Month: June 2025

Zechariah 4.1–6a, 10b–14, Matthew 16.13–19

The Festival of Peter and Paul, 29 June 2025,

Eldroth (Benefice service)

It can be rare to see men embrace; and when we do, it may be under exceptional circumstances.  

Two heavyweight boxers in the ring share a respectful hug at the end of their close-fought fight, before the winner on points is announced.

A best man holds an emotional groom in his arms, in acknowledgement that their bachelor days are over, in anticipation of the unknown new life beginning for them that day.

A father and son embrace awkwardly outside the young man’s university hall of residence, in an unspoken attempt to express their love and care, before the father leaves the son behind.

Then there’s Yorkshiremen… I was moved this week watching Amanda Owen’s sons Reuben and Miles talking about the terrifying day when Miles had a severe diabetic attack which would have been fatal had the Air Ambulance not lifted him to hospital. Reuben’s few words on this topic were considered and  profound: “I’m glad you di’nt keel owver”, he said, and Miles gave his brother a brief, uncomplicated, meaningful hug around the shoulders before they rode off on their trail bikes into the mud. [1]

The icon of Saint Peter and Saint Paul embracing is a curious thing. The 15th century Greek iconographer Angelos Ako-tan-tos is credited with creating the first icon of this kind, and many artists have followed since, including Tamara Rig-ish-vili of Tbilisi, Georgia. Her icon, featured on the front of this week’s newsletter, follows the conventional style. [2]

If you look at it you’ll see Peter on the left and Paul to the right. One of the first things you might notice is that their faces touch but their eyes don’t meet. They are staring past each other. It doesn’t look like a fond embrace. This coolness suggests that although these men were co-leaders of the early missionary church, they were quite different in background and temperament; it admits that in their opinions on faith, the gospel and the Church, they seldom saw eye to eye. [3]

In background, Peter – born Simon – was a Galilean fisherman, whilst Paul – born Saul – was a Roman citizen from Tarsus, in the then Roman Province of Syria. Simon would have learned his scriptures in his home synagogue at Bethsaida, whilst Saul was educated in Jerusalem at the school of Gamaliel, a distinguished teacher of Jewish law.

In temperament, we know from the gospels that Simon always wanted to demonstrate his zeal for the love of Christ more than the other apostles. He promised Jesus that he would follow Him even to death, he cut off the ear of the high priest’s slave, and he cast himself into the Sea of Tiberias in order to meet Jesus after He had risen from the dead. Saul was also zealous – but for the Pharisaic law, which he studied and upheld to the extent that he persecuted the Greek-speaking ‘Hellenist’  Christians who rejected the cult of the Temple which was at the heart of Saul’s Jewish practice.

Later on, as leaders, in their opinions on faith, the gospel and the church, Peter was rooted in the church in Jerusalem and the belief that Christianity fell within the Jewish domain, whilst Paul saw his mission as being to evangelise the Gentiles, using his education in philosophy and his linguistic knowledge for dialogue, encounter, and communication with them.

Their clash over this issue resulted in the elders of the Jerusalem church calling Paul and Barnabas back from Antioch to a council to discuss whether converted Gentiles should be included in the Church. It was a difficult debate – you can read about it in Acts Chapter 15.

The issue was resolved, but tradition has continued to portray Peter and Paul on different sides of the church: and so it is said that the original ‘embracing’ icon was inspired by a series of 15th century church councils, at Florence and Ferrara, which aimed to unite the eastern and western churches. The icon was painted as a symbol of ecumenical peace. The embrace of Peter and Paul – hands on shoulders, arms across their bodies – shows them united despite their differences.

Sadly those ecumenical Councils failed to reconcile the many branches of the church; and ecumenism is still a necessity today as Christians differ on many things. But the iconographers are inspired by hope: in the deeper unity we have in the Holy Spirit, in the common mission we share.

Now this weekend in cathedrals across the country – and across the world – priests and deacons are being ordained. These are wonderful occasions of new beginnings for the individuals and their church communities; and it’s certain that many men, dressed in cassocks for the first time ever, will be hugged, possibly for the first time ever, by their fathers, sons, and lifelong friends. 

I should say at this point that there are, of course, also many women involved in these occasions, indeed, in our diocese, nine women were ordained deacon at Bradford Cathedral yesterday, and four men. And that helps us to shift the focus of this sermon from being about men overcoming their natural emotional reticence, to being about church leaders overcoming their differences in background and temperament, and opinions on matters of Church and faith.

25 years ago this week I was ordained deacon, alongside sixteen others in Liverpool Cathedral, kneeling together at the altar rail for about forty minutes, whilst the ceremony proceeded. It hurt our knees then; I think it’d be agonising if I had to do it again now. In the time we spent preparing for that moment, we’d grown to know each other well with all our many differences: of character, of background, of tradition; becoming friends even whilst often failing to see eye to eye on matters of church and faith. In those solemn moments in that vast cathedral, our differences faded away as we each silently prayed along with the bishop as, one by one, he stood above us and said, “Send down the Holy Spirit upon your servant … for the office and work of a priest in your Church”. We’ve gone our many ways since, but I’m still praying for those people now, all our differences eclipsed by a unity of love and respect. [4]

Both Peter and Paul would have known, and been inspired by, God’s words through the prophet Isaiah when he wrote, “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” [5]

The mission of Peter and Paul continues; it is the mission of the newly-ordained, and the mission of all of us, to bring into being in our communities those new things which God is inviting us to see. 

Let us use this occasion of The Festival of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the way it was intended: to pray for those who are called to lead the Church in the unity of the Holy Spirit, putting aside all differences, and standing firm on the one foundation, Jesus Christ our Lord; and to pray that in a world exhausted of hope, the Holy Spirit may help us all perceive the new thing which God is doing, to embrace that joyful mission in which he invites us all to share.

 

Notes 

[1] Channel 5, Reuben Owen: Life in the Dales, season 2, episode 6. 

[2] Jim Nelson, The Embrace of Peter and Paul. JustAnotherJim, 24 August 2017; Wikipedia: Angelos Akotantos; Tamara Rigishvili, The Embrace of the Apostles Peter and Paul.

[3] Metropolitan Paul Yazigi, Something We Should Know about Apostles Peter and Paul. The Catalog of Good Deeds, 12 July 2019; Jim Nelson, The Embrace of Peter and Paul. JustAnotherJim, 24 August 2017; John Bowker, The Complete Bible Handbook. ‘The Jerusalem Council’, pp.394-395.

[4] John Davies, On Ordination, June 2001.

[5] Isaiah 43.18-19.

 

Luke 8.26-39

The Second Sunday after Trinity, 22 June 2025, Austwick, Clapham

“His name was ‘Legion’; for many demons had entered him.”

Jesus met a man who had many demons. They tormented him, drove him wild, drove him into the wild, afflicted and homeless, naked and raving among the tombs. 

Jesus commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man, and the possessed man cried: ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me’.

When Jesus asked him his name, he said his name was ‘Legion’; for many demons had entered him.

Now, Jesus would know the name ‘Legion’; as would all the disciples and eyewitnesses with him. We recognise the name ‘Legion’ too.

The Roman Legions were armies of citizen soldiers. The Legion was the crowd of commoners enlisted to serve the state, who would conquer territories and subjugate their people. 

‘Legion’ was a name the people of Palestine associated with the occupying forces. 

‘Legion’ was a name for the way of life which those forces imposed on the people, in law and order, in land and property, in work and taxation, in religious practice and social life.

There was a spirit to ‘Legion’; and that spirit was the spirit of the military state, which imposed its character onto the people with strong effect. It was ‘An economy of extraction that regularly transferred wealth from subsistence farmers to the elite in Jerusalem, who lived off the surplus; and the device and the strategy for that extraction was an exploitative tax system.’ [1]

When the spirit of ‘Legion’ oppressed the people, it was like demons entered them. And so we might imagine how this man came to have so many demons:

• When he was taxed increasingly beyond his means, imagine the fear this provoked: it was like demons entered him; 
• When his small patch of land was taken from him, when he was evicted and lost his livelihood, imagine the trauma this caused: it was like demons entered him; 
• When his former friends and neighbours turned their backs on him, imagine the rejection: it was like demons entered him; 
• When they banished him from begging in the marketplace, it was like demons entered him; 
• When they expelled him to the tombs outside the town, it was like demons entered him; 
• When they chained and bound him, it was like demons entered him.

This is a tale about those who society casts off, onto whom a sadness descends, for we are all sociable creatures, and all we want to do is to belong. 

This is a tale about those who experience rejection, who, hearing that Legion of voices condemning and excluding them, time and time again, find a kind of madness descending on them. [2]

This is a tale about anyone who does not feel at home in the world at large, anyone uncomfortable with the way of life imposed on them by the powerful spirits of our age. 

This is a tale for anyone made to feel that their so-called ‘mental health problems’ are entirely of their own making, rather than being symptoms of the sick society we live in.

And this is a tale which turns that whole conversation upside-down, for the exorcism Jesus performs shows all the witnesses, ourselves included, that when the Spirit of God encounters a person possessed by the spirit of Legion, it is not that person who is condemned; it is Legion who is expelled.

For the spirit of Legion is contrary to the Spirit of God.

The Legion spirit treats humans as beings to be exploited – whilst the Spirit of God values each one as made in his image;

The Legion spirit separates humans from each other through competition and distrust – whilst the Spirit of God unites us in the fellowship of all his children;

The Legion spirit treats the earth and its creatures as disposable, lesser beings – like the herd of swine, the innocent victims of Legion’s request – whilst the Spirit of God upholds the integrity of his creation.

So the spirit of Legion is contrary to the Spirit of God – but it is also, always, weaker.

When Jesus turned up at those tombs, Legion knew their number was up. When we draw on the strength of the Spirit of God we can overcome our demons; and we can play our part in exorcising the world of the Legion spirit. 

Now, the Legion spirit is a ‘totalism, that intends to contain all thinkable, imaginable, doable social possibilities’ [3] – a worldview that insists that there is no other way. If we do stand against this then we know that Legion will put up a fight. 

Bishop Gene Robinson has mused,  “It’s funny, isn’t it? That you can preach a judgmental and vengeful and angry God and nobody will mind. But you start preaching a God that is too accepting, too loving, too forgiving, too merciful, too kind… and you are in trouble.” [4]

Jesus’ exorcism of the possessed man at Geresa got him into trouble – his spiritual healing had social consequences which stirred up fear among the locals, who asked him to leave. 

But before Jesus left, on the boat which had carried him there, he told the man now clothed and in his right mind, to return to his home, and ‘declare how much God has done’ for him. 

So the story ends with a new beginning: with the formerly excluded man now fully restored to society, and telling his salvation story joyfully; and the people who had excluded him shaken up by these events, awed but also confronted by what the man had to say.

Jesus entrusts the restored man to be the evangelist, the prophet, the teacher of the people;  a transformation which brings to mind the words of Paul who wrote that ‘God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing the things that are.’ [5] 

For this incident shook the Gerasene community, even if just for a moment, to consider their values, in particular how they treated those who were not at home in this world they had made; and it energised them to begin to see that another way of community life could be possible.

 

Notes

[1] Walter Brueggemann, Jesus acted out the alternative empire. Sojourners, 22 June 2018. For a discussion of ‘Legion’ representing Roman military power and ‘exorcism as political repudiation’  see Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man – 20th Anniversary Edition. p.190-194.

[2] Drawn from my Overcoming Legion in our village, preached in Little Budworth, 2013, Queen Camel, 2016. I also preached on this passage in 2019: The Gerasene demoniac – our mental well-being is a community effort.

[3] Walter Brueggemann, Jesus acted out the alternative empire. Sojourners, 22 June 2018.

[4] Gene Robinson, widely quoted, sourced via online search.

[5] 1 Corinthians 1.25-28. Translated by Walter Brueggemann in Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, 40th Anniversary Edition. p.xxxv. The concluding paragraphs of this sermon derive from Brueggemann’s proposal (expressed in The Prophetic Imagination, 40th Anniversary Edition. pp.2-3) that “the task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us” by means of criticising the dominant consciousness and energising persons and communities towards an alternative consciousness. 

Romans 5.1-5, John 16.12-15

Trinity Sunday, 15 June 2025, Austwick, Eldroth

Sometimes vicars get asked to do the strangest things. It’s part of the challenge, privilege, and pleasure of ministry. One of my most unusual assignments, way back in December 2005, saw me standing alongside a life-size bronze statue of John Lennon, outside the Cavern Pub on Liverpool’s Mathew Street, to give a brief eulogy and lead prayers before a large crowd who had gathered to mark the 25th anniversary of John Lennon’s death: a crowd which included the city’s Lord Mayor, a few showbiz figures, many local people, Beatles fans from as far away as Japan and Spain, and a large number of news reporters and film crew from across the world. [1] 

I’d been asked to do this by one of my parishioners, John Chambers, a modest man who would keep me and my Catholic colleague Father Philip busy by regularly asking us to come and bless his house with holy water, who was also the force behind the Liverpool Beatles Appreciation Society, which over the years had successfully lobbied for memorials to the group to be installed around the city, and organised commemorative events such as this one. [2] 

Only the day before this gathering, I’d been contacted by Peter Murphy, a Liverpool-born painter of religious icons for churches and cathedrals, who at the time also painted iconic-styled pictures of well-known cultural figures, often famous musicians, including one of John Lennon portrayed in ermine and framed beneath his famous phrase, ‘All You Need is Love’. It seemed to me that I must end my devotions outside the Cavern by placing a copy of Peter’s John Lennon portrait at the foot of the statue, along with flowers, photos, and other tributes that people would leave there. [3]

 

 

Now, none of this was without controversy. At the time of his death, I was a young man, and I had been shocked to learn then that not everybody was a John Lennon fan, nor would mourn him as I did, for whilst on the one hand, with his songs about giving peace a chance, he’d inspire those young people, and old, who longed for a better world of love and understanding; on the other, he’d be slapped down or ridiculed for holding such views, by those who would not, or could not, see any way out of a world based on conflict and competition, a world where might is always right. 

If, in our Mathew Street memorial gathering, some people thought we came too close to portraying Lennon as a saint, I don’t think that Peter Murphy meant to sanctify John Lennon with his icon picture, nor did any of us gathered on that solemn anniversary.  Despite Lennon’s flaws and his divisive character, we were drawn to remember this world figure for the values of love and peace and unity which he promoted, however imperfectly he did it, and however much some people shamed him for it. Our motley assortment of people were there to affirm that we share those values, which give us hope, so that we need not give in to cynicism or pessimism or despair. 

I was there to affirm that the song ‘All You Need is Love’ comes very close to those two commandments Jesus taught as the essential rules in life: love God, and love your neighbour.

And I wanted to say that when John Lennon sang “Imagine there’s no heaven”, his rejection of the idea of there being a place above the clouds with St Peter checking people in or out of the pearly gates, shares some affinity with Jesus, who never taught those things either, but who instead encouraged his followers that “the kingdom of heaven is among you … the kingdom of heaven is in your midst”: that the life of love, and peace, which Jesus modelled, is ours to live today. [5]

Lennon was quoted as saying that he saw God “not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us.” [6] This idea, of the kingdom of Heaven being a way of life, in which we are enabled, by God’s Holy Spirit, to live those lives of love and peace which we aspire to, gives hope to all who share it: hope that not only can our lives be joyful and fulfilled, but the life of the world can be as God intended. 

Those who embrace a world based on conflict and competition, will ridicule or criticise hope, insisting that the way things are now, are how they always will be. Those downtrodden ones resigned to suffering a world where might is always right, may struggle to believe in hope. And the ones who do hold out hope for a better world, are often shamed by others – accused of ‘not living in the real world’, shamed for being so – allegedly – naive. 

But Paul wrote to the believers in Rome: “Hope does not put us to shame”. “Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit”.

There is no shame in hope. Our hope is well-founded. With God’s Spirit in our hearts we can live the life of love which we aspire to; we can believe that God’s kingdom is alive and active in the world, bringing help to the helpless, hope to the despairing, joy to all who believe in the liberating power of love. Despite the hostility of the world, “we boast in the hope of the glory of God,” as Paul said.

Where despair immobilises us, hope causes us to act for good in the world. “Despair is all around us, telling us the problems are insoluble, we are not strong enough, our efforts are in vain, no-one really cares, and human nature is fundamentally corrupt.” Hope empowers, encourages, enables. [7] 

A little while ago the historian Howard Zinn wrote, “There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment will continue. We forget how often we have been astonished by the sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people’s thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible. What leaps out from the history of the past hundred years is its utter unpredictability.” [8]

One of today’s great writers on hope, Rebecca Solnit, says that older people can inspire hope when they look back, and draw on the “power” of their memory to see the “larger patterns, the longer shifts” in history, to remember how “the things that seem obvious, predictable, inevitable in hindsight, were often regarded beforehand as impossible or unlikely.” “You can’t see the future,” she writes, “but you can understand the patterns and possibilities if you know the past.” [9]

I know many faithful older Christians who have hoped that their children and grandchildren would follow them into the ways of faith, but who now lament the younger generations’ seeming lack of interest in church-going, for that hope has, as yet, been unrequited. 

But, as Rebecca Solnit insists, hope requires a long-term view, an understanding that changes have “long trajectories” [10]; so that in this case we should remain hopeful that our faithful witness and our prayers over the years are seeds of a change which will come, that our faithful influence is already secretly germinating in those lives and in those places into which we have placed our hopes. 

Do not be shamed for holding out for hope. For “Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit”.

Notes

[1] John Davies, On Lennon and becoming real. Notes from a Small Vicar, 8 December 2005.

[2] Poppie Platt, Liverpool’s ‘number one Beatles fan’ behind city centre Fab Four statue dies. Liverpool Echo, 11 Aug 2022.

[3] John Davies, Peter Murphy and a timely icon. Notes from a Small Vicar, 7 December 2005; www.petermurphyicons.co.uk.

[4] Wikipedia: More popular than Jesus. 

[5] Luke 17.20-21.

[6] Jonathan Gould, Can’t Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain and America. p.364. Quoted in Wikipedia: More popular than Jesus. 

[7] Rebecca Solnit, No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain. p.65.

[8] Howard Zinn, The Optimism of Uncertainty. ZCommunications, 30 September 2004; The Nation, 20 September 2004. Quoted in Rebecca Solnit, No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain. p.4

[9] Rebecca Solnit, No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain. p.1-4.

[10] Rebecca Solnit, No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain. p.1.

 

 

Acts 2.1-21 

Pentecost, 8 June 2025, Austwick, Keasden

A parish I once served in Devon, Bratton Clovelly, has a healthy twinning relationship with a village near Bayeux in Normandy called Nonant. There are regular exchange visits alternating between France and Devon. And I remember, back in 2011, when the time came for the Saturday night celebration party of the Bratton Clovelly – Nonant Twinning Association, we were all gathered together in one place – Bratton Village Hall. 

Now there were people there who had been doing this for years: Devonians from birth, those who had retired to Bratton to make it their home, people who seldom left Bayeux except to make this trip, experienced French travellers; good linguists, bad linguists, those whose local accents were so strong that even their neighbours sometimes found it hard to guess what they were saying. 

The crowd gathered and enjoyed our evening together, the language barriers between us melted as we communicated through the intuitive language of wine, music, and dance; through body language, signs, symbols and song. As the gathering applauded a Bratton farmer’s rendition of ‘I love Paris in the Springtime’ all were amazed and perplexed, saying, ‘What does this mean?’ But others said, ‘It’s because of the wine.’ And it may well have been, because it was way, way past nine o’clock in the evening.

There are events in our lives which give us hints of the eternal truths of the kingdom of heaven. Imperfect images of the perfection towards which God is slowly leading us. Times when we experience something of living that abundant life which Christ promised his followers. 

Gathering the scattered people together is today’s theme. Gathering the scattered at Pentecost:  people who normally would not meet, nor could communicate, for a few moments in time united in understanding and celebration. Pentecost could be summed up as the moment that a loving and forgiving God gathered together his scattered people, and once and for all united them in love and understanding through the Holy Spirit. 

This Pentecost story is the reversal of the story of the Tower of Babel, in which a people who were attempting absolute power by building a tower together, were scattered over the face of the earth by a God who was in rivalry and conflict with them, who divided them by giving them different languages so that they would not understand each other. 

Pentecost is Babel reversed, because there God’s Holy Spirit gathered the scattered peoples of the earth back together, giving them a new common language of understanding, based in the ultimate self-giving of Jesus on the cross: the language of forgiveness. This is the true purpose of society under God.If you’ve ever searched for a simple way to describe what the Christian faith is all about, I think this may be it: Jesus died on the cross, offering us forgiveness, so that we could have a new way to gather together and stay together, truly as one. [1]

This is so valuable in a world which is possessed by a spirit of scattering: a world where competitive values are built into every area of life, eroding the very social bonds that were supposed to keep civilisation going. Where the ultimate goal of social life is the pursuit of advantage, we are left to constantly measure our self-worth against the success of others, so that failure becomes  unbearable.

Our resultant insecurity, humiliation and miseries are exploited by leaders flexing their muscles in claiming that minorities of all kinds have purportedly thrived at the expense of the native working people, and who make empty promises about restoring our well-being at the expense of others: stripping minorities of entitlements, closing our borders to the desperate, ring-fencing the nation’s resources.

The offer of the balm of vengeance, the promise of national self-love and the cure of restoring society to a more pristine state through a violent purging of those considered ‘unclean’ – each fail in reality to make much material difference, but cause us all great spiritual harm. [2]

Think of all the ways we scatter apart from each other, the broken relationships, the bitterness and hurt. Think of the walls we build and the grief they cause; the cruel stereotypes we so readily apply to those who don’t look and speak like us, the way we blame others for wrongs in which, in truth, we all share.  

Think of the troubled relationships between the French and the English over the centuries, and the 130,000 soldiers, both Allied and German, who lost their lives in Normandy this very week 81 years ago, with four-and-a-half thousand of them buried in the War Cemetery at Bayeux, five miles from Nonant. [3] 

But think also of the genuine joy in surprise when you’ve spent time in the company of people you’d never usually meet: what you shared, what you learned, what you enjoyed in that experience. Think of those stories which have stuck with you, of people coming together from very different backgrounds to share food and stories, laughter and understanding, and how it changed them.

This is what Jesus came for, to gather us together in loving forgiveness. Luke’s story of Pentecost shows us that just fifty days after Easter, that powerful Holy Spirit began to blow and to gather God’s people from the corners of the earth. It brought them together in a new oneness called The Church, which, though its members have never been free from strife and division, nevertheless have practiced ways to grow and flourish together, despite our differences, for two thousand years. [4]

Achieving unity has always been a human desire; but genuine unity is hard to achieve. Pentecost affirms that the only sure foundation for a complete unity between all peoples, is the one given in Christ’s gathering. [5]

We’re all invited to Pentecost, the party which God puts on for all who will receive him. The invitation is open to everyone now and forever, to this celebration of unity in the power of the Holy Spirit, a spirit of absolute self-giving love. We get glimpses of it in our own life experiences, like in those moments when we realise that we belong to a worldwide church with its many different expressions, where that special Spirit unites us with others with whom we’d never otherwise imagine we could share anything in common. 

Luke describes the coming of the Holy Spirit in these words: “And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.” This was the sound of walls falling down, the sound of barriers to love and understanding collapsing; this was the wind of change which blows away our fear and suspicion of each other, and fills us instead with joyful, mutual, respect and understanding.

 

Notes 

This is a rewrite of Gathering the scattered – the Holy Spirit’s work, preached in Devon, 2011 

[1] Paul Neuchterlein, Gathering the Scattered People of God, delivered at Emmaus Lutheran, Racine, WI, May 30-31, 1998.

[2] Richard Seymour, Disaster Nationalism: The Downfall of Liberal Civilization.

[3] WW2 Cemeteries in Normandy. Bayeux Museum website, accessed 31 May 2025.

[4] Paul Neuchterlein, Gathering the Scattered People of God, delivered at Emmaus Lutheran, Racine, WI, May 30-31, 1998; Paul Neuchterlein, Girardian Lectionary, Year A, Pentecost: Reflections, particularly those referencing James Alison’s treatment of the subject in The Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin Through Easter Eyes, Chapters 6 and 9.

[5] James Alison, The Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin Through Easter Eyes, p.167