A dead engine flickers with life. There’s a spark. It’s turning over. A great mass of metal, a cylinder-block, is suddenly throbbing. It is doing what it was designed to do: turn a crank-shaft, or a wheel. What was inert, static, powerless has changed. It is now capable of starting and sustaining movement. It causes revolutions. The ‘Bangers and Cash’ personnel crowd in.
Trevithick started something. The Stephensons pushed it on. They were followed by Churchward, Gresley and finally Bulleid. And then, suddenly, the steam age was over. Power became the concern of others. Power no longer comes from coal, cylinders, pistons, turbines. It comes from the winds, the Sun. Engineers harness what is already present. The internal combustion engine king has been supplanted; it is king no longer.
Christianity started as an act of power. Paul says as much as he begins his enormously influential letter to the Roman Christians. Christianity begins with the Resurrection. A man comes back from the dead and the recipients of Paul’s letter discovers that this has all been forecast. The man is a manifestation of God to his creatures. He had characteristics denied to others and in his speech and his activities he demonstrated the goodness of a creator.
The act of power that convinced a generation and set Europe on a new course compelled a revision in assessment of the human scene. An eternal perspective (often seen as little more than a day of judgment) put our concerns in their place. But more than that this act of power gave meaning to what had looked like no more than an inevitable succession of events.
A trial, an execution and a bit of a fuss at the eastern end of the Mediterranean turned out to be an event of unparalleled significance. It did not lead to a steam age but it directed attention to other things – the good life, the meaningful mystery that had seemingly been confined to the Temple in Jerusalem. The Christian Gospel came into being. We still have to make up our minds about this 2,000 years later.
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