Call to Carmelite Renewal

May 13th, 2009

Why do I write this?

Firstly, for the truth about a dear, beautiful, dedicated holy Carmelite who is worthy to stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of John of the Cross, Theresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux.

Secondly, in the hope that the Carmelite Province to which Joe belonged will finally take a good look at itself – something it has not done in centuries – and see what is really there not what it would like to believe is there or what it would like the public to believe is there.

One of Joe’s sayings was that “we all need to take a good look at the skeletons in our cupboards”. It took me a long time to understand what it meant. Now after 40 years I can see its meaning clearly.

The Carmelite province to which Joe belonged (and, quite likely, the Order as a whole) has quite a few skeletons that need close examination. To be examined in humility. Pride drives the Holy Spirit away. To be scrutinised with a desire to see the truth that comes only with the help of the Holy Spirit. This is a task that calls for nothing less than a determined desire to be totally renewed, my dear brothers – no matter what the personal cost. If you give it less than that you will be playing with God. No human will win out in that contest.

If you are not ready for that commitment, admit this to yourself and to God. He can live with that situation. He will respect that honesty. St Augustine, apparently, asked for time – and got it. Why not a Carmelite who needs more time and is not yet ready to take the plunge he should have taken before his profession?

It will cost. To achieve the task you must want to pay the price. If you lack the courage- who of us has it of their own? – then ask for it. “Seek and you will find.”

Christ, the Father, the Holy Spirit are not satisfied with second rate service, “religion on the cheap” as a well-known German Christian put it. It has to be one hundred percent. That is blindingly clear in the Gospel.

It cannot be done – a re-examination of this extent – without hot tears of sorrow because we have caused our Saviour too much pain. A cool calm look will not get anywhere.

That it can be done – there is no doubt. God’s infinite river of infinite mercy still runs strong and clear for those who want to dive into its healing, reviving, life-giving, eternally and astonishingly satisfying waters.

Brother Joe’s deepest wish

He never expressed it in these words, but I feel convinced that, if I had pressed him on this point, dear Joe would have admitted that nothing would give him greater delight than to see his Order take on the task of Renewal in the Spirit of God.

To rediscover its very reason for being: total burning love for the Trinity: the essence of the Carmelite vocation. Nothing less. Each brother, each priest, according to the measure of God’s gift to him, living in that love, growing in that love, to the glory of God and to the salvation of souls.

The Church needs this from you because, as you are at present, you are a slow-release paralysing poison in the life of humanity. Your spiritual inertia generates inertia in those who rely on you. Your refusal – yes – refusal - to move on keeps other Christians marking time. In the Christian life, there is no marking time. There is forward movement or backsliding.

Joe said all this, and he knew what he was talking about, for he was living in it. The few exceptions that there undoubtedly are in your ranks do not invalidate the general observation. It was not “judging” on his part. It was a statement of the obvious.

Is it not obvious to you? It will become so when you take out those “skeletons” and look at them under the microscope of Christ.
Had Christ come to you in a postulant’s habit, you would have treated him as you have treated Joe, because Joe was full of the Spirit of Christ. Christ would have said all the things Joe has said to you- and a good many more.

I end this with a part of Joe’s “teaching” I have already referred to. I put the word in inverted commas because it is not his teaching. It is the Spirit’s teaching. The infinite river of God’s mercy - the only hope for me and the only hope for you. Without that wonderful Mercy – we are done for.
To be continued)

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Brother Eugene McKenna: Carmelite Mystic and Pioneer.

May 13th, 2009

To respect Brother Eugene’s wish that any writing about his life should have as its prime aim the Glory of God, this material, which is based on personal contact, phone conversations and some brief letters to the author, is copyright.
Anyone who wishes to download the material, in part, or even in whole, for reasons of personal spiritual development, is most welcome to do so. This permission applies for use in items like newsletters for use within religious groups or congregations. The author would appreciate notification of such use as it contributes to his knowledge of the benefits to others of his life and teaching.
Copyright © 2008 John Baptist Abrami

“THERE IS NOTHING BUT GOD Eugene McKenna, Carmelite, Mystic
***********

13th June 200 8
PART 1 BRONGLAIS HOSPITAL, ABERYSTWYTH

Brother Eugene, known to many of us also as Brother Joe (Joseph was his baptismal name) died peacefully just under two weeks ago, on Sunday 1st June 2008 in Bronglais Hospital Aberystwyth, Wales.

He had gone in simply for tests. There was talk of his being able to continue at his flat in Bow Street but with extra care. This was not to be. His condition deteriorated. For the 4 days prior to his death he had been unable to speak. Good dear friends were with him all this time. They occasionally spoke to him. Quite probably he could hear them but certainly could not respond externally. They held the phone to his ear at one point for me to speak to him. Did he hear? I could just hear his gentle regular breathing. This was to be the last of our many many phone conversations. This one a bit one-sided unfortunately, with me doing most of the talking – which is the opposite of what usually used to happen!

From Wednesday to the Friday he was in great pain, very agitated, sometimes thrashing about. Diamorphine administered on Thursday helped to calm him. Calm he remained till his release.

THE ROAD TO CALVARY

Brother Eugene, dear beautiful Joe, had suffered a great deal in his last few years with a breaking down of his health. His last year was particularly painful. In a phonecall on the 13th April he said,”I”m in very bad shape. I wouldn”t be surprised if I am dying. It depends on how much He [the Father] wants me to live…Having a shocking time….I”m not against the suffering, but it’’s not knowing what it’’s all about [that is getting at me].”

When I commented,”You”re having your Calvary,” he replied, in his typically blunt concentrated way,”I don”t know. I don”t care [ie it does not concern me]. It can go any day [my health could give way any day]…Only a year ago I was so fresh and full of life. Now so beaten. If I am to live it will be a long hard passage down to normality.”

I think Joe’’s memory was playing tricks here when he says he was “so fresh” only a year ago. His health, unless my time memory is at fault, was far from great even last year. I have mislaid my diary from that year, so I cannot check this.

Latterly he has experienced terrible loneliness. Nothing strange in the lives of deeply holy people. At core it was, I feel pretty sure, a sharing in that terrible feeling of abandonment that Christ experienced on the Cross. Whether Joe ever thought of it in those terms I have no way of knowing.

He ended this phone call on a humorously defiant note:”I”m going to the opticians on Thursday. On my bed. Flogged out…but I”m not dead yet!”
His mobility had been severely curtailed. Two weeks before (phone call 1st April) he informed me that he had been down to Aberayron “to buy myself some wheels”, to get around inside the house and out.

A RELIGIOUS UNLIKE ANY OTHER

Brother Eugene was born in Ireland in Clogher 18 November 1922. He was professed 8 September 1958, one year before my own profession in the same novitiate house of Aylesford Priory. He had lived as a Carmelite for 50 years. Each day totally dedicated to his calling.

I met him when I was a young priest. We were oth members of the same Cheltenham community. In him I discovered a dear, loving, wise companion in the life of Carmel. I had never met any religious, priest or brother, anything like him. Nor have I met any since. His guidance was sure. I found it worked because Brother Eugene spoke from experience. He did not begin to live a spiritual life after his entry into the Order. That entry had been preceded by a seven year period of intensive struggle with God to find his vocation.

I “left” the order to marry in 1980. I put “left” in inverted commas because the leaving was only a matter of space. I never left the Carmel which had taken solid root in my heart. Carmel is a place of the heart, not of where one lives physically. I never left that Carmel. The spiritual journey I began in my year at St Mary’s Carmelite Late Vocation College in Aberystwyth in the year prior to my Novitiate at Aylesford and that continued in Cheltenham with dear Joe as a wise Mount Carmel guide still goes on, enriched in ways I cannot claim to be able to assess, by his enlightened words. Not that he didn”t make the odd mistake. He wouldn”t have been human otherwise. With regards to me, he made only one.

A man who laughed a great deal

Dear beautiful Joe was a man with a great sense of humour. He was full of love for people. I have never met a man who laughed more and more easily than Joe. If he found you were interested in the things of God then he would open up with you and let you into his life as he thought appropriate. Not otherwise. But first and foremost – for that is the First Commandment – dear Joe loved God with all his heart and soul and mind and strength – which is why – when duty did not call him to be somewhere else, he always retreated to his room, to be with the One who is to be found there by those who seek Him. This “privateness”, to use a very rough word, is, perhaps, one of the reasons why his holiness and deep wisdom is still unrecognised by his confreres. It has clearly been in God’’s to us often puzzling Providence to keep this Clogher diamond well hidden.

A spiritual biography

Some day a full biography of his life may be written. It deserves to be. It may, however, not be in God’’s plans. His Father kept him hidden except from those who were fortunate enough to meet him – who were fortunate enough by God’s grace to recognise what he was worth – and were anxious to draw on the living ever-growing stream of enlightenment that flowed deep inside him and regularly broke to the surface. “Enlightenment” was a favourite word of his. A key concept. Absolutely crucial because so little used or, worse, so little experienced in the Church today.

This biography will be mainly a spiritual one. It will incorporate the few biographical scraps I possess, but will above all lay out his wisdom, the word I prefer rather than the phrase “his spiritual teaching”. Why? Because it is not his teaching. It is what he learnt from the Spirit of the Father and of Jesus. And as I indicated above, its main aim is to speak of the God Joe gave his all to discover.

A Carmelite Mystic

If the word “mystic” means anything of closeness to the Trinity, of burning love for God and people, of deep spiritual enlightenment and experiences, this Carmelite Brother Eugene was a mystic. He was blessed with a number of visits from the Mother of Jesus. Her gracious visits to him came as a total surprise. He commented, “I did not even have a particular devotion to Her. I was focussed on the Father.” On one occasion, he told me, (phone call 1 April this year) she said to him:”I have come to you because you love me.” His characteristically simple unassuming comment on that was:”Could she have said anything nicer?”

The tenour of their conversations seems to have been personal between Our Lady and Joe. There seems to have been nothing in them along the lines of “messages” for the wider Church. Had there been, it is inconceivable that Joe would not have made sure to pass them on to someone. Nonetheless the fact of these conversations needs to be recorded because what God gives to any one soul is always to the benefit, some way or other, sooner or later, of all his children.

It only occurs to me now as I re-jig this section that there was a message for the wider Church here – and particularly for religious and priests and bishops. It is simply the life and spirit and enlightenment of this lovely Irish farmer, cum roofer, cum Carmelite brother.

A Man Ahead of his Times

Brother Eugene was not a religious who was abreast of his times. He was way ahead. Where he was, the Church he was born into has yet to reach – and it will be an enormous struggle of restoration and renewal achieved only by the action of God and his mighty Spirit and with the (costly) co-operation of people dedicated to God’’s infinite Mercy and Love: people who live in that Mercy and Love and empowered and guided by it. It is beyond human power – which alone can achieve nothing in the spiritual sphere.

I had to work hard on him to get details of his life out of himHe resisted giving me what I wanted because, he said, his life did not matter one jot. . “It is the living God who matters. I would like you to write about Him,” he replied with emphasis. I eventually got a few scraps out of him by stressing that talk about him was the same as talk about the living God he cared so much about. Some knowledge about his life and thought and experience would only help people who were keen to work towards a living knowledge of the living God – not the empty useless god fossilised in soul-less religion. He agreed.

A Time that has Turned its Back on God

It was an on-going painful awareness in him – the indifference to God, the “black ignorance” of God – his phrase – that characterises our time.
“How did we get into such a mess?” he asked me on more than one occasion, though that was, for anyone who knew his thought, a rhetorical question. He knew the answer.

He repeatedly made an assertion that took me some time to see the meaning of:”There is nothing but God.” This was his definition of the name of Yahweh – “I Am Who Am”. I take this powerful phrase to mean “God alone truly is.”
However, I may be making the mistake Joe repeatedly warned against: trying to understand God with the mind, the intelligence.

Only the Spirit can give understanding (enlightenment). “There is nothing but God” came to Joe through enlightenment. My “God alone truly is” is what my mind finds makes sense. I am only too willing to discover, through the Spirit’s grace, that his more absolute statement is right as it stands. I in no way want to weaken what the Spirit enabled Joe to see with such evident clarity.
He spoke frequently, in recent years, about our prayer needing to be prayer “from eternity to eternity” – another idea that initially puzzled me, hardly able to understand what it might mean. Enlightenment came slowly for me, and it is still not completely clear. And it will not be completely clear until the Spirit of God opens up its full meaning.

Like the previous concept about God, this was not a thought he got from books or “the scholars” as he used to call the professional theologians, but from his continual contact with the living adorable Trinity.

The Spirit Alone Gives Light

He never tired of reminding me where I would be able to find this enlightenment. The only “place” to find it.
Not in books.
Not in “the scholars” as Joe called them.
In one place and one place only: in God’’s Holy Spirit, sought and followed in love, in sincere determined living of the Gospel.

A request If you had the good fortune to meet this unique carmelite brother, Eugene, and would like to pass on to me your memory, whether it was just as a lovely friendly brother, perhaps down on the farm at Aylesford, or in Cheltenham or in Aberystwyth or Bow Street in Wales (or anywhere else for that matter!) or as a spiritual father, I would love to hear from you. I want to gather as many personal memories of this loving totally God-centred man as I can, to add to mine.

Write – remembering, please, to put your address, and anything about yourself (eg age) or the situation that would help to explain the recollection you have of him and the impression (or, more importantly) the impact he had on you then and/or subsequently. I cannot promise to acknowledge your kindness by letter, for I work full time and have little spare time for writing. I can promise that I will treat your confidences with respect and gratitude. I will thank you by first name only on this website. If you don”t want even that acknowledgement, please say.

Write to this address: John Baptist Abrami, 120 The Tideway, Rochester, Kent, (UK) ME1 2NN

Amended 17th June 2008
**********
17th June 2008

PART 2

TIME FOR THE TRUTH

Over the past four days, I have thought a great deal about what I have written in Part 1. This reflection has forced me to come to one conclusion. It is this. The long struggle this lovely man endured in his Order and in the seven years preceding, all that he learnt from the God he sought with a steely determination and a single-mindedness born out of love, all that he suffered especially in his last years – all this absolutely demands that the truth be told clearly.

The outline in Part 1 says a lot succinctly. But it needs to be expanded. I would be failing if I shirked the task. His death calls for it.

It is a simple fact that no Carmelite knew him as I did. Which is why the task falls to me. He was a father to me in the Spirit of God. It is therefore a filial duty, not just a brotherly one.

I realised last night that my debt to him is something I simply cannot quantify. What would have happened to my health and, more importantly, to my calling as a Carmelite priest had God’s Providence not put him my way? I have no answer to that question. I have always known that my debt to him was huge. Last night I was enabled to see that with even greater clarity and certainty.

A prophet sent by God

That Joe was a prophet is beyond doubt. He learnt from God. What he learnt he passed on. Where his confreres are concerned slightly different wording has to be used: what he learnt from God he tried to pass on to them. He failed. They would not listen. They did not listen at the beginning. They carried on to the end refusing to listen.

Was it because they did not want to understand? Or because they could not understand? Or a combination of the two? I am not going to judge. I do not know the answer. They do, perhaps. God certainly knows. I am simply registering the fact of it.

It was proved by what transpired at his funeral Mass. The preacher gave what was obviously the agreed “line” on Joe, for all the brothers there assented by their silence. The preacher simply gave a handful of trivial incidents from his life. These ended with the comment that, during his time in Cheltenham, Eugene became more “aloof”. This was expanded by saying that his way, the way he proposed to them as Carmelites was “hard”. The preacher then rounded off this eulogy with something quite inconsequential that I do not remember. We were handed a trite pic ture of this holy man, this beautiful dedicated soul who had been graced by God with visits from the Mother of his Son.

Not a word about his holiness. His lifelong dedication. The terrible suffering of his last years. And – perhaps most horrifying of all – not a word about the visits of Mary to this chosen soul! Silence. In an Order supposedly dedicated to the Mother of Jesus, whose lovely wooden statue is on the wall behind the sanctuary where all this took place. Looking on. How? In sadness? In anger? Probably the former .

The picture he tried to leave his listeners with: of an ordinary religious, nothing much to write home about, perhaps cringing slightly at the ripe language he heard at Cheltenham when he joined the community’s skittles team, growing more “ aloof” as time went by, following, proposing a “hard” way that his brothers could not follow. This is obviously the agreed view.

A horrendous distortion…born of what? Ignorance? Jealousy? Incomprehension? Those involved know the answer.

Did you think, brother Carmelites, to bury the memory of his holiness by burying him? Did you plan that, by your silence, the knowledge of the visitations from Heaven should be likewise buried in the soil of the Aylesford earth that holds its Carmelite dead? Do you realise, brothers of his, that this is what you, in fact, tried to do?

Brother Eugene, Joe, did not know the meaning of the word “aloof”. He abominated the attitude. “Hardness” – he never practised that in his life.

Love. Care. Concern. Those were his ways. “Cringing” at ripe language? What a foolish assertion. Before entering the Order he worked among the toughest roughest men for years as a roofer, all over the country. He was well used to rough language.

“Hard” language would never drive Joe away.

But not even Christ could deal with hardness of heart. There you may find a clue to what you used spin to present as “aloofness”. If he retired to his room earlier than some other community members – it was either his duty to God as a religious or the hardness of heart that he encountered in his community or their lack of interest in matters spiritual. Never, never, this alleged aloofness. I knew the man. I was there. He has never been any different.

You failed in your attempt to present that false, distorted picture. Simply because there was one witness at this – it has to be said – travesty of a funeral Mass who knew the truth. And spoke it.

Providence organised it that, even in death, Brother Eugene could not be silenced.

To be continued

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10.

May 13th, 2009

(yet to be uploaded)

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9. Incorrect definitions of “Faith”.

May 13th, 2009

Letter 9

Dear Richard,

Continuing yesterday”’’s letter.

Sagan”’’s definition of faith is “Belief in the absence of evidence”. Your own definition is, so I heard you say once, “Belief contrary to the evidence.” Both those definitions are reasonably useful in ordinary daily life, but they are not the definitions that describe religious faith.

If religious faith were accurately described by your definitions, it would indeed by highly questionable. It would be unworthy of a thinking, intelligent, rational being. It would become synonymous with pure ungrounded opinion or whim.

. As I”ve said before somewhere, I let other religions speak for themselves. I write as a Christian. My religion is the one I know well from a long life lived within it.

Faith in Christianity means “trust” above all. Trust in the person Jesus Christ, the Son of God sent by God his Father.

It is not a baseless trust.

It is trust based on evidence: the evidence of what Jesus said and did. His acts of power. The miracles you so airily (and conveniently) dismiss.

It is trust in that evidence because that evidence itself rests on incontrovertible documentation: the Gospels and the NT letters.

Further. It is corroborated by a mass of other historical evidence: the traceable spread of the religion that Christ started, from country and island to country and island, and the mass of other writings generated in the course of Christianity”””’’s growth: letters, sermons, apologetic writings, records of synods and councils.

Also included in the documentary evidence is the lead-in to the birth of the Messiah: the Old Testament, the collected written records of the origins, history and developing beliefs of the Jewish nation. Again, all evidence that you choose to dismiss.

Finally: the evidence of personal experience. The experience that Christ, the Father he spoke of and lived for and the Holy Spirit sent at Pentecost are not just dead historical figures who lived briefly only in the pages of some book or other, but living active presences and influences in the daily lives of genuine believers down the centuries. Plenty of examples of this in the present and in the past. All there to be examined, tested, evaluated on valid accepted historical or psychological criteria. All of which you and your non-believing colleagues also airily dismiss.

Christian faith is not in the absence of evidence. It is with the presence of enormous evidence. It is not contrary to evidence. It is in accord with, backed up by a mountain of evidence of different kinds open to stringent scrutiny.

Finally: the evidence of personal experience. The experience that Christ, the Father he spoke of and obeyed and the Holy Spirit sent at Pentecost are not just dead historical figures who lived briefly only in the pages of some book or other, but living active presences in one”’’s daily life.

This is the absolutely central point in Christian belief that I have never heard in any of the interviews you have screened that I have had the opportunity to watch and listen to. Faith in God the Father comes to a person as a direct revelation from God the Father. Jesus said on one occasion, “No-one knows the Son except the Father, just as no-one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (Luke ch.10 verse 22)

Christian faith is not simply trust.

It is a trust that comes from a personal meeting with, living with, Jesus. It comes from Jesus actually living within the believer. This tenet is clearly seen in Jesus”’’s words:”If anyone loves me that person will keep my word and my Father will love them and we shall come to them and make our home with them.” (John 14,23) I can imagine how you react to this. But that is the astonishing heart of Christianity. Not a distant God but one who lives in the person who genuinely believes. A topic that would need a whole book by itself.

So. Christian faith is not in the absence of evidence. It is with the presence of enormous evidence. It is not contrary to evidence. It is backed up by a mountain of evidence of different kinds open to stringent scrutiny. But, above all, it is a trust that springs out of a personal meeting with and living with the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is something that is not to be argued about. It cannot be the subject of hostile verbal interchanges or point-scoring. Only quiet, extensive discussion, with plenty of listening by both parties, with a shared desire to understand the other”’’s position, to understand what foundations it rests on – only that sort of discussion can do the matter justice.

Is that the sort of aproach you espouse, or try to promote, in your dialogue with believers?

Atheism is forced to dismiss

Why have I placed the word “dismiss” in bold type? To draw attention to one fact about your atheism. It demands that any piece of contrary evidence, fact, assertion, conclusion, line of reasoning – whatever, be dismissed. The case made by atheism as you practice it, perhaps by its very nature, falls if it allows the validity of even one contradictory piece of evidence. It must dismiss the opposition totally and always. Find some way. Any way to do this. That is its basic weakness. It is closed to any other alternative explanation a priori.

Your kind of atheism is quite different from the simple, matter of fact assertion, “I simply can””””t believe all this religious stuff.” One can respect that honest admission.

Have you ever clearly faced atheism”””’’s imperative to dismiss whatever contradicts it It rests on the assumption that all believers are woolly, confused, gullible, not very bright individuals, only too willing to believe in fairies. Leaving aside the fringe and extreme religious groups – that is one hell of a lot of people, one hell of a sweeping condemnation.

I will be very interested to see your response to this letter.

hoping it finds you well.

Your brother John

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8. Carl Sagan is dead right… almost

May 13th, 2009

Letter 8

18th May 2009

Contemporary events: MPs claims scandal rumbles on;
Burmese generals try to extend Aung San Suu Kyi”””’’s imprisonment.

Dear Richard,

I have just listened to Carl Sagan”””’’s last interview given May 27th 1996 as recorded on YouTube. To say I was impressed is an understatement. The man”’’s concern for truth and integrity of thought is indisputable. It was a relief to find that I could second everything he said, with just one small but significant exception – of which later.

How moving and beautiful the extract he reads from “Pale Blue Dot” likewise on YouTube. The man was not just a great astronomer and educator. He was also a poet of the stars.

Your quoting him made me suspect that I might find someone whose attitude to religion might mirror your fundamentalist opposition. I was delighted to find that my fear was misplaced. He strongly rejected the interviewer”’’s suggestion that he denies all religion. Religions, he said, deal with history, poetry, great literature, ethics, morality including the need to treat others with compassion – all matters he wholeheartedly endorses.

What he does object to is religions claiming to know something about science. He notes approvingly that the mainstream religions have no problem with evolution or the Big Bang. It is the biblical literalists who are the problem: those who believe that God dictated word for word what was to be believed. Those are the ones he takes issue with.

Sagan is dead right

In your quote from “Pale Blue Dot” he observes that hardly any major religion has acknowledged that science is better than they thought. I feel he is correct. All the major religions should long ago have acknowledged that Science is the revealer of the wonders of the universe, not religion. They should have confessed clearly long ago: one, that Science has shown the Universe to be greater and more astonishing than our holy books indicate – or could indicate – given the times they were written in; two, that it is simply outside the remit or ability of religion to reveal the amazing nature of the physical universe; three, that religion has to look to Science for this hidden knowledge, for only science has or develops the tools to uncover the wonders that are not visible to the naked eye.

He is absolutely right to imply that this refusal on their part is tantamount to saying, “Our God is smaller than all this and thats the way we want to keep Him!” He is absolutely right to say that any religion “that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths”. (p 12)

I would disagree. We can say more than “might be able”. They “would most definitely be able” to draw out those reserves. I would also add this. Individual believers do stress “the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science”. I do (I know I am far from alone in this) – whenever I get the opportunity to do so. Why? Partly to do what I can to compensate for the meagre response at the top of the hierarchies of the two Churches I am connected with, the Anglican and the Roman Catholic. There is no excuse for this. The wonder of the created world is deeply rooted and expressed in both Old (first Genesis creation story and Psalms) and New Testament (Christ, the Word of God, in whom and for whom all things were made). Responsiveness to, wonder at, ecstatic praise of the created universe is intrinsic to the whole Christian and Jewish package which has an astonishingly generous Creator and Creative God at its centre.

Why have they not made this confession of faith in science? Spiritual sluggishness? Not abreast of the times? Hamstrung by old traditions of thought. Reluctant or unable to be generous? Whatever the reason, the net result is that they diminish the Creator they purport to believe in. Equally disastrous: they make it impossible for many people to believe, so pale is the image of the god they project.

Modern scientific discoveries are the greatest testimony to the awe-inspiring creativity and intelligence of the Creator. What could be more obvious? How welcome they should be to believers in a God who is Creator of all that is! How grateful believers should be to the generations men and women who by their dedication and determination in the face of enormous challenges to the human intellect have probed and investigated and invented and experimented and hypothesized and theorized and whatever else they had to do to uncover the immensity and mind-boggling complexity of the universe whose consciousness we are.

What a debt of gratitude we religious believers owe to you scientists!

I want to move on, now, to the one “small but significant exception” I referred to at the beginning of this letter. This is Sagan”’’s definition of faith. Lack of time, however, makes me think it would be better to tackle this in my next letter.

Cheerio for now.
Kind regards.

Your brother John

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7. Un-christian Christians & other matters

April 15th, 2009

Letter 7

15th May 2007

Dear Professor

Chapter 1 “A deeply religious non-believer”

Apologies

In this chapter you provide a number of quite offensive or ill-advised statements made about Einstein”’’s public disavowal of belief in a personal God by people who present themselves as spokesmen for Christianity. As a Christian I feel obliged to apologise unreservedly for them. They are simply contrary to the teaching of Christ. “Speaking the truth in love”, to use a phrase of St Paul”’’s, is quite another matter. I pick out a few.

Page 16. The Roman Catholic lawyer who seemed to agree that Hitler would have been partly justified in ejecting Jews from Germany if they held views like Einstein”’’s. How narrow-minded of him to think that one man”’’s publicly expressing his views should be a source of discord in America. Were the believing Americans of his time so unbelievably touchy? It seems so. Did he really believe that no one should ever tread on any else”’’s toes in matters of important personal belief? Are adults to be treated as if they are innocent defenceless children?

Pages 16-17. The remarks of the president of a historical society in New Jersey reveal the same ill-advised belief that innocent adult believers should be shielded from “shocks” to their faith. Many of them were probably not as shockable as the gentleman in question thought. If he is right, they should rather have been educated to expect difference of opinion and given practical advice on how to deal with it: the first piece of advice being: “Sort out your own belief and the reasons for it so that when it”’’s challenged you can give some coherent answer.”

The barely disguised anti-semitism of these two quotes is quite horrifying.

You are right to say that it is “a devastatingly revealing letter”. It reveals a terrible culture of intellectual infantilism produced by inadequate, not to mention lazy, pastoring. This deficiency has still has not been addressed in large sectors of the mainstream churches.

Page 17. However, the Founder of the Calvary Tabernacle in Oklahoma takes some beating for anti-Christianity. He invites Einstein,”if you do not believe in the God of this nation, to go back where you came from.” There speaks a true disciple of the man who said, “Love your enemies; do good to those who hurt you.” Where is the love? With followers like that who needs enemies? Dr Fulton J Sheen”’’s sarcastic play on the word “cosmical” (page 19) falls into the same category of quite un-christian comments.

The fanaticism of the diatribe from the Founder of the Calvary Tabernacle reminded me of Bishop Wilberforce”’’s vitriolic diatribe against Darwin.

There should be some satisfaction for you in the Christian belief that each of us will be judged by God – especially on how we have treated others. The Christian gentlemen you quote will already have been judged. They will already have been asked to justify their behaviour towards the famous professor. A, perhaps, difficult task.

word cartoon in colour.

Busy scene. God on his throne. Angels young and old around Him. A red-faced Bishop in front of him, side on to viewers. FJS embroidered on his mangy mitre. God’s speech bubble:”Dear Fulton, would you like to repeat to my Angels and our special guests today your comment about Einstein – whom I have a certain affection for as he did a great job in showing how nifty my Creation is. Or would you rather not?” Sweating angel stoking up the fires of Purgatory. Man and woman in prime seats, “atheist” emblazoned on T-shirts, grinning approvingly..

Points of agreement

I go along with your suggestion that we use the term “Einsteinian religion” to label the feeling of transcendent wonder conjured up by the universe. Useful. I can also see why you “wish that physicists would refrain from using the word God in their special metaphorical sense.” (P19) I do too.They give us believers the impression that, somehow, they are with us. I was totally flummoxed by Hawking’s remark about knowing the mind of God. “Isn’t this man supposed to be an atheist!” I thought.

In the next letter I want to bring in your quote from Carl Sagan. Then I will tackle the point of non-believing scientists and their occasional use of word “God”. There is another possible and I think truer explanation, of this slightly odd habit of theirs.

I also totally agree with you that there should be no privileging of religion. All tht we bleievers have a right to ask for is a fair deal in society like everybody else. I””m pretty sure that sensible theists – of whom there are many – would agree with you too. Why should we be treated with kid gloves? Hardly a tribute to our resilience or good humour.

Can you be trusted?

However. I do have more than a sneaking suspicion that, if you and some of your persuasion had your way, religious believers would not simply be reduced to a level playing field, which is only fair, but be firmly gagged, which would not be fair, as I”m sure you agree.

A C Grayling is a case in point: his article, “Mind your manners” posted on your website. (I did not record the date unfortunately.) Here is part of my reply to it:

ACG writes:”people can believe what they like but please do it in private”. Does he realise how vague and dangerous this courteous request of his is? As it stands it is a cover for the censorship of religious belief. I presume ACG does not realise this. How do you define “in private”? As: where no one else can see, read, witness or hear? Is an article, or an opinion expressed in a newspaper or on radio or TV “in public”? Would an advert for a meeting in a shop window or hoarding be in contravention of the Grayling Privacy of Religion Act?…

Would my neighbours face a spell in jail for putting up a pretty electric crib decoration on the outside of their house? …

I also suggested that an intemperate A C Grayling should consider the following as more sensible and fairer wording: “People can believe what they like, but please do so with courtesy and due respect for the rights and the justly held beliefs and opinions of others”?

I pointed out that it is because of my sense of fair play for everyone that I support your OUT campaign – with the exception of the KEEP OUT section. That oversteps the mark. It is undue censorship. Further it is criticism based on a deliberate misrepresention of the position of religion in schools. It insults the majority of teachers who observe professional standards of non-bias in their teaching of RE.

Here is what you write:

It is time to let our voices be heard regarding the intrusion of religion in our schools and politics. Atheists along with millions of others are tired of being bullied by those who would force their own religious agenda down the throats of our children and our respective governments. We need to KEEP OUT the supernatural from our moral principles and public policies.

Come off it Richard! “Bullying”? “Forcing their own religious agenda down the throats of our children”? Let”’’s have a bit of accuracy in describing the status quo. Ie stop lying. It does not help your case or rational debate. You make much of rationality. Please practice it on a more regular basis. There”’’s an old Latin tag. Qui nimis probat, nihil probat. Which translated is,Prove too much and you prove nothing. I have to confess that I feel this tag applies to a great deal of your apologetics.

Going down the French model for religious education – its total exclusion from the State sector – would be a grave mistake: obscurantist, narrow-minded, a loss to the development of the critical faculty in our teachers, our children and our young people.

In the past I have made my views on RE clear. This is what I wrote, in brief summary, on your website, on what I think is the only tenable position for a state school. For clarity I have expanded the section marked off by triple asterisks.

Let me say,first, that I think Religious Education is badly named. I argued for a change when I was in education. Surprise surprise, I got nowhere.

It should be called Values Education.

***Religions would be studied under the spotlight of VALUES. They deserve inclusion on the curriculum because they are important historical and cultural factors and possess significant ethical content. They have been massively influential in shaping the courses of national histories – for better or for worse. They are still influential, again for better or for worse. Like it or not they are part of all our histories. For all these reasons, it would be cultural vandalism of the highest order to exclude them from study and scrutiny within State education. Our young, the forming citizens of the future need to be given the chance to see exactly what it is they like or do not like in them. ***

Give accurate accounts of them, scaled down or up to the age group studying. Laid out for the unbiased critical study of the values they contain – and – just as important – the values they contravene if any. Atheism would obviously be one of the belief stances included on an absolutely equal level. It too would be studied to show its values and analysed to see if too contravenes the accepted values of our time in any way.The teacher’s role to act as unbiased facilitator for students’ thoughts and opinions

There are, admittedly, some christian teachers who abuse the trust placed in them by the State. I spoke with one, who openly admitted he did use his position to promote Christianity – and thought he was doing the right thing!

Kind regards

Your brother John

PS I must apologise for my laptop”””’’s habit of putting two or more apostrophes where I type in just one! I can””””t seem to edit them out. Perhaps it”””’’s something I””””ve done.

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6. The brutality of the human heart.

April 15th, 2009

Apology

I am forced to add an apology to this letter six days after publishing it. Some posters on the Faith and Religion forum of the Richard Dawkins Official website have pointed out that I wrongly accused Richard of blaming all evils on religion. He doesn’t. I know he doesn’t. And what makes it worse is that I knew this when I wrote the letter.

Why did I make the mistake? I think it must have been the influence of the title Channel 4 gave to Richard’s series on Religion: the question they added, which was not his idea: “Religion: The cause of all evil?”

I will, however, leave the letter in edited form. Spending some time reflecting on the brutality humans are capable of is necessary if we are going to think about life and whether there is evidence for the existence of God.

Professor Dawkins does not claim that religion is the cause of all evil. His contention is that there is precious little evidence for God’s existence. He believes the proofs of it do not stand up to analysis . He certainly approves of John Lennon’s wish that there were no religion around. See his comments on Lennon”””””””’’s song (pages 1-2). Religion’s permanent demise is definitely one of Richard’s most highly desired outcomes. More of that later.

Letter 6

10th May 2007

Dear Richard

I’m going to stop calling you “Professor God” in this letter. Why? Because of the horror I’m going to report. Playing with literary sarcasm would be out of place in the context of what follows.

This morning I opened a letter from Lisa Williams. Who is she? She is the appeals manager for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Cruelty to children, she writes, is “a huge problem in our society.” She writes:
I’ve just finished reading a story about Phillip:a 4 year old boy who experienced months of brutal treatment at the hands of his mother’s boyfriend…The exact details of Phillip’s abuse are unclear, but the 100 or so injuries that covered his body – including a perforated eardrum, swollen testicles and numerous cigarette burns – stood as a testament to his agony. He eventually died from blood poisoning as a result of being violently hit in the stomach…

Or Jamie-Leigh? What do I say about her? This baby girl – only 9 weeks old – died from head injuries suffered from her father throwing her against a wall. He did this because her crying had disturbed him while he played a computer game. If these events can be made more appalling then it’s by the fact that they are not one-offs. Every year we hear of more cases. More stories of children and young people who have been subjected to unimaginable suffering and isolation….

Some statistics…Did you know that a quarter of rape victims are under 16?
Or that each week at least one child in England and Wales dies from cruelty?…

The other day as I was thinking about what I was going to say to you, I came across two facts that summed up exactly why I was writing to you in the first place. The first: last year the 24hour NSPCC Child Protection Helpline received 147,270 calls. Which is a terribly high number of calls… The second: last year the NSPCC spent £84.5 million on projects to make England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands a safer place for young people…

Aren’t those spine chilling facts about our society? Can anyone deny that we humans are capable of horrendous brutality?

At the moment the search is going on for little Madeleine McCann in Portugal. How many children are there like her? With their distraught parents? We don’t have figures.

A tally of horror

The list of horrors perpetrated by humans is mind-boggling. We can all make our own list. Here is mine. The suffering caused by careless doctors or surgeons who do not give the study and care that their work needs. Or that caused by avaricious or incompetent lawyers, or those lawyers who give their services to securing the freedom of rich corrupt clients. Or the irresponsible drivers who mow down unsuspecting victims. Or the leaders of states who unleash repressions, wars or famines in pursuit of megalomania -that cause the suffering to innocent civilians that we know only too well from recent media reports. Or the husbands who beat wives senseless and the far far smaller number of wives who beat their husbands.

The teachers who bully and abuse children (not so easy nowadays in our society). The carehome owners and staff who do likewise to their charges. Corrupt law enforcers and the misery they cause. Politicians who collude with the passing of unjust laws. The gang masters who extort and exploit. Soldiers or paramilitaries who inflict sickening cruelty on the girls or women who are unfortunate enough to fall into their hands. All the means of torture devised by creative sadists over centuries. Managements of large companies who don””””t give a damn for the safety of children and adults living close to their factories.
Or (coming closer to your cadre) the scientists who develop weapons of mass destruction. Let’s remember with pain and anguish what happened at Hiroshima, the legacy it left. Or the Herod types – Herod whose tomb has probably just been discovered – that’s a place that does not grace our planet – or the Hitlers or the Saddam Husseins – I for one was not conned by his shows of religiosity, his kneeling in prayer, his waving the Quran – when his life was a cocktail of murder, callousness and hubris – in total opposition to Allah the Compassionate whom he pretended to honour. Or Pinochet. Or Ceausescu? Or the supermarkets who squeeze suppliers and pay them inadequate prices and so drive some into insolvency if not suicide, together with those loyal supportive shareholders who stand by keen only to receive their dividends. Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera.

If you devoutly wish to cleanse human history of religions and their various ministers and adherents because of the horrors they have perpetrated- some of them – shouldn’t you – as a rational logical man – devoutly wish for the disappearance from the face of our Planet of politicians, leaders of nations, prime ministers, presidents, doctors, lawyers, scientists, supermarket owners and their shareholders, judges etc because of the evils some of their number perpetrate? Some semblnce of logic would be good. If you looked hard enough you might even come up with a few choice atheists to add to my list of brutality mongers.

Am I making my point? What we are dealing with is the weakness of humans, their stupidity and ignorance; with their despair, anger and frustration; with their incredible callousness, cruelty, indifference to others’ feelings; with sheer gigantic ego and power lust. These and more are the problem. These are the enemy. These are what need to be addressed and banished from the face of the planet. It”””’’s not their being religious, or politicians, or law-enforcers or executives or whatever – that is the root of the problem. The root cause is the callousness, the egomania in their hearts.

Whatever about the other religions. I do not speak for them. I speak of the religion I know. The God of the Bible who is adequately described and defined only by the personality and actions and teaching of the man Jesus Christ came precisely to challenge that brutality, show it for what it is, to declare in no uncertain terms that to indulge in it unrepentantly is to court eternal disaster – and crucially – to offer all His divine resources to enable a total lifestyle change – freely – with no strings attached – to anyone who wants to purge that brutality out of his or her life. This God and this Christ offer down through the ages a simple, readily accessible action plan to move from a life of brutality and ego to a life of love and active compassion. And the evidence of all this is mountainous. We are talking fact here, not “faith” as you define it.

What action plan do you offer suffering humanity?

Lennon”””’’s religionless world

Let”””’’s imagine with John Lennon a world with no religion. What would you have? You would not have a better world. It would be just as ugly. Why? Because all those people who used God, gods or religion to as an excuse for the hatred, power lust or frustration in their hearts, as pegs to hang their incredible nastiness on would still be the same. They would simply find other excuses, other reasons to make life hell for others.

Anyone who is seriously concerned to face the challenge of the evil in human beings must, at some point, seriously investigate the life, teaching and influence of Jesus Christ. The evidence stacked up in favour of his transforming power is enormous. To deny that evidence is at best ignorance, at worst prejudice.
There is just one caution to be given: such an investigation must make a clear distinction between Christ and Christianity or Christians. For there is massive evidence too for the ability of many of his followers to ignore that life, that teaching, that influence and to live in a way that totally contradicts what Christ stands for.

What is your answer to the problem of the evil in the human heart? Your little bus advert campaign? With its cheery little answer: Forget God. He doesn’t exist. Be happy. If this is the best you can do for the happiness of the present generation, you would be safer not coming out of your academic ivory tower. Do you realise how your cheery advice must grate on people crucified by the effects of the Credit Crunch, never mind all the other non-religious problems that put people on the rack of life? You certainly chose the best possible time to set off your good humoured atheist squib!

Your brother John
(Subsequent note. I continue this in Letter 12.)

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5. Thank You Father GOD for Dawkins!

April 15th, 2009

Letter 5

8th May 2007

Contemporary events: The day power-sharing between former enemies broke out in Northern Ireland

Dear Professor God

After reading your Preface, I tried to get a short siesta to set me up for the rest of the day’s work. I couldn’t settle. The delightful surprise your Preface gave me would not let me rest. I found myself saying repeatedly, “”Thank You, Father, for him! Thank You for him! Thank You for him!” I’m not sure that’s what you are used to hearing. A committed Christian thanking God for you. What next!
There were a few points that I disagreed with (half way down p5 to top p6). I was surprised at your admission that your wife coaxed you “through all my hesitations and self-doubts” (final para).Neither in writing nor in lecture have I met any clue that you suffer from such things. Total certainty seems to be your hallmark. But these disagreements made slight impression on me compared with the surge of agreement your main points roused in me.

Your opening moved me: the I didn’t know I could anecdote concerning your wife. The pathos of it. The continued hidden suffering of a young person who sees no way out. And I feel it is doubly moving because her experience acts as a “crane”, to use your image. It lifts one to see the suffering of countless individuals caught in the same type of situation: caught in a vice of pain or bewilderment.
The human touch of that opening softened me up to you. I am not used to a “soft” you: more familiar with the abrasive, steel-coated lecturer and critic of all things religious. This was my first meeting with the human Dawkins. My image of you has een correctedd. And improved.

Totally with you in wishing to open a door for people born into a religious family, yearning to leave, but not knowing how.

Totally with you in abhorrence for the list of religious crimes against humanity that makes up your description of a world without religion (para bottom p1 to top p2; I am using the hardback edition).
Totally with you in your desire to banish such phrases as “a Catholic child”. Absolutely right: we should say rather ”a child of Catholic parents”. (”Absolutely” is not quite correct. Let’s say it’s 99.9% right. I may expand on that later if necessary.)

Totally with you on atheist pride. I know a bit about this from experience. My wife is an atheist. She says exactly the same as you about the strength that is needed to face the horizon with courage without what you might call the “crutch” of faith. In passing: I know of no more moral person than my atheist wife. Yes. You’re right: ”atheist” and “atheism” have developed bad connotations they do not deserve. Julia Sweeney’s anecdote says it all (p.4)

It occurs to me as a priest that, at least once a year, every preacher (be he/she lay, evangelist, vicar, priest, bishop, cardinal or even Pope- miracles can and do happen Professor) should wheel out a sermon on this issue. I put my sermon outline in a word cartoon.

word cartoon

Pic 1… Bishop. In full regalia. In pulpit. Adoring upturned faces before him. Speech bubble:”If anyone of you doesn’t really believe in all this – why are you here? Don’t be afraid. Follow your star. God wants you to be honest. He died to set you free. So…” Pic 2…Same Bishop. Startled face. Half the congregation leaving.

I have a good friend in the South of England who occasionally writes to Dr Rowan Williams. Perhaps I can persuade him to write him a letter along the above lines. Do you think he would immediately add it to his DO list? What’s your guess?

Totally with you in what you say about “the religiosity of today’s America” (p4). (As an aside. Do you know anything about the other side of religion in America, the side illustrated by a man like Nicky Cruz? You probably don””t. He doesn””t really suit your agenda.) John Stuart Mill may well be right. I wish you luck in trying to stir atheists to speak up and gain the political influence that their numbers warrant. But…a favour please, Professor. Warn them. Be political animals with integrity. Resist the allure of power. Urge them not to be tempted to use that power,once achieved, to impose their own agendas irrespective of the rights of other groups – even religious ones. Otherwise they will be as bad as the Christians we have criticised. Power corrupts. It will corrupt atheists too.

You atheists are as human and fragile as the rest of us – don’t you agree?

The strength of my reaction in favour of your Preface surprised me. I reflected on what sparked it off. I can only think it was caused by your main points being matters of Justice. In my book Justice - compassionate Justice – is at the very heart of life. Deviate from it and we spawn a pernicious and vicious jungle in which the monsters of our own making attack, maim and kill without reason.

A little aside before I end. Christianity is a religious system fractured into many segments. Christ and his teaching as found in the Gospels and the letters of the New Testament are genuine gold. How much of that gold are found in each segment is a matter for close and unbiased examination.

Best wishes

Your brother John

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4 Where I”m coming from.

March 26th, 2009

Letter 4

11th April 2007

Dear Professor God

I feel it would be useful to say at the beginning where I’m coming from. By this I really mean my feelings about you. These come from what I’ve read by you over the past few decades. Not a great deal I must confess. My main encounters with your thinking are two. The first, quite some time ago – in the eighties perhaps – was you series of lecures on evolution. Were they the RSA lectures? Given at Christmas time? Whatever. The second was your Channel 4 documentary in two parts.

The impression I have gained of you is that, where religion is concerned, you home in only on the negative, the reprehensible aspects. You strike me as partial in your view. Hence unfair. And that is a great sin (pardon the religous language) in my book because I have a rooted, deep sense of fairness.

You also leave me with the impression: “This man thinks he knows it all.” I confess that I have felt you are quite arrogant. Hence the dig in the title I award you of “Professor God”. I sincerely hope that by reading your book I may be forced to see that I have been misled on both counts.

I do realise that when one makes judgements on what amounts to only slight aquaintance, one can make serious mistakes. My sincere hope is that “The GOD Delusion” will prove me wrong on boh counts.

Criticisms of Christianity or religion in general will not phase me. I have some pretty trenchant criticisms myself. For example I do not think that Christianity as demonstrated by the Big Two in this country (by which I mean the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England) is anywhere near being what it should be. It’s not what I see described in the Gospels and the letters of the New Testament.

Maybe more of that later. What will phase me is to find a person who presents a false picture by presenting only half of it. A coin has two faces. I hope that, by the end of the book, I will have found that you can see both sides of the coin – not just the ugly one.

On the question of evidence for the existence of a Creator God, we clearly differ. I think the evidence is enormous.

One fundamental belief I have is that we can all learn from listening to, studying how our critics see us. Further I believe that if we are seekers after the truth we have a duty to listen – and listen carefully to our critics – even our harshest ones – because we humans have a wonderful capacity for self-deception, and our critics may see the truth, or some truth, about ourselves more clearly.

As a good Christian I intend to do my duty. I will read your book very carefully. If necessary more than once. I hope you’ll do me justice and read me equally carefully. Though being a professor and a very busy man you may be tempted to skate over my words – if you ever come across them!
I hope that gives a fair outline of where I stand with regard to you and to your book.

Sincerest wishes.

Your brother John

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3b Re following letters

March 26th, 2009

A note.

I have recently had to change host for this blog and I am in the process of uploading all the letters written so far.

They do need editing. The main problems is length. Some are too long.

I apologise for that. I will attend to them as the opportunity arises.

John

For now I have uploaded them in the next blogpage as they stand.

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