It feels strange...

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 15 January 2004 23:15:20

...scurrying to provide evidence of Christmas reading to a lecturer when the sounds of Justin Timberlake are rumbling across the West End from the SECC. A collision of worlds.

2 weeks today I'm giving a lecture. I'm basing it on a photograph (a very famous one taken by George Rodger) of a young boy walking through woods outside Belson camp after the liberation and he is surrounded by 100's, probably 1000's of dead bodies. How do we do theology after this, is basically what I'm asking. Another collision of worlds. Think it might not quite be what some people are expecting. I almost want to say I hope they aren't too shocked by it but then if we aren't shocked then are we less human? And if we choose not to look then who will bear witness to this boys life and experiences? Who will be there with him? It's not the kind of lecture I look forward to, I'm not certain about the ethics of subjecting people to images of brutal mass-murder, but then these things happen in this world and we can't negate mass-genocide without negating the world, and that's an option I rejected years ago.