The Commonwealth Games this year are being held in Manchester. To accommodate this great event, the city authorities are undertaking a scheme of regeneration. New sports facilities, new business buildings are being built in place of the old decaying area. And in the middle of this a huge sculpture has been raised to reflect this undertaking. It is twenty storeys high, weighing one hundred and fifty tons, and made out of rusty spikes, and is called, “B of the Bang.” Apparently, one hundred and eighty of these long spikes burst out of the central core.

It is being referred to by the art world as iconic. Whatever the underlying artistic meaning that is presented by this image, it seems rather paradoxical. Regeneration, new life, represented by a rusty pile, undergoing change and decay, moth and rust.

Liberal and modernistic theologians raise up their image like Nebuchadnezzar’s with feet of clay. They still preach dead works and a social gospel, a sort of religious humanism. A decadent system trying to represent the Biblical revelation of regeneration, new life in Christ.