The Chosen

Insights, Others' stuff, Reviews
This entry is part 32 of 32 in the series About the Bible - Inerrancy, Infallibility, Inspiration and Revelation

Every so often – actually, no; it’s really quite rare, but let’s say occasionally – a really superb and thought-provoking TV or movie series comes along that really makes its watchers think about just Who Jesus was, and what He taught. The better programmes also examine the effect that Jesus had on those who met Him; those whom He healed, and why His enemies hated Him so much.

A great example of this was the series Messiah, which was first aired a few years ago. While not explicitly about Jesus, it was still brilliant and was highly instructive in so many ways. A multifaceted feast of fascinating stories, if you will[1].

Well, only last week, I discovered quite by accident[2] a superb, well I might say ‘new’ series, but actually it had its humble beginnings in 2017 and became more popular in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic.

It’s called The Chosen and it stars Jonathan Roumie as Jesus. And it’s absolutely brilliant.

Rather than do a 633 Squadron on you, where you have to wait until the end for the best bit[3], I will let you know, here and now, how you can get hold of this superb content for yourself and for anyone else you think might be blessed by it.

The first and main place to look is on the main website. The link is here, and the episodes can be streamed directly from that site free of charge. There’s really little else I need to do to help you on this, except maybe to let you know that there is a phone app too (search for it on your phone’s app store under The Chosen; the correct app has an icon showing a turquoise fish and two grey fishes) in which you can stream all the episodes, there’s a physical DVD set you can buy (I got mine on eBay) and there’s also a gift shop for both the UK and the USA.

And the entire series; the episodes themselves – they are all free of charge. Yowser.

So then, to whet your appetite for this brilliant project, here is my review, such as it is.

One of the things I noticed quite early on when reading about Jesus in the Bible, and reading other stories in the Bible too, is that they are not really written like ‘proper’ stories[4] Mainly, the texts are written as wisdom, stories, histories, personal letters and prophecy – which in terms of Hebrew prophecy, it’s written as poetry. The thing that is missing in most of not all of the Bible texts – and that makes them very different from ‘stories’ as we know them today – is that of description. There are no passages that say anything like, ‘Jesus came out of His tent and stretched with a huge smile on His face’, or ‘The group sat on the shores of Lake Galilee; the tops of distant mountains were glowing in the late evening light’. There’s very little descriptive text at all, some few exceptions being things like where someone ‘went away rejoicing’ (Acts 8:39); or the rich young ruler who ‘went away sad’ (Matt 19:22). Or even for Jesus, where you’re given a tiny glimpse into His heart when He was ‘full of joy in the Holy Spirit’ (Luke 10:21). 

In some ways, that’s understandable, because most of the Biblical texts are not written to be read and ‘enjoyed’ in such a way as the reader is actually placed mentally into the situations depicted, as they are in modern novels. How many times have you read a really good book and, when you ‘come up’ from being ‘in’ the book, you might have experienced a momentary disorientation as you come back in the ‘real world’? Well there’s none of that in the Bible. It’s not a compendium that is intended for ‘escapism'[5] Even Jesus Himself is not properly-described; not really, anyway[6]. Although He was described as wearing brilliantly-shining garments during the Transfiguration (Matt 17:1-8, Mark 9:2-13, Luke 9:28-36), even then, this was only in the company of His best friends, and only on the one recorded occasion at any rate – and you can guarantee that He ‘masked’ the glowing stuff before they came down off the mountain! Certainly, if Jesus really had routinely worn brilliantly white shining garments as a matter of course, He definitely wouldn’t have gone around those sporting high-vis threads in public. Nor would He have got away with having a ‘sharp, double-edged sword coming out of His mouth’ (Rev 1:16); the Romans would have arrested Him immediately for sure 🤣. So, we don’t even know what Jesus actually looked like; not from the Bible, anyway. But the real lack of it is that, although Christianity says that Jesus was both God and Human, in some ways the human side of His character is not really all that well-portrayed in the Bible. It never says that He laughs, apart from (you would imagine, anyway) that bit where He was ‘full of joy in the Holy Spirit’. He never hugs anyone; He eats and drinks but the ‘partying’ side of His character, which was so frowned-upon by the Religious elite of His day, can only be inferred from their reaction to it, for example in Luke 7:13, where Jesus’s reply to them is, “The Son of Man has come eating and drinking; and you say, “Behold, a gluttonous man, and a drunkard, a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners!”  He wouldn’t have had to say that to them unless they were complaining about His behaviour, either openly or secretly in their hearts[7].

For this reason, depictions in audio and visual media, such as plays, movies, screenplays, podcasts and radio programs are really useful because they can bring the stories to life like mere reading – of a categorically non-descriptive text like the Bible – can never do. These media are of course a feature of modern society; they didn’t have things like that in the past, at least not before the invention of moving pictures and then cinema.

And so, when a really good Jesus series comes out, it’s time to – once again – see how different scriptwriters and such interpret His life, His teachings and His actions. 

The Chosen is such a series. I do not make this comparison lightly – for this next thing changed my life – but a quarter of a century ago, the New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson created the stunning, authentic and beyond-epic movie rendition of J. R. R. Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings‘. Never before, in my experience, had anyone created such a masterpiece in terms of bringing to life a book that I love so much. Granted, for a Tolkien nerd like me, I was just a little bit nonplussed by some of the plot differences, but the visualisations of the places, characters and story that I knew and loved so well were depicted so much better than I ever imagined anyone could ever do, and yet they were exactly as I imagined them – over the fifty years since I first read the books. Words can’t describe.

In the same way, The Chosen depicts the places, the characters, the miracles, the background – in short, everything in the Gospels – in just the way I’d imagined it all, and then some. There are at present five or six seasons[8], each consisting of eight episodes. In The Chosen, Jesus indeed parties with people; He joins in celebrations like at the wedding in Cana (John 2:1-11); He doesn’t just sit in a corner looking miserable and disapproving, like the Religious would like to think He would have done. No, He’d have joined in. He’d have laughed, danced, drunk wine, hugged people, and even smiled. And He does so – a lot! – in The Chosen. This series is absolutely brilliant. I was going to say that I can’t describe it, but I feel I owe it to you, my dear reader, to attempt to do so!

One of the most striking things is the age of Jesus’s disciples. Jesus looks to be in His early-to-mid 30s or so, and, similarly, His disciples look to be in their late twenties or early thirties. If you do a Google Images search on Jesus’s disciples, you’ll get loads of pictures of hoary old men with long grey beards and turbans. But they wouldn’t have been like that at all. They’d have been young lads, and they are depicted as such in The Chosen. The series also ‘reads between the lines’ a little, in that there’s lots of dialogue between the characters that reflects the wonder of what they are witnessing. Like where Simon Peter says to Mary of Magdala, “Can you believe we are here to see this?”. The freshness and wonder of what Jesus was doing is really brilliantly expressed.

The characters are not fair-skinned, blue-eyed people, as portrayed in much Western artwork and movies depicting Bible stories. Think of the blue-eyed and very white British actor Robert Powell, who played Jesus in the 1978 movie, Jesus of Nazareth, and you’ll understand what I mean:

Robert Powell as Jesus

No, the Israeli characters are played by darker-skinned actors, and they also speak with a rather ersatz[9] ‘Middle Eastern’ accent. Except for the Roman characters, who speak with either an English or mildly American accent. Also really well done is the cosmopolitan nature of first-century Israel. Being at the ‘crossroads’ of many trade routes and central to the land-bridge between Africa, Europe and Asia, ancient Israel was a hotbed of differing cultures, peoples and races. This is why the story of the people who witnessed the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost tells this:

“Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. And when this sound [The disciples speaking ‘in tongues’] rang out, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking his own language. Astounded and amazed, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? How is it then that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism; Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!’ Astounded and perplexed, they asked one another, ‘What does this mean?’ “

(Acts 2:5-12)

And  The Chosen reflects this eclectic mix of peoples really very well; the story-immersion resulting from the authenticity really is remarkable.

There’s lots of really great characterisations, such as the earnest and honest seeking of Nicodemus (brilliantly played by veteran actor Erick Avari), the impulsive, fiery and indeed ‘laddish’ Simon Peter, played by the Israeli actor Shahar Isaac, and Paras Patel‘s superb rendition of the fussy, pernickety, and quite probably Autistic, Matthew the tax collector.

Many nice touches are included too. Simon’s wife[10] ‘Eden’ is a lovely, down-to-earth and honest lady who absolutely adores him, and their on-screen chemistry is a delight to see. The excellent portrayal of decent, conscientious and honest Pharisees like Shmuel, as opposed to the High Priest, Caiaphas, who seems to be in it (in the episodes I have seen so far, anyway) just for the prestige and power. Then there’s the Roman Praetor, Quintus, who is ambitious, scheming and cunning, but who has the redeeming quality of recognising Matthew’s ability to think unconventionally (which is why I think he’s supposed to be Autistic) – even if that recognition is only to be used to further his own ambitions[11]. Compare Quintus with the gritty, practical and down-to-Earth Roman Centurion Gaius who nevertheless recognises Jesus for Who He is. He’s the guy whose servant is ‘remotely’ healed by Jesus as per Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10. And Elizabeth Tabish‘s Mary of Magdala is simply superb.

There are also some great theological lessons in there too, which are presented in excellent ‘backstory’ scenes – in that they are not of themselves in the Bible, but are placed in the episodes to flesh out the story. A great example is this little excerpt where the Pharisee Nicodemus is tutoring his student Shmuel on God not being a static idea:

I could go on. But it’s far better for me to simply shut up and let you go and look at this, yes, phenomenon, for yourself. There are many clips from The Chosen on YouTube. And I would say that, without exception, every single one has, in its comments section, many testimonies of how The Chosen has brought to life the Gospel stories like nothing that people have ever seen. Granted, there’s a lot of clickbait out there too. But the overwhelming message of those testimonies is that God has touched people’s lives through this series like few recent things have. Jesus has become more real to people who just want more of Him in their lives. People’s faith; people’s personal walk with Jesus, has been transformed by this series.

Of course, there’s also been naysayers who complain that it is not exactly faithful to the Scriptures. People whose hearts are hardened to the amazing thing that this content really is. These people, like the legalists in Matthew 12:22-32, miss out on what Jesus is doing because they are so convinced that they are more right than He is. They miss the things that God is doing because they have their heads so far into their own preconceptions, and what they think the Messianic prophecies will look like when they actually happen. They therefore have neither the eyes to see, nor the ears to hear. Well, it’s their loss, and I have no sympathy for them – except that their precinceptions have likely come partly from others’ influence. God will hopefully give those people too the ears to hear, someday.

But, for myself, even though I already know Jesus personally, and have experienced Him in ways that maybe others haven’t, this series has strengthened even my faith. It’s lit up the Gospels like nothing else. It’s also taught me things about my own thinking that I won’t mention here – the Secret of the Lord and all that.

But I am absolutely sure that, if you watch these series, your faith will be strengthened too.

Peace and Grace to you!

 

Header Picture depicts actor Jonathan Roumie as Jesus of Nazareth

 

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 And please accept apologies for the partial and fully unintentional alliteration!
⇧2 At least, by accident from a human perspective; I am absolutely sure that this was one of those God-appointments. I feel as if I was totally set up… 😉
⇧3 Yes, the 633 Squadron syndrome is my cynical term for making people wait until the end for the best bit. It comes from the epic 1964 movie, 633 Squadron, in which the film builds up, through a series of stories, subplots and other adventures, to the climactic battle at the end. The ‘original’ Star Wars  movie – later called Star Wars Episode IV – A New Hope – was also structured like this, and was in fact inspired by 633 Squadron, as openly acknowledged by George Lucas, the creator of the Star Wars universe. Both films are excellent, of course, and I only use the term fondly!

The reason the term is cynical is because I see it as a very common tactic used by sports organisers, where they have a lot of build-up before the event itself; by rock concert organisers where they have supporting acts before the main act (which is of course actually good for the supporting act) and especially at churches. This might be for a communion service, where they make you wait until the end before you get your bread and wine. Or, especially, at a baptismal service where you have to sit through all the other stuff and people talking at you before you get to the fun bit at the end. It also happens on clickbait websites where they make you click through pages and pages of preamble before letting you read the news article or whatever that you really came for – if indeed you do actually get to it at all. I very quickly escape from those sites once I realise what’s happening. In short, it’s where they make you sit and wait – rather like being in a school detention – rather than getting around to the bit that everyone has really come to see. And that’s why I have put this as a footnote, so that it gives you the option of not reading it should you so wish!

⇧4 Specifically in the context of this essay, the Gospels, which are really the parts we’re concerned with here as The Chosen is a rendition of the Gospels. The Gospels are written more as a collection of anecdotes and are written as history; Jesus said this, Jesus did that. They are presented more as factual than entertainment.
⇧5 Which probably lends more credence to its authenticity, in fact, because there’s no mechanism in there for suspension of disbelief or immersive description, which in a fiction or propaganda document would be plentiful. There’d be lots of narrative content such as adverbs and adjectives – descriptive words – to draw the reader in. But there’s none of that; not really.
⇧6 Except, notably, at the beginning of the book of Revelation (Rev 1:13-16). The description there, of course, is in an apocalyptic vision and as such the writer is trying to describe the indescribable, and all that while in the apocalyptic mode – which means that it is written in a sort of code. Much of Revelation was – and is – never intended to be taken literally, and it would be a mistake to do so.
⇧7 Knowing the terminally self-righteous mindset, though, they would doubtless have been openly criticising His ‘sinfulness’ because that’s what self-righteous people did back then, and still do nowadays too.
⇧8 I think Season 6, the final season, is currently being filmed at the time of my writing this
⇧9 Although, for some of the actors, they actually are of Middle Eastern origin, and their accents are therefore likely genuine!
⇧10 As far as we know, from church tradition, Simon Peter was the only one of Jesus’s disciples who was married. We know that he was married, or at least possibly widowed, from the Gospel story told in all three of the Synoptic Gospels, in Mt 8:14-15, Mk 1:29-31 and Lk 4:38-39. In addition, 1Cor 9:5 mentions that other Apostles were also married, but it doesn’t say which ones. The reference in 1Cor9:5 refers to ‘Cephas’; this is Simon Peter.
⇧11 I love that quality in Quintus; how he recognises the special ability – call it a ‘superpower’ if you like – that Matthew has of being able to think like that. I too have that superpower and my boss in my last job knew about it, and invited me to participate in certain work meetings specifically because he knew I would bring a unique perspective to things because of that superpower. What a guy.

Attack of the Love Buts

Insights, Others' stuff
This entry is part 17 of 17 in the series The Problems of Evangelicalism

I’ve written quite a lot on the kind of people – I call them the ‘grey people’ – who try to make the Good News into Bad News; people who deny the fantastic, complete and brilliant salvation[1] that Jesus brought. You tell them why you are full of joy, and they promptly tell you why you shouldn’t be full of joy[2]. We’ve all met these people! And, to me at least, these people – and their negative attitudes – are very much a part of the Problems of Evangelicalism, and thus the article is part of my eponymous series[3].

Well, some six years ago now, the brilliant Keith Giles wrote an article closely related to that subject, and I share it here in its entirety with his kind and indeed enthusiastic permission. Although the article is six years old, it is still fully relevant and timely, as I’m sure you will agree!

Attack of the Love Buts

Try this experiment.

Step 1: Post “God is Love” on Facebook or Twitter.

Step 2: Wait 10 minutes.

Step 3: Read dozens of posts from Christians who are eager to remind you that God is love, BUT God is also a God of wrath.

This is my life. Almost every single week. I get responses from Christians – always Christians – who cannot allow a post like “God is love and all who live in love live in God, and God in them” rest on its own without adding the asterisk about God’s wrath.

Just last week I posted: “For those who say we focus on Love too much, please remember: God IS Love”.

The first comment was from a friend of mine, Leyna Nguyen, who is not a Christian. Her response was: “There are people who say this?!”

And around 5 comments below hers, the wave of wrath started to crash. 115 comments later, the post led us to statements like this one: “God loves and never stops but He also hates. Hate is not the opposite of love and God has shown He does both continuously.”

[sigh]

My friend Glenn Warner calls these people “Love Buts”, because when you remind them that God is love, they must respond by saying, “Yes, God is love, BUT…”

Why is this? Why are some Christians so insistent upon contradicting all the numerous verses in the New Testament that practically gush with the extravagant love of God?

I mean, this is just a small sample of the verses I’m thinking of when it comes to the love of God:

“For God so LOVED the world…” [John 3:16]

“The LOVE of God is higher, wider, longer and deeper than anyone can imagine”[Eph. 3:14-21]

“Nothing will ever separate us from the LOVE of God” [Rom. 8:31-39]
“The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through LOVE” [Gal. 5:6]

“LOVE is patient. LOVE is kind. LOVE keeps no record of wrongs.” [1 Cor. 13]

“God is LOVE.” [1 John 4:7-21]

Etc.

Do you know what you will never read following any of these pontifications on the amazing, unending, extravagant love of God?

You will never once read anything about the wrath of God to “balance” out this teaching.

You also never once read any statements about how you and I are unworthy of God’s love, or how we can’t earn or deserve God’s love.

Never. Not even once.

Instead, what we read is page after page, verse after verse of the fantastic, endless, transformative LOVE of God that is poured out on us night and day like a never-ending waterfall.

So, like it or not, we are loved.

What I don’t understand is why some Christians are so eager to shut down this love train. Why do they seem so afraid of a God whose character is love? Why are they threatened by a God who IS love?

Worse: Why are some Christians MORE afraid of a God of love than they are of a God of Wrath?

That’s what I legitimately do not comprehend.

Perhaps this is “Big Brother” syndrome? Like when the Prodigal Son returns home and the Father forgives him so completely and quickly and throws the party for him, it’s the older brother who can’t handle it. He hates the idea of this extravagant love being shared with his brother the “sinner” who deserves to sleep outside with the servants.

Maybe that’s the reason why some Christians today want to pencil into the margins of their Bibles a long list of wrathful God examples to balance out the overly-loving verses about a God who reconciles, forgives, embraces, restores, and loves His children no matter what they do.

What’s strange to me is that their New Testament scriptures don’t reflect their bias towards wrath, so they literally have to reach all the way back to the Old Testament – before Jesus came to us with the Gospel [and grace and truth] –  to find the pictures of a God they like better. Then they cut and paste that angry God’s face over the face of Jesus so they can sleep better at night; rest assured that they are loved and those other “sinners” are going to get what’s coming to them in the end.

But, I can’t buy that. I have to take the New Testament and the “Good News” of Jesus for what it is – Good News!

We are LOVED by a God who IS Love! We were created by this God of Love – in God’s image – so this means we are LOVED! Created by Love, in the image of LOVE, to BE Loved.

This is who we are.

Love is who God is.

Love is what God does.

Loved is who we will always be.

There is no “Love But…” verse in the New Testament. There is only love. Endless, boundless, unending, unrelenting, exceptional, amazing, fantastic, glorious love that we can only experience to believe and receive.

Hopefully one day those who call themselves followers of Jesus will relax and get comfortable with the idea of a God who really is love, inside and out. No “ifs”, “ands” or “buts” allowed.

Until then, I’ll just keep posting about the God who loves us more than life itself.

Won’t you join me?

 – Keith Giles, shared with his kind permission

Link to original article is here.

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 Salvation here referring to it in its broadest and most complete sense of the complete restoration of relationship with God; the wholeness, peace, healing and freedom that Jesus brought. Not the ‘being saved from Hell’ stuff, because I don’t believe in that theology, but even if Hell exists, then He’s saved us from that too.
⇧2 Jesus spoke of these people in Matthew 7:6, where He suggested that people “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces”. And that is exactly what they do. I will let you ponder the meaning and ramifications of such actions performed even by fellow believers!
⇧3 As usual, the idea of ‘the church is, at the same time, both the best, and the worst, witness for Christ’ is true more in the second case (the worst witness) than the first case. These people are a proper pain; funsuckers, emotional vampires and definitely not people you would want to have ‘encourage’ you. They feature quite heavily in the Biblical book of Job 😉

My Desert Island Discs!

Insights, Personal

I am an avid BBC Radio 4 listener.

While I do listen to the BBC news on there, it’s always with a hefty pinch of salt… however, there are also quite a few intellectual-type programmes on Radio 4; things that engage my mind and my thinking. There’s some very good humour too, and there’s also some terrible humour, of the kind where you need to be told it’s humour or you’d never have noticed[1]. In particular, I actually find ‘Woman’s Hour‘ to be really interesting and useful, for reasons which are probably too complex to go into here.

But there’s also some more personal-style programmes on there, and one of these is ‘Desert Island Discs‘, which I usually listen to on a Friday as I am cleaning out our rats’ cage.

The format is simple. Each episode features a ‘celebrity’ – referred to as ‘the castaway’ – who is about to be stranded on a desert island, and has to choose a list of eight musical tracks[2] which they consider to be important to them for one reason or another. The show is centred around an informal ‘interview’ with the castaway, where they introduce each track and give the reasons why they have selected it to accompany them to the desert island. A short excerpt from each track is then played, or maybe the entire piece if it is very short[3].

The interview with the castaway usually elicits anecdotes, attitudes and wisdom, in a highly-varied mix from castaway to castaway, which are usually fascinating to hear. In addition, at the end of the show, they are told that, in addition to the complete works of Shakespeare, and the Bible[4], they are also allowed to choose one other book and a ‘luxury item’ that they would take with them to their desert island. And then to choose which one song from their list they would simply have to have with them on the island.

As I listened today (it’s a Friday as I write this, so it’s clean cage day once more for the ratties!), I thought to myself, “I wonder which tracks I’d choose?”, closely followed by, “This might make a good blog post!” and so here I am, about to be marooned on a desert island[5] and having to think of eight tracks, a book, and a luxury item.

My tracks are not necessarily my favourite music. But they do have meaning for me, and that’s what I’ll share.

So, here we are. My Desert Island Discs. I will present the full version of each track, and my readers will maintain full control as they can always stop each track as they get bored!

Find somewhere comfy to sit; this is a long one!

All my life, I have been surrounded by music. My maternal Grandad, whom I never met (he died of cancer shortly before I was born), was an amateur operatic performer and musician. My Mum and Dad were part of a concert party that used to do performances in local theatres. And then my Dad was a professional musician for many years working hard doing the club circuits in the North of England. Back then, in the heyday of the Working Men’s Clubs, many well-known names in British entertainment cut their teeth on the stages of smoke-filled halls filled with ordinary, everyday working-class people who were simply leaving behind the grind of everyday life for a few hours and just having a good time. This scene was what was known as ‘Clubland’. Entertainment in Clubland was provided by snooker tables; darts; bingo; slot machines; the raffle; well-priced, top quality beer; and the ‘turn'[6]  the Artiste, aka a ‘club act’. The artiste would be a musician, a singer,  a comedian, a drag queen, or maybe a magician, maybe a ‘muscleman’; a man with a bodybuilder’s physique who would pose and show off his muscles as his ‘act’. Sometimes, several acts would be on each evening, so as to provide a range of different entertainments for the club membership. There was a very wide variety of such artistes, and my Dad’s thing was to sing and play guitar and the ukulele-banjo (banjolele). His stage name was ‘Johnny Douglas’ and, in my opinion, he was one of the best turns in Clubland, retiring from performing in 1986 when he opened his bodybuilding gym in Yeadon.

This is my Dad in 1978 on one of his publicity cards:

My Dad met and worked with many such artistes, including such well-known names as Frankie Vaughan, Des O’Connor, Joe Belcher, comedian Pete ‘Machine-Gun’ Wallis[7] (so named because of his rapid-fire delivery of his jokes; he was so fast that you only got chance to laugh at about one in every three because you’d be so busy laughing that you’d miss the next couple of gags…), Freddie Starr, Bernard Manning, Tessie O’Shea, Alan Randall, Les Dawson, and many others, all of whom started their careers on the Clubland circuit. For a flavour of the sort of thing that the working-mens’ clubs used to have going, check out this episode of ‘Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club’, which was a long-running TV series in the 70’s which gently lampooned – ‘gently’, because it was so realistic – the sort of thing I’m talking about. Anyway, I used to go with him often and watch him perform; although I was only young (and therefore couldn’t drink alcohol in the clubs, not that I wanted to anyway!) I was still allowed in because I was part of my Dad’s ‘road crew’. I used to assist him in plugging in his gear, sound checks and setting things up. And later, while I was learning to drive, I used to drive him to and from his shows. Much of my pre-test driving practice was carried out at night!

My Dad performed numbers[8] from two main genres: Wartime; and Country and Western (C&W). He sang songs from both the World Wars; veterans of both conflicts were still alive in those days, and his singing of nostalgic songs which used to remind them not only of their youth, but also of lost friends, and these songs were always welcome.Songs like ‘When the Poppies Bloom Again’, ‘We’ll Meet Again’ and similar. I particularly remember that October used to bring ‘El Alamein Reunions’, where soldiers from both sides of the Battle of El Alamein used to sing together, especially the song ‘Lili Marlene‘, which was the song that men on both sides of the lines used to sing at night. At these reunions, the Royal British Legion clubs, which were part of Clubland, used to host their former enemies with great enthusiasm; a marvellous thing to see.

The C&W stuff was a mix of Hank Snow, Johnny Cash, George Hamilton IV, Jim Reeves, and others. I particularly remember him doing a song with his singing partner, Kay, where they sang the classic (although not strictly C&W) ‘Something Stupid'[9]. ‘Kay Stevens and Johnny Douglas’ was the title for their double act when they were working together[10]. In addition, as part of his Second World War repertoire, he used to play a lot of songs by George Formby, including some really rather masterful ukulele playing. My Dad was really talented, but as far as I could tell, he didn’t want to become really famous because the Clubland scene already took him away from us as a family a lot. When he was fully professional, he used to have entire fortnights staying away from home, back for a couple of weeks, then away again staying in digs in remote parts of England. One of those places is the Webbington near Weston-Super-Mare, a place not too far from where I live now; back then it was called Webbington Country Club and he played there for a couple of fortnights a year over the course of several years. And this was before we had things like motorways, especially the M5 which actually runs past the Webbington. Anyway, back to George Formby. Formby songs were pivotal in bringing me into being a musician in my own right. I learned to play the ukulele at the age of seven, and Formby’s music ingrained, into my musical ear, a huge amount of practical and experiential knowledge of how music works, what sounds good and what doesn’t, and the structure and proper use of chords[11]. My stage debut – at the same age – was playing the theme tune for ‘Skippy the Bush Kangaroo‘, for which my proud Dad gave me the princely reward of half a crown – two shillings and sixpence – as extra pocket-money, which for a seven-year-old was an absolute fortune! I still have that uke in my cupboard and I trot it out now and then…

Which brings me rather nicely to my first track, George Formby’s ‘Bell-Bottom George’. I am using this song here to showcase Formby’s extraordinary talent on the instrument. While neither I nor my Dad had Formby’s talent, he was an inspiration to us both, and he’s one of the main reasons why I am a musician. This is the version from the Formby movie that it featured in, the eponymous ‘Bell Bottom George’, first screened in 1943. The ukulele solo at the end of the song is one of his best:

 

At around the same time, I was brought up on a diet of Gerry Anderson’s science fiction (SF) TV series ‘Thunderbirds‘, ‘Captain Scarlet‘ and ‘Stingray‘, and, later on, Anderson’s ‘Space: 1999‘, along with Irwin Allen’s ‘Land of the Giants‘, ‘Lost in Space‘, ‘The Time Tunnel‘, and ‘Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea‘. There were others too, along with movies such as Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey‘ – and above all, the Apollo moon landings[12]. And SF writers such as E. E. ‘Doc’ Smith, Clifford D. Simak and of course the inimitable Arthur C. Clarke. Also, the astronomer Patrick Moore and, again, Arthur C. Clarke, were decisive in instilling in me a love for astronomy in particular, and science in general. And not forgetting, of course, cosmologist Carl Sagan’s beautiful series ‘Cosmos’ – which came along later in my teens – and all the possibilities that it opened out for my eager and hungry mind.

The effect of these shows and authors was to give me a huge inspiration into technology, science and engineering. To have the confidence to believe in stretching the limits of the possible. To allow my mind and imagination to wander unfettered in the unknown lands of clever inventions of the future, and facts yet to be discovered. Is it any wonder that I became a professional scientist, working in both medical research and then pharmaceuticals?

As an aside, before his career as a musician, my Dad had been an engine fitter in the Royal Air Force, and was on active service in Kenya during the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya in the mid-1950’s. During his RAF career, he worked on the engines of such varied aircraft as the Avro Anson, Avro Lincoln, Vickers Varsity, Hawker Hunter, Gloster Javelin, DeHavilland Chipmunk, English Electric Canberra, Gloster Meteor and DeHavilland Vampire, and others too. He therefore taught me all I know about DIY, car mechanics, machinery, problem solving in those fields – all of this knowledge and experience culminating in me being able to help my friend Nigel build his Van’s RV-9A aeroplane in a hangar at Exeter International Airport, which is the aeroplane that we now fly and maintain as part of a small team of skilled engineers (there’s four of us). This gives us some of the cheapest flying it is possible to participate in, as we do all the servicing and maintenance ourselves.

Nigel’s Van’s RV-9A aircraft ‘G-CSAM’ under construction and nearing completion at Exeter Airport, March 2022

And, of course, it was only right and proper that my passion for all things aviation should stem from my Dad’s similar passion, including his RAF service. But I describe that passion enough in the rest of my blog, without having to expand upon it here!

Anyway, I digress again! These experiences during my formative years, of being exposed to the possibilities afforded by engineering, technology, and science, gave me my scientific and problem-solving mindset right from the get-go. In addition to being a man of faith, I am also a dyed-in-the-wool scientist. I am a competent engineer and mechanic, and a problem-solver. There are very few problems I can’t solve with the judicious application of my huge skill-set[13]. And it’s all down to the training from my Dad and the inspiration of those early SF TV series[14] and the aforementioned science authors.

But in addition to all of that, it is certain that no SF series was more influential in my life than Star Trek.

Following closely, in my timeline, after Lost in Space, Star Trek took me, and millions of others, to places that we could only dream of. And showcasing technologies that, yes, we could only imagine back then, but which have become real and even, in some cases, already obsolete[15] in my lifetime. Now, granted, we don’t yet have the Transporter Beam (Beam me up, Scotty!) nor the Warp Drive, to give us the ability to travel faster than light. But so many things that Star Trek first thought of are now commonplace in our everyday lives. Things like the ‘communicators’, which are what we now call a ‘smartphone’. Things like the ‘medical beds’, which we now call CT and MRI scanners. Even the fast-opening automatic doors from Star Trek now exist in everyday society. Star Trek was truly visionary in its scope; indeed only in the last decade has humanity discovered the awe-inspiring truth that most of the stars in the Galaxy have planets around them, something which Star Trek took for granted. My lifelong career in science is due to these powerful formative influences in my life; I love these things and they are part of me, part of my character. Star Trek and the Apollo space program especially instilled in me a near-fanatical interest in space exploration, space science, and astronomy. I am a member of The Planetary Society, and also my local astronomical society, because of this interest.

And so, that all brings me to my second track. Here are the opening credits from the original series of Star Trek. A beautiful melody with beautiful chords, and would you believe that there are even lyrics for it. Google it if you don’t believe me (“Beyond the rim of the star-light”)!

Earlier, I mentioned the author E. E. ‘Doc’ Smith. ‘Doc’ Smith wrote within a genre of SF called ‘Space Opera‘; this is essentially the classic, action-packed and rambunctious space adventure fiction involving loads of space battles and aliens, empires and villains. Star Trek, while indeed having ‘bad guys’ and things, and the occasional space battle, wasn’t really space opera as such; although it is listed as such in the link above, I’ve never really considered it to be so, it being more of a thinking-person’s adventure series telling stories which may, or may not, be linked as part of a wider, overreaching story arc. But ‘Doc’ Smith wrote excellent space opera, especially the ‘Lensman’ series, which tells the story of a vast, eons-spanning struggle of good versus evil. There’s everything in that series that a space opera fan could ever want: Galaxy-wide travel and civilizations; battles; super-powers; huge ships bristling with weapons; good heroes and evil villains – indeed, superheroes and supervillains! – evolving propulsion and weapons technology; faster-than-light travel and all sorts of other stuff. Smith also wrote the ‘Skylark‘ and the ‘Family D’Alembert‘ series; again, epic space opera novels that capture the imagination like nothing else.

And all that was simply excellent reading for a young man with a feverish imagination and no real cap on his concept of the limits of the possible.

But then came Star Wars. Here at last was the visual representation of the space opera. Sure, there’d been things like the comic strip ‘Flash Gordon’, from the 1930s, ‘Buck Rogers‘, and other similar stuff.

Star Wars, though, was different. Although it was at first just the one movie, first screened in 1977, there were also spin-off books, magazines and even some toys. I remember I bought my first lightsaber in about 1978! But in Star Wars, space opera was brought to life like nothing had ever done it before. And it has stood the test of time, too; like Star Trek, Star Wars has a worldwide cult following and, also like with Trek, words, phrases and concepts from the franchise have passed into common parlance. I would imagine that when I referred to a ‘lightsaber’ earlier in this paragraph, all of my readers would have known what I was talking about! Sometimes, in common ‘personality quizzes’, where you are asked things like ‘what’s your favourite colour?’ and similar, one of the questions is Star Trek  or Star Wars?, like it’s one or the other that you have to like. Similar to Indian vs. Chinese food. But in both cases, these are false dichotomies; there is a third option. Both Star Wars and Star Trek. Both Indian and Chinese. And, indeed, both science and faith. There is no need for any of these to be in conflict, as each part of a pair covers areas that the other doesn’t. And so it is for these things. So, Star Wars and Star Trek have both been massive influences on me both in terms of the possibilities of technological progress, and the related suspension of disbelief that is so important in faith matters as well as in imagining the limits of the possible. Both are inspirational in their own way.

I need to mention, as a (still relevant) aside here, that I have a special love for classical music. Being both a musician and an Autistic person, I find that I try to over-analyse music that isn’t classical. My mind tries to work it out, to figure out what that chord is, how to play it, what piano fingering to use, and that sort of thing. But because classical music is so a) outside my playing style, and b) beyond my abilities, I have the ability to just let classical music ‘be’, without having to dissect it in my mind. And this is a real relief; it’s really relaxing. Because of this love for classical music, I wanted to bring to my desert island a track that is classical in style. I thought of tracks like ‘Jupiter’, ‘Mars’ or ‘Uranus’, from Holst’s The Planets suite. Or maybe Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March Number 1, which always used to make my Mum cry. Or some Mozart, Grieg, Bach or Boelmann. All these are worthy, but I had to pick something. And so, I chose this piece, Imperial March, by the incomparable John Williams, because, like all the best movie scores, it is classical (in that it’s orchestral), and it represents the Space Opera which, together with the more cerebral Star Trek stuff, completes my love for science fiction and its consequent effects on my scientific mindset. A mindset which has carried me through a long career as a professional scientist and on into my retirement, in which I am still given opportunities to use my mind in a similar way. I really can’t complain!

Here we are, then. John Williams’s Imperial March, from Star Wars Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back:

 

Although I grew up, as I said, surrounded by music, I didn’t listen to music on the radio very often. I think it was because I had no control over the music that was played; I didn’t like a lot of the music in the ‘hit parade'[16] at the time. However, I did have some songs that I liked, and, if I liked a song enough, I would just go out and buy the single. A single, of course, being a 7″ vinyl disc which you played on your record player (a ‘turntable’ as they are known nowadays). I’d only be able to afford about one a month as there were other things I wanted to spend my pocket money on; things like Airfix model kits and paints in order to build up my huge collection of plastic model aircraft. But I did manage to buy the odd record every so often. Bands like ABBA were especially important to me back then, and I did indeed buy their albums… I used to go down into Bradford where I knew I could get the albums I wanted, at WH Smith in the city centre.

And I had other musical tastes too. On one occasion, when my Dad worked in Clubland, he was in ‘digs’ (temporary lodgings) in Spennymoor in northern England. My mother, my brother and I went up to visit him in his digs and, while there, we got playing table tennis with some guys from another band that were staying in the same digs. I learned many years later that the band were in fact the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), a band that had many hits in the British charts during the 70s and 80s, but who never had a Number One hit despite all that. This encounter was before they became famous! Anyway, entirely independent of those table tennis games!, I grew to really appreciate ELO’s music. Because they were semi-classical, I could just enjoy their music without analysing it. Their music was often played on jukeboxes in the indoor skateboard parks I skated at in 1978, during the ‘skateboard craze’ that was on at the time. And when I worked in my cousin’s car mechanic workshop in 1979, their music was on the radio a lot then, too. And so, my late teens were lived to a backdrop of ELO music, amongst other excellent music including ABBA and, of course, a lot of C&W music too – especially that of George Hamilton IV. On my parents’ record player, I used to flog[17] ELO, ABBA and George Hamilton IV numbers all day long. Of course, this meant that I was steeped in really good quality music. What with my Dad and his wartime and C&W stuff, and the bands mentioned above, how could I not then develop – on top of my already-existing gifting – a really good ear for what constitutes good music. And I must say that ABBA’s Benny Andersson was a huge influence on my piano style too, although it would take a very discerning ear to detect that as I actually don’t play anything like him.

So for my third track, then, I have chosen ELO’s Mr. Blue Sky, one of their most well-known, popular and indeed catchy creations. This song epitomises the musical backdrop, as I’ve said, to my teens, and reminds me of my youth spent trying to seriously injure myself doing crazy things on my skateboard – which I still have!

 

On the 12th of July, 1980 – the day I left school, in actual fact – my life was changed irrevocably by my encounter with my best Friend, Jesus. I cannot even begin to describe what my life became after I met Him, save to say that everything – everything – I am today is because of that encounter. When asked by those two rogue evangelists on my doorstep back in May what difference Jesus had made in my life[18], all I could do was laugh deeply from the wellspring of joy – ‘Jesus joy’! – in my heart. Words are simply not enough to describe it. I suppose that by reading some of my blog posts from over the nearly eleven years this blog has been in existence, you might be able to see some of what He’s done, but to try to express it in words, and especially in only a few words – is simply impossible. The Apostle John wrote in John 21:25 that “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written”. And that really is how it feels, to try to describe what He’s done with me, in me and, yes, through me over the decades. Next July, it will be 46 years since I met Him. Words cannot express enough….

And, neither can music. Yes, I was a worship leader and I led people into God’s tangible Presence on a regular basis. But even in that arena, the individual believer has to have their own, unique and individual, encounter with Him. I can’t do that for them; all I can do is to help to set them up so that they can do it more easily, if they choose. And it doesn’t need me to do it for them anyway; somehow, though, God seems to like corporate worship: “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity! … For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.” (Psalm 133:1, 3b) and so, it ‘works’. But still, my life has been shot through – like the letters in a stick of seaside rock – with the Songs of Heaven. They run through me like lifeblood. And while I know, and can play, literally hundreds of these songs, for me I have two favourites: When I look into Your Holiness and Great is the Lord. The stories of what those songs mean to me is related in this article, but of all the songs I know, When I look into Your Holiness is my absolute favourite. More than any other, that song sums up and epitomises the heart of worship for me. And so, unsurprisingly, I’ve chosen it as my fifth track:

 

One of the things that Jesus set up for me was for me to meet my precious wife, Fiona. Fiona was the perfect wife for me. I can’t even begin to describe why that was the case, save to say that we were soul-mates. Losing her to cancer just over nine years ago was the worst thing that has ever happened to me; much of this blog since then has been about her influence on me and how I have survived her loss.

Our life together had its ups and downs, yes, but over all that time we had eyes only for each other. We were absolutely besotted, I suppose the word is, and we were like teenagers all the time, so smitten were we! Alongside that, our love for Jesus guided our lives, and the reason why I now live in the south-west of England is solely because we followed His lead and moved here on what we believed was His guidance. And I would even be so bold as to say that the fruits of that, I suppose you could call it ‘obedience’, have remained with me to this day. This is where we were supposed to be; indeed this is where I am supposed to be, right here and right now. I have lived my life under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and no-one can ever take that away from me, nor convince me otherwise. This is the effect of living the life of faith; the life in the Spirit (Gal 5:16). I say this as a declaration of fact, not as a boast of any kind. This is the only way I know how to live, and it works.

Probably the song that helped me the most, when I lost Fiona, is the gorgeous My God and King (Eyes for Only You) by Shauna Chanda. I showcased it before in my series on Fiona, but here it is once more, as my sixth song. Soak in it; feel it. You will not be disappointed.

This next track has a bit of a different slope to it. In addition to listening to Radio 4, I also listen occasionally[19] to the station Classic FM. For reasons already explained, I love classical music and, while Classic FM do tend to play only the more popular, well-known, pieces, I do occasionally discover a real gem via that station. One such piece, for example, would be the duet from the Bizet opera The Pearl Fishers; look it up on YouTube if you’d like to hear it.

But the piece I am introducing now is one of the few classical pieces I can play; it was always a firm favourite with the audiences when I used to play it on the Blüthner grand at Coleton Fishacre when I used to volunteer there for the National Trust, some years ago.

Me at the Blüthner grand at Coleton Fishacre

It’s called The Ashokan Farewell, composed by Jay Ungar, and it was used as part of the soundtrack for the Ken Burns historical documentary ‘The Civil War‘ (1990). And I first heard it on Classic FM, although the version I heard was not this one I present today[20]. And when I heard it, I was so entranced by it that I had to write down the title (so I would remember it!), and then go and find it and buy it as soon as I got home. The Ashokan Farewell is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written, and its haunting melody has permeated my life since the first time I heard it. No Desert Island Discs collection compiled by me could ever be complete without it. This piece is so evocative and deep, yet so simple that I can play it; it is absolutely priceless.

This version is the definitive track from the Civil War soundtrack, performed by Jay Ungar and his wife, Molly Mason. Here we go:

 

For my final track, a shorter explanation will suffice. I mentioned earlier that ABBA were a huge influence on my musical style and tastes. Well, of all their songs, none means more to me than their beautiful Thank You for the Music. I have always loved this song, from the very first moment I heard it, and once I began using music in my Christian ministry, it became almost a personal worship song for me.

I mean it full well when I sing this song (apart from the line where Agnetha sings, “I am the girl with golden hair”; I’m a bloke and I have close-cropped dark hair 🤣🤣) because I really am thanking God for the music.

So, I say Thank You, [Lord], for the music, the songs I’m singing. Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing!

There is really no other song to finish with, that encapsulates it all so well: a lifetime of music and worship for which I am so deeply grateful. With this song, just as much as with any ‘proper’ worship song, hymn or chorus, I can express from the depths of my heart the gratitude for the gifting and for the lifelong lifeblood of music that flows through me. I am so thankful!

 

Well, that’s the songs. And so now to the other items I am ‘allowed’ to take on to my desert island with me. The Complete Works of Shakespeare, the Bible, a book of my choice, and a luxury item. And to select the one song that would mean the most.

Well, I have to say that The Complete Works of Shakespeare holds absolutely no attraction for me whatsoever. I really don’t understand what all the fuss is about Shakespeare; I don’t know, maybe this makes me some sort of infidel or something? But I think he’s vastly overrated and is indeed only held in such reverence because nobody wants to go against the general flow and say out loud how rubbish it all is. Emperor’s Clothes, and all that. I also think that most modern people, even those like me who have a classical education, feel the same – but they daren’t say it out loud. But I have no such inhibitions! No, if we’re going to have a ‘complete works of [some classical author]’, I’d much rather it was Jane Austen. She’s just brilliant. One of my favourite books ever is her classic Pride and Prejudice; I’ve read it at least eight times!

The Bible? Yeah, I can cope with that 😀

My book would have to be The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien. I have read it at least fourteen times, but I am sure I could cope with reading it a few more times if I was pressed 😉

And as for my luxury item, well that would simply have to be a piano. Preferably with something to stand it on so its feet don’t sink into the sand on the island 😉 And I would prefer it if it were my own piano, which I love and which was made in 1907 and used to belong to my maternal grandfather. Failing that, a nice Steinway grand would do…. 😉

And which would be the one song that I just couldn’t do without? Well, it’s a difficult choice, for sure. But probably the one I’d pick would be ‘When I Look into Your Holiness’. That, for me, encompasses nicely the main focus of my life, which is to be close to Jesus. ‘Nuff said.

So, there we have it. My Desert Island Discs. Thankfully, I am no kind of celebrity, so I am highly unlikely to be asked to present my track list on Radio 4, and I’d probably decline if I was so asked.

Because I really don’t like the limelight…. 🤣

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 The best humour on Radio 4 is to be found in the programmes ‘Just a Minute‘, hosted by the brilliant Sue Perkins, and ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t a clue!‘, presented by the wonderfully deadpan Jack Dee.
⇧2 Although it has to be said that some of the tracks might well be some sort of ‘rap music’, which phrase is, to me, an oxymoron. In addition, ‘rap’ is the only word in the English language that begins with a silent ‘C’. 🤣
⇧3 This is probably to keep the show flowing properly and maintain the listener’s interest
⇧4 Or other appropriate religious or philosophical work
⇧5 Which, being Autistic and very happy with my own company most of the time, I would find quite a relief!
⇧6 They’d ‘do a turn’, which meant to get up on stage and perform.
⇧7 In that video, he talks just like I used to talk, with that broad Yorkshire accent!  Unfortunately, my accent moderated somewhat once I moved south! But, regarding Pete, I saw him once, at Yeadon Constitutional Club, and I particularly remember his parting shot was “…and please do remember to take care on your way home, because ninety percent of people are caused by accidents…” – he was hilarious!
⇧8 That is, songs
⇧9 Which, while not really their own song, was made into a worldwide hit by Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra
⇧10 Kay had a beautiful singing voice, and she sang in a local choir in Yorkshire until only a few months before she died at the age of over 100.
⇧11 Chords are where several related notes are all played at the same time, to create a fuller sound. This concept is easier if it’s demonstrated rather than explained in writing!
⇧12 Moon landing deniers: Don’t even bother commenting or communicating. Your comment will vanish without trace, into the nonexistence that both it, and you, deserve.
⇧13 Yes, this is similar to another ‘judicious application of…’ saying. IYKYK!🤣
⇧14 The word ‘series’ is both the singular and the plural word for ‘series’, so I don’t call them ‘serieses’ or anything like that!
⇧15 Technology like the 3.5″ floppy disc drive, first seen as the ‘data card’ in Star Trek, but which has now of course passed into history in favour of the ‘thumb drive’.
⇧16 A probably British term for music that was popular at a given point in time.
⇧17 ‘Flog’ meaning to play a song repeatedly again and again ad nauseam.
⇧18 Why do some Christians always have to issue challenges to everything someone says?? It’s like they’re constantly in interrogation mode…
⇧19 Usually when Radio 4 has Gardeners’ Question Time or The Archers on 🤣😂
⇧20 The version I heard on that day was one played by the band of HM Royal Marines, with the violin solo by Capt. J R Perkins. Here it is.

Snacktime

Quotations, Insights, Others' stuff

A short collection of bite-sized quotations for your delectation. Bon appetit!

Anyone who gossips to you will also gossip about you. This is something I learned very early on in life. People have such empty lives if they have to fill it with drivel like that.
– Me

There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it.

– C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

If your intent was love, even if the [well-intentioned] action was not perceived as loving by your neighbor, your intention of love and goodwill is more powerful than the perceived failure. There is no wrongdoing in trying to do the right thing and falling short out of innocence or ignorance.
– Julie Ferewarda

“I’ve been searching, Eleanor. After all these years, believe me, I know the truth when I see it. Any faith that admires truth, that strives to know God, must be brave enough to accommodate the universe. I mean the real universe. All those light-years. All those worlds. I think of the scope of your universe, the opportunities it affords the Creator, and it takes my breath away. It’s much better than bottling Him up in one small world. I never liked the idea of Earth as God’s green footstool. It was too reassuring, like a children’s story . . . like a tranquilizer. But your universe has room enough, and time enough, for the kind of God I believe in”.
– Carl Sagan, Contact (pp. 362-363). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.

“…what do we do for what is considered “sin”?” [in other people – should we call it out?] – the answer to this begins, as the original post says, right in our own hearts. We have enough of our own problems to worry about without going out to judge others’…that’s simply not our job. As a dear friend of mine once told me, “If you have a problem with me, call me. If you don’t have my number, you don’t know me well enough to have a problem with me”. I think that’s real wisdom, and of course it works both ways. People who don’t know me well enough should not be judging me, and in return, I won’t judge others that I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t judge anyone. 1Cor 2:15 says that “…the spiritual man judges all things [note: things not people!] but he himself is subject to no human judgment”. So if no-one has the right to judge me, a man of the Spirit, then I too will judge no-one else; if I do, I may be inadvertently judging another person with the Spirit. Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do what is right? (Gen 18:25) I’ll leave that to Him; it’s really not my job, nor is it anyone else’s.
– Me

“…the conviction that truth doesn’t melt when it gets warm.”
– Rhonda

[The religious spirit] glories in (what he thinks is) a magnificent parting shot, whereas in actuality it is a damp squib in the face of vastly superior firepower.
– Me

Hurt people hurt people.
Healed people heal people.
Karma’s a bitch.
Karma’s an angel.
– Jeff

“If [human religion] is making a big noise in your life by putting pressure on you, telling you that you are under law, giving you conditions to meet, placing boundaries around your life, expecting you to meet certain requirements, any requirements, tying you into terms and conditions, controlling any aspect of your lifestyle via rules, commanding you to follow him, teaching you that your identity is determined by your level of conformity to his latest dictates, demanding unswerving loyalty to whatever he tells you to believe…..

“…..then you are unlikely to hear the still, small, ever so gentle voice”.
 – John Spinks

I Will Remember Him

Personal

I always like to acknowledge Remembrance Day by posting something on Facebook about the people who have given their lives in the service of their country. Usually, I post a list of names of people of many nations, both ‘enemy’ and ‘friendly’, who died on active service, to honour their sacrifices.

This year, though, I’m going to bring it a lot closer to home, as well as posting it here on my blog. This is Trooper Brett Hall, of 2nd Battalion, Royal Tank Regiment (2RTR). Brett was 21 years old when he died of wounds received in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. His Viking armoured vehicle was hit by an insurgent’s IED (Improvised Explosive Device, basically a home-made bomb or mine), and although he was evacuated to the UK for the very best medical treatment, he died of his wounds four days later on the 16th September, 2009.

The reason this story brings it home for me is because I knew Brett. He was from Dartmouth and was one of my son Richard’s friends at Dartmouth College. He came over to our house several times and was always a real character with an hilarious sense of humour. You can see it in his face in this portrait of him in his uniform.

It’s when something like this happens, to someone in uniform that you know, that brings it home just how precious is our freedom, and how much we owe to service men and women, both current and retired, when they enable that freedom on our behalf.

Every time I visit The Tank Museum at Bovington in Dorset, which is several times a year, I visit the RTR Memorial Wall, which is just outside the entrance to the Museum.

Brett’s name is inscribed there, and I go there to pay my respects.

Brett would have been almost 40 now, and remembering him is how I make these people’s sacrifices real to me.

I will remember him. And we will remember them.

‘White Christmas’

Personal, Humour, Reblogs

Here’s a re-do of an essay I published ten years ago, almost to the day. I’ve rewritten it but included much of the original prose in there; it’s supposed to be humorous (like I should have to explain that! 😂 ) but hey who knows.

Anyway, bah, humbug! It’s that time of year again!

Yes, it’s the time of year where the shops are full of Christmas displays, some of them works of absolute genius, some of them not quite so good. The time of year where we get bombarded with so much commercialism, adverts and just general Christmas tripe, that by the time it’s all over, many people are sick of it! 🙂 But still, the kids love it and despite all the trappings of the commercial Christmas, still somehow the magic of it has not quite disappeared, at least not for the young. And it’s always great to remember the greatest Gift of all, the Gift of Jesus ❤️

When I was about 14 years old, I had got so tired of hearing non-stop Christmas music in the stores that my cynical mind decided to make a game of it all. To me, at the time, the song that epitomised the whole Christmas selling-things-at-you environment was the song ‘White Christmas’, which was first performed by the legendary Bing Crosby on Christmas Day, 1941.

So I decided to make a game of it. And I’ve been playing that game now for nearly half a century!

I decided that, each year, I was going to see how close I could get to Christmas Day without hearing the song ‘White Christmas’ in a commercial environment.

For me, that would mean hearing it in pubs, shops, malls, Christmas fayres or on TV/radio adverts of any kind. Basically, anywhere where the song was being played in order to try and make people feel ‘Christmassy'[1] and therefore buy more stuff. Maybe it’s because I am a tight-assed Yorkshireman who keeps a solid fist wrapped around his dosh; I don’t know. And my family play it too.

But that’s the game: to see how close you can get to Christmas Day without hearing White Christmas!

I think the closest I have ever come to ‘winning’ was 23rd December, and that was in 1994. Bah, humbug, indeed!

You can make up your own rules as to what counts as a proper ‘hearing’ of the song. For example, what arrangement counts as having ‘heard’ the song? Does it have to be the Bing Crosby version, or would it still count if you heard the Michael Bolton version? What about if you just decide you want to listen to it on your iPod? What if someone learns that you are playing the game and just hums it at you ‘for a laugh’ and to troll your game? And what about the starting time for the game; what if you hear in in mid-July?

For me, I count any hearing of any version, in a commercial environment (including TV/radio ads), after 5th November – what we in the UK call ‘Bonfire Night’. For me, that’s the point at which I personally consider it fair game for the shops to put up their Christmas stuff (rather than late August as some idiots do) – so that’s when my White Christmas game begins!

Speaking of early Christmas selling-things-at-you, here is a photo taken this September!! in my local Morrisons:

I mean, what??? In September? It’s like when they put up the ‘Back to School’ displays in June or July, just as the kids are rejoicing in their upcoming six weeks’ holiday. ‘Back to school’; what already?? Just let them be kids, and don’t spoil their holidays! Commercialism certainly has a lot to answer for!

Of course, it will probably be impossible for someone working in a pub or shop to play this game. All Christmas CDs have a version of this song on them, so in those circumstances you’re stuffed. Sorry about that!

Don’t get me wrong, the song – in the original Bing arrangement – is absolutely gorgeous, full of incredible chord sequences and lovely dynamics. And I love it to bits. 

Interestingly, over the last few years, others too have invented a similar game, based on a different song. They call it ‘Whamageddon‘ and the idea is the same, except the song is Wham!’s 1984 song ‘Last Christmas’. You try to reach Christmas Day without having someone play ‘Last Christmas’ at you[2]. I love that; obviously others in this world are just as cynical about Christmas as I am!

But still the White Christmas game[3] is just a bit of fun; in my family and friends, those of us who play the game always confess to each other when/if we hear the song, and cheer on those who haven’t heard it yet. It’s interesting in that for me, I find it quite funny to see my reaction each time I hear the song for the first time each Christmas season. You know, when it’s ‘Game Over’. Sometimes I just grin wryly, sometimes I think, ‘Oh if only that queue had moved just a little quicker, and I could have been out of here!’ But whatever, my first thought is usually like ‘Ah well, that’s it for another year! Never mind….’

So then, are you in? Get to it! Good luck!

And then we’ll see you in January for the adverts about St. Valentine’s Day. But at least they don’t play a matching song at you!

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 Crikey I hate that word!! Again, bah humbug!
⇧2 However, the difference from the White Christmas game is that it only counts if you hear it between December 1st and December 24th, and it has to be the original Wham! version
⇧3 Or ‘Whamageddon’, if that’s more your thing. Or both; why not?

Tidbits

Quotations, Insights, Others' stuff

Another collection of bite-sized pieces of interest, wisdom and/or just sheer beautiful prose, from various places.

Dig in!

When his [legendary composer John Williams’s] longtime collaborator, the movie director Steven Spielberg, showed him Schindler’s List, the composer felt it would be too challenging to score. He said to Spielberg, ‘You need a better composer than I am for this film.’ Spielberg responded, ‘I know. But they’re all dead!’
– TV documentary on composer John Williams

[In response to a YouTube movie saying that ‘God is going to send great blessing soon!’] You don’t look all that happy that there’s a great blessing coming….. so hey let me share something with you: Today is the day of salvation! (2Cor 6:2) Today is the day that God has given you in which to enjoy all the fullness and blessing that He pours out on you every day; His mercies are new every morning! Why wait until tomorrow which, yes, will also be blessings, but not live for today’s blessings? Tomorrow will look after itself (Matt 6:34)!
– Me,

[Hannah Arendt, in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism] explained why totalitarians […] promote the incompetent: Totalitarianism in power invariably replaced all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty. Arendt also explained, in advance, the [totalitarian in question]’s extraordinary hostility to research, the extraordinary speed with which it is destroying [his country]’s scientific base: The consistent persecution of every higher form of intellectual activity by the new mass leaders springs from more than their natural resentment against everything they cannot understand. Total domination does not allow for free initiative in any field of life.
– Paul Krugman

Imagination is a deadly weapon; it pays to keep it sharp.
– Anon

It seemed he was there to teach, but not to learn…
– Me

Can we get it wrong if we follow the Spirit? Of course. And you don’t have to look very hard to see a few thousand years of people getting it wrong by following the Book, either.
– Keith Giles

…as everyone knows, appeasement only works until the bully decides it doesn’t
– Me

When some people talk about the gospel, you’d think that John 3:16 said: “God so hated the world that he killed his only Son.” Sometimes people say: “That picture is important—wrath and sin and hell and all the rest of it, and it’s because God loves us.” But simply adding the word “love” onto the end of that story can actually be even worse. It is like what abusers do when they say, “I love you so much”—it’s hideous.
– N.T. (‘Tom’) Wright

Tragically, they are often unaware of their own ignorance, with no one to correct them. While spreading misconceptions about fictional characters like Superman, Captain Spock, or Frodo Baggins is one thing, disseminating false ideas about God and doing so in His name carries far greater consequences. The fact some of these ideas are being preached from pulpits backed by a suit and tie, a bible college certificate, and theatrical lighting and amplification only further ratify and facilitate the spread of false doctrines. At the same time, it may explain why there are roughly 45,000 different Christian groups and denominations worldwide today.
– Eitan Bar, The “Gospel” of Divine Abuse: Redeeming the Gospel from Gruesome Popular Preaching of an Abusive and Violent God pp. 69-70. SHAMUS. Kindle Edition.

Regrettably, we live in a time where worship songs and social media exert greater influence on Christian theology and faith culture than the Bible itself.
– Eitan Bar  ibid,  97

That which cannot be earned by moral perfection, cannot be unearned by moral imperfection
– Dr. Michael Heiser

They fly wild, and they fly like a stroke of luck incarnate
– Katherine Rundell, ‘A Carnival of Animals: The Swift’, BBC Radio 4, 8th October, 2025.

‘What the Bible Says’ II

Insights, Reblogs
This entry is part 16 of 17 in the series The Problems of Evangelicalism

A little over five years ago, I wrote the piece ‘What the Bible says’, in which I describe the [what I feel is an] unhealthy reliance on the Bible by many, if not most, Evangelical Christians.

As part of my series on ‘The Problems of Evangelicalism‘, I was going to write a piece on just that subject, but that would have been superfluous given that I have already done so – and my views, and the truths the article describes, have not changed in the meantime.

However, I have had more ideas on the subject, and so, rather than just reblogging it, I have incorporated those ideas into the original essay, thereby producing what is an updated, revised and enhanced version. I have not differentiated these new comments in any way; they now form part of the new essay.

The particular ‘Problem with Evangelicalism’ described in the essay, then, is that of Evangelicalism having an overemphasis on the Bible instead of on Jesus, and the problems that this causes.

Here we go:

One of my online friends posted the other day this interesting little nugget:

“The Bible says.”

So what? What does Jesus say?

I can find Bible verses to support slavery and genocide. If someone comes at me with “The Bible says”, I say, who cares what the Bible says?

What does Jesus say?

And I have to say I fully agree with him.

So many times nowadays, I actually feel like saying to people, like, look mate, I actually don’t care ‘what the Bible says’, because a) what Jesus says is more important, b) it’s not a Rulebook anyway, and c) who’s to say what the Bible really ‘says’? 40,000+ denominations tells me that no-one really knows exactly ‘what the Bible says’ anyway!

It also got me thinking along other lines too.

You see, I’m also noticing that, in our efforts to show Fundamentalists that actually our ideas are ‘Biblical’ (in that, like most things, you can find justification for them in the Bible), we are finding that the Bible is once again becoming the set of Rules by which we who have discovered Grace are trying to make our points to the legalists. And that has to be counterproductive. Even the Rulebook itself says that if it is law, then it is no longer Grace (Rom 11:6). To coin an analogy from Sun-Tzu, we are therefore picking the wrong terrain for our battles, and falling back into the trap of fighting on the ground of their choice.

You see, it is nowadays apparent that no longer do people sit and talk about Jesus; we sit and talk about the Bible instead. It’s as if the Bible is what we now have in common, rather than being one in Christ. The focus is the Bible. And so the focus is all wrong.

I mean, really, when a believer is firmly established in his faith, in a lot of ways the Bible can actually take more of a back seat, although this will of course vary from person to person. The Bible is no longer our primary source of ‘things from God’ or ‘knowledge of God’; instead, that Source is Jesus.  In fact, it should ideally have been Him all along. This is why it is important to cultivate, in the new believer as well as the old, a total reliance on Jesus rather than shifting the focus to the Bible.

And so I don’t pretend that I hold the Bible in the same esteem that others do. I mean, if anything, I hold it in even higher esteem than many Fundamentalists do because I give it the respect it deserves but without dishonouring it by elevating it to a position it was never meant to occupy.

But I have noticed that when beginning a conversation with other believers, there’s almost this ‘dance’ where everyone tacitly agrees to agree that the Bible is where it’s all at, and they (tacitly or overtly) agree to have their discussions using that as an axiom. Well, I’m being very careful about that nowadays.

I still find that I almost don’t want to mention (and so I don’t!) that the Bible is no longer as important now I am on to the solid food of following Jesus. This is because, as I explain below, this almost loses my credibility with those with whom I am having the discussion. Indeed, if I do mention the Bible’s lowered importance in one of those conversations, I find that the conversation suddenly changes to being about the primacy of the Bible rather than being about the original point of discussion, whatever that was. Which tells me that actually the point was either a) not important anyway, or b) just another way of getting the conversation around to the Bible again. It does seem with these people to be ‘all or nothing’ (I suppose that’s black-and-white culty thinking) in that if there’s the slightest whiff that I don’t hold the Bible as highly as they do, then they think I don’t believe any of it. Again, that’s a serious flaw not only in their logic (which they don’t use anyway) but also in their conclusion.

Sure, I still love reading my Bible, at least when I can tune out the grey, dusty voices of the Legalists, who have tainted the Scriptures with their deadly interpretations. (There’s that point again: interpretation!) But, for me, the Bible is no longer the primary source of my knowledge of God. In fact, it’s even broader than that. In my current stage in my faith walk, I no longer need or depend on others’ ideas, nor affirmation of my own ideas by others. Sure, I read interesting ideas which I feel free to hold or to discard as I see fit. Sometimes I post things by other people because they express what I wanted to say so much better than I could have done.

But nowadays I find that I hear, and listen to, Jesus Himself, and I learn so much directly from Him.

This sort of thing gives the Legalists apoplexy, because they can’t stand it that some of us have a Relationship with Jesus outside of the Bible. ‘Dangerous’, they call it. A ‘slippery slope‘.  Well if they want to stay in their ruts, that’s fine with me. But out here in the deep ocean, where there is no bottom and I rely entirely on God to keep me afloat, out here is where the real faith is. They sing about it in their song ‘Oceans‘, and I still find that song profound because it reflects my own experience.

But in reality, and ironically, those who should be boldest – those who claim to have a solidity of faith undergirded both by the Bible and by their claim of a relationship with Jesus – they are the ones who are the most afraid to venture out ‘where no-one has gone before’, into the deep waters of bottomless faith.

Keith Giles puts it like this:

“Do you know anyone that constantly claims, “That’s not Biblical” to everything they don’t agree with?

“Yeah, just ignore them.

“Some say we cannot trust the Holy Spirit to guide us, and that’s why we need a Book. But I have never gone to the Book when I have needed wisdom or guidance. I have always gone to my knees, and listened.

“The idea that we can trust a Book more than the Holy Spirit is actually an idea that is refuted by the same Book.

“Can we get it wrong if we follow the Spirit? Of course. And you don’t have to look very hard to see a few thousand years of people getting it wrong by following the Book, either.

“Our capacity to “get it wrong” is unlimited. But, I would argue, we have a much better chance of getting it right if we learn to discern the voice of the indwelling Holy Spirit which leads us into all Truth and provides wisdom and insight directly from God’s heart to our own.

” ‘If anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask of the Lord who gives generously to all.’ – James 1:5 [Notice it doesn’t say, ‘Let him search in the Book…’]

“What God did a few thousand years ago is comforting, but I am concerned that many of us may be missing what new and exciting thing God may want to do in our life TODAY if we keep holding on to those stories of what God did back then.

“Don’t fear to trust the Holy Spirit and to listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd.”

– Keith Giles

Brilliant. I couldn’t have put it better.

Someone once asked me what part the Bible played in my life nowadays. Here’s my reply:

“It used to play a big part. But now I have moved on to solid food. I have stopped trying to ‘prove’ things from the Scripture for others; I have stopped trying to convince grey people that the Bible is multi-interpretable, and I have stopped trying to show arguments from a Scriptural point of view for the benefit of those who still treat it as a Rulebook.

“I have had it with people using a 4,000yr old (in places) book to make Jesus irrelevant in today’s world, because they have to stick to the Rules laid down essentially by Moses the Prat. I no longer hold to their viewpoints, so there is no point in pretending that I still do, even to show them things from their own Rulebook.

“I now listen only to the One Whom I trust above all others, and occasionally I will pick up ideas or prompts from people who also hear His voice. Here is the problem that is the root of all Fundie Christian problems: that God is no longer trusted enough to be allowed to speak to His people. The idea that God will never contradict Scripture is not only contradicted in Scripture itself, but it is also a non-Scriptural idea held up, incorrectly, as a ‘Biblical ‘principle’.

“I am sick of judgemental people who place their own judgements above those of God. So, there we are. Bible firmly in its place”

Lately, though, I have realised that, in a very real way, everyone who reads the Bible places their own judgments above the words in the Bible. That’s what is called ‘interpretation’; that’s the way things actually should be. The problem with Evangelical and other Fundamentalist belief systems is that those interpretations are then claimed to be the one-and-only way in which a given passage should be interpreted, because those interpretations are subject to pre-existing group dogma; they’re ‘pre-defined’, if you will. And so their claim that the Bible provides objective truth to prevent the believer straying off into error is incorrect, because what they think of as the objective truth of Scripture is always going to be subject to the subjective interpretation of a text by an individual, a leader or a group (again, usually the leadership) and so it’s actually not objective truth at all. It’s just truth as understood by a particular group. And just because a lot of people believe something doesn’t make it true.

Of course, as I mentioned earlier, the problem with ‘demoting’ the Bible in ‘discussions’ with grey people is that what I say is always going to be reduced in value because I apparently don’t hold the Bible in the same esteem as they do. But since there has already been a sort-of breakdown in communication in that we are interpreting the same Bible in different ways, then that very difference of opinion reduces my credibility in their eyes anyway. Which isn’t really my problem, of course, and each of us has to follow the Spirit both in our lives and in hearing what God is saying to us, either through the Bible or through other channels.

But I do hold the Bible in high esteem, of course, and when I speak of ‘putting it in its place’ I mean that it should be restored to its rightful place. In other words, it is a book – a very special book, but a book nonetheless – which is full of insight, wisdom, amazing stories, and also some not-so-good stuff too. Its primary function is to point us to Jesus. Sure, that’s not its only function, but it’s the Bible’s primary function (Jn 5:39). If we fail to let the Bible point us to Jesus, then it has failed in its primary task. No, the ‘rightful’ place of the Bible is to be very firmly removed from the throne of people’s lives – where many believers have placed it – and to allow Jesus back onto that throne. The Trinity is ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit’; these days it seems that many modern believers have replaced this with ‘Father, Son and Holy Bible’. In other words, the problem is with the people, not the Bible; they are using it incorrectly and elevating it to a position it was never intended to occupy. At Jesus’s ‘trial’, in John 19:15 Pilate asked, ‘Shall I crucify your king?’ And the priests replied, ‘We have no king but Caesar!’. They were rejecting the Kingship of Jesus in favour of a worldly system of kingship, that of Rome. In the same way, by putting the Bible above Jesus, modern-day Bibliolatrists[1] are effectively saying, ‘We have no king but the Bible!’

I would say that my ‘relationship’ with the Bible has come full circle. I began reading the Bible when I was about seven years old. Didn’t get very far. My secondary school was a Public School[2] which was set up in 1812 for the education of the sons of Methodist ministers, so I was educated in a Christian background and Scripture was a part of daily study.

At the age of 18, on July 12th, 1980, I began my actual walk with Jesus, responding to an ‘altar call’ at a tent crusade (actually God propelled me to the front!), and it was just what I needed. My life changed from that point onwards and I was increasingly conscious of Jesus at my side, and saw His influence in my life on a daily basis. Over the following years, I got to know the Bible inside-out, walked with Jesus, and also with others; although the emphasis was on both Bible and Jesus, gradually, as with all these things, the Real Thing is supplanted by the written accounts of it. That said, though, I did not lose sight of my first Love, Jesus Himself. I had had such an experience of God, as a young Christian, that no amount of Pharisaical layering of rules and other baggage on top of that Relationship could ever snuff it out entirely. And so when I entered my ‘dark night of the soul‘ in 1999, its main function was to allow me to rid myself of all the baggage and to walk free.

Once that process was complete to Father’s satisfaction, the subsequent encounter I had with God was new, powerful, real and unexpected[3], but still rooted in my already existing Relationship with Him. It was just like I’d never been away. And one of the fruits of that long period of change was that I no longer relied as much on the Bible. One of the things that God had pruned away, so to speak, in that time, was the emphasis on Scripture and He replaced it with a far more emphatic emphasis on Jesus and my Relationship with Him.

Interestingly, my knowledge and memory of Bible verses was still intact. I can still recite whole sections of Scripture should I need to do so. But the Bible very much takes a back seat as I simply walk freely in the Spirit.

There are some people I know who never read the Bible, but are in a strong Relationship with Jesus. For them, the Bible just turns them off, and detracts from the Person of Jesus.

Fundies might say, well, how can you know Jesus apart from the Bible?

Well that’s a very silly question when you think about it. Most of what I know about, say, my friend in my aircraft owners’ group, I know because I have sat and talked with him, flown with him, talked to his wife, and all that. I’ve known him for years. He’s my friend. He has never had a book written about him (although his late dad had an autobiography, but that’s a different story!). It’s the same with Jesus. Jesus exists outside of the Bible; yes we can learn more about Him from the Bible, and read of others’ experiences with Him from the Bible, but you can only really get to know Him by actually meeting Him and spending time with Him.

What Fundagelicalism[4] has purveyed for many decades now is a cheap bait-and-switch imitation. Come to Jesus! And here’s how: read the Book! Bait = Jesus. Switch = Book. It’s funny too but Jesus actually turns this around and helps people to get to know Him despite the best efforts of the Fundies who, really, don’t trust the Spirit at all, and want to do all His speaking for Him, usually by quoting Bible verses.

In other words, the emphasis has shifted from the real to the hypothetical, and from the Living to the written. “And … you refuse to come to Me to have Life” (Jn 5:39).

It’s sad that those of us rediscovering the primacy of Jesus are labelled as heretics, by the very ones whose concept of Jesus is based mainly in book knowledge, and experiential knowledge is counted as being from ‘deceiving spirits’. And conversations with such of these Grey People always degenerate into, again, that ridiculous dance around the authority of the Bible and its extent in determining how well we can know God. It’s posturing, and it’s pathetic. Tell me: Who is best placed to talk about what they know of Jesus: those who read about Him or those who actually know Him personally, not just from a book? Is the former not much more than a case of the ‘blind leading the blind’?

This emphasis on the Bible is exemplified in conversations with Evangelicals, where most of the time there is a tacit assumption that the authority/inerrancy/infallibility/etc. of the Bible is unquestioned and already accepted. But the assumption that those who are at a different place in their walk will accept that premise is not going to produce a good conversation, and it will always degenerate again into discussions about the Bible. You see the problem? Any time we want to talk about God, or Jesus, or the Spirit, we end up talking about what ‘the Bible says’ about Them rather than what is our personal experience of Them. This of, course, may be because those arguing with people who have a real Relationship with Jesus don’t have one themselves, and so they really don’t know the One about Whom they are talking. But that’s never my judgment call to make.

And so, this dependence on the Bible means that God isn’t allowed to speak to His people, in any way He wants to, any more. He’s only allowed to use the Bible and what it says in there.

Well, try telling Him that! He’s bypassing all that by just doing what He wants all over the world, irrespective of what people’s Bibles tell them He should be doing.

All around the world, people are finding new freedom in Christ; in Christ, not the Bible. In fact, modern ‘understanding’ of the Bible has been thoroughly polluted by nasty and erroneous doctrines and ideas from Evangelicalism, which have been espoused for so long that they are now accepted as ‘normal’. I mention a few of these doctrines in this post. As I hinted above, I now find it hard to read the Bible profitably because of all the years and layers of dusty, dry legalism and bad exegesis (interpretation of Scripture) caused by many long years under the thrall of those doctrines. Like it would be for a former member of a cult, the old interpretations and taught meanings – based on ideas of humans (Mt 15:9; Mk 7:7) – are what come to the fore as I read certain passages, and as such these verses have been poisoned for me. I feel quite badly done by about that, actually, like I have been robbed of all the fruit and glory of those passages. I am, however, fortunate in listening to teachers like Don Keathley and Francois du Toit, whose love of the Scriptures is not only infectious but also their teaching is wholesome, and you can tell.

My final point about Evangelicalism’s unhealthy elevation of the Bible is that there’s almost an irony in all this, too.

Allow me to explain. People who look in at Christianity from the outside see the attitudes of, well at least Fundamentalists, but also Evangelicals too, regarding the Bible. They see their dependence on it, and their adherence to millennia-old rules and laws that clearly have no business being incorporated into modern-day laws. They see the obvious problems with their stubborn disbelief in evolution, insistence on modern-day adoption of cultural norms from ancient times like the subjugation of women and persecution of people of ‘different’ sexualities[5].

Let’s be honest: Christianity would be a lot more believable if they’d only drop their stubborn holding on to the obviously wrong things in the Bible. People ‘out there’ aren’t stupid. They know those beliefs in ‘The Bible is always right!'[6] are obviously wrong. Anyone with any common sense can see this.

But, of course, Biblical inerrantists are blind to this; instead, they see it as a virtue to hold these attitudes and views in the face of what they see as ‘opposition’. But believing in the Bible at the expense of disregarding modern scientific findings and other modern cultural advancements is purely risible, and punctures the credibility of all who believe in the Bible in that way.

And so, they actualy drive away intelligent, thinking, honest people who would otherwise make very good believers, simply because they cannot believe what Evangelicalism says that they must believe about the Bible in order to be counted as ‘Christians’.

And therefore, once again, Evangelicalism repels people from Jesus instead of attracting them; it turns them away at the gate, turns them away from a lifetime of following the One Who loves them above all else, turns them away from that Love on the basis of their own obviously erroneous doctrine about the Bible. And that’s reprehensible.

But I want to finish this essay on a positive note. My aim is always the encouragement of my readers!

I must say I do get the impression that, for those who have the hearts to receive it, the Grace message of Jesus is the thing they have been looking for all their lives. Some of us were sidetracked into rule-keeping. Some of us were snatched away as soon as we heard the message and met Jesus for the first time. And to be fair, some of us in fact needed to enter through the path of legalism, because only by seeing its hopelessness could we even begin to look for something more.

But once our eyes were opened to Grace, oh! the wonder! Oh, the freedom! For some of us, detoxification was needed. For others, straight in to Grace with no messing about. But however we got here, God has His hand on us, and He will never let us go! So, while the Bible, when interpreted by the Spirit of Truth, is useful, remember it is not God; it never has been and it never will be. No matter what your reverence for it, and I am sure that reverence is not misplaced, make sure that the Spirit – Whom God has poured into our hearts – is always the One Who has the last word. Then you will be hearing directly from God Himself.

Grace and Peace to you.

 

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 Bibliolatry refers to the elevation of the Bible to the status of an idol, something to be revered and worshipped; something else forbidden in their Rulebook
⇧2 In the UK, a Public School does not mean the same thing as it does in most other countries. In the UK, a Public School means a ‘posh’ school; a ‘private’ school. Think of Eton College (although that wasn’t my School; mine was Woodhouse Grove School in Bradford, West Yorkshire) and you’ll get my drift. I had won a Scholarship, which meant that my parents didn’t have to pay any fees – else we’d never have been able to afford for me to go there!
⇧3 [Original footnote from the first publication of this essay] This is my Facebook post from February, 2014: “What a morning. First time voluntarily in a church for fifteen years, and getting thoroughly zapped by God: weeping, laughing, complete acceptance, forgiveness. Wow, wow, wow! Going again tonight hehe 😉 “
⇧4 Fundamentalist Evangelicalism
⇧5 And even then, those persecutions were not actually what was practised in ‘Bible times’; they are much more a modern-day misapplication of different anciant principles that did not look then as they do nowadays.
⇧6 Which is what it amounts to.

A Dark Testimony V – The Ambush

Insights, Personal, Humour
This entry is part 15 of 17 in the series The Problems of Evangelicalism

As part of my series on the Problems of Evangelicalism, I’ve already shared what I called ‘Dark Testimonies’ from various people, one of whom was me. I also shared a testimony in my article ‘The Destroyer of Faith‘.

The stories in my testimonies, apart from a few which were simply people making innocent-yet-stupid mistakes, were stories of abuse at the hands of people where it wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been in a church – or, more specifically, an Evangelicalism – setting[1]. As I said in ‘The Destroyer of Faith‘, this is what’s known as ‘Religious Abuse’.

Well, here’s another story from my catalogue of choice spiritual/religious abuse situations I have been subjected to. I share these stories, and this one in particular, so as to show the variety of ways and scenarios in which abuse can occur, and also to show that it happens – as far as I can tell, anyway – in many churches. Nowhere is safe, it seems; in every church I have ever attended, there has always been someone who wants to use others to push their agenda. But I’m trying to keep this one light and humorous in order to show just how ridiculous some of these people’s posturing really is[2].

So, a bit of background first. This was in early 2016, about two years after my re-entry into church life after my fifteen-year Dark Night of the Soul. At the church I was part of at the time, we had Lifegroups – no different from the more traditionally-named ‘housegroups’ – and I attended this particular one with my wife Fiona for a couple of months. It was run by a chap who was slightly younger than me – although I don’t have a problem with that – and let’s call him ‘Dennis’ for the purposes of the story.

Dennis’s leadership style was on the one hand gentle, pastoring and caring, and on the other quite rigid and dogmatic. I understand that he was from a Calvary Chapel background, which are fairly well-structured; I also got the whiff of a bit of Brethren there if I recall correctly, but this is nearly ten years ago now so I can’t remember for sure. Anyway, he was essentially hard, rigid and dogmatic under a soft (and I believe genuine) pastoral exterior. He also knew what he believed, and was not interested in hearing anything from anyone that went against that. It seemed Dennis was there to teach, but not to learn, if you see what I mean. I also remember he loved to make me hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream, just because he knew I liked it! A nice bloke, really.

I’m afraid other members of the group saw Dennis as being a bit of a pain, though, but I must emphasise that they really did have good hearts. These were mature Christians; most – and probably all – of them were further along their spiritual walk than Dennis was; they bore with him and genuinely wanted to see him develop as a leader and as a person, so in order to try to support him, they went along with his oddities and just contributed where they could. In essence, the more mature group were trying to help to raise up a younger leader in order to help him fulfil what they assumed he thought of as his calling.

I also remember a couple of occasions, though, where the façade began to crack; one funny, one not so much. These were the occasions where, in retrospect, I can see him trying to advance from the caring pastor to the beginning of the imposition of his will, as it were.

The first one was when he squatted down in front of me in my preferred position sitting on the floor[3] and said, “Anthony, next week, do you think you could deedle-eedle-diddle” (this last word while doing a sort of typewriter keyboard action with his fingers in front of himself). 🤣🤣🤣

Of course, I knew exactly what he meant; he wanted me to use my keyboard to lead worship. But being an awkward Yorkshire so-and-so, I decided to string him along a bit. “Could I do what?” I asked, simultaneously adopting my most baffled facial expression.

“You know, to bring your keyboard and lead worship”, he clarified.

“Aaaahhhh!”, says I. “Yes, of course I will! No problem!”

“Oh that’s great, thanks for that.”, said Dennis. “Now, I’d like you to lead us in that worship for fourteen minutes and sixteen seconds”.

This time it really was, “What??“, but this time, I’m sure you’ll be relieved to hear, I only said it in my head!

But, no, really; that’s what he said. Probably the most odd request I’d ever had[4]. I think what he’d done was to time the Bible study video he was going to show us during the meeting, and in order to make the worship ‘fit’ into his plan for the evening, he had ‘allocated’ that time to the second. To be fair, a bit of a quirky oddity much in keeping with someone with Autism or similar; I don’t think he was Autistic but I wouldn’t like to judge[5]. Well in the event I did the worship, yes, but let’s just say that timing constraints didn’t feature in the session!

Another time, in the Lifegroup meetings, I’d been sharing various things that God had shown me, over the space of a couple of meetings at least, as had other people in the group. These things I shared greatly blessed people and, when combined with the others in the group sharing what God had been showing them too, it was total blessing all around. We all did it. That’s what Lifegroups should be about. Everyone brings something along (1Cor 14:26) for the building-up of others. Anyway, I digress.

One evening, as the meeting was getting together, Dennis took me to one side and told me in no uncertain terms that anything I said that evening (‘and from now on’) would have to be backed up with chapter and verse from the Bible. Ha, he wanted me to proof-text!! My witty repartee was, “Well, I’d like hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream, but I’m afraid there’s no chapter and verse for that one. So what should I do when you ask me what I’d like to drink?” Sad to relate that this flippancy – which I see as a strength! – was completely lost on him; you tend to find that Religious people don’t allow humour in anything to do with God and it all has to be really serious![6] Needless to say, from meeting to meeting I carried on sharing what God gave me, and yes I gave chapter and verse (sometimes) when available, but to be honest most of the people there knew their Bibles backwards and so there was no need for Bible references. And anyway I don’t do proof-texting. I was the only person that he took aside in that manner; I don’t know, maybe he found my infectious enthusiasm disturbing or threatening or something. I really don’t know. But what if someone brought something where they didn’t provide such backing? Does that mean that nothing that anyone says in the meeting counts unless it is backed up with chapter and verse? If so, how would a complete newbie get on; how would they be able to contribute since it takes like half a lifetime of Bible study to be able to do that? And how would he know that even I could do that, or indeed anyone else in the group? Fiona was just as spiritual a person as I was but she didn’t have an encyclopaedic memory for Bible verses, in fact to be honest most people don’t!

Maybe he hadn’t really thought that one through…. 😉 😜

Or maybe, for some reason, he saw me as a threat to either his authority or to the purity of how he perceived the group’s doctrines should be. Well, I have never been interested in church leadership positions[7], so he had no worries on that score. And as for doctrinal positions, maybe he hadn’t learned that everyone in any group will always believe something slightly different from everyone else. This is why groups like that are so important and productive, because everyone brings something that maybe others hadn’t seen before. And so that’s how they learn[8]. And in any case, it should be the Holy Spirit Who is in charge in directing these kinds of meetings. Always.

In addition, the point about people’s differing doctrinal positions is something that any leader, new or old, has to take into account. You can’t learn things, whether ‘spiritual’ things or practical leadership things, unless you are teachable. And Dennis was so entrenched in his doctrinal rut, at least, that ‘unteachable’ could easily have been his middle name 😉

Well anyway, the meetings continued and I learned a lot, although I’m sad to say, not really from Our Dennis. Even at that stage in my faith walk, although I hadn’t learned the analogy at that point, there is little value in butterflies taking flying lessons from caterpillars. Back then, I was still getting used to the whole idea of walking in Grace and of going out into the deep Oceans waters of faith. And still the group were blessing each other.

I suppose that eventually something had to give; things had to come to a head. For me, the final straw was The Ambush. It’s taken me long enough to get around to the title of this essay, hasn’t it?

Well, this was The Ambush, and here’s how it happened.

I’d decided that it was a good idea to go out for a coffee with Dennis, so we could get to know each other a little better. To keep the conversation about personal things, like hobbies and interest, life stories, that sort of thing. For that reason, when we agreed to meet, I specifically asked him not to bring his Bible and to keep the conversation light, and I promised to do likewise.

Well, we got to McDonalds, and Dennis had a coffee and I had, of course! a hot chocolate. Almost as soon as we’d sat down, and with a fanatical gleam in his eye, Dennis hoicked up from the floor a small satchel which contained – yes, you’ve guessed it! – his Bible. That satchel could have been made-to-measure; it fitted his Bible perfectly! I remember it clearly. So he hauls out this Bible. To his credit, it wasn’t any kind of a mighty tome or grimoire[9]; it was just a softback one of about A5 size or so.

And then he proceeded to try almost to ‘lead me to the Lord’; to ‘convert’ me; to take me along the ‘Romans Road’. The Romans Road is a presentation of the gospel using mainly theological points from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans; it’s presented usually to an unbeliever, which is supposed to bring them to the point where they collapse on their knees in a weeping, repentant heap, at which point they hopefully ‘give their hearts to Jesus’ and get ‘converted’.

I mean, what?

He was really enjoying himself! At one point, he actually exclamed, “This is a great Bible study!” Speak for yourself, Dennis! 😂 But during that ‘Bible study’ – although actually it was more a back-and-forth tossing about of Scripture verses – all the reasons I gave to explain my already-existing hope in Christ were ignored. It was like talking to an online Pharisee troll, but over coffees and hot chocolates (yes we did have a second one each). It was just as if I was an unbeliever. I find it amazing how, despite the depth and obvious Bible knowledge of their victims[10], Fundamentalist and other ‘on fire’ Christians, like those two evangelists that came to my house that time as related in this article, suddenly forget, in their blind zeal, that you have an already-existing faith which is probably further on than their own, and that you have only. just. this. minute. been giving them Bible verses straight from memory. What kind of unbeliever can do that, to perform that sort of trick? Maybe the whole thing, in these cases, is the well-known phenomenon – at least to those who understand the Stages of Spiritual Growth – whereby those still in ‘Stage 3‘[11] consider those who have moved ahead with Jesus to be backsliders? Maybe that’s it. Anyway, I went home that night feeling battered and bruised, and, I’m sad to say, completely betrayed. I had trusted Dennis to behave himself and just let us have a normal conversation, over things other than our faith. I trusted him when he agreed to not bring his Bible. I kept my part of the agreement as far as I could; I didn’t bring my Bible, but of course once he’d broken the seals on the religious part, I couldn’t just not respond. And I laugh at this even now, nearly ten years later – I still never found out what his hobbies are, where he was raised, where he went to school, or anything like that. As far as I knew, he was just Dennis with the Bible, who did happen to make a very nice hot chocolate but someone whom I knew I could no longer trust. Trust is usually earned, in most personal or business relationships; in churches, however, I think it’s fair to say that it is almost assumed: this person is a Christian, of course you can trust them. Which is of course mainly why a betrayal of trust like that becomes Religious abuse; they have broken an almost unspoken rule, or at least convention, of implicit trust in your brother or sister.

And maybe that’s one of the main lessons we can learn from this piece: just because someone is a Christian does not in any way mean that you can – or should – trust them on that basis alone. They still have to earn your trust, just like in any other relationship. Their Christianity should not give them a ‘head start’ on the ‘trust curve’.

Of course, though, like any other broken trust, once it’s lost that trust is very difficult, if not impossible, to regain.

During his attack conversation, Dennis had also suggested I adopt attitudes that, of course unbeknownst to him, I had long since sloughed off during my Dark Night; things like feeling the need for a ‘covering’ relationship (which is a popular high-control religious concept where you make yourself answerable to some sort of ‘authority figure’!). He also didn’t appreciate my personal testimonies of God’s blessings either.

But still, I wanted to give him chance; I wanted to explain what his actions had done. That’s what’s called ‘maturity’. It is exercising Grace and extending forgiveness. And I also wanted to actually get him to help us agree on some healthy boundaries. And so I sent him this email:

Hey Dennis

Thanks for last night, it was good to get to know you a little better!

Although I kind-of enjoyed the ‘Bible study’ we did, in that it reminded me of the fabulous Gospel we believe in, I did feel very uneasy once I got home.

After reflection on what was bothering me, here’s what I came up with.

Firstly, I was particularly concerned about the ‘covering’ bit. First of all, although I don’t really set too much store on things being ‘Biblical’ – because ‘Biblical’ usually means ‘Biblical in the eyes of the person talking’ – the concept of ‘covering’ is in any case not a ‘Biblical’ concept. And I am under no man’s covering; should I choose to make myself accountable to someone, I can do that, but such people are few and far between. There’s nothing personal here, but although I want to honour you as group leader, I do not choose to place myself under your ‘covering’ in the sense I think you meant it, and I ask that you please honour that request.

Secondly, I did express a desire not to be proof-texted, but it seemed you couldn’t resist! Granted, I went along with it, but that I found very uncomfortable. Here’s why. As I said yesterday, I have done loads of encouragement work on Christian forums, being a voice for the broken and downtrodden (ask Jason [A mutual friend at the Church – Ed]; he has seen me in action) and I am currently having an extended sabbatical from that activity (http://tinyurl.com/gwbgd85). The main reason is because of harsh Christians Scripture-bombing me on those forums, and although I try to be thick-skinned, that has done me deep harm. I have to say that last night I felt just like I was back in battle on those forums. I respectfully asked that you not proof-text at me, and usually when I make a request like that I have a very good reason which you may not (and in this case did not) know about – but now you do.

So, please could you in future respect my desire not to do proof-texting.

Also, I am sorry but I am now also hesitant to share personal blessing testimonies with you – such as those precious prophecies I shared – because they got dissected. I appreciate that, as you explained, you have had reservations about prophecy from past experience, and I respect that. But that which I shared was precious and it felt rather like ‘pearls before swine’, I’m afraid.

This may all come as a shock to you, I realise. We did agree on much, but rather than agreeing to differ on points of difference, I felt you tried to bomb me into submission!

I do want to maintain good relationship with you; I really feel for you as the group leader and I would not want your job for any money. That’s partly why I want to honour you as group leader, and this email is intended to be constructive. Unless I name the problems, you will never know about them! I don’t want to upset you, and please be assured I forgive you! If this has upset you, then I ask that you please forgive me too!

So I need to ask you these questions:

1) What do you see is the point of the group, and then
2) What do you see as your role in the group?
3) What do you see others’ roles as in the group?
4) Can you define our relationship?
5) What’s your vision for the group – your goals and dreams for the group?
6) Are you happy with people bringing spiritual gifts in Lifegroup?

These questions may also help you to think out your ideas a bit more too.

You are a kind, gentle, pastoring guy and you have a good heart. I respect you for that 🙂 [12]

Thanks for listening

Anthony

Except – he didn’t listen. He told me that he hadn’t even read it, although I doubt that very much[13]. He said to me (in person) some mumbled story about him not liking to communicate in writing, preferring face-to-face. Which I can understand, but as Lifegroup leader he had a duty to make allowances for those who don’t quite have the same facility with face-to-face interactions as he does[14]. And to be honest, he wasn’t good at face-to-face anyway, lol 😉 And remember this was while Fiona was still alive; I was working full time and also being a Carer for my terminally ill wife. And he didn’t care; all he cared about was his agenda. Sorry for the language, but that really was a dick thing to do.

And so, we resigned from that Lifegroup and were accepted into a different group in that church, one in which we received nothing but blessing, love, hope and just general LIFE. One in which we were accepted the way we were. We stayed in that Lifegroup right up to Fiona’s passing, and I stayed in it after that terrible event. And it was in that Lifegroup that I was asked the question, ‘How can you lead worship like that, even after all you’ve been through?’, to which my answer was ‘How can I not?'[15]

Well, that’s the end of the story. I hope you got some laughs out of it! And maybe learned a lesson or two as well 😀

Before I finish, please let me reiterate what I said at the beginning of the piece: I share these stories in order to illustrate the different types of religious abuse, and scenarios in which they happen. I’m not criticising others’ faiths; what I am doing is to expose the ways in which they choose to inflict those beliefs on others, and to use those beliefs to justify their often horrendous actions. This arms my readers with information which they can then use to either recognise the risk in religious situations and thereby avoid them, or to recognise the signs when they happen. Because it’s often insidious and can creep up on you, and before you know it, you’re hooked. These people think nothing[16] of using these tactics to inflict their beliefs and requirements on others, and their potential victims need to be aware of this.

Grace and Peace to you.

Header picture depicts two Polish soldiers preparing an ambush position. At least, I assume there’s two of them; there could always be more of them concealed in-frame! It is an ambush, after all….

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 Although, of course, you’re probably going to get abuse in any kind of organisation or group of people, churches or other – but people in churches really should behave better than they do!
⇧2 I think that as long as you laugh at yourself regularly, you should feel perfectly free to laugh at others, so long as you do it privately!!
⇧3 For some reason, I always feel more comfortable sitting on the floor in these kinds of meetings. Many’s the Lifegroup, or other meeting, when I’ve gone in to the room and sat on the floor, and some gallant soul has sprung up and said, ‘Oh! Sit here!’, much like someone giving up his seat to a pregnant lady on a bus. But I always decline; I prefer to sit on the floor! Just one of my quirks, if you like…
⇧4 Including when some clot asked me to play a load of Gilbert and Sullivan opera music just because I had a piano in front of me 🤣😂. Still, to be fair, at the time of the request, I was at the piano in the Saloon (which has gorgeous acoustics) at Coleton Fishacre, the country home of the D’Oyly Carte family; the house celebrates its hundredth anniversary next year, if I recall correctly. The D-Oyly Cartes were a well-known Victorian operatic company, so that was why that was relevant. Anyway, I declined; I can’t play opera to save my life (except the duet from Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers, and even then only the chorus)
⇧5 For me to get my own Autism diagnosis, it took at least six sessions with a clinical psychology doctor specialising in Autism. Therefore, I myself would never even presume to diagnose that condition in someone else merely by personal impressions!
⇧6 But of course they would say that ‘God has a sense of humour ahahaha ahaha aha. Ha’. but without providing any examples 😉
⇧7 Even the leadership roles I have actually had, such as Musical Director and Worship Leading, were not really people-leading in that I wasn’t like a pastor or an Elder or anything; the roles were more technical in nature. Not everyone can ‘do’ music at all, much less live instrumental playing and all that that involves.
⇧8 I don’t think he knew about my formal theological training; if he had, he’d really have felt threatened – but still his fears would have been groundless!
⇧9 A grimoire is a spell-book used in magic rituals; the thing I’m trying to convey here is a large, dusty tome with heavy leather or wooden covers, thick parchment pages and with the fading words written in blood, hopefully not human blood. Well, Dennis’s Bible wasn’t like that, although some people do have Bibles of that kind. You really wouldn’t want to drop one of these things on your foot. You see, many Fundamentalists see the Bible as a spell-book: speak these words, claim your promises and speak the magic words ‘In Jesus’ Name’ at the end and all your wishes will be granted! Honestly, that’s no different, really, from casting a spell!
⇧10 Note how my status has now changed to that of being a victim; this is where the abuse came in!
⇧11 As Dennis likely was, although that’s not for me either to say or judge.
⇧12 Well, he was, at the heart of things. He was just going about things in a disastrously wrong way, is all.
⇧13 Yes, I am indeed saying he lied! People like Dennis can’t help but read things sent to them, because they consider themselves too important.
⇧14 For those who don’t know, I am Autistic, and I find it very difficult to hold face-to-face conversations and maintain any kind of coherence in the conversation.
⇧15 As related in this article
⇧16 If indeed they think at all, as most of us would understand the term!

Painted into a Corner

Insights, Others' stuff
This entry is part 31 of 32 in the series About the Bible - Inerrancy, Infallibility, Inspiration and Revelation

Here’s the brilliant Brian Zahnd with an interesting thought experiment:

“Let’s play a little game. I’ll ask a few questions and you answer them. Okay?
First question: Did God tell Abraham to kill his son?

You say yes? But hastily add that God didn’t actually require Abraham to go through with it—it was just a test of faith. All right.

Next question: Did God command Joshua, King Saul, and the Israelites to kill children as part of the ethnic cleansing of Canaan?

Is that a hesitant yes I hear, like walking in untied shoes?

My next question is simple and straightforward: Does God change?

I sense your confident answer of no to this question. And you are quite correct. A cornerstone of Christian theology has always been that God is immutable—that is, God doesn’t mutate from one kind of being into another kind of being. The immutability of God is the solid ground upon which our faith stands.

Next question (brace yourself): Since God doesn’t change, and since you’ve already acknowledged that in times past God has sanctioned the killing of children as part of a genocidal program of conquest, is it then possible that God would require *you* to kill children?

You say you don’t like this game? I understand. I don’t really like it either. But bear with me a little more; we’re almost done.

Last question: If God told you to kill children, would you do so?

I know, I know! Calm down. Of course, you answer without hesitation that under no circumstances would you participate in the genocidal slaughter of children. (At least I hope that’s how you answer!)

Yet in answering with an unequivocal no to the question of whether you would kill children, are you claiming a moral superiority to the God depicted in parts of the Old Testament? After all, the Bible says God commanded the Israelites to exterminate the inhabitants of the land during their conquest of Canaan, including children… right? Yet (hopefully) you find the very suggestion of participating in genocide morally repugnant. So what’s going on here? Is genocide something God used to command but now God has reformed his ways? We already agreed that God doesn’t change, God doesn’t mutate. So if God used to sanction genocide, and God doesn’t change… well, you see the problem.

You’ve been painted into a corner.

So where do we go from here? Our options are limited. We really only have three possible courses.

1. We can question the morality of God. Perhaps God is, at times, monstrous.

2. We can question the immutability of God. Maybe God does change over time.

3. We can question how we read Scripture. Could it be that we need to learn to read the Bible in a different way?”

— Brian Zahnd, Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God