I had some significant success (and more importantly gained a lot of valuable skills) competing in national and international competitions and conferences. I developed a simple strategy for competitions which, if executed with subtlety and nous, guaranteed a haul of prizes. Some would call this cynical, but if Model UN is all about politics it pays to approach it politically. And this strategy is highly political.

My Model UN days are long behind me, so I am sharing this strategy in the hope that it is of use to the future generations of amateur diplomats.

1. Grab their attention.

For the later points to have their full effect, you have to be firmly on the organisers’ radar before the first debate even begins. How you execute this strategy will depend entirely on the nature of the conference you are attending: the golden rule is to always play to the audience; and the audience is always the organisers. This means that you must hit the tone the organisers want you to hit, taking care not to undermine the conference they have worked hard to put on.

• Many conferences begin with an opening speech from each delegation, which can sometimes take upwards of 90 minutes. This is the perfect opportunity to make your mark within the structure of the competition.
• If the competition is fairly casual, anything from comedy to bribery will go down well. If possible, use both. I once represented Hungary, and used an awful pun to legitimise bribing the chairpeople with sweets to ensure they weren’t hungry.
• For the more sophisticated conference, use a subtle motif or hook which is noticeable but will not distract from proceedings. If the conference allows notes to be passed, try printing jokes or witty mottos on your headed paper. Alternatively, co-ordinate a visual motif with the rest of your delegation like wearing matching lapel badges.

2. Pick on the odious know-it-all; love-bomb the rest.

Every committee will have at least one odious know-it-all delegate – the “better” committees are likely to have several. This delegate will know the rules inside-out, will be determined to win, and will be generally nasty and hostile towards anyone they think is inferior. (Which is likely to be everyone). By the way, it is vital that this character is not you!

The odious types stick out like a sore thumb, so you will not need to wait long to find them. They will be keen to speak as often as possible, and will contradict the chairpeople on unimportant matters of process. Everyone else will find them hateful, especially the chairpeople. Your task is to take this guy out while remaining persistently friendly and supportive towards everyone else (especially the chairs). There are two basic strategies for this; pick the method which you will enjoy more.

• If you pick your moment well, you can neutralise him or her in one move. I suggest acting while the odious type has the floor because they won’t notice your attack coming. Use a point of information or question to undermine some logical fallacy in their argument and watch their case fall apart. If your country should theoretically agree with the odious type’s, the trick is to concoct a plausible reason to disagree with their argument and so be forced to abstain from the vote. This subtly fulfils several criteria: a) Makes you look smarter than the odious guy; b) makes you seem nicer than him or her; c) looks like it is following the spirit of the competition rules, so pleases the chairs.
• Alternatively, if your target is particularly odious you might wish to concoct a good guy/bad guy rivalry. For your first move, I suggest submitting an amendment which will add or remove significant power from the draft resolution. Most people do not care about amendments, won’t try to speak, and probably won’t be paying much attention. If done well, then, you can more or less guarantee a one-on-one debate with your chosen adversary. Because nobody is paying attention, the vote is likely to be a personality contest. If you are nice and they are nasty, you will win. They will try to speak more to reassert their authority: your best move is to keep quiet and barely acknowledge your victory. They look bad, the chairs are impressed that you made use of more technical procedures while not derailing the whole debate, and you come away with a best in committee award.

3. Don’t speak much, and when you do focus on summary and analysis.

By this stage, it is probably approaching lunchtime (for a single-day conference) or the mid-afternoon of the first day (for longer conferences). You have the confidence of the chairs and the other committee members will see you as authoritative. The awards are yours to lose. Everything you do now should be about reinforcing that authority. This means saying little, and making what you do say count.

• Few delegates will be used to concentrating for long periods of time so they will resent anyone who seems to be making things drag on. (This is a catastrophe for the odious guy, as you might imagine, but also for the people who have not learned the rules properly.) Don’t speak much and don’t speak for long.
• When you do speak, make it useful. The trick here is to focus on summary and analysis. The chairpeople will want to know that you have been paying full attention and the delegates will want to know what has been going on. By speaking last and offering some thoughts on the process of the debate, you will look like you are in control of the arguments and bolster the authority capital you have already gained by taking out the odious types.
• This kind of speech is particularly important in General Assembly debates, which are always unspeakably boring. In the GA, you simply need to confirm your position in your chair’s mind and provide enough evidence for the others (and PGA) to give you the award. As a rule, avoid taking the floor for resolutions not covered by your committee, but do use insightful, pithy points of information and questions.

4. Collect your award.

Congratulations! You have won a best in committee award. If not, you have helped your team to win a best delegation award. Have a medal, or a box of chocolates, or a certificate. Then rinse and repeat.

Kiss Me is a fantastic song, but it’s the band name which interests me rather more. Sixpence None the Richer must be the first band ever to have taken titular inspiration from CS Lewis’ classic book Mere Christianity. It gave rise to a fantastic sentiment for them to carry for their professional career.

In one of his chapters on faith CS Lewis calls out as folly the idea that one could gain adequate marks in some cosmic exam room to earn God’s favour. That is the essence of pride before God, thinking one is good enough or has lived well enough to command credit from him. ‘One of the very things Christianity was designed to do was to blow this idea to bits.’

When it comes to our offerings before God, we can only ever give him what was already his:

Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life to his service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already. So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like. It is like a small child going to its father and saying, ‘Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.’ Of course, the father does, and his is pleased with the child’s present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction.

God is sixpence none the richer, then, in the neat paraphrase of Lewis’ punchline. We don’t give God value added. We don’t complete him. Or in some way give him something which he was lacking. Of his own have we given him.

Some see this as hopelessness – the ‘tyrant God sets unobtainable targets and thrives on our failure to meet them’ routine. It is nothing of the sort. Instead, it is a thoroughly liberating, life-bringing theology of everything.

Take Lewis’ father and child illustration in the other direction for a moment. Imagine the father demanding a present to the value of a sixpence from his dependant child without giving the means to meet his expectations. Or perhaps giving out the coin only to ask for it back with interest. If God was like those fathers we would all be doomed. But because coin is already a present when the father gives it, he does not expect to gain. The gift is really all for the child.

In our strive for independence and self-sufficiency, we might wish to make God sixpence to the good on the transaction. But his gift of grace removes any fear of falling short in the divine exam hall, and the slavery to guilt and worry which come with it. Instead, it invites a life of humility lived in loving gratitude to the father who has given us all we have ever known.

That is quite a name for a band – and quite a motto for life.

Have you ever thought about how you could use internet innovations in discipleship, church and outreach? If that conjures up a horrible mental image of some church ‘Foresight and Planning Committee Towards the Implementation of a Digital Media Strategy’ formulating a series of action points, I want to bring things back to basics for you. Planning church digital media strategy is increasingly important work – please don’t misunderstand me – but I have a feeling that we #digidisciples might be guilty of over-thinking our engagement in the digital sphere because we don’t understand it in context.

Now: Social Networking

Social networking, of course, is one of the great buzzwords of the last decade. Facebook now has 750 million users worldwide: within a year its members will outnumber the citizens of China. Google+ has just launched to great acclaim, introducing brand new ways of organising social groups online. This seems new and dangerous to the outsider, mainly because the landscape changes so quickly. For those who don’t know their Retweet from their LinkedIn, the digital sphere is not just a new language but a whole new alphabet.

In reality, it is all much simpler than it looks. The Web 2.0 (or 3.0, or whatever.0 we are up to now) is all about social interaction. With that, the Internet shares the same fundamental elements as every medium since civilisation began.

How can Christians use internet innovations in discipleship, church and outreach? The answer is not found in some Holy Grail of Internet-Christianity (or, I tentatively suggest, #digidiscipleship). Instead, it is found in the long history of Christians using innovations in communications techniques in their discipleship, church and outreach.

Then: Biblical Stories to Guttenberg

In Old Testament times, community identity was found in narratives which were passed from generation to generation. The people of Israel shared stories of God’s work through their ancestors: promising a nation to Abraham; wrestling with Jacob; using Joseph to save Egypt from famine. As well as sharing stories, they shared rituals which pointed to God’s work amongst them: in the Passover; in the sacrifices; in their Day of Jubilee.

The gospels suggest that Jesus communicated largely in parables and short sayings. Those concise messages were easy to remember and quick to challenge those who heard them. His disciples, after Pentecost, preached sermons and explained the scriptures to anyone who would listen. Paul went to the synagogues and forums to debate and reason with Jewish rabbis and Greek philosophers.

The church has communicated through song, from the early hymns hinted at in the New Testament to the modern worship songs we sing today. It has communicated through the written word in the Bible and in works of theology. Guttenberg was revolutionary for his day – perhaps the scribes got their heads together to plan how to use his printing press in discipleship, church and outreach? The outcome was an explosion in theological tracts, pamphlets, books and wholehearted tomes which turned the world upside down.

#Digidisciple(s) continue the stories

#digidiscipleship is a new concept, and it is fantastic that we can meet together at the Big Bible Project to think through the nature of our Christian witness online. But in a profound way, there is nothing new about #digidiscipleship whatsoever. The gospel is the same as it has always been, we are to live out our faith and share it with others just as we always have; only now we have the wonderful tool of the Internet with which to do so.

Paul wrote to the church in Thessaloniki to defend the authenticity of his witness, and that of Silas and Timothy who ministered there with him. His evidence for genuine, authentic, Jesus-centred love includes this striking verse: ‘Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.’ (1 Thessalonians 2:8)

As we think through how to live in the digital sphere, let’s not get bogged down or distracted by fads and trends. Instead, let’s use this wonderful gift of the Internet to communicate just as Paul did. Let’s communicate because we love. Let’s communicate the gospel, in love. And let’s share our lives with others, in love.

The methods of communication have changed over the centuries, and in this last decade a genuinely incomparable wealth of opportunities has opened up to us as a church. It is absolutely right that we should think through how to engage in the digital sphere as Christian believers. But let’s not forget that although the media changes the message of the gospel does not, and the church is called to share the gospel and our lives in the same way and for the same reason as it always has: because we love.

1. Electoral systems are not sexy

I am a bit of a political geek, but even I have not been stirred to excitement by a several-month long national debate on the election process. The mechanics of electoral systems are often difficult to explain and the philosophies behind them are equally difficult to pin down. The names given to electoral systems sound technical (because they are) and as if they have come straight out of an A-Level statistical mathematics text-book (because they have). In short, this is pretty boring stuff. Important, yes, but boring. The method of electing our MPs has a significant bearing on how the Commons functions, but because electoral systems are snore-talk, this referendum campaign has rumbled on dangerously in the background of the political consciousness.

2. The quality of political debate in this country is appalling

It is debatable whether AV would have had a significant bearing on the results of any recent general election. Irregardless, a change in the voting system would have marked a significant change in the nature and role of Parliament. Under AV, voters would be able to rank the candidates in order of preference, and in a tight race where their preferred candidate came bottom their other preferences would be reallocated. In many cases, the eventual winner would have been pushed across the 50% threshold by a kind of coalition vote in their kind-of-favour. A candidate’s success or failure would stem from a weak “I suppose so” on the ballot papers of people who were not keen enough to vote for them as their first preference. The result would be a House of Commons largely filled by people who had constituency-level coalition help in order to put them there. MPs would be well aware of the source of their kind-of-support, and would take care to vote in such a way as to draw from the same pools in future elections. This is a constituency-based coalition system where a single member has to act like a government of mixed party representatives.

The results would be striking. Party whips would be weakened as MPs find their loyalty in a rainbow coalition, not a single group of supporters. Majority governments would consist of a rainbow electorate, where most members would actually carry a proportion of minority support with them to the Cabinet table. The dynamics of debate in the House of Commons would change as government MPs struggled to go hammer-and-tongs against the minority opposition party whose supporters gave the 10% needed to get themselves into power. Under majority governments, a more conciliatory course of debate would develop. It is likely that under AV minority governments would be more likely, again resulting in a more conciliatory course of debate.

Whichever side of the AV debate you come down on, it is clear that the electoral system used has a significant bearing on the nature of Parliament. But both the Yes and No campaigns failed to argue their cases in a convincing and thorough way. Both sides resorted to cheap tricks, misdirection, outright deception and downright ignorant reasoning. They ignored the huge principles and philosophies underpinning their respective stances and instead made insultingly false claims about their preferred system and the alternative. The No campaign’s obsession with the supposed cost of AV is a staggeringly bad defence of democracy, while the Yes campaign’s consistent refrain that AV is “fairer” is based entirely on subjective opinion rather than objective fact. The quality of the debate was dirt poor, and ironically for a debate revolving around the democratic process it devalued the very voters it was meant to defend.

3. The Left/Liberal echo chamber punches above its weight

Out of 440 voting areas, only 8 voted in favour of AV. They will be the subject of intense interest, and rightly so: it is a sign of just how strong a result this was that a majority of voters in so few areas supported AV. But the Yes-voting areas themselves send an important message about the political scene of the UK. They were:

• Cambridge
• Camden
• Edinburgh Central
• Glasgow Kelvin
• Haringey
• Islington
• Lambeth
• Southwark

Five of the eight areas are in London’s typically trendy, Prius-driving, Guardian-reading Tony-Blair-was-nothing-without-us locations. If such categories of people exist, these are stereotypically recognisable as the dwelling-places of the social influencers; the media elite. It is striking that they alone supported AV. The “progressive” voices of York Road and Primrose Hill are a socially dominant force, but they punch well above their electoral weight. These results are more embarrassing than if no areas had supported AV at all, because they demonstrate how the champagne socialists are titanically dwarfed by the mainstream masses. AV was supported by a narrow group of people from the liberal left, the Yes campaign drawing heavily on celebrity endorsements to add credence to the cause. There was no political breadth to the Yes campaign whatsoever. The Yes-ers saw themselves as part of the “progressive majority” but the results proved that such a majority only exists in the restaurants of Upper Street. If you live near and work with people like yourself, you begin to believe that everyone agrees with you all of the time – but that is very rarely the case. The “progressives” have a social influence well beyond their means.

Nowhere is this more clearly seen than on the social networks and new media sharing websites. Of my (admittedly broadly independently schooled and university-educated) Facebook friends, several adorned their profiles with Yes logos but not one showed their support for the No side. Likewise on Twitter, it appeared that the Yes-sayers had much more support than the Nay-sayers. This is unsurprising because it is extremely likely that I am part of the demographic most likely to vote Yes. But that only goes to emphasise my point: the Yes folk were talking to themselves and calling it debate. They created noise and got themselves noticed among people who were statistically inclined towards their cause or towards apathy. This got noticed, of course, but it was a mere hologram of support. The Yes lobby sought to recruit support from their own number: I would even go as far as to say that they directed their campaign towards those they thought most worthy of support. The No lobby, on the other hand, aggressively targeted those less likely to vote and those who were undecided. Their campaign was appalling, in many ways, but they won because they campaigned well against a latent assumption that people in the UK are broadly “progressive”. They are not, as this referendum shows.

4. “Electoral Reform” can be a misleading phrase

To reform something is to change it for the better. To refer to a move to AV as “electoral reform”, therefore, is a subjective comment. The phrase sounds intrinsically positive, indicating that the current system is broken and the proposed system is an improvement. But I have come to disagree with that sentiment.

Way back in 2006, in an AS-Level class in Government and Politics, in room 304, I gave a defiant presentation about the benefits of Proportional Representation. By the end of the class, I had totally changed my opinion on electoral “reform”. Ever the debater, I defended my position with tight arguments and verbal dexterity. In my own mind, though, I argued myself out of my strongly held position. “Proportional Representation is fairer”, I asserted, and gave statistics about how a minority of the popular vote can deliver a majority government in the Commons. But what is fairness at an election? Is it the direct correspondence between the proportion of votes cast and the proportion of bums on the green benches, or is it the knowledge that the influences in government directly relate to the popular vote? Eternal coalitions provide a forum for minority parties to firmly establish themselves at the helm of government policy, even if they are only supported by a tiny minority of the electorate. They are unshakable parasites, clinging unwanted to the underside of a government and misdirection the popular will. The concept of “fairness” is in the eye of the elector, not the election statistics.

With this shift in place, I began to question the so-called “progressive”, “reforming” or “fairer” voting systems. It is a statistical fact that no representative democracy is “fair” in a strict sense, and most people would agree that you must cede ground somewhere in the interests of practicality. In other words, when selecting a voting system one must pick where to express “fairness” and where to sacrifice it. Under PR, the “fairness” of a party system is balanced by the “unfairness” of minority influence in government and a list system which puts enormous power in the hands of party officials and away from voters. Under AV the “fairness” of most MPs gaining majority support in their constituency is balanced by the “unfairness” of some votes being counted more than once. Also, any change in the voting system would change the dynamic of discourse in Parliament. Some would call it “reform”, whereby adversarial politics is replaced by constructive discussion. I would call it a retrograde step, whereby more power is put in the hands of politicians and less power remains with the electorate to remove unpopular or unwanted individuals or groups from office. “Reform” is always, by definition, good, and I wholeheartedly support “electoral reform”. It just so happens that I do not believe AV is “reform”, and that PR is worse. So in any future debate I hope people will use these terms more carefully, and I hope they will promote any electoral system which empowers the electorate.

The evening was that rare thing – a Christian event which did exactly what it said on the tin. It was a chilled night where people could drop in and out, listen to some quality acoustic music, and hear a little about what the songs people were singing meant to their Christian faith. Dave sang The Man Who Can’t Be Moved by The Script, and introduced it in a way I had never considered before: God might well sing this song about us.

We rarely mention it, but the Bible often depicts God as a jilted lover – indeed, as the ultimate lover. But instead of being bitter against his wayward people, he still loves them and longs for them to come home. “I’m not moving”.

The prophet Hosea had a pretty bizarre word from God: “When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.”" (Hosea 1:2). He had children by his wife of ill repute, and God gave them names which spoke of their status, and of the status of his people Israel: Lo-Ruhamah, which means not loved, and Lo-Ammi, which means not my people.

But Hosea’s life was to become a picture of God’s faithfulness and Israel’s unfaithfulness. While we would act without mercy towards those of questionable sexual ethics, God is eternally loving and longs to redeem those who turn away from him. So although his people made themselves prostitutes by selling themselves out to other gods, the Lord never gave up on them. Instead, he acted in love to make a striking promise of redemptive love:

I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.

…

And I will have mercy on No Mercy,
and I will say to Not My People,’You are my people’;
and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”
(Hosea 2:19; 23)

In their song, The Script write of a lover who waits for his Ex to return. Come rain or snow, for a day, a month, a year, he stands waiting for her to come back. This is counter-intuitive, even counter-cultural, love. It is patient, kind, generous, selfless love which keeps no record of wrongs. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. It never fails. It is God’s love. The love of the broken-hearted man waiting for his bride to come back; waiting to forgive.

I wanted to read the book because it forms part of a cultural heritage that I am trying to rediscover. Lewis Carroll was a creative genius and his fantasy world of Wonderland is a truly fantastic invention. His characters are brilliantly drawn, and the logical subterfuge and flights of verbal fancy are as inspiring as they are entertaining. Ultimately, I think there is a real beauty in the fact that there is no hidden message or moral to the story. It is simply a story – a supremely intelligent one, but a story nonetheless.

So if this is just a book of nonsense, it is a complete waste of time for children (let alone someone who has just turned 21!)? Carroll answers the critics in a fantastic postscript, “An Easter Greeting To Every Child who Loves Alice”. He writes:

Dear Child,

Please to fancy, if you can, that you are reading a real letter, from a real friend whom you have seen, and whose voice you can seem to yourself to hear wishing you, as I do now with all my heart, a happy Easter.

Do you know that delicious dreamy feeling when one first wakes on a summer morning, with the twitter of birds in the air, and the fresh breeze coming in at the open window – when, lying lazily with eyes half-shut, one sees as in a dream green boughs waving, or water rippling in a golden light? It is a pleasure very near to sadness, bringing tears to one’s eyes like a beautiful picture or poem. And is not that a Mother’s gentle hand that undraws your curtains, and a Mother’s sweet voice that summons you to rise? To rise and forget, in the bright sunlight, the ugly dreams that frightened you so when all was dark – to rise and enjoy another happy day, first kneeling to thank that unseen Friend, who sends you the beautiful sun?

Are these strange words from a writer of such tales as ‘Alice’? And is this a strange letter to find in a book of nonsense? It may be so. Some perhaps may blame me for thus mixing together things grave and gay; others may smile and think it odd that any one should speak of solemn things at all, except in church and on Sunday: but I think – nay, I am sure – that some children will read this gently and lovingly, and in the spirit of which I have written it.

For I do not believe God means us thus to divide life into two halves – to wear a grave face on Sunday, and to think it out-of-place to even so much as mention Him on a week-day. Do you think He cares to see only kneeling figures, and to hear only tones of prayer – and that He does not also love to see the lambs leaping in the sunlight, and to hear the merry voices of the children, as they roll among the hay? Surely their innocent laughter is as sweet in His ears as the grandest anthem that ever rolled up from the ‘dim religious light’ of some solemn cathedral?

And if I have written anything to add to those stories of innocent and healthy amusement that are laid up in books for the children I love so well, it is surely something I may hope to look back upon without shame and sorrow (as how much of life must then be recalled!) when my turn comes to walk through the valley of shadows.

This Easter sun will rise on you, dear child, feeling your ‘life in every limb’, and eager to rush out into the fresh morning air – and many an Easter-day will come and go, before it finds you feeble and gray-headed, creeping wearily out to bask once more in the sunlight – but it is good, even now, to think sometimes of that great morning when the ‘Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings’.

Surely your gladness need not be less for the thought that you will one day see a brighter dawn than this – when lovelier sights will meet your eyes than any waving trees or rippling waters – when angel-hands shall undraw your curtains, and sweeter tones than ever loving Mother breathed shall wake you to a new and glorious day – and when all the sadness, and the sin, that darkened life on this little earth, shall be forgotten like the dreams of a night that is past!

Your affectionate friend,

Lewis Carroll

There is so much I could say about this little postscript, but the bit that especially caught my attention was the paragraph I have put in bold, above. It is a fantastic reminder that we can glorify God and please him in everything we do. There is no super-spiritual behaviour that God is particularly disposed towards (Carroll thought of the stuffy solemness of a sunday service; I think of attentiveness to theological reading). Rather, we may giggle and play and sing and run and study and dance and read to the glory of God. Worshipping God is a full-time affair. It is, however, not a case of making every activity feel like Sunday morning; instead, we worship God in all things by making every activity one in which God is glorified.

Carroll looks forward to the”brighter dawn”; the new creation when Christ returns. If the day is coming when all the wrongs of the world will be righted and “when all the sadness, and the sin, that darkened life on this little earth, shall be forgotten”, surely our joyfulness must be stirred, not suppressed?

The plot revolves around the exclusive Hunter Group, a private security firm which assists MI5 on sensitive missions. The book covers the events of about 18 hours during the Pope’s visit to the UK; from the moment the Hunter Group discover a threat against the Pope to the climactic events after his Mass in Hyde Park. Although the narrative cuts between several different character timelines as they begin to converge, the main action revolves around Graham Chapman, the main frontline agent and part-time fried chicken delivery man.

Graham is an endearing character, and he becomes more complex as the story develops. At first he seemed to be quite roughly cast: he is the hapless, lazy, overweight and unfit employee of a fast food establishment. But through the course of the book, Graham’s strengths are brought out as well as his weaknesses. He is extremely loyal, and has great instinct in the field. His judgement is poor, however, and he is both an asset and a liability to the Group. A large part of the suspense of the book rests on whether Graham will deliver in a given situation or whether he will let everyone down. This tension is brilliantly brought out as the Group finds itself divided; some champion Graham’s assets but most think he is a liability. His relationships with colleagues are strained and it is clear that he does not enjoy the life of a spy. Through the book we find out more of his relationship with Jeremy Hunter, the head of the Hunter Group, in what is one of the more interesting sub-plots. I do not want to give anything away, but I expect the interplay between Jeremy and Graham to be critical in the sequel Lucas is currently working on.

The Chicken Shak Spy hurtles through plot developments and offers twists and surprises throughout. It is a little like watching an episode of House: everything seems to be resolved several times, but there is a surprise around every corner. The suspense is not isolated in pockets, though. One of the great aspects of the book as a whole is that the suspense is constantly, quietly, building in the background. The final showdown therefore seems inevitable, even though it comes as a shock. Because it is such an entertaining read, the book is difficult to put down.

The book probably won’t make it onto the Booker Prize longlist, however. The book makes for fun reading, but occasionally the more light-hearted dialogue seems strangely stilted. The constant bickering between Graham and Helena, his senior colleague, is at times comical. For the most part, though, it is like eavesdropping on the back row of a year-8 classroom during a particularly uninspiring lesson on Norman history. I can’t imagine where Lucas got his inspiration. These are stressful circumstances, and I like that the characters speak like “real” people, but I fear that some of the more inane chat stretches credulity a little. This is a shame, because there is enough believable dialogue to suggest that the rest could have been given a bit more attention in editing.

Aside from stylistic qualms, there were a few patches in the plot which seemed outlandish, even for a fun action thriller. There is one moment where a group of four or five armed security guards are felled by a single assailant before they could return fire. Elsewhere, the police are almost invisible through the story despite explosions and gun battles in London and the Home Counties. Either the authorities are ignorant of the fallout of private espionage or they are remarkably permissive. Most curious, though, is the surprisingly passive role the Pope takes in the whole story. Without giving away too much of the plot, he has what must be the most exciting day of his life in several decades but he spends most of it asleep or ignorant of the threat he is under. In fact, by the way he is carried off and driven around South East England, he may as well have been a valuable artefact. I would have liked to have heard more from him. At the very least, I would understand his silence more if he was gagged and bound; instead, he seems to suffer from an acute form of narcolepsy.

These are minor frustrations, however, even if they are persistent ones. Overall, the book is good fun and a thrilling read. I have no hesitation in recommending it. This would be a great book for the beach (if you don’t mind getting your Kindle sandy – it’s available only as an e-book), as a bit of creative escapism. It seems to have an interesting fusion of influences: two parts Spooks, three parts the Da Vinci Code, and one part Inbetweeners. At times it is a mystery (who are the goodies and the baddies?) and at other times it is an almost philosophical appraisal of morality (do the ends justify the means?). Aside from the ecclesiastical storyline, there is a religious flavour to parts of the book. Questions of right and wrong pervade the story, sitting alongside more powerful motifs of substitution and forgiveness. The Chicken Shak Spy is an enjoyable, stimulating read, and I await the sequel!

If you had to categorise Beyond the Door for a bookshelf, it would sit very comfortably beside the works of Enid Blyton as a children’s’ adventure story set in the country, where a group of kids discover something amiss and strive to put it right. But although a comparison with Blyton is natural, Beyond the Door is not simply a Famous Five rip-off set in a familiar location. Instead, the setting itself is instrumental to the whole story and the author’s obvious fondness for the Suffolk coast helps to sustain an upbeat tone throughout the book.

The East Anglian coastline is not an area of the country which I know well, but Lucas brings it to life. Right from the opening scene at a rural railway station, the idyllic village of Tendringham is brought to life with rich description and inventive smilies. At one point, for example, the pink warehouses interrupt the beautiful countryside “like a row of ugly, dirty thumbs”. The apparent quietness of the village is skillfully contrasted with the (literally) underground smuggling ring operating on a huge scale within it. Part of the intrigue and the adventure exists precisely because even the most innocuous of places could have hidden secrets. When the characters discover a hidden tunnel network, they have an almost entrepreneurial desire to find out what secrets they contain. They are unperturbed by an explosion, imprisonment, and the threat of murder; their bravery is driven as much by a love for the village as their sense of adventure, and the story is richer because of it.

As a by-product of the East Anglian location, Beyond the Door features generous passages about sailing. Having never sailed, these sections were at times a touch too descriptive for me, using terminology I am not familiar with. But sailing is important to the area, and there was much I was able to connect with. The children’s efforts to raise money for the RNLI was touching, and help to portray the children as community-builders rather than simply adventure-seekers.

The characters themselves are all likeable in their own ways. The story primarily involves two pairs of siblings; Stephen and Ian, and Paul and Jennie. Paul and Jennie know Tendringham well while Stephen and Ian do not, so the brothers often ask Jennie and Paul for information at exactly the moment the reader wants to! Although the characters are set up well, I was slightly disappointed that they did not seem to develop much through the course of the story. Ian is the most sensible (boring) of the friends, and is the most reluctant to investigate the smuggling gang. He is the only character to show real development, though – when the others have been locked in a cell in the tunnel network, he decides to go, alone, into the tunnels to find them.

I really enjoyed the appearances of the adult characters, although they were often brief. On several occasions, we had to take Paul or Jennie’s word that a character was apparently respectable because we did not have the chance to see them much for ourselves. I would have liked to have seen more of James, the village shopkeeper, before finding out his sinister involvement in the smuggling. At times, reading Beyond the Door was a little like watching CSI: Miami – an important piece of information or a crucial character would be introduced just as they became necessary to the story. It was great to read such a fast-paced story, therefore, but it was often difficult to know what was a vital clue to the storyline and what was purely incidental.

These are minor niggles, though, which I suspect are the result of having to describe a whole village and keep the narrative moving at the same time. Having established the characters, I think a follow-up story could be less descriptive and even quicker-paced. The main characters work well together, and I would like to see more from them. The children’s strong values really suit the portrayal of Tendringham, and there is surely scope for more stories in the village. For a sequel, perhaps someone could steal the lifeboat? Or maybe the children could discover a plot to exacerbate coastal erosion for financial gain? As for Beyond the Door, I would have no hesitation in recommending it as an exciting adventure story for children; and I enjoyed it on merit, despite not quite fitting the intended age bracket!

Beyond the Door is available as an e-book on Amazon’s Kindle and a wide variety of other formats.

Books are beautiful.  They are solid.  Secure.  The feel of a book in your hands is wonderful: turning each page is a multi-sensory experience.  Reading books is a poor mark of knowledge (anyone can read, but how many truly understand?) but is a perfect measure of curiosity.  I pride myself in having a sparky interest and desire to learn, so I read Christian books.

My theological convictions and intellectual snobbery entice me towards serious books on serious matters (Think Leon Morris, Don Carson and Augustine), and I too readily sideline less weighty books as less serious reads.  But here is the tension: here is my dilemma.  I have a cheeky passion for books which are written for normal people.

Culturally contraband, some of the Christian books which have most affected me have been those which are a touch rough around the edges (so to speak).  I am fairly anarchistic in outlook, and because I quietly rebel against any authority I find over me I have long believed that I appreciate these books for normal people simply because they are not 100% culturally acceptable.  But recently, I have come to see that I appreciate them because they are, simply put, better books.

Every university holiday, I find myself at some point or other thumbing through my neat row of books by Philip Yancey.  I like Yancey not because I agree with every word he writes, or even because I think his writing style is watertight, but because he writes about every day Christian life from the point of view of an every day Christian.  So many Christian books I read seem to be written by people who go about their daily lives, then sit down, don the attitude of “this is the truth, so I shall write about it dispassionately and analytically and tell you to go away and live like that”, and churn out books which are divorced from any Christian’s experience of life.  Let me be clear: I have the greatest of respect for Christian writers, and I appreciate their work.  But sometimes a fifteen-chapter book with three sections per chapter and several alliterative sub-headings per section with a study guide at the end feels like a world away from the subject it is meant to be addressing.  The book is one long, logical argument which I can intellectually assent to – but my life is chaotic, my feelings nuanced, and my assessment of the material interrupted.

It may be the particular curse of the undergraduate theology student, but I suspect many Christians today struggle to reconcile their theoretical knowledge of God with their strong (right!) belief that they should not know of God, but know him.  The gulf between the two is indescribably vast, yet most of the solutions I have sought tend to drive them yet further apart.  I want to meet God in prayer more Biblically, so I’ll read a dense book about prayer, armed with a dictionary for the entangling language and a pillow for the resulting stupor.  God knows my heart, and I trust he appreciates my intentions, but for all I may have learned, I have definitely not been a more joyful pray-er.  Reading books which say “here is how I pray; here is how the Bible says we should pray; go and pray like that” certainly have their place, but they do approximately zero for my daily attitude towards prayer.

My guess is that Christians are reading a lot of good books, and recommending a lot of good books to one another, and lending appropriately-titled books when sought for advice, but are not actually knowing God better or loving him more.  Maybe it is just me.

I have a lot of time for Yancey’s book Soul Survivor.  Subtitled How my Faith Survived the Church, many would consider it a little shy of orthodoxy.  In it, Yancey profiles several figures who have shaped his Christian convictions.  Some choices, like Gandhi, are surprising inclusions in an evangelical’s book about his Christian faith – I’m not going to get distracted into an argument about that.  My purpose here is to allow Yancey to explain what I mean about Christian books.  This passage comes at the end of his chapter on Frederick Beuchner (p258-259).

Christian literature often gives off the scent of rationalisation.  The author starts with an unshakeable conclusion and then sets out to travel whatever logical course might support that conclusion.  Much of what I read on depression, on doubt, on suicide, on suffering, on homosexuality, seems written by people who begin with a Christian conclusion and who have never been through the anguished steps familiar to a person struggling with depression, doubt, suicide, suffering or homosexuality.  No resolution could be so matter-of-fact to a person who has actually survived such a journey.

When I began writing openly about my faith, I concluded that I had only one thing to offer: honesty.  I had heard enough church propaganda growing up.  I would cling to the stance of a pilgrim, not a propagandist, describing life with God as it actually plays out, not as it is supposed to play out.  Not everyone agrees.  A publisher once asked me to consider changing a book title from Disappointment with God to something cheerier, perhaps Overcoming Disappointment with God.  I thought about it, and decided to keep the title, because disappointed people were the once I most wanted to address.

I nearly despaired of the usefulness of any writing about faith until I discovered Beuchner.  It seemed to me at the time that Christians were reading primarily for the experience of nodding agreement, “Yes, that’s true,” whereas great literature makes us stop and ponder: “I’ve never imagined it that way before.”  For Beuchner, faith was an act of discovery, not a packet of orthodoxy dispensed from on high.  He made me slow down and pay attention, first to the words and then to the thoughts behind them.  He did not use life as an illustration of his point; his point, rather, illustrated what he had already portrayed about life.  As William James wrote in The Varieties of Religious Experience, “The truth is that in the metaphysical and religious sphere, articulate reasons are cogent for us only when our inarticulate feelings of reality have already been impressed in favour of the same conclusion.”

To speak to a reader’s inarticulate feelings of reality is a writer’s greatest challenge.  We live odd lives, we writers.  We sit in small rooms with little sensory input, contemplating the words before us at that moment.  In effect, we fabricate in those words the semblance of time and materiality while disconnected from them both.  Writing is the most vicarious of acts.  I write about skiing while not skiing, about eating while not eating, about love while not loving, and worship while not worshipping.

I find writers like Yancey refreshing because they have the confidence to say that they do not have all of the answers.  I get the feeling that many people write books because they believe they know the material, know how to order it, and think it is of use to the reader.  It usually is, in part, but it betrays a peculiar emotional distance from the subject matter.  I recently read a book on the resurrection of Jesus – a good book! – which jarred slightly in my mind.  It sought to persuade non-Christian readers of the historicity of the resurrection, and therefore the truth of Jesus’ lordship and of the Christian faith.  It featured lots of testimonies from people who have come to know Christ, placed at the end of an appropriate chapter – but the author did not give any indication of how he became convinced of the resurrection.  Lee Strobel’s famous journey from hostile journalist to author of The Case for Christ is well-known.  His book is the product of his life.  What unsettled me about the book I read was that it could have been written by anyone.  It was impersonal, and seemed utterly divorced from everyday life.  As an apologetic for the resurrection, it was great.  But it did not give the impression that Jesus had worked in the author’s life beyond an intellectual agreement with the reality of the resurrection.

I have a secret love of CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity.  Again, I do not agree with every word he wrote, but that does not matter too much.  Sometimes people say things I am slightly embarrassed about, or betray their personality with idiosyncrasies.  I have a theory that only one composer in world history could have written the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis; Ralph Vaughan Williams has his unique fingerprints all over it.  Likewise, I think a good book should have the distinctive character of its author spilling across its pages.  That does not mean that each book has to be a rebranded autobiography, but it is undeniable that the charm and appeal of books like Mere Christianity is the personality and life experience of their authors.  John Stott’s Basic Christianity also passes this test, as does his Living Church, both of which I highly recommend!

Fundamentally, I am trying to break free of an implicit mentality which says that I should live according to the fifteen chapters, three sections per chapter and several alliterative subheadings per section.  Real life is not like that, and I want to regain the confidence to speak, think and act like it.  Truth is good, and organising truth is helpful – but my experience of truth is chaotic.  Good Christian literature should not address you as a “sorted” person in the vain hope you will be “sorted” by the end of reading it, like that book on the resurrection.  Instead, it should grab you by the hand and share something of Christian living with you.  The best Christian book I have ever read is JI Packer’s classic Knowing God – evidence that a book can marry theological orthodoxy with personal passion and discovery.  The result is sublime, and aside from the Bible there is no single book I would rather read and re-read until I die.

My conviction is that Christians are too often tempted to seek conformity to their particular Christian culture and knowledge of propositional truths about Christian life ahead of seeking to know God.  Maybe, after all, it is just me.

I end with another – this time shorter! – quote from Yancey, from What’s so Amazing about Grace? (p203)  I trust the parallel I am implying is obvious.

By its very nature legalism encourages hypocrisy because it defines a set of behavior that may cloak what is going on inside.  At Bible college or Christian camp, and even in church, everyone learns how to look “spiritual.”  The emphasis on externals makes it easy for a person to face it, to conform even while suppressing, or hiding, inner problems.  Years after I left Bible college I learned that some of my fellow students suffered from deep inner turmoil – depression, homosexuality, addictions – that had gone unaddressed during their time there.  They concentrated instead on conforming to the behavior around them.

A friend of mine has spawned a game designed to tame optimism for the credit-crunch era.  Called “budget superheroes”, the principle is simple: you must invent a superhero but imagine they have tight personal finances.  My choice would be telepathy, but because I cannot afford broadband it takes minutes to read each thought over my budget dial-up connection.  The principle is, of course, perverse: once disbelief has been suspended to allow a world where the superhuman is possible, the imagination would probably allow an infinite economy for those abilities to be used.  It perplexes me, therefore, that society parades a “budget” superhero as the poster-boy of fantasy comics.  Batman (who does not even have super hearing) has no discernable power beyond the realm of the possible, and although a recent survey of graphic novel fans placed him as their favoured superhero he is clearly not qualified for the title.

Apologists for this caped crusader are legion, and make a compelling case for his inclusion in the elite gang of fictional heroes, citing several characteristics common to the established heroes.  But they have failed to make the label “super” stick, unable to identify any characteristic not possible for you or me to possess.  It is argued that the dark knight’s ability to solve crime is unrivalled, earning him the title “the world’s greatest detective”.  But spare a moment for the other candidates for this accolade.  Sherlock Holmes, for example, fights crime without flashy contraptions or fast cars, relying purely on his analytical mind.  Surely he is a greater detective than his costumed counterpart?  Come to think of it, given the proliferation of gadgets Batman employs and the bizarre plot twists he encounters before beating the baddie, his crime-fighting more resembles Horatio Caine than Sherlock Holmes.  There is little doubt who the hero is in that equation.

Our Batman loyalists, still insisting on his super identity, now turn to his talents as an athlete as proof that he should be counted among the ranks of his comic book companions.  But while he might just about outgun me in the gym, it cannot be argued that he has ability beyond the possibilities of mere men.  For if Batman were to race Usain Bolt without assistance from his many gadgets, he would not be able to slow down for glory in the last 20 metres.  He might be bigger than Jackie Chan but he is not near as nimble.  Compared to the leading figures in each field in which he claims super-skill, Batman always comes off worse.  Granted, he is versatile but this places him at best as a mediocre decathlete: jack of all trades, but master of none.

Attempts to prove Batman as a member of the super-heroic elite are stuttering by this stage, but a supporter of this fancy-dress detective has one last trick to whip out.  The argument is simple: if it looks like a superhero and acts like a superhero, it is a superhero.  Simple, but flawed.  For my experience of life in Durham has been that anyone can look like a superhero after a quick visit to the charity establishments of North Road and £5 wisely spent at Mr Cloth.  By this logic, the early-nineties BBC Children’s favourite El Nombre was a superhero, fighting crime while teaching mathematics to infants.  But in reality, his elementary counting skills were probably not aided by the mask he wore.  Or consider the star of the Drink Aware adverts who thinks jumping off scaffolding will result in flight, but instead meets the concrete ground sooner than expected.  Behaving like a superhero does not guarantee superhero abilities.  Batman should really have let the inebriated man know before he attempted the impossible.

For whatever powers Batman possesses, he does so as the result of technology and a big bank balance.  If he was interested in fighting crime, Alan Sugar could combine his Amstrad expertise with his enormous wealth, find himself a secret cave in which to dwell, and modify his Rolls Royce as the SugarMobile.  Instead, he spends all of his time making reality TV while Batman is left fighting crime on his own.  He fights crime well; he is even something of a hero.  But he fails to excel at anything; he fails to push the boundaries of the possible; he is a mere mortal who has made the most of his bountiful resources.  And so Batman is not a superhero on a budget, but instead only a hero with no budget.  Money cannot buy you everything, and so for all of Bruce Wayne’s pretentions to superhero grandeur, he remains just Bruce Wayne.  He has a fast car, a swish belt, a fancy costume and a great sidekick, but he remains just a hero of the world where fantasy does not stretch to super.