Change 2

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We people of faith seem to have an interesting relationship to change.

  • We celebrate a God who makes all things new.
  • In him, we become new creations- we are born again.
  • We believe in the continual transformative power of the Spirit in our lives.
  • But God is unchanging.
  • And we regard our understanding of TRUTH to be absolute, and therefore unchanging.

We also organise our faith into religious institutions- and institutions are usually extremely change resistant. There seems to be something about the experience of faith that is threatened by the prospect of change. It is almost as if our faith, so deeply felt and yet so fragile, is protected by a scaffolding of external certainty that can not easily cope with any suggestion that individual elements may need to be re-thought, or re-examined.

However, change is a difficult process for most of us as individuals too. I can clearly remember the times of transition in my own life, and none of them were easy. Some where forced- by those life transitions that we all face. Some were made as a result of choices- either positive ones, towards something new and exciting, and/or negative ones, away from things that I have rejected.

One of those pivot point in my own life came about as I began a scary and painful exploration of the tennets of my faith. There was a negative imperative within this- my experience of faith in may new Scottish context had been fraught with difficulties. A church on self destruct mode, an encounter with American fundementalism, and a conviction that something just was not working. There was also a longing for renewal, and a faint hope that new things were possible. But the more questions I seemed to be asking, the more may own scaffolding seemed to be falling away. At one point, I did not know if my faith could survive this.

But it more than survived- I found that it exploded into something wonderful and new.

There is an interesting discussion about change in the introduction to Brian McLaren’s book ‘A new kind of Christian’ . This book has been transformative to many who have encountered it- and caused huge controversy. McLaren is a prophet to some, a demon to many. I devoured his writing like a starving man at a feast.

McLaren described a process of change that begins with disatisfaction and pain. We feel oppressed and captured by our experience- unable to move on.

This becomes funnelled into a narrow space where we begin to look forward, but have no clear idea of what might be to come.

Then the shape of possibility allows us to come out of a funnel. This can be exciting and highly motivating. We might also be very rejecting of the past.

As the new thing takes shape, it opens out into normality, and perhaps the whole thing begins again.

The Church in the west is caught somewhere in this process. Looking for hope, but resisting the unknown. How we need the Holy Spirit. And how we need pioneers who are prepared to head off into the unknown!

Clutter

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881934081_9f3a6bc280.jpg (JPEG Image, 321×500 pixels)

Clutter

I can hear a creaking
A groaning from the joists
Pipes and drains are leaking
Floor boards are tearing loose

Can you smell the horsehair plaster
Stripping off from lath?
This could bring disaster
Or perhaps could clear a freedom path
 
There’s a time for all things
The good book says
To reap, to weep, to build, to sing
To mourn a while before moving on

The marshal yards are empty now
And the cranes stand fixed and rusty
The shipyards moved to other towns
And the churches all lie
Empty

Lord teach me to move like water
Running from these mountains
Tear out my feet from concrete shoes
And dance me till I flutter

For freedom comes to those who find
Your keys amongst our clutter

 
Prayer room, Dunoon pier, 2006.

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Things change 1

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Nothing stays the same.

Things all around us a changing. Some of this change is imperceptible, because we have become so inured to it. We are sold this kind of change every time we turn on the TV- newer, shinier things- improved and updated. Our economic system is entirely dependent on our continued addiction to the new, and the rejection of the old.

There seem to have been times through history when the general pace of change in the dominant societal forces make a step-change. Perhaps most of the rhetoric about these periods of history arise from the gifts given by hindsight, but nevertheless, every few hundred years or so, it seems the order of things as we know it comes under pressure. New ways of thinking and structuring ourselves mingle with new technology in a chicken-and-egg symbiosis, and many things that seem constant and reliable are tested by the new reality.

And so the age of castles and feudal allegiances became the age of printing presses, industrial production and scientific enlightenment. Empowerment of mass population leads to revolution and democratic endevour. And we see this new reality in the shape of towns, the growth of new organisations, and even the way we seek to understand and study God.

There was a great programme on BBC two a little while ago, presented by Steven Fry, and called Steven Fry and the machine that made us.

The programme was all about the first media entrepreneur Johann Gutenberg, who is credited with the invention of the first printing press at the very beginning of the 15th Century. Guttenberg went on to print the first Bible that was commonly available to ‘ordinary’ people, printed in his native German.

This invention has been credited to bringing about a step-change in western civilisation. Suddenly, written communication went from linear, individualised copies – owned exclusively by those with the time and money to invest in such time consuming frippery – to the mass market. Nothing was the same ever again.

In 20 years, these early printing presses had already turned out an estimated 20 million books. Fry used the wonderful term benign virus to describe the impact on society.

The Gutenberg Bible could be credited with leading almost inevitably to the Protestant revolution. Suddenly everyone could study the scriptures, and everyone became their own theologian. Or almost everyone. It was resisted of course- change usually is. In many parts of the Christian world, the Bibles were banned.

The step-change described above was perhaps one of the key factors that shaped the path of a society in its tranformation from the medieval world to the birth of moderism.

It has been said that we are in the middle of our own step-change, or paradigm shift.
The modern world, with all its assumptions of rational, ordered predictability, is being swept away by a new media revolution. Where is leads us, and how God will meet with us within it, is uncertain.

Like the Luddites, or the medieval church leaders, there are some for whom such change brings conflict and destruction. They faced new industrial realities- economic forces that were bigger than individuals, bigger than families, bigger than communities. No amount of smashed spinning jennies, or smashed printing presses can alter this.

Does this make change good, or bad?

I suppose this depends on your perspective. But ultimately, it is inevitable. It has few moral or value based imperatives, but rather it is the context into which we Christians bring our own values to bear.

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Into the wild…

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A few weeks ago I watched this film.

I had already read the book, but this was one of those few occasions when the film some how took the raw material of the words and took them further. Like taking a charcoal drawing and turning it into a canvas laden with rich oil paint, in wonderful colour.

The film tells the real story of a young man from a privileged but dysfunctional background who turns his back on the modern culture, and decides to live a simple life- one of vital experience, deep relationships and particularly, one of absolute one-ness with the world and it’s wild places. He found his way into the Alaskan wilderness, where his ideals were tested to his own destruction, and he perished alone in an abandoned bus miles from anywhere.

This tragic event is somehow recorded in a way that is life enhancing, and beautiful. In his beautiful life, but tragic death, we are fed little slices of hope.

Life is so fragile, but those who really live- who transcend the narrow half lives that many of us fall into- these people, they seem to have found cracks through which has filtered something eternal, and somehow, more real.

Almost as if the Kingdom of God shines like a shaft of sunlight on the opposite side of the valley.

I was speaking to a friend of mine today who is a policeman. We were discussing the case of a missing woman who walked into the hills locally over a year ago now. No trace of her has ever been found. He told me that this is not such a rare thing in Scotland. People walk into the wilderness, perhaps to escape their demons, perhaps to celebrate them. Some perhaps are looking for an end to life, others it comes to as a surprise.

Not so long ago some forestry workers found a tent as they were clearing an area of forest. Inside the tent was the skeleton of a man who had lain there undisturbed for around 10 years.

Life is fragile.

But life is beautiful.

Lets not waste it.

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Elephant in the room

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I have played the game
And learned to look
Through your narrow angle lens
Never noticing
Refraction

I have tried to sketch around a shadow
And from those half formed drawings
I concreted my soul into a shape
That contorted
And chaffed

And all along I tried not to look
At this elephant
In the middle of the room
Tasseled and castled
Ready for the spice filled forests
Where it will trumpet in the face
Of tigers

And though I am scared
By the size of this unknown beast
And the places it could take me-
Bring me a ladder
Or lend me a friendly trunk
And lets go.

5.3.07

Scottish religion?

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As an incomer to this, my adopted land, it is impossible not to compare and contrast things ‘tartan’ from what I have known elsewhere. As a follower of Jesus, the greatest focus of this introspective examination has been how we do religion up here.

There is a great discussion about these issues on Brodie McGregor’s blog- which is on this link; http://viewfromthebasement.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/04/emerging_or_sub.html
Brodie wrote a paper on Emerging stuff in Scotland, that I found really helpful- it is broken into digestible segments in his blog…

But what forms the character a place? Is there a convergence in the nature of the people? Perhaps we learn more than accents, taking on our style of communicating- of relating and of loving- from our environment. Are we also formed by landscape, by the mountains or the flat lands, or our closeness to the sea? Or is it the economy- those that have and have not, those in poverty or plenty?  Perhaps it is also about history, and ancestry, and our place in the story of ages?

Back to the spiritual dimension- of faith and belief, and how we express these things. Does our chosen expression of faith emerge from our own cultural heritage, or does it shape the way we are? I wonder if the way religion is understood and celebrated within any given culture becomes as influential to the formation of our towns and streets and institutions as DNA within our blood streams? Certainly, sometimes it seems that a bit of John Knox, along with a slice of Calvin and a hint of Iain Paisley can be found in every squared away, sensible building and every official institution.

As you travel up the west coast things change again…

But a few years ago, before we lived up here, I was walking through the lovely little town of Gairloch, in Wester Ross. I came across two little churches- so close, they were almost (but not quite) touching. They were separated by a few inches of clear air, but I imagined these inches to be stuffed full of inpenetrateable doctrinal difference.

I do not know the history of these churches, and certainly do not mean to criticise what I have no knowledge of. There may be very good reasons for having two such buildings- each one may be full on Sundays, and they may exist in harmonious fellowship.

But for me- this photograph has come to symbolise something of our Scottish religion.

I have said enough- here is the photograph, it can speak for itself.

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Church?

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Over the past few years I have had repeated conversations about Church. The themes of these discussions are as follows;

What is it?
Not a building? (But they are useful- particularly in our climate!) Not an institution? (But we easily organise and concrete ourselves into one.) Is it a movement? (And if so- where is the movement?)

What does it look like?
Not a club that exists for the members interests? (But what energy is left for others because of the demands made to service the club?) Do we all have to look the same? (And if not, why do we?) Not a Lecture hall/concert hall? (Where we gather mainly to receive pieces of knowledge, or to worship from afar?)

What should it look like?
Family? Community? Revolutionary cell? Monastery? Soup Kitchen? Therapy centre? Light on a hill? Circus act?

What is it for?
To defend the faith, and nurture the faithful? Or to does it exist solely to bless and serve those who are not members? Is it to make disciples of Jesus and set them loose on the winds of the Spirit- or is it to control and make safe the flock so doctrine and practice remain pure and unsullied by error or heresy?

What should be it’s priorities?
Preaching and teaching of truth- and the moral yardstick for culture? Social justice and looking after the poor and needy?
The Kingdom of God, in all its glory and majesty- in the future tense, but also NOW?

Mixed in with this talk are a load of sub themes- the death of Christendom, and the winding down of the modern age to be replaced with something fluid and undefined called ‘post-modernity‘, and the desperate need to find both old and new ways to bring refreshment to our communities of faith, so that we might be a blessing to others.

Any of you who loosely wear the ’emergent’ label will be well familiar with these debates- in fact you may be heartily sick of them!

I have spent hours deconstructing Church as I have known it. Through circumstances- geography, theology, difficulty and (I hope) following after God, I now find myself outside institutional church. This position is a gift and a burden all at the same time.

The gift is freedom. Freedom FROM a lot of the things that I have come to reject within churches, and freedom to choose new ways, in small community, looking to the the Holy Spirit for guidance.

The burden is isolation. A need to find new disciplines because the structure given by a wider organisation is no longer there. What about the kids?

I am also aware that at times I have been too keen to reject and harshly criticise what I have found freedom from. There is such a danger of arrogance and pride. As if they were wrong, and I am right- which is clearly nonsense.

So-any conclusions? Perhaps none- but a few working hypotheses…

Church happens when people follow Jesus. It dies when we follow institutions.

Church is seen in the visible marks made by the imperfect agents of the Kingdom of God.

Church is fluid and moving, like water. Place it in a pond and it stagnates- no matter how much is spent on artificial aeration projects.

Church is not me, it is us. It is never mine, always ours. Always HIS.

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Rebellion

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What shall it be today
Will it be rebellion,
Or shall I wear conformity
Like an old coat?

Oh that I could
Shake free
The grace you hid inside me
And set loose
The hounds of love
To harry the worn heels
Who left their shuffling footprints
Close by me

I have seen things
Whither and die
Behind a veneer
Of politeness

And can live this life
No more.

2006

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Lambeth and Gene

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gene-robinson.jpg (JPEG Image, 350×350 pixels)

I heard the controversial Bishop Gene Robinson speaking on Radio 4 this morning. He was asked some pretty searching questions, including one about whether he was being deliberately provocative in order to force the Anglican community to change their position in relation to homosexuality. I thought he responded graciously and was impressed with his suggestion that he was testifying to what he felt God was calling him to.

Agree of disagree- this is a brave man. He apparently has bodyguards, and wears a bullet proof vest because of death threats against him, and he runs the gauntlet of abuse wherever he goes. Check this out-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7504472.stm

The bishop is a fellow blogger, and you can check out his own story on this link-

http://canterburytalesfromthefringe.blogspot.com

I have had quite a few discussions about homosexuality recently. I have Christian friends who have recently had to face up to this in a real way as close family members have come ‘out’.

This is such a divisive, polarising issue. For many, the Bible is categorical- homosexuality is an abomination, full stop. Any suggestion that openly gay people should be shown fellowship and love is then accommodation with evil. I could never agree with this. Philip Yancey in his book ‘Whats so amazing about grace?’ describes his own reaction to the ‘outing’ of a Christian leader in the USA as gay. His description of Christian protestors at a gay rights march is hard to feel anything for but shame.

Yancey also makes another gentle but hard hitting point. There are about three verses that make specific reference to homosexuality in the Bible, but several more that forbid marriage after divorce. Most Protestant churches (but not Catholic ones of course) over the last 30 years have moderated their position in relation to re-marriage, despite what the Bible clearly says. Don’t get me wrong- I am glad they have done this- and given people a second (or third) chance at happiness after the trauma of broken relationship. I have never heard a satisfactory theological reason why this is OK however, and other specific commandments remain inflexible.

In even asking this question, I suppose I will already be typecast as a liberal heretic by many. But I have no fixed opinion in regard to the theology of sexuality. I suppose this is a bit of a cop-out- but there appear to be many variations on this- not just the polar opposites represented by Robinson and the Anglican ‘Evangelicals’.

  • Given the increasing (if hotly debated) scientific basis for homosexuality having a significant genetic component- not a ‘lifestyle choice’- then many would point to the need for Christians to understand more, and pathologise a lot less. This has led some (Tony Campolo for example) to suggest that to be gay can not be regarded as sin- but that homosexual sex should still be regarded as unacceptable. In short, Gay people can not help who they are, but should remain celibate.
  • Others would suggest that openly gay people should be tolerated by the church, even as priests, but not as leaders- hence the fuss about Bishop Robinson.
  • Still more are like me- unsure and wondering what the next generation will make of all this. Will theology be shaped by culture- with all the attendant risks of allowing such a thing (as if this has not always happened!)? Is it possible that we will just have to leave this to God? But this does not change the fact that it is still the cause for much prejudice and conflict.
  • Then there are those whose motivation is towards the poor and broken. Who point out that the voices of Christians should never be raised against a persecuted minority- that rather we should be the peace makers, the ones showing love and forgiveness. I have even heard the Good Samaritan story retold, with a gay person cast as the Samaritan.

Faced with people whose sexuality is different from ours, who might (Lord help them) seek to attend our Church- what should our response be? Would you rather they were inside, or outside?

Faced with a real person, hurting and seeking after the living God, would you make relationship conditional on sexuality?

I think my answer to these two questions is yes, and no. How I work out the rest will be an adventure with God.

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Holy Mary, mother of God

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This is a duplication of a post from the Aoradh website, and also on the Emerging Scotland Face book group. There was much (heated) discussion on the latter, and you can check it out here http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=11526988099&topic=4447

I post it again with some trepidation, because entirely predictably, it has got me into trouble. Scotland still feels our sectarian separateness deeply. I have come to believe however, that despite genuine doctrinal disagreements, sectarianism has become a kind of sickness for us.

Not just the obvious football tribalism, but also within our churches.

I am from a Protestant background. Many things were given to me as absolute truth. Some of these I cherish, but many others I question and wrestle with.

One of the issues that was self evident to those from my church background was the fact that the Catholic Church was built on, at very best, very shaky foundations. There were debates as to whether it was really possible to be a Catholic AND a Christian. I lived in England, and these ‘truth-wars’ have mostly died down, but here in Scotland, there are many places (even outside football, and inside the church) where we still fight over the same battle lines.

Some of the sectarian positions Christians take up on this issue I can not begin to understand. Politics and social history are mixed in, along with the legacy of hurt and pain from previous generations. This has stained religion on both sides of the sectarian divide. Theological rationalisation for this hatred is very hard to bear though- all the stuff about the Pope being the anti-Christ, and the demonic influence on the formation of various monastic orders. I have heard these things rehearsed by otherwise rational and caring people in my town.

Back to my own prejudice however. When I was younger, these were the facts I knew about Catholics;

  • They prayed to saints, not God.
  • In particular, they prayed to Mary, and appeared to worship her.
  • They did all sorts of things according to Papal edict, not through their own direct study of the Bible.
  • Priests controlled access to God, through confession, absolution and the mass.
  • They had lost the vibrant influence of the Holy Spirit that was so important to my tradition.
  • They lived in a dead religious world of incense, Latin and gold leaf.
  • Rome wields political clout for its own interests.

All these facts I knew because someone told me them. I did not know any practicing Catholics- although I knew a few ex-Catholics (who were a bit like evangelical ex-smokers!) Likewise, it was possible to find evidence to support a negative view of the Catholic Church. Like most large organisations, it contains much that is rightly questionable.

But as I have become older, I have had to re-evaluate this narrow and blinkered view of Catholicism again and again. It is just impossible to avoid the evidence of God at work within and through the Catholic Church. I read and wept over the stories of the courage of the priests who lived out liberation theology under persecution in South America. I met Charismatic Catholics. I saw the immense depth and power of the contemplative traditions from various Catholic Orders, and the beauty in ancient liturgy impacted me perhaps for the first time. I have seen at close hand a Priest who operates in grace and love.

I also became less and less secure in the absolute rightness of my own traditions. I see the Reformation and subsequent Protestant project, in all its messy fervency, as richly blessed by God. But I am also aware of its dark side- the divisive self defeating squabbles, the constant battles of ‘truth’, the condemnation and judgementalism that has allowed our faith to co-exist with rampant capitalism, slavery and imperialism.

I am not Catholic, but now I have great Christian friends that are. I am proud to share my journey with people who have such a rich and complimentary understanding of who Jesus is, and how the Kingdom of God can be made real. I found I had much more I common with these friends than many from my own tradition. They confounded my prejudice, and joined me in my prayers to the Living God. Saints are barely ever mentioned, apart from as examples.

And then we come to Mary.

There is a wide variety of veneration of Mary across the Catholic Church. Many do pray to her directly. It is for those people to decide how that brings meaning to their worship, and not me. To those of us from a different tradition, perhaps we can even learn something from this.

Mary.

The bearer of the Saviour of history.

Virgin who risked all to carry Jesus to us.

This young girl was greeted by an Angel, who told her she was highly favoured

Despite her fear, she said ‘I am the Lord’s servant. Do with me as you like’.

In a burst of prophetic song, she sang this

From now on all generations shall call me blessed, for the mighty one has done great things in me!

Witness to Angels and Stars and Shepherds and wise men.

Protector and refugee in Egypt.

Real woman, wife to Joe, and other kids too.

Proud proud mother of the miracle maker.

Listener of sermons.

Worrier.

Lover.

Observer of arrest and trial.

Follower of the Cross on the way to Golgotha.

Broken hearted as the nails drove home.

Hearer of these words from a dying son

Dearest woman- here is your son (and to the man who Jesus said was the rock on which he would build his Church) Here is your mother.

Taker of the broken body.

Airbrushed out of the faith story by the Protestant reformists as reaction-formation?