Elucidations

  Brusher Mills was the last and most celebrated of New Forest snake catchers. He died in 1905. A picture survives of him clutching a haul of adders in each hand. Brusher was something of an eccentric. He had a particular way of winning favour with young ladies furtively dropping an adder near a group of them retreating until they screamed. Then he appeared to rescue them from peril! Christianity can be viewed like that, scaring folk with demands to make them feel inadequate and presenting them the Saviour. Like Brusher’s tactics for winning ladies there are forms of evangelisation which do damage to truth, especially the truth about ourselves. To some Christianity looks good in principle as an altruistic movement but harsh in galvanising individuals to a cause built seemingly on self-hatred. The founder of Christianity warned, after all, that ‘those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it’ (Matthew 16:25). How can Christiani...