andygoodliff

Saying Grace

Saying grace is to say thank you
thank you to God
for the food we are about to eat
for the world which God created with
so much to nourish us.

Saying grace is to say thank you
it is recognise that food is a gift –
a gift to be looked after
a gift to be shared
a gift to be celebrated.
There is nothing better than to enjoy a good meal
but food is an endless mystery –
that from tiny seeds can come so much abundance
that the climate of a world has just the right conditions for life and the feeding of life.
Creation is a delicate balance of sunshine and rain
of rich soils and natural pollinators and bug-eating insects and birds.

Saying grace is to say thank you
to bow our heads before we lift our forks*
to slow down in a fast-food world
and marvel at the wonder of creation’s cuisine
and be grateful that this day we will not go hungry
that today we will taste the goodness of the world God has created.

Saying grace is to say thank you
thank you to those that farm and sow,
who rear and grow
the animals and crops we eat and digest.
Saying grace is to say thank you
it is to recognise that without those who farm,
without those who plant and plough
we would go hungry.
As we are dependent on the grace of God
so we are also dependent on those who work the land
both in this country and far away.
The food we eat does not grow in supermarkets
but has nearly always travelled hundreds and thousands of miles
before it turns up in our kitchens;
and many have worked long days and for little return
and so saying grace is to say thank you
for them
and to them, too.
It is to say we believe that those who farm
should not themselves go hungry
that we might fill our plates;
that those who farm on our behalf
should be given a fair and living wage
and so saying grace is to say thank you
and is an act of calling us to change our ways
our shopping habits, our spending power
in solidarity and for the justice of the world.

Saying grace is to say thank you
And so remember that as we eat
there are others who have nothing to eat
and so we pray that the whole world
will be given this day its daily bread
and so we join our voice with Christian Aid
and Tearfund, and Oxfam and Cafod
as they knock on government doors
in Westminster and Washington
in Brussels and New York
for trade justice,
for the end of poverty
for bread to be shared
for the worth of every life.

Saying grace is to say thank you
But it is much more as well
It is a pledge
To work and act
For the coming of the kingdom
And the welcome of all to God’s great banquet.

* This whole piece was inspired by the work of Norman Wirzba, but this line is all his, see Making Peace with the Land (IVP, 2012), p.131.

 

Spurgeon's College is looking for a new principal

With the retirement of Nigel Wright next summer, Spurgeon's College are looking for a new principal. You've got to be a Baptist and have an academic track record. See details here (scroll down). It will be interesting to see who gets the post, whether it ends up being an internal appointment or not.

Book Review: Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating by Norman Wirzba

Norman Wirzba, Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating (Cambridge, 2011), 244pp

This is a delightful book, wonderfully written, with much to ponder. How often do we stop and think about food? Its such a part of everyday life that perhaps we've never wonder what faith, theology and God have to do with food. Norman Wirzba helpfully leads us in seven chapters to explore food and eating from a Christian perspective. He is not the first, there have been a number of recent books, which have begun to explore food biblically and historically (in terms of the Christian tradition). Wirzba is a professor at Duke University and has written on ecology and keeping sabbath.

The book engages with contemporary food politics - issues of food production, food security and food scarcity - in the context of exile, sacrifice, eucharist and saying grace. The subtitle is a 'theology of eating' and this is a work of serious theology, engaging with the tradition. The index reveals an engagement with a theology of creation, death, the Trinity, eucharist, sacrifice and resrurrection. Wirzba explores the language of 'communion - literally 'one who shares bread' in the context of eating together, but helping us see that eating together brings us in relationship with the earth and ultimately with God - 'eating is a spiritual exercise'.

Chapters on gardens and gardening and saying grace are full of food for thought, theological depth and practical wisdom. In other chapters are conversations around eating disorders, vegetarianism, and feasting and fasting, amongst others.

This book will leave you looking at food and eating in new ways and hopefully encourage us to new habits and practices that recognise in renewed ways that food is gift from God and eating, when our table manners are learned from participating in the eucharist, is a taste of heaven.   

Once More Twitter and Worship

Peter posted a helpful series of comments in response to original post to which I want to try and respond.

1. Avoid the sacred:secular divide which has developed between services and life where people are encouraged to leave their 'lives' and 'troubles' at the door for a spiritual experience apart from their context.

Worship should definitely avoid the extreme of this - we should bring our wholeselves and leave nothing at the door. Although I think there is something 'sacred' about gathering intentionally around Word and sacrament, which is different from other things we might do in life. I'm not sure this is an argument for tweeting though.

2. Help a duplex relationship between the service and the rest of reality. (duplex communication / relationship flows in both directions and are dialogical)

The concern here is to avoid one-way conversation, where one leads, speaks, prays and the rest of the congregation are passive - a more two-way conversation. Many church traditions would understand worship as a two-way conversation between God and his people ... God gathers, welcomes, addressses us through scripture, sends and we respond in praise, confession, petition and intercession. Does twitter generate a truly two-way conversation (especially when limited to 140 characters)?

3. Avoid churchs' over-emphasis on asynchronous broadcast techniques (static church websites, mp3's of sermons, video broadcast of services, sermon notes in the notice sheet, home group resources, letter from the pastors desk, etc). To do this by providing a complimentary synchronous engagement between people so allowing live-time conversation.(The notion of synchronous communication develops the previous point about duplex)

Is the first point that the church needs to be more culturally relevant (hipster christianity) - why has relevance become the highest good, trumping all others? With regard to the second point, why does there have to be live-conversation - cannot the conversation follow having listened and actually does it not exclude those who are preaching, praying, presiding from any conversation?

4. Makes our meetings more 'in the public square' and hosted by culture (as in hosted by twitter platform) and so we are hosted by culture (incarnational) and Christ can then be mediated through culture to convert his church to him.

I'm struggling to entirely understand this point. 

5. Twitter provides an enduring trail and continuity of conversation beyond the time of the sevice

Why can't this happen afterwards? 

6. Allows those beyond the service to participate

So saying 'no need to be present, you can be part of the service and still lie in bed ...'?

7. Helps kinaesthetic learners, who often struggle with church services, engage with and process a mainly auditory experience which is often more monologue.

Ok possibly, but we can do this without twitter. This seems to me to be more a point about the content of worship, with which I have some sympathy.

8. Enculturates the Gospel - twitter is particularly relevant to certain demographics and so it gets the church out of a sometimes odd sub-culture rather than a contextualised and also counter-cultural stance

In my opinion the church should be in an counter-culture stance. Accomodation to culture here - allowing ourselves never to be separated from our phone - is to encourage an unhealthy attachment to technology. In my view the virtues of patience, self-control and paying attention are more important to learn by asking people to leave their phones switched off and saying they will not be needed to participate. Accomodation provides no place for being critical over the use of technology - it becomes an idol.

9. as our mouth and ears are part of our physical body so our phone and tweeting (listening/speaking) are an extension and expression of being human

Really? Is this suggesting I am less human if I fail to use my phone and tweet?

10. provides a tool to facilitate multi-voiced worship in larger (20+?) gatherings where it cannot easily be achieved through conversation alone. Be that person to person or/and a way for the main service leader (if there is one) to be asked questions, challenged and corrected.

While the Mennonite practice of discernment following the sermon is to be encouraged - 'The last word belongs to the congregation not to the preacher. We deliberately divest the preacher of control over the gospel' (Presence: Giving and Receving God, p.viii) ... not sure if this requires a phone and tweeting. Possibly.

11. distributes power and discernment of truth amongst a wider group than the one(s) with the microphone - though this then has the knock on of a newly disempowered group of those without smart phone which needs addressing.

Does it give 'discernment of truth'? and I think your point about a newly disempowered group is a strong one against using twitter in worship.

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Nothing here has convinced me that twitter is a positive contribution to worship and I believe there are still strong arguments of making space here, and in other points of our lives, to disconnect us from the networked world, that we might live apart from technology. In Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, Neil Postman writes (in 1992!) argues that technopology consists in the deficiation of technology, which means that the culture seeks its authorization in technology, finds it satisfaction in technology, and takes its orders from technology' (quoted in Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down by Marva Dawn, Eerdmans, 1995, pp.28-29).

Systematic Theology, the recent past and the next few years

In the last thirty years there have been (arguably) four important works of systematic theology. Each offering something different.

Robert Jenson, Systematic Theology (2 Vols - The Triune God, The Works of God)

Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology (3 Vols)

Jürgen Moltmann, Contributions to a Systematic Theology (5 Vols - The Trinity and the Kingdom of God, God in Creation, The Way of Jesus Christ, The Spirit of Life, The Coming of God)

James McClendon, Jr. (3 Vols - Ethics, Doctrine, Witness)

The next few years should see the first full-length systematic theologies from an English theologian.

Colin Gunton was writing one before he died (a version of the first of a projected 4-volumes should appear in November). We await systematic theologies from John Webster and Sarah Coakley who are both promising one (Coakley's first volume is on the Trinity and is due out next year; but it will apparently be a few years until we see the first of Webster's projected 5 volumes). I think Paul Fiddes would one day like to write one in conversation with literature. John Colwell wrote an excellent short systematic theology around the liturgical year which demands a longer version.

Over in the United States, Kathryn Tanner has provided us with a sketch of a systematic theology and one day may write an expanded version. We may also eventually see one from Bruce McCormack.

Tweeting and Worship

I'm not sure I'm allowed to say it, but I do not understand the need to tweet during worship, whether it be a prayer or a thought on the sermon. Having suffered the preacher turning the sermon into a powerpoint presentation, now it seems we have to suffer the congregation 'tweeting'. We seem to have allowed our phones to become an extension of us, we can't seem to put them down, switch them off, not use them. In my opinion we desperately need to create space and time in our lives where we are phone free (and therefore facebook, twitter, email, google free). We've increasingly become a people who pay more attention to the updates of friends elsewhere, than the person present before us. I say this not as a luddite - I blog, facebook, tweet - but as someone who thinks that tweeting during a service is not multi-voiced worship.

Book Review: A Faith Not Worth Fighting For edited by Tripp York and Justin Bronson Barringer (Cascade, 2012)

Tripp York and Justin Bronson Barringer (eds.), A Faith Not Worth Fighting For: Addressing Commonly Asked Questions about Nonviolence (Cascade, 2012), 243pp

You say you believe in Christian nonviolence and almost immediately will be the response but what in x or y situation, surely you would be willing to use violent force? Or, what when the bible says or Jesus says? This book A Faith Not Worth Fighting For aims to answer exactly those kind of questions, to demonstrate that nonviolence is not only an option, but is the option for those who claim to follow Jesus. The book seeks to argue that Christian nonviolence is not impractical or non-biblical.

This collection of essays is the first book in a new series called Peaceable Kingdom, which 'seeks to challenge the pervasive violence assumed necessary in relations to humans, non-humans and the larger environment'.

With a foreword from Stanley Hauerwas, the premenient Christian pacficist theologian, this book brings together a line-up of leading thinkers including Sam Wells, D. Stephen Long, Gregory Boyd, Gerald Schlabach, Robert Brimlow and Amy Laura Hall, amongst others. Hauerwas welcomes the book, as you would expect, and sees it as a 'new stage in the conversation' about Christian nonviolence.

The editors suggest this is an 'easy-to-read' book. I think that might be a little generous in both ways we might interepret this phrase. The book is in many ways a demanding read - the arguments made are theological, philosophical and biblical, that is, there is an academic rigour to them, and the book is uncomfortable read in that challenges us to practice nonviolence in the face of responsibilities we feel we have towards family, nation, etc where they might be threatened. The chapters cover questions such as what about Hitler, what about if a loved one was being attacked, what about the police, what about violence in the Old Testament, what about Jesus' action in the Temple, what about the presentation of Jesus in the book of Revelation.

The two chapters I was most interested in were, what about the protection of third-party innocents and what if someone were attacking a loved one? The latter surely being the most asked question and the former being the question that exercises me. The question of third-party innocents is addressed by D. Stephen Long. After a fairly biographical and descriptive part of the chapter, he attempts to answer the question. The answer being that yes we must be prepared to let our neighbours or other innocents die.  Long argues that this response cannot be immoral unless those who advocate just war acknowledge that their position is equally immoral as an in any war 'the innocent will be killed alongside the aggressor.' The just war theorist may respond that they do not intend the death of innocents, whilst the pacifist must. Long responds that is 'to attribute an intention to an action becuase of others' abuses.' Long argues that 

'In truth, we live in a sinful, fallen world, where we cannot secure our existence, or that of our friends and families, against all potential aggressors. To live if we can is simply to deny the reality of sin. To live as if we must is simply to deny the resurrection.'

How is this not unjust? How is this not quietism against abuse? Long claims that 'christological pacifism' can only be taken seriously when we work to 'provide ways for securing the lifeof our neighbors by other means than violence.' While I agree with Long, and with the likes of Hauerwas and others, it seems to me that there does need to be a stronger answer to how we might respond to violent oppression and injustice, especially as we see it in other nations, like Zimbabwe or Syria. One response that Shane Claiborne and others will make is the work of Christian Peacemaker Teams. I want to ask what else? 

The other chapter on what do I when a loved one is being attacked is written by Amy Laura Hall and Kara Slade. Hall and Slade appraoch this question by questioning the question itself - who is you, who is the loved one, who is the attacker, and what sort of attack is implied? The 'you' they suggest asks whether they you physically could do anything if the 'someone' attacking was bigger, stronger - Hall suggests the 'you' can only evoke laughter in reference to her. They then recognise that 'you' is here is generally asked in reference to a man in defending his family. What would a man 'do' they suggests is bound up with 'assumptions about masculinity' and that to do nothing is to be seen as less than a man. They also, following Yoder, push against the view that the question only has two outcomes - tradegy or successful attempt killing. when it comes to the 'someone' attacking, they suggest that this someone is implied as different - and they suggest behind this is a question of race. The sort of attack implied, Hall and Slade will come down to rape. What they are revealing is that it is culture that often determines the answer to this question and not the gospel. There is more going in this question of what you would do in this situation, which is worth uncovering and so what would become a natural response to resort to violence, becomes less straightforward. They end by noting there is no easy answer, and to keep persisting in that 'frustration' for an answer. Hall and Slade make plain that issues of gender lie behind this question. They make some insightful observations. It would I think be helpful to read some other response to this and the other question that Long explores above.

This is a good book, an important book, and hopefully, as Hauerwas suggests, will take forward the conversation regarding Christian nonviolence, and seeing many Christians recognise that nonviolence is the way of the gospel. 

LA Theology Conference

Fred Sanders has emailed to spread the word about a new conference taking place in Los Angeles that he's organising with Oliver Crisp. They hope this the first of many conferences to come. They have an excellent line-up to get started with Alan Torrance, George Hunsinger, Katherine Sonderegger, Peter Leithart and Crisp himself. They are all addressing the theme of Christology Ancient and Modern. Dates are 17-18 January 2013.

For more see the website here.

The Day Is Yours: Slow Spirituality in a Fast-Moving World

Part of being a new minister means being encouraged to read. Next week I return to Regent's Park College for the day to reflect on my continuing development in ministry. For this we have had to read The Day Is Yours by Ian Stackhouse, who will be there to talk with us about the book and its implications.

I've had the book for a while, gave it a quick skim read on purchase, but then has been on shelf ever since. Read it today (well most of it!). This is a good little book, which brought a fresh challenge to embed more fixed rhythms of prayer and rest into my life. My first two responses were to encourage the small support group I am part to read it, so we might help one another live it, and to earmark it as a book to encourage the church which I belong to read, so we might help one another live it.

Stackhouse argues that in a world which moves too fast, where we in thrall to our email inbox, our twitter and facebook accounts, the ringing of our mobile phone, we try and manage our time without success. We try and fit everything in as if it was possible. Stackhouse argues we need to slow down, take proper sabbath rest, live in the present, and to give prayer its proper place at the beginning and ending of our day. As Dave Hansen writes in the foreword this is a very ordinary spirituality, or to use a phrase from Luke Bretherton, a 'mundane spirituality', but a necessary one, says Stackhouse, if we are stand apart from the consumer mentality that pervades our whole culture and give thanks for our daily bread. Stackhouse argues (I thnk rightly) for the importance of gathered Sunday worship - its the Lord's Day - and is critical of those voices that suggest this is just a 'christendom' thing that we can do without. This is not about campaigning to keep sunday special, but to recognise that this is a practice from the early church, is a central means of formation and is a witness to the wider world of the Christian claim 'Jesus is Lord'. In many churches the shape and content of gathered worship needs renewing, but its place is (I think) beyond question.

This a good little book. Read it. Live it.