A More Grounded Theology of Healing and Brokenness

A More Grounded Theology of Healing and Brokenness

There is often in Christianity a warm and sincere desire to encourage prayer for healing, and it reflects a genuine confidence in God’s care for human wellbeing. Yet the theology it presents can be somewhat narrow, leaning toward an optimistic expectation of healing that does not fully reflect the breadth of Christian tradition or the lived experience of many believers. A more balanced approach would hold together the hope of God’s Kingdom with the reality that suffering, illness, and disability remain part of the Christian journey, and that God’s presence is often known most deeply within those very conditions.

This approach is right to affirm that God longs for wholeness and that healing is part of the Christian story. Scripture contains many accounts of Jesus healing the sick, restoring the broken, and bringing peace to troubled hearts. Christians have always prayed for healing, trusting that God listens and responds in love. The reminder that ultimate healing belongs to the fullness of God’s Kingdom is also true and important. Revelation’s vision of a world without death, mourning, crying, or pain is a central Christian hope, and it rightly shapes our prayers and longings.

However, this theology tends to frame healing as something we should expect in the present, at least in some measure, and this can unintentionally create a sense that healing is the norm while ongoing suffering is an exception. Many faithful Christians live with cancer, chronic illness, disability, increasing deafness, neurological conditions, or the long-term effects of stroke. For them, healing does not come, and yet their lives are no less held by God. Christian theology has always recognised that God’s action is not limited to physical restoration. Sometimes God heals, sometimes God strengthens, and sometimes God simply remains present in ways that do not remove the burden but make it bearable. This is a truth found in the Psalms, in Paul’s letters, and in the experience of countless believers across the centuries.

Writers such as Frances Young have helped the Church to see that God’s presence is not only found in the removal of suffering but also in the midst of it. Her reflections on life with her profoundly disabled son remind us that God does not stand at a distance waiting to fix us. Instead, God accompanies us in our vulnerability, and that companionship is itself a form of grace. Healing, in this deeper sense, is not always about cure. It can be about dignity, acceptance, endurance, or the discovery of love in unexpected places. It can be about the Church learning to carry one another’s burdens, to sit with pain rather than rush to resolve it, and to recognise Christ in the wounded and the weary.

There is also an important theological detail that we should not miss: Jesus rose from the dead still bearing His scars. The resurrection does not erase woundedness but transforms it. This is a profound truth for those who live with permanent conditions. It means that scars, limitations, and brokenness are not signs of spiritual failure. They are places where Christ Himself has gone before us. A theology that remembers the scarred Christ is less likely to slip into triumphalism and more likely to honour the experiences of those who do not receive the healing they long for.

A more robust theology of healing would therefore affirm that God can heal and sometimes does, but it would also acknowledge that God’s presence is not dependent on the outcome of our prayers. It would make space for lament as well as hope, for unanswered questions as well as confident faith. It would recognise that the Church’s calling is not only to pray for healing but also to accompany those who suffer, to offer practical care, and to embody the compassion of Christ in ways that do not depend on miraculous change.

The Textual Transmission of the New Testament

The Textual Transmission of the New Testament

When people hear the phrase “textual criticism”, it can sound intimidating, but the idea is simple. It’s the careful work scholars do to understand how the Bible was copied and passed down through the centuries before printing existed. For most of Christian history, every copy of Scripture was written out by hand. That means mistakes sometimes crept in — a skipped line here, a repeated word there — just as they would if any of us tried to copy a long document by candlelight. Textual criticism is the process of comparing all the surviving manuscripts to work out what the original wording most likely was.

One of the strengths of the New Testament tradition is the sheer number of manuscripts we have. There are thousands of them, in many languages, copied in different places and at different times. This means we don’t rely on a single fragile chain of transmission. Instead, we have a whole family tree of manuscripts — cousins, second cousins, and distant relatives — that allow scholars to cross‑check the text from many angles. When a scribe made a mistake in one place, other manuscripts usually preserve the correct reading. In most cases, it’s quite straightforward to spot the odd one out.

But it’s also important to be honest about the limitations. Our earliest substantial manuscripts — the ones containing most of the New Testament — date from the fourth century, a few hundred years after the originals were written. Earlier fragments do exist, but they are small and incomplete. And in the first few centuries, copying was not always done by trained scribes. Some early copies are wonderfully careful; others are clearly the work of ordinary Christians doing their best. This means the early period of transmission was a bit more uneven than the later, highly disciplined monastic copying that people often imagine.

Even so, the overall picture is reassuring. Most of the differences between manuscripts are tiny — spelling variations, word order changes, or small slips of the pen. Only a handful of passages raise real questions, and modern translations are transparent about them, usually noting the alternatives in the footnotes. There is no hidden conspiracy or secret text. Everything scholars know is printed openly for anyone to see.

So textual criticism is not about undermining the Bible. It’s about taking the Bible seriously enough to study its history with care. It helps us appreciate the remarkable way Scripture has been preserved through the centuries, while also being honest about the human hands that copied it. For a parish community, the key message is simple: we can trust the Scriptures we read today, not because they dropped from heaven fully formed, but because generations of believers have treasured them, copied them, and passed them on — and because scholars continue to help us understand that story with clarity and integrity.

So how do variants arise?

For most of Christian history, Scripture was copied by hand — line after line, page after page — by people who loved these texts and believed they were passing on something precious. And because they were human, sometimes they made small mistakes. Sometimes they added a word to make a sentence clearer. Sometimes they repeated a line by accident. And sometimes they preserved a story they had heard in church and wanted to make sure wasn’t lost. Textual criticism is simply the gentle, careful work of noticing these differences and asking, “What did the earliest manuscripts say?”

Most of the time, the differences are tiny — a spelling change, a word in a different order, a line skipped or repeated. But there are a few places where the variations are big enough that modern Bibles put a note in the margin. One example is the ending of Mark’s Gospel. Our earliest manuscripts end with the women at the tomb, afraid and amazed. Later manuscripts add a longer ending with appearances of the risen Jesus. It’s a beautiful passage, but it almost certainly wasn’t part of Mark’s original text. The church has kept it because it reflects the wider resurrection tradition, but we’re honest about where it came from.

Another example is the story of the woman caught in adultery — the moment when Jesus says, “Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone.” It’s a story that rings true to the character of Jesus, and Christians have treasured it for centuries. But it doesn’t appear in the earliest manuscripts of John’s Gospel. It seems to have been a beloved story that floated around the early church and was later written into the text. We keep it because it speaks grace so powerfully, but we also acknowledge its unusual history.

There are smaller examples too. A verse in 1 John that sounds like a ready‑made Trinitarian formula appears only in very late manuscripts, so modern translations leave it in the footnotes. The King James Version includes the Trinitarian formula in the main text of 1 John 5:7–8 — even though it does not appear in any early Greek manuscripts.

A confession of faith in Acts — “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God” — seems to have been added by a scribe who wanted the Ethiopian eunuch’s baptism to sound more like the baptisms in his own church. Even the famous number of the beast in Revelation has two early versions: 666 and 616. None of these variations change the heart of the gospel, but they remind us that Scripture came to us through real people, in real communities, with real pens and real limitations.

So when we read the Bible in church, we are not reading a fragile whisper passed down a single line. We are reading a text preserved by a great cloud of witnesses — scribes, monks, translators, scholars, and ordinary believers — all doing their part to pass on the story of God’s love. The variations don’t undermine the message. They remind us that God has always chosen to work through human hands. 

Appendix 1: Dates of Manuscripts

The truth is that we do not possess a complete manuscript of any individual New Testament book until the fourth century. Before that point, what survives are fragments and partial collections — some of them very early and very precious, but none of them containing an entire Gospel or an entire letter in one continuous piece. The first time we encounter a manuscript that preserves whole books from beginning to end is with the great parchment codices of the fourth and fifth centuries.

Codex Vaticanus, produced around 325–350 CE, is one of the earliest and most important of these. It contains most of the Old Testament and most of the New Testament, although it is missing the end of Hebrews, the Pastoral Epistles, Philemon, and Revelation. For the books it does include, Vaticanus is the earliest complete witness. Alongside it stands Codex Sinaiticus, dating from roughly 330–360 CE. Sinaiticus is the first manuscript we have that contains the entire New Testament in one place, along with a few early Christian writings such as the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas. A little later, in the early fifth century, Codex Alexandrinus appears, offering another nearly complete Bible, though with a few missing leaves in Matthew, John, and 2 Corinthians.

Before these codices, our evidence is earlier but far more fragmentary. The famous Rylands Fragment (P52), dating from around 125–150 CE, contains only a few verses of John 18. P46, from roughly 175–225 CE, preserves most of Paul’s letters but not all of them. P66, from around 200 CE, contains much of John’s Gospel but with significant gaps. P75, from the late second or early third century, gives us large portions of Luke and John, and P45 offers pieces of all four Gospels and Acts, though in a very fragmentary state. These papyri are invaluable because they are early, but none of them gives us a complete book.

When we ask, “When do we first have a full copy of each New Testament document?”, the answer is straightforward. The earliest complete copies of the Gospels, Acts, Paul’s letters, the General Epistles, and Revelation all appear in the fourth century, preserved in Codex Sinaiticus. For a few books missing from Vaticanus, the earliest complete witness is Alexandrinus in the fifth century. But the key point remains: no New Testament book survives in a complete manuscript earlier than the fourth century. What we have before that are earlier fragments and partial collections that help us reconstruct the text with considerable confidence.

This timeline does not need to unsettle anyone. The gap between the original writings of the first century and our first complete manuscripts of the fourth century is real, but it is bridged by hundreds of earlier fragments that show the text already stabilising long before the great codices were produced. The fourth‑century manuscripts confirm that the New Testament had been copied and circulated widely enough for its wording to be recognisable and consistent. The result is a picture that is both historically honest and theologically reassuring: the text travelled through human hands, but it did so in a way that allows us to read it today with clarity and trust.

Appendix 2: The Case of the Pastoral Epistles

The absence of the Pastoral Epistles (Timothy and Titus) from our earliest substantial manuscripts is not the result of a single cause but a combination of historical factors that make good sense once we understand how early Christian texts circulated. Unlike Paul’s major letters, which were addressed to whole communities and quickly copied, shared, and gathered into collections, the Pastoral Epistles were written to individuals — Timothy and Titus — and were shaped by very local, practical concerns. Letters of this kind tended to travel more slowly and were copied less frequently in the earliest generations of the church. They simply did not have the same immediate, wide‑ranging audience as Romans or Corinthians, and that narrower circulation left a mark on the manuscript tradition.

We also know that the earliest collections of Paul’s letters did not always include the Pastorals. The famous papyrus P46, dating from the late second or early third century, contains a substantial set of Pauline letters but omits 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus. This does not mean the letters were unknown or rejected; it simply shows that different Christian communities had different collections, and the Pastorals had not yet become universally attached to the Pauline corpus. In the early church, there was no fixed New Testament. Texts circulated in clusters, and some clusters were more complete than others.

Another factor is that the Pastorals raised questions even in antiquity. Early Christian writers noticed that these letters use different vocabulary, a different style, and reflect a more developed church structure than Paul’s undisputed letters. Because of this, some communities hesitated before fully embracing them as Pauline. They were eventually accepted into the canon, but that early hesitation may have slowed their copying and distribution. A text that is copied less often is naturally less likely to appear in the earliest surviving manuscripts.

It is also important to remember that the absence of the Pastorals from Codex Vaticanus — our earliest major manuscript — is partly an accident of history. Vaticanus is missing several books at the end of the New Testament, including Philemon and Revelation, because a physical section of the manuscript was never completed. The missing books cluster together, which strongly suggests that the scribe simply did not finish copying the final quire. The absence of the Pastorals in this codex therefore tells us more about the state of that particular manuscript than about the status of the letters themselves.

Finally, our earliest manuscript evidence is fragmentary by nature. Before the fourth century, we possess papyri that preserve portions of the Gospels, Acts, and Paul’s letters, but none of these early manuscripts contain the entire New Testament. It is therefore not surprising that some books — especially those with narrower early circulation — do not appear in the surviving fragments. When the first complete New Testament finally appears in the fourth century, in Codex Sinaiticus, the Pastorals are included without hesitation.

Taken together, these factors explain why the Pastoral Epistles are missing from the earliest manuscript tradition. Their absence reflects patterns of early circulation, the gradual formation of the Pauline letter collection, early questions about authorship, the physical incompleteness of certain manuscripts, and the fragmentary nature of our earliest evidence. Nothing in this pattern suggests suppression or controversy; it simply reflects the complex and very human history through which the New Testament reached us.

Appendix 3: Codex Sinaiticus

When we look at Codex Sinaiticus, the first complete New Testament manuscript we possess, it is striking that the Pastorals appear there without any sign of hesitation or marginalisation. They sit alongside the other Pauline letters as though they had always belonged. Yet the same manuscript also includes two works that the later church did not consider canonical: the “Epistle of Barnabas” and the “Shepherd of Hermas”. Their presence reminds us that, in the fourth century, the boundaries of the New Testament were not yet fully settled. The canon was still a living conversation rather than a fixed list.

The inclusion of Barnabas and Hermas reflects the reality that early Christian communities valued a wider range of texts than the ones that eventually made it into the canon. Both Barnabas and Hermas were widely read, used for teaching, and regarded as spiritually edifying. Some early church fathers even considered them candidates for Scripture. Their presence in Sinaiticus shows that the scribe was copying a collection of books that his community found useful and authoritative, even if later generations drew the line more tightly.

So by this point, the Pastorals had found their place within the developing New Testament, even as the outer edges of the canon remained porous. In other words, Sinaiticus reflects a moment in Christian history when the core of the New Testament was solidifying, but the perimeter was still open to debate.

This manuscript therefore offers a window into a church that was still discerning its scriptural identity. It shows us that the canon did not drop from heaven fully formed, nor was it the product of a single council or decree. It grew gradually, through use, consensus, and the lived experience of Christian communities. The presence of Barnabas and Hermas alongside the Pastorals is not an embarrassment but a reminder of that organic process. It tells us that the early church valued a rich library of texts, and that the New Testament we know today emerged from that wider landscape through centuries of reflection, prayer, and communal judgment.

Living in Harmony: A Case Study of Harmonisation Techniques and Weaknesses

Living in Harmony: A Case Study of Harmonisation Techniques and Weaknesses

The Faith of the Centurion

Matthew 8:5 - 13

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6 “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.” Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?” The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.

Luke 7:2 - 10

There a centurion’s servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, “This man deserves to have you do this, because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue.” So Jesus went with them.

He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him: “Lord, don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, “I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.” Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well.

Harmonisation by Matt Slick

https://carm.org/who - brought - the - centurions - request - to - jesus

Who brought the Centurion’s request to Jesus as is depicted in Matthew 8:5 - 13 and Luke 7:2 - 101? It clearly states that the Centurion came to Jesus in Matt. 8:5, but it also says that the Jewish elders came to Jesus. The order of events seems to be that the Centurion first sent the Jewish elders (Luke 7:3). Jesus then agreed to go. Then the Centurion came to Jesus (Matt. 8:5). Jesus walked everywhere he went. Centurions commanded hundred - men groups in the Roman legion. “Such men were prestigious members of a relatively small class governing the military.”(Achtemeier, Paul J., Harper’s Bible Dictionary, San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1985.) Therefore, the centurion most probably had a horse upon which to ride to and from where Jesus was. If this is so, then he probably returned to his home, checked on the servant, and then sent friends (Luke 7:6) to speak to Jesus and say that he, the Centurion, was not worthy for Jesus to even enter his home. Jesus continued on. Then as Jesus neared the home, the Centurion himself approached Jesus (Matt. 8:8) to tell Him that he was not worthy for Him to enter his house.

My comments and discussion

The CARM article is a perfect illustration of what critics mean when they say harmonisation can become strained, convoluted, or even hermeneutically backwards. It’s not that harmonisation is always wrong - it’s that sometimes the effort required to preserve “no contradiction” ends up doing more violence to the text than simply letting each evangelist speak in his own voice.

Let’s look at why this particular example is often used in biblical‑studies classrooms as a case study in the limits of harmonisation.

It requires inventing events that neither Gospel mentions. To reconcile Matthew’s “the centurion came to Jesus” with Luke’s “he sent elders,” the harmoniser must propose:

The centurion sent elders (Luke)
Then he sent friends (Luke)
Then he personally rode to Jesus (not in Luke)
Then he personally spoke to Jesus (Matthew)

None of this sequence is stated in either Gospel. It’s a reconstruction built only to avoid contradiction. If your interpretation requires adding multiple unmentioned events, the text is no longer leading the reading - the harmonising impulse is.

Matthew and Luke are not trying to report the same event with journalistic precision. They shape stories for theological emphasis. Matthew often compresses stories and has characters speak directly to Jesus to highlight faith and authority. Luke emphasises intermediaries, social structures, and the humility of Gentiles approaching a Jewish holy man. Each version makes perfect sense within its own narrative world. Forcing them into one timeline can erase those distinct emphases.

When someone insists that the Gospel accounts must be reconciled as if they were CCTV footage, they’re applying a modern expectation to ancient texts that simply weren’t written with that aim. The CARM - style defence is a classic example of what happens when that expectation is taken to its logical extreme: the interpreter ends up constructing an elaborate, unmentioned sequence of events purely to preserve literal synchronisation.

A few things become clear when you look at it through a historically sensitive lens. Ancient biography wasn’t trying to be “filmed as it happened”. Matthew and Luke are not journalists. They’re ancient biographers and theologians. They shape stories to highlight themes. They compress or expand scenes. They use representative speech freely. They’re not concerned with whether the centurion physically stood in front of Jesus or spoke through intermediaries. Expecting them to behave like modern reporters is anachronistic.

We might say that we don't know which story accurately depicts events. Did Matthew compress the narrative so it was not what happened literally? Or did Luke adjust it to put the gentile Centurion at one remove from Jesus for his readers even if that was not what happened literally? We don't know.

That’s exactly the sober, historically responsible place many scholars land - not out of scepticism, but out of respect for what ancient texts are and what they’re trying to do. We don’t know which version is “what literally happened,” and the Gospels themselves don’t seem to care about that question in the way a modern historian would.

The question “Which one is literally accurate?” may be the wrong question. It’s a modern question, born of post‑Enlightenment expectations about history and reportage. The evangelists are not competing journalists. They’re theologians, storytellers, and community - shapers. Their aim is not to give us a single camera angle but to give us insight.

If Matthew shows bold Gentile faith approaching Jesus directly, and Luke shows humble Gentile faith approaching Jesus through Jewish intermediaries, then the two portraits together give us a richer understanding of the centurion’s character and of Jesus’ ministry. You don’t need to decide which one “really happened” to receive the theological gift.

Some things are contradictory, but trusting that the authors knew what they were doing has not erased the contradictions; it has transformed them into a doorway to deeper understanding.

I have heard these kinds of difficulty described as “so - called contractions”. Calling them “so‑called contradictions” often smuggles in the assumption that the tension is only apparent, only superficial, only waiting for the clever reader to dissolve it. But once you acknowledge that some things genuinely are contradictory at the level of surface detail, you’re finally free to read the texts as the evangelists actually wrote them, rather than as modern harmonisation expects them to be.

When that attitude about “so‑called contradictions” is coupled with the statement ““The Gospels were intended to be read as history” which is often the case, there is a clear misunderstanding at work between modern and ancient history. It is reading back into ancient texts a modern understanding which simply is not there.

Ancient “history” is not modern “history”. When a modern writer says “history,” they usually mean chronological precision, factual reconstruction, eyewitness verification, consistency of detail, and a single coherent timeline.

Ancient writers — including the Gospel authors — did not share those expectations. Ancient historia meant shaping events into a meaningful narrative, arranging material for rhetorical or theological effect, using speeches, summaries, and compression, prioritising significance over sequence and presenting truth through literary artistry.

The phrase “so‑called contradictions” usually signals a refusal to acknowledge genuine narrative differences, an assumption that ancient authors aimed at literal precision and a defensive posture rather than an interpretive one. But the Gospels do contradict each other at the level of surface detail — order of events, who speaks, what is said, where things happen, how many people are present. These contradictions are not errors. They are the natural result of ancient biographical practice. To deny them is not faithfulness — it’s anachronism.

The evangelists shaped material for theological reasons. Matthew and Luke rearrange the temptations. Matthew may compresses the centurion story; Luke may expand it. John relocates the Temple cleansing. Mark doubles Bartimaeus into two blind men in Matthew. These are not mistakes. They are deliberate narrative choices. To insist they must all be literally harmonised is to miss the artistry.

The Gospels are “history” in the ancient sense — theological biography. They are rooted in real events, shaped by memory and tradition, crafted for communities and arranged for meaning, not chronology.

Calling them “history” is fine — as long as we mean ancient history, not post‑Enlightenment historiography. When someone collapses those categories, contradictions become “problems” rather than “features.”

Eyewitnesses in the ancient world - as described by Luke do not mean eyewitnesses as we would understand it providing material to be presented exactly as it happened. When Luke speaks of “eyewitnesses” (autoptai) in Luke 1:2, he is not describing the kind of eyewitness testimony that a modern historian, journalist, or court of law would expect. To put it bluntly: ancient “eyewitness” does not mean “I saw it with my own eyes and now I will give you a verbatim, chronologically precise account.” It means something far richer, and far less literal.

Ancient historians shaped eyewitness material freely. Writers like Thucydides, Polybius, and Josephus — the gold standard of ancient historiography — routinely rearranged events, composed speeches, summarised long episodes, omitted details, emphasised theological or moral meaning. And they still called their sources “eyewitnesses.” Luke is working in that same world.

Luke 1:1–4 is often read through modern eyes, as if Luke is promising: “I will give you the exact sequence of events as they happened.” But what he actually promises is a carefully ordered account, based on traditions handed down, from eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, so that the reader may have certainty (i.e., confidence, stability). “Ordered” (kathexēs) does not mean chronological.

It means “arranged meaningfully.” Luke is offering interpretive, theological biography, not CCTV footage. It’s not that Luke is unreliable. It’s that he is reliable within his genre, not ours.

Singing Truth to Power: The Songs of Sidney Carter

Singing Truth to Power: The Songs of Sydney Carter

There are hymns we sing because they are familiar, hymns we sing because they are beautiful, and hymns we sing because they tell the truth. Sydney Carter’s songs often do all three, though not always in ways the church finds comfortable. They have a habit of slipping past our defences. They sound simple, even playful, yet they carry a fierce clarity about what it means to follow Christ in the real world. They remind us that faith is not something we think but something we live, something we embody, something we move with.

This may be why they are sung so little in churches. They are a challenge to a more rigid orthodoxy, and especially the more evangelical wing of the church.

Take “When I Needed a Neighbour”. On the surface it feels like a children’s song, gentle and repetitive. But the question at its heart is anything but gentle. “Were you there?” It is the question Christ asks in Matthew 25, the question that cuts through every creed and every liturgy. Were you there when someone was hungry, or lonely, or frightened. Were you there when compassion was needed?

Carter refuses to let us hide behind doctrine or identity. He reminds us that the Christian life is measured not by what we say but by how we show up for one another. And in a community like ours, where neighbourliness is not an abstract idea but a daily practice, the song becomes a mirror. It asks us to look honestly at the ways we respond to need, and at the ways we sometimes turn away.

The repeated question “Were you there?” is a moral interrogation disguised as a lullaby. There’s no doctrinal scaffolding, no Christological explanation, no ecclesial identity. Just the raw demand of compassion. The line “and the creed and the colour and the name won’t matter” is beautiful, and for some, too boundary‑breaking. It implies that belonging is ethical, not confessional. Some churches fear that this flattens Christian distinctiveness. And yet is essentially just the same message found in Matthew 25 sung as a children’s round, which is brilliant, but also quietly confrontational.

For churches that want discipleship framed in doctrine, creed, or sacrament, Carter’s stark humanism feels too bare.

But we must listen in context. When the song says “the creed won’t matter,” evangelicals hear something like: “belief doesn’t matter”, “doctrine is optional”, “all faiths are interchangeable”. That’s not what Carter meant. He was talking about compassion, not relativism, but the phrasing brushes against evangelical instincts. But for me, this goes to the heart of the gospel.

"To love another person is to see the face of God" is a famous quote from the musical adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, and Carter’s song points us to that – against the painted, all too often white depictions of Jesus, it asks us to see the face of Jesus in the downtrodden, the disabled, the poor, those at the bottom of the heap. Whenever I am asked what God looks like, the image – scarred, fragmentary, broken – is the neighbour of Carter’s song. If we cannot see that but only the curated centuries old images, we have lost sight of God. That is why the crucifix, with Christ impaled on cross is there to show us, and it is not supposed to be pretty and ornamental.

Then there is “The Bells of Norwich”, Carter’s great hymn of resilience. Julian of Norwich’s words, “All shall be well,” is often treated as a whisper, a private reassurance for the contemplative soul. But Carter sets them ringing through the streets like a procession after a long night. His version is not quiet or cautious. It is defiant. It is the sound of a community stepping out of the rubble with banners raised, choosing hope even when hope seems unreasonable.

For a place like Jersey, with its own memories of hardship and renewal, this song feels strangely close to home. It speaks to the kind of hope that is not naïve but hard‑won, the kind that rises after storms, after losses, after seasons when the world feels fragile. It is the hope that says: we have been through darkness before, and God has not abandoned us. All shall be well, not because life is easy, but because God is faithful.

It is winter as I write, but the yellow daffodils of Carter’s song show that renewal is coming, that hope is important. In a world beset by cruelty and suffering, of wars and countless deaths, of so much that seems lost, of so many that seem lost, that hope is important.

And then we come to “Lord of the Dance”, perhaps Carter’s most famous and most controversial hymn. Some churches shy away from it because it feels too earthy, too joyful, too un‑churchlike. But that is precisely the point. Carter gives us a Christ who moves. A Christ who dances creation into being, who dances through suffering, who dances out of the tomb. A Christ who refuses to be pinned down by solemnity or fear.

Resurrection, in this hymn, is not an idea but an energy. It is something that pulls us forward, something that invites us to join the steps. And perhaps that is what unsettles people most: the sense that faith is not a static possession but a rhythm we must learn, a movement we must enter, a life that will not let us stay where we are.

“I danced for the scribe and the pharisee” is not a historical comment on ancient times. Carter consistently portrays Christ as earthy, joyful, subversive, close to ordinary people and uninterested in religious gate keeping. That portrayal implicitly critiques any church that polices boundaries, fears joy except on its own terms, and prefers order to compassion. So when Carter sings about the scribe and Pharisee refusing the dance, he is warning against certainty that cannot move.

Every religious movement is tempted to become what it critiques, something Joy Davidman saw very clearly in “Smoke on the Mountain”. Carter’s Christ is hard to domesticate. He dances away from our categories. He is like Aslan, “not a tame lion”. That challenges any movement that believes it has captured the “right” way to follow Jesus. Carter’s lyric suggests that Jesus may be dancing with people who don’t fit your discipleship model at all. That’s uncomfortable. Carter’s lyric asks: Can you still follow Christ when he dances off the map?

When we place these three songs side by side, a pattern emerges. Carter is reminding us that the gospel is not a theory. It is a way of being in the world. It calls us to compassion, to resilience, to joy. It asks us to be neighbours who show up, people who choose hope after hardship, disciples who are willing to move with Christ into places we did not expect to go. These are not small things. They are the shape of a life transformed.

And perhaps this is why some churches hesitate with Carter. His songs do not let us hide. They do not let us retreat into safe abstractions or hide behind creeds. They ask us to live the faith we sing. They ask us to recognise Christ in the person in front of us. They ask us to trust that all shall be well even when the evidence is thin. They ask us to dance, which is to say, to risk joy, to risk movement, to risk being changed.

But in a parish like ours, where community matters, where resilience has been learned through experience, where hope is not a luxury but a necessity, Carter’s songs feel like gifts. They speak to who we are and who we are becoming. They remind us that the gospel is not only something we proclaim but something we practise. Something we embody. Something we move with.

So perhaps the invitation today is simple. Be a neighbour. Choose hope. Join the dance. For Christ is already moving ahead of us, calling us into a life that is deeper, braver, and more joyful than we imagined. And if we dare to follow, we may find that all shall indeed be well — not because we are strong, but because God is good.

New Wine, Loose Threads: Prayer Ministry Beyond Canon and Consent

New Wine, Loose Threads: Prayer Ministry Beyond Canon and Consent

In many New Wine Anglican churches, the openness to Spirit-led ministry creates a participatory atmosphere. Lay people are often encouraged to pray with and for one another, and this can be seen as an expression of the priesthood of all believers.

However, when individuals begin to minister regularly outside the discerned structures of licensed Lay Ministry or ordained oversight, a quiet shift can occur - one that risks forming an informal hierarchy of spiritual influence. This echoes C.S. Lewis’s warning in his famous essay “The Inner Ring”, where the existence of an unspoken circle of insiders can subtly erode integrity and accountability.

Lewis describes how an informal network can exist, and in a New Wine context, this would be where those seen as spiritually significant or especially gifted can be part of an informal network without office, and recognition within that informal “inner ring” without responsibility. In a church context, this can lead to certain individuals becoming de facto lay ministers, not through discernment or commissioning, but through social proximity or perceived charisma. The result is often a blurring of lines: between vocation and visibility, between calling and clique.

This dynamic also raises serious safeguarding concerns. When prayer ministry is offered by those outside formal structures, without clear oversight or training, the church becomes vulnerable - not only to spiritual confusion, but to emotional or pastoral harm. Without proper boundaries, consent protocols, or accountability, well-meaning ministry can become intrusive or even manipulative. Safeguarding is not just about preventing abuse; it is about creating a culture of safety, clarity, and trust for all who come seeking prayer.

Canon law in the Church of England requires that all public ministry - including prayer ministry - be exercised under the oversight of the incumbent and within authorized structures. Informal or unsupervised ministry risks breaching both ecclesial order and safeguarding responsibilities. In New Wine Anglican contexts, where lay participation in prayer ministry is often encouraged, it’s vital to remember that Canon Law is not suspended by charisma or spontaneity.

To honour both the movement of the Spirit and the dignity of the Church’s ministry, there exists a proper protocol for lay participation which ensures that all who minister do so within a framework of discernment, training, and oversight. This protects the vulnerable, affirms those called to serve, and resists the quiet pull of the inner ring. True spiritual authority is not claimed - it is entrusted. And the Church flourishes not through hidden circles, but through visible, accountable service rooted in love.

So to recap on safeguarding obligations: All ministry - especially involving vulnerable individuals - must comply with national safeguarding policies. These includes: (1) ensuring lay ministers are known, trained, and accountable (2) avoiding unsupervised or spontaneous prayer ministry by individuals not formally recognized (3) maintaining clear boundaries and consent protocols

When prayer ministry is offered by those outside these structures, even with good intentions, it can undermine the discerned authority of licensed ministers, create confusion about who is acting in a pastoral role and importantly, breach safeguarding expectations, especially if vulnerable individuals are involved.

Canon law exists not to stifle the Spirit, but to protect the dignity of ministry and the safety of the flock. It ensures that all who minister do so with clarity, accountability, and communal trust.

Background Notes:

The New Wine Practice Guide (2025) states: “We have an expectation that prayer ministry would be offered at every possible opportunity.”

New Wine’s theology supports lay involvement in prayer ministry, and many Anglican churches affiliated with the movement do include non-licensed individuals in ministry settings. However, this must always occur under proper oversight from the incumbent, with clear safeguarding, and without undermining the integrity of licensed ministry.

Safeguarding training is mandatory for licensed lay ministers, but for non-licensed individuals involved in prayer ministry, oversight must ensure they’ve completed appropriate training—even if not publicly listed. Displaying safeguarding status on church noticeboards is not required, but clear internal records and visible team identification are strongly recommended.

Everyone Matters

Jersey has 13 Parishes!

That’s what I though on reading this, printed very recently on an online biography:

“The Rev’d Canon Dr Gavin Ashenden, is at presently a part time parish priest, looking after a small parish on the Island of Jersey, part of the Channel Islands, just off the coast of Normandy France, where he took semi retirement in order to be able to write a little more.”

As far as I know Vicar of Gouray is not the same as Rector of St Martin or Grouville, and Gouray is a district church rather than a Parish Church. But perhaps that doesn't look so good on a CV!

Gavin regards the practice of homosexuality as sinful, and sees this as “always there in the Bible and in the ‘lived experience’ of Tradition “ On a blog posting which has since been removed, he said this:

“‘God spoke to me’ about the practice of homosexuality; (though His views were always there in the Bible and In the ‘lived experience’ of Tradition if I had not come at them both skewed to provide a different answer;)- so I went to my friends, and told them that while still being deeply fond of them, I was going to take a different view of the practice of homosexuality.”

He regards more liberal wing of the Anglican church as misguided and ensconced in “vapid self indulgent spirituality”. According to him, liberal Anglicanism is “defined by a decadent liberalism – a spirituality that celebrates the nice without being able to deliver it; a spirituality that surrenders to secular narcissistic hedonism its the authority to make ethical analyses”

So I want to tell you a true story about someone I know about how these attitudes feed through to pastoral care. This is recounted in “Journey Round Jersey’s Parishes”, and the individual concern recently died, so I think it can be told to a wider audience. You can find his full name in that book when he tells his story to Robin Pitman, but here, I shall refer to him just as “RF”.

You can decide for yourself where it is the more self-righteous churches who either ostracise or (almost as bad) marginalise gay people are making the better ethical analysis, or those who accept and include and welcome those people.

This happened in Jersey, and not so very long ago.

He was married, but discovered that he was gay, and his marriage deteriorated, and he left the family home. Here is what he told Robin Pitman:

RF makes no secret of the fact that he is gay, but I knew that he had been married and with children. He spoke openly and poignantly to me about this: `I was married in 1959 and in subsequent years we adopted a son and a daughter and then had a daughter of our own. Within our marriage there were problems, and one day my wife told me that she was never going to have sexual intercourse with me again. From that day our marriage deteriorated and I then left the family home.

“I recognised homosexual tendencies in myself, but during my marriage there were no one night stands or anything of that nature. I now lived alone, moving from one flat to another. Eventually I met my current partner, David, and we have been together now for seventeen years.'”

RF described his faith as follows: “It has been as solid as possible, despite some of my distressing encounters with various church authorities. It is my faith that has kept me going. I needed it and it has seen me through. It has kept me on the straight and narrow. I believe in the creed that we say each week and I pray at night. Truly I cannot not go to church on a Sunday.”

“As a young single man RF was a very active member of the congregation at St Peter. After his marriage came to an end he was a popular churchwarden at another of the Island's churches where he assisted at Communion, took Communion to the sick and read the lessons. `I went to discuss my situation with the Rector and was honest with him about myself and my sexuality. The Rector said that he would ask God what to do with me. God, according to him, answered and said that I was not suitable for any of my church duties.“

“Later I had what for me was a worse experience at another church where I was on the church committee and an active member of the congregation. A powerful lady churchwarden came up to me and said, "Are you a homosexual?" I replied in the affirmative and she answered, "You see, we have a problem."

“I rang the Vicar and sought his help. He supported me and told me that he did not want a member of his church pilloried in this way. He persuaded me to return to the committee for its next meeting. At that meeting the same lady pronounced, "I would like to say this: we all know that RF is very popular but we don't like his lifestyle." I felt that I had no alternative but to get up, put on my jacket and go home.'

“Another sad succession of events followed at yet another church where RF was quickly asked to read a lesson by the lady who drew up the rotas. He had only met the vicar each Sunday as he shook hands at the door. He then received a letter from the vicar, telling him that he should undertake no further duties at the church and that he should make an appointment to come and see him. RF took advice from friends, declined the instruction and went elsewhere. “

Someone suggested that he went to St Brelade’s Church, which is an inclusive church, and he was accepted, welcomed, and became once again part of the Church community: “I am not only tolerated but accepted wholeheartedly. I could not ask for anything better.”

Pitman concludes:

“RF has actively for many years raised funds for the Church of England Children's Society, and he is a volunteer on the General Hospital's chaplaincy team. It is a fair guess that RF has made a greater contribution to Christian living than some of those who have been too ready to turn him away from their own places of worship.”

Migration is not a crime

Photograph: Pascal Rossignol/Reuters

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” (Martin Luther King)

When I needed a neighbour,
were you there, were you there?
When I needed a neighbour, were you there?

And the creed and the colour
and the name won’t matter,
were you there?
-- Sydney Carter

There was once a migrant walking the tunnel from Calais to Dover, when he fell by the wayside, exhausted, and beaten up by political rules against immigration.  And a government minister came on a fact finding mission, and he saw the migrant lying there, and he passed by on the other side, because he was a busy man, and couldn’t comment on individual cases. And a tabloid journalist came by, and they took some photos of the migrant, and penned the story about security breached as they walked by; and the migrant lay there, uncomprehending, watching them. And you or I wandered down that tunnel, and saw the migrant there, and what did we feel? And what did we do? And when he needed a neighbour, were we there?

The song by Sidney Carter challenges us; it takes up the tale of the Good Samaritan, and it asks what really matters: an act of kindness or compassion, or a creed?

Creeds, it has been said, are like signposts, pointing people in a direction, but how many people worship the signpost, and how many follow the signs?

In the blog on the kinoborderinitiative.org website, a reminder is given of just how much the story of migrants and migration comes in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures.

Joan Maruskin said that: "The Biblical story is a migration story. The Bible is the story of the uprooted People of God seeking safety, sanctuary and refuge and the living God giving directions for welcoming the stranger. From Adam and Eve, to Noah, Abraham, Moses to Jesus, Joseph and Mary, all found themselves on the move, migrating, looking for a better life."

And the blog notes: “As one of the most complex issues in the world, migration underscores not only conflict at geographical borders, but also between national security and human insecurity, sovereign rights and human rights, civil law and natural law, and citizenship and discipleship.”

But the other side is clear. The immigrant is our brother and our sister. And he points out that when it comes to how we treat an economically poor person, who arrives at our door/border, in need of help, we really have little option. The nearly 120 passages that refer to welcoming the stranger are clear. Matthew 25 is clear, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

Debra Hafner writes in an article in the Washington Post, “Loving the stranger was difficult in Biblical times; it’s difficult still. It means resisting the fear of difference and moving to a place of radical welcome and inclusion. And that means embracing people who are different than us without trying to change them. We can celebrate our diversity and our difference.”

German President Joachim Gauck, speaking on Saturday at a ceremony in Berlin to remember victims of displacement, said he hoped that the memory of German expellees who were forced to flee the country's former eastern territories during and after World War II would deepen understanding for migrants today.

"Why should a Germany that is economically successful and politically stable not be able to recognize future opportunities in today's challenges? Let us remember what a great part refugees and forced migrants played in successfully rebuilding Germany”

"We would lose our self-respect if we left people drifting on waters near our continent to cope for themselves," he said, adding that all European states had an obligation to provide people with a safe refuge.

Dimitria Groutsis and Diane van den Broe also comment on the way in which different countries tackle the crisis:

“While many countries, including Australia, continue to refuse entry to those seeking humanitarian assistance, struggling countries such as Greece that can least afford it willingly assist. The vast gap in the standard of living between Australia and debt-ridden Greece, begs the question: why is a country that has so little to give, the one most likely to share?”

And they also note that there has been a story which demonises the migrants in the press, and fuels the cry to take them back to where they came from:

“Despite the popular stereotypes of migrants crossing seas in leaky boats as desperate, low-skilled and poorly educated, the truth is that many have considerable skills and qualifications that support their desire to find work, build lives and make a future for themselves and their families. “

And they ask: “why it is often those that feel the brunt of austerity and poverty who are more likely to show compassion and generosity”.

The Reverend Giles Fraser has actually been over to Calais. He writes:

“The purpose of my Calais visit was instinctive. I wanted to say a prayer in the makeshift Ethiopian church – St Michael’s, I later discover – as a way of expressing Christian solidarity with my brothers and sisters in Christ, those who have been despised and rejected, now languishing in a refugee camp a few miles over the Channel.”

And he comments:

“I’m a Christian, so I have a special connection for fellow Christians. But the crisis here is not religious: it is humanitarian. And things are only going to get worse. It’s simple: we have so much and they have so little. I’m not getting into the politics of immigration here, but the big issues of global fairness have come to our door and building higher fences is no sort of answer.”

“In my head, I make the journey over the desert, over the sea, up through Europe. With them, I pray for all those who have died making the journey.”

How we are judged by history will surely be by compassion and fairness, and seeking to put ourselves in the shoes of others, and walk in our imagination, the dusty, rocky path that they have to tread, feel the thirst, and the gnawing hunger in the belly, and recall the lands of terror which we fled, displaced people, seeking only some kind of sanctuary.

When I needed a shelter,
were you there, were you there?
When I needed a shelter, were you there?

And the creed and the colour
and the name won’t matter
Were you there?

Forgiveness and Anger

My heart always sinks when I read Gavin Ashenden in the Jersey Evening Post, making wild generalisations about the culture in which we live. 

His latest article is speaking about forgiveness, and citing the case of Eva Kor who has forgiven Oskar Groning. It is a fine think for her to forgive; she was treated brutally in Auschwitz. But he also mentions very briefly Leon Scharzbaum, who lost 30 members of his family there, and cannot forgive.

I don’t think we should in any way belittle Leon, who showed the tattoo he had been given at the camp to photographers. And certainly we should not suggest that Christianity is a cure for that attitude.

Gavin Ashenden suggests, rather patronisingly, that “It isn’t that they won’t forgive, it’s often that the hurt runs so deep that they cannot” – and he suggests that Christianity is the solution - “That’s the point where those who have found themselves accepted, washed clean, and made new in a faith that prioritises absolution find themselves in a different place.”

But does Christianity prioritise absolution? Is that is what it is about – a religious form of psychotherapy to take away existential pain? I would say that while the Church certainly helps some people, it also messes up other people’s lives. It does provide absolution for some, but for some – and you have only to reference “Catholic Guilt” – that comes at a terrible price.

Some of the Church’s teaching in the past – and hopefully not the present – did really employ – on children, the threat of burning hell-fire. In other words, it created at atmosphere of guilt and fear where misdemeanours needed the confessional before absolution. Catholic schools really did have teaching like that – I have a number of friends who have escaped, sometimes damaged, from that kind of childhood.

It is the kind of religious upbringing which I suspect would not be tolerated today, but it did happen, and within my own lifetime. People were made to feel that they would not be forgiven unless they confessed their sins, and that they would burn in hell if they failed to do so.

Evangelicals - at the other end of the spectrum - held meetings at Universities where the speaker again builds up a sense of guilt. These were emotionally charged events. That they succeeded in the short term, in providing an absolution by making students convert to Christianity, does not mean that this approach was right.

This is the kind of approach for which the words of Bonhoeffer fit well: “Wherever there is health, strength, security, simplicity, they sent luscious fruit to gnaw at or to lay their pernicious eggs in. They set themselves to drive people to inward despair, and then the game is in their hands.”

When I read that on his comments on Churches, “people flock in to find a forgiveness that dissolves the poison in their hearts”, I really wonder which churches he is talking about. Certainly the relations between Jersey and Winchester have recently revealed what seems like a lot of poison that has yet to be dissolved.

The solution for the Jersey Churches was not forgiveness and reconciliation, but a break with Winchester, with oversight being given to Dover. That was not about forgiveness, about absolution, it was about finding a pragmatic solution for two sides which could not forgive each other for what had happened.

So the Churches don’t have a monopoly on forgiveness, even if some, like Gavin Ashenden, claim some kind of monopoly over absolution, with all the dangers that can entail in terms of controlling other people’s lives.

Forgiveness is important, and in that I do agree with Gavin Ashenden. Life is too short to hate, and be eaten away with the frustration of past hate. But anger and hate can in fact also be positives. If we hate what someone has done to us, we may in turn be able to speak out, and change things, and prevent other people suffering.

Anger can be a stimulus for justice. If you want to look at an example from Christianity, Jesus entering the Temple, and overturning the tables of the money changers would be a good example of where anger can be positive in the fact of corruption.

And Aristotle, while also praising forgiveness as a virtue, also noted in his Ethics that: “Anyone who does not get angry when there is reason to be angry, or does not get angry in the right way at the right time and with the right people is foolish”

For Aristotle, being angry in the case of an injustice can mean that one is much more likely to do something about the injustice in order to make sure that it does not occur again. Emotions can be intelligent and purposeful. A person should be “angry at the right things and with the right people, and, further, as he ought, when he ought, and as long as he ought” (Ethics)

Paul Hughes, writing about forgiveness in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes the positive aspects of forgiveness:

“Forgiving those who wrong us often helps us move beyond strong negative emotions which, if allowed to fester, could harm us psychologically and physically. Forgiveness benefits wrongdoers, as well, by releasing them from the blame and hard feelings often directed toward them by those they wrong, or helping them transcend the guilt or remorse they suffer from having done wrong, thereby allowing them to move forward in their lives.”

But he also notes that forgiveness is not always positive, and can actually reinforce very damaging patterns of behaviour:

“Forgiveness may also go awry, deliberately or inadvertently serving more dubious ends, as when a victim of domestic violence routinely but without good reason forgives her abuser, thereby fuelling increasingly violent cycles of abuse. Moreover, perpetrators of such wrongs often feign apology and repentance, thereby fraudulently securing forgiveness from the victim. In these ways, forgiveness may become complicit in or collude with wrongdoing, converting what is generally regarded as a good or virtuous reaction to wrongdoing into its opposite.”

This ties in very much with Aristotle, noting that there is a deficiency with people who “are thought not to feel things, nor to be pained by them, and since they do not get angry, they are thought unlikely to defend themselves; and to endure being insulted.” Forgiveness can become a means of tolerating injustice rather than seeking to put it right.

Gavin Ashenden says:

“Our culture and our media reflect and amplify this treasuring of victim hood and anger, one feeding the other. Victims and victim hood has become the new ‘sacred’. Pain has become a currency that cannot be challenged or addressed, except by revenge.”

But while the media may highlight victims of sexual abuse to sell papers (e.g. the Daily Mail), that is not to say that this cannot be addressed or should not be made public.

Jimmy Saville is dead, but the stories of his victims should still be heard. The scars that the trauma caused by sexual abuse may not ever go away, but this is not just a new “sacred”.

The importance of listening to these witnesses is that we learn what has happened. No one can be revenged on Jimmy Saville, for example, but we can address the challenges of making our society much safer, and where those who are victims can call for help and not ignored. 

If we dismiss this simply as a “treasuring of victimhood”, then we belittle the crimes that have been committed. That has happened in the past; we must make sure it does not happen again.


References
Hughes, Paul M., "Forgiveness", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition),

A Book of Witnesses

The sunset concert was attended by over 3,000 people. Some came early; some came late. Some came prepared, with rugs, others with fold-up chairs. Some had picnics in old fashioned style picnic hampers, others had a few beers, some sticks of French bread, and a little pate. And as the music played, more came, some moving as close as they could, some happy to sit at a distance. Some stood and chatted, some stood and danced. Quite a few left at the interval, and others just drifted away. There were the very young and the very old. There were no visible clergy, however; if present, they dressed casually just like everyone else. Some people didn’t come; they stayed at home, or they attended the Island Games opening ceremony.

I’m sure there’s a parable in there somewhere but I’m not exactly sure what it is.

That’s rather like life, rather than a clear cut story with a message, it is more like a story in which everybody can see themselves present in one way or another.

And that is very much I think how people find themselves in the modern world. They think of themselves as “spiritual” – except for the fervent atheists who stand out and seem rather more like people with some kind of belief. They may believe in god or some kind of divine presence. They have a vague idea of providence, and are upset when bad things happen to decent people.

Against this are the dark and very visible acts by fanatics. They may be Christians blowing up an abortion clinic. They may be Buddhists attacking a Muslim minority. Or, as at present, they may be fanatical Muslims, bent on destroying the lives of ordinary people, and laughing while they do it.

One of the strangest texts to emerge a few years ago was the “Gospel of Judas”. The press made quite a lot of noise about it, and in particular, about the sentence “Jesus laughs”. But when you read the whole paragraph in which it is set, it is not a nice laugh. Jesus is laughing at the disciples, because they do not understand him, or the vast cosmic designs. It is a condescending laugh, a sneering laugh, a nasty laugh.

The Gospel of Judas has a very twisted idea of God; an idea of a Jesus that is for those who have secret knowledge, those who are thereby apart from others, and can dismiss them as of no importance; it’s about condemning those who don’t fit to destruction and laughing at their ignorance.

The Gospel of Luke by contrast is all about Jesus being with the outsiders in society. The prostitutes, the poor, the unclean, the tax collectors etc. It is all about compassion and love for those rejected by society, pushed to the fringes. It is about the kindness of strangers.

How should we believe? Perhaps in today’s fragmented world, a better question should be: how should we behave? We may all believe different things, but we can all appreciate and give to others small acts of kindness. Individually, they may not seem much, but that’s because they are mostly invisible.

They may not always succeed against the fanatic. But they are the right way to live, and even if the fanatic takes our lives, we are witnesses to that truth. And that, after all, is the original definition of the word “martyr” – someone who witnesses. We can tell stories of the kindness of others, we can act with love and compassion ourselves. We can become a book of witnesses.

Rethinking Divinity

Rethinking Divinity

To love God -- that's a tall order.
Does the Milky Way notice me?
The Horsehead Nebula? If I'm a speck
of dust compared with their grandeur
how much smaller I must seem
to the One Who made them. And yet --

the mystics say the world was born
because God was lonely. She wanted
to sit in her rocking chair and chat
while She knitted the sunset clouds.
How could I not love the One Who whispers
exist! and the daffodils bloom?

- Rachel Barenblatt

Most people who I know grew up with an idea of God as male, and often an old grey bearded man. Michelangelo has a lot to answer for, although he was probably simply reflecting the cultural norms of the Middle Ages.

And that has a trickle down effect. Can women be priests in the Church of England, or bishops? The key reason why some people opposed that, and in fact at least one clergyman in Gouray simply doesn’t regard them as “authentic” is to do with gender. God is male. Jesus was male. The 12 Apostles were male.

And yet the Hebrew for Spirit, the Spirit of God, who broods over the waters, about to give birth in the Genesis poem about creation – is female. The Hebrew word – ruach – meaning breath, wind, spirit, is not a male word but a female one.

Why then, do people talk about the Holy Spirit as “He”. While the Hebrew word was female, the same word in Greek, Spiritus, is male, so once the Latin translation – the Vulgate – became the norm, masculinity was again in the ascendancy.

The wisdom literature which began to develop in towards the end of the Old Testament, and continued in the period before the New has also an interesting perspective on gender:

Blessed are those who find wisdom,
those who gain understanding,

She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her;
those who hold her fast will be blessed.
YHWH founded the earth by wisdom;
by understanding he established the heavens;
by his knowledge the deeps broke open,
and the clouds drop down dew.

For she is the breath of the power of God,
and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty:
therefore can no defiled thing fall into her.

As it develops, wisdom becomes the creative force of God, the power for good. And wisdom is female – the term used is the feminine Hebrew Hokmah (Wisdom)

I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and covered the earth like a mist. I dwelt in the highest heavens, and my throne was in a pillar of cloud. Alone I compassed the vault of heaven and traversed the depths of the abyss. Over waves of the sea, over all the earth, and over every people and nation I have held sway. Among all these I sought a resting place; in whose territory should I abide? Then the Creator of all things gave me a command, and my Creator chose the place for my tent. He said, 'Make your dwelling in Jacob, and in Israel receive your inheritance.'

And yet…. John’s Gospel replaces almost all of the attributes of the Wisdom literature by his Logos poem – and Logos is a masculine Greek word. Wisdom is transformed to Word.

God is in theology “beyond gender” but unless one simply uses the term “God” all the time, there is a tendency to use the term “he” as the term “it” suggests something wholly inhuman, and alien, and somehow less than personal.

Should we use the word “Goddess”? It is interesting to note that whereas in times past, “actor” referred to males, and “actress” to female, the term “actor” has become gender neutral, but not genderless, available to use for both male and females who act. The term has become broader, more inclusive in meaning.

So perhaps it is time to use “she” much more in relation to God, and reclaim the feminine within the divine. It is of necessity a fiction – as all Neoplatonists would agree – but a useful one, as it prevents us falling into the trap of thinking about divinity in purely masculine stereotypes. After all, there has already been around 2,000 years of that, which is surely enough.

Enemy of Apathy ~ by John L Bell & Graham Maule ~ Lyrics

She sits like a bird, brooding on the waters,
Hovering on the chaos of the world's first day;
She sighs and she sings, mothering creation,
Waiting to give birth to all the Word will say.

She wings over earth, resting where she wishes,
Lighting close at hand or soaring through the skies;
She nests in the womb, welcoming each wonder,
Nourishing potential hidden to our eyes.

She dances in fire, startling her spectators,
Waking tongues of ecstasy where dumbness reigned;
She weans and inspires all whose hearts are open,
Nor can she be captured, silenced or restrained.

For she is the Spirit, one with God in essence,
Gifted by the Saviour in eternal love;
She is the key opening the scriptures,
Enemy of apathy and heavenly dove.

Gavin Ashenden and the Broad Historical Context

Gavin Ashenden writes: “The local newspaper have refused my column on Islamophobia claiming it is too controversial. Cranmer -the blogger - who likes it very much , will run it instead.”

His blog is about the threat posed by a Labour government making “Islamaphobia” a crime, forbidding criticism of Islam. As there is already legislation against religious hatred in the UK, he is suggesting that any criticism of Islam will be treated as Islamaphobia.

In fact, I believe it is his own kind of fear mongering that is more damaging to the cause of peace. I;ve heard him on BBC Radio Jersey say in all seriousness that violence in Islam would be prevented if Muslims converted to Christianity, because Christianity is a religion of peace. For someone who looks to the historical record to criticism Islam, this is surely a case of a pot calling the kettle black, or to take a parable from Christianity, of someone with a log in his own eye looking at specs of dust in another.

Here is something of what he says about Islam, in which he paints a picture that Islam’s roots are mired in violence, hence today’s practitioners even if they are kind, good Muslims, have beliefs tainted by that past:

“Is ISIS extreme or radical ? Between 622 and 632 Mohammed led 74 violent expeditions against people who refused accept or follow him. After the Battle of the Trench, he executed – by cutting off their heads – between 600 and 900 Jewish men women and children who had simply failed to overtly support him.”

“Any attribution of extremity needs to assessed in a broad historical context. What is that context? Islam’s record of violence over the last 1400 years amounts to something like 270 million non-Muslims killed – because they were non-Muslims. It set out to destroy the Christian civilisation in all the Middle East, Egypt, Turkey, North Africa (where St Augustine of Hippo was based), and succeeded. It didn’t kill only Christians (estimated at 60 million) but also 10 million Buddhists, and 80 million Hindus. Persian Zoroastrian culture and African animists were also wiped out.”

So why did Jews flee Christian Europe in the Middle Ages and seek refuge in Islamic countries like Spain if Islam was so nasty? In Spain under its Christian rulers, Jews were treated like dirt, persecuted, but when it was taken over by the forces of Islam, they could live without fear of persecution. Unfortunately Spain was retaken by the Christians, and Jews were persecuted once more.

Gavin asks use to look at “ broad historical context”. Well, let’s look at a broad historical context with respect to Christianity to see its own record of violence:

And note on the rejection of his article by the Jersey Evening Post, Gavin says: “It's only a list of facts... How can facts be controversial?”

Well, here are a few facts! In fact, a few key historical similarities between extreme Muslims and Christians in the past:

Destroying Pagan Heritage Sites and Killing Pagans

The Islamic state is engaged in this now; Christianity itself has a black mark in its own past.

As soon as Christianity was legal (315), more and more pagan temples were destroyed by Christian mob. Pagan priests were killed.

Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain.

Examples of destroyed Temples: the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegaea, the Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha, Aphaka in Lebanon, the Heliopolis.

Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyril of Heliopolis were famous as "temple destroyers."

Pagan services became punishable by death in 356.

Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed, because they had been playing with remains of pagan statues.

According to Christian chroniclers he "followed meticulously all Christian teachings...".

In the early fourth century the philosopher Sopatros was executed on demand of Christian authorities. 

In the 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights.

Taking Peoples Away from Families into Slavery

Boko Haram is doing this today; Christianity has done this in the past.

The Church enjoyed 1,500 years during which it had had the power to ban slavery but had failed to do so, or even to have expressed any desire to do so.

George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards both kept slaves, and ‘The Anglican Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts’ owned many slaves in the Caribbean

While important early figures saw slavery as troubling, over time the Society accommodated its message to slaveholders, advocated for laws that tightened colonial slave codes, and embraced slavery as a missionary tool. The SPG owned hundreds of enslaved people on its Codrington plantation in Barbados, where it hoped to simultaneously make profits and save souls. In Africa, the Society cooperated with English slave traders in establishing a mission at Cape Coast Castle, at the heart of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts branded its slaves on the chest with the word SOCIETY to show who owned them.

Churchmen owned slaves and were not particularly notable as good masters. Indeed some of the worst masters were clergymen. In the court of St Ann's in Jamaica in 1829, the Rev. G. W. Bridges was charged with maltreating a female slave. For a trivial mistake he had stripped her, tied her by the hands to the ceiling so that her toes hardly touched the ground, then flogged her with a bamboo rod until she was a "mass of lacerated flesh and gore" from her shoulders to her calves. Cases like this rarely came to court, but when they did they generally ended in acquittal, as in this case, so the Reverend gentleman walked free.

Anglicans involved in slavery often poured their ill-gotten gain into Church coffers. It was a good investment with a high return for small outlay.

And in cities such as Bristol, the church bells pealed when Wilberforce's anti-slave trade Bills were defeated in Parliament.

The Crusades

Gavin Ashenden writes:

“I was taught at school that the Crusades were an overflow of Norman violence; younger sons restive for booty. I remember only too well writing in essays that it was the dispossessed younger sons who trekked off to smite a few Saracens. In fact, all the recent research tells us that this was nonsense. There was no such distinction amongst those who risked their lives and their lands in response to a plea for help. The facts are that as Islamic armies spread up through Palestine, and Syria, just as ISIS is spreading in Iraq today, Christians living there begged for help and protection. The crusades were a response to that plea for help in the face of violent Islamic military expansion”

Well, let’s have a few facts.

There can be little doubt that the Fourth Crusade, in particular was composed of people out to get booty. Historian Jonathan Philips notes in a recent edition of History Today:

“The capture of Constantinople by the armies of the Fourth Crusade was one of the most remarkable episodes in medieval history. One of their number wrote, ‘No history could ever relate marvels greater than those as far as the fortunes of war are concerned’. On April 12th, 1204, an army of perhaps 20,000 men and a fleet of about 200 ships crewed by Venetian sailors and warriors, broke in and began to loot the greatest metropolis in the Christian world. Constantinople’s mighty walls had resisted numerous onslaughts as the Avars, Persians and Arabs had tried to assail its defences over the centuries. Yet always ‘the queen of cities’, as the Byzantines described their capital, had survived. What had brought the crusaders to attack their fellow Christians and how did they manage to succeed? The crusaders understood their success as a manifestation of God’s will. One commented, ‘There can be no doubt that the hand of the Lord guided all of these events’.”

Now the Crusaders looted, terrorized, and vandalized Constantinople for three days, during which many ancient and medieval Roman and Greek works were either stolen or destroyed. The famous bronze horses from the Hippodrome were sent back to adorn the facade of St Mark's Basilica in Venice, wherein they still remain. As well as being stolen, works of immeasurable value were destroyed merely for their material value. One of the most precious works to suffer such a fate was a large bronze statue of Hercules, created by the legendary Lysippos, court sculptor of no lesser than Alexander the Great. Like so many other priceless artworks made of bronze, the statue was melted down for its content by the Crusaders.

Was this soldiers restive for booty? Or were they as one said “seeing the hand of the Lord” in their actions? It doesn’t really matter: either way, how they acted was reprehensible. These were not civilised armies to defend a holy right; they were armed thugs using Christianity as a justificiation for their atrocities, their greed, their grabbing booty.

And as the History site notes (and most other historians confirm this) on the difference between Crusaders and the greatest Islamic leader, Saladin:

“Saladin has been held up as a chivalrous historical figure who fought fairly - when the Crusaders took Jerusalem in 1099 they carried out mass murder, whereas when Saladin re-took it in 1187 following the defeat of the King of Jerusalem at the Battle of Hattin near the Lake of Galilee, he allowed inhabitants to leave the city safely. He called this a ‘just war’ and said that his actions were out of respect for Jerusalem’s status as a holy city. Despite his fierce opposition to the Christian powers, Saladin also had a respectful relationship, if one built on rivalry, with King Richard I of England (Richard the Lionheart). When Richard was wounded in battle against Saladin, the latter offered his personal doctor to Richard.”

Don’t let us whitewash the Crusades in an effort to blacken Islam, as Gavin Ashenden appears to want to do. That’s the kind of rhetoric that got America to invade Iraq.

And in Conclusion

I personally don’t believe we should judge Christianity on how some (in some cases many) Christians have behaved in the past.

For instance, on slavery, with some notable exceptions like Tom Paine, the majority of the abolitionists were in fact Christian. That paragon of enlightenment thinking about freedom and tolerance, John Locke, invested in slavery.

Gavin Ashenden writes:

“I had recently left school and received an expensive education. But at no point do I remember anyone drawing my attention to the fact that one and a half million Armenian Christians had been systematically slaughtered by the Muslim Turkish Government in a programme that started in 1915, half a century ago then – and the centenary of which occurs now.”

Why should he have been? History at school is by its nature selective – it has to be. There is a vast amount of it, both British and global, and some things have to be left out. The intelligent schoolboy or girl may do some more general reading on their own, and should be encouraged to do so, because there are not enough hours in the day otherwise.

Did anyone draw his attention to the compensation scheme which paid recompense by the British government to the very large number of Anglican clergy who had invested in slave owning plantations? Probably not, and yet that was closer to home. Did anyone tell him about the 80,000 or so people burnt for witchcraft by deluded Christians in the height of the witch craze of the 16th and 17th centuries? Probably not.

I was not taught it in school, but neither was I taught the systematic purging and destruction of the vestiges of Paganism by Christianity. In fact, if he had been taught that it occurred, but was not a genocide, then I would be concerned about his education. Simply to be ignorant of events does not imply sinister forces at work in an Orwellian educational regime.

Christianity has just as dark a history as Islam, but a history of Christianity which just focused alone on the darker times would ignore the greater goods that it has also brought to humanity. Just because I have listed some of what might be termed crimes of Christianity does not mean that I do not also think that Christianity has also been capable of great good. And the same can be said of Islam.

It seems almost a rule that the potential for good and evil are like a seesaw, and the greater the power for good can come from a religion or ideology, the greater the power for evil can also emerge. This should not be altogether unexpected. A great leader can take a nation forward to make the world a better place. A great dictator can ruin millions of lives.

And I believe we should not focus wholly on the pathology of religion.

An analogy comes from the news. News reporting is invariable bad news rather than good news. But as Stephen Jay Gould noted:

“Every spectacular incident of evil will be balanced by 10,000 acts of kindness, too often unnoted and invisible as the ''ordinary'' efforts of a vast majority

“We have a duty, almost a holy responsibility, to record and honour the victorious weight of these innumerable little kindnesses, when an unprecedented act of evil so threatens to distort our perception of ordinary human behaviour.”