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Christian Witness, the Shadow of the Bomb and the Shadow of the Cross

Over on Facebook my friend Stuart Blythe asked for names of well known Christians who are or were known for their Christian witness against the manufacture and possession of nuclear weapons. The capacity of human beings to wage technological warfare to the point of life extinction raises the kind of "issue" you would think Christians would be largely agreed upon; namely, supporting the possession of that capacity, with a credible intent to use them in order to deter an attack, is a position incompatible, incongruent and essentially contradictory of the Christian Gospel. To hold the threat of massive destruction and indiscriminate obliteration of civilian populations over those we consider our potential enemies or those we consider may have, now or in the future, lethal intent towards us, may make unassailable military and political sense, though that itself is hugely debatable.

But I am personally perlexed at the thought that those who stand under the cross of Jesus Christ, who witness to the resurrection of Christ as the turning point of history, who are ambassadors of Christ and ministers of reconciliation, who are peacemakers of the Kingdom of God, and who are followers of the Lamb in the midst of the throne, slain from the foundation of the world – as I say personally perplexed to the point where I find it is impossible to conclude that those who witness to such realities embedded in the God of Hope, should give assent to the deployment of such weapons. The inevitable consequence is that credible threat implies use, if pushed to ultimate conclusions. How much more then, should the Christian conscience oppose the manufacture, possession and maintaining of weapons which are first strike weapons, and therefore combine both deterrence and threat with the logical implication that, given the right circumstances, their use as a first act of war is not ruled out.

I do understand that this is deeply contested territory. But these questions arise in a Scottish Christian context of theological and cultural retrenchment, and where Christian opposition to nuclear weapons is neither co-ordinated nor clear. Christian activism in support of nuclear disarmament seems low on the priority list of churches claiming commitment to the redemptive mission of God in Christ. Church statements, which are representative of a common mind, and which are considered and rooted in the perspectives of a Gospel of mercy, reconciliation, peace and justice, are seldom formulated because there is a lack of agreement of what a Christian position and consensus might sound like, read like and look like at the official levels of denominational life.

At this moment in the history of our world, with unambiguous signals of political ambition, unrest and threat from Russia, this is not a discussion in principle, nor is it a hypothetical scenario deliberately made extreme to highllight what is at stake in an ethical debate. In a world of credible threat, and destabilised economies and geopolitical changes, the Church has no right given its missional mandate, to leave matters of nuclear defence policy to the politicians, comfortably assuming it will never come to this.

No, I am not I hope being alarmist; but I am contending that in our dangerous world the Christian Church has a categorical imperative to witness to the Crucified Lord, the Risen Saviour, and to stand under the cross of its Lord on the side of life, creation, new creation and in the service of the God of Hope. It cannot do this by being silent. And as primary evidence in its discussions, decisions and statements, it will have to hear again the voice of Jesus, and ensure that anything we do say, is stated as those who must always say, "Beneath the Cross of Jesus, I fain would take my stand….

2 March 2015

Learning to Evaluate the Impact and Afterlife of Our Words

So what would it look like to do some quality assurance on how we speak? How would we evaluate the quality of the words we exchange with others? Can we asses and evidence the tone and content, the intention and the impact of what we say and how we say it, and why, and to whom?

Is there a form of evaluation which might at least require us to think about how we speak, what we say? Indeed could there be an evaluation form that helps us critically review a day's speaking? During Lent it might be interesting, or it might be dispiriting, to review a day's speaking using the fruit of the Spirit as a grid that quality controls an entire day's conversation. It wouldn't matter that I don't recall very much of what precisely I said – there'll be a big enough remembered sample!

Now of course this could become hilariously serious, ludicrously moralistic, not to mention ridiculously close to semantic OCD! But as a thought experiment, a broad spectrum diagnostic scan, just for a laugh, go on Jim, have a go at the Fruit of the Spirit Speech Quality Control Grid.

	*	**	*******	********	*****
Love
Joy
Peace
Patience
Kindness
Goodness
Faithfulness
Gentleness
Self Control

This is how it works. I start every time with a perfect score of 5 stars for all 9 fruits of the Spirit. Let's not overdo the guilt thing. Then I have to take away one star for each occasion I can think of when what I said was deficient in one or other of these 9 dispositions.

So for example my negativity and moaning, however justified, doesn't exactly enhance the joy of others I live with, work with, speak to at the Supermarket checkout. Lose a joy star for every time I recall dumping my complaints on someone else.

This could be fun! Sarcasm is a common if sometimes cruel humour; I'm good at it – a day's worth of that bumps the kindness credit into deficit.

Someone else comes at me with their problem, their turn to be negative. I half listen but wish they'd change the subject or go away, and make that clear by my peremptoriness (if that's a word). Goodness! That one knocks back love, patience, kindness and gentleness in the blink of a sentence.

OK. So that's the idea. A diagnostic of my habits of speech. Will I do this every day for Lent? No. That would be an exercise in guilt manufacture! But just imagining how it might work on this post, suggests it might provide an interesting hour spent on retreat. Then I might be encouraged to think positively how to use words transformatively;

to make other people feel valued (love), to lift their day (joy), to reassure (peace), to show I'm listening (patience), to comfort and encourage (kindness), to make someone feel better (goodness), to affirm and respect (faithfulness), to recognise vulnerability (gentleness), and to avoid hurting (self control).

The photo was taken on the flagstone path which winds towards the 5000 year old Yew tree in Fortingall; it indicates the likely dates on the 5000 year time line, when Collegial Scholarship began to flourish in Scotland. The relation of the photo to this post is the tenuous opinion that I hold, that those who are charged with upholding standards of scholarship, are those who are obliged to be stewards of language, disposed to courtesy in speaking, considerate of the potency of words, and exemplars of that intellectual humility which has no need to dominate or silence others.

28 February 2015

Academy and Church; “Academic” Theology and “Practical” Ministry.

Miroslav Volf just posted on Facebook another of his sharp epigrams: "Ministers increasingly see academic theology as irrelevant for their vocation. Unfortunately, theologians return the favour."

Reading around some of the 20th Century's most influential New Testament scholars it's quite evident that many of them didn't fall into the trap of specialist arrogance. By which I mean they didn't try to privilege their particular approach, or claim primary importance of the subset of their self-chosen discipline, or assume the priority of history, theology, philosophy, hermeneutics or dogmatic presuppositions, whichever was their comfort zone. Some of the most inspiring scholarship of the last hundred years has been carried out by scholars at home in the church and as Christians at home in the academy. Like a keyboard, the black and ivory keys play best together.

Rudolph Bultmann was arguably the most influential New Testament theologian and exegete of the 20th Century. He was and remained a deeply committed Christian, whose preaching at Marburg from the 30's into the 50's is unerringly centred on the reality of Christ preached and present as promised in the proclamation of the Word in the context of Christian worship.

Theology therefore is always exegesis inasmuch as it has access to revelation only through the witness of Scripture and seeks to grasp by exegesis what Scripture, understood as witness, says. In form, therefore, theology is always exegesis of Scripture. Its content speaks of revelation. but since revelation is the eternal event, judging or forgiving man, the object of theology is nothing other than the conceptual presentation of man's existence as determined by God – that is, as man must see it in the light of Scripture. (page 89, History of New Testament Research, vol 3)

There it is. Scripture, theology, theologian, preacher, – a scholar with reverence for the text and a preacher with a passion for intellectual integrity in the service of the Church seeking to live a faithful Christian existence bearing witness to Christ.

Volf is right to point out the failure and unfaithfulness of those charged with preaching, pastoral care and missional leadership, but who ignore, despise or reject academic theology – there is a discipleship of the intellect which also requires obedience. He is equally right to deplore the pursuit of academic theology divorced from the realities of Christian existence and the mandated witness of the Church to the world. The Christian tradition, the Scriptures, and the rich heritage of Christian theology each have their own context and content, to be understood and respected for what they are.

The disconnect between theological learning and pastoral practices is never a service to the church or the academy. Black and ivory keys play best together. To change the metaphor, the pejorative term 'ivory tower' refers not only to academics 'who don't live in the real world', but to those Christian leaders in mission and ministry for whom stewardship of the mind seems like too much hard work.

25 February 2015
We Are Not Called to Discpleship in the Abstract; We are Called to Follow Jesus.

This was written 80 years ago by T W Manson, an unjustly forgotten New Testament scholar whose book on The Teaching of Jesus remains a classic:

"The teaching of Jesus in the fullest and deepest sense is Jesus Himself, and the best Christian living has always been in some sort of imitation of Christ, not a slavish copying of His acts, but the working of His mind and spirit in new contexts of life and circumstance."

Revelation reaches its zenith in "the personality and life of Jesus of Nazareth,…It is a revelation in terms of the highest category we can know – that of personality."

These are wise words, and place the focus of Chhristian discipleship where it belongs – not on mission activity, our church, our spirituality, or indeed anything that takes the possessive pronoun "our". "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we have gazed on his glory…He who has seen me has seen the Father…."

24 February 2015
The Simon and Garfunkel Story. A Journey Back into My Teens!

Tonight it's The Simon and Garfunkel Story, at the Music Hall in Aberdeen. These are the two demi-Gods of my own teenage years, I thought then as now they have a sound and a voice that ranges from playful to poignant, from mischief to wistfulness, from passionate political protest to love fulfilled or requited. And as a young man I sensed there was a seriousness in their take on life, a humanity and compassion in many of their lyrics, anger and resistance to those forces and social realities that dehumanise, from civil rights to Vietnam, from urban poverty to human exploitation. That may all sound idealistic, and much of it is, but listening to them nearly 50 years after Sound of Silence was released, their own peculiar sound still re-awakens memories of my own emerging view of a world where JFK, MLK, Vietnam, CND and other issues and causes were worked out in my own developing sense of who I was and who I wanted to be, and what I thought of the world.

Years later, hearing an actor reading Robert Frost's poem, Acquainted with the Night, I sensed the emotional and imaginative connections with the lyrics of The Sound of Silence. So tonight is a tribute show – but for me it has longer roots in my memory. It's an interesting question how formative repeated listening to resonant lyrics borne on music that is emotionally potent can be on moral taste, pers0nal values, life choices and our ability to think for ourselves. Of course we grow away from music of such powerful immediacy, but not before it has touched us into a different awareness of who we are and what matters to us.

There were plenty other groups and artists pouring out music in that decade of my growing up that was the 1960's, when nearly all the classic Simon and Garfunkel songs were produced. They have made a life habit of falling out, re-uniting then splitting again. Paul Simon particularly has pursued a solo career of considerable substance. But the songs in the musical tonight are the iconic ones, given context in narrative and dialogue between the songs. I'm expecting to be a wee bit nostalgic – and grateful for the giftedness of such music into our lives. The Sound of Silence, I am a Rock, Bookends, Homeward Bound, Cecilia, The Boxer, Bridge Over Troubled Water – take your pick, they are masterpieces in my canon of classic folk rock!

For those who want poetry here are two brilliant evocations of urban life, its anxieties, loneliness and understated menace to the humanity of those who live in cities where the drivers are not self-evidently beneficial to those who live there.

Acquainted With the Night (Robert Frost)

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain — and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
A luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

The Sound of Silence (Paul Simon)

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted
In my brain still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of
A neon light that split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share and no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

Fools said I, you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon God they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the signs said, 'The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls and tenement halls'
And whispered in the sounds of silence.

23 February 2015
Caring for the Words and the Text of the New Testament.

We all have our idiosyncracies. From food preferences to the clothes we wear, from the TV programmes that do it for us, to those that we have never watched – and could conceive of no circumstances that might persuade us ever to watch them. Idiosyncracies make our world an interesting, colourful diverse and exciting place to be. It's those infinitely variable human differences that make us who we are, those personal interests and odd enthusiasms, that story that is only and can only be ours, and that only we can tell, the characteristics and quirks that give us our individiuality, uniqueness and definition as the specific, different person we are.

So if I say I am fascinated by the history of New Testament research, I am referring to one of my idiosyncracies. An enthusiasm limited in its clientele, a minority interest group even in the rarefied world of New Testament scholarship, but for me one of the most exciting areas of study I've lived in for decades. It goes back to one book; The History of the Interpretation of the New Testament, by Stepehn Neil. I spent a summer holiday in 1984 reading that book from cover to cover along with Tom Clancy's Hunt for Red October and the biography of Temple Gairdner of Cairo. Who he? That will be another post.

Stephen Neil's book reads like a novel, a biography and a history all in one. It was updated in a Second Edition by N T Wright, and now covers the history of New Testament scholarship up to 1986. Recently a mammoth 3 volume History of New Testament Research from the 18th to the end of the 20th Century was completed by William Baird, and I've just started to read it. Baird is yet another example of scholars who go to heroic lengths in their quest for understanding of the text, and the history, interpretation, reception and influence of the New Testament over 2000 years of reflection, study, understanding and misunderstanding. These volumes trace the fascinating mixture of literary detective work, historical synthesis, biography, textual analysis, academic politics, and colliding theological presuppositions, philosophical assumptions and scientific theorising of around 300 years of intense study. All to make sense of 28 documents the length of a medium sized paperback, written around 2000 years ago by a variety of people and communities of no great moment then, but of vast significance for subsequent human history.

If you want to know what's so fascinating about this stuff let me recommend Sisters of Sinai, by Janet Martin Soskice as a good place to start. It tells of two sisters from Kilbarchan ( In Victorian times a wee Scottish village with weaving mills) who had ambitions to learn and travel. They visited Mount Sinai monastery, discovered ancient New Testament manuscripts and codices, learned several Oriental languages in order to translate them, and contributed significantly to the science of textual criticism and the search for the earliest witnesses to the biblical text.In doing all this they had to take on the male bastions of academia who had little patience and less respect for the accomplishments of these women.

How scholars establish the reliability of the text of the New testament is a mixture of tedium and inspiration, it requires disciplined sifting of textual minutiae and instinctive genius for language, demands a scrupulous weighing evidence and imaginative but historically plausible reconstructing of context and provenance. During this period of Lent when I'm thinking about words, how they are used, the search for a responsible stewardship of words, and why we should care for words like conservators and curators of meaning. I reflect on the countless scholars, the millions of hours of study, the adventures and the heartache, the passion of the quest and the disciplines of intellectual integrity and humility before a text that no scholar can own, possess or control. And I'm grateful for such holy industry. At least in this sense, of careful attention to words that are life changing, Lent is a time to re-read the New Testament, wth a care for what it says.

22 February 2015
Words as Couriers of Hope

Another way of thinking about the words I speak during Lent and beyond, would be to find ways of speaking that give sound and presence to the cardinal virtues – Hope, Love, Faith.

When I speak is hope enhanced, love confirmed, faith sustained?

So what about hope? Do my words encourage hearts and lift up heads and strengthen feeble knees?

Or, by something I say, casually or thoughtfully, is love kept faithful, set free and made more real?

And faith? Do words and sentences, comments and conversations, greetings and silent gestures, invite faith, instil trust, affirm worth?

But let's begin with hope. If ever the Christian witness needed to repristinate a word that has become obscured and vague; if ever a word was slipping towards the margins of our living like an almost lost memory; if ever a word was under siege from its opposites, pressured to the edges of personal experience and political priority, that word is hope.

No that isn't a counsel of despair, nor a surrender to the dark side. It is a recalling of Christian obedience to a faith where the deep seeds of hope are embedded in Calvary, that deep red soil where they propagate and rise in the flowers and fruits of Resurrection. Resurrection hopefulness is our most powerful, sustainable energy source; and if so it should be evident in the way we look at the world and talk about it. The blazing radiance of resurrection should illuminate our words. So as a Lenten corrective to much that we feel and think and therefore say, here are two helpful voices:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15.13)

Try memorising that, and saying it before you open the office door of a colleague and waste their day, or when sitting in the hardly moving traffic queue fuming at all this precious time in your life that is so frustratingly unproductive, or when life comes tumbling or rumbling towards us with the promise of yet more hassle.

The antidote to which might be this poem by Denise Levertov, who knows the resurrection power of words, kindly spoken, courageously proclaimed, firmly stated, angrily shouted, gently whispered, hilariously shared, and as couriers of hope.

New Year Poem. 1981

I have a small grain of hope—
one small crystal that gleams
clear colors out of transparency.

I need more.

I break off a fragment
to send you.

Please take
this grain of a grain of hope
so that mine won’t shrink.

Please share your fragment
so that yours will grow.

Only so, by division,
will hope increase,

like a clump of irises, which will cease to flower
unless you distribute
the clustered roots, unlikely source—
clumsy and earth-covered—
of grace.

–Denise Levertov

Last summer, one of our roses (photo above) produced this Trinitarian reminder. For this and the next two posts it will be a reminder of the three cardonal virtues of Faith and Hope and Love.

21 February 2015
Beware of Deedless Words

So, Lent is about not speaking empty words. The NIV translates Jesus saying in Matthew 12.36: "But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken." NRSV says "careless": KJV "idle". An old 17th Century commentary paraphrases, "frothy language".

Now this becomes interesting. Matthew uses a Greek word meaning "unemployed, lazy" if it's used of a person. But it means "unproductive" when used of something like a word. Words should lead to deeds. Words that do nothing and go nowhere are unproductive, fruitless, make no difference to the way things are. In that sense are empty of purpose, devoid of practical meaning. Ulrich Luz, the premier contemporary commentator on Matthew (his 3 volume commentary is a prized personal possession over which I inordinately gloat!) connects this hard saying of Jesus to the way the Church speaks and acts: "On the day of judgment human wordas are asked whether they have produced deeds, and in Matthew that means essentially whether they have produced love." (Luz, Matthew, Hermeneia, Vol. 2. p.211) In other words Jesus is warning against talking the talk but not walking the walk.

In a wonderful book, The Language and Imagery of the Bible, G B Caird expands on this idea that words accomplish things. He writes, "The point is not thoughtless words, such as a carefree joke, but deedless ones…the broken promise, the unpaid vow, words which said "I go sir" and never went (Matt 21.29)"

Between them, Luz and Caird guide my Lenten search for responsible stewardship of my words and speech.

How many of my words are deedless?

Can my words, let alone my word, be trusted?

What compels me to speak out and act out of what I say?

What words will best stand the scrutiny of the Judgement if not those uttered against injustice, if not words of performative kindness?

Those questions remind me of a conversation in one of Alan Paton's short stories, in Ah! But Your Land is Beautiful. A conversation takes place between a white man and his black friend about the dangers of protesting against the system of apartheid and its inhumanity to those crushed by state sanctioned segregation and discrimination. I think Paton captures exactly what Jesus words mean if we are going to walk the walk as well as talk the talk:

“When I go up there, which is my intention, the Big Judge will say to me, Where are your wounds? and if I say I haven’t any, he will say, Was there nothing to fight for? I couldn’t face that question."

Well I did say that a Lenten examination of how I use words might be harder than giving up coffee or chocolate.

19 February 2015
Giving Up Empty Words for Lent

It's Ash Wednesday. Once again the annual give-upfest comes around. Need to eat less. Do more exercise. Reduce caffeine. Refuse chocolate. Prohibit clicking the Amazon shopping basket. Stop cheating in speed limits. Walk more and drive less. Keep tabs on food waste. Keep tabs on my own waist. Detox from the Internet. I've just written a Lenten Decalogue. Ten new commandments to make life, me, the world, a little more this, a little less that.

I'm not going to try to keep any of them. Each one is valid, valuable and salutary. These I should be doing whether it's Lent or not. The fact I can so easily compile such a personally relevant checklist of virtues or their absence is evidence enough of my need for improvement.

And yet. Somehow this year I feel less interested in pulling out a few weeds, and more interested in replenishing the soil. Not so much interested in dealing with this or that bad habit, more challenged by the issue of the kind of person whose habits they are.

Which brings me to Jesus, believe it or not – but I'd prefer that you did believe it. Matthew 12.35-37 tends not to be amongst the more comforting words Jesus ever spoke. My guess is we interpret them as hyperbole, a good natured warning phrased strongly for rhetorical effect. That is a category mistake. These words are spoken with an exacting exactness – Jesus means what he says. Seriously, Jesus is being serious.

³⁵A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. ³⁶But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. ³⁷For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.

So as I mentioned in a previous post on the Epistle of James, this Lent I am giving up words. Well at least giving up, so far as prayerulness and carefulness allow, empty words. Earlier today Professor Dana Greene left a comment here on Living Wittily. It relates to a post I did on Elizabeth Jennings and one of her poems. To show what words are and achieve in human relations when they are not empty, and to give an idea of a stewardship of words, here is one of a good number of poems in which she considers language, words and the therapeutic effect of good words spoken:

Hours and Words

There is a sense of sunlight where

warm messages and eager words

Are sent across the turning air,

Matins, Little Hours and Lauds,

When people talk and hope to teach

A happiness that they have found.

Here prayer finds a soil that is rich

and sets a singing underground.

Let there be silence that is full

of blossoming hints. When it is dark

Men's minds can link and their words fill

A saving boat that is God's ark.

O language is a precious thing

And ministers deep needs. It will

soothe the mind and softly sing

and echo forth when we are still.

As a Lenten discipline, what might it look like to cultivate a stewardship of words, develop a discipline of language, practice a care for speech as therapeutic. And perhaps above all, a recovery of the eloquence of silence, out of which comes our deepest thoughts and those words that have a lasting worth and legacy in the enriched lives of others.

The painting by Raphael, Paul Preaching at the Areopagus, has its own message about the importance of the words we speak out of fullness of heart and the empty words we do better to refrain from speaking. Remembering we speak in the presence of the God in whom we live and move and have our being.

18 February 2015
Wednesday Nights are Wolf Hall.

The title of this blog is Living Wittily. The phrase comes from Robert Bolt's play A Man for All Seasons. The play is based on the life of Thomas More and explores the moral, psychological and theological morass created by Henry VIII and his ruthless determination to produce a male heir with or without Catherine of Aragon. Of course, it was going to have to be without her, which set Henry on a collision course with the Pope, the Catholic Church, and any close to him whose conscience prohibited approval of the King's dynastic goals.

Disapproval of the policies of a Tudor King may well be dictated by conscience but it was equally an act of political suicide and invited martyrdom. This was brilliantly captured in the most recent episode of Wolf Hall, in which the King's ruthlessness, Thomas Cromwell's manipulative cleverness, and Thomas More's adamantine refusal to violate his conscience. were composed into a concerto movement of tragic slowness, tortuous windings, and an outcome made certain in its fatal climax. The psychological subtleties and virtuoso ethical performances of More were never going to save him in a drama about power in need of substance, about evolving national identity, debts of remembered grievance being called in, and the beginnings of Parliamentary muscle flexing towards a more democratic distribution of power, at least amongst the nobility and between Parliament and King.

The portrayal of More's moral dilemma and spiritual crisis, was a brilliant narrative of a frightened man whose fear of death was only tolerable because the alternative would be the fear of an enraged God should he go against conscience. In Bolt's brilliant paraphrase of human tragedy and moral perplexity, More claimed he sought to serve God in the tangle of his mind. Equally brilliant, was Cromwell's deconstruction of More's own self-image as one who never sought another human being's harm. Although not made more prominent than it needed to be, the use of the rack, burning at the stake, and the whole hellish machinery of religious violence against those who believe differently, is a telling reminder in our own day of the cruelties and violations unleashed when an ideology with the status of a religion secures its dominance by a process of elimination. I welcomed the reference to the deceits behind Tyndale's capture, More's gloating piety, and Cromwell's much less religious distaste for religious persecution as justifiable on theological grounds.In this production More is saint and sinner, with the weight on the saint oblivious of his own deep and cruel sins against others.

Which doesn't mean Thomas Cromwell was himself above coercion of conscience and the use of force to suppress dissent; More's hounding to execution is part of the evidence against him.

Another enjoyable and important strand in the production is the role of women in the making and breaking of power in a cultural context so structurally masculine. While serial Queens were to be taken and discarded if they failed Henry's obsession with succession, Catherine, and Anne Boleyn, are not portrayed as the wilting, timid, or unintelligent consorts in other productions. They are strong; they understand power; they form alliances and plot against dangers; their fears are real, but so is their courage and integrity. They are an important alternative narrative to the insecure King desperate to establish a dynasty, and the power hungry nobility and advisers whose loyalties are ambiguous, and whose own security has to be bought at the expense of others.

A TV adaptation will always struggle to persuade those who are fans of the original book, but this one comes as close to the real thing as may be possible. The occasional historical anachronism is easily ignored in a production that varies in pace but is overall a leisurely unfolding, increasing in tension and crisis, and which therefore allows the chief characters to be developed and established in all their emotional complexity and political ambiguity in the mind of the viewer.

Thomas Cromwell is I think convincing, chilling, hard to read, but a man with a long memory for grievance and a passively violent way of settling things his way and in his own interests. Not sure what it says about me but so far I like him! His portrait being painted in this week's episode (by Holbein?) placed him in the classic partial side profile of Renaissance portraiture, and showed that same strong, unreadable face, unflinching in gaze, and coming alive only when he speaks in an understated, considered forcefulness of someone who always, but always, thinks before he speaks.

I can understand why Hilary Mantel is very happy with the adaptation. It will bear repeat broadcasting later.

14 February 2015