The Tangled Web of Comedy

Telling a joke is a complex business. Far more complex than many of us realise. A few week ago, the whole subject of whether Islam can take a joke or not. I’ve blogged before about comedy (and tragedy) being about the gap between how things are and how things are meant to be. Here’s some more that comes from that and hopefully explains why making jokes is a treacherous business.

I’ve described telling jokes as getting from one moving car onto another moving car. It’s dangerous. Cars travel at speed and if you time your jump wrong, someone’s going to get hurt. And it could precipitate a serious pile-up. What do I mean by all this? Comedy is relational since it requires shared knowledge or experience. You have to know stuff to ‘get’ the joke. But people are not static objects. They are living, breathing, thinking, feeling beings. That must be handled with care. Let me explain.

Adam (the jokes) is telling a joke to Colin (the listener) about Barbara (the joked about). Barbara, let’s say, has funny hair. And the joke is that Barbara’s hair looks like an exploding pillow. How is Colin going to react? It all depends on the intertwining relationship. There are three relationships here.

Adam and Colin
Adam, the joker, has a relationship with Colin, the listener. Are they life long buddies? Do they have a running joke about bad hair? Or have they just met on the bus? It makes a difference to how the joke is told. And how it is heard. For a start, they both need to know Barbara. Do they know here personally in the same way? (More below) And they both need to share the view that her hair is indeed funny. And that it resembles an exploding pillow. And that they both know what a pillow is. What if Colin is from a culture where pillows don’t exist? What is Colin isn’t a native English speaker and in his language, pillow means something vile and offensive?

Adam and Barbara
Adam, the joker, has a relationship with Barbara, the joked about. But what kind of relationship? Is Barbara his mum? Is Barbara a politician in the public eye? Or the victim of a harrowing assault whose picture is in the paper that’s been left on the bus that Adam and Colin are travelling on? Is Barbara sitting on the bus three seats in front? Is it appropriate for Adam to tell the joke about Barbara? He needs to consider this:

Colin and Barbara
Colin, the listener, has a relationship with Barbara, the joked about. What if Barbara is Colin’s mum? And Adam doesn’t know Colin all that well. Adam’s being rude. “Adam, are you dissing my mum?” What if Barbara is a leading politician. Colin comes from a culture that has amazing respect for political leaders. Adam is being very disrespectful. “Adam, show some respect for you elders!” Or Colin is a left-wing political activist and Barbara is the wife of an arms dealer. Adam is being a rubbish satirist. “Hair jokes, Adam? Is that all you’ve got? This woman’s pure evil.” Maybe Colin knows Barbara in the same way as Adam does – Barbara is their teacher who is notoriously vain about her hair. In which case “Nice one, Adam. Let’s hope she kept the receipt on that haircut etc.” Is Colin Barbara’s hairdresser? In which case “Adam, shut up. I did a good job.” Or “Fair cop, Adam. I don’t know what I was thinking.” Or “Adam, you won’t believe it, but that’s the way she wanted it! She asked for the exploding pillow look.”

Broken down like this, it seems obvious that jokes are treacherous, slippery things. None of us has total knowledge about how various people feel about other people. So when we make a joke, we’re taking a risk. Sometimes, we get it wrong. And offend for the wrong reasons. Sometimes we get it right. And don’t offend. Or do offend but for the right reasons (eg Satire). The Book of Ecclesiastes teaches us there is a time for everything. A time to laugh and a time to keep your joke to yourself.

Of course, all of the above it even more complex when Adam and/or Colin are themselves fictional characters. Adam might be a character in a sitcom with a reputation for making distasteful jokes. And you are the viewer at home, Colin, appalled by the joke. You say “Colin shouldn’t talk about Barbara that way. Even if Barbara is made up. I know someone like Barbara and that’s just mean.” But maybe that’s the point. So the made-up character wasn’t to know that – even if the writer of the sitcom was. It starts to get very very complicated.

I’ll get back to you when I have something else. In the meantime, I hope you can see why I paint the moving car picture. In fact a more accurate picture would be getting from one moving car to another via a third.

What do we do on Sundays?

Marc Lloyd's posted some interesting thoughts on Cult and Culture on his blog here.

Why 33?

Did Hut 33 actually exist in Bletchley Park? If you're curious, have a look on my Hut 33 blog here.

And don't forget you can 'listen again' to the show here.

Before bunking off for a long weekend...

This weekend coming is called a Bank Holiday in Britain. For those of you unfamiliar with how thinks work here, some Mondays in the year (about four, I think) are declared public holidays. In what way this is related to our banking system, I do not know. Either way, it's a government-backed 'day off'. They're not religious festivals or saints days. This one coming coincides only with the Eurovision Song Contest and my own wedding anniversary. But the general gist this afternoon is - "See you on Tuesday".

Bank Holidays, most people would agree, are a good thing. Time off work. Time with family. Put your feet up. Kick back. Buy a barbecue. Char some food and eat it. Take your kids to the beach. Put up those shelves. Enjoy.

But here's a thought. Not a thought I'm deeply committed to but asking it may yield some fruit. If we're Christians, why would we stop working Bank Holidays Mondays? Just because the government says so? Who are they tell us, or at least us Christians, when we should and should not work? Isn't there a pretty clear pattern of work in the Bible. Work for six days. Rest for the seventh. At the moment, most of us only work for five and rest two. Isn't that not only lazy but disobedient? For many of us, staying away from the office means more time with our spouses and childre, friends and neighbours. Isn't that a good thing? But when God set creation in order, he foreknew that in the West in 2008, it would be possible to live merrily on five days a week - so why was this template not given with greater flexibility?

Also, many of us bunk of for a fortnight here and there as well. On holiday. Holidays are great. But on what basis do Christians take them? There is clearly a biblical mandate for jubilee, but how have we ended up as assuming 20 days of paid holiday a year is the starting point?

And who decided that 65, or 67, was retirement age after which you don't have to do a stroke of work if you don't want to?

Clearly we need to work out what we mean by work. Work is far bigger than paid employment. Many of us work on saturdays, doing jobs around the house - not resting. Many retired folk work harder in retirement serving others or working for charities than they did in paid employment. But it's worth asking why we do things as we do - and whether God is altogether happy with that arrangement. In the meantime, I will be working on Monday. Although today a bunked off a fair amount to see my sister. So some food for thought there, I hope.

On Over-Taxation

You'll find a writer with a degree of imagination here.

I don't agree with everything he says - and his problem with taxation is broadly pragmatic - but he's thinking big and asking the question "Why does society have to be this way?"

It's not over - the Abortion Debate

When I saw the pictures of my daughter in utero, I was amazed and stunned. She was so beautifully defined. At 12 weeks, her whole body was visible and human. She was a very small person - but clearly a person. At 20 weeks, she was bigger still, more developed and the most beautiful sight I had ever seen.

On both occasions, I thought to myself with amazement, "Legally, we don't have to go through with this." We can say, "We can't cope" and that would be the end of it. Rosie Grace, our most precious daughter - and frankly one of the few things in life I'm genuinely proud of - would be gone. According to the letter of the law, we have no 'Abortion on demand', but effectively, in practice, we do.

So the vote in the House of Commons last night - that the Abortion limit was not reduced to 12, 16, 20 or 22 weeks - was immensely disappointing and distressing. Here are a few thoughts on it, in no particular order.

1. Ann Widdecombe is slightly mad, and often a figure of fun. But she is not a hypocrite and talks a lot of sense. She plainly stated the obvious: "... two children of exactly the same age and gestation - one is in a cot with all the resources of medical science being poured into saving it and the other is quite deliberately being taken from the womb and destroyed. That is moral anarchy. That is a totally unjustifiable state of affairs."

2. What this statement belies is the fact that secular humanism's qualifications for life are utterly confusing and self-contradictory. Previously, secular humanists functionally thought that we can abort a baby that we had no chance of saving medically. Therefore, our defining characteristic for what constituted life was not the inherent value of the child in any absolute sense, but our scientific ability to keep that child alive with a reasonable degree of success. But now we can abort children that we can save medically. Where next? Even by a secular humanist's standpoint, we now have legal infanticide.

3. 71 MPs were prepared to reduce the Abortion limit to 12 weeks. 190 were prepared to reduce it to 20 weeks. 20 weeks is not great reduction and will not save many, but it will save some. And it is an admission that current legislation is not acceptable. David Cameron voted for 20 weeks. Gordon Brown voted to keep the status quo.

4. Remember the past. A hundred years ago people in Britain didn't think like we do now. They would have been shocked and horrified by the current state of affairs.

5. Understand the present. We seem to have no control over things as they stand. Public opinion is broadly pro-abortion, despite the immense pain and damage is causes to would-be mothers, and the obvious destruction of human life which undoubtedly causes great pain to God, the author of life.

6. Reimagine the future. In a hundred years time, people will think something different to what they do now. By God's grace, we have some say in what they will think. We hope and pray that in a hundred years, Britons look back on the current state of affairs and be shocked and horrified. So remember God's faithful, brave servant Wilberforce, who could see a future without slavery.

7. We persevere. We plan. And above all we pray daily 'Your Kingdom Come'.

You Say it Best...

... when you say nothing at all. So goes the Ronan Keating song. It's a rather treacly, sentimental ballad, but it does the job required in the film Notting Hill anyway. Jerks the tears. If you think about it, it's a slightly unflattering song, as it could be implying that I like my spouse the most when they're not talking. So the song could be imploring a no-nagging policy. I don't think it is though. It sums up the idea that couples sometimes have nothing to say to each other. They just want to be together. And that's okay.

All of this is not what I intended to blog about. The song title is merely an introduction to a bigger point. Obviously this song is an anathema to Evangelicals. How can you say anything when you say nothing at all? I'm referring to one of the themes of this blog, that evangelicals dislike ambiguity. Many evangelical ministers find it borderline impossible to speak for less then seventeen minutes. Most struggle to be less than half an hour. I know I do, and I'm not a full-time paid minister.

There are a number of possible reasons for why we struggle to be brief and/or simple - some good, some less good:

1. Enthusiasm for God's word, the Bible. For many of us, especially readers of the blog, hearing a meaty 45 minute sermon is a wonderful thing. To be captivated and enthralled by God's word, having God's character highlighted and illuminated in various ways, hearing about the glorious of Christ and His Church, is a wonderful thing. And we want our congregations, brothers and sisters, to enjoy Christ as we do. This is all a good thing.

2. Expectation of a changed character. We cannot expect God's people to live lives transformed by the Gospel of Christ if their minds are not renewed. We need to understand more of God. We need to understand how he works, what his expectations of us our and what our expectations of life should be. This is all Romans 12:1-2 stuff. How can we be transformed without renewed minds? There is no incentive to fight sin and love your neighbour if you don't know that God is holy and loving and that we should be like him.

3. Emptiness of alternativeness. How long do we, and our friends and fellow Christians, spend listening to non-Christian teaching. Radio breakfast shows (45 mins x 5), drive-time show (45 x5), TV (1hr a day?), DVDs (40 mins a day?) - that's nearly 16 hours of broadly non-Christian media, and that's just weekdays. So radio and tv is better than other parts of it. Start the Week and In Our Time on Radio 4 are excellent. Adam and Joe on BBC 6Music is pleasantly silly. I watch House and My Name is Earl. I'm happy with the amount of media I watch. But I need to ensure that I'm getting plenty of Christian stuff too. The iPod has been a massive blessing to me. Thanks to iTunes and a bit of walking, I'm able to listen to about four sermons a week on top of what I listen to at church. And good stuff too - Douglas Wilson, Mark Driscoll and a few others. And these guy preach for 40mins+. Driscoll rumbles on for an hour. (He's good and engaging but could/should be shorter IMHO)

4. Exposition takes time. We are so deChristianised in our culture and darkened in our thinking that we don't understand what the text says on the first and second reading. If we're preaching expositionally, we normally have a lot of explaining to do. And that's just a reality. But perhaps, then we'd benefit from preaching on smaller chunks rather than vast chapters - but a broad sweep can be as useful as a close look. However:

5. Editing takes more time. In preparing material for a sermon, you're reading several books, making copious notes and benefitting enormously from all this - and the natural reaction is to want your congregation to see what you've seen, to be as excited as your were - not just by the main point, but the little moments and bits, the textual oddments and oddities. If you can do the Hebrew or Greek, that can be really helpful.

BUT you can't preach everything. You must be selective. The key to a good sermon is what you say. The key to a really good sermon is what you don't say. It takes courage, discipline and time to leave our important points, in order that we can all focus on the really important points, and take time to think about them and explain them deeply.

This sounds slightly crazy but look at Google's front page. Multi-billion dollar Google. One of the greatest invention of modern times and making a web-based life possible because now you can find stuff. Get the picture? Look at the front page? What do you see? A little box to type stuff in. Anything else? Not really. It's white space. Acres of white space. They could blitz it with advertising and further information - like Yahoo did (remember them?) - but they didn't. They cleared the decks for their premium product. The search engine.

Maybe we should preach a little more like that. Clear the decks and make one point well. Why not preach on the same passage the week after and make a different point rather than cluttering things with three points this week? In fact, why feel the need to make three points? God is triune, yes. Doesn't mean we have to preach in threes. The only people that can follow three point talks are Bible teachers. Give your congregation a break. Give them one point. Not with three sub-points. Try two. You don't have say everything. You can't. So stopping try to.

Most of my work is for BBC Radio 4. I'm writing scripts that are about 5500 words in length. Writing a script that 8000 words is far easier than a script that's 5000. In 8000 words, your can characters can ramble, the plot can meander and things can spread. But you've probably just wasted 2000 words. So I normally print out my script and go through it deleting unnecessary lines, off-topic jokes, and ditching bits that don't go anywhere. Generally, I try to be ruthless. Then I give it to my producer, who's even more ruthless. We then record 33 minutes and then cut another 5 in the edit - so that what you hear is lean, vibrant and necessary.

So my advice to Sermon writers (and myself!) is this: Get the red pen out and cross stuff out. Select entire paragraphs of your talk and hit delete. Summarise them in a sentence - to yourself - remember that sentence, then delete it. Sermons are not GCSE maths. You do not need to show your working. Preach the point. Enthuse. Inspire. Apply. And take your time over it. But remember what your congregation is thinking. "I don't speak Hebrew so don't expect me to see what you've seen." "I don't work for the church so not all my struggles are your struggles." "I want to follow Christ. Tell me why and tell me how!"


I hope that some of this is useful. I'm not great preacher at all - but I work with words for a living and spend a lot of time thinking about how things will be heard. I don't mean to be harsh on sermons and I hear plenty of good ones. But I long to hear more really good ones. But wouldn't it be great if every Evangelical preacher got 12% better every year? Yes. It would.

How to Write a Sitcom

The second series of my radio sitcom, Hut 33, begins a week from today. Here I explain the background to the writing of Episode 1. It may be of interest, or it may just ruin the illusion of comedy.

Watching a master at work

You could do a lot worse than spend an hour watching Tim Keller talking to people at Google about his new book, The Reason for God, here.
I can't wait to read the book myself and then give it away.

The Biggest Killer in the World

Christopher Hitchens and company love to get really angry with God because of natural disasters and religious wars. They gleefully reel off body-counts and tell us that they're God's fault.

It's a pity they can't see that the biggest killer is not the 'natural world'. Let's be clear before we 'blame' God for this. Why do natural disasters happen? The world is cursed because of Human sin and rebellion. It's a symbol of God's justice - a good thing - and reminder that God is in control - also a good thing. The result is obviously painful, distressing and horrible.

But a far bigger killer is human activity - namely politics. And we see it in Burma right now. The cyclone that's hit Burma has caused a devastating loss of life, killing possibly tens of thousands. But the vile, military junta that pretends to be a government is killing far more people by its refusal to accept aid and control everything themselves to ensure they they stay in charge.

Most of us are familiar with how these things unfold. A natural disaster brings about people displacement, lack of resources, poor hygiene and ultimately far more deaths than the natural disaster. Clear water, food and shelter are the priorities. The Burmese government are insisting on distributing aid themselves, having combed through it for whatever it is they think will harm their country, and challenge their power. In the process, tens of thousands more will die.

Why are so much quicker to put out confidence in government and people than our kind and powerful God?

God's Beauty is Love

A few days ago, I wrote:

Evangelicals will often find art, creativity and drama to be unnecessary, frivolous and vain; expensive and time-consuming; exclusive and alienating; crass and stereotypical; ambiguous; dangerous and subversive; emotionally manipulative.

Is it bad form to quote oneself? Probably. Anyway, it occurred to me afterwards that God's love is all of those above things. God's beauty is bound up in his unnecessary wonderful love. God does not need to love us. We did not love him. He loved us. God's love is the most wonderful, frivolous luxury. And to see his love through, God embarked on something that was costly, time-consuming, apparently foolish and extrememly painful. He became incarnate in Jesus Christ - who told scandalising, offensive, sometimes bewildering parables. And then, despise and abandoned, went to a cross. God incarnate on a cross, nailed there by his unlovely creatures. Many of whom thought they were his priests! And rather than come of the cross there and them with an army of angels and destroy everyone and everything, he said 'Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing.' All this is because of God's love. God's love is not just in the beauty of the world he has made, and the artfulness of the Bible. It's in the love itself - wonderful, messy, painful, inefficient, expensive, foolish love. That is true beauty.

Intellectual Theft

I've just been listening to an interesting BBC World Service Documentary on Intellectual Piracy that you can find here. It's well put together and interesting - although aurally very dull - but most interesting to me is that it is a fascinating exploration of relative morality - although none of the participants realise this. As the documentary proceeds, we learn the reasons why bootlegging DVDs is wrong. (You also get them on one of those irritating DVD warnings at the start where they yell at you about piracy.)

1. Piracy is against the law.
2. You may well get caught and punished.
3. The quality of a bootleg DVD is poor and will diminish your viewing experience.
4. Bootlegging funds organised crime.

What is not really considered is the fact that stealing is wrong. I think the entire documentary manages to avoid saying so. It's impressive, yet depressing, achievement. What do these arguments actually mean.

1. Piracy is against the law - we can only define what is right and wrong by what the state says is right and wrong as enshrined in law. This obviously isn't true, but that is the implication if you leave out the 'sin' of theft.
2. You may well get caught and punished - we only obey the law to avoid punishment. So we need to spend zillions on law enforcement to make us better people and give us a better society. Again, wrong.
3. The quality of a bootleg DVD is poor and will diminish your viewing experience - this is irrelevant if you really believe that stealing is wrong. It implies that if you break the law, you'll end up with an inferior product or experience. You'll have a much nicer time if you obey the law. This is utterly subjective reasoning.
4. Bootlegging funds organised crime - this may be true and is a useful disincentive, but paying thieves money for an illegal product is wrong in itself, regardless of whether they also traffic women or kneecap each other.

Here's an alternative warning for a DVD:
"This DVD contains intellectual property that you are not at liberty to copy and exploit. That's not the deal when you buy this DVD. Sure, it's the easiest thing in the world to rip this DVD onto your computer and let someone else download it via the web and view it for free. But that doesn't make it okay. Even if your friends do it. It's stealing. And stealing is wrong. You know that. Because you can't see the victim, it doesn't make it okay. So don't steal. God doesn't like it. Ask Him to give you what you need and be content with Him and what He's already given you which is far more than you deserve."

It sounds crazy, but I genuinely think that label would be more effective.

Evangelicalism and Art

I’ve been giving thought to why evangelicals don’t ‘get’ art since I’m giving a talk on the subject on Saturday. I’ve blogged on this subject before, so some of this is going over old ground but here are the abbreviated headlines.

The Evangelical Church is artless because the West is artless
This isn’t just a church problem. It’s a cultural problem. The western world is pretty artless. People used to spend time actually looking at art, but not so much any more. When people go to a gallery now, they spend about five seconds looking at something that took months to make or paint. We don’t want long political speeches. We want soundbytes. And the church, being full of people from this culture, has some of this culture characteristics. Read Neil Postman’s classic ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death’. It’s a bit of a grumpy book, it makes a valid point.

The Evangelical Church tends towards Gnosticism
If you rip verses out of context you can find plenty of support for Evangelical Gnosticism. Eg. Romans 7 ‘Who will deliver me from this body of death?’. When Paul talks about the flesh and things carnal, it makes the human body sound intrinsically bad, which it isn’t. But this dualism is very common – fuelled by Neo-Platonism and a whole bunch of Eastern religions and philosophies.

This is not a Christian way of thinking, but evangelicals, at least our sort of evangelicals, are tough on sin and tough on the causes of sin. We’ve already mentioned the verse ‘gouge out your eye’. Take sin seriously. Cut out your eyes. This is great teaching and we would do well to heed it and take sin seriously. But if you’re not careful anything that gives you physical pleasure can become suspect. A wonderfully extravagant meal could be seen as fuelling your gluttony. A beautiful painting that you just can’t get out of your head could be encouraging idolatry. More below.

The Evangelical Church tends to prioritise Evangelism
This is a function of living in a post-Christian society and understanding the reality of Hell. The need for evangelism is immense. But if you let evangelism completely drive your theology, it will become distorted. What is the purpose of the universe? The Glory of God. Yes, God is greatly glorified when he brings people into his kingdom through Christ. But if we say the most important thing we can do is evangelise, we’re saying that the most important thing is the salvation of man. Not the glory of God. And our theology of everything will be slightly skewed.

Evangelical Preachers dislike ambiguity
Because of Evangelicals tendency towards cerebral academia and verbal evangelism, we’re often at pains to make ourselves clear and ensure people don’t go away with the wrong impression. We don’t want to be false teachers and we don’t want people to think they’re saved by their own works because that is a disaster. So we dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’. It partly explains why conservative evangelicals can preach for anything less than half an hour. There’s so much to be said and we feel we should say all of it.

As a result, of all of the above, Evangelicals will often find art, creativity and drama to be unnecessary, frivolous and vain; expensive and time-consuming; exclusive and alienating; crass and stereotypical; ambiguous; dangerous and subversive; emotionally manipulative.

Art is frequently all of those things.
Why build a cathedral? Something that keeps the rain off doesn’t have to look that nice, does it?
Why compose a sonata? There are no words! Who’s going to guess the gospel from your music?
Why write a novel? It takes ages and it’ll just be about sinner sinning.
Why make a computer look nice? A nice and an ugly one work just the same.
Why make a subversive film and offend people? We should be peacemakers. Only offend people with the gospel.
Why write an ambiguous story without a happy ending? There is hope in Christ!
Why paint a picture that gives people a warm feeling of vague appreciation? This is just self-regarding vanity!
Why create an art installation? It’s so confusing and weird it doesn’t get your anywhere.
If you’ve got something to say, why don’t you just come out and say it!

Of course, all of the above ignores the fact that God is into beauty. He made the world unnecessarily beautiful.
There are glorious species in creation that we’ve not even seen yet. Why?
There are dozens of varieties of beetle. Why?
The Old Testament is mostly story and poetry! Why?
The Psalms are gushingly emotional. Why are they so manipulative?
Why is temple worship shown to be so time-consuming? Israel could have made better use of that time in the surrounding regions trying to convert the Hittites, the Amorites, The Assyrians, The Babylonians, The Romans and, well, everyone.
Jesus told parable that even his disciples found confusing! Why?
Jesus gave speeches that were intended to offend people. Did he really mean to?
Jesus considered himself worthy of being worshipped with extraordinarily expensive perfume! Why wasn’t it sold and the money given to the poor?
Why is the New Jerusalem so eye-popping beautiful?

Is it at all possible that Evangelicals frequently get this area wrong? And even misunderstand the Bible?

Laughter, Pain, Joy and Grief

Why are laughter and tragedy two sides of the same coin? I think it’s part of a wider issue about how art, music and life in general work – and why we experience laughter, joy, pain or grief. It’s based on idea I heard on BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week from an atheist of all people. But I’m confident he’s stumbled on something very profound that ultimately trashes his own atheistic convictions.

As human beings – with a conscience and an imagination – we are aware of two different states: ‘How things are’ and ‘How things are meant to be.’ This applies to messy rooms, broken marriages, stories, music, jokes, earthquakes and much else besides.

Why do experience grief at an earthquake? Because we know there shouldn’t be earthquakes. Something is wrong with the world. The earthquake makes no distinction between good and bad people. Buildings collapse and destroy lives. This is a great tragedy. We look at the wreckage of a destroyed city – how things are – and experience grief because things are not as they are meant to be.

Kids are very strong on this. If you take a hat and put it on your elbow, they freak out or laugh because you’re doing the wrong thing. The hat goes on your head, silly. If you’ve seen one of the finest films ever made, The Princess Bride, you’ll remember the part when the child being read the story yells ‘You’re doing it wrong!’ and explains what should be happening in the story. Children know how stories should go. As we get older, we pretend we don’t. But we do.

So why do we experience laughter/grief when someone falls over? Because we know people are meant to stand up, not sprawl on the ground. When someone crashes to the ground our expectations are confounded. The man is on the ground. Oops. He’s meant to be standing up.

If it’s an elderly person suffering great pain at falling, it is tragic – because that seems unjust (not how things are meant to be). If it’s a pompous twerp thinking he’s something special falling on his face, it’s funny because it seems pleasingly just (the proud are humbled. That’s how things are meant to be).

Listen to a piece of Bach or Miles Davis. Why do we experience joy? Because it works on this paradigm backwards. The theme is established (how things are meant to be) but quickly developed into variations (how things are). It’s the gap between the theme and the variations that gives us the pleasure. (Sometimes the original theme is pleasing in itself because it’s new to us - and therefore not how things are meant to be.) Let's face it, no one wants to listen to someone slavish repeat the theme from Take the A Train. We want to hear what Wynton Marsalis is going to do with it. That's the joy. We know how Hamlet goes. But how will this great actor play Hamlet? Which way will he take the character?

Why is a joke funny? Because a word that sounds like it’s meant to be used in one context is used in another. I’ve just spent the last month writing such jokes with the wonderfully gifted comedian Milton Jones. Here’s a joke we never used, because it’s not that good, but it makes the point.

Person B: I’m hungry.
Person A: I’ll whip up a batch of brownies.
Person B: Yeah, and get them to make me something to eat.

Hah. Person A was referring to brownies as small squares of chocolate cake. That would be the normal usage of the term in the context of hunger. That’s how things are meant to be. But Person B is referring to the Brownies – girls in uniform who do good deeds – and suggesting these Brownies cook him something. That’s how ‘things are’ – or how he means them. And the result is comic. Alright. Not very. But I hope you get the idea.

This is why art is intrinsically subversive - because it paints alternative realities to which you have to respond. Artists are twisting and distorting events or images, playing with our emotions and expectations. It's one of the reasons why Evangelicals don't like art - because art is by it's very subversive. Evangelicals like to emphasise clear teaching and obedient living. "The Bible is clear on how we should live - so live like it and stop imagining things differently. Don't go getting ideas." In a godly quest to avoid sin, Evangelicals not only ask Christian to gouge out their eyes, but keep cutting and dig out the imagination.

And yet Christian living demands imagination. We need to remember how things should be in order to persevere today when life is messy, complicated and broken. And of course, the Christian story itself is comic and joyful? Why? Because man deserves nothing except God's wrath for his disobedience and idolatry. God made a wonderful world. We ignored him, stole his world and are intent on wrecking it. If justice is to be done, the story could and should end in judgement. But God is not only just but loving. And he subverts the story, and makes reconciliation possible through Christ. The cross is therefore the most wonderfully absurd and subversive event in history. God willingly crucified by man?! To save man! Could there be a better story anywhere?

Jesus, as you would imagine, was the master of telling stories that exploit the gap between how things are and how things are meant to be. Look at the parable of the Good Samaritan. A priest and a Levite ignored a dying man? That's not how things should be, surely? And then it's the despised Samaritan that helps the man? What?! The story is designed to scandalise and offend. Because it paints a vivid picture of how things are and in seeing them we realise how things should be. In the same way, Nathan told David a story in 2 Samuel 12 which helped David see the grievous sin he had committed in order to have Bathsheba. Nathan showed David a glimpse of an injustice in order to bring about justice.


So, here’s the big question for the atheist who put forward this theory: Why, given we’re nothing but molecules, would you have any interest in how things should be? If there is no God, no extrinsic right or wrong, there can be no template for justice, order or how things should be. If a song is just a sequence of notes, where’s the joy in variation. Is a joke not just a misunderstanding over semantics? Is tragedy not just an arrangement of events that you didn’t want? The atheist must explain all of these things in terms of evolution. But why have a theory that describes things and creates order? Who says order is desirable? The scientific desire for neatness has the aroma of theism. But it’s amazing how long you can hold your breath for.

London's New Mayor

So London has a new mayor – Boris Johnson, a larger-than-life blonde-haired buffoon. This is not necessarily a problem. In one sense, it’s a plus as I will go on to explain. But he was elected not because he’s a member of the conservative party, but because he is a personality. If you’re from outside Britain, let me explain the phenomenon of Boris. He’s an old Etonian, who went to Oxford University before a career at the Daily Telegraph and then as Editor of Spectator magazine. He then become a Tory MP and a shadow cabinet minister during which time he put his foot in it so often, he only opened his mouth to change feet. Gaffe-prone and politically-incorrect, he’s won the hearts of Londoners.

Ken Livingstone, who came a close second, has been mayor for eight years. He is universally acknowledged as having given the role more meaning and power than it might have otherwise had, partly because Ken Livingstone is impressively bloody-minded and difficult. He did, to his credit, a great deal to improve London’s buses, but he did a lot else besides, not all of it good. He did not lose the election because he was technically the Labour candidate – the same party as Britain’s government at the moment who were badly beaten in lots of other local elections that day. (Whenever Ken speaks warmly of the government, Gordon Brown and New Labour, no-one believes him) Ken lost because people were fed up that he’d broken too many promises, that he was protective of cronies who needed to bee investigated on grounds of corruption and that he’d been in the job too long. (He promised he wouldn’t run for a third term of office – and broke that promise).

It’s all rather depressing because both candidates are known adulterers but that didn’t seem to make a blind bit of difference. Both candidate received hundreds of thousands of votes. What’s more, both candidates are ‘personalities’ – so personal integrity has little to do with it. Boris is a shambolic overgrown schoolboy; Ken the champagne socialist who keeps newts. No thought is given as to whether either man has a good character or is able to employ people with good judgment and rectitude.

Even worse, argument of minutiae of policy is mind-bending. Boris had lengthy arguments about the variety of bus that should carry people around London’s streets. There is no real ideological difference between candidates here. Consensus politics says that London authorities really should micromanage bus design and refuse collection – rather leaving it to bureaucrats, residents associations, markets, individuals or people who actually know what they’re talking about. Britain is sadly obsessed with letting government run everything and then electing people to run these overgrown institutions who have no commendable characteristics other than being ‘characters’.

Here’s the only silver lining I can see. Boris is a buffoon. And liberal socialists will hate him because he will make a mockery of the thing they love – government. For liberals who wants the government to over-tax people and run every conceivable service, from health and education to buses and bins, it’s essential that you take government seriously and don’t snigger. The British government – as many government around the world – are constantly trying to make Britons feel grateful for the governing service they provide, telling the great British public how they’re spending all this money that’s miraculously appeared in the Treasury, forgetting that the great British public put it there (and that government collected it and their usual inefficient, graceless, unjust way). But with Boris in charge, London’s government, at least, will appear rather shambolic, incompetent and gaffe-prone. Perhaps then the great British public will recognise that the Leviathan that they elect to run their country is nothing but an puffed up Puff Adder in a big suit that demands to be worshipped and taken seriously. Hopefully, Boris will be unable to continue the charade.

Jonah Part 3

Is Jonah a tale? Or essentially a true story entertainingly told? The debate continues.

In Parts 1 and 2 these Jonah blogs, I argued that I didn't think that the story of Jonah is meant to be taken historically, more akin to Macbeth. The story is based on a real person (Macbeth existed), but the book of Jonah a fictionalised account of what might have been. I'm not 100% on it, and a wiser, more learned friend of a friend, Matthew Mason who blogs here, has kindly emailed me some four points in response to mine. There are fairly persuasive. Anyway, here they are - laid next to my points for ease of reading. Hope it's useful.

Jam said:
1. The story of Jonah may well be based on a true story. A prophet called Jonah is mentioned in 2 Kings 14 - but there is no hint of this story there. What's more, it doesn't appear that Nineveh had a huge public change of heart, but perhaps there was some kind of 'revival' there at some time. Perhaps the message of the book is that perhaps there might have been a mass conversoin in Nineveh if Israel were not so much like Jonah.

Matthew responds:
1. You observed that the Jonah story is not mentioned in 2 Ki 14 when Jonah is, but I don't see why that is relevant. In what way is this different from, e.g., the synoptics not mentioning the wedding at Cana? At best this is an argument from silence. As far as I can recall, Kings doesn't corroborate much or anything in the public ministries of e.g., Amos, or Jeremiah. And the very fact that Jonah is mentioned in 2 Ki 14 does mean that when Jesus referred to him in Luke 11 and Matt 12, he was referring to an historical figure (more on this below).

Jam said:
2. The fact that Jonah being swallowed by a whale is, humanly speaking, unlikely makes no difference to whether the story is actually true or not. At least to me. As I said earlier, I believe that Jesus rose from the dead having lived a life of dozens of attested, didactic miracles. The whale in the Med swallowing a pompous twit like Jonah is really no big deal.

Matthew responds:
2. Excellent, phew, etc :-)

Jam said:
3. When Jesus refers to Jonah - as Hyers points out - in Matthew 12:40, he is not necessarily claiming Jonah to be real, any more than quoting Macbeth or Hamlet would imply such mythical shakespearean characters are real. The fact is that Macbeth and Hamlet are, in some sense real, because there are literary embodiments of attitudes or predicaments. The reason great works of literature, and many poor ones, resonate is because the characters have an authenticity about them - but that doesn't make them real.

Matthew responds:
3. Ok, so the mere fact that Jesus referred to a figure called Jonah doesn't necessarily mean that he was claiming Jonah to be "real", but as he was referring to an historical figure, i guess we can assume that Jesus thought he was real, no? This being the case, it places the burden of proof of anyone who wants to suggest that Jesus was referring to an historical figure, but didn't think the events recorded in Scripture concerning his were historically accurate. A further problem for Hyers suggestion is that Jesus seems to assume that real people, the people of Nineveh, will rise up at the judgment and condemn his contemporaries, precisely because, unlike his contemporaries the Ninevites repented. The parallel with the (real, historical) Queen of the South also suggests Jesus has historical figure and events in mind.

Jam said:
4. Evangelical unwillingness to accept Jonah as a tale, not a history, tells us quite a lot about the artlessness and poor imagination in evangelicalism. Jonah is a story! A wonderful story! And it doesn't have to have happened exactly the way it said it did in order to be useful, didactic and moving. Biblical histories - and the gospels - are claiming historicity that is important to defend. But not Jonah. Jonah serves as a wonderful example of how to be a grumbling, joyless, petty, petulant member of God's people. And is all the more true and telling for being a tale.

Matthew reponds:
4. I agree that English evangelicals are basically philistines (I'm a classically trained musician who reads Milton and Donne, and enjoys the National Gallery etc). I'm so glad that you're bucking that trend. But it unless I've misunderstood your reasoning, it seems to me that your comments on Jonah as a story lead you to a non sequitur. You're right - I've been doing some work on Jonah and it is an extraordinary piece of literature (even more in Heb than in English) - artful, cartoonish, laugh-out-loud funny. And we'd do well to revel in it at this level. But why does that tell us anything about its historicity? 1&2 Samuel is a breathtakingly skillful piece of literature. The story of the Hebrew midwives in Exod 2 is similarly hilarious and well crafted. But they're also historical. So why the dichotomy with Jonah? I want the baby and the bathwater!

The debate continues.

One thought as we move on: If the story is essentially true historically, how does one deal with the hyperbole of Nineveh - and their extraordinary reaction to his preaching. Do we say 'that's how it happened' or do we say the writer is using hyperbole? What is the difference (and there is a difference) between hyperbole, exaggeration and lying? Jesus uses hyperbole - asking pharisees to take planks out of their eyes, and instructing would-be followers to hate their father and mother - but how does it apply to reading Biblical literature, and storytelling in general?