Dante Gabriel Rossetti – Moving away from Christendom

Tate Britain have again mounted an extensive interesting exhibition showcasing the work of a great artist. This time: Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Tate exhibitions give plenty to see, more value for money than some other galleries. A great theme on display is the ambivalence and eventual rejection by Dante Gabriel of Christianity, in an age of Imperial Christendom.

We begin learning about the Rossetti family, with the poet Christina Rossetti featured alongside her older brother Dante Gabriel. DG soon takes centre stage, for this is an art, not a poetry, exhibition.

Mr Rossetti senior came to Britain from Italy. The contribution of these immigrants to fresh expressions of the English language and British art not highlighted, but is be celebrated.

Mr Rossetti senior was a scholar and translator of Dante. We are shown his work on Inferno, Hell, not on Purgatory and Paradise. Early works by Dante Gabriel feature demons and the devil, including scenes from Faust. His fascination with dark spirituality was probably prompted by the family attention to Dante’s Inferno. Originally named Gabriel Dante, he changed to Dante Gabriel. The angel messenger of God taking second place to the chronicler of the domain of the devil.

Dante’s Inferno has had a malign influence on Western Christendom. This book finally enshrined hell as the place where people, souls, burn in torment for ever, under the authority of the devil. Once inside, no escape is possible, for eternity. Jesus looks on from a great distance, unconcerned. Before Inferno, the popular depiction of hell was of a sharp-toothed grave from which Jesus rescues people, souls. This ‘Harrowing of Hell’ was shown in church pictures and in passion plays. After Inferno, the picture changed. See Changing the picture of hell: 23 August | Rogerharper’s Blog (wordpress.com)

The dominance of the Inferno picture of hell, suited the dominance of Imperial Christendom – the alliance between the Spirit of Jesus and the spirit of Empire. If Jesus was shown to rule by fear, fear of hell, Christendom could rule by fear. If Jesus was unconcerned with the masses in the miserable, tormented, pit of hell, Christendom could be unconcerned with the masses in the miserable exploited pits of Empire, slaves with no hope of escape. If Jesus had an eternal place for the devil and all his ways, Christendom could use at least some of the ways of the devil when it was deemed necessary, including torture. The doctrine of hell as eternal conscious torment, finally enshrined and popularised by Dante, elevated the devil and his kingdom to an eternal partner with Jesus and His Kingdom. A malign influence indeed.

The paintings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti show him caught in the struggle between the Spirit of Jesus and the influence of the devil. He joined the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, renewing art through celebration of colour in nature and of the human Jesus, more Brother than Lord. The Pre-Raphaelites looked to art before Raphael, and to British Christendom before the British Empire.

Dante Gabriel did not fully embrace the ethos of the Brotherhood and later left it. He exchanged the vision of art communicating beauty and Christian truth for the vision of art for art’s sake, which, so often, means art as self-expression. ’Look at what I can do. Aren’t I clever? No-one else has thought of doing this before,’ seems the main message of many modern artists.

In the exhibition we see Dante Gabriel’s ‘Found’ pictures. The first drawing shows a shamed shrinking ‘fallen woman on a London Street as a good man from the village from which she ran away tries to draw her back home. DG never finished the picture. He painted the scene twice again, but with the ‘rescuing’ man both wealthier and more muscular. Is the woman shrinking from this man because his motives are not as pure as the first rescuer? The later paintings are also unfinished, indicating a tussle within the artist as well.

In the background of the Found paintings is a bound calf apparently on its way to market. The Exhibition Notes explain the tension in the scene between the hope of redemption and the despair of continuing degradation. These Notes indicate that the calf speaks of the despair. No mention of Jesus the Lamb of God, led, bound, to the slaughter cross, both the exposer of human wickedness and the redeemer of all humans through divine love and forgiveness. The people for whom DG panted would have known and understood the lamb-calf reference. The Art Expert who wrote the Notes seems to be oblivious. We have moved far away from a common Christendom culture.

‘The Woman Outside the House of Simon the Pharisee’ is a pivotal work. The Notes fail to explain the connection to the story in Luke 7, oblivious to Bible reference. People at the time knew that the Woman goes into the house, expressing great, sensuous, love for Jesus, who, in front of all, assures her of her forgiveness. The Pharisee, religious teacher and enforcer of the rules, is horrified.

Here the Woman, outside the house, locks eyes with Jesus, inside the house. Will she go in? The house is to the right, solid and dark. Simon the Pharisee scowls in the gloom. Jesus looks from a window, beams radiating from his face. He is also dark, grim.

The Woman is richly dressed, part of a great vibrant company. She and her companions are attractive, glorious, compared to the gloom of the Pharisee and Jesus in the dark house. Dante Gabriel is clearly attracted to the company of the Woman, ‘a notorious sinner,’ celebrating her and her life. Was he repelled by a dark Church housing both Jesus and The Pharisee, a Church of both divine compassion and of hypocritical exploitation? The Christendom in which he lived had elements of both.

From the drawing of this Woman onwards, Dante Gabriel, concentrated on his ideal, richly dressed, occasionally partly dressed, Woman. We read his sister’s poem observing that the paintings are different but the face is always the same. These paintings, without a vestige of Christian truth or morality, brought DG fortune. Both he, and his buyers, wanted only to look at feminine beauty fixed in an unageing, prime, age. Yet the one, repeated face, is expressionless, close to lifeless. A face which could be a user of laudanum, the opiate of the day, from which DG’s model, lover, later wife, died young of an overdose.  

Dante Gabriel Rossetti lived in the Christendom tension between the seductions of the devil and the pure compassion of Jesus. He ended as a painter of escape from Christendom and also from reality, from the turmoil of all the emotions of this life and from the hope of redemption behind and beyond.

Standing at the Sky’s Edge: National Theatre

The gritty Britty musical. The lives of 3 successive families in a flat on Park Hall, Sheffield, echoing each other, interwoven expertly on stage. A wide variety of good songs expressing love, hope, grief, anguish, anger. Good writing, good acting and, mostly, good singing. Some editing of songs and narration would be an improvement. ‘Sky’s Edge’ would be a better title. Received with an instant standing ovation.

The first half begins in 1960s hope, in a town assured of a good future because the world needs steel. It ends in apocalyptic disaster. The hopes of all families and of the community, of building Jerusalem in Sheffield through class warfare, die in grim end-of-industry reality

The second half begins sad, still bleak. A little hope that human love can still flourish. But a key man in both first families dies. The 3^rd resident, a Londoner retreating from a break-up with her lesbian partner, is eventually persuaded by her ex to meekly take her back, despite the ex’s portrayed scorn, manipulation and self-justification. The ex’s Scottish origin half hides her embodiment of London values. We are meant to celebrate this love but it is shown as far from the patient and kind, selfless, godly, version of love.

The disillusioned, despairing, first husband in Park Hall, the youngest foreman in the history of the now closed steelworks, tells his son, with passion, ‘I SEE you. I see YOU.’ A cry in the post-industrial wilderness. Sheffield today is portrayed as a world where men are not seen, and neither are the wider Sheffield community. The pro-gay locals demonstrate common disapproval of the London lesbian lover but are side-lined. London’s version of love, as London’s version of economics, currently holds sway.

Can the hope of building Jerusalem be resurrected? Is there a different building strategy to class warfare, a less military and more potent antidote to London’s ‘love the rich for the crumbs which fall from their table?’ Can the people, the men, of Sheffield be seen as people rather than as disposable human resource for the profit driven City of London? I hope we can build Christian Equitable Companies firmly on the basis of love your neighbour as you love yourself, love your Londoner no more than you love your Sheffield Steelmaker.

And I hope that an edited version of Sky’s Edge can be seen across the UK. The standing ovation in The National Theatre indicates this musical is good for the whole country.

Satanic mills to Jerusalem? January 31

Protestors and Capitalism: 12 November

General Synod and Gay Marriage Blessing: Time for God’s Accommodation

The Bishops of the Church of England are recommending Accommodation. They want to accommodate people in gay marriages and the people who campaign for their inclusion. They want to accommodate gay people for whom gay marriage is ungodly and the people who campaign for them. Their current proposal to accommodate both groups is to encourage the Blessing of Gay Marriages.

The Bishops’ proposal has predictably been greeted with outrage by people in both groups. Both extremes argue that it is wrong to accommodate the other side. Both extremes reject the whole idea of Accommodation. How can we have something as flawed and half-hearted as Accommodation, particularly about something as fundamental as human sexuality?

It is time to assert that the God of Jesus and of the Bible accommodates to human sexuality.

Jesus was clear. God’s purpose has always been for one woman and one man for life. How many men were created for a woman? How many women were created for a man? Heterosexual monogamy is and has always been the best practice of human sexuality, has been God’s way.

Has God insisted on His own way? Or has He accommodated to humans?

Jesus accommodated in a remarkable and unacknowledged way. When going through the Gospels for 2. Listening to Jesus | Gay Marriage Maybe (wordpress.com) I missed Matthew 19:11. Jesus has been teaching seemingly strict monogamy. Then he says: ‘Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given.’

Monogamy is not a teaching which should be imposed on everyone. Some people can’t accept it. That’s OK for them. They may find, in the end, that they have a less fulfilled, more fraught, life. But Jesus says ‘Don’t insist on My way. About lifelong monogamy, accommodate.’

Paul honoured this accommodation by teaching that church leaders should be monogamous, other church members not necessarily.

The Old Testament shouts that, in mattes of sexuality, the LORD has accommodated, even in His chosen people. He accommodated to Abraham and Sarah using Hagar and to Abraham in late life taking other wives. Isaac was the exception. (For more on Isaac’s remarkable monogamy see Jacob The Son (laddermedia.co.uk)) From Jacob onwards, monogamy was hardly considered. Polygamy and concubinage was the norm.

Does this apply to Gay Marriage? Probably. It would be very odd of God to accommodate human sexuality in one way and not in another. Accommodating Gay Marriage does not mean accommodating the whole variety of human sexual practice, either heterosexual or gay. Monogamous Gay Marriage is as much a bar to Bisexual practice as Monogamous Heterosexual Marriage.

More positively, we follow the example, the spirit, of our God in accommodating our practice of marriage to gay people. Surely, gay people are some of those to whom Jesus’s teaching on monogamous heterosexual marriage has not been given? We make room for them by blessing their desire to live in a faithful lifelong monogamous relationship.

Is such Accommodation a response to the leading of the Holy Spirit today? Probably. Discernment of the leading of the Holy Spirit is a matter of careful, open, examination by the whole Church. This process has yet to be started. The Church of England has spent years listening to each other about Gay Marriage as well as listening to Leviticus and Romans. Now, we should listen more to the recorded words of Jesus and to the Holy Spirit, who can bring us, today, truths which we could not bear before. 3. Listening to the Holy Spirit | Gay Marriage Maybe (wordpress.com)

Part of our listening to the Holy Spirit is to allow people to follow their consciences and then to see what happens. Does God withdraw His blessing from them? (For a great example of God withdrawing blessing look at what happened to Jacob when he allowed his sons to slaughter the Shechemites, and God ‘went up from him.’ Genesis 34, 35 and following.) Or does He bless them the same as His other children? This was the wisdom of Gamaliel, Acts 5:34-39.

Biblically, we can agree with the Bishops in seeking to accommodate people in gay marriages. We must also agree to accommodate fellow Christians of opposing views. If two thirds of the Church representatives agree to the accommodating Blessing of Gay Marriage, some of the remaining one third may threaten to leave. To these unaccommodating Christians we say a reluctant ‘Farewell.’ Loving, accommodating, our sisters and brothers in Christ, is a clear, unequivocal, Jesus imperative. The minority who cannot accept this imperative will, sadly, have to find another home.

We have an accommodating God. Let’s be His accommodating people.

PS I was expecting the decision on Blessings of Gay Marriage to need a two thirds majority, so I wrote ‘If two thirds of the Church representatives agree…’ I was dismayed that the Bishops had decided not to follow a great Church of England practice – needing a two thirds majority for a significant change. Now I add my voice to those of Church Leaders and Bishops calling for a new vote needing a two thirds majority.

I continue to support the Bishops’ proposal but believe that the unity of the Church is more important. How can we go ahead happily if 40% of our people do not want this development? Disregard for such a substantial minority is neither Anglican nor Christian.

Fay Weldon – Woman of, mixed, Faith

In April 2010 Fay Weldon agreed to me interviewing her for Christianity magazine. In 2000, She had become a notable Christian, baptised in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. She died yesterday, 4 January 2023, aged 91.

Approaching her house, my expectation was to see a cross between Joan Bakewell, glamourous TV intellectual, and Cruella de Vil, from 1001 Dalmatians. She was known as a sharp, pioneering feminist, author of The Life and Loves of a She Devil.’ She would be thin, taller than me, dressed in a green trouser suit, looking down on me.

Fay opened the large off-white wooden door. She was short and not at all thin, with blond, wavy, girly, hair, a broad smile, a quiet demeanour and a steady, penetrating, gaze. A cross between Marilyn Monroe and Margaret Thatcher.

Despite still recovering from a nasty bug, Fay had, that morning, welcomed her hairdresser for the interview photographs. At nearly 80 years old, she was a determined professional writer, presenting her work, and herself, as best she could.

For photos of the interview and brief footage of me rounding off, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6Fh3Zpd6qY

Fay explained that she was born to humanists, ignored the prayers at her Catholic school and, much later, was drawn to St John’s Church in Hampstead.

I just like going to church! Being baptised seemed a sensible thing to do. It wasn’t a great moment of enlightenment or sudden conversion. Partly, I think, I wanted to belong.

Then I was always very worried about saying the Creed, because it’s very literal, isn’t it? And they won’t let you take it metaphorically. And one day I said it, and found that I hadn’t been struck by lightning or anything. Now I am used to it, and don’t query it at all.

Another thing that got me going as a Christian, so to speak, is that I was asked to write an introduction to 1 Corinthians. I was sort of converted by St Paul. It seemed such an extraordinary tale, so new at the time, and I thought ‘What an amazing person.

Faith became a strong part of Fay’s life.

We go to church every Sunday at 8 o’clock and once a month we go to another church at 11 o’clock and sing hymns, which I like doing, and meet people. And every now and then, not always, you feel the presence of God. And I like the whole sense of history, that people have walked up this particular path for the last five hundred years, at least, that you are part of something extremely valuable. If I don’t go, I feel as though I’ve missed something.

Fay learnt to cope with adverse reactions to her new faith:

My daughter-in-law was absolutely terrified of letting my grandchildren near me in case I converted them! People are, oddly, quite shocked because they think it means that you have no intellect. Many are really quite polite, and so many are Christians but you didn’t know. People are almost nervous of saying that they go to church and all the rest of it because it’s somehow, socially, not the thing to do. But you discover all kinds of people who are Christian, and who talk to you about it.

Now there’s a sort of scientist backlash which is trying actually to erase Christianity from the social structure. They say we’re superstitious and old-fashioned. But I find it equally difficult to comprehend what they think’s going on in the cosmos.

Fay wrote as a woman of faith:

You can’t proselytise you know. But everything I write, to me, has a kind of moral base to it. And, on the whole, virtue is rewarded.

When I talk at literary festivals, I explain to people that, if they take an hour, or an hour and a half, out of their lives every Sunday it is rather better than going to the shopping mall, and certainly cheaper. And to gather together and to pray for the sick does nobody any harm at all and might even do them a great deal of good.

Once you’ve seen it and once you’ve seen society as it is in its irreligious state, you think that the sooner it gets back to religion the better. If people don’t believe in God, they’ll believe in anything as Dostoevsky said. If you go to Glastonbury, you’ll see them believing in anything – a ruddy waste of time! My mother lived there for a time with the terrible things going on and she used to say ‘Where there are angels there are always devils as well.

Fay only commended her, traditional, type of church: She decried ‘bongo jingle church in pre-fab buildings.’ She relished ‘… a sense of respect, of God as an impersonal force. This is what I respond to. God is greater than you can conceive. Jesus was in your image but God is not in your image.’

Fay’s understanding of the Holy Spirit was ‘I think we’re born with it and if you allow it to develop, it develops. By an act of will that either denies it or includes it in your general behaviour towards other people.’ It seems that no-one, including myself, helped Fay to know that the Holy Spirit has to be received, as Jesus received at his Baptism and as Paul taught.

Fay’s first serious encounter with faith had been in 1989. After the fatwa of death against her fellow novelist Salman Rushdie, she read the Koran. She wrote the pamphlet Sacred Cows expressing her critical view:

The Koran is food for no thought. It is not a poem on which a society can be safely or sensibly based. It forbids change, interpretation, self-knowledge, or even art, for fear of treading on Allah’s creative toes.

The Koran fails in that, being so abusive of non-belief, it insists upon a concrete interpretation of its text. Thus, it gives weapons and strength to the thought police – and the thought police are easily set marching, and they frighten.’

Fay was herself then threatened:

Ten years later they declared me an Islamophobe, which was rather nasty. They turned up at literary readings and things. It took them ten years to get round to it – and that was written before I was a Christian.

Fay did not change her views for our 2010 interview:

I just think it’s very funny to believe that the Koran came from anything other than Mohammed, (perhaps you’d better not print this or I might get into trouble) who was rather like L J Hubbard, in creating a religion… From St Paul onwards Christianity was an inclusive religion. Islam, by its nature is exclusive.

Fay’s view of feminism did change, not to everyone’s approval:

The women are now, on the whole, happier than they were. Women now can speak up without having the little squeaky voices which they used to have because they were so nervous and so unused to speaking in public.

It’s just the children. If we could just have a 25 hour week. Any child can be without its mother for 25 hours a week. I think it’s the full-time work that’s the problem. Let them spend less time producing the stuff that nobody needs and more time in the home or taking care of the children.

Society has changed. Women now have absolute choice about how they live. What goes wrong is not men’s fault. But some women continue, out of habit, to find fault with men.

The published interview is here: https://www.premierchristianity.com/interviews/fay-weldon-i-go-to-church-every-sunday-and-every-now-and-then-i-feel-the-presence-of-god/3612.article

Fay’s appreciation of gathering together to pray was shown in her welcome of me praying with her that day. Before the interview, I thought Jesus had nudged me to offer to pray for her finances. To me, this seemed an unlikely need for a famous novelist. I offered anyway. Fay, happily amazed, called her husband and we prayed accordingly. This turned a professional meeting into an ongoing friendship.

At Fay’s birthday party a couple of years later, Fay welcomed me praying for her painful leg. When her son died, she welcomed me praying the Book of Common Prayer Funeral Service with her over the phone. At another birthday party, she welcomed prayer from myself and my fiancée for her painful back.

Fay encouraged me about my first novel, the whodunit A British Crash: https://www.laddermedia.co.uk/a-british-crash . She wrote ‘The writing is professional and what the book has to say is really interesting.’

Fay also continued to welcome Kehua, Maori familial spirits, from her upbringing in New Zealand. She wrote about these in a novel of the same name. ‘Kehua are the spirits of the dead, who are not nasty, but just trying to bring you home. The book is about the difficulty of distinguishing a character in a book from a ghost. It’s more or less in this house that it takes place.’ The book was largely autobiographical. Maybe she should have taken more heed of her mother’s warning of devils and angels.

We are all a mixture. Fay, and Fay’s strong Christian faith, was no exception. May she see even more clearly in the light of Paradise. May all the saints and angels enjoy her sharp, sympathetic, impish wit, for ever.

Roger Harper

Boris Out Now

Just written to my MP. Could you write to yours?

Dear Sarah,

Please will you support all efforts, from whichever party, to have Boris Johnson follow the usual procedure for resignations?

The usual procedure is that the person resigning steps down as soon as possible. Especially when there is a Deputy in place for such an eventuality. It is unusual for someone to stay in post without handing over to their Deputy for the interim, before the post is fully filled.

Dominic Raab announced early that he will not be standing for Leader of the Conservative Party. The speed of this announcement showed that the ‘between the lines’ message was ‘I will be a safe interim Prime Minister because I will not use the position to aid my own candidacy.’ All of us expected that, by now, Dominic would be interim Prime Minister.

Boris thinks otherwise. He does not follow the usual procedure. You remember his school report – ‘”I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation that binds everyone else.” Today, again, Boris is expecting all of us to go along with his exceptionalism. The normal procedure for resignations does not apply to him.

The general understanding, voiced by Sajid Javid and many others, is that Boris does not act according to agreed standards, moral and otherwise. The number and seniority of people which have come to this assessment, means that our country is in danger from Boris acting outside of agreed standards until his successor is chosen. I wince at the prospect of Boris representing our country in meetings and statements when, with nothing more to lose, he is vey likely to be more cavalier than ever.

Please urge him to follow usual procedure and go now.

Thank you,

Canon Roger Harper-Allen

Boris himself seemed to indicate he expects to be out soon by giving detailed thanks to all at No 10. He did not say ‘I’ll give my thanks in a few months.’ He has said all his thanks now. He is ready to go now.

Leroy Logan: Prophetic Policeman

The beginning of the career of Leroy Logan in the London Metropolitan police has recently been dramatised on BBC1 TV: BBC One – Small Axe, Series 1, Red, White and Blue A good story, well told, well acted, with some dramatic licence and ‘look at my techniques’ shots.

A couple of months ago Premier Christianity magazine published my review of Leroy’s autobiography, ‘Closing Ranks.’ Closing Ranks – Leroy Logan – SPCK Publishing.

A moving, enlightening, account of one man’s calling to make the Metropolitan Police more servants of local communities and less an occupying force. Leroy explains how heavy handed police procedures breed mistrust in minority ethnic communities, making witnesses reluctant to speak to police, thus hindering the detection of crime.

Leroy’s first job was medical scientist. His manager suggested that Leroy would make a good policeman. Leroy’s immediate response was ‘Do I look like a white racist?’ Leroy had spent formative years in Jamaica. For him black policemen were more normal than for most Black British men. He recognised a calling and stuck with it for 30 years, retiring as Superintendent. Several times over the years Leroy was well aware of the support of Jesus and His Church as he stood up for justice within and against a ‘closing ranks’ culture.

‘Nigger’ scrawled inside his police station locker was the shocking, blatant, racism. Many other comments and actions showed the depth of racism in police culture. Leroy helped form the Met Black Police Association to support Minority Ethnic officers, to challenge and call for cultural change. Years later he became Chair of the Association. He describes the ridiculous length some senior police officers went to to discredit him as a leading black officer and, through him, his colleagues.

Leroy tells his story well. Interesting accounts of apprehending criminals, supervising officers, meeting Princess Diana, planning the Olympics, dealing with accusations of Christian homophobia, working with Sadiq Khan, receiving an MBE, and more.  Some readers may find too much detail of the Black Police Association, rather than of ordinary police work. All readers will benefit from coming to know this clear-thinking, courageous man and the culture he continually tried to change. His prophetic call may yet be heeded beyond his home country.

5 stars

George Floyd’s Death, Part 2: Confessing the Legacy of Slavery

Confessing more widespread sins which are part of the Legacy of Slavery is more complex. Remnants, large and small, of Slavery thinking and behaviour are alive today. The widespread Echo to the death of George Floyd in the lives of protestors and many others testifies to these sharp remnants damaging many people today.

Remnants of slavery thinking are addressed in the Bible in the call to ‘remember you were slaves in Egypt’ so as not to think or behave as slaves nor slave-owners. Old Testament commentators often quote: ‘It was one thing to get the slaves out of Egypt. It was another to get Egypt out of the slaves.’

Fear of The Black Man.

Slaves are valued and selected for the physical stature and prowess. Muscly slaves fetch more money than weedy slaves. Strong slaves survive the horrendous sea journey and degrading plantation conditions. (The sea journey operated as an unnatural, inhuman, selection: only the fittest, strongest, survived.)

Slaves are therefore, in general, physically more powerful than their masters. Slaves are in a life they have not chosen from which they want to escape. Slaves are naturally confined and angry. The Masters are naturally afraid of their slaves.

Although Slavery, as we knew it, has gone, it is clear that Fear of The Black Man has not gone. We see it in the actions of the police towards George Floyd. We hear of it echoed in the experience of many others.

This fear needs to be acknowledged and confessed. People need to own up to harbouring, perpetuating, the fear inherited from the past. People need to seek the help of God and others to have the fear replaced by love. We work on this as God works within us.

Fear leads people to keep a distance. Segregation is a result of fear and perpetuates fear. Segregation persists practically though not legally. Familiarity diminishes fear. Aversion therapy helps people who are deeply afraid, for instance of spiders, slowly and incrementally to become familiar, for instance with spiders. We need positive, organised, initiatives to build more familiarity between black and white people.

The Church can take the lead on building familiarity. In many places white majority churches have neighbouring black majority churches. Fully diverse churches are, sadly, few. Could churches covenant to be in a ‘family,’ cousin, relationship finding ways to come to know each other better? Joint conferences and retreats? Joint social care initiatives? Familiarity is what the Church, the family of Jesus, should be creating.

Fear of The Black Man is only one of many remnants of slavery thinking and behaviour which need to be addressed.

Money.

A big remnant of slavery is the wealth of people and institutions today inherited from slave owners. The profits of Slavery were theft from the slaves. People today are guilty of receiving stolen property. The Financial Legacy of Slavery needs to be addressed.

Confession of inheriting stolen property is not outrageously impractical. Germany has recognised and confessed the wealth stolen from German Jews. This confession was not automatic. For a time German people wanted only to rebuild their nation and forget about the Jews, about that nasty episode in German history. A long and sustained Call to Confession was eventually heeded. Today, all over Germany, especially Western Germany, the country’s Jewish heritage and its demise is publicly noted.

My father and his Jewish family were forced to leave Essen. In 1960 the main Essen Synagogue was turned into a Museum of Industrial Design. All remaining Jewish symbols were removed or covered.

During the 1970s a movement began to acknowledge and uncover more of the detail of the Holocaust and of German Jewish Heritage. From 1986 to 1988 the Essen Synagogue was restored to its original appearance. From 2008 to 2010 the building was further developed as a Jewish Museum and Cultural Centre. Both renovations were fully financed by the Local Authorities. In front of the main Essen Railway Station is a notable fairly recent sculpture memorial to the Jews transported from Essen to concentration camps. The rest of Germany has embarked on similar restoration and memorials.

Germany has made sizeable restitution to the Jews. My father’s family have received compensation and more is expected. Much of this restitution was made in the 1950s when Germany could easily have argued that they could not afford such generosity. Slave-owning countries need to learn from and follow the example of Germany.

Descendants of slave owners need, similarly, to own up to harbouring, perpetuating, ill-gotten gains. People need to seek the help of God and others to repay or make restitution for what was stolen.

In the UK some people are addressing the Financial Legacy of Slavery. Cambridge University has set up an Advisory Group on Legacies of Enslavement: https://www.v-c.admin.cam.ac.uk/projects/legacies-of-enslavement Jesus College, Cambridge, where I was a student, has set up its own Working Party which has decided on the first step of symbolic restitution: https://www.jesus.cam.ac.uk/articles/legacy-slavery-working-party-recommendations

Where will the financial restitution go? Groups representing descendants of slaves need to decide. I hope that, as with the Jews, some money will go to individual people. I hope too that money will go to programmes addressing the Legacy of Slavery in the attitudes and behaviours of the descendants of slave owners and slaves.

We Christians urge Confession of Sin and Faith in the healing, forgiving, God of Jesus. Both Confession and Faith need to be expressed in action. I consider that the Germans have done plenty to demonstrate serious confession of sin. For me, they are forgiven. The Legacy of Slavery can be addressed and healed. Black Lives can matter more.

Roger Harper

National Prayer Against Coronavirus

Lying on my back in bed this morning, enjoying my usual Friday, day off, musing and praying with more time. I sensed or saw myself in Jesus, as inside a suit. Friday is my day for praying for my nation, Britain. You may like to join in with all or part of what came to me, or use it to stimulate your own prayer.

Sweeping Angels

‘Abba, Father! Please send angels throughout our land to sweep the virus towards and into people who are immune. Please use the costly immunity we have now to kill off the virus.’

I know many people who have had Covid-19 symptoms and have now recovered. The current evidence is that the immune systems of these people now recognise the virus as an enemy and kill it.

(South Korean microbiologists have identified that the virus which the Chinese had seen in some recovered people is deformed, unable to reproduce, no threat.)

Asking God to help along the natural immunity He has given us felt a positive and realistic prayer.

Tongues and Quiet

Then I prayed, sang, in tongues, something I have neglected recently. (Praying in tongues is simply praying in sounds which feel like they have a life, a flow, of their own.) A happy, smile-making prayer.

The tongues changed into a tune I was given a few years ago, to which I have put words, the chorus of a ‘Come Holy Spirit!’ song. A slow, lilting, tune.

Then I settled into quiet. My head and body enjoyed silence. I half started to pray in tongues again but sensed it better to remain quiet.

Holy Spirit Furrow

After a while, the idea came of drawing a line from the top of Great Britain to the bottom. This fitted in with a dream my fiancée saw earlier this week. I imagined my finger starting at the North coast of Scotland, tracing down the middle of the country. ‘Come, Holy Spirit! Come, Holy Spirit,’ I repeated.

Down on the Channel coast I realised I had gone too quickly and had to start again, more slowly. I have seen enough of Britain to remember much of the land in the middle of our island. I seemed to be making a Holy Spirit furrow.

Arching Rainbows

In Derbyshire, which I know very well, and which has a good claim to be the centre of Britain, rainbows leapt out of the furrow on both sides. Fairly small rainbow arches, which doubled, trebled, multiplied, as they arched East and West. As I continued, rainbows sprouted from the furrow, from the top of Scotland to the bottom of England.

An Old Hymn

Lying still, smiling at all the rainbows across the island, some now weaving North and South as well, the tune of an old hymn came. Originally ‘Judge eternal, throned in splendour’ I enjoy singing a slightly different version, inspired by rainbows. (Ask YouTube to play you the tune.)

God Eternal, throned on angels,
Dad of dads and King of kings,
with your living light of blessing
purge this land of bitter things;
solace all its wide dominion
with the healing of your wings.

Still the weary folk are pining
for the hour that brings release,
and the city’s empty  business
waits and hopes for fuller streets,
and the homesteads and the woodlands
plead in silence for their peace.

Crown, O God, your own endeavour;
cleave our darkness with your sword;
feed the faithless and the hungry
with the richness of your word;
cleanse the body of this nation
through the glory of the Lord.

(Henry Scott Holland alt Roger Harper)

‘Judge eternal throned in splendour’ conveys a stern, immovable, God. Jesus and the Bible convey a Father God, ‘seated on the cherubim / angels’ who are creatures of movement. The judges of the Book of Judges in the Bible are not remote, impassionate deliverers of verdicts, but involved, proactive, deliverers of people from their enemies. So is the eternal Father God of Jesus.

A New Song

Yesterday my fiancée sent me this link to a new song: https://youtu.be/payjb4n9aS0

I had not listened to it before. Marvelling at the connection, I sang along:

Where are You when the wildfire is taking ground?
Where are You when the wind comes and knocks us down?
Where are You when the waters rise and it looks like we’re gonna drown?
Where are You now? Where are You now?

Where are You in the questions, the in-between?
And where are You in the waiting and the unseen?
Where are You in the aftermath surrounded by debris?
Where are You now? Where are You now?

Right in the middle of it, right in the middle of it
That’s where You’ll be found
Right in the middle of it, deep in the center of it
That’s where You are now
You’ll be right in the middle
You’ll be right in the middle

You are there on the front lines and the retreat
You are there in the chaos and in the peace
You are there in the victory and You hold us in defeat
That’s where You are are, that’s where You are

Sure in the storm, fixed in the flood
Oh You will never run

That’s who You are, there through it all
Our God is here with us

(Kalley Heiligenthal)

A Modern Classic Song

What a feast of prayer! I thought Jesus said to stay with the silence, the ‘Come Holy Spirit’ chorus, for there might be more.

Sunshine. Bright golden sunshine all over Great Britain.

I sang again. A late 20^th Century church favourite, slightly altered:

Shine, Jesus, shine
Fill this land with the Father’s glory
Blaze, Spirit, blaze
Fight in us with fire
Flow, river, flow
Flood the nations with grace and mercy
Send forth your word
Lord, and let there be light

(Graham Kendrick alt Roger Harper)

Since the virus came, we have had more than our usual amount of sunshine. Covid-19 cannot survive in direct sunlight. We want, we ask for, more sunshine and less virus, please! We ask for more fire in our immune systems. And let there be light!

Over the next couple of weeks, the next month. I think we will see the difference.

Roger Harper

Out of the EU: Demise of GB.

‘This is not the country I thought I was living in.’ Grief for my country caused by the December election and campaign. My feelings and thoughts echoed by others. Our split with Europe will lead to the demise of Great Britain.

Great Britain honoured the Commands of Jesus Too often lip-service, yet respect from many and a foundation of our nation. ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself’ has been British as much as Christian or Jewish. No longer. We refuse to love our European neighbours as we love ourselves. We choose proud isolation instead. Brigadier Stephen Goodall, speaking on this week’s Led By Donkeys video, tells of his sadness at the end of ‘comradeship’ with Europe. https://www.facebook.com/ledbydonkeys/videos/530084601196043/  Comrades love their neighbours as they love themselves.

Great Britain honoured the Ten Commands. ‘Do not bear false witness’ has been British as much as Christian or Jewish. No longer. Leaders who are known to have lied, and are lying, are elected because they fan the demonic fire of proud isolation.

Great Britain was a Union of England and Wales with Scotland. A Union of political reality and of hearts and minds. Together we have created much. No longer. Too many of the English have chosen to ignore their Scots neighbours. The Union of hearts and minds has been dumped. The political Union will follow. ‘This is certainly the end of Union with Scotland,’ said our Chapel Volunteer Team Leader on the Sunday after the election. ‘Maybe it’s for the best, maybe the Union has outlived its purpose,’ he said. His voice was grim.

Great Britain was a tolerant nation. We gave places in our nation to people from many other nations. Not often warmly welcoming, we were not hostile to immigrants. We allowed them to benefit from our ways and took on some of their ways. This openness is a hallmark of prosperous, creative, countries. No longer. Too many English people have believed that we have too many immigrants. Many wise immigrants will now leave our sinking ship. We will all be poorer in every way.

Great Britain was a manufacturing nation. No longer. The demise of manufacturing on this island has been long and slow. Only European and other foreign companies have invested in current manufacturing. These companies need Great Britain to have good trade deals with Europe and the rest of the world, trade deals which our Government will not be able to negotiate in isolation. The irony is that many people in the Midlands and North of England thought they were voting for a return to manufacturing. They were woefully misguided.

Great Britain was a First Rate nation. In the Empire days, Great Britain was The Top Dog Nation. Since the Empire, we have tried to be, more humbly, one of the First Rate nations, having to compromise with other nations. This has grated on the old sense that we should be Top Dog still and too many people have voted against the compromise. Now we are, or will soon be, very Second Rate.

Great Britain will have to find a new place among the second rate nations. We will have to learn to adjust to being poodle rather than top dog. May the fall that follows our pride bring us to our senses. https://rogerharper.wordpress.com/2019/01/05/painting-brexit-peter-howson/ May our new position in the world enable us eventually to learn afresh to love our neighbours as we love ourselves.

 

Roger Harper

Back from the Brink. Let’s Think.

We have months before the next Brexit deadline. Let’s step back and think about our relationship with Europe and with the rest of the world. Let’s think about the bigger picture of Britain in the world.

 We have a majority, in Parliament at least, against leaving the EU with no deal. A majority for arranging some kind of relationship with the EU. A majority knowing that our future is in cooperation, partnerships, with other nations. A majority against proud independence, the idolatry of sovereign isolation. A majority against ‘We must stand entirely on our own two feet.’

Where, then, do we place our two feet? Let’s think about one foot in Europe, and one foot in the Commonwealth.

Britain takes part in the European Athletics Championship and the Commonwealth Games. Many Britons have personal ties with Europe, through friendship from study or holidays, through marriage. More Britons have personal ties with the Commonwealth through marriage or migration. Many British companies are now owned by European companies. Significant British companies are also owned by Commonwealth companies – British Steel, Jaguar Land Rover, Bombardier trains etc.

British geography means that we are close, though not fully connected, to Europe, while able to connect with countries across the seas. British history has been shaped by Europe and by our former Empire, now Commonwealth. Britain is the small, odd-shaped, connecting piece between Europe and the Commonwealth.

Let’s think about how much we want seriously to be part of both Europe and the Commonwealth, in line with our geography and history.

Let’s think about one foot in Europe and one foot in the Commonwealth as a vision for Britain in the world.

A strong majority vision is most important. How this vision is expressed in practice would then need to be worked out creatively with our potential partners. We have learnt the hard lesson of trying to agree on detail (backstop, customs union etc.) without a strong majority vision. Now we need to start again to find a common vision.

Let’s think about the blessing of the European Union – peace and mutual prosperity through economic cooperation and wider fellowship. The original aim was no more war. Unity was not the aim in itself. Now that peace through economic cooperation has been established in Europe, how can this peace be spread more widely, beyond Europe? Can Britain have an important role in enabling this spread of peace and mutual prosperity, making use of our Commonwealth ties?

Let’s think and talk with our Commonwealth partners. Let’s admit that we should have talked to them long ago. Let’s be humble in asking for their preferred relationship with Britain, and between Britain and Europe. The best interests of the Indian company Tata will also be the best interests of British Steel and Jaguar Land Rover. Let’s meet as equals to find a good vision for our futures.

Let’s think about possible partnership with other ‘one foot in Europe’ nations, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey? Let’s talk with them about how much they might share the vision. Would Turkey, another ex-imperial power, see advantages in having one foot in Europe and one foot in the Moslem ‘Commonwealth’? Would The EU see benefits in such organic connections between Europe and the world?

Many British people have an instinctive, island, sense that we are not as fully part of Europe as Belgium or the Czech Republic. Many British people feel closer to Australia, India, Canada, Pakistan. Many British people feel bereft at the prospect of leaving the European Union. Let’s think about a ‘new’ vision which can appeal to all these people, based on the peculiar geography and history of Great Britain

 Let’s think about, not with, our feet!

 Roger Harper