Following on from previous discussions about the relationship between politics and religion in the worlds only superpower, here is a clip I saw on Brian McLaren’s blog-
Frank Schaeffer is an interesting man. I managed to hear him speak at Greenbelt Festival recently. Son of Francis Schaeffer, hero of the Evangelical right wing, he has written a this book about his experiences of growing up into his particular context, which I think I am going to read…
Long term TFTD contributor Rabbi Lionel Blue
Each weekday millions of people in Britain reach for their radio and tune to BBC radio 4’s Today programme. It has been my primary window on world news and events for 40 years. In a world of sound bites and looped infotainment it’s continued popularity is remarkable. Thoughtful extended reflections on real issues? Serious journalistic inquiry that makes politicians tremble in their Gucci’s? It will never catch on surely?
Today programme listeners tend to be very protective of their habitual morning listening. We do not like things to change. We do not like things to be trivialised or tarted up. John Humphrey’s can often irritate and annoy with his savant-pedanticism- but he does this as one of ours. Like an older brother at Christmas.
At 7.45 each morning, we are offered a Spiritual slot, called Thought for the Day. A selected bunch of folk from different faith backgrounds are given 120 seconds to reflect on a current issue. It is often bland and esoteric. Sometimes it is beautiful and moving. It is one of those rare ‘pause, breathe in and think’ moments. Or at very least a moment to switch the kettle on.
Step forward the Militant Atheists. They object strongly to their morning listening being corrupted by religion. Particularly when Atheists and humanists are not invited to speak. This from the National Secular Society–
“Every edition of Thought for the Day is a rebuke to those many people in our society who do not have religious beliefs…This is so blatant an abuse of religious privilege that we cannot simply let it pass. Our evidence shows that five out of six of the public are heavily on our side. We will be looking at other ways of challenging this unjustifiable slot.”
And so complaints were sent (7 in total) and much huffing and puffing was made in many quarters. The BBC trust sat in leather chairs for quite some time- then rejected the complaint.
The ghost of Lord Reith, Presbytarian forefather of the BBC- rested again in peace…
Of course, we may yet Atheist voices Thought for the day. But I find myself in agreement with The Guardian’s John Plunket who said this-
Introducing secular voices to Thought for the Day wouldn’t just have changed the slot, it would have killed it. As one of its former editors John Newbury said, there is no need for a non-theological Thought-style reflection at 7.50am – there is plenty of that elsewhere on Today and across the Radio 4 schedule.
Evangelical muscular atheism seems to me as anachronistic in these pluralistic times as the street corner preacher in his sandwich board proclaiming the nigh-ness of the end.
And whilst I have no desire to get into pointless arguments with people who have claim to know what can never be known (who remembers last year’s bus campaign?) I must confess to a feeling of more than a little smug satisfaction at the rejection of their complaint…
Had a nice night out with some friends last night eating curry and drinking beer. Mmmmm.
There were six of there, all men- David for the first time- and as well as the usual man-talk subjects (mostly involving some kind of bodily function) we talked about our local community.
We are all ‘incomers’ to our town- one from England, one from Ireland, and the rest from other parts of Scotland. And like most incomers, our relationship to place requires a degree of negotiation- and it also inevitably means asking lots of questions about the nature and characteristics of the community we are part of.
It is a regular pre-occupation of mine, as regular readers of this blog will know well. The quality of our lives depends so much on the depth and degree of our relationships with others. This seems a lesson that we desperately need to re-learn.
Modernity taught us individualism- Post modernity hit us with its fluidity and disconnection. The internet added distance and diversity, and we were left with… what?
Empty village halls, clubs and churches that no-one belongs to any more. Family units who pass each other in the school yard.
Of course, I exaggerate. There are many thriving clubs and churches- including in our lovely little town. But the direction of travel towards social disconnectedness is well documented- as is the potential cost.
We Christians were shown a different way to live by Jesus. A way of life lived for the other. Forming Ecclesia’s who practice a form of radical community and out of this gathering seek to be a blessing to the towns they are part of.
I was half remembering a little bit of philosophy today as I drove around Argyll. It was that old rogue Jean Jacques Rousseau, and his own struggle to distinguish between the individual self, and the collective self.
Rousseau believed us all driven by two opposites- the Moi (me, or I) and the Moi Commun (the communal I.)
The first of these- the Moi fits well with modern enlightenment thinking- this from here.
The utopia of the independant, fulfilled moi is Rousseau’s most popular message to the modern world. It’s existence is so pervasive an assumption in western society that any educator who challenged it as an ideal would be forwith banished.
The Roussean ‘I’ is alive in the present day rhetoric of the search for identity, in a whole series of theses about self actuation from Marx through Maslow.
But Rousseau’s thinking did not end there- he remained convinced that our ideal as humans was discovered in collective with other humans- the collective I, or Moi Commun.
This collective experience is so much more than the subjugation of the individual will to the numerical superiority of the collective. It is the place where the Moi finds absolute fulfillment and identity.
These ideas became the seeds for ideological and actual revolution- as many ideas do.
Perhaps they are appealing because they are familiar ideas, to followers of Jesus at least.
Another one of what CS Lewis called ‘Christian heresies’ perhaps…
The curry was nice by the way- and indeed led to it’s own internal revolution.
We are planning (and I use the word loosely) a thing. An Aoradh thing. Around an Advent theme. We will be supporting Simon and CLAN as they sell some Christmas trees and raise some money for the play park.
It will be based on the West Bay in Dunoon, on the 12th/13th December. We will have a big tent, mulled wine, thinking stations, and… (we hope) be getting people to decorate sky lanterns for a mass launch.
Assuming we get permission.
And assuming it is not very wet.
Or windy.
So come along- let hope rise to faith.
We tried out one of the lanterns this evening in house group- so for those of you out looking for meteor showers, what you saw was not one of them. Nor was it an alien space ship.
It floated into a tree, then rose high in the direction of Helensburgh, where it was no doubt shot out of the sky over Faslane naval base.
We wrote prayers on it- and watching the thing rise gracefully into the sky then disappear into the clouds was wonderful.
Following on from this post, here is another video relating to an attempt to put together a universal Charter for Compassion.
It attempts to comb together some of the common themes of compassion present in the major religions.
I can hear the cries of horror from certain Christian circles… the fear will be that such a thing might lead somehow to impurity, dilution or syncretism. But I think we have nothing to fear, and so much to gain, through meeting and sharing with people from other faiths.
Particularly in these times…
I am now old enough for a trip down memory lane.
Twenty years ago my friend Mark and I spent some time in West Berlin as part of a student exchange programme. We had no clue that we were present at a point when history pivoted.
It was 1989, and we were young, impossibly naive and the world seemed easily divided into what was politically acceptable/good, and what was evil/wrong. Ideology gave shape to life, to politics, to faith, to shopping- ideas mattered. Even if the ideas were borrowed and poorly understood.
Germany was an adventure. We were dragged to receptions with the Mayor, toured the Seimens factory, checked out hospitals and social work schemes, and visited the Reichstag when it was still an empty shell.
We also walked and walked and walked the streets of the city- which seemed impossibly trendy and not a little scary- the Ku’Damm at night with it’s nightclubs and prostitutes. The preserved bomb-scarred buildings all lit up alongside the sparkling glass and concrete office blocks. The bars and the continental heat that allowed us to spill out into the street. The bus queues that became a free-for-all scramble, contrasting with the orderliness of the underground.
Of course, the reality of any visit to West Berlin at that time was that the city was a capitalist ‘free’ island surrounded by communist East Germany. The magic of the place was made at least in part by the mad cold war politics that led to its division and isolation. It was a city formed under the ever present shadow of implacable enmity, and an irrational compromise that pleased nobody- apart from tourists like us I suppose.
The visible manifestation of this was the wall.
Mark in front of the wall- you can see where the old tram lines where cut in half
On one side was neon, affluence and Mercedes. On the other was bad food, pompous architecture, envious aspiration and the smoky noisy Trabant. Over the last twenty years, the stories of the East German political oppression have abounded, and the power of a set of distorted ideological lens over a whole nation. This brilliant film tells some of this story as well as anything-
We spent some time touring the East. If anything, this seemed far more exciting than the west. There was a sense of comic brutality about the place- and the overwhelming feeling of bureaucracy gone stark staring mad. But the beer was dirt cheap, and beyond the centre of the city (which looked like a dated film set from the 1960’s) the streets had largely unchanged since the war.
The division of Germany was a ludicrous political anachronism- but no one could have predicted the change that happened in November 1989- a few months after our last visit.
Rumours started to spread that the borders were going to open-
And once this began, there was no going back.
Reagan and Thatcher claimed this as their victory- which seems to me as ridiculous as me claiming it as mine. For some, democratic capitalism had triumphed- the ideological debate was over. We were all capitalists now.
Or at least we were until the current economic crisis.
20 years later, Germany has all but overcome the pain of reunification. The surviving bits of the wall are tourist attractions. I have some bits of it somewhere- now the dust of history. Perhaps one of those pivotal points on which human history turns…
The last 20 years have seen such change- the internet, mobile phones, a shift in world power towards the far East. The world is a very different place.
I look at photographs of me then, and wonder what the next 20 years will bring?
Each autumn, we have visitors in our old house.
The mice look for somewhere dry and warm, and find their way into the cavities of our walls, and we hear them scratching and nibbling in the night.
We have a mixed relationship with them. I set humane traps for a while, and take them off into the forest. They are such lovely little things.
But they can just make themselves too at home, and eventually, we have had to deal with them in more radical ways.
Recently they found their way into a window seat in our bedroom, and chewed the plastic cover of… the bottle of mouse poison!
Ah the irony.
Sorry guys, it is time to release the stuff within.
Another post about kindness…
I have written before about this issue– suggesting that I thought that kindness is a good measure of spiritual maturity. We talked a little around this the other night with my Aoradh chums.
Of course, being kind is not a universal sign of spiritual, or emotional health. The drive to please other people can be a destructive one. However, I still maintain that Christian spirituality that lacks kindness as one of its visible manifestations is likely also to be missing the point.
Which of course- is love.
The kind of love that is patient, kind and does not envy, boast, act proudly or haughtily. The sort of love that is not rude, or self-seeking, is not easily angered, and keeps no record of wrongs. A love that does not delight in seeing evil in others but makes partnerships of truth. A protective, trusting, ever-hopeful kind of love that just does not give up. (1 Corinthians 13.)
The idealism of this kind of love defeats me at times- but it is an idealism that I will not let go.
So, if we Christians are called to be a blessing on the world around us because of the distinctiveness of our loving, the way that this will be revealed is in this simple thing called kindness– expressed between ourselves in community, but also looking outwards into the places where we live work and play.
Here are links to a couple of resources that dig into this issue.
Firstly- Generous. This is an opportunity for Christians to sign up to acts of generosity- for the sake of the environment, and for the sake of others around us. There are whole categories of suggested actions that you can consider putting time/energy towards.
I came across Off The Map recently- a group trying to encourage us to reimagine evangelism- together they designed an approach to evangelism that “rescued it out of program prison, made it doable for ordinary Christians and restored it back to the spiritual practice Jesus modeled in his interactions with Outsiders.” They called it Doable Evangelism. This led to a book called Evangelism Without Additives and an organization called Doable Evangelism.
Here is some thing that they produced that resonated with me for its simplicity- and it’s kindness.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Alistair pointed me at this clip.
A bit more of the familiar Rollins technique of taking a concept and saying it’s only value is in rejecting it.
But in this case, I think I agree with most of what he says.
There are still a lot of BUTS though. The absence of Leadership leaves a vacuum that requires- leadership. (Note the subtle lack of a capital letter!) It is not whether we have leaders that exercises my thoughts at the moment, but rather what kind, and how they lead- particularly in the way of church.
We have had a full on week- lots of great social stuff- Audrey and Alistair’s birthdays, a bonfire night celebration, an Aoradh planning meeting- as well as the usual family/housegroup/work business.
This morning Emily has some kind of lurgy, and so I am waiting for Michaela to bring some work home in order to allow me to go and do mine.
Which gives me time to reflect a little on the week that was, and the week to come.
As ever, I find my mind drawn to the stuff of friendship and relationships, and how this interacts with the life and call of faith.
Aoradh is at an interesting point in our development. We have been going for a while, and have had some real highlights that we are all proud of. Of course in any such communal enterprise, there is a rich combination of friendship, creativity, energy- along with the usual minor frustrations and tensions that erupt from time to time.
We continue to function with no ‘leader’- and at present, this feels slightly less comfortable, as we are in a process of deliberately reforming and rethinking the what?/whom?/why? questions. There has been a little whiff of storming in the forming, and I think there is likely to be more to come.
One of the tensions has been the issue of COMMUNITY. To me, this is central to everything we do as Christians. To others it is something that requires time- and as such is a pleasant addition to the real business and tasks that we engage in. For others, ‘community’ seems too tame, and the words that fit better are more subversive ones- band of gorilla/pirate/counter-cultural Christians. I think we can be all of these things, but we need to learn to respect one another’s different needs, and affirm one another by constantly re-learning the Jesus way of love.
Written like this- it sounds easy doesn’t it? But of course, this is the harder road to travel. It is a discipline that we learn, and practice imperfectly. Some have greater gifting, but for we followers of Jesus, it is not optional- but commanded.
One of the issues that we spoke about the other day is our differing needs for overt communication of respect/affirmation/assurance of value. We all need this at some level of course, but so much of it depends where we start from- our degree of herited vulnerability perhaps.
One of the interesting issues for anyone who spends time amongst artistic folk, is that many of us exhibit a high level of such vulnerability. The resultant introspection and the drive for artistic expression are sometimes related of course.
There is a beautiful promise on life offered by encounters with the Living God. This promise is for the hope of transformation. Those of us who carry wounds- and lets face it, most of us do- our prayer is for them to be taken away- like some kind of cosmic conjuring trick.
But this has never been my experience. Rather than a magic wand being waved, something altogether more hopeful is possible, that I can only describe in this way- the polarity of the thing subtly changes- from negative, to positive.
What was once a burden can become a place of blessing for others.
Kind of like the promise of the the rainbow- that is after all, only rain, mixed up with light to arc above the moment in something transcendent.
In this way, brokenness leading to social vulnerability (mixed up with light) can become deep sensitivity to others, or wonderful artistic expression.
Or obsessional task centredness (mixed up with light) can become a willingness to help others towards structure and organisation.
Or the instincts that set us on the cynical outside looking in (mixed up with light) can become a way of seeing things in unique and insightful ways.
But how is this promise made possible?
My conviction remains that the hope is to be found in community- and the subordination of all things to a higher principle called- LOVE. This is the Jesus blueprint.
“I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don’t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father.
John 15:10-12
this fragile tent 