Who Am I?

 

The Worth of a Life

In 1742 one of the most famous poems in the English language was published - it caused a sensation and is still revered today. Some of its lines have been used as titles for films and books. It was written by Thomas Gray, a former scholar at Cambridge who was acquainted with many prominent statesmen of his time. He had recently moved to the village of Stoke Poges in Buckinghamshire and during a stroll through the village churchyard he pondered the lives of the men, women, and children buried there. Who were they? What kind of lives had they led? Though unknown to him and the nation, Gray believed their lives deserved recognition. Inspired by these thoughts, he wrote his Elegy in a Country Churchyard to honour their memory. 

Here are four of the verses, Full text here

Seventeen years after the publication of  these lines, Major General James Wolfe on the night before the Battle of Quebec, read the poem to his officers. He said to them,  "I would rather be the author of that poem than achieve the glory of defeating the French tomorrow." The following day Wolfe died in battle.

He understood that despite his distinction as a soldier and despite his national fame, his life was of no greater worth than the lives of the villagers sleeping in that churchyard. He wanted his officers to value the life of every soldier under their command as equal in worth to their own.

Not everyone agreed with this sentiment. James Boswell records in his London Journal of Wed. 29th Dec 1762, James Macpherson saying about Gray's Elegy:

‘Hoot!’ cried Fingal (James Macpherson), ‘to write panegyrics upon a parcel of damned rascals that did nething but plough the land and saw corn.’ He considered that fighters only should be celebrated.” 

Pecking Order

Human society does not value people equally. Chickens have their pecking order and so do we. We slot individuals, people groups and even nations into our mental hierarchies. We can't help it, it's in our DNA. We evolved by the same process as the chickens - survival of the fittest. It's how we got here and this is how human society operates. Instinctively, all the time, we assess and evaluate; we rank and rate; we size up and check out. This is how everything works in education, employment, wealth, relationships, social media followers  and so on. Wherever you look it's there. Turned into entertainment it gives us competitions, sports, TV shows and pub quizzes. 

Who Am I?

We automatically slot ourselves into the system. Where do I fit? Where do I rank? Above him but below her? What is my self-worth?  What am I? Who am I? 

Jesus' teaching

Jesus was very clear about pecking orders. He had nothing to do with them. He saw people as individuals not as part of a group, His teaching was about a different set of values which he called the Kingdom of Heaven. Human society with its heirarchies and dog eat dog fight for survival he called the Kingdom of the World. He made a foreigner the hero of his Good Samaritan story; he had a meal with a despised tax-collector; he touched a man with leprosy; he told a story in which a poor man went to heaven and a rich man ended in torment; he overturned the tables of money-lenders. In the end he was executed because he was upsetting the natural order of things. By challenging wealth, status and power he was confronting those in charge, so they got rid of him.

What is our measure?

How do we evaluate our lives and how do we evaluate other people? What is the measure? We have our feet in both of Jesus' kingdoms but which side pulls us most?

Here's another poem that compares the values of the large prominent life with the small, hidden one.

The Noble Nature

It is not growing like a tree
in bulk, doth make Man better be;
or standing long an oak three hundred year,
to fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere;

A lily of a day
is fairer in May,
although it fall and die that night-
It was the plant and flower of Light.
In small proportions we just beauties see:
and in short measures life may perfect be.

Ben Jonson (1572-1637)

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Epiphany: Leslie Weatherhead

Leslie Dixon Weatherhead CBE (14 October 1893 – 5 January 1976) was an English Christian theologian in the liberal Protestant tradition. Weatherhead was noted for his preaching ministry at City Temple in London and for his books, including The Will of God, The Christian Agnostic, and Psychology, Religion, and Healing. (Wikipedia Entry)

From: The Christian Agnostic

Vauxhall Station on a murky November Saturday evening is not the setting one would choose for a revelation of God. I was a young theological student, aged 19, being sent from Richmond Theological College to take the services somewhere, I can't remember where, for some minister in a Greater London church who had fallen ill. The third-class compartment was full. I can't remember any particular thought process which may have led up to the great moment. It's just possible that I was ruminating over the sermons I had prepared and feeling what I have always felt, how inadequate they were to get over to others, what I really felt about the Christian religion and its glorious message.

But at that moment came, and when years later I read CS Lewis is surprised by Joy, I thought, yes, I know exactly how he felt. I felt like that. For a few seconds only. I suppose, the whole compartment was filled with light. This is the only way I know in which to describe the moment, for there was nothing to see at all. 

I felt caught up into some tremendous sense of being within a loving, triumphant and shining purpose. I never felt more humble. I never felt more exalted. A most curious but overwhelming sense possessed me and filled me with ecstasy. I felt that all was well for all mankind - how poor the words seem! The word “well” is so poverty stricken. All men were shining and glorious beings who in the end would enter incredible joy. 

Beauty, music, joy, love, immeasurable and a glory unspeakable. All this they would inherit. Of this they were heirs. My puny message, if I passed my exams and qualified as a minister, would contribute only an infinitesimal drop to the ocean of love and truth, which God wanted men to enjoy. But my message was of the same nature as that ocean. I was right to want to be a minister….An indescribable joy possessed me….

All this happened over 50 years ago, but even now I can see myself in the corner of that dingy third-class compartment with the feeble lights of inverted glass gas mantels overhead, and the Vauxhall platforms outside with milk cans standing there. 

In a few moments, the glory had departed. All but one curious, lingering feeling. I loved everybody in that compartment. It sounds silly now, and indeed I blush to write it. But at that moment I think I would have died for any one of the people in that compartment. They seemed - all of them - immensely lovable and valuable. I seem to sense the golden worth in them all. I knew then - and believe now - that God would not allow any one of His children finally to miss the ecstatic happiness and joy towards which every human life, in spite of a million deviations, hindrances, wrong choices and the following of false signposts, is moving. 

I knew then that I had to move along that road and that my life was to be spent in helping men and women to find the way to God, and in finding it in greater and greater measure myself.

More about Weatherhead here

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Epiphany: Bernadette Soubirous (Lourdes)

Bernadette Soubirous 7 January 1844 – 16 April 1879), also known as Bernadette of Lourdes. She was the daughter of François Soubirous (1807–1871), a miller, and his wife Louise (née Casteròt; 1825–1866), a laundress.[4] She was the eldest of nine children.  From Wikipedia (Full entry here)

Visions

On 11 February 1858, Bernadette, then aged 14, was out gathering firewood with her sister Toinette and a friend near the grotto of Massabielle when she experienced her first vision. While the other girls crossed the little stream in front of the grotto and walked on, Bernadette stayed behind, looking for a place to cross where she wouldn't get her stockings wet. She finally sat down to take her shoes off in order to cross the water and was lowering her stocking when she heard the sound of rushing wind, but nothing moved. A wild rose in a natural niche in the grotto, however, did move. From the niche, or rather the dark alcove behind it, "came a dazzling light, and a white figure". This was the first of 18 visions of what she referred to as aquerò Gascon Occitan for "that". In later testimony, she called it "a small young lady" (uo petito damizelo). 

Her sister and her friend stated that they had seen nothing.

2nd Vision

On 14 February, after Sunday Mass, Bernadette, with her sister Marie and some other girls, returned to the grotto. Soubirous knelt down immediately, saying she saw the apparition again. When one of the girls threw holy water at the niche and another threw a rock from above that shattered on the ground, the apparition disappeared. On her next visit, 18 February, Soubirous said that "the vision" asked her to return to the grotto every day for a fortnight.

Holy Fortnight

This period of almost daily visions came to be known as la Quinzaine sacrée, "holy fortnight." Initially, Bernadette's parents, especially her mother, were embarrassed and tried to forbid her to go. The supposed apparition did not identify herself until the seventeenth vision. Although the townspeople who believed she was telling the truth assumed she saw the Virgin Mary, Bernadette never claimed it to be Mary, consistently using the word aquerò. She described the lady as wearing a white veil, a blue girdle and with a yellow rose on each foot – compatible with "a description of any statue of the Virgin in a village church".

Bertnadette's story caused a sensation among the townspeople, who were divided in their opinions on whether or not she was telling the truth. Some believed her to have a mental illness and demanded she be put in an asylum.

Drink the Water

The other contents of  Bernadette's reported visions were simple and focused on the need for prayer and penance. On 25 February she explained that the vision had told her "to drink of the water of the spring, to wash in it and to eat the herb that grew there," as an act of penance. To everyone's surprise, the next day the grotto was no longer muddy but clear water flowed. On 2 March, at the thirteenth apparition, Bernadette told her family that the lady said that "a chapel should be built and a procession formed".

Immaculate Conception

The sixteenth vision, which Bernadette stated went on for over an hour, was on 25 March. According to her account, during that visitation, she again asked the woman for her name but the lady just smiled back. She repeated the question three more times and finally heard the lady say, in Gascon Occitan, "I am the Immaculate Conception" (Que soy era immaculada councepciou in Occitan). Despite being rigorously interviewed by officials of both the Catholic Church and the French government, she stuck consistently to her story.

On 7 April, Bernadette had another vision, during which her hand was apparently not burnt while being in contact with the flame of a candle for several minutes. On 8 June 1858, the mayor of Lourdes decided to barricade the grotto and put guards to prevent public access. On 16 July, Bernadette came back to see the grotto from the other side of the river and experienced her eighteenth and last apparition of the lady.

Death

Bernadette joined the Sisters of Charity in Nevers. She eventually died of a long-term illness at the age of 35 on 16 April 1879 (Easter Wednesday), while praying the Holy Rosary. On her deathbed, as she suffered from severe pain and in keeping with the Virgin Mary's admonition of "Penance, Penance, Penance," Bernadette proclaimed that "all this is good for Heaven!" Her final words were, "Blessed Mary, Mother of God, Pray for me". Bernadette's body was laid to rest in the St Joseph Chapel, in the grounds of her convent.

Comment

I have read a very scholary account of Lourdes by Ruth Harrs, tutor in Modern History at New College Oxford - details below.  It is clear that  Bernadette did not invent her visions. She was interogated by civil and church authorities and stuck to her story, including the fact that the apparition she saw was a young girl not a young woman. The church authorities nevertheless commissioned a traditional statue of the Virgin Mary to go in the new basilica at Lourdes. Bernadette rejected it as too tall and too old.

The visions and the words she heard were all inside her head and not out in the real world for anyone else to see or hear. It is perfectly possible for an individual to "see" things in the real world that are not there. I know this from personal experience of being with someone who had a problem with a brain condition that produced strange images when for a period it flared up, We would call such things hallucinations. 

Even though Bernadette's visions were an internal product of her brain the question  remains, why did they occur?

The secular and sensible answer is that she suffered some brain disturbance of unknown cause, that lasted for the period of the visions and then ceased. The faith-based answer is that her spirit received several divine epiphanies in which she received a rare communication from the "spirit" realm to her own "spirit". 

Other Visions of Mary - none of recent date!

1. Our Lady of Guadalupe: In 1531, the Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego, an indigenous Mexican, on the hill of Tepeyac near Mexico City. This apparition is one of the most famous and is celebrated on December 12th.
2. Our Lady of Fátima: In 1917, the Virgin Mary appeared to three shepherd children, Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco, in Fátima, Portugal. She delivered messages and prophecies, and the site has become a major pilgrimage destination.
3. Our Lady of La Salette: In 1846, the Virgin Mary appeared to two children, Maximin Giraud and Mélanie Calvat, in La Salette, France. She delivered a message of repentance and conversion.
4. Our Lady of Knock: In 1879, the Virgin Mary, along with Saint Joseph and Saint John the Evangelist, appeared to a group of villagers in Knock, Ireland. This apparition is unique because it was a silent vision with no spoken messages

"Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age" by Ruth Harris 

This  is a comprehensive historical account of the famous shrine in Lourdes, France. Harris, an Oxford historian, delves into the development of Lourdes as a major pilgrimage site and its impact on both believers and nonbelievers.

The book explores the initial skepticism of the Catholic Church regarding Bernadette Soubirous' visions and the subsequent establishment of a Medical Board to evaluate claims of miraculous healing. Harris argues that the growth of Lourdes was not a result of political or clerical orchestration but rather a spontaneous outlet for social aspirations that could not find expression in the secular or religious institutions of the time.

Harris provides a revisionist interpretation, challenging the assumptions of 19th-century positivists and highlighting the complex interplay between faith, science, and society. The book is well-researched and skillfully narrated, offering a nuanced perspective on the phenomenon of Lourdes.

(AI generated review) 

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Epiphany: Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton was an American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist and scholar of comparative religion. He was a monk in the Trappist Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, near Bardstown, Kentucky, living there from 1941 to his death.

Merton became a keen proponent of interfaith understanding, exploring Eastern religions through study and practice. He pioneered dialogue with prominent Asian spiritual figures including the Dalai Lama, Japanese writer D. T. Suzuki, Thai Buddhist monk Buddhadasa, and Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh.

From his journal of April 29th 1940, Camaguey Cuba

(Merton was attending a mass and a group of children had entered the church and filled the first 5 or 6 rows of pews.)

High up behind the altar Saint Francis raised his arms up to God, showing the stigmata in his hands. The children began to sing. Their voices were very clear, they sang loud, their song soared straight up into the roof with a strong and direct flight and fill the whole church with its clarity. Then when the song was done and the warning bell for consecration chimed in with the last notes of the hymn, and the church filled with the vast rumour of people going down on their knees everywhere in it, then the priest seemed to be standing in the exact centre of the universe. 

The bell rang again three times.

Before any head was raised again, the clear cry of the brother in the brown robe cut through the silence with the words Yo Creo, “I believe”, which immediately all the children took up after him with such loud and strong and clear voices and such unanimity and such meaning and fervour that something went off inside me like a thunderclap and without seeing anything, or apprehending anything extraordinary through any of my senses, (my eyes were open only on precisely what was there in the church) I knew with the most absolute and unquestionable certainty that before me, between me and the altar, somewhere in the centre of the church, up in the air (or any other place, because in no place) but directly before my eyes, or directly present to some apprehension or other of mine, which was above that of the senses, was at the same time God in all his essence, all his power, God in the flesh and God in himself, and God surrounded by the radiant faces of the thousands and millions, the uncountable numbers of saints contemplating His glory and praising His holy name. The unshakable certainty, the clear and immediate knowledge that Heaven was right in front of me struck me like a thunderbolt and went through me like a flash of lightning and seemed to lift me clean up off the earth.

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Jesus for all: The Ego-Agape conflict

Why Jesus?

Jesus is the central figure of the Christian faith and is also a respected prophet for Muslims but how can he be relevant to non-believers today?

His life and death are recorded in four books of the bible, but since these were written decades after his death no one can be absolutely certain what he actually said or did. He was a Jew living in what is now Israel at a time when the worship of gods was part of everyday life. Jews only had one god, Yahweh, who they considered to be the only god. Jesus teaching is focussed on the relationship between the Jewish people and God  (God used instead of Yahweh from now on). But can what he said to 1st Century  God-fearing Jews be important in the secular world of today?

In the first place, most people consider there’s something about human life that goes deeper than the physical, our sense of right and wrong, the way we are moved to tears at deep emotional moments and our willingness to put the needs of others before our own. All these point to something more than the mundane biochemistry of our bodies. We call that something our spiritual side or our soul.

Secondly, meditation and contemplation, if not prayer, are helpful and even necessary for our well-being. We need to keep our bodies healthy, and also our minds and souls/spirits. 

At war with ourselves

Paul, a teacher of Christianity in the 1st century wrote a letter to Christians in Rome, in which he talked about the way the two sides of his nature are at war with each other:

When I want to do good, I don’t; and when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway.

Robert Lous Stevenson made the same point:

“In each of us, two natures are at war – the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on between them, and one of them must conquer. But in our own hands lies the power to choose.
What we want most to be, we are.” 

We all experience this internal conflict and it was central to Jesus teaching. To him our selfish, physical side is the Kingdom of The World, whose ruler is Satan, and our unselfish, spiritual side, is the Kingdom of Heaven, where God rules. He didn’t mean “Heaven” as a destination after death, but the place where God dwells, not visible but always present. The words “Heaven”, “God”, "Satan" and "Yahweh" have no meaning  for non-believers so I will borrow two Greek words, EGO and AGAPE for the two sides of our human nature, which gets us away from religious language but need explaining.

EGO means personal pride or self-absorption – putting ourselves first and living selfishly. This represents our physical selves, the product of evolution, the survival of the fittest.

Ayn Rand considers EGO to be a virtue

“The moral purpose of a man’s life is the achievement of his own happiness. This does not mean that he is indifferent to all men, that human life is of no value to him and that he has no reason to help others in an emergency. But it does mean that he does not subordinate his life to the welfare of others, that he does not sacrifice himself to their needs, that the relief of their suffering is not his primary concern, that any help he gives is an exception, not a rule, an act of generosity, not of moral duty, that it is marginal and incidental —as disasters are marginal and incidental in the course of human existence—and that values, not disasters, are the goal, the first concern and the motive power of his life.”  Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness

AGAPE means selfless, unconditional love – putting others first and living unselfishly. The kind of love where a person will sacrifice their life for another. The source of this love is our soul or spiritual nature.

The following lines, also written by Paul and often used at weddings, are the best description of the depth of Agape love:

If I had the gift of being able to speak in other languages without learning them and could speak in every language there is in all of heaven and earth, but didn’t love others, I would only be making noise.
If I had the gift of prophecy and knew all about what is going to happen in the future, knew everything about everything, but didn’t love others, what good would it do?
Even if I had the gift of faith so that I could speak to a mountain and make it move, I would still be worth nothing at all without love.
If I gave everything I have to poor people, and if I were burned alive for preaching but didn’t love others, it would be of no value whatever.
Love is patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude.
Love does not demand its own way.
It is not irritable or touchy.
It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do it wrong.
It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins out.
If you love someone, you will be loyal to them no matter what the cost. You will always believe in them, always expect the best of them, and always stand your ground in defending them.

Jesus and prayer

Jesus said "Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven", the rule of God over your own personal desires instead of the rule of Satan. To seek is to pray and he told told his followers:

• pray in secret not public.
• don't pray to show off how spiritual you are.
• mindless repetition is not prayer
• take your time, don't rush.

For Jesus, God was a loving father so the prayer he taught is like a son or daughter talking to their father.
"Our Father, who is in Heaven, holy is your name. Your Kingdom come. Your will be done on Earth as in Heaven. Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Do not lead us into a time of trial but deliver us from evil.

The Jesus Prayer as a meditation.

For non-believers we can use the sections of the Jesus prayer to meditate on the EGO-AGAPE conflict in our lives:

• How much is my life is lived selfishly and how much unselfishly
• If I stood in a place of pure love, goodness, truth, forgiveness, mercy, righteousness, peace, joy. generosity and humility, how would I feel? Uncomfortable? Ashamed?
• Do I want my life to be less about me and more about others?
• How can I feed my mind and soul/spirit to bring this about?
• Do I need to ask forgiveness from someone and am I willing to do it?
• Do I need to forgive anyone? Am I able to do it?
  Jesus said, the more we forgive others the more we will know forgiveness for ourselves.
• Am I putting myself in places of risk to my physical, mental and spiritual health and do I have the strength to avoid them?
• Do I need to ask for help?

Loving and living unselfishly and generously, letting go of our own wants and desires, is costly but the reward is greater than the cost.

The Penalty of Love - Sidney Royse Lysaght

If love should count you worthy, and should deign
One day to seek your door and be your guest,
Pause! ere you draw the bolt and bid him rest,
If in your old content you would remain.
For not alone he enters: in his train
Are angels of the mists, the lonely quest,
Dreams of the unfulfilled and unpossessed.
And sorrow, and life's immemorial pain.
He wakes desires you never may forget,
He shows you stars you never saw before,
He makes you share with him for evermore,
The burden of the world's divine regret
How wise were you to open not!--and yet,
How poor if you should turn him from the door.

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Footnote to All Prayers - CS Lewis

He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, muttering Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskillfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolators, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.
Take not, oh Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in Thy great,
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate. 

Notes
Lewis is saying that when he prays he has images in his head of the God to whom he is praying but knows these images are totally wrong. He calls them Pheidian fancies - like the statues of Gods created by the sculptor Phidias:

Phidias or Pheidias (c. 480 – c. 430 BC) was an Ancient Greek sculptor, painter, and architect, active in the 5th century BC. His Statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Phidias also designed the statues of the goddess Athena on the Athenian Acropolis, 

Only God knows God. So prayers fall so far short of what they should be they are like blasphemy. We are self-deceived, talking to images in our head that are not real, like counterfeit coins.

Finally he asks God to translate our prayers, the products of our limping thoughts, just as a father might translate the wishes of a small child when the child is too young to properly communicate its needs.

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The Jesus Prayer

 

 How many Christians are in the UK population? Only 46.2% according to the 2021 UK census and 37.2% are "No religion". The "Our Father" prayer that Jesus taught his disciples is no longer part of most people's lives and less and less part of their history. Despite this decline in formal religion, I believe human beings are not just a hugely complicated collection of atoms and molecules but have a non-physical aspect to their nature, often refered to as the soul or the spirit. This duality is seen in our sense of right and wrong and the way our selfishness and our generosity pull us in opposite directions. 

Jesus' teaching was focussed on this conflict. Instead of being caught up in our normal physical lives, which he called the Kingdom of the World,  Jesus said we should seek the Kingdom of Heaven, the life of the spirit. He called the Kingdom of Heaven a "Pearl of great price", worth selling all you have to possess. Part of this spiritual life are prayer and meditation and in the gospel of Matthew Jesus has this to say about prayer: (Mt 6:5-15)

And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. 

And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. In this manner, therefore, pray:

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one. 

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Jesus says this prayer is to be prayed in secret and not in public. Neither is it to be simply chanted in “vain repetition”. But the Christian church has ignored these instructions. The "Lord's Prayer is a regular part of public worship, chanted by congregations so often it has become nothing more than "vain repetition" The focus and meaning of the prayer has been lost.

The prayer is for personal, daily meditation and not for public chanting once a week in church. It is about the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven into the life of the one who prays; it is about the growth of our spiritual life, not our physical needs.

Father

Our Father…  Jesus sees the God of Israel not as some remote deity but as his loving father. Humanity has a multitude of physical fathers but only one spiritual father. We all belong to the same spiritual family. Jesus tells the story of a prodigal son who is welcomed home by his father. "My son was dead but is alive again, was lost and is found". Jesus binds us together. He wants nothing to do with the divisions by which we slice up humankind – gender, race, nationality, culture, religion; some welcomed and others rejected. Jesus was accused by self-righteous critics of mixing with tax-collectors and sinners. The hero of his Love Your Neighbour story was a Samaritan not a Jew. One life, one Earth, one humanity. If only we believed him.

..in Heaven – not some destiny we may or may not enter on our death, but an ever present realm of the spirit; an eternal Kingdom of inexhaustible love, the place of forgiveness and acceptance. A house where we find rest for our souls; the home of the Father.

Hallowed be your name

Once a year the High Priest of Israel entered the very centre of the temple at Jersualem, the Holy of Holies, where God dwelt, to offer sacrifice for the sins of the people. In this prayer we are coming into the presence of the Father. This too is holy ground and our shoes should be off our feet. The Father's name is his character, his reputation, his essence. His name is holy, pure, abounding in steadfast love and mercy, abounding in light and glory. 

In the presence of holiness we are naked and ashamed, like Adam and Eve in the garden after eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. 

Holy, Holy, Holy! though the darkness hide thee,

Though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see,

Only thou art holy; there is none beside thee,

Perfect in power, in love, and purity.

Desire

Your kingdom come. Imagine a kingdom of total love, goodness, truth, forgiveness, mercy, righteousness, peace, joy. purity, generosity, humility and acceptance. Imagine you could dwell in such a kingdom or such a kingdom could dwell in you. Jesus says "Ask and it will be given you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will open to you". The kingdom will come to those who request it, who desire and long for it. Those who are willing to abdicate the rule of their own kingdom. Dare we ask for this?

On earth as it is in heaven. The petition is not for the wide earth out there but for the tiny piece of earth that is me. I am asking for the Kingdom of Love to be manifested more and more in my life. Not in other people, or the world in general. This is costly, but prayer always comes with cost. If we do not accept the cost, prayer is meaningless - empty words, a sounding brass, a clanging cymbal. For the Kingdom to come, it must come to this tiny piece of earth.

The Penalty of Love - Sidney Royse Lysaght

If love should count you worthy, and should deign
One day to seek your door and be your guest,
Pause! ere you draw the bolt and bid him rest,
If in your old content you would remain.
For not alone he enters: in his train
Are angels of the mists, the lonely quest,
Dreams of the unfulfilled and unpossessed.
And sorrow, and life's immemorial pain.
He wakes desires you never may forget,
He shows you stars you never saw before,
He makes you share with him for evermore,
The burden of the world's divine regret
How wise were you to open not!--and yet,
How poor if you should turn him from the door.

Word

Give us this day our daily bread. When Jesus was hungry and tempted to turn stones into bread, he said, “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.  The food to sustain and grow the Kingdom of Heaven in me are the words of the Father. Day by day I need to hear his voice by whatever means he speaks. Is it something I read, or hear, or see? Does a thought become insistent. What does the day bring? Is the Kingdom of Love breaking in? Can I live the day less selfishly? 

Cost

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors

We fail to live the life of love in its fulness. The Father gives but we don’t receive; he gives, but we misuse the gift. We hear and we ignore. We need forgiveness, but do we really desire it?
We do not love others as we ought and need their forgiveness too. Dare we humble ourselves and ask?
Dare we pay the price of forgiving others. Do we want to let go of our anger, our resentment, our hurt?
Do we only partially regret the wrong we do? Do we really repent? Is there real remorse? 
Do we desire purity? Will we pay the price? His increase at the cost of our decrease? 

Do we say "yes" to the threshing floor, the pruning shears, the refiners fire?

Am I willing, “To give what I cannot keep, to gain what I cannot lose”?

“Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God”

Test

Lead us not into temptation (a place of testing)

(Do not let us enter into temptation – is a better translation from the original Aramaic)

When Jesus had been baptised by John, Matthew records: "Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted (tested) by the devil". 

Jesus faced three tests in which he had to choose between the Kingdom of this World and The Kingdom of Heaven – a choice between following his Father’s call or rejecting it and going his own way. This is the same choice that everyone faces everyday but not perhaps not so dramatically. Essentially it is a choice between living selfishly or unselfishly, putting ourselves first or last, ruling or serving.

Day by day we meet temptation but we do not have to enter in. We are asking the Father to put a warning sign over the door, or speak through that inner voice to make us turn aside. 

Testing the spiritual life is inevitable and necessary. If you were to take up running after a life of inactivity, you would advance slowly and in stages. Distance would increase, times would come down, your body would strengthen and adapt. Every run would be a test of progress. In the same way our spirit needs to change if we are to grow in our ability to love and live closer to the Kingdom of Heaven. But we cannot change at a rate we cannot bear or sustain. So we pray for the Father’s help in the place of testing to steer us away from tests we cannot pass or temptations we cannot resist.

We can all say with the apostle Paul, " The good that I would I do not, and the evil that I would not, that I do" (Rom:7,19) Evil seems a strong word, but following our own selfish desires is destructive to our lives. The pull is strong and if are unable to resist, we need to pray, deliver us from evil.

Building to last

Jesus, said those who hear his words and do them, build their house on a rock. Those who hear but don't act, build on sand. When troubles come one house stands and the other falls. The Jesus prayer is part of that rock. It is not for chanting in public but for meditating on in private. It is a spiritual gym which will daily strengthen our spirit and help us to live more and more in the Kingdom of Heaven.

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3rd Temptation: Worship who?

After wrestling with two temptations, Jesus faced a third.

Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’

Jesus is again facing a choice between two worlds, the world of the flesh, a life of self-gratification, and the world of the spirit, a life of self-surrender. The question he faces is: "Am I going to live for myself or live for my father God"?

The human race is the product of evolution - "survival of the fittest”. By our DNA nature we are self-centred, and focussed on our own survival. Richard Dawkin titled his famous book, “The Selfish Gene” to highlight the disinterested, single-minded chemical and biological processes that lead to the survival of a species or its extinction. Nature is indeed “red in tooth and claw”.

Like all mammals, human beings need food, drink, shelter and warmth to survive, and they propagate their genes by reproduction. This translates to needing money and a partner of the opposite sex. The use of money as the means of exchange took time to develop but it was well established by Jesus’ day. Much of his teaching would be directed at the hold money and possessions have on people’s lives and he was now wrestling with the same issue. He needed the necessities of life like everyone else but what did that mean in terms of his relationship to God? Perhaps he could see himself carrying on his earthly father’s carpenter business, marrying and having children, or becoming a political zealot, joining with those who wished to kick the Romans out of Israel. If he became a successful businessman or a political leader with men at his command, his name would be well-known, he would have status, be respected, perhaps revered, even worshipped. Did the battle in his mind go something like this:

I know I have extraordinary powers and gifts. Suppose I put myself first, rule my own life and bow the knee to no one. Suppose I put my needs and my desires before everything else, the world will be my oyster and there’s no limit to how high I might rise. 

Then the counter-argument. No! I am His son, I must renounce such thoughts – I thrust them behind me!I will lay my life down before my heavenly father. I will serve him alone. I will live a life of sacrificial love, the life of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Three temptations faced, three overcome

Spirit before flesh: Food for the spirit before bread for the body. Jesus would live day by day, not looking to either the past or the future. Each day he would seek his Father's word, and know that each day his Father would feed his spirit.

Trust Him not test Him: Jesus would not use the scriptures as a testing ground for his Father by invoking them like a book of spells to summon up miracles. He would walk the path of obedience, his Father’s will not his own.

Complete surrender: All his ego, all his ambition, all desire for recognition and status Jesus will put behind him. His life will be laid completely at his Father’s feet in service and worship.

For 40 days Jesus had wrestled with the voice he heard at his baptism - "This is my beloved son in whom I am well-pleased." He wrestled with doubts and questions and overcame them with words from the book of Deuteronomy:

Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from mouth of God.

You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.

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2nd Tempation: Trust or Test?

In the wilderness Jesus is wrestling with the voice he heard at his baptism. “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”. When he grew hungry and another voice told him to turn stones into bread he quoted the Book of Deuteronomy, “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” 

Now Jesus is faced with a different issue. When does the written word of the scriptures given in the past to Moses, the prophets and the writers become the living word of God for God’s Son today?

He is meditating on Psalm 91 which speaks verse by verse of the care and protection God gives to his children. It begins:

“Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust. Surely, he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.”

Promise follows promise for the one who is utterly committed to God.

“If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,” and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you; no disaster will come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”

A thought comes into Jesus’ mind.  “Imagine I was to stand on the highest point of the temple and throw myself off, then according to this scripture God would command his angels to save me. After all it is written.” But Jesus dismisses this way of thinking. It would be treating the verses of the psalm like a written contract with God’s signature on the bottom. Jumping off the temple would be a way to test the contract to see if God will stand by it. But it is also written, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test”. You are not allowed to treat verses of scripture like a book of spells to summon up miracles.

Psalm 91 reads like a lot of empty promises. Jesus knew that leaping from the temple would not bring angels to his rescue. The physical Law of Gravity would apply to him just as it does to all physical objects. He also knew the words of this psalm did not mean he would lead a charmed life, escaping all hardship. He would be tired or hungry just like everyone else. This psalm is not about the physical world where the promises would indeed be empty, it’s about the spiritual world, the Kingdom of God. As spiritual conflicts batter the soul so God promises protection for those who seek refuge in him. 

In his first temptation Jesus faced his hunger. His body craved food but his spirit craved the word of his Father just as much. Words spoken in the past would not feed him now. Words spoken to others was food from them but not for him.

In this second temptaion Jesus is challenged by the written words of scripture. How did God speak through them now?  Will God step in and rescue him as Ps 91 implies? Can these words be put to the test? No they cannot and they must not. Jesus saw this was another conflict between the two kingdoms, between his flesh and his spirit. The path he walked would be the path of obedience - the Father's will, not his. God may allow Jesus to be tested but Jesus would not test God.

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Psalm 91

1. Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

2. I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

3. Surely, he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence.

4. He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge;

5. his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

6. You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, 

7. nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.

8. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.

9. You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked.

10. If you say, “The LORD is my refuge,” and you make the Most High your dwelling,

11. no harm will overtake you; no disaster will come near your tent.

12. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways;

13. they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

14. You will tread on the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

15. “Because he  loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

16. He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honour him.

17. With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.”

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1st Temptation: Flesh or Spirit?

These thoughts are my own. I do not claim to have any special wisdom and certainly no divine revelation. Although I use the word “God” in what follows and with the pronoun “He”, I do not like the word. I think it stands for something/someone that cannot be defined. If the extent of the known universe is beyond comprehension, then “G-O-D” must be even more so. Jesus used the word “Father”, so I prefer to use that simple image.

Also, to me the Tempter, Satan or The Devil is just a personification of the dark side of our own nature; our unrestrained ego ready to trample down people and principles for our own ends. If you have light, darkness is simply its total absence. If you have love, evil is its total absence.

I am intrigued by Jesus. I no longer have an orthodox Christian faith, but I do believe there is something more to human beings than the chemical, biological and physical processes of our bodies, complex though these are. The "something more” concerns our moral being, our ability to love sacrificially and the sense we have of a spiritual dimension just out of reach - what Emily Dickinson refers to as the “tooth that nibbles at the soul”.

Jesus’ baptism

Jesus was about 30 years-old when he began his brief teaching ministry. There is one story recorded in Luke of Jesus at the age of twelve conversing with scholars in Jerusalem but otherwise nothing is written in the New Testament about the first 30 years of his life. 

Luke also records that Jesus’s mother, Mary, had a cousin Elizabeth who gave birth to a son a few months before Jesus was born. The son was named John. It is almost certain the two boys knew one another as they grew up. Both young men would have attended the synagogue and would know the Jewish scriptures. They were both radicals and discontented with the status quo. It is likely they discussed these things together, so much so that John recognised in his half-cousin someone exceptional. When John could no longer stay silent, he began preaching against the authorities, calling for repentance, and baptising people in the River Jordon. 

Account in Matthew’s Gospel:

In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’” Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptised by him.  And John tried to prevent Him, saying, “I need to be baptised by You, and are You coming to me?” But Jesus answered and said to him, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” Then he allowed Him.

When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him.  And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

Man shall not live by bread alone

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil.  And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry.  Now when the Tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”

But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’

Jesus must have been shocked by the voice he heard at his baptism. To Jews the God of Israel was remote and fearful. They did not speak his name. He was Almighty, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The closest image was that of a shepherd and his flock. But Jesus hears himself called, "beloved son". This is unheard of and Jesus needs to get away with no distractions and think what this means, so he heads to a wilderness.

He is in a place of conflict; two Kingdoms were vying for supremacy in his mind, the Kingdom of The World, materialistic and self-seeking, and The Kingdom of God, altruistic and sacrificial. To follow in the footsteps of his carpenter father, having a wife and children, or to follow the voice he heard at his baptism. For 30 years he had lived a normal life among his neighbours. Later, when he preached to them  ....

“,,,, they scoffed, “He's just the carpenter's son, and we know Mary, his mother, and his brothers—James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. All his sisters live right here among us. Where did he learn all these things?” (Matthew 13:55-56 New Living Translation)

In the wilderness Jesus distanced himself from the world and fasted, prayed and meditated. 

“Beloved Son” - was that really the voice of God?” “Has He spoken to me as he did to Samuel”? “What does it mean?” “What am I to do?” 

He began to understand the road that lay ahead and the message he needed to preach. But as the days passed and he became weaker, another voice began to nag him. “If you are the Son of God…“The word “If” casts doubt. How can you be sure that was God? Perhaps you are deluded? Is there a way to be certain. Perhaps there is.“If you really are the son of God, you must have creative power; those stones can be turned to bread. God will surely feed you just as he sent ravens to feed Elijah and manna to feed the tribes of Israel in the desert.”

So clear, so logical, but so wrong!

The Word is Now

One of the biggest mistakes believers make is to use the physical world as the model for the spiritual world. The first runs according to logical, undeviating physical laws. If A and B are true, then C will follow. In the Kingdom of God this way of reasoning does not apply. If A prays for B and B is healed, it does not follow, if C prays for D then D will be healed. This is a cause of endless frustration to believers who accuse God of being inconsistent or capricious when He does not dance to their tune. “My ways are not your ways”, He says, “neither are my thoughts your thoughts”. C.S Lewis echoes this in the Narnia books, “Aslan is not a tame lion”. Jesus knew that the voice of God in the past, whether it came to Elijah, or the Children of Israel is not for him now. Those words, once living are now dead. The past is not a blueprint for the present. 

I AM

God’s name revealed to Moses at the burning bush is translated, I AM – not I WAS, or I WILL BE. He is God of the here and now; God of the living not of the dead. Jesus understood this. What God said to others in the past was not food for his spirit now. John preached, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God has come near”, and Jesus sought the nearness and the now-ness of that Kingdom. He rejected the nagging voice telling him to do a conjuring trick with stones and listened instead for the now-voice of his Father.

What is that to you?

A second mistake believers make is the desire to emulate someone else. Perhaps they’ve heard a story of prayer, or healing or faith, or read an inspiring biography and believe their own faith is deficient. They want to be more like those who seem to have a greater experience of God. Instead of walking their own journey they want to tread in another’s footsteps. At the end of John’s Gospel Jesus gives an important warning about this:

"Peter, seeing him, said to Jesus, “But Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow Me." (John 21:22)

What is that to you? This man’s journey is not yours. Follow me, not him. 

Jesus spoke different words to different people; the woman at the well heard something very different from the rich young ruler. In the parable of the Prodigal Son the father had different words for his two sons. It’s the parable of the lost sheep, not the lost flock. The word is personal not plural.

CS Lewis in his biography Surprised by Joy, speaks of incidents in his life which led him step by step into faith. A toy garden made by his brother when Lewis was only six; a fairy story by George MacDonald picked off a second-hand book stall in his late teens; an Oxford bus journey, conversations with friends and through them all, the same quiet insistent voice was speaking to him. But it was his journey, not ours.

What 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous saw and heard on 11th February 1858, in a grotto near Lourdes was for her. Even those who witnessed her kneeling before that barren rock did not see or hear the lady who was so real to her, and neither have the thousands of pilgrims who have flocked to Lourdes since. 

Churches and denominations fail because they herd cows, sheep, pigs, starlings, reindeer, rooks, adders, tigers, ladybirds and the whole human animal kingdom into their carefully constructed barn and feed them all the same food in the hope they will all turn into swans.  

You shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. The word is personal and the word is now.

"He who has hears to hear, let him hear." 

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The G-question and all that

Mystery and our need for Certainty.

Mystery and certainty – in face of the former we seek the later. Our curiosity and imagination are stimulated by the unknown. They are the driving forces behind advances in science, maths and technology but despite huge progress many of the mysteries surrounding the human condition remain unexplained. Religion and philosophy step in to fill the voids in our understanding. We seem to need the comfort of words of wisdom, gods and myths in the same way that Linus needs his security blanket in the Peanuts cartoons. 

Take these age-old questions:

• Why is there something rather than nothing?
• Was there really a Big Bang? What banged and what came before it?
• How did life begin and is there life elsewhere in the universe?
• Are human beings just highly complicated physics or is there something else, like an eternal soul?
• Do we have free will?
• Is there a God (or perhaps gods) and if so, what is God like?
• Is death the absolute end of us, or is there an existence beyond death?
• Where do the laws of science come from?
• Are moral laws just a human invention or are they built into the universe?
• Do miracles really happen?
• Etc etc

Science, philosophy and religion grapple with these questions and some religions may claim to answer most, but unlike science where consensus arises over time, there is no philosophy or religious belief that has universal consent.

Why do we believe what we believe, and how do we know if we are right?

The Believing Brain by Michael Shermer addresses this question.  

Here is a summary generated by AI:
The Believing Brain by Michael Shermer delves into the mechanisms behind how we form and maintain beliefs. Here are the core ideas:

1. Patternicity: Our brains are wired to find patterns in random data. This tendency helps us make sense of the world but can also lead to false beliefs.
2. Agenticity: We often attribute agency to these patterns, believing that intentional agents (like gods, spirits, or conspirators) are behind them.
3. Belief Formation: Beliefs are formed first, often based on emotional or intuitive responses, and then rationalized with logic and evidence.
4. Confirmation Bias: Once a belief is established, we seek out information that confirms it and ignore or dismiss evidence that contradicts it.
5. Cognitive Dissonance: When confronted with conflicting information, we experience discomfort and are motivated to reduce this dissonance, often by reinforcing our existing beliefs.
6. Science as a Tool: Shermer advocates for the scientific method as a way to test and validate beliefs, helping us distinguish between true and false patterns.

These ideas illustrate how our brains can both help and hinder our understanding of reality. 

Whatever our belief system, religious, humanist, philosophical, political, economic and so on there is a desire to be right and our thinking will be strongly directed by the first five of Shermer’s core ideas. Once beliefs are firmly established it becomes hard to question or overturn them. But the proper position for Homo rationalis is to treat our beliefs with a degree of scepticism, being prepared to modify them in the light of new evidence and our own development, or even abandon them altogether. This is what Shermer means by using science as a tool – see below for more detail on this.

Each major religion believes it has the truth about human existence

Religions claim to have the resolved the mystery of the human condition, but how does a non-religious person seeking spiritual truth decide which religion to embrace? Inquirers will be told by hard-line believers that their choice determines their eternal destiny. If this really is at stake it must be the most important decision of one’s life, yet there is no rational way to make it. Suppose you make the wrong choice, what then?

Every religion has its fundamentalists who are certain they are right and equally certain everyone else is wrong. Fundamentalism not only pits one religion against another in a battle of beliefs but inevitably leads to conflict as one certainty seeks to impose itself over another. English history has many examples with Catholics at war with Protestants, Puritans attacking The King, and Non-conformists  imprisoned by the State.  Islamic states demand conformity to the Koran and Sharia Law and crack down harshly on dissent. Under Modi, India has moved towards a Hindu-based nationalism that is causing conflict with other faiths and secularists. In the USA, Christian Nationalists who are mainly white evangelical fundamentalists are aiming to impose their Christian values on the whole population because they are certain they are doing the will of God.

This short poem attacks the certainties of belief sytems:

The Place Where We Are Right 
by Yehuda Amichai (Israeli poet)

From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the spring.
The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.
But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plough.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined house once stood.

Christians don’t agree with each other and never have.

The Methodist chapels I visited and preached in usually had over the entrance, carved in stone, “Primitive Methodist Chapel” or “Wesleyan Methodist Chapel” because the church established after Wesley’s death split and then split again, mostly reuniting in 1938. Just a tiny example of the doctrinal splits in the Christian church over the centuries. At the very beginning of the Christian faith, recorded in the book of Acts, there is a dispute between the followers of Jesus. Some saw themselves as reformed Jews while others believed the message of Jesus went beyond Judaism. Over the succeeding centuries conflicts between Christians led to wars and the wholesale murder of so-called heretics. Christians have found it impossible to follow one of Jesus main commands, “Love one another as I have loved you” and today there are approximately 45,000 different Christian groups. 

The exclusivity of religions always bothered me and the endless divisions within the followers of Jesus bothered me even more. If we can’t love our brother who we have seen how can we love God who we have not seen? 

Like a might tortoise moves the church of God.
Brothers we are treading where we’ve always trod.
We are all divided, many bodies we,
Very strong on doctrine but weak in charity.

Holy Books

Just as there is no rational way to resolve the claims made by different religions, is also the case with the claims made for holy books. Believers naturally consider their holy book to be a cornerstone of their faith. If the cornerstone is challenged or weakened the whole edifice of belief may come crashing down. This is why biblical fundamentalists defend the book of Genesis so strongly against the theory of evolution. In the USA 30% of the population still reject evolution as the explanation of how human beings emerged on Earth. 

I once heard an Iman debating with a Christian priest and a Rabbi, saying because the Koran was a single book given by an angel to Muhammad in the 7th Century it supersedes any revelation claimed by Jews or Christians and so the Koran must be the final authoritative “Word of God”. From his perspective and that of Islam there can be no argument. 

The Bible

When I was much younger, I tried and failed to make the bible, verse by verse The Word of God, even to the extent of questioning evolution but had to give up this pointless struggle. Much later I disagreed with the elders in my church over this issue. The dispute opened my eyes to the fact that what Christians believe is not first and foremost God or Jesus but the Bible. The Bible is the ultimate authority on which all else stands, whether Christian doctrine, church governance or Christian mission. The Bible, together with a a doctrinal statement is the source of unity within a denominational group and the cause of disunity between the groups. In the end it comes down to the interpretation of the biblical text and interpretation is human not divine. The Bible is seen by some as a God-inspired jigsaw where every God-spoken verse must fit but human beings with human minds decide how the Bible is understood and interpreted. Ultimately, authority rests not even with the Bible but with the mind of the person who reads it, giving it the status he/she decides to give it. It all comes back to The Believing Brain.

 “The Word of God”, view of the Bible, and the futile quest for certainty create fault lines that divide Christians from one another; the place of women in the church for example. The Roman Catholic church does not allow women priests and even forbids its priests to marry. It took years for the Church of England to accept women as priests and then more years to ordain them bishops.  You may argue this is not central to the Christian faith and is just a distraction, but it’s a distraction that clouds the teaching of the central figure of the faith, Jesus himself, a man who went counter to the misogyny of his times in his dealings with women.

I now see the Bible as containing the Word of God rather than being the Word of God. Rather like a violin concerto in which the solo violin can be heard, either mingled with the orchestra or in sublime purity. If you listen with ears that are open to this music, this voice, it may be heard in many places, not just the Bible. Except, I still have a problem with the G-word itself.

The G-word & Model Dependent Realism

The term "model-dependent realism" was coined by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow in their 2010 book, The Grand Design. Models use things we can see and understand to help us picture things we cannot see like atoms, or don’t understand like light. Atoms at school are pictured crudely as miniature solar systems. Light is pictured both as a particle or a wave since neither model is adequate by itself. But these models are only approximations to an unknowable reality. Fortunately in the physical world equations can describe the behaviour of atoms and light where models fail. 

But what about the spiritual world? What about G? I don’t like the G-word because there is no suitable model and there are certainly no equations. Who is G? What is G like? Does G answer prayer? What does G do to you when you die? These questions will bring a multitude of different answers depending on who you ask.

Assuming G exists, he/she/it is someone(something?) we cannot see and who(which) is completely beyond our understanding. He/she/it is a mystery, so to think about G at all we have no choice but to use models based on ourselves. Words like Creator, Judge, Ruler, Lord and so on are used but with attributes stretched to superhuman level like omnipotent and omniscient. In the OT we find expressions like Jehovah-Jireh (God the provider), Jehovah-Rapha (God the healer) and Jehovah-Nisi (God the banner or victorious) to flesh out the meaning of Jehovah. Islam has 99 attributes of Allah to help pin down the mystery that is Allah. Jesus at least gave a much simpler, down to earth model, God as Father.

This World is Not Conclusion 

Has humanity actually deceived itself? Is there nothing there to model in the first place? Many would say yes; there is no god of any description. Personally, I cannot adopt this absolutist position and instead find myself in tune with Emily Dickinson in her poem, This World is Not Conclusion

This world is not conclusion.
A species stands beyond  
Invisible as music 
But positive as sound 
It beckons and it baffles  
Philosophy don’t know  
And through a riddle at the last  
Sagacity must go 
To guess it puzzles scholars 
To gain it men have borne
Contempt of generations
And crucifixion shown 
Faith slips and laughs and rallies  
Blushes if any see  
Plucks at a twig of evidence  
And asks a vane the way  
Much gesture from the pulpit 
Strong Hallelujahs roll  
Narcotics cannot still the tooth
That nibbles at the soul 

G is Love

In the Bible, in I John 4:7-8, we read: “Beloved, let’s love one another; for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”  The word “love” here is the translation of the Gk. “agape” which means unselfish, sacrificial love. This is the love that Paul describes so memorably in 1 Cor:13.

In the past I expected G to be visible in the world as he clearly seemed to be in Jesus’ ministry. This visibility I conceived to be G showing himself in power with healings, miracles, and revival sweeping through a community as the power of the Holy Spirit was made manifest. I was absorbed by historical revivals in Wales and the Hebrides, and modern revivals in Toronto and Pensacola. A friend offered to pay for me to go to Pensacola, but I refused the offer because I wanted to see revival in my hometown. Yet no amount of prayer, worship, preaching or fasting brought it about - “We piped for you, but you did not dance”. We were like the priests of Baal in the OT who danced round the offering on the altar but could not set it ablaze. If G really is G, why is he not seen to be G? Surely if G has any existence, then he/she must be present in the world and in every part of it, not just among Christians or any other exclusive group. I eventually realised instead of looking for a G of power I should be looking for a G of agape love, and when I did, G was visible everywhere. Every day across the whole Earth people of all religions and none, lay down their lives for one another in selfless love. The Parable of The Good Samaritan is lived out across the world every hour of every day, and the God who is Love is revealed.

Agape love is the way I have come to understand the G-word. It is the refuge where I have made my home. Instead of trying to imagine an incomprehensible, unknowable and unseen G, I think instead of unselfish, sacrificial love. Also, as John says, in giving this love and seeking to live unselfish lives, we become children of G. I also understand G. as Jesus taught, the Father who welcomes home his erring children.

The Good News of The Kingdom of Agape Love

The apostle Paul found himself pulled in two directions, “The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.” There were two opposing forces in his life which we all recognise. Jesus called these forces the Kingdom of the World and The Kingdom of God. 

Our physical self is the product of evolution, the survival of the fittest, and is governed by the laws and equations of science. Survival is built into our genes so inevitably we think constantly about ourselves and our need for warmth, food, shelter, rest and self-gratification. This is what I understand as the Kingdom of the World. Love in this me-first world is expressed in the sexual desire that has evolved to procreate the next generation and our “love” of money, power and things which are the systems we have created for our survival. Yet me-first is not all we are, another kingdom is at work within us, an altruistic force that puts the needs of others before our own. This I see as The Kingdom of God (or Heaven), or the Kingdom of Agape Love.

Matthew records the start of Jesus’ ministry in these words: 

“Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”. I believe this is essence of the gospel (good news) that Jesus preached.

The Kingdom of Heaven (God in Luke) runs counter to our ego-centric, selfish, evolution-born selves. Where scientific laws and maths equations rule the Kingdom of the World, agape love, repentance and forgiveness are the laws that rule in the Kingdom of God. Jesus was faced with the conflict between these two kingdoms in the wilderness before the start of his ministry. In the “Blessed …” sayings listed in Mat. Ch 5, Jesus spelled out those who are blessed by God: the poor, the pure in heart, the merciful, the peacemakers, those hungry for righteousness and so on, and later in the Sheep & Goats parable he teaches that the division of humanity after death is based on agape love, not on whether you believe Jesus bought your salvation by his death on the cross.

In The Sermon on The Mount (Mt: 5-7) Jesus sets out the values of the Kingdom of Heaven but sets an impossible standard that no one can achieve. “You must be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect”, he said. Then he finishes with the challenge to build the house of our lives on the rock of the Kingdom of Heaven not simply by hearing his words but by living them out. Our inevitable failure to live the Agape life means we constantly need forgiveness. Jesus taught that forgiveness has a price, not the price of his death on the cross but the price of our forgiveness of others. The prayer he taught his disciples includes, “Forgive us our trespasses as (in the same way) we forgive those who trespass against us”. The “Lord’s Prayer” is entirely about praying for this Kingdom of Love to come ever more completely into our lives, as we are faced with the constant challenge to choose between the values of the two kingdoms. 

I think it tragic that the church has completely lost sight of this good news that Jesus preached. Why for example have churches set up food banks but not marched and campaigned and shouted from the roof tops about the iniquity of the 6th richest country in the world needing them? We have created a society where the gods of money and power rule – the survival of the richest. So much for Jesus’ warnings about camels and needles, or rich men building bigger barns. 

Jesus’ way of sacrificial love is a narrow way, few find it and few live it. The writer G K Chesterton said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”

In Conclusion

Though I am no longer a traditional Christian believer I remain a faltering disciple of Jesus and believe in his Gospel of The Kingdom of agape Love.

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Using Scientific reasoning to examine beliefs 

From The Believing Brain by Michael Shermer

1. The Null hypothesis: assume something is not true until proven otherwise.
2. Burden of proof: lies with those making a positive claim not with those who do not believe the claim. E.g. UFOs exist – show me an alien, or alien spacecraft. E.g. There is a God – give me unquestionable evidence.
3. Science of convergence: lots of lines of evidence from different science disciplines converge on the same conclusion. The Theory of Evolution rest on data from many fields - geology, palaeontology, botany, zoology, biogeography, comparative anatomy and physiology, genetics, etc. If someone wishes to challenge the evidence, they must overturn every piece from every field by giving alternative explanations for each one.
4. The Comparative Method: this is a way of looking at history and asking why did this happen and not that? E.g why was America colonised by Europeans and not the other way round? Why is North Korea much poorer than South Korea? Explanations for these must rest on many lines of hard evidence not just simple ideas such as race superiority or ideology.
5. Positive Evidence: the principle of positive evidence states you must have positive evidence in favour of your theory and not just negative evidence against rival theories. Creationists cannot assert the lack of a scientific theory for how life began means the theory of evolution is wrong and that God is the only explanation.

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