The sad story of Fort Hood.

Good morning God,

Yes, I am afraid. The shootings in Ford Hood in America or more importantly, the reporting of it, bring us dangerously close to the religious war that no sane person could possibly want - except of course, the reporters. It makes for a much better story doesn't it if the killer went wild because he is a Muslim. If he had been a Christian who didn't want to be deployed in Iraq - would we have been told what his religion was? It should grieve us, not incite us to mass hatred and prejudice, if someone is so sick and disturbed that they kill in this way - from the Hungerford massacre to the school killings.. a tale of human tragedy.

Islam is not as the press are portraying it, anymore than Christianity is. The media MAKE a story where none exists, playing on perverse caricatures which demean and betray ALL people of faith - and we let them.

There is no such thing as a 'typical' Muslim or a 'typical' Christian - for all are made unique - for all are made in your image God. So when we allow our perceptions of our fellow human beings to be defined by the ignorance and prejudices of those who need to sell a paper for a few pence.. we shame ourselves and You, God.

If we were really determined to follow you, and to keep your commandments - especially the one which says we should love our neighbour as ourselves then every time a Muslim brother or sister is caricatured as ignorant, violent, backward, stupid or fundamentalist - Christians the world over should demand that the record be put straight. In time that might lead to the situation where every time a Christian sister or brother is caricatured as being homophobic, racist, misogynist and ignorant - Muslims the world over will demand that the record be put straight. That would leave the media having to find another source for their fear mongering.

But we are far removed from that state at the moment

God - help us, please, to reign in our fear, and pull back from the brink of a war caused by the the need for some to find a sensational angle on the all too common sad, sad story of human sickness...

Poppys and Peace

Good morning God,

I am troubled by the news of the deaths of five British servicemen in Afghanistan - especially, if I'm honest , this close to remembrance day. I struggle with the idea of remembrance Sun day - with its mixed up messages of faith and nationalism giving people the mistaken impression that

1. this is a Christian country and
2. that only Christians fought in the war

and when we are effectively still at war in a country that is a Muslim country, participating in what is clearly for some a predominantly religious war (even if we don't see the Talaban in that way) - then my unease multiplies. Islamaphobia is a sin - Jesus taught us to love our neighbour.

I have bought a poppy - but this year I have chosen not to wear it when I am wearing a clerical collar, I just can't bring myself to reinforce the association of Christianity with nationalism, or war.. especially not when I am so conscious of the rise of fascism, racism and religious intolerance.
I also can't, as a minister, bring myself to only pray for 'our' fallen heroes. You have taught us that we should pray for our enemies, not those we love.
When we are prepared to remember the lives we have taken, as well as those we have lost, and remember the cost in terms of religious, economic and political freedoms won and lost - I will be a lot happier about 'remembrance' day. But I think I would still want to break the link between remembrance day and the Lord's day.

Only one, in all of history, gave his life and died that I might truly live - and I want people to remember that.

listening and speaking out.

Good morning God,

I saw you in my dreams last night. You were speaking with the judges in the Hague, the court of human rights, trying to plead a case. From my place somewhere at the back of the courtroom I really strained to hear what you had to say, but every time you spoke, there was a great rustling as every court official and spectator shuffled and searched through reams and reams of paper. The sound of beaurocracy and legalism effectively drowned out the sound of your voice and your wisdom was lost to me and to the court. I wanted to scream for silence, to demand that people just leave the great mounds of legal briefs alone so that we could all LISTEN but I discovered to my horror that I had no voice, and that the only way I would be able to communicate was to write a letter to the judge.. and add to the pile of paperwork!

Just as I realised this, you turned and looked straight at me, the whole room fell silent, as you called me by name and command me to speak.

And I addressed the court and said it was a fundamental human right - by the grace of God, to hear the voice of God and that every human, every single child of God, has the right to hear God speak their name in love, no matter how they are judged or thought of by their peers.

Thank you God, for helping me to know just how passionately I feel about that basic gift of grace.

Now I know that the origin of the dream lay in listening to the news on the World Service as I fell asleep and on its report of the progress of Radovan Karadzic's trial - but it was nonetheless a multi-layered dream, and it will take some time to unpack it all.

This morning I was particularly struck by the similarity between the courtroom and the Church. We don't mean to, but I suspect we drown out the possibility of all too many people hearing you speak by the 'noise' of our religious communication. Inadvertently we turn Scripture into a legalistic brief and our liturgies into petitions. We push so much 'paper' into people's hands as they enter a place of prayer... and my cheeks burn with embarrassment as I think on how many people over the years must have left an act of worship I have led, having strained to hear what YOU were saying instead of what I was saying, or the Church was doing!

So help me God to rethink how I can help to create opportunities for people to hear YOU, not hear ABOUT you.

And - meanwhile.. keep calling - I'm listening.

Corporate Disciples?

Good morning God,

What is the Church for? I ask because that question seemed to run throughout the day yesterday, and it had all the hallmarks of one of YOUR questions rather than one of mine!

It started with a conversation about Pastoral Care - and the emphasis that we choose to place on caring for our members. It DOES matter that we visit the sick and the elderly, that we maintain fellowship, but do we remember why we do it - or do we simply do it because its what the Church does. I suspect we presume that those we visit already know you and love you God, that they have no need to be 'saved'..

Then there was the conversation with one Church member who is concerned about the way in which the Biblical histories are read and believed. The Bibles credits you with initiating various acts of war and bloodshed, particularly with regard to the lands in the Middle-East, but are these the acts of a God of love? The conversation was really about what the Church teaches and what people are supposed to get out of it. Is that what the Church is for - to enlighten people - or not?

And then, last night, at a finance meeting - the question was properly asked - are there other ways in which we can increase our income..

What is the Church for...? To meet the needs of those who belong to it, attend it and pay for it.. or to reach out to those who do not know you, to proclaim the Good News to those who have never heard it, and to give cheerfully to those who have nothing?

I know its not an 'either-or' situation, but I suspect most Churches ARE more focused on meeting the needs of its members than they are on seeking the lost, (even the lost in their own congregation!)

But that's right isn't it?

It is the task of the gathered Church to build one another up in love so that each member can engage in evangelism, discipleship and charity in every part of their life - not just at set times when the Church has commissioned, authorised or appointed them to do it!

The Church gathers to enable your people to grow in grace, so that they can respond to you in grace, and serve you in the WORLD (not just in the Church) It is not the task of the gathered Church to DO the work of the disciple, but to raise up disciples who will do the work of Christ.

So help me God, please, to work with the Church to break the 'corporate' responsibility mentality which makes the 'church' the focus of Christian Kingdom expectations so that we can rediscover and release the potential of personal discipleship to reshape and remake your world according to your will.

It's all in the name..

Good morning God,

Having listened to Nick Griffin of the British National Party on BBC Question Time last night repeatedly refer to himself as both a Christian and British I find myself wanting either a new identity, or some means of redeeming/defending the name 'Christian'.
Instead, God, perhaps I need to face the question more honestly - Is it True? Do I really share a common identity with this man?

Of course, Nick Griffin is not the first, and will not be the last to bring the name 'Christian' into disrepute. The tag of 'Christian' has long been used to provide a false veneer of respectability to cover a multitude of sins - the link between paedophiles and the Church for example, is well known, as is that between Politicians and the Church. Being considered 'Christian' is still for some people taken as a form of short-hand for being 'respectable', or even trustworthy, - dare one say 'good'?
All positive attributes..

Except that increasingly, largely as a result of fundamentalist parties (both religious and political, here and abroad) the name Christian is also associated with being Islamaphobic, Homophobic, Nationalistic, as well as ignorant, violent, fundamentalist, unreasonable and - well - put bluntly - anachronistic.

Which is why confessing to being a practicing Christian in some circles will earn you a polite embarrassed smile, the sort usually reserved for eccentrics who suddenly announce something highly inappropriate, often very loudly, in the middle of a dinner party.
Being a Christian, believing in You God, is apparently, something people did before they knew better, before they grew up and began to take responsibility for themselves. For some people, an intelligent adult believing in you is as sad and embarrassing as someone still believing in Father Christmas or the Easter Bunny when they are more than six years old.

Nonetheless, the fact is that both Nick Griffin and I are Christians by public confession. He is, just as I am, your child.

To disown him would only make me less Christian, and help to make his particular understanding of the faith and what it stands for - the accepted understanding, rather than the aberration that it really is.
The problem is, of course, that according to the faith I profess, I should WANT Nick Griffin to be a Christian, I should be GLAD that he wants to follow Christ.

Which leads me to thinking that the slur on the name Christian maybe my fault not his, for I at least know better, clearly he does not.

Perhaps if I had been a better Christian, if I had made it more evident by all that I say and do that Christianity is nothing to do with nationalism, but everything to do with inclusivism, that Christianity has nothing to do with racism, but that the Gospels proclaim the equality of every child of God in every time and place.. If I had borne the name Christian more faithfully, then he could not have so publicly claimed the name, without earning either incredulity and ridicule or at very least being expected to change his views.

Christianity's name - now as always, is drawn from the practice and proclamation of its members. At one time, in meant - followers of Christ, now, in some parts of this Island, it simply means a way of life.

The fault is not Nick Griffin's, he is the Christian he thinks he is supposed to be - He is someone who has been raised to sing with pride the hymns 'I vow to thee my country', ' Jerusalem', 'Lift high the Cross' and even 'Onward Christian Soldiers' .. I have no doubt that he will attend Remembrance Sunday Services, and take comfort and delight in the marriage of faith and nationalism being so publicly broadcast. He will nod with approval at the death of brave men and women in defence of the values of British Democracy being likened to the death of Christ..

God, forgive me, for I have played my own part in associating being British with being Christian. I have heard and not always denied the claim that this is a Christian country - even when I know that there are more practicing Muslims in the UK than there are practicing Christians. I have allowed the mistaken association of 'British Values' with 'Christian conduct' - as though Christianity is all about democracy or adherence to a particular form of moral or social code rather than about loving God and loving my neighbour, welcoming the stranger, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, setting the captives free, and trying to grow in grace and holiness.

Like many God, last night's broadcast woke me up to the realisation that only by finding the means within me to publicly proclaim in word and deed the real truth of the faith which Nick Griffin mistakenly claims to confess, can I help to ensure that the name Christian will mean something other than 'White British and ignorant in defence of homophobic, Islamaphobic, racist and xenophobic exclusivism.'

Bblical invitation

Good morning God,

I've been re-reading the Bible again (always dangerous I know) but I find I'm really struggling to understand how we got to Christianity (Churches, priests, hymns, doctrines, sacraments etc) from what I am reading..

Of course, I do know that the Bible wasn't the only source of our theology and practice, and that we borrowed all sorts of interesting bits and pieces from Judaism and elsewhere.. as well as added on a few rules and regulations of our own.. but even so.. the gap between what is taught/shared/narrated in Scripture and what we do/teach/preach in practice in church is startlingly large when looked at head on.

I can't find anywhere where Jesus requires me to sing hymns for example, he offers no model for 'acceptable' worship - and gave us only one model for prayer. If the Church's peaching is supposed to be like his, then we should preach in parables and ask more questions than we are prepared to answer, expecting those who are wanting to follow you to discern their own meaning most of the time.

Perhaps most challenging for me at the moment is the lack of concerted emphasis on sin and confession in the teachings of Jesus. I know how the Church managed to get so concerned about this - but really God - I would have thought that by now we would have rebelled against it, thrown out the priestly power games and religious party politics which such teachings thinly disguise, and reclaimed the joy of the simple expression - go and sin no more. Why haven't we?

Leaving that old chestnut aside, what's really exciting me again and got me writing to you this morning, is the rediscovery of how much of Scripture is an invitation - to be a part of something that you have initiated which is challenging, radically new, politically liberating, religiously simplistic, humanly transformative and genuinely creative..
Taken as a whole, it reads like an amazing invitation and a challenge for me to dare to become, by your grace, so much more than I currently am, for the sake of those who are so much less than they should be or could be. If I am reading your Word right, you are offering to transform me, and anyone else who responds to your invitation, into someone who can play an active part in your creative purposes for the world.

I'm game God, so now all I need is to know how to share your invitation with others without dumbing it down in a 20 minute sermon or a wrapping it up as a liturgical letter.. Have you got any modern parables for me to share?

A Late developer

Good morning God,

We humans really are the oddest creatures aren't we. Without thinking about it, we take the very best of what you have given us, our individuality, creativity, curiosity and spirituality and do our utmost to force it into some measurable form of 'normality'.

By age such and such, if we are a 'normal' human being - we ought to be able to do this and that. We become quite obsessed by this measurable normality - height, weight, hand-eye coordination, spelling, grammar, arithmetic, logic, spatial manipulation etc etc etc. At every age in our 'formative' years we measure and grade against a plumb-line of perfection - which is nothing more than a cultural average. There is a new report out today that says formal learning shouldn't start until 6 years of age - but who is to say that formal learning teaches us what we need to know to be human anyway? Surely all formal learning does is try to ensure that we all have the same average ability to process information, engage in social interaction and be more or less as able as everyone else is?

What odd creatures we are -

For you delight in making us above average - every single one of us. There is no such thing as an average human being, for everyone of us belongs to you, and you just don't seem to 'do' either 'normal' or 'average'. You do spectacular, unique, mysterious, wondrous, miraculous. Which makes me wonder whether or not the greatest threat to humanity is not our deviation from a government standard, but our socially constructed fear of difference from the norm.

We are trained from an early age to avoid drawing attention to ourselves. Nobody really wants to stand out from the crowd - unless of course, its in one of the acceptable ways, sport, creative talent, beauty.. etc.

And so we make a sin of the spectacular, a misery of what is majestic and a shame of our acts of gleeful spontaneity. We covet conformity, and strive for standardization. Meaning that millions of women starve and force themselves into predefined acceptable figures, and men suck chests in and pay for hair-implants - not because we actually need to, but because we are worth it! (and because we have been taught to be afraid of being different!)

Not so with you. In your company I can be me because wherever the gospel is preached everyone is free to be who they fully are before you. Like many, I was a late developer, but I finally realised that there is nothing average about a single Child of God, every human is different, special and gifted by your grace. There is no average sin, nor is there an average salvation. I am not a typical Methodist, or a typical minister ( God forbid!) I am not 'normal' - thank you God - I am me. Thank you for making me too small, not quite clever enough, a loud mouth with a BIG heart and a passion for truth and justice that scares me sometimes.

So vive la difference - not just in formal learning, but in ministry, preaching, living and being.

And now comes the hardest task - resisting the temptation to persuade everyone else to be 'just as abnormal as me!' Because, that, of course, would be just another way of trying to make us all the same again!