15 October 2009

Origins for all

Why are we here, say the bells of Grasmere?
And where are we bound, say the bells all around?
Mark Woods hears some answers

H AVING spent most of the millennia since

their composition as a fount of wise
sermons and personal devotion, the first
few chapters of Genesis have over the last hundred
years or so become a source of often bitter
fall into the trap of implying that because the stories
in Genesis are not true in a literal and scientific
sense, they are not true in a deeper way, and it
unpacks some of those meanings too.
And just as clearly, Riding Lights has the sort of
theological strife. atheistic scientists so beloved of the media in its
Denominations have been split, friendships sights (how on earth these people manage to generate
broken and accusations of naive fundamentalism so much publicity is beyond understanding).
and grave heresy have been slung about with 'If religion is useless and harmful, as Darwinians
abandon. believe, why hasn't evolution got rid of it?' ask the
But can Genesis 1-11 also be fun? players - a telling point, it seems to me. There's a
Yes, according to the Riding Lights Theatre scene set in a school which is a quick-fire disposal of
Company. Its new production, Origins and some of the common objections to religion.
Lemons, is a wryly comic take on the opening And they take on the big questions of pain and
chapters of the Bible, with a serious point to it. suffering, and why the world is as it is. We create,
And it really is fun. The four cast members and we're made in the image of God; why not assume
manage to fill two hours with a virtuoso set of that God enjoys creating too, and that he's bringing
sketches and monologues which are thought- his world to an as yet unseen perfection?
provoking without being preachy. The prevailing The staging is minimalist, appropriate for a
note is cheerfulness, and it's sustained throughout, production which is touring churches and can't rely
even when serious issues are being addressed. on the usual stage machinery. The characters include
The Riding Lights thesis is that there are Noah as a salty sea-dog, Adam and Eve - their nudity
appropriate ways of talking about different kinds of tastefully indicated by appropriately designed kitchen
truth, and it's important not to get them mixed up. aprons - Cain, represented by a ventriloquist's doll
and voicing a moving poem; and a peculiar giant, one
Dawkinsites do, in what they say about religion,
of the Nephilim, who appears in order to be ordered
and young-earth creationists do, in what they say
off because the writers can't think of what to do with
about the Bible. One tries to use the language of
him. Indeed, the story of the sons of God taking
science to talk about faith, and fails; the other tries
wives from among the daughters of men is almost
to use the language of faith to talk about science,
invariably airbrushed out of our preaching
and fails too.
schedules...
The point's made both explicitly and implicitly.
This is popular apologetics at its best; think C S
The players - Alan Christopher, Fred Denno, Jamie
Lewis on a skateboard. If you go and take a non-
Higgins and Rachel Wilcock - take to the stage at
Christian friend with you, you won't be embarrassed
intervals to address the audience directly.
by it and there'll be lots to talk about afterwards.
The question why and the question how, they
say, require completely different answers. You can
identify the chemical composition of a human
being, and work out how much the ingredients are
worth - about 87 pence. But 'that's not what you
are, it's just what you're made of’.
Understanding the right use of metaphor is vital:
'Once you start speaking of the really vital things,
imagery is the only way.'
It shouldn't be thought, though, that this is just an
attack, however polite, on creationism. It does not