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The Spiritual Quest of John Henry Newman and Lead Kindly Light as a Hymn for Postmodern doubters?

John Henry Newman is by any standards a giant of the Victorian age. A supreme literary artist, a profound religious thinker, a man of delicate feelings and gifted with a conscience which sought and found its magnetic north only after much wavering. His conversion to the Catholic Church shocked and shook the English Establishment to its foundations. His spirituality is rooted in an intellect suffused with deep religious affections, informed by long immersion in the Church Fathers, disciplined and kept alert by a conscience both precise and commanding, nurtured and nourished by prayer and meditation on the mystery and majesty of God. Newman loved God first with his mind, then with his heart, and finally with his whole being.

Much will be said about him today, and there are over a dozen new books to coincide with his Beatification. But you know, there is probably no more appreciative and careful assessment of Newman in print than that written by Dr Alexander Whyte, in which warm admiration, reverent and restrained criticism, and spiritual affinity are distilled into an essay replete with sympathetic insight and balanced in generous judgement. It is one of the great acts of ecumenical courage that Dr Alexander Whyte, Minister of the Free Church of Scotland, the most influential preacher and churchman in his denomination, a Moderator and Principal of the Free Church College in Edinburgh, should be one who on his CV had a warm and friendly visit to Cardinal John Henry Newman at the Birmingham Oratory. Whyte was an example of the "hospitable hearted evangelical" a phrase he himself coined, a man of catholic spirit, theologically generous and for these reasons, in the view of many in his denomination, a maverick.

But in Cardinal Newman, Principal Whyte found a kindred spirit. Both were men of principled conscience, devotional constancy, intellectual range and grasp, first class literary and theological scholars in an age of information explosion, loyal and tenacious to their respective church traditions, and exemplary in the living out of their respective spiritual traditions.The Dream of Gerontius Whyte thought the best religious poetry since Dante.

But it is Newman's best known hymn I'm reproducing today. Why? Because it is an honest expression of doubt, uncertainty, wistfulness, self-knowledge, and hard won trust. There are few times I've sung it – it's now too gloomy for contemporary worship tastes, it's plummeting down the list of funeral choices, and as with much else Victorian it's simply too cleverly written for an age more attuned to strap lines, sound bytes and alternative devotional books like The Dark Night of the Soul for Dummies!

But as an articulation of what it feels like to not be sure, to have lost your bearings, to pray for re-orientation and recognisable landmarks;

as an affirmation of trust that is half way between defiance and surrender, and lives the tension between fear and faith;

as a prayer that reads like the experience of looking into a dark night, hands groping forwards to intimate danger, feet inching and feeling their way but going on nevertheless;

as a poem that uses words as a means of grace, and shapes them to the needs of the human heart

All this and much else makes Lead Kindly Light a devotional treasure that belongs to the whole church. Today is a day he would have been embarrassed by. Not because he did not believe the Church should canonise its finest examples of Christlikeness; but because he would never have thought himself worthy. And self-disqualification may be the more important qualification for sainthood. Anyway, as I make my way to church, I read again, slowly, this hymn for pilgrims.

Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th'encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus,
nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path;
but now lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!

So long Thy power hath blest me,
sure it still will lead me on.
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent,
till the night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile, which I
Have loved long since, and lost awhile!

19 September 2010
Benedict XVI in London, Education, Dialogue and Freedom ( I )

When Tony Blair famously said the priorities for a 21st Century economy were "Education. Education. Education", he said more than he meant, and New Labour delivered less than he promised. Long before him the Scottish Reformation Kirk aimed to have a school in every parish, an historic decision Pope Benedict XVI commended in his response to the Queen's welcome. Education remained closely related to the Church in its various expressions in the following centuries, Catholic, Established and Nonconformist, until from the mid 19th Century onwards the state increasingly took responsibility for universal education. The resources needed, and the economic implications of having an educated, skilled and trained population capable of competing in modern industrialised societies, made it increasingly necessary that Government rather than Voluntary Agencies should drive educational provision.

Alongside state provision in Britain, the Catholic Church has had its own established network of faith schools. Education remains a primary goal of Catholic social policy and theology today, and involves massive commitments of resources worldwide. When Benedict spoke on Friday to several thousand young people at St Mary's University College he spoke of those things that make life good and make for human happiness. To be happy is to be a friend of God. To live well there must be good models, those whose lives are worthy of imitation. There is much in Benedict's public discourse, and in his message here in Britain, that reflects the profound thinking of his encyclicals Deus Caritas Est and Caritas in Veritate. To be friends of God is a description of a relationship in which love is the exchange of divine grace and human response. He spoke of God's love, and God's desire for happiness and holiness as essentials of a full humanity, and did so as one who has thought profoundly, and spoke simply.

This is a Pope whose theological emphases decisively shape his public discourse, and he talks with ease and practised confidence about the love of God, but also about those cultural and intellectual trends that undermine and erode the humane goals of education as a humanly formative activity. To talk theologically, and with a heightened social conscience in a showpiece Catholic educational establishment, is to introduce a quite different level of discourse about the meaning, significance, purpose and practice of education. Whatever arguments there may be about the place of faith based schools in a pluralist culture, they provide an important corrective and in a democarcy a required alternative, to secularised education evacuated of religiously formative education.

John Henry Newman's Idea of a University reads today like an impractical, unaffordable, unwanted and idealistic educational utopia. Unless of course you want to challenge the prevailing secular view that education is a process whose primary goal is economic growth and development, student employability and mass produced graduates. But I'm reluctant to concede the inevitable and final necessity for such educational reductionism, or that these are the only or best educational goals. It may indeed be inevitable that state funded education in our universities has to bend to the economic priorities, and available funding of the Government of the day. But there will still be, in my own view, a place for those institutions which exist to serve more humanising ends, including religious instruction, moral formation, humanising values, intellectual humility, and these explored within a faith tradition both itself open to critique and yet critically aware of alternative worldviews.

Benedict has a similarly rich and humane view of the purpose of religious encounter between different faiths. Such meeting he said yesterday, is a necessary expression of human formation, cultural development and social interaction. Co-operation and dialogue engender mutual respect, and enable faith traditions to support each other in seeking freedom of worship. of conscience and of association. Nor should such co-operation and mutual understanding be selfish, but provide a platform from which faith groups can work for peace, mutual understanding and witness to the world. Living alongside each other and learning and growing in respect and knowledge of each other, provides a fertile soil for peace, justice and works of compassion to grow.

Whatever else can be said about this Papal visit, each time Benedict has spoken he has been generous in spirit, rigorous in intellect and both warm and dignified in his responsiveness. And the issues he deals with are of common concern to all humanity – justice and peace, the foundation of moral standards, religious freedom and freedom of conscience, the nature of education, the relations of faith and reason, and of spirituality and secularity. This is a man of courage, conviction and adamantine firmness on dogma; he is also a man of intellectual power, pastoral passion for the global church and ranks as one of the greatest Catholic theologians of the past 50 years. Interesting that the current Pope and the current Archbishop of Canterbury are both regarded as scholar theologians of the first class, at a time when intellectual range and depth are discounted in the markets of contemporary communication culture.

18 September 2010
Benedict XVI in Scotland – a mass celebration of the Mass, and an occasion of public witness

It isn't often that 70,000 people gather together in a public park to affirm their faith, to share in community and to celebrate the Christian Gospel story in praise and a public act of worship. The exuberance and festive atmosphere, tempered by a cold wind in bright sunshine, bore witness to the place of Christian faith and experience in the lives of many thousands of Scottish Roman Catholics.

Earlier yesterday morning I listened to a discussion on Radio Scotland about the persecution and discrimination against the Scottish Catholic community in the earlier years of the 20th Century. Scottish historian, Tom Devine, put such discrimination in its context, and it wasn't a context Scottish folk, or the Church of Scotland, should be proud of. Then we moved inevitably to what is now referred to as Scotland's enduring shame, the sectarian undercurrent that remains a dangerous and toxic undertow in Scottish life.

Before writing more, let me tell you a story of a young Lanarkshire Baptist, who around 1970 was at night school doing O level English, in an evening class. The class was made up of him, and five nuns from the Sisters of Charity Convent. He had never encountered a nun in person before. Eighteen months previously he hadn't even been in a church before! I remember still, trying to explain my conversion, and that I was a Baptist, and wanted to be a minister – and the smiles and nodding heads. All I ever received from those Sisters was affirmation, welcome, encouragement and the quiet gentleness of those who lived up to the name of their order. I received charity – that old fashioned word for love that combines goodwill and conferred worth, supportive friendship, laughter and a common struggle with Shakespeare, Keats, and practical criticism. I don't remember specific conversations – I do remember looking forward to being there, and very early on discovering that loving and serving Jesus is a substantial enough foundation for fellowship across Christian traditions – habit wearing nuns and me with a denim jacket, very long hair, jeans and yes, high heeled boots! These five sisters encouraged and supported me through a hard year and never once called in question the reality and importance of my personal Christian experience. I wish I'd kept in touch with them, and if they are still around I wish them all blessing.

That is only one, though a deeply significant encounter, that has taught me always to assume friendship, to embrace rather than exclude, to respect difference and look for common ground with other people of faith. And to look with critical eye on the limited horizons, spiritual deficits, and theological distinctives of my own tradition as a Baptist. So the whole sectarian thing, with its latent hatred, chronic prejudice and acid-like social corrosiveness, I find a profound offense to the Gospel of Jesus, and to my own spirituality.

So an occasion when 70,000 Scottish Catholic people celebrate Mass in the presence of the Pope, and singing the praise of God in Christ in the power of the Spirit, I see as an historic act of witness in a culture where mass crowds are usually drawn together for events of far lesser import for human flourishing.

So when a 106 year old Catholic woman from Rutherglen speaks of the humbling privilege of being there with her great grandson; or two cowboy hat wearing women call themselves come-back Catholics and act as if that was actually a good and a life changing thing; or several children are blessed by an 83 year old man whose gentle hand proffered blessing expresses the Church's genuine attitude to its children; or when newly composed music is learned, practised and sung in worship in the open air of our largest city; or when the Gospel is read in public and Benedict speaks with carefully balanced encouragement and warning about the moral, intellectual and economic tendencies of British society, and urges a revitalising of faith and lived Christian values; when all that happens, and more, then the significance of yesterday's Bellahouston event is best understood on several levels.

As a social event it enabled a broad strand of Scottish religious tradition to give public voice to the core values of Roman Catholic faith. In doing so we witnessed freedom of religious expression, an affirmation that such faith and freedom are essential to a healthy society.

As a spiritual occasion, a large number of Roman Catholic people were strengthened in their faith, affirmed in their shared understanding of the Gospel, and given an opportunity to make pilgrimage together in shared worship and celebration.

As an ecumenical occasion, my own view is quite straightforward. Such a gathering indicates there are deep wells of devotion that still hold reserves of refreshing water in Scottish Catholic experience. And as Christianity in Western Europe, and in Scotland, is increasingly marginalised by the "aggressive secularism" that so concerns Pope Benedict XVI, there are important rapprochements and conversations that should be taking place across the traditions of the Christian church. Not an ecumenicity of institutional merger, or theological convergence – true ecumenism is not about dissolving diversity into uniformity. But a recognition that in building the economy (oekumene) of the Kingdom of God, co-operative fellowship, mutual supportiveness, respectful listening, humble learning, confident witnessing, arise not out of organisational fusion, but from a shared loyalty to God in Christ. Benedict talked of the importance of freedom and tolerance in any society which contains diverse faith communities. Equally necessary is freedom and tolerance between faith communities, and where possible co-operative friendship and mutual supportiveness.

I know. Maybe you need to be an 18 year old red hot freshly minted evangelical Baptist, encountering five Sisters of Charity whose patience and tolerance and love for Jesus were so unarguably obvious and so unsectarian in spirit, to write this kind of stuff decades later. Maybe so. In which case I gladly pay tribute to five sisters who, along with many others since, within and beyond Catholic and Baptist circles, have taught me much of what I know of generosity of mind, hospitality of heart and receptiveness of spirit. Through such experiential lenses I watched the Bellahouston celebration, and rejoiced that Christ was proclaimed.

17 September 2010
Benedict XVI in Scotland – openness of mind as part of the meaning of welcome.

Cor ad cor loquitur – heart speaks to heart. The words are the motto chosen by John Henry Newman after his conversion to the Roman Catholic Church. (I'll do a post on Newman on Sunday). On the official website for the papal visit the motto is explained by pointing to Newman's conviction that truth comes from the centre of the person.The most important form of communication is that of heart to heart, rather than relying only on words spoken and heard, and sometimes misheard, and liable to misunderstanding.

The controversies around the visit of Pope Benedict XVI are well enough known. I have views on most of them, and since they are likely to be misinformed, partial and unfair, because formed from media reports and slanted discussions, and about a tradition other than my own, I'm not for pontificating – allusion intended.

I'd rather do what one of the Catholic priests suggested would be the most important response Benedict and the British public can make – openness. The openness of the Pope to hear the different voices that will speak – the voices of young people seeking meaning and direction in life; the voices of victims of abuse whose pain and suffering must be given voice, and a hearing, and a response that acknowledges and addresses such profound wrong; the voices of those who feel excluded, who seek change, who feel alienated from their church and defined out of its communion; the voices of those angered and frustrated at moral stances that seem to ignore human consequences for example in relation to HIV protection; and yet also the voices of those looking for stability, a strengthening and recovery of moral and spiritual values that enhance human culture and enable human flourishing. And these are mixed and contradictory voices, asking questions that arise from the deep places of the heart, or emerge from the complexities and challenges of a contemporary culture in flux conflcting with a church tradition seeking to keep the faith once for all delivered.

But heart speaks to heart – and so when the Pope speaks he too has the right to be listened to. When other voices have spoken, and been heard, his voice must also be heard – and with openness of heart and mind. He has come to speak not only to the faithful of the Catholic Church, but as a major European voice, as a magisterial theologian and philosopher who is immensely learned in the Enlightenment philosophies of Western Europe, including Scottish philosophy, and in Catholic historical theology. While this is a state visit to this country, the Pope nevertheless is the head of a global faith tradition representing 1.1 billion people, and in his person he represents the pastoral care of the Roman Catholic Church for the faithful worldwide.

So his visit to Britain is a significant occasion, and the message he brings should be heard with openness of heart – not uncritical enthusiasm, but because this Pope is incapable of mere ecclesial platitudes, morally anemic pronouncements or politically correct blandness, his words should be received with critical respect, and weighed with intellectual fairness. His words should be interpreted as coming from the heart of the Christian faith in its Catholic expression, and will be best understood if trouble is taken to be theologically informed about Catholic theology, spirituality, devotion and institutional history.

And no, I'm not saying that is how everyone will hear him – public perceptions are often more shaped by populist rhetoric, dumbed down sound bytes, and image aided information flow. And that isn't Benedict's forte!. But informed critique and eschewing prejudiced caricature are indeed what I expect of those who claim to be intellectually engaged with the tradition Benedict XVI represents with such scholarly precision and intellectual candour. Whether as supporters or opponents, Catholics or non Catholics, those who want to be taken seriously as cultural commentators and serious reporters on matters of religious import and cultural significance, such as this papal visit, need to stop playing around with caricatures, uncritically perpetuating prejudiced opinion.

For example blaming an entire church tradition for the evil actions of some, as if the Roman Catholic Church were the only large voluntary organisation or religious grouping where the problem of child abuse exists, and as if the guilt by association principle was unchallenged norm, legally secure and morally defensible. Like the overwhelming majority of Catholic people, priests and laity, I believe such actions are wicked, criminal and should be brought to justice. But in evaluating the Catholic Church as a whole, the sin of the tiny minority should never mean the eclipse of widespread goodness, nor the betrayal of trust by some, negate the faithful and costly devotion of all others. That happens when, for example, we overlook or detract from the immense good that has been and continues to be done by the Roman Catholic Church, in care for the poor, educational provision, and development and medical aid, and this on a global scale.

Likewise, European civilisation is still heavily mortgaged to the historic contribution of the Catholic church. Consider the richly textured diversity of spiritual traditions which flow like a mighty river gathering from its many tributaries; or weigh the worth to human fulfillment of the great religious music, architecture and art of Europe, as human creativity fused with religious devotion to produce some of the greatest masterpieces to grace the eyes and ears of generations. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is just one outflowing of art inspired by Christian faith, expressing in beauty and image the truths that lie at the heart, not only of the Roman Catholic Christian tradition, but of the worldwide Christian communion centred on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This post is written before the Bellahouston Mass. I'll blog on that tomorrow, as one who remembers the John Paul II event in 1982, and that remarkable rendering of Our God reigns. How can you not rejoice that thousands of people will be singing Isaiah's good news hymn in a park in Glasgow, in the sunshine, and sensing in themselves the reawakening of a faith and devotion too easily trapped in the tedium of the consumer converyor belt, or exhausted by contemporary anxieties and excesses. And I'm looking forward to hearing the new James MacMillan Mass, words and music made accessible for congregational singing.

16 September 2010
“An Explanation of Everything” – Atheism and Insects Victorian Style

I suppose the argument from design is unlikely to persuade many in the contemporary intellectual climate created by militant atheism, or perhaps atheistic fundamentalism is the better term. The idea (with a long and respected history) is that there are some things that seem so wonderful they plausibly suggest design and designer rather than random occurrence. And that includes the known and acknowledged unknown marvel of a universe like the one we inhabit. I'm waiting for the new book of Hubble space images. While waiting I'm reading other stuff – as I do. Came across the following paragraph from an 1843 pamphlet Instructions for Collecting, Rearing and Preserving British and Foreign Insects. No author indicated. It is the argument from design innocent of the arguments that raged 20 years later on the publication of the Origin of Species. It is so quaintly naive in its assumptions that it is worth reading, if only to recover a sense of that lost innocence that can look and wonder, and give value to that ability to recognise beauty, intricacy and diversity as at least clues to a universe in which meaning is not ruled out as a prior assumption.

The contemplation of the works of the Creator is the highest delight of the rational mind. In them we read, as in a volume fraught with endless wonders, the unlimited power and goodness of that Being who, in the formation of atoms, and of worlds, has alike displayed unfathomable Wisdom. There are few objects in Nature which raise the mind to a higher degree of admiration, than the Insect creation. Their immense numbers – endless variety of form – astonishing metamorphoses – exceeding beauty – the amazing minuteness of some, and the wonderful organization of others, far exceeding that of the higher animals – all tend to prove an Almighty artificer, and inspire astonishment and awe.

That paragraph is likely to inspire quite other responses in Dawkins. Hitchens, Hawking and others. And yes, it no longer sounds self evident. But I wonder if in our intellectual lust for dominance we may have lost the intellectual moderation that comes from wonder, astonishment and awe. Intellectual power without intellectual humility can become intellectual hubris. Whether or not – the above paragraph is a reminder that this wonderful universe is to be gazed at as well as analysed, and thus understood at a deeper level than 'an explanation of everything'.

15 September 2010
Irritability as an approach to Gospel witness?

"The Sermon on the Mount never was, is not, and never can be a private affair. Jesus spoke to all who would hear him….The Christian community is taken to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world in the inbreaking messianic time. Therefore, it is sent into all areas of public life to witness to the promise, as well as to Jesus' claim to all his Father's creatures. There are no longer autonomies in the political, social, economic, cultural, national, and international spheres that at least would not have to be irritated by the gospel. The exposition of the Sermon on the Mount in terms of a private affair is the reaction of an Enlightenment tolerance. It is actually a rejection of the gospel as God's reaching out for his world."

Ernst Kasemann, On Being a Disciple of the Crucified Nazarene, (Page 131)

Not much comment needed – except, how about irritability as a key competence of a Christian community being faithful to the Gospel and engaging with our culture…..hmmmm?

14 September 2010
Prayer and the Pursuit of Happiness

Ever since I read Prayer and the Pursuit of Happiness, I have read the work of Richard Harries. Indeed the stained glass window on the front cover became a tapestry project years ago, and it now hangs in my study at the College. What that book did (for me at any rate), was recover a positive view of human happiness as a life goal.

Sure, it's true enough if you set out looking for happiness you'll be disappointed – sometimes. But it does seem odd that those who are followers of one who was accused of too many parties, too much wine, overindulgence in food (glutton he was accused of, though allow some exaggeration for the zealously pious) keeping the wrong company, saying the wrong thing, doing good and helping people on the wrong days, – yes it does seem odd that Christians often seem ambivalent about happiness. Oh we're OK with joy, you know that deep, subterranean sense of emotional well-being "in the Lord", or that nearer the surface stuff that gets sung out in many a praise song many Sunday.

But happiness – uncomplicated, desirable, positive, laughter laced, pleasurable enjoyment of things, surface though not superficial, transient but transformative, the feeling in our bodies and minds that the most important word to say to life is yes! But isn't the pursuit of happiness to chase after chimera, to put personal pleasure first, to rely on emotion, mood and feelings rather than convictions, beliefs and spirituality.

What is a human being's chief end? To glorify God and enjoy God forever. What would be gratitude to the Creator – to enjoy created things as the gifts they are, surely? Suppose a friend gives you a gift of your favourite food, or a ticket for the gig you never thought you'd get to? Better not tell them you binned the food as an act of self-denial and love for God – or that you shredded the tickets as a way of strengthening your spiritual muscles! 🙂

I know. Caricature. But Harries was on to something. The way we are suspicious of sheer pleasure in things; that dominant strand in Christian spirituality that wants us to eliminate personal desires and suppress that part of us from which the words "I want" come. And ambition, love, desire, want, pleasure, leisure, reveling, laughter, – far from diminishing our spirituality, are significant parts of a full humanity without which spirituality impairs rather than enhances, and distorts rather than fulfills.

Thomas Traherne, that Creation-intoxicated mystic, is one of the few Christian writers who writes of happiness and enjoyment with unabashed enthusiasm. Actually, reading him out loud he sounds OTT – but maybe one of the reasons we are on the brink of ecological catastrophe is we no longer look on nature as the creation, and on material things as gift, and on the world as a living jewel entrusted to our care, and we are OTT about all the wrong things.

You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself floweth in your
veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the
stars: . . . Till your spirit filleth the whole world, and the stars are
your jewels; . . . till you love men so as to desire their happiness,
with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own.

Prayer and the Pursuit of Happiness is one of those books that simply and directly questions our worldview. And asks whether this side of the resurrection, assuming the love of a faithful Creator, in a world suffused and enlivened by the Holy Spirit, there might just be reason to be happy, and for our happiness to be a grateful yes to God's gifts.

And sure, there is another kind of world – cruel, unjust, violent and violated, barren of freedom and marred and scarred by greed, waste and misery. But in such a world we are called to live for Jesus Christ, in the power of the Spirit, embodying the reconciling love of God. And surely part of that witness, is also the celebration of that which is good, wholesome, healing, restoring, just, funny, enjoyable – because human happiness, and human desires and human wanting are not wrong.

Inordinate desire, yes; self-interested wanting that robs others, yes; happiness purchased on others' misery, yes; each of these is nearer the greed that looks on the apple and hears that plausible persuasive question, "Did God say no?" But any reading of the Psalms, any reflection on how Jesus lived, and any honest facing up to what goes on in our own hearts, makes it clear that happiness is a good thing! And good things should be pursued, and shared. And maybe that is the best constraint and control of our wanting and our desiring – the sense of other people, of shared humanity and therefore of shared happiness in this great comi-tragic production we call our lives. Read the words of Traherne again – "to love people so as to desire their happiness, with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own". Or as Jesus said, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Satisfied. Fulfilled, and yes, happy.

11 September 2010
Emerging Church, Rabbi Gamaliel and the Theological Curriculum

Just spent the last couple of days meeting with colleagues in Oxford, at Regent's Park College. We were looking at the issues for theological education arising from the flux and diversity of expression in church community that has come to be called emerging church, or fresh expressions, or whatever catch phrase we care to use in the vain attempt to catch in neat definition this phase of the church's life in contemporary Westernised Christian culture.

Stuart Murray Williams is one of the central figures trying to interpret, understand and evaluate what is of permanent value and what of transient interest in the plethora of alternatives on offer for those no longer satisfied with 'inherited church' or 'traditional church' or 'mainstream church'. See – even the non emergent status quo is now accruing nuanced definitions! And given the long list of options from cafe church to to Sci Fi church, Post-Alpha church to Cyber church, from menu church to common purse community, it was an important exercise to try somehow to grasp the significance of whatever is happening, in a culture that values the 'whatever' word.

Not rehearsing it all here, but several really important questions are at least worth posing:

What is necessary for any group to legitimately claim for itself the word church as a valid descriptor of what it is and how it expresses its life? What is the ecclesial minimum for a group to call itself church?

How important is sustainability in any of these new developments in Christian mission and community? If it is a transient phase is that necessarily a sign of failure? And if some of these survive and become self-sustaining is that validation, 'if it is of God it will prosper'?

If a group aim to accommodate a culturally specific group (Goth church for example), how does that relate to the catholicity of the Church? If Christian community is inclusive, how does that square with groups whose nature, aim and identity are so specific and culturally focused that by definition others would find them all but inaccessible?

If these new and imaginative and creative initiatives are part of a search for a more authentic and participatory way of being Christian community engaged with surrounding culture, what are the criteria for such authenticity?

Given that fresh expressions of emerging or emergent church are self-consciously developmental, uncontrolled and organic, what is it that nevertheless enables them to define themselves as Christian? Where are the theological and spiritual parameters, and who sets them?

And the specific question for theological education as formation and preparation for ministry in such a cultural flux – what impact should such developments, and the need to understand them, have on curriculum content, styles of teaching and a theological understanding of ecclesiology and Baptist Identity?

All good questions – much sharp discussion – several tentative conclusions – and most importantly, food for thought and reason for dialogue.

10 September 2010
Jesus didn’t say “Hate your enemies” or “Blessed are the violence-makers”
"The Gainesville, Florida-based Dove World Outreach Centre church calling itself a "New Testament, Charismatic,
Non-Denominational Church," says it will go ahead with the torching of
the Koran on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of the 2001 attacks
against the United States. Gainesville authorities have said that will
contravene fire safety rules."

See here for more on this astonishing and dangerous nonsense from a group who dare to claim their behaviour has any conceivable connection with New Testament Christianity.

Their proposed actions have not the remotest congruence with the Holy Spirit whose charismata does not include hatred and incitement

Nor can their proposed actions carry even the most tenuously, tortuously, tediously argued iota of justification in the teaching and person of Jesus, whose clear command is (if they MUST name Muslim people as enemies), "Love your enemies!"

Burning the sacred text of another tradition is thinkable for so called Christians only if:
- they have already disposed of the Sermon on the Mount as a defining text of the actions and dispositions that reflect the Living Christ
- and only if they act in direct contravention to all that the cross stands for as the reconciling act of God in Christ
- and only if they reject the truth of the resurrection – which is that life not death, love not hate, light not darkness, hope not despair, peace not violence, are the true values of the Kingdom of God, and the convictional commitments by which Christians live.
The US Government, and whole swathes of Amercican people have rightly and strongly condemned the plan, and called on the church not to proceed. In addition to all the other arguments and reasoned protests, one further point. When Jesus said love your enemies he was referring to those we considered enemies or who hated us. In my view, and my reading of the gospels, the Christian response to people of other faiths can never be hatred, and can never use the vocabulary of enmity, not if we are followers of Jesus. The idea that the One who took the scroll of the law to preach the Nazareth Manifesto, can be co-opted as a burner of the sacred book of another faith tradition is ludicrous, the image it conjures, grotesque, the religious message it sends, dis-graceful.

The name of the Church planning to burn the Koran – mark it well – The Dove World Outreach Centre. The picture below shows what real doves are about.
7 September 2010
Be lifted up ye ancient gates – prayer for a garage door.

Yesterday I innocently went to put the bin out.

Opened the garage door, wheeled the bin to the pavement.

Came back and pulled the garage door closed and the tension wires snapped.

Garage door now across my shoulders making me feel like Samson stealing the Gates of Gaza.

How to tell Sheila who is at the other end of the house with doors shut, probably with the hoover on.

Neighbour in a hurry mistook my weight-lifting exploits for knowledgeable enterprising can do.

Before I can tell her to ring our bell, she's in the car and waving cheerio.

Can see she's well impressed that I'm repairing the door myself while holding it up.

Tried quoting the Bible, "Lift your heads, you gates. Be lifted you ancient doors."

Didn't work. Decided not to try the musical version, Ye gates lift up your heads on high.

By an improvised contortionist act I can just about reach the step ladders with one leg.

Means standing on one leg still holding up the door.

The leg in question is the recently referred to leg with the torn corpuscnesium.

Like those films of prisoners stretching to reach the keys beyond the bars, the extended leg slowly inches towards the step ladders, not quite reaching.

Just one toe-length more..but to misquote the Sermon on the Mount "who by worrying can add one inch to their leg length"?

Well me actually!

Using legs, arms, back, and a number of neologisms and alternative linguistic apellations for doors and ladders, the ladders are maneouvred into position.

Minutes later, traumatised but triumphant the garage doors are propped up.

Later the repair man came, rewired it and re-set the spring.

I watched him do it so that next time…..

7 September 2010