In response to my contrived answer to his question, Leonard apologised
and explained that he had assumed that I was a Christian because a) I am a
theologian and b) I am a church organist, which was a reasonable assumption
given the evidence. Having accounted for my interest in the study of religion, I
allowed a little honesty to creep into our conversation at that point and I admitted
that my decision to take up playing the church organ was also driven by
entirely mercenary motivations. While my initial intentions may have been to
learn more about Christianity, to expand my repertoire of musical instruments, to
contribute to the life of the community and all the usual sentimental blather, I
quickly learned that the Church is wealthy, it is willing to pay a high price
for its staff and it is by no means ashamed to charge extortionate fees to even
the poorest of families who come for weddings, funerals and baptisms. Consequently
this convenient stream of income soon became the main attraction, especially when
student life and university fees were later thrown into the mix.
Leonard found my honesty to
be very amusing and he confessed that his dealings with the Church were complex
too, to say the least. Still evidently unsure as to the precise nature of my spiritual
persuasions, he broached the subject of his own religious beliefs very cautiously
at first, explaining that he considered himself to be a Christian in some ways
but not in our common understanding of the word. This was a curious revelation
and the budding theologian in me would not allow this disclosure to pass by
without hearing more, although it seemed unfair to pursue the matter as I had
not been entirely honest with my own answer. Nevertheless after a little gentle
questioning he revealed that he was sympathetic to the teachings of Jesus but
he said that he was privy to special knowledge that prevented him from accepting
the doctrines of Christianity and subscribing to everything that the Christian
religion entails.
He paused at that point and put
down his pencil and gave me a strange look. In hindsight it was the kind of hesitant
look that someone gives you when they are on the cusp of revealing something that
is very confidential and/or very incriminating. It is a measured assessment of
how the listener will react and a careful consideration of the consequences
that will follow from the revelation of the secret. The question that he then
asked was quite bold in view of his previously delicate manner of conversation.
“Do you believe that Jesus was divine, Helen?”
The direct nature of the question caused me to shift uncomfortably in my
seat, largely due to a genuine wish to avoid causing offence but also because a
debilitating surge of scholarly theories came rushing to my mind and rendered
me almost speechless. An awkward silence began to settle in the room and so
Leonard took it upon himself to continue his interrogation.
“Do you believe that Jesus was the Son of God?” he pressed further.
I thought it best to play safe and so I answered with a vague “I’m not
sure…” which appeared to frustrate Leonard greatly. Clearly tired of my
avoidant behaviour, he sat back in his chair and tried a different approach.
“In that case,” he said, “let me ask you this; do you believe in magic?”
I laughed at first and I
remember my reaction vividly as Leonard’s stern expression caused me to instantly
correct myself. My comprehension of the word ‘magic’ is, I expect, fairly
typical and a composite jumble of half-digested images came tumbling out in
response, consisting primarily of Mickey Mouse wearing a pointy wizard’s hat in
Walt Disney’s Fantasia, a vague memory of the witch trials from history
lessons at school, pictures of old women with broomsticks and ugly warts in
children’s books, late night TV programmes showing illusionists performing amazing
card tricks and a cute guy that I once met in a bar who made my ten-pound note
disappear only to recover it from inside his beer glass.
Leonard’s grin widened as he listened
to me speak, or rather fumble, for a few minutes until I settled on the classic
scholarly cop-out of etymology and I replied that my answer would ultimately depend
upon his definition of the word ‘magic’; is he asking whether I am a fan of stage
magic that is performed by a sharp-dressed entertainer equipped with a black and
white-tipped wand, a glamorous assistant and a fluffy white rabbit? Or is he asking
whether I believe in the ritualistic, dancing-around-the-cauldron-at-night kind
of magic? Leonard considered my counter-question for a second and then he launched
into a lecture on the various interpretations of the word ‘magic’ in the ancient
and modern world. The conversation was very interesting indeed but I was
struggling to maintain concentration because my attention was being constantly
drawn towards a number of curious objects within my line of sight and my mind
was already largely preoccupied with the uncomfortable demands of making polite
conversation with a stranger. And this discomfort was greatly accentuated by
the fact that I was acutely aware that this stranger was drawing me (I
understood how a celebrity must feel when fielding difficult questions while
all the time being peered at by a cameraman’s lens, although the presence of a
snoring dog and the smell of turpentine were far less glamorous!).
We talked at length about my
modern-day ‘world-view’, as Leonard called it, and how it affects my understanding
of my immediate environment and influences my interactions with the world
around me. Leonard took great pains to demonstrate how my modern-day world-view
is different to the world-view of the people who lived in the ancient world and
consequently my understanding and use of certain words and concepts may be
considerably dissimilar to the general understanding and use of the same word
or concept in antiquity. Taking the word ‘magic’ as an example, Leonard said that
whereas our ancestors believed in the reality of magic and the existence of
magical creatures and they constructed elaborate hierarchies of angelology and
demonology to complement their day-to-day activities, the modern-day individual
tends to ridicule the existence of real magic and magical beings such as angels
and demons are ‘condemned to be the corporate stalwarts of sickly greeting
cards and sweaty rock bands’, as Leonard rather amusingly lamented. Since the word
‘magic’ no longer evokes the fears and expectations that it did for our
ancestors and it is not a concept that we encounter on a regular day-to-day
basis, the modern-day individual does not experience the same emotional
response as the first readers upon encountering the word in an ancient text,
for example, and certain words and actions within an early text that once carried
clear implications of magical activity may be passed over and ignored by the
modern-day reader.
And then came the interesting
part. He said that this potential for conflict between the modern and ancient
world-views must be taken into account when engaging with an ancient text such
as the Bible and we must be aware that although a certain passage in the Bible may
wash over the majority of modern readers without raising any alarm bells
whatsoever, certain words or actions within the same passage may have carried serious
and significant implications for the early reader who approached the text with
an ancient world-view. Leonard became hesitant at that point and he was clearly
fighting with himself like a little boy desperate to reveal a secret. I had no
idea where our conversation was heading but I suspected that Leonard was going
to draw a parallel between the modern day rejection of the existence of magic
and the modern day rejection of the divinity of Jesus and he would encourage me
to consider the Gospels as a product of the ancient world-view, however it
transpired that the subject of magic was far more intimately connected with his
initial question than I had anticipated.
After a few more minutes of skirting around the main issue, Leonard explained
that if I abandoned my modern world-view and approached the Gospels through the
eyes of a first-century reader then I would see that the Gospels are saturated
with magical practices and, most importantly, I would encounter passages in which
Jesus appears less like a miracle-worker and more like a magician. This
statement sounded ridiculous at first and I responded in the same way that
anyone would upon hearing such a claim - i.e. “are you serious? Who on earth
would call Jesus a magician?” - and I was quick to point out what I thought was
the obvious stumbling-block in his reasoning...
“But the Bible tells us that
Jesus used the Holy Spirit to perform his miracles, not magic…”
There was a pause.
“Do you really think
that?” came Leonard’s amused reply.
For a moment I thought that
he was teasing me, but I could see that he was deadly serious. Maybe Leonard
isn’t an artist after all, I thought, maybe he is just a crackpot theologian who
is seeking a sympathetic ear for his outrageous theories.
