Just back from a great two days with Urban expression in Birmingham. On Friday the chairs of steering groups and regional co-ordinators met for a catch up and to share ideas and concerns. On Saturday, associates, team members, mission partners and others met to reflect, to hear stories and catch up with one another. We were well looked after by the good people at BMS' International Mission Centre in selly Oak.
I was doing the main plenary session on Saturday morning and I think I was a tad ambitious in what I thought we could cover, so the final section was a bit rushed. However, I think I stimulated some thought and I certainly had some good feedback afterwards.
This morning, I am visiting a local church to deliver a lecture and do and a question and answer session on the social history of the New Testament (the stuff in my book basically, three months ahead of publication). I'm a little uncertain how this will go, but the minister's keen for it to happen, so we'll see....
Today is the first Sunday in advent. We begin to reflect on our hope in a world where hope for many seems in short supply. One of the things I was impressed by yesterday in hearing some of the stories of UE teams around the UK was that lots of small-scale hopeful things are happening in some very challenging communities.
I guess something we can all do in advent is to ask God to open our eyes to see what he is doing in quiet ways in and through faithful communities of his followers, little signs that he is on the case, that the good news of his coming to save his people is rippling out, bringing hope and a fresh start.
Remember to go over to look at hopeful imagination which has started posting advent thoughts this morning. Lots of bloggers will be sharing reflections through this season (including me).
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Getting things in proportion
The furore over the bishop of Willesdon is a bit overblown, isn't it? I know Pete Broadbent from Spring Harvest. He is a wonderfully vivacious, shoot-from-the-hip Bible teacher with a keen insight into how the church needs to be communicating its faith to a sceptical world. Oh, and he's an Arsenal fan and a Christian socialist.
Perhaps he shouldn't have facebooked what he did but the reaction of the bishop of London is extraordinary. His statement to clergy in the diocese reads:
Dear Colleague, "I was appalled by the Bishop of Willesden’s comments about the forthcoming royal marriage. In common with most of the country I share the joy which the news of the engagement has brought. I have now had an opportunity to discuss with Bishop Peter how his comments came to be made and I have noted his unreserved apology. Nevertheless, I have asked him to withdraw from public ministry until further notice. I have also been in touch with St James’s Palace to express my own dismay on behalf of the Church.
Arrangements will need to be made in Bishop Peter’s absence and further details will be given in due course. With thanks for your partnership in the Gospel.
A good bishop has been silenced for having the temerity to disagree with a senior colleague about an issue as trivial as a royal wedding. Is it any wonder that the church's credibility is at a low ebb?
So the upshot is that the men in pointy hats will tell us what we think about the forthcoming royal wedding and those who differ will be invited to take time out from all ministry. We just have to smile and pay the bill (estimated at £5bn by the CBI and Daily telegraph in lost productivity because of the extended bank holiday weekend on the back of the previous 4 day weekend).
I think I'll join Pete in Calais for a party...
Perhaps he shouldn't have facebooked what he did but the reaction of the bishop of London is extraordinary. His statement to clergy in the diocese reads:
Dear Colleague, "I was appalled by the Bishop of Willesden’s comments about the forthcoming royal marriage. In common with most of the country I share the joy which the news of the engagement has brought. I have now had an opportunity to discuss with Bishop Peter how his comments came to be made and I have noted his unreserved apology. Nevertheless, I have asked him to withdraw from public ministry until further notice. I have also been in touch with St James’s Palace to express my own dismay on behalf of the Church.
Arrangements will need to be made in Bishop Peter’s absence and further details will be given in due course. With thanks for your partnership in the Gospel.
A good bishop has been silenced for having the temerity to disagree with a senior colleague about an issue as trivial as a royal wedding. Is it any wonder that the church's credibility is at a low ebb?
So the upshot is that the men in pointy hats will tell us what we think about the forthcoming royal wedding and those who differ will be invited to take time out from all ministry. We just have to smile and pay the bill (estimated at £5bn by the CBI and Daily telegraph in lost productivity because of the extended bank holiday weekend on the back of the previous 4 day weekend).
I think I'll join Pete in Calais for a party...
Friday, November 19, 2010
Lots of bits and pieces
I seem to be starting a lot of blogs these days by saying how busy I am. Life's been full and lots of things have whizzed by with me going 'oh, I should blog about that... too late. Ah well.'
So, we've had a royal engagement (yawn). Obviously very happy for the couple, not happy for the distraction it will be from the real lives of people blighted our current government's fixation with changing things that would be better left alone, however.
And I've discovered some new music - Joseph Arthur. You've probably all been listening to him for years but I caught up with him a month or so ago. I kept hearing his song In the Sun accompanying a Davidoff ad and thinking that's a really good song but a bizarre soundtrack to naff perfume commercial. I was able to download a clutch of free tracks and found a few more really cheap and have been listening ever since. it's good stuff. He's a song writer with a nice turn of phrase and a great ear for a melody. The free stuff is still available from his website (here).
And I'm reading an interesting book by David Goertz, former editor of Leadership Journal, called Death by Suburb. I was drawn to the title because I thought it might diagnose what I was suffering from! It's quite good, but not the book I was expecting it to be.
I've been on the look out for stuff about ministry in the 'burbs and there isn't a lot (if you know of things, please share). Goertz's book is about how various spiritual disciplines can help prevent the suburbs sucking the life out of you. So it's quite helpful from that point of view. But there's not a lot of analysis about how the 'burbs work and what a church that's faithful to Jesus might look like among our manicured lawns and loft conversions.
I got news of yet another group church plant in our neighbourhood. I went to the web site and it seems to be just more of the same but intriguingly it kept telling me what the time were and that I'd be very welcome but there was no indication of where they were meeting which seemed a little curious. So, I'll not be going.
I'm having a blast teaching at Spurgeon's. It's such fun that I'm expecting someone to come into my lecture room and escort me out saying there's been a huge mistake and that a grown-up has to take my class now! My group of students are surprisingly eager for 8:30 on a Monday morning, ask really good questions and seem to be getting a lot out of the sessions. The proof of that will be when I mark their essays, of course.
So, we've had a royal engagement (yawn). Obviously very happy for the couple, not happy for the distraction it will be from the real lives of people blighted our current government's fixation with changing things that would be better left alone, however.
And I've discovered some new music - Joseph Arthur. You've probably all been listening to him for years but I caught up with him a month or so ago. I kept hearing his song In the Sun accompanying a Davidoff ad and thinking that's a really good song but a bizarre soundtrack to naff perfume commercial. I was able to download a clutch of free tracks and found a few more really cheap and have been listening ever since. it's good stuff. He's a song writer with a nice turn of phrase and a great ear for a melody. The free stuff is still available from his website (here).
And I'm reading an interesting book by David Goertz, former editor of Leadership Journal, called Death by Suburb. I was drawn to the title because I thought it might diagnose what I was suffering from! It's quite good, but not the book I was expecting it to be.
I've been on the look out for stuff about ministry in the 'burbs and there isn't a lot (if you know of things, please share). Goertz's book is about how various spiritual disciplines can help prevent the suburbs sucking the life out of you. So it's quite helpful from that point of view. But there's not a lot of analysis about how the 'burbs work and what a church that's faithful to Jesus might look like among our manicured lawns and loft conversions.
I got news of yet another group church plant in our neighbourhood. I went to the web site and it seems to be just more of the same but intriguingly it kept telling me what the time were and that I'd be very welcome but there was no indication of where they were meeting which seemed a little curious. So, I'll not be going.
I'm having a blast teaching at Spurgeon's. It's such fun that I'm expecting someone to come into my lecture room and escort me out saying there's been a huge mistake and that a grown-up has to take my class now! My group of students are surprisingly eager for 8:30 on a Monday morning, ask really good questions and seem to be getting a lot out of the sessions. The proof of that will be when I mark their essays, of course.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Does common language really lead to integration?
Radio 4 broadcast a very moving documentary in its 9:00am slot this morning about twin sisters who have converted to religious faith from an agnostic upbringing - one to Christianity, the other to Islam. The programme followed their journey over the course of a year when their mother was diagnosed with cancer and they were each expecting their second children.
The dialogue between the sisters was fascinating and the eventual awakening of their terminally ill mother to the possibility of God was amazing. It's well worth checking out on iplayer if you haven't heard it before.
It followed a report on the Today programme about the integration of Muslims into German society following the publication of a controversial book arguing that the wave of Islamic immigration into Germany has not brought any benefits and Angela Merkel's recent speech announcing that multi-culturalism had failed.
I was left scratching my head at the end of it. Didn't the Germans invite Turkish 'guest workers' to their country to take the plethora of factory jobs being created in the sixties and seventies by the then West Germany's economic boom?
One of the points being made was that migrants were slow to learn German or in some cases were not learning German at all. It's an example of the tendency to judge the success or failure of integration purely on the language issue. We think that if people learn our language, they integrate. I think what the Radio 4 documentary this morning suggested was that sisters with a common language and common upbringing were not 'integrated' in the sense that they saw eye-to-eye on some pretty fundamental issues arising from their different faiths.
Common language helps but it is not the touchstone of integration. I note the fact that the early Christians spoke Greek which was OK in the Greek speaking parts of the Roman empire - Greece, Asia minor (though even there Greek was not the native language, it was an imperial imposition); but what about in Rome? Rome was a Latin-speaking city yet when Paul wrote to the churches there, he wrote in Greek. He was writing to a migrant cult that had taken hold in the slums where the 'guest workers' lived, those who had come seeking a better life in the imperial capital.
Paul didn't tell the Roman followers of Jesus that the key to success in mission was learning Latin. It would probably have helped. If Robert Jewett is right, one of the reasons Paul wrote to the churches in the city was get support for his mission to Spain that was being funded by Phoebe. The support in question could well have Latin speakers who would have helped smooth Paul's passage into that part of the empire.
Clearly speaking the host language helps integration at the some pretty basic levels - shopping, accessing health care and education. So maybe the Germans should have been welcoming their guest workers with help to acquire the necessary language skills; basic hospitality would suggest that.
But I'm not sure that lack of common language is the reason for opposition to migration across Europe, a continent whose history has been made by wave after wave of migration. We need to look elsewhere to find that.
The dialogue between the sisters was fascinating and the eventual awakening of their terminally ill mother to the possibility of God was amazing. It's well worth checking out on iplayer if you haven't heard it before.
It followed a report on the Today programme about the integration of Muslims into German society following the publication of a controversial book arguing that the wave of Islamic immigration into Germany has not brought any benefits and Angela Merkel's recent speech announcing that multi-culturalism had failed.
I was left scratching my head at the end of it. Didn't the Germans invite Turkish 'guest workers' to their country to take the plethora of factory jobs being created in the sixties and seventies by the then West Germany's economic boom?
One of the points being made was that migrants were slow to learn German or in some cases were not learning German at all. It's an example of the tendency to judge the success or failure of integration purely on the language issue. We think that if people learn our language, they integrate. I think what the Radio 4 documentary this morning suggested was that sisters with a common language and common upbringing were not 'integrated' in the sense that they saw eye-to-eye on some pretty fundamental issues arising from their different faiths.
Common language helps but it is not the touchstone of integration. I note the fact that the early Christians spoke Greek which was OK in the Greek speaking parts of the Roman empire - Greece, Asia minor (though even there Greek was not the native language, it was an imperial imposition); but what about in Rome? Rome was a Latin-speaking city yet when Paul wrote to the churches there, he wrote in Greek. He was writing to a migrant cult that had taken hold in the slums where the 'guest workers' lived, those who had come seeking a better life in the imperial capital.
Paul didn't tell the Roman followers of Jesus that the key to success in mission was learning Latin. It would probably have helped. If Robert Jewett is right, one of the reasons Paul wrote to the churches in the city was get support for his mission to Spain that was being funded by Phoebe. The support in question could well have Latin speakers who would have helped smooth Paul's passage into that part of the empire.
Clearly speaking the host language helps integration at the some pretty basic levels - shopping, accessing health care and education. So maybe the Germans should have been welcoming their guest workers with help to acquire the necessary language skills; basic hospitality would suggest that.
But I'm not sure that lack of common language is the reason for opposition to migration across Europe, a continent whose history has been made by wave after wave of migration. We need to look elsewhere to find that.
Thursday, November 04, 2010
A footnote to the new NIV
The eagle-eyed have begun to pick up the differences between the TNIV and the new NIV. There is a good round-up of opinions here. I wonder if the new version is now written in stone or the translation committee is still open to the opinions of its readers. maybe worth sending your comments.
I'm puzzled as to why the new version of Matthew 4:4 has reintroduced the term 'man' when the Greek anthropos clearly means humanity as a whole and which the TNIV properly rendered 'people'. Nothing is gained by suggesting that it's only men who eat bread and read scripture.
I'm puzzled as to why the new version of Matthew 4:4 has reintroduced the term 'man' when the Greek anthropos clearly means humanity as a whole and which the TNIV properly rendered 'people'. Nothing is gained by suggesting that it's only men who eat bread and read scripture.
Preserving the best of Today's NIV
Something unexpectedly good appears to be happening to the NIV (I never thought I'd type that sentence!)
A while ago the publishers of said ubiquitous translation announced that the TNIV (my favoured incarnation of the NIV) would be withdrawn in 2011 when the new, revised NIV was produced. My heart sank. I feared another rowing back from the great strides made in the inclusive language NIV (withdrawn in howls of fundamentalist protect in the late 90s); it seemed as if the TNIV would suffer the same fate.
But the new version is now available on Bible Gateway (here); and lo, it is good; it is very good; in fact Philippians 2 (often my touchstone of how good a translation is) appears identical to the TNIV. Hallelujah and break out the party poppers!
Does this mean the 2011 NIV will be a repackaged TNIV? Oh, I do hope so: by far the best NIV backed by the marketing muscle of Zondervan and Hodder (something the TNIV hasn't been).
A while ago the publishers of said ubiquitous translation announced that the TNIV (my favoured incarnation of the NIV) would be withdrawn in 2011 when the new, revised NIV was produced. My heart sank. I feared another rowing back from the great strides made in the inclusive language NIV (withdrawn in howls of fundamentalist protect in the late 90s); it seemed as if the TNIV would suffer the same fate.
But the new version is now available on Bible Gateway (here); and lo, it is good; it is very good; in fact Philippians 2 (often my touchstone of how good a translation is) appears identical to the TNIV. Hallelujah and break out the party poppers!
Does this mean the 2011 NIV will be a repackaged TNIV? Oh, I do hope so: by far the best NIV backed by the marketing muscle of Zondervan and Hodder (something the TNIV hasn't been).
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Getting to grips with rewrites
Today I start rewriting and recasting my dissertation, sharpening the arguments, creating better signposting and even adding commas (my supervisor is very keen on commas). This should all be relatively straight-forward - though I have to substantially rewrite the economics chapter (mapping that out is today's task). It was the first one I wrote and I was constantly feeling my way into a style of argument as I wrote it, even making up my thesis as I went along, so I suspect it makes a number of contradictory cases simultaneously.
The bit of this I am not really looking forward to is compiling the bibliography. So is there anyone out there who has discovered a good tool for doing this - one where you put the author's name into a search engine and all his/her books come up in full bibliography style, for example, or where an ISBN number will yield the full title and publsihing details in a form that can be transported into a Word document at the click of a mouse?
So, better get a coffee...
The bit of this I am not really looking forward to is compiling the bibliography. So is there anyone out there who has discovered a good tool for doing this - one where you put the author's name into a search engine and all his/her books come up in full bibliography style, for example, or where an ISBN number will yield the full title and publsihing details in a form that can be transported into a Word document at the click of a mouse?
So, better get a coffee...
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
More good listening and reading
As well as good reading (I've just reviewed Stuart Murray's Naked Anabaptist for Spurgeon's - wonderful!), I've also been discovering interesting music. I am, of course, working away at a whole load of things as well!
Gungor are an American worship band - three words that usually have me running for the door. They are, however, pretty good. Excellent tunes, poignant lyrics that touch on real things and a complete absence of bombastic triumphalism - which makes a pleasant change - and lovely guitar playing.
I am already tagging one or two tracks for use at our later service as calls to worship or aids to response. You can check them out here where you'll find all the usual info/downloads/pictures/videos/etc.
Here's a flavour of the lyrical content that had me pondering grace the other day:
All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found
Could a garden come up from this ground at all
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us
All around
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found
in You
You make me new, You are making me new
I was alerted to them at Robin Parry's consistently excellent blog (here).
And talking of good blogs, check out David Kerrigan's excellent post on Israel/Palestine today (here). David consistently shows himself to be a wise irenic missional leader.
Gungor are an American worship band - three words that usually have me running for the door. They are, however, pretty good. Excellent tunes, poignant lyrics that touch on real things and a complete absence of bombastic triumphalism - which makes a pleasant change - and lovely guitar playing.
I am already tagging one or two tracks for use at our later service as calls to worship or aids to response. You can check them out here where you'll find all the usual info/downloads/pictures/videos/etc.
Here's a flavour of the lyrical content that had me pondering grace the other day:
All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found
Could a garden come up from this ground at all
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us
All around
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found
in You
You make me new, You are making me new
I was alerted to them at Robin Parry's consistently excellent blog (here).
And talking of good blogs, check out David Kerrigan's excellent post on Israel/Palestine today (here). David consistently shows himself to be a wise irenic missional leader.
Continued learning from the early Christians
I am reading a really excellent short book by Morna Hooker and Frances Young. Called Holiness & Mission: Learning from the early church about mission in the city (SCM), it consists of the Hugh Price Hughes lectures delivered in London earlier this year.
Hooker and Young, colossi of New Testament and patristic studies respectively, write two chapters each dealing with their specialism and then a joint chapter drawing lessons. It's wonderfully erudite, concise and yet chock-full of information and insight.
I wish it had been available six months ago when I was mapping out my MA because it would have helped me shape the argument. It covers not just the NT period but the sweep of early church history up to and a little beyond Constantine. I strongly recommend it. It's made me want to read more by Frances young.
Hooker and Young, colossi of New Testament and patristic studies respectively, write two chapters each dealing with their specialism and then a joint chapter drawing lessons. It's wonderfully erudite, concise and yet chock-full of information and insight.
I wish it had been available six months ago when I was mapping out my MA because it would have helped me shape the argument. It covers not just the NT period but the sweep of early church history up to and a little beyond Constantine. I strongly recommend it. It's made me want to read more by Frances young.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
A million souls struggling for the light
Been busy and unwell - hence the absence.
However, I thought I'd post my latest contribution to the church magazine - for those of my congregation who don't read the print version and anyone who's interested.
Recently I had an epiphany. It occurred during an ad for Davidoff men's fragrance. It wasn’t that I suddenly wanted to smell like ocean waves crashing on rocks or silk shimmering against a sunset sky (whatever that might smell like!). It was that I was surprisingly aware of God’s voice leaking into my ears through the TV speakers in the ad’s soundtrack: the fragile voice of Joseph Arthur, borne aloft on gentle acoustic guitar, sang:
I pictured you in the sun wondering what went wrong
And falling down on your knees asking for sympathy
And being caught in between all you wish for and all you seen
And trying to find anything you can feel that you can believe in
May God's love be with you
Always....
May God's love be with you
Quite what this has to do with selling perfume is lost on me. But I’ve loved the song since I first heard it and sensed a sensitive soul groping for the light. I am inclined to take such songs at face value and frequently find myself pondering what experience has led the writer to involve God in his search for peace or love or a sense that life might amount to something.
I don't know anymore what it's for
I'm not even sure if there is anyone who is in the sun;
Will you help me to understand'Cause i been caught in between all I wish for and all I need
Maybe you're not even sure what it's for any more than me
May God's love be with you
Always...
Nothing is certain – except perhaps God’s love.
I listen to a lot of pop and rock music and frequently find myself hearing God in my iPod headphones in truly unexpected ways. On our Big Welcome Sunday at the end of September, I shared my love of David Bowie’s 1976 album Station to Station and got a hugely unexpected response from people who don’t listen to or like David Bowie but who similarly heard God speaking to them that morning through the thin white duke’s anguish:
And I'm trying hard to fit among your scheme of things
It's safer than a strange land, but I still care for myself
And I don't stand in my own light
Lord, lord, my prayer flies like a word on a wing
My prayer flies like a word on a wing
Does my prayer fit in with your scheme of things?
Bowie knows we live in an ‘age of grand illusion’ where nothing is certain and where glamour and fame does nothing to nourish the soul. His voice is part of a chorus line from contemporary music all giving melody to the emptiness behind the glitz. The tragedy, of course, is that so many people look in from the outside and think that the celebrity life is one of unalloyed joy and fulfilment and crave it like mad.
I think God speaks to me through this music because he wants me to hear what people who don’t come to church are saying about life and more importantly about him. Bowie’s Word on a Wing longs for a place of belonging: ‘I'm trying hard to fit among your scheme of things… Does my prayer fit in with your scheme of things?’
When Nathanael was brought to Jesus by his friend Philip in John 1:43-51, he received a welcome that he probably wasn’t expecting. Jesus affirms the good things in his life and accepts him as part of his team. All the important stuff about what he believes about God can be sorted out as they eat and travel together.
What a world of popular music tells me is that we need welcome people like Jesus welcomed Nathanael. In so many of the tunes I listen to I hear God saying ‘are you getting this? Are you feeling the pain in this music? Are you ready to welcome the people who feel and speak this way, affirm the good in them and travel with them as they find out more about me?’
We’re often quick to write off such people – and their legions of fans – as merely hostile to the things of God and not really people like us. Well, they aren’t people like us, but they are people loved by God, people he is urging us to welcome into our community and so we can help them with the deep questions they are asking about life and God.
Joseph Arthur wonders ‘if there is anyone who is in the sun/will you help me to understand…?’ Are we a community where people with similar struggles can come and find support as they wrestle with their questions? It’s the kind of community that Jesus was building at the beginning of John’s gospel with the likes of Andrew, Philip and Nathanael. So it might be the kind of community he’d like us to build here in Bromley. How about it?
Friday, October 15, 2010
Being church in a harsh economic climate
One of the things the church has a chance to be is a community that models a different approach to life. For many years it's been popular to describe this as 'counter-cultural'. The trouble is that this term has been frustratingly vague and often informed as much by cultural factors as by Biblical thinking.
Trevor, commenting on a previous post about social solidarity, lamented the fact that churches aren't really talking about what's happening in our country. Part of the reason for this, I guess (rather obviously), is that within our churches are people who voted for most of the options on offer in May's election; there are people who want to pay less tax and so support public spending cuts and those who think the state has a responsibility to protect the poorest in our community. Because of these divisions of opinion, we tend to steer clear of talking about these issues in church.
Trevor reminds us of Jeremiah 29 - a text that called me into ministry 30 years ago - and suggests that 'our churches aren’t going to be able to prosper if the communities around them are being ravaged by cutbacks and redundancies.' That's food for thought, isn't it?
What does it mean, in the context of impending spending cuts and the general fragility of our economy, the squeeze on household incomes and general gloom about our economic prospects following years of boom, to 'seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.'? How will we 'pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper'?
The word rendered 'peace and prosperity' is the Hebrew word shalom that offers a picture of wholeness, well-being, the welfare of everyone in the community. Church, according to Jeremiah, is a gathering, a collection, a community of people who embody the values pre-supposed by this rich Hebrew word. What does that look like?
Peter reflects on this passage in Jeremiah in his first letter and one of his observations is that 'as foreigners and exiles, [we] abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.' (1 Peter 2:11-12).
Perhaps if we see sinful desires as referring less to sex and more to our economic lives (greed, for example; the use of our cash only to satisfy our wants and desires and not the needs of those around us), we could begin to reflect on how this call to godly living might resource counter-communal living in today's harsh economic reality.
Trevor, commenting on a previous post about social solidarity, lamented the fact that churches aren't really talking about what's happening in our country. Part of the reason for this, I guess (rather obviously), is that within our churches are people who voted for most of the options on offer in May's election; there are people who want to pay less tax and so support public spending cuts and those who think the state has a responsibility to protect the poorest in our community. Because of these divisions of opinion, we tend to steer clear of talking about these issues in church.
Trevor reminds us of Jeremiah 29 - a text that called me into ministry 30 years ago - and suggests that 'our churches aren’t going to be able to prosper if the communities around them are being ravaged by cutbacks and redundancies.' That's food for thought, isn't it?
What does it mean, in the context of impending spending cuts and the general fragility of our economy, the squeeze on household incomes and general gloom about our economic prospects following years of boom, to 'seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.'? How will we 'pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper'?
The word rendered 'peace and prosperity' is the Hebrew word shalom that offers a picture of wholeness, well-being, the welfare of everyone in the community. Church, according to Jeremiah, is a gathering, a collection, a community of people who embody the values pre-supposed by this rich Hebrew word. What does that look like?
Peter reflects on this passage in Jeremiah in his first letter and one of his observations is that 'as foreigners and exiles, [we] abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.' (1 Peter 2:11-12).
Perhaps if we see sinful desires as referring less to sex and more to our economic lives (greed, for example; the use of our cash only to satisfy our wants and desires and not the needs of those around us), we could begin to reflect on how this call to godly living might resource counter-communal living in today's harsh economic reality.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
So, exactly what is church, then?
We had a great time with one of our Urban Expression teams yesterday evening - reflecting on the stories from the past year, reviewing progress, setting some goals. In the course of it, all kinds of thoughts started buzzing round my mind.
The biggest was the one that's been there for years: exactly what is church, then? How do you know when you stumble into it? What marks it out from other gatherings?
Time was when church planters were working with a blueprint. They had been sent by their church to reproduce it in a new location. So a group of the willing set off to find a venue in a place where there wasn't a church like the one they'd come from, and they started one. They brought musicians, screens, projectors, hymn books, bibles, chairs, lecterns, an urn to boil water for coffee; they invited people from the neighbourhood; and hey presto - church!
Maybe that still works in some places. But it doesn't actually answer the question at the top of this post.
One of the things I'm discovering as I talk with people involved in UE is that answering that question is nothing like as easy as we thought for two reasons.
The first is that all the religious trappings of a gathering don't make it church. As the young son of one of team from last night observed 'church isn't the building, it's the people, silly.' Quite right. But which people?
The second is that Paul planted churches all over the Greek Roman empire with none of the trappings noted above in evidence. No special hall, no musicians, no projector, screen, chairs, books, etc, etc.
We don't doubt that his gathering in a workshop or an upstairs room was church, despite the absence of anything we seem to think is essential. So, what made it church? And how did he know when he'd planted one? And would his answer help us in the situations in which we're trying to do mission and plant churches?
Answers on a post card, please...
The biggest was the one that's been there for years: exactly what is church, then? How do you know when you stumble into it? What marks it out from other gatherings?
Time was when church planters were working with a blueprint. They had been sent by their church to reproduce it in a new location. So a group of the willing set off to find a venue in a place where there wasn't a church like the one they'd come from, and they started one. They brought musicians, screens, projectors, hymn books, bibles, chairs, lecterns, an urn to boil water for coffee; they invited people from the neighbourhood; and hey presto - church!
Maybe that still works in some places. But it doesn't actually answer the question at the top of this post.
One of the things I'm discovering as I talk with people involved in UE is that answering that question is nothing like as easy as we thought for two reasons.
The first is that all the religious trappings of a gathering don't make it church. As the young son of one of team from last night observed 'church isn't the building, it's the people, silly.' Quite right. But which people?
The second is that Paul planted churches all over the Greek Roman empire with none of the trappings noted above in evidence. No special hall, no musicians, no projector, screen, chairs, books, etc, etc.
We don't doubt that his gathering in a workshop or an upstairs room was church, despite the absence of anything we seem to think is essential. So, what made it church? And how did he know when he'd planted one? And would his answer help us in the situations in which we're trying to do mission and plant churches?
Answers on a post card, please...
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
The gossamer threads of social solidarity
I've hung back over recent days from commenting on what's happening politically - largely due to a mixture of disbelief and incandescent rage that means my fingers don't kiss the keyboard properly! But following the publication of the Browne review into higher education, a thought that has been taking shape over the past couple of weeks finally became expressible.
It's not the hypocrisy of Vince Cable accepting a proposal to more than double tuition fees barely six months after signing a pledge to oppose any rise in fees. It's not the mantra of the government saying they have no choice because they didn't know how bad the deficit was until they took office, despite the fact the size of the deficit hasn't changed since last autumn's pre-budget report (as the Insttitute for Fiscal Studies keeps pointing out). Sadly, such things are just par for the course from politicians. And we can forgive that.
What has struck me is that the debate about benefits, tuition fees and public services is couched in entirely consumerist terms. It's all about 'what's in it for me?' and 'what am I as a tax payer prepared to spend on other people?' (as though we are preparing a Christmas list and totting up how much uncile Bill is worth against cousin Eileen).
There is precious little sense of society (so maybe Mrs Thatcher was right!), barely any notion of our solidarity with one another.
Child benefit is universal because it reminds us all that we are collectively responsible for raising the next generation - the benefit is merely a token of our solidarity in that task; it says that as a society we think raising children matters more than anything else and we'll all poull together to ensure parents are supported in it. We invest in education because it is good for the country to have a literate and skilled citizenry not just in economic terms but in cultural and social terms as well.
There was a great example of this in last week's Sunday Times. Eleanor Mills wrote a think piece in the News Review section headlined 'without God, culture is lost'. Now this was not a rant by a Christian feeling marginalised, wanting a return to the good old days when we told everyone how to live their lives rather than Richard Dawkins. It was rather a piece based on the simple observation that without some knowledge of the Bible and Christian tradition, vast amounts of our cultural heritage are simply incomprehensible. Can you read Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, our great poetic and literary tradition without knowing the broad Christian culture in which their talents flowered? Can you 'see' the art on the walls of the National Gallery and other great institutions without some understanding of the theological palette of the artist?
I think Ms Mills answer was that we need to educate people so they understand this or something very important about our culture will be lost and we will the poorer in all sorts of ways - and not just economically, though it will have economic effects. And who pays for this? We all do because we all think our culture is worth investing in. And that's best done out of general taxation, managed by those people we have elected to be guardians of the things we value.
Well, it struck me listening to Vince Cable yesterday, that this argument applies across the piece. Our society is knitted together on gossamer threads of obligation and common interest. It's not for nothing that we talk about the body politic; and if society is a body, then when one part is unhealthy, the whole body suffers. It's a notion derived as much from Pauline theology as it is from Plato and Aristotle.
It's easy to cut spending - though as Mrs Thatcher and all who've attempted to slash and burn in her wake discovered, not as easy as talking about it on party platforms; it's much harder to repair the torn ligaments, ruptured muscles and broken bones that can result if it's done without care for the fragility of our social solidarity.
It's not the hypocrisy of Vince Cable accepting a proposal to more than double tuition fees barely six months after signing a pledge to oppose any rise in fees. It's not the mantra of the government saying they have no choice because they didn't know how bad the deficit was until they took office, despite the fact the size of the deficit hasn't changed since last autumn's pre-budget report (as the Insttitute for Fiscal Studies keeps pointing out). Sadly, such things are just par for the course from politicians. And we can forgive that.
What has struck me is that the debate about benefits, tuition fees and public services is couched in entirely consumerist terms. It's all about 'what's in it for me?' and 'what am I as a tax payer prepared to spend on other people?' (as though we are preparing a Christmas list and totting up how much uncile Bill is worth against cousin Eileen).
There is precious little sense of society (so maybe Mrs Thatcher was right!), barely any notion of our solidarity with one another.
Child benefit is universal because it reminds us all that we are collectively responsible for raising the next generation - the benefit is merely a token of our solidarity in that task; it says that as a society we think raising children matters more than anything else and we'll all poull together to ensure parents are supported in it. We invest in education because it is good for the country to have a literate and skilled citizenry not just in economic terms but in cultural and social terms as well.
There was a great example of this in last week's Sunday Times. Eleanor Mills wrote a think piece in the News Review section headlined 'without God, culture is lost'. Now this was not a rant by a Christian feeling marginalised, wanting a return to the good old days when we told everyone how to live their lives rather than Richard Dawkins. It was rather a piece based on the simple observation that without some knowledge of the Bible and Christian tradition, vast amounts of our cultural heritage are simply incomprehensible. Can you read Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, our great poetic and literary tradition without knowing the broad Christian culture in which their talents flowered? Can you 'see' the art on the walls of the National Gallery and other great institutions without some understanding of the theological palette of the artist?
I think Ms Mills answer was that we need to educate people so they understand this or something very important about our culture will be lost and we will the poorer in all sorts of ways - and not just economically, though it will have economic effects. And who pays for this? We all do because we all think our culture is worth investing in. And that's best done out of general taxation, managed by those people we have elected to be guardians of the things we value.
Well, it struck me listening to Vince Cable yesterday, that this argument applies across the piece. Our society is knitted together on gossamer threads of obligation and common interest. It's not for nothing that we talk about the body politic; and if society is a body, then when one part is unhealthy, the whole body suffers. It's a notion derived as much from Pauline theology as it is from Plato and Aristotle.
It's easy to cut spending - though as Mrs Thatcher and all who've attempted to slash and burn in her wake discovered, not as easy as talking about it on party platforms; it's much harder to repair the torn ligaments, ruptured muscles and broken bones that can result if it's done without care for the fragility of our social solidarity.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Those wonderful Smoke Fairies
Finally got to listen to the new Smoke Fairies album Through low Light and Trees. And it's really pretty wonderful. The surprising thing is that it hasn't really registered on reviewers radars. This is a shame as this is English eerie folk at its best - like Tom Waites channelling Sandy Denny (or vice versa). Check it out.
Monday, October 04, 2010
Busy but bursting with brilliance
Life's been pretty full-on over the past few days. but excellent.
On Saturday, Robin and Sarah got married and it was lovely to conduct their wedding and share in the celebrations afterwards.
On Sunday morning, we had a storming baptismal service. three young people were baptised in a packed church. Their testimonies were amazing - each one of them has clearly had a profound encounter with God and want to live their lives as followers of Jesus.
There were a lot of people there who don't usually go to church and afterwards a number of them said that if they'd known church was like that, they'd have taken it more seriously. So, we'll see if any make a return visit sometime soon. It will mean that we'll have to make some changes - which is a good thing!
One of the things I take away from the service is that something fast-moving, lively, with many people involved and nothing lasting more than five minutes, does seem to scratch where lots of people itch.
We also had a good later service with a number of visitors and returnees and a good atmosphere as we reflected on prayer and broke bread together.
And then today, I started teaching New Testament at Spurgeon's College. Well, to be strictly accurate, the college's full-time NT lecturer has gone to Durham and they've asked a couple of local ministers to help out. So, I'll be teaching two hours a week for this year on Monday mornings from 8:30am. And today's session went really well. A good class of 15 alert students, who asked good questions and made intelligent contributions. So, I'm looking to sharing the journey through 1 Corinthians and the life and though of Paul with them.
Tomorrow, I think, I'll need a lie-down!
On Saturday, Robin and Sarah got married and it was lovely to conduct their wedding and share in the celebrations afterwards.
On Sunday morning, we had a storming baptismal service. three young people were baptised in a packed church. Their testimonies were amazing - each one of them has clearly had a profound encounter with God and want to live their lives as followers of Jesus.
There were a lot of people there who don't usually go to church and afterwards a number of them said that if they'd known church was like that, they'd have taken it more seriously. So, we'll see if any make a return visit sometime soon. It will mean that we'll have to make some changes - which is a good thing!
One of the things I take away from the service is that something fast-moving, lively, with many people involved and nothing lasting more than five minutes, does seem to scratch where lots of people itch.
We also had a good later service with a number of visitors and returnees and a good atmosphere as we reflected on prayer and broke bread together.
And then today, I started teaching New Testament at Spurgeon's College. Well, to be strictly accurate, the college's full-time NT lecturer has gone to Durham and they've asked a couple of local ministers to help out. So, I'll be teaching two hours a week for this year on Monday mornings from 8:30am. And today's session went really well. A good class of 15 alert students, who asked good questions and made intelligent contributions. So, I'm looking to sharing the journey through 1 Corinthians and the life and though of Paul with them.
Tomorrow, I think, I'll need a lie-down!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Soaking up the beauty and mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau
A footnote to our recent French holiday. On one of the hottest days - it was 35 degrees according to the car's thermometer (though I wasn't sure that could be accurate) - we walked up to the tiny hilltop village of Rennes-le-Chateau. This unprepossessing, if moderately attractive village, was propelled to international stardom of a kind by the Da Vinci Code. What surprised me was that the village bore few marks of this international notoriety.
The reason for the interest of the conspiracy theorists in this little place is the extraordinary ministry of the priest Berenger Sauniere who arrived in 1885. Through his ministry he renovated the church, built a substantial villa and commissioned art to grace the grounds of these buildings.
The mystery is where the money came from to do all this. The myth makers think he found ancient cathar texts that led him to a treasure hoard or that he discovered the truth about Mary Magdalene and Jesus and was handsomely paid off by the Catholic hierarchy to keep quiet (he certainly never revealed his secret). Others suggest that his largess was the result of fraud on a significant scale.What is undeniable is that the the building work he carried out magnificent (if occasionally bordering on folly). But his artistic taste suggests a fierce Catholic orthodoxy and not the work of a man who had discovered that Mary Magdalene pitched up in this village to preserve the bloodline of Jesus that led to the rise of the Merovingian kings.
The priest himself spoke modestly of his aims for the his work. He wanted to turn the hilltop fortified, though by the time he got there, significantly run-down town, into a place of peace, tranquility and spiritual enlightenment. 'The hordes of warriors have been replaced by peaceful warriors. They come here to admire, within this incomparable setting, the marvels of art...these works of art have taken the place of the murderous architecture of the past. The turrets and crenelations now serve for contemplating, close to heaven, the magnificent panorama strtching away on every side as far as the eye can see.'
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Swift to judge
It's interesting listening to the reaction to Ed Miliband's speech.
Every word is being seized on, every phrase chewed over for what it tells us about the man, his history, his thinking, his values.
Yeah, it was an important speech. But it's not the be-all and end-all of Ed Miliband; not the last word on what the opposition will stand for in the coming months.
His speech reads very well - and you can read it here. The advantage of reading a speech of this kind is that you look at and think about the words without the distractions of the audience response or the commentators opinions.
Part of it talks about the need for a new politics, a new way of talking about the issues we face. So let's begin to have that conversation and not write each other off on the basis of a sound bite or a speech. We need everyone joining the task of bringing ideas to make our big society a good, equal, fair and just society.
It seems it's not only the church that rushes to judgement, after all...
Every word is being seized on, every phrase chewed over for what it tells us about the man, his history, his thinking, his values.
Yeah, it was an important speech. But it's not the be-all and end-all of Ed Miliband; not the last word on what the opposition will stand for in the coming months.
His speech reads very well - and you can read it here. The advantage of reading a speech of this kind is that you look at and think about the words without the distractions of the audience response or the commentators opinions.
Part of it talks about the need for a new politics, a new way of talking about the issues we face. So let's begin to have that conversation and not write each other off on the basis of a sound bite or a speech. We need everyone joining the task of bringing ideas to make our big society a good, equal, fair and just society.
It seems it's not only the church that rushes to judgement, after all...
Monday, September 27, 2010
Building on the Big Welcome
We had a good morning yesterday. I had a very interesting and overwhelmingly positive reaction to my musings on Bowie and Nathanael (see my previous post) and the church had a large number of visitors. Intriguingly, many of those were visitors from overseas, including Lithuania and Holland. It says something significant about the way Bromley is changing.
It was, of course, the Big Welcome (or Back to Church Sunday as others call it), so it was great to have a number of visitors in our congregation (though I'm not sure many of them were there because of the efforts of the church inviting them!) I suspect the visitors pitched up because of our location - in the town centre, close to bus routes and recognisably ecclesiastical - and, I'd like to think, because of the welcome we offer once those people come close.
We've been having a conversation about welcome recently, pondering how we can capitalise on what we're already doing, how we make people feel at home among us.
A key part of this has been how we can help people to belong at the level they want to. We have tended to operate a 'one-size fits all' policy: everyone coming to church is looking to be actively involved in the church's programme, certainly wants to join a home group and is probably keen to volunteer in Sunday School, youth work or the women's meeting.
But recent experience suggests that this is not the case. we have a number of people who 'belong' to our church - in that they attend weekly without fail (often more regularly than long-standing committed members) but do not want to become members and certainly don't see volunteering in the church's programme as the path to fulfilment. They are even pretty iffy about the hone groups as they are currently constituted.
I suspect other churches are facing these issues. I'd be interested to know how others tackle it. Our conversations continue. I'll keep you posted.
It was, of course, the Big Welcome (or Back to Church Sunday as others call it), so it was great to have a number of visitors in our congregation (though I'm not sure many of them were there because of the efforts of the church inviting them!) I suspect the visitors pitched up because of our location - in the town centre, close to bus routes and recognisably ecclesiastical - and, I'd like to think, because of the welcome we offer once those people come close.
We've been having a conversation about welcome recently, pondering how we can capitalise on what we're already doing, how we make people feel at home among us.
A key part of this has been how we can help people to belong at the level they want to. We have tended to operate a 'one-size fits all' policy: everyone coming to church is looking to be actively involved in the church's programme, certainly wants to join a home group and is probably keen to volunteer in Sunday School, youth work or the women's meeting.
But recent experience suggests that this is not the case. we have a number of people who 'belong' to our church - in that they attend weekly without fail (often more regularly than long-standing committed members) but do not want to become members and certainly don't see volunteering in the church's programme as the path to fulfilment. They are even pretty iffy about the hone groups as they are currently constituted.
I suspect other churches are facing these issues. I'd be interested to know how others tackle it. Our conversations continue. I'll keep you posted.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Finding God in the groove
I'm listening to David Bowie's seminal Station to Station. I'm doing this because it's fab and a new deluxe version is coming out next week with the much bootlegged Nassau gig all digitally tidied up and packaged along with it. I'm also doing it as a displacement activity from sermon preparation. But what do you know if God's not there in the groove saying 'how about reflecting on this...?'
Got to keep searching and searching
Oh, what will I be believing and who will connect me with love?
Wonder who, wonder who, wonder when
Bowie sings on the title track - having mentioned Hebrew symbols that he's pictured drawing on the CD sleeve, in passing. Then on Word on a Wing, he sings
Lord, I kneel and offer you my word on a wing
And I'm trying hard to fit among your scheme of things
It's safer than a strange land, but I still care for myself
And I don't stand in my own light
Lord, lord, my prayer flies like a word on a wing
My prayer flies like a word on a wing
Does my prayer fit in with your scheme of things?
suggesting that maybe the person who's walked into his life out of his dreams in the verse isn't a lover but a divine presence. Of course, Bowie's praying in the midst of his cocaine addiction and living the fast life, his gaunt frame draped in a white suit and swirl of cigarette smoke.
Bowie knows everything he's achieved - and he's at the height of his fame and creativity in 1976 when this record is almost thrown together in LA - is a puff of smoke, 'an age of grand illusion'; the golden years cannot last and even in the midst of them 'there's my baby, lost that's all/once I'm begging you save her little soul...i believe, O Lord, I believe all the way.' The glare of the neon and celebrity makes him long to 'run for the shadows in these golden years'
In short, this is an album of spiritual longing set to some of the greatest tunes ever committed to vinyl.
And suddenly, my half-formed reflections on Nathanael begin to take shape. As Jesus collects disciples, he invites people to come and see what's going on around him; Philip fetches his mate Nathanael. It's possible that the way Jesus refers to him indicates that he's a bit of a zealot, an Israelite who's looking for a better world which certainly isn't going to be found anywhere in Galilee where he grew up. Bowie sings what Nathanael might have been thinking: 'Just because I believe don't mean I don't think as well'.
But Jesus invites him to see if that new world might be found in him.
The great thing about this story in John 1 is that Jesus isn't inviting any of these folk to join an institution or come to a meeting. Andrew and John(?) ask where Jesus is going and he says 'come and see'. He's on a journey and he invites people to walk with him and discover stuff along the way. This is the essence of mission - inviting people to come and see.
Have we found anything worth inviting our mates to look at?
Got to keep searching and searching
Oh, what will I be believing and who will connect me with love?
Wonder who, wonder who, wonder when
Bowie sings on the title track - having mentioned Hebrew symbols that he's pictured drawing on the CD sleeve, in passing. Then on Word on a Wing, he sings
Lord, I kneel and offer you my word on a wing
And I'm trying hard to fit among your scheme of things
It's safer than a strange land, but I still care for myself
And I don't stand in my own light
Lord, lord, my prayer flies like a word on a wing
My prayer flies like a word on a wing
Does my prayer fit in with your scheme of things?
suggesting that maybe the person who's walked into his life out of his dreams in the verse isn't a lover but a divine presence. Of course, Bowie's praying in the midst of his cocaine addiction and living the fast life, his gaunt frame draped in a white suit and swirl of cigarette smoke.
Bowie knows everything he's achieved - and he's at the height of his fame and creativity in 1976 when this record is almost thrown together in LA - is a puff of smoke, 'an age of grand illusion'; the golden years cannot last and even in the midst of them 'there's my baby, lost that's all/once I'm begging you save her little soul...i believe, O Lord, I believe all the way.' The glare of the neon and celebrity makes him long to 'run for the shadows in these golden years'
In short, this is an album of spiritual longing set to some of the greatest tunes ever committed to vinyl.
And suddenly, my half-formed reflections on Nathanael begin to take shape. As Jesus collects disciples, he invites people to come and see what's going on around him; Philip fetches his mate Nathanael. It's possible that the way Jesus refers to him indicates that he's a bit of a zealot, an Israelite who's looking for a better world which certainly isn't going to be found anywhere in Galilee where he grew up. Bowie sings what Nathanael might have been thinking: 'Just because I believe don't mean I don't think as well'.
But Jesus invites him to see if that new world might be found in him.
The great thing about this story in John 1 is that Jesus isn't inviting any of these folk to join an institution or come to a meeting. Andrew and John(?) ask where Jesus is going and he says 'come and see'. He's on a journey and he invites people to walk with him and discover stuff along the way. This is the essence of mission - inviting people to come and see.
Have we found anything worth inviting our mates to look at?
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Lessons in the stunning beauty of Monsegur
Coming down the steep path from the stunningly beautiful ruined castle at Monsegur, one passes a stone memorial to the 220 cathars who, following the overthrow of this seemingly impenetrable fortress, chose not to submit to the power of Rome. They were burned at the stake in the field at the foot of the hill. It's hard to square such horror with the staggering beauty of the surroundings.
Monsegur was the last stronghold of the Cathars overthrown in 1244. It was the end of a fifty year crusade against the heretical movement that had cost thousands of lives and extended the writ of the French king southwards to the Languedoc and Carcasonne (the key city of the region).
The cathars were a heretical sect, a dualistic blend of gnosticism and Christianity, which was embraced by the leading families of the region probably because it set them apart from growing French state to the north. It is undoubtedly the case that the crusade launched against the movement in the late twelfth century was as much about that state extending its powers over the fertile areas around Toulouse and Carcasonne.
The early leader of the crusade was Simon De Montfort. Growing up in Leicester, I had known De Montfort as a pioneer of democracy, one of the barons that forced King John to Runnymede to sign Magna Carta. Streets and halls, even a university are named after him in my home city. It was only when I when I first went to southern France about 15 years ago that a different picture of De Montfort emerged, a man who cut a bloody swathe through the region, a crusader of stupendous brutality.
As I stood on the low rising hill before the steep climb to Monsegur, I reflected on the fact that people should be allowed to be wrong. No one should die just because they choose to worship in a different way from their neighbours. Perhaps a key aspect of being a follower of Jesus is that we accept that some will get what he's about and others won't. One of the great insights of the Baptist pioneer, Thomas Helwys, was that everyone had the right to be wrong, that everyone had the right to choose what religion or philosophy they would follow and the state had no right to enforce one option over another.
Monsegur is testimony to what happens when that insight gets forgotten as it has so frequently through our bloody history
Monsegur was the last stronghold of the Cathars overthrown in 1244. It was the end of a fifty year crusade against the heretical movement that had cost thousands of lives and extended the writ of the French king southwards to the Languedoc and Carcasonne (the key city of the region).
The cathars were a heretical sect, a dualistic blend of gnosticism and Christianity, which was embraced by the leading families of the region probably because it set them apart from growing French state to the north. It is undoubtedly the case that the crusade launched against the movement in the late twelfth century was as much about that state extending its powers over the fertile areas around Toulouse and Carcasonne.
The early leader of the crusade was Simon De Montfort. Growing up in Leicester, I had known De Montfort as a pioneer of democracy, one of the barons that forced King John to Runnymede to sign Magna Carta. Streets and halls, even a university are named after him in my home city. It was only when I when I first went to southern France about 15 years ago that a different picture of De Montfort emerged, a man who cut a bloody swathe through the region, a crusader of stupendous brutality.
As I stood on the low rising hill before the steep climb to Monsegur, I reflected on the fact that people should be allowed to be wrong. No one should die just because they choose to worship in a different way from their neighbours. Perhaps a key aspect of being a follower of Jesus is that we accept that some will get what he's about and others won't. One of the great insights of the Baptist pioneer, Thomas Helwys, was that everyone had the right to be wrong, that everyone had the right to choose what religion or philosophy they would follow and the state had no right to enforce one option over another.
Monsegur is testimony to what happens when that insight gets forgotten as it has so frequently through our bloody history
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