Bridge of Reason

A British charity, the Amos Trust, has produced a traditional nativity scene with a political twist. Made by Palestinian carpenters with olive wood from Bethlehem, they have a dividing wall symbolising Israel's controversial security barrier. Established around the work of Garth Hewitt in 1985, the Amos Trust helps underprivileged people around the world. However, I wonder if, with this project, they have gone beyond Biblical truth? It is understandable to use an event that brought the message, ‘Peace to all men’, to highlight a wall dividing two communities. But I wonder if it needs to question whether a country is allowed to defend itself from suicide bombers? Injustices between the two communities will not be solved by taking this wall away; only by removal of the dividing wall of enmity mentioned in Ephesians 2, that Christ started to deal with in His birth and completed in His death and resurrection. However, what struck me most was the comment that this nativity is one where...

Language is a powerful weapon. The ancients knew this and some societies put such great store by it that they wouldn’t even commit it to writing. Enormous feats of memory were developed to pass on the stories of the community from one generation to another and in such communities writing was regarded with great suspicion, as placing your story at the disposal of your enemies. If it could be written it could be owned by others and altered. In those societies where writing developed and oral traditions were committed to writing the people guarded their written texts as their greatest treasures, copying them with meticulous attention to detail. The ancient texts of the Bible were copied with careful and detailed checking and correction and modern archaeological discoveries confirm the incredible accuracy of modern translations when compared with recent discoveries of ancient texts. It is little wonder since a word can change your world or worldview. One word change can reverse entirely th...