Theology Everywhere

by Philip Sudworth.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York in 2001, Billy Graham took a very different approach from those television evangelists who declaimed that God was punishing the country. In a sermon delivered at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. he said: “I have been asked hundreds of times why God allows tragedy and suffering. I have to confess that I do not know the answer. I have to accept, by faith, that God is sovereign, and that He is a God of love and mercy and compassion in the midst of suffering.”  He added, “We’ve seen so much that brings tears to our eyes and makes us all feel a sense of anger. But God can be trusted, even when life seems at its darkest.”[1]

The main comfort for many Christians is that Jesus is alongside them in their suffering.  As Pope John Paul II put it: “The crucified Christ is proof of God’s solidarity with man in his suffering.”[2]   This message of consolation, solace and re-assurance is found in the Hebrew scriptures. When the Israelites were feeling desolate and abandoned in slavery and exile in Babylon, Isaiah brought them a message from God: “You are precious to Me. You are honoured, and I love you. Do not be afraid, for I am with you” (Isaiah 43:4-5).

Amidst the persecution of the early Christians, Paul could write “For I am convinced that there is nothing in death or life, in the realm of spirits or superhuman powers, in the world as it is or the world as it shall be, in the forces of the universe, in heights or depths – nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

The trusting acceptance of what happens to us as ‘God’s will’ may apply when we are the ones suffering, but is this acquiescence equally valid when suffering is being endured by others or when we see the evil in the world?  Should we not rage against it and take what action we can?  Perhaps we should stop blaming (or excusing) God for injustice and suffering in the world and look for the love in it which will enable us to do something about creating more fairness and removing some causes of suffering. 

A long-standing tradition in Christian philosophy is the unknowability of God.  As St Augustine of Hippo put it, “If you understood, it would not be God.”  You don’t talk to a four-year-old about nuclear physics and quantum uncertainty, and you don’t talk to people who think the earth is flat and at the centre of a 3-tier cosmos about a universe that’s 43 million light years across with 200 billion galaxies and still expanding.  So, you would expect God to reveal himself to us, and to other people, at different times and in different places, in terms and at a level that we can understand. As our knowledge, both individual and societal, develops, God’s self-revelation becomes an on-going process. Much remains, however, a mystery beyond our understanding, including the problem of suffering.

The 14^th century author of The Cloud of Unknowing wrote, “God can be loved but he cannot be thought. He can be grasped by love but never by concepts. So less thinking and more loving.”  This should be reflected in the way we talk to people about faith, and about evil and suffering.  We have to give people food for the soul, not just food for the mind. When the French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, writer and Roman Catholic theologian Blaise Pascal died, they found on a piece of paper sewn into the lining of his coat a message that he’d carried next to his heart: “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of philosophers and scholars. Certainty, certainty, heartfelt joy, peace.”

We are called to love God with all our hearts, with all our souls and with all our minds. We do need to use our God-given intelligence and to have our own rationale of faith, including how we respond to the problem of suffering. That has to be seen, however, within the context of the limits of human understanding. If we think we have all the answers, we have not yet found half the questions, and we are not showing enough awareness of the mystery of faith. 

This final article of a series on suffering – see also:

Suffering and Evil – Our Fault?

Suffering and Evil – For our benefit?

Suffering and Evil – A Different View of God?

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[1] Billy Graham (2001) – Sermon at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C  – September 14^th, 2001

[2] John Paul II (1994) – Crossing the Threshold of Hope. (Jonathan Cape.)

by Jennie Hurd.

As a probationer presbyter, the preacher at my Welcome Service in the old Nuneaton and Atherstone Circuit in September 1993 was the late (and, I’d say, great) Rev Donald Eadie, then Chair of the former Birmingham District. I remember very little about the service, though I haven’t forgotten that Donald preached on “Halfway Houses.” I have no idea what else he said or what was his meaning, but the phrase has stayed with me, and I’ve dug it out and pondered it from time to time. It resurfaced recently when I was reflecting on the image of a bridge as a metaphor for ministry and Christian service, whether lay or ordained.

Perhaps the concept of a Halfway House is not too dissimilar to the idea of a bridge. I feel I’m quite familiar with bridges as I grew up near the banks of the River Humber, very close to the north towers of the Humber Bridge. We watched the towers growing and the Bridge slowly coming to completion, and we were granted a day off school when the Queen came to open it. It joined a river between two counties, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, that had been spoken of being bridged since the days of the Romans, according to my grandmother. It’s entirely possible than John Wesley himself might have wished there’d been a Humber Bridge in his day. It could have made some of his travelling easier!

There is an old Welsh saying, ‘A fo ben bid bont’: ‘The one who would lead must be a bridge.’ Bridges join and connect. They make possible meeting halfway, and enable communication and engagement. They allow for new encounters, explorations and experiences. They bring people together and enable the kind of relationship building that can lead to deeper, richer life for all parties. They can literally be life savers, allowing goods, medicines and skilled and able workers in and out of areas. Bridges can be fun (who hasn’t enjoyed a game of Pooh Sticks?) but they can be risky places as well, especially when particularly high and elevated. A bridge can be very vulnerable: they need constant inspection, maintenance and repair, and adverse conditions or human attack can cause damage or destruction. Day to day wear and tear has its impact, as a bridge is driven upon and walked over. There are many beautiful old bridges that were fit for purpose when first erected but which are challenged by the demands of 21^st century life. In the light of the old Welsh saying, the metaphor of a bridge throws light on the joys and privileges of servant leadership, but also the potential costs. 

This year marks the 700^th anniversary of the Nicene Creed. As I understand it, one of the purposes for the creed’s creation was as an anti-Arian move to affirm and establish the nature and truth of the incarnation within the church’s theology. The person of Jesus is both fully human and divine, the one who, “for us and our salvation, (he) came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human.”[1] While all our metaphorical language for the divine is inadequate, the image of Jesus’ person and ministry, his death and resurrection as a bridge, bringing to an end the gulf between earth and heaven, God and humanity, speaks to me very powerfully. The bridge belongs to both territories and to more than both territories, and while it may be a thing of beauty and worthy of praise and admiration, its primary purpose is to serve. Jesus as the bridge offers a pattern and inspiration to his followers: ‘A bo ben bid bont.’

Other metaphors relating to the incarnation present themselves. The late Rev Liz Smith, Chair of the former Leeds District and a Cornishwoman, sometimes spoke of the Cornish image for Jesus of a mermaid, as found in a carving in the 15^th century church of St Senara. It depicts one who inhabits two worlds, two environments, even two species, bridging and uniting them. It’s an image that may speak to some but not to others. Different concepts inevitably resonate with each of us differently, but I would want to suggest that if an idea seems to enrich and inspire our discipleship, it’s worth pondering and praying over, our incarnate God communicating through the things of this earth.

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[1] The Methodist Worship Book, MPH 1999, page 135

by Tom Stuckey

When I candidated for the ministry in the 1960s my wife and I both understood that we were embracing a life of self-sacrifice. This idea of sacrifice was re-enforced during my three years of residential training at Richmond College, founded in 1842 to train missionaries. Each day we students passed beneath the Memorial Boards of those pioneer students who had responded to the missionary call. It was salutary to see how many of those who went out and died ‘in the field’ after serving for less than two years. Dietrich Bonheoffer, who had stood beneath these boards before returning to Nazi Germany, wrote, ‘When Christ call a man he calls a man to die’ We students could not fail to absorb this idea of ‘making the sacrifice complete’. Our partners knew this too.

I recall also how in 1965 the President, Professor Gordon Rupp, spoke to the Ministerial Session of Conference on the subject of the ‘Pastoral Office’. He suggested that the survival of God’s people depended on the effectiveness of the Pastor who like the Good Shepherd ‘sacrifices himself for the sake of the sheep’.

This word ‘sacrifice’ does not sit easily today within a middle class culture of self-fulfilment yet its reality still challenges the contemporary family. For example; do you, as a responsible parent, put your career before your family? In times past the role of each parent and the children was clearly defined. Not so today where parents attempt to balance competing expectations. What however remains evident is that within a family someone, if not everyone, has to make some sacrifice if the family is not to be fragmented.

Within the ministerial family of former days, the husband’s vocational demands usually came first forcing the wife and children to make the greater sacrifice. Thankfully we live in a more enlightened age. Today’s ordained ministers are advised to work two sessions out of three each day, guard their days off and take their quarterly breaks; all ‘well-being’ matters designed to reduce stress – sensible yes but theologically questionable? Moreover, today ministers have to deal with issues which were not there thirty years ago and these have changed the very nature of how we spend our days. The shortage of ministers, the ever increasing statutory demands and the burden of responding to and producing data for our ravenous technological machines, is turning active pastoral ministers into desk-sitting managers. We are suffering from what Christina Maslach calls ‘structural stressing’.[1]  I must therefore ask, ‘At what point does the concern for ministerial well-being undermine the vocational and theological call of Jesus ‘to deny self, take up the cross and follow? (Mk.8.34).

In June I wrote an article in the Methodist Recorder with the above title within the series of Elder Voices. Since then, I have continued to think further about this idea of ‘making the sacrifice complete’. I have been helped by John Barclay’sarticle Is Self-Sacrifice a Christian Ideal in which he approaches this issue in a different way. He rightly points out that self-sacrifice can lead to harmful self-negation. The ultimate end of sacrifice, he argues, is not simply about loss but also about gain. Self-sacrifice is about giving one’s self into a relationship of solidarity with others, such that ‘all can flourish together’. It is not a binary concept but a corporate one. ‘Give and it will be given to you’, is one of a series of texts in Luke 6 which sets the idea of loss in the context of gain. Barclay concludes, ‘Our self-other polarity makes it almost impossible for us to understand how a gain for others can be also, and legitimately, a gain for oneself… if we understand ourselves as made to flourish ultimately as we conjoin our identity with that of Christ, we have a vision that is richer and fuller than the heroization of self-sacrifice.’[2]

Both Christine and I look back over my sixty years as a Methodist Minister with gratitude. Yes, the Church has generated many stressful times for us and our children, yet these occasions of anguish and agony fade when compared to the abundant joy and sense of well-being that we have experience. God has blessed us! This, I suggest, is a by-product of attempting to ‘make the sacrifice complete’.

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[1] Christina Maslach, BurnOut, ISHK. p.69.

[2] Methodist Sacramental Fellowship – August 2025.

by Josie Smith.

I never quite believed the old illustration about the butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil, thus starting a process which eventually leads to a tornado in Texas.    My mind couldn’t stretch enough to encompass the magnitude and nature of the idea.     And yet I try to live my life according to another idea, that of God, whose magnitude and nature has been stretching my mind for a very long time.  

I first encountered the challenge of non-separability in an article in the ‘face to faith’ bit of the Guardian on December 4th 2004 by Mike Purton, which made sense to me, though quantum physics / mechanics were way outside my scope.   I have kept the article, and have often read it again over the years.   Mike Purton, a writer, musician, music producer and one time BBC television producer, talks about what physicists call entanglement – the state of two or more particles which once they have interacted with each other will always be connected, whatever the subsequent distance between them.    He prefers the term ‘non-separability’ – a significant difference.     If all matter emerged from the Big Bang, at a fundamental level the particles it consists of can never be separated.

Purton goes on to suggest that what physicists now believe – and it was the hot topic in physics in the 1980s and had been suspected by scientists and philosophers for a long time – is possibly the biggest revelation of that century for theologians too.    ‘It seems to be too immense a concept, too remote from our everyday lives – until we view it from the spiritual perspective.’

It makes sense, doesn’t it?     I have never quite accepted that God, who is manifestly active in so many of the lives of people I know can be ‘the same yesterday, today and forever’ unless being ‘the same’ implies that dynamism which is energy and expansion and development and activity and movement.       It is inconceivable to think of ‘the same’ as implying ‘static’.

If we are all created by God, ‘in God’s image’ as we say, then we are all particles of the God-stuff (is there anything else?) and can never be separated from God or from other beings.   We are interdependent, and what we do as individuals has an effect on other beings, as they have on us, whether we are aware of it or not.     The Brazilian butterfly had no idea what she was starting!

The implications for loving our neighbour as ourselves are endless.  

At that sort of depth we are our neighbour, and we need to find and recognise the God-particle within each of us; including our limited selves.

And what are the implications for our treatment of our home, the Earth?

Our relationship with other animals?    Trees?    How does it affect our political judgement, the work we do, the way we spend our time and our money, as well as how we treat people, how we pray for people including those who want to harm us?     What does it say to us about our education system and our prison system, our attitude to paying tax, our loyalties to family, to peer group, to football team, to tradition, to nation? If we are essentially all one, dare we exclude anyone?

Teilhard de Chardin in The Future of Man (1959) quoted a version of Christ’s message as ‘Love one another, recognising in the heart of each of you the same God who is being born.’    Purton claims that in Christ’s own time a God of love would have been an alien concept.    Judgement Day could come at any moment and would see people eternally damned if they did not worship the wrathful God.     But Jesus spoke of – and was the embodiment of –love, and said ‘Be one, even as my Father and I are one.’ (cf John 17:21)

If we are indeed all one, all part of a single spirit, as I am increasingly believing as I approach the end of my earthly life, there is no separation between me and my neighbour, and it follows that loving my neighbour (as myself) becomes the only possible way to be completely alive.

I did say quantum mechanics / physics were beyond my mental capacity – but in the depths of my being I sense truth here somewhere.

by Philip Sudworth.

In the previous two articles on suffering and evil (Our Fault? and For our benefit?), we’ve explored various explanations of why a loving and all-powerful God might send, or not prevent, suffering.  It is possible that God is not entirely loving or not all-powerful or has voluntarily given up some power, or isn’t the sort of God who directs everything that happens.

Christian tradition presents images of God that go beyond the loving father, suffering servant and shepherd to include a mighty king who demands obedience and an avenging judge.  In the Old Testament, God’s nature is depicted as including jealousy, anger, vengeance and a strict sense of justice alongside his love for his chosen people.  John Stott, a leading evangelical writer, speaks of: “an inner tension between his ‘compassion’ and his ‘fierce anger”’.[1]   Righteousness and justice are seen as important aspects of the nature of God. Although the main message of Christianity these days is one of love, traditionally the church has not only acknowledged this need to fear God but has used the threat of judgement and eternal torment for the non-Christian in its evangelism.  Images of the expected Second Coming of Jesus are full of reward and retribution.

Could God be entirely good if he planned before time began for children to die painfully as part of his scheme for the salvation of humanity?  This is echoed in the cry of Ivan in Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov: “If the sufferings of children … [are] necessary for the purchase of truth, then I say beforehand that the entire truth is not worth such a price.”[2]

It is sometimes claimed that God’s plan for the ultimate welfare of the universe is well worth the suffering of individuals.  Few great victories have been achieved without casualties or martyrs.  (There were more Christian martyrs in the 20^th century than in all the previous 19 centuries put together.) The battle against evil may also demand sacrifices.  This presumes that God isn’t all-powerful in the struggle against the forces of evil. 

Peter Vardy rejects the view that God is in total control and suggests that a God who would deliberately cause the painful death of a child would not be worth worshipping.   “A God who can control everything that happens and who allows so much suffering is a malevolent God.”[3]  He suggests that God’s freedom of action in the world “is limited by the universe he has chosen to create.”[4]  More direct intervention by God would destroy human freedom and their ability to choose their response to him.

An alternative view of God is that he is not a being out there somewhere, watching and directing what happens in the world, but is within us and within everyone else as well.  This gives a different perspective.  God is no longer outside observing the suffering, he is undergoing it with us.  One of the things that helped Archbishop Desmond Tutu to keep going during his people’s suffering under Apartheid was the story of the fiery furnace.  Nebuchadnezzar was amazed to see that not only were Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego not burnt but he could see a fourth figure in the furnace with them.  Tutu realised the story was saying was that God wasn’t sitting up in Heaven watching, he was in the middle of the suffering with them.  No matter how tough things got, they’d never be alone; God would be in there with them. 

In his book, Night, about his experiences in Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel recounts how, a young boy is hanged in front of the whole camp for breaching a minor rule. The two men hanged with him died quickly but the small, half-starved boy took half an hour to die. As he writhed in his agony, Elie heard someone behind him ask – “‘Where is your God now?’” Elie relates that he heard a voice within him answer: “‘Where is he?  Here he is – he is hanging here on the gallows.’”[5] ⁴

The view of God within us holds out the prospect and hope of man as a race evolving spiritually and morally as well as physically and mentally.  It requires us to look forward at how we can help to work towards a better future for humankind.  The more we attune ourselves to the God within us, the better we will be prepared to tackle the problems in the world. 

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[1] Stott J.R.W. (1986) – The Cross of Christ (Inter-Varsity Press)

[2] Dostoevsky F. [1880] – The Brothers Karamazov (Quartett Books)

^[3] Vardy P. (1992) – The Puzzle of Evil (HarperCollins.)

[4] ibid.

[5] Wiesel E. (1982) – Night (Penguin)

by Philip Sudwoth.

This is part of two of a series which began with last week’s article.

It is often suggested that the world God designed was good and did not originally contain any suffering or evil. It is expected that, when Jesus returns, he will remove suffering and evil from the world and return it to a state of perfection. But would an absence of suffering and evil really create an ideal world?

Once all danger, effort, and suffering are removed, there’s no scope for the best human qualities.  Without danger there’s no courage; without shortages, no generosity; without struggle, no achievement; without hurt, no compassion; without uncertainty, no hope or faith; without sacrifice, no self-giving love. If there were no death, none of us, and none of those whom we have known and loved, would ever have been born, because the world would have been full up long ago.  Without the deep inter-personal feelings that can lead to grief and heartache, we would never be able to enjoy the wonderful intimate love of the special people with whom we’ve shared so many moments of joy, fun and quiet togetherness.  Without the freedom to act wrongly, there’s no virtue.  If everything were perfect, there would be no room for development and progress, for vision, or for challenge.  This may seem to be an imperfect world, but our responses to these very imperfections have given rise to all the creativity, love and self-sacrifice and the glorious diversity that God has developed in humanity. 

For parents one of the most difficult things is to allow your children to make mistakes, particularly ones that can lead to them into harm.  Yet, if we want them to grow into mature and confident adults, we cannot always be there to catch them before they fall.  Few learn to ride a bike without incurring a few grazes.  As they grow up into young adults, they will acquire emotional hurts too, as they learn to handle relationships.  Part of our love for them is to help them to become independent from us.  While continuing to offer support, we must gradually give up all control over them.  When they make key life decisions, we can offer advice, but the choices – and the consequences – have to be theirs. 

If we have free will, God can have no direct control over us.  We cannot be free to choose good unless we are equally free to choose evil or to hurt others or ourselves.  We must take the consequences of our decisions and actions and of those that flow from other people.  We cannot expect God to suspend the physical laws of the universe every time we or others make a wrong decision. 

If one believes in life beyond death in which the person continues to develop spiritually, suffering in the present life can be seen in the context of a much broader total picture.  It is one experience amongst many, a way of giving people insights into what is really important as a preparation for a new existence. John Keats saw this world as a ‘vale of soul-making’.¹  ‘Do you not see how necessary a World of Pains and troubles is to school an Intelligence and make it a Soul.’[1]  Several of the epistles show that the early Christians, many of whom suffered persecution and even martyrdom for their faith, not only gained comfort from Christ in their adversity but considered it a means of grace, and a cause of joy, to suffer for him. 

Romans 5:3 sees the role of suffering in creating “perseverance, character and hope.”    However, while a saintly person may be helped to new heights of spirituality through the experience of pain, what is the possible benefit to a once intelligent and caring person who has a severe stroke, and spends their last months unable to recognize their family, doubly incontinent and in constant pain?  How does the painful death of a young child contribute to its spiritual growth?

Those who feel that pain is ennobling maintain that God never asks us to carry more of a burden than we can bear.  However, there are also those who are crushed by tragedies that befall them, some who are bitter for the rest of their lives, or who are scarred mentally. Suicide is the greatest cause of death in the UK for men aged between 19 and 49. Legislation to make available assisted dying to relieve intolerable suffering is now within parliamentary process in the UK towards new law being enacted.  When a drunk driver kills a pillar of the community who is the parent of a young family or a fatal disease strikes down a child, there is a sense of lack of fulfilment.  In each of these situations, there is the effect on those left afterwards to consider. For many people the suffering they bear continues to be without purpose, and there are no simple resolutions.

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[1] Forman M.B. (1952) – The Letters of John Keats (Oxford University press).

by Philip Sudworth.

A glance at one typical day’s international news provides ample evidence of the widespread suffering and evil in the world and many of us are all too aware of individual personal tragedies.  The Christian teaching that God is both all-powerful and loving can seem difficult to square with the existence of painful diseases, mental illness, famine, natural disasters, war, or violent crime.  In many cases, the victims of tragedies, violence or diseases are faithful Christians who have spent their lives helping others. This can seem to run counter to a “a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.”  (Psalm 86:15). It is a prime argument for atheists and a major cause of a loss of faith among Christians.

One Christian response is that we live in “a fallen world.” This is based on the Biblical story of humankind’s fall in Genesis.  This tells how God originally created a perfect world but Adam’s disobedience brought death and disorder into it.  The explanation that ‘we live in a fallen world’ seeks to show that any evil is the fault of man, not of God.  In this view, all suffering is the result of sin.  It may be a sin committed by the sufferer himself or by someone else, or it may be due to our inheritance of Adam’s original sin.  New Testament passages such as Romans 5:12 – “Through one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin” – reinforce this understanding and the interpretation of Jesus’ role as redeemer, ‘the new Adam’.  The question arises, however, as to how all this fits into the divine plan. Did Adam’s disobedience cause God’s original plan to go wrong and necessitate Christ’s crucifixion as a Plan B, or was an inevitable Fall always part of God’s strategy? How did putting the forbidden fruit within human reach fit into God’s plan? Was it always intended that Adam and Eve would eat it?  Did God know the outcome before putting the tree there?

Why would God think it justice for all humans to be punished throughout the generations for the disobedience of our first ancestors? That doesn’t seem to fit with “The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against Him.” (Daniel 9:9)? The suggestion that people’s suffering today is an original punishment on the whole of humanity conflicts rather starkly with the notion of a God who loves us  

Against the background of the Fall, it has been suggested that probably as much as 85 percent of the suffering in the world is caused through what humans do to each other or through our abuse of the planet’s resources.  It is man’s selfishness and consequent disregard for others and for nature and for God’s laws that lead to wars, to obesity in some countries and starvation in others, to many accidents, to factories and cars pumping out toxic fumes.  In this view, suffering comes because people do not have the right relationship with God or with others and do not live as God intended.  The disobedience was, therefore, not a single act for which we are all punished but a continuing series of mistakes, to which each of us contributes and for which we are jointly responsible.  As a species, and as individuals, we are reaping what we have sown. However, the basic problem of why a loving God should allow suffering remains, even if we can explain away all but 15 percent of the actual pain in the world – or even all but 1% of it.

The snake who successfully lured Adam and Eve is equated with the Devil or Satan who tempted Jesus.  He is seen as a personal, spiritual being in active rebellion against God or as a force working to harm God’s creation and leading human beings into damaging behaviour.  In baptism and confirmation many churches pose to the candidates (or godparents) the question: “Do you renounce the Devil and all his works?” It is not always clear, however, what powers the Devil is believed to have.  Does he cause earthquakes, droughts, floods and disease?  Is he limited to persuading us to do wrong?  Why he is allowed to operate at all, if God is all-powerful?  certainly, there is within each of us the potential for evil.  Whether that is within our own human nature or the work of a being or an external force is a matter of belief.

Whether we take the account of the Fall in Genesis as history or a universal truth expressed in story form, it is far from an explanation that satisfies all the questions that suffering and evil raise in the 21^st century. We will consider in the next article in this series whether suffering and death, and the possibility of evil were not a punishment but were built into the original design of the world.

by Caroline Wickens.

It was William Tyndale who gave us the word ‘scapegoat’. Translating the Bible into English in 1530, he ran up against the complex account of the rituals of the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16. Two goats were involved, one sacrificed for the sins of the people, the other sent away into the desert to cleanse the people, bearing the high priest’s confession of all their sins (Lev.16:21). Reflecting on the Greek and Hebrew descriptions of this goat, sent out into the wilderness, Tyndale came up with a new word: the goat who escapes, the scapegoat.

Since then, the word has picked up a life of its own. In literature (think Lord of the Flies or Animal Farm) and in real life, societies have responded to pressure by identifying individuals or groups to be ‘sent away’, pushed out into the wilderness.

The philosopher René Girard put the scapegoat concept at the heart of his account of how societies work.[1] Social conflict arises from our tendency to be jealous of each other, seeking to achieve some goal that we see, and desire, in others. This rivalry intensifies when societies experience economic pressure or other factors which limit opportunity. Violence follows, in a cycle of revenge which endangers the wellbeing, stability and survival of the community.

Girard believed that human communities cope with this by externalising their anger into blame directed towards a group or single individual, who is then pushed outside the boundaries of society, expelled (playground bullying) or even killed (witch hunts, mob lynching). This process, he argued, is usually driven by unconscious bias. The result of the violence is the short-term restoration of peace to the troubled community, as everyone shares in approving the scapegoating of the victim. Yet this peace does not and cannot last, for it depends on a mistaken analysis of society’s problems.

Christian tradition, from the Gospels onwards, has acknowledged that this account creates a powerful framework for describing the death of Jesus, the innocent, scapegoated victim. John Wesley saw this, linking Leviticus’ teaching with Isaiah 53:6 ‘the Lord has laid on him the iniquities of us all’.[2]

Girard understands the Gospels’ teaching, more radically, as a move which demolishes the scapegoat model altogether. By refusing to accept their community’s attribution of blame to Jesus, the Gospel writers show that the model explains nothing and changes nothing. Instead, they set out Jesus’ offer of an alternative and far better route towards social cohesion.

The background to Jesus’ message is the strand of Old Testament prophecy in which God longs for ‘mercy, not sacrifice’ (Hosea 6:6). This informs Jesus’ own vision of a kingdom where there is no need to compete for limited goods or limited love. The kingdom banquets symbolise a new society where all have enough (Mark 6:42) so that competition and rivalry are irrelevant. Therefore, says Jesus, you can take the risk of turning the other cheek (Matthew 5:39) and live at peace. Yet he recognises too that this is controversial in a community hard-wired to respond to crisis with violence, and knows that he will bring not peace but division (Luke 12:51).

Why does the ancient account of the scapegoat continue to matter? In contemporary societies across the world, people live under increasing pressure, competing for goods and opportunities, facing crises of many kinds. Girard argued that whenever people react by locking themselves into a given identity, the pressure to create scapegoats is strong.

So where do we recognise scapegoating at work in our own communities?

And what, as Jesus’ disciples, can we do about it?

In a divided society, Girard was adamant that judging others is inexcusable (Romans 2.1) and that the answer is not to ‘practise a hunt for scapegoats to the second degree, a hunt for hunters of scapegoats’.[3]

And Jesus shows us an alternative when he engages with Zacchaeus, the Roman collaborator ostracised by his community (Luke 19:1-10). Reconciliation happened through honest conversation in Zacchaeus’s space; and everything changed.

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[1] René Girard, I see Satan fall like lightning (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis 2001), esp.chapter 12, ‘Scapegoat’

[2] https://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/john-wesleys-notes-on-the-bible/notes-on-the-third-book-of-moses-called-leviticus/#Chapter%2BXVI, accessed 24.08.2025

[3] Girard, I see Satan fall, p.158.

by Paul Coleman.

Disability and long-term illness are issues which effect every church in the UK and many disabled people have experienced harmful teaching related to disability. While there is a growing body of work and resources on the theology of disability this has not yet made its way into theological education and has had little impact on teaching in local churches. This blog explores three common models for understanding disability which are prevalent within the church and reflects on how they shape our reading of stories like John 9, “the man born blind.”

The medical model sees disability as a problem located within the individual, something to be treated, corrected, or cured through medical means. This perspective implies that healing equals wholeness and frames the blind man’s disability as something Jesus fixes. The problem to be addressed is his lack of sight rather than the way in which he is excluded from society.

The moral model interprets disability as a result of sin, divine punishment, or moral failing. This approach often leads to shame and exclusion. It places the problem within the individual, much like the medical model, but with a religious or ethical spin. The disciples’ question in John 9: v2, “Who sinned, this man or his parents?”, reflects this mindset. Although Jesus rejects this reasoning, the text still appears to suggest that the man’s blindness serves a divine purpose. The danger here is that the person becomes a theological object lesson rather than a subject with agency.

The social model, in contrast, sees disability as arising not from an individual’s body or mind but from societal barriers, physical, structural, and attitudinal. This shifts the focus from “fixing” the person to challenging systems that exclude. Read through this lens, the real issue is not the man’s blindness, but the way society treats him, and the assumptions made about him. The first question the disciples ask is essentially who’s fault is it that he is blind. There is no real concern for the man himself.

These models not only shape how we read scripture but also how we translate and interpret it. While my Greek is limited, I’m grateful to my friend and colleague Dr. Charlotte Naylor-Davis for sharing this approach to interpreting the story in John 9. 

“‘neither this man nor his parents sinned’ Jesus said ‘but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming when no one can work.’” John 9: 3-4 (NIV).

ἀπεκρίθη ὁ Ἰησοῦς Οὔτε οὗτος ἥμαρτεν οὔτε οἱ γονεῖς αὐτοῦ ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα φανερωθῇ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ ἐμὲ εῖ ἐργάζεσθαι τὰ ἔργα τοῦ πέμψαντός με ἕως ἡμέρα ἐστίν·ἔρχεται νὺξ ὅτε οὐδεὶς δύναται ἐργάζεσθαι

One of the things we know about the Greek is that there is no punctuation and also none of the useful little headings which tell us what each story is about. So, breaking that down we get this:  

ἀπεκρίθη ὁ Ἰησοῦς  Οὔτε οὗτος        ἥμαρτεν     

Answered Jesus    neither this man sinned     

 ……………………………………………………………………..

οὔτε                   οἱ γονεῖς αὐτοῦ 

nor/neither    the parents of him

 ……………………………………………………………………..

ἀλλ᾽    ἵνα  φανερωθῇ  

but     so/in order that might be displayed 

……………………………………………………………………..

τὰ ἔργα    τοῦ θεοῦ    ἐν αὐτῷ ἡμᾶς δεῖ ἐργάζεσθαι

the works    of God          in him we must work

……………………………………………………………………..

τὰ ἔργα             τοῦ πέμψαντός με        ἕως 

the works       of him who sent me      as long as

……………………………………………………………………..

ἡμέρα   ἐστίν       ἔρχεται           νὺξ        ὅτε     οὐδεὶς      δύναται        ἐργάζεσθαι

day        it is         is coming      night     when no one        can/is able   to work

……………………………………………………………………..

Translators also add various other things, especially when translating the word ἵνα in verse 3, e.g.:

‘this happened so that’ (NIV, as above)

‘he was born blind so that’ (NRSV)

…whereas ‘ἵνα’ just means ‘so that/in order that’

Here’s what happens when we change the punctuation, or use ‘but’ as punctuation keeping the whole thing as one sentence, and not assuming the ‘so that’ clause refers back to being born blind, but instead points forward in the story to ‘doing the works of God’?

“Jesus answered ‘not this man nor his parents, (but) so that the works of God might be displayed in him we must do the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one is able to work.’”

In most bible translations Jesus answers their question with ‘it’s God’s fault he is blind so that a miracle can now happen’ (moral model). If the way the sentence is punctuated is changed, Jesus leaves the question of blame unanswered, but then says ‘However, in order that God’s work can be done, let’s look after this man.’

The healing is for the man, not for those who observe.

The man is centred, not the disciples’ question being answered.

This also fits better with the story in its narrative context. The story centres the man so much that Jesus says one of his ‘I am’ sayings, ‘I am the light of the world’ (John 9:5). Just a few minutes later when the man is asked if he is the person who used to beg, he uses the same words as Christ simply saying Egw eimi: I am (John 9:9). 

Our bibles will have ‘I am the man’ (e.g. NIV) but in the original Greek ‘The man’ isn’t there.

Having at least a basic knowledge of disability theology allows us to interpret stories like John 9 very differently. When we interpret this passage in light of the social model of disability, we discover a story where disability is no longer stigmatised and disabled people are seen as whole, rather than as convenient sermon illustrations or opportunities to demonstrate God’s power.

by Neil Richardson.

    The Old Testament contrasts very sharply the ‘living’ God and lifeless gods – those forces and powers which make us less than human. Biblical writers identify Idolatry as our fundamental, besetting sin, (e.g. Psalm 115.4-8, Wisdom 13.1-9, Romans 1.18-32). Our hope lies in the real, the living God, engaging continuously with us and making time a school of love, so that each present moment is potentially a channel of grace.        

      But the flow of time brings with it a challenge. From its origins onwards Christian  faith has wrestled with the tension between continuity and change. ‘Christianity is always turning itself into something which can be believed’, (T.S. Eliot). Put less provocatively, Christian orthodoxy has to be re-discovered in every generation, (Rowan Williams).  Both a fossilized, unchanging faith and  untested or unexamined change are likely to lead us into sectarianism and heresy.

   In this crisis-ridden time two articles of faith should especially concern us. I refer to what we have called ‘original sin’ and ‘the second coming’.

   The phrase ‘original   sin’ is problematic if it implies the historical reality of Adam and Eve. But belief in the universal sinfulness of humankind remains an essential part of Christian faith, wilfully blind and incurably optimistic as we tend to be.

  I find two themes of St Paul helpful – one challenging, the other encouraging. In Romans 7.7-25 Paul speaks of the sinful ‘I’. That has led us, naturally, to focus  on the individual’s sin. But  ‘the good which I want to do I fail to do…’ describes not just the individual, but every nation, and even the international community. Think of the woolly, often vague  resolutions there have been about increasing overseas aid or reducing stockpiles of nuclear weapons, and, most recently, carbon emissions. Paul’s words now begin to sound more like an epitaph on the entire human race unless -by God’s grace- we repent of our idolatries.

  Clearly, we are not where our Creator meant us to be – or where God intends to leave us. As Paul says, ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’, (Romans 3.23).Psalm 8: sheds light on what that means: our Creator made us ‘a little lower than God’, i.e. in God’s image (Genesis 1. 26-7).

   But the story of our ‘original sin’ and our divine ‘image’ doesn’t end there. Jesus is the one who reveals the glory of a human being made in God’s image. Christ crucified and risen reveals most fully the divine glory and beauty intended for us all. That beauty, as Dostoevsky says, ‘will save the world’.

 There is challenge and good news, too, in a fresh, orthodox understanding of the Second Coming, (not a scriptural phrase).  As with the Ascension of Jesus, a literal understanding has to be left behind. For example, a returning Jesus will hardly ‘touch down’ in Jerusalem. (I believe Christian Zionism has this year been identified as a heresy). That contradicts what Paul says about Jerusalem ‘now’ and Jerusalem ‘above’, (Galatians 4. 25-6). It also contradicts what Revelation implies. The holy city’s descent from heaven describes what began to happen with the coming of Jesus,(Revelation 21.1-6; compare John 1.14). The aorist in Revelation 21.6 could not be more emphatic: ‘It is done!’

   This is the good news: there is a new creation, (the Kingdom) inaugurated with the coming of Jesus. It is unbiblical and immoral to believe that God will ‘intervene’ and rescue us from nuclear war or a climate disaster. Instead, we face God’s ‘formidable non-intervention’.[1] The Old Testament refers to God ‘hiding his face’ (Isaiah 64.7), the very opposite of the life-giving promise of the Aaronic blessing, (Numbers 6.24-6).

    This is the eschatological – i.e. ultimate- tension: God will not save the world without us – and God will not give up either, because God is wholly unchanging love.  Paul is surely describing the ‘second coming’ in this verse from Romans:     ‘the created universe is waiting with eager expectation for God’s sons (sc. ‘and daughters’) to be revealed’, (Romans 8.19).

 In the meantime, we have our idolatry to fight. An over-powering capitalist way of life has taken us all captive. The more affluent we become, the greater seem to be our economic problems, and we ourselves less happy, and more anxious. Which brings us to the world’s poorest people,  –increasing in number, their poverty deepening. In the parable of the Sheep and the Goats neither ‘the righteous’ nor ‘the unrighteous’ seem to know that, in encountering the poor, they are encountering the Son of Man – surely, the everywhere-ness of the coming God?

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[1] The phrase of the great Methodist historian, Herbert Butterfield. See also my recent book Waking Up to God (Sacristy Press 2022)