Contents
Articles
- The Body of Christ, Stephen Mitchell
- The Good Chap and the Divine Saviour, Edwin Salter
- There is no such Person as an Individual, Grenville Gilbert
- Notebook: Three Extracts from Kit Widdows’ 1998 Notebook
- Remembering Simon Mapp, Geraldine Mapp
Poetry
- Pietà, Kathleen McPhilemy
- Down to Earth, Dinah Livingstone
Reviews
- As I Please by John Pearson, reviewed by Dave Francis
- The Picardy Third by A. J. McRobb, reviewed by John Pearson
- Evolution of a Post-Christian Theology by Maynard Kaufman, reviewed by Dominic Kirkham
- Back Country by Kathleen McPhilemy, reviewed by Kathryn Southworth
Regulars and Occasionals
Editorial: The Body of Christ
Christmas is coming, which celebrates the story of God (the divine) becoming embodied in a human being, so potentially in the whole of humanity as a single body all sharing fullness of life. In the words of Charles Wesley’s carol: ‘Light and life to all he brings’. Unfortunately, at the moment the British government completely denies that vision and preaches an anti-gospel. At the Queen’s funeral, prime minister Liz Truss read from John’s Gospel: ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life’ almost as if she was talking about herself and her dogmatic neo-liberal ideology promoting a gospel of Growth, Growth, Growth – offering tax cuts to the richest people and bad news for the poor.
In the Christmas story Jesus is born in a stable ‘because there was no room for them in the inn’. ‘Mild he lays his glory by’ and descends to associate with the excluded and the lowest in society in order to raise them up: ‘Born to raise the sons of Earth’. That is the opposite of planning to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. Liz Truss has gone now but her successor, though less rigid and more competent, still pursues this far-right agenda. Pray that after thousands of Christmases we may one day get a government that sees the light and supports a decent life for all.
If we believe that God is a poetic tale personifying real cosmic forces and actual or potential human capabilities (such as love), then we will not take the story of God coming down to Earth literally but as a way of offering a vision of humanity’s fulfilment. We will not read the saying ‘I am the Way the Truth and the Life’ to adopt Jesus as our ‘personal saviour’ paying a ransom for our individual sins. We can take it as it developed in the reflection of the early Christian community into the ideal of ‘Christ Jesus’ as the new humanity in one body, permeated with ‘the divine’, where everyone is of equal moral worth, black or white, high or low, male and female.
In this Sofia issue, Stephen Mitchell has the first article on The Body of Christ, in which he opposes the reductionism of limiting the richness of the Christian tradition to the actual words of Jesus; as he points out, these are sometimes difficult to establish anyway. Edwin Salter discusses The Good Chap and the Divine Saviour. In his article There is no such Person as an Individual, criticising Margaret Thatcher’s famous dictum ‘there is no such thing as society’, Grenville Gilbert writes: ‘There is no such person as an abstract individual, i.e. a totally separate human being who can live solely by the market. We all live together on planet Earth.’
As William Morris’s heroine Ellen says at the end of his utopian novel News from Nowhere: ‘Go on living while you may, striving, with whatsoever pain and labour needs must be, to build up little by little the new day of fellowship, and rest, and happiness.’ To which, as he wakes up, Guest replies: ‘Yes, surely! and if others can see it as I have seen it, then it may be called a vision rather than a dream.’
Dinah Livingstone
Letters to the Editor
Please send your letters to: Sofia Editor: Dinah Livingstone, 10 St Martin’s Close, London NW1 0HR. editor@sofn.org.uk
The Body of Christ
Warmest congratulations and grateful thanks for yet another really excellent edition of Sofia (146). ‘The Body of Christ’ is a metaphor, isn’t it? Or is it a bureaucratic organisation that’s very fussy about who is or isn’t legally in it? Or is it more than a metaphor? What does it refer to?
At a SOF conference in Leicester a few years ago a Unitarian friend of mine, the late David Arthur, told us of an experience he had during a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. With a great crowd of pilgrims he attended mass conducted by the Cardinal Archbishop in the vast basilica. Speaking most clearly and emphatically in many languages the Cardinal said, ‘I invite every one of you to come up and receive the bread. I invite you whether you are Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu. I invite you whether you say you have no religion or say that you are agnostic or atheist. I invite every one of you.’
Was the Cardinal showing us that the Body of Christ is, more than just a metaphor: Blake’s ‘human form divine’, Lear’s ‘unaccommodated man . . . poor bare, forked animal’; Gerard Manley Hopkins’s ‘jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch matchwood, immortal diamond’. As you say, ‘a vision of humanity’s fulfilment.’
Frank Walker, Cambridge
The Syrophoenician Woman
In my view, the Passion Story apart, the story of the Syrophoenician woman is, for SOF purposes, perhaps the most important story in the gospel of Mark. It includes the only example in Mark of a remote healing miracle, all the other miracles involve touch. Mark puts into Jesus’ mouth a phrase explicitly drawing attention to the precise words used by the woman: ‘… for saying these words…’ The woman took Jesus’ insulting response, likening her and her daughter to ‘dogs’, and immediately turns it back to him, challenging Jesus for her own purposes. One of the strengths of this magazine has been its insistence on the significance of poetry, alerting us to the power of metaphor and imagination to further the possibilities of understanding human potential. Long may the Network continue so to do.
David Lambourn, Bungay
Sofia 145: Was Jesus Racist?
I am intrigued by your challenge to come up with an explanation for the rather puzzling passage of Mark 7:24-28 concerning the Syro-Phoenician woman. The point that Mark makes surely reflects the creedal statement of first post-resurrection communities that there is no longer Jew or Gentile, male or female (Gal 3:28). Perhaps his understanding evolved through challenging encounters, such as that which Mark records.
Dominic Kirkham, Manchester
As one of Jewish descent, whose Grandfather never spoke my Mother’s name again after she married out of the faith, I am qualified to assert that Jesus, a Jew, was racist in his remark to the Canaanite woman. It may be that he later changed his view, but the story of the Good Samaritan suggests that he was not prepared to stick his neck out. You did ask!
Michael Hell, Birmingham
Was Jesus being racist? Well – no. But it all depends on what you mean by ‘racist’. Racism has specific roots in specific social conditions of oppression. The very idea of ‘race’ was not around in ancient times. The concept of race is a direct product of colonialism, empire and slavery. I am inclined to believe this is a true story, as it sits uncomfortably in the Gospels. Certainly Jesus is at first rude and shows disdain at being interrupted by a Gentile. But racist? In order to avoid trivialising the concept of racism, my answer is no.
David Rhodes, Charminster, Dorset
Gorbachev and Pope John XXIII
I was deeply saddened by the news of the death of Mikhail Gorbachev, one of the two great men of the times through which I have lived; the other was Pope John XXIII. Both were genial and charismatic figures who responded to popular acclaim in attempting to ‘open up’ and ‘restructure’ a staid and sclerotic mega-structure (the Soviet state and Catholic Church). Both wanted to bring down the walls of division that kept people apart. But after the initial euphoria, their work became frustrated by the same fatal flaw: that the agency they governed could be the instrument of change. After a period of turbulence a similar figure would appear to restore order: Pope John-Paul II and Vladimir Putin. Perhaps the possibility of renewal will always be an illusion!
Dominic Kirkham, Manchester
Monarchy
Although I enjoyed reading John Pearson’s account as he reconsiders his attitude towards the monarchy, I cannot agree with his implied conclusion that the lifestyle of members of the Royal Family is privileged and something to be envied. Being born a senior member of the Royal Family carries with it the loss of the normal personal freedoms available to ordinary citizens. I like the idea of living in a Monarchy in which the head of State is not a political appointment but a ceremonial position. Long live the monarchy!
Carol Palfrey, North Walsham, Norfolk
Pope Benedict XVI
I first became aware of Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) through his writings when at college and seminary in the 1960s–70s, which impressed me with their erudition. Concern changed to consternation when numbers of Anglican ‘refugees’ opposed to the ordination of women priests started to turn up in our parish. Disdain for discussion became the hallmark of Cardinal Ratzinger’s tenure as head of the Inquisition – renamed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) but unchanged in its secretive medieval procedures. As Pope Benedict XVI, Ratzinger’s legacy is of a timid man once burned by the experience of Nazism – then blinded by the glare of Modernity who sought guidance by looking in the rear-view mirror. Such is the supposed light of the world!
Dominic Kirkham, Manchester
Sacred Mountains
I am writing to recommend Adrian Cooper’s book Sacred Mountains: Ancient Wisdom and Modern Meanings (Floris Books, 1997). It should be better known to SOF readers because it discusses in detail a wide variety of religious responses to mountain journeying, including those from Christian non-realist perspectives. Cooper interviewed 144 pilgrims from many backgrounds to learn of their motivations, experiences and reflections. The majority began to engage in ‘Solar Ethics’ as Cupitt would say — using their mountain pilgrimages as motivations for community-work of many kinds.
Dawn Holden, Scarborough