NOT all religious books are readily amenable to review. They simply stand as testimony to lived experience, soul-searching, and God-consciousness transcending dispassionate or even nit-picking evaluation by critics.
As a prolific author of theological books for nigh on 50 years, Richard Bauckham is no stranger to these pages. But here we find him not only communicating his scholarship, but also, and even more precious to him, his walk with God through an experience of momentous import to someone for whom reading and writing has defined his whole life and sense of vocation.
During the disorientating days of the Covid pandemic in 2022, his eyesight deteriorated to such an extent that he feared for his ability to read, and to engage with the natural world, both capacities so important to his academic and poetic creativity.
He describes the book as “an unusual mixture of autobiographical narrative, theological and biblical reflections, and poetry”. But that barely does justice to the searing and sometimes heart-rending honesty with which he recounts the fears, hopes raised and dashed, the disconcerting but ultimately redemptive encounters with the medical profession, and, above all, his deep dive into scripture and, in particular, the psalmists’ reassurance that God was with him and would never be closer to him than through those darkest days when the condition even blurred his vision of the Cross in the hospital chapel.
Three chapters sketch his early life and subsequent career infused by both love for God, and commitment to living for God. “Doubting God”, he writes, “has not been a problem in my life.” But he does understand why people do entertain doubts, and his chapter on Providence is a masterly engagement with doubts arising from the affliction at the heart of his story.
A lifelong affection for the book of Tobit which, coincidentally, but providentially from his point of view, features blindness as a theme, and Mrs Alexander’s translation of “St Patrick’s Breastplate” provide apposite leitmotifs punctuating the narrative with the latter’s Christ with, within, behind and before him a constant comfort and reassurance.
He quotes regularly from his journal which testifies to his increasing anxiety as his condition deteriorated, but above all to his conviction that “whatever happens, God will be leading me deeper into his love and further along the way of Jesus Christ”. He testifies regularly to the unfailing support of his local church and house group — and then, with disarming charm, his re-reading of Tove Jansson’s Moomin books.
Some readers might find his dwelling on dreams and their possible messaging something of a distraction, but all will benefit from his characteristically perceptive biblical expositions.
He concludes with a selection of his poems with commentary. These add value to what is a rare, courageous, gracious, and faith-fuelled response to the onset of even the darkest of days.
The Rt Revd Dr John Saxbee is a former Bishop of Lincoln.
The Blurred Cross: A writer’s difficult journey with God
Richard Bauckham
Baker Academic £17.99
(978-1-5409-6743-5)
Church Times Bookshop £16.19