18.07.26

Fashion in Reverse

I’ve just returned from a few days in London, which of course coincided with the latest heatwave. For me, one of the consequences of all this hot weather is that I more frequently run out of suitable clothing. My clerical shirts are all the same, come rain or shine, so the only concession usually on display in the heat  is when I roll up my sleeves.

But this last week I’ve been trying to wear short sleeved shirts, of which I have very few. As the days of melting 30° temperatures rolled by, so I found myself digging deeper into the back of the wardrobe, excavating shirts that rarely go on display. As a general rule, the longer the hot spell, so the shirts get progressively more garish. By Friday I was in full Honolulu turquoise blue with pineapple yellow rig, a shirt that must be at least 30 years old and is lucky to see the light of day even once a year.

It is a strange paradox that as everyday things fall out of favour, for whatever reason, we sometimes respond by reaching back into the past, and so end up with something much more striking and unusual. I am told that it is not unheard of for the owner of a stately home, when a 19^th century Sheraton chair gets broken in some regrettable revel, to investigate the attic and discover a set of even older 18^th century Chippendale chairs, stowed away when they ceased to be fashionable. In this way the furnishings of some country houses get increasingly antique every time something is replaced. The auction value of the contents of my shirt drawer may not be comparable, but the principle is the same. Leave an item of clothing for long enough, and it transcends fashion to become a timeless classic.

Poverty can have a similar effect; if you can’t afford to upgrade an item, you are stuck with it whether you like it or not. Peterborough Cathedral has one of the country’s oldest wooden ceilings, a painted masterpiece dating from around 1240; but it only survived because the monks couldn’t afford to replace it with stone, even though there is clear architectural evidence that this is what they intended to do. It is the same story with many of our most interesting buildings; they have survived because either they were so remote that they were effectively forgotten about, or there just wasn’t the money to keep up with architectural fashion.

Walking through the City of London I was struck by how much had changed since I worked there in the 1980s; landmark buildings such as Canary Wharf or the Gherkin are now just one of a crowd, and very little seems to be older than 50 years. Where the property prices are high, the urge to redevelop in every generation is strong, and every board of directors in the Footsie 100 wants corporate headquarters in 21st century steel and glass, not 1980s steel and glass.

But as I wandered between the high rise offices, there were little glimpses of an older London. A few Victorian pubs; alleyways and backyards with quaint names, such as Mermaid Court, Talbot Yard, White Hart Yard; fragments of industrial archaeology surviving in some of the train and tube stations; an uncelebrated but distinctly ancient timber framed building just off Borough High Street; and of course the churches. Most of them are ‘only’ 18th or 19th century, but even that is far older than any commercial premises; and some, such as Southwark Cathedral (where I was ordained) or St Bartholomew the Great, are centuries older than that, far older than any secular building, excepting only the Tower of London. They survived the Great Fire, the Blitz, and the onslaught of late capitalism, and they still stand.

There is a cultural equivalent of this. In a world where everyone seems to be in a race to be part of the latest trend, craze, fad and fashion; where to be cool you have to keep on ‘re-inventing’ yourself; where everyone seeks the good life, but no one has a very clear idea about what it looks like; sometimes a few of those left exhausted turn away and stumble across a cobwebbed set of older values stashed away in the attic of the history of ideas.

In an age dedicated to self promotion, qualities of humility and modesty seem laughably out of step, yet for some that is precisely their attraction. When we are all expected to generate our own identity, and to live meaningful lives uniquely different from everyone else, the idea of finding fulfilment by serving one another can seem strangely liberating. When the President of the United States declares that the only morality he is bound by is his own, a set of divinely ordained certainties suddenly looks hugely attractive.

Sometimes the only way to face the future is to reach back into the past; the only way to be yourself is to accept an identity bestowed; and the only way to get ahead is to live in the generosity of grace. Some of the discarded items in grandma’s dressing up box, to everyone’s surprise, can cut a dash in Mayfair; but it might mean abandoning the currently approved dress code. As the prophet Jeremiah once said, “Stand at the crossroads and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies.”

Jonathan Baker

04.07.26

Reflections on a Recent Birthday

I never used to worry about birthdays. Years ago, when some of my acquaintances got into a tizz about turning 30, I never really understood why. Ageing was natural, normal, and pointless to resist.

I have a memory of John Cleese and Yoko Ono once appearing together on a chat show. Yoko, who by then was in her early fifties, was opining about how ageing is all in the mind and you are only as old as you feel, only to be interrupted by Cleese (who was ten years younger) crying, ‘But Yoko, things start falling apart!’ and then listing his increasing loss of hair, teeth, memory, etc.

At the time, it was Cleese who made me laugh with his no-nonsense realism. But maybe my attitude was really closer to Yoko’s, with my unexamined expectation of eternal youth. The reason I could afford to be blasé about birthdays was because my body didn’t feel particularly old. My metabolism was pretty forgiving, so even after I developed a modest bulge around the midriff in my forties, it didn’t feel as though there was any great need for interventions in either diet or exercise.

But now, age has become harder to ignore. I may still feel 18 inside, but my frame is beginning to creak. No structural failure, you understand, just a growing stiffness. This is most evident in the vestry, where I used to straighten the hood of my alb before taking a service by reaching between my shoulder blades to catch the tip of my hood and pull it down. With disbelief I now find that I can no longer stretch that far. Not only is it out of reach, it feels yards away. I can’t get anywhere near it. Somehow my arm has got shorter.

This sensation is replicated in other limbs. Getting up in the morning, I spend the first minutes hobbling around in an exaggerated parody of an old man, before my tendons have warmed up sufficiently to tackle the stairs without me clinging to the banister like a survivor of the Titanic. And turning left at road junctions: no longer a quick glance over my right shoulder before gliding into the space between the traffic; now I have to stop, adjust the seat belt and swivel my entire torso through ninety degrees with all the suppleness of a statue to Queen Victoria.

The answer, of course, is exercise. My GP put me on to the physiotherapist who sent me an Exercise Plan. Six easy exercises, each one to be repeated six to twelve times in three or four sessions a day. All reassuringly packaged with advice to stop if I break a sweat and to make sure I speak to my GP if there are any twinges. This doesn’t leave much time during the waking day for anything else, and now my social media feed is bombarding me with Tai Chi Chair Exercises for the over-60s. Even worse, my YouTube algorithm is suggesting I might want to watch old Mr Motivator fitness videos from the 1990s. Jane Fonda, bring it on.

In an attempt to distil this experience into something I can cope with, I draw two conclusions (or ‘takeaways’ as we must now call them). One is that we shouldn’t take anything for granted. The other is that if you don’t use it, you lose it.

The same conclusions might apply spiritually. Those who have been Christians for a long time need the occasional spiritual health check. If our faith is only exercised in two dimensions, it gets hardened and sclerotic. This can show itself in attitudes which are judgmental or expressed only in clichés. If our prayer life never varies, and has no sense of exploration, it can dry out and fail to nourish us with any meaningful sense of God’s presence. If we give up going to church, then the sense of detachment may cause our faith to fail altogether.

I’m never going to take out gym membership; I know myself too well. But I have a growing sense that I want to stretch those stiffening muscles, even if I can’t match the targets my physio wants to set me. In the same way it’s good to stretch the muscles of our faith. The nature of that will depend on what we are already doing; but it might be worth reflecting on how our spiritual disciplines are surviving the passage of time.

So: how much time do we spend in daily prayer, and might we improve it? When did we last try a different way of praying, and what guidance are we getting about how to pray? Do we use the Bible as part of our devotions, or only listen to it in church? How do we listen to the Bible as the Word of God? When did we last read a devotional book? How consciously do we put our faith into action? And so on.

Your clergy are always happy to discuss such matters, and we want to help everyone keep in a good state of spiritual health, wherever they are on their journey. We can point to all kinds of resources, and have no interest in prescribing an unrealistic regime. But a robust, life-giving faith isn’t something we can take for granted; and if we don’t practice some form of spiritual discipline, then our faith may seize up altogether.

Jonathan Baker

20.06.26

Come on, Inger-land!

It’s not often that I find myself able to appreciate football, but I can’t help but share in the general joy of England having got off to a good start in the World Cup. Even so, the thing I’m especially grateful for is not the football itself, but the unexpected pleasure of seeing lots of St George’s flags without feeling anxious!

Flags are funny things, and different people read different meanings into them. When thousands of St George’s flags appeared on our lamp posts and roundabouts earlier this year, many thought they were just a celebration of English identity.

But the fact that the ‘Raise the Colours’ movement was initiated, promoted and largely financed by far-right political groups and individuals such as Tommy Robinson made it clear that there was a more sinister intention, very obvious in some of the online comments.

These groups are promoting a very narrow concept of ‘Englishness’ defined by ethnicity and colour. This Englishness is exclusive, shutting out anyone who is not white, Anglo-Saxon, or from a non-Christian culture. It is an Englishness that feels threatened, and is consequently anxious and defensive.

Seeing the St George’s flag co-opted by such a movement made me feel distinctly queasy; I don’t like people using a symbol of unity and togetherness to exclude and intimidate, especially as the red and white cross was a symbol of the resurrection of Christ before it was the symbol of St George.

But the World Cup has allowed the cross of St George to regain its proper place in our affections, unleashing more positive feelings from people of all backgrounds and political affiliations. It is also striking that the team arousing such patriotic fervour includes such non-Anglo-Saxon characters as Jude Bellingham, Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka. In fact, the white faces in the squad are in the minority. But they are all England!

The philosopher Alexander Douglas recently wrote a book called ‘Against Identity’ in which he argues that we are all unsure of ourselves and in search of a firm identity. Contrary to what we are often told, this comes not from an innate sense of self inside us, but from looking at others and seeking to be like them. This creates a group identity which suppresses dissent from within and sees rival identities as a threat.

Douglas tells the story of three Emperors in the mythical East – Shu, Hu and Hundun. Shu was the Emperor of the Southern Sea; Hu was Emperor of the Northern Sea; and between them was the Centre, the territory of Hundun. The two Emperors of the Seas often met in the Centre, where Hundun always welcomed them with perfect hospitality. Shu and Hu had eyes, ears, a mouth and nostrils, like us; but Hundun’s face was completely blank and featureless. One day, Shu and Hu decided to bore holes into Hundun, so that he could have features like theirs. So each day they bored a hole into him; and on the seventh day he died.

The story is a parable of how identity kills. Shu and Hu wanted to impose their identity upon Hundun; but maybe Hundun was better off without a fixed identity; it was his very facelessness which enabled him to be so welcoming and hospitable to the other two.

Douglas argues that we are trapped by our obsession with building our own identity; that it puts us at odds with the world around us, and that we can never achieve an identity in which we can feel secure and whole. It leads only to ambition, rivalry and conflict.

Douglas is a bit vague about what living without an identity might mean in practical terms, but his argument does chime with the Christian gospel.

St Paul speaks of Jesus as the one who, “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.”  Slaves have no identity of their own, only that which is bestowed by their master.

“If any want to become my followers”, says Jesus, “let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me… for those who want to save their life will lose it. and those who lose their life for my sake will find it”. There is a whole series of sayings about the last becoming first, the servant becoming a friend, the lowly being exalted, and the empty being filled.

The renunciation of the self includes the renunciation of our lust for fixed identity and its false promises of status, security and belonging.

On this basis, our identity is not something we seek and build for ourselves. Rather, it is something we receive, because it is bestowed upon us as a gift of grace. The identity bestowed is that we are children of God; not as members of a religion (itself another false identity) but as those who know they are loved and are called to share love, which means allowing our sense of self to become fluid and adaptable enough to show generosity, to make space for others, and  open to the possibility of being changed by them.

The joy surrounding the World Cup flag-waving speaks of that inclusive, hospitable, adaptable identity, which can even find joy in the flag-waving of other nations – always excepting, of course, when we are on the wrong end of a penalty shoot-out.

Jonathan Baker

06.06 26

Bulldog or Bumblebee?

I remember once attending a church conference many years ago when we were put into discussion groups and asked ‘What animal best represents your church?’. Predictably, my mind went completely blank, and then it came to me: ‘ A Water Boatman’, I cried. ‘Because there is lots of activity on the surface, but underneath there is absolutely nothing at all.’ It was a cheap joke, and more than a little unfair to my church at that time; but we all recognised the possibility of churches getting lost in activity that doesn’t reflect who we really are.

The incident came back to me recently when I read about the consultation currently going on about the new design for British banknotes, when the current historical figures will be replaced by animals.

The reason given for the change is that banknotes need to be completely redesigned every so often in order to make forgery more difficult. However there has been much huffing and puffing from some quarters, especially as this will mean dropping the image of Sir Winston Churchill from the £5 note, which for many has become an unassailable emblem of Britishness. Accusations of ‘wokery’ are rife.

However as I started to write this I was reminded that since 1981 there has been a regular turnover of figures on our banknotes. Shakespeare, Dickens, Florence Nightingale, Michael Faraday, the Duke of Wellington, Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Christopher Wren, George Stephenson, Charles Darwin, Sir Edward Elgar and the engineers Boulton and Watt have all taken a turn and been dropped. Churchill has only graced our £5 notes since 2016, so his presence is not exactly ancient.

It does raise the question of what qualities should be celebrated when we put faces on bank notes; courage, creativity, innovation, leadership, or intellectual achievement? And do these personalities mean the same thing to everyone? Churchill himself is a less unifying figure than he was, as we have become more aware of some of his less savoury views about Empire, Jews and race.

Opting for wildlife sidesteps some of these debates, but risks substituting a completely different set of arguments. Is the red squirrel a better symbol of Britain than the kingfisher? Is a puffin more patriotic than a bumblebee, or does a bottle-nosed dolphin evoke the bull-dog spirit more than a barn owl? The public consultation is ongoing, so you can have your say.

Images on banknotes take us into the realm of symbol, metaphor and representation. All the signs are that as a culture we are becoming less confident about handling such visual language. We often seem to insist upon a single layer of meaning, imposing our own narrative in a very literal way. In an age of populism fed by social media, ways of communication involving nuance, subtlety and ambiguity are endangered.

In the Bible God is variously compared to animals such as a lion, a lamb and a dove. Taken literally, these images sit uncomfortably with each other. If God is a lion, does that mean that he sleeps for 23 hours a day? Or that he only eats fresh meat? In which case there are worrying questions for the lamb.

Such images need to be handled generously. Is it appropriate to compare God to a lion because of its strength, its royalty, or the volume of its roar? Does a lamb evoke gentleness, vulnerability or sacrifice? The dove may also speak of gentleness, but also of freedom or peace. There are different layers to each metaphor, depending on where the similarity with God is seen to lie. It is difficult to insist that there is only one way of understanding what is meant. A culture enriched by Christian faith should be confident in handling rich and textured metaphorical language, because we have no other way of talking about the things which are most important.

So perhaps our increasing literalism and inability to handle competing interpretations of symbolic figures, whether Winston Churchill or the red fox, is a sign of us losing our Christian confidence in metaphor. As God slips away from us, so our faith in language itself is eroded. Insisting, with ever more shrill voices, that a symbol can only mean what I want it to mean risks turning communication into an exercise of power, just as Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty says:

“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

As with words, so with images. So which animals do you think best represent our nation? And how many different meanings do you think they can they carry?

Jonathan Baker

23.05.26

No such thing as secular

I was flattered recently to discover someone who actually reads this Blog, and in the ensuing conversation I found myself reflecting on why I write it.

Long ago I decided to try and branch out beyond the traditional Vicar’s Letter ruminating on the Mothers’ Union AGM or the forthcoming Harvest Festival. I’ve written my share of those, and I suspect most people skipped them to get to the latest zippy write up of the storm-lashed Church Fête.

After various experiments during and since the pandemic, we’ve ended up with this bi-weekly Blog. It is still useful for communicating important events in the parish; but at the risk of sounding pretentious, it is also a tool for commending the formation of a Christian mind.

Let me try to explain. For the last couple of centuries, popular thinking in western culture has tended to separate life into different compartments. On the one hand there is the realm of objective knowledge, (such as Science) and on the other there is the world of subjective knowledge (such as Art and the Humanities). Objective knowledge is made up of those things which can be publicly observed, measured and quantified, and are generally regarded as true; whereas subjective knowledge covers any aspect of personal experience, emotion, imagination or intuition. In other words, there is an assumption that a great gulf separates ‘fact’ from ‘opinion’ (although when you dig a little deeper, these definitions turn out to be slippery).

Having created such a division, it is a relatively easy matter to confine Christianity to the ‘private opinion’ side of the line where it can be safely ignored by anyone dealing with issues in the so called ‘real’ world. ‘Religion’ all too easily inhabits a sealed box which has nothing to do with the real world of policy and money. It is a Sunday-only hobby for those who get a kick out of that kind of thing, like trainspotting or fly fishing.

The real problem is that this way of thinking is also common in the Church itself. In my experience many Christians find it difficult to see the relevance of faith in deciding how to spend money or exercise a vote, or in shaping an opinion about the TV programmes we are watching or the social media content we are reading. Is what we consume tending towards the Good, the True, and the Beautiful? Or towards something else entirely?

To give a recent example: at a recent meeting of the Spirituality Group on ‘Spirituality and the Cinema’, it became evident that some of those present were expecting a discussion about explicitly ‘religious’ films, when in fact every film reflects a spiritual point of view. It is impossible to tell a story without revealing what you think about attractive or repulsive human characteristics, good or poor choices, healthy or destructive goals. And making these judgments depends upon your standpoint on matters of faith. Is violence redemptive? What counts as success? Can vengeance bring peace? Do the ends justify the means? Spiritual questions are not limited to Cecil B DeMille’s ‘The Ten Commandments’.

The Vicar’s Blog is hardly a source of enlightenment on such matters. But at a micro-scale I’m trying to offer examples of practical theology, or of how our faith might shape our approach to aspects of modern life. If Jesus is Lord, he is Lord of all, and not just the spiritual bits; and if Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, then he is present in everything lifegiving and in all forms of truth, not just those found in church. In other words, there is no such thing as secular, but everything comes under Christ, and is to be judged in the light of Christ.

This Sunday (24^th May) is the Feast of Pentecost, when we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church. The Holy Spirit is both the Spirit of Jesus, who helps us to continue Christ’s work; and the Spirit of truth, whom Jesus promised would guide his followers into all truth. The Holy Spirit has a job on his hands in changing our innate assumptions and prejudices into something more Christlike. We can co-operate by listening in prayer and in studying the Scriptures; by seeking to grow in generosity and compassion, or as George Eliot put it, “widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower”.

Thinking is part of our calling, not just for the very keen or clever, but for all the baptised. Most of the time, that thinking will be intuitive and the result of habit. This Blog, at its best, is a little attempt to make us question where those habits of thought come from, and whether we might be able to bring them into closer conformity with the mind of Christ himself.

In the words of St Paul, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12.2). May this Pentecost help you on that journey of transformation!

Jonathan Baker

09.05.26

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25.04.26

A Modest Proposal

Each week seems to bring a new doom-mongering fear about Artificial Intelligence. The latest concerns Mythos, a large language model created by the AI company Anthropic, which is said to be capable of hacking into banks, public infrastructure and government departments  by finding and exploiting bugs in security software systems. Before it is released its creators have granted access to Mythos to only a handful of those organisations most vulnerable, so that their systems can be secured while it is still possible.

Those few people who properly understand these things seem unclear how we should respond to the rapid advance of AI. Regulation by governments always lags behind innovation, but for there to be no regulation is to invite disaster; on the other hand, regulation can easily strangle innovation and hand the advantage to competitors with fewer scruples.

As is often the way with new technology, the ability to devise new tools far outstrips the ability to reflect upon how they should safely be used. Tech entrepreneurs tend to be better engineers than ethicists. When the boss of Microsoft AI was recently asked about the millions of graduate jobs threatened by AI, he just suggested vaguely that people will have to re-train.

In response to this I have my own modest proposal, which is based on the recognition that when human intelligence is matched with evil intent, the worst effects are mitigated by human stupidity. I have always been suspicious of conspiracy theories, believing that when things go wrong it is usually as a result of a simple cock-up rather than a grand conspiracy. This is another way of saying that I believe in original sin, and that human beings have a strong tendency to mess things up.

Following this principle, my suggestion is that resources should be poured into the development of Artificial Idiocy (AI). This would be a kind of mirror image of existing large language models, and would be designed to scour the internet for myriad examples of bloopers, glitches, malapropisms and ordinary mistakes. Using the ample raw data thus provided, it would train itself to confront and infiltrate the other kind of AI, thus ensuring that it never works smoothly. Hackers would inadvertently get locked out of their own computers, scammers would find they had mistakenly transferred large sums of money into their victims’ bank accounts, and bots would only telephone their own numbers with fake warnings about security breaches.

Artificial Idiocy could be used by school and university examiners to mark papers incorrectly, and so fail students relying upon conventional AI. Hostile powers using AI to influence democratic elections would find themselves unwittingly organising rallies on the streets of their own cities, while AI programmes used to replace human jobs would automatically fail their 3 month probationary period. Artificial Idiocy would be the antidote to Artificial Intelligence, ensuring that its performance was altogether more human.

Admittedly there might be protests from genuinely careless and foolish people, claiming that Artificial Idiocy was stealing their talent and threatening their livelihoods, but that may just be a necessary price to pay for progress.

There is a theological equivalent to this in the concept of the ‘felix culpa’, or happy fault. The idea is that the disobedience of Adam and Eve and subsequent banishment from Paradise was a good thing because it led to God showing his love by redeeming the world in the death and resurrection of Jesus. In other words, a bad thing can have good consequences. This is how I would promote Artificial Idiocy; to protect the human race from itself our best defence is our own natural tendency to get in a muddle.

The single biggest weakness of AI is that it is based upon an assumption that it will always be used benignly, that great power can always be trusted, and that nothing will go wrong. As such it is a dangerous expression of human pride and hubris, which always assumes the ‘bad actors’ are somewhere else. Such assumptions are always destined for correction when we discover that the dividing line between good and evil lies not between ‘us’ and ‘them’, but through the middle of every human heart.

AI will doubtless generate its own forms of idiocy without human involvement. In the meantime I believe I have identified an attractive investment opportunity and remain open to potential backers willing to fund the Vicar’s billionaire lifestyle.

Jonathan Baker

11.04.26

Cycle of Seasons or Binding Spell?

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Philip Larkin’s poem, ‘The Trees’, is a beautiful example of the way we associate Spring with new life. Greetings cards and school assemblies often interpret Easter in terms of daffodils, eggs, chicks and Spring more generally. Such is our relief at getting through another winter and seeing the sun again that all expressions of new life tend to be looked at in the same way, and the fresh green of trees coming into leaf and putting out their buds is another example of this.

At the same time Larkin’s poem expresses a certain wistfulness: ‘Their greenness is a kind of grief’ suggests that Spring promises more than it delivers. The trees look as though they are genuinely being born again and starting afresh, when in fact the newness is only temporary. The leaves will die again come autumn, just as we are destined to grow old and die.

This is why the association between Spring and Easter is unsatisfactory. Good though it is for Easter to be celebrated just as the Earth is being renewed and we are surrounded by small signs of resurrection, the quality of new life is different. The new life of Spring is part of an annual cycle which repeats for ever. But the resurrection is a singularity, a one-off moment of new creation which introduces a completely different order of newness into the world.

Jesus’ resurrection carries with it the startling prospect that the world is not enclosed by death in the way that it normally seems. The boundary imposed by our mortality is, after all, permeable. The universe is not a closed cycle within which one thing inevitably follows another. It is a more open system in which not all realities can be accessed by our five senses. It is suffused with mystery and blended with eternity, which is why the more science reveals the world to us, the more puzzling and inexplicable it seems, and the more questions we are left with.

In the realm of human experience, the resurrection performs the impossible: not just because dead people don’t come back, but because it means the past can be revisited, even rearranged. The resurrection reveals the possibility of freedom, forgiveness and grace, allowing us to respond to past experiences not with a predictable tit for tat logic, but with a letting go and letting be, creating space for different perspectives and different understandings.

The resurrection reveals that the future is neither predictable nor inevitable, but is open to an infinite range of possibility, which we discover not through reason and self-sufficiency but through faith and love.  Above all, it reassures us that the future is not hostile and meaningless, but is the gift of a loving God.

The final verse of Larkin’s poem holds the door ajar to this hope of ultimate newness with its opening phrase, ‘Yet still…’  Maybe the signs of Spring do after all express a deeper and more spiritual newness.

It put me in mind of another poem on the same theme by CS Lewis. His  ‘What the Bird Said Early in the Year’ expresses the same longing to break the spell of the endless cycle of the seasons and discover the freedom of the eternal summer of heaven beyond. So may the rest of this Eastertide be for you not just a temporary season anticipating summer, but the beginning of a lasting season enjoying the grace of the resurrection:

I heard in Addison’s Walk a bird sing clear:

This year the summer will come true. This year. This year.

Winds will not strip the blossom from the apple trees

This year, nor want of rain destroy the peas.

This year time’s nature will no more defeat you,

Nor all the promised moments in their passing cheat you.

This time they will not lead you round and back

To autumn, one year older, by the well-worn track.

This year, this year, as all these flowers foretell,

We shall escape the circle and undo the spell.

Often deceived, yet open once again your heart,

Quick, quick, quick, quick! — the gates are drawn apart.

CS Lewis

Jonathan Baker

28.03.26

‘Surely, you are a God who hides himself’

If there is a loving God, why isn’t he more obvious? In a world where there is so much that is wrong; so much cruelty in nature, so much stupidity in the realm of human affairs, why doesn’t God, if there is a God, make himself more clearly known?

The desire to be sure, to have clarity, is a very modern concern. No doubt people in every age have wanted to deal in simple categories of black and white, right and wrong, yes or no. But in our own time we seem to have ended up with a choice between certainty and ignorance with nothing in between; no space left for the provisional, the penultimate, for taking on trust, for the balance of probabilities. We either know something for sure, without a shadow of doubt, or we reject it altogether.

This approach leads on the one hand to fundamentalisms, both religious and scientific, where we think understanding can only be achieved by the rules of cause and effect, of logical coherence and strict rationality, leading to definite and fixed conclusions; or on the other hand to a post-modern uncertainty in which we lose confidence in knowledge altogether. This second approach means that truth becomes merely what the most powerful person in the room says it is.

This dualism is misleading. Science is a powerful tool for exploring certain kinds of truth. But its results are always provisional. It offers the best theory to fit the facts; but it is iterative,  open to revision, always a little bit incomplete, and especially so when the facts are unknown, incomplete or contested. It also requires us to trust the integrity of the scientists themselves, the people paying for them, the culture in which science is done; the facts don’t speak for themselves.

When people discover that science isn’t always dealing in hard facts, they can become disillusioned, and be tempted to deny what nevertheless is highly probable. Experts are vilified, real facts are rejected, and conspiracy theories flourish. This route ends up with people denying the efficacy of vaccines, the reality of climate change, and the outcome of elections. It feeds a scepticism about our public discourse that threatens democracy itself.

The same misunderstanding shapes discussions about God. On the one hand there is the  fundamentalism which insists on forcing God into a box defined by reason, logic and propositions. The worst fundamentalists are the atheists who cry, ‘Where is the evidence for God?’ as if God is a suspect, long escaped from the scene of the crime, whose fingerprints or  DNA must surely be present if he was really there. In the absence of such evidence there can be no God.

Our view of the world has become so narrow, our assumptions about reality so squashed to fit  our five senses, that we have lost our sense of transcendence, of the possibility of a bigger picture. It is as if we could only know the master mason who built Beverley Minster by looking at the columns and pinnacles of the Minster itself. In one sense the builder’s presence is indeed there in the building; but if we want to know the actual person, he will remain entirely hidden until we look beyond the building itself.

So with God; if we wish to encounter God as a living reality, we shouldn’t think he is to be found within the world he has made. The tools required are not those of the senses and reason, leading to a false certainty without commitment. Rather, we have to explore other media, those of faith, mind, consciousness, conscience, love and relationship; these are not so much tools as dispositions of the heart which may take us who knows where. Perhaps this is why we fear to use them.

In Holy Week we approach the greatest mystery of the hidden God, as he reveals himself upon the cross of Christ. The Word of God, who became flesh at Christmas, the Son by whom God speaks, and ‘through whom he also created the worlds’, dies on a cross. Where is God then? Here is a God who is so transcendent, so ‘other’, so utterly beyond anything we can conceive in this world, that he can only be known through paradox. On the cross he speaks, through silence. He is present through absence. He reconciles by being excluded. He brings healing through his wounds. He brings life through death.

It is only possible to speak in this way because of Easter. The Christian conviction that Christ is risen changes everything, because it makes the world bigger. What if behind the world accessible to reason and fenced in by death there is a wider reality, in the light of which everything looks different, and everything we thought had been settled is opened up again? What if understanding that bigger truth required not just the use of our five senses and reason, but the deployment of trust, and love, and consciousness?

In Holy Week we approach this mystery. May you find yourself marvelling at the Lord who reveals his light in the darkness of the cross, who loves the world even as it rejects him, and who assures us of his hidden presence.

Jonathan Baker

28.02.26

The Destinations Project

It’s time I gave an update on the progress of the Destinations Project.

For those who haven’t yet come across it, the Destinations Project is intended both to secure the next phase of the Minster’s fabric conservation and to develop significantly our role as a regional visitor attraction. It will help us to contribute positively to the local economy and make us more accessible to some of those groups who are currently invisible to us. It is an ambitious project expected to cost over £6 million, of which we hope to secure some £4 million from the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF).

Projects on this scale always proceed in stages; first, one puts in an ‘Expression of Interest’ to NLHF, outlining the nature of the project and its approximate scope. Ours was received favourably at the end of 2024, giving us permission to bid for a grant to cover the costs of the Development Phase (Round 1). We were delighted to hear last September that NLHF had granted us £244,000 to proceed to work up the project. This has been enhanced by contributions from the Friends of Beverley Minster, the Beverley Minster Old Fund (which bears primary responsibility for maintaining the fabric of the Minster) and Two Churches One Town (which coordinates major fund raising between the Minster and St Mary’s so that we are not in competition), together totalling another £96,000.

At the end of 2026 we shall submit our bid for the Delivery Phase (Round 2), which is the crucial moment. Currently there is no guarantee that we shall be successful at Round 2. The purpose of the Development Phase is to appoint a range of professionals and consultants so that we can firm up the capital costs, develop a robust Business Plan supported by data, engage community groups to gauge the level of interest in the project, run pilot projects, and work up designs. Through Two Churches One Town we also have to raise around £500,000 in match funding. This will enable us to put our bid at Round 2 on the strongest possible footing.

To this end we have recently been busy interviewing for several part-time posts. A Project Manager has been appointed and is now coordinating the Development Phase to keep it on time and on budget. A Choral Outreach Officer will develop an aspect of the project seeking to use music to engage marginalised groups. Interviews have been held for the posts of Outreach, Access and Inclusion Officer and for an Activity Planner, who will coordinate all the community engagement and visitor activities. Further interviews will be held shortly for an Architect for the project and for an Interpretation Designer who will work out what stories we want to tell about the Minster and how.

There is also money allocated for an Evaluation Consultant (who will help us to monitor what difference the project will make to the wider world), and an Administrator to add capacity to our existing office staff. All this can feel like an injection of unfamiliar corporate culture in a community like ours.

Nevertheless, when several million pounds of public money is involved, a degree of accountability and process is to be expected. There is something bracing about a secular body such as NLHF challenging the Minster both to broaden its appeal and to focus on sections of the community who are less visible.  There is an implicit emphasis on mission in all of this which sits comfortably with our Minster 28 vision strategy. And I very much welcome the fact that all of this work doesn’t have to be done by already hard-pressed volunteers.

If we are successful at Round 2, the bulk of the money will be spent on the capital works: the renewal of lead on the Quire, Retro-Quire and Lesser North Transept roofs, which was last laid nearly 300 years ago; the conservation of the Great East Window containing all the Minster’s medieval glass; and a completely new lighting system to replace our failing system for which we can no longer get spare parts.

The name ‘Destinations Project’ was chosen because it opens up several dimensions. Most obviously, it helps us to focus on the narrative of the Minster as a pilgrimage church. Against this background we can tell the story of John of Beverley and the successive Minster buildings erected to accommodate his shrine and the pilgrims who came to pray here. But the ‘destinations’ theme also invites exploration of contemporary experiences: what pilgrimage looks like today and why people still come to the Minster; and more personal reflections on our own journeys, where we have come from and where we think we are going to.

Much of the work through the Development Phase will be behind the scenes and won’t make much impact on our day to day life; but please keep the Project Board and Destinations team in your prayers as we prepare the Round 2 bid; and remember the work of Two Churches One Town as they rise to the challenge of raising £500,000 to help safeguard the future of this amazing building.

Jonathan Baker

14.02.26

On Not Making Assumptions

 

My Blog last time made mention of Wills, which leads me this week to follow up by asking you to consider the instructions you have given for your funeral. Not that I expect to be taking it any time soon, but I don’t want anyone to make any careless assumptions.

Shakespeare’s Richard II gets more than a little depressed when thinking about his own funeral arrangements, so much so that he decides against doing anything:

Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;

Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes

Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,

Let’s choose executors and talk of wills:

And yet not so, for what can we bequeath

Save our deposed bodies to the ground?

The result? No State funeral in Westminster Abbey with the pomp and ceremony due to a king,  but a modest grave at on obscure priory in Hertfordshire.

Admittedly, a few years after Richard’s death, King Henry V ordered his body to be transferred to Westminster Abbey, and admittedly in Richard’s case there were other forces in play which might have thwarted his plans even had he made any. But it highlights an issue that is becoming increasingly common.

This coming week I shall be taking the funeral of a long-standing member of the Minster family whose funeral was initially going to take place at the crematorium. This would have been entirely against the person’s wishes and quite inappropriate. But it very nearly happened, because the family are not local, have nothing to do with church, and didn’t at first appreciate how important their aunt’s faith was to her.

What caused the relatives to change their minds about the crematorium was the discovery of a note amongst their aunt’s papers setting out various choices of hymns and readings in the event of her funeral. From this they deduced that a church funeral led by a Christian priest would be more suitable than a secular funeral at the crem led by a celebrant. But the note didn’t actually say she wanted a church funeral, let alone at Beverley Minster.

Sadly it does sometimes happen that members of the Minster community don’t get the funeral they would have wanted because they just assumed it would naturally take place at the Minster.

I can even think of two occasions when priests didn’t get funerals in church because their families somehow didn’t think it was important.

For parishioners who only worship infrequently at the Minster but who still identify with it strongly, the risks are even greater. For when the next of kin, still dazed by the first onslaught of grief, first approaches a funeral director, the question may be asked, “Was he religious?”. Well, no one in their right mind wants to be described as “religious” – I certainly don’t like the terminology myself – so the answer is almost always “No”. In which case the funeral director is on the line straight away  to book the crem. But if question was phrased as “Would he have wanted a funeral in the Minster?”, the answer will much more often be “Yes”.

Folk might imagine that the Minster will be a much more expensive option than a service at the crem, but in fact it is significantly cheaper – and the Minster is no more expensive than any other parish church.

The best way of making your wishes known is to tell your next of kin. It’s no good telling your solicitor, GP, bank, setting it out in your funeral plan (the firm may have gone bust by the time the plan is activated, or your executors may not be aware of it), or even telling the Vicar – he/she doesn’t get consulted on where your funeral will take place. The people who need to know are your next of kin who are likely to be making the arrangements, and your executors (if different) who will be paying for it. But don’t rely on leaving instructions with your Will; it often doesn’t come to light in time.

Sometimes folk shy away from having such a conversation with their nearest and dearest because they don’t want to think about it. But actually it can be a very life-affirming thing to talk through what you would like to have at your funeral, and can draw family members closer together. The short list of the hymns I want at my funeral currently stands at around 17, but I have fun debating with Sue which two or three might make the final cut. Maybe I need to get out  more.

Seriously, if you want a funeral at Beverley Minster, at St Leonard’s Molescroft, St Paul’s Tickton, St Peter’s Woodmansey, All Saints Routh or any other parish church, then tell your next of kin that this is your wish. Don’t leave it to them to guess, and don’t make an assumption that because you were christened, married and worshipped there every week of your life the people arranging your funeral will understand how important the Minster is to you.

In my own case, I take the view that a funeral is as much for those left behind as it is for the person who has died, so I don’t want to be too prescriptive about the contents of the service. But, my children take note, I would be sorry if it wasn’t held in church.

Jonathan Baker

31.01.26

Wait and See

In recent days Mrs Baker and I have been having serious conversations about Wills and Pensions, involving nostalgic trips into the archive to look up various pieces of draughtsmanship (draughtspersonship?) dating from my era as a legal professional many years ago. Whilst not entirely bestowing upon us a cheery disposition, it has got us into the right frame of mind for Candlemas.

Candlemas, you remember, always falls on 2^nd February, and marks the end of the Epiphany season. In one sense it is the true end of Christmas, when baby Jesus makes a reappearance. It recalls the story at the end of the Christmas narrative in Luke’s Gospel when Mary and Joseph take the infant Jesus into the Temple in Jerusalem where he is recognised by those famous Biblical pensioners, the old man Simeon and the equally ancient prophetess Anna, who  declare Jesus to be the light that will lighten the nations.

At Candlemas there are themes of faithfulness and patient waiting; Simeon and Anna have been waiting all their lives for the coming of the Messiah, and haven’t given up hope despite so many prayers apparently going unanswered. It’s a story that invites reflection on old age, on the spirituality which can sustain it, and what is still worth waiting for at the end of life. Is recognising the Messiah on your bucket list I wonder?

It is also a festival celebrating the presence of God in the ordinary. To an observer, a couple are bringing a baby into the Temple to be blessed by an old man. They offer a modest sacrifice, two pigeons, nothing special. It’s what any unexceptional family would do. There are no crowds, no headlines, no ecstatic experiences. It isn’t clear what it is about the baby that Simeon and Anna recognise as being special. The revelation couldn’t be more understated. If Christmas is hard to ignore, with all its gaudy trappings, Candlemas sneaks past without anyone really noticing. Yet it is at Candlemas, not Christmas, that Jesus is identified as the light of the world.

Candlemas puts me in mind of all those other stories about a mysterious child of destiny being unexpectedly revealed. The orphan Harry Potter discovers that he is ‘The Boy Who Lived’, destined to confront Lord Voldemort. The adopted boy Wart discovers he is the rightful king of all England when he accidentally draws the sword from the stone. The adopted Luke Skywalker discovers that he is really a Jedi knight and that Darth Vadar is his father (whoops – spoiler).

It is as if all of these stories are reflecting a common archetype, a true Myth from which these other myths derive. Every life has a mysterious source that is bigger than its natural parentage, and a purpose which is only gradually revealed.

Jesus also is of mysterious origin. Even those few people who have some idea of who he really is – Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and wise men – don’t really know what it means to be the Son of God. So the revelation to Simeon that Jesus’ calling is for the whole world, and not only the Jewish people, is a big reveal. It is also the moment when Simeon finds his own purpose and fulfilment, as the one who gives voice to Jesus’ destiny.

Candlemas brings together these two threads; the child of destiny meeting the faithful people of God who have been waiting all their lives for God to show himself. And the revelation comes not from some outward visible event or sign, but from an inner resonance, from a sense that this is right, that it fits and somehow makes sense.

Perhaps Candlemas can serve as a reminder that if we want our spiritual longings to be satisfied, whatever they are, we have to take some responsibility for preparing ourselves. Disciplines of prayer, attentiveness to Scripture and patient waiting are deeply unfashionable; but they may hold the clue to our wondering about where God is in his world.

It turns out he is closer than we thought; he comes to us in the ordinary, he is presented to us for our reception in the everyday, and when we make space for him and accept him, something happens. For Simeon it is a deep sense of peace and fulfilment – ‘Lord, lettest now thy servant depart in peace’; for Anna it is an experience of redemption, of freedom and forgiveness; for Mary it is a sense of foreboding, that her son is destined for great things, but also for grief. Simeon tells her, ‘a sword will pierce your own soul too’.

As I revise my Will, the thought occurs to me: in the time left to me now, how will I recognise the light that lightens the nations? Or am I at risk of missing the opportunity, distracted not only by the details of running a big religious machine, but also too caught up in the grumbles, laments and preoccupations of advancing years? This Candlemas, let’s wait, and also see.

Jonathan Baker

17.01.26

The Age of Faith

When it comes to the Digital Age I am clearly more Fred Flintstone than Mark Zuckerberg. Attempts to renew my Safeguarding clearance and to register my role at Companies House as a Director of the Minster shop have all been defeated when the online forms have failed to upload or generate pop up messages saying ‘Sorry, there seems to be a problem’. ‘Yes!’, I want to scream, ‘There is a problem, and I’m looking at it right now!’

Such experiences are not only frustrating, they are humiliating. They unleash fears that the real problem is with me, for being too stupid, too old, too predisposed to expect online procedures to go wrong. And maybe that’s true. My children don’t seem to be so easily defeated. Maybe they are just more patient.

Whilst my frustrations may be just me, I think there is a wider disquiet about digital technology. The Government’s recent climbdown concerning digital identity cards seems to have arisen not just because of opposition to ID cards in principle, but because of suspicions that the technology might be hacked or misused.

Recent cyber-attacks on the Co-op, Harrods, M&S and the Electoral Commission undermine our confidence in the security of digital technology. Every week there seem to be more experts telling us we should be more worried about Artificial Intelligence. More and more celebrities such as Colin Firth, Olivia Colman and Keira Knightley have abandoned social media altogether, citing fears about mental health and privacy.

In truth, our relationship with new technology has always been fraught. The speed limit on the roads was originally set at 5mph because the first cars seemed so dangerous. The fear was real, but it did limit the point of having a car. In the 1890s bishops saw the bicycle as a moral threat because it would enable people to travel further away and get up to no good in places where they weren’t known.

The Bible speaks positively about human creativity and inventiveness; it is one of the ways humans reflect God’s image as the Creator. The first craftsmen, Bezalel and Oholiab, were ‘filled with divine spirit, with ability, intelligence, and knowledge in every kind of craft, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze’. Technology benefits us every day in medical science, ease of travel, information, mass produced goods, entertainment and so on. Why then do we feel so ambivalent about it?

The Scriptures offer some dark hints. The Tower of Babel was ‘a tower with its top in the heavens’ made from brick and bitumen. But it was less an expression of technological ingenuity than of the human desire to take God’s place. Technology enhances our ability to mimic God. We now live several steps removed from nature and feel less dependent on the weather, on the soil, on the nearest freshwater spring, because technology helps us to manufacture what we need and control its availability. So we feel self-sufficient and masters of our own lives, and forget the source of life.

Technology can also be misused to exploit others and to amplify injustice. In the Book of Joshua, the Israelites are unable to conquer the Valley of Jezreel because ‘the Canaanites who live in the plain have chariots of iron’. The poor Israelites were still stuck in the Bronze Age while their more technologically savvy enemies had moved into the Iron Age. This inequality later allowed the Philistines to control the supply not only of weapons but of farm equipment, and to charge the Israelites extortionate prices for sharpening their ploughshares.

In today’s world, wars are still fought over raw materials needed to sustain technology, whether it’s old tech oil or new tech rare minerals like cobalt and lithium.

So despite all the benefits technology brings us, it generates anxiety. It can exacerbate inequalities and concentrate power in the hands of bad actors. And it also affects us spiritually.

When I was growing up I remember my father expressing scepticism about cars with electric windows, as “Just one more thing to go wrong”. He held the view that the technology we use should be understandable so that if necessary we can repair it. He wouldn’t let me have a camera until I understood how it worked.

The truth is, most of us no longer understand the tools we use. The technology controls us, and our suspicion is that this will only increase, in ways we don’t understand, and don’t always notice. We have reached a point where technology and paranoia go hand in hand.

Dad’s view sounds very quaint now, yet it reflected a healthy instinct to keep technology within certain limits. If we understand the tools we use, we can stay in control of them. If the technology outstrips our understanding, we feel vulnerable, because the tool has become more powerful than the user. The technologies we depend on now are so complex and all-encompassing that we feel a profound sense of helplessness and unease, especially when we have to rely on them so completely. Are these gods benign? Who’s really in charge?

As I grapple with my online DBS check I allow myself a wry smile that while some dismiss my trust in a loving and faithful God as irrational blind faith, we accept unquestioningly the requirement to trust in digital technologies which are mysterious, all-powerful and unaccountable. Who says the age of faith is dead?

Jonathan Baker

03.01.26

The Kingdom of God.

A question every preacher has to face is when, and how, to address political issues. In recent months I have been challenged from several different directions. Some folk have wanted to know why the Church has not spoken up more strongly in defence of Jewish communities in the UK following the Bondi Beach atrocity in Australia, the Manchester synagogue attack and the rising tide of anti-semitism.

Other people have wanted to know why the Church hasn’t more strongly condemned the actions of Israel in Gaza where innocent civilian lives have been held of little worth.

Still others are uncomfortable when politics of any kind get mentioned from the pulpit; they want spiritual nourishment, not the clergy’s second hand political opinions.

For what they are worth, I offer a few reflections about the gospel and politics. I can start confidently, but as we progress it will get murkier.

As has been pointed out since Aristotle, human beings are political animals. If Christian faith is to address the question of how we are to live fully human lives, there will inevitably be a political dimension to this.

Jesus’ summary of the Law of Moses amounted to ‘Love God and love your neighbour’. I suggest that the second part of that summary is inherently political. Love implies relationships, which in turn implies community. The way communities organise themselves is what we call politics; and the corporate expression of love is justice.

In the Old Testament the Creation story of Adam and Eve sets out a theology of human beings bearing God’s image, giving every human being an inherent dignity and worth. The prophets denounce those in power who exploit the poor, who bribe judges, who deny the people justice. The Law of Moses makes wide ranging social provisions covering debt relief, land ownership, military service, the qualifications required of a king, treatment of foreigners and slaves, social care and so on. God is interested in how societies are organised.

The Gospels are full of politics; the parable of the Good Samaritan asks ‘who is my neighbour?’ and addresses our natural tendency to limit our responsibilities to one another. The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus challenges our complacency when poverty sits on our doorstep. The passion, death and resurrection of Jesus provides the template for any Christian discussion of power. These are core Christian teachings which cannot be sidelined.

So let’s not imagine faith has nothing to say about politics. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu often said, ‘When people say that religion and politics don’t mix, I wonder which Bible they are  reading’.

So far, so clear. The next step is harder; what kind of politics should Christians be embracing? How do we decide between different policies and ideologies without surrendering our distinctive Christian insights?

The difficulty here is for the voice of the Church to be heard as a theological voice. Too often the comments of Church leaders are dismissed as woke or reactionary because people are more wedded to their tribal political identity than they are to any Christian identity. But it is often forgotten that until recently the main political parties grew out of Christianity. The Labour movement owes more to Methodism than to  Marx; Conservatives who value freedom and accountability drew inspiration from the Bible before John Stuart Mill. So when you hear Church leaders making political comments, the question to ask is not ‘Do I agree?’, but rather, ‘Is it Christian?’ I sometimes wonder whether the Daily Mail would recognise Jesus’ teachings as at all Christian, before dismissing them as left wing nonsense.

However, in the present climate the Christian leader must proceed cautiously. When political opinions are so polarised and febrile, to express a view on many issues risks losing the attention of half the audience. It is becoming increasingly difficult to condemn the shooting of innocent Jewish people without being heard to be anti-Palestinian; or to question the moral justification for destroying every home in Gaza without being accused of being anti-semitic. Clergy are not experts on the issues of the day, and should not presume to tell everyone how to think on every issue. It requires discernment to know when to address an issue and when to stay silent. But in case anyone is wondering, the Bible says that killing people is wrong, folks.

Christian discipleship includes developing a Christian mind; that is, cultivating habits of prayer and reflection that allow our faith to inform and shape our opinions on every subject, political and otherwise. This does not assume that Christians will agree on particular issues; often it will be easier to critique policy than to formulate it, as did the Old Testament prophets. But certain principles will come into play, for example: the love of neighbour, widely defined; the last shall be first and the first shall be last; the pattern of the cross as a pattern that subverts worldly power; to be made in the image of God is to be a person in relation with other persons; the kingdom of God is justice, mercy and peace. When our political leaders compromise these principles, the Church is within its rights to point that out.

Above all, preachers are to preach the gospel, the message of God’s decisive action in redeeming humanity through the death and resurrection of Jesus. We always point to God as the source of our hope, not any human political programme. For Christians, transformation is rooted in transcendence; but it isn’t limited to the realm of the private, personal and mystical. The gospel speaks of the renewal of all creation; that means practical action and change; and it includes every society.

Jonathan Baker