[129.1] CAN WE BELIEVE IN 'PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANS'?

I'm seeking to add FaithInSociety to the Progressive Christian Blogger Network, which I have also included at the bottom of my links section [on the left]. Needless to say, there is no guarantee of agreement between the various originators. But that's not the point. There is a growing need to encourage discourse among those who define their Christian identity and understanding in terms of openness, generosity and exploration within the tradition -- and that works itself out in a variety of ways. The variety is life-giving, if occasionally disturbing.

For myself, I find it increasingly helpful to talk about they way I approach theology as 'subversive orthodoxy', taking 'orthodoxy' to mean not some imposed dogma (as the word is popularly misused), but as a field of understanding mapped by an underlying grammar of faith rooted in fluid reason and communicability. I'd call it the 'discovery as re-discovery' method.

Others I know and respect take a more overtly 'revisionary' or 'constructive' stance in their theological writing. That's more where I was five years ago, I'd say -- but writers like Nicholas Lash and Rowan Williams (whose new Grace and Necessity is definitely worth a look) have persuaded me that the tradition is far more subtle, capacious, ironic, varied and adaptable than its liberal critics give credit for. And Nick Adams, too, has chastened me.

One thing that has made this possible in a way that I might not have granted a few years ago is a post-metaphysical twist in my thinking, which means that one is not forever trying to ground speech in an extra-contextual epistemology or ontology. It is more a question of honouring the 'excess' of the language and the phenomena by which Christian (and other) gifts come to us, recognising that we have to decide whether and in what way we will claim -- and be claimed by -- the Mystery, but knowing that we will never possess it.

John D. Caputo and Jean Luc Marion represent contrasting ways of going about this. I oscillate between the radically experimental and the radically traditional, seeing radix as both 'routes' and 'roots'.

Not that you necessarily needed to know that. Anyway, I shall be interested to explore what others who think of themselves as 'progressive Christians' are writing about. And, yes, the concept of 'progress' is indeed problematic, and begs lots of questions. Let's just rest it as "seeking a future not our own" for the time being -- rather than some hubristic claim about historical development, say.

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[128.2] PAUL RICOEUR AND THE HERMENEUTICS OF HOPE

It is interesting to note that many obituaries for the late Paul Ricoeur, while rightly identifying him as a giant of twentieth century philosophy, barely recognise the significance of his theological concerns. That is true of the BBC’s report of his death, which is wholly silent on this point, and the otherwise substantial Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy entry. The Daily Telegraph doesn’t do much better, but The Guardian (once the house newspaper of cultured despisers, now repaying the loyalty of its radical Christian readers a bit) strikes a good balance.



My only tangential connection with Ricoeur is that my wife was secretary of the English language department at the University of Chicago for part of the time that he was a visiting professor there (1979). Of course I have no way of knowing if he ever realised how fortunate he was!

The particular importance of Paul Ricoeur is that, in addition to sharpening our thinking about access to, interpretation of and transmission through texts, he brought phenomenology to the hermeneutical table, continental theory to traditional Anglo-American philosophising, and combined respect for specialisms with a commitment to the necessity of inter-disciplinary reflection.

Questia lists 16 Ricoeur-related articles. The entry in the Boston Collaborative Encyclopaedia of Western Theologians raises some substantial issues, in particular comparing Ricoeur with Hans Frei and the post-liberal Yale School, rightly noting: “Ricoeur does not want to think of everything in terms of intra-textuality, but rather in terms of some of the latest French reception theory. [He] encourages a much stronger dialogue of non-theological and theological readings, in contrast to Frei's more ecclesial based hermeneutic…. Both make a harsh distinction between the philosophical and exegetical modes. Ricoeur affirms the autonomy of philosophical thinking which can assist theology in making its claims more intelligible. For Frei, philosophy distracts the theologian from the primary task of elucidating the identity of Jesus as presented in the gospel narratives. Frei creates a false antithesis between the two disciplines.”

“[For Ricoeur] philosophy reminds theology of its epistemic limitations so it can not be dogmatic. Philosophy can function as 'a friend of the court' in terms of explicating the doctrines of Christian faith with precision and intelligibility. Since theology is hermeneutical, philosophy can be an indirect aid in thinking about hermeneutics. The general hermeneutic of Ricoeur allows for a plurality and specificity of regional hermeneutics (e.g. biblical hermeneutics), yet also allows for a continuing cross-traditional, cross-disciplinary conversational quest for truth.”

These are important correctives indeed. I do wish the narrative theologians, who have much to offer, wouldn't be tempted so comprehensively to overplay their hand in response to the weakenesses of scepticism.

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[128.1] PEACE CHURCH EXPLORATIONS

By the serendipitous chance that truthfully discloses the patterning of God, and which we Christians therefore think of in a providential way, I came upon J. R Burkholder's reflections on the theology and practice of peace church recently. Burkolder is also an advocate of the work of Rene Girard in Mennonite circles. I was fortunate to have a chance to talk to him during my sabbatical in 2002. Incidentally, Ekklesia and the Anabaptist Network UK have a peace church study guide on the web. I should also mention these resources on pacifism from Anabaptist sources. I am personally pleased that part of this tradition has moved on from non-resistance to non-violent resistance.

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[127.2] MORE LIGHT ON BONHOEFFER

While looking at the Anabaptist Network site, on which Tim Nafziger is doing wonders, I discovered that my article on Anabaptists, Anglicans and disestablishment is online there. Much more importantly, there is a good pastoral assesment of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by a Baptist minister, Bob Allaway. It is called Christ for the Irreligious.

I am delighted to be working with Keith Clements on the bringing into print of a new book, Bonhoeffer in Britain, which will appear later this year under the imprint of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland. Keith is just about to retire as General Secretary of the Conference of European Churches. He is an acknowledged international authority on Bonhoeffer, and this title will feature fresh material (including a substantial number of photos) on the German theologian' and activist's time in England, and briefly in Scotland. Watch this space.

My own episodic reflections on Bonhoeffer include a piece on Life Together, God and the world re-understood in Christ. It is derived from a contribution to a seminar at the London Mennonite Centre, and a past lecture in Birmingham. This year was the 6oth anniversary of his death, by the way.

Among the many things for which I am grateful in Bonhoeffer's life and work was his ability to combine deep intellectual questioning, prayer and a life of discipleship. Though his later prison writings were mistreated by 'death of God' theologians in the 1960s, and not well accounted for by John Robinson's well-meant but flawed Honest to God, he was quite right to question the adequacy of traditional Western metaphysics as a means of conveying the God worshipped in and through Jesus Christ.

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[127.1] LEAVING MUNSTER, ORGANIC CHURCH

On Thursday and Friday I went to the UK Anabaptist Network Theology Forum meeting at a retreat centre near Leamington Spa. It's a diverse group of people, overflows with thoughtful and prayerful generosity, and tackles some tough issues -- this time including the legacy of Menno Simons and the question of suffering, and a session on "unbiblical evangelicalism" (led by writer Veronica Zundel). I am one of a number of Anglicans who attend, albeit with strong Mennonite links. It was particularly good to meet up with Graham Old, and to discover the face behind the Leaving Munster site (which is well worth a look), and also to learn about Organic Church. These will be added to my permalinks.

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[126.2] THE MORE-THAN-KINDNESS OF STRANGERS

One of the areas where churches in Britain have demonstrated a good deal of common endeavour (at least in terms of activists and policy makers) is over the questions of asylum, refugees and migration -- where the Jewish and Christian biblical tradition's open stance towards "sojourners in the land" provides a powerful counter-witness to welathy societies that seek to close the gate behind their capacity to suck up wealth poorer nations and peoples.

The idea that migrants harm "our" way of life and economy is, in any case, nonsense. The next issue of the estimable New Internationalist magazine will look at immigration from a different perspective: that of an African nurse working in a care home in Britain. She tells her story, explains why she is working so far from home, and unpacks the implications for all involved.

You can get a three-month free trial and Peters Projection world map if you take out a subscription to the magazine now, by the way.

New Internationalist points out that according to UK Home Office figures, migrants contribute £2.5 billion to the British economy, and 10 per cent more in taxes and National Insurance than they receive in benefits and public services. Moreover 43 per cent of nurses and 31 per cent of doctors entering the National Health Service were trained outside the UK. Thousands of hospitals would close without them. And the British Hospitality Association has warned that it would have serious difficulties covering cleaning and catering jobs without migrants.

Of course there are many issues of social justice bound up with these statistics. But they give the lie to propaganda from The Daily Mail, Migration Watch and other alarmists who wish to stoke up fear and misunderstanding among the public in order to strengthen an anti-immigration political agenda.

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[126.1] BY WAY OF RESEARCH...

... a whole bundle of goodies have found their way into my (increasingly overflowing and disorganised) 'favourites' folder. I might as well share them here. First, though in no particular order of priority, is the Faith and Policy weblog - a good source on US developments from a progressive viewpoint. Then there's Ars Disputandi, the online journal of philosophy and religion.

Meanwhile, in the arena of biblical studies, Dr Mark Goodacre's New Testament Gateway project is without peer, and has a fine NT weblog attached to it, too. I have used it on a number of occasions, but lamentably I have not referenced it before. Also worth referring to is Hypotyposeis, Sketches in Biblical Studies by Stephen C. Carlson. Part of it includes a useful Synoptic Problem site. For those who are into that kind of thing. Oh yes, and The Bible in Transmission is a regular journal which explores the resonance of scripture in public life.

Inter alia I came across and interesting exchange between Jim Gustafsson and William C Placher on postliberalism, from Christian Century. I will return to this at some point. Also a fascinating Theology Today article by Sandra M Schneiders on church study and biblical scholarship in dialogue.



On a lighter note there is the (consciously misspelt) satirical magazine The Wittenburg Door, a nominee for the 2004 Utne independent press awards in the US. Rightly so. And you could no doubt dare to procure yourself a WTFWJD? t-shirt from Sara's Land of Cleverness, just to cross one of the great cultural divides of our age. Incidentally, Going Jesus is an amusing exploration of that darkly innocent land that is religious kitsch. The sort of thing you might want to bear at Landover Baptist, the peeless satire of the religious right assembled by a couple of wicked ejects from Falwell's mis-named Liberty University.

Back in the world of meaningful encounter, the First Mennonite Church of San Francisco looks a good place to be, if you happen to be physically located in the Bay area sometime. And Prodigal Kiwi's weblog is always very stimulating, on everything from the marginal emergence of missio Dei to 'the new monasticism'. Cybervisitors welcome, I'm sure. But New Zealand is also a very nice place in real time.

Many of these will go into my permalinks when I get a moment...

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[125.1] MAKING A PURPOSEFUL DIFFERENCE

A prayer adapted from St Francis for an interreligious conference concuding in Geneva today. It is from His Holiness Aram I, catholicos of the See of Cilicia of the Armenian Apostolic Church (Antelias, Lebanon) and moderator of the WCC Central Committee since 1991.

Let us be instrument of peace,
Where there is violence.
Let us promote love,
Where there is hatred.
Let us work for reconciliation,
Where there is conflict.
Let us spread hope,
Where there is despair.
Let us be light,
Where there is darkness.
Let us lead the broken world
To healing and transformation.

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[124.1] CHURCH, STATE AND RELIGIOUS ABUSE

The appalling case of an eight-year-old child who was beaten, cut and attacked by Christian parents who believed that she was a witch highlights the serious need to tackle religious abuse, and the terrible reality of some types of fundamentalist-style religion. However the reporting of this in the media has run close to negative stereotyping African culture, perhaps in an analogous way to the positive stereotyping that goes on in some Christian media keen to paint a simplistic picture of the 'corrupt West' and the godly African church.

As part of the reaction to all this, MP Diane Abbott has called for consideration of religious registration. I don't think this is helpful, but as an associate of Ekklesia I have made some alternative constructive proposals.

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[123.1] MORE ACTION ON SUDAN

Following yesterday's piece on the US Worship in the spirit of justice initiative, a member of the second chamber of parliament in Britain has been involved in calling for further action on the scandal of Darfur.

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[122.1] WORSHIP, JUSTICE AND DARFUR

A fascinating initiative from Brian McLaren and the Cedar Ridge Community Church, who continue to model a vision of 'generous orthodoxy' in a neck of the religious woods that can be anything but open. What is also encouraging is the linking of worship to justice in a way that recognises that to offer prayer, petition, thanksgiving and sacramental expression is not to retreat into a cultic ghetto, but to give public (political) voice to who and what really counts in our lives. McLaren and his colleagues write:

"Worship in the Spirit of Justice began as a dream among a few members of a very ordinary church in suburban Maryland. Many of us were increasingly heartsick over the news from Africa, especially Western Sudan (Darfur). A year ago we knew that genocide was happening, and now, a year later, 200-300,000 more innocent children, women, and men have died. Meanwhile, we heard estimates that 3 million human lives have been snuffed out in recent years in Congo, and like Darfur, there is no end in sight to the killings. And of course, across Africa, the HIV pandemic creates an aching need--and opportunity--for compassionate, sacrificial response. [More on the problem of Darfur]

"But what could we do? We were just a few people in one small congregation. Then we realized that there may be handfuls of people in thousands of congregations who felt as we did. And we realized that even though we were just one congregation, perhaps if we decided to take action, others might join us. Immediately, we found willing colleagues and “Worship in the Spirit of Justice” was born.

"We are inviting willing Christians to gather for five Sundays of public worship in Washington DC, around the theme of justice and peace in Africa, and especially Darfur, Sudan. These outdoor worship services will take place at 1 p.m. between June 12 and July 10, 2005. We hope that people will attend their Sunday morning worship services and then come to be part of these events. We will speak to people in power and urge them to take action for our neighbors in danger and need. (Download a PDF to learn more: http://www.crcc.org/pdfdocs/Darfurflyer.pdf)

"We are encouraging churches to bring delegations--complete with a sign or banner, if possible--to attend each week--perhaps ten or twenty or fifty or a hundred people per week. That way, the maximum number of people will experience taking a public stand in this way, and they will bring back the experience to their home churches. As well, we encourage churches to use the prayers and readings we’ll be using in DC back in their home churches. (We’ll post all the resources on this site each week, along with streaming video of our outdoor services, in hopes that other groups in other cities across our nation and world will wish to attempt similar gatherings of worship in the spirit of justice.) And of course, children are welcome – we can’t think of a better teaching moment for children than for them to join their parents in this endeavor.

"We will do what Christians always do when they gather for worship--pray, read Scripture, preach, sing, and take an offering (all of which will go to aid people suffering in Darfur). But we will do these things outdoors, in public, with four goals:

1. To pray for God’s justice and mercy to come for those suffering in Darfur, and to be formed as people who share God’s courageous compassion.
2. To urge the media to increase coverage for those who suffer in Darfur and elsewhere, and to urge our government to exert its influence in the world community to end the genocide there and pursue peace.
3. To call the church in America not to forget the poor and oppressed, especially those in Africa--and to make those who suffer poverty and injustice a greater priority in our prayers, preaching, and action whenever we gather to worship the God of justice.
4. To urge the U.S. government to promote peace in the Darfur region by adequately funding the African Union Peacekeeping effort." Further information.

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[121.1] THE PEACEFUL EVANGEL

It was good to get an email from Johan Maurer today. His commentaries on life and faith are always a stimulating read. A Quaker writer and scholar, Johan is involved in some very important work on the Quaker testimonies and and the evangel. I first met him during his recent sojourn at Woodbrooke Study Centre in the UK.

Perhaps it is a self-preserving reaction, but my personal experience is that some in the Christian world for whom 'evangelism' is not a natural mantle have most to offer in terms of recovering 'witness' (martyria) as the key category for hopeful Christian engagement... which might well include Friends. Whereas those who trumpet the word to the skies as a litmus test of 'true faith' run the risk of displacing costly testimony with brash advertising slogans.

["We are the Church of martyria. For this reason, our witness is a witness for love, for the just peace, for the non-violent struggle for the truth, and for equitable just co-existence between Palestinians and Israelis... The Church of martyria is the Church that seriously carries the cross whatever the price might be, because it is the follower of its crucified Lord and master. " Bishop Munib Younan.]

I make that observation partly in response to those who wrote to me following the drafting of the open letter to the WCC on the subject of "recovering the kerygma" (for context see CWME reports). Several were grateful that the topic had been raised in a way that emphasised "talking the walk", rather than promoting a specialist activity which then becomes the preserve of what one correspondent called "certain kinds of Christians". I'll leave that one to your imagination!

On the other hand, a few wrote expressing views which seemed to suggest that any emphasis on pointing explicitly to Jesus Christ as the source, shape and goal of our hope was tantamount to 'exclusivism' and 'triumphalism'. To think that is, I fear, to entertain some serious confusions.

To speak of Christ or to point to the transfiguring impact of his crucified and risen life is to raise a question, not to impose an answer. Not to allow this question to be raised may be to cut our conversations off from the life of One who comes to us in the vulnerability of a stranger and bids us be friends. It is a matter of listening and discernment, not imposition and formula.

The challenge, I think, is to do with our preparedness (in our relationships, our plans and our encounters) for an "Emmaus Road" moment. The evangelising instant is not one where we hear ourselves speaking, but a time to find ourselves lovingly addressed. For it is God's voice we seek.

At the WCC World Mission Conference, many observed that the plenary references to evangelism were primarily cautionary. I can understand why. The name of Christ is so horribly abused in our world. For this reason, as the historic peace churches are perhaps in the best position to recognise, the first step in speaking of or pointing to Jesus is our disarmament.

It is, indeed, peace that anchors the Gospel's witness.

Only when we abandon our weapons of fear can we engage with others in a way which will be free of manipulation and self-interset, and which will thereby truthfully witness to the one who refuses our violence by taking it upon himself.

The precondition of participating in the evangel, then, is metanoia. Ours, first of all. That is what makes it so vital, so tough, and so inimical to the imperialism into which the word 'evangelism' has been so disgracefully distorted.

All of which has reminded me to add links to two organisations for which I have a particular affinity: Witness for Peace (I was in Nicaragua briefly in the mid-1980s) and Christian Pecaemaker Teams (a partner of Ekklesia).

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[120.1] A FUTURE NOT OUR OWN

This prayer of the late Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador is a continual source of hope and inspiration...

It helps, now and then, to step back
and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

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[119.1] WCC MISSION CONFERENCE LINKS

Rather foolishly, I forgot to mention the page that I created here in order to accumulate reporting and comment from the CWME conference. I was also interviewed yesterday by the Christian Today website on the experience, and on the future of British ecumenism. Like all bits of instant punditry, it feels inadequate... but a start.

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[118.3] LISTENING TO THE CHURCHES

...or, rather, hearing what the Spirit might be saying to the churches and movements in Christian mission, has been the task of 'listeners' at the WCC thirteenth Conference on World Mission and Evangelism meeting in Athens, 9-16 May 2005.

As well as being an ecumenically delegated participant, and reporting for Ekklesia, I have been privileged to be part of that process.



Here we are, giving some brief input at the final conference plenary. The snapshots given (you can view the webcast here) were not intended to be representative, but to give a flavour of the variety of perspectives we will be offering.

More detailed, written responses are being produced by the end of May. Some of these will be published in the International Review of Mission, others as part of the reporting process from CWME.

You can see what I have been reporting back through the media here.

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[118.2] PRAYING FOR THE PERSECUTORS

This from the irrepressible John Dear (Jesuit Priest, Peace Activist, Organizer, Lecturer, Retreat leader, and author/editor of 20 books on peace and nonviolence) on Common Dreams:

“Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:43)

“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” (Luke 6:28)

A few weeks before he died in 2002, the great peace activist Philip Berrigan was asked what we could do about George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the U.S. warmakers.

“We have to do two things,” he answered. “We have to pray for them and resist them.”

That parting wisdom sums up the mission before us, to pray for our persecutors, bless the warmakers, and resist them with all our strength and love by opposing their wars, weapons, greed, injustices, and environmental destruction.

In that Spirit, here goes then... (continued here).

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[118.1] CHURCHES INVITED TO WITNESS FOR PEACE

The world’s churches have been invited to adopt non-violence and peace building as distinctive ‘identity markers’ of the Christian community, alive and active in the world.

Dr Fernando Enns, a German Mennonite member of the central committee of the World Council of Churches, spoke on this theme at a press briefing following his presentation today at the 2005 Conference on World Mission and Evangelism in Athens, Greece.

Dr Enns played a significant role in securing the adoption of the Ecumenical Decade to Overcome Violence (2001-2010) at the eighth assembly of the WCC in Harare, 1998. Its aim is to create a space for churches across the globe to collaborate in peace-building initiatives in a world of division and conflict.

“We do not believe any longer that we will overcome evil by evil, but by doing good”, said Dr Enns. “We truly believe that the Apostle Paul is right when he says in his letter to the Corinthians that we are ‘a new creation’ from God ‘who reconciled himself to us through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation’.” (Continued here).

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[117.2] A GOSPEL OF LIFE

Three signs marked my arrival as a participant in the historic thirteenth WCC Conference on World Mission and Evangelism in Athens, Greece (9-16 May 2005). In content and form they were very different, but together they show the scale of the global challenge Christians face in commending the Gospel of reconciliation to a divided world.

The first sign was an advertising poster on the road between Athens and Attiki. “We welcome a new myth to Greece”, it declared. “Yours.” It would be hard to find a more potent summary of the post-modern condition. There is a genuine hospitality to the plural environment. But it is one which is tempted to replace commitment with curiosity, to see our founding narratives as exchangeable goods, and to think of the story that shapes us as ours to dispose of as we choose.

In coming to Greece, the land of antiquity, we have been reminded that things are rather more complicated than this... (Continued here).

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[117.1] REPORTING FROM CWME

For convenience, I have collected together WCC Conference on World Mission and Evangelism reports from different sources (mostly Ekklesia and ENI) on a single CWME web page associated with my main site.

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[116.1] NOT RIGHTNESS BUT RIGHTEOUSNESS

"I don't have the Holy Spirit in my pocket"

These were Orthodox theology teacher Athanasios Papathanasiou's words during one of the press briefings at the WCC world mission conference. Papathanasiou, a member of the Church of Greece involved with the planning of the conference, was trying to explain the seemingly abstruse issue of the influence that the final things (eschata) have over the non-final ones (history).

"Nothing in history is final," he said, "and that gives us a lot of freedom, because the future remains open for God". At the same time, the perspective of God's kingdom means that every human activity is under judgement. "I know for sure that I'm being called to salvation, but I can't be sure that God would agree with everything I think," he said. Papathanasiou is nonetheless sure about some things: "It's not true that we Christians should be reconciled with everything: we don't have to be reconciled with injustice." (via WCC)

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[115.5] CHURCHES CALLED TO REPENTANCE AND PEACE

If Christians are to be heard speaking truthfully in a fast-changing, plural world they must repent of domineering attitudes and emulate the self-giving, non-violent love of Jesus Christ. That was the heart of the message presented today by the general secretary of the World Council of Churches to participants at the Athens global mission conference.

Speaking to the widest range of church representatives ever gathered for such an event, the Rev Dr Samuel Kobia acknowledged that “the word ‘mission’ carries a heavy historical baggage, having played a part in fostering division and conflict between peoples, and even between families of churches".

“Perhaps the time has come for confession and repentance,” continued Dr Kobia, an ordained member of the Methodist Church in Kenya who took up his post as WCC chief in January 2004. (Full story here).

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[115.4] JERUSALEM BEARS WOUNDS OF THE CROSS

In a moving ceremony to mark the opening of the Conference on World Mission and Evangelism in Athens, Greece, a 25-foot high Cross arrived by boat from the divided city of Jerusalem today. It was received with prayers for peace with justice by representatives of churches from across the globe.

The olivewood Cross was made by craftspeople who have themselves been caught up in the tragic Israel-Palestine conflict. It represents both the historic presence of the Gospel in the region and the call for worldwide support for peace building and for solidarity with the small Christian community, the ‘living stones’.

The Cross is a gift from Christians caught up in a war zone to their sisters and brothers gathering to reflect on the role and impact of the Christian message in the 21st century. (Full story here).

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[115.3] AN OLYMPIAN TASK

Part of the site of the Olympic Games in 2004 is being transformed this week into a global meeting point for Christians from 105 countries. The Agios Andreas Recreational Centre in Attiki, near Athens, formed the hub of media operations for the Games. It is now mainly used by officers of the Greek army. For seven days, however, the military is taking a back seat to a historic meeting about the future of Christian mission – one focusing on the healing, reconciling and peacemaking vocation of the churches. (Full story here).

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[115.2] INTRODUCTION TO CWME

The most widely representative global gathering of Protestant, Catholic, Anglican, Evangelical and Orthodox Church leaders concerned with the 21st century mission of the world's 2.5 billion Christians begins today. It will be a unique moment in Christian history.

The assembly will commence with the gift of a huge wooden Cross from Jerusalem, due to be blessed by Orthodox Archbishop Christodoulos. Some five hundred delegates and 200 advisers and media have gathered from every corner of the earth through the auspices of the thirteenth World Council of Churches' Conference on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME). They will confer, debate, pray and work together from 9-16 May under the theme "Come, Holy Spirit, Heal and Reconcile!"

The conference in Athens convenes at a time of continuing division among nations, across peoples, between religions and throughout the churches. WCC general secretary, the Rev Dr Samuel Kobia, will this morning issue a stirring call to Christians of every tradition and theological persuasion to take with renewed practical seriousness the Gospel of peace, justice and reconciliation which called them into being in the first place. (Full story here.)

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[115.1] NEWS FROM ATHENS

So here I am in Athens, 9-16 May, at the World Council of Churches' Commission on World Mission and Evangelism. Since I finish my work at CCOM on 30 June, this is really my swansong. The theme is right up my street, and the sub-theme crystallises the challenge very aptly: Called in Christ to be Reconciling and Healing Communities.

I have three functions at CWME. One is to link with members of the British and Irish contingent (as a delegated ecumenical representative). Another is to be a rapporteur for the event on behalf of the WCC. And a third, fitted in around the other two, is to deploy my press credentials on behalf of Ekklesia. I'll post the openers for my stories here, too.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.”

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[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.

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[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.

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[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?

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[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.

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[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.

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[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."

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[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!

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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...



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[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".)

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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).

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