Bible Course Session III: Exodus.

See here for Session II. The notes for session III can be found here. 

Bible Course Session II: Genesis

 

See here for Session I. The notes for Session II can be found here. 

The Bible Society's "Bible Course"

 

The Bible Society's "Bible Course" is an eight-session course giving an overview of the Bible. As I'm helping to run the course for a group I thought I'd publish my notes & questions intended to be used as reference material for the introductory session. The B. Soc. have their own notes, but I prefer to generate my own as it helps my comprehension.  See here:

Sermons in Stone II: Just when you thought it was safe to go back to your pew.

Dereham Road Baptist Church, Norwich: 

The subject of my monograph, "Sermons in Stone". 

 I recently published on my FB page a link to my monograph "Sermons in Stone".  As I read through it again, I realized that there was more I would have liked to have remarked on and didn't. So, something like the following will probably appear as a short postscript in a future edition. It may be a bit obscure without a knowledge of history, but it is, I believe, relevant to contemporary church life. 

***

May be in reaction to the ostentatious and austere spirituality of the puritans, the English Restoration of 1660 ushered in an architectural period when the rational and secular feel of classical styles was the preferred church architecture. This persisted until the end of the Regency, by which time the gothic revival (from 1740s onward) was making itself felt among church builders. This revival was part of the romantic movement: The romantics were a reaction to the intellectualism of the enlightenment and the machine society of industrialization. This reaction involved a reaffirmation of the mysticism of the infinite and the emergence of an idealized and nostalgic conception of the mediaeval world. (Consider for example Strawberry Hill) The romantics were trying to reconnect reality with the world of human feeling and mood.

When after 1688 the English nonconformists were free to build their own worship spaces they initially opted for clean & neat classical styles to distinguish themselves from the "semi-reformed" State Church. However, an innate human diffidence toward the outcomes of the enlightenment and the industrial revolution appears to have led to a complex reactional interplay between the rational & the romantic and the mechanical & the mystical, leaving many puzzled about where life's meaning is to be found, if indeed they believed there was such a thing as meaning and purpose. Even for non-conformists gothic styles became a way of reaffirming the overarching mystery of life.

Dereham Road Baptist Church is a left over from the late gothic revival built by protestants who in their early days would probably have reacted against such romantic architecture, perceiving it as too popish. In fact the Berean tradition from which these protestants came would likely have laid claim to the rational high ground in that they saw themselves as reading scripture unsullied by Catholic prejudices & mysticism.  But in later years, especially toward the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st, Protestant evangelicals appeared to be the very opposite; that is, none other than a last bastion of mystery and irrationality. By the late 20th century Protestant mysticism had moved on from the external expressions seen in gothic architecture like DRBC to the mystical internal experiences of the chaotic Charismatic revival.

Today we still see the existential tensions caused by the unsettled contentions between mystery & mechanism, between rational secularism & religious fideism, between the sense of the romantic & the stark functionality of a machine culture, between modernism & postmodernism and between the cosmic perspective and the intimacy of the inner life. These unresolved issues are endemic to the culture of the industrialized West. They are also relevant to church life because they can result in existential crises and sharp fundamental disagreements. See here for example.

As Sir Kenneth Clarke said:

We've a long rough voyage ahead of us, and I can't say how it will end because it isn't over yet. We're still the offspring of the romantic movement and still victims of the fallacies of hope. 

 

   

Joseph Kinghorn at St Mary's Baptist Church, Norwich

A previous minister of St Mary’s Baptist Church, Norwich is remembered in the 27/02/2004 edition of Norfolk's Eastern Evening News (See scans below). Joseph Kinghorn was minister at St Mary’s from 1789 to 1832. His time saw the construction of a stylish new Regency church starting in 1811, just before Jane Austen wrote “Pride and Prejudice” . No longer a persecuted and marginalised sect the Baptists were an upwardly mobile social group at that time. They were Liberal and Whiggish in outlook. By the time of St Mary's Sir George White (1840-1912) it was said of the church that it was, quote, “a fashionable place of worship for prominent Liberal businessman and provided a forum for debate on the moral and political issues of the day.”

(Click scan to enlarge)

Autism and The Church

This  should help people with Asperger's syndrome feel better about themselves!

There was an interesting article on the Premier Christianity web site about autism written by someone who is probably at the Asperger's end of the autism spectrum. Here's the link:

 'I want to love God with all my mind, but as an autistic Christian, my brain works differently to yours' | Magazine Features | Premier Christianity

This subject interests me because I've long suspected that my personality type is skewed toward the mild end of the autistic spectrum. Reading about people such as Gary Newman, Chris Packham, Paul Dirac and the like I detect many points of contact with my own experience. I took an online test and it returned a score that plonked me in the lower reaches of the spectrum. Not a surprise really: The social world never really attracted me and seemed too complex & difficult to get involved with in a big way. In any case the noise of my own thoughts drowned out the noise of the social world around me. I was well known for not listening to what people had to say and as a result I was backward at school (that's still a weakness of mine!). I disliked the hubbub of the school playground and seldom joined in. I was especially averse to the raucous fairground environment. 

A communication dysfunction seems to be a core symptom of autism. It's easy to understand that if this dysfunction is severe, it completely stultifies development. On the other hand a mild dose of autism can be a positive advantage (see article above); a measure of disconnection from one's social environment helps facilitate internal focus on problem solving, favours independence of thought and helps avoid being dragged along by mindless group think.  Also, the tendency of autistics to seek out calm, ordered environments with predictable habitual rhythms helps free up the precious resource of thinking time so that it can concentrate on pondering the meaning of the big picture.  

*** 

The highly gregarious environments of churches are not a natural environment for those on the autism spectrum.  A conversion myth that Christianity makes you super-gregarious and good with people is abroad in many Christain circles. In fact in my experience the quality of one's faith may be judged on one's ability to be outgoing and sociable: When I first converted to Christianity, I got the distinct impression that the sign of a good conversion was that an otherwise introverted dispassionate person suddenly becomes full of passion, very sociable and shows the "Love of Christ" by hobnobbing with lots of people. In fact some of the pundits of the gnostically inclined charismatic culture (I wouldn't want to say "all", however) judge the presence of the "infilling of the spirit" in such superficial terms. They misinterpret an overt existential expression of faith, a fixation with spontaneity  and prolific verbal communications (especially speaking in tongues & prophecy) as the obligatory signs of the "power of the spirit".  They also see the human thought world through a contrived "head knowledge vs heart knowledge" dualism.  These doctrines are oppressive & excluding. See here where I endured six weeks of gnostic bigotry as I followed & analyzed a gnostic sermon series. 

I suppose it's no surprise that my involvement with church has been nondescript: I've lacked the requisite rapport and synergy, especially with those Christians who have bought into existential conversion myths. Being a science aficionado has meant that my attitude to some Christian subcultures has been considerably jaundiced by the presence of anti-science proto-conspiracy theorism which in some quarters has morphed into the full-blown conspiracy theorism of the far-right (e.g. such as QAnon and support for dictatorial & authoritarian forms of government). The latter has just about taken the biscuit, although in the UK this isn't nearly as bad as it is in the US. 

***

I published a link to the Premier article on a church FB page. Not a great response mind as you might expect from someone lacking the social connection to be a pundit of status in church circles. But in any case, for me the search for truth must always have priority over social linkage and social status. Creative problem solving is its own reward. 

I accompanied my link to the Premier article with the notes below:

1. The article suggests that the 1% figure for autism is a lower limit and as diagnostic services improve a larger figure will emerge. But as with any multifaceted condition the boundaries demarking autism are fuzzy.

2. It’s often been remarked that the human social skill is the most advanced and complex processing ability we possess; after all, the social world which we endeavor to grapple with daily is the most complex object of all creation. No surprise then that stresses should arise with such a demanding task.

3. Thinking about the Christian environments I’ve had contact with I’m sure there is a correlation between a church culture and the personalities it selects and vice versa (it’s a “feedback” effect). The social scene selects or deselects certain personality types leading to a local bias. e.g. in a population where there is roughly a 50-50 male to female mix overall, churches, last time I looked, return roughly a 4 to 6 mix in favour of females.

4. It is likely that those on the autism spectrum would find quieter regular services with smaller populations more mentally manageable. It would help if people became more effete with the idea that people are not all as equally gifted to cope with the demands of gregariousness.

5. One of the problems churches face in modern times is that community fragmentation has fragmented human contact time over large numbers of people. But building individual relationships requires above all the precious resource of human contact time not fragmented over large populations.   

Relevant link:

'My autism made me an artist but I wanted a family' - BBC News

Vulnerable Mission

 Here is a recently written document which I use to try to explain to people what Dr. Jim Harries "Vulnerable Mission" means for Christian mission. It also touches on the subject of the role of Western developmental efforts in Africa.

The Four to Six Mix Stays Steady (Nearly)

Photograph: Countryside collection - Homer Sy/Alamy

During a recent church service I revisited my 15 year old project of counting male and female church attendees with the aim of getting the mix. I sampled a large block of attendees that were visible from where I was sitting - that is, I didn't take a count of the whole congregation. I did two counts and came up with the numbers 28 males to 54 females and then later in the service I counted 35 males to 55 females.  (There were some comings and goings during the service).  Those two sets of figures give returns of 35% :65% and 38%:62% respectively.  That might point to a slight drop in the male proportion since my last counts but on the whole that's fairly close to the four to six mix which has otherwise been stable over 15 years; after all, we've been through a lock down which has definitely perturbed churches in many as yet unforeseen ways, not to mention the ongoing decay of church populations. There may be a differential in the way these two factors are effecting men and woman.  But given these factors it's surprising how steady the 4 to 6 mix is. 

For more see here:

Norwich Churches and Belief Communities: FourToSixMix (norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.com)

On the Masonic connection

George Washing was a Freemason

Well, here I am again probing the under belly of Protestantism. This time it's the Masonic connection.

 A few months back someone asked me if any of our Baptist forefathers (such as those whose names are celebrated on the walls of traditional Baptist churches) had connections with Freemasonry. That these Baptist grandees had great social & business success, plus their use of symbolic heraldry might have prompted this question.  (See Samuel Morton Peto as an example of that success). The person I was approached by was worried that such a connection might be the cause of one those "spiritual blockages" which are vaguely reminiscent of fears that some kind of witchcraft has been worked on the church. 

As it turns out the Masonic connection seems unlikely, although absence of evidence isn't necessarily evidence of absence. But the imagination of the religious mind, as we are seeing in North America today, has a tendency to erupt into a kind of spiritual delirium in the absence of evidence. Deeply sensed intuitions, sometimes taken to be the promptings of the Almighty Himself, can then kick-in as an override and be regarded as sufficient condition for the confirmation of truth. But claimed knowledge arrived at either by strong intuitions or rationality still have to express themselves through a flawed human nature, leaving them both open to cautious critical appraisal.

 After polling three church historians on the subject, I drew a blank. So unlikely was the idea that it seems never to have occurred to them to even ask the question: In the light of what we know about Freemasonry it’s easy to dismiss any Masonic connections with Baptists without thought.  However, it's a well-known fact that some C of E clergy have joined the Masons (moreover George Washington was C of E). The only non-conformist Freemason one of my historians came up with was Lord Leverholme.  Another of them said that someone had told him that Spurgeon was a Mason, but frankly that's looking like web-rumour mongering. Rumour mongering seems to be the conspiracy theorist's and witch hunter's epistemic method.

As for Freemasonry itself: It's a secret boys-club involving bizarre rituals & sinister oaths that I doubt are taken too seriously by many rank-&-file Masons, a rank-&-file who are probably in it for the benefits of elite social connection, blokehood and an off-the-peg career structure of social advancement for the exclusive few. This, taken together with the high sounding talk about the ritual entering into a new life of achievement and morality (but only for a male elite), makes it a questionable option for Christians. After all, for Christians the new life has already started and (cult versions of Christianity apart) is based on a message that is public property, not the secret property of an exclusive elite. If I had to summarize Freemasonry in a word I would say that it is strong on God as architect and creator, but weak on God as saviour.

Freemasonry is in large part an eighteenth century start-up with some historical antecedents. With its lineage largely based in the Western world it is suffused with Judeo-Christian symbolism and is clearly strongly influenced by it: The meaning of some of the symbols one finds on the façade of The City of Bath's Circus (built by the Freemason John Wood Jnr) can be applauded (although there are also legendary pagan influences via druidism and the classical world). All this is no surprise as Freemasonry was influenced by the eighteenth century enlightenment which in turn was influenced by Christianity.

With Freemasonry, as with all human institutions, the rough comes with the smooth. Although owing a huge debt to Christianity Freemasonry nevertheless short-changes the God-head. The same goes for much Western secularism. It’s been said with some plausibility that Western secularism (& Marxism?) is a kind of Christian heresy & the same might be said of Freemasonry. Historian Tom Holland has remarked on the Christian influence that saturates the values & thinking of Western secularism, much of which one can applaud and support. But those values & thinking teeter on the edge of the nihilist abyss if God and Christ are either ignored or denied.

But even if Freemasonry is in a church's lineage it would not in my opinion taint it to the point of causing the spiritual blockage that some "witch hunters" are looking for. For although such a pass would rightly be the target of criticism, unless one can show that Freemasonry has an occult element (& there’s no evidence of that as far as I’m aware) it would not cause a blockage: We don't inherit sin: We only inherent a sinful nature. "Original Sin" really should be translated as "Original Sinful Nature".

There is much I would personally criticize about Freemasonry but there is also much I can applaud. The same can be said of Christian fundagelicalism: For let us put criticism of Freemasonry in the context of some of today’s Christian excursions into the absurdities of Conspiracy Theorism such as QAnon, the flat earth conspiracy, Covid 19 hoax theories, anti-vax ideas, the millennium bug conspiracy farce, climate change hoax theories, false-flag conspiracy theory, the failed Trump 2nd term prophecies  & links to the far-right to name a few. Fertile ground for these harmful notions has been provided by antecedents such as quasi-gnosticism, fideism, extreme libertarianism and anti-government & anti-academia sentiments. Nevertheless I endeavour to be fair and take a lenient view on these extremist opinions with an understanding of the mitigating circumstances under which they have formed; namely, a faith that is currently under great cultural pressure and which is increasingly marginalized and ostensibly in a state of decay. And yet Christianity is still raided for its moral standards, its grace and its rationality. But The Source of all morality, grace and rationality is too often neglected or proactively rejected.

***

I like to think that our Baptist grandees did well and made a name for themselves not because they had the unfair advantages of belonging to an elite secretive club that plays fast and loose with Christian language & standards but because of their faith & honesty and gave glory to the only One to whom it was deserved. If that is the case then their names deserve to be memorialised on the walls of a traditional Baptist church.

Relevant Link

Noumena, Cognita and Dreams: Of Stones, Stars, Circles,Status, Secrets, Sacredness, Mystique and Masons. Part 2 

Return of the Killer Pews

 

These pews were made for sitting and not the Charismatic Dub Step!

In 1995 I wrote a short essay entitled "Killer Pews". It was a response to a pattern of behaviour I had seen frequently in church life (and continue to see), a pattern where we find some Christians agitating for a spiritual revolution that supercharges what they regard as the rather humdrum, mediocre & unempowered work of a target church. The proposed remedy is that individuals must proactively seek an experience of "the Baptism of the Spirit". Given that many people in the church may already lay claim to having had the Baptism of the Spirit, sometimes more generic and vague terms such as the touch of God, an encounter with God or an infilling may be used. However, when one analyses what is actually being promoted one finds that it has less to do with spiritual experience per se than it has in trying to cast spiritual renewal into a quasi-gnostic philosophical mold by asserting a sharp distinction between the initiates and non-initiates of  some kind of inner spiritual light. As is so often the case when the target church fails to respond to the revivalist challenge it is then put down to "resisting the Spirit".

I must caution at this point that I am in no way presuming to put an unqualified denial on anyone's personal Christian experience or any epiphany they may have which takes them to a new level (which they may rightly or wrongly call the Baptism of the Spirit), anymore than I would expect them to cast doubt on my own very proprietary experience; rather my criticisms are about how such experiences are being interpreted and used to promote a philosophy which perceives Christian life in dualisms: "head vs heart", "intellect vs intuition",  "reason vs faith", initiates vs non-initiates and the like.  

***

I'm currently following an online service where the challenge of moving onto a whole different plane of super-spirituality & blessing is being promulgated by the speakers of the latest sermon series. At the time of writing Killer Pews in 1995 I was seeing, and had seen, Christian experience being cast into a very similar dualist mold of initiates vs non-initiates. This philosophy can lead to a lot of hard feeling not least because the logic of its aficionados has maneuvered them into such a position that they can only see criticism as a form of resistance to the very Spirit of God. They therefore can do little but consider any challenge to their views as a very grave matter indeed. 

I have of course written a lot more on this subject since 1995, some of which can be found in the links below. Possibly at the end of this latest episode I may say something about this particular foray into "gnostic" renewal. But let me hazard what I think will be the likely outcome of this latest sermon series: By and large the preachers will hear positive noises from the people they are preaching too, but because these preachers find difficulty taking onboard the variety, broadness and depths of the human personalities they are dealing with and moreover, the variety, broadness and depths of God's work, the outcome will fall short of the new dawn they are looking for. We might end up with some very disappointed promoters who will feel as though they have been punching at very soft foam rubber. It's happened before.

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/search/label/Dualism

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/search/label/Fideism

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/search/label/Mythos%20vs%20Logos

http://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.com/search/label/Logos%20vs%20Pneuma

http://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.com/search/label/mythos%20vs%20logos

ADDENDUM 13/02/21

More details about the underlying philosophy of the sermon series commented on above can be found here:

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2021/02/head-vs-heart-intellect-vs-feeling.html

ADDENDUM 

20/04/21: I post here my detailed comments on the online sermon series I refer to above: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OWIjP8FdaVrRYbhBJL0M9bVR3gM2kOGd/view

The Eternal Wall of Answered prayer

Unanswered prayer is conspicuous by its absence!

The Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer

I was recently in discussion with someone about the building of the above huge 51 metre high monument costing £9.3m and called "The Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer". This is what the Guardian says of it: 

An enormous Christian monument, more than twice the size of the Angel of the North, is to be built on the outskirts of Birmingham, fulfilling a vision its instigator says came from God.

The Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer will be constructed using a million bricks, each representing a prayer from a member of the public and its outcome. The aim is to “encourage and inspire people going through the storms of life”, said Richard Gamble, the project’s chief executive and a former chaplain of Leicester City football club.

The monument, which has been granted planning permission with work to begin next year, has three goals: to “preserve the Christian heritage of the nation”; encourage prayer; and “proclaim Jesus for the country”.

More information can be found here: 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-54123035

My friend, although a Christian, was clearly troubled by the thought that the money to build this monument could be more usefully spent elsewhere. (The money, according to the Guardian, is being donated by Lord Edmiston, a billionaire businessman, Conservative party donor and evangelical Christian). Although I was quite fascinated by the idea of a monumental Mobius strip my first reaction was surprise at the go ahead by North Warwickshire borough council’s planning committee who unanimously endorsed the scheme; after all, the UK appears to be a relatively secularised country, so how well does this huge Christian monument express British civic values? Below I present part of our conversation (I've called my friend "Bert"):

***

ME: At first sight it sounds a good idea to me. Love the symbolism of a giant mobius strip. Perhaps the country is not as secularised as I thought (Covid 19 anything to do with it?). However, weighing the incommensurables of the benefits of heritage (e.g. the moon landings) against more consumable benefits is not a straightforward comparison.

A good post though Bert: Got me thinking about balancing the monumental, which often serves community, kudos and status quo values, group identification and even hubris (e.g. Avebury, Silbury, Cathedrals etc...), against the more basic needs of just living satisfactorily. But I'm still puzzled and gob smacked that this project has got the go-ahead (unless it's a provocative troll article?). What's happening out there?

BERT:  I’m actually shocked it went ahead. Shouldn’t we give our money to the poor? Think of amount of meals that could feed those in poverty?

ME: Well yes, dire need should trump flights of monumental vanity, but when you've got a big economic surplus, human beings start to go monumental as we see in history. I assume your shock is about misplaced resources. My grasp of the economics here isn't great enough to contradict that, but I'm also shocked that what is basically a huge celebration of theism should get the go-ahead in the secularised UK. What in God's name is going on?

BERT:  Reminds me of Super/mega churches

ME: Not too keen on those myself! Shades of Nuremberg where you become one small cell in a frighteningly large organism run amok. Perhaps the funds are better spent on food banks and even covid19 research. But trying to put the balancing act here aside, as a monument I quite like the mobius strip. Although somebody did raise the question of "What about all those unanswered prayers?" Like all monuments it makes you reflect!

***

So, what about all those unanswered prayers then? How big a mobius strip would that require? Are there even enough bricks? Well, a few days later, independently and in an entirely different Christian connection, another Christian friend (whom I shall call "Josh") opened up a short email correspondence with me. The following is based on the first two email shots of that correspondence:

JOSH: I had a thought I wanted to run by you. It’s to do with prayer and when we request things – a bit of healing, a repair job, a decision going our way, a job interview, etc – it’s clear to me that although all our good prayers are answered by God at a general level in terms of our Christian progression, in terms of prayer requests for day to day things, the pattern of hits and misses often appears to me to be no more prominent in favour of hits than a random coin toss pattern.

What are your thoughts on this from a mathematician’s perspective?

ME: I think you may be talking about confirmation bias here? That is, is the concept of answered prayer just a myth which arises out of a natural human confirmation bias?

A few days ago I was discussing The Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer with someone else. I don't think I'm the first to remark: "What about all those unanswered prayers?" So the question is: Do the answered vs unanswered statistics give us a result that is statistically significant in favour of "answered"? Trouble is, stats doesn't work here.

The question of answered prayer is reminiscent of the statistical research into telepathy & precognition: Telepathy and precognition guesses which yield simple and clear cut "yes" or "no" answers can be mathematically checked for statistical significance but when the message received is composed of highly complex pictures & relationships, judgements about whether telepathy and precognition work are much more difficult to evaluate. With these complex revelations it is very difficult if not impossible to define clear cut and precisely defined mathematical probability spaces of cases (prob of event = cases favourable to the event divided by all cases). Answers to prayer are often more akin to these complex precognition and telepathy models; they are like the intermittent transmissions received by a radio receiver: That receiver may only occasionally splutter into life and deliver a clear cut message for a short while: But just a single event like that is so improbable as a spontaneous random event that you just can't help the feeling that this single remarkable event wouldn't happen by chance! Clear messages very seldom emerge from a sea of random noise.

I'm not a great prayer warrior myself although we do pray briefly for the family every night. I can only make sense of this area using the metaphor of the parent-child relation: The child asks for things and the parent responds either affirmatively or negatively within that relationship and according to the boundless wisdom (and love) of the parent (boundless as far as a young child is concerned!). Given the parent's much wider perspective the child is simply not going to understand why some petitions are answered and others aren't. In fact the parent may say "no" more often than "yes"! But let's remember this: A radio need only crackle into life once or twice on your desert island for you know that someone is out there!

***

Epistemic Note

Our epistemology works best with regular, highly ordered, stable, accessible and relatively simple objects: If there are aspects of reality that don't conform to this pattern then our epistemic endeavors start to struggle; witness sociology, evolutionary psychology, economics, history and UFOs. 

If epistemically speaking we are going to be bowled the curve balls of an erratic and complex reality then don't expect authoritative certainty to emerge and instead differing opinions will have to be tolerated; interpretation of these difficult to evaluate connections will be very (cultural) context dependent. (Meaning = text + context!). Here epistemic humility is advised. It is likely that the subject of answered prayer and the paranormal in general will fall into this category. Prejudiced dogmaticism either way is unjustified; but really, given the polarisation and passion that pervades some of these more debatable epistemic connections I suppose that's just too much to hope! See below for some of my links on the subject of epistemology. 

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2018/04/forget-epistemic-demarcation-problem.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2018/03/evolutionary-psychology-under-fire.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/evidence-not-proof.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/yes-its-all-science-larry-but-not-as.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/epistemic-notes.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/its-science-larry-but-not-as-you-know-it.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/evidence-guide-lines-but-not-tram-lines.html

ADDENDUM 7/11/20

An article very relevant to the above material can be found in the September 2020 edition of Christianity magazine. In the article, which is entitled Triumphalism, prayer warrior Pete Greig, initiator & leader of the 24-7 prayer movement talks about..... 

...the embarrassing swagger of my early faith.....Throughout the first year or so of the 24-7 prayer movement we were probably pretty unbearable....[we] genuinely thought we had found the big red switch called 'Revival'.....If everyone would just pray the way we were praying, Jesus would be back by breakfast time on Thursday...I'm ashamed to admit that I was often inconsiderate and uncompassionate towards those who were finding life really tough. 

But then,

Sammy [Greig's wife] got sick. I watched her slip into seizure after seizure, and no matter how much I cried out to God to make them stop - even claiming the scriptures - it simply didn't work.  I went from believing my prayers could save the world to questioning whether they could save my wife. 

Greig's attitude has improved no-end:

I still believe in miracles. I continue to pray for revival. But as C S Lewis said, miracles must almost by definition be rare. The creator is not a cosmic slot machine.... I hope I'm more compassionate these days. I'm certainly more comfortable with the sovereignty of God and the many paradoxes of life.

Greig puts a lot of his initial triumphalism down to his youth. But youth doesn't always explain it. 

Analysing UK Church Statistics: Logos vs Pneuma

From https://faithsurvey.co.uk/uk-christianity.html

(click to enlarge)

The above chart shows how church attendance in the UK, for a variety of denominations, has changed in 35 years since 1980. The general trend is obviously downwards, although it will be noted that the Pentecostal denominations and what are termed "New Churches" have increased their numbers as have the Eastern Orthodox church. Some of these church groupings may be clusters  of church cultures with only marginal commonalities: For example, "Baptist" covers churches affiliated with the Baptist Union and also the Strict and Particular Baptists. "Independents" may cover Brethren,  FIEC and various independent evangelical and reformed leaning "Free churches" (Indeed "Brethren" itself breaks down into further sub-groupings). The so-called "New Churches" probably cover various "charismatic" leaning churches such as New Frontiers, Hillsong, Vineyard, Calvary Chapel, Bethel, Potters House, Jesus Army etc.

On a couple of occasions now I have heard some church goers lauding the "New Churches" as perhaps having found the holy grail of church life, namely the spiritual secret of church growth, in so far as they seem to have bucked the trend of decaying church population. But in the absence of more information this is a long shot.  Let me explain:

 If one of the components effecting church population is an exponential decay then we will have:

Rate of decay = a constant x church population

This means that the bigger a church population is the faster it decays. If this is one of the components at work it would explain the huge drop in the large traditional church populations of Anglican, Catholic and Methodists and the relatively smaller drop in other smaller traditional churches like baptists and evangelical independents.

However, exponential decay is clearly not the only component involved: Pentecostal churches, which are of a similar size to Baptists, have increased their population whereas Baptists have dropped. Also, the "New Churches" have increased. This might suggest that they've cracked the problem of church growth were it not for the fact that they are relatively small and therefore more resilient to decay; they only need a small "trickle-in" component to more than cancel their slow rate of decay. For example, if just some people coming out of the jaded traditional churches are looking for a new exciting church scene and in consequence turn to the lower end population New Churches that may explain the growth among these churches; after all these churches tend to address today's Christian existential crises by offering the security of "spiritual intimacy" and personal epiphany, not to mention the simplicity and certainties found in their style. But even so the New Church growth is not spectacular: It's taken 35 years for this relatively small population to grow by over 100% to 160k - that's  about 2.6k per year..

It's worth noting that the tiny orthodox church (and therefore with a small decay rate) doesn't need much input from the Eastern European immigrants to buck the trend and grow by 160% in 35 years. (that equates to a mere 0.5k per year growth!)

The Pentecostals have grown by 36%; that is, by about 2.2k per year; that's lower than the per yearly growth of the New Churches. That may be a bad sign: Pentecostal traditionality may be part of the reason, but the Pentecostals are quite a bit bigger than the New Churches and so their lower growth rate may, ominously, be evidence that their greater size means that they are starting to show the underlying exponential decay component at work. If this is correct and the decay component is actually there all along in both the Pentecostal & New Churches and that they are actually partly being fed by the decay of traditional church it follows that their growth will slow down as their populations get bigger and become more vulnerable to the decay component.

This foregoing analysis is rather precarious. After all, it's a case of looking at the data and attempting to resolve out a superposition of growth/decay components in a background of a lot of random noise. But then to my mind this is no less precarious an analysis than those who look at the data and conclude that the New Churches have cracked the problem of church growth by waiting on the "spiritual revolution" and therefore the traditional churches only need drum up the same enthusiasm for this new dawn to solve their population problem. Moreover, I think we need to factor in here the pattern often shown when the church feels culturally marginalised; namely, that it tends to become more spiritually internalized and shifts from an emphasis on the articulations of "logos" to the intimacy of "pneuma"! Sometimes the latter starts to skirt the boundaries of fideism and gnositicism

My best guess is that the real problem is what that background component of exponential decay really means; that's likely to be societally systemic and there is not much we can do about it. The nub of the problem is in the culture beyond, in society at large: The spiritual revolution needs to grab the outside culture (and not just the church) and turn its nihilistic malaise on its head! When that happens churches of all sorts may be left wondering why at one time it all seemed so hard!

Bible Study: The Trinity

My Bible study on the subject can be found here.

At the heart of the Christian faith is a metaphor. The Greek word for "fish" (In Latin text, IXTHUS) has been used down the ages as an acrostic for the Greek version of "Jesus Christ, God, Son, Saviour.". The word "Son" here alludes to Jesus, the Son of God. Of course that can't be literally true any more than the claim that God is Father is literally true: In fact it would be blasphemous to suggest that God has begotten a Son in the literal sense; the incarnation must have been a very a different process to human procreation.   "Jesus is the Son of God" is a metaphorical expression about the relationship between Jesus the "Son" and God the "Father" and how far one can take this metaphor is subject to theological debate; much theology is less about claims to propositional truth than it is a debate about how far metaphors can be unpacked for their connotative content.

The metaphorical nature of much "propositional" theology is easy to overlook and when being used metaphorically for their connotative value theological statements may inadvertently be treated literally as if they are notational propositions. All metaphors have their limits but if metaphorical expression is the only means one has of expressing the otherwise inexpressible, taking the metaphor too far or too literally is always a danger. Therefore, it may be best to use a cluster of metaphors, realizing that no-one metaphor completely captures the otherwise incomprehensible. Theologians might like to ponder on the fact that theirs is not an exact science whose terms are precise enough to strain out a gnat. Theology provides guidelines rather than tram lines.

There have been many attempts to bring the concept of the Trinity into sharper focus by using crisp notational terms, but these attempts have so often come to grief in their explanation of how the human and divine come together in the Trinity that there is now a theological health warning hanging over the whole subject: See the heresy hunting Reachout Trust's list of "heresies" as an example. There may be some merit in what has otherwise been declared to be heretical provided it is treated metaphorically (although perhaps a bad metaphor). However, all too often the purveyors of these metaphors treat them literally and use them as doctrinal shibboleths in order to set themselves up as the one and only true understanding of the Godhead; that's when it becomes hard core heresy.

The Biblically sanctioned metaphor of Father and Son is undoubtedly the safest metaphor, a metaphor which focuses on the exclusively special relationship of "Father" and "Son" in the Godhead. But in the light of the adoption spoken of in Romans 8:14-19 (another use of metaphor) Christians can also claim to have a secondary Father/offspring relationship with the Divine. Perhaps using this metaphor, we can infer that as with young children we often have wrong ideas about the exact nature of our parent and yet that doesn't necessarily make void the adoptive relationship that that parent fosters with love. There is probably more leeway for the foibles of human idiocy and bigotry about the nature of the Godhead than doctrinal heresy hunters allow for; after all, the latter have to work with metaphors too.

The Four to Six Mix and the Feminisation of Church Culture

Some years ago on this blog I did a series of posts that resulted of some head counting I did at my church; my aim was to get an idea of the ratio of males to females. This little exercise was carried out on and off for about three years. I was surprised at the approximate constancy of the ratio over the period. The ratio turned out to be about 40% males to 60% females, hence I termed it the "four to six mix". The project was linked to an another theme and that I referred to as the feminisation (in the stereotypical sense of the word) of the Western church in its spiritual attitudes and culture; in particular the move to a more emotional, intuitive and  passion based church along with a drift toward an almost gnostic interpretation of the faith. (This is not true, however, of the kind of evangelicalism which strongly identifies with the reformation and majors in doctrine and "Truth" - such churches tend to eschew the emotional and experience based excesses of churches influenced by "Charismatic" culture. They also tend to be more "masculinised" in their ethos)

Anyway, the sequence of posts between June 2007 and January 2011 on this subject can be accessed using this link:

http://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.com/search/label/FourToSixMix

Now here's what I want to come to. Recently the 4:6 mix has surfaced again in two independent connections: The first connection is the "iknow" church management software my own church uses. The iknow software generates this  monthly report:

The 4:6 statistic here is, I assume, taken from membership numbers rather than the rota population expressed by the bar chart. This 4:6 ratio has been static for at least a year if I recall correctly. 

I now turn to the June edition of Premier Christianity magazine where we find an article entitled  Your Church Needs More Men. This article includes the statistical schematic below:

Yes, that's right, up pops the 4:6 mix again, this time presumably based on extensive church surveys. The fact that my small sample reflects this survey is,  as I have put it before, statistical "magic" which would have made Arthur Koestler proud (See "The Roots of Coincidence" Pages  26-27 and see also my book Disorder and Randomness)

One of the concerns (and this has long been a concern of mine too) of the Christianity article is the obvious implication of the statistical imbalance: Namely, that unless young church women are prepared to stay single many will not find a male partner within the confines of the Church and will have to find husbands outside the church. In fact given that a large percentage of the more senior church population have successfully paired off it follows that the gender imbalance among young people will be even more skewed than 4:6. 

Looking through my "4:6 Mix" posts I notice that Christianity magazine has published articles on the gender imbalance and the related feminisation of the church on at least six occasions: There was a spate of articles and book reviews in 2007 & 2008: Viz: July & September 2007,  February, and March 2008 and two articles in May 2008.

In my previous posts I toyed with idea that a factor strongly related to the 4:6 mix was the "feminisation" of church; that is, a cultural skew entailing a move away from stereotypically male traits and this is evidenced in the feminisation of worship. For example, quoting from my post of Feb 22nd 2008 where I quote a church leader called Carl Beech....

As for the state of worship in church with its male alienating ‘Swoon for Jesus love ins’ Beech seems to understand this as well: “Our terminology is that Jesus is our lover – press yourselves into his arms and let him embrace you”. Beech goes onto to say: “I’m very grateful for the charismatic movement, but I think we need to recast the terminology. Some of the songs which emerged in the 90s were very cathartic.” It was a lot worse than that Carl: the mid nineties was the heyday of the Toronto Blessing when, if you didn't want to be accused of resisting the Spirit, you emulated those 'in the Spirit' and got down on all fours and barked!

This is not to say that a "feminine" style of worship is wrong in itself: Also there is no necessary inference to be drawn which stereotypes genetic "males" and genetic "females" into particular roles. Some males may prefer the feminised worship and some females may prefer more masculine styles. The statistical clustering of genetic males and females around what are conventionally thought of as feminine and masculine traits is going to be a cloudy affair subject to many exceptions. The problem, however, arises when there is an imbalance of culture  that alienates a section of the congregation.

To be frank the premium placed on a soppy "swoon for Jesus" gnosticism in some Christian quarters alienates me as it does other males. There have been some gallant moves in an attempt to create events that cater for a more male orientated "laddish" culture (such as the 4M movement). This is good and gets full marks as a nice try but what little I've seen of these events suggest to me that the epiphanies of "Jesus gnosis" are still regarded as the acme of Christian experience. While this situation persists the statistics will remain the same. 

It is probably not as simple as a trend toward a uniform feminisation; rather it may actually be a  polarisation between hyper-feminisation and hyper-masculinisation with the latter evidenced by a dominating male leadership which on occasion can be a mix of patriarchary, authoritarianism, and bullying, all of which chimes well with fundamentalism and is a complementary fit with a feminised, obedient and compliant church membership.  My current guess is that such is the reaction of church communities to cultural stress and marginalisation in a changing world. 

STOP PRESS:

Talking about bullying leaders: The abrasive and domineering Mark Driscoll is back according to a Premier Christianity web article entitled Mark Driscoll is back but he hasn't learned his lessons.   See here. But I wonder if it's not just Driscoll who has to do some learning but also a fundagelical culture which is inclined to give such characters a free ride on its back. 

https://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-mark-driscoll-affair.html

https://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-mark-driscoll-affair-part-ii.html

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:

***

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

Roman-Saxon-Norman Norwich and St Julian.

Click to enlarge this view of Norwich as seen from the east. (North is right and south is left)

I recently spent an inspiring Saturday morning on a history walk in Norwich's King street area. The guide was Alan Gidney of Norwich Central Baptist Church. We also had with us a guide who was going to tell us about the world famous St Julian of Norwich, an anchorite whose cell is attached  to St Julian's church, a church within a stone's throw of  King street's Dragon hall; the latter being our assembly point.

Alan linked King street with the Roman road running from the northgate of Caistor Roman town  (Venta Icenorum), a fortified settlement about four miles to the south of Norwich. On the 3D Norwich map at the top of this post (Courtesy of Google) Caistor is off to the left. It is not known, said Alan, whether King street is on the line of the actual Roman road or whether it followed the line of Ber street, a street which runs roughly parallel to King street and is a little further up the Wensum valley side. Ber street and King street are both marked on my map. But in any case neither road has a good alignment with the road running from the north gate of Caistor Roman town, so presumably the road from Caistor had a kink in it at some point. Hazarding a guess: The Roman road from Caistor may have run along the east side of the River Yare until it arrived at a cross-roads near Trowse, whereupon a north west connection from the cross roads ran either to Ber Street or King street.

King Street, looking south. The front of Dragon hall can be seen in the centre distance.

The uncertainty about whether Ber street or King street is the original Roman road is expressed  in the following passage taken from this web site.

Although there is no substantial evidence of a Roman town within Norwich city walls, Venta Icenorum - Caistor St Edmund, just south of Norwich - was the focus for Roman settlement, selected for its fertile soil and good communications.

The area of modern Norwich was crossed by two major Roman roads suggesting that it was important, but not as a settlement. Evidence suggests that Holmstrete Way ran east west (modern Bishopsgate/St Benedicts) and a further Roman road ran north south along King Street or and Ber Street and then up Oak Street.

So, Oak street is also thought to be on the line of the Roman road. On my map I have marked Oak Street and also Charing Cross. Charing Cross may have been the place where the road from Venta Icenorum crossed Holmstrete.  If my map is anything to go by then Ber street has, apparently, a much better alignment with Oak Street and Charring cross than does King street. (However, Roman roads sometimes incorporated kinks in order to avoid difficult terrain, so this is no proof that Ber street is our Roman). King Street, on the other hand, has a reasonable alignment with Fye bridge (marked) to the north. In Saxon times Fye bridge was actually a ford and it therefore seems not an unreasonable conjecture that King street was, in fact, a Saxon deviation from the Roman road which made for the ford; presumably the well engineered Roman bridge that crossed the Wensum had long since decayed and fording the river was the cheapest Saxon alternative.

King street gets its name from the Saxon village of "Conesford" or "King's ford". Conesford was a village lying immediately to the south of the ford and was clustered around the point where King street was crossed by Holmestrete  On the other side of the ford lay the fortified Saxon town of Norwik (From which we get "Norwich"). Magdalen Street (marked) ran down the centre of this town, a town with a ditch and bank rampart and probably topped by a wooden palisade; it was in effect the "New Caistor".  As a fortified town Norwik had burgh status and was therefore permitted by the Saxon king to mint coins.

After the Norman conquest the centre of gravity of Norwich moved south, up and out of the Wensum valley toward the Ber Street ridge on which the Norman castle was built overlooking and dominating the Saxon villages in the Wensum valley. It may be at this point in history that King Street became the bustling inland "Port of Norwich", second only to the inland "Port of London". Although Norwich completely lost its second city status after the industrial revolution, I have early memories of it as a port for (small) sea going cargo ships, although today it is just a quay for Broad's pleasure boats.

St Julian's church is a short walk along St Julian's alley, an alley which intersects with King Street just outside the famous Dragon Hall. Dragon Hall was constructed in 1427 by the wealthy merchant Robert Toppes who made his money buying and selling with continental Europe. The feudal system introduced by the Normans had run about 300 years when St Julian was born in 1342 (She died sometime after 1416). But in the latter half of the fourteenth century the feudal order was under the hammer as history was in the process of making a transition. In consequence St Julian's life covers some significant times and dates. Viz:

* The Black death 1349 (England)
* The Peasant's revolt 1381
* The mid 14th century rise of John Wycliffe's Lollard's many of who were burnt at Lollard's pit a short way upstream at from Dragon hall. They were in effect pre-reformation reformers and were considered a danger by Roman Catholic authorities.
* The Canterbury tales 1387 - 1400
* The rise of the middle classes: e.g. Robert Toppes 1400-1467 who built Dragon hall in 1427

It is a reasonable conjecture that all the dates I have listed after 1349 have their roots in the effects of the Black Death, the plague which resulted in a 40% reduction in the population and consequently left many feudal agricultural strips unfarmed. Peasant tenants moved into the fallow land and started to make a profit and eventually bought cheap land to farm; they became the land owners often referred to as yeoman farmers, eventually to become contiguous with the gentry. They were the beginnings of the up and coming middle classes who in due course became rich and influential. English social mobility had arrived. An example are the Paston family who even moved into Caister Castle on the coast north of Gt.Yarmouth (not to be confused with Caistor Roman Town). Ever since those times the rich middle classes have had a tendency to ape the English aristocracy if they could.

The power of the feudal aristocracy whose wealth lay in their unquestioned ownership of farm land (the source of medieval wealth) was weakened by the Black death. The Black death lead to a lack of peasants to till the land and this in turn made land a buyer's market. But the feudal aristocracy continued to rule as if nothing had happened. The peasantry and early middle classes weren't wearing it and revolted. But this revolt was premature; the aristocracy were still very powerful and it took at least another three centuries before, in stages, the middle classes successfully took their place in the corridors of power. In the meantime the middle classes put their heads down and got on with the business of making money, Robert Toppes being an example.

Another connected factor in the peasants revolt may have been a subtle change in social ethos after the Black death. Evidence of this might be apparent in the Canterbury tales where it is clear that Chaucer was pondering carefully the meaning of social class. After all, the Black death was no respecter of persons; it was proof that all humanity was equal under God, although it should have been noticed that this equality was implicit in scripture from day one. Just before his execution in 1649 Charles I declared his belief in the royal blood line's divine right to rule. Charles I's execution is therefore symbolic of the death of the concept of an  aristocracy with a God given right to sovereignty.

The entrance to Julian's cell.: A Norman arch. It therefore pre-dates St Julian by at least 200 years. Her original cell probably did not include this entrance. She may have been bricked in with openings left for communication, food, hygiene and other basic needs. 

Into this mix comes the mystic St Julian. Today King street comes over as a sleepy residential area but our guide told us that in St Julian's day it would been a busy inland port area with people coming and going. Our guide also hinted that St Julian may have chosen this area because she felt that it was where she was most needed. After all, ports don't have a reputation for being particularly moral. Moreover, if the Canterbury tales are anything to go by we can imagine that street level culture here was pretty raw! (as it always has been I suppose!) So St Julian had her work cut out! Unlike the Lollards, however, St Julian didn't see herself as challenging the Roman Catholic church; a church that was in actual fact in much need of reform and challenge. But St Julian's theology was not entirely in keeping with that church. One of her doctrinal novelties was her stress on the motherly feminine aspect of God and Christ, a role reserved in Catholic thought for the Virgin Mary. But St Julian didn't go out of her way to rock the boat and in those days she was still a relatively small fish and could be safely be ignored. As for the Lollard's, at first the secular authorities tolerated and even protected them, but when they became linked to the peasant's revolt they lost this protection and many were burnt at the stake. Like the peasant's revolt the Lollard movement was premature; times were not yet ripe for a big change.

Standing in St Julian's cell for me was reminiscent of my visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Old Jerusalem. In both locations little or nothing remains of their original aspect making it difficult to make an imaginative connection with the past. Moreover, in my particular case picking up holy vibes is simply not one of my strengths. This fairly plain, clean, smooth, minimalist white washed cell was not going introduce me to a meditative mindfulness; not that much else has a chance of doing that either! A commemorative board just outside the cell says "In this holy place we can almost hear St Julian saying...so & so." Well, I didn't hear her! None of this is to say, however, that many people don't meet with God in the midst of contemplative silence.


And now to modern times: The St Julian controversy

St Julian's teaching. Traditional reformists will hate it.  Needless to say after a quick search on the Web I found....!

In reformation England St Julian's writings were rescued and hidden; she was after all a Roman Catholic Saint. But her writings eventually resurfaced and became popular in the West, perhaps on the back of a resurgent Romanticism. However, traditional "logos" based protestant believers who strongly identify with the reformation will find her writings at best wanting and at worst heretical. For example the following typifies a heavily reformist reaction to St Julian:

.....nowhere in Scripture are we taught “the Trinity is our Mother,” or that Jesus—the unique Son of God—is our “true Mother,” and we’re certainly not taught, “All shall be well.” The late Dr. Walter Martin, a very well-respected evangelical apologist, was correct when he said: The vast majority of mankind; will not make it [to salvation], because they simply will not repent. And if you don’t think these people are lost; then why in the world are you even bothering to call yourself a Christian. Study mysticism, as I have, and you’ll see a common thread of universalism within it.

In closing this subject, for now, Julian of Norwich falls right in lock-step with classic mysticism of all stripes with its panentheism (all in God), pelagianism (true self, which is sinless), “a spark of the divine” where, in contradistinction to Scripture, God already dwells within all of mankind and concluding with Julian’s belief in a universal salvation.
(See http://apprising.org/2010/05/09/setting-the-record-straight-on-julian-of-norwich/)

With their tendency toward an unimaginative and stark factualism fundamentalists are often found arguing over metaphors that they interpret literally. It is certainly true that some metaphors are better than others, but if you are a literalist what should be a discussion on merit and appropriateness becomes a black vs. white battle of truth vs. falsehood, a fight between good and evil, thus releasing huge passions, emotions and acrimony. As they diligently search the Bible for "theological algorithms" which provide exact rules giving unambiguous guidance about belief and practice, it is no surprise that a book which often uses language connotationally should cause fundamentalists to fall out with one another very acrimoniously over issues which should be treated as a question of nuances of meaning. An example of such a fall-out is the council of Chalceden (451), a council attempting to settle the contention between Nestorius and Cyril over the nature of the Trinity. It represents a timeless theological fracas caused by inflexible literalist thought. Prime suspect as to the root of the cognitive dissonance at Chalceden is the concept of "hypostasis" or "substance", terms which are clearly metaphors derived from the material world and applied literally and uncritically to the Godhead. It is no surprise that the black vs white fundamentalist mind will instinctively recoil from the sometimes woolly & sloppy language used by the Christian mystic.

One can repent, believe in the Lord Jesus and receive the gift of adoption from the Father and yet in my experience what chiefly characterises fundamentalist believers is that in practice they understand "repentance" in terms of affiliating oneself to their culture's specific rendition of Christianity; all other contrary Christian cultures are likely regarded as simply unrepentant. Close approximations to the Gospel can be found among Jehovah's Witnesses and yet one knows that they too are likely to consider anyone who does not connect with their holy remnant as unrepentant and therefore non-christian, no matter how emphatic one is about receiving the Gospel. For one quickly finds that in the eyes of fundamentalist Christians of all types (and this includes JWs), salvation is practically conditional upon the acceptance of their subculture as exclusive. Keeping fundamentalists at arm's length (A policy I actually advocate) is, to the fundamentalist mind, tantamount to a ticket to hell; see here, here and here. Expressions of the acceptance of the Gospel outside their culture are all but worthless to them. But having said that I can no more defend fundamentalist reformers than I can Christian mystics who err on the side of gnosticism and like their strict reformist siblings also regard those beyond their "enlightened" culture as of an inferior spirituality. 

The reformation brought an end to the Roman Catholic monopoly on Latin Christianity. Subsequently, in the West God no longer had all his apples in one basket where they could all go bad together. But human nature remained the same and those Protestants too enamoured of the divine authority of their opinions, following medieval  Roman Catholicism, believed there remained only one basket - their's!*



Addendum 15/04/2019
https://www.networknorwich.co.uk/Articles/546301/Network_Norwich_and_Norfolk/Resources/Events/_Julian_of_Norwich_celebrated_with_weekend.aspx

Footnote:

*As has become so apparent in my Creation researches evangelical Protestants are very tempted by a dualist world view, a view where God's creative power is instinctively distinguished over and against the profane "hypostasis" of matter; shades of gnosticism haunt many dark corners of Christian culture. And yet it is the sovereign transcendent God who has created the cosmic miracle of space & time and whose omnipresent  immanence sustains it and continues to create.