Looking Forward to a Long Weekend
Friday this week is a public holiday. The public holidays here can be on any day of the week. In the UK, they are always on a Monday so that you can have a long weekend. It is a very nice treat to get a long weekend here especially in October. There are still things to do, of course: the services on Sunday, for example, but the pace is different and that's good. It means there's more time to enjoy a leisurely dinner and a glass of wine.
I like food. I also like food writers. I love and adore Elizabeth David. No-one comes close to her. I like Jane Grigson, Elizabeth Luard, Claudia Roden, Madhur Jaffrey, and I quite like Delia Smith. I say quite like as she has produced so much that it is inevitable that there should be some variation in quality. Among other modern cookery writers, I rather like Nigel Slater.
One cookery writer I have not read until very recently is Rick Stein. I have seen some of his recipes, but have not been tempted to to try them. I have, however, just bought the DVD of his programme, a French Odyssey, and the book that goes with it. I did this in a moment of weakness as I rather enjoy classical French cookery. You know, the sort with loads of cream, garlic, and wine, and I fancied watching his programme which is based on his culinary trip through France.
I have now watched two episodes and I am hooked. It's a visual treat to watch his journey, but his descriptions of the food and the recipes he cooks make you want to rush out and try them. I have not been a big fan of eels in the past, but seeing him cook eels in cream and garlic has convinced me to give them a go.
Where, however, he scores maximum points was sitting in a French open-air market reading Elizabeth David's description of French markets from a well worn copy of one of her books. For an ED fan, there is little that is more moving than that. Well done, Rick!
I love the emphasis on eating and meals in the Gospels and the way Jesus is pictured as liking food and wine. There are still plenty of arguments and debates, but it sounds a much better way to conduct meetings than sitting around a table in a church hall.
Enjoy your weekend when it comes!
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Lessons I have Learned: 1. The Importance of the Bible (Part 1)
Well, I didn't quite make it by the end of last week with the first post in this new series, itself a part of my Personal Journey Series. Part of the reason is that I wanted to finish reading the Summing Up by Somerset Maugham. In his own way he does in that book what I am trying to do in this series of blogs, although he writes much better than I do! He went on to live for the best part of thirty years after he wrote the Summing Up and I have to confess that I hope I do too. He spends a great deal of time talking about his life as a writer and his approach to writing. Not unreasonably given his career as a writer.
What I found particularly fascinating was that his attitude to being a writer was very similar to my own attitude to being a preacher and there is still a great deal of helpful advice in what he writes that I think a preacher could use today. Advice about getting out among people and living life so that you know your readership, for example. But I digress.
I have been thinking about this blog series, though, and preached on the Bible last Sunday. It's on the web-site for those motivated enough to listen to it. I will be preaching on the Bible again this coming week. How could I not with 2 Timothy 3:16 as part of the readings? I also have a confirmation class to lead tonight. You've guessed it. It's on the Bible!
Anyway, I certainly can't say all I want to say about the Bible in one blog, so I am afraid the account of this first lesson I have learned is going to be in several parts. How many parts I really don't know!
Lessons I have Learned: The Importance of the Bible (Part 1)
When I became a Christian one of the things that was most stressed to me was the importance and authority of the Bible. The Bible was the Word of God. It was without contradiction and could be relied on completely. It was infallible and inerrant. Indeed, so great was the emphasis on its divine inspiration and divine character that the role of the individual writers was rather lost sight of. The great enemies were those who failed to take the Bible seriously, that is, those who did not see the Bible in this way. They included liberal Christians, on the one hand, and Roman Catholics, on the other.
This view of Biblical authority was the position of both my friends in the House Church movement and of my Anglican Church on the Wirral. It was the view of my friends and of most of the people I mixed with.
Now before anyone smiles smugly and says that such people are naïve and misguided, it is worth saying that this conviction at least led us to read the Bible. In fact, we read it regularly, thoroughly, and enthusiastically. I still have my Bible from those days. It has no paragraph headings, drawings, or notes. It is just page after page of dense text, all in Shakespearean English, that is to say, it was the King James Version translation of the Bible.
None of this bothered us precisely because we were convinced that the Bible was the Word of God, and, if it was the Word of God, why would it bother us? If this was a communication from God, what mattered was to get on and read it, understand it, and obey it.
Things have moved on since those days, and we all have modern translations that are clearly laid out with headings and paragraphs, and every conceivable aid to help us understand it. Of course, we place far more emphasis on the humanity of Scripture and the problems of interpretation now, so that even if – and it is a big if – we think we know what a passage says, we still have trouble working what it means today and even more of a problem obeying it.
Given a simple choice between the attitude we had back then of seeing the Bible as the divine Word of God and the contemporary view which, while seeing it as a divinely inspired text, sees so many problems with interpreting it that you are exhausted even before you have begun, I know which I would choose.
For all the advances we have made in understanding the Bible, do we now read the Bible more? I don’t think so? And even when we do read it, do we have a clue what to do with it? I am reading a book on the Bible by a leading evangelical at the moment. While helpful in many ways, it focuses on the problems in reading and understanding the Bible. This I suggest is how many preachers and teachers approach it. It’s hardly any wonder, then, that people are discouraged before they begin.
I am glad then, for all its problems, I began my Christian life with the view that the Bible is the Word of God to be listened to and obeyed. Simplistic maybe, but at least it meant I read the Bible, went to discussions about the Bible, attended conferences about the Bible, memorized the Bible, enjoyed sermons about the Bible, and bought books explaining the Bible. It was also why when the time came to decide what to do after sixth form, I decided to study for a degree, not at a University, but at a Bible College.
The College I decided to go to was London Bible College, now renamed as London Theological College. But what’s in a name? Quite a lot, I think.
Well, I didn't quite make it by the end of last week with the first post in this new series, itself a part of my Personal Journey Series. Part of the reason is that I wanted to finish reading the Summing Up by Somerset Maugham. In his own way he does in that book what I am trying to do in this series of blogs, although he writes much better than I do! He went on to live for the best part of thirty years after he wrote the Summing Up and I have to confess that I hope I do too. He spends a great deal of time talking about his life as a writer and his approach to writing. Not unreasonably given his career as a writer.
What I found particularly fascinating was that his attitude to being a writer was very similar to my own attitude to being a preacher and there is still a great deal of helpful advice in what he writes that I think a preacher could use today. Advice about getting out among people and living life so that you know your readership, for example. But I digress.
I have been thinking about this blog series, though, and preached on the Bible last Sunday. It's on the web-site for those motivated enough to listen to it. I will be preaching on the Bible again this coming week. How could I not with 2 Timothy 3:16 as part of the readings? I also have a confirmation class to lead tonight. You've guessed it. It's on the Bible!
Anyway, I certainly can't say all I want to say about the Bible in one blog, so I am afraid the account of this first lesson I have learned is going to be in several parts. How many parts I really don't know!
Lessons I have Learned: The Importance of the Bible (Part 1)
When I became a Christian one of the things that was most stressed to me was the importance and authority of the Bible. The Bible was the Word of God. It was without contradiction and could be relied on completely. It was infallible and inerrant. Indeed, so great was the emphasis on its divine inspiration and divine character that the role of the individual writers was rather lost sight of. The great enemies were those who failed to take the Bible seriously, that is, those who did not see the Bible in this way. They included liberal Christians, on the one hand, and Roman Catholics, on the other.
This view of Biblical authority was the position of both my friends in the House Church movement and of my Anglican Church on the Wirral. It was the view of my friends and of most of the people I mixed with.
Now before anyone smiles smugly and says that such people are naïve and misguided, it is worth saying that this conviction at least led us to read the Bible. In fact, we read it regularly, thoroughly, and enthusiastically. I still have my Bible from those days. It has no paragraph headings, drawings, or notes. It is just page after page of dense text, all in Shakespearean English, that is to say, it was the King James Version translation of the Bible.
None of this bothered us precisely because we were convinced that the Bible was the Word of God, and, if it was the Word of God, why would it bother us? If this was a communication from God, what mattered was to get on and read it, understand it, and obey it.
Things have moved on since those days, and we all have modern translations that are clearly laid out with headings and paragraphs, and every conceivable aid to help us understand it. Of course, we place far more emphasis on the humanity of Scripture and the problems of interpretation now, so that even if – and it is a big if – we think we know what a passage says, we still have trouble working what it means today and even more of a problem obeying it.
Given a simple choice between the attitude we had back then of seeing the Bible as the divine Word of God and the contemporary view which, while seeing it as a divinely inspired text, sees so many problems with interpreting it that you are exhausted even before you have begun, I know which I would choose.
For all the advances we have made in understanding the Bible, do we now read the Bible more? I don’t think so? And even when we do read it, do we have a clue what to do with it? I am reading a book on the Bible by a leading evangelical at the moment. While helpful in many ways, it focuses on the problems in reading and understanding the Bible. This I suggest is how many preachers and teachers approach it. It’s hardly any wonder, then, that people are discouraged before they begin.
I am glad then, for all its problems, I began my Christian life with the view that the Bible is the Word of God to be listened to and obeyed. Simplistic maybe, but at least it meant I read the Bible, went to discussions about the Bible, attended conferences about the Bible, memorized the Bible, enjoyed sermons about the Bible, and bought books explaining the Bible. It was also why when the time came to decide what to do after sixth form, I decided to study for a degree, not at a University, but at a Bible College.
The College I decided to go to was London Bible College, now renamed as London Theological College. But what’s in a name? Quite a lot, I think.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
I have just acquired a copy of The Summing Up by Somerset Maugham. It is out of print and I needed to search for a copy second-hand. The nice people at Albris found one for me. It is older than me!
The Summing Up is a reflection by Somerset Maugham on his life and writing. It is not and was never intended to be an autobiography as some seem to think! It is written in 77 short chapters, which read much like blog entries. Somerset Maugham writes that the three principles he abides by in his writing are:
that it should be clear
that it should be simple and
that it should sound right
Admirable qualities for blogs!
It would also help if theologians adopted them. I read quite a lot of academic stuff and the writers of it seem to think that if their work isn't complicated and difficult, it won't sound academic enough. Being profound isn't the same as being incomprehensible.
One of the benefits of age is that I now have more confidence, when I don't easily understand what an academic writes, to blame him or her rather than myself!
The Summing Up is a reflection by Somerset Maugham on his life and writing. It is not and was never intended to be an autobiography as some seem to think! It is written in 77 short chapters, which read much like blog entries. Somerset Maugham writes that the three principles he abides by in his writing are:
that it should be clear
that it should be simple and
that it should sound right
Admirable qualities for blogs!
It would also help if theologians adopted them. I read quite a lot of academic stuff and the writers of it seem to think that if their work isn't complicated and difficult, it won't sound academic enough. Being profound isn't the same as being incomprehensible.
One of the benefits of age is that I now have more confidence, when I don't easily understand what an academic writes, to blame him or her rather than myself!
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Getting Rid of the Pews?
I am a big fan of the Archers a BBC radio soap opera about 'country folk'. Actually, it is the longest running drama of its type in the world. I have listened to it since I was a teenager. It was sad not to be able to hear it when I first came here, but thanks to the internet and the BBC, I have for some time been able to listen to it online.
It is set in Ambridge, a fictional village in middle England, with a pub, a village green, and a Church. The programme looks at modern life through the villagers' eyes. Ambridge has a Vicar and, to the credit of the programme writers, they include him in a serious way in the various programme plots.
Alan, the Vicar, has decided that it is wrong for St Stephens, a medieval Church building, to be empty six days a week, and wants to make it more of a community centre in use 7 days a week. To do this means, amongst other things, getting rid of the old pews. Inevitably, on the one hand, there are those who think that this is sacrilege and, on the other, those who think it is what Christianity is all about. Those most opposed to getting rid of the pews are those who don't come to Church!
I have just listened to last night's episode, which had as its main feature a discussion about the issue at the Church Council. It really is very good in the way it presents all the arguments and feelings about the issue. If you are interested you can listen for the next few days at the following link. It is the episode for Tuesday, October 9, 2007.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/archers/
What I found surprising was how I found myself siding in the discussion, not with those who wanted to get rid of the pews, but with those who wanted to keep them! I wonder what you think?
I am a big fan of the Archers a BBC radio soap opera about 'country folk'. Actually, it is the longest running drama of its type in the world. I have listened to it since I was a teenager. It was sad not to be able to hear it when I first came here, but thanks to the internet and the BBC, I have for some time been able to listen to it online.
It is set in Ambridge, a fictional village in middle England, with a pub, a village green, and a Church. The programme looks at modern life through the villagers' eyes. Ambridge has a Vicar and, to the credit of the programme writers, they include him in a serious way in the various programme plots.
Alan, the Vicar, has decided that it is wrong for St Stephens, a medieval Church building, to be empty six days a week, and wants to make it more of a community centre in use 7 days a week. To do this means, amongst other things, getting rid of the old pews. Inevitably, on the one hand, there are those who think that this is sacrilege and, on the other, those who think it is what Christianity is all about. Those most opposed to getting rid of the pews are those who don't come to Church!
I have just listened to last night's episode, which had as its main feature a discussion about the issue at the Church Council. It really is very good in the way it presents all the arguments and feelings about the issue. If you are interested you can listen for the next few days at the following link. It is the episode for Tuesday, October 9, 2007.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/archers/
What I found surprising was how I found myself siding in the discussion, not with those who wanted to get rid of the pews, but with those who wanted to keep them! I wonder what you think?
Monday, October 08, 2007
Back to the Journey
I have written at length on this blog about my Personal Journey (see posts under the label, Personal Journey) from my time as a teenager in Liverpool to that as an Anglican priest here in Hong Kong. Before the summer, I wrote of Present Challenges, that is, of the challenges that I find facing me here. They were:
1. Baptism
2. The Schools
3. The Congregation
4. The Buildings
5. The Challenge of Inclusivity
Over the summer, the problems that I wrote about under the Challenge of the Schools were graphically illustrated when one of our teachers was arrested for alleged corruption. The Challenge of the Buildings has also been reinforced by the need and surprise of having scaffolding up inside the Church over Harvest!
After writing about these challenges, I wrote about Where I am Now and focused specifically on three areas:
1. Mission
2. Theologically Orthodox
3. Liturgy and the Eucharist
I also reflected a little on my 25 years as a priest under the post, Disappointed. This one did not go down too well. People either thought I was clinically depressed, in the wrong position, or more kindly, just getting old!
There is probably a bit of truth in all three. Getting older brings a realisation of dreams that have not come true, mistakes that have been made, and expectations that have not been fulfilled. This does lead to sadness, if not exactly depression, but hopefully there is hope as well. I do find my present job leaves little time and opportunity for what I believe to be my main strengths, assuming I have them, even if I still believe I am in the right place. In other words, there is the paradox that all Christians are called to live with in this world and which we feel more at sometimes than others.
With the arrival of summer, I thought it would be good to have a break from reflecting on my Personal Journey, but have also felt that it is incomplete as a reflection of the journey so far. So now with the arrival of autumn and the passing of another birthday, and at the risk of boring you, I am going to resume. This time I want to write about the Lessons I have Learned trying to relate them to what I have written about my life so far.
It is going to take a little time in writing the posts in this series, but I am looking forward to it. The first will be on the Bible. I have started work on it and hope it will be posted before the week ends.
I have written at length on this blog about my Personal Journey (see posts under the label, Personal Journey) from my time as a teenager in Liverpool to that as an Anglican priest here in Hong Kong. Before the summer, I wrote of Present Challenges, that is, of the challenges that I find facing me here. They were:
1. Baptism
2. The Schools
3. The Congregation
4. The Buildings
5. The Challenge of Inclusivity
Over the summer, the problems that I wrote about under the Challenge of the Schools were graphically illustrated when one of our teachers was arrested for alleged corruption. The Challenge of the Buildings has also been reinforced by the need and surprise of having scaffolding up inside the Church over Harvest!
After writing about these challenges, I wrote about Where I am Now and focused specifically on three areas:
1. Mission
2. Theologically Orthodox
3. Liturgy and the Eucharist
I also reflected a little on my 25 years as a priest under the post, Disappointed. This one did not go down too well. People either thought I was clinically depressed, in the wrong position, or more kindly, just getting old!
There is probably a bit of truth in all three. Getting older brings a realisation of dreams that have not come true, mistakes that have been made, and expectations that have not been fulfilled. This does lead to sadness, if not exactly depression, but hopefully there is hope as well. I do find my present job leaves little time and opportunity for what I believe to be my main strengths, assuming I have them, even if I still believe I am in the right place. In other words, there is the paradox that all Christians are called to live with in this world and which we feel more at sometimes than others.
With the arrival of summer, I thought it would be good to have a break from reflecting on my Personal Journey, but have also felt that it is incomplete as a reflection of the journey so far. So now with the arrival of autumn and the passing of another birthday, and at the risk of boring you, I am going to resume. This time I want to write about the Lessons I have Learned trying to relate them to what I have written about my life so far.
It is going to take a little time in writing the posts in this series, but I am looking forward to it. The first will be on the Bible. I have started work on it and hope it will be posted before the week ends.
Friday, October 05, 2007
Life on Mars: 5. To Save Us
The end of the week already! The work in Church is progressing well, but the scaffolding is still up, and will be up for harvest festival. I am bracing myself for all the complaints!
Today I post the last in my series 'Life on Mars'. I promise to shut up about the TV series - for a while, at least. It is very good, though.
Have a great weekend!
Life on Mars: 5. To Save Us
So why? If God went to so much trouble in sending Jesus and choosing precisely the time and place to do so, why did he do it? What was it all about? I have talked a bit about the BBC television drama, Life on Mars, and Sam Tyler, a detective from the present who, after an accident, wakes up in 1973. Sam thinks coming from the future that he knows best. After a while, he begins to realize that he does not have all the answers and that the he can learn from the past no matter how different it may be to the present.
It isn’t just in the world and in society in general that changes have occurred over the past two thousand years. The Church seeking to keep up with and adapt to the changes in the world has perhaps forgotten why Jesus came and why it was so important that he did.
St Paul says: ‘The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’. Christ came at a specific time for a specific purpose. It was not to be a moral example, not to leave behind a body of teaching or doctrine, not to create a community of people for us to belong to, but to save sinners. Sin, human sin, your sin and mine, brought him here. This idea pervades the pages of the New Testament.
It is there whether you turn to St Paul: ‘for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’. Or St John: ‘if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us’. Or in the words of Jesus himself: ‘the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost’. But all this means that there are the lost to be found and saved. All of the New Testament takes it as read that we, you and I, are lost sinners who have incurred God’s displeasure and that unless something is done about it, we too, as Jesus puts it, are going to perish.
This is a perspective in the Church that we are in danger of losing. We prefer to celebrate human goodness, not discuss human wrongdoing. We proclaim the love and acceptance of God, not his judgement. We offer the welcome Christ gives to all, not his demand that they repent. The Church following the lead of the world sees the concept of sin as primitive and outdated. Something that belongs to another world. Yes, we do go wrong as human beings, we are weak and make mistakes, but’s that because we are human, not because we are lost sinners.
We argue that we need to emphasize the positive, not the negative. We need to see the role that a person’s environment and upbringing play in what they become and do. Focussing on blame and responsibility are not what it’s about. We want a loving God who understands us and accepts us: just as we are.
We have to make our minds up whether Jesus and his followers got it right or not. Whether the way they looked at it was a revelation of God or just the product of a less enlightened age. Like our fictional detective, Sam Tyler, we have to overcome our sense of superiority, our pride, and our arrogance and listen to what these people have to say. Jesus could not help the Pharisees because they did not think they were sinners: on the contrary, they were the righteous. But a doctor cannot help someone who won’t accept they are ill. If we insist we are not sinners or that sin does not matter, that it’s not really sin, then he cannot help us either.
The message of the New Testament is that Jesus welcomes sinners. Welcomes, that is, those who realize their sin, admit to their sin, and knowing they are lost because of their sin, are prepared to swallow their pride and arrogance and throw themselves on the mercy of God.
This mercy is to be found in Jesus of Nazareth who lived and died 2,000 years ago, but who, Christians believe, rose from the dead and is alive today. By understanding what he did for us in the past, we can know him in the present. And knowing him brings the peace, purpose, and forgiveness that our world cannot give.
In other words, it saves us.
The end of the week already! The work in Church is progressing well, but the scaffolding is still up, and will be up for harvest festival. I am bracing myself for all the complaints!
Today I post the last in my series 'Life on Mars'. I promise to shut up about the TV series - for a while, at least. It is very good, though.
Have a great weekend!
Life on Mars: 5. To Save Us
So why? If God went to so much trouble in sending Jesus and choosing precisely the time and place to do so, why did he do it? What was it all about? I have talked a bit about the BBC television drama, Life on Mars, and Sam Tyler, a detective from the present who, after an accident, wakes up in 1973. Sam thinks coming from the future that he knows best. After a while, he begins to realize that he does not have all the answers and that the he can learn from the past no matter how different it may be to the present.
It isn’t just in the world and in society in general that changes have occurred over the past two thousand years. The Church seeking to keep up with and adapt to the changes in the world has perhaps forgotten why Jesus came and why it was so important that he did.
St Paul says: ‘The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’. Christ came at a specific time for a specific purpose. It was not to be a moral example, not to leave behind a body of teaching or doctrine, not to create a community of people for us to belong to, but to save sinners. Sin, human sin, your sin and mine, brought him here. This idea pervades the pages of the New Testament.
It is there whether you turn to St Paul: ‘for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’. Or St John: ‘if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us’. Or in the words of Jesus himself: ‘the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost’. But all this means that there are the lost to be found and saved. All of the New Testament takes it as read that we, you and I, are lost sinners who have incurred God’s displeasure and that unless something is done about it, we too, as Jesus puts it, are going to perish.
This is a perspective in the Church that we are in danger of losing. We prefer to celebrate human goodness, not discuss human wrongdoing. We proclaim the love and acceptance of God, not his judgement. We offer the welcome Christ gives to all, not his demand that they repent. The Church following the lead of the world sees the concept of sin as primitive and outdated. Something that belongs to another world. Yes, we do go wrong as human beings, we are weak and make mistakes, but’s that because we are human, not because we are lost sinners.
We argue that we need to emphasize the positive, not the negative. We need to see the role that a person’s environment and upbringing play in what they become and do. Focussing on blame and responsibility are not what it’s about. We want a loving God who understands us and accepts us: just as we are.
We have to make our minds up whether Jesus and his followers got it right or not. Whether the way they looked at it was a revelation of God or just the product of a less enlightened age. Like our fictional detective, Sam Tyler, we have to overcome our sense of superiority, our pride, and our arrogance and listen to what these people have to say. Jesus could not help the Pharisees because they did not think they were sinners: on the contrary, they were the righteous. But a doctor cannot help someone who won’t accept they are ill. If we insist we are not sinners or that sin does not matter, that it’s not really sin, then he cannot help us either.
The message of the New Testament is that Jesus welcomes sinners. Welcomes, that is, those who realize their sin, admit to their sin, and knowing they are lost because of their sin, are prepared to swallow their pride and arrogance and throw themselves on the mercy of God.
This mercy is to be found in Jesus of Nazareth who lived and died 2,000 years ago, but who, Christians believe, rose from the dead and is alive today. By understanding what he did for us in the past, we can know him in the present. And knowing him brings the peace, purpose, and forgiveness that our world cannot give.
In other words, it saves us.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Life on Mars: 4. At the Right Time
A good National day here and a quiet birthday as befits one of my advancing years.
We are currently getting ready for our Church Harvest Festival at the moment, so you can imagine my surprise to find contractors erecting scaffolding inside the Church this afternoon.
I spotted a couple of weeks ago that paint was peeling on part of the interior wall of the Church. As we have recently repainted the interior of the Church - against my advice, let it be noted - I was not best pleased. To give them their due the firm concerned offered to put it right and asked if they could start today. I made arrangements for them to be let in and called to see how they were getting on. I expected a ladder and a bucket of a paint. Imagine my surprise to find a team of scaffolders erecting scaffold above the altar and to be told it will take a week!
To their credit, they are taking it seriously; on the down side, I was told it was a minor job that would take three days. Now I have to explain why we have scaffolding all round the altar at Harvest Festival.
These things take up so much time and energy!
Life on Mars: 4. At the Right Time
Christianity claims that in the person of Jesus and in the events surrounding his life and death, God revealed himself to us. I have been arguing, in the past few weeks, that this places an obligation on Christians to attempt something very difficult, that is, to travel back in time, in a historical sense, to see what these events were and whom they concerned.
Sometimes, we try to avoid doing this by reducing the Christian faith to a set of timeless truths or to a body of doctrine or to a code of ethics. Others make it about our relationships with each other here in the present. Others about using the idea of someone dying under an imperial power as incentive for changing the world around us. Sadly, often all these sincere approaches do is to avoid the problem.
St Paul sums up the preaching of the early Christian leaders in these words:
‘For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:21-22)
Elsewhere he writes:
‘But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.’ (Galatians 4:4-5)
When the ‘fullness of time had come’, in other words, ‘when the time was just right’, God sent his Son. We have been talking, in this short series, about the problems that Jesus being born 2,000 years ago cause us living as we do in a very different age. And it does cause problems. As we have observed the world was so different then. How can a message about a person who lived then have any relevance for us now. And again, we must stress that Christianity is first and foremost about a person who truly and really lived in a specific place at a particular time and not a creed, code of ethics, or community. These may follow, but they are secondary and subsidiary.
The early Christians acknowledged that this brought problems, but made the amazing claim that what must inevitably seem like foolishness and cause problems for humans was God’s deliberate choice and decision. The time that Jesus was born was neither coincidental nor accidental in any way: it happened in exactly the right place and at precisely the right time: the time, that is, God had decided it would happen.
This means that Jesus’ birth was not an accident of history or something that God decided to do when he thought the circumstances created a good opportunity. It means that Jesus could not have been born as an American in 2007, a Briton in 1807, an Indian in 1507, a Chinese in 1107, or as anyone else in any other place at any other time. This was the place, time, and person. And everything before it led up to it and prepared for it and everything since has proceeded from it. God decided in advance that this was the moment.
It didn’t just happen that Christ was ‘born of a woman’, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and was ‘crucified under Pontius Pilate’.
Carl Sagan said: ‘In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.’
St Paul said the same thing about what God was up to in Christ, albeit in different words: ‘With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.’ (Ephesians 1:8)
The Biblical writers claim that what God had in mind when he set about creating the universe was the coming of Christ at precisely the date and time he came.
We like to think it is our age that is wise, our age that is superior to all the rest, that we know more and can do more and, obviously, on one level this is true. I am glad that because of vaccinations I won’t catch diseases that people in the past routinely caught. But we need to have the humility to see that God decided that it was to be in this age, 2,000 years ago, that the decisive moment in history occurred.
After all, that is why our calendars work as they do.
A good National day here and a quiet birthday as befits one of my advancing years.
We are currently getting ready for our Church Harvest Festival at the moment, so you can imagine my surprise to find contractors erecting scaffolding inside the Church this afternoon.
I spotted a couple of weeks ago that paint was peeling on part of the interior wall of the Church. As we have recently repainted the interior of the Church - against my advice, let it be noted - I was not best pleased. To give them their due the firm concerned offered to put it right and asked if they could start today. I made arrangements for them to be let in and called to see how they were getting on. I expected a ladder and a bucket of a paint. Imagine my surprise to find a team of scaffolders erecting scaffold above the altar and to be told it will take a week!
To their credit, they are taking it seriously; on the down side, I was told it was a minor job that would take three days. Now I have to explain why we have scaffolding all round the altar at Harvest Festival.
These things take up so much time and energy!
Life on Mars: 4. At the Right Time
Christianity claims that in the person of Jesus and in the events surrounding his life and death, God revealed himself to us. I have been arguing, in the past few weeks, that this places an obligation on Christians to attempt something very difficult, that is, to travel back in time, in a historical sense, to see what these events were and whom they concerned.
Sometimes, we try to avoid doing this by reducing the Christian faith to a set of timeless truths or to a body of doctrine or to a code of ethics. Others make it about our relationships with each other here in the present. Others about using the idea of someone dying under an imperial power as incentive for changing the world around us. Sadly, often all these sincere approaches do is to avoid the problem.
St Paul sums up the preaching of the early Christian leaders in these words:
‘For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:21-22)
Elsewhere he writes:
‘But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.’ (Galatians 4:4-5)
When the ‘fullness of time had come’, in other words, ‘when the time was just right’, God sent his Son. We have been talking, in this short series, about the problems that Jesus being born 2,000 years ago cause us living as we do in a very different age. And it does cause problems. As we have observed the world was so different then. How can a message about a person who lived then have any relevance for us now. And again, we must stress that Christianity is first and foremost about a person who truly and really lived in a specific place at a particular time and not a creed, code of ethics, or community. These may follow, but they are secondary and subsidiary.
The early Christians acknowledged that this brought problems, but made the amazing claim that what must inevitably seem like foolishness and cause problems for humans was God’s deliberate choice and decision. The time that Jesus was born was neither coincidental nor accidental in any way: it happened in exactly the right place and at precisely the right time: the time, that is, God had decided it would happen.
This means that Jesus’ birth was not an accident of history or something that God decided to do when he thought the circumstances created a good opportunity. It means that Jesus could not have been born as an American in 2007, a Briton in 1807, an Indian in 1507, a Chinese in 1107, or as anyone else in any other place at any other time. This was the place, time, and person. And everything before it led up to it and prepared for it and everything since has proceeded from it. God decided in advance that this was the moment.
It didn’t just happen that Christ was ‘born of a woman’, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and was ‘crucified under Pontius Pilate’.
Carl Sagan said: ‘In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.’
St Paul said the same thing about what God was up to in Christ, albeit in different words: ‘With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.’ (Ephesians 1:8)
The Biblical writers claim that what God had in mind when he set about creating the universe was the coming of Christ at precisely the date and time he came.
We like to think it is our age that is wise, our age that is superior to all the rest, that we know more and can do more and, obviously, on one level this is true. I am glad that because of vaccinations I won’t catch diseases that people in the past routinely caught. But we need to have the humility to see that God decided that it was to be in this age, 2,000 years ago, that the decisive moment in history occurred.
After all, that is why our calendars work as they do.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Life On Mars: 3. And was made man
Today is National Day here in China so we get a day off! As it is my birthday tomorrow I get to celebrate today. I am also taking the opportunity to catch up on work in my study.
Here is the third in the Life on Mars series.
Life on Mars: 3: And was made man
In the same Creed in which we say that Jesus was ‘crucified under Pontius Pilate’, we also as Christians say:
‘For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven;
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.’
These words are part of the Nicene Creed, a Creed from the fourth century, accepted by all the Churches as expressing the central tenets of the Christian faith. This is as near the heart of the Christian faith as it is possible to get. Christianity with this statement has taken an incredible gamble. It has staked all on a person who lived at a precise moment in history. Let’s be clear about the claim. It is that the God who made everything there is, and who is above everything he made, and upon whom we all depend for our existence has chosen to reveal himself to us in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ, who entered our world and lived as one of us at a particular point in history.
This means we see the face of God in the face of a first century Palestinian Jew. This is a breathtaking claim and while a source of wonder and worship for Christians, it does also create problems for those who believe it. First of all, Christians are gambling everything on the person of Jesus. Now you may say: ‘of course, what’s so strange about that?’ Well, it means the significance for the Christian of Jesus is not what he taught, not what he did, nor even how he lived, but who he was. It means, as a consequence, that being a Christian is not about what you believe, how you live, or where you go on Sunday, but about your relationship with this man, ‘born of the Virgin Mary’. It is the person of Jesus that counts more than anything else.
St Paul says to people who had stopped believing in the resurrection that if the resurrection is not true then Christians are of all people most to be pitied. In other words, that for Christianity to be true then Christ must be alive now. But it also means that he must have lived and that he was who his followers claimed he was. That is, that Jesus of Nazareth, who walked the streets of Jerusalem under Pontius Pilate, was the incarnate Son of God sent by God to reveal himself to us and to save us.
It also means that if either Jesus did not exist or was not who his followers said he was, but simply another mortal religious teacher, then Christianity is a fraud. Christians were first called Christians as a nickname in Antioch because they made so much of Christ. Everything stands or falls on what they claimed for him being true. Take away the existence of Jesus or make him just another teacher, then he has nothing to say to us. Yes, he might have said some nice things about how we should live and, doubtless, he said them in a very charismatic way, but what he says about himself and what his followers say about him is what matters.
St Luke records Jesus saying these words: ‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.’ (St Luke 14:26)
John records him saying these words: ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’ (St John 14:6)
These are incredible demands and claims. The Biblical writers from a distance of two thousand years are asking us to stake our own lives on what happened at a particular moment of history: under Pontius Pilate. Christianity isn’t asking us to believe in abstract ideas, but in a historical person.
As I have been arguing in this series, if Luke and John are right in what they say of Jesus, it means that Christians are bound to history: bound to making the effort of going back in time no matter how hard and challenging it is, and it is hard and challenging, for in the past something happened that can change our lives in the present and give us hope for the future.
Today is National Day here in China so we get a day off! As it is my birthday tomorrow I get to celebrate today. I am also taking the opportunity to catch up on work in my study.
Here is the third in the Life on Mars series.
Life on Mars: 3: And was made man
In the same Creed in which we say that Jesus was ‘crucified under Pontius Pilate’, we also as Christians say:
‘For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven;
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.’
These words are part of the Nicene Creed, a Creed from the fourth century, accepted by all the Churches as expressing the central tenets of the Christian faith. This is as near the heart of the Christian faith as it is possible to get. Christianity with this statement has taken an incredible gamble. It has staked all on a person who lived at a precise moment in history. Let’s be clear about the claim. It is that the God who made everything there is, and who is above everything he made, and upon whom we all depend for our existence has chosen to reveal himself to us in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ, who entered our world and lived as one of us at a particular point in history.
This means we see the face of God in the face of a first century Palestinian Jew. This is a breathtaking claim and while a source of wonder and worship for Christians, it does also create problems for those who believe it. First of all, Christians are gambling everything on the person of Jesus. Now you may say: ‘of course, what’s so strange about that?’ Well, it means the significance for the Christian of Jesus is not what he taught, not what he did, nor even how he lived, but who he was. It means, as a consequence, that being a Christian is not about what you believe, how you live, or where you go on Sunday, but about your relationship with this man, ‘born of the Virgin Mary’. It is the person of Jesus that counts more than anything else.
St Paul says to people who had stopped believing in the resurrection that if the resurrection is not true then Christians are of all people most to be pitied. In other words, that for Christianity to be true then Christ must be alive now. But it also means that he must have lived and that he was who his followers claimed he was. That is, that Jesus of Nazareth, who walked the streets of Jerusalem under Pontius Pilate, was the incarnate Son of God sent by God to reveal himself to us and to save us.
It also means that if either Jesus did not exist or was not who his followers said he was, but simply another mortal religious teacher, then Christianity is a fraud. Christians were first called Christians as a nickname in Antioch because they made so much of Christ. Everything stands or falls on what they claimed for him being true. Take away the existence of Jesus or make him just another teacher, then he has nothing to say to us. Yes, he might have said some nice things about how we should live and, doubtless, he said them in a very charismatic way, but what he says about himself and what his followers say about him is what matters.
St Luke records Jesus saying these words: ‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.’ (St Luke 14:26)
John records him saying these words: ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’ (St John 14:6)
These are incredible demands and claims. The Biblical writers from a distance of two thousand years are asking us to stake our own lives on what happened at a particular moment of history: under Pontius Pilate. Christianity isn’t asking us to believe in abstract ideas, but in a historical person.
As I have been arguing in this series, if Luke and John are right in what they say of Jesus, it means that Christians are bound to history: bound to making the effort of going back in time no matter how hard and challenging it is, and it is hard and challenging, for in the past something happened that can change our lives in the present and give us hope for the future.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Life on Mars: 2. Crucified Under Pontius Pilate
Well, the installation went very well with a full Cathedral. The Cathedral in Hong Kong is not air-conditioned. Sitting, fully-robed in the Cathedral at midday is an interesting experience! I believe the Cathedral people are thinking about air-con - the sooner, the better!
Looking at my diary for the next couple of days, I see I have a School Council meeting tonight, three School assemblies tomorrow morning and then a PTA AGM followed by a PTA Annual dinner tomorrow evening. I think I had better get on with my sermon for Sunday this afternoon if only to remind myself that I am a Vicar!
Here is the next in my Life on Mars series!
Life on Mars: 2. Crucified Under Pontius Pilate
Last time, I wrote about Life on Mars, the BBC police drama series, in which a detective from the present wakes up in 1973 and what a shock life in 1973 is to him. Everything is very different to what he is used to. I know the feeling, I am just about to have a birthday and thinking back to 1973, when I was an older teenager, I am constantly amazed at just how much has changed. Obviously, technology has advanced – assuming you think kids being stuck on playstations for hours or chatting endlessly on Facebook is advancement. In addition to such changes, attitudes and outlooks have changed radically, too.
If this is true in my short lifetime, how much more true is it in the time since the events related in the Bible? How can what people wrote and wrote about 2,000 and more years ago have anything to say to us living in the 21st century. This really is an important issue and Christians are at fault for sometimes acting as if it isn’t. Let me put it another way:
Suppose we were to do a Life on Mars in reverse and transport a Christian leader from the New Testament era to the present and make him a leader of a Church now, how long would it be before he had a nervous breakdown? That’s assuming that the first passing motor car didn’t knock him down. A motor-car being something he would never have seen before and now may never see again! How we do Church, what we believe, how we live, how we relate, everything would be so very, very different. What this leader said to us in his preaching, assuming we gave him the ability to speak Chinese or English, would also sound very different to what we are used to. And this from someone who is a Christian like us. His world was different then, they were different then. If a Christian from the past would have trouble living with us now, why should what Christians wrote in the past be of any relevance to us now? They are not of our world and we are not of theirs.
As L. P. Hartley said: ‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.’ All this applies to any religion that looks to a founder who lived in the past. But it applies even more to Christianity. For central to Christianity is the belief that God himself in the person of Jesus entered our space-time existence at a specific point in our history. Every week in my Church, we recite the Nicene Creed in which we say of Jesus that ‘he was crucified under Pontius Pilate’.
I think we forget the significance of this. Pontius Pilate was a minor Roman official in a relatively minor part of the Empire, and yet he is remembered every week at the most holy service of the Church’s worship. This is because our faith is centred on something that happened at a particular moment in history. For many Christians, this is rather embarrassing and inconvenient. We want a God who speaks now, not a God who spoke then. History isn’t everyone’s favourite subject and to make history, that is, what happened, 2000 years ago, so central and important seems to create more problems than it solves.
This is, perhaps, one of the reasons why Christians emphasize the resurrection and why the Charismatic movement has been so popular. By emphasizing that Jesus is alive today, there is the possibility that we don’t have to worry quite so much about yesterday. For if he is alive today and can speak to us in the way that many Christians believe he can and does, then we don’t have to worry so much about understanding what went on all those years ago. Jesus can speak directly to us. We don’t need to go through Christians in the past with all their difference and strangeness.
Unfortunately, by claiming that the Jesus we worship today, who we believe speaks to us today, is the same as the man who was ‘crucified under Pontius Pilate’ – as we do – week by week, we are committing ourselves to the importance of history and what happened in the past. We can only know the Jesus who is alive today if we can discover something of the man Pilate crucified. We need to know what it was he said and did then, otherwise what we hear when he speaks to us now, may turn out to be no more than our imagination and wistful thinking.
Time travel may not be a possibility, but historical study, for the Christian at least, is a necessity.
Well, the installation went very well with a full Cathedral. The Cathedral in Hong Kong is not air-conditioned. Sitting, fully-robed in the Cathedral at midday is an interesting experience! I believe the Cathedral people are thinking about air-con - the sooner, the better!
Looking at my diary for the next couple of days, I see I have a School Council meeting tonight, three School assemblies tomorrow morning and then a PTA AGM followed by a PTA Annual dinner tomorrow evening. I think I had better get on with my sermon for Sunday this afternoon if only to remind myself that I am a Vicar!
Here is the next in my Life on Mars series!
Life on Mars: 2. Crucified Under Pontius Pilate
Last time, I wrote about Life on Mars, the BBC police drama series, in which a detective from the present wakes up in 1973 and what a shock life in 1973 is to him. Everything is very different to what he is used to. I know the feeling, I am just about to have a birthday and thinking back to 1973, when I was an older teenager, I am constantly amazed at just how much has changed. Obviously, technology has advanced – assuming you think kids being stuck on playstations for hours or chatting endlessly on Facebook is advancement. In addition to such changes, attitudes and outlooks have changed radically, too.
If this is true in my short lifetime, how much more true is it in the time since the events related in the Bible? How can what people wrote and wrote about 2,000 and more years ago have anything to say to us living in the 21st century. This really is an important issue and Christians are at fault for sometimes acting as if it isn’t. Let me put it another way:
Suppose we were to do a Life on Mars in reverse and transport a Christian leader from the New Testament era to the present and make him a leader of a Church now, how long would it be before he had a nervous breakdown? That’s assuming that the first passing motor car didn’t knock him down. A motor-car being something he would never have seen before and now may never see again! How we do Church, what we believe, how we live, how we relate, everything would be so very, very different. What this leader said to us in his preaching, assuming we gave him the ability to speak Chinese or English, would also sound very different to what we are used to. And this from someone who is a Christian like us. His world was different then, they were different then. If a Christian from the past would have trouble living with us now, why should what Christians wrote in the past be of any relevance to us now? They are not of our world and we are not of theirs.
As L. P. Hartley said: ‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.’ All this applies to any religion that looks to a founder who lived in the past. But it applies even more to Christianity. For central to Christianity is the belief that God himself in the person of Jesus entered our space-time existence at a specific point in our history. Every week in my Church, we recite the Nicene Creed in which we say of Jesus that ‘he was crucified under Pontius Pilate’.
I think we forget the significance of this. Pontius Pilate was a minor Roman official in a relatively minor part of the Empire, and yet he is remembered every week at the most holy service of the Church’s worship. This is because our faith is centred on something that happened at a particular moment in history. For many Christians, this is rather embarrassing and inconvenient. We want a God who speaks now, not a God who spoke then. History isn’t everyone’s favourite subject and to make history, that is, what happened, 2000 years ago, so central and important seems to create more problems than it solves.
This is, perhaps, one of the reasons why Christians emphasize the resurrection and why the Charismatic movement has been so popular. By emphasizing that Jesus is alive today, there is the possibility that we don’t have to worry quite so much about yesterday. For if he is alive today and can speak to us in the way that many Christians believe he can and does, then we don’t have to worry so much about understanding what went on all those years ago. Jesus can speak directly to us. We don’t need to go through Christians in the past with all their difference and strangeness.
Unfortunately, by claiming that the Jesus we worship today, who we believe speaks to us today, is the same as the man who was ‘crucified under Pontius Pilate’ – as we do – week by week, we are committing ourselves to the importance of history and what happened in the past. We can only know the Jesus who is alive today if we can discover something of the man Pilate crucified. We need to know what it was he said and did then, otherwise what we hear when he speaks to us now, may turn out to be no more than our imagination and wistful thinking.
Time travel may not be a possibility, but historical study, for the Christian at least, is a necessity.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Mid-Autumn Festival
Today it is the Mid-Autumn Festival here in China and other parts of Asia and tomorrow is a public holiday. Tonight families will be gathering for family meals, to eat moon-cakes, and to light lanterns. Well, we'll try to light them, it is still very wet here! Moon-cakes I am not particularly partial to, but the lanterns and family gatherings are fun.
Tomorrow, it is the installation of our new Archbishop, Archbishop Paul Kwong. Archbishop Paul, as you will know if you are a regular to this blog, has actually been Archbishop for some time, but this is the official event followed by lunch.
Archbishop Paul has already thrown himself in to his new role and is an inspiring leader. I am so grateful that I get to serve under him. His job is a daunting one with many challenges around the corner. If you remember tomorrow, say a prayer for him at 11.00am Hong Kong time!
Today it is the Mid-Autumn Festival here in China and other parts of Asia and tomorrow is a public holiday. Tonight families will be gathering for family meals, to eat moon-cakes, and to light lanterns. Well, we'll try to light them, it is still very wet here! Moon-cakes I am not particularly partial to, but the lanterns and family gatherings are fun.
Tomorrow, it is the installation of our new Archbishop, Archbishop Paul Kwong. Archbishop Paul, as you will know if you are a regular to this blog, has actually been Archbishop for some time, but this is the official event followed by lunch.
Archbishop Paul has already thrown himself in to his new role and is an inspiring leader. I am so grateful that I get to serve under him. His job is a daunting one with many challenges around the corner. If you remember tomorrow, say a prayer for him at 11.00am Hong Kong time!
Monday, September 24, 2007
Life on Mars
As promised (see I can keep them promises about posting - well sometimes at least!) here is the first in a series. As I mentioned in the last post, the series was inspired by Life on Mars, the BBC police drama series, which I watched on DVD over the summer. It made me think seriously about how life has changed. We talk about this all the time in Church circles: about how we can apply the Bible to our own day. In other words, the problem of hermeneutics. Where the series really succeeded for me was in getting under the skin of the problem and illustrating how great the problem really is. Anyway, have a read and let me know what you think!
It is a dull, rainy day here, but it is still very hot! Whatever the weather where you are, I hope you have a good week!
Life on Mars
A British television police drama was recently released on DVD, and I have just finished watching it. It won many awards. I don’t know if you have seen it at all. It is called Life on Mars. The story centres around Sam Tyler who is a detective in Manchester, England. He has an accident and wakes up in 1973. At the start of each episode he asks the question: ‘am I mad, in a coma, or back in time? Whatever’s happened, he says, it’s like I have landed on a different planet’.
Sam wakes up to discover that he is now a detective in 1973 Manchester who has just been transferred to a new department. The reason it is like a different planet is because everything is so different to what he is used to. There are the obvious things like the fashions and the clothes that people wear and the fact that there are no mobile phones or computers. But there are many other differences, not least the difference in attitudes and what is considered acceptable and what not. For example, attitudes to women and their role are very different. There are no women in the CID, which is considered a male domain. Jokes which would be considered racist, sexist and offensive today are seen as perfectly normal.
Much of the drama centres on the relationship between Sam and his new boss, Detective Chief Inspector Gene Hunt. Gene is an unreconstructed whisky swilling male who believes in gut instinct and is suspicious of forensics and the like. Sam says to him: ‘You’re an overweight, over the hill, nicotine-stained, borderline alcoholic homophobe with a superiority complex and an unhealthy obsession with male bonding.’ To which Gene replies: ‘You make it sound like a bad thing!’ At first Sam takes a superior attitude to and is very critical of his new colleagues. Gradually, however, he begins to realize that he has some thing to learn from them, and he starts to enjoy his new life.
I was a teenager in the 1970s and what is more came from a police family in the north of England. For me, and those like me, who remember the 1970s, it is a real nostalgia trip. Great attention has been given by the programme makers to getting the historical details right. But it is great drama too with some brilliant writing and acting. Where the programme really succeeds is in getting across how society has changed. It really does look and sound like a different world.
But this is only 35 years ago. A mere generation. If the world has changed so much in so short a time, how much more has it changed since the events of the Bible? Sam finds it hard to understand life 35 years ago. What hope, then, for us to understand the world of the Bible? It is very easy for us to forget just how great the change has been. The things that matter to us and dominate our lives just were not issues.
There was no electricity. There were no cars, trains, or plains. The population was much less and towns and cities much smaller. And, of course, there were no televisions, radios, computers, telephones, and other means of mass communication. Medical science was very primitive and some of the discoveries that have changed our world were still a long way off: vaccinations, for example. I could go on, but I hope you get the point. If Manchester, England in 1973 is a different world for the fictional Sam looking at it from the perspective of the 21st century, how much more the world of the Bible?
This raises the question of what possible relevance the Bible and the events it relates can have to us? What can the Biblical writers possibly have to say that is of any use to us?
It is an issue. Bultmann, in a famous statement, said this:
‘It is impossible to use electric light and the wireless and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of spirits and miracles.’
Christians believe that while indeed the world may change and change radically almost beyond recognition that God himself does not change. We believe that Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever and that he can speak to our generation as he has spoken to successive generations in the past.
But what of the past and the relevance of the events we read of in the Bible?
More about that next.
As promised (see I can keep them promises about posting - well sometimes at least!) here is the first in a series. As I mentioned in the last post, the series was inspired by Life on Mars, the BBC police drama series, which I watched on DVD over the summer. It made me think seriously about how life has changed. We talk about this all the time in Church circles: about how we can apply the Bible to our own day. In other words, the problem of hermeneutics. Where the series really succeeded for me was in getting under the skin of the problem and illustrating how great the problem really is. Anyway, have a read and let me know what you think!
It is a dull, rainy day here, but it is still very hot! Whatever the weather where you are, I hope you have a good week!
Life on Mars
A British television police drama was recently released on DVD, and I have just finished watching it. It won many awards. I don’t know if you have seen it at all. It is called Life on Mars. The story centres around Sam Tyler who is a detective in Manchester, England. He has an accident and wakes up in 1973. At the start of each episode he asks the question: ‘am I mad, in a coma, or back in time? Whatever’s happened, he says, it’s like I have landed on a different planet’.
Sam wakes up to discover that he is now a detective in 1973 Manchester who has just been transferred to a new department. The reason it is like a different planet is because everything is so different to what he is used to. There are the obvious things like the fashions and the clothes that people wear and the fact that there are no mobile phones or computers. But there are many other differences, not least the difference in attitudes and what is considered acceptable and what not. For example, attitudes to women and their role are very different. There are no women in the CID, which is considered a male domain. Jokes which would be considered racist, sexist and offensive today are seen as perfectly normal.
Much of the drama centres on the relationship between Sam and his new boss, Detective Chief Inspector Gene Hunt. Gene is an unreconstructed whisky swilling male who believes in gut instinct and is suspicious of forensics and the like. Sam says to him: ‘You’re an overweight, over the hill, nicotine-stained, borderline alcoholic homophobe with a superiority complex and an unhealthy obsession with male bonding.’ To which Gene replies: ‘You make it sound like a bad thing!’ At first Sam takes a superior attitude to and is very critical of his new colleagues. Gradually, however, he begins to realize that he has some thing to learn from them, and he starts to enjoy his new life.
I was a teenager in the 1970s and what is more came from a police family in the north of England. For me, and those like me, who remember the 1970s, it is a real nostalgia trip. Great attention has been given by the programme makers to getting the historical details right. But it is great drama too with some brilliant writing and acting. Where the programme really succeeds is in getting across how society has changed. It really does look and sound like a different world.
But this is only 35 years ago. A mere generation. If the world has changed so much in so short a time, how much more has it changed since the events of the Bible? Sam finds it hard to understand life 35 years ago. What hope, then, for us to understand the world of the Bible? It is very easy for us to forget just how great the change has been. The things that matter to us and dominate our lives just were not issues.
There was no electricity. There were no cars, trains, or plains. The population was much less and towns and cities much smaller. And, of course, there were no televisions, radios, computers, telephones, and other means of mass communication. Medical science was very primitive and some of the discoveries that have changed our world were still a long way off: vaccinations, for example. I could go on, but I hope you get the point. If Manchester, England in 1973 is a different world for the fictional Sam looking at it from the perspective of the 21st century, how much more the world of the Bible?
This raises the question of what possible relevance the Bible and the events it relates can have to us? What can the Biblical writers possibly have to say that is of any use to us?
It is an issue. Bultmann, in a famous statement, said this:
‘It is impossible to use electric light and the wireless and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of spirits and miracles.’
Christians believe that while indeed the world may change and change radically almost beyond recognition that God himself does not change. We believe that Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever and that he can speak to our generation as he has spoken to successive generations in the past.
But what of the past and the relevance of the events we read of in the Bible?
More about that next.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
I am Still Here!
Just caught up in events at the beginning of term. And settling into the routine of things.
Last week was dominated by organizing a Thanksgiving Service here at Christ Church for our former Vicar, Michael Simpson. Michael died earlier this year in the UK and we wanted to have a service for him here in Hong Kong. His wife and family members came and many who knew Michael took part. It was, I think, a fitting tribute to Michael.
Some of you have asked if there has been any follow-up to the events of the Summer at DPS. Not yet, is the answer though we expect to hear something soon. The effects of the case continue to reverberate. Our own feeling, for what it is worth, is that parents who try to bribe teachers to gain advantage are at least as guilty as the teachers who accept such bribes. Sadly, this does not seem to be the position of either parents, in general, or of the authorities.
I have even come in for criticism personally for thinking that the case should have been reported in the first place. Many parents want to be able to use bribery for advantage for their children and don't appreciate attempts to stop it. It reaches into the Church as parents send their children to Church so that they can claim a religious affiliation with the Anglican Church and so secure more points towards admission.
It is hard being a parent, but it is also hard being a Christian. And being a Christian surely means that we should attempt to be honest in how we behave?
On a positive note: at a meeting of the body responsible yesterday my contract was officially renewed from September next year. So it looks like I will have to deal with these issues for a bit longer.
Have you watched or heard of Life On Mars - the BBC television series? I will be blogging about that next. I watched it on DVD over the Summer and it is currently my favourite drama series.
Thanks for keeping reading.
Just caught up in events at the beginning of term. And settling into the routine of things.
Last week was dominated by organizing a Thanksgiving Service here at Christ Church for our former Vicar, Michael Simpson. Michael died earlier this year in the UK and we wanted to have a service for him here in Hong Kong. His wife and family members came and many who knew Michael took part. It was, I think, a fitting tribute to Michael.
Some of you have asked if there has been any follow-up to the events of the Summer at DPS. Not yet, is the answer though we expect to hear something soon. The effects of the case continue to reverberate. Our own feeling, for what it is worth, is that parents who try to bribe teachers to gain advantage are at least as guilty as the teachers who accept such bribes. Sadly, this does not seem to be the position of either parents, in general, or of the authorities.
I have even come in for criticism personally for thinking that the case should have been reported in the first place. Many parents want to be able to use bribery for advantage for their children and don't appreciate attempts to stop it. It reaches into the Church as parents send their children to Church so that they can claim a religious affiliation with the Anglican Church and so secure more points towards admission.
It is hard being a parent, but it is also hard being a Christian. And being a Christian surely means that we should attempt to be honest in how we behave?
On a positive note: at a meeting of the body responsible yesterday my contract was officially renewed from September next year. So it looks like I will have to deal with these issues for a bit longer.
Have you watched or heard of Life On Mars - the BBC television series? I will be blogging about that next. I watched it on DVD over the Summer and it is currently my favourite drama series.
Thanks for keeping reading.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
The Runaway Slave went over the Hill
Tomorrow I am preaching on Luke 14 and Philemon, the set readings for the day. I couldn’t quite believe that Philemon had come up in the lectionary again as it feels like only a few weeks ago that it last came up and I preached on it! I dug out the sermon and found that it was three years ago - as it would be. Quite scary! As someone quoted to me recently: ‘The days are long, but the years are short’!
The standard understanding of Philemon is that it was written by Paul when he was in prison in Rome. Onesimus, a runaway slave, who belongs, coincidentally, to a friend of Paul’s, meets up with Paul and is converted. The letter to Philemon is Paul writing to his friend on behalf of his convert seeking mercy for him.
I have never been entirely happy with this explanation.
The idea of Onesimus leaving Colossae, running all the way to Rome, and then bumping into Paul, who is in prison there, just seems a little bit too coincidental. Strange coincidences do happen and God can make the strangest happen, but this still feels a bit unreal. It is for this reason that some scholars have suggested that the imprisonment was in Ephesus, which is much nearer to Colossae than is Rome. The problem is that we don’t know for sure that Paul was imprisoned in Ephesus and, in any case, it still seems a bit of a coincidence.
In my last sermon three years ago, I still stuck with the 'runaway slave' idea. The main point is, after all, about him being a slave and Philemon being a master and the difference Christ makes. How Onesimus came to meet Paul is not a crucial issue. Re-reading Philemon this time around, however, I became conscious just how much of a guess it is that Onesimus was a 'runaway slave'. So I decided to spend some time on the commentaries seeing what light, if any, they could shed.
I was quite encouraged that while most do still take the ‘runaway slave’ position, one major commentary, at least, does not, namely that by J D G Dunn. Dunn suggests that Onesimus might have deliberately sought Paul’s help, knowing that Paul was a friend of his master. Perhaps Onesimus had done something wrong and was worried about the consequences, perhaps it was just an argument. Whatever, I think this explanation makes better sense of the letter, wherever it was that Paul was in prison.
As I say, it is not a crucial issue, but what it does demonstrate to me is how much we take for granted when we study the Bible and how easy it is to accept something as true when the Biblical evidence for it is actually quite little. I believe that it is vital to take seriously what the Bible says, but it is just as important to make sure that it is what the Bible says and not just our assumptions about what it says. It also underlines how much we don’t know and that ought to lead us to greater humility when we express our opinions.
Tomorrow I am preaching on Luke 14 and Philemon, the set readings for the day. I couldn’t quite believe that Philemon had come up in the lectionary again as it feels like only a few weeks ago that it last came up and I preached on it! I dug out the sermon and found that it was three years ago - as it would be. Quite scary! As someone quoted to me recently: ‘The days are long, but the years are short’!
The standard understanding of Philemon is that it was written by Paul when he was in prison in Rome. Onesimus, a runaway slave, who belongs, coincidentally, to a friend of Paul’s, meets up with Paul and is converted. The letter to Philemon is Paul writing to his friend on behalf of his convert seeking mercy for him.
I have never been entirely happy with this explanation.
The idea of Onesimus leaving Colossae, running all the way to Rome, and then bumping into Paul, who is in prison there, just seems a little bit too coincidental. Strange coincidences do happen and God can make the strangest happen, but this still feels a bit unreal. It is for this reason that some scholars have suggested that the imprisonment was in Ephesus, which is much nearer to Colossae than is Rome. The problem is that we don’t know for sure that Paul was imprisoned in Ephesus and, in any case, it still seems a bit of a coincidence.
In my last sermon three years ago, I still stuck with the 'runaway slave' idea. The main point is, after all, about him being a slave and Philemon being a master and the difference Christ makes. How Onesimus came to meet Paul is not a crucial issue. Re-reading Philemon this time around, however, I became conscious just how much of a guess it is that Onesimus was a 'runaway slave'. So I decided to spend some time on the commentaries seeing what light, if any, they could shed.
I was quite encouraged that while most do still take the ‘runaway slave’ position, one major commentary, at least, does not, namely that by J D G Dunn. Dunn suggests that Onesimus might have deliberately sought Paul’s help, knowing that Paul was a friend of his master. Perhaps Onesimus had done something wrong and was worried about the consequences, perhaps it was just an argument. Whatever, I think this explanation makes better sense of the letter, wherever it was that Paul was in prison.
As I say, it is not a crucial issue, but what it does demonstrate to me is how much we take for granted when we study the Bible and how easy it is to accept something as true when the Biblical evidence for it is actually quite little. I believe that it is vital to take seriously what the Bible says, but it is just as important to make sure that it is what the Bible says and not just our assumptions about what it says. It also underlines how much we don’t know and that ought to lead us to greater humility when we express our opinions.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
A Revelation
The lectures went extremely well!
Ben lectured on Friday and Saturday evenings, then on Monday afternoon and evening. The auditorium was full for all of them. I wasn't surprised it was full for the evening sessions, but I was surprised and impressed that so many turned out for the Monday afternoon, which must have meant that people took time off work. The level of commitment and enthusiasm of those who turned up was also impressive with a queue before the doors opened half an hour before the session began.
Ben certainly did not disappoint them. His lectures were lively, stimulating, informative, and thoughtful. He didn't dodge the controversial issues, such as the 'Rapture' and the Left Behind books, but tackled them with grace and humour.
Congratulations to the organizers for having the vision to invite Ben and arrange such an event. They even arranged for Ben's commentary on Revelation to be translated and published in Chinese - very exciting. Coming back home on the train last night there were people standing in the subway and sitting on the train reading his commentary. Now that's something you don't often see!
Ben was with us at Christ Church for our morning service on Sunday and preached on Christ the Trailblazer and Finisher of Faith. We were honoured to have him and again benefited greatly from an inspiring sermon.
Given everything else that was going on, I wouldn't exactly describe it as a relaxing weekend. It was though certainly very profitable spiritually and stimualting. I was very sorry when the series came to an end. I have been going back over some of the references that Ben gave in his talks. Any talk that sends you back to the Bible and makes you think again is doing what it should!
Pray for Ben in his ministry. The Church needs more people like him.
The lectures went extremely well!
Ben lectured on Friday and Saturday evenings, then on Monday afternoon and evening. The auditorium was full for all of them. I wasn't surprised it was full for the evening sessions, but I was surprised and impressed that so many turned out for the Monday afternoon, which must have meant that people took time off work. The level of commitment and enthusiasm of those who turned up was also impressive with a queue before the doors opened half an hour before the session began.
Ben certainly did not disappoint them. His lectures were lively, stimulating, informative, and thoughtful. He didn't dodge the controversial issues, such as the 'Rapture' and the Left Behind books, but tackled them with grace and humour.
Congratulations to the organizers for having the vision to invite Ben and arrange such an event. They even arranged for Ben's commentary on Revelation to be translated and published in Chinese - very exciting. Coming back home on the train last night there were people standing in the subway and sitting on the train reading his commentary. Now that's something you don't often see!
Ben was with us at Christ Church for our morning service on Sunday and preached on Christ the Trailblazer and Finisher of Faith. We were honoured to have him and again benefited greatly from an inspiring sermon.
Given everything else that was going on, I wouldn't exactly describe it as a relaxing weekend. It was though certainly very profitable spiritually and stimualting. I was very sorry when the series came to an end. I have been going back over some of the references that Ben gave in his talks. Any talk that sends you back to the Bible and makes you think again is doing what it should!
Pray for Ben in his ministry. The Church needs more people like him.
Friday, August 31, 2007
It's Friday!
I am just getting ready for what is going to be a busy, but exciting weekend. Dr Ben Witherington, who many of you will know from his books, is in Hong Kong to give a series of Bible lectures on the book of Revelation. They start tonight. I am very honoured that Ben has agreed to preach here at Christ Church on Sunday on a passage from Hebrews. We hope that you will be able to hear the sermon on the Church web-site as usual.
I am a big Ben fan and have been using his commentaries especially for some years now. I always turn to his commentary on a book of the New Testament if I am studying a passage or preparing one for a sermon. Ben has written a commentary on nearly every book of the New Testament and intends eventually to cover them all. I think his commentary on Acts remains my favourite, although his recent one on St Matthew looks interesting and innovative. St Matthew is the set Gospel for the next liturgical year, year A, in the lectionary cycle so it is going to be getting quite a bit of use.
It just so happens that it is also the weekend before the start of the new academic year, and we have a series of parents' meetings that I am involved in - that and a whole lot more! So a weekend of contrasts.
The school meetings, of course, take place against the background of the events of the summer. The teacher concerned has resigned from the School, which was the honourable thing to do, although I was surprised when they did. The teacher has not yet been charged and we are braced for a lot of publicity if and when they are. Please let it not be this weekend!
Have a good weekend and I'll let you know how the lectures go!
I am just getting ready for what is going to be a busy, but exciting weekend. Dr Ben Witherington, who many of you will know from his books, is in Hong Kong to give a series of Bible lectures on the book of Revelation. They start tonight. I am very honoured that Ben has agreed to preach here at Christ Church on Sunday on a passage from Hebrews. We hope that you will be able to hear the sermon on the Church web-site as usual.
I am a big Ben fan and have been using his commentaries especially for some years now. I always turn to his commentary on a book of the New Testament if I am studying a passage or preparing one for a sermon. Ben has written a commentary on nearly every book of the New Testament and intends eventually to cover them all. I think his commentary on Acts remains my favourite, although his recent one on St Matthew looks interesting and innovative. St Matthew is the set Gospel for the next liturgical year, year A, in the lectionary cycle so it is going to be getting quite a bit of use.
It just so happens that it is also the weekend before the start of the new academic year, and we have a series of parents' meetings that I am involved in - that and a whole lot more! So a weekend of contrasts.
The school meetings, of course, take place against the background of the events of the summer. The teacher concerned has resigned from the School, which was the honourable thing to do, although I was surprised when they did. The teacher has not yet been charged and we are braced for a lot of publicity if and when they are. Please let it not be this weekend!
Have a good weekend and I'll let you know how the lectures go!
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Last of the Summer Wine
Well, the summer season is now drawing to a close - whatever the weather may be doing. It's a bit crazy here as all the shops are stocking European winter fashions including leather boots and coats and that despite a temperature in the high 30s. That's fashion for you.
I imagine it is the same for many of you, this time of year is a real deluge with everything starting up after the summer break. For me, being on my own, with the several schools that I am involved with, it can be a bit overwhelming. I am trying very hard to be well-planned and prepared and am working on the calendar for the coming (academic) year.
Did you know that Easter can't occur earlier than March 22 or later than April 25? This means that Easter, falling as it does on March 23 next year, is one of the earliest. In fact, it is the earliest I can remember it being and it won't be as early for many more years. I think actually I prefer it when Easter is a bit later! Because we have a big break for Chinese New Year, it means that a lot of events are scheduled for this term as next term will be a bit hit and miss. No sooner than we are back after Christmas and people will be getting ready for CNY. No sooner than we are back after CNY and we will be getting ready for Easter!
No wonder then that this term looks like being one event or meeting after another. Nothing to be done about that, but it does make it hard to do anything new or different. It's more a case of hanging on for the rollercoaster ride and hoping you don't fall off! The good thing is that it will soon be Christmas - my favourite time of the year. I reckon it's just 117 days to Christmas! How long before the shops start stocking Christmas goods, I wonder. Please remember to buy real Christmas Cards this Christmas. Apart from anything else it does help the charities who benefit from them.
Anyway, if you are getting ready to go back to school, in whatever capacity, or are preparing start up after the summer, then I hope that all goes well and that the year ahead is a good one!
Well, the summer season is now drawing to a close - whatever the weather may be doing. It's a bit crazy here as all the shops are stocking European winter fashions including leather boots and coats and that despite a temperature in the high 30s. That's fashion for you.
I imagine it is the same for many of you, this time of year is a real deluge with everything starting up after the summer break. For me, being on my own, with the several schools that I am involved with, it can be a bit overwhelming. I am trying very hard to be well-planned and prepared and am working on the calendar for the coming (academic) year.
Did you know that Easter can't occur earlier than March 22 or later than April 25? This means that Easter, falling as it does on March 23 next year, is one of the earliest. In fact, it is the earliest I can remember it being and it won't be as early for many more years. I think actually I prefer it when Easter is a bit later! Because we have a big break for Chinese New Year, it means that a lot of events are scheduled for this term as next term will be a bit hit and miss. No sooner than we are back after Christmas and people will be getting ready for CNY. No sooner than we are back after CNY and we will be getting ready for Easter!
No wonder then that this term looks like being one event or meeting after another. Nothing to be done about that, but it does make it hard to do anything new or different. It's more a case of hanging on for the rollercoaster ride and hoping you don't fall off! The good thing is that it will soon be Christmas - my favourite time of the year. I reckon it's just 117 days to Christmas! How long before the shops start stocking Christmas goods, I wonder. Please remember to buy real Christmas Cards this Christmas. Apart from anything else it does help the charities who benefit from them.
Anyway, if you are getting ready to go back to school, in whatever capacity, or are preparing start up after the summer, then I hope that all goes well and that the year ahead is a good one!
Monday, August 27, 2007
Then and Now
Somerset Maugham begins the fourth Volume of his collected short stories with this preface:
Preface
In this final volume I have placed the rest of my stories the scene of which is set in Malaya. They were written long before the Second World War and I should tell the reader that the sort of life with which they deal no longer exists. When I first visited those countries the lives the white men and their wives led there differed but little from what they had been twenty-five years before. They got home leave once in five years. They had besides a few weeks leave every year. If they lived where the climate was exhausting they sought the fresh air of some hill- station not too far away; if, like some of the government servants, they lived where they might not see another white man for weeks on end, they went to Singapore so that they might consort for a time with their kind. The Times when it arrived at a station up-country, in Borneo for instance, was six weeks old, and they were lucky if they received the Singapore paper in a fortnight.
Aviation has changed all that. Even before the war people who could afford it were able to spend even their short leave at home. Papers, illustrated weeklies, magazines reached them fresh from the press. In the old days Sarawak, say, or Selangor were where they expected to spend their lives till it was time for them to retire on a pension; England was very far away and when at long intervals they went back was increasingly strange to them; their real home, their intimate friends, were in the land in which the better part of their lives was spent. But with the rapidity of communication it remained an alien land, a temporary rather than a permanent habitation, which circumstances obliged them for a spell to occupy; it was a longish halt in a life that had its roots in the Sussex downs or on the moors of Yorkshire. Their ties with the homeland, which before had insensibly loosened and sometimes broke asunder, remained fast. England, so to speak, was round the corner. They no longer felt cut off. It changed their whole outlook.
The countries of which I wrote were then at peace. It may be that some of those peoples, Malays, Dyaks, Chinese, were restive under the British rule, but there was no outward sign of it. The British gave them justice, provided them with hospitals and schools, and encouraged their industries. There was no more crime than anywhere else. An unarmed man could wander through the length of the Federated Malay States in perfect safety. The only real trouble was the low price of rubber.
(W Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories, Volume Four)
I am a big fan of Somerset Maugham. I have always loved his stories and since coming out here have liked them even more. So many are set in this part of the world. Living as I do now, as an expatriate, I am interested in how expats in the past have lived. What he writes here in this preface is true now only more so. Aviation, so to speak, has taken off even more in recent years. There are many direct flights from Hong Kong to London each day, all full. Then there is the telephone and the internet and all the other means of mass communication.
During my recent holiday home to visit family the School situation exploded. I was able to talk with everyone I needed to on my mobile standing in a forest in Scotland and deal with letters, read reports, answer the Press, etc, etc, all from hotel room as if I was in my study back here. The time difference was a little inconvenient, and it was not how I would have chosen to spend the holiday, but geographical distance made little difference.
It’s the same now I am back. I can phone family for less than it used to cost me to phone from Scotland and email is always there. I am a child of this global village no less than anyone else, but reading these stories of an age now gone does make me wonder if we are any happier and fulfilled. There is a charm about the life they lived. It was slower, but I wonder how much more we achieve with all our rushing around and constant communications.
One thing is for sure though, it’s not going to get any slower any time soon!
Somerset Maugham begins the fourth Volume of his collected short stories with this preface:
Preface
In this final volume I have placed the rest of my stories the scene of which is set in Malaya. They were written long before the Second World War and I should tell the reader that the sort of life with which they deal no longer exists. When I first visited those countries the lives the white men and their wives led there differed but little from what they had been twenty-five years before. They got home leave once in five years. They had besides a few weeks leave every year. If they lived where the climate was exhausting they sought the fresh air of some hill- station not too far away; if, like some of the government servants, they lived where they might not see another white man for weeks on end, they went to Singapore so that they might consort for a time with their kind. The Times when it arrived at a station up-country, in Borneo for instance, was six weeks old, and they were lucky if they received the Singapore paper in a fortnight.
Aviation has changed all that. Even before the war people who could afford it were able to spend even their short leave at home. Papers, illustrated weeklies, magazines reached them fresh from the press. In the old days Sarawak, say, or Selangor were where they expected to spend their lives till it was time for them to retire on a pension; England was very far away and when at long intervals they went back was increasingly strange to them; their real home, their intimate friends, were in the land in which the better part of their lives was spent. But with the rapidity of communication it remained an alien land, a temporary rather than a permanent habitation, which circumstances obliged them for a spell to occupy; it was a longish halt in a life that had its roots in the Sussex downs or on the moors of Yorkshire. Their ties with the homeland, which before had insensibly loosened and sometimes broke asunder, remained fast. England, so to speak, was round the corner. They no longer felt cut off. It changed their whole outlook.
The countries of which I wrote were then at peace. It may be that some of those peoples, Malays, Dyaks, Chinese, were restive under the British rule, but there was no outward sign of it. The British gave them justice, provided them with hospitals and schools, and encouraged their industries. There was no more crime than anywhere else. An unarmed man could wander through the length of the Federated Malay States in perfect safety. The only real trouble was the low price of rubber.
(W Somerset Maugham, Collected Short Stories, Volume Four)
I am a big fan of Somerset Maugham. I have always loved his stories and since coming out here have liked them even more. So many are set in this part of the world. Living as I do now, as an expatriate, I am interested in how expats in the past have lived. What he writes here in this preface is true now only more so. Aviation, so to speak, has taken off even more in recent years. There are many direct flights from Hong Kong to London each day, all full. Then there is the telephone and the internet and all the other means of mass communication.
During my recent holiday home to visit family the School situation exploded. I was able to talk with everyone I needed to on my mobile standing in a forest in Scotland and deal with letters, read reports, answer the Press, etc, etc, all from hotel room as if I was in my study back here. The time difference was a little inconvenient, and it was not how I would have chosen to spend the holiday, but geographical distance made little difference.
It’s the same now I am back. I can phone family for less than it used to cost me to phone from Scotland and email is always there. I am a child of this global village no less than anyone else, but reading these stories of an age now gone does make me wonder if we are any happier and fulfilled. There is a charm about the life they lived. It was slower, but I wonder how much more we achieve with all our rushing around and constant communications.
One thing is for sure though, it’s not going to get any slower any time soon!
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Back to Normal
I am very sorry to have gone so quiet recently. It was not what I intended. The case I mentioned in the last post rumbles on and has been very time and energy hungry. The teacher at the centre of the case has not been charged yet so I don't have anything else to report at this stage.
Anyway, I hope you are all having a good Summer. It is very wet here in Hong Kong and we have just had a typhoon pass over. Thankfully, it did not do too much damage.
I will try to get back to normal over the next few days!
I am very sorry to have gone so quiet recently. It was not what I intended. The case I mentioned in the last post rumbles on and has been very time and energy hungry. The teacher at the centre of the case has not been charged yet so I don't have anything else to report at this stage.
Anyway, I hope you are all having a good Summer. It is very wet here in Hong Kong and we have just had a typhoon pass over. Thankfully, it did not do too much damage.
I will try to get back to normal over the next few days!
Thursday, July 26, 2007
School Holidays?
I recently went on holiday. Well that was meant to be the idea. No sooner had I left Hong Kong than I was phoned about one of the Schools of which I am the Supervisor. Since then I have been on the phone constantly and, if not the phone, then email. For legal reasons, I have to be careful what I say even here. However, this report from the agency WE reported the case to and one of the press reports about it will give you the idea. They are both substantially correct.
ICAC Press Release
21/07/07
Primary school teacher caught red-handed by ICAC for alleged bribery
A teacher of a primary school, who is also involved in admission procedures, was caught red-handed by the ICAC yesterday (Friday) after she took a bribe of $70,000 from a parent, allegedly for facilitating the admission of the latter's daughter to the school.
The ICAC commenced an investigation after receiving a corruption report.
Inquiries revealed that the teacher had allegedly solicited $30,000 from the parent, claiming that it would strengthen his daughter's application for enrolment to the school.
Upon the teacher's solicitation, the parent had already made a cash payment of $30,000 to her on Wednesday (July 18).
Investigation also revealed that the teacher had allegedly further solicited $70,000 from the parent for the same reason.
An ambush operation was mounted by ICAC officers yesterday inside a restaurant in a shopping mall in Kowloon Tong. The teacher was arrested after taking the $70,000 "bait money" from the parent.
Subsequent ICAC investigation revealed that the teacher had allegedly approached three other parents and solicited advantages from them, claiming that she could provide assistance in admitting their children to the school.
ICAC inquiries showed that two of those parents had allegedly paid the teacher $20,000 and $580,000 respectively.
The management of the primary school concerned has rendered full assistance in the investigation.
An ICAC spokesman reminds that parents should be cautious when seeking to enroll their children in schools of their preference.
"Should parents come across solicitation of advantages for admission, they should come forward to report to the ICAC.
"Information will be treated in the strictest confidence," the spokesman says.
Press Report
(Click on the above to enlarge)
Once this story broke everything went completely mad. The press and TV camped outside the School, even though it is the summer vacation, and I received many requests for information, even though the matter is subject to legal proceedings. It is a real temptation to think you must react and do something. Plenty of people are clamouring for you to do just that.
It is hard to see the wood from the trees at times. In fact, it is all very simple really. A teacher has been arrested, allegedly for taking money to facilitate the entrance of children into the School. If guilty, she will be punished; if not, she will be acquitted. It is not for us or anyone else to pre-judge the legal process and there is nothing for us to say or do with respect to the case in question except to co-operate with the legal authorities.
There is, of course, plenty to do in terms of managing the fall-out from the case, but nothing much to do about the case itself. Convincing some people of this takes quite some time!
What, however, the case does raise is the question I keep raising and have discussed here, namely the culture around our Christian schools. Leaving this case aside for one moment, the only reason people are tempted to take bribes is because parents are willing to pay them and because we in the Church have cultivated a culture of social elitism. A Christian response I would suggest is, of course, to expose corruption, but it is also to challenge the culture which makes it possible.
This may mean Christian schools having to cater more in future for the poor than for the rich.
Anyway, the story is going to run and run whether I am on holiday or not. I will keep you informed as it develops and as much as I am able.
Please pray that I may have the wisdom I need to handle it properly.
I recently went on holiday. Well that was meant to be the idea. No sooner had I left Hong Kong than I was phoned about one of the Schools of which I am the Supervisor. Since then I have been on the phone constantly and, if not the phone, then email. For legal reasons, I have to be careful what I say even here. However, this report from the agency WE reported the case to and one of the press reports about it will give you the idea. They are both substantially correct.
ICAC Press Release
21/07/07
Primary school teacher caught red-handed by ICAC for alleged bribery
A teacher of a primary school, who is also involved in admission procedures, was caught red-handed by the ICAC yesterday (Friday) after she took a bribe of $70,000 from a parent, allegedly for facilitating the admission of the latter's daughter to the school.
The ICAC commenced an investigation after receiving a corruption report.
Inquiries revealed that the teacher had allegedly solicited $30,000 from the parent, claiming that it would strengthen his daughter's application for enrolment to the school.
Upon the teacher's solicitation, the parent had already made a cash payment of $30,000 to her on Wednesday (July 18).
Investigation also revealed that the teacher had allegedly further solicited $70,000 from the parent for the same reason.
An ambush operation was mounted by ICAC officers yesterday inside a restaurant in a shopping mall in Kowloon Tong. The teacher was arrested after taking the $70,000 "bait money" from the parent.
Subsequent ICAC investigation revealed that the teacher had allegedly approached three other parents and solicited advantages from them, claiming that she could provide assistance in admitting their children to the school.
ICAC inquiries showed that two of those parents had allegedly paid the teacher $20,000 and $580,000 respectively.
The management of the primary school concerned has rendered full assistance in the investigation.
An ICAC spokesman reminds that parents should be cautious when seeking to enroll their children in schools of their preference.
"Should parents come across solicitation of advantages for admission, they should come forward to report to the ICAC.
"Information will be treated in the strictest confidence," the spokesman says.
Press Report
(Click on the above to enlarge)
Once this story broke everything went completely mad. The press and TV camped outside the School, even though it is the summer vacation, and I received many requests for information, even though the matter is subject to legal proceedings. It is a real temptation to think you must react and do something. Plenty of people are clamouring for you to do just that.
It is hard to see the wood from the trees at times. In fact, it is all very simple really. A teacher has been arrested, allegedly for taking money to facilitate the entrance of children into the School. If guilty, she will be punished; if not, she will be acquitted. It is not for us or anyone else to pre-judge the legal process and there is nothing for us to say or do with respect to the case in question except to co-operate with the legal authorities.
There is, of course, plenty to do in terms of managing the fall-out from the case, but nothing much to do about the case itself. Convincing some people of this takes quite some time!
What, however, the case does raise is the question I keep raising and have discussed here, namely the culture around our Christian schools. Leaving this case aside for one moment, the only reason people are tempted to take bribes is because parents are willing to pay them and because we in the Church have cultivated a culture of social elitism. A Christian response I would suggest is, of course, to expose corruption, but it is also to challenge the culture which makes it possible.
This may mean Christian schools having to cater more in future for the poor than for the rich.
Anyway, the story is going to run and run whether I am on holiday or not. I will keep you informed as it develops and as much as I am able.
Please pray that I may have the wisdom I need to handle it properly.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Summer
Well tonight I start a holiday. I can't remember feeling so much in need of one. I am truly exhausted. It has been a massive struggle finding cover for my services here while I am away and as always it is the busy people who are willing to help. I am extremely grateful to them. The end of the summer is always challenging, this year even more so, but now I am looking forward to a change of scenery and time spent with family. I will keep in touch as long as my internet access allows!
If you are planning a trip yourself, I hope it is a safe and happy one!
Well tonight I start a holiday. I can't remember feeling so much in need of one. I am truly exhausted. It has been a massive struggle finding cover for my services here while I am away and as always it is the busy people who are willing to help. I am extremely grateful to them. The end of the summer is always challenging, this year even more so, but now I am looking forward to a change of scenery and time spent with family. I will keep in touch as long as my internet access allows!
If you are planning a trip yourself, I hope it is a safe and happy one!
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