POLITICS AS THE POSSIBILITY OF THE ARTFUL

Gordon Brown, artfully manoeuvred into Downing Street, will have little room to operate in for his global social justice agenda. But what tiny space there is will be created by the power of imagination and the pressure for change coming from below. Look at the example of Northern Ireland. And global warming, for that matter. There's miles to go, but we wouldn't be anywhere without the influence of civil society and the mobilisation of cyber-influence.

SPEAKING OUT OF THE WHIRLWIND

It is a sad reality that some of the greatest platitudes come out of the mouths of enthusiastic believers, while it is the sceptics who (more encouragingly) get closer to theological wisdom. Correspondingly, the crisis of Christendom - an ecclesial domination system whose interests have often obscured the gospel - has been well understood by a thoughtful minority from Kierkegaard onwards. But not usually by those most enmeshed in church polity. Combining those two thoughts, here is the late English composer Sir Michael Tippett (of whose music and passionate free-flowing artistic humanism I am a devotee), hitting the nail on the head. From among his disparate writings collected in The Age of Aquarius, I believe. Though it might have been Music of the Angels.

"I have .. not the slightest idea where healing will come [from] because the moment of complete dereliction for the Christian civilization has probably not been reached and so the moment of God's voice from the whirlwind has not come. Though perhaps the whirlwind has come! And that is the only kernel of truth I see - that God will be found in the refuse bin as of old - the stone that has been thrown away."

I know I have quoted that before, but it keeps coming back to me with great force. Incidentally, my recently revived and rather eclectic music blog is here. Something to keep life balanced and connected - music, that is. Not necessarily blogging ;)

CHANGE WITHIN ISLAM AND WELL BEYOND

There's a really interesting and important piece in the International Herald Tribune, Only traditional Islam can do it, by Phillip Blond a senior lecturer in philosophy and religion at the University of Cumbria (also an established Radical Orthodoxy luminary) and Adrian Pabst, lecturer in theology at the University of Nottingham.

What they are essentially arguing for is a strongly tradition-rooted resistance, from among Muslims, to the legitimation of terror within present, politicized Islam. Contemporary Islamic fundamentalism is, they point out, modern and heretical rather than 'traditional' - contrary to the mistaken assumptions of many commentators and a superficial reporting culture. (I think it's inevitably more cloudy than that, but in the final analysis they are right.) So, they write, "given that we are losing the battle of hearts and minds, we would be well advised to chart a different path. By encouraging an Islamic renaissance and reviving traditions that the fundamentalists have so violently suppressed, Muslim youth might be diverted from their present course." By contrast, trying to make Islam less Muslim (as if it was all corrupt, and non-religious modernity is all benign) is unworkable and counter-productive. Read it all here.

This is clearly related to the current news issue of who gets to be imams, how they are formed and equipped, and where they come from. That has actually been a Muslim (and inter-faith) concern for many, many years. And those like Philip Lewis in Bradford, and others, who have tried to get it recognised have often been ignored or misunderstood. So good on the BBC for finally getting there, courtesy of the University of Chester. But the media and government are only just coming up to speed with these things - and they still have no idea about how behind they remain and how much they don't know. Witness, in contrast to Blond and Pabst, Robert Piggott's simplistic meme-transmission that imams just need to be more modern and less foreign if they are to be any good. In other contexts this would be seen as deeply patronising and even racist, and not without warrant.

So I'm essentially in agreement with Blond and Pabst, I think. What will stop Muslims, Christians and other religionists (as well as humanists, atheists and non-believers) from developing into bigots, murderers and haters is not trying to tell them that they must become less Christian or Muslim (say) if they are to be civilized "like us". It is the recovery of deep traditions of compassion within each of these ways of believing, becoming and behaving.

I am really only qualified to talk about Christian faith here, which I am personally convinced offers a vital path to transformation and change - in spite of the distortions and crimes that have often been committed in its name. But the liberating message of the Gospel can only be surfaced by simultaneously identifying and combating the many corruptions of that message theologically (at the core of its intellectual and spiritual imagination). This requires active communities committed to 'the other way' which is, we will discover as we walk it, the way of Jesus in his filial relation to God and others; a way which has been obscured by numerous attempts to co-opt a Christ figure into the designs of imperial religion and the religion of imperialism.

Here I probably have a bit of a different emphasis to my RO friends. It seems to me that their narrative is so over-determined by the "tradition is good, modernity is bad" paradigm, that it is in danger of becoming yet another kind of Romanticism (with a huge Catholic cloak). That is, either a plea by an elite to let them civilize others, or a cosy smoothing of tradition and a dismissive abrasion of the contemporary. I don't think that's quite what they intend, but the presenting rhetoric moves in that direction.

According to St Matthew, Jesus spoke a more interesting, realistic and paradoxical truth about bringing things old and new out of the storehouse. But aren't "new things", by definition, found outside storehouses? Yes and no. It is the courage of deep convictions (ones that can't simply be dreamt up out-of-the-blue by heroic individuals) which enables us to embrace the best of the new, to innovate faithfully, to hope for change, to be grounded as we move into excitingly uncharted territory. (I love the here-and-now, in spite of its many warts, warps and weals!)

But this process is also continually reciprocal. Encountering goodness in the contemporary (think of the rightful pressure of feminism and the women's movement on the patriarchal assumptions of church polity, say) enables us to discover those elements in our tradition (the ekklesia of equals) which were actually way ahead of their time. It's just that we didn't get them. The newness of the kin-dom of God is startling. These 'traditional' recoveries can, in turn, challenge the excesses and corruptions of the present (the idea that either biology or gendered culture are destiny, say, which have been problematics within feminism throughout its history).

To make this kind of thing possible, we need living moral communities (congregations, networks, associations) which are also interpretative communities - those who take conscious and collective responsibility for carrying the past into the future in ways that free us, unite us, and respond to visions of humanity and the world which are enriching, compassionate, non-violent and expanding. This is a massive task, I know. The alternative belief in some round-the-corner political fix, or the temptation to seek a new piety (some current secularism has an unhealthy belief in its own inherent goodness and the evil of that which it contends, say) may look overwhelming.

But, being a Christian, I really do believe that the resources of an unlimited, fathomless, unbargainable, wholly non-competitive love can re-make us and enable us to be re-makers - if we start to help each other behave with the humility and commitment which is, in fact, a true life of prayer. (Prayer means "living beyond our means" as fallible creatures graced by God, rather than people who have to rely just on willpower).

What's depressing is that many Christians appear not to believe this at all, to judge from their public behaviour. They appear to believe that the Gospel somehow warrants them to compel others, to seize 'right' by might, and to defend their interests with every weapon at their disposal. Those convictions are the core of the US religious right, and of the newer UK "we are being persecuted" lobbies, sadly. And their distorted definitions of what is 'right' and what 'interests' really matter are, of course, central to the problem. Jesus suggested that those who seek to defend life to the death end up losing it. 'Christian ideology' fails to see this in any way.

Meanwhile, for all its failings (and I am sure they are many) Ekklesia and its allies are trying to point in a very different direction. I'd like to think that RO are too, but they seem to want to reinvent Christendom. Which is a very bad idea indeed, in my book. I've enjoyed the beginnings of an exchange with John Milbank about this, and hope it can continue at some point. Meanwhile, his Centre of Theology and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham has helpfully put up a link to the BBC Radio 4 Beyond Belief discussion on Christian Socialism which featured John and my colleague and friend Jonathan Bartley. [Picture: East London Mosque]

THE POLITICAL ART OF THE IMPOSSIBLE

Thanks to Deirdre Good (specifically her fine blog On Not Being A Sausage) for pointing me in the direction of Daniel J. Mahoney's 'City Journal' review of Vaclav Havel's memoir, To the Castle and Back, published by Knopf. The article explores the twists and turns of his interestingly textured thought. Whether politics can be substantially re-grounded in a notion of what John D. Caputo calls "a passion for the impossible" without a commitment to the transcendent as more than simply notional (otherwise it remains just a re-working of the C19th Romanticism of "the sublime"), is the interesting theological question inscribed (but not really explored) on the body of Havel's work - which commendably takes "doing the truth" - a quirky Johannine phrase, actually - as its datum. In many respects it could be described as the negotiable space between those two overlapping but distinctly different "apostles of the impossible", Jacques Derrida and Jean Luc Marion (q.v. on FaithInSociety).

Mahoney writes: "In his post-1989 books and speeches, Havel [pictured] continued to defend a moral vision of politics that he called “nonpolitical politics” or “politics as morality in practice.” He identified this vision with the demanding but liberating task of “living in truth.” Havel refused to identify politics with a dehumanizing “technology of power,” the notion that power was an end in itself. Instead he defended a moral order that stands above law, politics, and economics—a moral order that “has a metaphysical anchoring in the infinite and eternal.” His speeches as president, many collected in English in The Art of the Impossible (1997), were artful exercises in moral and political philosophizing, enthralling Western audiences."

DEBT EXPOSES OUR TRUE VESTED INTERESTS

The idea that nice David Cameron has transformed the Tories into a party of caring, sharing greenery and social concern begins to look decidedly suspect whenever you actually examine their policies on crunch issues involving, er, money. After all, wanting to hang on to your piles of dosh is still one of the main reasons for voting Conservative. So part of the aim of the current veneer of social progressivism is, apart from trying to steal Gordon Brown’s clothes, aimed at removing the one barrier that has stopped many people doing so in recent years – the ‘nasty party’ image.

But what of the substance behind the spin? Well, confronted with the mounting evidence about soaring private debt and its clear relation to unscrupulous lending policies in the private sector, the Conservatives are conveniently trying to blame government borrowing (which is actually running at a third of the general rate) for the Bank of England’s decision to hike interest rates. They are also seeking to magic away the case for financial regulation (which New Labour is no more committed to, incidentally). And astonishingly they are suggesting that ‘more competition’ in the financial services industry sub-prime will help. As Will Hutton of the Work Foundation pointed out on BBC2 TV’s Newsnight programme yesterday – this is a major part of the problem, not part of the solution. Economically vulnerable people are already swimming in an ocean of meaningless and often misleading choices.

But the suasions of neo-liberal ideology – which is really a form of deformed secular theology – are such that the facts of the dislocated money economy (which operates on quite different terms to the productive economy) are obscured – especially in the hands of those whose vested interests (in spite of rhetoric about combating poverty) are firmly entrenched on the side of the ‘haves’ rather than the ‘have nots’. The image may change, but the centrifugal nature of organised conservatism does not. Meanwhile, interest rates are likely to increase and house prices slow down – a double trap for many.

Some of the underlying issues are explained in Peter Selby’s important 1997 study Grace and Mortgage: The Language of Faith and the Debt of the World (Darton, Longman and Todd).

THE LIVELY PERSISTENCE OF THE OUTSIDER

"A widow with no shame confronted a judge with no conscience.
Time and again she pleaded for vindication before him.
He finally gave in because, even if ethics did not bother him,
she did."

Whatever you think of the details of some of his historical and scholarly judgements, John Dominic Crossan is always helpfully disturbing. The author of God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now (2007, available at the link from Metanoia Books), and many other works, did a fabulous job a few years ago when he compiled The Essential Jesus: Original Sayings and Earliest Images (Harper Collins 1994). Its core is a sharp, arresting set of "dynamic equivalents" for some of the best known recorded remarks of Jesus - an attempt to replicate their shock and impact for a world (and especially a church) which has now grown over-familiar or complacent about them. Crossan explains how and why he chose and rendered these texts. He makes modest claims about his procedures. And and the book also contains notes on these words' social context and significance - then and now. See also his Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography.

The saying above conveys the essence of the parable traditionally called 'The unjust judge' or the 'importunate widow' (Luke 18. 2-8). The point is not that the judge is analogous to God, as over-hasty and less-informed readers (like dear Richard Dawkins?) are apt to conclude... rather the reverse: that the God-movement in the world, far from being superstitious obeisance to a distant and unmoved ruler, is actually like the persistence of the poor in demanding a different kind of kin-dom, based on right relations. It invites us to a social, personal, spiritual and intellectual reversal of expectations. The God beyond 'gods' changes us precisely by being not being part of our world of competitive relations and by inviting us to a love that cannot be manipulated by favour. Like the widow, the God of Jesus is an outsider to the demanding expectations of the regnant - be they self-styled believers or self-styled non-believers.

IS CAPITALISM REALLY THE 'ONLY SHOW IN TOWN'?

Having invested half-heartedly in largely rhetorical criticisms of capitalism for many years, especially in ecumenical circles, church leaders these days are apt to demonstrate their 'realism' by accommodating themselves to the contrary rhetoric of market efficacy and the fruits of 'wealth creation'. This is equally superficial. I critiqued it in some detail (both economically and theologically) in the paper Is God Bankrupt? A response to Prosperity with a Purpose. For while being "against globalisation" per se is a bit like being against gravity (the issue is what kind of globalisation), and while 'state socialism' has collapsed in a heap as an alternative theory of action, the questions about the insidious nature of Mammon remain.

What's more, the churches, in spite of their struggles, have at their disposal concrete resources, assets, structures, investments and relations which could - if considered as the fabric for a Gospel which affirms both gift-giving and a transforming society of equals (ekklesia) - contribute towards alternative ways of 'doing economy'. That is what is needed both within, and in contrast to, the overwhelming money-driven nature of our dominant systems. And it is a concern shared by greens, labour movements, corporate responsibility campaigners, monetary justice reformers, fair trade advocates, and other 'new economics' advocates. But the churches are too busy arguing about sex and survival to notice what is really at stake.

Which is why it is timely that a leading East German Protestant - who was a critic of the old GDR and cannot simply be accused of 'mindless leftism' - has spoken out strongly against the seductions and deceits of capitalist (specifically neoliberal) ideology for the churches. See the full article here. "What are the dominant interests in the church: self-preservation, maintaining its position, increasing its profile or service for others?" Heino Falcke (picture above) asked a conference at the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt in eastern Germany, where Martin Luther once trained as a Roman Catholic monk. He called for a renewal of social-ist (sic) thinking and practice as an ecclesial necessity. Now there's something worth thinking about. But don't expect it to raise so much as an eyebrow at the forthcoming Church of England General Synod - where there will be much more important internecine scores to settle.

FRANKLY JUST TOO MUCH TO DO?

"Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing." - Thomas A. Edison

"Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy." - Kahlil Gibran

Courtesy of Don Iannone's interesting Conscious Living Poetry blog, which is now continuing over at Poetic Alchemist... after he had a near escape from becoming a used car salesman. Phew! More about Don here.

FANTASY BY ANY OTHER NAME?

So, the third series of the revived Doctor Who is over. It's a programme I grew up with intermittently in the '70s, and which now seems to be turning viewers and revenue towards the BBC at a significant rate - due to the undeniably artful regeneration worked on it by Russell T. Davies. The genres of fantasy adventure and sci-fi are not ones that really press my buttons, though I can appreciate the ideas they throw up. But when I am in London I share a house with three people very much absorbed in such worlds, intelligently and entertainingly so. Through this I have discovered that it can be fun to live in another universe. Plus I have friends whose kids love the show. All of which means that, when I'm around, and he's on BBC1, I tune in to the Doctor to see what he's up to. I guess I've seen half of this latest series. I don't, of course, pretend to know much about DW. But I hope I know enough to comment on the 'theological projections' some people seem keen to attach to it.

The 'season finale' (which was on Saturday 30 June 2007) is a good example, since it had enough apparently "obvious" reiterations of Christian or religious notions to excite those who look out for these kind of connections. Among whom I am not, it must be said, one. The industry of dismally poor 'Christian' cultural interpretation is depressing enough, without feeding it. (Forgive me if that seems mean, but 'glib' and 'embarrassingly superficial' could be the only responses to a trawl of the dross that's out there on the internet claiming that just about every fictional character ever invented is Jesus in disguise, sort of.)

What one needs to understand, I think, is that to Russell T. Davies 'theology' (I use the inverted commas advisedly) is simply the ordering of another form of fantasy fiction. So while the references in DW are probably deliberate, they function within a set of archetypes which presuppose their redundancy in 'religious' (q. v.) terms. It may be overstating the situation to say that their use is deconstructing religion, but it would be nearer the truth. However, those who look too hard, and who want what they take to be a 'Christian' message affirmed too easily, don't get this. Doctor Who is, it seems to me, fairly discernibly post-Christian and post-religious in its assumptions (while being playfully elusive about this kind of stuff, to keep everyone on board). It absorbs 'religious' tropes into a self-generating science culture fantasy.

So, in Last of the Time Lords, 'prayer' becomes an organic, near-universal wish-fulfilment channeled through a sort of kinetic energy force-field, say. Which is, of course, an idea based on a popular (mis)understanding of prayer as the childish reaching out for help to an all-powerful but non-existent force - a notion now transcended within the 'real' DW world reconfigured by post-atomic and post-silicon based technology. (Actual prayer, by the way, is more to do with abandoning the attempt to turn the universe to one's advantage, though you wouldn't know that from the way it gets spoken about and practiced in many quarters).

Note also the way that forgiveness and nonviolence, though recognised as 'better ways', become antechambers to potentially endless imprisonment, precisely because there can be no final redemption. So The Master, who is about to be a captive in a time machine, ends up being killed by a human, his wife, whose life he took over - and who in an instant puts an end to such well-meaning futility (because, as someone has just pointed out to me, he has hypnotised her). In the bigger narrative this assumes, the power of love is not denied - but being dependent upon creaturely will, it cannot overcome sheer power. Only force can do that. That is the Doctor's fate, too. He defies death and violence as far as he can, often very far indeed. But even he is subsumed by it. This is the type of 'saviour figure' Dr Who is; the best 'incarnation of good' you could reasonably hope for in the absence of God (and the presence of a quantum leap in technology). That's post-theology, or rather (I'd argue) post bad theology - the only kind most people know.

There is much to learn in all this, of course. And like many humanistic visions that start with how good can prevail after it can safely be assumed that God is dead, Doctor Who, even while it is 'only' an entertainment show, has great moral nobility. (I would argue that Nietzsche has a considerably more realistic viewpoint, however, which is how he can recognise the tragedy of God's death in a way that more braggardly non-religion simply can't.)

If I had the time, inclination and ability, I might be be quite interested to explore what kind of 'God' has 'died' (or, rather, ceased to have any kind of meaning at all, outside the pervasive comfort-zone of 'spirituality') in much contemporary popular culture. It is, I am sure, in some way or other, 'the God of metaphysics' (a 'higher power' derived from speculative theory and transcendental analogies of being). And a good thing too. The catch, of course, is that this is taken to be the end of the God story per se, since many people who have left 'religion' or who have never felt its suasion have little grasp of (or patience for, or interest in) how to think beyond what are actually rather naive forms of forensic, positivistic and 'sola empiricism' reasoning in this area. But that is the big intellectual blindfold of Western cultures at the moment. Along with neoliberalism. And therein lies another story...

Incidentally (and excuse the momentary diversion), Jacques Derrida's later fascinating dialogues with academic theology (conversations carried out by a man who proclaimed that he"could rightly pass for an atheist") sprung from precisely this recognition about the naivete of attempts to 'end' God-talk through positivism, showing that you do not have to be a 'believer' to recognise what's wrong with some kinds of atheism. Just a person who appreciates the significance of the 'linguistic turn' and of phenomenology for confounding hubristic, analytically-developed arguments that far too many people on all sides think are (or can be) essentially 'decided'.

Anyway, back to Doctor Who! Rowan Williams made an interesting comment about the programme some time ago. There are also, I'm told, reasonable theological interractions with the Doctor around - such as Philip Purser Hallard's. Ekklesia referenced his 2005 Greenbelt talks here. I ought to look at them more carefully, but I haven't yet. Maybe when I do, and when other people get back to me about what I've written here, I shall discover that I'm on the wrong track altogether. Ah, for an intellectual Tardis, eh?

LISTENING TO McGRATH AND DAWKINS

Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University and former senior molecular biophysicist Alister McGrath gave a talk earlier in 2007 called "The Dawkins Delusion", which is also the title of his recent book - one I will be reviewing at some point. The lecture is available for download here (sound file), and is copyright St Ebbe’s Church, Oxford (copying talks is prohibited).

As a former atheist, McGrath is respectful yet critical of the movement. In recent years, he has been especially interested in the emergence of what claims to be "scientific atheism", and has researched the distinctive approach to atheist apologetics found in the writings of the Oxford zoologist and scientific popularizer Richard Dawkins. A video of an extended discussion between Dawkins and McGrath on science and faith now available, courtesy of Dawkins' website, here (mov. file)

At present, McGrath is researching the iconic role played by Charles Darwin in atheist apologetics, and the appeal to the controversial concept of the "meme" in recent atheist accounts of the origins of belief in God.

I have a number of differences with McGrath at certain points, but he has made some thoughtful and important criticisms of Dawkins on religion in his recent two books.

IDENTITY AND ETHICS IN BLOGWORLD

There's a big discussion in blogworld about the ethics of debate and attribution - Thinking Anglicans had this on ad hominem remarks and anonymous posters. Maggi Dawn has also given a recent example of a style of debate which seems deeply unhelpful. This isn't about limiting free speech, it's about courtesy, respect and the tools of ongoing enlightnment, surely?
Since I 'enabled' comments on FaithInSociety I've had quite a few anonymous responses to posts. I might excerpt and include/respond to a few of the (less abusive!) ones if I get a moment. But I don't post anonymously on the web myself, and I won't, as a rule, be publishing material here from anyone who doesn't include an email or link back to their own website - though I will happily keep a comment anonymous or pseudepigraphic if anyone requests that by emailing me. Hope that seems clear and fair.

As I've said before, a bit of me feels bad that I won't be able to host big debates, and that this is largely a comment rather than discussion forum. It's mainly a matter of time, from my POV. But I also value being able to publish some 'in transit' thinking without making it immediately subject to disputatious interraction... unlike some of the 'public' utterances or activities I am engaged in through Ekklesia. Some people object to that on principle, but for me it is part of the variety of communication we need. The idea that everyone is always obliged to respond can be a bit overwhelming, to say the least. It's an evolving medium.

Incidentally, in accepting me as a friend on Facebook, Maggi said we were "members of the blogosphere". Now there's a thought. Who dishes out those membership cards, eh? If I get one of those, I may be seriously spooked! No thanks, Jack Straw ;)

One last thing. I know my counter has still been chucking up those wretched ILead ads that defy your pop-up blockers. I have saved my Motigo data and switched to another service, the sdmirable Statcounter. Meanwhile, the graphic on this post has been deliberately nicked from a screensaver spam ad. So there, pop-upsters!

KNOWING (AND NOT KNOWING ABOUT) GOD?

Knowledge is not simply a matter of external observation, scrutiny and testing. It is about participation in and relation to what we claim as 'reality', including the reflexive distance of language by which we deduce/adduce something of what it is we participate in or relate to. If the reality at issue is a 'chair', say, there is a huge body of common human experience and observation to go on. Plus there is a universe-pattern that a chair can be shown to be part of, which exists to reinforce and legitimate an agreed account of what this thing is - an account which proves usable and sustainable for our living. That is why we go on 'believing' it.

However, that is not how things work with God, since God is not an object of any kind, not reducible to any particular element of experience, naming (designation) or universal patterning. Rather, when we speak of God we are talking of the mystery that holds the universe in being, and we necessarily speak in tradition-specific ways which involve both contradiction and paradox. Any means of claiming things about God (like 'being' or 'non-being') which does not recognise this as both a pattern and a limitation for reasonable talk about 'the divine' is, in a post/modern context, in deep trouble from the outset. That is a challenge for someone like A. C. Grayling among the 'deniers' of God, and much as it is for those who make claims for God. But it largely ignored. Even in supposedly literate circles.

How we move in a different direction from the current deadlock is, it seems to me, the 'theological issue'. How can we claim to speak with credibility about the nature of God, or to claim we 'know' about God (to affirm or deny, for instance)? It's part of a project I am developing entitled God After Christendom - which will argue that, in spite of massive problems and distortions arising from the near absorption of large elements of historic Christianity into patterns of worldly domination which have often nearly extinguished its soul, the core 'traditional' elements of Christian speech and grammar turn out, surprisingly, to be key resources in helping us to have something significant and genuinely life-giving to say and do about God -- who cannot be written off as dead, but is massively libelled (and mostly by 'the religious').

In the meantime, what follows is adapted from my paper What difference does God make today?, with a couple of small changes resulting from correspondence. The joy of internet publication is that you can go on modifying the text. Hopefully (though not always) to improve it - or, as I think one should say in all modesty, make it less inadequate.

“To speak appropriately of the holy mystery that makes and heals the world, but is not the world nor any item in it, is quite beyond the [analytic] resources of language,” says Nicholas Lash. God-talk is therefore inescapably metaphorical - that is the way its aspiration to truth is necessarily formed. “It is the tragedy of Western culture to have fallen prey to the illusion (widely shared by believer and non-believer alike) that it is perfectly easy to talk about God.” [Holiness, speech and Silence]

Serious religious activity (worship and action that refuses the dominating claims of 'deities', both religious and non-religious in form) involves disciplining ourselves to avoid pinning down and labelling the Holy One - "the unfamiliar Name" (T. S. Eliot). It involves learning how to recognise that we, and all things, are, in the flow of the Christian story at least, lovingly created (gifted) into peace – and that at the end of the day, this is all we ‘know’ – for we are contingent.

To know God in this way is not to know a scientifically or philosophically determinable ‘fact’, or to be able to describe ‘frameworks of cosmic order’, but to enter a personal, communal and narrative relationship, embodied in social practice. Above all, this takes time, patience and cooperation. And it assumes the surprising conclusion of traditional Christian thought, which is that God is disclosed as God within the conditions of the material world, rightly apprehended, and not anywhere else. Esoteric knowledge of ‘another world’ is not presupposed.

To live before God, in a dignified way, is also to acknowledge our radical dependence (the condition of our mortality) without pathology. God is no tyrant, but the life-giver. To be humanly free in the presence of God – a deeper freedom than mere ‘autonomy’ – is to learn how appropriately to handle contingency and brokenness (alongside the abundant joys of life) through mutuality, belonging, listening, forgiving and attentiveness.

The outcome of this is not ‘spirituality’ – a privatised zone of consolation or esoteric ‘knowledge’ – but radical personal, social and political engagement with the pain and noise of the world in the direction of healing (holiness), conditioned by the hopefulness embodied for and with us in the liberating Word that resonates in Jesus Christ and originates in the eternally inviting silence of God.

That will have to do as an interim summary. The rest is here. [Picture: with thanks to http://33ad.blogspot.com/]

CHANGING THE AGENDA - HOW YOU CAN HELP

Received ideas about neutrality, ‘news values’ and the place of reporting in current events must be questioned as a result of the changing global role of the media in an age of conflict, Simon Barrow of the UK think-tank Ekklesia will suggest at a meeting in St Ethelburga's Centre, London, tomorrow night. He will ask why concrete attempts at conflict transformation (rather than just ‘resolution’) rarely feature in mainstream reporting – even though, in places like Ireland, South Africa and the Middle East, they turn out to be of crucial importance. The example of reporting on the Christian Peacemaker Teams 'kidnap in Iraq' story (pictured) will be among those featured.

The discussion on ‘Making peace headline news’ will take place at St Ethelburga's, 78 Bishopsgate, London EC2N 4AG, starting at 6.30pm on Tuesday 26 June. Attendance is open and free (suggested donation £5), but those intending to come along are asked to email the Centre here.

St Ethelburga’s is five minutes walk from both Bank and Liverpool Street stations (Zone 1). You can walk over the bridge from London Bridge Station in about 15 minutes. View the location online at Streetmap.

THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE

“If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.” George Elliot.

My friend Alison Goodlad has an fine, thoughtful and moving piece up on Ekklesia (Culture and Review) on Finding at-one-ment in Middlemarch, in which she re-reads Eliot’s classic novel – and discovers that its apparently provincial and culturally-bound narrative has some powerful things to tell us about loving purpose in life, atonement and even Eucharistic living. It has been adapted from an address given at St Stephen's, Exeter, earlier this month (June 2007).

FACEBOOKING THE FUTURE?

According to the estimable Sunny Hundal over on Pickled Politics, Facebook (the social networking site that's seen as cool and well tooled up, now that MySpace is creaking a bit - unless you are a musician) has significant potential for getting people to think and mobilise. It certainly is impressively constructed. Ekklesia now has a page. And on a personal note, so do I. You have to register to see them, but it's worth it. (Actually, my public interface is available. I have discovered that it is to be found here)

When you have set up your own Facebook page, which is very simple to do, the system will automatically search your email address book (if you allow it to) to discover who else you know is already on the site, so that you can add them as 'friends'. There are numerous features you can add, from a 'message wall' to books to maps, as well as various groups and causes. Not that I'm advocating relocating your life online, but I have found it a useful way to link with other media people and to look up some people with common interests.

CAN THE MEDIA SEE BEYOND VIOLENCE?

You are invited to a discussion on Making peace headline news, on Tuesday 26 June 2007, at St Ethelburga's, 78 Bishopsgate, London EC2N 4AG, starting at 6.30pm. Ends by 8pm. All welcome. Feel free to spread the news.

"War reporting is long established, but the press often struggles to pick up on peacemaking and conflict transformation initiatives. Simon Barrow, co-director of the religious think tank Ekklesia and a journalist with 25 years experience, talks with other practitioners and interested observers and participants about how to get peace into the news in an age of conflict. Practical examples and ideas for at all who need to work in, or with, a fast-changing media environment."

Suggested donation £5 for the session. You can let St Ethelburga's know you're coming here. The Centre is five minutes walk of both Bank and Liverpool Street stations (Zone 1). You can walk over the bridge from London Bridge Station in about 15 minutes. View the location online at Streetmap.

SEEKING REFUGE TOGETHER

Refugee Week is a UK-wide programme of arts, cultural and educational events that celebrate the contribution of refugees to the UK, and encourages a better understanding between communities. Refugee Week 2007 is taking place from 18 to 24 June. That is, right now.

As in 2006, there will be no specific theme for Refugee Week 2007. Rather, the week is a space of encounters between different communities and an opportunity to use more creative ways to bring refugee experiences closer to wider audiences.

Every year during Refugee Week hundreds of events are organised across the UK. Last year, there were over 450 small and large events, ranging from big music festivals and art exhibitions to political debates, film screenings, conferences, school activities, sports and community events, church and faith groups meetings, and so on.

Definitely worth supporting, and obviously a concern which is highlighted in one particular week - but actually vital for the other 51 in the year.

HIGHLIGHTS AND SHADOWS

"To go into the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is travelled by dark feet and dark wings." (Wendell Berry)

NEGOTIATING THE SPIRIT OF UNREASON

Since I co-run a think tank (and in the process write, comment, speak and occasionally broadcast on issues of religion in society), some people readily assume that I must "enjoy the cut and thrust of debate". Well, I don't mind a good argument, and I'm happy to participate in serious (and enjoyable) conversation about things that matter to me and others. But actually, much of the bruhaha about religion right now - both from 'religious' and 'non-religious' sources - strikes me as bad (rather than good) argument, and a great deal of it is faintly depressing... not because of the validity or otherwise of what is being said, but because of the way it proceeds.

The level of anger, disrespect and sheer inattention to the fabric of argument and what makes people different can be truly numbing. Remarking on the trail of insults that invariably follows any attempt to talk about religion in any register whatsover on The Guardian Comment-is-Free (hmmnn, haven't written anything in my column on there for a bit), a friend of mine, no believer herself, remarked: "Well, any idea that if you call yourself a rationalist you must be rational looks to me to be just as incredible as the idea that if you call yourself religious it makes you spiritual. The evidence suggests it is often otherwise."

It was that thought (thanks, Jane), together with some reflections earlier on this blog, that lead me to write my latest Ekklesia column, Religion, anti-religion and the perils of being right.

That and the encouraging advent of The O Project, which "champions the contributions that humanists and other atheists make to wider society and encourages good relations between atheists and religious people." If they'll forgive me, I say "amen" to that, and not just because they are kind enough to quote me.

It is a true sign of humanism (which can be both a religious and non-religious virtue, and which doesn't, incidentally, have to sink into anthropomorphism or speciesism) that we value the humanity of those we disagree with above the actual disagreement -- either because we believe that humanity is in the end all we've got, or, in my case, because we see the gift that makes us human as precisely that (a gift, and therefore a pointer to a 'giving' that transcends our capacity to imprison gifts in networks of assertion and reinforcing interest).

Reason (the ability to recognise and act on the coherence that holds our living and thinking together), like faith (which is essentially trusting that 'the good' is neither ephemeral nor pointless - and therefore to be lived), is a distinctly human capacity. That means it proceeds not just by abstract rational construction, but by feeling, experience, relationship, instinct, embodiment and sensate response. To "be rational" is to learn, in conversation with others, to sustain the relationship between all these things -- not to reject or suppress one at the expense of the other. And for that you need people who are different to you, who see things at variance, and who can point you to new experiences, analyses and possibilities.

That's what makes a good argument - one that enhances the good, rather than one which ensures 'victory'. Sadly, this isn't what is widely perceived as making "a good story" in the media. For that you need warring parties asserting incommensurable claims, apparently. So, lo and behold, that's what you get! The bridge-builders are often written out of the script or accused of being vacillating or "over-complicated". To which the only response should be: tough, you destroy and see where that gets you (and the rest of us). We'll go on building, thank you.

It's called hope. And if you are a Christian it resides in the fact that the Word comes to us through flesh, not stone.

[See also: John Milbank, “Can a Gift Be Given? Prolegomena To a Future Trinitarian Metaphysic,” Modern Theology 11, January 1995. Picture: Goya's The Sleep of Reason]

WITHOUTING THE 'WITH-IT'

On an entirely theologically and socially void point, there's something about the term "rock-and-roll vicar" which brings a deep chill to my spine. And not in a good way. So when the TV fantasy-property show A Place In The Sun (just lurking in the background while I do some Important Things - honest!) used that very term to introduce one of today's house hunters, there was only one thing I could do... anticipate some delicious car-crash telly. This, of course, is unfair and unworthy of me. And to give "parish priest and rock musician Andrew Harding and his wife Leanne" who "are looking for a heavenly retreat in Western Crete" (latest7) their due, he seems a nice bloke. Indeed he's rather archetypally vicary, that tell-tale earring aside. Plus he almost certainly cringed at the intro, too, and he thankfully spoke not once of "divine guidance" or "gettin' dahn wiv da posse" (yeah, yeah, cod rap not r&r). So if The Village Green Preservation Society can be the result of an, um, "credible popular music combo", why not Hoo St Werburgh Parish Church, I ask? Let's, like, totally rockit, dudes.

AAAGHHH... A Place In The Sun is over (phew), but there's a titanic toilet roll bust-up just starting on Big Brother. I mean, Fateh and Hamas? Get real, this is serious. Pampered bottoms are at stake.

Hang on, who said modern life is rubbish? Blur, if I recall correctly... But the best comment on BB has to be Germaine Greer's. "People say that Big Brother is the end of civilisation as we know it. Wrong. It is civilization as we know it." Checkit.

Update: they're onto a nuclear-sized "whose f*****g bananas?" crisis now (see pic). Somebody call the UN!