D01 1 <#FLOB:D01\>4. AUDIENCE: SITUATION AND CIRCUMSTANCES

D01 2 One of the general weaknesses of Bultmann's theology is that D01 3 its austere challenge is issued directly to each individual, poor, D01 4 bare, forked, human animal in isolation from all the rest. It has, D01 5 in other words, virtually no social dimension. What is more, it is D01 6 curiously timeless. Bultmann never subjected his own existential D01 7 categories to the relentless scrutiny with which he probed the D01 8 'mythological' language of the Bible. And if he was able to present D01 9 his understanding of the Fourth Gospel as a message addressed D01 10 directly to his own contemporaries, with no need of modification or D01 11 adaptation, this is because he was convinced that this message had D01 12 lost none of its urgency or validity. The situation in which the D01 13 message was first proclaimed had consequently no importance for D01 14 Bultmann. "Unlike the prophets' words," he says, D01 15 apropos of the Fourth Gospel. "Jesus' words do not thrust D01 16 the concrete historical situation of the People into the light of D01 17 God's demand with its promise or threat; they do not open men's D01 18 eyes to what some present moment demands. Rather, the encounter D01 19 with Jesus' words and person casts man into decision in his bare, D01 20 undifferentiated situation of being human." Accordingly, D01 21 his solution to Lessing's fundamental dilemma ("contingent D01 22 truths of history can never serve as the demonstration of eternal D01 23 truths of reason") was to lop off one of its horns: history D01 24 does not count.

D01 25 Hence whereas in each of the other areas of interest (book, D01 26 content, origins) Bultmann's great commentary had made an indelible D01 27 mark, there was one area in which he left a gap. Slowly this gap D01 28 began to be filled; not just because in a field as well-trodden as D01 29 the Fourth Gospel it was encouraging to come across a relatively D01 30 green patch, but also no doubt because of the growing influence of D01 31 redaction criticism.

D01 32 The possibilities are not infinite, and it may be useful to D01 33 categorize them schematically. There are, broadly speaking, three D01 34 questions that may be asked concerning John's audience or D01 35 readership: was it (a) universal or particular; (b) Jewish or D01 36 Gentile (or possibly Samaritan - somewhere in between the two); (c) D01 37 Christian or non-Christian? If a non-Christian audience is intended D01 38 then the writer's aim could be either polemic (attack) or D01 39 apologetic (defence) or kerygmatic (missionary); if, on the other D01 40 hand, the audience is Christian then the purpose could be either D01 41 hortatory (to warn or encourage) or catechetic (to teach or D01 42 remind). These possibilities are not all mutually exclusive, since D01 43 a writer may have more than one purpose in writing and more than D01 44 one audience in mind. Besides, if it is allowed that the work may D01 45 have gone through successive stages, then it must also be allowed D01 46 that the purpose of each may be different. A document that was D01 47 directed in the first place, say, to refuting the claims of the D01 48 followers of the Baptist could be taken over and adapted as a D01 49 missionary tract by a disciple of Jesus. And so on. The situation D01 50 is complex, but provided that the key questions are borne in mind D01 51 it is possible to shape the enquiry fairly D01 52 straight-forwardly.

D01 53 Bultmann nowhere spells out his universalistic presuppositions. D01 54 C.K. Barrett, who in his commentary, as we have seen, avows himself D01 55 impressed by "a certain detachment of the gospel from its D01 56 immediate surroundings", held a similar view and expressed D01 57 it unequivocally: "John was not engaging in a pamphlet war, D01 58 either with Judaism or with the disciples of John the Baptist, but D01 59 writing theology in a book that was to be a possession for D01 60 ever." The reasons for thinking this view mistaken will D01 61 emerge in the discussion that follows.

D01 62 Concerning the original conclusion of the Gospel, C. H. Dodd D01 63 has this to say: "If ... we try to enter into the author's D01 64 intention, it must surely appear that he is thinking, in the first D01 65 place, not so much of Christians who need a deeper theology, as of D01 66 non-Christians who are concerned about eternal life and the way to D01 67 it, and may be ready to follow the Christian way if this is D01 68 presented to them in terms that are intelligibly related to their D01 69 previous religious interests and experience." Anyone who D01 70 reads this with some knowledge of what follows will realize D01 71 straight away that it affords more insight into Dodd's own D01 72 intentions than into those of the fourth evangelist. For his whole D01 73 book rests upon the assumption that the Gospel is to be explained D01 74 in the way he suggests. In this one respect he resembles Bultmann, D01 75 for he justifies his own procedures in advance by aligning them D01 76 with the alleged intentions of the author. What he calls D01 77 "background", for instance, he thinks of not as D01 78 intrinsically bound up with the beliefs of the evangelist but as an D01 79 external stimulus prompting him to find a new language in which to D01 80 couch a message that does not differ in any essential respect from D01 81 the kerygma he has inherited. It is hard to avoid the impression D01 82 that Dodd is reading his own interpretation into the conclusion of D01 83 the Gospel, which is just not clear enough to allow us to make any D01 84 direct inference concerning John's projected readership.

D01 85 As for the particular reader envisaged by Dodd, a devout and D01 86 thoughtful citizen of Ephesus tolerably well acquainted with D01 87 Hellenistic ideas, he is too Greek and insufficiently Jewish. Dodd D01 88 does admittedly devote a short section of his "Background" D01 89 chapters to a consideration of rabbinic Judaism; but because his D01 90 often brilliant analyses of the Gospel's leading ideas were worked D01 91 out long before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls it is perhaps D01 92 not surprising that they are based largely on the Hellenistic D01 93 material already studied, though less thoroughly, by Bousset and D01 94 others.

D01 95 In 1957, Dr W. C. van Unnik of Utrecht read a paper at a New D01 96 Testament congress in Oxford designed to draw attention once again D01 97 to the essential Jewishness of the Gospel. He specifically D01 98 dissociates himself from the views expressed by members of the D01 99 history-of-religions school from Wrede to Bauer, who considered D01 100 that the evangelist's attitude towards the Jews was completely D01 101 hostile. Against these, van Unnik first remarks upon the emphasis D01 102 the Gospel places upon exclusively Jewish titles like D01 103 "Messiah" and "Son of God" and then goes on D01 104 to ask who would be most likely to respond positively to this D01 105 emphasis. After adducing further evidence from Acts and D01 106 extra-biblical Jewish-Christian literature, he concludes that D01 107 "the purpose of the Fourth Gospel was to bring the visitors D01 108 [he presumably means congregation] of a synagogue in the Diaspora D01 109 (Jews and Godfearers) to belief in Jesus as the Messiah of D01 110 Israel". Elsewhere he correctly asserts that the Johannine D01 111 phrase "Jesus is the Christ" "is a formula D01 112 which has its roots in the Christian mission among the D01 113 Jews". None the less, the scholar from Utrecht exhibits in D01 114 this paper a certain short-sightedness, or rather strabismus, for D01 115 with both eyes turned inwards on the messianism undoubtedly present D01 116 in the Gospel, he misses (like others before him) the broader D01 117 implications of the evangelist's developed christology. Moreover, D01 118 if this Gospel, as van Unnik says, "was not an apology to D01 119 defend the Christian Church, but a mission-book which sought to win D01 120 [sic!]", then the evangelist must be adjudged to have D01 121 set about his task in a singularly ham-fisted way. Interestingly D01 122 enough, Karl Bornhäuser, whose arguments van Unnik declares himself D01 123 unable to accept, had pointed the way he should have taken if his D01 124 views were to gain ground. What is required is the possibility of D01 125 distinguishing different senses of the word D01 126 vIonda<*_>i-circ<*/>oi, or rather of D01 127 finding another name for the 'Jews' of the diaspora. For how could D01 128 anyone believe that the evangelist was setting out to plead his D01 129 cause with those he calls D01 130 vIonda<*_>i-circ<*/>oi when he excoriates D01 131 their perversity and obstinacy on almost every page?

D01 132 J. A. T. Robinson takes up a position very similar to van D01 133 Unnik's, stating that it is the title "Messiah" rather than D01 134 "Logos" "which controls John's Christology in the D01 135 body of the Gospel". And he adds, astonishingly, D01 136 "This is obvious from a concordance." If he had D01 137 continued leafing through his concordance as far as D01 138 nwi<*_>o-acute<*/>s he would have found D01 139 that the <}_><-|>occurences<+|>occurrences<}/> of "Son" as D01 140 a special title - quite apart from the title "Son of D01 141 God" that is arguably to be linked with "Messiah" - D01 142 considerably outnumber all the rest. It is true that the Gospel D01 143 does furnish some arguments for the view that it was originally D01 144 designed as a missionary-tract, even one specifically directed to D01 145 Jews of the diaspora, but like van Unnik, to whom he appeals, D01 146 Robinson fails to consider the ground and nature of the Gospel's D01 147 opposition to owi D01 148 vIonda<*_>i-circ<*/>oi. This question cannot be D01 149 satisfactorily countered by observing that the Gospel is not D01 150 "anti-Semitic, that is, racially anti-Jewish" or D01 151 that "the world of the Gospel narrative is wholly a Jewish D01 152 world". Rather, the question of the identity of D01 153 owi vIonda<*_>i-circ<*/>oi becomes even D01 154 more acute. Robinson slips easily from "Jews" to D01 155 "Judaism", and says that "to John the only true D01 156 Judaism is one that acknowledges Jesus as its Messiah. Becoming a D01 157 true Jew and becoming a Christian are one and the same D01 158 thing". But where in the Gospel is there any invitation to D01 159 "become a true Jew" or any advocacy of D01 160 "true Judaism"? Certainly, as Robinson points out, D01 161 "'the Jews' for the Gospel are not merely the Jews of D01 162 Palestine, but with two exceptions only (vi. 41 and 52) the Jews of D01 163 Judea". (In fact, as Bornhäuser had shown, the term D01 164 frequently has an even narrower extension - the Jewish authorities D01 165 in Jerusalem.) But if one translates owi D01 166 vIonda<*_>i-circ<*/>oi by "the Jews" D01 167 and then goes on to employ the same term for those to D01 168 whom the Gospel is addressed, then the result can only be D01 169 thoroughly confusing. Robinson actually believes that in its D01 170 earliest period the milieu of the Johannine tradition was D01 171 "the Christian mission among the Jews of Judea". D01 172 But this multiplies the difficulties. As for the phrase D01 173 "the children of God who are scattered abroad" (11: D01 174 52), Robinson may once again be right in asserting that it does not D01 175 refer to Gentiles. But that is not to say that it must refer to D01 176 Jews: it could just as well refer to other Christian groups.

D01 177 Interesting as it is, Robinson's article does not consider D01 178 sufficiently seriously the suggestion that the Gospel was not only D01 179 composed within a Christian community (which he concedes) but D01 180 primarily addressed to that community.

D01 181 The articles of Robinson and van Unnik both appeared in 1959, D01 182 some six years after the earlier of Dodd's two books. Meanwhile the D01 183 impact of the Dead Sea Scrolls had begun to make itself felt; and D01 184 there was an increasing readiness in the scholarly world to accept D01 185 that the origins of the Gospel were in some sense Jewish, though D01 186 there was not then (and is not now) any agreement about where D01 187 precisely to locate the Johannine community. As yet there had not D01 188 been published any major commentary that made use of the new finds, D01 189 though except for a handful of German scholars who still leaned D01 190 towards Bultmann's Gnostic theories the tide of opinion was D01 191 beginning to flow away from both Bultmann and Dodd. In 1966 came D01 192 the first volume of Raymond Brown's important commentary, and his D01 193 sensible and balanced advocacy of a Jewish setting for the Gospel D01 194 established this case beyond reasonable doubt. Moreover his theory D01 195 that the Gospel had gone through a number of different editions, D01 196 none the worse for a certain imprecision, was, as we have seen, D01 197 very definitely along the right lines, so that Schnackenburg, D01 198 assessing the results of what he called the D01 199 "traditio-historical" method a few years later, could speak D01 200 of an almost universal consensus "that we are actually D01 201 faced with a somewhat lengthy process of composition, with levels D01 202 of composition leading up to a final redaction".

D01 203 This double agreement, first on origins, secondly on D01 204 composition, paved the way for J. L. Martyn's History and D01 205 Theology in the Fourth Gospel, which for all its brevity is D01 206 probably the most important single work on the Gospel since D01 207 Bultmann's commentary. D01 208 D02 1 <#FLOB:D02\>The principal means for educating Nonconformist D02 2 ministers were the various denominational colleges. All the major D02 3 denominations made great strides between 1870, when Board schools D02 4 began supplementing the work done by older bodies to give D02 5 elementary education to working people, and the end of the century, D02 6 in creating a ministry with at least some higher education. In D02 7 those years the number of Wesleyan ministers without any college D02 8 training dropped by 51 per cent and the number of those attending a D02 9 theological college rose by 46 per cent. Baptists saw the number of D02 10 ministers without any college training drop by 32 per cent while D02 11 those going to a college rose by twenty per cent. Those with a D02 12 university degree rose by twelve per cent. For Congregationalists D02 13 the percentage with a college training remained, surprisingly, the D02 14 same. Primitive Methodists made the greatest strides of all: the D02 15 number of their ministers without any college training fell by 60 D02 16 per cent while the number with, rose by 59 per cent.

D02 17 Naturally, much depended on the quality of the education these D02 18 men received. The older colleges, which traced their history back D02 19 to the eighteenth century's 'dissenting academies' had not kept the D02 20 high standing they had then enjoyed. In the 1870s R. F. Horton's D02 21 father, himself a Congregational minister, refused to let his son D02 22 enter a Congregational college because, he wrote, "there is D02 23 not one of them fit for you to enter. The professors are of an D02 24 inferior order, and very few of the students even approach D02 25 mediocrity." Charles Brown recalled Bristol Baptist College D02 26 when he was there from 1879 to 1882: there was only one instructor D02 27 while the course was "not altogether satisfactory". D02 28 The other change which took place was the growth of a minority who D02 29 went on to take advantage of new opportunities to get a university D02 30 degree. The number of men in all four major denominations who had D02 31 done a university degree more than doubled between 1870 and 1900, D02 32 from 14 to 37 per cent. The traditional dependence on Scottish D02 33 universities was replaced by the expanding university college D02 34 system, London University and the Victoria University group of D02 35 colleges. It was a sizeable achievement.

D02 36 The distance that had to be covered can be seen in the case of D02 37 the Primitive Methodists: they had no theological college until D02 38 1881 and when the new college in Manchester faced collapse it was D02 39 only saved by the generosity of Sir William Hartley. It was he who D02 40 persuaded A. S. Peake to leave Merton College, Oxford, for D02 41 Manchester in 1892. Peake introduced Greek, increased the course D02 42 from one year to two and increased accommodation to sixty. Even so, D02 43 expenditure per student, admittedly only a rough guide, fell from D02 44 pounds81 per student in 1890 to pounds38 in 1901; it was not D02 45 unusual for the college to spend more on the gardens than on buying D02 46 books. Again, entrance to the probationary ministry, from which D02 47 students were taken, was controlled by the districts, not the D02 48 college. The problem was too many men applying for too few places; D02 49 in 1895, eighty-seven men passed the required examination D02 50 for the ministry although the college still had only sixty places. D02 51 Even for those sixty, there were only vacancies in the circuits for D02 52 twenty-seven.

D02 53 For their part, Congregationalists suffered from a glut of D02 54 colleges: there were eight in England, three in Wales and one in D02 55 Scotland. There was virtually no denominational control. All was D02 56 left "to the working of chance or of economic forces ... D02 57 Clearly this is a thoroughly British policy, but it is also D02 58 thoroughly pagan." If a man had a 'call' to a chapel he D02 59 could become a minister without any denominational approval and D02 60 with no educational qualifications required. Even so, by the D02 61 beginning of the new century only six per cent of the ministers D02 62 newly appointed to a church were without some form of higher D02 63 education. Again, as with the Primitive Methodists, there were too D02 64 many men chasing too few churches: 223 ministers in 1901 could not D02 65 find a church. Expenditure in the various colleges varied D02 66 tremendously: in Nottingham Institute (admittedly non-residential) D02 67 it was pounds30 on each of its 60 students; Western College in D02 68 Plymouth spent pounds136 but it had only fourteen students. As a D02 69 general rule, expenditure only rose as enrolment fell. Baptists had D02 70 six colleges in England and two in Wales although in 1904 the D02 71 number was reduced to four in England through amalgamation. After D02 72 1893 expenditure fell although enrolment remained virtually at the D02 73 1890 level. Expenditure varied enormously: Regent's Park College in D02 74 London spent pounds140 on each of its twenty-nine students in 1901, D02 75 while Pastor's College, founded by Spurgeon in 1856, spent pounds64 D02 76 on each of its sixty men.

D02 77 There were certain problems common to all nineteen D02 78 denominational colleges: the first was the quality of men who D02 79 entered the ministry and from whom students were recruited. Only D02 80 the Wesleyans had a system whereby the national organization had D02 81 any control and even they had problems. For the other three bodies D02 82 the problem was the same: either the districts (for Primitive D02 83 Methodists) or the individual chapels (for Congregationalists and D02 84 Baptists) allowed men into the ministry who had no academic D02 85 qualifications. Some colleges, such as Pastor's, existed D02 86 specifically in order to train men who would not put off people by D02 87 too much learning. Again, some colleges were simply too small and D02 88 had too little money: the Primitive Methodist college had only one D02 89 tutor until Peake arrived. In 1901 the Congregationalists' Western D02 90 and Hackney Colleges had only fourteen and twenty-one students D02 91 respectively while the Baptists' Nottingham and Bristol colleges D02 92 had only eleven and twenty-one. With so many colleges there simply D02 93 were not enough funds to go round: a twelve year survey (1890-1901) D02 94 of the Baptist colleges shows that of eighty-five annual budgets D02 95 for which there is full evidence, fifty-five had over-spent. As a D02 96 general rule the only way to spend more per student was to have D02 97 fewer students. The colleges' incomes were either constant or D02 98 declining.

D02 99 The greatest problem, therefore, was not in getting men into D02 100 the colleges but in raising the level of the education they D02 101 received once they were there. Wesleyan colleges were established D02 102 as theological training centres but Baptist and Congregational D02 103 colleges, because of their origins as dissenting academies, still D02 104 had a bias towards giving a general arts education and not just a D02 105 theological training. As there was no national system of state D02 106 secondary schools until 1902 there was a constant struggle between D02 107 those who wanted to raise the level of theological education in the D02 108 colleges and those who knew that many of the men coming into them D02 109 had nothing but a primary school education. Charles Brown, for D02 110 example, was born in Northamptonshire in 1855 and had to go to work D02 111 as a boy when his father, an agricultural labourer earning 12s. a D02 112 week, was taken ill. The boy earned 1s. 6d. a week scaring birds D02 113 away from crops. At fourteen he began to work as a postman at 2d. a D02 114 round, one round each morning. He left home in 1871 to work in D02 115 Birmingham, was converted during a Moody-Sankey campaign, and in D02 116 1879 entered Bristol Baptist College. It is not surprising that the D02 117 course in Baptist and Congregational colleges ran to six years: D02 118 there was a lot of ground to cover.

D02 119 Salvation came from without: the development of some de D02 120 facto secondary work in the higher 'standards' or years of D02 121 Board schools, the improvements in the older grammar schools, the D02 122 use of various 'institutes' dedicated to helping working men get D02 123 more education, the creation of new, civic universities like Owens D02 124 in Manchester, and the expansion of London University, gave men who D02 125 wanted a basic education beyond primary school new opportunities, D02 126 after which they could go on to a denominational college which was D02 127 now more able to concentrate on theology. The theological colleges D02 128 were eager to take up the new opportunities and transfer the D02 129 teaching of arts subjects to the new colleges and universities. In D02 130 1881, for example, Lancashire Independent College abolished all D02 131 preparatory classes as Owens College could do it so much better. D02 132 When the Congregational Union officially urged this new course on D02 133 the colleges in 1902 there was still a long way to go: A. M. D02 134 Fairbairn warned Sir Alfred Dale, then Principal of University D02 135 College, Liverpool, "I think one has to be very careful as D02 136 to giving the theological colleges power over the regulation of D02 137 degrees. You must not let them level down the University, but D02 138 rather use your position to level them up."

D02 139 Wesleyans, along with Primitive Methodists, seemed less D02 140 concerned with the need for an educated ministry than the Baptists D02 141 and Congregationalists. They insisted their four colleges have a D02 142 spirit which was "practical rather than academical" D02 143 although it was agreed that the 254 places provided in the colleges D02 144 were not enough by the end of the century. A committee was D02 145 appointed to report on the situation in 1901 because Conference D02 146 wanted to know how to secure candidates "of higher D02 147 educational proficiency and others of special promise" and D02 148 they wanted the committee's views on the "desirability of D02 149 raising the standard of the examinations for the ministry" D02 150 as well as the possible need to give candidates "a more D02 151 thorough training ... and a more complete equipment".

D02 152 Two additional problems were shared by all denominations. The D02 153 first concerned the large army of lay or local preachers: for every D02 154 minister in the four leading denominations there were seven lay D02 155 preachers. To on-lookers these men were seen in many cases D02 156 as "Nonconformist ministers" and of many it could D02 157 be said that "his prayer was like himself, rough and D02 158 earnest". All major denominations strove to raise standards D02 159 for lay preachers; methods chosen included free circulating D02 160 libraries and denominational courses and examinations. The second D02 161 problem was the influx of men trying to enter the ministry by the D02 162 end of the century; if we look at ministers actively engaged in D02 163 church work in 1901 we see that three out of every ten Primitive D02 164 Methodists, four out of every ten Wesleyans, five out of every ten D02 165 Congregationalists and seven out of every ten Baptists had entered D02 166 the ministry in the 1890s. (Except for the Baptists the influx did D02 167 not lower the trend towards a more educated ministry: the total of D02 168 all Baptist ministers without any formal higher education was only D02 169 eighteen per cent by 1901. However among those men 'settled' in the D02 170 1890s it was over twice that, at 41 per cent.) Unlike the Church of D02 171 England, Nonconformity suffered not from too few but from too many D02 172 candidates. There was a real embarrassment of riches.

D02 173 The problem of too many men wanting to become ministers and too D02 174 many lay preachers who inevitably lowered the educational average D02 175 pointed up a fundamental dilemma. Robertson Nicoll, with his D02 176 journalistic exuberance, boasted in 1902 that "the average D02 177 Dissenting minister has ... a better literary and theological D02 178 culture than the average minister of the Church [of D02 179 England]" who were "the worst educated [ministry] D02 180 in this country". Against this was the tradition that D02 181 Nonconformity was the religion of 'the people' and not of the D02 182 'privileged classes'. How far could a minister of the people be D02 183 educated beyond their level? When Spurgeon opened Pastor's College D02 184 in 1856 some of the first pupils were illiterate but he insisted D02 185 that his aim was to equip "a class of ministers who will D02 186 not aim at lofty scholarship, but at the winning of souls - men of D02 187 the people". High standards of education were not needed D02 188 for work among the "neglected classes, to whom a more D02 189 cultured ministry would have appealed less strongly". Yet D02 190 the same writer lamented that some of the first students D02 191 "in many cases alienated the more thoughtful minds from the D02 192 denomination". Primitive Methodists rejoiced that D02 193 "we are of the people, and know their needs" yet, D02 194 as we have seen, they were also glad that "our people are D02 195 everywhere participating in the social and intellectual advance of D02 196 the times". We saw earlier that critics in Northampton had D02 197 protested against what they called a "cultured ministry D02 198 which ... shoots over the heads of the people". D02 199 D03 1 <#FLOB:D03\>The Lord's case against Israel

D03 2 Hosea 4.1-9.9

D03 3 The opening of the case

D03 4 4.1-3 The rest of the book of Hosea is made up of a collection D03 5 of prophetic sayings and we hear no more about his life or D03 6 activities. It begins with what looks like a 'motto' oracle D03 7 introducing the theme of the whole collection (cf. Amos 1.2 and D03 8 Isa. 1.2-3). It takes the form of a legal disputation and consists D03 9 of a call to hear in v. 1, the charge in the second half of v. D03 10 1 and v. 2, and the judicial sentence in v. 3. Some think this D03 11 'form' was borrowed from a special legal ceremony connected with D03 12 the Feast of Tabernacles, when annually or every seven years the D03 13 law was read and the people judged against it (Deut. 31.9ff.). On D03 14 the basis of an acknowledgment that they had broken it and that it D03 15 was now binding upon them for the future, the covenant was renewed. D03 16 The apparent references to the Decalogue in v. 2 may support this D03 17 view. It is equally possible, however, that the procedure was well D03 18 known both in the main centres where legal cases were judged and in D03 19 the less formal gathering of the elders of a town or city to D03 20 maintain justice there (cf. Amos 5.10).

D03 21 The charge against Israel is spelled out in two ways, first in D03 22 general and then in more specific terms. Good faith and D03 23 loyalty are those very qualities which YHWH had D03 24 promised to show to his people through Moses (Ex. 34.6) and which D03 25 were therefore required from his people both to him and to one D03 26 another. Psalm 12 similarly complains that these qualities are not D03 27 to be found in Israel. Next comes acknowledgement of God. D03 28 REB has translated the same word in v. 6 as knowledge and D03 29 it would probably have been better to have done so here. The word D03 30 is especially important for Hosea. It means more than intellectual D03 31 awareness and probably more than acknowledgement as we D03 32 normally use that word. It often carries with it an idea of D03 33 intimacy and close relationship (cf. Amos 3.2). If there was no D03 34 "knowledge of God" in Israel it means that by D03 35 failure to show good faith and loyalty they had D03 36 spurned their proper relationship with God.

D03 37 KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

D03 38 Since the idea of 'knowing' is so common in Hosea it may be D03 39 helpful at this point to examine it more closely. The verb 'to D03 40 know' in Hebrew has a wide range of meanings. It was thoroughly D03 41 investigated by the late Professor D. Winton Thomas in a number of D03 42 articles and studies. The variation of meaning is so wide that it D03 43 may be there are two identical Hebrew roots with different D03 44 meanings, one meaning 'to know' and the other meaning 'to humble' D03 45 or 'to humiliate'. There are places like Gen. 4.1, where the D03 46 meaning clearly is 'to have intercourse with' (REB D03 47 "lay with"), in which it is hard to decide which of D03 48 the two roots is being used, always supposing there are two.

D03 49 To begin with, 'knowledge' can and often does refer to the D03 50 acquisition of information and the cerebral processes involved in D03 51 that. An illustration of the verb's use in this simple sense may be D03 52 found in II Sam. 11.20 ("You must have known ..."). D03 53 In the book of Proverbs the noun 'knowledge' is used fairly D03 54 frequently as a parallel to 'understanding' or even 'wisdom' (cf. D03 55 Prov. 14.6), where it refers not only to the information acquired D03 56 but also to the process of the ability to acquire it. Then too, as D03 57 in English, the verb may be used with a person as its object. D03 58 Sometimes it merely means 'to be acquainted with' someone; D03 59 sometimes it denotes a deeper relationship, 'to be familiar'. D03 60 Unless it is derived from the second root meaning 'to humiliate', D03 61 the sexual usage mentioned above is a vivid use of the word in this D03 62 sense of being familiar. All this means that the exact connotation D03 63 of the words, both verb and noun, has to be decided in the light of D03 64 the context in which it is used. In v. 6 of this chapter, where the D03 65 context is the teaching of the priests, it most probably means D03 66 knowledge of the law, i.e. intellectual, mental awareness of its D03 67 demands. Similarly in 9.7 and 11.3 it refers to knowledge of D03 68 certain facts. But in v. 2 of the present chapter, where God D03 69 is the object, it possibly means more than awareness or recognition D03 70 of God and is used of the relationship with him which ought to D03 71 exist if only people showed good faith and loyalty. D03 72 The familiar relationship which ought to be the mark of the chosen D03 73 people no longer exists. In 5.4 it is this same relationship which D03 74 is broken or prevented by their sin. The same meaning is found in D03 75 6.3,6; 8.2; 13.4.

D03 76 4.2 sets out some specific ways in which the lack of good D03 77 faith, loyalty and knowledge of God is manifested. Kill, D03 78 rob and commit adultery are all deeds forbidden in the D03 79 Decalogue in Ex. 20.13-15. To swear oaths and break them D03 80 or to swear them with no intention of keeping them is close to D03 81 "taking the Lord's name in vain". These particular D03 82 wrongs are probably examples of a complete breakdown in social D03 83 order in which acts of violence resulting in the frequent D03 84 shedding of blood were commonly experienced. These sins were D03 85 punishable not just because they were breaches of the law. The law D03 86 was a guide to living in good faith and loyalty, and D03 87 failure in respect of the law was simply a sign of a more D03 88 fundamental malaise, namely the lack of all those qualities which D03 89 held YHWH's people together.

D03 90 The judicial sentence in v. 3 is introduced by the usual D03 91 Therefore and is directed against the land and D03 92 therefore against all who live in it. It will affect also D03 93 the wildlife, for all living things depend on the fertility of the D03 94 land, which the Israelites thought was provided by Baal (2.5) and D03 95 which YHWH, the true giver, would withdraw (2.9). As D03 96 remarked on 2.18, there is a bond between humanity and nature. The D03 97 fortunes of the two are inseparable (cf. Gen. 3; Isa. 11; Rom, D03 98 8.15ff.).

D03 99 The case against a priest

D03 100 4.4-6 If vv. 1-3 are a 'motto' oracle they lead naturally into D03 101 this next passage which is highly critical of the priests whose D03 102 duty it was to teach the law to the people. Part at least of the D03 103 reason for the people's disobedience was the failure of the priests D03 104 to fulfil this responsibility. The Hebrew of v. 4 is difficult to D03 105 understand but REB has probably caught the right meaning, D03 106 though it involves some slight change in the text of the third D03 107 line. The court case with which the collection has opened is not D03 108 one brought by a human being, not even by Hosea himself; it is D03 109 brought by YHWH who addresses his people through his D03 110 prophet and his quarrel is largely with the priest. D03 111 The priest is addressed in the singular. Whether it D03 112 refers to the priest in charge at Bethel (cf. Amos 7.10-16) or some D03 113 other one in, say, Samaria we cannot say. It could just possibly be D03 114 used in a collective sense. In the second line of v. 5 Hosea D03 115 mentioned the prophet alongside the priest. Since he D03 116 criticized prophets nowhere else, some commentators have been D03 117 inclined to omit this line as a later comment recalling, for D03 118 instance, the confrontation between Jeremiah and Hananiah (Jer. D03 119 27.28). But there had been and probably still were false prophets D03 120 in Israel (I Kings 22). Moreover the actual word order of the D03 121 Hebrew suggests that lines one and two are parallel and, further, D03 122 the prophet, like the priest, was responsible for making known the D03 123 mind and purpose of God. Literally, the last line of v. 5 should be D03 124 translated 'and I will destroy your mother'. This is extremely D03 125 unlikely to be what Hosea meant. There is a rare word very similar D03 126 to the word for 'mother' which means 'people' or nation, and D03 127 REB is doubtless correct to follow this meaning, especially as D03 128 the last line of v. 5 is then parallel with the first line of v. 6, D03 129 leaving two more parallel lines in v. 6.

D03 130 As was stated above, knowledge in v. 6 seems closer to D03 131 mental grasp than to relationship with God. The people have D03 132 lacked adequate knowledge of God's will and have come to D03 133 ruin, but it is fundamentally the fault of the priest who D03 134 had rejected knowledge and forsaken the D03 135 teaching (Hebrew t<*_>o-circ<*/>r<*_>a-acute<*/>h D03 136 sometimes means 'law'). Therefore YHWH will reject D03 137 him and forsake his children. Thus there is a serious warning D03 138 here for all those in positions of leadership whose responsibility D03 139 it is to pass on to their people the message of God concerning the D03 140 way they live their lives. Ezekiel makes a similar point when he D03 141 describes the prophet as a watchman (Ezek. 3.16-21; cf. Hosea D03 142 5.8).

D03 143 Priests and people devoid of understanding

D03 144 4.7-14 This section again begins with an attack on the D03 145 priests, moves on to include both people and priest D03 146 (v. 9) and then seems to be critical of the whole people. It is D03 147 clear from v. 7 that Hosea is not critical of the priesthood as an D03 148 institution. It is an office which carries with it dignity, a D03 149 word sometimes translated 'honour' or 'glory'. It is the sin of the D03 150 priest which causes him to turn their dignity into D03 151 dishonour. Here, however, the sin is not limited to one priest D03 152 but to the priesthood of Hosea's day as a whole. In v. 8 the verb D03 153 batten is used in the sense of 'grow fat on'. RSV's D03 154 "greedy for" is perhaps closer to the Hebrew. The D03 155 verb means that the priests welcome it when the people sin and are D03 156 anxious for it to happen more often because it means more sacrifice D03 157 and, since they share the offered meat, more food for them. Verse 9 D03 158 seems to extend the punishment to both people and priest, D03 159 yet the word eat in v. 10 looks as though it is picking up the D03 160 feed of v. 8 (it is the same word in the Hebrew) and that may D03 161 suggest that v. 10 refers only to the priests. REB seems to D03 162 understand this with its resort to prostitutes. The word D03 163 is usually translated 'play the harlot' and naturally the subject D03 164 is usually feminine. The only place where a man is the subject of D03 165 the verb is in Num. 25.1, and this is during an incident to which D03 166 Hosea refers again later (9.10). There it refers to participation D03 167 in the Canaanite sexual orgies, and so it is quite likely that here D03 168 it refers to the priests sharing in the Canaanite fertility rites; D03 169 but their union with cultic prostitutes will produce no offspring. D03 170 This accords well with the fact that they have abandoned the D03 171 LORD (vv. 10c-11a).

D03 172 The rest of the passage (vv. 11b-14) certainly seems to D03 173 refer to the whole people and not just to the priests. The D03 174 wine which steals my people's wits may be either D03 175 wine drunk at parties or wine used to excess in Canaanite religious D03 176 rites as is suggested by vv. 12 and 13. The mockery of seeking D03 177 advice from a piece of wood reminds us of the prophet of D03 178 the exile who also makes fun of idolatry (Isa, 40.18ff.; 44.9ff.). D03 179 To be fair, those who worshipped idols did not usually believe that D03 180 a piece of wood was a god, but rather that the spirit or god lived D03 181 in the wood. Still, the mockery is effective. Canaanite shrines D03 182 were often situated on mountain tops and terebinths D03 183 were sacred trees. In Hosea it is never easy to be sure whether D03 184 promiscuity (v.12) refers to activities within the cult or to D03 185 activities in life generally or, metaphorically, to Israel's D03 186 attitude to YHWH. Similarly although v. 14c and D03 187 d refer to cultic prostitution, vv. 13e and f, D03 188 14a and b may refer to sexual irregularities outside D03 189 worship, encouraged by what went on inside. D03 190 D04 1 <#FLOB:D04\>THE DEMANDS MADE UPON CHRISTIANS

D04 2 After these general considerations about what is involved in D04 3 religions living together it will be helpful to look in more detail D04 4 at what is required of Christians. The essential point is that D04 5 other religions have to be accepted as being on an equal footing, D04 6 that is, as being just as much religions as Christianity, and as D04 7 producing at least some good religious fruits. The acceptance of D04 8 other religions, however, also requires the abandonment of, or at D04 9 least the non-insistence on, some points of Christian belief, as D04 10 found in the New Testament and the ecumenical creeds; and this is D04 11 difficult for Christians, some would say impossible. The difficulty D04 12 can be eased, however, by distinguishing questions of fact from D04 13 questions of interpretation, since in the latter some latitude is D04 14 possible.

D04 15 The simplest example is that of the conception of the chosen D04 16 people, that is, God's choice, first of all of Abraham, then of the D04 17 Israelites, and then, as Christian theology has tended to maintain, D04 18 of the Christian Church as the true inheritor of the old covenant D04 19 and central to the new covenant. The concept of choice can be D04 20 understood in at least two ways. It could be held that Abraham, the D04 21 Israelites and the Church were chosen because they were superior to D04 22 the individuals or groups around and had great merits. On the other D04 23 hand, it could be held that they were chosen because of their D04 24 fitness for the performance of future tasks, namely, the D04 25 transmission of a special form of the knowledge of God to future D04 26 generations and to the whole world eventually. This second way of D04 27 understanding choice does not imply that those chosen were superior D04 28 to others in any exclusivist way, and in particular it does not D04 29 exclude the possibility that others, such as Muhammad, may be D04 30 chosen to perform some complementary task for God. According to D04 31 this second understanding, then, the belief of Christians in these D04 32 choices by God is not exclusivist.

D04 33 More difficult to deal with is the assertion that Jesus is D04 34 "the only-begotten D04 35 (monogen<*_>e-stroke<*/>s) son of God" as in the D04 36 Nicene creed. The term monogen<*_>e-stroke<*/>s comes D04 37 from the apostle John, and may mean no more than 'only' son. A D04 38 different conception is found at the beginning of the Epistle to D04 39 the Hebrews, where the writer says that God, who had formerly D04 40 spoken to the fathers through the prophets, has now spoken to us D04 41 through his son, whom he established as heir of all things, and D04 42 through whom he created the worlds; a little later he adds that D04 43 this son, after making a cleansing of the sins of the world, took D04 44 his seat at the right hand of the majesty on high. In this D04 45 conception two points are to be noted. One is that it was through D04 46 the son that God created the universe; and this is reminiscent of D04 47 the passage which says that it was through the Word or Logos - or D04 48 perhaps we could say the divine rationality - that every thing came D04 49 into being. Then this aspect of God's being, his rationality or D04 50 something like that, became flesh in Jesus, that is, took a human D04 51 form. This appears to make Jesus unique, but it might perhaps be D04 52 maintained that, in accordance with a second point, namely, his D04 53 cleansing of sins, his uniqueness was derived from his unique D04 54 achievement of cleansing sins.

D04 55 Official Christian doctrine is that Jesus is both human and D04 56 divine, and that his humanity and divinity are not intermingled; in D04 57 other words, he is not a god-man or superman. Theologians and D04 58 others, however, have often tended to emphasize the divinity at the D04 59 expense of the humanity. Yet there is also much in the Bible which D04 60 reduces the difference between Jesus and other human beings. In the D04 61 account of creation it is asserted that all men and women are made D04 62 in the image of God, an assertion which most Muslim theologians D04 63 have rejected as false. God is spoken of as a father in the Old D04 64 Testament, and human beings as his sons and daughters. In the D04 65 thought of Paul Jesus is sometimes distinguished as "the D04 66 firstborn of many brethren", but this is balanced elsewhere D04 67 when the whole Christian community is called "the church of D04 68 the firstborn (ones)". Paul also distinguishes Jesus from D04 69 his Christian followers by saying that, while he is truly son, they D04 70 are children by adoption. This again, however, can be balanced by D04 71 the important passage which says that all who believe in Jesus have D04 72 the right to become children of God, "those who were D04 73 begotten, not of blood, not of the will of flesh, nor of the will D04 74 of a male, but of God".

D04 75 In the light of such assertions of the divinity in some sense D04 76 of all believers, it is particularly important for Christians D04 77 engaging in dialogue to have a clear idea of how the sonship of D04 78 Jesus differs from that of other Christians. Is it because of his D04 79 unique achievement, however we describe it, or is there something D04 80 else? It is to be noted at this point, too, that the uniqueness of D04 81 something does not necessarily mean that it is superior to D04 82 everything else, since other people also can have a unique but D04 83 different task, whose uniqueness consists in its being something D04 84 distinctive, not identical with any other task. I would not presume D04 85 to give a solution here to these problems, but must leave it to the D04 86 theologians. I would, however, like to call attention to the way in D04 87 which exclusivist theological interpretations can distort D04 88 translation. In the prologue to the Fourth Gospel there occur the D04 89 words "we beheld his glory, doxan D04 90 h<*_>o-stroke<*/>s monogenous para patros", where D04 91 the literal translation of these Greek words would be: "a D04 92 glory as of an only (son) from a (human) father"; D04 93 and there is nothing contrary to Christian belief in such a D04 94 translation. Yet I find that the New English Bible translates: D04 95 "we saw glory, such glory as befits the Father's only D04 96 son"; and the New Jerusalem Bible has: "we saw his D04 97 glory, the glory that he has from the Father as only Son D04 98 of the Father". There is, of course, justification for D04 99 such translations, but they are reading into a text what is not D04 100 actually present in it. Clearly theologians and Bible translators D04 101 should be more aware that we are moving into a situation of having D04 102 to live together with other religions, and should realize that this D04 103 places certain constraints upon them. Lest it should be thought D04 104 that what has been said is intended to belittle or diminish the D04 105 divinity of Jesus, I would suggest that the final result should D04 106 rather be a heightening of the status of all humanity.

D04 107 Apart from avoiding unjustified exclusivism, it is important D04 108 that Christian theologians should work out a doctrine of the D04 109 Trinity which would not remain an arcane mystery known only to a D04 110 few top theologians in an intellectual stratosphere, but which D04 111 would be accessible to ordinary Christians. Ordinary Christians D04 112 have to meet Muslims and members of other religions and have to D04 113 explain to them how, although they believe that Jesus is divine, D04 114 they believe that God is one. They may also have to meet questions D04 115 about the assertion that all believers are children of God.

D04 116 In a situation of dialogue I hold that the essential Christian D04 117 duty is to bear witness to the historical humans facts about Jesus, D04 118 and then leave it to the members of other religions to form an D04 119 interpretation of these facts in terms of their own tradition. The D04 120 traditional Christian interpretation of these facts is in terms of D04 121 late Hellenistic philosophy, which we now reject, though we have D04 122 not found any generally acceptable replacement. We seem, however, D04 123 to be moving into a situation in which new formulations may be D04 124 accepted as alternatives to the traditional formulation, not D04 125 replacing it but complementing it. Non-Christian interpretations of D04 126 the teaching and achievement of Jesus, then, should not be rejected D04 127 out of hand, but should be accepted at least provisionally and D04 128 further discussed, until it is discovered whether Christians can D04 129 accept them as alternative formulations of their own beliefs.

D04 130 In dialogue with Muslims it is also important that Christians D04 131 should reject the distortions of the medieval image of Islam and D04 132 should develop a positive appreciation of its values. This involves D04 133 accepting Muhammad as a religious leader through whom God has D04 134 worked, and that is tantamount to holding that he is in some sense D04 135 a prophet. Such a view does not contradict any central Christian D04 136 belief. It has, however, to be made clear to Muslims that D04 137 Christians do not believe that all Muhammad's revelations from God D04 138 were infallible, even though they allow that much of divine truth D04 139 was revealed to him. Arthur Arberry paid a profound tribute to the D04 140 religious value of the Qur'<*_>a-stroke<*/>n in the D04 141 Introduction to his translation:

D04 142 This task (of translating) was undertaken, not lightly, D04 143 and carried to its conclusion at a time of great personal distress, D04 144 through which it comforted and sustained the writer in a manner for D04 145 which he will always be grateful. He therefore acknowledges his D04 146 gratitude to whatever power or Power inspired the man and the D04 147 Prophet who first recited these scriptures.

D04 148 To this personal statement may be added an official one from D04 149 the section on Islam in the Declaration on the Relation of the D04 150 Church to non-Christian Religions issued by the Second Vatican D04 151 Council in 1965:

D04 152 The Church also regards with esteem the Muslims who D04 153 worship the one, subsistent, merciful and almighty God, the Creator D04 154 of heaven and earth, who has spoken to man. Islam willingly traces D04 155 its descent back to Abraham, and just as he submitted himself to D04 156 God, the Muslims endeavour to submit themselves to his mysterious D04 157 decrees. They venerate Jesus as a prophet, without, however, D04 158 recognizing him as God, and they pay honour to his virgin mother D04 159 Mary and sometimes also invoke her with devotion. Further, they D04 160 expect a day of judgement when God will raise all men from the dead D04 161 and reward them. For this reason they attach importance to the D04 162 moral life and worship God, mainly by prayer, alms-giving and D04 163 fasting. If in the course of the centuries there has arisen not D04 164 infrequent dissension and hostility between Christian and Muslim, D04 165 this sacred Council now urges everyone to forget the past, to make D04 166 sincere efforts at mutual understanding and to work together in D04 167 protecting and promoting for the benefit of all men, social D04 168 justice, good morals as well as peace and freedom.

D04 169 THE DEMANDS MADE UPON MUSLIMS

D04 170 For Muslims also, if they are to live alongside other D04 171 religions, it will be necessary to abandon their exclusivism. This D04 172 means admitting that, even if Islam has all the truth required by D04 173 the whole human race to the end of time, there may be complementary D04 174 ways of expressing this truth. It would also appear that Muslims D04 175 would have to reinterpret their conception of the finality of Islam D04 176 and of Muhammad's being the last prophet. This last point D04 177 presupposes that there has been a series of pure and perfect D04 178 revelations from God, but this is not borne out by what we now know D04 179 of the history of religion. It would seem that Muslims would have D04 180 to admit that religions like Hinduism and Buddhism also received D04 181 something from God, though not in a form resembling that of the D04 182 revelation to Muhammad.

D04 183 In respect of Muslim-Christian relations it is essential that D04 184 Muslims accept the historicity of the Bible and reject the doctrine D04 185 of its corruption. That doctrine contradicts known facts, such as D04 186 the existence of manuscripts dating from long before the time of D04 187 Muhammad. Throughout this century and last the Bible has been the D04 188 object of searching literary criticism by Christians and nominal D04 189 Christians. Some of this criticism has been very radical, and there D04 190 have been conservative Christians who accepted little of it. Most D04 191 Christians who understand the literary critics, however, would D04 192 accept the main points. This means admitting that some of the books D04 193 of the Bible have had a complex history of being compiled and D04 194 edited, but it would be vigorously maintained that such processes D04 195 were subject to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and do not D04 196 detract from the religious value of the Bible. D04 197 D05 1 <#FLOB:D05\>THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

D05 2 The Book of Common Prayer is a unique compilation. It is a book D05 3 of modest proportions - physically smaller than either medieval D05 4 Breviary or Missal, scarcely larger than a Book of Hours - yet it D05 5 contains provision for the whole liturgy. Its contents absorb not D05 6 only Breviary and Missal but also Processional, Manual (with the D05 7 rites of baptism, marriage, churching of women, commination, D05 8 visitation of the sick, and burial), and Pontifical (confirmation D05 9 and ordination). Its preface subsumes both Ordinal and Customary. D05 10 There is no need for Choir Psalter, Antiphonal, or Gradual: the D05 11 psalms are appended to the Book in numerical order, and all that is D05 12 required to supplement the Book of Common Prayer is the Bible.

D05 13 This conciseness is the result of abbreviation, and above all D05 14 by the excision of the greater part of the Proper. Much of this was D05 15 achieved in the compilation of the 1549 book, but it was furthered D05 16 in the 1552 version.

D05 17 Versions of the Book of Common Prayer

D05 18 Between 1549 and 1662 the Book of Common Prayer was subject to D05 19 change. From recent modern experience this should not surprise us: D05 20 more exceptional is the stability of the Book between 1662 and D05 21 1965. The most important changes came in 1552 but there were D05 22 further significant amendments, especially in 1559, 1561, and D05 23 1604.

D05 24 Apart from the addition of the introductory material in 1552, D05 25 the order of Mattins and Evensong remained largely unchanged, D05 26 except for the position of the Apostles' Creed (oddly placed D05 27 between Kyrie and Lord's Prayer in 1549).

D05 28 The Order of Holy Communion changed substantially in 1552, but D05 29 retained its basic form thereafter, though important rubrics were D05 30 added in 1662.

D05 31 The 1559 Book saw the insertion of some additional prayers D05 32 after the Collects at Mattins and Evensong, and the introduction of D05 33 the Grace at the end of Mattins, Evensong, and Litany. The D05 34 Elizabethan Act of Uniformity was (and continues to be) printed at D05 35 the beginning of the Book together with a revised and extended D05 36 Preface. In 1561 the Calendar and Lectionary were significantly D05 37 amended and revised.

D05 38 1662 was the last revision. Here for the first time the Lord's D05 39 Prayer was directed to be said by all on all occasions (the old D05 40 practice of priestly recitation with the people responding D05 41 "But deliver us from evil" persisted in some D05 42 instances, even in 1552). The doxology was added to the Lord's D05 43 Prayer at the second recitation in Mattins, Evensong, and Holy D05 44 Communion. More additional prayers were provided (e.g. the Prayer D05 45 for All Sorts of Conditions of Men, and the General Thanksgiving). D05 46 There were two additions to the Calendar.

D05 47 Revisions in scriptural texts are not discussed here, nor are D05 48 the 'parish' services (baptism, confirmation, marriage, etc.), nor D05 49 the ordination services (first printed in 1550); however, the three D05 50 distinct forms of the Burial Service are outlined below.

D05 51 No student of the formation of the Book of Common Prayer can D05 52 ignore Brightman's The English Rite (London, 1915), which D05 53 sets out the sources and texts of the versions of the Book in D05 54 parallel columns, along with a historical introduction and copious D05 55 annotation.

D05 56 THE INFLUENCE OF THE 1549 BOOK

D05 57 The history of the Book of Common Prayer is such that though D05 58 the specific orders of the 1549 version were in use for so short a D05 59 period, the influence of its ethos and ritual style has persisted D05 60 far longer. Reference to the 1549 Book has been encouraged by the D05 61 paragraph on ornaments and ceremonies incorporated in the D05 62 Elizabethan Act of Uniformity (1559). This has inevitably proved a D05 63 contentious section in a denomination which embraces such wide D05 64 traditions of theological outlook and liturgical practice. But it D05 65 has proved a reference point for those who wish to stress the D05 66 continuity of the Church of England with a liturgy extending from D05 67 the pre-Reformation Use, and for those who perceive worship as an D05 68 act that demands ceremony and ritual in the service of the D05 69 Almighty. Along with other ambivalent or imprecise provisions, it D05 70 has enabled a more elaborate practice than is implied in the 1552 D05 71 Book and its successors, a practice which is therefore often D05 72 undocumented.

D05 73 From the sixteenth century there has been constant and D05 74 inevitable tension between the extreme wings of the Church of D05 75 England. At certain times and in individual places one or other D05 76 wing has gained ascendancy. The polarity was strongest in the D05 77 seventeenth century with the sudden swing from the dominance of the D05 78 'high church' party led by Archbishop Laud in the reign of Charles D05 79 I to the other extreme of 'puritan' Protestantism (here extending D05 80 beyond the Church of England to influential non-conformists) during D05 81 the Commonwealth. In this case the result was the suspension of the D05 82 Book of Common Prayer, and with it the stripping of altars, D05 83 dismantling of ornament (including stained glass), vestment D05 84 (including surplices), and ceremonial, the suppression of choirs, D05 85 dismantling of organs, and prohibition of church music in D05 86 general.

D05 87 If the Commonwealth represented and exceptional period, the D05 88 wide spread of religious outlook has always been part of the Church D05 89 of England, and it continues to affect the presentation of the D05 90 liturgy in different cathedrals, collegiate foundations, and parish D05 91 churches. Between the extremes there is the larger body of middle D05 92 ground (which prevailed in the stabilization of the 1662 Book), a D05 93 body coloured at any time by current influences and trends but D05 94 avoiding extremes of theology and liturgical practice.

D05 95 MUSIC AND THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

D05 96 The establishment of the Book of Common Prayer in 1549 not only D05 97 instituted new liturgical orders; for its forms and vernacular D05 98 language also rendered instantly obsolete the chant of the medieval D05 99 Church and the burgeoning repertory of Latin polyphony. This is not D05 100 the place to bewail the loss but rather to underline the D05 101 consequences.

D05 102 The Book of Common Prayer has always been published without D05 103 music. This reflects the new circumstances of the Church. The D05 104 dissolution of all religious houses and most collegiate foundations D05 105 as well as smaller communities (e.g. chantries and religious D05 106 hospitals) created a new balance. Corporate foundations able to D05 107 sustain a sung liturgy were reduced in less than fifteen years from D05 108 many hundreds to less than fifty: The Chapel Royal, the cathedrals, D05 109 the colleges in Oxford, Cambridge, Eton, and Winchester, and no D05 110 more than five other places. The new Book was intended for parish D05 111 churches, their people (especially on Sundays), and their priests D05 112 (often assisted by no more than a parish clerk).

D05 113 Given the dismantling of liturgical communities and the D05 114 overnight obsolescence of a musical heritage that had evolved over D05 115 the preceding millennium, it is remarkable that in England rather D05 116 than anywhere else in Europe the corporate singing of a daily D05 117 Office has continued in choral foundations.

D05 118 Provision for singing the services of the 1549 Prayer Book was D05 119 made in John Marbeck's Book of Common Prayer Noted D05 120 (1550). (Though the only printed book of its kind, it represents D05 121 what must have been a common practice of adaptation.) It was D05 122 rendered obsolete shortly afterwards by the requirements of the D05 123 1552 Book, but its methods give some indication of how the musical D05 124 needs of the vernacular liturgy were met. Further evidence comes D05 125 from the corpus of music that survives from the period c. D05 126 1550-1640.

D05 127 A series of emerging practices can be discerned:

D05 128 (a) adaptation of the medieval chant (especially the D05 129 repeated formulas of the tones) to the D05 130 <}_><-|>verncular<+|>vernacular<}/> (e.g. the Litany, Marbeck), and D05 131 composition of new melodies in the idiom of simple chant (e.g. D05 132 Marbeck) - albeit more rhythmic in idiom;

D05 133 (b) use of functional polyphony based on and decorating D05 134 the chant (this was a long-established practice, often improvised D05 135 in the Middle Ages, and continued thereafter; see the polyphonic D05 136 form of the Litany, and Tallis's preces and festal psalms);

D05 137 (c) free polyphonic compositions derived from the D05 138 principle of (b) and resulting in the 'short' style used for D05 139 many English canticles (largely syllabic, and found in the early D05 140 vernacular repertory of the Wanley Partbooks, but also in the music D05 141 of Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons, and their contemporaries);

D05 142 (d) compositions alternating (accompanied) solo sections D05 143 and choral sections, the so-called 'verse' style, similar in D05 144 principle to the alternation of soloists and choir in responsorial D05 145 chant, and also to alternatim practice (alternate use of D05 146 chant and polyphony based on the chant);

D05 147 (e) free compositions alternating a larger group of D05 148 soloists with the choir ('great' services), comparable with both D05 149 the use of larger numbers of soloists on great feasts in the D05 150 medieval Uses, and the elaborate polyphony for festal occasions in D05 151 the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Such music was D05 152 not necessarily accompanied, and must have been limited to only a D05 153 few large and able choirs.

D05 154 On the face of it the 1552 Book of Common Prayer makes little D05 155 provision for music, let alone for the use of music to distinguish D05 156 feast and feria. In practice choral foundations sang the liturgy, D05 157 and this practice is codified in the Elizabethan Injunctions issued D05 158 in 1559. The injunctions permit the use of "a modest and D05 159 distinct song" that may be "plainly understanded as D05 160 if it were read without singing". The implication is that D05 161 the music of the daily Office derived mostly from (a), D05 162 (b) and (c) listed above, and - on the evidence of what D05 163 survives - increasingly on (c) in the singing of canticles. D05 164 The absence of surviving music for the psalms suggests that these D05 165 were sung from the psalter to the old plainsong tones (metrical D05 166 psalms were not sung during the Office).

D05 167 The few liturgical psalm settings that do survive are for the D05 168 four festal cycles provided by the Book of Common Prayer (listed in D05 169 Appendix 2.6). They show that musical style distinguished D05 170 liturgical observance in the later sixteenth and earlier D05 171 seventeenth century. A number of the early seventeenth-century D05 172 festal preces and psalms (e.g. those of William Smith) derive from D05 173 Durham Cathedral, indicating their 'high church' associations. And D05 174 it is not too fanciful to see a hierarchy of canticle settings: D05 175 (c) 'short' settings, often with alternation between the two D05 176 sides of the choir, for ordinary days; (d) 'verse' settings D05 177 with one or two soloists, for the equivalent of the old Feasts of D05 178 Nine Lessons; and (e) 'great' services with as many as eight D05 179 choral parts and as many soloists for principal feasts.

D05 180 At most these sets of canticles consisted of Venite, Te D05 181 Deum, Benedictus (or Jubilate), Responses to the D05 182 Commandments, Creed, Magnificat, and Nunc dimittis. D05 183 As indicated above in the discussion of the Order of Holy D05 184 Communion, even in those cathedrals and colleges where there was a D05 185 celebration of the Communion each Sunday and on feasts, this was D05 186 said rather than sung after the Creed.

D05 187 The ritual distinctions implied by the types of musical setting D05 188 of services became more prominent during the reign of James I and D05 189 especially Charles I. For the first time in England larger organs D05 190 with two divisions (Chair and Great) were built. Some foundations D05 191 bought wind instruments and engaged special players on feast-days. D05 192 Though there was nothing on the scale of the continental D05 193 celebrations with instruments and several choirs (see Chapter 10), D05 194 the Laudian movement stands out as the most significant period of D05 195 ritual and ceremonial in the Church of England until the Oxford D05 196 Movement in the nineteenth century.

D05 197 ADDITIONAL MUSIC: THE ANTHEM AND THE METRICAL PSALM

D05 198 The Elizabethan Injunctions allowed additional choral music D05 199 before or after Mattins and Evensong "for the comforting of D05 200 such that delight in music". In choral foundations this D05 201 provided for the anthem. Though formal provision for the anthem was D05 202 not included until the Book of 1662, it is plain that this confirms D05 203 earlier practice rather than establishing a new precedent. The D05 204 practice of singing an anthem (or antiphon) at the end of the D05 205 Office dates back to the memorials and votive antiphons of the D05 206 medieval liturgy (see Chapter 8). During the first half of the D05 207 sixteenth century votive antiphons in honour of the Blessed Virgin D05 208 Mary shared popularity with antiphons in honour of our Lord D05 209 (so-called Jesus Antiphons). Injunctions prescribed as early as D05 210 1548 by the Visitors to Lincoln Cathedral required that such an D05 211 antiphon (anthem) be sung in English, and followed by "the D05 212 collect for the preservation of the King's Majesty". D05 213 D06 1 <#FLOB:D06\>The days flew by. Again and again I returned to the D06 2 cathedral. To Mateo. Just behind the Gate of Glory, facing down the D06 3 long nave, there is a small statue of the master who created this D06 4 wonderful work in stone. Tradition suggests you knock your forehead D06 5 against his, hoping to obtain some measure of his gifts.

D06 6 There was always a steady stream of people climbing up the D06 7 steps behind the altar, where they may clasp the saint by the neck, D06 8 kissing and touching his cape of relics. It is as if all the scuffs D06 9 and scars and scabs of the journey of that tired, worried figure, D06 10 you have seen again and again, in the worn robe, wide-brimmed hat, D06 11 staff, and leather bottle, it is as if his wear and tear has been D06 12 transformed into gems, just as he is transformed. He is no longer D06 13 an anxious traveller, but a witness to the peace, perfection and D06 14 resolve of heaven.

D06 15 Feet of every description peep out from the dark of the D06 16 confessional boxes on either side of the nave. Margery Kempe must D06 17 have cherished her absolution from here.

D06 18 The murmur of masses and liturgy continues throughout the day. D06 19 On random, important feasts, the vast bota-fumeiro, a D06 20 silver incense-burner five feet high is swung by six D06 21 priests in an arc in front of the altar, from ropes to the lantern D06 22 above. The air is filled with white smoke and the excited, cheering D06 23 applause of the pilgrims.

D06 24 In the Plaza Obradoiro there is the magnificent Hostal de Los D06 25 Reyes Catolicos. It was built by Isabel and Ferdinand to house the D06 26 pilgrims. Now it is considered to be, possibly, the most D06 27 outstandingly beautiful hotel in Europe. I was told conflicting D06 28 tales of the hotels' contemporary hospitality to pilgrims. Some D06 29 said that those who received a Compostela, verifying their genuine D06 30 pilgrimage, may eat three meals for three days, or one meal for one D06 31 day, in the hotel's kitchens. I felt I should find out the D06 32 facts.

D06 33 The staff were immensely courteous. They said that three meals D06 34 for three days was given to the pilgrims in the hotel kitchens. I D06 35 was given a slip to gain entry to the kitchens and seek out some D06 36 foot-sore pilgrims for lunch the next day.

D06 37 In spite of all their courtesy, the hotel staff certainly do D06 38 not like the pilgrims loitering about in their magnificent hall. D06 39 Down dark passages, past the garages, through a little garden, then D06 40 up and down more passages, until the evidence of steam and cooking D06 41 smells lead you clearly in the right kitchen direction. Great hunks D06 42 of red meat, large gleaming fish, the deft pull and slap and cut of D06 43 the chefs at work in various different kitchens. Then the huge, hot D06 44 sluice of the washing-up, tired, aproned women in caps, going about D06 45 their business with a certain degree of exhausted resignation; D06 46 quite unlike the flourish and panache of the cooks.

D06 47 A very heavy wooden platter is loaded by the chefs. That day it D06 48 was spinach soup, some dark burger, mountains of chips, a large D06 49 orange, and a generous glass of vino tino. It D06 50 is quite difficult to carry a heavy breadboard, without sides of D06 51 any kind, and all these objects on it. It looked and felt extremely D06 52 precarious. Concentrating madly on my wooden platter, rather as you D06 53 might at an egg and spoon race, I mistook the direction, and found D06 54 I had pushed the door through into the hotel dining-room. D06 55 Immediately an appalled mob of major domos rushed to redirect D06 56 me.

D06 57 The room where all the hotel staff and all the pilgrims take D06 58 their meals, looked like some leftover sixties' bar. The red carpet D06 59 shone with dropped food, ground in. But the space was cool and D06 60 comfortable. There were many women eating, from the hotel staff. D06 61 There was no sign of a pilgrim.

D06 62 Then suddenly three sunburnt men walked in. They were D06 63 definitely pilgrims. There was a Frenchman - Michel - he was D06 64 fifty-eight from Le Mans, he had walked 1600 kilometres from Le D06 65 Puy. Paul, the tallest and most relaxed was a banker from D06 66 Amsterdam, he was twenty-three. Friso, another Dutchman was the D06 67 youngest. He was nineteen. He had been walking for three months.

D06 68 For the next four hours they eagerly regaled their adventures. D06 69 All three, with quite different motives and intentions agreed on D06 70 one thing, it was The Way, El Camino that D06 71 mattered. The Way was everything.

D06 72 For Michel it had been a serious and definitely religious D06 73 experience. He had made an Ignatian retreat in preparation for the D06 74 journey. He was an austere man. As he recounted his experiences, D06 75 his eyes lit up and he became increasingly animated. Two words D06 76 brought to all three an identical reaction. Aubrac and Figeac. D06 77 Aubrac for its danger and isolation, a day's walking in dense fog D06 78 and deep snow, with nothing but God and a compass, as Michel put D06 79 it. People had died there. Figeac was memorable for the violent and D06 80 threatening distaste of the parish priest for all pilgrims. Each D06 81 one, at different times had been hurled abuse by him, and sent off D06 82 to the police. "I can't wait," Michel said, D06 83 "to visit that priest in a suit and tie and get out of a D06 84 clean car, and and<&|>sic! then ask him who his neighbour D06 85 is?"

D06 86 The real horrors, even worse than rain and tempest and D06 87 unfriendly priests, were the dogs. Recently a woman had been D06 88 savaged to death by dogs. Michel had taken a gas gun as protection D06 89 against dogs, but he had never used it. He had killed two D06 90 vipers.

D06 91 Spain was deemed to be far more welcoming than France. In D06 92 France, Friso said, "I felt like a clochard, a vagabond, an D06 93 oddity. Only in Spain did I feel the welcome of a pilgrim." D06 94 Friso was very endearing, very frank and open. He had gone to grow D06 95 up, to find out who he was. "You have to get away from your D06 96 family," he said, "in the first two weeks I was D06 97 terrified - no bed, no place - then suddenly I thought, it's D06 98 nothing, just get up and walk twenty kilometres, that's all it is. D06 99 One night I sat for seven hours in the pouring rain, no shelter, no D06 100 tree, no wall, nothing. I couldn't believe it. It was terrible. D06 101 Then afterwards I thought, it's not so big a thing, not D06 102 really."

D06 103 For every story of rejection and dog or pig horrors, there were D06 104 wonderful tales of welcome. A bishop's bed with duvet, everything, D06 105 and no charge. The Benedictine welcome always seemed to come D06 106 top.

D06 107 Friso had found a small house on the route, in France, near D06 108 Lousine, with a large placard on the cottage wall, with the sign of D06 109 the shell and a notice that read: Compostela 924 k Drinking water. D06 110 Friso had knocked at the door and found a great welcome. Every D06 111 night the family lay a spare place at the table in case a pilgrim D06 112 comes by.

D06 113 The blessing at Roncevalles was holy, different, definitely D06 114 special. They were all well and both glad and sad that it was over. D06 115 But Friso felt uneasy. He wanted to keep walking. He didn't want to D06 116 return home. He wasn't ready. With his rucksack on his back, he D06 117 felt free, different. He wanted to go on. Both Paul and Friso were D06 118 ardent admirers of Sir Ranulph Fiennes. I stressed that my D06 119 connections were remote, bloodless, less than incidental. But they D06 120 were still inordinately pleased that we should have the same D06 121 name.

D06 122 All of them stressed the power of silence. The need to be alone D06 123 and find oneself in that silence.

D06 124 As they talked together of The Way, the obstacles, the people, D06 125 the different refugios, the signs; crosses and bridges, D06 126 passes and chapels; with groans, again and again, at the word D06 127 Figeac, you felt the great importance of physicality in the quest. D06 128 Moving alone, with silence as the single companion, seems a most D06 129 profound means to register the natural balance of world without, D06 130 and world within.

D06 131 Continually the talk had to be of return. Return must be within D06 132 the shape of every adventure, and certainly of every pilgrimage.

D06 133 It occurred to me that to meet a genuine woman pilgrim D06 134 somewhere near my own age, would be interesting. Vaguely as I D06 135 wandered about Santiago, I had my ears pricked as it were, to D06 136 discover such a person. There were various art tours, with erudite D06 137 guides. There were several, worn, solitary men, but few women. Paul D06 138 had said that a woman was on her way, travelling with two children, D06 139 but my flight was booked before she was due.

D06 140 Then suddenly I saw this smiling, open face, fair hair flying, D06 141 blue jeans, pink shirt. Without thinking I said in English, D06 142 "Are you a real pilgrim?" I usually started with: D06 143 Do you speak French or English, but luckily Gustava spoke English D06 144 and she was a real pilgrim. She was German. She was a doctor. She D06 145 had promised herself this pilgrimage after her fiftieth birthday D06 146 celebration. She had four sons, they were wonderfully vivid as she D06 147 described them, and obviously very close to her. Their ages were D06 148 between fourteen and twenty-six.

D06 149 Her husband lives and works at the centre of the Arts, D06 150 worldwide. "Black tie, is our natural uniform." D06 151 Although Gustava is a doctor, she felt that she wanted, in some D06 152 way, to widen her sense of herself, beyond her profession, marriage D06 153 and motherhood.

D06 154 She had walked for ten days alone, starting at Astorga. Her D06 155 first night at Ponferrada, on a damp mattress in the presbytery D06 156 cellar, had been the hardest. Her son Cornelius had said as she D06 157 left ... "I hope you find what you are looking D06 158 for."

D06 159 I asked her what she had found. "I have sown D06 160 seeds," she said, "Now I must go home, live and D06 161 work and wait for the harvest. I'll tell you in two D06 162 years."

D06 163 We had delicious meals together, walked out of Santiago to a D06 164 small Romanesque church and bussed to Padron. Gustava was full of D06 165 tales; eager with all the adventures, but she was also very happy D06 166 to be going home. "Certainly it had been difficult, D06 167 sometimes grim," How had she coped. "I trained D06 168 myself to remember the faces of the children, they were so clear, D06 169 as if they were with me."

D06 170 Gustava, like the others, stressed that 'The Way', to be one D06 171 who is "on The Way", was an extraordinary feeling. D06 172 She told of the joy of continually seeing the sign, a yellow shell, D06 173 on blue ground. "When you come to a crossroads, that shows D06 174 no sign, nothing, then your heart is so heavy. But then suddenly it D06 175 is there again, on a stone wall, a barn, the bark of a tree. Your D06 176 joy then is indescribable. Involuntarily you cry out for D06 177 joy."

D06 178 I asked Gustava why she had gone. "For my D06 179 sins," she replied smiling. Never has anyone seemed so D06 180 loving, open, caring and sinless. Gustava is a Catholic. She D06 181 explained to me that although you may be absolved of sin, the sin D06 182 is itself a separation from God. She had wanted to work through D06 183 that separation. "Also I wanted to thank," she D06 184 said, "thank for my life and health and my immediate family D06 185 and I wanted to pray for two particular people."

D06 186 I thought of Cornelius's remark to his mother. One is always D06 187 looking. Perhaps finding, is simply, looking further. 'Looking' is D06 188 life. Maybe a pilgrimage puts that 'looking' into keener focus.

D06 189 Just as at Rocamadour and V<*_>e-acute<*/>zelay, it was sad to D06 190 be in Santiago for the last time. It is easy to try too hard to see D06 191 and feel. To be filled with excitement and longing, and miss the D06 192 point completely.

D06 193 I wondered what I had been looking for. Certainly the adventure D06 194 with cancer had been an impetus. There had been some sense of D06 195 urgency after that, urgency towards a deeper understanding of D06 196 oneself; the nature and opportunity of one's being. Obviously D06 197 quality of life depends on the kind of trigger you choose.

D06 198 Carl Jung once said, "To my mind it is more important D06 199 that an idea exists, than that it is true."

D06 200 D07 1 <#FLOB:D07\>The Torah in Modern Judaism

D07 2 For centuries Jews have maintained that the Torah was revealed D07 3 by God to Moses on Mt Sinai. Such belief 'guarantees' that the Five D07 4 Books of Moses including history, theology, and legal precepts are D07 5 of Divine origin and have absolute authority. In consequence D07 6 Orthodoxy refuses to accept any modernist interpretation of the D07 7 Pentateuch. As Zwi Werblowsky explains: "Jewish Orthodoxy D07 8 has ... always staunchly upheld the theory of verbal inspiration in D07 9 its extremist form - at least so far as the Pentateuch is D07 10 concerned. Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch is flatly rejected D07 11 and is considered a major heresy. The underlying assumption is that D07 12 the whole fabric of traditional Judaism would crumble if its D07 13 foundation, the notion of Divine legislation to Moses, were to be D07 14 exchanged for modernist ideas about historical growth and the D07 15 composite nature of sacred texts". This clash between the D07 16 Orthodox understanding of scripture and the modern liberal D07 17 perspective has been and continues to be the central theological D07 18 stumbling block to inter-Jewish unity. Recently this irreconcilable D07 19 conflict was highlighted in a notorious debate between Rabbi Dr D07 20 Jonathan Sacks, the designate Chief Rabbi of the UK, and the D07 21 distinguished scholar, Rabbi Dr Louis Jacobs. Their disagreement D07 22 and the subsequent public reaction illustrate that the traditional D07 23 and liberal conceptions of Torah inevitably preclude the D07 24 possibility of religious reconciliation.

D07 25 NEO-ORTHODOX FUNDAMENTALISM

D07 26 In 'The Origin of Torah' in the 2 November 1984 issue of the D07 27 Jewish Chronicle Sacks presents his view of Torah in a D07 28 lengthy review of a recent book by Jacobs - The Tree of D07 29 Life. According to Jacobs, the Torah was not revealed in its D07 30 totality at Mt Sinai; it grew slowly as the accretion of documents D07 31 and decisions. (This view, Sacks notes, was originally propounded D07 32 by Jacobs in We Have Reason To Believe published nearly D07 33 30 years ago.) Jacobs' view is invalid, Sacks believes, since it D07 34 contains several errors. First, Sacks attacks Jacobs' contention D07 35 that the Torah is a collaboration between God and man. What sort of D07 36 collaboration could this be? Sacks asks. "He [Jacobs] has D07 37 told us: men make up the words. What then did the Almighty D07 38 contribute? The theme? The plot? The rough idea? How are we to D07 39 tell? The only evidence we have is the words themselves. And the D07 40 words, says Jacobs, are human, all too human!" Thus Sacks D07 41 concludes that throughout Jacobs' work there is a persistent D07 42 confusion between the historical and the metaphysical. On the one D07 43 hand, there is an acceptance of historical scholarship; on the D07 44 other hand, Jacobs argues that revelation is a matter of faith D07 45 rather than historical scholarship. Sacks contends it is D07 46 inconsistent for Jacobs to employ the criterion of historical D07 47 scholarship in evaluating the veracity of the Orthodox claim that D07 48 God revealed the Torah to Moses on Mt Sinai.

D07 49 Sacks' second criticism concerns Jacobs' use of the term D07 50 'fundamentalist' to describe the rabbinic approach to Torah and D07 51 halachah. Fundamentalism, he points out, is an approach to the D07 52 Bible which sets primacy on the literal reading of the text and D07 53 sees the main function of the Torah as conveying information of a D07 54 factual nature. But, Sacks continues, the rabbinic tradition gave D07 55 supremacy to the Oral Law which frequently departed from the D07 56 apparent plain meaning and saw the Torah's function as establishing D07 57 communal obligations. Here there is a confusion between the Bible D07 58 as a document and the Torah as the constitution of the covenant D07 59 between God and His people. To ask of the Bible if it is true is to D07 60 view the Torah as a document - this would be a fundamentalistic D07 61 approach. But when the Torah is correctly seen as an halachic D07 62 constitution, such a question is irrelevant. Sacks concludes that D07 63 in arguing for a "non-fundamentalistic halachah" D07 64 Jacobs has misunderstood this distinction and has thereby coined a D07 65 phrase which is devoid of meaning.

D07 66 Related to this criticism is what Sacks sees as a further D07 67 important error: Jacobs mistakenly believes in halachic change D07 68 since Jewish law is man-made and occasionally wrong. However, Sacks D07 69 argues that laws are not an individual's private code but rules D07 70 which govern a community. No law can be changed by an individual D07 71 will or a sub-group unless they have authority over the community. D07 72 "A group of Jews", he writes, "could D07 73 constitute themselves as a beth din and issue D07 74 rulings designed at a stroke to remedy every religious grievance, D07 75 but they would not have changed the law; rather they would have D07 76 unilaterally declared independence from it." Sacks contends D07 77 that Jacobs fails to grapple with the question of halachic D07 78 authority and his opinions therefore lack any communal basis. D07 79 Jacobs asserts that halachic authorities have not addressed D07 80 themselves to the issues of our time. Sacks disagrees - he thinks D07 81 they have done so but have given answers which Jacobs simply does D07 82 not like. These halachists who issued non-concessive rulings were D07 83 not evading the present, but responding to it in a way that D07 84 recognizes idealism as a more potent spring of action than D07 85 compromise. They sensed the need to re-establish the fundamentals D07 86 of faith after the Holocaust.

D07 87 The final criticism of Jacobs' position concerns the role of D07 88 the modern halachists. Jacobs states that they should take account D07 89 of the history of halachic change: Sacks argues that it would be a D07 90 mistake for them to become historians. Why, Sacks asks, should D07 91 halachists have a methodology that negates time? The answer is that D07 92 the Torah is an eternal covenant, a mutually binding constitution D07 93 between God and Israel. Such a covenant does not change; it resists D07 94 time: "The eternity of the Torah is the eternity of the D07 95 Jewish people, an island in the stream of time". This D07 96 conception has important consequences. When a rabbi decides an D07 97 issue in Jewish law, he is bound by the decrees of previous D07 98 rabbinic authorities. Even when the issue is topical he must bring D07 99 to bear the halachah's cumulative verdicts. According to Sacks, D07 100 Jacobs' analysis does not take into account this timeless quality D07 101 of the tradition. Thus Sacks concludes: "in taking too D07 102 rough a hold on the Tree of Life, he has pulled it, roots and all, D07 103 from the soil in which it grows".

D07 104 A NON-PROPOSITIONAL VIEW OF REVELATION

D07 105 In the 16 November issue of the Jewish Chronicle, D07 106 Jacobs presents his defence. In 'The Origin of the Torah: A D07 107 Response' he attempts to answer Sacks' claim that there is a D07 108 contradiction between accepting Divine revelation and the D07 109 conclusions of historical scholarship. Jacobs asserts that this is D07 110 in no way inconsistent: revelation is an event or series of events D07 111 in which there is a meeting between God and man - a matter of D07 112 faith. Biblical criticism examines the accounts of such encounters. D07 113 It asks how they came about, who wrote them down, and when and D07 114 whether our present texts are completely accurate in all their D07 115 details. Jacobs grants that if revelation is understood as verbal D07 116 inspiration, Biblical scholarship is impossible. But it is Jacobs' D07 117 view that such scholarship renders the notion of verbal inspiration D07 118 untenable. Here he invokes the example of Abraham Ibn Ezra's D07 119 contention that the final section of Deuteronomy describing Moses' D07 120 ascent on the mountain to die could not have been written by Moses. D07 121 If, Jacobs asks, the claim is made on the grounds of faith that D07 122 Moses did write it, on what is such faith based? The issue, Jacobs D07 123 believes, can be settled by human investigation. Invoking faith is D07 124 unnecessary. Thus Jacobs believes that both faith and historical D07 125 criticism have separate roles and can harmoniously combine in a D07 126 true understanding of God's relation to man.

D07 127 Concerning Sacks' criticism of his use of the term D07 128 'fundamentalist' to describe the rabbinic approach to Torah and D07 129 halachah, Jacobs disputes Sacks' understanding of the concept. D07 130 Fundamentalism is concerned primarily with inerrancy rather than D07 131 the literal reading of the text. "Non-fundamentalist D07 132 halachah" is therefore not a confusion but a legitimate D07 133 notion of halachah based on tenable premises. Jacobs continues by D07 134 examining Sacks' claim that he (Jacobs) believes that the law can D07 135 be changed by an individual or sub-group. "I have never D07 136 argued for such a position", Jacobs writes. "Where D07 137 a change in the law is required it must be brought about by the D07 138 acknowledged authorities of the whole observant community." D07 139 Jacobs points out that in the past halachists conceived of the law D07 140 as dynamic in character; this should provide the basis for a D07 141 creative interpretive approach. Yet such a change is inhibited by D07 142 the present climate of Orthodox opinion. The obstacle to such a D07 143 dynamic perspective is the Orthodox adherence to a rigid D07 144 fundamentalist understanding of the origin of Torah.

D07 145 Such fundamentalism, Jacobs believes, cannot be sustained in D07 146 the face of critical research. Let us ask Sacks, he writes, D07 147 "whether he believes that the Masoretic text is always D07 148 accurate and all the versions always wrong; whether he rejects any D07 149 suggestion that the Pentateuch is a composite work; whether the D07 150 massive researches of Krochmal, Ginzberg, Finkelstein, Buchler, D07 151 I.H. Weiss, Lieberman and many other historians of the Talmudic D07 152 period, into the way the doctrine of the Oral Torah has developed, D07 153 are so much hot air". Jacobs notes that Sacks gives the D07 154 appearance of accepting the results of modern scholarship - even D07 155 where they are at variance with traditional views. But if so, it D07 156 would have been helpful to have a clear exposition of his position. D07 157 In response to Sacks' final criticism concerning his views about D07 158 halachah and history, Jacobs emphasises that he does not wish that D07 159 halachists become historians. What he urges is that they should D07 160 have a better knowledge of the past, and not think Judaism is D07 161 beyond space and time. "If new knowledge in medicine, D07 162 science, and technology is allowed a voice in the halachic process, D07 163 where is the logic in denying increased historical knowledge a D07 164 voice?" What Jacobs seeks to show is that the Law is not D07 165 unyielding and lifeless; it can grow as it has in the past.

D07 166 IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES

D07 167 In this debate there is clearly no possibility of agreement; in D07 168 the letters to the editor printed in subsequent issues of the D07 169 Jewish Chronicle similarly irreconcilable views were D07 170 expressed. Supporting Rabbi Sacks, the Rev. Chaim Ingram declared: D07 171 "the vast majority, ever growing legions of D07 172 yeshiva-oriented Jewish young men and women ... espouse the very D07 173 so-called 'fundamentalist' approach to Torah which Rabbi Sacks D07 174 defends. They have realised that the middle-of-the-road is an D07 175 indecisive and potentially dangerous place to be". Again, D07 176 Rabbi Alain Kimche writes: "It is common knowledge that D07 177 from father to son for over 3,000 years the Jewish people have D07 178 lived with God by total acceptance of the historical and textual D07 179 authenticity of the Torah. Those who left this position rarely D07 180 lasted to the third generation within the Jewish nation. By D07 181 subjecting the Torah and Sinai to historical and textual criticism, D07 182 Jacobs has placed himself fair and square outside the national D07 183 Talmudic heritage". In praise of Sacks, Dr Tali Lowental D07 184 asserts that the Torah is supra-rational in the life of the Jewish D07 185 people. Is this supra-rational force relevant to the rational man D07 186 of today's world? he asks. "Rabbi Sacks in his commendable D07 187 article is clearly saying 'yes'. Halachah takes note of reality - D07 188 continuously - and at the same time gives guidance which ultimately D07 189 is Divine."

D07 190 Supporters of Jacobs, however, contend that Sacks is mistaken D07 191 in his criticism. Michael Milston, for example, writes: "It D07 192 is unfortunate that Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has joined the mountainous D07 193 ranks of Anglo-Jewish thinkers who have failed to understand the D07 194 point which Rabbi Jacobs is making. It is agreed amongst all Jewish D07 195 thinkers that God is infinite but it is also agreed amongst D07 196 everyone that language is finite. Therefore, language must, D07 197 ipso facto, contain only part of God's revelation. In D07 198 that sense language is finite man's attempt to understand the D07 199 infinity of God". Isaac Newman emphasizes the importance of D07 200 historical criticism: "As one who studied under the D07 201 illustrious teachers of Jew's College", he writes, D07 202 "I cannot today dispense with the tools of their historical D07 203 and critical methodology in the study of Judaism - with the hopeful D07 204 possibility of applying its findings to the contemporary world of D07 205 thought and practice where it is so badly needed. D07 206 D08 1 <#FLOB:D08\>How does one conclude the study of a cult which D08 2 became the central symbol of a culture - it is as difficult to D08 3 explain an ending, as it is the point of departure in the D08 4 interpretation of evolving and changing ideas and practices. Yet we D08 5 do face at the end of the Middle Ages the two Reformations, whose D08 6 programmes redesigned the symbolic order with the eucharist at its D08 7 heart, in very different ways. The events of the sixteenth century D08 8 can satisfactorily be explained only in terms of the dynamics of D08 9 cultural change: they are inconceivable without the existence of D08 10 deeply divergent attitudes towards virtue, authority and holiness, D08 11 and differing symbolic constructions of these moods. A site where D08 12 some (but not only) divergent concepts were articulated, the D08 13 eucharist possessed enormous importance; its correct understanding D08 14 bespoke a host of attitudes and endowed identities. The eucharist, D08 15 thus, could never be simply reformed; attempts to do so in the D08 16 fifteenth century failed to produce sharp and apt new formulations D08 17 in the language of sacramental religion. If the eucharist were to D08 18 change, it had to be a dramatic change; it could either be wholly D08 19 espoused - Christ, miracle, well-being - or negated and rejected. D08 20 And as the world of the sixteenth century came both to realise this D08 21 necessity and to undertake the new design, the eucharist became D08 22 identified as a controversial object, a militant emblem of a D08 23 struggle unto death. There were no two ways about it, so when a D08 24 crisis about its use and meaning emerged, Europe was thrown into D08 25 turmoil for 150 years over it. The eucharist was fought over D08 26 regionally and nationally, personally as well as communally, and D08 27 became a touchstone of attitudes towards community, family, virtue D08 28 - and politics.

D08 29 The eucharist's sacramental claims were designed at the D08 30 beginning of our period in discussions and debates which began in D08 31 the eleventh century and matured in the twelfth, whose implications D08 32 were widely disseminated by the thirteenth century, and were D08 33 subject to wide-ranging creativity and application in the D08 34 next two centuries. The eucharist, it is true, was an important D08 35 symbol in early Christianity, but it was refigured in the eleventh D08 36 and twelfth centuries to create a new structure of relations, thus D08 37 modifying the symbolic order, and the social relations and D08 38 political claims which could be attached to it. In this new order D08 39 we witness the raising of a fragile, white, wheaten little disc to D08 40 amazing prominence, and fallible, sometimes ill-lettered, men to D08 41 the status of mediator between Christians and the supernatural. The D08 42 eucharist emerged as a unifying symbol for a complex world, as a D08 43 symbol unburdened by local voices and regional associations. Its D08 44 language differed from that associated with pilgrimage sites and D08 45 the cult of saints; thus it was one which provided a framework for D08 46 interaction and communication between disparate interests and D08 47 identities. It linked together identities already locally bound in D08 48 the emerging quasi-national units which were more closely in touch D08 49 in the increasingly more cosmopolitan world which the eleventh and D08 50 twelfth centuries heralded. Within the developing parochial net D08 51 cast over Europe in these centuries the eucharist was reckoned to D08 52 be equally efficacious in Vienna or Valladolid, viewed or received D08 53 by woman or man, at cathedral altar or village chancel: it mediated D08 54 grace and supernatural power in rituals independent of contingent D08 55 boundaries of political variation. Thus, it possessed universal D08 56 meaning.

D08 57 Sacramental mediation was not the only metaphor for expressing D08 58 the world, but it was one which highlighted a stage in the D08 59 narrative of Christian medieval culture. Tensions inherent in the D08 60 scriptural tales themselves, the versions of the synoptic gospels D08 61 and in the Pauline epistles, were resolved in the eucharist in the D08 62 creation of a symbol which bound the essential narratives of D08 63 incarnation, crucifixion, and the legacy of redemption. It was D08 64 this-worldly in emphasising that channels of regeneration and D08 65 salvation were available and attainable, renewable and never D08 66 exhaustible. It possessed little of the eschatological pull which D08 67 informed the cultural worlds of late antiquity, or of the early D08 68 modern era, but was geared towards the present, was fulfilled here D08 69 and now, offering powerful and tangible rewards to the living in D08 70 the present, as well as to their relatives, the dead. The eucharist D08 71 provided an axis around which worlds revolved; in it were bound D08 72 order and hierarchy, inducements towards conformity and promises of D08 73 reward in health, prosperity, tranquillity. Our task has been to D08 74 trace and interpret the workings of this world of meaning, its D08 75 construction and use by some and by others, its implications, D08 76 threats and promises.

D08 77 So in the orthodox teaching, in vernacular preaching, in story D08 78 and tale, in magic as in civic ceremonial, the eucharist was used D08 79 and reused, determined and applied. Those who possessed power and D08 80 authority could articulate the symbol through their own positions D08 81 most forcefully. They did so by inducing moods, designing rituals, D08 82 commissioning works of art, in drama, by exerting authority and D08 83 charisma, and thus influencing directions in eucharistic readings, D08 84 creating hegemonic symbolic idioms around themselves. The power D08 85 exercised in the networks of social relations is always realised D08 86 through symbolic formations which tend to attach themselves to the D08 87 holy. A variety of local and universal, individual and collective, D08 88 lay and sacerdotal claims came to reside in the eucharist; and they D08 89 were sometimes fleeting and private and at other times public, D08 90 sometimes bespeaking a single perception, and other times densely D08 91 inscribed in ways which overdetermined the symbol. It thus D08 92 became linked to partly compatible, but also varying and vying D08 93 claims which militated against the smooth, lofty, universal, D08 94 equally shared and accessible pristine nature which had made it so D08 95 powerful at the outset. This gave it the power to encompass D08 96 divergent notions about authority, the supernatural, virtue and D08 97 legitimacy. In its use, however, it was interpreted through a D08 98 process which entailed the filling up of gaps and spaces for D08 99 evasion and ambiguity; we have here the aging of a symbol.

D08 100 This overdetermination was again a subject of concern and D08 101 attention for those who wished to claim a single articulatory D08 102 position within the language of religion. We witness in the later D08 103 Middle Ages attempts to recapture, redesign, reclaim its lost D08 104 symbolic innocence. This is clear not only from the vehemence of D08 105 anti-heretical activity, but more interestingly in the redrawing of D08 106 boundaries of prescribed behaviour. Jean Gerson (1363-1429) D08 107 criticised the irreverence shown by people to the eucharist in the D08 108 very proliferation of its celebrations; he recommended the D08 109 observance of fewer feasts and reiterated the view that celebration D08 110 of the sacraments was the role of priests alone, not even of D08 111 mendicant friars. He significantly shifted one of the emphases D08 112 which had been maintained in pastoral teaching over some 300 years D08 113 when he underlined human unworthiness to receive the eucharist, D08 114 even to prepare for its reception, and as he posited these as D08 115 dependent on God's grace alone, grace which was manifest in the D08 116 creation of the sacraments, and which merited hope since it alone D08 117 could effect worthiness. Similarly, the German councils of the D08 118 1450s decided to allow eucharistic processions only on Corpus D08 119 Christi and its octave, and to draw the eucharist back into the D08 120 interior of churches with only infrequent and necessary D08 121 processional exhibition and transportation. At the same time the D08 122 area around the altar was being reclaimed, divided from the nave by D08 123 ever thicker and more elaborate rood-screens. These were no longer D08 124 the open structures with thin arches, but now the more opaque wood D08 125 or stone curtains which by the fifteenth century enclosed the area D08 126 of consecration and elevation.

D08 127 These preoccupations with access to and understanding of the D08 128 eucharist, the eucharist seen as the essence of stability of social D08 129 order and of dominant ideology, possessed an urgency which arose D08 130 from the very centrality of the symbol. Within the language of D08 131 religion with the eucharist at its heart many objections, D08 132 criticisms and attacks could be tolerated, as long as they were not D08 133 aimed at that heart. Thus Wyclif's trenchant criticism of papal D08 134 authority, the wealth of the church, the religious orders, imgages D08 135 and pilgrimages were all tolerated early in his career, until he D08 136 began to pronounce on the eucharist. From 1381 on, with the D08 137 publication of his Confessio, his views were subjected to D08 138 ecclesiastical condemnation, the patronage of John of Gaunt was D08 139 withdrawn, some of his followers were chased out of Oxford, and he D08 140 retired to his parish of Lutterworth in Leicestershire. Similarly, D08 141 and some 250 years later, the formulations of Galileo's optics, as D08 142 published in The Assayer in 1623, were condemned by the D08 143 Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith by 1625 because of their D08 144 implications when applied to the edifice of eucharistic doctrine. D08 145 His corpuscular theory of physics threatened to change the way in D08 146 which substance and accidents were related, and contradicted the D08 147 Aristotelian foundations which were so necessary for the D08 148 maintenance of the eucharist as a mystery of Christ's body with the D08 149 appearance of bread. Galileo's atomistic theory meant that the D08 150 colour, taste, smell and heat, the accidents, were contained in D08 151 tiny particles of substance which must remain, in the case of bread D08 152 and wine, even after the consecration to produce the accidents of D08 153 bread and wine, and this was obviously anathema. It was this which D08 154 probably convinced the Holy Office that it was necessary to bring D08 155 Galileo to trial for heresy.

D08 156 The desire to multiply prayers, relics and indulgences, which D08 157 so characterised late medieval religious practice is also evident D08 158 in late medieval eucharistic practice. The claims about the D08 159 eucharist stressed that whenever it was celebrated, wherever it was D08 160 consecrated, however it was apprehended, it remained the very same D08 161 historic suffering body of Christ. As such, it differed from other D08 162 images of sanctity, since it was a source of power itself, one D08 163 which could not be procured by the laity, nor dispersed in the D08 164 manner of the cult of relics and holy images. The dominant D08 165 eucharistic idiom was one of unity and exclusivity, and yet in the D08 166 ways it was perceived there was a pressure towards fragmenting and D08 167 apportioning it. The economy of the holy was none the less applied D08 168 to the eucharist in the widespread understandings of it which D08 169 developed in practices, in forms of containment and approach D08 170 current in the cult of saints' relics. Attempts at its D08 171 multiplication, desire to have tactile contact with it, the D08 172 increase of frequency of exposition, all exerted pressures which D08 173 contradicted the dominant trope - that of a powerful unique D08 174 universal nature.

D08 175 The eucharist also came to be associated with sectional D08 176 interests and identities, with claims to power by groups and D08 177 institutions. We have observed the competition which developed D08 178 within towns over the processions and drama of the eucharist feast D08 179 of Corpus Christi. The feast was also taken up as a theme for D08 180 patrician virtue in English towns. The hierarchies which the D08 181 eucharist marked within the public sphere enabled, if not forced, D08 182 an identification of order and a disposition of power, and in so D08 183 doing it also suggested the critique of this order. Thus, the D08 184 claims of Lollards and Hussites, as well as the assertions of D08 185 heretics all over late medieval Europe, presented the eucharist, D08 186 both in its orthodox formulations of the mass as in its D08 187 processional and ritual manifestations, as a symbol of political D08 188 and social privilege. When they articulated an alternative it was D08 189 in terms of a different symbolic ordering of access to God, in D08 190 refashioning the eucharist and the ritual attached to it. This is D08 191 evident in Lollard claims against the sacerdotal efficacy and D08 192 transubstantiation, and in the claims of Hussites for Utraquism, D08 193 which broke down the barriers between priest and laity and D08 194 expressed a more egalitarian and anti-authoritarian creed.

D08 195 The eucharist could never really be reformed; it could only be D08 196 wholly accepted or negated outright. The more abstract and D08 197 'spiritual' interpretations of the practices of religion offered by D08 198 such as Erasmus in the early sixteenth century were too evasive to D08 199 provide a true alternative, a language of religion, useful and D08 200 resonant. Attacks on the eucharist were thus attacks on the heart D08 201 of living faith, ritual practice, ideological bonding, D08 202 institutional purpose. When the Council of Trent confronted all D08 203 these issues, raised by both Catholic and Protestant reformers in D08 204 the sixteenth century, it came up with formulations which none the D08 205 less asserted Real Presence, sacerdotal efficacy, moderate D08 206 frequency of communion, the cult and veneration of the eucharist, D08 207 and a powerful affirmation of the feast of Corpus Christi. D08 208 D09 1 <#FLOB:D09\>iii) Providence - The Idea of History

D09 2 Both Hegel and Coleridge identify history with the plan and D09 3 outworking of divine Providence which is Reason, Logos. Hegel D09 4 rejects the idea that divine Providence is unfathomable. Providence D09 5 is the immanence of the divine wisdom, which is "one and D09 6 the same in great things and in small. It is the same in plants and D09 7 insects as in the destinies of entire nations and empires". D09 8 He insists that "the world's events are controlled by a D09 9 providence" and that "divine providence is wisdom D09 10 coupled with infinite power, which realises its ends, i.e. the D09 11 absolute and rational design of the world; and reason is freely D09 12 self-determining thought, or what the Greeks called D09 13 nous". "God's will", he asserts, D09 14 "must always prevail in the end, and ... world history is D09 15 nothing more than the plan of providence". Coleridge claims D09 16 that the "science of HISTORY" is D09 17 "History studied in the light of philosophy, as the great D09 18 drama of an ever unfolding Providence." This understanding D09 19 of the role of the Logos as Providence becomes increasingly D09 20 important in Hegel's later writings (post 1820). The Idea of D09 21 history, he claims, is the progressive revelation of a D09 22 "chain" of necessity, the great scheme of redemption which D09 23 is nevertheless made up of "free-acting links", the D09 24 contingent and particular events which form the whole. For this D09 25 reason, the truths of history must be integrated with the facts of D09 26 history. History reveals the Logos as within it and directing its D09 27 course.

D09 28 Coleridge's "Historic Idea" has much in common D09 29 with Hegel's World Spirit, which is not only the first, final and D09 30 efficient cause of the whole historical process, but the actuality D09 31 of the historical process itself. The close parallel is illustrated D09 32 by Coleridge's note on a copy of the Statesman's Manual D09 33 concerning the theme of his lectures on the history of philosophy D09 34 which he states to be "the gradual Evolution of the Mind of D09 35 the World contemplated as a single Mind in the different stages of D09 36 its development". There are differences in Hegel's and D09 37 Coleridge's understanding of history which have important D09 38 implications for their respective religious and philosophical D09 39 views. Both, however, recognize the Logos as Providence acting in D09 40 nature and in history. Coleridge links the purpose of historical D09 41 study to prophecy, for: "Whatever is unfolded is rendered D09 42 prophetic, whether a physical or moral Law. To prophesy is to D09 43 unroll and draw out the involved consequences, be it of a state of D09 44 things, or of an action or series of actions, or of a D09 45 truth".

D09 46 Because the Logos is revealed in history as Providence, Idea D09 47 and Law, Coleridge denies that history is concerned merely with D09 48 accumulated chronologies of facts and events. Hegel has a similar D09 49 view. He describes the reflective type of historical analysis which D09 50 he believed to be obsessed with petty and particular details as D09 51 "a motley assortment of details, petty interests, actions D09 52 of soldiers, private affairs, which have no influence on D09 53 political interests - they are incapable [of recognizing] a D09 54 whole, a general design".

D09 55 iv) I-Thou Relationship

D09 56 For both Hegel and Coleridge, the Johannine Logos, incarnate in D09 57 Christ, is, at an early stage, recognized as a powerful answer to D09 58 Enlightenment rationalism and its religious expression, Deism. D09 59 Since the philosophy and religion are reconciled in the Logos, D09 60 reason and revelation are never at odds. St John shows that D09 61 revelation is not an object of debate or analysis, but the D09 62 undeniable truth of encounter. In the encounter with Christ D09 63 (revelation), living faith is restored which is beyond the reach of D09 64 the speculative intellect. In the early essays Hegel rejects Kant's D09 65 righteousness of reflective rationality, seeing in Jesus the D09 66 communicator of the spirit of absolute love. Through love neither D09 67 God nor our fellow man/woman is a mere object to us:

D09 68 Religion is one with love. The beloved is not D09 69 contrasted with us, he is one with our being. In him we see D09 70 ourselves, and yet once again he is not identical with us. This is D09 71 a wonder which we cannot grasp.

D09 72 In his early attempts to reconcile faith and reason, D09 73 Coleridge's position is similar to that of Hegel. He finds in a D09 74 Spinozism, allied to his Unitarian views and to a psychological D09 75 determinism (through David Hartley), support of his belief in the D09 76 One who is All. Hegel too has adopted the we Kai D09 77 pan, which, he agrees with Moses Mendelssohn, could D09 78 form the basis of a higher, purer kind of Spinozism, perfectly D09 79 reconcilable with Theism. Coleridge too draws on St John's Gospel D09 80 to demonstrate and support the reconciliation of reason and D09 81 religion in the Logos, by which both, at this stage, believe the D09 82 man Jesus to be inspired. Following Priestley (and in stark D09 83 contrast to those beliefs which are, a few years later, to form the D09 84 nucleus of his whole system), Coleridge denies the divinity of D09 85 Jesus, claims to which, he argues, devalue his humanity and his D09 86 message. Hegel too insists, in the Frankfurt years, that Jesus must D09 87 not be seen as some mystical divinity: that the tendency of his D09 88 followers to exalt his name above his message led to the distortion D09 89 of that message.

D09 90 Despite his disagreements with Kant, Hegel (in the early D09 91 writings) shares with Coleridge the view of Jesus as representing D09 92 an ideal of virtue, and the belief that this aspect of him is D09 93 imperilled by a faith which deifies him and separates him from man. D09 94 During his Frankfurt period, however, Hegel's Christology alters. D09 95 Now God's presence in Jesus becomes more important than Jesus' D09 96 role as a teacher and example. Man and God are indeed reconciled in D09 97 the Son:

D09 98 In this Son there exists also his disciples; they too D09 99 are one with him; so that there is a real transubstantiation and a D09 100 real indwelling of the Father in the Son and of the Son in his D09 101 pupils. All of these are not simply separate substances which are D09 102 only united in a universal concept; rather it is as with a vine and D09 103 its branches: there is a lively indwelling of the Godhead in D09 104 them.

D09 105 Jesus is the direct opposite of the legalism and the alienation D09 106 of Judaism. He is the "one who wished to restore man's D09 107 humanity in its entirety" and the one in whom D09 108 reconciliation with life is made possible through love:

D09 109 It is in the fact that even the enemy is felt as life D09 110 that there lies the possibility of reconciling fate. This D09 111 reconciliation is thus neither the destruction or subjugation of D09 112 something alien, nor a contradiction between consciousness of one's D09 113 self and the hoped-for difference in another's idea of one's self, D09 114 nor a contradiction between desert in the eyes of the law and D09 115 actualisation of the same, or between man as concept and man as D09 116 reality. This sensing of life, a sensing which finds itself again, D09 117 is love, and in love fate is reconciled.

D09 118 Hegel's concept of reconciliation with life is closely bound up D09 119 here with the relationship between the self and the D09 120 "other". This relationship is central, too, in Coleridge's D09 121 whole system of thought. It is the idea of "finding a Self D09 122 in another and now another, yea! even an alien and an enemy, in the D09 123 Self". Coleridge makes constant reference to the D09 124 reconciliation of love whereby the self and the "Other" are D09 125 united as equal objects of love. In the Biographia D09 126 Literaria he quotes Spinoza, in expressing the experience of D09 127 divine love as that by which a man is able to live free from the D09 128 bondage of his own emotions and lusts. It is love, not D09 129 legalistic piety, that reconciles law with will. Both D09 130 Coleridge and Hegel develop this idea to the full, in repudiation D09 131 of Kant's formalism. Increasingly, both see Christianity as D09 132 expressing the fulfilment of life and love which they find, in D09 133 their early work, to be revealed in the life of Jesus and, later, D09 134 to be actualized and realized in the Logos as Christ. It is just D09 135 this truth of life and love which each finds to be lacking in much D09 136 of the theological inheritance of their own time. Nominalist and D09 137 Reformation theology seemed to them to emphasize only an arbitrary, D09 138 capricious, almighty Will. The theology of Descartes, Wolff and the D09 139 Enlightenment offered, on the other hand, only a systematic D09 140 principle of order. Despite an increasing divergence in their later D09 141 understanding of Logos, both Hegel and Coleridge continue to find D09 142 in Christ, first, the witness, teacher and example of divine love, D09 143 and, as their thought develops, the Incarnation of love. For both, D09 144 love is the means and the source of a reconciliation which is not D09 145 merely emotional and psychological but epistemological and D09 146 ontological.

D09 147 v) The 'I Am' - Divine and Human

D09 148 Influenced, as we have seen, by Schelling's combination of D09 149 Fichte's Ego with objective Substance, and understanding Logos as D09 150 this identity, both Hegel and Coleridge are concerned to restore D09 151 the subjectivity of religion. The divine and the human 'I am' are D09 152 reconciled in the Logos, and the essence of every true self is D09 153 spirit. It is through the realization and fulfilment of self that D09 154 man comes to know God and to recognize that his true self is D09 155 the I AM of the Logos. Schelling, they believe, is mistaken in D09 156 concluding that nature itself is not merely contained within and D09 157 created through the movement of Life and Love, but one with D09 158 it. However, both Coleridge and Hegel agree that the Self, whether D09 159 divine or human, finds itself in the Other and the Other in the D09 160 Self. Absolute Spirit is revealed as Person in the Logos, through D09 161 the act and freedom of self-consciousness. Coleridge believes that D09 162 man's potential for personhood is actualized by the redemption of D09 163 the will. Hegel finds it fulfilled in man's elevation of himself, D09 164 as the individual who is also universal and, as such, one with the D09 165 divine Logos who is incarnated in the individual-universal D09 166 Christ.

D09 167 In the revelation of Christianity, in the Incarnation, God can D09 168 be, according to Hegel, "sensuously and directly beheld as D09 169 a Self, as an actual individual man". Man must find his D09 170 true self in God. We must participate in the redemption and D09 171 reconciliation "by laying aside our immediate subjectivity D09 172 (putting off the Old Adam) and learning to know God as our true and D09 173 essential self". The parallel with Coleridge's conclusion D09 174 is clear; I, as a purely subjective self, find the true objectivity D09 175 - myself, as real and true object - only in the Logos who D09 176 is Christ: "My Self ought to exist, and might exist, wholly D09 177 in the 'I' - the Subjective - the object being he who is D09 178 the Being, the living Truth, the Deitas D09 179 objectiv<*_>a-grave<*/> - Christ".

D09 180 God hath also revealed in His Word, that He is the I AM D09 181 or Esse, the very essential Self; and the One only Being, which is D09 182 Self-essent, (Ipsum et Unicum quod in Se), and D09 183 thereby the First, or Beginning, from whom are all things. It is by D09 184 means of this revelation, that the natural man is enabled to D09 185 elevate himself above nature, and thereby above himself, and to D09 186 contemplate such things as have relation to God.

D09 187 In common with the tradition which is developed by Pico della D09 188 Mirandola from Aristotle and Aquinas, one of the chief D09 189 characteristics of humanity, according to Hegel and Coleridge, is D09 190 self-development and self-definition. This is accomplished, Hegel D09 191 maintains, when the subject-object identity in Spirit, fragmented D09 192 in the otherness of finitude and mere reflection, is realized D09 193 through their reconciliation in philosophical thought and in the D09 194 whole historical process of Mind or Spirit through which the human D09 195 logos is found to be one with the divine. Coleridge too finds the D09 196 subject-object reconciliation is achieved within D09 197 self-consciousness, and that in this act the human logos D09 198 images the begetting of the divine. The 'I' is therefore more than D09 199 the expression of individuality; it is "the act of D09 200 self-consciousness generically, absolutely, coinstantaneous with D09 201 which the consciousness of Individuality will doubtless introduce D09 202 itself". The essential quality of mind, for Coleridge, is D09 203 that of a "self-finding power", just as, for Hegel, D09 204 Absolute Spirit is a finding of itself in the reconciliation of D09 205 otherness. There is, however, in Coleridge's estimation, a further D09 206 step required to the fulfilment of self and of person, that is, to D09 207 distinguish between the 'I', and mind.

D09 208 D10 1 <#FLOB:D10\>5. CONCLUSION: THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE D10 2 CREATIONIST TRADITION TO TWENTIETH-CENTURY PHYSICS (EINSTEIN AND D10 3 BOHR)

D10 4 We have traced the history of the creationist tradition in D10 5 relation to the physical sciences from the second century BC D10 6 through to the nineteenth century AD. Major contributors to the D10 7 sciences during those twenty-one centuries were frequently inspired D10 8 by the belief that God had created all things in accordance with D10 9 laws of his own devising, laws which made the world comprehensible D10 10 to humans and gave the world a degree of unity and relative D10 11 autonomy, and that God had sent his Son and poured out his Spirit D10 12 to initiate a worldwide ministry of healing and restoration.

D10 13 We have also found that the creationist tradition began to D10 14 unravel in the twelfth century with the polarization between D10 15 theologies emphasizing the workings of nature and the truths of D10 16 reason, on the one hand, and the supernatural and the suprarational D10 17 mysteries of revelation, on the other. This was not a conflict D10 18 between science and religion. Both sides of the issue were rooted D10 19 in the creationist tradition and both made significant D10 20 contributions to the development of science. At various junctures, D10 21 attempts were made to synthesize nature and supernature in a D10 22 recovery of biblical thought, often in conjunction with D10 23 extrabiblical philosophies like those of Aristotle, Neoplatonism D10 24 and Hermeticism. Nonetheless, the process of fragmentation and D10 25 secularization continued to reassert itself until the decline of D10 26 the creationist outlook as an international, public tradition in D10 27 the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

D10 28 It is beyond dispute that the creationist tradition made D10 29 significant contributions to the rise and development of both D10 30 medieval and classical (seventeenth to nineteenth century) physics. D10 31 The major breakthroughs in astronomy, medicine, mechanics, D10 32 chemistry, thermodynamics, and electricity and magnetism were all D10 33 associated with theological ideas related to God and creation. It D10 34 would appear, however, that the triumph in the nineteenth century D10 35 of individualism in religion and professionalism in the sciences D10 36 had severely reduced the likelihood that scientific developments of D10 37 the twentieth century would be embedded in a similar theological D10 38 matrix.

D10 39 Certainly physicists of the twentieth century are more diverse D10 40 in their religious beliefs. Many would be reluctant to identify D10 41 themselves with any theological tradition at all. And even where D10 42 particular beliefs may be held privately, they are not as likely to D10 43 play a dynamic role in the choice of science as a profession or in D10 44 the quest for insight into nature as they were in medieval and D10 45 early modern times. In any case, scientists no longer include D10 46 prayers in their professional writings, as Kepler did, or draw D10 47 attention to the existence of God, as Maxwell still did as late as D10 48 the 1870s. The most that can be said is that a few scientists have D10 49 allowed the possibility of God's existence in their more popular D10 50 writings.

D10 51 In this final section, however, we shall argue that remnants of D10 52 the creationist tradition played a key role in the foundations of D10 53 twentieth-century physics in the work of its two principal D10 54 founders, Albert Einstein (1879-1955) and Niels Bohr (1885-1962). D10 55 We cannot hope to do justice to the philosophies of either Einstein D10 56 or Bohr in their own right - we shall not even treat them D10 57 separately. But we must ask what contribution, if any, the D10 58 creationist tradition has made in the case of these two figures D10 59 that form a bridge from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. If D10 60 ideas and beliefs have a momentum of their own, we might expect to D10 61 find traces of the same beliefs in their work that inspired their D10 62 predecessors, particularly those in the tradition of Michael D10 63 Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell, whom Einstein and Bohr so admired D10 64 and emulated.

D10 65 It is a well known fact that Einstein and Bohr differed D10 66 strongly on many issues, particularly ones concerning the adequacy D10 67 of the quantum-mechanical formalism, the development of which they D10 68 both did so much to further. Einstein's 1905 paper on the D10 69 photoelectric effect first showed that light was quantized in units D10 70 (later called 'photons') whose momentum and energy were directly D10 71 related to the wavelength and frequency of the light waves. It is D10 72 to Einstein also that we owe the mathematical formula for the D10 73 probability of the radiation of light from an atom (1916). D10 74 Subsequently, the ideas of discontinuity and statistical D10 75 explanation became basic ingredients of quantum mechanics. Despite D10 76 Einstein's pioneering work in these areas, he himself insisted on D10 77 continuity and completeness of dynamical description (not to be D10 78 equated with 'determinism' in the classical sense) and saw this as D10 79 required by the field theory of Faraday and Maxwell.

D10 80 Bohr's 1913 theory of the hydrogen atom provided the first D10 81 working model of the new mechanics describing the interaction of D10 82 atoms and light. Bohr also provided the most influential D10 83 interpretation of the fully developed quantum mechanics of the late D10 84 1920s with his principles of 'correspondence' and D10 85 'complementarity'. Unlike Einstein, however, he judged these D10 86 developments to be consistent with overall principles of natural D10 87 philosophy and argued for their being foundational, if not final, D10 88 in the progress of modern physics. Whereas Einstein pointed to D10 89 Maxwell's field theory as the precedent for his own work, Bohr D10 90 looked back to the beginnings of atomic theory under Maxwell and D10 91 his successors, J.J. Thomson and Ernest Rutherford.

D10 92 Culturally, Einstein and Bohr were both products of late D10 93 nineteenth-century European culture. Ethnically a German D10 94 Jew, Einstein was steeped in the literature of nineteenth-century D10 95 German philosophy; Bohr was raised in cosmopolitan Copenhagen (his D10 96 mother was also Jewish), where the primary influences mediated were D10 97 those of nineteenth-century England and Germany. He further came D10 98 "under the spell of Cambridge and the inspiration of the D10 99 great English physicists" (Thomson, Jeans, Larmor, and D10 100 Rutherford) during his post-graduate studies in 1911-12.

D10 101 Though religion was not taken seriously in either of their D10 102 families, both Einstein and Bohr struggled with religious questions D10 103 in their youths. And both expressed appreciation for the religious D10 104 sense as that was understood in the liberal, romantic vein of the D10 105 nineteenth century. Einstein spoke of a "cosmic religious D10 106 feeling" that was common to creative scientists and D10 107 religious mystics alike. Bohr referred to a "universal D10 108 religious feeling" that exists in every age, particularly D10 109 among poets, and which is in intimate harmony with insight into D10 110 nature. Both Einstein and Bohr recognized the great religious and D10 111 philosophical traditions of other cultures, though, it should be D10 112 noted that they knew Indian and Chinese thought mostly through the D10 113 German adaptations of Schopenhauer and Schiller. Einstein developed D10 114 his own version of certain fundamental Jewish truths he once D10 115 identified as "Mosaic". Bohr was well versed in the German D10 116 poets, particularly Schiller and Goethe. He was also fond of D10 117 Kierkegaard's Stages on Life's Way, though he did not D10 118 agree with the thought of Kierkegaard as a whole.

D10 119 The reason why neither Einstein nor Bohr were willing to adopt D10 120 a positive theological stance was that they both associated D10 121 religious teachings and formal doctrine with narrow-mindedness. D10 122 After a brief period of religious devotion in his youth, Einstein D10 123 rejected what he called the "anthropomorphic D10 124 character" of the "God of Providence" as D10 125 portrayed in the Hebrew Bible and eschewed any suggestion of D10 126 personality in God or of the miraculous in his dealings with D10 127 humans. Einstein's unfavourable references to the "moral D10 128 religion" and the "social or moral conception of D10 129 God" in this connection suggests that he associated the D10 130 idea of a personal God with the pragmatism that characterized much D10 131 German religion, both Jewish and Christian, in his early years.

D10 132 Bohr was opposed, in principle, to any formal system or dogma D10 133 that claimed to be the whole truth. Even with respect to his own D10 134 attempt at a universal synthesis, the principle of complementarity, D10 135 he disavowed any overall system or doctrine of ready-made precepts, D10 136 and he never attempted to give a formal definition. Accordingly, he D10 137 thought of religion primarily in terms of a "universal D10 138 feeling" and rejected any attempt to "freeze D10 139 it" in terms of the concepts of any given period of human D10 140 history. Bohr referred to the anthropomorphic notion of a D10 141 supernatural power with whom people could bargain for favours as a D10 142 figment of primitive imaginations, and did not take the possibility D10 143 of historical revelation seriously.

D10 144 It is likely that both Einstein and Bohr were influenced in D10 145 their views by the evolutionary theory of religion developed by D10 146 Herbert Spencer, Edward Tylor, and Andrew Lang. Einstein, in D10 147 particular, described an evolution of religion from a primitive D10 148 stage, in which humans conceived of God in their own image, through D10 149 the higher religions of social and moral value to the vision, held D10 150 by a few, of a cosmic God.

D10 151 The fact that for Einstein and Bohr the biblical teachings of D10 152 the synagogue and church had little to do with the serious issues D10 153 of science and society serves to confirm our observations D10 154 concerning the decline of the creationist tradition in Western D10 155 culture. Since the twelfth century, miracle had become increasingly D10 156 viewed as the antithesis of natural law, and faith in a personal D10 157 God had been gradually isolated from its moorings in the history of D10 158 nature and culture. The positive faith of Einstein and Bohr, D10 159 however, points to another important fact, seemingly at variance D10 160 with the first: the survival of creationist themes in the absence D10 161 of the tradition that originally mediated and sustained them.

D10 162 If we were to characterize the primary object of the respective D10 163 faiths of Einstein and Bohr with a single word, that word would be D10 164 "harmony". Both Einstein and Bohr spoke of harmony in D10 165 metaphysical, and even reverential, terms that would traditionally D10 166 have been reserved for God.

D10 167 For Einstein, the physical world was an incarnation of reason D10 168 which, though manifest in various laws and principles, was D10 169 inaccessible to the human mind in its profoundest depths. Thus D10 170 physics itself was a quest of religious proportions. The true D10 171 scientist was enraptured by "the harmony of natural law, D10 172 which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared D10 173 with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is D10 174 an utterly insignificant reflection".

D10 175 The enterprise of physics, as Einstein understood it, was based D10 176 on the conviction that the entire cosmos was governed by what D10 177 Leibniz had called the "pre-established harmony" of D10 178 the parts. For instance, when Einstein described the work of Max D10 179 Planck - discoverer of the quantum of action (1900) - he used D10 180 words, as his most recent biographer, Abraham Pais, has pointed D10 181 out, that described his own conviction and experience as well as D10 182 Planck's:

D10 183 The longing to behold ... pre-established harmony is D10 184 the source of the inexhaustible persistence and patience with which D10 185 we see Planck devoting himself to the most general problems of our D10 186 science without letting himself be deflected by goals which are D10 187 more profitable and easier to achieve ... The emotional state which D10 188 enables such achievements is similar to that of the religious D10 189 person or the person in love; the daily pursuit does not originate D10 190 from a design or a programme [of one's own choice or invention] but D10 191 from a direct need.

D10 192 This statement may readily be compared to the teachings of D10 193 Church fathers like Irenaeus and Basil or the writings of Christian D10 194 natural philosophers like Paracelsus and Bacon, or Kepler and D10 195 Newton. It shares with them its ideal of selfless service as well D10 196 as its belief in the unity and harmony of the world. It also D10 197 indicates that, however much he reacted against the current D10 198 understanding of the 'personality' of God, Einstein's experience of D10 199 the divine presence was not entirely an impersonal one like that D10 200 generally associated with Spinoza, with which Einstein's D10 201 theological views are often compared. The quest of the scientist is D10 202 compared to the religious affections and the passion of a person in D10 203 love. Einstein once stated that he read the Hebrew Bible often (in D10 204 German translation), and he particularly admired the cosmic sense D10 205 of the Psalms and some of the Prophets. At age eighteen, the young D10 206 Einstein had cited strenuous labour and contemplation of God's D10 207 nature as "the angels which, reconciling, fortifying, and D10 208 yet mercilessly severe, will guide me through the tumult of D10 209 life". Undoubtedly, the reference to angels here is a D10 210 figure of speech for Einstein, but the sense of personal calling D10 211 and guidance was very real, and it never left him. D10 212 D11 1 <#FLOB:D11\>"Not just the ecumaniacs or the D11 2 Evangelicals, but everyone"; "Be as relentless as D11 3 St Paul"

D11 4 Churches all over England to make a shared start on a D11 5 missionary decade

D11 6 by Betty Saunders

D11 7 THE DECADE OF EVANGELISM begins officially on Sunday, the Feast D11 8 of Epiphany, with special services in cathedrals, churches, and D11 9 chapels throughout the country.

D11 10 In York Minster the Archbishop of York will preach at a D11 11 eucharist to mark the inauguration; and Dr Habgood will commission D11 12 twelve men and women as 'advisers for the Decade of Evangelism', D11 13 who are to be sent to encourage the York parishes in their D11 14 outreach.

D11 15 Guildford is one of the dioceses where the Decade will be D11 16 launched tomorrow, 5 January, at a cathedral service followed by a D11 17 vigil and celebration called "Alight for Christ", D11 18 led by the Bishops of Guildford and Dorking. Leicester, too, is to D11 19 start tomorrow night, in Leicester Cathedral, when parish D11 20 representatives will join in a statement of commitment.

D11 21 Roman Catholics are calling it the "Decade of D11 22 Evangelisation", but the aim is the same. They will share a D11 23 common approach with Anglicans, Free Churches, house groups, D11 24 Pentecostalists and members of the Evangelical Alliance, all of D11 25 whom are to place an emphasis on attracting young people to the D11 26 churches, especially those who have had no contact with the D11 27 Christian faith.

D11 28 In some places the Decade will be launched on Sunday 20 D11 29 January, during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. In D11 30 Manchester, the presidents of the Ecumenical Council hope to fill D11 31 the Free Trade Hall at a launching celebration on 21 January. The D11 32 Bishop of Worcester says in his Diocesan News: D11 33 "The main thing is that everyone should go to one or other D11 34 of the launches. Not just the ecumaniacs or the Evangelicals but D11 35 all, Prayer Book Society included."

D11 36 Unity as the Decade begins will be celebrated in Winchester D11 37 Cathedral on Sunday, when leaders of local Anglican, Roman D11 38 Catholic, Methodist and United Reformed Churches are to sign a D11 39 covenant. In some other dioceses churchgoers will arrive in church D11 40 on Sunday to hear the voice of their bishop delivering a recorded D11 41 message.

D11 42 Many worshippers throughout England will find leaflets in D11 43 church, giving them information about the Decade, and signed by the D11 44 Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Hume, the Revd Dr John Newton of D11 45 the Free Church Federal Council and the Revd Desmond Pemberton of D11 46 the Wesleyan Holiness Church. All four represent Churches Together D11 47 In England, the new ecumenical body which took over from the D11 48 British Council of Churches.

D11 49 The twice-yearly Anglo-Catholic journal Living Stones D11 50 devotes an entire issue to the Decade, including contributions from D11 51 two Evangelical bishops, the Rt Revd John Taylor of St Albans and D11 52 the Rt Revd Michael Baughen of Chester, who urges: "Be as D11 53 relentless as St Paul in opening up the task and its D11 54 motivation."

D11 55 Cardinal Hume had the Decade in mind when he preached in D11 56 Liverpool's Metropolitan Cathedral at the celebration of Archbishop D11 57 Derek Worlock's episcopal silver jubilee on 21 December. D11 58 "As one historic decade ends, another begins: one dedicated D11 59 to the spread of the good news - evangelisation. We are to take D11 60 with increasing seriousness the task of recognising that the Church D11 61 is by its very nature missionary, of telling the world about God D11 62 and the Son he sent, what he has done and will do for us, of D11 63 speaking to the minds and hearts of thousands of people in search D11 64 of meaning and purpose to their lives."

D11 65 In Bradford, where 1990 has been "a year of D11 66 evangelism" in preparation for the Decade, Bishop Robert D11 67 Williamson has warned of "the communications gap" D11 68 between the churches and society. "A great shock may await D11 69 us. It will drive us to our knees - no bad thing."

D11 70 The new Bishop of Hereford, the Rt Revd John Oliver, said in an D11 71 enthronement sermon in his cathedral on 22 December that Christians D11 72 ought not to be tempted, in an unfriendly environment, to pull up D11 73 the drawbridge and hope for the best. "We are in the D11 74 business of celebrating and sharing our faith, of 'singing the D11 75 Lord's song'; we need to do it confidently, joyfully, expectantly. D11 76 The Decade of Evangelism gives us the opportunity and obligation to D11 77 use every possible means to enable people to know and love and D11 78 follow Jesus Christ."

D11 79 D11 80 Peter Mullen on Anthony Burgess, the writer, who asks D11 81 "What curious game is God playing?"

D11 82 The novel-a-year man who wrestles with the problem of evil

D11 83 PROFILE

D11 84 DECLINING the proffered malt whisky, 14 years old, I took a D11 85 glass of red wine with Anthony Burgess and his wife, Liana, who D11 86 have temporarily quit their Mediterranean villa in order to D11 87 publicise the second volume of Anthony's Confessions in D11 88 London. (To get that part out of the way, it is called You've D11 89 Had Your Time, and published at pounds17.50 by Heinemann.)

D11 90 He came comparatively late in life to writing, beginning when D11 91 he was frail and 40, when he was told he had less than a year to D11 92 live. He resolved to write ten novels in that last year in order to D11 93 provide some sort of income for his wife.

D11 94 In the event, she died - violently and grotesquely of cirrhosis D11 95 of the liver - and Anthony lived to write 33 novels in as many D11 96 years. And he is still writing. On the way this 'bottle-a-day man' D11 97 gave up booze. The 14-year-old malt sat stoppered in its D11 98 decanter.

D11 99 In all that fictional output, his concerns are sex and D11 100 metaphysics. He reminded me of Goethe's insistence that every good D11 101 novel must in some way or other be obsessed with love and death.

D11 102 Of course, if you live as we do in a post-Freudian, D11 103 post-Darwinian world, it is no longer possible to write about sex D11 104 and death as the gently (rather than heavily) breathing lady D11 105 novelists of the last century did. Unless you are Barbara D11 106 Cartland.

D11 107 BURGESS is a religious writer in the sense that he is concerned D11 108 with those two eschatological preoccupations of all time, the D11 109 utopia and the dystopia. These have always inspired great writing. D11 110 We think of Dante - the Inferno and Paradiso; of Milton, D11 111 of course, and Thomas More; of Huxley's Brave New World D11 112 and Orwell's 1984.

D11 113 1985 was Burgess's great dystopia: an unhappy world of D11 114 punk, faithlessness and violence in which the supreme accolade is D11 115 "You was on the telly." Well, you've only got to D11 116 look at programmes like Blind Date to see how life mimics D11 117 art. He had already written A Clockwork Orange, which D11 118 demonstrated not the immorality but - a much worse thing - the D11 119 amorality of our age. He saw in that novel the social consequences D11 120 of a world which says, "Evil, be thou my good," and D11 121 commits therein the sin against the Holy Spirit.

D11 122 But his big novel - it may be compared for its range and depth D11 123 with Middlemarch and Ulysses - came out in 1980. It was D11 124 called Earthly Powers. Of this work he said: D11 125 "This extensive structure had at its core a mere anecdote. D11 126 A Pope is to be canonised. The Vatican needs evidence of D11 127 saintliness: a miracle, for instance. When he was a mere priest, D11 128 the Pope cured a child of terminal meningitis through the power of D11 129 prayer. This child grows up to be a sort of James Jones, the leader D11 130 of a religious sect who orders his followers to commit suicide.

D11 131 "God, permitting the miracle, clearly intended its beneficiary D11 132 to perform an act of great evil. Free will does not come into it; D11 133 since a disease has free will, and its lethal progress has been D11 134 reversed. If the child had died he would not have caused the death D11 135 of others.

D11 136 "What curious game is God playing? If God is also the Devil, D11 137 then it is as likely that evil will come out of good as the other D11 138 way round. Perhaps more so. If our century is to be explained at D11 139 all it is in terms of God becoming his opposite."

D11 140 Now this is unpalatable to say the least. But it reminds me of D11 141 Job, the Old Testament God and the whirlwind. Certainly it is a D11 142 piece of creative conjecture; and does not all creativity proceed D11 143 from the Holy Ghost - or would you give the Devil a half share in D11 144 it? If you would, then you concede Burgess's point and the world D11 145 instantly becomes Manichaean - 'half golden, half rotten.'

D11 146 EARTHLY POWERS should be on the reading-list of all D11 147 the theological colleges. It raises, frighteningly, the question of D11 148 the nature of God in the century of the Somme, Auschwitz and D11 149 Hiroshima. On the human level, Earthly Powers questions D11 150 the 'free-will defence' and with it all the 'liberal' and D11 151 'enlightened' answers which our age gives to that question raised D11 152 by Job, by Paul and by Augustine: the question of the undisputed D11 153 reality of evil.

D11 154 In a sceptical age when 'liberal' opinions flourish, perhaps D11 155 all we can do - in the absence of the mixed blessings of D11 156 authoritarianism - is raise the questions in those places where D11 157 answers used to be. Burgess certainly raises the questions. And, D11 158 since he does so in a story which has real characters, he makes the D11 159 questions more urgent because they are not abstracted (as in the D11 160 philosophy class) but incarnated in human specimens we can believe D11 161 in.

D11 162 He smokes a cheroot and ruminates. I sense he is really D11 163 remonstrating with himself. No, he does not believe in personal D11 164 immortality - and he is, moreover, relieved not to feel the D11 165 pressure to believe in it.

D11 166 A Roman Catholic brought up in Manchester, where his father D11 167 played the piano in the silent movies, he still goes to mass now D11 168 and then. But he thinks the discontinuing of the Latin rite D11 169 "disgraceful". He agrees with Auden that, in the matter of D11 170 spurning the Prayer Book, The Church of England merely D11 171 "spat on its luck".

D11 172 Burgess is nothing if not controversial. But then so was the D11 173 prophet Jeremiah. I was immensely encouraged by him and all his D11 174 works. Here is a man asking and, in his prolific procession of D11 175 novels, trying to uncover the issues which have always perplexed D11 176 us.

D11 177 I admire him. And all the more so for being able to keep the D11 178 stopper on the whisky. In short, I suspect the Holy Ghost at work D11 179 in all this turbulence.

D11 180 D11 181 Hugh Montefiore

D11 182 It should stay special

D11 183 THE WIDESPREAD opening of retail shops on the Sundays before D11 184 Christmas, in deliberate defiance of the law, has been a public D11 185 scandal. But the law of the land about Sunday opening, with its D11 186 absurd anomalies, is also a public scandal. Yet more scandalous has D11 187 been the refusal of the Government to do anything about it since D11 188 their Shops Bill fell in the House of Commons in 1985.

D11 189 The Bill (which involved total deregulation) was first D11 190 introduced in the House of Lords. Because of the 'Salisbury D11 191 convention' whereby that chamber does not vote down the second D11 192 reading of a Bill introduced by a popularly elected Government, I D11 193 could only move 'a reasoned amendment' to the effect that the House D11 194 agreed the Bill but regretted its introduction. The chamber was D11 195 told that General Synod had disapproved the Bill by 427 votes to 6. D11 196 Lady Trumpington, in a speech hardly befitting a Government D11 197 minister, seemed to think that the fact that Canterbury Cathedral D11 198 illegally sold bibles on a Sunday meant that my amendment was D11 199 hypocritical. As soon as lots of peers appeared, specially D11 200 'whipped' up from the shires, coming to vote after eight hours of D11 201 debate without having listened to any of it, it was clear that we D11 202 had lost.

D11 203 Their Lordships have no constituencies; but MPs are different. D11 204 The Jubilee Trust fought a splendid campaign, stirring up feelings D11 205 in parishes and congregations. Thousands of letters were sent to D11 206 MPs who, not wishing to lose all those supporters, successfully D11 207 opposed the Bill. Fortunately for the Government, President D11 208 Reagan's bomb attack on Colonel Gadaffi took place with British D11 209 connivance that very night, and this diverted public attention away D11 210 from the most crushing defeat Mrs Thatcher's Government ever D11 211 suffered, largely instigated by the Churches.

D11 212 Her Government had insisted on total deregulation, and was not D11 213 prepared to consider any kind of halfway house. D11 214 D12 1 <#FLOB:D12\>Ruler and Rescuer

D12 2 BY THE REVD DR A.D.C. GREER,

D12 3 DUMFRIESSHIRE

D12 4 Colin Mitchell is Head of a big school. In Scotland the Head D12 5 Teacher of a secondary school is very often called the Rector. One D12 6 Friday Dumfries people opened their local paper to read

D12 7 Rector's Rescue Honoured

D12 8 Colin saved puppy from 12-Ft Gorge

D12 9 Above a picture of Mr Mitchell receiving a special certificate D12 10 from the Director of the SSPCA. Underneath the headline, it told D12 11 how Colin had abseiled down a slippery chasm at Crichope Linn, swam D12 12 upstream in the cold November water, then downstream again and then D12 13 climbed out up a rope. In a rucksack on his back he brought up the D12 14 one he went in to rescue, an 18 week old springer spaniel puppy, D12 15 Gyp. Gyp was the only one who was dry. "I am not a hero and D12 16 I am just glad the dog was all right", said Mr Mitchell, a D12 17 member of the Moffat Hill Rescue Team.

D12 18 We don't usually think of Head Teachers as heroes, do we? We D12 19 don't usually think of Rectors as rescuers. A Rector is a 'ruler', D12 20 the dictionary tells us. Colin Mitchell proved that a ruler can be D12 21 a rescuer. Gyp knows that. So do the pupils of Dumfries High D12 22 School.

D12 23 Christians know that God, the Ruler of all things in heaven and D12 24 on earth is a Rescuer too. He cares enough to come and help in D12 25 whatever sort of trouble and danger we have got ourselves into. And D12 26 he is able to save us and set us free. Remember that when we sing D12 27 in church about "the wisest love" that "to D12 28 the rescue came".

D12 29 D12 30 Our Teacher

D12 31 BY DENNIS K. TACKLEY, BA, BD, MED,

D12 32 SHERBORNE, DORSET

D12 33 Visual aids: A school exercise book, a children's slate, and a D12 34 pointed stick to represent a stylus.

D12 35 I expect you will know what this is (Hold up the exercise D12 36 book). You must use books like this every day at school. But D12 37 in ancient times paper was much too expensive for children to use. D12 38 When they went to school they might learn to write by drawing with D12 39 their fingers on a sanded floor. Or they might have a shallow box D12 40 about the size of this slate which was coated with soft wax. Then D12 41 they held a stick with a pointed end and practised their letters by D12 42 scratching on the wax.

D12 43 We are told that in ancient Greece the master who was teaching D12 44 boys to write would put a line of writing at the top of the tablet, D12 45 and each boy was expected to copy this. He would keep practising D12 46 this sentence until he could copy it without making any mistakes. D12 47 Sometimes, we're told, the master would hold his hand over the D12 48 boy's hand and guide him as he traced the letters on the wax D12 49 tablet. That would get the boy started and give him confidence.

D12 50 Now this is a wonderful illustration of what Jesus does for us. D12 51 He has given us an example of how we should live, but he doesn't D12 52 leave us to get on with the job all by ourselves. He helps us D12 53 to follow his example; he holds our hand as we try to imitate the D12 54 way in which he lived.

D12 55 And there is more to it than that. What could a boy do who had D12 56 made a mistake on his wax tablet? (Wait for answers) Yes, D12 57 he could smooth the wax over and try again. Jesus, too, is always D12 58 making it possible for us to make a new start, forgiving us for the D12 59 mistakes we make, and encouraging us to do better next time.

D12 60 D12 61 Go for the Real

D12 62 BY THE REVD GEORGE S. GIBSON,

D12 63 LEAMINGTON SPA

D12 64 The psychiatrist Jung wrote: "It is frankly D12 65 disappointing to see how Paul hardly ever allows the real Jesus to D12 66 get a word in". He is just one in a long line of critics D12 67 who have accused Paul of theologizing Jesus out of all D12 68 recognition!

D12 69 But is Paul really the villain of the piece? Certainly he does D12 70 not have much to say about the earthy life of Jesus, but that, in D12 71 part, was because there were others around far more able to talk D12 72 from personal experience of the 'Jesus event', and Paul had other D12 73 things he urgently wanted to do! But this is not to say that he was D12 74 either uninterested or uninformed about Jesus of Nazareth. Writing D12 75 to the Galatian church he speaks of making a special trip to D12 76 Jerusalem to "see Peter" and someone has suggested D12 77 that "see" is to be interpreted as when we say "I D12 78 must see the doctor". It was a purposeful visit and the two D12 79 of them wouldn't spend the time talking about the weather! I D12 80 believe that Paul was anxious to learn from one who had known Jesus D12 81 intimately over a period of time; to have his hearsay information D12 82 'filled in.'

D12 83 Why, then, is there so little said by Paul about the Galilean? D12 84 I think it is because Paul knew from bitter experience how futile D12 85 exhortations to "be like Jesus" would be. He had D12 86 found "keeping the Law" something beyond unaided D12 87 effort. How much more then would such an exhortation be a counsel D12 88 of despair.

D12 89 Yet many of us have not learned Paul's lesson. The element of D12 90 struggle is only too evident in the lives of Christians, and the D12 91 strain shows. Our mistake, to use a phrase much used in evangelical D12 92 circles, is that we want the fruit without the root. We are like D12 93 the suitor in the well-known song who was discovered "tying D12 94 apples to the lilac tree"! When Paul wrote to the Roman D12 95 Christians he told them (as Phillips translates him) that there D12 96 must be "no imitation Christian love". Put bluntly, D12 97 the Christian life cannot be faked!

D12 98 There is a principle here which we are prepared to acknowledge D12 99 in other spheres, but which apparently we do not always apply to D12 100 our spiritual life. No lover would offer his girl a bouquet of D12 101 artificial flowers - though there are some very lifelike creations D12 102 - and they would last longer! No art expert is fooled by the most D12 103 clever reproduction of a masterpiece - or by a daub claimed to be D12 104 'art' in the latest fashion! No musical virtuoso can be 'explained' D12 105 in terms of his perfected technique alone.

D12 106 What we are concerned with here is what Dr Fosdick called D12 107 "The Principle of Released Power". And he goes on D12 108 to say: "Power is primarily a matter not of self-generation D12 109 but of appropriation. Not strenuous activity but hospitable D12 110 receptivity is the ultimate source of energy." That was D12 111 Paul's liberating discovery. From the moral struggle of Romans 7 to D12 112 the exhilarating liberty of Romans 8, this possibility is for him D12 113 the glorious gospel - truly Good News. "Christ in you - the D12 114 hope of glory." Christlikeness is an inward beauty D12 115 reflected in outward character. This then is the truth to which D12 116 Paul returns again and again. He talks of "putting on D12 117 Christ", of Christ "being formed in us", D12 118 about "having the mind of Christ". And ever and D12 119 anon he breaks into personal testimony: "I live, yet not I D12 120 but Christ lives in me"; "the law of the Spirit of D12 121 Life in Christ has made me free of the law of sin and D12 122 death". He was free at last!

D12 123 Yet there is another emphasis in his teaching. No one has D12 124 insisted more than Paul did on the necessity of strict discipline D12 125 in the spiritual life. He is the author of that seeming paradox, D12 126 "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for D12 127 it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good D12 128 purpose". What Paul is saying is that, having come to the D12 129 end of our resources, God in Christ supplied the missing impetus. D12 130 But having now divine resources, we must use them. We cannot D12 131 initiate the new life, but we must cooperate in its fulfilment. D12 132 Christian discipleship never can be a laid-back affair.

D12 133 Here again we have a principle we recognize in other spheres of D12 134 experience. True art is 'inspired' - but the artist sweats blood to D12 135 give his vision expression on canvas. Great literature is D12 136 'inspired' - but an author's wastepaper basket often bears D12 137 testimony to the travail of writing. And, as one of the world's D12 138 reluctant gardeners, I am painfully aware of the effort required in D12 139 tending and nourishing the life that is in the seed! The Christian D12 140 way is neither "leave it all to God" nor D12 141 "buckle to and get on with it". Which is what Jesus D12 142 was saying when he offered rest to the over-burdened and then D12 143 called them to "take his yoke" upon them. He was D12 144 saying, "I've released you from the treadmill - now let us D12 145 pull together".

D12 146 So we have entered on the road to Christlikeness. But that will D12 147 not be achieved in a moment. God has planted the seed but we are at D12 148 times indifferent husbandmen! Prayer becomes irksome. The Bible D12 149 seems stale. Church is in danger of becoming a bore. This happens D12 150 to most of us at some stage. The reason is that we see these things D12 151 as ends in themselves. We're back to the futility of salvation by D12 152 works! We have lost sight of the goal. We need to take another long D12 153 look at Jesus, until once again the hunger for that kind of life D12 154 becomes clamant, and everything that ministers to its realization D12 155 ceases to be a 'duty'. C. S. Lewis wrote: "I think all D12 156 Christians would agree with me that though Christianity seems at D12 157 first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and D12 158 guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into D12 159 something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not D12 160 talk of those things, except perhaps as a joke. Everyone there is D12 161 filled full with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled D12 162 with light. But they do not call it goodness. They do not call it D12 163 anything. They are not thinking of it. They are too busy looking at D12 164 the source from which it comes."

D12 165 Most of us are a long way from that - though I have met that D12 166 kind of 'goodness' more than once. But God will not let us go. Paul D12 167 again: "(I am) confident of this, that he who began a good D12 168 work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ D12 169 Jesus". And the completion of that good work will be that D12 170 "we shall be like him - for we shall see him as he D12 171 is". It will be the Real Thing - for God never was D12 172 interested in mere cosmetic surgery!

D12 173 D12 174 A January Journey

D12 175 BY THE REVD MICHAEL J. WARD, BSC, BD,

D12 176 ST MADOES, PERTHSHIRE

D12 177 Ps 139:1-12; Mt 2:1-12.

D12 178 Well, that was Christmas and New Year, that was! The church D12 179 Christmas tree is now down, along with all our decorations and D12 180 cards, and we're probably relieved that life is again returning to D12 181 normal after the festive binge of eating and drinking that somehow D12 182 seems to resemble more of the Roman Saturnalia and less of the D12 183 peaceful atmosphere of the coming of the Christ-child. And what has D12 184 changed in the last two weeks? On the face of it, very little. In D12 185 our own community as elsewhere, deaths and funerals have continued D12 186 during the so-called festive season. Our newspapers are once more D12 187 filled with stories of terrorism and strife. It would appear that D12 188 the world has been untouched by our celebration of Christ's birth, D12 189 leaving some of us to wonder what kind of godly intervention it is D12 190 that we celebrated on Christmas Day.

D12 191 Perhaps we're looking for the wrong sort of change, the wrong D12 192 sort of signs that the entry into our world of the God-with-us does D12 193 make a difference. "Unless you people see miraculous signs D12 194 and wonders, you will never believe." Jesus might just as D12 195 easily have been speaking to us. For we long, do we not, to see a D12 196 sign that the peace and goodwill of Christmas might last into D12 197 <}_><-|>he<+|>the<}/> New Year, a sign that the annual journey to D12 198 Bethlehem might at last pay off, a sign that nations and peoples D12 199 are being drawn to the light of the world? D12 200 D13 1 <#FLOB:D13\>ROB WARNER

D13 2 British Baptists

D13 3 a new wave of growth

D13 4 British Baptists are reversing the trend towards church decline D13 5 with ambitious plans for growth. How did a dying denomination D13 6 spring back to life?

D13 7 Take any major evangelical gathering and ask the Baptists D13 8 to stand up and you will find that at least a third of those D13 9 present will rise to their feet. Unlike their Anglican D13 10 counterparts they appear to be the majority in their denomination. D13 11 Whilst voices over the decades have called them to come out of the D13 12 denomination, they have persevered and now seem set to pioneer a D13 13 new era of growth and orthodoxy in the British Baptist Church.

D13 14 The evangelical Baptists are growing. A small denomination in D13 15 Britain, Baptists are one of the largest Protestant denominations D13 16 in the world, and in many countries Baptists are seeing significant D13 17 growth.

D13 18 The latest figures for Britain reveal that only three groups of D13 19 churches have enjoyed significant overall growth in Sunday D13 20 congregations, over the last four years. They are D13 21 Pentecostals, New Churches and Baptists.

D13 22 So who are the Baptists? The most well known from previous D13 23 generations include William Carey, "the father of modern D13 24 world mission", and the preaching giants Charles Spurgeon D13 25 and F.B. Meyer. The most well known 20th-century Baptists must D13 26 surely be Billy Graham and Martin Luther King. Speakers and writers D13 27 Tony Campolo and Ron Sider both lecture at Baptist colleges in the D13 28 States.

D13 29 Baptists have usually been thought of as a mainly evangelical D13 30 denomination. This is reflected in the large Baptist attendance at D13 31 Spring Harvest, and in the high level of participation in Mission D13 32 89 and the Person to Person evangelism training programme. Both D13 33 historically and today Baptists are essentially an evangelical D13 34 movement.

D13 35 In Britain, Baptists make a significant contribution to wider D13 36 evangelical life - e.g. Ian Coffey at the Evangelical Alliance (to D13 37 name but one); Ernest Lucas at Christian Impact; Roy Pointer, known D13 38 to many for his church growth insights. Many evangelical missionary D13 39 societies and Bible colleges have Baptists among their senior D13 40 staff. The new organisation which has made the greatest impact in D13 41 recent years is probably Steve Chalke's Oasis, with its imaginative D13 42 programmes of evangelism and care as well as the culturally D13 43 innovative Christmas Cracker/Unwrapped events.

D13 44 This new phase of Baptist growth is not centred on a few mega D13 45 churches. Exciting reports are coming in from all over England. To D13 46 take three local examples: in Kingsbridge, Devon the church has D13 47 quadrupled in size in ten years, 60% by conversion and baptism; in D13 48 Skipton, Yorkshire 40 have grown to 150 in three years; in D13 49 Brickhill, Bedford there have been 250 baptisms in the last 8 D13 50 years. In the Northern Baptist Association most churches are now D13 51 enjoying growth.

D13 52 Derek Tidball has been preaching at churches nationwide as D13 53 President of the Baptist Union. His assessment is clear D13 54 "After nearly a year of travelling it is certainly my D13 55 impression that the vitality and growth is taking place among the D13 56 evangelicals. I have been in church after church which has grown in D13 57 recent years."

D13 58 Growth hasn't always happened. For many years the denomination D13 59 was drifting from its roots, and only recently can we speak of an D13 60 evangelical resurgence. Baptists faced the same sorry decline as D13 61 other churches through most of this century. The late Sixties and D13 62 early Seventies were for many a 'spiritual dark age'. Alongside D13 63 continued numerical shrinkage there was a decline into radically D13 64 unbiblical theology and in some quarters an intolerance towards D13 65 evangelical convictions.

D13 66 Looking back, the Seventies proved the decisive turning point. D13 67 In 1972 a debate over the divinity of Christ was sparked by a D13 68 senior liberal Baptist, not in a theological seminar but in a main D13 69 meeting of the Baptist Union Assembly. For some this was the last D13 70 straw. Over forty churches and ministers abandoned ship.

D13 71 Others were convinced that they should seek reform and renewal D13 72 within the denomination. Pat Goodland, one of the key figures in D13 73 this group, recalls that their meetings and prayers were D13 74 "born out of a deep sense of concern at our churches' lack D13 75 of life and growth".

D13 76 In 1977 the annual report of the BU spoke of continued decline. D13 77 At the annual Assembly Douglas McBain could contain himself no D13 78 longer. Many recall his impassioned plea for urgent analysis and D13 79 prayer, which was speedily affirmed by Paul Beasley Murray when he D13 80 scented prevarication from the Assembly chairman. Times have D13 81 changed for these young turks of evangelism who assailed the D13 82 establishment: Douglas is now Area Superintendent for London; Paul D13 83 is Principal of Spurgeon's College, the leading D13 84 evangelical Baptist college.

D13 85 By the end of the decade a major new grouping of evangelical D13 86 Baptists had been formed. Mainstream, as it became known, has never D13 87 had a formal membership, but provides a quarterly newsletter, an D13 88 annual conference since 1980, and an occasional preaching workshop D13 89 or theological consultation, the latest in 1990 on gospel and D13 90 culture with Leslie Newbiggin and Andrew Walker.

D13 91 Mainstream is committed to evangelical inclusiveness - what D13 92 Derek Tidball calls "a wide embrace of charismatics and D13 93 traditional evangelicals". There have never been Mainstream D13 94 campaign issues or Mainstream candidates for senior posts, but it D13 95 quickly became a rallying point for Baptist evangelicals. What's D13 96 more, the movement's slogan emphatically embraced mission as D13 97 central to living orthodoxy - "Baptists for Life and D13 98 Growth".

D13 99 At first Mainstream was dismissed. Some disregarded it as tiny D13 100 and irrelevant. Others slammed it as divisive and fundamentalist or D13 101 accused the leaders of being "charismatic D13 102 confectioners". But the name had been chosen well. Through D13 103 the Eighties a groundswell of local church leaders endorsed the D13 104 Mainstream vision.

D13 105 In January 1991 Mainstream enjoyed their largest conference D13 106 yet, with John White speaking on "Leadership in the Power D13 107 of the Spirit". The worship, more vibrant than ever, was D13 108 led by Nigel Wright. Nigel, a lecturer at Spurgeon's is likely to D13 109 prove a leading Baptist theologian of the Nineties.

D13 110 The delegates were clearly in good heart for the decade of D13 111 evangelism. Harry Weatherley, for many years a full-time D13 112 association missioner (associations are increasingly appointing a D13 113 regional senior evangelist), summed up the mood in two words - D13 114 "increasingly expectant".

D13 115 Evangelical vigour is not only seen in national conferences and D13 116 local growth. Senior denominational appointments have come to D13 117 evangelicals in the last few years, many of them present or former D13 118 members of the Mainstream executive. David Coffey, a D13 119 well-known Spring Harvest speaker, was made National D13 120 Secretary for Evangelism. Even before he took office many D13 121 evangelicals found fresh inspiration from his appointment. This D13 122 <}_><-|>Spring<+|>spring<}/> he will become the new General D13 123 Secretary, which for Baptists is as significant as the appointment D13 124 of evangelical Anglican George Carey as Archbishop of D13 125 Canterbury!

D13 126 Derek Tidball, currently BU President and previously a Director D13 127 of Studies at LBC and Chairman of British Youth for D13 128 Christ will be the new Secretary for Mission and Evangelism. D13 129 John Capon, a respected evangelical journalist with TEAR D13 130 Fund and a former editor of Crusade will be the new D13 131 editor of the Baptist Times.

D13 132 Eric Westwood, who has brought back from missionary service in D13 133 Brazil a passion for a new wave of evangelism and church planting, D13 134 will be the BU President in 1992.

D13 135 The tide is also turning in the training colleges. It will be D13 136 no surprise to state that most of the students in training are D13 137 evangelicals. A recent college survey showed that most are also D13 138 positively influenced by renewal.

D13 139 With growth in applicants has come new approaches to training. D13 140 Most colleges have now developed in-pastorate training as an D13 141 alternative to college-based courses. Probably even more D13 142 significant is the course pioneered by Oasis and Spurgeon's - D13 143 specialised training for church-based evangelists. Local churches D13 144 considering additional staff are increasingly appointing D13 145 evangelists, and so such training is invaluable.

D13 146 No one is complacent. Present growth is nowhere near enough! D13 147 Local churches and national leaders alike are calling for a D13 148 decisive shift of priority from maintenance - keeping Christians D13 149 comfortable, to mission - reaching a lost world.

D13 150 Already many churches are extending premises or holding more D13 151 services because of growth. But there is a further key factor - at D13 152 every level Baptists are seizing a church planting vision once D13 153 again. (The last Baptist church planter on a massive scale in D13 154 Britain was Spurgeon last century).

D13 155 Influential Baptist figures such as David Coffey and Geoffrey D13 156 Reynolds are now working with Stuart Christaine to develop a D13 157 national church planting initiative.

D13 158 Stuart is another former missionary to Brazil who has brought D13 159 Brazilian zeal back to Britain. This zeal overflows into his role D13 160 at Spurgeon's as the first Oasis Director for Church Planting and D13 161 Evangelism. He confidently expects many new congregations this D13 162 decade - "Despite the lack of experience in this form of D13 163 evangelism, there is unquestionably a new confidence in the gospel D13 164 growing among our people ... we have met with overwhelming D13 165 enthusiasm."

D13 166 Many local churches are embracing the vision. Some are planting D13 167 new churches; others are adapting the model of one church with D13 168 multiplying congregations, (like Roger Forster's Icthus). In some D13 169 areas strategies are in place and the momentum is growing, as Area D13 170 Superintendent Geoffrey Reynolds explains: "On average in D13 171 our Southern Area we have planted one church every year over the D13 172 past 15 years. Our strategy for the next five years will D13 173 particularly turn to the large residential growth areas along the D13 174 south coast". At the other end of the country several new D13 175 churches have been planned.

D13 176 At every level - numerical growth, senior appointments, D13 177 increasing numbers of trained leaders and ambitious evangelistic D13 178 strategy - the evidence is clear. We are witnessing an evangelical D13 179 resurgence among Baptists which is unprecedented this century.

D13 180 But evangelical Baptists have no desire to be isolated from D13 181 other Christians. All of us need to learn from each other. What's D13 182 more, the nation can only be reached if all evangelicals work D13 183 together. Derek Tidball sums up the new climate of expectancy - D13 184 "We're part of that new tide of the Spirit sweeping across D13 185 the nation, and across the denomination."

D13 186 My hope is not merely for Baptists, but for all evangelicals. D13 187 Because of the generations who were faithful through hard times to D13 188 the essential task of guarding the gospel (2 Timothy 1:13-14), we D13 189 are indeed seeing a new dawn of influence and growth. More than D13 190 that, my hope is for the nation and the world that all D13 191 evangelicals, charismatic and non-charismatic and without regard to D13 192 denomination, will together find a new zeal and urgency to take the D13 193 good news of Jesus Christ to every home and community in Britain - D13 194 and to the unreached peoples of the earth!

D13 195 Between two Worlds

D13 196 COLE MORETON

D13 197 What does it mean to be an Asian Christian in Britain today? D13 198 ALPHA talked to leading Asian believers and discovered the cost of D13 199 discipleship is high for those caught between two cultures.

D13 200 Asian Christians in Britain may not have a high profile but D13 201 they are working behind the scenes in several major initiatives. D13 202 Christmas Cracker, the youth compassion project that has captured D13 203 the imagination of thousands of young Christians, has two Asian D13 204 trustees, one of whom, Ram Gidoomal, is the chairman.

D13 205 A key figure in much of the planning and organisation of Pray D13 206 For Birmingham, which has packed out the NEC on several occasions, D13 207 is Solihull schools worker Pall Singh.

D13 208 How do they and their fellow Asian believers cope with the D13 209 clash of cultures experienced by those who move away from D13 210 traditional Asian religion?

D13 211 A lively Oxford church provides some of the answers. Flying D13 212 fingers wove intricate rhythms on table and Dhulak drums, as more D13 213 than 100 Christians worshipped God in the Punjabi language.

D13 214 It is a familiar sight for churchgoers in India - but this D13 215 particular service was taking place in England. The grey winter sky D13 216 outside testified to that. So does the silent church organ, D13 217 neglected in favour of Eastern scales played on melodeon and D13 218 accordion.

D13 219 Pastor Sifte Massey leads his thriving congregation in an D13 220 hour-long service. He slips easily between Southern Asian languages D13 221 and English - but there is a translator during the sermon, for D13 222 those whose Punjabi is a bit patchy.

D13 223 Everyone in this meeting has roots in the Punjab, although most D13 224 of the younger people were born in Britain. They are all born-again D13 225 believers, preserving their traditional cultural background, D13 226 worshipping in their own languages with their own music, in a D13 227 borrowed church building.

D13 228 D14 1 <#FLOB:D14\>THE LITERAL SENSE OF SCRIPTURE

D14 2 ROWAN WILLIAMS

D14 3 I D14 4 In recent years, British and American theology has shown a good D14 5 deal of interest in reclaiming the insights of 'pre-critical' D14 6 exegesis, and in challenging what has been seen as the unproductive D14 7 dominance of scholarly concern with original forms of a scriptural D14 8 text, with questions about the community background of this or that D14 9 strand of tradition, or with the redactional concerns of an editor D14 10 or a series of editors. In short, there has been a widespread D14 11 dissatisfaction with all the modern conventions of textual study - D14 12 source, form and redaction criticism - and a reaction towards D14 13 alternative modes of reading. We have seen pleas for a return to D14 14 allegory, a sophisticated deployment of modern literary theory to D14 15 question any remaining obsession with authorial intentions, and the D14 16 various forms of canonical criticism, insisting that we read D14 17 scriptural texts in the context of their present and deliberate D14 18 positioning in relation to each other as constituting a single D14 19 book, settled once and for all in a community's history. With all D14 20 this in mind, though, it has become difficult to see how what is D14 21 also a central aspect of traditional and 'pre-critical' D14 22 hermeneutics, the belief in the primacy of the 'literal' sense of D14 23 Scripture, can now be understood. If we have become suspicious of a D14 24 hermeneutic that looks for authorial meanings and treats them as D14 25 normative, if - in literary theory in general - we have been taught D14 26 a certain uneasiness about the whole notion of normative meaning, D14 27 how are we to talk about a 'primary' or authoritative level of D14 28 reading that is bound to history, in the way traditional exegesis D14 29 conceived the sensus litteralis to be?

D14 30 One way of seeing how the relation between literal and D14 31 non-literal senses of Scripture has been worked out in doctrinal D14 32 history is to see it as a tension between what I shall call D14 33 'diachronic' and 'synchronic' styles of reading. I can read a text D14 34 in a more or less 'dramatic' way, by following it through in a D14 35 single time-continuum, reading it as a sequence of changes, a D14 36 pattern of transformations; or I can read it as a 'field' of D14 37 linguistic material, of signs that refer backwards and forwards to D14 38 each other in a system of interaction more like the surface of a D14 39 picture than a performance of drama or music. There is a reading - D14 40 we could say - where the unity of what is read is worked out in D14 41 time, and a reading where the unity is worked out in something more D14 42 like space. The former, the diachronic reading is not by any means D14 43 a naive strategy: it can operate at several different levels. I may D14 44 begin by simply following the movement of the text as it stands; D14 45 but that will alert me to deeper movements or rhythms within it, D14 46 relations between whole blocks of material, all the ways in which a D14 47 text can display subversions and tensions within its own D14 48 progression - the ways in which it can put itself in question. I D14 49 may become aware of a 'strategy' in the text itself; and that D14 50 awareness may compel a recognition of the narrative context of the D14 51 act of writing, of the world of the writer and of his or her goals D14 52 as they are enacted in the text. If diachronic reading is a reading D14 53 which can show me something of a text's intentionality (in the D14 54 widest sense - its internal direction and its consciously envisaged D14 55 audience), it will put to me questions about the writer's world, D14 56 questions about history, even if only the history of the process of D14 57 composing. And such questions are not necessarily a way of D14 58 disregarding the specificity of the writing as it presents itself, D14 59 to the extent that they genuinely arise from the act of reading D14 60 with attention and patience.

D14 61 To take an example: T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets can be D14 62 read most simply as a sequence of more or less interrelated D14 63 meditations on time and eternity, or on the presence of meaning D14 64 within the apparent blind contingency of the world. Closer reading, D14 65 however, brings to light contradictions and cross-currents: D14 66 one section will be seen as making a proposal that will be D14 67 undermined or rejected, or at least forced into a new light, by a D14 68 subsequent development; a good second reading will display the D14 69 movement of earlier stages in a significantly different light from D14 70 that in which they were first understood. We learn to see ironies D14 71 or even falsities not visible in our initial movement through the D14 72 text. In Eliot's own words, there is a "new and shocking D14 73 valuation" within the movement of the poems. The whole work D14 74 appears as an exercise in the conscious putting into question of D14 75 the poet's own symbolic idiom; and we grasp this more adequately D14 76 insofar as we are aware of the pull towards symbolist D14 77 self-reference, a self-contained world of poetic discourse, in the D14 78 rest of Eliot's work up to the time of the Quartets, and aware D14 79 too of the poetic voices - Dante, Baudelaire, D14 80 Mallarm<*_>e-acute<*/>, Yeats - that were for Eliot both a D14 81 formative influence and a seduction, a danger. Eliot's quarrel with D14 82 his own preferred poetic voice is part of a larger world of D14 83 relating and conflicting poetic idioms.

D14 84 To say, as I should want to claim, that all this belongs with a D14 85 'literal' reading of the text may seem an odd use of the term; but D14 86 all the levels of reading I have described are unified by the fact D14 87 that they are generated out of the experience of reading the text D14 88 'diachronically', as a movement in time. One level of movement D14 89 appears as reflecting or opening the door to another, and the D14 90 reading never wholly escapes from the primary fact the reader has D14 91 taken time in following the progression of the text as it D14 92 stands. A mature reading capable of discerning at an early stage D14 93 meanings which in fact depend upon later moments remains in this D14 94 sense diachronic, because the possibility of such a reading D14 95 would still be consciously dependent upon the prior fact of a D14 96 lectio continua in which the reader had to D14 97 experience the temporal formation and emergence of meanings. It is, D14 98 of course, possible to do what some critics of the Quartets D14 99 have done, and regard each section, even each line, as enunciating D14 100 a single vision, identical from beginning to end of the sequence, D14 101 so that early lines are made to bear a freight of deliberate D14 102 positive meaning in a quite undialectical way. This may or may not D14 103 be a fruitful reading (I find it for the most part decidedly D14 104 not); but it should at least be clear that it could not exist D14 105 at all without the experience of first working through the whole D14 106 complex over time, with all that that implies of provisionality and D14 107 're-visioning'. Thus, to attend to a 'literal' sense in this sort D14 108 of context is to insist upon there being some controlling force in D14 109 the fact that meaning comes to light in a process of learning to D14 110 perceive; it is to challenge the idea that there could be an D14 111 adequate reading of the text which ignored the time of the text D14 112 itself, its own movement, with the time of the writer and the D14 113 writer's world opened up to us through the movement of the text. It D14 114 is to protest against any reading which elided or softened or D14 115 simply ignored the tensions realised and worked through in the time D14 116 of the text, its movement as something that can bear continuous D14 117 reading. Concern with the literal, the diachronic, is a way of D14 118 resisting the premature unities and harmonies of a non-literal D14 119 reading (whether allegorical, existentialist, structuralist or D14 120 deconstructionist), in which the time that matters is only the D14 121 present of the reader faced with the 'spatial' expanse of a text D14 122 cut off from its own inner processes and the history of its D14 123 production.

D14 124 Something like this seems to be at work in Thomas Aquinas' D14 125 insistence on the priority of the literal sense. He takes the D14 126 literal sense to be that which refers to the intention of the D14 127 author - who, in the case of Scripture, is God; and this intention D14 128 is primarily manifest in events, not in the text itself, for God D14 129 can communicate through the material processes of the world's D14 130 history, while human beings can only organise words to convey their D14 131 meanings. What Scripture has to tell us can be apprehended only D14 132 through awareness of a reference to the lives and actions of D14 133 "those persons through whom God's revelation reaches D14 134 us"; the narrative of Scripture displays the D14 135 "authority" of these figures, their status as enacting or D14 136 communicating the purposes of God, and that authority is the basis D14 137 of the normative significance of "Scripture or D14 138 teaching" (sacra scriptura vel D14 139 doctrina). All readings of Scripture are finally D14 140 answerable to this, so that nothing in doctrina can be D14 141 established solely on the basis of a non-literal reading. As Thomas D14 142 makes clear, the literal sense is not dependent on a belief that D14 143 all scriptural propositions uncomplicatedly depict real states of D14 144 affairs detail by detail; it can and does include metaphor within D14 145 the literary movement that leads us into the movement of God within D14 146 the time of human biography. In this way, Thomas sketches an D14 147 understanding of the literal that allows for a plurality of D14 148 genres within it; it is the failure to see and to develop this D14 149 insight that has led to those narrow and sterile definitions of the D14 150 literal sense against which recent hermeneutics has so sharply D14 151 reacted.

D14 152 Paradoxically, it was the development of a more sophisticated D14 153 literary hermeneutic, by way of historical and comparative D14 154 criticism, that led to the effective redefinition - and the D14 155 disastrous shrinkage - of the literal sense that we associate with D14 156 fundamentalism. Correctly identifying 'literal' with 'historical', D14 157 in sound traditional fashion, fundamentalism assumed that D14 158 'historical' could be applied only to a univocally descriptive and D14 159 exact representation of particular sequences of 'fact'. Against the D14 160 potential totalitarianism of this, and the equally stagnant D14 161 prospects of a formal and archaeological historical criticism, the D14 162 retrieval of non-literal or 'pre-critical' modes is entirely D14 163 intelligible. But this in its turn has its dangers. Of the problems D14 164 of post-structuralist exegesis I shall say more shortly; but at D14 165 least some forms of 'canonical' criticism risk just that elision of D14 166 conflict that has characterised other styles of non-literal D14 167 exegesis. An uncritical canonical criticism threatens to prohibit D14 168 or ignore any questions about meaning that arise from the refusal D14 169 to take the homogeneity of the canon for granted. If this reaction D14 170 against the literal were to prevail, it would point either to a new D14 171 totalitarianism of canonical context, understood without reference D14 172 to history, or to an arbitrary pluralism, in which the idea of D14 173 a given textual content capable of effectively challenging or D14 174 changing the reader would be hard to sustain. To guard D14 175 intelligently against this, we need to re-examine and re-state the D14 176 case for the primacy of the literal; this essay is an attempt to D14 177 begin that task.

D14 178 II D14 179 It is in fact very difficult to make sense of the idea of a D14 180 total triumph for synchronic, non-literal or 'spatial' reading. D14 181 "We love stories because our lives are stories" D14 182 says one recent contributor to this discussion; that is to say that D14 183 we are aware in our own lives of the process of learning and D14 184 producing meanings, and naturally look, in our reading, for D14 185 comparable processes of production. The meanings in our reading are D14 186 like the meanings in the rest of our experience, they are to be D14 187 discovered, unfolded: the reading of narrative in particular has an D14 188 open future and a gradually accumulating past. So long as our D14 189 humanity remains unintelligible except as a life of material D14 190 change, irreversible movement, it is unlikely - to say the least - D14 191 that we could establish non-diachronic modes of reading as primary. D14 192 It is quite true that works which set out to operate in a linear D14 193 temporal mode of the simplest kind escape from this constraint in D14 194 all kinds of ways; but I have already suggested that this, so far D14 195 from leading us directly to synchronic interpretation, has the D14 196 effect of opening us up to more than one 'time' in the text, more D14 197 than one story. D14 198 D15 1 <#FLOB:D15\>THIRTEEN

D15 2 YOU HAVE THE POWER

D15 3 For thousands of years communities, secret brotherhoods and D15 4 loosely-affiliated networks have heralded the New Age, the arrival D15 5 of heaven on earth. From the ascetic Essenes guarding their D15 6 specialized knowledge on the shores of the Dead Sea, to the pockets D15 7 of wild-eyed libertines touring Europe during the Middle Ages, to D15 8 the intrigues of the Rosicrucians and the other-worldly D15 9 intellectualism of the Theosophists, innumerable groups have D15 10 believed that they have the power to bring about a new era.

D15 11 Today's New Age has garnered from its heritage a spiritual D15 12 hotch-potch of abstruse theories and esoteric snippets, D15 13 sprinkled with a liberal dose of Eastern exoticisms. The result: a D15 14 vast umbrella movement embracing countless groups, gurus and D15 15 individuals, bound together by a belief that the world is D15 16 undergoing a transformation or shift in consciousness which will D15 17 usher in a new mode of being, an earthly paradise.

D15 18 Rather than filing itself away under philosophical or D15 19 theological labels, the New Age provides seekers with a spiritual D15 20 core around which they can orbit, picking up whichever rays of D15 21 enlightenment they feel hit the mark, or resonate with their own D15 22 inner truth. By dismissing logical argument, by putting intuition D15 23 above intellect and feeling above theory, the New Age happily D15 24 embraces wildly differing creeds. For the New Age is not D15 25 'either/or' but 'both/and', as its proponents so often insist. D15 26 Therein lies much of its appeal: the New Age has something for D15 27 everyone. While it attracts its fair share of confirmed 1960s D15 28 children, it also draws in businesspeople, so-called 'New Age D15 29 yuppies', health professionals, lawyers - anyone who wants to take D15 30 control over their life and at the same time escape, just for a D15 31 while, from the monotony of everyday existence. It does help, D15 32 however, if you are reasonably well off: the New Age brand of D15 33 enlightenment doesn't come cheap.

D15 34 What distinguishes a New Age convert? At one extreme, the New D15 35 Age is a fashion item: at the beginning of the 1990s, several D15 36 magazines and newspapers ran New Age fashion spreads, the clothes D15 37 ranging from a return to 1960s psychedelic gear to white, D15 38 loose-fitting outfits intended to symbolize the spiritual purity D15 39 and holistic values of the wearer. Casual New Agers wear the D15 40 clothes, sport crystal jewellery, read the odd book and attend a D15 41 course now and again. At the other extreme are the committed New D15 42 Agers. And while some might still be wearing their original 1960s D15 43 clothes, many wear business suits, sport Filofaxes and only betray D15 44 their spiritual allegiances when they open their mouths: key New D15 45 Age words such as 'commitment', 'empowerment', 'transformation', D15 46 'integrity' and 'unity' come tumbling out in a tone of high D15 47 seriousness.

D15 48 While today's New Age revival can in part be attributed to the D15 49 approach of the millennium and the threat of the environmental D15 50 crisis, it is the desire for power and control which accounts above D15 51 all for the current upsurge of interest in the movement. Despite D15 52 its aversion to labels, the New Age can be summed up by one simple D15 53 phrase: you have the power.

D15 54 Power is, it appears, an increasingly valued commodity in the D15 55 latter part of the twentieth century - one which mainstream D15 56 religions often fail to provide. Instead, they tend to emphasize D15 57 powerlessness - and besides, say New Agers, most mainstream D15 58 religions treat women appallingly and are divorced from real life. D15 59 Whereas at first the twentieth century saw a drifting away from D15 60 religion, the New Age marks a return to an all-embracing, D15 61 all-powerful spirituality.

D15 62 Of course, the heady sense of being privy to supposedly secret D15 63 information has lured people towards esoteric paths for centuries. D15 64 But what is different about the twentieth century search for power D15 65 and control is that rather than simply being sought after by fringe D15 66 groups or oppressed sections of society - as, for instance, with D15 67 the revolutionary millennial sects of the Middle Ages - it is D15 68 all-pervasive.

D15 69 Over the past few decades, the average man and woman has been D15 70 bombarded with information revealing how traditional seats of D15 71 authority - the Church, the government and the family - have failed D15 72 and deceived them. In tandem with such revelations, social D15 73 commentators have been claiming that humanity is feeling D15 74 increasingly out of control over everything from the minutiae of D15 75 everyday life to world events which threaten their very existence. D15 76 Not only are we living in a rapidly changing world, but also the D15 77 mass media is continually making us aware of the situation. Many D15 78 people were already half way to the conclusion that the self was D15 79 the only place where they could locate Truth. The New Age simply D15 80 pushed them over the edge by handing them the tantalizing concept D15 81 of the 'empowered self'.

D15 82 In the late 1960s, American psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton D15 83 described the new type of being produced by modernity as D15 84 "Protean man" - named after the shape-shifting D15 85 Greek God Proteus. "Protean man," he said, D15 86 "is incapable of maintaining an unquestioning allegiance to D15 87 the large ideologies and Utopian thought of the nineteenth and D15 88 early twentieth centuries." Modern man was, he claimed D15 89 "confused about limits". The response to this D15 90 crisis was, he said, twofold. Some people chose to "hold D15 91 fast to all existing categories", creating D15 92 "nostalgic visions of restoring a golden age of exact D15 93 boundaries, an age in which men allegedly knew exactly where they D15 94 stood". The opposite response, he said, was "to D15 95 destroy, or seek to destroy, all boundaries, in the name of an D15 96 all-encompassing oneness".

D15 97 The New Age sets out to break down the boundaries of reality, D15 98 the boundaries of religions, the boundaries of nations and the D15 99 boundaries of mind-body-spirit. Boundaries imply alienation and D15 100 separation - and for the New Age, separation is the greatest evil. D15 101 True to its 'both/and' doctrine, the New Age also returns men and D15 102 women to a golden age - one in which they are all-powerful, no less D15 103 than gods. In practice, however, it is often the New Age leader or D15 104 guru who has the power: the follower will be told to locate truth D15 105 in his or her inner self - but the leader will interpret what the D15 106 inner self says. And although the New Age teaches a profound sense D15 107 of 'self'-responsibility, many converts seem eager to hand over all D15 108 semblance of personal decision-making to a leader who provides D15 109 direction on everything from their choice of partner to what to eat D15 110 and how often to wash.

D15 111 The New Age also allows no boundaries between God and man - D15 112 hence the difficulty with the Judaeo-Christian God who is seen as D15 113 separate from his creation, and hence the New Age teaching that D15 114 you are God. There must also be no distinction - no D15 115 'separation' - between the individual's reality and the outside D15 116 reality, a doctrine which gives rise to the New Age maxim: you D15 117 create your own reality.

D15 118 For some converts, the maxim can be immensely liberating; for D15 119 the unconverted, it can be infuriating: logical argument becomes D15 120 impossible. In practice, 'you create your own reality' lays itself D15 121 open to abuse. The emphasis on self can easily lead to selfishness, D15 122 and even callousness: one New Age convert, explaining his D15 123 philosophy of life, remarked that of course he could treat women D15 124 how he liked because it was up to them how they chose to experience D15 125 his behaviour. On a larger scale, some New Age groups teach that D15 126 since people are "responsible for" and D15 127 "create" their own reality, there is no point in giving to D15 128 charity. During the massive 1985 Live Aid campaign, at least one D15 129 New Age group staunchly refused to contribute any money. Although D15 130 some of today's New Agers are active campaigners on issues which D15 131 concern them, many have decided that a meditation or a dance will D15 132 work just as well.

D15 133 The idea that you create your own reality can also create D15 134 profound feelings of guilt: someone suffering from an illness might D15 135 be told that it is simply their "story" - and it is up to D15 136 them to get rid of the victim mentality and change the punchline. D15 137 The New Age tends to dismiss the existence of absolutes, among them D15 138 pain and death, which are often seen as simply yet another dogma. D15 139 The one absolute which the New Age does promote is the power of the D15 140 self.

D15 141 New Agers themselves are often quite open about the dangers of D15 142 self-discovery. LSD turned breath-control therapist Stanislav Grof D15 143 recently co-wrote The Stormy Search for The Self, D15 144 advising seekers on how to deal with crack-ups on the path towards D15 145 enlightenment. Others are worried not so much about the D15 146 psychological as about the spiritual dangers of the New Age. Some D15 147 leaders of established religions are so horrified by the emphasis D15 148 on power that they are convinced Satan is behind the movement - a D15 149 demonic puppeteer pulling the strings with the ultimate aim of D15 150 effecting a world takeover.

D15 151 Many New Agers actively promote the movement as being both D15 152 dangerous and covert - and even the charge of Satanism is D15 153 transformed into an attribute by some prominent New Age figures who D15 154 see Satan not as the Anti-Christ (against Christ) but as the D15 155 ante-Christ (before Christ), preparing the way for heaven on earth. D15 156 Virtually all the derogatory remarks made about the New Age can D15 157 also be seen as the very essence of what makes the movement so D15 158 attractive: the New Age is not 'either/or' but 'both/and'.

D15 159 Some believe that, before long, the New Age will develop an D15 160 orthodoxy. While this would, in a sense, strip the New Age of what D15 161 it is, it might help to ensure that New Age leaders are prevented D15 162 from taking advantage of their spiritual authority: followers would D15 163 have some code of practice against which they could measure their D15 164 leader's behaviour; something concrete to hang on to in times of D15 165 uncertainty. While some New Agers are happy to flit from group to D15 166 group, others become totally dependent on the movement and if their D15 167 faith is shaken they can feel immensely let down. Sometimes, the D15 168 disillusionment can be shattering, and the struggle to rebuild D15 169 their lives well-nigh overwhelming.

D15 170 While there are countless New Age leaders whose behaviour D15 171 towards their followers is faultless, there are a number who have D15 172 abused the power which their personal charisma, together with the D15 173 persuasiveness of their teachings, has given them. These leaders D15 174 are accountable only to themselves - and their followers have D15 175 little, if any, means of redress. The story of the Movement of D15 176 Spiritual Inner Awareness (MSIA) provides a good illustration of D15 177 the problem. Teachings within the movement encourage followers to D15 178 reject criticism of them or their leader as "negative". D15 179 Specific charges of malpractice by MSIA leaders are dismissed as D15 180 tales that cannot be substantiated short of "personal D15 181 experience". Those who become unhappy within the movement D15 182 have either to obliterate any negative thinking, or leave it.

D15 183 The founder of MSIA is Roger Hinkins. Born in Rains, Utah, in D15 184 1934 to Mormon parents, Hinkins was an ordinary kind of child, D15 185 distinguished from his schoolfellows only by his claimed ability to D15 186 see the auras or colours surrounding people. After gaining a degree D15 187 in psychology, Hinkins took a job as an English teacher at Rosemead D15 188 County High School, California.

D15 189 Then the transformation occurred: falling into a coma following D15 190 a kidney stone operation in 1963, Hinkins claimed to have undergone D15 191 a profoundly enlightening near-death experience and, on returning D15 192 to the living, became aware that a spiritual being - John the D15 193 Beloved - had entered his body. In Christian belief, John the D15 194 Beloved is St John the Evangelist, one of Christ's apostles. From D15 195 then on, Hinkins adopted the name of John-Roger, or J-R. He also D15 196 claimed he was the embodiment of the Mystical Traveller D15 197 Consciousness - a being, so his followers came to believe, which D15 198 appears only once every 25,000 years, and without whom it is D15 199 virtually impossible to reach God or the "soul D15 200 realm".

D15 201 In his spare time, J-R began to lead evening classes, preaching D15 202 his new-found spirituality and gradually gathering a group of firm D15 203 devotees around him. Meanwhile, he continued his more mundane D15 204 teaching at Rosemead until, one day, the headmaster walked into his D15 205 classroom to find the lights extinguished and curtains drawn: J-R D15 206 had been introducing his pupils to hypnosis. Deciding that his D15 207 spiritual teachings took priority, J-R and the school went separate D15 208 ways.

D15 209 D16 1 <#FLOB:D16\>7 The Bible, Doctrine and Economic D16 2 Issues

D16 3 Putting things as simply as possible, we can say that D16 4 decision-making in the Christian life means both acting D16 5 from the right motive and making the right decision in particular D16 6 cases. It means having a sensitive conscience which uses its power D16 7 of reasoning on moral issues with discernment. Motivation involves D16 8 what the catholic tradition calls "spiritual D16 9 formation", including the practice of public worship and D16 10 private prayer, which themselves embrace reflection on Christian D16 11 sources in the Bible and the tradition of doctrine. It also D16 12 involves a mutual building up within the Christian community of D16 13 perceptiveness by discussion, dialogue and, on occasions, pastoral D16 14 counselling. All this is not the direct concern of this book. D16 15 Bringing these resources to bear on particular issues is our D16 16 concern. How this is done applies, of course, to every area of D16 17 life, personal and social, but we are focussing on economic D16 18 issues.

D16 19 It is evident that some knowledge of the data of these issues D16 20 is indispensable, even if it is often not as adequate as we would D16 21 like. If we do not know the data we cannot focus on the issue. It D16 22 is also evident that the data cannot come from the Bible or D16 23 doctrine. They can only come from understanding evidence in the D16 24 present. That is why in respect of many of the issues an element of D16 25 expertise is needed on which to draw (though not uncritically). But D16 26 expertise by itself does not settle the matter. The further D16 27 question is how we relate the two elements needed in ethical D16 28 decision-making: the Bible and the doctrinal tradition on the one D16 29 hand, and the data of the contemporary world on the other. How much D16 30 detail can we derive from them? Certainly the former give us an D16 31 understanding of human life and destiny (or, put another way, of D16 32 nature, humanity and God), which then has to be brought alongside D16 33 our analysis of 'what is going on' in our contemporary D16 34 situation.

D16 35 I suggest that there is a reciprocal relation between the two. D16 36 The Christian sources give us criteria which are important in D16 37 selecting and interpreting from the mass of contemporary data. D16 38 These criteria are not necessarily peculiar to Christianity, but D16 39 may overlap at times with those of other faiths, religious and D16 40 humanist. But the data may also reflect back on our understanding D16 41 of the Christian sources and lead us to reflect on them anew, D16 42 instead of inheriting them as a fixed and unchangeable deposit from D16 43 the past. For example, the human sciences of psychology and D16 44 sociology have modified and enriched the understanding of the D16 45 personal which is central to Christian faith. In this way an D16 46 ongoing reflection on our past in the light of our experience of D16 47 the present is always at work in the church at every level, from D16 48 church leaders and governing bodies downwards to particular D16 49 congregations, and to groups thinking and praying together within D16 50 congregations, or groups of Christians with similar vocational D16 51 concerns meeting together in medicine, education, industry and D16 52 commerce, administration or the arts.

D16 53 I am broadly content with this account. Of course, it can be D16 54 greatly expanded, and would need to be in a thorough exposition of D16 55 method in Christian ethics. Many, however, are unhappy with it. To D16 56 them it seems altogether too contextual and relativistic. It seems D16 57 to be in danger of selling out to whatever notions are popular with D16 58 the intelligentsia (or, less likely, the 'workers') at a given D16 59 moment. It reminds them of Dean Inge's remark that he who marries D16 60 the spirit of the age soon finds himself a widower in the next. D16 61 They want something much more fixed and detailed. This is D16 62 particularly the case with the Bible.

D16 63 1. The use of the Bible

D16 64 Behind this search for more detailed and unchangeable material D16 65 from the Bible lies a belief, particularly in some evangelical D16 66 circles, that God is the author of scripture, and that every text D16 67 therefore has potential permanent authority. It is assumed that God D16 68 reveals himself to humans through the words of scripture without D16 69 any of the cultural and relativizing factors and shifts in the D16 70 meanings of words which occur when humans communicate by words with D16 71 one another. This attitude is reinforced by the current practice of D16 72 saying "This is the word of the Lord" after reading D16 73 in church services a non-gospel passage from the Bible. Thus an D16 74 epistle from St Paul to one of the churches is turned into an D16 75 epistle from God to St Paul. By contrast there is much to be said D16 76 for the traditional Anglican appeal to scripture, tradition and D16 77 reason. Indeed the Bible alone has not proved enough to establish D16 78 doctrine. The church had in fact to go outside it in order to D16 79 protect its understanding of Christ at the time of the Arian D16 80 controversy, and its wording is embodied in the 'Nicene' Creed. D16 81 Tradition alone also will not do, or the church would never do D16 82 anything for the first time. Reason is important: not the deductive D16 83 reason which can draw logical conclusions from a premiss<&|>sic!, D16 84 but a historical and critical reason. However, reason must also D16 85 have the Bible and tradition to work on, or it will be conjuring up D16 86 rational abstractions, because the Christian faith is rooted in the D16 87 life and ministry of Jesus, which occurred at a particular time and D16 88 place in history.

D16 89 The kingdom of God is the focus of Jesus' ministry: a radical D16 90 understanding of God's way of exercising his rule as king or D16 91 sovereign over his creation, and one which is always seeking D16 92 expression in human life and institutions and always transcending D16 93 any particular expression. Jesus did not give us detailed moral D16 94 rules, even on marriage and divorce, or on what precisely is due to D16 95 the state (Caesar). His teaching is questioning, illuminating, D16 96 liberating, imaginative and life-giving. There are indeed many D16 97 contextual decisions elsewhere in the Bible, but we cannot move D16 98 directly from them to the modern world. In the New Testament they D16 99 are concerned with how the people of God should behave to one D16 100 another (for instance, Paul says they should not go to law against D16 101 one another in secular courts), and how they should relate to the D16 102 state. In the Old Testament this was not a problem because church D16 103 and state were one kingdom: Israel was a theocracy. From New D16 104 Testament times there has always been a problem because there are D16 105 two kingdoms, both God's kingdoms, but with different tasks. The D16 106 Christendom situation in Europe (pre-supposed by Hooker in England) D16 107 which united them again is now almost gone; it was an exception in D16 108 Christian history, in the course of which the church has lived D16 109 under a great variety of state authorities.

D16 110 The National Evangelical Anglican conference at Nottingham in D16 111 1977 said very wisely that: 1. the words of scripture are to be D16 112 understood in their context; 2. the context is to be understood in D16 113 terms of the cultural assumptions of the writers; 3. there is need D16 114 for alertness to our own cultural assumptions. However, many D16 115 evangelicals, and others, have not accepted this, or do not follow D16 116 it in practice.

D16 117 Sometimes the attempt is made to take a single text or a catena D16 118 of texts as a simple rule or example. Hundreds of Puritan sermons D16 119 were preached in the year after the execution of Charles I, D16 120 1648-49, on the text of Psalm 149.8, which has the words: D16 121 "To bind their kings in chains; and their nobles with links D16 122 of iron." Karl Barth, in a startling passage in 'The D16 123 Christian Community and the Civil Community', says that because D16 124 Jesus is the light of the world there must be no secret diplomacy. D16 125 In the nineteenth century a strong defence of slavery was D16 126 advanced by detailing biblical texts, and in this century D16 127 homosexuality is attacked by the same method. Many other D16 128 examples could be quoted.

D16 129 However, some who see the inadequacy of quoting texts in this D16 130 way want to derive from them principles which can then be D16 131 followed in a contemporary context. How well does this work? I take D16 132 three examples.

D16 133 1. A paper from the Cambridge (UK) Jubilee Centre says that we D16 134 should establish the intention of the original text in its social D16 135 context (for this is God himself speaking), then look for analogies D16 136 or situational correspondences between the situation today and that D16 137 in the Bible, and then apply the moral principle involved. If the D16 138 Old Testament says in Leviticus 25 that all land is to be returned D16 139 to the original owners every fifty years, we can work back by D16 140 abstraction to the need for justice in economic life. We are to D16 141 exclude in the Old Testament requirements which (a) are part D16 142 of the sacrificial law; (b) are designed to make Israel D16 143 exclusive of others; (c) assert that Israel is executing God's D16 144 judgment on Canaan; (d) are purely theocratic, since church D16 145 and state were one Kingdom. In the New Testament we are to exclude: D16 146 (a) a command addressed to an individual; (b) one D16 147 addressed to the church as an economic community. The Old Testament D16 148 is to be a paradigm for a pattern of relationships between key D16 149 institutions - family, kinship, state, land, capital and community D16 150 - which is to be replicated today "in certain fundamental D16 151 respects". In practice, this leads to a strong emphasis in D16 152 Jubilee Centre publications on the extended family as against the D16 153 state. But in so far as content can be given to it, the requirement D16 154 that such a paradigmatic correspondence between Israel's D16 155 institutions in biblical times and the ones today, whether we live D16 156 in the First, Second or Third Worlds, seems an arbitrary D16 157 restriction.

D16 158 2. Associated with the same group is a campaign for keeping D16 159 Sunday special, in the sense of restrictions on trading activities D16 160 so that it remains different from the other six days of the week. D16 161 The four principles underlying the campaign are all alleged to be D16 162 biblically based, but whatever we may think of them, the texts D16 163 quoted will not work as a basis for the principles. (a) The D16 164 purpose behind the sabbath is love to God, so that we do not give D16 165 him the odd bits of our time but the best. The text here is Luke D16 166 10.27, which is Jesus' two-fold summary of the Torah as love of God D16 167 and neighbour. (b) The sabbath protects the low-income worker D16 168 from pressure to work seven days a week. The text is Deuteronomy D16 169 5.12-16 (a variation of Exodus 20), where the weight falls on the D16 170 deliverance from Egypt, though the welfare of slaves is mentioned. D16 171 (c) Family, community and church life are preserved if D16 172 everyone is at leisure at the same time. Here the Exodus 10.8-11 D16 173 passage is quoted, but that stresses that the family should keep D16 174 the sabbath not because of the family, but because God keeps it. D16 175 (d) The sabbath follows a regular rhythm of work and rest D16 176 which is God's design. The quotation is Genesis 2.3, but this is D16 177 not concerned with biological rhythms but with God the creator.

D16 178 It seems clear that in the Old Testament, in a one-kingdom D16 179 situation, the sabbath is a stretch of time to be set apart for D16 180 God. In the New Testament it also seems clear that there is no D16 181 stress on keeping any day special in the sense intended by the four D16 182 principles. These may very well be wise principles, but they cannot D16 183 be sustained by quoting texts in the way proposed. That Christians D16 184 should specially worship together on Sunday, a new day celebrating D16 185 Jesus' triumph over death, is quite another matter. That work and D16 186 leisure are both divine gifts is also another matter. What state D16 187 regulation should be, and how workers should be safeguarded against D16 188 unjust demands by employers in a competitive society, is yet a D16 189 third question.

D16 190 3. An extended attempt to arrive at biblical principles for the D16 191 economic order is made by Donald Hay in the book referred to in D16 192 Chapter 6. He derives eight principles by what he calls a process D16 193 of deduction and imaginative reflection from the great biblical D16 194 themes of creation, fall, judgment and the people of God. D16 195 D17 1 <#FLOB:D17\>JOHN KENT

D17 2 7 Women, ministry, and 'apostolicity'

D17 3 I write in the Methodist tradition, as a member of a Church D17 4 which decided to ordain women to the priesthood a generation ago, D17 5 has done so, and does not seem to have suffered the divisive, D17 6 destructive effects that are frequently assumed to have happened D17 7 elsewhere - in Scandinavia, for example. In this absence of D17 8 conflict Methodism is no more remarkable than the British Free D17 9 Churches in general, which have taken this particular change as an D17 10 unbuckling step towards the greater equality of the sexes, and as a D17 11 recognition of what women have already contributed to the life of D17 12 their Churches. I mean, quite seriously, that no great emotional D17 13 investment was involved, either for or against a proposal which in D17 14 Anglican terms is sometimes presented as though it would mean the D17 15 end of religion in our time.

D17 16 In the Methodist case - the one I understand the best - the D17 17 phrase 'apostolic ministry' has never been the catchword of a D17 18 group, nor has 'ministry', in the broader sense, ever been D17 19 identified exclusively with the masculine. John Wesley judged D17 20 'apostolicity' in terms of faithfulness to doctrinal (he would have D17 21 said Anglican, doctrinal) standards: he took it for granted that D17 22 the teaching of the Church of England, evangelically (and not D17 23 Calvinistically) understood, was 'apostolic'. He also measured D17 24 'faithfulness' partly in terms of effectiveness, asking if God D17 25 honoured what was preached or otherwise taught by conversions or D17 26 other signs of spiritual fruitfulness. These attitudes constituted D17 27 a pragmatic test which made it hard for him to reject altogether D17 28 the collaboration of women. I do not mean that John or his brother, D17 29 Charles Wesley, both of whom were regularly ordained Anglican D17 30 ministers, considered the formal ordination of women a possibility: D17 31 Charles steadily resisted as totally improper John Wesley's D17 32 willingness himself to ordain the Wesleyan itinerants, all of whom D17 33 were male. But both men accepted the role of women as pastoral D17 34 advisers and spiritual leaders; John found it difficult to say that D17 35 women should never preach, as long as they did not actually call it D17 36 preaching.

D17 37 Indeed, eighteenth-century Wesleyanism at the local level - and D17 38 it was the local level which mattered - was as much the creation of D17 39 women as of men. Women could, it is true, play an important role in D17 40 eighteenth-century Anglican Evangelicalism, but the existence of D17 41 women class-leaders, who had a pastoral role but were not ordained, D17 42 gave a more formal value to their position in Wesleyanism. Even in D17 43 1968, when the official, ill-fated scheme for Anglican-Methodist D17 44 unity was produced, the Methodist leaders had to be careful to say D17 45 that their future acceptance of the "strictest D17 46 invariability of episcopal ordination" would not commit the D17 47 Methodist Church to the view that the historic episcopate was D17 48 essential to the apostolic character of the Church, and that this D17 49 character was something which nonepiscopal Churches necessarily D17 50 lacked. There had to be a saving clause for pragmatism, because a D17 51 pragmatic attitude to questions of church order was the fundamental D17 52 presupposition of the eighteenth-century Wesleyan movement. Not all D17 53 modern Methodists rejoice in the pragmatic origins of Wesleyanism, D17 54 but they cannot ignore them altogether. Indeed, it was a pragmatic D17 55 fact that in the 1970s many Methodists were offering to accept D17 56 episcopal ordination for the sake of unity, not unity for the sake D17 57 of episcopal ordination, or for some kind of fresh guarantee that D17 58 Methodist ministers were, after all, in an 'apostolic succession'. D17 59 It is equally clear, I think, that having once tested the D17 60 ordination of women in practice and found it acceptable, the D17 61 Methodists will not worry very much about Catholic opposition. D17 62 There may be cultural elements involved, but whereas an older D17 63 generation of Methodists had found the presence of women local D17 64 preachers, who conducted non-sacramental services in local chapels, D17 65 something of a problem, there was no similar reaction against women D17 66 presiding at the Eucharist. It is an additional example of the D17 67 pragmatic tradition that women had in fact already been conducting D17 68 eucharistic services for many years as Methodist 'deaconesses', D17 69 that is, without formal ordination but with the specific authority D17 70 of the Methodist Conference.

D17 71 Methodists, therefore, find Anglo-Catholic objections to the D17 72 admission of women to the priesthood hard to follow. D17 73 'Apostolicity', after all, was a mark of authenticity put forward D17 74 in the early Church as a way of distinguishing local churches which D17 75 had been founded in some kind of continuity with the apostles from D17 76 other churches which showed heretical trends. In the sixteenth D17 77 century large-scale division inevitably gave the idea fresh D17 78 prominence, and while Roman Catholics put their stress on the D17 79 possession of an episcopal succession from the apostles, the D17 80 Reformers asserted that they were reviving a theological continuity D17 81 with the apostles and the primitive Church which had largely D17 82 disappeared in recent centuries. The difference between the two D17 83 could also be thought of to some extent in terms of 'tradition', on D17 84 the one side, and 'Scripture' on the other, both of which depended D17 85 on apostolic authority. An 'apostolic' ministry, therefore, was one D17 86 which claimed to be faithful to the essential witness of the D17 87 apostles, and there was an obvious need for some such idea, and for D17 88 some such institution, if Christianity was to remain visibly what D17 89 its founders had intended.

D17 90 However, by the time that the Reformers had established D17 91 themselves it had become clear that the idea that Christianity must D17 92 maintain an essentially unchanged, apostolic identity was D17 93 ambiguous: it could be used to object to any kind of change, on the D17 94 ground of loss of identity, or it could be used to defend D17 95 innovation, on the ground that what was proposed expressed the true D17 96 spirit of the apostles. This situation caused great anxiety in the D17 97 sixteenth century, and again in early nineteenth-century D17 98 Anglicanism, when John Henry Newman and his friends agonized over D17 99 the where-abouts of the true, 'apostolic' Church. Yet again D17 100 in the late twentieth century Anglo-Catholics and Anglican D17 101 Evangelicals are both anxious about a loss of the Church's D17 102 identity, though they don't necessarily define it in the same way. D17 103 One has to recognize, in any case, that the apostolic identity, D17 104 even when defined as episcopal succession, is primarily to be found D17 105 in the whole life of the Church, and that the particular form in D17 106 which we have received the church's ministry is a sign, not the D17 107 substance, of the apostolic witness as such. It is truer to say D17 108 that there have always been ministers of some kind in the apostolic D17 109 succession than it is to say that these ministers have always been D17 110 male.

D17 111 This conclusion may sound perverse, but one has only to D17 112 consider the history of the ecclesia. A few examples must suffice D17 113 here. In the medieval period, for instance, Catherine of Siena D17 114 dominated the western Church in her lifetime; in the seventeenth D17 115 century the Inquisition worked hard to destroy the religious D17 116 credibility of the iron Teresa of Avila, but those who study her D17 117 today waste little time on the Inquisition's views. In the early D17 118 nineteenth century, Elizabeth Fry, who had no doubt that she stood D17 119 in the succession of the apostles, firmly rejected the 'modern' D17 120 penitentiary prison system which was supported by many masculine D17 121 ordained chaplains, and was certainly nearer to the mind of Jesus D17 122 in doing so. And if one looks for traces of that great succession D17 123 in more recent years, I think that one would pass over the male and D17 124 usually ordained theologians, and rest on another gallant, tragic D17 125 Carmelite, Th<*_>e-acute<*/>r<*_>e-grave<*/>se of Lisieux, and the D17 126 unofficial patron saint of the 'almost christians', Simone Weil. D17 127 The official Churches may have wanted an authoritarian, D17 128 male-dominated structure, but the existential Church, the only D17 129 Church that can really be in the 'succession', has never been as D17 130 gender-simple as that. There was always an unsatisfactory attempt D17 131 at balancing, which meant that in practice women could organize D17 132 Orders and run convents, could become deaconesses, could dictate D17 133 whole spiritual traditions through their alleged mystical D17 134 experiences: it is not so very surprising that in the end Wesleyan D17 135 women became class-leaders and local preachers, and finally D17 136 ordained ministers. The case would be complicated, but one could D17 137 argue that this was an example of theological development within D17 138 the tradition which has reached the point where the official Church D17 139 has to accept what has happened. Even in the fairly limited case of D17 140 the traditional male priesthood the relationship between the sexes D17 141 has differed so much that one can hardly speak of an authoritative D17 142 tradition running back to the apostles.

D17 143 This becomes obvious when one looks at the ways in which the D17 144 male priesthood, for which so much is claimed, has actually been D17 145 developed. In the Roman Church, theory requires a celibate D17 146 priesthood, but in the Orthodox tradition priests were left free to D17 147 marry, as they were in the Church of England from the sixteenth D17 148 century. The concept of the married priest has also shifted in D17 149 recent times: at first the priest's wife was almost an anonymous D17 150 figure; then she was transformed into a kind a married deaconess, D17 151 who had to exhibit total loyalty to the ideal of the family while D17 152 giving herself to the service of her church or parish - perhaps the D17 153 extreme example of this was the relationship between Salvation Army D17 154 married couples. In the past generation a sudden revolution has D17 155 meant that the priest's wife increasingly refuses what is seen as a D17 156 male-determined role and pursues, quite properly, her own identity D17 157 in work not connected with her husband's responsibilities. It is D17 158 rather late on in the day now to argue that one of these traditions D17 159 is right and the other wrong: one has to look at the whole Church D17 160 and recognize that there has been a great uncertainty about the D17 161 nature of the priesthood and about the proper relationship of the D17 162 sexes in that priesthood, an uncertainty which Protestantism, which D17 163 had the historical advantage of disunity, was able to explore much D17 164 further, though in the present-day Roman Catholic Church similar D17 165 anxieties are reflected in the gulf, on the subject of priests D17 166 being allowed to marry, between Hans K<*_>u-umlaut<*/>ng, for D17 167 example, and the present Pope.

D17 168 K<*_>u-umlaut<*/>ng is an interesting example of how uncertain D17 169 the situation really has become. In his Wozu D17 170 Priester? (1971), translated as Why Priests?, D17 171 he said that one could not say dogmatically that ordination to the D17 172 priesthood was instituted by Christ: "there is not the D17 173 least proof of this institution"; and he went on to say D17 174 that today ordination could no longer, as in the medieval period, D17 175 "pass as a sacral investiture, by virtue of which the D17 176 receiver is ... invested with a legal and sacral potestas that D17 177 would enable and authorize him alone to consecrate the D17 178 eucharist". K<*_>u-umlaut<*/>ng also said that the D17 179 ecclesial ministry should not be exclusively male: "in this D17 180 respect the New Testament should be viewed as a time-conditioned D17 181 work (remember the veiled women in Corinth)", and it should D17 182 be interpreted on the basis of Paul's 'abolition' of discrimination D17 183 between men and women.

D17 184 There are obvious criticisms of K<*_>u-umlaut<*/>ng's argument. D17 185 If the New Testament is a time-conditioned document - and I D17 186 entirely agree that it is - one can do no more with a quotation D17 187 from Paul on this matter than point out that even in such a D17 188 conditioned source surprising things could be said about the D17 189 relationship of the sexes, but what Paul said can have no absolute D17 190 authority, and it is obvious that he was not thinking about the D17 191 ordination of women as such. Either the Church has a meaningful D17 192 history or it does not, but that it has a history cannot be denied. D17 193 And just as the New Testament is time-conditioned so is tradition, D17 194 and so is our modern response to the problem of the ordination of D17 195 women. What we also have, however, is a, by now, highly developed D17 196 set of practical examples of what it means to authorize women to D17 197 behave as full ministers of the Church; we are not simply D17 198 innovating in the dark, we are not simply responding to some D17 199 fashionable current of 'liberal' opinion, we are watching a D17 200 situation develop and trying to learn from what is happening.

D17 201 What was significant about K<*_>u-umlaut<*/>ng's discussion was D17 202 that in the Roman Catholic Church one already had an important D17 203 theologian whose vision of priesthood as a ministry of leadership D17 204 and service, open to both men and women, came very close to what D17 205 had evolved on the broad plain of Protestantism. D17 206