Theology Everywhere

by Ruth Gee.

In the fourth gospel we read that Jesus called his disciples friends (John 15:12-17).

In a report to the Methodist Conference we read, “In its eighteenth-century usage, ‘connexion’ referred both to the circle of those connected to some person or group and to the relationship itself.”[1]

In this short piece, I suggest that connexionalism can be viewed through the lens of the call to be friends of Jesus and of one another. I further suggest that, when viewed in this way, the distinctive Methodist understanding and outworking of Connexionalism predisposes and commits the Methodist Church to ecumenism.

The argument cannot be fully developed in this space, and in any case it is a work in progress. What I offer here is an outline and I would love to receive comments on it as such.

Much has been written about the nature of friendship from the earliest poets and philosophers to contemporary theologians, philosophers, poets and others. Among these, Thomas Aquinas, responding to Aristotle and others, argues that friendship is possible between those who are not equal in authority when it is rooted in God and routed through God. It is by grace that we are called to be friends of God through Christ, as friends of God we are friends of one another. Such friendship, rooted in God’s grace allows for disagreement between friends because, even where their understanding of the will of God differs, they accept each other as friends of God.[2]

Jesus calls the disciples friends and goes on to say, “I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.” (John 15:15) They are Jesus’ friends because they are invited into a relationship with him that enables them to glimpse and to participate in the relationship of Jesus with the Father. This call into friendship is a call into deep knowledge and mutuality, it is a call to share a common vision and to respect one another, even to be prepared to lay down one’s life for the other. Such friendship is transformative. 

Elizabeth Stuart powerfully describes the transformative effect of friendship. “When two bits of clay meet they impress their image on each other, each is changed, their encounter remains with them for ever.”[3] Stuart refers to the importance of the word, menein, in the fourth gospel, meaning to abide. Abiding describes the relationship of Jesus with the Father and of the disciples with Jesus. Abiding is a mutual encounter which transforms relationships and behaviour, this, says Stuart, is the language of befriending which is “the forming of mutual, equal, loving, accepting and transforming relationships.”[4]

In his commentary on the fourth gospel, David Ford points to the importance of the friends of Jesus sharing his knowledge of God and being known by name:

“…how Jesus knows his friends, and potentially all for whom he lays down his life, is that his friends can trust in being known by name by Jesus; being loved wisely, with joy and delight; being understood completely; and having their wholehearted response desired so that there can be complete mutuality, as between Jesus and his Father; and more.”[5]

On the basis of this very brief consideration of the friendship into which we are called by Jesus, we might describe such friendship as participation in mutual and abiding love which is always grounded in and springs from the love of God. Such friendship exists within and extends from the trinitarian relationship and we are invited to participate in it through the prevenient grace of God.

In The Gift of Connexionalism in the 21^st century it is noted both that in Called to Love and Praise[6], the essence of connexionalism is defined in terms of belonging, mutuality and interdependence, and that this understanding is grounded in the New Testament.[7] The references to texts in the New Testament focus on the image of the body of Christ but do not include the Johannine text in which Jesus calls his disciples friends in the context of the recurring themes in the gospel of abiding and of knowledge of God. I believe the Johannine texts are also important and persuasive.

The Gift of Connexionalism in the 21^st century argues convincingly for the continuing value of Connexionalism in the life of the Methodist Church, challenging us to recognise our interdependence, the value of belonging and increasing our connection with other people and with the world. These broader connections must surely include our ecumenical relationships (although this is not explicit in the report).

An understanding of friendship as described above, involving mutuality, understanding, respect and transformation, which is rooted in and routed through God, thus allowing for disagreement, is surely lived out in connexionalism.

One final but important point. Such friendship is not exclusive because it is rooted in the love of God which is inclusive. Ecumenism is rooted in the understanding that God’s love is inclusive and that we are called to love one another. This mutual love must include recognition of belonging, mutuality and interdependence, the three key characteristics of Connexionalism.

Is it too much to suggest that the ethos of the Methodist Church as connexional should predispose us to be ecumenical?

---

[1] The Gift of Connexionalism in the 21^st century (Methodist Conference 2017) §1

[2] Here I am grateful to Gabrielle Thomas and her references to the thought of Aquinas in ” ‘Mutual Flourishing’ in the Church of England, Learning from St Thomas Aquinas”, ecclesiology 15 (2019) 302-321

[3] Stuart, Elizabeth. Just Good Friends : Towards a Lesbian and Gay Theology of Relationships. London: Mowbray, 1995. p169

[4] ibid. 168

[5] Ford, David F. The Gospel of John. A theological commentary. Baker academic, 2021. 209

[6] Called to Love and Praise. The Nature of the Christian Church in Methodist Experience and Practice (Methodist Conference, 1999)

[7] The Gift of Connexionalism in the 21^st century (Methodist Conference 2017) §5

by Caroline Wickens.

2 Samuel tells tales of guerrilla warfare across Israel and Judah, as David gradually establishes himself as the dominant leader for the territory and sets up his capital in Jerusalem. It is a distressing account of violence and death, moving from broad-brush stories of major battles to intimate focus on deaths such as that of David’s son Absalom, killed while caught by his hair in an oak-tree (18:9 – 15).

I want to pay attention to three stories with named female protagonists: Michal, Tamar and Rizpah. All are associated with the royal houses, but are vulnerable because of their gender. Michal is Saul’s daughter and David’s wife. Tamar is David’s daughter and Rizpah is Saul’s concubine. My core question is: why are these stories recorded in a narrative focusing on the development of kingship, rather than forgotten?

When David is still an up-and-coming rival to Saul, Michal becomes his wife and is in love with him (1 Samuel 18:28)[1]. Once David becomes Saul’s full-blown enemy, Michal is taken from him and given to Paltiel, a reliable supporter of Saul (1 Samuel 25:44), perhaps because she helped David escape from a trap Saul set for him. When David becomes king, he demands Michal back, and as she journeys back towards her first husband, Paltiel follows her, weeping (3:16). Michal’s own altered feelings are made plain when David enters Jerusalem, dancing before the ark of the Covenant. She despises him (6:16) and expresses her contempt (6:20), while he gives as good as he gets. The story ends bitterly: ‘Michal had no children to the day of her death’.

Tamar’s story is told in 2 Samuel 13. She is tricked and raped by her half-brother Amnon, who then rejects her. She finds refuge in the home of her full brother Absalom, where she lives ‘a desolate woman’. The story goes on to tell how Absalom kills Amnon in revenge before dying in turn in the succession struggles between David’s many sons.

Rizpah’s two sons are among a group of seven of Saul’s sons put to death on David’s orders to avenge a wrong done to the Gibeonites and end a famine (21:8). The bodies are not buried but left exposed[2], and for about six months Rizpah stays alongside them, protecting them from wild animals and birds of prey until David finally relents and allows the remains to be buried (21:14).

These stories raise many questions among scholars. How far is Michal responsible for her isolation?[3] Why does David take no action to protect his daughter Tamar either before or after her rape?[4] What motivates Rizpah in her difficult, lonely vigil?[5] My focus, however, is on the interface between these stories and the wider narrative of 2 Samuel with its seemingly relentless focus on battle. Are these shards of women’s experience intentionally recounted to offer an alternative perspective on violence?

The three stories create space to describe the women’s use of voice and agency. Michal is resourceful and proactive in arranging David’s night-time escape from her father through a window (1 Samuel 19:11–17). Years later, looking through another window (6:16), reclaimed as one token wife among others by a man she now despises, she can no longer act to change the situation but is only able to speak in ways which reduce her status even further. The violence of dynastic change robs her of both agency and voice; perhaps the ‘nuclear option’ of childlessness is her only remaining option for rebellion.

Tamar’s status as a virgin princess is high, in a patriarchal context where marriageable royal women are valuable assets. Amnon’s assault robs her of her dynastic standing and attacks her personal dignity and self-worth. Her words begin with appalled rejection of his intentions – 13:12 uses a strong negative imperative three times. There is a painful lessening of resistance in 13:13 until she is ready to consider marriage to her abusive half-brother as a better option than disgrace. Finally, she is speechless, using her body to express her tragedy as she tears her rich robe, puts ashes on her head and weeps aloud (13:19) –a ‘desolate woman’ in the face of violence and abuse[6].

Rizpah’s hilltop vigil begins in April, with the barley harvest, and continues through the heat of summer to the coming of the rains in October. Her silent, determined protest makes huge demands on her physical and mental resilience. How much risk and determination it takes for an ex-concubine of the wrong king to get her concerns for justice heard!

 All three stories name as a consequence of violent conflict the breakdown of communication between powerful and powerless people. They suggest that it is well-nigh impossible, in the context of war, for calls for justice from the margins to be heard; voice and agency are lost. By opening a way into the lived experience of these three women, they sketch an alternative perspective which pays attention to the suffering endured by those caught up in struggles beyond their control. Through including these stories in a narrative of war and dynastic violence, the narrator of 2 Samuel invites us to honour and lament these women and all who endure similar situations, and to remember that they are children of God.  

by Andrew Pratt.

Some thousands of years ago, so it was written, an ethnic group was in bondage, held as slaves constructing buildings and monuments for the proud nation that held them in thrall. These people were driven and ill-treated. Some died in captivity. A narrative history was built around the lives of these people culminating in a daring escape across the sea while being chased by their captors. The story was infused with the rehearsal of miraculous happenings and events. Finally free, their leader took them into a wilderness, through danger, through desert. At times they faced hunger and thirst. They rebelled against that leader, longed to return to captivity. Again and again, against seemingly insurmountable obstacles and internecine conflict, this body of people achieved a union, in sight of their objective as their leader died.

From a mountain top they looked out on a fertile vista, an attractive landscape, which offered a calm and verdant prospect. Another leader headed with them into this land. Stories of the incursion vary. Some perspectives relate a sudden dramatic fall of the first city, such that it was presented as miraculous. Others tell of progressive advance, stalling, progress. Eventually the then inhabitants of the land were assimilated, killed or driven out until the invading force were the dominant inhabitants.

Now let me step aside; and an admission. As a retired Methodist Presbyter I do not present myself as a Biblical expert, let alone a scholar of Hebrew scriptures, nor of Jewish history. But when I read this story, and admittedly the overview I have given is but a potted account, it raises questions for me in relation to the origination and authority of the Bible, which holds this account, and its application.

While the Egyptians left evidence of a sophisticated political and historical society, our Hebrew Scriptures offer a history which seems to have been validated more by later commentary, than contemporary record. I believe the dating of this commentary is later than the events that have been recorded and have grown in the context and ultimate culmination of the events that have been related. Alongside this record a theology was continually developing and evolving.

Moving forward, interpreters looked back on the ‘historical’ record and invested it with an insight related to this theology. This was not a sudden event, but a gradually developing understanding. Some of its conclusions were probably woven in contemporarily with the events. What is significant and dominant is the assumption that all the events were either invested with God’s influence, or subject to theistic control and direction. Counter-intuitively this was (and is?) accepted even when the events ran counter to the theological image of God that was developing. So God could be seen to be loving and caring, or devastatingly destructive. Through the whole sequence of development the persistent theme was that of a people treasured and protected by God.

Today it is easy to recognise that institutions develop sociologically to protect their own existence, over and above that of the individuals in those societies. They build walls, literally or legalistically, to protect their essence from others. That othering may be geographical or ideological or religious. Societies can be small, a single club or society; a city state; an empire. Many groups will assert that they are in a place predetermined by a divine institution. If that God is on our side then all is well. If not the supporters, worshippers, of that ‘god’ are heretics. Notice my change from capital to small-case initial.

To return to Judaeo-Christian history. If the perspective of a divine institution is real and pre-emptive then it trumps all opposition. If, on the other hand, it is something attributed after the events, or even prior to them, in order to support the actions of a group over all possible opposition then, I would argue, they are suspect. This is as true within Judaeo-Christian contexts as in any other faithful theological constructs. This is a question which undergirds the conflicts which persist in the Middle East to this day as people seek to justify their actions in relation to each other, regardless of the human consequences of these actions. The justification, or at any rate the tenor of the argument, that is elaborated to support one view or another is often rooted back into this distant history and is not solely a consequence of recent terrorism, persecution or a reaction to such. However faint, there is an assumption of divine institution or authorisation allowing what is taking place.

The bottom line for me is to what degree can we be sure of the foundations on which we build our Biblical interpretation, our subsequent faith and actions? To what extent is our interpretation, faith-statement and consequent actions internally coherent? Where there are inconsistencies, as we can already discern that there are, what common place of consent can we reach which will enable our coexistence with other human beings, or are we consigned to continuing dissonance and conflict?

What is there about our belief of which we might individually say with Martin Luther: ‘Here I stand, I can do no other’? And having decided, is this something which justifies our persecution or annihilation of another?

by Philp Turner.

Joan Chittister, the American Benedictine, describes a seeker approaching a monastic. ‘What do you do in a monastery?’, the seeker asks. The monastic replies, ‘Oh, we fall and we get up; we fall and we get up; we fall and we get up.’^[1] 

Lent has now begun, the season when churches often provide focused ways to draw people into closer alignment with God revealed in Jesus.  John Wesley highlighted prayer, searching the scriptures and receiving the Lord’s Supper as the ‘chief’ ways,^[2] as well as worship, the ministry of the word and abstinence.^[3]  In various places Wesley adds other activities like drawing alongside the vulnerable, remembering that God in Jesus became vulnerable.^[4]  Lent, then, is an opportunity to offer the invitation to ‘be holy’,^[5] though churches might choose different phrases to express this.  Yet, I’m drawn back to Chittister’s description of Christian community.  While churches raise people’s aspirations for following Christ, to what extent do our churches also use Lent to normalise falling and failing as integral and inevitable?  In addition to equipping people with the tools to press forward in discipleship, how well do we prepare others (and ourselves) for when we fall flat on our faces?

The world of politicians and celebrities can set the tone for much of life.  We raise up those who, by various criteria, do well, and we ensure that those who miss the mark are shamed.  There is merit to this: no one should celebrate actions that cause harm to others.  Yet there a risk that the vitriol of social media unwittingly creates our embodied theology.  Unless churches regularly check public discourse with the narrative of failure that is integral to the path of holiness, and with teaching of how people can get up after their fall, might churches risk promoting a gospel not found in the Bible?

Lent often begins through highlighting the Temptations of Jesus.  Mark is silent on how well Jesus did with these temptations,^[6] but it is Hebrews,^[7] perhaps drawing on Matthew^[8] and Luke,^[9] that enables the celebrant to exhort Lenten worshippers that Jesus was ‘tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.’^[10]  While good and right, the congregation might understandably hear that failure is something that should not be part of Christian experience, and perfect performance as the only proper narrative of the church.  Yet Mark presents Jesus’ disciples as aspiring to be the best, but ultimately and persistently failing in their understanding and their lack of faith.  Mark is a Gospel that shows the followers of Jesus as those who fall, and get up; fall, and get up; fall, and get up.

I work as a chaplain in an acute hospital where, like throughout the NHS, doctors and nurses can be portrayed as ‘heroes’ who miraculously fix and heal.  Lower status is given the staff known as ‘Allied Health Professionals’.  These are Speech and Language Therapists, who support you as you learn to eat, for example, after a stroke.  These are Physiotherapists who help you improve your strength, for example, after or hip replacement or a time in intensive care.  These are Occupational Therapists who support you as you think through changes you might need to make to your everyday living.  These wonderful people perform necessary roles because, in life, unfortunate things do happen and we need people, quite literally, to help us back on to our feet.

Perhaps this comes primarily from outside the church, but too often there is a narrative that being a Christian is equal to living a perfectly performed life, and holiness is equal to flawlessness.  This is not the narrative of scripture.  The Bible highlights Jacob, Moses and David, as well as Peter and Paul, because, through their failings, God’s glory shines.  They all had at least one person in their lives who saw holiness not equal to ‘zero defects’, and the path to holiness not equal to a perfectionistic programme.  Clearly, failure was not their goal, and it should not be ours, but what if the Gospel presents falling as a necessary part – evidence, even – that someone might be sincerely aspiring to be a follower of Jesus?  And, if so, does our church have an ‘Allied Health Professional’ to help get people back on their feet?

---

^[1] Joan Chittister, Seeing with our Souls: Monastic Wisdom for Everyday (London: Sheed & Ward, 2002)

^[2] John Wesley, ‘The Means of Grace’ in The Works of John Wesley, volume 1 ed. by Albert C. Outler (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984)

^[3] John Wesley, ‘The Nature, Design, and the General Rules of the United Societies’, in in The Works of John Wesley, volume 9 ed. by Rupert E. Davies (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989)

^[4] See Philippians 2.5-11 and Matthew 25.31-46.

^[5] See Leviticus 11.44-45.  See also Leviticus 19.2; 20.26; 21.8 and 1 Peter 1.15.   Methodists in Lent might even want to offer the invitation to ‘spread scriptural holiness’

^[6] See Mark 1.13.

^[7] Hebrews 4.15

^[8] Matthew 4.1-11

^[9] Luke 4.1-13

^[10] See Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes, The Methodist Worship Book (Peterborough: Methodist Publishing House, 1999), p.154.

by Richard Clutterbuck.

Theology Everywhere is an intriguing and ambiguous title.  Both words can carry a variety of meaning. Let me try and tease this out a little through my own story. Forty-five years ago, in January 1979, I flew out of Heathrow, on my first ever flight, to begin my  presbyteral ministry as a mission partner in the South Pacific islands of Tonga. Suddenly I found myself on the other side of the world, a stranger in a (to me) strange land. It’s almost impossible for me to convey just how disorientating it was. Climate, language, culture, geography: everything was unfamiliar and difficult to adjust to. And yet I was still within the wider family of the Christian Church and, more specifically, the Methodist family. Day by day, in college chapel, we sang in Tongan translation the great Wesleyan hymns. On Sunday mornings we prayed through Wesleyan Morning Prayer, translated by Victorian missionaries. I can still sing the first verse of Love Divine in Tongan, and make a stab at reciting the opening  preface to Morning Prayer. My job was teaching theology in the college of the Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga, an autonomous church that took on the role of supervising my probation and, the following year, ordaining me to the ministry of word and sacrament. In those days, little was heard of contextual theology and so most of my teaching was based on textbooks imported from Western Europe and North America. Unsurprisingly, many of them were totally unsuitable for the situation in Oceania.

One way of reading my story would be in terms of the history of colonialism, in which the arrival of European missionaries in the Pacific islands was part and parcel of the economic, cultural and religious domination of indigenous people by powerful outsiders. My own ministry would then be a late flourish in an intellectual colonialism, an anachronistic attempt to maintain an influence that had lost its relevance. This perspective is deeply suspicious of a Theology Everywhere that might imply one (white, European) theology serving each and every situation. That post-colonial theological perspective has been at the forefront in recent decades, with authors such as  the Sri Lankan, R S Sugirtharajah (see, for example, Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation, OUP, 2002) arguing for a theology that dethrones Western norms and replaces them with contextual theologies from the margins. More recently, Tongan theologian Jione Havea ( e.g. his Reading Ruth in the Pacific, SCM, 2021)  has worked on post-colonial theology in an Oceanic setting, developing grass-roots perspectives that challenge both European norms and local authority structures.

There is a need to take on board this post-colonial challenge. There has been something deeply wrong about a ‘one-size fits all’ theology – especially when it is our theology and based on our size. Contrasting and competing theological voices need to be heard. That is true in the Everywhere of the world-wide Church; it is also true of the Church in each place, so that feminist, black, gay and other perspectives are properly recognised.

And yet – this, at least, is my belief – there is more to Theology Everywhere than the sum total of all local, contextual and identity theologies. So, here’s how I would begin to explain it:

• The Everywhere of theology is the whole inhabited earth, in all its richness and diversity, and it is the wholeness of each particular context. It is an Everywhere that is both global and locally contextual.
  
  
• Furthermore, this Everywhere has a temporal dimension alongside the dimensions of geographical and cultural identity. It embraces the Hebrew and Christian scriptures (with their multitude of voices), together with the many voices that have sounded in the history of Christian theology.
  
  
• The Theology that is Everywhere is both the multitude of different contextual and identity theologies and   a shared theology that links together the many theological elsewheres and makes them an Everywhere.
  
  
• The shared Theology that is Everywhere needs to be negotiated, confessionally and ecumenically. The Faith and Order movement within the World Council of Churches may not be glamorous, but its projects (like Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry and the more recent The Church, Towards a Common Vision) provide a mechanism for the many local churches of the world to have a voice in the shared theology that belongs everywhere.
  
  
• This will mean a chastened role for Christian doctrine (the shared theology of Christians everywhere), but an important role nonetheless. Theology needs to be both something that holds us together as well as something that marks out our distinctions. It is, after all, the same God who meets us here, there and everywhere.

by Carolyn Lawrence.

During February we mark Valentine’s Day, an occasion to celebrate relationships, and also for some retailers to make a lot of money!   Relationships of all kinds are vitally important and they all take working at – whether that be in a marriage, a parent/child bond, a friendship, with a neighbour, work colleague or relationships within a church. 

Relationships can be difficult and cause a lot of worry and stress in our lives.  Not everyone is easy to get on with – especially in our families!   A woman testified to the transformation in her life since she had been a Christian.  She declared, ‘I’m so glad I’m a Christian now.  I have an uncle I used to hate so much that I vowed I would never go to his funeral.  But now, why, I’d be happy to go to his funeral any time!’

As we draw closer to Jesus we should find that it has an impact on our relationships with others. 

Every one of us is wronged at some point in different ways and all of us will have done something to upset someone else and it is important to learn how to deal with these offences as they arise so that they don’t destroy us and our relationships. 

There are of course different levels of offence and they often need to be dealt with in different ways.  Some minor offences such as when someone cuts in front of us in a queue or forgets to respond to one of our messages can easily be shrugged off, but other offences are harder to deal with.  Indeed some injustices, which thankfully may be rarer, are so life shattering that we may need support through prayer and counselling over time to come to terms with what has happened.

However, most of the legitimate hurts we experience can be resolved if we have a will to bring healing and peace in our relationships.  Unresolved relational rifts and breakdowns can make life complicated.   I grew up in a family that was always arguing and falling out with each other and it was very stressful trying to remember who was talking to who and who we were meant to be avoiding!

Dealing with issues can be hard but in the long run it makes life simpler and brings us peace.   Jesus, as always, gives good advice about how to act when someone has wronged us in Matthew 18: 15-17 (NIV). 

‘If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.’

We learn from this passage that if we have an issue with someone we should do five things:

1. Go (don’t ignore it)
2. Go alone (don’t gossip)
3. Go to reconcile (in love and peace not to vent anger)
4. Go now (as soon as possible)
5. Let it go (Romans 12:18 (NIV) ‘If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone’. If the person refuses to be reconciled, give it to God)

So much hearsay, gossip and bad feelings within relationships, families and churches could be avoided if this wise advice was followed and some of the issues between us were resolved face to face. 

I wonder if there is there someone you need to go and talk to today about a legitimate hurt?   Maybe God is calling you to be reconciled to someone who has hurt you or maybe you need to go to someone to apologise for a hurt you have caused to them?

Building good relationships takes commitment from each one of us to refrain from negative speaking (in person or on social media), to refuse to listen to negative speaking from others, to refuse to be easily offended by things others may say or do that we don’t like and to work together to be gracious, merciful and tolerant of each other. 

My prayer is that, with God’s help, we will each do everything in our power to live at peace with one another and to be peacemakers amongst our friends, families, communities and churches.  As the saying goes, ‘May there be peace on earth, and may it begin with me.’

by Neil Richardson.

The New Testament has been criticized for its alleged antisemitism, its worst ‘offenders’ Paul and the author of John’s gospel. Yet Romans 9-11 shows conclusively that Paul continued to be an ‘Israelite’ (11.1); how could he not be? As for John, we have to be honest about John’s possible effect on us.[1] The Faith and Order Committee, perhaps wisely, omitted sections of John 8 from the Lectionary – see especially v.44.

However, a kind of antisemitism has long been preached from our pulpits: the charge that Judaism is legalistic, teaching salvation by works. But the law in the Old Testament doesn’t make the Jewish faith legalistic; the first five books of the Bible set God’s demands in the context of God’s gifts. As for the Pharisees and scribes in the gospels, we have to be careful of generalizing, caricaturing and trivializing; we have been guilty of all three. Bonhoeffer warned against trivializing the encounters of Jesus with the Pharisees.  The gospel accounts have probably been sharpened by later church-synagogue differences. Judaism was not ‘legalistic’, even though today, in Tel Aviv and on the West Bank, there are some ugly distortions of the Jewish faith – as there are ugly expressions of Christian faith elsewhere, especially, it would seem, around the person of Donald Trump.

What we need to see is that most of the failures Jesus and Paul attribute to the Jewish people are also ours. ‘Because of you the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles’ (Romans 2.24), is a verdict which the Christian Churches and Christians have merited over and over again. Churches continue to close doors, literally and in attitudes, to people we should be welcoming, and what Paul calls ‘the righteousness of God’ is overlaid or distorted by our own. Church and churchgoing become the ‘law’ which distinguishes us from ‘outsiders’. Hopefully, generosity and compassion are increasingly the hallmarks of Christians. But we have a long way to go. Keeping the church going – especially by fund-raising – can make it harder to live a God-centred and Christ-centred life, rather than a church-centred one.

St Paul’s letters here are key – especially Romans. Romans 10.1-4 contrasts God’s righteousness, not with Judaism itself, but with a human distortion of religion, a human ‘righteousness’, (compare Philippians 3.4-11). It involved a human distortion of the Old Testament gospel, as Paul’s language in Galatians 3.8 implies. St Augustine wrote that the New lies hidden in the Old, not that the New was absent from the Old.

Another misinterpretation we Methodists have made: Paul was not a failed Pharisee the way that John Wesley was a failing Christian. Whatever the Greek proverb attributed by Luke to Jesus (!) in the third version of Paul’s conversion meant, it didn’t mean ‘pricks of conscience’ (Acts 26. 14).

Paul tells us the heart of his gospel: ‘the righteousness of God…. beginning in faith and ending in faith’ (Romans 1.17). ‘Righteousness’, of course, needs interpreting. Unfortunately, most modern paraphrases hardly do justice to the original Hebrew and Greek: ‘God’s saving goodness’, ‘God’s saving power’, ‘God’s justice’ etc –. The Message, for all its brilliant paraphrasing, reflects at times the Christian caricatures of Judaism.

‘The righteousness of God’ is Paul’s equivalent of ‘the Kingdom of God’ in the life and teaching of Jesus: not a standard God sets, but God’s way of doing things and God’s astonishing, totally undeserved love for all – as many Old Testament psalms testify.

Paul is best interpreted by reference to what Jesus said and did, and above all by his cross and the resurrection which reveals the meaning of the cross. For example, Jesus’ reply to John the Baptist:

‘Go tell John what you have seen and heard: blind people see, lame people walk, lepers are cleansed, deaf people hear, the dead are raised, and poor people hear the good news…’

Luke 7.22-3, Matthew 11.5-6

Other ‘miracles’ (signs) also demonstrate God’s righteousness and kingdom: the stilling of the storm, the feedings of the 5,000 and the 4,000, and the changing of water into wine. There is both a challenge and an invitation in the conclusion of what Jesus said to John: ‘Happy is the person who is not offended in me’ – i.e. God’s way of doing things won’t please everyone.

 The parables provide more examples. The generous vineyard owner of Matthew 20.1-16, the welcoming father of Luke 15.11-31, and, above all (as, again,  St Augustine saw) the Good Samaritan of Luke 10.26-38 – all illustrate what Paul meant by ‘the righteousness of God’. Not all the characters in the parables perfectly mirror ‘the Heavenly Father’, although the generous and then angry king of Matthew 22.18-35 makes an important point: if you don’t forgive others, God simply can’t forgive you.

Congregations need to hear the gospel again and again, in ways that not only challenge, but also gladden hearts, lifts the burdens from their souls and makes their faces shine. Let them know what faith really is: stretching out our hand to grasp the outstretched hand of God.

The life, teaching and ministry of Jesus were summed up in their climax: the crucifixion and resurrection; challenge, offence and extraordinary invitation; ‘…we proclaim Christ nailed to the cross… an offence to the religious and foolishness to the outsider alike…. Yet he is the power of God and the wisdom of God’ (1 Corinthians 1.23-4).

---

[1] See my John for Today, (SCM 2010), especially pp.84-90

by Josie Smith.

There are many good things about being very old.    One develops a recognition of one’s own weakness, of the need for help, and (if one relaxes into it and stops being frustrated because things are not as they used to be) one is prepared not only to accept such help but to ask for it where appropriate.  

There is a certain wry enjoyment, too, to be had when during a telephone call to some organisation one is asked for date of birth, as often happens.   Supplying this, together with name, address, NHS number, hospital number and all the other necessary details, is no problem.    (But never bank details, and I have my own polite but firm way of dealing with cold callers, who inevitably ring at mealtimes.)   Reaction from the other end is usually incredulity that one is still compos mentis, living independently with no domestic help, and in charge of one’s own financial affairs and general decision-making.    Not to mention using a computer, though certainly with less skill than my older great-grandchildren who seem to have been born hard-wired into their Devices.

I recognise that I am extremely fortunate in that my brain appears not to be as old as some of the rest of me.    I gave up driving a year ago in the month of my 93rd birthday while awaiting serious surgery, and am effectively housebound.   But inside, I am still ME.    A friend in his forties said recently ‘I can’t imagine what it must be like to be in your nineties!’  There I have the advantage.   All the people I have ever been, at whatever age, are still in there as part of the ‘me’ I am now, as are all the people whose influence has contributed to what I have become, and I know well how it feels to be fortyish.    

 I have been an ecumenist ‘from my youth up’, realising that whatever my Wesleyan Circuit Steward grandpa had to say, my lovely Roman Catholic next door neighbours were not dangerous!     I also recall incurring the displeasure of my Methodist Local Preacher and Son of the Manse husband once, by attending an interfaith service.    This was many decades ago, and I insisted that we all needed to follow our own consciences, not that of others however dear.   Not quite as long ago I had the privilege of presenting a series of radio programmes in which I explored the beliefs and practice of local faith groups with their leaders and lay members.   None of us has a monopoly of truth.   I have felt closer to some open-minded friends of other faiths than I have ever felt to some fellow-Methodists who have closed minds.    We can listen to those who experience life within different traditions, and we might learn from them – God’s thoughts are always higher than our thoughts.

I now attend (when a friend takes me) an Ecumenical Partnership which delivers both comfort and challenge, both learning and loving.   We also have a close relationship, and, sometimes, shared worship with the Quakers along the road.     An hour of mostly silence is a very different sort of worship from our usual pattern, as ours is for them, and both are appreciated.

And I believe increasingly in the unity of all things and all people.     I still have a tattered cutting from the Guardian from the then science writer from many years ago, observing that as quantum physics had revealed the inseparability of all matter however far apart it has become geographically, this could be a profound revelation for theology too.  

Over the years I have come to understand (and the more I ponder it the more obvious it seems) that as God created all things ‘from nothing’, then all things come from the ‘God substance’, and we are all – trees, grass, whales, people, slugs and wasps and the very earth we walk on and eventually return to – not just made in God’s image, as we are assured, but eternally part of that very God who is our Father and Who is in us, whether we accept that or not, and however far we have moved away from the original pattern.    And we can never ‘flee from God’s presence.’

So though I find world news unbearable, and weep with and for all those who suffer for whatever reason, I know in my bones that we remain children of God, not by adoption but because we are born in the image of God.    Those who find God in nature are partly right too.    But ‘partly right’ is all any of us can ever be.

And may we, like our friends the Quakers, look for and find ‘that which is of God in everyone.’

by Nicola Price-Tebbutt.

Fantasy isn’t my preferred reading genre, but it is popular and recently I was grateful for an opportunity to read and review The Atlas Complex[1], the final instalment of the bestselling ‘Atlas Six’ trilogy. Set in an alternative earth, six distinctive, magical, and all too human characters come to terms with their own power, and gradually recognise the ways in which they are also caught and shaped by the power inherent in societal structures. As their power grows, so do the number and kinds of choices they have available, and the reverberations of any decisions they make escalate. (We only need to consider Gaza, or the stories of the Post Office scandal, for example, to see plenty of evidence of the ways in which the decisions and actions of those with power can devastatingly impact on the lives of others.)

Within the narrative of The Atlas Complex, there is an exploration of the fluidity and complexity of power and power relationships (the clue is in the title!). Similarly, in recent years there has been much reflection on power in the Church and society alike: how we understand it, use it, and express it within our personal and collective relationships. There is increased recognition that power is not something that some ‘have’ and others do not, nor is it something intrinsically good or bad, but power is fluid and dynamic, demanding recognition and respectful, reflective use.[2] It is not just the abuse and misuse of power that causes harm, since failing to acknowledge or responsibly to exercise power can also be damaging. The fluidity of power and the number of different ways in which power is exercised and expressed within communities, families, churches and cultures, means that conversations around power can be equally fluid and multi-faceted; and thus deeply challenging, not least when navigating our own power and vulnerabilities in our relating to others.

Despite their extraordinary powers, the Atlas Six are also vulnerable, as they have to be constantly watchful for those hired to kill them. There are different forms of human vulnerability. Much theological anthropology recognises that being both powerful and vulnerable is a part of being human. Identifying and reflecting on where power and vulnerability lie, however, can often be difficult and multifaceted. Boundaries can be blurred, not least because people, contexts and cultures are different, and agreement about acceptable behaviours may vary. The Bible itself shows us this, even before there is consideration of how it has been interpreted in different places and situations across the years. In contemporary British society, the different narratives and perspectives around gender justice are one example of this complexity. It is a subject also topical in current literature. For example the thriller, One of the Good Guys, deliberately plays with shifting sympathies as it uses unreliable narrators and a mix of written media (news articles, chat forums, texts) to incorporate a range of views on women’s rights, gender relationships, and issues of consent. The reader is unsure who or what to trust, and is left with mixed and sometimes paradoxical views of the characters and their actions.  

As I read both of these novels, I was also preparing for a Methodist Covenant service[3], aware of the ways in which the language used in the covenant prayer can be difficult. Reflections on how power is used and misused prompts theological questions about God’s power and human autonomy, and ecclesiological questions about the nature and expression of authority within and by the Body of Christ. The emphasis of the Covenant service, though, is on God’s love and grace. Love and grace: these are the heart and character of the covenant relationship. We are called to bear witness to God’s steadfast love and promised new life in Christ. If grappling with issues of power can be tough, complex and sometimes overwhelming, perhaps love and grace might be touchstones to help in both our personal and communal discernment and decision-making. Seeking signs of God’s love and grace may help to reveal, and enable us to navigate, a path through.

---

[1] Blake, O. (2024) The Atlas Complex. London: PanMacmillan

[2] For further reflection see the 2021 Theology of Safeguarding report, section 7(Conference 2021 Agenda Volume 2 (methodist.org.uk) and the 2023 A Justice Seeking Church: Walking with Micah Project report, section 3 (Conference 2023 Agenda Volume 1 (methodist.org.uk)).

[3] The Covenant Service (methodist.org.uk)

by Jan Berry.

Hymns and songs can have great power and are often important to us, and are the church’s most resonant and expressive form of worship. They are often linked with certain memories and associations, but many other factors are at play. Hymns are rich in their use of language, are poetic in form, and use symbol and metaphor to convey meaning. When such language is vivid and vital, it works not only at a cerebral level, but appeals to our imaginations and emotions to reach the depths of heart and mind. Rhyme, rhythm and repetition are used to intensify the experience.

Hymns are written to be sung, usually corporately, and as such, hymn-singing is participatory, a communal act. Embodied-singing engages the whole of our bodies, and so hymns can become living performances of faith and worship. This aspect of rehearsal and performance gives hymns the capacity even to shape faith. What is initiated as an expression of faith becomes, as well, a method of faith development. I’m sure there are times in our churches when all of us say or sing things we’re not really sure we believe; but nonetheless the constant repetition of statements must have its effect.

All liturgy is performative, but particularly when it is embodied in symbol or symbolic action. The act of singing a hymn will often bring about the state of mind that is expressed or desired — for example, a sense of joy and wonder, or of guilt and unworthiness. Hymns have the power to shape the faith of individuals and the community.

All rituals need to maintain honesty and integrity, and given the emotive power of hymns, this is especially the case. Ritual honesty demands that a full range of emotions should be expressed in hymns; they need to be able to express anger and lament as well as joy and praise. Ritual honesty also demands that the way these emotions are included in hymns must have meaning and resonance with the culture and experience of the singers.

As part of my work at Holy Rood House I set up a three-year project entitled Hymns for Healing. Many of the hymns currently in use associated with healing came from a different era, before the recent advances in medical science and technology, when the causes of illness and disease were less well-known. Perhaps we need new words and imagery to express our current theological understandings? A grant from the Pratt Green Trust enabled the project to develop theological reflection and research into hymnody and healing. 

The project was designed for participation by hymnwriters and composers, musicians and those who just loved singing hymns. The Hymns for Healing project led to the publication of a book Hymns of Hope and Healing, published by Stainer and Bell. Our hope was that the book would articulate the needs of a contemporary ministry of healing and be used to refresh and renew the church’s ministry of healing.

New hymn writing, as exemplified by this project, is of vital importance. If we are to aim for an honest expression and shaping of faith for our contemporary world, then we need hymns which express that. We need hymns which are inclusive, and which speak of the transitions of human experience — including traditional rites of passage as well as those transitions often overlooked or forgotten. We also need hymns that are appropriate for secular or interfaith occasions.

Music in some form or another has been part of religious worship since the time of the Psalmists. Hymns, with their rhyme and rhythm, their poetic imagery, their memories and associations, are embedded in our individual thinking and our communal worship — they are an integral part of heartfelt worship!  So let the people sing!!

For consideration:

• For you, what is the relationship between hymn singing and faith.

• It was said that Methodist hymn books in the past expressed Methodist theology. How true is that in the latest modern books?

• What are your favourite hymns and why? Are there any hymns we should no longer sing?

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 third of six coming through the year.