Category Archives: Spirituality

Starsuckers…

Posted on by
Reply

I watched some of this film the other day-

It is impossible to watch this and not think that there is something bonkers- something rather sick- at the root of our media machine (and therefore at the root of our society.)

We hunger for significance

And the primary way we demonstrate this is through the media machine

Which for its part will chase after any train wreck or celebrity breakdown in order to make a splash of attention, which will then convert into a splash of cash

And because train wrecks and celebrity breakdowns are unpredictable, then the machine manufactures them-

And we play the game- even though we understand that it is a game. Even though we know that it is all fake and phoney. Because what else is there?

How else might we aspire to significance?

How else might life be lifted from the humdrum but by the exposure of some soft subcutaneous celebrity flesh? (Apologies for the Dylan Thomas-esque excessive use of sibilance!)

And how, my friends, do we begin to do things differently? Because each one of our areas of expansion- even the Church- falls into similar traps. We elevate our celebrities, feed on them, then watch them fall.

The TFT counter culture anti-tabloid manifesto! 

So, here it is. Time to push back!

Lets be like fat men who walk past Macdonalds- at least some of the time…

  1. Stop buying tabloid newspapers. I know- they are entertaining, and you only buy them for the sport, but the ink is toxic- and it will stain all sorts of things that you are not immediately aware of.
  2. Let’s stop caring what celebrities think. Rather let’s look for other voices- those at the margins. Particularly those who are poor and weak.
  3. Let us focus on the small scale, not the big scale- let us hope to find our place in small communities as we set ourself towards simple missions.
  4. And as for the interweb- useful though it is- it is not democratic. It is not a means of levelling the playing field. That dream is dead. It reflects all the mess of wider society. So let us sometimes deliberately SWITCH OFF (Scary as it might be to those of us addicted to laptops and smart phones) and so something simple, and hospitable. Go for a walk with a friend. Visit someone who is lonely. Write a letter. Go to a pub and buy someone a drink.
  5. Value the small things. Celebrate them in verse and song.
  6. Cultivate individuality, not image.
  7. Create for the joy of it- not for the relationship to what is cool.
  8. And as for Christian celebrities- well lets make a rule that they can only be seen in public wearing clothes from Oxfam- one size too small. Or if that is too cruel, lets just have an open on going discussion about human frailties and how we measure the wisdom and worth of an individual.
  9. Gossip about goodness. Try to tell stories of people’s secret success and hidden kindnesses.
  10. All that is broken in you, all that is beautiful on others- these things are eternal.

A vicar in a riot…

Posted on by
3

Someone tweeted this today- which I think is a rather wonderful piece.

It tells the story of a Chaplain Hayley Matthews on her way home, suddenly ‘Kettled’ along with a group of looters and rioters- and their strange reaction to the presence of a dog collar.

In his piece, she said this- which I really liked…

The trouble is, we do have a two tier society without a doubt, and while bankers have been allowed their bonuses having stitched us up every which way, we will continue to pay for this in more ways than one, and tonight is just one of them.  With the cuts aimed primarily at the poor and the needy and the disenfranchised, things can only get worse.

And what will we do?  Continue to promulgate the values that have created this deadly cocktail of haves and have-nots, faithless, hopeless people who have been taught that consumerism is a recreational right and all moral and religious education completely nonsensical?  Surely THIS is nonsensical?!

Please God that we wake up and smell the coffee, before we condemn yet another generation (no pun intended).

There’s no such thing as a free Bible…

Posted on by
1

A friend told a story tonight that had me in stitches.

She had been surfing the glorious interweb and checking out some Christian sites. You could say, indulging in a bit of religious surfing. Now this activity is not without it’s risks. One might be able to cope with the madness that you will encounter by trying to laugh at it all- some of it is pretty darned funny after all. Check out Ship of fools if you do not believe me.

But aiming for a bit of superior oh-isn’t-this-funny-but-I-am-above-all-this-madness is only likely to take you so far. Because it usually starts to get rather painful. You start to realise that some of this hysterical ranting is being done in the name of Jesus. Or even worse, you realise that you are starting to laugh at- yourself. Some of the madness starts to sound a little too familiar.

But back to my friend. She came across a site promising a free Bible, if you completed their online quiz. Well, she was up for that. A nice leather bound black Bible to replace her rather tatty paperback one.

She is not daft though- she e-mailed to ask if the organisation would then use/abuse her e-mail address in future- but was assured that this would not be the case. So she went ahead and submitted her details.

A few day later, she was having a duvet day- you know the sort of thing, getting up late, mooching around and watching crap day time TV, snacking and leaving the pots for a while- all the time wearing clothes that really should never see the light of the public day. We all need the odd day like this. Then came a knock on the door.

She lifted the net curtain, and there stood an African Pastor and his wife.

Holding a big black Bible.

Cars that go nowhere.

Posted on by
Reply

I like museums.

When we go to them as a family, I find myself falling into a trance like state. I stand and read all those pieces of writing and little bitty labels. I do not bother with most of the gimmicky interactive stuff- I just like to encounter things that carry with them meaning from the past.

The weekend was a case in point. We went to the stunning new Transport Museum on the banks of the Clyde in Partick, Glasgow. It was full of cars and motorbikes and trains. Everyone else soon gravitated towards the cafe but I wandered- intrigued by a model of a battleship or a 1932 Argyll motor car. I enjoyed it all.

And it occurred to me how we humans love to organise things- to place them in some kind of category and shelve them all away so we can make sense of it all. It is the very life blood of those who curate museums.

And perhaps too those who curate our experience of religion.

So here is a picture for you- you can make your own analogous links…

The law, or the Spirit?

Posted on by
Reply

It has been said that cricket was exported by the British Empire as a way of selling some kind of idea of ‘Britishness’- characterised by fair play, individual skills realised in a team context and adherence to rules. Cricket has moved on a long way since then- the seat of power has shifted firmly towards India, and there is a hard edged professionalism to the game.

However, the high drama of the international arena still has a way of throwing up controversies- there is a great test series being played between India and England at the moment- and yesterday one of the England players, who was batting brilliantly and playing his team into a potentially match winning position, found himself in the middle of a conflict with the laws of the game, and what cricketers still call ‘the spirit of the game’.

In case you are interested, this is what happened-

All very interesting if you are a cricket fan- but also, I think there is a useful theological parallel here. Much of the letters of Paul in the Bible constantly debate the primacy of the LAW as against the NEW KINGDOM- and the rule of love. More recently, this whole controversy has surfaced again with the discussions about what might happen to we sinners when we die (eg Rob Bell’s book ‘Love Wins’) and also all this discussion about homosexuality (see yesterday’s post.)

Our ‘modern’ interpretation of the law is characterised by an idea of inflexible, unyielding black and white rules, and whilst many who practice the law might suggest that this may well be an illusion, we assume that this is the kind of law making that God adheres to also.

But what if the universe has a higher court- not of law, but of principle- you could say the ‘spirit of the game’? What if ultimately, the rule of love will indeed overcome all- not to condemn the law, but to fulfill it. Not to ignore the law, but rather to dwell in the midst of the laws purpose?

A musical time machine makes me ponder…

Posted on by
4

I watched some of one of those late night music compilation programmes last night- hits of the 80’s. Rather than flicking past as I would normally have done, I found myself back in Preston, as a student. Or slow dancing to Tears For Fears at parties in my earlier teens. Music does this to you- even music that may not have been a personal preference- it somehow becomes a powerful cue for memory.

One of the tracks that surprised me in this way last night was The Communards ‘Don’t leave me this way’- suddenly I was in the Student Union again, with my house mates Mark and Steve- and the electronic pulse of this track, combined with Jimmy Sommerville’s astonishing falsetto singing was carrying us along.

I was never really a fan of The Communards- I did not own any of their music. Partly this was because I was never into dance music, but also (to be honest) there was this sexuality thing, that made me uncomfortable. The band were openly gay- at the forefront of the campaign against homophobia. This was the time of AIDS- seen as a ‘Gay plague’ and ‘section 28’.

Listening to this song yesterday was more than just a nostalgia trip- it made me think again about how far my thinking- and that of wider society- has come since the 80’s in relation to homosexuality. Don’t get me wrong, I was never openly homophobic. I lived in a house with two other lads- one who was gay. I was a very left leaning student of sociology and social science.

But I was also from a Christian background- and always there was this conflict in me- because there were hard lines drawn here- homosexuality was sin. End of discussion. Sure, people like Tony Campolo proposed a path of grace in which we should accept that people were born gay (rather than the prevailing view that it was a debauched ‘lifestyle choice’, or perhaps the product of some kind of childhood damage or weakness of character.) Campolo’s view was that the way to resolve the issue was to accept people as gay, but to expect celibacy. This was not an argument that went well with my gay friends at the time- most of whom longed for companionship after desperately lonely and stigmatised early lives.

Watching The Communards yesterday made me feel ashamed of my rejection of their music on the basis of their sexuality. I have written before how I have come to believe that the Church will look back on it’s teaching on homosexuality in the same way that it does now on its previous teaching on other culturally based rights issues- on the basis of race, or gender for example. Another example is the change (over the last 30 years) in relation to divorce/remarriage in most of the Protestant church at least. The meat of this issue always comes back to how we understand the nature of Scripture of course- but I will not re-rehearse these arguments here.

I also discovered something about the other member of the band- Richard Coles– a classically trained musician who played most of the instruments. He has since presented programmes on Radio 4 and BBC 2, but the surprising thing about him is that he is now a Church of England vicar.

Coles talks about coming to faith after attending the funeral of a friend who died of AIDs. Which reminded me of this song- which I offer here as a lament for all of this faith based homophobia…

Tree of Life film…

Posted on by
2

.

We went to watch this film the other day. I had not heard of it, nor read any of the reviews- rather we had an opportunity to go and watch a’ grown up film’ for the first time in ages, and this one looked interesting.

The director, Terrence Malcik, appears to be using the film as an intimate exploration of the meaning of life and of faith.

Is it any good?

Well- the first thing to say is that it made us cry- several times. This might be because we do not get out much, but it is also because if it is full of tender lovely moments. The photography is stunning at times, and the acting (Penn, Pitt and the mesmeric Jessica Chastain) is brilliant.

Not to mention the performances of the young kids.

At times it is rambling, and certainly pretentious (although all good films need to be to a certain extent.) Then there is the rather overblown creation/evolution imagery- including a rather dodgy CGI dinosaur.

And the lovely music/image combinations-

Is this a great film? I think not- it is too flawed, too rambling, too indulgent.

Is it a great experience- yes.

What about the theology? Not sure what to say here- Malick’s conclusion after all his meanderings seem to be that life is beautiful, precious- but if we do not love it flashes by. He also finishes with a strange afterlife scene where everyone is united on some kind of beach at dusk.

Watch it- and enjoy the tender moments. You may forgive him the rest.

I have to say- on the way out of the cinema, a young attendant asked people if they enjoyed the film, and in front of us a very grumpy man barked- ‘Was it POSSIBLE to enjoy it?’ He had sat through the whole thing though…

So- having collected some of my own thoughts, I went to look at what the critics said about the film. It has certainly divided opinion- one critic pointed out that there was only one consonant between ‘comic’ and ‘cosmic’- whilst others called it a masterpiece. Some just said it was ‘Christian’ as if this was enough to sum up this film.

I find myself in full agreement of this review in the Guardian.

The Tree of Life may well come to be seen as this decade’s great Christian artwork. But I still prefer to think of it as something other than that. Just as Dietrich Bonhöffer called for a religionless Christianity, so the movie for me created a Christianityless metaphysics.

It is a magnificent, toweringly ambitious and visionary work – brilliantly shot by Emmanuel Lubezki, passionately felt, and deeply serious in its address to the audience. The Tree of Life is about the inner crisis of a tormented man in his middle years and the terrible unchangeability of the past. As this man briefly forces himself to consider his own negligible place in the universe, the film gestures at the unimaginable reaches of geological and stellar time, depicting nothing less than the origins of the cosmos and man himself in a colossal Kubrickian symphony of images.

Freedom…

Posted on by
1

Good conversation yesterday evening about freedom.

In many ways it was a return to this quote-

 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

John 8:32

In a previous post I focused on the ‘truth’ thing- but there is also this word ‘freedom’. What does it mean to be free? What did Jesus mean by freedom?

The traditional evangelical view is that Jesus was meaning freedom from the consequences of our sin. Except that the context of the passage from John’s gospel seems to suggest that rather than trying to solve the ‘problem of sin’ Jesus was trying to solve the ‘problem of the sin police’. Check out the full passage- coming as it does in the wake of how he brilliantly turns aside the traps the Pharisees set for him- and how he focuses instead on the potential collateral damage of their theological/political debate- a woman who was accused of adultery.

So in this discussion, Jesus is interested in freeing people from the hard unyielding unloving religion. Freedom in the context then is- what? No religion? I think there is a strong argument for this- but certainly I think we can say a different kind of religion- one where the outer person is less important than the heart of the matter, and where the weak and poor are always to be preferred to the powerful and rich. A kind of religion that turns the tables on the easy assumptions and compromises made by the movers and shakers of our times.

In housegroup the other night we listened to Aung San Suu Kyi speaking about obtaining freedom (One of the Reith Lectures- you can listen again here.) This was an inspiring account of lives lived in the very face of oppression. For Suu Kyi and many of her colleagues, freedom is not an abstract concept (even though she speaks too about freedom of the Spirit) but is a real place of longing,  seen through Burmese prison bars. She described the courage of those who continue to work for freedom from oppression- how it was not the absence of fear that motivated them, but rather a sufficiency of courage in the presence of fear.

But we in the west, we take this kind of freedom for granted. We often move onto discussions about an extension of this freedom into all sorts of casual consumer choices- the right to a good holiday experience, or the freedom to chose what time our hospital appointment should be.

Which kind of leaves me wondering whether the kind of freedom we need is not physical- but spiritual.

Perhaps freedom is not just about the bringing down of a wall, or the overthrowing of a dictator- even though these events might be ones well worth working and hoping for.

Rather freedom is another one of these things that we discover on the journey- it is not an end in itself, but in seeking to live a life according to the rules of the New Kingdom, we find that the shackles tend to loosen and fall away.

A place called wandering…

Posted on by
3

I have been thinking about our Greenbelt worship event- which will be entitled ‘Homesick’. One of the key themes emerges from a discussion about the nature of we humans- made a little lower than the angels, neither fully flesh nor completely spirit. An amalgam of both- or perhaps one on a journey to becoming the other.

It set me thinking about what it might mean for we Christians- how we live in the presence of the immanence- how our present is always lived in the belief that there is another reality- which Jesus described confusingly as ‘The Kingdom of God’.

I wonder if there is something in this life that will always be unfulfilled- always be tinged with nuance and compromise. This is no bad thing- it is the way of the pilgrim- how we learn through surprise encounters and hopeful longing as much as by certainty and knowing.

I came across this passage from the book of Genesis that says it as well as anything-

10 (C)Then the Lord said,
Why have you done this terrible thing? Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground, like a voice calling for revenge.11 You are placed under a curse and can no longer farm the soil. It has soaked up your brother’s blood as if it had opened its mouth to receive it when you killed him.12 If you try to grow crops, the soil will not produce anything; you will be a homeless wanderer on the earth.

13 And Cain said to the Lord,
This punishment is too hard for me to bear.14 You are driving me off the land and away from your presence. I will be a homeless wanderer on the earth, and anyone who finds me will kill me.

15 But the Lord answered,
No. If anyone kills you, seven lives will be taken in revenge. So the Lord put a mark on Cain to warn anyone who met him not to kill him.16 And Cain went away from the Lord’s presence and lived in a land called
Wandering, which is east of Eden.