George Carey Gets Lairy

Courtesy of paulvallely.com

Those of you who know me know well what I think of anything that smacks of passive-aggression. It is a scourge, a curse and a flim-flammery - the shadow in the blogosphere and the peril that threatens the very credibility of Christianity in this country. There is nothing worse than an individual or organisation licking its non-existent wounds and baying like a wounded puppy in the wake of injuries that just don't exist. 

I am a loyalist, as you know. I respect the place and persons of the episcopacy, and regard myself as duty-bound by my Orders to respect those in ecclesial authority. I am not one who comfortably launches invective at senior bishops! But I will make an exception ...

It is Easter. It is a time of joy, hopefulness, new life, bursts of new faith, and all-round rapturous happiness in the lives of us God-botherers. My church was full this Easter, literally. The God of the Resurrection is all mighty, all powerful, all loving, has the plan sorted, can be trusted, knows what He is doing, built things like mountains and stars and that, and on the whole is not going to be easily supplanted. Oh no - not one bit of it. 

And yet my Lord and sometime Archbishop of Canterbury perceives a threat to it all. From the secularists who seem to want it all their own way, apparently. George says 'no'. Once again, it seems that the entire Missio Dei hinges on whether some lovey wears her crucifix on the outside of her uniform rather than under it. It seems that God's entire universal purpose in the whole of Creation is threatened when people are stopped from unilaterally imposing their own theologies on others. Want to do something? Only if I agree with your moral fibre, sir! Then I will allow you. 

What the world needs is love, love, love. The Christianity in England that will die is a Christianity that imposes its rights before love. The Christianity that will die in England is the Christianity that says 'our way or the highway'. Christianity in England will die when our Gospel message is contingent on one soul wearing a piece of jewelry as a definitive sign of belief and fights tooth and nail when that company or organisation (who pays them a salary , but let's no quibble over details) chooses to disagree (as they do for all such baubles). Whining in public about how hard-done by we are is a sure fire way of saying that God and all God's enormities are somehow threatened by the whiles of Secularists and Dawkins type folk. It is the same, exactly the same, as a heavy-weight champion boxer complaining that a toddler just hurt him with a slap on the shins. 

Jesus Christ is Risen, Alleluia - and His church is as alive, vital and unapologetic as ever it was (save for a few individuals who know not how to pick their fights - who are making us look marginally stupid)

Concerning My Loathing of Stained Glass

Actually, I like stained-glass windows; just not stained-glass Christianity. 

The Passion is a time when the Mrs Alexanders of this world conspire to annoy  me. "There is a green hill far away without a city wall". I ask you - green? Jerusalem? Not the Jerusalem that I visited that was parched and arid. Green Hill? Hardly, love. 

If this were Room 101, I would surely consign Stained-Glass Christianity to that deep pit. Why? Because all glass should be clear or frosted? No. Because it depicts a story in a manifestly sanitized way. 

Windows depicting the events on the Golgotha are a pertinent case in point. You have your cross, all neat and clean. you have your Jesus, all fair and wind-swept - almost dashing. His face is clean, his natty little head-piece set to a jaunty angle. He is often depicted in neat baggy Speedos, wrapped around a muscular, six-pack enhanced physique. It must be that between Gethsemane and Gabbatha, Jesus popped over for an hour at the weights at Gold's Gym. 

The Christmas images are the same. Mary is often a pretty woman in her late twenties, in robes more expensive than Bill Gates could afford. Jesus is always a plumpling, clean and as Caucasian a child as ever there was. The manger is a twee little magazine rack full of my guinea-pig's straw bedding, the donkeys have floppy eyelashes and the moo-cows seem to smile.

It

Was

Not

Like

That

I know that argument for this is artistry, or that the alternative would have wounded sensibilities. Sensibilities Schmensibilities. Artistry Schmartistry. Stained-Glass Shamed Glass.

Now, as a thing to have in ones church I like these windows a great deal, just not the way that they clean up the act, purify the filth, sooth away the agonies, wash the linen, beautify the traumatized. Little wonder people don't 'get' Good Friday let alone a snotty dribble-covered manger stone. If people could be allowed to learn of the horrors implicit in our Gospel stories, they might just start to get the extent and depth of the whole thing. 

"There is a green hill far away ..."

No there bloody well isn't.

Humanists Hiding Behind Anglicans (and Children)

As I minded my own business and went to collect the Twins Aculae from school this afternoon, some little chap or other pushed a high-gloss high-price leaflet into my hand. I confess to thinking that he didn't look like the sort to be pushing the next pizza place, so I read the thing. 

What you see here is the front top portion of the 120gsm publication. Wow, I thought, a faith group getting militant. Someone doesn't like Catholics, I mused. Naughty Catholics, I pondered, if this is right. I also thought happy-happy joy-joy thoughts for the kind  non-Catholic group who seemed concerned with the rights of my Anglican flock. 

Brothers and sisters: all is not as it would seem. This publication is from Richmond Inclusive Schools Campaign, and they have a website too: http://www.richmondinclusiveschools.org.uk/ Among the plaudits is just a small amount of anti-Catholic rhetoric and couched in the language of bile and stereotype (in my opinion). Me being me, I wanted to know who RISC were - a faith group? Some disgruntled parents who had failed by get baby Johnny admitted elsewhere? The leaflet and the website were no help whatsoever. The Humanist website was, however. They gave the game away, and blew the cover of our Humanist brothers and sisters who seemed at some pains to avoid their true identity. 

Now - I have no real objection to inclusiveness in our faith schools. Actually, I favour it over a tight admission policy because I don't think that any facet of church life should be that of a private-member's club. What I absolutely do object to is to campaigns that fight for our children and for other faith groups as a subterfuge for the real agenda. To argue a case for what you do want as a front for what you don't want is underhand, in my opinion (and dishonest). Let us be clear - the BHA don't give a rat's derriere for me as an Anglican, any other Protestant, Jew, Muslim, Hindu or Sikh. To them we are all deluded.

For my part, I think that the debate should be open, that we have a meaningful debate about school admissions policies - but in the open, as conspicuous interested parties - not behind campaign slogans and some disingenuous text. There is an increasing sense in some Christian circles that loving our neighbour (you know, that key Christian tenet) doesn't work well with "our neighbour isn't allowed in our school though". There are Christians who will debate this issue without resort to glossy semantic prestidigitation. I confess to being even more disappointed in the Humanists than I was before - and I didn't think that was possible. 

Give me a true atheist any day - at least we can talk properly. 

Damascus or Psalm 139

Today, in the Anglican cycle of things at least, we commemorated the conversion of one Saul of Tarsus. Flash bang wallop, one very neat letter writer, jail-bird and Mediterranean rambler.

This day, and the readings to which we were treated in Exciting Holiness this morning (fine book, get a copy), brought to mind a small anxiety I have harboured for a good number of years. 

In the main, there are two types of Christian (in this schema): those termed 'cradle-Christians' and those who did all that getting-to-know the Lord stuff at a later age. Put another way, you get your Psalm 139 disciples or you get your Damascus Road disciples. 

This is, of course, a statement of the blindingly obvious. I accept, too, that people drift in and out of faith as their lives peak and trough and that such elasticity is a good and healthy thing. Christianity, in the main, is not a faith of those 'inside' and those 'outside', and that it one of its most gracious qualities. Toe-dipping, running-away-screaming, coming back when the kids grow up, confessing an old faith on the death bed - all these and so many more are ways that as Christ's disciples, we make sense of that journey.

If only it were that simple. Sadly, it feels (I lean on 'feel' as it might just be me) that there is a spiritual stratification in place, surrounding this specific matter. 

I have lost count of the times when I have seated myself in an Anglican Circle in a large room to dissect my 'story'. Largely throughout theological training, but quite a lot since, I found myself doing the 'going-round-the-circle' thing. How we come to faith is up there with our name and some interesting nonsense about how we lived life before we sat in that room, and spill our guts we do. Then it happens.

Person 1: God spoke to me up when I was a terrible teenager

Person 2: I gave my life to Jesus at 6.42pm on April 11th 1976 and it was raining outside

Me: I have always been a Christian since I was born

Person 4: My dad is a priest and I always went to church

Person 5: I answered God's personal call to me after three decades in the wilderness

Person 6: I was a crack addict until I let God into my heart and here I am

All good, no issues. Unless you are sat there in the room. Confessing a Psalm 139 faith is about the same as "I am only here because I can't be arsed to leave", or "Accidental Christian". Confessing a Damascus Road faith is received triumphantly like a hero returning from the field of battle, scarred and bloodied, but alive (and yes, affirming grunts from the throng are audible). I have never given my life to God simply because I didn't ever need to. There were no days before my faith, I was made like this (fearfully and wonderfully?). Sadly, it seems to be the case that you ain't no-one unless you can name the time and place. 

I am no-one. 

Except who God made me to be, and I am happy at that.

From One Extreme to Another

It is only a few weeks since Ricky Gervais mocked the image of Christ on a magazine cover in order to make a further payment on his mortgage. Apart from a few bloggers, myself included, not a peep was heard from any sensible Christian anywhere.

This morning brought with it a news story of a French satirist whose offices were rendered to charcoal because he made a mocking representation of the Prophet Mohammed in his own magazine. 

In essence, the same action by two 'funny' men caused diametrically opposing responses from faith organisations. One of those responses was conspicuous by its absence, the other conspicuous by its excess. 

Surely there is some middle ground. It seems, at times, that Christians are only satisfied when attacking their own (the archbish, for example). The other lot are busy weeping into their crocheted hankies about how we are "Christians of the persecution" in Britain - and you all know what I think of that preposterous agenda. Oddly, we seem incapable or unwilling to step up and speak out about those who would seek to mock our own Saviour, which makes us the focus and butt of much comedy and insult. Equally, I am a blogger who avoids any and all talk of the Prophet Mohammed. Why? Because I fear the response by some of the more extreme of my Muslim brothers (and sisters). It is a considerable imbalance between the faiths that to my mind is difficult to swallow. 

I would love to see more Christians become gusset-rotated about some of the christocentric humour that permeates our media. I would love to see Christians stand up for their faith not in the flaccid way we see in the hands of those who simply want to impose their personal theologies. We can't even blame being British, because the world of football and rugby engenders so much loyalty and self-defensiveness. By the same token, I would call upon my Muslim brothers and sisters to not be so easily compelled to violence by the foolishness of comedians. No-one prevails in the wake of an over-reaction, any more than they do in the silent wake of passivity. 

This is a place where many people of different faiths can learn from one another. To those of us who hold it, faith is important enough to cherish and seek to protect. I am sure that every Christian parent would turn rabid in the defense of their children, just not their family in faith. Equally, I doubt that a single member of any other faith group would burn the house of the headteacher following a difficult report about their little ones. Let us all work out the middle ground, and maybe even (just maybe) find a way of defending faith in all its expressions. 

Blind Faith Can Kill You

As I half-watched the news the other evening, a piece caught my attention that woke me up and gave me cause to become angry. That news story can be found here. 

I am a priest, and as a priest I believe in a God who is made known in the created order, the miraculous and the unexpected. My eyes are open and so is my mind, but neither am I foolish about it. As part of this I believe in a God who pours his healing spirit into those in great need, and I am willing to believe that there are cases of cure from disease that are directly from God. The definition if miracles, however, is that they are not daily occurrences.

Someone very close to me has an expression: God will provide, but you have to do your own hustling. Put another way, God's healing spirit is poured into us by the gifts and skills of other humans more often than not - the talents of the pharmacologists, the vocation and gifts of those in the caring and medical professions, and sometimes simple time and faith by all concerned. I do not, in any way shape or form, believe in a God who, when some barmy cleric directs him, kills all known germs dead.  Were this the God we were talking about, we would surely be living in a utopia where babies do not die of cancer at two years old and wars never happen. 

Faith is the heart of all that Christians do. We proceed in faith through our every journey of life - be they good or the worst of journeys. What angers me is when a barmy cleric tells those whose faith is at breaking point in the context of a life limiting disease that God will reach down from a cloud and cure them. What that barmy cleric is saying is, with breathtaking arrogance, that he can cure people (perhaps he is his messiah). Then those poor people have died of the disease, and one barmy cleric has caused them to regard God as failed. 

To me this is the worst of spiritual abuse. Strong words yes, but when you tell a dying person to say a prayer, or to cavort with the signs of the Spirit, that they will not be dying - that actually, so much will they be healed that they can stop taking their tablets - that is the worst of abuses. People look to clerics for support and whether we like it or not, and whether we ourselves believe what we say or not - many people take our words as absolute. 

I pray for those who have succumbed to their symptoms because a cleric told them to stop taking medication. I pray for their families who are left to wonder where the lie or failure lay. I pray for the barmy cleric who is so devastatingly wrong that he is killing people with their love and with their faith. 

Baptism - Freely Given or Undervalued?

There is a debate raging, in my head at least, concerning the administration of Baptism. It is a debate that has murmured under the surface of a few conversations that I have been part of or privy too in recent years, and never with any sort of resolution.

Argument 1 - We want all people to be disciples of Christ, so of course we must baptize all those who seek it

Argument 2 - If someone asks for their child to be baptized, it would be bad form, rude even, to deny them that which they seek

Argument 3 - Seeds sown now may yield fruit later

... and so on! These are the arguments given by those who think that baptism should be freely granted to all who ask, and fair enough. They are valid views.

I have always wrestled with a sense that baptism seems too readily granted. Someone pops by the Vicarage or church, asks for baptism, gets it and then more often than not they vanish from whence they came. That might be as a result of poor follow-up pastoral care; it might be because that is the very nature of the beast; it might be that people seek baptism (and this debate is more to do with children presented as candidates by their parents and guardians) because it is "what you do". The simple fact is that baptism is less to do with initiation into the worshipping life of the church than other factors.

My instinct is to ask enquirers "and why so you want your child to be baptized?". Part of me fears the answer, but if I administer baptism without a concern for that, what implicit message am I delivering? That baptism doesn't really matter so go ahead, let's book a date. Indeed, the liturgists in their zeal to offer choice have created the Great Euphemism - the Thanksgiving for the Birth of a Child order of service which, although never intended to be, has become 'Baptism Lite' so that we don't frighten people away with all the religious hocus-pocus.

Part of me thinks that if our faith is of life changing and affirming value to us as believers, we should administer its initiation scrupulously. Part of me still thinks that if faith is like that we should cast it far and wide (and hope some of it sticks?). Where does giving something freely become the administration of something that has no value? One is generous, one is insulting (to God, to believers and to those who really do value baptism). If I am honest, part of me thinks that baptism should be first step of a renewed pattern of behaviour that revolves around the community of which the baptized have just become member. Part of me thinks that if I took that view I might struggle for baptisms!

Thoughts, please ... 

Se also Baptism Boosters

Brave or Hospitable?

It was my joy to be asked to officiate at the Royal Airforce Association Battle of Britain Day service here in Whitton yesterday. In the early days of my engagement with the parish, just after my appointment, the kind and generous people who had a care for my mortal being expressed concern that such a service might be too much of an ask on what would be my first Sunday in post. Fortunately, services for the Armed Services, their veterans and cadets featured a great deal in my last role, so no worries! 

The church was full, and although the RAFA is largely a membership by association (only a very small handful are Airforce veterans), we were able to welcome well over a hundred air cadets who gave up time to show their commitment to the uniform and organisation of which they are members. They did themselves proud, as did the band, as did the talented young bugler who played the Last Post and Reveille in front of us all (including the Mayor of Richmond). 

What was distinct this time from others that I have had a part in is that the cadets numbered those conspicuously from other faiths. There were Sikh, Jewish and Muslim cadets (and Veterans), all together in the church. I didn't want to ignore their presence and so made a very quick decision about how to proceed. 

First, the welcome. I made a point of welcoming my brothers and sisters of other faiths along with the dignitaries, veterans, members etc. I wanted to acknowledge them formally. Secondly, at the point when we reached the time for prayer, I further acknowledged that I would be (obviously) using Christian prayers [the Lord's Prayer, for example], and that those who followed a different guiding light (the use of the word 'god' excludes some) may take the opportunity to pray in their own way. To be honest, it seemed like the only polite thing to do.

Afterwards, a veteran approached me and said how grateful he was for that 'permission'. He is an observant Jew and appreciated that a time for prayer was made available for him as a member of a sibling faith. He also commented that he thought it a very brave thing for me to have done!

I have thought about this over and over. Why 'brave'? I am comfortable in my faith sufficiently that I am happy to acknowledge that of others. They were there to celebrate an affiliation to an ideal that is human and not purely Christian, and that is the ideal of defending the poor and weak and their freedom. He was a former pilot who knew what that ideal looked like in practice, so rather than 'brave', it now seems to me that it was the only truly right thing to do!

A New Perspective on Christianity

This weekend has caused a profound shift in my perspective of my own faith and the organisation to which I claim a long membership. It is a tectonic shift caused by the best of things and the worst of things - the latter being the stuff of global headlines even now. 

I have slowly come to realise that there are very different kinds of Christians: the ones for whom faith is life, and the ones for who whom faith is a soap-box. There are those who let their faith shine through them and their lives, and others who use faith as a Tyndall Beam in order to project their needs upon the world. The latter disposition, at best, yields a few wonky outbursts (perhaps this is one of them). At worst, it results in the death of the innocents. 

In my last post, I shared a moment of Shona praise. In other posts I have talked about the deaf community. Both communities, the deaf and the Zimbabwean, have taught me considerable lessons about my own faith. The deaf community has taught me so much about communication, the Zimbabwean about unbridled and unfettered trust in love. Both cause, I am sorry to say, standard Western Christianity in many of its forms to seem petty, self interested, self-important and as relevant as a Beta Max Video player. 

Some have spoken of Christian persecution, as it is found in Britain. As far as I can see, that amounts to strictures surrounding work-apparel and directives about using faith to impose a theology upon others in their lives. Real persecution is to be found in the lives of Christian men and women from Zimbabwe who, because of their faith, have had to leave homes and family behind, often never seeing those loved ones again. Because of their faith. Where funds were limited, the Christian men of Zimbabwe sent their women and children oversees to safety, and in more than one case that I know of, have died before the reunion. Because of their faith. Only in that context do I see true persecution, not in the affronts to middle-class choice that we bewail in the West. The astonishing thing, though, is that a drop of their worship expresses more joy and gratitude than a bucket of our own worship (in any of the brands it is available in). Some of the British Christians who attended the Shona Mass on Saturday commented upon how "poe-faced" it made us all seem. I couldn't disagree. Exilic Zimbabweans regard their removal and separation from their homes as a new calling from God, and embrace it in those terms. Perhaps this is why I can't get super-heated about pieces of paper, I just don't know.

And then of course we have this man, Anders Behring Breivik, the man responsible for the murder of 85 young people in Norway in a kind of 'social conservation' exercise. He did this, it seems, because of a wildly mis-guided set of views informed, among other things, by ... his faith. His brand of faith is labelled as 'fundamentalist', 'right wing' and 'conservative' - none which is reason enough to end the lives of others. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first such terrorist act in the name of Christ in my lifetime at least in the West. 

In the middle of all of this, I have a a renewed sense of being a bystander. I have also written elsewhere about being a bystander, and the responsibility that we share (the Holocaust is one such arena where the place of the bystander is important). I watch Norway and the events there; I find joy when I am taken from Western 'nice' to the untainted praise of exiles. I put these things together and I gain a new perspective on my faith. On one hand we can abuse and insult our spiritual leaders with impunity. On another, a man is killing on behalf of the Head of our Body. One community would give up everything for the church ... everything. Another community light their bonfires and dance around the glowing embers of a church that they claim to love. There is an impossible imbalance in all of this that I struggle with. 

Today, the Body of Christ is different. We cannot be the same as we were before the Norwegian killings. What we have is a treasure in clay jars - jars that we beat with rods in our own hands, or else we stand by and watch others doing the same. Christians must now stand together and remind the world once again that we are a people of love, tolerance, embracing people of all races, whatever their differences to us - and a people of joy and praise, of song and worship - in all circumstances. If we do not, the consequences are on our heads. 

God is love, and those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.