I’m struggling with my differentiation paper and came across this, an interview with Prof John Goldingay. Since I began theological studies way back in another century I’ve been reading his stuff. Always scholarly, often provocative, and in this short interview, deeply human, in ways that it might surprise some of you that an Old Testament prof can be human. Alongside his brilliant scholarship is a deep desire to live out faith in a real way. In his case, it comes in his love for his disabled wife. This wee interview is challenging and moving.

HELL IN A HAND BASKET from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

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Just two verses occupied us for more than two hours in yesterday’s breakfast bible study. The verses in mind were Mark 14:48,49

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⁴⁸ “Am I leading a rebellion,” said Jesus, “that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? ⁴⁹ Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.”

The question in v48 was asked by Jesus of the mob who came to arrest him in the garden of Gethsemane, and the answer of course is clear. Yes he was! He was clearly looking to start a rebellion, but not one that was executed by the wielding of sword or club. But one brought about by the changing of hearts and minds, which in this case is largely the result of the teaching of Jesus and the transformative power of the Scriptures.

We thought of the rebellions currently under way in places like Tunisia, in Egypt and Libya, Bahrain and Morocco. We wondered whether we would have had the courage to stand in Tahrir Square and oppose the forces of the State by peaceful resistance. More challengingly we wondered whether we would be among those protesting in Benghazi where live bullets are being used to quell the protests.

The rebellion Jesus was leading could not be enforced, rather it was embraced. This is not something that swords and clubs could do.

We got to thinking about change in general and how it is achieved and resisted, even in church communities.

I imagine a preacher standing in a pulpit of a divided church with only this verse. How would it be handled? What would the preacher say to the warring congregation, each faction seeking its own way?

“Are we fighting a war for domination that you make your case through lies and innuendo, gossip and half-truths? Week after week I stand in this pulpit and open the Word, but it can never been made captive to your way. Have you ever heard your way endorsed by this Word? Instead the Scriptures will be fulfilled. Violence may have its way for a season, but ultimately, the Way of love will be vindicated.”

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photo 1 from here
photo 2 from here

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We were delighted to host Will WIllimon at EBM for the second occasion, six years after he was first with us. This time he addressed a group of 25 clergy and community workers on the subject of mission. Beginning with a review of John Davison Hunter’s book “To Change the World” the conversation then moved to the church in the world. (I read that book last year and really must blog a few comments)

There were many things to take away from the morning, not least his stories, but there were two stand outs for me. It struck a number of us, including Jools Hamilton who mentioned it in the sum up of the morning,  the way in which Will seamlessly integrated his frequent biblical reflections with the discussion of politics, ecclesiology, economics and so on. This was no proof-texting, or straining for a bible verse justification. It was simply that the text of the Scriptures has so permeated his thinking that it was natural to speak in biblical categories.

The second thing for me was the way he described the message of Jesus. Every time we think we have it pinned down, it forces us to change position. So when we imagine we have it right in thinking that Gospel is for the poor, for instance, Jesus confuses us by targeting the richest man in town in Zacchaeus. It struck me that those of us involved in inner urban mission can be so self-righteous about our calling. As soon as we settle for this however, and get comfortable, Jesus shatters our illusions.

Oh, and there was a third thing. When it comes to changing the world, he said, we must be wary of thinking that the small things don’t matter. Stephen Dallas mentioned his own efforts at coaching a youth football team, and an unsuccessful one at that. The Bishop was very taken by the story told, and remarked how, as followers of Jesus, we are committed to the only true reality, which is defined in and by him. Stephen’s work with these disaffected young people only makes sense as a world changing act in the context of the bigger story of the Gospel. I can’t tell you how encouraging I found that.

Anyway, it was a thoughtful and engaging morning, made more so by the incredible diversity of people who turned up. Methodists, Presbyterians, Church of Ireland, Baptists, independent churches, women and men, clergy and lay, from mid-twenties to late seventies. Great stuff.

Anyway, here’s a snatch of video.

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It was a constellation of ideas on the day of the dissolution of the 30^th Dail.

In chance conversation at lunchtime I learned that in 18^th Century Belfast, Bastille Day parades were more significant that 12^th July parades. The city, like much of Europe was convulsed by new ideas and political radicals such as Thomas Russell and Mary Ann McCracken expressed their radicalism in action like protesting against the sugar trade and its links to slavery. They, and others like them, celebrated the French Revolution’s ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity.

On the way home I listened to the closing speeches of the 30^th Dail. How ironic that the final speaker was Caoimhghin O Caolain of Sinn Fein who quoted from the Democratic Programme of the first Dail in 1919. The Democratic Programme was  radical document espousing a peculiarly Irish form of socialism, but it was also a firm rejection of the cult of blood sacrifice and the strange mysticism of the 1916 rebels.

In its place the Programme offered the revolutionary French ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity with an Irish flavour.

The 1919 Dail was arguably the most representative parliament that had yet been convened and this was its programme for government. Only 600 words, that’s all. This document should have been the true founding document of the State (read it in its entirety here).

Instead, after independence, the document was ignored. The pure pragmatism of political parties trumped the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity, in favour of the rhetoric of the 1916 Proclamation, and we ended up with the gombeen politics of the recent history.

What might we have created had the Democratic Programme been adopted? What if all identities on the island had been recognised from the beginning instead of 80 years and thousands of deaths later? What if the oppressive regimes of churchmen had not served only to restrict freedoms? What if all children of the State had been cherished from the beginning? What if every one had the right to participate in the wealth created by the State?

Later that evening I continued my reading in the book of Isaiah, particularly Third Isaiah (chps 56-66). Here is a call to the re-creation of a decimated community, traumatised by defeat, destruction and exile, returning with a task to build anew. Third Isaiah is an encouragement to remember the mistakes of the past, and to resolve not to repeat them. It is a manifesto for a new State.

The parallels with the Democratic Programme are startling. It’s almost as if the framers of 1919 had read Isaiah 65.

Isaiah 65:20a
Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days..

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DP
It shall be the first duty of the Government of the Republic to make provision for the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of the children, to secure that no child shall suffer hunger or cold from lack of food, clothing, or shelter, but that all shall be provided with the means and facilities requisite for their proper education and training as Citizens of a Free and Gaelic Ireland.

Isaiah 65: 20b
(Never again will there be) an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth. He who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed.

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DP
The Irish Republic fully realises the necessity of abolishing the present odious, degrading and foreign Poor Law System, substituting therefor a sympathetic native scheme for the care of the Nation’s aged and infirm, who shall not be regarded as a burden, but rather entitled to the Nation’s gratitude and consideration. Likewise it shall be the duty of the Republic to take such measures as will safeguard the health of the people and ensure the physical as well as the moral well-being of the Nation.

Isaiah 65:21
They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. ²² No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands.

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DP
We declare in the words of the Irish Republican Proclamation the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies to be indefeasible, and in the language of our first President. Pádraíg Mac Phiarais, we declare that the Nation’s sovereignty extends not only to all men and women of the Nation, but to all its material possessions, the Nation’s soil and all its resources, all the wealth and all the wealth-producing processes within the Nation, and with him we reaffirm that all right to private property must be subordinated to the public right and welfare. (Get that last sentence!!)

We affirm the duty of every man and woman to give allegiance and service to the Commonwealth, and declare it is the duty of the Nation to assure that every citizen shall have opportunity to spend his or her strength and faculties in the service of the people. In return for willing service, we, in the name of the Republic, declare the right of every citizen to an adequate share of the produce of the Nation’s labour.

Isaiah 65:23
They will not labor in vain, nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD, they and their descendants with them.

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DP
It shall be our duty to promote the development of the Nation’s resources, to increase the productivity of its soil, to exploit its mineral deposits, peat bogs, and fisheries, its waterways and harbours, in the interests and for the benefit of the Irish people.

Again and again it seems that the deepest instincts of the founders of the State were right and true. Isaiah calls this instinct justice and righteousness – in theological terms we call it a hendiadys, two words linked by a conjunction which are intended to be taken together to express a single, more complex, idea. In this case it is the idea of social justice expressed in multiple dimensions. Justice and righteousness in relationship with God, yes!, in the courts, yes!, but also in the elimination of exploitation and oppression.

Justice and righteousness in all the social structures and institutions of the State. Justice and righteousness in the behaviours of all citizens of the State.

The violence of 1916 and its aftermath have not served us well as the founding myth of the nation. But maybe we do need to revisit our past, to look again at the 1919 Democratic Programme and reinterpret it for this day.

But also time for Christians in the State to have confidence in our Scriptures to speak some sense into the mess.

(apologies for the long post, but these are extraordinary days here and we are desperate for resources to help us. Third Isaiah might be one)

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This is a fascinating story told well. Henrietta Lacks, descended from a slave family died of cervical cancer in 1951. Just prior to her death, and unknown to her, a doctor treating her took a sample of the cancer cells in order to culture them.

Remarkably, he discovered that these cells, named Hela, not only survived long after their donor, but were extraordinarily virulent, and were virtually indestructible. Indeed the offspring of these original cells are still around today and remain the most valuable cell line on the planet having been successfully used in all sorts of experiments, including finding a cure for polio. Indeed many millions of dollars worth of cell research must be abandoned every year because the original test cells have been infected or infiltrated by Hela cells. (google ‘hela’ and see what comes up)

It is estimated that 51 million tonnes of Hela cells have been manufactured and traded since 1951. Yes tonnes!

The science of cell research is related engagingly by Skloot, who took on this book as something as a personal crusade. Not only was she interested in the science dimension of the story, but was also curious about the Lacks family, and particularly the children of Henrietta.

So what we have is an interweaving of an often tragic personal family story set against the incredible science of cell research which has lead to all sorts of marvellous discoveries. It is also the story of a poor family exploited by a multi-billion dollar industry. So ignorant of the science were her offspring they they worried that when their mother’s cells were infected with the AIDS virus, they worried that their mother had been infected. And no scientist ever took the time to explain. So burnt were they by their exploitation that Skloot displays incredible patience and fortitude in gaining their trust.

Issues of family, identity, race, science and ethics are to the fore in this very readable book. It is utterly appalling in fact to learn how the medical fraternity in the US treated the weak and vulnerable, even down to virtually kidnapping homeless people, mainly homeless black people, to perform cancer experiments on them, for instance,  in return for a bed for a few nights and some hot food. And I’m talking about the 50s and 60s here.

I understand that there are a few more protections in law in the UK, but still in the US apparently any material that is taken from your body during  a medical procedure is no longer your ‘property’. Several stories in the book relate how medical practitioners made millions from cells of donors without telling at all to that donor. In one famous case, even recalling the donor annually to harvest more. Incredibly after the donor discovered what was going on and sued the hospital – he lost!

Recent scandals over foetal material in hospitals down south demonstrate that the Henrietta Lacks story is still relevant.

Well worth a read.

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Ever read the poem ‘The Mower’ by Philip Larkin? I did, a few weeks ago prompted by something else I was reading. A reflection on accidentally killing a hedgehog between the blades of a lawnmower, the closing lines read,

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we should be careful
Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.

I thought of this poem when I finished ‘One Day’ by David Nicholls.

We meet the central characters, Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew, on 15 July, St Swithins Day in 1988 the day of their graduation from University in Edinburgh. She’s a working class Northerner with a double first and he’s a southern posh kid with a 2-2. They spend the night together chastely, (relatively), then part, probably for good.

The story of their lives unfolds then over the next 20 years told always and only through the events of the 15 July each year. Sometimes they run in parallel, sometimes intersecting on that day, but always thinking of each other, with longing, regret and unrequited love. The reader knows they are better together than apart, seen most clearly in Dexter whose c-list celebrity status in youth tv draws him into a dangerous and destructive downward spiral. Emma, despite her brilliance is lost for several years in a dead end job with a hopeless but unintentionally hilarious stand-up comedian boyfriend.

The book is very funny. Very funny, particularly the banter between the central characters. The story is wistful, moving, tragic, full of longing, disappointment, loyalty and love and the unbreakable bonds of true, lasting friendship. It’ll bring back memories of how you were and all you wanted to be. It’ll move you, anger you, frustrate you. It is a lovely, lovely book

I know that if you had given me this description I probably would have thought this wasn’t for me, too sentimental or mawkish, but honestly, it was absolutely brilliant. Perhaps because the era is mine. I graduated in 1987. I turned 40 in the same decade as the characters who must come to terms with the idealistic dreams of the early 20s turned to settled steadiness in later years. The cultural references are ones I recognise – the music, the books, the conversations, the drinks the historical events.

Whatever! It’s beautifully written. Highly recommended. Nice website here too.

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“My mouth will utter praise of the Lord, of the Lord through whom all things have been made and who has been made amidst all things; who is the Revealer of His Father, Creator of His Mother; who is the Son of God from His Father without a mother, the Son of Man through His mother without a father.

He is as great as the Day of Angels, and as small as a day in the life of men;

He is the Word of God before all ages, and the Word made flesh at the destined time.

Maker of the sun, He is made beneath the sun.

Disposing all the ages from the bosom of the Father, He consecrates this very day in the womb of His mother.

In His Father He abides; from His mother He goes forth. Creator of heaven and earth, under the heavens He was born upon earth.

Wise beyond all speech, as a speechless child, He is wise. Filling the whole world, He lies in a manger. Ruling the stars, He nurses at His mother’s breast. He is great in the form of God and small in the form of a servant, so much so that His greatness is not diminished by His smallness, nor His smallness concealed by His greatness.

For when He assumed a human body, He did not forsake divine works. He did not cease to be concerned mightily from one end of the universe to the other, and to order all things delightfully, when, having clothed Himself in the fragility of flesh, he was received into, not confined in, the Virgin’s womb. So that, while the food of wisdom was not taken away fromm the angels, we were to taste how sweet is the Lord.”

Wishing you a happy and blessed Christmas.

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In the coming decade in Ireland we will be reminded of how the history of this island has been shaped by violence. Whether it is in the remembrance of the blood covenant in 1912 resisting home rule, or the horrific events of 1916, the Somme and the Easter Rising in Dublin, leading eventually to the Civil War.

Too many so-called patriots have seen the path of violence as the way of redemption – and often that violence was not suffered, but inflicted.

I wonder what connection there is between the violence of our recent history and the epidemic of suicides among our young people. We who have played fast and loose with the lives of others, are now surprised at how cheaply our youth view theirs. Will we ever be free of it?

The notion here that the use of violence to overthrow another deathly power results only in a refurbished form of that deathly power is chilling.

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The ambiguity, as I see it, enters where violence against persons becomes the recourse of rebellion. Where the ethics of change practices violence and, thereby, imitates the moral power upon which the enemy of human beings solely relies, then revolution—no matter how idealistic, how necessary, how seemingly glorious—is essentially bereft of hope even if it empirically prevails. I am not an ideological pacifist, or, for that matter, an ideological person of any species, but, as with the Berrigans, I am persuaded as a Christian that resort to violence to topple the idol of death in the state and in society invariably results in idolatry of death in some refurbished form. This is, in truth, the central contemporary, theological issue. It is the point at which ethics and eschatology meet, for if the practice of violence, even in the name of revolution, is hopeless, the practice of non-violence, even where it seems unavailing, represents a most extraordinary hope.
Harlem, Rebellion and Resurrection, Christian Century 1970

With that, I’ll take a break from William Stringfellow till the New Year.

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Thanks to Phil Harrison for the link to the video below which builds on a earlier post about Chris Hedges HERE on the mid-term elections in the US and the collapse of mediating liberalism. This is penetrating stuff and deeply challenging for Christians, and indeed all of us living on this island in the current climate. Am I the only one to be disturbed by the potential for more extreme political parties to make hay, promising the most populist policies for the electorate down South because they know they’ll not have to govern, nevertheless exploiting the nations current traumas for electoral gain? Is this how nations turn to fascism?

Anyway, you may not have 45 minutes to spare to watch this, but allow me to extract the following quotation for your delectation and delight. It’s a challenge to us Christians, particularly those of us with a seminary education.

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The danger when a liberal class breaks down is that there is no mechanism any more by which mounting rage and anger can be expressed within the system…And it is fascinating to go back and read Dostoevsky at the end of the 19^th Century who witnessed a similar breakdown in Russia’s liberal class. “Notes from Underground” is about the defeated dreamer, the cynical liberal, the person who voted for Obama and had so much hope, but the hope was not delivered, and so they retreated into this narcissistic, self-centred, bitter room underground. And Dostoevsky argues that when the liberal class collapses, when the pillars of the liberal establishment no longer function, you enter an age of moral nihilism.

He presciently foresaw the inevitable result of a system that doesn’t work.

Our system doesn’t work, And it doesn’t work, ultimately, not because of Sarah Palin, or the Christian Right or Glenn Beck, it doesn’t work because the liberal class failed us. It failed us because it failed to find the intellectual and moral fortitude to defend liberal values at a time when they were under egregious assault.

I come out of the church, I went to seminary, and I watched the liberal church in the face of the rise of the Christian Right, a movement, essentially by a definition of basic Christianity, a heretical movement, a movement that acculturated the worst aspects of American nationalism, chauvinism imperialism and capitalism into the Christian religion. As if Jesus came to make us wealthy; as if Jesus would bless the dropping of armed fragmentation bombs all over the Middle East; as if the miracles of the Gospel were ones that were going to turn us into millionaires, and they [the liberal Church] said nothing and did nothing. They didn’t respond

Now what’s the point of getting a seminary degree and studying the miracles of Jesus and the Gospels for three years unless you are not willing to go out into the culture and stand for those messages and defend them.

Good question. What is the point? Keeping the sheep quiet ministering to the flock? Not allowing the deeper questions to emerge in a church context thus giving no faith based forum to articulate righteous anger?

Anyway, here’s the full video.

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Working, as I do, in inner city Belfast it is sometimes hard to see the impinging force of the resurrection in the day to day. Yet there are moments when its light leaks through the cracks. I remember on a Thursday in November, after the clocks had turned and it got dark at 5pm, watching three builders from our construction site, wearing their hi-viz jackets, pushing the stalled car of a woman which was holding up rush-hour traffic. Was that resurrection light resisting the darkness and death of the world? A glorious grace-filled act?

I watch people trying to live dignified lives in the midst of poverty. Hiding their illiteracy. Trying to feed their kids a healthy diet on a low income. Extending the warmth of hospitality to someone normally considered an enemy.

I sometimes think that inner city people wear their lives on their sleeves in ways that would appall us polite suburbanites. We, after all, have large gardens and driveways which separate us from our neighbours and from life on the streets. But do these hard-won, apparent benefits of the successful life also rob us of resurrection moments?

And do they also deny us the capability of encountering incarnation on Christmas Day, with anything like the wonder of the shepherds or of meeting resurrection on Easter Sunday without anything approaching the wonder and power of the disciples and the women?

And does my lack of noticing also mean that I lack the spiritual resources to survive in this bullying world?

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I doubt that I could have had the capability to lately survive radical disease, unremitting pain, and the shadow of death had I not spent those earlier years in the Harlem ghetto, discerned there something of the moral power of death, and learned, from neighbours, clients, and Harlem inhabitants at large, something of the triumph of life that human beings can enter and celebrate despite death’s ubiquity and vitality. Harlem is the scene in which I first comprehended the veracity of the resurrection—and that prepared me, more than any other single thing, for devastating illness and pain. Had I known only what I heard about the resurrection in Sunday School or from pulpits or from within the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant ethos, I believe that I would have surely died…resurrection is verified where rebellion against the demonic thrives.

I do not ignore or gainsay the ambiguity of the witness to the resurrection in revolution. I am, however, affirming that in the black ghetto there is a resistance to death as social purpose, a perseverance in living as human beings, a transcendence of the demonic which is at least an image of resurrection which exposes and challenges the reign of death in this society and which thus, benefits all human beings.
Harlem, Rebellion and Resurrection, Christian Century, 1970

So the life-giving question: where, this Advent, can I encounter rebellion against the demonic?

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