[Insert prefix here]speak

Interesting Guardian article here, which I read a while ago now, about 'artspeak'.

The point made I think has wider application. I have always been aware of the existence of a specific kind of religious language which could, by analogy, be dubbed 'religispeak'. The point of the language of 'calling' and 'vulnerability' by which I am perniciously surrounded could equally be expressed in plain terms. The problem then would be that the language would be robbed of its authoritative power. The sentence 'I am called to be a priest' would not sound so noble and ponderous if it were translated as 'I've failed at most other things in my life and have finally found the path that will provide me with social status, despite my obvious lack of talent or intelligence'. Alright - some bias has been injected into the 'translation'. But that is no less true of the sentence which it translates.

The analogies between art and religion are interesting and manifold. But what I had not considered is that both contribute to institutions or 'worlds' (as in 'the artworld') which are open to abuse. Elitism and exclusion abound in both. But this does not owe to the nature of art and religion but rather to the nature of the human institutions in which the artistic and religious impulses become entombed. Compare van Gogh's description of

a drawbridge with a little cart going over it, outlined against a blue sky

with some of Christ's more morally edifying statements. They are uncomplicated and 'earthy'. They are both miles apart from the respective '-speaks' created by the institutions which, all too often, sap them of their lifeblood.

German Philosophy and Wax Chandlers

Evening all! It has been an unconscionably long time since I made a post so here we are again.

I have discovered the work of Karl Jaspers. Great stuff but I am presently trying to work out what's wrong with it. He makes a marvellous critique of both organized religion and mysticism forcing one to take a via media - if one dares. Nothing wrong with all that. But the theory of ciphers is doing harm to my brain - 'hieroglyphics of being' and all that. I rather suspect that the problem is that his argument requires him to say that ciphers are both subjective and objective at the same time. The problem being that they can only appear to us within that dichotomy, and therefore as one or other - revealing to us 'the Transcendent' which is beyond it. His position is subtly different from Tillich's but, I suspect, still doesn't quite make sense. If anything comes of his idea of the 'foundering' of ciphers or their 'dissolving' as objects as they become a matter of concern for Existenz, then I'll take that back. You will all, of course, be the first to know.

Disappointed about the recent 'success' of far right parties, including the BNP here. Listened to a good sermon on this by m'colleague as I officiated at Choral Evensong tonight. I also met the master of the Worshipful Company of Wax Chandlers. This company apparently gives two scholarships per year to the College. Weird.

Following an exchange I had on Twitter today, let me register my admiration for the former bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway. We are all agnostics. More of us should, like him, have the courage to admit the fact.

2009

Happy New Year!

Here beginneth 2009. Thus far I have been getting up not exactly 'early' but in time to listen to Melvyn's In Our Time (Darwin Season). His (Darwin's, I mean) biography is very interesting - not least the time he spent training for the priesthood in Cambridge and the intellectual oppression he must have experienced. Much of this morning's programme was conducted by Melvin in what he called several times "this extraordinary museum" which is just round the corner from my house. I shall have to go and have a look at the bodies of some of the creatures he killed on his various expeditions. I saw Bill Bailey's latest performance in London during the festive period. Focusing on a specific aspect of Darwin's biography, he made us all (by which I mean the audience) say 'barnacles'.

Thinking about when religious people talk about 'the soul' and pray for "all who are ill in mind body or spirit". This must surely be based on a Cartesian view but the puzzle is that Descartes never distinguished between 'mind' and 'soul'. Whatever it was that Descartes thought was distinct from the body and which could potentially survive the destruction of the body was 'thinking substance'. So not only is a questionable dualism built into the fabric of Christianity but a bad version of it, in which a third term is invented, apparently for little more than rhetorical effect. Can anyone out there tell me what a 'soul' is meant to be and how it is supposed to be different from a 'mind'? It's maddening, the degree to which religion depends on bad philosophy.

Very sad to hear of the death of Harold Pinter on Christmas Eve. Bought Michael Billington's biography of him today, together with Wordsworth's Prelude, in all its papery loveliness.

Heresy

Interesting piece in The Guardian yesterday, arguing that Christianity is a religion of deception. I confess (God help me) that I found myself sympathetic with Mr Bradnack's arguments (and there is evidence that I am not the only blogger-ordinand in this position).

His arguments apply only to the specific expression of Christian doctrine that is the creed - but how influential an expression! Some people I know doubt the value of using the creed liturgically but, as we all know, liturgies are not immune to development and change. Thus, if the Liturgical Commission accepted arguments like Mr Bradnack's, it would surely have excised the creed from the (modern) liturgy. Many people take the view he describes in his final paragraph and interpret some of the claims as metaphor. But how could such people, as they persist in saying the creed as part of the liturgy, respond to his accusation that they "mouth the words to deceive the gullible that they must believe them"? One does not need to know exactly who 'the gullible' are, or how many of them there are in one's congregation, to be pretty sure that some people will in fact be taking the credal claims literally. I can't see any easy answer to Mr Bradnack's charge.

I can recommend that anyone plagued by these questions (and who doesn't mind them multiplying) read the novella San Manuel Bueno, Mártir (1930) by the Spanish philosopher and writer, Miguel de Unamuno. (There's an online version, alas only in Spanish, here.) Speaking of Unamuno, there's an interesting contrast between his views and those of Mr Bradnack. Whereas Bradnack takes the Church's opposition to Galileo and Darwin as instances of its committment to bad science, Unamuno (in his Tragic Sense of Life, p. 72) interprets it as a defence against the rationalism which, in his view, badly distorts our understanding of the nature of human being. He interprets it as the defence of 'life' in all its irrationality. I can't help thinking that Unamuno goes too far. Defending the non-rational dimension of human nature is one thing (so far, so good); being out and out anti-rational is quite another.

On a more mundane level, I spent too much money today in Heffers Sound and Heffers. I bought Bach's complete sonatas and partitas for violin and a history of psychiatry.