Not the voice but the choice,
not the clarity but the charity,
not the harp but the heart,
that makes music in the ear of God.
Let your tongue reflect your thoughts,
and your thoughts be in tune with God.
16th century inscription in the church of San Damiano, Assisi,
Stanley Hauerwas is as honest as the day is long in his theological memoir, Hannah's Child. The book is littered with insights that only make sense because they emerge from a life on which Hauerwas has reflected with honesty and reported with candour. And there are moments of delightful humanity, when Hauerwas contradicts the popular version of his personality as a truculent Texan of theological self-deprecating genius. Here's one of them:
I discovered the gift of friendship. Indeed I discovered I had a gift for friendship. I love and trust people. My love and trust may at times be unwise, but I prefer the risk. I am not stupid. I do not like fools or pretension. But I love interesting, complex and even difficult people. Thank God, they often love me.
I do not think that questions concerning the truth of Christian convictions can be isolated from what is necessary to sustain friendships that are truthful. I am not suggesting that Christians can be friends only with other Christians. Some of my most cherished friends are with non-Christians. Rather I am suggesting that if what it means to be a Christian is compelling and true, then such truthfulness will be manifest and tested through friendship.
See! Self deprecating genius. That is as good a description of what friendship is as I've come across, and one which says well where I am myself when it comes to friendliness as a disposition towards others that is life enriching.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks is one of the spiritual treasures of contemporary Britain. Ever since his Reith lectures on The Persistence of Faith I've read and listened and learned from this thoughtful interlocutor to the cultural arguments of our times. In one of his radio broadcasts he tells a story and draws clear lessons – as good teachers do, the narrative telling of truth.
"The Hasidic Rabbi asked his disciples "Where does God live?"
They were stunned by the strangeness of the question. "What does the rabbi mean?, 'Where does God live?' "Where does God not live? Surely we are taught that there is no place devoid of his presence. He fills the heavens and the earth."
"No", said the rabbi. "You have not understood. God lives where we let him in.
That story has always seemed to me more profound than many learned volumes of theology. God is there, but only when we search. He teaches, but only when we are ready to learn. He has always spoken, but we have not always listened. The question is never "Where is God?" It is always, "Where are we?" The problem of faith is not God, but human beings. The central task of religion is to create an opening in the soul."
Throughout the writings of Jonathan Sacks I hear echoes of that other great Jewish teacher, A J Heschel. It isn't that Sacks copies or quotes Heschel – it may not even be that he is all that familiar with Heschel's writing, though I suspect he is. But the spiritual honesty, the intellectual humility, the gentle confidence in the reality of God, the unswerving quest of the prophet for truth and integrity of life, and the instinct for prayer and devotion as essential human activities – these are held in common by Sacks, Heschel and those others who take the quest for God as the defining priority of the religious life and who recognise too that God is in quest of each of us.
In his book Prophecy and Discernment R W L Moberly describes in unmistakably kenotic terms the nature and practice of Christian existence.
Because his message is "Jesus Christ is Lord", its corollary is that Paul's role entails not mastery over others, but rather service of them…to proclaim the lordship of Christ entails a revaluation of human priorities in the way of Christ, the renunication of self-will and self-aggrandizement and the embrace of self-emptying and self-giving for the welfare of others. This is not only possible for Paul because he has "seen the light" – the light of God's glory revealed in the person of Jesus; it is this knowledge of God that determines Paul's priorities.
Quoted in New Perspectives for Evangelical Theology.Engaging with God, Scripture and the World, Ed. Tom Greggs, London, Routledge, 2010.
My feeling is still that much breast beating rhetoric about servant leadership never quite engages with those other psychological drives more satisfied by being the leader, and more emotionally content with discourse of authority, envisioning, initiating and the other euphemisms for having a sense of power. I'm not against power – it exists and has to be managed. But the questions will always be – who has power – how is power exercised – what quailifies, constrains, governs power? And in Jesus' case it was love. So when leadership is discussed, described, embodied, let's use the discourse of love for others rather than the discourse of authority over others. Hmmph!
Before an Icon
Before an Icon
The unbeliever is challenged
The intellectual is lost for words
The theologian feels small
The artist's heart is filled with joy
The contemplative finds fresh inspiration
Those who thought they were strong are disarmed
The child throws wide its arms, and smiles.
Anon.
Oh my goodness! If as Brutus claims,
"There is a tide in the affairs of men,
which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune",
then there is also
"a click in the affairs of men
which taken at the Amazon checkout leads on to spending a fortune!"
Which I now confess freely if a tad expensively, I have done. For a year or so I've flirted with the idea of buying the definitive set of books on Scottish Birds. The recent post about the yellowhammer's egg is just one incident in a lifetime interest in Scottish ornithology. No big deal, never made it a hobby, just always interested, always looking, gathering information, finding out about this one and that. But I was brought up listening early morning to skylarks, walking home at dusk listening to the hunted cry of the curlew, dodging the dive-bombing of hundreds of peewits (lapwings), knowing the difference between a wren and a goldcrest, fascinated by the flight of the pied wagtail, mesmerised by flocks of starlings doing their choreographic miracles before roosting in the haysheds, astonished at the kestrel defying gravity by simply facing the wind and angling its wings, excited by the wirring of a sinpes wings as it banked towards the ground, scared witless by the big owl that flew out of the farm barn one evening we were playing in the loft, and so well able to identify by call or appearance most of the birds that inhabit our wee country.
The books are a work of art. Forget coffee table books – these are dining table books. You need space on table or floor to open them. The illustrations are nearly all photographs by Scottish Ornithologists, the text is written in flowing narrative, the information is comprehensive, authoritative and up to date. But most of all they are simply sumptuous repositories of science, wisdom, testimony and required data to understand, appreciate, care about and care for some or the most beautiful creatures in our country. Since my childhood a large number of species have been decimated by the way we've lived and sprawled across the land. But there are still encounters that evoke wonder, moments of sheer magic, unlooked for surprises all over the place.
This blog has always been a place where great books are appreciated. And while much of the best reading of my life has been theology, there's always been for me the needed balance of books that broaden out into the wider avanues of our experience. Biography, history, good fiction, poetry – and natural history. These two large volumes will simply become part of our living room furniture – because expensive as they are – they could have cost 3 times as much and they'd still be a bargain – but they are to be looked at, loved, studied, browsed, handled, shaped by constant handling so that they don't stay nearly new books but begin to show signs of being used, referred to, plundered and gazed at.
"There is nothing new in a set of Government policies that looks to encourage individuals and voluntary groups to be enabled, to be engaged within our community, to care for one another.
"The Church of England knows all about volunteering. More people do unpaid work for church groups than any other organisation. Churchgoers contribute 23.2 million hours' voluntary service each month in their local communities.
"The Church of England alone provides activities outside church worship in the local community for over half a million children and young people aged under 16 years, and 38,000 young people aged 16 to 25 years. Over 136,000 volunteers run activity groups for young people which are sponsored by the Church of England."
The Church understands the importance of volunteering, but we must not forget that the state "has responsibilities too", he said.
"There is a reason we pay our taxes. Whilst it is easy to pretend that much of our hard-earned cash goes to fund expense-fiddling MPs, disreputable casino-style banks or mad politically correct quangos for do-gooders – actually we should expect the state to run and fund strong public services, with our money.
"How to raise that money is another question. I am not an economist, and I am not a politician, but to cut investment to vital public services, and to withdraw investment from communities, is madness.
"You do not escape an economic downturn by cutting investment and by squashing aspirations."
(Part of Archbishop John Sentamu's response to the Spending Review – more of it here)
I have been rightly chastised by a good friend more than once, over many years, for daring to suggest that she read Kingsway paperbacks! Not that I or she has anything against publisher, pbk format or the popular theology usually packaged in said books! But she reads serious theology, and so now if either of us want to wind the other up about our intellectual exploits or lack thereof, the most effective term of affectionate ridicule usually includes the Kingsway pbk!
So! Just to avoid such a literary insult flying in this direction any time soon, I wish to announce the purchase of some serious theology. David Kelsey's two volume magnum opus, Eccentric Existence: A Theological Anthropology, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox0 2010) [1496 pages!] is the culmination of a lifetime's wisdom, reflection, theological exploration and Christian thinking. A systematics from the perspective of Christian Anthropology is so overdue I suppose some of us wondered if it might ever appear – assuming any of us thought it a valid or viable theological proposal in the first place. But because the nature of the human being, and the relation of humanity to God, and the meaning of humanity created in the image of God, are deep questions that go to the vital centre of human thought, experience and existence, such a theology is now an essential and humanising task. Christian theology now, at this stage in human history, has critically important things to say about human existence, the human future and the future of the world.
A faith tradition that expresses an understanding of God as a Triune communion of self-giving creative love, and tells the story of that love as bringing all else into existence, and becoming incarnate in human form to enter the created and finite order of time and sin and death, and triumphs not through power but through redemptive passionate love, is a faith tradition which must inevitably hold, not only an exalted and holy view of God, but a high and sacred view of human dignity, worth and personality. In other words, a systematics that begins with the question "What are human beings that you care for them?", is one that will approach familiar questions from an unfamiliar angle, will take seriously the relationality of God and the human creature, and will bring the Love of God to bear upon the purpose of human existence within the entirety of the divine purpose for the created order. In a world hell bent on its own exhaustion, such a theological corrective is now a necessary and urgent note in the message of a Gospel whose ultimate purpose is the renewal of a creation which, more than he could ever have known, Paul describes as groaning, awaiting its redemption.
These two big books when they come will be the ever presents on my desk for the winter. To be read deeply and slowly, not uncritically but with a sense that now and again, we are gifted the chance to handle, admire, even to own, someone else's richly textured theological fabric, woven on a long practised loom by a weaver who knows the colours and patterns of theological reflection, faithful to Scripture, and lovingly modelled on a conception of God that is Trinitarian.
Kelsey, along with Frei and Lindbeck, are of course postliberal theologians of "the Yale School". I know that. And I recognise the challenge his theological approach represents to other theological schools and styles, including my own. But one of the golden rules of theological hospitality is the refusal to allow someone's label and reputation to dictate how we receive them. So I look forward to what good hospitality should also and always enable – shared conversation, intellectual friendship, and sufficient courtesy to listen at least twice as much as we speak. Now and again I'll report on the conversation.
As the Church seeks to adopt a more humble, receptive, listening and thus persuasive stance over and against the surrounding world, there are a number of strategies suggested by those Halik engages in conversation throughout his book. Here are just three from Paul, Von Balthasar and Thomas Merton:
The way of paradox – "great things are revealed in small things; God's wisdom is revealed in human foolishness; God's strength is revealed in human weakness"
The way of humility – the struggle against "that will to power disguised in the mantle of religion that drives one to assert one's own greatness instead of acknowledging that God alone is great…against every ascetical practice which aims not at God but at one;s own perfection, and which is nothing more than spiritual beauty treatment."
The way of Christlike living "What we are asked to do today is not so much to speak about Christ as to let him live in us so that people may find him by feeling how he lives in us".
Paul's point is that God is not limited by our limitations, or boosted by our resourcefulness. Von Balthasar's point is different – the stance of power, of certitude and of self-righteousness negates a Gospel earthed in the humility of God in Christ. And Merton was quite capable of speaking for Christ, as we all are – but the primary speech of Christian existence is the life lived, the evidenced vitality of the living risen Lord in the life of individual and community.
.d b
Hello – it's now over a week since I posted here. It's has been a difficult week spent in hospital fighting off a very nasty infection that erupted unexpectedly and caused considerable havoc with my pain thresholds! Home now and will recuperate for a week or two before starting back into those activities that we call our normal life.
However Living Wittily is back albeit having to live more gingerly for a wee while, and trying to follow advice along the lines of "be good to yourself". As if such conformist pressure were really necessary. The doctor wouldn't prescribe chocolate covered marzipan though as a substitute for antibiotics – seemed to think the suggestion had no clinical merit. Hmpphh!
Be back again the morn.