[114.1] AFTER THE ELECTION
Life being as busy as it has been, I have been quiet for most of the British general election campaign. Here, anyway. Over on Ekklesia I was involved in the Subverting the Manifestos document. I also penned two columns, one during and one right at the end of what turned out to be a rather depressing campaign: how the Cross marks our ballot and Questioning political leadership.
The outcome was pretty much as I expected and wanted: a Blair goverment may have many faults, but after the appalling xenophobia of the Tories, with their vilification of migranst and asylum seekers, the main opposition deserved nothing but defeat.
I voted Labour without much enthusiasm, however. Thank goodness my London MP is the dedicated and principled Glenda Jackson, who deserved re-election. If I had voted in Exeter it would have been with the Lib Dems against pro-war (and anti-asylum gateway scheme) MP Ben Bradshaw. He got my effective abstention instead.
As many commentators have observed, the most pleasant irony of the result is to be found in the fact that a non-proportional electoral system ill-suited to nuance ended up delivering just the kind of mixed message that was needed at a time like this.
The prime minister's majority (and his room for manoevre) has been limited by dissenters in the Labour Party and by those who stengthened the Liberal Democrats. The Greens, sadly disabled by greener-than-thou sectarianism, had little impact.
At the same time, and less enjoyably, we have also been made to face up to the scale of anti-immigrant opinion reflected both in the Conservative vote and in the growth of support for the British National Party. The issue must now be confronted, both politically and socially.
The big lie behind the 'tough immigration controls' argument, besides its unfeasibility and immorality, is the unspoken notion -- one that goes back to the early 1950s in British parliamentary discourse -- that a dose of racism at the borders will innoculate the country against racism within those borders. This is the reverse of the truth. Michael Howard boosted the BNP mentality by scapegoating for votes. Christians should not be afraid to point this out.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Saturday, May 07, 2005
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
[113.1] A POPE FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY?
[I have just written this for Ekklesia. The new Pope was elected two hours ago. It is difficult to feel any great sense of enthiusiasm, and easy to feel something to the contrary. Since a European was chosen it is sad -- but predictable -- that Cardinals Daneels and Kasper should have been overlooked.]
In a move set to cheer Catholic hardliners and dismay reformers, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, aged 78, was this evening elected by the college of Cardinals to succeed the late Pope John Paul II. He is already being talked about as a transitional figure as the Church absorbs the legacy of the longest Pontificate of the twentieth century.
Cardinal Ratzinger, from Traunstein in Germany, has chosen the name Benedict XVI. He is the first German Pope since Victor II, bishop of Eichstatt, who reigned from 1055-57.
The new Pontiff was immediately greeted with relief and enthusiasm by the large crowd gathered in St Peter’s Square, Rome.
It was one of the fastest elections over the past hundred years: Pope Pius XII was elected in 1939 in three ballots on one day, while Pope John Paul I was elected in 1978 in four ballots in one day. The new pope was chosen after either four or five ballots over just two days.
Ratzinger, now Benedict, has long been seen as the real power behind the papal throne. He worked directly for his predecessor from 1981.
John Paul II travelled widely (making over one hundred international visits) and was content to build up a strong bureaucracy in the Vatican – often to the discontent of bishops and ordinary Catholics around the world, who saw it as a source of intrigue, politicking and obduracy.
The new Pope is seen as a hardliner, but when he played a major role in the Second Vatican Council (1963-65) he was actually a modernizer. Vatican watchers say that his influence in recent years has come by mediating between other powerful figures.
Coming from the same generation as Pope John Paul II, the now Pope Benedict similarly struggled with rapid change in the modern world, and came to see retrenchment rather than revision as the way forward.
Controversy followed Ratzinger closely in his time as head of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, once known as the inquisition. The Cardinal was obstinate in his opposition to liberation theology, to radical lay movements (like ‘We are Church’ in Europe and base ecclesial communities in the developing world).
He also pursued bitter doctrinal vendettas against key dissenting theologians, including Leonardo Boff and Tissa Balasuriya in Brazil and Sri Lanka respectively. Both were poorly treated in investigations which amounted to one-sided trials, according to many observers.
Boff’s mistake was to question the power and ethics of the church itself, and the contradiction between this and its message of justice and peace, in his book ‘Church, Charism and Power’. He said that the Holy Spirit was reinventing the Church from the grassroots, but the guardians of the institution had different ideas.
Talented and sensitive theologians who explored the relationship between Christian faith, inter-faith relations and post-modern culture also felt the wrath of the sacred Congregation and of the German Cardinal.
They included Jacques Dupuis, who died sad and lonely as a result of his rejection for work on the theology of religions which is hailed as groundbreaking and deeply faithful by many fellow scholars in the Catholic world and beyond.
Roger Haight, also a Jesuit, and considered one of the Church’s most brilliant minds, has also been condemned recently. He is an expert in philosophy and Christology, the understanding of the nature of Jesus Christ.
Pope Benedict XVI is certain to continue with the conservative policies of the Curia on contraception, abortion, homosexuality, priestly celibacy and the refusal of women’s ordination as either deacons or priests.
However, some are tonight saying that Ratzinger’s choice of name may indicate some measure of conciliation towards those who disagree with him. This is because he has chosen the successor appellation to a Pope who succeeded a hardliner with a more moderate tone.
Benedict XV, who reigned from 1914 to 1922, followed Pius X, who had implemented a sharp crackdown against doctrinal "modernism." He reigned during World War I and was credited with settling animosity between traditionalists and reformers, He dreamed of reunion with Orthodox Christians.
Benedict, which comes from the Latin for "blessing," is one of a number of papal names of holy origin such as Clement ("mercy"), Innocent ("hopeful" as well as "innocent") and Pius ("pious").
Cardinal Ratzinger gave a moving and profound homily at the funeral of Pope John Paul II on 9 April 2005. As the new Pope Benedict XVI, he began his reign today by speaking to the world's one billion Catholics of the importance of humility and the need to be robust in faith.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[I have just written this for Ekklesia. The new Pope was elected two hours ago. It is difficult to feel any great sense of enthiusiasm, and easy to feel something to the contrary. Since a European was chosen it is sad -- but predictable -- that Cardinals Daneels and Kasper should have been overlooked.]
In a move set to cheer Catholic hardliners and dismay reformers, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, aged 78, was this evening elected by the college of Cardinals to succeed the late Pope John Paul II. He is already being talked about as a transitional figure as the Church absorbs the legacy of the longest Pontificate of the twentieth century.
Cardinal Ratzinger, from Traunstein in Germany, has chosen the name Benedict XVI. He is the first German Pope since Victor II, bishop of Eichstatt, who reigned from 1055-57.
The new Pontiff was immediately greeted with relief and enthusiasm by the large crowd gathered in St Peter’s Square, Rome.
It was one of the fastest elections over the past hundred years: Pope Pius XII was elected in 1939 in three ballots on one day, while Pope John Paul I was elected in 1978 in four ballots in one day. The new pope was chosen after either four or five ballots over just two days.
Ratzinger, now Benedict, has long been seen as the real power behind the papal throne. He worked directly for his predecessor from 1981.
John Paul II travelled widely (making over one hundred international visits) and was content to build up a strong bureaucracy in the Vatican – often to the discontent of bishops and ordinary Catholics around the world, who saw it as a source of intrigue, politicking and obduracy.
The new Pope is seen as a hardliner, but when he played a major role in the Second Vatican Council (1963-65) he was actually a modernizer. Vatican watchers say that his influence in recent years has come by mediating between other powerful figures.
Coming from the same generation as Pope John Paul II, the now Pope Benedict similarly struggled with rapid change in the modern world, and came to see retrenchment rather than revision as the way forward.
Controversy followed Ratzinger closely in his time as head of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, once known as the inquisition. The Cardinal was obstinate in his opposition to liberation theology, to radical lay movements (like ‘We are Church’ in Europe and base ecclesial communities in the developing world).
He also pursued bitter doctrinal vendettas against key dissenting theologians, including Leonardo Boff and Tissa Balasuriya in Brazil and Sri Lanka respectively. Both were poorly treated in investigations which amounted to one-sided trials, according to many observers.
Boff’s mistake was to question the power and ethics of the church itself, and the contradiction between this and its message of justice and peace, in his book ‘Church, Charism and Power’. He said that the Holy Spirit was reinventing the Church from the grassroots, but the guardians of the institution had different ideas.
Talented and sensitive theologians who explored the relationship between Christian faith, inter-faith relations and post-modern culture also felt the wrath of the sacred Congregation and of the German Cardinal.
They included Jacques Dupuis, who died sad and lonely as a result of his rejection for work on the theology of religions which is hailed as groundbreaking and deeply faithful by many fellow scholars in the Catholic world and beyond.
Roger Haight, also a Jesuit, and considered one of the Church’s most brilliant minds, has also been condemned recently. He is an expert in philosophy and Christology, the understanding of the nature of Jesus Christ.
Pope Benedict XVI is certain to continue with the conservative policies of the Curia on contraception, abortion, homosexuality, priestly celibacy and the refusal of women’s ordination as either deacons or priests.
However, some are tonight saying that Ratzinger’s choice of name may indicate some measure of conciliation towards those who disagree with him. This is because he has chosen the successor appellation to a Pope who succeeded a hardliner with a more moderate tone.
Benedict XV, who reigned from 1914 to 1922, followed Pius X, who had implemented a sharp crackdown against doctrinal "modernism." He reigned during World War I and was credited with settling animosity between traditionalists and reformers, He dreamed of reunion with Orthodox Christians.
Benedict, which comes from the Latin for "blessing," is one of a number of papal names of holy origin such as Clement ("mercy"), Innocent ("hopeful" as well as "innocent") and Pius ("pious").
Cardinal Ratzinger gave a moving and profound homily at the funeral of Pope John Paul II on 9 April 2005. As the new Pope Benedict XVI, he began his reign today by speaking to the world's one billion Catholics of the importance of humility and the need to be robust in faith.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
[112.2] STANDING UP FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS
[from Ekklesia] The Anglican Bishop of Ripon and Leeds and the Christian churches in West Yorkshire have entered the general election debate on migration by urging political parties not to stoke fears about asylum seekers during the campaign.
Some 400 people attended a recent protest in Leeds over the mistreatment treatment of asylum seekers in Britain. Organiser Dave Young told the BBC that churches had serious concerns that the asylum issue was used as a "political football", re-iterating the earlier plea, reported on Ekklesia, made by churches across the UK.
The West Yorkshire Ecumenical Council (WYEC) has called for a “radical revision” of current asylum policy. The Council, which represents all the major Christian churches in the county, says that in its own direct experience asylum seekers are often “destitute, terrorised and imprisoned”.
In a public statement, the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, John Packer, said: "The church leaders of West Yorkshire deeply regret the way in which concern for the needs of asylum-seekers seems to have been replaced by a desire to treat them harshly. All human beings are created by God and should be treated with dignity and generosity of spirit. The greater their need, the more they deserve our compassion and practical help.”
Bishop Packer continued: “We call on our political leaders to refrain from exploiting the plight of asylum-seekers and misleading the electorate by confusing the issues of asylum and immigration.”
Asking for a radical change of policy in favour of the persecuted and destitute who come to Britain for refuge, the Bishop added: “In the light of the parable of the Good Samaritan, we ask Christians to challenge their political candidates on the treatment of asylum-seekers - and to take their response into account when deciding how to vote.”
Meanwhile in London church leaders are also speaking out. United Reformed Church minister Vaughan Jones, who heads up a multi-agency project, Praxis, which works with people displaced across the capital, said today that “the whole experience of the Bible leads Christians to the defence of people in exile.”
Mr Jones, an Ekklesia associate, says that the debate about immigration and asylum is being confused both by politicians and the media. The churches, he declares, must stand up for the truth in the face of misinformation.
The statements of church leaders refusing the anti-immigrant and anti-asylum seeker tone of the general election debate come on a day when Conservative Party leader Michael Howard stands accused by a UN refugee agency representative in Britain of whipping up false fears.
But churches and humanitarian agencies are not just targeting the Tories. They have been critical of the Labour government too. “They are saying that politicians of all hues must put justice for the vulnerable above cheap political point scoring,” says Ekklesia research associate Simon Barrow.
Ekklesia, a religious think tank that has been named as one of the top 20 think tanks in the UK by The Independent newspaper, has also announced the launch of a major Westminster Forum, the first meeting of which will tackle immigration policy.
And church figures have joined politicians in expressing alarm at the actions of a Christian candidate who has had to publicly apologize after doctoring photos to support Tory immigration policy.
The full statement from the West Yorkshire church leaders was first published a week a go on Ekklesia.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[from Ekklesia] The Anglican Bishop of Ripon and Leeds and the Christian churches in West Yorkshire have entered the general election debate on migration by urging political parties not to stoke fears about asylum seekers during the campaign.
Some 400 people attended a recent protest in Leeds over the mistreatment treatment of asylum seekers in Britain. Organiser Dave Young told the BBC that churches had serious concerns that the asylum issue was used as a "political football", re-iterating the earlier plea, reported on Ekklesia, made by churches across the UK.
The West Yorkshire Ecumenical Council (WYEC) has called for a “radical revision” of current asylum policy. The Council, which represents all the major Christian churches in the county, says that in its own direct experience asylum seekers are often “destitute, terrorised and imprisoned”.
In a public statement, the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, John Packer, said: "The church leaders of West Yorkshire deeply regret the way in which concern for the needs of asylum-seekers seems to have been replaced by a desire to treat them harshly. All human beings are created by God and should be treated with dignity and generosity of spirit. The greater their need, the more they deserve our compassion and practical help.”
Bishop Packer continued: “We call on our political leaders to refrain from exploiting the plight of asylum-seekers and misleading the electorate by confusing the issues of asylum and immigration.”
Asking for a radical change of policy in favour of the persecuted and destitute who come to Britain for refuge, the Bishop added: “In the light of the parable of the Good Samaritan, we ask Christians to challenge their political candidates on the treatment of asylum-seekers - and to take their response into account when deciding how to vote.”
Meanwhile in London church leaders are also speaking out. United Reformed Church minister Vaughan Jones, who heads up a multi-agency project, Praxis, which works with people displaced across the capital, said today that “the whole experience of the Bible leads Christians to the defence of people in exile.”
Mr Jones, an Ekklesia associate, says that the debate about immigration and asylum is being confused both by politicians and the media. The churches, he declares, must stand up for the truth in the face of misinformation.
The statements of church leaders refusing the anti-immigrant and anti-asylum seeker tone of the general election debate come on a day when Conservative Party leader Michael Howard stands accused by a UN refugee agency representative in Britain of whipping up false fears.
But churches and humanitarian agencies are not just targeting the Tories. They have been critical of the Labour government too. “They are saying that politicians of all hues must put justice for the vulnerable above cheap political point scoring,” says Ekklesia research associate Simon Barrow.
Ekklesia, a religious think tank that has been named as one of the top 20 think tanks in the UK by The Independent newspaper, has also announced the launch of a major Westminster Forum, the first meeting of which will tackle immigration policy.
And church figures have joined politicians in expressing alarm at the actions of a Christian candidate who has had to publicly apologize after doctoring photos to support Tory immigration policy.
The full statement from the West Yorkshire church leaders was first published a week a go on Ekklesia.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[112.1] JUSTICE, THEOLOGY AND THE URBAN CHURCH
Biblical justice and the urban church is the theme of a special day event to be held in London this coming Saturday, to honour the remarkable contribution of a little known radical evangelical theologian and urban worker. Roger Dowley, a Baptist who died in 2004, influenced several generations of Christians involved in urban issues, including the late Bishop David Sheppard.
His book ‘The Recovery of a Lost Bequest’ is a detailed study of justice-making as the pattern for biblical community and Christian action. The study day will run from 10.00 – 15.30 on Saturday 16 April 2005. The venue is Brandon Baptist Church, Redcar Street, Camberwell, London SE5 ONA.
The speakers will include Chris Rowland (Professor of New Testament at the University of Oxford, and a specialist in liberation theology), Simon Barrow (Ekklesia associate, currently General Secretary of the ecumenical Churches’ Commission on Mission) and Chris Andre-Watson (Baptist pastor in Brixton, area coordinator for BMS World Mission, and anti-drugs campaigner).
‘Dowley Day’ is free and open to all. A hot lunch will be provided. The event has been organised by Roy Dorey who teaches at Heythrop College and is founder of the Philemon Group, and by Bruce Stokes, both of Brandon Baptist Church. It is being co-sponsored by the Christian think tank, Ekklesia.
Roger Dowley’s detailed work-notes on biblical patterns for a just community, ‘Towards the Recovery of a Lost Bequest’, re-awakened the radical evangelical conscience in the mid 1980s. His work helped shape the Evangelical Coalition on Urban Mission. It was rooted in the faith and thought of a lay person deeply engaged in the tough realities of inner city issues.
Roger Dowley is one of those unsung giants of the faith whose contribution to Christian thought and action is as inestimable as it is (sadly) forgotten. He represents a tradition which badly needs to be recovered again, as the evangelical section of the church sinks further into insularity and vituperation over issues of sexuality.
Brandon Baptist Church has done a great service to the whole Christian community – evangelical, ecumenical and Catholic - by putting on this day. The speakers (we hope!) represent a broad slice of Christian opinion committed to social justice and the radical Gospel.
Dowley Day will also ensure that the struggles of urban life are properly highlighted at a time when General Election spin is in danger of obliterating the faces of those who suffer injustice - people on sink estates, refugees and asylum seekers, victims of violence and abuse.
Those intending to come to ‘Dowley Day’, or wanting any more information, should drop an email to info@philemon.co.uk.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Biblical justice and the urban church is the theme of a special day event to be held in London this coming Saturday, to honour the remarkable contribution of a little known radical evangelical theologian and urban worker. Roger Dowley, a Baptist who died in 2004, influenced several generations of Christians involved in urban issues, including the late Bishop David Sheppard.
His book ‘The Recovery of a Lost Bequest’ is a detailed study of justice-making as the pattern for biblical community and Christian action. The study day will run from 10.00 – 15.30 on Saturday 16 April 2005. The venue is Brandon Baptist Church, Redcar Street, Camberwell, London SE5 ONA.
The speakers will include Chris Rowland (Professor of New Testament at the University of Oxford, and a specialist in liberation theology), Simon Barrow (Ekklesia associate, currently General Secretary of the ecumenical Churches’ Commission on Mission) and Chris Andre-Watson (Baptist pastor in Brixton, area coordinator for BMS World Mission, and anti-drugs campaigner).
‘Dowley Day’ is free and open to all. A hot lunch will be provided. The event has been organised by Roy Dorey who teaches at Heythrop College and is founder of the Philemon Group, and by Bruce Stokes, both of Brandon Baptist Church. It is being co-sponsored by the Christian think tank, Ekklesia.
Roger Dowley’s detailed work-notes on biblical patterns for a just community, ‘Towards the Recovery of a Lost Bequest’, re-awakened the radical evangelical conscience in the mid 1980s. His work helped shape the Evangelical Coalition on Urban Mission. It was rooted in the faith and thought of a lay person deeply engaged in the tough realities of inner city issues.
Roger Dowley is one of those unsung giants of the faith whose contribution to Christian thought and action is as inestimable as it is (sadly) forgotten. He represents a tradition which badly needs to be recovered again, as the evangelical section of the church sinks further into insularity and vituperation over issues of sexuality.
Brandon Baptist Church has done a great service to the whole Christian community – evangelical, ecumenical and Catholic - by putting on this day. The speakers (we hope!) represent a broad slice of Christian opinion committed to social justice and the radical Gospel.
Dowley Day will also ensure that the struggles of urban life are properly highlighted at a time when General Election spin is in danger of obliterating the faces of those who suffer injustice - people on sink estates, refugees and asylum seekers, victims of violence and abuse.
Those intending to come to ‘Dowley Day’, or wanting any more information, should drop an email to info@philemon.co.uk.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Saturday, February 19, 2005
[111.2] JOURNEYING TOGETHER AS CHURCHES
This from Ekklesia. The full story is here.
As questions continue to be raised about their relevance in public life, churches in Britain are gearing up to renew inherited structures and embolden ‘fresh expressions of church’ through a major new initiative and training course launched this week.
A certificate and diploma in ‘mission accompaniment’ has been pioneered by Cliff College in association with the ecumenical Churches’ Commission on Mission (CCOM). The course is validated through the University of Manchester and its originators say that it will help to shake up church life in the UK.
The Diploma in Mission Accompaniment (DMA), which allows people with full-time occupations to study part-time, is aimed at all those who want to use their listening and consulting skills to help local churches and Christian organisations engage more effectively within their communities.
The Cliff College DMA has been developed out of the Building Bridges of Hope programme established over the past ten years by the Churches’ Commission on Mission, part of the official ecumenical body, Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.
“Mission accompaniment is a new way of thinking about activating and supporting churches as they seek to become more effective expressions of the Gospel,” says Churches’ Commission on Mission general secretary Simon Barrow, who is also an Ekklesia associate.
“To be an accompanier in mission is to be someone rooted in prayer and theological vision,” Barrow adds. “But it is also to possess an eclectic range of skills, including listening, consulting, coaching, mentoring and signposting to the right resources. It’s about long-term commitment rather than quick fixes.”
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
This from Ekklesia. The full story is here.
As questions continue to be raised about their relevance in public life, churches in Britain are gearing up to renew inherited structures and embolden ‘fresh expressions of church’ through a major new initiative and training course launched this week.
A certificate and diploma in ‘mission accompaniment’ has been pioneered by Cliff College in association with the ecumenical Churches’ Commission on Mission (CCOM). The course is validated through the University of Manchester and its originators say that it will help to shake up church life in the UK.
The Diploma in Mission Accompaniment (DMA), which allows people with full-time occupations to study part-time, is aimed at all those who want to use their listening and consulting skills to help local churches and Christian organisations engage more effectively within their communities.
The Cliff College DMA has been developed out of the Building Bridges of Hope programme established over the past ten years by the Churches’ Commission on Mission, part of the official ecumenical body, Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.
“Mission accompaniment is a new way of thinking about activating and supporting churches as they seek to become more effective expressions of the Gospel,” says Churches’ Commission on Mission general secretary Simon Barrow, who is also an Ekklesia associate.
“To be an accompanier in mission is to be someone rooted in prayer and theological vision,” Barrow adds. “But it is also to possess an eclectic range of skills, including listening, consulting, coaching, mentoring and signposting to the right resources. It’s about long-term commitment rather than quick fixes.”
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[111.1] HAVING GODLY PATIENCE
C. F. Blumhardt writes: "Nothing motivates us Christians more than being asked to do something in keeping with our strength, our ability. Just the pledge to do something, to improve a situation, can excite thousands of people. Even sensible people waver and get carried away. The kingdom of God, however, comes in an entirely different way. It makes no call upon human strength or upon the exertions of the flesh. It silences out agendas - and for us this is the hardest thing."
In a more positive vein, the late Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador made the same point through his outstanding prayer/poem A Future Not Our Own. I regard this as a manifesto for reasoning faith today.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
C. F. Blumhardt writes: "Nothing motivates us Christians more than being asked to do something in keeping with our strength, our ability. Just the pledge to do something, to improve a situation, can excite thousands of people. Even sensible people waver and get carried away. The kingdom of God, however, comes in an entirely different way. It makes no call upon human strength or upon the exertions of the flesh. It silences out agendas - and for us this is the hardest thing."
In a more positive vein, the late Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador made the same point through his outstanding prayer/poem A Future Not Our Own. I regard this as a manifesto for reasoning faith today.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Friday, February 18, 2005
[110.3] GOD AND THE DARWIN WARS
I recently had an email exchange with a US Christian critic of my writings who immediately ceased conversation when he discovered that I 'believed' in evolution (as he put it), or saw no conflict between mature Christian theology and evolutionary biological sciences (as I put it). It's hard to credit the strength of anti-evolutionism from this side of the Atlantic, though we are seeing increasing manifestations of it here, too.
I've just updated my page on 'creationism' and the religion-science interface, mainly in order to include a plug for The Panda's Thumb and for Andrew Brown's Darwin Wars, which is not about the Kansas nonsense, but about fratricide within the evolutionary biology community. There is a credible debate to be had about evolutionary theory, but it starts nowhere near the creationist fiasco, or its latest manifestation, so-called 'intelligent design'.
Incidentally, Andrew, himself a sceptic, also writes the best regular column in The Church Times, commenting with wit and insight on the media reporting of religion from a British angle. I have included his elegant Helmintholog and the aforementioned sites in my permalinks. I'd also point you towards the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences website.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
I recently had an email exchange with a US Christian critic of my writings who immediately ceased conversation when he discovered that I 'believed' in evolution (as he put it), or saw no conflict between mature Christian theology and evolutionary biological sciences (as I put it). It's hard to credit the strength of anti-evolutionism from this side of the Atlantic, though we are seeing increasing manifestations of it here, too.
I've just updated my page on 'creationism' and the religion-science interface, mainly in order to include a plug for The Panda's Thumb and for Andrew Brown's Darwin Wars, which is not about the Kansas nonsense, but about fratricide within the evolutionary biology community. There is a credible debate to be had about evolutionary theory, but it starts nowhere near the creationist fiasco, or its latest manifestation, so-called 'intelligent design'.
Incidentally, Andrew, himself a sceptic, also writes the best regular column in The Church Times, commenting with wit and insight on the media reporting of religion from a British angle. I have included his elegant Helmintholog and the aforementioned sites in my permalinks. I'd also point you towards the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences website.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Thursday, February 17, 2005
[110.2] TRUTH TELLING ABOUT ISRAEL-PALESTINE
The big fuss over BBC Thought for the Day, however, is over a recent broadcast by John Bell of the Iona Community. This included inaccurate references to incidents involving the Israeli Defence Forces. The reaction has been predictably swift, one-sided and venomous from the pro-Israeli government policy lobby... with overtones about racism and anti-semitism all round. The BBC have appropriately published an apology from themselves and from John Bell, with a suitably graceful note from him. But they so far decline to publish a corrected version of the talk. I wonder whether Ekklesia might provide this function of free speech?
I sent in this response to the ongoing argument this evening:
Dr John Bell has had the good grace to apologise for the inaccuracies in his Thought [for the Day], a point some of your correspondents barely acknowledge. It is sad that he gave false data, because there is well documented material available from reputable sources on abuses of human rights committed by the Israeli Defence Force. I hope that your outraged correspondents would condemn these. Crimes are committed by both Israelis and Palestinians. Until the two peoples can recognise each other as wounded and hurting, and until both violence and occupation are outlawed as 'solutions', there is unlikely to be peace with justice for all. Meanwhile, could we have a corrected version of Dr Bell's Thought on your site please, BBC?
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
The big fuss over BBC Thought for the Day, however, is over a recent broadcast by John Bell of the Iona Community. This included inaccurate references to incidents involving the Israeli Defence Forces. The reaction has been predictably swift, one-sided and venomous from the pro-Israeli government policy lobby... with overtones about racism and anti-semitism all round. The BBC have appropriately published an apology from themselves and from John Bell, with a suitably graceful note from him. But they so far decline to publish a corrected version of the talk. I wonder whether Ekklesia might provide this function of free speech?
I sent in this response to the ongoing argument this evening:
Dr John Bell has had the good grace to apologise for the inaccuracies in his Thought [for the Day], a point some of your correspondents barely acknowledge. It is sad that he gave false data, because there is well documented material available from reputable sources on abuses of human rights committed by the Israeli Defence Force. I hope that your outraged correspondents would condemn these. Crimes are committed by both Israelis and Palestinians. Until the two peoples can recognise each other as wounded and hurting, and until both violence and occupation are outlawed as 'solutions', there is unlikely to be peace with justice for all. Meanwhile, could we have a corrected version of Dr Bell's Thought on your site please, BBC?
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[110.1] BEING THE RAINBOW PEOPLE OF GOD
Another superb BBC Radio 4 Thought for the Day this morning from Giles Fraser. The print version is not yet available, but you can hear it via RealAudio here. The burden of the piece was in favour of the church being "the rainbow people of God" (in Desmond Tutu's telling phrase), and against the a priori exclusion of lesbian and gay people (and women bishops!) on 'biblical' grounds remarkably similar to those used by Jesus' critics, ironically enough.
The BBC noticeboard has contained a number of grateful responses, including one from a non-churchgoer who indicates that this is the message of love he looks for and doesn't find in the Christian community, and an ex-Holy Trinity Brompton congregant making a similar point. On a day when InclusiveChurch.Net has been attacked in Synod, there is also this response from Kathryn Whitney in Oxford. I hope she doesn't mind me blogging it:
Many thanks to Giles Fraser for promoting a sensible view of the importance of protecting the imperative of love and forgiveness -- instead of condemnation and exclusion -- in the Christian Church. [T]Bible contains no clearly defined hierarchy of sins that would justify the vehemence with which homophobia is expressed in Christian cultures, or the intensity and political importance of current official debates on the subject. Clearly, this debate is made especially complex because it can reference specific instances of biblical teaching. In this way, it is the similar to historical debates on the question of slavery, although in that case the Bible was of course used for the most part to ‘promote’ rather than condemn the practice. The debate about homosexuals in the Church is a debate about culture, not religion (Consider the very real worry about a split with Africa over the issue). I would be as happy to be led by a gay priest or bishop as I would one who was female, or had had sex before marriage, or was divorced. And so should every thinking (and, as Giles has said, loving) Christian.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Another superb BBC Radio 4 Thought for the Day this morning from Giles Fraser. The print version is not yet available, but you can hear it via RealAudio here. The burden of the piece was in favour of the church being "the rainbow people of God" (in Desmond Tutu's telling phrase), and against the a priori exclusion of lesbian and gay people (and women bishops!) on 'biblical' grounds remarkably similar to those used by Jesus' critics, ironically enough.
The BBC noticeboard has contained a number of grateful responses, including one from a non-churchgoer who indicates that this is the message of love he looks for and doesn't find in the Christian community, and an ex-Holy Trinity Brompton congregant making a similar point. On a day when InclusiveChurch.Net has been attacked in Synod, there is also this response from Kathryn Whitney in Oxford. I hope she doesn't mind me blogging it:
Many thanks to Giles Fraser for promoting a sensible view of the importance of protecting the imperative of love and forgiveness -- instead of condemnation and exclusion -- in the Christian Church. [T]Bible contains no clearly defined hierarchy of sins that would justify the vehemence with which homophobia is expressed in Christian cultures, or the intensity and political importance of current official debates on the subject. Clearly, this debate is made especially complex because it can reference specific instances of biblical teaching. In this way, it is the similar to historical debates on the question of slavery, although in that case the Bible was of course used for the most part to ‘promote’ rather than condemn the practice. The debate about homosexuals in the Church is a debate about culture, not religion (Consider the very real worry about a split with Africa over the issue). I would be as happy to be led by a gay priest or bishop as I would one who was female, or had had sex before marriage, or was divorced. And so should every thinking (and, as Giles has said, loving) Christian.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
[109.3] THE BOOK OF THE MOMENT
The late Cornelius Ernst once said that Aquinas' 'Five Ways' were "an attempt to show how we may go on speaking of God in the ordinary world". Nicholas Lash shows how the main contours of the Christian doctrine of God may be mapped onto principal features of our culture and its predicaments.
After an introductory chapter on 'the question of God today', Lash considers -- in chapters entitled 'globalisation and holiness', 'cacophony and conversation' and 'attending to silence' -- three dimensions of our contemporary predicament: globalisation, a crisis of language, and the pain and darkness of the world, in relation to the doctrine of God as Spirit, Word, and Creator.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
The late Cornelius Ernst once said that Aquinas' 'Five Ways' were "an attempt to show how we may go on speaking of God in the ordinary world". Nicholas Lash shows how the main contours of the Christian doctrine of God may be mapped onto principal features of our culture and its predicaments.
After an introductory chapter on 'the question of God today', Lash considers -- in chapters entitled 'globalisation and holiness', 'cacophony and conversation' and 'attending to silence' -- three dimensions of our contemporary predicament: globalisation, a crisis of language, and the pain and darkness of the world, in relation to the doctrine of God as Spirit, Word, and Creator.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[109.2] RIGHTING RELIGIOUS WRONGS
There's much that has been making me think about one of the main themes of this weblog - distinguishing healthy religion from all the harmful stuff that's out there. One challenge has been correspondence with a couple of fairly narrow Christian conservatives over Does Christianity kill or cure? and various other theological forays. Since I believe that Christian faith redeems us from war to healthy argument, this is a necessary thing to do. But it's also extremely tough-going. Not like talking to a brick wall, just an extremely resistant, angry, righteous human being (on a mission, naturally) in one case. Heart-breaking in the best and worst senses.
In terms of overviews and snapshots, the strange byways of faith are well tracked (with amusement and curios on the way) by Bartholemew's notes on religion. Also worth attention is Religion and Society. At some point I might further revise my own Changing the world, changing Christianity?
And what happens when it all gets too much? People react in different ways. "God? Allah? Aliens? Krishna? All of them, and more. Come take a look at one of the oldest human urges - religion. After all, the only thing that makes us screwier is sex," says Lilith Saintcrow on God and consequences. Even more blunt is the demolition drama of Religion is bullshit (no room for equivocation there) or, only a little more subtly, Sam Harris's polemic in The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason.
What we need is a good theological guide to the territory (reasoning faith at religion's wit's end, that is), and it will not surprise you to know that I recommend Nicholas Lash's The Beginning and the End of 'Religion' (Cambridge University Press, 1996), as well as the breathtaking Holiness, Speech and Silence (Ashgate, 2004) - about which I simply cannot rave too much. Sorry.
Of the former, CUP says:
"The common view that ‘religion’ is something quite separate from politics, art, science, law and economics is one that is peculiar to modern Western culture. In this book Professor Lash argues that we should begin to question seriously that viewpoint: the modern world is ending and we are now in a position to discover new forms of ancient wisdom, which have been obscured from view. These essays explore this idea in a number of directions, examining the dialogue between theology and science, the secularity of Western culture and questions of Christian hope. Part One examines the dialogue between Christianity and Hinduism, while Part Two considers the relations between theology and science, the secularity of Western culture, and questions of Christian hope, or eschatology."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
There's much that has been making me think about one of the main themes of this weblog - distinguishing healthy religion from all the harmful stuff that's out there. One challenge has been correspondence with a couple of fairly narrow Christian conservatives over Does Christianity kill or cure? and various other theological forays. Since I believe that Christian faith redeems us from war to healthy argument, this is a necessary thing to do. But it's also extremely tough-going. Not like talking to a brick wall, just an extremely resistant, angry, righteous human being (on a mission, naturally) in one case. Heart-breaking in the best and worst senses.
In terms of overviews and snapshots, the strange byways of faith are well tracked (with amusement and curios on the way) by Bartholemew's notes on religion. Also worth attention is Religion and Society. At some point I might further revise my own Changing the world, changing Christianity?
And what happens when it all gets too much? People react in different ways. "God? Allah? Aliens? Krishna? All of them, and more. Come take a look at one of the oldest human urges - religion. After all, the only thing that makes us screwier is sex," says Lilith Saintcrow on God and consequences. Even more blunt is the demolition drama of Religion is bullshit (no room for equivocation there) or, only a little more subtly, Sam Harris's polemic in The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason.
What we need is a good theological guide to the territory (reasoning faith at religion's wit's end, that is), and it will not surprise you to know that I recommend Nicholas Lash's The Beginning and the End of 'Religion' (Cambridge University Press, 1996), as well as the breathtaking Holiness, Speech and Silence (Ashgate, 2004) - about which I simply cannot rave too much. Sorry.
Of the former, CUP says:
"The common view that ‘religion’ is something quite separate from politics, art, science, law and economics is one that is peculiar to modern Western culture. In this book Professor Lash argues that we should begin to question seriously that viewpoint: the modern world is ending and we are now in a position to discover new forms of ancient wisdom, which have been obscured from view. These essays explore this idea in a number of directions, examining the dialogue between theology and science, the secularity of Western culture and questions of Christian hope. Part One examines the dialogue between Christianity and Hinduism, while Part Two considers the relations between theology and science, the secularity of Western culture, and questions of Christian hope, or eschatology."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[109.1] THE ANNUNCIATION TRUST
It would take a little time to sum up the ministry of my good friend Henry Morgan. He is, to put it briefly and inadequately, an Anglican priest who works as a spiritual director and animator independent of parish responsibilities. He also has a deep affection for the creative arts, writing, thinking, praying and befriending. And his work is both accessible and supportable through The Annunciation Trust, which was formed in 1993. It offers one-to-one spiritual direction, training days, spiritual direction consultations, holistic massage, quiet days and retreats. I should have linked it and said something about it before.
Henry recently asked me about the paper by David Hay and Kate Hunt, formerly of the University of Nottingham, on The Spirituality of People Who Don't Go To Church. We've been hosting this on the CCOM site for some time now. This link is to a Word Document. No doubt Annunciation Trust will link it soon too.... perhaps when I email to tell him!
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
It would take a little time to sum up the ministry of my good friend Henry Morgan. He is, to put it briefly and inadequately, an Anglican priest who works as a spiritual director and animator independent of parish responsibilities. He also has a deep affection for the creative arts, writing, thinking, praying and befriending. And his work is both accessible and supportable through The Annunciation Trust, which was formed in 1993. It offers one-to-one spiritual direction, training days, spiritual direction consultations, holistic massage, quiet days and retreats. I should have linked it and said something about it before.
Henry recently asked me about the paper by David Hay and Kate Hunt, formerly of the University of Nottingham, on The Spirituality of People Who Don't Go To Church. We've been hosting this on the CCOM site for some time now. This link is to a Word Document. No doubt Annunciation Trust will link it soon too.... perhaps when I email to tell him!
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Monday, February 14, 2005
[108.1] WOMEN HOLD UP HALF OF HEAVEN
I take it that Chuck Wineguard (see yesterday) is probably no relation of John Wijngaards, the courageous ex-Catholic priest (that's ex-priest, not ex-Catholic) who felt called to give up his ordination vows in order to throw his lot in more fully with women who are having theirs denied. He has established womenpriests.org, which has some claim to being the largest international website on the ordination of women. Though a kind of Mennonite-Anglican, I'm a member, along with my wife Carla J. Roth, of Catholic Womens Ordination. And, happily, so are our next-door-neighbours. (CWO, when spelt out, feels like it definitely should have an apostrophe in there, but I can see why they feel possessiveness is inappropriate...) But I digress. It was on Wijngaards' site that I was reminded of a fine article from 1995 by Nicholas Lash, On Not Inventing Doctrine, which is an able riposte to the so-called traditionalists. I mention it mainly because of yesterday's Lashings. And there's going to be another dose tomorrow, I warn you.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
I take it that Chuck Wineguard (see yesterday) is probably no relation of John Wijngaards, the courageous ex-Catholic priest (that's ex-priest, not ex-Catholic) who felt called to give up his ordination vows in order to throw his lot in more fully with women who are having theirs denied. He has established womenpriests.org, which has some claim to being the largest international website on the ordination of women. Though a kind of Mennonite-Anglican, I'm a member, along with my wife Carla J. Roth, of Catholic Womens Ordination. And, happily, so are our next-door-neighbours. (CWO, when spelt out, feels like it definitely should have an apostrophe in there, but I can see why they feel possessiveness is inappropriate...) But I digress. It was on Wijngaards' site that I was reminded of a fine article from 1995 by Nicholas Lash, On Not Inventing Doctrine, which is an able riposte to the so-called traditionalists. I mention it mainly because of yesterday's Lashings. And there's going to be another dose tomorrow, I warn you.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Sunday, February 13, 2005
[107.1] TRINITY SPLITS, OFFICIAL
Where would be without humour? Yes, I know, Worthing. (That one's bound to go wrong, but I spent some of my callow youth in the town, so I do possess first-hand knowledge. "It's a place people go to die in ... and then forget what they came for", so the cruel joke went. Fabulous today, of course.)
Anyway, this proves an effortless segue into a witty post about the doctrine of the Trinity, that hot canteen topic, on The Grace Pages. Chuck Wineguard's Rumours true: Trinity to split brought a happy smile after a very tough day. The ultimate celeb gossip story, no doubt. To be read, perhaps, alongside my own sock-horros: Pope is not a Catholic, says writer and US gay sex bomb exposed.
But back to the Triune Mystery. In order to begin to get to grips with trinitarian theology one unfortunately needs to bear in mind that, in its originating concepts, 'persons' doesn't mean what we mean by persons, 'three' doesn't mean the number three and 'one' doesn't mean a singularity. Then it starts to become tricky. Nicholas Lash's Believing Three Ways in One God is the best short exposition I know. And as luck would have it, SCM Press have it on sale right now. See also his fantastic Holiness, Speech and Silence: Reflections on the Question of God Today (Ashgate, 2004), unpacking the grammar of God in terms of the globalisation, conflict and suffering. I used it in this meditation.
The SCM reviewer presents Lash in context:
"Nicholas Lash has long been one of Britain's most interesting and creatively original theological voices, though it is often said that his influence has been mediated most distinctively through short pieces and essays, a genre that he used to great effect in important collections such as Theology on Dover Beach, Theology on the Way to Emmaus and Easter in Ordinary.
"However, while acknowledging the impact made by these miscellanies, one should not overlook what is perhaps Lash's most significant piece of work, and arguably his most sustained and systematic theology: Believing Three Ways in One God, which offers a subtle and nuanced appraisal of the Apostles' Creed. While continually thought-provoking, and written with all the elegance and economy of style that one associates with Professor Lash, the book is at bottom a practical one, and is intended to bring those who use the Creed to a deeper understanding of the words they say.
"In deepening the understanding of those words, and by emphasising the fundamentally trinitarian character of the Creed, the author shows how we grow in a knowledge of ourselves, each other, the world, and the mystery of God. This is a book that - in outlining the essential contours of Christian faith - remains as fresh and as helpfully usable as when it was written a decade ago."
My only marginal dissent would be to suggest that the word "miscellanies" might be in severe danger of underestimating the aformentioned titles, each of which (especially Easter in Ordinary) forms a coherent whole. See also Lash's The Beginning and End of Religion.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Where would be without humour? Yes, I know, Worthing. (That one's bound to go wrong, but I spent some of my callow youth in the town, so I do possess first-hand knowledge. "It's a place people go to die in ... and then forget what they came for", so the cruel joke went. Fabulous today, of course.)
Anyway, this proves an effortless segue into a witty post about the doctrine of the Trinity, that hot canteen topic, on The Grace Pages. Chuck Wineguard's Rumours true: Trinity to split brought a happy smile after a very tough day. The ultimate celeb gossip story, no doubt. To be read, perhaps, alongside my own sock-horros: Pope is not a Catholic, says writer and US gay sex bomb exposed.
But back to the Triune Mystery. In order to begin to get to grips with trinitarian theology one unfortunately needs to bear in mind that, in its originating concepts, 'persons' doesn't mean what we mean by persons, 'three' doesn't mean the number three and 'one' doesn't mean a singularity. Then it starts to become tricky. Nicholas Lash's Believing Three Ways in One God is the best short exposition I know. And as luck would have it, SCM Press have it on sale right now. See also his fantastic Holiness, Speech and Silence: Reflections on the Question of God Today (Ashgate, 2004), unpacking the grammar of God in terms of the globalisation, conflict and suffering. I used it in this meditation.
The SCM reviewer presents Lash in context:
"Nicholas Lash has long been one of Britain's most interesting and creatively original theological voices, though it is often said that his influence has been mediated most distinctively through short pieces and essays, a genre that he used to great effect in important collections such as Theology on Dover Beach, Theology on the Way to Emmaus and Easter in Ordinary.
"However, while acknowledging the impact made by these miscellanies, one should not overlook what is perhaps Lash's most significant piece of work, and arguably his most sustained and systematic theology: Believing Three Ways in One God, which offers a subtle and nuanced appraisal of the Apostles' Creed. While continually thought-provoking, and written with all the elegance and economy of style that one associates with Professor Lash, the book is at bottom a practical one, and is intended to bring those who use the Creed to a deeper understanding of the words they say.
"In deepening the understanding of those words, and by emphasising the fundamentally trinitarian character of the Creed, the author shows how we grow in a knowledge of ourselves, each other, the world, and the mystery of God. This is a book that - in outlining the essential contours of Christian faith - remains as fresh and as helpfully usable as when it was written a decade ago."
My only marginal dissent would be to suggest that the word "miscellanies" might be in severe danger of underestimating the aformentioned titles, each of which (especially Easter in Ordinary) forms a coherent whole. See also Lash's The Beginning and End of Religion.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Saturday, February 12, 2005
[106.1] LOVE IS THE SUFFICIENT REASON
Thanks to Maggi Dawn (whose site has just been added to my growing blogroll, along with the splendidly revamped Kinesis) for this moving poem, which is permalinked here.
Credo
Theologically speaking
I'm one of the awkward squad,
always asking questions
or questioning answers;
it's uncomfortable for all concerned,
especially me.
I wish it wasn't so;
wish I could tuck myself up in tradition,
snuggle down in certainty,
learn to trust,
but I don't know how
- don't even know what the God-word means to me now.
I do know love when I meet it though.
Oh yes, I recognise Love.
(c) Frances Copsey
I can't recall who said words to the effect that "as I get older, I find myself believing more and more in less and less." Copsey's verse calls this aphorism to mind. I remember once hearing the sentiment behind it dismissed as 'reductionist'. That misses the point completely. It isn't about erosion of faith, but the way faith finds sufficient reason to trust more and hypothesise less. Sufficient reason, but not too much... or too little.
This astringency of the mind and openness of the heart is, again, what Lent is all about. I find myself again and again talking of the God of Jesus as being "beyond manipulation and beyond metaphysics". This "beyond" is not about intellectual evasion, as in the more careless or dogmatic forms of neo-orthodoxy popular among some younger theologians at the moment. It is about realising that, in St Paul's words, knowledge is first and foremost unfolded by love, rather than the other way round.
Believing is seeing, but it proceeds by way of a dark, murky luminosity. Or as a songwriter I know put it, half by accident, I suspect: "Look in the light of what you're searching for." Just accept that the light may not be what you think it is.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Thanks to Maggi Dawn (whose site has just been added to my growing blogroll, along with the splendidly revamped Kinesis) for this moving poem, which is permalinked here.
Credo
Theologically speaking
I'm one of the awkward squad,
always asking questions
or questioning answers;
it's uncomfortable for all concerned,
especially me.
I wish it wasn't so;
wish I could tuck myself up in tradition,
snuggle down in certainty,
learn to trust,
but I don't know how
- don't even know what the God-word means to me now.
I do know love when I meet it though.
Oh yes, I recognise Love.
(c) Frances Copsey
I can't recall who said words to the effect that "as I get older, I find myself believing more and more in less and less." Copsey's verse calls this aphorism to mind. I remember once hearing the sentiment behind it dismissed as 'reductionist'. That misses the point completely. It isn't about erosion of faith, but the way faith finds sufficient reason to trust more and hypothesise less. Sufficient reason, but not too much... or too little.
This astringency of the mind and openness of the heart is, again, what Lent is all about. I find myself again and again talking of the God of Jesus as being "beyond manipulation and beyond metaphysics". This "beyond" is not about intellectual evasion, as in the more careless or dogmatic forms of neo-orthodoxy popular among some younger theologians at the moment. It is about realising that, in St Paul's words, knowledge is first and foremost unfolded by love, rather than the other way round.
Believing is seeing, but it proceeds by way of a dark, murky luminosity. Or as a songwriter I know put it, half by accident, I suspect: "Look in the light of what you're searching for." Just accept that the light may not be what you think it is.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Friday, February 11, 2005
[105.3] CHURCH ASKED TO 'GIVE UP ESTABLISHMENT FOR LENT'
Ekklesia director Jonathan Bartley is a good man, and I'm glad that he has been prepared to go for the jugular on this one:
' Ekklesia, the UK Christian think tank, has become the first body publicly to call for moves towards the formal disestablishment of the Church of England in the wake of the engagement of Prince Charles and Ms Camilla Parker-Bowles, announced yesterday. It is asking for an ecumenical reconsideration of church-state relations.
' “The circumstances of this engagement clearly illustrate how inappropriate it is that the Church of England should remain established”, says Ekklesia’s director, Jonathan Bartley. “As a state church it has no say over its Supreme Governor and its interests remain subject to those of the Crown.”
' He continued: “In decision-making about the Royal wedding the Church of England has been shown to be little more than a bit-part in constitutional affairs. It is time to end this humiliation and set the Church free.” '
But even more crucially:
' Ekklesia believes that the case for disestablishment will be strengthened by the Church’s current plight, but it stresses that the theological case for ending the state link is paramount, and has nothing immediately to do with the Prince’s wedding.
' “The Church of England is the only state church in the worldwide Anglican Communion”, says Jonathan Bartley. “That the Church should be subject to the Crown compromises its ability to proclaim and live the Gospel free of state interests. It inhibits equal relations with other Christian churches. And it is also inappropriate in a plural society. Faith cannot be imposed. It must remain a free choice.”
' Ekklesia points out that Christ’s message of equality, justice and special concern for the poor stands in contradiction to the principle of Monarchy, which is based on privilege for the few through heredity. '
The full story is here.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Ekklesia director Jonathan Bartley is a good man, and I'm glad that he has been prepared to go for the jugular on this one:
' Ekklesia, the UK Christian think tank, has become the first body publicly to call for moves towards the formal disestablishment of the Church of England in the wake of the engagement of Prince Charles and Ms Camilla Parker-Bowles, announced yesterday. It is asking for an ecumenical reconsideration of church-state relations.
' “The circumstances of this engagement clearly illustrate how inappropriate it is that the Church of England should remain established”, says Ekklesia’s director, Jonathan Bartley. “As a state church it has no say over its Supreme Governor and its interests remain subject to those of the Crown.”
' He continued: “In decision-making about the Royal wedding the Church of England has been shown to be little more than a bit-part in constitutional affairs. It is time to end this humiliation and set the Church free.” '
But even more crucially:
' Ekklesia believes that the case for disestablishment will be strengthened by the Church’s current plight, but it stresses that the theological case for ending the state link is paramount, and has nothing immediately to do with the Prince’s wedding.
' “The Church of England is the only state church in the worldwide Anglican Communion”, says Jonathan Bartley. “That the Church should be subject to the Crown compromises its ability to proclaim and live the Gospel free of state interests. It inhibits equal relations with other Christian churches. And it is also inappropriate in a plural society. Faith cannot be imposed. It must remain a free choice.”
' Ekklesia points out that Christ’s message of equality, justice and special concern for the poor stands in contradiction to the principle of Monarchy, which is based on privilege for the few through heredity. '
The full story is here.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[105.2] NEW THINKING PROVES VERY DIFFICULT
It's always fascinating to look at what really causes a stir on Ekklesia. Right now we have stories up about oppression in Zimbabwe and brave Archbishop Tutu; world poverty and how to end it; Christians working against nuclear weapons; Christian-Muslim cooperation on nonviolent change in Iraq; anti-Catholicism, and Christian social vision. (You can always consult the news archive if it has moved on by the time you read this.)
However, what is really making people click away at the moment is the monumental question over ... what the Evangelical Alliance has to say about how naughty Charles and Camilla have been. Yes, that's right: more people are apparently exercised about this than all of these other issues put together.
Now don't get me wrong. Adultery matters. And what the EA says is not insignificant, because it represents a big swathe of opinion, whatever we think of it. Ekklesia reports, it doesn't just comment. Moreover people surf in for particular stories, so the direct comparison may not be entirely fair. But even taking these factors into account, the capacity for a bit of Royal nothingery to dominate our consciousness is truly amazing.
Or perhaps not. Maybe the magic word is 'evangelical'. Either way, the idea that 'a new way of thinking' (let alone a new way of behaving) is any easier for Christians than for others doesn't wash. We all feed from the same trough, and we all fall short of the same glory. This is one reason why easy moralism about Chuck and Cammie's second chance should remain circumspect about its own interests. Moats, beams, that kind of stuff.
Anyway, following on from my acerbic comments yesterday (for which I feel some penitence, but not too much), here are links to previous articles about liberating the church in England from monarchical illusions, the question of disestablishment, and more on the Royal bug.
The review of Ian Bradley's book is a lot more even-tempered than the comment below, by the way. But these issues do, I think, cut deep -- and the wound is barely noticed (to re-employ another metaphor-of-the-moment on this weblog). So maybe the odd prod with a sharp stick isn't out of place.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
It's always fascinating to look at what really causes a stir on Ekklesia. Right now we have stories up about oppression in Zimbabwe and brave Archbishop Tutu; world poverty and how to end it; Christians working against nuclear weapons; Christian-Muslim cooperation on nonviolent change in Iraq; anti-Catholicism, and Christian social vision. (You can always consult the news archive if it has moved on by the time you read this.)
However, what is really making people click away at the moment is the monumental question over ... what the Evangelical Alliance has to say about how naughty Charles and Camilla have been. Yes, that's right: more people are apparently exercised about this than all of these other issues put together.
Now don't get me wrong. Adultery matters. And what the EA says is not insignificant, because it represents a big swathe of opinion, whatever we think of it. Ekklesia reports, it doesn't just comment. Moreover people surf in for particular stories, so the direct comparison may not be entirely fair. But even taking these factors into account, the capacity for a bit of Royal nothingery to dominate our consciousness is truly amazing.
Or perhaps not. Maybe the magic word is 'evangelical'. Either way, the idea that 'a new way of thinking' (let alone a new way of behaving) is any easier for Christians than for others doesn't wash. We all feed from the same trough, and we all fall short of the same glory. This is one reason why easy moralism about Chuck and Cammie's second chance should remain circumspect about its own interests. Moats, beams, that kind of stuff.
Anyway, following on from my acerbic comments yesterday (for which I feel some penitence, but not too much), here are links to previous articles about liberating the church in England from monarchical illusions, the question of disestablishment, and more on the Royal bug.
The review of Ian Bradley's book is a lot more even-tempered than the comment below, by the way. But these issues do, I think, cut deep -- and the wound is barely noticed (to re-employ another metaphor-of-the-moment on this weblog). So maybe the odd prod with a sharp stick isn't out of place.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[105.1] FELLOWSHIP OF RECONCILIATION
A 'Called to be Peacemakers' event was due to be held over the next few days. It's been postponed until October. Further information from FoR. I still think the poster is worth looking at as a focus for Lenten prayer...
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
A 'Called to be Peacemakers' event was due to be held over the next few days. It's been postponed until October. Further information from FoR. I still think the poster is worth looking at as a focus for Lenten prayer...
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Thursday, February 10, 2005
[104.1] RICH BLOKE MARRIES POSH BIRD AS NATION GOES MAD
I refer, of course, to the engagement of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles. It is dumbfounding to see exactly how much airtime and newspaper space is spent analysing and dissecting this event. As if there weren't important things to worry about.
Monarchy is some kind of polite but persistent psychosis, I think. Or perhaps an unwitting psychological contract whereby people project their own expectations and unfulfilled longings onto a small group of self-selecting people -- whose continuation is a matter of pure eugenic priviledge. This is about as far removed from the Gospel of God's special love for the last, the least and the lost as you could plan to get, at least in terms of constitutional routine.
All of which makes the Church of England's continued involvement with it a horrid mess. To put the ekklesia at the disposal of the Crown isn't just inappropriate, it's wrong. But no-one seems to be noticing this massive political and theological issue lurking in the corner of the latest Royal Soap episode.
Though a staunch republican, I wish the Windsors well in their marriage -- even if the means by which events led up to it involved a lot of pain and wrong. But I still can't help concurring with the radical poet Adrian Mitchell, who I recently discovered lives in the same road as me when I'm staying in London. Mistakenly written to by the Daily Telegraph, which was seeking wordsmiths to offer homage to Charles on the anniversary of his investiture as Prince of Wales some years ago, Mitchell wrote back as follows:
For HRH Prince Charles: Monarchy is an illness. Get well soon.
Or words to that effect. (The 'poem' is, as the Dinsdale Brothers might have put it in that Monty Python sketch, "vicious... but fair".)
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
I refer, of course, to the engagement of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles. It is dumbfounding to see exactly how much airtime and newspaper space is spent analysing and dissecting this event. As if there weren't important things to worry about.
Monarchy is some kind of polite but persistent psychosis, I think. Or perhaps an unwitting psychological contract whereby people project their own expectations and unfulfilled longings onto a small group of self-selecting people -- whose continuation is a matter of pure eugenic priviledge. This is about as far removed from the Gospel of God's special love for the last, the least and the lost as you could plan to get, at least in terms of constitutional routine.
All of which makes the Church of England's continued involvement with it a horrid mess. To put the ekklesia at the disposal of the Crown isn't just inappropriate, it's wrong. But no-one seems to be noticing this massive political and theological issue lurking in the corner of the latest Royal Soap episode.
Though a staunch republican, I wish the Windsors well in their marriage -- even if the means by which events led up to it involved a lot of pain and wrong. But I still can't help concurring with the radical poet Adrian Mitchell, who I recently discovered lives in the same road as me when I'm staying in London. Mistakenly written to by the Daily Telegraph, which was seeking wordsmiths to offer homage to Charles on the anniversary of his investiture as Prince of Wales some years ago, Mitchell wrote back as follows:
For HRH Prince Charles: Monarchy is an illness. Get well soon.
Or words to that effect. (The 'poem' is, as the Dinsdale Brothers might have put it in that Monty Python sketch, "vicious... but fair".)
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
[103.2] INTO LENT ... BINDING AND FREEING
Of course I should have noticed much more quickly the link between the previous post, the fact of Shrove Tuesday, and a hidden element in my article for the Bruderhof. For this is the day we celebrate the gifts of life before a period of reflection and discipline involving (in a world where the word seems only to carry a threat at the moment) abstinence.
Bread is, indeed, for sharing, and thus becomes a spiritual matter in material form. A few years ago I wrote some IBRA biblical cameos on precisely this theme. This is the first part. The second part is here.
The other Lent link is in the Does Christianity kill or cure? article. When I first quoted Dennis Potter I remembered what he said incorrectly as "God is the wound, not the bandage." I think that's true in it's own right. But what he actually said in his moving final interview with Melvyn Bragg, as he was dying and swigging morphine to quell the pain of cancer, was "religion is the wound, not the bandage."
That is even more knowing. Potter remembered what many of us forget, which is that the word 'religion' comes from the root religio, meaning "to bind". Of course religion can be, in the colloquial use of that term, "a bind". It can be a source of oppression rather than liberation, slavery rather than salvation. This is why theologians such as Karl Barth have often -- if a little too easily -- tried to distinguish and separate 'religion' and 'Christianity'.
But Lent reminds us of the true meaning of religio. In being freed from things that really do ensnare and bind our lives, like money and possessions, we are freed to be 'bound' to God -- but by the ties of love freely entered into and expressed, not the compulsions of possession or the need to be 'right'. This is St Paul's paradox: his discovery that servanthood turns out to be perfect freedom, as Christ showed.
That isn't something you neatly work out in your head. It is a discovery of the heart and a work of life. And, of course, it is a gift which can be corrupted -- as when people use Christian faith to bind others or themselves to things less glorious than God, but often (ab)using the name of God. This is why religion can be a terrible thing. Lent is a time when we can resolve that it shall be, instead, Good (though not undemanding) News.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Of course I should have noticed much more quickly the link between the previous post, the fact of Shrove Tuesday, and a hidden element in my article for the Bruderhof. For this is the day we celebrate the gifts of life before a period of reflection and discipline involving (in a world where the word seems only to carry a threat at the moment) abstinence.
Bread is, indeed, for sharing, and thus becomes a spiritual matter in material form. A few years ago I wrote some IBRA biblical cameos on precisely this theme. This is the first part. The second part is here.
The other Lent link is in the Does Christianity kill or cure? article. When I first quoted Dennis Potter I remembered what he said incorrectly as "God is the wound, not the bandage." I think that's true in it's own right. But what he actually said in his moving final interview with Melvyn Bragg, as he was dying and swigging morphine to quell the pain of cancer, was "religion is the wound, not the bandage."
That is even more knowing. Potter remembered what many of us forget, which is that the word 'religion' comes from the root religio, meaning "to bind". Of course religion can be, in the colloquial use of that term, "a bind". It can be a source of oppression rather than liberation, slavery rather than salvation. This is why theologians such as Karl Barth have often -- if a little too easily -- tried to distinguish and separate 'religion' and 'Christianity'.
But Lent reminds us of the true meaning of religio. In being freed from things that really do ensnare and bind our lives, like money and possessions, we are freed to be 'bound' to God -- but by the ties of love freely entered into and expressed, not the compulsions of possession or the need to be 'right'. This is St Paul's paradox: his discovery that servanthood turns out to be perfect freedom, as Christ showed.
That isn't something you neatly work out in your head. It is a discovery of the heart and a work of life. And, of course, it is a gift which can be corrupted -- as when people use Christian faith to bind others or themselves to things less glorious than God, but often (ab)using the name of God. This is why religion can be a terrible thing. Lent is a time when we can resolve that it shall be, instead, Good (though not undemanding) News.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[103.1] BREAD AS A PRAYER
Interesting. I was always sure that this quotation was from Leo Tolstoy. But it turns out to be Jacques Maritain. Excellent either way.
Christianity has all too often meant withdrawal and the unwillingness to share the common suffering of humankind. But the world has rightly risen in protest against such piety... The care of another - even material, bodily care - is spiritual in essence. Bread for myself is a material question; bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one.
Thanks to the Bruderhof 'Daily Dig' for this. They have also kindly included my article Does Christianity kill or cure? in their archive.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Interesting. I was always sure that this quotation was from Leo Tolstoy. But it turns out to be Jacques Maritain. Excellent either way.
Christianity has all too often meant withdrawal and the unwillingness to share the common suffering of humankind. But the world has rightly risen in protest against such piety... The care of another - even material, bodily care - is spiritual in essence. Bread for myself is a material question; bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one.
Thanks to the Bruderhof 'Daily Dig' for this. They have also kindly included my article Does Christianity kill or cure? in their archive.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Saturday, February 05, 2005
[102.1] EXTENDING THE TABLE
In the course of my regular searches to update the tsunami prayer pages I maintain on my main site and for Ekklesia, I came across a superb maintained weblog by Rick Lord, World of Your Making, which is certainly worth checking out. He's something of a fan of N T Wright, and I gravitate rather more towards Marcus Borg (they wrote a very useful discussion book together, The Meaning of Jesus), but that's all part of enriching the conversation.
It was also good to hear from an old colleague, Tom Allen, who I haven't seen for years. His enjoyable BigBulkyAnglican log contains "thoughts, ideas, questions and ramblings about music, faith and youth work from Pennine Yorkshire." I think we connected via Dan Walters, by the way, Tom. Amusing to be linked by his post to Pulp (though you won't find them on my NewFrontEars music blog...yet).
Meanwhile, I have done a further overhaul of (and additions to) my general links on this blog. You'll find some new categories - thinkLinks, ecuLinks, and actionLinks - for a start. I continue to resist alphebeticisation (makes searching less lazy and more intuitive, he says didactically) and the "mapping the arena of debate" policy remains.
You'll discover some new campaigns and altChurch offerings, not least St Mark's and St Peter's in the UK and New Zealand. On the 'stimulating theologians' front you'll now find Denys Turner (see also this piece about his stake in the apophatic theology conversation from Peter Kugler), Alan Kreider and Gordon Kaufman (very different kinds of Mennonite voices) side-by-side, and a few others.
Please note that my tendency is to link people from their academic pages. In some cases this means that the resource links aren't as good as they could or should be. In which case Google will do the trick for you. Enjoy.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
In the course of my regular searches to update the tsunami prayer pages I maintain on my main site and for Ekklesia, I came across a superb maintained weblog by Rick Lord, World of Your Making, which is certainly worth checking out. He's something of a fan of N T Wright, and I gravitate rather more towards Marcus Borg (they wrote a very useful discussion book together, The Meaning of Jesus), but that's all part of enriching the conversation.
It was also good to hear from an old colleague, Tom Allen, who I haven't seen for years. His enjoyable BigBulkyAnglican log contains "thoughts, ideas, questions and ramblings about music, faith and youth work from Pennine Yorkshire." I think we connected via Dan Walters, by the way, Tom. Amusing to be linked by his post to Pulp (though you won't find them on my NewFrontEars music blog...yet).
Meanwhile, I have done a further overhaul of (and additions to) my general links on this blog. You'll find some new categories - thinkLinks, ecuLinks, and actionLinks - for a start. I continue to resist alphebeticisation (makes searching less lazy and more intuitive, he says didactically) and the "mapping the arena of debate" policy remains.
You'll discover some new campaigns and altChurch offerings, not least St Mark's and St Peter's in the UK and New Zealand. On the 'stimulating theologians' front you'll now find Denys Turner (see also this piece about his stake in the apophatic theology conversation from Peter Kugler), Alan Kreider and Gordon Kaufman (very different kinds of Mennonite voices) side-by-side, and a few others.
Please note that my tendency is to link people from their academic pages. In some cases this means that the resource links aren't as good as they could or should be. In which case Google will do the trick for you. Enjoy.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Friday, February 04, 2005
[101.1] WHOSE ARE WE?
Not a point that contradicts Giles Fraser's valid insight (FinS yesterday) that over-easy identification with the victim can be spiritually dangerous, I think -- but here is Jean Vanier's counterpoint comment about why it is also important. We worship, after all, a God who became tortured (as well as living and risen) flesh.
Vanier wrote: Is not one of our problems today that we have separated ourselves from the wounded and the suffering? We have too much time to discuss and theorize and have lost the yearning for God which comes when we are faced with the sufferings of people.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Not a point that contradicts Giles Fraser's valid insight (FinS yesterday) that over-easy identification with the victim can be spiritually dangerous, I think -- but here is Jean Vanier's counterpoint comment about why it is also important. We worship, after all, a God who became tortured (as well as living and risen) flesh.
Vanier wrote: Is not one of our problems today that we have separated ourselves from the wounded and the suffering? We have too much time to discuss and theorize and have lost the yearning for God which comes when we are faced with the sufferings of people.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Thursday, February 03, 2005
[100.1] ANTI-SEMITISM, CHRISTIANITY AND TRUTHFULNESS
BBC Radio 4's long running Thought for the Day varies enormously in content and quality. Aside from the battles over the division of air-time between Christians, other faith communities and secular / a-theistic perspectives (which are in my view wrongly excluded at the moment), some see the three-minute reflection as an exercise in cloying piety, while others push the boat out a bit more.
Giles Fraser did the latter this morning. His 'thought' is essential reading in the light of the recent Holocaust memorial events.
"Sixty years after the holocaust, the greatest crime of the twentieth century, the curse of anti-Semitism continues to haunt us.
"Christians often engage with the holocaust by celebrating the courage of other Christians who resisted the Nazis: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Niemoller, Edith Stein. But the truth is, they were rare exceptions.
"For centuries, many Christians have stoked the fires of anti-Semitism with lies and slander. Jews were blamed for the death of Christ. Some believed that Jews practiced child sacrifice. The 4th century saint and theologian Gregory of Nyssa called the Jews 'companions of the devil, accursed, detested, enemies of all that is beautiful'.
"Martin Luther went even further: 'We are at fault in not slaying them,' he said 'Rather we allow them to live freely in our midst despite all their murdering, cursing, blaspheming, lying.' He went on to advise Christians to 'set fire to their synagogues and schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn.'
"These days, Christians are ashamed by such words. But it's still terribly important to remember them. " See the full text.
Giles is vicar of Putney, lecturer in philosophy at Wadham College, Oxford, a Christian convert from a Jewish background, a columnist for the Guardian, the Church Times and Ekklesia, a co-founder of Inclusive Church.Net, author of a very fine book on Nietzsche... and one of the best theologically equipped commentators and writers the Church of England has (but doesn't own).
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
BBC Radio 4's long running Thought for the Day varies enormously in content and quality. Aside from the battles over the division of air-time between Christians, other faith communities and secular / a-theistic perspectives (which are in my view wrongly excluded at the moment), some see the three-minute reflection as an exercise in cloying piety, while others push the boat out a bit more.
Giles Fraser did the latter this morning. His 'thought' is essential reading in the light of the recent Holocaust memorial events.
"Sixty years after the holocaust, the greatest crime of the twentieth century, the curse of anti-Semitism continues to haunt us.
"Christians often engage with the holocaust by celebrating the courage of other Christians who resisted the Nazis: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Niemoller, Edith Stein. But the truth is, they were rare exceptions.
"For centuries, many Christians have stoked the fires of anti-Semitism with lies and slander. Jews were blamed for the death of Christ. Some believed that Jews practiced child sacrifice. The 4th century saint and theologian Gregory of Nyssa called the Jews 'companions of the devil, accursed, detested, enemies of all that is beautiful'.
"Martin Luther went even further: 'We are at fault in not slaying them,' he said 'Rather we allow them to live freely in our midst despite all their murdering, cursing, blaspheming, lying.' He went on to advise Christians to 'set fire to their synagogues and schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn.'
"These days, Christians are ashamed by such words. But it's still terribly important to remember them. " See the full text.
Giles is vicar of Putney, lecturer in philosophy at Wadham College, Oxford, a Christian convert from a Jewish background, a columnist for the Guardian, the Church Times and Ekklesia, a co-founder of Inclusive Church.Net, author of a very fine book on Nietzsche... and one of the best theologically equipped commentators and writers the Church of England has (but doesn't own).
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Friday, January 28, 2005
[99.1] BECOMING PART OF THE SOLUTION
The apostle Paul starts many of his letters with the phrase 'grace and peace', but most Christians are perhaps more familiar with grace than peace.
One of Ekklesia’s partners, the Anabaptist Network has produced a study guide for churches that explores what it would mean to take peace as seriously as grace - in worship, church life, work, witness and engagement with social issues.
This is not a booklet about pacifism but about the call of Jesus to be people of peace. What would it mean to become 'peace churches?' What resources might such churches offer a violent world that struggles with conflict?
The guide accompanies a booklet Becoming a Peace Church, which the network recently published, and is one of a number of short courses for local churches that have been developed by the Anabaptist Network.
You can view the study guide in a pdf format by clicking here and download or print off your own copy.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
The apostle Paul starts many of his letters with the phrase 'grace and peace', but most Christians are perhaps more familiar with grace than peace.
One of Ekklesia’s partners, the Anabaptist Network has produced a study guide for churches that explores what it would mean to take peace as seriously as grace - in worship, church life, work, witness and engagement with social issues.
This is not a booklet about pacifism but about the call of Jesus to be people of peace. What would it mean to become 'peace churches?' What resources might such churches offer a violent world that struggles with conflict?
The guide accompanies a booklet Becoming a Peace Church, which the network recently published, and is one of a number of short courses for local churches that have been developed by the Anabaptist Network.
You can view the study guide in a pdf format by clicking here and download or print off your own copy.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Thursday, January 27, 2005
[98.2] A CALL TO FAITHFULNESS
This from Margaret Killingray in the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity newsletter:
"Because Auschwitz was liberated 60 years ago [this] week, we are asked to remember how an urbane, civilised, Christian, European nation murdered intentionally, with planned and systematic efficiency, millions upon millions of men women and children. It is a haunting memory that raises many tormenting questions.
"But for Christians one important and significant question has to be why the large and influential churches of 1930s Germany, both protestant and Catholic, did not play a far more dramatic role in opposing the plainly evil programmes that were enacted. In an article in the Church Times in April 1995, Professor John Conway of the University of British Columbia, attempted to answer this question.
"He mentioned the pervasive sense of fear, the over-developed habit of social control that led to a deep reluctance to oppose authority. He showed that the churches were overwhelmingly swept up by the expectation of national renewal and deeply anti-Semitic.
"However, his main contention was that ‘the German churches did not possess the kinds of theology adequate to sustain any critical attack on the actions of their political rulers’. It may be wishful thinking to believe that the churches could have forced Hitler to act differently, but if only they had tried.
"That failure and other 20th century failures that have shamed Christians (Rwanda, racism in the USA, apartheid in South Africa) have made our witness that much more difficult. To ensure that such things are not repeated, we, the church of Christ, have a deep responsibility to make our voice heard and to stand up to inhumanity and racism from any kind of power, including the state.
"Above all, we need a profound understanding of the gospel. At the cross Jesus was crushed for our iniquities and there is no evil that humans can do that cannot be forgiven. However, those who have been forgiven in Christ are called to challenge wickedness in his name, and that can be very costly as those who did challenge Hitler found."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
This from Margaret Killingray in the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity newsletter:
"Because Auschwitz was liberated 60 years ago [this] week, we are asked to remember how an urbane, civilised, Christian, European nation murdered intentionally, with planned and systematic efficiency, millions upon millions of men women and children. It is a haunting memory that raises many tormenting questions.
"But for Christians one important and significant question has to be why the large and influential churches of 1930s Germany, both protestant and Catholic, did not play a far more dramatic role in opposing the plainly evil programmes that were enacted. In an article in the Church Times in April 1995, Professor John Conway of the University of British Columbia, attempted to answer this question.
"He mentioned the pervasive sense of fear, the over-developed habit of social control that led to a deep reluctance to oppose authority. He showed that the churches were overwhelmingly swept up by the expectation of national renewal and deeply anti-Semitic.
"However, his main contention was that ‘the German churches did not possess the kinds of theology adequate to sustain any critical attack on the actions of their political rulers’. It may be wishful thinking to believe that the churches could have forced Hitler to act differently, but if only they had tried.
"That failure and other 20th century failures that have shamed Christians (Rwanda, racism in the USA, apartheid in South Africa) have made our witness that much more difficult. To ensure that such things are not repeated, we, the church of Christ, have a deep responsibility to make our voice heard and to stand up to inhumanity and racism from any kind of power, including the state.
"Above all, we need a profound understanding of the gospel. At the cross Jesus was crushed for our iniquities and there is no evil that humans can do that cannot be forgiven. However, those who have been forgiven in Christ are called to challenge wickedness in his name, and that can be very costly as those who did challenge Hitler found."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[98.1] JUSTICE AND MERCY SHALL EMBRACE
Though justice be thy plea, consider this:
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy,
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy…
William Shakespeare
from The Merchant of Venice
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Though justice be thy plea, consider this:
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy,
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy…
William Shakespeare
from The Merchant of Venice
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
[97.2] SANCTITY, SECULARITY AND FREE THOUGHT
One recent correspondent expressed surprise "that a theologian should link to the news reporting of the National Secular Society." I can't think why. It's a rich source of material. Why NSS were even decent enough to plug my Jerry Springer piece a couple of weeks ago. And I'm content to stand with others against "the stifling censors of the religious right", even if their reasons for doing so are differently-shaped to mine.
Of course I know some 'secularists' behave as if they had a vested interest in portraying all religious thought as irrational, and faith as an irretrievable antonym of reason. Frankly I don't think they do themselves any favours when they do this. But it's their call. And I can well sympathise with the anger and frustration that religion can cause, because I've experienced it myself. It's still more productive and honest to challenge each other in our best guises rather than our worst, though I know how easy that is to say and how difficult to do.
But none of our problems in hearing each other as we would like to be heard should be allowed to detract from the fact that a serious, well-tempered conversation between thoughtful Christians and thoughtful humanists can only be enriching, though not easy -- given the politics of religion and public life and the way it encourages us to stack our arguments in 'opposing camps'.
Much the same applies in terms of theology and atheism, it seems to me, where the people keenest to bang on in the God-Notgod 'debate' are usually people in some odd time warp of analytical philosophy and pre-Heideggerian metaphysics. They're either blissfully unaware of how things have moved on in philosophy through phenomenology and narrative/linguistic thinking, or they hate "continental thought" because it doesn't allow them to 'win' in the way they think they ought to.
Meanwhile, free-thinkers on all sides who prefer an exchange-of-difference to a war-of-position can go on thinking freely. And, I’d suggest, working together to take on those who seem to want to take the responsibility of freedom away. But for this we will need something a lot tougher than 'tolerance'. Do we have the courage and willingness to talk about it?
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
One recent correspondent expressed surprise "that a theologian should link to the news reporting of the National Secular Society." I can't think why. It's a rich source of material. Why NSS were even decent enough to plug my Jerry Springer piece a couple of weeks ago. And I'm content to stand with others against "the stifling censors of the religious right", even if their reasons for doing so are differently-shaped to mine.
Of course I know some 'secularists' behave as if they had a vested interest in portraying all religious thought as irrational, and faith as an irretrievable antonym of reason. Frankly I don't think they do themselves any favours when they do this. But it's their call. And I can well sympathise with the anger and frustration that religion can cause, because I've experienced it myself. It's still more productive and honest to challenge each other in our best guises rather than our worst, though I know how easy that is to say and how difficult to do.
But none of our problems in hearing each other as we would like to be heard should be allowed to detract from the fact that a serious, well-tempered conversation between thoughtful Christians and thoughtful humanists can only be enriching, though not easy -- given the politics of religion and public life and the way it encourages us to stack our arguments in 'opposing camps'.
Much the same applies in terms of theology and atheism, it seems to me, where the people keenest to bang on in the God-Notgod 'debate' are usually people in some odd time warp of analytical philosophy and pre-Heideggerian metaphysics. They're either blissfully unaware of how things have moved on in philosophy through phenomenology and narrative/linguistic thinking, or they hate "continental thought" because it doesn't allow them to 'win' in the way they think they ought to.
Meanwhile, free-thinkers on all sides who prefer an exchange-of-difference to a war-of-position can go on thinking freely. And, I’d suggest, working together to take on those who seem to want to take the responsibility of freedom away. But for this we will need something a lot tougher than 'tolerance'. Do we have the courage and willingness to talk about it?
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[97.1] CREATING A COMMUNITY OF LEARNING
People sometimes ask me what criteria I use for including something in my links. Usually the question comes when someone who knows me finds a comment on a page pointed from this site that they think I won't agree with. Well, so be it. Thankfully (if painfully, on occasions) the net is difficult to police for ideological purity.
Mainly I enjoy passing on to readers of FaithInSociety websites, blogs, places and portals that I've found stimulating. Which is anything "worth arguing with", not just stuff that makes me feel cosy... though there's plenty of that, naturally... ;-)
At their best, weblogs reflect and create a micro community of learning -- a zone of commitment, debate and dialogue within which faith can be reasoned, reason can be faithed, and the search for Good News and for a just peace can be continued. I find that neighbours who share this task, this conversation and this quest wear different labels and none.
Generally, I do like to link to people who are generous enough to link to me. Sometimes I forget. Often, in fact. This has been the case until recently with Dan Walters, whose site includes valuable musings on the Gospel and justice, emergent church, post-evangelicalism and more. Also Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Texas. And others you'll discover if you trawl a bit. Incidentally, Dan has a good links section himself.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
People sometimes ask me what criteria I use for including something in my links. Usually the question comes when someone who knows me finds a comment on a page pointed from this site that they think I won't agree with. Well, so be it. Thankfully (if painfully, on occasions) the net is difficult to police for ideological purity.
Mainly I enjoy passing on to readers of FaithInSociety websites, blogs, places and portals that I've found stimulating. Which is anything "worth arguing with", not just stuff that makes me feel cosy... though there's plenty of that, naturally... ;-)
At their best, weblogs reflect and create a micro community of learning -- a zone of commitment, debate and dialogue within which faith can be reasoned, reason can be faithed, and the search for Good News and for a just peace can be continued. I find that neighbours who share this task, this conversation and this quest wear different labels and none.
Generally, I do like to link to people who are generous enough to link to me. Sometimes I forget. Often, in fact. This has been the case until recently with Dan Walters, whose site includes valuable musings on the Gospel and justice, emergent church, post-evangelicalism and more. Also Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Texas. And others you'll discover if you trawl a bit. Incidentally, Dan has a good links section himself.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Monday, January 24, 2005
[96.1] REAPING THE WHIRLWIND
Recently I went to see the English National Opera staged version of Michael Tippett's haunting oratorio, A Child Of Our Time. For those who don't know it, it is based on the events leading up to Kristallnacht during the Nazi terror. In place of the traditional Bachian chorales there sit five Africa-American Spirituals, wonderfully orchestrated into a piece of Western art music that pays more than lipservice to vernacular forms.
Tippett was not a Christian in any conventional sense. He was a Jungian-influenced humanist mystic, you might say; someone of humanity, courage, humour, faith and hope -- politically committed to the dispossessed, a pacifist imprisoned for his concientious objection, and a person of extravagent and intense artistic vision.
From such people we often get far more profound theological remarks than from those of self-regarding piety. An article by Dennis Marks in the ENO programme (see also my music weblog, NewFrontEars) drew my attention to an incredibly powerful comment Tippett made to his friend David Ayerst shortly before the completion of Child.
I have of course not the slightest idea where healing will come [from] because the moment of complete dereliction for the Christian civilization has probably not been reached and so the moment of God's voice from the whirlwind has not come. Though perhaps the whirlwind has come! And that is the only kernel of truth I see - that God will be found in the refuse bin as of old - the stone that has been thrown away.
Goodness. I am considering the possibility of a book on 'God After Christendom'. This will certainly be its opening quotation. Strong echoes of Bonhoeffer, among others.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Recently I went to see the English National Opera staged version of Michael Tippett's haunting oratorio, A Child Of Our Time. For those who don't know it, it is based on the events leading up to Kristallnacht during the Nazi terror. In place of the traditional Bachian chorales there sit five Africa-American Spirituals, wonderfully orchestrated into a piece of Western art music that pays more than lipservice to vernacular forms.
Tippett was not a Christian in any conventional sense. He was a Jungian-influenced humanist mystic, you might say; someone of humanity, courage, humour, faith and hope -- politically committed to the dispossessed, a pacifist imprisoned for his concientious objection, and a person of extravagent and intense artistic vision.
From such people we often get far more profound theological remarks than from those of self-regarding piety. An article by Dennis Marks in the ENO programme (see also my music weblog, NewFrontEars) drew my attention to an incredibly powerful comment Tippett made to his friend David Ayerst shortly before the completion of Child.
I have of course not the slightest idea where healing will come [from] because the moment of complete dereliction for the Christian civilization has probably not been reached and so the moment of God's voice from the whirlwind has not come. Though perhaps the whirlwind has come! And that is the only kernel of truth I see - that God will be found in the refuse bin as of old - the stone that has been thrown away.
Goodness. I am considering the possibility of a book on 'God After Christendom'. This will certainly be its opening quotation. Strong echoes of Bonhoeffer, among others.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Sunday, January 23, 2005
[95.1] NO-ONE IS AN ISLAND
Via St Matthews-in-the-City in Auckland, New Zealand, I recently discovered Tui Motu magazine, an independent Catholic publication with ecumenical instincts. Its editor is Michael Hill.
It describes itself thus: "Tui Motu is an exciting and challenging journal. We invite readers to question, debate and reflect on spiritual and social issues in the light of gospel values with the aim of creating a more just and peaceful society. 'Tui Motu' is a Maori phrase meaning 'stitching the islands together'... bringing different races, faiths and opinions into relationship."
Unfortunately only the leading article is available on-line at the moment. Perhaps it will in future consider offering back-material to web viewers in order to meet an international audience -- in keeping with its fine ethos.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Via St Matthews-in-the-City in Auckland, New Zealand, I recently discovered Tui Motu magazine, an independent Catholic publication with ecumenical instincts. Its editor is Michael Hill.
It describes itself thus: "Tui Motu is an exciting and challenging journal. We invite readers to question, debate and reflect on spiritual and social issues in the light of gospel values with the aim of creating a more just and peaceful society. 'Tui Motu' is a Maori phrase meaning 'stitching the islands together'... bringing different races, faiths and opinions into relationship."
Unfortunately only the leading article is available on-line at the moment. Perhaps it will in future consider offering back-material to web viewers in order to meet an international audience -- in keeping with its fine ethos.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Friday, January 21, 2005
[94.1] TSUNAMI AND RELIGIOUS BLATHER
As well as news about heroic deeds and passionate pleas, there has been some dreadful material on the tsunami up on the web from many religious quarters. Some tunnel-visioned Christians, Muslims, Hindus and others are eager to portray the tragic events as a divine judgment, or to seek religious capital for some of their more outrageous doctrinal claims.
How sad this is. I've ventured into the field myself, with an article about the theological questions (Is God A Disaster?), a comment on Christ and suffering, a news statement on behalf of CCOM about exploitative proselytism, and, of course the tsunami prayer page - which seeks to pull together a range of the good resources that are out there in cyberspace.
I was much cheered yesterday by a fine, forthright journalistic piece from the pen of E. Allen Campbell, Tsunami theology for dummies. This rightly lacerates the 'theological gobbledygook' that's around on the subject. I hope my stuff doesn't count for that, but I'm happy and willing to stand corrected.
Anyway, Campbell, whose entertaining Wolverton Mountain articles I'm linking under my 'godBlogs' section (hope this isn't too much of a misnomer), says this, inter alia:
"In spite of cutting across all religious beliefs, the truly dumbest theological statement that I heard in the wake of the tsunami was made by a white, American woman in her mid-twenties who avoided being counted with the tens of thousands less fortunate. Upon her return to the States, she ascribed her escaping the fate of so many others to her God saving her.
"While we don't normally make the soundest theological statements having just avoided such a traumatic event, she and her listeners need nonetheless to reexamine her theology. It is way off the mark.
"Think about how that statement sounds. Here is a young, white Christian, affluent, American tourist, who believes that God hovered over the raging tower of cascading water, spotted her amongst the hundreds of thousands facing drowning, and intervened on her behalf to rescue her. What is wrong with that belief? Do you really think that God selected this one gal for rescue? I'd like to know what she did or believed to have this special deus ex machina treatment from God.
"What does that theological picture paint for us? God rescues someone who can afford to vacation in some Asian paradise and allows tens of thousands of others to perish- mothers who couldn't save their children or fathers who couldn't protect their families already on the lowest rung of the poverty ladder. Get real."
Absolutely. See also Giles Fraser on this subject.
Archbishop Rowan Williams' attempts at straightforward communication about things like the tsunami are often said to be 'above the heads' of people in the pews. If that's so it is surely a terrible commentary on the illiteracy that passes for Christian learning in many of our churches, not least those where people who are apparently capable of erudition in their professional fields suddenly turn to intellectual jelly when it comes to their faith.
What a huge challenge this is.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
As well as news about heroic deeds and passionate pleas, there has been some dreadful material on the tsunami up on the web from many religious quarters. Some tunnel-visioned Christians, Muslims, Hindus and others are eager to portray the tragic events as a divine judgment, or to seek religious capital for some of their more outrageous doctrinal claims.
How sad this is. I've ventured into the field myself, with an article about the theological questions (Is God A Disaster?), a comment on Christ and suffering, a news statement on behalf of CCOM about exploitative proselytism, and, of course the tsunami prayer page - which seeks to pull together a range of the good resources that are out there in cyberspace.
I was much cheered yesterday by a fine, forthright journalistic piece from the pen of E. Allen Campbell, Tsunami theology for dummies. This rightly lacerates the 'theological gobbledygook' that's around on the subject. I hope my stuff doesn't count for that, but I'm happy and willing to stand corrected.
Anyway, Campbell, whose entertaining Wolverton Mountain articles I'm linking under my 'godBlogs' section (hope this isn't too much of a misnomer), says this, inter alia:
"In spite of cutting across all religious beliefs, the truly dumbest theological statement that I heard in the wake of the tsunami was made by a white, American woman in her mid-twenties who avoided being counted with the tens of thousands less fortunate. Upon her return to the States, she ascribed her escaping the fate of so many others to her God saving her.
"While we don't normally make the soundest theological statements having just avoided such a traumatic event, she and her listeners need nonetheless to reexamine her theology. It is way off the mark.
"Think about how that statement sounds. Here is a young, white Christian, affluent, American tourist, who believes that God hovered over the raging tower of cascading water, spotted her amongst the hundreds of thousands facing drowning, and intervened on her behalf to rescue her. What is wrong with that belief? Do you really think that God selected this one gal for rescue? I'd like to know what she did or believed to have this special deus ex machina treatment from God.
"What does that theological picture paint for us? God rescues someone who can afford to vacation in some Asian paradise and allows tens of thousands of others to perish- mothers who couldn't save their children or fathers who couldn't protect their families already on the lowest rung of the poverty ladder. Get real."
Absolutely. See also Giles Fraser on this subject.
Archbishop Rowan Williams' attempts at straightforward communication about things like the tsunami are often said to be 'above the heads' of people in the pews. If that's so it is surely a terrible commentary on the illiteracy that passes for Christian learning in many of our churches, not least those where people who are apparently capable of erudition in their professional fields suddenly turn to intellectual jelly when it comes to their faith.
What a huge challenge this is.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
[93.1] CHARTING SOME THEOLOGICAL INSPIRATIONS
From time to time people ask me what theologians I'm inspired by or interested in. I'm tempted to say that it depends on what I'm reading at the time! But there are some voices that reach me regularly and consistently. From the past that has to include Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the much-missed John Howard Yoder, and the revolutionary-philosopher-Christian mystic Simone Weil.
These days it would be voices as diverse as Rowan Williams, Sharon Ringe, John D. Caputo, Walter Brueggemann, Merlod Westphal, Jean-Luc Marion, Stanley Hauerwas, Charles Winquist, Alasdair MacIntyre, Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Douglas John Hall and Keith Ward.
This set me thinking. I should include some permanent links to these people. So here they are (see left). I've also included some friends and colleagues - Nick Adams, Chris Rowland, Giles Fraser, Bert Hoedemaker and Peter Selby... but sadly others (like Ruth Page, Martyn Atkins and Ken Leech) don't have a centrifugal web presence yet, in spite of their significance.
Three obvious reflections: First, there's no dominant 'school' in any of this. I'm moved by creative biblical theologians, by unsystematic-systematisers and by writers operating on the borders of theology and continental philosophy. Second, a number of these people would find it difficult to agree on many things if they were in the same room! Third, women and non-Western writers are underepresented: though actually that's not true in my library overall, thankfully.
I've stuck with the discipline of including only writers whose work I've read pretty widely... and who seem to me to have something distinctive and important to say in contemporary debates.
As for the diversity: well, the divine economy is indeed broad, rich, stimulating and challenging. Deo gracia.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
From time to time people ask me what theologians I'm inspired by or interested in. I'm tempted to say that it depends on what I'm reading at the time! But there are some voices that reach me regularly and consistently. From the past that has to include Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the much-missed John Howard Yoder, and the revolutionary-philosopher-Christian mystic Simone Weil.
These days it would be voices as diverse as Rowan Williams, Sharon Ringe, John D. Caputo, Walter Brueggemann, Merlod Westphal, Jean-Luc Marion, Stanley Hauerwas, Charles Winquist, Alasdair MacIntyre, Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Douglas John Hall and Keith Ward.
This set me thinking. I should include some permanent links to these people. So here they are (see left). I've also included some friends and colleagues - Nick Adams, Chris Rowland, Giles Fraser, Bert Hoedemaker and Peter Selby... but sadly others (like Ruth Page, Martyn Atkins and Ken Leech) don't have a centrifugal web presence yet, in spite of their significance.
Three obvious reflections: First, there's no dominant 'school' in any of this. I'm moved by creative biblical theologians, by unsystematic-systematisers and by writers operating on the borders of theology and continental philosophy. Second, a number of these people would find it difficult to agree on many things if they were in the same room! Third, women and non-Western writers are underepresented: though actually that's not true in my library overall, thankfully.
I've stuck with the discipline of including only writers whose work I've read pretty widely... and who seem to me to have something distinctive and important to say in contemporary debates.
As for the diversity: well, the divine economy is indeed broad, rich, stimulating and challenging. Deo gracia.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
[92.1] CELEBRITY, RIVALRY AND DEATH
As the ineluctable appeal of the car-crash reality TV that is Channel 4's 'Celebrity Big Brother' traces itself across our screens, an acute comment (below) from Andrew J. McKenna from a fabulous review article on Derrida and Barth. It's about the fake transcendence that resides at the heart of "amusing ourselves to death" (Neil Postgate). Not nearly as fusty as the curious journal First Things can be, either. Thank goodness.
Incidentally, I was hooked by CBB during the glorious five days when, astonishingly, feminist theorist and critic Germaine Greer appeared on it -- only to attempt a failed revolution and then disappear from the ether.
Now Greer is no Susan Sontag (as someone uncharitably but accurately pointed out on BBC2's 'Newsnight Review'), but I still love her for her passion, wit, obstinacy and angularity. As she rightly said to critics of the Big Brother phenomenon: "It isn't the end of the world, it is the world."
Germaine hasn't got anything like as firm a grasp on the true meaning of the "churning shod" of modern cultural detritus as someone like Charlie Brooker (his Screen Burn: TV with its face torn off, Faber/Guardian Books, 2005 is quite the most excruciatingly funny read you'll ever come across) ... but she messed up the BB agenda for a bit. Which was fun.
Anyway, back to McKenna...
"Nietzsche may have had philosophical reasons for rejecting belief in God, but the relentless shrillness of his references to Christianity and Judaism does not derive from philosophical reason. By the time Nietzsche wrote at the end of the nineteenth century, it was no big deal to sneer at God and his churches (though Baudelaire had regarded it as a churlish audacity only a generation earlier). But those who celebrate God's death are left with a purely worldly transcendence. And this worldly transcendence - expressed in the unforgiving competition for public recognition and celebrity - has no antidote to rivalry, precisely because rivalry is its operating principle. Signing himself "the crucified" in his final correspondence, Nietzsche was at last drawn into an insane attempt at rivalry with Jesus and the Gospels."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
As the ineluctable appeal of the car-crash reality TV that is Channel 4's 'Celebrity Big Brother' traces itself across our screens, an acute comment (below) from Andrew J. McKenna from a fabulous review article on Derrida and Barth. It's about the fake transcendence that resides at the heart of "amusing ourselves to death" (Neil Postgate). Not nearly as fusty as the curious journal First Things can be, either. Thank goodness.
Incidentally, I was hooked by CBB during the glorious five days when, astonishingly, feminist theorist and critic Germaine Greer appeared on it -- only to attempt a failed revolution and then disappear from the ether.
Now Greer is no Susan Sontag (as someone uncharitably but accurately pointed out on BBC2's 'Newsnight Review'), but I still love her for her passion, wit, obstinacy and angularity. As she rightly said to critics of the Big Brother phenomenon: "It isn't the end of the world, it is the world."
Germaine hasn't got anything like as firm a grasp on the true meaning of the "churning shod" of modern cultural detritus as someone like Charlie Brooker (his Screen Burn: TV with its face torn off, Faber/Guardian Books, 2005 is quite the most excruciatingly funny read you'll ever come across) ... but she messed up the BB agenda for a bit. Which was fun.
Anyway, back to McKenna...
"Nietzsche may have had philosophical reasons for rejecting belief in God, but the relentless shrillness of his references to Christianity and Judaism does not derive from philosophical reason. By the time Nietzsche wrote at the end of the nineteenth century, it was no big deal to sneer at God and his churches (though Baudelaire had regarded it as a churlish audacity only a generation earlier). But those who celebrate God's death are left with a purely worldly transcendence. And this worldly transcendence - expressed in the unforgiving competition for public recognition and celebrity - has no antidote to rivalry, precisely because rivalry is its operating principle. Signing himself "the crucified" in his final correspondence, Nietzsche was at last drawn into an insane attempt at rivalry with Jesus and the Gospels."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Monday, January 17, 2005
[91.2] THE PHILEMON GROUP
This from Roy Dorey of Heythrop College, University of London, about the Philemon Group. It was wonderful to connect with Roy again after a number of years -- at the British Liberating Theologies Now gathering in Crewe last year. Also Bruce Stokes of Brandon Baptist Church.
"The letter to Philemon is one of the most radical books in the New Testament. It is about changing attitudes and changing behaviour. Philemon, through his experience was having to face up to being a Christian in his world. This website is committed to that same radical way of looking at things. All change is difficult and the Christian faith demands changes that can be very difficult indeed. We believe that God not only demands this of us, but gives us the help and the grace to make it all possible."
The first meeting took place on Friday 13 September 2002 at Queen's College, Oxford, hosted by Professor Christopher Rowland, who is a specialist in liberation theology and Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford. The next meeting will be on Friday 22 April 2005.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
This from Roy Dorey of Heythrop College, University of London, about the Philemon Group. It was wonderful to connect with Roy again after a number of years -- at the British Liberating Theologies Now gathering in Crewe last year. Also Bruce Stokes of Brandon Baptist Church.
"The letter to Philemon is one of the most radical books in the New Testament. It is about changing attitudes and changing behaviour. Philemon, through his experience was having to face up to being a Christian in his world. This website is committed to that same radical way of looking at things. All change is difficult and the Christian faith demands changes that can be very difficult indeed. We believe that God not only demands this of us, but gives us the help and the grace to make it all possible."
The first meeting took place on Friday 13 September 2002 at Queen's College, Oxford, hosted by Professor Christopher Rowland, who is a specialist in liberation theology and Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford. The next meeting will be on Friday 22 April 2005.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[91.1] FROM PITY TO COMPASSION
The advent of Martin Luther King Day creates the opportunity of this apposite quotation:
"We are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside. But one day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
The advent of Martin Luther King Day creates the opportunity of this apposite quotation:
"We are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside. But one day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Saturday, January 01, 2005
[90.2] PRAYERS FOR TSUNAMI
This resource page added to my site. Hope it's useful.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
This resource page added to my site. Hope it's useful.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[90.1] A SOBER NEW YEAR
This, from Bob Edgar of the National Council of Churches USA, just about sums up the mood.
"We are deeply shocked and grieved at the unprecedented death and destruction caused by the earthquake and tsunamis in South and Southeast Asia. Our hearts are with those whose loved ones perished, homes were destroyed, and futures left in a precarious balance.
"Despite the horror of the events, we remind ourselves that we are in the season of Christmas when we are particularly aware of the peace of the Christ-child. In that spirit we extend ourselves to our sisters and brothers in Asia and seek to stand in solidarity during this time of great tragedy."
One heartening factor is the massive response from the churches and other agencies of other faith and good faith.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
This, from Bob Edgar of the National Council of Churches USA, just about sums up the mood.
"We are deeply shocked and grieved at the unprecedented death and destruction caused by the earthquake and tsunamis in South and Southeast Asia. Our hearts are with those whose loved ones perished, homes were destroyed, and futures left in a precarious balance.
"Despite the horror of the events, we remind ourselves that we are in the season of Christmas when we are particularly aware of the peace of the Christ-child. In that spirit we extend ourselves to our sisters and brothers in Asia and seek to stand in solidarity during this time of great tragedy."
One heartening factor is the massive response from the churches and other agencies of other faith and good faith.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Friday, December 31, 2004
[89.1] EARTHQUAKE IS A CLASS-QUAKE
It's not too good to quote yourself, but Ekklesia has just put this out (Tsunami: justice as well as relief needed, say Christians) on the appalling tragedy in South Asia and East Africa --emphasising that the long-term solutions are down to politics not charity.
Having said that, the emergency need is enormous. I'm sure you've already donated, but here's another route: Christian Aid on 08080 004 004.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
It's not too good to quote yourself, but Ekklesia has just put this out (Tsunami: justice as well as relief needed, say Christians) on the appalling tragedy in South Asia and East Africa --emphasising that the long-term solutions are down to politics not charity.
Having said that, the emergency need is enormous. I'm sure you've already donated, but here's another route: Christian Aid on 08080 004 004.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Friday, December 24, 2004
[88.1] CHRISTMAS PERSPECTIVES
This from David Wood at Grace Anglican Church, Joondalup, Australia - an excerpt from his wonderful Christmas Homily:
"[T]he flesh-taking of God in Jesus tonight shows us the eternal truth about God, truth to counter all [ ] lies.
"God turns out not to be some celestial monster, the task-master demanding satisfaction or the judge dispensing rough justice, the God of too much human imagination. To the acute disappointment of wowserish religious leaders, God does not, after all, specialize in pouring buckets of cold water on people having fun. God is not that prissy creature who disapproves of human love unless it conforms to a set of very tight rules.
"It is us, not God, who condemns young lovers, scowls at single mothers, worries over the supposed attack on the institution of marriage, and refuses to bless same-sex unions. God is not that maniac who sometimes appears at funerals, who “calls” us from this life before we are ready, who swallows up real human tragedy by somehow “taking” small children to heaven.
"To believe and trust in the only true God for half a minute, is to do away with all this accumulated junk."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
This from David Wood at Grace Anglican Church, Joondalup, Australia - an excerpt from his wonderful Christmas Homily:
"[T]he flesh-taking of God in Jesus tonight shows us the eternal truth about God, truth to counter all [ ] lies.
"God turns out not to be some celestial monster, the task-master demanding satisfaction or the judge dispensing rough justice, the God of too much human imagination. To the acute disappointment of wowserish religious leaders, God does not, after all, specialize in pouring buckets of cold water on people having fun. God is not that prissy creature who disapproves of human love unless it conforms to a set of very tight rules.
"It is us, not God, who condemns young lovers, scowls at single mothers, worries over the supposed attack on the institution of marriage, and refuses to bless same-sex unions. God is not that maniac who sometimes appears at funerals, who “calls” us from this life before we are ready, who swallows up real human tragedy by somehow “taking” small children to heaven.
"To believe and trust in the only true God for half a minute, is to do away with all this accumulated junk."
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Monday, December 06, 2004
[87.1] ATONEMENT AND VIOLENCE
It is a painful and inescapable fact that distorted and unhealthy ideas about God, of which there are very many, often dovetail with human attempts to legitimate violence and oppression. One does not have to subscribe to some over-simple notion that religion (peculiar among life-stances) is the root of all evil in order to see that this is so.
The difficulty is perhaps particularly acute among the 'revealed religions' - Christianity, Judaism and Islam - where attempts to point this out often fall against the rock of an unyielding interpretation of some Scriptural text or inherited doctrine.
What lies behind this is usually a naive, solepcistic, partial or ideological reading of the text, commonly justified on the basis that it it the 'only', 'true' or 'traditional' one. On further examination such claims usually turn out to be untrue, but the weight of a view that buttresses our sanctity and dams our enemies proves massively appealing and 'convincing'.
Such is the case in the current intra-evangelical argument about 'atonement theory', the question about how the death of Christ is linked to God's offer of freedom and forgiveness in the teaching and imagination of the church - and the life (and death) of the world.
The recent stir has been occasioned by a book called The Lost Message of Jesus, published by Zondervan, 2004, written by Steve Chalke, a gifted Baptist preacher and social activist.
By most standards its contents are theologically unremarkable, reflecting a broad swathe of development in what we might call 'liberatory Christianity', consistent with the work of people like Sharon Ringe, Walter Brueggemann and Walter Wink - and at the more conservative end of the spectrum, N. T. Wright, the New Testament scholar who is now Anglican Bishop of Durham.
Chalke's message, essentially, is that Jesus was a social subversive, and that his call for radical transformation in the light of the coming realm of God embraces the political as well as the personal. Not much cause for complaint there, you might think - except that it challenges the complaisant and raises social justice as an inherent dimension of ekklesia and basilea.
The rub, however, is that Chalke has dared to criticise, inter-alia, the classical evangelical doctrine of penal substitution, the idea that God soehow required an innocent Jesus to 'pay the price' for human sin by violent death.
He was impolite enough to (accurately) describe the crude version of this doctrine as tantamount to 'cosmic child abuse', and to mention its links to the history of violence and domination sanctioned, tragically, in the name of Jesus Christ.
This is when the brown stuff hit the fan. On 7 October the Evangelical Alliance in the UK organised a 'debate' on Chalke's views: one which many felt was more like a heresy trial.
Subsequently the EA has publicly criticised Chalke and asked him to retract his comments, which sit clearly within the mainstream of Christian faith. A blow-by-blow account is available on Ekklesia, for the long-suffering.
None of the church's historic creeds have ever required a single view of atonement, and the biblical texts so often used in its favour can just as readily (and much more redeemingly) be understood in a strongly anti-sacrificial way, as Rene Girard and others have shown.
Still, the argument rumbles on. Its form, to those of us not part of the evangelical tribe, seems arcane and not a little unforgiving. But the issues are important.
At the moment I'm working with Jonathan Bartley on a collection of essays about atonement called Consuming Passion, which will be published in 2005 by Darton, Longman and Todd.
In the meantime, Stuart Murray-Williams gave a fine, succinct summary of the background to the debate in his contribution to the EA event, which can be found at the Anabaptist Network site. Important reading in its own right.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
It is a painful and inescapable fact that distorted and unhealthy ideas about God, of which there are very many, often dovetail with human attempts to legitimate violence and oppression. One does not have to subscribe to some over-simple notion that religion (peculiar among life-stances) is the root of all evil in order to see that this is so.
The difficulty is perhaps particularly acute among the 'revealed religions' - Christianity, Judaism and Islam - where attempts to point this out often fall against the rock of an unyielding interpretation of some Scriptural text or inherited doctrine.
What lies behind this is usually a naive, solepcistic, partial or ideological reading of the text, commonly justified on the basis that it it the 'only', 'true' or 'traditional' one. On further examination such claims usually turn out to be untrue, but the weight of a view that buttresses our sanctity and dams our enemies proves massively appealing and 'convincing'.
Such is the case in the current intra-evangelical argument about 'atonement theory', the question about how the death of Christ is linked to God's offer of freedom and forgiveness in the teaching and imagination of the church - and the life (and death) of the world.
The recent stir has been occasioned by a book called The Lost Message of Jesus, published by Zondervan, 2004, written by Steve Chalke, a gifted Baptist preacher and social activist.
By most standards its contents are theologically unremarkable, reflecting a broad swathe of development in what we might call 'liberatory Christianity', consistent with the work of people like Sharon Ringe, Walter Brueggemann and Walter Wink - and at the more conservative end of the spectrum, N. T. Wright, the New Testament scholar who is now Anglican Bishop of Durham.
Chalke's message, essentially, is that Jesus was a social subversive, and that his call for radical transformation in the light of the coming realm of God embraces the political as well as the personal. Not much cause for complaint there, you might think - except that it challenges the complaisant and raises social justice as an inherent dimension of ekklesia and basilea.
The rub, however, is that Chalke has dared to criticise, inter-alia, the classical evangelical doctrine of penal substitution, the idea that God soehow required an innocent Jesus to 'pay the price' for human sin by violent death.
He was impolite enough to (accurately) describe the crude version of this doctrine as tantamount to 'cosmic child abuse', and to mention its links to the history of violence and domination sanctioned, tragically, in the name of Jesus Christ.
This is when the brown stuff hit the fan. On 7 October the Evangelical Alliance in the UK organised a 'debate' on Chalke's views: one which many felt was more like a heresy trial.
Subsequently the EA has publicly criticised Chalke and asked him to retract his comments, which sit clearly within the mainstream of Christian faith. A blow-by-blow account is available on Ekklesia, for the long-suffering.
None of the church's historic creeds have ever required a single view of atonement, and the biblical texts so often used in its favour can just as readily (and much more redeemingly) be understood in a strongly anti-sacrificial way, as Rene Girard and others have shown.
Still, the argument rumbles on. Its form, to those of us not part of the evangelical tribe, seems arcane and not a little unforgiving. But the issues are important.
At the moment I'm working with Jonathan Bartley on a collection of essays about atonement called Consuming Passion, which will be published in 2005 by Darton, Longman and Todd.
In the meantime, Stuart Murray-Williams gave a fine, succinct summary of the background to the debate in his contribution to the EA event, which can be found at the Anabaptist Network site. Important reading in its own right.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Sunday, December 05, 2004
[86.1] DEVELOPING THE VISION OF EKKLESIA
You may have noted that that this weblog has been rather sparodic recently. That's because such spare time as I have at the moment has mostly been given to the Ekklesia site, for which I have been a research associate since May this year.
Besides my sort-of-regular column, I've also been contributing news stories curated here.
Ekklesia was really the brainchild of Jonathan Bartley, whose interests in faith and politics moved in an increasingly radical direction in the 1990s. His own leanings are set out in 'The Subversive Manifesto' (BRF, 2003) - a popular booked aimed at local churches of a more conservative persuasion.
The site's values are linked to those of a mumber of partner organisations in the Anabaptist Network UK, a body which has also attracted dissenting, left-wing Anglicans like myself and Chris Rowland, who teaches New Testament at Oxford.
Ekklesia aims to be a radical Christian think-tank, but of late the news service has had a massive response. There are plans to split the site in two soon, one focussing on research and campaigns, the other on news.
One of the important roles Ekklesia can play, I think, is to mess up the 'liberal' and 'conservative' stereotypes that often bedevil attempts to talk about faith and politics in the media.
As it happens, Jonathan is from good evangelical stock - but has been courageous in supporting causes upopular in that constituency, such as Inclusive Church.
On the other hand I have a certain ecumenical pedigree, but have become increasingly convinced that an open, radical Christianity needs the nourishment of its biblical and 'traditional' roots.
That's something Ekklesia can help to get across. To the 'conservatives' we can say, "actually the Gospel is very radical", and to the 'liberals' we can say, "true liberality needs foundations."
As Bishop Peter Selby once put it, when the going gets tough "liberalism is not enough to support liberalism."
On the other hand, a conservatism which mistakes inflexibility for tradition or reaction for orthodoxy has misunderstood the true catholicity of the movement out of which it arises.
Jesus's agenda was not to shore up the fortress of exclusive religion, but to bring it crumbling down in favour of a new heaven and a new earth.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
You may have noted that that this weblog has been rather sparodic recently. That's because such spare time as I have at the moment has mostly been given to the Ekklesia site, for which I have been a research associate since May this year.
Besides my sort-of-regular column, I've also been contributing news stories curated here.
Ekklesia was really the brainchild of Jonathan Bartley, whose interests in faith and politics moved in an increasingly radical direction in the 1990s. His own leanings are set out in 'The Subversive Manifesto' (BRF, 2003) - a popular booked aimed at local churches of a more conservative persuasion.
The site's values are linked to those of a mumber of partner organisations in the Anabaptist Network UK, a body which has also attracted dissenting, left-wing Anglicans like myself and Chris Rowland, who teaches New Testament at Oxford.
Ekklesia aims to be a radical Christian think-tank, but of late the news service has had a massive response. There are plans to split the site in two soon, one focussing on research and campaigns, the other on news.
One of the important roles Ekklesia can play, I think, is to mess up the 'liberal' and 'conservative' stereotypes that often bedevil attempts to talk about faith and politics in the media.
As it happens, Jonathan is from good evangelical stock - but has been courageous in supporting causes upopular in that constituency, such as Inclusive Church.
On the other hand I have a certain ecumenical pedigree, but have become increasingly convinced that an open, radical Christianity needs the nourishment of its biblical and 'traditional' roots.
That's something Ekklesia can help to get across. To the 'conservatives' we can say, "actually the Gospel is very radical", and to the 'liberals' we can say, "true liberality needs foundations."
As Bishop Peter Selby once put it, when the going gets tough "liberalism is not enough to support liberalism."
On the other hand, a conservatism which mistakes inflexibility for tradition or reaction for orthodoxy has misunderstood the true catholicity of the movement out of which it arises.
Jesus's agenda was not to shore up the fortress of exclusive religion, but to bring it crumbling down in favour of a new heaven and a new earth.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
[85.1] ADVENT CALLING
Advent is the time of promise; it is not yet the time of fulfillment. We are still in the midst of everything and in the logical inexorability and relentlessness of destiny. To eyes that do not see, it still seems as though the final dice are being cast down here in these valleys, on these battlefields, in these camps and prisons and bomb shelters. Those who are awake sense the working of the other powers and can await the coming of their hour.
Space is still filled with the noise of destruction and annihilation, the shouts of self-assurance and arrogance, the weeping of despair and helplessness. But round about the horizon the eternal realities stand silent in their age-old longing. There shines on them already the first mild light of the radiant fulfillment to come. From afar sound the first notes as of pipes and voices, not yet discernable as a song or melody. It is all far off still, and only just announced and foretold. But it is happening, today.
Read the rest of this piece by Alfred Delp, who wrote it in a Nazi prison shortly before he was hanged for "treason."
(with grateful acknowledgment to Daily Dig, from Bruderhof.com)
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Advent is the time of promise; it is not yet the time of fulfillment. We are still in the midst of everything and in the logical inexorability and relentlessness of destiny. To eyes that do not see, it still seems as though the final dice are being cast down here in these valleys, on these battlefields, in these camps and prisons and bomb shelters. Those who are awake sense the working of the other powers and can await the coming of their hour.
Space is still filled with the noise of destruction and annihilation, the shouts of self-assurance and arrogance, the weeping of despair and helplessness. But round about the horizon the eternal realities stand silent in their age-old longing. There shines on them already the first mild light of the radiant fulfillment to come. From afar sound the first notes as of pipes and voices, not yet discernable as a song or melody. It is all far off still, and only just announced and foretold. But it is happening, today.
Read the rest of this piece by Alfred Delp, who wrote it in a Nazi prison shortly before he was hanged for "treason."
(with grateful acknowledgment to Daily Dig, from Bruderhof.com)
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
[84.1] FLESH AND SPIRIT
Charles Henderson from CrossCurrents, the excellent journal of the Association for Religion and Intellectual Life (USA), writes:
'Given spam filters that ruthlessly monitor content with a real of imagined relationship to the topic of our Fall issue, I hesitate to describe what lies in wait for those visiting our website or opening the pages of our latest issue. If you are interested either in the relationship between religion and sexuality in general, or the current state of the debate about this topic in religious communities or academic circles worldwide, our essays are essential reading.
'As editor Catherine Madsen puts it in her strong editorial: "When religion looks at sex from a distance, purging the erotic from its speech or explaining it away as tame allegory, it forfeits a measure of its civilizing power. The line in the old Anglican marriage service—long gone, of course, from the new one—was "with my body I thee worship." Worship meant something parallel to honor or adore in those days, not yet something exclusively religious, but the very shift in meaning underlines the validity of the instinct; if we cannot worship our lovers whom we can see, how shall we worship God whom we cannot? A language of adoration cannot be a language of inexperience, real or feigned. It can only be a language of experience, in which spirit is at home in flesh."
'Looking at sex from a distance, purging it from our pages, or explaining it away, is definitely not what we are up to in our Fall issue.'
The full index of text-available feature articles from CrossCurrents back issues is certainly worth checking out, too.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Charles Henderson from CrossCurrents, the excellent journal of the Association for Religion and Intellectual Life (USA), writes:
'Given spam filters that ruthlessly monitor content with a real of imagined relationship to the topic of our Fall issue, I hesitate to describe what lies in wait for those visiting our website or opening the pages of our latest issue. If you are interested either in the relationship between religion and sexuality in general, or the current state of the debate about this topic in religious communities or academic circles worldwide, our essays are essential reading.
'As editor Catherine Madsen puts it in her strong editorial: "When religion looks at sex from a distance, purging the erotic from its speech or explaining it away as tame allegory, it forfeits a measure of its civilizing power. The line in the old Anglican marriage service—long gone, of course, from the new one—was "with my body I thee worship." Worship meant something parallel to honor or adore in those days, not yet something exclusively religious, but the very shift in meaning underlines the validity of the instinct; if we cannot worship our lovers whom we can see, how shall we worship God whom we cannot? A language of adoration cannot be a language of inexperience, real or feigned. It can only be a language of experience, in which spirit is at home in flesh."
'Looking at sex from a distance, purging it from our pages, or explaining it away, is definitely not what we are up to in our Fall issue.'
The full index of text-available feature articles from CrossCurrents back issues is certainly worth checking out, too.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Monday, November 08, 2004
[83.1] RETURNING FROM CHINA
I have been away for the past fortnight in China, taking part in an official British and Irish church leaders' visit to China Christian Council (Protestant) and Catholic churches and seminaries under the auspices of CTBI. Further news and reflection will follow. In the meantime, by a happy coincidence, the Guardian newspaper in Britain has begun a weeklong series of articles on the country, written by a 15-strong team of top-notch journalists. The special reports are here.
The first set (today) included a very brief reference to Taoism. It will be interesting to see if there is mention of the impact of the two fastest growing religious movements in the new China, Christianity and Buddhism. Following the (lamentable) impact of religion in the US presidential elections, the secular media here has woken up again -- in another periodic fit -- to the importance of religious belief in public life across the world. But I wouldn't be surprised if it is substantially overlooked in its latest coverage of the Pacific rim.
Old habits of ignoring things die hard...
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
I have been away for the past fortnight in China, taking part in an official British and Irish church leaders' visit to China Christian Council (Protestant) and Catholic churches and seminaries under the auspices of CTBI. Further news and reflection will follow. In the meantime, by a happy coincidence, the Guardian newspaper in Britain has begun a weeklong series of articles on the country, written by a 15-strong team of top-notch journalists. The special reports are here.
The first set (today) included a very brief reference to Taoism. It will be interesting to see if there is mention of the impact of the two fastest growing religious movements in the new China, Christianity and Buddhism. Following the (lamentable) impact of religion in the US presidential elections, the secular media here has woken up again -- in another periodic fit -- to the importance of religious belief in public life across the world. But I wouldn't be surprised if it is substantially overlooked in its latest coverage of the Pacific rim.
Old habits of ignoring things die hard...
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Monday, October 18, 2004
[82.2] WINDSOR REPORT SEEKS CALM IN THE STORM
After weeks of speculation, the Anglican Communion Report drafted at Windsor under the guidance of the evucular Archbishop Robin Eames was finally published today. It looks like a genuine attempt, in impossible circumstances, to keep the argument going - that is, to encourage Christians of widely different cultures and temperaments to engage in jaw-jaw rather than war-war.
Of course it won't please everybody. But by disavowing expulsions, compulsions, censures and suspensions, Eames seems broadly to have set its face against institutional attempts to curb painful but necessary debate.
Nevertheless there is an acknowledgement that the overall balance of understanding of Scripture and Tradition across the Communion is decidedly conservative, and an invitation to those affirming of lesbian and gay people not to go on rocking the boat until a 'fresh consensus' becomes possible.
However, by inviting ECUSA to 'explain' their actions in consecrating the openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson in New Hampshire 'with reference to Scripture', the report has also given those who think there are legitimate theological reasons for changing the Church's mind on sexuality to show precisely why this makes hermeneutical sense.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, amidst a sea of comment, has asked people not to leap to conclusions about Windsor too quickly. But spin-merchants are already having their way.
The BBC reported that "the Anglican Church has urged US church leaders to apologise for ordaining a gay priest as bishop". However, paragraph 134 of the report actually suggests that the Episcopal Church be invited to express only its regret "that the proper constraints of the bonds of affection were breached in the events surrounding the election and consecration" and "that such an expression of regret would represent the desire of the Episcopal Church (USA) to remain within the Communion."
A thoughtfully worded statement of "regret" has already been issued by the Primate of the Episcopal Church USA, Frank Griswold.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
After weeks of speculation, the Anglican Communion Report drafted at Windsor under the guidance of the evucular Archbishop Robin Eames was finally published today. It looks like a genuine attempt, in impossible circumstances, to keep the argument going - that is, to encourage Christians of widely different cultures and temperaments to engage in jaw-jaw rather than war-war.
Of course it won't please everybody. But by disavowing expulsions, compulsions, censures and suspensions, Eames seems broadly to have set its face against institutional attempts to curb painful but necessary debate.
Nevertheless there is an acknowledgement that the overall balance of understanding of Scripture and Tradition across the Communion is decidedly conservative, and an invitation to those affirming of lesbian and gay people not to go on rocking the boat until a 'fresh consensus' becomes possible.
However, by inviting ECUSA to 'explain' their actions in consecrating the openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson in New Hampshire 'with reference to Scripture', the report has also given those who think there are legitimate theological reasons for changing the Church's mind on sexuality to show precisely why this makes hermeneutical sense.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, amidst a sea of comment, has asked people not to leap to conclusions about Windsor too quickly. But spin-merchants are already having their way.
The BBC reported that "the Anglican Church has urged US church leaders to apologise for ordaining a gay priest as bishop". However, paragraph 134 of the report actually suggests that the Episcopal Church be invited to express only its regret "that the proper constraints of the bonds of affection were breached in the events surrounding the election and consecration" and "that such an expression of regret would represent the desire of the Episcopal Church (USA) to remain within the Communion."
A thoughtfully worded statement of "regret" has already been issued by the Primate of the Episcopal Church USA, Frank Griswold.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
[82.1] TERRORISM, GLOBAL CAPITALISM & THE FACE OF CHRIST
While immersed in a frantic schedule and facing abominable insults from self-apppointed guardians of 'right thought' in the church, Archbishop Rowan Williams still seems to make time for some stalwart contributions to public debate.
This via Jonathan Petre:
'The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, yesterday urged America to recognise that terrorists can "have serious moral goals".
'He said that while terrorism must always be condemned, it was wrong to assume its perpetrators were devoid of political rationality. "It is possible to use unspeakably wicked means to pursue an aim that is shared by those who would not dream of acting in the same way, an aim that is intelligible or desirable."
'He said that in ignoring this, in its criticism of al-Qa'eda, America "loses the power of self-criticism and becomes trapped in a self-referential morality." ' [Full article]
Meanwhile Williams has contributed to a series of discussions about governance, global capitalism, the environment and humanum studies through the St Paul's Institute. The conversations are available online on *pdf format.
As if that's not enough, there's the first of a series of lectures honouring a predecessor at Canterbury, Archbishop Michael Ramsey. It's called Theology in the Face of Christ. Just what's needed.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
While immersed in a frantic schedule and facing abominable insults from self-apppointed guardians of 'right thought' in the church, Archbishop Rowan Williams still seems to make time for some stalwart contributions to public debate.
This via Jonathan Petre:
'The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, yesterday urged America to recognise that terrorists can "have serious moral goals".
'He said that while terrorism must always be condemned, it was wrong to assume its perpetrators were devoid of political rationality. "It is possible to use unspeakably wicked means to pursue an aim that is shared by those who would not dream of acting in the same way, an aim that is intelligible or desirable."
'He said that in ignoring this, in its criticism of al-Qa'eda, America "loses the power of self-criticism and becomes trapped in a self-referential morality." ' [Full article]
Meanwhile Williams has contributed to a series of discussions about governance, global capitalism, the environment and humanum studies through the St Paul's Institute. The conversations are available online on *pdf format.
As if that's not enough, there's the first of a series of lectures honouring a predecessor at Canterbury, Archbishop Michael Ramsey. It's called Theology in the Face of Christ. Just what's needed.
Comment on this post: FaithInSociety
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
