David Lambourn reviews Treasure Beneath the Hearth: Myth, Gospel and Spirituality Today by Edward Walker. Christian Alternative (Winchester 2015). Pbk. 148 pages. £9.99.
Reviewing bad writing is simple; reviewing good writing, sometimes impossibly difficult. Reading a good book has similarities with viewing an art work: it has the qualities of an event. So it was for me when reading this short book. Edward Walker is a member of SOF and a former Anglican priest who served for five years during the height (depth?) of the apartheid regime in South Africa. After serving a further period on his return to the UK, he trained as a teacher, resigned his orders, and taught R.E. in an Oxfordshire comprehensive school until his retirement. Even so, brief a description should alert readers to the rich reflections which follow. Treasure Beneath the Hearth has four chapters: Only Connect, From Jesus to Christ, The Teaching of Jesus, and Appropriating the Myth. There is an Introduction and a generous Conclusion. There are also detailed References and a Bibliography. The book is addressed to those who ‘help to fill the churches at candle-lit services at Christmas time’, for whom ‘wistful nostalgia indulged in once a year is no nourishment for the twenty-first century person wanting to live out a life of integrity and purpose’. The main argument draws upon a reinstatement of myth combined with insights from within psychoanalysis – Carl Jung is frequently drawn upon – before proceeding to examine the gospels’ accounts of the teaching and place of Jesus. This is not narrowly attempted: the writer is clear as to the sources of his thinking and cites them generously. Other traditions are treated respectfully while attention is drawn to their uses of myth. Early in my reading, I felt that I was facing a rich collage drawn from the experience of a lifetime and an enviable breadth of reading. Later, the image developed into that of a tapestry, the materials are so carefully interwoven, the threads linking the many instances are easily understood. The title of the first chapter, Only Connect, is well justified. Walker’s personal reflections link his sources to his experience: drawing upon a remark of Laurens van der Post to the effect that the Afrikaner’s religion involved the projection of their own dark self upon their black fellow-countrymen: social apartheid as the expression of an internal apartheid, Walker remarks: ‘It was not until much later … I realised that I had a Pharisee and a Publican within myself who needed to be reconciled with one another.’ Writers in this field who draw upon psychoanalysis can so easily alienate readers with esoteric vocabulary, not so here. The material is, so to speak, both insightful and vernacular – Rollo May is cited approvingly: ‘We could define psychoanalysis as the search for one’s own myth.’ Such remarks, linking different domains, are to be found throughout the text and they contribute to the tools which are being provided, and demonstrated, en route. The chapter examining the gospel accounts, the longest in the book, is, in effect, a short course in New Testament theology and biblical criticism. It could be read, and understood, by many of the writer’s pupils, yet well-informed adult readers are unlikely to feel any condescension. The chapter is sparse, yet rich: the study is set clearly into the context of an enquiry into the work of leading a purposeful life, linked to the continuing themes of myth and personal integrity. The parables, the miracles, the arrest, the crucifixion and resurrection, are treated compatibly with current mainstream scholarship. In the final chapter, Appropriating the Myth, the author has chosen to illustrate his themes by reference to a text familiar to his target group, the Lord’s Prayer. He uses Karen Armstrong’s thought that prayer is a means of reaching down to ‘the deeper regions of the psyche’ and offers ‘illustrations rather than instructions’. Underlying much is the thought: ‘The language of the imagination… is the language of myth’ and ‘it is from imagination that action springs.’ Completing my reading, I realised that I had been on a journey with a companion who has generously shared his experience, perceptions and interpretations which I could receive as grounds for hope – a gift indeed. I hope the book gains a wide readership.
David Lambourn is SOF Administrator.