Sacred Space

I am standing at the pillar that was chipped away so a platform could be built on which Thomas Cranmer was sentenced to death under Mary (Bloody Mary), and behind me is the pulpit where C.S. Lewis delivered his famous sermon, “The Weight of Glory.”

The church is the University Church, St Mary of the Virgin, in Oxford.

Kris and I spent a week in Oxford for the BioLogos annual meeting for the research grantees. Though we lived a year in Cambridge in the early 80s and though I had heard great things about the bookstore at Oxford, Blackwells, we had never been to Oxford.

Loved it.

First, to get together with others doing work with BioLogos intensified the joy of the work we are doing on Adam and the Genomes. I spent time with my co-researcher, Dennis Venema (Trinity Western, a geneticist), plotting our book.

Our Connect Group included a group from Grand Rapids, one from Oxford, one from Canada, and Dennis and I. Dennis and I are working on what happens to Adam post genome discoveries. Dennis has a well-known article showing that the DNA in modern humans could not have come from less than 9-12,000 “hominids.”

The plenary sessions were special: Alister McGrath’s paper on seeing the big picture and Dennis’ sketch of genome theory were my favorites.

BioLogos gave us ample time for conversation and exploring Oxford, which we did.

After our tour of the city — Lawrence was our guide with Footprints and Lawrence was very good — Kris and I decided to spend an afternoon inside Magdalen College (where Lewis taught), reading on the courtyard benches and walking Addison’s trail (where Tolkien and Dyson convinced Lewis of the truth of Christianity).

We also enjoyed other parts of the City — from St Mary of the Virgin University Church, where we worshiped and attended evensong, various colleges, including some peeks into Exeter, Lincoln, Corpus Christi, Merton, and Mansfield.

Of course, we went to the famous pubs: our first dinner, under some fog of jet lag, was at the White Horse Inn next to Blackwell’s, and as there were no seats available, we sat at a table at the back, only to discover a book in Blackwell’s about Tolkien’s Oxford that informed us that at that table Lewis and Tolkien shared more than a few draughts. We went to The Bear for dinner and a half pint or two of cask ale, and of course we visited The Eagle and the Child as well as The Lamb and the Flag.

Oxford is a wonderful place for a stroll, a city formed in the late medieval age and colleges with very similar color and architecture. I have included here a picture of Kris reading at Magdalen not far from the rooms of C.S. Lewis.