Come and See

At church today I heard a familiar reading from John 1, in which Jesus meets Nathaniel. Nathaniel starts by questioning Jesus, and whether anything good can come out of Naxareth. Jesus’ reply is simple: come and see.

The passage ends with a reference to angels ‘ascending and descending upon the Son of Man’. This, of course, is a reference to Jacob’s ladder, which appears when Jacob is resting at night on the way to Haran. (Also, Nathaniel regarding Jesus as an ‘Israelite’ is surely a further reference to Jacob). A couple of things are to be noted here:

• Haran, wherever it was, was not in Israel
• Jacob names the placed ‘Bethel’ (ie, ‘house of God’)

I wonder if Jesus’ reference to the angels going up and down might have another thematic connection to the Genesis text.

Firstly both Haran, as somewhere outside of Israel, and Nazareth are regarded as inappropriate places for good, godly, things to come from, such that both offer a surprise when something positive is to be regarded.

Secondly, both Jacob and Nathaniel respond to this with a recognition that God may indeed be found in surprising places: Jacob notes that ‘surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it’; Nathaniel with a rousing ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are thee King of Israel’ after his initial doubt.

So drawing these together, an unsuspected location for divine appearance, coupled with initial scepticism, is met with surprise when a positive result ensues. As a result, these original views are changed.

What really fascinates me in this story, though, is what Philip (who first met Nathaniel) says in order to instigate Nathaniel’s engagement with Christ: ‘Come and see’. That is, come and see whether anything good can come out of Nazareth. Not ‘here is a good argument about why something good might come from Nazareth’; not ‘how silly of you to ask such a question’; not anything other than a simple call – go and have a look for yourself.

Experience and reason are critical in the way I regard Theology. I shouldn’t have to believe something that every ounce of good sense that I have tells me is incorrect, and shouldn’t regard life as a competition between religious and secular explanations f everything. Also, particularly on the grounds of ethics, I think we can learn a huge amount from experience first hand. I wish fewer people would decide that abortion, homosexuality, women bishops and the like without talking to people who live with these issues every day, without listening to the experiences of someone who has had an abortion or a civil partnership. Sometimes it is only when we go and see things for ourselves that we see God in them.

Sad News

I got some bad news today. A wonderful woman, who was out cleaner for many years, died in a car crash last week. She was from Newcastle, and moved to Buxton to move in with her partner, who subsequently got rid of her. She has two grown-up children and a grandchild who she would talk about a great deal.

I didn’t know much about Janice’s life history, but I suspect that it was a rather familiar story of a working-class girl from the north growing up, having children early, and never losing both her passion for life, and her desire to make the best she could of her life. One of the many tragedies of this story is that learning to drive was a key turning-point for her, which gave her independence and empowered her. She had passed her test only a few months earlier, and I remember her enthusiastically telling me about her driving lessons – she lent me her driving theory DVD to encourage me to learn.

Life is a fragile thing, and can be gone in an instant. At least twice a day I (and most who live in London) stand feet away from an electrical line that would kill us instantly, and that has little by way of protection. I find this thought rather difficult, and also quite empowering – through the death of others we may learn the joy of simply being alive, of meeting people, and having thoughts, hopes and loves. Sometimes it takes this to get out of our emotional inertia of doing things all the time, without taking stock of life’s joys – and sorrows – that make out existence such an incredible thing.

I have never lost anyone that I was really close to, and don’t look forward to the day when it will arrive. I think one must meet death with two things: firstly, acceptance that death is part of life’s rich circle and is nothing personal – no God decided your number was up, or could have prevented death if only someone had prayed harder; and secondly, almost uncritical optimism and affirmation of life with all of its high and low points – experiencing the death of someone may encourage us towards a reflexive sensitivity, that affirms and seeks to enhance all that works for life, and to challenge that which diminishes it. The fact of simply being is hard to talk about, but I think it’s something that the death of someone might be able to enhance. Perhaps this, then, is life after death – that the gusto with which Janice lived life, the aspirations she had, the faith she had in the goodness of people may perpetually exist in those that know her through memory, and the grief felt by those in mourning be brought together into the unified oneness of being, whatever being is.

So Janice, rest in peace. And may your kinds words, thoughtful acts, generous spirit and hope for the future continue to inspire us all.

Worship Music/Institutionalised Homoeroticism

Whether it be the faux-American accents that everyone insists on singing in, the awful singing/harmonising that usually accompanies it, the implicit eroticism with which spiritual themes are addressed, or the psychological manipulation of ecstasy coupled with hard-hitting and unequivocal sermons that usually accompany it – I feel rather uneasy about it.

My personal favourite is ‘Jesus, take me as I am’.

Jesus take me as I am,
I can come no other way.
Take me deeper into You,
Make my flesh life melt away.

Or:

I want to know you,
I want to hear your voice,
I want to know you more.

I want to touch you,
I want to see your face,
I want to know you more.


Or:

And Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. I’m desperate for you.
And Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. I’m lost without you.


When Jim Chew referred to much of what happens as (something like) a huge white, middle-class love-up, I don’t think he was very far wrong.

Worship music is so Protestant. It has ticks in all the right boxes:

• No talent required at all (a monkey can learn four chords on a guitar)
• Everyone is invited to participate (ie, sing along)
• Popular, emotive soft-rock ballads become personal salvation drivers

A wonderful South Park episode gets it about right. Cartman sings in a worship band, who perform such tracks as ‘I wasn’t born again yesterday’. One track contains the words:


I wanna get down on my knees and start pleasing Jesus
And feel his salvation all over my face.

Whatever you think of South Park, they certainly know how to parody things.

But I do like good music. I do love listening to choral music, which seems increasingly rare in churches, and least of all in churches that regard themselves as ‘cutting edge’. So what’s the difference?

1. Choral music uses the same words all the time (in a literal sense – worship music does this, of course, but without acknowledging it). The repetition of familiar words with different musical settings encourages one to engage with them in different ways.
2. Choral music is often genuinely difficult to perform, and beautiful to listen to. Engaging with spirituality through excellent music is a good thing.
3. Choral music is based around the liturgies of the Church, and recites actual bits of the Bible! Incredible! Interesting that those adopting a particularly high doctrine of Scripture are often those whose worship involved precisely none of it, whereas choral evensong has the songs of Mary and Simeon, and a WHOLE Psalm! I remember one advocate of worship music advocating Hillsong on the grounds that it had ‘some really biblical lyrics’. This is certainly not the case in every Hillsong tune I have ever heard, and is the case in liturgy that, err, is straight out of the Bible. Simple really: use beautiful language and concepts directly, rather than putting them through the triple beauty/content bypass from which most worship songs have suffered at is a rather good thing.

The Tooth Fairy

Richard Dawkins loves the tooth fairy. Indeed, there is no more evidence for the existence of the tooth fairy than the God so many people believe in. Correct.

But is affirming the ‘existence’ of the tooth fairy (whatever that would mean) the scope of language about her? No – else parents across the globe be accused of systematically lying to their children, or of deluding themselves into belief that such a being exists without any evidence, and with strong evidence to the contrary.

Question: is affirming the ‘existence’ of God (whatever that would mean) the scope of language about God? No. As said before, talking about God is not a matter of affirming the existence of an extra-big thing that exists. It is more complex than that: it uses symbolic and metaphorical concepts to make sense of the life that we live; to engage ourselves with the mysteries of our existence; to shape our experience of and action in the world in wholesome and good directions; and to inspire, challenge and nurture our emotional selves.

I always find it interesting that Dawkins has never, to my knowledge, suggested that parents stop telling their children about the tooth fairy or Father Christmas, though of course the lack of evidence for their existence is equivalent to that of God.

But, of course, nobody has ever died as a result of belief in the tooth fairy. Nobody has ever made others suffer as a result of belief in Father Christmas. Nobody has set up a school and systematically brainwashed children in the name of the fairies at the bottom of the garden. Indeed – now we’re having an interesting debate. So forget the science of it; forget the lack of evidence for God’s existence and the countless reasons for doubting it; forget all the good reasons that evolutionary biology renders belief in God unnecessary. These are not the questions that matter, for, unless most parents commit similar child abuse to that of Priests, evidence (or lack of) for and against the existence of these beings is not the point (it is, however, the content of most of ‘The God Delusion’). A rather confused argument, then, is used by Dawkins: scoring cheap points on belief in God by using tooth fairy analogies regarding God’s non-existence; but failing to answer the real question of how humans use language about ‘false’ things (like the tooth fairy or God on the clouds), and whether this is a good thing or not.

Bus Theology

I have a few problems with putting a summary of one’s faith on the side of a bus.

This week it has been announced that the British Humanist Association will be placing Alpha Course-style adverts on the sides of London buses this January, reading ‘There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.’

I have read a few blogs on this so far. Responses are varied, from:

• Fantastic – now a change to show religious people what a bunch of illogical idiots they are so people stop talking God
• Isn’t this terrible – liberal are at it again, trying to remove God from everyone’s conscience because of their own hardness of heart
• They only say probably no God – therefore there are plenty of opportunities for Christians to tell them just how accurate the Bible is, and how evolution was made by God etc
• Isn’t this wonderful – people are being open about their beliefs. This should encourage Christians to be as well, and create opportunities for dialogue

I agree with some of these more than others, and hope to offer a few thoughts that I haven’t read anywhere else. They focus on a simple question: what is God?

The assumption of these adverts is simple: God is a big man in the sky who doesn’t exist.

The assumption of the Alpha adverts is simple: God is a big man in the sky who does exist, and you can learn some more about him here. He’s the kind of person who you can ask questions to and expect answers from. God is an active subject: he does things, answers people’s questions and tells them ‘what it’s all about’.

I don’t think this, and I think that God is rather different to this big man in the sky.

Yet again, we’re back to Nicholas Lash. God is not, Lash suggests, one of the things that there are, in order that one can doubt God’s existence. In his own words:

‘[atheists] take for granted that ‘belief in God’ is a matter of supposing there to be, over and above the familiar world we know, one more large and powerful fact or thing, for the existence of which there is no evidence whatsoever.’

Or Karl Rahner:

‘God really does not exist who operates and functions as an individual existent alongside other existents, and who would be thus a member of the larger household of all reality. Anyone in search of such a God is searching for a false God. Both atheism and a more naïve form of theism labour under the same false notion of God, only the former denies it while the latter believes that I can make sense of it.’
Or Lash again:

‘Take a word with which we usually have less trouble than we do with ‘God’: the word ‘treasure’. A treasure is what is valued, held in high esteem. Notice that, when we say this, we are not implying that the word is the name of a natural kind the members of which, it so happens, are valued. There is no good going into a supermarket and asking for five bananas, three rolls of kitchen paper, and four treasures. To call something a treasure tells you nothing about it other than that it is treasures, valued, held in high esteem. Smilarly, a ‘god’ is what is worshipped, what someone has their heart set on… To call something a ‘god’ tells you nothing about it other than that it is worshipped.’

If this is the case, is it possible for God not to exist? If God is not a member of the community of things that exist, in the manner that ‘my left shoe’ or ‘Kofi Annan’ exist, but is, instead, that which we have our heart set on, I feel atheism is an impossibility because (Lash, yet again):

All human beings have their heart set somewhere, hold something scared, worship at some shrine. We are spontaneously idolatrous – where, by ‘idolatry’, I mean the worship of some creature, the setting of the heart on some particular thing (usually oneself). For most of us there is no single creature that is the object of our faith… and none of us is so self-transparent as to know quite where, in fact, our hearts are set.

So what, then, is the point of religion? Twofold, suggests Lash: to wean us from the idolatry of worshipping ‘creatures’ (including, I might add, a despotic God who will perform particular favours for you if you pray sincerely enough); and to purify our desire onto the mysterious, life-giving wholeness that life is really about:

Against this background, the great religious traditions can be see as contexts in which human beings may learn, however slowly, partially, imperfectly, some freedom from the destructive bondage which the worship of the creature brings.

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Ah, Dan. Nice thinking there – but you have two theology degrees and spend huge amounts of time thinking about this stuff. Why should anyone else care/believe you?

Perhaps you shouldn’t, whether you are an atheist or a diehard theist. But here’s why I think you should:

• Theists: the God in whom many churchgoers believe is an idol. Talking about ‘God’ is a complicated business.
• Atheists: the God in whom you don’t believe is an idol. I don’t believe in him either. Yet, I think the language of divinity and the existence of religious tradition forms a wonderful and liberating method of approaching life.

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I may or may not have convinced you, but convincing you is not my intention: instead, I hope to start a discussion. One of the great things about the Humanists’ campaign is that it does exactly that: makes people think, and legitimises discussion about God and spirituality. If there is something you think I should read/you think I am completely misguided/anything else – let me know. This is interesting stuff, and worth thinking about..

Good Nose

Good nose, hints of raspberry, soft bouquet with a long finish.

Wine is an interesting phenomenon, and wine buffs even more so: their eloquence in describing the precise nature of a wine, its character and feeling, is often rather amusing.

I don’t drink white wine very often, but did recently with my parents. I noted that the wine tasted of elderflower, which provoked some interesting discussion.

My mother was bemused, thinking that her son had become Oz Clarke. What could that possibly mean? Two things were central to this:

• I was talking rubbish.
• Was I suggesting that simply on the grounds of the briefest of sips I could ascertain that elderflowers were in close proximity to the grapes that produced the wine?

I responded to this with a comment on the nature of the language that one uses about wine. I suggested that drinking wine is a delicate and subtle experience, and one that transcends many of the normal means of talking about the flavours and sensory stimulation that comes from drinking. But is does taste of something, and the elderflower taste that I felt was an imperfect, but helpful, way of talking about it. When understood like this, I don’t think I was talking rubbish.

Also, the suggestion that in order to use that sort of language about elderflowers and the wine there must have been elderflowers in close proximity to it at some significant point in its lifetime, also misses the point. I was not suggesting anything of the sort, but was noting that this particular wine tasted something like elderflowers – I was making no comment on the wine’s history, or no hypothesis regarding its relation to the elderflower of which is tasted.

I wonder if this is rather like God.

Some people think that talking about God is pure rubbish: misleading lies that serve only people’s own self-interest. I don’t deny that this is often the case, yet think the history of Christian theology and the worshipful traditions of the Church have something rather positive to contribute to our living of life.

I wonder if religious language is rather like the words and concepts that we use to talk about wine. They are not the wine, but an imperfect and wholly inadequate attempt to understand the wine, for they are all that we have. And so it is with God: people tell stories about God to provide some narrative unpacking of God’s nature; people talk about God ‘saying’ and ‘doing’ things, though God surely has no voice or hands in any literal sense. This language and these symbols are all that we have in trying to make sense of the deepest levels of our experience, of that which we accept to be true without condition, and of that which inspires, motivates and transforms us.

So what about the Church?

The tradition of the Church in which I am most comfortable is fairly high Anglicanism. It takes these concerns rather seriously, and attempts to address them through the sounds of beautiful music, the smell of incense, the sight of one another and the priest, the touch of a hand being shaken, and the taste of bread and wine. Boring, dull ritualism, some say. Again, no doubt that this can be the case. But I wonder if this focus on the sensory engagement of one’s self with the mysteries of divinity might provide some excellent opportunities to pick up some of the elderflowers in the wine, or the Godness of the divine.

Dancing Weddings

I went to a wedding recently. The bride and groom had met through morris dancing, and so decided that their day would include a huge amount of the stuff. So, there was midday dancing in the park, plenty of warm beer and people dressed up, as well as a procession of dancing from the park to the bandstand.

When it came to walking up onto the bandstand itself – where the ceremony was to take place – a particularly well-known tune was played: ‘Simple Gifts’, a Shaker (dancing quakers from Manchester in the 18th century) tune. This was adapted by Sydney Carter into the tune of the well-know schoolboy hymn, ‘Lord of the Dance’. Which made me think about two things.

Firstly, here were two people doing some rather unusual things at their wedding. No hotel, white dress, church service, flowers etc. But people getting married in the public park, with stacks of dancing and a mood of great celebration.

Secondly, I thought about the hymn ‘Lord of the Dance’. I wonder if this isn’t such a different thing to the experience I had on that day. Sydney Carter writes about the words to the hymn:

‘I see Christ as the incarnation of the piper who is calling us. He dances that shape and pattern which is at the heart of our reality. By Christ I mean not only Jesus; in other times and places, other planets, there may be other Lords of the Dance. But Jesus is the one I know of first and best. I sing of the dancing pattern in the life and words of Jesus.’

I find Carter’s imagery of Christ as the dancing incarnation fascinating, as well as considering the concept of God being someone calls us to dance with him. A beautiful image, for sure, but what does the dance consist of?

Perhaps the dance consists of discovering, slowly and often painfully, who it is that we are, and then wishing to share who we are with others, that they may discover who they are. This process of being led into dance by others, through dancing finding our true identity, and then calling others still into this dance of life is rather wonderful.

I wonder as well if the wedding wasn’t a good example of this: two people expressing their identity and love for each other, dancing with their friends. Anyone who saw them (in a busy park on a Saturday), as well as all of the guests, knew that this was something profoundly different to the usual ‘white wedding’ – and they liked it, and were blessed by it.