Christians, take encouragement from Artemis II
From Mr Samuel McKee
Madam, — NASA’s Artemis II mission has been a beautiful moment of unity, with shades of optimism and excitement about the future which have not been seen for a while. I have greatly enjoyed the news being filled with happy faces, incredible photos, and positive messages. It seems like a throwback to better days. Pilot Victor Glover is a Christian who is very public about his faith, as many in NASA are. It has been refreshing seeing the Christian faith alongside such an optimistic vision for humanity’s future.
Futurism is a commitment to the best possible future for humanity and planet Earth, based on science-optimism or techno-optimism. It is a vision of a world where artificial intelligence, robotics, genetic engineering, personalised medicine, and spacefaring have advanced to such a place that we can solve many of the seemingly intractable problems afflicting humankind right now.
I have advocated for more Christians to be futurists, especially in the sciences. I have written and spoken on the topic with frustration that the landscape is dominated by humanists. When asking the question “Who are the futurists of today?”, the quick answer finds names such as Yuval Noah Harari, Steven Pinker, and Lord Rees. If you go looking in Waterstones or Blackwells for books on the topic, you find their bestsellers across the top shelf, discussing humanity’s future prospects with far more optimism, scientific precision, and hopeful speculation than any religious writer.
The tragedy here is that, once upon a time, this space belonged entirely to Christians. At the foundation of the Royal Society, the room was filled entirely with devoted believers committed to using this new thing called science to make life better for their common man. The dream of science at its modern advent was to explore and probe the natural world, the heavens and the earth, for discovery and worship. God the Creator had made mankind in his image; therefore, the world could be perceived and understood by us in order, reason, and rationality. The drive for industry, medicine, and education was an inherently Christian one.
But, somewhere along the line, roughly a century ago, this ground was ceded to the humanists without fight or protest. The voices of enthusiasm for a brighter future for humanity became less religious or non-religious. While the world wars burst the bubble of optimism, they also were periods of extraordinary scientific revolution, first in physics and then in biology. Many religious minds featured in these revolutions, but, while these stories are known to science-and-religion scholars, as well as Christian historians, they are alien to the Church.
The new vision of a world in which there is no disease, everyone has enough, and the burden on the rest of humankind is lightened has become a humanist one through the lenses of science. The Christian ideal of these things lies in the next world, in a new heaven and a new earth. This is certainly true in the scriptures, but, whilst looking forward to the day when Christ will wipe every tear from each eye, why not use science and technology to alleviate the suffering of many now?
Fundamentalism and apocalyptic visions have trained a few generations of Christians to set aside the vision of the Royal Society and, instead, put all of their hope in the new earth rather than arrest the future of humanity with a vision of science and techno-optimism. Christians should not be pessimists: the look does not suit us well.
The ambition to make life better for all, and to work toward this with all our minds and strength, is a distinctly Christian one. That is our look as much as anything. This thing called “science” which so many Christians were involved in uncovering is part of our heritage and contains some of the best parts of our history. It is a wholly Christian venture to commit oneself to a world without cancer, to ridding the world of disease, to lessening the misery of ageing, to reaching for the stars, to fighting against extinction, discovering new medicines, building better homes, and finding clean, renewable fuels. Why cede this ground entirely to the secular world? Why be so dystopian instead?
Let us not throw our hands up and say, “Well, it is all going to fade away anyway.” We need more Christians rolling up their sleeves, entering the STEM fields, and blazing trails that are more in keeping with the vision of futurism which the early Royal Society did so well.
SAMUEL McKEE
Cancer research scientist, University of Reading; Genomic Medicine, University of Cambridge
Address supplied
Further reflections on the Canterbury installation
From the Revd Dr Jeremy Morris
Madam, — It was heartening to see the Revd Richard Inglesby’s letter (2 April) welcoming as a significant ecumenical gesture the omission of the filioque clause at the installation of Archbishop Mullally. But many of your readers may not know that this is hardly an innovation. It has been a recommendation for the Church of England, and for all the Churches of the Anglican Communion, for ecumenical services (or services at which ecumenical guests are present) since the Lambeth Conference of 1978.
A version of the Nicene Creed omitting the clause has been available in Common Worship for use on ecumenical occasions since 2000. Last year, with the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, this version was used at various services through the year. There have almost certainly been many high-profile public services when the filioque was omitted in Church of England churches, and at which ecumenical guests were present since 1978, though I am not aware that anyone has kept a record. Needless to say, I hope, this is an especially important courtesy when Orthodox guests are present.
JEREMY MORRIS
Former National Adviser for Ecumenical Relations
Cambridge
From the Revd Ian Cowley
Madam, — It was very encouraging to me to read the response of the Dean of Lichfield, the Rt Revd Jan McFarlane (Letters, 2 April), to the installation of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, and especially her comments about a return to the Ordinal as the basis for ordained ministry and the flourishing of parish life.
When I was serving as Coordinator of Vocation and Spirituality in the diocese of Salisbury, I was told by one of the bishops that it was time to move away from using the word “vocation” and focus instead on “recruitment”. I was told that the life of a priest was not to be seen primarily as a particular way of life to be lived, but as a set of tasks with measurable outcomes which the Church needed to be done in order for the Church to meet its goals.
The cost of this top-down, management-driven approach to church leadership has been enormous for many clergy and, for some, very painful indeed.
Over the past 20 years or so, there has been a significant change in the understanding of ordained ministry which has come mainly from the bishops and leadership of the Church. It would make a huge difference to the life of the Church of England if we now saw a return to the understanding of ordained ministry as set out in the Ordinal, in particular the Book of Common Prayer Ordinal. This describes a life of Christian ministry centred on the study and proclamation of God’s word, reading and reflection, prayer and sermon preparation, and the faithful pastoral care of a community.
It is my hope that under the leadership of Archbishop Mullally, we will now see a return to who we really are as the Church of England. This, for me, is set out most clearly in the Prayer Book and, in particular, in the Ordinal.
IAN COWLEY
Stamford, Lincolnshire
From Mr G. M. Lyon
Madam, — Like the Dean of Lichfield, many will have been delighted by the installation of the first female Archbishop of Canterbury. Those who, in contrast and for theological reasons, must have been disconcerted will, I hope, take encouragement from the facts that the 2014 settlement provided for such an innovation and that in London the then Bishop Mullally clearly encouraged mutual flourishing and the upholding of the Five Guiding Principles.
They will surely remain concerned, however, that there are those who are still actively campaigning to “revise” selected parts of the settlement that facilitated female bishops and archbishops, and that bishops and archbishops of the conservative/traditional type are now so few in number.
Those now disconcerted would no doubt be encouraged if, by way of balance and reciprocity, a conservative/traditionalist male were appointed as the next Archbishop of York. Is there any reason that (in due course) this should not happen? When push comes to shove, does the Church of England really believe in equality, inclusion, and diversity?
G. M. LYON
Newburgh, Wigan, Lancashire
Easter-related pitfalls, verbal and practical
From Mr Michael Foster
Madam, — I do take the point of your correspondent last week, Mr John Puxty, that the reference in Common Worship to Easter Eve rather than Holy Saturday represents a missed opportunity. Anything, however, is preferable to referring to Holy Saturday as Easter Saturday, or, even worse, referring to Good Friday as Easter Friday. Despite these not uncommon blunders, I continue to live in hope.
MICHAEL FOSTER (Reader Emeritus)
West Bergholt, Colchester
From Barbara Peacock
Madam, — Having read Canon Angela Tilby’s article on the “Pitfalls of the Easter vigil ceremonies” (Comment, 2 April), I am reminded of my downfall at last year’s dawn service.
As is our custom, we burn the previous year’s Paschal candle on the fire. It was all going really well. The lighting of the fire succeeded, and our vicar then asked me for the five nailed incense grains.
Sadly, I had forgotten to remove them from the previous year’s candle, which was now well ablaze. Sticking my hand into the fire was not a sensible or possible option. I had to admit defeat.
She did a marvellous job of acting out the poking of the grains into the candle. Fortunately, I was the only person there to realise what had happened. Once the fire had died down, I was able to remove the grains, and they were then put into the candle. You will be delighted to hear that this year I had the incense grains at the ready. I will not make that mistake again.
BARBARA PEACOCK
Newcastle upon Tyne
Nuns’ stories: Highgate Penitentiary’s ‘lost girls’
From Mr Edward Smith
Madam, — In response to the letter (2 April) on Frances Margaret Taylor and her green plaque: there is a plaque of sorts to the London Diocesan Penitentiary in Highgate, North London, albeit in pink card attached to a lamppost rather than in blue or green metal and attached to a wall.
Begun in the 1850s, the Penitentiary’s early staff included the poet Christina Rossetti, her future-nun sister Maria Francesca, and a blind female organist, headed by the wife of its warden, the Revd John Oliver. From 1900, it was run by the Clewer Sisters, closing only in 1940.
Ten of the women to whom it ministered are buried in an unmarked grave at Highgate West Cemetery near by. Volunteers there have begun to flesh out the lives of those women and the Sisters, research that is to be dramatised in The Lost Girls of Highgate Cemetery at the cemetery itself from 1 to 4 July this year (connect.highgatecemetery.org).
EDWARD SMITH
Address supplied (Brixton, London)
Generosity aids readers
From Professor Christopher Southgate
Madam, — The authors of God, Struggle, and Suffering in the Evolution of Life are grateful for Canon Robin Gill’s review (Books, 2 April). But it is important to point out that “open access” in this instance does not require any institutional links (as the review states). The text is available at bloomsbury.com to any reader. This was made possible by generous funding by the University of Exeter, Baylor University, and Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.
CHRISTOPHER SOUTHGATE
University of Exeter
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