Bonfire

Man in old rough clothes

Feeds a bonfire, broken wood,

Vertical white smoke

Far From Normal

Crimped, the brass nipple
Closed tight on a steel cable
And pressed up, docking
Into a recess
High up, ceiling high the thin
Cable dangling free

Perpendicular,
Taut, tense, a still leaden bob
Hollowed-out, tied, and
Hung like the guilty
Facing ultimate questions
Ready now, to swing

Filled with Indian
Ink, its black blood emptying
Hesitantly through
A small orifice
Spilling onto a canvas
Stretched out on the floor

Shoulder to shoulder
A crowd, as for a hanging,
On tiptoe, craning
Waiting for the bob
Its unseen earthly artist
In fine oscillations

Petals of jet black
Painted each day for a year
Until death draws near
A gallows-crowd back
To watch the last ink-drop fall
A final full stop.

Its legacy gift:
Spiral art and animation
Of life spent, ending
In shocking beauty
Condemned, maybe, but so,
So far from normal

Suspended between the present and the future

My monthly blog post for https://morethanwriters.blogspot.com/ https://morethanwriters.blogspot.com/2024/11/suspended-somewhere-between-present-and.html

Suspended…

Sat here in my favourite coffee shop, there’s a buzz of conversation. Mums with babies, blokes like me, silent monks buried in contemplation, half-consumed cake, laptops, music, wobbly tables, and proper floorboards.

It has a writing vibe. Not a meeting point for avant-garde artists and poets but a – I don’t know – a welcoming hum. A place of anonymity amongst crowds. And the music isn’t intrusive but loud enough to tap along to.

Why am I here? The estate agent is showing another potential buyer around the house, so I’ve relocated here, wondering if my blog-writing-tryst will be interrupted by a promising phone-call.

Whilst my body lives in the present, my mind is less confined by the clock. I confess, I have already built an extension, or a writing shed, or a garage, or all three at the new house. The only drawback is that the future is dependent on the present; got to sell first. Time is frustratingly linear!

It’s the same disconnect with my writing – it’s suspended somewhere between the present and the future. The present seems to be as well-defined as a warmed-up slab of chewing gum, stretching far into an uncertain future. The book is written, but awaiting editing, a cover, blurb, publishing, book launch, and marketing…and its sequel seems to be lurking just over the horizon.

What to do?

Note to self: a few things come to mind:

• Ask ‘What is your core purpose as a (Christian) writer?’ If that’s too heavy a question over coffee and cake then maybe a 9 pm vigil in the back garden, cigar and whisky to hand, will help?

• Remind oneself that the Holy Spirit is at work sharing His patience…or, more accurately, forming His patience in me

• Keep exercising the writing muscles – poetry, blogs, short stories

• Read books, but try not to analyse the text so heavily that enjoying the story is lost…but note mastery of technique in passing e.g. Ian Rankin’s skill at planting incidental small actions within the dialogue

OK. The remaining froth in my flat white requires a spoon which is downstairs. Next time. And my cheesecake is no more, and there’s been no phone call from the estate agent.

The future is pressing its claim. It’s almost time to exit.

The future is pressing its claim. It’s almost time to exit. But I’m sitting here caught up in the thought that this rather impromptu post might encourage someone who’s floundering in an ‘in-between’ state between the present writing project and what lies tantalisingly just over the horizon.

If so you’re welcome to join me – in spirit – at 9pm in the back garden.

Are you a Cultural Christian?

The phrase ‘Cultural Christian’ is a fairly new kid on the block. What does it mean?

It may be surprising to learn that atheist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, now describes himself as a Cultural Christian.

In fact, according to Justin Brierley (author of The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God) many of the former members of New Atheism as championed by biologist Dawkins, philosopher Daniel C. Dennet, neuroscientist Sam Harris, and journalist Christopher Hitchens, in abandoning the New Atheism movement, have reassessed their antagonism towards Christianity and its positive historical influence in forming Western societies.

Decline of New Atheism

Like Dawkins, historian Tom Holland has acknowledged that the message of Christianity has shaped our thinking, values, and ethics over many centuries ‘I began to realize that actually, in almost every way, I am Christian’.

Equally, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who had rejected her Islamic faith and embraced atheism now says:

‘Tom Holland has shown in his marvellous book Dominion, all sorts of apparently secular freedoms — of the market, of conscience and of the press — find their roots in Christianity. And so I have come to realise that Russell and my atheist friends failed to see the wood for the trees. The wood is the civilisation built on the Judeo-Christian tradition; it is the story of the West, warts and all.’

Follow the link if you would like to see a debate between Richard Dawkins and Ayaan Ali (31) Richard Dawkins vs Ayaan Hirsi Ali: The God Debate - YouTube

By describing himself as a Cultural Christian has Dawkins rejected his atheism?

No. He is not claiming to be a Christian believer. But he is willing to acknowledge that a significant influence on his values, sense of right and wrong, morals, and ethics are derived, not from scientific atheism or his independent powers of reason but inherited from the impact of being marinaded in the New Testament gospels and epistles in England and elsewhere for many centuries.

Whereas Tom Holland’s re-evaluation of Christianity has led him back to actual faith in Christ, not so with Richard Dawkins:

‘Presumably what happened to Jesus was what happens to all of us when we die. We decompose. Accounts of Jesus's resurrection and ascension are about as well-documented as Jack and the Beanstalk’

(This, of course, would have been my own position before I examined the evidence that Dawkins distances himself from, claiming it doesn’t exist).

The question that emerges from the ‘splintering’ of the new atheists and the acceptance of the label ‘Cultural Christianity’ from various commentators like Dawkins, is ‘What is the difference between a Cultural Christian and a Christian believer?

For evangelical Christians, the answer may be as straightforward as differentiating between Jupiter and Mars, Sibelius and Sinatra, or cats and dogs. In evangelical terms unless and until someone has made a conscious decision to ‘leave their nets to follow Christ’ (whatever that might look like for each individual) and profess their faith in Jesus risen from the dead, they are not ‘born again’, not ‘saved’, not part of the church, and therefore, not a Christian.

For those who have a more sacramental view, the grace of God is at work in someone’s life by participating in rituals such as infant baptism or communion/Mass, whether or not they have a ‘conversion’ experience dividing their non-Christian past from their Christian future.

Let us consider these words of Jesus:

‘He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me…and whoever gives one of these little ones a glass of water… will not lose his reward’ Matt 10v40, 42

Am I blurring the lines?

I think I am, but only because of Jesus’s words in this verse and similar verses. The bible asserts that God looks on the heart. If so, only God can know what ‘receiving Christ’ looks like in each individual. And only God can truly know if a human heart is set in stone against His Son, Jesus Christ, and will not submit to His Lordship.

I have asked groups of Christians how many had a ‘conversion experience’ and can pinpoint the place and the time when they left their nets to follow Christ, and how many had more of a dimmer-switch experience and cannot pinpoint a moment of decision, but the reality of Christ dawned on them over time. The ratio has always been 50:50.

My own experience is that I can pinpoint the moment. It was as I opened my mouth to say the Creed during an otherwise unremarkable CoE Series 3 Communion service, at All Saints, Whitstable on Sunday 11th January 1976. And, because the liturgy is so precise, that must have been at approximately 10.50 in the morning!

On reflection though, can I really say that this moment divides time into two halves? The first time I can remember wanting to follow Christ was in 1964, twelve years before…aged 6…during a school assembly when the gospel story of the disciples leaving their nets to follow Christ. In my 6-year-old self, I was ready to do just that!

What is the difference between a Cultural Christian and a Christian believer?

In the intervening years, I absorbed the commonly held agnosticism of the times, but what I knew of the New Testament was still creating questions that I only found answers to many years later.

So I cannot tell you, from Christ’s perspective, when He captured me and won my heart and allegiance; maybe it was long before I capitulated consciously to Him.

Possibly the most dramatic conversion story still known as a Damascus road conversion (or Damascene conversion as some say it) – is of the Pharisee Saul - later known as St Paul. Surely this is evidence enough that life can be divided into two halves? But note carefully what Jesus said to Paul:

‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads’ Acts 9v5

Despite his implacable opposition to the gospel, and believers his opposition was hurting him; he was ‘kicking against the goads’. Each campaign, each arrest, or murder was like kicking a cactus thorn. A process was going on in his deepest being, possibly unknown to Saul, certainly resisted by him. Eventually, though, it was decision time. Over the following days, blinded in his encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus, and in a terrible state staying in Damascus, and with Ananias preaching to him, Saul came to a moment of decision. This is what the New Testament records:

‘He arose and was baptised’ Acts 9v18

Later he would testify that God had called him from the womb to be an apostle. When he looked back, he saw how God had been at work in his life bringing him to the point of decision and baptism.

In conclusion, we can be certain about two things:

• We cannot see what is going on in the hearts of those around us with respect to their relationship to Christ

• Whether someone calls themselves a cultural Christian or not, at the point of decision, no one can remain on the fence…for long.

The phrase ‘Cultural Christian’ is a fairly new catchphrase that many others apart from Professor Dawkins may start to use. But it can only be a holding position. Eventually, Cultural Christians will have to make up their minds about the resurrection; and ‘leave everything to follow Him’ and confess that Jesus is Lord, or take the awesome decision to refuse Christ.

Caught Unawares

Everything was in the right place:

That morning blind routine

Requiring minimal conscious thought

I mean, the toothbrush and paste

We’re waiting, parked neatly - check

Second finger found the kettle switch – no problem

Fridge door opens, chilly jam and marmalade jars

Casually thrown up with right hand and caught in the left

No milk, no matter

Shoes on, front door unlocked

It’s a two minute walk shuffling through the autumnal leaf shower

A comforting orange red stillness

So quiet as if the pavements have stopped breathing

Or the trees have witnessed a rapture

I press on, disregarding the silence

There’s the shop, lights on

Checking my jacket pocket for the wallet I occasionally forget

I extend my hand to the door

It doesn’t open

It is difficult to convey just how deep

Is the shockwave that is travelling

In and out of my mind, my grip on normality,

Like some untold tide

For twenty years, maybe twice a week

The door, often left slightly open, yielded

But not this early unassuming Friday morning

I push again, my brain and my sense disconnecting

Cleaving into non-identical twins: wisdom and will

The one locked into a fierce debate with the other

One, calm, the other incapable of reading the runes

As ever committed to hopeless causes trying the handle once more

It is then that I’m shaken awake

The lesson once again makes me laugh quietly

As I turn, no milk in hand

And kick the leaves into another random pattern

Knowing again there is no right place

For things to be held

Like time itself, caught unawares

In it own spider’s web

Awaiting an unknowable fate:

The order of things is to be shaken

Before the final things to come

Yes, it’s good to be reminded

And walk back to where the cup of black tea

Is calling forlornly for what is missing

Mid-Life Crisis?

If one of those warning lights starts blinking red on your car dashboard – what do you do? No, no, you misunderstand me, what DO you do?

Tiddly squat.

Your brain goes into impressive overdrive (note the continued metaphor) and creates several alternative explanations for the flashing light or strategies to deal with it. Number One is to lean slightly to the right to obscure the light – best not to be distracted whilst driving. Number Two is to congratulate the car in its old age, at least something is still working and drive on. Number three is an unconvincing risk assessment – ‘I’ll deal with it if it doesn’t sort itself out by next Thursday’.

Wisdom is silenced in favour of procrastination and procrastination is the infant born from a life organised around certain priorities that have erected a No Entry sign to any uninvited interruptions – including illness, burst water pipes, redundancy, marital problems, or…lack of oil and impending disaster: RAC tow to the nearest garage, overnight hotel, a big dent in bank balance, the wrath of boss, wife/husband, and child who needed a lift to the school concert, and the time-wasting frustration of appealing against the yellow parking ticket affixed to the windscreen.

Following in its wake is a diet of humble pie, three per day for at least a fortnight until some hidden timetable of shame and defeat has done its work and you are helpless with laughter at the ridiculousness of life…and you realise, again, that it’s back to the drawing board. A personal MOT is overdue.

Of course, there are deeper mid-life crises that pay a visit. Ones that threaten to crush its victim beyond repair and others that make long-Covid appear to be a walk in the park.

Back to the question – what DO you do?

Other reactions that do lean towards wisdom rather than outright foolishness include taking a surreptitious peak at self-help articles online or in ‘that section’ in Waterstones. Or, maybe, you will take up that offer from your boss for a well-being introductory day with work-based counselling as a further option.

Somewhere in the back of your brain is not even a memory, more an impression that, in the past, you might have talked things over with a Vicar or Priest. And what does that word ‘spiritual’ really mean anyway? All you know is that the panic attacks at 3am are highly unpleasant, recurring nightmares are increasing in frequency, you’re intimidated by even the thought of doing a presentation at work, and you can barely look at the ones you love in the eye because you fear choking on tears for no apparent reason. And you feel guilty about several recent decisions you’ve taken that fell below the moral standards that you hold others to. Nothing major, but you’ve taken your eye off the ball, ignored your conscience, and taken some shortcuts…your moral compass hasn’t pointed north for some time, so you’ve tidied it away. It’s the flashing warning light all over again. What do you do?

taking a surreptitious peak at self-help articles online or in ‘that section’ in Waterstones

You can fool most of the people most of the time but someone you’ve known, not one of your inner circle of friends, has come up to you recently and asked with a piercing but understanding look: ‘Are you OK, Geoff?’ or ‘Are you OK, Hannah?’ and your hesitation says more than whatever words tumble forth from your lips.

Why am I writing this?

You might surmise that this is autobiographical. Not quite, although I do have this t-shirt. Nor is this article one of those ‘anti-psychobabble’ critiques of counselling – I’m currently about 12 counselling sessions into meeting with a therapist. No. This line of thought was set off by reading about two kings in the bible – namely Hezekiah and Josiah.

Let’s get to it. And, maybe along the way, we might figure out what the word ‘spiritual’ means. Maybe.

King Hezekiah

b. 741BC – ascended to the throne aged 25 in 716BC and died aged 54 in 687BC having reigned in Jerusalem for 29 years.

The account of his political and military exploits is written in 2 Kings chapters 18-20 and 2 Chronicles 29-32. During his reign, Isaiah and Micah prophesied to the Kingdom of Judah.

For us, the important point in Hezekiah’s life came 14 years into his reign when he was 39, a good age for a mid-life crisis.

Despite his great success in pushing through fundamental spiritual reforms, removing idol worship, and returning Israel to the worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he has fallen gravely ill. So ill that Isaiah the prophet tells him to put his house in order and prepare to die.

Hezekiah’s response to this mid-life crisis was to pray. As a result of his pleading. God sends Isaiah back to announce that his life would be extended by 15 years. He had reigned for fourteen years, and now his life would be extended by fifteen…you can’t get much more ‘mid’ than that.

Not all mid-life crises have a happy ending; this one included. Initially, you might imagine that Hezekiah, brought so low by his illness, was taken spiritually to ground zero. His own powerlessness was evident to him, and the source of all his help, past, present, and future, lay beyond his human abilities, wealth, or political clout, it lay in God. There was nowhere else to turn. The doctors had failed, his counsellors’ advice could not touch his personal crisis, and even the prophet Isaiah had said ‘time’s up’.

Hezekiah, however, humbled himself, and called out to God. It saved his life and proved to be such a turning point. The biblical account sheds light on Hezekiah’s state of mind:

‘..his heart was lifted up…made for himself treasuries of gold…’ 2 Chron 32 v 25, 27

‘Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart…’ 2 Chron 32v26

Despite this experience of humility, being blessed, and having his life extended by God, in his heart he turned it around so that it became a boast. He made the fatal mistake of showing ‘his’ riches to the Babylonian envoys and failed to acknowledge the Lord as the source of his blessing and riches.

During the latter half of Hezekiah’s reign, his son Manasseh was born who witnessed his father’s spiritual decline and how his pride and love of riches had consumed him. Perhaps it was the effect of the spiritual tide retreating in his father that bred in him a desire to lead Israel differently, away from the Lord, and to commit idolatry? Hezekiah started well but finished poorly, Manasseh started badly but repented and finished well (2 Chron 33 v 1-20)

King Josiah

‘b. 648BC – ascended the throne aged 8 in 640BC and died aged 39 in 609BC having reigned in Jerusalem for 31 years.

The account of his political and military exploits is written in 2 Kings chapters 22-23 and in 2 Chronicles 34-35. During his reign, Zephaniah and Jeremiah prophesied to the Kingdom of Judah.

For us, the mid-reign crisis in Hezekiah’s life came after 18 years into his reign when he was 26 after which he would reign for a further 13 years.

Josiah’s personal history and his spirituality are very different from his great-grandfather, Hezekiah’s, whom he had never met having been born nearly 40 years after Hezekiah died. From the outset, aged 8, his reign was saturated in doing right and reintroducing the worship of the Lord to Israel:

‘In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David…’ 2 Chron 34 v 3.

He was sixteen years old.

‘In the eighteenth year of his reign…he sent Shaphan to repair the house of the Lord…’ 2Chron 34 v 8

He is now 26. The crisis comes when Hilkiah finds the Book of the Law in the temple and hands it to Shaphan who takes it to the King:

‘And Shaphan read it before the king. When the king heard the words of the Law he tore his clothes’ v19

He is crushed by a sense of fear and grief. He realises, not only that Israel has often disobeyed the Lord who brought them out of Egypt, gave them the Law, and promised to be their God, but that the penalty for disobedience would be the destruction of Jerusalem, the temple, and exile…the wrath of the Lord.

What does he do?

‘Then the king commanded Hilkiah…(and)…Shaphan’ v 21 to enquire of the Lord. They find a prophetess, Huldah who reveals the will of the Lord:

‘Because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself…your eyes will not see the calamity I will bring on this place’ v 27,28

In the space of one year following this crisis and the word of the Lord, Josiah instituted a complete overhaul of Israel’s worship and reintroduced Passover v19.

So much good came out of this period and yet, like Hezekiah, it can be argued that the final 13 years of his reign were spent in spiritual decline culminating in disobeying the word of the Lord through Necho the commander of the Egyptian army, entering the battle, and suffering fatal injuries.

His son, Jehoahaz, was 23 when his father died. He was born when Josiah had begun to seek the Lord aged 16 and grew up witnessing his father’s reforming zeal. But his reign was short-lived, lasting all but three months before Necho replaced him with Jehoiakim, his brother.

What can we learn from these two mid-life crisis experiences?

1. Seemingly, crises arise out of the blue and impending disaster looms large

2. We are forced to realise that many things are beyond our strength to put right

3. In our humiliation we may have to face the truth of our complicity in their arrival

4. Hezekiah and Josiah did what a lot of people do…they cried out to God, they prayed

5. In both cases, God responded to their prayers, their prayers and petitions were heard

6. Spiritual turnarounds, however, can be repackaged. True statements such as ‘this happened when I prayed’ shifts the emphasis towards the pray-er rather than the Lord who answered the prayer. That is spiritual pride.

I may be wrong about Josiah’s final 13 years, the second half of his reign. I hope so. As noted previously, the biblical account records the Lord saying:

‘Because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself…’

During a crisis, once we’ve poured out our turmoil, complaints, grief, anger, and our pleading to God we must arrive at a place of peace, and exhaustion, and make sure our heart is ‘tender’.

This is exactly what happened to the Prodigal son (Luke 15)

In a foreign land far away from home his moment of crisis arrives. In the mind of the prodigal, it’s financial; he’s run out of money and cannot support his lavish lifestyle. In addition, his fiscal downturn coincides with a country-wide famine. His only option is to become a slave to a pig farmer whose priority, under pressure himself due to the famine, is to feed the pigs, not his slaves.

So, like Hezekiah and Josiah, he cries out. It is a parable, by the way, not history. It’s easy to forget. In the parable he ‘comes to his senses’. Somehow, in the middle of this disorientating period of his life, he manages to clear his head. Without that, we are lost, doomed to become victims, powerless in the face of events that threaten to overwhelm us.

From this point on the road to recovery is sweet.

But, like all good storytellers, Jesus leaves the story unfinished…on a cliff edge. The party’s over, the initial rush of emotion, of lavish forgiveness, has subsided. The servants have gone to bed nursing hangovers and the father who has overeaten for joy, falls asleep. At 3am, we can only imagine where the older son has taken himself, to some sleazy bar downtown, rehearsing his bitterness and wondering where it all went wrong.

The point of the mid-life crisis story is the necessity to cultivate a tender heart, not harbour resentment, selfishness, or pride.

How does the parable continue? The father: did he keep his heart tender? Or did the bitterness of his eldest son infect him and pollute his joy over the one who was lost and is found, was dead and is alive? Did the prodigal maintain his tender heart towards his father – and his brother? And what of the older brother? Now in a mid-life crisis of his own making. Will he in his rage come to his senses and find a way to revisit all the wrong-thinking that had spoiled his relationship with his father over many years?

As a Christian, at this point, it is tempting to say what we should do in a mid-life crisis is turn to God. I do believe this is ultimately what we have to do, face to face with no other alternative than relying solely upon ourselves, but that’s not quite the message of this discussion.

I may be wrong about Josiah’s final 13 years, the second half of his reign. I hope so.

The main message is that maintaining a tender heart is the key to recovery. To forgive others, and to forgive yourself. To thaw whatever is frozen. To melt, to soften anything that has become hard and inflexible. To rediscover what it is to be a child with no power to provide for him or herself and yet trust that love cannot be destroyed. If we can do these things, no one needs to preach the gospel, or advertise God, He has already made Himself known to you.

You now understand how Jesus on the cross was able to say: ‘Father, forgive them, they know not what they do’.

If it is true what Jesus said about himself, ‘I have the power to lay down my life and to take it up again’, all the more remarkable it is that he did not exercise that power but made himself powerless, submitting himself to the ignominy of a false trial, a near-fatal flogging, the king of kings made to wear of crown of thorns, and then to be crucified outside the city he had wept over.

Suffering injustice and rejection, somehow, he maintained a tender heart: ‘Father forgive them, they know not what they do’. Arriving at this point we understand that God hears the cries of our hearts and that our cries are mingled in with Jesus’ final prayer. We have found that the source of our forgiveness is not out of reach.

And, if so, you know the true meaning of the word spiritual.

And you found out because you didn’t or couldn’t ignore the red flashing warning lights any longer.

The Role of Eye-Witnesses in Historical Fiction

Click the link: Writing historical fiction – the role of eyewitnesses.

ACW Blog: October 7th 2024

Realising that my next 7th of the month MTW post would coincide with the horrifying events of October 7th 2023, I have felt compelled to pay my respects, and to examine the role of eyewitnesses in writing historical fiction.

On October 7th, 2023, the world awoke to the news that Hamas had launched a pre-planned and coordinated attack on several Israeli kibbutzim and the Supernova music festival, murdering over a thousand Israelis and foreign nationals, mostly unarmed citizens, including children, and taking hostage 250 individuals of whom 40 have died while held in captivity and 100 are yet to be returned.

The gruesome eye-witness accounts all report the indiscriminate nature of the attack even if some of the minor details and interpretations seem to be at odds with each other.

Since then the violence has increased multiplying the suffering of Jews and Arabs and all those caught up in the Israel-Gaza war. Our prayers continue.

Those of us attempting to write historical fiction occupy what might be called an interstitial space between accurately documented events or biographies and our creative imagination. Fact and fiction are woven together, and it’s left to the reader to pick at the strands, if they wish to, to differentiate between the two. It’s more immediate with films that take maybe 2-3 hours to enjoy, whereas a typical Hilary Mantel will occupy the reader for days, weeks, or, in my case, months! 

A plug whilst I'm here: the recently published The West in Her Eyes, Janet Hancock (Resolute Books), is an excellent read and a great example of how to put fiction into history - and vice versa.

The distinction between The Crown, Ghandi, Cry Freedom, Apollo 13, and Braveheart or Ben Hur, is that the first four in the list were made when eye-witnesses were still alive. In contrast, Braveheart and Ben Hur were based (however loosely) on historical accounts long after the eyewitnesses had died. 

Where does our moral compass point when it comes to preserving historical accuracy within historical fiction? 

After all, we are storytellers, not journalists, or historians

After all, we are storytellers, not journalists, or historians. Is there a tacit and playful agreement between the reader and the writer that permits, even expects, the writer to go off-piste? (I hope so!) But how far off-piste? Or maybe that is sailing very close to Mark Twain’s maxim of ‘never letting the truth get in the way of a good story’? 

Palestinian writer, Susan Abulhawa, in her beautifully written Mornings in Jenin, and Jewish writer, Assaf Gavron’s wonderful The Hilltop, illustrate the tension between using historical fiction as a tool for propaganda and a genuine, if biased, outpouring of hopes and dreams for a better world.

Libraries, libraries everywhere…and not a book to read

Click the link: Libraries, libraries everywhere, and not a book to read?

ACW blog - September 7th 2024

Library: from Latin librarium – a bookcase, chest for books

Local libraries were places where even the squeak of a shoe on the shiny floor was frowned upon and silence was fiercely enforced by stern ladies with oversized glasses and penetrating stares.

Nevertheless, I spent a fair bit of time in my local library (Whitstable, Kent) during school years rooting around various sections: science, maths, the paranormal, science fiction, and history all come to mind.

It was at University, though, that I successfully distracted myself from my Chemistry degree with fiction - others might have done so with copious amounts of alcohol and other synthetic means – but my forays into Mordor, East of Eden, the Russian Gulag, or Corfu with the Durrels, seemed to be just as intoxicating.

Michael Rosen, former Children’s Laureate, has been voicing his ‘horror’ at the latest round of library closures: ‘

Every time I hear of a library being closed I find it…horrifying… a decimation of our cultural entitlement…many children come from families where they either don’t think to buy books or can’t afford to buy books… we’re taking away free books. At the very moment we’re saying we want everybody to read – so it seems both absurd and horrifying.’

Two stats have made me think:

• 7% children aged 8-18 do not have a book at home. Of those receiving Free School Meals this

increases to 12% and 19% of children aged 5-8 have no book at home

• 97% of children in England have Internet access at home

Is there a case, therefore, for reducing the number of computers in public libraries and returning them to the book and reading sanctuaries of yesteryear?

Libraries have become internet portals and welcoming warm places; more community hubs than reading centres.

But I wonder if there might be a causal link between the declining numbers of library users and this dilution of their primary focus, rather than reduced funding? And as writers shouldn't we be at the sharp end of championing a library-revival?

You may be right in thinking I’ve been captured by some dinosaurian tractor-beam…but I’m searching for solid ground and asking for your thoughts!

In writing this short post, I have hit Google several times. We all use word processors and carry out vast amounts of research online, so I’m not knocking the rise of the Internet, but surely, as writers, we know in our bones, that we have a vital role to play with all present and future readers, stimulating their thirst for imaginative story-telling, and firing their love of literature

Libraries as repositories of cultural treasure?

Michael Rosen has a point.

Book Review: Phoebe – A Story, Paula Gooder, Hodder & Stoughton

‘One day, Quintus, a cousin of Titus arrived at the house…Titus was attractive in a kind, homely way…Quintus was devastatingly handsome…’

In Paula’s fictional account of life in the church in Rome during the New Testament era, we are introduced to well-known characters from the pages of Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s letters such as Priscilla (shortened to Prisca) and Aquila, Junia and Andronicus, Titus, Phobe herself, and Peter. And others.

Phoebe – A Story is based on three speculative interpretations from Paul’s letter to Romans:

• Paul had commissioned Phoebe (Rom 16v1) to carry his letter to Rome, explain its meaning to the believers there, and prepare for Paul’s hoped-for mission to Spain.

• Junia (female) and Andronicus (male) were apostles

• The evident tension between Jewish believers and their Gentile brothers and sisters in Rome had more to do with Jewish covenantal status than the Law – a nod to New Perspective theology

Whilst the heart of Phoebe is, as its sub-title, A Story, suggests, a story and reads as an engaging imaginative description of life in Rome and is very ably enhanced by the historical research of first-century Roman society, the above three assumptions form the guiding principles that govern the arc of the story.

It is, therefore, a feminist historical fiction, not only weaving a story around hermeneutical interpretations of New Testament literature but also promoting well-argued feminist contentions that all offices and ministries in the church should be occupied equally by men and women.

Phoebe herself turns out to be a far more complex character – with slavery, a dangerous romance, and tragedy all thrown in

Leaving issues of biblical interpretation on one side, the personalities of the principal characters are well-described and engaging. Phoebe herself turns out to be a far more complex character – with slavery, a dangerous romance, and tragedy all thrown in - than the one verse in Paul’s letter has the scope to describe. Paula does this very well and the various tensions that ensue give the book its very readable momentum.

So…if you want to let yourself be absorbed in the simplicity of life in first-century Rome just before Nero’s reign, this is an excellent starting point.

And, if you’re after a book to fire your imagination, dulled after years of over-familiarity with the New Testament, Paula Gooder’s Phoebe will do just that.

Did Paul arrive in Rome? What happened to the trip to Spain? You may find the answers lying within Phoebe – A Story.

PS

Part 2 of the book contains 80 pages of helpful notes on each chapter giving more historical and biblical background

A Tale of Two Pubs

These two pubs, unpaired
Not by compass and meridians
But by a subterranean,
Inexpressible knowing,
Where words are crude
Instruments failing to
Distinguish differing
Smiles of satisfaction

On a Saturday, for lunch,
Lynch and I and others
Traipse through slate-grey
Winter wind and drizzle
Like intent pilgrims
Discomforts disdained
To the Ruby Lounge
A meeting place for toothless old men

The real Ruby Lounge was far rougher and more dilapidated

And us, barely shaving
But young and old shuffle their way
Across the sawdust-strewn floor
To an altar rail, for communion
The priest, taking our offerings
Clasped with tattooed hands the tap
And poured forth the weekly libation
A pint of Youngs

Eyes meet, publican priest
With his latest converts,
Silenced initiates,
Their inexperienced hands
Still tracing the bevels
Of their fathers’ jugs
Embarrassed to show
Too much satisfaction

Smiles concealed,
We return,
Across the sawdust
To the wobbly table
Sticky with yesterday’s beer
And spoil the moment with
Mundane talk of Monty Python
And Parmesan cheese on toast

Maybe a bath and some spray later
And a trench coat if cold and dark
A collection of poorly paid pilgrims
Stomping their feet against the cold
Nudge away from minor village roads
To find the path across fields
Illuminated by a watching moon
Towards the waiting lights

Sadly, the Share & Coulter in no more…this pub has a similar feel if a bit busier

The Share and Coulter
There, eight animated souls,
Bums on wooden seats
With tied-on cushions,
A polished table and dry beer mats,
And a roaring fire just beyond…
Clueless to how daringly close
To heaven they’ve come, huddle

Pictures of long-dead Shires
And their barrelled drays
Looking on from the walls
Witness my blaspheming
And Christ’s secret agent asking
‘Why did you say that?’
Unseen angels lean in
Licking their lips

The Moon is Watching

This last week
The Moon has perched herself
Above the fir tree opposite
Tapping me on the shoulder
Each morning
So I don’t forget
To say Good Morning

The moon perched above the fir tree opposite

Normally the Moon stays hidden
And like some nocturnal beast
Shyly puts on her cloak
Of misty white light
Before perching -
Up there

But this Moon
Maybe a different one
Is a breakfast feast
A pre-running sight
Been waiting
With some impatience
For someone to see her
Importance, significance

Like the Christmas story
But unlike the Magi
With their Eastern wisdom
My mind is blank…
If there is a baby in the fir tree
It would seem untimely
Unlikely…

As if she hears my absence
She turns, flees, and fades
But has one last trick
As she sinks and sinks
What was a bright sixpence in the sky
Is now a translucent sovereign
Her reign extending ever larger
Just beyond the horizon

Objection 3: Hypocrisy, irrelevance, immorality within the church Objection 4: Impossible to be good enough

Objection 3: Hypocrisy

When I began to read the bible, I was astonished to find that virtually all its heroes were visibly flawed.

The willingness of the authors of holy writ to report the truth, warts and all, gave me, as an agnostic, greater confidence and a new respect for the bible: Abraham pretended his wife was his sister, Moses committed murder, David – adultery and murder, Peter denied Christ, and Judas betrayed him.

And in the church era, following the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, the letters of Paul, Peter, and John all tackle issues of ‘sin’ within the church, for example, sexual immorality in the church at Corinth, antisemitism in Rome, or pride, as John confronts Diotrephes: ‘Diotrephes who loves the pre-eminence’. Peter wrote

‘Laying aside all malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and evil speaking…’

For Peter to need to write this, these faults must have been evident in the church. It was real life. Peter was far from immune from the charge of hypocrisy; it needed Paul to call him back from differentiating too strongly between Jewish and gentile believers that he only ate with his fellow Jewish brethren.

In the past few years, news of sexual immorality amongst Christian leaders entrusted with the welfare of their congregations and followers, has surfaced once again causing hurt and sadness amongst the faithful – and further evidence for objecting to Christianity for those looking for reasons to dismiss the claims of Jesus.

But the more I investigated Christianity, the more I saw that, while coming to Christ does not make anyone instantly perfect, the overwhelming evidence from the vast majority of Christians is that conversion to Christ had been the start of a process, or discipleship, in which - despite serious setbacks at times – keeps changing the person, for the better.

The leader of the Mau Mau gang in New York, Israel Narvaez, was converted to Christ along with Nicky Cruz. Sadly, through a broken promise, Israel became disillusioned, returned to lead the Mau Mau’s, and was found guilty of committing murder. Several years later, however, he returned to follow Christ and wrote his account in Second Chance, finally leaving behind his violent lifestyle.

Jesus led a faultless life…that is why we are drawn to Him

The extraordinary eyewitness claim of the New Testament is that Jesus led a faultless life. In part, that is why we are drawn to Him. He is the light in a dark place and embodies the ideal – he really did practice what he preached. Whenever someone comes to Christ, they are very aware of their imperfections: fears, jealousies, dishonesty, misplaced anger, pride, and their need for forgiveness so that any barrier between them and Christ is dealt with.

Christ’s death on the cross was substitutionary, He died for us, in our place, taking the punishment we deserved in Himself to bring about our forgiveness so that we could be brought back into relationship with God. His final prayer on the cross was ‘Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing’.

That’s the start. Paul wrote:

‘He who began a good work in you will bring it to maturity’

At times God will reveal to us if we have strayed onto the wrong path and we need to take Peter’s instruction to ‘lay aside’ whatever it is that is wrong, however trivial or serious.

The way in which Jesus dealt with Peter’s denial of him is a masterpiece of grace, mercy, forgiveness, and kindness. Mark’s gospel records Peter’s denial:

‘…he began to curse and swear “I don’t know this man!”’

The rough fisherman, not the disciple of Christ was there for everyone to see, including Christ.

‘And the Lord turned and looked at Peter…Peter went out and wept bitterly’.

Jesus did not even mention this just after the resurrection, nor for many days after that, until, back in Galilee, Jesus appeared on the beach. Peter and some of the disciples were returning after another night’s fruitless fishing. As before there was a miraculous catch of fish. After breakfast on the beach, Jesus takes Peter to one side:

‘Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these?’

Peter replies ‘Yes, you know I do’. But Jesus repeats this question three times, the same number of times that Peter denied Christ just weeks before. Peter replies ‘Lord, you know all things…’ and Jesus responds: ‘Feed my sheep’.

It is always like this. Jesus picks his moment. He confronts us, our conscience is troubled, we are convicted of what is wrong, and we experience Christ’s forgiveness and mercy. We find ourselves restored first to Christ and then to our calling, released once again to do whatever we are here to do.

My conclusion: I did not become a Christian by looking at the faults of believers or the church, but because I dared to look at Christ. In the end, everything is focussed on Christ and you. What will you do? Follow or turn away?

The final Objection to Christianity is linked to the issue of hypocrisy. It’s the fear ‘I won’t be able to live like Jesus, I will try but, I’m sure, won’t be able to keep it up. There’s no point. I’m sure Jesus was a great man, but it’s too much. It’s impossible to live the Christian life!’

Objection 4: Impossible to be good enough

I found out some bad news, which, paradoxically, turns out to be the best news we can ever hear.

It is true. It is impossible to be good enough or to live a Christian life, the paradox being that this is a vital clue.

Non-swimmers make a great deal of effort, arms and legs thrashing, to try and stay above the water. Those who can swim, however, seem to float effortlessly and move around at will. The truth is that the non-swimmer can swim but hasn’t learnt to trust that it is the water, not their efforts, that holds them up and gives them the buoyancy they need.

It is the same with the Christian life. If we’ve become a Christian we have to learn that it is Christ, not our efforts, who who enables his life to be reproduced in us and through us.

The great surprise to me as an enquiring agnostic was to find that Christianity does not require us to try and be like Christ but that Christ comes to live in us. God is not far away in heaven but comes to live in us.

Just prior to his arrest and crucifixion, Jesus taught his disciples: ‘…the Spirit who dwells with you will be in you…then you will know me and the Father…and we will come and make our home with you’.

After Paul’s dramatic road to Damascus conversion he wrote: ‘When it pleased God…he revealed His Son in me…’ after which he often referred to believers as being ‘in Christ’ or of ‘Christ in you’.

God is not far away in heaven but comes to live in us

We learn to trust in Him rather than relying on own abilities of rational thinking, emotional intuition, or desires, or our determination to complete whatever we are doing, our will. The Bible calls this type of living, ‘living in the flesh’ rather than being ‘led by the Spirit’. The power to live a transformed life comes from Christ Himself, not our grit and determination to put His teaching e.g. the Sermon on the Mount, into practice.

Our relationship with God is not a meritocracy where we receive blessings from God because we deserve it having worked hard, Jesus said: ‘Freely you have received, freely give’

My conclusion: learning to float and swim with less effort is a good analogy for how to live the Christian life, in fact, life itself! Paul, who previously was a law-abiding Pharisee, wrote:

‘We rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh – though I might have had. No, whatever were my advantages, I counted them as rubbish so that I might gain Christ and be found in him…’

To close, the following video covers some of the points raised in these Objections to Christianity articles

Who would base their lives on a brutal, contradictory book of fairy stories? - YouTube

Objection 2: No miracles: Science has disproved the supernatural

If this was a rally or a protest march against the claims of Christianity, each of these four Objections would be carried by vociferous protestors as banners or placards

For some, the most important doubt over Christianity might be the reliability of the source material, the New Testament. For others it might be miracles, and for others the hypocrisy of ‘the church’, or a sense of their own inability to live ‘the Christian life’.

 As an agnostic, all four played a part in constructing my objections to Christianity, however, once I had accepted the New Testament’s historicity and the New Testament writings as a genuine attempt to record what was seen and heard by eye-witnesses, I was confronted with the problem of miracles. I hadn’t witnessed a miraculous healing, nor had I heard of anyone who had. England seemed to be bereft of miracles. I had attended church through childhood and prayers were politely made for the sick of the parish but there was no expectation of miraculous intervention.

England seemed to be bereft of miracles

 The New Testament gospels, Acts, and letters to churches present a very different sense of what is ‘normal’. Angels announce Jesus’ birth and appear in a jailbreak, and at the resurrection. Miraculous healings and deliverance of evil spirits are part and parcel of Jesus’ ministry, and this power is passed on to his disciples. Normality, as far as the New Testament is concerned matches the Lord’s Prayer: ‘May Your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven’. By heaven we might think more in terms of a ‘spiritual realm’. Heaven and Earth, as far as Jesus was concerned were not as disconnected as we, especially in the West since the Enlightenment, have come to believe.

 My quest to get to the truth of the matter started in an unusual setting – I was 16 and had just bought a pint in a local pub and as I walked back to where my friends were sitting (yes, we were underage), I bumped into a chair leg and spilt my dink and swore, ‘Christ!’  Once I sat down with what was left of my beer, the friend next to me said ‘Why did you say that?’

 I had run into the first of many true Christian believers that I would meet. This small incident kick-started my search for the truth, and led on to a series of further conversations, reading various books, listening to sermons at the church she attended and so on.

 I had two fundamental questions. Can we trust the New Testament as a genuine record of events? And what about miracles?

 One of the first books I read was called Run Baby Run written by Nicky Cruz. Nicky Cruz had been a gang leader in 1950s New York who, after meeting David Wilkerson, a Pentecostal preacher, eventually walked away from the gang and placed his faith in Christ. David Wilkerson recorded his version of events in The Cross and the Switchblade. In both accounts there were examples of the miraculous, drug habits broken, healing miracles, and so on – it was as if the pages of the New Testament had come alive in New York.

everything can be explained ‘naturally’ through the random movements of atoms and molecules and the unpredictable distribution of energy i.e. no need, for the supernatural or the miraculous.

 At 16 I was fascinated by Chemistry and Science in general. I was to go on to study Chemistry at University and have a career as a Chemistry teacher. I knew my way around Scientific theories and how the rise of Science from the 17th Century had convinced many that everything can be explained ‘naturally’ through the random movements of atoms and molecules and the unpredictable distribution of energy i.e. there was no room, no need, for the supernatural or the miraculous. Atheistic chemical determinism was twinned with philosophical movements such as the Marxism and existentialism championed by Jean-Paul Satre. The gulf between Satre and biblical prophets and teachers, and Jesus himself, is evident from a quote of Satre: ‘Life has no meaning, the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal’.

 But the Scientific method is predicated upon accurate observations and measurement – verified eye-witness material.

 It was the miraculous healing of David Wilkerson’s father that challenged me to reconsider.

 ‘During all my childhood my father had been a very sick man…one day I heard an ambulance tear past…I could hear my father’s screams (from the house)…’The doctor says he will live two more hours’…I ran down to the basement…and there I prayed…my voice carried up the heating pipes…my father heard me…’Strength is flowing into me’. I had witnessed a miracle.’

 The miracles that David Wilkerson witnessed throughout his ministry all stemmed from this experience.

 Since abandoning my agnosticism I have witnessed several healing miracles.

 Whilst working at Pfizers Ltd. as a lab technician, my colleague, Alan’s (not his real name) fiancée became dangerously ill with anorexia nervosa. The doctors could find no solution and the lab leader permitted Alan to use as much time as he wanted to skip his work and spend time in Pfizer’s extensive pharmaceutical library to find any alternative source of healing. During one of our regular Friday lunches as a lab group, I felt an urge to offer to pray for my Alan’s fiancée, but I was too nervous to mention it in front of the others, so I prayed and asked for a sign. Firstly, from that point on during lunch, that no one would speak to me, and, secondly, when we got returned to the lab, my colleague and I would be alone in the lab. Both of these were extremely unlikely but they happened. Nervously, heart pounding, I said to Alan ‘I believe God loves your fiancée and wants to heal her. Would you give me your permission to pray for her?’ He said yes and we got on with our work, eventually leaving for the weekend. On the Saturday morning, I was with a group of Christians, and we prayed for Alan’s fiancée. At work on Monday, Alan arrived full of the news that his fiancée had got out of bed and had started eating. I asked him what time this had occurred. It was the same time that we had prayed on the Saturday morning.

Nervously, heart pounding, I said to Alan ‘I believe God loves your fiancée and wants to heal her. Would you give me your permission to pray for her?’

 Coincidence?

 If I was to apply my scientific analysis to similar occurrences I would be forced to say that these coincidences seem to match the times when prayer was offered.

 This leaves us with two, at least two, questions:

1.        Is a philosophical reorientation required to incorporate ‘miracles’ into what we call ‘knowledge’

2.        Miracles may happen but why doesn’t a loving God always miraculously heal the sick?

To answer question 1. requires minds like mine, so focussed on the material world of atoms and energy, to be prised open, open at leat tooth possible existence of a spiritual, or supernatural, realm. As an interim step, we can recognise that ‘knowledge’ is greater in its scope than the scientific method, which regularly establishes truth through observation and repeated measurements. For example – the statement ‘I love you’ or ‘I love a beautiful sunset’ is as factual as e=mc2 , it is simply another form of knowledge no less valid than the results of a scientific experiment, yet invisible and impossible to verify through experiment. Our ability to reason is not our sole attribute, nor is it our highest faculty. The contention of Scripture is that believers in Christ are ‘led by the Spirit’ and that our spirit ‘witnesses’ with the Holy Spirit. This is another way of saying that through faith in Christ, we are brought into a real relationship with God, not ‘religion’ in its usually perceived form of moral codes, rules, and commandments. The urgent prayers of the young David Wilkerson did not find their origin in his rational mind but in faith in God.

 The questions about suffering are complex. If miracles demonstrate the love and power of almighty God, why are some prayers unanswered? Even if I had more pages, I know I would not be able to offer a neat and tidy answer. I do feel I can make an observation from experience. There have been times, like my Pfizers experience, when I have felt the presence of God before attempting to pray for someone who is sick or for some other form of divine intervention, as if the faith that is required is given first like a precious gift.

 I have included here an article about miraculous healings that were verified by a PhD student in Wales https://www.premierchristianity.com/opinion/god-is-working-miracles-and-healing-people-in-wales-and-ive-got-the-phd-research-to-prove-it/5591.article

 The New Testament refers to miracles as signs and wonders. A sign advertises something else, or points the way to it and a wonder is something that make us stop in our tracks however distracted we are by life. Miracles are said to be a sign that ‘the kingdom of God’ is nearer than we might think, and wonders force us to consider the possibility of a spiritual realm or heaven. It is as if God is saying ‘I am here’.

 The miracles that Jesus performed did not guarantee that those who were present became radical disciples, in fact, they stirred up as much opposition as devotion. For example, when Jesus raised Lazarus, opinion was split:

 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.  But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.

My conclusion

 As an agnostic, I had to concede that miracles do occur today – and to my surprise - in England. Two of my principle objections to Christianity – the historical reliability of the New Testament and that science had disproved miracles – had been dealt with severe blows.

 The healing incident at Pfizers occurred in the first year after I had become a raw recruit of Christ just prior to/my eighteenth birthday. I think this is important to mention, miracles are not reserved for super-saints or seasoned church ministers of Christianity. They do not occur through faith in oneself but faith in God and at His command.

 Ten years after my conversion to Christ, I injured my left knee severely whilst training for the Mountain Leaders Certificate in Snowdonia, Wales. That put paid to/my dream of leading groups in the hills. I could only run for about 200m before pulling up in pain. The condition lasted for ten years. I had asked for prayer a few times but there was no miracle. I had various physiotherapy exercises and straps but nothing worked. One morning, during my normal breakfast routine of juggling tea and toast with reading a passage from the bible and praying, my prayers were interrupted. All I can say is that I heard a voice say ‘Run!’ It was like a command; it had authority, but wasn’t aggressive. It wasn’t unpleasant but neither was it rhetorical. It wasn’t an audible voice, but the ‘still small voice’ that scripture mentions. Jesus also taught that ‘My sheep know my voice’. It felt like that. I had to go to work but at the next available opportunity, I attempted to run for about half a mile. To my astonishment, there was no pain. Within a year I trained for a half-marathon and ran ten consecutive Bristol Half-Marathons from 1999 to 2009 and have continued to run since. That was a miraculous healing at God’s command, it reminded me of the incident when Jesus told the paralytic to pick up his mat and walk.

I heard a voice say ‘Run!’ It was like a command

 As Head of Science at a local comprehensive school, I was often invited to talk to RE classes as an ‘exhibit’ - a scientist who believed in God. Inevitably I had to field questions about evolution, the Crusades, contradictions in the Bible and so on – all very valid intellectual questions – but it was stories of miracles that often changed the atmosphere in the room from one of dismissive scepticism to curiosity.  

 Next?

 But what about hypocrisy within the church? Walking the walk not talking the talk? What about the reprehensible involvement of the church in the slave trade, or racism such as Apartheid? And the moral failure of Christian leaders, priests, and ministers?

Objection 1: Unreliable source material, the New Testament

One of my chief objections to Christianity was that its claims stem from the pages of the New Testament, and I had reached the conclusion that if the source material was unreliable then believing in Christ was no more than wishful thinking, on a par with believing that the Moon is made of cheese.

Reliability of Source Material – the New Testament

• Written a long time after the events, not by eye-witnesses, therefore unreliable

• Written by Jesus’s followers therefore biased and exaggerated

• Deliberate fiction – the authors invented the imaginary perfect figure of Jesus

When challenged to investigate the evidence for Christianity, however, I was surprised to find significant evidence for the historicity and reliability of the New Testament.

Evidence for the resurrection?

Charge 1: Written a long time after the events, not eye-witness accounts, unreliable

4th Century AD

Earliest complete copy of all the books of the New Testament (Codex Sinaiticus) AD 325 or shortly afterwards

2nd/3rd Centuries - summary

Papyrus P32 Titus Greek 2nd-3rd Century

Papyrus P46 Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, Hebrews Greek 2nd-early 3rd Century

Papyrus P66 Gospel of John Greek 2nd-3rd Century

Papyrus P77 Gospel of Matthew Greek 2nd-3rd Century

Papyrus P103 Gospel of Matthew Greek 2nd-3rd Century

Majuscule GA0189 Acts of the Apostles Greek 2nd-3rd Century

Earliest Fragments – 2nd Century

Matthew’s gospel (P90) and John’s gospel (P104)

Revelation (P98)

John’s gospel (P52) probably ~ AD 135

Conclusion from the New Testament copies

The above fragments or complete books have, of course, been copied from earlier versions. The level of accuracy and agreement between manuscript copies in the Koine Greek commonly used at the time is remarkable and the discrepancies when they occur are minor copying or dictation errors.

I came to the conclusion that the gospels were reliable eyewitness accounts

My conclusion as an agnostic was to acknowledge the historicity and reliability of the documents. That did not mean that I agreed with what was written, but that the various gospels and letters were not only authored by eye-witnesses or those who knew the eye-witnesses, they were alarmingly consistent with each other.

Warner Wallace, a former atheist and cold-case homicide detective, wrote: ‘In the end, I came to the conclusion that the gospels were reliable eyewitness accounts that delivered accurate information about Jesus, including His crucifixion and Resurrection’ Jesus Is Evidence That God Exists | Cold Case Christianity

Charge 2: The New Testament is written by Jesus’s followers therefore biased and exaggerated

Essentially this charge is one of dishonesty and outright hypocrisy as its authors – and Jesus himself – consistently argue that truth is to believed and spoken. If hypocrisy and dishonesty seem to be unnecessarily strong charges, then ‘hyped’ or ‘sexed up’ may be less strident? In other words, deliberately exaggerated maybe, still conveying the ‘truth’, but with some poetic license: Jesus didn’t walk on the water, he knew where a sandbar was and walked on that. It only appeared that he walked on water.

Aware of this easy criticism, the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth anchoring all his claims in unavoidable history. The New Testament is not an attempt to invent a spiritual belief detached from real events. Faith is based on history not myth.

‘Christ died…and…was buried and rose again the third day…and was seen by Peter…then by the twelve. After that he was seen by over 500 at once of whom the majority are still alive…and after that, by me’ 1 Cor 15v3-8

On the third day, according to the scriptures...

Serious historians are not as prone to dismissing the New Testament’s historicity as we might think judging from how Christianity is portrayed in many tv documentaries or in popular literature. Comparison of the literary record with other well-known figures from ancient history, is – was to me – very surprising.

Homer – The Iliad – written 900BC – earliest copy 400BC - time delay 500years

Julius Caesar - 100-44 BC – earliest copy 900 - time delay 1000 years

New Testament – AD50 - AD100 – earliest copy AD 135 - time delay less than 100 years

The number of ancient copies of the New Testament still in existence is 5800 Greek, 10,000 Latin, and 9,300 in other languages. This is considerably more than for any other ancient document:

Homer Iliad – 643

Julius Caesar - 10 copies

My conclusion: having read the New Testament I was not only surprised by the level of internal agreement between its various authors concerning historical events and doctrinal beliefs, I was genuinely surprised to find that all of is heroes (except Jesus) were deeply flawed and permitted the authors to expose their imperfections, fears, lack of faith, unloving attitudes, and cowardice to public view in the writings in the gospels and elsewhere.

I could still maintain my agnosticism. I could accept that the contents of the New Testament were genuine and accurately copied from the originals and that they represented the point of view of the various authors whether eye-witnesses or based on eye-witness reports. Accepting that the New Testament is genuine does not mean that, had you been a eye-witness to the events and teaching of Jesus that you would have been convinced by His claims.

Agnostic, I remained, if somewhat surprised by the strength of evidence for the historicity of the New Testament.

Charge 3: Deliberate fake?

J.B. Philips, a bible translator, and author of The Ring of Truth, began translating the New Testament with a fairly jaundiced point of view:

‘I confess…I had viewed the Greek of the New Testament with a rather snobbish disdain’

As he read and translated the Koine Greek – everyday rather than classical ‘posh’ Greek with which he was more accustomed, he reported:

‘As I pressed on with the task of translation I became convinced of the truth of the resurrection…I was reading the actual words of people who had seen Christ after his resurrection an had seen men an women changed by his living power’

‘There is no hysteria, no careful working for effect and no attempt at collusion. These are not embroidered tales: the material is cut to the bone…no man could have invented a character as Jesus’

The greatest problem with the suspicion and assertion that Jesus did not exist and that the New Testament is a fiction, is that, rather than being dismissed at the time as demonstrably false, the message – principally of the resurrection - took hold. Within a few decades of the events witnessed by the apostles and other early followers of Christ, the testimony of eye-witnesses was believed from Jerusalem to Rome and was on the way to Spain. Having crossed the Jewish-Gentile barrier there was no stopping of he growth and spread of Christianity or ‘The Way’ as it was nicknamed early on.

Apart from statistical evidence of the rapid growth of the faith that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, it is the character of the apostles and other eye-witnesses, all of whose lived lives of impeccable honesty with an emphasis on truth and love that cannot be dismissed. Had they been proven charlatans, unreliable characters, using their fantastical claims in order to extort the faithful, then the case against the New Testament would have been strengthened.

‘As I pressed on with the task of translation I became convinced of the truth of the resurrection…I was reading the actual words of people who had seen Christ after his resurrection an had seen men an women changed by his living power’

Further to this is the record of the sufferings of Jesus and his followers all of whom could have avoided their sufferings had they abandoned their false claims about the resurrection and the miracles. John the Baptist was beheaded, Jesus was crucified, Stephen was stoned to death, James killed, and Paul was arrested and imprisoned, whipped, suffered shipwreck.

My conclusion: the New Testament is not a fake; it is a genuine attempt of the writers to record the actual events and words of Jesus and his followers before and after the resurrection. Whilst I accepted all of this, my agnosticism remained intact. Had I been there, I may not have been as convinced as the eyewitnesses who then passed on material to be enshrined in the pages of the New Testament.

But, like JB Philips, not in translation but in reading the source material, the New Testament, I had to abandon my own ‘snobbish disdain’. I could, no longer maintain any sense of chronological snobbery. Either the claims of Jesus in the gospels and the apostles that followed the resurrection are true or not true. That is the issue, not whether the New Testament is historically reliable, or reporting genuine eye-witness accounts.

This agnostic has been made to think.

Dirt under our fingernails

This is why I believe in Jesus
Not because of carefully constructed choirs
Or the booming bass of a Pentecostal party
Or priests pressing you for pounds and pence
Or the frocks, the bishop’s staff
The dog-collars demarcating You from Me

                                                                                                               With Lazarus

No, I believe in Jesus because
He who believed in me believes in you
He who kicked a can down the road
With Lazarus, his mate, the one who died temporarily
I believe in Jesus because he wept
At the tomb - it was not all miracles – and
Over Jerusalem like our mothers’ weep over us

And because he loved Mary
Magdalene
A woman so pained,
So disfigured by her demons
In so much…poo
Then he came and wiped it away…the poo
Her sufferings, her tears
And made her love life and love again
And to linger in the garden
When Jesus outdid Lazarus

And, posing as a gardener
Gave us all
All of us with dirt under our fingernails
A taste of resurrection

Yes, I believe in Jesus

Objections to Christianity

Introduction

Growing up in a supposedly ‘Christian’ country, England, it is far too easy, oddly perhaps, to become inured against religion in general and Christianity in particular, and yet, at the same time retain immense respect for Jesus – if he existed.

Swimming against the tide? Fewer than 2% of the UK population attend church, down from approximately 20% in 1960.

For the average teenager, it is quite possible that in an average class of 30 students at school, no one attends church or in their year of 200 students only 1 attends church.

The curious aspect in all this, as stated above, public opinion about Jesus remains very positive and 48% of the population still identify as Christians and 6% consider themselves as practicing Christians.

For the average teenager, in England, it is quite possible that…only 1 student in their year attends church

According to the Evangelical Alliance survey Talking-Jesus-Report.pdf (eauk.org)

•  33% consider Jesus to be a prophet, a spiritual teacher, but not God

• 20% consider Jesus to be a normal human being

• 20% consider Jesus to be the Son of God, God in human form living in the 1st century

• 18% don’t know and 4% other

Objections

1.        Reliability of source material – the New Testament

2. Miracles don’t happen – Science has disproved the supernatural

3.        Hypocrisy, irrelevance, immorality within the church

4.        Impossible to be good enough

My story

By the time I was 15, all of the above objections had lodged very strongly in my mind. I retained a high regard for Jesus but was not convinced he had existed, doubted the New Testament was reliable, or, if historically genuine, Jesus’ fanatical followers must have woven a fanciful story surrounding a good person who they had grown to love, but, miracles could not have occurred, let alone the resurrection, therefore the New Testament was too flawed to base one’s life upon its teaching. I was an informed agnostic.

Two years later I changed my mind.

These 4 articles will show how my objections, as listed above, were dismantled and how I shifted from agnosticism to faith in Christ, believing fully in Jesus’s existence and miracles.

I hope you enjoy this short series – even if you wish to pick over the bones!

Next

Article 1: Reliability of Source Material – in the next few days

October 7th 2023 Remembrance

Not once have I
Been caught in the careful
Eye-beam of a ravenous wolf

Foxes, cunning as ever,
Stand and stare before
The shadows take them

And dogs, tongues lolling,
Trot undangerously
Learning only to love

But it was the pack
That hunted their prey
Eye-to-eye, heart-to-heart

In a murderous pact
Slaying the unguarded
In civilian slaughter

Biden’s shock: photos of
A baby riddled with bullets,
A soldier beheaded

Supernovans burned alive
In cars and hideaways
Trapped in a hatred

A sink hole
In the world’s morality
Legitimacy to govern

Torn to shreds
We weep until
The wolves’ eyes dim

Today we remember
The unforgotten, the 97
Yet to return home

But we will remember
In wrath to remember mercy
We who have been wolves

We, called to be Samaritans,
Let healing come
From unlikely places

Let war be undone like
Untied laces dragging
Along the ground

Singing songs
Of miracle
And wonder

He makes wars cease
He shatters the spear, be still
And know that I am God

The debate between Richard Dawkins and former New Atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali

It’s quite long, philosophical, hard-hitting debate, so you’ll need some stamina and a cup of coffee & supplies. But it’s held without rancour and avoids descending into an abyss of trading cheap insults, rather it’s an exchange of diametrically opposed views with mutual respect.

Cold, Day 5, 6 a.m.

Friday:
Monoclonal
Antibodies launch
An autumn offensive at
The expense of my limp arms
Heavy as I drag myself up the stairs,
Shuffling, sniffling, spluttering, coughing
In search of yet more tissues and an empty bin
Before shutting down under a blanket in the lounge
Now 7.45 a.m. I sleep for an hour, deep dive into nothing
Somehow it works. My eyes feel more like optical instruments
Not banging balls of pain, engaging in the world of fallen leaves
I put a coat on and venture out, aware that matted hair is not
A wholesome sight. Grunt-conversation at the shop is the
Most I can envisage, politely. The autumn offensive is
Underway but victory is a weekend wish. Milk and
Paracetamol packets in hand I scowl inwardly
At the RNA enemy and nod encouragingly
At my lymphocyte army as they engulf
Titchy coronaviruses before they
Hitch yet more rides on my
Ever-unzipping DNA
10.30. Poem
Tea.

Book Review: The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God, Justin Brierley, Tyndale Press

Before I delve into TSRBG and review its excellent content, please indulge me as I comment on the cover…and how it feels in the hand! 

Everything about this book: the feel in the hand; the cover’s font size; colour of the typeface; the wash of surf on an incoming wave covering the deep blue-green of the sea…all of it is somehow just right. You’ll enjoy having this in your bag, rucksack, or suitcase, or just carrying it around, putting it down, and picking it up again.

Not since Michael Green’s Runaway World (w. 1968) has a popular apologetics book for Christianity sold as many copies or received so many well-deserved plaudits.

It is, of course, a book of its age. Justin Brierley is well known for his podcast Unbelievable? - a thing unknown in the pre-online days of 1968 – in which he has pitted atheists and Christians against each other discussing issues of the day e.g. September’s offerings so far: Should we edit the human genome? and Is AI replacing humanity?

Justin’s contention is that the popularity of atheism is waning and that the the arguments of the New Atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchins, are losing popular support. He cites example after example of intelligent atheists, philosophes, scientists, and artists, who have, in recent years, turned their back on atheism and are either re-evaluating their former disparaging views about spirituality and belief in God, or experiencing full conversions to Christianity. A good example is Jordan Petersen. You can find further examples in the book but also directly from the podcasts: Why I believe | Unbelievable (premierunbelievable.com)

Brierley’s seven chapters are full of quotes from individuals who are reconsidering their atheism, as they tackle such themes as the basis and case for morals, consciousness, deficiencies with materialism and determinism, the limitations of the rational mind to encompass all truth, the reliability of the New Testament, and evidence for the historical existence of Jesus.

 Some quotes:

 ‘Science progresses one funeral at a time’

 ‘We men of knowledge of today, we godless men and anti-metaphysicians, we, too, still derive our flame from the fire ignited by a faith millennia old, the Christian faith’ Friedrich Nietzsche

 ‘To my disquiet, I began to realise that the evidence for atheism was much weaker than I thought’ Oxford emeritus professor of Science and Religion, Alister McGrath

 ‘I think his (Daniel Dennett) position is wholly inconsistent: he says that consciousness is an illusion, but I would point out that for it to be an illusion, there must be a consciousness to be ‘illuded.’ ’  Iain McGilchrist, Oxford Don researcher of psychiatry and brain science.

I found the whole book very readable. It is an intelligent work that somehow avoids being ‘intellectual’ or plagued with unnecessarily inaccessible technical language.

Michael Green’s Runaway World dealt with atheistic determinism and materialism very convincingly – it served, in fact, as the final nail in my agnostic coffin a few weeks before I capitulated to Christ. I’m sure The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God will serve a similar purpose in 2024 for those willing to re-examine their agnosticism or atheism, and, if you are a Christian believer already, it will put you back in the ring for a few combative rounds with the arguments from atheists even if they are turning towards Christ.

TSRBG also appeals to me as I grew up in Whitstable, Kent, just a few minutes away from the beach, so Matthew Arnold’s, Dover Beach, which Brierley questions and challenges, hits home.  

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round Earth’s shore

Lay the folds of a bright girdle furled

But now I only hear

Its melancholic, long, withdrawing roar

Brierley quotes goes on to quote Douglas Murray (The Madness of Crowds): ‘The interesting thing about the Sea of Faith is there’s no reason why it can’t come back in. The sea doesn’t only withdraw. You know, it’s the point of tides’

On a personal, and highly subjective note, I will bring this review to an end remembering walking along the shoreline at Lyme Regis a few summers ago and looking out to sea at low tide. A voice seemed to say to me: the tide is on the turn.