Too young to die? by Andrew Stone

Day One Publications, 2017, 125pp 

I can't really attempt to review this book, as it's difficult to be objective about the story of a family who are dear friends of ours and members of Providence Baptist Church, which I pastor. But I'm more than happy to recommend it. 

The book is based on emails Andrew Stone sent to friends and family give updates on his daughter, Hannah's health situation. She was delayed in going to study history at Bangor University, as acute kidney failure necessitated a transplant. Early in the second year of her studies Hannah was diagnosed as having a lymphoma tumor at the back of her nose. Chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy seemed not to have been effective in removing the tumor. The family were told to prepare for the worst. But God had other ideas.  

It was a privilege to have been asked to contribute a brief foreword to the book. Reading it brought so many memories flooding back. Some of them painful, some of them joyful.

The Lord has not promised to insulate his people from times of suffering and trial in this life. Knowing that in theory is one thing, experiencing the reality of intense suffering is another. This book gives us a glimpse of faith in the crucible of affliction, as the Stone family learned to trust in their God and Father in unimaginably difficult circumstances.

Andrew’s emails reproduced here were written to keep family and friends informed of Hannah’s latest news in order to stimulate prayer and thanksgiving to God. As you will see, they are heartrendingly honest, full of gratitude to God, and above all expressive of the reality of the Christian hope in the face of suffering and death.

Seeking to give pastoral support to the Stone family during the period of Hannah’s illness and recovery, I often found myself asking the question posed by Paul in connection with his ministry, “who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Corinthians 2:16).

The apostle supplies the answer in following chapter, “our sufficiency is from God” (2 Corinthians 3:5). As these pages testify, Andrew, Susan and Hannah certainly proved that to be true in their own experience. All who trust in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ will find the same. 

This is an ideal book for believers facing times of suffering and trial. It is also a powerful and moving testimony to the grace of God to place into the hands of non-Christians.  May it be widely used by the Lord for his glory. 

The Value of a Soul

O teach me what it meaneth:   That Cross uplifted high, With One, the Man of Sorrows,   Condemned to bleed and die. O teach me what it cost Thee   To make a sinner whole; And teach me, Saviour, teach me   The value of a soul (Lucy Anne Bennett (1850-1927) Upon that cross of Jesus   Mine eye at times can see The very dying form of One,   Who suffered there for me; And from my smitten heart, with tears,   Two wonders I confess, The wonders of His glorious love,   And my own worthlessness. (Elizabeth Cecilia Clephane  (1830-1869)

Two Victorian era hymnwriters. Two quite different valuations of the human soul. Lucy Anne Bennett wants Jesus to teach her the 'value of a soul'. While Elizabeth Cecilia Clephane confesses 'my own worthlessness'. Is that the 'value of a soul', worthless? Stephen Hawking has said as much. More or less, "The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies. We are so insignificant that I can't believe the whole universe exists for our benefit." But he's a self-confessed atheist for whom human beings are mere physical entities. Souls and their value don't come into it. We're "chemical scum". Period. 

But hang on a minute. While it is not the case that the whole universe exists for our benefit, the 'anthropic principle' is widely recognised. The universe is fine tuned for human life and is understandable, at least to some extent, to the human mind. That in itself tells us something about the unique status of mankind. Maybe we're not so scummy after all. 

The Christians faith has a high estimation of human beings. We are made in the image of God, who created us as 'living souls'. With that in mind Marilynne Robinson writes, "humankind is the true and appropriate object of [God's] love". She speaks of, "our ontological worthiness to be in a relationship with God" and says, "To properly value this pledge of fervent love, the Incarnation, we must try and see the world as deserving of it" (The Givenness of Things, p. 155, 272 & 201). 

Jesus asked, "what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matthew 16:26). His words place a high value on human life. When placed in the balance, a single soul outweighs the whole world. To lose one's soul to gain the all the riches of the world is an eternally bad deal. We can go beyond that when we factor in the gospel. It is not the comparative value of the world that defines the worth of a soul, but that "the Son of God loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). 

In his classic work on the atonement, The Cross of Christ, John Stott devotes a chapter to Self -understanding and self-giving in the light of the Cross. In it the writer notes Dr. Hoekema's criticism of the words of Clephane's hymn cited at the top of this post,

No, no, Dr. Hoekema objects. We cannot sing that. 'And my own unworthiness' would express the truth, but not 'my own worthlessness. Is it 'worthless' be a child of God, a member of Christ and an heir of heaven? So then, a vital part of our self-affirmation, which in reality is an affirmation of the grace of God our Creator and Redeemer, is what we have become in Christ. 'The ultimate basis of our positive self-image must be God's acceptance of us in Christ'. (The Cross of Christ, John Stott, IVP, 1986 p. 283-284).

Stott's emphasis is subtly different to that of Robinson. While she speaks of the 'ontological worthiness' of human beings as objects of God's love, Stott highlights the grace of God. This is appropriate because sin has rendered human beings unworthy of God's love and deserving of his judgement. That certainly does not mean we are worthless. Pace Robinson, however, the measure of human worth is not to be sought in our ontology. It is disclosed at Calvary. Stott once more, "It is only when we look at the cross we see the true worth of human beings. As William Temple expressed it, 'My worth is what I am worth to God; and that us a marvellous great deal, for Christ died for me'" (op cit, p. 282). That is why the first two lines of Bennett's stanza answer so well to the last two, which isn't necessarily the case with the opening and closing lines of Clephane's verse.

Love in it's fullest and deepest expression is not based on the inherent worthiness of the loved one. It is a self-generated flow of love from the lover to his beloved. Shakespeare meditated on this in Sonnet 116,

Let me not to the marriage of true minds 

Admit impediments. Love is not love 

Which alters when it alteration finds, 

Or bends with the remover to remove. 

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark 

That looks on tempests and is never shaken; 

It is the star to every wand'ring bark, 

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. 

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 

Within his bending sickle's compass come; 

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 

But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 

If this be error and upon me prov'd, 

I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

God saw alteration in us when Adam fell and we in him became a sin-ruined race. Yet God's eternal love for his people did not alter. It looked on the tempest of our sinful rebellion and was never shaken. If Robinson is right and God loves human beings because they in some way deserve it, then the game's up because sin has rendered us undeserving and therefore unloveable. The ontology of the gospel is different. Thankfully, it is rooted in what God is - love, rather than what we have become - sinners. Don Carson reflects,

Doubtless the Father finds the Son lovable; doubtless in the realm of disciplining his covenant people, there is a sense in which his love is conditioned by our moral conformity. But at the end of the day, God loves, whomever the object, because God is love. There are thus two critical points. First, God exercises this love in conjunction with all his other perfections, but his love is no less love for all that. Second, his love emanates from his own character; it is not dependent on the loveliness of the loved, external to himself. (The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, Crossway, 2000, p. 63). 

The value of a soul is that God loves his people, sinful and unworthy though they are. They are worth something to him. Worth the death of his Son to redeem them. If "God is love", that is his love in action, 1 John 4:10. Our love for one another should be a reflection of God's love for us (1 John 4:11). Those who love the God who first loved us will love his people. We recognise the image of God in our neigbour whom we are called to love as we love ourselves. We must love our enemies as God loved his foes and sent his Son to die for them (Romans 5:8, 10). Carson once more,

John’s point in 1 John 4, “God is love,” is that those who really do know God come to love that way too. Doubtless we do not do it very well, but aren’t Christians supposed to love the unlovable—even our enemies? Because we have been transformed by the Gospel, our love is to be self-originating, not elicited by the loveliness of the loved. For that is the way it is with God. He loves because love is one of his perfections, in perfect harmony with all his other perfections. At our best, we know that that is the way God’s image-bearers should love too. (Op cit, p. 63-64)

The Cross teaches us the true value of a soul; worth the death of the infinite Son of God that we might not perish but have everlasting life. It should be said at this point that when construed biblically, talk of the 'value of a soul' should not be taken to mean that the spiritual side of human nature is of great worth, but the physical is a worthless cask. Christ assumed a human body and soul to redeem us as complete human beings. The Bible never describes the soul as distinct from the body as 'eternal' or 'immortal'. Eternal life is resurrection life, John 6:40. We shall be raised immortal, 1 Corinthians 15:53-54. The value of a soul denotes the worth of a human person to God, body and spirit. 

If we value souls we will treat them with dignity and respect, whoever they may be. Irrespective of race or class. We will endeavour to do people good, serving them in whatever ways we can. We will seek the peace of the community of souls in which we live, be responsible citizens of our nation, and contribute to the common good of the world. Above all, if we value souls, the love of Christ will constrain us to preach the gospel to people that they may be saved. And we will love saved souls, for "if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love has been perfected in us." (1 John 4:12).

And teach me, Saviour, teach me
  The value of a soul

The Givenness of Things by Marilynne Robinson

Virago, 2015, 322pp 

Another holiday read. 

Over the last few years I have made my way though Robinson's Gilead trilogy; Gilead, Home and Lila. I have been entranced by the fictional world she has created, full of finely drawn, characterful characters. The novels are slow burners rather than racy page turners. They offer a thoughtful and compassionate account of the human condition. We are broken and flawed, yet we may hope for mercy and redemption. Robinson's fictional output is an extended meditation on the meaning of grace. 

Imagine what it would be like to have Marilynne Robinson expand on some of the theological themes pondered in her novels. You, know where old pastor friends, John Ames and William Boughton discuss predestination, or try and make sense of suffering and evil in God's world. We need imagine no more. For here, without the intermediary of her fictional characters, Robinson attempts to do just that.

In a conversation with Barak Obama, a transcript of which appears at the end of the book, the author gives a matter of fact explanation for publishing these essays, "I give lectures at a fair rate, and when I have given enough of them to make a book, I make a book" (p. 289). Fair enough.

It's obvious from her novels that the writer is deeply familiar with the thought of John Calvin. Here she avers, "I am a Calvinist...I really am a Calvinist" (p. 116). She loves Calvin's humanistic appreciation of the dignity of human beings and his admiration for man's dazzling achievements, 'the manifold agility of the soul, which enables it to take a survey of heaven and earth; to join the past and present; to retain the memory of things heard long ago; to conceive whatever it chooses by the help of imagination; its ingenuity also in the invention of such admirable arts'" (p. 26). 

Robinson deprecates reductionist accounts of human consciousness on the part of some Neuroscientists, for whom the "self" is an illusion created by electrons in the brain. As she points out, however, "If Shakespeare had undergone and MRI there is no reason to believe there would be any more evidence of extraordinary brilliance in him than there would be evidence of a self or soul" (p. 11). The old humanists were on the right track, who "took the works of the human mind - literature, music, philosophy, art, and languages - as proof of what the mind is and might be" (p, 11).

This should not be taken to mean that Robinson is anti-science. Far from it. She returns again and again to the counter-intuitive world of quantum physics, where the normal rules that govern the physical universe seem to break down into randomness. Robinson sees this as in line with Jonathan Edwards's conception of, 'the arbitrary constitution of the Creator'. What she calls "the givenness of things" (p.84). Things are as they are because that is what they were given to be by God.  

Science is the product of the human impulse to understand our world. And understand it we can, at least to some degree, which is a remarkable thing in itself. "Einstein said the the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible" (p. 154). That the human mind can comprehend the universe is testimony to the fact that God has created it and made us in his image that we may see his wisdom displayed in his mighty works. 

One of the impressive things about these essays is their range. Robinson is a true polymath. Chapters are devoted to the Reformation, the theme of Grace in the plays of Shakespeare, the idea of Servanthood in Protestant thought. There are essays on Metaphysics and Theology. The chapter, Son of Adam, Son of Man, is a mini-biblical theology. While the essays are diverse they cohere around a key thought; the dignity and value of human life against the vast backdrop of universe. She is content to put human beings centre stage because they have the distinction of being made in the image of God. The sustained application of this theological principle is one of the things that makes these essays so illuminating. 

Avid Robinson readers will also appreciate the insight given into her creative writing processes, "I feel a novel begin to cohere in my mind before I know much more about it than it has the heft of a long narrative" (p. 218). It's fascinating to learn that John Ames just 'showed up' when Robinson was in a Massachusetts hotel room waiting to spend Christmas with her sons. As she took up a pen to to write on blank piece of paper, the first sentence was in the voice of the old pastor (p. 302).

There is a basic flaw, however, in Robinson's configuration of Christian theology. A surprising one for a self-confessed Calvinist. She certainly accepts that man is a fallen creature and takes sin seriously. But not, perhaps, seriously enough. For all Robinson's talk of grace, she writes of "our ontological worthiness to be in a relationship with God" (p. 272) and "To properly value this pledge of fervent love, the Incarnation, we must try and see the world as deserving of it" (p. 201).

Gilead, we have a problem. The words just quoted are dangerously close to advocating a kind of 'L'Oriel theology', 'Because you're worth it!' That is a misconception, for if grace is deserved, it is no longer grace. What makes God's love for the world depicted in John 3:16 so amazing is that the world in its sin lies under God's condemnation (John 3:18) and is subject to his wrath (John 3:36).  There is nothing in us to compel God's grace. Grace is his free, undeserved favour, or it is nothing at all.  

This failure to attach sufficient gravity to the plight of human beings in sin means that Robinson struggles to find a place in her system for the Cross. She is happy to see the death of Jesus as a pledge of God's love for the world, "a gesture of such unthinkable grandeur and generosity-over and above the generosity of Creation itself" (p. 197).  But she admits to having difficulty with the idea of Jesus' death as sacrifice (see p. 193-195). The author wonders where that conception would leave those who lived and died before the Cross.

A close reading of the New Testament shows that Christ's sin-atoning death had a retrospective as well as prospective aspect, see Romans 3:24-26 and Hebrews 9:15. Robinson's answer to the question, 'what of those who lived before the Cross?' is somewhat different. She sees Christ as an active presence in the world from the beginning through his identification with the poor, needy and oppressed (p. 200). 

In all, Robinson offers a pretty thin doctrine of the atonement. Certainly not one that is recognisably Calvinistic. Calvin's account is considerably thicker and more robustly biblical, "Christ, in his death, was offered to the Father as a propitiatory victim; that, expiation being made by his sacrifice, we might cease to tremble at the divine wrath." (Institutes of the Christian Religion, II:16:6). Robinson, I venture to say, wouldn't put it quite like that.

In Lila, the novelist has her eponymous lead character imagine, "In eternity people's lives could be altogether what they were and had been, not just the worst they ever did, or the best things either." That way Lila could dream of seeing her old departed friend and guardian Doll once more, despite the fact that Doll had little interest in the Christian faith. Even wicked old Mack would be there, "wondering what the catch was". (Lila, Virago, 2015, p. 259-260). The universalstic drift of of Lila's vision is obvious. It is a projection of Robison's belief that the piety of sincere pagans is acceptable to God (p. 207). All people will be restored in the end; our friends, our enemies, to a 'heaven of souls' (p. 239). Where that leaves Matthew 25:46 and other biblical texts, I'm not exactly sure. Again, the saving necessity of Christ's death and faith in the same are not given sufficient weight.

I am a great admirer of Robinson's fictional output. There is much to mull over in this beautifully written set of essays. But something is lacking here. Where is the balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul? The full depths of God's love for human beings is revealed in that "while we are still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). We did not deserve to have Christ bear our sins. We do not deserve to have his righteousness reckoned to our account. "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8). Grace is the ultimate given thing. Rather, grace is God giving himself to us and for us in the person of his Son. The cry of the redeemed is not, "We are ontologically worthy to be in a relationship with God." No, to the Lamb in the midst of the throne they sing a new song,

“Worthy are you to take the scroll

    and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
    from every tribe and language and people and nation,

and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,

    and they shall reign on the earth.”

(Revelation 5:9-10).

The redeemed people of God shall be with Christ, be made like Christ and will reign with Christ. Then we will see the the heights to which human beings can be raised by the grace of God. At last we will see what is man. 

"Fetch down some knowledge from the clouds": the pedagogy of Isaac Watts

Isaac Watts 1674-1748

Writing up a review of The Givenness of Things by Marilynne Robinson I was reminded of what she had to say on Isaac Watts's contribution to pedagogy. In her chapter on the Reformation, she reflects on the educational impulse of Protestantism, "The bookishness of the Reformation might be said to have generalized itself to become an expectation of legibility in the whole of Creation." This bookish attitude was not at all elitist.  William Tyndale famously wished that a ploughboy might be as adept at reading Scripture as a priest. Robinson explains, "This sense that revelation, scriptural and natural, was essentially available to everyone, pervades Reformation thought" (p. 23).

In line with this impulse Robinson points out that the Congregational Minister and hymnwriter Isaac Watts also authored a groundbreaking and influential work on pedagogy entitled, The Improvement of the Mind: A Supplement to the Art of Logic. Watts wanted education to be enjoyable as well as informative for children, drawing on their natural curiosity about the world. Robinson includes a quote from The Improvement of the Mind to illustrate his approach (p. 23-24), 

Fetch down some knowledge from the clouds, the stars, the sun, the moon, and the revolutions of all the planets. Dig and draw up some valuable meditations from the depths of the earth, and search them through the vast oceans of water. Extract some intellectual improvements from the minerals and metals, from the wonders of nature among the vegetables and herbs, trees and flowers. Learn some lessons from the birds, and the beasts, and the meanest insect. Read the wisdom of God, and his admirable contrivance in them all. Read his almighty power, his rich and various goodness, in all the works of his hands.

As a Dissenter Watts was not permitted to study at Oxford or Cambridge. University was only for the communicant members of the Church of England. Nonconformists devised an alternative system of education, the Dissenting Academies. They were set up to to train men for pastoral ministry and provide a the sons of Nonconformist families with a standard of higher education to rival anything Oxbridge had to offer. 

Young Isaac's earliest education was at the hands of his father, also named Isaac. At six years of age Watts was sent to a Free School at Winkle Street, Southampton. He then headed to London to study at the Nonconformist Academy at Stoke Newington Green. His biographer comments, "Watts was in an educational tradition that has enriched the life of this country. The Dissenting Academies played an important role in the development of modern education." (Isaac Watts Remembered by David Fountain, 1978, Gospel Standard Baptist Trust, p. 76).

Isaac Watts penned several works on pedagogy including a number of catechisms, a Discourse on the Education of Children, and The Improvement of the Mind Parts I & II. He championed learning in the medium of English alongside Latin, the traditional language of scholarship. The forward looking educationalist suggested the use of card games to teach grammar, astronomy and other subjects. But there were limits. The Congregationalist Minister was strongly opposed to students attending balls, gaming houses and the theatre. The ways of the world could be picked up more safely by reading the Spectator. 

In an age when strict, if not harsh, educational discipline was the norm (enough to make Michaela seem soft), Watts urged teachers to endeavour to win the hearts and minds of their pupils, 

He should have so much of a natural candour and sweetness mixed with all the improvements of learning, as might convey knowledge into the minds of his disciples with a sort of gentle insinuation and sovereign delight, and may tempt them into the highest improvements of their reason by a resistless and insensible force. 

Dr. Johnson was a great admirer of Watts's The Improvement of the Mind.

Few books have been perused by me with greater pleasure than his Improvement of the Mind, of which the radical principles may indeed be found in Locke's Conduct of the Understanding, but they are so expanded and ramified by Watts as to confer upon him the merit of a work in the highest degree useful and pleasing. Whoever has the care of instructing others, may be charged with deficiency in his duty if this work is not recommended. (Isaac Watts Remembered, p. 76). 

Marilynne Robinson worries that we are in danger of losing the educational impulse of Protestantism in Western society. She laments, "we are now living among...the ruins of the Reformation" (p. 26). As a result, "Now we are more inclined to speak of information than of learning, and to think of the means by which information is transmitted rather than of how learning might transform, and be transformed by, the atmospheres of a given mind" (p. 28). More a case of fetching information from the Cloud than scanning the clouds for glimpses of the glory of God. Robinson concludes, "The Reformation is another beautiful and worthy heritage, another stream of cultural and spiritual wealth, also deserving of advocates and interpreters" (p. 30). An apt sentiment for the year that marks the 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation. 

God created all men equal

 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal”, so says the American Declaration of Independence. Race riots in Charlottesville, USA have led to those words being quoted to call out the evil of white supremacy. President Trump’s seeming hesitancy in confronting racism has led to his judgement being called into question by leading lights in his own Republican party.

The truth that the framers of the Declaration of Independence held to be ‘self-evident’ is based on the teaching of the Bible, “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27). That is why people of whatever nation, race, or creed, whether they be male or female are to be treated with equal dignity and respect. Equality does not mean uniformity, but whatever differences there are between people, the fundamental principle of equality remains.

An old song by my boyhood heroes, The Jam bears witness to this principle. In Man in the Corner Shop they sang,

Go to church do the people from the area

All shapes and classes sit and pray together

For here they are all one

For God created all men equal

The church is not confined to one nation, race or social class. Jesus sent his followers to make disciples of all peoples. The songs of heaven would make any racist decidedly uncomfortable. The saints in glory sing to Jesus,

You are worthy

For you were slain,

And have redeemed us to God by your blood

Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation

(Revelation 5:9)

The Bible teaches that all people are equal in three important ways:

1. All people are created equal. 

2. All people are equally in need of salvation. 

3. All people are equally welcome to receive Jesus as Saviour and Lord. 

* For Trinity parish magazine

Dunkirk

Saw this last Saturday. The film shows the Dunkirk evacuation from the perspectives of land 'The Mole', Sea and Air. Out of the hundreds of thousands involved, Nolan focuses attention on a handful of Tommies, a couple of RAF pilots and the escapades aboard a small civilian boat piloted by Mr Dawson, played by Mark Rylance. While the epic scale of the rescue is brought home we are not allowed to forget the personal heroism of the individuals involved. 

The film is visually stunning, loud, and immersive. The aerial balletics of  the dogfights between RAF Spitfires and their Luftwaffe opponents are especially gripping. The main roles are well acted, including the chap from One Direction, who plays a bit of a baddie. Kenneth Branagh and Mark Rylance give standout performances, adding emotional weight to the film. 

Talk about tension. So many rescue boats are bombed from the air or torpedoed that you begin to wonder whether anyone got home. Thankfully over 300,000 did. Those who returned to Blighty worried they would be labelled cowards, but Churchill's well judged, 'We will fight them on the beaches' speech set the tone. 

The providential rescue of the British Expeditionary Force was an important factor in the allies' eventual victory over Nazi Germany. No Dunkirk, no D-Day.

Dunkirk is a powerful reminder that rescue involves sacrifice. That was also true of 'The' event that shaped our world. 

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Faber and Faber, 2006 edition, 282pp 

This is the second of two books I read while on holiday in France. The first was The Givenness of Things by Marilynne Robinson. More of that in another review post. Suffice to say that one of the main themes of Robinson's collection of essays is what it means to be human. In the first essay on Humanism, the author disagrees with the view of some Neuroscientists who conclude that the human "self" does not exist. What we think of as "self" is merely the product of electronic impulses generated by that computerised piece of meat, the human brain. 

Robinson prefers the account given by "the brilliant young humanist scholar, John Calvin...in his praise of 'the manifold agility of the soul, which enables it to take a survey of heaven and earth; to join the past and present; to retain the memory of things heard long ago; to conceive whatever it chooses by the help of imagination; its ingenuity also in the invention of such admirable arts'". (p. 26). 

The question of what it is to be human also haunts Ishiguro's novel. The story is narrated by Kathy H, a thirty one year old carer. The novel unfolds as Kathy reflects on 'the memory of things long ago' in an attempt to make sense of her current situation. Her life story begins in Hailsham, a special boarding school. While there Kathy made friends with fellow boarders, Tommy and Ruth. The story is limited by her perspective on things as Kathy reminisces about the past until her story merges with the present. Other than that, no explanation is given of how the dystopia Ishiguro has created came about. 

Slowly the reader begins to grasp that all is not right with Kathy's world. It becomes apparent that Hailsham children were 'donors', a class of people created by cloning as living spare parts. Their destiny was to grow into adulthood and then have their vital organs removed one by one until they died, or 'completed'. Before donating they could serve as carers, hence Kathy's position. 

Hailsham students could never understand why the art they made was removed from the school and placed in a gallery. A rumor spread that exhibits in the gallery were there to prove that two Hailsham students had fallen in love once they reached adulthood. Genuine couples could be granted some extra time together before donating. Ruth, Tommy and Kathy certainly believed this to be true. 

Later in life Kathy hears that Hailsham had closed down. However, Together with Tommy she manages to track down Miss Emily and Madame from the school. They are desperate to find out whether the rumuor about the gallery was true. It turns out that what made Hailsham special was that the school pioneered a more humane way of treating 'donor' children, believing them to be fully paid up members of the human race, rather than living spare parts. The art in the gallery was not there to give in an insight into lovers' souls, but to 'prove you had souls at all' (p. 255). Calvin would have approved of that as an indication of genuine humanity, but not of the need for it in the case of Kathy et al.

Kathy and her friends are depicted as truly and fully human, not soulless automatons. They form close friendships, they fall in and out of love, they are kind and they are cruel, they create art and literature, they long for a sense of meaning and purpose in life, they want to know where they came from and where they are going. Ishiguro's tenderly drawn characters are flawed, sometimes frustrating, yet lovable human beings. Like us. But destined to die a cold, unnatural death. 

The writer deploys a 'show not tell' approach to the moral issues raised in his novel. It does, however, provoke some serious bioethicical questions. Currently, embryonic stem cell research involves the harvesting of stem cells from human embryos prior to their destruction. In most cases these embryos are 'surplus to requirements' in IVF treatments. Although some have been created by cloning simply for stem cell research purposes. Human life in its early stage has become a thing to be used. And that while stem cells may be taken from adult tissue and deployed to good therapeutic effect. There is mounting pressure to press ahead still further with embryo experimentation for therapeutic and even reproductive purposes. Let's hope the alternative past portrayed in these pages doesn't become a chilling prophecy of the future. 

I'm not aware of Ishiguro's faith position. Reading his novel through Christian eyes, it is a powerful testament to the worth, dignity and value of human beings, made in the image of God. As such it is a protest against seeing people as products to be utilised rather than souls to be loved. 

The title of the novel is taken from Kathy's favourite song, which is emblematic of the deep seated human need for security in love. There is One who will never let us go, John 10:27-29. 

Inventing ourselves: some comments on gender self-identification proposals

The Minister for Women and Equalities, Justine Greening has announced a government proposal on altering the legal requirements involved in a person changing their gender identity. The current legislation includes a number of safeguards before a person is allowed to legally change their gender identity, including a clinical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and the requirement that a person has lived in line with their chosen gender identity for two years. Under Greening's proposals those safeguards would be scrapped, allowing people to self-identify their gender. The intention is to ‘de-medicalise’ the process. But gender dysphoria is a psychological condition that requires expert diagnosis and treatment.  Should a person wish to go ahead with hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery, that would by definition involve medical intervention. The process cannot therefore be ‘de-medicalised’. The current safeguards should be retained as an absolute minimum.

A person cannot simply assert that they are a man or a woman, contrary to their birth gender, and expect society to recognise that as a fact. Birth certificates should not be retrospectively altered to change a person’s birth gender, or so they can identify themselves as ‘X’ opposed to male or female. In terms of genetics and reproductive functions, human beings are born either male or female. That is a scientific fact that cannot be altered. People who feel ‘trapped in the wrong body’ should be treated with kindness and respect, but the best way of dealing with their gender identity issues is to help them come to terms with the person they are by birth (see here). The tiny percentage of people born with an intersex condition is not strictly relevant to this discussion. The matter concerns those who were born male or female, who wish to identify with the opposite sex as a matter of choice.

As a Christian I believe that human beings are made in the image of God as male and female. It is part of God’s good creation that men and women are equal and yet different. The differences between men and women should be celebrated as part of the natural diversity of the human race. No attempt should be made to deny or overcome these differences. Giving a man female hormone treatment and subjecting their bodies to surgery in order to give them a feminised appearance does not alter their genetic maleness or bestow upon them female reproductive functions. Similarly with women who seek to identify as male. Biological facts are not malleable and cannot be changed at will, or even by medical procedures.

The ‘Trans Movement’, whose agenda the government seems to be championing seems to have a very restricted understanding of what constitutes male or female gender identity. Gender stereotyping needs to be challenged rather than reinforced. A boy who enjoys cooking and dancing is a boy who enjoys those pursuits, not a girl in the ‘wrong body’. A girl who prefers playing football to dressing up as a princess in bright pink is a sporty girl, not a child who is ‘gender fluid’. It is a great disservice to vulnerable children to suggest that they may be suffering from gender identity problems that may be resolved by boys seeking to become girls or visa versa.  

The number of children who have been referred to gender identity clinics has grown exponentially in recent years. This is due in part to a culture where children are encouraged to question whether they are in fact boys or girls. Hormone suppressing drugs are prescribed to children in preparation for gender transitioning. Commentators have rightly expressed alarm over these developments. Feminist writer Camille Pagila recently stated, "The cold biological truth is that sex changes are impossible," and "I condemn the escalating prescription of puberty blockers (whose long-term effects are unknown) for children. I regard this practice as a criminal violation of human rights.” (Life Site 20/06/17).” Dr. Joanna Williams was quoted in the Daily Telegraph (23/06/17),

Although the number of transgender children is small, it is growing rapidly. Children - encouraged by their experiences at school - are beginning to question their gender identity at ever younger ages.

In doing more than just supporting transgender children, and instead sowing confusion about gender identity, schools do neither boys nor girls any favours.

Writing in The Times (27/07/17), Clare Foges pondered the harmful implications of your policy for children,

Widespread mental health problems, from self-harming to eating disorders and anxiety, reveal that children are suffering increasing distress. The causes for this are complex but might we quietly suggest that encouraging them to question the very essence of their identity will not help?

The proposed gender self-identification policy only stands to make things worse for children. 

Ms. Greening is the Minister for Women and Equalities. It is therefore surprising that she seems unaware that the measures she proposes are likely to have a detrimental impact on women. Already there have been cases where men who identify as women have been incarcerated in female prisons, where they have gone on to sexually assault and even rape women prisoners. Women will be more vulnerable to sexual assault in changing rooms and toilets if men are able simply to self-identity as women and use these facilities themselves. To say nothing of the implications for women’s sport, should men who self-identify as women be recognised as such. The physical strength and speed of ‘trans women’ will put natural women at a disadvantage, which seems manifestly unfair to female athletes. The policy proposal Greening is now championing was drawn up by her predecessor in the role of equalities minister, Maria Miller. When Janice Turner pressed Miller on these matters in a probing interview in The Times (29/07/17), Miller failed to come up with adequate answers and threatened to walk out of the interview.

The facts of life cannot be altered by legislative fiat. The government’s proposals on gender self-identification will require society to accept a fundamental untruth, namely that it is possible for a person to become a member of the opposite sex simply by making a statement to that effect. People do not share my Christian beliefs may be tempted to dismiss my arguments out of hand. It is not only Christians, however, who share my concerns. Dr David Starkey is no friend of the Christian faith. Yet writing in The Spectator (29/07/17) to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality, Starkey, a self-confessed ‘Gay Tory’ heavily criticised these proposals,

So where does this leave Justine Greening’s recent announcement — deliberately timed to coincide with the anniversary of the ’67 act — that the government hopes to make gender reassignment a simple matter of statutory self-declaration with none of the ‘demeaning’ bother of medical assessment? Is it, as she claims, part of a properly conservative long march? Hardly. We fought, as conservatives should, for the recognition of facts. On the other hand, Greening and her sidekick Nick Gibb believe in defying them, since they appear to deny that gender is based in biology.

Legislation in defiance of established facts cannot be acceptable. These wrong-headed proposals on gender self-identification should therefore be abandoned.

* This blog is an edited version of a letter sent to Ms. Greening, with a copy to my own MP. Go and do likewise if you share my concerns.