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"when our economic distress is fraught by ethical failure…" 

No, not the Guardian, and not the Telegraph – actually a commentary on Genesis reflecting on greed and self interest as the primary and promoted driver of a society. 

In such a society citizens then choose to give power to those who best demonstrate a capacity to satisfy our greed and selfishness without thought for others.

It cannot end well when economic values trump ethical values, and worth is measured by human acquisitiveness rather than human flourishing. 

And it cannot end well when the moral character, trustworthiness and ethical values of two Prime Ministerial candidates are deemed irrelevant so long as " We get what I want".

The Bible has a lot to say about hubris, power without moral accountability, leadership evacuated of integrity, and economics with neither ethics nor compassion.

Over the years I have had a close interest in the history of Christianity in Germany over the past two centuries. From the Enlightenment onward some of the most impressive and durable progress in several areas of intellectual scholarship was made in German universities. In areas of philosophy, theology and biblical studies, Germany led the field in critical scholarship, giving us some of the greatest names within these disciplines.

The first half of the 20th century has a star studded cast of names such as Harnack,  Bultmann, Dibelius, Bonhoeffer, names now pervasively present in theological and biblical scholarship a century and more later. One name almost entirely obscured by history is Ernst Lohmeyer. I have just bought the new theological biography of Lohmeyer, who for some time has been one of my heroes of whom I knew too little.

Along with other brave souls, Lohmeyer risked his life as a vocal and persistent critic of Nazi ideology, in particular the attempts to validate anti-semitism from the Bible. Removed from his post, banned from teaching, called up to the German army in 1943, and following the fall of Germany, taken as a prisoner of war by Russia, Lohmeyer virtually disappears. For long years no one knew if he was alive or dead. Until 1995. We now know he was executed by the Russians, but the full story has never been researched and told, until now. 

Once I've read J R Edwards' account of Lohmeyers life and fate, I'll post a review here. Meantime there is a brief introduction by Edwards  which you can read in Christianity Today here.

By the way, the title of this article is, I think, misleading and does justice to neither Lohmeyer nor Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was a scholarly pastor whose story is now firmly embedded in post-war theology and German consciousness. Bonhoeffer's role in underground theological education, aiding the resistance, and his martyrdom in April 1945 has created an entire industry of scholarship, produced an ongoing theological ferment, and has left a legacy of division between those who see him as martyr, as theological revolutionary, and as one whose actions and involvement in an assassination attempt on Hitler goes against the very core of his own teaching in his seminal books, Discipleship and Ethics.

Lohmeyer, on the other hand was a major voice in the academy as an already established scholar of international stature, whose silencing and subsequent murder have remained obscure and politically awkward, and therefore his name, let alone his writings, have gone largely unpublicised. I look forward to having many of my own questions answered, and discovering much more of the truth about a man whose courage and integrity should not be forgotten. Lohmeyer was a German citizen, academic and soldier whose story, "like many who resisted Nazi and Communist repression, points toward Christ."  

Today at the Community Cafe one of our regulars, a woman with significant learning disabilities, stood up, tapped the table and requested silence. She then spoke of the very recent death of her aunt Margaret, "who loved me and I loved her." And she told us she was now going to say a prayer for her Aunt.

Rarely have I listened to a prayer that was more direct, intimate, real and entirely innocent of the need to impress. In loud, clear and deeply felt words she told God: she was glad her aunt was now with God and would know how much she had been loved; she thanked God for opening the gates to welcome her aunt home because she was special; and she thanked God, and her aunt, for looking out for her and looking after her up to now, and knew that would still be true because God loves everybody all the time; then she asked God's blessing on us all finishing with an emphatic Amen.

This was a moment of pure spiritual connection and of human communion born out of trusted friendships. People who usually come to talk about the usual stuff, were co-opted into the life and love, the grief and prayers of someone brave enough to speak her heart, and trust those who heard her speak it. We were ministered to by someone wise enough to know when to pray, and when to ask for that prayer to be held in the hearts of her friends.

This is why we do what we do – thank God.

The other day, a moment of encounter in a garden, cream roses floating in sunlight above a carpet of lavender, and the surprise discovery that the ache of joy in beauty has a close affinity to grief. 

That wondering gaze on beauty unlocks an unnamed yearning which gathers in the deep place we call the soul, and to my surprise, gently it takes on a name, and becomes a key that releases powerful memories, of Aileen. 

In grieving, loss is experienced as persistent longing, grief is made sharper by gratitude, and love needs only the slightest reason to remember – and beauty is more than enough reason. 

So as we love those we love and have lost, we remember what was beautiful, we hold on to what brought joy; and we nourish within us what fuels gratitude that will be lifelong, soul deep, and will always be felt as a wound that tells the story of a life. And that wound will not heal, despite all the reassurances it will, because love will not be denied the familiar ache that comes from a felt absence.

Exporting the Rapture. John Nelson Darby and the Victorian Conquest of North American Evangelicalism, Donald Harman Akenson. (Oxford: 2019) 504 pages.

There are a number of very fine histories of the Plymouth Brethren and the several offshoots in the 19^th and 20^th Centuries. The classic is by Roy Coad, but more recently and with considerably more historical documentation, there are the volumes by Neil Dickson (Scotland) and Tim Grass (UK and beyond).

This volume is different. It is a careful, detailed, and unsparing account of the role played by J N Darby in the origins and formation of the Brethren movement. Outside of brethren circles Darby is less well known; inside the movement he was a giant whose shadow loomed over the Brethren movement for 60 years, and continues to influence large swathes of Christian fundamentalism. In particular, this book traces the emergence of the Exclusive Brethren following the split of the Plymouth Brethren  in the 1840’s, and it details the decisive role of Darby in the creation and consolidation of the Exclusive Brethren.

Akenson’s main contention is that the Exclusive Brethren meet the criteria for a cult. A charismatic leader of magnetic personality; backed by authoritarian, tightly organised systems of oversight, discipline, and privileges of belonging; over-againstness as a way of relating to surrounding culture; a set of doctrines, beliefs and practices that give adherents identity and group solidarity; and in the case of a Christian cult, a particular and peculiar hermeneutic approach to the Bible.

This book is a gripping read. It is not a biography of Darby. It is a detailed critical narrative of the emergence of the Exclusive brethren under Darby, and near the end, a brief account of how the movement disintegrated in Darby’s later years and following his death. Within the constraining boundaries of the Exclusives, Darby operated as an organisational genius, with at times deep pastoral purpose, and at other times ruthless excision of any opposition, real or perceived. The narrative of events leading to the split of 1847/8, makes harrowing reading. Darby was a master tactician, a skilled manipulator, a master of argumentative rhetoric and damaging insinuation, but also a catalyst for those who sought comfort, identity and spiritual security within a tightly controlled community.

The demolition of Benjamin Wills Newton, his character, status and social networks in the 1840’s which led to the split, and the breaking of Edward Cronin in 1880, the oldest surviving member of the originating Assembly, by excluding him from fellowship for life and ruining his economic and social capital as a doctor, read like case studies in post-graduate Machiavellian outmanoeuvring. These narratives about the use and abuse of power, as told by Akenson, are a character study in ecclesial realpolitik underpinned by adamantine spiritual self-confidence. Darby emerges from these two episodes as one whose ways of treating those he opposed contradicted the more obvious virtues expected of those who believed their way of being embodied as “the (only) church of God.”

Following his death, Darby’s theological legacy would make enormous in inroads in North America, so that “premillennial dispensationalism” would develop in the 20^th Century to become one of the most popular and powerful clusters of theological ideas amongst millions of evangelicals. Ideas such as the rapture, the millennial reign, a two stage Second Coming of Jesus, the separation of Israel and Church into two dispensational realities, were peculiar aberrations from all previous expressions of the Christian eschatological tradition. Decisive in that process, was the influence over 60 years of JND, the founder, theological arbiter and unassailable authority within the movement during his lifetime.

This is a big book. It covers the origins of the Brethren, the start of Faith Missions, the developing of a peculiar biblical hermeneutic on prophecy and the end times, the formation of tight knit, radically committed separatist Assemblies, and the evolution of a cult centred on the teaching, influence and sheer force of personality that was J N Darby. There are kinder, more sympathetic even admiring accounts of Darby’s life; but they too have to find ways of explaining let alone justifying, the sometimes deplorable methods by which Darby established, maintained and propagated the true and only Church of God on earth.

In the novel Gilead, a grandfather writes long letters to his grandson. He is a very old pastor, and has learned stuff that it’s important to know, and important for his grandson to learn. Here’s one of the bottom line lessons of a good life:

“This is an important thing, which I have told many people, and which my father told me and which his father told him. When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, what is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation.”

Jesus taught some astonishing things. Like this. “Forasmuch as you did it for one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it for me.” Whether food for the hungry, company for the lonely, clothes and dignity for the poor, care and protection for the vulnerable – in each encounter with others, “What is the Lord asking of me, here, now?” Answer; treat this stranger the way you would treat Jesus.

The transience of flowers,

the ebb and flow of the sea,

the fluidity of a living community,

the changing context of the church;

faith, then, is embracing the transience,

accepting the ebb and flow,

adjusting to the fluidity,

and adapting to the changes

of a life lived seeking to follow faithfully after Christ.

The painting 'Stilling the Tempest' is a powerful visual exegesis of Mark 4.39 and Jesus' command, "Peace! Be still!" I first came across it in the wonderful volume by Jaroslav Pelikan, Jesus Through the Centuries, a book I used as a text book teaching a module with the same title. This was one of the images a number of students found moving, and it always provoked discussion.

Jesus with a Chinese face, is standing in the place of command at the prow of the boat. Mountainous seas with real mountains on the horizon, the whole scene a cauldron of threat and danger. The desperation of the oarsmen, the loss of control signalled by their lost rhythm, the faces set in expressions of fear or determined resignation, all conveyed with power. In the foreground a massive billow, reminiscent of a tsunami and originating under the boat, heads towards the viewer of the painting.

But the dominating figure of Jesus stands with arms outstretched and hands raised, upright and balanced in a boat tossed by elemental powers doing their utmost to overwhelm. Of course he stands in a cruciform gesture, redemptive and powerful at the same time. His authority over the waves and the wind is emphasised by the disciple clinging to his legs, while another has his arms raised imploring Jesus, and yet another clings to the mast but strains round to fix his eyes on Jesus.

It is an astonishing achievement which captures the full force of the storm just before Jesus speaks. The sea is in full tempest mode, the boat is riding a tsunami, the land is miles behind them, and left on their own, experienced sailors as they are, they are doomed. Except for that dominant cruciform Jesus, about to command stillness. 

Yet Mark says clearly that Jesus was at the back, in the stern of the boat, asleep. In the picture Jesus is shown to be high and lifted up, at the front. This is of course artistic licence, but making its own theological point; the artist's interpretation is supported by the verb Mark uses which is an intensified form of rising, describing Jesus' action as standing up to his full height. And the place of authority and the highest point is the uplifted prow

Perhaps the reason the picture is called 'Stilling the Tempest', a title which uses the present participle, is precisely to convey the urgent authority of Jesus, striding from stern to prow. The picture then becomes a portrait of that moment just as Jesus is about to speak two commands; to the wind, "be quiet!, and to the sea, "be calm!"

The Chinese artist, Monika Liu Ho-Peh, has captured that dramatic split second, when with oars all over the place, sails ripped, bodies exhausted, impending doom is forestalled and frustrated by impending deliverance. And that is exactly how Mark portrays Jesus.

A shell is more than
a discarded home; it tells
of oceans and skies.

On a day of deep thinking, negotiating my way through inner shadows of sorrow in the search for hope and light, I stopped to look at the sky reflected in the sea water inside a mussel shell.

A shell has the capacity to hold in itself the same sand of a million beaches, and the same water of a world's ocean's.

Likewise our human minds and hearts have capax dei, the capacity for God.

Our capacity is that of the shell; God's fullness is that of the ocean.

And from that fullness of purposive love and creative wisdom, come our deepest and furthest reaching hopes.

I heard Jean Vanier speak several times over the years. If you don't know who Jean Vanier is then please read this obituary before reading the rest of this post.

The first time I heard Jean Vanier was in Queen's Cross Church 20 years ago. By then he was around 70, and already walked with his massive frame slightly stooped. He could have played the Big Friendly Giant with a minimum of makeup and coaching. Jean's gentleness was unmistakable, he wore his heart, not so much on his sleeve, more like a high visibility vest. His movements were slow, his face most reposed when smiling which seemed to be his default setting. He looked around at the audience with eyes that saw, and paid attention, and cared about what was going on behind the faces of those in front of him. He saw more than faces. This was a man who looked and loved, who smiled as an intimation of intentional friendship. 

He draped himself languidly over the tall lectern, his long arms and hands moving expressively, occasionally gesturing outwards as if trying to embrace the whole crowd. He spoke of vulnerability and love, of community and forgiveness, about radical gentleness and human woundedness; and he spoke of these things as one who was a lifelong practitioner. His words were compelling, his eyes glinting with hope and conviction, his face not so much animated as responsive to the truth he was telling and the people who were listening. And were we listening. 

This man had abandoned a promising career in the Navy, had become a professor of philosophy and abandoned that path too, and started a small community to share his life with people then described as having intellectual disabilities. Out of that small cottage in Troisly in France, grew what is now a world-wide network of caring and community called L'Arche. It was out of 40 and more years of such community building that Jean spoke that evening. Not a hint of self-promotion, simply a woven pattern of stories about people enabled to be who they are, about acceptance and  belonging, about the love of Jesus becoming embodied in communities of welcome, and about how human growth is rooted in love, forgiveness, service and the gift of ourselves to each other.

In one sense I wasn't hearing anything new; I had read and deeply pondered his best writing for 25 years by then. But to hear him tell it with the quiet authority of one who had walked it, and had helped thousands find their place and their way; to witness a man gently aflame with love and conviction which he framed in stories of suffering and joy, of vulnerability and healing, of brokenness and wholeness; to recognise that in all he was describing he was demonstrating the counter-cultural value system of Jesus, and promoting a way of life that contradicts the most cherished values of a consumer culture; that gave these truths an intensity that was unforgettable – and unignorable.

For the previous 10 years I had been chaplain in a school for children with significant extra support needs. During those years I tried to model some of what I had learned from the life and thought of Jean Vanier, and from the stories of L'Arche as communities where 'each one is special, accepted and loved…' And that night, all those years of class involvement, school assemblies, pastoral engagement with staff, pupils and parents, were validated as exactly what ministry is, and what the vocation of love and grace both demands and confers. 

I heard Jean Vanier a couple of times more, but that first evening remains one of those experiences to which I return in thought and prayer, and like the widow's cruse of oil, it never fails. It never fails to nourish my hope, and to encourage me in the vocation of loving whosoever in Jesus' name. Nor does it fail to remind me that at best, we can only ever be wounded healers, unprofitable servants who have received more than we could ever give.

And this is the thing. Jean Vanier didn't only envision and bring to fruition an international network of L'Arche communities. He also modelled for so many a way of being, and of being together in community, that demonstrated the love of Jesus for the lost and the unwanted, the weak and the afraid, the struggling and the broken. And in that modelling he inspired the kinds of human interchange where sadness is able give way to joy in the sharing of life, where commitment of people to each other in love and responsible reciprocal caring enables everyone to grow, and change, and find their place. Vanier held it as a fundamental observation that all human beings have disabilities, we all struggle, everyone has weaknesses, each one of us suffers and needs friends, love and safety. In that sense in Vanier's worldview, we all have invisible disabilities, and therefore all are in need of compassion, understanding and the freedom to acknowledge our need,

There is deep sadness that Jean Vanier has died. But what a life he has lived! And what light he shone into many, many lives. As a man of profound faith and open armed compassion, he has inspired one of the richest models of what can happen when Christian love, human disability and hopeful vision coalesce into community. May he rest in peace, rise in glory, and be met in heaven with the volumes of laughter and celebration he inspired in the lives he touched to their blessing.