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Richard Wagner, Parsifal (1882)

Recently, on the 12 of March 2011, I fulfilled an ambition to see Wagner’s Parsifal; the production was that of English National Opera, at the London Coliseum. Sung in English (as is ENO’s practice), this was in a production first staged by them in 1999, and directed by Nikolaus Lehnhoff (this production has also been staged in various cities in Europe and the United States).

Wagner’s conception of the work seems to have originated in 1845, when he read Wolfram von Eschenbach’s (medieval) poem Parzival, though his conception was much influenced by studies of Buddhism, and oriental philosophies, in the mid-1850s. Only in 1857 did he specifically connect his understanding of the story’s themes with Good Friday, but it was 1865 before he took up the project again, completing the libretto (“poem”) in 1877. It was a further five years before the opera was produced, at the Bayreuth Festival of 1882.

While the work borrows various ideas from Buddhism and Eastern thought (particularly renunciation) – the spelling with an S instead of Wolfram’s Z was supposedly derived from the Arabic Fal Parsi, “holy fool” - as it emerged, Parsifal was an essentially Christian work, or “ein Bűhnenweihfestspiel” (“A festival play for the consecration of the stage”), and the setting within the specifically-Christian-derived grail legends (as Wolfram’s story), and the repeated references to the Lord and Good Friday, make it, in my view, a story whose Christian “centre” cannot reasonably be denied (despite our necessary acknowledgement of the non-Christian ideas that contributed to it’s genesis).

Lehnhoff’s production almost explicitly attempts to de-Christianise Parsifal; “This production of Parsifal does not seek to stage a sacred drama – a ‘Bűhnenweihfestspiel’” – says Wolfgang Willaschek, in his article in the ENO programme (“Endgame in the Waste Land”, p. 27). Original productions set the hall of the grail knights (in which the mass/communion-like ceremony of the grail’s uncovering is performed) beneath the cupola of a cathedral (normally identified with Siena). The significant act of destroying evil and its forces was Parsifal making the sign of the Cross with the recovered spear of the Crucifixion. In this production, the grail and its shrine, the grail hall – and the making of the sign of the Cross - are omitted. The de-Christianisation of Christian art is something I regularly complain about (the reason for it, in many cases, is that secularists/materialists can’t produce their own art, so they have to distort religiously-inspired art to fit their agenda; besides, they can’t write as good music). The problem with this production, is that though the old settings were radically replaced (and Wagner’s stage directions ignored totally), the director went only half-way, retaining the words (complete with references to the Lord; I quite thought not to hear those), and, of course, the music. Thus, the libretto explicitly refers to meadows and flowers, etc. (throughout the work), but here, we were stranded in a sort of builder’s junk yard, with fragments of concrete replacing the sung-about flowers; waste land indeed. If the stage directions were going to be ignored, why not doctor the words, to at least try to get the whole thing to make sense?

The community of knights, at Montsalvat castle in northern Spain, have charge of the grail or cup which collected Christ’s blood at his crucifixion. The spear (used to pierce his side) has been captured by the grail community’s “rival”, the sorcerer Klingsor, whose magic castle and garden are nearby, and whose ambition is to steal the grail also. Ancient lore predicts that evil can only be defeated, and the grail community restored from its current decline, when a “holy fool” comes along, and destroys Klingsor’s realm, and recovers the spear.

Parsifal (after an unimpressive start) turns out to be the “holy fool” long waited for; but central is the curious female character Kundry. She is one of the most complex figures in literature (indeed, if we would find a character of such inner-contradictions, we might need to look to the characters of Shakespeare, rather than the world of opera). Kundry is a mixture of both the desire for redemption and the need to dominate and degrade those possessed of innocent virtue (particularly, that is, the holy fool Parsifal); she is both penitent and seductress, and as such is typical (or perhaps the prototype) of many late-nineteenth century femmes fatales. She laughed at Christ on the way to his death, and seduced various grail knights (including Amfortas, leader of the community), and she seeks, in Act 2, the redemption that she knows only Parsifal can bring her … but urges him to spend just one brief hour in her embrace – which (they both know) will destroy them both eternally (and the grail knight’s community also).

The notion that the barrier to redemption and virtue, is, supremely, sexual sin, is an idea crucial to many understandings of Christian thought, particularly, perhaps, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and maybe formative of the ancient Christian traditions of asceticism. Thus, we have the dualist understandings of the opposition of matter and spirit which – deriving, one suspects, from Neo-Platonism – fuelled the search for spiritual purity in the renunciation of sexual physical life. From this ancient stream, surely, derives the idea that sexuality and holiness might be warring incompatibles. Of course, this is a distortion, mis-conceived, and while we might not require the total rejection of celibacy, we must urgently promote the Christian valuing of physicality (whose acceptance might take centuries) when we have established a true distinction between distorted, degraded sexuality and the (perhaps hidden) virtue of its true, holy, nature. The real opposite of virtue is not sexual vice, but the rejection of the ultimate purpose of human existence (abandoning our pride before the reality, and experience, of God’s love for us), which inevitably degrades our valuing of individual people, and thus ineluctably leads us to the materialist adoption of a vicious dehumanism, which is the source of everything totalitarian and evil.

At the end of Parsifal, Wagner’s stage direction makes clear that (the spear and grail community restored) we see Kundry sink into lifelessness (redeemed, but dead). In the secularist understanding, of course, this is a very bad thing, since this present life is all, and there can be no kind of redemption that involves termination. In Lehnhoff’s production, we see Kundry not expire, but rise and walk, with Parsifal, up a damaged railway track towards strong light (ie. walk off-stage). I found it rather beautiful, and, curiously, as authentically Christian as Wagner’s original idea.

Summer 2011

Lisa Nolland, Chris Sugden and Sarah Finch, eds., God, Gays and the Church. Human Sexuality and Experience in Christian Thinking, London, The Latimer Trust, 2008.

978-0-946307-93-7

The following is a review added to the Amazon.com site in early April 2010, largely in response to a review already present there. This version has been slightly expanded.

This book was produced in response to debates in the Church of England’s General Synod, on 28 February 2007, which it reports on. It is relevant, though, to any examination of the relationship between homosexuality and Christianity, and other sexual issues.

It looks at the whole relationship of the Anglican leadership to the powerful gay lobby, and presents several very sobering accounts of the experiences of gay people, men and women, who have sought to exit homosexual lifestyles (e.g. the account of Dr Ronald G. Lee (p. 59), which deserves to be read at least twice).

Central to the Synod debates, it shows, was an obvious and unsubtle work of engineering, by the leadership, which made sure that the orthodox viewpoint (and the experiences of post-gays, as mentioned above) were marginalised and largely silenced.

Also – and this is very important, and rarely realised – it showed the thoroughly this-worldly (i.e. secular) values by which the debates – of a Christian Church! – were carefully framed by the revisionists (p. 21-2), and the (related) way in which a person’s “experience” (i.e. nature) is, in this view, to be considered sovereign – in defiance of the whole of Christian tradition, belief, thought, and theology.

Also, the book sought to differentiate between the (much-vaunted) “committed, faithful, loving, and s table” relationships and actual sexual exclusivity (p. 11). Contributions by Lisa Nolland (one of the editors) shows how the business of marriage-like relationships between two men (or two women) are just the start, as the ménages of polyamorists, zoos, and consenting paedophiles, are well on the horizon.

The orthodox Christian answer to the incursions of the gay lobby above all (it seems to me) makes the crucial distinction between so-called “liberalism” and authentic freeing (again, see Lee, and several others (pp. 25-59)); it exposes the total falsity of what has been called “the three myths about homosexuality” (it is inherent, it is not changeable, and its is “natural” (physiologically safe)).

Above all, the Christian faith offers real freedom – which is not to be found in the gay lifestyle or from the gay lobby – or by pandering to physical appetites or this-worldly desires. We have moved on since 2007. The time of hysterical name-calling (“Homophobe!”) is over. Now it is the time real facts, objective evidence, truth – and real liberation. The only people who could be offended by this book (as one of the Amazon reviewers was) are those determined that the prisoner’s chains may never be broken, that the doors of their jails remain ever shut.

**Scott Klusendorf, The Case for Life. Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture, Wheaton, Illinois, Crossway Books, 2009.**

ISBN 978-1-4335-0320-7.

This book is aimed at "ordinary" Christians, and equips them for arguing for a pro-life position among their peers. It explicitly states (p. 33) that "hard-core abortion-choicers are not your primary customers. You're after the 60 per-cent of Americans who are in the mushy middle who think of themselves as 'pro choice' ..." [the setting of the book is firmly within the American situation of law, culture, and religion, and from a broadly Evangelical perspective].

It majors on the one question which Klusendorf sees as the key to everything: Are the unborn human? If they are (as this book argues strongly) then they are to be defended as such, and derive their worth from this alone.

Within this, Klusendorf argues brilliantly, constantly giving refutations of all the possible arguments that "pro-choice" people give, including the "foetuses are just cells and tissue", the "my body my right" approach, "the coat hanger argument" ('many women will die hideously if we allow illegal abortions to return'), and many others (clearly this man is a formidable debater (as his accounts of his experiences show); we need such people, but I'm glad I myself am not going to be up against him).

Knowing that many hard-line abortion supporters have largely relinquished the "foetuses are not human" position, and fallen back to the relative worth approach, Klusendorf hammers away at this Peter Singer-derived idea that worth only depends on cognitive abilities.

In giving instruction in the business of defending life and undermining pro-abortionism, to your peers, Klusendorf has the brilliant "Columbo questions" routine (named after the discreet questioning methods of the TV detective).

Like the detective, we can subtly question ill-thought-out positions and assumptions by asking: "What do you mean by that?", "How did you come to that conclusion?", "Have you considered ...?" (pp. 149-153). On the often-asked question of if non-religious people can oppose abortion, his answer seems to be 'not really' (p. 131), since any materialist position would not adequately provide a basis for establishing the ultimate worth of humans by way of being human.

Make no mistake; however, this book is not just a collection of refutations, arguments, and logic. Underlying it is a firm grasp on the world-view/value system approach, which assumes that the way Christians see the world, and value it, is the key to the culture war we are engaged upon (to this extent, it reminds me of Nancy Pearcey's Total Truth; the incompatibility of the authentic Christian world-view, with that of the secular-materialist, under which we in the West live, is non-negotiable, and this reality must underlie our answer to all).

Thus, the book has many passages concerning moral relativism, and its significance in the secular-materialist mind-set; and it brilliantly summarises large, complex philosophical positions which have led us (well, Western secular-materialism) to where we are (try explaining Kant and Wittgenstein as succinctly as this author does, on p. 97-8). The self-defeating logic of materialism (not often appreciated, surely, in the places where materialism is tacitly, unconsciously accepted) is also exposed.

Much of the book is concerned to persuade Christians (those, I guess, of the so-called "liberal" variety) that defending life is an essential Christian activity, and neither questionable, optional, nor a "narrow" issue (e.g. "Does the Bible justify abortion?", chapter 8 (should arguing against this be at all necessary?)) - and this reminds us that we are here in the world of Protestant Christianity where the revisionist monster lurks - thus, Klusendorf needs to argue for our supporting Roman Catholics in the pro-life struggle! (In truth, it is their fight - long has been - which we (non-Catholics) are now coming to support).

If there is anything I would wish to add to Klusendorf's approach, it is that today (unlike, say, two decades ago) we must see abortion as just one a spect of the whole Culture of Death, which includes euthanasia, eugenics, promotion of homosexuality (a sure route to disease and death), and other things. The Culture of Death, and the necessary devaluing of individual human life, is the inevitable result of materialism, and the ordering of our post-civilisations on the assumption of such a world-view. Klusendorf does major on embryonic stem cell research (chapter 4), surely one aspect of the CD, but in view of that, there was no reason not to treat the others. The great value of this book is its principal purpose: its arguments and refutations, and its exposure of the relativist ethics it debunks. I must practice the arguments, hoping I remember them all when the time comes when I need them.

Only if given the weapons will we win the war, and thus such books are beyond price.

William A. Dembski and Sean McDowell, Understanding Intelligent Design. Everything You Need to Know in Plain Language, Eugene, Oregon, Harvest House Publishers, 2008.

ISBN 978-0-7369-2442-9.

The "Culture Wars" are becoming very intense (even in Britain, where the phrase is not used, and where some say there is no "war" because there is virtually no resistance, or counter-argument, to the growing tide of secular materialism).

The front line of the war will always (at least, while present circumstances prevail) be evolutionism, also known as Darwinism. Perhaps the best-known name on the non-materialist side (after Phillip Johnson) is Bill Dembski. Dembski, with Sean McDowell (a school science teacher, educator and writer), here present a book which is vital and valuable in various respects.

First, it gives clear definition of the various ideologies and approaches - it tells us exactly what ID is, and what it is not, and what exactly the rival theories consist of; and also, it faces squarely the situation non-materialists are in, and gives much vital information as to how ID can be defended, and materialism disputed (pages 171-212).

The second of these is very important, because many well-meaning Christians (we just have to call them "well meaning"; naive would be more accurate) still operate as though we live in a former age, when gentlemanly debate and civilised respect still determined the way the world was ruled; here - writing about internet defenders of Darwinism - Dembski tells us that "a more vicious bunch is hard to imagine" (p. 184), and this is, sadly, the tone of most materialists and anti-theists today.

Also, the book equips non-materialists with several chapters full of information as to why ID has truth and logic on its side, and the nature of materialist deception (Chs. 3-8); of course, all this will be rejected by the Darwinists, who have lots of "evidence", argument, and disputation of their own - but it is still vital that the rest of us know these facts (remember that this book, and many like it, will not ever be read, or even known of, by anti-ID people, or materialists; this book is a primer for those who would upturn the Western materialist world-view/value system, not a weapon, itself, with which to engage the enemy).

Intelligent Design means the theory that the physical facts of the world, and things present in nature, give evidence of the existence and role of a designer, a designer who is possessed of mind or purpose, and is thus vastly superior to humans; but the designing activities of humans may be a way of conceiving of the designer, by analogy.

All theists of necessity accept a kind of ID, insofar as they believe in the existence of a being who has originated everything as the result of purpose or intention; such people are not IDrs in the specific sense, however, since they may not believe that nature gives scientific evidence of this design/designer. ID "does not identify the designer. Why not? The question of the identity of the designer goes beyond the scientific evidence for design into philosophy and religion" (p. 46). ID contrasts with both Theistic Evolutionism and Creationism.

The former (also called "Evolutionary Theism") accepts the idea of different kinds of life coming into existence by a gradual, accretive process, but shows that nature shows no evidence of a designer (p. 44). Creationists, however, begin with the Bible ("Biblical Creationism" is perhaps more accurate), and "old earth" creationists are said, here, to accept the micro evolutionary idea of species changing to suit different environments (but no Creationist would accept macroevolution) (p. 45). It is extremely valuable to have these positions, and labels, defined exactly.

This is a brilliant, invaluable book; but sadly, this is only the case for anti-materialists or theists, since the people with all the power and influence in our society (whom I call the rulership), particularly in Britain, are determined to protect the supremacy of materialism in the sciences, academia, media, and culture (in politics, they have already, surely, been fully successful - how else could we have the abortion laws we have?).

Thus, in the recent display of intellectual Stalinism at the Royal society ("The world's oldest scientific institution"), the scientific establishment has shown that it will brook no possible questioning of the hard-line materialism to which it is clearly committed, any questioning of which must come from "Creationism"; which means - at least in some peoples' eyes - we're all Creationists now.

Philip Jenkins The Next Christendom. The Comings of Global Christianity, New York, Oxford University Press, Revised and Expanded Edition, 2007.

ISBN 978-0-19-518307-8.

So there really are books, the reading of which totally, radically, and permanently change the way you look at things. My understanding of Christianity’s origins, history, present reality – and certainly future – was completely changed by page 30; I still had 231 to go, and the revolution in my thinking was not over.

Christianity was perhaps never a European affair. It didn’t start here (I used to think Eastern-derived religions meant New Ageism), had far, far more missionary success – in early, and early modern, centuries – than is generally realised, and this was in such places as India, China, Japan, and Africa (Catholicism had been established in western Africa three generations before the Reformation – some of the first Africans taken to America as slaves would have been Roman Catholic).

As for amazing statistics (the book is packed with them), we are reminded time and again that by far the vast majority of Christians live south of the equator, and as the populations of Europe and north America are shrinking – particularly the practising-Christian populations – the faith will soon be (what it first was, and perhaps always really was) a southern/eastern affair.

The statistics on church growth are amazing, with millions of converts appearing in various southern/eastern countries; the overall number of Christians is beyond our conception; and from now, our conception should be a global, not a parochial (Western) one; remember to say, loudly , in your office: “most people go to church on Sunday”, to reveal (from their comments) the purely-European thinking of almost everyone around us. In global terms, it is only in the tiny, demographically-declining, secularised/materialist West that most people don’t.

Many things about the book are impressive. The range of facts – about all kinds of things – is enormous, and yet the author handles them with a lightness of touch, where others might have been swamped by them.

What this book is not is the kind of pure “sociology of religion”, which used to be popular, involving a sort of “outsidist” view, where – from the outlook of a secular world-view – a writer might use figures and facts to plot trends; here, one is always conscious of a view from inside Christian faith.

A lot of the book is devoted to non-Christian religions, and Christian relations with the Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu faiths, and people. Much attention is given to Christian relations with Islam, both in history, and in the present situations in the Global South and the West.

Time and again, he illustrates the fact that our thinking about Christianity is based on nothing more than the accident of our placing in time and space, by means of comparing new churches (with all their local concerns, and individual cultural flavour) with the older, somewhat staid, entrenched Christianities – that is, early-medieval western European churches, with contemporary Byzantine/eastern Mediterranean churches.

Europeans devised a purely-Western understanding of the Church, and sought to promulgate it across the globe, in modern times; but soon – indeed, already – it will be the Africans effecting the re-evangelism of the dried-out, decadent, Western husk – and they know that they must not make the same mistake as we did, of seeking to imprint their own culture on us in inappropriate ways, that their culture (like ours) is not the essence of Christianity; Christianity is always beyond, more than, the culture which it takes its temporary home within.

Of course, all these facts have a large bearing on that present most fraught of matters: the future of understandings of Christianity where the old, tired West seeks, by a kind of neo-imperialism, to impose its own mark – revisionism - upon the new churches of the Global South (or – depending on your viewpoint – Africa seeks to hold us Westerners back from moving on into our new “liberalising” understandings of truth and reality). Personally, I am on the side of the Africans - and so is every trend of future developments in as far as we can see them, both demographic, and concerning purely religious changes. If 95% of Christians are south of the equator (and they are almost all orthodox), then the percentage of revisionist, as opposed to orthodox, believers (many Westerners are orthodox also) is microscopic - and declining fast (if what we read about “liberal” North American congregations is true).

Jenkins affirms the reality of this view – but cautions us not to assume that African/Asian/South American churches will always be “conservative”, since if they, and their societies, grow in their theological sophistication, and in their material wealth, perhaps in the future they will develop the kind of revisionist theology that America’s TEC has made us familiar with, and which the Church of England – to name but one ecclesiastical body – seems on course to adopt. Perhaps when a Christian community is young and fresh it can discover, and hold to, the truth as it should be; when it is old and worldly it thinks it knows too much ever to be content with the “truth once delivered to the saints”.

Materialism – in all its forms - surely strangles a church, ends its ability to see beyond purely-human values; perhaps Christianity always will be, can only be, the possession of the poor. From now on, I’ll try to remember that the future of Christianity is African; the figures allow no other interpretation.

Christopher Jamison Finding Sanctuary. Monastic Steps for Everyday Life, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006.

"From the TV series The Monastery"

10-0-297-85132-2.

In May 2005, BBC Two broadcast a series of programmes in which five men from everyday life spent forty days and nights at Worth Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in southern England; the programmes were subsequently repeated, and had a tremendous impact upon viewers, some of whom had perhaps assumed that Worth's monks, holed up in their cloister, were totally out of touch with modern life, its pressures and its problems.

In fact, the monks and their abbot not only related very strongly and positively to the men, but had a great impact on their lives, and those of the many viewers, such that Worth's retreat facilities were fully-booked for a long while, and a subsequent series was made, The Convent, which featured a group of young women staying at the Poor Clare monastery at Arundel, Sussex. Similar programmes have been made for American television.

In Finding Sanctuary, Worth's abbot, Christopher Jamison, sets out to provide seven steps by which insights from the Rule of Saint Benedict - which governs the life of Benedictine monks and their monastery - can be made to provide a place in ordinary peoples' busy lives, by which they can find "spiritual space" - peace, meaningfulness, purpose, and hope.

The book does not lose sight of the programme, and its men, but moves beyond it, to reach out to everyman and woman. It is organised along the lines of a positively architectural image - the sanctuary is a place which must be built, and its structural elements have to be carefully chosen; its furnishings have to be appropriate and fitting. I have to confess, I did not see the programmes (but I did see The Convent, and was moved by the sanctity, and sense of purpose and relevance, which flowed from the Poor Clares, and all the advice and wisdom that they gave to their visitors*).

In this book, Jamison is able gently to recommend a set of concerns, principles, and procedures which, together, completely overturns the emptiness and purposelessness of modern values - and yet without any of the strident rejection and condemnation, which many other Christians and spiritual writers have been guilty of (a temptation, I know myself, it is so easy to respond to).

Likewise, with his treatment of "spirituality" (Step 6), he is able to expose the wrong-headedness of so much of the modern New Age-derived fare, with only the gentlest persuasion that spirituality and religion are different things, and that the spiritual, as once understood, has become detached from religion (from reality), and can now become just another product on offer to consumerist society, offering its adherents excessive concern with themselves, enthroning self, rather than freeing people (as real religion must do) from "the constantly shifting sands of human desire" (p. 146).

The "History of Spirituality" (pp. 139-142) portrays, in just a few pages, the steps by which we have got from the wholeness of what may be called "religious spirituality" to the divorced, disjointed self-help therapy of the "Spirituality Shopper" - with the unexpected appearance of 16th century Spanish (Christian) mystics as the first users of "spiritual" in the modern sense.

Also subtly "conservative" (appealing to older values, in a non-confrontational way) is the introduction of Virtue (what?) as the door into the sanctuary, and - in one of the author's constant surprises - his commendation of virtue and goodness springs not from ancient spiritual writers (though he constantly quotes these), but from the world of modern big business (pp. 26-7).

Jamison appears to be effortlessly orthodox, conveying the unambiguous message of the truth and rightness only to be found in the Christian faith, while making much of Worth's harmonious relationship with a nearby Buddhist monastery - and soon we see that the origin of this approach (warmth towards religious others existing beside firm Christian self-belief) comes from none other than John Paul II, and his invitation to non-Christians to join him in prayers for peace (p. 168-9).

Peace is another area where he immediately hits the target; so often pacifists and peace activists seem to writhe and struggle in a difficult moral world of compromise, where objectives seem to be blunted - what, I often find myself wondering - does this or this group understand by peace? Jamison has the (presumably official) definition of the Catholic Church to hand (" ... not simply the absence of war; it is the fruit of justice" (p. 167)). Another much attacked, ill-defended area is one that he simply and easily weighs into, with no hesitation: the moral effects of religion in our world.

No mealy-mouthed apologetic, defensive stuff (which other Christians would timidly produce) here: "Religion Causes Peace" he says (pp. 164-7), and he cites research to prove it. If only other Christian defence (that is, attack), in this perilous, fraught, situation, was like this!

I'm not surprised people have been knocking on the doors of Worth Abbey; if only our world had more of the Rule of Saint Benedict.

www.worthabbey.net

*I know, from watching this series, that the visitors' stay was not always easy. In The Convent, one despondent young woman described the place, and the experience, as "A kind of Catholic boot camp."

Alister McGrath The Twilight of Atheism. The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World, London, Rider (Random House), 2004, 2005.

9-781844-13155-6.

Alister McGrath’s The Twilight of Atheism is a largely historical account of the fortunes of a particular strand of human thought from the 18th century (in Europe) to the present day (in the west).

The historical nature of this survey becomes increasingly apparent, for as the early chapters progress, one begins to notice that varieties of “atheist” thinking are simply outlined, they are not subject to the kind of critical examination, or analysis, that we might have wished for.

Then McGrath reveals that this is in many ways a personal account – of a personal journey – since precisely there (within atheism, of some kind) did the author begin, and from there did he journey on to becoming the Professor of Historical Theology in the University of Oxford, and a Christian who might be said to be broadly within the Protestant/Evangelical camp; and the recalling and recounting of a journey of personal experience, and the changing of a person’s ideas and beliefs, is always fascinating.

Above all, in telling of the rise and development of this thinking, one is struck again and again by the almost excessive respect (here, we learn of intellectual “giants” who were possessed of “great” ideas – oh really?), and normally one thinks of converts as being hyper-critical of their intellectual past. I would have liked to see rigorous analysis (is “deconstruction” today’s phrase?), and at least a mention of, say, Paul C. Vitz's The Psychology of Atheism. Peter Masters’ The Cruelties of Atheism (London, Sword & Trowel (Metropolitan Tabernacle), 1994, 1998) is perhaps a bit strident and rhetorical (Masters is after all, an Evangelical preacher) – but Masters’ thinking and theology would be perhaps be useful when discussing some of the (actually not) “giants” of modern atheist thought.

The book has fascinating by-ways, which opened up matters I had not known of: the theory that it was Protestantism that actually made atheism possible (though earlier, he has firmly located the origin of modern atheist thought in 18th century France – hardly a milieu awash with Protestantism), and the strange story of Madalyn Murray O’Hare, and modern American atheism.

Some accepted ideas he seems, to me, to turn on their heads: I had thought it was Protestantism in which a personal relationship with God was important, and with (Medieval) Catholicism it was the individual’s relationship with the Church that determined things – but McGrath seems to suggest that it was the other way around, at least until the Evangelical Revival came (Pietism onwards).

He rightly makes much of the ongoing rise of Evangelical/charismatic Christianity all over the world, and its replacement of Western Liberal Christianity (which has committed “suicide”; he is very interesting, here; pp. 161-5) – but I fancy Pentecostalism (the label he constantly uses) is something of a shorthand, since there are surely many groups of Christians (from the vibrant congregations of China and south-East Asia, to the “Mega-Churches” of America - and Europe) who might not actually call themselves “Pentecostals” ("Born Again" Christians, "Bible Believing" Christians?).

Early in the book, McGrath has suggested that it was inevitable that people would reject the tyrannous, immoral “gods”, in the Classical world – but later he mentions the great attraction ancient pagan ideas had for such as Shelley, without drawing any conclusions about this irony, as to the meaning and validity of modern atheism (he might have mentioned a point which his history brings out well - that when people reject God their first destination is usually Nature).

McGrath leaves me wondering exactly what this “atheism” is, that he is writing about. He makes it clear (when outlining 18th and 19th century developments) that so few of the great thinkers actually thought in terms of a world that created itself, and where chance and accident is all there is.

Atheism, as in this book, is more anti-clerical, anti-Church, or anti-religion protest. Hence, in his final pages, the author talks about the “moral seriousness” of atheism: “It is impossible to do anything other than admire the criticisms and passionate demands for justice directed by atheists against the corruptions of …” (p. 273) (oh really?).

Now, many writers in recent times (perhaps not all of them Christians?) have pointed out that if anyone believes that: the world/life emerged by chance/accident or undirected processes; there is no existence other than this life; there cannot be any ultimate consequence of human actions, reckoning, or destiny; humans are just a kind of animal – then any idea about ethics, morals, right, wrong – or “justice” – are absurd, impossible, and totally meaningless.

But perhaps this thinking should actually be called materialism, and perhaps atheism (at lease as reviewed in this book) is really something else. Perhaps if we see it like this, and take this on board, then the thinking of such as Philip Pullman becomes vaguely understandable.

It is ludicrously impossible to enter a “moral” “protest” – as C. S. Lewis pointed out as long ago as the 1940s - if one believes in … nothingness, meaninglessness, emptiness … As I have written elsewhere on this website, all one is left with, in these circumstances, is the amoralism experienced (or rather, not experienced) by my cat.

There are aspects of an atheist thought-scenario which one might have looked for discussion of, in this book. Several writers have pointed out that we now know (unlike a century ago) that moral behaviour can not exist on its own, once the objective reality of the source of ethical ideas has been jettisoned (the prominent atheist thinkers of previous centuries assumed it could) – as seen in the constant rise of criminal behaviour, or simply amoral assumptions, in our society (as shown by the B&Q Macclesfield example * ) (see also The Cause of Crime ).

McGrath, as suggested, makes much of the “moral protest” of atheists – but surely more than a few, today, choose atheism (or at least a de facto atheism, the acting “as though God did not exist” which he twice refers to) because it assures them of insulation from any eventual consequences of their actions; the possibility of God threatens to unleash a spectre at the feast of present-day hedonism, a party which is far too enjoyable to be threatened by the awful possibility that the religious nutters might just be right …

McGrath points to the demise of traditional, (what we might call “philosophical” atheism) in the case of Madalyn Murray’s desperate descendants in modern-day America. But he says nothing about the constant, intense anti-religious, secular power-base building (which is threatening to make Christianity as difficult, in Western society, as it is in many Asian countries) – as seen in the activities of the inaptly-titled “American Civil Liberties Union” (a real enemy of liberty if ever there was one), and, in Britain, the constant barrage of secularist, anti-religious, or simply “naturalist” propaganda in the form of nightly television programmes, and the kind of adulation given, in our culture, to such as Philip Pullman.

History seems to show that few things actually cease to exist – “atheism” is one of them – they just come back in a new form. McGrath shows (traditional) atheism as a necessary part of Modernism, one left high and dry by the ebbing of the Modernist tide, and the rise of Postmodernism. But now “Anti-Theism” (this concept is the key to understanding such as Dawkins, I would argue) is come upon us, and that particular tide is in full flood. The Christian Church now has a new enemy to resist, a further fight on its hands.

Also recommended: McGrath’s Dawkins' God. Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life, 2005;

Author's site: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~mcgrath/

* A while ago, B&Q (a large hardware/home improvement retail chain, in Britain) built one of their out-of-town superstores near Macclesfield, Cheshire, and staffed it only with people aged 55 and over.

After a while, they compared performance there with that of their other stores, finding among other things (e.g. the profits were higher) that the level of theft was considerably lower -indicating, surely, that the nearer peoples' upbringing was to a generation which believed in the objective source and reality of moral laws, the more honest they were.

Kenneth McAll, Healing the Family Tree, London, Sheldon Press, 1984, 1986.

ISBN 0-85969-532-8. Still available on order.

The "blurb" at the back of this book, describing the contents for would-be readers, calls it "sensational" and "highly original"; such words are designed to sell, and rarely to be taken literally; this is not the case with this book, however. McAll (1910-2001) was a medical doctor, trained in Edinburgh, and from a Congregational missionary background.

He returned to China as a Christian "missionary-surgeon", at a time when the Sino-Japanese war was already in progress. He was later interned by the Japanese, in World War II, along with his wife and child. Experiences in China convinced him of the reality of spiritual forces - evil and benign - and of the influence, on people living today, of unresolved badness, evil, or "unfinished spiritual business" in one's ancestry, that is, influence upon the living, of the acts and experiences of the dead. Such influences may be in the nature of suicide, unforgiven sin, occult practice, or dying from (or committing of) abortion, on the part of ancestors.

Or, it may be that a person was simply not committed to God, on death, as in the case of suicides who had not received Christian burial and committal. Such events and occurrences in one's ancestry, he argues, may produce spiritual, or more often physical, effects on people, and normally despite their ignorance of such things (how many of us know details of the acts, beliefs, and practices, of our ancestors three generations back?).

McAll returned to England, became a psychiatrist, and began treating patients by medical, psychiatric, and also spiritual means and this book details case after case where he was able to cure - often dramatically - the chronic physical symptoms of patients who had been referred to him by medical colleagues.

His principal spiritual weapon, he repeatedly makes clear, was the celebration of the Eucharist (indeed, his sacramental emphasis is perhaps a surprising feature of one from a "Free Church" tradition).

In many cases, McAll plotted the family tree of the patient (e.g. p. 14) before isolating where exactly, in the patient's past, the source of the problem lay. Other people, the book makes clear, were enabled to study their own family history, and lay it, and their ancestors' situations, before God, resulting in peace and lasting cure.

Often, treatment might reveal the presence of occult practice, abortion, or death of a sibling, which only one member of a family knew about, but the revelation, and its spiritual treatment by way of the Eucharist, was sufficient to bring lasting health and happiness to all. Not only was "treatment" effective when done in the presence of sufferers, but also when affected people were prayed about, without their knowledge, over great distances.

A notable feature of McAll's work was the reality and immediacy of his direct spiritual insight and experience, such that he recounts "seeing" spiritual entities (of all kinds) in a very matter-of-fact way; and such discernment, indeed, is the way with many people in the deliverance ministry.

Also, some of his patients were also able to "see" former-relatives and spiritual beings - including Mary the mother of Jesus (p. 26), whose role, in this instance, should surprise many of traditional Protestant-Evangelical beliefs.

The connection of this particular kind of deliverance, with "conventional" deliverance ministry, is shown by the way that the author devotes two chapters (6 and 7) to "normal" spiritual warfare; he constantly makes the point that spiritual healing is only a part of such work, as conventional medical methods will usually be necessary as well (one case he cites, for example, proved only to need normal surgical treatment (p. 83-4)).

The implications of this book, and its ideas, are far reaching. It means that no longer can we think that people are only affected by, or in some way accountable for, their own sin; sins are indeed visited upon us to the third and fourth generations.

It also means that we are to concern ourselves with the dead up to the point of praying to God for their eternal peace and forgiveness (praying to the dead, or attempting to contact them, McAll reminds us, is strictly forbidden).

For any from Protestant, Reformed, or Evangelical traditions, prayers for the dead will be a difficult concept, and the author, obviously aware of this, devotes Chapter 8 to showing how, from the very beginnings of Christianity, there was a strong practice of praying for dead relatives, and this was enshrined in the teaching of the apostles, and thence the Fathers of the Church; only after many centuries was this corrupted, into the late-Medieval practice of buying prayers for the departed, and indulgences.

If the Christian Church, in all its many forms, was to take McAll's ideas and practices seriously - as I think it should - the result would, indeed, be sensational - and renewing; and the Church surely needs renewal.

Kenneth McAll's work is continued by the Generational Healing Trust - www.healingtrust.info

Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go, London, Faber, 2005.

ISBN 0-571-22411-3.

Years of youth, and growing up, in a rural English boarding school; the cliques, games, and playing fields; the muted talk in the dorm at night – all that we might expect is here.

That this place, Hailsham, is not an ordinary school, we perhaps know from the outset (there seem to be no holidays, and no parents to go home to). The story is the memories of Kathy (it is the late 1990s, she is 31). Kathy is a “carer” (a geriatric nurse, perhaps?). As her story develops, from infant’s class to adolescence, we learn by degrees that these are no ordinary children, their destiny is something unusual. We learn what it is slowly, just as they themselves have been slowly initiated.

It is not possible to discuss this book without saying why they are different (if you want to keep a surprise in store, look away now). The children have been bred for organ donation, and there are several others of these establishments, in addition to Hailsham.

Later, in adult life, they will enter a phase of being “carers”, who look after other former-school-students who are now undergoing “donation”; then, they will graduate to being donors themselves.

After two, three, or even four “donations”, they will “complete” (die), perhaps on the operating table, where, it is hinted, “white coats” will remove the rest of their organs, before “switching them off”. The “students” have been produced from ordinary, living, people (the word “clone” is only used twice in the book).

There is great merit in treating the subject of organ donor production by cloning in this particular kind of novel, as opposed to the various other genres, where we might otherwise expect to find it.

The monstrous inhumanity of the subject is consequently presented in a way that is calm and un-hysterical, and all the more devastating for this. The book does not read like a protest against the developing trend of justifying the dismantling of the valuing of human life, in the name of science or medicine; yet this, all the more strongly, perhaps, is its effect.

It is quite a feat in itself for a writer to get so much inside the mind of a character that he is able to re-create it as someone who is real; but to do this of characters the like of which don’t actually exist, and still have us believe in them, and grieve for them, requires very special gifts; Ishiguro is surely one of the very best of writers on the British “literary scene”.

But what of the reality of organ-donor-by-cloning? Most surely it will come about, one day, so long as our western society stays on its present course, committed to its materialist world-view, by which this present life is considered all that there is, and that all life exists by accident, where any question of life’s “meaning” is … meaningless.

The “benefits” of human “progress” – as has long been realised – will only ever be available to the few, and supplied by the many unfortunates; and the beneficiaries, being ethically emasculated by the relativism of our fast-becoming amoral world, will unthinkingly take all that they consider their due.

Bringing people into the world for the benefits that their physical attributes will bestow – which has already happened in Britain – is assuredly the beginning of this process; motivations behind this, or any other present action, will soon be long forgotten by its irresistible logic. Before long the market, greed, and expediency, will determine things; and the future will smile wryly at “ethical committees” and the like.

In the last few chilling pages we learn that Hailsham (now gone) was the most humane of such institutions, and was run by people who had made feeble attempts at protest; and - we are told - the situation of current future-donor children is very different …

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