Weekly wailing & gnashing of teeth...

I thought Uncle Ben was a goodie — Spiderman’s uncle, all that. Nutritionally, his Long Grain Rice has helped generations of kids flourish, both sides of the pond.
Before entirely leaving my delight at David Dark’s new book, The Sacredness of Questioning Everything, however, I wanted to share a cautionary tale he weaves about how Christians can appear to everyone else. I offer this in the spirit of Joe the Peacock’s fabulous feedback last year on Spam versus Evangelism:

Dig, if you’re willing, this picture: a tiny town with a tight-knit community. The people share joys and concerns, woes and gossip. They keep a close and often affectionate watch on one another’s business. They talk and talk and talk.

What an outsider would notice within minutes of listening in on conversations are constant and slightly self-conscious references to “Uncle Ben.” A beautiful sunset prompts a townsperson to say “Isn’t Uncle Ben awesome?” Good news brings out how thankful and overjoyed they feel toward Uncle Ben. Even in tragedy, a local might say, in a slightly nervous fashion, “You know, it just goes to show how much we all need Uncle Ben. I know — we all know — that Uncle Ben is good.”

Uncle Ben is always on their minds.

Even when the magnificence of Uncle Ben isn’t spoken of aloud, he’s somehow present in facial expressions and actions. It’s the look of stopping a train of thought before it goes too far, of letting an uncompleted sentence trail off into awkward silence, of swiftly changing the subject. It’s as if a conversation can go only so far. People hardly ever look one another in the eye for long.

At the beginning of each week there’s a meeting in the largest house in town. Upon arriving, people get caught up in good fellowship and animated discussion of the week’s events, with conversations straining in the direction of Uncle Ben. When a bell sounds, talk ceases. Everyone moves to the staircase and descends into the basement. Each person sits facing an enormous rumbling furnace. Seated close to the furnace door, as if he were a part of the furnace itself, is a giant man in black overalls. His back is turned on them.

They wait in silence. In time the man turns around. His face is angry, contorted. He fixes a threatening stare of barely contained rage on each person, then roars, “Am I Good?” To which they respond in unison, “Yes, Uncle Ben, you are good.” “Am I worthy of praise?” “You alone are worthy of our praise.” “Do you love Me more than anything? More than anyone?” “We love you and you alone, Uncle ben.” “You better love me, or I’m going to put you... in here” — he opens the furnace door to reveal a gaping darkness — “forever.” Out of the darkness can be heard sounds of anguish and lament. Then he closes the furnace door and turns his back to them. They sit in silence.

Finally, feeling reasonably assured that Uncle Ben has finished saying what he has to say, they leave. They live gtheir lives as best they can. They try to think and speak truthfully and do well by one another. They resume their talk of the wonders of Uncle Ben’s love in anticipation of the next week’s meeting.

But they’re limited, in myriad ways, by fear. Fear causes them to censor their own thoughts and words. Fear prevents them from telling anyone of their inner anguish and fright. Fear keeps them from recognizing in one another’s eyes their common desperation. This fear is interwoven, subtly and sometimes not so subtly, in all of their relationships.

End of story.

Finally, siblings, to mull over additonally, David starts his book with a quote from Jon Stewart:

Remember to love your neighbour as you love yourself. And if you hate yourself, then please — just leave your neighbour alone.

Winter Lights Oxford: hysterical tosh

I'll put some retreat notes up next week, but couldn’t help noticing the first sign of Christmas in the UK is a press report about a council banning Christmas. First off this year is the Oxford Mail, which ran a story saying Christmas had been dubbed "Winter Lights" so as not to offend other religions. Zenit, the view from Rome, ran a suitably breathy piece of hufflepuff allegedly by an RC archbishop, no less, denouncing the inexorable march of secularism:

A decision by the Oxford City Council to abolish all references to Christmas in the name of being more "inclusive" is the next step in erasing history and Christian identity

Within the week, however, truth, began to seep out. Oxford City Council is, in fact, holding all its usual Christmas festivities, carols, Christmas tree, and trimmings. Nobody has renamed anything. It had never struck the arts charity Oxford InSpires that they could, let alone would, rename Christmas. Their programme runs for several weeks, including, nice touch for Christians, an Advent fair.

In other words, this story was just hysterical tosh for the gullible. The truth is on the Oxford Inspires website, and the Oxford Mail had the decency to own up. Like October snows, these tales always seem to melt on inspection, however much they appeal to simple-minded paranoia in the ignorant and gullible. They are fast becoming part of the great British Christmas, along with a story from somewhere about a Vicar who doesn’t believe in Santa Claus. Actually, as a bishop I would have serious anxiety about ordaining anyone who did, literally, believe in Santa Claus.Will that statement, in itself, make me “it” for 2008?

This stuff is like ground elder. The lone comment last night on the Oxford Mail story admitting the error said “I think that this is just the tip of a very large iceberg waiting to devour not just Christmas, but everything that goes with it.” So the Urban myth marches on, regardless of any attempt by the Oxford Mail to correct its original story. Guess which one will now be whizzing round the internet regardless, with added hilarious metaphor, powered by trolls? The last word on this subject belongs, I reckon, to the Muslim Butcher down the Earley Road in Reading who had a poster in his window three years ago, before I carried a blog camera at all times, saying “Halal Turkeys: Order now for Christmas.” Says it all, really.

Idols: exchanging God’s truth for a lie

Fabulous, thought-provoking post by Richard Hall about idolatry. Calvin observed that every person is an “idol factory.” Richard reminds us that “exposing god-impostures is a perennial element in discipleship.”

But what are idols? Needless to say, they are not statues made of stone or wood! Rather idols are that to which we give our absolute allegiance; they are, in Paul Tillich’s idiom, our “ultimate concern”.

But what turns us into idol factories? Calvin makes another acute, if less well known, observation in the Institutes, paraphrasing the first century pagan Roman poet Statius: “Timorem primum, fecisse in orbe deos: fear first made gods in the world” (I.IV.4). If idolatry is the primal sin, fear is the primal negative emotion that fires it.

If this reasoning is correct, then perhaps the best way of unmasking our idols is to discover what we’re afraid of. So over the past few weeks - in casual conversations, in watching the telly, in reading the papers - I’ve been taking a little survey to see what frightens people - and then drawing some conclusions about some of the chief idols of our times.

Richard draws attention to some of the great false gods around us, powered by fear —

• fear of foreigners leads to idiot xenophobia,
• fear of getting fat leads to the narcissism,
• fear of insignificance leads to a cult of celebrity.

He does not stay the knife at the ecclesiastical idols — “Christianity” founded not on love, but fear of Muslims or liberals or losing family values. All I’d add to Richard’s analysis is Gregory Nazianzus’ observation: “Concepts create idols. Only wonder understands.”

The fact is, perfect love casts out fear. When people are in the grip of fetishistic alternative gods, the give-away is fear and hatred, explicit or implicit.

So — “Christianity” founded on fear of “Fundamentalism,” what is that? Christianity powered by fear of “Liberalism,” what is that? Very much less than the real thing?

Blogging Lambeth

Whilst packing toothbrush and kit, I’ve been trying to work out how to blog from Lambeth. On the face of it, it’s simple; but I wonder how, remembering what this thing is and how it works. Large swathes of the conference are open, like fringe and public events. They’re easy, and the press will cover them anyway, as will various bloggers including me. I’ll post a blogging bishops feed column to collect an overview of what’s being said publicly from all sides. Blogs with no detail have no feed — but clicking should take you to them.

But what about the Indaba and Bible Study groups driving the conference?

1. Indaba demands Full Participation. It’s more important to participate than to blog. The precondition of being a reporter (which I’m not) is critical distance. Whatever happens, I can’t be part of it without ful engagement.
2. Indaba is an emergent process. the vast majority of particpants have never done this before. Good. We’re in God’s hands. It means predictions “based on last time” are least probable of all to come true. Like all cross-cultural dialogue it requires sensitive reticence in its early stages. Provisional, unfinished work has to be allowed to stand and be shared for what it is, as provisional, or you end up with speculation dressed up as conlusion which then becomes output. We may not achieve certainty this side of heaven, but if we work at it, we may achieve higher levels of clarity.
3. Indaba is driven by Trust. Some personalities think out loud in the public square, and need room to do this without anything they say being captured and pushed out on the internet.
4. Indaba requires working space. Some personalities and cultures are very reflective and process things carefully inside before bringing it to a group. It does not facilitate openness for anyone to feel they are being bugged. It is also the case that a few bishops come from parts of the world where it wold be simply dangerous to their personal security to tell tales out of school about their work and context. It’s important they feel free to be themselves and tell it like it is, with real confidence they can do so without being plastered all over the internet by some silly blogger.
5. Indaba is an expression of respect. This means radical openness — trying hard to listen to others and understand them in their own terms before pitching in one’s own reaction. Mark Twain pointed out that what makes people dumb is not what they don’t know, but what they think they know, and it’s wrong. Coming from a generally sperficial, low-respect, cynical culture doesn’t help.
6. Indaba is an expression of faith. +Ossie Swartz was reminding us in Oxford Cathedral on Saturday, God wants to turn fear and hysteria into positive energy for the kingdom. We have to decide whether we want to be undertakers, or whether we see ourselves as on the egde of a very special thing God may be doing. I have been, quite honestly, pretty amazed by the cynicism of some commentators already — “all they’re going to do is have a prayer meeting and study the Bible — what’s the point of that?” The more I think about it, the more power there is in shared listening to God in the Scriptures and in prayer. In spite of nostalgia, fear and the dangers of syncretism we live in this world, in this generation, because God has called us to do so. It may be evil and adulterous, but it always was, and it holds out possibilities as well as threats. We cannot solve problems on the level that produced them. As ever, without faith it is impossible to please God.
   
7. There’s a real world out there, far more important to God than Ecclesiastical navel gazing. This requires a sense of realism. “It’s not that the God of the Church has a mission, but the God of Mission has a Church.”
   

Lambeth Conference Nightmares?

The whole Lambeth Conference process is about faith, and living by faith is a risky business. Meeting 15 bishops in Saturday, only one had actually been to one before so we're pretty much all Lambeth virgins. That may help us think different; what some would see as the greatest weakness of the process may actually save the day. Watching Alan Becker’s amazing flash animation, Animator vs Animation, imagine just how it could all go wrong...

h/t Hilary Unwin.

And just to say what could go right, given the anger and frustration of some commentators that we can’t pass imposing resolutions and play power games down at the cashpoint like last time, here are some pointers to the real power and possiblity of an indaba process from E. B. Brooks:

What kind of entity (notice that I am not calling it a structure, yet) would be about setting free, instead of creating boundaries? What kind of entity would be about improvisation rather than writing a script? What kind of entity would be about leading to the next level rather than justifying the current level? What kind of entity would be about the actors, rather than the stage, the set, or the director?

Kipling for profit and pleasure...

The late great Sir John Harvey-Jones, King of the Kipper Tie, used to remind lily-livered businessmen shivering on the brink of change, “Remember, you can only get shot once.” True, but our elders and betters in the General Synod seem to have devised a way of making getting shot take about thirty years. Fun it ain’t.

As elaborate plans are mooted for somehow simultaneously having female bishops and not having female bishops, I puzzle over about the whole notion of preventing schism by institutionalising it. Really?

Everybody knows it’s coming. The question is “how?” There’s a discussion Tuesday among my colleagues in funny hats, to be developed by the House of Bishops (of which I am not a member) another day, and taken to the General Synod to decide. Justice, operationally, to losers — of course; but it’s kindest and truest to make up our minds. Personally, I’ve been trying to stay my anxiety in the traditional way for frightened males of my father’s generation to calm their nerves: an evening’s anxious Kipling:

Man, a bear in most relations—worm and savage otherwise,—
Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise.
Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act...

So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer
With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her
Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands
To some God of Abstract Justice—which no woman understands.

Friends, shall we Kipple? probably not. The time for Kipling is over. However there is a line that runs from Duck-Rabbit integrative complexity to subtlety to ambiguity to fudge to hypocrisy. Now’s the time to decide where we place ourselves on that line, and the way to decide, after we have listened carefully, is by charity and higher logic, not the purest hobgoblins of small minds.

Ending Discrimination — Amen Brother!

A big sloppy wet enthusiastic “Amen, brother!” to Simon Barrow, from think-tank Ekklesia. Obviously there are jobs (like being a vicar) for which some faith commitment is part of the job. What is wrong is to pretend every role in a Christian organisation carries this occupational requirement, or to resort to abusive process. Reporting a recent employment tribunal judgment, he writes:

This judgement ought to make religious charities sit up and think - not just about their legal responsibilities and the morality of non-discrimination, but about the impact of their behaviour on their image with the public at large.

Leaders and entrepreneurs in many faith organisations seem reluctant to embrace a comprehensive equalities agenda, or to recognise their culpability in issues of discrimination. Yet they are often the first to seek exemptions from legislation accepted by others and to complain that they are being 'attacked' when criticisms are raised.

The Christian message of love and justice is undermined by poor employment and equalities practices in the Christian organisations. This is an opportunity for the churches to get their house in order.

This encapsulates precisely what I was trying to say here last week about raising our game in Church employment practice, to create a safer less abusive working environment. I see this as one key weapon against bullying cultures and practice after appointment. Talking this through with people over the past few days, it seems our diocesan appointment practice is basically sound, but there’s a challenge to prove it. Out in the world of parochial appointments, practice varies from state of the art to completely potty. Time for the tough to get going...

PS — full and detailed account of the original case by Ruth Gledhill here.

Love and Death...

Dr Randy Pausch (47) teaches computer science at Carnegie Mellon university, and is a world rated Virtual Reality Guru and Ubergeek. CMU challenges its professors, if you could only give one last lecture about the things that really matter, what would you say? Last Tuesday's “last lecture” was different. Dr Pausch is actually suffering from Pancreatic Cancer, and has only a few more months to live. He talks about his childhood dreams and what happened to them, and what's to live for, and how.
Have you got any “last words” for anyone? What would you say?
OK. If you've got more than six months to live, How are you going to live, and what for?

Above is a very brief extract of the lecture — Here's a higher quality video of the whole lecture, in context — The talk runs for about an hour from 10 minutes or so in — you can scroll through when it's running:

Who Dares Wins?

A wise and timely sermon in Great Missenden Church this morning from Rosie, our Vicar, in her series about Neglected Christian Virtues, about Courage.

Courage is a matter of the heart — the ability to see things clearly as they are, not the absence of fear, but rising above it. If we are going to be salt and light in the world, we need to engage with things as they are. This means being real and learning how to embrace conflict, cherishing our freedom to speak without being destructive. If we fail to rise to this challenge, we shrink back from community and cease to connect with anyone outside our own particular churchy bubble. We need faith to believe God's promises, and then courage to act on that faith.

The interesting fact is you don't get God's strength in one great encouraging dollop then, when all the ducks are in a line, the courage to act. It is by acting we actually develop the courage to act. Aristotle says “we become brave by doing brave acts.” Psalm 37 says “Wait on the Lord. be of good courage and (then) he will strengthen your heart.” This isn't a discussion starter (though you could have an interesting discussion about it). It's an invitation to get on with it and start living courageously by grace through faith made real!

Divis Flats, Falls Road, Sandy Row, Shankhill — redeeming some names from the curse of the past....

For as long as I can remember Belfast was a war zone. It seems incredible that people so decent, caring and pleasant should have descended into civil war for the best part of forty years. Belfast now is in full recovery, building everywhere to put behind it the legacy of the troubles. Thank God.

There's a particular theological challenge here. Jesus said people would know the genuineness of faith not by its content, or its conformity to some ideal specification, but by its fruits. How could religion bear such bitter fruit?

Dawkins, of course, would say it was religion wot done it. Dawkins has a point. Sometimes, as the Chief Rabbi tactfully puts it, people believe too much. But you don't have to know very much about the troubles to see that religious identity was only a background factor. Sir Edward Carson wasn't a religious leader, as such, nor were those who have driven this strife ever since. It's about far more than religion, and most religious people on all sides tried consistently to ameliorate the worst of it, rather than stoke it up. Anyway, the hypothesis that atheism somehow stops you being violent is ridiculous: most of the great Mass Murderers of the last century — Mao, Stalin, etc. — were, in fact, secularists.

As history begins to emerge from the headlines and slogans, here's one crude tentative hypothesis, overheard on the streets. It states that these nice people were let down catastrophically by their leaders, at all levels, including the highest echelons of the British government. Wilson, Heath and Callaghan governments committed their fair share of cock-ups and bad tactical calls, but were essentially carried along by forces beyond their ken, reacting tactically to something they didn't really understand, and couldn't think through strategically.

The shocking, culpable failure came in the late 80's when the UK government pulled up the draw bridge, pursuing illusory military solutions to a non-military problem. Thousands died whilst they sat on their spotty behinds, trying to sound hard for Fleet Street, throwing shedloads of money at increasingly ingenious security measures — anything except the one thing needful.

History awards surprising prizes. I was never keen on the Major government, but they turned things round. Often panned by Fleet Street as weak and vacillating, Major had the imagination and moral courage to see there was no military solution, and the problem wasn't going to go away unless he did something. Far from the line that "you can't talk to people like that" that played to the gallery at home but accomplished nothing, Major (and, eventually, Trimble) came to see that the people they really needed to talk to were the enemy. Until that happened nothing was going to change.

Well there's a tentative historical hypothesis, from which we learn...

1. Wars on terrorism are, by definition, exercises in pointlessness and futility because they attack the symptom not the cause. When you win the hearts of people of goodwill, you win. There is no military solution — the lesson the British learnt at great cost in Kenya, Malaya, Cyprus, Aden, etc. etc., and Northern Ireland.
   
   
2. Positive change happened here, and in South Africa, when the two sides sat down together and talked. The role of leaders is to bring people together. Any fool can cheerlead abusive songs from their own camp. It takes courage and real leadership to talk; and until someone develops that courage and leadership you are descending into a deep abyss, from which it will take years to emerge. If you feel the urge to walk out, turn it round now, and get listening, get talking.
   
   
3. We have to find a more Christlike way of doing Christianity, for God's sake, for the peace and salvation of the world, for our own souls' good.
   
   St Paul's letters to Corinth dealt functionally with the bizarre phenomenon of schism among Christians — the body that rips itself apart for the sake of politics and being right, the Christian who fixes on a leader who comes to matter more than Christ. In Ephesians 2 he hits the heart of the matter — Christ has broken down every dividing wall of hostility that stands between people — race, or identity, or history. Who are we to rebuild them?
   
   Posture and manipulate as much as we will, in the end we have to sit down in peace as children of one heavenly Father. We are all laden with culture, expectation and identity. As we lay down those burdens for what they are, we will be free to discover each other the way God sees us, with perfect understanding and hope, and begin to live a bit of the life of the world to come now. That's how redemption works on the ground.
   

Night Fears

John Ortberg explored Leaders' greatest fears — not the obvious and persistent ones, but the danger of a leader's mission being subverted by what he called their "shadow mission" — the persistent but enticing false identity that, e.g., Jesus encountered on the Mount of Temptation.

Relating this to the Book of Esther, he explored how to stay on track and be the person we were called to be — "who knows, but God could have put you in this position for just such a time as this?" (Esther 4:14)

He gave some nightmare Shadow missions for Churches:

• "A Successful Church for Successful people"
• "We may not be growing, but we know how to judge Churches that are"
• "Successfully avoiding conflict since 1893"

What's our/my real mission, and what's the ghastly subverting shadow alternative?