“We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
T.S. Eliot, also quoted in ‘Starry Messenger’
The death of former Pope Benedict on New Year’s Eve brought a flurry of tributes from world and religious leaders. Joseph Ratzinger's early life and his reputation for strict traditional adherence to Catholic doctrine did not stand in the way of the accolades, although it was interesting to note the term ‘Magisterium’ being used by Italy's new Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni: a sinister word now more commonly related to ‘His Dark Materials’, the book and now TV serial by Philip Pullman, who shamelessly used his harsh criticism of the Church to promote the publication.
There is, however, some basis for his criticism: over the centuries the established Churches have played the ‘sin’ card heavily in order to tie in their members, in contrast to Jesus’s primary focus on Love.
The current Pope Francis speaks the language of Love much more fluently, and makes a point of warning his colleagues each year of embracing a ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude. Jesus's heaviest criticisms were also reserved for hypocrisy, a continuous challenge for the clergy.
Many people, including myself, will be enjoying reading ‘Starry Messenger’ by astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson, which introduces a swathe of cosmic perspectives on civilization. So our new year Thought dwells on unwrapping God’s technology, the route by which the disciplines of spiritual and scientific endeavour can converge.
One of the most exciting frontiers of science at present is the search for what drives quantum entanglement. This seemingly impossible basis of communication appears to be beyond the limitations of the known laws of physics, causing us to wonder what can enable such integration: much as we marvel at the actions of thousands of starlings, when murmurations fill the sky.
We will find the answer to these questions — maybe not this year, possibly not this decade — but before long, we will. Like nuclear fusion, the power which drives the energy of the sun, there are some technologies which always seem to be twenty-five years ahead: but then, as with the breakthrough in nuclear fusion just before Christmas, a new light shines on the issue, and we take a great step forward.
It’s always that way with unwrapping God’s technology, and we are blessed indeed to live in a time when such knowledge is opening up for us. It was this fascination which encouraged me to record ‘Love in Creation’ some years ago, showing how the essence of the Christian faith, which is Love, is also the power behind the great laws of nature which are themselves the tools of continuing creation.
It will not, therefore, be long before we start to understand what drives the technology of the spiritual dimension: perhaps it is indeed linked to quantum mechanics? And, at that point, the need for faith will give way to an invitation for people to accept the evidence — we will indeed ‘know as we are known’.
But the Church, which has been charged with carrying this faith forward from generation to generation for the past two thousand years, has a massive amount of catching up to do. As an article printed in the Church of England Newspaper explained on Friday 23rd December, the established Churches have been stuck in a modus operandi which has existed since the Emperor Constantine (‘C of E’s steep decline: a historian’s perspective’).
The Churches need to return to the essence of Jesus’s teaching about Love and the example of servant leadership that he gave, in order to begin to relate to our modern world. This article should be thoroughly debated in Church assemblies and synods over the coming months.
Meanwhile science and technology move inexorably forward. When you compare life in the 2020s with just thirty years ago, it's hard to imagine how we would have coped with the pandemic, not just from a health perspective but also in everyday living and work. When we look back at this period even in a decade from now, what currently feels like major setbacks will be but a pimple on the curve of progress.
But what remains constant is the need to hold all this in the context of Love — selfless love. If this is our guiding light as we move through 2023, we'll be on the right track.
Gavin Oldham OBE
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