I buried my dad...

Although it says in my blurb that this blog is partly a family blog, I have rarely (if ever) written here about my family. I suppose that’s partly because bearing my soul is one thing (not that I have), but bearing the souls of others seems (at least to me) a bit tasteless, intrusive and unfair. They all are their own people after all, persons and not mere objects to be dissected, examined and discussed publicly. But all families have significant milestones, and we reached one a few weeks ago. While it was not particularly pleasant, neither was it ugly. And while it would be wrong to claim that it was the sort of thing one looks forward to, it was something that was inevitable and to that extent expected.

My dad, known to most people as Charlie, was born on the 4^th June, 1934, and died on the 6^th January, 2026, aged 91. We buried his mortal remains on 28^th January. He lived what to many would seem a very ordinary life, and I suppose to many he seemed a very ordinary sort of man. But I am one of only two people in the whole wide world who could call him dad. And in that I was privileged. In terms of the usual metrics by which we tend to attribute value, he was neither rich or particularly successful. He was born, lived and died in Glasgow, and never travelled particularly extensively. He wasn’t brilliant academically and didn’t have much in terms of school qualifications. He didn’t build up a business empire or climb to the top of one of the professional greasy poles. He trained as a joiner (a carpenter in other parts of the world). He was a very good joiner (and plumber, plasterer and maker of interesting toys); he used his skills mainly to make our lives more comfortable rather than to make money or obtain fame. He was a husband, dad, grandad, uncle and friend to many. But this list leaves out the one thing that made him the man (and dad) he was, and explains his enduring influence. He was a Christian.

It is said of lots of folk that when they were alive they were a gentleman. Occasionally, even still, that might be qualified by the adjective “Christian”. “Christian gentleman” was a term used of dad at his funeral service; I think this was apt. It could be taken to mean lots of things. I take it to mean something very specific. When he was a teenager dad had a personal encounter with Jesus (the Jesus who is described, and whose words are recorded in the Gospels). Now I know that logically such a claim will be taken by some to mean that dad was deluded. These days it is perhaps more likely that such a claim will be politely indulged as his “truth” (and respected as such). But as such it would not have much significance beyond dad. But he didn’t see things that way, and did not talk about encountering Jesus personally as something of only personal significance. He saw this as a real encounter that marked the beginning of a relationship, a relationship that was in no way weakened or diminished on the 6^th January. I was one of many beneficiaries of that relationship, because he introduced me to the same Jesus. I don’t mean that he showed me into a room in which someone was standing and said “This is Jesus”. He didn’t have to. In fact, over the years he said very little to us directly. He had his expectation of us, but these were rarely articulated. But he made sure that we knew who Jesus was, and what he had done, and what he had claimed. And he largely left it up to us to decide what to do with the information, how to respond to it while he just carried on being dad.

What greatly eased the last few week of his life was the knowledge that he remained secure in that relationship that began when he was a teenager. It was obviously not a passing phase; it lasted the length of the rest of his life, and beyond. It brought us certainty and hope where very often I have observed fear and despair. Instead of euphemisms and platitudes, we had truth, and I am even tempted to say certainty. Certainty has, of course, become deeply unfashionable. That which was once assumed to bring certainty has been systematically attacked and undermined, and apparently abandoned by many. For some this brings with it the advantage of living without the constraints familiar to former generations. The claim is that by throwing off the shackles derived from, for example, the Bible, we have arrived in a period of freedom. While of value to humanity at an earlier period in our development, the guardrail and guide trusted in previous times are no longer needed. How is that all working out? Whether with regard to family dynamics, sexual ethics, public values and behaviour, not well it would seem. Not that there was ever a golden age when all was peace and light. But it does not seem as through we have evolved and arrived at a place of contentment; the former myths of inevitable progress seemed to have turned to ash. Dad grew up in the war years, in the east end of Glasgow. He grew up in no idyll and knew a much harder life that I ever did (in part thanks to him). He was a realist and practical man, not an idealist and philosopher. And yet, in his relationship with Jesus, he was transformed, and that relationship endured.

And now? Well there is much I cheerfully admit I do not know. I can’t tell you where dad is with any geographical confidence, But I can tell who he is with. I can’t tell you in any great detail what state he is in, but I can tell you it is much better than any other state he could be in bar one – his final state. I know that his current state is no longer embodied, because we put his body in a wooden coffin and buried it, yet he was not there. So he now exists in a disembodied state. I know these things because I have been told them, they have been revealed by the same source who revealed much else that I have found in my own experience to be reliable. Now I, like dad, could be completely deluded. That we should both share the same delusion, deriving comfort and hope from it, seems a bit unlikely but is clearly logically possible. And of course I cannot know with mathematical certainty that if and when my time comes, like dad, I will rest secure in Jesus awaiting a future day when I again will be embodied and will live again, with dad and many others besides, in a much different world. But I was never really that impressed with mathematical certainty because it only ever seemed to apply in very specific mathematical circumstances, quite removed from the rest of life (and death). I’ll stick with the certainty of faith. A faith that was demonstrated and lived out before my very eyes by dad, one that is shared rather than inherited.

New year, new pile....

As promised, and carrying on the (recently established) tradition of detailing some of my reading for 2026 (who knows what tangents and byways await), here are some of my thoughts on the pile of books that has appeared, as if by magic, in my study. And yes, I know I’m repeating myself, but at the bottom (and serving as a foundation) is my Greek New Testament. I will spare you the details of what and why (mainly because I’ve mentioned them before). I see no need to be shy about my commitment to what God has said (though note that He says it just as clearly in English as in koine Greek) and to its being foundational. And to it providing the necessary framework for my other thinking. “How quaint” some might say. Or perhaps “how closed minded”. But we all think within a framework, and we all (to use a metaphor beloved of both Calvin and N.T. Wright) look at the world through spectacles. The spectacles themselves, because they are not usually observed but the means of observation, don’t often attract attention - until they do. At least I am explicit about my framework.

As in previous years I have a major theological reading project in mind for 2026 that is next up in the pile. I first encountered Herman Bavinck, Dutch reformed theologian, educator, politician and polymath, at the very outset of my MTh studies at Union. Bob Latham introduced us to Bavinck’s “organic” view of Scripture, and I plumped for the assessment essay comparing this view with Warfield’s view of Scripture. James Eglinton’s (excellent) biography of Bavinck had just appeared, so I obtained a copy to get a more rounded view of the man. Proved to be a good move on my part, and ever since, Bavinck has been on my radar. Last year I read his “Christianity and Science” and began obtaining the four volumes of “Reformed Dogmatics” from various second-hand sources. Volume 1 sounds dry (it’s his preamble discussing dogmatics and its history), but it has been (I'm 100+ in) an excellent historical introduction not just to dogmatics but also to theology, philosophy and various points in between. I’m looking forward to Bavinck’s company throughout 2026.

Last year much of my reading was related to the paper I was writing on neuroscience and theology. But that hadn't really been the topic at the front of my mind (until it was!). My MTh dissertation was about the Biblical basis of human friendships. The general topic of friendship is again being revisited from multiple perspectives partly because its retrieval is seen as vital in a culture now so marked by chronic loneliness and its deleterious consequences. The starting point for many are the ancient accounts of friendship to be found in Plato, but particularly Aristotle. Now Aristotle was a bright chap who said many interesting and helpful things, and who still exercises a profound influence over Western thought (and for all I know much more widely too). His thinking on friendship was mediated to the Roman/Latin world by Cicero, who in turn was a major influence on Augustine, who is one of the towering figures in Western theology. Long story short, if friendship is important for us, then we should  find a basis for it not so much in Aristotle but revealed in Scripture. Now, this might not seem like a bold claim. But there have been those who have suggested that there isn’t much in Scripture about friendship, and indeed that it might actually be in conflict with Christian teaching. So because friendship always has voluntary and exclusive aspects it conflicts with the commandment to love even my enemies (etc, etc). I won't reproduce my dissertation here (because you can actually find it here), but I aim is to edit it down and tart it up and submit it in article form somewhere or other. Hence the need to update and extend my reading on the topic and the books on the pile relating to friendship.

In addition to theological accounts (Summers and Bequette), I thought I’d dip into some of Robin Dunbar’s work. Our paths crossed briefly in the University of Liverpool, prior to his move to Oxford. His is a scientific, evolutionary account of human relationships. He is perhaps best known for coining “Dunbar’s number” – the expected average number of stable relationships a human being can maintain (with various caveats). My reason for wanting to read such an account is simple. If relationships (including friendship) are fundamental to our humanity, then a completely naturalistic account of them should be possible. Their qualities, the effects of their absence, what makes for their flourishing, what causes their breakdown and so on, all of these are observable, and I’m assuming have been observed. Among other things it will be interesting to see if Dunbar’s stance is that once a naturalistic account has been given, there is nothing more to say. But as ever the science (as opposed to the smuggled metaphysics) will be fascinating. Whether any of this will be relevant to what I eventually write, we will see.

Given my background, I need to continue my education in the humanities and there are lots of classics that I have never touched. I have read a bit of ethics in my time, although usually secondary accounts for apologetic purposes. So I decided to continue my education with Macintyre's “After Virtue”. It so happened that N.T. Wright, in discussing the importance of ethics in Paul’s theology (although Paul would not have thought about it in our siloed terms) quoted his own “Virtue Reborn”. I decided these would make a nice pair to read back-to-back. Whether they in any way complement each other again, we will see.

So far, so good. But I might need some light relief. I decided to turn to a comedian for it. Marcus Brigstocke is both funny and clever (the two often seem to go together). I admit I came across “God Collar” in a charity shop, but it wasn’t just the bargain price the attracted me to this particular read. I spend relatively little time among atheists, certainly less than I spend with their writings. But I could perhaps be accused of holding the views I hold because I know little of the alternatives and rarely expose what I hold dear to scrutiny, even ridicule. As it turns out, this would be unjust. I often find the opposite to be the case. Many who think they have rejected God have never actually seriously encountered Him or sought to. In part this is because people like me are rarely who or what we should be, given what we claim to believe; we are terrifically bad adverts for those beliefs. But fundamentally we are not (or should not be) recommending ourselves as paragons or examples. I see nothing that indicates that any group of other human beings or the institutions they have built are worthy of worship (although some may have other important reasons for their existence and uses). It is God Himself who is worth listening to. And fortunately for us, God thinks so too. It turns out that the speaking God speaks! The problem is that He is often not heard, or even when heard, heeded. Anyway, we’ll see if Marcus is alive to such distinctions.

But finally to more trusted friends and allies. I have encountered some of the earliest Christian writers (after the Apostles themselves) in the writings of others. But (just as with God Himself) I can hear from the “men” themselves (or at least a few of them). So I picked up the Penguin Classics edition of “Early Christian Writings” (including writings of Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp). I have encountered Polycarp before thanks to reading Irenaeus’ “Against Heresies” (worth it for the riff on vegetables as names for the various Gnostic entities; 1:11:4). Context is everything though. So I decided I’d better read a bit about the context of the second century, hence Grant on the second century “apologists”.

This should be enough to get me going.

Reading for 2025 (no further)

The title of this post is, I admit, a bit cryptic. You’ll have look back at this January post to get it. But having tee’d up my reading for the year, all neatly piled up, I thought it was only fair to say something in retrospect about it. Then next year (i.e. next week) I’ll say something about my plans for 2026. Only one item will appear in both piles and it is foundational metaphorically and physically. My Greek New Testament has been well used (if not the “Intermediate Greek Grammar” that also appeared with it). I’ve carried on trying to read part of my daily Bible reading in Greek (2025 was a New Testament year), before switching to English, as well as with my weekly reading group in which we’ve mostly been reading John’s writings. Again, because it’s the Tyndale reader’s edition, I’ve benefitted from the help given on each page, which saves me reaching too often for my copy of BDAG (if you know, you know), which was a 2025 birthday present. Currently Tyndale House in Cambridge, whose efforts produced this version of the Greek NT, are expanding and upgrading their library facilities. More power to their elbow. They do vital work that is of continuing benefit to the wider church.

My big “theological reading project” for the year was N. T. Wright’s “Christian Origins and the Question of God”. As before, the idea was to read a little bit every day and knock off the whole thing over the year. And very useful it has been too. Even when the material is hard, and the language a bit convoluted, Wright is always an educational, and even occasionally an entertaining, read. The early volumes have been a really helpful in understanding the intellectual background (not to say ferment) of second temple Judaism which is the wider context into which Jesus steps and Paul later appears. The main thrust of much of this is that this is (unsurprisingly) a Jewish context, something that some Christians (or at least some theologians) have at various points attempted to extinguish from the reality that is the history. Right at the centre of it all is the middle volume (“The Resurrection of the Son of God”), which must stand as one of the best explorations of the resurrection ever written (at least in English) and quite a lot else besides. Some of this material even turned out to be relevant to my other big project of the year (of which more below). The final volumes focus on Paul and his theology; although what theology, his or anyone else’s, actually is turns out to be a tricky question). One of the main themes is again that Paul doesn’t suddenly stop being Jewish and then determines to set up some rival “religion” (although what constitutes a religion also turns out to be quite tricky). Rather, he comes to the startling conclusion that Jesus, albeit the crucified Jesus, has been demonstrated to be the promised Messiah (by the resurrection), has fulfilled one set of promises long made to Israel by their covenant making, covenant keeping, creator God, and has inaugurated the fulfilment of anther set. And to stop uppity Gentiles like me becoming too cocky, I should just remember that I’m the odd branch that has been grafted into a Jewish rootstock. Interesting to read against the background of the recent antisemitic atrocities in Manchester and Bondi Beach. Having succeeded in reading through to the end, I’m going to miss my daily dose of N.T.!

I did plan some “lighter” reading in the form of Hillary Mantell’s “Wolf Hall” trilogy. This was inspired by the BBC adaption of course. It turns out to be a sort of mixture of history and theology. Alas, it turned out no to be “light” enough. I did get to the end of the first book in the trilogy but then I gave up. Mantell is of course a Booker Prize winner; that should have warned me. History I like, and theology I’m committed to. Historical theology (which I suppose you could argue is what N.T. was writing and what I enjoyed reading in the form of Calvin’s Institutes last year) I have enjoyed. There is some historical fiction I’ve enjoyed (I learned all about the Napoleonic wars from Denis Wheatly’s “Roger Brook” stories) but not so much this. I might have another go at Cromwell in 2026, but no promises.

At the top of my 2025 pile was some of the reading that was necessary for a paper I was writing on neuroscience (my former interest) and theology. Some of this was to do with basic philosophical problems that arise when we consider what we are as persons (eg are we made of one kind of stuff which is only physical or is it more complicated than that?), and some were taken up with previous theological responses to what assumed to be the inescapable philosophical consequences of the advances in neuroscience over the last fifty years. Some of those responses left a lot to be desired. It still astonishes me that some in theology fell for the line that the only valid questions are scientific questions and therefore only science can give valid answers. This is basically to make an a priori commitment to a particular form of materialism (only physical stuff exists) which makes explaining things like money and football scores inexplicable in any useful way. And of course it rules as invalid the question “does God exist?” assuming you take God to name an entity that is immaterial. You no longer have to prove He doesn’t exist, because you’ve already decided the issue. There are many supporters of such a position. What is interesting is that, however large that number used to be, it is almost certainly declining. This kind of view leaves unexplored lots of things that actually we are all very aware of including God Himself. You can only go on for so long telling people that questions about such things are invalid. Materialism is its various forms is increasingly viewed as being inadequate (see further here).

Having done lots of reading round the topic I wrote my paper and submitted it. One reviewer loved it, one hated it, and the third thought that what I had produced was good as far as it went, but that I had ignored the important topic of “neurotheology”. So, I had to do more reading, and a bit of writing, and submit a revision. Such exercises are always akin to a negotiation. Whether I’ve done enough for the editor remains to be seen.

Perhaps one day what I’ve written will be on someone else’s reading list. More on my 2026 reading pile shortly.

Christmas observation is interpretation

All observation is interpretation; I’m sure someone must have said that before. It has certainly been widely discussed. We never simply “see”. Facts are never delivered to us neatly isolated from everything else and wrapped up in a bow. Or to change the metaphor, there is no truth tree that if shaken drops fully formed, ripened and reliable facts into our laps to be consumed. That’s just not how the universe is. That said, there is stuff to be known, observations to constructed and interpreted. And it is sometimes interesting to note when something that is knowable, is not known by folk you’d think would know better. I was surprised by the surprise of Melvyn Bragg this morning on the R4 “Today” programme (which he was guest editing) when he discovered that the Bible accounts of Jesus birth do not specify three wise men (there are three gifts, but the number of “magi” isn’t given). I would have expected Melvyn to know his Bible better than that. Slightly later on I was also surprised at the surprise of “the undercover economist” Tim Harford (presenter of “More or Less” a programme about numbers), who was confused both about the number of “wise men” and their status. He appeared to think they were kings, again something that isn’t claimed by the Gospel writers. What is actually stated in Matthew and Luke’s birth narratives is basic stuff and eminently knowable (if apparently widely unknown). However, even many of the “facts” about that first “Christmas” even if known could appear somewhat underwhelming (as discussed previously). So both before and after the key event (the actual birth of Jesus) help is provided for us to understand something of the significance of what is going on. To help us interpret what we can observe correctly. You wouldn’t want to get this wrong.

Luke lays out, in great detail and as part of his “orderly account”, many of the preparatory moves. After centuries of what seemed like divine silence (the theme of a previous post), and several degrees of confusion amongst the Jews of the period (was their exile over or not? had their God forgotten about them? why were they still under gentile rule not to say oppression?), things suddenly started to happen almost as though to tee up a coming main event. The story of Zechariah and Elizabeth (the parents of John the Baptist) never really figures in modern nativities, but Luke clearly sees it as highly relevant to the story of both Jesus birth and His later public ministry. But it also acts as a bit of a wake up call. And Mary’s older (and certainly more experienced) cousin Elisabeth provides her with necessary support when bizarre things also happen to her. But even having been alerted that something pretty amazing is going to happen, the significant facts of Jesus actual birth are so intrinsically unbelievable, that many at the time (and certainly since) assume a simple explanation for a) Mary being pregnant and b) Joseph not being the father. After all, the problem was not that Joseph (and everyone else) did not know where babies come from, rather the problem was that he did (hence his initial idea of quietly divorcing his betrothed). And yet, as amazing as Jesus conception and birth are, the climax of the story could simply be perceived to be what looks like a fairly ordinary baby, albeit laid in a feeding trough. To this extent, it is difficult to see what the fuss is about (particularly if we miss some of Gabriel’s hints and how they relate to the angel’s own personal history).

So, because all observation is interpretation, and because interpretation always requires subsidiary facts (or a network of background beliefs and assumptions), we’re given some help. This is aimed at helping us understand not so much the how but the who of Bethlehem. This is where the shepherds and the “magi” come in, and their focus is on who the baby is, not so much how or where the baby was to be found (although neither of these is unimportant). Of the two, the shepherds are perhaps given both the most and the most dramatic help to understand what they will be seeing when they look into that feeding trough. Like Mary they have a scary encounter with an angel (no doubt made scarier still by the “glory of the Lord” which also appeared). Like Mary they are told things that for them (as they would have been for any of us) are scarcely reconcilable. On they one hand they will find themselves looking at the Messiah (Luke uses the Greek equivalent “Christ”) who has indeed come to save or rescue His people (the clue was in His name of course). And there is a heavy hint as to His divinity too; in calling Him “Lord” (κυριος, kyrios) Luke uses the Greek word used for God’s name in the Greek translation of the Old testament). But on the other they’ll be staring at a baby! The magi make their way from the east (we aren’t told from whence or precisely when) guided by a sign in the sky and their own learning. They sought extra help from the very earthly source of King Herod of course. They think they are looking for a king, it is apparently Herod who works out they are looking for the Messiah. What is often missed about these (probably Gentile) men, is that when they see the baby they fall down and worship Him. Clearly they are not merely seeing a baby and being suitably appreciative. Nor is their action merely one of respect. It is one of worship – they too are looking on not just a baby, but a being who is worthy of their worship. But this was revealed, rather than worked out, just as it was for the shepherds.

It would take lots of other people a long time to work out what these two groups were told. Some never got it. Many still don’t. If you just observe a story about a baby (or perhaps several contradictory stories about a baby – something else I heard on the radio this morning) you will be seeing but yet not seeing. That too turned out to be true of lots of people who would see and hear the man the baby grew up to become, and lots of people who hear (or indeed read) about Him today. 

Happy Christmas.

Deeply unimpressive

It is hard to imagine anyone splashing the headline “Pregnant teenager has baby”. It’s just not that impressive. Teenagers have been having babies for about as long as there have been teenagers. Even when some tribal, cultural or legal norm is being breached, it is not an unheard of event, and therefore not that exceptional. Of course it could (and does) have major impacts on those immediately involved. It may be a personal tragedy or be accompanied by unalloyed personal and family joy. But what is very unclear is why the rest of us should be that interested in the specifics. I suppose today if the teenager concerned had famous or influential parents one could imagine the paparazzi camping out at the bottom of their driveway. Or again if the circumstances of the pregnancy were in some way controversial. But that says more about the state of contemporary tastes and culture (not to mention the bottom-feeding habits of some sections of the modern media) than it does about the intrinsic interest to the rest of us of such an event. As for “Pregnant teenager in the ancient world has a baby” – well, that’s an even more unlikely headline.

Yet all over the world today it is precisely such a story that is in the minds of literally billions of people. For so many of us this is such a normal and ordinary part of our annual routine it’s worth considering how remarkable this is given how unremarkable the circumstances of the original birth appeared to be, at least superficially. The mother-to-be in question is of course Mary, and she was indeed (probably) a teenager. The biblical accounts do not provide her age, but she was probably around 16 when she discovered she was pregnant. She was “betrothed” at the time, something that sounds a bit like modern, Western engagement, but was considerably more serious. There was a formal contract between families at the point of betrothal. A “bride-price” had been agreed and probably paid. If anything untoward were to happen (e.g. if she was found not to be a virgin when it came to the yet-to-happen consummation of the marriage) a divorce would be required to dissolve the betrothal. In fact, all that remained was for Mary to move in with her husband-to-be and the marriage to be consummated. This is where it gets interesting. If her betrothed had been the father-to-be there would have been no big issue with Mary being pregnant. But both she (and he for that matter) appeared to know that this was not the case. So when he heard Mary was pregnant Joseph did indeed intend to divorce her (quietly, because he was a decent soul). She, meanwhile, was making some unusual claims. But one can understand the psychology of the situation and of many of those involved. Why this should really be a story that would spread far beyond the confines of a first century Judean village is hard to fathom. It is hardly a pot boiler of great proportions.

The actual birth certainly had dramatic moments but is again fundamentally not that impressive. Joseph’s attitude to Mary had changed, so that now he was sticking by her. There is an account of a somewhat forced, and no doubt for Mary a difficult journey, necessitated by Roman bureaucracy. Mary and Joseph were almost certainly not the only people travelling, explaining why at their destination accommodation was at a premium. This is also why the baby, when it arrives, is to be found in that part of a first century Judean house normally used for animals. While this might sound odd or noteworthy to us, at the time it probably was more practical than strange. And not strange at all given the pressures and seemingly arbitrary obligations inflicted on an oppressed people by an occupying empire. In any case, not long after the birth, the usual rituals were being observed, and shortly thereafter things settled seemed to settle down for a while. All deeply unimpressive stuff. If there was a ripple of interest, it should have died away pretty quickly. Except it didn’t and it hasn’t.

As unimpressive as these events may have seemed to some, even to some of those fairly close to them, they happened in a particular context and were accompanied by some very odd goings on. First, there were the circumstances of the baby’s conception. One can understand a certain scepticism that probably met Mary’s account, perhaps initially garbled, of an angelic messenger who, while providing sparse biological detail in our terms, was very specific about who it was that was behind the events about to descend upon her. It is fairly unlikely that such an account would have been believed were it not for two accompanying facts. Firstly, something surprisingly similar had recently happened to her cousin Elisabeth. A baby who was angelically promised and then arrived to a couple (actually a well connected couple) who were beyond the baby stage. Secondly, Mary’s husband was apparently interdependently angelically informed that although the baby was not his, he was still to take Mary as his wife (hence the change in Joseph’s attitude). After the event, there were also strange visitors who sought out the baby, visitors who spanned time, distance and social standing. Early on there were working men, local shepherds, with yet more stories of angels. Later there were educated and wealthy men of social standing, (probably) Gentiles no less, who had travelled from the east. They were important enough to merit access to the local king, thinking they would find the child that they sought in a palace. Eventually they found him in much humbler, unimpressive, surroundings. But they focussed not on the circumstances of the child’s birth or on his current circumstances but on the child himself whom they deemed of such importance that they actually bowed before him and presented gifts.

I grant you, this all appears now to be building into something that might attract attention (it certainly attracted King Herod’s). But then steps were taken to damp that attention down. So, Joseph takes Mary and the child away for a time, far to south, away from the attention of the king. Only later do they hear that they had escaped potential disaster. Then they return to an obscure northern part of their own country famous for nothing, or at least for nothing other than being obscure, northern and the source of “nothing good”. It’s almost as though someone wanted all the odd things about His birth forgotten (did they really happen?) and the whole thing to look unimpressive. The baby would of course eventually grow up, and Scripture itself makes clear that there was much that would remain personally unimpressive about Jesus of Nazareth (as He would be known). For those without eyes to see He would have “no beauty that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2). 

It is at this time of year we focus on the start of His human journey. But it’s what happens subsequently, all that He does and says, that indicates that something more is going on here at the beginning than just the birth of a baby to mixed up teenager. Jesus can only be deeply unimpressive to those without eyes to see and ears to hear. It turns out there is so much more to all of this than often meets the eye.

Deeply unimpressive? See for yourself.

On Christmas plans….

What plans do you have for Christmas? Perhaps you have a particular present in mind for that special one (or have been thus instructed). But you’re leaving the actual purchase to the last minute (Christmas eve would be ideal). Imagine though. You turn up at a suitable retail outlet only to discover that they’ve sold out! You would just have to switch to plan B. Or perhaps you have a Christmas journey planned. The tickets have been bought, the hotel booked. Imagine though. You turn up on time at your favourite local airport to discover all flights have been grounded by a software glitch somewhere in Austria! No doubt about it. Plan B again. Such things don’t happen to us often. But the plans we make often depend on lots of other people and things over which we have absolutely no control. Lots of moving parts that we need to run smoothly. Usually they do, occasionally they don’t. And on those occasions when Plan A doesn’t work out, plan B has to be pressed into service. Some people seem to think about the first Christmas (i.e. the birth of Jesus – although that wasn’t any kind of Christmas) as a sort of divine plan B.

Why might such a thought occur to anyone? Because before any of the “Christmas” events transpired there was a whole series of happenings and history that had unfolded over the preceding centuries. Some of the players in this history thought they had a handle on what was going on, and indeed that they were central to God’s big plan. That a big plan was needed was clear from almost the beginning. Things were just not as they were intended to be, and that applied to people too (you’ll find the reason for this laid out in Genesis chapter 3). With a devastating flood and the destruction of the tower at Babel, things seemed to go from bad to worse to confused. But then, from around Genesis 12 (actually the hints are right there in what appears to be the unmitigated disaster of Genesis 3), a coherent strategy emerges. This involved the God who made everything calling an obscure man named Abram out of idolatry (i.e. the worship of things that are not God) and making extravagant promises about blessing coming to everyone on earth through him and his descendents. Gradually, from that man (eventually renamed Abraham), who took God’s promises seriously and trusted the God who made them, a people emerged and came to prominence. Not that it was all plain sailing. From a human point of view it seemed to take a long time and a circuitous route. And once or twice the whole thing seemed to be on the verge of complete collapse. At the time when Abraham’s descendents were numerically strong enough to be called a nation, they actually had to be rescued from slavery and oppression while residing far from the place they had been promised. Their whole rescue experience, in both symbol and reality, turned on God being faithful to His original promise even in the teeth of their consistent failure to live like Abraham (ie trusting God). But their very failure to be the people they were supposed to be pointed to a basic flaw within them that they shared with rest of humanity (the same flaw that affects all of us today). They were no more or less flawed than anyone else; in this respect they were representative of us all.

Eventually it looked like God had given up on them. Although they owed Him everything, they kept playing fast and loose with His, although He was constantly proving Himself true to that original promise. They even returned to the sort of idolatry that their ancestor had been rescued from. Eventually everything appeared to fall apart. It looked as though, like so many other ancient cultures, they were to be washed away by successive waves of history. So if ancient Israel, for that’s who we’re thinking about, was plan A, and it was through Israel the rest of us were to be blessed, the plan appeared to be in big trouble. The whole of the Old Testament of the Bible is their story. It is a story of repeating patterns, and of a promise which, while often forgotten, was never quite erased.

Out of the ruins something (someone!) long promised eventually arrived. His coming wasn’t new in the sense of something different (i.e. plan B because plan A hadn’t worked) because it fell precisely into those patterns and expectations set up by the whole of the Old Testament, something many of the writers of the New Testament go out of their way to demonstrate from Mark to Revelation. But it was new in the sense that when it happened it was simply not what was being looked for, to the extent that many, both at the time of the promised One’s arrival and since, completely miss what’s going on. All that had happened in Israel’s history, what appeared to be wasted time and effort, turned out to precisely illustrate what was about to happen and more besides. It all turned out to be part of one big plan (A).

Israel’s experience, real and excruciating as it was, actually served to reveal the magnitude of the problem. That was necessary because human beings don’t generally understand just how awful their natural predicament is and therefore the magnitude of the solution that is required. It turns out that promises, encouragements, rules, religious systems, all of which work from the outside of a person, can’t ultimately fix the problem, which for all of us, for all of time, has been on the inside (the unfixed flaw mentioned above). But it’s almost as though part of plan A was to illustrate that problem in detail, and how not to sort it, before the actual solution was presented.

Here’s the big difference between God’s plans and ours. We often need plan B because we don’t have the power to deliver plan A. There are always things outwith our control that can (and sometimes do) interfere. But the thing about God is there is nothing outwith His control or beyond His power. So there was never going to be anything to interfere with, or thwart, plan A even if looked to human eyes as though there was. Something amazing is happening when Jesus is born in Bethlehem. His birth isn’t a sign of the failure of plan A and the need for something new (plan B). It’s actually the next part of the unfolding plan, brining us closer to the crux of plan A.

I hope you Christmas plans work out. God's plan certainly is.

Theology and its mojo

I noted previously that the great materialist project that dominated thinking about who we are as persons (and much else) may be, in Mary Midgely’s word, “fraying”(Midgley 2014, 14). This is seen specifically in avowedly materialist attempts, emanating from the neurosciences, to give a rigorously physical/material account of our conscious, internal, subjective, first-person states (i.e. mental states), within a materialist metaphysical framework that claims that not only is this doable, but once done there will be nothing left to say about who/what we are. The problem is, the science is basically confused and the metaphysical claims seem suffused with overreach (for reasons discussed here). But might theology (leaving to one side for the moment what is meant by theology) have something to offer in this space?

First, a step back to what seems like a different time (i.e. the last quarter of the twentieth century). Within the broadly evangelical camp, some, like theologian Joel Green and philosopher Nancy Murphy (both influential voices from Fuller Seminary), viewed science, specifically neuroscience (and explicitly in Green’s case Churchlandian neurophilosophy) as having a role in framing their views of human ontology, requiring a degree of reinterpretation of classic theological texts and teaching (Green 2008, 16). Now it is clearly true that neuroscience has an important contribution to make to our self-understanding (particularly with regard to our present embodied state), but they appeared to hand to neuroscience (or particular implications that were argued to flow from it) an overarching authority, allowing it to be an arbiter of what can, and what cannot, be said. This seems to be complimentary to the approach of other materialists/physicalists who went much further and argued that science in general, and with regards to human human ontology that neuroscience in particular, were able to provide, by themselves, a full understanding of who we are, what the universe is, and what our place in it is. Outside theology, there was a reaction to such claims, which were criticised in the general case as scientism, and in the specific case of neuroscience as “neurohype” and “neuromania” (Midgley 1994, 108; 2014, 5; Tallis 2011; Lilienfeld et al. 2017). Another aspect of the reaction is the claim that in the twenty-first century “[w]e are witnessing a resurgence in substance dualism” partly because “promissory materialism” has not delivered an explanation of everything, including consciousness (Rickabaugh and Moreland 2024, 5–6). Given these observations and the “fraying” described by Midgley, might it be that far from being irrelevant and to be eliminated by the materialist project (claims that emanated from scientists like Crick on one hand, and philosophers like the Churchlands on the other), theology is in a position to make a positive contribution?

If theology is to make such a contribution then “it cannot allow its agenda and suppositions to be determined by current theories of mind or brain any more than than by the prevalent sociological, philosophical, or cultural analyses of personhood”; there needs to be clarity “about what is proper to the theological and scientific fields of enquiry respectively” (Torrance 2004, 213,214). This is a view obviously at odds with, among others, Crick, summarised in the final chapter of “The Astonishing Hypothesis” which had the intriguing title of “Dr Crick’s Sunday Morning Service” (Crick 1994, 255–63). Writing of religious beliefs, rather than theology (but in Crick’s view they surely amounted to the same thing), he asserted that “by scientific standards, they are based on evidence so flimsy that only an act of blind faith can make them acceptable”; “true answers are usually far from those of conventional religions. If revealed religions have revealed anything it is that they are usually wrong” (Crick 1994, 258). Hardly a recipe for a fruitful dialogue. But some thirty plus years after this was written neither should it be assumed to be representative (e.g. see Rodzeń and Polak 2025 and the various contributions in the Special Issue they introduce).

Theological anthropology developed in a number of ways during the twentieth century and in one interesting respect it is Karl Barth who figures predominantly and whose influence continues to be important (Anderson 1982, 18; Torrance 2004, 207). Barth grounded his anthropology in christology, a move he characterised himself as “deviating from tradition” (see Skaff 2019, 186). Cortez, who examined the mind/brain debate (including Murphy’s non-reductive physicalism) in detail, claimed that “the significance of this christological shift … cannot be overstated. Indeed a growing number of Christian theologians locate modernity’s inability to understand human nature in the fundamentally misguided attempt to derive a complete picture of the human person independently of the perspective provided by the person of Jesus Christ” (Cortez 2008, 4). With regard to Murphy, Cortez notes that there was a movement in the opposite direction, explicitly working from the implications of the mind/brain debate (configured within a framework provided by neuroscience) to christology, with no consideration of movement from christology to anthropology (Cortez 2008, 5; quoting from Murphy 1998, 23).

Christology is, of course, a theological construct, not a scientific or neuroscientific one. It is examined and developed using theological tools and methods. It can of course all become very technical. But this is just as true of modern science. The relative inaccessibility of the cutting edge of where science is at any one time is not taken to provide a reason for it to be dismissed as untrue or unbelievable just because it is only truly accessible to professional practitioners. For those whose expertise is not theological to make claims about theological constructs being intrinsically unbelievable or irrelevant (essentially claims like Crick’s) out of ignorance about appropriate tools, methods, data, history and so on, would be just as ridiculous. But this is what has been going on for a while and has had far more credibility as an approach than it ever deserved.

For those wedded to the conflict metaphor for the interaction between science and theology, as representing inevitably conflicting ways of looking at reality, such developments within theology (like christological anthropology) will simply be taken to indicate the continuation of the conflict. But the conflict metaphor has long been acknowledged by historians of science as a polemical Victorian myth, albeit with some recent popular proponents (Russell 1985; Harrison 2017). Precisely because christological anthropologies spring from theology doing a theological task using appropriate theological methods, the categories involved are distinct from those of neuroscience. But this also means that they can be related to contemporary debates which are usually configured exclusively in terms of neuroscience and brain functions in interesting ways. It is significant that the incarnation (a thoroughly theological concept) has been argued to be compatible with both physicalism and dualism (two very different approaches to the mind/brain problem) by different proponents in the mind/brain debate (Cortez 2008, 5; see footnote 12). But it takes careful work and thought to relate the incarnational and the neural, and much of this work remains to be done. There are other intriguing convergences between christologcial anthropology and developments in neuroscience. In his discussion of “personhood”, Orthodox theologian John Zizioulas argued for the fundamental ontological importance of “a movement of communion”, where ontological identity is to be found “only in a being which is free from the boundaries of the ‘self’”(Zizioulas 1975). This strongly relational view, which both looks back to Barth and is consistent with the work of a long list of key figures in recent theological anthropology, parallels and potentially compliments developments in neuroscience represented by research into “theory of mind” and social cognition both of which stress the relational (Torrance 2004, 208; Brüne and Brüne-Cohrs 2006; Frith 2008). How deep this convergence goes, also requires work and thought.

In gaining a rounded understanding of ourselves, there is clearly an important role for neuroscience to play. It is able provide information from a third-person perspective about the physical brain mechanisms involved in the generation of human experience (now explicitly including conscious experience), how these mechanisms develop, the ways in which they change as we age and about aspects of what happens when eventually our embodied existence fades. But this information is partial not exhaustive, it generates a particular kind of map guiding our self-understanding. Theology has the role of providing another kind of map for some of the same terrain. The challenge is in aligning the different maps, not assuming a priori that one is right and one is wrong (Midgley 2005).

Materialism is fraying, theology is perhaps getting its mojo back. Just as well. There’s work to do.

Anderson, Ray S. 1982. On Being Human: Essays in Theological Anthropology. Eerdmans.

Brüne, Martin, and Ute Brüne-Cohrs. 2006. “Theory of Mind—Evolution, Ontogeny, Brain Mechanisms and Psychopathology.” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 30 (4): 437–55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2005.08.001.

Cortez, Marc. 2008. Embodies Souls, Ensouled Bodies. T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology. T &T Clark.

Crick, F. H. C. 1994. The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul. Macmillan.

Frith, Chris D. 2008. “Social Cognition.” Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 363: 2033–39.

Harrison, Peter. 2017. The Territories of Science and Religion. Paperback edition. University of Chicago Press.

Lilienfeld, Scott O, Elizabeth Aslinger, Julia Marshall, and Sally Satel. 2017. “Neurohype: A Field Guide to Exaggerated Brain-Based Claims.” In The Routledge Handbook of Neuroethics. Routledge.

Midgley, M. 2014. Are You an Illusion? Heretics (Durham, England). Acumen. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6hHtnQEACAAJ.

Midgley, Mary. 1994. Science as Salvation: A Modern Myth and It Meaning. Paperback edition. Routledge.

Midgley, Mary. 2005. “Mapping Science: In Memory of John Ziman.” Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 30 (3): 195–97.

Murphy, Nancey. 1998. “Human Nature: Historical, Scientific, and Religious Issues.” In Whatever Happened to the Soul. Fortress Press.

Rickabaugh, Brandon, and J.P. Moreland. 2024. The Substance of Consciousness: A Comprehensive Defense of Contrmporary Substance Dualism. John Wiley and Sons.

Rodzeń, Jacek, and Paweł Polak. 2025. “Introduction to This Religions Special Issue: Natural Sciences as a Contemporary Locus Theologicus.” Religions 16 (8). https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16081020.

Russell, Colin R. 1985. Crosscurrents: Interactions Between Science and Faith. IVP.

Skaff, Jeffrey. 2019. “Barth on Theological Anthropology.” The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Karl Barth: Barth and Dogmatics, 185–96.

Tallis, Raymond. 2011. Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis and the Misrepresentation of Humanity. Acumen Publishing.

Torrance, Alan J. 2004. “What Is a Person?” In From Cells to Souls and Beyond. Eerdmans.

Zizioulas, John D. 1975. “Human Capacity and Human Incapacity: A Theological Exploration of Personhood.” Scottish Journal of Theology 28 (5): 401–47