Theology Everywhere

by Leslie Newton.

Arguably the most influential driver for the remarkable growth of early Methodism was Wesley’s creation of a dynamic network of ‘spaces for grace.’  As Wesley’s own life was shaped by God’s amazing grace, so he discovered that receiving and responding to grace is foundational to everyone’s growing in faith and, crucially, something best done together.

Grace, of course, is a cherished treasure at the heart of Christianity in general, but for Methodists it has historically held a particularly rich and distinctive place. “For the ‘people called Methodists’ grace is nothing less than the defining, shaping and underpinning energy that flows at the very heart of the movement.”[1] It embraces the Wesley-an ‘waves of grace’[2]: ‘prevenient grace’, ‘justifying grace’ and ‘sanctifying grace.’[3]  Alongside these ‘waves of grace’ we also have the ‘means of grace’ (such as prayer, scripture, communion, fasting, and conferring). Devoting ourselves to the ‘means of grace’ is vital if God’s transforming grace is going to continue to help us grow. As Randy Maddox so helpfully puts it, it’s about “responsible grace”[4]: we have our part to play, responsibly, in continuing to grow in grace. 

So, here’s some challenge for us. 

• Is there not a danger that we have lost confidence in the power of God’s grace to transform us, our communities and the world? 
• Have we instead too often settled for a church that runs more on guilt than grace, more out of anxiety than assurance?
• Is it not high time that we once again yield our lives, and our life together, to the transformative potential of God’s grace?

As I began, part of John Wesley’s genius lay in creating a network of ‘spaces for grace.’ These included the field, bands, classes and societies, where ‘waves of grace’ flowed as people attended to the ‘means of grace’ together.  Through this lens our discipleship is first and foremost forged by our intentional, risky-but-committed participation in this network of ‘spaces of grace.’  Out of this is shaped our response: in vocation, service and generous gracious living. 

What does this all mean for us as the Methodist Church today? My hunch is that we need to focus our best imagination and energy in recreating and developing a rich tapestry of purposeful ‘spaces for grace.’  

With space-limited bluntness, I point to two radical reorientations I think are essential:

1. Away from attaching too much expectation about the Sunday congregational gathering being able to achieve all that is so often implied.  These times can indeed be a ‘space for grace’ but they should not be seen as the primary building block of a movement seeking to be fashioned and empowered by ‘waves of grace’ and through ‘means of grace.’  

Towards, a greater commitment to smaller, committed groups focussed around an openness to God’s unexpected activity, mutual accountability, and deeper sharing.  All with an expectant longing for more of Jesus’ gracious presence.

• Away from too easy a satisfaction, all too often, with ‘just’ providing opportunities for people to be gathered together.  Of course, there is often enormous benefit and Christian service in such times (coffee mornings, warm spaces, speaker-led fellowship gatherings etc.)  They are good: they can be wonderful ‘spaces for grace,’ particularly of prevenient grace.  But without them being part of a fuller network of ‘spaces for grace’ we are so limited and limiting in what we are offering.

Towards, alongside such gatherings, a more courageous, Jesus-centred offering of other spaces; spaces of grace with huge contextual variety and shade, but with an intentionality to share the Jesus story, to invite people to grow in grace, to discover the Good News of the gospel personally – that Jesus really is Emmanuel – God with us – that he really has moved into every neighbourhood, full of grace and truth.

Wesley quickly learned that a network and flow of ‘spaces of grace’ was vital for the ‘people called Methodists’ to continue to grow in grace and for new people to enter into, and grow in, a life of faith. [5]  What was true then is true now.

So, at a time when the church is prone to be almost paralyzingly anxious that it is running low on resources of money, energy and even time, let’s celebrate that the resource we most need – grace – is inexhaustible and in constant supply!  Might we then set about developing a richer, more diverse and creative network of ‘spaces of grace’ that once again offer us – and the world – the hope of spiritual and social transformation?

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[1] From my book, Revive Us Again, page 52. Available here –https://amzn.eu/d/6cj8eow
More information at: https://www.publishu.com/books/revive-us-again

[2] Beck, M, A Field Guide to Methodist Fresh Expressions, page 40

[3] Prevenient grace, meaning the grace that ‘comes before,’ bridges the gap between God and humanity. It makes possible our response to God’s forgiving and reconciling grace. Justifying grace assures us of the forgiveness and acceptance of God, aligning us with God’s gracious gift of new life. Sanctifying grace, the grace that perfects, shapes the restoring of humanity into the image of God and the conforming of all creation into the image of Christ.

[4] Maddox, R, Responsible Grace: John Wesley’s Practical Theology page 41

[5] Indeed, as Wesley himself put it so bluntly in his journal: “I was more convinced than ever, that the preaching like an Apostle, without joining together those that are awakened, and training them up in the ways of God, is only begetting children of the murderer…. [with]…. no regular societies, no discipline, no order of connection…. the consequence is that nine in ten of the once-awakened are now faster asleep than ever.’

by Ben Pugh.

On 17^th October this year, I gave the annual Samuel Chadwick Lecture at Cliff College. My theme was ‘The Gospel in a Material World.’ My talk developed ideas I explored in my earlier post for Theology Everywhere. What had changed since that earlier post was that, by the time I gave the Samuel Chadwick Lecture, I had had a bit of a eureka moment. I now felt I had a clarifying lens for modern secularity: Epicureanism. It captures all the facets of secularism: especially the recurring Western cultural traits of philosophical materialism, religious indifference, and individualism. Not only that, but Epicureanism, a hugely popular philosophy in the Roman world, connects us to a significant aspect of the context in which Christianity first arose. This means that there is the exciting possibility of discovering that Paul, for instance, is already addressing Epicureanism in his letters and thereby supplying those of us who preach and teach today with some made-to-measure ways of putting things that might connect with the recovering Epicureans who sit in our pews. The dampener, of course, is that Epicureans get only one explicit mention throughout the entire New Testament (Acts 17:18). This is a sobering warning to me. Indeed, a certain Norman Wentworth De Witt, in 1954 produced the perfect example of an over-cooked, over-confident reading-in of Epicurean ideas in Paul’s writings.[1] De Witt seemed to believe that most of Paul has been mistranslated and if we only understand all the places where Paul is as anonymously ridiculing Epicurus, we will get Paul’s drift. The book stands as a shining example to me of how not to go about this. However, in this short post I’ll not be attempting much by way of New Testament study. For now, I just want to try on this Epicurean lens to see what becomes clearer about our culture.  

Epicureans were followers of Epicurus (341-270BC) and subscribed to a materialist dogma. De Witt was probably right about that at least: it was the only Greek Philosophy with a fixed dogma. The Epicureans believed in atoms, like we do. They were devout empiricists, believing emphatically that certain knowledge of the universe was to be gained via sense perceptions. Ethically, they were utilitarian like we mostly are, always asking the question: what can promote the greatest amount of happiness and the least amount of pain for the greatest number of people? They were ruggedly self-reliant and individualist, adamantly rejecting anything such as fate or divine providence that might unseat their unbridled self-determination. And they were not religious. Indeed, they saw religion as part of the problem. They were castigated by Philo for being atheists, as well for being hedonistic and holding to a view of the cosmos that was too mechanistic.

Sounds familiar! But the most prized doctrine they held to, which emerged logically from their materialistic atomism, was the rejection of the idea of an afterlife. They felt strongly that ideas about facing judgment after we die were among the most troubling things we entertain and the quicker we get rid of such thoughts the sooner we can enjoy an untroubled and happy life. So, they opted for the belief that people’s souls were made of atoms, just like their bodies, and hence disintegrate after death. Epicurus himself stridently asserted: ‘Death is nothing to us; for the body, when it has been resolved into its elements, has no feeling; and that which has no feeling is nothing to us.’[2] Epicureans, then as now, believed they had hamstrung religion’s most persuasive claims simply by disposing of the afterlife. A very common inscription on tombs was the Latin Non fui, fui, non sum, non desidero: ‘I was not; I was; I am not; I do not care.’

Despite its immense popularity among the middle classes of the ancient world, Epicurean materialism did not manage to keep its hold over the popular imagination and does not reappear until the early modern era. Many of the early Enlightenment thinkers were enamoured with Epicurus’ atomism. Inspired by him, Thomas Hobbes offered his famously desolate pronouncement: ‘. . . every part of the universe is body, and that which is not body is no part of the universe. And because the universe is all, that which is no part of it, is nothing (and consequently, nowhere).^[3]

The rediscovery of Epicureanism in the early modern period has had a lasting effect upon our culture. Today, the very idea of having a faith is problematic: we don’t understand what it is or why it’s necessary. But there is another blind spot too. It is this: we can’t understand what it looks and feels like to be in union with Christ. Our entrenched individualism gets in the way, and our materialism for that matter.

When teaching the Gentiles Paul learned, perhaps the hard way, to foreground the wonderful ‘in Christ’ life that had come to mean so much to him: a fullness of life enjoyed in the here and now. We too need our eyes opening afresh to what it means to be ‘joined to the Lord,’ and ‘one spirit with him’ (1Cor.6:17); coordinated in thought, feeling, will, speech and action with the crucified and glorified Christ; our seeing, hearing, feelings and tastes occupied and sanctified by Christ in us, the hope of glory.

Watch the 2023 Samuel Chadwick Lecture here

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[1]St Paul and Epicurus (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1954).

[2] Diogenes Laertius, X. 139

[3] Hobbes, Leviathan, 46.15.

by Elaine Lindridge.

The challenging title of the book ‘Do I Stay A Christian?[1]’ caught my eye in the bookshop and even as I bought it I knew it would not be an easy read.

I’ve read several books by the author (Brian McLaren) and have found that he often addresses questions I have been trying to verbalise. This book states that it is ‘a guide for the doubters, the disappointed and the disillusioned’. Part One; entitled ‘No’ gives reasons why not to remain a Christian, whilst Part Two ‘Yes’ gives reasons to remain. It was the final Part 3 that I found the most helpful as McLaren addresses the question of ’How?’.

As I journeyed slowly through the book I found it almost excruciating to recall our chequered Christian history of colonialism, violence, failure and toxicity. There was nothing new to me in these chapters but to have them all together literally in black and white before me was incredibly sobering.

The chapters giving reasons to stay a Christian managed to avoid a saccharin like hope that is not build on any realism.  One chapter boldly states that leaving defiantly or staying compliantly are not our only options. I like that!

‘Renounce and Announce’ is the title of one of the final chapters that addresses the question of ‘how’ to remain a Christian.  McLaren talks of ‘coming out’ as being one of the many gifts our LGBTQ siblings have given us[2]. In ‘coming out’ an individual announces that ‘you have thought of me one way, but I have come to understand myself in a different way, and I want to let you know’. He then goes on to encourage the reader to consider how they might ‘come out’ as one who decides to leave Christianity or remain a Christian in a constructive way.

So here is my ‘coming out’ announcement.

I have changed. Those who know me personally may have thought of me in one way, but I have come to understand myself in a different way. For me the term ‘Christian’ carries as many negative as positive connotations and at times I’m not keen to own it. Orthodoxy has become a fluid term, as I’m not sure what I believe anymore – but I’m content with that.

 This all has the danger of sounding like negative introspection and of endorsing an unhelpful individuality, all of which I would certainly want to avoid.  

Some might find it shocking that as a Presbyter in the Methodist Church I could ever have even entertained the idea of not remaining a Christian but let me tell you – I’m not the only one. I am regularly finding myself in conversations with others who are (as the book says) doubters, disappointed and disillusioned, although to be fair that is often aimed at the church and not at God. Yet in the midst of that they are meeting God in deeper ways as they seek to make sense of their new reality. In a sense, new communities of god-seekers are emerging. Let me assure you that whilst I might at times struggle with the title ‘Christian’ and all the baggage that goes with it, it does not equate that I am not still deeply attracted to the life of Jesus. I seek to encounter God in my daily life and look for ways to share this universal love with others.  I feel like I have been born again…again. Some of the old me has died and something new has come to life. Prayer, meditation, contemplation has become more accessible and I sense God more profoundly and abundantly than ever.

The purpose of this blog is to raise a flag that says ‘I’m here’. If you have been experiencing something similar, please know that you are not alone. My hope and prayer is that the Methodist Church (and the wider church) can keep its arms of love and acceptance boldly open to those who are seeking to remain Christian.  We might not fit quite as neatly into the Christian box or into the Church’s idea of what it means to be a Jesus follower, but we’re still here.

I hand back over to Brian McLaren for the final word,

‘If others reject us or prefer that we leave, so be it. In the long run, we will find it better to be rejected for who we are than accepted for who we aren’t. Whether we have shifted out of Christianity entirely or into a new kind of Christianity, we have to be courageous enough to come out of our closets and go public, not minimising the change, not feeling embarrassed about who we are becoming, not hiding our light under a bushel of polite ambiguity’. [3]

May God’s blessing be upon each reader.

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[1] Do I Stay A Christian? Brian McLaren. Hodder & Stoughton 2022

[2] p.280

[3] p.284

by Tim Baker.

The title for this comes from Tim Hughes’ worship song, God of justice, which ends with an invitation to ‘keep us from just singing, move us into action, we must go, we must go’. A lot of my work involves inviting churches to think about how they can engage with justice meaningfully, and doing so in the context of leading worship (typically on a Sunday morning). I work for a charity called All We Can — a Christian international development agency with a passion for partnership.

I wonder what the word ‘partnership’ means for you? For many of us it conjures positive images of togetherness and community and trust, but I expect most of us also have a negative story to tell.

It’s a word that covers all manner of sins, greed and power-politics. However, it’s a word we are committed to at All We Can (at least until we can think of a better one!) because it is what enables us to move from leading-from-the-front when it comes to tackling poverty around the world, and focus more on enabling people, communities and whole nations to be in charge of their own transformation and development.

So I’d encourage us to think about committing to partnership in our worship, in our justice-seeking, and in our own lives.

In our worship, we are seeing this change happening already in many churches — as we move away from an assumption that worship is done for us, or delivered to us, by experts, to a recognition (or re-recognition) that we all have a part to play. Worship isn’t produced and consumed, it’s shared. As we have been reminded, liturgy literally means: ‘the work of the people’. That’s about all of us.

In our justice-seeking, we can most effectively see this as an extension of our worship if we commit to the same principle of partnership — not that we ‘fix’ the people in our communities or ‘export’ our ideas into the world. But we enable local people with lived experience to be in the driving seat of change.

Not the gift of a shoebox, or the sponsorship of a child, but the support for a community to set its own agenda, to lead its own transformation. As Victor, the leader All We Can’s partner in Malawi would say: ‘everything local is sustainable’, and local people have a PhD in their community, so we should probably listen to him.

When we route our action in worship, it changes the way we ‘do justice’ at all. We listen more, we wait for the movement of the spirit, we learn. We are prepared to put the communities we serve in the driving seat of change.

So yes, Lord, we pray: keep us from just singing, move us into action, we must go — but not as heroes, rather as partners, as listeners, as enablers. Not as messiahs, but as a people joining in with the work of The Messiah, who is still at work through The Spirit in our worship, in the places where we live, and around the world.

You can find out more about All We Can’s work here: allwecan.org.uk

To Consider:

• Should worship always be led by the ‘person up front’?
• Think of ways in which group preparation may be effective.
• Would participation in this way help churches to grow?
• Read: Isaiah 58:6-12

We are pleased to continue our partnership with Spectrum, a community of Christians of all denominations which encourages groups and individuals to explore the Christian faith in depth. This year the study papers are on the theme of ‘Heartfelt Worship’ by Rev’d Jan Berry (author and former principal of Luther King House, Manchester) and Tim Baker (Local Preacher, All We Can’s Churches and Volunteer’s Manager and contributor to the Twelve Baskets Worship Resources Group). This is the second of six coming through the year.

by Paul Bridges.

For over 20 years my repeated experience of cancer and its treatment has been a significant context in my life. I like to believe that my life is not defined by cancer but I have to accept that it is one of the things that defines me.

When I was diagnosed with cancer for the second and then the third time I struggled to make sense of it. I found that creative writing helped me to process my thoughts and feelings. My writing took the form of letters, sometimes to people and sometimes to ideas. What follows is an abridged version of my letter to God. I offer it as an example of how the context of our life can influence our theological thinking, both its is themes and direction.

As you read this window into a part of my life, I invite you to ask yourself a few questions?

• Does this letter give you a different perspective about serious illness and God?
• What have been the significant contexts in your life and how have these affected your theological thinking?
• To what extent do you agree with Stephan Bevans who said “There is no such thing as ‘theology;’ there is only contextual theology”?[1]

Dear God,

As I am sure you are aware I have been writing letters to people and things connected to my cancer. I am not fooling myself that they are only about cancer. They are a way of working out things, of recognising the good that is happening in the midst of struggle. And they are a way of coping when people say crass things, and I have to smile sweetly. People say lots of strange things about cancer – “I hear that a good one to get” for example.

You often get mentioned too – people blame you for cancer or to be more accurate they use cancer as their reason for not believing in you. Cancer is such a cruel and horrible disease that a benevolent God could not possibly allow cancer to happen. I have never understood you and the world in this way, but I understand why people do. You are not a vending machine to be used as and when we want you. In fact, if that was the case and you just did what we asked then that would make us God.

For many, life has so many cruel and horrible things in it, surely if a loving God exists they would do something about it. I have not blamed you for my cancer but I do wonder sometimes why there has to be cancer at all.

Occasionally people put the blame elsewhere, they suggest that there is a reason we have cancer. Obviously, they don’t say it in these words but they say things like “everything happens for a reason”. Or “God will work through this cancer”. Are they really saying I am being punished or that somehow giving me cancer is part of your masterplan?

Do you scream and shout, with me, when people say that? What sort of being could punish people or try to achieve something through cancer? No, I reject this thinking. I do not and will not believe that you give people cancer.

Some say that you will teach me something through my experience, but I reject this too.  Yes, I have learnt much, about compassion and humanity, but the idea that you gave me cancer so I can learn these things I must reject. Was I not a good enough student the first and second times I got cancer is that why I got cancer a third time!

We want answers, don’t we? We want to know why and how. But you are the great I am, that’s what you said wasn’t it when Moses asked your name. I am the I am. Well, it seems to me that you are the great I am and life is the just is. That is no rhyme or reason, no why or how with cancer, it just is.

Like so many things that horrify us, cancer also shows us the depth of humanity and compassion that we are capable of. I see you clearly here.

I think of the woman that spent the afternoon gardening with my wife during my first operation.

I remember the doctor who let me play my favourite music as he put me to sleep before an operation.

The new neighbours who left a meal on our doorstep.

The friends that drove hours to see me but only stay a few minutes because I was too tired.

I remember the nurse who told me to be kind to myself.

The man that help me back to physical and psychological health with walks and cherry pie, oh that cherry pie.

The care assistants who dried and dressed me with clothes and compassion when a simple bath had taken all of my energy.

The volunteers who gave up their time to listen to me or give me some complementary therapy.

I see you in all these.

But there are some things I still struggle with.

I don’t believe in miracles, well not with bangs and flashes and science defying changes. I believe in the miracles of life and of love, the miracles of forgiveness and compassion. So, I have always struggled with prayers for physical healing. If you are a loving God why would you need someone else to pray for my healing before you intervene? Nothing would stop me rushing to my children, surely the same is true of you too.

I think you heal us through the skill and compassion of doctors and nurses, through the love and care of family and friends. But yet there is something. As I lay in my hospital bed I would recall all the people who told me they were praying for me. I would get a message of support on texts and emails, and somehow, they helped. People of faith sometimes use strange phrases, they say holding you in prayer, and actually that’s just what it felt like.

Feeling held, gave me the courage and confidence to keep going, but also to give up. To give up worrying, to give up the weight of responsibility, sometimes even to give up caring. I could do this knowing you held me and these things for me. Real safety means being able to be totally vulnerable without any of our usual barriers trusting totally in the protection of another. To those we love and we know love us we don’t have to be strong.

There is a story I have always liked, I am sure you know it already!

A little girl and her father were crossing a bridge over a raging river. The father was kind of scared so he asked his little daughter,

‘Sweetheart, please hold my hand so that you don’t fall into the river.’

The little girl said, ‘No, Daddy. You hold my hand.’

‘What’s the difference?’ Asked the puzzled father.

‘There’s a big difference,’ replied the little girl.

‘If I hold your hand and something happens to me, chances are that I may let your hand go. But if you hold my hand, I know for sure that no matter what happens, you will never let my hand go.’

I think this may be what prayer is, you holding our hand.

So, I am grateful for every prayer spoken. Thank you and Amen

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[1] In my last piece for Theology Everywhere – “The only way is up” – I considered whether the development of our theology may not be linear but contextual – affected by what is going on in our lives.

by Kerry Tankard.

This is the third in a series of articles about theology and music culture…[1]

Previously, I rejected the idea of the profane as a space somehow apart from God. I will touch on that theme again by exploring the reconciliation of eros and agape in Nick Cave’s song Brompton Oratory.[i] The album The Boatman’s Call explores themes of love, loss, faith, and God, as songs reflect variously on the end of his marriage to Viviane Carneiro, the end of his short intense relationship with the singer/songwriter P J Harvey, and another of his stays in rehab to address his heroin addiction. This weft of experiences is woven onto the warp of the divine, and the tapestry created became one of the most significant albums in Cave’s extensive catalogue.

In an amusing interview in the film 20,000 Days on Earth,[ii] Cave reflected on how he would go to church on a Sunday morning to pass the time as he was waiting for the heroin dealers along the Portobello Road to be up. The song, Brompton Oratory, captures something of that unorthodox balance of the good and bad in his life at the time, while threaded with the end of his relationships and his shifting engagement with the idea of God.

In his lecture, The Secret Life of the Love Song,[iii] he writes:

Though the Love Song comes in many guises – songs of exultation and praise, songs of rage and of despair, erotic songs, songs of abandonment and loss – they all address God, for it is the haunted premises of longing that the true Love Song inhabits…It is the cry of one chained to the earth, to the ordinary and to the mundane, craving flight; a flight into inspiration and imagination and divinity.[iv] 

That longing is echoed in these words from Brompton Oratory where the encounter of the sacred and the seemingly profane reveals something of the relationship of desire, eros, and agape.

The blood imparted in little sips
The smell of you still on my hands
As I bring the cup up to my lips[v]

Cave recalls receiving the sacrament from the cup and so also recalls the smell of his lover as he touches the chalice, the holy and the seemingly profane meet. Some will find this moment disturbing, even offensive. Here it appears sex, often the greatest taboo of the profane, and the sacrament, the most sacred of Church celebrations, meet in one man’s actions. This raises the question of whether these hands are ‘contaminated’ not only by the body of another, but morally and spiritually as well?

The answer to the first part of that question could be yes, and literally so. His hands could really still be perfumed with the scent of the woman he has lost. Obviously, the words could be a poetic construction, but that is secondary to the intent they convey. He wants us to know that he carries her on his hands, that what they have shared is now part of holding this cup of salvation; one longing is being responded to by a quite different gift. This meeting of the seemingly profane with the sacred is powerful and profound. It invites us to ask of ourselves, what hidden things do we each bring to the table of Christ, and do we genuinely believe they will be received there? With such hidden things, are we free to receive from Christ? Can we enjoy still this means of grace and this converting ordinance? And, crucially here, what desire are we coming to Christ with?

Nick Cave brings these questions to the foreground with a deliberate invocation of erotic events to remind us of our yearning, of eros itself. Kneeling by the side of us, he calls us to hold eros and agape together, and not see them as divided or opposed forms of love –  to recover a sense of the relationship between them.

This thinking is not new. Dionysius suggested something similar in the 5^th/6^th Century when arguing, “in my opinion, the sacred writers regard ‘yearning’ (eros) and love (agape) as having one and the same meaning”.[vi] Desire and longing are manifest in eros, but this desire and longing finds itself ultimately fulfilled by God, and in God’s agape. This is different to a tradition in the Church which elevated agape against eros. Agape was portrayed as drawing us upwards, a form of heavenly and holy loving, while selfish eros was an earthlier and material thing which dragged us down. This divided love, rather than seeing these expressions as intimately linked parts of the singularity of love that is shared within the Trinity, and by the Trinity with the world. Andrew Davison concludes that agape is not the end of eros, but that agape is about the reception of eros as love manifest in passion and desire. Invoking Sarah Coakley he says, ‘the way to bring the right ordering of human erotic desire is not to cover it up but to uncover its relation to God. We must “turn Freud on his head”’.[vii] Or as Coakley puts it herself, ‘Instead of “God” language ‘really’ being about sex, sex is really about God.’[viii]

What Nick Cave captures, intentionally or not, is our ultimate desire for God. The desires we feel for good things, are analogous indicators of the deep desire we have for God. In holding the chalice in Brompton Oratory, with scented hands, Cave lays a symbol of that truth before us. His desire for his lost lover is merging with his desire for God, as he sips from the cup. One desire is potentially being renewed by the revelation of the deeper desire for God, all part of what Cave sees as the longing of the true love song.

Twenty five years later, after so much more life experience, that yearning would find profoundly beautiful expression in his recorded Seven Psalms. I leave you with the words of the 3^rd of those:

My heart, my love, my Lord, my one true bride
Sanctuary where the eternal yearning[ix] rest
Unpetal me and burst me open wide
Lay your shining head upon my breast[x]

Amen.

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[1] The goodness of (profane) worship & King Gizzard, AstroTurf, and John Wesley!

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[i] A live performance is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_esUexstdbg; the lyrics here: https://www.nickcave.com/lyric/brompton-oratory/

[ii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kiDJarn0hM

[iii] Nick Cave, The Secret Life of the Love Song, published in Nick Cave: The Complete Lyrics 1978-2022, pp.1-19.

[iv] Ibid., p.7

[v] Ibid., p.278

[vi] Divine Names, IV.12 as quoted in Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay ‘On The Trinity’, p.313.

[vii] Andrew Davison, Why Sacraments?, p.112

[viii] Sarah Coakley, Op. Cit., p.316.

[ix] My emphasis.

[x] Nick Cave, Op. Cit., p.609 from Seven Psalms released in 2022.

by George Bailey.

Increasingly, I think of leadership simply as an inevitable feature of human community. If there are a group of people with a task to do, there will be some form of leadership. It may be intentional and planned, or may just unfold as some people’s personalities, past experiences and skills encourage others to let them guide and represent the group. Hence leadership is a puzzle – to what extent should we seek to control and determine it? Most people have a view as to what constitutes good leadership, and bad. However, these evaluations are determined by what one supposes might be the aims and purposes of the group in which leadership is exercised. The definition of good Christian leadership is inherently shaped by what we think the church ought to be like.

Attitudes to leadership as a topic vary in Christian missiology, and are often connected to the way that theologians approach the ever expanding non-Christian leadership literature. It is a clear that good leadership can help communities and institutions progress well, so there are understandably a wealth of research, guides and ‘how to’ books from sociological, psychological and organisational perspectives. I am convinced though that it is not sensible to see leadership as a separate subject within the Church’s theology. I am wary of books on Christian leadership which fail to adequately ground their insights in the theology of the church. There are obvious dangers when leaders become detached from the body of the community as if they were a special category of people, and making a theological category for leadership thinking can easily play into that dynamic. In a helpful book on Wesleyan theologies of leadership, Kenneth Carder and Laceye Warner hold firmly to the principle that ‘the tools of business and corporate management and the social sciences are subservient to soteriology and eschatology.’^[1]

If leadership is simply a normal feature of human community, then Christian leadership is an inevitable consequence of the way that Christians are part of a close community that we call a church. Leadership should reflect and be shaped by the theology of the church. In a Wesleyan church tradition, sanctification (being made holy) is the central organising focus of our theology – to use the eighteenth-century term… ‘scriptural holiness’ is our primary purpose. People exercising leadership are firstly Christians who are growing in grace and holiness, and as they do this they encourage and help others in the church to join them, just as they are upheld and supported by the community – a mutual partnership for sanctification. This should take priority over any drift of church leadership towards a small group of people, or worse, just one person, having authority and power over others.

There are New Testament precedents to help with this. Although some see Paul as an authoritarian leader, he always made efforts to work alongside others and not to lead on his own. He also considered himself an apostle amongst other apostles, and the New Testament church is governed by synodical consensus (e.g. Acts 15). The Greek word synod comes from the root ‘to walk/travel’ and the prefix for ‘together’. Paul’s leadership was grounded within his theology of the church as a diverse body with diverse gifts, all of which are valued and need to work together (1 Corinthians 12). I might go as far as to argue that whenever one Christian person is elevated as leader and given authority in a way which de-values the gifts of others, the result is detrimental to the mission of the Church. In my own experience of ministry, I have shared in several teams and currently work in team ministry within a Methodist-Anglican congregation, and also as Co-Superintendent for a circuit. I know that, personally for me at least, shared leadership and partnerships of gifts are better than being in a sole leadership position. If nothing else, it helps me avoid my own weaknesses affecting the way I exercise leadership in the church.

This is in line with Methodist heritage. Although, like Paul, some also dismiss John Wesley as an overly authoritarian leader, and we must acknowledge that he did display various weaknesses and failings, the Methodist revival movement was though drawing many people from diverse backgrounds into mutual leadership frameworks. Lovett Weems describes a Wesleyan practice of ‘multiple leadership’ – leadership comes from different social locations and is recognised in people with widely varied gifts and experiences, and leadership is sometimes ‘for a season’ and a particular situation.[2] This ‘multiple leadership’ is based primarily on the centrality of sanctification alone. Weems develops this thinking further in a 2016 collection of chapters on Wesleyan leadership: ‘Effective leadership in the church begins with God’s call, God’s people and a vision of God’s reign. From the beginning, the focus must be theological, not personal.’[3]

‘The reality is that all are leaders and all are followers.’[4] However, if this principle is applied thoroughly, perhaps there is a danger of the dispersal of effort and loss of clarity about the mission of a church. Again, Weems echoes my experience in ministry: ‘If multiple leadership is to be the rule, then it is essential to make sure that God’s vision for the church at this time in history is discerned, articulated, and shared.’[5] The more that leadership is seen not as a personal vocation, but instead as a shared communal expression of community life, the more important it is that theological grounding and vision is discerned and shared. This becomes the primary leadership activity. Rather than the practical achievement of short term goals, which are best realised by collectively drawing on a diversity of gifts, leadership is about communal responsibility to discern and express theological vocation, and for each disciple to live this out personally.

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[1] K. Carder and L. Warner (2016). Grace to Lead: Practising Leadership. United Methodist Church: General Board of Higher Education and Ministry. p.14

[2] Weems, Lovett H., Jr. (1998) Leadership in the Wesleyan Spirit. Nashville: Abingdon Press. section 2.5

[3] Weems, Lovett H., Jr. (2016). ‘What makes Leadership Wesleyan?’ in Perry, B. and Easley, B. (eds.) (2016), Leadership the Wesleyan Way: An Anthology for forming Leaders in Wesleyan Thought and Practice, Lexington, KY: Emeth Press. p.28

[4] Weems 1998, Leadership in the Wesleyan Spirit. sect 5.2

[5] ibid.

by Christine Odell.

In part one of this article, (11^th September)  we considered the question ‘What can ‘life in all its fullness’ (Jn 10;10b) mean for the Christian with chronic illness?’ The common experience of chronic illness challenges both the ‘norms’ and the expectations of ‘the good life’ in society today.  It is also an experience that challenges the ways we think about it and respond to it in our churches. In part two of this article we look at how we can help those with chronic illness receive the gift of life in all its fullness, the gift of wholeness that is offered freely to all, to be experienced even in the brokenness, limitations and frustrations of their everyday lives.

We need to start by understanding the nature of the chronic illness, how it affects those who live with it, and by considering our theological understanding of illness. This will also involve us in challenging commonly held myths about chronic illness (see part one for a list of these).

We have to resist the temptation to offer simple explanations or quick and easy fixes. These can alienate rather than incorporate those in our Christian community who are ill. Liuan Huska, in her book Hurting, Yet Whole[1]talks about the tendency of Christians to think they can ‘fix’ chronic illness.  This is not helpful to those who are seeking a ‘new normal’ for their broken bodies and lives.  We do not choose illness, but illness is a reality of human existence, and we seek to discover a ‘real’ God in that reality alongside us.   We cannot dispute the role of Jesus as healer in the Gospels, but that physical healing can be seen as just one aspect of the drawing in of those outside the ‘norms’ of society to a shared ‘life in all its fullness’.

We have all been exhorted to learn to be good ‘listeners’, and listening to those with chronic illness, their carers and loved ones is what should facilitate their continuing incorporation into the life of the Church.  It can be very hard for us to understand what having a chronic illness means to an individual.  Listening to them attentively can be painful and disturbing, when our instinct is to want to ‘fix’ things.  But that listening is essential if we are to:

1. Follow Christ in sharing their pain (physical, mental and emotional);
2. Include their experience in the life-experience of our community;
3. Make our responses and offers to them appropriate to their needs.

Huska refers to the thinking of Parker Palmer in his book A Hidden Wilderness; Welcoming the Soul and Weaving Community in a Broken World,[2] where he talks about creating ‘circles of trust’ and learning to ask honest and open questions that make space for ‘the soul to come out of hiding’. Honest and open questions are those that do not presume to know the answers.

Preparation to enable us to do this is not without cost, but starts with acknowledging the reality of suffering.  We need to re-learn how to lament together. The Psalmists knew how; Psalm 88 starts ‘Lord, you are the God who saves me. Day and night I cry out to you. Please hear my prayer. Pay attention to my cry for help. I have so many troubles I’m about to die. People think my life is over. I’m like someone who doesn’t have any strength. People treat me as if I were dead. I’m like those who have been killed and are now in the grave…’ (Ps 88:1-8 NRiV).This psalm that reminds us that we can share our often very mixed feelings with God.

It is easy to ‘forget’ those who are unable to be a physical part of our worshipping community, for whatever reason.  It is as if they have become part of the eternal ‘communion of saints’ without checking in at the pearly gates!  Yet if we accept that God values whatever we can offer, as Jesus valued the widow’s small coins (Mk12:41-44),we must make room for all in the Christian body.  We must allow them to add their experience to ours, to increase our understanding of where God is in this suffering world.  We must listen to their needs and cherish the opportunities for us to grow as we learn how to meet them.

There are practical ways in which we can show our continuing care for those with chronic illness, after consultation with them or their carers – ‘meal ministries’, medical advocacy, physical presence, (or, if more appropriate, online); financial help, inclusive communal events (with the provision of different kinds of accessibility key)– whatever is suited to their condition or need.  And we should not forget to offer love and support to carers and family, who will have their own physical, spiritual and emotional challenges.

The poet, John Keats, took issue with his contemporaries’ description of life as a ‘vale of tears’.  It was, he wrote, ‘a vale of soul making’.  Life in all its fullness can be experienced even in the presence of real suffering.  And it is a life that we need to share together.

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[1] Liuan Huska, Hurting Yet Whole (IVP, 2020)

[2] Parker Palmer A Hidden Wilderness; Welcoming the Soul and Weaving Community in a Broken World (San Francisco Jossey Press 2004)

by Jan Berry.

We are pleased to continue our partnership with Spectrum, a community of Christians of all denominations which encourages groups and individuals to explore the Christian faith in depth. This year the study papers are on the theme of ‘Heartfelt Worship’ by Rev’d Jan Berry (author and former principal of Luther King House, Manchester) and Tim Baker (Local Preacher, All We Can’s Churches and Volunteer’s Manager and contributor to the Twelve Baskets Worship Resources Group). This is the first of six coming through the year…

Worship from the heart? Ways of understanding worship and liturgy

by Jan Berry

Worship can be subjective – relating to our feelings and emotions, or worship can be objective – the duty and service we offer to God, regardless of feelings. The literal meaning of ‘liturgy’ is ‘the work of the people’: as such it needs to be accessible, inclusive, contextual and embodied.

Accessible liturgy

It is important that in worship we use words and images that can be understood and resonate with contemporary worshippers. Worship needs to avoid theological jargon, but also to challenge us to see God, or our faith, in a new way. Liturgy needs to be accessible — something within our grasp — but it can also be aspirational, calling us to reach beyond where we are to where we would like to be. 

Inclusive liturgy

We need both female and male language and imagery for God and humanity. Gender-neutral language may be helpful, but can render the female invisible, and make God impersonal.  It is important to use a range of imagery, encompassing male, female, gay and straight, non-binary and queer. We need to be aware of other forms of inclusivity — avoiding language which equates race and colour, or disability, with sin, for example. Inclusivity takes seriously the doctrine of ‘imago Dei’ — we are all made in the image of God. People of colour, people with disabilities, gay, trans, male, female, non-binary, all need to be able to see themselves in the image of God.

Contextual Worship

All worship arises from a context — this is not always obvious, but we need to be aware of, amongst other factors, the age and health of our congregations, the possible range of emotional states, and acknowledging the shadow side of human experience. Sometimes contextual worship will be spontaneous, but more often we are relying on existing resources. There is a need for care in appropriating words and resources from other cultures. If our worship is to be heartfelt then it needs to be authentic, and true to our own context. 

Embodied worship

The final thing that I want to say about our heartfelt worship is that it needs to be embodied. Our worship needs to be holistic, because we are created beings, made in God’s own image. Christian faith has at its core the doctrine of incarnation the Word made flesh, and our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Thus a Trinitarian theology and worship leads us to an affirmation of human bodily existence as good and holy.

Embodied worship uses all of our senses, makes use of symbols or symbolic action; symbol and symbolic action are not only expressive, but performative — they help to create the mood or understanding, which they symbolise.

Heartfelt worship needs to be authentic and offered with integrity, accessible and relating to our contexts, and resonating with all the God-given richness of our embodied selves.  Then we will be truly worshipping in spirit and in truth, with mind and body, from the depths of our hearts.

For Discussion:

• Which has been the most God-centred experience of worship for you?
• What are the merits of both liturgical and free worship.
• Does the Methodist Plan system help to enhance worship?

by Christine Odell.

At the Pool of Bethesda, among the great number of sick people, ‘One person who was there had been disabled for 38 years.  Jesus saw him lying there. He knew that the man had been in that condition for a long time. So he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”’ (Jn 5:5,6 NrIV).  The man reacted by making an excuse for his inability to get into the healing waters. Perhaps, rather than being accusatory, Jesus’s question was seeking consent to touch, agreement to be healed.  But this story speaks of the marginalisation and disabling of those who are ill, as well as raising questions about the search for, and nature of, health.

Our daughter, now in her early thirties, is disabled by three chronic illnesses and also has to spend most of her time lying down.  The relatively recent rise of the incidence of chronic illness in younger people is little understood. My mother suffered from a disabling chronic illness for the last 23 years of her life.  In the United Kingdom almost half of the population is recorded as having chronic illness – of varying degrees of intensity, and often age related.  Most families will be touched by this.  The wholeness of health, mobility, ability to ‘do’ is perceived as ‘normal life’ but, because it is so often experienced as fleeting, this is a perception to be challenged, ‘…any difference is simply between disabled and temporarily able bodied.’[1]

So what can ‘life in all its fullness’ (Jn 10;10b) mean for the Christian with chronic illness? How can they live the life of faith when much that society (and church) sees as ‘normal’, essential and desirable is denied them?  Are they heard when they say ‘I am not trying to be recovered, I am claiming my self-worth’.[2]

In their helpful book, Your Companion through Chronic Illness,[3] Shadbolt and Long set out the myths about chronic illness that Christians should dispel:

1. ‘It’s a sign of God’s displeasure.’ – Suffering is a fact of nature (Matt 5:45).
2. ‘Illness is your fault.’ ‘Who sinned, this man or his parents?’ (Jn 9:2).
3. ‘It is all in your head.’ But it’s your mind and body, you know them best.  Accusations like this have been made against those with ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but sufferers know better and medical science is slowly catching up.
4. ‘There’s a simple solution that you’re missing.’ (!)
5. ‘Life will never be good again.’
6. ‘Nobody will want to be with you now.’

All of these myths are destructive of a sense of self-worth, of experiencing the life in all its fullness that Jesus offers.

Modern society worships ‘doing’ and success, health, and self-fulfilment, living ‘our best lives’.  But the lifestyle this society prizes is beyond the reach of those with chronic illness.  Even within the church there is a tendency to expect that Christians will be busy and happy.  ‘Keep busy, Jesus is coming!’ ‘Smile, Jesus loves you!’ The question ‘How can one suffering from chronic illness be a ‘real’ Christian, if the effort required just to live precludes worship and service?’ gets ignored.

Luan Huska writes ‘While there is much about your disease you cannot control, you can control your attitude and approach to it.’[4] Those with chronic illness are forced to find a new way of living and thinking that incorporates and values who they are now.  God coming to us in Christ encourages us to ‘be’ in our bodies, however broken and disloyal.  This is who we are and this is how we experience God with us, and whatever we can offer in return, in loving faith, is acceptable to God. Jesus said ‘Come to me, all who are weary and whose load is heavy; I will give you rest… for my yoke is easy to wear, my load is light.’ (Matt 11:26, 30)- a challenge to our Christian life/work or being/doing balance!

The values of society and our own weakness in bearing one another’s burdens have made the church community a difficult place for some Christians with chronic illness.  There is a perceived need to hide suffering, both physical and spiritual, to wear a ‘shining Sunday’ face. But in churches where we see the Suffering Christ on the Cross, we are reminded that God is with us in suffering, that this is the place to come, to lament as well as to praise.  God does not ‘turn His face away’ (MP 988). The crucifix foreshadows the empty Cross of the Resurrection that gives us hope in the victory of love, the promise of New Life.

And the gift of life in all its fullness, the gift of wholeness is offered freely to all, is to be experienced even in the brokenness, the limitations and the frustrations of our own incarnate lives.

How the church community can help those with chronic illness experience that gift is for another article!

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[1] Deborah Beth Creamer, Disability and Christian Theology – Embodied Limits and Constructive Possibilities (New York: OUP, 2008) quoted by Liuan Huska in Hurting Yet Whole (see fn 4)

[2] Alice Hattrick, Ill Feelings, (Fitzcarraldo, 2021)

[3] Elaine Shadbolt and Nancy Long Your Companion through Chronic Illness (Abingdon Press, 2019)

[4] Liuan Huska, Hurting Yet Whole (IVP, 2020)