Brian's Blog



Doctor Faustus
11th July 2011

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Globe Theatre to see a production of Doctor Faustus, written by the Elizabethan dramatist Christopher Marlowe. I hadn’t seen the play before but I had some idea of the plot. Faustus, a mediaeval scholar, scientist, philosopher and alchemist, makes a pact with the devil and sells him his soul. In exchange the devil’s servant Mephistopheles will serve Faustus for twenty four years and grant him whatever he wants. At the end of this time Faustus will be carried away to hell.
And the devil keeps his side of the bargain, towards the end of the play Faustus is indeed carried of to hell by a legion of demons.

But what does Faustus achieve during his twenty four years of power? At the beginning he boasts that he will fetch gold from India, put a defensive wall of brass around his native Germany and make himself the world’s most powerful secular ruler. Does he manage any of this? No. He gets some money, seduces a few women, plays some silly practical jokes. A pretty unimpressive result. As the programme notes state ‘John Faustus is without a doubt a failure.’

The Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death; eternal separation from God, but even in this life sin doesn’t bring the rewards it promises. Parts of the media bombard us with details of the private lives of the rich and famous, generally full of conflict and unhappiness, often drink and drug sodden. But I have met, in Britain and the Third World, many poor people, often really in need, who are happy.

The world weary writer of the book of Ecclesiastes, over two and half thousand years ago, having tried all the pleasures that the world has to offer and found them lacking comes to this conclusion ‘Fear God and keep his commandments, for that is the whole duty of man.’ That’s still good advice today.



Death In New Mexico, Resurrection In Jerusalem
18th April 2011

I’ve been thinking about Wild West outlaws recently – Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Ned Kelly (oops no, he was Australian).

It all started when I read that Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico recently refused to grant a posthumous pardon to Billy the Kid. Supporters of the Kid claim that he surrendered to Sheriff Pat Garrett in New Mexico on the understanding that he would be granted clemency, instead Garrett shot him dead.

I don’t know much about Wild West outlaws, but I imagined that some people did. The classic Wild West era was the latter half of the nineteenth century. The U.S.A. was an advanced nation, communications and travel were relatively fast, there were trains, newspapers, the telegraph - surely the doings of these notorious men would have been fully documented at the time, and they have been the subject of a multitude of films, books and T.V. programmes since. But it seems that this is not so.

For example, it is not known how many men Billy the Kid actually killed, some authorities reckon it was 21, others 29, more conservative experts but the figure at eight or nine. It is possible that he never actually shot any one, although it is reasonably certain that he was present at the shooting of William Brady, a local sheriff. We don’t know for certain how old the Kid was when he died. Even his real name is uncertain. According to some it was William Bonny, others claim it was Henry McCarty.

Basically he was a small time hoodlum and cattle thief, totally insignificant during his lifetime, the legend, full of fanciful stories and contradictions, only grew after his death.

Contrast this with the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. The story as written in the four gospels comes across as a sober, factual account. The writers were either there at the time or spoke to people who were. They rejected fanciful fantasies such as so called ‘eye witness’ accounts of people who claimed to have seen the stone rolling away and Jesus actually walking out of the tomb. And when the early church put the canon of scripture together they too rejected these legends and only accepted Matthew, Mark, Luke and John’s accounts.

It is true that when we read all four there seem to be minor differences and it takes a little imagination and lateral thinking to put hem all together into one coherent account. But this happens whenever we hear different peoples’ accounts of the same story. A devout Christian went to see the film ‘Chariots of Fire’ and told all her friends that it was about the Christian athlete Eric Liddell who refused to run on a Sunday. Her brother, a convinced atheist, saw the film and told his friends it was about the struggles of the Jewish athlete Harold Abrahams. Both stories were, of course, true.

The story of the resurrection of Jesus is true; the gospel writers were honest witnesses. ‘But were they?’ asks the sceptic. ‘Surely they were biased.’ But that begs the question ’Why were they biased?’ What changed the disciples from a bunch of frightened, defeated nobodies to a body of fearless evangelists who turned the world upside down?

Paul wrote that the Resurrection was ‘of first importance’ and ‘if Christ has not been raised your faith is futile.’ But we can be certain that Christ has bee raised, he won the victory over death and stands at the right hand of the Father in heaven. He has welcomed our dear brother David into his presence and he waits to welcome us.

Easter really is an event to be celebrated with deep, unspeakable joy.



Science, Christianity and the F Word
19th March 2011

Some years ago certain scientists put around the idea that science dealt with stuff that you could see, hear and touch – hard ‘facts’ ( and by implication the only ‘facts’ that really mattered).  Religion they stated dealt with matters of ‘faith’, stuff that you couldn’t  prove.   Many Christians, including preachers and writers, swallowed this propaganda and thoughtlessly churned it out as truth, I’ve heard it from several pulpits and read it in books.

However a recent editorial in New Scientist magazine was headed ‘Don’t fear the f-word’

The f-word is question was faith and the article stated that interpretations of quantum theory are a matter of faith. I am not a physicist and I don’t understand enough about quantum theory to comment on this (I suspect that a number of physicists don’t actually understand quantum theory either) but I know that in biology there are many areas that rely very much on faith, they don’t deal with stuff that can be seen or heard.

Take, for example, the double helix, the structure of the DNA molecule, one icon of current biological theory and the basis of much of our knowledge of how living things function.

No one has ever seen the double helix, it is far too small to be seen even with the most powerful electron microscope.  It is a model based on other techniques, principally something called Xray crystallography.  It was first put forward in the 1950s by James Watson and Francis Crick using, incidentally, data that they’d ‘borrowed’, without permission, from the work of other scientists.  The evidence is pretty good, but we still can’t see the double helix.

This is not an isolated example, there are many other ‘facts’ in science that cannot be seen, heard or touched.  An awful lot of science requires faith, including the basic assumption, which cannot be proved, that the world is logical, governed by rules and laws which we can discover; it isn’t ‘a tale told by an idiot’.

However New Scientist magazine is generally no friend of religion, the editorial goes on to say about quantum theory ‘it delivers a description of our cosmos that eclipses anything religion can provide.’  In one limited sense this is indeed true, but it is rather like saying that a telescope gives us a picture of the heavens that eclipses anything a hypodermic needle can do.  Indeed it does, that is what it is designed to do, but if you need a vaccination against tetanus then a telescope isn’t much help.

And if you want to know about God, the true nature of humanity, how we should treat each other, how to live a fulfilled life, then science won’t help much.  Christianity provides the answers.

Morecambe and Wise
27th Feb 2011

During the Christmas holidays I watched the TV play about the early career of Morecombe and Wise. They were portrayed as two decent, likeable, highly talented men who reached the top by means of hard work, determination and effort. As far as I can gather this was a reasonably accurate portrait. Many of our best loved comedians, Tony Hancock, Sid James, Peter Cook, Tommy Cooper for example, had very dark sides to their personalities, but I have never seen or heard anyone claim that there was anything really unsavoury about Eric and Ernie.

My sister worked for the BBC in the 1970s and met Morcambe and Wise on a number of occasions. She reckoned that their TV personas were comic exaggerations of their real personalities. Ernie was careful with his money, Eric was a happy go lucky joker.

In the two thousand years since Jesus walked this earth various people have tried to say or write unpleasant things about him. Some of his contemporaries claimed he was demon possessed, others said that he was a glutton and wine bibber. And today periodically books are published claiming to have found the ‘truth’ about Jesus – ‘facts’ that have been forgotten or suppressed for twenty centuries – claims that Jesus preached drug use, that he had an affair with Mary Magdalene etc. etc. etc. These books make a few bob for their authors but are quickly forgotten. None of these ‘facts’ stand up to scrutiny.

‘Which of you accuses me of sin?’ Jesus once asked his opponents and none of them could say anything. He was perfect, without sin, and none of the mud that has been thrown at him has ever stuck.



From Shingle Street to Bethlehem
9th Jan 2011

Shingle Street is a lonely stretch on Suffolk coastline between Felixstowe and Aldeburgh, accessible only small, winding road, it is a quiet, desolate, beautiful place, a peaceful home to a wide range of wildlife. When I was chatting about this to an intelligent friend she told me that there were a number of reports of some very strange events taking place in that area near the start of World War Two. Apparently local people heard the sound of big guns out at sea, they saw the ocean on fire, many charred German bodies were washed up on shore, mass graves were dug. The whole affair was supposedly covered up by the British authorities. Was it a huge sea battle? A failed German invasion?

I have since read that the story is one of the many WW2 myths and legends, along with tales of parachutists disguised as nuns, fifth columnists signalling to German bombers, use of poisoned gas etc. and almost certainly false. You only have to think about the story for a few moments to realise how unlikely it is to have been true. Why would the Germans choose such an unsuitable area for an invasion? Why would the British authorities cover up such a wonderful propaganda opportunity? And I’ve never heard of anyone who actually saw the German bodies or helped to dig the graves. Seventy years later the story is almost forgotten.

Two thousand years ago there were reports of some very strange events around Bethlehem in Judea: some shepherds were visited by angels; Magi arrived from the east looking for a new king; there was a massacre of children ordered the authorities. But these reports didn’t die away, they weren’t forgotten. People such as Luke, a Greek doctor, seems to have spoken with people who were there. In many thousands of Nativity plays since the stories may have been embroidered and exaggerated, but the basic core, as written in the gospels of Luke and Matthew, remains.

The reason is simple: the Christmas story is not a legend or a myth, it is true and truth, as they say, will out.



First Impressions of Northern Ireland
7th Nov 2010

I recently visited my eldest son William for a few days. He is a lecturer at Belfast Bible College, which is, in fact, situated in the small town of Dunmurry just a few miles south of Belfast. During my stay we looked around the main sights of Belfast and also visited Dublin.

It was fascinating to see places that up to then I had only heard of in news bulletins, generally involving violence of one sort or another – the Falls Road, Shankhill Road, Lisburn, Portadown. The troubles are over now, the country is peaceful, there is hope. Trains cross the border into the republic of Ireland and back every day and passports are never checked. Only a very few misguided extremists still perpetrate acts of violence and they have almost no public support.

There are still signs of the past. Dunmurry police station looks look a fortified prison camp with a watch tower and a high fence around it. Many houses have flag pole holder attached to them so residents can display their Union Jacks/Irish flags on appropriate occasions.

On one evening I went to a talk given by Matt Baggott, the Chief Constable of Northern Ireland; a really committed Christian. He referred several times to ‘kindness without an agenda’ – acts of Christian love done in simple obedience to God’s commands without any hidden motives. We know that the greatest act of kindness we can show to someone is to share the gospel, but many people do not see things that way. They view religious people – Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, Christians, radicals, fundamentalists with suspicion, sometimes rightly so. Ireland, for example, has a long and troubled history in which religion often played a major, and dishonourable role.

Matt Baggott believes ‘kindness without an agenda’ is happening in Northern Ireland, and would like to see more. I believe that this is one of the main ways we can all show the love of God to our friends and neighbours. I was pleased to shake Mr. Baggott’s hand after the meeting.

The Galapagos Islands
17th Aug 2010

In early August I had the privilege of spending five days in the Galapagos Islands with a party of students from Colchester Sixth Form College. For wildlife lovers these islands are magical places. Most of the wild animals are so tame that you can approach to within a few feet and even an amateur photographer (such as myself) with a basic camera can take reasonable pictures.

We stayed in the town of Puerto Ayora on the main Island of Santa Cruz. On our first evening we took a walk down the main road and found a marine iguana lying on the pavement. A little further along a pelican roosted in a bush next to the road, a sea lion sprawled lazily on the quay. At the nearby Tortuga Bay the marine iguanas were literally piled up in heaps.

On later days we saw giant tortoises, lava lizards, crabs, booby birds, frigate birds, dolphins and turtles. At restaurants small finches would hop round our feet (and on the tables) in search of crumbs.

But for me the islands were halfway to paradise in a different sense. I got a glimpse of God’s plan for His new world. In Isaiah Chapter 11 verses 6 to 9 we read of a world where the wolf will live with the lamb, the cow will feed with the bear, the lion will eat straw and children will play safely with snakes. That’s what God intended for his creation; a world where all creatures (including humans) are at peace. We’ve spoilt that by our sin, but one day God will liberate the whole of His creation (see Romans Chapter 8 verses 18 to 25). I’m looking forward to that. I caught just a tiny glimpse of it in the Galapagos Islands.