Justice & Mercy: How Can a Loving God Permit Hell?

The ‘H’ word. Almost nobody, it seems, is willing to talk about it – least of all Christians. It’s hardly surprising I suppose; on the face of things, at least, the doctrine of Hell doesn’t exactly seem to be Christianity’s primary selling point. Who wants to subscribe to a faith who’s God banishes His enemies to a satanic realm of raging fire and brimstone for an eternity of damnation? Doesn’t sound very appealing to me!

For a long time I struggled immensely with the very idea of Hell and I certainly wasn’t in a minority on the issue. For many Christians, Hell is a subject they would rather just avoid; it simply doesn’t sit well alongside the image they have created of an all-loving, all-merciful, benevolent, Father God. Talk of Hell makes Christians sound like crazy fundamentalists or else sanctimonious Pharisees, and in any case, many Christians, in my experience, aren’t at all sure themselves what they think about Hell. In a post-Enlightenment world of scientific reason and liberal values, the ‘roaring furnace’ sounds like a pagan myth straight from the Dark Ages, and a particularly barbaric one at that.

Surely a faith which is rooted in the themes of love, grace and redemption; which tells us to ‘love our enemies’ and ‘turn the other cheek;’ which offers ‘new life’ and ‘salvation’ to all people, irrespective of their past; a faith which promotes forgiveness and reconciliation and speaks of God as our loving Father and Jesus our faithful Friend... surely this faith can do away with such an antiquated and obnoxious idea as Hell?
Well, no is the simple answer. We cannot; indeed we must not. Hell is not only a reality but, for the credibility of the Christian message, it is a necessity and, actually, I am mighty glad of it.
Yes you did read me correctly! I am a devote Christian believer and all that has already been said of the loving, gracious, merciful, redemptive and personal nature of God I fully subscribe to. The love of Jesus Christ is unparalleled, His grace is all-sufficient and His kindness knows no bounds. He never abandons or forsakes me and He is faithful even when I fail Him; I cannot put into words the depth, the breadth, the magnitude, of His love. He has changed my life and He can do the same for you. But ... I am mighty glad of the reality of Hell.

Allow me to explain.

As a teenager I attended the Christian summer festival Soul Survivor, where I heard one talk on this issue that made me pause for thought. The speaker, Mike, recalled a recent experience he had had visiting the impoverished slums and townships of South Africa and his response to what he had witnessed. Prior to his visitation, he explained, he had wrestled long and hard with the notion of Hell; struggling to reconcile it with the God of love he professed belief in. Mike’s experiences in South Africa and what he saw there were to change his perspective on this issue quite profoundly and he returned, he said, now having “no problem with the idea of Hell.”
It wasn’t until several years later that I fully understood what Mike had been driving at. Aged 19 I too found myself headed for South Africa to begin four months of voluntary aid work in the townships and settlements surrounding the city of Durban.
People respond to the suffering and hardship of others in different ways. Some appear to remain emotionally immune to it and able to access the situation objectively; others are overcome with grief, and break down in uncontrollable weeping and sorrow. My response was neither of these. It was rage: fierce, impassioned, righteous, anger, and the longer I was there the more it began to get under my skin.

When you learn that over half of children with whom you are working are HIV positive and most will not have access to sufficient medical provision; when you visit a family who’s ‘home’ would barely be considered suitable for a dog by Western standards; when you meet a family who are so poor that they cannot afford to buy food to feed their sick, elderly mother; when you discover that most grown men are unable to find employment and are driven to drink and crime; when you hear stories of young girls driven into prostitution to earn a living; when you learn that political corruption is so rampant that the powerful will permit, even promote, suffering and poverty for their own ends; when you are confronted with such racial hatred and prejudice that it turns your stomach; when you realise that the inequality gap is so overt that just 100 yards separates the slum village from the millionaires mansion houses with Mercedes sports cars to boot; when you absorb all that each and every day, you cannot help but be angry. It was just so wrong.

Where was God in all this? Where was this God of love; this God of justice?

The realities of injustice, poverty, exploitation - let’s call it what it is: evil – are overt, visible and obvious in a nation like South Africa, but the more I saw, the more I realised that the picture back home in the West was equally stark, if manifested in more covert ways.

Evil is rife. Suffering, injustice and pain, far from being the afflictions of the unfortunate few are the realities of human beings the world over, in one form or another.
My time in South Africa left me with one burning question: how can my loving God permit such evil?
How can He stand idly by as millions suffer the effects of poverty, exploitation and disease? How can God, who calls Himself ‘Just’ allow such injustice; such unfairness and inhumanity, to triumph?

Friends, there is good news. He does not.

In the Old Testament of the Bible, one Jewish prophet by the name of Isaiah recorded a number of prophecies he received from the LORD concerning His people. They make for very interesting reading!
In Chapter 9 of this extraordinary book we get the wonderful and heart-warming foretelling of the birth of the Messiah. If you’ve ever been to a church service over the Christmas period you will be well acquainted with these words which have been read from pulpits, accompanied with candlelight and carols, since time immemorial: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.... For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace...” and so on and so forth. It really is quite beautiful. It’s a message of hope; of redemption; of love and of peace.
What follows this poetic prose, therefore, comes as quite a shock: no less than 14 and-a -half chapters of God’s fierce wrath against the sinful nations of the world, culminating in the ominously entitled chapter ‘The LORD’s Devastation of the Earth.’
What on earth is going on here? What kind of a God is this who calls Himself a Light in the darkness, a Freer of the oppressed, a Prince of Peace, a Wonderful Counsellor, and then proceeds to spell out judgement and damnation on the peoples of the Earth?

Surely this represents a fundamental contradiction in God’s character? Or does it?

If there’s one question that I get asked even more than “how can you believe in a loving God who sends people to Hell?” it’s, “How can you believe in a loving God when there’s so much evil; so much pain and suffering and injustice in the World?” It’s a perfectly valid question. The problem is that, for the Christian who refuses to believe in the doctrine of Hell, he or she can give no satisfactory answer. I am afraid to say that such trite responses as “well God will come and make all things good,” or, as one author has put it, God “weaves a beautiful tapestry by brining something good out of evil” are simply not good enough. Try telling these to the trafficked child-prostitute or the exploited labourer or the mother who has lost her children to AIDS. It just doesn’t wash.

The understanding that this leaves us with is of a God who tolerates evil; who permits sin to go unpunished. This is not a God I want to have anything to do with.

Even we humans, in our fallen and corrupted state, can recognise the basic necessity for justice. We are driven to fury and protestation at the sight of criminality and immorality which is seemingly allowed to continue un-checked. It offends what little sense we have of what is right, and so it should. A society which fails to adequately bring to justice and punish offenders is not a society of love or compassion but one of oppression and gross unfairness. To stand idly by whilst evil triumphs, is not loving; it is abhorrent.

Far from tolerating evil and wickedness in our World, God’s righteous anger rages against it. Strange as it may seem, that fills me with great hope. It seems to me that we have so often constructed a false dichotomy between justice and mercy and we have wrongly asserted that a God of absolute mercy (which Jehovah is) cannot also be a God of absolute righteous judgement. This is a quite peculiar conclusion to come to, given that we don’t appear to hold to these same principles within our own Worldly spheres! Mercy without justice is to simply permit the triumph of evil with no sense of judgement or consequence and I for one would not like to live in a world like that! Rather, the reality of Hell tells us that God is not a passive bystander when it comes to evil, suffering and immorality in our World; He is passionately opposed to it and committed to its absolute annihilation.

Hell, of course, was never intended for human beings. This place of destruction and godlessness, whatever form we imagine it to take, does not exist for us. Hell was always to be the final pit of God’s fiery judgement upon Satan, the so-called ‘Father of Lies,’ and his demonic hosts – themselves the very personification of evil itself. God does not wish to send humanity, whom He created in His own image and for the express purpose of divine and unique union with Him, to its death! Why would He do such a thing? But evil must and will be destroyed. It will be purged from the Universe and there is nothing any man can do about that. It is not a case of if God’s judgement will fall upon evil but rather when. The outcome is not in doubt.

Evil, therefore, is a sinking ship; it is an army in fast retreat before the mighty torrent of God’s burning wrath against it. He will pursue this wickedness, this injustice, this sin, to the very ends of the Universe and there will be nowhere it can run to and nowhere it can hide. It is a fool, then, who allies himself with such evil. It is tantamount to chaining oneself to the deck of the Titanic as it neared that fatal iceberg. And yet this is exactly what we have done.

Some amongst us would have us believe that humankind is basically good and that the term ‘evil’ is reserved for only the most monstrous and heinous minority – the rapists, the murderers, the paedophiles; the Adolf Hitlers and Osama Bin Ladens of this World. Not so.

In such a World as ours, evil can never be something that is isolated within a select few; it is cancerous; it infests and infests all of creation. Indeed, from the very moment you enter this life crying and screaming, you enter a World of evil and pain and darkness. Evil is not something ‘over there’ that only other people are responsible for, it is a regime that we are all complicit in upholding.

To better illustrate this point let us take something as simple as the clothes that you are wearing right now. Where did they come from? In all likelihood the fabric is a combination of natural and synthetic materials both of which have probably been grown or manufactured using intensive industrial methods that have resulted in significant damage being done to the Earths ecological systems – plants and wildlife. Then, that fabric will have been transported to a sweat shop where an overworked and underpaid, probably female, factory worker has stitched them together, earning barely enough to feed her starving children. Circumstances being what they are, she scarcely has time to spend with her family and certainly doesn’t have sufficient income to send her children to school or ensure that they receive proper medical care. Consequently, they have occasionally resorted to petty crime and even prostitution to keep themselves afloat. This garment is then flown the thousands of miles across the globe to the distributing companies in the West, owned by multi-millionaires who pay their workforce the minimum wage and have just laid-off several hundred of them to increase their profit margins. The garment is then wrapped in excesses of unrecyclable packaging and sent to the high street where it is sold to you or I (at an extortionate price), who choose not to look at the label or think about what a journey this item has had. Instead, we sport it proudly until such a time as the media informs us it is not longer in fashion, whereby we dispose of it.

Who is the evil doer in this story? The farmer for destroying the earth? The factory foreman for exploiting his workforce? The mother for neglecting her children? The children for turning to crime? The Western multi-nationals for pursuing profit at the cost of human lives? The high street shop for over-pricing their goods? Or you and me for financing the whole sorry affair with our disposable incomes?

The answer, of course, is we are all in it up to our eye balls!

Such is the nature of evil. We may like to draw distinctions between the ‘lesser’ and ‘greater’ perpetrators, but we are quibbling over trivialities in doing so. To return to the Titanic analogy, what does it matter if one has bound oneself to the deck with chains of iron or a cord of rope? Without assistance you are doomed to drown. In the grand scheme of things, it is pretty inconsequential to what degree we feel we are complicit in evil – we are complicit and that is all that matters.

We wrongly conclude that God is some tyrant, banishing those He has created to a blazing furnace, perhaps to satisfy some sadistic power complex. Nothing could be further from the truth. Such is the righteousness, the goodness and the justice of God that He cannot and He will not permit evil to have its way. Only out of love for the human race has he deferred the full force of His judgement, thus far, to afford an opportunity for more to abandon the path of evil and choose the Way of God.
God does not send people to Hell so much as they send themselves through their suicidal allegiance with sin. There is no ‘side-stepping’ of God’s judgement – evil is a dead man walking!

This, in essence, is the message of the Christian Gospel. Many wrongly assume that Christ’s Cross is primarily a matter of forgiveness. It isn’t. The agony that Jesus Christ endured – physical and spiritual – was not chiefly in the cause of forgiveness but of justice. On that infamous day, Jesus of Nazareth – God Incarnate – took upon Himself the sin, the evil and the wickedness of all the World and He bore the righteous punishment for that sin that was owed to us. This, for the theologians amongst you, is the doctrine of penal substitution – that God, in Christ, received the just punishment for humanity’s evil upon Himself.

Many people that I speak to assume that the Christian faith promotes the notion of evil and sin going ‘unpunished.’ Such an attitude is to completely misunderstand the point of Christ’s Cross. In those dark hours at Calvary Jesus Christ became sin; he took upon His person all the evil, darkness and iniquity of humanity and there incurred the full righteous wrath of God. The gospel writers record some of Jesus’ final words as He hung on that instrument of torture: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” So absolutely did Christ empty Himself of all His divinity and take upon Himself every ounce of human evil that God’s presence departed from Him. Such was the concentration of sin instilled within the Son that the Father could not look upon Him. God literally turned His back on Him.

To assert that God does not punish evil is to make a mockery of the Cross itself. If evil can be tolerated, if sin can go ‘un-judged,’ then what in Heaven’s name was the purpose of the hours of indescribable agony that Jesus Christ endured? It would all be for nothing.

In those moments on that infamous Roman cross, humanity witnessed the perfect culmination of justice and mercy. Justice, as humanity’s evil and barbaric wickedness received its just punishment and judgement, and mercy as God agreed to take such a punishment upon Himself, in the form of His Son Jesus Christ, on our behalf.

And so humanity is faced with a simple choice. Evil, sin and wickedness are the enemies of a loving God who, in His righteousness and justice, has determined to purge them from the Universe forevermore. There is no scenario in which evil goes unpunished; the only question which remains is who bears that punishment – God or us? Either way, justice will be served; the choice is whether we will accept God’s mercy and thus permit Christ to take the punishment or else reject that mercy and take the punishment upon ourselves. Looked at like that, it’s a no-brainer, but then I suppose I would say that!

The Bible: My Battle with the Book

Not in all human history has one book had so much impact as the Bible. The world’s all time best-selling book, it has been the subject of discussion, the pretext for conflict, the justification for acts both noble and abhorrent and the bedrock of societies and communities throughout civilisation.
But this is not an attempt to map the history and evolution of this great library of ancient texts, nor do I wish to engage too deeply in literary criticism. Such scholarly discussions concerning archaeology, collation, translation, canons, synods and the like I shall leave to those with greater knowledge than I.
This is my story; my journey with this most peculiar book, through fascination, resentment, bewilderment, intrigue, dogmatism, resignation, zeal, doubt and love. This is not intended to be some exhaustive, innovatory definitive conclusion or revelation; it is simply my story, told in the hope that it may prove helpful to some of you.

I was raised, during my formative Christian years, in what I guess one might label a ‘conservative evangelical’ environment. Not that I was especially conscious of this at the time, mind you; I naively assumed that all ‘proper Christians’ subscribed broadly to the school of thought and conviction that I was part of, especially when it came to the issue of the Bible.
My teenage years were spent amidst a cacophony of throw away phrases pertaining to the Bible: “The Word of God,” “The Maker’s Handbook,” “The Father’s love letter,” “The Truth” and so on and so on. “Test everything” cried impassioned preachers, “against what is written in The Book.” And thus I did!
I became the zealous sermon critic, frenziedly cross-referencing at every juncture and crying “foul” at the merest hint of anything I deemed “un-Biblical.” I was well schooled in the art of counter-argument; using the Scriptures like hand grenades – throwing them one after the other into the camps of the would-be “heretics,” the “misinformed” and, most vehemently of all, the damned “wishy-washy liberals.” The Bible was my ultimate authority, holding, I relished in quoting: “everything we need for life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3) (The fact that this verse can only very tenuously be applied to the context I referenced it in, was apparently of little concern!)
And so, armed with a handful of thematically selected verses (usually on the most controversial of topics) I went about fashioning my theology. To my mind, it was simply Christian orthodoxy; nothing fundamental, just what was true and from God. Consequently, there was a “correct” position to be held on almost every given issue from contentious and live subjects such as gender roles, sexuality and healing to more philosophical discourses surrounding the after-life and the spiritual realms, and even into the political sphere of touchy subjects like the state of Israel. Discussion and division were rendered quite unnecessary, I reasoned, by virtue of the fact that all the answers were clearly available in the Holy Scriptures. Life really was black and white – literally!
Put like this, I sound like something of a monster! Its true to say that I was certainly very intolerant and somewhat bloody minded when I thought I was right (which, of course, was all of the time!) but it seemed that God, in His infinite grace, was still able to us me. One great positive to arise from my fiery demeanour was an insatiable hunger for a greater degree of God’s power and presence in my life. I craved the miraculous and, in many respects, had a level of boldness and daring in my faith that I long to re-capture now.
Things first came to a head when I was 19 and on my gap year before beginning University.
I was living and working in Durban, South Africa – part of a team of 11 young Christians volunteering with the Christian charity Soul Action. We were from a range of denominational backgrounds and, it soon transpired, held a vastly differing array of spiritual, theological and doctrinal views.
Over the course of our four months living together, heated debates became the norm and, for possibly the first time, I found that my tried and tested methodology of “Bible-verse warfare” simply didn’t wash. They too had read the Scriptures and could well justify their opposing conclusions. Moreover, I truly had the wind taken out of my sails when my boundless Biblical fervour came up against something I had very little of: life experience.
It is one thing to hold a firm conviction on the issue of Divine healing, based purely upon a smattering of carefully selected Bible verses; it becomes quite impossible to argue this point quite so dogmatically when faced with a Christian friend whose infant brother was tragically taken from him and his family, in spite of all their faith-filled prayers. All my carefully crafted arguments and Biblical “principles” seemed pretty hollow in the face of such inexplicable realities. Reducing the Christian faith to Biblically evidenced formulae and propositional statements, might well lend itself to a neat and tidy no-nonsense theology, but it just didn’t fit with the complexities, unfairness and messiness of people’s lives.

The following September I started University and became involved in a large and vibrant Anglican church. The people I met there were amazing, and they became my spiritual family, but if I had found my short time living in Durban challenging, it was only a foretaste of what was to come!
Being a large student church, I was soon leading a “cell group” of about ten Christians, each around my own age. Every Wednesday evening we would gather together in someone’s living room and delve deeply into the Bible. Leading these small discussions, I did not ever expect to find myself being opposed. We were, after all, all fellow evangelical Christians who surely held to the same understanding of Scripture – that is, the “right” one! Not so. It soon became quite apparent that my supposedly “orthodox” stance was not one that was universally accepted (not by a long way in fact) and no amount of bashing my adversaries with endless tirades of evidential verses was going to bring them round. Indeed, the issue was not that they didn’t know the Scriptures, simply that they knew them differently to me, in much the same way, I suppose, as their own relationship with God was different – uniquely different.
Around this time, I began to take a keen interest in Christian theology and apologetics. Within our student community we ran a programme called “Opening Scripture,” concerned with a more rigorous study and dissemination of the Bible. I shall never forget the lesson we were taught at our very first meeting. We had been given a number of Old Testament textual extracts to study and were then asked to comment on what we felt was the unifying significance of them. Contrasted against one another, it soon become obvious that each story or account had a much more profound subtext running consistently throughout: Jesus.
“And that is a really great way of engaging with the Bible,” enthused our would-be teacher, Dan. “Always look for the person of Jesus. He’s all over it!”
That really revolutionised my relationship with the Bible. Its sounds foolish now, but it had never occurred to me that there might be some underlying grand narrative binding these ancient texts together. Until this point, my understanding of the Bible was of a morality meter or a doctrinal indicator – an instruction manual against which everything could be checked and scrutinised: the Christian’s compass. Now, I was being encouraged to, as it were, “zoom out” and see the bigger picture. No longer would reading the Bible be about the collation of charged Scriptural fragments to form reductionist propositions, now it became a quest for the Person of Jesus; the revelation of the Saviour.
The excitement of this new enlightened thinking kept me going for quite some time, and released me from a heavy burden of legalism, guilt and dogmatic pigheadedness that, I only realised in hindsight, had held me captive for a good many years.
By this point I was morphing into a serious armchair theologian, with a head for books and an appetite for controversy. I also found myself increasingly in the company of the like-minded: the would-be scholars, clergymen, critics and philosophers who fuelled my fascinations. In turn, all this happened to coincide with the beginnings of my preaching ministry within the church, something which, itself, necessitated a greater engagement with Biblical commentary and theological discourse.
I began to observe with horror and alarm as my newly revived assuredness in “the Word” began to collapse like the preverbal house of cards. For starters, the more one searched, the more undeniable it became that there were whole swathes of this “holy book” which were seriously dubious. Beneath the black and white evangelical absolutism that had been the bedrock of much of my faith, lay a tangled mess of questionable authorships, historical inconsistencies and translation errors, not to mention the now strikingly obvious issue of why one ought to trust this ramshackle collection of ancient manuscripts at all? Even if the textual authenticity itself could be verified, what was so great about Moses or Isaiah or John or Paul that I should take their words, quite literally, as gospel truth?
Although I dared not share it too widely at the time, I suffered a small, but significant, crisis of faith. I simply did not know what to believe any more. Nothing seemed certain. My concrete foundation had been exposed as rotting timber, and with that realisation it seemed that my very Christian existence was rapidly subsiding as I scrambled wildly to find some point of absolute to which I could cling.
When I emerged from this temporal existential abyss, I prayed. “Lord,” I cried, “I don’t know what to think, I don’t know who to trust, I don’t know where to turn, but somehow, I know you have the answer.”
What possessed me to do that in the light of all my uncertainty and doubt? To this day, it seems a nonsensical response, and yet even amidst the faith drought I found myself in, I could do no other but call out to my Jesus – I can put it no other way.
In the months that followed I wrestled with my new shakiness. What had once seemed so firm and concrete now felt disconcertingly fragile and precarious. I ploughed on. I continued reading the Bible daily – what else could I do? I read books and listened to Christian speakers whom I wouldn’t have ventured anywhere near only a few short years ago. So, it seemed I wasn’t the only believer in such a predicament!
It is important for me to stress, that in all this I never seriously contemplated abandoning my faith in God – in Jesus Christ. How could I? I knew too much; my exposure to His grace had been too great, there could be no going back now, where could I possibly run to?

I went to talk to my Vicar who, to my initial slight surprise, was not in the least bit astonished and, indeed, in broad agreement and sympathy. We discussed such terminology as “inerrancy” and “infallibility” and the inevitably reductionist kind of theology that such dogma leads to. Of course, the Scriptures were riddled with human error and a whole catalogue of contentions which one needed to wrestle with. Such questions as “to who is this being written?” “by whom?” and “for what purpose?” were not only perfectly valid but, arguably, essential if we were to discover what God was saying to us today in our context and our culture. Without a doubt, aspects of what has been written are not applicable to today’s Church in quite the ways they were to the Ancients or even the Apostolics. “But,” concluded my Vicar, “where does this leave you?”
It was a question that stuck in my head. Where did this leave me? How could I continue with my preaching of sermons and my ministering to other Christians, let alone my own personal pursuit of God? Where was my point of absolute? Was there a point of absolute, or was I doomed to live and preach a Christianity founded solely on subjective and experiential relative-truths; a faith with no quantitative linchpin or bedrock in which we could be corporately grounded?

Where once I had sat as the “Biblical Gestapo,” quizzically monitoring every Christian speaker for unorthodox slurs, now I became the frustrated sceptic tutting and sighing every time the preacher prefaced his statements with such tripe clichés as “The Bible says” or “God’s Word states.” I sought some comfort in the four Gospel accounts, for whilst I knew they too were not immune from all the textual problems that plagued my thinking, they were at least the closest thing one had to the actual recorded words of Jesus Christ and thus evoking of some level of trust and acceptance.
I read the Gospels: the differing perspectives of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as they walked with the Lord. I found them newly inspiring – all other Scripture aside, this Jesus was a truly amazing Man, and the more I became enraptured in His life, His relationships, His teachings, the more I too found myself uttering the words of the Roman centurion as Jesus breathed His last: “Surely, He was the Son of God.”
I grew increasingly obsessed with the Person of Jesus. Who was this Man? Indeed, who is He and how might I know Him more deeply; how might I live a life that models His? Where might I look to find Him?
As I searched and longed, I was reminded once more of those influential words that had impacted me so much as a student: “always look for the Person of Jesus.”
Thus I returned to my Bible with a renewed sense of urgency. Damned be the historical inaccuracies, the dubious authorship and the contentious doctrine, where was this Jesus? I cared for nothing else.

All of a sudden, or so it seemed, a number of things happened almost simultaneously which were to propel me into a wholly new chapter on this journey with the book!
The first came in the form of a book I had been given, written by well renowned evangelical author Alison Morgan and entitled The Word on the Wind. I must admit, the book’s title didn’t fill me with confidence, but it had been a gift so I thought I ought to at least give it a crack. Within a few pages, I was captivated.
Alison’s book is a thrilling, if somewhat intellectually challenging, read and I devoured it in almost no time at all. Amongst other things, she embarks on a wonderful exposition of the etymology of the word “word” as used across the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible and asks what these mean, what they have come to mean and how we need to readjust our thinking and engagement both with the Person of God and with Scripture. It is a rich and complex book and I will not attempt to outline its content here, but I direct you towards it if this debate is one you wish to engage with more deeply. Her analysis of our often reductionist interpretation of the Bible, however, can probably be summed up in the following extract, in which she embarks on a constructive critique of evangelicalism (alongside the other major “tribes” existing within the Church):

"It is all too easy to reject the materialist values of modernity but to accept its basic premise, which is that knowledge is based on fact and certainty is available.
We simply find ourselves investing this certainty in a different place – in scripture. Scripture becomes literally true, and a guide for everything from whether women should speak in church to how many days the world was made in; and believing the right things becomes more important than loving people... This is a classic way to shrink the gospel, a way of turning what should be a living, outward looking relationship with God into a spirituality of print."

It was so refreshing to read these words from a self-professed evangelical believer! To hold the book of the Bible as the very definition of truth or an authoritative manual against which everything must be rigorously checked, was to miss the point. As I was soon to discover, these ancient manuscripts, these printed words were concerned with something far more wonderful and revelatory and alive than the one dimensional approach of my youth had allowed permitted.

Exactly what that was, was revealed to me from the most unlikely of sources: Catholicism!

Both Roman and Anglo Catholic traditions are rooted in an orthodoxy of Tradition and Scripture - a notion I had once poo-pooed in my staunch evangelical days! Working in a Roman Catholic school and taking it upon myself to visit a handful of local Anglo-Catholic church congregations I found myself speaking with priests and laity about what this alien peculiarity entailed. Scripture revealed the person and the nature of God whilst Tradition ensured that the Church and the Gospel remained constant, consistent and true to its heritage – not swept up by every passing bandwagon or corrupted by culture’s fickle sensibilities. It was an antiquated concept I would have once scoffed at, and yet now it seemed the very wisdom I needed to hear.
It has been said, that we in the West today exist in an extremely individualistic culture - “I” am at the centre of my own universe – and try as we might to deny it, this reality is as prevalent within the Christian Church as anywhere else. Faith, for us, is a personal experience and salvation an individualistic event. We talk in terms of “my faith” and “my relationship with God” and we draw special attention to profound “salvation moments” in people’s lives, the implication being that every seeker is entitled to their very own “road to Damascus” encounter with the Lord! Before long, the very idea of Christian faith is reduced to “me and God” quite apart from the rest of the World, or even the Church.
It smacks of immense arrogance, pointed out one Anglo-Catholic Priest to me, to think of faith in such terms. Who are we to presume to enter into union with God Almighty, in ignorance of the multitudes of men and women of faith who trod this path before us? How dare we enter so lightly into the courts of the King, believing we have nothing to learn and no adherence to pay to the patriarchs, the apostles and the forefathers of our faith? Do we honestly believe that we come to Christ in isolation, or do we not recognise that we join in a mighty throng, an historic family of the elect spanning the ages and crossing borders and cultures? I had never thought of it in such terms.

People change. God does not; He is the same, yesterday today and forever. Consequently, whilst cultural baggage, human error and fluctuating politics posses a hindrance to our engagement with the Bible, one thing must surely remain constant: God. Surely, if the God I profess to follow is the same God of Paul, of John, of Malachi and Isaiah and Jeremiah and Moses and Adam, then one should be able to recognise Him in their words?
I thought of my own family: my grandfather who, middle aged, depressed, spent and alcohol-dependant had encountered Christ for the first time, and my parents whom the Lord had revealed Himself to during their teenage years. We span three generations – three wildly different cultures one might even argue – and we certainly hold quite distinct and individual views on the world, and yet the God we follow and have staked out lives upon is the same. Jesus Christ is the lifeblood that sustains us; He is our primary identity and the one absolute that, when all peripherals fade, remains.
I find this too within the wider Church. Bring together a company of Christians and have them debate doctrine or quibble over style, tradition or politics and you’d be forgiven for thinking these people had no business being together; that they were little more than an incoherent rabble of randomly selected anomalies with no consistent story to tell. But have them speak of this Person of Jesus; this Saviour, this Lord, this Great Messiah, and everything changes.

I have marvelled so often at Christians at prayer. It is a wonder to behold and all the more so at ecumenical gatherings as one observes the most ardent doctrinal adversaries, not engaged in heated debate or theological jousting but in communing with their Lord as they know how. It is quite beautiful, and that some choose liturgy whilst others silently meditate and still others feel liberated to cry or laugh or even shout, is all immaterial. There is unity there. Not a unity of intellect, or style, or even perhaps of doctrine, but a unity of communion – communion with the King.

And so, we come full circle: what is this Bible? For me, the answer came as a refreshing and freeing new lease of spiritual life. This Bible; this messy, corrupted, rag-tag collection of human texts riddled with historical inaccuracy, cultural bias, theological ignorance, intellectual inconsistency, literary peculiarity and of dubious authenticity; this amazing book was a story. Not a story as we might understand the term, not a work of fiction, not a fable, not a myth, but a Grand Narrative. It is the story - the wonderful story - of God and His people, and the best of it is that its told in the words of men and women just like us: fallible, ignorant, ill-motivated, culturally indoctrinated sinners, who knew something of the greatness, and of the grace, of God.
Indeed, I wonder if God would have had it any other way. Surely it is both the Lord’s prerogative and His pleasure to use the worst of sinners, the most chaotic of contexts and the most questionable of methodologies to bring glorify to Himself, if for no other reason than to guarantee no possibility of Man extracting any credit! Isn’t that just the sort of thing our God would do?
If the Bible really were a book of universal truth and authority - an encyclopaedia of principles and absolutes - then our faith would be simply a matter of unfaltering and un-altering formulae received through the generations and which one could learn by rote. But it isn’t. Our faith, primarily, is relational and as our great and glorious God reveals more of His Person, more of His grace and more of His wonder to us, we marvel at the sight; we grapple to find words to express it, we struggle to make sense of it, we try and fail to define and contain it and we hunger after more of it – more of Him. The journey is messy, it’s frustrating, it’s fraught with danger, its open to abuse; sometimes it feels like guess-work, sometimes we’re blinded by our own broken humanity and oftentimes we screw up.
To hold that the Bible is “Divinely-dictated” revelation – the pure, unmitigated, absolute communiqué from God to His people - is to take this book to be God’s final word. Put another way: God has said His piece, there is nothing more to add, nothing further to say, nothing greater to reveal. We need no longer seek Him or expect His direction or input in our lives; it is pointless to be expectant for further wonders or revelations of His majesty and grace. God has spoken, God has revealed and God has left us a book of printed words to keep us on the straight and narrow whilst, perhaps, He concerns Himself with his next “Universal” project.
Mercifully, this is not the case. Rather, this Grand Narrative, this Epic Story of God told as best they could (or best they thought they could!) by His people continues on. From Adam to Abraham to Moses to Isaiah; from Luke to Paul to John, this Gospel of God winds its way through history and, from the confines of our fallen humanity and complex cultures, we try to give it words.

Still this wondrous story continues to unfold: God and His people; Him and us. Thus, we continue the great journey of our forefathers, picking up the story and trying, with our lives, to put words to the wonders that we see.
What will they say of us in the next millennia, and of our part in the story? Will it be true to say that our theology was ignorant, that our cultural presuppositions were wildly unbalanced and that our churchmanship was ill-motivated? Almost certainly it will. But we can be sure that through it all, God will glorify Himself, Christ will be revealed and, in the most unlikely vessel of us His people, this miraculous story will thunder on, every gaining momentum, until He returns.
I wrestle with it, I puzzle at it and I marvel at it and for perhaps the first time in my life I can surely say I love it. With all its glaring faults and shameful flaws, I love this book the Bible. It is the greatest story to ever be told, and it isn’t finished yet...

God’s Overwhelming Grace. Tuesday 24th August: The Day God Guided Me Home

This is a true story of something amazing that happened recently when I was hiking in the Peak District and God showed up and powerfully spoke to me. It is a day I will never forget. I pray that God may bless and speak to you as you read it and that you too may come to an understanding of His overwhelming grace.



Tuesday 24th August and I was out in the Derbyshire Peak District (Edale to be precise) with the aim of getting some decent hill walking in before the, already dismal, summer came to an end. The weather was quite poor by the time I set off and the increasingly strong wind and rain buffeted against me with mounting violence. But I carried on unperturbed; I had my waterproofs and, at any rate, the harsh conditions were sure to ease off before too long.

Being alone and in a relatively quiet and secluded place I seized this as a perfect opportunity to spend some time in prayer. I knew this particular footpath well (or so I thought) having trodden it countless times before and so, as I strode doggedly forward, head down against the wind, I began my (entirely one sided) conversation with God. I rattled on about numerous issues I felt the need to get off my chest, not least of which was the matter of my life’s direction. Of late, it’d been a subject of increasing prevalence in my prayers owing to a number of minor instances and musings (which I will not go into now) that have caused me to pause for thought. In any case, as I lifted these words to my Father in Heaven I could have had no idea of either the speed in which He would respond or the dramatic fashion in which He would choose to do so!

Contrary to my initially optimistic predictions, the higher my footpath ascended the worse the weather seemed to become. By now the thick grey clouds that had been resting on the peaks ahead began to roll in and visibility grew increasingly poor. Presently, I reached a farm where the footpath split. I was quite sure that the route I needed lay straight ahead and so, pulling my hood tighter up around my head, I ploughed on, across a road, over a stile and onto another footpath. Despite walking this route on many previous occasions, this current leg of the journey didn’t appear at all familiar and I soon became, more than a little, convinced that this might not actually be the right path.
Of course, what I should have done at this point was to stop, consult the map in my rucksack and navigate my way back on track. But I didn’t. It was raining very heavily now and the thought of stopping and studying a map, let alone backtracking and prolonging my route seemed quite an unappealing one. “Anyway,” I concluded, “this path looks like it’s headed in roughly the right sort of direction. Ten to one it’ll join up with the footpath I’d actually wanted anyway. It might even be a short-cut!” And, of course, the more I said this to myself, the more I began to be convinced by it. Before long I had become certain, in my own mind at least, that if I just kept persevering along this, now quite narrow, footpath and up to the top of the peak where it seemed to be headed, I’d recognise where I was and all would be well.

By this point the footpath had become really quite treacherous and the higher it ascended, the narrower and more precarious it seemed to be. The heavy rains during the past few days meant that, what were once tranquil, streams ebbing their way down the hillside, were now gushing rivers – quite deep in places – rushing down into the valley from which I had come. What made the situation worse was that many of them seemed to have all but engulfed entire sections of the footpath meaning that, before long, I was gingerly picking my way across make shift-stepping stones, trying not to fall in (and failing on several occasions). I’d climbed high enough now as to be entering into the low lying puffy white and grey clouds that were the cause of all this torrential rain. The annoyance posed by the rain, however, soon took a definite back seat as I realised that, owing to the misty conditions, I could scarcely see more than a few yards in front of me. Despite this, I eventually succeeded in reaching the top of whatever peak it was I’d been climbing and I surveyed what little I could make out of the landscape. It didn’t seem all that familiar. However, there was a footpath and, again, I convinced myself that if only I were to follow that path it would surely lead to somewhere I would recognise or else a signpost or something of use! The path seemed to stretch on forever, twisting round and round and up and down; across streams and over rocky outcrops growing momentarily wider and then narrower again and less and less pronounced, until eventually (although it took some time before I’d admit it to myself) it disappeared altogether.

I looked around. I was in the middle of a barren wasteland of soggy peat bogs, divided only by an occasional clump of moorland heather and a whole network of tributaries flowing...somewhere. For as far as I could see (and that wasn’t very far at all) the landscape appeared identical in all directions. There were no features to speak of that may have aided my bearings, no other people that I could make out and, worst of all, no footpath whatsoever. Stubbornly however, I kept going straight ahead, hoping I would find something (although by now my hope was beginning to wane) and, as I walked, I prayed. I asked God, politely at first, to help me; please would He give me some sort of clue, some indication of where I was or where I needed to be heading? Nothing. Alright then, would He at least provide a momentary break in the weather; a lifting of the cloud cover so that my journey might be slightly more manageable? The mist seemed to become thicker and the rain heavier.
I began to panic.
I knew this area of the Peak District well enough to know that these vast expanses of, seemingly, desolate peat moorlands can often stretch on for miles and miles and attempting to navigate oneself through them is, at the best of times, difficult and with no footpath, poor visibility and absolutely no sense of direction it becomes all but impossible. I could spend hours simply walking round in circles and not be aware of it. What had started out as mild concern was growing, increasingly, into genuine fear. I imagined spending a night in this bleak abyss and wondered how, or if, I’d survive. Despite being August, it was already quite cold and I was wet from the rain and thoroughly miserable. I tried to imagine how I’d even attempt to describe my location to Mountain Rescue or how they’d ever hope to find me shrouded, as I was, in this dense cloud.

I began to curse God for seemingly abandoning me to my fate and I shouted angrily at the heavens, deploring “The Almighty” for His vindictive silence. If God ever had been in my life, clearly, He had chosen this opportune moment to make His departure. I felt utterly alone.

I then did something that, for me, is most uncharacteristic both when hiking and, indeed more generally, in life. I did a u-turn and began to walk back in, what I hoped was, the direction I had come. I wasn’t overly optimistic of my chances but, I concluded, there remained the faintest possibility that I might just be able to find my way back to the footpath I’d been originally following and from there work my way back. Those who know me well will realise what I significant thing this was for me to do. This wasn’t just a strategic change in direction, this was an acknowledgement that I had failed and that there was now no chance of my rescuing either my planned walking route or, more importantly, my pride. No longer would I be able to say that I’d gotten “momentarily lost” but, nevertheless, had succeeded in getting back on track and completing my planned circular trail. Now I would have the personal humiliation and, moreover, the galling physical drudgery of attempting to retrace my steps. That was, of course, assuming I could find my way back.

I must have been walking for no more than ten minutes when, quite suddenly and without warning, the rain stopped. Moments later the thick cloud which had enveloped the landscape in every direction began, gradually, to lift. Then something happened which, at the time and in my state of distress, appeared quite remarkable. A section of clouds, right up ahead and in the direction I was walking, parted, just a little, revealing a small patch of brilliant blue sky and, almost instinctively, I knew what I had to do. I followed it. In time it started to grow bigger and, moments later, the sun (all but invisible until this point) gingerly crawled out into view and showered the, once miserably dull, sky with its warm light.

I was walking on a footpath, although I cannot say from where it appeared and it certainly didn’t seem familiar. I doubted this was the way I had come but that was of no concern now – I simply knew that I had to follow that patch of blue sky, always keeping it straight ahead. And then my heart did a little dance of delight because, sure enough, the path brought me out and onto the edge of a ridge. The mist had all but disappeared now and I could make out my position, quite clearly. I was standing on a plateau, overlooking a large valley over which the sun had rested, illuminating the entire landscape below in an incredible golden glow. Of course, I recognised it. It was the same valley in which the village of Edale –where this epic adventure had begun – was nestled. Indeed, I could make out the small farm buildings and houses that were dotted around its periphery. And right beneath me, not ten minutes climb down the hillside, was a footpath, so wide and so clear that one could have made it out a mile away. This path I certainly did know for it ran parallel to the river which, in turn, snakes its way right into the village itself. I was going to get back after all.

In my delight and relief it took me several moments to realise what had just happened. God had just been speaking to me.

In my rash and emotional state of stubborn pig headedness, I had wrongly concluded that God had deserted me and was maliciously withdrawing His presence to teach me some kind of lesson. How wrong I was. Of course, looking back now, what God was doing seems so blindingly obvious I’m quite ashamed I didn’t realise sooner. He was forcing me to turn around!
Having studied the map since my return and deduced my whereabouts I was, it seems, actually heading away from, not towards, where I needed to be. Had I continued, at best my journey would have been significantly (if not dangerously) prolonged and, at worst, I could have been stranded. It hardly bears thinking about. I see now how imperative it was that I turned around and yet, I fear, had God not made it so impossible for me to otherwise, I would have arrogantly forged ahead – in the wrong direction!

Walking down the valley and into the warmth of the sunshine it slowly began to dawn on me that God had not simply come to my rescue and guided me back to safety from the wilds of Edale Moor. He was telling me something else as well and I could almost hear the words pouring forth from His mouth with, probably, the slightest hint of a suppressed chuckle; though not one that expressed either scorn or contempt but rather the kind of chuckle that a loving father might give after having just watched his precious child trying to be “all grown up” and making an absolute hash of it!
“Jonny,” He seemed to be saying, “You will insist on always doing things you own way won’t you! I do so wish that you’d stop being so obstinate and stubborn all the time and learn that swallowing your pride and admitting defeat isn’t a sign of weakness in my eyes. It’s a sign of wisdom. If only you’d admit that you simply don’t have all the answers and you need My help. If only you’d acknowledge that, for all your efforts, you really don’t know where you’re going so much of the time and you need My direction. If only you’d stop and turn to Me, you’d realise that I, not you, know the way home.”

I walked the couple of miles back to civilisation laughing and crying, almost simultaneously, partially in sorrow and remorse for my own stupidity but, in far greater measure, in wonder and amazement at God’s overwhelming grace.

Optimum Humanity

“What,” exclaims mankind’s external cry “is my purpose in life?”


It has, of course, been the subject of countless debates and much conjecture: for what end was humanity placed on this rock called Earth? If, indeed, placed we were.
Schools of religiosity, philosophy and science have expended much time and energy searching for this enigmatic and, seemingly, illusive mandate for our species that might aid in rationalising our existence and granting us a clearer sense of what, precisely, it is we ought to be doing during our stay on this mortal coil.
How we came to find ourselves here is perhaps a mystery that few of us will actively seek to concern ourselves with; the enormity of it often proving too burdensome and bewildering for our brains to handle. But WHY we are here – this question would appear to harass and distress us as an irksome spectre until the day we breathe our final breath.
In the interim, we crowd our days with a medley of tasks, chores and assignments: professional occupations, voluntary work, academic studies, short-term sabbaticals, holidays, sporting challenges and the like. We invest ourselves in projects, schemes, families, children, partners and communities. We strive towards wealth, notoriety, acclamation, legacy, discovery, prominence, influence, acceptance and success. And all in a desperate attempt to fabricate, for ourselves, a sense of purpose; a reason to get out of bed each morning; a significance to our otherwise arbitrary existence; a point to our humanity.
Wouldn’t it be tragically comical, therefore, if the answer to this conundrum was so simple, so obvious and so uncomplicated that we’d been staring it right in the face? How both devastating and liberating it would be to discover that the encryption we’d be working so tirelessly to decipher was already written in our own language and already made perfect sense! How seemingly incredible it would seem if the purpose of humanity ... was humanity itself! In other words, our purpose as humans was simply to be human.
But perhaps I’m getting slightly ahead of myself here; after all, we haven’t yet asked the question of what ‘being human’ actually means in the first instance let alone how we can arrive at, apparently, such an audaciously simplistic conclusion concerning humanity’s purpose. Thus to avoid simply settling for a somewhat defeatist resolution, inferring that one simply resigns oneself to a vegetative state of ‘being’ with no appetite for knowledge or enlightenment pertaining to one’s existence, we must necessarily explore, in some depth, firstly the subject of human ontology and secondly the, perhaps more complex, issue of our origins. In other words, what does it mean to be human and where does this meaning derive from?
On this latter point, I am going to assert the craftsmanship of God (that is the God of the Christian faith) over humanity and seek, therein, to explore the creative inspiration for the composition of man as we know him. Aside from my own personal and relational faith in God, I find I am able to rest on such an assertion on the grounds of logical conjecture with evidential reference to the principles of life and existence we observe around us. Such methodology forms the basis of much, if not the majority, of well established scientific thinking – that is, to take an easily observable and well tested principle and apply it to a correspondingly and sufficiently similar, but less well understood, area to reach a probable conclusion. Darwin’s theory of Evolution by Natural Selection is a typical example of this. Sufficient fossil evidence exists in the cases of certain animal species to allow the scientist to draw clear lines of development from a currently existing organism back, perhaps as far as its Jurassic predecessor. The same weight of evidence, of course, does not exist for every species type but, being confident of the evolutionary journey of certain creatures we are able to hypothesise the trajectory of others for whom there exists less evidence and reach, what we deem to be, reasonable conclusions. For the benefit, therefore, of those without a personal faith in the God worshipped by myself and countless others across the globe, I will employ this methodology to aid me in making, what I hope you will come to see as, reasonable and logical (if not provable) claims pertaining to a Creating God and His connection with us.
But I have already exhausted too much time in prologue, so let us proceed to the matter in hand.

What Humanity Is

What does it mean to be human? What are those traits and characteristics that we, as a race, are predisposed towards, that define and unite us? Aside, of course, from our basic biological functions which simply ensure our physical survival, what can be said of our ontological humanity that applies both objectively and universally?
The answer, I assert, is relationship. The art, the yearning and, indeed, the necessity to relate to those with whom we share our existence in time, space, location and context. Whether or not we are conscious of the fact, it, nevertheless, remains the case that inter-personal relationships form the bedrock of human existence both because we desire it, but moreover, because we simply need it.
Whether physically, verbally, interactively or even virtually and in spite of how challenging or problematic some of us may find it to be, we, each of us, instinctively realise our need to relate. Precisely because absolute self-sufficiency is all but humanly impossible, we recognise the paramount importance of interacting with our fellow human beings: trading, exchanging, compromising, assisting, deferring and delegating. One is hard pushed to find a man able to survive on no human contact whatsoever – however minimal or impersonal it may be.
Besides pragmatic necessity, however, it would seem clear that we possess a deep (perhaps spiritual) yearning for human relationship; a deep seated longing for people with which to interface, interact and share, to whatever degree, the, often perplexing and painful, journey of life. Whatever form these take and in whatever volumes we each respectively posses them, the vast majority of us will go to at least some (and often considerable) effort to acquire a set of friends or companions; people with whom we can share our thoughts, our experiences and our fluctuating emotions. For many, that desire for intimacy and interdependence goes deeper still and we seek longer term and more sensual relations of a romantic nature, the ultimate culmination of which is the institution of marriage. But even apart from these deeply intense and precious relationships we appear to see a need for, often more, superficial modes of connection with those around us. Within the contexts of our occupations we endeavour to align ourselves with those we feel are sufficiently similar to ourselves and seek, wherever possible, to establish relational cliques within which we feel secure and understood. Even when such relationships never develop into anything more profound or even permanent we readily engage in them, prepared, at the very least, to exert ourselves in casual small talk or awkward exchanges in order to give ourselves the feeling of being part of something; of being in relationship.
We may frequently emit signals to the contrary, of course, indicating an apparent comfort with exclusion and isolation but, for the most part, this is no more than a self preservation tactic, aimed at protecting our pride and, paradoxically, maintaining our perceived credibility as potential allies! Many have mastered the art of appearing comfortable, even happy, in their isolation, but, given the option, I suspect, few would choose it. In any case, just because a man is satisfied with a particular way of life does not mean he would not swap it in an instant if the opportunity presented itself. Just because humankind is able to exist in a certain way, does not infer that it is the optimum way, much as a rally car is able perform quite adequately being forever driven on main roads at 40mph despite being designed for much tougher terrain and much higher speeds!
However, before becoming engrossed in this subject of optimality, we have still to discuss the issue of human originality which, I trust, will shed further light on what would seem to be mankind’s relational ontology.

Where Humanity Originates

Let us begin, simply, with that which we know to be self evident; namely the biological creation of individual human life forms. Notwithstanding more recent scientific developments in the field of external fertilisation and detracting all modes of modification and interference, be it IVF treatment, contraceptive measures or the like - the creation of human life, at its most primitive, is the product, and therefore the consequence, of perhaps the most absolute form of inter-human relation. I am referring, of course, to sexual intercourse.
Whatever one’s moral or personal stance on the subject of sexual relations, it nevertheless remains the case that this act of two peoples marks a, quite unique, form of inter-personal connection unlike any other. And it is, of course, also the most complex and multi faceted mode of relationship – a reality which many discover both to their joy and, unfortunately, often their great sadness; operating, as it does, not simply on a physical, biological plane but, in perhaps greater measure, emotionally and spiritually also.
To those who maintain that it is possible to, somehow, negate one’s own humanity in the act of sexual intercourse and reduce it to nothing more than a disconnected, biological transaction, I would say only the following: However we may utilise it and whatever moral codes we may impose upon it, the value of sex as a facet of human, relational intimacy is, evidently, very high indeed. If this were not the case, then extra marital, sexual affairs would not only be tolerated but dismissed as trivial and of little consequence. We would not attempt to draw any distinction between sexual intimacy within the context of a loving relationship and its counterpart: lusted-fuelled “one night stands.” Both would be equally inconsequential and devoid of any significance beyond the biological ramifications. In other words, there would be no (however subjective) idea of what constituted “meaningful sex” and therefore no bench mark or point of reference against which to measure, what we clearly hold to be, “cheap” alternatives. We certainly would not presume such a strong correlation between sex and love, as we so obviously do and it would be inconceivable that one could experience deep emotional hurt and even relational destruction as a result of sex. So, let us dispense at once with any notion that sexual intercourse is anything other than an act of complete and unparalleled inter-personal relationship, involving every ounce of our emotional, spiritual and physical humanity.
In such a way, then, we are compelled to the inevitable conclusion that human life itself is a product – a direct consequence of – inter-human relationship. That is to say, that it is the act of persons relating, one to another, that creates the essential ingredients and foundation for the conception and stimulation of new life. Indeed, we might go further and state that only through the most absolute, holistic and exhaustive form of human relation can fresh human life be conceived. In short and to link to the original point, “optimum” relational humanity is the prerequisite for the creation of life.
However, if we may, let us now journey still further along the road of mankind, perhaps even to the very beginning. At this juncture I employ my first piece of conjectural hypothesis in asserting that humanity did indeed have a beginning – that is to say a point of conception, before which it was not – and, consequentially, a creator who fashioned us into being. I make so bold as to assert this, simply owing to the correlating evidence we have readily available to us.
The notion of a living thing, and especially a human being, have, so to speak, no beginning, is one which goes completely contrary to the principles of existence we witness around us. As previously discussed, every human life form has an origin and a point of, if you like, “formation” and, indeed, this is mirrored across nature and the animal kingdom. The idea that humankind might have no beginning – no point at which its collective existence commenced – seems quite ludicrous. Applying the very same principles, therefore, it would only seem sensible to surmise that humanity, as well as being “created” must, necessarily, have had a “creator.” In much the same manner as infant children do not simply “appear” but rather they are the product of reproduction (which itself is an act of creating) so must we assume came the very first our own kind (in whatever form they took).
That agreed, we progress, tentatively, towards the contentious issue of a “creator,” knowing that, therein, must surely lay the very origins of humanity’s ontological composition and, thus, the greatest point of reference for our “optimum” existence.
It would seem only sensible to assume that, if mankind is, at its very core, essentially relational then, so too, must be that which created it. Indeed, the very inherency of mankind’s relational disposition would point to a creator who is, in very nature, relational him, her or it-self. In other words, what we are seeking is a creator who, by very definition, is the absolute embodiment and encapsulation of relationship; a creator who is ontologically, inextricably and absolutely relational.
This, of course, presents us with a problem: how is it possible for a single entity to be, in and of him, her or it-self, so completely relational? Relationship, by very nature, requires multiple parties; it demands that which can be related to. A person simply cannot be relational in complete isolation. He requires, at very least, a frame of reference for relationship; a model of interpersonal relation from which to extrapolate his notion of what it means to relate.
And, herein, lays perhaps the chief undoing of nearly all of humanity’s notions of external deity. That is to say, almost all human constructs of a creator, a god, an external “otherness” - however we wish to describe it – imagine a single, begotten being from whom all life poured forth. All, that is, except the God as depicted in the image of the Holy Trinity, as professed by many who, for the sake of simplicity, we shall label Christians (although I urge you not to be bound by whatever preconceived notions and connotations this title evokes).
Without becoming too caught up in the complexities of Trinitarian theology (sufficient has already been written on this doctrine to last a lifetime) what can be said is that, according to this concept, the Deity (that is God) exists in Three Persons: God the Father (Jehovah), God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Spirit (The Holy Spirit). The fullness of the Godhead, therefore, is an absolute relationship between these Three Persons of such a magnitude that they are, in fact, as one. In other words, their relationship, one to another, is so infused with unity, mutual submission, self sacrifice, selflessness and, above all, love, that they exist in a state of constant agreement, interdependence, and a kind of interwoven and harmonious unanimity, the like of which we have never seen, nor will ever see, anywhere else.
Assuming this model is correct, God’s very existence, we must conclude, is determined and defined by his eternal state of internal, triune relationship. He is the very manifestation of what relationship is and means. He is, ultimately, ontologically relational.
This is, of course, where our journey of human exploration ends – or, indeed, begins depending on which direction one takes! What then, may we conclude?

•Humanity posses a predisposed desire and, moreover, a need for inter-human relationship
•Human life is conceived, biologically, as a product of sexual union – the ultimate form of human relationship
•Humanity, as a whole, was created by One who, in His very nature, is the absolute and defining manifestation of relationship.

Clearly we are afforded no alternative option but to concede to the reality that has been starring us in the face for so long: to be human is to be relational! Humanity and relationship are inextricably and inseparably linked. Naturally, inherently, essentially, ontologically, we are beings of relationship, pure and simple.

The Implication

What importance or relevance does this revelation have to us, beyond, perhaps, a temporal, though elated, sense of increased self awareness?
Perhaps, now is the appropriate juncture to return, having journeyed full circle, to our starting point; the seemingly so enigmatic conundrum that ignited this whole debate: what is humanity’s purpose?
It seems, on reflection, a somewhat peculiar question to pose; to discuss one’s own ontological mandate as a human being! From whence have we perceived this notion? What I mean to say is, one does not find, for example, a tree questioning its purpose as a tree or a dog questioning the end to which it has been placed on the earth! These may appear ridiculous examples, but the point I wish to stress is this: at least where living things are concerned, if not universally, the purpose, the mandate of a thing is to be, no more and no less than itself. Indeed, its purpose is most fulfilled when it is most fully, most absolutely, most uncompromisingly and most unapologetically itself! A tree is at its best when it does what it was designed to do: to grow and flourish and produce fruit.
The same, then, must surely apply to the human race. Our purpose as humans, is to be human. Again: our purpose as humans is to be human. And to be human, as it were, to optimum capacity; manifesting every ounce of our ontological humanity (that is, our relational inherency) without hindrance, hesitation, negation or dilution. This is optimum humanity.
What, then, has gone so badly wrong?
I say this because, but a brief glance at the society in which we live reveals the distressing reality that humanity, at large, is in a state of almost utter brokenness. In a callous and sweeping rejection of our most inherent and encoded human dispositions - the very essence and core of our collective selves - we have traded the riches of our humanity for an artificially manufactured counterfeit, and the cost is proving dear indeed. We have traded community for isolation, relationship for mere association, honesty for falsity, vulnerability for superficiality and interdependence for an autonomous self sufficiency breeding selfishness, greed, mistrust and competition of the ugliest kind imaginable. One might even go so far as to conclude that we have rejected the very idea of humanity itself. Put like that, the matter suddenly becomes one of quite pressing concern.
For a more detailed and in-depth exploration into some of the precise ways in which, I certainly feel, humanity is recoiling into, what I can only describe as, an unbearable pit of disconnection and seclusion, you can read my blog entitled “Splendid Isolation?”
I do, however, wish to pay particular focus to, what I believe is, perhaps the most distressing consequence of our denunciation of self, that is the tragedy of unfulfilled relationships and, it’s resulting counterpart, loneliness.
At some point in our collective history, so it would seem, mankind has succumbed to the lie that dependency, of any sort, be it emotional, financial, provisional etc. is a thing most undesirable and to be avoided or escaped from at almost any cost. Now it is important here that I make my position quite clear: I am not advocating irresponsibility. What I am not proposing is the kind of dependency where one party absolves themselves of all liability, initiative or free thought. That would lead to disempowerment, abusiveness and, quite frankly, laziness and therefore something we ought to be adamantly opposed to. No, what I am arguing for is a kind of interdependency within human relationships that speaks of our need for each other. Because that, of course, is the crux if the matter: we need each other! The problem, it would appear, is that rather than embracing that facet of our humanity and doing ourselves the service of actually responding to, what is so obviously, a somewhat crucial aspect of our ontological composition, we have, rather, exhausted almost all of our collective energy in negating it as much as possible! It would be highly comical if it were not true. As it is, it is tragically heartbreaking.
A much needed starting point in any reformation process, would be the simple acceptance of our inherent and overwhelming need for human intimacy, love and relationship. Understand here, that I am not referring, exclusively, to human relations of a romantic nature. These, of course, are of great value and, in a whole host of ways, quite distinct from plutonic relationships, but they should not claim a monopoly of human intimacy and interdependency. Nor, incidentally, should such relationships be viewed as expected or mandatory, with those choosing to remain single somehow classified as lesser mortals as so often seems the case. In truth, it is often those without romantic ties that prove the better practitioners of relationships in a plutonic context – probably because they have not fallen into the trap of becoming so fixated on one person to the detriment of the countless others! My point is that these characteristics of relationship I am taking such pains to articulate, ought , to one degree or other, be features of most, if not all, of our human relationships.
My perception, both from personal experience but, furthermore, in observing that of others, is that, for the most part, we yearn more than anything for our relationships to be characterised by that depth of connection, honesty, authenticity and intimacy but, crucially, we are, simultaneously, terrified of both the possible implications of this and, moreover, the necessary sacrifices of pride, self sufficiency and emotional detachment that will, surely, be incurred. Not that we have any particular love for these negative attributes with which we have cloaked ourselves; it is rather that they provide us with a familiar veil of security – a safety blanket, a layer of bubble-wrap enabling us to avoid the sort of pain, complication and loss of face that, we conclude, are the inevitable consequences of dropping one’s guard. And so we don’t. The drawbridge remains up, the hatches battened, the shutters down. It’s lonely and its cold but, we re-assure ourselves, the alternative is too costly. This, then, is the lesser of two evils and, thus, the best we can ever hope for. I doubt, very much, that we actually believe this myth, but we, nevertheless, tell ourselves that we do until, over time, we discover we’ve resigned ourselves to this mediocre status quo and we ought to simply make the best of it.
Again, if I might be permitted here to momentarily inject a point of clarity. Clearly, absolute personal vulnerability when universally applied is neither healthy, nor appropriate! I am certainly not proposing a complete ‘access all areas’ mentality of unveiling all one’s inmost privacies and laying oneself totally bare and vulnerable at the feet of every passerby! Quite obviously, caution must be exercised and responsibility both for one’s own emotional well being but also that of others. As such, different degrees of intimacy will be proper for different relationships and there can be no ‘one size fits all’ model. All that understood and notwithstanding the need for wisdom and discernment in one’s conducting of relationships, the point nevertheless stands that intimacy, honesty and emotional authenticity remains the essential, but all too often missing, ingredient in our human relationships.
The chief reason, then, for our denial of the riches of our relational humanity is one of self preservation. Preservation of reputation, of emotional stability, of pride and, if we are truly honest, of those aspects of ourselves we would rather remained undiscovered and under-wraps! Underlying all this, I strongly suspect, is a paralysing fear of judgement and rejection. Remove one’s armour and one’s weakness and vulnerability is exposed and one risks being stabbed. Better then, we concede, to be safe, not sorry!
If self preservation is the primary cause of unfulfilled human relationships, then the second is closely linked and it is the belief that human interdependency and intimacy, of the kind I am speaking of here, are unreasonable expectations to impose on those other parties with whom we are in relationship. The presentation of our vulnerabilities and weaknesses to our fellow humans is, we conclude, too great an imposition. The articulation of our absolute need for their intimacy must surely be too great a burden to ask them to carry.
Thus, we concede, the kind of relationship that we so greatly crave requires too unreasonable a demand on both ourselves and on others.
And this, regrettably, is the point of conclusion for many who have battled with this agonizing issue of the human condition. It is, of course, a most lonely road to walk but, I suppose, if one doesn’t dwell on it too frequently and provides oneself with sufficient distractions it is, at least, bearable.
Of course, there is always the alternative. For those prepared to swallow their pride, make themselves vulnerable, risk undoing their reputation and upsetting their well preserved emotional sensibilities there does exist another way. For those courageous enough to be so honestly audacious as to admit the truth of our humanity: that we desperately, desperately need each other, that we are unspeakably lonely in our self inflicted isolation and that we crave, deep within our souls, the kind of relationship we feel sure we were created and put on this Earth for. To those few there remains the path of optimum humanity and therein, I truly believe, may we even see a glimpse of God Himself.

"Splendid Isolation" -Really?

Are we becoming a nation of recluses?
Toward the latter half of the 19th century, Great Britain embarked on a brief period in its history, dubbed “splendid isolation” during which time she, intentionally or otherwise, radically disengaged herself from the international community, becoming increasingly insular. For these few years, Britannia became an island in both the literal and the metaphoric sense; a state from which only the climactic build up to war was able to wrench her.

I take you on this little trip down memory lane because, as I look around me at the society we have created in 2010, I am greatly saddened and, moreover, deeply concerned that it might be happening all over again. This time, not at an international level, but much closer to home: with us. I am forced to consider the possibility that we are sleep walking into a new age of individualistic “splendid isolation.” It’s a chilling thought.

Never in recent history has the phrase “look out for number one” been more apt. Our modern society grooms and preconditions us towards self preservation at all costs; financially, emotionally and physically we are constantly reminded to put ourselves first, to secure our own interests, to take whatever steps we deem necessary to get on in life and achieve our goals. I remember all too well having this mindset drummed into me as an 18 year old 6th form student making decisions about his future. Again and again I was reminded by countless teachers that the only person who could turn my dreams into reality was me and the best thing a person could do in life was to plough all my time and energy into building my place in the sun and securing my future – now! The model most of us have had imposed upon us is a sort of odd hybrid of the American Dream and Thatcherite-Capitalism, but by whatever name we choose to call it, it would seem that non of us are immune: we are all it’s children.

As children grow and mature into adulthood, embarking on careers and families and forging their path in the world, the model is always the same: Me first. Whatever the cost, whatever the sacrifice and whoever we have to knock down or step over along the way, society compels us towards something it labels “success.” Towards this state of “splendid isolation.” And it’s heart-breaking to watch.

As a student for the past three years, the trappings of Western normality have always appeared a somewhat remote reality that I’ve been temporarily immune from. But now, as I move towards graduation and begin to take those first tentative footsteps into the “real world” the full burden of society’s pressures begins to come to bear upon my shoulders. I should, society tells me, begin to start making serious career plans and costing my future so that I can afford, a few years from now, to climb the first rung of the property ladder. Not that there is any immediate rush but I should, society tells me, start seeing communal living, city dwelling, property renting and public transport using as temporal not long term solutions. My aspirations, society reminds me, should begin to focus on purchasing a ‘nice’ house in a ‘nice’ area (preferably in the suburbs) complete with its own garden, ideally not overlooked by any of the neighbours and generally situated to maximise quietness, tranquillity and just far enough removed from everybody else so as to make it rather an inconvenience for them to just “pop round” to see you. And, of course, somewhere in the middle of all this, society tells me, I ought to get married and start a family so that in between stressing over the career, worrying about the kids, attempting to please the marriage partner and juggling the finances to ensure that this whole lifestyle can be maintained...there really is little time left for anything, or indeed anyone, else. This, apparently, is “success.” This is the model of splendid isolation to which almost all of us, like it or not, will succumb. Sounds great doesn’t it?

Believing that happiness is a commodity up for sale, almost all of us will spend our lives, exhaust our energy and whittle away our cash in pursuit of our very own slice of isolated bliss. Because of course, the more money we have at our disposal, the more ‘privacy’ we are able to afford; the greater choice we have regarding precisely who we share our space with and who we shut out. In short, with all our well deserved earnings we are able to buy ourselves out of community and into solitude; remove ourselves from the masses and purchase our very own piece of isolation. And the fatter the wager packet the more pronounced the isolation can be; the higher the privet hedge, the taller the gate, the greater the distance between our castle and the next.
Safely secure within the confines of these four walls we can raise our children, go about our business, entertain what few friends we’ve decided to hold onto...protected from the corruptive influence of the outside world and all its dangers. Of course, we can’t completely shut ourselves off – it remains necessary to lower the drawbridge from time to time and venture out into the abyss but we take precautions to minimize the “damage” as much as possible. We purchase large cars that remove the need to share dirty buses with equally dirty people and we make every effort to restrict our wanderings to only the ‘pleasant’ areas, avoiding those less agreeable places where no doubt the dirty people on the dirty buses originate from!

The years rolls on, the hair grows a little greyer, the stomach starts to expand and one by one the kids fly the nest. We’re reminded of when we were that age – how exciting life was, living in the company of our friends all the while – enjoying the camaraderie and the intimacy of relational existence. We struggle to recall the last time we experienced such community. We try and make conversation with the guys in the office but they’re unbelievably boring and the friends from the old days – well, they’re far to preoccupied with their own lives: meeting the mortgage payments, ensuring little Jimmy gets his place at the best school...salvaging the marriage.

And suddenly it dawns upon you: you’re lonely. You’re lonely and you’re living in a world of lonely people; a world of lonely people all chasing after this thing called “success” – all believing that if only they can pay off the mortgage, if only they can see their kids get into university, if only they can raise enough money to decorate the lounge and re landscape the garden...then, then they’ll be happy.

I’m an idealist – you can probably tell! But I don’t think it has to be this way. I am yet to meet an elderly or middle aged person whose biggest regret is not earning enough money or not being able to buy their dream house or favourite car. Plenty however live with a deep and often unexpressed internal agony at friendships lost, communities broken and a pervading sense of disengagement from the society in which they live. All because of their pursuit of “success.”
It is a lie, but one that has gained incredible credence, that success and isolation amount to the same thing. That one inevitably leads to the other; that adulthood, maturity and responsibility carry with them the consequences of individualism, selfishness and introspection. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Who says we need to buy the suburban house with 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms – who says we even need to buy a house at all? Who says we need a 9-5 job that saps all of our energy and that we loath so much that we’re counting the years until retirement?

What’s so wrong about communal living, property renting or city dwelling into adult life and what’s the problem with working fewer hours in a job we might actually enjoy and settling for a “lower” standard of living?

Why exactly do we believe that family and community are two diametrically opposed states of existence?

The reason of course, is that society tells us; it drums it into us, it reminds us again and again until our ears ring with its incessant propaganda.

Well, I believe that on this issue, society is wrong. Profoundly wrong. And I’m going to prove it.

Why I’m routing for a hung Parliament

With the 2010 General Election nearly upon us, all of voting age are confronted with that problematic question of where to cast our precious vote. That is of course assuming we wish to vote at all.
With all the chameleon, sleaze ridden, sensationalised, “Punch and Judy” style of politics we’ve witnessed over the past few years the issue of party-political loyalty has, undoubtedly, been muddied somewhat, to the extent that people, of all ideological persuasions, now find themselves in a state of unprecedented uncertainty as to which party best represents their views.
It was all so simple twenty years ago at the height of Thatcher’s reign: either you found yourself on the side of big business, private enterprise and neo-liberalist capitalism or else you supported the socialist policies of increased welfare, nationalisation and economic regulation. Back then, the dividing lines were clear and the positions, at least of the two main parties, were distinct (even polarised). Now, as Labour’s third term in office draws to a close, it can be difficult to discern exactly what differentiates the major parties – especially given the shameful image-centric brand of politics we now seem to be engulfed in; lambasting us with pseudo celebrity leaders and their “oh-so glamorous” wives, endless YouTube clips endorsing the “down to earth” normality of the prospective candidates and cringe-worthy interviews about politician’s personal habits or taste in music.
Since the election of New Labour in 1997, what we have essentially witnessed on Britain’s political landscape is a centralisation, if not a homogenisation, of the two main parties; with Tony Blair ruthlessly shaking off his more hard line socialists whilst, more recently, David Cameron has sought to distance the Conservatives from the toffy-nosed, public school image they’ve held for so long. Many, of course, would argue the merits of this moderation of left and right wing politics, pointing to it as a sign of a more coherent and, endemically more democratic society. I do not share this view and for two simple reasons: Firstly, the rush by both Labour and the Tories to occupy the centre ground actually serves more in disenfranchising majority swaths of the population from mainstream politics than it does to widen it’s appeal. For both the socialist and the capitalist it is now increasingly difficult to ascertain which party best expresses their social, economic or moral convictions. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it leads to the shrouding of political parties in a smokescreen of ambiguity whereby no-one is entirely certain of quite what it is they stand for. And yet, the parties never cease to remind us, they are all most definitely “different.” But are they?
The problem, of course, is that we simply don’t know. What I mean is, we have little way of discerning a party’s true colours until they’re in government, at which point we often receive an unpleasant surprise! The one thing history has taught us however is this: give one party too much power for too long and it goes to their head; they make extreme and often rash decisions, they alienate their citizens and leave a trail of political debris for the next incumbents to deal with. We’ve seen this with both the Conservatives and now with Labour; from Thatcher’s despicable handling of the miner’s strikes and her whimsical selling off of British assets to Blair’s uncalculated decision to take us to war and Brown’s failure to keep a lid on the City’s irresponsible extravagance.
For this reason I am equally wary of Cameron’s platform of “change” and his self propagation as a modern, compassionate Conservative as I am of another term of Labour, given their less than impressive track record, certainly in more recent years. Although I admire and respect many of the policies of the Liberal Democrats and would certainly conclude that on issues like the economy and Iraq they emerge with the greatest level of integrity, I am also nervous about some of their more outlandish policies regarding Europe, Trident and other key issues.
So, what, you ask, is the solution?
The prospect of five years of either Labour or Conservative rule does nothing to excite me and I suspect I am not alone in this regard. Many thousands across the country will, on May 6th, be voting not for a party that excites or impassions them but for, what they deem to be, the lesser of two evils (and you can make your own minds up as to which is which!)
What say you then, of the prospect of a hung Parliament and five years of coalition style government? Admittedly, political coalitions have never received a particularly positive press in Britain and yet I can’t help but feel that, in 2010, the time is ripe for this form of governance. It would, for the first time in a generation, force cross-party consensus. It would temper the more knee-jerk “reactionist” policies that majority governments are prone to. It would devolve power back to Parliament and reignite the chamber as a place of debate, scrutiny and accountability. It would be more representative of the views of the country as a whole. It would necessitate greater levels of political negotiation and compromise leading to less, but more reasoned, legislation.
It would be difficult, yes and it would require great patience and unprecedented levels of co-operation. But is that really a bad thing? The more I think about it, the more I’m coming round to the idea!

Christ: Liar, Lunatic or Lord. You decide.

Followers of my blogs will know that I have already written at great length of the problematic notion of subjectivity in regards to “truth” that has become so systemic in our postmodern age. Whilst I do not wish to rake over old ground here, I nevertheless feel the need to re-emphasise a particularly important point concerning the person of Jesus Christ. And before you switch off, this is something which concerns those of any faith or, indeed, those who profess no faith at all.
A lot has been said about Jesus Christ and much of it, it must be concluded, is utter fiction. I am becoming increasingly weary of those who wish to maintain a form of diluted admiration and deference to this person of Christ whilst simultaneously rejecting outright His claims to be God. I speak, so it would appear, not of any one sector, class or religious group within society but of a much wider and more endemic adoption of this skewed pseudo-doctrine that is so apparently content to continue in this profoundly illogically and, quite frankly, ludicrous assertion that is it reasonable to accept Christ as nothing more than “a good man” or “a prophet” or a “wise teacher.” In, what way, I find myself questioning, was Christ any of these things, while ever you also maintain He was also not the Son of God? No, quite the opposite in fact. If we are so convinced that Christ was not the incarnation of the Divine then, to put it bluntly, He was an out and out liar. A confidence trickster. A fraud. Or, if we take a more sympathetic approach we have to conclude He was mentally deranged. He was possessed or psychologically unwell or however we might choose to phrase it. But there can certainly be nothing “good” about Him.

Jesus Christ claimed to have the power to universally forgive sins; something which, as the Pharisees quite correctly pointed out, only God has the power to do (Mark 2:6, Matthew 9:2, Luke 5:20). He claimed that all authority on heaven and earth had been given to Him (Matthew 28:18). And He claimed to be omnipotent (John 8:58).

We simply cannot, in the face of such bold statements, continue in this ridiculous belief that somehow Christ, whilst not being God, was nevertheless a generally decent fellow! Not a bit of it! I am awfully sorry to have to convey this inconvenience to you, but the fact is, either we believe Jesus’ claims in their entirety and we accept Him as Lord or else we denounce and reject Him as a dangerous, deranged and deceiving heretic. And, I’m afraid to say it really is that serious. Either Christ is Lord or He is a heretic whom we should pay no credence or deference to whatsoever. That is the choice we face. To give validity to Christ as a human moral teacher but to deny His divinity is to places one’s trust in a lunatic at best and a liar at worst. I, for one, have no intention of paying even an iota of attention to the claims of man who falls into either of these two categories, let alone to base my life upon His teachings.

C.S. Lewis perhaps put it most succinctly and eloquently in his book Mere Christianity where He famously outlines the choice we face between Christ the liar, the lunatic or the Lord:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

And to follow such articulate brilliance I will say only this: The divinity of Christ is THE central, defining, pivotal matter of truth that outweighs all others and is of primary importance and significance for the human race. Either He is the Way Everlasting; the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Alpha and the Omega, the Saviour, the Redeemer, the Messiah, or else He is a fraudulent, wicked, heretic. Accept Him or reject Him but please, please, please, don’t attempt to occupy some cosy, non-commital, middle ground here. It doesn’t exist.