Seen and Unseen: From monasteries to modern London, there’s a shared rule of life

My latest article for Seen and Unseen is on 'Living by the Rule: Contemporary meets Medieval' at the Sainsbury Centre:

Curators 'Barker and Krčma have said: "We are excited to bring together such extraordinary objects from the Middle Ages and works from some of the most important artists working today. We hope that this strange collision between two very different worlds will open up new perspectives on how we live now, and fresh ideas about how we might craft more balanced and meaningful lives in the future."'

For my Artlyst review of the 'What is the Meaning of Life?' series at Sainsbury Centre, of which 'Living by the Rule' is part, click here. For more on the Sainsbury Centre see here, here, here, For my interview with Jago Cooper, Executive Director of Sainsbury Centre, see here.

My first article for Seen and Unseen was 'Life is more important than art' which reviews the themes of recent art exhibitions that tackle life’s big questions and the roles creators take.

My second article 'Corinne Bailey Rae’s energised and anguished creative journey' explores inspirations in Detroit, Leeds and Ethiopia for Corinne Bailey Rae’s latest album, Black Rainbows, which is an atlas of capacious faith.

My third article was an interview with musician and priest Rev Simpkins in which we discussed how music is an expression of humanity and his faith.

My fourth article was a guide to the Christmas season’s art, past and present. Traditionally at this time of year “great art comes tumbling through your letterbox” so, in this article, I explore the historic and contemporary art of Christmas.

My fifth article was 'Finding the human amid the wreckage of migration'. In this article I interviewed Shezad Dawood about his multimedia Leviathan exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral where personal objects recovered from ocean depths tell a story of modern and ancient migrations.

My sixth article was 'The visionary artists finding heaven down here' in which I explored a tradition of visionary artists whose works shed light on the material and spiritual worlds.

My seventh article was 'How the incomer’s eye sees identity' in which I explain how curating an exhibition for Ben Uri Online gave me the chance to highlight synergies between ancient texts and current issues.

My eighth article was 'Infernal rebellion and the questions it asks' in which I interview the author Nicholas Papadopulos about his book The Infernal Word: Notes from a Rebel Angel.

My ninth article was 'A day, night and dawn with Nick Cave’s lyrics' in which I review Adam Steiner’s Darker With The Dawn — Nick Cave’s Songs Of Love And Death and explore whether Steiner's rappel into Cave’s art helps us understand its purpose.

My 10th article was 'Theresa Lola's poetical hope' about the death-haunted yet lyrical, joyful and moving poet for a new generation.

My 11th article was 'How to look at our world: Aaron Rosen interview', exploring themes from Rosen's book 'What Would Jesus See: Ways of Looking at a Disorienting World'.

My 12th article was 'Blake, imagination and the insight of God', exploring a new exhibition - 'William Blake's Universe at the Fitzwilliam Museum - which focuses on seekers of spiritual regeneration and national revival.

My 13th article 'Matthew Krishanu: painting childhood' was an interview with Matthew Krishanu on his exhibition 'The Bough Breaks' at Camden Art Centre.

My 14th article was entitled 'Art makes life worth living' and explored why society, and churches, need the Arts.

My 15th article was entitled 'The collective effervescence of sport's congregation' and explored some of the ways in which sport and religion have been intimately entwined throughout history

My 16th article was entitled 'Paradise cottage: Milton reimagin’d' and reviewed the ways in which artist Richard Kenton Webb is conversing with the blind poet in his former home (Milton's Cottage, Chalfont St Giles).

My 17th article was entitled 'Controversial art: how can the critic love their neighbour?'. It makes suggestions of what to do when confronted with contentious culture.

My 18th article was an interview entitled 'Art, AI and apocalypse: Michael Takeo Magruder addresses our fears and questions'. In the interview the digital artist talks about the possibilities and challenges of artificial intelligence.

My 19th article was entitled 'Dark, sweet and subtle: recovered music orientates us'. In the article I highlight alt-folk music seeking inspiration from forgotten hymns.

My 20th article was entitled 'Revisiting Amazing Grace inspires new songs'. In the article I highlight folk musicians capturing both the barbaric and the beautiful in the hymn Amazing Grace and Christianity's entanglement with the transatlantic slave trade more generally.

My 21st article was entitled 'James MacMillan’s music of tranquility and discord'. In the article I noted that the composer’s music contends both the secular and sacred.

My 22nd article was a book review on Nobody's Empire by Stuart Murdoch. 'Nobody's Empire: A Novel is the fictionalised account of how ... Murdoch, lead singer of indie band Belle and Sebastian, transfigured his experience of Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME) through faith and music.'

My 23rd article was entitled 'Rock ‘n’ roll’s long dance with religion'. The article explores how popular music conjures sacred space.

My 24th article was an interview with Alastair Gordon on the artist’s attention which explores why the overlooked and everyday capture the creative gaze.

My 25th article was about Stanley Spencer’s seen and unseen world and the artist’s child-like sense of wonder as he saw heaven everywhere.

My 26th article was entitled 'The biblical undercurrent that the Bob Dylan biopics missed' and in it I argue that the best of Dylan’s work is a contemporary Pilgrim, Dante or Rimbaud on a compassionate journey.

My 27th article was entitled 'Heading Home: a pilgrimage that breaks out beauty along the way' and focuses on a film called 'Heading Home' which explores how we can learn a new language together as we travel.

My 28th article was entitled 'Annie Caldwell: “My family is my band”' and showcased a force of nature voice that comes from the soul.

My 29th article was entitled 'Why sculpt the face of Christ?' and explored how, in Nic Fiddian Green’s work, we feel pain, strength, fear and wisdom.

My 30th article was entitled 'How Mumford and friends explore life's instability' and explored how Mumford and Sons, together with similar bands, commune on fallibility, fear, grace, and love.

My 31st article was entitled 'The late Pope Francis was right – Antoni Gaudi truly was God’s architect' and explored how sanctity can indeed be found amongst scaffolding, as Gaudi’s Barcelona beauties amply demonstrate.

My 32nd article was entitled 'This gallery refresh adds drama to the story of art' and explored how rehanging the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery revives the emotion of great art.

My 33rd article was an interview with Jonathan A. Anderson about the themes of his latest book 'The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art'.

My 34th article was an interview with 'Emily Young: the sculptor listening as the still stones speak'.

My 35th article was a profile of New York's expressionist devotional artist, 'Genesis Tramaine: the painter whose faces catch the spirit'.

My 36th article was a concert review of Natalie Bergman at Union Chapel - a soul-soaked set turned personal tragedy into communal celebration.

My 37th article was based on the exhibition series 'Can We Stop Killing Each Other?' at the Sainsbury Centre. In it I explore how art, theology, and moral imagination confront our oldest instinct.

My 38th article article was 'The dot and the dash: modern art’s quiet search for deeper meaning' in which I argue that Neo-Impressionism meets mysticism in a quietly radical exhibition at the National Gallery.

My 39th article was 'From Klee to Klein, Wenders to Botticelli: angels unveiled' in which I explore how, across war, wonder and nativity, artists show angels bridging earth and heaven.

My 40th article was 'When Henry Moore’s Madonna shocked Northampton' in which I explore how a modernist mother and child stirred outrage, then lasting wonder.

My 41st article was 'Turner and Constable: storms, salvation and the sublime' in which I discussed how Tate Britain reveals how rival visions shaped art and spirit.

My 42nd article was 'When converts cracked open the culture’s polished surface' in which I explored how faith’s outsiders disrupted the scene with unexpected force.

My 43rd article 'The Magdalene we rarely see' was about the painting 'Magdalene at the Base of the Cross' by Chris Gollon.

My 44th article was 'U2’s music shows surrender can still sound like joy' which explores the spirituality of U2

My 45th article was 'Cathedrals, confessionals, and the strange allure of spiritual fiction' about the return of Susan Howatch.

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St Martin's Voices - I Saw Eternity.

Finding a Myth for the 21st Century

Alex Evans' presentation to Modern Church Annual Conference 2013 is well worth a read.

 

In it he tells the story of how he went from "working as a policy wonk, a special adviser in Tony Blair’s government", to "the belief that a 3,000 year old set of myths about covenant, atonement and renewal are actually profoundly relevant to our current moment of crisis and transition – and might even have the potential to succeed where our politics seem to be failing so miserably."

 

He draws on the work of Margaret Barker, in particular, to argue that the eternal covenant’s myths should be read symbolically to "offer remarkably clear explanations of social and ecological breakdown as the result of breaches in the creation covenant, and of atonement as the route towards restoration, in both the social and the environmental sense."

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U2 and Daniel Lanois - Falling At Your Feet. 

Exhibitions etc round-up

Repre art collective is a group of artists who have come together to exhibit, celebrate and promote contemporary representational art. They share a common vision to capture and depict reality and express it through diverse and eloquent forms of painting. This is their first collaborative exhibition together and the installation promises to be a vibrant display of contemporary portrait and landscape painting. The choice to hold their first exhibition together in St Martin-in-the-Fields and at the heart of the establishment in Trafalgar Square conveys their desire to raise the profile of contemporary figurative art and what it can truly articulate. Their debut exhibition, Repre 1, was held at The Gallery, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, WC2N 4JJ, from the 1st - 13th May 2012.

The modern Catholic church of Notre-Dame de France, heralded by an entrance flanked by two pillars decorated with biblical reliefs. Its unusual circular plan is derived from the Panorama, a rotunda 90ft in diameter originally built here and decorated with a scenic cylindrical painting by the Irish artist Robert Barker in 1796. The main point of interest, however, is the church's Chapelle du St-Sacrement, which contains a series of simple frescoes by Jean Cocteau from 1960 and a mosaic by Boris Anrep.

Hauser & Wirth are presenting Thomas Houseago’s ‘Large Owl (For B)’ as part of the gallery’s outdoor sculpture programme at Southwood Garden, St. James’s Church, London. This presentation acts as a preview to Houseago’s debut exhibition with the gallery, opening at Hauser & Wirth’s Savile Row space in September 2012. Rarely seen in the daylight, the owl has long been associated with the supernatural activities of the night and, for many cultures, is a symbol of mystery, wisdom and vigilance. Houseago’s ‘Large Owl (For B)’ will watch over the unique setting of Southwood Garden, a tranquil enclosure nestled in between London’s busiest streets, until mid-July.

John Bellany's paintings at Beaux Arts explode with emotion and imagination and are amongst the most confrontational, humanistic works produced in Britain in recent history. Immediately recognisable for its figurative content and stylistic coherence, his painting confronts in a wholly original manner themes such as love, addiction, passion, death and more recently, even serenity. Not surprising as Bellany has lived through numerous surgeries and near death experiences. This exhibition of oils, watercolours and drawings spans five decades of Bellany’s life. It demonstrates the innumerable ways in which his life’s work unveils insight and wisdom into the human condition.

Four the Love of Art is an exhibition featuring the diverse work of four internationally renowned artists; Carly Casey (Sydney), Anna Coroneo (New York), Natalie Tkachuk (London) and Kareena Zerefos (London). The artists have collaborated in creating this unique show, celebrating their individual and distinctive styles. Exhibited artworks range across a broad spectrum of media including: painting, drawing and photography.

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Ed Sheeran - Small Bump.

Greenbelt diary (4)

Sunday morning I was offsite as we attended the main service at St Giles in Uley, the village where we were staying. Revd. Ian Gardener, from Dursley Parish Church, led the service and preached an excellent sermon on having the courage to ask the difficult questions - very appropriate for a Greenbelt weekend! Ian was also interested to hear something of our experiences of ministry when we talked after the service.

Some of those difficult questions were being asked when I did get back to the Festival later in the day. There was a large crowd to hear Gene Robinson speak on sexuality and spirituality. His was a very considered contribution which highlighted the earthy ever-present nature of sexuality in the Hebrew scriptures and the Jewish tradition generally, most notably in the Song of Songs. He spoke about each of us as sexual beings and emphasised that the incarnation means that Jesus too was a sexual being. Jesus understood the need we have for a soul mate (i.e. 'the disciple that Jesus loved') and was criticised for his radical respect of women. At the heart of both the incarnation and a wholesome, holistic sexuality is the making of ourselves vulnerable with another. Sex, at its best, is a learning laboratory for vulnerability and a means of becoming good steward's of another person's vulnerability.

Robinson needs to be heard, particularly by his opponents, as he, and what he has come to stand for in the Anglican Communion, is grounded in an understanding of scripture and the Christian tradition. His opponents often characterise him as playing fast and loose with scripture and present their interpretation of scripture as being God's word on the issue of homosexuality but the reality is that on both sides of the debate what we are grappling with are our interpretations of scripture which are not definitive. Hearing Robinson unpack his understanding of scripture is to hear a man with a real and live spirituality.

Alistair McIntosh in this photo appears to have a minimal audience but we had all retreated to the stands by this stage because of the cold. McIntosh presented a dystopic vision of the future by arguing that our response to climate change is too little too late and that it is probable that there is now insufficient time as well as insufficient political will to make the changes that are required. He cited Abbé Pierre's understanding of the atonement as explanation of where we are in relation to climate change; seeing ourselves as addicts who have imprisoned ourselves. He spoke movingly about premature death of his baby and linked this to our need as human beings to look death in the face in order to look through death into life. We need the spirit of Jeremiah, he suggested, as we face the consequences of our consumerist addiction and seek, through community with others, our world and with God, to recover what it means to be truly human.

Margaret Barker, although a Biblical scholar as opposed to an activist, is deeply concerned to highlight the environmental implication of understanding the Temple theology which she argues underpins both the teaching of the Old Testament, Jesus and the Early Church. In her session she gave a brief synopsis of Temple theology. In her view, the structure of the tabernacle and Temple are based on the six days of creation revealing the different relationships in creation itself. Barker's ideas suggest that eternity is an ever-present reality, the kingdom, into which Jesus understood himself to be bringing us, through his death on the cross which completes the New Creation. Having come through the veil into the Holy of Holies, we are now angels and saints, in Barker's view.

This is the second time that I have heard Barker speak (click here for a post about the first occasion) and I keep waiting for more radical consequences for the way in which Jesus understood himself and his teaching from this model than actually seems to arrive in what Barker says. Perhaps I need to go beyond her introduction to Temple Theology in order to find this.

I then finally heard Rob Bell, along what must have been the biggest crowd that any speaker drew over the weekend, when he was interviewed at the Jerusalem stage by, I think, Martin Wroe. I described Bell to someone who hadn't heard him as intelligent on the scriptures, post-modern in his presentation, and evangelical in his theology. That seemed a reasonable description of his contribution to this conversation. What stayed most in the memory was his commitment to living a 'normal' life despite the popularity of his book, church, and film ministries and his summary of Christianity in 10 words or less (which was roughly): whatever tiny signs of hope you find are real.

Chris Dingle's argument that music stops time seemed to be borne out with the contrasting concerts which ended Sunday. The Greenbelt Festival Orchestra played a selection of works by Sir John Tavener, by intercutting the seven sections of The Protecting Veil with a selection of his choral works drawn mainly from The Veil Of The Temple. This was blissfully beautiful music in which the sense of time passing was suspended. On a more intellectual level, however, I do question the appropriateness of sectioning up a work like The Protecting Veil which, although moving through seven sections to its completion, features an almost continuous cello line that was broken by the decision not to perform the work as a continuous whole.

Duke Special was the polar opposite of the Tavener; gothic theatrical vaudeville with a compassionate core, a dramatic high energy set that was never less than engaging. His MySpace page describes him as "the fucked up ringmaster of a broken down circus, the lead dancer in a forgotten ballroom of ghosts, the loudest singer in a midnight choir and the first on his knees in an old time revival tent" and all of those facets were on show in this performance. "Everybody wants a little something good," is what he sang and that's exactly what we got.

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Duke Special - No Cover Up.

The Temple of the Living God

In this evening's service at St John's we reflected on the place of the Temple in Christianity following readings from Haggai 2. 1-9 and John 2. 18-22.

Extracts from the writings of Margaret Barker led into a song by Neal Morse from his ? album:

“A temple stood in Jerusalem for over a thousand years. According to the biblical account, the first temple was built by Solomon about 950 BCE and was severely damaged by the Babylonians about 350 years later. It was rebuilt towards the end of the sixth century BCE by people who returned from exile in Babylon, and was rebuilt again by Herod the Great at the end of the first century BCE. The structure was finally destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, but the influence of the temple and its world has far outlasted its physical existence.

Jesus would have known Herod’s temple and he prophesied its destruction. Not one stone of it, he said, would be left standing (Mark 13. 2). From this we might assume that Jesus was opposed to the temple, but in fact … the world of the temple was the world of the first Christians, and they expressed their faith in terms drawn almost exclusively from the temple. Jesus and his followers opposed what the temple had become; they identified themselves as the true temple, with Jesus as the great high priest.

When Jesus was arrested by the temple authorities, one of the charges brought against him was threatening to destroy the temple and to rebuild it in three days (Mark 14. 58). Another was claiming to be the Messiah (Matt. 26. 63-64). These were two aspects of the same charge, as can be deduced from the Book of Enoch, a text which the early Christians regarded as Scripture. The Book of Enoch described the judgement of the fallen angels, and then how the Lord of the sheep would carry away the old temple and set up something greater in its place (1 Enoch 90. 28-29). This is the reason for the two questions at Jesus’ trial: Did you claim that you would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days? Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One? This same passage accounts for the exchange between Jesus and the Jews recorded in John 2. 19-21: ‘Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?”’ Later reflection led the evangelist to add, ‘But he spoke of the temple of his body’. Jesus was claiming the prophecy of Enoch, that he was the Lord of the sheep who would destroy and rebuild the temple …”

“The Temple was a model of the creation, and the liturgy of the temple preserved the creation. Genesis 1 was not an account of the historical process of creation, but a record of the great vision granted to Moses and others of how the world is made. In the six days when Moses was on Sinai, before the LORD called to him (Exod. 24.16), he saw the six days of creation, and was then told to replicate these when he built the tabernacle …

The holy of holies represented Day One, the state of the angels … The veil of the temple represented the second day, and the table with bread, wine and incense was the third day, when the plants were created. The seven branched lamp represented the lights of heaven created on the fourth day, the altar of sacrifice represented the non human creatures, and the High Priest was the human, male and female as the image of God … The Second Adam [Jesus] was the Great High Priest, and if we are the body of Christ, we all have this high priestly role.”

“Jesus was … [the] great high priest (Heb. 4.14) … raised up by the power of an indestructible life (Heb. 7.16) who had offered the final atonement sacrifice to fulfil and supersede the temple rites (Heb. 9.1-14).” Atonement was the ritual self offering of the Lord to renew the eternal covenant and thus heal the creation. This is what Jesus’ death achieved and is the covenant renewed at the Last Supper.

In this way the New Testament reverses the story of Eden and brings Christians back to the original Temple meaning that the “kingdom of which Jesus spoke was the state of the holy of holies, the unity at the heart of all things which secured the eternal covenant … This must be the original context for ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ and for ‘This is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many for the putting away of sins’ (Matt. 26. 28).”

Inside His Presence

And in this place of gold [1 Kings 7:50]
The ancients walked this road
There is no death [2 Tim 1:10]
There is no time [Ecc 3:15]

There is a love unknown [1 Pet 1:8]
There is a scent of home
A rainbow wreath [Rev 4:3]
A blazing throne

From a grave of stone to a world unknown
From the smoke and ash comes true life at last [Isa 61:3]
Among earth and sod
the very life of God is here [Rom 8:11]

From a list of laws seeing all our flaws [Rom 8:3]
To the blind, the lame, we are all the same [Acts 10:34]
Our High Priest has come to make us all as one in Him [Gal 3:28]
The temple of his throne [Acts 7:48]
Is now not made with stone

Your very heart is now his home [1 Cor 3:16]
He will come and live if you’ll only give [John 14:23]
Him a place inside that the world can’t buy
And the Holy Place is now face to face in Christ [Heb 9:24]

When he died and was born the temple walls were torn [Mat 27:51]
And God’s Spirit poured out to all the ones without
Now the temple of the living God is you [Eph 2:21]
The temple of the living God is you [Rev 3:12, 1 Pet 2:5]

The Temple of the Living God

And then after all with our backs against the wall
We seek the temple of the living God
And now that it’s done the heart of every one [2 Cor 6:16]
Can be the temple of the living God
Can be the temple of the living God [Rev 21:3]

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Neal Morse - Solid as the Sun.

The Golden Compass

The Bible Society's Newswatch email reports that The Golden Compass, the film version of part 1 of Philip Pullman’s bestselling His Dark Materials trilogy, is provoking very mixed reactions from church organisations.

On the eve of the film’s release (5/12) the Catholic League in the USA has condemned the movie for promoting atheism and for its tyrannical ‘God’ figure. Closer to home, however, Evangelicals Now counsels parents to ‘watch the movie with [their children] and then talk through the issues raised’. The Church of Scotland’s Mission and Discipleship Council go further, commenting that the film ‘provides a golden opportunity to stimulate discussion on a wide range of moral and spiritual issues’. It sees Lyra, the central character, as ‘one of the powerless who turns out to be a saint’ and says the film invites discussion on ‘human purpose and destiny, the abuse of power, the making of choices and the meaning of life’. The Church will distribute a resource to churches across Scotland.

It is good to see that, on balance, Church responses suggest engagement with the issues raised by the Philip Pullman's books and the film version. One thing that is often missed in the discussion of Pullman's attack on organised religion and the death of the 'god' figure in the book, is the extent to which there is a spirituality that informs the book.

That spirituality is primarily Blakean with the book's 'god' figure resembling Blake's 'Nobodaddy', the old stereotype of God as an old punishing father in the sky (which in Blake's mythology also equates to the image of reason). Against the elevation of reason as a set of universal principles Blake (in an anticipation of post-modernism) "celebrated ‘minute particulars’; the ‘lineaments’ of bodies, and his works of art favoured bounding lines and distinct forms. He privileged difference over identity, becoming over being, the body over reason, and energy over states. Blake engraved his positive images of the spirit and gave them dynamic and sexually different bodies. He did not believe in generalities (‘One law for the lion & ox is oppression), and he insisted that the tyranny of reason could only be overcome though the dynamism of conflict and contraries: ‘without contraries there is no progession’."

The god figure that dies in His Dark Materials can be understood as a Nobodaddy figure whose opens the way to the Republic of Heaven. For Pullman, this is a vision of all that is good in the world including all that is good in the Church. It involves, he says, "all the best qualities of things. We mustn’t shut anything out. If the Church has told us, for example, that forgiving our enemies is good, and if that seems to be a good thing to do, we must do it. If, on the other hand, those who struggled against the Church have shown us that free enquiry and unfettered scientific exploration is good – and I believe that they have – then we must hold this up as a good as well.
Whatever we can find that we feel to be good – and not just feel but can see with the accumulated wisdom that we have as we grow up, and read about history and learn from our own experiences and so on – wherever they come from, and whoever taught them in the first place, let’s use them and do whatever we can do to make the world a little bit better."

Pullman set out his debt to Blake in an New Statesman article from last year where he outines what is basically a humanist re-interpretation of aspects of Blake's mythology.

It should also be noted that there is no place for Jesus in the Magisterium (the Church that features in His Dark Materials). This is something that Rowan Williams notes in the public conversations he had with Pullman in 2003/04. In those interviews, and in an interview published in Margaret Barker's An Extraordinary Gathering of Angels, Pullman is fundamentally positive about the person of Jesus: "in the context of this notion of wisdom that works secretly and quietly, not in the great courts and palaces of the earth, but among ordinary people and so on." "The liberating angels," he feels, "continue to work in secret, by inspiring great human teachers like Jesus." It has also been little remarked that Lyra makes a Christ-like journey to bring those who have died from the land of the dead.

One of the reasons why Pullman is interesting as an author is that he goes where his story takes him even if this leaves him puzzled from the perspectives of his personal beliefs (which seem basically agnostic although veering towards support for several of the political positions taken by the British Humanist Association). It is this willingness to follow the story, as well as his fascination with Blake and Milton, that seems to open up space for a sense of spirituality in the trilogy. This sense emerges from the fascinating interview that he gave to Third Way when he discusses the relationship between Mary Malone, Lyra and Will. Mary Malone is the Satan figure in the trilogy who leads Lyra and Will to a fall into grace. As such, she is the closest to a representation of Pullman's views in the book and yet Pullman allows the story to involve the separation of Lyra and Will in a way that is, in effect, a renunciation of Malone's understanding. Pullman felt that this was essential for the story but is puzzled as to what it means. Clearly, though, it opens up the possibility of understanding aspects of the story in a way that differs from Pullman's own understanding and which could involve a spirituality that differs from the materiality that Pullman, as humanist rather than author, tends to invoke.

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Rush - A Farewell To Kings.

Choice in language

One of the interesting insights from Margaret Barker's talk yesterday was that many words in Hebrew have a similar sound to their exact opposite thereby continually confronting the listener through language with the choice between construction and destruction, unity and disunity that we all face all the time.

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Check out Galactic Cowboy's Evil Twin.

Temple Theology

I spent a fascinating day yesterday at our Area Study Day listening to Margaret Barker speak about Temple Theology. Temple theology traces the roots of Christian theology back into the first Temple, destroyed by the cultural revolution in the time of King Josiah at the end of the seventh century BCE.

This sounds very academic and of interest only to historians but Margaret unpacked the significance to demonstrate its significance in providing a framework or paradigm for a characteristically Christian creation theology, emphasising the bonds of creation broken by human sin and advocating the stewardship of knowledge. This is because the temple represented creation, and everything connected with it expressed and symbolised how those worship the Lord should live in the world he created.

Her involvement with Christian environment theology is also not purely academic having been, since 1997, part of the symposium Religion, Science and the Environment, convened by His All Holiness Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch. This work has led her to develop the practical implications of temple theology as the basis for a Christian environment theology.

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Check out Zbigniew Preisner's Funeral Music.