Theology of Difference

The news may have filtered through that the Scottish Episcopal Church has voted to proceed with the second reading of a canonical revision which would pave the way for those in the church you would wish to participate, to solemnise same-sex unions, i.e. marry gay couples. Obviously this is an issue which causes heated feelings and it came as no surprise to discover that the BBC were at the meeting to see if there were any fisticuffs – they were disappointed. The debate was, as you would hope, held in an attitude of mutual respect and a fair measure of dignity. The theological content of the debate, however, was rather thin. This may be because the preparatory theological work done by the Doctrine Committee had been completed last year. Maybe, though, it was because most people had already made up their minds. I don’t know. But I did feel that, on the day, there was more passionate positioning than careful reflection. Certainly no one other than myself (I think!?) appeared to want to engage with the language of the new Canon itself. I can appreciate that people on both sides of the debate are probably fed up with just how long the process has taken, but that frustration shouldn’t lead us to drop the ball, theologically speaking.

Because theological questions remain and what I have in mind is not so much theological questions about the nature of marriage itself, but more about how we live with difference. Because the reality is, regardless of the decision made finally at next year’s General Synod, we will have to learn to live together as a community of believers who will continue to hold different views on a variety of subjects. And it is this reality which needs to be reflected in our theological thinking.

In so saying, I’m not suggesting a kind of theological que sera sera, rather an appreciation of what George Newlands has called theological generosity. In his book, Generosity and the Christian Future, Newlands writes:

Jesus didn’t say, “Blessed are they who always close ranks and never rock the boat.” We can disagree and still respect each other. But internal discussion, pulling up the drawbridge, is not enough. The church must be seen to be able to speak up for those who cannot speak up for themselves in our society – vulnerable people in the community. Christians believe that the grace of God is there for all humanity, at home and abroad. I suspect that the church will always be judged at every level on its record of care caring effectively for those who are in deepest need of God’s love. That’s the tradition of the gospel. When it seemed to care, the church will flourish.

Here, George helpfully links our ability or willingness to disagree with one another in the context of the larger mission of the church. Issues such as the one discussed at General Synod are clearly of significance but that significance pales against other fundamental issues that face our world today. Too often the church appears to be simply talking to itself and discussing its own internal agenda. That is to abrogate our responsibility to be salt and light in the world and to be the servant of all. As the Puritan, Richard Baxter put it, ‘Distance breedeth strangeness and fermenteth dividing flames and jealousies, which communion will prevent or cure.’ It may almost sound paradoxical, but I mean it when I say, God help us if we stop thinking theologically about what is really going on in our world at this time. God asks us to be distinctive, not distant. 

The Curse of Cliché

Sam Goldwyn getting dangerously close to smiling

This is the first post that I have offered for some time. The reasons for absence are multifarious but I guess, beyond sheer laziness, the one reason that has always dogged me in life, whether working in this format or any other, is the nagging suspicion that I don't actually have anything worth saying. But on top of what can easily appear to be a false humility is the genuine anxiety about cliché. The formidable movie producer, Sam Goldwyn is reputed to have demanded, 'Let's have some new clichés.' His well-documented cynicism belies an awareness of the ever-present danger of banality. In the film industry, where the profit motive is often more important than any artistic one, this much is obvious. But I think it is true in life more generally. The risk of simply surface living, or producing a life (to maintain the movie theme) which is about playing safe and offering what the world expects to hear or see is, paradoxically, a very real one.

Looking more broadly, I wonder whether this in itself has led many in religious communities to shun things like cinema or the theatre or, dare I say it, even books. The idea of being exposed to a fictional world, it is assumed, befuddles the imagination which ought to find its focus in the 'real' stories of life, namely the Gospel. The point that is missed in all of this is that it is precisely in such creative endeavour (and this includes our reading the Gospel) that we find ourselves both challenged and transformed.

Great critics like Samuel Johnson were, in the early days of the novel, particularly conscious of the negative effects of literature on 'unformed' minds.  Two hundred years later, T. S. Eliot was only half right when he said that, [i]t is our business as Christians, as well as readers of literature, to know what we ought to like.' While there is always a risk of stultifying or belittling one's life by what one chooses to read or watch, or indeed do, the counter argument is that it is that very risk which brings life purpose and meaning in the first place.

And I guess that brings me back to the point, which is that writing, like life, entails risk and if that risky dimension is absent, then we will find ourselves living shadow existences, experiencing life at second or third hand... or is that another cliché?

A Little Knowledge

A colleague and friend, Don Palmer, kindly let me borrow a book on theological thinking a few weeks ago (he will get it back one day!) One of the many good things in that small volume was this little gem from St Bernard of Clairvaux who wrote: 

“There are those who seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge; that is Curiosity. There are those who seek knowledge to be known by others; that is Vanity. There are those who seek knowledge in order to serve; that is Love.” 

Bernard did have a serious run in with Peter Abelard over Peter’s book on the Trinity, and got him to burn it, which just goes to show that we should always be prepared to interrogate our heroes! Nevertheless, Bernard’s comments are worth holding on to. Because the temptation to seek knowledge to serve self-interest lies at the heart of how we relate to God. 

You see it most obviously in the story of the fall in the book of Genesis, where humanity striving for knowledge, misses the point of what it means to be created in the image of God. Some people misunderstand this passage and interpret it to mean that God has a downer on the acquisition of knowledge. To strive after knowledge, they argue, is to put ourselves in the place of God and behave like Icarus (and we all know what happened to that proud individual!) As a result of such thinking, folks such as scientists and theologians are viewed with equal suspicion. Too much knowledge is a dangerous thing, they say. Just ask Adam and Eve. 

But this, as I say, misses the point. The point is not the acquisition of knowledge as such, but the acquisition of knowledge in the proper context of loving dependency. Adam and Eve were not cursed because of their desire for knowledge but for their faithlessness. They had striven for knowledge without reference to their Creator. They had lost touch with the font of all knowledge. They had set themselves adrift from the one who sustained them and provided for them. That is the point of the story – their desire for knowledge was not motivated by love. 

In the other great story about knowledge (or, rather, the lack of it) - the book of Job - we find our hero, Job, questioning the purposes of God when he suffers for no apparent reason. At the climax of the book, God responds, but in his response he does not give what we would like to call a definitive answer. God appears in the whirlwind – he offers himself to Job and to his comforters (who incidentally, have been attempting to provide a definitive answer throughout the entire book) but he doesn't offer an answer, because God does not give answers – he gives himself.  

What this means for us is that in all our dealings with God and other human beings, knowing the right answer is never going to be enough. God and people aren't so many Sudoku puzzles to be solved. Rather, we are to present ourselves as available, vulnerable people who seek the truth in love. Not for what we might get out of such truth, but simply that we might be truly present to the other person in love, not in judgement or condemnation. 

As we move into the season of Lent, may we recognise the importance of a loving search for truth which is never carried out for its own sake, but for the sake of our fellow human beings and so for the sake of the one who for our sakes became poor, that we might become rich.

Longing for Repetition

One of my favourite novelists and literary critics, the Czech, Milan Kundera, once wrote: ‘Happiness is the longing for repetition’. On the face of it, such a definition could imply a rather dreary form of existence. Surely happiness is to be found in variety and not monotony? Surely happiness is multi-coloured and not monochrome? I’m not so sure. The postmodern drive toward a multifarious experience of life can, if we are not careful, lead to disappointment and anxiety. Successive governments have unfortunately jumped on to this particular philosophical bandwagon and have trumpeted the importance of choice, without having any clear idea of when or if that choice can actually be exercised. Choice in and of itself is, of course, not a bad thing, as the Arab Spring reminds us, but  when choice becomes an end in itself, then the question of meaning is not far behind. What is the point of all this choice?

This is why, I reckon, Kundera touches on a fundamental aspect, perhaps the fundamental aspect of what it means to be human. If nothing else, the exercise or experience of repetition relates to a desire for security. And though Kundera would not describe himself as a Christian, this leads naturally to the area of faith. Terry Eagleton, the Marxist and recently un-lapsed Catholic literary critic makes an important point about  the relationship between faith and choice:

Faith - any kind of faith - is not in the first place a matter of choice. It is more common to find oneself believing something than to make a conscious decision to do so - or at least to make such a conscious decision because you find yourself leaning that way already. This is not, needless to say, a matter of determinism. It is rather a matter of being gripped by a commitment from which one finds oneself unable to walk away.

    Reason, Faith and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate 

 Without getting into any kind of rarefied or protracted debate about freewill and predestination (which would be to miss the point anyway), Eagleton reminds us that our choice for God is not a choice in the same sense as  the choice of side dish I’d like with my steak, or even, dare I say it, my choice of life partner. He is suggesting that somehow or other we lean towards God (or indeed lean away from God). And it is this ‘leaning towards’ which I would connect with this fundamental desire for security – if you like, the desire for home.

This is all the more evident when we realise that the Latin root of our word ‘repeat’ is ‘repetere’ which means ‘to seek again’. There is a sense that our relationship with God is always inevitably ‘a seeking again’. And this is the irony about this particular repetition, this seeking again—it is always new. We can never claim to have ‘made it’. Our seeking after God is a seeking for security in the sure knowledge that it is a journey that is never completed and it is one that offers us ever-changing insights into who we are as individuals, and as a church.

A good example of this would be the St Margaret's Vestry Away Day which was held recently on Cumbrae. It would be difficult for any of us who were there to say that we learned anything that was obviously new. But it was in the rehearsing, the repetition of the already known (and therefore so easily taken for granted) which made the two days we spent together so memorable and worthwhile. It is in the rediscovery of the obvious that we find ourselves renewed.

So at the risk of repeating myself, repetition is no bad thing. After all, it would appear that this is part of the Spirit’s work in us:

But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.

                                                                                          (John 14: 26)

Song of Songs

At St Margaret's this morning, we had the great pleasure and privilege of welcoming Revd Maria Ottensten and the choir of Örgryte Parish in Gothenburg, Sweden. Maria very kindly offered to preach and the choir sang a couple of pieces for us. It was especially moving to hear Swedish songs which obviously meant so much to the choir themselves. It provided evidence once again of the power of music to transcend barriers of language and nationality. We were all Swedish this morning. Which is another way of saying that we were all one. It's good when that happens occasionally in church, where, on Good Shepherd Sunday, we are reminded that there is to be one flock and one Shepherd.

New Year, New Church and the Academy Website

Not Karl Barth

For those of you who might not know, I'm involved with a group known as the Church and the Academy (no, it's not a cult!) We meet monthly during term time in the Theology Dept. of the University of Glasgow to hear and discuss what is going on in the multifarious aspects of the theological world. I see it as not just an important therapeutic tool to keep the brain ticking over, but an important reminder of the connection between the disciplines of pastoral and intellectual endeavour. It is far too easy to say that what we learned at theological college has no substantial bearing in the 'real world'. Such an attitude (which I confess, I have been tempted to indulge) merely betrays an unmerited suspicion of the critical aspect of theological study. In its extreme form the argument runs: We ought to know what we believe (2 Timothy 1: 12) and any attempt to critique that belief is tantamount to replacing faith with rational argument.

This argument (if it is an argument) ignores verses 13 and 14 of the same chapter in Timothy which eloquently speaks of guarding the good treasure, i.e. sound teaching, of the faith. Some people take this guarding to the point where the treasure is invisible to all but the one holding it. They become like Gollum holding on tightly to his 'precious' and prepared to kill any who would dare even look at it the wrong way... Okay, that does sound kind of cultist, but you get the point. It is far too easy to hold on tightly to what we believe to be the fundamentals of life (creating, by the way, a fist in the process) thinking that we are doing God or the Faith a favour. The reality is that God is big enough to look after God. Wasn't it Luther who said, "Defend the Bible, I'd sooner defend a lion!?" The 'guarding' Paul is asking of Timothy is grounded in the experience of sharing the faith by the help of the Holy Spirit in us. We are to be channels rather than curators of faith. And that is where theological reflection has a vital role to play.

Faith and Moby Dick

Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab

In Herman Melville’s masterpiece, Moby Dick, Ishmael wanders into a chapel in New Bedford and examines all the memorials to past sailors and whale-hunters. Overcome by a sense of the sorrows of the past and made more than aware of the forebodings of future peril, Ishmael stirs himself:

‘But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.’

It is an arresting image. To describe Faith in such graphic and fleshly, if not downright menacing terms leaves me wondering about the nature of Melville’s faith and the nature of my own. There is a temptation to think we know definitively what certain words actually mean. We even have the temerity to think this about theological or metaphysical words. The truth is that very often we are simply winging it or, to change the metaphor, we are paddling at the edge of a vast ocean of meaning. Take the word, Truth, for example. Pontius Pilate is often portrayed (perhaps understandably) as the nasty character at the trial of Jesus of Nazareth. But at one point, in response to a comment of Jesus, Pilate asks the question: ‘What is Truth?’ (John 18:38). Pilate has, in some quarters, never been allowed to live that one down. He has become in the minds of these folk a kind of whipping boy, who represents all that is wrong with relativistic, woolly or simply lazy thinking. I think that this is unfair. I say that because I don’t believe (and never have) that there is any such thing as a stupid question. And to ask the question: What is Truth? appears to me to be a pretty good one. To ask that particular question sincerely is to open oneself to the more than obvious possibility that we don’t know all the answers.

And that brings me back to the word that Melville uses – Faith. It, too, can become familiar, like an old pair of slippers. It takes someone of the calibre of a poet or a novelist like Melville to pull us up short and ask us what we mean when we use the word. The poet throws in the bit of grit which makes those slippers feel a little less comfortable. Instead of describing faith in terms of metaphysics, Melville turns to the law of the jungle. He turns to the scavenger picking up the scraps. He adopts the image of the opportunistic hunter surviving among the dregs of life itself. Melville’s faith is not the cosy faith of the church or chapel, but the rougher, hard-bitten faith that is born out of genuine experience. Faith becomes then, not a pleasant feeling, or a quality to be admired or a trophy to be displayed on a pedestal. It is the means by which we survive or perish. Melville’s own upbringing may have contributed to this outlook, but regardless of any autobiographical slant, what he says chimes with me.

One of my many heroes, Søren Kierkegaard once wrote:

‘Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.’

Faith cannot be anything but passionate. Less than that and it is mere polite interest in the subject known as God. Faith was never intended to be the window dressing of life, but its mainstay. Faith is its own raison d’etre. And our lives are the poorer when we try to tame that particular jackal.