Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Friday, April 22, 2022

Questions Atheists rightfully ask of God, Religion, the Church, and Christianity itself




Questions Atheists ask of God, Religion,
the Church, and Christianity itself

by R.E. Slater
April 22, 2022


Here at Relevancy22 I try to listen and consider all approaches to things metaphysical, ontological, epistemological, ethical, and especially religious... in the Christian sense... as that is what I am familiar with and was raised within from my earliest days of childhood upwards.

It may surprise a few of my fundamental, or evangelical, readers that I still claim God as real; Jesus as my Savior; Love as God's modus operandi (not hell, wrath, and judgment as I was taught); that we have a capacity as humans for both good and evil; and that the future is not closed, but open, hopeful, optimistic (rather than a thing to be dreaded), and moves according to its inherent DNA.

Over the years all of these subjects I have at one time or another addressed... perhaps not as a fundamentalist would, or even as an evangelic any longer.. but perhaps as a post-evangelic, process theologian might... or as near to it as I can understand its ramifications for Christianity (as well as that of other religions). Further, those subjects themselves have also been reframed over the years as I move out of my rigid past and into my speculation of philosophic theology. Good theologians must do this or they can no longer stay relevant with their readers and contemporary times.

Mostly, I've tried to answer the deep questions of life, of religion, of spirituality, in unique ways to how I was educated and trained to answer those same questions from my deeply conservative and Baptistic faith traditions. I ask questions like:

  • How did the Church Fathers get to their ideas expressed in the Christian Church's Confessional Creeds and Dogmas?
  • How did Greek philosophy usurp the Old Testament Hebraic underpinnings of the even more ancient *Semitic philosophies? (*relating to, or denoting, a family of languages which includes Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic and other ancient languages such as Phoenician and Akkadian, constituting the main subgroup of the Afro-Asiatic family.)
  • Or rather, how did Greek philosophy end up guiding all parts of the bible, both in the Old as well as in the New Testament? And importantly, in the Church's Christian expression of its faith?
  • How has religious man - whether in really ancient societies, or the cultures in Jesus's day, or the many eras afterwards to this present moment - determine Christianity's "systematized" doctrines of the bible so knowingly as to reject other, better, teachings of the Judaic and Christian testaments?
  • Or why did the Church settle on a variety of systematic theologies canonized through its Catholic and Protestant faiths when in actuality, a biblical theology looks at the flows and patterns of the biblical narrative to help direct towards the bare minimums of the Christian faith without locking down its studied beliefs? Which is another way of saying, when studying one's faith, try to avoid unloving expressions of God and creation.

Of course, my list can go on and on and on... as can yours if sit down and think about all the absurdities of proposed Christian beliefs found within certain denominational or sectarian tenet directives of the more popular church testimonies to God, Christ, the Bible, sin, hell, and eschatological doom.




As a result, in redress of all of my inherited tradition's assured Christian beliefs I could no longer hold to them any longer. In fact, the Lord removed me for nearly a year to walk through a wilderness of doubt and uncertainty to prepare my heart, mind, and soul (a Greek reductionistic ideation; Hebraic is expressed more organically as one's soul) to return to the present day and rewrite, recategorize, rethink, and redesign how a Loving, Learning, Healing, Redeeming Christianity might actually look at life if removed from the ancient Church Father's writings, their Creeds and Confessions, or the many bright Church illuminaries who continue on to this day adding such newer ponderous doctrines of Christian apologia to the Church's Creeds such as the inerrancy, infallibility, and authority of the Scriptures for faith and practice. In essence, it is how Evangelicalism has decided to claim for itself the rightness of its beliefs by going to the very same Scriptures I do not find inerrant, infallible, nor authoritative (if by this latter I am not allowed to question the church's declaration of its legalized beliefs).


In sum, I have cauterized and replaced bad Christian teachings with better speculations, ideations, conceptualizations, and perhaps, a more holistic, organic philosophic-theology more akin to the older Semitic cultures of yesteryear without dismissing the present day's discussions in academia, science, and all other disciplines.

I cannot say that I have accomplished this fully, but I did wish to set a precedence of questioning the unquestionable, and by listening and considering the unsanctioned. It seems to my heart that God is truer to what a God should be - and how this God would be communicating to us - than simply closing down discussions based upon ancient, errant narratives of people and cultures who were similarly attempting to tell of their belief in God while chained to their own older, more beautiful-and-awful ideas of God.

At least this is my preferred approach to reading Scripture, reading society, and myself. It's all open and we have good beginnings in many areas but also many more questions too.

I can no longer read the Bible with a capital "B" but with a small "b" bible, reminding myself that the narratival thoughts and expressions of God found throughout it's many era-specific religious beliefs were more like what other individuals and communities have been working through when trying to speak of God to themselves and their neighbors.

In those narratives and voices found both in Scripture as well as in Scriptural writings, as many good, as well as, as many horrible things have been done in the name of God. Which is not unlike today's Trumpian churches mixing White Christian Nationalism, God, Guns, and Jesus into the politicized Republican GOP platforms, no less than they had been in the very earliest expressions of traditionalized church teachings through the centuries.


Moreover, I can no longer simply read of Church doctrines as unpliable and unquestioned definitions of my Christian faith when such teachings and dogmas have been hammered down as inflexible set expressions codified into strict, legal-and-religious, teachings forever removed from nullifiable future commentary.

The commentary spent here at Relevancy22 intends to question, rip apart, destroy, and reform wretched Christian beliefs so that it might better resonate with a God intimately present and in love with creation as versus a God infinitely removed from us, condemning us for being who He made us to be, and consigning all to a hellish fire of damnation unless we submit to some form of religious formulae to save our souls.

Hence, to those atheists, agnostics, and ex-Christians, who have given up on the formalized church... to the nonreligious, the unquestioning, and spiritualists amongst us, I hear you... as do my other fellow Christian writers and theologs who themselves have also undergone the same fiery transformative process I have been going through myself. After editing and writing 2500+ articles I can only say I like where Relational Process Christianity is taking me at the guidance of the Holy Spirit who has spoken to other like-minded individuals saying to His Church, "Enough, let's do this again, and let's do it better, if possible."


My response is "to listen"... they have legitimate questions
to be considered and addressed.


Below are the questions a handful of atheists are asking of Christianity. I do sympathize with their perspectives; do believe their questions can find better answers than are found within evangelical Christianity; and would like to challenge them, as I have myself, how we might together answer the questions of God based upon what we have learned from history, literature, academia, and today's matriculating postmodern, and metamodern, philosophies and theologies.

As a Christian I would like to take into my religious background and education the ability to challenge my faith's precepts and teachings with better questions - not better defenses (apologias).

And with a Richard Rohr-like contentedness, to sit still in the  question of faith in order to speculate through listening without the demand for immediate answers.

And finally, to utilize the sacred cloistered hallways of doubt and uncertainty to lead us into a fuller faith journey than the one we've be taught that through these experiences we may come to know Jesus, our Redeemer and Living Lord.

Peace,

R.E. Slater
April 22, 2022

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Why, as an atheist, I’m worried about
the declining interest in religious studies

by Alex J. O'Conner
23 May 2019

The opium of the people; a universal and obsessional neurosis; a means of exerting control over those who can’t handle their freedom; even the most strident of iconoclasts appearing on the theology syllabus, from Karl Marx to Ivan Karamazov, are invariably forced to admit that the object of their criticism is an expression of something deeply human, and a profoundly fundamental component of social behaviour. Yet despite religion’s intellectual preeminence, its study is in steep decline, and this emptying of classrooms and lecture halls is something even a non-believer like myself can be troubled by.

When I applied to study philosophy and theology at St John’s College, Oxford, it was out of necessity; this university, unlike most others, including Cambridge, does not offer an undergraduate course in philosophy alone, so those who wish to study it have to pair it with something else. Theology wasn’t the most appealing of options available; I would rather say it was the least unappealing, and I was content to put up with the headaches and frustrations of reading it as an atheist in order to spend my remaining time with Hume and Mill and Singer. Before long, however, I began to realise that a degree in theology is not suitable only for the religious, and, to my surprise, to rather enjoy it.

Part of the reason for this turnaround is that at Oxford we don’t do theology; we do theology and religion. Studying a paper on the figure of Jesus, I remember being surprised by my tutor’s eager willingness to allow me to skip his suggested reading of Edward Schillebeeckx, the Belgian Catholic theologian whose influence is scattered across Vatican II’s theological constitutions, in favour of Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche, both men not quite as charitable to Holy Mother Church as Mr. Schillebeeckx in their contributions to discussions of Catholicism (and both men whose writings I was far more enthusiastic about spending some time with my nose in). I was struck by a sense of academic freedom that has since characterised my study of religion, and by an emerging sense within me that this ‘lesser’ half of my degree may well contain a wealth of secular - even critical - value.

Through my engagements with both the received wisdom of a variety of theological schools and proposed explanations as to why people subscribe to them, I have repeatedly encountered arguments just as relevant to the most pressing issues of modern society as to the religious context of their original publication.

Does the anthropological observation that religion arose independently in isolated tribes indicate a human tendency to invent figures of unassailable authority? If so, is this the same tendency that leaves us so susceptible to promises of worldly authority at the expense of liberty? The latter issue is of obvious importance in an age of digitised personal information and global military expediency. Does it indicate a human tendency towards tribalism and shared identity based in supernatural beliefs? This is surely a crucial component to any explanation of modern populism. If religion can, as it must, help those who study it to understand the nature and core of humanity’s most cherished and universal convictions, how could this not be of relevance to the modern statesman, philosopher or social scientist?

Walking past the iconic university buildings of Oxford, one of the oldest of which was erected specifically to service the school of divinity, towards the uncharacteristically bland theology faculty building that now serves as the home to this dying subject, is depressing.

I would like to optimistically suggest that the neglect of religious studies at Oxford is due to a simple decline in interest from potential undergraduates in the subject, however I am more inclined to believe that it is in fact due to a decline in understanding of what its study really entails. The queen of the sciences has lost her crown, and it is unclear whether she will ever find it again. If she does, however, it will not be due to an increase in the popularity of religion, but rather an increase in the recognition of the worth of its analysis and study, which is undeniable.
*Alex J O'Connor is a philosophy and theology student at Oxford University. Follow him on Twitter @cosmicskeptic 


* * * * * * *



DISGUSTING Things From My Theology Degree
Jul 15, 2019


CosmicSkeptic

--------------------------------------VIDEO NOTES--------------------------------------

Having just finished my first year studying philosophy and theology at Oxford University, I decided to compile some of the ideas of two key thinkers from the syllabus that I find troubling.

--------------------------------------------LINKS---------------------------------------------

Athanasius, On The Incarnation (read online): http://www.copticchurch.net/topics/th...

Anselm, Cur Deus Homo (read online): https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Cur_De...

Article I wrote on studying theology as an atheist: https://www.premierchristianity.com/B...





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OXFORD READING LIST

I’m currently reading Philosophy and Theology at Oxford University, and have decided to share the reading lists that I’m set as I receive them from my tutors. At the time of writing, I have completed my first term of my first year of study, so this list will expand as I progress through my degree.

In the first term, I studied one paper (Logic and Moral Philosophy) for philosophy, and one paper (Religion and Religions) for theology. Logic is formal logic taught from a single textbook over eight weeks; Moral Philosophy is an in-depth, term-long study of a single text, J.S. Mill’s Utilitarianism; Religion and Religions is the study of religion as a human phenomenon through a psychological, anthropological and sociological lens, as well as a study of four major world religions.

Next term, I will study for two papers: General Philosophy (for philosophy) and The Figure Of Jesus Through The Centuries (for theology). I will update this list when I have competed the term.

I will try to break down the reading as clearly as possible.

(Please note that the majority of set reading at university is for particular chapters and passages, which I have tried to denote in this list. Books that have already been mentioned previously in the list (but for different chapters) are denoted with an asterisk (*). Also, not all the books that were set did I read, and not all the books I read were set; I have added a few books to the sociology of religion section.)

Year One Philosophy

Logic

  • The Logic Manual, by Volker Halbach

Moral Philosophy (Utilitarianism)

General/Reference

  • Utilitarianism, by J.S. Mill
  • Mill on Utilitarianism, by R. Crisp
  • Cambridge Companion to Mill, by J. Skorupski
  •  John Stuart Mill, by J. Skorupski

Weeks 1-2: Utility and Desire

  • Reasons and Persons, by D. Parfit, Reasons and Persons, (Appendix I)

  • Ethics, by J.L. Mackie (ch.6, especially sections 6 and 7)

  • Well-Being, by J. Griffin (chs. 1-3)

Weeks 3-4: The Proof of Utilitarianism

Weeks 5-6: The Forms of Utilitarianism

  • *Utilitarianism, by J.S. Mill (especially chs. 2 and 5)

  • *Mill on Utilitarianism, by R. Crisp (ch. 5)

  • Moral Thinking, by R.M Hare (chs. 2-3)

  • Utilitarianism For and Against, by Smart and Williams (esp. sect. 7 of Smart and sect. 6 of Williams)

  • Ideal Code, Real World, by B. Hooker (chs. 1, 3, and 4)

  • Consequentialism and Its Critics, by S. Scheffler (introduction)

Weeks 7-8: Justice and Equality

  • *Utilitarianism, by J.S. Mill (ch .5)

  • *Mill on Utilitarianism, by R. Crisp (ch. 7)

  • Anarchy, State and Utopia, by R. Nozick (chs. 2 and 7)

  • ‘Rights as Trumps’ by R. Dworkin in Theories of Rights, by J. Waldron

  • “Are There Any Natural Rights?, by H.L.A Hart in Philosophical Review 64 (1955)


Year One Theology

Religion and Religions

General (Introductory)

  • Get Set for Religious Studies, by D. Corrywright and P. Morgan
  • Religion: The Modern Theories, by S.D. Kunin
  • Religion: The Classical Theories, by J. Thrower
  • Religions in the Modern World, by L. Woodhead
  • Nine Theories of Religion, by D. Pals
  • Comparative Religion: A History, by E. Sharpe

Classical Texts

  • From Primitives to Zen; A Thematic Sourcebook of the History of Religions, by M. Eliade
  • The Golden Bough, by J.G. Frazer
  • The Varieties of Religious Experience, by W. James
  • The Idea of the Holy, by R. Otto
  • Speeches on Religion, by F. Schleiermacher
  • The Rites of Passage, by A. van Gennep

Other General Suggestions

  • The Anthropology of Religion, by F. Bowie
  • The Meaning and End of Religion, by W. Cantwell Smith
  • Religion Defined and Explained, by Clarke and Byrne
  • The Sacred and the Profane, by M. Eliade
  • Theories of Primitive Religion, by E. Evans-Pritchard
  • The New Penguin Handbook of Living Religions, by J. Hinnells
  • The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion, by J. Hinnells
  • The World’s Religions, by N. Smart

Week One: What Is Religion?

  • *Religion Defined and Explained, by Clarke and Byrne
  • *Theories of Primitive Religion, by E. Evans-Pritchard
  • *Religion: The Classical Theories, by J. Thrower

Week Two: Is Studying Religion Doing Theology?

  • Understanding Religion, by E. Sharpe
  • Approaches to the Study of Religion, by P. Connolly (ch. 7 by F. Whaling)
  • The Study of Religion, Traditional and New Religions, by Sutherland and Clarke
  • Theology: A Very Short Introduction, by D. Ford

Week Three: The Idea Of The Holy

  • The Idea of The Holy, by R. Otto
  • *Religion: The Modern Theories, by S.D. Kunin (ch. 5)
  • *Comparative Religion: A History, by E. Sharpe (particularly ch. 7)

Week Four: The Sociology Of Religion

  • *Nine Theories of Religion, by D. Pals (chapters on Durkheim, Marx, and Weber)
  • *The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion, by J. Hinnells (chapter on sociology)
  • The Sociology of Religion, by M. Hamilton
  • The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, by E. Durkheim
  • The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, by M. Weber
  • Sociology of Religion, by M. Weber
  • Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, K. Marx (introduction)

Week Five: Islam

  • Islam: A Very Short Introduction, by M. Ruthven
  • Discovering Islam, by A. Ahmed
  • Islam: The Straight Path, by J. Esposito
  • Muhammed, by M. Rodinson

Week Six: Hinduism

  • Hinduism: A Very Short Introduction, by K. Knott
  • Hinduism: A Short History, by K. Klostermaier
  • Hinduism and Modernity, by D. Smith
  • The Hindu View of Life, by S. Radhakrishnan

We did not have tutorial on Judaism or Buddhism, but were still given the reading for Judaism:

Judaism

  • Judaism: A Very Short Introduction, by N. Solomon
  • The Jewish Heritage, by D. Cohn-Sherbok
  • Modern Judaism, by D. Cohn-Sherbok
  • The Essence of Judaism, by L. Baeck

Thursday, April 21, 2022

“How is it that the Lamb of God bears the sins of the world?”


Poet Denise Levertov


Agnus Dei
by Denise Levertov


Given that lambs
are infant sheep,
that sheep are afraid and foolish, and lack
the means of self-protection, having
neither rage nor claws,
venom nor cunning,
what then
is this ‘Lamb of God’?

This pretty creature, vigorous
to nuzzle at milky dugs,
woolbearer, bleater,
leaper in air for delight of being, who finds in astonishment
four legs to land on, the grass
all it knows of the world?
With whom we would like to play,
whom we’d lead with ribbons, but may not bring
into our houses because
it would spoil the floor with its droppings?

What terror lies concealed
in strangest words, O lamb
of God that taketh away
the Sins of the World: an innocence
smelling of ignorance,
born in bloody snowdrifts,
licked by forebearing
dogs more intelligent than its entire flock put together?

God then,
encompassing all things, is
defenseless? Omnipotence
has been tossed away,
reduced to a wisp of damp wool?

And we
frightened, bored, wanting
only to sleep ‘til catastrophe
has raged, clashed, seethed and gone by without us,
wanting then
to awaken in quietude without remembrance of agony,

we who in shamefaced private hope
had looked to be plucked from fire and given
a bliss we deserved for having imagined it,

is it implied that we
must protect this perversely weak
animal, whose muzzle’s nudgings

suppose there is milk to be found in us?
Must hold in our icy hearts
a shivering God?

So be it.
Come, rag of pungent
quiverings,
dim star.
Let’s try
if something human still
can shield you,
spark
of remote light.


* * * * * * * *


Mosaic of Doubting Thomas, Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, 500-520 AD.


The Disciple of Doubt
by Dan Clendenin

For Sunday April 3, 2015
Lectionary Readings (Revised Common Lectionary, Year C)

Acts 5:27–32
Psalm 118:14–29 or Psalm 150
Revelation 1:4–8
John 20:19–31

On Easter Sunday, we Christians condensed our confession
down to three words: "Christ is risen!" 

Those three words are a game changer.

Without the resurrection, Jesus is just another interesting teacher. But with it, believers confess that God in Christ has defeated death and reconciled the cosmos to himself. And so the Yale historian Jaroslav Pelikan wrote, "If Christ is raised from the dead, nothing else matters. If he is not raised from the dead, nothing else matters."

"This is what we preach, and this is what you believed," Paul wrote to the Corinthians.

Paul raised the bar about as high as you can when he said that no one should believe a lie about the resurrection, and that no one should preach a lie. If Christ isn't raised, said Paul, then the first witnesses were, in Pascal's famous words, "deceived or deceivers."

This week is different.  John says that he wrote his gospel with an agenda, "that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ" (20:31).  But the reading this week is not about faith but about doubt — in particular, Thomas's disbelief in the resurrection. 

Resurrection?  Really?

Except for the times when he is grocery-listed with the other disciples, there are only three references to Thomas. They're all in John's gospel, and they all reveal Thomas's sceptical bent.

After Lazarus died, and Jesus planned to return to Judea (where villagers almost stoned him), Thomas replied, "Let us also go, that we may die with him." Then, when Jesus told his disciples that they would join him in glory, Thomas questioned him: "Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"

And then there's this week's gospel. When told that Jesus had appeared to the other disciples, Thomas was incredulous: "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe."     

The last several years, I've enjoyed reading the poetry of Denise Levertov (1923–1997).  Her personal story is so interesting.

Levertov was born in England to a Welsh mother and a Russian Hasidic father. He had emigrated to the UK from Leipzig, converted to Christianity, and become an Anglican priest. After moving to the United States in 1948, Levertov taught at a number of places, including eleven years at Stanford (1982–1993). By the time she died, she had published fifty volumes.


Carved panel of Doubting Thomas,
Abbey of Santo Domingo del Silos, Spain, c. 1150.


It was at Stanford, where her papers are now housed, that Levertov converted to Christianity at the age of sixty. Her little book The Stream and the Sapphire collects thirty-eight poems that trace her "slow movement from agnosticism to Christian faith."

Levertov always had an affinity for Thomas the Doubter. She wrote a Mass for the Day of St. Thomas Didymus. And in The Stream and The Sapphire she included the poem St. Thomas Didymus.

The Greek Didymus and the Aramaic T'omas both mean "the twin." In her poem, though, Levertov imagines Thomas identifying with his spiritual twin rather than his biological brother.

Thomas's spiritual twin is the desperate and doubting father in Mark 9:24: "I do believe, help my unbelief."

Long after Thomas saw the miraculous healing of the little boy, the doubt of the father plagued him. "Despite all that I witnessed, his question remained my question, throbbed like a stealthy cancer, known only to doctor and patient. To others I seemed well enough."

Here is Levertov's poem:

In the hot street at noon I saw him
a small man
gray but vivid, standing forth
beyond the crowd’s buzzing
holding in desperate grip his shaking
teethgnashing son,

and thought him my brother.

I heard him cry out, weeping and speak
those words,
Lord, I believe, help thou
mine unbelief,

and knew him
my twin:

a man whose entire being
had knotted itself
into the one tightdrawn question,
Why,
why has this child lost his childhood in suffering,
why is this child who will soon be a man
tormented, torn, twisted?
Why is he cruelly punished
who has done nothing except be born?

The twin of my birth
was not so close
as that man I heard
say what my heart
sighed with each beat, my breath silently
cried in and out,
in and out.

After the healing,
he, with his wondering
newly peaceful boy, receded;
no one
dwells on the gratitude, the astonished joy,
the swift
acceptance and forgetting.
I did not follow
to see their changed lives.
What I retained
was the flash of kinship.
Despite
all that I witnessed,
his question remained
my question, throbbed like a stealthy cancer,
known
only to doctor and patient. To others
I seemed well enough.

So it was
that after Golgotha
my spirit in secret
lurched in the same convulsed writhings
that tore that child
before he was healed.
And after the empty tomb
when they told me that He lived, had spoken to Magdalen,
told me
that though He had passed through the door like a ghost
He had breathed on them
the breath of a living man –
even then
when hope tried with a flutter of wings
to lift me –
still, alone with myself,
my heavy cry was the same: Lord
I believe,
help thou mine unbelief.

I needed
blood to tell me the truth,
the touch
of blood. Even
my sight of the dark crust of it
round the nailholes
didn’t thrust its meaning all the way through
to that manifold knot in me
that willed to possess all knowledge,
refusing to loosen
unless that insistence won
the battle I fought with life

But when my hand
led by His hand’s firm clasp
entered the unhealed wound,
my fingers encountering
rib-bone and pulsing heat,
what I felt was not
scalding pain, shame for my
obstinate need,
but light, light streaming
into me, over me, filling the room
as I had lived till then
in a cold cave, and now
coming forth for the first time,
the knot that bound me unravelling,
I witnessed
all things quicken to color, to form,
my question
not answered but given
its part
in a vast unfolding design lit
by a risen sun.

Not all those who saw the risen Christ believed. In his last recorded appearance in Matthew 28:17, we read that "when they saw him, they worshiped, but some were doubtful."

And not all those who believed saw him after his resurrection. Thomas was an exception, said Jesus: "Because you have seen me you believe? Blessed are those who did not see and believed."


Armenian illuminated manuscript in the Malatia Gospel,
Doubting Thomas, by Toros Roslin, 1268 AD.

Likewise in 1 Peter 1:8: "Though you have not seen him, you love him, and though you do not see him now, but believe in him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory."

A week later, after touching the wounds of Jesus, Thomas confessed, "My Lord and my God!"

In Levertov's poem, Thomas's questions weren't answered; they were put into a larger context and a different light.

In the end, the famous doubter became a passionate witness. The Acts of Thomas from the early third century says that Thomas took the gospel to India by 52 AD. Today, the St. Thomas Christians trace their origins to this disciple of doubt.

NOTE: For more on Levertov, see the two critical biographies by Dana Green, Denise Levertov: A Poet's Life (Chicago: University of Illinois, 2012); and Donna Krolik Hollenberg, A Poet's Revolution: The Life of Denise Levertov (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013); and the recent Denise Levertov, Collected Poems, edited and annotated by Paul A. Lacey and Anne Dewey, with an Introduction by Eavan Boland (New York: New Directions, 2013), 1063pp.


* * * * * * * *


Talking to Grief
by Denise Levertov


Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.

I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.

You think I don't know you've been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before winter comes. You need
your name,
your collar and tag. You need
the right to warn off intruders,
to consider
my house your own
and me your person
and yourself
my own dog. 



* * * * * * * *



What The Figtree Said
by Denise Levertov


Literal minds! Embarrassed humans! His friends
were blushing for Him
in secret; wouldn’t admit they were shocked.
They thought Him
petulant to curse me! – yet how could the Lord
be unfair? – so they looked away,
then and now.
But I, I knew that
helplessly barren though I was,
my day had come. I served
Christ the Poet,
who spoke in images: I was at hand,
a metaphor for their failure to bring forth
what is within them (as figs
were not within me). They who had walked
in His sunlight presence,
they could have ripened,
could have perceived His thirst and hunger,
His innocent appetite;
they could have offered
human fruits – compassion, comprehension –
without being asked,
without being told of need.
My absent fruit
stood for their barren hearts. He cursed
not me, not them, but
(ears that hear not, eyes that see not)
their dullness, that withholds
gifts unimagined.



* * * * * * * *


'Denise Levertov: Poetry as a Way to Prayer'
Jul 19, 2012


SchAdvStudy
Dana Greene (Emory University)
Poetry and Prayer: Continuities & Discontinuities - 'Denise Levertov: Poetry as a Way to Prayer'

An international conference organized jointly by the Institute of English Studies and Heythrop College, University of London.

The analogy and continuity between poetry and prayer, the poetical and the mystical, has often been discussed. The psychological mechanism used by grace to raise us to prayer is, Henry Bremond wrote, the same as that set in motion in poetic experience. Both poetry and prayer are rooted in an inner experience of concrete and fundamental values so that both invite, using the language of John Henry Newman, a real rather than a notional assent. Reading a poem can be perceived as a prayerful experience. W.H. Auden wrote: 'to pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever a man so concentrates his attention -- on a landscape, a poem, a geometrical problem, an idol, or the True God -- that he completely forgets his own ego and desires, he is praying.'

And yet it is also true that we have no shared understanding of the terms 'prayer' and 'poetry'. Some might claim that there is no connection between them. The traditions of poetry and prayer are numerous and the connections between them elusive. And poetry is, self-evidently, not exactly the same as prayer.

The conference will consider the similarities, interrelatedness and differences between poetry and prayer. What do poetry and prayer share? How do they differ? In what ways do they relate to each other? Theoretical reflections and historical surveys will provide a context for the discussion of individual texts and authors from different countries and cultural and religious traditions.


* * * * * * * *


Denise Levertov: six poems
Mar 15, 2009


Bloodaxe Books
Denise Levertov reads six poems from her later collections, three from EVENING TRAIN (1992) and three later included in her posthumously published collection SANDS OF THE WELL (1998). This is an extract from an hour-long reading she gave for the Lannan Foundation in Los Angeles on 7 December 1993. The poems are: 'Settling', 'Open Secret', 'Tragic Error',  'The Danger Moment', 'A Gift' and 'For Those Whom the Gods Love Less', three of which were also included in her SELECTED POEMS (New Directions, 2002), which was published in Britain as NEW SELECTED POEMS (Bloodaxe Books, 2003):
http://www.bloodaxebooks.com/titlepag...

Denise Levertov (1923-97) was born in Essex, and educated at home by her father, a Russian Jewish immigrant, who became an Anglican priest, and by her Welsh mother. In 1948, she emigrated to America, where she was acclaimed by Kenneth Rexroth in The New York Times as 'the most subtly skilful poet of her generation, the most profound, the most modest, the most moving,' and during the following decades she became 'a poet who may just be the finest writing in English today' (Kirkus Reviews). Throughout her life, she worked also as a political activist, campaigning tirelessly for civil rights and environmental causes, and against the Vietnam War, the Bomb and US-backed regimes in Latin America.

This video is copyright Lannan Foundation 1994 and posted on YouTube with the permission of the Lannan Foundation. 


* * * * * * * *





More on Denise Levertov poems, bio, essays:

The Poetry of R.E. Slater - "Meet Poet Denise Levertov"




Friday, April 15, 2022

Easter's 15 Greatest Classical Pieces




EASTER MUSIC: THE 15 GREATEST CLASSICAL PIECES
18 April 2019, 16:01 | Updated: 18 April 2019, 21:23


Easter hymns and sacred music favourites tell the story of Jesus.

From Bach’s Passion music to Handel’s Messiah, here are our top pieces of music that depict the final days of Jesus and his resurrection.

With so much classical music on offer on the subject of Easter and Jesus on the cross, here are our favourite pieces of music that are perfect for Easter weekend.


The Easter Hymn from Pietro Mascagni's opera Cavalleria Rusticana.

No matter what we believe in, it’s hard to deny the beauty behind this piece – in its music and meaning. It is Easter morning in a 19th-century Italian village. Santuzza’s character sings the Easter Hymn in this excerpt, also referred to as both “Regina Coeli” and “Inneggiano”. She is singing to herself as her Sicilian village takes part in Easter festivities.

“Inneggiamo, il Signor non è morto” — “We rejoice that our Savior is living!”

We rejoice that our Savior is living!
He all-glorious arose from the dead;
Joys of heaven the Lord to us giving,
All the sorrows of darkness are fled!

Listen here (6 minute listen), the German soprano Julia Varady (singing the role of Santuzza) with The London Opera Chorus and The National Philharmonic conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni


EASTER HYMN (REGINA COELI)
from CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA - Julia Varady
Nov 25, 2013

Julia Varady with The National Philharmonic conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni and The London Opera Chorus directed by Terry Edwards. "Sto cercando di individuare le chiese e loro posizioni. Ho perso i miei appunti originali e apprezzerei il vostro aiuto." - SICILY.

Time
00.00  Messina The Church of Christ the King 
00.17   Palermo Cathedral
00.29  Chiesa di S. Guiseppe (XV11) - Taormina
00.40  Chiesa Madre - Augusta
00.59  The Church of Christ the King - Messina
01.19   Modica, S. Maria del Soccorso 
01.37  The Cathedral of Syracuse (Duomo di Siracusa)
01.53  The Cathedral of Syracuse (Duomo di Siracusa)
02.20  Chiesa di S. Maria - San Piero Patti
02.27  Monreale Cathedral
03.02  Taormina, San Giussepe
03.19  Palermo, Santa Caterina
03.50  Palatine chapel of St Peter and St Paul, Palermo.
04.02   Palermo, Santa Caterina
04.23   Casteltermi
04.36  
04.50  Messina 12th Century Church of Annunziata dei Catalani
05.07  Fiumefreddo (Ct) - La Chiesa parrocchiale


Regina Coeli - Pietro Mascagni
Jan 3, 2016


Regina Coeli - Pietro Mascagni da Cavalleria Rusticana
Atri - Basilica Cattedrale - 17 dicembre 2015
direttore: PASQUALE VELENO
Concerto Giovane Orchestra d’Abruzzo, Skyline Brass Ensemble, Coro dell’Accademia di Pescara, Coro Vox Nova di Fabriano, Coro Ventidio Basso di Ascoli Piceno - Laura Toro, soprano - Riccardo della Sciucca, tenore - Davide Filipponi, basso Maestri del coro: Pasquale Veleno, Alberto Signori, Giovanni Farina


Inneggiamo al Signore (Aclamemos al Señor) - subtitulado
Mar 29, 2012


Selección y traducción por P. Pablo Scaratti
Pietro mascagni -Inneggiamo il Signore è risorto - da " Cavalleria Rusticana "
17° Concerto d'Autunno eseguito il giorno 18 ottobre 2008 presso la Chiesa parrocchiale di Gessate -
Direttore : M° Pierangelo Pelucchi
Soprano : Nicoletta Ceruti
Organista : Emilio Brambilla
Organo : Balbiani - Vegezzi - Bossi (se non ricordo male 32 composizioni sonore) anno costruzione : circa 1968
Corale S.s.Pietro & Paolo www.coralegessate.org
Orchestra sinfonica Gaetano Donizetti di Gessate


St. John Passion – Bach

Bach's St. John Passion is the earlier of the two Easter story settings of his that have survived.

It was composed in 1724 for the Good Friday Vespers service that year, setting Chapters 18 and 19 of John’s accounts of the crucifixion to music.


It is well worth sitting down and listening to this work in its entirety if you haven't done so before.


Bach - St John Passion BWV 245 - Van Veldhoven
 Netherlands Bach Society
Apr 10, 2018

The St John Passion, performed by the Nederlands Bach Society for All of Bach, was the first Passion Bach had written as cantor in Leipzig. The Passion story as told in the Gospel of John is different from that told by the other three evangelists – Matthew, Luke and Mark. John’s version places the emphasis on Christ’s divine origin. Throughout his suffering, this divine origin still plays a role and nowhere is Jesus as human as in the other gospels. 
For this performance, we selected a cast of singers under the age of 35. Apart from the leaders, all the orchestra members are also younger than 35. The concert series was preceded by a course of auditions and masterclasses.


St. Matthew Passion – Bach

The monumental St. Matthew Passion is hailed as the greatest setting of the Passion story in Western music but surprisingly, it was not until almost 100 years after its premiere that Bach’s music got the recognition it deserved.

Composed in 1727, it is a setting of sections of St Matthew’s Gospel, designed as part of Good Friday Vespers for the strict Lutheran stronghold of Leipzig. Following its premiere, it received two subsequent performances in 1736 and the 1740s. After that it was not performed again for almost 100 years.


A Fast and Friendly Guide to Bach | Classic FM
Jun 18, 2012

Join Classic FM Drive presenter John Brunning as he takes you on an animated tour of the life of Johann Sebastian Bach - one of music's most sublime creative geniuses.


Messiah – Handel

Although we know this piece from its iconic ‘Hallelujah’ chorus, there is so much more to this essential piece of Easter music.

Since its premiere in 1742, it has been performed by choirs across the world every year since at least 1745.


Handel's Messiah (Easter Concert)
by the Tabernacle Choir & Orchestra
Premiered Mar 26, 2021




The Hallelujah Chorus - Forté Handbell Quartet

Handel began composing the Messiah in 1741, and took a painstaking 14 years to arrive at the version we know today.

Impressive solo arias, like ‘Ev’ry valley shall be exalted’ and ‘Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion’ are interspersed with compelling chorus numbers, telling the story of Jesus’ birth, life, death, resurrection, and final victory over sin and death.

The rousing ‘Hallelujah’ chorus is by far the most widely-known section of the work, and audiences tend to stand during performances – a tradition that allegedly began when King George II stood during the chorus at the oratorio’s London debut performance.


Music Classic Handel from Forté Handbell Quartet
Dec 22, 2020




Amazing Grace – John Newton

‘Amazing Grace’ is one of the world’s most recognisable melodies. Not only is it a popular hymn, there are also countless recordings of the song, including Aretha Franklin’s, and Elvis Presley’s have given the song worldwide recognition.

The hymn was first published in 1779 by the English poet and clergyman John Newton. The song shares the message of forgiveness and redemption, an important message to appreciate over Easter.


Aretha Franklin - Amazing Grace (Official Audio)
Feb 10, 2019


The official audio of "Amazing Grace" by Aretha Franklin with James Cleveland and The Southern California Community Choir from the album 'Amazing Grace' (1972). 'Amazing Grace' earned Aretha a Grammy in 1973 for Best Soul Gospel Performance and remains the best selling Gospel album of all time.


Symphony No. 2 (‘Resurrection’) – Mahler

This monumental orchestral work is really quite something to behold.

Up until this point, Mahler shared a confused standpoint on religion, but this symphony became his first piece to establish his view of the beauty of the resurrection.

Mahler was moved to incorporate the line “Rise again, yes, you shall rise again / My dust” as the
opening to the final movement of his second symphony.

Although Mahler was compelled to use the resurrection as subject matter for the symphony, it isn't as straightforward as the title might suggest. This symphony explores life and death in all its light and dark facets.



Mahler: Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection)
May 16, 2008




How Great Thou Art – Carl Boberg

‘How Great Thou Art’ is a traditional Christian hymn based on an anonymous melody and a poem written by Carl Boberg in 1885.

It has previously been voted as the United Kingdom’s favourite hymn, and second on a worldwide ranking, only pipped to the post by ‘Amazing Grace’.


Winchester Cathedral: HOW GREAT THOU ART
Jun 27, 2014

A British Christian Music Programme



Miserere – Allegri

This haunting choral work by Gregorio Allegri sets the Latin text of Miserere mei, Deus (in fact the piece’s full title) from Psalm 51 to music for two choirs.

It’s not certain when Allegri’s Miserere was composed, but we know it was during the reign of Pope Urban VIIII, probably during the 1630s. It would have been used for services in the Sistine Chapel on Holy Wednesday and Good Friday of Holy Week.


Allegri - Miserere mei, Deus
Feb 10, 2011

The magnificent "Miserere mei, Deus" composed by Allegri and here brilliantly performed by the Choir of New College, Oxford.


Russian Easter Festival Overture – Rimsky-Korsakov

This romantic score by Rimsky-Korsakov is a fresh deviation from most choral works associated with religious holidays.

The score is prefaced by two quotations from the Old and New Testaments, and a third written by the composer himself.

The Russian Easter Festival Overture is the composer’s account of an Easter morning service – “not in a domestic chapel, but in a cathedral thronged with people from every walk of life, and with several priests conducting the cathedral service.”


Rimsky-Korsakov - Russian Easter Festival Overture, Op. 36
May 30, 2011


Fledermaus1990
Also known as The Great Russian Easter Overture, is a concert overture written by the Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov between August 1887 and April 1888, and dedicated to the memories of Modest Mussorgsky and Alexander Borodin, two members of the legendary "Mighty Handful".

It is subtitled "Overture on Liturgical Themes". It is the last of the composer's series of three exceptionally brilliant orchestral works, preceded by Capriccio Espagnol and Scheherazade. The work received its premiere in St. Petersburg in late December 1888.

Conductor: Zubin Mehta
Orchestra: Israel Philharmonic Orchestra

Picture: Il'ja Efimovič Repin, Easter Procession in the region of Kursk (1880-1883)


Invictus: A Passion – Howard Goodall

Composer Howard Goodall said of his new work:
“Much of the Passion in general – persecution of the innocent, malevolent authority exerting itself against ideas that threaten and challenge, the power of a peaceful, loving humility in the face of tyranny, the facing-down of fear – holds profound universal resonance for people of many faiths and those of none. It is this universal meaning that my Invictus: A Passion hopes to address, so that [...] it might find relevance with choirs and their audiences or congregations everywhere.”

 

Invictus: A Passion: Invictus
Aug 30, 2018


Christ Church Cathedral Choir
Provided to YouTube by The Orchard Enterprises
Invictus: A Passion: Invictus · Christ Church Cathedral Choir · Howard Goodall · The Lanyer Ensemble · Stephen Darlington · Mark Dobell


Parsifal – Wagner

Wagner's opera Parsifal all takes place on Good Friday. The Good Friday music from Act III of the opera is a standalone work of art in its own right, but if you have a few hours to spare, we'd recommend you listen to this sublime opera in its entirety.


Parsifal - Karfreitagszauber
Good Friday Music - Wagner - Kempe
Sep 30, 2016


moltovivace

Instrumental Karfreitagszauber from Act 3 of
Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal (1882)

Conductor: Rudolf Kempe 
Orchestra: Wiener Philharmoniker (Vienna Philharmonic)

Recorded in 1960, remastered in 1990.

Label: Angel Records
Year released: 1995



The Seven Last Words of Christ – Haydn

The Seven Last Words of Christ, or using its full name The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross is an orchestral work composed by Joseph Haydn for the 1786 Good Friday service at Oratorio de la Santa Cueva in Spain.

The composer adapted the music three times – once in 1787 for string quartet, again in 1796 as an oratorio for solo and chorus, and he also approved a solo piano version.


Joseph Haydn - The Seven Last Words of Christ
(Full Concert) (Full HD)
Apr 29, 2012


ClassicalMusicTVHD
The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour On the Cross (German: Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze) is an orchestral work by Joseph Haydn, commissioned in 1785 or 1786 for the Good Friday service at Cádiz Cathedral in Spain. The composer adapted it in 1787 for string quartet and in 1796 as an oratorio (with both solo and choral vocal forces), and he approved a version for solo piano.

The seven main meditative sections — labelled "sonatas" and all slow — are framed by an Introduction and a speedy "Earthquake" conclusion, for a total of nine movements. Complete all movements.


Easter Oratorio – Bach

It’s no surprise that with a catalogue that includes both of his Passions and the Easter Oratorio, Bach is hailed as one of the finest classical composers of sacred music.

The first version of the work was actually completed as a cantata for Easter Sunday in 1725, but it was later given the Easter Oratorio title in a revived version ten years later.

The Easter Oratorio has four characters assigned to the four voice parts; Simon Peter (tenor), John the Apostle (bass), Mary Magdalene (alto) and Mary Jacobe (soprano).


J.S. Bach - Easter Oratorio, BWV 249
Apr 23, 2011


BachHarmony

The Amsterdam Baroque Choir
The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra
Ton Koopman



Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet – Tallis

This is the first of many settings of The Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet by a number of composers.

Thomas Tallis scored the work for five voices – an alto, two tenors and a two basses in the Latin text of the bible used in Tallis’ lifetime.


Thomas Tallis - Lamentations of Jeremiah I
Feb 11, 2010


Thomas Tallis (c. 1505 - 1585):
LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH I
Thomas Tallis was an English organist and composer whose career spanned the reigns of four monarchs and a long period of religious change. He occupies a primary place in anthologies of English church music, and is considered among the most talented of England's early composers.

This is part one of his 'Lamentations of Jeremiah', which sets to music verses 1-2 of Chapter 1 (Book of Lamentations).
0:06 Incipit lamentatio etc
1:13 Aleph. Quomodo sedet etc
3:24 Beth. Plorans ploravit etc
6:09 Ierusalem, convertere etc
Incipit lamentatio Ieremiae prophetae.
ALEPH. Quomodo sedet sola civitas plena populo! Facta est quasi vidua domina gentium; princeps provinciarum facta est sub tributo.
BETH. Plorans ploravit in nocte, et lacrimæ ejus in maxillis ejus: non est qui consoletur eam, ex omnibus caris ejus; omnes amici ejus spreverunt eam, et facti sunt ei inimici.
Ierusalem, convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum.
trans. Book of Lamentations 1:1-2
Here begins the lamentation of Jeremiah the prophet.
A. How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the cities has become a vassal.
B. She weeps bitterly in the night, tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her enemies.
Jerusalem, turn again to the Lord your God.
The Sixteen Choir
Conducted by Harry Christophers