Why study Tolkien?

By Caleb | February 15, 2011

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.
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Men Against Porn?

By Caleb | February 7, 2011

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.

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Oh, the humanities!

By Caleb | January 31, 2011

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.

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Christianity & Postmodernism 8: Conclusion and Index

By Caleb | January 27, 2011

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.”

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Christianity & Postmodernism 7: Challenges and Opportunities

By Caleb | October 12, 2010

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.

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My short story shortlisted!

By Caleb | October 10, 2010

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.

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Christianity & Postmodernism 6: The Death of the Author

By Caleb | September 29, 2010

Continuing my series on Christianity and Postmodernism:

Another famous idea associated with postmodernism is “The Death of the Author”, announced by Roland Barthes in his famous essay of that title, published in 1968.

Barthes attacks the idea that the meaning of a text is fixed by the author’s intentions. In particular, he takes issue with the idea of the author having God-like authority:

We know that a text does not consist of a line of words, releasing a single “theological” meaning (the “message” of the Author-God), but is a space of many dimensions, in which are wedded and contested various kinds of writing, no one of which is original: the text is a tissue of citations.

He argues that believing in the Author as the source of meaning limits the text:

To give an Author to a text is to impose upon that text a stop clause, to furnish it with a final signification, to close the writing.

For us as Christians, this immediately raises implications for how we approach the Bible. If there are no fixed meaning to texts, just the many and varied interpretations of the readers, how can God speak to us authoritatively through the Bible?

But more than this, Barthes goes on to draw a connection from denying the author as the giver of fixed meaning to a text, to denying God as the giver of fixed meaning to the world, saying:

“by refusing to assign to the text (and to the world as text) a “secret:’ that is, an ultimate meaning, liberates an activity which we might call counter-theological, properly revolutionary, for to refuse to arrest meaning is finally to refuse God and his hypostases, reason, science, the law.”

As Christians, can we just say “Barthes was wrong, there is actually a God, and so the author determines meaning after all?” I don’t think so. Barthes had a point, in that authors aren’t infallible in communicating their intentions; meaning is sometimes unclear and confused – the Author isn’t God.

But if we approach the idea of the Author from a Christian perspective, we’ll see that we don’t have to choose between the Author-God and the death of the Author.

The Bible tells us both that we are made in the image of God, and that we are finite and Fallen. Because we are made in God’s image, we should expect to be able to communicate meaning through language, because God is truth and he is the Word.

But we also recognise that our ability to communicate is limited; we don’t always say what we mean or mean what we say; we don’t have absolute control through our intentions over the meaning of what we write. We are limited, we get it wrong, we miscommunicate.

This brings me on to a wider point: even postmodernism in its most nihilistic forms has something to tell us. In postmodernism’s suspicion of ultimate truth and meaning, we can hear an echo of the words of Ecclesiastes, where the teacher proclaims “Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless!” The Bible itself tells us that life “under the sun”, that is, without revelation from God, is vapour, a chasing after the wind. There is a place for the insights of postmodernism, because it describes the brokenness of a world under the shadow of the Fall.

Of course, as Christians, we cannot accept it as a total description of reality. We believe in the Son of God who has come from beyond the sun, and in the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, in the big story of Creation, Fall and Redemption, we have a source of hope and meaning. But as well as trying to bring hope to a postmodern world, we need to listen to the realities it describes.

Also, we can work to undo the damage of the Fall through Jesus’ redemptive power, through his Spirit at work in us. For example, when it comes to meaning and language, we can redeem them by using them truthfully and lovingly, rather than deceptively and as a power game.

To return to Barthes, the Author isn’t dead or divine, but human – finite and fallen but redeemable.

Links:
  • Full text of The Death of the Author essay.
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First day

By Caleb | September 28, 2010

Six years ago, a young, innocent and fresh-faced boy found himself suddenly transplanted from the wilds of deepest, darkest Wales to the seething cosmopolitan mass that is Cardiff (well, that’s how it seemed at the time, anyway). Once his parents drove away, he was alone in the city, not yet knowing anyone or anywhere, left to discover a new life as a student.
That was me, back then.
Fast forward to the present day… six years, a degree in English Literature and History, several jobs, two published short stories, some additional facial hair, and a lovely wife later, and I was once again walking in to Cardiff University to enrol for my studies. This is me, now.
When I came away to university in 2004, everything was new – new city, new university, new course, new friends, new flatmates, new church. Starting my masters in 2010 is a very different, I already have a wife, home, church and set of friends; I already know the city and the university.
So the transition from my life immediately before my MA in English Literature to studying for it won’t be nearly so stark, but it may be all the more startling for intruding on and changing my life as it was before, rather than being a whole new existence.
And it will be a very different from undergraduate study. For one thing, I now understand that my reading lists aren’t a theoretical ideal, shining far off and distant like a Platonic form, but something I’m supposed to actually get on with and read!
Some things never change, of course, such as the bizarre initiation rite by which you have to make your way down the street without being drowned in flyers and leaflets.
My favourite flyering-related incident yesterday was being accosted by a member of the Christian Union, who looked around 10-years-old. “Do you know about the Christian Union?” he asked. “Know it? Hah! I was in the CU before you were doing your GCSEs, sonny-my-lad!” Perhaps fortunately, I didn’t think to say that at the time, but instead muttered something polite about having already looked at their website. But there’s plenty of time for me to develop a well-cultivated and curmudgeonly disdain for the antics of undergraduates.
At enrolment, we discovered that there are around 30 students on the MA course this year, which is quite a high number. A large proportion of those – maybe two-thirds? – have come straight from the English Literature BA course. Some seemed slightly alarmed at the reduced class sizes – some modules run with only two or three students on them, and at the enlarged workload! But Professor Martin Coyle used his usual wit and humour to put us at our ease – we’re masters students by the end of the course, we’re not expected to suddenly jump up to a whole new level overnight, but grow into it over time.
Before enrolment, I went to the Chaplaincy drop-in café, and met Sophie who’s doing the same course, and many of the same modules, as me. I’ve now found out that out of eight people studying The Myth of King Arthur in the 19th and 20th Centuries, half of us are Christians. I’d prayed that there would be another Christian on at least one of my modules, so God certainly answered that prayer in abundance!
I also dropped into the Gair Rhydd office, which has had a nice make-over since I was a student, to offer my writing services once more. It was a nice measure of how much I’ve grown in confidence since I was a fresher – I tried to go up to introduce myself in Freshers’ Week in my first year, but dithered around outside and chickened out. Although I still get nervous in new situations and with new people, I’m much better at not letting it get to me and just chatting with people. And once I start talking, the usual problem is then getting me to shut up.
In the evening, I headed out to the Postgraduate Meet and Mingle in the Graduate Centre. We were given “human bingo” cards to help facilitate conversation, consisting of a grid with things like “Can ride a horse”, “Is a fan of Star Wars“, “Has the same birthday as you”, and had to find people to match each of them.
It was a bit random, but I met some interesting people, including some from my course, and some Doctor Who fans, so I was able to have some meaningful conversation amid the endless stream of “What’s your name? Where are you from? What are you studying?” Bev joined me there after her Welsh lesson and also enjoyed it. It was nice to be able to introduce people to my wife, because most people don’t expect me to be married.
So it was a great day – met loads of people, including Danielle, Dyfrig, Sue, Alison, Mike, Beth, Heather, Pete, and many others. The rest of the week is a bit less hectic, but there’s plenty to be getting on with, not least finishing redrafting my novel and doing the reading for the course.
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Starting my masters degree

By Caleb | September 26, 2010

It’s over three years since I graduated from Cardiff University in English Literature & History, and I’m about to go back for more. On Tuesday, I picked up my student card, and so I’m officially a postgraduate student. Tomorrow, I’ll be enrolling with the School of English, Communication and Philosophy for a MA in English Literature, focusing on medievalism and children’s literature.

I decided to return to academia for a number of reasons:

  1. Simply because I’m interested in the subject and enjoy studying!
  2. To enrich my own creative writing, particularly my novels.
  3. It opens up the possibility of maybe doing a PhD at some point in the future.
  4. It might help towards getting a more interesting, writing-related job, rather than just a series of fixed-term contracts doing admin.

Also, I feel I somewhat neglected my undergraduate studies for all the different activities on offer, and this is my chance to go back and make the most of the opportunity to study, in a way I probably didn’t do the first time round!

I’ll be involved with CriSP (the Christian Staff and Postgrads group), and I hope to write the occasional article for Gair Rhydd, but that will be plenty, rather than the half-a-dozen or so activities I tried to do as an undergraduate.
I’m sure it will be quite a different experience. I’m three years older (and hopefully wiser!). I’ve learned a lot from working, and I’m now a married man. And I’ll be studying not because I have to, or because it’s the done thing, or I don’t know what else to do, but because I’ve chosen to be there.
I’m really excited to have the opportunity to study again, to engage my brain and read loads of books, to think deeply about literature and the questions it raises. I’m also very grateful to my wife Bev for being so supportive of me in it – she’ll be the one paying the bills this year! It’s a great privilege to be able to spend another year learning, studying and thinking, and I intend to make the most of it.
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Sex and death – at the heart of religion, or of secularism?

By Caleb | September 14, 2010

Some guy in a funny hat

The Pope’s visit is imminent, and on cue, The Guardian has more than its usual quotient of articles bashing religion and waving the flag for secularism. Polly Toynbee has a particularly entertaining specimen, Sex and death lie at the poisoned heart of religion. Here’s the opening paragraph:

A dispute with BBC TV’s religious slot, Sunday Morning Live: would I join a debate on the pope? As president of the British Humanist Association, I was glad to – but there was a problem. Discussion was divided into a first debate on whether Catholicism was over-obsessed with sex, but I was to join a second: is the Catholic church a force for good? How could you answer that without saying that sex lies at the poisoned heart of all that is wrong with just about every major faith?

Now, as far as I’m concerned, the Pope is just some guy in a funny hat. I disagree strongly with the Catholic Church’s teaching on a number of issues, and I have no wish to defend or justify its failings and abuses. However, it seems to me that Toynbee objects to Catholic teaching because it strikes at the idols of secularism.

Having done away with God, secularism has made sex and death its new gods. It is not that religion is over-obsessed with sex – rather, it exposes secularism’s obsession with it. ecularism’s demand for unrestrained sex and death is a sign not of a healthy civilization, but of a decadent and decaying culture of death. This is where the real disease and sickness lies.

Secularism makes sex an absolute good; any restraint on sex or sexual expression is wicked – a dangerous repression of our natural impulses. Christianity teaches that sex is good, but not an absolute good – it exists within a moral framework. It is properly practiced within a framework of love and life-long fidelity, embodied in the practice of marriage. Sex should not be simply the satisfaction of a physical urge, but an act of love that brings together husband and wife into unity not just of body, but as whole persons.

Similiarly, secularism makes individual self-determination an absolute good. Again, Christianity teaches that individual freedom is a good thing; Jesus came to set us free, but again, freedom within moral boundaries and a moral framework. The irony is that the removal of a moral framework around individual freedom actually makes individuals more vulnerable and less protected; a social contract that is based solely around freedom so long as it does not impinge on anyone else’s choices cannot care for the vulnerable as effectively as a social contract that is committed to the common good with moral protections of life and well-being. Christianity seeks to protect life, to care for the hurting and vulnerable until the final breath.

I wouldn’t necessarily draw the moral boundaries in the same place as the Roman Catholic Church, but secularism in its basic logic objects to the very fact of any restraint on individual freedom, except where it impinges on the freedom of others.
Toynbee conflates secularism and atheism, which is a bit of a leap. On the other hand, secularism is basically sociological atheism, so perhaps she has a point, even though secularism has its religious supporters – everyone has their inconsistencies.
The main inconsistency of someone like Toynbee is the sense of moral indignation with which she condemns religion. Like most secularists, Toynbee misses the point about “no morality without God”. It’s not that Christians claim to be more moral than anyone else – Jesus came for the sick, not the healthy, for sinners, not the righteous, and recognise that all humans have an innate moral sense. The problem is not that secularism has no morality; rather, secularism has no justification for its morality that wouldn’t equally apply to any dominant cultural mileu.

For Christians, our innate moral sense is part of the image of God in us; it is rooted in the will and character of a good and benevolent transcendent God. But if it is simply a quirk of evolution – I’ve no argument with evolution as such, by the way, but if it is nothing more than that – why should we obey our innate moral sense over our similarily innate selfish tendencies? If you push it back to the very basic question of “why should we be moral?”, what non-arbitrary answer does secularism have?

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