Curtains?

Any one got any spare curtains for the Assist guy's? An asylum seeker just got indefinite leave to stay (brilliant) but they've got no curtains (not so good - though not really the opposite equivalent to forced repatriation, just, you know, its a dignity thing). I'll pick up from around Sheffield. I'll also ask what other stuff they need at the moment as, if you are like me, you will have a large pile of stuff to car boot but no discipline to get up for the 6am start.

Spiritwitterality

Alternative?

Theo Hobson on how 'no real alternative' most alternative worship is, and toying with something more authentic - from the good Ship of Fools

U2?

Ok, its growing on me....

Don't have it yet? Check spotify to listen to U2 or almost anything else for free

Been a long time.... (3 months in 1 post)

I'll try and condense everything I intended to post but didn't get round to into (as close as I get to normal) sentences:

• Got a new Job - Corporate Responsibility - doing good (trying to) feels good doesn’t it?
• Israel / Palestine - read Esther - violence (without God) is cyclical - that’s what's so radical about the Jesus story - refusing revenge = chance of change
• Light is a powerful universal symbol that we miss because we can flick a switch
• I wanted Easter to be a 're-personalisation' of a transformative story / person /(ongoing) event
  Taking up your cross is not about (the myth of?) 'redemptive' suffering (the cross = general suffering association is later) it’s about going up against the dominion system and the 'way' of transformation through death/resurrection
• I don't miss the blogosphere because - as U2 sing on up till now disappointing new album, ' your enemies will define you' / real people matter more
• I do miss the real people on the blogosphere
• Write a Book = vanity v useful ?
• My old church was great
• Is there a balance between reconciling oneself to not being able to change everything and wanting to change everything?
• Too many good books to be read
• Is it only me that one day thinks its all made up, one day thinks its all true, one day doesn't care but just want to get on, one day doesn't think at all etc etc?
• Individualism is its own worst enemy
• Justice / Holistic Worship / Proclamation?
• Rowan was profound when he said that God doesn't promise to stop us ruining stuff (God is not a responsibility mop (the Gospel is as much a responsibility distributor as receptacle)
• Easter = Love wins/ Life = trying to believe and do that
• I think its still worth doing something in Sheffield on Spiritual Development to give a bit of a map for fellow travellers
• Things are complicated, but even harder when simple
• G20.....?
• Engage......?
  
• Good to be back?

Theology that changes things

As an advocate of social change, who likes to sit at home and do as little as possible, I've been wondering:

What kind of theology changes society as well as people’s hearts?

Here are a few historical perspectives:

Postmillennialism to Pre-millennialism. These ideas can be highly tedious hair splitting exercises in interpreting Revelation. On the other hand, they can reflect very different perspectives about the relationship of God to social change. Certainly from the time of the Puritans until the end of the 19th century Protestantism had held the view that Jesus would return after the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth. This meant that social change was both desirable and achievable. It meant human beings were a part of the process of the return of Jesus. At the end of the 19th century, and coinciding with the mainstream church becoming less interested in social change, the church moved to the idea that Jesus would return before God’s kingdom was established on earth. If Jesus was to return to earth first, what happened to the earth before that was pretty academic. I, personally, do not want to advocate either, but I do think a theology that hopes for the kingdom of God established on earth is preferable.

Imminence and Transcendence Most churches have historically preferred transcendence over imminence. Look at the songs we sing – they talk about God ‘up there’, beyond us, understood by admiring the wonders of creation. By contrast, such songs did not appear amongst black slaves in North America. Instead, God was among them – he worked out his purposes through the slaves. They saw God as imminent. Thus, they did not wait for God to come as a bolt from heaven, for when they acted God acted.

Predestination and Free will. I have no desire to unpack these philosophical ideas! Just to say, that advocates of free will (e.g. Wesley, Finney) were active in bringing social change. I’m sure either extreme is mistaken and maybe reflects the failure to grasp what the slaves recognised – that God acts through us, so such distinctions are irrelevant.

Who is up for a theology that incorporates the imminence of God with a belief that God will establish his kingdom on earth?

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).