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I was once asked to be after dinner speaker at a church dinner. Specifically, would I give a light hearted speech about books and reading. They knew I am a bibliophile, that I read books, enjoy handling books, love the concept and the artefact "book". They're right. I marvel at the ingenuity of letters, words, sentences, paragraphs and the human achievement that is writing a spoken language giving permanent visible communication of what is going on in the human mind. The human gifts of story, poetry, philosophy, science, and the technological cleverness of printing words and images, and then, and then the thing itself; the literary continuum of words and images impressed on paper, gathered into order, bound together as pages, chapters and volumes. A book is an everyday miracle of extraordinary significance for human culture and flourishing.

But I didn't speak much about that at all. Over the years I've read more books than I cann count. One a week on average wouldn't be an exaggeration, and only occasionally several or even two in one week. I'm a slow reader but persistent; I believe in both the long haul at the desk and the regular small increments of half hours and hours conscientiously attended to with book in hand.So if my guess of one a week is right and I started reading at 5 that would be 60 times 52 making around 3,100 books give or take. So how to choose which books to talk about? Or which writers? Or what subjects might be of general interest?

Some of them were read and forgotten long ago; some were read long ago and never forgotten. Some I could never be without, some, but not many, I wish I hadn't read at all. I have always had a library of books around me which isn't a fixed collection. Books have come and gone; many have stayed because I want to know them better, spend more time in their company, read them, refer to them, even handle them and remember the pleasure and at times the itellectual joy of what was learned and discovered and opened up by the words read and the thoughts born through reading this particular book, at that special time, for that specific purpose – and finding that the best books don't always meet our expectations. They change them, expand them, ambush our curiosity, pull the rug from our complacent assumptions, change our way of looking at the world, and call in question our ways of thinking and understanding ourselves.

I decided that some of the books that have left their deepest imprint on me were written by writers with the most memorably different names. It was an after dinner talk and couldn't go on too long so it needed to be more than the droning enthusiasm of someone who really needs to get out more. But they had asked me, a preacher and theologian, to talk about books. Well let's meet that one head on.

I chose several writers and their books that once encountered have stayed with me as books I now would not want to be without, and which I would now not want not to have read. And as both a challenge and a way of avoiding predictability I had set the condition that the author's name should be memorably different! Here's the list of books I spoke about within the maximum time of 20 minutes – a quote from each, some context, and why they have become important companions on my journey.

The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint Exupery

Markings, Dag Hammarskjöld

Selected Letters, Baron Friedrich Von Hugel

My Name is Asher Lev Chaim Potok

The Gospel According to John, Rudolph Schnackenburg

The Prophets, Abraham Joshua Heschel

For the avoidance of doubt, the library / study in the picture is my dream place – until then, happy in my wee room surrounded by books!

 

Reading Dag Hammarskjöld can sometimes be like putting on a thick jacket, hat and gloves and walking out into a winter landscape. He was himself a keen mountaineer and lover of winter mountain landscapes. His stern, austere view of life and duty and destiny brings a bracing chill to his view of his own life and indeed his understanding of each human life lived responsibly. There is in Markings a constant thread of memento mori and at the start of 1951 the first line of his diary is a concentrated focus on the urgency of life responsibility: "night is drawing nigh". The allusion is to a famous Swedish hymn, which in turn echoes the biblical urgency of time passing and eternity not far off, "the hour is coming when no one can work".

One of Hammarskjöld's poems plays with the seriousness of life, and the moral imperative of using the gift of life responsibly by living in the reality of existence and not in the illusion of our own importance:

Lean fare, austere forms,

Brief delight, few words.

Low down in cool space

One star —

The morning star.

In the pale light of sparseness

lives the Real Thing

And we are real.

Those are the lines of a man unafraid to look life and death in the face, but not with Stoic indifference; on the contrary, with a defiance that is on the side of life, reality, responsible human action geared towards mercy, justice and the righting of what can be righted, and the confronting of wrong as a matter of principle. Any adequate reading of Hammarskjöld's biography makes it clear he was a man of inner granite. His own search was for an for integrity, life purpose and human achievement worthy of the sacrifice it takes to surrender in obedience to God. For there is no doubt that by 1951 Hammarskjöld had come to see and to hear the call of "the Real Thing", that which constitutes and sustains the reality and ultimate significance of all else.

Hammarskjöld's sense of vocation, discovered purpose, and awareness of the personal cost that might shatter the person he thought he was, had been in my mind for several days as I made my way again through Markings, guided this time by the Swedish theologian Gustav Aulen's book on Hammarskjöld. Life and death, achievement and sacrifice, obedience and cost, vocation and surrendered freedom: Markings is laced with those inner questionings that are inevitable when coming to terms with the unavoidable but at times excruciating tensions within which we are at times called to live. In one of those brief entries we wish we could place in exact context, Hammarskjöld in ironic mode: "He received – nothing. But for that he paid more than others for their treasures." This is not so much a complaint by Hammarskjöld; it looks back to his long meditation on Jesus in the upper room, the One who was "absolutely faithful to a divined possibility…"

"a young man adamant in his commitment, who walks the road of possibility to the end without self-pity or demand for sympathy fulfilling the destiny he has chosen – even sacrificing  affection and fellowship when the others are unready to follow him – into a new fellowship." (69)

And there again is the agonising dichotomy – "the destiny he has chosen" – because Hammarskjold had come to see in Jesus, "the young man adamant in his commitment", one who was destined and called and who chose the way of obedience to that call. Any serious Christian commitment must reckon with that same sense that life is gift, and its purpose the giving of that gift in service to the lives of others.

In the pale light of sparseness

lives the Real Thing

And we are real.

Christian life is an adamant commitment to the Real Thing, for only so can it be true that "we are real", and this life is the reality within which we are realised, fulfilled and consummated within the purposes of God. All of this I've been thinking about off and on as I've been reading Hammarskjold, and of course doing other things. Like going out into this real world and living, enjoying, working, looking, but still thinking.

At the very edge of the Forest of Birse is a defiant old Rowan tree. Much of it is now dead wood, but there they are, red berries on the surviving branches still doing what life does. Still there after all those winters, its berries gifts and seeds for the future. Against a blue sky, and in late summer heat, it is both memento mori and memento vitae.

This old blasted tree stopped me in my tracks; at that precise point the word that fitted exactly what I was seeing was "defiant". It was one of those moments when what is already in the mind intersects with what is now seen in the world outside the mind. Our duty to live the gift of life; the truth, so hard at times, that life is not forever, that "night is drawing nigh."

But as well as that the miracle and mystery of continuing fruitfulness right up to the end, that out of life lived sacrificially and gratefully come the seeds of further life. And then the great grace that could never be imagined far less expected as deserved. Life lived towards God, seeking in our weaknesses and failures, our hopes and joys, our loves and griefs, by that same grace praying to be "faithful to a divined possibility"; and the graced promise that such a life bears fruits that can never be counted, calculated or gainsaid, but which are harvested and gathered into the eternal mercies of God as the "divined possibilities" of our lives.

Give us peace with Thee

     Peace with men and women

     Peace with ourselves

And free us from all fear.

The Aberdeen Press and Journal circulates all over Scotland but its highest uptake is in the North East, where there are two editions – Aberdeenshire, and Aberdeen City. It continues a long journalistic tradition of the paper by publishing a weekly Saturday Sermon from a rota of people from various Christian persepectives. I am an occasional contributor, have been now for 25 years. The total word count for each sermon is 275 give or take a very few; I enjoy the challenge of aiming for such a modest length and still hoping to say something worth the reading.

This was yesterday's offering, included here because I am on a Dag Hammarksköld roll just now. I am reading about and thinking through the unavoidable complexities of global politics, diplomatic leadership and a faith commitment demanding self-sacrifice, integrity and a weight of personal responsibility that cannot be shifted elsewhere. Here is yesterday's Saturday Sermon:

In the 1950’s the name Dag Hammarskjöld had global recognition. He was the first Secretary General of the United Nations, from 1953 till his death in a plane crash in 1961. He was on a peace-making mission to the Belgian Congo. After his death a small handwritten notebook with hundreds of short entries was found at his bedside. It was published as Markings. It revealed a man of deep faith and integrity struggling to hold together Christian values and political realities in a world divided by the Cold War and multiple conflicts in Africa and Asia.

“In our era”, he wrote, “the road to holiness necessarily runs through the world of action.” He realised over 50 years ago that in a complicated, dangerous and God-loved world Christians must be engaged in justice, peace-making, and hope building. In Markings he wrote brief prayers like this: “So shall the world be created each morning anew, forgiven –in Thee, by Thee.” There is a hopefulness and a lack of cynicism in Hammarskjöld’s words that are refreshing in our own age of Tweets and political self-promotion.

This man who prayed “to love life and men [and women] as God loves them”, this man committed to building peace and hope amongst nations, wrote this prayer nearer the end of his life, at the height of his influence and responsibilities: “For all that has been – Thank You. For all that is to come – YES”. The combination of gratitude and hope vibrating through that brief cry to God point to the core values that can energise and focus Christian living and action today. Gratitude and hope are essential drivers of a Church believing its own good news of grace, forgiveness and new life .

The younger Dag Hammarskjöld wrote in his diary with that disconcerting mixture of self-confidence and self-criticism which are prerequisites of an honest self-awareness. When the Apostle Paul urged the Roman Christians not to "Think of yourselves more highly than you ought, but that each consider yourself with sober judgement" he was asking a hard thing. 

And when Calvin began his Institutes of the Christian Religion with the following words he was likewise aware of how hard unfiltered self-awareness truly is:"Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves."

Hammarskjöld is part of that same long tradition of Christian thought and realism about the human condition, and the elusiveness of self-understanding. If we do not take time to know and understand ourselves there is little chance we will know and understand the world and our place in it, or God and his purpose for us, or for the world. 

So whatever Hammarskjöld writes in Markings, it is an essential hermeneutical key that he is writing about himself to himself; and this is not an exercise in solipsistic thought experiments, it is Hammmarskjöld exploring the inner landscape of his mind, emotions and will, seeking to map his whole inner life. That is why he can write with such stern self-rebuke:

"How can you expect to keep your powers of hearing when you never want to listen? That God should have time for you, you seem to take as much for granted as that you cannot have time for him." (12)

What makes Markings a valuable book of spiritual direction and constructive psychological self-questioning is the way entries such as the above meet head on one of the recurring complaints of those who wish they were more spiritual, more authentic and more disciplined in their spirituality. C S Lewis once complained in a lecture about 'poor little talkative Christianity', and in doing so identified a form of praying that is all about words, talk, the selfish one sidedness that if unchallenged is the ruin of a relatioship. I think that is the force of Hammarskjöld's self corrective about never wanting to listen; the flip side of that is always wanting to be talking!

This connects and fits precisely with what Hammarskjöld wrote around the same time, in his late 30's and as Chairman of a major Bank. It is fascinating to ask what was going on in the life and mind of a man who as a banker was asking deep existential questions about who he is, what he is for, what if any purpose his own life might have, or indeed what purposeful power might be operating outside his life, calling him to self-knowledge, self-giving and ultimately self-sacrifice. Here is what he wrote, while still a bank Chairman:

The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside. And only he who listens can speak. Is this the starting point of the road towards the union of your two dreams – to be allowed in clarity of mind to mirror life and in purity of heart to mold it? (13)

By the time Hammarskjöld was appointed Secretary General of the United Nations he had come to a mature and austere view of sacrifice as the fundamental value of human aspiration and achievement. Just before his death in 1961 he confided a late entry in Markings: "But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone – or Something – and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that therefore my life, in self-surrender, had a goal."

Here is the clarity of mind and purity of heart for which he strove, intellectually and emotionally. Like Kierkegaard, one of his favourite authors he had learned that "Purity of heart is to will one thing." And in his own words acknowledged that repeatedly in the later entries in Markings:

Ready at any moment to gather everything

Into one simple sacrifice. (xiii)

Simple does not mean straightforward, easy or uncomplicated; it means singular, focused, the union of heart and mind to life's purpose. That moment when he "said Yes to Someone" was his personal Caesarea Philippi, the ultimate moment of self-knowing and self-surrender to what God had called him to do, and that to which in saying Yes, he would be saying no to all other options. Few of us can aspire to that kind of clarity of mind, singularity of purpose, concentration of energy, and sacrifice of personal ambition. The irony in Hammarskjöld's case is that this was a very ambitious man, who had somehow encountered a truth and a power that reconfigured ambition to an obedience to that which was greater than himself. And at that point we are back with the theology of Paul and his call that those who are followers of Jesus and bearers of his cross should "present their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God which is their reasonable service."

 

Sunday August 28 was the 40th Anniversary of my ordination to Christian ministry, hence the cake from the congregation at Montrose Baptist Church – which I am slicing up to share!).

A whole tangle of thoughts and feelings accompany such a milestone in a life which has been given in service to God and to the church. These include a sense of wonder verging on disbelief; gratitude that others have trusted and entrusted this person in the deep places of their experience; regret, best experienced as repentance for mistakes made, for wrong turnings that could have been foreseen, or experiences underused as resources for future wisdom; humility, which is always in danger of being self-congratulatory that it is felt at all, but yes, humility as a healthy sense of unworthiness; gladness that I have fulfilled a full working life following a vocation out of both necessity and choice, a daily saying of yes when sometimes circumstances and experiences urged and tempted me to say no. 

Anniversaries are more than dates, and are about more than celebration. I still remember the promises I made that day, to God and with all those present as witnesses. I remember too the weight of responsibility and life occasion combined with the kind of faith and trust that perhaps only the young can enjoy and experience as risk, confidence and inadequacy all bundled up in that theological word deceptive in its depth, "calling". Amongst the few unchangeable continuities in my own understanding of ministry through those four decades is that ministry is service, and that Jesus words about us all being unprofitable servants provide the loadstone that points ministry away from ourselves and always to Christ, the magnetic north of the soul.

Called, not because we are worthy, but by a grace that looks beyond our own self-assessments to the truth of who God calls us to be. Called, not to leadership which assumes to itself recognised office and conferred institutional authority, but which is demonstrated, embodied and lived in a life dedicated to Christ and characterised by a basin, a towel, broken bread, poured wine, and a cross carried for love of the world God loves. Called, not in the exclusive sense that only those called to "the ministry" are "really" called, but in the inclusive sense that all are called to self-giving love, disciplined trusting obedience, and grateful, glad service offered to God in Christ, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. And that in the end, we are all unprofitable servants.

The verse that has followed me through my years of ministry is Romans 1.12. It was one of my first sermons in my first church. It taught me that ministry is mutual, reciprocal, communal – we receive more than we give, we share in the riches and poverty of the people of God, we live in a fellowship with others that is both gift and demand. Thus Paul says with a particular care to avoid paternalist pastoral presumptions –

                              "I want us to be encouraged by one another's faith when I am with you, I by yours and yours by mine." (REB)

Reflecting on those 40 years I have countless memories of that exchange of gift that we call ministry, and am grateful to all those so many people whose faith has encouraged me, and by God's grace, whose faith has been encouraged on our journey together.

One of the hymns I chose for that ordination service has remained an occasional check-list of what it is I am about and why, and how, and where, and for whom. I'm not sure if it is ever sung now; it certainly isn't amenable to a praise band, and neither the words nor the tune is upbeat catchy. But it said then, to a young man amazed at what he desired as a chosen way of life, and just as amazed that others didn't laugh at the very thought of it, it said then, as it says now, what is the deep truth that this life has been lived towards. For me, as for all whose lives are disrupted and transformed and energised towards God, none of it would have happened but for the grace of God. Grace is a gift that comes unsought, unlooked for, unexpected, undeserved; it is a gift that ignites the furnaces of gratitude, joy and obedience. It is a grace that calls us to follow, to take up the cross and walk uphill with Jesus. And maybe my love of the hills and the outdoors is about more than my early years of trekking the countryside; perhaps it is also the metaphor that sustains ministry, and reminds of that grace which demands of us the faith of obedience.

In 1960 my aunt and uncle left Scotland to begin a new life in Australia. I remember the postcard they sent from the Liner that was taking them and their suitcases to begin a new life in another country, a foreign culture, on the other side of the world. And given the expense and time of travel, the real possibility they waould never see their family again. My dad was an occasional poet, and he wrote a poem called "The Exiles". That was when I first encountered the word, understood its meaning, and wondered at the courage needed to be "an exile".

This week the Centre for Ministry Studies is hosting a Summer School on the theme "Exile: Living Faithfully and Hopefully". A range of people will share theologically and practically, from their wide and varied experience as ministry practitioners and theological teachers. We will think about Jeremiah's message of hope to a doom laden people needing to see a new and different future. Jeemiah gets a bad press as an aid to depression and doom – but in fact his message addresses exactly the tension of despair and hope, the desire to tear down and to build up, the sense of anxiety and dislocation felt in the hearts and minds of those who live through events that destabilise faith and call in question hope of a good future.The Co-ordinator of the Centre is Ken Jeffrey and he will be leading three Bible studies on the message that broke Jeremiah's heart and paradoxically cracked open springs of hope. Ken has spent years in parish ministry and now brings together such experience into the academic and vocational focus of the Centre. 

The Main Sessions of input are presented by Marion Carson (see below) and David Smith. David is a leading theologian of mission, deeply read and an extensive writer on the relation of the Gospel to contemporary culture, and has been involved in theological education cross culturally and internationally. Marion will be exploring the theology of hope for those experiencing exile, and exploring faithful and faith-filled hope undergirded by and resourced by the love of God. The building and sustaining of communities of love is one of the imperatives of Christian mission today. David will look particulaly at preaching to exiled people, and bringing hope and transformation through the realities of God's purposeful love and redeeming judgement. In addition to Jeremiah, David will reflect on the ministry of the German theologian Helmut Thielicke, whose preaching to his own people in the last days and the aftermath of World War II, plumbed the depths of human misery and guilt and loss of meaning, and brought a message of hope based on eternal truths on which life could be rebuilt towards hope and a future. David's latest book, Liberating the Gospel, is sub-titled Translating the message of Jesus in a Globalised World.

Three contemporary experiences of exile will be opened up for thought, prayer and reflection. Exile and Mental Health by John Swinton, recognised across the theological world as a leading thinker on the theological issues surrounding mental ill health, disability and the flourishing of human being. Exile and Social Justice has long been a concern in the ministry and writing of Kathy Galloway, former leader within the Iona Community, and continuing in ministry amongst the vulnerable, the poor and those who live in communities that struggle in our increasingly competitive and divided society. Exile and Displaced People includes refugees, asylum seekers and women trafficked in the sex trade across the world; Marion Carson has been a leading Christian voice in confronting such human tragedy and suffering, her recent book is entitled "Setting the Captives Free"; The Bible and Human Trafficking. Marion is one who has researched and travelled with those whose lives are deemed marketable commodities or political inconveniences.

There is great richness and depth in all these occasions of learning and listening, talking and walking in companionship through the days of a week. And it will begin with a keynote address from Doug Gay, who combines ministry and preaching in a congregation with academic teaching and research around precisely the themes of our week – how to live faithfully and hopefully in 21st Century Scotland. Doug is a recognised and important voice in the debates about nationalism, theology and identity and is a reliable guide for us as we ask what it might mean and what it feels like to be in exile where we are, now, here, as the church in Scotland. His book Honey from the Lion explores the ethics and theology of nationalism.

All told it looks like being a memorable and significant week of discovery and new thinking. Which is what is hoped for by all the presenters, the participants and the organisers. There can be few more important ministries today than the raising and realising and resourcing of hopefulness in Christian ministry and mission today.

One of my favourite historical personalities is Erasmus of Rotterdam. With a blatant lack of modesty I should say I won an essay prize at College for a study of Erasmus as Humanist Reformer, and from that immersion in his life and thought I've remained fascinated by a man who in an age of lines in the sand, embattled walls and precious few bridges, he was an admirer, and frequent occupant, of those fences you can sit on, and see both sides.

We are coming up in 2017 to the 500th Anniversary of Luther's posting of the 95 Theses. Incidentally, the verb "to post" makes me wonder what would have happened if Luther had Facebook and he published his rant against the abuses of the Catholic church and invited his friends to "like" them! But in 1516 an event of equal significance took place – the publication of Erasmus's edition of the Greek New Testament, Novum Instrumentum omne, diligenter ab Erasmo Rot. Recognitum et Emendatum. The text was accompanied by Erasmus's own new and fresh Latin translation and with annotations to the text.

The influence and impact of a New Testament, in the original language, and with a serious if rushed attempt to ascertain the most accurate text, is difficult to overestimate. It was a Renaissance masterpiece of vast and at the time incalculable theological import and far reaching literary consequence. Luther's own venracular German New Testament leaned heavily on Erasmus's work; but in addition to literary dependence, there was the breaking of the stranglehold of the Roman curia on the accessibility of the text. Greek and German, not Latin, became the language of translation, exegesis, reading and increasingly the text for preaching. 

One of the finest short accounts of Erasmus, his character and significance, is hidden away in the large volume by Owen Chadwick, The Early Reformation on the Continent, (ch 3 Scholarship and Religion). I've long run out of superlatives for the erudition and lucidity of Owen Chadwick's writings on church history; this volume is authoritative, entertaining, fresh and crammed with the kinds of details that make history a study of human life and culture as it is shaped by, and shapes, religion and politics. Here is Chadwick on the young and as yet largely unknown Erasmus the Humanist, and I haven't read a better vignette on the Humanist Reformer from Rotterdam:

Since he made ends meet by coaching the young, it was the nature of education about which he first wrote. Literature should revive education, and through schools transform the culture of Europe. From this time he already had misty ideals of a better society because more cultivated. It was an ideal which assumed the dignity and sacredness of the human being. Every member of the species should treat every other member with respect, and strive for peace and harmony and settle disputes by reasonable argument and not by violence. Revolution could never be his ideal. This sweet reasonableness was fostered by religious sensibility, the Christian ideal of gentleness and pity and forgiveness, and not pushing the self forward. And as children develop they must be led to practise eloquence, how to use words and the perception of truth. It brings precision of mind because words have different meanings in different contexts, and this habit of exactness is of the first importance to learn at school.

That kind of writing is why I love the work of Owen Chadwick; and that kind of humanism is why I love the thought of Erasmus of Rotterdam.

Amongst the benefits of the Christian year is the rhythm of doctrine, the reminders of the high points of the Christian story and God's story with the world, a six month period from Advent to Trinity and then the ordinary Sundays that bracket the routine and ordinariness of our lives, and which say life in ordinary is ok. I've often wondered about singing Christmas carols in June; well, we sing about the resurrction and crucifixion all times and any time during the Christian year so why not the Incarnation?

Such thoughts came tumbling in while reading and praying again, a prayer written by Doug Gay for Pentecost 2016. Doing some housekeeping amongst my files I came across it and found that it was saying things I need to hear and pray all year, each day, not just Pentecost. So here it is, with thanks to Doug for a prayer which sounds like a 21st century prayer by George MacLeod of Iona. Doug will understand why I say that, I hope. This prayer has a rhythm and climate formed in the recognisable coalescence of biblical image and Scottish spirituality sensible of the sounds and scenery of God's creation around us. 

The tapestry is my own design, Pentecost and Eucharist, a celebration of the Creator Spirit who gives life, nourishes and makes fruitful all that God has made.

Joy and wonder and promises fulfilled
Wind and Fire and strangers welcomed

This is what you bring Holy Spirit –
and so we worship you this morning

Like the graceful descent of a dove
Like water springing up from its source
Like the wind stirring green Spring leaves
Like fruit which ripens into sweetness

This is what you are like Holy Spirit –
and so we worship you this morning

Wind moving over the face of the deep
Breath warming Eden’s clay
Words brimming in the mouth of the prophet
Life conceiving in Mary’s Womb
Body rising from the grave
Breath sending out disciples
Presence making Jesus present

This is what you do Holy Spirit –
and so we worship you this morning

Co-equal, co-eternal,
Third person of the Holy Trinity
Comforter, Counsellor, Advocate
Giver of life and Bringer of freedom

This is who you are Holy Spirit and so we worship you this morning

Calling on you to come and fill our hearts as we gather here,
To come and renew our lives.
Lord Spirit, hear our prayer and hear us as
We worship you and give you glory,
with the Father and the Son,
One God, forever to be praised, AMEN.

(Rev Dr Doug Gay, 2016, Pentecost)

Plagiarism is every scholar's nightmare. It is a continuing and persistent problem in academic study, and all kinds of processes are now in place to deter students from passing off someone else's work as their own. But when plagiarism is confirmed in the work of a senior respected academic scholar, and those works are published by one of the most reputable Christian publishers in the world, then it is imperative that the issue is treated with seriousness and integrity.

Yesterday Wm Eerdmans, one of the largest and most reputable publishers of Christian scholarship in the United States, released a statement about plagiarism in three book which sit in the flagship section of the publisher's catalogue. You can read the full statement on the Eerdmans blog over here.

There are several consierations about all this, and they go beyond the personal tragedy of a scholar's ruined life's work and a publisher's honest and firm addressing of the consequences.

As all academic teachers know, plagiarism is established by the weight of evidence which demonstrates the work of someone else is being presented as the student's or the scholar's own work. In the field of education it is not relevant whether the unattributed material is there because of deliberate deceit and stealing of someone else's work, or whether it is carelessness, even sloppiness in research discipline that led to the omission of quotation marks and footnotes with reference to the original author. An essay, assignment or book has been presented as the original work of the author and has been shown to be someone else's work without due attribution. That is plagiarism.

As to motive there are all kinds of pressures for students in the learning and teaching environment. Deliberate plagiarism is an intellectual own goal, the undermining of the very purpose of education. Put bluntly it is cheating, and a level of self-regarding dishonesty which if unchecked will seep into those other areas of life which flourish only where there is trust, integrity, and love of those things that matter for their own sake. Where it is carelessness, oversight, confusion of one's own notes and quotes from others, or sloppy research disciplines, these are equally failures of integrity and honest work. In the case with Eerdmans this has happened in the three major works of this author, and repeatedly in each. This is a habit, a way of working, and one which only meticulous attention to detail and an equally meticulous attention to intellectual ethics would have avoided this.

When academic work is published, reviewed and establishes its place in the field as an authoritative source, it is in turn consulted, cited and referenced for credit to the author of the authoritative written piece. The assumption is that such credit is conscientiously and carefully embedded. The problem with texts compromised by plagiarism is that it sets off a form of academic contamination. Every time a plagiarised book is cited it confirms the lie, reproduces the error, perpetuates the injustice of intellectual knowledge being credited to the wrong scholar. The best scholarship thrives on the trust and integrity and reliability of the texts on which research has been built; indeed the academic and scholarly community flourishes only where intellectual standards of integrity and transparent learning are upheld as primary values.

That is why Eerdmans are to be commended for their swift and decisive action. It means a previously renowned scholar's life work is ruined in terms of its admissibility to ongoing debate and discussion; but it also means the publisher can be trusted to mean what it says on the publisher's data at the front of every book – that the copywright refers to original work by the named author. 

So this morning I find I have three substantial commentaries on three New Testament books, which I have used often, and one of them worked through carefully, and I don't know what to do with them or what to think of them. Such is the spoiling effect of plagiarism, giving a new slant on the phrase "hermeneutic of suspicion". And one final thought. Self-righteousness is an unlovely, and unloving disposition, and perhaps all of us who write and publish should have, alongside that checklist of how to reference and attribute other people's ideas, a note reminding us, "Let those who think they stand secure, take heed lest they fall."