Why Galatians?

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With a bit of luck, Caversham's Anglican CTM Parish will be doing another sermon series, late spring/early summer this year, looking at a whole book of the Bible over several weeks. This may seem like a no-brainer for other church traditions, but is actually a departure for the good old CofE.

Last year we looked at Mark's Gospel: an easy choice for a starting point. This year I am suggesting that we look at Paul's letter to the Galatians. So, why Galatians?

1. Firstly, Galatians is about what it means to be people of God, to be followers of Jesus Christ, and to be Church.
2. Also, Galatians is about change. In particular about the change from being a movement where nearly everybody shares a common religious background and upbringing to one where significant numbers are coming in who do not share that background.
3. Thirdly, Galatians is a letter where good, clear, coherent preaching can really add value. 
4. Galatians was almost certainly the first of Paul's letters, and therefore the very first part of the New Testament, to be written.
5. Last but not least, Galatians is a document of God's Grace.

You might think that last point should come first, but 'grace' as a term has become so hijacked by religious ideology that its meaning is watered down and corrupted, both inside and outside church communities. So I think the starting point needs to be in different, more approachable, terms, with preaching which demonstrates the grace  of God - its power, its opportunity and its love - through these contexts. 

Approached 'cold' Galatians can be a hard document to get a handle on and too many commentaries and commentators seem to start from the assumptions and politics of the 16th Century. This makes preaching it challenging, as many of the usual aids are unhelpful, but it should encourage preachers to really focus on the letter's original themes and their application in and around today's changing church environment.

One example of an area where a more modern understanding of the political geography of the day is helpful is that of the letter's basic context. Nowadays we know that the new churches established during Paul's first missionary journey were along a Roman road, the Via Sebaste, which was in the south of the Roman province of Galatia. So we can easily place the letter as being written between Paul's return to Antioch (in Syria) and the Council of Jerusalem. Basically this background is covered in Acts 13 through to the beginning of 15, with a bit of preamble at the end of Acts 11 concerning Paul's base in Syrian Antioch and the changing nature of the church there.

The speed of the change in the church's place in English life over recent decades has been astonishing. We now live in a post-Christendom (pdf link) era: a time when we cannot assume that everyone goes to church, has been to church regularly as a child, or even is familiar with the old Bible stories which used to be told out in Sunday Schools and primary school assemblies.

Both St John's and St Margaret's recognise, I hope, that his means that they have to bring in significant numbers of people who don't share their religious backgrounds. I'm not sure about St Peter's, where the issues are more hidden.

In a post-Christendom context, what does it mean to become a follower of Jesus? Does it involve going to church, necessarily? Does it require changes in behaviour, or in our hopes and fears for the future, or in the way we treat other people? Does following Jesus make any difference at all?

That is what a sermon series on Galatians could and should address, in my view.

Grace and Peace.

Partnership For Missional Church: Initial Impression

PMC kicked off this weekend, with representatives from churches across Reading and Berkshire meeting together for the first big session. Coming at the end of a long hard week, it took me much too far beyond overtired. So, was it worth it?

It'll be a while before I get my brain into gear well enough to really get to grips with it, but my early impressions are generally good.

Some of the publicity earlier in the year was concerning: they quoted statistics for "churches who completed the programme", which is a big no-no statistically, and some of the language was reminiscent of the many 'big-church' programmes which have come out of the US over the years.

One of the main speakers at this weekends launch was from the USA, where the programme was developed, but he was careful to point out that PCM was based, at least in part, on the work of Lesslie Newbigin, the British theologian who emphasised the need for mission within our own communities long before that became fashionable.

Over the past twenty or thirty years I have been involved in a lot of mission initiatives amidst the general decline in church congregations in Caversham and beyond. In all that the only serious church growth I have experienced came, not as a result of a mission programme but, it seems to me, as a direct result of one good minister following another in a church, who focused on serving God in our community as best we could. Even then it didn't really stick: after he left the church returned to slow decline.

Common features of such mission programmes have included them being centrally driven, process-led, with a general attitude of helping 'them' to see the truths that 'we' hold, and often focused on a big early push, typically without much follow-through.

One thing about PMC which impressed me early on is the idea that God is already at work outside the church congregations, in the surrounding communities. Part of the 'partnership' idea in PMC is that we can find 'partners for peace' amongst people who may have no direct contact with church at all. The hope is that we can find ways to work with them so that both parties gain.

The other big positive is the timescale. PMC basically runs over three years, but with the intention of creating permanent changes over those years, so that mission becomes an ongoing part of church life beyond that.

The first year is labelled as a 'listening', or 'discovery', phase, although the activities seem very much aimed at improving communications both within church congregations and between congregations and their neighbours.

Because PMC is a long-term thing, it obviously needs to run in parallel with our other mission work, although maybe encouraging us to a greater awareness of what we are trying to achieve and why.

Someone once told me that if you want to push a destroyer away from a dock wall, there is no point giving it a short hard shove, you'll just put your back out. The secret is to give a long steady push, which will slowly give the movement you want ... unless the wind is blowing the other way.

My first impression of PMC is that it is trying to be a long steady push, whilst helping us discern which way the wind is blowing so we can work with it not against it.

Time will tell if I'm correct.

One God In Community

The Christian picture of a Trinitarian God does have some important consequences.

A key implication is that the Trinity in some way reflects an important property of God's nature: that he is in an essential way relational; that community is somehow central to the creator of the universe.

One has to be really careful here, of course, not to go confusing a Trinitarian picture of God with some kind of cosy human family gathering. God is much, much more than that; but it is likely that He is not less than that.

Notwithstanding the Western Church, over recent centuries, slowly but surely moving to a focus on individualism and on each individual's relationship with God, the pattern of the Bible is very different.

From Genesis, where it is not good for man to be alone, throughout the Old Testament, with its emphasis on God's dealings with His people, to the New Testament, where the story moves from Jesus with his disciples, to the Spirit working in and through the Church, Jesus' body, the Bible is about communities of people following (or not) God.

One way of presenting the 'big picture' of the Bible is about relationships: broken in the opening chapters and being restored by Jesus' sacrifice and the power of God's Spirit. Relationships between people and God, between people and other people, and between people and the natural world, God's creation. These are still issues in our world today - the Bible story doesn't end with the final page of Revelation, it carries on through the lives and work of Jesus' followers throughout history - until the day Jesus returns and makes all things new.

I would argue that this is how you can tell the true Church, Jesus' real followers: are they in the business of restoring relationships or of harming them? Not that even the best churches don't make mistakes and wander off the path, but one can still question both the overall pattern, and the quality of the hopes and dreams of the members: do they build up and welcome in, or do they knock down and exclude?

The Bible tells us that "God is love", and love is the essence of true relationship. If God is love then his followers must also be love, and must ensure that their understanding and practice of that love follows the radical patterns laid down by Jesus. Love isn't about gooey feelings and sex, but about genuine and practical care for someone else, backed with a willingness to sacrifice oneself to meet their deepest needs. To love is to to take up one's cross for the sake of another.

Love starts with loving God with all that we are, continues with loving our neighbour as our selves - even when that neighbour is strange, foreign, or in some other way 'alien' - and ends with God's people loving one another.

Remember that God's love for you is far greater than any human love.

God loves you, He died for you: he is on your side. God is not out to get you, He is out to save you. But He always gives you a choice: love respects freedom of choice. As a parent of young adults I suspect I have a very faint insight into how hard that must be ... even for God.

Mark: Why?

I've been working quite intensively with Mark's Gospel over several months now, in detail and - especially - as a whole, and I'm left with the feeling that I never really knew it before. It is so much less a simple history or biography and so much more an open-ended account filled with pace and emotion, confusion, uncertainty and pain. So I wonder, why did Mark write it?

Something we may not realise about those days is that written records of people and events were seen as much less reliable than an oral history. A document is written by just one person, often with an axe to grind, whereas an oral record is owned and protected by the community. An oral record will typically be formed and shaped by eye-witnesses, then told and retold amongst people who have heard it before and will complain about changes and inaccuracies. So why would Mark write down what Jesus did?

In many ways I am still in mid-ponder on this, but my initial thoughts are that Mark had two reasons for doing so: because the communities which had safeguarded the oral record that far were being disrupted, and because the communities were being disrupted.

As I said above, an oral record is trusted because it is owned and protected by its community. During the early-to-mid sixties AD the community in Rome was heavily persecuted, its leaders executed, and its members scattered. Then the communities in Galilee and Judea got caught up in the Jewish rebellion from 66 AD. And in 68 and 69 AD, following Nero's suicide, the empire as a whole faced an ensuing civil war, including Antioch and Alexandria, two more centres of Christian community.

So the oral record was being damaged, at just the time that key eye witnesses were being killed (or just dying). Mark had been very close to Peter and Paul in Rome and knew their stories about Jesus well ... but there was no guarantee he would survive himself. So a written record is the lesser of two evils: at least there would still have been enough eye witnesses, and those who had heard the eye witness stories, to attest to the truthfulness of Mark's retelling.

But Mark's Gospel is about more than that.

From Paul's early letters it is clear that many in the early churches expected Jesus to return within their lifetimes - thirty-odd years had gone by since Jesus' resurrection, what was going on?

More important though would have been the terrible suffering the Christian community in Rome had gone through, that the communities in Galilee and Judea were going through, and that communities in Syria and Egypt would have been afraid would come to them soon. These were people living good lives as they followed Jesus together and awaited his return; why were they suffering?

I think that is the key question behind Mark's telling of the events of Jesus' ministry. One person's written record may be less reliable than a community's telling, but it is more useful for making a point.

Mark's Gospel account says it is the beginning of good news, not the end. It says it is about Jesus who is the Messiah, the Son of God, affirmed by God and by man. But this Jesus suffered and died, and tells his followers that they too will suffer and die. Following Jesus doesn't protect you from suffering and persecution, it makes it more likely!

Mark's account shows the disciples permanently confused, always a step or two behind, often afraid. Jesus, meanwhile, keeps talking about an upside down Kingdom where death is the path to life and humiliation is the path to glory - exactly the kind of things which had been happening in Rome.

Mark is telling his readers not to get discouraged, their experience is not a sign that God's plan has gone wrong, but a sign that it is progressing.

If the disciples were shown as confused and afraid, how much more was Peter the one who always seemed to get things wrong. Yet Mark's readers had known a Peter who was the strong leader of their church; Peter had denied Jesus once, now he had willingly given his life for him. If Peter can change like that then so can any of them.

Mark leaves his writing open-ended: will the women overcome their fear and confusion and tell their story? Will the disciples go back to Galilee, to meet Jesus in their daily lives and to continue to follow him there? Will the Christian community in Rome, and throughout the empire, be able to go back to their lives? Will they be able to find Jesus there, in the midst of devastation, and can they walk with him again?

"Why?" remains a live question today. Mark provides no simple answer, but points to a person; a person who leads us through an upside-down world toward a Kingdom of justice and peace. His question is: "Will you follow?".

Casablanca vs. Chocolat

Our housegroup has just finished a Lent course on Casablanca; a couple of years ago we did a similar course on the film version of Chocolat - how do they compare?

I found Casablanca to be the better film - although both are excellent - but Christ and the Chocolaterie, by Hilary Brand, is by far the better Lent course.

The film Chocolat has an obvious relevance to Lent, being the story of a young woman, Vianne Rocher, and her daughter, Anouk, opening up a chocolaterie in a small village in early-60's France - during Lent! The village has a rigid social structure and an inflexible morality hiding a range of troubles. Vianne talks to people and asks questions, gradually bringing change and freedom to the village, although not without conflict.

Casablanca is also a good Lent film: starting from exile in the wilderness and ending with sacrifice, it tells a story of love and renewal, of hope lost and found. It also has some of the most memorable dialogue in movie history, wonderful acting, and a fascinating back-story.

The trouble with A Beautiful Friendship, by Paul Kerensa and Zoe Young, is that it is essentially inward looking. There is an early link between Casablanca's wartime refugees and today's refugees:

"In 2013 the world saw more refugees than at any time since Casablanca's release."

But that is in the introduction and the rest of the course focuses relentlessly on God/Jesus in the Bible and on individual personal feelings and morality, for example:

"Have you ever felt 'abandoned at the station' like Rick? You may have felt wronged by love, by life or by God. Did you express anger or frustration to God, or are you still keeping it inside?"

There's nothing wrong with looking to Jesus in the pages of the Bible, of course, but the Christian calling is to take him out to the wider world. The Bible can be a light helping us to see, but it can also be a box for keeping Jesus safely out of the way. Likewise, our feelings are important to God, but endless self-examination is looking in the wrong direction: we are to follow Jesus as he walks his world, not sit and obsess about how we are doing.

The great thing about Christ and the Chocolaterie is its outward focus. The film's setting may be similarly confined and claustrophobic, but this Lent course's vision is very much toward our neighbourhoods.

Vianne, like Jesus, brings change to a rigid community; the mayor and much of the community resists change and growth, ultimately with violence, much like the scribes and Pharisees. The message of the course is about how we can bring healing and change, not just within ourselves but amongst family, friends and neighbours.

There is self-reflection, too, but often as a step along the way to changing how we can help others.

"'If you lived in this village, you understood what was expected of you, you knew your place in the scheme of things.' In the film, who controls and who allows themselves to be controlled? ... In the film, how do those who refuse to be intimidated demonstrate their defiance? Are there other useful ways you have learned to stand up to bullies?"

Brand too uses the Bible extensively throughout the course, in parallel with the film. In the context of John 8:1-11, the woman caught in adultery, she asks (after some preamble):

"How have you reacted when someone you knew admitted his or her failure or weakness to you? Has it strengthened or weakened your relationship? Has it strengthened or weakened your respect for him or her?"

Note the openness of her questions: they are designed to encourage us to think about people and about meaning, not just to have right or wrong answers.

Not that A Beautiful Friendship is a bad Lent course, far from it. Compared with much housegroup material available it is well written, works hard, asks reasonable questions, and has some interesting exercises for participants to do. I am a member of another Lent group this year, which is essentially listening to talking heads then wittering: roughly par for the (Lent) course in my experience. Kerensa'a book is far more than that.

But, for any Lent group which wants to have relevance for those outside the circle of committed church-goers, 'the usual suspects', Christ and the Chocolaterie is by far the better course. It also includes recipes for a chocolate feast!

A final quote:

"Do you spend enough time having fun with others? When was the last time you had a good laugh? Does your church community as a whole spend enough time doing social things (whether formal organised activities or informal ones)?"

Barclays: Jekyll & Hyde

I'm really rather conflicted over Barclay's Bank. At the giant multi-national corporate level I remember it as the 'apartheid bank' of the seventies and eighties; now, in the 21st Century, it keeps hitting the headlines for highly dodgy wheeler-dealing and dubious financial ethics.

In the late nineties, after apartheid was over, it was the only bank with a branch in Caversham which met my small business needs, so I opened a business account there. I find the local branch brings a very different set of associations from the central institution. I have, over many years, found the staff there to be helpful and professional. I've had the odd dubious communication from Barclay's over the years, all apparently from either head office or their marketing department, but no problem at all with the branch itself.

St John's had its Christmas Fair today, which is what got me thinking about Barclay's. Two of their branch staff came over to help us out on the two busiest stalls, did a great job, then matched the takings on those stalls from their branch funds. A small amount for Barclay's, no doubt, but immensely helpful to us. More importantly, though, it was done in the context of involvement: giving up their time and commitment to get involved and make a difference within the local community.

So bravo to Barclay's Caversham branch, to the staff who came and helped out today, and to the other branch staff who doubtless help other community endeavours over the year.

Every now and again there are rumours that Barclay's head office might close their Caversham branch. If that happens I will move my account in a shot (not that they'll miss its small turnover). Until then, though, I will appreciate the positives and be grateful for bank staff who want to give something to their local community.

Only Connect

Matthew's Gospel was originally placed at the beginning of the New Testament because long ago the people who decided such things thought that it was the first Gospel written.

These days it is near-unanimous amongst Bible scholars that Mark was actually the first Gospel (and that many of Paul's letters were written before the Gospels anyway). But Matthew is still considered the right choice to begin the New Testament.

The reason is that Matthew is the great connecting Gospel. Written for the community of Jewish Christians in Judea, Samaria & Galilee, it strongly emphasises Jesus as the Jewish Messiah - as the fulfilment of the hopes and promises of the Jewish scriptures. Matthew emphasises links between the things Jesus said and did and the writings of the prophets; he proclaims Jesus as the fulfilment of the Torah, the Jewish Law; and he starts his Gospel with a genealogy going back to Abraham.

Genealogies are important, especially in small-town life, because they connect you into the life of the community. A genealogy is not about genes or physical inheritance, it's about where you fit in. Whose child are you, what is your background, which family do you come from, which known figures are related to you.

I live in a town, Reading in England, with quite a transient population, so in many ways this sort of connectedness has broken down. Yet, even here, I often find myself classified as "you must be BlackSar's dad", or "BlackLin's husband", or sometimes "are you related to BlackJohn, the photographer?" (no, I'm not). The desire to connect and to build community through personal links and relationships remains, even if the impermanence of much of that community makes it difficult to sustain.

The genealogy given by Matthew starts from Abraham, the father of Israel, and is important for who it includes: King David of course, considered the founder of the line of true Godly kings, but there's also a prostitute (probably: Rahab), and a foreigner (Ruth), and Solomon (whose mother was stolen by David from Uriah, by adultery and murder), then a line of kings of Judea, and eventually Joseph, "the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah".

It's not important that the genealogy probably misses people out - it is who is included which provides the community connections - and it is certainly not important that Joseph was not Jesus' biological father. He was the husband of Jesus' mother and that is what matters to the community.

Jesus was an Israelite and a Jew (of the tribe of Judah) and a descendant of the line of David and fitted into his local community as the son of Joseph and Mary. He connected on many levels. For Matthew that is the foundation of his telling of the good news about Jesus the Messiah: saviour, teacher and the great high priest whose sacrifice finally opens the way for God to reconnect with his people.

I was at a teaching day/quiet day yesterday, led by David Winter. He views the Bible as being all about connection: God working to reconnect with people, eventually fulfilled through Jesus, and mankind seeking (more or less enthusiastically) to connect with God.

There is a great human longing for connection: with God, with one another, with our surroundings, even with our own inner self. Matthew's testimony is that Jesus is the key to that connection: he is the one who makes us whole, in ourselves and as part of God's people, God's community.

It is said that "no man is an island". Jesus brings that truth to life: may he do so for you whenever you feel the need for connection that goes deeper, to the heart and to the soul.

Church Going?

Not Church ... just a building

I was not brought up in church: my parents were not churchgoers. I was brought up agnostic, which hardened to atheism in my teens, and I only came to faith after I was 21.

In Caversham churches, at least, this seems to be very much a minority position. Most churchgoers here seem to have grown up going to church. Likewise, these days, most non-churchgoers have never regularly been to church, and have had little exposure to church culture.

It makes a difference. I’ve been actively involved in churches for more than 30 years now, but I still find a lot of what goes on there alien and alienating. The somewhat separatist culture, the fixation on rules, what John Pritchard, Bishop of Oxford, calls the ‘sacred-secular divide’ – the idea that what goes on inside church buildings and church structures is, somehow, more special to God than what goes on outside. Then there’s the weird time-warps: 19th-century, 17th-century, medieval – some of it can convey a rootedness in worshipping history, but most of it is little more than anachronistic escapism, it seems to me.

Not to mention the way many churches obsess about sex and about controlling people’s private lives (not so much at St John’s, where I now worship, to be fair, but definitely at other Caversham churches), very much contrary to Jesus’ own attitudes. In fact that’s an important issue: the rather obvious gap between the words, attitudes and actions of Jesus, on the one hand, and the words, attitudes and actions of those who claim to follow him, on the other.

So, when people say – as they do – that they are spiritual but not religious, I can see where they are coming from. When people say they admire and respect Jesus, but are not interested in institutional religion, I can relate to that. And when people say that you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian, it is undeniably true – a basic knowledge of British church history covers that, albeit with a twist.

And yet ... and yet ... it is also true that from the beginning, following Jesus was something to be done in company, in a supportive community of fellow-followers. A mixture of very different people, sharing joys and sorrows. The blind supporting the lame, whilst the lame guides the blind. People who can bring God’s comfort when God Himself seems far off – he’s not, but when life gives us a kicking then He can seem that way. A hand, a kindly word, a listening ear ... in some US churches there is a tradition of taking food around to someone who is going through a rough time: practical, kindly and comforting. Also, the reality is that we are here to make a difference, and that is so much easier when we work together, rather than alone.

So, yes it is true that you don’t have to be part of a church to follow Jesus – I know people who do just that; but they are better, stronger men and women than I. But when it comes to Christian community, like it or not, institutional churches are the only show in town ... at least here in Caversham.

The Gardeners' Arms Ongoing Saga

I'm surprised to see that I've never posted about the Gardeners' Arms on this blog. It's the nearest pub to where I live, by some distance, but in the three and a half years I've lived here it has gone through a long saga of closures and changes of management.

Three years ago, not long after I moved here, I arranged to meet a friend there one Friday night, walked over and all the lights were out and the door locked. The manager had just up and left. The next manager did really good food and beer for a short while, but wasn't getting enough customers to keep them going, so both declined badly. The following year they closed again. The daft thing is that there are loads of houses around the pub - it is off the main road, but right in the middle of a residential area. But somehow people didn't want to go out to their local pub.

Summer 2010 heralded another reopening under another new management - an experienced management team this time. They kept the pub ticking over nicely for a year, with a limited range of very well-kept real ale and excellent pizzas, along with a decent choice of other pub fare. But there were still not that many people coming, so when Greene King demanded a greater share of the profits, the management team decided that was an offer they could all too easily refuse and left.

So the Gardeners' Arms closed again and reopened again, then it closed for refurbishment. No signs outside, or on the website, to tell people what was happening, how long it was for, or anything. There wasn't even a useful indicator saying something like "nearest pub 5 minutes walk that way", which they could have done since that is also a Greene King pub.

Then they reopened. The main effect of the refurbishment seemed to be TV screens on every available wall, showing either Sky Sports or some sort of naff in-house music channel. The beer was very cheap and tasted awful, the food likewise, and the management weren't particularly friendly. I went back a couple of times (although not for food), as anyone can have initial teething problems, but it remained as bad. Although numbers there were probably as high as under the previous management's far better quality, but more expensive, regime. Which is a little sad, in its way.

That brings us to the latest change of management. At the time of the Six Nations rugby this year, I was walking past the Gardeners' and I saw they were doing a special price on Guinness during the matches. Expecting England to be tonked I thought I'd pop over and get depressed in company, only to find that the pub had just reopened under new management again.

The Guinness was a decent pint (for English Guinness), the new management were very friendly, there was live music on later that evening ... even England played a lot better than expected. The band doing the live music at the pub's special 'opening evening' were very good - if only I could persuade Facebook to list my 'likes' I would tell you their name - but pretty much drowned out by the large crowd of people drinking and enjoying themselves.

A couple of months, and several visits, down the line, the pub remains busy. The beer is fairly cheap - around £2.50 a pint for St Edmunds and Speckled Hen - but well looked after, and seems to be turning over fast enough to allow them to stock four different real ales. The food is also fairly cheap: standard chain pub fare, but decent quality and well-prepared. We particularly enjoyed their Thursday evening curries.

So, it looks like they may have found the secret of surviving in this part of Emmer Green. Keeping prices down whilst maintaining a decent quality, for the price, does seem to be paying off for them. Friendly and hard-working management helps a lot, of course. Long may they prosper.

Bloggie Ramblings

I'm really rather unsure what to do with this blog.

When I started blogging, more than six years ago, I was editor of a church website and wanted a blog which focussed on real-world issues rather than just the religious, insider stuff. I resigned from that editorship when the then pastor decided to censor me for not being sufficiently pro-Israel, but I carried on the focus in my own blog, and again when I moved to a blog on the blogging community Blog City.

A few years ago, blogging started to die - in part due to the shallow inanities of Facebook, I reckon - and its broad communities with it. Blog City closed its gates and I moved over here. Looking back at my 2010 posts I can see that I initially kept the broad focus for a while. Nevertheless, when I look down at my tag cloud here, I can see that 'Religion' is far and away the most used tag, followed by 'Jesus', 'church' and 'Bible'. And too many posts are far too long. And the most active blogs in my sidebar are nearly all religious. As I said earlier, blogging has started to die: instead of broad blogs of interest it is mostly religious bloggers writing for the converted.

That's not my interest and it's not where I want to be. In many ways all the religious posts have been close to being placeholders: keeping the blog ticking over until I rediscover my enthusiasm. I am interested in religious matters, and I often study and consider them, so having a place to set down and work through my thoughts can be helpful. But it's not really how I want to blog.

There are various factors which might have contributed to my loss of blogging momentum. A house move a few years ago exacerbated my CFS, which has never really bounced back; attending a church which is ever more determined to just be a religious club damages the creative link between faith and life; and - possibly most of all - the ending of Blog City led to the loss of the broader community aspects of blogging.

There is a big wide fascinating world out there, with enormous amounts going on. The exchange of ideas and insights which citizen blogging promised all those years ago still seems wonderfully attractive. If only I could find it.

A Question Of Following Jesus?

I reckon that roughly 1,500 people go to church in Caversham (including Emmer Green and CPV) on a normal Sunday, whilst around 30,000 do something else. Yet I know that some, possibly many, of those 30,000 non-churchgoers do still seek to follow Jesus (just as not everyone who does go to church is, in any meaningful sense, one of Jesus' followers). The puzzle I have is that it seems to me that following Jesus is something that is best done together with others: helping one another along the road. So how is this done?

Caversham church services all seem to follow the same basic pattern, whatever the denominational label: a mix of singing songs, talking at God and being lectured by a preacher. The songs sung never seem to have any point of reference to everyday culture: either they are songs from long ago, or they are songs which come from a purely religious subculture. These activities are doubtless great for those who like such things, but somewhat off-putting for anyone else. So, again, how do those "anyone else"s come together for Jesus?

I cannot be the first to ask these questions. The problems of institutionalised religion are obvious and rapidly becoming worse as the 21st Century proceeds; whilst the limitations of a purely individual spirituality, in a world where it is only by working together that we can make a difference, are steadily becoming clearer. So, someone out there must either have an answer, or at least have a piece of the jigsaw, which can be added to other pieces to give the first step of an answer.

There has to be more to following Jesus than isolating ourselves into a religious backwater; there certainly must be more than dogmatic doctrines and rigid intolerance; just as there has to be more than blandness and shallow platitudes. Somehow there must be a way of coming together, learning from one another, supporting one another on the journey, and working together to make Caversham (and beyond) a better place.

What do you think?

Love Jesus, Hate Religion, Tickled By People

There's a poem by Jefferson Bethke, Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus, gone viral on the internet in the past month. Especially amongst church teenage groups. Most of whom were brought up in church. What I would call 'religious kids'. You have to smile.



Also fun are some of the responses to the video. Religious people giving religious responses which mostly show that they just don't get it. You can see a good selection in a post on the Sojourners' God's Politics blog, Follow The Meme: lots of sincere people making lots of good points in defense of their religions.

I think one job of a poet is to make people think: Bethke has clearly succeeded in that. Another job is to move readers into seeing a different perspective, a bigger picture. The responses linked to above don't really seem to do that: they just stay defensively hunkered down in their old perspective. That's a shame. It's not Bethke's fault, it's just how these responders choose to react.

What Bethke's poem fails to do, in my view, is to help the opposite pole see a bigger picture. It challenges those inside the religious establishment to look beyond their walls, but I see no challenge to those outside the church to look inside: to see past the stereotypes, the media headlines, the loudmouth spokespeople, and to see the mostly-ordinary men and women trying to live out their faith together in the day-to-day realities of life.

Nick Mason, on his blog New Ways Forward, recently wrote an article about the need for us to define ourselves more by what we affirm and less by what we oppose:

Eventually we must break away from the pull of finding our identity in conflict and opposition, and be for something.

There will be things that need to be spoken out against from time to time, but perhaps it is more important, and more effective, if we spend our energy creating something beautiful, powerful, and transformative.

Eric Metaxas, at last week's US National Prayer Breakfast, gave a long (although entertaining) illustration of the positive side of the difference between religiosity and active faith that comes from the heart, using the examples of Wilberforce and Bonhoeffer.

There are around about a dozen churches here in Caversham, filled every Sunday with lovely people singing and praying to God. Meanwhile there are around about another thirty thousand people who are not doing this, and who don't see any meaning or relevance for such activities in their lives. The church-goers are focussed on their church, as an organisation, as a building, as a set of practices and behaviours which they find helpful, even life-giving; the church-abstainers wonder what they are on about.

What would Church look like if it was for the thirty thousand? How could Jesus be embodied in the lives and fellowship of those who need something more, or at least something different?

You Who Pass Judgement

Crazy Judge by prthugp

It's probably the worst placed chapter boundary in the entire Bible: the one between chapters 1 and 2 of Paul's letter to the Romans. Of course, chapters and verses weren't part of the original Bible, they were added later for convenience. Convenient they undoubtedly are - I don't know the Bible off by heart, and I don't know anyone who does, so finding references without chapter and verse would be near impossible - but they also sometimes change or obscure the original meaning. Particularly as preachers and writers of Bible-study notes tend to lazily split their teaching by chapter rather than by content.

The problem in Romans is that Paul is using a clever rhetorical trick to make a point, and the chapter boundary cuts off the punchline from the lead-in. It's a trick used long before by the prophet Amos (cf Amos chapters 1 and 2): Amos starts by criticising Israel's neighbours, saying how wicked they are and how God will punish them. Then, when he has all his Israelite hearers nodding along, he turns on them, telling them that they are even worse, so shouldn't God punish them even more.

In the second half of Romans 1, Paul has what looks like the most amazing rant against 'all the godlessness and wickedness of people': "they are without excuse," he thunders. Then you get the chapter boundary. If you stop there you are left with a picture of a wrathful God judging a wicked humanity, whilst the self-righteous churchgoers look on. But that's not the end of the passage, it's missing the turnaround, the main point:

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgement on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgement do the same things.

How is that unclear? How is that anything but a reflection of Jesus' "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven"? How on earth do churchgoers find any basis here for being judgemental about other people's lifestyles? Yet they do! As I've written before: too many people read the Bible with their eyes tightly shut.

The main point, then, of this passage is to tell its readers not to be judgemental.

But I reckon that there is another, secondary, point. Drastically summarising Romans 1:18 to 2:4 it looks to me like an argument with a simple beginning, a middle and an end. Thus my summary would be that the passage is saying that there are people who are far from God, because of this their lifestyles are a mess, particularly their relationships, therefore do not judge them because you are the same.

If there are people whose lives are a mess because they are far from God, then how helpful is it to tell them how messed up they are, or even to tell them to follow your rules? Surely if the cause of the problem is that they are far from God, then the solution is for them to come closer to God. And if we are 'just like them' - ie too far from God ourselves - then us pretending to have it all sorted and telling them what to do is a fake.

We need to walk together, helping one another, stumbling our joint way toward God, toward His love and His mercy. That's how lives can be changed, and that's how the world can start to be changed. It is a messed up world, especially in its relationships, because we are all too far from God. Let's work on it together: humbly, respectfully and with love.

The Prince Of Wales In Caversham

I've mentioned the PoW several times in previous posts, but I thought it was worth its own ramble today.

Something I only realised recently is that the Prince of Wales is actually part of a small chain of pubs - it seems the same team also run the Fisherman's Cottage and the Rising Sun. It's a very long time since I last went to either of those, but my memory of the Fisherman's Cottage is that it is next to the Kennet, over in Newtown, and seemed mostly focussed on the lunchtime office workers' trade, whilst the Rising Sun is an edge-of-town-centre pub which (back then) had a bit of an unfriendly reputation. As you can probably tell from the links I've put in, there's not much information on the web about either, although it seems that the Rising Sun are also featuring weekly live music and are starting to do food. Clearly the team responsible for the three pubs are not really into posting much info on the internet. Still, I reckon they've done a good job on the Prince, so if you live near either of the other two, they have to be worth a visit.

Like many pubs these days, the Prince has a fairly sizeable and pleasant outdoor area, to cater for smokers and anyone who fancies getting out of the main building and breathing lovely vehicle fumes from Prospect Street. A couple of Fridays ago I turned up, on my bike, to find the outdoor section completely full. Indoors it was like a Tokyo bullet train - absolutely packed. The reason was a local band showcase, with four local bands all playing on the same evening. I watched about half a set from one band, who were excellent, but claustrophobia took over in the interval and I squeezed my way out and left. Maybe they should do fewer local bands at once but more often?

Tonight they had The Generaters playing - to a busy but (thankfully) not completely packed audience - it's the first gig in a while where I've felt motivated to stay to the very end (life's a bit complicated and very tiring recently). They weren't perfect by any means, but were very enjoyable. Basically they play covers in and around the borderland between rock and funk. At times they really hit the groove and were brilliant, but they kept falling back out again. There was a tension between a younger singer and bass player, with an older guitarist and drummer, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. The lowlight of the set was a version of Queen's We Will Rock You, where the guitarist just went AWOL  (try to imagine the song without the lead guitar parts, and you'll see why it didn't work), followed by what I assume was AC/DC's Highway To Hell, completely testosterone-free. The main highlight was the encore, something about 'burning your sex'(?), where the guitarist and bass player swapped instruments and the singer finally persuaded several men to come up and 'dance'; but an honourable mention has to go to a really good cover of Bowie's Spiders From Mars during the first session.

I did plan to insert a photo of The Generators from a previous visit to the Prince into this post, but their Flickr albums block copying, so I can't.

Somewhat ironically, I seem to be visiting the Prince of Wales more often since we moved further away from it - as well as the Saturday night live bands (and occasionally Friday too) they also do excellent Thai food, so the two of us sometimes pop over for that also (the kids aren't keen on Thai, which is a bit of a pain, but they are old enough to be left to their own devices from time to time). The beer is more expensive, but far better kept, than the horrible big-chain pub down the road, and it is a genuine, friendly, community pub, which has to be good news.

PS: I meant to mention that on the 'Local Bands' night I dropped my coin purse somewhere in the PoW. When I popped around next day in the slight hope someone might have found it, there it was behind the bar waiting for me. As I said, a proper community pub.

Liberation & Healing

In Egypt, in Tahrir Square, there was a revolution taking place - not just a political revolution, but a revolution in the way people relate to one another. Salma El Tarzi, a 33-year-old Egyptian filmmaker who was previously not politically active, wrote:-

"I was one of many women, young and old, there. We were as active as the men. Some acted as nurses and looked after the wounded during the battles; others were simply helping with distributing water. But there were a great number of women that were on the front line hurling stones at the police and pro-Mubarak thugs.

The duties in the square were divided. We were very organised. Something changed in the dynamic between men and women in Tahrir. When the men saw that women were fighting in the front line that changed their perception of us and we were all united. We were all Egyptians now.

The general view of women changed for many. Not a single case of sexual harassment happened during the protests up until the last day when Mubarak stepped down. That is a big change for Egypt."

Similarly Mona Seif, a 24-year-old researcher, wrote:-

"I was amazed by the peoples’ determination to keep this peaceful even when we were under deadly attacks. When we caught the pro-Mubarak thugs, the guys would protect them from being beaten and say: 'Peaceful, peaceful, we are not going to beat anyone up’. That was when I started thinking: 'No matter what happens we are not going to quit until Mubarak leaves'. The spirit of the people in Tahrir kept us going ...

I have never felt as at peace and as safe as I did during those days in Tahrir. There was a sense of coexistence that overcame all of the problems that usually happen - whether religious or gender based ... We went through many ups and downs together. It felt like it had become a different society - there was one Egypt inside Tahrir and another Egypt outside.

The moment Tahrir opened up, we saw a lot of people that were not there before and there were reports of females being harassed.

I know that Egypt has changed and we will transfer the spirit of the square to the rest of the country. Before Tahrir if I was [harassed] I would refrain from asking people for help, because there are a lot of people that would disappoint you by blaming you. But I think the spirit of the revolution has empowered us to spread the feeling we established wider and wider."

The photo at the top of the page shows the aftermath - protesters out cleaning up the square, clearing out the mess. This was a very different revolution. Liberation is not just about politics, liberation is about how you live. A struggle for liberation is a struggle to learn how to live together. It is a struggle to make the world around you better, not worse.

Long ago, in the Bible, there is another story of a people set free, in Egypt. Those people left Egypt and went on to follow their own path elsewhere. Today the people from Tahrir Square want freedom within Egypt, liberation and healing inside their own land.

Jesus commemorated his people's freedom from Egypt, one Sabbath, by liberating a woman from 18 years of suffering. The religious authorities protested: somehow they missed the link.

Today, around the world, inside churches and outside, Jesus still brings liberation and healing. And religious authorities - some of them - still try to block him. But you can only delay liberation for so long: sooner or later God's Kingdom breaks through. Often in strange and unexpected ways: God's Spirit is unpredictable, but effective. God's Kingdom is all around us, sometimes it breaks into our lives and the lives of those we care for. Then everything changes.

I know some people in desperate need of liberation. Today, maybe this week, pray God sooner rather than later, my prayer is that the Kingdom will break through into their lives. It won't make life easy, but it will make it free. And that, I think, makes a huge difference.

I Wish I'd Written That

'The God Who Wastes Nothing', on Be Free Mama

Or, at least, I wish I could write that well about things that matter.

Rob Bell is an American speaker/preacher who is best known for his Noomas - short (10 to 14 minutes), punchy, real-life DVDs, which aim to "explore our world from a perspective of Jesus". More recently he has also done a series of speaking tours where he goes to the opposite extreme of speaking for around 2 hours; with the talk at one of the tour locations being filmed and released on DVD. His latest such film is called Drops Like Stars, which explores "the endlessly complex relationship between suffering and creativity". (Bell has never been one to avoid tricky issues). I've seen the DVD, but Stephanie Moors saw him live, in Tempe last February. And blogged about a part of it. I can't see an excerpt from the post that I can sensibly take out to include here, so I just suggest you read the whole thing; it's not long.

The odd thing about this, is that Be Free Mama looks like a blog about pregnancy and young children. I've been there done that, carry the scars (never let them tell you that the woman has the hardest part of childbirth :) ). I don't have any desire to relive the experience vicariously, thank you very much. So, if I hadn't stepped into the blog in the middle, as it were, I'd never have paid any attention to it. Yet, once I put some time time and effort in properly looking, I found it full of poetry: meditative, spiritual and earthed.

When I first started blogging, it seemed to be easy to find good blogs all over the internet (back when it had a capital 'I'). Now it seems much, much harder (not an original thought). Facebook is fashionable now, of course, but for me it is far too instant, no time for reflection, for thought, for exploration of new and interesting ideas. Lots of bloggers I really liked have stopped blogging, others have said everything once, and are changing their style to avoid repeating themselves.

Of course, it may be that back then blogging was new to me, so I spent more time exploring. Most blogs have sidebars with other blogs of interest; although it does take time to explore the web they form. But the biggest source of useful links, I think, used to be comments. A thoughtful comment on a blog I'm reading, with a link to the commenter's blog, is a reason to follow that link and explore further. Yet, there don't seem to be so many comments on posts now, and those there are tend to be in small close-knit groups. It's as though the internet, once so exciting as it opened up the world, is fragmenting into like-minded groups blogging into their own tight neighbourhoods.

Or maybe I'm just getting old.