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In Let in the Light, White invites readers to join him in a close and engaged encounter with the Confessions in which they will come to share his experience of the book’s power and profundity by reading at least some of it in Augustine’s own language. He offers an accessible guide to reading the text in Latin, line by line—even for those who have never studied the language. It is difficult to achieve reading proficiency in either language in the amount of time available, he says, and one of the pitfalls that he seeks to avoid is confirming the “ingrained inclination to think of other languages as more or less successful simulations of English in a sort of secret coded way. They aren’t simulations of English: they are living cultural and expressive phenomena on their own. . . I was just really glad to hear that from people because they participate, as they ought to. They are part of this enterprise; so they can see why I did this, and they are still not buying it, and that’s good. I want them to be that interested and that active.” James’ work is situational, it reacts or works within a situation and there is a sense of performance within that process. As James put it:
Sometimes I just give up,” she tells me. “I crumble and I translate the word with two or three English words.” She compares the “very powerful, small vocabulary” of the original language to a “linchpin, the ball-bearing there, and the whole passage with its meaning moves around this word, with the very flexible meanings”. We are accustomed to thinking of English as an “incredibly rich language”, she says. “But in certain ways, English is limited . . . a pragmatic language.” Today, Dr Paula Gooder, Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s and a popular author on the New Testament, has reassuring words for those who worry that they are at a disadvantage at only being able to read the Bible in translation. Speaking about William Tyndale at St Paul’s Cathedral in 2017, the theologian Dr Jane Williams suggested that he and all translators “show us something of the sheer attention and love called out by faith”. Tyndale had believed, rightly, that “the Bible is too important to be in the hands of only a few.” James ensured that no one was recording the presentation but also not forcing anyone to be there. Audience, staff and artists were allowed to step out to process what they were seeing without being judged: Unfortunately it still remains the case that, in the art world, disability and mental health make great art but only as long and one doesn’t speak about said disability or mental health condition. Sigh! We still don’t have the vocabulary to exhibit art that emanates from a rehabilitative process.
It’s really important, if it’s at all possible, to get people to the stage of being able to read another language for the sake of the other language rather than the purpose of just rendering it in English.” The project challenged Chisenhale gallery to think about commissioning and understand that idea of value and how we value people. James led with a volley of questions that permeated throughout the organisation, making its staff think very differently about how they approach the commissioning process:
James and the team at Chisenhale decided not to focus on counting creative outputs or forcing a benchmark of ‘quality’, as these are extractive approaches to engagement. Instead, confidence, belief and creating a safe space were prioritised. Many of these young people had never heard of Chisenhale Gallery and had limited exposure to the arts. Part of the problem is the perpetually romanticised narrative of the ‘artist’s struggle’, which sees the difference that disability or poor mental health brings as a catalyst of great art – but never the metaphor for or comment on the artist’s relationship with the outside world. You are at a disadvantage, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t read the Bible as well,” she tells me. “That is the big distinction I would make.” Her recommendation, in the tradition of St Augustine, is to read a variety of translations. “A translation is an interpretation, just like a commentary or a book is . . . Very few people would ever say ‘I will only ever read one person or listen to one person preaching.’” For the safe space to work, the young people were given control of performing or showing work, James and his counterpart, the curator Caroline Moore had given the young people the agency to pull out or not be in the space at the last minute without any repercussions. This is a crucial aspect of safeguarding, as it enabled them to be in control of their narrative and how and with whom it was shared. Even if months had been spent on creating or rehearsing a piece, if a young artist was not comfortable with sharing it, the work wouldn’t be shared. Each work could also be presented in different ways. Predictably, Hart’s attempt to produce a translation “not shaped by later theological and doctrinal history” has come in for criticism. “Part of the churches’ understanding of creeds, catechisms and confessions and the doctrines they promulgate — doctrines like the deity of the Holy Spirit or the eternal pre-existence of the Son of God — is that they are meant to aid in the reading of Scripture,” wrote Wesley Hill, associate professor of biblical studies at Trinity School for Ministry, Pennysylvania, in a review for ABC Religion and Ethics.In a review for Commonweal, Dr Luke Timothy Johnson, Professor of New Testament and Christian origins at Candler School of Theology, complained that “striving for original or striking expressions leads at times to simple clunkiness” and that in other places “her over-literalness serves to confuse”. In her introduction, she seeks to convey the sheer strangeness of the text, which “speaks to itself and not to me; there is no author in his familiar role, reaching out to me across the centuries and using all his training and ingenuity. The Gospels are an inward-looking, self-confirming set of writings, containing some elements of conventional rhetoric and poetics, but not constructed to make a logical or aesthetic case for themselves; the case IS Jesus; so the words don’t stoop to argue or entice with any great effort . . .” The development of this body of work has greatly altered the scale and ambition of James’s work, resulting in it becoming one of Arts Council England’s National Portfolio Organisations (NPOs). Hearing this gives me hope that the arts are changing, and that those holding the purse strings are listening and accepting that the accumulation of funding for the disability arts sector is literally life-changing. She doesn’t produce these objections from an “anti-religious” position, she emphasises. “In fact, I don’t think there is anything more dangerous to our morals, our politics, our spiritual health than the prevailing malleability of sacred literature and translation. If you read these documents in the original languages, nothing will come across more strongly than their vivid realities. To the authors, and to those who inspired the authors, what we call the unseen world was not only real: it was seen. There was no division between the natural and supernature. There is just one universe to enjoy or to try to destroy.”