People have asked me where I got my love for reading, and in particular wrestling with the Scriptures from. Often the question is asked because of the working class background that I come from; indeed I remember at one interview a University Vice-Chancellor looking down through her spectacles, which were perched on the end of her nose, asked, ‘were you an unusual child, Dr Ellis?’.
The Vice-Chancellor had assumed that working class children did not read, and here was I with a New Testament doctorate challenging her assumptions. I suppose I like challenging assumptions of me.
To answer the first question about a love for reading, you will have to come with me to Hillfoot School in Sheffield, to a reception class. A rather shy white-haired boy sat on the carpet with Joanne, Craig and Glynn and 15 others. Mrs Dahlek spoke softly, and asked what she had written on the blackboard. Only two of the class knew; I never knew that Kevin was spelt that way. I did not know it probably could be captured and put down like that I did not know that I could not read. I was after all 4. But that moment did give me a real desire to learn to decipher squiggles on a page; and my love for reading began to take shape.
The second about the love for the Bible is a little more complex. I was nurtured in the Christian faith at Parkwood Springs Primitive Chapel and then at St James and St Christopher’s Shiregreen. I am not sure either place had a particular focus on the Bible; although having said that I do remember stories being told by Miss Lovell, the Sunday School Superintendent, and still remember the particular timbre in her voice as she told them. I also remember how deeply intertwined both Christian communities were in their local communities, from running Boys Brigades and Scout Troops, Walks of Witness (May Queen festivals combined with Pentecost) and Lunch Clubs, which provided food for the elderly and work experience for those with learning disabilities. Therefore if it is true that for most people the only Bible they encounter is the lived witness of a Christian community, then what these local expressions of faith taught was a story of inclusion, generosity, laughter and gritty determination. These sit cheek by jowl with petty power politics, child-like squabbles and a resolve to exclude people who did not quite fit. Churches in urban areas, like those in sub-urban, rural and inner city, are usually an accurate reflection of the communities that surround them. They are often people with broken lives attempting to live life differently. It is my experience that the overarching story of the Bible can provide some scaffolding to help people to do just that.</p>
St James and St Christopher’s Church, Shiregreen was a typical urban estate Parish Church. Even now, I cannot say for definite which particular tribe of English Anglicanism it fits into. During my childhood and teenage years, it oscillated between central catholic, intellectual liberal and open evangelical depending who the vicar was at the time. each incumbent introduced different things: more smells than bells, Christian Aid week that seemed to last for longer than seven days, proving the truth of the fact God’s time is different to ours and the ‘gentle’ charismatic traditions of John Wimber. For me though it all represented what Christianity was. It was the heady days before I discovered Christianity was tribal, surely all Christianity was Shiregreen shaped. Of course, I observed adults behaving squabbling apparently like petulant toddlers over what they did and did not like. Nobody seemed to quote from Scripture.
The Scriptures were read in a particular tone. Everyone flat lined as they read ‘the Lesson’. We were schooled, each one of us, by Henry Cooper (not that one), who had been Church warden as he said ‘since Noah was a lad’. Henry was the one who got the Bible out, who placed in on the reading desk, and made sure it was open at the right page. I was allowed to read as part of the Scout Parade. Those who were not good enough to read because they had not served their time in the church or could not read in Henry’s way were not allowed to do so. The Bible was the warden’s personal fiefdom.
It was however at the age of 14, discovering that I was not allowed to go to a bible study group because I did not have ‘a proper adult faith’ and ‘could not be expected to understand the Bible’ that stimulated my curiosity and desire to know more about my faith. In retrospect the vicar who said I could not join in did me a favour; teenagers, then as now, are only too willing to prove people wrong.
It was through participation in youth groups at neighbouring churches, where I encountered others of similar age, wrestling with the story of Jesus as told by Luke for A level RE, and two years with the London City Mission (LCM) that fuelled my desire to get to grips with the Christian Scriptures.
It was in the LCM base on Old Jamaica Road in Bermondsey that I encountered the idea of reading the Scriptures every day. It had, I think, never occurred to me before. There is a story of my arrival at LCM that is worth telling because it is, or was, illustrative of aspiration on a housing estate. I blew my ‘A’ levels the first time around. It was my fault; if you are up all night working for Mission Sheffield before you take them, then you will not usually be switched on for exams. The second time around was different: worked hard (extra timed essays, weekends spent in the research section of Sheffield City Library – this was a necessity, space was needed to learn) and was absolutely focused. In spite of this, I did not go straight to university. I did not think I was bright enough. The school was not particularly switched on, not even a handful of pupils went on to university. Hammond describes a ‘wall in the head’ for people living on estates. That was true for me; so I did not apply; and when I did eventually make an application, it was a hokey cokey moment, with it being put in and out of the pillar box a number of times, before the application was loaned to Her Majesty on the way to UCCA.</p>
The desire to learn and apply Scripture was cultivated by the leaders of the Voluntary Evangelism Scheme. I went for two weeks, and stayed for over two years. They took a chance with a shy and insecure 19 year old, and my journeying with the Bible was about to take a dramatic turn.
The LCM is an evangelical organisation – not that I knew what that was and meant at the time – they were just a group of people seeking to make sense of their faith in Jesus Christ in a late 20th Century context. We were trained in a particular form of evangelism; and encouraged to relate the Bible – and specifically what God might be saying through the Scriptures to those we came into contact with.
I was appalling naive. I was devouring the written text of the scriptures with aplomb. I had just finished reading about the various features of Solomon’s Temple when a little later, I knocked on Isaac’s door. He came sleepily to the door, and explained that he had just arrived from Nigeria, so was jet lagged; whereupon I launched into a 20 minute explanation of ‘how Solomon’s Temple worked, and how it had been superseded by the work of Jesus on the cross’. After, asking Isaac whether he had understood the importance of what I was saying, and he looking a little puzzled; I repeated everything again but a little slower; just about reaching the court of the priests when the door was politely closed before me.
However I also had the opportunity to work alongside an Irish missionary, whose whole way of life who lived and breathed a form of theology of liberation. He may never have read Mesters’ or Rowland, but he knew the stories of the Bible set people free. His work as a London City Missionary emphasised personal salvation, but his experience of life in Ireland meant that he could echo with ease some of narratives of the liberationists who struggled to make sense of the Bible alongside broken and oppressed people.
This is just a beginning. I wonder whether I should say more?
