These Latter Days

 

No, I’m not going on an ‘end-times’ kick, but merely reflecting on how these ‘latter days’ of the pandemic are playing out. Ironically, as the vaccine begins to be rolled out in Britain, depression returns. Through most of the year, I had remained generally positive, responding to the emergency, with determined action. This was easy, because there were low expectations, nothing to justify. But underlying it, I suppose the perpetual darkness of the soul had persisted; what US singer Bill Mallonee calls our ‘blister soul’. 

Virus & Vaccine - Luke 2.8-12 (a sermon)

(This is the notes for a sermon I preached on 20th Dec 2020, addressing some of the concerns people have about the Covid vaccine. You can watch it on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kingscrossbaptist/videos/149894860248562)

Here’s my link to preaching the Sunday before Christmas about the virus! The angels say: Do not be afraid. Meant for Christmas, but valid for Covid. Politically, they faced Roman military occupation. Socially, the shepherds were among the most marginalised, poorest groups. I want to address the fear people experience today, about the virus, and now about the vaccine. I’m nervous about doing so, because it is controversial, and people in the church have different views. 

Surprised by Fidelity

“How can you plan for a new reality when you don’t even have the remotest idea what it would be like?” Suzette Haden Elgin, Native Tongue 

This quote is from a 1984 feminist scifi novel. I’ve noted before that planning has been difficult this year, because we’ve had to adapt to constant changes. Preparing for 2021, we must again be tactically nimble, while remaining faithful to our strategic goals; combining plans and purpose,  flexibility with fidelity. Gabriel Marcel, the Christian existentialist philosopher, developed his notion of “creative fidelity”, in response to his experiences during the French resistance in World War Two. Such fidelity demands supple openness, alongside stubborn determination. 

Against (Theological) Method

Paul Feyerabend’s book, Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge, questioned the notion of a singular scientific method. This countered the concerns we students had about ‘methodology’ in our subjects (mine was history). Looking back we were interested, not so much in the nuts-and-bolts of how to do history, as the overarching philosophical worldview employed to understand it.

When I came to teach theology (a short-lived disastrous enterprise), I was surprised to discover an infatuation with ‘method’. Deriving from Third World Liberation Theology, this approach was designed to promote action, rather than abstract academic debate. Perhaps the most influential instance, in Britain, is Laurie Green’s ‘Spiral’ (in Let’s Do Theology. Resources for Contextual Theology):  a circular process involving stages of Experience, Exploration, Reflection, and Response; which then spirals off into fresh experience for later reflection, in a continuing process of action-learning.