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"Anyone who writes a Christis article is inherently arrogant". Discuss.
Or to put things another way: why write a Christis article? What do you mean to achieve? In what spirit are you writing? Here are a few options: offering; loving; humble; vengeful; boastful; bored; corrective; questioning; desperation; concern; seeking fame/attention.
I’m not trying to discourage people from writing articles, nor to paralyse them with a paranoia that may be just my own. But I think it might be time for a bit of navel gazing.
I’ve read pretty much every issue of Christis since its genesis, and have written my fair share of articles. If I’m honest, I’d have to say that I got a buzz from it. Seeing yourself in print, even if it’s just in a University magazine, is a bit of a rush. Why else did I write? To get across a point, to preach without a pulpit? Guilty, your honour. To show how clever my vocabulary was? Yes, that unnervingly casual use of the phrase ‘fin de Siécle’ gave me away, right? In rage at what I perceived as a condescending attack on my beliefs, rather than in the considered concern or understanding that I might have expressed? Probably. To shock? Yes. To criticise? Yep. To tell people to read a book/watch a film that I liked? Spot the spiritual Barry Norman.
So did I bore you? Enrage you? Inspire you? Cure your insomnia? Did I care? I hope so.
The better articles, I think, were those which I wrote in a spirit of offering, with as much humility as I could manage. Those articles where I put my thoughts on paper so that other people could tell me if I was off my rocker or that I was on to something. This is at the heart of it — to want dialogue with the readership, hope for follow-up letters, rather than for anyone to think how right I was. You could accuse this attitude of being irresponsible (couldn’t it lead people astray?), but it was certainly raw and reasonably honest. Do I regret those articles? No, not really. I think I grew through them, and I hope that the readership did the same. One thing is that they were definitely my articles, written from my experience, and not an attempt to reproduce the sermon I’d heard the last Sunday, to paraphrase my favourite theologian, or to perform a join the dots Bible study.
There are many things that can be written on many subjects. The question is, are you the right person to write them? What can you, personally, add? Genius in writing style is one possibility. Cunning intelligence or unwavering dogma is another. But what about vulnerable, honest experience? This is more difficult than standing up for any theological position. It’s more risky but, because of that, it is more real and inspiring than countless “ain’t God cool” or “I’ve always rather liked the idea of the Trinity” articles.
Not wanting to be patronising, but if I want to get some theology I know of many better authors than undergraduates at York — St Paul’s a pretty hard act to follow, but many individuals through history like Barth, Bonhoeffer and, maybe, even Dave Tomlinson have tried with distinction. What you can’t get in any Christian bookshop, however, is individual people’s experience at the University of York in 1998. This is what I’d like to see more of in Christis — not dry theological columns, but the application of theology to the tiring, exhilarating, terrifying, freeing, boring, evolutionary experience that is the prelude (hopefully) to a degree. No-one can state how real (or absent) God feels to you better than you can yourself. So go on, write away.
There you are. I’m done. And, yes, I have fallen deeply into my own trap, for this is probably the most patronising article in Christis. But my ladder out is that this is just my opinion. If you disagree, great, write back.
Oh, and by the way, my original quote was much better stated by Aldous Huxley in Eyeless in Gaza. Now that’s a jolly good read.
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Last modified: 25th November 2005