several people have helped us today SO much, I can't quite believe what they accomplished between them! Praise the Lord for Christian friends who willingly gave up their time and energy on this very hot day.
Two gardens readied for our departure (from pretty parlous states), cupboards emptied and cleaned, things taken to charity shops, shipping cartons constructed and a lawnmower cord severed by exciteable mowing!
Also came across a little note from when I was reading The Shack. On p.90 we come across God (Father) listening to funk. Which reminded me of The Mighty Boosh - a couple of stellar episodes about jazz, exploring our ignorant prejudices about it as well as mocking its producers and enthusiasts.
Wasn't quite so convinced by some of the theological speculations in The Shack, it has to be said. For example, Young suggests that "fathering" was most lacking when creation was broken and that's why God appears as "Father" (p.94). But don't the eternal relationships within the Trinity shed some light the other way - towards our meagre understanding of what father-son means? Of course, I mused, that formulation seems to leave "woman" out of the picture, which is not good. James Jordan's provocative thoughts on hair and glory may give us some pointers here... [PART 1] and [PART 2] of his "liturgical man / liturgical woman" essay, another collection of not-wholly-convincing speculations slightly more to my taste!
Last week at Hope, we heard a great sermon, passionately and warmly delivered, from Robin Whaley, who works for Eden Baptist. The text was Romans 10:5-15, part of our long series on Romans that should come to an end in August. RW took a 'trad' line on imputation of Christ's righteousness, which is perhaps a slight puzzle (search for "imputation" on David Field's old blog to see just a small amount of the theological musings it has generated...) and not actually in Romans 10 itself, so that didn't really distract from what was an excellent exhortation.
The question is, who can be saved? Relevant for believers and nonbelievers...
The simple answer is, you need to be "righteous", in a right standing with God
Two ways to get righteous - one that doesn't work (trying to clean yourself up and keep the law 100%) and one that does (verses 6-8). This is righteousness by faith, that is given by God.
This was always God's plan A, saving faith in Jesus. We don't, can't and never could do God a favour! (tragic illustrations of the Hindu holy man rolling across India, and Robin's own pre-Christian misconception of what would improve him) Instead, He draws near to us.
God does use people in His world, however, not least in sharing this good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. The call to "preach" - see verses 14-15 - is not for a select few extroverts, but for all of us. Let's get passionate about it (alongside our other worthy passions).
This message is huge in importance (the Torah pointed to it; it is the centre of history), in scale (v.12 tells of a vast new community) and in power (able to bring sinners to God).
The shocking conduct of Greek clergy among the Alans, including extortion rackets, observed by Bishop Theodore in 1233 (sent three centuries after the nation had been baptised) was part and parcel of the general neglect and intolerance of non-Byzantine believers or seekers. The Bishop of Cherson even objected to Theodore’s ultimately vain attempts to properly preach to and disciple the Alans, crying,
‘“The Devil take the godless Alans who are even worse than the Scythians [Mongols]!” … In the eighteenth century, when Russia was conquering the Northern Caucasus, General Eropkin found in the Baxan village of Kabarda a decrepit codex of the Gospels in Greek. The locals explained that they knew only one way to apply it: they used to put it on a sick man’s head. This is an ironic epitaph to Byzantine missionary efforts in the Alania.’
Sergey A. Ivanov, ‘Mission Impossible: Ups and Downs in Byzantine Missionary Activity from the Eleventh to the Fifteenth Century’, in Jonathan Shepherd, ed., The Expansion of Orthodox Europe: Byzantium, the Balkans and Russia (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp.251-66 (p.261).
Of course, whether or not one believes that the application of a book to the forehead is 'a good thing' does depend on one's perspective. In the hagiography of one Iakovos, a Greek shepherd who was killed by the Turks in 1520, we read of a local Muslim woman of high renown who was cured of a nasty illness by having copy of the gospels held above her head.
N.M. Vaporis, Witnesses for Christ: Orthodox Christian Neomartyrs of the Ottoman Period 1437-1860 (Crestwood, NJ: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2000)., p.58.
So, if you're a critical modern historian (or me) you might be tempted to sneer at such practices, but if you're an 18th century priest collecting uplifting stories of Orthodox life under oppression (or even if you're simply republishing them in the 20th century) then such things can apparently form part of a rounded approach to Christian witness...
In verses 12-21 a vast chiasmus opened up before my very eyes...
A B C D E D' C' B' A'
Note in particular the two ways [C and D] in which the gift of Christ affects fallen man, and how the content of A is developed through E and A'. Our attention is also drawn, in this difficult passage, to the central claim, which repays long meditation.
[A protasis (interrupted)] Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned—
[B what law does and did] for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.
[C transformative] But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!
[D forensic] Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.
[E alternate summary of protasis-apodosis] For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
[D' forensic] Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.
[C' transformative] For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
[B' what law does] The law was added so that the trespass might increase.
[A' protasis (complete) and apodosis] But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
storming title for a book, eh? And someone got there first, in 1964, in fact...
Review of Leonard Verduin, The Reformers and
their Stepchildren (Exeter: Paternoster, 1964)
Verduin aims to rehabilitate the so-called ‘Radical Reformers’ by examining more critically than most historians the charges hurled at them by their opponents both Catholic and Protestant. He calls these ‘radicals’ the men and women of the ‘Second Front’, or the ‘Stepchildren’ of the magisterial Reformers, with whom they shared much in common in doctrine but less in ecclesiology and vision of society.
Their main bone of contention was with ‘medieval sacralism’, a social order designed to ensure homogeneity in religion, ritual, political thought and many strands of culture. Verduin goes so far as to say that this sacralism was ‘monist’. He is fighting fire with fire, since the Stepchildren are often labelled ‘dualists’, which is unfair
unless it be dualism to insist that the rule-right that comes to expression in the State (which is a creature of common grace) and the rule-right that comes to expression in the Church (which is a creature of common grace) are discrete. (p.99)
Finding that the social world envisaged by the New Testament is plural – for there are always two groups in a society, the believers and the unbelievers – Verduin argues that the sacralism challenged by the Stepchildren was unbiblical and inherited from the Roman Empire. The Reformers, because of their concern for a certain kind of peace and order, and because they imagined that their reforming efforts would be more likely to succeed with the backing of the sword, courted secular powers. The Stepchildren ignored secular powers, defied them, or in some cases tried to seize the sword directly in the name of the peasants or an apocalyptic ‘prophet’.
Verduin returns to the bone of sacralism in each chapter, reasoning that it lay behind the insults made, whether apparently theological or not. “Donatisten” (Donatists) is the first and most fundamental charge, since its object struck directly at a monistic sacral order by claiming that another, purer church could (and should) exist alongside the mainstream one. The Stepchildren were also callsed “Stäbler” (Staff-bearers) since they did not want a sword in their hands, “Catharer” (Pure Ones) since they emphasised holiness, “Sacramentschwärmer” (Sacramentarians) since they opposed the Catholic teaching and practice of sacraments, “Winkler” (Corner-gatherers) because they wanted to meet in homes to study the Bible, “Wiedertäufer” (Anabaptists) because they wanted a church for believers with entry by believers’ baptism, “Kommunisten” (Communists; perhaps the most easy to refute) because they allegedly abolished private property, and “Rottengeiester” (Sectarians) because they split off from mainstream society and the church insofar as they refused to take the oath of allegiance. Verduin also tries to trace similar ideas – peaceful resistance to sacralism, greater biblical knowledge and concern for holiness, and a certain amount of dissembling before the authorities – through European history, in the sporadic records of heretic trials or passing comments in mainstream catholic writers. He has some success in this, as he is slightly more measured than Broadbent’s The Pilgrim Church, though adopting a similar position. By implication, the (wilful?) misunderstandings shown by the 16th century opponents of the Stepchildren were shared by at least some earlier medieval heresy-hunters.
Verduin is very direct: he wears both his analysis and his heart on his sleeve. This is refreshing in an age of fudge, but did make me a little suspicious that he was over-stating his position. For example, when he says that itwas not concern for the salvation of infants that drove ‘the medieval paedobaptist’, so much as its potential for promoting sacralism and the magistrate’s interests (see pp.192-5), I would hestiate to be quite so sweeping about the motives of the average parish priest or monk, though the point is taken. He is briefly carried away by his passion when discussing the burning of Servetus. It is enough to argue that the sacral order that executed heretics was wrong to do so, and that Calvin was wrong to acquiesce in the case of Servetus. It is not necessary to (falsely) argue in addition that Servetus’ false teaching wasn’t really all that bad or wrong (p.52). The case against sacralism and its co-opting of the sword stands or falls regardless of the heresy in question.[1] Verduin usually realises this, but he does sometimes find (or widen) orthodoxy where it isn’t really present.[2]
The extensive use of primary sources is a real srength; surprisingly, Verduin assumes that his readers know Latin, German, French and Early Modern Dutch so he doesn’t always translate the quotations from those languages! Where translated, it is wonderful to read the Stepchildren in their own words, and rather less wonderful to read some very telling comments by the famous Reformers that reveal how deeply they were steeped in sacralism. Sadly Luther’s famous quote about siting back with his beer and letting the word do its work sounds rather hollow: ‘I will constrain no man by force, for faith must come freely without compulsion…’ (Reeves, p.75) feels to me like a half truth, given what the Lutherans did to the Anabaptists.
Having argued the case well that (most of?) the Stepchildren were not dangerous in the way they have often been portrayed, it would have been helpful to have some more detailed sociological analysis of their various groups/movements and a careful assessment of the numbers of pacifists versus the number of violent revolutionaries. Verduin’s marshalling of sources tells us a lot about quality, but not so much about quantity. I am trying to resist being carried away uncritically by Verduin’s enthusiasm, given Reeves’ pages on the Anabaptists theological weaknesses (pp.82-85), but since Reeves does not quote the sources I will need to delve for myself…
The Reformers and their Stepchildren has pulled me up sharp in my general ignorance of the Anabaptists and encouraged me to read some of their writings, and some Yoder for a modern take. I have found myself telling people all about the book in conversation, partly in the excitement of new learning, and partly as an encouragement. Despite the persecutions The Reformers and their Stepchildren recounted there was evidence of plenty of spiritual life in Europe in times and places we might not have realised. Insofar as Verduin is right about the social-political attitudes of the Stepchildren then there is a lot to be said for the idea that they are major contributers to the modern idea of a religiously plural and tolerant state. The question that remains open, however, is how much their beliefs link directly to John Locke and others who argued for religious freedom over a century later. So, it has stimulated my political thinking again, which is helpful in advance of a possible swan song Cambridge paper on eschatology and politics.
[1]Here, Verduin has the edge on two recent popular evangelical histories of the Reformation, Kirsten Birkett’s The Essence of the Reformation (1998) and Michael Reeves’, The Unquenchable Flame (2009), which are great, but rather light on the Anabaptists. Both Birkett and Reeves try to defend Calvin on the Servetus issue as a man of his time (Birkett, pp.55-57; Reeves, pp.106-7). This argument fails because the Stepchildren had been around for several decades preaching and practising non-violent ways of dealing with heresy, and, as Reeves points out, (p.82), suffering horribly for it.
[2] He is reassuringly cautious about endorsing possible docetism among the Stepchildren (pp.258-59; compare Reeves, p.84), and an over-eagerness to be martyred (pp.252-56).
There's a seriously amusing picture of me on the Hope website, thanks to Dave's excellent media skills (in fact almost all the website is down to him). I'm the one holding forth on the left. Of course, it is important for any visitors to the site to know that not everyone is as shiny as me, hence the full heads of hair in evidence in all the other pictures.
Good question. Poor blog has not got a look in lately, although there are plenty of things in the wings when I get my act together.
The last 6 weeks have been fairly full - seminar on music at the UCCF Forum (covered in red mud), church plant a little busier on account of paternity leave on the leadership team (praise God!), extra publicity and time input for the old people's cafe we run, and helping with organising the real workers to put up nice blackout roller blinds in the old chapel we are using in Teversham, became an elder at the mothership, which has brought its burdens and sorrows, some very enjoyable diploma accompanying for a couple of cellists, new term of NTI, piano students returning from holiday, more cooking, as Mrs L was full-time at work till last week, lots of people-time, including long deep chats trying to get head round various misunderstandings/arguments and help people move forwards, action-packed badminton on Monday nights, a nice visit from the mother-in-law, planning to move abroad, buying a house...
These are some musings not on universal unity or the question of denominations, but on what unites believers in a local congregation.
Is it perhaps class? In many Western societies, alas, class plays a large role. A friend of mine was a pastor in Canada for some years, and the first church he served was a very wealthy congregation. The members were rich white people and rich Chinese people, who were known as “banana Chinese” – yellow on the outside, white on the inside – a nickname they apparently enjoyed. Today in the UK many conservate churches – particularly the commuter churches in southern cities – are very middle class, with roots or aspirations to the upper middle class.
Maybe it’s politics? In Northern Ireland we see a common language, and more social mixing between people of different income and ‘class’, but politics divides. If Catholics find a living relationship with Christ and join local evangelical protestant churches it is also frequently assumed that they will exchange their Republican political views for something more supportive of the Orange Order.
Is it ethnicity? A local congregation to where we live has recently begun to collect together believers of different social standing (professionals and low-skilled workers) and different denominational background (conservative Fundamentalist baptists and pentecostals). The thing is, they are all from one ethnic group. The trouble is that most of them are leaving “British” churches in order to commit to believers who are like them in culture, nationality and language. Ah, language, a powerful uniting force - and perhaps a necessary one!? Unfortunately the language card is undercut by the presence of a few Brits in the group who don’t speak the national language (husbands or boyfriends) and so much of what they do publicly as a church happens in English… which makes the casual observer wonder what the point was exactly…
In each case some barriers have been overcome by the gospel – but others have not. It always pains me that the radical UNITY that the New Testament speaks of is being undone in practice by the ‘natural’ (but anti-Christian) drift towards homogeneity.
For mission purposes there can be no doubt that the Homogeneous Unit Principle (make your groups mono- anything and they will grow faster and be more attractive to people from that group) has a lot going for it. But for how long does it work? For what part of the lifecycle of a congregation? And what if the congregation is merely homogeneous out of preference and does not have a vision for mission to their, e.g., language group?
Maybe it should only ever be on a question of language? Language is a necessary ‘divider’; one can always claim that to worship and hear the Bible in English/Spanish/Arabic/Vietnamese/whatever is not easy, and that one’s heart cries out for hearing and praying and singing in one’s first language.
OK, but when we are talking about peacetime migration, a fluid coming and going of peoples who make temporary homes on economic grounds (so without the special sympathy that arises in the difficult cases of being a persecuted minority or persecuted for their faith back home) questions quickly arise as to the desirable level of integration into the host culture and its existing churches. The question does not just confront the migrants, of course – more important for the hosts is the question of why their churches seem to be so much “of” their surounding culture that economic migrants wish to set up groups for themselves. The responsibility for welcome and flexibility and inclusion lies more than 50% with the (relatively) powerful and established.
Of course it's a gross caricature (the mini version is on their blog for July, always worth a look in its own right, pictures or no, though they do do a fine picture...), and could be applied loosely to a great many traditions within the church, but that doesn't stop it being funny!
Forthright and entertaining, not to mention sharp-minded. A great blog to follow for those interested in Anglicanism and generally incisive observations/thoughts.
His recent posts on church unity (esp. how disuinity is the curse of Protestantism) have been very thought-provoking. I wish my brain were more alert right now so that I could process it all and regurgitate it in my own words - but his will have to do (very nicely of course)...
challenged, offended and generally encouraged. But Moscow, Idaho is just a little too far away and a little too pricey to get to. Shame really - one day it would be nice to do a grand tour of the US, get the flavour of the various states, revel in the scenery and the people and the diversityand the metropolises and the many great believers there.
As the astute blog reader will know, I am torn between the post-theonomic-high-Reformed-literary analysis-covenant children-postmillennial appraoch, and the low-church-anabaptist-emerging-missional-anticlerical-household movement. It would be interesting and edifying to visit some of the former not just read about them!
Both schools, as it were, have an inclusive policy towards children and young people in the main worship meetings of their congregations and both favour alcohol in the Lord's Supper (neither of which things are generally features of mainstream evangelicalism in this country). I expect there are other similarities, too ;-)
His call throughout for Christians to get back into the world, relating to unbelievers, doing their jobs well, being involved in cultural activities, etc is well put and surely completely correct. What was intriguing to me was that in his final paragraphs his views of ecclesial practice were shown to be rather myopic. He could only conceive of a modern magisterial reformed view...
Bible teaching and catechesis, and word and sacrament ministry. Then we could stop all this mid-week stuff and let Christians have those six days back that you find in the Ten Commandments...
or a modern evangelical subculture view (which he quite rightly criticises):
But now, we have an alternative culture going on so that a Christian can actually be involved in the Christian ghetto 24 hours a day, listening to Christian radio and Christian music, going to Christian functions, taking the kids to Christians sports to the point where they don't actually know a non-Christian. And no-one at their work would know that they're Christians because they don't have any deep relationships with any of their co-workers. They're so busy with other Christians all the time.
What about the idea that 'church' invades the week, that the subculture is open to non-Christians, that gospel conversation (not corny, but contextualized) saturates everything? Has Dr H not heard of the best of the missional/emerging church?
We have been studying the Psalms in homegroup for the last 6 weeks or so, and it's been wonderfully refreshing, as well as intellectually stimulating. For all their greatness, I had never really taken a sustained look at the Psalms in a small group context before. So, while I was familiar with many Psalm sentiments and a few of the earlier Psalms through general reading and devotional times, I had not really got my teeth into them in the context of a group.
Group learning is soooo helpful - and I say that as someone who loves reading by myself and does so avidly. Other people's insights and the dynamic of conversation around God's word is good for all of us, and it certainly was as we looked at the Psalms together.
Fabulous! Praise the Lord! Lots of time to worship with everyone at Hope Community Church (two carol services, Christmas morning and a late-night Christmas Eve event, which attracted quite a few people who’d never been before), and thankfully Al did most of the hard work.
A girl from China and a girl from Japan stayed with us for 3 days, and together with Hao we had a whale of a time. Plenty of games and duck. Two ducks, if I’m honest. We discovered a new footpath next to the airport and we watched Tremors (the world's greatest film) in the evening of the 25th. Could things have been better?
I didn’t really know about this until I saw it in black and white the other day.
According to Vatican II, salvation is available for all, ‘not just to schismatics, heretics and Jews, but to non-Christians too and even to atheists if they are in good faith’ (Hans Küng, The Church [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Image Books, 1976], p.406). Of course the fullness of salvation is only found in the RC church.
Wow – that seems quite new to me. Though as Stamoolis points out, ‘nice’ though it may be, it still retains the smack of Western individualism so deplored by the Orthodox and their ecclesiology. I.e. it's still just about you and God in the final analysis, not about God and the church.
Interesting... I wonder what counts as an atheist in bad faith. (Isn't atheism the very definition of a 'bad faith'?!)
The change in the date of Easter is contrary to the resolutions taken at the First Ecumenical Council and believers may lose their faith as a result of this change. The difference between the Jewish passover and Christian Easter must be maintained.
(Anon., ‘The Georgian Patriarchate’, in Bria, ed., Martyria/Mission: the Witness of the Orthodox Churches (WCC, 1980), pp.126-131 [p.130])
"Believers may lose their faith as a result of the change."
Just think about that for a moment...
I try to be sympathetic to different theologies and to understand where people are coming from, but this one ...? Didn't they and don’t they have more important things to worry about in Georgia?
Clearly they did, because the writer of that chapter preferred to be anonymous!
It's quite easy to for evangelical Christians to think and talk about 'real Christians'. We usually know who is one and who isnt', right? Obviously, anyone who doesn’t agree with my type of evangelicalism isn’t a real Christian. Which is good, because other people (not me, obviously) do silly and unChristian things and I don't want to be tainted by association with ‘Christians’ who do those bad things. They’re not actually, really Christians.
Even if this manouevre is not strictly honest it does have a noble purpose, from time to time, that goes beyond me. It is a defensive mechanism for maintaining God’s honour in the world. But evangelicals (despite being some of the most sensitive and uptight believers in their soteric exclusivism) are not the only ones who do it…
‘A historical critique of the Oriental Church does not mean anything for us, because the Oriental Church does not conceive itself to be a gathering of men but as an Orthodoxy. This means that that which lies outside the truth of Christ or doxology does not belong to the Body of Christ’.
(Metropolitan George Khodre of Mount Lebanon, ‘The Church as the Privileged Witness of God’, in Ion Bria, ed., Martyria/Mission: The Witness of the Orthodox Churches Today (Genva: WCC, 1980), pp.30-37 [p.31]).
Our church plant has been going for less than a year and we have now experienced our first death. An elderly lady from Teversham, a real character, a real asset to our community, had been eagerly attending all our Sunday meetings and 'Classic Cafe' since she heard us carol-singing on the coldest night of 2007. From almost no Christian background at all. On Thursday she died suddenly. Her hunger for reading God's word and joining HCC for worship give us reason for hope, but we are still grieving. This Sunday, wonderful though it was, was clearly poorer without her.
Her family (not Christians, but clearly touched by how much she loved coming along to church) are eager for us to play a big part in her funeral - a great honour, and a great opportunity to serve. What a responsibility, though. Pray for us.
Many people think that church is rather like this :-(
Of course nothing should be further from the truth. Of course I exaggerate. But as we remember that "church" is not the meeting you attend on a Sunday morning, but the new humanity being drawn together and built up into Christ (flowery thoughts on that from Peter Leithart: meditate on the text that lies behind it, though) we realise that this new polis is a full time activity. And there's plenty of space for fun and all the more substantial forms of enjoyment and rejoicing together with brothers and sisters of all ages and races, nationalities and backgrounds.
Yesterday morning we were at the mothership, where I was preaching on 2 Corinthians 11:1-12:10, one of the more convoluted and tricky passages on the New Testament (if the phrase "baptism of fire" weren't such a cliche I'd be wheeling it out around... now). I found the "Family Focus" section, on how to deal with suffering and fatigue in the Christian life, really helpful - and the whole service was well-designed to support that point. It was so great to catch up with various people over coffee (now we're off planting a church we don't get to Rock every week), so great in fact that we were still burbling away in the carpark with a couple of new friends long after the doors of the school had been locked and everyone else had gone.
On the way home we stopped off at another friend's house to give her a letter of complaint that K had written for her (her English is not so great) concerning some shabby treatment from a GP. Beautiful weather, more good chat, comfortable ride home down leafy paths. Then home for a multi-course lunch, some bashing away at sets of Brahms Variations on the piano, and a long tea-fuelled farewell to a CIO Team Leader who had been staying with us for the last two weeks. Great guy, great fun. PG also returned mid-afternoon so a great time of chilling was had by all.
A slight rush to set up Hope Community Church's meeting in the neighbouring school.
Summer building work means that our usual facilities are somewhat reduced.
But another great time of fellowship, and a clear message from John 12:20-35 by Dr PJ (of Greek fame) kindly visiting from Eden Baptist. Who is this Jesus, what did he do and what does that mean for you and me?
Sang a great anti-Zionist song to close the worship time, but that's a story for another day! ;-)
Lots of visitors, including people not yet Christians. They all came back to our place for a large shared meal. And stayed chatting for hours - general chat, gospel chat, laughter, catching up, all wonderful.
Praise the Lord for his work in building community. Even though 7 of our 12 "regulars" were away we still had a full house and learned from God and were the church - flawed, occasionally amateurish, eccentric in many places... but eager to love others for the sake of Christ and delighted in all the contributions (culinary and conversational, not to mention on the washing up) made by our various visitors.
Managed to get to bed not too late, did some reading, catch up with Mrs L and ready for the Monday morning...
Servant of Jesus Christ; husband, son, brother; musician; researcher; editor; conversationalist; ex-local government officer; eccentric; lover of fine foods, drinks, books, art and Autumn drizzle.
