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
Avarice
George Herbert
Money thou bane of bliss, and source of woe,
Whence cam’st thou, that thou art so fresh and fine?
I know thy parentage is base and low;
Man found thee poor and dirty in a mine
Surely thou didst so little to contribute
To this great kingdom, which thou now hast got,
That he was fain, when thou wert destitute,
To dig thee out of thy dark cave and grot;
Then forcing thee by fire he made thee bright:
Nay, thou hast got the face of man; for we
Have with our stamp and seal transferred our right:
Thou art the man, and man but dross to thee.
Man calleth thee his wealth, who made thee rich;
And while he digs out thee, falls in the ditch.
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
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 request of the Syro-Phoenician (Canaanite? Greek?) woman with regards to her daughter.
The point that Mark makes surely reflects the creedal statement of first post-resurrection communities that preceded his composition that there is no longer Jew or Gentile, male or female (Gal 3:28). But how the Gospel teaching gets to this radically inclusive position is slightly enigmatic. We are used to having the teachings of Jesus presented as whole and entire from the outset. But were they? Or is this a retrospective literary construction from a later date? Perhaps his understanding evolved, as is so often the case, through challenging encounters, such as that which Mark records. Perhaps the male dominated world of which he was a part was challenged above all by women, still an ongoing issue for traditionalists.
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: the story tells what it is to be a good neighbour, which doesn’t answer the question.
Jewish History, Jewish Religion by Israel Shahak, the late Israeli scientist, shows how Jews have no more regard for non-Jews than Muslims have for infidels - not that the history of Christianity shows less racism than these.
You did ask!
Michael Hell, Birmingham
In the editorial of September’s edition you asked for comments on the story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman. Specifically: ‘Is Jesus being racist in what he says to her?’ Much has been written about the incident, and there is not much I can add to that. Matthews’s account (15.24) adds to Mark’s: ‘He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”.’
Was Jesus being racist? Well – no. But it all depends (as philosophers always say) on what you mean by ‘racist’. Racism has specific roots in specific social conditions of oppression. Racism is about power. The very idea of ‘race’ was not around in ancient times. The concept of race is a direct product of colonialism, empire and slavery.
Back to Jesus and the Gentile of Syro-phoenician origin. I am inclined to believe that this is a true story, as it sits uncomfortably in the Gospels. Matthew added the bit about the sheep of the house of Israel, presumably as a sort of explanation. And Luke left out the whole story. 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. Though it might not at first seem obvious, the parallel between the work and outcome of the lives of these two great men is both revealing and salutary. Both were genial and charismatic figures who responded to popular acclaim in attempting to ‘open up’ and ‘restructure’ (glasnost and perestroika/ aggiornamento and approfondimento) a staid and sclerotic mega-structure (the Soviet state and Catholic Church). Both wanted to bring down the walls of division (literally in Berlin) that kept people apart with a new global ecumenism and fraternalism.
But after the initial euphoria, their work became frustrated by the same fatal flaw in their assumptions: that the agency they governed could be the instrument of change – either the Communist Party or Vatican Curia (two secretive bodies that have more in common than many may think!). After a period of turbulence a similar figure would appear from within their ranks to restore order and repackage a version of past orthodoxy: Pope John-Paul II and Vladimir Putin, two vey different men from their predecessors, deeply committed to a traditionalism of past glory and with a gift for subtle deception. The outcome is the very different world in which we now live and which is shaped perhaps more than anything else by the failed dreams of two great men. Perhaps the possibility of renewal will always be an illusion!
Dominic Kirkam, Manchester
Mikhail Gorbachev died on 30th August 2022. The 60th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council was on 11th October 2022.
Sacred Mountains
I am writing to recommend Adrian Cooper’s book Sacred Mountains: Ancient Wisdom and Modern Meanings (Floris Books, 1997. See Cooper’s article in Sofia 124, June 2017). It has been a favourite book for me since its publication. 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 concerning their walks through high places. Alongside the interviews with the pilgrims, he includes extracts from the poetry and prose which inspired their journeys. Ultimately, the book is a rich text of many voices, all of whom are captivated by wilderness at altitude.
I’m particularly interested in the way mountain journeying has brought healing and transformation to many of these pilgrims. They talk openly and disarmingly of how mountain walks helped them through depression, anxiety, alcoholism, drug abuse and much else. Far from any distractions in the world’s high places, these individuals found themselves stripped of all (or most) of their familiar support systems, as well as their distractions from recovery.
In those high places of isolation, the seeds of recovery were discovered and then allowed to grow. Cooper avoids any romanticism about these journeys of healing. Instead, there are stories of honest struggle, mistakes, progress, failures, and refusals to allow short-term defeats to persist in the long term. All the pilgrims that Cooper interviewed returned from the mountains changed in positive ways.
It is also interesting to learn about the additional consequences of mountain journeying when these interviewed pilgrims returned home. Very few of them seemed satisfied to return to their former ways of religious being. Instead, the majority began to engage in ‘Solar Ethics’ as Cupitt would say. That is, they used their mountain pilgrimages as motivations for community-work of many kinds. Community-based conservation and citizen science seem to be a rich theme of work.
Dawn Holden, Scarborough