Thursday, November 01, 2007

The power of Metaphors

Ironically, Christians who are often more sceptical about the dominance of science are also more committed to so-called 'literal' readings of the Bible. I say 'ironically', because this obsession with things having to be literally true is partly the result of the scientific empirical method - the belief that things should be capable of being pinned down, so that we know what we mean. (It is also ironic, incidentally, because science itself is increasingly conscious of its own use of metaphors - string theory, black holes, etc are all metaphors.) What is often not appreciated is the way in which metaphorical readings of texts are in effect the only way to make sense of them! For example, a literal reading of "God is my rock" produces absurd and contradictory beliefs - God is steadfast, sure, but God is also cold and hard!
A metaphor works by playing creatively with two sets of ideas, critically allowing for truth and untruth to sit happily together - so the various explanations of the effectiveness of Jesus' death on the cross only work as metaphors: if any one if pushed to its literal limits, it begs too many questions about the nature of God and God's actions. Instead, each one points to valuable insights, but not the whole truth in itself. So yes, God is angry with the awfulness of sin, and God's sense of justice needs to be met - but don't push this too far, because it needs counterbalancing with God's scandalous love and mercy, God's free gift of forgiveness, and the recognition that the death came about because of gritty political reasons - Jesus had provoked the powers-that-be to crush him, thinking that their overwhelming violence would be the last word. But it was not - his death became a victory, by absorbing even the worst that the System can do (of which we are all a part), without resorting to the System's methods (of violence, domination, retaliation), breaking the cycles by exposing them and ultimately allowing the System to be judged and undone by its own excesses.
Of course, each of us has our preferences - some metaphors ring more true than others - but the power of them is the way they point to things beyond our comfort zones, to truths which explode our assumptions and un-do our participation in wider social practices. For the power of a metaphor is particularly in its demand that we should not pin the truth down within us, but should be open to those other insights we prefer to demonise. I must hear my own sermon!

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Hope is where your arse is

It's a quote from Phillip Berrigan, an American priest and activist, as conveyed by Ched Myers, a scholar-activist, at this year's Greenbelt - a Christian arts festival in Cheltenham. It doesn't work in an English accent - but it sounds great in an American one: "Hope is where your arse is." The point is that, rather than being found within a Christian holy huddle, or in our individual longings for heaven, Hope is where we put ourselves, in our daily lives, in God's messy world. Hope is what we do, through our lived realities. Hope is how we approach life, how we practice faith, how we get stuck in with addressing the challenges and struggles of those who are most vulnerable. Hope is false if it ignores or hides from or belittles the pain of real life; and Hope is therefore false if your "arse" (your bodily being) is located aloof from people's pain. "Christian discipleship is like real estate," Ched said: "it's about location, location, location." After all, where did Jesus put himself? Not in the nice places, not with the "nice" people, neither with a sword in his hand, ready to mirror the brutalities of the System which violated the vulnerable, nor behind closed doors, but touching the untouchable, living savingly with "the least". This is what "body politics" is about - where do we put ourselves? - so to be the "body" of Christ today, be where Christ would be. A far cry from the "virtual" worlds we often live in, this is certainly a demanding way to be ... so for now, I'll sit just have a nice sit and a think about how other people should live like that!

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Walking through walls


Prague is an interesting city. Whether you see it as the "city of 100 spires" or the city of the never-ending stag-night, you can't escape the amazing mix of fantastic old buildings and of people. There is both the very ancient - long before the brave stories of early Reformers burnt at the stake or "defenestrated" (thrown out of windows!) - and the very new, with all the High Street shops you'd expect to see in the UK, and this fascinating wall reminding us that, when people were under Soviet rule, they were attracted to John Lennon, the peace-lover. A game of cat and mouse ensued, as the wall was covered with messages of peace and then whitewashed by the authorities, but now it remains - with Lennon's head coming through to meet us ... Overturning totalitarian governments, or making world peace, is somewhat like walking through walls: it's just not something that happens ... is it? And yet it is. Again I find myself drawn to the distinction between optimism (which can naively pretend the walls don't exist) and pessimism (which gloomily sees only the obstacle) - and to the conviction that Hope is far more radical than mere optimism, because it sees the wall squarely, head-on, for all its utter concreteness (the stubbornness of societal systems, of human attitudes, of violence and division), but still determines to walk through it, whatever the cost. So let's get to it - let's walk through walls.

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Christians and the extremist threat

So, more bombs. Interestingly, though, the media are increasingly airing the views of Muslims who have been part of the so-called Jihadist networks but who walked away. They seem to emphasise that western foreign policy only aggravates the issue; that the crux of the matter is the state of Islamic theology; that moderates have left a vacuum of ideas which the radicals exploit and fill successfully. Critically, when questioned about this, one described the matter as one in which scholars fail to explain the context of those Quranic texts which urge violence on unbelievers. That is, the jihadists are justifying themselves faithfully with regards to ancient texts written at a time of real tension between Islam and 'the world': so their ongoing struggle has its own internal logic. Christians must learn from this - 1) by not leaving a vacuum of ideas into which the noisy fundamentalists can move; 2) which means debating strongly the question of biblical contextualisation - i.e. the idea that the Bible itself was written in certain historical contexts; that the idea of 'timeless' truths is a dangerous denial of God's concern with the particular moment. And it's not even that we can claim that Christian 'extremists' are innocent of violent outcomes, since their theologies not only underpin the space which allows for conflict in the Middle East, notably Israel/Palestine, but without seeing biblical texts in context, they also continue to preach prejudice and excuse various kinds of marginalisation. We must therefore ensure that progressive theology is spoken and lived - to take on the bibliolatry of those who refuse to put things in context.

Saturday, June 02, 2007

A story with resonance - yes and no


Manchester passion
Originally uploaded by Lees Street
At last - I've put a photo on to my blog! And it is the photo used to promote the Manchester Passion, when the BBC produced the story of Christ's passion using the locations of Manchester city centre and the songs of Mancunian artists. The most powerful moment ... when Jesus sang "Those who find themselves ridiculous, siddown next to me" (from the James song). It's a profound insight into the Jesus movement - it is a ridiculous way of life - and yet we often seem to act as though other people are weird for not joining in with us, or seem bemused when we're thought of as abnormal. It was great to be there, to hear the story in music and imagery of my cultural context - which made it all seem 'cool' again - yet I am also aware how 'ridiculous' it is. Yes, he was certainly a social radical, but I should take care co-opting a cool Jesus for my cultural references. Yes, we should do contextual theology - or, rather, we should realise that we do it, even if we don't mean to! - because we speak out of a context, including in our God-talk. But, like a metaphor, it is important to keep alive the 'truth' and 'untruth' of any connection - the passion of Christ has universal resonance, but also its own desperate particularity; the person of Jesus is distinct, but also has things in common with other great figures; he takes sides with radical reformers even today, but is not quite the same as any of them. What this means is, we must never be complacent - however ridiculous that is.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

A Climate for Debate

I'll refer to it as an example - but to do so, I have to spell out the importance of the issue: Climate Change. It's high time we in the churches got serious about science, not so that we simply accept whatever scientists say or do (because there are issues which call for ethical guidance as well as theological frameworks), but certainly so that we at least appreciate the seriousness with which science is undertaken. For it seems that many 'religionists' treat science as though it is 'mere propaganda', a distorted mindset, whereas its strict method and due sense of openness to ongoing discovery mean that it ought to be better described as the exposure of propaganda. The scientific method requires evidence, tested and tested - so when well over 90% of relevant scientists tell us that it is virtually certain that warmer climates are going to suffer more famines, more insect outbreaks, more deaths due to a 2 degree rise in temperature, certainly exacerbated by human activity, then we should listen - and although Britain itself can possibly afford to delay, we should be far more concerned about those who cannot afford to do so. Poorer people will suffer more. What this requires is a "climate of debate", i) with Christian communities daring to give more time to the big issues facing humanity than to the details of church preservation, ii) with us supporting each other to discover ways of tackling the issues in our daily lives - to help us live sustainably, how we might address our own consumerism and wastefulness, and iii) with us learning how to converse with other disciplines and other communities ... but instead, we preoccupy ourselves with churchiness and talk to ourselves, hiding fearfully behind our walls, or no better, behind doctrinal assertions. I suspect God is no respecter of such walls or assertions, when a climate of debate and conversation demands lives which dare to imagine a different future.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Political Faith - duh!

The one thing that really holds me back from being very vocal about the need for Christians to be proactively political, is the thought that some Christians who are already proactively political are scarily reactionary! At the time of writing this piece, the ekklesia news-feeds on this blog give a glimpse of the divergent politics of Christians - from the Scottish Christian Party with its homophobic, pro-capital punishment, apparently anti-human rights agenda, to the Archbishop of York's newspaper advert calling on people to get out and vote (in local elections) against the BNP. When Christians hear the call to put their faith into political practice, they hear very different calls. It has, of course, always been this way - and it would be inconsistent of me to wish for a neat and tidy political package, since I am generally in favour of mess! But I can't help but be embarrassed, even ashamed, by certain Christian voices which claim to speak decisively for Christian politics - but their lack of grace, lack of awareness of structural injustice, let alone their lack of good news can be so overwhelming that it's not easy admitting one's own Christian affiliation. For isn't it high time we got serious - radical, even - about humanity? Isn't it high time, not least in this year commemorating the abolition of the British slave trade, that we put human beings before profits, before prejudices, before preservation of any oppressive status quo? Isn't it high time we dared to stand in solidarity with anyone 'crucified' today - for their sexuality, ethnicity, tribe, class, gender, nationality, age, politics or views? It is not Christian to stand only with Christians, or only with people like 'me'. Instead, it is Christian to stand with all who suffer - with all the contradictions that can bring. And if that means that Christian politics is inherently 'progressive' or left-leaning, well so be it ... but can we nevertheless still stand with reactionaries and right-wingers too?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday, April 30, 2007

Secular Faith?

I'm not quite sure if this is the right title for this blog-entry, but the point is this: It is said, with good intentions, that Christians should affirm that we have more in common with other 'people of faith' than with 'secularists', but I am sure that this is not always the case! By saying this, I am certainly not attacking the interfaith movement, because that is essential in its own terms, not least because it is a properly Christian concern to build relationships and share in conversations with those who are 'other', those from whom we can learn, those from whom we appreciate how we are seen ourselves, those with whom we can work for justice and peace. However, I am aware that there are issues on which I wish to stand firm with so-called secularists (even if they are wrapped up in western Enlightenment assumptions! for I certainly do not wish to throw out the wisdom of the Enlightenment with its dirty water) in the face of dubious religiosity. I am thinking of science, respect for its methods and (tentative) findings, the concern for 'secular' human rights, the importance of secular education, the value of a church-state divide (for the good of both) and generally the need for religion to be exposed to secular suspicions. After all, I am convinced that, if God is for religion, God is also for the secular - not unconditionally, since God is not unconditionally for religion either! - because God has high hopes for humanity's capacity to critique bad or dubious religion. We are given prophetic resources within our religious tradition(s), to critique our concretions of anti-secular ideologies, but we must also be open - dare to be open - to those extra-religious voices which criticise our religious ideologies. This is not merely because I read The Guardian, as though I give more credence to it than 'The Gospel' (as some sneering religionists might suggest), but because our Good News is fundamentally self-critical, a living, organic tradition, which takes seriously humanity's God-given quest for truth in all its multi-facetedness. This does not make me reductionistic (not always, anyway!), or debilitate my ability to criticise secular materialism, but I should remember that some secularists are also critical of materialism, and we must be committed to serious relationship with 'the secular' on such an understanding.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Facts, fictions, Noah's non-violence

I have to admit, I don't know what to say sometimes when people are starting from a very different place. I'm particularly thinking of church Bible Study groups where the dominant view is very much that it all happened - and although one member seems to feel free to state their scepticism, it very much feels as though I, as the minister present, would not be so free! After all, I represent "what the church believes", it is assumed. So even though our recent group seemed happy enough with evolution (thankfully!), they still wanted my inclusive statement ("We can believe in evolution and take the Bible seriously") to mean one thing: "yes, it all happened, even if in slightly different ways."
I am, though, a coward! So even though it was possible to get a wedge into the gap when we were talking about Noah - by suggesting that the story reflects a people's way of "making sense" of a large, localised flood in the community's memory, rather than representing God's "will" as such - I still stepped back from saying "and so the 'facts' of this story simply are not crucial." Even so, we did get to the interesting point ... that the symbol of God's covenant is a 'bow', a weapon of war, reminding us that what had angered God to act so decisively had been humanity's utter violence and self-destructiveness (see Genesis chapter 6: 1-8). The symbol, not simply a beautiful rain-bow, is double-edged ('literally'!): for it reminds us of the violence, and then the cost of violence - the rain which flooded the destructive people. So Noah's family stands as a haven of non-violence ... and this beautiful symbol reminds us of that dream. Not so much the fairy-tale for children of cute animals on an ark, but a poignant judgment on humanity's inhumanity and violence ... why won't it stop?

Monday, April 09, 2007

Getting the Easter treatment

The Gospel stories of Jesus' resurrection leave us with an intriguing gap: what might have happened between the disciples' retreat and the discovery of the empty tomb? Matthew tells us there are soldiers sleeping, and angels now guarding the tomb ... but what happened in the gap? 'He is risen,' we are told. 'He is not here' or 'Why look for the living among the dead?' or 'Do not fear, for he has gone ahead of you.' All we know is that we are playing catch-up. He has surprised us again. Just when we could legitimately expect to be 'up to speed', he has exploited the mysterious gap between us again, and gone ahead of us. It is like a frustrating game of 'hide and seek', only the one who is hiding seems to remain ahead of the game, even at the very point that we could justifiably be sure that we had beaten him! Not that we were trying to beat him; we just wanted to do the right thing by him - to bring flowers and spices to his grave. But he has gone. The gap remains - we are destined to be caught off guard, at least as much as the soldiers! So what? It means, contrary to much Christian hyperbole about the confidence we can now claim, that our confidence is shattered - and that is the very grounds of our hope! If we are truly to get and embrace 'the Easter treatment' we must accept that the grounds of our faith will always surprise us and shake us. This is what the story of Jesus shows us: Be ready to un-do even what you deemed to be the most secure concept, to dismantle even the most concrete world-view, to shatter even the strongest rock, to have even the heftiest stone rolled away. Even that which is 'prophesied' in some way will continue to shake and disturb us: it will never be in our grasp, but will call us on, again and again, for the sake of freedom, hope and healing. This is the politics of Easter: the gap between hope and reality is vital, to keep us on our toes, questioning each Power, re-evaluating every presumption, for the sake of all enslaved or de-humanised people and communities ... so be ready ... mind the gap, never take it for granted that it is closed ... for the work goes on and resurrection makes it possible and essential.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

An Easter Saturday world

The good thing about religious calendars is that they give us discipline and a shape to help frame our lives, to place the events of 'ordinary' life in the context of God's relatedness with us. But the problem with them is: we know what happens next. There is a lack of surprise. In our church, on Good Friday this year, we prayed for the strength to wait patiently, anticipating that hope will be fulfilled, healing will come, but recognising (at least in our words) that we do not know when ... which is why we need to develop the ability to wait patiently but actively. And this is where we are, as a world, every day: between the depths of what has happened and the hope for what could happen. Of course, many people anticipate only that things will get worse, but the Christian calling is to resist that pessimism, but without retreating into a naivety which denies the awfulness of Good Friday. Many Christians prefer not to attend services on Good Friday, because it is too painful - which on the one hand I find disappointing, because there is a journey to be shared together; but on the other hand, may be the fact that they cannot face it suggests that they already recognise its awfulness ... but the thing is to hope for tomorrow, without assuming it will simply drop into our laps. We must go to the grave, bringing our spices and flowers, to witness the things we would rather forget, and our calendar tells us "tomorrow" will be much better ... but in the meantime, we wait, patiently, actively, loving not only those who show us kindness but also those who would do these awful things to others, hoping, hoping ...

Monday, March 26, 2007

Here I am

Also, concerning slavery, the call of Moses is illuminating. The burning bush, from which Moses hides his face, reminds us that the revelations about slavery today continuing to be frightening; but God is present in them, calling us to respond. This God also recalls history, reminding us of the divine presence with the people of the ages - God was there, and connects us all together. So Moses responds, saying, 'Here I am.' This is the God who makes us realise 'where we are at'. We cannot ignore the present moment or place, the lives of others. This is, after all, also the God who hears the cries of the oppressed (see Exodues 3: 1-12). We too must hear ... and respond.

Unbind them, and let them go

It wasn't necessarily the most obvious Bible text for the subject in question. But actually the story of the raising of Lazarus ended up feeling surprisingly pertinent to the theme of slavery. It is, as we ought to know by now, the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade - though obviously slavery continues, trafficking is increasing, and there is still a long way to go since that memorable milestone. But what of Lazarus? Jesus was late. Religious leaders are often late to the crime scene. There are always other things to do, other lessons to teach, which seem more important at the time. But Lazarus died. If Jesus had been earlier, Martha and Mary say, he might not have died. But he comes, and he asks to see where the body is laid. Even if we are late, we must nevertheless dare to ask, 'Can we see the things of death? Take us to the heart of the matter. Show us the reality - in all its awfulness. Where is the body?' So it is with slavery. Many would rather consign it to history, as a terrible chapter in an appalling saga. But no, we must dare to face it, to see it, to witness it, past and present, because history lingers, like the stench of Lazarus. And there is weeping ... so we are told 'Jesus began to weep'. We must weep with those who weep, in solidarity with the stories we would rather not hear. It is our duty. Next, he says 'Take away the stone'. There can be no reconciliation if we do not name and confront and remove the stones which stand in the way: every obstacle to justice which persists. Take it away! And then he speaks to Lazarus, the sinister memory and stench, 'Lazarus, come out!' We must name the forgotten nameless; we must call the enslaved to freedom. And finally, Jesus says to the gathered crowd, 'Unbind him and let him go.' It is our responsibility, too, to play our part. To 'unbind' those burdened by the past, those who dare not remember, those who are enslaved, and ourselves, bound up with the systems of slavery. Unbind us all!

Monday, March 05, 2007

People of simultaneous dusk & dawn

I have a photo of the inside of South Africa's Constitutional Court - a relatively new building, partly built out of the bricks from the old prison where Nelson Mandela and others were held prior to their trials. Inside, the designers have incorporated images of traditional African justice - pillars representing trees, since the traditional judges would sit under trees; high-up skylights, slithers of glass, representing transparency (as opposed to the opaque "justice" under apartheid) and the 'light' breaking in; and so on. I have another photo outside the court, taken when I visited Johannesburg as part of a Global Youth Convention, which captures a red sunset. A sunset and a new dawn, together. Which is how we are called to be - we who are people of faith; we who see, for example, in the person and partnerships of Jesus a new dawn ... we are called to point to the dusk of an old world, right here and now, often hard to spot, but present nonetheless, and to point to the dawn of a new world, right here and now, often hard to spot, but present nonetheless. The practice of faith consists of the art of identifying dusk and dawn, how they occur simultaneously: for whenever the old world crumbles, something new is born. We are called to see where the light is breaking in, how it exposes the old world for its hollowness and inhumanity, how it makes possible the subversion of such things, and the building of hope. We are called simultaneously to be people of the dusk, people who know when "the powers of domination" have had their day, and people of the dawn, celebrating the rising of the sun ...

Monday, February 19, 2007

Making People Objects

The issue is not about "people objects", but about how we make people into objects. The point is, people are not objects - we are not concretely representable things, with distinct borders or boundaries, who can be reduced to a certain set of essences. Instead, we are relational beings, or even 'becomings'. And yet, at a most fundamental level, we reduce one another into objects for the sake of convenience: not only our 'enemies', whom we more understandably reduce to a set of negative characteristics, but we even do this to an extent with regards to people we respect - they become a set of characteristics we respect, even if one of those characteristics is "having depth"! My point isn't that we should rediscover some proper sense of woolliness in our appreciation of each other, for there certainly are things to be said about one another; but the point is that there is always more to be said. Relational be(com)ings are not complete. Ok, perhaps the same is true about objects - in a sense - because nothing is perfectly constant in an ever changing world. But this truth is more pronounced with regards to human beings. We should not, therefore, reduce people to "the thief who did a particular bad thing", as though divorced from all the unknowns which constitute the person concerned. I might suggest, as a Christian, that Jesus' injunction not to judge others is the epitome of this observation ... and yet there is a sense that Jesus himself does objectify people at times (for he is not an idealised object himself, but a person on a journey, constituted by relationships with other messy people). For instance, is it an objectification to speak of "the poor" and "the rich", as though they are disembodied groups neatly sitting in opposition? Of course, there are clear examples of each, but we must also open ourselves to the complexity of the inter-relatedness, without belittling the purpose of the apocalyptic dichotomy: there remains a use for "them" vs. "us", to highlight the inequalities, the ways in which "they" (or is it "we"?) oppress and belittle "us (or "them"?) We will always do some objectifying, even necessarily, but the point is to recognise and edit it.

Friday, January 12, 2007

The Best is yet to come?

I try to be a person of hope. But what makes it hard, is not even the hopelessness of the world; it is more often people's refusal to be hopeful. Hope - it seems to me - runs so deep within the Christian tradition, that I cannot understand the resistance to it; and I don't want to put it down simply to my relative youthful naivety! (Are 31-year olds "youthful"?!) After all, the resistance to hope comes in two forms, one naive, the other more understandable. The naive form may look like hope, but it is false hope, which is almost equivalent to no hope; it is that naive insistance that "all will be well", which particularly manifests itself in terms of "pie in the sky when you die", an unwillingness to grapple with the hopelessness of the world because of a greater belief in something more beautiful waiting for us. It is naive, because it overlooks - even suppresses - some of the messiness of the real world. It is hopeless, because it does not allow for the possibility of deep transformation here and now; it only imagines that the current state of things will not have the last word, without urging people to believe they can help transform them. The other form of resistance to hope is more understandable, because it is borne out of struggle and pain; older people speaking to younger people call it "life experience", that which tells us idealism loses its sharpness in the furnace of a harsh world. But to give up on hope because of experience, is to miss the point: hope may well be the smaller, weaker 'presence' within any harsh experience, but its very presence is sufficient to take on the invincible power of slavery, apartheid, racism and sexism. To believe the best is genuinely yet to come, we must therefore dare to root out and transform both that false hope which says good things come about if we just carry on doing what we do - no, hope demands change, now! And we must dare to root out and transform that pessimism infected by doom-and-gloom, or by cheap fears fuelled by cynical media, which says there's no point trying - no, hope demands commitment to new possibilities, lived as though they will have the last word over their resistance.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Christians listen to others

Perhaps I'm wrong (it's a real possibility!) but this seems to get to the heart of a serious current issue: I believe that, as well as being defined in terms of what they say about their own faith, Christians ought to be known for the quality of their commitment to hear what others say. So when a woman complained that I had not given a "Christian" talk because I had explained some basic features of Islam to a church group, my response should have been (if I had dared to be truly honest) that enabling Christians to "listen to other voices" is genuinely Christian! It seems, though, that the media has done well: Muslims have been suucessfully defined as the wicked Other, the "race" (as this woman put it) which is to be legitimately feared. And of course, we should not dare to learn about the things we fear, because that might challenge the legitimacy of our fear! It is better, obviously, that the world be divided into knowns and unknowns, black and white, good and bad, because then we know where we are. However, is this Christian? Well, yes and no! The black-and-white thread of Christian faith, which can be traced even to Jesus, certainly nurtures a duality: but what is the nature of that duality? It is not "them" and "us", as in "religious others" and "our own kind", but - if we are to trust the traditions of Jesus - is rather more frequently a duality between the Powers-that-be and their victims, between religious/political/economic powers and those who suffer due to them. For Jesus made concerted efforts to re-integrated "the others", lepers and Samaritans and children feared because of their "dangerousness". Which brings me to the "no" - the duality of Jesus, which admittedly allows for a certain kind of dangerous division, is also the denial of other dualities; for we who are insiders are all-too-easily on the outside, and outsiders often display more grace. To follow in his footsteps therefore means openness to the other - within and beyond. Full stop.