Dr Anna Rowlands - 01/12/2025

This morning, as many of us will, I’ll open the first door of my Advent calendar. I’m fascinated that this tradition has endured, even as much else about Advent has been overshadowed by all-things Christmas. We owe the origins of the Advent Calendar to 19th- and 20th-century German Lutherans, who also bequeathed us Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the most striking writers on the Advent season. Bonhoeffer, famous for his resistance to fascism, loved this season, but his vision of it was far from gentle festive ease. Bonhoeffer’s sermon for the first week of Advent in 1931 addressed a culture at a turning point, a culture he described as ‘an age of worldviews.’ He wrote that how a person dresses, eats, speaks, and even exercises was now being read as evidence of worldview, worldviews clashing with increasing violence. At the root of these disagreements about worldview was the struggle to define human value: who has value, who decides on the terms of human value? Bonhoeffer said he was afraid of a culture that answered that question by equating human value with mastery over ourselves, the world, and other people. He warned us against desiring leaders – political or religious - who promise such an impoverished vision of mastery and triumph. He was afraid of an impatient culture, tempted by easy answers that turn out to be very costly. Bonhoeffer finds in Advent a better story of what it means to be human, a story that teaches us expectant waiting. He preaches it as a season of restless desire and liberation from the substitute, counterfeit gods that get in the way of a more just future. He thinks those who are powerless and restless in spirit often grasp best what Advent is. Advent rewards those who yearn for a new world, but who will wait until it is one capable of being good news for all; one which will come as a child for whom there was no room. His model of those closest to the spirit of Advent is the prisoner, which he himself became, and the pregnant woman.The Church lights a candle on its Advent wreath for each of the four virtues of the season: hope, peace, joy, and love. In an age of worldviews in which rival visions of the future once again abound, these remain candles worth lighting in the darkness.

29 NOV 25

Good morning. This week saw the beginning of this year’s Reith lectures in which the Dutch historian Rutger Bregman is calling for a moral revolution. This annual lecture series is the chance to hear a distinguished person speak philosophically on a subject which concerns us all. The lectures are named after the BBC’s founder John Reith who believed it was the BBC’s mission not only to inform and entertain but also to educate the public, to help us gain not only knowledge but wisdom. I remember an inspiring series by Atul Gawande on the Future of Medicine, in which he invited us to confront our mortality, and then there was Mark Carney’s series on Financial Value and Human Value. The lectures which had the most impact on me were by Onora O’ Neill, in 2002, and was called A Question of Trust. She discussed why it was that our society, both as individuals and institutions had become so lacking in trust. Though she was speaking over twenty years ago the issue has become even more urgent today. Only yesterday on this programme, the Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride was lamenting the lack of trust in our institutions. Onora O’ Neill argued that our problem with trust was that we had come to put our faith not in each other but in processes. Analysing problems, constructing rules, monitoring behaviour, keeping records. All this is important of course, especially if you’re flying a plane or working in an operating theatre. But trust, trust, involves something different which goes beyond paperwork. It’s a kind of faith in the integrity of others, the belief that others are capable of behaving with more than their own interests in mind. It is much more risky, of course, and can be betrayed; but equally paperwork can be falsified and conversations denied. Trust at best is a virtue, and it is demanding of ourselves and others. Often it is when others instinctively trust us that we are inspired to trust others. On Sunday the Church begins the season of Advent, a time of looking forward in hope for the coming of Christ. Much of the imagery of the Advent season calls on the experience of Israel in exile as described by the Old Testament prophets. The prophets speak of restoration and salvation. Everything depends on trust, trust in God and a rejection of false gods, trust that a good life is possible in a homeland which is a real home. The hoped for restoration will put things right between people and nations, between friends and neighbours and between humanity and God. Trust ultimately is an essential ingredient of wisdom, the quality that John Reith hoped that his new broadcasting organisation would come to bestow on its audience.

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