Canon Angela Tilby.
Thought Sniper 17 April 2025
Canon Emeritus of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford
Subject: Darkness, light and truth
Actual message: Don't go on the radio if you don't have, or can't articulate, a point
Thought Sniper script
Once again with Angela Tilby, it’s difficult to know where
to begin. This one is pretty awful but
you should listen to it; it’s a real car crash.
Here’s a quote from around 45 seconds in…
It’s tempting, in these days of so much conflict and dysfunction, to lose hope—especially when we recognise the concealments that go into our politics, and the rumours and speculation spread by social media.
Is it tempting? You
know, generally? For all of us?
Likely not, don’t you think?
You Angela may be tempted into hopelessness. Why pronounce that your listeners will be
similarly lacking in resilience?
Tell me more about these days of much conflict and
dysfunction? So much, compared to
when? What dysfunction, compared to where?
What are these concealments that go into our politics? If they are concealed, how do we know they
are there?
This is a pile-up of logical transgressions. They may be mild but they each distort the truth,
and they were so easy to avoid. First,
though, there is a real howler here that needs some attention.
It’s not social media that is spreading rumour and speculation;
it’s Angela chuffing Tilby!
Angela’s invocation of conflict, dysfunction and
concealments are vague and speculative.
In other words, they constitute groundless rumour. That Angela is spreading.
She also said
At a time when, as a nation, we are unsure who our friends and allies really are, it’s easy to conclude that our world is dark—and getting darker.
When faith leaders are spreading vague and unsupported rumour
on national radio while blaming others for doing the same it can indeed be
difficult to be sure who our friends really are.
What Angela said about conflict and social media is so vague
it’s impossible to determine what she may have meant. I suggest that either she doesn’t know, or
something prevented her from stating it clearly.
Frankly, I suspect the former but a charitable possible case
of the latter is that writing what she meant would have made her uneasy.
Perhaps what she really wanted to say was that Trump, Putin
and Xi Jinping are liars and Trump is spreading his lies by social media, and
this is another reason some might feel hopeless.
It’s reasonable to imagine that publishing a statement like
that would invite an unpleasant backlash from Maga Christians in the US. Not something, perhaps, a retired British
priest would want to precipitate.
That’s still no excuse for bad writing. This is BBC Radio 4. The Today programme. Six million listeners. She’s speaking in the
middle of a significant news broadcast made possible by a huge team of
extremely talented presenters, researchers, writers and producers. Failing to make her broadcast clear and
accurate shows indifference and disrespect to the audience, to the BBC and to
the team of professionals whose show she hijacked for three minutes.
What Angela could easily have written is
With all the reports of conflict and dysfunction that fill our newspapers, some could be tempted to lose hope;
This contains no groundless assumptions, hanging
comparatives, inaccuracies or obscured meaning. The second sentence is more
problematic as we really have no idea what she meant, but we can take a guess….
Especially when at the same time, the leadership of one of our strongest allies appears to have abandoned objective truth and has commandeered social media to spread propaganda.
And if the second sentence felt a little too risky, she should
have cut it out.
What next caught my attention was when Tilby made a comment
on the biblical account of creation.
The separation of light from darkness in the Bible is the basis not only of its cosmology but its morality.
God separates light from darkness. Only the light is called good.
Really Angela?
Doesn’t this seem like a bit of convenient cherry picking? Let’s back up a little. Here’s the whole of
that relevant excerpt from Genesis chapter one:
Genesis chapter 1 verses 1-5
1. In the beginning God created the heaven
and the earth.
2. And the earth was without form, and
void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3. And God said, Let there be light: and
there was light.
4. And God saw the light, that it was good: and
God divided the light from the darkness.
5. And God called the light Day, and the
darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
It seems pretty plain from the above that god called only
the light good because god was commenting on a specific change that was sought,
not because there was anything intrinsically wrong with darkness.
The first attempt at creating Earth was clearly a rough-cut
to which god would be making revisions and additions, allegedly it was initially empty,
formless and dark.
For the first addition, god summoned up some light. The light was observed and god was noted that
the light was good.
This god, in this passage, creates heaven, Earth, darkness, waters and light, Only the light is called good. By Tilby's logic heaven, Earth, darkness and waters are all somehow morally distinct from light.
Imagine building a shed in a field. It’s a lovely field, but you want a shed in
it. Upon finishing the shed you punch
the air and celebrate cool shed vibes.
Should we conclude that there is something wrong with the fields that
don’t have sheds? Erm, no.
Another unforgivably incoherent ramble from Angela Tilby.
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