Rupert’s Blog

If you have a spare few minutes, try this Climate Challenge by the BBC. You become leader of a United Europe (are they making a political point here?) and have to balance differing demands for money, popularity, food, water, power, and your carbon emissions. As the environment is top of my thinking at the moment, and as it is much clearer how well you doing in this area, rather than the economy, I think I neglected making the figures work. So I saved the world, but plunged a whole continent into recession and poverty. Mmmm! Can you do any better?

HT: Sanctus 1

Next Sunday, I am speaking at church on Loneliness, and in light of a previous post, Preaching as Community?, I am hoping for some help! Here are a few thoughts, I hope will generate a bit of discussion or some comments (so go on, stop lurking and add your thoughts!):

Loneliness is one of the greatest human problems, especially so in our modern society with the fragmenting of community & family and the migration of people from the country to the city. It is not to be confused with being alone, but is more a feeling of being cut off or separate from others. The old cliché that you can feel most alone in a crowd definitely has some truth in it.

I think it is something that most people grapple with at some point in our lives, and for some it is something they live with pretty much constantly. There are probably lots of reasons why people feel lonely, but I want to suggest here that there is something inevitable about feeling lonely.

There is a longing deep inside us to be fully known and to know others fully; for other human beings to look at us, as we really are, and to accept us, to love us, to move towards us. We are longing for a deep connection with others, and anything less, leaves us feeling very alone in this world.

But as we learn from the Genesis story of Adam and Eve, our selfishness has led us to live in ways that are self-protecting; we metaphorically put fig leaves over our sin and our shame, which leads to separation from others. While we move towards God and find his love and grace for our brokenness and shame, and therefore move towards others in vulnerability and honesty, we will never be free of our selfishness. At least not this side of death, and a full realisation of the Kingdom.

So loneliness becomes our constant companion, reminding us that we are meant for so much more. It tells us that we are works in progress, being restored and healed. We experience longing for real and authentic relating to others, that we occasionally get glimpses of and which only awakens a hope for more.

What do you think? Is loneliness inevitable? Is it our friend? Or is it something that Jesus does come to set us free from? Is it our enemy? Does it really show up our lack of authentic community? What have you experienced or learnt about loneliness?

To finish, a quote from Mother Teresa:

When Christ said: “I was hungry and you fed me,” he didn’t mean only the hunger for bread and for food; he also meant the hunger to be loved. Jesus himself experienced this loneliness. He came amongst his own and his own received him not, and it hurt him then and it has kept on hurting him. The same hunger, the same loneliness, the same having no one to be accepted by and to be loved and wanted by. Every human being in that case resembles Christ in his loneliness; and that is the hardest part, that’s real hunger.

Tags: Mother Theresa, Preaching, Loneliness

This morning I happened to listen to a fantastic program on Radio 4 on William Wilberforce (my wife had changed the radio from Radio 5 that I usually listen to!). Melvyn Bragg presents “In Our Time” which you can listen again to here (or if you read this a week after posting, you will be able to find it in the archives here). Bragg looks at the life of Wilberforce, and is very explicit about Wilberforce’s faith, that motivated his life mission to see the slave trade abolished. Really worth listening too if you have a spare 45 minutes.

It was great to hear a program that did not dilute the role that Christian Faith played in the life of Wilberforce. If you look at The Amazing Change website, connected to the Amazing Grace film that is coming out in a few weeks time in the UK, you can hardly find any reference to Wilberforce’s faith. Even the name of the Clapham Sect has been changed to Clapham Circle, and no reference to them all being Christians! [HT toggietales]

It is an amazing story, which is in the media as this year celebrates the 200 year anniversary of the Houses of Parliament passing a law to abolish the slave trade. Wilberforce had found faith due to the influence of Isaac Milner, in his 20’s, and then considered giving up politics (he was MP for Hull) and going into the priesthood [there is an interesting article on his conversion at the Church Society website]. But a conversation with John Newton (author of the hymn Amazing Grace and a former slave trader) persuaded him otherwise, and to devote his life to the abolition of the slave trade. Many years later, in 1807, he had persuaded parliament to pass a law abolishing trading of human beings, but it was not until 1833, a few days before Wilberforce died, that slavery itself was abolished.

Wilberforce is an inspiration to those of us now who believe that Christians should be at the forefront of any move to bring about social change in our society [see previous posts, Visit to Cambridge or Dancing in the Aisles]. And maybe too, a reminder that there are still people who are being bought and sold in slavery today?

Tags: Amazing Change, Wilberforce, Amazing Grace, Melvyn Bragg, Clapham Circle, Slavery

There has been a fascinating conversation that has been happening in the comments section on a previous post, Dancing in the Aisles. After a number of comments going back and forth about how the church should critique society for its attitude to sex, Paul Ede left the following comment:

“This really could make a fascinating sermon. Is this a post-modern way to write a sermon? Have an actual talk shaped by discussion on-line. Certainly there is a host of good things that Rupert could use here for a very engaging talk on the subject. Seriously, this is good stuff. Maybe monologue preaching can be “saved” by being created in dialogue like this…an alternative to introducing a dialogue format in a church where this might be less practicable because of the size of the congregation. Also, encodes idea of us all having the voice of the Lord. Preaching becomes a sort of oracle of what the community thinks the Lord is saying, mediated through the appointed leadership - bottom up rather than top-down sermons. Finally, its a lot less work for the preacher.”

Well said Paul. Not sure I agree about it being a lot less work (just look at the debate in the comments!), but I agree with the rest. It was one of my hopes from blogging … to engage in conversation, dialogue, to get other perspectives. And in the process, learn together.

I have a bit of a love / hate relationship with preaching. I love teaching. I love it when others get that “aha” moment, see something new, or find that the truth really does set them free. But so often I am frustrated about the context in which that happens. The real goal of preaching isn’t that we go away knowing more, but go away changed, Christ is a bit more formed inside us, we are shaped a little bit more like God. Knowledge isn’t bad, it is just the start of the learning process which brings about change.

Some people clearly have a gift for preaching or teaching. It is not only that they have good things to say, but they also have an ability to say them in a way that really communicates. So there is definitely a place for that in a church. But so often the work starts and finishes with them. I read, get ideas, study, try to get a sense of what it is God is wanting to do or say, and then take my finished piece to deliver on a Sunday morning. And that, generally, is where it stops. Often there isn’t much ongoing dialogue or feedback. I’ve done my bit, and now its for others to individually respond to God (or perhaps we might have a discussion in a small group in the middle of the week!).

Well I just don’t think that is good enough. Its not good for me and its not good for others. Its what Doug Pagitt calls it “speeching”, and it is pale reflection of Biblical Preaching. Learning is best done together. It isn’t an event, it is process. Its ongoing. And it happens in life. It happens in relationship with people.

So I guess my question is: how can we really help people learn and be changed?

Tags: Preaching, Doug Pagitt

Lent is almost upon us, starting on Wednesday 21st February. For many years I haven’t been that engaged with the historical Christian festivals, but recently I have began to appreciate the rhythm of the year, times of feasting and fasting and prayer … or that is the intention anyway!

So in approaching this Lent I have been pondering what I might do. The problem (for me at any rate) is that I am not very good at following through on my resolutions. Every advent I intend to take time to reflect each day on the meaning of Christmas, but fail miserably. By New Year, I have realised that those resolutions only lead to a greater sense of guilt when yet again they don’t last that long. So the thought of being more focused in prayer for 40 days seems a massive mountain to climb.

There are a couple of good posts worth recommending: Maggi Dawn has a short useful reminder of what Lent is all about. Bruce Stanley has some interesting thoughts on “Friends, God and Enemies” at embody. But that all seems a bit like setting myself up for a fall. I need something that will remind me of the Lent, but something that I can commit to, and catch up with, if a day or two (or three or four) turn out busier than expected.

So then I came across this from Christian Aid, called “Counting your Blessings”. The idea is that you give money each day, to remind ourselves that we have so much in the West, and many in this world of ours have so little [Molly has taken this idea rather further than I am suggesting on her 30 days of nothing]. So for example, on Wednesday I am told: “Every year 1.6 million of the world’s poorest people die from respiratory infections, aggravated by smoke from open fires in their homes. Give 5p for every radiator in your home, and 10p for every fireplace.“

On Monday 12th March: “Nearly one-third of the world’s population is ‘off-grid’ – living without an electricity supply. Give 5p for every plug socket in your home.”

And on Thursday 22nd March: “In some countries, the media is strictly monitored and shows very limited and biased news. Give 20p if you bought a newspaper today and 10p for every time you caught the radio or TV news.“

You total up each day, and then at the end of Lent you have an amount to give (to Christian Aid of course). Given how many power sockets we have and what a news junkie I am, this could be an expensive Lent. I think I might have to give up chocolate after all to pay for it all …

Let me know what you are intending on doing?

Just a quick post to draw attention to a document that Paul Ede has posted on his blog, about his strategy, values and ethos of a proposed church plant that he will be leading in Glasgow. The document is long, but inspiring, well thought out & researched, and worth taking some time to read. Paul was member of Community Church for a number of years, and is a friend (so I am maybe a wee bit biased), but I think he and Esther (with some help from above) will make it work.

Paul is wanting to see a contextualised and indigenous church in Urban Deprived Areas, in this case in Glasgow. These areas are “under-churched”, often inner city, areas of poverty with multiple deprivation. This is a totally different ballgame from ‘gathered’ (or what Paul calls suburban) churches, or even emerging churches (both of which, it seems, are mostly fairly middle class). In fact my only worry is that too many people might find it so inspiring that they all leave churches like ours, and go and join him…

Last night was the airing on Channel 4, in the UK, of God is Green, as mentioned in a previous post. Mark Dowd presented the program, looking at why religious leaders have been so silent on environmental issues. But that does seem to be changing somewhat, with the Bishop of London pledging not to fly for personal reasons for a year, having previously declared that driving large cars, or flying on holiday was sinful.

So Mark Dowd asks “Is Carbon the new Sex?”. [Maybe I am in danger of fueling an interesting debate that has been happening in the comments on another post, “Dancing in the Aisles“?] Will we be confessing our carbon sin to each other, as we have been confessing other sin?

Well, perhaps not. But finally the church is waking up to its responsibility to be prophetic to our society. So often we have limited being prophetic to some words that are shared (and often forgotten pretty quickly afterwards) on a Sunday morning when we Christians gather together. But we have often lost our role of being a prophetic voice to the society we live in, calling people to live less selfishly for the sake of others, our children and their children.

It seems to me that we have not bothered about our responsibility to care and stewardship of creation, as our theology has often got in the way. There are still some wacky Christian groups who see the changing patterns of the world’s weather as a sign of the “end times”, the immanence of the return of Christ. And why bother with taking care of the world if Jesus is coming back soon, and we will have a “new heaven and new earth” … all will be restored?

Fortunately, that view is increasingly less common in the Christian world (although it has to be admitted there is still a lot of it about, for example see this article).The early church thought Jesus would return before they died. They have been people throughout history that think the end of the world is nigh. What happens if it isn’t? What if there is another 2000 years, or 10,000 years?

Added to this is the interpretation of the passage in Genesis 1 … where God tells the first man and woman to “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth” [verse 28]. Unfortunately this has been taken in isolation of the mandate in Genesis 2:15 to “work it [creation] and take care of it“. [See a post by Paul for more on the Hebrew words used in Gen 2:15 and for his take on the program last night.]

We are seeing that God has given us responsibility to care for creation. We are to be stewards, not consumers of the world we live in, ruled by profit and GDP. Surely we have a responsibility to pass on the world we live in the best possible condition to our children, and to call the rest of the world to be similarly minded? And surely, as Mark Dowd pointed out in his film, we have a responsibility to the poor, who have done very little to contribute to climate change, but would be ones most affected?

Wouldn’t it be great for the church to be known as the group of people who are at the forefront of the movement calling people to live less for themselves, and more for the benefit of the whole?

Tags: Channel 4, Environment, Global Warming, Mark Dowd, God is Green

Last year Richard Dawkins, a scientist and renowned atheist, wrote a book called “The God Delusion” which hit the best sellers lists at the end of the year. Well another Oxford Professor, well known Christian author and apologist, Alister McGrath has written a piece in the Daily Mail in response to Dawkins. Definitely worth a read.

Dawkins is pretty religious in his evangelistic fervour. He wants to convert all “faith-heads” to non-faith. He is dogmatic, certain, and pretty much like many of the religious believers (fundamentalists) he criticises. McGrath paints Dawkins as dogmatic, “immune to argument”, full of misunderstanding and unfair.

Scott McKnight has blogged his way through the book is you are really keen to find out what Dawkins is saying, but, like me, don’t want to put a single penny into his pocket by buying the book! There are 8 parts: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Related: A previous post: The Trouble with Atheism

HT: tallskinnykiwi, who has also blogged on The New Atheism.

Tags: Atheism, Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Tonight at 8pm on Channel 4 (for UK readers), Mark Dowd has written and presents a documentary entitled “God is Green”, which should be interesting viewing.

Dowd is a thinking Catholic, and once trained as a Dominican Friar, before going into journalism. I first came across him over a year ago, when he produced another documentary: “Tsunami: Where was God?”. It was fantastic, the best piece I have ever come across on how a loving God can allow natural disasters to occur like the Tsunami. He asks all the difficult questions, interviews and listens to people from all religions, and doesn’t come out with trite answers, but does come back to faith at the end. Brilliant. For a more comprehensive review, check out Jason Clark’s comments.

So this promises to be good too. You can read what Channel 4 have to say about it here, and this is blurb from the Radio Times:

“Why are the world’s religions so quiet on the subject of climate change? Inquisitive Catholic Mark Dowd takes a look at green issues through a religious prism and bemoans the lack of spiritual leadership on the issue. The highlight is his interview with a senior cardinal who, in the best traditions of Vatican encounters with the press, comes across as shifty, complacent and faintly sinister. The man the Holy See puts forward as its top dog on climate change chuckles at the thought of how many air miles he must clock up every month. No, really. Not that Islam or Hinduism do much better out of Dowd’s green audit. And sadly, it’s hard to see his film, engaging and powerfully written as it is, bringing any of them to their ethical senses any time soon.”

See here for my thoughts and review of the program.

Tags: Environment, God is Green, Mark Dowd

Last night we had Lynn Swart round for a meal, as she is up in Scotland on holiday for a few days. Lynn, originally from South Africa and now living in Southampton became a friend, a few years ago, particularly when we whisked her away on holiday for week in Spain.

She now does the holiday thing without us (sob!), but it was lovely to see her & catch up on all our news. Check out her website for more info on Lynn, who is an inspiring lady. She is great worship leader, teacher, she travels quite a bit around different churches … but mostly what I love about Lynn is her love for Jesus. Go girl!