The future of Church in the west?

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Following on from my somewhat negative previous post, I have just been reading a couple of reports from this conference.

The discussion focused on the future of Christianity in the USA- and this is clearly potentially very misleading. The global growth of Christianity is a very different discussion. However, the influence of American Evangelical Christianity on the UK religious scene is huge- all the TV channels, the publishing juggernaut and the big name preachers. We watch changes there with interest, knowing that the impact of these changes will be felt this side of the Atlantic.

Brian McLaren believes that over the next period, the Conservative Evangelical denominations (protestant and Catholic) in the USA will “constrict, tighten up, batten the hatches, raise the boundary fences, demand greater doctrinal, political, and behavioral conformity, and monitor boundaries with increased vigilance.”

He believes that this will drive out many, whilst increasing the anxiety and ‘bunker mentality’ of those left inside the denominations. At the same time, he sees a new coalition forming-

That new coalition, I believe, will emerge from four main sources:

  1. Progressive Evangelicals who are squeezed out of constricting evangelical settings.
  2. Progressive Roman Catholics (and Eastern Orthodox) who are squeezed out of their constricting settings.
  3. Missional mainliners who are rediscovering their Christian faith more as a missional spiritual movement, and less as a revered and favored religious institution.
  4. Social justice-oriented Pentecostals and Evangelicals — from the minority churches in the West and from the majority churches of the global South, especially the second- and third-generation leaders who have the benefits of higher education.

Scott McKnight points out that Conservative Evangelical Mega churches in the USA (and I believe,the UK equivalents) are in fact growing. He does not believe that ‘Evangelicalism’ is made up of one stream- believing that some incarnations will be around for a long long time to come.

However, what he sees as now having ended is the old ‘Evangelical coalition’-

The evangelicalism that formed in the 1940s and 1950s, more accurately called “neo-evangelicalism,” was a reaction to strident forms of fundamentalism, a call to serious intellectual engagement so that evangelicalism could gain both theological and academic credibility again, and a formation of a big tent coalition to work together for evangelism and theological development. By and large, this big tent coalition combined the Calvinist and Wesleyan segments of evangelicalism, found places for Christian colleges, parachurch ministries, missionary societies, and a plethora of magazines and radio stations, and gave a privileged place to evangelical leaders like Billy Graham and Carl Henry.

But perhaps the most powerful piece was by Philip Clayton who had this to say-

A major national survey recently published in USA Today shows that 72 percent of “Millennials” — Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 — now consider themselves “spiritual but not religious.” Even among those who self-identify as practicing Christians, all of the traditional forms of Christian practice have sharply declined from previous years: church attendance, Bible study, prayer. Doubts are higher, and affiliation with the institutional church is sharply lower. All of us who are still connected with local congregations already know this pattern, up close and personal. Still, it’s sobering to see the trends writ large; after all, we’re talking about almost three-quarters of younger Americans!

The decline of traditional churches and denominations will presumably continue, so that by 2020 the effects will be as devastating in the U.S. as they already are in Europe. (On a typical Sunday, for example, 0.5 percent of Germans attend church.) Numerically, two-thirds or more of mainline churches will close their doors or struggle on without a full-time pastor. Denominations will merge in order to be able to maintain even minimal national staffs and programs. A larger and larger proportion of those who still go to church will attend large “mega” churches, those with 2,000 or more attendees on an average Sunday.

Clayton issued what he called a ‘call to church’-

We churchpeople were the center of American society since this nation was founded. We enjoyed power and prestige; we were the center of the action; we counted presidents, educators, and industry leaders among our numbers. But those days, it appears, are over. We still have a crucial role to play in the world. But it’s no longer a world that revolves around us.

This new role actually makes it easier for us to model ourselves and our communities on the Head of the church, who “has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him” (Isaiah 53:2). As Dwight Friesen puts it in Thy Kingdom Connected, the church can no longer be a “bounded set,” defining itself by the people and ideas it’s opposed to. We now have to be a “centered set,” pointing toward — and living like — the One whose life and ministry we model ourselves on. If we can’t communicate our Center with power and conviction, no one’s going to listen. Oh, and by the way: we have to find ways to do this that don’t sound or look anything like the church has looked over the last 50 years or so.

Finally, Clayton talks about an age of experimentation in church-

What does “church” look like when you take it out of the box, replant it, and let it grow organically? It’s going to stretch and challenge you; it’s going to take openness to forms and practices you’ve never seen before:

  • churches that meet in pubs, office buildings, school classrooms, or homes . . . or virtual churches, like those at SecondLife.com;
  • churches that have no leader, or have leaders who don’t look like any pastor you’ve ever known (OMG, what if they have piercings?);
  • pastors who are hosts to discussions, who can listen long and deep to doubts and questions before presenting the answers on which they center their lives;
  • churches that don’t have buildings, denominations, pastors, or sermons; that don’t meet on Sundays; that consist mainly of people who don’t call themselves “Christians”;
  • churches whose participants are drawn from many different religious groups; churches full of “seekers”; churches that consist mostly of silence (like the Quakers) or of heated discussions between participants.

Not only conservatives will wonder and worry where one should draw the line. And that’s the point: we’ve now entered an age where we no longer know how to draw lines, because the old criteria just don’t work anymore — except to exclude the vast majority of the people whom we hope to interest.

All this sounds very familiar from this side of the Atlantic. We are much further down the line that it all.

We have our Evangelical enclaves- who tend to be exclusive, embattled, and increasingly fuelled by an agenda that looks either to African or American Mega churches. Despite their vigour and apparent success, they are largely irrelevant to the larger cultural situation- and their engagement with mission is simply to attempt to create more ‘converts’ to their own kind of belief system. These churches feel to me to be about marketing and mass consumerism.

And then we have the huge majority of spiritually interested consumers, who may have been inoculated against Christianity, but not against Jesus.

And then we have a growing number of experimental pioneers, whose methods are increasingly being adopted by the mainstream traditional churches- through things like Fresh Expressions-

…and all the mixed madness to be experienced at Greenbelt Festival.

We live, my friends, in interesting times, where change is normal, and the future uncertain. But I have no doubt that church will continue, and that the mission of Jesus will be carried forward into new generations. Some will resist any change fiercely, others will embrace it.

But change will happen- it has already happened…

Not clubbable…

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We had a lovely evening tonight with friends, discussing life, childhood, faith and children.

Drinking wine and listening to good music.

One of our friends described her son as ‘not clubbable’- meaning that he was not comfortable joining in-groups. Such groups are scary, exclusive, and make too many demands that he does not necessarily want to be committed to on a week by week basis.

Does this remind you of anything?

The decline in membership of unions, bowling clubs, debating societies, womens institutes, working men’s clubs etc etc.

And churches.

Perhaps we are increasingly not churchable.

Or perhaps churches can no longer behave like clubs…

The father who walks with the Son and the Spirit…

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I have taken a day off work today- the sun is shining, and I need a day at home after a really busy couple of weeks.

Greenbelt festival is looming!

Aoradh are going to be doing a few worship things again- participating in a day long worship event along with Sanctus 1 and Safespace. I just checked the GB website and see we are not mentioned as participants! How rude.

As part of the worship, we are providing a great big loom, into which people will be encouraged to weave in the names of their community- here is the loom frame in front of our house-

We are also doing a couple of liturgies- one around communion, with a really lovely piece that Audrey wrote, and another based on the Community of God- the Trinity, with our bit focussing on the Father.

If you are at Greenbelt this year, it would be great to see you- we will be in the New Forms cafe for most of the day on Saturday…

I pulled out an old piece of writing I did thinking about fatherhood, and have been doing some work on it. Here are a couple of sections I am playing with-

We were made for relationship.

.

All of us- with no exceptions

Every one of God’s children

.

From the star pupil,

To the remedial

Poorly clothed

Last-to-be-picked

Back-of-the-classroom loser

.

Who becomes the favourite

The Chosen One

The last-

Now made first

.

Beloved

Of the most high God

ABBA

.

Abba is not a word of examination

It demands no achievements

And sets no unreachable goals

.

Abba is not a word of judgement

It has no laws to uphold

And carries no truncheons

.

Abba is not a word of profit

It knows no sensible spending limits

And demands no collateral

.

Abba is not an ineffectual word

It answers to no committees

And has no obligations

.

Abba is not a word of power

It has no foot soldiers

And demands no blind obedience

.

Abba is not an absent word

It has no shoddy rented spaces

And evicts no tenants

.

Abba is an open word

Open doored

Open armed

And open hearted

.

It is a word that invites us home.

Middle class aspirations…

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There has been a fair bit of soul searching/life-style-evaluating  on the old tent. Perhaps it is just evidence of an unfolding mid life crisis- blogging style.

How middle class!

I grew up in a single parent family, to a working class mother. We had very little money.

I do not want to pretend that we had nothing- there was always food and presents at Christmas- but the shadow of poverty was always on us. Second hand clothes, and even home made clothes singled us out for terrible bullying at school, and every single activity was overshadowed by worry about COST.

My mother was very good at squeezing some kind of security out of the state benefits that supported us, but her constant anxiety about the cost of repairs to the house,or replacing a lost coat led to terrible rows.

So it was that from an early age, it was drummed into me that the only life worth aiming for- the only one that was acceptable- was one based on middle class values.

  • Education
  • University
  • Sobriety
  • Responsibility
  • Professional employment
  • Property ownership
  • Security

Adrift as I was as a young man, this was the island that I swam towards. A suburban world of respectability, gainful employment and financial comfort. Or at least, being in a position where money was not something that ever needed to be worried about.

But I never really reached this point. This is the great middle class trap- when is enough? When do we achieve safety? How many stocks and shares, how big a pension pot, how recently should the house have been re-painted?

Alongside these motivations have always been dissonant and equally powerful ones- arising from my faith (not needing two shirts on my back, camels not fitting through eyes of needles etc) and my left leaning politics (property is theft, international trade and inequality etc.) Life then is lived in the presence of internal conflict and discomfort.

But having started down this path- how do you change direction?

My conviction is that most of us simply can not. Life is simply too full of obligations and compromises. And there can still be blessing, beauty, and grace in this middle class life. There are still people who open up their suburban lives and homes to the other and from this part of our demographic come the committee members, the community activists, the fund raisers and the protestors against many an injustice.

Some of us are forced to change direction by crisis. Redundancy, mental/physical ill health or some other extraordinary life event that disturbs our innate conservastism.

Outside of this, change takes such courage. Like standing at the edge of a cliff and daring yourself to jump in the direction of a crumbling ledge in the middle distance.

The sort of courage demands a great confidence. Confidence of purpose, and clarity of vision. A willingness to embrace risk and uncertainty.

And for me, confidence was always absent. It was lost somewhere aged 8, and I never really found it again. Confidence belonged to those other middle class kids, who were able to embrace risk and uncertainty whilst beginning from a  firm platform.

But standing here I now am.

Daring myself to jump. Or waiting for a push.

Here is a poem from a few years ago;

Michaela loves that time when evening turns to dusk

When streetlights shine with purpose

But people have not yet drawn their curtains

.

There laid naked by approaching night

The secrets of some other sitting room

Are shelved

Are stored in boxes from Ikea

In two dimensions

Animated by the ubiquitous TV sets

Flickering from the corners

.

Arm in arm we share clandestine glances

Whispering our words of approval or approbation

And walk on into our own lives

.

There was a time when we watched in aspiration

Building middle class castles in our minds

Safe within suburbia

Dreaming of a day when we too would know the security

Of ownership.

A solid sideboard

And stripped pine floors

.

Like the moths flapping at the amber streetlights

We are drawn to the artificial arc

Of convention

And conformity

Tied down to the temporal

Walking to stand still

.

Michaela and I

We sometimes transcend the tramlines

Or at least we try

.

We catch a glimpse of another way

The scent of freedom on the breeze

Blown there from another Kingdom

And we start to fly

.

I do not believe that Icarus

Melted his wax wings

I think he mortgaged them.

20.2.06

Living in the shadow of death…

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I heard someone discussing health care today- the usual discussion about self inflicted health problems, such as those associated with smoking or obesity.

Discussions like this usually make me feel uncomfortable- many of us think that we ought to be healthier- take more exercise, loose some weight. It has been a guilt on me for most of my life.

But that is not the point of this post.

Because the counter argument that was made really made me think. It went something like this-

What is this obsession with making life longer– as if this were the main reason for life itself? Why should every thing that we do be governed by the fear of death?

Why do we measure life quantity so rigourously- in terms of years, months, days and hours (as well as the cost of maintenance through health care?)

Whilst at the same time we have lost sight of any reliable qualitative measure of life- despite all the lifestyle choices that we are bombarded with- the holidays, the houses, the constructed leisure experiences, the pressure to consume ever more produce that fills life with all things shiny and new…

What makes for a ‘good’ life?

I suppose for many of my friends, this might include varied experience, travel, relationships, family, economic security, fulfilment. All of these things are good.

But is this it? We live as long as we can, and if we are lucky we might have some laughter, some love and consume a fair bit?

No. Something in me rebels against the hollowness- the shallowness– of this kind of life.

As was the writer of Ecclesiastes-

13 I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men! 14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.15 What is twisted cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted.

(Chapter 1)

But there is more.

There is life that is not lived as an avoidance of the inevitable, with added entertainment.

It is a way of life that seeks human connection, human service, and the life of the Spirit of God within us. The way of Jesus.

This kind of life is not easy and clean or overly concerned with safety or security. It is more likely to be messy, unpredictable and even downright dangerous.

But this is the kind of life I long for. Because the alternative seems like no life at all.

Michaela’s step father Robert died recently- the shadow of death fell across us, and we still live with the grief and loss. But life is such a precious, wondrous, joyous thing. Let us not waste it in the pursuit of quantity.

Life still flickers

I have heard it said that

Dead men walking

We are

Corporeal

Tenderised

Like veal

Blown by flies

But life still flickers

Faint but strong

Vibrating these hollow veins

And the voltage you make

Is a current

Wired to the nape

Of my neck

Because this thing we are

Is more than just

A bottle

For blood

So much more than just

Shapes

Mixed from mud

Beautiful creature

Sing spirit-

Sing

Otters- under Dunoon pier?!

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I was admiring the dramatic sky over the Clyde this evening (about 9PM) so I took my camera down to Dunoon pier to take some photos-

There is a bit of a rig doing something to the water works- but it looks a bit like an oilfield has been found just off Dunoon!

I decided to change to the longer lens, and while I was fiddling (of course it would be whilst the camera had NO LENS!) swimming in front of me, less than 10 metres away, were two otters.

Yes- OTTERS!

I could not believe my eyes.

I attached the lens as fast as I  could, but this was my first effort, as they rolled over one another playfully-

Oops. Well it was very dark, and I was very excited.

I have never seen an otter in the wild before- and here they were, in Dunoon? Right in the centre, under the pier? On holiday perhaps?

I wondered whether I could be seeing something else- a couple of cats learning to swim? Mink? But actually, two otters at play that close are not easily mistaken for anything else.

They saw me watching them, and swam to the old pier, where they paused and watched me. So here are the photo’s-

I believe that otter have been spotted in all sorts of urban areas along the Clyde, even in Glasgow. But I have not heard of them being seen in Dunoon.

A couple of young otters on their way out along the Clyde perhaps? Doon the watter for a holiday?

4 thought TV…

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Just discovered 4thought.tv– “A series of highly personal short films, broadcast 365 days a year, reflecting on a broad range of religious and ethical issues, and aspects of our spiritual lives. These 90 second films challenge some traditional views, providing a platform for both scepticism and devout religious beliefs.”

Somehow passed me by, but there is some wonderful stuff-

Here is a little Foy Vance

Then there is the polar opposites of the homosexuality debate-

And lots more besides!

I think I might be visiting from time to time…

Richard Rohr on Dualism…

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My friend Maggie sent me a link to a quote from Richard Rohr the other day. We are both looking forward to hearing him speak at Greenbelt Festival in a couple of weeks.

(Yikes- a couple of weeks! Aoradh are doing various things at GB, and we have a lot of work to do before we will be ready!)

Anyway, the quote tapped into the theme of dualism- which I mentioned before- here, and has also been a central idea in McLaren’s recent book–

Dualism.

As applied to theological understanding, this debate goes something like this-

Western civilisation has been hugely influenced by Greek philosophy, and in particular the work of Plato.

This is not a new idea- I have been in a number of emerging church discussions that have highlighted the contrast between the philosophy of the ancient Hebrews with the potential skew in perspective that comes from wearing our Western Platonic goggles. But it is an idea that appears to have become increasingly important as we seek to re-engage with the ancient scriptures, and as some of the core tenets of our faith are being reshaped.

Plato (in contrast to the polar opposite- you could say ‘dual-‘ position of Aristotle) regarded all that was of the earth as temporary, worthless- a mere shadow of the ultimate reality. Ultimate reality is not material- it is the essence behind the fumbling form and shape we humans give to things.

The end result was a culture skewed towards division. Enlightened thinkers tended to view the world as made up of the profane, and the sacred. The sacred was unchanging ultimate reality, whilst the profane was changing, shifting, worthless.

The tendency to divide every subject into two seems to have been pervasive- left/right, good/bad. evangelical/liberal etc- the dualities multiply and abound.

As these ideas mingled with the founders of the early church- who after all were at the centre of the Greek/Roman world that embodied this dualism in terms of their philosophy and origins- then it potentially had some powerful effects on religious thinking-

  • The sense of the material world being of lesser importance than the ultimate reality of an orderly, dispassionate unchanging God.
  • The resultant need to focus on winning souls, as a priority over any other religious activity.
  • The in-out stuff- the us and them stuff. We are enlightened and saved- you are not.
  • Enlightenment means becoming aware of our imperfection, set alongside the perfectness of God.
  • In the creation of this ‘ideal state’- a Christian version of Pax Romana– it is only citizens who count- only people who have converted.
  • And in return, Christians can confidently expect prosperity and blessing commensurate with being a citizen of this ideal kingdom.

The interesting and difficult question that McLaren is suggesting that we need to ask in ‘A new kind of Christianity’ is about considering the faith of the Ancient Hebrews- their understanding of God. He (and others) propose that this Ancient Hebrew God was very different from ours.

For a start, many of the simple dualities that we take for granted are challenged by the stories of the Old Testament.

  • This God is not unchanging- but appears to be persuaded, and is willing to engage with the most gritty earth bound issues in way that can only suggest wild and uncontained passion.
  • Winning souls or converts is simply not an issue. The Jewish people appeared to have no idea of heaven or hell- but rather were to be a source of blessing to others in the here and now.
  • They were a people set apart- but not in the idealised sense. Rather they had a difficult and tortuous relationship with their identity and calling- constantly getting caught up in becoming too superior, too big for their boots, too independent and self sufficient.
  • There does not seem to have been the same ideal of ‘perfection’ either. God was unknowable, unfathomable, mysterious. His ways were not orderly and predictable- and so engagement with him was dangerous. Purity was about keeping laws, about living a communal routine governed by festivals and ritualised repentance/sacrifice. In this context, there was not a simple dual version of saved/unsaved- rather a process of engagement and belonging to community.
  • The Hebrews saw themselves as the ‘Children of God’, and as such were a Holy Nation, belonging to God. But they constantly incurred the wrath of God through their lack of respect of the ‘other’, the aliens in their midst. There was also a lot of war making and slaughter apparently commanded by God, which is frankly confusing and difficult to understand, and fit poorly with the words of Jesus.
  • Finally the Hebrews clearly looked to God to be the source of their prosperity and nationhood. But it did not end well did it? The succession of advancements and cataclysmic downturns that categorise the history of the nation of Israel might suggest that God is not interested solely in national or even local prosperity- that this can never be commanded, or guaranteed through orthopraxy.

Back to the Rohr Quote-

Jesus’ teaching on moral equivalency between himself and God and everybody else includes the neighbour, the outsider, the foreigner, the Gentile, the sinner, and finally, the enemy.  This is total non-dualistic thinking.  It was from this level of non-dual thinking that we find Jesus finally saying in John 17:21- 22:  “Father, may they be one.  May they be one in us as you are in me and I am in you.”Jesus lived his human life inside of a unitive consciousness, and yet he could make use of the dualistic mind to make clear distinctions, as well. (“You cannot serve both God and Mammon” [Matthew 6:24].)  And this, too, is the goal for all of us: unitive (non-dual) consciousness is the only way to deal with the big issues like God, love, suffering, death, and infinity.  But then we can revert to dualistic consciousness to make practical decisions about turning left or right, or whether to buy apples or oranges.

Adapted from Experiencing the Naked Now (webcast)

Another one of those discussions about church…

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I shared lunch with some friends today- I meet with three other blokes to pray every couple of weeks. It is a really good mix of folks as each of us are very different, but share a desire for honesty, friendship and to create a safe space to share faith and life.

Today we spoke about church.

It is a familiar theme. I am the only one of the group who is no longer attending a regular Sunday morning service in a church building. All of my friends are still hanging on in there- just.

It is not that any of us do not appreciate the value of meeting and worshipping communally- it is just that the baggage that comes with this seems to have a high price- and also that the activities through which communal worship is celebrated can just be so suffocatingly irrelevant- for us, let alone for our kids or our friends and neighbours.

The question of what might be possible as an alternative has exercised much discussion, including on this blog.

In particular, today we asked a local version of this question…

A couple of days ago, in response to a comment on this piece by Aileen, I wrote this-

I wonder  if  we were ‘over sold’ some of the ideas about what it means to be a Christian. We have been told repeatedly that people are of two sorts-
Saved and unsaved
Good and ‘of the world’(or even ‘evil)
Transformed and untransformed
Enlightened and deceived by the devil
We have the Holy Spirit who will sort us out- they don’t.

This dualism allows us to then suggest that Christians are elevated above all other people- more holy, more loving, living better lives. And then when we discover (as we inevitably do) that Christians are often just as screwed up and damaged /damaging as the next person, we are exposed to a great disappointment- and what the Americans would call a ‘disconnect’ between our rhetoric and reality.

I have come to believe that the Kingdom of God at loose on the earth is NOT the same thing as ‘the church’. Rather “God plays in ten thousand places, from the father to the features of mens faces, lovely in limbs and hands not his”

The question is, if this is true, what the POINT of the church is? If Christians are untransformed by encountering Jesus- what is the point?

I think I would reply that we are not untransformed- the very fact that you and I are asking these questions is proof of that. Rather what we come to is an awareness that we can reach higher, and deeper- and expect an encounter with the divine as we do this that is so much more than a one directional intellectual exchange of religious ideas/doctrine. But also that we are called to walk humbly- and to hold ourselves in awareness of our sinful state- not other peoples sinful state, but our own.

Perhaps then the purpose of the church is to be a sprinkling of salt, bringing out flavours of the world, and a source of light that illuminates good and beautiful things. This kind of church I can belong to!

I have no desire to start a new church though- in the sense of a new institution, or a new exclusive gathering of people who try to sell their ‘product’ and their version of truth to everyone on the outside.

But what began to emerge today in our discussion was the possibility of a more regular celebration event, in partnership with others where possible.

In many ways this might compliment some of the more intimate small group church things that I love.

Who knows what might emerge, but I have a feeling that it might be time to make some noise again…

Recovery stories, and how we understand mental ill health…

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I have been reading a few of the personal stories on the SRN website, and it set me thinking again about this thing called mental illness.

For those who are unaware of the powerful and life giving concept of ‘recovery’- in this use, is applies to a way of understanding mental illness that is radical and yet very simple. For too long, the dominant way of understanding mental illness has been through a medical paradigm-

Dysfuntion——————–Diagnosis———————Treatment

But for years, there have been voices saying that this way of seeing mental illness just does not work on any level.

Dysfunction?

What is ‘dysfunction’ when we apply it to mental health? We all have problems. We all have fluctuating mental health. One in four of us seek medical help because of this at some point of our lives. For the most part- we just get on with it, life goes on.

It is such a subjective experience. What you experience and cope with, I might experience and not cope with.

It might relate to a dreadful life event, like bereavement, or it might be because of vulnerabilities that we have carried since childhood. It also might have a biological/genetic element- although no-one has ever been able to agree how much of our vulnerability is nature, and how much is nurture. Because of this, the same ‘dysfunction’ may in fact relate to very different issues.

But there is no doubt that many of us do hit the rocks emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. Some of us will need help, so we go to the experts.

Diagnosis

Then we come to all the labels that psychiatry has come up with in an attempt to categorise dysfunction. Each one with its own set of sub categories- some examples below:

Schizophrenia (simple, paranoid, hebefrenic, etc)

Depression (reactive, chronic, manic, agitated etc)

Anxiety disorder (panic disorder, phobia, obsessive compulsive disorder etc)

Now all of these categories have a set of symptoms that we look for, and even (in today’s parlance) a ‘care pathway’ that people will then be expected to follow- with recognised assessment processes and evidence based interventions lined up and ready.

But make no mistake- researchers have looked in vain for a virus, or a brain-wiring fault, or any kind of identifiable physical, testable, observable location for these disorders. They are not like a broken leg, or a cancer, or other kinds of medical issue that are diagnosed according to observable scientific observation. Rather they are always nuanced, individualistic, mixed in with all sorts of personality/life experience/drug use stuff, and all that messy, unquantifiable humanity.

So what we have is a changing picture (we currently use international standard diagnostic classification version 10) of fairly loose observationally based, subjective categories, albeit applied as consistently as possible by highly trained and experienced doctors. The edges of the diagnostic categories are blurred, and their usefulness still much disputed.

Check out this decent summary of labelling theory.

Treatment

When we have our diagnosis, then we have associated treatments- usually drug based, intially from our GP. Sure there are lots of other ways of getting help- often called rather condescendingly ‘talking treatments’- counselling, psychological therapy etc, but these are not universally available, and the middle classes get far more than their fair share. Also because of the dominance of the medical model (which assumes some kind of biological basis for serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia) then most of this talking stuff is aimed at people who are regarded as ‘neurotic‘- as if these people are some how totally different in their needs to be listened to, understood and helped towards a greater self knowledge and self worth.

Most of the drug treatments are very ‘dirty’- in the sense that they are loaded with extremely debilitating side effects. The activity of the drug companies, and the power and position the system allows them to take within hospitals has to be seen to be believed. There is always a new wonder drug just round the corner- a new ‘lilly the pink’.

And yet, research would suggest that ‘getting better’ is not the goal of all this treatment for many of us. Rather it is aimed at alleviating some of our symptoms, and ‘maintaining’ us in some kind of stasis.

For some, this is OK- they are grateful and satisfied. For many more, the effect of the psycho-medical machine is to give a half life, or even a no-life. People lose just about everything- job, relationships, income, role, self worth, self determination, hope. Is there any wonder then that suicide rates are so high?

At the same time as experiencing all these losses people gain a few other things- a label, a new ‘sick’ role, benefits that have diminished in value in real terms. It is a poor exchange. Because in gaining this kind of identity- or rather being expected to live within the boundaries of this kind of identity- we are condemned to a dependent life. And transcending this can be extremely difficult.

Perhaps it might be far more difficult than the mental distress that started us down this road in the first place…

So, returning to the recovery stories.

These are records of people who have decided that it is possible to experience good mental wellbeing despite the presence (or the absence) of mental ill health.

They describe the landmarks on the journey towards a different kind of recovery- one that is less concerned with diagnosis or treatment, and much more motivated towards real life issues like

Hope

Self worth.

Real choice.

Friendship.

Meaningful activities.

Fun.

Please read some of them- because I suspect that there is more of the Kingdom of God in one of these stories than in a thousand sermons.