The following has been received from Searchlight:
"Searchlight is calling on the authorities to prosecute the BNP for its Racism Cuts Both Ways campaign. We believe that the BNP’s 12-page glossy magazine, which is being circulated around the country, and the accompanying website are a clear attempt to whip up racism through lies and selective reporting.
The BNP campaign claims to highlight examples of anti-white racism. We believe that the only racism that is taking place is being peddled by the BNP.
In an introduction to the website devoted to this campaign, BNP leader Nick Griffin calls it the “silent epidemic of racist targeting of indigenous Britons”. To back up his claims the BNP has released the names of 167 people who it claims are victims of anti-white racism.
However the BNP’s research is at best inaccurate, at worst bogus. Click here to read Searchlight’s analysis of the BNP research.
The BNP has twisted facts to make them fit its warped racist agenda. It doesn’t care that it causes distress and anger to the families. The BNP hopes to make young people in particular angry and vengeful. It hopes to get people to join the BNP but it could just as easily be unleashing racist violence.
The BNP campaign is quite simply dangerous and the party should be held to account. It is time for the authorities to act.
Searchlight will be writing to the authorities demanding action and we need your support."
Searchlight will be writing to the Home Secretary and the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police demanding action be taken against the BNP, and needs our support.
To demonstrate the strength of feeling about the BNP's incitement, Searchlight's petition can be signed by clicking here.
Searchlight are also urging us to contact our own Assistant Chief Constable. Click here to access a model letter (Word file) (PDF file) Click here find your local police authority. If you have received the pamphlet, we are encouraged to include in the letter details of how and where you received it and, if relevant, your reaction to it and to the fact that you received it. Such details will strengthen your complaint. You may also wish to send a copy of your letter to your local Police Commander and MP.
Spread the word. The more people who complain the greater the chance that the authorities will take it seriously. The BNP must not be allowed to get away with whipping up racism through its lies. Please click here to tell five friends about this campaign.
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The Charlatans - Blank Heart, Blank Mind.
Friday, 28 November 2008
Thursday, 27 November 2008
Cold War Modern - What A Mess
I met Rodney Bailey today on my day off and visited both the V&A's Cold War Modern: Design 1945 - 1970 and also Rodney's own What a Mess exhibition at First Out Cafe.Cold War Modern argued that design from 1945 - 1970 was greatly influenced by the cold war between the two great secular belief systems of the twentieth century, capitalism and communism. This was seen both in the materials used which often derived originally from developments in military technology and in the sense of competing forces which drove both cultures and the artists and designers at work within those cultures. Words that recurred throughout the exhibition were: anxiety, tension, competition, crisis, fear. A time of what was often perceived and received as progress and prosperity was built on a climate of fear and suspicion. What I noticed most was the almost complete absence on any spirituality among the exhibits and the resultant coldness in much of what was displayed; design that was more the result of ideologies than humanity.
What a Mess by contrast had plenty of humanity. This exhibition featured Rodney's grafitti paintings which use graphic lines and messy but vibrant colour contrasts to raise issues of identity. These pieces are often map-based either in terms of looking down onto a streetscape from above or where a map forms the outline of a body so that places on the map indicate significant experiences composing a person. My favourite pieces were a cooler abstract in orange/yellow with a heavy black shape outlined over the colour and two semi-abstract faces in similar style and colouring emerging from the darkness of the outlines. These are paintings containing a mess of colourful experiences which often burst from the frame or map or outline that seeks to contain them.
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Sufjan Stevens - Romulus.
The Bible - open or closed? (4)
I think that “conversation is the best descriptor we have for the form in which we have received the Bible and for the way in which that form works within the whole canon of scripture” but don't think that has to mean that conversation is a feature of all “the many varied forms that scripture takes.”
My main reason for thinking that is that my argument is that conversation is the best descriptor for “the form in which we have received the Bible” and for “the way in which that form works within the whole canon of scripture.” My argument, therefore, is about the form of the whole canon rather than the form of the parts (e.g. books/genres) that compose it.
Having said that I have been arguing in these posts that both the form of the parts and the content of those parts includes much more conversation than is generally acknowledged by Biblical scholars and theologians. Examples I have used included: the conversational aspects of the Psalms, Epistles and Revelation (form of the parts); and Jesus’ ongoing conversation within the Godhead, his conversational teaching method in John’s Gospel, the retelling of Israel’s story in terms of Jesus that we find throughout the NT, and the many conversations recorded between God and the most significant characters in both OT and NT (content of the parts). However, I certainly don’t want to suggest that all of the forms or all of the content of the parts are explained or informed by the motif of conversation.
I do think, however, that conversation is the best descriptor when it comes to describing the form in which we have received the whole canon of scripture. There is an enormous diversity of texts in the canon of scripture which although they are set alongside each other within the frame of the canon also interact with, speak to, comment on and interpret each other. It is this interaction between the parts of the whole that I want to describe as conversation.
Once you have a frame (e.g. the canon) which includes a diverse collection of different texts, this interaction or conversation can occur in a huge diversity of different ways. These include: different telling of the same events in different ways and to different chronologies (i.e. Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, the four Gospels, or the accounts of the conversion of Saul); retellings of stories in ways that reinterpret the original story (e.g. Paul’s reworking of the Hagar and Sarah narrative, Hebrew’s reinterpretation of the sacrificial system, and Revelation’s reworking of apocalyptic narratives in terms of the politics of the day); passages being interpreted and being capable of interpretation at a number of different levels (i.e. historical and allegorical, as in the Hagar and Sarah narrative); the quoting or paraphrasing of material from one text in another text; and exploration of shared themes in different texts without specific reference one to the other, among others.
I find Josipovici very helpful in describing the way in which this conversational form works as he discusses the opening chapters of Genesis:
“… the chapter advances, by means of the basic pattern laid down in the opening: full repetition, partial repetition, innovation – or any combination of these three elements
… the Hebrew Bible is … concerned with repetition and return
… the Bible works by way of minimal units laid alongside each other, the narrative being built up by slotting these together where necessary. This is an extraordinarily simple and an extraordinarily flexible system, which can lead from what could almost be described as shorthand to rich elaboration. Naturally this is made possible or reinforced by the paratactic nature of Hebrew syntax and by the denial of dualism within the narrative. The three aspects intermesh and create a narrative which can spend nine chapters getting from the Creation to Noah and his descendents, or else cover the ground in just four verses, as in Chronicles: ‘Adam, Sheth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered, Henoch, Methusalah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth’ (1 Chron. 1: 1-4) …
Each new element in Genesis 1 helps to bring into focus prior elements which we would have overlooked had we not been alerted to them by what follows. In just the same way chapter 2 – 3 help bring into focus the theme of division in Chapter 1 …”
Later, Josipovici argues that a “pared-down, reticent style is … the style of the Bible” and that “what it implies is that we can read most episodes in any number of different ways, though always with the sense that other ways are possible.” The narrative, he suggests, always denies us “a point of view above the action” and therefore is not going to help us adjudicate between different readings: “When we think we have found at last a place from which to interpret we find that it too is subject to conflicting interpretations.” Alongside this style, we find that “the events are laid out alongside each other, without comment, and we are never allowed to know whether the pattern we see emerging at one point is the true pattern.”
Such points lead him to conclude that “the Hebrew Bible … chose not to stay with the fulfilment of man’s desires but with the reality of what happens to us in life. We all long in our daily lives for an end to uncertainty, to the need for decisions and choices, with the concomitant feeling that the choices we have made may have been the wrong ones. Yet we also know that life will not provide such an end, that we will always be enmeshed in uncertainty. What is extraordinary is that a sacred book should dramatize this, rather than be the one place where we are given what we desire. But that is precisely what the Hebrew Bible does …”
These approaches present us with an open conversation in which we can participate, as, for example, occurs in Judaism in the Gemarah.
I think this provides a partial answer to the question about the extent to which reinterpretation of stories is actually a conversation: “In what way do the Jewish scriptures respond to the way in which they have been re-interpreted within the passage where the re-interpretation takes place?” The layering of stories and interpretations across the canon of scripture continually brings us back to the question as to whether any one story or interpretation is definitive and closed or whether there is an open ongoing conversation about interpretation in which we can participate. The next part of my argument picks this up in more detail.
Another part of an answer to this question is found in the responses of people in the Gospel/NT stories to the retelling of Israel’s story undertaken by Jesus and Paul. These make it clear that there are alternative perspectives and challenges to these retellings/reinterpretations. So, conversation within the text with the stories being reinterpreted occurs through those that challenge the reinterpretation. Again, this brings us back to the overall structural question of the canon of scripture as to the open or closed status of these stories/interpretations.
In the construction of the Christian Bible the open conversational form of the Hebrew Scriptures is combined with a sense of fulfilment through the forward drive of the story that it tells:
“It’s a magnificent conception, spread over thousands of pages and encompassing the entire history of the universe. There is both perfect correspondence between Old and New Testaments and a continuous forward drive from Creation to the end of time: ‘It begins where time begins, with the creation of the world; it ends where time ends, with the Apocalypse, and it surveys human history in between, or the aspect of history it is interested in, under the symbolic names of Adam and Israel’. Earlier ages had no difficulty in grasping this design, though our own, more bookish age, obsessed with both history and immediacy, has tended to lose sight of it. Neither theologians nor biblical scholars have stood back enough to see it as a whole. Yet it is a whole and quite unlike any other book.”
This then means that there is also a conversation/dialogue/dialectic between the open laying of texts alongside each other without comment and the closed forward thrust of the story. The Bible, as a whole, is a both/and: it is both open and closed; both structure legitimating and structure subverting (to use Brueggemann’s terms); both a unity and an arbitrary construct (Josipovici). As a result, there is also a see-saw movement or conversation in our response as readers:
“there is a constant see-saw movement at work in our relation to the books that matter to us: we are drawn to them because they seem to speak to our condition, and we seek to make them more and more our own; but we are also drawn to them because they seem to be other than us, because they guide us out of ourselves into what we feel to be a truer, more real world.”
This brings us nicely to the hermeneutic circle or spiral where the conversation between whole and part and the conversation between reader and text are very much a part of what I am trying to describe. What I am seeking to do, however, is broaden our sense of the extent and variety of ways in which conversation occurs in and through scripture beyond the two conversations that often form our understanding of the hermeneutical circle.
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Noah and the Whale - 2 Atoms in a Molecule.
My main reason for thinking that is that my argument is that conversation is the best descriptor for “the form in which we have received the Bible” and for “the way in which that form works within the whole canon of scripture.” My argument, therefore, is about the form of the whole canon rather than the form of the parts (e.g. books/genres) that compose it.
Having said that I have been arguing in these posts that both the form of the parts and the content of those parts includes much more conversation than is generally acknowledged by Biblical scholars and theologians. Examples I have used included: the conversational aspects of the Psalms, Epistles and Revelation (form of the parts); and Jesus’ ongoing conversation within the Godhead, his conversational teaching method in John’s Gospel, the retelling of Israel’s story in terms of Jesus that we find throughout the NT, and the many conversations recorded between God and the most significant characters in both OT and NT (content of the parts). However, I certainly don’t want to suggest that all of the forms or all of the content of the parts are explained or informed by the motif of conversation.
I do think, however, that conversation is the best descriptor when it comes to describing the form in which we have received the whole canon of scripture. There is an enormous diversity of texts in the canon of scripture which although they are set alongside each other within the frame of the canon also interact with, speak to, comment on and interpret each other. It is this interaction between the parts of the whole that I want to describe as conversation.
Once you have a frame (e.g. the canon) which includes a diverse collection of different texts, this interaction or conversation can occur in a huge diversity of different ways. These include: different telling of the same events in different ways and to different chronologies (i.e. Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, the four Gospels, or the accounts of the conversion of Saul); retellings of stories in ways that reinterpret the original story (e.g. Paul’s reworking of the Hagar and Sarah narrative, Hebrew’s reinterpretation of the sacrificial system, and Revelation’s reworking of apocalyptic narratives in terms of the politics of the day); passages being interpreted and being capable of interpretation at a number of different levels (i.e. historical and allegorical, as in the Hagar and Sarah narrative); the quoting or paraphrasing of material from one text in another text; and exploration of shared themes in different texts without specific reference one to the other, among others.
I find Josipovici very helpful in describing the way in which this conversational form works as he discusses the opening chapters of Genesis:
“… the chapter advances, by means of the basic pattern laid down in the opening: full repetition, partial repetition, innovation – or any combination of these three elements
… the Hebrew Bible is … concerned with repetition and return
… the Bible works by way of minimal units laid alongside each other, the narrative being built up by slotting these together where necessary. This is an extraordinarily simple and an extraordinarily flexible system, which can lead from what could almost be described as shorthand to rich elaboration. Naturally this is made possible or reinforced by the paratactic nature of Hebrew syntax and by the denial of dualism within the narrative. The three aspects intermesh and create a narrative which can spend nine chapters getting from the Creation to Noah and his descendents, or else cover the ground in just four verses, as in Chronicles: ‘Adam, Sheth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered, Henoch, Methusalah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth’ (1 Chron. 1: 1-4) …
Each new element in Genesis 1 helps to bring into focus prior elements which we would have overlooked had we not been alerted to them by what follows. In just the same way chapter 2 – 3 help bring into focus the theme of division in Chapter 1 …”
Later, Josipovici argues that a “pared-down, reticent style is … the style of the Bible” and that “what it implies is that we can read most episodes in any number of different ways, though always with the sense that other ways are possible.” The narrative, he suggests, always denies us “a point of view above the action” and therefore is not going to help us adjudicate between different readings: “When we think we have found at last a place from which to interpret we find that it too is subject to conflicting interpretations.” Alongside this style, we find that “the events are laid out alongside each other, without comment, and we are never allowed to know whether the pattern we see emerging at one point is the true pattern.”
Such points lead him to conclude that “the Hebrew Bible … chose not to stay with the fulfilment of man’s desires but with the reality of what happens to us in life. We all long in our daily lives for an end to uncertainty, to the need for decisions and choices, with the concomitant feeling that the choices we have made may have been the wrong ones. Yet we also know that life will not provide such an end, that we will always be enmeshed in uncertainty. What is extraordinary is that a sacred book should dramatize this, rather than be the one place where we are given what we desire. But that is precisely what the Hebrew Bible does …”
These approaches present us with an open conversation in which we can participate, as, for example, occurs in Judaism in the Gemarah.
I think this provides a partial answer to the question about the extent to which reinterpretation of stories is actually a conversation: “In what way do the Jewish scriptures respond to the way in which they have been re-interpreted within the passage where the re-interpretation takes place?” The layering of stories and interpretations across the canon of scripture continually brings us back to the question as to whether any one story or interpretation is definitive and closed or whether there is an open ongoing conversation about interpretation in which we can participate. The next part of my argument picks this up in more detail.
Another part of an answer to this question is found in the responses of people in the Gospel/NT stories to the retelling of Israel’s story undertaken by Jesus and Paul. These make it clear that there are alternative perspectives and challenges to these retellings/reinterpretations. So, conversation within the text with the stories being reinterpreted occurs through those that challenge the reinterpretation. Again, this brings us back to the overall structural question of the canon of scripture as to the open or closed status of these stories/interpretations.
In the construction of the Christian Bible the open conversational form of the Hebrew Scriptures is combined with a sense of fulfilment through the forward drive of the story that it tells:
“It’s a magnificent conception, spread over thousands of pages and encompassing the entire history of the universe. There is both perfect correspondence between Old and New Testaments and a continuous forward drive from Creation to the end of time: ‘It begins where time begins, with the creation of the world; it ends where time ends, with the Apocalypse, and it surveys human history in between, or the aspect of history it is interested in, under the symbolic names of Adam and Israel’. Earlier ages had no difficulty in grasping this design, though our own, more bookish age, obsessed with both history and immediacy, has tended to lose sight of it. Neither theologians nor biblical scholars have stood back enough to see it as a whole. Yet it is a whole and quite unlike any other book.”
This then means that there is also a conversation/dialogue/dialectic between the open laying of texts alongside each other without comment and the closed forward thrust of the story. The Bible, as a whole, is a both/and: it is both open and closed; both structure legitimating and structure subverting (to use Brueggemann’s terms); both a unity and an arbitrary construct (Josipovici). As a result, there is also a see-saw movement or conversation in our response as readers:
“there is a constant see-saw movement at work in our relation to the books that matter to us: we are drawn to them because they seem to speak to our condition, and we seek to make them more and more our own; but we are also drawn to them because they seem to be other than us, because they guide us out of ourselves into what we feel to be a truer, more real world.”
This brings us nicely to the hermeneutic circle or spiral where the conversation between whole and part and the conversation between reader and text are very much a part of what I am trying to describe. What I am seeking to do, however, is broaden our sense of the extent and variety of ways in which conversation occurs in and through scripture beyond the two conversations that often form our understanding of the hermeneutical circle.
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Noah and the Whale - 2 Atoms in a Molecule.
Wednesday, 26 November 2008
Reducing oil dependency (and other resource scarcity issues)
Redbridge Faith Forum have published a report from the meeting held with Redbridge Green Fair on 'What can Redbridge do to reduce oil dependency?'
At St John's we have decided, following our PCC Away Day, to look at some materials giving a Christian perspective on peak oil in our homegroups in the New Year and will be using materials that Sam Norton has posted to do so.
On Monday I attended a very useful day's training on 'Energy Efficiency and Community Buildings', again organised by the Faith Forum and delivered by the Energy Saving Trust. Their national support programme, Community Action for Energy, is a network of like-minded people with an interest in community-based energy projects. Membership of the network is free and offers:
Among the points they made were the following:
At St John's we have decided, following our PCC Away Day, to look at some materials giving a Christian perspective on peak oil in our homegroups in the New Year and will be using materials that Sam Norton has posted to do so.
On Monday I attended a very useful day's training on 'Energy Efficiency and Community Buildings', again organised by the Faith Forum and delivered by the Energy Saving Trust. Their national support programme, Community Action for Energy, is a network of like-minded people with an interest in community-based energy projects. Membership of the network is free and offers:
- Community helpline;
- Community support network providing 1.5 days of professional consultancy;
- Travel bursaries;
- Training courses;
- A guide to energy efficiency projects;
- Website;
- Case studies;
- Newsletter;
- E-news updates; and an
- Annual conference.
Among the points they made were the following:
- Recent food price rises represent a structural shift not a temporary blip because of four resource scarcity issues: energy (tight supply fundamentals and effect of bio fuels); water (demand has tripled over past 50 years); land availability (only 12% usable arable land left and pressure for other uses of it); and effects on agriculture of climate change (low crop yields and emissions from agriculture).
- The cost of high food prices is 850m + hungry people selling their futures (e.g. livestock); getting credit from loan sharks; sending children to work; and parents eating too little in order to feed their children.
- Agriculture must be made pro-poor through: small farmer-based agricultural growth (e.g. Viet Nam and India); effective states with active citizens (e.g. consumer associations such as the grain banks in Uganda); shifts to low carbon production; addressing the challenges of supermarketization, biofuels and outmigration; and solving the dilemma of food vs feed vs fuel.
- Property rights matters for poorer people and women in particular. A fairer distribution of land leads to greater growth (e.g. Taiwan and South Korea).
- Build community resilience to climate change i.e. addressing the loss of inherited knowledge when climate patterns change.
- Actions needed now include: raising yield and making food production more sustainable, resilient and fair; invest more in agriculture; focus on small farms (largest employer in the world); aid donors to focus on the four resource scarcity issues; social protection for poor people; develop security of supply through buffer food stocks and equitable trade agreements with developing countries; address effect that Western lifestyle (bio fuels and diet) has on the rest of the world.
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U2 - Love and Peace or Else.
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
Stations of the Cross for HA6
Churches in HA6 (Northwood and Northwood Hills) have been inspired by the Hertford stns project to create their own version next year. The organisers have asked to use my meditations written for Hertford stns as "they are so perceptive and sharp that [we] don't believe they can be topped frankly."
I'm looking forward to seeing what other artists will do with the freedom to articulate their responses to the meditations and will provide information about dates and locations when these are available.
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John Coltrane - Dear Lord.
I'm looking forward to seeing what other artists will do with the freedom to articulate their responses to the meditations and will provide information about dates and locations when these are available.
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John Coltrane - Dear Lord.
Monday, 24 November 2008
TASK Newsletter No. 12
Welcome all to our latest TASK e-newsletter, letting you know what's happening in and around our neighbourhood this November.
TASK meeting
Around 20 supporters got together on the bitterly cold evening of November 21st for our autumn public meeting. The debate was lively and engaging, as ever, and we were especially pleased to welcome a number of new supporters and longer standing supporters attending a meeting for the first time. This newsletter aims to summarise much of our discussion, which took in a wide range of topics including
Ilford Swimming Pool
Tragically, this is now closed for good with only the vaguest commitment for a future leisure development in south Ilford- worryingly still undated and uncosted.
TASK supported the recent protest march in Ilford Town Centre and has also recently discovered that the equipment from the former pool gym is lying unused in the closed down building. We are currently working with local councillors to get a new local gym site opened until firm long- term decisions have been made, salvaging something from a ghastly political mess. We have already made overtures to the agents looking to rent the empty Joker pub- a large space ideally suited for easy conversion to gym use- but are advised that the owner will not even let us view the property so our quest for space goes on. The recent closure of the Ford outlet literally opposite the pool offers another opportunity we shall pursue over the next few weeks. More next time.
Allotment sales
Much better news, with sale plans now seemingly abandoned. The key now is to ensure all local plots are working, an outcome more likely to be achieved in these difficult times, when 'grow your own' becomes a necessity for many affected by the credit crunch and redundancies. If you don't have a plot and would like one for 2009, let us know and we can make contact with the local allotment society for you!
A new library for Seven Kings
Our whopping 2000 signature petition has now been formally submitted to the Council, which still maintains that it does not have the money to develop a new static site in the area, even though funds were made available a year or so ago to open a new library in affluent Clayhall, with no public campaigning required. We continue to press for funds to be released and urge the Council to look at developing something as part of the High Road car/ lorry park development, but are meanwhile working with library managers to develop local mobile library and outreach services.
A library information and coffee morning is now scheduled for the morning of December 10 from 11.00am at St. John's Church and all supporters around are asked to make time to attend and support the cause.
There is also the option of setting up a local reading group, where local readers come together regularly to select books they would all like to read and share their thoughts and experiences. The group could be supported by library staff and all the books selected will be sourced by the library service, so it costs nothing. Nationally, reading groups are all the rage and we think a local group would be a great idea. If you are interested in joining one, or would like to know more, please let us know by emailing Chris at c.connelley@lse.ac.uk.
Seven Kings walkabout
All year we have undertaken regular bi-monthly walkabouts with council staff, designed to clamp down on dumping, graffiti and other highways and cleansing issues. This has seen a significant improvement along the High Road, with additional bin and cleaning services now offered along the 'takeout mile'. The last walkaround of 2008 is scheduled for Friday December 12, starting at 9am outside Seven Kings railway station. All supporters are welcome to join in and we welcome your ideas on suitable locations to cover. Some of the long term benefits of the walkabouts have been more and well positioned litter bins, gum boards, cigarette bins, evening as well as morning shift litter picking along Seven Kings High Road and installation of cameras to capture fly tipping offenders. We also noted a special thanks to Russell Ward who has our vote as the most helpful Council Officer and the one who has made the greatest difference to Seven Kings.
Takeouts - Food Safety Rating
Following a TASK request the Council has provided us with a list of takeouts in Seven Kings alongwith their respective food safety star rating. Star ratings range between 0 and 4, 0 being the worst and 4 the best. Unsurprisingly most takeouts are rated between 0 and 2 but we also have a few with 3 and 4 star ratings. If you would like a copy of this table please contact Ali, ahai@deloitte.co.uk. We are also asking the Council to introduce restrictions to takeouts near to schools as neighbouring Waltham Forest has introduced.
Environment
The Mayor of London has recognised Seven Kings as one of 20 locations across London worthy of funding for tree planting to improve the barren landscape. This should see almost every road in Seven Kings become tree lined in the next couple of years.
Seven Kings station
Major improvements have taken place at the station over the last 6 months, driven by systematic complaints from TASK members. We now have a wonderful station with security staff dealing with troublemakers over the weekend hours. There are further improvements planned such as a better and safer pedestrianised entrance.
Crime and policing
We continue to encourage our local police team to make full use of their speed gun, and are advised that Pembroke Road is especially bad at present.
We also note the re/emergence of large drinking gangs around the station and by the Shannon Centre, and will be demanding rigorous enforcement of the 'no drinking' zone. We are also heartened that the Council is now working to make Seven Kings an 'accumulative impact zone', which recognises the high volume of premises with licenses to sell alcohol and alcohol related crime in the area. We are also seeking to gain more police resource for Seven Kings justified on the high crime levels and wide geographic coverage for the current allocated safer neighbourhood team.
TASK has insisted on better no drink zone area signs and enforcement and we are starting to see this area being better controlled.
Facebook
TASK now has a presence on mass social networking site Facebook. This offers the best coverage of local issues and we urge all supporters with PCs to sign up as a friend to get all the news fastest. Its easy to use- just go to Facebook and search for TASK.
Getting more involved
We are still less than a year old, and our deeply proud of our achievements as a campaigning group. We have definitely made an impact in terms of the major funding upgrade to the station, local walkabouts and in more general terms, the sense that Seven Kings is on the map and will not continue to tolerate the type of neglect characteristic of the last few years. We do need more help though and in early 2009 will be setting up a small operating group so we can focus our energies even more effectively. Please let us know if you would like to be part of this or if you have specific interest and expertise you can offer. Contact Ali at ahai@deloitte.co.uk in the first instance.
Finally, we would like to round up some upcoming activity at the busy St. John's Church, at the junction of St. John's Road and Aldborough Road South.
Lights of Advent: Christmas lights, mulled wine and mince pies in the Church garden from 2.00pm until early evening on Friday 28th November
Christmas Bazaar: Saturday 29th December, 10.30am - 3.00pm. Christmas gifts, Children's toys, Handicrafts, Preserves, Cakes, Plants, Refreshments, Raffle and many other stalls. Visit Santa in his wonderful grotto (digital photo and present included).
Advent Art Installation: Churches in Redbridge have created an Art Installation which will be displayed in six churches, including St John's Seven Kings, throughout the Advent season. The aim is to create a restful space that would enable Christians and non Christians alike to relax and reflect as an alternative to the busyness that the Christmas period brings. The theme of light was chosen as a symbol that crosses faiths and cultures which would therefore would have as wide an appeal as possible. The Installation comprises three panels of mirrored perspex mounted on wooden backing panels with the mirrored surfaces painted to an abstract design using differing textures and densities of paint while leaving unpainted areas forming the shape of a star and the repeated word ‘peace’. A quiet, reflective environment will be created around the installation using music, candles and scatter cushions. One of the key concepts of the artwork is that people will become a part of the installation by viewing themselves in these mirrored surfaces. The Installation will be at St John's in December on: 9th - 10.00 am – 1.00 pm & 2.00 pm - 5.00 pm & 7.00 pm - 9.00 pm; 10th - 10.00 am – 1.00 pm & 2.00 pm - 5.00 pm; 11th - 10.00 am – 1.00 pm & 2.00 pm - 5.00 pm & 7.00 pm - 9.00 pm; and 12th - 10.00 am – 1.00 pm & 2.00 pm - 5.00 pm.
That's enough for now. See you again in December.
Take Action for Seven Kings ("TASK")
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Nu Colours - What In The World.
TASK meeting
Around 20 supporters got together on the bitterly cold evening of November 21st for our autumn public meeting. The debate was lively and engaging, as ever, and we were especially pleased to welcome a number of new supporters and longer standing supporters attending a meeting for the first time. This newsletter aims to summarise much of our discussion, which took in a wide range of topics including
Ilford Swimming Pool
Tragically, this is now closed for good with only the vaguest commitment for a future leisure development in south Ilford- worryingly still undated and uncosted.
TASK supported the recent protest march in Ilford Town Centre and has also recently discovered that the equipment from the former pool gym is lying unused in the closed down building. We are currently working with local councillors to get a new local gym site opened until firm long- term decisions have been made, salvaging something from a ghastly political mess. We have already made overtures to the agents looking to rent the empty Joker pub- a large space ideally suited for easy conversion to gym use- but are advised that the owner will not even let us view the property so our quest for space goes on. The recent closure of the Ford outlet literally opposite the pool offers another opportunity we shall pursue over the next few weeks. More next time.
Allotment sales
Much better news, with sale plans now seemingly abandoned. The key now is to ensure all local plots are working, an outcome more likely to be achieved in these difficult times, when 'grow your own' becomes a necessity for many affected by the credit crunch and redundancies. If you don't have a plot and would like one for 2009, let us know and we can make contact with the local allotment society for you!
A new library for Seven Kings
Our whopping 2000 signature petition has now been formally submitted to the Council, which still maintains that it does not have the money to develop a new static site in the area, even though funds were made available a year or so ago to open a new library in affluent Clayhall, with no public campaigning required. We continue to press for funds to be released and urge the Council to look at developing something as part of the High Road car/ lorry park development, but are meanwhile working with library managers to develop local mobile library and outreach services.
A library information and coffee morning is now scheduled for the morning of December 10 from 11.00am at St. John's Church and all supporters around are asked to make time to attend and support the cause.
There is also the option of setting up a local reading group, where local readers come together regularly to select books they would all like to read and share their thoughts and experiences. The group could be supported by library staff and all the books selected will be sourced by the library service, so it costs nothing. Nationally, reading groups are all the rage and we think a local group would be a great idea. If you are interested in joining one, or would like to know more, please let us know by emailing Chris at c.connelley@lse.ac.uk.
Seven Kings walkabout
All year we have undertaken regular bi-monthly walkabouts with council staff, designed to clamp down on dumping, graffiti and other highways and cleansing issues. This has seen a significant improvement along the High Road, with additional bin and cleaning services now offered along the 'takeout mile'. The last walkaround of 2008 is scheduled for Friday December 12, starting at 9am outside Seven Kings railway station. All supporters are welcome to join in and we welcome your ideas on suitable locations to cover. Some of the long term benefits of the walkabouts have been more and well positioned litter bins, gum boards, cigarette bins, evening as well as morning shift litter picking along Seven Kings High Road and installation of cameras to capture fly tipping offenders. We also noted a special thanks to Russell Ward who has our vote as the most helpful Council Officer and the one who has made the greatest difference to Seven Kings.
Takeouts - Food Safety Rating
Following a TASK request the Council has provided us with a list of takeouts in Seven Kings alongwith their respective food safety star rating. Star ratings range between 0 and 4, 0 being the worst and 4 the best. Unsurprisingly most takeouts are rated between 0 and 2 but we also have a few with 3 and 4 star ratings. If you would like a copy of this table please contact Ali, ahai@deloitte.co.uk. We are also asking the Council to introduce restrictions to takeouts near to schools as neighbouring Waltham Forest has introduced.
Environment
The Mayor of London has recognised Seven Kings as one of 20 locations across London worthy of funding for tree planting to improve the barren landscape. This should see almost every road in Seven Kings become tree lined in the next couple of years.
Seven Kings station
Major improvements have taken place at the station over the last 6 months, driven by systematic complaints from TASK members. We now have a wonderful station with security staff dealing with troublemakers over the weekend hours. There are further improvements planned such as a better and safer pedestrianised entrance.
Crime and policing
We continue to encourage our local police team to make full use of their speed gun, and are advised that Pembroke Road is especially bad at present.
We also note the re/emergence of large drinking gangs around the station and by the Shannon Centre, and will be demanding rigorous enforcement of the 'no drinking' zone. We are also heartened that the Council is now working to make Seven Kings an 'accumulative impact zone', which recognises the high volume of premises with licenses to sell alcohol and alcohol related crime in the area. We are also seeking to gain more police resource for Seven Kings justified on the high crime levels and wide geographic coverage for the current allocated safer neighbourhood team.
TASK has insisted on better no drink zone area signs and enforcement and we are starting to see this area being better controlled.
TASK now has a presence on mass social networking site Facebook. This offers the best coverage of local issues and we urge all supporters with PCs to sign up as a friend to get all the news fastest. Its easy to use- just go to Facebook and search for TASK.
Getting more involved
We are still less than a year old, and our deeply proud of our achievements as a campaigning group. We have definitely made an impact in terms of the major funding upgrade to the station, local walkabouts and in more general terms, the sense that Seven Kings is on the map and will not continue to tolerate the type of neglect characteristic of the last few years. We do need more help though and in early 2009 will be setting up a small operating group so we can focus our energies even more effectively. Please let us know if you would like to be part of this or if you have specific interest and expertise you can offer. Contact Ali at ahai@deloitte.co.uk in the first instance.
Finally, we would like to round up some upcoming activity at the busy St. John's Church, at the junction of St. John's Road and Aldborough Road South.
Lights of Advent: Christmas lights, mulled wine and mince pies in the Church garden from 2.00pm until early evening on Friday 28th November
Christmas Bazaar: Saturday 29th December, 10.30am - 3.00pm. Christmas gifts, Children's toys, Handicrafts, Preserves, Cakes, Plants, Refreshments, Raffle and many other stalls. Visit Santa in his wonderful grotto (digital photo and present included).
Advent Art Installation: Churches in Redbridge have created an Art Installation which will be displayed in six churches, including St John's Seven Kings, throughout the Advent season. The aim is to create a restful space that would enable Christians and non Christians alike to relax and reflect as an alternative to the busyness that the Christmas period brings. The theme of light was chosen as a symbol that crosses faiths and cultures which would therefore would have as wide an appeal as possible. The Installation comprises three panels of mirrored perspex mounted on wooden backing panels with the mirrored surfaces painted to an abstract design using differing textures and densities of paint while leaving unpainted areas forming the shape of a star and the repeated word ‘peace’. A quiet, reflective environment will be created around the installation using music, candles and scatter cushions. One of the key concepts of the artwork is that people will become a part of the installation by viewing themselves in these mirrored surfaces. The Installation will be at St John's in December on: 9th - 10.00 am – 1.00 pm & 2.00 pm - 5.00 pm & 7.00 pm - 9.00 pm; 10th - 10.00 am – 1.00 pm & 2.00 pm - 5.00 pm; 11th - 10.00 am – 1.00 pm & 2.00 pm - 5.00 pm & 7.00 pm - 9.00 pm; and 12th - 10.00 am – 1.00 pm & 2.00 pm - 5.00 pm.
That's enough for now. See you again in December.
Take Action for Seven Kings ("TASK")
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Nu Colours - What In The World.
Windows on the world (29)
Worth Abbey, 2008
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The Holmes Brothers - Amazing Grace.
Art for Advent's sake
The December edition of The Month, the newspaper for the Diocese of Chelmsford features the Redbridge Advent Art Installation together with the above photo of Bishop David viewing the installation.
Churches in Redbridge have created an Art Installation which will be displayed in six churches throughout the Advent season. Our aim has been to create a restful space that would enable Christians and non Christians alike to relax and reflect as an alternative to the busyness that the Christmas period brings. The theme of light was chosen as a symbol that crosses faiths and cultures which would therefore would have as wide an appeal as possible.
The Advent Art Installation comprises three panels of mirrored perspex mounted on wooden backing panels with the mirrored surfaces painted to an abstract design using differing textures and densities of paint while leaving unpainted areas forming the shape of a star and the repeated word ‘peace’. A quiet, reflective environment will be created around the installation using music, candles and scatter cushions. One of the key concepts of the artwork is that people will become a part of the installation by viewing themselves in these mirrored surfaces.
A meditation on the installation sets out the concepts that we have sought to bring into play: “A Chinese proverb says, ‘It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.’ Darkness and light both feature in this art installation for display in Redbridge churches during Advent.
The sombre colours and rectangular voids of this abstract artwork may recall works by Mark Rothko which hang in Tate Modern. Rothko’s later paintings have often been understood as depictions of the absence of God and the darkness of the world; an impression reinforced by Rothko’s suicide on the day that the Tate received those paintings.
The sombre colours and rectangular voids of this abstract artwork may recall works by Mark Rothko which hang in Tate Modern. Rothko’s later paintings have often been understood as depictions of the absence of God and the darkness of the world; an impression reinforced by Rothko’s suicide on the day that the Tate received those paintings.
St Paul wrote that our experience in life is that of seeing in a mirror dimly; we do not see clearly and our understanding of life is clouded, he seemed to say. That may also be our experience in this installation, where the abstract colour has been applied to mirrored perspex, clouding our ability to see clearly in the mirrored panels of the installation. Yet the poet, Martin Wroe, has written that God can be seen as “the abstract art of paint and poem when our propaganda makes everything clear.”
In the darkness of the abstract design, we can still see reflected the candles, lit within the space where the artwork stands, and picked out on the panels, forming a star, are also lines of clear reflection. The light beaming from the star on the right panel is linked by a line to the repeated word ‘Peace’ on the left. In what ways might there be links between light and peace in the darkness of our world?
What do we see as we look into the blurred and clear mirrored spaces of this installation? Essentially, as in any mirror, we see ourselves, both blurred and distinct. Are we defined by the darkness or are we one of the many points of light reflected in the darkness of this design? Is the reflection of our light blurred or distinct as we shine in the world? In what ways could we become light bringers and peace makers? After all, it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”
The dates and times when the Installation will be displayed in Redbridge churches are as follows:
- St Luke’s Church, Baxter Road, Ilford IG1 2HN: 1st 8.30 am – 4.00 pm; 2nd 8.30 am – 4.00 pm; 3rd 8.30 am – 4.00 pm; 4th 8.30 am – 4.00 pm.
- St Alban’s Church, Albert Road/Mildmay Road IG1: 5th 10.00 am –12.00 noon; 6th 10.00 am –12.00 noon; 7th 7.30 am –12.30 pm & 5.30 am - 6.45 pm.
- St John’s Church, Seven Kings, St John’s Road /Aldborough Road South, IG2 7BB: 9th - 10.00 am – 1.00 pm & 2.00 pm - 5.00 pm & 7.00 pm - 9.00 pm; 10th - 10.00 am – 1.00 pm & 2.00 pm - 5.00 pm; 11th - 10.00 am – 1.00 pm & 2.00 pm - 5.00 pm & 7.00 pm - 9.00 pm; 12th - 10.00 am – 1.00 pm & 2.00 pm - 5.00 pm.
- St Andrew’s Church, The Drive, Ilford IG1 3PE: 13th 10.00 am – 4.00 pm; 14th 12.00 noon – 4.00 pm; 15th 10.00 am –12 noon & 2. 00 pm – 4.00 pm; 16th 10.00 am –12 noon & 2. 00 pm – 4.00 pm.
- St Margaret’s Church, Perth Road/Balfour Road, Ilford , IG1 4HZ: 17th 10.00 am – 4.00 pm; 18th 10.00 am – 4.00 pm; 19th 10.00 am – 4.00 pm; 20th 10.00 am – 4.00 pm.
- The Vine Church, Riches Road, Ilford, IG1 1JH: 21st 10.00 am – 11.00 am; 22nd 10.00 am – 3.30 pm; 23rd 10.00am - 3.30 pm.
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Martyn Joseph - One Of Us.
Saturday, 22 November 2008
Music of the French Catholic Revival
BBC Music is celebrating all that is French in the current issue of its Music magazine with articles and a CD focussed on composers influenced by the French Catholic Revival.
As they note, this month marks the centenary of the birth of France’s greatest 20th-century composer, Olivier Messiaen. His exotic music took orchestral colours to new heights, following on from the impressionistic world of Debussy and Ravel. Also in this French issue is their Composer of the Month, Francis Poulenc, the self-confessed ‘half-yob, half-monk’. And Poulenc features on their free cover disc too, in a performance of Gloria, his reverent but often witty masterpiece.
The French Catholic Revival was an exceptionally fertile period in the recent history of the Church with the development of the Modern Catholic Novel and the achievements of French Catholic artists in Post-Impressionism, the Nabis, Symbolism and Fauvism, alongside the music of Messiaen, Poulenc and others together with the philosophy and support for the Arts of Jacques Maritain. The whole period deserves a fuller description and exploration than has yet been published in order to highlight lessons for our own engagement with culture and the Arts.
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Olivier Messiaen - L'Ascension.
As they note, this month marks the centenary of the birth of France’s greatest 20th-century composer, Olivier Messiaen. His exotic music took orchestral colours to new heights, following on from the impressionistic world of Debussy and Ravel. Also in this French issue is their Composer of the Month, Francis Poulenc, the self-confessed ‘half-yob, half-monk’. And Poulenc features on their free cover disc too, in a performance of Gloria, his reverent but often witty masterpiece.
The French Catholic Revival was an exceptionally fertile period in the recent history of the Church with the development of the Modern Catholic Novel and the achievements of French Catholic artists in Post-Impressionism, the Nabis, Symbolism and Fauvism, alongside the music of Messiaen, Poulenc and others together with the philosophy and support for the Arts of Jacques Maritain. The whole period deserves a fuller description and exploration than has yet been published in order to highlight lessons for our own engagement with culture and the Arts.
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Olivier Messiaen - L'Ascension.
The Bible - open or closed? (3)
3. Is God just a mystery to participate in? Again the witness of the NT seems to suggest not. The Christian faith is founded on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and witnessed to by the apostles from that first Pentecost. God has spoken through his Son, the Kingdom of God is proclaimed and people are called to respond. That does not of course mean that we have all the answers tied up in a neat systematic package, nor can we claim that we know all there is to know about God, we do see through a glass darkly, but it does mean that we can proclaim a faith that is based on something that really happened not just a collection of mystical musings.
‘God as a mystery to participate in’ is a phrase from Peter Rollins. I used it in describing my understanding of what he has written but that doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree in full or in part with the phrase.
Before we get to that, however, it is important to understand a little of what Rollins seems to mean by it. He would, I think, see God as a mystery to participate in for two main reasons.
First, God is revealed in events or happenings which are non-repeatable micro-narratives. This would seem to mean that there are a constant series of revelatory events and we cannot participate in them all so cannot receive a full revelation of God. The event is the first order experience and any writings about the event, as in the writings in scripture, are a second order experience at one remove from the event itself and (as I know from my own experience of writing) an activity in which the experience is changed as well as recorded (i.e. elements may be left out, descriptions/metaphors open up other interpretations etc.). Propositional statements then drawn from such writings are at a third remove. So, events or happenings are where God is most fully revealed and as we cannot participate in all such events God is always beyond and a mystery. Second, and this is a related point, God is always more than any record, description, image or event of him or his activity. Here Rollins is essentially restating classic apophatic theology as it is commonly found in Christian mystics.
Apophatic theology, the Christian mystics and Rollins pose important issues that cannot be countered simply by stating that the witness of the NT is that God has spoken through his Son, the Kingdom of God is proclaimed and people are called to respond.
My view (and this would be my contribution to a critique of Rollins) is that the form of scripture is not solely open; that what we find within individual books and narratives are a combination of open and closed forms and that, in the Christian scriptures, we have both a diversity of forms and a narrative threaded through that diversity in the way that a patchwork quilt can be held together by a single thread. As a result, theology must, I think, be dialogical responding both to the open and the closed aspects of scripture.
4. Is systematic theology a product of the Enlightenment? It depends on how you define systematic theology. I would argue not. In the New Testament we see Paul developing a systematic approach to his writing about God in his letters. He reflects on the nature of God as revealed in the person of Jesus, presents arguments and draws conclusions which he applies to the everyday life of the emerging churches. The apologists present reasoned structured arguments to give account of their faith in the midst of persecution e.g. Justin Martyr. The patristic period is full of systematic theology as the church wrestled with questions of how it should speak about faith. Was Augustine a systematic theologian? What about Anselm, Abelard, Luther, Calvin, Pascal …….
I think there are two issues with this. First, systematic theology per se may not be a product of the Enlightenment but most systematic theology written today probably is. I certainly think that is the case on the Conservative side where harmonisation is used to create an order and coherence to scripture that it simply does possess in the form in which it has been received by us and on the Liberal side where historical criticism is used to try to identify a consistent core of original material about which we can be historically certain. I think both are driven by the Enlightenment’s methodology of evidence-based logical reasoning and therefore attempt to screen out or explain away all that is contradictory, strange, unchronological etc. in scripture. I think Walter Brueggemann and N.T. Wright in different ways are very strong in demonstrating the problems of these approaches which I think have a common core in seeking consistency and coherence above all else and therefore are unable to accept the tensions of the dialectic that is actually found in scripture.
Second, Paul’s development of a systematic approach to his writing about God in his letters occurs within an unsystematic form. His letters are a debate or conversation (not a story) with the churches to which he wrote about issues of concern to him and matters on which the churches had written to him for advice. We don’t have the letters which the church members wrote to Paul or all the letters which Paul wrote to the churches so the conversation as we have it is a little one-sided and incomplete, although we can infer some of the points made by the church members from Paul’s record of and response to them.
My argument then is that we have a both/and in scripture; the systematic and the unsystematic, the closed and the open. A dialogue occurs between them and to be true to scripture we must maintain that dialogue in our reading of scripture not resolving it in terms of either open or closed forms alone. My complaint with systematic theologies is that they tend not to maintain the dialogue and privilege closed approaches.
5. For me the problem comes when one systematic theology is presented as the only legitimate way of speaking about God and this appears to be the issue which you are raising with regard to Richardson. For example, if penal substitution is presented as the only legitimate way of speaking about atonement, then I would question whether that is true systematic theology. Why? Because scripture itself draws on a whole range of ways of understanding what Christ has done for us on the cross. However, I am also suspicious of those who reject penal substitution as a way of understanding the cross for the very same reason.
I fully agree.
Jim White - Static On The Radio.
‘God as a mystery to participate in’ is a phrase from Peter Rollins. I used it in describing my understanding of what he has written but that doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree in full or in part with the phrase.
Before we get to that, however, it is important to understand a little of what Rollins seems to mean by it. He would, I think, see God as a mystery to participate in for two main reasons.
First, God is revealed in events or happenings which are non-repeatable micro-narratives. This would seem to mean that there are a constant series of revelatory events and we cannot participate in them all so cannot receive a full revelation of God. The event is the first order experience and any writings about the event, as in the writings in scripture, are a second order experience at one remove from the event itself and (as I know from my own experience of writing) an activity in which the experience is changed as well as recorded (i.e. elements may be left out, descriptions/metaphors open up other interpretations etc.). Propositional statements then drawn from such writings are at a third remove. So, events or happenings are where God is most fully revealed and as we cannot participate in all such events God is always beyond and a mystery. Second, and this is a related point, God is always more than any record, description, image or event of him or his activity. Here Rollins is essentially restating classic apophatic theology as it is commonly found in Christian mystics.
Apophatic theology, the Christian mystics and Rollins pose important issues that cannot be countered simply by stating that the witness of the NT is that God has spoken through his Son, the Kingdom of God is proclaimed and people are called to respond.
My view (and this would be my contribution to a critique of Rollins) is that the form of scripture is not solely open; that what we find within individual books and narratives are a combination of open and closed forms and that, in the Christian scriptures, we have both a diversity of forms and a narrative threaded through that diversity in the way that a patchwork quilt can be held together by a single thread. As a result, theology must, I think, be dialogical responding both to the open and the closed aspects of scripture.
4. Is systematic theology a product of the Enlightenment? It depends on how you define systematic theology. I would argue not. In the New Testament we see Paul developing a systematic approach to his writing about God in his letters. He reflects on the nature of God as revealed in the person of Jesus, presents arguments and draws conclusions which he applies to the everyday life of the emerging churches. The apologists present reasoned structured arguments to give account of their faith in the midst of persecution e.g. Justin Martyr. The patristic period is full of systematic theology as the church wrestled with questions of how it should speak about faith. Was Augustine a systematic theologian? What about Anselm, Abelard, Luther, Calvin, Pascal …….
I think there are two issues with this. First, systematic theology per se may not be a product of the Enlightenment but most systematic theology written today probably is. I certainly think that is the case on the Conservative side where harmonisation is used to create an order and coherence to scripture that it simply does possess in the form in which it has been received by us and on the Liberal side where historical criticism is used to try to identify a consistent core of original material about which we can be historically certain. I think both are driven by the Enlightenment’s methodology of evidence-based logical reasoning and therefore attempt to screen out or explain away all that is contradictory, strange, unchronological etc. in scripture. I think Walter Brueggemann and N.T. Wright in different ways are very strong in demonstrating the problems of these approaches which I think have a common core in seeking consistency and coherence above all else and therefore are unable to accept the tensions of the dialectic that is actually found in scripture.
Second, Paul’s development of a systematic approach to his writing about God in his letters occurs within an unsystematic form. His letters are a debate or conversation (not a story) with the churches to which he wrote about issues of concern to him and matters on which the churches had written to him for advice. We don’t have the letters which the church members wrote to Paul or all the letters which Paul wrote to the churches so the conversation as we have it is a little one-sided and incomplete, although we can infer some of the points made by the church members from Paul’s record of and response to them.
My argument then is that we have a both/and in scripture; the systematic and the unsystematic, the closed and the open. A dialogue occurs between them and to be true to scripture we must maintain that dialogue in our reading of scripture not resolving it in terms of either open or closed forms alone. My complaint with systematic theologies is that they tend not to maintain the dialogue and privilege closed approaches.
5. For me the problem comes when one systematic theology is presented as the only legitimate way of speaking about God and this appears to be the issue which you are raising with regard to Richardson. For example, if penal substitution is presented as the only legitimate way of speaking about atonement, then I would question whether that is true systematic theology. Why? Because scripture itself draws on a whole range of ways of understanding what Christ has done for us on the cross. However, I am also suspicious of those who reject penal substitution as a way of understanding the cross for the very same reason.
I fully agree.
6. What does it mean to be open to scripture? I agree with you that there is an ongoing dialogue with scripture in which we are called to engage but does this mean everything is up for grabs? This dialogue does not take place in isolation and I am suspicious of the reader response approach which is reflected in some post modern engagement with scripture. Tradition and reason both have their place and we would be foolish to dismiss 2,000 years of faithful Christians wrestling with scripture. Engagement with scripture as a corporate activity within the worshipping community is also important and I guess my question to Rollins and Richardson would be what weight they give to this and what sort of boundaries do they draw on who is part of that community?
I put several questions to John Richardson (which he has yet to answer) and which touch on the questions and issues that you are raising here. They included:
- You say "that new developments may indeed be possible in theology." Can you give an example of a new development that you think has come in theology and of how that new development was appropriately tested by being brought to the bar of systematic theology?
- How does the process of appropriately testing a new development in theology that you envisage differ from the debate that is currently happening within the Anglican Communion over the issue of homosexuality? Is this debate not a means of testing a new development in theology and are the problems we currently face perhaps being exacerbated by people on both sides of the argument trying to cut short the testing process?
- How could the approach that you are advocating ever respond positively to a genuine paradigm shift in theology?
In his original post Richardson wrote about the way in which the Trinitarian Creeds were developed and accepted by the Church and this, I think, is an example of the openness in the Bible and of the Church being open to scripture.
The doctrine of the Trinity is not developed or articulated doctrinally within the pages of scripture (although it can be argued that it is assumed). However, the way in which the relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is described and the way in which a Christology is developed in scripture both leave the reality of the Trinity an open possibility that the Church has then explored and articulated in response both to scripture itself and to its own experience of relationship with God through Jesus in the Spirit.
The both/and nature of the scriptures (containing both the open and the closed and seeking to maintain that dialogue) mean both that the Church (as the interpretive community) can arrive at generally accepted articulations of God as Trinity while constantly living with the tension (never more so than in the case of the Trinity) that all such articulations are provisional and that God is always more than any human articulation of his nature and being.
Jim White - Static On The Radio.
The Bible - open or closed? (2)
Thanks again to Philip for his helpful response to my post and for the conversation that we are having on these issues and ideas. I’m certainly finding it stimulating.
On changing the argument by moving from 'wrestling' to 'conversation' and 'dialogue', I did this because I had been asked to give my views on the issue. In my original post I was trying to summarise the arguments made by John Richardson and Peter Rollins in order to contrast them and show that an ‘open’ approach to theology was no less serious about scripture than a ‘conservative’ one.
When I was asked for my view on the issue of wrestling with God then I have to broaden the discussion because I think that conversation is the best descriptor we have for the form in which we have received the Bible and for the way in which that form works within the whole canon of scripture.
Wrestling with God is one element within this broader picture. It is by no means the whole, although it can be a useful entry point into the argument that I am making in these posts and have made previously in other posts and in my NTMTC essays. I think too that I am framing the argument in a way that I have not encountered in quite the same way in the writings of others.
My understanding of being in dialogue with the scriptures goes beyond seeking “to build the bridge between the context/contexts of the passages and our context/contexts today” and beyond those bits of the Bible that we might wrestle with and struggle to make sense of. As a result, I am arguing for making conversation the primary hermeneutic and this why the argument is about the broader form of scripture and not just about particular passages.
This is also why I referred to passages from John’s Gospel as they reveal that Jesus was part of an ongoing conversation within the God into which we too can be drawn. Sometimes this involves wrestling with God, as it did for Jesus in Gethsemene (and also for Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Job, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Jonah, Peter in the vision of non-halal foods, and Paul in his prayers over the ‘thorn in his flesh’), but it also involves conversation, dialogue, sharing and exchange which is not about wrestling and may well be about submission and love.
This is particularly apparent in John’s Gospel where we have particular verses that reveal the ongoing conversation between Jesus and the Father within the Godhead together with Jesus’ teaching being characterised in this Gospel by conversation e.g. the conversations with Nicodemus and the woman of Samaria. Even in the other Gospels, where by contrast narrative is the primary medium for Jesus’ teaching, the parables that Jesus tells often arise out of dialogue with those he encountered. A parable will often be told in response to a question and will be the means by which Jesus asks a question of his questioner.
My argument though is not solely based on the content of particular passages but also about the forms of particular passages/books and the form that the whole canon of scripture takes. Virtually all the Psalms, for example, are conversations where it is assumed that the hearer is either God or the people of Israel. Some of the Psalms are actually written as conversations e.g. Psalm 12. In verses 1-4 the Psalmist cries out to God for help, in verses 5-6 God answers and in verses 7-8 the Psalmist responds by expressing confidence in God. Psalm 77 is the record of a similar conversation with God. In verses 1-6 the Psalmist tells us how he cried out to God, in verses 7-9 he tells what he cried out, in verses 10-12 he tells us how God answered his cry, and in verses 13-20 he tells us of his response to God’s answer.
Similarly, all the Epistles are one side of a conversation in that they are either responses to the writers having been in particular churches and feeling the need to contribute to ongoing discussions within those churches when absent from them or specific responses to letters received from those churches. Revelation is also structured with a significant element of conversation with the writer being questioned by various characters in the vision and in turn asking questions of those same characters.
Conversation therefore features strongly in the content of passages/books and in the form of many passages/books. However, it has been strangely overlooked as a hermeneutic for theology and it is primarily postmodernism that is revealing it as an significant tool or lens for understanding scripture.
The argument does not stop there however because we have set to consider the overall shape or form in which we have received scripture. If we are going to be honest about that overall form in which we have received the Bible then we have to describe it as Mike Riddell, for example, does as “a collection of bits” assembled to form God’s home page or as Mark Oakley does when he uses a more poetic image to speak of the Bible as “the best example of a collage of God that we have”. Riddell and Oakley both develop their images of the Bible from the recognition that the whole Christian Bible contains, as Oakley says, “different views, experiences, beliefs and prayers” drawn “from disparate eras, cultures and authors” which are not systematic in their portrayal of God. As Riddell states: “The bits don’t fit together very well – sometimes they even seem to be contradictory. Stories, poems, teachings, records, events and miracles rub up against each other. They come from all over the place, and span at least 4,000 years of history.”
This is not surprising when there are four Gospels not one, when there are at least two different accounts of Paul’s conversion and ministry, and when the principal form of the New Testament – the letter – is the form of long-distance, written conversation.
The Bible, then, does not move forward in the smooth linear style of, for example, a nineteenth century novel, an academic thesis, a sermon or a systematic theology. Reading the Bible in terms of linearity or chronology is a stop-start process involving multiple perspectives on the same key events or characters and extensive wastelands where little or nothing of significance happens or is recorded. We can learn about the Church in Ephesus, for example, from Acts, Ephesians, 1 Timothy, Revelation and, possibly, the Johannine letters but nowhere do we find a full, chronological telling of the story of that Church. The same can be said of all the Churches which Paul founded, including the Church at Corinth. The founding of this Church is recorded in Acts and the story then jumps to Paul’s letters to this Church. These letters are a debate or conversation (not a story) between Paul and the members of the Corinthian Church about issues of concern to Paul and matters on which the Church had written to Paul for advice. We don’t have the letters which Church members wrote to Paul or all the letters which Paul wrote to the Corinthian Church so the conversation as we have it is a little one-sided and incomplete, although we can infer some of the points made by the Church members from Paul’s record of and response to them.
To ignore the disparate nature and form of the Christian Bible is to run significant risks as Riddell warns us: “ … let us be aware that the assembled parts of the Bible are collected in a somewhat haphazard fashion. To push them into chronological order requires a great deal of scholarship, and runs the danger of doing violence to the material.”
What we have in scripture is, as Gabriel Josipovici has pointed out, “a collection of miscellaneous ‘writings’ … laid alongside each other, the narrative being built up by slotting these together where necessary”. Josipovici describes this as “an extraordinarily simple and an extraordinarily flexible system, which can lead from what could almost be described as shorthand to rich elaboration … Each new element … helps to bring into focus prior elements which we would have overlooked had we not been alerted to them by what follows.” In other words, the texts are in conversation with each other within the overall canon of scripture.
I tried to highlight this in my second post by writing about the way, for example, that Jesus’ ministry, as Tom Wright has set out so well in his major writings, involves the retelling of the story of Israel in terms of himself and his ministry. This means that Jesus’ actions and teaching are, in full, a conversation with the narratives of the Jewish scriptures which involves a reinterpretation of those stories in terms of himself and his ministry. This dialogue with the Jewish scriptures and the retelling or reinterpretation of its narratives continues throughout the New Testament with Paul’s reworking of the Hagar and Sarah narrative, Hebrew’s reinterpretation of the sacrificial system, and Revelation’s reworking of apocalyptic narratives in terms of the politics of the day being some of the stand-out examples.
What holds this collection of miscellaneous writings and the conversation between them in the canon of scripture is the narrative thread which is weaved through them. As I have been saying above this is not a linear or chronological narrative. As I wrote before, I think that it is vital to be real about the non-linear, non-chronological, circuitous and fractured way in which the story in the Christian scriptures is actually told because that is where the openness in scripture is found. The story, the meta-narrative, is embedded in the conversation and can only be understood by taking part in the conversation.
When the story is extracted from the form in which it has been given to us in order to make it linear, chronological and consistent then “violence is done to the material” and it becomes something other than the narrative as God revealed it us. This is actually something that Wright and Richard Burridge have both written about in criticising our Christmas and Easter traditions of (through the Nine Lessons, Seven Last Words, Stations of the Cross/Resurrection etc.) taking bits of the different stories told in the Gospels and elsewhere and fitting them together using a chronology taken from only one of the Gospels to tell the birth, passion or resurrection narratives in ways that ultimately are not those in which those stories have been given to us. Creating systematic theologies by harmonisation or using historical criticism to create ‘the Historical Jesus’ does, I think, similar violence to the text and the key issue is that by doing so we are not reading the narrative in the form in which it was given.
The final move here is to set out in what way the form of scripture keeps the story open. In doing so, it may be helpful to use an analogy. 1408 is a film in which the grieving central character visits haunted hotel rooms in order to deconstruct the narratives that these hotels are using to sell rooms. His motivation for doing so is his unresolved grief over the death of his daughter. When he enters Room 1408 he encounters a room that uses his unresolved grief to terrify and overwhelm him. The way in which film tells the story deliberately operates on two simultaneous levels so that we are never sure whether the central character is fighting real demons or the demons of his own mind. The resolution of the story maintains this ambiguity in that the central character destroys Room 1408, and in doing so also destroys himself, but we are left unsure whether the torment he has faced dies with the physical destruction of the room or continues in the lives of those he has impacted. 1408 therefore combines a narrative which reaches resolution with dual levels of interpretation which leaves us questioning what we have seen and which send us out from the film continuing to reflect on the effect of bereavement in contrast to the sense of satisfaction that comes from a narrative with a resolution that ties up all the loose ends and answers all our questions.
My contention is that the Bible works in a somewhat similar way because its narrative is embedded in a similarly open form. What we have in the Bible, I think, is a both/and - a linear narrative thrust combined with the laying of fragments side by side so that each fragment adds to and challenges the others. We cannot understand one without the other because this is the form in which God has chosen to give us the scriptures.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stravinsky - Symphony of Psalms III.
On changing the argument by moving from 'wrestling' to 'conversation' and 'dialogue', I did this because I had been asked to give my views on the issue. In my original post I was trying to summarise the arguments made by John Richardson and Peter Rollins in order to contrast them and show that an ‘open’ approach to theology was no less serious about scripture than a ‘conservative’ one.
When I was asked for my view on the issue of wrestling with God then I have to broaden the discussion because I think that conversation is the best descriptor we have for the form in which we have received the Bible and for the way in which that form works within the whole canon of scripture.
Wrestling with God is one element within this broader picture. It is by no means the whole, although it can be a useful entry point into the argument that I am making in these posts and have made previously in other posts and in my NTMTC essays. I think too that I am framing the argument in a way that I have not encountered in quite the same way in the writings of others.
My understanding of being in dialogue with the scriptures goes beyond seeking “to build the bridge between the context/contexts of the passages and our context/contexts today” and beyond those bits of the Bible that we might wrestle with and struggle to make sense of. As a result, I am arguing for making conversation the primary hermeneutic and this why the argument is about the broader form of scripture and not just about particular passages.
This is also why I referred to passages from John’s Gospel as they reveal that Jesus was part of an ongoing conversation within the God into which we too can be drawn. Sometimes this involves wrestling with God, as it did for Jesus in Gethsemene (and also for Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Job, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Jonah, Peter in the vision of non-halal foods, and Paul in his prayers over the ‘thorn in his flesh’), but it also involves conversation, dialogue, sharing and exchange which is not about wrestling and may well be about submission and love.
This is particularly apparent in John’s Gospel where we have particular verses that reveal the ongoing conversation between Jesus and the Father within the Godhead together with Jesus’ teaching being characterised in this Gospel by conversation e.g. the conversations with Nicodemus and the woman of Samaria. Even in the other Gospels, where by contrast narrative is the primary medium for Jesus’ teaching, the parables that Jesus tells often arise out of dialogue with those he encountered. A parable will often be told in response to a question and will be the means by which Jesus asks a question of his questioner.
My argument though is not solely based on the content of particular passages but also about the forms of particular passages/books and the form that the whole canon of scripture takes. Virtually all the Psalms, for example, are conversations where it is assumed that the hearer is either God or the people of Israel. Some of the Psalms are actually written as conversations e.g. Psalm 12. In verses 1-4 the Psalmist cries out to God for help, in verses 5-6 God answers and in verses 7-8 the Psalmist responds by expressing confidence in God. Psalm 77 is the record of a similar conversation with God. In verses 1-6 the Psalmist tells us how he cried out to God, in verses 7-9 he tells what he cried out, in verses 10-12 he tells us how God answered his cry, and in verses 13-20 he tells us of his response to God’s answer.
Similarly, all the Epistles are one side of a conversation in that they are either responses to the writers having been in particular churches and feeling the need to contribute to ongoing discussions within those churches when absent from them or specific responses to letters received from those churches. Revelation is also structured with a significant element of conversation with the writer being questioned by various characters in the vision and in turn asking questions of those same characters.
Conversation therefore features strongly in the content of passages/books and in the form of many passages/books. However, it has been strangely overlooked as a hermeneutic for theology and it is primarily postmodernism that is revealing it as an significant tool or lens for understanding scripture.
The argument does not stop there however because we have set to consider the overall shape or form in which we have received scripture. If we are going to be honest about that overall form in which we have received the Bible then we have to describe it as Mike Riddell, for example, does as “a collection of bits” assembled to form God’s home page or as Mark Oakley does when he uses a more poetic image to speak of the Bible as “the best example of a collage of God that we have”. Riddell and Oakley both develop their images of the Bible from the recognition that the whole Christian Bible contains, as Oakley says, “different views, experiences, beliefs and prayers” drawn “from disparate eras, cultures and authors” which are not systematic in their portrayal of God. As Riddell states: “The bits don’t fit together very well – sometimes they even seem to be contradictory. Stories, poems, teachings, records, events and miracles rub up against each other. They come from all over the place, and span at least 4,000 years of history.”
This is not surprising when there are four Gospels not one, when there are at least two different accounts of Paul’s conversion and ministry, and when the principal form of the New Testament – the letter – is the form of long-distance, written conversation.
The Bible, then, does not move forward in the smooth linear style of, for example, a nineteenth century novel, an academic thesis, a sermon or a systematic theology. Reading the Bible in terms of linearity or chronology is a stop-start process involving multiple perspectives on the same key events or characters and extensive wastelands where little or nothing of significance happens or is recorded. We can learn about the Church in Ephesus, for example, from Acts, Ephesians, 1 Timothy, Revelation and, possibly, the Johannine letters but nowhere do we find a full, chronological telling of the story of that Church. The same can be said of all the Churches which Paul founded, including the Church at Corinth. The founding of this Church is recorded in Acts and the story then jumps to Paul’s letters to this Church. These letters are a debate or conversation (not a story) between Paul and the members of the Corinthian Church about issues of concern to Paul and matters on which the Church had written to Paul for advice. We don’t have the letters which Church members wrote to Paul or all the letters which Paul wrote to the Corinthian Church so the conversation as we have it is a little one-sided and incomplete, although we can infer some of the points made by the Church members from Paul’s record of and response to them.
To ignore the disparate nature and form of the Christian Bible is to run significant risks as Riddell warns us: “ … let us be aware that the assembled parts of the Bible are collected in a somewhat haphazard fashion. To push them into chronological order requires a great deal of scholarship, and runs the danger of doing violence to the material.”
What we have in scripture is, as Gabriel Josipovici has pointed out, “a collection of miscellaneous ‘writings’ … laid alongside each other, the narrative being built up by slotting these together where necessary”. Josipovici describes this as “an extraordinarily simple and an extraordinarily flexible system, which can lead from what could almost be described as shorthand to rich elaboration … Each new element … helps to bring into focus prior elements which we would have overlooked had we not been alerted to them by what follows.” In other words, the texts are in conversation with each other within the overall canon of scripture.
I tried to highlight this in my second post by writing about the way, for example, that Jesus’ ministry, as Tom Wright has set out so well in his major writings, involves the retelling of the story of Israel in terms of himself and his ministry. This means that Jesus’ actions and teaching are, in full, a conversation with the narratives of the Jewish scriptures which involves a reinterpretation of those stories in terms of himself and his ministry. This dialogue with the Jewish scriptures and the retelling or reinterpretation of its narratives continues throughout the New Testament with Paul’s reworking of the Hagar and Sarah narrative, Hebrew’s reinterpretation of the sacrificial system, and Revelation’s reworking of apocalyptic narratives in terms of the politics of the day being some of the stand-out examples.
What holds this collection of miscellaneous writings and the conversation between them in the canon of scripture is the narrative thread which is weaved through them. As I have been saying above this is not a linear or chronological narrative. As I wrote before, I think that it is vital to be real about the non-linear, non-chronological, circuitous and fractured way in which the story in the Christian scriptures is actually told because that is where the openness in scripture is found. The story, the meta-narrative, is embedded in the conversation and can only be understood by taking part in the conversation.
When the story is extracted from the form in which it has been given to us in order to make it linear, chronological and consistent then “violence is done to the material” and it becomes something other than the narrative as God revealed it us. This is actually something that Wright and Richard Burridge have both written about in criticising our Christmas and Easter traditions of (through the Nine Lessons, Seven Last Words, Stations of the Cross/Resurrection etc.) taking bits of the different stories told in the Gospels and elsewhere and fitting them together using a chronology taken from only one of the Gospels to tell the birth, passion or resurrection narratives in ways that ultimately are not those in which those stories have been given to us. Creating systematic theologies by harmonisation or using historical criticism to create ‘the Historical Jesus’ does, I think, similar violence to the text and the key issue is that by doing so we are not reading the narrative in the form in which it was given.
The final move here is to set out in what way the form of scripture keeps the story open. In doing so, it may be helpful to use an analogy. 1408 is a film in which the grieving central character visits haunted hotel rooms in order to deconstruct the narratives that these hotels are using to sell rooms. His motivation for doing so is his unresolved grief over the death of his daughter. When he enters Room 1408 he encounters a room that uses his unresolved grief to terrify and overwhelm him. The way in which film tells the story deliberately operates on two simultaneous levels so that we are never sure whether the central character is fighting real demons or the demons of his own mind. The resolution of the story maintains this ambiguity in that the central character destroys Room 1408, and in doing so also destroys himself, but we are left unsure whether the torment he has faced dies with the physical destruction of the room or continues in the lives of those he has impacted. 1408 therefore combines a narrative which reaches resolution with dual levels of interpretation which leaves us questioning what we have seen and which send us out from the film continuing to reflect on the effect of bereavement in contrast to the sense of satisfaction that comes from a narrative with a resolution that ties up all the loose ends and answers all our questions.
My contention is that the Bible works in a somewhat similar way because its narrative is embedded in a similarly open form. What we have in the Bible, I think, is a both/and - a linear narrative thrust combined with the laying of fragments side by side so that each fragment adds to and challenges the others. We cannot understand one without the other because this is the form in which God has chosen to give us the scriptures.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stravinsky - Symphony of Psalms III.
Friday, 21 November 2008
'Ghost Town' & '1408'
Ghost Town is laugh-out-loud funny while 1408 is a psychological thriller that, while not as scary as the publicity would have you believe, keeps your interest through the twists and turns of its plot. Although using opposite genres (comedy and horror) the link between both is the way we respond to death including our sense of being haunted by those we have loved and lost and by our part in the events leading to their death. Ghost Town sees its central characters finding release from their sense of being haunted while in 1408 there is no escape for the central character but a choice to be made as to whether others should suffer as he has done.
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Echo & The Bunnymen - The Killing Moon.
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Echo & The Bunnymen - The Killing Moon.
Worthship
Down dimly-lit stairwells
into a cavernous immensity
of curved brick, concrete and darkness
to stand still, transfixed,
in silent expanse
focused on the glow
and gleam
of the white stone table
over which
the crucified Christ hangs
from concrete cross-beams.
Morning light softly infiltrates,
casting shadows,
bringing the dawn.
Monks move like shadows,
spectral figures flitting
between material pillars,
robes rustle rhythmically
and doors close echoingly
as they glide
to private devotions
and public prayer.
A zither sends its solitary note
to circumnavigate
the circuitous void
where every sound is magnified
and heard.
Dual voices lead
the hushed plainsong chant
that ascends.
Our simple psalm tones
rise like smoke, like incense,
as we are broken
and opened
by luminous harmonies.
The space and acoustic
act and appear as
the inside of a hi-fi speaker;
the lantern, like an industrial chimney,
funnels the aromatic incense
of prayer and praise
to tease and to please
into a cavernous immensity
of curved brick, concrete and darkness
to stand still, transfixed,
in silent expanse
focused on the glow
and gleam
of the white stone table
over which
the crucified Christ hangs
from concrete cross-beams.
Morning light softly infiltrates,
casting shadows,
bringing the dawn.
Monks move like shadows,
spectral figures flitting
between material pillars,
robes rustle rhythmically
and doors close echoingly
as they glide
to private devotions
and public prayer.
A zither sends its solitary note
to circumnavigate
the circuitous void
where every sound is magnified
and heard.
Dual voices lead
the hushed plainsong chant
that ascends.
Our simple psalm tones
rise like smoke, like incense,
as we are broken
and opened
by luminous harmonies.
The space and acoustic
act and appear as
the inside of a hi-fi speaker;
the lantern, like an industrial chimney,
funnels the aromatic incense
of prayer and praise
to tease and to please
the senses of God.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Francis Poulenc - Domine Deus.
Cell Group retreat
Worth Abbey
Worth Abbey
Worth Parish Church
Relaxing at Worth Church
In the churchyard of Worth ChurchYesterday I got back from my annual cell group retreat at Worth Abbey. As in previous years this was a wonderful time of rest and refreshment with close friends who accept and support absolutely.
While at Worth we divide our time between food preparation, country walks, table communions, quiet spaces and worship with the monks in the Abbey Church. Most of which provides us with the time we need to share where we are in our ministries and to pray for and encourage one another. It certainly isn't a silent retreat as we discuss the issues we, and the Church as a whole face, together with swapping stories and advice on the practicalities of ministry but it is punctuated by key moments of quiet reflection in the Abbey's services and in time spent in individual prayer and reading.
This year I finished re-reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and also finished Tom Wright's Surprised by Hope before, on Sam's recommendation, starting James Alison's Faith beyond Resentment.
I enjoyed a more measured read through the Harry Potter than had been the case on reading it initially post-publication. The significance and strength of self-sacrifice is very apparent as the story reaches its conclusion together with the inability of evil to comprehend, as C.S. Lewis would have phrased it, the 'deeper magic' of sacrificing oneself for others.
In Surprised by Hope Tom Wright makes a strong case for the biblical vision of the future being 'life after life after death' i.e. 'rest' in paradise prior to resurrection into the united new heaven and new earth that will be the kingdom of God come on earth as in heaven and towards which we work by creating anticipations of this hope in the present through justice, beauty and evangelism.
I'm particularly looking forward to reading further in Faith beyond Resentment, in part because Alison writes from a Girardian perspective but also because, to judge from the first chapter, his readings of scripture will feed in to my posts on 'The Bible - open or closed?'
Post Remembrance Day and pre-Advent is a great time in which to go on retreat. I went to Worth feeling overtired and overburdened by issues and challenges. Rested and refreshed from stimulating conversation, wonderful countryside, transcendant worship, stunning architecture, committed friendships, and challenging reading, I feel more able to tackle the issues and opportunities of parish and deanery ministry with renewed vigour and hope.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Extreme - Stop The World.
Thursday, 20 November 2008
'Art & Christianity' No. 56
The Winter 2008 issue of Art & Christianity has been published and includes:
- Guest editorial: Richard Cork on Francis Bacon;
- Stephen Cox and Stephen Bann in coversation;
- Letter from Paris: Renée Moineau;
- Margaret Garlake on Anthony Caro's 'Chapel of Light';
- Reviews of Tracy Emin, Chagall, Rothko, Ana Maria Pacheco, Russian Vibes;
- Book reviews on Victorian Art, the Theological Aesthetics of von Balthasar; and
- Plus plus Paul Bayley interviews Canon Martin Warner, St Paul's Cathedral, London.
The review of Ana Maria Pacheco's exhibition is one of mine.
ACE are also currently advertising Icons of the absence of God: An ACE/King's College symposium on Rothko and spirituality, 10am-5pm, 24 January 2009 at King’s College, Strand, London WC2.
Does Rothko offer consolation to a godless world? Where lies the enigma of Rothko’s paintings?
To coincide with the major exhibition of Mark Rothko’s work at Tate Modern, this symposium will critically review different interpretations of these works, and how they speak to their social and cultural context, from the perspectives of cultural history, neuro-science, art history and theology.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stravinsky - Symphony of Psalms I. Psalm 38.
Windows on the world (28)
Worth Abbey, 2008
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo De Silos - Media Vita in Morte Sumus - Responsorio (Modo IV).
Celia Ward exhibition
comission4mission member Celia Ward will be exhibiting in “Romania’s Heritage in Danger” which is part of the Festival of Art and Music 2008 at the Romanian Cultural Institute, 1 Belgrave Square , London SW1X 8PH.
The exhibition will show villages, towns and different building types under threat, and the work of organisations like The Adept Foundation and Pro Patrimonio counteracting the threat. It includes a section on the village, with special emphasis on carpets and weaving, illustrated with paintings by Celia Ward and films of village life. The exhibition will be open to the public from 10am to 5pm on 25 and 26 November 2008.
An illustrated lecture features on Tuesday 25 November 2008 from 7-9pm: “Fauna and Flora of Southern Transylvania”, by ADEPT botanist and conservationist Dr. John Akeroyd. Wine and canapés will be served after the lecture. Then on Wednesday 26 November 2008 from 7-9pm there is a concert of classical and folk music featuring Sherban Lupu, violin, and the Peasant Virtuosos of Romania. Again, wine and canapés will be served after the concert.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sherban Lupu
The exhibition will show villages, towns and different building types under threat, and the work of organisations like The Adept Foundation and Pro Patrimonio counteracting the threat. It includes a section on the village, with special emphasis on carpets and weaving, illustrated with paintings by Celia Ward and films of village life. The exhibition will be open to the public from 10am to 5pm on 25 and 26 November 2008.
An illustrated lecture features on Tuesday 25 November 2008 from 7-9pm: “Fauna and Flora of Southern Transylvania”, by ADEPT botanist and conservationist Dr. John Akeroyd. Wine and canapés will be served after the lecture. Then on Wednesday 26 November 2008 from 7-9pm there is a concert of classical and folk music featuring Sherban Lupu, violin, and the Peasant Virtuosos of Romania. Again, wine and canapés will be served after the concert.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sherban Lupu
Bishop Pierre calls for prayer for Congo on 23 November
Posted By : Admin ACORelated Categories: Europe ACNS: http://aco.org/acns/news.cfm/2008/11/18/ACNS4542:
Dear colleagues,
As you know, the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo continuesto fester. Much is still underreported. In addition to the crisis in theGoma region, there are two areas of rebel activity in Congo which have not hit the news: the Dungu area, in the north, where the Lord'sResistance Army has attacked villages and abducted adults and children in recent weeks, and also the Gety/Aveba/Nyankunde region, close to Bunia, where a new militia group emerged in late September and displaced many people from their homes. Our Anglican sisters and brothers in those areas have been deeply affected, and are in the forefront of relief efforts and peacemaking.
I am echoing Archbishop Fidèle Dirokpa's call for a day of prayer for peace in the Congo on Sunday 23 November.
You can use the following prayer, if you like, or do your own.
O God of peace and abundant life, You call peacemakers your children.
Let your Holy Spirit guide and govern all those who are making peace in Congo,
and give them success,
So that all your people may have that abundant life promised through your beloved Son, Jesus Christ,
who lives and reigns with you and the same Spirit, one God in Holy Trinity. Amen.
Episcopal Relief and Development is sending aid. Please encourage your people to help in any way they can prayer first, but also material help as well. See http://www.er-d.org/ for information on sending directhelp.
Here is a short documentary on the underlying issues that have led to what is called "The Third World War." Five million have already died ... http://www.mediastorm.org/0022.htm
Thank you in advance,
+Pierre
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edwin Starr - War.
Dear colleagues,
As you know, the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo continuesto fester. Much is still underreported. In addition to the crisis in theGoma region, there are two areas of rebel activity in Congo which have not hit the news: the Dungu area, in the north, where the Lord'sResistance Army has attacked villages and abducted adults and children in recent weeks, and also the Gety/Aveba/Nyankunde region, close to Bunia, where a new militia group emerged in late September and displaced many people from their homes. Our Anglican sisters and brothers in those areas have been deeply affected, and are in the forefront of relief efforts and peacemaking.
I am echoing Archbishop Fidèle Dirokpa's call for a day of prayer for peace in the Congo on Sunday 23 November.
You can use the following prayer, if you like, or do your own.
O God of peace and abundant life, You call peacemakers your children.
Let your Holy Spirit guide and govern all those who are making peace in Congo,
and give them success,
So that all your people may have that abundant life promised through your beloved Son, Jesus Christ,
who lives and reigns with you and the same Spirit, one God in Holy Trinity. Amen.
Episcopal Relief and Development is sending aid. Please encourage your people to help in any way they can prayer first, but also material help as well. See http://www.er-d.org/ for information on sending directhelp.
Here is a short documentary on the underlying issues that have led to what is called "The Third World War." Five million have already died ... http://www.mediastorm.org/0022.htm
Thank you in advance,
+Pierre
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edwin Starr - War.
Saturday, 15 November 2008
MiLE Gospel Reflection
When the boss is away, how do the workers react? That is the theme for the Gospel Reflection that I've written this week for the MiLE website based on Matthew 25. 14-30.
In the parable the three workers are put in charge of the boss' property and given resources to use well. God's property is the world he made and has gifted to us. How can we, through our work, benefit and develop the world for which God has given humanity responsibility? What resources - in terms of abilities, job, income and possessions - has he given to us in order to fulfil our responsibility to benefit and develop the world?
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Extreme - Money (In God We Trust).
In the parable the three workers are put in charge of the boss' property and given resources to use well. God's property is the world he made and has gifted to us. How can we, through our work, benefit and develop the world for which God has given humanity responsibility? What resources - in terms of abilities, job, income and possessions - has he given to us in order to fulfil our responsibility to benefit and develop the world?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Extreme - Money (In God We Trust).
Breakfast at St John's
Last Saturday we hosted a very successful Ladies Breakfast at St John's Seven Kings with fifty women enjoying a continental breakfast together and the opportunity to hear Lydia Gladwin speak about MUDPIES. This is the acronym for Chelmsford Mothers' Union & Diocese Prison Initiatives, a project which operates in the two prisons in the diocese - Bullwood Hall (184 prisoners) and Chelmsford, a Category B local prison and young offender institution (575).
In her talk, entitled 'Who serves the sentence?' Lydia Gladwin said:
"The needs which the project seeks to meet are a welcome to families and provision for children in the visits' halls. Before we launched MUDPIES there was little provision in the visits' halls, no toys and no play areas.
Progress to date has seen the setting up of a designated play area in Chelmsford prison which has been stocked with toys and equipment given by churches at Christmas. At Bullwood Hall, MUDPIES provides a welcome facility for families in a room outside the main gate where tea and coffee is served to visitors who have often travelled considerable distances. Sometimes we are able to share their anxieties about their situation and its effect on their family life.
At both Chelmsford and Bullwood Hall, volunteers are able to give a practical demonstration of the Christian values of family life by supporting families in such stressful environments. And it is vitally important too that we are able to help children to enjoy visiting their fathers in the prison setting."
During the morning, a cheque for £300 was presented to Lydia for the work of MUDPIES by the Mothers' Union at St John's. This money had been raised through a series of summer tea afternoons and a secondhand book stall in the Church lounge.
This Saturday, it was the turn of the men (see above photos) who enjoyed a cooked breakfast and who heard from Premier Radio presenter John Pantry. John spoke about his work in the music business as an engineer, producer and musician, his conversion to Christianity, and his work as a presenter of Premier Radio.
He emphasised the way in which he and his family had been supported by God especially through times of difficulty and also talked about the value of places in the media, like Premier Radio and its online TV service, where a real breadth of expressions of Christian faith could be heard and seen. For example, Premier's Lifeline helpline takes at least 1,000 phonecalls each week by providing people at the end of a phone able to listen to and support callers.
It has been great to welcome such interesting speakers to these breakfast events at St John's. We have been encouraged to have such a good response from people locally to these events which provide good food and conversation combined with stimulating presentations. What is most interesting is hearing our speaker's stories of how Christian faith engages with real life, on these occasions in the very different worlds of prisons and the entertainment industry.
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Alabaster Box - Nyame Ka Yen Ko.
Friday, 14 November 2008
30th Annual Tamil Carol Service
Many years ago, an angel gave us “good news of great joy” announcing the birth of a baby born in a manger and people all over the world continue to celebrate His birth. We invite you to join in this celebration by sharing love, peace and joy with family and friends, at the start of this Christmas season. It gives me great pleasure, to invite you and your loved ones to the 30th. Annual Tamil Carols, which is being held as usual in the 1st weekend in December.
Date: Saturday, 6 December
Time: 6pm (for 6.30pm start)
Venue: St. John’s Church (St. John’s Road, Seven Kings, Ilford).
St. John’s Road is off Aldborough Road South, which is off A12 (Eastern Avenue) and can be reached from A406 or from M25 (Junction 28). Parking is possible near the church. Newbury Park station (Central Line) is the nearest Underground & is walking distance to the church. As usual, every family will be contributing a dish for Dinner (held in the Hall), which will follow the Carol Service.
As a preamble to the Carol Service, the choir (led by Ranjit Solomon Abraham) will render music from 6pm. until 6.30pm. We hope to then start the main service promptly at 6.30pm. to facilitate the smooth running of the programme and also to enable everyone to spend adequate time with each other, after the Service. There will be a choir rehearsal on Friday, 5 December. As you maybe aware, there is a crèche facility (upstairs) for young children, which enables parents with young children, to see and hear the Carol Service from the crèche upstairs. An Offertory will be collected during the service (to cover costs of hiring the hall and other related expenses).
If there is anyone you know, who would also like to attend the Tamil Carols on 6 December, please give them the above information. Hope to see you all at the Annual Tamil Carols on Saturday, 6 December!
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Eric Bibb - Spirit I Am.
Date: Saturday, 6 December
Time: 6pm (for 6.30pm start)
Venue: St. John’s Church (St. John’s Road, Seven Kings, Ilford).
St. John’s Road is off Aldborough Road South, which is off A12 (Eastern Avenue) and can be reached from A406 or from M25 (Junction 28). Parking is possible near the church. Newbury Park station (Central Line) is the nearest Underground & is walking distance to the church. As usual, every family will be contributing a dish for Dinner (held in the Hall), which will follow the Carol Service.
As a preamble to the Carol Service, the choir (led by Ranjit Solomon Abraham) will render music from 6pm. until 6.30pm. We hope to then start the main service promptly at 6.30pm. to facilitate the smooth running of the programme and also to enable everyone to spend adequate time with each other, after the Service. There will be a choir rehearsal on Friday, 5 December. As you maybe aware, there is a crèche facility (upstairs) for young children, which enables parents with young children, to see and hear the Carol Service from the crèche upstairs. An Offertory will be collected during the service (to cover costs of hiring the hall and other related expenses).
If there is anyone you know, who would also like to attend the Tamil Carols on 6 December, please give them the above information. Hope to see you all at the Annual Tamil Carols on Saturday, 6 December!
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Eric Bibb - Spirit I Am.
Day of prayer and fasting for Congo
This request comes via CMS:
The crisis in Eastern Congo has been graphically shown in TV images and web reports in recent days. Like many of you who have friends and co-workers in the region, we in Congo Church Association have been receiving regular updates from church leaders and friends. Their urgent plea has been for prayer for resolution of the conflict and peace, and provision for the needs of the vast numbers of displaced people.
The Congo Church Association, (which works with Anglican Church of Congo), and CMS UK are calling upon Christians in UK and further afield to join together in a Day of Prayer and Fasting for Congo on Saturday 22nd November. Let us join together in prayer for peace and for a resolution to the complex issues surrounding the conflict, as well as for the physical and spiritual needs of all those affected. In addition to the crisis in the Goma region, let’s also remember two areas of rebel activity in Congo which have not hit the news: the Dungu area in the north where the Lord’s Resistance Army has attacked villages and abducted adults and children in recent weeks, and also Gety/Aveba/Nyankunde region close to Bunia where a new militia group emerged in late September and displaced many people from their homes.
Please invite friends and supporters of your organisation to participate in this Day of Prayer and Fasting for Congo on Saturday 22nd November and make this prayer initiative widely known.
Prayer resources will be available on the CMS and CCA web sites by 17th November. www.cms-uk.org and www.congochurchassn.org.uk/prayer.pdf.
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Blessid Union of Souls - Brother, My Brother.
The crisis in Eastern Congo has been graphically shown in TV images and web reports in recent days. Like many of you who have friends and co-workers in the region, we in Congo Church Association have been receiving regular updates from church leaders and friends. Their urgent plea has been for prayer for resolution of the conflict and peace, and provision for the needs of the vast numbers of displaced people.
The Congo Church Association, (which works with Anglican Church of Congo), and CMS UK are calling upon Christians in UK and further afield to join together in a Day of Prayer and Fasting for Congo on Saturday 22nd November. Let us join together in prayer for peace and for a resolution to the complex issues surrounding the conflict, as well as for the physical and spiritual needs of all those affected. In addition to the crisis in the Goma region, let’s also remember two areas of rebel activity in Congo which have not hit the news: the Dungu area in the north where the Lord’s Resistance Army has attacked villages and abducted adults and children in recent weeks, and also Gety/Aveba/Nyankunde region close to Bunia where a new militia group emerged in late September and displaced many people from their homes.
Please invite friends and supporters of your organisation to participate in this Day of Prayer and Fasting for Congo on Saturday 22nd November and make this prayer initiative widely known.
Prayer resources will be available on the CMS and CCA web sites by 17th November. www.cms-uk.org and www.congochurchassn.org.uk/prayer.pdf.
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Blessid Union of Souls - Brother, My Brother.
The Bible - open or closed?
Philip Ritchie has raised some stimulating questions in response to my Not cherry-picking, but 'Open' post. Each one needs alot of thought and I have only had a chance to respond to the first two as yet. But, for what it is worth, these are my current thoughts in response:
1. Where do you see yourself standing between these two poles [Richardson and Rollins]?
I’m closer to Rollins than to Richardson and the principal reason for this is my thinking about the form of scripture. I think that the form in which scripture has been received is a much neglected area of biblical study and reflection and one that some of the theologians and scholars that I find most interesting and convincing have begun to address in their writings. I think it is significant because it should impact on evangelical views of the inspiration of scripture.
My view is that scripture is inspired both in its form and content; that God determined the form in which we have received scripture and that in order to understand and use scripture as he intended we have to use and not abuse the form in which we have received scripture. This, I think, leads to an essentially open view of scripture. Closed forms are those which move coherently towards a clearly stated resolution or conclusion. These could include, for example, a legal document, a lecture, or a traditional novel with a beginning, middle and end. Open forms are those which involve internal debate and dialogue (often both in content and genres used) and which do not arrive at a clear resolution or conclusion. Examples include Tristram Shandy, Ulysses, and The Waste Land. While the Bible contains a number of books written using closed forms, in its overall form it seems to me that it is open.
2. Does Christianity have a meta – narrative? I believe it does and I think scripture itself bears witness to this. I accept what Rollins is saying about the ‘wrestling with God’ aspects of scripture but these are much more evident in the Old Testament than the New Testament. The examples from Rollins you quote are OT e.g. Moses and Jacob. We do see a wrestling in the NT but there is also a great deal of resolution within the canon which begins to emerge e.g. the place of Gentile Christians, law, circumcision, food laws, Temple etc. I am reading through Acts at the moment and it does seem to me that early on in the life of the emerging church a meta-narrative began to develop centred on Christ. The Old Testament witness is then interpreted in the light of this. The speeches in Acts contain meta-narratives in which scripture is presented as pointing to Jesus as both Lord and Messiah. Peter in Acts 2, Stephen in Acts 7 being two examples.
There are two questions here and I’ll start with the latter which is, isn’t the NT more about resolution than wrestling? Interestingly the idea that the NT is more about resolution than wrestling is the conclusion reached by Gabriel Josipovici, one of my favourite writers on the Bible, who argues that the Jewish scriptures are an essentially ‘open’ collection of texts that don’t achieve or seek resolution while the forward thrust of the narrative conception underpinning the structure of the combined Old and New Testaments means that the Christian scriptures to seek and achieve resolution. Josipovici argues that:
“The Christian Bible leads to the end of time, to the fulfilment of time. When time is fulfilled everything will have been revealed … but by and large the Hebrew Bible chose a different path. It chose not to stay with the fulfilment of man’s desires but with the reality of what happens to us in life. We all long in our daily lives for an end to uncertainty, to the need for decisions and choices, with the concomitant feeling that the choices we have made may have been the wrong ones. Yet we also know that life will not provide such an end, that we will always be enmeshed in uncertainty. What is extraordinary is that a sacred book should dramatize this, rather than be the one place where we are given what we desire. But that is precisely what the Hebrew Bible does … What we have to say is that Christianity expresses profound desires and suggests that these can eventually be fulfilled. The Hebrew Bible refuses that consolation.”
That is essentially an alternative way framing the argument you make in your question. I want to nuance this response rather more than you or Josipovici.
So where do we find wrestling with God in the New Testament? I would rather want to ask where do we find conversation or dialogue with God in the New Testament? Let’s begin with Jesus and his dialogue within the Trinity. Jesus as God’s Son is in conversation with both God the Father and with God the Spirit. The Son claims that he hears from the Father and speaks just what the Father has taught him (John 8: 26 – 29). He also claims that his relationship with the Father is not just one way, rather the Father also always hears the Son (John 11: 41 & 42). Similarly, he says that the Spirit will not speak on his own but only what he hears (John 16: 13). The Spirit is sent, like the Son, by the Father, but comes in the name of the Son to remind the disciples of everything that the Son said to them (John 14: 26 & 27). This interplay or dialogue within the Godhead between Father, Son and Spirit can be summed up in the words of John 3. 34-35: “For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God; to him God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands.” Stephen Verney calls this interplay between Father, Son and Spirit, which he believes we are called to enter, ‘the Dance of Love.’ We are allowed small peeks into this ongoing dialogue through Jesus’ prayers immediately prior to his passion; his prayer in Gethsemene and his prayer for unity. There we find genuine debate in the dialogue within the Godhead.
Next, as Tom Wright has set out so well in his major writings, Jesus’ ministry involves the retelling of the story of Israel in terms of himself and his ministry. This means that Jesus’ actions and teaching are, in full, a conversation with the narratives of the Jewish scriptures which involves a reinterpretation of those stories in terms of himself and his ministry. This dialogue with the Jewish scriptures and the retelling or reinterpretation of its narratives continues throughout the New Testament with Paul’s reworking of the Hagar and Sarah narrative, Hebrew’s reinterpretation of the sacrificial system, and Revelation’s reworking of apocalyptic narratives in terms of the politics of the day being some of the stand-out examples. Rollins uses Peter’s vision of non-kosher foods as a NT example of wrestling with God and the whole debate on the place of and approach to Gentile Christians (including the arguments between Peter and Paul on the issue) is the perhaps the major example of such dialogues in the NT.
This raises the question of why these dialogues and debates are recorded. Traditionally, the Church has said, as you do in your question, that they are there to show how meta-narratives emerged becoming accepted in the Early Church period and later fixed in Church tradition as doctrinal beliefs. Rollins, however, makes a different point. His argument is that the sense that the Bible is composed, in form and content and in OT and NT, of conversations, dialogues and debates (i.e. wrestling with God) is there in order to draw us into the process of wrestling with God or, as I would prefer to put it, into the dialogue and exchange that is at the heart of the Godhead. One approach leads towards essentially closed propositional statements while the other leads towards an open, ongoing conversation.
The latter would seem to suggest (and this would be my understanding of Rollins’ position) that there can be no meta-narratives because God is always more than any particular articulation or expression of him. My view (and this would be my contribution to a critique of Rollins) is that the form of scripture is not solely open; that what we find within individual books and narratives are a combination of open and closed forms and that, in the Christian scriptures, we have both a diversity of forms and a narrative threaded through that diversity in the way that a patchwork quilt can be held together by a single thread. This is where we return to Josipovici who emphasises this narrative conception holding the Christian scriptures together:
“It’s a magnificent conception, spread over thousands of pages and encompassing the entire history of the universe. There is both perfect correspondence between Old and New Testaments and a continuous forward drive from Creation to the end of time: ‘It begins where time begins, with the creation of the world; it ends where time ends, with the Apocalypse, and it surveys human history in between, or the aspect of history it is interested in, under the symbolic names of Adam and Israel’. Earlier ages had no difficulty in grasping this design, though our own, more bookish age, obsessed with both history and immediacy, has tended to lose sight of it. Neither theologians nor biblical scholars have stood back enough to see it as a whole. Yet it is a whole and quite unlike any other book.”
This same sense of an over-riding narrative also features in Tom Wright’s suggestion that the Christian narrative is like a five act play with Act 1 being Creation, Act 2 the Fall, Act 3 Israel and Act 4 Jesus. The writing of the New Testament then becomes the first scene in Act 5 and also gives us hints of how the play will end principally through Revelation. This image combines an over-arching narrative with space for openness in that Christians are actors in Act 5 improvising our scenes on the basis of what has gone before and how we know the story will end. Christian theology needs to be able to hold together both the open and closed aspects of the Bible. Wright’s image does this, although for me, the image emphasises the over-arching narrative more than it does the space for openness. I think that the form of the Bible has the emphasis the other way round with the narrative being threaded through the diversity instead of the diversity being held within the framework of the narrative. It is vital in this respect to be real about the non-linear, non-chronological, circuitous and fractured way in which the story in the Christian scriptures is actually told because that is where the openness in scripture is found.
So, yes, I do think that there is a narrative that unfolds through and within scripture but I think that we have extracted that narrative from the form of scripture in order to make it something that it is not i.e. consistent, linear and chronological. I think that the narrative can only be understood within the form in which God’s inspiration has ensured we have received it. As a result, theology must, I think, be dialogical and that is one reason why I respond positively to the Old Testament scholarship and broader theological reflection of Walter Brueggemann, whose great achievement seems to me to be to have found in the concepts of the core and counter testimony a means of expressing the real debates about the nature of God that occur throughout the diversity of the Old Testament.
I am just beginning to read some socio-rhetorical theology and think that the intent behind this approach to theology is where theology needs to be focussed (whether socio-rhetorical theology actually achieves this intent is something on which I have yet to make up my mind): “... one of the critical achievements of socio-rhetorical analysis is that it provides a profoundly dialogic, interdisciplinary approach by which we can interpret various texts, as well as our own and others’ interpretations of these texts ... our scholarly endeavours are never truly independent of the work of other scholars, and, in fact, our own efforts are actually incomplete without a dialogic response to those other positions ... we should ‘develop approaches that celebrate dialogue, that show interplays of closure and openness, and that encourage us to announce our agendas in public forum and to listen as people show us the implications, limitations, and biases of these agendas’ ... we should continue to expand the boundaries of interpretation, to extend the dialogues, and to broaden the avenues of discussion.”
Hopefully, I'll find time to respond to the other questions in due course.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lifehouse - Disarray.
1. Where do you see yourself standing between these two poles [Richardson and Rollins]?
I’m closer to Rollins than to Richardson and the principal reason for this is my thinking about the form of scripture. I think that the form in which scripture has been received is a much neglected area of biblical study and reflection and one that some of the theologians and scholars that I find most interesting and convincing have begun to address in their writings. I think it is significant because it should impact on evangelical views of the inspiration of scripture.
My view is that scripture is inspired both in its form and content; that God determined the form in which we have received scripture and that in order to understand and use scripture as he intended we have to use and not abuse the form in which we have received scripture. This, I think, leads to an essentially open view of scripture. Closed forms are those which move coherently towards a clearly stated resolution or conclusion. These could include, for example, a legal document, a lecture, or a traditional novel with a beginning, middle and end. Open forms are those which involve internal debate and dialogue (often both in content and genres used) and which do not arrive at a clear resolution or conclusion. Examples include Tristram Shandy, Ulysses, and The Waste Land. While the Bible contains a number of books written using closed forms, in its overall form it seems to me that it is open.
2. Does Christianity have a meta – narrative? I believe it does and I think scripture itself bears witness to this. I accept what Rollins is saying about the ‘wrestling with God’ aspects of scripture but these are much more evident in the Old Testament than the New Testament. The examples from Rollins you quote are OT e.g. Moses and Jacob. We do see a wrestling in the NT but there is also a great deal of resolution within the canon which begins to emerge e.g. the place of Gentile Christians, law, circumcision, food laws, Temple etc. I am reading through Acts at the moment and it does seem to me that early on in the life of the emerging church a meta-narrative began to develop centred on Christ. The Old Testament witness is then interpreted in the light of this. The speeches in Acts contain meta-narratives in which scripture is presented as pointing to Jesus as both Lord and Messiah. Peter in Acts 2, Stephen in Acts 7 being two examples.
There are two questions here and I’ll start with the latter which is, isn’t the NT more about resolution than wrestling? Interestingly the idea that the NT is more about resolution than wrestling is the conclusion reached by Gabriel Josipovici, one of my favourite writers on the Bible, who argues that the Jewish scriptures are an essentially ‘open’ collection of texts that don’t achieve or seek resolution while the forward thrust of the narrative conception underpinning the structure of the combined Old and New Testaments means that the Christian scriptures to seek and achieve resolution. Josipovici argues that:
“The Christian Bible leads to the end of time, to the fulfilment of time. When time is fulfilled everything will have been revealed … but by and large the Hebrew Bible chose a different path. It chose not to stay with the fulfilment of man’s desires but with the reality of what happens to us in life. We all long in our daily lives for an end to uncertainty, to the need for decisions and choices, with the concomitant feeling that the choices we have made may have been the wrong ones. Yet we also know that life will not provide such an end, that we will always be enmeshed in uncertainty. What is extraordinary is that a sacred book should dramatize this, rather than be the one place where we are given what we desire. But that is precisely what the Hebrew Bible does … What we have to say is that Christianity expresses profound desires and suggests that these can eventually be fulfilled. The Hebrew Bible refuses that consolation.”
That is essentially an alternative way framing the argument you make in your question. I want to nuance this response rather more than you or Josipovici.
So where do we find wrestling with God in the New Testament? I would rather want to ask where do we find conversation or dialogue with God in the New Testament? Let’s begin with Jesus and his dialogue within the Trinity. Jesus as God’s Son is in conversation with both God the Father and with God the Spirit. The Son claims that he hears from the Father and speaks just what the Father has taught him (John 8: 26 – 29). He also claims that his relationship with the Father is not just one way, rather the Father also always hears the Son (John 11: 41 & 42). Similarly, he says that the Spirit will not speak on his own but only what he hears (John 16: 13). The Spirit is sent, like the Son, by the Father, but comes in the name of the Son to remind the disciples of everything that the Son said to them (John 14: 26 & 27). This interplay or dialogue within the Godhead between Father, Son and Spirit can be summed up in the words of John 3. 34-35: “For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God; to him God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands.” Stephen Verney calls this interplay between Father, Son and Spirit, which he believes we are called to enter, ‘the Dance of Love.’ We are allowed small peeks into this ongoing dialogue through Jesus’ prayers immediately prior to his passion; his prayer in Gethsemene and his prayer for unity. There we find genuine debate in the dialogue within the Godhead.
Next, as Tom Wright has set out so well in his major writings, Jesus’ ministry involves the retelling of the story of Israel in terms of himself and his ministry. This means that Jesus’ actions and teaching are, in full, a conversation with the narratives of the Jewish scriptures which involves a reinterpretation of those stories in terms of himself and his ministry. This dialogue with the Jewish scriptures and the retelling or reinterpretation of its narratives continues throughout the New Testament with Paul’s reworking of the Hagar and Sarah narrative, Hebrew’s reinterpretation of the sacrificial system, and Revelation’s reworking of apocalyptic narratives in terms of the politics of the day being some of the stand-out examples. Rollins uses Peter’s vision of non-kosher foods as a NT example of wrestling with God and the whole debate on the place of and approach to Gentile Christians (including the arguments between Peter and Paul on the issue) is the perhaps the major example of such dialogues in the NT.
This raises the question of why these dialogues and debates are recorded. Traditionally, the Church has said, as you do in your question, that they are there to show how meta-narratives emerged becoming accepted in the Early Church period and later fixed in Church tradition as doctrinal beliefs. Rollins, however, makes a different point. His argument is that the sense that the Bible is composed, in form and content and in OT and NT, of conversations, dialogues and debates (i.e. wrestling with God) is there in order to draw us into the process of wrestling with God or, as I would prefer to put it, into the dialogue and exchange that is at the heart of the Godhead. One approach leads towards essentially closed propositional statements while the other leads towards an open, ongoing conversation.
The latter would seem to suggest (and this would be my understanding of Rollins’ position) that there can be no meta-narratives because God is always more than any particular articulation or expression of him. My view (and this would be my contribution to a critique of Rollins) is that the form of scripture is not solely open; that what we find within individual books and narratives are a combination of open and closed forms and that, in the Christian scriptures, we have both a diversity of forms and a narrative threaded through that diversity in the way that a patchwork quilt can be held together by a single thread. This is where we return to Josipovici who emphasises this narrative conception holding the Christian scriptures together:
“It’s a magnificent conception, spread over thousands of pages and encompassing the entire history of the universe. There is both perfect correspondence between Old and New Testaments and a continuous forward drive from Creation to the end of time: ‘It begins where time begins, with the creation of the world; it ends where time ends, with the Apocalypse, and it surveys human history in between, or the aspect of history it is interested in, under the symbolic names of Adam and Israel’. Earlier ages had no difficulty in grasping this design, though our own, more bookish age, obsessed with both history and immediacy, has tended to lose sight of it. Neither theologians nor biblical scholars have stood back enough to see it as a whole. Yet it is a whole and quite unlike any other book.”
This same sense of an over-riding narrative also features in Tom Wright’s suggestion that the Christian narrative is like a five act play with Act 1 being Creation, Act 2 the Fall, Act 3 Israel and Act 4 Jesus. The writing of the New Testament then becomes the first scene in Act 5 and also gives us hints of how the play will end principally through Revelation. This image combines an over-arching narrative with space for openness in that Christians are actors in Act 5 improvising our scenes on the basis of what has gone before and how we know the story will end. Christian theology needs to be able to hold together both the open and closed aspects of the Bible. Wright’s image does this, although for me, the image emphasises the over-arching narrative more than it does the space for openness. I think that the form of the Bible has the emphasis the other way round with the narrative being threaded through the diversity instead of the diversity being held within the framework of the narrative. It is vital in this respect to be real about the non-linear, non-chronological, circuitous and fractured way in which the story in the Christian scriptures is actually told because that is where the openness in scripture is found.
So, yes, I do think that there is a narrative that unfolds through and within scripture but I think that we have extracted that narrative from the form of scripture in order to make it something that it is not i.e. consistent, linear and chronological. I think that the narrative can only be understood within the form in which God’s inspiration has ensured we have received it. As a result, theology must, I think, be dialogical and that is one reason why I respond positively to the Old Testament scholarship and broader theological reflection of Walter Brueggemann, whose great achievement seems to me to be to have found in the concepts of the core and counter testimony a means of expressing the real debates about the nature of God that occur throughout the diversity of the Old Testament.
I am just beginning to read some socio-rhetorical theology and think that the intent behind this approach to theology is where theology needs to be focussed (whether socio-rhetorical theology actually achieves this intent is something on which I have yet to make up my mind): “... one of the critical achievements of socio-rhetorical analysis is that it provides a profoundly dialogic, interdisciplinary approach by which we can interpret various texts, as well as our own and others’ interpretations of these texts ... our scholarly endeavours are never truly independent of the work of other scholars, and, in fact, our own efforts are actually incomplete without a dialogic response to those other positions ... we should ‘develop approaches that celebrate dialogue, that show interplays of closure and openness, and that encourage us to announce our agendas in public forum and to listen as people show us the implications, limitations, and biases of these agendas’ ... we should continue to expand the boundaries of interpretation, to extend the dialogues, and to broaden the avenues of discussion.”
Hopefully, I'll find time to respond to the other questions in due course.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lifehouse - Disarray.
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