Planning for Easter

Had another good planning meeting earlier this week - obviously, the busiest week of the year is the best time to meet to plan events in the spring! - to talk about a joint U2charist with the local Methodists.

It's their initiative but I'm delighted to be involved as it gives me an opportunity to indulge my interest in exploring the spirituality of U2's music. The whole thing's been put together by the Methodist's visiting interim minister, a guy from New Zealand. He's done a number of these kinds of events over there, so I'm looking forward to being a part of one over here.

Apart from that, this week has been full of preparing for Easter - another of my favourite times of the year. I'm planning six services between today and Sunday evening, including our joint Good Friday event with local churches.

What I've really enjoyed about planning all our services this year - and involving lots of others in delivering them - is that I've been able to trace the arc of the story from Jesus' final meal to the aftermath of the resurrection.

at a cafe near you

I had an excellent second meeting today with our local Starbucks' manager and it looks like cafe church will definitely come again in early May.

I think we learned a lot the first time we did it and I'm keen to build on that experience. This time round the financial aspects should work better and we'll be able to have live music and show movies if we want to.

I'm very excited about this and am praying that we can create something that will be accessible to people on the edge of faith.

Monday morning reflections 2

Peter Singer was on Start the Week (on Radio 4) this morning and spoke very persuasively about how we each hold the key to reducing the death toll among the world's children. He reminded us that a football stadium full of kids dies everyday from preventable causes.

His answer was surprisingly simple: we need to give more. His logic was unanswerable. If we see a child drowning in a shallow pool, we would intervene and pull the child out even if as a result, we ruined a pair of good shoes and trousers (cost £100 or so). Why don't we do the same for the child dying for want of a mosquito net, a vaccination, a square meal, access to clean water, a place in school....

I found his argument persuasive. But it saddened me that it sounded so original to those around the table in the studio. Surely this is what Jesus taught and how the early Christians lived. Surely it is what Jesus had in mind when he taught us to pray 'give us this day our daily bread'. How have we lost our way so badly that it takes a champion of secularism to remind us of a core Christian value?

It made me wonder again about sponsoring a child...

Monday morning reflections 1

I my devotional time this morning I read Psalm 7 which contains this verse (14)

Those who are pregnant with evil conceive trouble and give birth to
disillusionment.

I found the sequence very interesting in the light of the interview on the Today programme with Jimmy Mizen's parents, not to mention the coverage in the weekend press of the conviction of Jimmy's killer.

Jimmy Mizen was 16 and killed in a fight. His parents have spoken movingly about their loss and their great pride in their son and about how anger solves nothing, just causes pain. They reflected this morning on the fact that we live in a culture that seems both increasingly angry and to think that anger is a good thing, something to be lauded. And yet anger gives rise to misery and loss.

And the Psalmist seems to catch the mood of what happens when evil things are conceived and trouble born. it leads to disillusionment. it leads to people saying that society is going to hell in a handbasket and there's nothing to be done; it leads to despair that leaves individuals and communities trapped in cycles of harm.

Jimmy Mizen's parents are Christians but they have been not been trumpeting that Jesus is the answer (though maybe they believe he is) because I think (and I could be very wrong here) that they see this a deep and difficult problem that can only be addressed if people are honest about their feelings and recognise the part they play in making Britain in 2009 an angrier place than it used to be.

When we've recognised that, then maybe we will be ready to hear what Jesus said about loving enemies, treating people justly and equitably, going the extra mile with those that are pregnant with evil but haven't yet given birth to trouble and caused even more disillusionment.

Life is sweet

The lecture went well on Wednesday. I had far too much material, so had to edit as I talked; the students were well-informed and lively, asking good questions, making even better comments. I enjoyed it; I hope they did.

I'm intending to post it at some stage - but it will need a bit of editing.

We also had the launch session of the juice bar project yesterday. This is a project we're doing with the youth service and Salvation Army that aims to train a group of young people in mixing cocktails and all the skills needed to run a bar (selling non-alcoholic beverages).

Our other partner - the key one - is Fruto del Espirtu, is a company set up to import fruit juices from Colombia that form the basis of excellent exotic cocktails. The juices are grown and bottled in areas where cocaine is produced. The company is attempting to offer farmers a profitable way of not growing coca, the basis of cocaine. And the buyers of the product in the UK are helping to support these farmers and thus, in a tiny way, combat the cocaine trade.

Fruto's chief exec, Rutie, gave a presentation on the company and then got the young people to start mixing up cocktails - which we got to taste. The aim is to get a juice bar up and running for the summer holidays and if it succeeds, maybe beyond.

Today I met the manager of our local Starbucks and it looks like we'll be starting cafe church again in May.

So, it's been a busy week so far but a good one.

Just the sermons for Sunday to sort out now...

The fabulous swap of 2 Corinthians 5

One thought that didn't make the lecture on the atonement (because I ran out of space and didn't have time to work it out fully) is about the righteousness of God in 2 Corinthians 5:21. If this phrase means God's covenant faithfulness/saving action everywhere else it's used in Paul - principally in Romans and Galatians - is that what it means here? If it is, how can we become the covenant faithfulness of God as Paul suggests?

I haven't had a chance to explore this thought fully nor to read the N T Wright paper that I suspect might argue a version of it, but I've been wondering whether since Paul is talking about his ministry in 2 Corinthians 5:11-6:2, a ministry of reconciliation in partnership with God who has himself engaged in such a ministry in Christ, does the exchange of our sin for his righteousness mean that we too become messengers of reconciliation at that moment.

Paul starts his discussion proper 5:14 by pointing out that one died for all and those who live as a result no longer live for themselves but for Christ (v15). He then talks about experiencing new creation through being reconciled to God - something that happens as a result of the ministry of reconciliation that has been entrusted to the likes of Paul and his team - and by implication to anyone who is a new creation (16-18).

He then tells us that it was God working in Christ who brought about the reconciliation that we enjoy - that is that God is working according to his covenant faithfulness, his promise to Abraham that through his family all the nations of the earth would be blessed; in short that he is revealing his righteousness in the gospel exactly as Paul says in Romans 1:16-17 and 3:20f.

God co-opts us as ambassadors so he can make his appeal to the world through us (v20). And that appeal is that through faith in Christ we swap our sin - our state of being unreconciled and of being an ambassador or spokesman for non-reconciliation (as the Corinthians were turning out to be!) - for his righteousness, his saving activity in the world.

In 6:1 (remember there were no chapter divisions in the original letter!) he reiterates that he's working in partnership in urging the Corinthians to accept the grace of God for there's no time like the present (to paraphrase 6:2)..

Of course this in no way suggests that the cross is not an exchange of sin for right standing before God (though that is not the way Paul uses the term righteousness). He doesn't need to say it in v21 since he's already made it abundantly clear in v14-17 that it is by Christ's death for all that we are made new creations; the cross has brought about the turning of the ages. and if we are new creations, our sin (all that made up the old of v17) must have been dealt with by the action that turned the ages, the cross.

And the language of v21 is itself deeply substitutionary. The exchange of sin for righteousness happens because of a prior exchange. But note the exchange that Christ made on the cross was not his righteousness for sin. That's not what Paul says. He says that Christ exchanged his sinlessness for sin. Righteousness in paul is a term reserved for God's action in making good his promise to Abraham that he'd bless the nations through his seed (Galatians 3). the amazing thing is that as we put of faith in Christ and become new creatures in him so we swap our sin for a partnership with God in helping to put things right; we cease to be part of the problem and become part of the solution, in that we become messengers of God reconciling good news.

Does that make sense? Or have I missed something vital?

Grappling with the atonement

I've been getting to grips with the atonement this afternoon as I'm doing a lecture to a third year NT group at spurgeon's on it next week.

I shall be outlining and reflecting on Howard Marshall's paper The Theology of the Atonement which he produced for the recent LST/EA conference on the subject in the wake of controversy over Steve Chalke's The Lost Message of Jesus. I have to say, it's not Marshall's finest work but it is the text that the students have been given to read.

Then I'll be suggesting other approaches before doing a little exegetical work on Galatians 3 and Romans 3 in the light of the New Perspective on Paul (NPP) and seeing where we end up.

It's been interesting to see where the debate among evangelicals is. It isn't between those who hold to a penal substitutionary view and those who don't. there are so few evangelicals for whom that view is not at least part of their understanding of the atonement.

The key issue is where it fits in scripture - where Tom Wright takes issue with those reformed evangelicals who dismiss the NPP as hopelessly flawed - and what its consequences are in the world.

I've read some good stuff by Wright today and one or two other essays exploring other approaches that have not been quite so convincing. In particular Christopher Marshall's attempt to find a via media between more traditional models and the Narrative Christus victor model advocated by the Mennonite scholar J Denny Weaver is interesting but unconvincing - though not as unconvincing as Weaver's approach!

I found myself agreeing with Wright that while the Christus Victor model is the key one, penal substitution is an essential facet of it and to strip any idea of substitutionary atonement from one's overall approach suggests that we take neither sin nor God's love very seriously. I think this is a shift of position on my part - so preparing lectures is good for one's thinking!

In passing in a very good paper he wrote last year in response to Jeffrey John's Lent talk and the Oak Hill book Pierced for our Transgressions (neither of which he rated very highly), he made this nice observation: 'when I sing that interesting recent song In Christ Alone my hope is found, and we come to the line "And on the cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied", I believe it's more deeply true to sing "the love of God was satisfied". I commend that alteration to those who sing that song, which is in other respects one of the very few really solid recent additions to our repertoire.' (I love that last sentence for it doesn't say!).

The reason for his emendation is that the cross satisfies God's love rather than his wrath. John tells us not that God was so angry with the world that he sent Jesus, but that he so loved it. God's wrath is provoked by human sin that requires judgment. His love is displayed, however, in him absorbing that judgment in himself in the person of his Son - the atonement is deeply, sublimely, mysteriously, wonderfully Trinitarian.

So, I'm enjoying myself and will be for a couple of days - it'll be interesting to see how it comes out. I wonder if the students will enjoy it as much!

Of the making of books...

I received confirmation at the end of last week that the publisher I've been talking to since last summer is going ahead with my New Testament social history book project. They are proposing a 192 page, full colour, hard back, small coffee table type book that will hit the shops sometime late next year. This is really very exciting - if a little scary!

This is what the pitch said:

The World of the Early Church: a social history is a book exploring the world in which the earliest Christian communities lived; that period from the mid-30s AD to the opening decades of the Second Century. This is the story of a world dominated by a single empire that was reaching the heights of its power and influence. The Roman world forms the essential social and cultural backdrop to the emergence of the Christian movement.

We will explore ordinary life in the empire – where people lived, how they made ends meet, what they ate, where they went for leisure and entertainment. We’ll ask what ordinary people did for a living and where they did it and we’ll look at social relationships, how people understood their place in the world in relation to others and, very importantly, the gods

This will enable us to focus on those communities (churches) that we know about from the letters of Paul and other missionary authors – what strata of society did they come from, where did they meet, how did they support one another, why did they attract sometimes adverse reactions from their neighbours.

But the book will also look at the social context of Jesus and his ministry and ask how a rural Jewish renewal group became one of the fastest-growing urban movements through the first century.

All I've got to do now is write it!

Learning our ABCs

We had a good evening yesterday. We were completing Mark 6 - one of the key chapters in the first half of Mark's story. It marks the end of Jesus' public ministry in Galilee. From chapter 7 he'll be travelling in the further reaches of Israel, the mixed territories to the north and east of Herod's territory.

Full notes on the passage can be found here (click the downloads section and follow the link). I just want to comment on a couple of aspects of discipleship that I highlighted last night because I think they're interesting and often not prominent in our conversations about following Jesus.

Jesus uses the politically charged episode of the feeding to teach some intensely personal lessons about discipleship, one of which is that disciples need to learn to accept responsibility for what's going on around them.

Five thousand blokes had turned up spoiling for an uprising because the Twelve had been out preaching up a storm in the towns and villages of Galilee. But as soon as a need arises - these people need feeding - the disciples tell Jesus to send them away to find food somewhere else.

Jesus says to the twelve 'you give them something to eat'. This is, of course, not his last word on the issue. But it is important that it's his first word.

It highlights the fact that discipleship is as much about a new relationship with the world as it is about a new relationship with God. In Hebrews 2 the author reflects on Psalm 2, a picture of how people were created to steward, manage the creation but have clearly failed. The world is in a mess and human stewardship of it is largely to blame.

The author points to Jesus, however, who is a trail-blazer in the restoration of the human stewarding of creation. He doesn't do this alone, he brings others with him to share his rule(Hebrews 2:5-18). And that is what Jesus is doing in Mark 6:37. He is pointing out that part of being a disciple is to accept responsibility for what is happening in the world, responsibility for being part of the solution, having been rescued from being part of the problem.

We don't emphasise this aspect of discipleship often enough, preferring instead to play up those aspects of relating to God that result in good things coming into our lives - forgiveness, new life, hope, the holy Spirit, etc. And these are indeed good. But they are not the whole story.

The idea that we are called to accept responsibility for what is happening around us because we are called to share in Christ's reign, can be seen in Paul's emphasis on Christians being people who do good works (Eph 2:10; titus 2:11-14, etc), Peter's teaching on the soft difference being about doing work in the world that demonstrates the effectiveness of the gospel in creating a people who embody the good values that everyone aspires to but can't live out.

The rest of the ABC of discipleship flows those this acceptance of our responsibility, namely, that we bring to Jesus what we have (not what we don't have - so we're realistic about what we can do) and we co-operate with him in making a difference. All this grows from a deepening awareness of who Jesus is, something the 12 got a glimpse of in the next story, namely Jesus walking on the lake and revealing himself to be not just the one who distributes miraculously multiplied loaves, but the one who does the maths.

This why there's a twin references to loaves in 38 and 52. The depth of the disciples' incomprehension about Jesus is focused on what the loaves should have told them about him.

it seems to me that these are lessons about discipleship we need to learn for the times in which we live.

Getting personal with U2

Relax, the new U2 album is sensational!

I reckon it's the best thing they've done since Achtung Baby (one of the ten best albums of all time).

I've been listening to No Line on the Hor i zon - that's how they spell it on the album - first on Sportify (all last week) and since yesterday on CD. It's deep and rich, adventurous without being needlessly experimental and lyrically playful.

The one unsettling thing about the album is the closing track. It is a moody, downbeat, opaque reflection on war in the Middle East that asks where God is among the cedars of Lebanon (the track's title) and ends almost in mid-sentence. It leaves you wanting to hear it all again.

Lyrically, it's very personal - perhaps that's why the 'i' in horizon is left exposed - but as with Cedars of Lebanon, there are hints and nods to wider concerns and the struggle we each have to make sense of and make our mark in the world.

This is a work of a band with nothing left to prove, a band comfortable in its own skin. But it's also the work of four restless middle-aged men, keen to push themselves into new areas, explore fresh sounds and hold on to the energy that brought them to rock n' roll in the first place. They pull it off wonderfully.

So, go on, treat yourself...

competing for car insurance

I was told off by an insurance company yesterday for taking my business elsewhere. I'd decided to insure my car through a different broker and the person from the people I used last year said I was making a mistake and I ought to rethink.

Apart from the sheer cheek of it (though I know everyone's desperate for business), the deal I've got this year is better than last year's - and with the same insurance company. It's interesting that two brokers can offer such different prices for what is effectively the same product.

I trumped the man's objections on the phone by pointing out that his firm had not sent renewal information 21 days before the expiry of my current insurance which is a breach of the regulations for the sale of insurance and this suggests the admin might not be all they claim it is. He fairly quickly did the necessary and wished a good day after that.

What struck me after I'd done the deal was that the price I'm paying for 2009/10 is half what I paid the year I insured my first car in 1982. Who said the financial services revolution has brought us no benefits?

More pictures of Lily

Here are a couple more pictures of Lily - which i've finally got off my camera (sorry for the delay).

As you can see, she's totally gorgeous!

Lessons in faith

It's Polycarp's day today, so I have just read the Martyrdom of Polycarp in my Apostolic fathers collection (the Greek/English version edited by Michael Holmes). It's inspiring stuff

Apart from the amazing courage of the man, what strikes you is how political following Jesus was in the second century. He was asked by his first accuser - the police chief called Herod(!) - 'what harm is there in saying "Caesar is Lord" and offering incense and thereby saving yourself?' Polycarp swaid he wasn't going to do that.

Then the proconsul told him to 'swear the oath and I will release you. Revile Christ.' Thus indicating that the authorities viewed following Jesus to be a political act as much as a religious practice.

Polycarp famously replied: 'For eighty-six years I have been his servant, and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my king who saved me?'

He went on to invite the proconsul to hear an outline of Christian teaching. 'I am a Christian,' he said, 'Now, if you want to learn the doctrine of Christianity, name a day and give me a hearing.'

The proconsul declined and Polycarp was burned at at the stake. He's an inspirational figure, a lesson in faith.

Getting to grips with creation and my iPod

I'm still reading Christopher Southgate's book. It's very stimulating and causing me to think through things afresh. I will blog on it at greater length when I have time (and have finished it)It's resulted in me deciding to do a couple of sessions - probably mid-week - on the whole issue of creation, origins, Darwin and theology.

We had a good day yesterday. in particular our Later Service went really well. it's settling into a good pattern of interactive learning accompanied by a slug of teaching from the front to start discussion, respond to questions and stimulate further reflection and response to God's word. I had a conversation with a couple afterwards who are relatively new to the church where they said how at home they felt in the Later Service and how good it was to be interacting with a diverse range of people.

I think one of the things that's helping is that we're working our way, section by section through Mark's Gospel and this is giving us a firm base from which to explore what discipleship is about. Yesterday evening - as we looked at the story of Jairus' daughter and the woman with the constant hemorrhage - we were able to reflect on what it means to trust Jesus in the midst of our real working lives with all their complex and thorny relationships and moral dilemmas.

It was my birthday yesterday and among my gifts was an iPod Touch (from my gorgeous wife). So I have at last (and, I know, not before time) joined the digital music age. Quite apart from its utility in listening to music, I find myself looking at it and thinking that it is quite beautiful, technology and design in perfect balance.

But I can't help wondering if I'm the victim of hype here. Apple is cool. The iPod Touch is the coolest in a long line of cool gizmos that Steve Jobs' empire has launched. After all, it's just an Mp3 player. And yet...

More pictures of Lily soon - just got to get them off the camera, onto the computer....

Insight into Iraq

We went to see Andrew White at the LICC yesterday evening. He's the vicar of Baghdad, very opinionated and politically incorrect; very funny but also very moving. Life in the city is improving but many still die unnecessarily - among them large numbers of the Christian community.

Andrew still feels that the invasion was absolutely right and the removal of Saddam was the only option available to the world. I'm not sure I agree - I think the war lacked legality and the aftermath still seems worse than what was removed. But I was grateful for his insight and impressed by his faithfulness in really difficult circumstances. I will pray for the country with more knowledge.

Good too that LICC is still putting on events like this - it was not as well attended as I'd expected and the buffet lacked a little something for those of us coming straight from work. But the centre in Vere Street does remain a key place where christians engage with the difficult issues of the world intelligently and prayerfully. long may it continue.

A lesson from the pigs?

We were looking at Mark 5:1-20 yesterday evening and during the interactive session on what we might learn from this, the question of what Jesus was doing with the pigs came up.

You'll know the story. Jesus is confronted by a demonized man who is besieged by a legion of evil spirits. They beg to be sent into a nearby herd of pigs rather than the abyss to await judgement. Jesus obliges. What's going on?

I suggested that through this action Jesus is passing a stern comment on the business-as-usual approach adopted by the townsfolk - and probably its leading citizens. The demonized man had been marginalized by this community that was making a good living through rearing pigs for sale, no doubt, to the sizable gentile populations of the region - not least the Roman army garrisoned around the area. He was chained and shoved out of the town into a graveyard.

Jesus is suggesting that the town had a duty of care to this man that they neglected while they got on with their money-making venture. So, in an act of judgment on business as usual, Jesus frees the demonized man and interrupts the town's casual reliance on cash.

Afterwards, someone asked me what the town's people could have done, since the demonized man was fearful and uncontrollable. That's a good question. But, it seems to me, that Jesus is saying that they should have done something more than cast him out, chain him up and get on with their lives. Care has a cost attached to it and part of that cost is that there'll be a shift of priorities from doing things for us to recognising the interests of those in need in our community.

I wonder if reading this story in the light of our current economic woes might help us reorient our values around caring for the vulnerable rather than maximising our own self interest.

Unsettled in a good way

As part of my preparation for part four of our series, Why Follow Jesus? which is exploring why the world's in such a mess if there's a loving God, I have started reading Christopher Southgate's new book - which I first came across late last year on Robin Parry's always-readable blog.

Called The Groaning of Creation: God, Evolution and the Problem of Evil (Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), it is an attempt to create a thorough-going evolutionary theodicy. It is extraordinarily well-written and clearly argued (speaking as one who often finds systematic theology thoroughly opaque and unreadable) and it does what all good theology should do: it's making me think afresh about some pretty basic positions I hold.

For example, in accepting Darwin's theory of evolution as the best explanation for how life arose on earth, Southgate questions whether it's really realistic or plausible for a doctrine of 'the Fall' to be used to account for all the bad things that happen. After all, dinosaurs walked the earth tearing each other to shreds long before people arrived on the scene. And parasites are among the earliest life forms and they live by devouring other forms of life. in other words, predation is part of creation. I'm not sure what I make of this yet... It has big implications for how we read Paul and understand the cross (Southgate, however, believes the cross and redemption to be at the heart of his theology - but I haven't got there yet; his title is taken straight out of Romans 8, of course).

This is challenging, unsettling theology of the very best kind. I have found myself excited and anxious in equal measure as I've read it. But having said that, I will not have time to process this by Sunday so it's unlikely to appear much in my 25 minute reflection on how we speak about God and suffering.

One day like this

So, throw those curtains wide

one day like this would see me right....

Can't put it better than Guy Garvey (and if you want a real treat press the red button on BBC TV and watch the wonderful Radio 2 concert of The Seldom Seen Kid that Elbow performed last week - including a spine-tingling, riotously uplifting version of One Day like this).

So, I threw my curtains wide this morning and this is what greeted me:

I know the snow brings chaos - but isn't it also so beautiful? Let's chill and praise the one who made this and gave us the eyes and hearts to appreciate it.

And remember to say 'hi' to someone in the street today and check on any people vulnerable in the cold weather.

Memories

Oh, and I was sad to hear of the death of John Martin late last week.

He was by all accounts not the nicest man to share a pint with, but Solid Air remains one of the great British rock albums.

So I played it on Friday on my way up to Leicester and remembered all the times I saw him play live at Manchester Uni in the 70s and wondered where all the years went.

A little snow and a bit of reading

It's been amazing listening to the news broadcasts through today - everyone seems to be looking for someone to blame for the traffic chaos and the fact that London has pretty much ground to a halt in the snow today.

Can you imagine the outcry from council tax payers if London bought the number of snow plows it'd need to clear the streets of what fell over the past 24 hours? We get a snow event of this magnitude of this magnitude once every 20 years or so. Can't we just take a day or two off, make sure the vulnerable have got everything they need and enjoy a snowball fight with bored kids in the streets?

Or am I missing something?

Anyway, I've been reading lots of stuff about 1 Thessalonians - getting ready for our men's Bible study (though it's been cancelled tonight because of the snow!); in particular stuff reconciling the Acts account of the founding of the church with what Paul says in his letter. Rainer Riesner makes a pretty good case for there being no contradiction between Luke's and Paul's versions of events.

It seems that 1 Thessalonians is not well-served in terms of studies looking at the social context of the community and the letter - certainly in comparison to 1 Corinthians or even Galatians. Richard Ascough has written some interesting stuff and Karl Donfried and Robert Jewett have too; Bruce Winter has written a couple of fascinating essays on the Greco-Roman background to some of what Paul says. But the literature is thin. if anyone knows of anything good, I'd love to hear about it.

I'm re-reading an essay by Justin hardin on the Acts account of the arrest of Justin which throws considerable light on the passage. One thing that intrigues me is that there seems to be a lot of attention paid to the political context Paul's mission in this section of Acts. Others have pointed out that Acts 16-18 contains a concentration of business language (Frederick Danker, in particular, in an essay I've not read but which looks really interesting), but it seems to me that there's an interesting study to be done on the use of political language in this section too.

Time for a hot toddy, I reckon - there are just so many good things about a cold snap...!

Pictures of Lily...

It's snowing and the world (at least the one I can see) has ground to a halt: no traffic, few people and a soft white shimmer to everything. It's gorgeous (though I know it's a real pain for lots of people!)


We helped Charlie and Shane move into their new home with Lily on Friday. All is well (people throwing snowballs have just passed my window - all our schools locally are closed)


So here are a couple more pictures of Lily (now that would be a good title for a song!)

Great day

Well today I became a grand-dad - I know I'm not old enough but it's something of a genetic miracle!

Anyway, Lily Olivia arrived at lunchtime weighing in at 6lbs 6 oz and looking lovely

well done Charlie (and Shane)

Is faith a sensible option?

As promised earlier in the week, here are the bones of the first session in our series called Why Follow Jesus? The idea of this series is that we run ten sessions in our usual morning services exploring the Christian faith. This is followed by the opportunity for those interested to go to lunch locally to continue the conversation started at the service.

So here's session one (it was preached on Sunday 11 January - though this is not exactly the preached version; audio of that will be posted here soon)

Is faith a sensible option in a secular world?

This week an advertising campaign was launched that will appear on the sides of 800 buses around the UK. It says: ‘There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy life.’
Just after Christmas, The Times columnist Matthew Parris, wrote a piece suggesting that Christianity was the answer to Africa’s deepest needs. Here’s a flavour of what he wrote: ‘As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God. Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa's biggest problem - the crushing passivity of the people's mindset...Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete.’
It’s strange to note that Matthew Parris is one of the supporters of the bus campaign!

Why faith?
Ridding ourselves of the shackles of religion was meant to set us free and lead to us enjoying the good life. But a glance around us tells us that hasn’t really happened. A 2009 survey of 16-25 year olds by the Princes’ Trust found a quarter of them felt depressed, that most felt the present was worse than the past and that they had little to look forward to. A study by Canadian sociologist, Reginald Bibby, found that those who did not believe in God—a majority of Canadians—were less likely to be generous, feel loved, enjoy family life or show concern for others. In short, secularism does not seem to have delivered what it promised.
Faith, on the other hand, according to surveys, is likely to lead to people feeling happier and more contented, to pay greater attention to the needs of others and be honest in all their relationships.
Interestingly, that’s what atheist Matthew Parris says works and is needed in Africa—but why not here?

Which faith?
Our supposedly secular society is actually awash with spirituality. Our fascination with things beyond the material world is obvious from the TV schedules with shows like Demons and Most Haunted fixtures in prime time. Surveys repeatedly say that 70% of people claim to believe in God, 51% believe in life after death, 32% in the resurrection and 52% in heaven (though only 28% in hell).
So faith appears to be alive and well in 21st Century Britain; the question is ‘which faith makes sense of the world in which we live and brings access to the good life?’ Not surprisingly, Christians argue that following Jesus is the way to find answers to life’s deep questions and a rich and rewarding life both here and hereafter. That’s what this series of studies is about, but here’s a little taster of why:

1) cosmology: the question of where we come from, the origin of the world and life itself is one of the areas where the secular view and Christian faith are often said to clash. The big bang and evolution are said to contradict faith-based understandings of human origins. But there is a huge number of scientists who disagree—Paul Davies, John Gribben, Allan Sandage and Francis Collins, all pioneers and leaders in their respective fields, all argue that faith and science work together not against each other.
The Bible views the universe as the creation of a caring God who is involved in its day-to-day life and who can be found as we look at and reflect on the world (Psalm 8, for example; Colossians 1:15-20)

2) convictions: Christians believe that it is Jesus takes us to the heart of the way things are. Not only is he God’s agent in making creation (Colossians 1:15-20), he is also the one who shows us clearly what God is like (Colossians 2:9) and who sorts out our lives and gives us direction (Colossians 2:19). So we believe that as we follow Jesus, as we listen to him, we begin to see things from his perspective and they make better sense than they did before.

3) contentment: Christians believe that it is in following Jesus that we find the possibility of change, of becoming the people that deep down we have always longed to be and that it is this which leads to a truly satisfying and fulfilled life.

Busy days

It's been really busy over the past week or so. January always does this to me - all those things I put off in the run up to Christmas catch up with me!

We've started our new series in church on Why Follow Jesus? and later I'll blog on our first session which went down really well with people - so I thought it was worth sharing with a wider audience.

We had a second messy church yesterday which was a riot (I think they are supposed to be!). Lots of families, good breakfast and chat, singing songs and doing craft. It looks as though it's caught quite a few people's imaginations and I hope it'll become a fixture in our programme. We have a particularly committed and gifted couple heading it up.

We also had a very well attended church family meeting talking about, among other things, charity registration (Oh joy! Oh rapture!). Everyone responded very well to the prospect of adopting a new governing document this year; hopefully it will be as straight-forwards as these things can ever be.

I've been listening to Dear Science by TV On The Radio and Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective. Both excellent. I've somehow managed to miss these bands - they've been around a while - though I gather this new work from Animal Collective is their best to date. Check 'em out.

Art to stir compassion and action

...and in relation to my previous post, I've just taken delivery of a CD and DVD by Compassionart, the brain child of delirious front-man, Martin Smith. On it a number of high-profile worship song writers turn their talents to composing a set of songs highlighting the plight of the world's poor.

Profits from sales of the CD, the accompanying book and copyright payments when the songs are sung in church will go to projects across the world helping some of the most vulnerable citizens on planet earth.

There's some good and eminently singable songs on the record - so I've no doubt we'll be learning some of them at our church .

And the accompanying website is inviting people of all kinds to get involved in making art that changes lives and raises awareness. That can only be a good thing. So check it out here

The bus approaching'll jump-start your conversation

Lovely to see Richard Dawkins and co doing their bit to revive God's profile in the post-Christmas lull. just when the Holy family disappears from our high streets, God returns on the sides of buses courtesy of an alliance of atheists (you couldn't make it up, could you?)

Lovely too that the Theos think tank and the Churches Advertising Network have contributed money to ensure the campaign gets on as many buses as possible.

It's interesting that atheism only has an 'eat, drink and be merry' philosophy. The ad doesn't suggest that because there's probably no God we should get on and help the poor, volunteer at a refugee camp, feed the hungry, sit with the grieving or anything positive.

As Matthew Parris, one of the early supporters of the campaign, said in the Times recently, Christianity is what Africa needs if that continent is going to overcome many of its problems. Interesting that he doesn't apply his incisive logic to the UK!

So the ad is entertaining - after all, it's the brain-child of a comedy writer - but is it really offering a serious lifestyle choice that will make a tangible difference to the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable on our fragile and warring planet?

Eager students

Started the day today with a group of schools workers who'd asked me to go and give them an overview of Mark's gospel on which they are basing all the assemblies they're doing this term.

It's the kind of thing I love doing - sharing the fruits of scholarship with an audience that doesn't usually read scholarly material.

The best part of it was a conversation I had afterwards with a young women who asked where I got my information from because she really wanted to follow ideas up and get answers to some of her questions about how we read and understand the Bible.

It confirmed that I want to write the social history of the New Testament book that I'm still negotiating on because as I was suggesting things for this woman to read, there was nothing that covered the waterfront for a mid-level audience.

She also confirms that there is an audience for this kind of material among people in our churches. This suggests not only that we need more books for such folk (and web sites and interactive learning aids, etc) but also that our preaching needs to tackle these issues in a slightly meatier way. I think we sometimes feel that our congregations are afraid of facts, history and debates about how to read texts. In fact, many of them are eager for such stuff and we owe it to them.

So, I'm going to start writing it anyway...

Actually, I've got to start because I'm teaching the course on which it's based in Sri Lanka this summer and I need to revise my entire set of notes - so I can kill two birds with one stone.

The challenges of the New Year

It's snowing! Looking out on my street pavements are white and snow flakes are sticking to the branches of trees. it's lovely.

Finished my Ministry Today article - it should be in the next issue (which is nice) and launched our first new series of 2009 - a six month journey through Mark's Gospel. Our other new series kicks off next Sunday.

I've reached the first working Monday in January - apparently the worst day of the year (but then BBC Breakfast was in hyper-panic mode this morning!) - feeling in need of a holiday!

I think 2009 is going to prove challenging in a number of ways. Over the weekend I had my first conversation with a church member who is beginning to struggle as a result of the economic downturn. I'm sure there will be many more as January unfolds.

Our family service yesterday asked us to get into groups and talk about the kind of church we think God wants us to be this year. it was interesting talking to people afterwards to hear how many groups talked about pooling resources to help people through difficult times. We need to find ways of not only keeping such ideas alive, but also making them a reality in practical ways.

Is what's good for Africa, good for us too?

We've had a good Christmas. The services went well, the family was all together and we feasted and laughed, shared and celebrated in a lovely relaxed way. All-in-all, it was a really refreshing time.

I'm catching up with a few things today - one of which was to finish an article for Ministry Today Magazine on ministering in exile. That's done and sent. I've also done a bit of sorting for our new teaching programme which kicks off on Sunday.

I also thought I'd draw your attention to an interesting article in last Saturday's Times (the London Times as Americans call it). It's by atheist Matthew Parris and it's well worth reading. you can do so here.

The headline says it all but leaves a substantial elephant in the room.

I can't fault his analysis of Africa's predicament or the contribution of the Christian church to the continent. 'In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good,' he says.

And he concludes his piece by saying: 'Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the know-how that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted. And I'm afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete.'

The elephant in the room is that if the Christian faith causes such transformation in Africa, does it also in the UK? If Christianity is so essential to Africa's transformation, could it not also be essential to Britain's?

I wonder if Matthew Parris would like to tour Britain's difficult places and see what Christians are achieving there through good works and life-changing evangelism. I wonder if, as a result of looking, it might suggest that his firm atheism is as harmful to him and our culture as he suggests animist and witch doctor beliefs are to Africa.

Happy Christmas

So, it'll be Leonard Cohen and Caravaggio who form the backdrop of the sermons this Christmas.

Cohen tonight, at our joint service with the URC, using the charting of Hallelujah (how surreal is that?) to allow me to talk about the second verse of Suzanne, the one that says of Jesus 'And when he knew for certain/only drowning men could see him/he said 'all men will be sailors then/until the sea shall free them.'

Caravaggio on Sunday: his wonderful nativity stolen from a Sicilian church 40 years ago that draws the eye to the light of the infant in the feeding trough. We'll be asking what difference does looking make?

Tomorrow it's why Christina Rossetti's In the Bleak mid-winter is my favourite carol.

And we're done. Another Christmas prepared for.

It just remains for me to say happy Christmas to all of you who pass this way - intentionally or by accident. Hopefully we'll talk soon.

Ah, I love Christmas!

We had a fabulous pre-Christmas gathering with good friends last night.

We ate wonderful Portuguese food, enjoyed much laughter, sang songs and reflected on why Christmas is such a special time of year.

It was church as it should be: no more than can fit around a dining table, conversation that ranges from the serious to the hysterical, all wrapped in prayer and genuine concern for one another.

Such a gathering brings us close to how church was in the New Testament. Of course, the culture is very different and we cannot go back. But the domesticity, intimacy and hospitality of the meal table embodies something close to God's heart.

Christmas is often seen as a family affair, which is ok. But really the heart of the story is a community affair. All kinds of people - individually and in groups - are invited to gaze in wonder at the baby in a feeding trough in an over-crowded Bethlehem home, where all the generations were rallying round to do what they could to welcome the new arrival and anyone who turned up was drawn into the circle of praise at what God was and is doing among us.

Ah, I love Christmas!

Pulling the crowds at Christmas

We had a good day yesterday. Carol services, it seems, still draw people in our predominantly secular society. Both ours yesterday were pretty full so we probably had in excess of 500 people through our doors over the day.

Lots of these were family of committed members, many of whom join us every year. Perhaps they come more out of family loyalty than any interest in the Christian Christmas story. But might it also be that there is a residual feeling in broad sections of the wider community that the Christmas story says something important? This is not to say that large swathes of the population are closet believers, just that this story of the baby, the family, the strange array of visitors, the fragility and wonder of it all, resonates with people in a way that other parts of the Christian message don't.

I guess churches up and down the land will be pulling in the crowds over the course of this week - especially the cathedrals. So my prayer is that some of these folk see something new in this familiar story.

Two other things caught my eye. One was a report - sponsored by St Helen's Bishopgate, I think - that suggested fewer people than ever knew what the Christmas story says. This could be true given the nonsense on this morning's Today Programme featuring a BBC reporter trying to get a donkey to travel the journey Mary and Joseph made. Just where in the gospels is there a reference to a donkey being involved at all? How on earth could a poor carpenter afford the transport of the aristocracy? And given everything else that's going on in this part of the world at the moment, how does this constitute news?

The other was that I got a Christmas card from an Imam in London wishing me a merry Christmas and pointing out that the Christmas story appears in the Koran and that 1.5 billion Muslims around the world believe in the virgin birth of Jesus, his miracles, ascension and second coming to rule in peace and justice to establish submission to the one true God. Interestingly, there is no reference to the cross and resurrection without which Christmas is just an amazing story that leads to nothing much in particular.

This week I shall be mostly preparing for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the Sunday after Christmas. What is so amazing is that even after so many years and even having to think of so many angles on this familiar story each year, I still haven't come close to exhausting the wonder of it.

On the buses with 007

At the risk of sounding trivial (though I hope not trite), which will irk Anonymous who thinks I have to be serious and world-changing all the time, I've been amused by Boris' buses today.

It's been pretty full on over the past couple of days with people and preparation, so light relief is welcome. And Boris has provided it. Now I'm all for public spending in a crisis but I'm not sure £9bn on Boris' vanity bus project represents value for money.

One of the prize winning designs for his 'let's replace the Routemaster because we don't like bendy buses' bus is by Aston Martin. James Bond meets Reg Varney - it's priceless.

He also let slip at the press conference that he might not be able to put conductors on all the new buses so thinks he might use community support officers. That's clearly why people become PCSOs, so they can collect on the upper deck of an Aston Martin.

Well, it made me chuckle.

Now, I've got to get back to saving the world (though I thought that was Gordon Brown's job at the moment!)

Little Dorrit and the credit crunch

We watched the final episode of the BBC's wonderful adaptation of Little Dorrit last night. It's made me want to read the book - like all good adaptations do.

I was struck by the fact that the news was full of the implications of the $50bn Bernard Madoff fraud and the episode opens with the fall-out from Merdle's suicide with all the ramifications for families and businesses being ruined by his fraud.

It just showed how prescient Dickens was. He writes about how moral infection flows from the greed and financial sharp practice of those who ought to set an example in society. And he suggests the humble can point the way to salvation - though even the humble need to be redeemed in some way. Shaw said Little Dorrit was more seditious than Marx's Das Kapital! Maybe he was right.

Things to do, places to be...

I've just iced the cake - so Christmas is really beginning in earnest (actually, my icing this year was a little sloppy and I had to spend the best part of half an hour keeping it on the cake while it set a bit - but I think it's ok now; we'll see how ok when we cut it on Christmas Eve!)

So, now just five services to prepare for - I'm singing at one of them and the other four do not require full-blown sermons (except Carols by Candlelight), but even so finding an angle on the Christmas story and how it intersects with the world we all live in is always a challenge.

I received confirmation this morning of the two courses I'll be teaching in Sri Lanka next summer. In Colombo, I'm doing aspects of NT social history (similar to the course I taught last time in Kandy) and in Kandy I'm tackling NT theology. This latter course will be a challenge - mainly knowing what to include as I've not done it before (any hints gratefully received). I'll be using Howard Marshall's Concise NT Theology as the text book and trying to cover the waterfront of issues without spreading the material too thinly.

I'm still awaiting confirmation of my book deal to write about aspects of NT social history in a lavishly illustrated coffee table volume. Hopefully soon - the recession is slowing people down as book sales are exploring levels somewhere three floors below the basement.

Part of my preparation for Sri Lanka is writing a Christian basics course for church based on what the NT says. We'll be teaching it at the morning services from January to March and then having hosted lunchtime discussions to talk through the material. The aim is to help our folk get a firmer grasp on the basics but also give them a vehicle to bring their friends along to. It's an approach I've never tried before, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes.

Exploring Christianity's forgotten history

I've started reading Philip Jenkins' new work, The Lost History of Christianity: The thousand year golden age of the church in the Middle east, Africa and Asia - and how it died (Harper One 2008).

Jenkins is the author of the seminal The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity(Oxford 2002) and a number of other well-written studies.

His new one does exactly what it says in the subtitle, namely chart the largely forgotten history of the church in the non European world from the first to the eleventh century.

In the introduction I was set thinking by this simple fact. in 1050 in Asia Minor - the cities of the seven churches of Revelation and the church planting exploits of Paul and his team - there were 373 bishoprics and virtually the entire population were Christian.

By 1450, barely 10 to 15% of the population were Christian and there were just three bishops.

This is a collapse of allegiance to the Christian faith that mirrors the experience of Europe over the past 400 years but which can't be accounted for by the rise of science and rationalism. Most would put it down to the rise of Islam but as Jenkins has already said, the church in the East lived fairly comfortably in Muslim states - contributing much to Islamic learning (see p18)

I look forward to reading Jenkins' interpretation of this extraordinary fact.

Let's hear it for Neil Young

I've been having a bit of Neil Young fest over the past couple of days. This is partly because it's what I do from time-to-time (he's been such a fixture in my life for the past 30 years, narrating the changes we all go through, casting light and perspective on the world we navigate) and partly because I took delivery yesterday of the third of his archive concerts. Called Sugar Mountain (the title of one his greatest songs about growing up), it was recorded at Canterbury house somewhere in the States in 1968.

It's wonderful. Between songs he's funny and engaging and the songs are fragile, gossamer-light flights of wonder. With just a strummed acoustic guitar and his frail whine, he transports the listener to a different place and time.

He's probably one of the handful of truly great singer-songwriters of the rock era. And as last year's Chrome Dreams II indicated, he still retains some edge and flair after more than 40 years in the business. He defines the era in many ways, charting many of the social changes of the past half century - though he tends to have a longer historical range than that often engaging with key myths of American history in an attempt to understand the American present - and chronicling the cost of those changes in terms of relationships and personal dislocation.

He's always been something of a showman. He had his 1971 Massey Hall concert filmed and on the DVD accompanying the release of that seminal gig last year, he intercuts concert footage with contemporary film shot on the ranch he had just bought and to which he makes much self-deprecating reference in his between songs banter. He had an eye on posterity even then. As he narrates the American myth, he also creates one of his own.

Next year he embarks on one of the biggest projects an artist has ever attempted. Volume 1 of his Archive is due to be released. Spanning the decade from 1963 when he debuted with the Squires in Winnipeg, through the classic Harvest (which I'm listening to at the moment), it'll contain hundreds of songs - some not heard before; some played with Buffalo Springfield and CSN&Y. it was the decade that defined the era - and in some ways created the world in which we all live (as BBC Radio 4's recent sound archive series and accompanying programmes on 1968 showed).

Young sound-tracked many of the great changes. I still find myself deeply moved when I listen to Ohio as it brings up so many feelings about hopes of changing the world snuffed out by violence at home and abroad.

Young has never engaged the world with anything less than a fierce honesty - and he does it with wonderful tunes and searing guitars. What could be better than that?

So, it's goodbye to Woolies

It appears to be the beginning of the end for Woolies. Its mega closing down sale begins today. It's a grim day for its staff - up to 25,000 could be out of work within a month.

What has struck me in all the news coverage this morning is the nostalgia of reporters and anchors who clearly have not been near a Woolworth store for the last decade and yet who are still mourning its passing. A number of my friends have told me how sad it is that the shop is closing but when I ask them when was the last time they entered the store, they fix me with one of those looks that says 'as if...' and then tell me they can't remember when it was.

The fact is that Woolies has long since lost its reason for being on our high streets. No one needs to shop there as the things it stocks can be found more cheaply and conveniently - and in more pleasant surroundings - at a host of other retailers.

I used my local Woolies as a short cut from the High street to the mall where my local Wesley Owen is located. Occasionally on passing through - sometimes with a colleague - we'd look for cheap CDs or DVDs and on a couple of occasions pick up a bargain.

I too think its demise is sad but since I rarely shopped there, I shan't be ringing my hands over its passing. That would be a tad hypocritical, I feel.

But let's pray for all the staff affected and look for other ways of helping them practically if we can.

My fab festive fifteen for 2008

It's been a good year for music. So I thought I'd post my fab festive fifteen - in honour of the great John Peel (but I'm not running to 50!).

For my money the best 15 albums of the year - in no particular order - are:

Goldfrapp Seventh Tree - a wonderful mix of pastoral folk meets chill-out (apparently this was Uncut magazine's album of the year!)

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! - energetic and erudite rock, possibly the best thing he's done, though No More Shall we Part runs it close.

Fleet Foxes - the eponymous debut album is just sublime; CSN&Y for the Facebook generation (though the band has no Facebook or web presence to speak of)

The Cinematic Orchestra Live at the Royal Albert Hall - just plain lovely; music for every mood and all times of the day.

Sigur Ros With a buzz in our ears we play endlessly (it does have an unpronounceable Icelandic title!) - proving that the little island is far better at music than banking, this is an album of soaring anthems, borne aloft on waves of strings and shimmering guitars.

Portishead Third - plaintive, plangent, playful, poly-rhythmic, particularly praise-worthy.

Damon Albarn et al Monkey: journey to the West - like nothing he's ever done before nor anything I've ever bought before. it proves he has ambition and talent in spades.

Yeasayer All Hour Cymbals - cracking debut, full of wonderful rhythms and tunes, as playful as the title suggests it will be.

Toumani Diabate The Mande Variations - Mali's premier kora player with music to transport you to a restful place.

Buena Vista Social Club Live at Carnegie Hall - Cuba's peerless band at the height of its powers; one of those concerts one really wishes one had been at.

Joe Jackson Rain - stripped down (no guitar) to show off not only his fine piano playing but also the best crop of songs he's penned for years.

Nitin Sawney London Underground - the polymath attempts to get to grips with London post-7/7 in a set of intriguing, beguiling collaborations. And he pulls it off apparently effortlessly.

The Last Shadow Puppets The age of the Understatement - side project by Arctic Monkey's front man Alex Turner and Miles Kane that hijacked their lives because it is just so good. 60s flavoured, Walker brothers-infused love songs with bite and wit.

Elbow The Seldom Seen Kid - rightly festooned with praise and prizes (especially the Mercury), 12 near perfect pop songs penned by a lyricist coming to the peak of his powers. They just get better and better.

Amadou et Mariam Welcome to Mali - in which the blind duo from Africa's capital of music build on their wonderful Dimanche a Bamako, with a sublime collection of songs that feature some great guests (including Damon Albarn). So funky, you have to smile as you type when it's on.

David Byrne and Brian Eno Everything that Happens will Happen Today - 25 years after their ground-breaking My Life in The Bush of Ghosts (the album that gave rise to sampling and so much more that has enriched music over the past quarter century) comes an album of ordinary songs. On first listen you think is that it? but repeated listens reveals a depth and intensity to the song craft on display here. it's as near perfect as a pop album can be by two guys comfortable with their own genius.

Mercury Rev Snowflake at midnight - a truly original rock album, a soring journey exploring the possibility of transformation. It's a collection of songs and instrumentals that makes you feel good to be alive.

So, what about the best of the bunch. it's a difficult - and somewhat pointless - choice. But hey, what are end of year charts if not pointless?

I thought of having categories, such as best non-British act (Amadou et Mariam), best album inspired by the shadow of Scott Walker (Last Shadow Puppets), best collaboration (probably nitin Sawney), best live album (Buena Vista social Club), best re-invention of themselves (Goldfrapp), best return (portishead), best Chinese-inspired opera (Monkey), best album by two giant musical geniuses (Byrne & Eno)

But this way everyone wins and you might as just say, these are the best 15 albums I've heard this year (and they are)

but I have to pick a winner and it's Mercury Rev. The record displays such vaulting ambition both musically and lyrically that it transports the listener to a whole new world and makes you see and feel the world you inhabit everyday slightly differently. I love it.

If you're still looking for Christmas gifts for loved ones, you'll not go wrong with any of these. But don't blame me if you - or your loved one - hates them; after all, music is so personal, isn't it.

Is reading a political act?

There's an interesting post over on Robin Parry's excellent blog about using God to serve our social agendas.

In effect the post is about the politics of interpretation. He suggests that a particular feminist scholar does her theology backwards - namely that she knows the kind of God her politics will tolerate, so finds him (or her) in scripture.

This might or might not be true (I've never read the scholar in question) but it does raise a key question about hermeneutics, it seems to me. Recently, scholars have rediscovered that the New Testament was written in a time of empire and that there is possibly counter-imperial language in the documents.

Now is this because these scholars are politically liberal - some suggest their motives have to do with being anti-American - or because they put two and two together and make four. It seems pretty obvious that people who are used to hearing that Caesar is Lord and saviour, upon hearing that Jesus is Lord and saviour might question what that says about Caesar as well as Jesus. Or that when Mark talks about 'a gospel' (Mark 1:1) his original hearers would have wondered how it was related to the other gospel they heard regularly concerning Caesar (especially Augustus).

Are the scholars making such connections, seeking them for political reasons, because they want to create the faith in the image of their own political creed? Or are those who say these scholars are wrong, doing so because they want to ensure that God's politics mirror theirs.

Isn't politics a bit like culture. we are so used to our political attitudes, they are so second nature to us that we do not see them and their effect on how we read texts? Politics affects the paper we choose to read, how we respond to news events - just look at the storm of disagreement over the rights and wrongs in the arrest of Damien Green.

So Robin Parry is right when he says 'She decided what political goals she wanted to achieve, worked out what kind of God would be needed to support that agenda, and then reverse-engineered a doctrine of God that serves the pre-decided political agenda. It is the very self-conscious, and blatant crafting of a God to serve our political ends that is ... worrying.' But wrong to imply that we don't all do it; indeed that it is to some extent inevitable.

What we need is a community of scholarship - gatherings of Christians generally - that gently and lovingly holds one another to account for our interpretations, especially in sensitive areas that spill over into the way we live as disciples in the real world.

I'm just embarking on a study of Ched Myers' Binding the Strong Man, a self confessed political reading of Mark that seeks to close the gap between the text and our discipleship in every area of life in our world - including politics. Is this a more tendentious reading that William Lane's or Morna Hooker's that merely claim to engage in historical-critical-literary criticism of the text?

Let me know what you think...

Clearing the decks

Now it's actually December, I feel able to say 'Christmas is coming'. Advent has started and we need to be getting ourselves ready to welcome the prince of peace. The trouble is that around this time of year, my life turns from peace to pandemonium - not that there's much peace through the autumn. But the Christmas rush presses in.

I am trying to finish an article reflecting on ministering in exile. I hope to get it done this week - but I daren't tell the editor that because I've got his hopes up so many times over the past few months!

However, the piece has a shape and some observations on Jeremiah 29 and 1 Peter filtered through my recent experience of ministry. The trouble with anything like this is that I'm not sure it will ever feel finished. I never had this trouble when I was a journalist!

Yesterday I was in Didcot for a meeting about the Baptist assembly and picked up a book to review for Mission Catalyst from the fresh expressions folk. Called Mission-shaped Questions: Defining Issues for today's Church, it's a collection of essays on the mixed economy church (an intriguing phrase which I see is also the title of the fresh expressions journal that hit my door mat this morning). It looks promising.

I'm listening to my top ten albums of the year trying to pick a winner for my festive feature that's coming soon. I might have to cop out and opt for category winners, so that each record wins a prize.

1 Peter, end times thinking and Christian ethics

One of the things that I noticed - not for the first time - as I was preparing for last night is the innate conservatism and parochialism of much current end-times thinking.

The rapture is all about rescuing me from nasty world rulers and the events they unleash (though God hasn't seen fit to rescue any other generation of believers who must be equally deserving, I'd have thought...) And the perceived threat from heavily armed nations with evil intent just seems to be an excuse for upping military budgets at home and imposing our will on weaker nations abroad.

But having just finished our series on 1 Peter, a little part of me wonders whether being a follower of Jesus inclines us towards conservatism. Now not for a minute do I feel drawn to start supporting conservative causes or parties. I remain instinctively and sentimentally pink. But I found Volf's analysis of Peter's social ethics and its implications for us profoundly plausible - and therefore quite a challenge.

I think the New Testament shares a lot of its social ethics with the surrounding culture. In many ways Peter and Paul, James and John want the same thing as Greco-Roman social philosophers. But they believe that the only way to achieve them is in the power of the Spirit who is given by God in response to our faith in Jesus. This would appear to be a key plank in Paul's argument in Titus (yes, I believe he wrote it)

But at the same time, there is something profoundly egalitarian about Christian ethics - the fact that we are all siblings in the faith regardless of our social position, that the rich are expected to share their goods with the poor, that slaves and women could lead the gathering of believers: all these things point to an upsidedownness to Christian social ethics that is anything but conservative.

And if my reading of Revelation is right, it points to a strong streak of social resistance at the core of Christian ethics. John urges his hearers to see that loyalty to Jesus as king means that we cannot be wholeheartedly loyal to Caesar; we cannot join in economic and social practices that empower Rome at the expense of everyone else, that exalt Caesar as god over the claims of the true creator God and his chosen king, Jesus.

So christian ethics are at once conservative and communitarian, quietist and loudly destabilising of social inequities. Does that sound like a contradiction in terms?

More reflecting to follow...

Apocalyptic reflections

We had the second of our two mid-week gatherings devoted to the Apocalypse and end times stuff yesterday evening. It seemed to go well - people were engaged and asked intelligent questions afterwards.

Given that I was offering a somewhat different take to the one many of my hearers grew up with, some of the questions were about trust and change. They were along the lines of 'why was I to be trusted when what I was saying was different from some great preachers of the past?' and 'how hard it is to make the changes required in one's thinking when what I'm saying is so different from what people have believed up till now.'

I was reminded of the wonderful BBC film shown last weekend about Einstein and Eddington and Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. For some people moving from the dispensationalist paradigm (which still shapes most popular end times thinking even if no one reckons they're a dispensationalist anymore) to something different is as enormous a step as moving from the Newtonian paradigm to Einstein's theory of relativity (so brilliantly conveyed in the BBC film).

Such revolutions happen because evidence piles up that questions the veracity of the previous paradigm. It doesn't happen overnight. Little pieces of evidence relating to one aspect of current thinking change our view of that aspect. This change has an influence over another aspect related to the first one. So if we change our minds about the synoptic apocalypse and see that some of it relates to the fall of Jerusalem, how does that change the way we read other apocalyptic material in the New Testament? Bit by bit our position shifts.

I was also reminded of that fairly naff hymn that contains the great line 'the Lord hath yet more light and truth to break forth from his word.' That remains a fantastic and seminal Baptist principle, it seems to me. we are all still lurking in the shadows hoping the Lord shines a little more light on us as we read, reflect and pray.

Well, we upped the wattage a little last night.

Endings are always beginnings

We reached the end of our journey through Christian Hope yesterday morning. And I think it's fair to say that I've never had such a response to a teaching series. Overwhelmingly, people have talked about how the series has 'put the lights on', connected things they didn't realise were connected and opened vistas of the future that have a profound influence on the present.

Apart from basking in the glow of a well-received series - always nice! - more importantly, it suggests to me that there is a appetite for serious, applied Bible teaching. There are lots of people who want to think about their faith, think about how Christian teaching as well as our experience of Christ impacts our daily living and conversation. This is hugely encouraging to a minister!

We also came to the end of our series on 1 Peter yesterday. As part of an evening service during which we commissioned Clare, our new youth worker, we reflected on what lessons we've learned from reading Peter's wonderful letter. Preparing this series has certainly opened my eyes afresh to how the followers of Jesus relate to one another and the society in which we live. It's left me with lots of things to reflect on regarding social ethics and community life.

I'll probably blog on it at some point. As someone who writes as well as preaches, I think there are books, study guides or something in both these series. I'm sure there are lots of others out there producing good teaching that leaves a mark on its audience that would benefit from wider distribution. Sadly, the publishers seem less interested in such material these days. Am I the only one who has noted that good Bible study material is getting harder to come by? (Or is this just me slipping effortlessly into grumpy old mandom?!)

Welcome to Mali

Amadou et Mariam's Welcome to Mali arrived this morning. And lovely it is too.

It picks up from where the hugely accomplished Dimanche à Bamako left off. But it also represents a big step up.

If you like great songs and fluent African blues guitar, check it out, you'll love it.

More light on the Apocalypse

Well, there's no shortage of interest in Revelation! A big thank you to all who've commented - very helpful suggestions.

I remember looking at the spine of a CUP monograph that read 'The sayings of Jesus Boring'. It is the spine of Eugene Boring's book on the synoptic gospels but it's a tad unfortunate that a designer didn't notice! I've not read Boring on Revelation. I have read Bauckham - both his books are indeed excellent, as is Petersen's Reversed Thunder (though it is currently out of print).

I guess my recommendations are for easily accessible books for church members who will want to read Revelation after our two studies. My concern is that they read John's text with a good, reliable tour guide.

The Apocalypse, it seems to me, is one of those books where the gulf between the academy and the pew is as wide as it gets. Scholars debate the finer points of Revelation's literary structure and highlight the social background of John's original hearers. Meanwhile people in the pews either ignore the book altogether (apart from reading the letters to the seven churches) or fall prey to the lurid speculations of Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye et al.

It's possible that next year we'll tackle Revelation as a church, probably in a series of mid-week Bible studies. so, if anyone has pointers on how to do this well; or notes that they can email me, I'd be grateful...

More great music

I've been listening to Nitin Sawney's London Underground, another strong contender for album of the year.

The record is a series of collaborations loosely based around the theme of how London has changed since the 7/7 attacks. Tracks with Natty, Imogen Heap and Aruba Red stand out but it's all very accomplished and thought-provoking.

I particularly like the way that it drifts from West to East, with Asian musical influences becoming stronger as the album unfolds - like the journey the title suggests - ending with a lovely sitar piece featuring Anoushka Shankar (who I'm guessing might be Ravi's daughter).

The album highlights the international nature of the London music scene. Is there anywhere else on the planet quite so cosmopolitan, offering opportunities for collaboration and cross-over of ideas?

With Amadou et Mariam's new album Welcome to Mali (a record that features various cross-cultural collaborations, including a beautiful track with Damon Albarn) winging its way to me, selecting album of the year promises to be an enjoyable if tricky task. I might have to introduce various categories so that I can have more than one winner!

Getting to grips with the Apocalypse

As part of our series on Christian hope I am doing two mid-week Bible study sessions on issues popularly connected with the so-called 'end times'.

In ten days time I'm tackling the tribulation, rapture, the anti-Christ, the future of geographical Israel and the like, all beliefs that I associate with dispensational premillennialism but continue to exercise quite an influence over people's thinking.

Last week I tackled 'reading Revelation without going nuts', offering some reading strategies and a little New Testament social history to help folk get a handle on this difficult, demanding but fabulous book.

I've had one or two people saying how helpful it was, that for the first time they didn't feel afraid of the Apocalypse. We'll see if the positive response continues through the next session!

In preparing for the evening on Revelation, I found Simon Woodman's new volume The Book of Revelation (in the SCM core texts series) quite helpful - I've only been able to dip into it and haven't read it from cover-to-cover, but I shall keep it close to hand. Simon Ponsonby's And the Lamb wins is also helpful, well written and comprehensive - though I don't agree with all his conclusions. And Stephen Sizer's two books on Christian zionism are utterly indispensable for the historical context within people read Revelation these days.

But I found myself coming back to and recommending people get hold of and use Michael Wilcock's Bible Speaks Today volume and Paul Barnett's Revelation: Apocalypse Now and Then which is equally excellent. If Christians immersed themselves in the text of Revelation and these two reliable guides, they wouldn't go far wrong in understanding what John was and is saying.

I look forward to our next session.

Well, it's been a frantic round here - generally in a good way. Catching up with myself I discover I've been tagged by Catriona with the most complex meme I've ever come across!

Anyway the rules are - you need to pay attention here because you might be tagged at the end of this...

1. Link to the person who tagged you. [done that - see above]
2. Post the rules on your blog. [done that - you're reading them]
3. Write six random things about yourself. [see below]
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them. [see even further below]
5. Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog. [good grief, I have places to be, people to see... ok, I'll do it]
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up. [done]

So, six random things

1. I've just a wonderful day walking on the beach in Whitstable with Linda, my wife. we had fish and chips and mooched in arty shops and spent very little money

2. I was the under-11 record holder for the Leicester Schools 50metres breaststroke, achieved in 1967. Actually, for all I know my record might still stand!

3. When I a financial journalist I interview Alan Clark (of the famous diaries) about import controls (which he was in favour of) and Mrs Thatcher (who we was very much in favour of)

4. I think the Smiths are still England's greatest pop act (apart from the Beetles, of course). 'will the world end in the night time, I really don't know or will the world end in the day time, I don't know...all I do know we're here and it's now, so stretch out and wait' could have been the theme of a presentation I did at church on how to read Revelation without going nuts.

5. I am negotiating with a publisher to write a book on the social history of the New Testament - lots of colour and lovely pictures accompanying text about where the early believers met, what they ate and what the plumbing might have been like in Erastus' house in Corinth. I hope it gets the go-ahead...

6. I discovered the depth of the divide between Brits and folk from the Southern States of the USA, when in an editorial office in Ashville, North Carolina, I was introduced to an eager, young woman feature writer as the editor of a Christian monthly magazine from England; and she replied 'Oh are there are any Christians in England?' I wasn't sure whether this was American irony - which I was sure up to that point didn't exist - or blissful ignorance of anything beyond the Blue Ridge Parkway. The jury is still out.

That wasn't as hard as it might be. The next bit is the hard bit. As Simon and Catriona have tagged almost everyone I know in the blogosphere, I'm going to have to stretch things a bit and tag one or two people whose blog I visit and comment on but who actually don't know me from Adam (sorry guys... No i really am sorry)

So I tag the following Jim Gordon, Stuart Blythe, Jonathan Somerville (who has a great music track posted at the moment), over the hedge and across the pond, Chris Tilling (at the always wonderful christendom blog - I'd love to know six random things about him!) and Sean (I feel we ought to know random things about him to treasure as he disappears to the other side of the world).

Telling the story of hope

To my mind the most remarkable passage in Obama's post-election speech (well, it had me weeping into my first coffee of the day) was towards the end and featured the story of a 106 year old black woman voter. It's still on the BBC website

It has not featured on any of the news coverage I've seen today which I find surprising because the media has been talking about not only historic the victory is but how close historically Obama is to the days of the civil rights movement and before that the voter rights legislation and before that emancipation, etc..

Anyway, this is what he said:

'This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing - Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons - because she was a woman and because of the colour of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America - the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.
When the bombs fell on our harbour and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "We Shall Overcome". Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.'

Amazing - as I said, it had me in tears. As he also said 'while we breathe, we hope' and we hope because sometimes extraordinary things happen.

What an extraordinary day

What an extraordinary night. A mixed race man, born at a time when such unions were constitutionally illegal in many American States, has become the 44th president of the USA.

And as Simon Shama noted in extraordinarily religious language, Obama's election atones for the sin of the founding fathers of the that nation who declared all men equal but owned black men and women as property.

And it's the fulfilment of Martin Luther King's dream that one day Americans would be judged on the quality of their character rather than the colour of their skin.

What an extraordinary night indeed.

Of course, obama is taking on the world's worst job, steering a country that's divided, bankrupt, sliding into recession and fighting unpopular wars in two countries. He needs to build a coalition of all the talents who will address the problems at home and reach out to allies and enemies alike across the world.

But it is a day of hope. Let's pray that those hopes are realised.

God speaks - are we listening?

It's true all sorts of people claim to have heard God speaking. Lots of them are nutters - the overwhelming majority utterly harmless but a few quite dangerous. But that doesn't mean God doesn't speak.

I believe God speaks in and through the Bible, that it is his Word and in it we encounter his mind. The trouble is that as readers tend to be selective - after all, there's a lot to select from and some bits are more conducive to our way of thinking than others.

I think the Goldingay point that I was drawing attention to in the last post was simply this: everything in the Bible is God's word and we need to read it as such. Some of it comforts us and warms the cockles of our hearts. Some of it lances the puss out of us like a needle in a boil. Some of it keeps us awake nights thinking, processing, wondering.

It'd probably be good if people read more, thought more, processed more and spoke less. James had quite a bit to say about that.

We've all received words in church that frankly weren't worth the breath they took to exhale. I've laughed a good many off and moved on. But occasionally we receive a word that stops us in our tracks because it comes from someone who has listened and thought, read and pondered and only spoken at the end of that long silence. What they have said has been like God speaking directly to us.

I'd love everyone to have that experience. I'd love the church to be a place where it happens more often. because in my experience, when it does happen, it results in churches doing stuff out in the world and not just talking to each other about singing and dancing.

If we read the Bible, do we want God to speak to us?

I came across this thought-provoking quote from John Goldingay about how we read the Bible:

If there are no aspects of scripture that they do not like and do not have to wrestle with, then they are kidding themselves. It means that they have bracketed them out or reinterpreted them. That is what as evangelicals we have to do. We know we have to accept all of scripture, so we make it mean something else so we can accept it. As a Bible teacher one of my basic concerns has become simply to get people to read the Bible with open eyes. Some people learn to, others do not. I want people to read the Bible, to be open to finding there things that they had not realized were there, to be enthralled and dazzled and appalled and infuriated and puzzled and worried and stimulated and kept awake at night by these extraordinary words from God, to let their mind and heart and imagination and will be provoked and astonished by them.
(John Goldingay, To the Usual Suspects: One Word Questions (Paternoster, 1998), 153-4)

The truth is that we don't want the Bible to make us feel uncomfortable. We want God's word to come in sugar-coated little gobbets that make us feel fuzzy, warm and loved.

The trouble is that the Bible is not an easy book and God - as CS Lewis - reminds us is a lion and when asked whether that lion is safe, the faun in narnia exclaimed: 'no, of course, he isn't safe. But he is good.'

Sometimes I wonder whether we really want God to speak to us - especially when what he says so often challenges deeply held beliefs. We're not sure that he has the right to correct what we've decided is true of him.

Mixing with the undead

It was cold and dry on the streets of Bromley last night. We had a good time - only five of us due to illness and busy-ness - giving out tons of sweets.

The streets were, of course, thronged with the legions of the undead (it being Halloween and all), so we passed comments on costumes and gave prizes in the form of sweets (to everyone). Jelly babies, it seems, are the preferred sweet of girl revellers, while the boys go for fruit pastilles. Not sure how scientific that is - maybe other Street Pastors would like to research their patches.

We had a stack of good conversations, calmed a few situations, sat with lone women at bus stops and chewed the fat with folk smoking outside their favourite hostelry. Generally the atmosphere was good. Two people said they'd come to church on Sunday evening (not because we invited them but because they said they wanted to continue chatting and asked if they could come - we'll see).

Walked for about four hours by which time our blood was approaching freezing and we were at risk of joining the undead, so we came in and slept.

It continues to be a high point of our month. Maybe we'll volunteer for extra duties...