Celebrating dads

Here's a thought for father's day (one I'm sharing in a completely form at messy church this morning)

There’s an ad on TV at the moment featuring a father bringing his baby girl home from hospital in the rain and then protecting her from a variety of hazards as she grows up. Finally, he sends her off to uni in her very own car; a make and model that will protect her as he has. It brings a tear to the eye and threatens to create a large hole in the bank balance…

It reminds me of the closing track on Paul Simon's lovely Surprise album where he sings 'I'm gonna watch you shine, gonna watch you grow; gonna paint a sign so you'll always know. As long as one and one is two, there could never be a father who loved his daughter more than I love you'. As the father of two daughters I know just how he feels.

A lot of dads will have woken up today to be greeted by cards and gifts and approximations of breakfast served in their beds. We’ve all had a dad; some of us are dads; and today we celebrate that – but why (other than to boost the profits of the greetings cards industry)?

It’s a chance to remember what our dads do for us – shoulder rides, making things, help with homework, rough and tumbles; lots of things to make us smile; the support offered through difficult times, the apparently constant presence when we're caught in a whirlpool of change...

And if we’re a dad, those memories serve as a reminder of what we’re meant to be: we want to be all the good things our dad was/is (and none of the bad ones!). It’s a blast being a dad but it’s also a huge responsibility. To some extent we’re the people we are because of our dads, so what kind of dad will I be to my children.

The book of Proverbs reminds us (in chapter 22 verse 6, according to the message) 'Point your kids in the right direction—when they're old they won't be lost' Or, as the NIV has it, 'Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it'.

And, of course, it’s a chance to recognize how grateful we are for dads who helped us on our way and tell them how much we love them.

And perhaps it’s also a chance to realize that however good our dad was and however well we’re shaping up in the fatherhood stakes, no human father is perfect. Maybe this is why when Jesus was looking for a term to sum up who God is, he chose ‘dad’. God is the perfect father who loves us outrageously, unconditionally, absolutely and completely each and every day.

So today, we have a chance to say thanks to him as well.

Anyone seen the elephant in the room?

So, here's the thing: this evening we reach chapter five in our journey through Ephesians. The commentators tell me it's about sex (in one illicit form or another) as an expression of the darkness that pervades society.

And it's true there is reference to immorality, unwholesome talk, and even the telling of dirty jokes. But there is also the strongest denunciation in Paul of greed 'which is idolatry' (5:5). Indeed, greed it seems is as much a manifestation of darkness as unholy sex.

Yet the church seems besotted with the 's' word and largely silent about greed. We constantly hear how the sexual revolution has undermined family life and values and led to the ruin of society. But we don't hear much about how greed in the form of an economic system that has lauded profit and debt at the expense of any other economic outcome has similarly undermined families, corrupted social values and impoverished all of us.

It is great to read Michael Sandel challenging the marketisation of everything and Paul Krugman continuing to point out that there is an alternative economic story to the Gordon Gecko creed of 'greed is good'. But where are the Christian voices on this issue?

Barely a day goes past without some row erupting in the corridors of ecclesiastical power over sex - gay marriage, women bishops, the sexualisation of children in the media - and yet weeks pass without a Christian voice being raised questioning what greed is doing to our children, to our social values, to the fabric of our neighbourhoods.

Is it just me, or is the Christian community, in its obsession with sex, missing the elephant in the room that is actually trashing the culture, namely the economic story that says greed is the path to salvation?

Catching up

Back from a lovely few days in France - we were staying near Amiens and enjoyed great weather and lots of lovely stuff to see (Monet's garden, Amiens Cathedral with a wonderful exhibition of sculptures and the river front with its cafes and relaxing walks...).

As usual I took some new music away with me. The new Soulsavers album, The light the dead see, featuring Dave Gahan from Depeche Mode, is one of this year's highlights (though it already has stiff competition). It's a collection of songs about life, death and faith (the usual Soulsavers terrain to which Gahan brings a fresh eye) and is wonderful.

I'm also really enjoying Damon Albarn's Dr Dee, his latest opera about the Elizabethan alchemist and mystic who was an adviser to the queen. It's an idiosyncratic mix of styles that features some of the loveliest tunes Albarn has ever penned. I'm really looking to seeing it performed at the London Colosseum in early July.

Of course, I was back in blighty for the jubilee flummery (that's quite enough waving...). We had a great street party on Monday that was barely rained on and went on well into the night. We sat around a bbq doubling as a brazier in the middle of the road, throwing logs on, toasting friendship and chewing the fat. Good times.

The trouble with going away is that work piles up in your absence. I have a stack of marking that I'm getting stuck into and an anniversary Sunday to plan for.

We also have a houseful of family - which is great.

Tales of the unexpected

So today I met the Duke of Edinburgh who asked me a totally left-field question that formed the springboard for my piece for this month's church magazine - posted below:

I went to the opening of the newly refurbished Bromley and Downham youth centre and had an unexpected conversation with the Duke of Edinburgh. The fact that he was there was not unexpected (the invitation told me he was coming to officially open the facility). And the fact that he spoke to me was not totally unexpected as he carefully made his way around the room speaking to pretty much everyone who’d turned out to see him (which was nice).

What was unexpected was what he asked me. David, Ned and I were representing JusB and between us we explained to him the kind of work we do with young people. The Duke nodded sagely and then clocking the fact that I was a minister (the clerical shirt – a new fetching pale blue one - was the give-away), he asked if I had a parish nearby. I explained that I was a Baptist and had a church in the town centre.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘are there any Christians in Bromley?’

That was unexpected! I was a bit lost for words, thinking wouldn’t it have been nice to have notice of that particular question. All I could get out was something along the lines of ‘yes, there are; we certainly have quite a few each Sunday…’

He moved on and the people in my group all marvelled at what a strange question it was to ask.

The more I reflected on it, the more I felt it was a really interesting question. I have no idea whether the Duke was being anything more than mildly witty, passing the time of day with a group of people who had turned out to welcome him to their neck of the woods.

I thought about his question again as a small group of us settled down to read Romans 12 together at the church Bible study. Here Paul, having magisterially outlined what God has achieved for us through Jesus, how he has created a single people from every nation of the world through their allegiance to Israel’s messiah, spells out how we should live in the world in the light of our new identity.

‘Are there any Christians in Bromley?’ Well, according to the 2001 census some 70% of Bromley residents identified themselves as Christian (it will be interesting to see the number from 2011 census). But barely 9% of Bromley residents are in church on any given Sunday. But do those numbers really answer the Duke’s question?

How many people are there who actively offer their bodies as part of the church’s living sacrifice? How many people resist having their lives shaped by the consumerist, careerist agenda of secular thinking that dominates our media and national dialogue? How many practice hospitality, seek out the poor to associate with them, regard others (all others) more highly than themselves? How many make it their goal to live at peace with everyone around them, bless those who speak badly about them or make their lives miserable? In short, how many live as Romans 12 urges us to live?

All of a sudden the Duke’s question – ‘are there any Christians in Bromley?’ – takes on a probing quality that I am not sure he intended.

I can answer the question by saying that there are loads of people who believe in God, seek to follow Jesus, would describe themselves as sinners saved by the grace of a merciful God. And I rejoice in that.

But I wonder how Bromley’s residents would have answered the question. It’s all very well for the Duke to ask a minister if there are any Christians in Bromley. I only need to think about the last time I stood on the platform in our building and looked out at a sea of engaged and eager faces to be able to say ‘yes; definitely’.

But would my neighbour wrestling with debt answer so positively or my work colleague trying to keep a drink problem hidden or my friend struggling with anger? Would the homeless man trying to get his life back together, seeking a community where he can be accepted and helped answer in the affirmative?

Romans 12 seems like light relief after the dense and deep theology of Romans 9-11; it is so familiar and loved. And yet I wonder if we have ceased to see and hear its challenge. I wonder, in the light of what Paul writes in this great chapter, if he would have been so quick to answer the Duke’s question so positively.

And that is why the question has been gnawing away in my mind since I was asked it. I stand by my first answer: ‘yes, there are a lot of Christians in Bromley’. But I also stand in need of God’s grace and the energy of his Spirit to be the kind of person Paul describes in Romans 12. And I suspect that that is true of all of us. And what we can be truly thankful for is that God stands ready to empower us to live Romans 12 both in our church community and in the neighbourhoods and workplaces.

Sweating to get foodbank ready

I spent this morning with a wonderful group of people clearing out the vast storeroom upstairs in the church that will host our foodbank. We have cleared it in readiness for it to become the main warehouse for foodbank, a space capable of storing many tonnes of food.

This is a project born of the dreaming and hard work of a whole crew of people who have a single thing in common - a desire to serve the needs of those who find themselves on the margins of our outwardly prosperous community.

I think foodbank captures something essential to the gospel. Jesus told us to feed the hungry (so that's obvious as foodbank in London over the last year has fed 14,000 families unable to find the resources to feed themselves because of plummeting incomes, rising rents and prices,and precarious jobs). But there is also something in the gospel about working together to achieve gospel ends. And certainly foodbank here is doing that - people of all denominations and none, people of faith and people of good will, all united to achieve a single goal.

As it happens I'm reading Jesus Freak by Sara Miles which is wonderful account of the life and ministry of a woman who runs a pantry in her church. So her book is a reflection on life, faith and food. Over recent weeks - as we've had foodbank planning meetings and training sessions, as well as shifting the tonnes of wood and junk we did this morning - I've been musing on her words:

'Jesus does not, anywhere in the gospels, spend too much time calling his people to have feelings or ideas or opinions. He calls us to act: hear these words of mine and act on them. I started to help lead liturgies, then write liturgies, because I wanted to take the language I found in Christian worship and use it as a blueprint for action in the world.' (pxiv; italics in original)

This melding of liturgy and work is really helpful. If what we do in 'church' doesn't lead to us living and acting Christianly in the world, then we should stop doing it; stop wasting our time and God's.

'Worship and service were parts of the whole,' she continues, 'the Friday food pantry and the Sunday Eucharist were just different expressions of the same thing. Well-meaning Christian visitors liked to describe the pantry as a 'feeding ministry', but that just seemed like a nervous euphemism to me. What I saw was church: hundreds of people gathering each week around an altar to share food and to thank God.' (pxv).

There are countless stories in the book of realising that as food was being shared, Jesus was inviting everyone into the circle of his love, whether that sharing took place in the basement kitchen, the lobbies of tenements where many pantry people lived or around the altar in the church building. As Jesus' people live the life he's called us to, so he is able to work in and through us to bring his Kingdom.

My prayer as we gear up for foodbank in our community is that it will be such an outbreak of Jesus' life in our midst.

Binning the so-called Olympic traditions

Well, the Olympic torch is lit and will now commence a tradition that dates back to Hitler. The Olympic torch run was an invention by one of Hitler's cultural advisers to show the virtue of German peoples in the run up to their games in 1936. Whoops!

It's on a par with Royal Mint putting Roman gods on their commemorative coins rather than the gods of Greece (who were, after all, the original benefactors of the games). Whoops again.

Is this a result of the modern history curriculum? Are we not learning the basics of Western culture in school any more? It's a shame because if we don't know where we've come from, how will we expect to know where we are? As someone once said people who don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

So, lets get back to the Olympics as a race meet, a place where athletes come and compete against each other and we watch on in awe at their prowess - like it was in 1948 - and drop the cod history and vacuous razzmatazz.

The trouble with democracy...

We're all big fans of democracy. It's a core western value. We've invaded countries to impose it, obviously believing that democracy flows from the barrel of a gun.

Over recent days, however, democracy has come to bite our current western dispensation on the bum. We have been told that deficits must be reduced across the western world and that can only be done through austerity programmes of various levels of severity.

his is all well and good until people say 'no'. Many in the UK have said 'no' through demonstrations and latterly local elections. In Greece, the 'no' has been more emphatic with at least 60% of the electorate voting for anti-austerity parties. The response of European institutions and the IMF is to tell the Greeks to try again because their version of democracy hasn't delivered the right answer.

Even more interesting, in Ireland voters are responding to a new tax - being levied to pay the nation's bond holders - by not paying it. Large numbers, perhaps a majority, are refusing to pay the 100 Euro levy and daring the government to prosecute them.

So, I'm wondering whether we believe in democracy at all. Our current government assumes that we'll all get it if they shout louder, as if we're the kind of foreigners that the English have always assumed will understand if we only speak louder and more slowly! The problem is that it's the government that doesn't get it (and this applies as much to the EU institutions and the IMF). The voice of the voters is democracy saying 'we've heard what you're offering and don't want it; so offer something else.'

That's what the Greeks have said - and to a lesser extent the French (though it remains to be seen whether Hollande will be that different from Sarkozy) - and what the Irish are saying in their defiant tax strike.

Salvaging a day at CRE

Back from The Christian Resources Exhibition at Sandown race course. It was a surprisingly good day. Surprising because  met some lovely people - old friends (including the lovely Clive Price and the equally lovely Gareth Wilde) and one or two exhibitors with a good story to tell.

But the event itself had a tired feel. There wasn't much of a buzz about the place and the seminar programme was lacklustre and predictable. It somehow felt smaller than the last time I went (which must have been ten years ago); it covers the same acreage but lacks ambition.

So if I hadn't met some lovely people it would have been a completely wasted day. It just goes to show what a difference people make! The standouts were Indigo Coffee (we use them already at church but it was great to some of the team behind what is an excellent service) and Ki'pe'peo, a project retailing cards made by a group of women from recycled materials (rubbish basically) in the Kibera slum in Nairobi. The cards are beautiful and the project is a wonderful example of how a small co-operative venture can empower the lives of people on the margins of society. I look forward to receiving my first delivery for church.

Looking to God for the next leap forward

Today is a significant one for us at church. We are electing trustees for the next phase of the church's life. We have 11 good candidates and I hope they are all elected. Such a team will give us the depth and breadth of leadership we need for the next leap forward.

So we'll all be praying that we have a good meeting - lots of conversation and laughter, lots of sharing of wisdom and discerning of the mind of Christ - that will set the platform for where God wants to take us over the next few years.

The dangers of slacktivision

Well, mister biscuit is now following me on twitter.  I imagine that he's only doing it out of morbid curiosity but he did send me a link to a this intriguing track he's posted on you tube. It raises some important questions about the Kony2012 phenomenon that are linked to the easy use of social media.

Via twitter and you tube, mister biscuit is raising the question whether slacktivism - taking stands, even sending small amount of cash from the safety of your own smart phone - is really going to change the world.

I think social media are a great way of raising awareness of issues and of putting people in touch with one another so they can find common cause. But Occupy has shown us that it still takes bodies on the ground to effect real change or even provoke real debate about the issues that matter. It still seems to be important that we gather in the same place to hone ideas and draw strength from each other (maybe this has something to say about church too).

Having said that, you'll all be aware of the young woman, Claire Squires, who died at the London Marathon. She had pledged to raise £500 for Samaritans. This morning, as a result of the media coverage of her death and the explosion of sympathy on social media, donations in her name have passed £200,000. This is money that will be well used by the Samaritans supporting the desperate. The raising of it is yet another illustration of the power of social media to do good.

So, thanks mister biscuit for the reminder - and the cool track - I'll follow you with interest

Kicking at the darkness till it bleeds daylight

I have finished Brian J Walsh's wonderful Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination (Brazos Press 2011). It serves both as a great introduction to Cockburn's music - constantly sending me back to the CDs - and as an elucidation of Walsh's approach to worldviews (articulated elsewhere in his books with Richard Middleton).

What Walsh does particularly well is to help the listener get an over-view of the key recurring themes in Cockburn's music. He reminded me that we don't judge whether an artist is Christian on the basis of each creative product - I've lost count of the number of times Christians do this with U2 albums, tutting that a swear word there or an expression of doubt here signals the moment Bono lost his faith. A Christian artist looks at the world and reports what he's found in it in the light of his attempts to follow Jesus.

Cockburn has spent forty-plus years and 32 albums exploring the darkness and looking for glimmers of light and echoes of God within it. He has also wrestled with what the human calling is in 'the falling dark'; a call that is summed in the great phrase from Lovers in a Dangerous Time 'you've got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight' (from where Walsh gets his title).

Walsh helpfully brings together common themes and images in the songs, shows how ideas have developed over the years and indicates that while Cockburn struggles with the label Christian (and who doesn't in this post-colonial, post-Christendom age?), he never ceases to be a witness to Jesus and his values in our messed up world.

This is a book well worth adding to your 'must read' lists. If you're a fan of Cockburn, it'll send you back to the songs with a fresh wonder; if you're not a Cockburn fan - where have you been, what have you been listening to? Read it, it'll make you want to work your way through the Canadian master's entire output.

Lots of rich hot air

Of course, while I was away, the government and it's well-healed friends were getting their knickers in knots over who was better at avoiding tax. The Budget - which appears to have had more booby traps in it than an Afghan highway - wants to limit the amount the rich can write off against tax. The whole thing has blown up in the face of the Big Society government with donors cancelling future giving hand over fist because they won't be able to write it off against tax.

Now, I'm a basic rate tax payer and I give to charity. When I do so, I sign a gift aid declaration so that the charity gets a little extra as a result of the tax I've paid on the donation (averaged out at 25%) being given to the charity. How come some people are able to write their donations off against the tax they pay? Apparently, according to David Cameron no less, some very rich people only pay 10% income on their earnings. How does that happen? Well, one reason of course is that our tax system is labyrinthine, a chartered accountants wet dream. Another appears to be that some people put their income into charities that, in the words of a Downing Street spokesman, don't seem to offer much by way of public benefit.

Clearly, some people are taking the mick and need to be stopped. But the slapdash way that it was announced in the budget has spooked the very charities that the big society is meant to be supporting. Of course, the charity that I'm involved with doesn't face this problem directly because we don't have anyone making huge personal donations.

The thing is that if the government is really serious about tax avoidance, it would go after the deals that are fairly commonly enjoyed by senior bankers (and other 'captains of industry'), where their tax bill is picked up by their employers in the interests of equalisation between tax regimes. Pull the other one!

The latest to have a fuss made about it is Bob Diamond of Barclays (you can read about it here). The bank is picking up his tax liability of £5.7m (for last year), so he doesn't have to (memo to the church...can you please employ me via my Lichtenstein shell company and pay my tax bill in the interests of equalisation?). He'll be doing it again in the current tax year and the one after that. No one's worth what he's costing us.

If the government nails this kind of shenanigans, then we'll know it's serious about tax avoidance. Until then it's just so much hot air

Catching up with life after Spring Harvest

Well, I've been back from Spring Harvest for a couple of days, catching up with stuff and getting ready to go Studland for the weekend for a reunion with a load of friends from our days in Peckham. Should be a blast!

Spring Harvest was very busy and completely manic on the final day. Our team of 8 saw 96 people over the four days plus all those we talked and prayed with after the evening sessions.

We really enjoyed the Encounter Cafe led by Pete and Becca Brierley (who happen to be from Peckham too). It was a great mix of fun and films, interviews and discussion - just what we needed at the end of a busy day!

The other highlight was seeing Joe Fisher. He's a stand-up comedian and I've avoided him in years gone by but this year we caught his show and it's a glorious mixture of send-up and one-liners, focused on the ridiculous things that the church does and spoofs of TV shows - what's not to like? If he visits your town, check him out.

I've also nearly finished Brian Walsh's wonderful book on Bruce Cockburn - I shall be blogging about that soon. But first I have a book review to write on a book I am struggling to like (I have another one to do as well about a book I like a whole lot more but that one must take second place).

It's all hotting up in Minehead

So, it's day 4 already. Doesn't time fly when you're rushed off your feet?

It's been the usual mixed bag. The high point for me has been the Encounter Cafe. Led by Pete and Becca Brierley, it's been an eclectic mix of film, discussion, board games and interviews, nicely held together by Pete and Becca's easy style. It's what church should be, actually; a place where we can laugh and cry, have fun and be challenged in equal measure.

On the team front, we've seen a lot of people with a whole range of issues needing our attention and prayerful response. Last night I had the joy of leading a member of the Butlin's staff, a Hungarian man, to faith in Jesus, something he described as the best thing that's ever happened to him on the best day of his life!

The most unexpected sight of the week so far is of a young man walking to his chalet clutching a copy of Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics (I couldn't see which volume). I'm guessing this is something he didn't buy at the Spring Harvest bookshop.

Tonight and tomorrow will be busier - and it's been busy already!

Day one in the Spring Harvest House

Day one in the Spring Harvest House (read in Geordie accent - in memory of Steph who's not with us this year as we're too far south!). This year we are in Minehead with a smaller-than-usual pastoral team. But it's great to meet up with old friends and the layout of the site means we're all close together and right opposite the pastoral centre where we'll be based.

A quick sprint round the exhibition hall reveals the usual suspects and a less-well-stocked-than-usual bookshop which as the theme is the church about which there are copious good books, that's a bit of a disappointment. I might look at Gerard Kelly's new book which is on the main theme and looks as though it might be worth a browse.

It'll be interesting to see what kind of issues people bring to the pastoral chalet with them. Will they be things they've been storing up all year or issues that have been provoked by the programme? Watch this space....

A book to meditate over

I have just started reading Marilynne Robinson's When I was a Child I read Books (the title alone is worth the purchase price). Robinson is the author of Gilead and Home, novels of rich beauty and seering insight. She is a Congregationalist and has been a teacher and writer in residence at various universities across the States. She has a PhD in English literature and seems congenitally incapable of writing a dull sentence.

When I was a Child I read books is a series of essay on the place of literature and the role of faith in our lives. She writes as one unashamedly shaped by what she reads and how she thinks (and she is a rigorous thinker). She speaks of her current political context in the States (after Walt Whitman) as 'characterised by wolfishness and filled with blather.' She is one, I suspect, who feels that we need to read more and express opinions less.

And she worries for the people of faith. The passive pious, she suggests, just shrug and declare the whole enterprise bankrupt; while the active pious 'see some hope in a hastily arranged liquidation of cultural assets'. What a wonderful phrase that is and how it fingers the shallow activism of so much that passes for faith and theology. She laments the fact that people of faith have in recent years retreated from 'the cultivation and celebration of learning and of beauty, by dumbing down, as if people were less than God made them and in need of nothing so much as condescension.' See what I mean about her language!

I was having a Facebook exchange earlier this morning about Bishop Graham Cray. A friend is doing sessions at Spring Harvest with him this week. I was reflecting that back in the 70s Graham Cray - then a curate, I think, in York - opened up the world of popular music as a field of serious study for Christians. It was, literally, music to my ears; it gave permission for a life-long exploration of and grappling with the deep stuff of popular culture. It also told me - at an impressionable age - that ideas matter, that how we think about the world shapes the way we live in it.

Robinson stands in the same cultural stream as Cray, Christians who recognise that all truth belongs to God and reveals something about him wherever that truth is to be found.

Even on the basis of the fifteen pages I've read so far, I recommend you go and get this book and meditate over it of the rewards it yields will be rich indeed.

Still asking questions of the English

It's been a really busy week - teaching, another funeral and lots of other stuff along the way. Still, I managed to sustain myself for the tasks with a pasty or two (waiting for them to go cold before I bought them, so they were cheaper!) and queueing for petrol

So, I didn't get to comment on George Galloway's extraordinary win in Bradford West. I really can't work out what this says about the state of British politics, though I am drawn to the view that this was a victory of old labour over new. Old labour tended not to invade other people's countries and more importantly had broadly interventionist economic policies (that was the issue most referred to by Bradfordians in the aftermath of the vote). But it could be that it's a one-off coup by a celebrity politician.

Then as the weekend approached I was made aware that Jethro Tull are releasing a follow-up to Thick as a Brick - imaginatively named Thick as a Brick 2. Now I was a Tull fan back in the day. Forty years ago I was sitting in my lounge trying to work out what the album (a single song concept allegedly penned by 14 year old prodigy called Gerald Bostock) was all about. But I'm really not sure we need a follow-up after all this time.

But I listened to the record yesterday as I assembled our new BBQ and was struck by two things. The first was that musically it's held up pretty well. The tunes are typical Tull, the playing never short of wonderful and Ian Anderson's voice a thing of rare beauty. And the second is that the lyrics - which I gather from more recent interviews with band members were not to be taken entirely seriously - do offer a fascinating window into something that was a bit of an obsession with 70s rock bands: what does it mean to be English? From Selling England by the Pound to London's Calling, many bands ruminated on the nature of  Englishness. They were mainly staking their place in an art form that was seen to be quintessentially American by bringing in English folk traditions and cultural pre-occupations. Tull's contribution was to channel a pythonesque humour through folk lyricism and class satire.

Their output is not seen these days as that significant. But I couldn't help think of all this as I watched Diarmaid MacCulloch's final documentary about God and the English last night. I was struck by the simple fact that forty years after Thick as a Brick, we are still asking the question. And just as Anderson suggests in his ruminations on the class system and the place of faith in it, So MacCulloch concludes that God is a crucial part of English identity.

I wonder what that means for our mission in these interesting days....

Getting to the politics of Easter with the Boss

In keeping with tradition (well, doing what I've done for the past few months...) here is the piece that  wrote for the church magazine's Easter edition. I shall blog at greater length about both the albums featured here.

When the papers are awash with stories about how the Christian faith is being driven to the side lines of our culture, it is heartening to switch on the radio and hear that God has taken up residence in the charts. From Katy Perry asking who she is living for and declaring that she will be taking the road less travelled in a song awash with the South Baptist imagery of her childhood to the boss, Bruce Springsteen, whose latest album, Wrecking Ball, is full of Christian imagery.

Now 63 Springsteen sings with a world weary wisdom born of drinking deeply at the well of American protest – especially Woodie Guthrie – and the Catholic faith of his New Jersey upbringing. He also sings with a passionate anger about what is happening to the world and in particular what is happening to the ordinary working people of his country in a time of recession and economic hardship. But his anger is shot through with a hope that can only be accounted for by the Christian story still firing his imagination.

So the track, We are Alive, which closes the record, begins with the line

There is a cross up yonder up on calvary hill

It alerts us to the fact that what follows might be linked to the suffering of Christ. And that is indeed the case. But the suffering he calls our attention to is that of people who have walked the way of the cross and paid the highest price for it – the dead of the civil rights movement, the unsung heroes in the struggle for justice. And the chorus, washed in the tones and rhythms of slave spirituals, declares

we are alive
oh, and though we lie alone here in the dark
our souls will rise to carry the fire and light the spark
to fight shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart

Here’s a lot missing from Bruce’s Easter meditation, but he alerts his listener to the fact that the struggle for justice and equity in our world is rooted in something deeper and richer than a merely political ideology. It is rooted in God. And we are reminded that even though we die, we will rise in Christ; there is a future and it’s radiant with God’s justice and love.

Earlier in the year, 77 year old Leonard Cohen (it’s true what they say, you know, that pop music is wasted on the young!) released a long anticipated and truly wonderful album called Old Ideas. And among the old ideas that Cohen was reviving and redrawing to our attention was that of the incarnation and cross of Christ

Show me the place, help me roll away the stone
Show me the place, I can’t move this thing alone
Show me the place where the word became a man
Show me the place where the suffering began

Four lines that nail the story of Jesus that are being played on tens of thousands of iPhones and CD players across the planet.

Easter is the rumour that God is committed to the world he made, so committed that he came to rescue it from the mess that we have made of it. Easter is the call of God for us to be caught up in the cross and resurrection of Jesus, to become part of the band of story tellers who declare that God has triumphed over evil and death, that new life is possible, that justice is coming, that all things will be made new.

And we need to be telling that story wherever we go, to our friends and work colleagues, to our neighbours and people we meet at the gym, to those we stand next to on the terraces and those who share our taste in music.

Cohen captures the hope that Jesus brings in the song that opens Old Ideas, Going Home. It’s a song that opens with the conceit that God might be using Cohen to get his message out to the world and then reminds us what that message is about

going home without my sorrow

going home sometime tomorrow

to where it’s better than before

going home without my burden

going home behind the curtain

going home without the costume that I wore

That’s the best exposition, in six lines of poetry, of 2 Corinthians 4-5, a glorious declaration of our hope, that is based on the events of the first Easter, the cross and resurrection of our Lord Jesus.

Across the charts – not to mention in fiction of all kinds and a range of movies – the rumour of God keeps breaking out. Let’s be alert to it so that when we’re talking with our friends and neighbours we are able to help them make the connections between the pop culture they consume and the God who is calling them to new life.

And if we listen carefully, we hear God calling us to get on board with his mission of working for justice and peace, of pointing to the future where there’ll be no pain or crying and seeking to bring as much of it into the present as we can.

Jesus is risen. The tomb is empty. Death, darkness and the devil are defeated. Creation is made new. And we have tasted that it’s real. So happy Easter – pass it on…

Reflecting on a great troubadour

Very excited to receive in yesterday's post a copy of Brian Walsh's Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination. Walsh is one of my favourite cultural theologians and Cockburn is probably the best troubadour of his generation - 31 albums in 40 years, a searing eye for justice and a heart open to the wonder and mystery of God's creation.

I'm really looking forward to digesting this volume. Expect to see many more references to Cockburn's output accompanied by Walsh's incisive reflection on it in coming weeks....

Having said that, I've just written my Easter perspective for our church magazine which is about the music of Bruce Springsteen and Leonard Cohen (and I'll be posting something about their recent albums really soon).

Handling the evidence

So, no sooner do I find out that a Dutch edition of my book is on the way than said edition arrives in my mail box. I am now holding De Wereld van de Vroege Kerk (pictured).

It's a slightly surreal experience because it looks identical to the English version until you get close up and realise that you cannot read any of the words on any given page. Until that is you turn to page 139 where one of the boxes is headed 'What's in a name?' Is that Dutch or a proof-reading error?

Still, it's lovely to think that 2000 copies of this fine tome will be available to Dutch readers everywhere, though mainly in the Netherlands. I hope they enjoy it.

I'm certainly more chuffed to be holding it than I have any right to be!