Category Archives: Cultural Comment

More famous than the Beatles

A couple of years ago it was Paris, Lindsay and Britney.  Nowadays its Kim, Cheryl and Katie that seem to be the movers and shakers – the newsmakers whose every move finds its way onto our breakfast table or computer screen.  And for what?  Some are famous merely for being famous; some, despite some initial promise are now famous for being out of control; some are both.  Is this freak-show really what life has become?  The cult of “Celebrity” seems to be in the ascendance.

As relational creatures, human beings have always been interested in the exploits of others, so this fixation with celebrity is not necessarily anything new (though perhaps it is on a new scale).  According to my diary, during October (the month I’m writing this) there are 28 people from down the centuries that the Church of England thinks we might like to remember and for whom we should thank God.  The lives of those whose names I recognise from this list are vastly more appealing than some of the dross we see on television.  These include the social reformer, the Earl of Shaftesbury, and St Francis of Assisi in whose name the chapel in Hunsdon is dedicated.  Also on the list are Martin Luther (the German priest who radically altered the religious and political landscape across Europe in the early 16th century), William Tyndale (who translated the Bible into English and was martyred for it in 1536), and Bishops Ridley and Latimer (who preached the Bible and were martyred for that in 1555).  Tucked away also is the renowned Nurse Edith Cavell, whose relative Kitty once lived in Hunsdon.

Though we rarely remember them, the impact these people have had on our lives is immeasurable.  There’s no doubt about it, these people changed the world.  It’s not surprising, then, that some have decided these notable characters should have a day on our calendar in their memory.  Somehow I can’t see the same honour being bestowed upon Ms Kardashian, Price, Cole, Hilton, Lohan or Spears!

But there is one who is even greater than these celebrated saints.  His exact dates of birth and death are unknown, but every year we commemorate them both.  His life did not inspire a single day to remember; rather, his life is the foundation for the whole of our calendar.  As we approach Christmas this year, let us remember that Christmas starts with Christ; the one who changed the world and keeps on changing it through his people.  And may the one who is more famous than the Beatles hold your hand in your hard day’s nights and whenever you need help.

 

Preparing for Christmas

So, here we are, half way through Exploretumn and the nights have really drawn in.  I guess it’s round about now that most people start thinking more seriously about Christmas.  Office parties are being booked, town-centre lights are being erected, and we’re conscious that time is pressing on – if we don’t get the cards written soon, the intended recipients will not know we’ve been thinking about them.   This season of preparation has a lot in common with the church’s season of Advent, which begins four Sundays before Christmas (1st December this year) and in which Christians look forward to the Christmas Day celebration of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem 2000 years ago.  One of the similarities between the seasons is that there’s a clear end-point to both: it’s quite plain that Christmas shopping must be complete by Christmas Day; and the season of Advent is defined as ending as Christmas Eve wanes.  There’s no avoiding the fact that Christmas Day is definitely the end of the pre-Christmas season!

But there’s a difference between the seasons too.  As well as helping Christians prepare for the celebration of when God became a man in Jesus to rescue sinners and make them his children again, the season of Advent has a second purpose.  Remembering Jesus’ birth is only part of the deal – Christians also look forward to his return as judge and king at the end of history.  Preparing for this is slightly more difficult than preparing for a Christmas celebration; “the end of history” has a date and is therefore a deadline every bit as definite as “Christmas Day”, but nobody actually knows what that date is.

For most people, this uncertainty tends to result in an understanding that “the end of history” is a long way in the future – so far, in fact, that it is of very little relevance.  And because it is so far in the future, most people – even the super-organised ones – put the task of preparing for it a long way down their list of priorities.  Indeed, I would venture to suggest that very few people give it much thought at all.  Now you might think that it is a bit bold of me to make such a sweeping claim, but I do so on the basis of surveys that have been conducted recently into people’s attitudes to Christmas itself.  Apparently, in the UK, just 12 per cent of adults know the nativity story, and more than one-third of children don’t know whose birthday we are celebrating at Christmas.  In what many still like to regard as a Christian country, a staggering 51 per cent of people now say the birth of Jesus is irrelevant to their Christmas.  I reason that if people are not including Christ in their Christmas despite the Christian heritage of our nation, they almost certainly aren’t thinking about his return.

Jesus himself advises that this is a terrible mistake.  He describes the day of his return as coming “like a thief in the night.”  The image he uses is deliberately shocking in order to wake us up and make us take notice.  He will come suddenly, without further warning – we are already on notice.  On this basis, the sensible thing to do is to put the task of preparing for his return at the top of our priorities so that we are ready when he comes, whenever that is.  So, will you spend the next hour searching the internet for the perfect Christmas gift-wrap, or would it be worth spending some time reflecting on your relationship with God?

Christmas is coming, and so is Christ – may you all be ready!

Melvyn Bragg Wide of the Mark

I learned something new on Good Friday; Melvyn Bragg wrote the screenplay for the Rice/Lloyd-Webber Musical “Jesus Christ Superstar.”  According to Lord Bragg, adapting that theatrical piece for the big screen proved to be the start of a fascination with Mary Magdalene; a fascination which would eventually produce a documentary to air at 12 noon on Good Friday, the BBC’s flagship “Religious” programme for the 2013 Easter season.

I had been warned in advance that the show would be screened at that time (to coincide with Jesus’ crucifixion?) and encouraged to watch.  So I did.  In the end I was probably less offended than I had prepared myself to be, but I did watch the closing titles with sadness of heart.  The BBC had used its prime-time slot at Easter to present a fanciful alternative to the Christian message rather than something more factual or something that might help people to reflect upon the central figure of Christianity; Jesus the Christ.  Melvyn Bragg was wide of the mark.

To his credit, Lord Bragg was honest about the limited scope of the Biblical evidence about Mary Magdalene.  He was even happy to admit that her status as the first witness of the resurrected Christ (some have dubbed her “the apostle to the apostles”) gives added weight to the veracity of the resurrection accounts – in those days, the testimony of a woman was not regarded as having any value, so the fact that she is mentioned in this light points to the truth of the matter (nobody would make it up!).  But most of the programme was about other things.

First, there was the way the church of later centuries treated Mary Magdalene.  Bragg spoke of the way that the senior and influential figures in the church confused and merged different women in the Gospel accounts together as “Mary” in such a way that she could be presented as a strong example of a penitent sinner.  The church was presented as “wrong” on this matter.  (I don’t disagree with this verdict, but it is painful to hear nonetheless, because no distinction was made between the failures of the early church and the state of the church today; what the audience heard was “The church was/is wrong.”)

Second, there was the uncritical appeal to the minority report of the Nag Hamadi texts – literature from the “Gnostic” sect of Christianity which was around from the end of the 1st century and which believed a very different message to orthodox Christianity as we know it today (or as we find in the letters of Paul and the rest of the New Testament).  Predictably, Bragg highlighted the one fragment of a text in which Jesus is reported to have favoured Mary above the other disciples and “kissed her on the mouth often,” but, regrettably, though one of the scholars did admit we could not be sure what such kisses really meant, none of them identified that the fragment is actually damaged just where the word “mouth” would be.  The real issue is not that we don’t know what a kiss on the mouth might have meant in those days, but rather that we don’t even know what the text really says!  Of course, the real issue is of no interest to the programme makers; they just want something sensational to interest the public.

Strikingly, Bragg promoted the view that ancient documents (again, without qualifying this at all) suggest strongly that Mary Magdalene was “Jesus’ lover, or even his wife.”  I confess I found this most bizarre; that Lord Bragg should find it somehow of more concern that Mary be Jesus’ wife than his [unmarried] lover!  Of course, the evidence for such a relationship is virtually non-existent and the hints come only from late, scarce and unreliable sources; the silence of the canonical Gospels on this matter actually speaks a far more authoritative word.  However, the TV audience just heard that she “might have been” (in context “probably was”) his lover… and the reputation of both Jesus and his church is tarnished once again.

Third, a significant assumption made popular by Dan Brown’s novel, “The Da Vinci Code” were repeated.  This was that the Gnostic “Gospels” were written as early as the four Gospels we have in the Bible.  Reputable scholars suggest this is highly unlikely – suggesting the origin of the Gnostic material is almost certainly a century or so later.  Similarly, the programme promoted the view that the Emperor Constantine was instrumental in choosing the books that would officially become parts of the Christian Bible so that they would convey the message he wished others to hear rather than the “truth”.  The real way the books of the New Testament were chosen by and authorised for use in church gatherings is much more complicated (but this doesn’t make such controversial television!).

Fourth, and connected with this, Constantine’s suppression of certain branches of the church (Lord Bragg called them “Christians” without qualification) was connected with the suppression of women; the outlawed Gnostics seemed to allow women to rise to positions of leadership, and, of course, this would never do.  Thus Bragg neatly linked ancient history to an issue which is currently proving difficult for the church – “Things might have been so different,” he mused.

All in all I guess I found the programme most disappointing because of the thread running through the programme that “the church was/is wrong”; wrong about Mary’s identity, wrong to exclude the heretical Gnostic texts, wrong to hide Jesus’ alleged affair with Mary, wrong to take the view it did on women in leadership.  There was a sense in which the programme presented Lord Bragg as “finally, a sensible voice!” on these matters, unearthing secrets the church would rather stay hidden.  He made some sensible conclusions (like him, I do not believe that Mary Magdalene was sent off in a rudderless boat, ended up in France and performed a miracle by praying that the wife of a local prince might conceive a child).  But in his quest for a sensational story, he literally went all over the place, up every dead end street drawing attention to all manner of false beliefs and raising all kinds of false hopes.

What a shame he didn’t settle for the most sensational news of all time; the news which Mary Magdalene herself encountered and shared – that Jesus Christ is risen from the grave; that death is defeated, and that forgiveness of sins is freely given in his name to all who will believe.  Now that would have been an appropriate programme for the Easter season!