On Your Bike – Book Review
On Your Bike: Reflections of a Pedal Pilgrim, John B. Thomson, April 2024. Darton, Longman and Todd, ISBN: 978-1-913657-90-1, 174 pages. RRP £12.99
Bishop John Thomson is such a keen cyclist that his coat of arms is inscribed with the phrase ‘The Biking Bishop of Selby’! He tells us that in this book he has ‘used cycling as a lens through which to understand what it means to follow and serve Christ today’.
Thomson is able to draw on the experience of a long career in the Anglican ministry, including thirty-five years in Yorkshire, ten of them as Suffragan Bishop of Selby, preceded by some years in Uganda. and South Africa. The subjects covered span discipleship and ministry, including suffering, community, spirituality, the common good and politics.
At one level the ‘cycling lens’ is a means to open up conversations at the start of each of these subjects. The small size of the book set against the wide range of subjects covered at first sight might suggest a series of sketches and at one level that is what the book provides. However, twenty-seven pages of a quite academic bibliography and notes point to much deep thinking distilled into the main text. It is worth noting that Thomson has a PhD in ecclesiology which was partly a deep reflection on his ministerial practice.
Thomson’s ‘cycling lens’ gives an unusual angle from which to reflect on discipleship and ministry and derive some different answers from more orthodox approaches. For example, in the chapter on Ministry, Thomson hones in on the way motorway driving sacrifices beauty and contemplation for ease and speed. By contrast, cycling enables both engagement with the countryside and also with other people, unlike car driving where a screen often blocks out such interaction. The chapter on Spirituality develops this further, building on Bishop John’s own experience of contemplation and cycling.
In the context of public discourse and common good in Chapter 9, Thomson explores the idea of balancing the needs of stakeholders in local communities. As he tells us, the needs of cyclists, pedestrians and car drivers are very different, and getting the balance right is not easy especially when some groups are much more powerful than others. On the same theme, Green Christian readers will find his localised discussion of fracking in North Yorkshire of interest
Not everyone wants to embrace cycling as their preferred mode of transport, but the ‘cycling lens’ is not that dissimilar to the perspective of walkers or public transport users. I think that Bishop John’s book is a very helpful contribution to open up the relevance of ‘Slow Travel’ for Christian spirituality and theology.
Stephen Retout
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