An Apocalyptic Motif

Martyn Percy (Editorial, Modern Believing, Volume 42:1, January 2001)

I suppose it would be fair to say that the year 2001 officially marks the beginning of the new millennium. However, our need to gratify our sense of immediacy has meant that most people have already celebrated the millennium, meaning no doubt that this will be the year for some rather introspective reviews, looking back at the past and reconstructing it, before treading gently, and perhaps somewhat nervously into the future. Political commentators, in Britain at least, were fond of characterising the 90s as 'nervous', which begs the question as to how we will remember the next few years once they have come to pass. All the signs are at the moment, that in political, church and public life in general, that there is a heady cocktail of optimism, hope, vision, all of which are coupled to some degree of uncertainty, anxiety and dissatisfaction. How progress is made and what is reified from it will be critical to the survival of institutions in the twenty-first century.

In view of this, we open this 42nd volume of Modern Believing quite properly at the beginning of a new century and a new millennium, with an article from Philip Sheldrake on the nature of the City. Professor Sheldrake offers a visionary and wise reading of a much neglected topic in theology and religious studies. Theologies of place are becoming increasingly important as individuals and communities struggle to relocate themselves within a globalised, modernised, privatised, atomised and everything-else-ised world. Under such conditions, the study of the relationship between spirituality, religion and place will become essential, and an area which theologians will need to address with more rigour than has hitherto been the case.

It was just too tempting to neglect an apocalyptic motif for this edition of the journal. Accordingly, Jackie Harrison offers a perspective on the Waco siege of 1993. One of the more extraordinary features of modernity is that puzzling phenomena often fail to generate reasoned understanding, but rather the endless concoction of conspiracy theories. Now, seven years on from the end of the siege, it is possible to look back on events, and offer a more sober reading of the situation. Clearly, if we want to understand the future, a better understanding of the past will be more than necessary - otherwise we are once again condemned to repeat the mistakes of our predecessors.

Ian Markham's sermon from Oxford University also takes a wry look at ethics and education - another pairing of themes that are set to dominate the next few years. Again, theologians will need to be much more engaged with the present philosophy of education if their discipline is to have any influence within the market place. Professor Markham's Chair is, interestingly, 'Theology and Public Life', and this short article is a characteristic demonstration of what that type of engagement might mean for the Church in the present.

Readers of this journal will be more than familiar with the work of Leslie Francis, and in particular his subtle synthesis of empirical work and theological insight. In this article - Personality type and communicating the Gospel - Professor Francis takes the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and explores how the churches might profit by its use in pastoral work and psychological profiling. It is interesting to note that selection procedure for ordained ministers in the Church of England has itself changed significantly in the last few years, with the adoption of psychometric testing for all potential candidates. This article asks for more research, and further exploration, which in turn may deliver better pastoral working relationships, and more local ecclesial coherence.

Finally, Harriet Harris, now chaplain of Wadham College, Oxford, offers her own perspective on liberal Christianity. This short article, as if readers needed reminding, is a call to be confident in liberalism and the part it can play in the future of the Church and its relation to the world, but at the same time take nothing for granted. This type of measured apologia, self-critically aware theology and ecclesiology, and charitable and prayerful liberalism is what will be, I suspect, appealing to a great many people at the dawn of the new millennium proper.

Modern Believing, MCU, October Vol. 41, No. 2, April 2000