Ageing

I suppose I was lucky until recently; I could still enjoy my outdoor activities, walking, running and climbing hills, without noticing any significant diminution of ability, although I had left 75 years well behind. Yes, some symptoms of ageing were noticeable, a slight but significant enlargement of the prostate gland, for example, but nothing sinister. So, nothing to worry about. But the last few years have made a difference.

I still walk and run and climb, but latter two are perceptibly harder. I used to be able to run reasonable distances – 5-6 miles- without trouble, but now I stop every now and then and walk. Or I do interval training and comfort myself that this is still a form of running. And the hills! Recently I’ve found ordinary Murroes very testing, to the extent of pretending that I don’t need to “conquer” them, and therefore don’t need to go to the summit, although of course, I could.

Then again, there’s being unable to remember the name, the place, the book, the word, -all quite natural for an active mind with lots of interests, just calm down and the word will arrive- but it does happen rather frequently. Then again and again, I find myself proclaiming how much better the world was in my youth, socialism and the welfare state, forgetting the British Empire and the Glasgow fogs that exterminated numbers of its citizens every year.

Yes, I’m getting older, and it makes a difference.

The human species has managed to more than double the life -span it inherited from the great apes, but it is still not impressive in comparison to some recently discovered microorganisms in the South Pacific which are about 101 million years old, which would do me. Possibly the most testing thing about ageing is the knowledge that I’ll almost certainly be dead in 20 years, and quite probably in 10. These are figures which sharpen my mind to consider the future welfare of loved ones, and to question my own attitude to a) dying and b) death.

a) I know that medical science has increasingly helped us live beyond the point where living has much purpose or enjoyment. If it were not for the assistance I give to my wife whose mobility is restricted, I doubt if I would now want any dramatic medical interventions on my body, especially as they are a finite resource, which ought to be rationed in favour of younger people.

I reckon aged people ought not to whinge at the indignities and pains of old age, but I can understand the desire of some to be able to end their lives when they want, with dignity. I might support a change in the law to make this possible, but I would not choose to take advantage of it. I believe this thing is a gift, and it seems churlish to hand in one’s dinner-pail before one has to. Still, if I’m on the way out, I should like it to be reasonably quick and preferably painless.

b) I believe in resurrection and life with God. If this belief is true, I’ll know it. If it isn’t, I won’t. I know that a respect for science has made this belief harder to hold, but I also know that it has always seemed unlikely to sceptical minds, and that St Paul was ridiculed for preaching about it in Athens. It is nevertheless central to my faith. If there is no after-life which corrects the injustices of this life, then there is also no God that I want to worship. I also like the idea of learning the truth about myself even if it is painful.

I therefore approach death as a hopeful mystery, although I’m far from running towards it.

As to the traditional claim that age brings wisdom, I am sceptical: for every lesson well-learned by elderly people, there will be another lesson forgotten. Moreover I have been unfortunate over the years of my ministry, to listen to many of their mean and angry prejudices. Yes, some elderly people have the goodness and calm which make for wisdom but the same is true of younger people.

Self-deception is a serious barrier to wisdom, and I guess that if I’ve managed to gain some realism about myself, others of my age will have done so too. In my case this realism would have prevented many of the mistakes and follies of my younger years, but perhaps, if I recommended it to someone younger, they might reply that they preferred their mistakes to my wisdom.

I would like to say that age has made me a better person, but I know I’m still stumbling along that road, as the Bible asks:

“Who can say, I have cleansed my heart”? (Proverbs 30:9)

Sex for sale

Weekdays I read the Daily Record at breakfast. For those who don’t know it, I should say that it is a Scottish tabloid popular newspaper with a left of centre political view, and a broad, working class culture in its presentation. It cannot resist a pun or popular phrase and would greet Judgement Day with the headline, SQUEAKY – BUM TIME NOW, a phrase popularised by Sir Alex Fergusson. Amongst its other delights, however, is its substitute for the old page 3 semi-nude woman: several pictures of scantily clad female celebs, with a jokey commentary drawing attention to their dishabille: SHE IS SO BUSY DURING LOCKDOWN SHE FORGOT TO PUT HER TROUSERS ON. This is now a standard form of self-presentation, the photos often being produced by or for the celeb’s online pages.

Hardly anyone is offended by these, so it’s reasonable for me to take them as evidence of popular morality now. What on earth can I have against them?

1. They are bad and ugly photos zeroed in on boobs or groin or both, with no real attention to the person whose body is displayed.

2. They are often also fashion shots displaying clothes or lingerie designed “by” the celeb which are being advertised to the millions of women who already follow them online. Nevertheless the angles are still on boobs and groin for the benefit of the male gaze.

3. Often they are frankly ridiculous images which suggest that this person cannot be taken seriously, and perhaps, as a subtext, that women are best as objects of male fantasy.

4. Reproduced in a national newspaper they are hints, that however much its journalists say they take the worth of women seriously, they’re not that serious.

I want to argue that these images are part of a commercially generated culture whose fundamental belief is that young women, and increasingly young men, are to be judged by their suitability and willingness for sexual activity. This belief can be garlanded by advice on dating, clothes, conversation, and so on, but it is basically a- personal, having little to do with class, education or character. It is important to understand that this culture is not oriented to pleasure, as is sometimes alleged, but to consumerism and success. A young woman for example may signal sexual availability by her clothes and may even dutifully have sex, without getting much pleasure out of any of it. It is required for popularity, celebrity and success – and for being a useful stimulus to transactions which make money for others, often not individuals but corporations. This is sex for sale but not in the time- -honoured form of prostitution but rather as a monetising of sex and its use as means of social discipline for capitalism.

That may be why, in the social media exchanges on teenage and young adult sexual relationships there is so much anxiety expressed and so little joy; why stress is the dominant emotion in so many personal accounts of young life. An aspect of human maturation which can bring romance, pleasure, experiment, beauty and self-awakening has become a form of competitive self-justification which trains people to achieve success by buying things, a lesson which often lasts a lifetime.

In countries like the UK where the rule of law is still strong we should be aware that the same multinational corporations which have poisoned and killed people in other parts of the world, in order to advance their interests, do not become less ruthless in their methods here. They simply adopt different tactics, one of which is control of the minds and habits of people when they are most vulnerable, namely when they are young.

As for the Christian churches, they have neglected their duty to the young by being more concerned with what they see as breaches of biblical morality, than with offering the friendship of Jesus and the church community to those who are trying to work out how they should live. Many churches have simply abandoned young people altogether, while others have added to societal stress by increasing their sense of failure. As a result most young people have been left to navigate an increasingly stormy crossing into adulthood without a pilot or a chart. Amazingly some of them have done it well. Where Christian influence has been helpful it has often come from organisations like Boy’s Brigade or Scouts or Girl Guides, regarded by some in the church as old fashioned.

A more radical analysis of societies and a more supportive attitude to young people might be the beginnings of a new ministry to this age group.

Hate

Following the politics of the USA over the last few months has left me astonished by two things: the resilience of its democratic traditions; and the virulence of the hate expressed by people on both sides for people on the other and their representatives. It reasonable to speak of demonisation: one side speaks of crazy violent people ready in the name of their twin saviours, Jesus and Trump, to destroy a civilisation and its political processes, terrorising and killing their enemies; while the other excoriates the sinister, deceptive deep state, ready to get rid of opponents while defending paedophiles, homosexuals, communists and Muslims. I do not judge these two camps as equal in value, because I think a decent life is impossible under Trump supporters, while it may even flourish under the justly elected government; but I also judge that the hate expressed by both sides is equal in virulence.

But what are we to make of the fact of hate?

1. It is frightening.

2. It does not see an opponent as a person, but as a frightening object to be removed.

3. It is violent

4. It is not rational

5. It renders inoperative the humane qualities of the one who hates.

6. It must destroy opponents; compromise is impossible.

7. It wants to dominate, often in the name of some cause, The Reich, Great America, Jesus, Mohammed.

8. It is afraid of the opponent.

9. It usually lies.

10. The person who hates is vestigially aware that it is evil.

I could lie and say that I have made this list by rigorous scientific examination of the hate expressed in the USA at present along with classic expressions of hate such as Nazism, Islamic State, The Inquisition, and so on. In fact I have only had to look into my own behaviour.

Without going into overmuch detail, it should be enough to say that by the end of my secondary education I viewed myself as a corrupt and cowardly failure. This was a result of events in my upbringing and education. Although some of the corruption and cowardice were real enough, there turned to be some good in me as well, which I was lucky enough to learn through good friends, further education and the Christian Gospel. Faced, as I have sometimes been, however, with people whose attitudes to me or my loved ones remind me of those who made me a failure, I react with hate. I forget that these people have no power over me, that their actual behaviour may be trivial, that perhaps they have merely expressed a common prejudice. None of that seems relevant; I want to destroy. I am not interested in what is fruitful, true, wise or just. They have to be destroyed. In truth I never let this happen, although once or twice I glimpsed a (quite satisfying) degree of fear in my opponents. But I felt it, the blessed relief of hate.

I should make clear therefore that the only justification for hate is that someone is actually trying to destroy you, to take away your self-respect, your will to live, your civic rights, your means of life, your life itself or that of your dear ones. Even in those circumstances, hate as the desire to destroy may not be the most effective response, as Jesus indicated in his words about trying nevertheless to do good to enemies, and in his lived example. Martin Luther King argued that a courageous love was more effective than hate in defeating the opponents’ hate. But before one rises to those heights, it may be necessary first to feel hate, to redirect the hate shown by the opponent back upon him, refusing to be a victim. Gandhi said that if we didn’t have the courage to fight, we would never have the courage to love. Sadly, however, if this hate insists that we are just as good as our opponent, it may also remind us from time to time, that we are just as bad.

There exists in the world a deliberate campaign to persuade white Europeans and others descended from their colonists in Africa, America, Australasia, that a conspiracy of other ethnic groupings along with dissident whites is trying to destroy their way of life and status. Various expressions of this doctrine can easily be found online. The kind of fears which led Anders Brevik to murder socialist young people are very similar to those expressed by The Proud Boys and other Christian militias in the USA. There Is also a disturbing similarity between these discourses and the rantings of Salafist Islamic leaders against the Christian West. Any political activist can use elements of this conspiracy theory to arouse hate and to direct it at his political opponents, as Donald Trump has done in the USA, or Viktor Orban in Hungary.

It helps of course, if there are large numbers of available people who feel their way of life is under attack. It may be, as in the USA, that white power is under threat from the insistence of other groups on their civil rights. It may be for white working people in many societies that the failure of liberal capitalism to provide a decent living is all too clear. It may be little to do with economics but much to do with traditional communal mores, regarded as backward by urban elites who are at ease with all sorts of sexual preferences. In any case where people suspect that they are failures, the provision of an enemy to hate is a blessed relief: we are not failures but victims, and we can refuse to be victims by making our hate work for us. Hitler knew how to use this ideology in 1930’s Germany. Political rallies like Trump’s or Hitler’s are echo chambers for expressions of hate, as is the Internet: from teenage tantrums to football allegiances, to the seductions of Evangelical Christianity, it amplifies the sound of hate.

All this deals with hate as a societal phenomenon but I have been made frequently aware through my pastoral duties of personal hate. The greatest, indeed purist example of hate I have known was when two estranged daughters of an apparently nice old man travelled from L.A. to Dundee Scotland for his funeral, to tell me that he had sexually abused them both as children, and that if my eulogy made him sound nice, they would interrupt. Honour to them. But often family hate is unjustifiable and corrosive, and between former friends vituperative. I have seen a daughter-in-law maintain her hatred of an authoritarian father-in-law beyond his death because it was also her means of dominating her husband.

Where does it come from and why do human beings enjoy it so much?

The archetype is in Genesis 4, in the story of Cain and Abel. God does not look with favour on Cain’s offering, not because it consists of plants, but because of his competitive attitude. When Cain grumbles, God tells him that if he does right, he can hold up his head; but that if he doesn’t, sin is crouching at his door, waiting to pounce. Even then, he can master it, if he wants. But he prefers the wild animal and kills his brother out of hate. We can of course blame God, but the story forces us to see how easily hate builds up and how devastatingly it expresses itself. Hate can give pleasure to human beings; we are an animal that loves and hates. The only remedy is to confess it and control it. Jesus taught his disciples to recognise the beginnings of hate in the denigration of others and to stop it there. There’s no magic cure for hate, either the communal kind or the personal. If we see it crouching we must use its name and call it to heel.

But we may be able to prevent its occurrence by forms of family and societal life which by their affirmation of the value of each person, namely through justice and love, reduce the likelihood of there being anything real or fictitious which arouses hate. I see encouraging signs of such prevention in the policies and conduct of Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand. Where real causes for hate already exist, we should listen to the experts, to the Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi, Luther King, and to wise politicians, like Mary Robinson, Angela Merkel, Jacinda Ardern and Karin Jacobsdottir.

Recently my neck began to hurt, not very acutely, but painfully when I made certain movements, not least when I attempted to find a comfortable sleeping posture. After trying various forms of self -help, which only made it worse, I went to a local physiotherapist, who has lots of experience with sports injuries in elderly idiots. She – it would be a woman, a very fit, strong young woman- listened, watched, then massaged, discovering spots of tension and pain, not merely in my neck, but all over my upper back. Often the pressure of her knuckles would be exquisitely painful, but if I groaned a little, she would say, “Sore?” and then press harder and longer on the spot. No pain, no gain, she knows this truth, and uses it as a diagnostic tool. She’s very good.

My guess is that the healing skills of Jesus included this tool: he knew where the pain or dis-ease was located, and dealt with that. The leper was suffering from exclusion and the absence of human touch, so Jesus touched him. He saw that the demon-possessed man was afflicted with a violent compulsion, so he made him reveal its name, “Legion, the Roman Army.” He had been traumatised by its violent rule of his people and needed to name it so that he could gain control of it. Jesus knew that Peter’s mother-in-law was fevered because, in her daughter’s house, she had lost her honour as hostess, so he raised her to her feet, so that she could resume that role. He understood that the rich young man was suffering from an overdose of wealth, so he recommended giving it away. We don’t know if this was the right prescription because the patient refused to take it. Unerringly, Jesus could put his hand on the place of pain, knowing that this revelation would be therapeutic. If the person had enough faith to face the facts, they would get well.

( No, the scripture tradition of Jesus’ healings is not very factual, emphasising miracle and divine power. Doubtless the stories show exaggeration and misunderstanding but as a sceptical reader I still conclude that the historical Jesus did heal, and that some memory of his healings survives in the gospel narratives.)

All of the above reminded me of some lines of T.S. Eliot in East Coker:

“The wounded surgeon plies the steel

That questions the distempered part;

Beneath the bleeding hands we feel

The sharp compassion of the healer’s art.”

Jesus is the wounded surgeon. His sharp compassion comes from his own experience of pain, in his life and death. In his risen life, he has complete respect for pain, knowing that it signals something wrong; its purpose is warning and protest at the presence of that wrong. It is life’s argument against death. In his pain on the cross, we can see, as opposed to all the blethers about his acceptance of our punishment for sin, his refusal to accept it as the will of God; his pain and his cry of protest, signals that something terrible is being done to a human being, which must never be glossed over or made acceptable. It is pain that demands a healing it does not receive, which makes Jesus, according to the Letter to Hebrews, perfect through suffering, and therefore a suitable high priest for humanity.

The fact of pain as an indicator of human illness, extremity and rebellion is clear in the gospels, as is the call for human hands and brains to supply the healing which God can’t. Faith in this God means seeing pain as an indicator of wrong, recognising the wrong and doing our best to heal by changing it.

FACT AND FAITH – SOME EPISODES

FACT

Even in a comparatively sane land like Scotland, there are a significant number of people who have refused or will refuse vaccination against the COVID virus. Some of these have reasonable fears based on their own medical condition and past experience, but many of them have been influenced by entirely spurious assertions on social media, that the vaccine will make them homosexual, infertile, Muslim; or insert nano-chips into their brain so that they will be controlled by aliens / socialists / transvestites / atheists / Rangers Football Club. I am exaggerating slightly but not much. Of course, much of this nonsense is fuelled by loonies in the USA whose destructive nonsense fills the internet. Their manner of expression, which is frequently violent, gives the game away: these are not poor bewildered souls but vicious adherents of a cult which denigrates anyone who thinks or acts in ways of which they disapprove. They are part of a large movement of pseudo- populist propagandists, in the USA, Russia, China, UK, who seek to define reality according to their desires, and to exercise power on that basis, whether chaotically like Trump or remorselessly like Xi. Part of the collateral damage of this movement will be those who by refusing vaccination bring about their own deaths or the deaths of their loved ones.

FAITH

Consider this passage from The Gospel of Mark chapter 3

Then Jesus went home; 20 and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. 21 When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” 22 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” 23 And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26 And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. 27 But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.

28 “Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— 30 for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”

Jesus had aroused public interest by healing people, such as lepers, paralysed people, a man with a withered hand. Their illnesses were thought to be caused by evil spirits, and Jesus’ healings were seen as a form of exorcism. But the results of what he did were clear: people were restored to personal and communal life.

The religious establishment, here called “scribes” saw Jesus as liable to challenge their power, and took the chance to define his healings as empowered by the evil spirit they called Beelzebul. Faced with someone doing obvious good, they encouraged people to trust an alternative reality in which it was seen as evil.

At first, Jesus made fun of their criticism. Surely the kingdom of evil is in a state of collapse if it is fighting against the illness it has caused! He calls the Evil One the “strong man” and claims that in order to “plunder his property” (the sick people) he has had to “tie him up.”

But then he gets very serious, and warns that those who slander the “Holy Spirit”, namely the power of goodness, are endangering their eternal souls, because in the alternative reality which they are creating, they will refuse to admit their evil, or to ask forgiveness. Trump will never admit the evil of his violent refusal of political fact, and will never ask forgiveness from those he has harmed.

Jesus was looking at the power of human beings to define reality by their lies, and meeting it with the most serious warning he ever issued: to choose, for the sake of power, a reality of your own making rather than the one God is making, is to put yourself beyond the reach of God’s forgiveness. God’s persuasive love is very terrible; he will not force people out of the hell they’ve chosen.

Jesus’ warning applies to the malicious pedlars of an alternative reality that denies the goodness of doctors, nurses and vaccines.

FACT: There are in Scotland some hundreds of thousands of people addicted to harmful substances, some of which can be legally obtained such as cigarettes and alcohol, others of which cannot, such a marijuana and heroin. All of these damage human health, some fatally, but true addicts disregard the danger, even when the damage is all too evident in their minds and bodies. Many of them live unhappy lives, marked by depression, poverty, unemployment and homelessness, although those whose addictions are more socially acceptable suffer less severely. The state benefits from the sale of alcohol and tobacco through taxation.

FACT: There are in Scotland (and the UK) a class of professional criminals, whose families are well-known to the criminal justice system. They prey on other people by theft, fraud and violence. They may show loyalty to each other and daring of a sort, but are otherwise devoid of humanity, causing damage to the lives of others without compassion or remorse.

FACT: Our present laws regarding the availability of drugs places the supply of a whole range of addictive substances desired by addicts into the hands of professional criminals. Or to put it another way, our present law leaves a crucial aspect of the care of drug addicts to the lovingkindness of the scum of the earth. It is no wonder that the results are not good. The immensely profitable trade in illegal drugs is ultimately controlled by international criminals, and is serviced nationally by powerful UK criminal networks, including couriers and local supply agents. The addict will never know if she is being cheated as regards price or quality; and if she gets into debt, she may have to repay it by acting as seller or courier or sex-slave. Any serious challenge from an addict to a supplier can lead to injury or death. Both of these are all too likely for any user: I have officiated at the funerals of three young Dundonians, whose parents were involved as local supply agents.

FACT: The Daily Record newspaper has been campaigning on Scotland’s appalling number of drug deaths, urging the Government to deal with addiction as a medical issue by decriminalising the possession and use of drugs. It has been an intelligent and well-researched campaign, which looks as if it may succeed in changing Government policy.

FACT: It would be possible to legalise the sale/ provision of these drugs. Honest, regulated suppliers, privately or publicly owned, could begin to regularise supply, quality, price and local availability, (perhaps on the model of Off-Licences); and addicts could begin to re-order their lives in the confidence of available, affordable, legal supply. There would be many problems in doing this, but it could be done, not least because the Government could save the money presently spent on “The war against drugs”, and could gain by deciding to tax the sale of drugs, This revenue might be used to fund the medical care of addicts, and the kind of abstinence programmes, especially 12- Step programmes which have had success with addictions. Some drug users may be able to keep their usage at a level which damages them no more than social drinking.

FACT: This revolution would destroy the present trade in drugs. Of course it would continue in ways similar to the various black markets in tobacco and alcohol, but a huge network of criminal control, violence and profit would have been disabled. Given the key position of this network in Scottish crime, its collapse might significantly alter the balance of power between criminals and police.

FAITH: Many ministers and priests in Scotland, like myself, who have worked in parishes where poverty is an issue, will have experienced at first hand the misery caused by the drug trade, including violence, suicide, overdose-deaths, theft, prostitution, child neglect and more. We should be united in asking our churches to support a public enquiry into legalisation of the supply of drugs, as part of their commitment to those whom Jesus Christ called, “The least important of my brothers and sisters.”

IF YOU HAPPEN TO SEE THIS AND AGREE WITH IT OR HAVE A BETTER ALTERNATIVE, PLEASE GET IN TOUCH WITH ME, MIKE, AT: mvamair@gmail.com

THE ONE COMMITMENT HE KEPT

“I WILL NOT START ANY NEW WARS”

In his campaign for election as President of the USA Donald Trump promised that he would not start any wars. He kept that promise, although his attitude to other nations was by no means as peaceable as that of Jimmy Carter, who believed that most issues could be resolved by diplomacy.

Still, it may be important to give Trump some credit for refusing to believe that violent intervention is a good way of keeping the peace, indeed for refusing to believe that it was his country’s duty to keep the peace. Our own Tony Blair defended the idea of moral intervention by force, but his engineering of facts left many wondering if the intervention deserved the name of moral.

As an old man, I think that the disgraceful appeasement of Hitler by the British Government, followed by a necessary war against fascist powers, left many decent people with an optimistic view of military intervention as a national policy. The so-called forgotten wars in Palestine, Burma, Korea, and Cyprus, and the disastrous attack on the Suez canal, showed Britain continuing its imperial role of policing the world, although with very little success. Blair was only reviving a habit that had been all too settled.

From the point of view of my Christian faith, Donald Trump’s achievement in not starting any wars – except almost a civil war at home- is cause for congratulation. I’m not sure that Jesus would have condemned all wars, but it’s clear that he was against violence. He taught disciples to refuse a violent response to violent behaviour by others, including the bullying of the foreign occupying force. As a popular leader he could have led jihad against Rome, but refused to do so, warning that those who used violence often died by it. He may have found that Roman rule was not much worse than that of native kings. He had no nationalist convictions, and was happy to make friends with people who had collaborated with the foreign rulers. These are very important facts about Jesus, which explain the early church’s readiness to suffer rather than to use violent means of protection, and its strong teaching that no believer should be a soldier, non-violent policies which lasted for three hundred years,, until the church became an active partner of the Roman state in the 4th century.

Scots are historically part of more than one violent society: the clans of the highlands were forever killing each other; the lowland families fought amongst themselves and against the English; and the sophisticated society of the 18th century cities was deeply involved in the violence of British imperialism. Our Scottish religious tradition includes the sectarian violence of the 17th century which has echoes in the Old Firm violence of today.

If we want to confront the violence of our culture, it may be helpful if Christian churches confess and repent of their violence towards each other, and to native populations in the British empire. My grandfather who went to China along with Eric Liddell as a missionary, had no criticism of British and American imperialism in China, and actively supported the violence of Chang Kai Shek, because he was a Christian. He loved the Chinese people but could not see how Britain had abused them. Much of our missionary history includes the unadmitted violence of the Empire.

If it was ok to be violent towards the heathen, it was also ok to be violent to our own children. The otherwise inexplicable amount of male violence to women in Scotland is a product of the violent patriarchy that many children experienced.

So?

The fierce non-violence of Jesus should be recovered by his church in the form of a commitment to international peace on the one hand, and to interpersonal gentleness on the other. St. Donald Trump may be an unlikely exemplar of non-violence, but good practice, even by sinners, is always welcome.

This blog follows on from a number of recent blogs, emphasising the importance of facts for faith.

It seems ages ago but its only a year since I was hillwalking in Glen Prosen, Angus, and saw two mountain hares in their winter white. There was extensive snow, and the animals were visible only by their shape and movement. As usual, they moved away from me, but not very far, and sat observing my slow progress through the snow.

Mountain Hare

I was reminded of this by a climate report this week detailing the difficulties imposed on this species and others in Scotland, by global heating. Lack of snow on the higher mountains meant that the hares’ camouflage was becoming an invitation to predators, especially to foxes and large birds of prey. The Ptarmigan which also turns white in the winter is suffering from the same problem; being white against a brownish background. In fact, at present there is ample snow, but recent winters, being mainly mild, have not provided it nearly as often as they did in the past. Certain creatures find that their basic survival strategy is no longer effective.

This fact of course is just one of thousands showing the effects of climate change on living creatures, which together with millions of facts about its effects on the ecosystems of the world, lead to my conclusions a) that human beings have caused an increase in the temperature of the planet and b) that the consequences will be catastrophic.

How does my faith deal with these facts?

1. God will not intervene miraculously to save the humanity. If human beings have determined that they will fry, they will fry. God has commitments beyond human beings. The extinction of homo sapiens will not be the end of the world.

2. As there is still time, but not much, to limit global overheating, and prevent human extinction, people of faith should do everything possible to do so and to encourage others to do so. Because of their shared faith, they should especially try to encourage fundamentalist believers to abandon their sinful rejection of the facts of global heating.

3. As nobody will be convinced by people whose way of life remains unchanged, believers must make the changes that science regards as necessary. At the very least those include a decisive move away from all habits that depend on fuels or foods which emit carbon dioxide and other harmful chemicals. There are clearly other ways of cutting down on carbon emissions, such as insulating our houses, but fuels and food are the main ones. So, what about me? If I and my wife were younger, I would try to do without a car, but as we are in our 80’s, the availability of personal transport is important. I hope therefore to buy an electric car, which is by no means an ideal solution, but will be better than my present car which uses diesel. Getting a useful second hand electric car is still expensive, which may put it out of the reach of many. I have already ceased to consume meat and dairy products, which are responsible for a large proportion of harmful gases. But my house is heated by a gas boiler, and some of my provisions come in plastic which emits harmful gases in the course of recycling. So there’s plenty room for improvement. Oh, and yes, I still intend to use a short-haul air flight once a year. Habits are hard to break but we all have to try.

4. Personal changes are vital, but public changes will be determinative, so political commitment is also necessary. It is important to look carefully at whatever “green” policies are put forward, as most political parties are allied to large international companies who want very slow changes in fuel and food. On the other hand, Green parties at present have little direct power. In Scotland Greens have held a balance of power, and have had some influence. Protest as well as parliamentary means will be needed. I don’t like protests but I may have to get involved.

5. Churches as organisations should look at their own fuel and food policies, and must be ruthless in deciding against emissions.

6. So far, most of these requirements could apply to anyone regardless of faith. For Christians, the threat of global heating and destruction of ecosystems, should be viewed as an arrogant human attack on the Creator God, a blasphemous rejection of God’s gift of world and life. In faith, as always, there has to be recognition of sin, confession, receipt of forgiveness, change of heart and practical reformation. This issue must become central to the life of congregations.

7. I think it’s worth doing all this to save the beautiful mountain hare; if you don’t, you may still feel it’s worth it to save a beautiful world and its inhabitants.

In the wake of the preceding blogs, which have emphasised the importance of fact for faith, I will write of some important contemporary facts and how I deal with them in faith.

The pandemic

A virus which is of the Corona virus group, named Covid 19 has infected people in every part of the world, causing serious harm to its victims’ ability to breathe, leading to death in a significant proportion of cases. Treatment has been similar to that given for flu, with a number of drug interventions in the more serious cases. Vaccines are mow available to prevent or weaken infection, and may yet reduce its rate to permit society to resume normal life. Churches along with others, have been active in trying to ameliorate some of the consequences of the pandemic: extreme poverty, including inability to pay for food, isolation, bereavement, depression, fear. During periods of lockdown, Christian people, along with others have tried to keep in touch with family, neighbours and fellow church members, to provide mutual support. In addition to all other forms of support, Christian people have prayed, individually and together. Does prayer make any difference or is it merely a pious custom?

Perhaps I can start an answer by noting what prayer is not:

1. It is not bringing God news. Even if we imagine that God has universal responsibilities – there may be terrible famine on a planet of Alpha Centauri- we do not think that like a busy emperor he may need reminding about events in a small corner of the empire. “Your heavenly father knows what you need before you ask” Jesus said.

2. It is not an attempt to change God’s mind. We assume God’s love and desire to help people in trouble. When it seems, as it does in the pandemic that help has not been given, we should not jump to conclusions. God has already inspired the setting up and continued life of the NHS. Doubtless God’s blessing will have been upon all employed in the healing professions. Many of them have spoken of knowing this blessing in the course of exhausting and dangerous work. The scientists who have produced vaccines in record time may be seen as carrying out God’s work. What more help were we asking God to give?

3. It is not, at least in my case, a request for supernatural intervention. Some believers think that of course it is. My experience has been that God has not offered supernatural intervention in so many deserving cases, that if he were to offer it at all, I should turn from him in disgust, in the name of Marise who died of cancer a month after the birth of her first baby, and of David Haining, charity worker executed by ISIS, and many others. It is reasonable to ask, if I don’t expect supernatural intervention, what the hell I’m praying for, and I will try to answer that question in this blog.

4. In view of all the above, it is not a campaign. Sometimes churches set up prayer chains and other forms of mass petition as if God is the more likely to respond the greater the numbers are. Often this involves many public displays of fervent petition. It seems likely that this goes against Jesus’ criticism, ” They think they will be heard for their much speaking” and his instruction to pray “secretly to our father who hears in secret.”

So then, what is it?

1. It is in “The Spirit.” Paul says we don’t know how to pray but that the Spirit pleads for us in groans that words cannot express.” The Spirit according to Paul is shared life, the conviction that we are not closed in our egos but open to the lives of our fellow believers, out fellow human beings, our fellow creatures, and to God. We do not come to God without them, and in that shared life we are all children of God, swept up in that movement of God’s goodness in which we shall all be set free from “our slavery to decay.”

2. It is however also freedom of speech. Paul is especially impressed with the unexpected permission to speak frankly to God. He uses the word “paresia”, by which the Greeks meant a kind of democratic boldness. There may be particular issues that have to be raised with God, and we should not hold back. Our needs as people affected by pandemic are like this.

3. In the end it is not what we say, for our grasp of what is good is limited, it is our openness to God and our brothers and sisters. If we imagine this shared life as a place and time where God is present along with people from all the charities in the world, we may have some idea of its effect upon us. This is the “the secret place” of Jesus, where we meet his father.

4. It is not that we cannot speak; our words are precious to God; but that we must also listen intently. Prayer should not be separate from Bible reading, and the use of the meditations of others, through which our minds may be made ready to hear God’s words to us. God always listens to our concerns but she asks us to listen to hers.

5. The Jewish adage, that our individual prayer should always also be the prayer of Israel, reminds us of public prayer, especially in the worship of the church. There are many styles of this. I favour an honest formal style with space for contributions from the congregation, and with silences which permit inward prayer and meditation. However it is done, this prayer should be openly shared and inclusive.

6. Our private prayer however, should never be revealed to others. It is like intimacy between lovers. The German martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer called it the secret discipline which fuels our discipleship, and guards the holy place of faith.

7. The Lord’s Prayer in both its forms should be used, as Jesus suggested, both as a prayer and as a model for prayer. It is the prayer of God’s son given to God’s children and is infinitely precious and down-to- earth.

8. In prayer believers are expressing their sorrow at the suffering of the world, their hope that God’s goodness will be done in the world, through the natural world and through human beings, and they will not be “brought into hard testing but delivered from evil.”

Whitehead sums up the creative activity of God in two ways:

1. In her eternal wisdom God provides the initial aim for every existing entity.

2. In her engaged love she includes the actual relationships of every entity, transforming them, by persuasion, for new life. This engagement causes God pain, but she is faithful. She accompanies her creation, and suffers with it. She is the companion who understands.

There are elements in Whitehead’s account of God, which relate easily to Christian belief, and others which don’t, for example, his statement that it’s just as true to say that God is made by the world, as that the world is made by God. Even this heresy, however, is driven by his rejection of images of domination and his insistence on images of persuasion and love. God is affected by the world because love is affected by its relationships.

There are endless subtleties in theologies based on Whitehead’s work. JS regards himself as convinced by a view of the world as process and relationship, and of God as a creative partner to it, as envisaged in the book of The Acts, “in God we live and move and have our being.”

From this vantage point he sees the process of evolution as provided with initial aims by God’s wisdom, and persuaded out of unfruitful dead ends by God’ subsequent engagement with it. This allows JS himself to engage with evolution as one of its products, trusting that he is also a product of God’s wisdom and love, along with viruses. But just as he cannot blame God for all his imperfections, he cannot attribute all the activity of viruses to her. He can imagine that the initial aim of God with viruses is for them to explore the wisdom of symbiosis as a form of life, while admitting that their relationship with human beings has so far not been very positive. What sort of adjustments in human beings might be necessary to improve the relationship? It may be that we are not adapted to viruses at all, in which case we should design our environment to limit their access to us. Or maybe viruses can adapt to cause us no more problems than say, than ordinary flu’. Or perhaps our immune systems, encouraged by vaccines, have to become more efficient in attacking them. It’s hard for JS to imagine a fruitful relationship between humans and viruses, but then he reflects that there must have been a time when the same might have been said about the many bacteria that now live in his gut and are essential to his welfare. Beyond all this, he knows that we do not understand all the relationships within our ecosystem, and must beware of destroying what may be essential to its functioning.

He believes that God remains in relationship with all parts of the universe. “Not a sparrow falls to the earth without your heavenly father” God shares the joy and the pain of all creatures, and will remain faithful until they all relate harmoniously.

He does not think that Whitehead’s thinking is the only way of bringing the facts of evolution and faith together; but he does think that simply banishing or distorting fact in favour of faith is the work of the devil, no matter how pious the people who do it. A certain kind of fundamentalism encourages the believer to dismiss facts in favour of what the Bible is said to say or what the pastor insists is true doctrine. The habit of ignoring facts in favour of what you believe, once learned, will turn a decent person into a raving denier of electoral defeat, who may also think that the corona virus vaccine will change their sexuality. The God who is opposed to facts is the God of the Inquisition, of the Mother and Baby Homes of Eire, of Franco, of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, the KKK, ISIS and thousands of other killers. If beliefs are fact-proof, they will be dangerous.

This does not mean that faith cannot challenge alleged facts. When the idol – worshippers challenged the prophet known as Isaiah 2, he challenged the fact of their Gods, detailing how they are made by human hands and cannot stand with the God who makes the heavens and the earth: out of his faith which incorporated facts, he challenged a faith that ignores them. Jesus challenged a fearful belief in the deadliness of leprosy by touching a man who suffered from it. He knew the facts were friendly because God is in the facts.