Views of Norwich From a Roof Top

A year or two ago I took some photographs of Norwich from the roof of Norwich Central Baptist Church. These photos can be seen in  this PDF.  Below I have reproduced the introduction:

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The pictures in this album show Norwich City landscape from the vantage point of the roof of Norwich Central Baptist Church. Over the years new build has made this area increasingly residential reversing the 20^th century English trend to escape the inner city. But as per most churches today, NCBC has a widely spread congregation with a catchment radius that perhaps extends up to ten miles and overlaps with the catchment areas of other church congregations. Modern changes, not least waning church attendance and modern transport, have meant that today’s churches seldom serve their local “community”.  This has lead contemporary church attenders to select a church less on the basis of vicinity than on the basis of the church culture and where they feel they can settle down and connect.

The pictures were taken about two years ago and actually capture a view that is no longer available as a consequence of the construction of flats adjacent to NCBC (The empty demolition site just prior to building can be seen in the photos).  These photographs, therefore, were taken just in time to provide evidence of a remarkable historical transition that has taken place over the centuries. They show how difficult it is to snap a general view of Norwich without including several old mediaeval churches in the frame. The density of these gothic edifices is evidence that in those days churches really were “local community” churches in the sense that they served a public that was within a stone’s throw.

I remember doing this guided tour for a group which included Americans and Australians. As they did the tour they were astonished that one only had to walk a few yards before yet another medieval church came into view. Modern conditions, however, have changed what “community” means and this presents challenges to people who are still inclined to think of community in purely geographical and parochial terms.

Bible Study: The Royal Law

Picture from: https://refreshingmanna.org/the-royal-law/

The Golden Rule of gregarious living is quoted on Wikipedia as:

The Golden Rule is the principle of treating others as one's self would wish to be treated. It is a maxim that is found in many religions and cultures.

The Biblical version of the Golden Rule, The Royal Law, is in fact more general: "Love your neighbour as yourself". This more general form doesn't impose any interpretation on just how love is to be expressed; after all, there are often big cultural & understanding differences between people and this can render just how love is to be actioned problematical. But given these differences  between people what common inter-human content can be conferred on the concept of "love"?  It might seem that what is love to one culture is, in fact, not love to another culture and vice versa. So unless there is some kind of intercultural universal which we can identify as "love" then any claim to the universality of the concept of "love" would seem to be hopelessly lost in subjective and intercultural translation.

But there is such a thing as a common humanity, independent of culture. For me the universal concept of love must be based on the commonality of conscious cognition; that is, a recognition that human cognition is accompanied by conscious feelings; e.g. joys, pleasures, pains sufferings etc. Our common humanity gives us the potential to carry out an empathetic projection which provides insight into the feelings of other people and hopefully a deep care for them; that is what universal love means.

This realisation of the common human link of conscious sentience doesn't, however, remove the fraught practical question of how love is best actioned in a world of epistemic challenges, unpredictability, cultural differences and very partial understandings of what actions best serve the long terms interests of our fellow human beings. The Royal Law doesn't directly address these practical challenges it; it is a guide line rather than a tram line. But the Royal Law is the ultimate high level command to all humanity: Love one another as I have loved you, but it is your responsibility to work out in practice exactly what that means in a social context. This is a huge challenge for beings who have issues with selfishness and epistemology. We therefore thank God that a divine plan of salvation was rolled out! Don't we need it!

As is so obviously evidenced by the numerous contrarian Christian sects and divisions, all loudly accusing one another of not following the clear commands of the Word of God to the letter ("clear" only to them, of course), the Bible is not unambiguous. The Bible does not provide a full suite of rules and regulations covering all eventualities; instead we get guide lines rather than tram lines: That, I suspect, is exactly the challenge it puts before humanity. Epistemically insecure Christian sects seek an unambiguous and narrow deterministic shape to belief and practice. This determinism does not exist in Scripture.

In any case we must never forget that the Spirit of the Law is not to be found in codes, programs and rules - these are just the outward (often transient) expressions of something which goes much deeper (See the book of Galatians). In fact there are dangers in prioritising the rule of the law over the Spirit of the Law.

My Bible study on the Royal Law can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15KXki3SHKD7dHPlEKLHZsVdrUNhwXTaM/view?usp=sharing