Coventry Kids & A Picture of Faith

Back in 1962, the schoolchildren of Coventry donated their pocket money to help fund a 70ft stained glass window in the new Cathedral. Last Saturday the authors (Diana Coulter and Bob Smith) of a new book about Keith New (the artist of the window) invited the original Cov Kids, who are now in their sixties to early seventies (and probably have children/or grandchildren of their own!) to reunite.

The event was a great success with a terrific turnout, many of whom wanted to be involved in similar events in the future. Many of those who came, while they may not have been to the Cathedral for many many years, were moved by "their window in their Cathedral."

Over the past four years Diana Coulter and Robert Smith have been researching the stained glass of Keith New, one of the three-man team who designed the nave windows at Coventry Cathedral. New (1926–2012) was a significant pioneering British modernist stained glass artist in the 1950s and 1960s.

Coulter and Smith have published their monograph Keith New: British Modernist in Stained Glass with Sansom, a Bristol-based publisher specialising art and design of the 20th century onwards. This is the first monograph devoted to his work. It examines New’s career in the first part, while the second part comprises a comprehensive catalogue of his stained glass.

New’s career was launched with the 1952 Royal College of Art’s commission to design the nave windows for Basil Spence’s Coventry Cathedral. The three-man team, led by Lawrence Lee, included Geoffrey Clarke, another pioneer in the medium. Each artist designed three windows. The commission brought New to the attention of other prominent architects, including Robert Matthew and Denys Lasdun, as well as artists and critics like John Piper and John Betjeman, and resulted in many commissions for churches either in post-war rebuilds or in medieval buildings.

Also at Coventry Cathedral currently is 'Graham Sutherland: Beneath the Tapestry', a curation of works that inspired and helped develop the iconic tapestry that hangs in Coventry Cathedral.

As part of Basil Spence’s ground-breaking design for the New Coventry Cathedral (consecrated 1962), he commissioned several high-profile artists to create new works. One of the most significant works included in his design was to be a tapestry, depicting Christ in Glory, to be hung behind the altar in the new Cathedral. Spence invited Sutherland to produce designs for Coventry Cathedral’s iconic tapestry - beginning a 10 year collaboration that resulted in one of the world’s largest modern tapestries, Christ in Glory in the Tetramorph that now sits at the very heart of this special space.

Precentor and Vice-Provost at Coventry Cathedral, Michael Sadgrove declares these years (1987-1995) amongst the best years of his life. The Cathedral is where he wrote his first book, 'A Picture of Faith'. The book's theme was Graham Sutherland's Tapestry of 'Christ in Glory' and took a look a the piece not so much as a work of art, but as an icon for meditation. In his lecture last Saturday, he revisited some of the book's themes and asked, from a personal perspective, how it continues to speak today, a quarter of a century later.

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The Brilliance - Yahweh.

Keith New: British Modernist in Stained Glass

Over the past four years Diana Coulter and Robert Smith have been researching the stained glass of Keith New. Not only was New one of the three-man team who designed the nave windows at Coventry Cathedral, he also designed the windows installed in St Stephen Walbrook from c.1962-1978. The striking modernist glass was removed for safety reasons at the time when major underpinning works were carried out in the church. The windows had a chequered fate after their removal, and what is left of them can be seen in Norwich Cathedral.

Coulter and Smith have recently published their monograph Keith New: British Modernist in Stained Glass with Sansom, a Bristol-based publisher specialising art and design of the 20th century onwards. The monograph is split broadly into 40% biography and 60% an illustrated catalogue of New’s known commissions.

Keith New (1926–2012) was a significant pioneering British modernist stained glass artist in the 1950s and 1960s. This is the first monograph devoted to his work. It examines New’s career in the first part, while the second part comprises a comprehensive catalogue of his stained glass.

New’s career was launched with the 1952 Royal College of Art’s commission to design the nave windows for Basil Spence’s Coventry Cathedral. The three-man team, led by Lawrence Lee, included Geoffrey Clarke, another pioneer in the medium. Each artist designed three windows. The commission brought New to the attention of other prominent architects, including Robert Matthew and Denys Lasdun, as well as artists and critics like John Piper and John Betjeman.

Many commissions were for churches either in post-war rebuilds or in medieval buildings. Alongside these are examples in significant public buildings as well as in schools. Altogether there were 34 executed commissions, five of which have been wholly or partially lost. Through privileged access to the family archive as well as research in record offices, the authors have drawn together a Catalogue Raisonné of his known designs, both executed and unrealised.

New’s short career in stained glass maps onto the excitement generated by the 1951 Festival of Britain. When the post-war rebuilding programme finished in the mid 1960s, the demand for colourful and expensive stained glass also diminished.

Alternative directions led New to lead Foundation Studies at Kingston School of Art and to return to painting, an activity that had always sustained him.

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Marvin Gaye - God Is Love.

Sacred Steel: African-American Holiness-Pentecostal churches

In the House of God churches, members of the congregation began playing sacred music on the electric steel guitar in the late 1930s. Today, the tradition flourishes and its premier figures include Robert Randolph, Chuck and Darick Campbell, Willie Eason, Sonny Treadway, Aubrey Ghent, Calvin Cooke, The Lee Boys, Glenn Lee, Elton Noble, Ted Beard, Josh Taylor, Footie Covington, and Henry Nelson.

In his book, Sacred Steel: Inside an African American Steel Guitar Tradition, Robert L. Stone follows the sound of steel guitar into the music-driven Pentecostal worship of two related churches: the House of God and the Church of the Living God. A rare outsider who has gained the trust of members and musicians inside the church, Stone uses nearly two decades of research, interviews, and fieldwork to tell the story of a vibrant musical tradition that straddles sacred and secular contexts.

 

Most often identified with country and western bands, steel guitar is almost unheard of in African American churches - except for the House of God and the Church of the Living God, where it has been part of worship since the 1930s. Sacred Steel traces the tradition through four generations of musicians and in some two hundred churches extending across the country from Florida to California, Michigan to Alabama. Presenting detailed portraits of musical pioneers such as brothers Troman and Willie Eason and contemporary masters such as Chuck Campbell, Glenn Lee, and Robert Randolph, Stone expertly outlines the fundamental tensions between sacred steel musicians and church hierarchy.

 

In this thorough analysis of the tradition, Stone explores the function of the music in church meetings and its effect on the congregations. He also examines recent developments such as the growing number of female performers, the commercial appeal of the music, and younger musicians' controversial move of the music from the church to secular contexts.

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The Campbell Brothers - Morning Train.

Ordination: Rev. Santou Beurklian-Carter

The ordination as priest of Rev. Santou Beurklian-Carter, curate at St John's Seven Kings, took place this morning at St Mary's Chigwell. Santou was ordained along with Rev. Sharon Guest (Chigwell and Chigwell Team Ministry) and Rev. Young Lee (Walthamstow Team Ministry). Our prayers are with them and all those being ordained in the Chelmsford Diocese today as they enter this new phase of their ministries.

Here are some thoughts on what their ordination means from Nicholas Anderson, Chair of the House of Clergy in Liverpool Diocese:

“Through your ordination into the presbyterate [you] commit yourselves as members of that group of men and women whom we call the ordained ministers of our Church. You will declare before all your willingness to do your best to rise to the great challenges which this way of life will put before you, and through the laying on of hands and the prayer of consecration, the Holy Spirit will take hold of you just as the same Holy Spirit once took hold of the prophets and saints of old enabling you to rise to the challenges which your unique vocation places before you.

As you stand there on Sunday, I would like to invite all to think of you carefully with the eyes of faith.
Through your ordination to the presbyterate, as well as being our friends, our brothers and sisters in faith, you become something more. In the mystery of God’s love, you become a living sign of the presence of Jesus among us in a whole new way. From now on as we look at you with the eyes of faith, we will see something more of the mystery of the Lord’s love for us unfolding in front of our eyes …

What then of you our new priests? To what are you called as witnesses in committing yourselves on Sunday? Of what are you now called to be a living sign? We will hear the answer to all of this in the questions posed to you in The Declarations. We will hear about willing and generous service. We will hear about the faithful proclamation of the faith. We will hear about a ministry of prayer on behalf of the Church and the whole world. We will hear about respect and obedience. We will hear about sincere love, concern for the poor, unassuming authority, self-discipline and holiness. And at the end of The Declarations, we who are there will be asked: “Brothers and sisters, you have heard how great is the charge that these ordinands are ready to undertake, and you have heard their declarations. Is it now your will that they should be ordained?” Our response is a simple, “It is.”

There it is. It is this which your whole life must now be about. This is what you take on this Sunday, this is what God is calling you and empowering you to be and to do – that in every pastoral encounter, people now encounter, in a new and deeper way than was already the case, a living image, a living icon of Jesus the servant.”

This is the charge that St Alcuin made to his monks. It is also of relevance to those being ordained and may be something we could pray for Santou:

“Be an honour to the church, follow Christ’s word, clear in thy task and careful in thy speech. Be thine an open hand, a merry heart, Christ in thy mouth, life that all may know a lover of righteousness and compassion. Let none come to thee and go sad away. Hope of the poor, and solace to the sad, go thou before God’s people to God’s realm, that those who follow thee may come to the stars. Sow living seeds, words that are quick with life, that faith may be the harvest in their hearts. In word and in example let thy light shine in the black dark like the morning star.

Let not the wealth of the world nor its dominion flatter thee into silence as to truth, nor king, nor judge, yea, nor thy dearest friend muzzle thy lips from righteousness.”

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John Rutter - The Lord Bless You And Keep You.

'Life of Pi' and 'Les Miserables'

What can you say about Life of Pi that hasn't already been said? Just to reiterate that it is a beautifully shot and beautifully paced movie. The special effects are stunning and, unlike many films in which 3D seems to be a gimmicky add-on, I imagine here would add to the sense of magical realism. All this is, of course, essential if the point being made about the kind of stories we value is to carry imaginative force. That Ang Lee manages this is the supreme achievement of this marvellous movie.

Les Miserables, based as it is on a very different style of novel, is therefore a very different proposition as a movie. Victor Hugo's writing has the breadth of Dickens, without the emphasis on grotesque caricature, but what both do on a grand scale is to reveal the plight of those at bottom of the pile in society. While Dickens engages through satire and sentiment, Hugo utilises a depth of emotion which is what has been tapped in making the musical and film of the musical so successful.

Cameron Mackintosh has written of how the show elevated both the audience and the cast "to a state of powerful emotion rarely seen in the theatre." Tom Hooper utilises close-ups of his characters combined with live singing to ratchet up the emotional content of story and song. Hugo's story, with its themes of repentance and redemption, has sufficient depth and seriousness of content and character to sustain this approach. With the comic relief of the Thénardiers, Hooper's approach changes focussing on the comedy of their thieving which then has the effect of dissipating the comic bombast of their singing. With this aside, the emotive flow continues to a climax which both returns us to the story's redemptive beginning and releases the central characters and ourselves, as audience, from its relatively unrelentingly grip.

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Anne Hathaway - I Dreamed A Dream.

Bryan MacLean: If you believe in

Los Angeles group Love were, in the words of David Fricke, 'the bi-racial folk-rock pirates who made Love and Da Capo in 1966, then the silken psychedelia of Forever Changes in 1967.'

'Although Arthur Lee was the main writer, [Bryan] MacLean contributed some fine songs, including Orange Skies, Old Man and the haunting Alone Again Or, with its flamenco-style guitar and dramatic trumpet flourishes.' ifyoubelievein is a collection of MacLean's music  written when he was in the band and written with Love in mind.

'After an aborted attempt at a solo career ... [MacLean] hit a real low point and shortly afterwards became a Christian, "I was alone in a hotel room in New York and I had lost practically everything. It occurred to me that I was in a tail-spin so I thought 'well, why don't I pray?' So I did and nothing happened for about two or three weeks. At the end of that time, I was sitting in a drug store on 3rd Avenue having a drink, and suddenly the drink turned to sand in my mouth and I left the bar. And when I reached the pavement and daylight I knew something had changed. And from that point on my life has been totally different".

[MacLean] joined a Christian Fellowship Church called the Vineyard ... During Friday night Bible stints [MacLean] took the concert part of the session and was so amazed at the reaction he gradually assembled a catalogue of his Christian songs.'

Taken from the Latin and literally meaning 'within the walls', Intra Muros is the album of "spooky" Christian music MacLean was completing at the time of his death. Due to 'the great strength of songs like the amazing Love Grows In Me and My Eyes Are Open', Intra Muros 'stands as fine testament to the ability of a great songwriter.'

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Bryan MacLean - Alone Again Or.

Steve Scott dialogues 4: Torrance, Gunton & Bahktin

SS: I just joined the Thomas F. Torrance `fan' page on Facebook (I've been a Torrance fan since the 80s) and I found a bunch of online lectures/papers etc including this one. I noticed Colin Gunton's `The One, the Three and the Many' in one of your book lists (at your `between' blog). Both Gunton and Torrance have (survived in their work) much to tell us ...

`That Thomas F. Torrance is a scientific theologian seems beyond dispute. But that he may also be understood as a theologian of culture is a permission given us through a consideration of his doctrine of God as triune Creator, his doctrine of creation as contingent, and his doctrine of humanity as a mediator of order and priest of creation, whose work results in, and is enabled by, the development of social coefficients of truth. If Torrance provides us with the fundamental assumptions and dynamics necessary for the development of a theology of culture, then we are also given permission to begin to see his work in this light and to develop it toward this end.'

JE: What I'm particularly interested in, I think, is the Trinity as a pattern for aspects of life which is why I enjoyed Gunton's 'The One, the Three and the Many' with its exploration of the implications of God in relation within himself as Trinity through the transcendentals – relationality, substantiality and perichoresis – which Gunton argues underpin all pattern and connection within the created order. This has similarities with Dorothy L. Sayers in 'The Mind of the Maker' and Christian Schumacher in 'God in Work'.

Gunton uses his theology of creation to identify three concepts that he calls (drawing on Coleridge) ‘open transcendentals’. That is, “possibilities for thought which are universal in scope yet open in their application” Gunton’s three open transcendentals are: relationality (“[a]ll things are what they are by being particulars constituted by many and various forms of relation”, p. 229); perichoresis (“all things are what they are in relations of mutual constitutiveness with all other things”, p. 178); and substantiality (all things are “substantial beings, having their own distinct and particular existence, by virtue of and not in the face of their relationality to the other”, p. 194). Sociality is a description of the social relation of personal beings, “their free relation-in-otherness” (Gunton, p. 229.). Gunton notes that, outside of God and humanity, “the rest of the creation … does not have the marks of love and freedom which are among the marks of the personal” and so cannot be said to be characterised by sociality.

Within the creation stories, sociality is seen in the joint working in which God and Adam shared to find a helper for Adam (Genesis 2: 15 - 25) and the conversation between God, Adam and Eve in Genesis 3: 8 - 19. Dorothy Sayers remarked on the fact that the one thing we know for sure about God at the point that he makes humanity in his own image is that he is creative [D. L. Sayers, The Mind of the Maker (Methuen & Co. Ltd. 1941)]. She argues that it is therefore logical to suppose that creativity is a significant aspect of humanity’s being made in the image of God. Within the creation stories human creativity is seen in: God’s blessing of humanity which included the tasks of increasing in number, filling and subduing the earth and, ruling over living creatures (Genesis 1: 28); Adam’s working and taking care of the garden (Genesis 2: 15); and, Adam’s naming of the living creatures (Genesis 2: 20). Albert Wolters brings both sociality and creativity together when he comments that: “Adam and Eve, as the first married couple, represent the beginnings of societal life; their task of tending the garden, the primary task of agriculture, represents the beginnings of cultural life" [A. M. Wolters, Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 1996), p. 37].

Among those who have developed practical proposals for the implementation of relationality, perichoresis and substantiality through sociality and creativity are:

· Christian Schumacher with his system of work structuring outlined in God in Work: Discovering the divine pattern for work in the new millennium (Oxford, Lion Publishing plc, 1998);
· David Lee and Michael Schluter with the dimensions of relational proximity which they outline in The R Factor (Hodder & Stoughton, 1993).

Schumacher draws on Sayers and Distributionism to create a Trinitarian model while Lee and Schluter draw on the work of Christopher Wright who argues that the Israelite society of the Old Testament provides a paradigm for contemporary Christian lifestyle.

Gunton makes his argument based on Coleridge's work on transcendentals, which I haven't read in any depth, but was interested to have Coleridge's thought commended again in reading Dru's book on Charles Péguy. Not sure that any of this relates to Torrance particularly.

SS: Yes, at first blush I'm going to suggest that Torrance provides a lot of deep background in both patristics and quantum physics (and scientific ideas and history thereof) that hums away in the deep background of Colin Gunton's work. I'm prejudiced because I discovered both Torrance and Gunton `at once' on a sale/clearance table in Logos books in Berkeley in the late 70s or early 80s. There's a good book called `The Knight's Move: relationality in science and theology' (I think) that suggestively links Torrance, Niels Bohr, Kierkegaard and someone else whose name escapes me ... Ah. M. Polanyi. Here are some amazon reviews.

Fascinating second review; suggests that the author as a result of this book is going to read some T F Torrance. Anyway. If the (Trinity in) creative process includes aesthetic judgement (saw that it was good) and there's something optimally human or humanizing about our creative calling ... then this would link what that guy was saying about Torrance (Triune God, contingent creation, priestly Human) and the `open transcendentals' of Gunton's Trinity argument. They become `co inherent' categories that inform not only our `place' in the world, but also the inner dynamic of our art ... everything from the formal arguments about material and design up/out to the social /shalom implications of the work in context ... a la Bourraiud and Loraine Leeson and co. And this would make the Christian contribution to interfaith dialogue via, through or with the arts a distinct one.

JE: I particularly liked this quote from the essay on Torrance that you sent over:

"... human persons are not blank slates to be socially programmed as we wish, nor is the created order passive material that we can arrange as our needs and socioeconomic goals dictate. There is an order already present in reality, created into it by ‘the ultimate controlling ground of order’ prior to our ordering activities. Our task is to create cultural/conceptual tools that enable us to discern that order so that we may cooperate with it, not impose ourselves upon it. This is simply Torrance’s theological science applied to the social and material world."

I've tried to explore what I think this sense of partnership with God might involve in an outline theology of work. Underpinning this is the idea that I first came across through Dorothy L. Sayers in 'Mind of the Maker', but which is unpacked more fully by Paul Ricoeur, that humanity is made in the image of God because we enjoy the power of creativity.

“… according to Ricouer, human being is possibility: “it does not yet appear what we shall be” (1 John 3: 2). Human existence is “forward-orientated,” constantly projecting itself in front of itself towards a possible way of being. Possibility is therefore intimately connected to the imagination which projects it, and to time, specifically the future. Human being, then, is not limited to the here and now, that is, to actuality … there is a “surplus of being” to human existence, and this surplus of being is nothing other than possibility. We are not as we shall be. Thanks to this surplus of being – possibility – humanity can hope.”

Kevin Vanhoozer notes that: “In his essay “The Image of God and the Epic of Man,” Ricoeur suggests that humans are in the image of God because they too enjoy the power of creativity. Thus the image of God, creativity, gives rise to the images of man, in the sense of the images that man makes. These images constitute “the sum total of the ways in which man projects his vision on things.”” Ricoeur suggests that through our imagination we can determine (God created) possibilities and define the (God created) essence of all that is around us. Essence, in this sense, is similar to Gerard Manley Hopkins' idea of 'inscape'.

Possibilities are, Ricoeur argues, real, although unactualised and it is through imagination that actualisation occurs and with it self-understanding:“The point of phenomenology is to describe the meaning of “lived experience” rather than its factuality. Husserl calls the meaning of a thing its “essence” (eidos). We come to know the essence of a thing by exploring its various possibilities. These possibilities are explored in the workshop of the imagination. Ricoeur notes of phenomenology that “its favourite technique is the method of imaginative variations. It is in varying the possible realizations of the same essential structure that the fundamental articulation can be made manifest.” Husserl’s example of the meaning or “essence” of a table is helpful. By “free imaginative variation” we can alter its form, its color, its material. By then looking to see what there is in common among the various examples, we can determine its essence. We can also imagine possible uses of a table: we can eat a meal on it; we can write letters or do a jigsaw puzzle on it; we can stand on it to fix the lightbulb etc. These variations are not present, but they are imagined as possible. Phenomenological description is thus closely related to fiction and the realm of as if. As far as phenomenology is concerned, we may define the meaning or “essence” of something as the imagined ensemble of its possibilities”.

We see this happening too in Genesis 2. 18-25, where God brings all the animals in the Garden of Eden to Adam for him to name and, at the end of this naming process, Adam recognises Eve as his soulmate. The key to this story is that names in ancient times described the essence of the thing that was named. So Adam looks and listens in order to understand the essence of each different creature and then creates a name that reflects that essence. By so doing, he also sees what is different between himself and the creatures, so that when he sees Eve he is able to immediately recognise her as his soulmate.

This is also what I understand the Bible as doing for us. The Bible is a diverse book. In fact, it is more of a library than a book; a library of 66 different books containing biography, drama, history, law, letters, prophecy, poetry and proverbs. Mike Riddell calls it "a collection of bits" assembled to form God's home page while Mark Oakley uses a more poetic image in writing of the Bible as "the best example of a collage of God that we have." They use these images because the Bible contains, as Oakley writes, "different views, experiences, beliefs and prayers" drawn "from disparate era, 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."

The point is that the Bible gives us many different perspectives on God and on human beings. These different perspectives produce new ways of thinking, seeing, imagining and creating in us. As we see God and human beings from different perspectives and through fresh eyes we are opened up to new possibilities. As we see and imagine possibilities we have the same experience as Adam and come to know ourselves better - we see the essence of who we are - and we change to become more like the people that God created us to be.

This is living creatively, living artistically. The art of life is to be open to the diversity of life in order to see life's possibilities from different perspectives and, as we compare and contrast these possibilities, to identify the essence of who we have been created by God to be and to become. By understanding ourselves and by responding to the essence of others, we are able to develop and use our talents for the enrichment of other people's lives. In doing so, we express the fact of being creative creatures made in the image of our Creator God.

I think all this connects well with your description of Torrance's argument; Triune God, contingent creation, priestly Human. Gunton's open transcendentals (and other Trinitarian patterns - Sayers, Schumacher etc.) would then help in exploring the essence of each thing that is around us; including artworks. To critique artworks in terms of relationality, perichoresis and substantiality would indeed be a fascinating and distinctively Christian approach to art criticism and would extend Bourraiud's Relational Aesthetics considerably.

SS: Yes, all true, and some of my thinking on this enhanced by a couple of books by Timothy Gorringe, and the collaborative/partnering with God in Eden was touched on by David Thistlewaite in his `Art of God'.

"As Richard Bauckham has stated, the Christian is thrust into a “painful contradiction between the promise and present reality”:

I think Colin Gunton made some remarks on this in light of Romans 8, and in the framework of his talking about `catharsis' and Trinitarian Aesthetics (a lecture he gave at Kings of which I got a reprint somehow .... and used for `the light by which we see' included in `Crying for a Vision' and is borne out by much of below ...)

“The contradiction arises from a hope for the world, for the whole of this worldly reality, which it exposes in all its god-forsakenness. The Christian’s suffering is thus a loving solidarity with the whole of the suffering creation … and a hopeful solidarity in expectation of the transformation of all creation … Love and hope for the world involve the Christian in a movement towards world-transformation which has two moments: critical opposition and creative expectation …. In the first moment, hope liberates the Christian from all accommodation to the status quo and sets him critically against it … In the second moment, it gives rise to attempts to change the world in the direction of its promised transformation, imaginatively grasping and realising the objective possibilities in the present which conform most closely to the coming Kingdom … .”

Yep, so the `imaginative grasping' probably includes the groaning of Romans 8.

“… according to Ricouer, human being is possibility: “it does not yet appear what we shall be” (1 John 3: 2). Human existence is “forward-orientated,” constantly projecting itself in front of itself towards a possible way of being."

I once had a coffee mug that was imprinted with a Ricouer slogan: `If you want to change a people's obedience, you must first change their imagination.' which, I think brings art to the front of the conversation about community and change......

“The point of phenomenology is to describe the meaning of “lived experience” rather than its factuality. Husserl calls the meaning of a thing its “essence” (eidos). We come to know the essence of a thing by exploring its various possibilities. These possibilities are explored in the workshop of the imagination. Ricoeur notes of phenomenology that “its favourite technique is the method of imaginative variations. It is in varying the possible realizations of the same essential structure that the fundamental articulation can be made manifest.” Husserl’s example of the meaning or “essence” of a table is helpful. By “free imaginative variation” we can alter its form, its color, its material. By then looking to see what there is in common among the various examples, we can determine its essence. We can also imagine possible uses of a table: we can eat a meal on it; we can write letters or do a jigsaw puzzle on it; we can stand on it to fix the lightbulb etc. These variations are not present, but they are imagined as possible. Phenomenological description is thus closely related to fiction and the realm of as if. As far as phenomenology is concerned, we may define the meaning or “essence” of something as the imagined ensemble of its possibilities”.

"This is also what I understand the Bible as doing for us. The Bible is a diverse book."

Polyphony. and the ideas of Mikhail Bahktin. Have you read any Bahktin on dialogism and the novel? Also, some people have done work on Bahktin's ideas about culture and implications for the Bible (or our reading of it).

JE: "I think C Gunton made some remarks on this in light of Rom 8, and in the framework of his talking about `catharsis' and Trinitarian Aesthetics (a lecture he gave at Kings I got a reprint of somehow.....and used for `the light by which we see' included in `Crying for a Vision.' and is borne out by much of below...."

Gunton stated in The Actuality of Atonement that “the victory of Jesus stands behind; the final revelation lies ahead [and] it is the gift of the Spirit to enable anticipations of the final victory to take place in our time”. As a result, “the Christian community lives neither in the sphere of the lie nor in the kingdom of heaven where we shall know as we are known, but ‘between the times’”. This ‘in between’ time, David Ford suggests in Self and Salvation, is eucharistic time: “In between the Last Supper and the expected consummation signified by the Kingdom of God there is history punctuated by obedience to the command to ‘Do this’. This is eucharistic time – time understood and shaped through the reality celebrated repeatedly in the eucharist.” All this is where the title of my blog derives from.

"Yep so the `imaginative grasping' probably includes the groaning of Rom 8"

Yes, and the resurrection; as Jurgen Moltmann says, the “resurrection of Christ does not mean a new possibility within the world and its history, but a new possibility altogether for the world, for existence, and for history.”

"I once had a coffee mug that was imprinted with a Ricouer slogan: `If you want to change a people's obedience, you must first change their imagination.' which, I think brings art to the front of the conversation about community and change..."

Fully agree. Moltmann also says that we have to perceive God’s activity in the gift of the future and in the stream of new possibilities.

"Polyphony. and the ideas of Mikhail Bahktin.Have you read any B on dialogism and the novel.....also, some people have done work on Bahktin's ideas about culture and implications for the Bible (or our reading of it....) ??"

I've read a bit on polyphony in relation to Solzhenitsyn (I think it must have been Krasnov on Solzhenitsyn and Dostoevsky - very interesting stuff and very relevant to the arguments I've been making about the structure and form of scripture) but I haven't read Bahktin. What would you recommend?

SS: Here are all the pdfs in my Bahktin and bible sub folder. I've got a couple of his titles, and I've read some things on Bahktin and cultural criticism/carnival etc. I'm still coming to understand him.

JE: Thanks for this. Have just skim read the Bahktin and the Bible pdf which is one of those 'ohmigod, someone is articulating what I have been thinking' moments. Much of what I was writing in my posts on 'The Bible: Open or Closed?' (click here, here, here, here, here) seems to be expressed more clearly in this article which I'll clearly need to read more closely together with the other Bahktin files. Having read the Krasnov book, I've clearly come across Bahktin's ideas but without having incorporated them directly into my own thinking and writing on these issues. So, am very grateful to have these essays to fill in this gap.

SS: Excellent. I've long been a fan of the polyphonic/mosaic approach to `the Bible' as a whole ... as was the author of Hebrews ...

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Noah and the Whale - 2 Bodies 1 Heart.

Greenbelt diary (2) & Windows on the world (14)

Greenbelt, 2008

Day 2 for me began with an interlude in the form of a search for works by the artist Greg Tricker. I first came across Tricker's work in Images of Earth and Spirit: A "Resurgence" Art Anthology and knew that he has been involved with the Ruskin Mill College at Nailsworth. Through the kindness of Diana and Peter Crook during Greenbelt we were staying in the picturesque village of Uley which is just down the road from Nailsworth. So I headed off early in the morning to see what I could find of Tricker's work.

My quick detour to Ruskin Mill failed to uncover any definitive examplesof Tricker's work, although I saw a carving of an angel that looked as though it could well have been his work and did establish that he lives in the town. On one occasion in the past I have cold called an artist - the very wonderful John Reilly on the Isle of Wight - but on this occasion didn't have the time to do so as I wanted to arrive at Greenbelt in time to hear Chris Dingle's talk on the faith and spirituality of Olivier Messiaen.

Dingle is the author of The Life of Messiaen and gave a worthwhile summary of Messiaen's life that highlighted pieces to listen to beyond the well known Quartet for the End of Time. Another thing that Greenbelt is great for is broadening knowledge of the large number of artists expressing spirituality in their work and, in the case of a massive body of work like that of Messiaen's, highlighting some accessible ways in.

My daughters arrived and we listened to a great set by Ed Sheeran; so good that Emma bought his cd. Following Ed's set we mooched around the site catching up with other familiar faces as we did so. Michelle Gillam-Hull's stall was one place where we stopped, shopped and caught up. I also introduced myself to Aidan Mellor, the impresario responsible for Veritasse. I am a Veritasse artisan and my artwork can be found on their website, so it was good to meet the man responsible and to hear about their expansion with a new gallery opening in Maidenhead and increasing use being made of the download facility on their website.

At the Artist's Forum I listened to Phill Hopkins speak about his onsite installation Seven Drunken Nights and performance piece Wine & Beer/Oak & Bread. The evening saw more shuttling between mainstage and the Performance Cafe to take in the likes of Julie Lee, Helen J. Hicks and Cathy Burton. I made a detour to Underground to catch the electro-rock of This Morning Call before settling down to hear the whole of Edwina Hayes' set at the Performance Cafe. With her engaging personality and beautiful voice, this was a real treat. Having enjoyed the Hummingbird album on which she sings with Cathy Burton and Amy Wadge I was anticipating something special and wasn't disappointed. A great conclusion to a full day.

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Edwina Hayes - Pour Me A Drink.