David Cameron, Conservative Party leader and for all intents and purposes our next prime minister, gave an interview about his faith, which was picked up by Christian Today. In the article he is quoted as saying:

I think that it’s perfectly possible to live a good life without having faith, by which I mean a positive and altruistic life, but I think the teachings of Jesus, just as the teachings of other religions are, a good guide to help us through.

I don’t want to make light of the faith Mr. Cameron has, nor doubt his sincerity. He mentions the death of his eldest son and the pain that caused, so the fact that he can talk about his faith positively at all I find encouraging. I hope it delves deeper.

The faith he describes, though, is the self-help variety, and is not found exclusively in the Church of England. Listening to many evangelicals, I hear similar messages, if perhaps laced with more bible verses. God and the teachings of Jesus help us to be better people and hence have a good life. I guess it depends on what kind of life you mean.

The problem is that Jesus’ teachings don’t promise the kind of life I think most of us look for when we seek out a guide. Most of the books in the self-help section that promise a guide to life show us how to make more money, how to move up in a job, or how to have a better family life. Even on the family life, Jesus sounds different than what most parenting books say. If you are looking to have a comfortable, easy life with plenty in your retirement savings and a life where you can have upward mobility, I doubt Jesus is who your looking for.

Jesus is looking for much more than being a self-help guru, but calls us to follow him. Following him means something very different to living simply a ‘good life’ (positive and altruistic, in Mr. Cameron’s definition). Jesus was looking to overturn the world and bring a new creation. The Old Testament lesson for this week (Hannah’s Song from 1 Samuel) gives us us the ‘party policy’ Jesus wants. And it’s not easy. It makes me squirm and want to turn to a self-help Jesus.

So here are a couple of Jesus’ statements from the ‘guide to life’ that I would like to see Mr. Cameron use as he enters office next summer:

1. Love your enemies. How do you create a foreign policy based on that?
2. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor. Will this be considered sound economic policy?

What are some teachings of Jesus (or the ‘good guide’)  you would like to see the Conservative Party use as the basis of their policies?

The Shepherds Souvenir Shop, Bethlehem

I’m starting to think about Christmas. I realise that this won’t be the first Christmas post for some, but I haven’t seen many about Christmas items in my newsreader yet. I get excited this time of year, even when I want to scream out against the commercialisation and my liturgical side wants to keep the focus on Advent (even though I love the Christmas decorations already out and I have already got my first Christmas recipe themed coffee from Starbucks).

Speaking of the commercialisation of Christmas, I remembered one of my favourite photos I took in Bethlehem earlier in the year, which you have no doubt already seen because it’s right there on the page. The shop is right across the street from the entrance to the Roman Catholic Shepherds’ Field on the outskirts of Bethlehem. There’s a small cave with a chapel inside, said to be the place where the shepherds were huddled together the night the angels spoke. It was one of my favourite stops on our tour, and surprisingly so.

Our guide (a Palestinian Roman Catholic) answered questions about the poverty of the Palestinians and the wall built by the Israelis, forcing many into the role of outcast. He then moved straight into the story of shepherds, who were the poor and illiterate outcasts of their day. Our guide’s reminder: the poor and outcasts were waiting for the messiah, also. It was a Christmas Eve sermon I wished I could preach.

Of course, you leave the gates of Shepherds Field and you are right back into the commercialisation of Christmas! I love how the shepherds are following a star and the star guides them to… their very own souvenir shop!

In my last post on Messianic Judaism, I mentioned an article by Jason Byasee, of Leadership Education at Duke Divinity. He was kind enough to email me and mention an article he wrote on Messianic Judaism a few years ago for the Christian Century. In it he notices the problem I posed the other day, but that’s not what the article is about. He writes about the struggles of those who call themselves Messianic Jews and the tumultuous relationships they have with both other Jewish groups and (other?) Christian groups. It’s very interesting and well worth a read if you want to know more:

Jarvis, Leighton and Winner all recognize that for Jews the Christian appropriation of Jewish faith is a source of anguish. It reminds them of centuries of persecution and forced conversions. Jews often regard a Jew’s conversion to Christianity as a “posthumous victory for Hitler.”

Yet for Messianic Jews, these arguments beg the question. Messianic Jews claim still to be Jews. The ones I spoke with at Avodat and elsewhere spoke of their obligation to marry other Jews and raise their children as Jews. They pointed out that while other Jews may not recognize the validity of Messianics Jews’ Jewishness, such division is not unusual: some of the various branches of Judaism in the U.S. don’t recognize each other’s Jewishness either. Messianic Jews say their relationships with other Jews, even other rabbis, are much better than the statements of Jewish spokespersons and watchdog groups would suggest.

I read today an article by Jason Byassee, ‘Not a Christian, But a Christ-Follower?‘. It’s an interesting article that calls into questioning some who want to rid themselves of Christian baggage (i.e., all that a particular person doesn’t like about other Christians – crusades, conservatives, liberals, etc.) and say something to the effect of, ‘No, I’m not a Christian; I’m a Christ-follower.’ (Random aside to John Meunier: did I use the semicolon correctly there? I never know when it’s appropriate.) In his article, he says that we can’t just disown each other by changing our label:

This is the part that really irks me the most on eschewing “Christian.” It’s as though we get off scot-free for historical Christian sins (the crusades, racism, you name it) by just calling ourselves something else. Christians believe there is a way to forgiveness and purity—but it passes through confession, restoration, and repaired relationship. The much more costly way to disassociate from those who have done ill in Christ’s name is to set about loving as fanatically as they hated.

I agree with him, and appreciate in particular what he says about the way to purity.

As I read, I thought about those who call themselves Messianic Jews (Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah) and they call themselves that refusing to call themselves Christians. Or at least some of them. I admit I know very little about Messianic Judaism. The little I do know is from those I met in Christian chat rooms or online forums, which isn’t much. And usually I simply got messages that told me I didn’t understand, which there may have been some truth to it. But, I did feel  determination to be separate from the rest of us.

Certainly what Jason says (above, and his commentary on the body of Christ in the article) would apply to Messianic Jews as well as Jesus’ ‘Gentile followers’. If anyone has any thoughts on this, I would be interested in hearing about it.

My friend Sarah McGiverin has started blogging at Jerusalem to Jericho. So, this gives me the opportunity to point you to a new blog that I hope you’ll read. Sarah and I spent long conversations trying to hammer out theology, and I am very glad to see she’s going to be sharing it online.

In her latest post, she writes on something that has been on my mind increasingly: children’s bible stories. She describes the state of most the children’s bibles in stores today:

Story lines are altered to suit rhyming schemes, works righteousness abounds, God is everywhere “He,” and the single thrust of most every story is that it is our bounden duty to tell everyone that Christ died to save them from damnation – even if the story is from the Old Testament. (See, for instance, Arch Books’ Zerubbabel Rebuilds the Temple.)

She goes on to admit what a lot of us think: the bible is simply not child-friendly. A lot of effort will have to go into changing the stories to at least make them readable to children. Noah and the ark comes out more funny floating zoo, leaving out the destruction of all creation. And what about the stories we dare not use with adults, much less children? (E.g., the rape of Tamar, etc.) Some of the stories in this book are just plain awful.

For our part, April and I have introduced Savannah to VeggieTales. She has taken to them as much as Bob the Builder and In the Night Garden. Watching these stories has brought me to something of a crisis in thinking, what exactly is she learning about the Bible? Veggies leaves out the more grisly bits of most stories and all have some sort of moral kids are supposed to learn. In Rach, Shack, and Benny, the lesson is ‘don’t go along with everyone else’. In Dave and the Giant Pickle, it’s ‘with God little guys can do big things too’. Not all Bible stories stay within their context – Mo and the Big Exit (the Exodus story) is a western. Some of it can be very cringe-worthy. How will this first encounter with the Bible affect her?

Yet, Savannah does love the Veggies. In particular, the Queen Esther story has stuck with her. It is by far the best of the bunch, anyway. OK, it send Haaman to the Island of Perpetual Tickling rather than hanging him from the gallows, but it sticks well with the story in Esther. Also, this episode is the least moralizing – the summary is simply – God uses people at the right place at the right time (a decent account of Mordecai’s – Morgapie to Savannah – words, ‘for such a time as this‘). One night, I showed her the story of Queen Esther in her children’s bible and she made the connection instantly. Now she asks for that story every night when we read the Bible (and she has to kiss Esther’s picture, too). VeggieTales has given her a love for the stories in the Bible that I do want her to have. I hope she will grow up to read the story of Esther deeper, and move on from the VeggieTales/Sunday school version she has now.

Which brings me to an aside: I am not a big fan of the treatment VeggieTales gave to the Exodus. But, I will say this for them. One scene caught me off guard and really touched me. I was interested in how they would handle the final plague. In it, the river rises and all the first born children get taken away (the assumption is they died, but it doesn’t actually say that). The narrator calls this the saddest of all the plagues and then cuts to Larry the Cucumber (Mo) who looks downcast as he watches. He then still looking very sad, quietly goes to the Mayor (Pharaoh), doesn’t say a word and the Mayor tells him to get out and take the people with him.  Why do I bring this up? I don’t remember ever hearing this story told in a way that it was heartbreaking to God and Moses. It was always a triumphant moment for God and Moses and a big cheer for them. I wonder if that speaks to the shallow way most children’s book handle the stories in the Old Testament. How many of us actually grew out of the ‘Sunday school’ version of the stories to think about them differently?

Sarah calls for more stories that can be more subtle, and she names Tolkien as a writer who illustrates Christian themes without being too direct. In the runup to Christmas, I think of A Charlie Brown Christmas. Though it does have Linus telling the Christmas story, it never gives the moralising this is what you do now. The story itself causes Charlie Brown to act and even the others to see what he was trying to do. Even more subtly is Dr. Suess’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which doesn’t give answers, but simply says maybe Christmas was about ’something more’. (This is much better than the twee answer given in the film version that Christmas is about ‘family’). Like Sarah, I am open to any and all suggestions. Please tell me if you have any!

At the moment, or at least until Sarah writes her own book she mentions in her post (!), I am going to err on the side of these children’s bibles and VeggieTales. After all the Bible has the book of Proverbs with its moralising, but often helpful day-to-day advice. Hopefully, as Savannah grows, she will also read Ecclesiastes and Job, both of which question the absolutism that Proverbs portrays (pretending there is no contradiction is the sort of Sunday school understanding I hope we all grow out of). As with those books, so with the children’s version Savannah reads now. I also hope that April and I will give deeper accounts of what it means to believe these very strange (and sometimes awful) stories are scripture. And we are hoping that people like Sarah will also have an active role in teaching Savannah about the faith where we have been unable to give a different perspective.

I would like to dedicate this video to my blogging friend Nick Norelli. For the rest of you, this is what to do if you find yourself in a charismatic worship service and you don’t know what to do.

HT: Robin Parry at Theological Scribbles

I wrote a post last Halloween on the boy wizard Harry Potter, so I thought I would make it a tradition and do it again this year. Harry has been on my mind a lot this year since I wrote a paper on him, and ideas still swirl around my head.

This year, spurred on by thoughts about my sermon tomorrow and by John Meunier’s post earlier in the week, I have been thinking about Harry’s final march toward Voldemort. [Here I must give the obligatory SPOILER ALERT!] In the last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, after seeing the memories of his former potions master, Harry realises he must sacrifice himself to defeat the evil wizard Voldemort. He passes invisibly by those he loves knowing he will never see them again. He feels alone. Then remembering the last gift from his mentor Dumbledore, he opens the case to find a small stone. The stone is the legendary ‘Resurrection Stone’ that has the power to bring back the dead – well, sort of. No magic has that ability in the ‘Harry Potter world’.

Harry uses the stone and the four people he loved the most appear – his mother, his father, Remus Lupin, and his godfather Sirius Black. They walk with him into the forest as he prepares to sacrifice himself for the sake of those still living. After Voldemort strikes Harry with the killing curse, Dumbledore (who had died in the previous book) meets him in an ‘in-between the worlds’ sort of place. Dumbledore explains to Harry that Harry had used the stone to enable himself to make the sacrifice he needed to make – not for his own personal gain. Dumbledore then admits that he had only wanted the stone for selfish purposes. Surrounded by the ‘dead saints’ of Harry’s life who had already sacrificed themselves, Harry can imagine a true end to the violent reign of Voldemort. Until then, he could only imagine violence himself. Rather than imagining an army of resurrected warriors to fight, Harry surrounds himself with those whose sacrifice now encourages him.

Sacrifice does not usually come to our minds when we think strategically about mission. Here’s where John’s point comes in:

All Saints Day is not a time to look back on the dead and think kind thoughts about them. It is a time to see in those who have come before as signs and sources of life. It is a time for the mute stones to echo with the summons to life. It is a day of dangerous hope for the kingdom yet to come.

We take our strength from the same Holy Spirit that strengthened the saints before us. We hear their stories and find in them a freeing of our imagination to even see sacrifice as the means by which God works. When we get out our own way as they did, God’s Spirit breaks through. We also realise that nothing is sacrificed in vain because nothing is ever lost – God raises the dead.

Over the next year, my churches will be looking at mission. Wilpshire are planning a youth club that will reach out to kids in the community. Here we sacrifice the worries we have over the building and what may happen to it. We also may have to sacrifice our dream of having them come on Sunday. At Mellor, we currently are running an Alpha Course. Inviting people to come in with their questions may sacrifice our deeply held beliefs that may have gone unchallenged. God, who saw the saints of previous generations through, will be with us. We may not know how God will accomplish his purpose, but God is working bringing life where there is none.

Looking at some of the activities listings on many church notice boards, I have seen a few that list an event as a ‘Fresh Expression’. Fresh Expressions is a movement(?) that encourages churches to find new ways (or ‘fresh expressions) of being church for people who have no contact (and in increasing cases, never had contact) with inherited church. Often, but not always, they are aimed at young families. The intent is to give an encounter with the gospel in an atmosphere in which they are familiar (as opposed to sitting quietly and singing hymns and listening to sermons).

It seems a little counterintuitive to me to name it a fresh expression when that’s what it is supposed to be.  Fresh Expression has no real meaning to those who would come (any more than church would). Why not find a name for it that excites and tells something about what you’re trying to do?

Your Own Personal Jesus

I saw this sign today while visiting Wells-next-the-sea (on the North Norfolk coast). It was on the board inside the churchyard for the Evangelical Congregational Church Centre. I can’t figure out if they are advertising a programme, giving a ‘thought for the day’, or trying to say that the church is the ‘personal Jesus’.

With no referent, I assume they are trying to reach out to those who need someone to hear their prayers and need someone to care for them. Not necessarily bad in itself, I suppose. But is this the reason for the church’s existence?

I guess this is why I have been thinking about hell and universalism this week. Without hell, it seems the church has lost a primary motivation to do to mission. It also seems that we struggle to find our reason for existing. So, we are now here to let people know we are ‘there for them’ (which reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry and Elaine try to ‘be there for’ the couple who are fighting and they are trying to break them up under the pretense of caring for them).

Leading two churches worried about their future, I am struggling to article a vision for mission in a new era. I don’t think hell is useful anymore, but certainly our mission must be broader than ‘being there’ for others (again, not bad in and of itself, but not enough on its own). Any thoughts?

I’m taking a break on thinking about hell. Of course sleeping on the roof may be close to it. But, my friend and fellow North Lancs minister Rev. Lindsay Pettigrew is doing just that to raise money for her church. The roof of her church is in bad need of repairs and the money she raises will go toward that (and Streetlife, a homeless ministry in Blackpool).

I haven’t asked Lindsay if she is sleeping on the section of the roof that will need repairs. Hopefully, I will see her at synod in a few weeks all in one piece.

BBC Article Link