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09/12/2020

A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Rev Sharon Grenham-Thompson.

A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Revd Sharon Grenham-Thompson

The second season of the 91Èȱ¬ TV series ‘His Dark Materials’ seems to be delighting fans as much as the first. Adapted from Philip Pullman’s trilogy of novels, the fantasy drama takes its audience on a journey of epic proportions. The original books were award-winners; but they were also controversial for their implicit criticism of religion.

The title for the trilogy was taken from a line in John Milton’s epic poem, ‘Paradise Lost’, which was published in 1645; and the scope of Pullman’s imaginative creation seems to echo the vast sweep of Milton’s. Milton was himself a controversial figure: a fierce critic of what he saw as the Church’s corruption and misuse of power.

But whilst the target of both men’s wrath is in one sense very clearly the organised church, in fact a deeper reading of both reveals something much wider: that the true baddie lies in any institution or even individual that seeks to rule by control, or for personal gain. Absolute authority that allows no questioning is deeply questionable. And attempts to control the spiritual development of another is, at worst, abusive.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, wrote that we need regularly to be reminded of the god in which we should not believe – and perhaps the challenge for the church, and its members, today, is to rediscover a truth intended to set people free, and communicate that to a justifiably sceptical world.

Holy Spirit, whether today brings us a flash of the infinite, or simply the quiet dullness of the everyday, may we still recognise the eternal gift of possibility in every person and every moment.

Amen.

2 minutes

Last on

Wed 9 Dec 2020 05:43

Broadcast

  • Wed 9 Dec 2020 05:43

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