Living Wittily

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  • Learned Optimism

    Optimism isn’t the same as hoping for the best but not sure if it will happen. It isn’t a kind of philosophical crossing of the fingers behind our backs either. That kind of uncritical optimism mean we’re simply not being realistic. The relationship between optimism and realism is very interesting for people who take Jesus seriously enough to trust Him. For people of faith, is their trust in Jesus optimism or realism?

    An important insight comes from an unusual book entitled Learned Optimism. It sounds complicated, but stay with me:

    Apx1975_01 One of the creative techniques in John’s gospel is that the writer sets you up, to hit you with truth. His gospel is about learned optimism. Repeatedly he argues, if you believe in Jesus you can combine being realistic with feeling optimistic, because He will create ways to improve the realistic situation as we understands it.

    For John the gospel writer, optimism is not only a matter of temperament. It is a worldview, a considered view of how the world is. In John’s Gospel, to believe in Jesus is to develop a radically different worldview.  Jesus, says John, is God’s radical intervention who redefines all other reality.

    “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word became flesh…..in Him was life and the life was the light of all humanity…the Son came that you might have life….if the Son shall set you free you shall be free indeed”. Reality is reconfigured, the way the world looks changes forever, when Jesus’ presence, purpose and power are presupposed.

    So, John says – Jesus is the life-giver, the light bringer, the liberator. For example in chapter 11, Jesus’ friend Lazarus is dead, buried, locked in the grave, decomposing in the darkness, confined by embalming bandages; that, says John, is the reality. And John says to us his readers, "faith is learned optimism, faith is feeling optimistic about God improving reality – your considered view of how the world is, is about to be reconfigured".

    .

    John says, ‘Watch Jesus and learn’.

    ‘Take away the stone’, says the Life-giver

    ‘Lazarus come out’, says the Light bringer

    ‘unbind the grave clothes’ says the Liberator. 

    And Lazarus walked out, into the light, back into life  and out into the freedom Jesus both commanded and gifted.

    .

    “Learned optimism” – it’s the worldview of those who have seen Jesus at work, and who believe that he still works; that the light shines in the darkness of every death -confirming, life-threatening grave. But says John, the darkness can never get the better of him. And that says John, is the learned optimism of resurrection faith.

    Water_lilies I am the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.

    “I have always prided myself on being realistic, and still value that quality. What I learned is that being realistic should be combined with feeling optimistic about creating ways to improve the realistic situation as I understand it.”

  • When old age is a celebration of life!

    This story ( and the photo) are about the importance of purposeful work for human beings. For the full story see BBC news here

    _42815935_dorsetgardener_203 A 104-year-old gardener is to retire after working on the land for 93 years.

    But Jim Webber, of Stoke Abbott, Dorset, is to continue managing his own plot, growing vegetables for his own table and to sell any surplus to supplement his pension.The widower said that arthritis in his knees had made it difficult for him to work for other people.

    He told the BBC: "I would do about 10 minutes and have to sit down, I couldn’t carry on. That wasn’t fair for the people I was working for."

    The story reminds me of one of my favourite one line prayers. It was written as Vera Brittain’s epitaph:

    "Lord give me work till my life is done, and life till my work is done."

    And the 80 year old John Wesley, ‘Lord, let me not live to be useless.’ Now was that Wesley the Arminian, praying a prayer to be kept faithful and persevere in the  Calvinistic work ethic?

  • When OTT is OK

    2758184200034295584pcnpni_th_2 So many buildings around Paisley are grey, brown or some other tone that blends into a chronic urban sameness. But for two or three weeks in April, azaleas, rhododendrons and cherry trees defy the drabness, and wreck all this tonal monotony with outbreaks of vivid variety. In our own street a bright purple-blue azalea, half a dozen pink and several white cherry trees, and intermittent rhododendrons draw attention to themselves like fluorescent adolescents. The azalea was already in full bloom by Easter, but by now, all over Paisley and along the Glasgow Road, cherry trees are dripping with colour.

    2720465440029210395nhhlbk_th I suppose it’s the fragile transience, and the finely veined delicacy, and the sheer superabundance of petals, that give that sense of urgent beauty – show-off now, cos it’s a long time till next year, and you never know the weather in the West of Scotland – four seasons in 10 minutes. Either way, Cherry blossom (NOT shoe polish) is one of my personal religious symbols – and if you ask me what it means I’ll go all postmodern on you and say – it means whatever I feel, and what I feel has nothing to do with meaning and everything to do with joy and hope! Hopeful joy and joyful hope. I’m off for a run, in the sun, along a road where there is a whole extended family of cherry trees having a riot. That’s where I’ll have my first breather.

    Isaiah knew a thing or two about hope – "the desert shall blossom", he said, and in a number of urban desert corners around the town, the cherry trees are doing their bit for hope!

  • Novel writing as vocation: Chaim Potok

    When Chaim Potok, the well-known Jewish novelist, decided to become a writer, his mother had a different idea. “Chaim,” she said, “don’t be a writer. Be a brain surgeon. You’ll keep a lot of people from dying and you’ll make a lot of money.”

    Chaim said, “No, Mama, I want to be a writer.”

    Periodically his mother tried to change his mind. “Chaim, listen to your mother. Become a brain surgeon. You’ll keep a lot of people from dying and you’ll make a lot of money.”

    But he always replied, “No, Mama, I want to be a writer.” Eventually she lost her temper. “Chaim, you’re wasting your time. Become a brain surgeon. You’ll keep a lot of people from dying.”

    Chaim shouted back, “I don’t want to keep people from dying; I want to show them how to live.”

    Daily_stanford Potok is one of the novelists I re-read – I’ve read several of his stories three times! He writes as a used-to-be insider on New York Hasidic communities in the mid-twentieth century. Talking with a good friend yesterday about what we were reading, she had bought The Chosen, on my recommendation. Hope she isn’t disappointed – one person’s enthusiasm can be another person’s tedium. Potok can be intense, and the world he evokes is the world of fading modernity, where human beings are still trying to figure out their place in this vast universe.

    0140030948_01__sclzzzzzzz_v45545076 But for me, Potok has captured the powerful, ambivalent and even dangerous tensions created by religious commitment and the contemporary world. But he has also articulated those deep religious longings that are tied to community, tradition, difference and identity, and which arise out of that deep place in us where we feel the desperate desire to live our lives towards hope and fulfiment. You want to read something a little different – here’s a novelist who chose storytelling as a way of showing us how to live.

  • Christ have Mercy

    _42035844_scream_body Edvard Munch, at the time he completed his masterpiece ‘The Scream’, said he had tried to express the scream that echoes throughout creation. And the picture with its lines distorted around a distorted human face, conveys a disturbing and disorientating sense of unspeakable anguish. And the hands that frame the face are covering the ears, perhaps trying to shut out the noise of the scream, but unable to silence the inward scream that is the response to unimaginable pain. Yesterday, in the aftermath of the massacre of young students at Virginia Tech, someone said 2007 can already be called the year of the scream.

    A blog isn’t the place for plausible explanations (none come to mind), nor the place to pinpoint blame (the killer, the gun culture, the video-game aneasthetising of violence); I want to scream. I want to protest at the waste, the tragedy, the cruelty of what has happened to so many young lives, and the devastation unleashed out of the blue on so many families and communities. I want to scream at whatever it is that drives one human being to kill so many with automatic efficiency and bypass any of the usual human restraints of conscience, compassion, satiated appetite for violence. And inside, like the rest of us, I’m sick. A University is a place of learning, of developing potential, of human activity focused on self-development towards usefulness as a human being, a place where people come to be changed by learning and knowing.

    300pxchrist_of_saint_john_of_the_cr Lord have mercy

    Christ have mercy

    Lord have mercy

  • Watch where you put your feet

    Haworth_013 In one of the older Bible translations Paul encourages the Ephesian Christians to ‘walk circumspectly’, which might at a push also mean ‘live wittily’.(Eph 5.16-17) Both renderings are demonstrated in this photo of me on an ancient set of monastery stepping stones, while on holiday down at Haworth (Bronte country). I’ve decided that I look sufficiently careful where I put my feet (well some of the stones were shooglie -Scots word for ‘tottery, insecure’), that I’ll leave the photo on the profile for a while, to illustrate walking circumspectly, living wittily.

    47507392__p5293192_c1_800 Ancient ruined monasteries are significant places for me – the care with which the sites were chosen, the craft and skill and hard labour of building such sacred space, their pivotal place in the local economy of previous centuries, but also the sense that these were places of prayer set to the rhythms of the day, and places of purposeful work and study, of industry and liturgy.

    Abbeysept05d4211sar800 My favourite such place is Rievaulx in Yorkshire. Been there a number of times –

    1. in the aftermath of two days rain when the mist clung to the trees but the rain had stopped, and there was a stillness and a sense of countryside drenched but refreshed by the water that makes life and growth posiible

    2. on a sunny day when the tourist buses were like dodgems in the coach park, noisy children were making the kinds of noise that probably monastery walls were built to keep out, but there was a sense that the place itself was undismayed by the presence of folk, because that’s why it was put there in the first place

    3. and my first visit, when I’d done my homework, knew the plan of the building, and went to do the educational thing, identifying the nave, the transepts, scriptorium, refectory, herb garden, dormitory – and simply admired the sense of permanence that such durable buildings must have given to the community over the generations.

    Where there’s a monastery there is a river, where there are no bridges there are stepping stones – OK to walk across them on a summer day when the river is low, the stones are dry and I’m wearing New Balance trainers. Wouldn’t like to do it in February, across a risen river, stones wet, mossy and slimy, and the water freezing, and wearing leather open sandals or massive working clogs.

    Three thoughts –

    1. The thought that a community builds stepping stones across rivers is an interesting image of how a church serves its local community – the church helping people get from here to there, negotiating the difficulties with them
    2. the thought that whether you’re a monk or not, none of us walk on water, some stones are shooglie and any one of us could slip and fall in, a reminder of our dependence on each other for care and occasional rescue
    3. and the final thought – stepping stones get you there stage by stage -for the monks who put them there, stepping stones were a metaphor for walking towards God, using the means he had given, the stepping stones – scripture, community, prayer, bread and wine, praise, care for the poor and sick.

  • Emerging church and revivalism

    Energetic church – progressive church – emerging church. Whichever qualifying participle we use, we are likely to be theologically redefining the church in response to perceived or desired change. We are also using such words to describe the various ways the church expresses its life and evolves, even metamorphoses, within successive cultures.

    0830825827_01__sclzzzzzzz_aa240_ I’m reading about 19th century revivalism – and am intrigued by the parallels between then and now. Those who generated revivalist practice and theology, and those who criticised and resisted it in the 19th Century begin to sound like Maclaren and Carson arguing about who is being faithful to the Gospel / Scripture.The same polarisations about developments within / out of Evangelicalism that arose over revivalist practices bear some similarity to the current tensions created by ’emerging church’ as it encounters more conservative expressions of Evangelicalism.

    Interestingly Revivalism in the 18th and 19th centuries was seen as doctrinally suspect by many of the most influential Evangelicals, while other Evangelical leaders offered supportive Gamaliel arguments (if it’s of God it will prosper, if not it will not). Revivalists such as Finney and Moody were imaginative, innovative and provocative in their methods and approach to evangelism; and while their preaching aimed at radical and enduring conversion, they were also concerned about the subsequent church experience of converts.

    Moody_sm Their approach was unabashedly pragmatic, often theatrical in expression, the theology focused and clarified in a Gospel presented in ultimatum terms, accompanied in some of its expressions with emotional extremes climaxing in conversion, while others encouraged hearers towards a quieter controlled experience of conversion in which religious affections and elementary theological awareness combined. But I doubt if we have any idea how radical it was in the early 19th century to hold Christian worship services in theatres, to advertise them with flyers as if they were local gigs, with ink-drawings of the main celebrities, and for preachers to perform like religious sales personnel (I avoid the gender restrictive ‘salesmen’, cos some of the finest revival preachers were women! – until revivalist congregations and denominations aspired to social respectability after which women preachers all but disappeared). (See Wolffe, 128).

    Here is one religious journalist’s description, from 1836, of the energetic and progressive piety of American revivalist churches:

    If churches relapse into a low state, they are not satisfied long to continue so; but they begin to enquire into the cause of this declension and the means by which it may be remedied. They entertain confidence in the success of suitable means, and are often at once sagacious in the discovery and prompt in the application of them to the condition of particular congregations. Should plans be suggested which have for their object to waken professors from a state of slumber, and arouse the unconverted from their sleep of death, objections are not urged against them because they are new; they do not restrain zeal, lest it should produce innovation; and are more afraid of incurring the guilt of lukewarmness than of being charged with the extravagance of enthusiasm. (Wolffe, page81)

    Was this the 19th Century church accommodating to cultural change, on pragmatic missional grounds deliberately adjusting Christian experience and church expression to maximise connectedness with the changing life around it? Was revivalism as a movement, a 19th C equivalent to emerging church?

    And before assuming this is oversimplified comparison, and unhelpful anachronism, perhaps we should try to understand, using some historical imagination, just how radical – and transient – such accommodations have tended to be. That might help us see the importance, but only the relative importance, of contemporary accomodations – such as emerging church. And maybe instead of putting participles in front of church (doing words – which do tend to put human activity in the driving seat!) we should put the adjective after – as in church militant – church triumphant – church universal. I have a feeling it’s words that way round that best remind us the church isn’t ours, nor is its future in our hands – and that the church of Christ will always be bigger than our participles!!

  • Jurgen Moltmann meets Jonathan Edwards

    The "Which Theologian are You" quiz can be done here. It sets a lot of theological questions and you show how far you agree/disagree. Then it works out which theologian your theological profile best fits. Seems straightforward enough.

    I came out as 100% Jurgen Moltmann – and I’m not sure I’ve ever had a 100% for anything before! Here’s the result and the summary of who I am theologically and what matters to me theologically, according to this quiz.

    ……………………….

    You are Jurgen Moltmann.

    Speakersmoltmann The problem of evil is central to your thought, and only a crucified God can show that God is not indifferent to human suffering. Christian discipleship means identifying with suffering but also anticipating the new creation of all things that God will bring about.

    Jürgen Moltmann
    		100%

    Martin Luther
    		73%

    Karl Barth
    		60%

    Friedrich Schleiermacher
    		60%

    Anselm
    		60%

    John Calvin
    		53%

    Augustine
    		47%

    Charles Finney
    		47%

    Paul Tillich
    		47%

    Jonathan Edwards
    		27%

    …………………………………………………………….

    OK now for the disclaimers

    • The problem of evil is not central to my thought – Christology is central, and the cross and resurrection are definitive of my Christology because the loving purpose of God is revealed in the crucified and risen Christ. The problem of evil is however deeply implicated in my theology, but also in my worldview.
    • Thus while I think discipleship involves every follower of Jesus in identifying with suffering it involves much more – for me it also involves what John Swinton would call forming strategies and gestures of resistance to the causes of suffering, based on the call of Christ to follow after him, carrying the cross, in the power of the Spirit, witnessing to the Gospel of God’s love through a ifestyle of hopefulness generated by the resurrection.

    Now as for the quiz itself I have a few awkward questions.

    1. How come there are no explicit questions about the Trinitarian nature of God, or about the form of Christology that underlies any Christian theology?
    2. How come there are no women? I know – most of the big noises are men for well rehearsed reasons – but Julian of Norwich bequeathed to the church her Revelations of Divine Love, one of the most profound, perceptive and doxological pieces of theological reflection in the entire tradition. Does every woman who does this quiz have to end up being a man?!?
    3. Where are Aquinas, Wesley, Pannenberg, and for those who know me they’ll expect me to ask also, and where is James Denney, P T Forsyth or Tom Torrance? I know – they aren’t exactly the giants in the field – but who gets to pick the giants anyway, huh? I rate Forsyth well ahead of Tillich – no slight on Tillich, just that Forsyth understood as few before or since, the nature of love as holy, and of God as holy love.
    4. Now as one whose theology is a theology of the cross, understood in Trinitarian terms, Moltmann and Luther are not surprisingly top of the list, and followed by Barth. I’ve spent months of my life, over the years reading them, but how did Schleiermacher get way up there? He is the one I have least first-hand knowledge of.
    5. 26091 And just as intriguing, let me say, if I had to rescue only 10 books from my burning study one of the first would be my (really expensive, but who cares?) Yale Edition of the Ethical Writings, by Jonathan Edwards, containing his sermons on 1 Corinthians 13. This volume contains some of the finest late Puritan moral theology, expressed in language that I still remember on my first reading, bringing a lump to my throat and a never-forgotten heart sense of ‘God’s great ocean of love’. Schleiermacher’s Christian Faith is a Reformed masterpiece in its own right, but in my canon, not before Edwards – so why is Edwards bottom of my list and Schleiermacher is fourth?
    6. I’ve thought a bit about this last question and here’s my attempt at an answer. When a quiz asks propositional questions and asks me to indicate degree of agreement, it assumes I want to be the person who thinks most like me. I’m not at all sure of that! There are aspects of Edwards’ theology which I can’t easily agree with – but there is also much in his theology of God’s grace and glory, and in the homiletical and moral reflections on the Bible that expound these, that have shaped my own spirituality at foundational levels. I have learned more from this towering Christian intellect than most of the other names above him on this list, perhaps with the exception of Barth and Moltmann, and maybe not even them.
    7. So allowing for the glitches in the way the quiz is set out – and the kind of predicable paths it pushes you into, I am not embarrassed by the prominence of Moltmann, NOR by the position of Edwards – where they are on the list is irrelevant. They are long-time and deep conversation partners of mine, lovers of God in Christ through the Spirit, and within the communion of saints, in which they both believe – but expressed it differently.

    I am going to put a few quotations together for a later blog, with Moltmann and Edwards alongside each other – a parallel of opposites who from different perspectives and contexts know a thing or two about theology as doxology, and the theologian’s task of expounding the God of Grace and Glory.

  • Who’s an Evangelical then?

    Several recent outbreaks of Bibliophilia have resulted in additions to the recent acquisitions shelf. I’m already well into the most recent volume of the IVP History of Evangelicalism. One of the taunting howls of Aberdeen football supporters is ‘Who are ye?’. It isn’t a polite enquiry to ascertain the names of newly discovered acquaintances – it’s a demand for self-definition, with the assumption that whoever you are, you are of little consequence anyway.

    The same question is often asked by and about evangelicals – ‘Who are ye?’ This history series is a major contribution to Evangelical definition and description through historical study. Here’s who the people who have used the term ‘evangelical’ are – as they have lived within the cultural and social context of their times from early 18th century to now.

    The value of this series lies in the decision that all five volumes will explore the Evangelical movement internationally, in particular throughout the English speaking world – Britain, America, West Indies, Australia, New zealand and South Africa. The description and analysis of Evangelicalism as a movement reveals vitality and variety, and creates a quite different perspective on who are and who aren’t ‘evnagelical’. And this for me creates a wish that those who use the word ‘evangelical’ would have a greater awareness of a tradition so rich, adaptable and effective in its service to the Kingdom of God, and not hijack it for their own exclusive agendas.

    0830825819_01__sclzzzzzzz_v46523871 The Rise of Evangelicalism, Mark Noll. Noll is the premier church historian in the US, and this book, along with the others in the series, maps the beginnings and progress of the Evangelical movement that emerged on both sides of the Atlantic from the early 18th Century onwards. Key figures are the Wesleys, George Whitefield, and Jonathan Edwards

    0830825827_01__sclzzzzzzz_aa240_ The Expansion of Evangelicalism, John Wolffe. Explores the social and political contexts within which Evangelicalism developed, looking at the consolidations of people like John Newton, Wilberforce, Charles Simeon, the revivalist Charles Finney, and Hannah More. Traces the growing influence of the evangelical voice in the areas of social policy and moral and cultural critique.

    0830825835_01__sclzzzzzzz_aa240_ The Dominance of Evangelicalism, David Bebbington. The nonconformist conscience and the evangelical voice were dominant influences in Victorian society and in the years following the American Civil War. The age of Moody and Spurgeon is presented with verve and ease which don’t disguise the erudition of the acknowledged expert in the field of Evangelical history.

    So, having read Noll and Bebbington earlier, I am now well into Wolffe’s volume and have enjoyed especially the descriptions of the early camp meetings on the American frontiers, and the in your face tactics of the itinerant preachers. And then to read about such exotic groups as the ‘Magic Methodists’ of Cheshire and the ‘Kirkgate Screamers’ of Leeds, is to realise that early charismatic expressions of faith earned such nicknames in a context of ridicule and rejection.

  • Exclusive banks in an allegedly inclusive society

    This from my AOL homescreen

    Logo A bank is to launch a "premier" branch where only the wealthiest customers will be allowed face-to-face services.

    HSBC, which advertises itself as the "world’s local bank", is operating the service at Canford Cliffs in Dorset, where properties sell for up to £8 million.

    From June, to be eligible to use the advisers at the branch, customers must have £50,000 savings, or a £200,000 mortgage, or a £100,000 mortgage and £75,000 salary, or pay a £19.95 a month "premier" account fee.

    So how do we "serve God wittily in the tangle of our minds", and respond to this nonsense. Of the qualifying criteria to be treated as a human being by HSBC, I could, at a push, manage the £19.95 premier account fee. That’s £239.40 per annum in order to qualify for an encounter with a human face, and exchange conversation about ‘filthy lucre’ with a human voice. This is the bank that advertises itself as the ‘world’s local bank’!!

    445886150_7028792d84_b Now supposing I needed a loan, was worried about my overdraft, was on a low income and needed advice on how to make the best use of my local ‘world’s local bank’? Or supposing I was a pensioner on a fixed income – for me, not as daft or far off an idea as it used to be, huh? How did this bank ever dream up such an offensive idea as a ‘premier’ branch that offers only to the wealthy what any bank used to offer as part of the privilege of handling your money?

    As a balancing act of social justice, would HSBC be prepared in underprivileged areas to make available debt and budgetting specialists to help people manage more effectively the little they have? In the spirit of the rules outlined above for the wealthy:

    To be eligible to use the advisers at these branches customers must have less than £1000 savings, be unable to afford the deposit for a mortgage, or require Benefits help with the rent, qualify for tax credits, or be on a fixed or low income.

    Aye right, Jim.

    Dream on, son!

    Not a snowball’s chance!

    Why the scepticism though? After all, as the Wise Sage says, ‘He who gives to the poor will not want, but he who hides his eyes will get many a curse…He who closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself cry out and not be heard.’ (Proverbs 28.27; 21.13). Does the Wise Sage mean us to text these texts to HSBC – and appeal to their long term self-interest???