A Journal of Impossible Things

All change - part 1: My new job in publishing

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Mon, 06 May 2013 21:40:00 +0000

The last few weeks have been crazy, and the last few days crazier still. After eight and a half years of living in Cardiff, I've just this weekend upped sticks and moved to London. Mad, right? But more on that in another blog post. What I really want to talk about now is the reason for my move...

Tomorrow I start as Assistant Digital Editor with Hodder and Stoughton. I'm still coming to terms with the fact that at last - at long last - I have a job in publishing. It's ten years ago this June since I first stayed in London, and that was to do work experience with Michael O'Mara Books. It's a little over a year since I did my stint at Seren Books working on ebook conversion, and since then (slightly off and on, due to changing personal circumstances) I've been applying for publishing jobs. And now I've got it, with an amazing publishing house and all sorts of exciting books!

A couple of weeks ago, I was keeping up with the London Book Fair online via Twitter and various websites. One of the themes that came through was the need for "digital natives" in publishing. I think I certainly fit that bill, having grown up in equal measure a computer geek as well as book geek.

Reading the advice on "Getting into publishing" felt really weird at that stage, after being offered the job but before starting it. Part of me kept expect the whole thing to fall through or to turn out to be an elaborate hoax, a belated April Fools' Joke!

Looking at that advice also gave me a strange feeling of survivors' guilt. I've been wanting and working to get into publishing for so long, and I know how competitive it is, that I almost feel bad about having succeeded in getting in.

But I also know that I have worked hard for it, and I am really well suited to my new job. And more than just a job: this is where I get to begin my publishing career in earnest. So I'm mostly just pleased, thrilled and excited! (I've been doing little victory dances when I think no-one is looking).

In terms of advice on getting into publishing, most of it has been said very well already by far better qualified people than me. The one thing that I'd like to point out is how easy it is to get to know what's going on in an industry you're trying to break into in the age of the Internet. You don't even need to afford a subscription to trade magazines like The Bookseller - you can read the headlines online, and get news and analysis on many different blogs and sites. Follow publishers, authors, booksellers, app creators and anyone else connected with publishing on Twitter and other social networks. It's never been easier to listen to, and join in, the conversation.

Moving to London has been all kinds of crazy, and I hope to tell some of those stories soon. But next up is my first day: leave the house, go to the Tube station, tap in with my new Oystercard, navigate my first commute in the London rushhour, find the office, meet my colleagues and start learning the art of assistant digital editing! Hard work I'm sure, but I can't wait...

Lincoln movie review

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 15:34:00 +0000

I'm a big fan of The West Wing, and this was rather like a period version of Aaron Sorkin's political drama. In many ways, that's high praise, but there's something rather small-screen about this film. My friend James argued that it never quite shakes the feeling of being a glorified TV movie, and it's certainly a talker.

Director Steven Spielberg restrains himself from giving it a more epic cinematic sweep and scope to focus on Lincoln's fight to abolish slavery. But it can't make up its mind whether to focus on being a biopic of Lincoln or on the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery. It tries to do both, but doesn't quite succeed in finding the central focus it needs.

Daniel Day-Lewis puts in an impressive, Oscar-winning performance as Abraham Lincoln. It hints at some of the complexities of Lincoln's character and political career - his relationship with his wife gets a fair amount of screen time, and some of his more controversial actions such as suspending various legal rights and liberties in the course of the war are referenced briefly. But overall it's very reverential - this is Lincoln the American icon.

This reverence may come at the expense of historical accuracy. Lincoln is portrayed as an implacable, lifelong opponent of slavery. I'm no expert on the man or on the American Civil War, but from what I understand, Lincoln's initial stance on slavery was quite moderate rather than one of lifelong opposition. He came to oppose slavery, but his overriding motivation was actually the preservation the Union. The film has Lincoln willing to prolong the war and risk peace in order to ensure the abolition of slavery, which might make for heightened drama but may be an idealisation of the character.

The film poses an intriguingly complex moral question regarding bringing an end to slavery through underhand political wheeler-dealing. Does the overwhelming evil of slavery justify all the political shenanigans to get the Thirteenth Amendment passed? The film doesn't really allow any answer other than "yes" though. When the Thirteenth Amendment does finally pass, it's a wonderful moment of joy, as liberty rings out across the land. This is as it should be, of course. I'm profoundly grateful that slavery did come to an end, and it carries with it a foretaste of the Gospel hope of the day of freedom for all captives everywhere.

But perhaps the film makes the situation too neat and tidy: the passing of the Amendment is built up as a crucial make-or-break, now-or-never moment. The film doesn't voice the possibility that it may have been better for slavery to have died more slowly, rather than amid the humiliation of defeat. Was it really worth the violence of the Civil War to bring about the end of slavery, or could there have been another way, one that could have led to a less bitter road to civil rights and racial reconciliation in the 20th century? Uncomfortable questions, but I'd rather the film explored these complexities rather than simply presenting the end as justifying the means.

I'll have to read up on this more before coming to a fully informed judgment though. I've never properly studied the American Civil War, but it's one I could do with understanding better. The film may err on the side of hagiography, presenting us with Saint Lincoln, Lifelong Abolitionist, but it's an engaging and compelling window into this vital moment in modern history.

Cineworld Unlimited + Orange Wednesday = Movie Watching Win

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 14:57:00 +0000

At the start of this month, I browsed through IMDB making note of the various films that I'd like to see this year. There were enough of them for me to feel it was worth treating myself to a Cineworld Unlimited card. It allows me to see as many films as I like for a flat monthly fee of £15, for a minimum subscription of a year. If you're seeing two films a month or more, it's likely to be worth the cost. I really enjoy films and seeing them on the big screen with great sound, and

Conveniently, the Unlimited card can be used with Orange Wednesday. Both my wife and I are on other networks - T-Mobile and Three respectively - so I ordered a free pay-as-you-go SIM from Orange and popped it in an old phone we keep as a spare.

But I discovered that I can use this pay-as-you-go number to register the Orange Wednesday app on my Android smartphone. I can now get the 2-for-1 code directly on my normal phone even though it's on the Three network - a handy loophole that I hope won't get closed too quickly! The upshot is that on Wednesdays, I can go to the cinema with my wife for no extra cost (unless it's a 3D film, in which case there's a surcharge.)

In this first month, I've made good use of the card, seeing roughly a film a week: Lincoln, Warm Bodies, Argo, Wreck it Ralph and Cloud Atlas. I'm planning on catching up with reviews for at least some of those - my Lincoln review is almost ready to go.

One of the nice things about having the Unlimited card is that it removes the sense of risk about taking a punt on a film that I'm not quite sure about. I probably wouldn't have seen Warm Bodies without the card, and went in with moderately low expectations, but was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed it. Anyway, stay tuned for more movie-related reviews and opinions here on my blog!

I also used to usually go to see films on Tuesdays, when tickets are cheaper. Having the card gives me the flexibility to go when I like without paying anything more, though Tuesday and Wednesday are often still preferable if I'm going with my wife and/or friends.

(If you're interested in signing up for an Unlimited Card, enter the following referral code to get an extra month free for both me and you: RAF-26ZS-62PX-51WA-29KU.)

MOOCs and the Digital Future of Higher Education

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 15:30:00 +0000

Image: stock.xchng

There's a lot of interest at the moment in Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs), such as those offered by Coursera and Khan Academy - for example, this article from a US perspective about How to Save College, or this Times Higher Education article about Edinburgh University getting 300,000 students on its Coursera courses. On the latter, one commenter accused it of destroying the HE sector from within. They said this as if it were a bad thing, but really the reality for universities is evolve or die.

If universities don't cannibalize their own business by taking education online, someone else will. As broadband becomes ubiquitous and tuition fees increase, online alternatives will become increasingly appealing and attractive. Companies and organisations that try to preserve their old business models rather than adapting to new ones will go the way of Blockbuster and HMV, who if they had the vision early enough, they could have become what Netflix and Amazon are now, but came far too late to the digital party to catch up.

But I don't think the MOOC model is a sustainable model of education. You need real interaction and intellectual community, which isn't as easily scalable, and which is what people will end up paying for. But new and different models are already emerging, and the digital revolution will be as painful for higher education as it was and is for the music, newspaper and publishing industries.

There are other forms of online education that offer a better model. There are some institutions, such as the Mythgard Institute and Signum University, that offer some content for free, but charge a small fee for auditing a course, and a larger fee (but still much less than bricks and mortar education) for doing the course for credit with weekly small-group seminars with the course leader.

There are some kinds of learning that can be done simply by watching lectures, keeping up with the reading and doing some exercises, but the best higher education learning experience requires real interaction with both leading academics as teachers, and with peers as intellectual community.

The Internet is revolutionary for education in removing barriers of time and geography, making it much easier for people to fit in ongoing education in their lives wherever they live, and to have access to the best in their field wherever they happen to be studying.

But real interaction isn't scalable to tens of thousands. You also need to pay for academics to actually get on and do research, so that they are producing new knowledge, ideas and insights to teach. MOOCs are one model and will have a place in the emerging online education marketplace, but they aren't the only or best future of digital education.

The same challenges face many other sectors - publishers are going through many of the same problems of adapting to new digital realities. How long will it be before there's an educational equivalent of self-publishing like Amazon's Kindle Direct programme, where academics can offer courses directly to students online and get paid a decent amount for it? Will the university as we know it remain relevant in the digital age, or will it usher in a new era of the "independent scholar", with students mixing and matching learning from the best minds in their area of study, wherever they are in the world, regardless of institutional affiliation?

As the supposed traditional Chinese curse goes, "May you live in interesting times".

Choosing a mini-tablet

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 19:00:00 +0000

In the run up to Christmas, I'd been admiring the Amazon Kindle Fire, the Google Nexus 7 and, of course, the iPad mini. I wistfully played with them in-store, trying to find a reason to justify the purchase. I couldn't really afford or justify it out of my spare income, so I wasn't expecting to get my hands on one any time soon.

But a work Christmas bonus - specifically for a mini tablet - suddenly put me in the market for one of these cool little devices. Thank you to my boss! So which would it be?

The first tablet I eliminated from the equation was the Kindle Fire HD, simply because it's very similar in price and specs to the Google Nexus 7, but runs Amazon's own version of Android with a smaller selection of apps, and with Amazon's services baked-in to the system. Given that you can download Amazon's Kindle app on other devices, and the Nexus 7 comes with the latest version of Android Jelly Bean and direct updates from Google, I'd much rather go with the Nexus.

Which left the Nexus 7 and iPad mini, the latter of which is at least £80 more expensive. If I'd just been buying for myself, then as a price-conscious type, I'd probably have gone for the Nexus 7 - it's a great device at a great price. But with the Christmas bonus in play, the pros and cons were more finely balanced.

Since already having a good Android phone, a Nexus 7 would perhaps be too much a bigger version of the same, whereas an iPad gives me access to the Apple ecosystem - there are lots of interesting book apps that are iPad only or a long time in coming to Android, and some apps are better on iOS, such as iPlayer (which is something I watch a lot on tv via my Playstation 3, and occasionally on my phone). It would be better if the BBC could make a great Android app, but having wedded themselves to Flash for video delivery on Android due to some weird political DRM security theatre, they've dug themselves into a bit of a hole. Fact is, iOS still has the edge on tablet app selection. Android is catching up, but isn't there yet.

Also, I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket (whether that's Google or anyone else), but get a spread of devices to get the best overall range of options. I have Windows and Linux on my desktop and netbook, an Android phone, and a Kindle ereader - an Apple tablet would allow me to cover all my bases, pretty much!

I prefer Google's open approach but I'm also a bit uneasy about a "free" system based on advertising and monitoring your personal information and behaviour. I don't like Apple's walled garden, but I also admire the cohesiveness that Apple can deliver by controlling hardware, software and ecosystem so closely.

One very specific feature that Android doesn't currently support is using a USB microphone for audio input, so a Android tablet would be more limited in terms of using it for podcasting than an iPad, which can use one with an adapter cable. That's a fairly niche requirement, but handy for me.

Nexus 7 had in its favour compatibility with my existing phone apps and purchases, a sharper screen and cheaper price. The 16:9 aspect ratio screen on the Nexus is better for video, but I think the iPad's 4:3 is probably slightly better for reading and browsing, though I haven't had chance to test this theory. From what I gather from reviews, the iPad mini is more of a premium feel in aluminium, but that extra bit of width makes it just that slightly less easy to grip in one hand.

It really is a close-run thing. I'd have been very happy to get a Nexus 7, and for many people I'd recommend it over the iPad mini as just as good at a much better price. But for my particular preferences and requirements, the opportunity to get an iPad mini was too good to miss.

So I went ahead and asked for the iPad mini, which I got just before Christmas, despite the slight nagging feeling I was selling out in getting an Apple product. Had I made a good choice, or fallen prey to the Apple hype machine? In my next post, I'll recount my experiences with the device since then...

Review - Sophie Scholl: The Real Story, by Frank McDonough

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 10:16:00 +0000

Sophie Scholl: The Real Story of the Woman who Defied Hitler by Frank McDonough

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I recently finished this moving account of the life of Sophie Scholl, a German student who bravely resisted the Nazis. The book does a good job of telling the story of Sophie's life and the events that propelled her into speaking out against the Nazis.

The White Rose group of which she was a part published leaflets trying to stir the consciences of German people to resist what the Nazis were doing. They did not have clearly defined political objectives - it was a moral and philosophical protest, motivated for many of the group, including Sophie, by their Christian faith. Sophie and her brother Hans were eventually caught, in the end due to recklessness, but faced their death sentences with courage and hope.

The main weakness of this account is that I didn't really feel it got inside Sophie's head that well - the biographer keeps saying that the White Rose group had these in-depth theological and philosophical discussions about what to do. But McDonough doesn't give as clear a sense of how Sophie's thinking and Christian faith developed and informed her actions as much as I would like - though it does include translations of the White Rose leaflets.

I'd like to find an account the White Rose group that focuses in much more depth on what they believed and how that shaped their actions - any recommendations?

What's the point of education?

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 20:37:00 +0000

At the moment, Evangelical Alliance Wales are consulting Christians on a wide number of issues to put together a "Manifesto for Wales", a positive Christian vision for society. This is a great idea - Christian political engagement is often very reactive, simply trying to stem the tide on the secularisation of our society, rather than offering a positive alternative, so I'm glad EA is trying to get Christians together to think these things through.

I put together a few rough thoughts of my own on a Christian view of education to send to them. These are quite high-level principles, but we need to work these out before we can tackle specific practical questions with any hope of sense or coherence. This isn't exactly my area of expertise - I'm commenting as an informed and enthusiastic generalist, so I welcome discussion and criticism from others, especially teachers and others more informed than me! Anyway, here are my thoughts:

What is the value and purpose of education?

Education is a blessing, but against liberal optimism, it won't save us or mend our society - only Christ can do that. But Christ brings renewal to all of life, including education. So we need to work out our view of education in light of the Gospel.

Universities in particular are having a difficult time answering this question against the demands of modern politics that education delivers "impact" in terms of economic value and training people for their careers. We should affirm the pursuit of knowledge, of goodness, beauty and truth, as having inherent worth as one of the ways we as human beings reflect the image of God. But education should be pursued for the common good of society, not simply for individual self-fulfilment or ivory tower academia.

One of the problems faced by the humanities in particular is that the postmodern scepticism of all value claims means that the academy lacks the intellectual resources to consistently justify its own existence in anything except utilitarian terms. As Christians, we have a real intellectual foundation for the university which modern secular thought lacks.

The education system can be said to include three elements, what C S Lewis termed in Rehabilitations and Other Essays "learning", "education" and "training". In his terms, learning is the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake - research and scholarship; education is the passing on of knowledge; and training is education for specific vocational purposes. He noted the tendency to reduce learning to education, and education to training, and I believe the same is even more true today. All three are important: as Christians we need to to affirm the value of knowledge in itself, and the value of a liberal education as the basis of a civilized society, and the value and dignity of "practical" work and labour as glorifying to God.

Who is responsible for education?

Family, church, state and society generally all have a part to play, but where do the boundaries lie? Who holds ultimate responsibility? And who pays for it?

I believe that Biblically speaking, education is primarily the responsibility of the parents. We should resist all attempts by the state to claim ultimate authority over how we bring up our children (so it's important, for example, to defend the right in principle for parents to have the choice to homeschool, whether or not we think it's a good idea in practice). It's legitimate for parents to partially delegate their educational responsibilities to professional educators, whether state or private.

In terms of who pays for it, we need to balance education as a common good which society should provide, and education as something that benefits individuals to which they should contribute. Specifics are much trickier!

Are faith schools a good idea? Can there be a "neutral" education?

The question is not whether to have faith schools, but which faiths we will have schools for. All approaches to education rely on fundamental beliefs about what human beings are, and what the purpose of our lives is that education should prepare us for; these beliefs are a "faith" in the broad sense, though not necessarily "religious". Education cannot in fact be neutral: it's impossible to educate without passing on beliefs and values. A secular school teaches the "faith" of secularism.

In today's multicultural society, every school will need to accommodate children of different backgrounds and beliefs. Practically speaking, not every child will be able to attend a school that teaches the faith they (or their parents) holds - Christian and Muslim children will end up in secular schools, secular children in "faith schools" and so on.

A good education, of any faith or philosophy, should teach people to engage with other points of view and to examine the presuppositions by which they are taught. Indoctrination is antithetical to Christianity because the goal of our faith is to love God, and so there must be freedom to choose or reject Christ.

How the Doctor Changed My Life, Five Years On

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 17:48:00 +0000

It's five years since I heard that my short story, The Shopping Trolleys of Doom, had been shortlisted in Big Finish's Doctor Who writing competition. It was published a year later in Short Trips: How the Doctor Changed My Life. Editor Simon Guerrier has compiled a "where are they now?" blog post about the crop of writers who had their stories published in the collection, How the Doctor Changed My Life Changed My Life.

It was really exciting to have that first publication and I've had two more short stories published since then. If I'm honest, I've not come as far in five years as I might have hoped. I'm still looking for a publisher for my novel, and I'm probably no closer to writing a Doctor Who episode for television than I was back then!

But being realistic, of course it's going to take time to hone my craft, to get good enough to demand the attention of publishers and the BBC. I've done an awful lot in the last five years, both writing-wise, including scriptwriting courses and competition entries, adapting a novel into a play, doing an MA in English Literature, and running Impossible Podcasts. Then there's the small matter of getting married! Juggling writing with working life on the one hand, and being involved with friends and family and church on the other, means that writing success won't happen overnight.

But I'm still going to make it happen, God willing. I'm still writing, still working - just watch me!

Quantum fluctuations - something from nothing?

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:59:00 +0000

Some late night musings on a classic philosophical question, given a new spin by quantum physics...

Can something come from nothing? In a vacuum, quantum fluctuations mean that energetic particles appear and disappear from nothing. Some atheists argue that this means we don't need God to explain why the universe exists.

But even a vacuum isn't really nothing: it's like an empty bank account - no money, but it still has rules governing how things can be put in and out of it. Absolute nothing would mean not just an empty account, but no account at all.

Science may be able to describe rules that allow for "nothing" from "something" within the system of the universe; but it can't answer why there's a system and rules that permit that in the first place.

What do you think?

Poetry on the unprinted page, or, the trouble with ebooks

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:32:00 +0000

Right now, I'm in the thick of an exciting work placement with the Welsh publishing house Seren. Over eight weeks, I'm working as a Digital Assistant, getting them set up in the brave new world of ebook publishing. As both a book and technology geek, it's a great job for me to tackle.

Seren have loads of great titles: last year, they published The Last Hundred Days by Patrick McGuinness, which was long-listed for the Man Booker prize, and shortlisted for the Costa first novel award. Particularly up my street is their current series New Stories from the Mabinogion, which retells Welsh myths and legends in a modern style and context. They also publish a wide variety of fiction, non-fiction and poetry from Wales. It's really exciting to have the opportunity to work with them on creating ebooks.

Poetry in ebook form is one of the most interesting tasks facing me. Publishers are used to having complete control over the layout of the printed page. Contemporary poets make use of various typographic tricks to fuse together word, form and meaning. On an ereader, however, all that becomes fluid. Ebooks can be read on devices of all different shapes and sizes, from dedicated e-ink readers such as the Kindle, up to large computer screens, or down to mobile phones. Words reflow to fit these screens - which is great for reading prose, but can play merry havoc with the readability and artistic integrity of poetry.

For example, one of Seren's upcoming poetry titles involves two long poems, one of which starts normally from the front, the other of which is printed upside down from the back, so you can turn the book over either way to start reading. There's no exact way of replicating that experience in ebook form.

The formatting options available on ereaders such as Kobo, Nook or Kindle are still pretty primitive. The current EPUB and especially the Kindle file format are very basic. They are much more limited than what can be done on a normal webpage. But new file formats - EPUB3 and Kindle Format 8 - are on the way. These will allow more sophisticated layouts, fonts and image handling. In the meantime, many publishers are developing apps for those times when a basic ebook layout just won't cut it.

Of course, 90% of poetry is simply a series of lines on a page, perhaps with a bit of indentation, so there's plenty of poetry that's relatively straightforward - perhaps a little fiddly to convert correctly, but perfectly doable given time and patience. But the other 10%, those poems which push the boundaries of form and textuality, present both a creative and technical challenge - but one that I've started to get to grips with!

Slytherin, Saint Paul and the dangers of ambition?

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 23:41:00 +0000

Over the summer, I signed up for early access to Pottermore, the new Harry Potter website, and a few weeks ago I got the email granting me beta access. One of the activities on the site is completing a quiz in order for the Sorting Hat to put you into one of the four houses of Hogwarts, the wizarding school, according to your character.

As you'll know if you're a Harry Potter fan like myself, the House of Gryffindor, Harry's house, is famed for its courage; Ravenclaw, for intelligence; Hufflepuff, for diligence, and Slytherin for ambition. Slytherin is also the house that has produced the majority of Dark wizards, such as the evil Lord Voldemort, and as such has the reputation of being the "evil" house.

Somewhat to my amusement, I was sorted into Slytherin, which seemed to me ironic since I reckon I'm a pretty good natured guy, a far cry from Lord Voldemort or the unpleasant Draco Malfoy and his racial-purity obsessed chums. But on further reflection, I thought that if you take ambition as the defining quality of a Slytherin, rather than "being evil", it was actually a pretty fair choice. I really would like to change the world, and yes, I'm aware there's a hint of megalomania in that statement!

As the Harry Potter books suggest, ambition can be dangerous. More importantly, the Bible has some particularly strong warnings about ambition. But is it all bad?

The apostle Paul wrote in Phillipians 2:3-8:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross!

The apostle James also warned in chapter 3 verse 4 of his epistle:

For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

Does this mean I should squash my ambitions? Are they nothing but trouble? Or does the phrase "selfish ambition" suggest that there might be such a thing as unselfish ambition? Paul also wrote in Romans 15:20:

It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation.

And he told his young protégé Timothy in 1 Timothy 3:1 that:

Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task.

So it seems that Biblically speaking not all ambition is necessarily wrong. It seems to me that ambition is good or bad depending on what it's aiming for. Ambition can be good if it is an ambition for the glory of God and the good of others, but it is easily corrupted into something self-seeking and self-centred.

Our motives are rarely if ever entirely pure. Mixed in with an honest desire to do good is usually a self-centred desire for status, reputation and so on. The worship of our own self-image is one of the subtlest forms of idolatry. It can lead not only to pride, but also to deep discontent and despair as we attempt to maintain a certain image of ourselves.

God's grace is the liberating antidote to this bitter cycle of pride and worry. Realising that we are accepted and loved by God purely as a free gift of grace in Christ sets us free from having to prove ourselves by our actions, whether that's to God, others or ourself.

Grace also sets us free from the constant paralysis of analysis that can come from the introspection of always examining our motives to see if they're pure. Even though our motives are often impure, in Christ, God accepts us and uses us for his purposes anyway. The Holy Spirit is at work in us to help us develop the genuine love for God and others that is the proper motive for our actions. So while we should be self-aware and should seek to put to death our selfish ambitions, that shouldn't make us do nothing, or prevent us from having any ambition ever.

A good litmus test is whether we'd be happy if someone else achieved the good we are ambitious for. If someone else could do the same thing as well or better, would we be happy in the achievement, or is personal recognition what's really important to us?

What do you think is a healthy attitude to ambition? How do we get the balance right between wanting to achieve great things, and not being proud and self-centred?

There's Probably No Dawkins

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:40:00 +0000

American philosopher, debater and Christian apologist William Lane Craig has been getting attention for Richard Dawkins' refusal to debate him. Craig's Oxford debate has been publicised with a bus campaign stating 'There's probably no Dawkins'.

It's a funny and clever riff on the atheist bus campaign, and good publicity for William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith debate tour. Dawkins is in a bit of a lose-lose situation - Dawkins would be hard-pressed to match Craig in the debate, and such an event would be good publicity for Craig but less so for Dawkins; but by refusing, Dawkins looks weak and Craig still gets lots of publicity.

In response, Dawkins is trying his best to dismiss him as a legitimate intellectual figure, accusing Craig in The Guardian of justifying genocide in the Old Testament. This is a tricky subject, and as such is a good 'distraction' for Dawkins to use in diverting attention away from the debate about God's existence. I think it's quite telling - the New Atheism is as much an attack on the goodness of God as it is on his existence.

Of course, divinely-sanctioned war in the Old Testament is an important issue in its own right. For an introduction, check out these articles on Bethinking: Old Testament Mass Killings, Is God a Monster?.

But on the basis of an atheistic, naturalistic worldview, so what if the Israelites committed genocide? If we are nothing but molecules in motion, then there's no more moral import to the movements of some ape-descendants in the Middle East than there is to continental drift or the Northern Lights.

Of course, genocide is always wrong, and we know it's wrong, but that suggests that there's more to reality than Dawkins' atheism allows. Atheists are just as moral as anyone else, but this is inconsistent with their stated beliefs - you can be moral without God, but you cannot justify objective, universal morality from a purely naturalistic philosophy.

Dawkins is also begging the question by accusing Craig of endorsing genocide, because Craig's argument is to explain why the war described in Judges was not in fact genocide, but was a proportionate, targeted and morally justified war given the full circumstances and context.

As a reason not to debate Craig, it's a pretty weak one. Dawkins is basically saying he won't debate with Craig because Craig takes the Bible literally, even the parts that go against modern morals and values. This is an odd reversal: Dawkins devotes most of his attention in The God Delusion on attacking the more extreme versions of religion rather than its more "moderate" forms. But now he's saying he'll only debate "moderate" religious figures. A bit inconsistent, surely?

However, I think Craig and those promoting him might need to tone down the rhetoric a bit. There's a danger of going too far and appearing needy and attention-seeking. Potential debate opponents need to be reassured of a fair fight, rather than being invited to an intellectual ambush. In an interview on BBC Radio 4, an atheist complained about Craig's "slippery arguments". On the other hand, this guy seemed to be objecting that Craig uses lines of argument that sound convincing and are hard to refute without a lot of work. It seems that Craig should be ashamed of using such dirty tricks as having strong arguments for believing in God, and use unconvincing arguments that are easily refuted instead!

See the programme for William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith tour to find out where he's appearing, or check out a recording of his lecture at Imperial College London from earlier this week.

The Joys of Rereading

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 09:53:00 +0000

So many books, so little time! I'm enjoying having more time for reading for pleasure now I've finished my MA. It's sometimes possible to feel guilty about going back to reread books, when I've got so many unread books waiting for me.

But you never actually read the same book twice. You never have the same experience of a book twice, because you will have changed. At different times in your life, you bring different experiences and knowledge with you to a book - you'll pick up on different things, other elements will resonate with you, you'll spot connections you missed before.

In An Experiment in Criticism, C S Lewis proposed judging books by how their readers read and respond to them, rather than judging the taste of readers against some pre-determined "canon" of quality literature. So rather than good and bad books, or "literary" versus "genre" books, "classic" vs "popular", he distinguished between "literary" and "unliterary" ways of reading.

You can judge a book on the quality of its readers, Lewis suggests, and the way in which they read the book. If a book is "tossed aside like an old newspaper the moment it has been used, unliterary reading can be diagnosed with certainty". But, "where there is a passionate and constant love of a book and rereading, then however bad we think the book and however immature or uneducated we think the reader, it cannot".

A good book invites and rewards rereading. It will also have more on offer than just "how will the plot be resolved?" Plot is the skeleton on which the juicy meat of story hangs. In a good book, you can enjoy the characters, situation, descriptions, atmosphere and so on repeatedly even when you know how the story ends. And a good reader is one who delights in not just in books in general, but loves specific books and returns to them to drink again from their riches.

Life, Death, Steve Jobs and Success: The Richest Man in the Cemetery?

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 09:40:00 +0000

By any human measure, Steve Jobs' life was an incredible success. Co-founder of Apple, former owner of Pixar, a visionary who transformed computing, the music industry, mobile phones and much more.

And then he died, aged only 56.

Jobs was suffering from pancreatic cancer, and his death at such a relatively early age is deeply sad. And yet in Steve Jobs' Stamford University commencement address in 2005, he was able to say:

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

"Follow your heart". Jobs' success was due in a very large part to his sense of vision. He didn't want to make "me too" products, to follow existing trends and successes, to be a slave to market research. He said, "For something this complicated, it's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."

But if that's true of computers or iPods, then what about life? Will "following your heart" really make you happy? Perhaps when it comes to what really matters, we don't know what we want until we're shown what we need.

In Luke 12:13-21, Jesus told the story of a rich man:

The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'

Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.'

But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'

This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich towards God.

Jesus tells us that what really matters is being "rich towards God" rather than storing up things for himself. Unlike the man in the story, Jobs wasn't concerned simply with making money. He famously said:

Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me ... Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me.

But while we are probably quick to recognise the emptiness of chasing mere money, profit and riches, we perhaps fail to recognise that pursuing achievement and excellence can be just as meaningless.

Trying to "do something wonderful", leads to frustration, anxiety and worry as much as it does to satisfaction, even if you actually succeed. "You can't take it with you" doesn't just apply to your bank balance, but also to your CV, whether you've built a business empire, invented great devices or created incredible works of art, or anything else.

Jesus came to show us what we really need. If we simply "follow our hearts", we risk missing out on what will truly satisfy. He came to tell us that our deepest needs and desires can only be met by being rich towards God. Instead of worrying, even about the basics of life, what we will eat or what we will wear, he tells us to "Instead seek God's kingdom, and these things will be added to you" (Luke 12:31).

But what does it mean to "be rich towards God" and to "seek God's kingdom"? How do we do that? It means seeking and treasuring God as Father and King, finding our meaning and purpose in life in following him. God is revealed to us in Jesus. Jesus said "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father". Jesus died on the Cross for us, showing us God's self-giving love. It's only when we see Jesus that we see what we really need, what will really satisfy.

God's kingdom is all-encompassing, for all of life - because God is a loving and righteous, just and generous, we are called to live in the same way. Luke 12:33-34 tells us,

Sell your possessions and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

When we find our treasure in God, we have a meaning and purpose that demands our whole life, but will outlast death. Jesus isn't another app for the smartphone of life; he's a whole new operating system, who transforms our lives infinitely more radically than the smartest new gadget or device.

I'm not criticising or condemning Steve Jobs; I admire his achievements, and wouldn't presume to know where he stands before God. My prayers are with his family and friends.

But as the world marks the death of a man rich in vision and conviction, we would all do well to consider Jesus' question, "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?"

Throes, and a couple of pages

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 10:58:00 +0000

I'm in the last throes of finishing my dissertation, which is due in next week - I might resume somewhat more regular blogging once it's handed in!

"Throe" is a great word, by the way. The OED defines it as:

1. A violent spasm or pang, such as convulses the body, limbs, or face. Also, a spasm of feeling; a paroxysm; agony of mind; anguish.
b. spec. The pain and struggle of childbirth; pl. labour-pangs.
c. The agony of death; the death-struggle, death-throe (Sc. deid-thraw).
2. transf. and fig. A violent convulsion or struggle preceding or accompanying the ‘bringing forth’ of something.

...which seems to just about sum up what I'm going through at the moment! In the meantime, I've added a few general pages, linked to in the sidebar: About Me, My Writing, and My Designs. They're a bit basic at the moment, but I'll be adding more information to them gradually.

Makes a change from Hobbits

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 07:54:00 +0000

I'm still very busy with my dissertation, but I've got an exciting break today: I'm off to London to the BFI preview screening of 'Let's Kill Hitler', the first episode of the autumn series of Doctor Who! I'll be reporting on it over on the Impossible Podcasts blog and Twitter account.

Thoughts on my MA

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 08:25:00 +0000

Well, it's been a while since I updated my blog, mainly because I've been keeping very busy with my English Literature masters. I handed in my second set of essays a few weeks ago, which were titled "Childhood, colonialism and Christianity in Swiss Family Robinson and The Coral Island" and "Faërie, art and magic in Sir Orfeo and Tolkien’s fiction".

At Easter, I heard that my application for PhD funding wasn't successful, so my plans to research religion in children's literature, 1950 to the present, are on hold for the moment, and I'm now looking for a job for after I finish the MA. I'd like to return to do a PhD at some point, but it will probably be good for me to get a full-time job and be back in the "normal" working world, and I'm hoping my MA will stand me in good stead in finding something writing or communications based that I'll find interesting and satisfying.

In May, I gave my first academic paper at the Myth, Legends and Folktale conference held at Cardiff University. It was titled King Arthur and Christendom, focusing on Malory, Tennyson and White's versions of the King Arthur story. It was based on one of my autumn MA essays, and looked at changing representations of the relationship between Arthur and the Grail, and how that revealed changing conceptions of the relationship between secular and sacred. Yesterday I heard that I've had a second paper accepted, this time for the Christian Literary Studies Group conference in Oxford in November - I'll be discussing Heroism in The Lord of the Rings and The Once and Future King. So I'm very excited - and slightly nervous! - about that.

I'm thoroughly enjoying studying English Literature at a postgraduate level. Managing my own time and staying focused can be hard work, but I enjoy the time researching in the library, reading books, and writing up. The pressure of essay deadlines isn't much fun, and I've got to be very disciplined over the summer to get the 16-20,000 word dissertation written, but it's good to develop the organisation and motivation to carry out this kind of research.

The second reason I've not updated my blog much is because most of my spare time has been going on reviving Impossible Podcasts to record commentaries the new series of Doctor Who, and getting it up and running with general science fiction and fantasy reviews and articles. It's been fun doing that with Peter, Swithun, James, Olivia and some other friends and guests. I'll be uploading some Tolkien episodes of the podcast over the next couple of weeks. If you enjoy science fiction or fantasy, check out our website, or find us on Twitter, Facebook or iTunes!

Census 2011: No religion please, we're British?

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 16:06:00 +0000

Originally printed in Gair Rhydd, 28th April 2011.

There are three kinds of lies, the saying goes: lies, damned lies and statistics. One statistic has proved particularly controversial: the 2001 census found that 72% of the population described themselves as “Christian”. With the 2011 census, the fight is on to get it changed.

“If you’re not religious, for God’s sake say so”, runs the British Humanist Association’s (BHA) campaign slogan to encourage non-believers to register their disbelief in the current census. As a Christian, I can see no possible objection to having an accurate picture of the nation’s beliefs. It seems pretty likely that religion is in continued decline in Britain. But the real controversy is over how these statistics are used politically.

The BHA argues that the census figures on religious affiliation were used to justify increasing the number of faith schools, special privileges for religious groups in equality law and other legislation, retaining Bishops in the House of Lords and much more. The campaign to get people to tick the non-religious box is also about decreasing religion’s influence in the public sphere.

It’s right to take the question of religion seriously. It makes an everlasting difference if we will face a choice of heaven or hell, or if we will be reborn in a cycle of reincarnation, or if this life is all we get, and so on. It’s in no-one’s interest for someone to think themself a member of a religion without really understanding and being committed to its teachings and practices.

It’s not just eternity, either: religion makes all the difference to everything from education to marriage, from war to abortion. Our beliefs should not be a matter of habit or cultural identity, but of personal, rational conviction. What we believe really matters, so tick what you really believe on the census.

But I think using religious statistics to make political arguments, whether by the non-religious or religious, misses the point. Political issues are usually questions of principle – statistics shouldn’t come into it. Rights and freedoms and responsibilities should apply to everyone equally.

If faith schools are acceptable, then statistics might decide which faiths are taught where, what the distribution should be of Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, secular and so on. But statistics can’t tell us whether or not religion ought to be taught at all in schools in the first place. Should education be religion-free, to allow children to make up their own minds? Or would a secular education simply mean secular indoctrination?

Or take the example of Owen and Eunice Johns, the Christian couple barred from fostering because they believe, in accordance with traditional orthodox Christianity, that homosexuality is a sin. Despite promising that they would show love and support to any child they fostered no matter their sexuality, their moral stance was deemed potentially harmful.

Whatever you think of the Johns’s beliefs, the issue can’t be decided simply by majority vote. If people have freedom of belief, then they have it even when it runs contrary to the opinion of the majority. A teenager disagreeing with their parents’ morality would be nothing new. Should an atheist like Richard Dawkins be barred from fostering, in case his belief that religion is immoral harms his child should they adopt a faith? The Johns are victims of an intolerant secularism intent on excluding faith, not on promoting freedom.

It’s also wrong to assume that all people of a particular religion will support a particular policy, and neither does being non-religious necessarily imply support of secularist politics. To treat religious affiliation like a vote for a political party is a logical confusion and an abuse of statistics.

Let’s stop the statistical one-upmanship right now. I don’t want any special privileges or exceptions for religious people, but for everyone, both religious and non-religious, to have the same freedom to live according to their beliefs and principles – even for Jedis!

Vengeance and grace in "True Grit"

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 21:09:00 +0000

I went to see the Cohen brothers' film True Grit earlier. It's based on a book by Charles Portis, but is apparently a remake of the 1969 film starring John Wayne. It tells the story of 14-year-old Mattie's efforts to gain vengeance against Tom Chaney, who killed her father, by enlisting the services of Rooster Cogburn, played here by Jeff Bridges.

Like Joel and Ethan Cohen's previous film, the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men, there are no easy answers to be found in Mattie's search for vengeance. But while I found the arbitrariness and lack of closure in No Country for Old Men to simply be unsatisfying, rather than interesting or profound (There Will Be Blood was robbed of that Oscar), True Grit is much more engaging. This is partly down to the wonderful dialogue: always sharp and funny, often echoing with Biblical resonances. But at a deeper level, the film is not just about vengeance, but also about grace.

At the start of the film, Mattie says:

"You must pay for everything in this world one way and another. There is nothing free with the exception of God’s grace."

But she shows little grace, pursuing Tom Chaney with single-minded determination. She doesn't want him to simply die or to face justice, but to do so in the knowledge that it is for killing her father. She has a sharp legal knowledge and clings to the language of law and of contracts in situations where it seems wildly out of place.

I don't want to give anything away, but while forgiveness is conspicuous by its absence, I think grace ultimately does play a part in Mattie's story. It's worth asking of the film, what is its view of grace? How might grace be obtained? Does grace only come from God? As a Christian, I might take a rather different view of the world than the one offered in the film, but True Grit offers an engaging story and an intriguing engagement with these ideas.

I've also just seen an article by Stanley Fish in The New York Times on this subject, Narrative and the Grace of God: The New 'True Grit', which discusses these themes in more detail (and gives more of the story away, so be warned!)

Why study Tolkien?

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 15:12:00 +0000

One of the modules I'm studying this semester is Tolkien's Medievalism. J R R Tolkien was not only a fantasy writer, but also a distinguished scholar of medieval literature. His essay Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics remains influential to this day. The rich depth of his writing comes from his love of language and of medieval storytelling, making him the modern writer that medieval scholars love to study.

He obviously did something right: The Lord of the Rings is the most popular novel of the 20th century, and also one of the most derided. J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy epic has sold over 150 million copies. The tale of Frodo the hobbit has won poll after poll across the world. But many critics howl in protest at its success, dismissing it as childish escapism.

I admit that it’s a story - no, a world - that you can lose yourself in. The hobbits, with their anachronistically English ways, are our companions on the journey into Middle Earth. It’s full of great characters, such as Frodo and Sam, Gollum and Gandalf. It’s packed with exciting events, from the flight from the Black Riders all the way through to the final confrontation above the Cracks of Doom.

But good storytelling isn’t childish. The people who worry most about “escape” are jailers. Great literature is more than just a good yarn, but not less. Far from being “mere escapism”, Tolkien used fantasy to deal with the big issues of the 20th century.

As Tom Shippey argues in Tolkien: Author of the Century, like George Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut, and William Golding, Tolkien turned to the fantastic to make sense of his experiences of modern warfare. Industrialization, global warfare, environmentalism and the nature of evil all loom large in the fabric of his novel.

Modernist writers responded to the horrors of the First World War and the barrenness of modern life with increasingly disjointed and formless writings. Writers like T. S. Eliot drew on ancient myth, but as broken fragments.

Tolkien, while sharing many of their concerns, did something very different. Drawing on his knowledge of Anglo-Saxon and Norse myth and legend, he wove a story of unique power and insight. When it mattered most, Tolkien reaffirmed the great values of human civilization: Good against evil. Unity over division. Self-sacrifice over power. And in doing so, he wrote a story that will speak not just to our time, but to all times.

I honestly believe that Lord of the Rings is going to be one of those rare stories that lasts, which like such works as The Odyssey, The Divine Comedy or Paradise Lost, will still be read and enjoyed hundreds of years from now.

If you're interested in Tolkien, and especially in academic study of his writings, then you'll probably share my enjoyment of The Tolkien Professor podcast, in which Professor Corey Olsen of Washington College discusses his writing in a lively and engaging way, with lectures, interviews, Q&As and readings.

There's a veritable industry of Tolkien scholarship. Some titles that are good introductions are the aforementioned Tolkien: Author of the Century by Tom Shippey, The Tolkien Fan's Medieval Reader by Turgon and The Keys to Middle Earth: Discovering Medieval Literature through the fiction of J R R Tolkien by Stuart Lee and Elizabeth Solopova. Looking at the medieval influences of Tolkien (and other writers such as C S Lewis) is an easy way to get into medieval literature, which is itself fascinating and wonderful.

Men Against Porn?

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 15:02:00 +0000

Opinion piece for Gair Rhydd, published 15th November 2010.

Believe it or not, I’ve never looked at porn. Far from being harmless “adult entertainment”, I believe porn degrades both women and men, and damages relationships and society.

Defenders of porn say that people know the difference between porn and reality. But the unreality of porn is one of the problems. Rather than engaging with the reality of another person, with their own thoughts, feelings and pleasures, porn is a sad retreat into fantasy. Worse, porn conditions us to treat others as simply as “living porn” - as objects to be used for our own sexual gratification.

Porn won’t turn you into an overnight misogynist. But we’re deluding ourselves if we don’t think it has any effect. Our culture is increasingly pornified. We don’t blink as almost-naked women cavort in adverts. Lad’s mags are a normal feature on the shelves of newsagents, offering competitions to win free boob jobs.

But what should we do about it? Try to ban porn? I don’t think that would work, and I don’t think it gets to the heart of the issue. Where there’s demand, there will always be supply. We need self-restraint, not censorship. Men are traditionally seen as the main consumers of porn, though it is becoming increasingly normal for women too. So having men speak out against porn is powerful and important.

This is where a new website, the AntiPornMenProject, comes in. Crucially, it’s a place for men to speak out against porn, arguing from feminist principles. It says, “Pornography is one of the most important social issues that we face in tackling both violence against women and wider gender inequality, as well as an important personal issue in the lives and relationships of many people”.

I wouldn’t call myself a feminist, but I agree wholeheartedly. But something puzzles me. The site goes on to say that it isn’t against porn for “any conservative or religious sentiments”, and to quickly clarify “we are anti-porn is because we are pro-sex”. I might be reading too much into it, but as a Christian, I found this rather odd. It implies that while feminists have “reasons” for being anti-porn, religious people have “sentiments”. They are also inevitably conservative, and probably anti-sex too.

But such stereotypes are mistaken. I don’t oppose porn because of some arbitrary “Thou Shalt Not”, or right-wing reactionism, but for the same reasons – porn is bad for women, society, sex and relationships. You can be both a feminist and a Christian, and many forms of the two share common ground.

Of course, not all strands of feminism, or flavours of Christianity, are compatible. Porn was a key battleground in the Feminist Sex Wars. The 1980s in particular saw bitter arguments between anti-pornography feminists and “sex-positive” feminists, who argue that porn can be empowering and liberating for women.

But it seems to me – in common with many feminists – that the sexual revolution, far from liberating and empowering women, has made many women far worse off than before. Pro-porn feminism, far from improving sex for women, has made it worse.

Christianity has had a chequered history when it comes to women. But if you go back to Jesus’ life and teachings, you’ll see that he smashed through the gender divide of his day. He was unafraid to spend time with women, and others who were excluded from society – the “sinners”, tax-collectors and prostitutes. St Paul wrote that in Christ, there is neither male nor female – we are all one.

There are differences, of course. Christians are so pro-sex, we think it’s almost sacred, and so should be enjoyed within the covenant of marriage. Some Christians, myself included, believe that the Bible teaches masculinity and femininity aren’t just a matter of biology or culture, but spiritual and moral realities. Men and women should be equal in worth, in rights and opportunities, but we should also recognise and celebrate their differences.

Porn isn’t just a feminist issue, or just a religious issue, but an issue for everyone: men and women, liberal and conservative, religious and non-religious. While not everyone can agree and we can’t agree on everything, we can still unite against porn.

Oh, the humanities!

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 14:53:00 +0000

Article written for Gair Rhydd, published 11th October 2010:

Cuts are everywhere, but the arts and humanities have their head against the block. With plans to cut its funding by as much as 25%, they are treated as an expensive luxury rather than a vital part of our national life. I've just returned to university to study for a master's degree in English Literature, so I've obviously got a horse in this race, but I find this attitude very short-sighted.

The arts in Britain do contribute massively to our economy, as does the study of humanities to a degree. The arts employ 2 million people, and contribute £16.6 billion to our exports – not bad value for 0.08% of the national budget. But that’s not the main reason we should protect them. If they are reduced simply to a price tag, we’ve already lost our souls.

“Impact” is the latest buzz-word in the Higher Education quangos that govern our universities. Doing high-quality research isn’t enough any more; universities have to prove it has “impact” on society if they want to good assessments and continued funding. This is fair to a point; if tax-payers are funding university research, they want to know what they’re getting out of it. The problem is a narrow focus on money and headlines as the criteria of success.

Rewarding academics for getting their ideas in the papers or on television won’t deliver good research, just sensationalism. Academic study by its very nature is specialised. You can’t expect it to make good 10-second soundbites. And while humanities subjects don't typically deliver a direct economic benefit in the way that, say, science or engineering do, there's much more to life than just economic competitiveness. The humanities are valuable precisely because they don’t typically have much direct economic value. They teach us there is more to life than the bottom line.

Understanding our culture, past and present, really matters. We need people who have a deep understanding of language, literature, history and so on. We need to support the creation of art – painting, music, theatre, literature and all its other myriad forms. We need voices that will both preserve and pass on, confirm and challenge, our values, culture and heritage.

No society can function for long without creative vision and a humane sense of value and purpose. While science, technology and engineering tell us “how” to do things, it takes the arts and humanities to tackle the questions of “what” and “why”. Neglect the questions of art, the wisdom of the humanities, and you are left with a technocratic society that may be efficient, but has no clear purpose.

The point is not to set the arts and humanities against the sciences. Both sets of disciplines are necessary for our well-being. But we need to resist the idea that science and technology are the “real thing” and philosophy and ethics, literature and theology, are airy abstractions. We need to fund not just those areas with “survival value”, but ones that give value to survival.

A good humanities degree not only teaches critical thinking skills and a deeper understanding of our cultural heritage, it teaches us how to be human. Art as its best enlarges our understanding of the world and of other people.

The arts and humanities may or may not help you get a job or fix the economy, but they certainly help you get a life.

Christianity & Postmodernism 8: Conclusion and Index

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 14:42:00 +0000

I've been rather busy with my MA course over the last couple of months, but here are at last is the index to all the posts in my series on Christianity and Postmodernism. I hope to return to a more regular blogging schedule now that my essays have been written!

Make no mistake, Postmodernism is a hollow and deceptive philosophy that depends on the basic principles of the world, rather than on Christ, as Colossians 2:8 would put it. But so is Modernism. Both of them grasp at least some aspects of truth. Both bring not just challenges, but opportunities to witness to what God has done in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Against them both, we need to demonstrate that faith and reason work together to produce knowledge and discover truth. The Christian faith is not less than reasonable, but it is more than rationalism: the Gospel speaks to you as a whole person, intellect, will, emotions and every other aspect of you. Jesus calls you to follow him with all that you are. Examine the evidence, but do so knowing that before we can discover truth, we all have to answer the question “who will I trust?”

I’ll finish with the words of Jesus in Matthew 22:37-38, which sums all this up:

"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment."

Christianity & Postmodernism 7: Challenges and Opportunities

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 08:38:00 +0000

In some of my recent posts, I've been looking at the ideas of various postmodern thinkers - Lyotard, Foucault and Barthes - arguing that there's more common ground than you might at first suspect between the Christianity and postmodernism. I'm now going to consider the challenges and opportunities in general terms.

Postmodernism vs postmodernity
Of course, when it comes to the effect of postmodernism on culture, when it comes to our present condition of “postmodernity”, the subtleties of what particular postmodern philosophers, writers and critics make very little difference.

When you explain the Gospel to someone, and they object that it’s intolerant for you to claim it’s true for everyone, and it’s all a matter of interpretation, then trying to explain what Lyotard really meant by “suspicion of metanarratives” probably won’t get you very far!

The net cultural effect of postmodern philosophy is a culture deeply suspicious of any kind of truth claims, whether “legitimated by universal reason” or not. To present the Christian faith as truth to a postmodern world is a massive challenge. But understanding postmodernism in more depth can help us to find better ways of responding than simply repeating arguments for objective truth more loudly.

Let’s consider three particular areas of opportunity and challenge:

Opportunity 1: a new openness to spirituality Postmoderns tend to be much more open to the spiritual than moderns – Alister McGrath observed in Evangelicalism and the Future of Christianity that “the claustrophobic and restrictive strait-jacket placed on Western Christianity by rationalism has gone”. That’s only partly true – the so-called “New Atheism” tends to be stridently modernistic. But many people are dissatisfied with modernity’s inability to satisfy their need for spiritual meaning and purpose.

Opportunity 2: a hunger for community and authenticity
I asked earlier how we should witness to our faith if not by trying to “prove” Christianity by appeal to universal reason. To reach a postmodern generation, the Church doesn’t need to have an apologetic; it needs to be an apologetic. As Jesus said, “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” This is exactly what the Church ought to be, but I think we’ve got some work to do in this area.

In A Better Hope, Stanley Hauerwas made the provocative claim that “Postmodernism is the outworking of mistakes in Christian theology correlative to the attempt to make Christianity ‘true’ apart from faithful witness.” Postmodernism has the potential to be a catalyst to spur the Church into recovering its mission of being Christ to the world.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try to demonstrate that Christianity is rational – of course we need to engage with people’s questions and doubts, and make the case for our beliefs – but this will be far more effective within the context of the faithful witness of a community of faith that lives out what it means to follow and worship Christ.

Opportunity 3: more emphasis on action and experience On the positive side, this is a welcome corrective to modernism’s narrow rationalism. There’s less factionalism and dogmatism, and postmoderns are much more likely to work across boundaries of different churches and denominations. Christ called his followers to be one as he and the Father are one. Christianity is for the whole person, body, will, emotions, not just for the intellect. So if postmodernism helps us to recover a more holistic approach to our faith and be more united as his people, then so much the better.

On the negative side, postmodernism brings the danger of neglecting the rational, and this apparent unity often comes out of a doctrinal apathy, rather than us being any better at dealing with disagreements. Are we following Ephesians 4:15 by “speaking the truth in love, growing up into Christ our head,” or are we just “not speaking anything contentious in apathy”?

Truth matters and doctrine matters. We must take the Bible seriously as God speaking to us authoritatively, rather than waving away disagreements as “just a matter of interpretation”.

Other avenues
Other areas I could discuss if I had time would be Christianity and narrative, and the challenge to recover the Bible as a story. We could also look at how deconstruction seeks to hear the voices of the oppressed and marginalised, and how that ethical concern gives us a bridge to discussing God’s compassion for such people. It’s a massive subject and I’ve barely scratched the surface.

In a few days, I'll post a concluding summary, with links to all the posts in the series.

My short story shortlisted!

noreply@blogger.com (Caleb Woodbridge) — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 15:27:00 +0000

Yesterday I received an email telling me that my short story, Mr Crickfarthing's Emotion Emporium, has been shortlisted for the Wicked Young Writers' Award 2010 in the 17-25 year old category. Hip hip, and indeed, hooray.

That's "Wicked" in reference to the musical Wicked, by the way, based on Gregory Maguire's novel, a prequel/"re-imagining" to The Wizard of Oz. Gregory Maguire is one of the judges, along with Michael Morpurgo, former children's laureate.

Being shortlisted means that my story will be published in the anthology of entries. I've also been invited to the Awards Ceremony in London in November at the Apollo Victoria Theatre, where the winners will be announced.

The competition closed back at the end of July, and not having heard anything for a couple of months, I'd pretty much forgotten about it, so it was a very pleasant surprise to receive the email telling me I'd been shortlisted! I'm looking forward to the trip to London.