25 May 2006:    Can an evangelical be a universalist? I received a sales pitch for this new book, and at first thought it must be a wind-up. But it seems it is a real book, by one Gregory MacDonald, who argues the case for universalism (no holds barred) as consistent with an evangelical point of view. I notice that "Gregory MacDonald" is a pseudonym, which may suggest that the author anticipates trouble ahead?

In the windows of King's College, Cambridge, the wilderness is depicted as a deep forest. Trees everywhere. At first glance it seems quite inviting by comparison to a hot, dry, sandy desert, but look a little longer, remember the menacing quality of the forest in all the Bavarian fairy tales, and the forest seems a less friendly place. Think of Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood – where were they all abandoned to their fate, never to be seen again? The forest. Deep, dark, miles from anywhere you could shout for help – for Europeans, this is what wilderness means.

The twenty first century perhaps has a new kind of wilderness: I feel more desolate and isolated in a shopping mall than I ever do in the forest. Or perhpas worse, one of those terrible pedestrianised high streets where half the shops have been given over to temporary bargain basements, and half of what remains is boarded up. Or a bleak  industrial estate – acres and acres of concrete and utility buildings with nothing beautiful or inspiring to relieve the deadness.

Wilderness doesn't have to be a place, then, but is anything that represents isolation and coming face to face with your inner demons.  Jesus' experience in the wilderness was undertaken deliberately as a time of preparation of the self for his future ministry. A Lent wilderness is more than just a walk in the woods; it's a deliberate act of self-preparation. What action do I need to take to prepare myself for the next phase of work and life? A course of therapy or a silent retreat might do it for some. Or simply taking the daily discipline to contemplate those parts of your life that are otherwise routinely kept in the corners, while we fill our lives with brighter and happier things.   Dave Perry of Dave's District Blog (not the Dave Perry that plays in the Effras) has been posting a series of photos and thoughts about wilderness, looking at the wild places in the Lake district. They're all good, and well worth a visit (start here). One in particular I've been back to quite a few times – I don't know quite how he achieved this effect, but the photo is almost Constable-esque in the way the sky seems more solid and permanent than the earth.

We’re in the week of Pentecost, and our theme is on the experience of life with the Holy Spirit. Tomorrow’s service is about flesh and spirit. The reading (which I didn’t choose!) comes from Romans. I never preach/speak on Romans unless the lectionary dictates. It’s complicated and not something I naturally gravitate to. But it’s one of the things I like about the discipline of lectionaries and thematic plans that you are forced to engage with parts of the Bible, and the Faith, that you might otherwise leave on the back burner…

To "listen again" on the website go here after the service is over and scroll through the page to find the link to Tuesday’s service:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/dailyservice/index.shtml

From research by University of California psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky. Most of these may seem obvious, but you might feel better knowing they are "scientifically proven".1. Count your blessings. One way to do this is with a "gratitude journal" in which you write down three to five things for which you are currently thankful—from the mundane (your peonies are in bloom) to the magnificent (a child’s first steps). Do this once a week, say, on Sunday night. Keep it fresh by varying your entries as much as possible.

2. Practice acts of kindness. These should be both random (let that harried mom go ahead of you in the checkout line) and systematic (bring Sunday supper to an elderly neighbour). Being kind to others, whether friends or strangers, triggers a cascade of positive effects—it makes you feel generous and capable, gives you a greater sense of connection with others and wins you smiles, approval and reciprocated kindness—all happiness boosters.

3. Savour life’s joys. Pay close attention to momentary pleasures and wonders. Focus on the sweetness of a ripe strawberry or the warmth of the sun when you step out from the shade. Some psychologists suggest taking "mental photographs" of pleasurable moments to review in less happy times.

4. Thank a mentor. If there’s someone whom you owe a debt of gratitude for guiding you at one of life’s crossroads, don’t wait to express your appreciation—in detail and, if possible, in person.

5. Learn to forgive. Let go of anger and resentment by writing a letter of forgiveness to a person who has hurt or wronged you. Inability to forgive is associated with persistent rumination or dwelling on revenge, while forgiving allows you to move on.

6. Invest time and energy in friends and family. Where you live, how much money you make, your job title and even your health have surprisingly small effects on your satisfaction with life. The biggest factor appears to be strong personal relationships.

7. Take care of your body. Getting plenty of sleep, exercising, stretching, smiling and laughing can all enhance your mood in the short term. Practiced regularly, they can help make your daily life more satisfying.

8. Develop strategies for coping with stress and hardships. There is no avoiding hard times. Religious faith has been shown to help people cope, but so do the secular beliefs enshrined in axioms like "This too shall pass" and "That which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger." The trick is that you have to believe them. Link: Eight Steps Toward a More Satisfying Life: Ian’s Messy Desk.

Get the book at the reduced price of £8.99 from Ekklesia and you will also be contributing to charitable causes: Buy AN ACCEPTABLE SACRIFICE PB from Ekklesia and raise money for christian peace and justice work.

or for the RRP of £10.99 from Amazon UK

ISBN-10: 0281058512        ISBN-13: 978-0281058518

One of our regulars – unsurprising for anyone who knows their way round modern theology – is Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics.  There are things I like about Barth and things I don’t. But one of the things I do like is the way he talks about evil as nothingness – not a personified creature (with or without horns and a tail), but more like a kind of cosmic black hole which sucks into itself and negates everything that is loving and kind, positive and good. I have never been face to face with anything that resembles a comic-book devil. But I completely relate to the idea of evil as a kind of vacuum of nothingness.

Here’s a clip from the Big Man himself:

[God] knows the Nothingness. He knows that which he did not elect or will as the creator. He know Chaos and its terror. He knows its advantage over his creature. He knows how inevitably it imperils his creature. Yet he is Lord over that which imperils his creature. Against him, the Nothingness has no power of its own. And he has sworn faithfulness to his threatened creature…

He would rather let himself be injured and humiliated in making the assault and repulse of Nothingness his own concern than leave his creature alone in this affliction. He deploys all his glory in the work of his deepest condescension. He intervenes in the struggle between Nothingness and the creature as if he were not God but himself a weak and threatened and vulnerable creature…. This is how God himself comes on the scene.

—Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/3, 358

The Way meets again on October 23rd, and Andrew will be starting off a session on "Decisions, Decisions (or, What would Jesus do?)". This is normally only for Robinson members; anyone else needs to ask me in advance whether we have room for guests. 

Leaving Church is an account of Barbara Brown Taylor’s own journey into faith, ministry, and then Ordination; then her experience of life as a parish priest, first in a big city and later in a small rural town. Eventually, the story begins to track how and why she leaves the life  of a Parish priest, and what are the good and bad things about that experience. I trust (given the title) that that is not too much of a spoiler.

One of the reasons I love this book is because it traces the ambivalence that any Priest worth her (or his) salt is bound to live with – loving God, loving the Church and yet being painfully aware that commitment to Church brings as many constraints as it does freedoms, as many handicaps as priveleges.  Taylor puts her finger on the tension between living out what you believe you were called for, and living within the expectations that others have of a priest (almost invariably not the same thing!) To be a priest with any authenticity you have to be fully human, and yet very often it is the Church community that works against that necessity. Sometimes people will not accept ministry if you are not a priest, and yet they won’t accept your humanity if you are.  Taylor also relates beautifully and tenderly the tension of living with a sense of calling, and the way in which that can so easily spill over into sheer workaholism and the inability to say "no".

The title, "leaving" might just as easily be read as "finding" – it’s not a negative account at all, more an account of how, in order to continue a journey of faith and simply of human life, the season of ordained ministry had to be put to one side.  One of the reasons I like the book so much is that – unlike so much other rhetoric among Church leavers that is very simplistically anti-priest and anti-institution – she offers considered insight into the tensions of faith communities and their leaders, and shows how sometimes those communities disallow our calling first to be human, and only then to be ministers. She doesn’t claim to have left the Church because she didn’t believe in it any more, nor because she didin’t believe in what she had done thus far, and she doesn’t hold the Church in any kind of contempt. Rather, she relates the complex reasons why a clear shift in role and direction became desirable for her, and what she learned along the way. There are plenty of people who will give a bitter account of why they left, trashing where they have been before. It’s refreshing to read someone who gives an affectionate and grateful account, despite finding in necessary to leave all the same.

I think anyone interested in Church would benefit from reading this – priests and leaders and ministers of course, but perhaps also those who take different roles within Christian communities – if we could think together about our mutual ministries and what our various roles give to the community, perhaps it would be possible to break down in some places the undesirable divide between the "professional" and the "rest" and start living as communities of truly interdependent people? Either that or I imagine that I and many others will eventually follow the path that Barbara Brown Taylor has found essential.

Anyway, his thinking is creative and good (IMHO) establishing the difference between priesthood and specific roles within the Church. It probably won’t interest readers who are not Anglicans/don’t believe in priests anyway, but for those to whom these issues are alive, Tom is worth a read. (And, Tom, I’d like to read more as you develop the idea) Link: Bigbulkyanglican: Priests today.

Edit: Definitions: an OLM is an Ordained Local Minister – for a definition, the Guildford Diocesan vocations booklet is clear and concise.

Stipendiary means that a priest is given enough material benefits that they can manage without having a paid job and concentrate their energies entirely on the Church and her mission. A stipend is not a salary, and it’s not much to live on, but that’s partly the point! Receiving a stipend also usually means promising not to receive any additional income from other sources.

NSM means non-stipendiary minister. In practical terms re. ministry within the Church setting that can either mean someone who devotes all their time and energy to the ministry but for whatever reason does not need a stipend, or it may mean someone who has a paid job, either full or part time, and devotes whatever time they can above and beyond that to the Church. However this definition fails to account for the fact that many people become NSM’s because they feel that their priestly ministry is specifically lived out in the mission context of their "secular" setting. There is a debate there that needs to be had more thoroughly – it would be valuable a) to challenge the idea that the work of a priest is confined to the CHurch, but also b) that there is any distinction between the vocation of an NSM who is a priest-at-work, and the fact that all Christians in work have a vocation, both to their work and to the context in which they do it. But for this blog, at least, that’s a debate for another day!

The development of all these categories, like everything else in the physically manifest church, has been affected both by theological reasoning and by practical necessity. Any revisions to them should also take both of those things into account, since we do actually live on earth and not in heaven.

…parts of the Eucharistic Prayer were extemporised in the early church. So this is part of our tradition, and we might be wise to think about how we appropriate it for present times…   There is also a great difference between top down liturgy where the words are handed down by elite committees, and bottom up – where in an organic community new and vibrant liturgical voices are heard in the places where liturgies are authorised… in the words of the 1989 New Zealand Prayer Book liturgy might be a deliberate attempt ‘to allow a multitude of voices to speak’.

I agree that we should hold planned and authorised liturgies in tension with local colour and some degree of spontaneity (see my post Planning v. Spontaneity for more on this). But I suppose another element in this is that we need a corporate voice. It’s very difficult, in a society that recognises the importance of individual voices, within a world that is culturally varied yet closely in touch across cultural divides, to find a way to speak as one body. That is precisely the current dilemma for the Anglican communion. It seems that many CHristian communities take it as unquestionable that we should adopt a policy of freedom of expression in liturgical settings. But going back to what AKMA said in his post, we shouldn’t underestimate the value of having some core at the centre that we can all "say" – that we can speak as one body, not as a collection of individuals all of whom want to define the terms. In addition, there are issues of beauty-as-truth involved here – liturgy that emerges from multitudes of voices can be beautiful, but all too often it turns into a homogeneous mush. That’s a strong reason for placing a high value on our artists, our poets, our theologians and our liturgists. There are weaknesses as well as strengths in a democracy of expression.