More on the romanticism of faith

Reactions to this Christmas carol by the Iona Community (1987) are always illuminating:

Once in Judah's least known city
stood a boarding-house with back-door shed,
where an almost single-parent mother
tried to find her newborn son a bed.
Mary's mum and dad went wild
when they heard their daughter had a child.

Giving a fruity twist to the Once in royal original, invariably churchy people are a bit unsure about it, whereas people who attend Christmas services but who would not usually come to church are much more impressed by it. While it's always a bit risky generalising from anecdotal experiences, I believe the contrast is indicative of something: people outside of churches are wary of romanticism, whereas church-regulars have definitely been shaped by it. This doesn't mean - at all - that churchy people are heads-in-the-clouds while other people are feet-on-the-ground, because I believe churches address more gritty topics than we give ourselves credit for (it is, after all, churches who risk talking about asylum-seekers, poverty, racism, etc.) But when it comes to the things of faith, spirituality and religion, we tend to like ours served with a fair dollop of romanticism, something to make the pill taste better, whereas the public at large is ready for a bit more realism. After all, this faith-stuff has to measure up and we need to know what we're talking about - especially in a world of conspiracy theories, scientific fundamentalism, anxiety about absolute claims and religious extremism, and a fairly healthy degree of scepticism about institutions, if not an unhealthy cynicism about everything! Victorian carols may serve a cultural function, galvanising a sense of history, continuity, safety; but they do little to nourish the spiritual hunger for something more real. The contrast is telling.

The Inescapable Christmas Orgy?

Every year it's said, and every year it happens again. How come? It's not even as though it is religious people alone who make the point; most conscious people are aware that commercialism has done something negative to Christmas, and that far from making it a happy time, it is a very stressful time. Of course, it's all very well for people to complain about it if they/we are among those wealthy enough to participate in it without too much hardship - the more pressing point concerns those who are stressed and depressed because things are such that they cannot even participate in it, while they remain surrounded by images and crowds which make it perfectly obvious what it is all about: presents! So it is rightly often said that "Christmas = debt" for many normal people, something which should shame the culture we take for granted ... but the point is, even though we can identify the crass superficiality and poorly disguised money-making orgies of the High Street, and even though we can deplore the stress the whole package causes us in terms of expectations, yet we still do it. Nothing seems to indicate more clearly Walter Wink's observations about the Powers: see how we remain in the thralls of something bigger than ourselves, even though we know the right thing is to head for a much simpler festival. Something takes hold of us at the corporate level (in both senses of 'corporate'!!), which Wink believes has a spirituality of its own. Perversely, the nativity narratives actually give us the key to unlock and dismantle this treasure chest approach to the Christmas 'season'; for while Emperors and Governors and Kings get on with their dirty business, the real action happens where there is "no room", in an animal trough, a simple manger. This is no justification for Christian self-righteousness, however, as though Christmas should embrace Victorian romanticism plus a 'superior' sense that we are now the victims keeping alive the true flame! Instead, the nativity narratives invite something more subversive than romanticism and pride: commitment to the margins, to those who poke at and unpick the enormity of the Powers. And yet, it remains so difficult not to buy more than we can eat and more than we need.

If roots could talk ...

In chapter 11 of the prophet Isaiah, a passage used in Advent because Jesus is believed to fulfil such prophecies, there is the image of a tree, even a stump, out of which grows a new branch. It is called the stump of Jesse, Jesse being King David's father, and David being viewed by the Jewish people as the greatest of kings, God's 'anointed one'. Jesus, then, is said to fulfil such great kingship, such 'anointed' status, with renewed purpose. But what it also shows us is that every tree has roots, and roots are the hidden part of a tree - and certainly the 'family tree' of Jesus has its fair share of skeletons (to mix some metaphors), including David - with a very mixed and muddled life, not exactly the idealised construction conveyed - just as every tree has things that continue to shape the new branches but which are buried. So it is with faith, with Christmas: the 'shadow' side of religion, the things we struggle to engage with constructively, because it's much easier to whitewash our religion, to boast about the good bits. Not exactly a Christmas message: and yet may be it is, since the nativity narratives have a shadow side, rooted in a vicious Empire, with puppet kings in fear of a new 'anointed' ... so give thanks that, even though our trees have shadowy roots, even so, new life and hope and joy can grow out of them; one who judges by fairness, equity, with concern for the poor, can even grow out of such violent soil; the possibility of renewal is always there - right in the muddiest of places.

Living with spilt milk

I was going to try and be clever. But the words aren't coming. I wanted to link two things: 1) the fact that I've just read on "The Unlikely Evangelist" website (link to be added soon!) about "the end of the world", about how it's not about the destruction of the world, but seeing the world through different eyes amd working for its re-creation now; and 2) a letter I've received angrily criticising me for forgetting to do something. And they are linked - I think. The letter really upset me. It was right - I had forgotten to do something - but its anger was disproportionate, and the attack was personal. So I have to live with that spilt milk, which I did "cry over" briefly, but I felt better after telling one of the most amazing 70-something year-old women who phoned me back and read a prayer over the phone. Of course, this incident is not the end of the world, and yet on the other hand, it is. I must pray for the person who wrote it, if I want to be part of this 'new world', because that begins to break the cycle of bad feeling - but it's bloody hard! In fact, I should want this episode to be the end of the world as we knew it, to be an opportunity (a kairos?!) for something new and braver. Forgetting things is easily done; I'm sure the letter-writer has forgotten a few things too; so "spilt milk" is all around us; but the trick is to live with it in a new way, with new eyes, with a new prayer: God, help me to mop it up.

The last word? It's never enough.

It's a good campaign: the United Church of Christ's "God is still speaking" campaign, which uses the image of a comma to remind us that whenever we think God has finished, or whenever we give the impression that it's all buttoned up, God surprises us again! This relates to Jesus, too. He's good, for sure, but he's not enough! That may sound controversial, but it's actually very 'orthodox', because God is not exhausted by God's presence in the life of Jesus; God's parenthood of all peoples transcends God's particular presence in Jesus, and God's Spirit within all of creation exceeds even the outer limits of Jesus' unique representation of God's presence. For me, this is very important: if we didn't accept that even Jesus has limits, we would "idealise" him; we would create an image of him which has the answer to everything; whereas the reality is that any such 'answers' are bound to involve some of our own imagination. I find it much more helpful (following the advice of Stephen Pattison in an article on 'The Shadow Side of Jesus', and Werner Ustorf on 'the disestablished Christ') to acknowledge Jesus' genuine humanity, that he therefore made some mistakes, had to learn, and had a rounded personality, because otherwise I'm following an unreal, almost ghostly teacher, someone less able to help me when I too make mistakes and have to learn. So thank God that Jesus isn't the last word; it would never be enough.

Another world, another language

It's interesting: like many other Christians, I believe that words like 'Lord', 'king', even 'Messiah' and 'saviour', are still relevant; that they can be attached to Jesus; but that it's always important to point out how disruptively those words are redefined in relation to Jesus. So to call Jesus our 'Lord' is to make a seditious point about worldly 'lordship' being all the wrong way up, with its implication of top-down authority, domination, feudalism, a gulf between the ruler and the ruled; because Jesus instead shows us servant lordship, one who suffers in solidarity with the masses, the disgraced, the powerless. Even 'Messiah' is transformed, despite its Greek version being used as Jesus' "second name" (Christ) - because he did not rule or restore things in the military way generally anticipated. I might add that even 'saviour' is shaken by the way that Jesus subverts so much of our Christian dogma imposing on him our desire for one who sorts it all out. For, like it or not, his method has left us with a lot of work to do ourselves! ... So this is the point: with so much subversion generated by Jesus regarding the words used of him, isn't it better not to use them at all? Or, in the case of "the kingdom", doesn't it make more sense to use the Greek "basileia", simply because it prevents easy translation: something new is required; something new is effected by him; something new is possible ...

Articulating Church, Class and Mission

Hopefully I'm not stupid enough to imagine that class determines everything, or that 'churches' can be neatly defined in terms of the socio-economic class of their memberships; and yet I firmly believe that class continues to be at least one of the factors, one of the determinants, which contribute to the nature or "groupthink" of any community, churches included. Take, for instance, the research into "growing churches": research which identifies "successful" churches in terms of those best able to articulate their faith and to cultivate church programmes explicitly designed to introduce other people to faith, and advertised as such. "Middle class" churches are not only at a distinct advantage if this is the game we must play "to do well", but I would suggest that middle classness almost defines such "growth" - not that "working class" people and churches cannot be part of similar developments, but churches in "working class" areas which reflect such developments are perhaps bucking a trend, and may be even being quite "middle class"?? I don't mean - at all - that inner-urban churches must define themselves "only" in terms of practical, social concern kinds of things, either as though those things are less important (they're clearly not!) or as though such churches can't do "thinking" and "articulacy" too! But what working-class contexts surely suggest is that Christian "good news" is much more rounded than the business-model of articulation-led mission. If a church works hard to include someone who might not be included in any other group, then that is at least as valuable as a church's evangelistic programme, because it is a real sign of good news. Working class communities are often better at this ... but often the "middle class" pressure to "succeed", to be "viable", means that a church itself will not value such inclusion as they ought to, hoping instead to "grow". If only, instead, each church could "be itself" with as much integrity to its story of good news.

The hand that feeds you

I wonder: may be there is a need for ministerial training to include something about systems analysis! After all, if Walter Wink is right, then every 'system' - every power-that-be - is, to use traditional Christian language, 'fallen' and yet capable of being 'redeemed', and this presumably applies to the church as well. We need to see the church, then, as a system in its own right, since if we are called in some sense to 'manage change', then we must understand - we must be able to analyse - the systems at work in the life of the church, the ways in which people behave because they are in thralled by a 'system'. For people cannot individually be blamed for their intransigence, perhaps, or for ignorance, or for manipulativeness, but should be understood as operating within a collective "groupthink" - or in Orwell's terms, by the "doublethink" which allows people to believe contradictory things at the same time unquestioningly. To ask these things, to suggest these criticisms, of course feels a little like biting the hand that feeds you - if 'you' are a minister, as I am - because it seems like disloyalty, hum-bug, to suggest that your employing institution is 'fallen'! Or it implies that I'm simply frustrated that things aren't going my way at the moment - it comes out of a sense of my inability to deal with what's up! And yet, seriously, it is also good news: for I must see myself as much a part of this fallen movement as anyone else; that we are all complicit with the operation of the system; that something is going on which transcends the behaviour of any individual, so no one of us should beat ourselves up about it. But the question is: is it for individuals to 'see the light', to change from within, or should we engage as a corporate body in the analysis of our incapacity? I suggest we need to look at this together, that it should therefore be part of how ministers and church leaders are trained into the role, that direct engagement with the system already starts to transform it.

Telling a progressive story confidently

It's a challenge. Something about the liberal disposition makes it very difficult to escape from reticence. Even though in some respects there can be an air of arrogance and presumptuousness around the religious liberal (like me), nevertheless the greater feeling is one of reticence - I/we get so caught up in the provisionality of things, that sometimes I/we fail to make definite claims; we become embarrassed about the evangelical certainty which sometimes looks like idolatry, as though a human being can pinpoint "the truth" with as much clarity as is apparently claimed. So the challenge is to offer 'a big story', a meta-narrative if you will, which speaks in progressive terms - about peace, social justice, equality, the provisionality of knowledge, the plurality of reality, the quest for reconciliation - but without degenerating into a debilitating relativism. The point is to say, 'Yes, we do have good news, we do believe that our faith can make a difference, we do believe that a faith community has a real and radical contribution to make to the compassionate transformation of the world, yet we do not make our claims imperialistically ...' Where this will differ, perhaps quite fundamentally, from the meta-narratives of religious conservatives, is in terms of the historical debates: what are the foundations of belief? what do we believe were 'the big events' of our faith, which foster our ideological commitments today? Of course, though, from a progressive viewpoint, it is not about asserting that I know what was historical, but that does not mean we can avoid the debates - and we can dare to say that we are not so sure that particular readings of history are coherent or appropriate. This need not make us arrogant; it suggests we want genuine dialogue between faith, history, science, etc. And here I stand, confidently.

A Hopeful Reminder: each lonely butterfly

The last few blogs of mine have been a bit gloomy and questioning - how can faith be set free? how can we address the knowledge inequality? how can we address the gender politics of faith and church etc.? So I return to the first posting on this blog, the explanation for the blog's name, where science's "chaos theory" and theology's "kairos" come together; a reminder of the idea of the lonely butterfly causing a hurricane in another part of the world, or perhaps of a lonely butterfly contributing to the downfall of apartheid ... or something else today. I do get anxious about the churches, our struggle to address the big political issues, our difficulty to see the world of faith in terms of strategies for dismantling systems of domination. But I should remind myself to be hopeful. We're not alone. We have anti-racist butterflies on our side!

Addressing the captivity of faith

I'm going to be a bit presumptuous, so forgive me. But it seems to me that we in the churches have a problem. That claim in itself is nothing new, but my particular emphasis is this: that our 'western presuppositions' are so focused on the individual, that we find our faith held captive. This, too, is not a new claim - it has been said before that the individual's faith-opinion has become dangerously privatised, shaving off its awkwardly public implications, especially the need to live our faith confidently in public - but I particularly observe this problem as being a problem with our political lives. People are happy with practisiong their faith as indidivuals who are basically called to be nice, tolerant, peaceful, respectful - values which happen also to reflect the values of western secularism! - and to gather together with like-minded practitioners for uncritical "fellowship", to affirm our faith in the face of a suspicious world. But any talk of faith as a social enterprise, something which exists between people - as well as privatised within an individual's mind and life - or as something which addresses the dominant social structures and assumptions and norms of our everyday world, is crazy-talk which people find hard to hear. And it's not that people won't "apply" the prophetic traditions of justice to specific situations - people will accept that faith "has political implications"; rather, it is a non-acceptance of faith's inherently political nature. How, then, are we to speak honestly, and to live openly, with regards to faith as a special kind of social imagining, a "way of being" which sees, and hears, and celebrates, and criticises the relationships of the world in a particular light? How are we to address the captivity of faith, if we are so used to its being captive that we do not even see it? Orwell says (and I arrogantly use his quote here): "Unless they become conscious they can never rebel, but until after they have rebelled they can never become conscious." This, then, is the point of discipleship - action and reflection together; but if people don't want it, because it sounds too alien to our western lives, what are we to do? How can we set faith free?

Knowledge Inequality

It's another area of injustice, which can feel as deep and problematic and oppressive as the inequality between the economically rich and the economically poor. If it is true, as I believe it is, that the economic inequality is at the root of so much of the world's conflicts and dilemmas - ranging from the conflicts over finite natural resources, corruption in governments, and the life-chances of people growing up in so-called "sink estates" - then it is possible that there is truth in this claim: that the 'knowledge inequality' between those who have benefited from education to a further extent than many others, may equally be a cause of real conflict and strain. But just as the economic inequality is a problem for the rich as well as for the poor, so the knowledge inequality is a problem for the so-called knowledgable - there is a sense in which it can operate like a burden. Let me explain - thinking especially about a church context. I've only been in church ministry for 4 years, but from very early on, it was evident that there was a real gap between the 'theological knowledge' of the academy, scholarship which had been around for decades, and the knowledge of most people in churches. And it is the responsibility of a church's leaders. But still after 4 years it remains the case. So have I failed to pass on what I have been taught? Even things as basic as the authorship of the 4 biblical Gospels, or some general level of appreciation of church history ... it's often just not there. But let me be clear - I'm not attacking people for their ignorance, but the 'system' of churchy-ness and ministry which fosters this inequality. And it does matter, because it gets in the way of honesty between leaders and members; it gets in the way of honest discussion about mission priorities; it gets in the way of personal and corporate spiritual development, as well as engagement with a thoughtful world. (Incidentally, I'm aware that such 'knowledge' is by no means the be-all, and that people have other kinds of knowledge which matters at least as much; but in terms of getting to grips with our story, who we are, what our purpose is, these issues are essential.) So what are we to do about it? A small discussion group, which gets scared by certain things, doesn't seem to be enough ... so how do we address the knowledge inequality?

Renewal / New wineskins

There's a lot of it about. Renewal is in the air. The Government is talking about it - though different people mean different things by it ... does it mean Gordon Brown, does it mean revising policy, does it mean speaking to the anxieties of the day, does it mean generating solutions tio the big questions of the world, does it mean 'anything but Tony'??? Renewal is a great idea, but very slippery. And so it is with the churches, too. Presumably the many people who have been leaving the churches in recent years mean a whole range of things by their voting-with-their-feet - they may mean that renewal should involve 'becoming less wishy-washy', or others (hopefully!) mean that churchy-ness should start to re-engage them in a way that relates to real lives in the real world. When I say 'hopefully', I don't mean "I hope that has been the churches' failure"! I mean, "I hope that is people's analysis, because it happens to fit with mine!" We all have our agendas, don't we! So how should we renew? It can't be avoided that many growing churches, in the 'west' and in the 'south'/developing world, are 'conservative' - i.e. their 'new wine' message is very traditional, and in many ways quite old! (though the wineskins are changing). So for those of us who find ourselves drinking a different wine, we must revitalise this commitment to new wine as that which brings about "genuine" renewal - but what is it? Isn't it very much to do with "where peace is taking root", "where the hungry are fed", "where equality and dignity are upheld", "where justice is done"? But what do they mean? Social democracy? Or something distinct again?

In search of "balance" (in gender politics etc.)

The story of Jesus visiting two sisters, Martha and Mary (in Luke, chapter 10: verses 38-42), prompts big questions! On the one hand, it's about a teacher dropping in for a cuppa. But on the other hand, it's much more than that - because when Jesus tells Martha to stop fussing (she's busy 'being hospitable', as expected of her), and that she should be with her sister to hear his teaching, there is a double-edge here - not least because of how we read it. I have in mind its gender politics. For is it a man-thing, disproportionately, to revel in this story's critique of busy-ness, as it is all too easy for us to criticise the woman for being busy, since men might often be in the front room with the guest ...? And is it a woman-thing, disproportionately, to feel affronted by this criticism: for busyness is how women are conditioned to be (because of patriarchy)? Of course, such claims risk being overly general; but if there is even an ounce of truth in them, then there is an ideological problem here. On the one hand, Jesus is colluding with male-projected norms - 'it's better to think and learn than to be busy being hospitable' (is it?) - and yet on the other hand, is he commending Mary for subverting the gender roles? Is she a trailblazer for renewing women’s 'roles'?! Whichever it is, it reminds us to be mindful of gender politics – not least because of the need for 'balance'. After all, Luke places this story in the wake of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, so presumably he does not mean us to devalue action. Rather, in order to be Good Samaritans, we may have to subvert our socio-cultural assumptions and expectations, including gender 'roles', to do serious thinking "with Jesus" - and this thinking/acting balance requires constant renewal. And I have, no doubt, overlooked some of my own unconscious orthodoxies, and betrayed some of my own complicity with patriarchy, by how I have explored this double-edged story. So help me too …

Yet more on "1984" - Going barefoot

The telescreens, in Orwell's slightly prophetic satire, churn out all kinds of statistic and facts asserting the effectiveness of Big Brother's regime. One example is fantastic. The people are told how many boots have been produced, and it's always more than how many were projected to be made, showing that Big Brother's methods are even greater than their goals - though sometimes the records of earlier reports have to be revised (secretly) because the goals often exceed the outcomes, and such discrepancies between one reality and another aren't permitted ... but then comes the shattering thought of Winston, the hero: "Very likely no boots had been produced at all. All one knew was that every quarter, astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half the population went barefoot." And the people don't question it. It's a bit like globalisation, is it, with countless tonnes of commodities being overproduced while millions go hungry, but still the sheer gap between one reality and another remains awesome. What does it take, then, for those of us with shoes to put ourselves in the non-shoes of others? How might we take off our sandals before walking on the sacred space of other peoples? How can faith communities be at the forefront of this movement to engage with reality - not least, the all-pervasive challenge of inequality, with its morally compelling calls for transformation? After all, we don't live under Big Brother - no matter how much our satiricists might say we do, we remain free to make a real difference. While others go 'barefoot', we must then act.

More on "1984" - Staying Sane?

Orwell describes the situation of his hero,Winston, like this: 'He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would hear. But so long as he uttered it, in some obscure way the continuity was not broken. It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage.' Of course, once again, it is easy to over-play our connection with such a situation - after all, we love to be the hero(ine), don't we (or do I speak for myself only?)?!! But speaking in terms of Christian discipleship, there seems to be something poignant in this idea: for the radical critiques of the Powers made possible by Jesus, and the radical ways of transformation energised by his example, certainly seem to be silent or silenced in the face of the sheer weight and inertia of the status quo - whether it is a totalitarian regime, or a reactionary society, or we are enthralled by the politics of fear. All we can do, in the face of it all, is quietly utter our truths, such that we "stay sane". This obviously isn't about resisting mental illness, because as others have observed, who is to say whether mentally ill people aren't more open to "the truth" than the silent majority doing what we do? Instead, the kind of sanity he celebrates is simply that commitment to reality - especially in the face of the pressures to ignore it. In terms of discipleship within our churches, this can often feel counter-cultural, since there is often something "unreal" about the corporate practice of religion - and yet the possibility remains ... and sanity demands that I see my own fears, insanities and logs in my eyes.

I'm reading "1984" self-righteously! Help me!

George Orwell's book is exciting me - and I'm finding myself inhabiting its world, where a totalitarian regime, "Big Brother", does not merely host a few housemates for 13 weeks, but governs and monitors the lives of the whole nation. As Winston sees it, in the story, the only privacy he has is limited to the few centimetres squared inside his head! And even that is under threat, as the newly constructed language 'Newspeak' sets out to squeeze the number of words, so that Thought itself will be increasingly limited and confined. But I'm all too aware that this sharp political satire is giving me tools for criticising things outside of myself - the 'orthodoxies' to which other people are attached unconsciously; the way other people exercise "doublethink", simultaneously believing 'two contradictory opinions which cancel each other out'; the way the world outside of me directs its discontentment towards petty grievances rather than focusing on the larger evils of genuine poverty, prejudice and oppression. But might it be possible that I too am in the thralls of an orthodoxy which obscures me from particular oppressive realities? Might I too be complicit in doublethink, aware of my privileges but not quite committed to risking their end? Could it be true ...?

The risk of consensus

It's a strange thing to complain about, because it's certainly hard to achieve. But I'm a bit wary of a neat consensus. After all, even when it appears to have been achieved - as in certain kinds of church meetings - the appearance is often quite superficial ... it's amazing what people agree to, or acquiesce to, for a quiet life. I'm much more interested in solidarity than consensus, because while consensus presumes agreement, a nice and tidy point of completion, solidarity allows for differences - we can be in solidarity with people we disagree with. So with the recent terror stories. Thankfully, most people resist the simplistic consensus which places "us" against "the Muslim other", because most people seem to recognise that extremists are quite different from moderate majorities. But there is the danger of another consensus, which could form if we allow ourselves to be pressurised into believing there is only one way of defeating terrorism, and which relies on a certain kind of confident assumption: that the suspects are evil, while our ground is unmovable. Hopefully, most can understand that this anxiety is not about justifying or even explaining terrorism - there must be a consensus against it - but how it is tackled must remain subject to criticism. How we handle these delicate balances certainly isn't easy, which is perhaps why I remain worried about any hasty consensus. Having said that, it is helpful to think of such destructive ideologies as 'fascistic', because it points to the human contexts out of which such deformed world-views emerge - angry young men who see simply in black and white - and yet there is always more to it ... and many people suffer under such threats all of the time, reminding us to be in solidarity with sisters and brothers of many creeds in all parts of the world. So, no easy solutions, which may itself be part of the method for addressing the conflict.

We're told to be humble - but what is it?

If we were always humble in the way often taught by the churches, however implicitly, would we ever say anything or offer to do anything? There seems to be something real within church traditions which urges people never to push their own gifts forward. Of course, churches want us to offer our willingness to fulfil the kinds of roles that need to be fulfilled (being secretary, doing the cleaning, helping with the flowers, doing the rotas, etc.), and all of those things give people a sense of purpose (at one level). But I'm talking about something else: after all, to fulfil those roles we are expected to do so humbly, never thinking of our gifts as being too important but contributing to a bigger picture ... but does this mean that genuine creativity, something that might actually destabilise the status quo, is broadly suppressed? Is "Christian Humility" an ideology which basically keeps people in their place, keeps the structures and systems of the church AND of the world largely undisturbed? And within a particular model of Humility, are some roles fulfilled in a way that actually allows the exercise of manipulative power? (Think of the martyrs who cannot be criticised, because they are so committed to the roles.) So what, instead, is a more authentic kind of humility, which still avoids arrogance, but which enables everyone's giftedness to be celebrated in a way that could potentially change the system/s?

A Solidarity of Others?

I am fascinated by the ideas in a book by Anselm Min, a Korean American, called "The Solidarity of Others in a Divided World: A Postmodern Theology after Postmodernism". He argues that the church as 'the Body of Christ' is called to be a solidarity of 'others', in the sense that we are all 'other' to one another, we are all 'different' from each other. It is a great vision of the church, but more than that, a great model which is offered - in humility - to the world. For we set out this vision, admittedly imperfectly, trusting that the world may witness it as good news: that very different people can nevertheless live together peaceably and justly. But it doesn't seem to work quite as we would hope! We need to be better at promoting a couple of things: first, the diversity of people already in the church, which is often overlooked or directly suppressed (because diversity is messy); and second, the idea of solidarity, a mature way of handling differences, which ain't easy! If we don't work at those things, it'll be difficult to offer it as a model for (other) others ...

What does it mean to say God gives gifts?

Sometimes, we all need to shout out and complain against God. In the Book of Exodus, chapter 16, it says the people of Israel complained against God, because their leaders had helped them escape from slavery, but now they had nothing to eat. Their freedom felt like a death sentence. How this can be true! First, that we take the amazing things of our lives for granted. But secondly, that our faith can put us into new and frightening situations - good news is always double-edged. But what about the idea that follows? God "hears" their complaining, and gives them "manna from heaven" to feed them in their hunger, so they'll believe God is with them. This begs several questions (let alone the historical issues!) First, what does it mean for God to "hear" us? Not only 'hear' in the sense of catching the sounds we make, but in the deeper sense of "I hear you", or 'I get it'. In some sense, presumably God does 'hear' this way, but it's a bit of a mystery, isn't it! But secondly, how does God give us gifts? What does that mean? We might well never enjoy "manna from heaven" in the sense of a miraculous intervention, but still there is 'giftedness' at the heart of the world's life, in which God enables us to participate. What is it?

Christi-anarchy! (I've borrowed it)

Having just checked out an article on the ekklesia website, I'm reminded of the closeness between Christianity and anarchism, which Dave Andrews captured in the brilliantly titled "Christi-Anarchy: a radical spirituality of compassion." The closeness is because Jesus was a prophet against the powers - religious, social and political - just as anarchy means 'without rulers', so urging us to subvert and overcome the status quo. Again, it's radical, it's revolutionary, and even more surprising: it's biblical! After all, the Old Testament has different strands, monarchical and anti-monarchic, priestly and prophetic, and the New Testament too shows different tendencies, though Jesus seems surely to place himself in the anti-domination stream of the prophets - even Paul, often deemed 'conservative', is actually better understood as a critic of Empire. So, again, this begs questions of the church: how well do we practise this kind of faithfulness and discipleship, critiquing 'the Powers', walking the way of humility, empowerment, peace and compassion? Mmm ... the potential is always there ...

Spreading the word? (liberally)

It's a strange tension: the prospect of this "Jesus-movement" changing the world, of it being something truly radical and revolutionary for the sake of the oppressed and marginalised, can be genuinely exciting ... but I am hopeless when it comes to speaking to people who do not know much about it. In fact, my liberal sensibilities are such that I am very reticent, tending to be very wary of what people will make of it - after all, passion is a bit embarrassing, isn't it?! - and there are so many problems with the Church at large, that it is difficult to invite people to be a part of it ... and on the one hand, I don't lose any sleep about this, because I focus on working with the people already committed to the church, and kind of expect them to invite others! So how, if at all, should I set about becoming more able to say "this story is worth it", "this movement really can make a difference - trust me"? And how especially should I do this without being heard as saying "this movement is the best", because I know only too well that other agencies are making invaluable contributions, and other faiths must always be part of the conversations?

Kairos vs. Kyriarchy! (power to the people!)

The theologian Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza gives us the really helpful term "kyriarchy", literally meaning 'rule by lords'. But she means by it the very many ways in which some people 'lord it' over others - whether it is men over women, rich over poor, the West over the South, the bourgeois over the underclass, or whoever. What is shocking is the way in which Christians have so often allowed "Jesus as Lord" to be co-opted by the world's kyriarchical structures, even though the very point of Jesus' Lordship appears actually to have been the denunciation and subversion of kyriarchy. To put it another way, we read the Bible and exercise our faith as though all power-arrows ought to point towards Jesus, because he is exalted as our "ultimate Lord", whereas what he was about was dispersing the power-arrows, pointing them towards the relatively powerless. Power to the People! What is so shocking about this for Christians in churches is simply how radical it is: because it urges people to throw off dependency, to overcome our sense that changes are incremental, believing instead in the kairos - that the time for anti-kyriarchical discipleship is right now! Ouch! The New Community is at hand!

Anger Management?

On the day when World Trade Organisation talks have faltered, much to the concern of development agencies, an argument in our church's Bible Study comes to mind. Someone had complained that we're always being told how the world's poverty is "our fault" and we never seem to hear what we've done right ... Well, it's simple - it's because so much of the ongoing hardship of millions of people is because of the intransigence of countries which can afford to make changes but refuse to. So why was this person getting so worked up? It's because the miraculous story of the Feeding of 5000 people raised hard-hitting realisations: things can be done, Jesus expected them to be done, he got disciples involved in seeing them and in doing them, but still we don't like hearing it. I got angry in response - still aware that I don't do enough to follow through on the compassion that is evoked, but angry that such defensiveness can stand in the way of the need for a contemporary miracle. And what would the miracle be? Nothing but managing the anger so to direct it towards building a world in which hungry people are fed.

A new beginning, again!

It was a choice between "chaos theology" and "kairos theory", mixing two interesting ideas. Chaos theory (I think!) is that scientific hypothesis that apparently random events are underpinned by greater connections - for example, perhaps a butterfly flapping its delicate wings in one part of the world could contribute to a hurricane in another part of the world. So what if my or your apparently random acts (of kindness, or whatever) could contribute to much greater events further afield? Wouldn't that be crazy ... and amazing!? And kairos theology is the spin-off of South Africa's 'kairos document', which envisaged a new way of tackling apartheid in the 1980s - neither colluding with it, nor justifying it, nor reacting violently against it, but undermining it by prophetic commitment to justice and peace. The 'kairos' was upon the people of South Africa - the 'time for change', a specific kind of time, not consistent with what had gone before, and yet the eruption of what was hidden ... and so chaos and kairos come together: what if a butterfly flapping its delicate wings can contribute to the demise of apartheid? What if our humble contributions to the world can bring about social and political hurricanes damaging the existing world order? What if we can be part of a story of disruptive good news?