Letter to my biology teacher

Dear Mrs Evans,

You inspired my interest in the wonders of life. I had long since exhausted my parents with my ‘why?’ questions, and here in science class there were answers and insights.  I cherished getting the New Scientist magazine at a special rate. Reading that and watching TV on a Thursday night – for ‘Tomorrow’s World’ rather than many classmates wanting the update of ‘Top of the Pops’ fed my curious mind.  Chemistry was cool , whilst physics never starched the itch, biology however fascinated me. I would read ahead in the textbooks. Had I been a student in the internet age I would have been devouring science content, as I do now.

However, I was ‘that child’, the one who came to you proclaiming that I wanted to opt out of the evolution classes because of my faith. I even gave you a book that suggested the fossil record merely reflected the drowning sequence of creatures during the flood of Noah’s day.   Looking back I am not sure where my anti evolutionist stance came from – it was not part of the general message of my Methodist Church I had attended since infancy. Perhaps it was the books I was reading, and my young in faith enthusiasm.  It reflected my limited understanding of faith and of science. You responded with grace and I sat in the prep room during those classes. In reality I was reading up on evolution anyway should it come up in any exams!  I guess it was my way of ‘making a stance’ from my faith.

You continued as my biology teacher for years beyond that, through GCSEs and A level, and saw me depart for a degree course in Biochemistry with Microbiology.  And such is the nature of teaching, that you work with us closely and then set us loose into the wider world, without hearing back from where we end up.

I am not sure where or when I embraced the scientific evidence of evolution, or at least when I stopped fighting it.   I suspect it was when I was still in your classes, but I just didn’t recognise it at the time, like someone wandering in the borderlands. At Uni I embraced the wonder of life without trying to define how it came to be.

You may not be surprised that I ended up as a church minister, I hope you will be affirmed that I do so as someone who affirms the beautiful insights of scientific discovery.   That discovery was something that was rooted in what you taught.

How did conspiracies come to claim our world?

 In a rural area of West Yorkshire, just up the road from a chaple I work with, there is graffiti on the road #QAnon.  If you have not yet come across QAnon then let me introduce you - it is a an internet group that  promotes a range of conspiracy theories, especially that Trump is the appointed one to unveil a paedophilic corruption across all other groups in politics and entertainment and finance.   They follow the revelations of Q, with no idea who Q is or whether it is even one person.

It doesn't seem that long ago that conspiracy theories were confined to the loner, the rare person disconnected from wider society, seen as weird and definitely not mainstream. Today however we find people citing conspiracy theories in every local community facebook page, denying science and seeing everything as a matter of state control.  

How did this change happen?

Lets look at history, how the status of 'those who know' was for a long time the leaders of the church (Catholic only at that time).  This was partly challenged in the reformation, but still authority was rooted in faith. Then came the scientific renaissence, this started as people of faith exploring their world, but then came into conflict with the religious ideas of the time.  

From then science began to take the voice of authority to culture, not all at once but by the 20th century science was seen as opposite to faith.  The promise of science was that knowledge will continue to grow and in time explain everything and have the answers to all the problems of life.

Late 20th century and into the 21st we have found that science has not had all the answers, and has not fixed all the problems. There has been cultural disillusion with the faith in science, and we have reached the point where that trust has crumbled to the point where science is not only not trusted as the answer but is even seen as false. 

Then every point of authority becomes something to doubt - and fake news is as valid as that with factual basis. Evidence that has witnesses backing it is dismissed as biased, and any conspiracy view is seen as worth equal exposure, or even more valid.

The irony is that science never claimed what people expected of it. As someone taking a science degree in the 1990s I can testify that scientists only saw their views as 'the best interpretation so far' where it is always open to being reviewed and even abandoning if new information emerges. 

Now we are here in 2020 - faith was dismissed a century ago, and now science has let humanity down as it has not stopped bad stuff happening. I think the rise of conspiracy theories is rooted in this loss of trust in any of the former authorities. In a pandemic where the voice of science is being heard it is immediately distrusted, not becauise of other relevant data but simply because anything said by science is assumed to be untrustworthy.

Meanwhile human nature seeks meaning, reason, some intelligence behind what happens to us. It is why people will say in the face of struggles 'everything happens for a reason'. Some take that on a faith basis - 'God has his reasons for this', for others it is the sense of the power of the universe.  The idea of randomness is too scary, and also suggests that we cannot control our situations.

So the conspiracy theories - if you cannot trust God and cannot trust science yet believe there is a reason, a mind, behind the problems in life, then who do you blame? It makes people vulnerable to groups claiming they know who is at fault, who has an agenda, who is manipulating the masses and there are plenty of those seeking to fill that vaccuum.  

Suddenly the conspiracy theorist is just down your street, claiming there is no Covid illness, that mask wearing is not care for our neighbours but a deliberate attack on rights in order to control us.

Is there corruption in power? Probably, the temption to support those like you is always there.  Are there failures in political leadership? Probably, there is no such thing as perfection.  Does this mean that there is a complex set of groups working together for a single master plan in our world? Don't think so, that would take a level of co-operation and planning that is beyond what our leaders are likely to manage. I was once told 'assume incompetence before conspiracy', and that is where I stand.

I believe in the place of science, whilst recognising its limits and constraints. I am a person of faith whilst respecting that this does not give me the authority to tell others how to live. I am frustrated by the politics of our times and the impact on those in need, but do not see any master plans at work, merely human failures, as I live with my own failures. 

Celebrating Thomas

After Judas, Thomas is the disciple that gets a bad press - Doubting Thomas - but I don't think that is fair.

It is the day of the empty tomb and in the evening Jesus appears to a group of disciples in a locked room, Thomas we are told wasn't there. Cue questions about his commitment to the group, ideas that he was on the fringe, not in the core cluster.  But people react differently to grief and stress and fear, so Thomas was maybe an introvert, someone who needed a bit of space alone to get his head around all that had happened.  It is okay to take some space away from the crowds, it is okay to gather together with others - neither is an indication of commitment, merely different personalities.

So Jesus appears to the gathered group - from the first accounts of the empty tomb that morning and rumours of resurrection it had been a confusing day. Jesus appears and says 'Peace be with you', they have this encounter that helps them as they try to make sense of all that has happened in the past few days.   They later tell Thomas all about it, and he says he can't believe until he sees, and from this he gained the nickname of Doubting Thomas.

But what if Peter or Andrew or brothers James and John were the ones missing that night? Why do we expect more of Thomas than of any of the other disciples? They are convinced because they have had a direct encounter with the risen Jesus, an experience of seeing the impossible that allows them to believe the apparently impossible. Thomas is not a terrible doubter, but has a normal rational response. We are not designed like Alice in Wonderland's White Queen who believes 6 impossible things before breakfast, and our faith doesn't need us to do that. Thomas is just a normal man asking realistic questions.

It is an encounter with God that draws out our faith, other people's experiences and stories of their encounters have a place but we cannot expect others to take on board a 2nd hand experience.  A  week later Thomas would have his own direct encounter with the risen Jesus, and believes totally- 'My lord and my God'.   He is with the group then, his questions and not yet believing has not separated him from spending time with the others.

Thomas should be celebrated, he shows us important things about our faith - that we can take the time we need, that questions are not a barrier to faith but can be a path to it. That however wonderful our own story is we can't expect it to be enough to create faith in someone, though it may get them thinking. That we are not to be divided by differences in belief, or unbelief - we still travel together.

Suicide and the church

Today was sent the link to  this blog which asks for prayer for pastors/ministers/ revs etc reminding us and others of our own humanity and frailty.  I decided to google for the story that had prompted it.  A story of a North Carolina pastor's suicide - some of the links were plain news reports whilst others like this one have a comments thread that both saddens and appals me.

This was a big church setup with multiple pastors, the dead man being the senior. It came as a shock to everyone but a scan through the comments remind why it would have been hard for him within a certain theological culture to admit to struggles.  I am sure a diagnosis of cancer would have had sympathy and others covering his work whilst off sick - but despair that can reach suicidal levels is not as 'safe' to admit to.

I am grateful to be in the place I am, with those who care and recognise my problems as illness not a sign of faithlessness or that I am hellbound. But reminded how important it is for the churches to talk about mental health, to deal with it as an issue.

I will be spending the summer in North Carolina - maybe I will have something to give to debate there, or I maybe with those who already get it, American church life is varied not always fitting the images we sometimes get.

Losing faith...

It has been creeping up on me for a very long time, but you try and ignore those niggling doubts, to get on with life and deny the cloud on the horizon. But it has been looming ever closer, and I have to face up to my loss of faith.

Not a loss of faith in God, but a loss of faith in what I do each Sunday in church. If I were not the one up the front would I want to go to traditional church? Personally I don't feel drawn into God's presence by the usual services, and I find myself wondering if everyone else feels the same?

Maybe it is the effect of being the minister, of services being work rather than personal worship. Or maybe I am merely embracing what it is to be part of my generation -  not relating to a being 'talked at' culture.

I don't want to preach, I want to debate, to explore together. My training may mean that I have read more books, or heard of other ideas, that I can share - but not that I have the answers or am the definitive voice of the pulpit that others might want me to be.

I look at what I do and say on a Sunday morning and recognise that despite my efforts, and the integrity of all who make it happen week by week, it isn't going to make any sense to those who were not brought up in this strange world.

But I do have faith that faith is still relevant, that there are spiritual questions that can find a peace in Christ.  But how do I make sense of that, or offer spaces to ask the questions and encounter God, when tied into the 'stand and sit, sing someone else's words and listen to someone else's ideas of what God says' way of being church?

Is this a God given discomfort to provoke me to action, or just me going through a cynical stage? The latter would be easier, it doesn't ask me to live as stranger both to the church as we know it as well as to the wider world. Easier than the uncharted waters.

Digital too far??

Currently on my drive is a shiny, scary, hire car.  (My own car is off at the garage having 'kissed' another in the country lanes). It is scary because it is bigger than I have driven before, but mostly because it has so many more buttons, and even the handbrake is replaced by a digital button - and that feels like a button too far.

I love that I work in the computer age, the easy access to resources and being able to contact friends far off, sharing photos and stories.  I can rustle up posters and displays easily, and I don't need to have neat writing or to touch type in order to send a tidy letter.

On the other hand I am a long way from being a digital native, and I can be a bit of a Luddite.  With digital things you cannot see how they work and I did have a habit as a child of dismantling things to see how they fitted together or worked.  That curiosity hasn't ever left me and sometimes I think the security of being able to see something working is reassuring. And a button handbrake just doesn't do it for me! 

I like the physicality of lifting the manual one, you can see from its position whether it is on or off, you know you have done it, it feels definite.  A button with a light on the dash feels less certain, did it work when I pressed it or not? Can I trust it?

So yes, my Luddite tendency is confirmed - I value the hands-on, the real book even though ebooks can be good for travelling lighter. Or maybe it is a control thing - if I can see how it works I feel better able to trust it.  But life is not straightforward, and I can't control everything, or even most things - so must trust the unseen.

Maybe that is a lesson in faith - 'blessed are those who believe without seeing'.  Still I think I will be sticking with the hand brake rather than the digital parking button, and hope my car is back soon!

Accepting the wounded ones... wounds and all

Have you noticed how some people want  to fix everything and everybody? Sometimes you just want them to listen to your gripe of the day so you can get it out of the system, not for them to tell you how to solve the problem.

Amongst Christians this tendency to fix things/people can get spiritualised. Today I have had one of those encounters where acknowledging that I am still affected by my depression and other conditions led to the suggestion I should recieve prayer for healing.

Why do you think I need fixing? When I have been at my worst and in pain then yes, please pray for me in my pain, but I don't feel in need of fixing right now. Yes depression is still part of my life, but it is managed and although I have my moments my life is not generally impaired by it.  Removing something that has been part of my whole adult life would be like trying to take away part of my personality, part of what makes me who I am.

I realise that this is hard for you to understand, you care and want me to be free of trouble - but we don't live protected from the strains of life, we all have vulnerabilities.  Depression is one of mine, and I have come to accept myself as I am, your desire that I be fixed suggests that you don't accept me as I am, or that my vulnerability is somehow a failure. Does my ongoing situation challenge your neat faith that God brings us through all struggles so that we can sing of victory and joy, that bad times happen but get fixed. Sorry that this chipped plate is likely to stay chipped, it still works fine.

I know you would reach out in love to the wounded ones, offer love and care, but we need to be accepted wounds and all.  Even after his resurrection, with a changed and restored body, Jesus still had his wounds. He was not ashamed of them, and we should not be ashamed of ours either.

(Now I believe that God has an interest in our lives, and I believe that at times this can be expressed in ways that defy explanation (the definition of a miracle) but I also live with the tension that these times are rare and we are left wrestling with the question of suffering in this world. It may be neater to either deny that God can/will do anything personal or to believe that he will always intervene to fix things, if we can work out the right way to ask.  But the experience of people as I have observed it over the years doesn't allow for either of these, so the unknowing of the middle option is the only place left for me despite its discomfort.)