The Condensed Bible

A pupil today presented me with a book he'd made "The condensed Bible". I opened it. It said, "Chapter 1: be a good person".

Put People First

I think I will go to this. Anybody else?
go to this to find out more:

http://www.putpeoplefirst.org.uk/about-us/media/

Losing Life to Save it!

I love James Cone, and here he is at his usual uncompromising best. He asks 2 questions of the black church that could be asked of any church: What is the mission of the church - to save souls or bodies? And, is the church called to save its own life or called to lose its life for the sake of others?



Its amazing how easily a church can find itself sustaining itself. We're trying to find a church at the moment. We visit a church and we know that they have lots of jobs for you to fill and we suspect that when they see us in the pew, they see someone to fill their vacancies. it makes us wonder who they are for - is the church for the people or the people for the church?

I'm absolutely certain there is something outwardly unimpressive ('failed') about a church that decides not to use its energies to prop itself up. There is only a limited amount of energy and time out there and a church that chooses to use that to serve others or just let people rest is going to look unprofessional, limited, 'failed'. But herein lies its real success that, like Jesus, it chooses the path of unimpressive success. For me, its not the ultimate vindication of Jesus in the resurrection that makes Jesus' work a success - success is to build nothing in his lifetime, except to be prophetic in his unpolitical, uncompromising defence of the weak.

Evangelicals ended slavery!

Evangelicals, Quakers and other Christians were a significant influence in ending slavery, but initially attempts to change things were pretty pragmatic - gradual change was proposed. But something happened in the 1820s that radicalised a small proportion of the population of North America to insist on immediate and uncompromising abolition of slavery. What was it? This is how Professor Blight of Yale University answers that question:

"First, it was Evangelical Christianity. Some of the radicalism they took from their faith. They took from the so-called Second Great Awakening. They took from this idea that somehow, it was their duty, it was their place in the world...to save souls...it was only one step further--and Finney told them that--to save society as well. And if conversion to Christ or conversion to faith, conversion to salvation, can happen immediately in a person, why not a whole society? If you can revolutionize a single soul, why can't you revolutionize a hundred, 100,000, 1,000,000?... We're living in a different kind of era of Evangelicalism in the United States--although some Evangelicals are indeed reformers, they tend to be seen today largely as political conservatives, social conservatives. Some of the Evangelicalism of the 1820s in America, in the 1830s, became a much more radical kind of Evangelicalism in terms of the social changes that they were advocating."

The false dichotomy between saving souls for another world and saving the world itself, was clearly not understood by nineteenth century evangelicals. Certainly, my research on the period confirms this and has revealed Christianity's relationship to slavery to having been a broadly positive one.

For anyone interested in reading the full transcipt or watching the lecture, it can be found here.

I am an atheist!

I found the lyrics of this video interesting. It implies to me that the question of whether or not there is a God is a side-issue and always was, until the Enlightenment wanted to make an issue of it. Up until then, the debate was - what kind of God do you have? Is it a God of power or justice? Not, is there a God? The Bible was certainly written in a context in which the Enlightenment question 'Is there a God?' was irrelevant. In fact, early Christians were accused of being atheists.

Today, as always the question is - what kind of God do you have? Or, to ask this same question with 'secular' language: What do you value most highly? I find this video interesting because it does not put atheists on one side and theists on the other - rather it puts those interested in justice and love on one side (whether religious or not) and those who hurt and abuse on the other (whether religious or not). The issue of whether they believe in God or not is secondary.

No Justice for Binyam!

You may remember that in November we campaigned for the closure of Guantanamo and we wrote postcards to Binyam Mohammad. See video of Mohammad's testimony here.

This week his lawyers asked the courts to order the release of documents held by the Foreign Office, which support his claims and implicate UK intelligence services. The 2 Lord Chief Justice's said that it was "plainly right" to publish this "powerful evidence", but that Milliband had blocked its release, because the US had threatened to stop sharing intelligence if it were made public.

So, is Binyam going to get no justice for being held without trial and tortured? It seems might is right after all. Clearly in the UK the government is not subject to the courts, but visa versa! Let's protest against this outrageous denial of a human beings right.

Our kids are miserable!

After reading about The Children's Society report, I can't get it out of my head. Here are a few of their findings:

One in six British children have serious emotional or behavioural problems. Children today, it said, are unhappier now than 30 years ago. It said, "Between the lines can be gleaned the uncomfortable truth that many children today are deprived, not of money, but of parental time and love." Two-thirds of children believe their parents 'getting on well' is one of the most important factors in their lives, but only a third of parents thought it mattered that much. And it doesn't seem to matter if they're rich or poor.

What's more, it didn't blame any nebulous social factors. It said that children are unhappy and there is one overwheliming cause - excessive individualism. This is the widespread belief that the prime duty of the individual is to make the most of their own life, rather than to contribute to the lives of others.

It's sobering stuff, especially for someone with children. There does seem to be something about our society that just cries out, "Unhappy". Startling increases in suicide, anorexia, insomnia and depression. Two boys from my school (in seperate incidents) committed suicide over Christmas! What is going on? Yet, anyone would think from the news coverage that the pressing issue of our day is not unhappiness, but the credit crunch! And all of us (Christians included) are caught up in it all as victims and perpetrators simultaneously. How much are we imbibing the really unhelpful values of our society - almost without noticing?

Religion is a ship

“The Great Religions are the Ships…Every sane person I know has jumped overboard.” (Hafiz, a sufi)

I love this line from Hafiz and at certain points in my life it has meant a lot to me. I think the metaphor of religion as a ship is just brilliant and my imagination runs wild thinking of all its possibilities.

I must confess to having once thought of my faith as more of a rock than a ship. But I was being far too over-optimistic as I soon came to realise (the hard way) when the ship began to sink (rocks don't sink!).

Faith is a ship because it has by definition no external prop, but only the structural integrity and interplay of its component parts. When I came to realise this, I wanted to do exactly what Hafiz suggests - jump overboard! After all, if faith has no prop, then the ship (my faith) was just pretending to a certainty that never really existed. It would be better to jump overboard and roll with the waves. Maybe the uncertainties of the sea were scarier, but also more real.

Since realising that my faith did not have a solid foundation, I've come to realise that its survival relies in its being meaningful. I find Hafiz's image helpful here too. I'm presuming Hafiz had in mind sailing ships, rather than ships with engines. For me, the interaction of faith and culture is what sustains the meaningfulness of my faith just as the right interaction of sail with wind, directs the ship.

The Mocking of Christ

Apologies for going on and on about my favourite pictures at the moment... but here's another one.

My previous blog reminded me of this picture. It is a Christian comment on Judaism quite different to the one presented in the film.

It was drawn in Austria during WW2. The picture is unmistakenly a picture of Jesus being mocked, with his scarlet robe, crown of thorns, beaten with sticks and the Roman ensignia on the sleeves of the soldier's clothes.

Yet, Jesus has the Jewish symbol as a clasp around his neck and the soldiers are dressed in Nazi uniform. Jesus is here on the side of the persecuted Jew. Jesus' Jewishness is right to the fore and the scapegoating of the Jews is made comparable to the scapegoating of Jesus.

Of course, this picture does not represent the only Christian voice against the mistreatment of Jews. Bonhoffer made a quite remarkable stand. I am not trying to diminish the culpability of Christianity in anti-semitism, but just want to balance this with another perspective that those of faith should find inspiring.

Jesus & anti-semitism

I was in school last week and asked what I thought of the first episode of "Christianity: a history". I had to confess that I hadn't seen it, but they were keen to give me a synopsis anyway. I gave my initial responses, which seemed to go down well, but I've watched it now online and here is my more considered reaction:


Its a programme about the role of Christianity on anti-semitism: the Jews, we are told were persecuted and murdered throughout the middle ages and beyond because they killed Jesus. The programme explores the responsibility of Christianity for the ill-treatment of Jews.

Of course, the fact that Jews could be persecuted or killed in the name of Jesus is very disturbing for anyone with any kind of sensitivity. It really is a shame that Christianity could not have more universally deplored the treatment of Jews as another example of scapegoating, on a par with the scapegoating of Jesus.

On the other hand, I have long been convinced that ideology (whether Christian or not) simply doesn't have that much power to control people's behaviour. I'm not saying that we are not influenced by our faith position - of course we are, but we also shape that faith position. I'm pretty confident that the persecution of any group occurs primarily for social, political and economic reasons, and ideologies are shaped to support what people want to do, rather than the other way around.

Anyway, on to the programme. It has, of course, all the typical hype of religious broadcasting - pretty conventional ideas (like Jesus was a Jew or baptism was originally a Jewish rite) are heralded as though they were groundbreaking new discoveries! I like its desire to restore Jesus to his original Jewishness. The programme asks:

"How does it harm a Christian's faith to restore Jesus to the jewish world in which he lived? Jesus never once expressed the intention of starting a new religion. His ambition was to renew Judaism, to reawaken it to its own grandeur, not to abolish it."

It was pretty poor, though, in its presentation of Paul. It presented now discredited scholarship as though it were accepted fact. Paul we are told was anti-Jewish. No quotes or evidence were given and I presume the TV makers weren't thinking about "There is no difference between Jew and Gentile we are all one in Christ Jesus". It is now commonly accepted that Paul wasn't critical of Jew per se (in Romans, for example), but Judaizers (Jewish Christians who claimed Gentile Christians should be circumcised etc). Paul was as thoroughly Jewish as Jesus was, and like Jesus, was not trying to start a new religion, but seeing the true expansion of Judaism to the whole world. Christianity wasn't a religion at all until some time after Paul's death.

Hints at animosity to some Jews is evident in the New Testament - I don't deny that. Post 70AD texts were written just as Judaism was throwing Christians out of the synagogue. But anti-semitism itself is a creation of the Middle Ages and served the political and social agenda of the middle ages.

Will Christianity, I wonder, ever recover its tarnished image or forever be seen as the tool of oppression? I wonder if Channel 4 will show the other side of Christianity - the way it has been a tool for liberation and equality as much as oppression. What can Christians do today to present an alternative vision of what Christianity is all about?

The programme can still be watched here.

Who is my neighbour?

I read Mark Powell's comments on the Good Samaritan some time ago - but its one of those comments that sticks with you. I came back to it again recently and thought it was worth a post. Here it is:

"I have heard, read, preached and taught this tale for decades - mostly in mainline, middle-class Protestant churches... the general consensus has always been that the 'moral of the story' is that we ought to be willing to help anyone in need. Our commitment to relieving human suffering ought to transcend political, ethnic and other sorts of rivalries... So I was a little surprised when I went to live in Tanzania and discovered that many people there understand the story differently. The 'moral of the story', these Tanzanians told me, is that people who have been beaten, robbed and left for dead cannot afford the luxury of prejudice. They will (and should) accept help from whoever offers it. When grain is brought to a famished village, parents of starving children do not much care whether the Muslims, Roman Catholics or the Jehovah's Witnesses bring it... In short, the story was understood to answer the question, 'Who is my neighbour?' not with 'whoever needs my help', but with 'whoever helps me'.

As I shared this illustration in the United States, I found that many American Christians smile at the Tanzanians' reading of the familiar tale, regarding it as a quaint misunderstanding. But who is to say which understanding is correct? The variant interpretations are obtained through empathy choice: Americans tend to identify with the men walking down the road... Tanzanians, however, tend to identify with the person in the ditch and consider the question from his perspective. Obviously, one can do either, but I think it is interesting to note the exact wording of the question that is posed in Luke's Gospel... "Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" He does not ask, "Which of these three regarded the injured man as his neighbour?"...

...The main point of the story was that religious leaders... need to evaluate their faith and life from the perspective of the marginalised people of the earth."

I find this quote by Powell striking as an example of what we can learn by reading the text from the perspective of the oppressed, and how much we can bring our priviliged position to the reading of a text. It has often made me read other texts differently by making me ask: who am I empathising with here?

Maybe in the light of some of our recent blogs about who is good - the answer always needs to asked from the perspective of the oppressed - those who do good to the poor, the suffering and the needy, regardless of their faith profession!

(once again I have taken the opportunity to choose one of my favourite images of the good samaritan).

The cross is enough?

I went for a run with Schof on Saturday and he took me on a wild goose chase around the peak district (i.e. got me lost and sent me on a one and an hour run). "It's just over the next hill", he said about 5 times! Anyway, I'm not bitter, just can't stand up!

Anyway, a run with Schof, though painful in some ways, is a delight in others. We were chatting about repentence in the Christian circles we had been in. I recalled a prayer meeting where everyone decided to pray long prayers of confession to God. Of course, I'm all up for a bit of confession, but I came out of this prayer meeting saying, "What was that?!"

People were praying about sins that clearly haunted them, but wouldn't say what they were. I found it such a pity that they felt so guilty that they couldn't say what they were and that they couldn't just be honest about their failings. I had my suspicion about what they felt guilty about, and I suspect it wasn't murder or rape!

I just wish Christianity could be for them a place where they do not need to pretend to be 'good people', but can be honest about the fact that they are failed people. The 'being a Christian makes you good' myth just makes people feel they need to pretend they are good and feel utterly ashamed that they are not. I just wish people could be happy with themselves. Schof's comment was that evangelicals are suprisingly not very good at repentence, particularly for people who believe that the cross finally and completly dealt with their sins!

I am personally enjoying my newly acquired contentment with my sin! I have included the picture above, because I've always loved this image of the warm embrace of the Prodigal Son - wrapped in his father's arms, he is forgiven.

Give us this day... kentucky fried chicken

So, I was in the staff room and someone says, "I've got this religious joke I've been saving up for you and keep forgetting to tell you it", and off he went:

The head of Kentucky Fried Chicken managed to get an audience with the pope on one of his trips to America.

'Can you please change a line of the Lord's Prayer", he asked, "to 'Give us this day kentucky fried chicken?'
'O no, I can't do that' said the Pope.
'If I give you $10 million would you do it?'
'No, I couldn't change the Lord's Prayer'
'Ok, if I give you $50 million would you change it?'
'No, I'm really sorry, I couldn't change the Lord's Prayer for anything.'
'What about for $100 million?'
This time the pope was tempted, 'OK', he says, 'for $100 million I'll change the Lord's Prayer.'
So, the Pope goes back home to the Vatican and tells his Cardinals, 'I have good news and bad news. The good news is I've brought back $100 million from America. The bad news is ... we've lost the deal with Hovis!"

Are Christians better people?

On Monday evening we were treated to a fantastic three-course meal, cooked up by Schof and a great discussion with friends around the question, "Are Christians better people?"

Many thanks to Schof for his great cooking and leading of the discussion!

This is what I can remember from the discussion - maybe other people can fill in the blanks:

• There was a brief discussion about what 'good' actually means. eg. a person hasn't been divorced? A person does their quiet time every day? I think we were in agreement that many of the definitions of 'good' presented in traditional Christianity were unhelpful.



• It was pointed out that statistics have shown that the behaviour of 'fundamentalist' Christians (by the criteria of the questionairre) were better than the ordinary population. This was put down to social conditioning by our group.



• I think we were pretty much in agreement that the traditional Christian message that if you become a Christian you become a better person is just simply not true in our experience and creates unrealistic expectations.



• We were challenged to think about some of the Bible passages (especially in the letters) which suggest that if you become a Christian you do change and become a better person. There were various responses to this. Some found it difficult to read some Bible verses without interpreting in the way they had been brought up to interpret them. I think I said a few (heretical) things about defining the 'good' / 'holy' / 'people of God' not by the contours of 'Christians', but by 'those who do good'. This could include people of faith or not, Christians or not. I tried to support this by reference to the Good Samaritan and the Parable of the Sheep and Goats. I'm not sure others were particularly convinced.


• We ended with communion - a very fitting demonstration of the 'openness' of the table of God to everyone and our unity before him.
  

It seems pretty self-evident to me that 'doing good' should define who 'the good' are and that if these happen to be those outside of our faith tradition, so be it. However, I want to rise to the challenge of Monday night and try to argue that point in the light of biblical texts that might be read to the contrary. So, please post the passages you would challenge me to respond to and I will see what I can do.

Are Christians Better People?

So this is 2009 and the Cadburys Cream Eggs are in the shops already.

Did you make any new years resolutions (bad idea according to the bbc)? I did/didn't. I made some 'decisions about how to create a pattern of life in 2009' :-)

Why did I do that? Like any change there are push and pull factors:

Push - I don't like myself much sometimes when i get snared in sin and there are bits of my life that are in a mess because of it. I need more discipline if I am vaguely serious about being an apprentice of Jesus.

Pull - I am attracted to simplicity and making space for God, confession, celebration and service in everyday life as well as the big stuff. I want to be more Christlike (not just in personal piety but also because I want to play my own small unique part in continuing the Xmas story of peace coming) because that feels more like being alive than anything else.

Having said that i am also:

a) Cautious about being religious, trying to earn grace, doing it for the wrong reasons - I refer again to whose desire do i desire
b) Confident in a God who lives in me and can do more than imaginable & i work in 'development' so I see people grow/change all the time
c) Realistic - I might get new tools but can I actually change much, I mean really change? The stats and anecdotals aren't always as good as those 'I was a gangsta and now i am a minista' headlines - Naked Pastor comment1/comment2, Engage chat, Stats from USA1 Stats 2, Beliefnet article. (Though this piece by Matthew Parris (a famous (and humble) Atheist) is a welcome addition to the debate)
d) Concerned that this discussion just descends into an ugly 'who is really in/out and therefore counts' debate or that the whole thing is based around the wrong definition of 'better' or more likely the wrong starting question.

So....help me out here....

The next engage F2F will be a meal (free) at 105 Murray Rd 8pm Mon 12th Jan. It will be an open chat about the question 'Are Christians Better People?' Come and talk to the person next to you, to the whole table or just listen or just eat or any of the above. There will be some readings to chew on between courses, and oh yeah, bring your mobile so you can twitter your own reflections if you want to. Look forward to seeing you there or getting your comments below - HNY

The Pattern of Without

Whilst trying to find a patch of pattern for myself for this coming year and I came across this quote (very Rollinsesque) that reminded me of my last year and it is something that I want to carry with me into this year. It is far from a denial of hope, love and faith; It is a refusal to claim 'possession' of them. A awful acknowledgement that they are events not charms for rubbing, that they are often experienced as absences. That they,in their real form, are not born of self but born of God. That they are often as counter intuitive as God. That they are not (just?) informative but transformative.

I said to my soul,

be still, and wait without hope

For hope would be hope for the wrong thing;

wait without love

For love would be love of the wrong thing;

there is yet faith

But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

T S. Eliot

(If you are in a Rollinsish mood then this is a great post - 'whose desire do i desire')

Tidbits II

Bit of culture with this William Blake poem

Bit of direct action (or lack there of) from the women of Naples

Bit more progress re Guantanamo this time UK government pressure

Bit steep but tempting 'The Gospel under Occupation' trip to Bethlehem with The Amos Trust