Join us for a week exploring Celtic spirituality

On September 20-24 we will be leading a course on Celtic Spirituality as part of Fuller Seminary’s DMin program.  Based on the island of Lindisfarne, off the coast of Northumberland, we will have sessions on Lindisfarne history, spirituality, as well as hands-on workshop on Celtic art, worship, reflection on mission issues, and sharing stories.   In addition to sessions led by us, we have recruited some significant speakers who live and work on Lindisfarne itself. 

As well as those who are formally enrolled in Fuller’s DMin program, we can also accommodate others as ‘audits’ (which roughly speaking means you have the experience without doing the work – and pay a lot less for the privilege!).  For details, see http://www.fuller.edu/uploadedFiles/Academics/School_of_Theology/DMin/SP764%20Drane.pdf   And to enrol (or enquire more), email Julia at dmin@fuller.edu

Emerging Politics

This blog has been deliberately silent during the UK election campaign, and now the dust is starting to settle and we have a coalition government for the first time in living memory, it is fascinating to see the responses not only of the wider public but of those Christians who like to make pronouncements about such things.  Can ‘conservatives’ and ‘liberals’ ever live and work together in harmony?  Many Christians seem to regard this as completely impossible – maybe because the very words themselves echo so closely the battle lines that have marred the churches for so long.  For at least the last hundred years – maybe more – ‘conservatives’ and ‘liberals’ have been at each other’s throats about theology and church practice, and their strident disagreements have arguably contributed to the disillusion of many people with the church itself. 

We have often been asked which side of this theological debate we are on, but the reality is that we haven’t a clue – and what’s more, we don’t care.  The terminology itself is well past its sell-by date, and the notion that life can be so simple as to be categorized like this is naive in the extreme.  It might have worked fifty years ago, but no longer.  One of the characteristics of post-modernity is that everything is in flux, and the old certainties (and enmities) of the past no longer make sense.  The rise of the emerging church is only one manifestation of that, and is a key reason why some people dislike it so much, because it is (on the old paradigm) eclectic and illogical.  Viewed from this angle, the coalition of ‘conservatives’ and ‘liberals’ in government looks like a version of the same thing – emerging government, perhaps?  Just like the emerging church, it will be loved and hated in equal measure.  Those who still prefer the old certainties and tribal identities will be especially cynical.  Which should mean that no emergent Christians will be among them, but you never know.  Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.

Narrow-minded faith in politics

With the election campaign now well under way in Britain, it has been interesting to see the responses and reactions of Christians.  Of course, there will always be those who peddle their narrow agendas and demand that the government acknowledge their own perspective on whatever they think a Christian society should look like.  But what has been more surprising is the way that otherwise open-minded, even liberal,  Christians are emerging as covert fundamentalists, only prepared to listen to (never mind take seriously) those politicians who they think they already approve of.  People who are quite happy to think outside the box on all sorts of issues to do with church and faith are taking up what can only be described as tribal (even feral) positions, not through discussions of the issues but just telling the rest of us which party leaders they will listen to and which ones are to be dismissed without any sort of hearing.  The country is in such a mess that it seems highly unlikely that any one individual of whatever political colour is going to have all the answers.  And of course from a Scottish perspective, there are more than just three parties of significance, which is especially relevant given that the fourth party is the current Scottish government!

Search for an authentic church

Jim and Casper go to Church is the title of a fascinating little book that came our way recently.  Written by two friends, Jim Henderson and Matt Casper, the book documents their visits to churches of all shapes and sizes in their US homeland.  Nothing surprising in that, you may think, except that Jim is a fervent Christian and Casper is an atheist.  They agreed to suspend their preconceptions and to engage in honest dialogue about their experiences.  Their trip included megachurches such as Saddleback and Willow Creek, as well as more ordinary traditional congregations and some emerging ones (Mars Hill, among others).  Amazingly, they managed to keep their bargain, and the book is one of the most honest dialogues you could imagine.  They both learn something along the way, but the most interesting thing is Casper’s take on what he experiences.  At Saddleback he tries to roll the stone back from the door of the replica of Jesus’ tomb, only to discover it’s locked – and wrly expresses the hope that they will unlock it in time for Easter (yes, they really do have a life-size replica of Calvary perched on top of an artificial tomb).  At Mars Hill, he finds himself somewhat repelled by Mark Driscoll’s aggressive style and is puzzled as to why ’he likes to talk about sex a lot … at least once every minute’ (p102) when he could be talking about Jesus.  And at those two and all the others they visit, he wonders why there is so much emphasis on self-improvement when his reading of the Gospels suggests that disciples are supposed to care for other people, not themselves – summed up in his big unanswered questions addressed to Jim, ‘Is this what Jesus told you guys to do?’  Jim, for his part, is challenged because all the things that churches do to make themselves more attractive to outsiders actually turn Casper off – not just the kitschy environment at Saddleback, but the drumkits, noisy music and worship leaders that seem to be everywhere.

By way of a contrast, this online volume came through our computers this week.  The brainchild of Australian Jay Jeffries, it is billed as a Bible for spiritual searchers, and is gradually being released on the website in installments.  We both contributed to it, so we have a stake in seeing how it goes – but we can’t help wondering what Casper would make of it.  Because there are a lot more like him than there are Jims in this world.

Jim and Casper go to Church is written by Jim Henderson & Matt Casper, and published by BarnaBooks: ISBN 978-1-4143-1331-2

Tattoos and spirituality

David Beckham has a new tattoo.  To add to his already extensive collection, he now has one based on a painting by Matthew R Brooks, entitled ‘The Man Of Sorrows’ and depicting Jesus in a reflective pose.  It’s not his first Christian-inspired tattoo (he already has a cross and a guardian angel), though the religious significance is evidently not important to him.  His spokesperson is quoted as saying that he ‘has an appreciation of religious art and iconography and the new tattoo reflects that’, while adding that ‘unlike a lot of his other designs, there is no specific meaning behind it’.  Further down the same article, though, the same friend assures us that ‘Each tattoo he opts for is very carefully considered’, before adding that ‘It’s more than a hobby for him – it’s almost spiritual’.

So there you have it, direct from one of today’s style icons: Jesus has no particular [religious] meaning but just may have something to do with being spiritual.  Some Christians have been trying to convince us recently that the culture is becoming more secular than spiritual (and by implication that we are making this stuff up).  Actually, we couldn’t have said it more eloquently ourselves, and where celebrities lead others invariably follow.

Oh Mrs Robinson

Until the last few days, virtually nobody in the UK – still less the rest of the world – had ever heard of Iris Robinson, wife of the first minister of the devolved assembly in Northern Ireland.  Today, the news is full of nothing else, and the reason is not hard to find.  In most circumstances, an older woman having an affair with a youth of nineteen would probably hardly merit a mention – just another example of how our relational preferences have changed.  A politician would perhaps make the headlines for a day (and she is a member of the Westminster parliament as well as of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and apparently of a local council as well), but the fuss would soon die down.  Except that in this case, it’s also overlaid with religion – and that makes it ever so interesting not only to the media but to the wider public.  Not only is Iris Robinson an ardent Protestant, and her lover a Roman Catholic (a surprising enough liaison in itself), but this is also the woman who, just a few weeks before she started the aforementioned affair, made a public denunciation of homosexual people and their lifestyle – something for which she was named ‘UK bigot of the year’ in 2008.

You can’t help feeling some sympathy for Mrs Robinson, whose strident religious beliefs and the conflict they created apparently led her to contemplate suicide when her double standards first came to light.  As one of those Christians who like to distinguish themselves from the rest of us by saying they are ‘Bible-believing’, she and her family will be well familiar with Jesus’ advice to the Pharisees not to throw stones at others if they themselves were less than perfect (John 8:7) – a truth which always comes back to haunt those who ignore it, as some commentators are now pointing out.  ’Bible-believing’ Christians are usually less than enamoured of movies like ‘The Graduate, but the message of its iconic song might just be what this family need to hear right now: ‘here’s to you Mrs  Robinson – Jesus loves you more than you will know’.

Snowlove

Being stuck in some of the heaviest snow to hit the UK for more than thirty years is having some unusual effects on the great British public, as evidence by this headline in one of today’s newspapers: ‘Snowed-in spouses turning to adultery’.  No, we’re not actually doing it in the freezing cold, just signing up in unprecedented numbers to a website that connects people looking for others with whom to have an extra-marital relationship.  Apparently we’re so bored by being trapped in our own homes that this is the next obvious thing to do while (according to the reports) not being watched by either work colleagues or that spouse we can’t stand.  Presumably they will be in the next room also signing up!

Coming on the same day as we saw this other report, telling us that many couples who separate  are still living together in the same home, it provides an interesting insight into the state of British relationships.  Whatever else you might say, the two together paint a pretty depressing picture of a nation with more than its share of miserable people.  And others who know how to make a living out of the misery.  Why are so many of us lost when life comes to a standstill and we are stranded at home with just our own company?  You would think a culture that makes so much emphasis on the need for us to be individuals would have equipped us rather better to live with ourselves.  Or maybe we really do need community in order to be whole people, .  It all sounds horribly close to Douglas Coupland’s quip about people without lives getting together with other people without lives, in the effort to make a life.

Winter work

Rural Aberdeenshire has had a serious amount of snow for the past couple of weeks, and as we look out of the window in our rural home there is a pretty large amount of it – which, amazingly, hasn’t kept us in for even a single day yet.  But it certainly makes life go slower, planning ahead to unfreeze the car rather than just jumping into it, and taking longer to do just about everything.  You might think this would create plenty of time for reflection, but life goes on with the start yesterday of the winter quarter at Fuller Seminary – which of course is thousands of miles away in California!  But through the miracles of technology, we can continue to work there while on the other side of the world.  This quarter it’s the male mouse teaching a course on Theology and Culture, with 23 eager students signed up and already engaged with it, then next quarter the female mouse teaches one on ‘Theological and pastoral perspectives on the family’.  Online courses really do work fantastically well, if they’re properly designed with a fully interactive website.  Unfortunately, some colleges we know in the UK haven’t quite got that message yet and just post reading material onto a website, as if reading stuff on a screen makes it an online course.  

So the weather outside says, ‘slow down’, while the students keep things moving on fast.  Just one of the paradoxes of contemporary culture!  Another one came in a posting from one of the students, based in Arkansas, who said that his community find it really hard to believe that Christendom is over, because reinventing and reviving the church there is so easy and is happening all the time.  That’s probably also true, reminding us that it depends where you’re looking from as to what you will see.  But that observation will be simple compared with the likely comments that will come up in the course on family.  Last time around that enrolled students from China, Korea, Rwanda, and Mexico as well as several US states – so even getting them to agree on what they thought a family might be was an enlightening experience!  One of the things we enjoy most about teaching these courses is that we always learn something new ourselves.  Long may it continue.

End of year accounting

As we end the year, the big credit crunch of 2009 has brought megachurch leader Rick Warren into the news again.  He’s had a very up-and-down year, starting with the inauguration of a new US president and ending with this impassioned appeal for $900,000 before the clock strikes midnight today.  The more you have to start with, the more you have to lose, but most of the world’s Christians won’t be shedding too many tears, and the idea that (as the article in today’s Orange County Register suggests) the faithful of Saddleback will come up with that kind of cash by the deadline maybe just suggests that they’re not as hard up as they seem.  Or is it all a publicity stunt to get themselves noticed?

More interesting to the church mice is this sign we saw recently in Hong Kong:

Of course, that metropolis is a bit of a consumerist paradise itself – but don’t you just love this as a statement about life, love, community, gospel,  God. This one picture expresses our own prayerful aspirations for 2010  better than any number of words (or dollars, euros, pounds …).  May all our readers experience the same sense of simple yet deep connections in the coming year.

A Conference worth Considering

We don’t normally draw attention here to events in which we are participating, but this one seems to have escaped the radar of a lot of people in the UK who would find it useful.  Sponsored by the University of Aarhus in Denmark, and taking place at the end of January, the theme is ‘Church and Mission in a Multireligious Third Millennium’.  As well as church mice it includes a line up of missiological stars including Stanley Hauerwas, Brian Stanley, Darrell Guder, Bryan Stone, Heidi Campbell, Pauline Cheong, and Andrew Walls – to name just a few.  Further details are here.