Journeying with Jesus: Personal reflections on the
Stations of the Cross and Resurrection (The Mowbray Lent Book
2013)
Lucy Russell, editor
Bloomsbury £9.99
(978-1-4081-8207-9)
Church Times Bookshop £9 (Use code CT264
)
Christ in the Wilderness: Reflecting on the
paintings of Stanley Spencer
Stephen Cottrell
SPCK £9.99 (978-0-281-06208-9)
Church Times Bookshop £9 (Use code CT264
)
Abiding (The Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent Book
2013)
Ben Quash
Bloomsbury £10 (978-1-4411-5111-7)
Church Times Bookshop special price
£8 (Use code CT264 )
The Resurrection of Peace: A gospel journey to
Easter and beyond
Mary C. Grey
SPCK £7.99 (978-0-281-06637-7)
Church Times Bookshop £7.20 (Use code
CT264 )
IN LENT, as the familiar cliché of a thousand sermons has it, we
all have to make our own wilderness. For some, this will mean
giving up good things; for others, it will mean taking up
appropriately pious activities. For authors, it is an invitation to
reflect on their own particular interests, as publishers compete
for a share of an unusually dynamic market for religious books.
This intensely individualistic approach to Lent is, of course,
somewhat risky. When everything comes together, the author's
enthusiasms carry the reader all the way to Easter. When it
misfires - as it often does - 40 days can seem an awfully long time
for one person to bang on about a pet subject.
Perhaps with this in mind, Lucy Russell's Journeying with
Jesus consists of a polyphony of voices from a huge variety of
different perspectives. Although predominantly written by and for
Roman Catholics, the 28 extremely brief reflections that it
contains include pieces by charity workers, scientists, and even a
rabbi, as well as more familiar figures such as the Archbishop of
Westminster, Sister Wendy Beckett, and Ann Widdecombe.
Almost every one of the authors is strikingly personal in his or
her focus. One writes about her experiences after killing a
pedestrian whilst driving her car. Others write about the deaths of
their children. A campaigner for those who suffer from dementia
describes his mother's battle with the condition. A former Anglican
priest who has lately seceded to Roman Catholicism celebrates her
own work of prayer and reconciliation.
Like the genre of Lent books as a whole, when this approach
works, it works well. When it fails, it fails quite spectacularly.
There are some poignant and pointed pieces here; but also some
stinkers. Above all, such a disparate set of autobiographical
meditations lacks cohesion. In the end, it is not really a sum of
its parts.
The same could hardly be said of the latest Lent book - the
fourth in as many years - by the Bishop of Chelmsford, Stephen
Cottrell. Christ in the Wilderness is no less personal,
containing, as it does, vignettes on the sense of loss at his sons'
leaving home, the frank admission of his failure at school, and the
honesty of a bishop who admits "I don't find praying easy."
Somehow, however, this book manages to be both highly subjective
and very finely focused. Its subject is a series of paintings
created by the great English artist Stanley Spencer in the mid-20th
century. Each offered a highly idiosyncratic interpretation of
Christ's time in the wilderness. Only eight of a projected 40 were
ever completed; and, of these eight, only five are discussed
here.
The result is a very short book - but a very rich one, too.
Skilfully juxtaposing Spencer's work with his own experiences and
wider reading, Cottrell offers a series of meditations that will
provoke real thought. It is a shame that the images are so small;
and also that the text is so brief. But it is no small achievement
for a Lent book that a reader should wish that it were longer.
For a lengthier, more sustained, and still more intellectually
ambitious offering, there is the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent
Book for 2013, Ben Quash's Abiding. Previously Dean of
Peterhouse, and now the first-ever Professor of Christianity and
the Arts at King's College, London, Quash is a much-published
author and a deservedly popular public speaker. Perhaps as a
result, not all of this book is all that new. Nor is it clear that
it is actually about Lent.
Chapter Five, for example, appears to be little more than a
simple reproduction of his recent Oxford University Sermon, which
was, it seems, first given at some point in Peterhouse Chapel. Now
intended for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, it was last delivered on
the Fifth Sunday of Easter. In many respects, indeed, it could have
been written for any time or place.
Strange to say, this turns out to be a strength rather than a
weakness. Precisely because this is a Lent Book that is not just
about Lent, Quash is able to address a whole range of issues. He is
a winning writer, and a well-read one. His text is consequently a
pleasure to read, as well as something really worth pondering.
Abiding is about just that: about the commitment to
staying put, to remaining present, which Quash believes is now
threatened by an impermanent, ersatz society. But it is also about
being open to change, to relinquishing control, and learning to
abide in God. Each chapter is full to the brim with challenges for
the reader, and draws on a wide range of art and literature to
inspire reflection.
True enough, some of this analysis seems highly questionable.
His depiction of the parish church as a place open to everyone,
creating heterogeneous communities of the sorts now lost in our
socially segregated society, seems charmingly naïve in an England
where property prices create new sorts of ghettoisation, and most
churches are in fact highly homogeneous. But this is all good,
thought-provoking stuff, and would certainly make for a fulfilling
Lenten read.
In The Resurrection of Peace, the theologian Mary C.
Grey offers a still more provocative piece of writing. Following a
path from Galilee to Jerusalem, she challenges the reader to use
Lent as a time of preparation for political and social activism. In
particular, she is a dedicated campaigner for the rights of the
Palestinian people, and brings a passionate intensity to her
description of their current plight. As a consequence, this is a
book that is as much about the politics of the present as it is
about the theology of the past; indeed, she would argue that the
two are inseparable.
This is a potent mix, sometimes too heady a brew. Take this
sentence, for example: "Have we allowed ourselves to be so consumed
by post-Holocaust guilt that we are unable to speak the truth about
the genocidal acts that the Zionist government now inflicts on
another Semitic people?" Almost every word in it is offensive - and
wrong. The treatment of the Palestinians by the Israeli state - not
the Zionist government - is many things. It is deplorable; it is
illegal; it is tragic. But it is not genocidal. By overstating her
case, she undermines her argument.
It is hard not to feel that, in this instance, the author's
personal commitment has actually got in the way of her work as a
spiritual director for her readers. And that is a danger that all
these books flirt with. Even Quash tells us about the sadness of
growing up with alcoholic parents, and reflects on the breakdown of
his own marriage. Whether this helps illuminate his point or acts
as a diversion, a barrier to comprehension, will depend on the
person reading it.
What is interesting about all these books is their common focus
on subjective experience. And that raises a question: is this the
result of a declining faith in objective truth, or, more probably,
a product of the current fashion for confessional writing? Whatever
the cause, the effect is clear. Publishers are making Lent the new
season for a sort of religious misery lit. Whether this trend will
continue - and whether such books will last - remains to be
seen.
The Revd Dr William Whyte is Tutorial Fellow in Modern
History at St John's College, Oxford, and Assistant Curate of
Kidlington.