Centre for Faith and Life Blog

X-MAS

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 05:27:26 GMT

The X-traction of lavish love.

My friend and I were musing over the variety of Christmas advent devotionals available as we struggled to find one that would meet us where we are at. He challenged me to pen one for next year. I jokingly replied with a draft first entry as follows:

“Day 1: all my faithful friends have their nativity up and lament at how Christ has been removed from Christmas and X marks the spot where this travesty took place. As I challenge them on this idea that everything hinges on the presence or absence of one word, they look at me like the evangelical liability they believe me to be. But still I am reminded in my heart that many will proclaim his name but Jesus might not recognise us all. Contrary to my community of faith, Xmas doesn’t bother me so much. When I read the gospels, I see Jesus was actually not that phased by the notoriety that followed him; in fact he constantly tried to outrun or outwit the attention. He wasn't looking for followers of Jesus so much as followers of Jesus WAY. S o let us not lament the Xtraction of Jesus from popular Christmas culture, let us lament the extraction of lavish love, reckless inclusion and steadfast reclamation of every created beings humanity from modern Christian cultures celebration of the WAY before we sanctimoniously celebrate the birth of The Way-Reminder. Because people celebrating Xmas are often saying to all in need around them "shit yeh mate, of course I can help you" or "bloody hell, you are getting away from that man. You and the kids can come stay with me. Here have a fag to calm your nerves, I'm driving you to ED". They loan each other cash at Xmas and have no nativity on their mantle....but Jesus is on the mantle of their hearts. How do I know? Because they will be known by their love.”

I don’t know for sure, none of us can, and I have found it a counterproductive exercise to waste time dividing the world up into believers and nonbelievers, saved and unsaved. What I have found to be more fruitful is, just that, going through life stopping to delight in and appreciate the beauty of good fruit wherever I might find it - peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, temperance; as I attempt to authentically bear the fruit of faith. In recent years I have found this leaves enough room for God to challenge me on the constraints I have placed on divinity.

Is not this the Christmas nativity story one of God constantly challenging our preconceived ideas through Jesus? They were waiting on a Messiah, a King to reclaim kingdom - and instead they found a child of peasants born amongst an animal kingdom not a royal kingdom! And whether you believe in the miracle of virgin birth or the historical socio-cultural linguistic construct of a virgin birth, convincing anyone, now or then, of this miracle was surely a hard sell with minimal buyers.

As far as the community of ancient near eastern times was concerned Jesus was born out of wedlock, out of dignity and out of any respect. And “king” Jesus didn’t become a doctor or a lawyer, not even a man of the cloth. He was a carpenter; his friends were fishermen. He often disparaged and undermined his temple contemporaries. He spent quality time with the least salubrious people of his day; the most controversial - those that were outcast from the religious community; those that were foreign to the ethnic community; those that were powerless to the political community (women and people with disabilities). Were it not for the fact that I think God did want this updated reminder message of lavish love documented, I am convinced this challenging of expectations would have gone so far as the baby king being born a queen! But nobody would have followed the life of a women let alone written the memoir - just look at who’s books were canonised in the New Testament and who did the canonising!

My point is, Jesus didn’t meet the brief of conquering kingship and in the final blow of smashing the Jewish community’s preconceived ideas and expectations to oblivion, this so-called king goes and gets himself killed; the long-awaited conqueror gets conquered.

Sometimes, we categorise people out of Gods kingdom because they don’t meet the brief, they don’t fit our preconceived ideas and expectations. So, this Christmas, when I put my nativity in pride of place to celebrate “the King has Come”, I am reminded that a King didn’t come, at least not in the eyes of all those waiting on one. The nativity was the ultimate Kris Kringle (maybe the first!), where we quite simply don’t know what to expect and should always be prepared for a surprise, but it will be a gift.

When I place Jesus in the manger on the mantle, with Xmas songs playing in the background, my heart sings- “God with Us”.

COLLAPSING THE SACRED

itsupport@carey.wa.edu.au (Brian Harris) — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 04:32:55 GMT

A few years ago I read a story in the bible that I had come across many times before.

As I read it this time, I began to see things I had never seen before.

The story was different to the one I had seen and heard.

It was deeper,

it was more profound,

more real.

It was just more .

This is the best thing about the bible - you can see things a certain way, read a story a certain way for such a long time and then one day you realise that there is a hidden depth there that you hadn’t seen before that takes you into a new world of understanding.

Call it Spirit,

call it revelation,

call it what you want.

I am so grateful when it happens, and it happens a lot.

This particular story is from a book called Kings and it’s the story of the prophet Elijah. It’s a story that had dominated sermons when I was growing up, and for good reasons. It’s epic, loud and powerful. It’s a story where God shows up in a big way.

In this story Elijah is in a grand face-off with his enemies, the prophets of Ba’al, and their idolatrous King, Ahab. Ahab was once a person of faith but had been wooed away from the one true God by his hot wife and now he – and with him most of the nation – had turned to worship other gods.

This made Elijah feel pretty isolated, and angry,

and so he challenged Ahab and his prophets to a cosmic duel.

A cosmic duel .

The bible is the gift that keeps on giving.

The rules are simple: two altars, one for each God. Each team will pray to their respective god/s and the one that answers with a fireball from the sky is real.

Simple.

Sublime.

The story then follows that the prophets of Ba’al, of which there were hundreds, prayed all day with no results. They tried many different methods of prayer: shouting, dancing, screaming, even cutting themselves and offering their blood as appeasement, just to try and get god to hear them.

But nothing.

Silence.

Then Elijah steps up,

cocky walk, smirk on his face.

He not only offers a very short prayer but he’s audacious enough to throw water all over his altar first, just to make it a little more challenging.

Then guess what happens?

A fireball .

God answers his prayers, the altar is burned, and all of the prophets who prayed to other gods fall on their knees declaring to Elijah, “your God, is the one true living God.”

It’s a cool story, right?

I had heard it told many times, by many people, each time there was a similar theme:

our God is the one true God,

our God is powerful,

ask and you shall receive,

God will prove himself.

Our. God. Won.

In order to see this story afresh, to glean that new perspective from it that shook my world, I employed a complex reading strategy that has been passed down from the ancients:

I just kept on reading.

Sometimes we finish the stories before they have actually finished because it makes them easier to tell.

We prayed and our friend’s sickness went away.

Our business was on the brink and then someone gifted us some money.

He was on the edge of a cliff, but someone said something kind that changed his mind.

Elijah prayed and God answered by fire .

Sometimes these stories are the full story and they are wonderful and moving and profound in all of the best ways. But sometimes they represent only a part of the story. The bit we understood. The rest, well, it’s much more confusing.

The sickness did go away, but then it came back.

The gift got us through for a while, but things got harder and the business went under.

Those kinds words were meaningful but not enough to heal all of the inner turmoil.

These are tragic moments that we often don’t know how to make sense of, but they are also part of the story and so we must find a way to embrace them.

God did answer Elijah’s prayer.

God did send a fireball from heaven.

The people did turn and declare that Elijah’s God was the one true God.

And then this happened:

Elijah commanded them, “Seize the prophets of Baal. Don’t let anyone get away!” They seized them, and Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered there.

Slaughtered.

Perhaps some of the people who had just fallen to their knees in surrender were now dead.

Elijah won the contest, and then slaughtered those that lost.

I’ve talked with a lot of people about this particular moment and their response is usually predictable. They will say something like:

it was a different time back then ; or

that’s just how things happened ; or if they’re really strange

these people were idol worshippers and that’s what God commands.

Really?

God wants Elijah to kill everyone that disagrees?

He feels so wildly insecure about that, that it’s not enough to turn their hearts to him but he must also command his prophets to

Slaughter them?

Not only does this seem like a strangely insecure thing to do but it also seems to go against the bigger arc (sometimes we call it a metanarrative) of scripture.

God seems to go to great lengths to show us that he is the God who enters in to our messy and broken story to show us how much he loves us. Not that he is waiting for us to get it right or he will destroy you.

Not only did the way this story end not sit well with me, it also seemed to be missing from all of those sermons I had heard, and books I had read (which is a good indication that it also didn’t sit well with all those preachers. When in doubt, omit…)

and so I decided to keep reading.

And it kept going.

Once all the slaughtering was done, Ahab runs to his wife (Jezebel – she’s pretty terrifying) and tells her what happened. She’s mad and so she makes a promise to kill Elijah within the day.

Now, to be honest, if I’m Elijah I would be feeling pretty confident. You literally just summoned fire from heaven and slaughtered hundreds of idol worshippers. Can this one woman really get under your skin?

The answer is yes.

Elijah was afraid and ran for his life.

What was he afraid of?

Sure, it’s pretty scary to have someone threaten you like that but surely if you had the confidence of a God who sent fireballs from heaven you wouldn’t worry too much about it.

Just click your fingers and send a tsunami,

or something like that.

Maybe Elijah had run out of energy, maybe his confidence was waning, maybe he wasn’t entirely convinced that what he had done was the right thing. Whatever was going through his head the most dominant feeling was fear, and so he ran. He ran up a mountain.

The first story – the fireball story – takes place on the top of a mountain, Mt. Carmel. The second part of the story also takes place on the top of a mountain, Mt Horeb. If we know anything about the stories in the bible, we know to pay attention to these kinds of parallels.

Two stories, side by side.

Two mountains, one after the other .

We know what happens on the first mountain,

What happens on the second?

After what sounds like a gruelling journey to Horeb, where Elijah enters into a state of depression and has to be coaxed with food and divinations, he arrives at the mountain. Interestingly enough this mountain – Horeb – is the mountain where Moses first encountered God. For those reading this story in context that would have been very significant.

This is the mountain where Moses met God.

This is the mountain where God revealed himself to Moses.

This is the mountain where God reveals himself.

This is the mountain where we hear the name of God.

It can be confusing, because we just saw God revealing himself, didn’t we?

Isn’t that what the fireball was all about?

How much more revealing do we need?

Elijah hears God on this mountain and goes out to the edge searching for something.

Elijah, what are you doing here?

That’s a strange question for God to ask.

Shouldn’t it go something like:

*high five*

G : Great job, buddy. We really showed them.

E : I know. Nice work with the fireball by the way. Really Impressive.

G : Thanks. It just came to me. I went with it.

Instead, God asks,

what are you doing here?

Have you ever wondered that question for yourself?

What am I doing here?

I find myself asking this question a lot, usually during moments of transition or liminality. When a part of my life is shifting from one space to another, or when something I thought so deeply somehow becomes unhooked. That’s when I find myself wondering what on earth I am doing here.

I love Elijah’s response, because it’s exactly how I would respond:

I am very passionate about you God

I have done everything right,

everyone else has done everything wrong,

they turned away and worshipped other gods,

I am LITERALLY the only one left who follows you (properly)

and they are trying to KILL me!

(subtly leaving out the part about slaughtering hundreds of people…)

Elijah stands there before God with a list of his strengths, his qualifications, his…justifications.

What happens next is another well versed moment in the bible but strangely, it very rarely comes as part of the story that came before.

God asks Elijah to stand at the edge of the mountain because he is going to pass by.

The parallels to Moses are uncanny, and not unintentional.

Horeb is where you encounter God,

because it is where God reveals himself,

this is where you understand who God really is.

Elijah sees a fierce wind come by and shatter the rocks in front of him.

But God was not in the wind.

Then an earthquake came and tore the ground apart.

But God was not in the earthquake.

Then came the fire.

Hang on, haven’t we just seen the fire?

Fire, that must be it, that must be how God reveals himself.

But God was not in the fire.

God was not in the fire.

Can you imagine how confusing that must have been to a man who had just used a fireball from God to justify the slaughter of hundreds of prophets who had already declared that the LORD was the one true living God?

God was not in the fire.

How can that be?

It was so obvious, so real,

So impressive.

After the fire came a gentle whisper,

A small, quiet, voice.

What are you doing here Elijah?

The God-who-is-not-in-the-fire speaks only in a whisper, and begins to break Elijah down. All of the claims that Elijah was making are shown to be untrue. In a reasonably anti-climactic end to the story God tells Elijah to head back down the mountain – to meet the other prophets there (turns out there are a few thousand more), to anoint a new king, and to fade into the background as a new path is forged.

You see, this still small voice says much more than we think it does.

It says things like,

It’s not about the fire,

and,

I am not a rival to the gods of those prophets,

I am not like them at all.

A man I respect greatly says that:

“Elijah, when he entered into rivalry with the prophets of Ba’al became one of them.”

He became one of them.

The slaughter on the first mountain is Elijah’s deceiving.

The encounter of the second mountain is Elijah’s undeceiving.

If you dare to read these two stories together, the story of two mountains, you realise that what happens on the second mountain is the undoing of what happened on the first. It’s also the process that we all go through, constantly, throughout our lives.

We look to the first mountain because it’s impressive.

We think it’s about prayer ,

and answering ,

and fire ,

and miracles .

What it’s actually about is how faithful God is, but also how quickly we can turn that faithfulness into sanctified violence. We feel right, and we need others to know how right we are. We are so eager to turn our rightness against others and use God’s actions as a justification for our own behaviour.

I’ve seen this,

I’ve done this.

When we feel as if we know the truth we feel compelled to tell others how wrong they are. When we feel like God is on our side we feel justified in acting against those that we assume God is therefore against.

We forget however, that the biggest mistake we can make is to assume that just because God is on our side, that means he is not on their side as well.

What God seems to be doing on the second mountain is collapsing all of the sacred visions that Elijah had, that had allowed him to engage in the actions that so violated God’s character.

Elijah, I was on your side.

But I was also on theirs.

I was on their side so much that I sent a fireball from heaven to show them what they needed to see.

And it worked.

And then you killed them all.

It wasn’t that God didn’t send a fireball,

It was that he didn’t need Elijah to use that to slaughter all of his enemies.

No wonder Elijah was so terrified.

You see, we know how to worship a God who sends a fireball.

It’s easy.

We worship the fireball God ,

So get yourselves in line otherwise we’ll use that force against you.

It’s much harder to worship the God of the still, small voice.

In the words of Elijah,

How do we be zealous for the God of the whisper?

The God who isn’t into fierce winds, or earthquakes,

or fireballs.

The second mountain is important for us because it represents the sacred undoing of all of the things we thought we knew about God.

The second mountain is a painful and terrifying place to be.

It makes you feel isolated,

It makes you feel confused,

It makes you feel weak.

But it’s also the place we all come to at some point. Standing on the edge of the mountain hearing the whisper that says

what are you doing here?

Some people call this a deconstruction,

Others a crisis of faith or a crisis of confidence.

I call it

absolutely essential.

The undoing that comes from encountering God on the second mountain makes way for a newness that is inconceivable on the first. This story is not just found in the book of Kings, it is woven through both the story of scripture and the structure of life itself.

For something new to grow,

something else must fade.

Death isn’t just the end of life it’s also the beginning.

_______

This blog was originally published in 2020, at: jonbergmann.com.au

THE DARKEST NIGHT

Thu, 14 Oct 2021 07:45:22 GMT

Keep trusting in the dark.

About 40 years ago an older friend spoke to me about “the dark night of the soul” that he was going through. I had never heard the term, but he told me it was initially coined by St John of the Cross in a poem of that title. I was struck by the idea, conjuring up images of a stormy night when in the thunder, damp and gloom you temporarily lose perspective and doubt the goodness of God. Not that I related to the idea. My own life was going well - I was recently married, we had brought our first home, doors were opening up to me - there was one good thing after another.

But my friend told me that though much of his life had been lived with an awareness of God’s close presence, that had changed very suddenly. The God who was close now seemed to be the God who had evaporated; the God who opened doors now seemed to close them; the God who brought light into his life, now seemed to have disappeared into the deepest darkness.

The social worker in me wondered if he was spiritualizing depression - making the black dog sound like a faith crisis. I advocated counselling and positive thinking and all those other things you suggest when you don’t have a solution but want to feel you have been helpful.

He wasn’t one to be fobbed off, and told me he knew the difference between depression and the dark night of the soul, because depression was an old enemy of his that over the years had turned into a friend. He knew depression’s script, and how to navigate its seasons, but this, he said, was completely different. This was spiritual. It was about a profound sense of absence. And it was awful. But it was also an invitation to trust at a completely new level. He quoted someone (I no longer remember who) saying, “It is rather a privilege to be allowed to trust God in the dark rather than to be treated like a young child in need of a night lamp.” Clearly it made an impression on me, for four decades later I can recite it back - though I googled it and it didn’t come up, so perhaps I have remembered it wrong.

Feeling somewhat out of my depth, I left the conversation thinking I had been given much to ponder, but was soon back into a lovely worship routine where raising your hands was the new mark of spiritual maturity and a sign of a genuine encounter with Jesus. I loved it.

A few weeks later I heard news that this same friend's wife had died. She was in her 40’s and there was no warning. He arrived home with his daughter and they found her dead on the floor after a massive coronary. I had stayed in their home a few times and she was one of the warmest and kindest women I had met. Their daughter was just 12. The dark night of the soul indeed.

In recent posts we have explored the question of suffering, and how we make sense of life’s most agonising seasons. We have tried not to be trite. It was Evelyn Underhill who wrote: “If God were small enough to be understood he would not be big enough to be worshipped.” Who can dispute her wisdom?

As we draw this short series to a close, we point to one more experience from which the people of God have sometimes drawn comfort - the dark night of the soul - counter intuitive though that may sound. Why a comfort? Because knowing you are not alone in what you are going through helps keep things in perspective.

Why might we go through the dark night of the soul? God alone knows, but perhaps these reasons might turn a flickering light on…

St John of the Cross wrote: “If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on, he must close his eyes and walk in the dark.” When we can’t see, and can’t make any sense of things, keeping on can be the deepest form of trust. It can serve a profound purpose, for the dark night of the soul is sometimes the space between who we have been and who we will become. As we commit to the deepest changes, we might feel bereft, for in that liminal space we don’t know who the “new me” will be, and are deeply aware of what we have lost. But it is a journey, and we trust the God we cannot see or experience to guide it well, even when the evidence of that is less than convincing.

Psalm 88:18 finishes with the haunting words: “You have taken from me friend and neighbor - darkness is my closest friend.” If there is any consolation in these words it is that if this is our experience, we are not alone. 3000 years ago it was the Psalmist’s lot. Perhaps we can make an amendment possible for those experiencing this. Though darkness might be their closest friend, perhaps we - their friends and neighbors - can make sure we are not removed at this time.

In No Man is an Island Thomas Merton wrote that God “may be more present to us when he is absent than when He is present” And even if you can’t get your head around that, why not keep trusting in the dark?

NOT THIS TIME

itsupport@carey.wa.edu.au (Brian Harris) — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 04:45:06 GMT

“A pious neighbor comforted me by reminding me that "God was in control."
I wanted to say to her, "Not this time."”

These are the words of Lewis Smedes who, before his death in 2002, was a prominent Christian ethicist in the US. His words are written in response to the death of his son, only a day after he was born.

“The next day, just before noon, our paediatrician called: I had better come right down to the hospital. When I met him he told me that our miracle child was dead. Two mornings later, with a couple of friends at my side and our minister reading the ceremony, we buried him "in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection." Doris never got to see her child. A pious neighbour comforted me by reminding me that "God was in control." I wanted to say to her, "Not this time." It seems to me that the privilege of being the delicate organisms we are in the kind of world we live in comes at a price. The price is that things can go wrong, badly wrong sometimes, which should come as no surprise.”

The question of suffering and God is most prominent in moments of great pain.

This has been the general theme of our articles over the last few weeks. One thing that often stands out, however, is that people choose to reconcile that pain differently. Lewis and Doris Smedes, whilst committing to never claim that God had orchestrated the death of the child they longed for so deeply, also never questioned God’s goodness as a result of it. Lewis speaks of the experience, as well as other tragedies such as 9/11, as being simply the tragic consequences of existence. Whilst recognising that God is not responsible for these horrors, he concludes that the most appropriate human response is prayer, not explanation.

This is vastly different to the approach taken by former US Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, whose son also died, that time in a tragic mountaineering accident. He delivered a speech to a group of college students in the 90’s titled, “God Killed My Son” in which he spoke of God’s ‘meticulous providence’, claiming that God had divinely orchestrated his son’s death to be “immediate” and “painless.” According to Koop the only reason he could continue on with his faith was that he believed God to have planned for and orchestrated his son’s death. No other explanation would satisfy: God was in control of everything, and everything God does is for God’s good purposes.

Two men, both passionate and public Christians, and both reconciling with suffering in such different (and contradictory) ways.

Each approach raises questions, doesn’t it?

If you follow Smedes' thinking: that God is not orchestrating these events but is rather present with us in the midst of them , it raises questions of God’s authority and power. Does God have the power to intervene? If not then what kind of a God is that? If so then why didn’t God do something?

If you follow Koop and believe that God is organising all of these events for God’s good purpose then the questions relate to how such suffering could ever be good? And how could a God that is good be responsible for so much horror?

Roger Olsen compares the approaches of both men . He was present when Koop delivered his famous speech and remembers finding it difficult to stomach. He then tells a story of being in a hospital and hearing a young girl scream in agony at the pain she was experiencing. He says:

“I can’t say for sure that Koop’s son’s death wasn’t foreordained by God. Perhaps it was. Without a special revelation, I doubt we can know for sure. But I am confident that God did not foreordain and render certain that tiny girl’s pains.”

It is difficult to claim that God is responsible for the “immediate” and “painless” death of one person without also claiming God is responsible for the prolonged and agonising death of others. It’s difficult to claim that God is responsible for the #blessing s we receive in life without also admitting that God must therefore have a hand in the misfortunes of others, unless of course you develop the belief (as many people do) that there is something about the way you live, or pray, or worship, that makes your life more worthy of blessing.

For an increasing number of people, this is simply a belief that can no longer be sustained. As we referenced in a previous post , it runs the risk of turning God into a moral monster.

It should be fairly clear from our articles that we have been leaning towards Smedes' approach, albeit acknowledging that appealing to God’s sovereignty comes in many different forms.

Greg Boyle, a priest who works among urban gangs in LA, talks about God being at the center of our lives rather than in charge of our lives - a confronting sentiment to some. What he means is that rather than seeing God as the puppeteer, pulling away at the proverbial strings of life’s fortunes and misfortunes, the role of the Christian faith is to centralise the person to Jesus, and to then live in response to it . This doesn’t exclude us from any manner of suffering or pain, but it does mean that in the midst of it we don’t lose hope.

The words of Smedes ring uncomfortably true:

“For me, there was no mystery about where God was and what God was up to on the morning of September 11, 2001. God was right there doing what God always does in the presence of evil that is willed by humans -- fighting it, resisting it, battling it, trying God’s best to keep it from happening. This time evil won. God, we hope, will one day emerge triumphant over evil -- though, on the way to that glad day, God sometimes takes a beating.”

SHARING OUR SORROWS

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 03:20:58 GMT

Where is God?

One of the things that has always perplexed me is that the people I most expect to be angry with God are usually not, while those who are, often seem to me to have pretty good lives. What is more, the lack of a positive correspondence between fortuitous life circumstances and love for God is relatively easy to establish.

Question : Where is the Christian Church growing most rapidly? Answer : In some of the poorest countries in the world.

Question : Where is the Christian Church most quickly being abandoned. Answer : In the most privileged countries in the world.

The irony of the answer to the second question is great, especially as it was a broad cluster of Christian virtues and beliefs (such as a strong work ethic, valuing every person, separating God from nature and stressing accountability and honesty) that led to the prosperity of these countries in the first place - but that is a topic for another day.

Why are the most privileged not grateful, and the least fortunate not shaking the fist at God? True, there are exceptions, but as the adage goes, the exception proves the rule. The trend is clear to see, despite a few blips.

I grew up in apartheid South Africa. The 1980’s was a period of increasing violence as opposition to apartheid grew. Many terrible things happened. A friend of mine was employed by his church to work as a chaplain and social worker in the squatter community of Crossroads in Cape Town. Technically an illegal settlement, it was home to tens of thousands of people all trying to eke out a living in a setting where their skin colour closed most doors to them. My friend was always busy, and many of his stories were tragic and deeply disturbing.

One morning I woke to newspaper headlines announcing that during the night authorities had moved into the illegal settlement of Crossroads, ordered residents to leave immediately (to who knows where) and had then begun bulldozing their homes down. It was a terrible abuse of human rights, but this was the apartheid era, and there were a fair few of those.

My friend contacted me a few days later, exhausted at every level. He told me that on the night the bulldozing began he had several frantic calls from residents of Crossroads asking for whatever help he could muster. He had raced through to the settlement, wondering what he would find, and felt his rage growing as he surveyed the chaos. Modest little shanties had been reduced to rubble, there were young children wandering around, calling out for parents from whom they had been separated, dogs were howling everywhere and some places were on fire. In the distance he heard the sound of singing, and walked towards it. As he got closer he recognised the sound of a Christian hymn. He was perplexed. Who would sing a hymn of praise to God at a time like this? There was a very large group of people and they were all singing loudly - one hymn of praise after another. His anger overflowed and he asked the man next to him why he was singing at a time like this. The man looked at him quietly and a little sadly for a long time, as though he was an especially slow child, and then he said, “ Because they can’t take God away from us . They can take everything else away, but they can’t take God away.”

What do you make of the story?

A part of me, the privileged me, wants to reply a little patronisingly, “Yeah, well I guess a bit of escapism is understandable when you’ve lost everything.” But at a deeper level I know this is an inadequate answer.

In our deepest sorrows, God is often most present. When faced with the unthinkable, there is nowhere else to turn. Postulating God’s non-existence is not an answer, for if God does not exist then life is truly unbearable. Clinging on to hope defines our humanity, and sees us refuse to give up.

If asked how they got through that harrowing season, the majority of Crossroad residents would say simply, “God saw me through. God saw me through.” There would be no deep existential angst, nor a thousand angry questions, just a statement of gratitude, and an acknowledgement that God, in some not entirely clear way, had helped.

Through the centuries, when faced with the theodicy question (how can loving God allow suffering and evil?) countless millions have given this answer. God shares our sorrows. God accompanies us in our sorrows. When we ask “why is this happening?”, we are often met with silence, but we are not left alone.

I accept that many will find this an inadequate answer, and might well dispute the premise (I didn’t feel accompanied in my struggle), but I think it is wise to listen to all voices, and to take heart from the many who, against our expectation, are able to affirm that God has been good to them even in the face of deep sadness and sorrow.

And if you have friends who have only experienced the absence of God when they have cried out in angst, why not see if you can be the presence of Jesus to them?

WHO TO BLAME WHEN NO ONE IS TO BLAME

itsupport@carey.wa.edu.au (Brian Harris) — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 04:06:38 GMT

"Who did this?"

At least once a week I find myself standing in front of my children, reading their expressions to figure out which one isn’t being honest. They all stand there, trying not to let their face tell the truth for them. I know one of them did it, I just don’t know which one. And their only contribution is “it wasn’t me, it was them!”

They, like all of us, are the masters of blame.

Over the past few weeks we have opened up a discussion about suffering in a way that tries to avoid the classic pitfalls people fall into when trying to reconcile a belief in God with the tragedies that often occur during the course of a life. One such pitfall, for example, is to assume that every painful circumstance is prescribed by God as a kind of “test” of faith or strengthening of character. Another approach might be to consider suffering as inherently meaningless - not capable of giving rise to anything at all, just ethereal.

These options are appealing - particularly to those trying to hold onto their faith during very difficult seasons - but I wonder whether there might be wisdom somewhere in-between the polemic. The approach we have been hinting at in our articles is: don’t assume that everything needs to make sense, but rather look for ways that your situation can give rise to hope.

Not everything can “make sense,” and sometimes our attempt to force tragedy into some kind of meaningful frame can do more damage than good. This quote from David Bentley Hart is a helpful beacon. I’ll include the whole section as it is worth quoting in full:

“There is, of course, some comfort to be derived from the thought that everything that occurs at the level of secondary causality - in nature or history - is governed not only by a transcendent providence but by a universal teleology that makes every instance of pain and loss an indispensable moment in a grand scheme whose ultimate synthesis will justify all things. But one should consider the price at which the comfort is purchased: it requires us to believe in and love a God whose good ends will be realized not only in spite of - but entirely by way of - every cruelty, every fortuitous misery, every catastrophe, every betrayal, every sin the world has ever known; it requires us to believe in the eternal spiritual necessity of a child dying an agonizing death from diphtheria, of a young mother ravaged by cancer, of tens of thousands of Asians swallowed in an instant by the sea, of millions murdered in death camps and gulags and forced famines (and so on). It is a strange thing indeed to seek peace in a universe rendered morally intelligible at the cost of a God rendered morally loathsome.”

Whilst long, what he is communicating is as simple as it is relevant: whilst explaining suffering using divine providence may be comforting, it can transform God into a ‘moral monster.’ Is it possible that God is neither responsible for our suffering, nor abdicating responsibility for caring for his children in the midst of it? Whilst this is a difficult and almost paradoxical thing to conclude, it moves us in the direction of what Brian described in his very first post as a ‘thick theodicy” - a way of articulating suffering that is neither cheap nor conclusive .

One of the challenges, however, is that when we are unable to explain the reasons behind our suffering in concrete terms we tend to find it more difficult to know where to direct our anger. If the terminal diagnosis or fatal accident wasn’t “all part of the plan” but rather is consigned to the level of unexplainable tragedy, or ‘fortuitous mystery,’ we are unable to sanctify our suffering with providence (or rather, an overly simplified caricature of providence). This can make us angry, and when we are angry we need someone or something to be angry at. We need someone to blame.

Just like my children who, when caught writing on the walls in permanent marker, are quick to throw their siblings under the proverbial bus, I still find myself in adulthood trying to absolve myself of the responsibility for my mistakes or explain away seasons of difficulty by finding who is at fault. It is easy to see why this is such an appealing strategy when you are actually in the wrong , but what happens when no one is wrong, but tragedy and suffering still occur?

Who then do we blame?

Who is there to take responsibility?

Anyone with even a mildly theological mind will be able to see the necessary “off ramps” that these questions have to concepts like atonement and sin - but these discussions are not for now. The question in focus here is: who is to blame when no one is to blame ? If suffering can genuinely be a “fortuitous mystery” then what do we do with our need for justification and certainty?

Looking for someone to blame is nothing new. It echoes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. The serpent tempts the humans with the spoils of a tree they had yet to be given access to and when questioned by God they immediately cast aspersions; first on each other and then onto the serpent who tempted them. The notion that they had made a choice themselves was, even then, a slippery and elusive concept.

More challenging than the initial blame, however, is the precedent it has set for others to rather casually blame their own actions on the “temptations” that come from the evil one. It is far easier to see the serpent as the external embodiment of evil than to consider that it may simply be the whisper of our own internal conflict. To internalise the temptation requires us to be responsible for its effect on us, which is often too high a price to pay. This seems to happen regardless of whether we are genuinely complicit in the wrong.

Whether it is our fault, or not, if we don’t have someone to blame then all we have left is a swirling mess of chaos and confusion.

And so the story goes. Something wrong happens, and we look for someone to blame. This is a simple and yet remarkably effective mechanism not only for shifting our own feelings of complicity but also for focusing the enmity of the group. We don’t just blame as individuals, we do it as groups too.

There is a powerful quote from anthropologist Rene Girard, who warns us that: “everywhere and always, when human beings either cannot or dare not take their anger out on the thing that has caused it, they unconsciously search for substitutes, and more often than not they find them.”

One of Girard’s major theories is commonly known as the scapegoat theory. He simply (and this is a very simple rendition) claims that the way human beings deal with anger - or internal chaos - is to find a “scapegoat” onto whom we can project all of our feelings of anger, betrayal, and hate. Whilst this victim may well be blameless (at least of the specific thing to which we are holding them responsible), the ones doing the blaming are not necessarily aware of it (or interested). They just need someone to be responsible, and are grateful for an outlet. Grateful for the momentary release from the angst that suffering brings.

The fact that the scapegoat may be innocent is inconsequential. It/they provide a satisfactory answer to our many questions, and a seemingly appropriate location for our rage.

This plays out in many different ways. When economies struggle people find it easier to blame refugees than home loans. It is easier to blame people who rely on Centrelink payments than rampant consumerism. In the Christian church I’ve known people who can’t understand why their prayers failed to prevent a person dying of cancer and instead conclude that some hidden sin must be to blame. Pastors struggle to explain why their congregants still go through divorce, have affairs, come out as gay, and so they put it all down the fault of broad abstractions such as “culture” or “media” or “the world.”

And then there is COVID.

For anyone under the age of 40, particularly in the West, it is likely that COVID-19 will be one of the more challenging experiences they will have gone through. Lockdowns, global panic, mandatory vaccinations, restrictions on previously assumed liberties, less toilet paper than we might have liked. It’s been a hell of a ride, and far more challenging for most than for me, given the relative freedom of where I live. The reason COVID is a fascinating case study when it comes to suffering, however, is that it is difficult to direct our anger when there is no discernable locus of blame.

It’s hard to get angry at something we can’t see; the fortuitous mystery of a malevolent virus.

As Girard predicted (although his predictions were much broader than a pandemic), without the ability to blame, we go in search of scapegoats. And many have found them. Depending on who you are and what you read, the objects of your anger might range from the nation of China, to the “draconian” measures taken by state governments, to the malevolent intentions of big pharmaceutical companies. Some push it even further, engaging in deep conspiratorialist thinking. The problem that arises with each of these examples has less to do with truth and falsity, and more to do with the passionate need for a scapegoat that alleviates the painful reality of a confusing and often unexplainable situation.

A recent ABC article by Josh Roose looks into the fear and anxiety that lies at the heart of some of this kind of thinking and its inevitably aggressive follow up action.

Whilst it might feel dystopian, this kind of situation is nothing particularly new. It is the inevitable result of needing someone to blame, and being unable to take out our frustration on that which has caused so much heartache and interruption. It is the natural byproduct of fear and anxiety. It is an attempt to try and make sense of the world, even if the sense we make is terrifying.

Recall the story in John 8 where the woman is pulled out into the middle of the street to account for the sin of adultery that she - and apparently she alone - had been complicit in. Those gathered around her were no doubt from all kinds of places and spaces but they were united in one thing: that she is the blameworthy victim in need of cleansing. There is remarkable power in feeling as though the sins of another are responsible for the fractures in society.

Like many of us, I know people who believe that COVID is a hoax designed to give total control to a government who have introduced the vaccine at the bidding of a global kabal, who are now using it to purge the population, steal our property and established an elite class of citizens to rule over everyone else. After accidentally wading into one of these one-way conversations recently, I found myself asking one simple rebuttal question:

“So what are you going to do? It sounds terrifying! They’re coming for your property, your family, your everything. What are you going to do to avoid being another victim in their plan?”

The response was: "nothing." There was nothing to do. Nothing could be done.

A strange response given the magnitude of the claims. But when we understand that these lines of thinking are less about genuine truth and more about a feeling of certainty and security, then it makes more sense. Ironically, people have lived in such a state of flux and uncertainty that even a belief as morbid and horrifying as this provides more comfort than the idea that something like a pandemic is, genuinely, a ‘fortuitous mystery,’ an uncertain and confusing reality.

So what should we do?

I’m certainly not suggesting that we must simply consign ourselves to the notion that nothing can be explained and sometimes bad things just happen. Searching for meaning is part of the human quest and to abandon it would be to embrace despair. We are not people of despair, we are people of hope, but to call ourselves people of hope requires something particular from us.

It requires us to reject the mechanisms that lead to blame and scapegoating. The words of Jesus (Luke 6:35-38) provide us with a powerful antidote to the relentless system of blame by imploring us to pray for those we think stand against us:

But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Notice how prayer and forgiveness are so interconnected, not just for others but also for ourselves.

This still leaves us with the question of where to place our anger. It would be too naive for me to suggest that when you pray your anger will dissipate. This has certainly not been true for my own life. What I want to suggest is something that might seem a bit strange.

Blame God.

Allow your anger, and pain, and confusion, and hurt, and betrayal, and despair, and hopelessness, and all of the other things you feel to fall before God. Wrestle, argue, scream, fight. Shake your fist. Say the bad words. Blame God for all of the things you cannot understand, and for the things you think that you think you understand.

One of the paradoxical features of Scripture is that it is a story that invites us to wrestle with God through all facets of life. The challenge when it comes to speaking about suffering is that hope itself is an eschatological category. It speaks of the things yet to be, and so to pretend that we know what comes next is simply not true. We don’t know, we can only trust; but to trust is also to hold someone ultimately responsible.

This doesn’t mean that God orchestrated your suffering, nor that God will somehow take it all away. It is an acknowledgment that God is big enough to hold your anger and pain without letting you go. It's a sentiment which acknowledges that God, not us, is the one who will ultimately wipe every tear away and whilst that isn't my reality for now, that doesn't meant I can't be upset by that fact.

I’m always reminded of the rage and violence of Psalm 137; a song that culminates with an expression of aggression and hatred. The writer doesn’t seek to explain away their suffering, nor do they temper their rage.

And perhaps at the end of our rage, we might be able to find some kind of peace;

amidst the fortuitous mystery that is life, and faith.

THE CORRUPTION OF SUFFERING

itsupport@carey.wa.edu.au (Brian Harris) — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 06:20:19 GMT

There is clearly no way to endure difficult experiences without them shaping us in some way. But I wonder whether it is possible to endure suffering without allowing it to corrupt our capacity for joy, or hope?

Through combinations of both the environments I have found myself in, and my own proclivity toward arrogance and stupidity, life has often presented me with certain challenges to overcome. The last few years, though, have been particularly difficult. Seasons of depression and anxiety – tragically common experiences for some, but new ones for me – which were triggered by difficulties I never thought I would have to face, have meant that my life hasn’t taken the shape I thought or intended. Or necessarily wanted. I’m still very quick to acknowledge the great number of wonderful and privileged things I get to participate in - and they are many. But the reality for many of us is that life can very quickly, and very unexpectedly become unbearably difficult. This, I think, is a universal truth.

In particularly difficult moments I find myself graduating from curious existentialism to raw despair; abandoning the idea that life is capable of yielding anything genuinely worthwhile. To deal with the difficulty I often become cynical, and bitter. I’m smart enough to see through everything, to the corrupt motives that lie just below the surface; but not smart enough to recognise this as just a vain and deceptive coping mechanism.

Nietzsche warns us against staring into the abyss too long, lest it stare right back at us. “Whoever fights monsters,” he says, “should see to it that in the process they do not become a monster.” But what if our monsters are not the disembodied evils that live under the bed but, rather, are the twisted shadows that form the underside of our virtues?

It’s a similar point to one made by Jordan Peterson in his latest book, Beyond Order . After he painfully recounts the ordeal he went through as a result of benzodiazepine withdrawal - one which brought him close to death - he says that to claim every human tragedy comes with some necessary life lesson is both insulting and simply untrue. Rather, the challenge we face is finding a way to learn from our experience rather than allowing it to corrupt us.

How do people endure great suffering without allowing the pain to corrupt what is still good in them, and in life? How can we reconcile the many challenges of life without resigning ourselves to cynicism and despair?

To answer the question I turn to the writing of those who were victims of perhaps the greatest of all human tragedies – the holocaust.

Victor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning , lost his wife and children and lived through the worst of all the camps. Through his tragedy he developed a psychotherapeutic method focused on a single idea: that hope was the most powerful human tool when it comes to enduring suffering. He observed that those who abandoned hope usually didn’t live very much longer. On the contrary, those who were able to identify some small thing on which they could cling – whether something as compelling as being reunited with a loved one or something as seemingly innocuous as needing to return home to tend to a garden – these people found the strength to endure.

Jonathan Sacks picks up on this in his final book, Morality . He speaks of heroes such as Yisraek Kristal and Edith Eger, who faced such horror and yet were still able to build a new life from the ashes. Quoting Eger he says, “there is a difference between victimisation and victimhood. Suffering is universal, but victimhood is optional.” In our modern context it would be easy to read these words as an indictment against those who find it hard to endure a life riddled with trauma and pain, but this is far from the intent. What these words mean is that at the end of the day, we are all responsible for one thing: how we approach tomorrow.

So, what does all of this really mean?

It means that as we wrestle with the painful and personal nature of suffering in our own lives and context, we must fiercely protect that which will ultimately save us: hope . For Christians this hope in not an arbitrary or ill-defined thing; it is the acknowledgment that suffering is not only an inevitable part of the human experience, but it is also the paradoxical substance of hope itself. The cross of Christ presents us with an invitation to travel through suffering, to redemption. The cross is both tragedy and beauty .

Tragedy because it reveals the inevitable result of unrestrained human ambition and corruption. Beauty because it lets us know that there is a much more powerful story being told. One which travels through darkness without being stained by it, like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon or a dead man walking from a tomb.

There is the promise too, that one day every tear will be wiped away, and every pain will come to an end. It’s not a promise to absolve our present pain, but rather a testimony to the goodness of a God who also suffers and will be with us throughout it all.

LEARN TO STOP MAKING SENSE

Thu, 09 Sep 2021 22:23:09 GMT

Evil is an absurdity...

There are many ways not to talk about the problem of evil but I learned the hard way.

I was younger and stupider and armed to the teeth with all kinds of arguments about so many things. Philosophical curiosity is one thing but when you’re young and you treat your faith as a fully furnished set of answers to life’s questions, the train you’re riding is likely to come to a grinding, messy halt. For me, this moment came through an interaction with my grandfather.

Sighart Bergmann was young during the outbreak of World War II but he remembered Adolf Hitler’s parades through the streets of Germany. He remembered his mother, leaning down and, in a hushed voice, saying, ‘That is a very evil man’ as Hitler passed by.

Naturally, for my grandfather the problem of evil was not an abstract one. For me it was. My existence was largely untouched by the presence of genuine evil and great tragedy. He, on the other hand, had witnessed evil walk his streets. His experience was lived and concrete. During a conversation in our family one evening, this topic was broached. In my eagerness to enter the fray with all of my ideas and abstract philosophizing, I said something so profoundly stupid, so utterly embarrassing that I will probably never repeat it to anyone as long as I live.

After I said this thing, my grandfather looked me dead in the eyes. ‘You weren’t there.’ He spoke with an intensity that comes only from German blood and old age. ‘You weren’t there. I watched families being dragged from their homes. You didn’t. I watched as God abandoned them.’ He actually had to sit down because he was so flustered by my stupidity. ‘Better minds than yours have tried to wrestle with this problem.’ That was him closing off any further contribution from me on this issue, and fair enough.

That conversation shook me. It was a revelation of my sheer insignificance in the face of a question that not only haunted people, but ruined them. It was also the beginning of something new, a process of unlearning my faith, in a sense. It was a process of learning how to dwell amidst senselessness when all you want to do is make sense out of it. It was only later, when I delved deep into the writings of an Eastern Orthodox theologian, David Bentley Hart, that I was able to articulate something that had been born as only an intuition through that conversation.

The intuition was this: the problem of evil is not, fundamentally, a problem that needs answering .

It is instead a moral tragedy that demands to be set right.

This is something we feel in our bones. The reason why people get so passionate about it, the reason people can’t hold onto faith any longer, is not primarily because evil is philosophically problematic. It’s because it is, by its very nature, an absurdity, a senseless reality, a deeply irrational part of human existence.

Based upon my own experience, I’m tempted to think that Christians don’t wrestle with this senselessness enough. In The Doors of the Sea , Hart writes about how theology has often made the problem of evil worse. Whether it’s the Calvinist tradition or the Thomist, attempts to incorporate genuine evil and human suffering into some part of God’s ‘higher plan’ renders God ‘morally loathsome’ – a high price to pay for our peace of mind. A few neat distinctions here or there and Auschwitz magically disappears in a puff of logic.

Even Tolkien, a man whose writings I love, held this line: God only permits evil to the extent that a greater good is obtained, and could not have been obtained, without it. It makes one think that the eternal beatitude of some can only be bought at the price of other people’s suffering and ruin. And what sort of life is that? What kind of God is that?

Instead, the only real ‘answer’ to evil, such as it is, is to call it by its true name: a corruption of God’s good creation. One of the reasons why evil has, in Christian theology, traditionally been referred to as ‘nonbeing’, or as a privation of being, is because of this: it’s a grotesque distortion of something inherently good and inherently beautiful. If evil seems senseless, it’s because it is . If it seems absurd and irrational, it’s because it is.

But it’s only in this space of the senseless that we can truly learn the meaning and character of hope. I don’t mean optimism – not like Voltaire’s character Dr. Pangloss, going around declaring, ‘It’s all for the best!’ I mean real hope. Hope in the Christ who will come in judgment to set right everything that has gone wrong, and will reveal them as wrong and not as part of who he is. It was part of the early Christian hope, articulated with great beauty by Gregory of Nyssa, that in the fire of Christ’s judgment evil will one day come to an end and nothing will be left outside the world of goodness.

In this tension between evil’s absurdity and Christ’s goodness, hope can begin to take shape . And I no longer know how to say anything more than that.

But as always, Hart says it best:

‘ We can rejoice that we are saved not through the immanent mechanisms of history and nature, but by grace; that God will not unite all of history’s many strands in one great synthesis, but will judge much of history false and damnable; that he will not simply reveal the sublime logic of fallen nature, but will strike off the fetters in which creation languishes; and that, rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, he will instead raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes – and there will be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away, and he that sits upon the throne will say, “Behold, I make all things new ”’.

[1] Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and Resurrection. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2915.htm

[2] David Bentley Hart, In the Aftermath: Provocations and Laments. Eerdmans. 116-7

Christian Bergmann is a handsome devil (it must run in the family) and writer for Melbourne Catholic . He lives in Perth with his wife and daughter.

THE QUESTION OF SUFFERING

Fri, 03 Sep 2021 01:29:22 GMT

From a 'thin' to a 'thick' theodicy...

Anyone who has followed Jesus for any length of time is likely to have come across the theodicy question - even if they didn’t know that is what it is called.

Once you have met it, you find it comes back again, and again. What is theodicy? It is the defence of God’s goodness and love in the face of the suffering and evil in the world . Put differently, it tries to answer how a loving God can allow so much pain to exist in the world.

The dilemma is usually expressed as being four-fold. If God is all loving, all powerful, all knowing and everywhere present, why is there suffering - especially suffering that goes well beyond the minor irritants that are a normal part of being human. It’s the combination of the four that makes the question tricky. After all, if it turns out that God isn’t loving, the problem is solved. We can quickly answer, "there is suffering because we have a God who doesn’t care." Likewise, if God isn’t strong enough to change things, or doesn’t know, or is not present, the problem is solved. Why didn’t God help? Because God wasn’t strong enough, or didn’t know, or couldn’t get there. But this is not what we believe, hence the dilemma.

Naturally theologians have made an attempt to address the question. The answers provided (if you consider them answers) fall into five key categories:

1) Eschatology (God puts all things right in the end)

2) Providence (God knows best and works for good, even if we can’t spot it)

3) Incarnation (God is with us in the midst of our suffering)

4) Soul-making (God uses our suffering to strengthen us)

5) God is inexplicable (and don’t cheapen God by trying to provide a tidy answer - rather let God be God, and back away from unanswerable questions)

Used lightly, they make up what can be called a “thin” theodicy. Thin, because they get rattled out too quickly. Thin because they leave the sufferer and those who love the person suffering annoyed by their sheer glibness. Thin, because they pressure you to say “yes, I suppose so” when your heart is crying out, “no, no, you don’t understand at all”.

Over the next few weeks we will attempt to move from a thin to a thick theodicy . We know we can’t answer all questions, but know that when a crucial question is ignored it leaves a gaping hole. In the end we might simply have to cling to the promise of Rev 21:4 “and God will wipe every tear from their eyes”, but until then, let’s explore. Even as we do so, we recognise that for some this will be an exercise of the head (Hmmm, not sure that explains it), but for others it is the cry of the heart (why, why, why Lord?). We hope you will be willing to participate in the discussion as it develops.

IN THE CHURCH, BUT NOT OF THE CHURCH (IV)

itsupport@carey.wa.edu.au (Brian Harris) — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:58:39 GMT

GOD ON THE OUTSIDE...

So, what might a churchless faith look like ?

In my Masters research I explored something called the “Sacramental Imagination” which simply describes a mode of spiritual engagement that sees the divine fingerprint in the ordinary, everyday experiences of life. It’s the simple idea that, whilst there are certain prescriptive ‘sacraments’ that the church has partaken in throughout its history (baptism, marriage and communion as examples) there are many other things capable of being sacramental, or sacred.

Celtic theology has a tradition which many authors in recent years have picked up on, the idea of thin spaces. A thin space is a space or place where the membrane between heaven and earth feels thinner, less distant, and we can experience God more easily, and in more powerful ways .

Have you ever sat overlooking the ocean and felt a sense of divine presence? For me it’s the forest – whenever I’m surrounded by trees, and rivers, and campfires, I feel so much more connected to God, and to myself.

Church is more than capable of offering a space of divine encounter, but it is not the only place where we can meet God. So for those that are ‘in the church but not of the church’ what might spirituality look like?

1. God in Nature

We’ve already mentioned it, but the world God created offers a powerful point of divine connection, or sacramentality. Richard Rohr describes creation as “the first bible” – as it was humanities very first revelation of the goodness and power of God. There is something ubiquitously transcendent about observing the inherent beauty of the world in which we live. It’s like a short-cut to experiencing God in a deep and powerful way.

2. God in Community

A common misconception that people have when thinking about ‘churchless faith’ is that it means people exist outside of community. For some, church is the community they need – without it they would be alone. For others however, there are multiple community structures surrounding them. Family, friends, social clubs or footy teams. While none of these might claim the same spiritual status as a church, they still bear the same human connections we long for; friendship, companionship, a longing to be understood and to participate in the world. They make us feel less alone, and they can remind us of the inherent goodness in each other.

3. God in Culture

Whilst many churches posit a rather tenuous view of “culture” or “the world,” others have learned, quite naturally, to see God at work in the world around them. People often find the diversity of modern life quite refreshing, and it teaches us that whilst finding a tribe of people that all share our values is important, so is existing in a world where those thoughts and values are challenged, stretched and even moulded. Different people and cultures have much to teach us, if we are open to learn. As the (cheesy, yet still true) saying goes: we don't need to agree together, to be together.

4. God in Beauty

We find beauty in nature, but we can also find it in so many other things. Art, literature, movies, feats of creativity or ingenuity. I’ve always been keen on theologically analysing the latest TV shows, or reading a book with one eye on the quasi-spiritual overtones. If we genuinely believe that God works in and through all things then it shouldn’t be surprising that we see the divine fingerprint at work in curious and surprising ways every time a person sets their mind to creating something beautiful. As Alain de Botton said in The Architecture of Happiness : “it is books, poems, and paintings which often give us the confidence to take seriously feelings in ourselves that we might otherwise never have thought to acknowledge.”

Of course, there are many other ways to engage with God, and with faith outside the walls of a church, but these are a few common shared experiences. None of this detracts in any way from what a church can offer the world – but it does counter the idea that ‘without church, we are unable to experience God,’ which some have suggested.

God is everywhere. As we lift up our eyes, we might be surprised by what we see.

IN THE CHURCH, BUT NOT OF THE CHURCH (III)

Thu, 19 Aug 2021 00:30:46 GMT

Who is leaving, and why?

The decline in church attendance in the Western World is well noted and documented. For those who like precise figures, there were 3,081,500 regular church attenders in Britain in 2015, less than half the 1980 figure of 6,484,300 - and that in spite of an overall growth in the population . Australia has faced a similar decline, from 36% of the population being at least monthly church attenders in 1972, to 16% in 2016 - though there are signs that the rate of decline is slowing.

So a couple of the questions we must ask are: who is leaving, and why ?

Given that church goers are an ageing demographic, some of the decline is not a result of people leaving the church, but leaving the planet. Death is eroding our membership figures. This naturally raises questions of why our natural population growth rate (the rate at which births exceed deaths) is not more than adequately compensating, and suggests a church that has been unable to adjust to the changing demands of our time.

It seems as though leavers fall into three key categories.

1. Those who no longer believe

2. Those who have been hurt

3. Those who continue to believe (sometimes saying their faith is stronger than ever), but who find the church an irrelevant or unhelpful part of their faith journey.

The focus of our last couple of blogs has been on this third category, so let’s explore it a little further. These people are often those whose faith remains, but who choose to be churchless not as a result of a painful experience (although that may be the case), but more from a tiredness or exasperation with the church and its politics and what they often perceive as the ghetto of church life.

Some say the church is essentially not a spiritual community, and that it is more concerned with propping up its own structures and rights than with deepening the faith of those who attend. Put differently, the church is on the side of the church, not on the side of those who look to it for nurture and growth. This is often only spotted in a crisis - when people who once served the church find they are quietly dropped when they face a challenge of their own, especially if it is an uncomfortable one. For example, one woman told me that it was when she realised the church viewed her as a problem after the birth of her child with special needs (the lad was a little disruptive in services), that she saw the relationship as one way: “They were happy for my contribution when I could make it, not happy when I was the one who needed help.” In fairness, I have met many whose experiences have been different (“they were wonderful during my time of crisis”) - but let me report it as I was told. And in this case, it was undoubtedly true.

More commonly I have heard people lament the lack of genuine conversations about topics that are complex, but which count. I have heard many express frustration that the leadership of their church assumes they know what their attitude will be to matters such as euthanasia, gender, same sex marriage, climate change, politics, artificial intelligence and a range of topics on which proclamations are made without any genuine discussion with the congregation. As someone said (this is a paraphrase, I don’t remember the exact words): “It is as though groupthink is the only option. We can’t explore alternatives lest we upset someone, but the overall result is that we dance around one another and never say what we really think, or listen to alternative viewpoints. I land up not being honest about what I feel - but that isn’t really my fault. I know people would feel uncomfortable if I was, so pretending to agree or saying nothing are the only options… it really annoys me.”

For yet others, it is that their understanding of faith is different. To paraphrase again: “I have my whole life ahead of me and am really excited about both the opportunities and challenges of the future. But the church I was part of was negative about everything new. I concluded that it wasn’t the new thing they were against - just that it was new. They were inherently conservative and wanted things to stay as they were in the past. But I believe in a God who makes all things new and continues to shape and transform the world. I don’t see how you can equate God with the status quo, but that is what most of the folk at the church I attended did - so now I have stopped going. It was just too depressing to be surrounded by people who knew what they were against, but had no idea what they were for.”

Importantly, each of these people continues to follow Jesus as faithfully as they can. They pray, give to causes they consider worthy, study scripture and hold serious discussions with friends. They try to live with integrity and kindness. They just haven’t found a church community they feel they can do the journey with. In the early stages they would have corrected me and said, “we haven’t found a church community yet.” That’s changed, the “yet” quietly dropped. Which means they now have a churchless faith.

What do you think? Are these sad but rare events, or is this something to think about more carefully? What should our takeaway be? Is it the start of God birthing something new?

IN THE CHURCH, BUT NOT OF THE CHURCH (II)

itsupport@carey.wa.edu.au (Brian Harris) — Fri, 13 Aug 2021 07:12:05 GMT

“We need to take a break.”

These are the painful words that littered the trodden path of my high-school dating life. I knew what it meant: it meant the end. It meant that this particular relationship had gone on for long enough, and what was now needed was some space. Some redefinition.

Have you ever been in a situation or a relationship where you lost sight of yourself?

I feel as though a lot of people are taking a break from the church at the minute.

(smoothest transition ever?)

People are stepping away, not because they have abandoned their faith - that would be too lazy an analysis - but because they need to redefine or even rediscover who they are, and what it is they genuinely believe .

About God,

about the world,

about themselves.

For a number of people, the containers of meaning that the church offers has become far too small to hold the increasing complexities of modern life. The ethic being offered seems anaemic in the face of a world radically more able to deal with the nuances of human existence.

Those who have grown up in a world of scientific explanation as well as sexual, cultural and ethnic diversity are finding it more and more difficult to coexist in communities where these ideals are used as criticisms rather than reasons for hope and celebration. People who love their church communities but also find that life outside is rich and satisfying are struggling to reconcile the all-too-frequent dualisms being thrown at them from both left and right:

“The world is a dark and perverted place”

“They’re coming for our freedom!”

“Only God can protect you from [insert issue/virus]”

It is, quite simply, becoming too difficult to listen to a Sunday sermon where the world is placed at diametric odds with the church, and then to step back into the workplace or local community on Monday with people you genuinely enjoy and a space that is far less divisive and binary .

Perhaps this seems like too harsh a criticism to you? It’s not intended to be. It’s an attempt at the beginnings of an explanation as to why so many people are choosing not to darken the doorways of their churches anymore.

Binary, polarising and dualistic worldviews cannot create the kind of Christian communities envisioned in the gospels. When Paul says, in Colossians that “in Christ, all things hold together” he was reiterating the most radical of all Jesus’ propositions: that the body of Christ would be a place for all people to belong. It is a sentiment that finds its origins right at the beginning of the story - with human beings placed in communion with God and each other - and plays all the way through to a grand crescendo in Revelation, with the declaration that “every tribe, tongue and nation” will call on God.

I have spoken to many people of faith who have offered explanations for the sharp decline in church attendance. Apparently young people these days are both “moral relativists” at the same time as being “overly sensitive” about creation, gender, and race (see if you can piece that one together?). Apparently people just want to pursue their own “earthly desires” or find the moral requirements of Christian living “too hard.”

There may well be some truth in some of this, but it’s certainly not the whole picture. A bit of self-reflection might reveal that the church has become a place where many of the diverse expressions of modern life find it difficult to feel at home, and perhaps a few people are getting tired of this.

Churchless faith is not an abandonment of God. It is the recognition that sometimes, in order to chart a way forward, you need to take a step back. Sometimes you need to check that you have the right tools for the journey, and that the path you are taking will actually get you to the place you need to go. It's also an acknowledgment that God is not confined to a once-or-twice-a-week service offering. God has always pervaded every corner of human existence, even when we haven't realised it. When we look up, we begin to see this to be true.

Perhaps that’s the journey that we, the church, also need to embark on.

IN THE CHURCH, BUT NOT OF THE CHURCH

Thu, 05 Aug 2021 07:13:44 GMT

Following Jesus with a Churchless Faith.

Jesus was often found in the synagogues of his day and attended the temple in Jerusalem for various religious festivals. He was in regular interaction with the Jewish religious leaders, and while these contacts were often hostile, they weren’t always. However, even sympathetic encounters such as Jesus’ nighttime discussion with Nicodemus in John 3, pointed to the need for change. You can almost imagine the average Pharisee rolling his eyes as he heard Jesus say, yet again, “It is written, but I say unto you…”

As a child Jesus had been very enthusiastic about the Jewish temple, lingering so long that his parents started their homeward journey not realising they had left him behind. His adult evaluation of the temple was less enthusiastic. Matthew 23 marks a low point, as Jesus calls its leaders hypocrites, blind guides and snakes. That took the conflict to a new level and a crucifixion took place shortly afterwards.

Most Christians are well versed in Jesus’ troubled relationship with the religious institution of his day. However, they usually assume his delight in the alternative he founded, the Church. Is this a valid assumption?

In my book, The Big Picture, I have written, “As I read the Gospels, I do not get the feeling that the Jesus portrayed in its pages would sit calmly through the average church service and give a beaming affirmation at the end, ‘This is exactly what I had in mind.’” Even though I wrote that, it’s hard to see how anyone could disagree.

A friend said to me recently, “Let it be known. I am in the church but not of the church.”

I think he was saying that he is somehow just holding on. He realises that if it were not for the church, the faith would never have been passed on to him. And he loves Jesus, so he feels a little uncomfortable criticising the body Jesus started. But he is frustrated and feeling that what passes as church is very far removed from the life Jesus taught. He finds it sad to see so many small struggling churches, desperately holding on to traditions from the past and doing all that they can to make Sunday happen, and he wonders if the enormous energy it takes to keep them going is worth it. But he is even more disillusioned with the large megachurches, with their slick pastors and enormous budgets and shallow teaching and mindless followers. Well, he thinks they are mindless – noting that if they question anything they are no longer welcome. Take care if you test the thesis. It might well be true, and the experience could be distressing.

He also cares about the big issues of our day… climate change, social justice, gender equality, the future of work, Artificial Intelligence. He knows enough of the history of the Church to realise that it has had seasons where it was prophetic and spoke boldly and confidently to the future, helping to birth a better world. But he is experiencing the church as thoughtless, verging on the irresponsible – anxious to preserve its own freedom, but not sure what to do with it. T he examples he has heard are about the church wanting freedom to harm, not freedom to do good . It alarms him. He has also dug into the facts of some current disputes and has been dismayed to discover that some church leaders have been very casual about truth – feeling that facts can be tampered with and sacrificed for the sake of a cause that might be considered more noble. He is not sure that it will be.

He would love to talk about some of his doubts, not because he doesn’t believe, but because life is complicated and messy and many of the formula’s he once accepted don’t seem to work. But someone told him that lack of faith was self-fulfilling, and that if he was going to dance with his doubts, he would suffer the consequences. He wasn’t sure why that was supposed to make them go away – but it seemed to be the best his counsellor could muster.

Throw COVID into this, and the stop-start cycle of attending, not attending, zooming in, sorry system crashed this week - unsettling. He has asked what he has missed on the weeks he has not attended and hasn’t come up with much.

My friend is one of literally hundreds of thousands who are contemplating (or have already opted for), churchless faith . They believe in Jesus, love Jesus, trust Jesus – but feel increasingly uncomfortable with identifying with His church.

Most agree that the church is in a liminal season. To be in a liminal space is to be at a boundary – a threshold. It is when you know something new is about to be birthed, but you are not sure just what? We need to give ourselves permission to imagine what a 21st century church could look like.

This is the first in a series of posts which will explore what church “after church” might look like. A church no longer trying to be a more impressive version of a twentieth century church, but a community of people who want to claim Jesus’ promise that where 2 or 3 gather in his name, he is present. A church committed to following Jesus. A church tilted outwards towards God’s world, rather than inwards, towards its own agenda. A church shaped by love, listening and a commitment to real justice. A church watching for the fingerprints of God. A church that honours God’s name.

DIMENSIONS OF A PASTOR

Wed, 15 Apr 2020 23:29:45 GMT

What do pastors do?

This is a question I get asked from time to time. One of my friends, a surgeon, is always quick to point out that I work on a Sunday. He then asks what I get up to with my six-day weekend. There is a lot to what a pastor does, a myriad of tasks big and small, some upfront and some behind the scenes. Some of these things are profound and others banal; though in this lifetime, it will never be exactly clear which was which. Rather than unpack the thousand tasks of a pastor, I want to look at three interwoven aspects of the pastoral vocation and focus particularly on the prophetic-mystic aspect and its importance in this cultural moment.

I see pastoral ministry as consisting of three interwoven responsibilities, three specific angles of pastoral consideration, with each complimenting, balancing, informing and informed by the others.

1. Ethical-Professional

2. Shepherd-Theologian

3. Prophetic-Mystic

THE ETHICAL PROFESSIONAL

The expectation that pastors be people of character and good moral standing goes without saying. 1 Timothy 3 is clear that anyone aspiring to leadership within the church should be a person of character, someone who is ‘above reproach’ and ‘respectable.’ In our 21st century context we should appreciate that the language used to describe such a person isn’t that of ‘an all-round top bloke,’ or ‘a genuinely lovely lady.’ Rather, in our cultural context, we speak of professionals, ethics, codes of conduct and character. A vocational minister is someone who serves as an ethical-professional in their field, someone who has received professional training and is engaged in ongoing professional development and professional supervision.

Further to being ‘above reproach’ and ‘respectable,’ the Apostle Paul highlights the need for leaders to be ‘able to teach.’ The ability or ‘ableness’ here, is not simply about the capacity to speak or teach in a public forum, but the content of one’s teaching as well. We are therefore talking about issues of character, as well as of capability and content. All three are required and all three are formed, framed and furthered via initial professional training, ongoing professional development and healthy professional supervision.

Of course, pastoral ministry isn’t simply a professional function within an institution – a service rendered, a gainful occupation, a career pursued – there is more too it. Too often though, the secularization of our worldview imposes an impoverished perspective on form and function, be that of laughter with friends, a glass of wine, or the pastoral vocation. The effect of this is to reduce things to their utilitarian function in maintaining whatever version of the status quo we find most comfortable. Pastoral ministry can be reduced to this as well with people looking for pastors that say the things they expect to hear, want to hear, and in just the way they like to hear them. The temptation exists for pastors too, to say what is easiest, most comfortable, most likely maintain the status quo. This is something pastors should resist. There is more to the pastoral vocation than maintaining the status quo. As an ethical-professional the pastor is also called to be a shepherd-theologian and a prophetic-mystic.

THE SHEPHERD-THEOLOGIAN

As well as being an ethical-professional, a pastor is also called to be a shepherd-theologian. While it might be tempting to split shepherd and theologian into two distinct aspects of pastoral ministry, the preservation of a merger is important. The unique care that a pastor offers springs from theological reflection, while the primary concern motivating the theological inquiry of a minister is pastoral care. Each is in the service of the other and together form a subversive collaboration geared around formation in Christ. Thus, as Vanhoozer and Strachan point out in The Pastor as Public Theologian; “The faithful pastor will always be a counter-cultural figure: what else can pastors be when they proclaim Christ crucified and then ask disciples to imitate their Lord by dying to self?”

The unique task charged to a pastor is not the baptism of one’s dreams for success, but of one’s life into Christ’s as a living sacrifice; to call people into a kind or dying that opens the door to a new kind of living. That’s the care a shepherd-theologian offers, a unique kind of care. Eugene Peterson puts it like this in The Contemplative Pastor, “I am undermining the kingdom of self and establishing the kingdom of God. I am being subversive. My long-term effectiveness depends on my not being recognised for who I really am.” Whoops – shouldn’t have put that quote in.

THE PROPHETIC-MYSTIC

While on one hand a subversive figure, the pastor is also one who functions publicly as a prophetic-mystic. Most simply, in a world disenchanted by secularism the pastor is tasked with re-enchanting the imagination and awakening people to the ever-present invitation of Christ to newness of life. As John R. Bodo puts it in The Pastors Role as Prophet, “he must articulate the will of God for a particular, people, time and place.” The pastor is one who attempts to discern and profess the possibilities of God in the moment. This is an edgy and radical space to occupy, but the invitation is to subtlety.

Shoot-from-the-hip cavalier declarations of “thus saith the Lord,” are not required. From a place of discernment, stillness, and quiet contemplation, a pastor can simply speak, preach and bare witness to the work of the Spirit in the world as she perceives it. It need not be inflated with claims of having heard God’s voice or minimalised as something one was pondering the other day – take it or leave it. Rather, spoken with clarity and conviction, the word one perceives as having come from outside of oneself is entrusted back to the Spirit to deposit in the hearts of listening ears as a Word from Elsewhere. Thus, we’ve a beautiful subtlety at play, rather than demonstrative tomfoolery, when it comes to the prophetic-mystic side of the pastoral vocation. Don’t misunderstand me though, the sleight of hand in no way diminishes the edgy and radical nature of pastoral ministry.

In his essay The Priest as Enchanter, Urban T. Holmes tells of anthropologist Barbara Myerhoff and her work with the Huichol Indians of Mexico. Among their people they have a religious specialist who combines in one person the classical sociological definition of the priest and the eccentricity of the shaman. Holmes summarises, “The institutional role, with all its predictable expectations, is joined to a person who possesses a certain personal integrity as he lives on the margins of the social structures. He is both a controlled professional, if you will, and an unpredictable agent of surprise. This is a concrete representation of the model I have in mind for the contemporary Christian priest, who is both professional and enchanter. He should be acquainted with realms of human experience that exist in the twilight of our learning, in the depth of human existence, and in the possibilities of God’s future. The priest needs to affirm the liminal quality of the shaman, even if the model of the shaman per se is not always helpful.”

The pastor as a controlled professional as well as an unpredictable agent of surprise is a brilliant way of articulating the interwoven roles of a pastor as ethical-professional, shepherd-theologian and prophetic-mystic. These dimensions complement, balance, inform, are informed by, encourage and provoke each other. No pastor should settle for one position, instead the integration of each is required.

As the world seeks to navigate the current COVID-19 situation, it is imperative that in playing their role, pastors interweave the ethical-professional, shepherd-theologian and prophetic-mystic aspects of their vocation.

Pastors need to be ethical-professionals paying attention to and heeding the advice of medical professionals, the Ministry of Health, the World Health Organisation and so forth. Ignoring advice about public gatherings, as some in New Zealand were and others in America are (only to end up being arrested) isn’t an edgy and prophetic stand for the gospel in the face of governmental tyranny and control. It’s just silly. As well, it is a complete failure to love one’s neighbour.

Pastors need to be shepherd-theologians encouraging people in their journey of discipleship to be those that trust in God, look not to their own interests but also the interests of others, and seek to be a non-anxious presence in the world. Promoting ludicrous conspiracy theories that blame coronavirus on 5G networks is… well. Words failed me just then, so let’s just stick with ludicrous. Pronouncing the virus as a judgement or a punishment sent by God is naive and fails to understand God as revelled in Christ, Christ who comes as the healer. This sort of commentary is to fail in the role of shepherd-theologian. Better to highlight, as N.T Wright does, that “It is no part of the Christian vocation, then, to be able to explain what’s happening and why. In fact, it is part of the Christian vocation not to be able to explain—and to lament instead. As the Spirit laments within us, so we become, even in our self-isolation, small shrines where the presence and healing love of God can dwell. And out of that there can emerge new possibilities, new acts of kindness, new scientific understanding, new hope.”

Pastors need to be prophetic-mystics who are radical enough to whisper with subtly and grace that which they sense the Spirit to be advocating even in the darkness; behold I am making all things new.

This is a guest post from Joseph McAuley, who is the lead pastor at St Luke’s in Tauranga, New Zealand. He has a pentecostal heritage but is also drawn to the various ecclesial expressions that make up the Great Traditions of the Church. He is something of a pracademic; a pastor/theologian who has a Master of Arts from Alphacrucis College and a Doctorate of Ministry from Fuller Theological Seminary. He is as comfortable with books and learning as with the aches of the soul. Out of interest, if you are familiar with the Myers-Briggs personality types, he is an INTJ. If Strength Finders is more your thing, his top five traits are; strategy, learner, futurist, maximiser and relator.

EASTER AS A CHANGED AGENDA

Sat, 11 Apr 2020 10:27:16 GMT

On Easter Sunday my thoughts go to the women who set off early to visit the tomb of Jesus.

Though devastated by his death, his hasty burial on the Friday bothered them and niggled away during the insufferably long hours of forced inactivity during the Sabbath. There really had not been enough time to prepare his body properly – not nearly enough spices used to ensure the decay of his corpse would be slow and respectable. They knew what they must do, and quietly prepared for action.

There was a second niggle. That large stone that had been rolled across his tomb. All very well to use a bit of gravity to get it into place, but now gravity would work against them as they tried to open the grave. What would they do? Some concerns you can’t resolve, and they decided that they would figure something out when they got there.

That little group of women had an agenda with two items that Easter Sunday morning. First open the tomb of Jesus and then add their spices to his body. Having done that, they would perhaps have been able to look at the obvious third item on their agenda – grieve the death of Jesus. Hard to sum that one up quickly. After all, it meant grieve the loss of every hope and dream. It meant say hello to cynicism and defeat. It meant that they, the last, would never be first – and how foolish of them for having believed it. There would be much to mourn, and they would take years to get over this – but first things first. Top of the agenda was to give Jesus a respectable burial.

Well that certainly changed! Don’t know what they did with their spices (did they leave them in their panic, or frugally store them away for a more regular corpse?), but they became the first witnesses to the resurrection. They tell the doubt filled disciples that Jesus has risen.

That news didn’t just change their short-term agenda – it changed their forever .

Though they wouldn’t have admitted it, when they set off to anoint the body of Jesus that Easter Sunday morning, they were taking their first step towards getting over Jesus and returning to a BC life. No doubt they told each other that they would never forget him and perhaps talked about how much his teaching meant to them – but deep inside they knew that to survive, their first task was to get over him and to work out what an “after Jesus” lifestyle would look like. After all, beautiful though his teaching was, it clearly didn’t work – nothing like a crucifixion to drum that point home.

But when they saw the empty tomb (stone already rolled away) – well, that was different. Clearly another journey was about to begin. Though they wouldn’t have fully grasped it immediately, together with the disciples, they were about to change the world – not figuratively, literally, for their message of resurrection has literally changed the fortunes of this planet.

Easter and private agendas have never sat comfortably together. Easter is not primarily a comfort (don’t be afraid of death) but a challenge – live in the light of Easter.

Before the resurrection the disciples often wondered who Jesus really was. Most days they thought he was a great teacher – the best sort of rabbi. On other days they wondered if he was also a prophet. Every now and then they wondered if he might be the Messiah. After the resurrection, they stopped speculating, and called him Lord.

Easter is an invitation to call Jesus Lord – and if Jesus is Lord, then his agenda trumps our own. There is no loss in that, for his agenda is so much more interesting…

SUSPENDED MOMENTS

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 10:33:51 GMT

Like the final note of a song that refuses to draw to an end, the Saturday in between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is the liminal space in which our pain and confusion hangs, suspended, wondering what will come next.

A lot of people remarked yesterday (Good Friday) that because of all of the chaos going on in the world, people would be better able to engage with the suffering presented through the message of the cross. To be honest, I think that today is a more relevant metaphor for where we all find ourselves: suspended in time, waiting for some ethereal future to present itself, knowing very little about how we got here and what tomorrow will look like.

Even the biblical imagery is similar. We’re all locked away in our homes, afraid to go outside. The day after Jesus’ death his disciples were doing the same, albeit for slightly different reasons. They were shut away from the world, asking themselves what in the world they’re supposed to do now.

I wonder if there is anything to learn in these awkward and uncomfortable moments.

I hate ambiguity. It’s one of the things I struggle with the most, and there is nothing more ambiguous than the place we currently find ourselves resting in. This year has been an interesting one for me personally. The launching of the Centre for Faith and Life was an exciting way to begin 2020, but it wasn’t well received by everyone and so by March I found myself leaving my job. I decided that for the next season in life I would do something I've always wanted to do and so I began work starting up a small training business – about two weeks before the global pandemic.

Like many others around the world, all of the events I had planned, the conferences I was speaking at and the work that was lined up suddenly disappeared and I was left wondering what was going to happen next.

I’ve spent the last ten years or so being incredibly busy. Marriage, work, kids, houses etc. the list of things which occupy space in our lives is endless, and the last decade was a flurry of frenetic activity. I slowed down a little bit toward the end of 2019 but now in 2020 I’ve found myself at home every day, with very little paid work to be busying myself with and all the time in the universe.

Like many of you, I had grand plans for this time. I was going to read books, produce a TONNE of content which would keep me going for years, write and publish a couple of books, work out A LOT, and grow exponentially in every single area of life. I basically pictured myself coming out of isolation as a ripped, spiritually enlightened business guru with three already published books.

The reality? The ambiguity of life, the transition from working for someone to working for myself, and the generally jarring experience of the last few months has meant that I’ve felt lethargic, bored and mostly uninspired. All my plans and dreams are suspended, it would seem, waiting for something to happen before everything goes back to normal. To be honest this has really frustrated me at times. I want to just “click into gear” and start getting stuff done, but at the same time I’m learning (slowly) that there is something to be understood in the curious in-between spaces of life.

Whilst I want everything to be clear and simple, I also know that life isn’t actually like that. Life is complicated, grey, and ambiguous at the best of times and whilst leaning forward with intention is important it might also pay for us to – every now and again – embrace the moments that are less than defined.

These are the moments when we are not exactly in control, and if you’re anything like me that is a terrifying place to find yourself. But if we can transition from terrified to liberated and begin to believe that being in control might not be everything, we might just realise that it is in the suspense, that the magic happens.

You see, wisdom moves slowly. In our world of fast paced content and knowledge saturation sometimes we need a suspended moment to allow the depth of life to embed itself into our being. It’s an uncomfortable feeling for sure, but it’s a part of the maturity of growing into ourselves as well.

I don’t really know what the future holds. For me, or for any of us.

But I’m genuinely not worried.

A lot of people are saying that nothing will ever be the same again. Perhaps they’re right, although that’s hardly news. Plenty of things have reshaped our world across the years. Whatever comes tomorrow though, be thankful for today. For it’s in these suspended moments that we are given the opportunity to realise that whatever tomorrow looks like, it’s who we are when we step into it that truly matters.

WE ARE THE BROKEN HEARTED

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 04:03:25 GMT

What do we do with the death of God?

It’s good Friday. Arguably the most confusing and incomprehensible day on the Christian calendar. Thousands of years ago the followers of Jesus found the idea that their saviour could die on a cross inconceivable, and yet here we are all this time later, still sitting here awkwardly waiting for Sunday to come around so that we can celebrate the good stuff.

What do we do with a day that celebrates (is this even the right word?) the death of God?

It’s a difficult thing to wrestle with and pastors, theologians, as well as the rest of us have spent a long time trying to figure out what it all means.

So instead of navigating the complex world of atonement theories or debating the significance of trinitarian love, I want to try and explain why a day like today is important to me. Put simply, Good Friday is important to me because it allows me to confront my pain, my suffering and my brokenness. It reminds me that unless I had come close to death, I would not have been able to understand the nature of life. It comforts me by bringing to bear the memories of my greatest pains and places me inside the story of a God who didn’t transcend human depravity but experienced it, was abused by it, was destroyed by it.

It reminds me that our shared story is one of pain.

Of death.

It’s dark, I know. Can you feel yourself wanting to finish my sentences? “Yes – but death didn’t have the last word!” It’s as if we are incapable of sitting in the shadow of death without running a mile in the other direction. It’s why we feel the need to fix other people’s pain when they open up to us or why we struggle to know what to say when tragedy hits. We are constantly searching for a better end to the story.

But the power of the Christian story is not primarily in the fact that God was resurrected. The real power is found when we consider that God actually died .

This one statement is a redefinition of almost everything we thought we knew about life, love and truth.

Power is revealed in suffering service;

Strength is seen in mercy, humility and grace;

And death is the only path to any kind of life.

Conceptually we know this is true from the pages of the bible, but what does it really mean for death to be a path to life, for death to be our path to life ?

Personally, this has been a very difficult journey for me. As long as I can remember I’ve studied philosophy and Christian thought, and I’ve always leaned toward a form theology that is graceful and generous. One that made me feel noble and ‘right,’ I guess, but up until the last few years I believed that this kind of a gospel is what everyone else needed, I didn’t really need it.

I was fine.

Grace was available, and mercy was poured out without question. It just didn’t need to be directed towards me because I was okay. Let the people who need it the most be the beneficiaries of such extraordinary love.

It took pain at an extraordinary level, the kind that you genuinely aren’t sure you’ll ever recover from, for me to recognise that I might be more broken than I had thought. That I might actually need to partake in the same kind of radical love that I thought I believed in.

We all have a story, don’t we? Sometimes our story brings us to the brink of destruction. For me, the ‘abyss’ I had read about in books and poems was one that ended up surrounding me, consuming me. It snuck up on me and caught me off guard. It threw me into a place that I never expected I would be.

Suffering – whether imposed or a result of misfortune or foolishness – can either destroy us or remind us of who we really are. So, who are we? We are the heartbreakers as well as the broken-hearted. We are the shamed and the shameful, the monsters as well as the ones who run from them. We are confused, confusing and yet still remarkably we are defined by the love of a God who passed through the worst of us still whispering the words of forgiveness.

“Father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing”

On the worst days of my life I was desperate for the resurrection that comes through Easter Sunday but I was trapped in the despair of the Friday.

We long for Sunday because we are haunted by the memories of shame and despair. What Good Friday does is forces us to stand in the middle of our own darkness – just for a little while – and remember that without death there can be no resurrection.

Sunday is not more important than Friday. It’s more enjoyable but it’s not more important. Resurrection is the product of death. It is the redemption of suffering; the light that breaks in and fills our vessels of despair with newfound hope.

Good Friday is an opportunity for us to fully embrace our own brokenness. Moltmann calls it our god-forsaken-ness and I resonate with the language only because I have experienced moments where it felt as if I was godforsaken and alone.

But today is also about forgiveness. It’s about a forgiveness that comes to us at our worst and most malicious moments. The verse in Scripture that brings me closest to tears is Jesus as he hangs on the cross, beaten and bloody, gazing with empathy down on those who have brutalised him:

“Father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing”

- Luke 23:34.

I find it hard to fathom the fact that in the exact moment that Jesus is dying from the wounds inflicted on him, he is forgiving those that have hurt him, betrayed him. This is the only kind of love that is truly powerful enough to work its way through all of our own shame and anger. It’s a love that refuses to allow our darkness to have any hold. It’s a forgiveness that comes from a place of complete brokenness.

The reality is, to experience forgiveness we must pass through the strange and paradoxical crucible of broken-heartedness. James Alison says it like this:

“Forgiveness reaches you as brokenness of heart and it is as brokenness of heart reaches you that you can apologise - put into words what has been going on; recognise your sameness with your sisters and brothers; become equal-hearted with them. God’s mercy is what creates equal-heartedness amongst us, because that is what God’s mercy means: that God loves us as Godself.”

So today is Friday, not Sunday. Today is a time to reckon with the darkness within you, and the pain that you have experienced. It is a time to feel alone as well as strangely together – as your suffering is what you makes you human. Don’t rush through today, embrace it in its fullness. It won’t last forever, or even that long. But it is important.

As Padraig O’Tuama says, take the time to say hello to here:

"If I believe we are from God and for God, then we are from Goodness and for Goodness. To greet sorrow today does not mean that sorrow will be there tomorrow. Happiness comes too, and grief, and tiredness, disappointment, surprise and energy. Chaos and fulfilment will be named as well as delight and despair. This is the truth of being here, wherever here is today. It may not be permanent but it is here. I will probably leave here, and I will probably return. To deny here is to harrow the heart . Hello to here"

JUDAS

Thu, 09 Apr 2020 04:37:28 GMT

I feel sorry for Judas.

I’ve always supported the underdog, so perhaps it’s not too much of a surprise that I feel a fair amount of sympathy for Judas – no, not the other Judas, the disciple who was OK, but Judas Iscariot – the one who betrayed Jesus.

He was the treasurer for the group of disciples, and it appears that no close eye was kept on his accounting – for apparently he was a thief, which is rather a consolation if you’ve ever made a poor job appointment (what were you thinking Jesus?) When bills had to be paid, Judas could count on Jesus to pull off a miracle. Remember the time they couldn’t pay the temple tax and Jesus had them find the money in the mouth of a fish (Matt 17:24ff). That’s the kind of miracle treasurer’s love. You could argue that it was Judas’ dream job – lots of prestige, no real responsibility.

Politically it seems that Judas was a Zealot – in other words, he was one of those Jews who believed that the only way to overthrow their Roman oppressors was through acts of terrorism and violence. Certainly one reason given for why Judas betrays Jesus is that Judas hoped to force Jesus’ hand by having him arrested – thinking that the only option for the arrested Jesus would be to start the revolution that would cause the overthrow of Rome, or face crucifixion.

Perhaps Judas never considered that Jesus might willingly take the second route. If so, what a shock it would have been to see the promised Messiah disinterested in bringing about Rome’s defeat, and embracing the Cross instead. Thirty pieces of silver could never compensate for that – and a haunted Judas goes out and kills himself.

Can you feel a twinge of pity for him?

2000 years have passed, and this ancient betrayal has not been forgotten. Whatever Judas’ motives were, that night when he identified Jesus with the hypocrites kiss saw his endless night begin.

Motives are funny things – some that seem good, turn out to be deluded. Sometimes we dress our shadow self in the finest of clothes, and pretend that all is well.

Why do I feel a little sorry for Judas?

Because I see a Judas within, trying to force God’s hand instead of trusting that God’s plan is bigger than mine…

As we prepare ourselves for the next few days, we get ready to worship a God who passed through death in order to bring about life. This isn't the kind of God the disciples expected and it is often not the God that we want; but it is certainly the God that we have. The God of life, and the God of death. We cannot force his hand, but we can trust his love.

THE WIPING OF THE 5000

Tue, 31 Mar 2020 11:51:00 GMT

So how do you get through a global pandemic?

Well, apparently the answer in Australia is simple: toilet paper.

Well before the shops started selling out of food, hygiene products and other necessary items it was toilet paper that was deemed the no.1 essential item for an impending apocalypse. We might not know what lies ahead but at very least we need to be able to wipe with 3-ply comfort. There’s something about conventional wisdom that doesn’t always hold up.

I wasn’t too worried though. Like many people around the world now, we get our toilet roll through an online ordering system (a great company – check them out here) and it seems as if their Australian deliveries were dispatched a week before the national loo roll crisis. We had 48 rolls – enough for our family to last at least a couple of months. We were the lucky ones. But I had forgotten to factor in one key element….

… my wife, Nina.

Over the last few weeks, as supplies in shops diminished and people took on the demeanour of frenzied feeding sharks, Nina did exactly the opposite. She started reaching out to see who needed something and how she could get it to them.

I’ll be honest, initially it was nice. And then it was worrying. As the loo roll flew out the door and our generous stash began to diminish, I couldn’t help but feel a similar sense of panic. What if we don’t have enough? I started putting aside my old t-shirts in case they were needed in an emergency.

It’s amazing what feelings of anxiety can do to you, especially when they’re related to the idea of scarcity.

Lynne Twist, in her book The Soul of Money, examined scarcity and its impact on us. We lament not getting enough sleep, not having enough time, not earning enough money. Over time, she writes,

“this internal condition of scarcity, this mind-set of scarcity, lives at the very heart of our jealousies, our greed, our prejudice, and our arguments with life.”

When we feel like we don’t have enough, it's difficult to feel peaceful about anything.

I knew that Nina’s response to the Great-Toilet-Paper-Crisis – her generosity - was the right one but I couldn’t help also paying attention to my own feelings. After all, I’ve always been a ‘provider.’ What happens if we run out of something and I’m not able to get it? My brain was assuring me that there is always going to be plenty to go around but the chaos of frenetic panic and the hoarding mentality it creates is contagious. Maybe you’ve felt it too.

There’s a story in the Bible I want to explore with you for just a second, as I was reminded of it yesterday and I think it’s important. It’s a story you’ll be familiar with but perhaps told in a way that might be less familiar. It’s the story of large crowds, diminished supplies and anxiety around whether everyone will have enough.

When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”… (John 6:5)

At one point in Jesus’ ministry he finds himself sat near the top of a hill looking out at all the people that have gathered to hear his teaching. The story is recorded as The Feeding of the 5000 but most people recognise that there would have been many more people there. 5000 men, but perhaps between 10,000-20,000 including their families and relatives.

Lots of people, but not much food.

When Jesus questions his disciples about what they’re going to eat for dinner, there is a familiar anxiety:

Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a years’ wages to buy enough bread for each one to have half a bite!” (John 6:7)

There. Is. Not. Enough.

There are so many people and there is not enough to go around.

We know how the rest of the story goes: a small boy – one of those not significant enough to be numbered among the 5000 – steps forward and offers what he has, which is “five small barley loaves and two small fish.” Jesus takes this offering, gives thanks for it and then distributes it. Magically there is enough to feed everyone gathered there.

It’s a miracle.

There is much to be read in this rendition. It’s a story that encourages us to rely on the provision of God and tells us that even when it seems as if there is not enough to go around, God will provide. Many of us remember reading the story as children and conjuring up images of loaves reproducing in front of our eyes.

But there is another way that this story can be told that resonates quite deeply with our current situation, and with the text itself.

It always seemed a little unlikely to me that of all the people gathered there on that day, only one boy would have brought food with him. Especially given that the 5000 were men, the providers of their day, why would anyone have thought to come out on such a journey without enough food to feed themselves and their families?

The problem was that among the crowd we know that there was a mixture of people. Some wealthy, some far less than wealthy. There were families, priests, official types and nobodies. The crowds that Jesus attracted were diverse. Chances are though, that many of them had food with them. Those that didn’t probably hadn’t forgotten, they just couldn’t afford it.

Now if you were one of those people that had enough money to bring a stockpile of food with you, and you looked out over that crowd and realised how many people there were going without – what would you do? We like to think we would take our food out and shower it over everyone but more likely we would do what seems instinctive: hoard and hide.

“Keep your bread under your cloak – don’t let anyone see it!” Said one person to another as they snuck quiet mouthfuls.

“I’ve only got enough for myself; I don’t want to go without – that would be irresponsible!” said another.

5000 people, everyone looking out for themselves, until one small and insignificant child does what seemed so innocent and yet so natural: he came forward with his family’s supply (can you imagine what the parents were thinking?). It took the generosity of a child for everyone to realise what they were doing.

Jesus takes this offering and after the blessing, begins to distribute it among the crowds. From here, these loaves and fish may well have just begun multiplying miraculously. That would be pretty cool. In my mind however, the greater miracle would have been that after seeing the power of generosity through the boy, everyone else with bread stashed under their cloak begins to bring it out into the light and shares it.

When they had all had enough to eat, [Jesus] said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. (John 6:12-13)

There are times in life when it feels as if there is not enough to go around. In these moments we have a choice regarding what kind of person we want to be. There are a million justifications for keeping your bread hidden under your cloak, but there is only one reason to bring it out, and this is because it is only when generosity overcomes greed and scarcity, that people will genuinely not need to go without.

This isn’t about grand gestures or new economic models. This isn’t about politics or social reform, it’s about simple acts of courageous generosity in the midst of our own fear and panic. It’s a trust in the God who shows us that when we put our faith in Jesus and follow his ways, we look at each other through the lens of kinship and care, rather than competition.

In God, there is always enough, because with Jesus we share all things.

CONSUMERS OR CHRISTIANS?

Thu, 05 Mar 2020 03:21:26 GMT

It has become common to talk about consumer Christianity. You see it everywhere.

The new family at the church makes it clear that they want to test things out first - after all it may or may not be a good fit for the family, and there are lots of needs to take into account. Is the youth group friendly enough, the children’s ministry sufficiently accommodating, the preaching inspiring enough, and the music to everyone’s taste? If each box gets a bold tick, they might attend... well, attend on those weekends they are not away at their holiday cottage.

New churches trying to decide if they will join a particular denomination or movement of churches often don’t focus on the denominations distinctives but on the value proposition offered by the group’s headquarters. Christian schools trying to decide if they will join an association of Christian schools are usually as anxious to find out what’s in it for them if they sign up, and if they will get a good return on the fees they are required to pay.

I’ve been principal of a theological college for 16 years, and a change I have noticed is that students now often unashamedly ask you to delineate in what ways you are better than what they describe as your opposition. One prospective student sat in my office and told me that he had interviews set up with four theological colleges, and after they were completed, he would make his decision. He added that I needed to give him my best pitch, as mine was not the only voice he would hear. I appreciated his honesty, though rated him poorly when it came to tact.

I guess it’s natural enough. Bombarded as we are by an endless stream of competitive advertising, we are sensitised to the differing value of products. Some offer good value for money, others are a waste of time. Who wants to buy a dud, and given that for most people time and money are in short supply, we are anxious lest we waste either.

Up to a point this line of thinking is fair enough, and I certainly wouldn’t want to suggest that we should lack discernment when we decide which church to attend, charity to donate to, college to enrol at or whatever. I am wary of churches or Christian institutions who refuse to challenge second class standards and trade on the Christian goodwill of those who support them, without asking if they are being good stewards of the ministry God has entrusted to them. Ministry matters far too much to turn a blind eye to shoddy work and indifferent performance.

There is however a serious problem if we passively accept consumer Christianity as a new normal . While there are many good reasons to become a follower of Jesus, let’s not forget that Jesus advised it included carrying a cross, that those who wanted to be first would be last, that those who sought to find their lives would lose them, and that it is only if we first seek the Kingdom of God that we can be assured that our other needs will be looked after.

Actually, for those who follow Jesus the question is never, “what’s in it for me?” Rather we need to ask the more penetrating question, “will this path see me being of the greatest use to God’s work in the world?” While personal preferences have a place in this, they don’t belong as the opening gambit, and might fit relatively far down the list. It could be that the struggle experienced by the local church youth group is not the reason I should abandon that church, but the very reason I should sign up to it. The deficits we so quickly note in the organisations we evaluate might have our name written alongside them. We might be called to help solve the problem we have detected - or at least be a part of the solution.

Many years ago St Francis penned his wonderful prayer, “Instrument of your peace.” It contains the haunting reminder that it is in giving that we receive and in dying, that we are born to life everlasting. It was a prayer I heard often during my youth, and it was set to a variety of tunes. I don’t mind if the tune is changed, but I do hope it finds its way into our singing and prayer life again. What might it mean for the witness of the church in the world if each Christ follower starting each day with the plea, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.”

SELLING JESUS

Sun, 01 Mar 2020 21:28:26 GMT

I remember someone once describing evangelism as having the cure to a disease - why would you withhold that cure from anyone?! We must share it with as many people as possible!

The truth is, my desire for people to know God really is out of love and enthusiasm; following Jesus has always brought a sense of wholeness to my life, along with purpose and direction, I want that for others. So I set about my youthful days trying to strike up connections with the cashiers of every supermarket, fuel station and convenience store I ever visited, wondering how I could segue from ‘it’s really getting cold now isn’t it?’ to ‘do you know the God of the universe created you, loves you and delights in you?’ Perhaps I should have said, “I’m selling Jesus, do you want to make a purchase?”

These fleeting connections were hit and miss; I couldn’t be blamed if I didn’t get to the good stuff in a 25 second interaction – I mean, I prayed before I went in there so if it wasn’t happening, what more could I do? Besides there were always my ‘non-Christian friends’ (of which I only ever had a token few). I would work really hard on building connection; I would pray for them daily and invite them to every church social event I could.

A couple of years ago I made a connection with one of the Mums at school and she told me she hadn’t really made any friends yet. We messaged back and forth in what I thought might be the beginning of a friendship.

Until she tried to recruit me to sell Arbonne products.

Her connection to me had had an agenda all along, I felt duped.

Around the same time, I went to a carol service at a church not my own and was greeted by smiling men and women brandishing signs saying they were ‘so pleased to see me’ and ‘I was amazing’. If I had never been to a church or carol service before perhaps I would have been moved by this welcome but as someone that has been the sign-wielding greeter many, many times, I found it more disingenuous than welcoming. If I smiled back and said what a great time I’d had I wondered if they would feel like they were ‘getting somewhere’ with me. I felt like an imposter, a secret God-loving, Jesus-follower in the midst of all these ‘non-Christians’.

I’m not the only one with these experiences either; a dear friend of mine was attending a large church and enjoyed the community and connections. She had made some friends, however upon having her third baby and not managing to make it to church for the time being, she noticed none of her ‘friends’ wanted to catch up anymore. She saw through it and never went back.

So if not evangelism in the way I have been taught, how will people know about God? When will they know about God? My need to control the outcome has me stuck in torment over how to proceed. In these times I’m reminded of the end of the book of Job:

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?

Tell me, if you understand.

Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!

Who stretched a measuring line across it?

On what were its footings set,

or who laid its cornerstone—

while the morning stars sang together

and all the angels shouted for joy?”

I don’t have an answer to my questions. When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, part of what he said was to ‘love your neighbour as yourself.’ I know the Mum at school probably did think I would be good at selling Arbonne, she must have wanted me to experience the same positive, life-changing thing as her but that feeling of someone having another motive for connecting to you doesn’t feel very nice. It doesn’t feel very loving. I don’t want the people I love to feel that way either.

When I decided, counter intuitively, to let go of any evangelistic agenda I had with my friends (I know, I know, it’s not an agenda, we just want everyone to know the good news) what it made room for was real two way friendship. I always believed the notion that I couldn’t be close friends with people that weren’t Christians, purely because we didn’t share enough of the same things. But we do share all of the same things. We are humans trying to navigate life and work and children and relationships. Trying to be fulfilled and happy and peaceful. All of my desperation to evangelise was actually the gigantic hurdle in the way of sharing the most valuable thing of all. True, pure love .

To really love someone, not for who you hope they become but who they are. To feel that love in return and struggle on through together. What a serendipitous blessing.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE FUTURE OF WORK

Mon, 17 Feb 2020 21:37:39 GMT

What does it mean to be human?

Have you ever asked at what point technology will have so advanced that the input of humans into life’s tasks will rarely be required? And what does that mean for the future of work? And what does it say about what it means to be human?

A personal anecdote. My family and I had recently arrived in New Zealand from South Africa. In the South Africa we left, the rubbish was collected by a van which rode down each street, the driver being supported by a team of four runners. Those runners would divide into teams of two, one for each side of the road. One would pick up the bag of rubbish and throw it into the back of the truck slowly driving down the street, the other would put out a replacement bag for next week’s rubbish. In New Zealand (and in Australia where we now live) that team has long been replaced by a sole driver for a truck with a mechanical arm which stretches out to each rubbish bin placed by the road, lifting it up and dumping its contents into the back of the van. A team of five had been reduced to one by the advent of that mechanical arm. Interestingly enough, the team of five in those South African teams were almost always all male. But the first driver I saw in New Zealand was a woman... Perhaps there was some significance in that... one woman now doing the work that it previously took five men to do. But the story doesn’t stop there. We are now on the cusp of driverless cars. In the not too distant future that once team of five, currently reduced to one will reduce further to none. A driverless van will sense where each rubbish bin is and will silently empty it, gliding from one street to the next.

And it will impact many other jobs. We’ve all got very excited by the advent of Uber - and the way it has revolutionised the taxi industry. But realistically, if you are now an Uber driver, don’t plan to be retiring from that job in forty years’ time. It will have disappeared long before then.

Actually, most mundane jobs are likely to go. Perhaps you already have an automatic vacuum cleaner - one which starts itself and zips around your home cleaning even in hard to reach corners. The technology for that will keep getting better and better. So if you are a professional cleaner... well, I’d be a tad worried if it was a job I loved. It probably won’t exist in 20 or 30 years. And so we can go on.

It forces us to ask questions about the place of work in life, and what it means to be human. After all, robots able to simulate empathy and to anticipate the sympathetic responses you might be looking for, are already in the early stages of design. Will we bother to form relationships with one another when we can have a smoother and less challenging relational ride with our robot? He or she (and I imagine our robot of choice can be of whatever gender we select them to have) will probably never challenge us but will calmingly agree with our every sentiment, helping to confirm each of our prejudices and preconceptions, leaving us content but undeveloped.

In short, with the rapid advances in artificial intelligence, are there some key theological truths we need to restate so that we guide the flow of progress, rather than simply lament its advance? If we had been aware of the impact of climate warming we might have paced the industrial revolution a little differently. By anticipating the impact of technological advances, perhaps we might tread a slightly different path. Here are four key guiding principles I thought of, and you might like to add others.

1) Work matters : While it is true that work became a burden as a result of the fall of humanity, prior to the fall it was a source of joy and creativity. The first human couple had to tend the garden. It was not designed to look after itself. Adam had to name the birds and animals, an act of great creativity, which was done with God watching on but not interfering in the process. Work was designed to be part of a good world, and we are right to assume that it will be part of the ultimate eschatological reality we will embrace. While we should delight in creativity, and celebrate the removal of the need for work which dehumanises and depresses, we should be wary of creating any form of artificial intelligence that replaces our own need to be intelligently engaged with and creatively interacting with the world.

2) People matter : All people have been made in the image of God and therefore have enormous worth. Not everyone has an enormous IQ. We must guard against a world where only the brightest and best can be actively engaged in the creative process. The world was not designed for non-participants. We must not redesign the work force in such a way that most find their labor unnecessary. Put bluntly, we must be sufficiently creative to constantly create meaningful and accessible new forms of work

3) The communal good matters : For most of human history individualism has not been highly valued. How that has changed. While there are many advantages in the turn to the self and encouraging each person to find their own unique voice, we should remember that the only valid self that the Bible knows is the self in community. We are called into relationship with God, with one another and with Creation. How we fare collectively matters. It is not enough for me to look towards the future and to conclude that my configuration of gifts is sufficiently special for me to be unafraid that my skills will ever be redundant, and therefore to conclude that as technology will never make me surplus to requirements, I need have no concern for those who will be impacted by its advance. We need a heightened awareness of the vulnerability of others. And we need to use every ounce of our creativity to ensure that all are actively engaged in the new world that continues to emerge. Put differently, when I hear of jobs made redundant because of advances in technology, it does concern me, even if my sector is not at risk. It impacts me because it impacts others. John Dunne was right. No one is an island, complete in their self. Anyone’s death diminishes me, because I am part of humanity. And therefore I must never send to know for whom the bell tolls... for it tolls for me.

4) Relationships matter : In a highly individualised world, where the average train is filled with people interacting with their iPhone but rarely with each other, we need to keep opting for relationships. We’re used to being able to select the music we listen to (and why would you care - my headphones are on, so I’m not troubling you), or the movies we watch. The consumer is king, and should never be challenged - or so we think. We’re building a world where we don’t interrupt each other, but do an increasing number of things on our own. Trouble is that we’re forgetting how to be in genuine relationship - and by genuine I don’t mean, “you don’t interfere in my space, and I won’t interfere in yours”. Real relationships are robust, and challenge the deep levels of selfishness found in most of us. Technology might convince me that I need you less and less, but in reality the only less that occurs is that I become a little less human as a result, and my capacity for deep empathy is likely to be swamped by the endlessly instant gratification technology superficially provides to meet my every need.

So should we do an Amish, and say “no” to technological advances? That’s only possible if we remove ourselves from the flow of life, which is neither a viable nor a desirable option. But now is the time to ask more deeply than ever before “so what does it mean to be human?” Our answers should shape the way we respond to technological advances.

BREAKING UP WITH DUALISM

Wed, 12 Feb 2020 21:50:25 GMT

There are two types of people...

...those who return their shopping trolleys and those who don’t. I am definitely the former of the two. In fact, come rain or storm, I will always return my trolley. I like rules, really. As Monica from Friends says, ‘rules help control the fun!’

The thing about rulesy people though, is they tend to see things dualistically. I did it already in this post. You’re either this or you’re that. Good or bad. Happy or sad. Hot or cold.

I’ve always journaled. With a seemingly never-ending stream of thoughts and feelings it’s not just a new year’s resolution for me – it’s a necessity! Every 5-7 years, for one reason or another, I’ll end up pulling out all my old journals and leafing through the pages. It’s an interesting experience, looking into your mind (as displayed on paper) at various points of your life. From ages 13-18 there was a running theme – boys. (In fact, I once read a prayer I had written that said, ‘God, help me to know what to do about James/Josh/Ryan/Mark.’)

Yep. But the theme that spans every journal I ever wrote in (and you’ll know this prayer when you hear it) was ‘God, show me what you want me to do in life.’ The angst dripped from the pages.

In times when I’ve felt a sense of peace or discernment about a decision that needs to be made, I’ve also felt nervous to describe how I’m justifying my decision to others – ‘well I think God told me’ or ‘I didn’t exactly hear an audible voice’. There is a lurking fear that if I was to make a decision that I wanted to make, I am somehow usurping God. Because either God told me specifically or he didn’t. Dualism.

I have found myself over the years straining desperately to know, ‘is this what I’m supposed to be doing?’, ‘should I move somewhere else?’, ‘am I in your will?’ Because either this is God’s plan, or it isn’t. Dualism.

Dualism seemed like my friend because he made it easy to know what I was supposed to do. The boundaries were clearly defined. When a new issue arose, I ran it through my brain and, in time, it emerged as either good or bad. So simple. Then you just act accordingly.

But dualism, sadly, is not a friend. And I need to break up with him. I’m trying.

Because if you can hold that space, the grey in which everything finds its home, there is untold splendour to behold.

I’m not sure Jesus was a dualistic guy. He answered the question, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” with two answers and he broke many of the ‘rules’ of the day in pursuit of showing people what was important.

India Arie sang, “I wanna go where the mountains are high enough to echo my song, I wanna go where the rivers run deep enough to drown my shame, I wanna go where the stars shine bright enough to show me the way. I wanna go where the wind calls my name.”

I’ve spent untold hours agonising over doing what ‘God wants me to do’, trying to crack the code, find the answer. Get a green light or a confirmation that what I’m doing is the right thing. It’s exhausting just to type that out. What I actually want is to go where the wind calls my name. That’s not really a black and white or concrete idea – but it’s beautiful.

UNSHAKABLE GOODNESS

itsupport@carey.wa.edu.au (Brian Harris) — Sun, 09 Feb 2020 22:05:17 GMT

“Sometimes resilience arrives in the moment you discover your own unshakable goodness”
– Greg Boyle.

Shame will tear you apart if you allow it to.

It works its way deep inside of your soul and convinces you that you are worthless, insignificant, and unacceptable. It’s a feeling that weighs so heavy that all you want to do is sleep so you have some respite but even in your dreams you find yourself running from all of the demons that taunt you, only to be woken again by the relentless heaviness of inhabiting a life you no longer want.

In times when you feel most inadequate, faith can either be the salve your soul needs or the poison that finishes the job.

We have a confusing picture of our own worth sometimes, sitting in between the curious paradox of being the bearers of God’s image and the actors of our own misfortune. We sing songs about a God who is good yet the goodness of God seems contingent upon recognizing that we are just worthless sinners. It comes out in a myriad of different ways.

I used to have a friend who would deflect every compliment I would ever give him. I’d say something along the lines of “great job today man” and he would respond with “it was all God.” But it looked like you? Sometimes I would test him by firing compliments out as fast as I could and true to form he would deflect each one, as if accepting the fact that he had done something of worth would be robbing God of glory. It’s an interesting way to see God, when you think about it. He is up there – the picture of perfect goodness – and we are down here. There seems to be a fracture in our understanding of reality. If something is good it must be God and if something is bad it must be us.

As if God is so narcissistic he couldn’t stand for us to see ourselves as anything other than worthless and shameful.

Perhaps this is a caricature but I imagine if you look closely you will find the skeleton of this kind of a story everywhere. I think some of the twisted-ness of this comes from the way we read a particular story in Genesis. You’re probably familiar with the one I’m referring to. It’s the one with the fruit, the talking snake and a whole load of nakedness.

Just before Genesis 3 comes Genesis 2, and the last words of Genesis 2 are – not insignificantly – that “Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame.” Most people can’t imagine a life without shame, let alone a life filled with naked un-ashamedness.

Genesis 3 then launches into full tilt then when the serpent slithers into a conversation with Eve and, after quizzing her about the boundaries of her own involvement in the garden, begins to challenge her on the way she has understood things. In response to Eve claiming that she wasn’t allowed to eat fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden lest she die, the serpent responds,

“You will not certainly die, for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil”

Did you hear that?

You will be like God.

This statement has caused many people to look at the story and claim that the great sin of the first humans was to aspire to divine-like status – their disobedience and striving for authority causing God to banish them from the garden, curse them with pain and labor setting the story of broken humanity on its course. This has caused a lot of people to view human efforts with no small amount of skepticism. We cannot acknowledge the good things that we do in case we slip back into the pattern of trying to usurp God.

Now let me be clear; I acknowledge that an unhealthy lust for power and strength and authority are a big part of human brokenness, and often cause us to act in ways that are more destructive than not. I'm just not convinced that's what this story is about.

I think before corruption, abuse and violence there is something else going on, and I think that something is shame. Let’s call it, Original Shame .

To me, the traditional way of understanding Genesis 3 (that is, the great sin was their longing to “be like God” and that’s why God cast them out of Eden) makes little sense for two reasons:

1. Because they were already like God.

Over and over again in Genesis we hear these curious words: “Let us create mankind in our image, in our likeness…” (2:26) or “When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God” (5:1). It would seem to be a curious thing indeed if God created humanity in his likeness and then punished them for wanting to be like him? What we know about the story is that these humans were bearers of the image of God, which meant that they had been imprinted by the divine, given the fullness of God. Is it possible that what the serpent actually did was convince Eve that she was less than all God created her to be? That she needed something else in order to be worthy? That God was withholding something from her and that in order to receive his goodness she would need to work just that little bit harder?

2. Because that’s not what God is like .

Not only did the serpent succeed in convincing Eve that she was less than all that God had created her to be – he also seemed to succeed in convincing her that God was also less. In the ancient world, it wasn’t the gods’ character that people aspired to but their powers. In order to protect themselves therefore, the gods would “jealously guard their divine prerogatives and status.” According to John Walton, this was the image of God that the serpent was espousing – one who was petty, jealous and insecure, a God who must protect himself from his creation by withholding his goodness from them. Unfortunately however, “such behavior is not at all characteristic of the God of the Bible. He is possessed of qualities and characteristics that he wants people to emulate or acquire”. Put simply, God was not trying to withhold anything from humanity – he was trying to give everything.

This seems consistent with the rest of the story. A God who would literally give everything in order that we might come to know him.

In Jesus we have the image of a God who doesn’t protect himself from us at all but actually steps into the story and is killed for his troubles. We don’t have a God who needs us to feel worthless and broken but a God who is continually moving towards those who are rejected in an attempt to restore their dignity and wholeness.

Is it possible that the great tragedy of the Genesis story is that humanity bought into the lie that we were less than all that God has created us to be, and that in the process we forgot who he was as well? What this led to was immediate and harrowing feelings of shame so strong that we ran from both God and each other.

The rest of the God story is one of God “coming down” and trying to show us who he is, in the midst of all of the chaos and violence that came as a result of us believing we were less that the divine images we are.

This is not to diminish the extraordinary power that sin and brokenness play in our lives. It simply recognises that brokenness comes from somewhere. People don't do things for no reason, and I've never met a person whose pain, anger or dysfunction isn't coming from a place of deep shame or inadequacy.

Perhaps God’s plan isn’t just to proclaim to us his own goodness, but it’s also to remind us of ours.

COMPETITION

Wed, 05 Feb 2020 22:21:08 GMT

For you to win, does someone have to lose?

Gore Vidal once wrote, "It is not enough merely to win; others must lose.” Is Vidal right, or is it possible to move beyond a winner/ loser binary and to compete in such a way that all are better for it?

The word competition comes from the Latin competito which means striving. While it is possible to strive against, it is also possible to strive together.

When I strive against you, you are the enemy – and I need to beat you. The more I can take from you, the better, for who seeks to bless the enemy? Actually Christians are called to bless everyone, even the enemy, so clearly a model other than striving against is called for.

Which leads to the second option. Perhaps in our competing, we can strive together – helping each other to be the best that we can be. Even as I slip ahead of you, I can do it in such a way that you recognise that you can rise a little higher… and so, in a while, you slip ahead of me. It is a hope filled exercise, or, as the writer of Proverbs sees it, it is the way that iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17). I don’t want you to be weak – for if you are weak you no longer challenge me. Your strength is my strength, and my strength, yours.

Inherent in this thinking is the recognition that competition in and of itself is neutral. It can be a force for good, for ill, or for many things in between.

And yet, why might competition be dangerous? It is often because of the motivation behind my competing. Rather than finding security from God’s unconditional love for me, I might operate under conditions of worth. I try to beat you not because you are any special threat to me, but because my being “better” than you reassures me that I am worthy. It is a model without grace, and one which will see me lurch from one adrenalin rush to the next, as I try to reassure myself that I am worthy. Feeding that insecurity is hazardous, because I become someone who needs to win. My self-image can be so insecure that nothing but repeated victories are enough to make me feel good about myself. Because of this I need to interrogate myself when I compete. Why am I competing? Do I have a hidden agenda and what is it? Ironically, an agenda that is most hidden to us, is often most obvious to others.

When I move from striving against to striving together, a number of significant changes take place. I realise that while your competing helps me set a pace I might otherwise have backed away from, I’m really competing against myself. There are so many possible versions of me – why should I (or God) settle for a lesser one?

Greg Linville’s book Christmanship: A Theology of Competition and Sport, suggests 6 key benefits that flow from competition:

1) Creativity – as we think how to achieve the goal of our sport, and the different ways in which it can be achieved. If we don’t play the game, we might never face the stretch.

2) Accountability – in team games, I must give account to my team members, and won’t be allowed to excuse inadequate preparation, or a destructive attitude.

3) Performance – which is tangibly observed each time the game gets underway.

4) Sacrifice – progress is often not possible without sacrifice, and the needs of the team trump my own.

5) Character and collaboration – for a game has many stages, and some are discouraging but don’t prevent victory if the team work together resiliently and persistently.

6) Celebration – is self-explanatory, though it should be noted that at times we celebrate a match, which though lost, was nevertheless exhilarating.

One of my favourite competitions in the Bible is the wrestling match between Jacob and God in Genesis 32. An anxious Jacob gets invited to wrestle with a stranger in the wilderness. It seems bizarre – but as we read the passage we realise that much is at stake. It looks as though Jacob will win – but then his fellow wrestler plays dirty and knocks Jacob’s hip out of joint. Almost defeated, Jacob clings to the stranger and insists that unless he blesses him, Jacob will not let him go. The stranger agrees, and blesses him with a new name. No longer will he be Jacob (which means, the schemer) but Israel (which means, one who strives with God and prevails).

Does Jacob (Israel) leave victorious or defeated?

It is hard to say. What we can say is that he has a new name - a name he sometimes lives up to, and sometimes does not (curiously, we still usually think of him by his old name, Jacob, and not his new name, Israel). He also has a new limp. The competition has transformed him. He moves less quickly and less confidently. This is a limp that is a gift, not a curse. A new realisation has dawned upon him - whilst he initially thought the one he wrestled with was merely a man, it was actually God. Clearly that took the struggle to a whole new level of meaning and significance.

There is much to learn from this ancient encounter. It is the reminder that that with which we wrestle, is actually wrestling with us… potentially giving us a better name. Rather than God being absent from the struggle, God is sometimes its author – indeed, we might be wrestling with God - who simply wants to bless us with a new name.

Competition – perhaps it is a word that makes you freeze, as you remember too many embarrassing losses. However, win or lose, competition can leave us the better for taking part, especially if we genuinely compete to bring the best out of each other. Which it is, is largely up to us…

SO BUSY YOU'RE A SLOTH?

Sun, 02 Feb 2020 22:10:51 GMT

For those familiar with the 7 deadly sins, sloth ranks as one of them – the others being envy, vainglory, avarice, anger, gluttony and lust.

I was recently interested to read Rebecca Konyndyk De Young’s take on sloth. Validly pointing out that while we tend to associate sloth with laziness, or lounging on the couch munching away at crisps and binge watching Brooklyn 99 yet again, this is not the historic understanding of sloth. The longer understanding of sloth has been that it is a failure to pay attention to what we are called to do.

Medieval writers on spirituality warned monks (who were always concerned about the 7 deadly sins) that 10am to 2pm were the danger hours for sloth, not because they feared that the monks might doze off (though given the early start they had to their day, that must have always been a risk) but that they might become distracted from their primary task of prayer, and that they might allow their minds to wander, or for secondary tasks to catch their attention.

Their sloth was not that they did nothing – but that they failed to do that which was of greatest importance.

To put it differently, they failed to do the work of love – love for God shown in a life of prayer, and love for others, shown in a life of prayer for them.

Sloth then is a failure to do the genuinely important. The irony is that our very busyness might earn us the title of being slothful – for so many are busy, but they are not doing the work of love.

An example given by Konyndyk De Young is of a couple who argue. Rather than confront their disagreement and work through it, they avoid the conflict and bury themselves in their work. Soon work distracts them sufficiently from the argument, and they pay little attention to it. For a while, the matter is forgotten. But the real work of love has not been done. The matter is unresolved, and is likely to come up again in another angry encounter in an unguarded moment. In this example, rushing to work to keep busy is committing the deadly sin of sloth – for it avoids doing the work of love.

By this understanding, many of us are guilty of sloth, not because we are lazy (a different concept altogether) but because we are unwilling to love deeply enough to do the work that love calls us to, be that serving the other, confronting the other, listening to the other or simply wasting time together with the other.

Now that’s a great thought on which to end. We can sometimes avoid sloth by simply wasting time together – for if our time wasting leads to deeper and more caring relationships, we have done the work of love, and no one who does the work of love is slothful.

So when it comes to the work of love, is time you enjoy wasting really ever wasted time?

WHAT DO THEOLOGIANS DO?

Thu, 23 Jan 2020 07:19:44 GMT

What do you actually do?

It’s a question I’ve been asked often enough, especially after I’ve introduced myself as a pastor and theologian, “So what do theologians do?” Let’s note the obvious. By definition, theology, being made up from two Greek words theos (God) and logos (the word about, or the study of), is the study of God. By implication then, all those who grapple with the question of God are, in one way or another, theologians. They might be very poor theologians, amateur theologians, professional theologians, perhaps even theologians whose work is widely recognized in the life of the church – but theologians they are. Given the nature of this blog, I would imagine that the vast majority of those who visit its pages are, in the broad sense of the word, theologians.

So what do theologians do and what makes for a good theologian?

First up a warning. Theology is a dangerous business. Though we might begin by feeling that we are in control of the process (we study God) we soon discover that the God we study is the God who studies us. Even as we examine the nature and character of God, we sense the pushback, “You think you are studying me – but actually I am studying your response to what you discover. Never forget, those who study God are challenged to live in the light of what they find.” It is dangerous to be a theologian and to be resistant to change, for you cannot study God and not change. Rudolf Otto in his classic The Idea of the Holy speaks of our encounter with the mysterium tremendum et fascinans - and it is probably as well to leave that untranslated from the Latin as it better conveys a sense of the weight of what we experience (though for those who insist on a translation, try the “fearful and fascinating mystery”). To put it crassly, you cannot spend the day contemplating the mysterium tremendum et fascinans and then calmly ask, “So what’s for dinner?”

What makes for a good theologian? Ideally they will play a number of roles, but let me focus on three P words that cumulatively suggest something of the calling of the theologian…

THEOLOGIAN AS PASTOR

Theologians are given the responsibility and luxury of studying and understanding the history and teaching of the church. They dive into the biblical text, examining it from many different perspectives; they piece together the different genres of scripture, and examine how they have been understood at different times in the history of Christianity, evaluating the different hermeneutical paradigms that have fed various conclusions; they grapple with ethical theory, and explore how different moral priorities have shaped the agenda of the church; they probe the pastoral practice of the church, investigating what has and has not proved helpful; they question the missiological understanding of the church and her relevance in different historical and cultural settings. Theirs is indeed a privileged existence – but the knowledge they gain and the insights they draw are not to be selfishly consumed. They are to strengthen and better the pastoral practice of the church. Their reflection is on behalf of the church and to help it to more faithfully fulfil its mission in the world. Theology, as Stanley Grenz has noted, is for the community of God. It helps pastor and guide those who pastor – and only an unwise pastor is disinterested in the voice of the theologians of the church, for in the end, in one way or another, theologians shape what the church believes and proclaims. True, many theologians speak ahead of their time, and it might take a generation or two before their insights trickle down to the average follower of Jesus – but if you think that what is taught in our churches has not been influenced by the theologians of the church, you are mistaken. Preachers and songwriters popularize the teaching of the church, but theologians help us decide what we give the affirming nod to, and what we reject.

The theologian as pastor grapples with the questions intrinsic to our humanity. They attempt to read the cultures in which we find ourselves, spotting in cultural developments both signs of the divine and the demonic, helping the people of God differentiate between the two, so that the church is faithfully open to the new day God births in the changing eras of human history.

THEOLOGIAN AS PROPHET

Theology at its best has a prophetic edge. It senses what God is saying to its particular time and setting, and what needs to be said if a better day is to dawn. Whilst theologians deal with timeless truths, they are aware that in different eras some aspects of the faith need to be more forcefully highlighted. They know that Jesus prayed for God’s Kingdom to come on earth, and for things on earth to be done as they are in heaven (Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven). Figuring out what this looks like is part of the responsibility of the theologian. In doing so, they have to evaluate cultural practices of both the church and the wider society – at times to speak a word of encouragement to them, at other times to speak against them.

We need to differentiate between theologians who are faithfully open to what God is birthing in the world, and those who are fearfully closed. Sadly, in our present time I think too many theologians are being captured by the fearfully closed paradigm. Even more sadly, their fearfulness strikes a chord with many, and encourages the church to bunker down into ghettos of escape, from which it is difficult to spot the ever creative fingerprints of God – for God firmly refuses to be trapped within the confines of the church. From this ghetto, we assume that psychologists, sociologists, economists, scientists, artists and critics are assuredly the enemy and have little – perhaps nothing – to teach us. We listen to them only to dissent. It is a rather negative and depressing exercise and assumes the enemy in those who often should be seen as allies and friends. All truth is ultimately God’s truth, and your average psychologist or sociologist is not desperately trying to get it wrong, but is trying to better understand the world we find ourselves in.

Not that we should be naïve. Not all cultural advancement is advancement. It is why the paradigm I advocate for is being faithfully open. The word faithfully is important. Humans have the strong tendency to self-delude and to forget that while they bear the image of God, they are not God. That delusion often sees an unwillingness to self-regulate, and to ask the necessary hard questions. We see promise in all our advancements, but are reluctant to seriously weigh up unintended consequences, and we usually evaluate the value of a step ahead in terms of its worth for us (sometimes simply for it use for me), rather than its value for all of creation.

In their role as prophet, theologians often come up against dissent and abuse. By and large prophets are not popular, as they often have to speak (or write) a challenging word… Most commonly they stress that the current status quo is not acceptable - which is why you are unlikely to be much of a prophet if you are not open to the new – for prophets urge change.

To be pastorally effective, theologians need to think deeply and compassionately. To be prophetically effective, they need to think deeply and courageously.

THEOLOGIAN AS POET

We need to move from reactionary to creative forms of theology. With imaginations fired with the good news of the Kingdom of God, we need to visualize a world of fresh and new possibilities. Martin Luther King had a dream which helped transform the petty destructiveness of the racist reality in which he found himself. We are now free to dream even more boldly. Though theologians captured by the “fearfully closed” paradigm often specialize in lamenting what has been lost from a long gone era, a more objective look at the world would conclude that much progress has been made. The good news of Jesus has not gone unheeded, and has worked its way into our legal, political, economic and moral frameworks. True, that work is far from complete, but progress has definitely been made. While racism has not been abolished from the world – only the most extreme defend it (albeit that there are signs that it could re-emerge). Having grown up in Apartheid South Africa I can assure you that that was not the case 30 or 40 years ago. And oh the freedom that comes with that – of being able to see that every human being has indeed been made in the image of God. Or we could think of the liberation of women around the world… a work still in progress, but significantly further ahead than it was a generation ago. And again – oh the freedom that comes with this.

Why “oh the freedom that comes with this”? Demographically I fall into the pale, male and stale category. For most of human history this demographic has called the shots – and been in power. Powerholding is its own form of bondage – for you fear that you have much to lose. The reality is that when we lose our fear of one another, we welcome a chorus of fresh new voices to the table – we dream new dreams – we discover that our faith speaks in ways we have not yet heard. We might even become poets – writing a new reality, spotting beauty in neglected places, or overlooked passages of scripture. For example, the stale, male and pale are unlikely to spot both the horror and the tender beauty in Genesis 16 and 21:8-21. Only a female voice, and perhaps only an oppressed female voice, can help us to understand something of what is going on in the story of Hagar – and dozens of others beside.

The opening chapters of the Bible tell us that the first human responsibility was to name creation – to give animals and birds a name. In my book The Big Picture I speak of this as the responsibility to build a world with a better name – to recognize that while God creates the world, it is not a completed creation. Though the responsibility may take our breath away, we are invited to continue the work of creation as stewards of all God has made. We are even told that we bear God’s image… in other words we represent God to the world. This gives us the courage to dream. Rather than simply lament what is broken in the present form of this world, we should be poets – writing a new world into being, dreaming of a different reality which must first be visualized (and visualized in the light of Christ, in whom all things hold together), then spoken about, then crafted into being by our pastors, engineers, politicians, counsellors.

Theologians deal with the loftiest of questions. Theirs is a creative art. They must speak the world that should be into being… and they do that as they think deeply and creatively of all that God has revealed to us in Creation, in the Scriptures and through the history of God’s people in the world – and all this with a Christological lens, as they evaluate all things in the light of Jesus. Rather than being fearful of the future, they visualize a world yet to be crafted. They are poets – ahead of their time to be sure, but confidently pointing to a world that will be birthed, for their ultimate assurance is of the coming reign of God. Theologians who are poets never use this as an excuse for escape (God will sort this out, so there is nothing for us to do), but as an opportunity to invite people to a new and better reality… a new and better reality that starts today and continues tomorrow.

What then do theologians do?

As pastors, they think deeply and compassionately.

As prophets, they think deeply and courageously.

As poets, they think deeply and creatively.

Pastors, prophets and poets, and always in a way that is compassionate, courageous and creative.

INNOCENCE FOR SALE

Sun, 19 Jan 2020 13:03:24 GMT

How much does it really cost?

I decided to read a book from the Old Testament recently; I chose Amos at random because it was short and I don’t recall reading it before. As I opened it up, I thought ‘ah it’s one of those books in the Bible!’ Lots of Amorites and Amelekites and somebody-ites that God is upset with.

I hate to say it but these are the kind of chapters I would usually skim read. As I read however, I discovered something beautiful - all the people that God was upset with were people who were not being fair or just, they were mistreating the poor to advance themselves and gain wealth and possessions. The verse that stood out to me the most was Amos 2:6,

“They sell the innocent for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals.”

Sound like a familiar story? That got me in the guts!

There are things happening in the world that we already know about (or say we don’t because we choose not to look into them) such as our abuse of the planet, the sweatshops and slave labour that make our clothes, the unfair and often unhealthy way our food is farmed and all the people whose backs are trodden on for the sake of our comfort. How we respond and participate in these things, whether we cause them or contribute to them, really matters.

I think ‘social justice’ or ‘world issues’ is considered a small side dish in what it means to serve and follow God, but I am learning that it is the starter, main course and the dessert. In all of history and since the beginning of time God has cared for the poor and marginalised and has been deeply burdened by those who mistreat, abuse or kill others. As I am changing and living my daily life more aware of these things, I am finding I meet Jesus everywhere. As I read Amos, the gospels and countless other books with fresh eyes I am astonished that I could have missed this as it is the constant cry of God from beginning to end.

Walking through the shops can feel like you’re in a strobe light show – all these bargain prices jumping out at you– workout pants - $4, kids pjs - $6, plaid shirts, tank tops, jeans – all so cheap. It’s like being a kid in a candy shop, so much for so little that you can just indulge and get whatever you like because - ‘it’s so cheap!’

But how much does it really cost?

Amos 2 continues, “They trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed.” The documentary, The True Cost, shares the story of Shima Akhter, a young, single mother trying to make a life for her and her daughter whilst working in the garment industry. Without a living wage or access to childcare, she is forced to work away from her daughter, seeing her only twice a year. In a distressing interview, Shima cries, “I don’t want anyone wearing anything that is produced with our blood.”

As I read Amos, I hear Shima’s words echo through history.

We are still selling the innocent for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.

BELIEF

itsupport@carey.wa.edu.au (Brian Harris) — Wed, 15 Jan 2020 21:40:41 GMT

"Oh everyone believes... in how they think it ought to be" - John Mayer

A few years ago I had a friend who was very convinced about what hell was going to look like. The imagery wouldn’t surprise you: fire, a burning lake, and lots of gnashing of teeth. Personally I’ve always struggled with both the concept, and the violent images people use to describe hell and so to hear someone speak of it so easily without any discomfort was disturbing.

Hell was going to be horrific, they claimed, for those that did not believe in Jesus.

If you fast forward a few years that same person lost someone very close to them. The person who died wasn’t a believer. I remember seeing the heartache my friend was going through and wondering to myself whether it was made all the more painful because of what they believed about hell. Interestingly enough that very topic came up in a conversation a little while later and when I asked them what their thoughts were about it they responded with a very simple phrase:

“I really don’t know.”

This was one of the most honest moments of theological reflection I had ever heard. It made me realise something.

Belief is easy.

This isn’t a post about hell, in case you were wondering. It’s about the fact that it’s really quite easy to believe in something. It’s much more difficult to live out that belief, especially in times of difficulty or pain.

So much of Christianity has become about the way we think about things. Doctrine, theology, belief. It often feels as if the greatest crime in the church is to believe the wrong thing. Reflect on the questions we ask each other: “What do you think about… evolution… hell…resurrection?”

Belief is important, and the way we think makes a difference, but so does the way we feel about things. Often we forget that if we’re not careful we can create a tension between our brains and our hearts when they are supposed to work in harmony. What some people inevitably come to discover is that:

Belief is easy.

Living belief out is difficult.

This is why so many people go through seasons of faith deconstruction whenever they experience a trauma in their life, because the beliefs they were taught are found to be anemic in the face of life’s many trials.

Jonathan Haidt in his book, The Happiness Hypothesis uses the analogy of an elephant and a rider. The elephant represents the affective, or emotional self. The rider is the cognitive, or rational self. We often live life assuming that the rider is in control, showing the elephant where to go and pointing it in the right direction. What Haidt points out to us is simply that the rider is in control only until the elephant decides to exert its will . What does this mean? It means that the most powerfully formative aspect of us as human beings is not the way we think about things, it’s the way we feel about things . Which is why even the most strongly held beliefs often collapse in seasons of pain and trauma. Not just because they are hard to believe, but because the beliefs themselves often stop making as much sense as they used to. They are supplanted by empathy.

I can already hear the theological masses jumping up and down. “We can’t let our feelings dictate the TRUTH about God! Couldn’t we then believe whatever we want?” It’s a common enough point, but a very uninteresting one. As if Jesus walked through life disconnected from the way people felt because he was so concerned about ascending to some objective truth.

Allowing our feelings or emotions to completely direct the course of our lives would be a mistake, no doubt. Often the way we feel about things gets all tangled up in our perceptions and bias’, but one of the tragedies of the modern day is that we have almost removed empathy from the theological process. We care more about objective truth, systematic formulation of doctrine, knowing the right thing, than allowing God to profoundly shape the way we feel about the world.

To allow empathy to guide our reflections on doctrine, theology and biblical studies doesn’t diminish it, it strengthens it. I grew up being profoundly disturbed by a God who would ask Abraham to stab his son in the chest as a way of proving his allegiance. Now that I’m a father I’m even more disturbed. But this feeling – that something didn’t make sense about the story – has led me to explore the text in more depth and what I discovered was a God more loving and compassionate than I could ever have imagined. A God who – far from calling Abraham to sacrifice his son is actually the one crying “Stop!” when he comes close to doing what every other religion around him demanded he do.

We need to recognise that we are aren’t just meant to think our way through life, we are meant to feel our way through it too . This is difficult for me. I’m not a feeling, I’m a thinker. But the more I pay attention to the “elephant” I realise the more I am guided towards an image of God that is far more graceful than I had previously been taught. How often in life do we find ourselves believing passionately in something, but then realise that the practical application of that belief might require so much more of us than we are willing to give. Often, that feeling is worth paying attention to.

A friend of mine recently spoke to me about what they called the ‘cruciform pattern of life.’ By this they were referring to a particular saying of Jesus’ where he told his disciples that:

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” – Matt.16:25

It struck me that this is the pattern of Christian life, that in order for resurrection to occur – for life to be born within us – we need to die to certain things. I read this passage over and over again and realised how much I hated it. You see, I believe in the cruciform pattern of life, but to actually embody it is a completely different thing.

This comes to the surface most prominently for me in my relationships with others. I am a fiercely independent person (INTJ on the MBTI and 8 on the Enneagram, in case you were wondering, which you weren’t, but it’s my blog). Valuing autonomy over most things in life, sacrificing for others doesn’t come naturally for me at all. It’s a painful experience. Being a husband and a dad – two things I love and cherish so much – has therefore been incredibly difficult. The tension between believing that a sacrificial life is the only path to true freedom, and still longing for personal freedom and autonomy is a very real wrestle (and one I constantly lose). What compels me to keep trying is not just the belief that one particular way is better, but it’s when I look at my wife and kids, when I sit around the dinner table and hear them laugh, or when I see them growing, learning, becoming more of who God has made them to be. It’s the feelings of love I have for them that compel me to live out what I know to be right.

Simply believing in something, it seems, isn’t enough to make you live it out. Believing in something is easy. Living it out is not.

John Mayer summed it up beautifully in his song, Belief, where he said:

“Belief is a beautiful armour, but makes for the heaviest sword”

If John Mayer isn’t the spiritual director you’re looking for why not try out Paolo Coelho:

“The world is changed by your example, not your opinion.”

Or, bringing it home, the one and only:

“Do everything [the Pharisees] tell you… but do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.”

Let’s allow our beliefs – the way we think – to be formed and informed by the way that we feel, so as to stop belief from becoming the sword that cuts others down.

COMPLICATED BLESSINGS

Sun, 12 Jan 2020 11:22:31 GMT

Were you taught to count your blessings?

It’s often good advice, and it is certainly more refreshing to be in the presence of a grateful person than one who feels cheated and bitter. But what are we to make of what William Sloan Coffin has called “our more complicated blessings”?

The expression is found in a challenging prayer from Riverside Church which Gil Rendle cites in his excellent new book on leadership, Quietly Courageous (2019) p11. Here is an excerpt from it:

And, grant us to count our more complicated blessings: our failures, which teach us so much more than success; our lack of money, which points to the only truly renewable resources, the resources of our spirit; our lack of health, yeah, even the knowledge of death, for until we learn that life is limitation, we are surely as formless and as shallow as a stream without its banks.

It got me thinking of some of the more complicated blessings of my life… growing up in Apartheid South Africa – with all the angst of that tumultuous time; the failure of my father’s business during my early childhood, and the financial hardship my family experienced; my parents’ divorce during my teenage years; moving country, not once but twice; some health challenges faced by my children… the list goes on and on. The question is whether they were hardships or blessings, and my considered answer is that each started as a hardship but has settled into a place of blessing –complicated blessings to be sure, but blessings none the less. Without them, I would be a very different person.

In its own way, The Christian Story is a complicated blessing. There was something about Jesus that simultaneously drew out the best and worst in people. On the one hand Jesus inspired people to unimagined heights of humanity, courage and sacrifice. On the other, he unleashed their deepest fears, prejudices and pettiness.

The Cross is a fascinating study of human failure.

Why was Jesus crucified? Because he was a threat to the fragile peace the Pharisees has brokered with Rome; because he threatened the suffocating religious status quo of his time (which was not altogether different from the religious status quo of our time); because his friends didn’t find the courage to stand up for him; because Judas was greedy and wanted to make a fast buck (or was perhaps motivated by even more complicated ambitions); because Pilate couldn’t really be bothered to assume the responsibilities of his leadership; because Pilate’s wife didn’t push through on the warning she received; because crowds are fickle and a crucifixion was an interesting distraction; because the Roman soldiers, like workers everywhere, just did their job – albeit with somewhat more cruelty than was necessary; because… because… so many reasons. And at the end a genuinely good man has been crucified. Surely it is unthinkable to suggest that this was a blessing.

Except…

Except crucifixion is followed by resurrection, doubt moves to faith, fear shifts to hope, reconciliation and forgiveness become real possibilities. Complicated, but certainly a blessing.

Actually, the Cross opens up new possibilities. It births a seed of hope into even the harshest of hardships. It announces that what starts as crucifixion might end as resurrection. It helps us embrace life’s pain with courage and to face it with the gentle confidence that when placed in the hands of the God of Easter, it might morph into one of our more complicated blessings.

READ YOUR WAY THROUGH 2020

Thu, 09 Jan 2020 22:06:20 GMT

"You can never find a cup of tea large enough, or a book long enough to suit me" - C.S Lewis

It's important to read books that nurture your soul , feed your mind and spark your imagination . Below are a few titles we think will do just that. This is certainly not a list of our "top books" - but just a compilation of those books that have stood out for one reason or another over the last year or so, and would be a good addition to your reading list this year. Each book brings something different - whether it be that it harnessed a lost corner of our imagination, or provided a perspective we never would have otherwise considered. They're not books we always agree with (that's not the point, is it?) but there are enough titles here that you will hopefully find at least something you like, and perhaps some of you will find a few things.

Regardless, we hope that 2020 is a year of plentiful reading, deep learning, and wild imagination.

For the soul...

These books brought something to life in us. They are all deeply spiritual, but in very different ways. Some were written to cultivate faith in Jesus, others to disrupt and disturb, but without a doubt they all provide a unique outlook on life, faith, and spirituality.

In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World by Padraig O’Tuama

If you read one book this year, let it be this one. In his book, O’Tauma gives a deeply moving and honest portrayal of the Christian spiritual journey - attempting to name and inhabit the places we often find ourselves, as well as those we struggle to recognize. I (Jon) rarely go anywhere without this book any more, and find that it both challenges and comforts me even after reading it half a dozen times. I gave it to Brian to read recently and it inspired him to do some writing on it. You can access that here .

Quietly Courageous: Leading the Church in a Changing World by Gil Rendle

This is definitely the best book I (Brian) read in 2019 on the kind of leadership required for a changing church context. The first half of the book is more compelling than the second, so if you don’t usually finish the books you start, this is a good choice. Rendle’s book helped inspire my post, Towards a Twenty First Century Church

A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society by Eugene Peterson

A look at the Psalms of Assent through the lens of Christian discipleship, this is perfect as a morning devotional, or a handbook for Christian living. Peterson is a curious blend of pastoral and prophetic, providing a warm voice for the soul and yet a firm voice as we look to the future of faith.

Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again by Rachel Held-Evans

The passing of Rachel Held-Evans in May 2019 was a great tragedy, and an enormous loss to the Christian community. Her final book is an example of the creativity and intellectual fortitude we will miss, and is a book we would encourage anyone to read, especially those struggling with the often difficult contents of the Bible.

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas

I (Brian) know this is a controversial choice and there are those who have been scathing of it – and I take their comments, especially those who ridicule the attempt to sanitize Bonhoeffer into someone more acceptable to evangelicals. But Bonhoeffer is a genuinely complex person to understand and it’s worth reading about him from as many different angles as possible.

Daring Greatly by Brené Brown

Brown is increasing in popularity very quickly, and one of the reasons is that the message she carries is important. Her research on the connection between shame, vulnerability and courage has struck a chord with people worldwide, and in Daring Greatly she offers a wonderful insight into what it might take for us to embrace vulnerability – something many of us find almost impossible.

Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton

It might seem strange to have a book by a professing Atheist in the “for the soul" section, even stranger because this book’s opening statement is that the notion of God is completely absurd. But if you can look past this you might realise that Alain de Botton – founder of The School of Life - has a lot to offer the world, and his message of flourishing and human fulfillment is one that the Christian faith might do well to reconnect with. In fact, it is one of the things we are trying to do here at the Centre for Faith and Life; reconnecting people with their purpose and place in life.

Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Fr Greg Boyle

Someone once told me that if you know a person who has been doing something worthwhile, and they've been doing it for a really long time, then they are a person you need to pay attention to. Living and working among the underprivileged in LA for well over 30 years, Boyle’s insights on faith and humanity are disturbingly profound. His stories of grace, hope, and tragedy combine to convey an image of both God and humanity that leaves you feeling as if there were no other path than the one of compassion. His second book, Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship , should also be on your list.

For the Beauty of the Church: Casting a Vision for the Arts by W. David O. Taylor (ed)

This is a little gem, 8 articles celebrating and championing the role of artists and the arts in the life of the church and the world.

For the mind...

Reading to stimulate the mind is not just about the acquisition of knowledge, it is also about the cultivation of wisdom. It can be a spiritual practice if you allow it. Learning from some of the greatest minds around, and forcing yourself to move beyond the frame of agreement or disagreement, into the more spacious place of learning and open engagement.

Paul: A Biography by Tom Wright

One of Wrights more ambitious works, here he puts all of his academic work to the test and attempts to reconstruct the life of one of the Bible's most prominent authors in light of the culture he existed in. Capturing the revolutionary message that Paul preached, Wright gives profound insight into one of the most controversial and yet influential characters of history.

Reason, Faith, and Revolution by Terry Eagleton

There are plenty of Christian apologetic books trying to out-reason the New Atheists – perhaps it’s time to try something different? Eagleton’s witty and readable expose cuts to the heart of why the New Atheist movement is problematic for the world, and it is done from outside a Christian perspective.

Faith Beyond Resentment by James Alison

One of the best theological books I’ve (Jon) read in a long time. Alison’s conviction that only a “heart close to cracking” is capable of truly honest theological discourse is an important concept for us in the modern world. He explores scripture, violence, and what it means for those who find themselves on the outside of community – all through a beautiful and engaging theological frame.

Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violenc e by Jonathan Sacks

A refreshing look into the stories of Genesis from one of the UK’s most notable Jewish authors, this book will prove to be essential reading for anyone seeking to engage their faith in contemporary society. Calling people away from rivalry and violence, Sacks seeks to assuage the natural tendencies we have to scapegoat and blame, and instead encourages a less dualistic and more peaceable approach life.

Adam, Eve and the Serpent by Elaine Pagels

Pagels has become renowned for her insights into the Gnostic gospels, and here she turns her attention toward the Genesis stories, specifically on the concept of Original Sin, and how it has developed within the Christian tradition. If you've found the traditional Augustinian conceptions of original sin far from compelling, here is another perspective for you.

God is Good for You: A Defense of Christianity in Troubled Times by Greg Sheridan

A look at where Christianity finds itself in the modern world, this book is a great example of engagement with multiple points of view as it encourages Christians to work effectively from the position of a “bold minority,” in an increasingly plural Australian society.

For the Life of the World: Theology that makes a Difference by Miroslav Volf and Matthew Croasmun.

I (Brian) have a hard copy of this book (most of my books are now kindle), and it’s underlined everywhere. While this is not always easy reading, its underlying thesis is important, and like Volf and Croasmun, I am convinced that theology should make a difference and be for the life of the world (and not simply the church).

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Noah Yuval Harari

This is a fascinating book, one of its major claims that the things which have plagued humanity for our entire existence (war, famine and plague) no longer represent the problems they once were and so now we must look to the future, and the ways in which humans might attempt to attain true happiness. This is the second of three books by Harari, the first ( Sapiens: a Brief History of the Humankind) and last ( 21 Lessons for the 21st Century) are also worth a read.

Dead and Buried? Attending to the Voices of the Victim in the Old Testament and Today by Helen Paynter

This is a short book, and seems to only be available on the UK amazon site, but is an absolutely brilliant take on the ethics of Old Testament violence. Paynter offers 5 keys to understanding and interpreting the "texts of terror" - which include developing an empathetic reading, wrestling with the text, and identifying the omissions as well as the inclusions. A concise and poignant contribution.

For the imagination...

Imagination is truly the key to everything. I've always been captured by a person's ability to create worlds - entire cultures and languages - using nothing but their own thoughts. Reading fiction is as important a task as anything in life, as it helps to awaken the soul. Alain de Botton says that "it is books, poems and paintings which often give us the confidence to take seriously feelings in ourselves that we might otherwise never have thought to acknowledge." Here are a few of our recent favourites.

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

This Novel collected the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and as you turn the pages you’ll see why. A deeply moving tale of empathy and heartache, the story follows two young characters as they experience the pain and horror of occupied France during the Second World War. His debut novel, About Grace is also a great book.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Kind of like a Famous Five for grown-ups, this book is a murder-mystery in reverse (the hand is revealed from the start), following a group of socially outcast classics students from a New England university as they attempt to bring to life some of their strange and curious obsessions.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

One of the true modern classics, this book won’t take you long to get through but is well worth the time. Its story has been popular because it resonates with themes experienced by almost every person alive. Identity, journey, desire and hope – the story follows an Andalusian farmer, Santiago, on his quest to follow his dreams and visit the Egyptian pyramids.

Pompeii by Robert Harris.

This is an older book (2003) I (Brian) only recently came upon. The mix of fiction with the l ightly historical makes for an interesting read, with plenty of imaginative excitement set alongside an actual tragedy.

Damascus by Christos Tsiolkas

Getting acclaim the world over, this new novel from Tsiolkas looks at the eruption of and life surrounding the early Church, and engages themes such as class, gender, religion and exile. It's a brutal read, bringing the harsh reality of persecution to bear, but it has the power to throw the reader head first into the gritty reality of life in the times of some of the Bible's early figures, including St Paul himself.

We hope you enjoy working your way through some of these books, and we'll be sure to send some more suggestions through soon!

EVERYTHING CHANGES

Wed, 08 Jan 2020 11:14:58 GMT

Everything Changes.
Eventually.

For some people this statement brings with it a wave of relief. At some point in the indeterminate future you will be somewhere other than the place you are now. For others however, change can be a terrifying thing. It represents the unstable, the unknown, the unfathomable. It is as uncontrollable as the elements themselves and equally as relentless.

In Homo Deus: A Brief History of the Future , author Noah Yuval Harari says that:

“People are usually afraid of change because they fear the unknown. But the single greatest constant of history is that everything changes.”

As I gaze into the world, I see that this is a truth ingrained into the structure of existence at the deepest and most penetrating level. In the book, Harari articulates an exhilarating posture towards the future – and as I read it I found my mind captivated by images of what might be possible in the next decade or two.

When we speak of change, what is your first reaction?

Excitement? Hope? Fear?

I’ve recently taken to asking (an idea I stole from Brian) large groups of people whether they think the world is better or worse than it used to be. So far, without exception, the overwhelming consensus of each group is that things are getting worse. It’s an interesting observation, but one I suspect might be grounded more in a sense of wistful nostalgia than on an honest examination of the world in which we currently live.

In the book, Harari makes the rather bold claim that the things which have plagued human existence for centuries – war, famine and plague – whilst not completely eradicated, are no longer battle grounds on which we must fight to survive. There are wars, but nothing to the scale of what it used to be. There is famine, but his claim is that sugar, not malnutrition, is statistically a greater threat to human life in the 21st century and if a plague or disease breaks out it is seen more as a failure of medical science than just a natural rhythm of life, as it once was. Whilst the world is a long way from perfect, I’m not quite sure we could say things are getting worse.

When we speak of change we often start with the things that touch our lives most intimately: the people around us, the technologies we use, the way we move through the world and communicate with each other. These kinds of technological changes are real, rapid and are very quickly reshaping the nature of human life but if we look beyond the immediate we can notice that life itself is constantly changing – refreshing itself like a snake shedding its skin. The world we live in is changing quite dramatically - the climate getting warmer and more volatile. Humans are changing, evolving in an interesting direction. We live longer and get sick less but at the same time we are unable to complete even some of the most mundane of tasks from our primal past (I still remember sitting around a darkened fire at 5am in the middle of the forest with a friend of mine – a medical doctor, the smartest among us – who had been trying, without success for an hour, to light the fire to keep himself warm. He couldn’t even light a fire, but why would he need to?). Being human looks different today than it ever has , and it will look even more different ten years from now.

The Scriptures seemed to anticipate this, even thousands of years ago, with the claim that “there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). There is a movement to life, it would seem, that carries us forward through seasons of experience. I’ve always been uncomfortable with the statement that comes a little earlier in Ecclesiastes, that “there is nothing new under the sun” (1:9). Firstly, it’s clear to me that the author is in the midst of an existential crisis, but at the same time the sentiment is clearly untrue – at least on a material level. There is plenty that is new, each new day bringing with it new discoveries, new mercies. The profundity of the statement therefore must lie elsewhere. Perhaps what it is leading us towards is the realization that whilst everything changes, revolving through seasons of existence and experience, this shouldn’t surprise us, in fact we should embrace it. Like the sun, which sits over everything, casting shadows and illuminating life, the process of change could be one of unsurprising welcome, like a cool shower after a hot day.

My experience of the Christian faith is that it is often, at a fundamental level, uncomfortable with change. Perhaps it is the language of an “unchanging god” or a certain rigidity when it come to the Bible that has caused this – but to speak of the future often seems to illicit a sense of panic, or at best a sense of skepticism. It strikes me however, that of all the people currently alive it is those who follow Jesus that should be the most genuinely futuristic. Looking into the future with hope rather than fear, knowing that whilst things are changing faster than we might be able to keep up with, there is a sense of calm in knowing that God has and holds all things.

This isn’t merely a trite sentiment, designed to ease a sense of impending doom about the future. It is a truth which, if we let it, might enable us to cultivate a voice of hope as we look to tomorrow with excitement rather than dread. One of the confounding things about human existence, to me, is that rather than handing us the blueprints to the future, God welcomes us into the process of creating it. We are not just actors in a scripted story, but we are the writers of the story, each pen stroke crafting a new storyline. Sometimes this is an exciting reality, and other times we wish things were different, that we didn’t have such a responsibility. But nevertheless, we do, and each time we try to hand it back to God with statements like “He’s got a plan,” I imagine him smiling back down, encouraging us to keep moving, to keep creating, to keep changing.

Embracing an ever-changing future is a key step in being able to embrace a faith without fear. So let’s step into the role of co-creators that God always intended for us to play.

REFRAMING CHANGE: 8 PRINCIPLES

Sun, 05 Jan 2020 09:44:33 GMT

Around New Year people often identify things they’d like to change. It doesn’t usually happen often because previous failures cast long shadows. Change is approached with disbelief – “tried it before, it didn’t work. I’ll give it another go, but seriously, we all know it isn’t going to happen…”

Here are 8 guiding principles which have helped me change.

1. Start with gratitude. The desire to change shouldn’t come at the expense of noticing who you already are. We often take for granted the things we have already achieved, and forget to be grateful for the steps we have taken. Instead of longing to be someone else, start by noticing the things you appreciate about yourself, your life and your community. Water those things, and become more truly you. While it may be counter intuitive to suggest that change is aided by gratitude, we make progress not because of who we aren’t, but because of who we are. Noting this can energise us for the journey ahead.

2. It’s not all about me. Let’s approach change as people whose first commitment is to follow Jesus. While I certainly want to be the best version of myself, the goal is not to claim, “I did it. I am amazing!” but that I have been part of a greater good. Put differently, it is not primarily about me, but about my part in God’s work in the world.

3. I can make a difference. Romans 12:3 says, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” Paul then discusses the different gifts God has given to us, and affirms that as we each offer what we can (thinking neither too highly nor too lowly about what we can offer), the church (which is a tangible sign of God’s work in the world), flourishes. Why embrace needed change? Because my willingness to change can make a difference. My kindness towards another might not only help the other, but inspire others to be more generous. My restraint might be a sign to others that angry outbursts at disappointments are not the only available option - and so it goes on.

4. The Holy Spirit really does help us. Think of the astonishing number of setbacks and disappointments that the Apostle Paul faced. Ship wrecked, beaten, imprisoned, opposed by fellow Christians and often exhausted, in Philippians 4:13 Paul proclaims, “I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.” If before his ministry commenced he had known what lay ahead, he probably wouldn’t have begun, but having started, he discovered strength on the way. The Holy Spirit really does help us.

5. Live (and embrace change) in the light of what God has called you to be . We often pay attention to what we must renounce, and not on what God has called us to be. When people think about change, especially the change envisioned in most New Year resolutions, they usually think of essentially trivial things – changed eating habits, an exercise routine, getting up earlier. Such intentions are commendable, but don’t go far enough, because they are not sufficiently motivating. They must answer a clear “why” to work. Personally I’ve realized that if I am to have the energy to do what God has called me to, I need to look after myself. My motivation is not weight loss, but to have the strength to do what I have been called to do – and yes, I do find that very motivating. Often it helps me to decline the caramel tart!

6. Identify your loves. James Smith has noted that we delude ourselves that we are rational beings driven by clear thinking, while in reality we are primarily shaped by what we love and desire. In Desiring the Kingdom he writes, “To be human is to love, and it is what we love that defines who we are. Our (ultimate) love is constitutive of our identity.” Later he notes “our ultimate love is what we worship” (p51). A major part of spiritual formation is about forming and directing our love for God and God’s kingdom. It is possible for pseudo loves (false gods) to capture our hearts and imaginations. When opting for change, we need to consider what we most truly love. Opting for changes that do not support our deepest love will frustrate and disappoint us.

7. Challenge your excuses . It is often noted that the only thing more disappointing than our underperformance is the excuses we use to justify it.

Let’s indeed challenge our excuses, but not as an exercise of law (do better next time) but of grace (let’s examine why this is happening. Do I consider myself unworthy to receive the best that God intends for me?) When God’s grace speaks to my excuses, their hold over me evaporates and I see myself in a new light, as one “beloved” by God. Then I find the power to change.

8. Remember the basics, but dig deeper. I have tried to write of the core underlying conditions that make us open to the change God calls us to. There are also some common sense guidelines to follow and it helps to remember the basics… like “if you aim at nothing, you are bound to hit it”. Set tangible and measurable goals, and go public with them. There is nothing like accountability to help achieve more than we otherwise would. Make your goals a stretch, rather than a snap - for change is the long distance race, not the short sprint, so must be sustainable over the longer term. While solid nuggets of advice, don’t settle for these alone. Ask the harder questions, dig deeper. Change comes not when we paddle in the shallows, but when we leap into the deep...

THE LANDSCAPE OF TOMORROW

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 03:30:06 GMT

What role do you have in designing the landscape of tomorrow? Do you see the future as passive - just something that happens to you - or as an opportunity to create something wonderful?

The New Year has begun, and inevitably we will all be bombarded with an array of voices either trying to convince us that this year their resolutions will stick – or that resolutions never work and we should just stop making them in the first place.

Personally, I think that any opportunity to pause and take stock of life is a good one. The opportunity to consider where you’ve been, and what might lie ahead, is exciting. One of the beautiful things about the future is that it has not yet happened – and to me that is exhilarating. What wonders lie ahead that I would never before have thought about? What possibilities or opportunities are there for me this year? What obstacles might need to be overcome and, even if I fall over a few times, what new mysteries might I learn about myself, the world, God?

I understand that some people see the future a little differently though. For some, it comes with a sense of overwhelm and panic. For others – and this includes many who hold to the Christian faith – it is fixed and predetermined. When I think about this my mind always drifts back to the Garden of Eden, and God’s curious decision to allow the adama to work the land and name the animals. The interesting thing here is that the story seems to be about a work that is perfectly unfinished – one that still requires cultivating.

In Genesis 2:15 it says that: “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” and again in verse 19 it says that “[God] brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name” – what a curious thing that God might create a world so perfectly unfinished that he would want humans to be part the process of creating, working and renewing.

It would seem that we weren’t simply placed in a world where everything would work according to a clockwork plan –instead we were placed into a world that we were invited to help shape. I think the same is true today. This is what is so remarkable about life, particularly a life of faith – that we get to cultivate the soil of tomorrow’s world. We get not just to live in the world God created, but we get to continue the creative process with God.

As you think about the future I want to encourage you that the only thing we can know for sure, is that it’s not a passive reality. What I mean by this is that the future isn’t something that simply happens to us, it is something that we shape with every choice we make. You are part of crafting what tomorrow looks like.

Sure, we can’t control everything. Sometimes things happen that we have no choice in and these events can dramatically influence the trajectory of our lives. The loss of a loved one, a redundancy, an unexpected diagnosis. But whilst these things often seem beyond our control – and they certainly impact the way the future looks – we still have the capacity to shape our future. We might not be able to control much but we can still look around and decide how we will respond to it – what kind of presence we will bring and what kind of experience others will have of us.

So as you step into this New Year, and embrace the natural opportunities to think about what lies ahead, why not stop and acknowledge that the future – whilst unknown and at times unpredictable – is dramatically shaped by the choices you make. God is present, and with you, but continually invites you to name the world in which you find yourself.

How are you going to shape the future?

CULTIVATING A SPACIOUS HEART

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 07:19:32 GMT

I don’t know if you can remember a time when your heart was filled with love. Perhaps you thought, “I don’t think I could ever love more than I do now.” It might have been on your wedding day, or on the birth of a child — or even when you first met your puppy!

For me it was certainly on my wedding day. As Rosemary glided down the aisle, I knew this was a forever thing. My heart was bursting with love, and I was intensely grateful. That love has never left — actually, 39 years later, it continues to grow.

Five years after we married, our first child was born. As I held him for the first time, it felt as though my capacity for love reached a new level. My love for Rosemary was a love between equals. This was a love for a little thing who was immensely vulnerable, and very dependant upon me. He made immediate and persistent demands upon my time, energy and finance — and yet my love for him kept growing. In no way did my love for Rosemary diminish — rather, I realised that the heart has the potential to be a spacious place. There was room for Rosemary, for our first child, and in due course, our second and our third.

But we weren’t just having children!

I pastored some very special congregations, and taught at a few theological colleges. The people there didn’t necessarily leap into my heart on day one – indeed, at times it was a bit of a struggle – but for all that, at some point I realised that many had made their way into my heart. Sometimes you start to care for people without even realising it. Meeting more people doesn’t diminish your capacity – you discover that the heart is indeed a spacious place.

Sometimes those whom I have struggled with the most have found a very secure spot in my heart. Funny that, isn’t it? At first you find someone very frustrating and annoying — and then later you think about them, and you catch yourself smiling. You realise it has happened again. They do actually matter to you — they do have a place in your heart.

If we are open to others, we find that they work their way into our lives and they change us just as we change them — not dramatically (because love isn’t really about changing people), but modestly and genuinely. We understand things about life we otherwise would not have. Some of them trust us with their deeper and more challenging stories. As we hear their pain and struggle, we see life with a slightly different lens. We imagine our way into their world — and our world changes as a result.

Many people want to love, but live their lives defensively, afraid that if they don’t, they stand to lose the small gains they have made over time. So often we build worlds of insiders and outsiders, and the other is always a threat to us. But faith in God invites us to cultivate spacious hearts — hearts which discover that when we open our heart to another it is not at the expense of someone else, but that God enlarges our hearts — there is actually space for all.

Of course I am not talking about inappropriate love — lust which pretends to be love but really just wants to use the other for its own purposes. Nor am I talking about fake friendships which have their own agenda and which try to manipulate the other into paths they would rather not tread. Many things masquerade as love, and counterfeits are in ready supply. But then we only counterfeit something because we know how valuable the genuine article is.

Why am I writing like this? Have I suddenly become sloppily sentimental?

Actually, in my personal devotions I have been reading through 1 John. It’s not a particularly tidy letter, and John seems to go off on many tangents, often with very few qualifications. It’s not always easy to be sure just where he is coming from. But one thing is clear — because he comes back to it over and over again. God loves us and we are called to love one another. As it says in 1 John 4:19-21 “We love because he first loved us. If we say we love God yet hate a brother or sister, we are liars… those who love God must also love one another.” Or how about his earlier insight in 1 John 3:16, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” Lay down our lives for one another… wow, that’s serious stuff.

I have been a pastor for many years, and have worked in theological education for almost as many years. There are very few accusations against the church that I have not heard – but I can confidently say that I have yet to hear someone complain, “The thing I really didn’t like about that church was that I went there, and the people loved me.” Nope — that is not a complaint I have ever heard.

There is something very disarming about love. At a time when many fear for the future of the church, I’d like to suggest that we invite God to take us on a journey from fear to love. A journey where we stop worrying about what we might lose, trust God for our future, and love a little more generously. 1 John 4:18 reminds us, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love casts out fear.” Let’s stop making excuses based on fear – they are so different, they don’t really believe, they – well, let’s stop thinking “they”, and refuse to be drawn into a world of them and us.

The heart is a spacious place. It really won’t break if we love a little more.

As always, nice chatting…

— Brian Harris

WHEN HEAVEN IS NOW

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 07:15:11 GMT

I’m greatly enjoying Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, All the Light we cannot See — a moving exploration of life set against the Second World War.

One chapter is entitled “Heaven” and in it Marie-Laure, blind since aged six, is picnicking with the ailing Madame Manec. It is a rare and brief respite from the war that is raging around them, and they begin to discuss whether heaven is real, and what it will be like. One poignant insight follows another, and the chapter ends: The grasses toss and shimmy. The horses nicker. Madame Manec says, almost whispering, “Now that I think about it, child, I expect heaven is a lot like this.”

Is it possible that now is sometimes a foretaste of all that will ultimately be, an early experience of what we misleadingly call “heaven” but which in the Bible is more fully represented as a world renewed – a new heaven and a new earth, the new earth now the permanent abode of God?

I thought about that last Sunday afternoon. The family has been around for a meal — all our children and their spouses there, and our two granddaughters (2 and 4 years) in fine form. After lunch the two grandchildren decided they would dance for us. Rosemary helped them raid our dress up cupboard and they selected suitable dance frocks, and then declared their dolls needed to join the dance, and dressed them as well, selecting suitably shocking pink outfits for them. They then chose their favourite Frozen song, happily though tunelessly bellowing out the refrain “Let it Go” while swirling around and around. As they opted for the same song for the 3rd time, Madame Manec’s comment came back to me: “I expect heaven is a lot like this.” An idyllic little moment, soon overcome by the kinds of concerns we so quickly become absorbed in.

This weekend I have been speaking at a church camp in Esperance — a part of the WA coastline I have never visited before. I had a few minutes alone facing the majestic Southern Ocean coastline, and as I allowed the beauty of the scenery to sink in, again the thought came, “I expect heaven is a lot like this.”

We might live in a fallen world — a world where the pain and brokenness of life is often hauntingly apparent — but we assuredly do not live in a God forsaken world. Sometimes when least expected, God comes and invites us to open our eyes to see all that already is. When we notice these moments, it becomes a lot easier to believe that God has eternity under control…

As always, nice chatting…

— Brian Harris

"SORRY, I'VE NO TIME"... REALLY?

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 07:09:39 GMT

It’s often said that while we are a wealthy society, we are time poor. Now the first claim is undoubtedly true, but the second should have a serious question mark placed alongside it. Time poor — in comparison to who and when?

Certainly not the ancient Hebrews. They worked a six day week from sunrise to sunset — on average a 72 hour working week. Indeed, a 70 hour plus working week has been the norm for most of human history.

Robert Whaples, professor of economics at Wake Forest University has demonstrated that in the 1800’s a work week of 70 or more hours was common in the US, while Robert Fogel has taken considerable effort to calculate the number of usual working hours versus leisure hours at different periods in history and has convincingly demonstrated that the number of lifetime working hours has steadily decreased while lifetime leisure hours has soared. Here is one of his table of results, which includes a prediction for 2040:

Estimated Trend in the Lifetime Distribution of Discretionary Time, 1880-2040 USA

Source: Fogel (2000)

Next time you want to complain about your exhausting 50 hour week, imagine your great-great aunt snorting from the grave, “Call that a working week!” Furthermore, the predictions are that our leisure time will keep on increasing.

While those alive in 1880 put in 182,100 working hours in their lifetime, those alive 160 years later in 2040 are likely to be required to contribute a paltry 75 900 hours to the labour market — and that in spite of the fact that they will live so much longer than their 1880 relatives did. Indeed, those alive in 1880 usually had a mere 43 800 hours available for leisure in their entire lifetime – whilst those who plan to be with us in 2040, will have a massive 246 000 leisure hours — or more than 5 times as many leisure hours as those in the 19th century.

Once you have let these figures sink in, you will realise that it is passing strange that the average local church is finding it near impossible to find volunteers to staff the modest selection of programs they run. The routine response to appeals for volunteers is that we are all far too busy. Really? Doing what?

Ah, that’s the crunch question, because truth to tell most of us are not staring at the ceiling desperate for something to do. We might have 5 times more leisure hours than our ancestors, but my, we have more than enough options to fill those hours. Think of the fascinating things we do. On average, people are spending about an hour a day on social media. For many, most of that hour goes on liking Facebook pages, happily affirming other people’s dinner choices. TV continues to take up large chunks of time, with the 15-44 age bracket watching least, but still clocking up an average of 2 hours per day, whilst those over 65 stay glued to their screens for double that time. On line games now occupy the time of vast numbers. The 1.8 billion people who participated in online games in 2014 is expected to rise to 2.4 billion by 2021. Add these three together, and many people are spending over four hours per day on TV, Facebook and online games. None of those options were available to our great-great aunts, so of course it seemed like they had so much more time for worthy things than we do. Without those distractions we’d have a bonus 28 hours a week. If your average book can be read in 12 hours, why, we could read a book a week and still have 16 more discretionary hours.

Historian David Bebbington undertook a significant study of evangelical Christianity and what makes it tick, and came up with what has come to be known as the Bebbington Quadrilateral – a set of four priorities that lie at the heart of evangelical faith. These are what Bebbington calls Biblicism (the Bible really, really matters to evangelicals); Conversionism (evangelicals believe that people must come to a personal and saving faith in Jesus); Crucicentrism (the Cross is central to evangelical faith) and Activism (the genuineness of people’s faith is demonstrated in adherents being willing to work hard to serve God’s work in the world.) Elsewhere I have written about some of the changes we have seen in this set of priorities, but for this post, I would simply comment on the drift away from activism. People are no longer willing to put their hands up to staff ministries in the local church. The result is that local churches now employ more staff than ever before. We are a wealthy generation, so we don’t mind paying for extra staff – just so long as no serious demands are made on our time.

While it is easy to fall into “tut tut” mode over this (my, isn’t this awful!), that’s not the goal of this post. I’d rather highlight the enormous opportunity that all our discretionary time gives us. We are not time poor. We have far, far more discretionary time than any generation before us – and we even have time saving gadgets to help us with tasks that previously have consumed so many hours. We really do have enough time to do some things that actually matter. If we can link the opportunity afforded to us with a clear set of life priorities, we might well live a life that is a little less ordinary… one with enough time to do something that makes a bit of a difference. Why wouldn’t we walk that path?

As always, nice chatting…

— Brian Harris

Centre for Faith and Life Blog

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On Easter Sunday my thoughts go to the women who set off early to visit the tomb of Jesus.

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I feel sorry for Judas.

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WHEN HEAVEN IS NOW

I’m greatly enjoying Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, All the Light we cannot See — a moving exploration of life set against the Second World War.

"SORRY, I'VE NO TIME"... REALLY?

It’s often said that while we are a wealthy society, we are time poor. Now the first claim is undoubtedly true, but the second should have a serious question mark placed alongside it. Time poor — in comparison to who and when?

“A pious neighbor comforted me by reminding me that "God was in control."
I wanted to say to her, "Not this time."”

“Sometimes resilience arrives in the moment you discover your own unshakable goodness”
– Greg Boyle.

Everything Changes.
Eventually.