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.

Funerals

Howard, with son & younger brother

I'm not a great fan of funerals at the best of times, but two in five days is clearly excessive. Especially when both were more-or-less my contemporaries, both died suddenly, and one had been a friend since college days, some thirty-five years ago.

I generally try to wear something green to funerals, in amongst all the dreary black, because I do believe in all the "unless a seed is planted" stuff about resurrection. But in the meantime there is separation, and a breaking of immediate ties. Ties of family and friendship and responsibility. There is a hope that all will meet again come the resurrection, but for now there is an absence and a space unfilled.

Although, when I think about it, both these friends died after their kids had grown up, not before. One - many years ago, whilst his kids were young - had suffered from a brain tumour, which was expected to be fatal but unexpectedly responded to treatment/prayer. The other spent many years wandering around the globe, so for him absence has not been unusual. He had been settled back in the UK for a while before he died, though, so there was some time to spend (the photo above is from last summer). Life is a gift, length of life can be a gift, but often we want more.

Of the two friends with funerals, one, George, was a committed churchgoer - he was actually my house-group leader when I first went to Caversham Baptist Church some 18 years ago - the other, Howard was not. Often that makes a difference to the feel of the funeral, to how well it reflects the person being mourned/celebrated. In this case it was a bit different.

The minister taking George's funeral did a decent enough job, but was perhaps too close, took it too personally. The result failed to reflect the breadth and variety of George's life and the people he had been involved with - and had come to the funeral - on the one hand, and didn't really reflect much hope on the other.

Although Howard wasn't a churchgoer, it turned out the minister there, 'oop north' in Runcorn Old Town, had actually met him a couple of times. He also remembered his sister dying six years ago. Their Mum is still alive and he made the link between the horribleness for a parent of seeing their child die and the experience of Mary in the Bible. A difficult link to carry off without being naff or unkind, I thought, but he handled it well. The family gave two 'tributes' before the minister spoke - as happened for George's funeral - and he let them handle the more personal stuff, whilst he focussed on pain, hope and resurrection. I thought he did an amazing job, myself.

So I guess funerals do have their place: a time to say farewell, a chance to get together to share memories, an opportunity to pay one's respects, a reminder of the Christian hope that we will meet again. I still don't like them, but I am glad I went ... to both, but especially to Howard's in far-off Runcorn.

Darwin's Fish

At heart I am a scientist, by inclination and by training. I think science is wonderful – literally full of wonder: look at snowflakes, or rainbows, or the Milky Way, or Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, or wave-particle duality. It’s an amazing world we live in, yet science remains earthed by its insistence that anything real must have a perceptible impact on the world.

And I am a Christian, by conviction, conversion, commitment – a follower of Jesus and a believer in God. I reckon God is wonderful: look at snowflakes, rainbows, the Milky Way, or at the Christmas story, or the idea of the Trinity. God is amazing, yet faith in Him is earthed in that real faith always makes a positive difference in the world.

The old story is doing the rounds again that science contradicts faith, or disproves it somehow. It’s nonsense: there are plenty of us around, scientist believers, and for us, far from science and faith being contradictory, they complement one another. A purely material scientific view of the world can be fascinating but it’s incomplete, flat. Likewise a purely religious view can also be fascinating, but incomplete and flat. It’s when you bring the two together that you get a rounded, living picture of the amazing world we live in.

To take it further: I believe in the truth of the Bible, and I believe in the truth of Darwinian evolution. One helps us understand the other. One is a message from God, the other God’s handiwork: of course they go together – God’s words and God’s actions, both important, one shining a light on the other.

I do like the top picture above, showing an engineer 'fish' tinkering with its own evolution. That essentially is how evolution works, and it is marvellous. Whether you think that's just the way the universe is, or whether you think it's the way an amazingly creative God made it, it is still wonderful. I guess the main difference is whether it is personal - and whether it is purposeful - or not.

But I also like the rainbow 'Darwin fish' further down. I don't believe in a black and white world, not even with added shades of grey. To me this is a world filled with colour: I step out in Caversham and I see an infinite number of shades of green, not to mention all the other colours of the rainbow. It's not just a wonderful world, it's an incredibly diverse and beautiful world, for all its problems.

I hope that every one of you can see and feel the wonder and beauty of our world: believer in a creator God, or not; scientist, or not. May the grace and beauty of it all be a blessing to you wherever you go and whatever you do throughout the week.

A Short History Of (My) Blogging

Two posts in the last six months - not really the way to build a blog.

I was looking back recently at some of my earliest blog posts from Christmas 2005. Back then the plan was to post weekly, at least, and to link topics of general interest across to questions of faith. Easy for Christmas, of course, but there were also posts about films and music - I even had a post (written by someone else) about a Coronation Street storyline. Back then I was website editor for a church website, and the hope was that such a blog - running in parallel with the church magazine - would attract visitors and interest from a wider range of people than simply those searching for "baptist church in Caversham". Which it did.

Unfortunately, what it didn't attract was posts from other church members - the one linked above was the only one I got. Also, we lost the church magazine: mostly because the new pastor - although, IMO, definitely a good guy - tended to preach very legalistically and obsess about sex, which drove away our magazine editor. So when said pastor - who was also very pro-Israeli - tried to censor the blog for not being sufficiently pro-Israel (the offending article is here), I decided I was getting nowhere and resigned as website editor, so the blog became standalone. You can see my thoughts at the time in the series of three posts from here.

So "Webitorial Ramblings" became "BlackPhi's Website Ramblings", and the posts carried on - still more than weekly, and still based around news, culture, and Caversham life, plus a bit of what was going on in church. A month or two later, a great guy named Jonathan Jones kindly invited me over to Blog City, which (back then) was a blogging community - with interaction and feedback, and real live comments! So I started blogging there in parallel, see here for my first Blog-City post, complete with kindly words from JJ.

Both blogs seemed to have their own readership, and transferring posts between them helped with proof-reading, so I ran them in parallel for more than two years - I can't easily count the number of posts in that time, but I'm sure it was comfortably over weekly. One of the final few posts on my standalone blog was one I found amusing about the dangers of DHMO - a widely used industrial chemical which is reported to cause over 400 deaths a year in the UK alone. Late in 2008 we moved house, and I retired the PC I had been using as a web server, so I decided it was time to retire the standalone blog also.

Blog City continued; during 2009 posts thinned out a bit but remained not too far off the weekly post average (although much more erratic in distribution, eg 7 posts in Sept 2009, 2 in October). Looking back there seem to be a lot of music-themed posts in this period, eg here and here. Posts picked up during 2010, although the feel of them seems heavier to me now, having just reread the earlier 2005/6 ones. Maybe I was just older and wearier, or maybe there wasn't so much to say. Certainly Caversham Baptist Church was becoming more of a drag and a drain, which can't have helped. There were great people there, but as a church it was (IMHO of course) losing the plot.

Then Blog City closed down. We had plenty of notice, but it was still really sad - like an established neighbourhood being demolished. I started up a new blog here on BlogSpot, but it really isn't the same: if there is a BlogSpot community I still haven't managed to tap into it. The first post got several comments, but only from BC friends, otherwise it seems to be only techie posts that get much response here, most notably one on Trusteer Rapport problems.

Posts dropped to fortnightly on average in 2011, slightly better in 2012, then less than monthly in 2013. Post lengths have crept up, and content seems to me to be getting more religious. At the end of 2012 I left Caversham Baptist Church - a painful decision but necessary, I felt. Maybe post frequency has dropped off because I'm not so angry? Or, more likely, because the final few years at CBC left me feeling very jaded and disillusioned - it's one thing to hear about churches which turn away from God, quite another to be in the middle of that. It's especially bewildering to see that the individuals involved remain Godly, whilst the 'church' community loses its direction, and stops following Jesus.

So here I am in 2014, with another post which is too long. I think it's time for another rethink, before I give up on the blog. Maybe it's time to reverse direction: the old theory was to start from the news, culture, Caversham life and seek Jesus there; maybe it is time to try working from the inside out, to start from religion and see if I can find some way to relate that to the real world. It'll certainly be a challenge!

"Christ The King" - So What?

Very pretty, but so what?

"My name is BlackPhi, and I am a pedant".

Sorry, but I am: I care (too much, probably) about word meanings and accuracy. 'Christ the King' is like 'Cobbler the Shoemaker' or 'Butcher the Purveyor of Meat', or even 'Pope the Catholic'.

'Christ' is a literal Koine Greek translation of the Hebrew 'Messiah' - both mean 'anointed one', ie 'king'. Yes, there is more to being the Christ/Messiah than just being an ordinary king, but not less. That is where the concept starts.

The trigger for this little rant is that in three Sundays time (some) Anglican churches celebrate the feast of 'Christ the King' and I'm supposed to be giving a talk on the subject. It doesn't help that when I look on Google/Bing images for 'Christ the King', I find pages of bland images showing a North European 'Jesus' looking highly pious ... and generally pretty pointless.

It also doesn't help that I'm of a generation that isn't terribly impressed by titles and the toadying and self-importance that goes with them. Kings, queens, presidents, CEOs, unrestrained Prime Ministers ... so what? Corruption, abuse and injustice seem to me to be the inevitable companions of such power structures. The histories of major church organisations back that up all too well. Here's an alternative picture (from an album cover):

The point of remembering that Jesus is 'King of Kings' and 'Lord of Lords' is that it tells us that he has the power to make a difference. He was the one through whom the whole world was made, so when it comes to making a difference to the mess it's in - to remaking it, in part now, more extensively in due course - he knows what he is about.

When Jesus was on the cross between two other convicts, one of them wanted Jesus to use his power as Messiah/King to free them all from their suffering. The other convict accepts the situation and just asks Jesus to remember him. As it turns out, the suffering of both is cut short (crucifixion commonly took days), and the second convict is promised that Jesus will go with him: taking him through the crucifixion to paradise.

It's an odd story when you think about it, but my take is that sometimes (not always: healings do happen) Jesus, rather than keeping us from pain and suffering, walks through it with us, shortening it to what we can bear, and making it transformative: taking what is inherently evil and purposeless and transforming it to an agent of good change and redemption.

Because Jesus is the King: he can do that.

Footprints