Toxic Charity

A few weeks ago, I was talking with a friend who has several years of experience working with a local homelessness charity, and they commented to me on how ineffective they think churches are. They spoke of how their charity works with several hundred young people at any time, and has a clear process for supporting their clients towards improving their life skills and becoming more independent. And then came their concluding statement: ‘We would be worried if, after a year, we haven’t helped someone get to the point of living independently. But churches are full of people who have been supported with the same issues for years, and who haven’t moved on.’

Discuss.

A similar set of issues is addressed by Robert Lupton in Toxic Charity. The book’s subtitle provides a helpful summary of Lupton’s argument: ‘How churches and charities hurt those they help.’ In the opening paragraphs of the book Lupton comments: ‘I have worked with churches, government agencies, entrepreneurs, and armies of volunteers and know from firsthand experience the many ways “good intentions” can translate into ineffective care or even harm’ (ps1-2).

Lupton addresses the problems of charities and aid both at the levels of local church and international development. At the end of a small book (only 190 pages of large font, which could be read in a few hours), I was left frustrated that his argument never seemed to develop beyond the basic assertions made at the beginning, and also felt this was a work long on diagnosing the problem and short on offering practical solutions. But I’d still call it recommended reading, because it’s impossible to escape the difficult questions he is asking. If churches run activities, year in year out, giving to the same people but never helping them change, what benefit are we achieving? Is our service sometimes motivated more by a sense of our self-worth (I do good things, which must make a good Christian), rather than built around the needs of those we are seeking to help? As Neil Hudson has recently pointed out in ImagineChurch, do we have a ‘church contract’ which only offers to care for people, and not disciple them?

One of Lupton’s most helpful suggestions is the following ‘Oath for Compassionate Service’ which he recommends for all churches seeking to serve those who are disadvantaged. I wonder how many of our churches’ regular activities would pass these tests:

• Never do for the poor what they have (or could have) the capacity to do for themselves.
• Limit one way giving to emergency situations.
• Strive to empower the poor through unemployment, lending, and investing, using grants sparingly to reinforce achievements.
• Subordinate self-interests to the needs of those being served.
• Listen closely to those you seek to help, especially to what is not being said - unspoken feelings may contain essential clues to effective service.
• Above all, do no harm (p128).

One of the great puzzles of biblical interpretation is finally resolved...

I came across this today. So funny, it had to be shared...

Celebrating goodwill and partnership

Just a few days ago, I was blown away by the kindest of gestures. In recent weeks, a focus of our attention in church has been developing plans to open a satellite Foodbank in the New Year. Word of our plans has reached another agency in our area who contacted me with the offer of a Christmas gift, sacrificing the presents which would otherwise have gone to their staff.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this gift, especially in light of Mark 9, which tells the story of an incident when John comes to Jesus, complaining about someone, ‘casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.’John is clearly appalled at this unregulated activity on behalf of kingdom, but Jesus shows no inclination to rein in such work. He points out that those who do work in his name are unlikely to turn against him in the future and someone who isn’t an enemy can instead be considered an ally. Finally, he tells the disciples that, ‘whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.'

In his excellent commentary on Mark, Binding the Strong Man, Ched Myers comments on these verses:

John is entertaining “holier than thou” delusions, but Jesus points out how his followers will often find themselves on the receiving end of compassion. In other words, disciples have no corner on the ministry of healing and liberation, and therefore should without prejudice work alongside those whose practice is redemptive.

Our friends in Birmingham have offered us this generous gift, and they’ve come in on the ministry of ‘healing and liberation.’ So often, it seems we’re still like John, still wary of ‘the world’ and suspicious of partnership with agencies outside of the church, who we regard as being in competition, or even opposition, to us. In the process, we blind ourselves to the goodwill and grace which is extended to us by so many people who want the same as us, the redemption of our communities.

Today’s news is all about the question of whether or not we need regulation of the press. I sometimes wonder if we need a debate in church on our attempts to regulate the work of God...

James 5 and The Gospel in Urban Britain

This evening we spent some time in our Evening Service having a retrospective look at the letter of James, as we draw near the end of a series of sermons on the book.

Over the last 8 weeks, one of the things which has struck me most forcefully is the polemic tone of James’s language, especially the way he speaks about the rich. James hints at what is to come in 1:9-11, but the opening verses of chapter are 5 are the most strident, a famous warning about the impending judgement the rich are facing.

It’s hardly surprising that James addresses these themes.  He’s writing at a time in history when most wealth is concentrated in the hands of a very rich minority, and the vast majority of early Christians are very poor, right at the bottom of the pile in terms of status and economic power. The issue of wealth, of who has it and how it’s been acquired, is one of urgency.

So how does this apply to us? The similarities between James’s time and our own are striking, with the gap between rich and the poor widening. Last week, the BBC reported that senior executives in the UK's biggest companies have seen their average earnings go up by more than a quarter in the past 12 months. All of this during a year when we’ve seen long-term unemployment rise and benefits cut, and when manyemployers still fail to see the need to pay a living wage.

What would James have to say about this? The answer seems fairly clear:

Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten.

James 5:1-2

The question we thought about tonight is how we express this truth is our own times? Is it appropriate, in 2012, in an area like Billesley or Yardley Wood, for part of the message of the Gospel to be: a day of justice is coming? One day, the rich, the privileged people who run the coalition and cut the benefits of the poor, the board members of companies who earn huge amounts of money while their staff struggle, the boards of companies who avoid paying corporation tax on UK earnings... one day, there will be a reckoning for these people. There will be a levelling, their wealth will not count anymore.

This brought us on to the topic of evangelism – the most successful tool in British churches, over the last twenty years, has been Alpha. It’s been great – but it has worked in a time of prosperity, the nineties and noughties, it’s asks quite abstract questions which appeal to educated people.

If I live in Billesley, I am not asking questions like, ‘Why should I read the Bible?’ or ‘How does God guide me?’ I am asking questions like ‘Why do I have no prospect of ever having a job?’ ‘Why is life unfair?’ ‘How come the bankers got away with it?’

Interestingly,  the early Christians never became a political movement. Except for the fact that they pledged their allegiance to Jesus not Caesar! They didn’t grab power... but they were not embarrassed about talking about justice and economics and how this impacted their understanding of what God was doing in the world, and how it shaped their hope of what he would do in the future. Just as a new expression of the justice of the kingdom emerged from the flavellas of Latin America in the 1970s, is now the time for the church of urban Britain to articulate the same message?

Session 3 – Challenging Powers

The Jews in Babylon – a powerless group of exiles, who nonetheless challenged the Empire

Models of challenging powers

Asking awkward questions, e.g. the assumption that economic growth is always desirable. We also need to be willing to question – often Christians seem more ready to simply provide answers.

Modelling creative alternatives, e.g. restorative justice

Protest, e.g. civil disobedience.

Prayer – e.g. Daniel 9, the imagining of an alternative reality.

It’s hard to challenge the powers individually – note that Daniel was part of a group. We need to think about how challenge as a community, and how we resource each other.

How to challenge as a community

We need to understand that we live in a discipling culture. We are being discipled by our culture all the time, our culture wants us to see things in certain ways.

We can be a community of resistance and discernment, e.g. being discerning about the TV adverts we watch.

We need to be realistic about our capacity. We are a sizeable minority, but still a minority. We must be careful not to wear ourselves out.

We need to keep checking our tone of voice. Think again about how respectful Daniel was. We still have a ‘majority complex.’ We need to move from being a moral majority to a prophetic minority.

We also need to consider how we can challenge powers, for the benefit of others. If we only challenge for the benefit of ourselves, how are we different from anyone else? What about love for others and the oppressed? What would be the impact of Christians standing up and saying that they’re distressed about the upset caused to Muslims about a film which is so offensive about the foundations of their faith?

Stories of Challenging the Powers

Christian Peacemaking Teams

Standing up for the disappeared of El Salvador

Making cakes to combat the gang culture of an estate in Bristol.

Freemantle, Australia – clearing utility debts, as a sign of Jubilee

Prayer for Kolkata by its Christian minority

The example of Jeremiah 29, the ‘Letter to the Exiles’: an alternative approach to exile.

Session Two – Forming Habits

Our society is now moving beyond the era of Christendom, a long period when the church held considerable power and influence over the laws, practices and culture (e.g. calendar, architecture, art) of much of the Western world. Christendom has left an enduring legacy in our societies, but we also need to acknowledge Christendom often displayed little capacity to love ‘the other.’ Consider, for example, the frequent persecution of Jews and Muslims.

Consider habits and reflexes. Habits are things which we do over a sustained period of time, so that eventually they become natural to us. Reflexes tend to be the things we do when we haven’t time to think.  Habits are not immutable. They can be formed and broken.

Read Daniel 1-6 – what habits do we see lived out by the Jewish exiles in Babylon?

Consider the remarkable response of forgiveness demonstrated by the Amish community of Nickel Mines, following the shooting of five girls by Charles Roberts in October 2006. The community had been shaped by its regular sharing of the Lord’s Prayer, seven times a day.

In his book Seeking Spirituality, Ronald Rolheiser writes about the following barriers to forming healthy habits:

Naivety about the nature of spiritual energy

Pathological busyness, distraction and restlessness

The problem of balance in life which has led to a separation of things that should belong together:

Religion and eros

Spirituality and church

Private morality and social justice

Rolheiser suggests ‘four pillars’ or responses

Private prayer and personal integrity – wholeness in life

Social justice – standing with the poor

Mellowness of heart and mind – staying grateful

Participating in the community of the people of God

What formational practices can we develop as a community?

Prayer – ways of praying

Scripture – ways of reading

Testimony – ways of speaking of God

Worship – Word, Water, Wheat and Wine

Service – laying down our lives

Session One – Loving People

The situation facing the church in the UK is not unlike that which faced the Jewish people dragged off into exile in Babylon. Read Psalm 137, and you quickly get a sense of how painful their loss was. Consider the emotions which are expressed in this psalm – bitterness, loss, injustice, humiliation, a desire for vengeance. The presence of the psalm reminds us it’s ok to bring such feelings to God in prayer, but we need to think seriously about how we process such feelings.

We are now a minority. Only 6-7% of the British population are involved in churches, and we don’t feel ‘at home’ in our society like we used to. This leads to a strong desire that we have to blame certain people and groups for what is happening in our culture.

Think about the people we struggle to love:

The growing Muslim community

Secularists/the ‘new atheists’

The media

We need to think seriously about how we love ‘the other,’ those who are different to us. We also need to understand that to love others is to pass on the love we ourselves have experienced on God. You might it helpful to reflect on a passage Sian read, John 15:1-17, which speaks of the centrality of love.

You may also want to take time giving to God the people you find it hard to love, reflecting on the following questions:

Why do I find it hard to love this person?

What does their presence do to me/

What thoughts and feelings do they raise in me?

What do they teach me about myself?

How do I feel about that?

Church weekend 2012

We’re just back from a wonderful church weekend in Cleobury Mortimer, spending time in the company of Sian and Stuart Murray-Williams, who were so helpful to us in thinking through the themes of loving people, forming habits and challenging powers. I’ll be posting notes from each of these sessions. It would be wonderful to hear your feedback on the ideas we discussed, how you were encouraged and challenged, and the ways in which we can live out these values in our YWBC.

Worship - looking for the next hit?

Now I know where I’ve been going wrong. All the time I thought I was leading a church, but have just discovered that instead I could be running ‘powerful purveyors of emotional religious experience.’ Puzzled? Let me explain...

An intriguing new piece of research, reported last week by Christianity Today makes the suggestion that the experience of many worshippers at American megachurches is akin to that of addicts looking for their next high. You can read the full paper, written by University of Washington research staff here.

The article draws on previous work by American sociologist Randall Collins, and begins with the hypothesis that what drives and motivates humans is their desire for ‘emotional energy,’ defined by Collins as ‘confidence and enthusiasm.’ It’s important to note that EE is not presented as just a narcissistic quest for warm and happy feelings; the writers also note the theories of Emile Durkheim, suggesting that EE has a ‘powerful and motivating effect upon the individual,’ which could lead to a change in moral behaviour.

But the Washington researchers also  offer the theory that our feelings of EE are closely linked to our levels of oxytocin, a hormone related to a variety of actions including social recognition, pair bonding and tribal behaviour, including bonding with insiders and the distrust of outsiders. And having established these factors, they then get to the heart of their argument, with the suggestion that megachurch worship effectively offers an ‘oxytocin cocktail’ to those attending, through its carefully choreographed blend of a large number of people, the sharing together of an intense emotional mood and time spent in the presence of a charismatic senior leader.

The sort of techniques referred to in the article may be familiar to many of us. The music is upbeat and loud, not unlike a concert, the lighting is low, all around people will be raising hands and swaying along. In some venues, large screens will even project images of the most intense worshippers in the auditorium, reminding those present of the appropriate response to be making at any given moment. The impact on those present is often deeply intense, and reflected in the testimony of many interviewed for the purposes of the research: ‘Expressions relating to the sensory experience were common—tasting seeing, feeling, touching, listening, feeding, thirsting—and words related to the emotions—loving, longing, feeling, moving, vulnerability, wanting, crying, joy—were not only peppered throughout the interviews, but rather were the driving force behind nearly every description and often the punch line to every story.’

But it also needs to be noted that the article isn’t just about the experience of gathered worship. Those attending megachurches speak passionately about the friendliness and love of others in their community, and also bear witness to a strong sense of purpose they’ve found concerning their personal morality.

So are there any lessons we can learn from this? The suggestion that emotional hysteria, and even manifestations which could be labelled as ‘signs and wonders’, can be generated through manipulation techniques is hardly new news. Inducing fear, failure or hopelessness before introducing the answer, the effect of a large crowd, these are techniques which have been employed by some of the most cruel and unscrupulous political regimes our world has seen. There’s no place for such practices in Christian worship.

But we need to be careful not to dismiss the experience of megachurch worshippers too readily. Reading their stories, I was reminded of the words of Barth in Church Dogmatics, VI/2: “The Christian community, can and must be the scene of many human activities which are new and supremely astonishing to many of its members as well as to the world because they rest on an endowment with extraordinary capacities.”

This doesn’t mean that the experience of church is reduced down to offering an intense hit for spiritual adrenaline junkies. Discipleship, of course, needs to consist of the death of self and the forming of disciplines, as well as the ability to think in depth about issues of faith. In his moving book, A Churchless Faith, Alan Jamieson has chronicled the tragedy of those who have walked away from apparently successful evangelical and Pentecostal churches, disillusioned and stifled with no safe place to talk about their doubts and questions. But surely Christian worshippers also need to feel some sense of intimacy with God, some inkling of having been in his presence, when they gather with others in the community of believers. This doesn’t have to mean making judgements on the worship service on the basis of ‘how I felt’ or ‘what I got out of it.’ But if we’re called to love God with our hearts, souls and minds, our emotions need to be impacted by our faith as well.

I’ll leave the final word to James Smith, from his excellent book on worship, Desiring the Kingdom: ‘While Hollister and Starbucks have taken hold of our heart with tangible, material liturgies, Christian schools are “fighting back” by giving young people Christian ideas. We hand young people (and old people!) a “Christian worldview” and then tell them, “There, that should fix it.” But such strategies are aimed at the head and thus miss the real target: our hearts, our loves, our desires. Christian education as formation needs to be a pedagogy of desire.’

What message are we communicating?

Last night we had the first meeting of our new Communications Team at YWBC, a thoroughly constructive time spent trying to get to grips with a variety of issues in our church. The meeting has provoked action (the need to start blogging again!), but thinking as well. While discussing our church website, we hit upon the question which always arises in such discussions: Who are we communicating to? Those within or those outside our church? The issue is so complicated because I’ve been increasingly struck by how these different audiences seem to want to hear different messages.

Perhaps my point is best explained by an analogy from politics. Those of us keeping an eye on the US elections will be aware that opinion polls in key states suggest Mitt Romney’s plans post-November are increasingly likely to comprise an extended vacation. Those ‘47%’ comments are looking more costly by the day. But behind the debacle surrounding Romney’s ill-judged remarks at a fundraising dinner for rich donors there’s a bigger problem. To become acceptable in the eyes of many people in the Republican Party, increasingly a group obsessed over a handful of issues that polarise opinion (think small government, gun control, abortion), Romney ends up becoming unacceptable to the majority of US voters.

Could it be that we risk the same thing happening to us in the church? A few weeks ago I heard Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali promoting his new book Triple Jeopardy for the West. I came away unconvinced by his thesis, as robust a defence of Christendom as you’ll ever hear with a clear desire that the church should still be able to dictate terms to the rest of society. But drinking coffee with various members of the congregation afterwards made me aware I was in the minority. Lots of people were clearly pleased to have heard someone unafraid to ‘speak out for the truth.’

But the problem here is that truth is again seen as boiling down to a number of touchstone issues – just a few days ago, I had a conversation where someone complained to me that ‘we need to be speaking out’ on the redefinition of marriage debate. That sort of tub-thumping will certainly win preachers some kudos from some in their congregations even if it is breeding more and more of an unhealthy siege mentality among some Christians.

These conversations have reminded me of some words of Walter Brueggemann, in one of his most recent books on preaching, The Word Militant:

There is a long tradition of so-called prophetic preaching that is filled with anger, indignation, and condemnation, so that the preacher’s own juices of anger can run loose in the process.’

I suggest that we need to unlearn that common notion of prophetic preaching... it is clear that some of the most effective “prophetic preaching” in our time by such dazzling voices as Desmond Tutu… comes across as utterances of hope-filled, compassionate truth-telling largely free of rage. I suggest that we have misread the prophets to think them voices of simplistic rage, for hard truth can be told quietly if it intends to evoke a response rather than simply be an imposition of rage on the listener.

So what lessons do we learn here regarding communication? I offer two tentative conclusions.

• Our gospel is a large story of fall, redemption and recreation. It’s that big story we need to proclaim, over and above any ‘little stories,’ which often reflect our own vested interests. That doesn’t mean we never speak out on political or human rights issues, rather that we don’t define ourselves by the stances we adopt. Our posture must be one of love and not anger.
• Our message needs to be one of integrity – the things we say to the outside world are the same as the words spoken inside our walls.

Rob Bell, preaching and the local church – some reflections

Like many others in recent years, I’ve been stimulated and positively provoked by the ministry of Rob Bell. I’ve enjoyed his books (albeit with an increasing sense of frustration that he’s often better at deconstructing than providing answers) and also found his Nooma DVDs to be beautifully evocative, touching the heart as well as the head as all good preaching should. And I’ve even had the privilege to hear him once in the flesh, on his Drops Like Stars tour which explored the theme of suffering. I came away dazzled, impressed and frankly a little jealous – I doubt my communication skills will ever scale the heights I saw him attain that evening.

But I have to confess to being disconcerted and disappointed by some comments made by Bell in a recent interview given to promote his next book due out in 2013. You can read the interview here – what caught my eye was a section where he commented on the new freedom he’s found since leaving the local church setting of Mars Hill in Grand Rapids to become a freelance writer and speaker. The interviewer comments on how he’s able to speak more openly on a controversial issue and then says:

DAVID: What’s most remarkable about that segment of the video is: You seem so relaxed in saying that simple yet important thing. You’re smiling. You’ve got to be breathing a sigh of relief that you’re able to say this now without a panel of church elders to whom you’ve got to answer—or other critics in the church. So, what I want to know is: Does it feel good to get that off your chest?

ROB: I am smiling right now at that question. I am smiling.

It was a joy and honor and privilege to be part of a local church. It was absolutely amazing through all those years, but believe me—I know what you are describing here on a cellular level. Yeah. That’s all there is to say—yeah. I am smiling.

Reading these words makes me want to make a plea to preachers everywhere. Let’s never reach the point where we see the local church as something which cramps our style or limits our freedom. Every time I step into the pulpit I see a group of people with whom I’m in a covenant relationship, the leaders and members to whom I’m accountable. When I feel frustrated and I’m on the verge of ‘letting rip’ I hold back because I’m conscious that what matters most is sustaining those relationships. When I’m tempted to say something controversial or provocative I’m forced to weigh up whether the impact will be worth the upset, hurt and division which could be caused in this local expression of the body of Christ. Sometimes our critics are God’s gift to us.

And just one more plea, to the folks like Rob who’ve earned themselves the status and authority which goes with this kind of speaking and writing ministry. Remember that when you throw a hot potato, there’ll be someone somewhere still leading a local church who has to catch it and deal with the fallout...

The Olympics and the ‘healing of the nations.’

We’re off this afternoon to Olympics football in Coventry, having been genuinely impressed and uplifted by Friday night’s opening ceremony. The spectacular transformation from a rural scene to the industrial revolution was brilliantly executed, and I thought it was great to see the NHS given pride of place in an event designed to showcase the achievements of modern Britain.

But the part of the evening which got me thinking most came when the competitors from all 204 teams took their time to process into the arena. I was reminded of John’s vision of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21: ‘And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honour of the nations.’

Could it be that the scenes we saw on Friday were so uplifting for us, because they point forward to something we hunger for deep down, an eventual healing of relationships as people are gathered by God in a new world free from war and violence. I realise that so much of modern sport falls short of the ideal vision many of us would wish to see realised. There’s too much money and too many egos, but there’s also a lot to celebrate, not only the individual performances of people who have trained long and hard to get to the games but the way sport unites.

Perhaps this is the reason why the more I think about it, the more astonished and offended I am about MP Aidan Burley’s now notorious tweet about "leftie multi-cultural" rubbish. The whole point of 204 nations gathering together to compete is that the games will be multi-cultural. What else but sport could bring about such a diverse and vast set of people and unite them in an atmosphere which allows a brief respite from political agendas? Let’s put our cynicism on hold for just a little while, and also look upon the games as a brief but tantalising foretaste of a longer-lasting unity God will one day usher in.

Presenting the Gospel to the Austerity Generation

A busy couple of weeks has meant no chance to blog recently, but a lecture on faith and the Big Society at a recent event at Bristol Baptist College has got me thinking about changes which we might see (and which we’ll almost certainly need)in our approach to evangelism over the next few years.

The session in question was led by Phil Jump, Team Leader of the North West Baptist Association. Phil made a passing comment on the way the Gospel has been presented differently in different decades reflecting the zeitgeist of each period. For example, during the years of relative prosperity of the ‘noughties,’ the primary evangelism tools of UK churches have tended to be courses such as Alpha or Christianity Explored. I have more recent and firsthand experience of Alpha but I think it’s fair to say that both courses tend towards a cerebral and modernist approach to Christianity. That’s an opinion that seems reasonable in light of the subjects addressed.

The topics covered by Alpha, for example, are:

1.  Is there more to life than this?
2.  Who is Jesus?
3.  Why did Jesus die?
4. How can we have faith?
5. Why and how do I pray?
6. Why and how should I read the Bible?
7. How does God guide us?
8. Who is the Holy Spirit?
9. What does the Holy Spirit?
10.  How can I be filled with the Holy Spirit?
11. How can I resist evil?
12. Why and how should I tell others?
13.  Does God heal today?
14. What about the church?
15. How can I make the most of the rest of my life? 

Compare and contrast, if you wish, to the hot topics covered by Christianity Explored:

1. Good News
2. Identity
3. Sin
4. The Cross
5. Resurrection
6. Grace
7. Come and Die

So the question arises... who would be interested in thinking through these sorts of issues? During the 1990s and 2000s it may well be that for lots of people in comfortable, middle-class jobs, wondering if there was more to life than two cars, a semi-detached home and foreign holidays, these courses had an appeal. Memories come to mind of watching Nicky Gumbel on video at HTB, putting across his case with compelling logic, week by week, to lots of beautiful people who presumably stopped off at Alpha on their way home from high-powered jobs in the City.

But in the years to come, are these topics going to pack the same punch of relevance? For many of us, the questions we’re asking are different. We’re no longer concerned with the emptiness of our comfortable, if mediocre, existences. We’re anxious about the state of our economy, angry at the bankers and governments who’ve brought us to the edge of the austerity abyss, fearful that we may not be able to retire in comfort. And if we feel less apprehension for ourselves, we certainly ought to concerned about the plight of our children. The old social contract of ‘work hard, play by the rules and you’ll get a good job’ has been torn up.

So does this mean there’s another kind of course waiting to be written, which poses a different type of question? Why is the world so unfair and does God care any way? What will my life amount to? Can we really make a difference about injustice? Are there any alternative visions for society and the world, which offer something more than our current economic and political models? 

The Credit Crunch, Austerity and Sin

Time off over half-term has meant the chance to relax and even, on Monday, the opportunity to go to a shop to buy a newspaper and then read it! What’s got me thinking this week has been the interview in Monday’s Guardian with the Princeton economist Paul Krugman (pictured above). Krugman has been appearing on various UK media outlets, promoting his new book, End This Depression Now! You can read his Guardian interview here, and also watch here his appearance last week on Newsnight.

Near the beginning of the Guardian article, we’re told of Krugman’s frustration with the many ‘Very Serious People’ he has met recently who are convinced of the need for governments to reduce deficits. ‘These Very Serious People present economics as a morality play, in which debt is a sin, and we have all sinned, so now we must all pay the price by tightening our belts together. They tell us the crisis will take a long time to resolve, and must inevitably be painful.’ Contrast that analysis with another Guardian article written a few weeks ago by the Irish journalist Mary Kenny, explaining the willingness of the Irish people to support the EU’s fiscal treaty. Kenny notes that 84% of the Irish population still define themselves as Roman Catholic, and then writes: ‘That, I believe, is one reason the Irish are not uncomfortable with the concept of economic austerity. "Austerity" is the due enactment of penance, following sin or self-indulgence. I've heard scores of people all over the country say: "A bit of self-denial will do us no harm at all. Sure, we went over the top altogether with mad spending."’

These articles raise important questions on sin, and where it’s to be found in the current debates on austerity versus Keynesian stimulation of the economy – watch Krugman’s interview on Newsnight and you’ll hear him suggest that debt and credit are not the worst of sins, but that it’s more offensive to sacrifice a future generation and their jobs on the altar of economic dogma. That observation is crucial because it helps move the debate beyond its current, skewed moral stance. The arguments for austerity are often framed in moral terms and delivered by a privileged elite who want to preach the virtues of hard work and thriftiness. Messrs Cameron and Osborne et al remind us constantly that we can’t go on living beyond our means, Christine Lagarde of the IMF (who benefits from diplomatic rules which means she pays no taxes) tells the Greeks it’s ‘payback time.’ And all these statements are framed within the wider narrative, that governments are bad and markets are good, conveniently forgetting the excesses of the banking system which brought all of us to our knees.

So maybe it’s time to reframe the argument on austerity and sin, to acknowledge that if our determination to pay off debt at all costs is going to close down the hopes of our young people and cause decades of suffering for poorer nations then we need to take a different approach. Of course, there is an even more radical solution which would offer all of us the possibility of a new start...

Imagine the implications of our leaders taking to heart these laws from Leviticus 25, legislating for the Year of Jubilee: ‘³⁹ If any who are dependent on you become so impoverished that they sell themselves to you, you shall not make them serve as slaves.⁴⁰They shall remain with you as hired or bound labourers. They shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. ⁴¹Then they and their children with them shall be free from your authority; they shall go back to their own family and return to their ancestral property. ⁴²For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves are sold. ⁴³You shall not rule over them with harshness, but shall fear your God.’

Alternative plans

I thought of a joke the other day. It’s not particularly funny, I know, but it helps express something I’ve been giving a lot of thought to recently.

Question: What’s the difference between God and George Osborne?

Answer: God has a plan B.

This issue has arisen in several ways, through thinking about stories in the Bible, things which have happened recently in my role as minister, conversations with friends. A few days ago I was reading the story of 1 Samuel 15, where Saul is told by the prophet Samuel that he’s to lose the throne of Israel because of his disobedient act of sparing the life of the Amalekite King, Agag. At the end of the chapter we’re told that ‘the Lord was sorry that he had made Saul king over Israel.’

Fast forward another 3,000 years and we read about Peter, in Acts 10, on the roof of Cornelius’ house, seeing a vision of all manner of food and being told by God that he’s permitted to eat it all. And yet it’s not Peter who’s remembered as ‘Apostle to the Gentiles.’ Galatians 2 tells the story of how Peter ‘drew back and kept himself separate’ from Gentiles, an event which meant Paul had to assume the mantle of leading the sharing the Gospel with non-Jews.

All of which raises some difficult but important questions. When God first instructs Samuel to anoint Saul as king, does he know about the way the story will end, in eventual failure? How do we understand Saul’s prophecy of 1 Samuel 10? Does this show some evidence that Saul started out being the right man for the job, the best man available to God? Does God always foresee how people will change? When he revealed his vision of clean foods to Peter, could it be that, at the time, Peter seemed to be the best person for sharing the gospel to the Gentiles?

I talk to so many people who regret how things have worked out in their life, and who see this as a failure on their part, an inability to properly listen to God. I didn’t know how that person would turn out when I married them, I’d no idea the complications that there would be when I moved to that new job. There is often an added dimension of personal guilt for Christians when they try to make sense of these sorts of disappointments. I wonder how many people in Israel berated Samuel for picking the wrong king...

But what if God is inside time, alongside us? He knows everything there is to know, but that can’t include events in the future which are not fully settled. In that case, we could have been clearly hearing from God, who felt at that moment that for us that job, that home, that husband or wife was right. I realise this is a huge change in thinking for many of us, but I can’t help feeling it’s one which helps us make more sense of a lot of the struggles we face, and shows God not to be weak but rather loving and responsive, able to work powerfully and resourcefully even when things go wrong.

Finding God in the Neighbourhood

Last night a number of us spent time in Billesley, taking photographs for a presentation which we’ll be sharing on Sunday morning at a family service focussed on prayer for our community. We spent some time listening to our soundtrack, Gungor’s ‘Beautiful Things’ which you can listen to here. And then we went off to find some appropriate images which would give expression to the theme of the song, the idea of God birthing something new and lovely in the midst of the apparent chaos and failure of our own lives.

As we set off, I had in mind some words which I read recently in Alan Roxburgh’s recent book, Missional. Much of the book is a prolonged reflection on Luke 10’s account of the sending of the seventy, where Roxburgh argues for a shift in thinking about mission, a new orientation focussed not on attracting people to a pre-defined package on offer from church but rather listening and responding to the ways and means God appears to be at work in our community. Roxburgh suggests that, ‘... the primary way to know what God is up to in our world when the boundary markers seem to have been erased is by entering into the ordinary, everyday life of the neighbourhoods and communities where we live.’

Next Sunday morning will provide us with the opportunity to think in more detail about where and how God is at work in our community, as we listen to members of our local policing team and others involved in the Third Sector. My hope is that it will challenge some of our preconceived notions about the problems in Billesley – after all, how can we show God’s love to those around us, if we don’t show some love ourselves, love which starts with listening?

If anyone out there has stories to share on Sunday morning, it would be good to hear from you...

Prayer - being honest with God, honest with ourselves

I’ve spent a large part of today getting ready for next Sunday’s Family Service at YWBC. We’re continuing to look at the theme of prayer, and posing the question, ‘What should we ask for?’

One of the passages we’re looking at is 1 Kings 3, and the famous story of King Solomon’s prayer for wisdom. The opening chapters of 1 Kings are not pleasant reading – Solomon does not have a clear path to the throne and his power is consolidated only after a number of violent deaths, including that of his brother Adonijah and his father’s military commander Joab. The chapters make little attempt to hide the fact that the trail of responsibility for these murders ultimately leads back to Solomon.

But in chapter 3, we have a very different portrait of the King, to whom God appears in a dream. God instructs Solomon to ‘Ask what I should give you.’ Reading Solomon’s reply, I’m particularly struck by one claim which he makes: ‘I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in.’ Considering the guile and ruthlessness Solomon has just shown in order to secure power, these words demonstrate either breathtaking nerve before God or a genuine humility in his presence, or both.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be too quick to make judgements about Solomon. I wonder if all of us have played this game at one time or another, presenting ourselves as innocent victims before God, failing to acknowledge completely our own culpability where things have gone wrong. Perhaps, God is gracious enough to see beyond this sort of self-deception, recognising it as part-and-parcel of the human condition. He is certainly approving of Solomon’s request for wisdom, granting him ‘a wise and discerning mind.’

And yet the Solomon story does not work out well. For all his apparent humility in asking for wisdom, it’s hard to escape the feeling that a basic instinct for power and wealth is never really dealt with in his life. Ultimately, his life is not one characterised by humble rule or justice. Instead, he comes as acquisitive, for power, for riches, for women. It’s telling that when God appears again to Solomon in 1 Kings 9 the message delivered to him is one of warning about the danger of falling away.

So I wonder if 1 Kings 3 offers insights on prayer at all sorts of levels. At face value, we’re taught to ask for what is right. But beyond that there’s another lesson, that if our prayers don’t really reflect a true depth of changed character then their long-term impact may be much less than might otherwise be expected.

Exodus 32: Prayer as a means of shaping our future

This morning we began our new teaching series on prayer, reflecting on the astonishing story of Moses’ prayer to God in the aftermath of Israel’s building of the Golden Calf, a betrayal which brings God perilously close to getting rid of Israel, and starting again with a new people. Hopefully the talk will appear soon on YWBC’s audio page.

Reading Exodus 32 again over the past week, I’ve been struck again by how significant Moses’ prayers were. Filled with hurt and anger, God tells Moses to ‘let me alone,’ so he can come to terms with Israel’s idolatry and proceed with plans to get rid of them, starting afresh with a new people borne of Moses. But Moses doesn’t give God the space he’s looking for. Instead, he encourages God to think of his reputation (what would the Egyptians think if God brought the Israelites out of slavery only to annihilate them in the future?) and also the promises made to forefathers such as Abraham and Isaac.

This isn’t the only biblical story where God’s mind appears to be changed by human pleading. In Genesis 18 Abraham negotiates with God and persuades him not to destroy Sodom, and in 2 Kings 20 we read of Hezekiah’s life being prolonged for another 15 years because of his prayers.

The question is, how do we live differently in the light of such passages? In his excellent book, God of the Possible, Greg Boyd suggests: ‘Many Christians do not pray as passionately as they could because they don’t see how it could make any significant difference. They pray, but they often do so out of sheer obedience and without the sense of urgency that Scripture consistently attaches to prayer.’

Sometimes it feels as if we’re passively sitting, waiting, wondering when the renewal we all hope for is going to begin. But as James writes, ‘You do not have, because you do not ask’ (James 4:2). Shaping the future of our church begins with prayer, not presuming upon God’s blessing, but starting to show God how dissatisfied and demanding we are.

It would be good to hear the thoughts of others of others on this issue, and good to hear of anything you sense God saying as you pray.

Mark 13: ‘Beware that no one leads you astray.’

Last Sunday our journey through Mark brought us to the book’s most controversial chapter. In Mark 13 Jesus predicts the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, a magnificent structure only just rebuilt at massive cost by Herod. The Temple is reckoned to have occupied the space of 35 football pitches, a vast expanse of gold, marble and other expensive materials. For most Jews of Jesus’ time, this was the building that provided a concrete symbol of national pride and hope in God, including the aspiration that one day all the peoples of the world would come to worship Yahweh on Mount Zion.

But Jesus delivers an astonishing, shocking verdict: ‘Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown done.’ He goes on to warn the disciples of the danger of being led astray by false leaders, a probable reference to the Jewish revolutionary movement who took over the Temple in 67AD to further their own agenda, and invited the backlash from Rome which eventually led to the building being razed to the ground by Titus in 70AD.

As Ben Witherington has commented, this chapter is ‘primarily not about the end of the world, but the end of a world – the world of early Judaism as a temple-centred faith.’

By coincidence, I read this week about the impending 100^th anniversary of the Ulster Covenant, a document signed by over 470,000 people, pledging opposition to the prospect of Irish Home Rule and a continued determination to remain citizens of the United Kingdom. Controversially, the document wasn’t just signed by individuals but was also supported by the Presbyterian Church, who even suggested amendments to the wording which were accepted by Unionists.

I owe a huge debt to the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, in which I grew up and found faith. And we need to be wary when sitting on judgement on people in divided societies, who sometimes make the wrong choices when feeling their very survival is at stake. But it’s hard not to escape the conclusion that this alignment with Unionism was ultimately destructive for the church. Growing up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, my abiding memory of church is of a people with a militant, closed spirituality, a defensiveness which reflected their precarious political situation, a feeling of being unwanted in both London and Dublin. Having made little contribution to peacemaking, this church now has little stake in building the new Northern Ireland which is developing in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement.

So who are we putting our trust in today, and how will history judge us? I currently hear a number of colleagues in ministry wax lyrical about the opportunities offered to the church by the so-called Big Society. May be it’s understandable that, like the 1912 Presbyterians, we sense how the political situation is developing and feel the need to involve ourselves. But will future generations look back on a period of unprecedented cuts in welfare and budgets which caused great hardship for the most poor and vulnerable in our society, and ask why the church saw government policy as an opportunity to further its own evangelistic agenda?

Mark’s Big Story: was Jesus submissive?

So we’ve completed our three evenings looking at Mark’s Big Story. Our focus last night was on ‘creating a new community,’ the values and practices of the new kingdom movement ushered in by Jesus. What’s interesting about Mark is the way in which his Gospel contains no major teaching section, like Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. Instead, when it comes to lifestyle, we’re left to look at the actions of Jesus and his disciples.

Closer inspection leads us to a couple of interesting discoveries. Firstly, the task of Jesus and his disciples is constantly one of exorcism in Mark, with numerous examples of Jesus coming face to face with the strong man who is holding people captive. When Jesus calls and commissions his disciples in chapters 3, 6, and 16, the job of casting out demons is central to the kingdom mandate.

Secondly, there’s the method. The Jesus movement are vulnerable (they depend on the hospitality of others and they don’t take lots of equipment or resources with them on the journey). Jesus also models a response of compassion, and the kingdom values are such that the important people are those who would not be considered significant by others – slaves, servants, children.

And the ultimate example of the method is found in Jesus himself, whose victory is not brought about through a show of strength, but in the moment of surrender on the cross.

And that conversation led to one of the big questions of the evening. Was Jesus submissive? Is that the best word to use to describe the man who openly challenged the practices of the Pharisees and turned over tables in the Temple courts?

Reflecting on this question this morning has brought me back to Hebrews 5:7: ‘In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.’

I wonder if these words offer a clue to the underlying, guiding principle of Jesus’ ministry... that the decisions which led to every miracle, every parable, every gesture were all, ultimately, underpinned by a desire to submit to his heavenly Father. Jesus did not understand himself to be making up his own plan, but fulfilling the mission of God.

So what implications does this have for us, for the confrontations and challenges we find ourselves making in the name of Jesus? When we examine the protests we take part in, or our political affiliations, can we honestly say we understand everything we’ve done to be a part of a life fully submitted to God?

As Martin Luther famously put it, when preaching on discipleship: ‘Not the work which you choose, not the suffering you devise, but the road which is contrary to all that you choose or contrive or desire - that is the road you must take.’

Petitions and taking on the establishment

Last night was the second of our three evenings at church reflecting on the big themes in Mark’s Gospel. We spent two hours looking at Jesus’ relationship the establishment, the likes of the Temple authorities, the Pharisees, the Herodians and Romans, all of whom were threatened by his presence and ministry, and all of whom formed the coalition which gathered to ensure his execution at Easter.

Reading through Mark again, it’s striking how polemic Jesus’ actions are when facing up to the ‘powers that be.’ There’s an attack on the Pharisees’ ‘human tradition’ which concludes an incitement to the gathered crowd who are told that ‘nothing outside a person... can defile’ (Mk 7:15). There’s the turning over of tables in the temple and an attempt to shut down the buying and selling of goods in its precincts (Mk 11:16).

It’s troubling to compare the practices of Jesus with that of so many of our own churches, especially within our Baptist tradition, where we seem to have lost so much of the edge of our protesting, non-conforming heritage.

And it’s also interesting to think about the current debate on the redefinition of marriage which is causing so much angst within the evangelical community. Lots of churches, including our own, have offered members the opportunity to sign the Coalition for Marriage’s petition voicing concern about the government’s planned changes. But what are we actually doing when we sign a document like this? Are we taking a prophetic stand, asserting our obedience to God and not the state? Or are we asking the state to stay on our side, making sure the establishment rules are still on our terms? Are we trying to have our cake and eat it?

Theology and Twitter

A recommendation: Steve Holmes, Baptist Minister and theology lecturer at St Andrews University, has just announced his plans to ‘post a complete outline of Christian doctrine (in a generally classical, broadly Reformed, Evangelical and Baptist mode...) through a succession of tweets.’ Steve will be starting this series on Monday 2^nd April, but for now you can find out more here. 

Mark’s Big Story: Freedom and The Jesus Way

Last night, around 30 of us spent two hours reflecting together on the theme of freedom in Mark, particularly how the actions and teaching of Jesus would have been received by the crowd who appear on a regular basis in the Gospel, the ‘common people’ whose daily lives were blighted by problems of Roman occupation, debt, and the ‘purity code’ which was so vigorously policed by the Sadducees and Pharisees.

At the end of the evening, we talked about the issues which impact people in our local community in Billesley, the ways in which people here are ‘trapped’ because of family problems or financial problems and the lack of opportunity. And then we asked ourselves the question: how would Jesus have responded?

Among the various comments people made, I was particularly struck by the observation that, throughout Mark’s Gospel, Jesus doesn’t appear to be tackling ‘underlying’ problems. He heals people, feeds people, teaches people, but there’s little evidence that he wants to attempt a root and branch reform of structures in 1^st century Palestine. Instead, he is usually reacting to the cases of need which present themselves to him. I’m not sure that analysis covers the whole story – for example, at the beginning of Mark we read of Jesus attacking the ‘tradition of the elders,’ using provocative language, and of course there’s also his cleansing of the Temple. However, this is definitely a question we need to consider.

Mark only provides a brief summary of Jesus’ temptation, but perhaps it’s in the longer accounts of Matthew and Luke that we find an insight into the reason for Jesus’ lack of a big programme. He faces three different temptations, each of which threaten to distort the agenda of his ministry. He resists the idea of turning stones into bread, because his mission is not just about feeding people’s empty stomachs. He rejects the notion of a circus-style leap off the Temple pinnacle, because he knows the crowds need more than a ‘showman Messiah.’ He turns down the offer of political power because the Kingdom’s rule cannot come about through earthly structures.

In his introduction to his wonderful book The Jesus Way, Eugene Peterson writes: ‘The ways Jesus goes about loving and saving the world are personal: nothing disembodied, nothing abstract, nothing impersonal. Incarnate, flesh and blood, relational, particular, local. The ways employed in much of our Western culture are conspicuously impersonal: programmes, organisations, techniques, general guidelines, information detached from place.’

So here’s the question: how do tackle injustice but do this in a personal way? All answers gratefully received.

Truth spoken from the margins

I’ve just finished getting ready for the first of our evenings in church looking at ‘Mark’s Big Story,’ three sessions of discussion and study on the major themes in the Gospel. We’ll be thinking about freedom in the Gospel, focussing on the various ways in which people were trapped or oppressed in 1^st century Palestine, a combination of Roman occupation, high debt caused by Roman taxes and the tithe system, and the strict purity rules policed by the scribes and Pharisees.

We’ll also be thinking how people feel trapped today. During my preparations, I came across the ‘Nomadic Hive Manifesto,’ a statement written by a group of art students and lecturers who occupied the National Gallery in December 2010, as part of a protest against increased tuition fees. The manifesto begins like this:

A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of debt slaves refusing to pay. All the powers within Europe have entered into a holy alliance to regenerate a failing economy, to realise a lethal dream of returning to business as usual, and to level the education and culture, to transform the educational and cultural sectors into a consumer society success story.

And then later it says:

If you listen carefully, all that moaning, the sound that can be heard just behind the drone of everyday life, cars and the slurping of lattes, has become a little more urgent: a humming of dissatisfaction becomes dissent. The Holy Alliance fears that this noise has become a song on the lips of all?

What’s fascinating is the way the protestors speak about the presence of ‘the powers,’ which lies behind so much of action in Mark, and throughout the rest of the New Testament. Often, it’s those outside of the church who are best placed to speak truth to it. I haven’t come across a better description of the spiritual forces which lie behind the financial crisis, the sense that we’re owned by a markets model which has failed us, but which we can’t get free from.

Baptist Times Weekly reports on our TLG Education Centre

Find out more here

Why it’s Kicking Off Everywhere and the Rise of the Networked Individual

I’ve just finished reading Why it’s Kicking Off Everywhere, Paul Mason’s analysis of the wave of change which swept the world last year, from the Arab Spring to the Occupy movement, via the Eurozone crisis. Anyone who’s watched Mason’s reports on the BBC’s Newsnight over the last 12 months will already be familiar with his skills as a journalist, and the book doesn’t disappoint.

Of particular interest are his insights on ‘the networked individual,’ including a new breed of activist who is passionate about the need for change on critical issues, and who, armed with a smartphone and access to social media, has all the tools they need to connect with the likeminded and quickly build a movement. Mason writes about the ‘emergence of a new kind of individual with ‘weak ties’, multiple loyalties and greater autonomy.’

The question is: how does this impact the church, and our communication of the values of the kingdom which are crying out to be heard at a time like this? There’s a desire for change but also a wariness of the institutions who have presided over the failures of the current system, with the church in the role of sometimes-collaborator. How do we foster discipleship in a world of greater passion and but where ties are held more lightly?

Perhaps one answer is found in Jesus’ image of leaven working through dough. Could it be that the kingdom of heaven is like ideas transmitted through a network, subverting, inspiring, disturbing, until all of it was infused.