on prayer
"Prayer should be brief and pure, unless it happen to be lengthened by an impulse or inspiration of divine grace."
from the Rule of St Benedict
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Maggi has kept a blog since September 2003, writing about theology and faith, the arts and literature, and a little about life and random nonsense...
In an increasingly secularised society few people have a good working knowledge of the Bible. Yet a great deal of our culture is built on stories or ideas that come from the Bible. Literature, art, music, language and even the fabric of our society - such as our justice system - are built on Christian concepts and biblical references. The Writing on the Wall provides a fascinating introduction to the Bible's best-known, and most influential, stories. Each chapter gives some background to the text of the Bible, and shows how the stories have become enmeshed in Western culture. Adam and Eve, the ten plagues of Egypt, The Prodigal Son and Mary Magdalene all feature - along with how the Bible has influenced everyone from Shakespeare to Monty Python, and Caravaggio to Banksy. 
Giving It Up explores the Lenten idea of 'giving up', taking it beyond the traditional idea of simply abstaining from something, and suggesting instead that what we need to give up is our existing ideas about God. With a daily readings for each day of Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, it follows the heroes of the Bible who had to give up their own too-small ideas about God.
This is Maggi’s bestselling book of daily readings for each day of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. Advent is the beginning of the Church year, and marks the anticipation of the coming Messiah. These readings explore how beginnings and endings in our own lives are illuminated by the different Gospel narratives of Christ's coming.
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Hear hear Maggi… so the flooding in Sheffield is a judgement? Are they particularly wicked along the river Don?
I would have thought Graham Dow would be less foolish than that. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s all quoted out of context but why give headline writers the opportunity to render your words so mean sounding, so cruel to those who are suffering already with the floods and just so wretchedly stupid.
sigh
p.s. Do see what happens when you let a clerical person get up and preach!
it wouldn’t have happend if we had banned preaching as a result of our last conversation! 
Maggi,
I can see how you might think the Bishops were saying that (floods are sent by God), but if you read carefully what they said you’ll see it’s not that simple. Yes, Dow, Jones et al said that the Government has enacted immoral legislation over the past years and that also the west as a whole is guilty of ignoring it’s stewardship over creation. The Bishops also said that God’s judgement on sin is something we have pushed out of the way whereas it is a real thing. But none of the Bishops actually said that the floods were directly linked to sin (i.e. God sent them because of the sin). Rather, the tone of the Bishop’s argument is that sin distorts the world into an ever more broken state, environmentally and spiritually, so as we become more broken and rejecting of God, so creation responds.
Chartres said:
“We are all part of the problem and part of the solution. Instead of living as if we owned the earth we need to recover a sense of being participants in a web of life with responsibilities to other life forms and to our children.”
Do you see the difference? It’s a bit more theological sophisticated then the case made by the Telegraph, but since when did a newspaper try to grapple serious (and deep) theology?
Well, there are two types of comments in the Times story. I’m surprised the newspaper mixed them up. One is the nutty type by the Bishop of Carlisle (if he was quoted correctly and it’s hard to believe that he was) that suggests God somehow actually controls the weather and uses it to send us messages about things like our sexual morality. That’s silly. But other episcopal comments do make sense, as those by the Bishops of Liverpool and London. Global warming is at least in part caused by how we live, most climate scientists believe, and it does show a lack of respect for creation and the Creator.
Peter O, yes, of course I can see the difference. It’s elementary. But if you read carefully what I said, you’ll notice that i didn’t say “the Bishops said…”, I said my heart sinks when I see articles like the one in the Telegraph. Doesn’t yours? You may also see that I draw a distinction between comments “that are either really of the nutcase variety” (for instance, floods are a judgement from God on sexual immorality) “or open to badly skewed misreporting” (which is to say, laying yourself open unnecessarily to being reduced to a banal argument). Do you see the difference?
Neale, I agree with you, but knowing how instantly the British press will leap on any statement that includes the words “Bishop, God, natural disaster, judgement” and use them to ridicule the CHurch, I think we need to be smarter in the way we commnunicate. Quoting Jesus’ words that we reap what we sow would ake some sense. But (certainly with the UK press in mind) I would leave the idea of “judgement” out completely when making public statements about a thelogical interpretation of a natural disaster. You’re a professional communications man, Neale, what would you do?
“In the Bible, institutional power is referred to as ‘the beast’, which sets itself up to control people and their morals. Our government has been playing the role of God in saying that people are free to act as they want,”
This appears to be a direct quote. It’s self contradictory. If the government is “saying that people are free to act as they want”, well, that is the very opposite of being the beast “which sets itself up to control people and their morals” – in fact the only authority here who seems to want to control people’s morals is the Bishop. So is the Church the beast? It makes no sense at all.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s been misquoted though. Whenever I’ve had anything to do with a media story (thankfully hardly ever)the media has thoroughly misreported the facts.
I don’t think this was a case of misreporting, or the paper confusing “nutty” quotes about gay rights legislation with the stuff about how we (humans) might have contributed to the frequency of flash flooding.
The Bishop of Carlisle refers to “The sexual orientation regulations” which “are part of a general scene of permissiveness.”
The Bishop of Liverpool said “People no longer see natural disasters as an act of God”, which pretty clearly implies that he thinks there’s some kind of direct interventionalism going on here, as opposed to this just being a natural consequence of industrialism etc.
The Bishop of London is the only one who they obviously couldn’t find something daft to quote from him — what he said could equally have been said by an ethically-minded responsible scientist.
*headdesk*, as they say in these places.
Wouldn’t it have been far more constructive if the bishops hadn’t made absurd comments about judgement on sexual morality (or lack thereof)? If, instead, they’d ONLY pointed out that more extreme weather conditions like these are perhaps a timely warning about our bad stewardship of God’s beautiful creation?
Unfortunately, I doubt that such measured comments would have made the front page of the Telegraph.
Maggi,
I’m going to push you on this one. Where do the Bishop’s actually say that the floods are a direct response by God to sexual immorality (i.e. because humans did this, God did that)? They don’t, only the headline does.
Put me at ease on this by giving the quote from the relevant Bishop.
We don’t have the problem of bishops being misquoted too often Canada, since we’re not an established church and we don’t have bishops in the equivalent of the House of Lords (our Senate). Our problem generally is bishops not being quoted at all. But, in response to your question, what would I do? First of all I’d try to know which reporters are serious and try to be fair (e.g., Gledhill, Bates), and which aren’t (e.g, Wynne-Jones) and urge my bishop to avoid the latter. Then, in response to serious journalists, I’d ask him to keep his theology clear (I’m assuming it’s sound). I think Chartres and Jones pretty well did that, and if the story started with the paragraph that begins “Global warming…” it would be a fine and useful story. (Actually, the comments of these two bishops must have offset the effects of the headline and comments of Dow for serious readers.) Media opportunities are on the whole a good thing – while I don’t think one should go looking for them, if they arise, make the best of them – enter the fray. I do agree with you that “judgment” should be left out when talking about natural disaster… or maybe it should be pointed out that we don’t believe natural disaster is a sign of God’s judgment – except, of course, in the sense that poor stewardship of the earth does have consequences, as Jones said, and I think the Archbishop of Canterbury has said too.
Peter O, I didn’t say that, Jonathan Wynne Jones said that. I said that I regretted the damage when the Church lays herself open to that kind of reporting. It’s too easy just to blame it all on the media.
Neale – thanks, most of that is reassuringly close to what I was thinking. I like your push to treat media as a positive opportunity, though – that’s a good reminder.
tony, just to digress slightly and comment about beasts controlling the people and their morals – pleh!
Self control and adhering to internal morals is of value. Some great institution, goverment or religion, jumping up and down and telling us what to do – - isn’t. It is merely about control and therefore power.
mamacrow – yes I know
)
Hope you are well by the way!
tony – fine thanks – increasingly blimpy, but fine!
I think the Bishop of Carlisle has been sponsored by EIG (the Church of Englands own insurance company)since they can now claim official support for the floods being “an act of God” they will not have to pay up. Whatever he said or intended the whole thing has been another PR disaster for the Bishop of Carlisle and for the Church. It may of course simply underline a flawed evangelical traditions of judgement which requires us to make the decision of whose in and whose out rather than as the Bible suggest leaving it to God. I have been away in Wales dealing with two TV companies – it is really sad when the producer of one programme says as I was leaving ” I was really dreading dealing with a Vicar and it hasn’t been anything like I thought it would be – youre actually really humane” When I asked why she had such apprehensions the dear + Carlisle attitudes were at the forefront.