Article for the January Parish Magazines.
Isaac Barrow (1630 – 1677) was both a theologian and mathematician, he significantly developed calculus, however, it is his sermons that I have recently been reading, and I thought I would tell you about one of them in particular, entitled, 'Of a Peaceable Temper and Carriage.'
In his sermon Barrow takes as his theme Romans 12:18, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” One might think that the musings of a Seventeenth century academic theologian would have little resonance in today's hightech secular world, but I was rather taken by his warning not to meddle in other people's affairs,
“If we desire to live peaceably we must restrain our pragmatical curiosity within the bounds of our proper business and concernment, not invading other men's provinces, and without leave or commission intermeddling with their affairs; not rushing into their closets, prying into their concealed designs, or dictating council to them without due invitation thereto; not controlling their actions, nor subjecting their proceedings to our censure, without competent authority.”
In Barrow's time 'pragmatic' meant 'interfering' or 'conceited'.
In the modern world I think we may be becoming rather to inclined to meddle in the affairs of others. Take a cursory scroll through any social media platform and you will find people hotly remonstrating with each other for believing or saying something the other has taken offence at. The print and news media is also frequently characterised by a scramble to condemn the opinions or actions of someone or other. People are loudly 'cancelled', and then those who called for the cancelling are loudly condemned for doing so. Thus there is no peace, just a click and sales generating whirl of outrage and offence. There has always been a strong strain of tolerance in Anglicanism, and in the English character. Not quite able to love our neighbours as Christ commanded, we have at least tolerated them for the sake of a peaceful existence. It is easy to see the faults in others, especially those who make a living from public displays of outrage and offence, but I think the hard question is, 'how much do I contribute to this storm of wanting to order other people's lives'? In practice, do I value meddling over peaceableness? After-all, God lets us make up our own minds, so we should not presume to do more.
May you have a peaceable 2023, at least in as far as it is up to you.