Against Abelard

Preached Lent 5 (25th March 2012), St Michael's, Camden Town

Jeremiah 31.27-34
Hebrews 5.7-9
John 12.20-33

I’m not sure how many of you get Fr Philip’s emails about the weekly news. Those who did will know this sermon was written up as there being ‘nothing plain’ about my preaching. I think he meant it as a compliment, but I’m not sure. I have a feeling he thinks I will make it all too complicated, too long and too far from the gospel. Like the clergy often do.

If nothing else, today’s gospel should give you reassurance that they and I are not the only ones. John is the latest of the gospels to be written, but we’re still talking pretty early. And he’s doing it too. Right at the end of today’s gospel, just to make sure we get the message, he adds - ‘He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.’ Even the gospel writers needed to put in the odd hint in to make sure we draw the right conclusions.

Of course, that doesn’t mean every interpretation is right. The pre-eminent master of biblical scholarship in the first millennium was an Egyptian priest called Origen, whose great work the Hexapla presented the bible in six parallel versions, in order to better understand it. Unfortunately, due to an overly literal interpretation of Matthew 19.12 he castrated himself, and was clearly of the view that this was what all good priests should do. Perhaps that’s something our clergy should consider; I can hear the intake of breath behind me. Luckily for them, this practise was banned relatively soon afterwards as mainstream opinion decided this was undesirable. Tragically for Origen, not soon enough.

I tell this, not just because it’s mildly amusing, though it is – it’s my wife’s favourite early church story - but because textual study of the bible is as old as Christianity, it’s necessary and we’re going to need to do some to make sense of the gospel we have here, even with John’s hint.

For a start, that’s because John’s hint is rubbish. If you read the passage carefully, and look for the account of how Jesus will die, it isn’t there. This passage is doing a number of things, but not one of them tells us how Christ is going to die.

• The first thing Jesus talks about is his glorification
• He does then speak about his death, but only to say what happens next 
• Thirdly, he gives an order to his followers – if any one serves me, he must follow me 
• Then he does glorification again, though in more depth and with more nuance 
• Finally, he speaks about judgement of God, his decision

And it’s at that point, when Christ speaks of glorification and judgement, that the evangelist is keen to point out that Christ is speaking about the kind of death he will face. When we preach on this passage, we focus on the death - because John does. When Philip asked me to preach in fact, he called it preaching the cross. We look at this passage and believe the death is the important thing.

And the death of Christ is obviously important. But what I want to say today is that it’s all important. This kernel of the gospel may well be cobbled together from a variety of sources. In my view you can see the joins; note the unconnected opening section about some Greeks, note some of the message don’t seem to run on from other. But, it’s a passage that contains in a few short lines a recap of most of the Christian confession, and certainly the core message of Easter.

Death plays a central role, but only because it is death followed by life, a better, greater life. A life in glory, with God.

Jeremiah makes the same point, though at considerably greater length. Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet, because he is so unrelentingly depressing. Fifty two chapters of doom and gloom. Here’s an example from earlier in the book [Jer 5.1], where God speaks to Jeremiah:

Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look around and take note! Search its squares and see if you can find one person who acts justly and seeks truth-- so that I may pardon Jerusalem’

No one is found. Jerusalem falls.

What we have today is the only positive bit: though the Babylonians are literally at the gates of the city, though it will end badly, God will redeem Israel. Though Christ will die, it will be followed by the resurrection and the raising up of all the people. God’s judgement will overcome the world, including the ruler of the world, but there is a glorious future.

As we prepare for Easter, we should ask how.

The mystery of salvation is just that – a mystery. There is no creed that defines it. But there are some clues:

In the epistle to the Hebrews, we hear that Jesus offered up prayers to the one who could save him from death - He asks that it not be so. Jesus does not wish to die. And Jesus was heard - he could have chosen not to die. He is obedient, he is not compelled. This is a choice, and a dreadful one.

Peter Abelard, who may be obscure to many of you, is mostly famous for his illicit love affair with Heloise, for which he was castrated (though unlike Origen, not voluntarily), but was also one of the great medieval theologians. He preached that the death of Christ could (perhaps should) be understood subjectively.And what he means is that, crudely, the death and resurrection of the Lord are examples. By dying, he shows how to live. There is some truth in this. And it certainly has become increasingly fashionable in more modern times as a corrective to what is seen as a vengeful God. Moral exemplars seem, well, nicer, better.

But it isn’t. Picture the alternative. If it’s an example, it’s just an example. It doesn’t need to happen. And that’s monstrous - it would make the Father ask his own Son to die for nothing; it would mean Christ dies as a trick to con humanity into behaving better. This is not what John says today. I have already glorified my name says the voice from heaven, but I will also glorify it again. That’s the divine judgement, the single decision - there is only one Christ in all of history. One death, one cross, one resurrection, one Lord – and the hour has come.

And it changes the world. We do the death of Christ a disservice if we see it simply as a condemnation. Christ chooses to die, to confront death, he brings life forever.

The Greeks in our gospel ask to see Jesus. Instead they have the whole cosmic drama explained to them. Their job was simply to follow. So is ours.

Bibliography, February 2012

Read: 8
J. Le Carre, The Honourable Schoolboy


J. Baggini, Welcome to Everytown
P. Bowles, The Sheltering Sky
N. Davies, Vanished Kingdoms
S. Larsson, The Girl who played with fire
S. Larsson, The Girl who stirred the hornet's nest
J. Le Carre, Smiley's People
P.G. Wodehouse, Summer Lightning

I've only a couple of months before this record is going to become a lot more slender. I appear not to be using it to work through the great canon of literature, but some outstanding genre fiction. I've only recently picked up Le Carre, but he is excellent. Either of the two would have done, but a choice had to be made - Smiley's People was a bit too obviously structured at the end, while this was a self contained gem, packed tightly with detail, well drawn character and a great (and complex) plot. It had a good end too, though my favourite bits were elsewhere. An honourable mention too for Baggini's book about ordinary Britain, which is a useful corrective to the metropolitan view - did you know that, on average, households spend more on their cars than on their mortgages (and this was before interest rates tumbled)?

A human rights sceptic

On the radio this morning, there was some debate over whether Dominic Raab was a human rights sceptic. Everyone was very clear that to be one was a very bad thing, though they couldn't agree on whether he was (he said he wasn't). I think it's a bad thing too, but quite the reverse reason to everyone there: we shouldn't be sceptical about human rights, we should reject them - they are obviously nonsense.

This causes some controversy when I say this at parties (what fun I must be at parties, you imagine), but this is because people don't think properly. It is not that I think the things enshrined in human rights acts are bad things. Most of them are very good: I am glad we have them. However, they can in no meaningful sense be described as rights that apply to all humanity and are instead simply a set of legal principles for part of the world. Rights have to be enforced for the people to whom they apply. And it is obvious that we don't enforce those rights for all humanity. We wouldn't consider it appropriate to go to war to advance even one of them for anyone. So, far from supporting the full (61 pages) of 'human rights' under debate here, in fact we don't support any - and I'm not sure we should. We may have policy objectives to make the world better (though most people in Britain don't care), but we don't believe these rights are universal, or as we could say, human.

I'm also pretty sure that most people don't actually agree with the rights themselves. Certainly globally and nationally, there is no support for the abolition of the death penalty (Protocol 6, Article 1). I disagree, I'm broadly in favour of the rights themselves, with a few quibbles. I'm also in favour of the ECHR, I just wish it wasn't called that, because it's not. It's a court all right, but it's not administering human rights, rather some core (western) European principles of justice. Long may it continue to do so.

The two swords

As I am sure all of you will know, it was one of the early popes (Gelasius I) that formulated the theory of two (metaphorical) swords. One of temporal power, wielded by the Emperor; the other of spiritual power, wielded by the bishop of Rome. The popes were, of course, emphatic that the spiritual power could direct the temporal. This went down less well in imperial circles, sometimes with disastrous results. Now, this is obviously relevant in a lot of ways, but it came to mind when the teacup-like storm broke over council prayers and the associated debate: it very much  feels to me that we're having a debate about the wrong sword.

On the face of it, this should be easy: after all, it has prayers in it, it must be a religious issue. Perhaps not - one could argue that public statements at a state occasion, sanctioned by the state church and with hundreds of years of state-sponsored tradition behind them might just be temporal. But neither of these is right - this is about tradition, and it's about politics. Personally, I find prayer boring. If I were at a council, I suspect I'd prefer it if we didn't have them, because then we could get the meeting over with quicker. However, we're not debating my convenience (would that we could make all decisions on that basis), but whether we should change a long standing tradition. And I don't think we should, because I'm a big Tory: I believe that, by and large, things that don't do major harm should be left alone; and that 'because we've done this for a long time' is a perfectly reasonable justification for something.

Aha, the opposition will cry - that won't do, for this is discrimination. Toss, I would answer, because this is fake outrage, shown by the fact that quite a lot of things are discriminatory. Elections for example are inherently discriminatory against the unpopular (as, sadly, I found out to my cost). This whole complaint about removing all discriminatory elements really frames it in a way I disagree with - twice. Firstly, on significance. This is not a major issue. I find it extraordinary that occasionally having to say something you disagree with is something we now feel is a barrier to people's participation. I do this all the time. And I think we'd all be a lot better if we worried about important things: if you think the church has too big a role in the state, spend your time arguing for disestablishment, this just doesn't matter. Secondly, and most seriously, I wonder if the opponents of formal prayer imagine that their position is value free. Because it isn't. Stupid people (yes, Baroness Warsi, I mean you) have been talking about militant secularism. That is nonsense. But it's disingenuous to suggest that the modern liberal secular position is the absence of the imposition of values. In reality, it's full of values, pretty much all of which I share. But they are not axiomatic or the product of inexorable logic. There's nothing self-evident about individual 'rights' or about freedom of speech. Nor are they not discriminatory: as currently stated, they penalise - for example - the polygamist. They are also  certainly not consistent: ask a believer in democracy what to do about the death penalty. I am not claiming one needs to be religious to have the right answers here, merely that this is an agenda, and it is disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

Inevitably therefore it clashes with other agendas, in this case the Church of England. I'd like everyone to stop polluting this dialogue with 'religious'. I share much more with western liberal atheists than with the Buddhists; I suspect I have more in common with the Caliphate of Cordoba than modern Iran (historical out of period alert here). Modern western secularists have more in common with the Church of England than with Pol Pot, so I venture that the specific cause espoused is important in definition. This argument is about the Church of England, not 'religion'.

And this makes me even more sure it's a question for the temporal authority. It is not important - I certainly doubt God is concerned about whether he appears on the order paper of the council meeting - but it is change for no benefit. The people involved do not want it; those opposing it do not actually suffer. And if we wish to remake everything as without differentiation and without value judgements, we will inevitably fail. I don't care about prayers at the start of council meetings, but I don't see why we need to go around changing things all the time.

Anathema.

NB. My friend Marcus argues in roughly the same way though with slightly different historical references, and with considerably fewer words.

Bibliography, January 2012

Read: 11

BOTM: A. Burgess, Earthly Powers*

A. Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

A. Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four
A. Conan Doyle, The memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
A. Conan Doyle, The Valley of Fear
A. Conan Doyle, The Return of Sherlock Holmes

G. Greene, Monsignor Quixote*

S. Larsson, The girl with the Dragon Tattoo

D.H. Lawrence, Apocalypse
A. Trollope, La Vendee (K)

P.G. Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves


It wasn't really a contest. I'd forgotten just how good Earthy Powers is. I wonder if I think it is better now as I'm not sure I got all the jokes before - it does reward having read a lot. But actually, I think I'd just forgotten. It is, admittedly, like they'd designed a book for me, full of church and literary history, what one reviewer called 'omnilingual' puns and a great story. He does religion and the church particularly well in it, in a way that most writers don't do, but which is actually closer to how it is done in reality. I can't really comment similarly on how well he does the homosexuality. Regardless, much of the writing is simply brilliant. The opening few hundred pages in particular are whip-crackingly smart, and the bar is kept very high throughout. It's famous for its opening line (which is good), but deserves to be famous for more than that. A masterpiece, though -  unlike last time I read it - I'm not going to be tricked into reading too much more of Burgess' output, which generally hasn't held up, though the Enderby novels are worth it - and not just because of the quadruple onion incident, in which everyone should find pleasure.

Note also a methodological change. I've bought a few ecclesiastical history books for the doctorate. I'm not going to list these any more. So, if it's about the fourth and fifth century eastern church (as A.Schor, Theodoret's people), even if I own it, then I won't be including it - you'll have to wait for the PhD bibliography, which I am sure many of you are. (Schor was very good though)

Demagoguery

I was going to write this about Stephen Hester. Actually, there's not much to say because literally everyone on left and right I have spoken to thinks we should pay the bonus to get / keep the right man. £2m is a lot of money, but it's broadly lower than comparable CEO pay. The average pay of the CEOs of the top ten of the FTSE 100 is about £3.5m. RBS isn't one of the top ten (it's lower down) but the size and complexity of the task I think makes them the right comparator. In banking we know rewards are high (the head of HSBC had £5m for 2010). Given that, if you want someone to do the work, they you pay them the rate. You may not like it and wish they would do it for the public good, but they won't - they're bankers. Not spending the money is stupid and wasteful and the £900m share price fall is the obvious consequence (outlined well here). This is posturing with a hefty price.

There have been a few red herrings in the debate. Firstly, there's been a bit of bleating about the share price performance (i.e. Mr Hester has presided over a fall in value). But we know explicit share price links are dubious because it is so hugely affected by environmental factors (i.e. everyone gets a fortune in a boom), so why are we revisiting this now? Secondly, it's been compared to the public sector settlements. Again, this is nonsense. RBS is not a public service, we happen to own it because of a crisis. We don't want to own banks, we want to sell it. We really don't want civil servant to run; we need it to act like a (successful)  company and make some money. If this is the best counter-argument to the bonus, I despair; even more so now it seems to have worked.

There is, by the way, a real issue here. But it's hard and complex. And that's the prominence of the financial industry in high reward jobs. Over the weekend, I read Momigliano on the decline of the Roman Empire, where he espoused the now unfashionable view that the conversion of the Empire hastened its downfall, thusly:

The Church attracted the most creative minds ... attracted many men who in the past would have become excellent generals, governors of provinces, advisers to the emperors.

I think Momigliano simplifies about Rome, but the point is valid for financial services today. The vast rewards made in banking must suck the most brilliant minds of the modern world into finance. Forget CEOs, it's thousands of people right across the banking industry who earn vast amounts in a away that no other career can offer. There are good reasons for this in part (very competitive, high stress, high workload etc), and hard realities to unpick, but I'm pretty sure it's not desirable.

It's important to be specific here: I'm not saying our best minds shouldn't make a fortune (though I am open to the argument that high levels of inequality carries social cost), but rather that I would like our best minds not to all be bankers. This is a tough emotional call, because it means those of us who are not bankers have to accept we have been working in less competitive industries, but that's what it means, and that's what we need to unpick. I have no idea how to do that, but I think someone should. That would be a good issue for our political class to address.

What they shouldn't do is strip Sir Fred Goodwin of his K. He has no committed a crime: he simply took (some quite stupid) risks that did not come off. He is also, by all accounts, a horrible man. These are not reasons to take away an honour. Honours are awarded for what you did; they are not conditional on future conduct - criminals sit in the Lords, a thousand misdemeanours have been committed by recipients of honours in every country.  This is spiteful where we should be measured, inconsistent where government should be above such things and simplistic when the issues are complex. And it is shameful. Like the outcry over Stephen Hester's bonus, the incident is a sideshow, but these issues are real. Aristotle warned of the slide into mob rule that accompanies democracy. This will doubtless be popular, but it is demagoguery of the most blatant kind, and those who practise it deserve out contempt.

Bibliography, 2011

My summary of the year in books:

January - H. Lee, To kill a Mockingbird
February - U.Eco, The Name of the Rose*
March - J. Steinbeck, East of Eden*
April - C.L.R. James, Beyond a Boundary
May - H. Mantel, Wolf Hall 
June- P. Leigh Fermor, Mani*
July - K. Fox, Watching the English
August - T. Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus 1569 - 1999 (K)
September - E. Ladurie, Montaillou
October - S. Graubard, The Presidents
November - M. Bowden, The Best Game ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL
December - A. Agassi, Open

I can't help but notice the first half was a lot better than the second.  The overall stats show much less reading this year. Only 124, and absolutely dominated by fiction - 60%, higher than ever before. Interestingly that doesn't show in the BOTM which is 4:3:5 (fiction : history : other non-fiction). And two of those those fiction were rereads. Which essentially means I've read a lot of low grade fiction. Actually, I'm not sure that's true - part of the problem is Wodehouse, who I started to read this year and possibly overegged it a bit. 14 of my books, over 10% were Wodehouse: all were wonderful, but none could snatch a BOTM. 

Anyway, for the vanishingly small  number of people who care, it's book of the year time.

Fiction was remarkably easy.  I hesitated over East of Eden, because it is the most sustained piece of brilliant writing I read this year, but a) it's a reread, and b) it's not To kill a Mockingbird, which was just better. It's shorter, and I think the talent to make something so evocative and powerful is greater without the grand canvas that Steinbeck uses.  But it's also better, and more important.

Non-fiction was much harder. James, Leigh Fermor and Fox were all excellent. However, the one I found myself repeating in conversation most has been Snyder, The reconstruction of Nations. There's an unfamiliarity bias here, as it's a fascinating topic, even more so as the Euro collapses. The westerner and the medievalist in me needs to be reminded that nationhood is still in flux in most of world, and it requires work. That book did it exceptionally well. It's a challenge to make an essentially unfamiliar topic accessible and interesting without becoming a bit patronising and dull, so additional plaudits for that.