mustard seeds

so long, farewell - moving to wordpress!!!

2006-05-22T15:15:00.000Z

I've decided to port my blog over to WordPress. One of the reasons I find it difficult to keep this one up (apart from spending any free time on my lectionary blog) is that I just don't fancy the layout anymore. I wanted something more customisable - something clean and contemporary. WordPress is a really aesthetically pleasing platform. Just wish I could port disclosing new worlds over, too, but the hassle isn't worth it.

Thanks to Blogger for getting me started. Please some over to the new site, and leave a comment. It'll take me a week or so to get all the bookmarks brought over and submit it to search engines, but I'd like to get a vibrant discussion going among those of you with similar interests. For those of you who want the URL, it's http://wol1959.wordpress.com

See you there!

postmodern churches

2006-03-08T23:34:00.000Z

Have a look at Blind Beggar. There's a post entitled "Ten Distinctives of Postmodern Churches". I couldn't agree more! We've just had two courses at the Windermere Centre on and Emerging Church and Multimedia Worship. I found that the stuff in the latter that I resonated most with was the material that engaged with the tradition - the Celtic and Latin traditions, for example. Makes me glad I'm part of today's church and not that of 20 years ago!

his bobness: what would the boy say to the man?

2006-03-08T22:17:00.000Z

Surfing through bobdylan.com, I found some of his rare performances (http://bobdylan.com/performances/). Have a listen to his April 17 rendition of "I dreamed I saw St Augustine", from the Orpheum Theatre, Boston, Mass. Here is Bob singing one of his greatest songs - in a way I've never heard him do it before. The words are often indistinct. He sounds as though he's recovering from a sore throat - or hasn't quite hit recovery yet! - and slips into his lazy performance-mode "talkie-sing" mode (ie when he's coasting and just can't be bothered to interpret his material). And yet ... it's great! It's beautiful and moving. He sings it with the love of the familiar - he's lived long with the song. It's never blase, although it hovers on the edge. Instead, he manages to hold on to that dynamic of a familiarity that speaks of deep, deep knowledge, and yet is aware of further mystery. But Bob is the Gnostic - these are secrets only he knows, and he almost plays with us, exciting our envy and longing for a similar depth knowledge.

Ok, ok, this is sounding far too ... something! Pretentious? Sentimental? I mean, it's just a man singing a song. And yet Bob manages to do that sort of stuff with his music, doesn't he? Listening to Bob sing his old songs is to be drawn into the narrative of his journey with the music. There's a crossover somewhere: Bob interprets the songs/the songs interpret Bob. What the songs become is what Dylan himself has become.

So I found myself listening to an old man sing an old song, while looking at a photo of him at the Newport Festival. And I wondered what the young Dylan would say to the man he's become? Would he like him? Would he regret the way it all turned out? If he knew how he'd sound 40 years down the road ... would he do it all differently?

Now, call me sentimental and uncritical, but I reckon he'd be fine with it all. He started out knowing he had something to say - and found that he didn't have a clue as to just how much! He's "followed the river down to the sea" and the beach is pretty good. He's learned to live with his regrets (more than a few, and certainly enough to merit more than just a mention!). You can hear it in the songs. The world ain't what he probably hoped it would become, but it's a better place for having given him space and recognition. He's "just tryin' to get to heaven before they close the door" - and that ought to do just fine!

uniquely jesus ...

2006-02-18T17:05:00.000Z

You scored as Servant Model. Your model of the church is Servant. The mission of the church is to serve others, to challenge unjust structures, and to live the preferential option for the poor. This model could be complemented by other models that focus more on the unique person of Jesus Christ.

Servant Model

100%

Mystical Communion Model

61%

Sacrament model

61%

Herald Model

50%

Institutional Model

What is your model of the church? [Dulles]
created with QuizFarm.com

So there it is! It's worth looking at these things every so often - mine's changed a little since last time. I'm intrigued at the suggestion that I could concentrate more on the uniqueness of Jesus. That's my presupposition. I believe that only Jesus saves - but not only Christians are saved! Jesus is unique not least because Jesus uniquely refuses the boundaries that most of us - church and world alike - create. So I'm right up with those who say that Jesus alone saves us. No one else has done or could do what Christ did on the cross. That is the means of salvation. But Jesus came, not to start a new religion or create the Church, but to transform the world into the kingdom of God.

That is not to say that Jesus alone gives us access to God or to Truth. But Jesus alone gives us access to the Life that God for us here - the Holy Spirit and involvement in God's continual mission to make this world wall that God intends. I don't usually frame the question this way, but if it's the one I was asked a week ago - "Can Buddhists be saved?" - my answer is "Yes, of course they can? Who can't be saved? But Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, genocidal maniacs, alcoholics, unborn children and whomever else are all saved because of what God has done in Jesus. No one else."

born to run

2006-02-18T16:46:00.000Z

Talking of music, here's my latest present: the 30th anniversary release of Born to Run. The boxed set consists of the remastered CD and 2 DVDs - the Hammersmith 1975 concert and the making of Born to Run.

It's not just the music - it's the stories. Born to Run has a special assocation for me, because when my cousin died last year (2 years older than I am), they played this at the crem. And of course, this song -and album - has a seminal place in Bruce's career. He made it when he was on the edge of the huge success he's become - it was the album that tipped him over that particular edge.

Listening to him describing his relationship to the song was very moving. He was aware of all the latent talent he had, but not sure of where it would take him. Just knew he was born to run ...

everybody needs a tame ..

2006-02-18T16:29:00.000Z

(a) car mechanic, who won't rip you off by telling you you need to replace your steering wheel; (b) all-round electrician, plumber, builder and carpenter who can help you out when basic tools and ineptirude reach their limits; (c) computer consultant and (d) - most importantly - music expert, who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of what's happening and who, and can point you to stuff you ought to be discovering!

I'm incredibly fortunate in all 4, but none is as amazing as the guy who runs Action Replay in Bowness! His shop is a veritable treasure trove of any kind of music you might like - or learn to like. He's also an enthusiast who will spend hours talking about music, playing stuff, and his advice is pretty well infallible. He put me on to such delights as the Be Good Tanyas - required listening. He also dug me out some suitable non-sacred sacred music, which led to a fascination conversation about his atheism.

But the one to get is the new album by Neil Diamond, 12 Songs. Now when someone like Diamond produces Uncut's album of the month, something is happening. And the something is the producer, Rick Rubin. When Johnny Cash was washed up and had been dumped by everyone, Nick Rubin (who usually produces hard urban music) took him in hand and made him a legend before he died. And now he's taken Neil Diamond into the studio and treated him as new discovery, unencumbered by his past career, and made him produce the best album he's capable of. 12 Songs is the result - and one helluva result it is, too! Stunning!

And if, like me, you've got a nostalgic and embarrassed love of old songs like I am, I said, Holly Holy, Jonathan Livingstone Seagull ... well, here's one to buy and play unashamedly!

Talking of blasts from the past, a close second is Janis Ian's new album, Folk is the new Black. Can't wait until payday now.

the royal tour

2005-11-02T09:59:00.000Z

It's been far too long since I was actively blogging here! I blame the start of the church year - September and October have been manic. So Charles and Camilla begin their US tour today. And the question is, can Camilla woo the Diana-ites over? Isn't it tragic that a marriage is public property in the way that Charles' marriages have been? I write as an ardent anti-royalist, but on this one, I want to put in a plea for Charles. What a bizarre system we have here in the UK! The heir to the throne had to marry a "suitable" wife. Apart from anything else, she had to be a virgin (and be tested!). So on all sorts of grounds, Charles the human being is prevented from marrying the woman he loves. Well, let's be candid: he's prevented from marrying for love, full stop. In the 20th century (an nothing's changed with the new millennium) we are still running a system of royal marriage as alliance! I have every sympathy with Diana when she complained that there were three people in her marriage (to say nothing of the numbers she herself brought to the party!). Diana was treated very shabbily by her husband. But I still blame the system. We assume that the heart of the marriage relationship is love and the desire to be together. The bit in the service about "forsaking all others" presumes that the reason for getting married to this particular person is because this is the person one wishes to spend life with, rather than anyone else. Marriages are under enough pressure at the best of times: imagine having had to plan with the woman you love how to go about marrying someone else! Poor guy! So here's my one and only plea for sympathy for the royals. We set them up - we put them into impossible situations like this, then we demand a fairytale story of them and are outraged when it doesn't happen. One of my chief problems with the monarchy is that the system wrecks lives - theirs! And we are the ones who do it.

feeding places

2005-10-19T13:03:00.000Z

It's been far too long since I had a few minutes spare enough to sit down and post. I've had to make do with "browsing and grazing" as far as blogging has been concerned for the past few weeks, and I am grateful to those whose blogs I've always found helpful that there's always something worthwhile to read and ponder. It's been a way of keeping in the conversational loop, albeit as an observer! Had you been able to see it, though, my body language would have said "Engaged listener" very loudly!

One place I've stopped over repeatedly at of late is Sean the Baptist. Sean is a Greek Orthodox monk who ... (just kidding!!!!) Sean is the New Testament lecturer at Northern College, Manchester. What I particularly enjoy is the way in which he interacts with theology, so that for someone who is fundamentally a biblical theologian, it's a nourishing waterhole! I may be mixing metaphors here, but the point is, go visit and see for yourself ...

bush the new (moderate) crusader!

2005-10-07T16:13:00.000Z

Did you catch Bush's latest "state of the union" address on the war against terror? I'm still depressed about it! Here is a man who sees the presence of American and British troops in Iraq as an obvious good. He inveighed against radical islamic terrorists and their jaundiced view of the world, their war against humanity, their hubris (look it up, George - it's a particular kind of sin, which caused the fall of Lucifer in the story) and their wicked, amoral and determined war against humanity.

Now let's be clear. What bin Laden and his ilk do is godless and inexcusable. Absolutely. But it is understandable! Or at least, partially. And what Bush will not have is that he and his policies are part cause of it. He gives them the reason, the excuse and the mandate. He talks of the terrorists' war on democracy and on people who enjoy liberty. And he's blissfully, sublimely and culpably unaware of the affront that American aggression gives! He clearly hasn't stopped to ask himself how the good ol' American people who (didn't actually) elect him (first time round) would react if there were Iraqi soldiers on the streets of New York and other cities and towns. And if they claimed to be there for the good of humanity, does he honestly suppose that irate Americans would say, "Oh! Silly us! That's ok, then!"?

The trouble is, I think he actually does think that! But what really gets me is that he dresses it mall up in terms of a Christian crusade. It's as extreme, fundamentalist and deadly a crusade as any waged by militant islamists. And it's got a lot of power and money behind it. For God's sake (literally) will someone make him realise it hasn't got God's blessing????

bob the articulate? must be some mistake, surely ...

2005-09-27T11:08:00.000Z

Did you watch His Bobness on BBC2 at 9pm last night? What a treat! Nearly 2 hours of Dylan's early years. It was great to watch classic footage of the early Dylan - highlights for me being Newport and the 1966 tour - but also to see his musical biography come to life. There was Pete Seeger, who's grown into the thoughtful, softly-spoken, articulate yet committed gentleman he always threatened to become. And Suzie Rotolo, talking with her hands - the girl from that album cover who hasn't lost her impish mischief or obvious affection for The Man over the years. The biggest treat, though, was to see Joan Baez, then and now, who is always conspicuously absent from these bobfests and yet was so seminal to the emergence of Dylan's own writing voice. The chemistry was obvious and a joy to see - not least because Dylan we got to see plenty of those rare events: Dylan actually enjoying himself!

The reprise of those early years drove home just how enormous a change Dylan not only lived through but effected. Michael Gray and others who insist that the music scene must be divided into two eras - Before Dylan and After Dylan - are right. The Greenwich Village scene that hosted the young waif in Cafe Wha transformed itself within a remarkably short space of time. Dylan was both the catalyst and the prophet who showed the way.

Most surprising, though, was Dylan himself, as interviewee and commentator. He was uncharacteristically giving and articulate. He gave straight answers to straight questions. The familiar irony and multiple masks behind which he hides when being asked to talk about his work were notably absent. Dylan talked about music - and about his music. He spoke about what grabbed him and didn't. He talked about what he was trying to do with his music.

Two things struck me forcibly. When Dylan spoke of his first album - a collection of covers which were planned in the studio as he was recording - he talked of the dynamic in him that instinctively held back what was most important to him and best in terms of what he had to offer. What distinguishes this album is the absence of original material (though not arrangements). This is surprising because Dylan was already writing prolifically, constantly and easily. It wasn't shyness that silenced the (lyrically) unique voice of Dylan (the man who is held up as the voice of his and subsequent generations), but an instinctive dis-ease with self-disclosure. Dylan writes and plays primarily for himself and for other musicians. He is hyper aware of the fickleness of the general public and their appetite for the banal (if any proof was needed, we had only to listen to some of the huge number of anodyne covers of "Blowin' in the Wind" that sold more than Dylan's own punchy, uncomfortable renditions). It struck me again how, if we want to "listen" to Dylan, we ought not to try and force him into the straitjacket of second-order commentary. The Man is not the explanation for the Songs - if for no other reason that he cannot and will not be!

The second related point was the refrain that ran through nearly every point at which Dylan spoke about musicians he admired and what musicians were about. He kept saying, "(S)he was really saying something - and I wanted to say it!" Dylan writes and performs to say something. Music is his chosen vehicle of expression. Music doesn't exist to be frozen in time and space like a photograph. It exists to say something. The beauty for Dylan is its polyvalence and acapacity for reinterpretation - to say something new to a new context. Hence Bob's refusal to bow to audience pressure and recreate the recordings in performance. Dylan, as has often been noted, constantly reinterprets his songs rather than re-performing them. He changes lyrics, beat, tune, accompaniment, tone, phrasing and emphasis to the bewilderment and fury of his fans. It was wonderfully ironic to watch that bewilderment surface when he went electric in 1966. Devotees of the man's music spoke on screen of their anger at Dylan for daring to own and rework his own songs. Dylan had broken the contract. That's not how music "worked"! Performers were supposed to create something that the public liked - and then it became public property! The job of the live performer was just that - to perform to order. Reproduce the recordings like some live hologram. And that was how it was Before Dylan. It was Bob who broke the mould.

Dylan has always "said something". He's always insisted, too, that "the songs are the message". You can't penetrate behind the songs to get at a "deeper truth". The truth is inextricable from the medium - the song, which is the lyrics, the music, Dylan's voice ... and Dylan himself! Those of us who whine at his lack of self-giving have simply not got that point. If it's Bob we want, we must go to the songs. It is Dylan's presence and re-interpretation that make Dylan's music an encounter with The Man himself - even when he's having an off-day or an off-decade or two! Scorcese managed a rare feat. He got Dylan to talk easily about himself and his music. Yet did he "penetrate behind the mask"? Or was this articulate, comfortable-with-biography Dylan just another mask for the inexhaustively re-inventive Bob, created to deliver what was needed? I didn't learn anything "new" about Bob from Bob. It was a joy to listen to him, but it was commentary, not self-disclosure. He still peddled some of the old myths of origin that he'd created in the first place - or at least, made no corrections to them! He didn't contradict or shape what was said about his musical development - he merely commented. For me, I'm prepared to buy what he's always said. "The Songs are the Message!" That's when I "get" Dylan (as much as I ever do) and when I'm constantly delighted, surprised and shocked. That's when I feel the power of the untameable and recalcitrant genius of the man, and when I reckon I get closest to whoever Bob Dylan really is. I buy into it as an act of faith and appreciation. And hey ... it works for me!

new blog on the block

2005-09-23T13:01:00.000Z

Just discovered that Keith Alexander, a URC minister in Manchester, has stared a blog - Thoughts of Keith - with a thoughtful (no pun intended!) piece on the privatisation of faith (or at least, that's what struck me about it). Drop in and visit.

a theology of contamination

2005-09-20T12:29:00.000Z

We're privileged to have Richard Giles, author of Re-pitching the Tent, doing a course at the Centre as I write. For those of us in the URC, buildings are a real issue. They soak up huge amounts of time, energy and resources. Most importantly, membership in the URC has declined by 51% in the last 30 years, while the number of church buildings has declined by only 16%. In other words, we've got fewer than half the people supporting nearly the same work. Add the complications of increasing maintenance charges because of age, increased standing costs as utility costs rise, increased expectations and the requirements to conform with ever-burgeoning legislation and it is small wonder that buildings generate frantic activity just to stand still! They throw us into "survival mode" in ways that few other aspects of church life do.

Richard pointed out something very interesting this morning. He is an Anglican priest (presently Dean of Philadelphia Cathedral but keen to return to his native shores at every opportunity!) and he started out with a slide of the Jewish temple, with its courts at varying distances away from the Holy of Holies. He then put up a slide of a typical parish church, with the knave acting like the court of the Gentiles or the court of Israel, the choir acting as the priests (all robed etc) and then the altar - the Holy of Holies. His argument is that we reproduce the temple in our church buildings. And he's right!

What struck me even more forcibly is that the traditional seating plan in churches, where we fill up (from the back) and gaze forwards to the action spot (where God is) is based on a theology of holiness and contamination. God is holy. That means people must keep their distance. The holier we are, the greater proximity we are allowed to the "God spot"! For all the difficulties of worshipping in the round, it struck me as vitally important that we do so. It says something - that we are a community, gathered around God. We have equal access to God. It is a necessary corrective to a theology of contamination, expressed weekly in "performance", whereby we gather at a "safe" distance from God.

model of the church

2005-09-15T20:13:00.000Z

This is how I scored on models of the church (thanks, stuart). A servant model. I'm intrigued by the mystical communion high score. Pleased and not surprised that church as institution is not exactly right up there at the top ...

Servant Model

84%

Mystical Communion Model

72%

Sacrament model

72%

Herald Model

45%

Institutional Model

What is your model of the church? [Dulles]
created with QuizFarm.com

church life is also mission

2005-09-15T19:35:00.000Z

I'm writing this in Cleveland, Ohio, where 4 of us from the URC are visiting the United Churches of Christ to consult on their God is Still Speaking, initiative. It's quite something! This relatively small church has done market research which shows that many people are extremely angry with the Church. They are alienated from the institutional church, rather than from God. They feel there isn't a place for them. This includes lesbians, gays and transgengered people, but also thinking people, divorcees and others whom the church feels unable to welcome. They've mounted a nation-wide sophisticated advertising campaign that extends a welcome to everyone, without suggesting they need to become "like us". The God is still speaking theme is to say that God hasn't pronounced the last word on subjects the church often appears to regard as closed. The inclusion of gay people is an obvious area. The point is that if a subject is closed, then so are the doors to the people it affects.

In one sense, it seems an innocuous enough campaign. After all, don't we all tend to say "Everyone is welcome here"? Yet people experience a different reality. As a result of the campaign, the UCC has had hundreds of thousands of people contacting them to find their nearest UCC church. The attitude is "If church is really like that, I want to be part of it!" The response has been astonishing and overwhelming. They've had independent churches wanting to affiliate to the UCC because of the campaign. The streets here are lined with banners with the campaign strap lines and the UCC logo.

My concern was that this was yet another instance of a church engaged in self-promotion. It clearly isn't! They've found a way of being unapologetically evangelical not only about the gospel but also about church (without confusing the two inappropriately) because the message of welcome is heard as Good News.

One reason for the campaign's success is that the campaign is edgy, irreverent and playful. Its message is designed with the target audience in mind, rather than the church itself. And it genuinely communicates! Have a look at stillspeaking.com and play the bouncer ad on the title page. We've heard and seen testimonies about how the simple message of genuine love, acceptance and welcome has revolutionised people's lives. It's stopped suicides. It's given hope and purpose. And it's enabled people to relate to God in Jesus Christ in new and real ways.

We were talking about the way in which we as the URC and other UK churches still have to resolve the sexuality issue. Ron Buford, the mover behind the campaign, said something that I've not heard in the various church debates on the subject and that made a deep impression. He said, "We are a covenant church. Baptism is a covenant. It promises lifelong incorporation into the body of Christ and acceptance. When we exclude people whom we've baptised, we break covenant. We say, 'Sorry. We didn't mean that this was a lifelong covenant!' Then we break covenant with God and that is desperately serious!"

Another comment that really grabbed me as true of so much of church life: "If the 1950s ever return, let me tell you: we're ready for it!" Isn't it depressingly true that we're stuck in models of the past that are passe and will never do for us now what they did in their time? Let's bring that emerging church to birth ... quickly!

when is evangelism (in)appropriate?

2005-09-07T12:13:00.000Z

I received the daily email bulletin from ekklesia. One of the articles on Hurricane Katrina is entitled, "Don't use aid to proselytize, Christians urged". The head of the Christian Aid agency co-ordinating relief efforts criticises Christians using aid to win vulnerable people over to their religious convictions as "morally questionable". I think he's absolutely right! When people are suffering as they are, aid is a wonderfully Christian response. It is the equivalent of not walking by on the other side of the road when other human beings are suffering. It says, without words, "We are moved by compassion! What is happening to you is appalling! We want to help!"

That has its own evangelistic dimension. True compassion of that sort is sacramental. If we believe what we say about compassion mirroring the heart of God, then we must trust that people who encounter love and compassion in action encounter God. That is what is needed in this instant. It is Good News concretely in the face of the bad news that governs their lives.

Of course, Christians do not have the monopoly on compassion! Another article is headed, "Axis of evil offers to come to America's rescue" and details offers of help from the Cuban president, Fidel Castro. That must be pretty galling for the American religious Right! Yet we need reminding that all acts of compassion and love are ultimately Godly, whether coming from people of faith or not. The Kingdom, after all, is bigger than the Church (however much we'd like it to be otherwise) and its values and priorities are shared in many ways by extraordinarily different groups. We need to learn to see these other groups as co-workers for the Kingdom, even when they have nothing to do with it and theoretically oppose it. God's presence is found in strange places, as the hearers of the parable of the Good Samaritan found out!

But why the ban on using aid to proselytise? Because that is neither Christian nor evangelistic! The distinction between "proselytise" and "evangelise" is crucial. To proselytise is to seek to persuade someone to embrace my religious convictions - to think and believe and live in the same way as I do. To evangelise is to tell people the Good News of Jesus Christ and invite them to find the same Life as I have in being a follower. That is not the same thing! The former views the other person as a potential convert - a target, or statistic. More importantly, proselytisation is fundamentally about cloning, so that I see the other as a potential "someone like me". Evangelisation sees them as a fellow human being and assumes some sort of relationship between us that is not based on their potential "convertibility".

We need to recognise how deep the unconscious drive is in us to make a success of the Church. Because we express our faith in this context as we do, Church and discipleship are pretty well interchangeable. The trouble is, we lose sight of the crucial difference - just as many of the Christian missionaries were unable to disentangle discipleship of Jesus Christ from white, western, imperial culture! Until we can disentangle the two for ourselves, we will tend to proselytise rather than evangelise.

This is not to say that we shouldn't be desperately keen for those in dire need to receive not only bread but the Bread of Life! Yet what we should be offering beyond aid alone is our prayers and offers of friendship. We are sacraments of God's grace and love in Jesus Christ, far more eloquently than our words. We need to offer ourselves - not our religious beliefs - because in so doing we are offering Christ. And we need to celebrate the Jesus whom we meet in communist Cubans, as well. Because Jesus is there too.

a Jesus & Peter dialogue on forgiveness

2005-09-04T12:39:00.000Z

I've written this dialogue in the style of the "Eh, Jesus ... Yes Peter?" Wild Goose meditations. In the interests of space, I'm only putting enough on here to give the general idea. It goes on to deal with forgiveness and "winning vs healing", loving enemies and praying for them. If you want the full text, I'll happily email it to you by return. You can email me on wol@fish.co.uk

FORGIVENESS
Matthew 18: 21-35
Cast: Jesus & Peter (Peter clearly seething)
J: Peter …
P: WHAT??? O, sorry, Jesus! Didn’t realize it was you.
J: What’s the matter?
P: Nothing! Why SHOULD anything be the matter?
J: Oh, ok. I was looking for Andrew – do you know where he’s got to?
P: Don’t know, don’t care, don’t matter!
J: Aaah … the joys of family life getting to you, are they? What’s happened?
P: It’s not fair! I’ve told him over and over again … but does it make any difference? Does it thump!
J: What is unfair Peter?
P: Wednesday’s Andrew’s day to get up early, make sure the nets are untangled and ready in the boat, check for any splits in the sail ... you know, get everything ready for the day’s fishing. It’s a real pain to get up early, but it has to be done. We take it in turns – or we’re SUPPOSED to. But Andrew keeps oversleeping. He says he “forgets”. So I end up making breakfast, thinking he’s sorting the boat out, when all the time he’s snoring his socks off and then I end up doing the boat as well! AND it happens ALL the time! I could have murdered him this morning!
J: What did he say?
P: He said he was sorry …
J: So it’s all sorted out, then?
P: Sorted out? How?
J: Well, you were angry, he said he’s sorry …
P: And …?
J: So if you’ve forgiven him – problem solved!
P: FORGIVEN him? You’re kidding! Why should I forgive him?
J: Why not?
P: Apart from anything else, because it happens again and again and again! And I KNOW it’ll probably be just the same way next week. It’s not a one-off. Surely you don’t expect me to go on and ON forgiving him, do you?
J: Why not?
P: Why do you rabbi types ALWAYS answer a question with a question?
J: What’s wrong with a question?
P: Very funny! Ok, answer me this: how many times do you expect me to forgive him?
J: 70 times 7
P: 70 TIMES 7??? That’s … that’s … well, that’s a LOT of times!
J: It’s 490 times, Peter.
P: 490 times? How do you expect me to keep count? I’ll lose track long before 490 and then have to start all over again! I may as well give up counting and just say I’ll forgive him every time!
J: Would that be so bad?
P: Of course it would! Why should I always be the one to give way, when he’s in the wrong? Apart from anything else, I’d look weak … a pushover!
J: You think forgiving someone is weak?
P: Of course it is! It lets him off the hook … oh, I get it! Jesus, you’re a genius!
J: I am? ...

gone live on the lectionary!

2005-08-31T14:35:00.000Z

I'm ahead of my schedule, which is unusual enough to make video of the event and seal it in a time capsule, let alone simply diarise! My disclosing new worlds blog has gone live, with reflections on the texts for 11 September rather than the first week in October. I'd be grateful for any and all critical comments, please. I want to know whether it's worth the time, and that depends on how effective a resource it proves to be!

a postmodern, neo-orthodox welseyan

2005-08-31T08:54:00.000Z

Well, I just took the quiz to find out what my theology's like (thanks for the tip, homileo) and discovered that I'm clearly postmodern, alienated from the institutional church, strongly neo-orthodox and pretty welseyan! Only an 18% reformed evangelical. So what am I doing with myself? Working for the United Reformed Church! Actually, I'd say my spirituality rather than my theology is wesleyan/catholic/not reformed. My theology is pretty much neo-orthodox, postmodern reformed (aren't labels fun???? NOT!). Actually, the most satisfactory label I've ever really been prepared to wear is a South African one - radical evangelical. These are people who believe in the vital importance of a personal relationship with God through Christ, and who are pretty well thorough-going liberation theologians. Here are my results:

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.

Emergent/Postmodern

96%

Neo orthodox

82%

Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan

71%

Roman Catholic

61%

Charismatic/Pentecostal

57%

Classical Liberal

50%

Modern Liberal

32%

Reformed Evangelical

18%

Fundamentalist

What's your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com

disclosing new worlds

2005-08-30T11:35:00.000Z

I've started my new blog, disclosing new worlds. Its purpose is to be a resource for ministers and preachers, with a weekly reflection on the lectionary readings. I also want to build up a library of prayers, worship resources and images, so any contributions are more than welcome! If you go to the section on the art of preaching, you'll find the first of a series of essays on preaching entitled dissonance and disturbance - journeying outside the comfort zone, reflecting my conviction that one of the primary and early tasks of a sermon is to jolt people out of their comfort zone to engage and disturb them. In so doing, we create space for God to break into our self-enclosed and self-constructed world and show us the new world of the Gospel. I'd be interested in your comments and criticisms.

different gospels, different christs

2005-08-30T11:21:00.000Z

One of the most disturbing lessons I had to learn was that there is no one Gospel that is preached and believed by all Christians. Nor is there just one Jesus. There are all sorts of Jesuses - competing Christs. Christs in opposition to one another. I learned that in the South African context. I see it most clearly today in the conflict in Israel/Palestine. My son is out there at the moment (returning imminently) and has had the same shock I had when making this same discovery. I reflect on that in my article for the Carver Calendar this month, entitled When gospels collide.

so why aren't we all on skype?

2005-08-29T10:40:00.000Z

Skype's the way that the whole world can talk for free - or at least, the online world! It turns your computer into a telephone, and the quality is superb! I was talking to the minister from Australia who's coming to Carver Church on an exchange, and we could hear each other as clear as a bell. Much better than my home phone. And of course, it's free. So why aren't we all downloading it? It's a great way to follow up some conversations. Go to skype and download the software. Then go to "share skype" and you'll find buttons for your blog (you'll see mine on the sidebar). Go on - what's to lose?

if I were you, I wouldn't start from here

2005-08-29T10:01:00.000Z

If you're thinking of starting your own blog, I wouldn't start here! Mandy put me on to blogSpirit, a site that, like Blogger, gives you free blogging facilities. Unlike Blogger, it's fully featured. For a start, the interface for editing is far, far more user-friendly. You don't have to play with html coding and templates unless you want to do things like add banners etc (in which case, all the things you've learned through Blogger will be of great help!). You can create categories, allowing you to save your posts under different subject headings. You can add music and books (put in the ISBN number and you get an image of the book from Amazon). You can also put photo albums on the site, with a delightful slideshow feature. Basically, you get all the sorts of features that you'll usually have to go to a hosted provider like TypePad for - and all for free! One natty feature is that you can put a link on your site to another blog, and if you fill in their RSS feed URL (ie for syndication), people can read their blog without leaving your site.

I'm in the throes of constructing a blog there on reflections on the lectionary. I was asked some time ago if I'd do that for URC ministers and lay preachers, so I'm getting round to it now. It's called disclosing new worlds. It's very much under construction, but if you want to have a look at what blogSpirit offers, you're welcome to have a look. I'd welcome comments and suggestions, anyway!

for what it's worth ...

2005-08-28T17:12:00.000Z

I wrote this as a responsive prayer of adoration and confession, leaving a short silence after each response before beginning the next petition. Fell free ...

Our Father in heaven
Come and meet with your children.
Hallowed be your name.
You alone are worthy of our praise and worship.
Your Kingdom come; your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Open our eyes and hearts to your world!
Give us today our daily bread
Nourish our faith as you have nourished our bodies with good things.
Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.
Renew us. Restore us. Release us as we release those who have hurt us.
Save us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil
Lead us to your green pastures and still waters. Restore our souls.
For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever.
Amen.

read this and be very, very afraid ...

2005-08-24T15:44:00.000Z

Go and look at this page, called The American Taliban. It's a page of quotes from prominent Americans. A number of them are church leaders. Others are politicians, serving in the Bush Administration.

Take James Watt, Secretary for the Interior. He says, "We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand." Way to go, James! So the Church is released from its mandate under the 5th Mark of Mission to preserve the environment!

How about George Bush snr: "I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." One neation, George? Not if you can help it! And which God? Not mine!

But some of the really chilling stuff is about an appropriate Christian response to terrorism. Now I've always bought into the notion that, if women ran the world - particularly mothers - we'd probably have no war. And of course, if they were all Christian mothers, well, that would clinch it! Ann Coulter, a prominent Christian mother who is an attorney, a syndicated columnist and author who would like to run the world, has shown me the error of my ways:

"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war."
"Not all Muslims may be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims."
"Being nice to people is, in fact, one of the incidental tenets of Christianity, as opposed to other religions whose tenets are more along the lines of 'kill everyone who doesn't smell bad and doesn't answer to the name Mohammed'"

So is Tony planning to bar all these people from entering Britain too because of preaching racial hatred? And will rightwing foreign Christians also face deportation? Or is it only if you happen to be Muslim?

rock & redemption

2005-08-24T14:28:00.000Z

Some of the most suggestive and creative theology is to be found outside religious texts. It's certainly where some of the most insightful and surprisingly rich reflections can be found. Those of us whose professional tools include the Bible and the tradition need to recognise that our theological imaginations are shaped and limited by these tools. That isn't to say anything bad or critical - it is to acknowledge reality. We look through a lens which has been polished by the medium in which we work. Musicians look through a different lens. Theirs is the lens of lyrics, the symbol systems of musical traditions, rhythms, sound, cadence and rhyme. And it colours their theology. That's why find the theology in certain songs to be far more exciting and creative than much of the very worthy stuff I read in theological text books. It's not usually the content so much as the vehicle. There are startling things to be discovered.I reckon few do it better than the (not-very-holy) trinity of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Bruce Springsteen. That's why I'm running a course at the Windermere Centre on Rock & Redemption (21-24 November). It's an opportunity to do some very serious theological exploration - but also to listen to some good music on the way. I'm not doing it alone.I'll do 3 sessions on Cohen's music. It will be a straightforward case of using songs as an entry into theological areas. So we will look at brokenness & grace ("Anthem"), sex & sacramentality ("Hallelujah") and kingdom & eschatology ("Democracy"). Peter Noble, Moderator of the URC Wales Synod, is looking at Springsteen as a way of exploring the gospel and evangelism. He will look at Bruce's treatment of the American Dream (see my post "The Boss & Gethsemane") as an example of how to understand the gospel and evangelism. He will look at the construction of a redemption narrative which first of all exposes and confronts the present "bad news" prophetically, moves through the evocation of an alternative reality of promise (Hope & Dreams?) and then to a summons to discipleship. It yields an understanding of gospel and evangelism that is prophetic and passionate but not pietistic. It is radically communal rather than individualistic, yet utterly self-involving.Lance Stone, former lecturer at Westminster College, Cambridge, and soon-to-be minister of Emmanuel URC, Cambridge, is looking at Dylan's music as providing an interesting window in the nature and function of the Bible in preaching and faith. Taking some of Brueggemann's insights into post modern, postliberal views of the Bible, Lance sees the open-endedness of Dylan's lyrics and their ever-retranslatable quality as an important parallel to understanding the Bible's function. Because the songs never allow closure, their meaning can never be frozen buit is always able to open new vistas in a different time and place.So if you want to do some serious theology, or if you like the music, or the Lake District, you can't go far wrong. If all three of those are your "thing", you can't fail. Meatloaf was right when he said that "Two out of three ain't bad"), but I reckon any one thing on its own will be a good enough reason to be here! So download the Booking Form and get registered while there are still spaces ...

stop the wall!

2005-08-23T21:29:00.000Z

Homileo pointed me to a photo album of the apartheid wall being erected by the Israelis to seal in Palestinians (yes, I know they claim it's to keep out suicide bombers, but they use it to exclude Palestinians from Israeli territory, regardless of how long they've lived there. I spoke to a Palestinain who found himself and his family on the wrong side of the wall. His business was in Jerusalem, and he can no longer get there. He can't enter the city. Jerusalemites pay high taxes, but get significant privileges as a result. These Palestinians had been cut off from their livelihoods, but still had to pay Jerusalem taxes! Of course, they'll have to sell up and move away. And the only people who'll buy their houses are Israelis's - for a peppercorn price!). Standing in Abu Dis, which cuts that village in half, at the foot of the wall is an incredible experience. Literally unbelievable! A nation that is founded on the memory of the Holocaust and the Warsaw ghetto is creating just such a ghetto in its own borders.

I have become uncomfortably aware of how crucial to a gospel witness opposition to the Wall is. In 2003 American Christians gave the Israeli government $65 million towards its settlement programme. It gave them that money to deprive Christian Palestinians (among others) of their lands and livelihoods! The Christian Right has poured billions into Israel in support of their land grab policies. A combination of the OT texts about land and guilt over the Holocaust has led to an uncritical, vociferous and deadly support for Israeli oppression and terrorism in the occupied territories. What sort of witness is this? Are Palestinians to believe that the God we see in Jesus Christ sanctions this sort of oppression? Christians there are losing their faith. And the Muslims see Christianity as synonymous with American expansionism and anti-Arab policies.

When support for Israel is so loudly and effectively being proclaimed as the gospel, it is incumbent on the Church to preach the Truth, live the Truth and do the Truth! This isn't about particular political dispositions. It is about what the Truth of the God revealed in Christ means today in Palestine.

Go to http://www.stopthewall.org/ - it's a good website.

discovering dissonance

2005-08-23T09:23:00.000Z

I came across Mark Balfour's dissonant bible blog. He's doing some important stuff there. Have a look at his post on David's concubines.

Word verification - anti-spam measures

2005-08-21T12:14:00.000Z

I'm sorry, but I've had to add the word verification to the Comments section. That means that, before you can submit your comment, you'll have to type a word that is shown. It's a device to stop web crawlers (pieces of software which search the web) leaving spam. I've started getting hit with spam - and to add insult to injury, one of them was advising me how to deal with my hair loss! Sheesh!

Hope and redemption at the Bagdad Cafe

2005-08-20T23:08:00.000Z

This is a movie I should have seen years ago! What a delight! The story of the group of mismatched characters who find happiness, hope and redemption - "magic" - is not just heartwarming. It's a thoroughly believable exploration of the way in which human beings can be the agents of transformation. If you've ever wondered what "entertaining angels unawares" might be like, this will show you. The film is superbly crafted. It avoids Hollywood-type film techniques. The Director's use of time and light is stunning. The film never hurries. The transformation doesn't happen overnight - it evolves, gestates and emerges, and you'd be hard pressed to pinpoint the moment. I thought Jasmin (Marianne Sagebrecht) was an interesting redeemer figure. She was a wounded healer, as much in need as able to give. It's one of those films that makes for good theological reflection - not because its theme is overtly religious, but because its values are the mustard seeds that bring about change. What are your favourite "theological movies"?

Blogger for Word

2005-08-20T22:59:00.000Z

Here’s a useful tip for those of you as new to Blogger as I am: download the Blogger for Word toolbar and you can edit your last 15 posts in Word, create a post and publish directly to your blog (provided, of course, you’re online). Go to http://buzz.blogger.com/bloggerforword.html to get the download. I just published this directly through Word – so much quicker than going through the dashboard! I also found out how to get rid of the navbar. Go to http://blogger-templates.blogspot.com/2005/01/remove-navbar.html and follow the instructions. Of course, most of you lot probably know this already!

Bruce Springsteen Story - Radio 2

2005-08-19T10:17:00.000Z

I'm grateful to Lindyloo for pointing out the following, which is worth extracting from the comments in case you miss it ...

A note for all Bruce Springsteen fans - BBC Radio 2 8.30 on Tuesday 23 & 30
August and 6 September The Bruce Springsteen Story - enjoy!

Selective compassion in Gaza

2005-08-16T19:49:00.000Z

It's true, you know: we human beings can always easily see the splinters in others' eyes, all the while breathtakingly unaware of the dirty great planks in our own! If nothing else, the coverage of the Jewish settlements demonstrates how selective compassion works. I've just been watching Sky news, where a Jewish settler asks one of the soldiers sent to ensure the evacuation of the settlement, "Where's your humanity?" And we've had to listen to the Israeli prime minister apologising to the settlers for their "betrayal" as they're "forced to leave the land and homes they have occupied for decades". "Occupied" is precisely the word, isn't it? The Israeli settlement policy has gone ahead with brazen disregard for the rights and humanity of the Palestinian people. Palestinians have been forcibly evicted from the land that their families have owned for generations - millennia, sometimes! When I was there, I spoke to family who can trace their lineage and family land back to the time of Christ. Now the Wall cuts straight through their olive plantation, and they have neither the right nor the means of getting to it. More than half their land has been stolen overnight, and with it, their livelihood.

I spoke to others who were residents of one of the refugee camps. Camps that are over 40 years old! And to others who had had to watch while the Israeli bulldozers reduced their homes to rubble and tore up their plantations because their home had been zoned for the site of the latest settlement. And I want to know, where was Israeli humanity then? Do the settlers somehow think that the grief, andger, fear and heartache is something only they would feel when they are uprooted from their homes? Are Palestinian people somehow less human?

Com-passion means, literally, "suffering with". Compassion is what defines God's nature for Jesus. Look at the parable of the Good Samaritan. What makes the Samaritan different from the priest and the Levite is that he has compassion on the mugging victim, lying half-dead on the roadside. And his response, says Jesus, is not only the answer to the question of "Who is my neighbour?" but, even more fundamentally, also to the question of "How can I love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength?" Compassion is god-likness. It is holy.

It is also non-selective. Compassion looks at everyone and "suffers with" them. In effect, it says, "Imagine if that person were me! How would I feel?" The result? We start to "do to others as we hope others would do to us". This is the mustard seed of a world in which there are no more victims.

The cry of the settler was not one of compassion, but of self-pity. He could see only himself and his pain. Self-pity asks, "Why me?" There is no doubt: the Jewish settlements ought to go. They are an affront not only to Israel but to a world which wages war on Saddam Hussein on the pretext of his non-compliance with UN Resolutions, yet has stood by and watched Israel illegally and in contravention of all that might be named "humanity" steal Palestinian land, build an apartheid style Wall, and thumb its nose against resolution after resolution by the UN.

So what might compassion mean in the case of the Gaza settlers? I find myself dangerously unmoved by the settlers' grief. I want to say, "But you've brought it on yourselves. You've had it all - illegally - for so many years. NOW you're getting a feel for what it's like! GOOD!!!!" But that makes me pause. Without backtracking at all on the rightness of the pull out, I try to see them, not as part of a regime I regard as terrorist and hateful, but as victims of that same regime (albeit willing participants, not those on the recieving end!). They are victims only on this sense: that their humanity has been so stunted, twisted and scarred by being part of Israeli aggression against the Palestinians that they are left lost and bewildered, able only to see their own pain and loss. And maybe - just maybe - this may prove to be the birth of new possibilities. Because it is when we find ourselves victims of the same type of injustice that we mete out to others that our self-pity has the possibility of growing and being transformed into compassion. That is when we make the sorts of vows that say, "What has happened to me must never be allowed to happen to another human being!" Then oppressor and victim are united in a shared experience that just might open their eyes to a shared humanity.

Wouldn't it be great if significant numbers of former settlers found themselves thus converted, and themselves became mustard seeds of a new, compassionate, human way of being Israeli?

pay 'em a visit

2005-08-16T16:10:00.000Z

Isn't it good to discover friends who are fellow bloggers? Drop in on Jane at Lost coins. It's a brand new blog so she'll welcome the encouragement, I'm sure. Kate's Breadbreaker is more established and has some great artwork. Read her reflection on the feeding stories. Both Jane and Kate are URC ministers. We erk-bloggers are an endangered species!

"The Boss" on Gethsemane

2005-08-14T20:46:00.000Z

Devils & Dust, the latest Springsteen album, is a “must buy”! Bruce has gone theological on us, and the critics are debating whether he’s finally “got religion”. The good Catholic boy, whose childhood was blighted and faith shattered by the nuns who ran his school, has consistently embraced Christian values but repudiated faith and institutional church. Until now.

Springsteen’s concerts – especially on his native American soil – have always been stunning examples of secular evangelism. His gospel is a re-visioning of the American Dream. It is the Good News that, although the Dream has been betrayed by greedy, self-serving politicians and the dominance of the American Right, there is an alternative – an America where the poor, the dispossessed, the working classes and the no-hopers are the significant shapers of a new society.

Bruce doesn’t just produce a playlist for his concerts. He crafts a story – a journey. “Covenant to come with me,” he tells his audience at the outset, “and I’ll take you somewhere good. Come with me and I’ll show you the Promised Land - the Land of Hope and Dreams!” His songs tell the story of hope betrayed, of corruption and war-mongering. They move through to hope and new possibilities. They end, standing, Moses-like, on the threshold of the Promised Land.

Get hold of the DVD of The Rising. Watch “Land of Hope and Dreams”. The metaphor is the traditional gospel train. In fact, he closes with a two-line reprise of the black spiritual, “People Get Ready”: “People get ready, there’s a train a-comin’/Don’t need no ticket – you just get on board!” Yet while the spiritual belongs in the holiness tradition, and excludes unworthy passengers, the train that journeys to the Land of Hope and Dreams is different: “This train/carries saints and sinners/this train/carries whores and gamblers/this train/carries lost souls.” It’s a radically inclusive vision. And it goes on: “This train/dreams will not be thwarted/This train/faith will be rewarded …” I defy anyone to listen and watch and remain unmoved.

And, having preached the gospel and presented the vision, there’s the “altar call”. “Come and be born again! Come down into the river! Be baptised!” Bruce struts the stage, calling to would-be converts. Ever the satirist, he deliberately mimics the stage antics of evangelists like Jimmy Swaggart. Yet the satire only underlies his own passionate seriousness.

His music and metaphors have always been steeped in the Bible and in traditional gospel spirituality. Devils & Dust moves into explicitly Christian, theological territory, however. The title track is an anti-war song, decrying the ways in which war dehumanises the participants: “It’ll take your God-filled soul/and fill it with devils and dust!” It’s not clear whether this song was written before or after 9/11. Is it the Vietnam war he is on about, or Iraq? Whichever, it was Iraq that took Springsteen off the political fence and he campaigned actively against George W Bush. In a masterpiece of political irony, Bush wanted to use Springsteen’s best-known anthem, “Born in the USA” as a Republican campaign theme song. He obviously hadn’t listened to anything other than the chorus, because the song is a vitriolic denunciation of Vietnam and the militarism of the Republican government … DUH!

But it’s “Jesus was an only Son” that gets my vote as something worth serious theological attention. The second verse goes like this:

“In the Garden of Gethsemane he prayed for the life he’d never live/He beseeched his heavenly Father to remove the cup of death from his lips/And there’s a loss that can never be replaced, a destination that cannot be reached/a light you’ll never find in another’s face, a sea whose distance cannot be breached”

“… he prayed for the life he’d never live”? Wow! I’d never thought of that, nor seen it in any exegesis of the agony of Gethsemane (though it was the theme of Scorsese’s account of the cross in The Last Temptation of Christ). But it’s true, isn’t it? Death means a life that cannot now be lived. It’s the death of possibilities, joys, sadnesses, meetings, partings, experiences, relationships. And it was for Christ just as much for anyone else. More familiarly, it was the death of the possibility of the coming of the Kingdom – all that Jesus had lived for. Yet somehow, phrasing it as he does, Springsteen adds so much more to the agony. He reclaims the humanity of Jesus, which can so easily be obscured by the divine significance of this encounter between Son and Father.

And isn’t it true, too, that there is a loss that can never be replaced? Resurrection (and eschatology) may make possible something good and wonderful and new, but it doesn’t undo or make good the loss of the life never lived. A different future is a marvellous gift, because it is a future born out of the ashes of the old life, but it is a different future and precludes ever reaching the original destination.

To me, that says something vitally true about human bereavement. It reminds me, too, that God in Christ has entered into the human experience of irredeemable loss that accompanies every human death – both for those who die and those left behind. God is marked by loss as we are. These insights into the reality of bereavement are so important pastorally and as part of our theology of the cross. They’re so much more gritty and real than the Christian guff we often pump out over bereavements and at funerals, that balks at giving expression and reality to the agony of loss. Darn, Bruce, but you’re good …

Emerging Bible

2005-08-14T16:16:00.000Z

How does the Bible function as the Word of God in the community of faith? The answer to this question has a great deal to do with what we understand the nature of the Bible as the Word of God to be, and also the nature and place of preaching.

I was astonished to discover how deeply (and mainly unconsciously) I have imbibed and embraced postmodern approaches to the Bible. By "postmodern approaches" I mean trends in postliberal exegesis pioneered by people like George Lindbeck and postevangelical approaches. What they have in common is that they focus on the internal coherence and detail of the Christian story rather than the historical-critical preoccupation with the reconstruction of history. They ask "What does it mean to live by this story?" rather than "What happened?" (with the unspoken corollary, "Can we accept this as true or not?"). In so doing they break out of the sterility of so many years of liberal vs evangelical standoffs and polarisation.

One of the most helpful people I find is Walter Brueggemann. His contention is that the Bible doesn't primarily relate history or teach doctrine: rather, when we read the Bible, we find in the narrative the "Third World of Evangelical Imagination". In other words, we find our world reconfigured because we discover what it is like to look at it through God's eyes. Put another way, we see it in a new light: it is infused with the reality and presence of God. This is inspirational and empowering. When we look at the world, we are struck by our helplessness in the face of its systems. We see the annihilative power of multinationals. We are reduced to despair by the intractability of global poverty. Our imaginations are paralysed by the power of capitalism such that we cannot even conceive of an alternative reality. What reading the Bible does is to open up an entirely new set of hitherto unimagined possibilities because God is present and active to redeem. Seemingly impregnable powers and authorities are exposed as fragile opponents of God's grace, justice and resurrection. And we are inspired to yield to the Spirit and to change things in the name of Jesus Christ, because that is God's mission.

The task of preaching, then, is to bring the world of the biblical narrative into conversation with our own contextual stories and so to enable people to go out and live and act as faithful, hopeful disciples of Jesus Christ.

I was reading Marcus Borg's The Heart of Christianity. I was reading it in preparation for the Windermere reading party (18-20 November - please come if you fancy it!). Borg is a member of the Jesus Seminar. And the Jesus Seminar is not the place to which I would instinctively turn for nourishment! I remember listening to Robert Funk, its founder, who is a non-realist. I was left wondering why we should bother with Jesus at all. Yet Borg is a different kettle of fish. For him, the purpose of studying the Bible is to elicit passionate faith - by which he means wholehearted commitment and faithful living. The Bible is meant to transform rather than inform. Christian faith is not about believeing a set of doctrines: it is about experiencing the Life of God given in Jesus and becoming christlike. I sat reading The Heart of Christianity and got more and more excited.

Emerging forms of biblical exegesis are to me one of the most hopeful signs of God's Tomorrow. This is something the Church can get its teeth into because it actually matters! The Bible is transformatory. The power of the text is unleashed because its purpose is to enable people to encounter God, rather than become textual experts in ancient literature. And it is Gospel - Good News to a world that is weighed down with Bad News!

Blogging with the congregation

2005-08-13T11:25:00.000Z

Long time no blog! I've been frenetically busy with courses at the Windermere Centre and having to go cold turkey as far as blogging is concerned. Have a look at the Christchurch Needham Market blog. Homileo has followed up the suggestion of using a blog to enable the congregation to have more of an input into the service. Just the sort of innovation we need to try out!

Holy impatience

2005-07-26T10:08:00.000Z

It sometimes really gets to me just how much time we waste, messing around with our little agonies when we know what needs doing but just haven't the courage to do it. Look at the Anglicans, getting their purple knickers in a twist over the issue of women bishops! Having eventually got round to ordaining women, they're still wanting to avoid taking the final fence of making them bishops. They've spent 10 years living with 2 integrities. And yes, it is important to realise that some of those who oppose women bishops do so with integrity. I take that to mean that they're genuinely convinced that it would be wrong in God's eyes, rather than that they're simply being prejudiced and deliberately resistant to the Spirit. But to be sincerely wrong doesn't make it any less wrong! I spent 2 years in Ian Smith's Special Branch, convinced that what I was doing was right. The fact that I wasn't doing it because I was personally racially prejudiced, or simply enjoyed being a bastard, didn't alter the fact that I was deeply, tragically wrong. Yes, it is important to realise that we are on a journey. It is important - and gratifying! - to note that God is far more comfortable with the time it takes and the detours we make than we feel God ought to be. Yet it is vital that, while trying to take people with us, and "maintain the unity of the body in the bond of peace", we recognise the time when we have actually to make a stand and act upon what we believe to be true. The Anglicans will get there - but at great cost. That cost grows the longer the process. And they will lose people over it. Providing that is a self-selecting process - people leaving because they want to rather than are pushed out - then that's ok. In fact, it's something to rejoice over. Not unlike fell running with a rucksack full of rocks for training: there comes that moment when you've done all the slog you can or will, and you shrug the rucksack off. You feel as though you can run like the wind! Or is it the Wind..?

Overcast day, overcast soul

2005-07-22T10:59:00.000Z

It's grey and gloomy and muggy here today. That reflects how I'm feeling. I don't want to live in a country where the Prime Minister - for whom I campaigned and voted in 1997 - gets up and, time and again, tries to silence criticism about Iraq. And does so by pretending that the only reason we have terror on our streets is because terrorists basically run around looking for excuses to blow people up, so that if it wasn't Iraq, it would be something else. What drivel! It's so ridiculous that it's risible. Yet, coming as it does from the Prime Minister, it's sinister. It means that there's not going to be any attempt to get rid of the root causes of terror on our streets. And the danger of not dealing with the real causes, but with made-up ones, is that things fester and get worse.

I don't want to live in a country where bombs go off because young Muslims are becoming radicalised because they're alienated, discriminated against, and because they look at what's happening in Palestine and Iraq and conclude that Britain and the USA are anti-Muslim and pro-Israeli. I don't want to live in a country whose policies contribute proactively to death and terror on the streets of Iraq and Palestine and which cannot then understand young people in this country wanting to do something to change things.

I don't want to live in a country where moderate Muslims have to be called in and paraded before society, both to say "See? Not all Muslims are evil!" and also, in a sense, to give account of themselves. I don't want to live in a society that is suspicious of Muslims rather than of terrorists because it assumes that the two are synonymous. I don't want to live in a country that spends most of its time and effort investigating whether there is something intrinsically wrong about Islam, rather than looking at its own actions in the Muslim world. I don't want to live among people whose working assumption (promoted by the media) is that the bombings show that all Muslims are fanatical, evil, violent fundamentalists, when the IRA never led them to ask the same questions about Christianity.

And I don't want to live in a country where the Daily Telegraph can run a front page showing Ken Livingstone in a line with two radical Muslim clerics under the headline, "These men blame Britain!" (Mind you, it would be nice to be able to live here without the Daily Telegraph!)If we have got to the point where we lump all criticism of the government under the same heading, and assume that critical voices are pro-terror voices, and silence engagement by suggesting publicly that it is the same as associating ones self with voices calling for British deaths, then we are deep, deep, deep in the brown smelly stuff!

I don't want to be told to "Go home, then!", either. I'm not saying I don't want to live here. This is my home. I want it to be a good place, though - a place where the logic of terror makes no sense at all.

Permission to use The Dancing Madonna

2005-07-22T10:48:00.000Z

Lis is happy to give permission for use of her photographs. Please just email her to ask and to let her know you like and want it! I'll try and trace the sculptor. I'd be glad to know, too, who found it helpful.

The Dancing Madonna

2005-07-21T10:25:00.000Z

Isn't this stunning? It's the statue of The Dancing Madonna, from St Luke's Church, Duston. It was taken by Lis Mullen, minister of Carver United Reformed Church. It's something to meditate on. Look at the locked gaze between Jesus and Mary. Isn't the joy and thrill of the dance astounding? This is one of those pictures I can look at for ages. Thanks, Lis, for permission to share it here.

The politics of the rabbit hole

2005-07-19T22:21:00.000Z

So Tony Blair thinks there's no connection between the London bombs and Iraq? What he means, presumably, is that there ought not to be a connection. After all, it's no good saying there isn't when the network claiming responsibility give that as part of their reason and justification. But Blair is essentially suggesting that to buy into the notion that British foreign policy and presence in Iraq is linked to the bombings is somehow to buy into and justify the logic of terrorism. As though agreeing that the connection is exists is the same thing as condoning the response!

It's an argument totally devoid of logic but with enormous power to silence. It's cunning and insidious. If you watch the wider picture, you'll notice a smuggling operation going on. What presents is the need for the nation to unite in the face of threat, in the name of law and order and democracy. That is perfectly acceptable. But smuggled in is the insistence that "If you are really behind us in the opposition to terror, you'll proclaim as vehemently as I do ["I being TB] that there is no connection to Iraq, no motivation othere than sheer bloody-minded evil, no problem to be solved other than combatting terrorists who would have done this regardless of the war, and no problem with my government's foreign policy that needs to be addressed!"

The position he's taking here is an attempt to deflect and silence criticism of his pursuit of the Iraq war - a position morally bankrupt and responsible, to date, for the deaths of 24 864 Iraqi civilians. He mustn't be allowed to evade responsibility for that. We elected him - we owe it to the rest of the world, to the families of the dead in Iraq and London and to the very values Blair reckons are under attack by the bombers to hold him to account. It is the most effective contribition we can make to ensuring that the terror doesn't continue.

I'm church, therefore I blog

2005-07-18T19:20:00.000Z

Interactive. Communication. Two keywords for plotting changing patterns in the way we relate these days. Remember BE (Before Email), BI (Before the Internet) and BMP (Before Mobile Phones)? It's difficult, isn't it? The organisers of Live8 were talking about how different it was organising the first LiveAid concert 20 years ago, and the one this month. The landscape of relating and communicating has altered beyond recognition.

I could have added "Information". That's how the Internet started - a global store of information. But it has become far more than that. It's evolved into a global communication network. Communication is now a far more fundemantal function of the Internet than disseminating information. The explosion of website design about communicating. It's not just a meatter of being "out there" on the web and being picked up by the search engines. It's about persuading people to spend time on your site. After all, if the only purpose was information, why not just post what are effectively A4 pieces of paper with the information?

What makes the difference between a good website and a great one? Between one that gets loads of hits and results, and one that doesn't? Increasingly (now we've got the notion of attractive design firmly in our heads) it's about interactivity. (Blogging enters from the wings, stage left, and takes up position centre stage).

Blogging moves us beyond merely reading what someone else has written to interaction and discussion. Follow a thread, join the discussion, and influence it. Your comment - your "take" - is likely to draw more people in. The discussion moves on and grows. It's not static.

I cannot imagine a church with any significant sort of online presence that, very soon, will not have its own blog. Imagine how it would change things! On Monday, the minister posts the texts for the week. People who are interested add their observations. They say what they find interesting, puzzling, relevant, archaic, helpful, problematic. They also suggest hymns (and of course, there will be few surprises there! Jo Blogger will suggest "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam" for the nth week running). They post names of people and situations they would like included in the prayers. On Wednesday, the minister gives a draft outline of the service and sermon, shaped in no small part by what has been posted. Again, there's opportunity for response and comment. Friday is "S" day.

Think about how much communal thinking and discussion has gone into the service. Imagine how many people will come to church having had a hand in what happens on Sunday! In time, it could be developed. People will be able to contribute written prayers, and suggest stories for the family slot. It would be a great way to encourage people to share their faith stories. And to get feedback on the service that's just been. People are inclined to be far more honest, open and personal when blogging. Our churches could become hives of communication, instead of everyone always complaining about being left out of the loop.

It astonishes me that the denominational centres of the churches don't have running blogs. Think of the potential for communicating the work of committees and getting real feedback and interaction. Consider how useful the URC would find a running blog about Catch the Vision. After all, if you want to find out what people are thinking, one sure way is the Letters section of Reform.

Of course, blogging isn't for everyone. But then, neither is picking up the phone, or writing to Reform. That doesn't matter. Some (many?) people will do it. We need to be looking for ways of making it easy for people to participate "where they are". The fact that many aren't yet online, or are unlikely ever to be, shouldn't stop us getting adventurous. Why must the church always be several steps behind, rather than leading the way creatively?

it's not dark yet, but it's getting there ...

2005-07-17T20:45:00.000Z

Did anyone else see Amazon's 10th Anniversary Concert online yesterday, or catch the last chance to see it today? If you get this in time (today only!) go to www.amazon.com (ie the US site) and navigate from the ad on the RHS of the page. It featured Bob and Norah Jones - their two highest selling singers.

I felt profoundly sad, watching it. Dylan's getting old. He still makes music - wonderfully and generously - but his voice is going. Of course, there are those who maintain that he never had a voice, but that's to misunderstand what he does. There have always been three vital elements to Dylan - the lyrics, the music and the voice. Dylan uses his voice as an instrument to interpret his songs. He plays with his voice as others play a guitar or piano. If you've ever admired what Clapton can make a guitar do, and how he can change the mood or feel of something, then you'll undertand how Dylan does the same thing with his voice. He can snarl, sneer, beg, mock, woo, entrance, and terrify. Or he could. That's what makes the man so astoundingly versatile and infuriating. Dylan is probably the one perfomer who has always maintained absolute rights to his own music. He will change the tune, the lyrics, or reinterpret the songs radically. You never know what Dylan in concert is going to do with his songs. One of the audience's favourite games is "Guess the song" from the instrumental introduction. It beats "Who wants to be a millionaire?" for unpredictability!

This is part of what makes his music truly great - but not as others count greatness. Bob has never pandered to fans' demands to hear the songs again and again "just like on the record" (Lawrence, you're showing your age here, mate!) His songs endure because they mean constantly new things to Bob. Listen to "Just like a woman". The young Dylan howls and sneers. The older Dylan makes it drip with irony. My desert island disc selection would include at least two versions of "Like a Rolling Stone" - cos they're two different songs!

[I'm not going to miss the chance to observe that the enduring newness of his songs and the open-endedness and polyvalence of the lyrics - the ability to say something new and fresh in a different time and context - is pretty much how I think the Bible functions as Living Word. Nor am I going to miss the chance to invite you folk to come to Rock & Redemption at the Windermere Centre to come and do some serious theology through the music of Dylan, Cohen and Springsteen! But this is by way of parenthesis.]

So Bob getting old and losing his voice is much, much more than just an issue about what the singing sounds like. It means he's losing control over his own creations. His versatility gave him the means to reinterpret his work; to remould the songs; to say something new with old words. So it was heartbreaking to watch him limited by his voice. The spark was gone. The songs were singing Bob. I could hardly bear to listen to "Maggie's Farm", not because it was bad (it was!) but because he was powerless to do it differently. It might be ok to listen to Sir Paul struggling - and failing - to hit the notes in the classic numbers he did for Live8, cos it's wonderfully nostalgic. Audience memory does what the voice fails to do, and we hear "The Long and Winding Road" filtered through years of sameness. Not so with Bob. You can't sit there and smile indulgently, or wash away on a wave of nostalgia seeing His Bobness do the good ol' numbers, cos he's never done that and they've never been old! Always forever young!

It was all the more poignant because when he hit the harp, you could see the gawky young singer of 45 years ago. Dylan's always looked awkward and anally retentive when he moves to music on stage. As though there's an Elvis inside a wooden puppet trying to get out. But that just made it all the harder to watch.

His voice warmed up and gained in strength. "Blind Willie McTell" still gave me goosebumps. He dripped vintage bob-sarc at the pretensions of Mr Jones. "Lay Lady Lay" was great - I found myself wondering (as in full of wonder) at how an old man could sing a young man's song and make it mean something absolutely different but relevant. But then, I guess it isn't difficult to sing that particular number if you have a libido and a score card like Dylan maintains. When he donned his cowboy hat, he was in Love & Theft territory and completely at home there. He made that music for and with his voice as it is today.

He was generous with the harmonica. Now, I've always maintained that Bob uses the harmonica on songs that are really important to him. It's a cue for what matters. And he also uses it as a gift to audiences (Dylan's notoriously ungenerous to audiences, getting positively surly, curt and churlish with them as he's got older). So I rate his perfomance as generous. He gave what he had to give. He'd obviously refused to allow the cameras to zoom in on him. Oh, and he ought to have sacked his band - or rehearsed more! But he was generous. And none more so when he called Norah Jones onstage to do a duet with him - "I Shall be Released" (gives me a fresh set of goosebumps just remembering that!). Who can forget Bob Dylan and Joan Baez doing that one together? It was an anthem for a generation. They were its voice. And he gave it to Norah. He really did give it to her, because his singing was quite deliberately instrumental. You could see that Norah knew it, too. She didn't take it and try to own it - she did it beautifully, with just the right amount of deference and awe in the face of the gift's significance.

It's getting dark. And it's shaken me. Dylan is part of the fabric of my universe. Just as my world is constituted by the fact that my parents are still alive, and I don't have ultimately to stop the buck just yet, so it is with Dylan. I go to Dylan to be awed, and puzzled, and challenged. I go to hear Dylan articulate my thoughts and values, my dreams for the world and my anger at what's wrong. He says them far better than I ever could. His conscience has been a guide. And he's never rested - he's always pressing on, experimenting. His grasp of literature and the Bible and poetry is astounding and his range is monumental. So is his musical knowledge. He's like Mandela. He can't die - mustn't die - because memories aren't enough. Dylan's power is never only in what he's done, but in the vitality of what he's doing now and will do tomorrow. His tomorrow's are running out. Like those of my parents. And Mandela. And where then will be the voices that we desperately need to hear?

just chillin'

2005-07-16T23:39:00.000Z

It's one of the great things about living in the Lake District - after working today on the service tomorrow, I was down on the beach at Miller Ground, swimming. The water was like a warm bath - at least for the first 12" or so. Cold after that! But a quick drive, or a visit to the lake, or a river, and it feels as though you're on holiday! And I get paid to be here ... eat your hearts out, fellow bloggers!

Eyes on the G8, not just London

2005-07-16T22:49:00.000Z

Wasn't it amazing how effectively the London bombings knocked the Make Poverty History capaign and the Gleneagles summit off the front pages? I mean, just look at mustard seeds as an example! There's a post on the bombings, but nothing on the coach trip to Edinburgh. What an astonishing experience! Nearly a quarter of a million people taking over the streets of the city for 7 hours. I spoke to a police officer (I'd lost one of my bus charges!) and he said there'd been no trouble, no drunkenness and no ambulances called. He couldn't believe it. I'm usually not on the side of people who whinge about the media and their reporting, but I couldn't help noticing how effective violence is as a publicity stunt! Look how much coverage and screen time the handful of anti-globalisation demonstrators got by comparison with our record-breaking demo.

Of course, the good news is that there was some significant good news to come out of Gleneagles. The package of debt relief, doubled aid and a commitment to tackling Aids is going to make an enormous difference to millions of people's lives.

Here's the question that intrigues me. What if we've actually done it - what if we've actually changed the way of life for Africa, and with it, the world? What effects will that have? Let's be optimistic. Let's say that release from crippling debt will revolutionise the economies. Let's say that the aid gets to where it's needed. Let's say that the Aids programme starts to bite. African lives are going to change dramatically - thank God! We need to keep up the pressure so that the debt relief is extended as far as is needed.

But how does it change us? I wonder if it's going to alter radically our postmodern mindset? I have a feeling that somewhere at the heart of Po-Mo is a despair of the complexity of reality. It seems to me that part of the demise of the Big Story is a pessimism about being able to alter things on any significant scale. The global economy is just too big, complex and powerful. Unaccountable multinationals, far more powerful than nation states, are unaccountable. If the pressure on them in one place gets too great, they decamp operations elsewhere. So we give up on any hope of changing the world and instead concentrate our efforts on small, individual, single issues. We might at least make a difference in our own back yards! So, for example, we profess a "zero tolerance" policy towards drugs and jail someone for 14 years for having a dope party in the privacy of their homes, but live with the fact that the drugs cartels can be inconvenienced but never eradicated. Small wonder that students these days are so frighteningly conservative by comparison with our generation, obssessed with grades and CVs!

But what if we've actually done it this time? What if we've got the most powerful people in the world to listen and act? How much pent-up hope will that unleash? Will we find other ways of making a difference to the Big Picture? So many questions! I confess to being quietly hopeful...

dave faulkner has an interesting section on "What Did the G8 Accomplish?"

Oh, the picture? It's of two of the demonstrators at Edinburgh, saying to the G8 (ala Sting) "We'll be watching you!"

Can we handle life in the highways and byways?

2005-07-12T15:30:00.000Z

Lucy's comment on the "Visions to Avoid" post set me thinking (read that thread if you haven't - we need to develop it!). We're "selling" Jesus, she suggests. That's what we've got to offer. And she raises the question, "To whom?" I wonder what most of our church folk would answer if (a) the question was, "Who would you most like to attract to your church?" and (b) they had to answer honestly!

I suspect that the answer is that we'd like middle class, well-spoken, enthusiastic, productive, skilled, younger, thinking, popular, gifted, comfortably off people. I'm getting on for sure-to-certain that the answer will not be poor, damaged, difficult, marginalised, unpopular, dirty, destructive, embarrassing, unemployed (unemployable?) people who need giving to.

This is where I get stuck. I actually believe that these are precisely the people we should be seeking to attract first (ie before turning our attention to those less needy). That's what Jesus did, after all! But Jesus did more than extend charity and hospitality. He chose these people as friends! They were his first choice.

We concentrate our efforts on people like us. We are battling to communicated with jaded, satiated consumers who are overwhelmed with choice. That is not to say for a moment that they - and we - aren't needy. But our needs come from having too much. We pray "Give us this day our daily bread", while my daily bread frquently goes hard and mouldy and gets fed to the ducks and swans because I have so many other, more exciting things to eat. We have Communion services, procaliming Jesus to be the Bread of Life, while people starve to death. Then we have theological arguments about how to dispose of the leftovers! One of our greatest health problems is obesity and our most common mental health problems centre around our bodies and self-image. Part of our salvation is a fairer world in which we live more simply in order that others may simply live.

The parable of the Great Feast is about abandoning concentration on those who are most reluctant to hear the Good News of the Gospel and concentrating on those whose need is greatest - for whom the Gospel comes as gloriously Good News. That is not the same thing as abandoning those others. It's about where our efforts are concentrated.

So how can we make that sort of quantum leap? How can we begin to create a Church that is recognisably the Church of Jesus Christ precisely because it reflects Jesus' priorities in this area? That seems to me part of the task of catching the vision of God's Tomorrow.

Let's stop pretending suicide bombers are cowards

2005-07-12T09:21:00.000Z

Am I the only one who gets really angry with the media depiction of suicide bombers as cowards? They may be many things, but cowards they certainly aren't! I've fought in a war, and one thing that strikes me forcibly is that most soldiers spend and awful lot of time and energy surviving! The idea is to kill the enemy while escaping harm. Yet these people quite deliberately give up their lives. When I try to imagine myself into the mind of the bombers, or the terrorists who flew the planes into the twin towers, I'm haunted by wondering what it is like waking up knowing that today you are going to die. Or what goes through their minds in the last seconds before they detonate their bombs. Are they frightened? Any last-minute doubts about whether or not it's worth it? When they look at the passers-by they are going to kill, what do they think, or feel?

Why do suicide bombers evoke such particular horror in us? Why do we portray them as so very, particularly evil? It can't be for their effectiveness - many bombers die taking hardlyanyone with them. Perhaps it's the deliberation of it all. Or the knowledge that anyone around could be a walking bomb. Or maybe it's our horror of casualties. After all, we expect to go to war with minimal casualties. We have smart bombs and tanks that can pound the hell out of people and places from great distances. We shelter our troops behind inches of toughened metal and glass. We kill people from heights or distances. We rarely have to see them, or engage with them as human beings. They are statistics. Our military language carefully removes the personal, human element from our killing and dying. Suicide bombers don't allow us that sort of detachment. Their stuff is too "in our faces"; too personal. They remind every one of us that, in their eyes, we're to blame - each of us. Not just our government, but us. They say, in effect, "This is between you and me".

We are happy to participate in the kinds of things that breed suicide bombers. Israel carries out its state terrorist policies (well, come on, let's call a spade a spade! If anyone elese did what they do to the Palestinians, we'd regard it as an act of terrorism, wouldn't we?) because Britain and the US exercise their vetos in the UN. We might not like it. We might protest. But we don't see ourselves as deliberately and personally involved. In the eyes of the victims, we're culpable. We are participating. When a Palestinian loses a child to an Israeli sniper or gunship, or his wife dies giving birth at a chekpoint because the soldiers won't allow her to get to an ambulance, or a farmer loses his land and wealth at a stroke because the Wall is routed through the family olive grove, then that person blames you and me, just as much as George Bush, Tony Blair or Ariel Sharon.

I spoke to some Palestinian young people of 17-18 years. What was terrifying was the level of despair. They saw no way out, no end to the fighting and no means of influencing events. The only people who, in their eyes, were doing anything positive, were Hamas. One told me, "The Americans think they have their smart bombs. Well, we've got even smarter bombs!" She was referring to suicide bombers. Pretty desperate when you look at suicide bombers as a sign of hope, eh? And when a 14 year old girl believes the only thing left is to sign up as a martyr - what is going on?

And no, before anyone starts, this isn't an apology for terrorism or suicide bombers. On a personal and spiritual level, it's an attempt to understand fellow human beings. I think that is vital and we do no good pretending things are other than they are. Calling them cowards makes it easy to dismiss them. I interrogated many "terrorists" in Zimbabwe. Some had done some very, very evil things. But there were two things that struck me. Firstly, they were, without exception, brave. Secondly, they saw themselves as being engaged in a struggle against a great evil, against a powerful enemy who was waging a terror war on their people, with no means to wage it other than through terrorism.

That was a salutary lesson for me. It meant I had to take them seriously as human beings. It meant I had to take seriously the fact that they had consciences and a moral argument for what they were doing. It meant I had to take them seriously as soldiers. It meant that I couldn't ignore the ways in which they saw every citizen of what was Rhodesia as intimately connected to and involved in what was going on on the streets of the black townships.

If we want to rid the world of terror, one of the things we need desperately to do is to avoid playing things as though they are different from the way they are. If we don't like terror on our streets, then we must recognise that it has come to our streets from their streets. And they reckon we're to blame! We can't just disagree - we need to struggle for justice and peace.

Visions to avoid

2005-07-10T13:22:00.000Z

Too many discussions of Emerging Church are still underpinned by a desire to be successful. If "success" means growth, then the hard facts are that most churches grow at the expense of others, because we are not so much conecting with people who have nothing to do with Christian faith as competing for a market share of people who are already Christians. Church as it is is getting to the point where we are exhausting the list of people "on the outside" who are interested in "joining" Church.

If the vision to be caught is of a Church that is simply more successful than before in wooing disaffected Christians, it's one we ought to avoid assiduously! There are enough churches presently catering for "already Christians". If we have a justifiable reason for existing beyond our existing shelf life, it must be because we are finding ways of connecting with the vast majority of those for whom the Gospel is clearly not Good News. When we create spaces for them to find faith and join the community of faith, we will find ourselves changing organically. That's when we start to become the Church of Tomorrow!

Praying for our enemies

2005-07-09T23:36:00.000Z

Quite a challenge in the wake of the London bombings, isn't it? Yet Jesus gives a command that is a deliberate rejection of the cycle of violence, hatred and revenge. He says that we are to love our enemies, too. Praying for them as people we love (rather than as those we hate and fear) is immensely challenging. So, as soon as the news broke, we set up a vigil cangle - a huge candle with 6 tealights set into it. We prayed for the victims and their families, the rescuers and medics, the government, the G8 summit and for a world in which poverty is history and justice and peace render terrorism and violence redundant. We also prayed this prayer: "We light a candle for the bombers. Restore their humanity. Keep them from further evil. Have mercy on their souls."

Meeting Mordechai Vanunu

2005-06-21T22:48:00.000Z

I was staying at St George's Cathedral, Jerusalem, when the Israeli nuclear whistleblower, Mordechai Vanunu, was released from prison. I had gone out to arrange a visit to the Windermere Centre by Suheil Dawani (the newly-elected Bishop of Jerusalem). Yeah, yeah - I know it sounds like name-dropping, but it was all purely coincidental. The trip turned out to be something more than I ever expected. The experience of spending time among the indigenous Palestinian Christian community is a subject for another post. The first I'd heard of Vanunu's impending release was sitting on the plane. Two people behind me were vaguely familiar - people whose faces I knew, rather than people I'd met. They turned out to be Bruce Kent and SusannaYork. They were on their way to Jerusalem for the release.

I missed all the hype around the press conference, tempting though it was to rubber-neck. But I figured that Vanunu needed time with his friends, rather than with some admirer who happened to be there and would just be taking up space. Vanunu's presence shaped our stay at St George's. There was high security. The press were camped outside the locked gates, pressing for interviews whenever we emerged abut Vanunu. The Israeli Secret Service were there, too.

I'd see him every day a breakfast. I had a brief chat with him one morning, and then a much longer one. He told me about his capture, and his years in solitary confinement, about the attempts to break him, and how his Christian faith kept him going. He told me how he was regarded as a traitor not only to his country (for blowing the whistle on the nuclear programme) but also to his faith (for converting to Christianity).

Then one afternoon he saw me working on my laptop and came over. He'd just taken delvery of his new laptop computer. Computers were a new world to him after 20 years inside. He'd gone in when computers were giant machines, filling rooms if not several storeys of buildings. Now he had his own machine, and hadn't a clue how to set it up and use it. That was how I came to give Mordechai Vanunu his first computer lessons, and get him set up on the Net. It was only after I'd done this that he explained - amid gales of laughter - that one of the conditions of his release was that he didn't access the Internet or communicate with the outside world! It was good to have struck a blow for freedom of information and all that, and to have helped a man far braver and resilient than I can ever hope to be!

starting it all off...

2005-06-17T23:28:00.000Z

I'm the Director of the Windermere Centre, the United Reformed Church's residential training centre set in the Lake District. I cut my theological teeth in South Africa. I began a BTh with Unisa, and one of the first compulsory courses was something called Missiology. The lecturer was a guy named David Bosch. I was singularly unimpressed at having to waste my valuable time being diverted away from the real stuff - Old Testament, New Testament and Systematic Theology. Two hours into my first reading, I was more excited than I'd ever been in my life! Here was someone who was saying something that really mattered - and it began to change my whole understanding of what faith was all about. God was a missionary God - with an ongoing mission of salvation for the world. And the Church, if it is truly to be the Church, exists to serve that mission. Some years later, reading Theology at Durham, I wrote an undergraduate dissertation on Bosch's work. The research involved travelling to South Africa in 1986, where I landed in the midst of the Kairos Document furore. It became a different trip altogether.

Fast forward to Cambridge, 1987. A doctoral student, working on South African political theology, I was reading the story of Beyers Naude and the Christian Institute. Now what I haven't mentioned so far is that I grew up in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia). As a keen young Christian, I left school and spent nearly 3 years in Ian Smith's Special Branch, working in political and military intelligence. My job was extracting information from people. As I read Beyer's story, my blood boiled. Here was a man who was doing what he was because of his faith. And the people who were persecuting him were supposed to be Christians! How could this be? Suddenly, the penny dropped: Lawrence, in Rhodesia, you were on the other side!

Life fell apart in an instant. How could I have been involved in something so profoundly anti-Christian? How come my parents - or school - or church didn't tell me it was wrong? Worse, why did they encourage me in my "god-given duty" to protect Christian civilisation from the march of godless, atheistic Communism? And, when they had all failed me, how come God (to whom I spoke at length every day and listened to through reading the Bible) didn't let me in on the fact?

My slow, painful quest to rebuild my faith and theology began. And the question that hammered at me with agonising insistence was, "How can it be that so often the Church is part of that from which the world needs saving?" How do we live and build a world that is a sign of God's grace and God's kingdom, rather than one which leads people to believe that resurrection has never happened? Who is the real Jesus? And what would the Church look like and be like if it was the institution God intends it to be?

When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, he taught them to pray, "Your kingdom come - which means, 'Your will be done on earth'". What that means in our contemporary world is what this blog's about.