About

About this blog

This blog is a place where I can try out ideas. Back in the days when blogs were a more significant medium than they are now, and other social media were in their infancy, I used to value the opportunity to interact via a couple of now long defunct blogs. There’s something about the way I am that makes thinking out loud my preferred way of working out what I think I mean. And for me that means something a little more long-form and structured than a Twitter (or even X) thread.

This is simply a space for me to think out loud in, while inviting you to join me in conversations you find interesting. You may have to wait for a response: I neither spend all my time online, nor do I believe it’s good for my sanity, nor, indeed, for most other people’s, if the welter of angst, wilful and inadvertent misinterpretation, and all round "shoutiness" is taken into consideration. 

All opinions expressed are mine and mine only (none should be attributed to anyone I work with or for). Most views expressed will be works in progress, on which I might well change my mind or develop my line of thought, rather than tidily finished articles, far less hills on which I want to die. I welcome comment and conversation to help me develop them.

Comments, however, are items published on a blog which is – effectively – my private slice of online property, not a public space where I am obliged to let any passing troll eat whatever goat they fancy. Deciding not to publish rude, offensive, irrelevant or ad hominem comments is not a suppression of anyone’s freedom of speech. It’s merely saying this house has its own rules. The world of social media is not exactly short of spaces where people can and do say whatever they want.

About this blog’s name

The name of this blog comes from a phrase in the opening book of the bible, from the story of creation. 

"God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." (Gen 1:27, NRSV)

I haven't chosen the Latin to be pretentious . At a practical level it helps provide a web address that isn't taken already. But it's also more interesting at the linguistic level. The English "in" like the Hebrew prepositional prefix "be" (בְּ) leaves the reader some room to decide exactly how the image of God and the human being might be related. The Greek "kat' " (κατ̓ ) – the oldest translation and the one used by the early church – suggests the image of God acts as a kind of template for the creation, "according to the image of God." But the Latin doesn't follow this interpretation and instead introduces a hint of dynamism: "ad" normally means "to", or "towards".

The ”image of God” is about a work in progress. That doesn’t lessen its value as a shorthand for the inalienable dignity of human beings, although it does complicate it as more than a slogan to settle arguments. But it does open the phrase up to including its use in later Christian scriptures as a way of talking about Christ, who provides a repristinated image as both template and goal for humanity. 

The whole story set up in this opening chapter of the collection of books known as the bible is a story about growing into our humanity, which is also a story of growing into the love and life of God. There is a dynamism to it, there is direction, and there is destiny.

How we interpret "the image of God" continues to be debated. It can be little more than a slogan. However, I take it to have something to do with being relational, being creative and being rational: fundamental aspects of our nature that are alike to be valued.

• Relational – it is men and women together who are made in the image of God, and this image includes the capacity, renewed in Christ's incarnation, death and resurrection, to relate to God.
• Creative – made in the image of one who creates. The renaissance, where the idea of Christian humanism first flourished, was both an exploration of learning and an exploration of beauty. Some of its great artworks still endure. We know differently by painting, sculpting, writing poetry, making music, than we do by investigating, analysing, hypothesising and experimenting. But a true humanist surely holds both to be part of how our knowing and growing flourish.
• Rational – the world is given its form and existence by the word or reason of God, and we image God in our rationality. Not only is the world open to investigation, but we approach it with a proper expectation that it should make sense, and that meaningful communication with one another is possible.

About this blog’s subtitle

I’ve subtitled the blog “musings of a Christian humanist”. I did play around with other more descriptive (and perhaps less provocative) subtitles, essentially variations on “faith, scripture, culture and photography”. In the end, though, I think my main title is better complemented by this strap line I’ve used elsewhere. For some people, Christian humanism is an oxymoron: a contradiction in terms. For me, it's the essence of how I think of my faith.

Towards the end of the second century, the early Christian theologian Irenaeus, who was bishop of Lyons, wrote this: "The glory of God is a living human being; and humanity finds life in the vision of God" (Against Heresies, VI.20.7 - my paraphrase). Any understanding we have of God is also – at least implicitly – an understanding of what it is to be human. One longstanding way Christians have had of thinking about the life of faith is as a journey into becoming more fully human, as reflected in this blog’s name. It's for that reason that I choose to stress my approach as Christian humanism.

With other humanisms, the one I'm imagining shares a commitment to truth, to beauty and to the good. (It therefore embraces and values the sciences, the arts and the practice of ethical living.) Unlike many other forms of humanism, it sees that non-exclusive but traditional triad of Platonic values as ultimately derived from, underwritten by, and perfected in, the One who is goodness, truth and beauty. Our apprehension of those values in this life is limited, but Christian humanism holds that they exist in reality; they are neither illusory nor solely constructed by our human cultures.

Finally, I return to those scholars of the Renaissance to whom the word “humanist” was first applied. A key part of their work was to go back to the sources, especially the sources of classical Greece and Rome. This also led to a renewed appreciation of the Christian scriptures in their original languages of Hebrew (with some Aramaic) and Greek, and to the writings of the early Christian centuries. While I make no claims to scholarship or ability with languages, I too intend in this blog regularly to return to these sources.

And (a very short bit) about me

I'm a priest and trainer working in the Diocese of Worcester. I'm into photography, liturgy, the interpretation of texts (especially the biblical ones), the delights of language and how to play around with words, and trying better to understand faith, reason and imagination in today's world. 

I like reading, watching films, walking around with a camera, and having a drink down the pub with friends. I tend to read crime fiction, and occasional spy fiction, to relax, but am not that fond of the obsession too many modern crime writers have with serial killers. I’m a bit of a nerd about Harry Potter. I'm also one of those slightly geeky people who friends tend to ask for computing advice.