The permeable membrane

The Book of Strange New Things is a powerful new novel by Dutch-born Michel Faber, who now lives in the Scottish highlands. Its main character is Peter Leigh, a Christian pastor sent to minister to the native beings on the distant planet Oasis, which has been colonised by a secretive, organisation called USIC. Peter must leave his wife for the duration of his visit – their only contact is via an intergalactic email system.

One theme of the novel is communication – between Peter and Bea, formerly so close; between Peter and his colleagues at the USIC base on Oasis; between Peter and the brilliantly imagined, Jesus-loving Oasans; and between Peter and the inner voice which as a child he identified as conscience, but now recognises as God.

Another theme is the risk of excluding reality – ‘home is in here,’ says one character, pointing at his chest, indicating he is self-sufficient, with no need of others. Peter is said to be on ‘Planet God’ by someone convinced that his faith and engagement with the Oasans have distanced him from the reality of what’s happening on earth.

And a third theme is an exploration of the nature and experience of religious belief.

 

Faber is said to be an atheist, but he writes with insight and deep understanding of the Christian’s inner life. Either he has been there himself, or else he is gifted with a quite outstanding empathy. He rarely puts a foot wrong in describing Peter and Bea’s faith, and Christians will find nourishing insights in this book.

But it also depicts faith under threat, faith struggling to cope with the social and economic implosion back on earth. My initial reaction was a sense of betrayal that someone who writes so well of Christian faith and experience should remorselessly describe the undermining of faith.

But the book is fiction. Another author could have written differently, but with equal integrity, of people finding, and keeping, rather than losing faith. (But perhaps Faber would argue that he has shown this in the tragic Oasans.)

I wish there had been more context: reference to people of faith and intellectual integrity who, faced with unspeakable evil, have held fast to their faith not from fear, but out of conviction that God is present in the pain; reference to the work of faith-groups who would, I trust and expect, have been bringing comfort and order to the troubled world.

‘Belief is a place that people didn’t leave until they absolutely must,’ Peter reflects. But it’s a fact that some Christian s do lose their faith. In the novel the time comes when there are simply too many unanswered questions, too much pain. Apparent answers to prayer are re-interpreted as coincidence; the inner voice as merely self talking to self.

At one point atheism seemed attractive to me, and I hope I was prepared to walk that way if truth led in that direction. It would be easier as an atheist, I reasoned – no longer would there be the endless questions about why a good loving God allows evil, or why God seems to play hide and seek, simply a wonder at the miracles of nature, a stoical acceptance of darkness and tragedy, and a resolve to nurture the flickering candle of my life and the lives of others.

But it seemed to me I could not with integrity reject the uniqueness of Jesus and the circumstantial evidence of God’s immense reality and presence in the world. I may be wrong, but I choose with joy and conviction to remain part of the company of people who, across the centuries, have followed the One who is both love and mystery.

The four sections of Faber’s novel are headed with words from the Lord’s Prayer: ‘Thy will be done,’ ‘On earth’, ‘As it is’, ‘In heaven.’  Initially we imagine that God’s will is referred to. But by the end, we re-read the headings as a godless statement of human consequences – our futures, Faber implies, are shaped by the choices we make.’

There is some hope at the end of the novel. I think Faber leaves room for God in whatever happens after the novel ends. In some respects Peter is never more Christian than in its closing pages.

‘There can be moments when grief is stronger than faith,’ Peter remarks earlier in the book. The implosion of our circumstances sometimes overshadow God, but as grief heals, and (as Peter puts it) ‘the membrane between ourselves and Heaven becomes permeable’ we may hear once again the inner whisper, and know its source.

And atheism too is hard to leave until we must, until our experiences cry out so stridently as to leave us no option but to embrace, with both reluctance and joy a new way of seeing.

(Christian Viewpoint column from the issue dated 25th December 2014)