Atheist Humanist. Pick One.

Atheist Humanist. Pick One.

by Glen.

Can Atheism Deliver A Better World?

Recently I took on atheist speaker and YouTuber Matt Dillahunty for the Unbelievable programme. We discussed faith and morality under the title ‘Can atheism deliver a better world?’

You can watch the whole debate here. And you can see my debate reviews, both a longer one and a shorter one.

The Roots and the Fruits

One question that arises from such a debate is this: Can the West maintain its liberal humanist values while rejecting the Christianity from which they’ve sprung? For me the answer is a resounding No and nothing has convinced me of that No more than this 90 minute discussion. Matt Dillahunty rejects basic humanist concepts throughout this conversation and does so explicitly because of his atheism. The fruit of liberal values require the roots of Christian faith. Walk away from Christianity and the fruits will wither — you can see them perishing visibly as the conversation unfolds!

But to give you a sense of all this, I thought I’d share (with permission) an email I received this week. J crystallises so many of my thoughts and impressions and shows us the stakes as we consider these issues:

From the Mailbag

I just wanted to say thank you.

I have known intuitively that Nietzsche’s conclusions about the implications of the removal of god from our worldview (individually and societally) are correct, but your conversation with Matt made it so clear and undeniable that now, a week post-listen, I’m still sorting out the implications.

These conversations about whether people can be moral without god are so abstract, and the atheists involved in the conversation are always undeniably “good” people. But when the conversation turned to elective abortion of babies with Down syndrome my eyes were opened not just to the implications of what happens to the weak over time in a society post-god, but to the fact that Matt, a first generation atheist, had already accepted on principal that the strong decide if the weak are “us”.

I’m not a very emotionally expressive person but I’ve been so deeply moved by the tragedy that will ensue and indeed is occurring simply because Christ is removed from his proper place in our hearts and minds. It’s so clear to me now that Christianity is bigger than personal salvation, and Christ is more than a divine friend to help me in this life.

I’ve never really understood evangelism. I have accepted that’s it’s important but it’s never had any grip outside of what can be accounted for by peer pressure. Now I see and I don’t think I can unsee.

I was at the gym this week with my personal trainer, and a young man with Downs was there working out with his own trainer. And I saw a person, a child of god, my brother, living just as I live, with the same desires and motivations to grow and improve and become more than what he is. And I saw that as a society we might decide that his life does not have value, that he might be undeserving of life, because he is weak. And I am strong, so I get to keep going to the gym and working to become stronger.

I believe this has been a pivotal week in my faith development. Thank you so much for putting yourself in that vulnerable position. I’m sure that what you are doing comes with some great challenges and burdens, but it’s making a difference.

Thank you.

J. (Colorado, USA)

Thank you J!

And if you haven’t already, check out the debate below:

 

Considering Tom Holland’s Dominion — part 3

Considering Tom Holland’s Dominion — part 3

PART THREE

Below is my interview with Tom Holland about, Dominion, The Making Of The Western Mind (listen via podcast).

Here are reflections 1-6, and here are reflections 7 and 8. In outline they are

  1. Tom Holland gets the ethic of the cross.
  2. Tom Holland gets the theology of the cross.
  3. Dominion is a continuation of In The Shadow of the Sword
  4. Dominion is the perfect contrast to In The Shadow of the Sword.
  5. There is a huge gap in the book. And that’s deliberate.
  6. The avoidance of the Gospels is still a bit of a dodge.
  7. Having said this, Holland can help us immensely with the question of historicity.
  8. Holland is very aware that history is crucial to the faith.

 

9. It’s either Christ or the abyss

Quite early in the interview Holland mentions Nietzsche as the supreme example of someone who has clearly seen the way of the cross and rejected it. Nietzsche therefore shows us how remarkable (and admirable) the ethics of the cross really are because the alternative seems to be nihilism. I put to Holland that he’s presented a stark binary for us: “It’s either the abyss [i.e. the abyss of nihilism] or it’s ‘Christ and him crucified.’” I ask whether there is a third way? Holland responds:

“That is the course that, by and large, the west has taken. It has [said] ‘We’ll take over Christian morals and ethics thank you very much, but we’re not actually going to bother with any of the mumbo jumbo that requires us to go to church.’ The question that is posed by that of course is whether or not you can continue to have the bloom if the roots have been pulled up. And we don’t know the answer to that as a society.”

Fascinatingly, Holland thinks Nietzsche was right that the bloom is from Christian roots. The morals and ethics we take for granted in the west are inextricably Christian. Their historical (and we might say theological) contingency is irreducible. If this is the case then it does seem to me that the “third way” experiment of the secular west is doomed to failure. It really is Christ or the abyss. Holland doesn’t say it in these terms. I’m sure he has more hope for the secular west, but I wonder how warranted that is. For me the binary that Holland suggests sounds remarkably like “the cross or the pit!”, “Jesus or the abyss!” Which, of course, is what Christians have been banging on about for quite some time.

Once again, Holland is not presenting the stark binary that I am. But it seems to me that following his train of thought has some some very Christian-sounding implications.

 

10. Tom Holland’s objection to personal faith is, itself, very Christian. 

Our time had already gone when I asked my final question about personal faith. I didn’t feel I had time to come back on his reason for not believing. He cited, as he often does, the dinosaurs.

Hindsight’s a wonderful thing, but it’s occurred to me since the interview that a good riposte would be the one which Tom uses for those who disbelieve his thesis. Essentially it’s to say: “That’s a crucial objection, well made. And it also betrays how Christian your assumptions are!” I really like that tactic. I think Tom’s excellent at it, so let me use it on the master himself. Here’s my imagined comeback:

“Dinosaurs, yes! I too have such questions. Species come and go. Extinction level events occur. And all of it seems an unacceptable violation of humanity’s supposedly unique dignity. But I sense that the outcry here is coming from a very Christian place. The Christian story — unique in so many ways — gives exceptional dignity to humans. And, yes, it seems contradicted by every other story, whether religious or scientific. If the Christian story of God’s solidarity with man is true then it will seem false when judged from the perspective of every other story. That’s the nature of the case.

But I wonder whether you’re drawn to this story because of how Christian your instincts are. You want to have a problem with suffering and catastrophe, with a mere survival of the fittest, and with the extinction, not only of glorious creatures, but of human exceptionalism too. You’re right to find a problem here. Christianity is the invitation to step inside the story and have the problem. Really have it. Because outside this story you can’t really object to ‘nature red in tooth and claw’, can you?

Of course you’ll counter — and rightly so — ‘These problems cast doubt on the story itself. How can the story be true when contradicted by untold suffering, death and degradation?’ But I think you know the answer to that question. You’ve written a whole book about it. The Christian story of God’s solidarity with man includes the most bewildering chaos and darkness. The God of the cross doesn’t merely coexist with baffling evil, hopes dashed, and excruciating pain, he includes these elements in his greater glory. We might ask, “If dinosaurs can go to the wall, why not humans?” But at the cross the stakes are raised even higher! We don’t just see man go to the wall, but God! And out of that folly, weakness and godforsakenness comes meaning and hope beyond all expectation. There’s nowhere else to truly have your question than inside the story. And there’s no-one else to trust your question to but to this God — the God of the cross.

And the thing is, Tom, the person who’s made me feel the wonder of this God most in the last fortnight has been you. So my prayer is not that you’ll ditch your question, but that you’ll come home to the place where such questions — and such questioners! — truly belong.”

 

Considering Tom Holland’s Dominion — part 2

Considering Tom Holland’s Dominion — part 2

PART TWO

Last week I interviewed Tom Holland about his new book, Dominion, The Making Of The Western Mind. If you haven’t seen it, do have a watch below (or listen via podcast).

You can read my first 6 reflections in full here. In outline they are

  1. Tom Holland gets the ethic of the cross.
  2. Tom Holland gets the theology of the cross.
  3. Dominion is a continuation of In The Shadow of the Sword
  4. Dominion is the perfect contrast to In The Shadow of the Sword.
  5. There is a huge gap in the book. And that’s deliberate.
  6. The avoidance of the Gospels is still a bit of a dodge.

Here are reflections 7 and 8:

 7. Having said this, Holland can help us immensely with the question of historicity. 

The gap which Holland leaves in his book is extremely suggestive. He takes us from BC to AD and, without looking directly at the nuclear blast, the camera instead focuses on the astonished witnesses — Paul and the recipients of his letters. Holland leaves us in no doubt that there’s been a rupture and it has caused the greatest revolution in history. This rupture needs explaining. From the expanding universe of Christianity we can infer an initial big bang. And while Holland won’t name the ‘bang’ definitively, he’s very happy to report on what Paul insists it is. Paul insists that the rupture is the historical death and resurrection of Christ. 

Around 17:00, I ask Holland whether he’s making Paul’s letters themselves into the rupture. Was it Paul’s philosophical fusion of internationalist Judaism and Stoicism that turned the world upside-down? I’d slightly feared that this was Holland’s thesis from one passage in Dominion but I was very glad to be put straight.

“I’m not hanging it all on the letters of Paul. Paul’s letters are, if you like, the first reader on the seismometer.”

Get that! The event that changed the world was prior. Paul was only a witness. And it’s not just Paul.

Holland makes the point that Paul is “an exceptionally argumentative writer but he never has to argue about” the happening of the gospel events. Whole communities scattered around the Mediterranean already know about the death and resurrection of Jesus. It’s taken for granted. That’s significant. Holland also acknowledges in our interview how “incredibly early” is the creed of 1 Corinthians 15 — something that insists on the death, burial, resurrection and appearances of Christ.

But for me there’s something even more persuasive. It’s not an argument that Holland himself makes, but it’s one that his writings have strongly suggested to my way of thinking. In reading Holland I’ve been minded to do a basic counterfactual. It goes like this: If Christ had not been raised, what would be required of Paul and the other New Testament authors to pull off the hoax? Many, many things, but let me mention one. They would have to forge convincing biographies of Jesus that fuse all the elements present in the epistles, all the expectations of Hebrew hopes, and they would need to put warm flesh on Paul’s bare bones. I say ‘warm’ flesh because the artistry required to pull off the hoax seems to be to be the most extraordinary thing. A Hebrew scholar might be able to synthesise some of the prophetic data, perhaps even to suggest some plausible 1st century fulfilments. But how do you make it believable? How do you make it compelling, attractive, glorious? How do you combine a false history with an exceptional literary genius, and pull it off in the lifetimes of those who lived through the supposed events?

Holland himself is a massive fan of the gospels as literature. As he tweeted in 2017:

Listening to David Suchet read Mark’s Gospel at @StPaulsLondon, I reflect that Jesus is the most remarkable figure in world literature.

What an incredible coincidence that the most influential figure in world history turns out to be the most remarkable figure in world literature. If the Gospels were concocted to fill in theological gaps (rather than to reflect historical events) consider the pitch to a room full of potential Evangelists:

“OK, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Galatians was a big hit. We need a prequel. I want you to write us an origins story narrating the life of the greatest character in human history — God but also man, sinless but fully alive, pure but with profound depths, the Judge of the world but with bottomless compassion, the fulfilment of all Jewish hopes but with a global appeal, a man in time but a man for all times. We need sublime ethical teaching to drip from his lips — the kind that builds civilisations. We need extraordinary miracles from him — the kind that would have been noticed (and could therefore be contradicted) by the generation to which you’re writing. We need a believable narrative arc whereby he remains impeccably righteous but is nonetheless condemned as a blasphemer. And we need it all to stand up to scrutiny — Scriptural, theological, geographic, linguistic and historical. It needs to be believable both near and far, now and later, for those who’ve lived through these times and for generations hence. Go to it!”

Who could pull this off?

There does come a point when you have to admit: “You couldn’t make it up.”

 

8. Holland is very aware that history is crucial to the faith. 

During Q&A after Thursday’s lecture, a preacher from Cambridge asked Holland: 

“I wonder how far you think the cross of Christ will have genuine potency without an historical resurrection? To put it conversely, belief in an historical resurrection is what gave the Christian message such extraordinary attractiveness and power, because it meant that they might kill you but you’d be raised again. Whereas without an historical resurrection that promise seems a bit thin.” 

Holland responded: 

“Yes and that’s what Paul says: Without it, there’s nothing. If Christ is not risen from the dead then it’s folly and all our hopes are vain. Absolutely! It’s the historical specificity of it that makes ideas that… it’s just a recalibration of Adonis or Osiris so ridiculous. It’s the fact that it’s rooted in historical specificity and without that there’s nothing.”

Strong stuff. He didn’t elaborate further on his views, but in those 5 sentences he’s given us more than enough to go on.

 

In my next post I’ll make my final two observations:

9. It’s either Christ or the abyss

10. Tom Holland’s objection to personal faith is, itself, very Christian. 

 

Considering Tom Holland’s Dominion — part 1

Considering Tom Holland’s Dominion — part 1

PART ONE

Last week I interviewed Tom Holland about his new book, Dominion, The Making Of The Western Mind. If you haven’t seen the interview, do watch below (or listen via podcast).

Below are 6 reflections on the book and on our interaction. (Here are parts two and three).

 

1. Tom Holland gets the ethic of the cross. 

If the ethic of the cross means honouring the nobodies, then Tom has understood the cross well. I — a complete nobody — was cheeky enough to ask him for an interview on Twitter and he could not have been kinder or more accommodating. Very Christian!

 

2. Tom Holland gets the theology of the cross. 

Holland’s writing and speaking is shot through with astonishment at Christianity’s “molten heart: the image of a god dead on a cross.” The day after our interview I attended his lecture in Cambridge where he spoke about crucifixion among Persians, Romans and ISIS. The historical context brought home the wonder of the God of the cross as few preachers can manage it. Not enough Christians are as focused or as passionate about ‘the molten heart’ of the faith. We can learn so much from his writing and speaking.

 

3. Dominion (about Christianity) is a continuation of In The Shadow of the Sword (about Islam). 

Throughout Holland’s earlier book, In The Shadow of the Sword, Daniel chapter 2 is repeatedly referenced. It speaks of four cruel kingdoms represented by a statue made of four kinds of material. Eventually they are all overthrown by a simple rock that strikes the feet — the fourth kingdom. (This simple rock seems parallel to ‘the lowliest of men’ in Daniel 4:17 who will eventually mediate the ‘dominion’ of God over all the earth (4:32)). In Daniel 2 this rock grows into a kingdom that fills the earth. In the end it has sole dominion.

Throughout In The Shadow, the identity of these players is kept somewhat ambiguous. Maybe the fourth kingdom is Rome and Islam then is the dominating regime? Maybe Islam is the fourth kingdom and something else takes over? While we contemplate that possibility, Holland gets busy writing a follow-up book about an unlikely victor over the kingdoms of the classical world. In the lowliest way imaginable an unexpected hero sparks a revolution that overtakes the world. And the name of this book? Dominion.

Is Daniel and ‘dominion’ an easter egg for us to find — a true easter egg? Don’t know. I’d like to think so. 

 

4. Dominion is the perfect contrast to In The Shadow of the Sword. 

Dominion is, in many ways, the opposite of In The Shadow Of The Sword. Early on in the interview I put this thesis to Tom — he neither endorsed it nor shot it down. I think it’s basically right but I’ll let the viewer decide. The Shadow Of The Sword looks at Islam (something strange to the modern western mind) and demonstrates how it naturally arose from the forces of late antiquity. On the other hand Christianity is natural to our minds — it’s the water we swim in — but its origins are anything but natural. The preaching of the cross was an astonishing “rupture”. 

The comparison is instructive. Islam is what you get when you stir the pot of Christian, Jewish, Persian, Roman, Greek and Zoroastrian ingredients. “Christ and him crucified” was folly and weakness to everyone to whom it was preached yet somehow it has proved to be the power of God and the wisdom of God. 

To my mind this offers two ways in which Christianity commends itself.

Think about then… Christianity was not natural then (which suggests a supernatural origin).
Think about now… Christianity is natural now (which suggests a supernatural providence).

It suggests it to me anyway!

 

5. There is a huge gap in the book. And that’s deliberate. 

Dominion does not engage with issues regarding the historical Jesus. The Gospels are passed over. Holland uses Paul as our earliest source on Christ and leaves alone Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (although he quotes from them continually through the rest of the book, which is interesting!). 

Does this mean the historicity of the gospel events is unimportant? You might get that impression as he speaks in terms of Christian ‘myth’. The gospel is, he says, the most potent “myth” humanity has known. But (see from 36:50) he insists: 

“I don’t mean ‘mythic’ as an insult. I mean mythic in the sense that… it transcends ideology, it transcends commandments… it’s like drama.”

In the book, Holland leaves it as an open question whether the myth really happened. But his purpose for the book is to underline the power of the myth. If you don’t like the word ‘myth’, substitute the word ‘kerygma’, or ‘preaching’, or even ‘gospel’. Before anything else, Holland wants us to know the unmistakable, epochal, civilisation-building effects of this drama, this myth, this gospel. If we want to know whether the myth happened we’ll have to go elsewhere. But once the intended scope of the book is understood, Holland’s approach is not a weakness. After all, didn’t Pascal say “Make good people wish it were true, then show them that it is”? Well Holland has helped us immensely with that first step.

 

6. Having said this, the avoidance of the Gospels is still, at times, a bit of a dodge.

It’s entirely understandable that Holland might want to save ‘historical Jesus’ questions for another day. He doesn’t need to engage them in order to forward his thesis. Strategically I see the benefits. But at times the avoidance has the effect of making the Gospels seem like another kind of literature, somehow divorced from history itself. It would be an interesting job to count up the sources Holland has depended on for his telling of history from 479 BC to AD 2015. And it would be interesting to calculate the average gap in time between each writer and the events they chronicle. I’ll bet the gospel writers would fare very well indeed by comparison with any of Holland’s ancient sources.

He complains that an author like Luke is writing “too late” but then tells us about Plutarch’s account of Julius Caesar — written around a century later. By comparison you want to start singing Spin Doctors songs on Luke’s behalf: “It’s not late, it’s early!” Certainly the Gospels are later than the Pauline epistles, but both Paul and the evangelists write earlier than the majority of sources on which ancient historians usually rely. 

On this historicity question, I asked at one point about the “minimal facts” arguments for the resurrection. In response he compared those arguments to claims that Mohammed encountered the angel in the cave and brought divine revelation to the world. I don’t think the comparison holds for a number of reasons. First, as Paul says (though we only have Luke’s word for it!), the gospel events “were not done in a corner” (Acts 26:26). A private encounter with an angel is not at all like the public execution of Christ, nor like the public proclamation of his empty tomb. Secondly, the Quran is unlike the New Testament in that the Quran is explicable as a natural outcome of the confluence of forces in late antiquity. The New Testament is the report of a “rupture”, a “singularity”, “astonishing.” It’s really not the same (see point 4). Thirdly, as Holland elsewhere notes, the comparison between Islam and Christianity is not really between the Quran and the Bible, but between the Quran and Christ. The Bible for Holland is the spike on the seismograph. Christ himself (or the Christ ‘event’) is the real history-maker. The ways of investigating Muslim and Christian claims are quite different. And therefore we can’t just file away the evidence for the resurrection in a category along with very different Muslim claims. Jesus’ cave is not like Mohammed’s!

 

In future posts, read my final four reflections…

7. Holland does help us immensely with the historicity question.

8. Holland is very aware that history is crucial to the faith.

9. It’s either Christ or the abyss.

10. Tom’s objection to personal faith is, itself, very Christian. 

 

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We are looking to strengthen our ‘engine room’ with two strategic appointments: an Office Manager and a Donor Relations & Fundraising Manager.

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Speak Life Summer Update 2018

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How have you heard about Speak Life?

Maybe you hopped on board when we launched our Christmas videos, Meet the Nativity. They were seen half a million times, and we gave away 1700 evangelistic books on the back of that campaign.

 

Maybe you first heard of us through The Gospel in 90 seconds. Again, that video reached half a million people as I talked through the Light, Life and Love of God.

Perhaps you first encountered us this Easter, when we launched 12 videos on the topic of Easter and Comedy. Taking our cue from Easter Sunday being April Fools Day, we explored Easter as the Divine Comedy.

Speaking of Divine Comedy, maybe you picked up our latest evangelistic book. It’ll only take you an hour to read but Andrew Wilson said it’ll take a decade to think through (which I thought was a bit over the top as a commendation, but it’s very nice he said it).

Or maybe we’ve met in person. Recently Speak Life has been on mission to Glasgow, St Andrews, All Souls, Langham Place, Canary Wharf, Brighton, Coleraine and Bangor. In all these places we’ve seen people trusting Jesus for the first time.

At the same time our regular output has blessed thousands each day. From Reading Between the Lines, a daily devotional, to Thorny Questions where Paul Feesey and I tackle big objections to the Christian faith each week. We also record the LIVEcast each Tuesday lunchtime to a live online audience and release it each Friday as a podcast.

That sounds like a lot doesn’t it? It is. And wouldn’t it be a shame to miss all these resources which we offer to you free? As we seek to get in line with GDPR, can you please opt in so that we can keep you informed of our world-reaching resources. Just click on the link below and we’ll sign you up properly. If you haven’t clicked since May, we can’t guarantee that you’ll stay on our lists. So take 30 seconds now, and if you’re in the UK and you add your postal address, we will send you for free a copy of Divine Comedy, to read and give away to friends.

And while we have you, could you consider supporting us at Speak Life? As you can see, we’re pretty active. This is a good investment if you want gospel seed to be sown on many soils. We’re raising funds for an apprentice evangelist – someone who will come alongside Paul and I, learn theologically and practically how to share the gospel and who can serve the ministry in all that we do, in proclamation and media.

Details of how you can support are below.

Moving forwards, look out for my new evangelistic book: Long Story Short. This fun, fast-paced Bible overview is written to introduce the Scriptures to those with no prior experience of Christian faith. We would love to see this resource get into the hands of many and to transform lives. It comes out with Christian Focus Publishing at the end of June.

Finally, will you pray for our team, working hard to make all this happen. As we move towards summer, things will be a little less busy so please pray for recharging and refreshing over the summer and for God to water the seed that’s been scattered that new life might spring up all over the world.

So then… please sign up – or re-sign up – to our mailing list, get your free Divine Comedy, consider donating to our apprentice fund, and share this video with your friends. We’d love to spread the word about these free resources. And until next time, keep speaking life.

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Glen’s Speaking Engagements

3 June: Preaching All Souls, Eastbourne

9 – 10 June: Evangelism training and preaching
at Jesmond Parish Church, Newcastle

16 June: Charity Trustees meeting

2 July – 31 Aug: Glen on Sabbatical, travelling to Australia

7 – 8 July: Evangelism training and preaching at NEAC, Sydney

5 – 12 Aug: Mission with NEAC, Sydney

Easter’s A Comedy For Crying Out Loud!

Easter’s A Comedy For Crying Out Loud!

The happy ending is justly scorned as a misrepresentation; for the world, as we know it… yields but one ending: death.

― Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces

The ancient Greeks thought of tragedies as “high art” and comedies as “low art.” They reckoned that tragedies were truthful engagements with the world as it is. Comedies, on the other hand, were considered to be frivolous escapes from life’s harsh realities. Still today, ‘Best Picture’ Oscars are much more likely to be awarded to dramas than comedies. We struggle to believe that there’s much depth or reality to comedies. We like them. We just don’t think they’re, well, serious.

Christians, though, should think differently. We ought to take comedies — true comedies anyway — with the utmost seriousness. The Bible, after all, is shaped like a comedy. It gives a blissfully happy ending for embodied, earthly life. While the rest of the world makes its peace with the grave and resigns itself to a tragic fate, Easter ought to make Christians think again. In particular we should have a more sophisticated view of the stories told in the world. We need to realise this: some rib-ticklers are really tragedies; and some tear-jerkers are really comedies.

 

Some rib-ticklers are really tragedies

Monty Python’s Life of Brian is considered by many the greatest comedy film of all time. I can understand why. The writing and performances are exquisitely crafted. I’ve often used excerpts from the film in sermons because their skewering of the pomposity and absurdity of human religion harks back strongly to the Biblical prophets. It harks back to Jesus himself. Jesus was constantly making fun of the “religious” (see Matthew 6 or Matthew 23 for some scorching take-downs of the first century “Bible-thumpers”).

In its day though Life of Brian drew howls of outrage from many religious conservatives. In Britain, Anglican Bishops appeared on television in their finery to denounce the film and its makers. But I think they may have objected to the wrong thing. Sharp humour is not a problem, or it least it shouldn’t be for those who have read their Bibles. Sharp humour directed at religion is not a problem either, in fact religion is the chief target of satire in the Bible. These aspects of Life of Brian should have been welcomed and celebrated.

Nevertheless there is still a problem with Life of Brian. The problem is not that the film is a comedy. The problem is that the film is not a comedy. It contains moments of pure hilarity but it is unquestionably a tragedy. The hero, Brian, is constantly mistaken for Jesus, and he ends up, like the true Messiah, crucified. Yet for Brian there is no resurrection, no rescue, no happily ever after. Instead there is a chorus of the crucified singing “Always look on the bright side of death, just before you draw your terminal breath.” These are not the words of a comedy. In fact you could not find more quintessentially tragic lines than the ones that end the film: “Life is quite absurd and death’s the final word.”

I submit that Life of Brian should be considered one of the all time great films. But it is not a great comedy. It is, instead, a great tragedy. And I mean that in every sense. It is a rib-tickling tragedy.

 

Some tear-jerkers are really comedies

The Lord of the Rings is perhaps the mirror image of Life of Brian. Its joyful ending is one to make you cry. That is by design. JRR Tolkien invented a word to describe the classic plot twist where tragedy turns to comedy. He called it a “eucatastrophe”, that is “a good catastrophe.” This is a glorious interruption, upending all our expectations. It’s an asteroid of pure joy landing in the midst of our sorrow. And precisely because it’s an unexpected clash of comedy and tragedy it provokes in us an awesome joy, a tear-filled wonder. It connects with the deepest reaches of the human soul. Tolkien wrote:

“The Resurrection was the greatest ‘eucatastrophe’ possible… and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love.”

Think of John 21. Mary is distraught. She has come to the tomb to be near her Lord. Where have they taken him? All is lost. And then he speaks her name. That is the moment of eucatastrophe. And we can well imagine that now the tears really flow. Before it was an anxious whimper, now they come in waves. Before her chest was tight with fear, now her heart really aches. Before she was just about holding it together, now she falls apart: Joy and Sorrow, lost in Love.

 

Which Story?

Compare the two kinds of ending. Brian took us on a raucous journey, but we get to the end and realise it was all gallows-humor. Like the anxious man whistling through the graveyard to keep up his spirits, the laughter rings hollow. And it ends all too quickly. This is the human tragedy.

In Return of the King, Tolkien brings us a very different conclusion. Pippin, who may have contributed to Gandalf’s death, looks at him now — this risen lord — and sees the very opposite of hollow laughter:

In the wizard’s face he saw at first only lines of care and sorrow; though as he looked more intently he perceived that under all there was a great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth.

This is Easter laughter and it’s priceless. In a world of laugh-out-loud tragedies, Jesus brings to weak failures like us an ending so good, we might weep. It is our heart’s deepest desire, the world’s true destiny: the tear-filled comedy.

 

Find out more at DivineComedy.info

Watch Glen’s series of videos on the theme of Easter and Comedy:

A Funny Thing Happened…

A Funny Thing Happened…

This Easter we’re releasing four poem videos and seven interview videos (stay tuned for those).

Here, though, are Glen’s three stand-up poems about Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Words are below…

 

 

A funny thing happened on the way to Jerusalem

 

So there’s this guy who says that he’s God.
Repeatedly.
And he’s not a fraud. He is the still centre of sanity

No sliver of vanity, Purest humanity.

But he’s God.

And he needs you to know that he’s God —

God on a mission —

He’s got a real Messiah complex.

The original condition.

A messiah complex with a death wish and that’s the joke.

Cos when he spoke his claim, all would complain, crying “Prove it!”

And he says: ‘I’ll show you I’m God, Watch me die.’ Which is odd as a sign of deity.

But he doesn’t just say it, he hurls himself fierce at the grave,

Declaring that this is the behaviour of divinity.

 

He’ll assert his infinity by choking to death, to croak his last breath in rasping benediction.

He’s the Fountain of Life and the clearest depiction His conviction’s non-fiction is a cry of dereliction. One hell of a crucifixion.

 

There’s this guy and he’s God and he must die, on this he’ll insist.

It’s the item on his bucket list.

He’s Messiah with a death-wish and

While for us the goal of “Dying” would represent a distinct lack of ambition,

For him it’s his mission.

To be slain as a Lamb:

He said “When I’m lifted up, then you’ll know that I AM.” That I AM WHO I AM.

Then you’ll know it’s not a scam.

To see him damned by earth, hell and heaven

Then comes recognition: here’s the definition of glory.

 

So in the story this King marches to his throne,
his face set like stone,
to ascend the hill, and assert his will, to reign in state.
Protocol dictates he should ride a steed,

Of noble breed, perhaps a stallion, and, behind, his battalion and so to his office accede.

 

But here’s the thing. This King rides a donkey. Or two ––

So Matthew reckoned, he remembers a second,

An old cloak laid astride these poor brutes side by side.

So picture the scene. Lining the road: Israel’s people and priests,

And God all-precarious atop these two beasts.

A royal charade,

A half-assed parade.

And they’re hailing him King,

And he looks like a fool, And still he rides on, the irony cruel

Cos he knows that the crowd enraptured in praise

Will bay for his blood in a matter of days.

But still he rides down this road, he cannot be slowed,

On this trajectory locked, he will be mocked and forlorn,

His figure torn,

majesty shorn,

Crowned by thorns,

With nails adorned,

Enthroned in scorn,

His kingdom borne across trembling shoulders.

And yet on he soldiers.

For this is his divine vocation,

Decidedly not an assassination,

Somehow it’s his coronation,

Because here the Fountain is comprehended

When we see it full-expended,

In death the Life-Spring, crimson poured

Becomes the proof that He is Lord.

 

So on he rides in asinine glory.

Easter is a funny story.

 

A funny thing happened on the way to the execution

 

Did you hear the one about the God who croaked?

It’s kind of a joke.

 

He’s this bloke, shows up broke,

Among downtrodden folk

Spoke truth, full tilt, words spilt,

He’s a Jew doing stand up with a northern lilt.

Built worlds with his words, provoked laughter, stoked rage,

Awoke guilt in the powerful then to assuage,

 

But his schtick uncloaked the crowd, pricked the proud,

He ploughed dangerous and deep. To the core.

And history saw that when Truth is so uncouth as to speak, we freak.

In frenzied violence.

We’re proud to be woke but when God spoke, we choked him to silence.

That’s the joke.

 

Heaven came preaching, earth would not hear

We said “Shut the hell up”,
Which was his whole idea.

He said: “I’ll set you free”, so we put him in chains,

To teach him who or what on earth really reigns.

 

So God goes on trial,

the file against him’s thin, but they pile in.

Accusers line up through the night,

yet none turn out to line up right,

 

And all the while God pleads the fifth,

An Adamantine monolith.

He will not baulk.

They knock, they mock, they hurl their mud against the rock,

Nothing makes him talk.

And not one accusation sticks,

Except, the one he fixed upon from the start: He’s God.

Implacably so.

 

Well case closed, he has to go.

What’s he done? None can say

But for who he is, God must pay.

Here’s the shock: the Judge is put in the dock

The guilty sit on high

And make their verdict: Life must die.

The Truth is held in contempt of reason.

The King convicted of high treason,

And to cap it all, their genius trick,

God’s declared a heretic.

 

So the Mover of worlds is pinned to a stake,

His thirst unslaked,

His life-blood taken

Earth shaken,

God forsaken.

 

He turned his cheek, earth clenched its fist

And hammered heaven’s Pacifist.

 

And the man who drove the nails, the soldier who impales his Maker with a spear,

To him it’s suddenly clear, however odd:

This is what it looks like to be God.

Not a thunderbolt hurled,

Arms wide open to the world,
Forgiveness unfurled to his murderers.

This is God. Covered in blood.

This is Good.

Good Friday, if you credit it,

Good news, if you let it.

A good joke, if you get it.

 

A funny thing happened on the way to the tomb

 

This’ll make you smile,

So God’s dead.

Not the most fertile ground for comedy,

But stick with me a while.

God’s dead, he bled out on Friday before dusk, a husk of a God,

Buried in sod, planted in a virgin tomb,

An unpromising womb but I guess that’s his style.

 

Now Saturday was a holy day, and anyway everyone needed a rest after killing God,

So they put a day aside to recover from the deicide,

Which brings us to Sunday.

And there are some women who really want to attend to God’s corpse,
because of course it’s bad manners to have God rotting in the tomb.

You should at least perfume the cadaver,

so they have a journey ahead.

 

And as they tread this path they disregard pretty much all he said,

Because he told them he was God and death could not hold him.

So if any were believing they would not be grieving,
They’d presume that service would soon resume.
They’d camp beside the tomb and wait for God to self-exhume.

 

But no, no-one believed God, not even his believers.

We can’t conceive a Higher Power really.

Not higher than the grave which will devour,

That’s the One to make us cower.

That glowering conqueror of light.

It’s never lost a fight.

Each extinguished breath,
Declares that death is Lord.

It’s scored a victory over every rival.

 

At God’s arrival we briefly entertained a doubt: ‘Maybe Life’s in with a shout,’

But on Friday he was out for the count,
and we went back to perfuming our cadavers.
Cos all we have, it seems, is corpse preservation regimes.

And so these women resign themselves to a truth alarming:

Even God requires embalming.

 

And then, it’s empty.

He is not there.

Not in the place where he lay,

Not in the domain of decay.

Death made its play,

But God made a bolder move.

 

He’s won.

They’re stunned.

None dared believe it,

But now, NOW they’re crying.

Life has killed death by dying.

He’s Devoured the beast that swallowed him,

Crushed the abyss by falling in,

Destroyed destruction from within.

 

The Seed’s burst out on Easter morn

The Son from the virgin tomb is born

The valley of shadow receives its dawn

And a hole through death is forever torn.

 

And these mourners look through, to see Him.

And to see Him is to view Home.

Home shorn of thorns,

Home reborn, Home adorned with golden hue.

 

On Easter Sunday, this the view:

It’s country walks and heart-warming talks,

Mind-blowing preaches and breakfast on beaches,

Feasting and family and peace and grace,

And Jesus our Battle-Scarred Brother, face to face.

 

Maybe we came to the tomb to pretty a corpse and honour the dead.
But today instead we meet a living God.

And so, with a tremor in our voices but steel in our bones,

We dare to step on the monster’s neck,

As it writhes under a Victor’s blow.

And in the face of hell we bellow:

O Grave, Where is your victory,
O Death, Where is your sting?

 

We sing the happily ever after.

Here begins the Easter laughter.

20 Quotes from ‘Recovery’ by Russell Brand

20 Quotes from ‘Recovery’ by Russell Brand

Here’s a collection of quotations from Russell Brand’s compelling ode to the 12 Steps: Recovery.

As Jesus said, “It’s not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick.” Brand speaks as someone who knows the power of the sickness and our profound need for a help that comes from beyond.

……….

 

1. “Here in our glistening citadel of limitless reflecting screens we live on the outside. Today we may awaken and instantly and unthinkingly reach for the phone, its glow reaching our eyes before the light of dawn, its bulletins dart into our minds before even a moment of acknowledgement of this unbending and unending fact: you are going to die.

You and your children and everyone you love is hurtling toward the boneyard, I know you know. We all know but because it yields so few ‘likes’ on Facebook, we purr on in blinkered compliance, filling our days with temporary fixes. A coffee here, an eBay purchase there, a half-hearted wank or a flirt. Some glinting twitch of pleasure, like a silvery stitch on a cadaver, to tide you over. And you’re probably too clever to ‘repose in God’, or to pick up some dusty book where the poetry creaks with loathing for women, or gays or someone. Maybe if quantum physics could come up with some force, or web, or string or something that tethers the mystery to something solid, something measurable, you’d think again but until then there’s nothing but an empty grave and a blank tombstone, chisel poised. So no one’s going to blame you if you perch on a carousel of destructive relationships and unfulfilling work, whirling round, never still, never truly looking
within, never really going home.”

 

2. “Be honest, have you ever sat down and inventoried all of the things that bug you: the childhood skirmishes; seething stings of patricidal rage; your fury with the government or traffic or global warming or racism, or Apple for continually changing their chargers? When are you planning to become the person you were born to be? To ‘recover’ your connection to an intended path? On holiday? When the kids leave school? When you get a pay rise? Tick-tock, tick-tock, chisel poised.”

 

3. “Do you have that sense that something is missing? A feeling in your gut that you’re not good enough? That if you tick off some action, whether it’s eating a Twix, buying some shoes, smoking a joint or getting a good job, you will feel better? If you do, it’s hardly surprising because I believe we live in an age of addiction where addictive thinking has become almost totally immersive. It is the mode of our culture. Consumerism is stimulus and response as a design for life. The very idea that you can somehow make your life all right by attaining primitive material goals – whether it’s getting the ideal relationship, the ideal job, a beautiful Berber rug or forty quids’ worth of smack – the underlying idea, ‘if I could just get X, Y, Z, I would be okay’, is consistent and it is quite wrong.

Addiction is when natural biological imperatives, like the need for food, sex, relaxation or status, become prioritized to the point of destructiveness. It is exacerbated by a culture that understandably exploits this mechanic as it’s a damn good way to sell Mars bars and Toyotas. In my own blessedly garish addiction each addictive pursuit has been an act of peculiar faith that the action will solve a problem.”

 

4. “No wonder people hanker after animalism and raw thrills. No wonder people go dogging, hot real breath on a windscreen, torch lights and head lights searching, huddled strangers clutching in the dark for the piercing relief of orgasm. No wonder people use porn, hunched over a laptop, grasping and breathless, serious and dutiful like a zealous attendant clerk at a futile task. From this form of escape I am not long exempt. I usually laugh afterwards. As soon as the biological objective has been reached I am ejected from the mindless spell. I look down on myself and sometimes enquire out loud, ‘What was that all about?’, like some monkey man coming to consciousness, and I glance back transcended, ‘Was that honestly your best idea at solving the way you
feel? Now get me some tissues and a bible.’”

 

5. “What are we doing when we’re masturbating? Or swallowing mindless food. Or swilling silly drinks? Who there do we serve? What is the plan?”

 

6. “What happens when you don’t follow the compulsion? What is on the other side of my need to eat and purge? The only way to find out is to not do it, and that is a novel act of faith.”

 

7. “Here’s some good news for the fallen, for those of you that are reading this in despair, the junkies, the alkies, the crack-heads, anorexics, bulimics, dyspeptics, perverts, codependent, love-addicted, hopeless cases: I now believe addiction to be a calling. A blessing. I now hear a rhythm behind the beat, behind the scratching discordant sound of my constant thinking. A true pulse behind the bombastic thud of the ego drum. There, in the silence, the offbeat presence of another thing. What could it be, this other consciousness? Just the sublime accompaniment to my growing nails, pumping heart and rushing blood? These physical and discernible bodily phenomena, do they have a counterpart in a world less obvious? Are we addicts like the animals that evidently pre-emptively fled the oncoming tsunami, sensing some foreboding? Are we attuned to prickling signals that demand anaesthesia? What is the pain? What is it? What does it want?”

 

8. “Where I have found this program most rewarding and yet most challenging is in the way that it has unravelled my unquestioned faith that I was the centre of the universe and that the purpose of my life was to fulfil my drives, or if that wasn’t possible, be miserable about it in colourful and creative ways. So whilst this program will work for you regardless of creed or lack of creed, it will also disabuse you of the notion, however conscious of it you are, that you and your drives are the defining motivations for your life. The reason I worked the 12 Steps was because I was desperate. The reason I continue to is because they have awakened me to the impossibility of happiness based on my previous world view: that I am the centre of the world and that what I want is important.”

 

9. “My mentor sat and smoked and listened hour after hour while I unloaded the deadening burden… The main thing was there was nothing I said that was too terrible or too trivial to shock or bore him. He identified throughout and through this practical communication an unexpected thing happened: the veil of separation that I had lived my life behind lifted. The tense disconnectedness that I had always felt lifted. It is commonly understood that the opposite of addiction is connection. That in our addictive behaviours we are trying to achieve the connection. Think of it: the bliss of a hit or a drink or of sex or of gambling or eating, all legitimate drives gone awry, all a reach across the abyss, the separateness of self, all an attempt to redress this disconnection.”

 

10. “I don’t wake up in the morning and think, ‘Wow, I’m on a planet in the Milky Way, in infinite space, bestowed with the gift of consciousness, which I did not give myself, with the gift of language, with lungs that breathe and a heart that beats, none of which I gave myself, with no concrete understanding of the Great Mysteries, knowing only that I was born and will die and nothing of what’s on either side of this brief material and individualized glitch in the limitless expanse of eternity and, I feel, I feel love and pain and I have senses, what a glorious gift! I can relate, and create and serve others or I can lose myself in sensuality and pleasure. What a phenomenal mystery!’ Most days I just wake up feeling a bit anxious and plod a solemn, narrow path of survival, coping. ‘I’ll have a coffee’, ‘I’ll try not to reach for my phone as soon as I stir, simpering and begging like a bad dog at a table for some digital tidbit, some morsel of approval, a text, that’ll do.”

 

11. “My steps 4 and 5 reveal that I am, when in my addiction, selfish, self-centred and think that all my problems will be solved if I get fame, money, power, plaudits, sex and glory. That I think I am some kind of God/Hitler/Gengis Khan/Jesus figure. And that I can’t cope with this world and its occupants unless I have a hook-up to a great er source of power than my ego can provide. When I confess the details of the trauma I had experienced and the shame that I still felt. When I revealed the things that I never thought I’d tell anybody, I felt relief. I also had to acknowledge my helplessness, my brokenness, my need to change deeply. Through the compassion and love of those I shared with I experienced the power of these principles and the reality of forgiveness, of redemption. I felt willing to change not just my obvious addictive behaviour but also the patterns, thoughts and feelings that had long underwritten them.”

 

12. “In justifying our misery, we recommit to it. The odyssey of recovery begins in earnest when we become willing to truly change. Not content to rotate the object of addiction, we become ‘entirely ready for God to remove our defects of character.'”

 

13 “We have been taught that freedom is the freedom to pursue our petty, trivial desires. Real freedom is freedom from our petty, trivial desires.”

 

14. “Each time I have done it [made amends for past wrongs] I have felt a subtle awe and unbidden tearfulness. I have felt humbled. I have felt the grace that occurs when you decide to put aside your own way of doing things and surrender to another way.”

 

15. “Carl Jung’s verdict [is] that what chronic addicts need is a spiritual experience and ongoing communal support.”

 

16. “We’ve learned to live with shame and pain, we’ve learned to live disconnected, cast out of Eden. We have forgotten that we can return. The reason you must tackle your addiction no matter how moderate it may seem or whether it be socially sanctioned is it will, in the end, fail you. Because the drive, the fuel, the impetus behind it is legitimate and it’s goals are legitimate –
connection – in the end it will not settle for a simulacrum. It will be found out.

That’s why you’re lucky if you’re addicted to crack or smack. They are fast-hemorrhaging, fast-failing systems. They provide anaesthetic and distraction but are so bloody medically unsound they are quickly exposed as dupes. Sex and food can sustain a longer masquerade.

Now admittedly you see fewer people hunched over in doorways on ice cream than you do on meth but anyone who knows someone who suffers from an eating disorder will tell you that the sufferer is similarly derelict. And because what we are dealing with is a spiritual condition, a post-religious spiritual calling, the inner condition is what we must address.

When you start to drink, wank, eat, spend, obsess, you have lost your connection to the great power within you the great power in others, the great power in all things. There is something in you speaking to you and you don’t understand it because you’ve never learned its language. So we try to palm it off with porn and consuming but it is your spirit calling and it craves connection. Spend time alone, write, pray, meditate. This is where we learn the language.”

 

17. [We are all] “trainee corpses.”

 

18. “There is no freedom without forgiveness.”

 

19. “You can never quench your spiritual craving through material means.”

 

20. “We crave connection, but so much of the time we are not alive, neutralized. Who are you when you’re listening to the radio in traffic? You are not you, you are on standby. Mostly we are free-floating and disengaged, lost in the spectacle.”

 

© 2020 Speak Life at the Hour of Revival Association