In ‘Leaving Alexandria: A Memoir of Faith and Doubt’, Richard Holloway offers this observation: ‘The toughest lesson life teaches is the difference between who you wanted to be and who you actually are. And it can take a whole life to teach it’.
The book, at one level, is his account of the tension between his early romantic vision of what it means to preach and practise Christianity, and his growing disenchantment with the orthodoxies of the Episcopal Church. In the year 2000 he resigned as the Bishop of Edinburgh, attracting both praise for his honesty in confronting his doubts and censure from conservative theologians who felt his stance was undermining the faith of believers.
Last week I had the opportunity to attend the Stanley Nisbet lecture given by Dr Holloway at the University of Glasgow (Stanley Nisbet was the first professor of education at the university). His intriguing title was ‘All that jazz: improvising ethics today’. He explained the jazz metaphor by pointing out that the best jazz musicians generally have a good understanding of ‘mainstream’ musical traditions before they embark on improvisation. They also listen carefully to the other players in the ensemble so that their particular input can enrich the group performance. They remain open to new styles and possibilities, never reaching a point of stasis where there is nothing more they need to learn.
In the same way, he argued, human beings need to understand the insights that the great religious traditions can offer but be prepared to adapt in the face of the ethical complexities presented by the modern world. Advances in science, medicine and technology regularly confront us with difficult moral questions to which there is no definitive answer. There is an ‘ethics lag’ between the appearance of such questions and our capacity to address them: an example would be the current debate about end-of-life issues. The task needs to be approached with grace and magnanimity, and a willingness to learn from people with different perspectives: in many cases, for example, medical, legal and philosophical insights are required. Often all we can hope for is a provisional response to an ethical dilemma, which we may have to adjust in the light of experience.
This line of argument is, of course, deeply problematic for people who subscribe to the certainties of a revealed religion. Particularly for those who view sacred texts as containing eternal truths which can be applied in all ages and circumstances, the notion that the profound challenges of the modern world justify a flexible and adaptable response is unacceptable. They see it as a dangerous step on the road to relativism, which offers no sure standards or criteria against which to make moral decisions.
Dr Holloway was careful to distinguish his own position from that of the relativists. Giving examples, particularly from the field of medicine, and drawing on his experience as a member of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, he argued that the struggle to understand and deal with moral complexity requires intelligence, creativity and compassion. Moreover, human emancipation can come from secular as well as religious sources.
At the same time, he was careful not to dismiss the value of religious traditions. He regards the great religions as powerful sources of knowledge and inspiration, enabling us to negotiate the journey through life. But they do not provide an answer to every question. Indeed we should be prepared to question every answer they claim to offer. Biblical pronouncements should be subjected to the test: ‘Do they still work?’.
For Dr Holloway the Christian narrative is best regarded as a work of imagination, a powerful and important myth which may help us to lead better lives. To say that the narrative is not factually true is not to dismiss its importance, either in the historical evolution of Western society or in relation to contemporary social circumstances, but it is to alter its epistemological status and the conclusions that can be drawn from it. It becomes similar – but not identical – to the insights into the human condition offered by great literature.
In ‘Leaving Alexandria’ Dr Holloway often invokes poetry to explain the intellectual and philosophical struggles he encountered. Poets, he observes, sometimes come close to capturing the elusive, spiritual dimension of human experience, those aspects that escape the impulse to codify, classify and define.
The writer Julian Barnes was once asked, ‘What is the purpose of fiction?’. He replied, ‘It’s to tell the truth’, but then added: ‘It’s to tell beautiful, exact and well-constructed lies which enclose hard and shimmering truths’. On Holloway’s analysis, Christianity and other religions might be regarded in the same way – as imaginative creations which nonetheless encapsulate important truths about how we should conduct our own lives and how we should treat others.
Unsurprisingly, Dr Holloway’s questioning of many of the central tenets of Christian belief has upset orthodox believers, some of whom feel he has done a disservice to the church in which he achieved high office. But what emerges from ‘Leaving Alexandria’ (and also from the lecture he gave at Glasgow University) is a lifelong quest to explore and understand what it means to be human, never settling for a fixed set of rules, always remaining open to the possibilities of new knowledge, new insights, new interpretations.
The book is a brave and honest account of one man’s sustained engagement with profound religious and philosophical questions at the heart of the human condition. It comes as no surprise that it has just been shortlisted for the 2013 Orwell Prize.
Walter Humes held professorships at the universities of Aberdeen, Strathclyde and West of Scotland and is now a visiting professor of education at the University of Stirling
