andygoodliff

there is no such thing as a netural view

Maggi is writing at her usual best here on why there is no such thing as a neutral view

Church Crawl

Interesting experience yesterday evening. We did a church crawl/trail with the young people. Where we visited the churches within our Old Town - Holy Trinity (Anglican), High Street Methodist, Church of Transfiguaration (Roman Catholic) and if we had had the time, our own church Bunyan Baptist. Walking in and spending time in these different buildings was fascinating to see how each church tradition shapes its space according to what it sees as important in the worship of God. The symbolism that is present in Anglican (high Anglican anyway) and Roman Catholicism, at its very best, help the Christian narrate and locate themselves in God's story. This is unfortunately lacking in many free churches. These two church traditions also see the eucharist as central to the life of the church, rather than secondary to preaching and sung worship, again so common among free churches. Visting different church traditions allows one to see that there is something to learn from each other - although I think we should be careful not to take 'this tradtion' and 'that tradition' and attempt to mix it all together, which is so often the postmodern tendency.

Anyway, let me encourage you, especially youthleaders to open your young people's eyes to see the Christian life beyond the tradition they find themselves in.

Word-care in churches

Stephen Fowl's Engaging Scripture, which I quoted from in the previous post to this, is good. The chapter about Paul's comments in Ephesians on word-care and stealing is, as Hauerwas says, 'worth the price of the book itself.'

Fowl says that 'Christian interpretation of scripture is primarily an activity of Christian communities in which they seek to generate and embody their interpretations of scripture so that they may fulfil their ends of worshipping and living faithfully before the triune God.' (161). For this reason, 'Christian interpretation of scripture is to be a more or less continuous activity' and therefore this will often 'generate and result in further debate, discussion and disagreement' (161). This, as many can probably testify, can end up frustrating the goal of worship and living faithfully and in extreme cases be a cause of division; and so many churches avoid interpreting scripture to maintain 'unity'! Fowl argues that what is needed to see interpretation enhance rather than frustrate is word-care - 'word-care works to keep the arguments constitutive of Christian interpretation of scripture from becoming destructive of the life of the very community such arguments are designed to further' (164). Fowl goes on to argue that 'a care for words is closely tied to how its members hold their possessions' and so we find in the epistle to the Ephesians that 'verbal practices as truth-telling and edification are linked to the Ephesian's abilities to address stealing in their midst' (164-5).

The reason that stealing can happen presumses that the Ephesians do not priviatize their wealth and possessions from the public gaze. In Ephesians 4:25-5:2 Paul tells the Ephesians to put away falsehood and to speak truthfully to one another. Fowl asks 'why in the midst of a discussion about "word-care" does Paul raise the issue of stealing? Indeed, this verses seems so out of place that if it were removed from chapter 4 I don't think anyone would notice' (166).

Whatever the case stealing was happening and here stealing must refer to 'the numerous small-scale ways in which slaves might pilfer their master's goods. Those in the market place who use unfair scales or engage in price-fixing, and petty con artists might also fit the bill' and 'it may well be the case that those who were stealing were stealing from other members of the congregation' (167). The matter of stealing, according to Paul, is having a detrimental effect on the community's  ability to exercise word-care.

'For the reality of stealing to be as great a danger to the fabric of the common life of the Ephesian as lying or slandering one another, the lives and indeed the possessions of the members of the community had to be relatively accessible to other members of the community' (172). Possessions were located in th epublic realm rather than the private. Fowl says, 'it is a profound testimony to the poverty of the common life of most contemporary churches that Christians have so secured their possessions from each other that they can barely imagine what it might be to acknowledge openly, in the manner of Eph. 4, that Christians might steal (even from each other)' (172). Fowl goes on by giving an example of several people trying to share a fridge. What begins as harmless borrowing, can quickly turn into stealing, and 'under such conditions, disputes and arguments are bound to arise'.  Here you can understand, why Paul emphasizes the importance of word-care and practices of forgiveness, etc.

The privatization of our possessions and lives in our contemporary churches serves to show we are able to tell the truth and ask for and receive forgiveness. That is, we do not know how to do deal with conflict and arguments, and this is reflected in the privatization of our lives, to avoid such things. Fowl says, 'if contemporary Christians are to manifest the sort of word-care that is essential for their interpretation and embodiment of scripture, then they, too, will have to manifest the sort of common life that intimately connects issues of speaking with issues of wealth' (174).

It is not only the relationship of wealth to word-care, many other issues such as how to raise children, what one eats, how one participates in wider culture, etc will affect how able churches are able to foster and maintain word-care that builds up the common life, rather than frustrates or destroys (175). Fowl's concern is that if we contain to adopt 'the public/private distinctions operative in the larger culture, [we] will find it difficult and frustrating to cultivate the care for words that is essential for the debates and discussions which are crucial for interpreting scripture in ways that foster faithful life and worship' (176).

This is a serious argument which is a wake-up call to Christian churches to examine how they speak to one another and how they share and live their lives with one another.

Faith Schools - Yes or No?

Richard Dawkins tonight argued - Religion: the Root of all Evil? (C4) - that it was wrong to bring up  child in religious communities and especially was concerned about faith schools. He was using language like 'virus' and 'distorted' to argue that it is harmful to "indoctrinate" children in religious beliefs, mainly because he believe religious belief to be anti-rational. The question of faith schools, aside from Dawkin's concerns though, is an important one. A first point, made by many others, is that a non-faith-affliated school does not mean it is without a set of beliefs is to miss that secularism and atheism itself are a set of beliefs. Most schools are educating children to be secularists. Secondly, the entire education British system has it roots in British churches. Generally I don't think I have a problem with faith schools, in terms of CofE and Roman Catholic, because here the term 'faith school' reflects the ethos and the life of the school, rather than what is taught in lessons. I do have a problem with the kind of school that Dawkins visited in his programme which indoctrinates children into a narrow conservative evangelical worldview, where the Bible is taught for all intents and purposes to be read literally. Where education takes a back seat to the fundamentalist teachings of USA bible belt. Schools should be a place where we encourage the cultivation of wisdom in all its varied forms, and wisdom encourages the pursuit of truth. Schools should be a place where we encourage creativity - where children can creatively engage and question the world, arts, science and belief. 

Christian education takes time

I like this from Stephen Fowl's book Engaging Scripture (which I've just started reading) :

... contemporary Christians have two significant obstacles to overcome in any attempt to re-invigorate their catechetical practices. First, they must fight against a general cultural disposition that religious belief is  a private, individual matter, immune to communal formation and discipline. This disposition serves to underwrite the conviction that individuals can make up their theology, prayer, and worship as they go along, picking and choosing what suits them best. Secondly, Christians must recognize that Christian education takes time. It cannot be accomplished in small weekly doses. It cannot be limited to the young either. This is particularly the case when Christian education for children becomes a form of child care that separates children from the worship of the community.

Stephen E. Fowl, Engaging Scripture: A Model for Theological Interpretation, 1998, 201

mirrored here may our lives tell your story

I attended the funeral of one of Bunyan's long-standing members this morning, Harold Endersby. I did not him well, but do know three of his grandsons fairly well. It was a good funeral, which celebrated the life of a 'perfect gentleman'. It got me thinking again - as we sang the song Shine Jesus shine (which contains that great line which I have named  this post) - about Stanley Hauerwas' argument for the necessity of witness in his 2001 Gifford Lectures The Grain of the Universe. He says 'Christianity is unintelligible without witnesses ...' (p214).  The truthfulness of the gospel does not come through appeals to a theology of scripture, but to lives of those that point to the truthfulness of the story of God we find within scripture.  In our churches we must recognise and imitate those who show us how to live in the way of Christ. People like Harold, and Edna, who visited him faithfully for 6 years - so often forgotten or marginalized in our church life, should be given the role of witnessess; those who, if we imitate, we imitate Christ.  As one who is relatively young, I need to remind myself that following Jesus does not come primarily through theology books, or bible commentaries, or attending conferences or dynamic worship - all of which have their place - but instead following Jesus comes from recognising and imitating those who know what it means to follow Jesus faithfully and truthfully, who embody the character of Christ, that fruit of the Spirit, to the church and to the world. Thank you God for men like Harold and women like Edna.

Christ-Shaped People

The Church is a Christ-shaped people ... It is a community in which people learn how to embody the story of Jesus Christ. The Church can only tell the story of Christ if it has first read Christ's story, consumed it in such a way that it nourishes and shapes the Church as consumer, reader and teller of the story ... Entering the story, becoming a character within its storied world, is then a matter of becoming part of the body that embodies the story.         
     Learning how to consume the scriptural story so that it nourishes and strengthens the body - how to read it in order to tell it aright - is a matter of disciplined practice, of ecclesial (narrative) ethics ... The aim is to shape characters fitted for life in the story og Christ; characters who, shaped in and after the body of Christ, are able to follow him into his Kingdom.

Gerald Loughlin, Telling God's Story: Bible, Church and narrative theology, 1996, 86-87)

The love of God made actual

Jesus of Nazareth is not simply an unprecedented irruption or intervention of God upon the stage of history. The love of God which becomes actual in this truly human and historical life is continuous with the love that operates throughout it ... at the centre of things is the self-actualization of God in time, the self-differentiation through love of the eternal to become temporal.

Colin Gunton, Yesterday and Today, 1983, 2nd ed. 1997

Ash Goes Global

My good friend Ashley Beck sets off on his travels tomorrow evening. Having completed his a-levels last summer and deferred entry to King's College London for a year, he's been working to finance himself. He's off to India and Nepal for definite and then perhaps where the wind takes him. You can follow his travels here. I'm praying he stays safe and has a brilliant time. I'm also hoping he gets some cool pictures of Buddhist and Hindu stuff to help  me with my RE teaching.

Ashley has been a good theological conversational partner the last few years. He came with Hannah and I on our trip to Edinburgh for the Make Poverty History march and was present on the 18-mile walk I did with some others.

Individualism is a non-relational creed

Individualism is a non-relational creed, because its teaches that I do not need my neighbour to be myself.

Colin Gunton, The One, the Three and the Many, 1993