Over the years I have occasionally come across mention of the VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT, which has just been published by Yale at 35$. It has been dated to the 15th century and is a vellum scroll containing what appear to be words, written in an unknown but elegant script, together with illustrations that are recognisable, as plants, insects, geometrical shapes, buildings and most famously, naked women bathing together. The text has been as scientifically analysed as possible and is said to possess many of the characteristics of written language, for example in respect of the frequency of recurrence of certain word-forms. The manuscript has been intensively, almost compulsively studied by cryptologists, linguists, mathematicians and specialists in forms of magic/ religion/ philosophy and hocus-pocus, all without result. Its earliest known possessor declared it to be the work of the medieval magus, Roger Bacon, but of this there is no other evidence.

I confess to finding its mystery interesting, and have even taken a look at it – you can find a pdf version online- in the vague hope that I might instantly recognise the language as one of my childhood linguistic codes of speaking backwards or infiltrating ordinary words with those of “All things bright and beautiful” used in strict order. This discovery would a) reveal the eminent scholars as idiots and b) me as a genius. Sadly this is not the case. Those who look at it however, will not easily forget it, because it appears so friendly, so to speak, so open to interpretation, so encouraging to the reader, while remaining utterly incomprehensible, like the humanoid child who emerges from the alien spaceship smiling affably and speaking a language which remains utterly beyond interpretation.

I have sometimes suspected that my liking for this mystery sheds a dubious light on my liking for the Bible, which some have seen as an utterance of God that defies human minds, unless one possesses the key to its interpretation. Can it be that my persistent and obsessive attempts to decode the scriptures arise from a conviction that no wholly persuasive interpretation has ever been made? That the Bible is an even more alluring mystery than the Voynich MS because it pretends to be accessible, written in human languages that can be translated, while being cunningly designed to baffle us? No, I don’t think so, because I see the Bible as a collection of great literature, which like all great literature demands to be interpreted and re-interpreted by every generation and ultimately by every reader, so that every honest reading adds something valuable to its meanings. Of course, there is no final interpretation of the Bible any more than there is a final intepretation of King Lear or The Magic Flute. They avoid finality because they are alive.

No, it’s not my interpretation of the Bible that reminds me of the Voynich MS. But I remain convinced that its incomprehensibility is linked to something more fundamental in my life. And that phrase turns out to be my clue. Yes, it’s my life, the fundamental fact of my life in this universe, that’s like the Voynich MS. It’s as if the events of my life, all of them, the people who have shared them, the space/time in which they have happened and all the multitudinous existences of which I have been aware, all of it, although my culture tells me I can understand it, is written in a script composed of galaxies and particles, in a language of universal energy, expressing a truth which is forever beyond me.

And yet, like the manuscript, it seems friendly, inviting my engagement with it, my cooperation in creating new interpretations, my appreciation of its endless wonders, my love for all the other characters in its unending story. Some will feel that I am exaggerating human ignorance but when I listen to Brian Cox telling us that our best cosmology accounts for maybe 5% of universal matter, or when I ask how my wife has been good to me for 50 years, I am sure of at least my ignorance, as I walk (happily) in worlds I do not know.

Yes, it’s better than Dan Brown.

On Friday the Chinese authorities announced the death of Liu Xiaobo, from advanced liver cancer which had not been properly treated during his incarceration for his part in Charter 88, a movement which agitated peacefully for democratic politics amd human rights in China. Even in his last weeks of life the Chinese government refused to allow him to leave China, and even now it keeps his widow, who has committed no crime, under house arrest, although her mental and physical health is very fragile. All this is a great tribute to the power of Liu’s protest, and a complete confession of the fear that a regime, replete with every instrument of tyranny, feels in the face of one man’s integrity.

It is hard indeed, in response to this crime, not to lapse into hatred of the Chinese regime and those, including many of our senior UK politicians, who have kow-towed to it in hope of preferential trade agreements. But Liu had denied himself the right to hate his oppressors, while declaring his trust in the efficacy of justice and love:

“Hatred can rot away at a person’s intelligence and conscience. Enemy mentality will poison the spirit of a nation, incite cruel mortal struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and hinder a nation’s progress toward freedom and democracy. That is why I hope to be able to transcend my personal experiences as I look upon our nation’s development and social change, to counter the regime’s hostility with utmost goodwill, and to dispel hatred with love.”

This kind of faith makes him a much more troubling person than most agitators for justice, none of whom are negligible, but very few of whom have renounced hatred and violence as thoroughly as Liu. The whole course of his life places him alongside such mighty figures as Gandhi and Luther King. He was a successful literary person lecturing abroad, when in 1989 he heard of the protest which would culminate in Tiannanmen Square, and decided to return to China to support it. His insistence that the protesters should remain  non-violent and his negotiation with the authorities on their behalf are credited with saving many lives at the time. He was arrested and jailed, but having admitted his fault, released. For ever after he regretted this admission, as an insult to the souls of those who had died. His later involvement with Charter 88 was uncompromising and led to his conviction for “Trying to destroy the Chinese State” and the eleven years of imprisonmemt which led to his death. The words which I quote in this blog come from the declaration he made at his trial.

One of his remarakable strengths was his ability to see goodness wherever it existed, even for example, in Chinese prison functionaries:

“In 1996, I spent time at the old Beikan (located at Banbuqiao). Compared to the old Beikan of more than a decade ago, the present Beikan is a huge improvement, both in terms of the “hard­ware” ‑ the facilities ‑ and the “software” ‑ the management. I’ve had close contact with correctional officer Liu Zheng, who has been in charge of me in my cell, and his respect and care for detainees could be seen in every detail of his work, permeating his every word and deed, and giving one a warm feeling. It was perhaps my good fortune to have gotten to know this sincere, honest, conscien­tious, and kind correctional officer during my time at Beikan.”

This magnanimity is a very rare quality which fed his resilience and his hope that what he was doing was not a useless extravagance, but a dutiful contribution to the welfare of his fellow citizens. He did not see himself as a hero, but as a human being committed to private and public values which are for the good of all:

“It is precisely because of such convictions and personal experience that I firmly believe that China’s political progress will not stop, and I, filled with optimism, look forward to the advent of a future free China. For there is no force that can put an end to the human quest for freedom, and China will in the end become.a nation ruled by law, where human rights reign supreme. I also hope that this sort of progress can be reflected in this trial as I await the impartial ruling of the collegial bench ‑ a ruling that will withstand the test of history.”

He was also a private person, a lover of literature, a poet and essayist, known for the boldness,  elegance and wit of his writing. He acknowledged openly that he had made a mess of his first marriage, but his second, to Liu Xia, now his widow, brought him great joy, which he expressed in his declaration to the court that would separate their lives:

“If I may be permitted to say so, the most fortunate experience of these past twenty years has been the selfless love I have received from my wife, Liu Xia. She could not be present as an observer in court today, but I still want to say to you, my dear, that I firmly believe your love for me will remain the same as it has always been. Throughout all these years that I have lived without freedom, our love was full of bitterness imposed by outside circumstances, but as I savor its aftertaste, it remains boundless. I am serving my sentence in a tangible prison, while you wait in the intangible prison of the heart. Your love is the sunlight that leaps over high walls and penetrates the iron bars of my prison window, stroking every inch of my skin, warming every cell of my body, allowing me to always keep peace, openness, and brightness in my heart, and filling every minute of my time in prison with meaning. My love for you, on the other hand, is so full of remorse and regret that it at times makes me stagger under its weight. I am an insensate stone in the wilderness, whipped by fierce wind and torrential rain, so cold that no one dares touch me. But my love is solid and sharp, capable of piercing through any obstacle. Even if I were crushed into powder, I would still use my ashes to embrace you.”

These words show a loving heart that will arouse affection for their speaker in all who read them over the years, and scorn for the regime which has silenecd him.

It is sometimes the case that the suffering and death of great witnesses to goodness, arouse in Christian believers a comparison with the passion of Jesus, usually as a way of dignifying the former. So we call Gandhi or Luther King “Christlike.” For me the comparison works the other way round: Gandhi, Luther King and now Liu Xiaobo help me to understand Jesus better.

Like Liu, Jesus brought a message which was utterly unacceptable to the ruling elite of his own people, but he delivered it, as Liu did, with warmth, humour, and devastating bluntness. Like Liu he was repeatedly warned as to where his behaviour would lead him but chose nevertheless, with a discipline that liberated him to be joyful, to risk the consequences. In his arrest, trials and pain he remained, as Liu did, appreciative of human goodness. They had no enemies and no hatred but rather a trust in things invisible to their opponents, humanity and justice for Liu, God’s Rule for Jesus. Their opponents imagined that they had silenced them and are mistaken.

St Paul wrote of those who by their lives “filled up the sufferings of Messiah Jesus;” this very great Chinese man is one of them, I think.

I ‘ve been reading a book by Thich Nhat Hanh, the great Buddhist teacher of Plum Village in France, where he his presently recovering from a serious stroke. Like all great teachers in modern times, he has become an industry, because his books sell so well. Something of his love and peacefulness, as well as his wisdom is transmitted by his writings, although the books tend to include the same teachings in only slightly different contexts. Maybe this is no bad thing, as it allows the reader to grapple with his central concerns.

The volume I’m reading explores the notion of Jesus and Buddha as spiritual brothers, commending aspects of both faiths to Buddhists and Christians. As always when reading Thich Nhat Hanh I find myself gaining a great deal from his Buddhist insights, but not as much from his reflections on Jesus. Perhaps this is because I am unwilling to change my own image of Jesus. After all this book is happy enough to include the great Buddhist teaching, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!” a radical injunction which is meant to stop people getting stuck with their own image of the the great teacher. We are not to let the Buddha get in the way of ultimate truth. Can I apply that teaching to Jesus?

Perhaps not in quite the same way. The difference may be that Jesus allowed his earthly life to run out into failure, into a historical atrocity which he did little to prevent. He took the ordinary human risks of challenging the orthodoxies of his people, and they met him on the road and killed him. St. Paul interpreted his whole life as a process of self-emptying in order that God’s love for his creatures could become visible. The historical Buddha inasmuch as we can know him, also seems to have emptied himself, but the reality of his earthly life has been lost in the various philosophical myths of Buddhist tradition. Some would doubtless make the same criticism of the story of Jesus, but in fact Christian theology has explored that issue for 200 years now, and become good at separating what is historical from the faith of the church without rejecting either. Some of what Christians know about Jesus is blunt fact, which cannot be changed or circumvented.

Thich Nhat Hanh writes that he does not like the image of Jesus on the cross. I too have reservations about what I as a protestant Christian, identify as Roman Catholic piety, with its crucifixes and carrying of crosses. After all, we believe in Jesus’ resurrection. But given that his execution  by the Roman punishment of crucifixion, as a failed Jewish messiah, is one of the best supported historical facts of the Christian tradition, I can’t imagine any genuine form of Christian faith that did not see it as fundamental.

Buddhism begins and ends with the issue of suffering as recognised by the Buddha as THE problem of being alive. His “noble path” is designed to lead its practitioners from suffering to liberation. All schools of Buddhism agree on this aim, although they disagree about the best methods of achieving it. So I can see that the image of Jesus on the cross may be offensive to a true Buddhist, if it encourages believers to get stuck just at the point from which they should be moving on. Now there is a Christian piety which describes Jesus desiring crucifixion as a sacrifice which would allow God’s wrath to be appeased and forgiveness offered to humanity. Indeed it’s easy to misread the Gospel of John is this way. A better line of interpretation is to see that the way of Jesus, his expression of God’s love in word and action, always puts its followers at risk, as it is unlikely to be popular anywhere. Jesus did not desire his torture and death but rather the open communication of God’s goodness; his execution is the cost of his uncompromising desire, not an end in iteself. Yes, his dying can be seen as sacrificial, but it is a pouring out of life for the sake of his mission, of which his resurrection is the sign of God’s approval.

For St Paul,  self-emptying is an existential commitment to God’s goodness, not an intellectual practice as it has become in some forms of Buddhism. I do not think this is true of Thich Nhat Hanh, who has throughout his life poured out himself for the benefit of others, with great courage and compassion. But I think he resents the stubborn fact of Jesus’ suffering, which Christians will not leave behind: the risen body of Jesus still bears the wounds of his execution. They do not want to leave it behind because for them it signals God’s presence in the suffering of his creatures, not just as an act of sympathy but as a way by which they may share his eternal life. And yes, in heaven , the tears are all wiped away, but they are not dismissed as unreal.

Buddhism is a profound revelation of wisdom, but it has become the ideal religion for busy capitalists, who benefit from its mindfulness training and meditation while neglecting its teachings on compassion. Its denial of a “real self” fits well with capitalism’s denial of meaningful life to both its devotees and its victims. Thich Nhat Hanh has throughout his pilgrimage shown his own commitment to the fruitful life of all creatures, including the victims of war and oppression. I think there is an issue to do with the intersection of fact and faith, history and mystery, which demands his further consideration.

But this is an impertinent suggestion for me to make to one whose life is more Christlike than mine, and perhaps than his own comments about Christ.

One of my disciplines for maintaining my not very great knowledge of the Spanish language is reading the newspaper El Pais, and especially its weekly scientific bulletin. This week I read about archeological excavations at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, where some 20 yeqrs ago an ancient “temple” was uncovered. It has been dated to around 12,000 years ago, before any known farming culture and before the urban settlements which farming made possible. It belongs to a palaeolithic culture which was perhqps on the cusp of transformation from a purely hunter – gatherer mode of living to one involving settlement. Göbekli was probably not a real temple and certainly not part of a city, but rather a sacred site, where religious rituals and communal gathering took place; where also it was possible for strangers to meet in peace and exchange useful information as well as goods. It was therefore the prototype not only of the temple, but also of the market and the city. Doubtless those who used it thought it full of promise for the future of human beings. It was abandoned maybe 2500 years later, by which time proto urban civilisations were developing in the Fertile Crescent, dependent on settled agriculture which produced a food surplus and made possible the division of labour, including the  existence of a bureaucracy and priesthood.

In the same science bulletin I also read a report of the World Health Organisation which predicted that within 25 years three quarters of humanity would live in cities if present trends continue. They also made the critical judgement that present day cities are not designed for people but for cars, creating conditions which are very bad for the health of human beings, and most living things: serious and increasing air pollution, lack of living and green space, lethal traffic speeds, damaging excesses of light and noise. From the initial division of labour in cities which may have been liberating, there has developed an extraordinary division of social class and wealth, whereby some of the richest people in the world live cheek by jowel with some of the poorest. Such conditions constitute a crime in themselves and are the mother of crimes. The WHO report simply records the facts and their present consequences, while looking with horror at the probable future. The dream of human richness which may have animated the creators of Göbekli Tepe has become a nightmare.

The biblical book of The Revelation pictures this nightmare city as Babylon, the Great Whore that attracts the allegiance of rulers and merchants the world over, and trades in human lives. The prophet John foresees the punishment and destruction of the Great City while those who have been victims of its violence sing, “Alleluia, and the smoke of its burning goes up forever!”

Nevertheless, when the prophet finally writes about the dwelling place of God and God’s people, he chooses the image of a city – “And I saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven like a bride adorned for her husband.” The city is a place of order and equality, even its throne is occupied by a Lamb. The water of life is freely available to all, the leaves of its trees heal the wounds of the nations, and God himself performs the motherly duty of wiping tears from the eyes of those who weep. It is a carefully formed image of the common life of God and humanity, but it is the fruit of the sacrifice of Jesus and his followers who refused to give their allegiance to  Babylon, and suffered the consequences.

For the writer of The Revelation, the city could be an image of evil, but could still also be an image of perfection.

Is this still the case today or should we admit that there has never been a city whose benefits outweighed its appalling injustice and that there never will be; that even God cannot bring together hundreds of thousands or millions of human beings without also bringing injustice and squalor. Should we admit that the human dream expressed in the creation of cities is a busted flush, an idol that has presided over oppression and bloodshed for 10,000 years, which cannot be cleansed even by the blood of the Lamb?

It’s a bad thought, since almost all the glories of human thought and art have been produced in cities. Against that evidence I can only set my argument above and two small examples of something different.

1. Wendell Berry the American ecologist, philosopher and poet, has argued over many years for the small, family farm as an ideal form of human cooperation with others people and with nature. He is convinced that the sheer difference of scale imposed by urban dwelling means neglect of the particularity of people and nature. Only a precise and modest knowledge of living creatures can lead to the kind of mutual care which is our salvation.

2. In the Gospel story of the Feeding of the 5000, Jesus is faced by an urban sized crowd which looks to him for leadership. Before he feeds them he makes them sit down on the “green grass” in “groups of ten and fifty.” Doubtless the writer saw in this a prophecy of the small communities of the Christian churches, scattered throughout  the territory of the Great City, Rome. Perhaps he wanted to show Jesus insisting on face to face community as the right unit of God’s justice and sharing.

The WHO report argues that the future of cities is an urgent issue for societal planning. I think it’s also an issue for Christian theology.

Psalm 139World English Bible (WEB)

This is the fiftieth anniversary of my licensing as a preacher by the Presbytery of Glasgow.

For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David. 139

1 Lord, you have searched me,
and you know me.
2 You know my sitting down and my rising up.
You perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my journeying and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 For there is not a word on my tongue,
but, see Lord, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in behind and before.
You have laid your hand on me.
6 This knowledge is beyond me.
It’s lofty.
I can’t attain it.
7 Where could I go from your Spirit?
Or where could I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend up into heaven, you are there.
If I lie down with the dead, see, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the dawn,
and land in the westermost parts of the sea;
10 Even there your hand will lead me,
and your right hand will hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me;
the light around me will be night”;
12 even the darkness doesn’t hide from you,
but the night shines as the day,
For the darkness is like light to you.
13 You formed my inmost being.
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I will give thanks to you,
for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Your works are wonderful.
My soul knows that very well.
15 My bones were not hidden from you,
when I was made in secret,
woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my body.
In your book they were all written,
the days that were ordained for me,
when as yet there were none of them.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is their sum!
18 If I would count them, they are more in number than the sand.
When I finish, I am still with you.
19 If only you, God, would kill the wicked.
Get away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
20 For they speak against you wickedly.
Your enemies take your name in vain.
21 Lord, don’t I hate those who hate you?
Am I not grieved with those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with perfect hatred.
They have become my enemies.
23 Search me, God, and know my heart.
Try me, and know my thoughts.
24 See if there is any path of evil in me,
and lead me in the everlasting way.

In fifty years of ministry I have created some wrong, some small good, and lots of struggling from day to day just doing the job. I have met many remarkable people who didn’t know how remarkable they were and who treated me with great kindness. I have met many troubled people who in the courtesy of their pain permitted me to try to help them. I have also met some for whom God’s grace was the dream-topping on their self-esteem. Overall, however, the church has been better for me than I have been for it.

I set out with a commitment to the gospel of God’s love which has remained with me throughout many changes in my understanding of theological truth, because my own childhood faith was formed by the announcement of that love. It has remained for me the one hiding place from guilt and shame and the familiar locus of repeated fresh starts. It tells me that I am fearfully and wonderfully made and that my life may be encompassed by a knowledge  beyond my understanding. There is a rescuing humour in this faith because althought it insists that I should examine myself and know myself as well as I can, it tells me that such knowledege is partial at best; that only One who is uttterly beyond me has a clear understanding of who I am.

So far, so traditional, I guess. Where my faith is not traditional at all is in my present understanding of the first principle of theology: all Gods are invented by human beings. This is a disgraceful reversal of the tradition Judaeo-Christian theology that all human beings ar invented by God. I mean no more than what is obvious, that all words about God, together with all images, ritual actions and sacred sites, are just as much the produce of human beings as our words and images of heroes. The holy books are the edited record of human beings inventing and re-inventing their gods. Ancient traditions are on the whole not ditched but preserved and re-interpreted in the light of the experiences of the believing community. When a tradition ceases to be edited in this way, it is moribund and will die.

I am not suggesting that this invention of God is proof that  God does not exist. Human beings have also invented motor cars and E =mc2 and they exist. I think “God” is more like the equation than the motor car which is a simply an object constructed by human beings. Clearly the equation can also be seen as an object; but it is also a symbol pointing  to a process which takes place in the universe. At present we consider it an accurate symbol, but it is in principle subject to revision as better evidence becomes available. Am I then saying that “God” is a symbol of some universal process? No, although I think perhaps some historical gods may have been such. The beautiful invocation to Venus at the start of “On the nature of things”, by the Latin poet Lucretius, symbolises her as the universal process of reproduction. But the “God” invented by the Judaeo- Christian tradition, is a symbol of one who is not the universe, but its creator; not a process within the universe but beyond all worlds.

We have some idea of the evidence for Einstein’s equation; what is the evidence for the invention of God? The evidence suggested by the tradition is the universe itself and especially human life within it. God is not the world but is invented as part of human response to the world. People who hold to the invention add their own experience to its story, so that God is not only the God of Abraham but also the God of Isaac, Jacob,  Moses, David, Amos, Isaiah, Jonah and Jesus. For Christian believers like me of course, Jesus is also a member of the Trinity, but he is still a man who invents God; perhaps no one has ever imagined God as fully and radically as Jesus.

Having said all this, I also say that I identify with the words of the psalm which picture God as the one who invented me in my mother’s womb, and who has overseen the course of my life. How can someone invented by me and my tradition oversee my life? Some will answer that the story has become separate from its inventors and influences human thought and life by its imaginative power. Others like me, will say that the best and deepest stories make contact with levels of truth which cannot be accessed any other way, and thereby persuade people to live by them. For me, that has meant that although I have to take responsibility for my God and my Bible as human inventions – and therefore liable to error and correction- I have so entered into their story over the years, that I have become able to put my trust in one who takes responsibility for me.

“I am fearfully and wonderfully made…..”

“My bones were not hidden from you/ when I was made in secret…”

The psalmist has been there before me and has expressed my trust in better words than mine.

The truth of God, I suggest, is always a mixture of human invention and divine revelation, as can be seen for example in the stories of the resurrection: on the one hand, disciples struggle to invent a new understanding of Jesus as alive; on the other,  the crucified  Jesus persuades them to trust their hopes and risk following Him.

My ministry has been to support Christian communities in living this trust and expressing it in worship. Or, to put it the other way round, to receive God’s love in worship and to obey it in everyday living. I can only say that for me it has been a journey into a reality I have not invented and into a love I have not deserved. There are still paths of evil in me, but I trust that along with my brothers and sisters, I am being led in the everlasting way.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has issued a call for cross-party cooperation on  Brexit because he feels the country needs “peace”, in the wake of terror attacks and the recent Grenfell tower block disaster. Certainly he’s  got a lot on his plate, as a report he commissioned has accused at least one previous Archbishop of complicity in the sexual abuse of young men by another bishop. Today that ex- Archbishop has resigned from his present post and apologised, but those unfortunate enough to have heard a certain sort of upper class men talking about rent boys will doubt if this is sufficient penance.

But I regard the present Archbishop’s intervention in politics this week as a mistake in any case. He tries hard to justify his call for peace, when what he really expresses is an establishment fear of serious politics. There are a number of real divisions of opinion and interest in the UK at present, which will require passionate engagement,  forceful public expression of views and political action over the next few years. Affecting almost all the other issues is the raw exposed fact that profit-seekers and their political allies cared so little about the lives of poorer people, that they allowed them to live in conditions that turned a minor domestic fire into a comprehensive death-trap within minutes. What this reveals about building standards is bad enough, but what it reveals about the savage carelessness of the managers of wealth is worse: men and women with friends and families of their own, they were ready to treat their poorer brothers and sisters as simply disposable.

The horror of “being disposable” has struck the survivors of the fire with an astonished rage, and has spread to others who live in similar housing and are likewise viewed viewed by the wealthy as surplus to requirements. We should be as precise as possible about the motives of the wealthy: it is not that they wish the death of the poor, but rather that their allegiance to Mammon has frozen the genial current of their souls, and left them without concern for the welfare of their neighbours. I  am reminded of one of Arthur Hugh Clough’s alternative ten commandments:

“Thou must not kill, but needs not strive

officiously to keep alive.”

This attitude, institutionalised in aspects of public life has aroused the kind of anger which ought to be expressed in vigorous politics. Yes, this will involve division, debate and disruption which will be for the good of society. This what politics is for: dealing with the clear differences of vital interest which might otherwise lead to violent rebellion or repression. Democracy can cope with passionate disagreement provided the antagonists remain convinced that their cause can be advanced by full- blooded persuasion and solidarity, rather than by force. The denigration of politics and politicians over the last few years has served only the interests of those who possess power and wealth, leaving masses of people to attribute their problems to foreigners, immigrants, scroungers and Muslims. A return to politics and its boisterous arts can only benefit our society. But the whiff of powerful politics signals danger to those who benefit from the status quo; it suggests that down below the savage beast is stirring. So they counsel peace, as the Archbishop has done.

In the Old Testament of the Christian bible the prophet Ezekiel is recorded as facing opposition from the religious supporters of the status quo, who suggested that his criticisms of the national leadership were alarmist. He turns on them with a telling phrase from his God:

Yes, they have seduced my people

declaring peace when there is no peace

and when someone puts up a wall with no mortar

they cover it with whitewash.

( or when they want to maintain a crumbling tower block wall, they cover it with flammable cladding)

Peace in the biblical sense is never merely the absence of strife, but rather the result of justice. This is a time in our society when we must reconstitute the dignity of political action and discourse, and repossess the freedom of speech which has been prostituted by our popular press, if we want to achieve the justice which will lead to peace.

My wife and my daughter gave me as a father’s day gift, a book of photographs by Sebastian Salgado entitled “Genesis”. He is one of the greatest photographic artists in the world, with two projects already achieved, “Workers” which focused on manual labour, and “Migrations” which depicts one of the the most disturbing global trends of our time. He had planned a project on ecological degradation, but a creative experiment in which he successfully restored the flora of an ancestral piece of land, convinced him that he should record primal beauty rather than its destruction by humanity. The marvellous volume which I now possess, published by Taschen, is one result of his visits to those parts of the planet least altered by human beings.

He has perfected the art of looking with his camera, finding angles and exposures which show the viewer a world always in motion, always alive, always still becoming; the miracle of life united with the environment to which its DNA has adapted, is celebrated on every page. The co-genesis of the planet and its creatures is shown not only in relation to flora and fauna, but also to homo sapiens, here captured in customs of stable adjustment to nature which are everywhere vanishing.  Salgado has called this book his love -letter to the planet, and it is an apt title. He is not first of all using his camera to speak to you and me, but to the planet itself, and to humanity only as one of its wonders. It reminds me time and again of lines by Ezra Pound in his Pisan Cantos:

“Pull down thy vanity, it is not man

made beauty or made order or made grace…

learn of the green world how to take thy place

in scaled invention and true artistry”

This is a book which will refresh the jaded eye and spirit for years to come.

By its title however, he challenges comparison with the first book of the Christian Bible, a comparison which reveals clearly that he has displaced humanity from its biblical place in the centre of the story. This is for our human good so that we can begin to tell our story as part and only part of the story of the earth. The book of Genesis does this in its first chapter, which begins with the creation of light and ends with the rest of the Sabbath day. But within a few pages of Genesis a murder has taken place. Human beings have already usurped the order established by the Creator; in their desire to have godlike power they have stolen knowledge. From that point in the Bible, the human beings become the people we know, capable of great goodness but also of great wrong, of deceit, jealousy, hatred, violence and destruction. The Creator who has made humanity in the likeness of God, to care for his earth, is so overtaken by the deliberate and ingenious evil of humanity, that he decides all living things must go.  Why not just do away with humans? Because God knows that human beings belong with these creatures, just as much as any Darwinian. In the end the creatures survive the flood together, but within a paragraph or two, humans have gone back to their old habits of wrongdoing.

The world depicted in Delgado’s Genesis is innocent: there is savagery of landscape, weather, glaciation and predation, but there is no evil; even the human beings are innocent and integrated with their environment. The human groups Delgado selects are “primitive”, at risk from global commerce and contact. They have been “left behind” in their innocence, by their brothers and sisters who developed sophisticated agriculture, industry, and communications, with whom Delgado has been concerned in his previous work. He knows of course, that in many places, the lands have been deforested, the rivers dammed, the lakes poisoned, the women raped and killed. But he wants to reveal the extent to which the planet remains beautiful because it remains creative. He wants his viewers to fall in love with it all over again.

Yet the sober narrative of the biblical Genesis is also necessary with its reminder of the pervasive arrogance and destructiveness of homo sapiens, who push God to abandon grand schemes of punishment, and to entrust his creative wisdom to one small family of desert nomads, which means he has to abandon his celestial existence and get down and dirty on this earth, with this people. This story is continued in the New Testament by the story of Jesus, who is described as the one through whom God made the worlds, the maker and restorer of beauty.

For me, the creative spirit speaks through Delgado’s creative response to our planet, counselling us not to be so arrogant about our wrongs as to forget the rightness of the world. We may have “fallen” but it has not.

* all images by Sebastiao Delgado

I’ve been reading. Yanis Varoufakis, eapecially his recent books, “And the weak suffer what they must?” and “Adults in the Room” with pleasure, and some amazement at his ability to make complex economic matters clear to this ageing brain. These are books which challenge to the prevailing ethos that we are here to consume and must struggle to get a decent share of scarce commodities. Of course everyone would like to consume lots, but because our banks went mad, we all have to be very restrained and put up with austerity, all of us that is, except the bankers and other rich people who contributed to the madness. Varoufakis thinks that the planet is very rich and that if its resources are used intelligently there’s more than enough for everybody. What’s more, the true richness of life does not consist in consumption, but in sociability, adventure, knowledge, healing and creativity. The sense of scarcity and the insistence on consumption, he says, benefit those who already hold wealth and power but still want to consume more. He does not think that the purveyors of austerity are wicked, but that their love of power and its rewards has blinded them to any fact that might disturb their illusion.

I recommend his writing to anyone who wants to understand our contemporary problems, and who would like to be liberated from an economics of scarcity.

Because I am a biblical scholar, his critique reminded me of a great and little understood chapter in the Gospel of Mark., namely chapter 6 from verse 14, half of which is about King Herod, and the other hallf about Jesus. Mark is providing his readers with two vignetttes of royalty. 

In the first we are introduced to King Herod, who is reminded by reports about Jesus of John the Baptist, whom he had executed. The execution had been prompted by a royal banquet, at which his step-daughter Salome so pleased him and his his guests by her dancing that he offered her anything she might wish. After consultation with her mother Herodias whom John had denounced for marrying Herod, her dead husband’s brother, she asked for the head of John the Baptist. Although Herod was reluctant, he did not want to lose face so John lost his head, which was fetched to the  banquet table in a dish.

King Herod is depicted as a consumer of food, drink, women and the admiration of his rich friends. Indeed, as the head of John is brought to the table, he becomes symbolically a cannibal, a consumer of his people. There is no doubt that the bankers and the rulers of European economy have preserved the lifestyle of the Herods of our time, who daily consume the lives of those they impoverish.

Jesus, on the other hand, is shown as a different kind of leader. His banquet is in the wilderness and is given for a large crowd who have sought him out, perhaps because they believed him to be the Messiah, a God-given king. Although his disciples think there is a scarcity of food, it turns out that there is an abundance. The crowd is not treated as an assembly of consumers, but as people in partnership, able to sit with each other face to face, in small groups. In the abundance which flows from Jesus’ blessing, people are freed from competition and mere consumption. In the image of the baskets of leftovers the writer hints that there would have been enough for the twelve tribes, that is, for the whole of Israel. This is Mark’s picture of King Jesus.

In our own time the task of pointing to abundance, of denying the lie of scarcity which only serves the rich, is one that followers of Jesus could usefully adopt. If there is real scarcity it is caused by the misuse of the earth, the injustice that forces people to live in unfruitful places, and the  greedy over- consumption of goods and services by a small number of people. Reminding people of the abundance of natural resources, the fruits of cultivation, industry and the intelligence of humanity may also predispose them to share these goods intelligently for the benefit of all.

But that is only one part of following the example of Jesus. The other is the rediscovery of human wealth: that as soon as human beings can sit down as equals at the one table to share food, they become com-pan-ions ( bread-sharers) and not consumers, knowing how precious each one is.

An appreciation of abundance, of the fruitfulness of the earth, might also persuade us not to pillage the earth for its sources of energy, and poison it for additional yields, but to cherish it as our bountiful mother. Much of the harm we do rests on our assumptions about scarcity.

I am grateful to Varoufakis for his searching analysis of European economic problems, and even more, for his vision of plenty, which, he might be surprised to find, has deep roots in the biblical tradition.

The result of the British General Election is clear enough, even if its consequences for parliamentary government are not. Mrs May has led her party to the verge of defeat, while Mr Corbyn has shown himself to be civilised, tough and successful. Here in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon has been shown that most Scots do not want independence,  allowing Ruth Davidson a niche as the representative of ordinary Scots, while Kezia Dugdale has benefitted from the policies of a UK leader she doesn’t rate. The personal and political future of some of the most powerful people in the land has been altered, without violence, by means of public discussion and the vote. This means of asserting the popular will has doubtless many defects, some of which may become obvious as the struggles of a hung parliament are played out, but it remains something to be noted and celebrated.

Probably a largely discredited Tory party will continue to rule with the assistance of the  Democratic Unionists of Northern Ireland, which will mean a continuation of unrestrained capitalism as our favoured economic model, with all its imposed restraints on the welfare of poorer people and public services. Indeed, even if Mr Corbyn were to succeed in cobbling together a ruling coalition, he would almost certainly have to forego some of the boldest polices he has proposed for social justice.

All of which means that those who suffer from unrestricted market forces, the poor, the sick, the people dependent on benefits, the people who need or work for public services, the workers whose skills are exploited by huge multinational companies, will continue to suffer; those nations and peoples damaged by our support of international capitalist trade will continue to be damaged; and those who long for a more just and peaceful society will continue to be disappointed. No sense of appreciation for social democracy should be allowed to obscure the harm that will  continue to be done.

In other words, not much is settled by this election result. Mr Corbyn in a speech yesterday used the words of Shelley, “ye are many, they are few” as encouragement to his supporters. The trouble is that as long as capitalism can satisfy the minimum demands of two thirds of the electorate, Shelley’s arithmetic will not add up to change. In a few weeks the hope of justice will be back in the hands of the saints who battle for it through community groups, charities, and trade unions as well as those who try to provide some small measure of it through their work in public service and social enteprise.

Politicians who want social justice and are not content with the result of this election, must not in their disappointment forget the victims of capitalism nor the saints who work for them. They should be involved in these basic struggles, helping them win their battles and trying to build a more inclusive movement for social justice. There are some signs that the Corbynistas promote this solidarity, while misdirecting it into sectarian political identities. The strength of grass-roots activists is that they are not saddled with existing political identities and can form genuinely popular institutions that will refresh our politics if they are encouraged to do so. The struggle continues.

And what about the Church? The truth is that for years now my church’s General Assembly has promoted social justice, but the response of its members has been partial: on issues of world poverty for example, they have maintained support for Christian Aid, which makes a huge contribution to the neediest people in the world; but in respect of domestic politics have probably not much altered their class bias. My guess is that church people round Scotland will have allied themselves more with their communities of residence than with each other in this election. But just perhaps, their common faith and belonging holds out the possibility of mutual political education, if any activists dare to enable it. The church is not and is not meant to be the kingdom of God; but it is meant, in word and action, to point to it.

“We all know that when journalism becomes indistinguishable from organized lying, it constitutes a crime. But we think it is a crime impossible to punish. What is there to stop the punishment of activities once they are recognized to be criminal ones? Where does this strange notion of non-punishable crimes come from? It constitutes one of the most monstrous deformations of the judicial spirit. Isn’t it high time it were proclaimed that every discernible crime is a punishable one, and that we are resolved, if given the opportunity, to punish all crimes? A few straightforward measures of public salubrity would protect the population from offences against the truth. The first would be to set up, with such protection in view, special courts enjoying the highest prestige, composed of judges specially selected and trained. They would be responsible for publicly condemning any avoidable error, and would be able to sentence to prison or hard labour for repeated commission of the offence, aggravated by proven dishonesty of intention.”

These words are an extract from The Need for Roots by Simone Weil, written after the last world war. She frequently dispenses a heady mixture of wisdom and wackiness, which is evident here. I think she’s right about journalistic lies being a crime and also right that they should be punished; but naive to think that her special courts would not speedily be corrupted by powerful interests. My conviction is that such courts could only function if they were composed of people internationally selected, trained and owing allegiance only to the U.N.

With that correction however, I would be happy to see public truth protected as she suggested. Especially in view of the contribution of our so-called free press to tomorrow’s general election. In most cases, the worst kinds of prejudice, distortion and evasion of the facts have been displayed by British Newspapers, almost all of which are mouthpieces for their owners’ interests. With the exception of the Guardian and the Daily Mirror, (the latter not exempt from its own fibs) national newspapers have fibbed daily to rubbish all criticism of western capitalism and to support the worst instincts of the British Conservative Party. Indeed UKIP with its racist nonsense would doubtless have received their support as it did in the Brexit Referendum, had it been at all electable.

All this is only to be expected and is taken for granted by most citizens. But why should we permit such criminal behaviour in our society? Why should those who favour any decent sort of politics or social improvement have to fight constantly against the mafias of malevolent tycoons? When any controls on their constant distortions are proposed, these journalists squeal that the freedom of the press, without which we should have no access to the truth, is under threat. Dr. Johnson once asked about the American colonists, “How is that we hear the loudest yelps for Liberty from the owners of slaves?” I might ask, “How is that we hear the loudest yelps for public truth from those who who are paid to peddle porkies?” Why do we put up with such crimes?

Because we believe that freedom of opinion and speech is essential.

But we do not in all instances agree that we should accept factual distortion or falsehood. If someone has told lies about me in public and damaged my life in some measurable way, I can sue for libel. In the case of the kind of political lying defined above, it may seem that as long as newspapers are careful not to tell obvious lies about individuals, there is no victim and therefore, no crime. Clearly however, citizens are injured by being deprived of the facts they need to vote responsibly. We consider this to be self-evident in the case of states which lack a free press; and of course most British citizens could discover the relevant facts if they worked hard enough. But as it is, those who believe that the greatest freedom is the freedom of the rich to become richer and the powerful more powerful, are hugely advantaged by our national press to the detriment of all others: a crime is being committed.

How should such offences be punished?  Simone Weil was a Christian radical who didn’t want anyone to think she was infirm of purpose. She, therefore, wanted them packed off to jail. But I hate to think of the moral deterioration of our ordinary convicted criminals if they were forced to mix with Daily Mail journalists. Moreover, Weil believed in the redemptive power of imprisonment,  which I as a former Prison Chaplain regard as myth. So I would revert to the ancient Roman penalty of exile. The convicted person was forced to live amongst barbarians. In this case, I think those convicted of deliberate lying in the public press should be exiled permanently to the USA, presently the world capital of fake news, in the hope that they might see and suffer the kind of society produced by persistent lying.