Author: Theology Everywhere

by Catrin Harland-Davies.

“I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:19)

These words, written around two and a half millennia ago to a nation in forced exile in a foreign land, have been echoing round my head over the last couple of months.

Perhaps this is because September and October are always a time of newness for me, and this year more than most. It is the start of the connexional year, bringing new colleagues and, on occasion, a new appointment for me. Much of my ministry has been in a Higher Education setting, as a university chaplain and now as a theological educator, and so the new academic year brings with it new faces. And this year, as well as the usual entirely new cohort of students, we have new colleagues making up half the Ministerial Formation team (both Anglican and Methodist) here at Queen’s – including a move into a new role for me.

Such a high proportion of new people within a team is a joy and a challenge. It challenges us to reexamine old habits and practices, and to confront new ideas. It invites us to answer difficult questions about why we do certain things in certain ways – and sometimes to realise that we don’t know the answer! And it forces us to recognise that we are all changed by changes around us. It should, of course, be the case that even one new member does all these things, but too often we can just expect one person to assimilate and accept the culture of the place as it is. But when as many in the team are new as are established, we don’t have that luxury. We have to face the challenge of becoming a new community. And this challenge is, if we allow it to be, a joy. It is an opportunity to let go of habits that have become a burden, and to embark on an adventure of discovery. And no – I didn’t say that was easy! But it can be joyous.

The words I quoted at the start of this article were written by the prophet known as ‘Second Isaiah’, and they are written to give comfort to a community living in captivity, a long way from home, deported there by a hostile, occupying power. They are words of comfort to forced migrants, whose homes and lives have been destroyed. And they continue to bring comfort to those facing difficult endings. They are cherished – and sometimes feared – by those facing the end of a relationship or a way of life, those losing their employment, those facing death, those forced from their homes. They are cherished for the possibility they bring of life, love and future. And they are feared for the fact that a ‘new thing’ involves the loss of the old.

That is, of course, a very different situation from Queen’s earlier in the summer. The change and newness of this September wasn’t a message of rebirth to a community suffering. But we had just gone through a season of goodbyes, which is often hard. So a season of welcomes and of new opportunities does bring a sense of refreshment.  We, too, mourning the fact that valued colleagues had moved on and that familiar ways had come to an end, can find joy and hope in the fact that God is in the new beginnings, the new ways, the new opportunities – even if it does also bring its challenges. When we want to hold onto what is past, God says to us, “I am about to do a new thing, and it may bring new hope, new life, new life.”

But some things feel desperately in need of change which doesn’t come. In our world, and sometimes in our own lives, we cry out for change. We see seemingly endless wars and conflict. We see no end to poverty and inequality. We see prejudice and injustice, which seems to increase rather than die away. And even when the news brings ceasefire, the release of captives, joyous reunions, the return from exile, it is hard to shake off the suspicion that it can’t last – that this is just the latest pause in the endless rounds of hostility. In our individual lives, we may feel the relentless path of poverty, pain, despair, loneliness, fear, and see no possibility of a better tomorrow.

Then, more than ever, God’s words need to be heard. “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” So often, the answer is, “No, God. No, I don’t perceive it. I can’t see it, I can’t hear it, and I can’t believe in it.” But that’s also, perhaps, partly why God created us in community. When I can see no hope or future in my life, when I can’t begin to perceive even the possibility of a new thing – that’s when my family, friends and community of faith can hold that light of hope for me. The famous tale of the footprints in the sand speak of seeing only one set of prints when times were tough, because that’s when Christ carried us. But maybe there are many sets of footprints in those times, for all those walking with us, and maybe helping Christ to carry us – or at least helping us to carry some of our burdens.

Wherever you are right now – whether you are embarking on exciting new beginnings, mourning the passing of the old, or longing for change that seems never to come – may God’s new thing in your life be a blessing, a challenge and a joy.

by George Bailey.

Last week I enjoyed a long two day walk on the ‘Camino Ingles’, a pilgrim route officially recognised as a section of the Camino de Santiago. It begins at Finchale Abbey, a few miles north of Durham, because that is where many early 12th century pilgrims from the area would go first, before embarking on their journey to Spain, in order to see the resident hermit, Godric. After his own wanderings across Europe, initially for money and adventure, and later, inspired by a visionary meeting with St Cuthbert, as a follower of Christ, Godric had discerned a new call instead to anchor himself in one place. Granted a plot of land by the monks in Durham he stayed for decades, dedicated to prayer and to be available for counselling seekers and pilgrims – Godric exemplified the life of a hermit, anchored to one site.

This contrasting conjunction of pilgrimage and anchoring, both in the life story of Godric, and in the experience of pilgrims, including now myself, opens insights into the way that these two vocations are both important in our conception of discipleship. This relates to two important aspects of the Christian conception of God. On the one hand, God is not confined by any limitation and God’s Spirit is active throughout and within all creation. On the other hand, God is uniquely located in Jesus Christ, divine and human together in one particular bodily individual. We might suppose that the experience of pilgrimage relates most closely to the everywhere-ness of God and that of anchoring relates to the particular located-ness of God. I think, though, it may be the other way round.

As Rodney Aist argues in his excellent theological analysis of pilgrimage, the practice is not about an aimless drifting through general ‘space’, but is instead defined by a spiritual desire to reach towards a particular ‘place’.[1] Pilgrimage affirms and connects people to the vital divine importance of the material reality of specific destinations. Though in Roman Catholic theology this has often been focused especially on objects, in the form of relics, the relevance of a particular destination and a chosen, often communally defined, route are also central characteristic features of the Protestant experience of pilgrimage. By leaving our usual place of residence and travelling through space towards a specific destination, we celebrate the way in which God is encountered in particular places, limited by physical boundaries, time bound and unique. The incarnation in Jesus Christ most supremely reveals this, and pilgrimage is an exploration of our desire to meet Christ in the real singular moments and places of our lives.

The vocation of a hermit, and even more so of a formally recognised anchorite, confined a human life to one location, but through this becomes a witness to the eternal immensity of God who is not confined and whose Spirit is active throughout all space and time. The decision to practice ministry and mission by staying in one place, to pray and talk only with people who choose to visit, is an act of faith in God whose work is not restricted by human material limitations. Another medieval anchorite, Julian of Norwich, is shown in prayer a round ball the size of a hazelnut, and God reveals there is contained in this all that is made. The intense focus on life in only the small place of one room proclaims faith in the immense God who is real everywhere: ‘It needeth us to have knowing of the littleness of creatures and to naughten [hold as nought] all thing that is made, for to love and have God that is unmade.’[2]

In scripture these twin themes are both affirmed – for example, in Genesis, Abraham is called to a life of pilgrimage, which heads eventually towards a particular place and vocation for the people of God; in the gospel of Luke, Zechariah is called to a life anchored in the temple, which is visited eventually by the Christ who is to be the light of God for all the world. In the missionary development of the Acts of the Apostles, we see both vocations working together, some who stay rooted with faith communities in each location and some who travel between them and then on to new places. We also need these complementary vocations in the Church. Some are called to stay and some are called to go; we need both anchors and pilgrims. In our own discipleship there may be different seasons for each vocation to be at the fore. Although pilgrimage is increasingly part of contemporary discipleship practice, perhaps recognition of some people’s vocation for anchoring a community, committing to a locality for the long term, needs to be celebrated afresh.

In Methodism it is too easy, and in my view, unhelpful, to too closely relate these twin vocations to the distinction between ordained ministry and everyone else’s ministry. For ordained Methodists, ‘itinerancy’ does not mean constantly relocating, but obedience to the Church’s discernment of how God is calling ministry to be shaped – which sometimes means a decision to stay. In my experience many others in church life are more mobile than the ordained, responding to professional and family vocations which require relocation to live elsewhere. Many indeed move between countries, following the call of God to a new life, or escaping crisis and seeking refuge. In these experiences, we long to see the work of God’s Spirit who is active with all people in all places, as well as the reality of Christ’s presence, uniquely revealed in Jesus, and so affirming each loving human encounter. This is central to what it means to be the Church – those who are rooted in local places, ready to welcome and offer hospitality, meeting those who travel and seek – anchors and pilgrims in solidarity.

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[1] Rodney Aist, Pilgrim Spirituality: Defining Pilgrimage Again for the First Time, (Cascade Books, 2022). chapter 13.

[2] Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, translated by Elizabeth Spearing. Penguin: 1998. p.47.

by Angie Allport.

The UK Government is proposing the introduction of digital identity cards. Whilst the issue has sparked off yet another ‘for’ or ‘against’ debate, my thoughts have turned to the idea of identity, which, in itself, is a multi-layered, slippery concept. Who would people say you are? What defines you: gender, job, family, nationality, faith? Many use pseudo-identities for their online presence.  This can provide a level of protection through anonymity, but it also raises a question-mark about authentic identity. 

In the synoptic gospels, Jesus asks his disciples who people say he is (Matthew 16:15; Mark 8:27; Luke 9:18). According to the disciples, opinions are divided between him being John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Jesus then asks for their personal opinions, as though copying what others think is insufficient. As is always the case, we do not know how Jesus asked these questions, what tone he used. Was it a casual enquiry or was there a hint of challenge in his voice?

Unsurprisingly, Peter is reportedly the one who jumps in first.  He proclaims Jesus to be the Messiah.  This connects with all the religious hopes and predictions of a great leader sent by God from the family of King David – the one who will set the people free. The moment when Peter is willing to take the risk of saying this, of expressing his relationship with Jesus in what at the time would have been controversial terms, is the moment when he demonstrates both his faith in Jesus and his willingness to be involved in Jesus’ mission. In Matthew’s account, Peter is then given a new identifier, he is to be ‘the rock’, the foundation of the Church.

Peter ‘the rock’ is still Simon, son of Jonah, a flesh-and-blood person living in relationship with others. He is not a simple, one-dimensional character with only one function in the Christian story. It was this ‘rock’ of the Church who was to go on and deny three times knowing Jesus before rediscovering his call to witness. When we become Christians, we are no longer atheists, agnostics, non-beliers (or whatever other identifier we might use), but we are still a flesh and blood person living in relationship with others. We can still mess up but know ourselves forgiven and valued by God. As Peter found, recognising Jesus transforms us and brings clarity to our identity and calling.

We live in a society which is suspicious of people speaking about their faith, but Christians are nonetheless called to witness in the world. Just as a member of parliament belongs to a particular party yet is required to work on behalf of all their constituents, whatever their politics, so Christians – informed by the Church that nurtures them – must speak of God’s love and care for all people and our planet. How do you talk about Jesus to people outside church? Given the secularisation of society, we can no longer assume religious knowledge or opinion, meaning that many people are actually very interested to know what and why Christians believe; it’s the Christians who are often too afraid to say anything. Indeed, do people know if you are a Christian?

Each person is called to a fresh assessment of Jesus, not to copy what others think. That is what makes faith real for them. Jesus calls us to recognise his true, God-filled identity, to emulate it and to share it. This is modelled in the account of Jesus and the woman at the well (John 4:1-42). She (Photina in some traditions) encountered Jesus, wondered if he was the Messiah and invited the people to come and see the man who had told her everything about herself. They came to believe not because they copied her, but because they had their own encounter with Jesus and were able to identify him as the Saviour of the world for themselves.

When you think about how Jesus shapes your life, can you condense those thoughts to just a few words should someone ask you who Jesus is? Meditate on those words or other words so that they become part of you, so that if and when the subject comes up in conversation, you can testify to your experience of Jesus and the difference he has made to your identity.

by Simon Edwards.

“Where shall we go on holiday this year?” In our family we start asking this question long before holidays are upon us. We want time to delve into all of the available places, to think about what activities we would like to do, and see where that leads us. The odd thing is that we almost always end up going somewhere that we have already been. Our children value the predictability that comes with knowing what the campsite looks like, which food vans will turn up on site each day and so on. There is great value for them in an ‘old’ place, one they know, one they can picture as they look forward to the holiday. Yet, each time we visit an ‘old’ place, we have a new experience. We may pitch the caravan in a different area of the site, and there are always new people camping nearby. We encounter a mix of the familiar and the new at the same time, and that seems to be what we need.

I sometimes wonder if we talk or think about newness too much in the life of faith and in the life of the church, or if we talk or think about newness in the wrong way. Does everything have to be new, without any link to what has come before to be missional? Is newness always about starting from nothing? New Places for New People is an important strand of God for All, and across the Connexion there are all kinds of initiatives that are growing and exciting. Sometimes, though, I hear people ask “what about old places?”, I worry that we can become so obsessed with creating something new that we fall into what Michael Jinkins calls ‘the hyperactivity of panic’ which he believes ‘manifests itself in clutching for any and every programmatic solution…in the desperate hope that survival is just another project or organisational chart away’ (1999, p.9). Do we cling to the hope that something new is what the world wants from the church? Is maintaining the old and familiar, or clutching for newness the easy option? Can newness be found in renewal that embraces both old and new?

A growing part of my work in circuit ministry is in the oversight of pioneering work. One such space, The Haven, is an ‘old’ place, a church building, rich with stories of faith grown and shared. The society ceased to meet a few years ago, and after hard work and prayer, The Haven came into being. Each Sunday morning there is still a broadly traditional act of worship with a small group of people. It is similar to the worship that has occurred every Sunday morning for more than a hundred years in that space. However, there are also less familiar moments of worship. For example, in the garden at the rear as a small group weed and plant, a ray of sunlight shines on the ground, and the conversation turns to the presence of God. Both old and new exist together in that space. The emerging community is embracing both the familiar and the new, learning to dwell in a known and familiar place, while encountering fresh experiences of faith and life each day in different ways. It is discovering the richness in tradition and innovation, old and new, and recognising how these diverse expressions of faith can support, challenge, and deepen one another.

In The Haven there is a mixed ecology of ‘old’ and ’new’ living alongside one another, not fighting for superiority, but offering different perspectives, creating a new experience as each learns to live together in a shared space. Mixed ecology is not just a way in which we can explain that different communities in different contexts can remain connected to each other, though that is true, it is more than just a way to explain that different communities engage in different activities or worship in different ways, though that that is also true. It is also the way in which God’s people live together in one space, sharing and growing in faith together. In his 2012 work, John Walker proposed that mixed ecology of fresh expressions and traditional church was only seen as an interim measure (2012, p.217) born out of necessity, and would fade away as ‘new’ communities grew in confidence. I believe that a mixed ecology is a fundamental part of the church, it is the way that the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ coexist, always bringing a new experience as life is lived.

The church must resist the temptation to chase the kind of newness that always means starting over, as a measure of missional success. While initiatives like New Places for New People are exciting and vital, we must also reimagine ‘old places’ where faith has long been nurtured. The church needs a mixed ecology, a space where ‘old’ and ‘new’ coexist, in mutual enrichment. The vitality of the church lies in the interplay between the old and the new, where both contribute to a living, growing, transformative, faith community, where all can find their voice and their home.

We will holiday in the caravan again this year, we will again travel to a familiar place and yet we will experience some newness. Perhaps that is a vision of a mixed ecology too?

Jinkins, M., 1999. The Church Faces Death. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Walker, J., 2012. Testing Fresh Expressions. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing.

by Philip Sudworth.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York in 2001, Billy Graham took a very different approach from those television evangelists who declaimed that God was punishing the country. In a sermon delivered at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. he said: “I have been asked hundreds of times why God allows tragedy and suffering. I have to confess that I do not know the answer. I have to accept, by faith, that God is sovereign, and that He is a God of love and mercy and compassion in the midst of suffering.”  He added, “We’ve seen so much that brings tears to our eyes and makes us all feel a sense of anger. But God can be trusted, even when life seems at its darkest.”[1]

The main comfort for many Christians is that Jesus is alongside them in their suffering.  As Pope John Paul II put it: “The crucified Christ is proof of God’s solidarity with man in his suffering.”[2]   This message of consolation, solace and re-assurance is found in the Hebrew scriptures. When the Israelites were feeling desolate and abandoned in slavery and exile in Babylon, Isaiah brought them a message from God: “You are precious to Me. You are honoured, and I love you. Do not be afraid, for I am with you” (Isaiah 43:4-5).

Amidst the persecution of the early Christians, Paul could write “For I am convinced that there is nothing in death or life, in the realm of spirits or superhuman powers, in the world as it is or the world as it shall be, in the forces of the universe, in heights or depths – nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

The trusting acceptance of what happens to us as ‘God’s will’ may apply when we are the ones suffering, but is this acquiescence equally valid when suffering is being endured by others or when we see the evil in the world?  Should we not rage against it and take what action we can?  Perhaps we should stop blaming (or excusing) God for injustice and suffering in the world and look for the love in it which will enable us to do something about creating more fairness and removing some causes of suffering. 

A long-standing tradition in Christian philosophy is the unknowability of God.  As St Augustine of Hippo put it, “If you understood, it would not be God.”  You don’t talk to a four-year-old about nuclear physics and quantum uncertainty, and you don’t talk to people who think the earth is flat and at the centre of a 3-tier cosmos about a universe that’s 43 million light years across with 200 billion galaxies and still expanding.  So, you would expect God to reveal himself to us, and to other people, at different times and in different places, in terms and at a level that we can understand. As our knowledge, both individual and societal, develops, God’s self-revelation becomes an on-going process. Much remains, however, a mystery beyond our understanding, including the problem of suffering.

The 14^th century author of The Cloud of Unknowing wrote, “God can be loved but he cannot be thought. He can be grasped by love but never by concepts. So less thinking and more loving.”  This should be reflected in the way we talk to people about faith, and about evil and suffering.  We have to give people food for the soul, not just food for the mind. When the French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, writer and Roman Catholic theologian Blaise Pascal died, they found on a piece of paper sewn into the lining of his coat a message that he’d carried next to his heart: “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of philosophers and scholars. Certainty, certainty, heartfelt joy, peace.”

We are called to love God with all our hearts, with all our souls and with all our minds. We do need to use our God-given intelligence and to have our own rationale of faith, including how we respond to the problem of suffering. That has to be seen, however, within the context of the limits of human understanding. If we think we have all the answers, we have not yet found half the questions, and we are not showing enough awareness of the mystery of faith. 

This final article of a series on suffering – see also:

Suffering and Evil – Our Fault?

Suffering and Evil – For our benefit?

Suffering and Evil – A Different View of God?

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[1] Billy Graham (2001) – Sermon at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C  – September 14^th, 2001

[2] John Paul II (1994) – Crossing the Threshold of Hope. (Jonathan Cape.)

by Jennie Hurd.

As a probationer presbyter, the preacher at my Welcome Service in the old Nuneaton and Atherstone Circuit in September 1993 was the late (and, I’d say, great) Rev Donald Eadie, then Chair of the former Birmingham District. I remember very little about the service, though I haven’t forgotten that Donald preached on “Halfway Houses.” I have no idea what else he said or what was his meaning, but the phrase has stayed with me, and I’ve dug it out and pondered it from time to time. It resurfaced recently when I was reflecting on the image of a bridge as a metaphor for ministry and Christian service, whether lay or ordained.

Perhaps the concept of a Halfway House is not too dissimilar to the idea of a bridge. I feel I’m quite familiar with bridges as I grew up near the banks of the River Humber, very close to the north towers of the Humber Bridge. We watched the towers growing and the Bridge slowly coming to completion, and we were granted a day off school when the Queen came to open it. It joined a river between two counties, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, that had been spoken of being bridged since the days of the Romans, according to my grandmother. It’s entirely possible than John Wesley himself might have wished there’d been a Humber Bridge in his day. It could have made some of his travelling easier!

There is an old Welsh saying, ‘A fo ben bid bont’: ‘The one who would lead must be a bridge.’ Bridges join and connect. They make possible meeting halfway, and enable communication and engagement. They allow for new encounters, explorations and experiences. They bring people together and enable the kind of relationship building that can lead to deeper, richer life for all parties. They can literally be life savers, allowing goods, medicines and skilled and able workers in and out of areas. Bridges can be fun (who hasn’t enjoyed a game of Pooh Sticks?) but they can be risky places as well, especially when particularly high and elevated. A bridge can be very vulnerable: they need constant inspection, maintenance and repair, and adverse conditions or human attack can cause damage or destruction. Day to day wear and tear has its impact, as a bridge is driven upon and walked over. There are many beautiful old bridges that were fit for purpose when first erected but which are challenged by the demands of 21^st century life. In the light of the old Welsh saying, the metaphor of a bridge throws light on the joys and privileges of servant leadership, but also the potential costs. 

This year marks the 700^th anniversary of the Nicene Creed. As I understand it, one of the purposes for the creed’s creation was as an anti-Arian move to affirm and establish the nature and truth of the incarnation within the church’s theology. The person of Jesus is both fully human and divine, the one who, “for us and our salvation, (he) came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human.”[1] While all our metaphorical language for the divine is inadequate, the image of Jesus’ person and ministry, his death and resurrection as a bridge, bringing to an end the gulf between earth and heaven, God and humanity, speaks to me very powerfully. The bridge belongs to both territories and to more than both territories, and while it may be a thing of beauty and worthy of praise and admiration, its primary purpose is to serve. Jesus as the bridge offers a pattern and inspiration to his followers: ‘A bo ben bid bont.’

Other metaphors relating to the incarnation present themselves. The late Rev Liz Smith, Chair of the former Leeds District and a Cornishwoman, sometimes spoke of the Cornish image for Jesus of a mermaid, as found in a carving in the 15^th century church of St Senara. It depicts one who inhabits two worlds, two environments, even two species, bridging and uniting them. It’s an image that may speak to some but not to others. Different concepts inevitably resonate with each of us differently, but I would want to suggest that if an idea seems to enrich and inspire our discipleship, it’s worth pondering and praying over, our incarnate God communicating through the things of this earth.

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[1] The Methodist Worship Book, MPH 1999, page 135

by Tom Stuckey

When I candidated for the ministry in the 1960s my wife and I both understood that we were embracing a life of self-sacrifice. This idea of sacrifice was re-enforced during my three years of residential training at Richmond College, founded in 1842 to train missionaries. Each day we students passed beneath the Memorial Boards of those pioneer students who had responded to the missionary call. It was salutary to see how many of those who went out and died ‘in the field’ after serving for less than two years. Dietrich Bonheoffer, who had stood beneath these boards before returning to Nazi Germany, wrote, ‘When Christ call a man he calls a man to die’ We students could not fail to absorb this idea of ‘making the sacrifice complete’. Our partners knew this too.

I recall also how in 1965 the President, Professor Gordon Rupp, spoke to the Ministerial Session of Conference on the subject of the ‘Pastoral Office’. He suggested that the survival of God’s people depended on the effectiveness of the Pastor who like the Good Shepherd ‘sacrifices himself for the sake of the sheep’.

This word ‘sacrifice’ does not sit easily today within a middle class culture of self-fulfilment yet its reality still challenges the contemporary family. For example; do you, as a responsible parent, put your career before your family? In times past the role of each parent and the children was clearly defined. Not so today where parents attempt to balance competing expectations. What however remains evident is that within a family someone, if not everyone, has to make some sacrifice if the family is not to be fragmented.

Within the ministerial family of former days, the husband’s vocational demands usually came first forcing the wife and children to make the greater sacrifice. Thankfully we live in a more enlightened age. Today’s ordained ministers are advised to work two sessions out of three each day, guard their days off and take their quarterly breaks; all ‘well-being’ matters designed to reduce stress – sensible yes but theologically questionable? Moreover, today ministers have to deal with issues which were not there thirty years ago and these have changed the very nature of how we spend our days. The shortage of ministers, the ever increasing statutory demands and the burden of responding to and producing data for our ravenous technological machines, is turning active pastoral ministers into desk-sitting managers. We are suffering from what Christina Maslach calls ‘structural stressing’.[1]  I must therefore ask, ‘At what point does the concern for ministerial well-being undermine the vocational and theological call of Jesus ‘to deny self, take up the cross and follow? (Mk.8.34).

In June I wrote an article in the Methodist Recorder with the above title within the series of Elder Voices. Since then, I have continued to think further about this idea of ‘making the sacrifice complete’. I have been helped by John Barclay’sarticle Is Self-Sacrifice a Christian Ideal in which he approaches this issue in a different way. He rightly points out that self-sacrifice can lead to harmful self-negation. The ultimate end of sacrifice, he argues, is not simply about loss but also about gain. Self-sacrifice is about giving one’s self into a relationship of solidarity with others, such that ‘all can flourish together’. It is not a binary concept but a corporate one. ‘Give and it will be given to you’, is one of a series of texts in Luke 6 which sets the idea of loss in the context of gain. Barclay concludes, ‘Our self-other polarity makes it almost impossible for us to understand how a gain for others can be also, and legitimately, a gain for oneself… if we understand ourselves as made to flourish ultimately as we conjoin our identity with that of Christ, we have a vision that is richer and fuller than the heroization of self-sacrifice.’[2]

Both Christine and I look back over my sixty years as a Methodist Minister with gratitude. Yes, the Church has generated many stressful times for us and our children, yet these occasions of anguish and agony fade when compared to the abundant joy and sense of well-being that we have experience. God has blessed us! This, I suggest, is a by-product of attempting to ‘make the sacrifice complete’.

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[1] Christina Maslach, BurnOut, ISHK. p.69.

[2] Methodist Sacramental Fellowship – August 2025.

by Josie Smith.

I never quite believed the old illustration about the butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil, thus starting a process which eventually leads to a tornado in Texas.    My mind couldn’t stretch enough to encompass the magnitude and nature of the idea.     And yet I try to live my life according to another idea, that of God, whose magnitude and nature has been stretching my mind for a very long time.  

I first encountered the challenge of non-separability in an article in the ‘face to faith’ bit of the Guardian on December 4th 2004 by Mike Purton, which made sense to me, though quantum physics / mechanics were way outside my scope.   I have kept the article, and have often read it again over the years.   Mike Purton, a writer, musician, music producer and one time BBC television producer, talks about what physicists call entanglement – the state of two or more particles which once they have interacted with each other will always be connected, whatever the subsequent distance between them.    He prefers the term ‘non-separability’ – a significant difference.     If all matter emerged from the Big Bang, at a fundamental level the particles it consists of can never be separated.

Purton goes on to suggest that what physicists now believe – and it was the hot topic in physics in the 1980s and had been suspected by scientists and philosophers for a long time – is possibly the biggest revelation of that century for theologians too.    ‘It seems to be too immense a concept, too remote from our everyday lives – until we view it from the spiritual perspective.’

It makes sense, doesn’t it?     I have never quite accepted that God, who is manifestly active in so many of the lives of people I know can be ‘the same yesterday, today and forever’ unless being ‘the same’ implies that dynamism which is energy and expansion and development and activity and movement.       It is inconceivable to think of ‘the same’ as implying ‘static’.

If we are all created by God, ‘in God’s image’ as we say, then we are all particles of the God-stuff (is there anything else?) and can never be separated from God or from other beings.   We are interdependent, and what we do as individuals has an effect on other beings, as they have on us, whether we are aware of it or not.     The Brazilian butterfly had no idea what she was starting!

The implications for loving our neighbour as ourselves are endless.  

At that sort of depth we are our neighbour, and we need to find and recognise the God-particle within each of us; including our limited selves.

And what are the implications for our treatment of our home, the Earth?

Our relationship with other animals?    Trees?    How does it affect our political judgement, the work we do, the way we spend our time and our money, as well as how we treat people, how we pray for people including those who want to harm us?     What does it say to us about our education system and our prison system, our attitude to paying tax, our loyalties to family, to peer group, to football team, to tradition, to nation? If we are essentially all one, dare we exclude anyone?

Teilhard de Chardin in The Future of Man (1959) quoted a version of Christ’s message as ‘Love one another, recognising in the heart of each of you the same God who is being born.’    Purton claims that in Christ’s own time a God of love would have been an alien concept.    Judgement Day could come at any moment and would see people eternally damned if they did not worship the wrathful God.     But Jesus spoke of – and was the embodiment of –love, and said ‘Be one, even as my Father and I are one.’ (cf John 17:21)

If we are indeed all one, all part of a single spirit, as I am increasingly believing as I approach the end of my earthly life, there is no separation between me and my neighbour, and it follows that loving my neighbour (as myself) becomes the only possible way to be completely alive.

I did say quantum mechanics / physics were beyond my mental capacity – but in the depths of my being I sense truth here somewhere.

by Philip Sudworth.

In the previous two articles on suffering and evil (Our Fault? and For our benefit?), we’ve explored various explanations of why a loving and all-powerful God might send, or not prevent, suffering.  It is possible that God is not entirely loving or not all-powerful or has voluntarily given up some power, or isn’t the sort of God who directs everything that happens.

Christian tradition presents images of God that go beyond the loving father, suffering servant and shepherd to include a mighty king who demands obedience and an avenging judge.  In the Old Testament, God’s nature is depicted as including jealousy, anger, vengeance and a strict sense of justice alongside his love for his chosen people.  John Stott, a leading evangelical writer, speaks of: “an inner tension between his ‘compassion’ and his ‘fierce anger”’.[1]   Righteousness and justice are seen as important aspects of the nature of God. Although the main message of Christianity these days is one of love, traditionally the church has not only acknowledged this need to fear God but has used the threat of judgement and eternal torment for the non-Christian in its evangelism.  Images of the expected Second Coming of Jesus are full of reward and retribution.

Could God be entirely good if he planned before time began for children to die painfully as part of his scheme for the salvation of humanity?  This is echoed in the cry of Ivan in Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov: “If the sufferings of children … [are] necessary for the purchase of truth, then I say beforehand that the entire truth is not worth such a price.”[2]

It is sometimes claimed that God’s plan for the ultimate welfare of the universe is well worth the suffering of individuals.  Few great victories have been achieved without casualties or martyrs.  (There were more Christian martyrs in the 20^th century than in all the previous 19 centuries put together.) The battle against evil may also demand sacrifices.  This presumes that God isn’t all-powerful in the struggle against the forces of evil. 

Peter Vardy rejects the view that God is in total control and suggests that a God who would deliberately cause the painful death of a child would not be worth worshipping.   “A God who can control everything that happens and who allows so much suffering is a malevolent God.”[3]  He suggests that God’s freedom of action in the world “is limited by the universe he has chosen to create.”[4]  More direct intervention by God would destroy human freedom and their ability to choose their response to him.

An alternative view of God is that he is not a being out there somewhere, watching and directing what happens in the world, but is within us and within everyone else as well.  This gives a different perspective.  God is no longer outside observing the suffering, he is undergoing it with us.  One of the things that helped Archbishop Desmond Tutu to keep going during his people’s suffering under Apartheid was the story of the fiery furnace.  Nebuchadnezzar was amazed to see that not only were Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego not burnt but he could see a fourth figure in the furnace with them.  Tutu realised the story was saying was that God wasn’t sitting up in Heaven watching, he was in the middle of the suffering with them.  No matter how tough things got, they’d never be alone; God would be in there with them. 

In his book, Night, about his experiences in Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel recounts how, a young boy is hanged in front of the whole camp for breaching a minor rule. The two men hanged with him died quickly but the small, half-starved boy took half an hour to die. As he writhed in his agony, Elie heard someone behind him ask – “‘Where is your God now?’” Elie relates that he heard a voice within him answer: “‘Where is he?  Here he is – he is hanging here on the gallows.’”[5] ⁴

The view of God within us holds out the prospect and hope of man as a race evolving spiritually and morally as well as physically and mentally.  It requires us to look forward at how we can help to work towards a better future for humankind.  The more we attune ourselves to the God within us, the better we will be prepared to tackle the problems in the world. 

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[1] Stott J.R.W. (1986) – The Cross of Christ (Inter-Varsity Press)

[2] Dostoevsky F. [1880] – The Brothers Karamazov (Quartett Books)

^[3] Vardy P. (1992) – The Puzzle of Evil (HarperCollins.)

[4] ibid.

[5] Wiesel E. (1982) – Night (Penguin)

by Philip Sudwoth.

This is part of two of a series which began with last week’s article.

It is often suggested that the world God designed was good and did not originally contain any suffering or evil. It is expected that, when Jesus returns, he will remove suffering and evil from the world and return it to a state of perfection. But would an absence of suffering and evil really create an ideal world?

Once all danger, effort, and suffering are removed, there’s no scope for the best human qualities.  Without danger there’s no courage; without shortages, no generosity; without struggle, no achievement; without hurt, no compassion; without uncertainty, no hope or faith; without sacrifice, no self-giving love. If there were no death, none of us, and none of those whom we have known and loved, would ever have been born, because the world would have been full up long ago.  Without the deep inter-personal feelings that can lead to grief and heartache, we would never be able to enjoy the wonderful intimate love of the special people with whom we’ve shared so many moments of joy, fun and quiet togetherness.  Without the freedom to act wrongly, there’s no virtue.  If everything were perfect, there would be no room for development and progress, for vision, or for challenge.  This may seem to be an imperfect world, but our responses to these very imperfections have given rise to all the creativity, love and self-sacrifice and the glorious diversity that God has developed in humanity. 

For parents one of the most difficult things is to allow your children to make mistakes, particularly ones that can lead to them into harm.  Yet, if we want them to grow into mature and confident adults, we cannot always be there to catch them before they fall.  Few learn to ride a bike without incurring a few grazes.  As they grow up into young adults, they will acquire emotional hurts too, as they learn to handle relationships.  Part of our love for them is to help them to become independent from us.  While continuing to offer support, we must gradually give up all control over them.  When they make key life decisions, we can offer advice, but the choices – and the consequences – have to be theirs. 

If we have free will, God can have no direct control over us.  We cannot be free to choose good unless we are equally free to choose evil or to hurt others or ourselves.  We must take the consequences of our decisions and actions and of those that flow from other people.  We cannot expect God to suspend the physical laws of the universe every time we or others make a wrong decision. 

If one believes in life beyond death in which the person continues to develop spiritually, suffering in the present life can be seen in the context of a much broader total picture.  It is one experience amongst many, a way of giving people insights into what is really important as a preparation for a new existence. John Keats saw this world as a ‘vale of soul-making’.¹  ‘Do you not see how necessary a World of Pains and troubles is to school an Intelligence and make it a Soul.’[1]  Several of the epistles show that the early Christians, many of whom suffered persecution and even martyrdom for their faith, not only gained comfort from Christ in their adversity but considered it a means of grace, and a cause of joy, to suffer for him. 

Romans 5:3 sees the role of suffering in creating “perseverance, character and hope.”    However, while a saintly person may be helped to new heights of spirituality through the experience of pain, what is the possible benefit to a once intelligent and caring person who has a severe stroke, and spends their last months unable to recognize their family, doubly incontinent and in constant pain?  How does the painful death of a young child contribute to its spiritual growth?

Those who feel that pain is ennobling maintain that God never asks us to carry more of a burden than we can bear.  However, there are also those who are crushed by tragedies that befall them, some who are bitter for the rest of their lives, or who are scarred mentally. Suicide is the greatest cause of death in the UK for men aged between 19 and 49. Legislation to make available assisted dying to relieve intolerable suffering is now within parliamentary process in the UK towards new law being enacted.  When a drunk driver kills a pillar of the community who is the parent of a young family or a fatal disease strikes down a child, there is a sense of lack of fulfilment.  In each of these situations, there is the effect on those left afterwards to consider. For many people the suffering they bear continues to be without purpose, and there are no simple resolutions.

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[1] Forman M.B. (1952) – The Letters of John Keats (Oxford University press).