to read a couple of verses in Greek from my daily Bible reading schedule. And to keep moving forward I thought I’d better try and advance my understanding of the grammar beyond the basics covered last year. To some extent this develops from the reading, for it quickly becomes clear that basic rules are, well, basic. As with any language (and English must be a nightmare in this respect) such rules are often more broken than kept. So on my pile is Mathewson and Emig’s “Intermediate Greek Grammar”. While admittedly not what you would call “ a right riveting read” this is none-the-less useful for understanding some of the rule bending and breaking that actually occurs with the language “in the wild”. 

What I did have last year (although I didn’t discus it in the relevant post) was some serious theological reading - Calvin’s Institutes (edited by McNeill, expertly and entertainingly translated by Ford Lewis Battles). The “Institutes” represented some of the first “proper” theology I read when I began the MTh at Union. I had of course heard of the man before, and had enough reformed friends to have heard of the Institutes. But I had never actually read Calvin (and now I wonder if my friends ever had either). I initially approached the two substantial volumes of the McNeill edition with some trepidation. After all the Institutes were originally written in the 16^th century, within a particular context and with some fairly specific polemical targets. I had already been exposed to some of Barth’s “Church Dogmatics” which was not an entirely happy experience. I needn’t have worried. The combination of Calvin’s clarity of organisation and thought (and his wit) on the one hand, and Battle’s skill as a translator on the other, made it an intellectual and spiritual treat. Even for those not of a reformed disposition, there is much to learn and admire in Calvin’s efforts. But that was last year. I wanted to continue reading theology, but what next? Providentially I picked N.T. Wright’s five volume “Christian Origins and the Question of God”. I say providentially because, a bit like Calvin (or was it Battles?) Wright has a way with words. I managed to get started on Vol 1 early, and finished it last week. It is written with verve and wit, but without sacrificing depth and thoroughness (and providing plenty of footnotes and an extensive bibliography). There are those occasions when one encounters writing dealing with difficult or potentially dense issues, but the author does so in way that provides assurance that they “know their onions”. Having learned lots about the Judaism that provided a key element of the context for Jesus’ arrival, life, death and resurrection, I’m now enjoying the second volume which concentrates on Jesus Himself. The plan is to complete all five volumes this year. So far, I have no reason to believe this will be a chore.

To digress from the theology for a moment (but not as far as you might think), I also plan to read Hillary Mantell’s “Wolf Hall” trilogy. Now it is true that she won the 2009 Booker Prize for the fist book in the trilogy, and this would normally scare me off. The books that critics deem worthy of awards and the books that I enjoy reading usually fall into two distinct and mutually exclusive categories. Prize-winning prose is usually not my thing. But I was was impressed with the BBC’s adaptation of the books, and enjoyed Mark Rylance’s portrayal of the central character, Thomas Cromwell. So I took the plunge and made the trilogy one of my 2024 Christmas asks. Some kind relative duly obliged and this has been my bedtime reading throughout January. Bedtime it may be, but “light” it is not. I’ll spare you the review, but I will be persevering. And the story of Cromwell (if not the man himself) is growing on me. I have two and a bit books to make up my mind.

Towards the top of the pile is reading for another “project”. I completed my PhD at the end of the 1980’s, and spent a good part of the 90’s in the Centre for Neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh. These were heady days in what we’ll call the “neurosciences” (really a collection of fields and techniques all aimed at understanding the operations of the brain and nervous system). As a subject it was reaching maturity and new tools, particularly those for imaging the brain in awake human subjects (ie while they were doing things like thinking), were becoming routinely available. The new techniques and results had not gone unnoticed by philosophers, who were beginning to think that there might be light at the end of the very long, very dark mind/brain tunnel. It was around this time that “eliminative materialism” came into its own with loud and confident statements made, asserting that things like beliefs were the product of a soon-to-be-refuted and redundant “folk psychology”. Soon we would all get used to the (correct) idea that beliefs were the phlogiston of the neurosciences and they would be properly replaced by talk about brain states. “I” am merely my brain and have no more basis in reality than the immaterial God who has already been routed and driven from polite public discourse. What I didn’t know at the time was that this was (of course) only a very partial view of the state of the philosophical (never mind the theological) world.

So my aim is to now read some of the rejoinders I should have read then. To be fair I was doing other things at the time like making my own modest contribution to trying to understand vision and eye movement. This time round I’m also specifically interested in the serious theology as well as the philosophy involved, because it turns out there is quite a lot of it. Including (as can bee seen in my pile) Barth. Actually Cortez's "Embodied Souls, Ensouled Bodies" has been very helpful on that front. Suffice to say that already I’m discovering that time has not been kind to the eliminativists, and that’s even before one begins to take on board what Divine revelation has to say about the constitution of human beings, mental and otherwise.

It turns out God has much to say about us as well as Himself.

The stories we tell….

My reading project for 2025 is N. T. Wright’s “Christian Origins and the Question of God”. But because I managed to finish my 2024 project (Calvin’s “Institutes”) early, I decided to get started on Vol 1 of “Origins”: “The New Testament and the People of God”. Now admittedly there’s a lot of ground clearing goes on in the early chapters, but it’s useful for getting one’s bearings. And central to a lot of it is the issue of “story”. Of course the Anglo-Saxon scientist in me began to bridle at this point. But I managed not to get to the stage of chanting “just give me the facts” under my breath. Of course, had I been better educated (which is my aim in reading Wright in the first place) I would have realised that such a chant would simply be evidence of my capture by a particular story, the “modern” story. This is a story on an epic scale that still has quite a lot of us in its grip. It’s a tale about facts being true statements concerning things that exist absolutely, and phenomena that can be established in their totality using data (observations, measurement etc; for further discussion of facts, see here). We need to busy ourselves collecting such facts and once we have enough (although the threshold for “enough” is rarely explicitly stated) we can know some things for a certainty (because we’ve established the facts). Anything that doesn’t fit with this scheme (ie anything that can’t be measured and weighed, prodded and poked) probably isn’t meaningful, possibly doesn’t even exist and certainly isn’t worth bothering about. Therefore, basically only science can be trusted (because this is the sort of thing that science “does”), anything else is junk. This general view is a holdover from a particular philosophy that no longer impresses philosophers (and their fellow travellers in the humanities in general). But it holds sway in the minds of more than a few scientists I have encountered. And you’ll find it in the popular books they write (usually at or towards the end of their professional scientific careers). So more than a few non-scientists, otherwise normal and intelligent people, have made this their story. The problem is that as a story it is self-refuting. It itself is not a fact or collection of facts, it’s not science (even although it usually involves science) it cannot be measured, and therefore if true it must be false. 

Having calmed myself down, I returned to thinking about stories more widely. Wright’s contention is that “stories are important as an index of the world-view of any culture”. Which got me to thinking about the stories that are current today, those stories that might reveal the world-view of the contemporary culture. This is not a task I am capable of carrying out in any great detail. Others have spent more time and expended much more effort on projects like this. Carl Trueman and his “The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self” comes to mind (well worth a read, published in 2020, but by now probably obtainable second hand). What is the defining story of contemporary culture? It clearly cannot be the 18th/19th century story of humanity’s inevitable progress. The bloody 20^th century, with its world wars and atrocities, surely provided ample evidence that inevitable progress was a cruel fiction and could not be a story worth investing in. Its bankruptcy has been amply confirmed by the early disasters of the 21^st century. The story that elevates science and assumes that anything not approachable scientifically (ie most of life as we live it), while widespread, is now only held tentatively. Science itself is in a spot of bother, assailed by crises of reproducibility (what should have been one of its hallmarks turns out to be surprisingly rare) and integrity (a proportion of scientists turn out to be thoroughly untrustworthy). The results range from climate crisis denialism to falling vaccination rates with the consequential return of once banished diseases. Or maybe the more recent story that denies that there is any overarching story, and the nihilism to which this inevitably leads, is in fact the current prevailing story.

How this came to be is precisely what Trueman and others have tried to track. By his account, the efforts of a number of “story tellers” have brought us to where we are, of whom the most familiar are perhaps Marx, Nietzsche and Freud. The particular stories they originally told have themselves largely been discredited and discarded. It’s the residual, cumulative influence of their stories and their cumulative effects that are still with us. For each of these three, part of the objective was the destruction of one particular competing story. Nietzsche was perhaps the most obvious and knowing of the three as far as this aspect of the project was concerned. God might have been killed, but Christianity still had to be dealt with; it would in time “perish”. He was happy to initiate, or at least be in at the beginning of its demise. He knew (or suspected) that this would be a long-term project. In his preface to “The Dawn of the Day”, written in 1881, he writes of “a ‘subterrestrial' at work, digging, mining, undermining.” He probably didn’t realise how long it would take, in part because he was thoroughly dismissive of Christianity’s intellectual merits. After all, key Christian truths originated “in nothing but errors of reason”. He had a substitute story, and yet this story, along with those of Marx and Freud, have faired and aged arguably much worse than Christianity (and indeed other religious “stories”). The churches that these thinkers had so little time for, the centres from which the Christian story was and is (in theory at least) proclaimed, while apparently struggling in Europe and North America, appear to be doing rather well in Africa, South America and Asia. And at an estimated 100 million (estimates vary, this is by no means the highest; see here), there are more Christians in China today than in Europe. It appears that the story that Christians tell has yet to fall into the pit that Nietzsche sought to dig for it. If numbers matter, this might suggest that the story that Christians tell, of all stories, appears to be worth investigating.

But I’m not sure that these numbers do matter. What matters is the truth of the stories we tell and their ability to explain things for us; things like the past, the present and even the future. You may have noticed that we’ve been retelling part of the Christian story this week, acting it out, watching our children acting it out. Mind you, some of the versions on display may have been considerably tweaked from the original. Fortunately the original is available and can be checked, along with the larger Gospel story to which it belongs (not to mention the overall Bible story to which both belong). One can go right to the sources, rather than be suckered by caricatures. What will you find there and what world-view will it reveal? Will it be better than other stories that have been and still are told? Well, that’s a whole other story – which is rather the point.