Looking Through the Cross, by Graham Tomlin, the Archbishop(s) of Canterbury's Lent book (commissioned by Rowan Williams, endorsed by Justin Welby) begins by inviting the reader to reflect on the difference between seeing (~ unconscious observation) and looking (~ deliberate, conscious observation) (paranthesised definitions my precis) before beginning to explore ways of looking, specifically looking 'at' and looking 'through'.  He then introduces the concept of an icon as the believer looks 'through', a bit like a window, before applying this idea to the Cross (or perhaps more accurately, the 'cross event').

Not, for me, anything vaguely new there.  Likewise the description of what Roman crucifixion actually entailed or the observation that crosses have been reduced to articles of jewellry not instruments of torture (with Nicky Gumbell cited if not by name!) is all stuff that to me is extrememly familiar.

This makes me wonder if he is assuming a very different starting point for his readers than mine.  Whilst I can appreciate that some more conservative, evangelical Christians might be slightly wrong-footed by the idea of 'icons', confusing them with idols (a distinction he is at pains to note) and even that some (maybe many) readers will have given little thought to 'types' of seeing, the need to eplxain what crucifixion really was is worrying... what are churches and Alpha courses actually teaching people?  Or am I being unfair, is he reflecting (another kind of seeing/looking) that there may/will be readers for whom none of this is familiar?

I am looking forward to getting into the book proper, at exploring how he envisages (seeing again) the cross as a lense, or even a pair of spectacles, through which to view aspects of human experience, I think it is a good and promising premise.  I guess that the first 30 odd pages have just left me distinctly underwhlemed.