Richard Holloway: Shaking the Kaleidoscope

Richard Holloway is an interesting man who has been on an interesting journey. He used to be a Bishop in Scotland, but resigned about 10 years ago after a Bishop's conference that got a bit nasty around the issue of homosexuality. Since then, he has written over 5 books that deal with issues of spirituality, religion, morality and ethics. His latest book is called, "Between the Monster and the Saint", and his best known book is called "Godless Morality". Holloway describes himself as a "Christian agnostic". He is part of a church community and preaches in his church occasionally, although he isn't sure that God actually exists.

Interesting, as I said...

Last month, Holloway spoke at the Sydney Writer's Festival about his thoughts on the different approaches to religion that are apparent in today's society. This talk was called "Shaking the Kaleidoscope" and revolved around four particular approaches he has identified: strong religion; weak religion; after religion; and no religion. Simple, and yet profound...

The ABC has a short interview with him and the full recording of his Writer's Festival talk. This is really worth a listen to and you can access the audio and/or the transcript by clicking here. You won't be sorry. This is 50 minutes you'll be glad you spent (I've listened to it 3 times so far)...

Just two tiny spoilers / tasters...

In his opening statement, he refers to Paul Gauguin's 1897 painting entitled, "Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?" Gauguin painted this picture after receiving the news that his daughter had died. Holloway got me in right from here - a dramatic story interwoven with some of THE most important questions that people can ask about life, the universe and everything...

And then in his final "PPS", he says, "When I am actually kind of up against the cosmic wall, there is another philosopher I love who has given me a way of responding to this agonised, kaleidoscopic, shifting, churning complexity. And I want to leave you with this great swashbuckle of a quote. It comes from the great existentialist philosopher, Miguel de Unamuno, and he was quoting a Frenchman when he said these words:

'Man is perishing that may be,
But if it is nothingness that awaits us,
Let us perish resisting,
And let us so live that it will be an unjust fate.'

And I like the idea of living as though the universe did mean something - and if it doesn't, we'll show it that we are better than it."

Very cool. Do yourself a favour and tune in. By the way, I was a "weak religionist". What are you?

Shalom...