Matthew Hosier

WHEN EQUALITY IS NOT

2012-02-25T12:36:00.000Z

The launch of The Coalition for Marriage (C4M) this week has set the cat amongst the pigeons.

David Cameron wants to make the redefinition of marriage, so it can include gay and lesbian couples, a key achievement of his time in office. C4M have a petition opposing this and in todays Daily Telegraph Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone has pushed back against the C4M campaign.

There is much to be said about all this, and much that is being said, so I’ll be brief here.

First of all, this all really has very little to do with equality. What is has to do with is advancing one particular belief system over another, long-established one. If true equality is the goal, then the Prime Minister’s aims are far too modest. True equality of sexual expression, recognized in marriage, would include many more options than allowing a gay couple to marry. Logically, it would include any sexual arrangement consensually entered in to.

Polygamy would be a good place to start. This, after all, has the advantage of a great deal of historical ‘normalcy’, having been practised in many cultures for all of recorded human history. Why should such an arrangement not be recognized as marriage within British law? (The obvious, immediate, answer is “because our Christian heritage has long deemed such an arrangement inappropriate” – but that is merely to beg the question about why gay ‘marriage’ is also unacceptable.)

Or, if a 14 year old girl (or boy) eagerly desires marriage to a 40 year old man, why should she (or he) be prevented from entering this relationship?

Or why should a brother and sister be prevented from marrying?

The answer to all these questions is that every society draws moral lines between what it considers acceptable and unacceptable, and by so doing – by definition! – creates inequality. Moving the line so that gay couples can marry does nothing to increase equality, it merely makes plainer the inequality experienced by other non-mainstream sexual choices. And it is also arguably unfair towards married heterosexuals as it fundamentally alters the definition of what their marriage is.

The fact that the agenda being pursued is not about equality is already clear from the rules governing civil partnerships. If civil partnerships had been genuinely fair, then the polygamist would have been able to formalize his relationships, or two sisters sharing the same house would have been able to enter a relationship that would have safeguarded them both financially. It was never about fairness or equality though, it was always about advancing a particular moral agenda. It was always about gay sex.

Many of us tread increasingly cautiously into the waters of commenting on the gay agenda. This is partly out of a wise circumspection, as there is no point stirring up a hornets nest if we don’t have to. It is partly from fear, because the political and legal climate is increasingly hostile to anything deemed ‘homophobic’ by the thought police. And it is also because we genuinely do not want to alienate or wound those who are gay.

But sometimes we just have to say that things are wrong, and the drive towards gay marriage is wrong. Saying this is beyond the pail politically – it means, for instance, that anyone holding this view would find it practically impossible to be selected as a candidate for any of the mainstream political parties. It means that if gay marriage is legalized and I refuse to recognize that relationship as genuine marriage there will be legal consequences to face. It means that a position supposedly born from a desire for equality effectively disenfranchises any who believe that this is an area beyond the competence of Government.

Let’s not just lie down and let David Cameron push this one through. Get onto the C4M website and sign the petition against it.

TRINITY RAP

2012-02-17T21:43:00.000Z

I spent today teaching on the doctrine of the Trinity. When I do this I always ask students to write a creed, but, today, inspired by my friend Jon Clark I got them to rap it.

I thought this one, featuring Gateway's very own Paul Barnett, was rather good...

MEDITATIONS ON ECCLESIASTES 9:7-10: WORK

2012-02-04T15:26:00.002Z

Monday is my day off, my day of rest, my day of recuperation. It is Monday that makes sense of the six days on which I work.

On Sunday night I turn off my phone, and don’t turn it on again until Tuesday morning. I don’t check my email on Monday. Instead, I eat my bread with joy and drink wine with a merry heart and wear whatever I’m comfortable in (generally walking socks on a Monday) and enjoy life with the wife whom I love.

This day – let’s call it a Sabbath – is not a denial of work but a recognition of it. Without it work becomes merely toilsome and tedious and tiring. With it the working week is dignified, as it is the day of rest that provides energy for the six days of labour. And it is that day off that also keeps work within its proper bounds. The work is good, not god.

MEDITATIONS ON ECCLESIASTES 9:7-10: LOVE

2012-02-03T11:31:00.000Z

The other day I sat awhile with two of the older members of my church. They are ‘shut-ins’ now, as a result of ill health; they’re lives confined within the small space of the converted garage in which they live.

We talked about their relationship – the story of how they met, and fell in love, and have been 49 years married. It was a story of enduring, faithful love; of enjoyment of one another, and the on going serving of one another. Their care of each other is very obvious in their current diminished physical state, but their continued enjoyment of each other is also still clear.

They reminded me of another older couple I met in the park soon after moving to Poole. John & Hannah had been married 60 years and were in their late 80’s. I had taken one of my daughters to the café, and they were there having an ice-cream. Hannah had Alzheimer’s and I was deeply touched by way John was caring for her – wiping ice-cream from her face, and saying, “She was always so giving.”

There is something noble, but simple, innocent and tender about couples like these; something so different from our cultural obsession with ‘romance’ and sex. They have looked the vanity of life in the face, and demonstrate the power of genuine love.

MEDITATIONS ON ECCLESIASTES 9:7-10: CLOTHES

2012-02-02T10:33:00.000Z

“I’ve nothing to wear!” – the familiar cry in the face of a heaving wardrobe and in a nation that spends more than £30 billion on clothes each year.

For me, it’s socks. My sock draw is overflowing, but all too often I have no socks to wear. And this is odd, because I only ever wear three types of sock – black ones for everyday use, running socks for running, and walking socks for walking. It is not that I am spending hours agonizing over what colour or style sock to wear each day – there are only three types of hosiery in the Hosier universe, and that is enough.

But my sock draw is overflowing, partly, I think, due to a lack of discipline in disposing of those socks that have served their time. There are rogue elements lurking there that do not fit my three required categories, but somehow I cannot bring myself to dispose of them – “I might need them one day, in an emergency” – despite knowing, in my heart of hearts, that wear them I never shall. And I must also admit to a great fussiness about my socks, in that I cannot abide them to be scratchy or uncomfortable in any way, or to wear an oddly matched pair, which means there are old socks languishing in my draw, never to be worn because they are shrunken or misshapen, lacking a partner, or in some other way below the necessary quality quotient, yet – again – they are allowed their place in the sock firmament in case, one day, I might need them. Which I never will.

Sadly, this fussiness about the comfort of my feet does mean that there are days when there are no socks in my drawer that I can wear, even though the drawer is full.

I think this is the kind of scenario that Solomon had in mind when he penned Ecclesiastes.

MEDITATIONS ON ECCLESIASTES 9:7-10: DRINK

2012-02-01T10:33:00.000Z

Solomon tells us elsewhere that those who linger over wine have woe, sorrow, strife, complaints, wounds and bloodshot eyes (Proverbs 23:29-35). But the wine itself is good. To drink it with a merry heart is good, and God takes pleasure in our pleasure.

Drinking without lingering.

Enjoyment without idolatry.

Pleasure without addiction.

And, of course, the encouragement to “Eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do” points us towards the food and drink of the Lord’s Supper – where with joy we should drink the blood of the covenant, poured out for many, for the forgiveness of sins.

MEDITATIONS ON ECCLESIASTES 9:7-10: FOOD

2012-01-31T17:08:00.000Z

The food is good, so we don’t need to pray the evangelical prayer of “Bless this food to our bodies” – the food is blessed already, as are our bodies. So we bless not the food, but the one who has blessed us with this blessing of his grace. As we eat, we bless the one who blesses us, as we take into these blessed bodies the sign of blessing – a blessing that is real despite the curse that hangs over all the earth. The food is good.

Yesterday I drove to Shaftesbury, to Cann Mills, for bags of flour – wholemeal and white and rye; stoneground and organic. Snow had settled on the hills, and deer and hares raced over the white slopes of Win Green. That flour will be used for good bread – sourdough and yeast; kneaded, proved and baked.

The food is good.

BOOK REVIEW: THE UNDERTAKING

2012-01-29T17:15:00.001Z

The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade by Thomas Lynch

This is a wonderful book.

Firstly, it is wonderful because it is so beautifully written. I don’t make New Years resolutions, but one of the little half-promises I made to myself a few weeks back was to allow myself to simply read books that would be enjoyable. My reading slowed considerably last year, and part of this was due to the fact that much of the time I was reading books I felt I ought to be reading and so much of the time those books were either not especially gripping, and/or (far too often it is ‘and’) badly written. So I am cutting myself some grace and reading things simply for the pleasure of reading, and as a result am back up to two books a week. And The Undertaking is very well written indeed.

Lynch is an award winning poet, as well as an undertaker, and writes with a poets sensibility and love of language and ability to connect with the emotions. As an undertaker he writes as someone very familiar with the intimacies of the dying and death. This is a very Ecclesiastes type book, which is helpful as I am currently preaching through Ecclesiastes. Lynch made me laugh out loud, and cry, and think.

It is a wonderful book. I have had it in my Amazon basket for a few years, having seen it reviewed somewhere else, and when I saw I could now get it for a mere penny I pressed the button. A penny well spent.

Lynch is brutal about the finality of death, the reality of decay that sets in as soon as the final breath departs. But he is also lyrical about the significance of the dead body that remains for those not yet dead (“The bodies of the dead are really important. We want them back to let them go again – on our terms, at our pace, to say you may not leave without permission, forgiveness, our respects – to say we want our chance to say goodbye.”). He faces head on our embarrassment about death and draws interesting cultural observations about the ways in which we deal with death (“There seems to be, in my lifetime, an inverse relationship between the size of the TV screen and the space we allow for the dead in our lives and landscapes.”). He riffs about the potential of combining golf course and cemetery in a money spinning ‘golfatorium’ and (in a section I found almost unbearable) describes a colleague stitching back together the wrecked body of a girl smashed to pieces by a murderer-rapist. And he offers what is I think the most sustained and powerful polemic against euthanasia I have ever had the pleasure to read.

This is a wonderful book. A book about death might not be the obvious place to go simply to read something for the pleasure of reading, but read this and I think you will be surprised.

PREACHING FOR THE POLLSTERS

2012-01-18T11:51:00.000Z

Last night I got a call from Nebraska.

Actually, it was a call from Gallup, doing a survey about health and happiness in the UK; I came away from it feeling pretty good about life. As it was a series of Yes/No questions it was not possible to give the nuance, qualifications, and caveats that I would normally offer in response to a question like, “Do you feel safe walking alone in your city at night.” So my answers tended towards the positive rather than negative and I guess I sampled as someone who is healthy, happy, prosperous, educated and optimistic – and when the results of the “best places to live in the UK” survey are next published I expect Poole/Bournemouth to feature even higher up the rankings than it normally does!

Rather than an inconvenience, this phone call was thus a rather helpful reminder about the many ways in which I experience God’s grace on a day to day basis: “In the last 30 days have there been any days when you have not been able to afford enough to eat?” No. “Is healthcare affordable in your city?” Yes. “Do you have cancer?” No. Man – I’ve got a lot to be grateful for!

It is easy to lose track of how much grace we receive. It is so easy to be more aware of the things we lack (or think we lack), of the things that annoy us, of the constant drip of bad financial news in the media, than it is of the things that make life good. As a Christian pastor I believe that one of my primary tasks is to keep reminding people of this – to keep pointing them to all the blessings we enjoy by the grace of God alone. Our default position should be one of gratitude. If it is not, we are likely to become miserable ingrates who do little to glorify the name of Jesus.

Yet at the same time I also believe that part of my task is to keep pointing out the reality of the bitterness of life – that stuff happens that stinks, that there is much injustice in the world, and that the sound of war and famine and disaster should rattle in our ears. Without this reality check we are liable to become superficial or sentimental. We are likely to get knocked off course when the day of trouble comes, or to fall for the illusions of the ‘health and wealth’ gospel. And we are unlikely to be motivated to live with generosity and compassion towards those in genuine need.

Perhaps the most helpful Bible book that wrestles with this tension of grace and sorrow is the little oddity of Ecclesiastes. I spent fourteen Sundays preaching through the thoughts of the Teacher seven years ago, and am now picking it up again at Gateway. (Although this time round I am only giving it half the number of sermons.)

Because he recognises the realities of both life’s pleasure and its pain the Teacher is able to make the apparently contradictory statements that, “I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and striving after the wind…There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.” (Eccl. 2:17, 24) The Teacher is quick to commend joy and pleasure, but also brutally honest about the transitory nature of even the most satisfying human pursuits.

Ecclesiastes, then, is a book that helps provide an accurate assessment of life. Or, as Eugene Peterson puts it, “It is an exposé and rejection of every arrogant and ignorant expectation that we can live our lives by ourselves on our own terms.” And as Luther advises, “We should read this noble little book every day because it rejects sentimental religiosity.”

It is a book that helps make sense of many a Gallup poll.

TALKING ABOUT THE WEATHER

2012-01-12T13:39:00.000Z

One of the national stereotypes of the British is our obsession with the weather. The theories explaining this obsession are that our weather is terrifically varied; unlike many other parts of the world we don’t have dry or rainy seasons – we just have weather. At the same time our weather is rarely truly noteworthy, as it swings within a fairly narrow range – we don’t get hurricanes, it is never really hot or really cold, it just kinda muddles along. And this is the ground of another theory about why we discuss it so much – that we are a muddling along kind of people, and are easily embarrassed by social interaction, so discussion of the weather is a good foil for more challenging conversation.

Well, let me make some observations about the weather.

The other day it felt like spring, because it was fairly warm, and the bulbs are popping through the soil and buds forming on the bushes. It also felt like summer as I found a couple more raspberries in the garden. And it also felt like autumn, as the leaves have only in the past couple of weeks released their hold on the trees, so I was raking them up from outside my front door. The only season that was missing was winter, which was the season it is meant to be.

Odd.

Not that I want to obsess about it, but it is odd. It’s just not British, somehow, and yet somehow it is. I guess we’ll just keep muddling along.

IN PRAISE OF PARKRUN

2012-01-07T18:05:00.000Z

The other day megachurch pastor and health freak Bill Hybels tweeted, “I wonder why so few leaders take their physical conditioning seriously when it dramatically improves their concentration and energy levels?” Well, I’m training for a marathon, and I think it’s just making me tired!

This is the time of year when many people make resolutions to get in shape, go on a diet, take out gym memberships, and after a couple of weeks misery give it all up again. I think the only realistic basis for taking regular exercise is doing something that one finds in someway enjoyable; otherwise it is just a painful schlep. My marathon training is painful, yet at the same time it is something I am enjoying, which helps me to keep going with it.

One of the things that can make taking exercise more enjoyable is to do it with other people. Obviously, this applies in team sports, but for individual sports like running it can also be true. And this is where Parkrun comes in.

A Parkrun started in Poole last year, and I have taken part a few times (and between now and marathon day – 15^th April, Brighton – need to be doing it every week). It is a well organised and properly timed 5k event which (unlike other well organised and properly timed events) is free to enter. Just show up, run, get your barcode swiped at the end, and your result is emailed to you within a couple of hours. I think it is fantastic. There were 241 of us running this morning, with a very wide athletic spectrum represented (fastest 16:08, slowest 45:17). This is a great example of a community event – sociable, catering for all ages and abilities, free, brilliantly administrated and fun.

There are Parkruns in many locations in the UK, and an increasing number overseas (see here for details). So, if you’re looking for that kick start to the 2012 ‘new you’, you could do a lot worse than toddle along to your nearest Parkrun.

HAPPY EPIPHANY!

2012-01-06T14:52:00.000Z

Those truly wedded to all the rites of Christmas can today take down their decorations, on this, the twelfth day of Christmas. Most of us will have done so already though – by January 1^st, certainly, the Hosiers want to get the house clear and a new year underway. And we were pretty sick of the pine needles!

I like Epiphany though, or at least the idea of it – it is not a festival I have ever consciously celebrated. If nothing else, epiphany is one of those lovely sounding words that is somehow satisfying to say, but it also has considerable theological meaning. Epiphany means different things to different Christian traditions (Wikipedia offers a pretty comprehensive summary of these) but for the western church it is the day when the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus is commemorated. This is a day which represents the sudden comprehension of new knowledge – of knowledge that makes the world a very different place from what one had previously thought.

Of course, this expansion of knowledge is reflected in our other use of the word epiphany – not one that refers to spiritual enlightenment, but to a new idea or understanding of something. This is what we call “having an epiphany.” One of my daughters found this a frustrating concept over this mornings breakfast table discussion – “How can it mean two things?” She needed an epiphany about the English language to see that.

Or, rather, about the Greek language, as this is the word used in the Bible to describe what happens when God “manifests” himself to someone. So, although we use the word in two ways, epiphany means the same thing in both cases – it means something is made known to us, and the most important thing of all that we can come to know is God himself.

So, again, happy Epiphany – and may this be a year when the knowledge of God is to you truly enlightening, and satisfying.

COLLISION

2011-12-22T20:44:00.000Z

The death of Christopher Hitchens last week generated a considerable amount of media coverage and comment. He was a brilliant writer, and a fascinating commentator. A couple of years back Hitchens and Douglas Wilson conducted a series of debates on the question "Is Christianity good for the world." These debates were filmed and turned into Collision. I have just watched it for the first time, and would recommend it - much more interesting than most of what will be on TV over Christmas.

THE TURNING

2011-12-22T15:14:00.003Z

We celebrate Christmas when we do, not because Jesus was born at this time, but because this time marks the turning of the year. This is a good reason why we should feel no compulsion to keep Christmas (it is actually a form of legalism to insist we must) but it does mean that this is a time that feels significant.

Today is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. Soon, there will be a discernible shift in the days, as morning and evening gradually begin to lengthen and winter must yield to spring. Not that we have yet had what could be properly described as winter. I can see a rose in bloom in a neighbouring garden, and the other day spotted daffodils in flower. The elements are confused. But I like the fact that the daylight will begin to win over the night again after today. It is a shame we cannot get the calendars properly synced and celebrate Christmas and New Year on the shortest day – the added symbolism would be profound.

However, for my southern hemisphere friends the reverse is true – for them the days will now begin to diminish.

Yesterday I got up to Luke 24 in my Bible readings: “On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.” Christmas leads inexorably to Easter, and whether this is the shortest or longest day for you, the good news to proclaim as another day dawns is that “He has risen.”

The year is turning, but Christ has already turned it upside down.

A SHAMELESS PLUG: PLEASE BUY MY BOOK!

2011-12-21T19:03:00.003Z

Mark & Grace Driscoll have a book on sex coming out soon, but I've pipped them to the post and my book Sex Talks is published. It will be available on Amazon in a few weeks time, but is available for immediate purchase here - the perfect stocking filler for any teenager you know!

Sex Talks is based on a series of seminars I led at Newday last year. The first half of this book is based on the five seminars and give an overview of what the Bible teaches about sex. These chapters cover everything from the purpose of sex to porn and homosexuality.

The second half of the book is made up of answers to a bunch of questions about sex that were asked by the crowd at Newday. These questions were sent in by text message, and were anonymous, which means some very honest questions were asked, and I have tried to be honest in my answers. At the end of the book is a section on how to fight sexual temptation, which I hope will be helpful for a lot of people.

The book is aimed at those in the mid-teens to early 20's, and I'm grateful to those in the target range who read it through for me and helped sharpen it up.

Thank you!

TWILIGHT & THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

2011-12-08T09:50:00.000Z

The other day I took Daughter No.1 to see the Breaking Dawn movie. I read all the Twilight novels this time last year (and reviewed the first one here) but hadn’t seen any of the films until this one.

I was impressed that the daughter was happy for me to take her – the young women who work in my office all said it would be far too embarrassing for her to have me there, as Bella and Edward snogged on the screen. Now, I consider the opportunity to embarrass one’s offspring to be a perk (even a prerequisite) of parenthood, that should be fully indulged, but the daughter was remarkably unfazed – so perhaps all the work we’ve put in at keeping an open relationship with her is paying off.

Anyway, I quite enjoyed the movie, as I enjoyed the books (being as in touch with my inner teenage girl as I obviously am) and Daughter No.1 and I had an interesting chat about it as we drove home.

One surprising thing is that Edward isn’t all that good looking (something with which the daughter agrees), yet he is the pinup of choice in a million bedrooms. Which simply demonstrates the power of marketing, and the extent to which we believe something is desirable just because we are told it is. Back in 2008 Robert Pattinson (who plays Edward) said, "It's funny, but about a year ago I'd talk to girls and no one would be interested. Really, it's true, and then when it was announced I would be in 'Twilight' and the book's author gave me her seal of approval, everyone seemed to change their mind. The attention I get now is just mind bending."

We all (and not just teenaged girls) need to be alert to how easy it is to be suckered by fame and fortune and advertising and celebrity. The reality is that though we like to think of ourselves as independent and savvy and smart, we tend to believe what we’re told.

To claim that Edward is not that attractive might be contentious enough (Go Team Jacob!) but let me draw what may be a more contentious line from that to the current economic crisis: Just as Edward isn’t that attractive, perhaps the economic crisis isn’t that bad.

As I can already sense people picking up stones ready to hurl at me, I’ll try and qualify that.

Sure, the economic crisis is very bad. Especially if you live in Greece. In the UK it is also very bad if you are a young person looking for work (though not as bad as in Spain where the unemployment rate is a Great Depression equalling 25 per cent); if you have lost a job it is very bad; if your income is dependent on revenue generating investments it is very bad. Every time I fill up the car with fuel, or get a utility bill, or buy groceries I experience the pain of inflation that seems to be running ahead of the official rate. And of course, it could all get very much worse if the Eurozone doesn’t sort itself out.

So there you go – all my caveats expressed and you can put those rocks down.

Yet, it’s not that bad – certainly for those of us who have held onto our jobs and have mortgages to pay. With interest rates still so low paying a mortgage is a lot less painful than it has historically been, and this makes a major contribution to household finances.

What has happened is that for the past three years we have been fed an almost relentless diet of terrible financial news which leaves us all feeling poorer, even if objectively we are no worse off than we were. Five years ago we were all still drawing capital out of our houses and racking up big bills on our credit cards which made us feel as though we had lots of money – when actually, we just had lots of debt; which is at the root of the whole crisis anyway. Now, because we’ve been told to believe it, we believe Edward Pattinson is the handsomest man ever to breathe and that we have never been so financially desperate.

What to do?

Those of us who are Christians have a special responsibility to think about money in a way which is not “conformed to the pattern of this world” and this means we should not have our thinking bent by the news, but shaped by the gospel. The economics of the kingdom of God are different from the economics of this world. Practically what this means for us might be things like:

Be a good steward – it is much better to learn this lesson when times are fat than when they are lean, but whatever the times it is a lesson that needs to be learnt.
Remember the poor – our subjective feelings of financial hardship should not blind us to the objective poverty of the two-thirds world and our responsibility to love our neighbour.
Help those who are affected by the current financial situation – this is a time for the church to be church.
Don’t be judgmental towards the poor (as this report reveals we are becoming) – instead we should seek to serve and to bless.
Remain thankful – God is good, and greatly to be praised!
Live in faith and not in fear – God has promised to provide for his people, and we need to believe this.
Be generous – faith and generosity travel hand in hand, whereas fear inevitably leads to selfishness and envy. Living generously means we continue to give money away, we open up our homes to others, we look for opportunities to bless others, we pay for our round at the bar and we don’t skimp on tips.
Hack down some idols – if money and possessions have become our idols a time of economic uncertainty will certainly expose this; which means this is a great time to get out the axe!

Rather than buy into the gloom we are told we should inhabit, this is a great opportunity for the church to demonstrate the grace and generosity of God at work in us, remembering that “The blessing of the Lord makes rich, and he adds no sorrow with it” (Proverbs 10:22).

DUMBING DOWN?

2011-12-07T08:16:00.000Z

Last week I took Daughter No.1 to a GCSE options evening. This is the first stage in her education that a degree of choice about study options presents itself and the headmistress of her school stressed the importance of making good choices, so as not to limit future possibilities regarding university and career. There has been a great deal of debate in the UK in recent years about the 'dumbing down' of our exam system, and a great deal of angst about the expenses now associated with going on to college. Comparing our own age with previous ones is often instructive, so it was with interest that I followed this link to the Harvard entrance exam of 1869.

It left me feeling extremely thick and uneducated!

BOOK REVIEW: THE BREEZE OF THE CENTURIES

2011-11-17T19:19:00.002Z

The Breeze of the Centuries: Introducing great theologians from the Apostolic Fathers to Aquinas, by Michael Reeves

The longer I continue in Christian ministry, the more convinced I become of the vital importance of having a grasp of church history. Perhaps this is partly a consequence of age, but more than that, church history is incredibly useful both in terms of instructing us about important matters we might otherwise struggle to grasp, and in warning us not to repeat the mistakes that others have made.

Getting into church history, however, can feel intimidating – where is one supposed to start? One good starting place is Greg Allison’s Historical Theology, which is a brilliant systematic theology, written through the grid of historical theology. That is quite a big book though, and so still might be quite intimidating. And that is where The Breeze of the Centuries comes into its own. In just 150 pages Reeves gives an overview of the life and thought of the Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas; and does so with wit and panache.

As well as outlining the big theological issues of the ages, Reeves is good at slipping in those aspects of human interest that make history interesting – such as the Letter to Diognetus only being discovered in 1436, being used to wrap fish in Constantinople, and Aquinas’ family trying to tempt him away from his spiritual calling with a scantily clad seductress. But the big theological issues are big – and still very relevant today. Questions of the deity and humanity of Christ, the nature of eternal life, and the rationality of faith are hardly novel to our age, and the battles of the past prove fertile ground in which to work out how to respond and what to believe.

Viewing theology through the lens of history is also helpful to us in working out where the battle lines should be drawn in defence of the truth. We live in a time when there is both an incredible level of rancour amongst people who all claim to be followers of Jesus, but also a general cultural assumption of ‘tolerance’ that means many Christians find it difficult to ever say, “that is wrong.” Where the likes of Polycarp and Athanasius draw these lines is deeply instructive.

As Reeves points out, the theologians discussed here offer a broad range of personalities and beliefs, and some are more attractive than others. For example, I find Athanasius and Augustine far more convincing than Anselm and Aquinas, yet each repays study – if only for the shaping influence they have had on later cultures and theology.

This is an excellent little book – get hold of it if you can!

50 YEARS OF WOMENS LIB & THIS IS WHERE WE GET TO?

2011-11-11T10:26:00.000Z

Generally, pop music isn’t worth commenting on. It is so ubiquitous, and generally so ephemeral that it doesn’t warrant much response. Yet sometimes it is wise to give some attention to it, if only because of its ubiquity. It is easy to uncritically allow pop to be the sound track of our lives, without adequate reflection on what it is telling us about our lives, and our world.

One song that recently caught my attention (I happened to be in the gym of a hotel, and – as is invariably the case in gyms – MTV was on) is Lana Del Ray’s Video Games. The first thing that caught my attention was the melodic beauty of the song – the tolling bell and harp that open the track set this apart from the normal plastic pop. But my next reaction was a fairly visceral reaction to the lyrics.

At one level Video Games is simply a retelling of boy meets girl – the classic tale of falling in love. I’ve nothing against that! And I’ve certainly got nothing against faithful, serving love. But some of the underlying messages in the song make my skin itchy.

It's you, it's you, it's all for you

Everything I do

I tell you all the time

Heaven is a place on earth with you

Tell me all the things you want to do

I heard that you like the bad girls

Honey, is that true?

It's better than I ever even knew

They say that the world was built for two

Only worth living if somebody is loving you

Baby now you do

The major problem here is the way it locates personal identity in romantic relationship. Romantic relationships are important, and most of us desire them and enter into them, but to define ourselves by them is to sell ourselves short. Key to personal identity should be an understanding that we are made in the image of God, and that (if we have responded in faith to Christ) we shall one day be like God. That is a far more compelling message, and a much better place to get a sense of who you are, than, “I’m nothing without a boyfriend.”

A subsidiary problem is that the object of the song is a typical slacker male, sitting around drinking beer, wasting his time playing video games and leering after the bad girls. This is not the kind of man I would encourage any woman to devote herself to. She would do much better to find a man who works hard, doesn’t look at porn or fantasize about pole dancers (and expect her to act out these fantasies), and is faithfully committed to serving her, rather than having her run around after him.

Young women should have higher ambitions – and higher standards – than this. I wouldn’t want my daughters singing songs like this. After decades of campaigning for women’s rights we should be able to do better than this.

BABYLON OR HEAVEN?

2011-11-04T09:37:00.000Z

Looking back over my preaching of the past 12 months or so it is clear that the themes I have been returning to again and again are the implications of the Christian’s union with Christ and the certain hope of resurrection life. It is what I’m planning to preach again this Sunday morning at Godfirst, Rosebank.

I have been trying to emphasize – repeatedly – the solidity of the Christian hope – that actually we are the most grounded of all people because we of all people will for all time be possessors of all the earth. This is a very different vision from common notions of “heaven.” And it has all kinds of very practical implications.

In choosing a couple of books to bring with me to South Africa I picked up a volume of short stories by HC Bosman. Bosman was a South African author, who wrote in the middle of the last century, and his short stories are brilliant – somehow spacious and rambling yet incredibly pithy and punchy and poignant at the same time. He tells tales based around a collection of rural Afrikaners, living near the Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana) border, and I love them.

As these are Afrikaner stories, set a century ago, the Dutch Reformed Church often features – usually in a somewhat ironic (Bosman is great at irony) and not exactly flattering light. While reading the story “On to Freedom,” this passage caught my eye:

“As you all know,” Wynand Oosthuizen said, “my farm is situated right up against the Limpopo, and I live there alone. Consequently, I have much time in which to think. And I have thought about this question of the predikant (Afrikaans for ‘pastor’) and the young men and diamond diggings. Yes, I have given it much thought. And I perceive that there is only one way in which the predikant will be able to get people to stay away from the diamond fields: he must say that the diamond fields are a lot like heaven.”

We looked at Wynand Oosthuizen, wondering. It seemed to do queer things to a man, living alone like that beside the Limpopo.

Because we made no answer, Wynand Oosthuizen thought, apparently, that we hadn’t understood what he was saying.

“You see,” he went on, “after every Nagmaal (Communion) I have observed that there is a big rush to the diamond diggings. That is because the predikant talks so much about the wickedness of the life on the diggings; how the diamond fields are like Babylon, and how vice and evil flourish there, and how people make money there and then forget all about their duty to the church. Now, if the predikant were to say that the diggings are exactly like the Kingdom of Heaven, nobody would want to go. No, nobody at all.”

Bosman here skewers exactly the problem of so much Christian teaching and theology. A Christianity that teaches mere moralism is attractive only to those who like to live as moralistic legalists. For the rest, well Babylon looks far more attractive. Moralistic legalism only serves to drive people towards the very things it warns against, rather than drawing them towards the riches that are ours in Christ.

If we were to actually understand the implications of the Christian’s union with Christ and the certain hope of resurrection life, then no one would go rushing off “to the diggings.” So it is this that I intend to keep preaching – it is the message that we need to hear.

7 BILLION IS A BIG NUMBER

2011-11-02T13:47:00.000Z

According to this fun statistical calculator, when I was born I was the 3,693,152,001^st person alive on planet earth. (It’s quite nice to be an ‘and first’ – makes me feel special!) This week the total number of people alive on planet earth is thought to have nearly doubled that number, and now stands at 7 billion. (Although there is a significant margin of error in the calculation.)

A rapidly rising population does not depress or worry me as it seems to many people. I have enough confidence in God’s covenant with the earth (Genesis 9:9-17) and in the ingenuity of man, to believe that the potential is there to feed every mouth and clothe every back, without resultant planetary catastrophe. I don’t believe we have resource problems – just sin problems. In a number of developed countries the more likely problem is now actually insufficient population growth, as fertility rates (the number of children a woman has) drop below replacement rates (the number of births required to maintain a stable population) and an ageing population becomes increasingly dependent on a shrinking number of economically active younger people.

The UK population is growing still, though this is largely driven by immigration (as our own fertility rates – Hosiers excepted – are below the replacement rate). But one of the interesting things about being in South Africa is seeing the incredible pace of development. Here the fertility rate still outpaces the replacement rate and this coupled with the need to improve the living conditions of the majority population means vast swathes of land which were previously empty are now covered in housing.

Parts of the Cape and Johannesburg look more like Dubai now than the South Africa of old. Yet the inequalities and needs of millions of people are still painfully obvious – flying into Cape Town or Johannesburg the visitor will be struck by the scale of the townships surrounding the city. On Sunday I drove through a township outside Cape Town, which was a very desperate place. This is where not only poor South Africans but many refugees and economic migrants from other African nations first land when they reach the Cape. Many of them subsequently escape though, making the economic journey from leaking shack to solidly built hut to – perhaps, one day – what you and I might recognize as proper housing.

In the end what most of the worlds 7 billion people want is simply a decent roof over their heads, and enough food to eat and clothes to wear.

This desire is reflected at the heart of the Christian faith. Jesus told his disciples that he was going ahead of them to prepare a place for them in his Father’s house (John 14:1-4); and the end of the story tells of the day when a numberless crowd will stand in worship before Jesus (Rev 7:9-10). On that day maybe there will be even more than 7 billion people standing on this earth (it will be this earth, and I hope there are more than 7 billion people) and not one of them will be naked, or homeless or hungry.

That’s the Christian message – an expectation that we have been given sufficient resources to lift people out of poverty now, and a great hope for an eternity in which there is no poverty.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

BINGE DRINKING IN THE TAVERN OF THE SEAS

2011-10-31T21:42:00.000Z

In January 1989 I turned up in Cape Town as a bolshy 18 year-old and my world was upended. Everything changed for me in Cape Town, and the months I spent here were hugely significant. It was also a time of dramatic change for South Africa. Apartheid was on its last legs, but exactly how things would work out when those legs gave way was anyones guess.

I went back to England (and to university in Newcastle) in September 1989. Early in 1990 Nelson Mandela was released from jail, and South Africa was clearly on an irreversible path to majority rule. That path was a rocky one, however, and for a time it seemed the nation might descend into civil war. Terrible fighting in Natal between members of the ANC and Inkatha, and the revolutionary rumblings of the white supremacist AWB, threatened the worst kind of future for what became known as the rainbow nation.

I returned to Cape Town for a few weeks in 1991. It was a different country, and I was a different person, but Cape Town was still her alluring self.

It was then another ten years before I came back, this time for a weeks holiday, with Mrs Hosier, and a six month old daughter No. 3 in tow. 2001, and everything was different, with apartheid dead and buried, but the ANC Government struggling to meet the expectations of a newly enfranchised people.

And now another decade has passed, and despite numerous trips to southern Africa, it has taken me this long to get back to the mother city. And even this time it was an 'accident' - a sudden rescheduling when my planned trip to Zimbabwe fell through because of problems organizing flights.

So I have been here 60 hours, and like a sailor reaching land after a long haul at sea I have been on the binge. 60 hours of swallowing as much of the Cape as I can before flying up to Johannesburg tomorrow. 60 hours per decade is not enough to slake this addicts thirst. The tourist advertising for South Africa used to boast, "The world in one country," and in many ways that boast was true. South Africa is a nation apart; but Cape Town is a whole other world to itself. It is a unique place, and gets into the blood as surely as the Cape winds cut through your clothes.

Spending time with Jubilee Community Church has been a massive joy and privilege. Even in a church of 1,000 people the passage of time means there are only a handful still here who were here 22 years ago; yet somehow it feels like coming home. This was a church that taught me so much, and my thinking has again been challenged and enlarged by this latest brief encounter.

Thank you Cape Town. Thank you Jubilee.

BOOK REVIEW: AFGHANISTAN

2011-10-27T12:13:00.004+01:00

Danger Close: Commanding 3 PARA in Afghanistan by Stuart Tootal, and, Losing Small Wars: British military failure in Iraq & Afghanistan by Frank Ledwidge

Constant conflict from the first Gulf War to the rise of Al Qaeda (culminating in 9/11) to the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, has in many ways been the story of my generation. Unlike the earlier metanarratives of the long stand off of the Cold War or the Second World War, this conflict has felt much more morally ambiguous and indeterminate.

These two contrasting books offer interesting analysis of British involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Published in 2009, Colonel Tootal’s book was one of the first ‘herographies’ describing the conflict in Afghanistan, while Lt Commander Ledwidge’s (just published) book is among the first of what will surely be a mountain of literature critiquing British strategy in these wars.

Tootal tells a soldier’s story – of being in command of a battalion of paratroopers desperate to prove themselves in combat, and the often bitter reality of what that experience was like. Tootal seems to have been clear sighted about the complexities of being the first significant deployment of British troops into Helmand. How, he asks his Whitehall bosses, will he gain the support of the local population if he destroys their livelihood – the production of opium poppies? No answers are forthcoming.

Tootal also describes the complexity and confusion of the command structure within which he had to work, “In essence it meant that I had three bosses to work to.” This was a recipe for disaster in a theatre of operations like Helmand.

The political and military complexities of Helmand meant that the Paras were put in no win situations, for example, when they were tasked with rescuing a police chief who had been captured by the Taliban. This police chief was corrupt and a threat to the general population, yet to not rescue him would be seen to undermine the governor of Helmand who represented the Afghan government and so had to be supported.

Ledwidge is a barrister and military reservist who has served in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan, and brings a forensic eye to British military strategy. Losing Small Wars is replete with eye watering facts and figures. For instance:

It costs £400,000 to keep each British soldier in Afghanistan for a year
The campaign in Afghanistan costs £6 billion each year
Of 7,000 British soldiers in Basra in 2006 only 200 were actually available for patrolling
In Helmand, from a Brigade of 3,500 men, there were only a maximum of 168 men able to conduct combat operations
“There are, proportionately eight times more generals in the UK armed forces that there are in the US Marine Corp, four times as many as in the US army, and as astonishing ten times as many as the Israelis have.”
Javelin rockets (costing £70,000 each) were routinely fired at sniper positions; and “Until early 2010 it was common to call in an air strike and drop 1,000 kilogramme bombs (cost £250,000 plus £35,000 an hour fuel for the constantly patrolling jets) on the position

Tootal recognizes the way his unit’s presence inflamed the situation in Helmand:

There is no doubt in my mind that our arrival had stirred up a hornet’s nest in a province that many had considered quiet until then. But it was only quiet because the Taliban and the drug warlords had been allowed to hold the ascendency there. There was no rule of law, no government authority and any ‘peace’ was due to the ruling tyranny and corruption of bandits and insurgents. Although no one ever said it to my face, some safe at home in the bureaucratic corridors of Whitehall later suggested that 3 PARA might have been overly aggressive in its approach. But they were not the ones shedding blood, sweat and tears in the service of their country.

In contrast, Ledwidge argues that the Paras were overly aggressive and it might well have been better to leave some of the ‘bandits’ in position. Ledwidge plots the mess that 3 PARA were going to find themselves in. An SAS team had been operating in Helmand and warned against a number of decisions that Whitehall was to take. “The mess that the British were about to find themselves in was rooted in their meddling with local governance that they neither understood nor had the capacity to control.”

Ledwidge is also good on the history of British military entanglements in Afghanistan, and reflects the fact that while the British may not have any cultural memory of our previous Afghan wars, the Afghans certainly do. Three times previously we had entered Afghanistan, and each time received a good whipping; for the Afghans, this was simply going to be the next instalment in a series of engagements stretching back to 1839.

Throughout, Ledwidge is critical of British arrogance and sense of superiority over the Americans in fighting counter-insurgency warfare, when it has actually been the Americans who have been faster to learn and displayed greater competence. Senior British officers continually harped on about the lessons of Malaya and Northern Ireland, when these were entirely different conflicts from those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ledwidge is also critical of the decision to make 16 Air Assault Brigade (of which 3 PARA is a part) the first British troops to enter Helmand. As the most aggressive element of the British Army, they were an unlikely choice for what was a peacekeeping mission, and while commending Tootal’s professionalism, Ledwidge questions his lack of engagement with the ‘human terrain’ – that is, having an understanding of what a ‘war among the people’ might actually mean.

The Paras were isolated in ‘platoon houses’ and used overwhelming force and heavy weaponry to defend themselves, that destroyed town centres, with the result that, as Ledwidge records it, “the British had fulfilled exactly their historic role as most Helmandis saw it – that of aggressive and destructive invaders.”

Ledwidge makes the shocking point that the British have now been in Afghanistan longer than the Soviets were, and have achieved less than the Soviets did. There was a chronic shortage of Pashtu speakers attached to the military, and an apparent blindness to the fact that a group of heavily tooled up foreigners patrolling the streets of Helmand might be perceived as threatening by the natives.

Ledwidge sums up his criticisms like this:

The form of ‘expeditionary warfare’ on which Britain’s armed forces staked their future has proved to be beyond their commanders’ capabilities. A failure to adapt, antediluvian structures and intelligence systems, deployment schedules that ensures a lack of continuity, a cavalier attitude to post-entry planning, a mentality geared to excessive readiness to use extreme violence, an attachment to archaic traditions and imagined histories – all of these factors played their part. Inadequate equipment and a dearth of personnel coexisted alongside a vastly swollen command structure that was proportionately eight times the size of that of the US marines.

Having read a number of reviews of Losing Small Wars by serving military personnel it appears that most soldiers agree with Ledwidge’s analysis. But against the backdrop of the dreadful strategic failures of the military high command must be measured the bloody reality of the cost to British troops. The most harrowing chapter of Danger Close is the account of a patrol that stumbled into a minefield on Kajaki Ridge which resulted in the death of one man, and several others losing legs. The subsequent poor treatment of the injured men, and the penny-pinching approach to their families (especially in light of the overall costs of the campaign) is shocking.

Reading these books left me with a sense of admiration for the bravery and courage of individual men, but something approaching outrage at the overall picture of our recent military adventures. We have made colossal mistakes.

HALLOWEEN

2011-10-26T10:46:00.000+01:00

A friend in my Life Group pointed me towards these comments by John Piper about Halloween:

Apparently, some of my friend's friends were shocked by Piper's somewhat laissez faire approach to Halloween. Of course, Piper is an American, and within American culture Halloween has occupied a very different place from that which has historically been the case in the UK. A watershed for us was when the ET movie came out, and suddenly the 'Americanization' of Halloween began to happen in the UK - now it is a huge deal, at least commercially, and our shops are at the moment packed with ghoulish attire.

So what should our response be?

Well, I am inclined towards Piper's relaxed attitude on this one. I think it is an area where Christians can look very foolish when they have an overheated reaction. As I have written elsewhere, my belief in the supremacy of Christ over all things means I don't need to get in a panic about Halloween. However, as a parent, and as a Christian, I would have the following rough framework:

I wouldn't let my kids go out trick or treating. I don't like the way it seems to be begging for stuff, and I know that for some people (especially the elderly) it can be intimidating to have kids banging on their doors asking for sweets.
When other peoples kids knock on our door we give them something - not a tract about the evils of the occult, but some sweets or cake. Why? Because it is an opportunity to demonstrate grace and generosity.
I have pumpkins outside my front door. Not in celebration of Halloween, but because Daughter No.4 grew them, and they look good!
I wish trick or treating was one habit we hadn't imported from the US!

BOOK REVIEW: HEAVEN

2011-10-22T16:47:00.001+01:00

Heaven, by Randy Alcorn

A friend, seeing me reading this book, asked if I liked Randy Alcorn’s writing – and yes, I do. I like the way he sets our earthly experiences against a backdrop of eternity, and I have found his teaching on money, especially, incredibly helpful. That said, I did not read Heaven quickly, as I would with something I can’t put down. It’s not that the book is anyway dull or uninteresting, but it is quite detailed, and actually lends itself to being dipped into, rather than read in big chunks, cover to cover.

The book is divided into three sections. Part 1 provides a theology of heaven; Part 2 answers practical questions about heaven; and the third (short) Part addresses how we should live now in the light of heaven.

The first section is thorough and helpful. Alcorn tackles the many distorted views we can have of heaven – that it will be boring, or ephemeral. Alcorn is very good on this, emphasising again and again the physicality of heaven, and just how delightful it will be. He quotes a little too liberally from The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia for my taste, but those stories do at least help to paint a picture of what we might expect in heaven.

Alcorn is also good in explaining the distinction between heaven as it now is, and heaven as it will be – after the resurrection when heaven and earth (and it will be this earth, though earth made gloriously new) are united in time and space. It is this heaven that ultimately we long for! In explaining these things Alcorn demolishes ‘Christoplatonism’ that fails to do justice to the bodily nature of our heavenly existence. This is such an important thing to grasp – anything physical that we enjoy now is only a foretaste of the physical pleasure we will enjoy forever in heaven.

I should imagine that most readers of this book will immediately turn to Part 2, however, which deals with the kind of questions everyone has asked at some point. Alcorn isn’t afraid to cover all kind of bases here. For example, have you ever wondered whether you will see a favourite pet in heaven? Alcorn thinks you might! Have you wondered whether there will be books, or art, or entertainment in heaven? Alcorn gives some intriguing answers. What about sport, or the adrenaline kick that danger can provide? This is something that has often bothered me as so much of what I regard as pleasurable involves the potential for injury! And Alcorn is helpful, speculating that it might be possible to hurt ourselves – but to then experience instant and perfect healing; and that we might (for example) still know the effects of gravity – which means climbing would still be dangerous – and fun!

Of course, in some of these answers Alcorn veers closer to speculation than to exegesis, but the whole book is scripture saturated, and is never merely speculative. While I might question some of Alcorn’s conclusions I appreciate his commitment to working out answers from the pages of the Bible.

The final part of the book is a reminder to us of how a belief in an eternal heaven should affect our lives here and now on earth. Alcorn returns to the theme of his books on money and possessions and asks,

What will last for eternity? Not your car, house, degrees, trophies, or business. What will last for eternity is every service to the needy, every dollar given to feed the hungry, every cup of water given to the thirsty, every investment in missions, every prayer for the needy, every effort invested in evangelism, and every moment spent caring for precious children – including rocking them to sleep and changing their diapers. The Bible says we’ll reap in eternity what we’ve planted in this life.

That is an encouraging thought, and this is an encouraging book.

Howver, for those who might feel daunted by the 500 pages of Heaven, there is a pocket sized summary of the book available, in the Tyndale Touchpoints series. It is this book I will be recommending at Gateway when I preach on heaven in a few weeks time. Shorter, pithier and cheaper than the big book, it is well worth laying your hands on.

BLOCK

2011-10-21T11:17:00.000+01:00

I spend a fairly large proportion of my working week writing.

When I first started working for a church I don’t think I envisaged quite how much writing it would involve, but I must have bashed out millions of words over the past 16 years.

There is the writing of sermons; writing small group study notes; writing training guides; writing emails; writing pastoral letters; writing blog posts; writing magazine articles – writing, writing, writing.

I guess not every church leader does as much writing as me (though plenty do a lot more) but this is partly a reflection of my own personality and bias: I like writing. I like to get things down on paper, and I like to work on a sentence, a phrase, a paragraph. I like to see how words fit together, and to try and get the right punch! and flow in what I write. I hate reading poor writing. Many is the book that I have either discarded or taken an age to read, not so much because of weak content, but due to sloppy syntax. (This is a particular bane of Christian paperbacks.)

But sometimes in this torrent of words I get block. Like a hefty log wedged between the banks of a stream and stopping its flow, there are times when writing feels more a torture than a pleasure. This week has been one of those weeks. No inspiration for blog posts. Sermon preparation as laboured as a chain-smoking geriatrics breathing. Enthusiasm for other pieces of important preparation running at a crawl.

How to fix the problem?

Maybe writing about it will help!

A POLITICIAN IN THE PARK

2011-10-14T15:57:00.000+01:00

A bit of a furore has been stirred up today by the news that Cabinet Office minister Oliver Letwin has been seen throwing away documents in St James’s Park.

Letwin is MP for West Dorset, a particularly beautiful constituency, that is not far from Poole, and I find it rather endearing that Letwin chooses to do some of his work in the park rather than in the office – clearly he feels the need for green space. For the short time I worked in central London I would often disappear to the park (in this case Hyde rather than St James’s) at lunchtime and find a bench to sit and read on in relative tranquillity. But the idea of a very senior politician using a bench as his office is a rather surprising one.

Probably the best known Psalm is the twenty-third:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.

I imagine the average day in the life of a cabinet minister is fairly turbulent and the desire to find some still water must be strong. Perhaps, amongst the ducks and pelicans in St James’s Park, Mr Letwin found some of that peace. I hope he isn’t now hounded out of it by the outraged squeals of the media and Opposition. So I hope that all those papers Letwin threw into the park bin were merely low-interest, low-security mailbag filler.

In a year when we have seen our cities rocked by civil unrest I find it somehow reassuring to know that one of our senior leaders is quietly sitting in a London park, reading – and discarding – his papers.