Theology Everywhere

by George Bailey.

‘The Methodist Church affirms both understandings and makes provision in its Standing Orders for them.’

The Constitutional Practice and Discipline of the Methodist Church, Standing Order 011A (1)

As a Methodist presbyteral minister, I have been both excited and challenged by this addition to Methodist Standing Orders in 2021. I do not want here to invite debate on the questions of marriage, human relationships and sexuality. I am not saying that talking about the main issues should not continue – indeed I am arguing precisely the opposite – but I have been reflecting on what it might mean for the Church to ‘affirm both understandings.’

I am in relationship with local churches that have differing attitudes to marriage and are in differing states with regard to decisions they have taken or will take – some registering to hold same sex marriages, and some not. The conversation in these congregations varies due to local context, theological convictions, cultural traditions, ecumenical relationships, and many other factors. It is also true, of course, that this diversity between and within congregations is apparent on many other aspects of Christian faith and practice. On this particular issue, we have stated an affirmation of two understandings (though in reality I perceive that there are at least several varied understandings), and I hope that our subsequent exploration of what that means might help us to better have integrity with regards to many other diverse attitudes.

For some years I have been influenced by two models for how scripture, doctrine and practice interact – the cultural-linguistic model of George Lindbeck[i] and the canonical-linguistic model of Kevin Vanhoozer.[ii] Vanhoozer critiques Lindbeck’s post-liberal model from a more evangelical perspective, but does acknowledge his indebtedness to Lindbeck’s core idea: the church embodies theology by learning a language and practices which are developed in response to the narrative of scripture, and church doctrines act as grammatical rules to structure this. Put simply, and somewhat hyperbolically, for Lindbeck the church is the culture which is the primary interpretative context for scripture, whereas, for Vanhoozer it is scripture which is the primary interpretative context for the performative theology of the church. However, Vanhoozer notes that Lindbeck actually ‘vacillates’ on this issue, and later in his career adopted a more open attitude to the sense of the text having priority over the interpreting community.[iii] Although it might be tempting to see these two sides of the debate as related to the two understandings affirmed by the Methodist Church, I hope that, what we could more helpfully strive for would be to keep them in tension (a healthy vacillation? or, better, a reciprocity?) and to explore a multiplicity of shapes for discipleship and congregational life.

Vanhoozer’s performance metaphor does recognise denominational diversity and invites extension to include diversity within a denomination. This is only a very brief sketch of the metaphor from his summary chapter, and I realise that our conceptions of possible range of diversity within the Christian Church may differ, but I still think the idea is helpful. He proposes different levels of performance in theatres of Christian theology. ‘While the Holy Spirit is the primary director who oversees the global production, it is the ‘pastor’ who bears the primary responsibility for overseeing local performances.’[iv] The pastor is supported by ‘creedal theology’ (i.e. based on the recognized early creeds, primarily the Nicene Creed) which acts like ‘masterpiece theatre’ – it seems he has in mind the idea of acclaimed directors and actors interpreting the script in different contexts across time – ‘to direct the local church into the way of the Scriptures and to relate the local church to previous great performances.’[v] Confessional theology is conceived as ‘regional theatre’, and several varieties may exist side by side. This may be seen as a divisive hindrance, but Vanhoozer insists that it helps ‘by mediating between the universal (catholic) and particular (local):[vi] ‘The confessional traditions are performance traditions, bearers of theo-dramatical rationality that combine elements of stabilization with elements of innovation.’[vii] This ‘unity-in-diversity’ is a strength ‘not only because it is the condition of theology’s being able to address different kinds of situations but also because it is the enabling condition of creative theological understanding.’[viii]

Are pastors (including in this term ministers and preachers) being called to ‘direct’ and support several congregations with distinctively different interpretations of the same script, and which relate in different ways to their contexts? Within the world of theatre this could be an exciting project with the potential to enhance everyone’s understanding of the one script as well as the varied contexts in which it is interpreted. So, might it be like that in the church? There is an even further level of unity-in-diversity to be added, which is within each congregation. Vanhoozer’s metaphor is based on an idealised single congregation with one pastor. Diverse congregations with diverse congregational characteristics, but served by the same minister, is a more realistic model in the British Methodist context. Rather than diversity leading to division, can we strive for unity-in-diversity, with mutual critical appreciation of, and mutual learning from, our multiple performances of the gospel?

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[i] George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age, Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1984.

[ii] Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology, Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005.

[iii] Vanhoozer, p.166

[iv] ibid., p.449

[v] ibid., p.451

[vi] ibid., p.452

[vii] ibid., p.453

[viii] ibid.

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[i] George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age, Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1984.

[ii] Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology, Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005.

[iii] Vanhoozer, p.166

[iv] ibid., p.449

[v] ibid., p.451

[vi] ibid., p.452

[vii] ibid., p.453

[viii] ibid.

by James Blackhall.

One of the sessions we lead at the St Philip’s Centre for Methodist Churches is ‘Hospitality, Service and Proclamation’. The title is taken from Revd Dr Tom Wilson’s book of the same name.[i] This session raises interesting questions about what we do when we do interfaith work that also has wider application for everything else we do as Christians. One question I particularly enjoy exploring as I lead this session is around when proclamation is appropriate. This to me is not just a question of good interfaith relations, although in the context in which I work that is the primary discussion, but it is also a discussion about the core of the Christian faith. We are called to make disciples and to spread the message- yet there are times when direct proclamation is not appropriate. One of the questions that often comes up as people think about this is about the ethical implications of proclamation in settings of providing service such as “is it appropriate to share our faith when running a foodbank?”

The Methodist Church is committed to being a ‘a growing, evangelistic, justice-seeking, inclusive Church of gospel people who speak of, listen for, and live out the goodness of God so that more people become disciples of Jesus Christ, and already committed Methodists experience a deepening of their faith’[ii]. This gives a broad definition of evangelism that includes social action, hearing others as well as directly proclaiming the faith. Yet, without proclaiming the faith we could end up answering Paul’s questions,  ‘how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?’ (Romans 10:14)… with a blank look.

Whatever our view of interfaith relations and whether we should call people to believe in Jesus or celebrate their own faith we can all agree that ‘Christianity is a faith that has a message of good news to share, which includes speaking out the good news of Jesus Christ, sharing what he has done in our lives’[iii] This is something I am passionate about- this is why I am a Local Preacher. I believe that ‘The Lord has done great things for us,  and we rejoiced’ (Psalm 126:3) and I want to share that with others. Yet, when I’m in an interfaith setting learning about others’ faith, and celebrating what can be seen of God in their lives, it can be very inappropriate to proclaim a message in any great detail.

I do believe that we are constantly proclaiming when we speak of our faith. When I join dialogues with people of other faiths, just as they proclaim what is good from their faith, so too I naturally proclaim my faith that Jesus is Lord. I also naturally proclaim what my faith means to me and why being a Christian is such an important part of my life- just as their faith is an important part of theirs. Yet true Christian proclamation should never come from a place of ‘superiority’[iv] as it is important that there is mutual respect and sharing which is foundational to being able to share faith together. For the Christian this proclamation will always point to Jesus.[v]

I often ask groups if proclamation in an interfaith setting is acceptable and many will often say no. This is because of a wish to avoid offence, wanting to show respect and a reluctance. When I discuss what proclamation is to me, and how we can share our faith in a way that is mutual, then some groups review their response and agree that we do often proclaim even if we would not consider ourselves evangelising. Perhaps that is why Nkuna concludes that ‘evangelism and interfaith dialogue are distinct but interrelated as authentic evangelism takes place within the context of the dialogue of life’[vi]. This evangelism is recognised to include words and proclamation.

I wonder whether as Methodists we are good at hospitality and service but perhaps not always as good at confidently proclaiming our faith? As our God for All strategy takes its place it is hoped that we will become more confident at sharing our faith and what that means for us- whatever our theological positions. Sometimes we will need to think seriously about the appropriateness – interfaith dialogue has taught me to think about when it is right to make certain truth claims and when it is right to listen; thinking about foodbanks has helped me to think through when it is right to serve and when is it right to speak. Thinking about hospitality, and especially being a guest, has made me think about when is it rude and counterproductive to proclaim. Yet, we do ‘have a gospel to proclaim’ as the hymn said and I hope that all Christians will feel confident enough in their identity to be able to share it.

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[i] Wilson, T., 2019. Hospitality, Service, Proclamation. Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd.

[ii] The God for All Strategy found at https://www.methodist.org.uk/media/19181/conf-2020-4-evangelism-and-growth.pdf

[iii] Wilson, T., 2019. Hospitality, Service, Proclamation. Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd. Pg 2

[iv] Nkuna, V G. ” Convergence of Evangelism and Interfaith Dialogue:A Missional Refection.” E-Journal of Religious and Theological Studies (ERATS) 7, 10 October 2010: pp178-179, available at https://www.academia.edu/67664475/Convergence_of_Evangelism_and_Interfaith_Dialogue_A_Missional_Reflection, pg182

[v] Ibid pg182

[vi] Ibid pg 187

by Graham Edwards.

About ten years ago, I led an assembly in a Primary school; the theme I was given for this assembly was “rules”.  After I had done my bit, the Headteacher stood at the front of the hall and said, “remember, rules hold our community together”.  There are, of course, rules in the life of the church – rules that govern all Methodist churches, and rules that are particular to local churches.  In my experience, those local rules can range (at least pre-covid) from how the offering is taken (am I supposed to hold the big plate to collect the bags?), to who bakes the Victoria Sponge or the Scones for a church event, to how we express the Good News of God where we are placed.

The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu talks about these kinds of rules, which he calls Habitus (1977, p. 95).  Habitus is a social process in which groups of people construct a set of ‘rules’ which govern their practice.  These ‘rules’ become internalised enabling members of a cultural group or community to know how to act within that context.  Habitus is produced by experience, which Bourdieu suggests gives a ‘feel for the game’, that is the life of the community, and gives – a meaning and a raison d’etre, but also a direction: an orientation which enables an individual to know how to act within their community (1990, p. 66).  Bourdieu understands Habitus as an unconscious second nature or “enacted belief” (1990, p. 66), where the unconscious habitus becomes the way the community is structured and shaped.  When an individual enters a particular social field, for instance, the scientific, political, artistic, or religious fields, says Bourdieu, they must learn the appropriate habitus (1991, p. 176).  This helps members of such groups to know which practices are correct and which are not, the habitus in a community becomes an “embodied history” (Bourdieu, 1990, p. 57). 

Habitus as described by Bourdieu is not without criticism, some suggest it is too restrictive and does not allow for the possibility of growth, or that it creates endless structures which create the same kinds of community (Alexander, 1995; Jenkins, 1982).  In my experience, however, Habitus can allow for creativity and change.  A few years ago, I did some research which asked people to reflect on their church life.  Lots of memories were shared about change.  In one church, members talked about candles; Rebecca remembered, “we wanted to use candles…and Mr. James [the Steward] went absolutely ballistic…we weren’t having candles in our church…he was absolutely beside himself, and there was no way would we have dared to light a candle after that”, but, since then, candles have become important in their worship.  Another member talked about bringing her son to church, “he would be about eighteen months [old], and he used to go in the back pew…I used to bring his slippers, and a book, and we used to sit there at the back…[we] used to get all these tuts and people looking”.  This memory led Irene to explain how much that experience made her enjoy the noise and busyness of children in her church now.  In both memories, something had happened; something had changed.  The Habitus had not kept things precisely as they had always been, rather the lived experience of community had shaped the Habitus.

The shared, lived experience of a church community is a powerful thing; it can encourage us, challenge us, rebuke us, liberate us, and everything in between.  A church can be transformed by that shared experience, as it is enriched by all that various members of the church community bring, by the world outside the church, of course by study and prayer – and more.  Habitus helps us hold on to the crucial things in the life of our community and explore new ways of living them in the world; a church grows and changes with its members.  The question is, I think, for the church to ask, both nationally and locally, how do we work with all the lived experience and wisdom we have, to allow our shared life to shape and reshape the church, as we seek more and more to be a growing, evangelistic, inclusive, justice-seeking Church?^[1]  Our Habitus – our rules, help us not to throw everything away and start again, but to hold on to the core of who we are, as our shared life shapes us.

Alexander, J. C. (1995). Fin de Siecle Social Theory: Relativism, Reduction, and the Problem of Reason. Verso.

Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge University Press.

Bourdieu, P. (1990). The Logic of Practice. Polity Press.

Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and Symbolic Power (G. Raymond & M. Adamson, Trans.). Polity Press. Jenkins, R. (1982). Pierre Bourdieu and the Reproduction of Determinism Sociology, 16(2), 270 – 281.

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^[1] https://www.methodist.org.uk/our-work/our-work-in-britain/evangelism-growth/

by Karen Turner.

You may have seen in the news last week the sobering results of a study showing that almost a quarter of University students feel lonely most or all of the time.    Of course, isolation can affect all age groups and demographics but it seems particularly acute among young adults at the moment, and this is despite there being hundreds of shared-interest groups and societies on most campuses, as well as countless on-line opportunities to connect.  What are people looking for?

Today, out of the blue, a student asked me what it felt like to be part of a Christian community.  She said, ‘I assume that you all feel an individual connection to God and that you all have that in common with one another and that must be quite nice.’ 

I replied that it was, but that it wasn’t the whole of the experience.  What I tried to explain was that when when church is at its best there is a sense of being part of a ‘found family’ more than a group of people with something in common.  In that context of difference there is a sense of something more bubbling up amongst us that is hard to explain:  creativity, deeper understanding, profound love, prayer.  A sense of God with us.

In A Nazareth Manifesto^[i], Sam Wells explores in depth the idea of God with us, and how we are called to be ‘with’ one another.  We can so easily get caught in a pattern of doing things for other people that we forget that being with them is really what love is about, as the ministry of Jesus shows us in encounter after encounter.  

As part of his exploration, Sam Wells puts forward a minority reading of the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10.  One way of understanding Jesus’ story is to see it directed at Israel.   It is Israel who has been robbed, beaten and is lying in a desperate state in the gutter.  Who will help it?  Will the priests and the teachers of the law?  It is Jesus, as the despised Samaritan in the story, who offers practical assistance, healing and hope and takes Israel into the city, at considerable risk to himself, promising to return at a later time.

The way that we normally read this story and teach it to our children is about being a good neighbour and being kind to strangers, putting our faith into action, unlike the priest and the Levite. It is this reading that gives me a nudge every time I walk past someone begging, and plagues me the times I see myself ‘just walking by’.

Before coming across this reading, I don’t think I’d ever considered putting myself in the story as the person desperate and vulnerable, lying on the side of the road.  That changes things  considerably.  Although in global terms, we may be rich, we are also needy; longing for relationship, forgiveness, reconciliation, life.

“…we would be happy to accept these things from the priest or the Levite…  They have security.  They have social esteem.  They have resources.  But the story is telling us those people cannot help us. They cannot give us what we so desperately need.” ^[ii]

The person walking down the road to help us is the last person we would expect; and not someone we would ever have anything to do with.  The answer to the  question of ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ is not a moralistic story about avoiding hypocrisy, but instead a recognition that we are desperate.

“Open your eyes to the form Jesus takes in coming to save you. Swallow your pride and accept that your salvation comes from the ones you have despised.  And let your heart be converted and your life be newly shaped to receiving the grace that can only come from them.” ^[iii]

If what people are most looking for is the knowledge that they are not alone, it is in God’s ‘found family’ of real relationships, shared meals and honest conversation that they might have the courage to reach out and  take Jesus’ hand.  This isn’t a community that has chosen one another.  It isn’t a a shared-interest society (or assumed-ideology) group. It’s just people who know they’re desperate enough to be ‘with’ one another, believing that God is with them too.

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^[i] Samuel Wells  A Nazareth Manifesto (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2015). See a previous Theology Everywhere article also including comment on Wells’ interpretaion of the parable – Who is the Good Samritan?

^[ii] p. 93

^[iii] p.97

by Ken Howcroft.

What is justice? What is a just person, and what does it mean for that person to live and act justly? What is a just society or community, and what does it mean for it to organise itself justly? People have argued about these things from ancient times to now. Yet somehow the answers to the questions remain elusive.

Interestingly, Aristotle thought that it was easier for us to recognise injustice than justice. So we could say that we need to pay attention to our rage. If we think about what sort of things cause us to rage we shall start to get an idea of what injustice is, and if we flip that on its head we shall start to see what justice is.

The Old Testament prophets, amongst other things, are good at rage. Since they present themselves as mouthpieces of God, it could be said that God is as well, and so, by extension is Jesus. [Let us be honest and call it ‘rage’ not ‘righteous indignation’!]

So what can the Bible tell us about justice? The answer may be ‘not much’ unless we are clear about what we are asking. ‘Justice’ in English has become a very wide portmanteau term which carries all sorts of things in it. To get more precision we add all sorts of adjectives to the term. So, for example, we talk of ‘social justice’, ‘economic justice’, ‘tax justice’, ‘racial justice’, ‘gender justice’, ‘political justice’, and ‘legal justice’ – to mention just(!) a few. All these things are justifiable(!) concerns for followers of Jesus to have. Yet we must beware of reading back into biblical texts modern understandings which are foreign to them, and of missing some prompts or clues in those texts as a result.

Prophetic rage is a prominent theme throughout the Old Testament book called ‘Isaiah’. The opening chapters in particular set up the theme. As the scholar John Goldingay has summarised, they claim that

• God’s people are living as if they can ignore God’s demands on their life, collectively and individually;
• God will therefore take action against God’s people; but
• God will restore and turn the community into what it should be.

The parable in Isaiah 5:1-7 then describes how God’s people are not producing the ‘fruit’ for God that God is expecting. The second half of Isaiah 5:7 succinctly explains that idea. God is looking for mišpāṭ and finds only miśpāḥ; for ṣĕdāqâ, and finds only ṣĕ‘āqâ. The first of each of those pairs of terms are often translated ‘justice’ and ‘righteousness’ respectively. Yet mišpāṭ more narrowly applies to government and the discernment needed in the exercising of authority and the making of decisions; whereas ṣĕdāqâ refers to being upright and faithful and doing the right thing in relation to God and your community. Taken together the two terms point towards a faithful exercise of power in the community.  

The second term in each pair describes the reality of what God finds. miśpāḥ points to vicious oppression that results in bloodshed, and ṣĕ‘āqâ to the cries of indignation and pain that arise when people are treated unfairly and oppressively. There is a very thin dividing line between the two terms in each pair. The former almost too easily becomes the latter, a fact re-enforced by the close wordplay between them.

The first term in Isaiah 5:7, mišpāṭ, also occurs in Micah 6:8 where it has the same sense of discernment in exercising authority and making decisions, although it is often translated as ‘doing justice’. The ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament perhaps began this trend. It uses the word krima which means a formal, often legal, discernment and judgement. The same version uses a related word krisis for mišpāṭ in Isaiah 5:7 and then dikaiosune for ṣĕdāqâ.

dikaiosune is a major term in the discussions about ‘justice’ in Greek and Roman philosophy.  Jewish and later Christian discussions began to be influenced by those traditions, and the term and related words became important in the New Testament and later, where it is often translated as ‘righteousness’. Unfortunately, translation of it into the Latin term justificatio (‘justification’ in English) has often skewed our understanding of it in the direction of quasi-legal judgements of whether an individual is to be ‘saved’ or not. That loses the emphasis on the communal and societal aspects of ‘justice’ in the Old Testament and also in the New.

The Gospels and Paul in particular are concerned with how the community of God’s people is organised and behaves in a godly way, and then how individuals behave within it. They are rooted in an Old Testament understanding that ‘what God is, God does’.  So, for example, because God is holy, God seeks to make things holy. Because God is love, everything God does is an expression of love. When Paul writes of the ‘righteousness of God’ he means both that God is ‘(up)right’ and that God also seeks to put everyone right in relationship to themselves, to others and to God’s own self.

That takes us back to the opening chapters of Isaiah, and the idea that God seeks to restore the community of God’s people, and to turn it into what it should be: in other words, ‘redemption’. Rage and redemption are two signs of the same coin. That is true of God, of Jesus and of the community of God’s people, the body of Christ. The point of raging against injustice is to redeem. The passion to redeem and create ‘justice’ necessarily involves identifying and raging against injustice. Jesus shows that that is what God is like, and we perhaps learn more from the stories about him then from sayings and statements.

The Methodist Church is currently undertaking a two year exploration of what it means to be a justice-seeking church through the Walking with Micah project.  Theology Everywhere is working in partnership with the project to host a series of articles about justice. For more information visit www.methodist.org.uk/walking-with-micah/

by John Lampard.

The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee offers the nation an opportunity to indulge in a burst of nostalgia, from remembering the 1953 Coronation (for older readers!) to ‘it was better then than it is now’ etc. What is the role and place of nostalgia when it comes to re-calling our church history or in theological thinking?

A recent book, Rule Nostalgia: A Backwards History of Britain, by Hannah Rose Woods, examines the use of nostalgia as a means of critical analysis.

She argues that we use nostalgia primarily as a means of fuelling or bolstering modern debates. To illustrate this, she reminds us of the wonderful words of William Rees-Mogg, spoken after June 2016, that Brexit was ‘Magna Carta! It’s Waterloo! It’s Agincourt! It’s Crecy! We won all of these things!’ Only the most ardent Brexiteer might spare a blush.

The problem for me is that history and nostalgia are almost inextricably linked once one tries to use historical knowledge to critique the modern world. My interest is obviously in the matter of church history and the situation faced today by almost all the churches of the western world (it’s not just Methodism!). We can look back to the time when bishops ruled the roost across the land. Or we can look back to the great church-going period of the mid-Victorian era when about half the population were in church on a Sunday. Or the practice of family prayers and Bible reading at the beginning of the day – or even saying grace before meals. Or I can look back on the 1950s crime-free Eden of my youth, with lively Youth Clubs and when the church was packed on Parade Sunday with uniformed organisations. Each of these memories or recollections can be used as a means of criticising what is going on in the church and world today. Is the Christian faith, the church or society in a ‘better’ or ‘worse’ state today?

Nostalgia can be a very selective means of criticism. When the bishops ruled the land, people were punished in unspeakable ways, apart from a lack of any human rights. In the ‘Christian’ mid-Victorian era there were estimated to be 80,000 child prostitutes in London alone. Family prayers could be a means of harsh family control, and seventy years ago two boys attempted to rob me at knife point in a ‘respectable’ part of London. As soon as we draw from the nostalgic past to contrast how things have deteriorated today, we urgently need to find other facts which suggest that such a picture is incomplete.

Thinking on Woods’s book draws me to two further reflections.

How much does nostalgia, particularly for the life of the early church as depicted in the Bible, affect our reading of it today? Apart from the ‘communist’ ideal of having everything in common in the early Jerusalem church (which may have led to near famine and the need for the first example of ‘Christian Aid’ from other churches), the life of the early church depicted by Paul offers little material for a nostalgic view. I suspect that our Methodist Discipline Committee would be overwhelmed by life in the Corinth church. A rosy view of the Primitive church offers little to appeal in a current world of human complexities.

A more complicated question arises over the extent to which our study of and expressions of theology today is overlaid with nostalgia. Our language and symbolic thought structures still hark back to a ‘biblical’ understanding of the universe. I struggle (as did John Robinson in the 1960s) with phrases such as ‘God sent…’, ‘come down from heaven’, or ‘Jesus came…’, on any occasion other than when we quote the Bible, rather than expressing what lies behind the words, in a sense of revelation and discovery. Too much theology is based on a nostalgic world view created by still taking the Bible too literally, in a world which is being revealed by the Hubble telescope and the Large Hadron Collider. Am I alone in getting spiritual excitement and sustenance in the exploration of the amazingly complex and wonderful world around us discovered by scientists looking at either the indescribably massive or infinitesimally small? Our understanding of the nature of time revealed by scientists must surely impact on ‘eternity’ and ‘everlasting life’. I get more visceral spiritual excitement from the discoveries of scientists, almost lost for words by the sheer wonder of what they are revealing, than wading through the dull, endless attempts by worthy theologians to ‘re-create’ an outdated world view. A nostalgia for a simple ‘up’ and ‘down’, which we hark back to by our overreliance on what we might have grown up with, will not enable relevant theological thinking. It is all God’s world, but our nostalgia for the past hinders us from trying to re-think our theology in terms for today.

So, I will wave my flag and remember 1953, but I will not be nostalgic! And I hope theologians will be limbering up for the reign of King Charles III.

by Josie Smith.

I observed my cat one recent morning ruining a newly-planted flower bed in the course of pursuing a frog near the adjacent pond in my garden.    This is the nature of cats, I realise, but seeing her doing this raised questions in my mind, not for the first time.   She often suggests questions to me which are also both simple and profound.

(We have had a few simple yet profound Monday morning questions of late in Theology Everywhere, where the only possible answer was ‘both / and’.)

Can anyone tell me how to reconcile the concept ‘loving God’ with the predatory hierarchy, AKA food chain which appears to be a necessary part of the design of the created order?   

I know about that rather charming word picture about lions lying down with lambs, but lions and lambs have different digestive arrangements and neither could be sustained by the other’s diet.    The whole of nature, it seems, is designed so that the stronger, faster, cleverer or more toxic beasts live by killing and eating those lower down the food chain.  (Though there are enlightened cultures in which hunters will apologise to the animal they have just speared to death and ask its forgiveness, showing respect to their prey before consuming its strength to maintain and enhance their own.)  

How do we differ?  Genetically we, lions and lambs, cats and humans alike, are all made of the same stuff of life.

Are we in fact different from the rest of the natural world?    My football team has to be capable of beating yours, our child needs to have better exam marks than yours, and so on.    In international relations it would seem that the food-chain principle has always applied.   A diplomat would put it more delicately perhaps, and a dictator in other terms, but recent world events have furnished many examples – one could express it as ‘My tribe is stronger and better than yours so I propose to gobble up your land if I have to kill your population in the process.’

My generation was taught to believe that the human race (then known as ‘Man’) differed from all other created beings in having a soul, and more words have been written on this theme than ever angels have danced on pinheads.    But we now know that trees can communicate with other trees, that all sorts of creatures have recognisable language, and only recently someone with very sensitive recording equipment has picked up sound communication from a living mushroom. 

The more we learn about other living things – the close family relationships of elephants, communication systems of bees, design and construction skills of ants, birds and beavers, navigational skills of butterflies – the more we respect and marvel.    I am a cat person, but dog lovers will tell you of the devotion a dog will give its owner.    (Cats don’t have owners – it is cats who have humans, but they too are capable of a genuine relationship with another species, often us.)   And   crows, for example, are very good at problem solving.    As are some squirrels.

What is the soul, and why do we think we are alone in having it?

We have faith in a creator God, otherwise why are we reading – even writing for – Theology Everywhere?    And our mythical ancestor whom we call Eve was born with a silver question mark in her mouth, thus giving rise to the sciences which grew alongside theology.     Wondering ‘What if?’ leads to experiment, which may lead anywhere and sometimes in unexpected directions.

So I worship God, and (not ‘but!’) I also ask a lot of questions.

I am not able to answer – or find answers to – many of the questions I meet every day.    The best questions don’t have answers, but lead to deeper questions.   A Catholic priest I used to know turned questions aside by using the word ‘mystery’, but I prefer to understand life by the both/and principle.     My theology is not ‘systematic’, but proceeds by flashes of insight and by niggling doubts.  

And perhaps especially by walking with those who have also encountered the God whose name and nature is Love.

by Paul Nzacahayo.

I smiled to myself the other day when I heard the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby in conversation with Stephen King, referring to one of his predecessors, Michael Ramsey, who used to start his day by banging his head on his desk repeating ‘I hate the Church of England’. I couldn’t help it but ask: ‘What had the Church of England done to him? If he hated the church that much, why didn’t he resign and leave the church?’

Justin Welby was speaking about his predecessor in the context of a conversation about the church being a flawed institution. This coincided with something I had been grappling with since my colleague, Dr Carlton Turner, presented a paper in which he spoke about Christianity being toxic. This was in reference to its entanglement with abhorrent systems such as slavery, and colonialism which have left indelible and torturous mark on human history.  My colleague referred to the colonial Christianity and its impact on both the colonizers and colonized; and argued that missionary Christianity served and continues to serve the interests of the colonizers with terrible consequences on the lives of the colonized, who were marginalized and dehumanized by the process.

It has been argued that Christianity spread through the world as part of the colonial agenda, and there is ample evidence to support this. At the same time, I would want to recognize the good that many Christian missionaries sought to do. The church is able to share God’s love with people across the globe: educational facilities from primary schools all the way up to university, and health care facilities from small local medical centres to big hospitals, are good examples of this. For some of us, without missionary education we wouldn’t be where we are. I attended church primary and secondary schools; the cost of my theological training for ministry was paid by the church; and when I came to Edinburgh University for my master’s and doctoral studies I was funded by a German Christian organisation. On the other hand, I also know that within church institutions harmful or toxic attitudes, traditions and beliefs have become entrenched. Over a long period of time, such beliefs and practices have become accepted as ‘common sense’ or ‘normal behaviour’ even though they might marginalize and demonize certain groups of people. 

That is my dilemma; and I wonder whether Archbishop Michael Ramsey faced that dilemma every morning when he sat down at his desk. Perhaps he had in his office something that reminded him of where the church as an institution had fallen short. I am sure there was something there or within him that reminded him of the beauty of the gospel imperatives and the ideal of God’s kingdom that the church is called to live out. It is this capacity for the church to be a curse to some and a blessing to others; to be unjust to a group of people and to be fair and just to another, which calls for a dynamic theological discourse.

Micah asks the question: ‘what does God require?’; and he answers his own question saying: ‘to do justice, and love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God’. I like the image of ‘walking with God’ which assumes a constant movement in which new insights and understanding lead to deeper faith and growth. In the context of my colleague’s paper, walking with Micah might mean being aware of how much colonial thinking has impacted us as both colonized and colonizers, has shaped our behavior today, and will continue to shape our thinking in the years to come. This is what some scholars have called inherited coloniality in which the former colonized continues to unconsciously feel psychologically bound to the colonizer with behavioral signs to prove this.

Inherited Christianity or inherited church or even inherited theology is flawed and toxic with potential to damage as well as potential to be a blessing which can heal and bring new life.  Therefore, Micah’s focus on doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly is a challenging call for the church. How do you walk humbly as an institution? Methodists have been criticized for being obsessed with committees; but I happen to think sometimes that is the only way an issue can be considered in its angles and facets. I am thinking of the Methodist Church’s Faith and Order committee for instance, which scrutinizes established practices and beliefs to make sure they still stand up to the principles of God’s kingdom. If new insights and understandings are translated into action and not left to gather dust in minutes and reports, or hidden in the cloud of online storage, then this is also doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly.  For leaders, if doing justice and walking humbly means you daily face the failings of the church in way that makes you bang your head on your desk, that is a price worth paying for institutional injustices to be dealt with.

by Will Fletcher.

The inspiration for this post came whilst talking with my father-in-law, a supernumerary minister, in the days following Easter Day.

For personal reasons, I’ve found myself this last year reflecting on, and identifying with, the suffering Christ. I’ve discovered great comfort being in churches with a crucifix, whether physical or in stained glass, on which to meditate. They stand in great contrast to the Methodist churches with, at most, an empty cross. Through this year in personal circumstance, national and world events, it has been reassuring to reflect upon Christ entering into the suffering of our world.

This made it easier to prepare for Holy Week and Good Friday as we journeyed with Christ on that path to the cross. The cry of ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ felt more natural, than the triumphant ‘It is finished.’

The jump from Good Friday to Easter Day felt, this year at least, far too short. The situations in my life and in the world, hadn’t changed in those couple of days, so how could we suddenly switch to ‘Alleluia! Christ is risen!’? We were celebrating Easter, but so much seemed to scream that it was still Good Friday.

As I have begun reflecting on this (and this is only an early reflection, rather than a more rounded conclusion), I have appreciated more those early Easter experiences. The possible original ending of Mark’s Gospel in 16.8 with the women, having heard from the men in dazzling outfits that Jesus is risen, fleeing in terror and saying nothing to anyone; Luke’s account of the women being disbelieved by the eleven disciples, and then Peter looking in the empty tomb before going away to ponder what he had seen. As the disciples woke on that first Easter Day, they were still trying to process all that had happened on Good Friday, and a joyous Easter Day celebration hadn’t been on their radar. Maybe there needs to be more space within our Easter celebrations for that wondering and processing that isn’t all ‘Alleluias’ and smiles.

I value having a season of Easter. We don’t have to cram the whole of our Easter celebration into one day; making that huge shift from Good Friday lamenting, to Easter celebration in one go. It acknowledges that there may be different stages of the journey through this season, and things may not all be magically resolved at the end of it.

Psalm 22, quoted by Jesus from the cross in Mark’s Gospel, begins with that cry of despair – ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ It doesn’t sound very appropriate for Easter, but may provide a pattern for how we travel through this time when we don’t feel the full force of Easter joy. Those faithful people of God who heard Jesus’ cry would likely have known that the psalm doesn’t remain in such a desperate tone. Instead, the psalmist continues to believe, despite their current circumstances, that one day God will respond and rescue, and that they will come again to praise God in the great congregation. They remember God’s action in the past, and trust in that memory for future hope. In rediscovering the form of lament in our worship, we may find ways of expressing hope even in the midst of despair, and acknowledging the new life of Easter, even in the midst of feeling the trouble of Good Friday.  

Finally, I wonder whether an adaptation of another Christian tradition may help those who struggle at this time. Christians have been encouraged to see every Sunday as a ‘mini-Easter,’ celebrating that new life of Christ each week of the year. However, I wonder whether in a similar spirit, we might consider marking each Friday as a ‘mini-Good Friday.’ There are some Christian traditions who fast every Friday to remember Christ’s Passion. We may not go to that extent, but we may wish to use each Friday in some way to mark the pain, suffering and brokenness in our lives or in the life of our world. This can remind us that it is okay not to be okay, or not to be full of happiness all the time.

The empty crosses and focus on the resurrection speak a powerful message to all who come into our churches or join us in worship. But maybe we need to make more space to remember the suffering Christ, and to acknowledge the realities of Good Friday in our lives and in our world, even as we take part in our Easter celebrations.

by Frances Young.

The first time I met the man who has been my husband for over 50 years he and a friend were doing a Guardian cryptic crossword. I sat on the touchlines making somewhat caustic comments – to my linguistically-trained mind the tricks and conventions were just ridiculous! But then I had never been any good at puzzles, outshone by younger siblings, fearful of failure – though I suppose some would have thought I was doing puzzles all the time as I struggled to read and write Greek and Latin. No – I was never a puzzler! Yet late in life I’ve discovered Sudoku and Codewords and have to discipline myself not to get addicted and waste all day on them… They are definitely therapeutic, certainly a distraction from pressures and anxieties, a better accompaniment than reading to listening to music – you really can listen… And they say, there’re a possible antidote to dementia, a serious consideration in one’s 80s! Puzzles are to be celebrated.

But should we treat Scripture as puzzles deliberately set for us by the Holy Spirit? Believe it or not that is exactly what significant Christian theologians of the third and fourth centuries did think. I wonder if they might be onto something.

Augustine, the great theologian of the Western Church, whose life spanned the fall of the Roman Empire in the early fifth century, composed a treatise On Christian Teaching. It was essentially about interpreting and communicating scripture. He knew all about teaching classical literature – professionally he had been a rhetor, an educator, before his conversion. He had been one of those cultured despisers of the scriptures – they lacked style, being written in awful translationese, and were thoroughly alien and strange. But once a priest and bishop he devoted himself to making sense of them. He could then exemplify their natural eloquence and wisdom, while admitting that in places it was hard work to find it. Problems and ambiguities of many kinds were presented to the casual reader, “so thick is the fog created by some obscure phrases.”

I have no doubt that this is all divinely predetermined, so that pride may be subdued by hard work and intellects which tend to despise things that are easily discovered may be rescued from boredom and reinvigorated.

No one disputes that it is much more pleasant to learn lessons presented through imagery, and much more rewarding to discover meanings that are won only with difficulty… In both situations the danger is lethargy. It is a wonderful and beneficial thing that the Holy Spirit organised the holy scripture so as to satisfy hunger by means of its plainer passages and remove boredom by means of its obscure ones. Virtually nothing is unearthed from these obscurities which cannot be found quite plainly expressed somewhere else.
(De Doctrina Christiana II.6-7)

This kind of attitude did not come out of the blue. In the East the first great biblical scholar, Origen, had, more than a century earlier, suggested that the aim of the Spirit was to conceal the truth:

The word of God arranged for certain stumbling blocks, as it were, and hindrances and impossibilities to be inserted in the midst of the law and the history… for the sake of the more skilful and enquiring readers… By giving up themselves to the toil of examining what is written [they will discover] a meaning worthy of God.
(De Principiis IV.2.8)

He thought the prophecies “are filled with riddles” and the aporiai (puzzles) were intended to move readers into seeking deeper meanings.

All this may seem rather surprising, but in fact it helped to get a hearing in the culture of the time, and eased acceptance of this “barbarian” collection of books. How it helped is illuminated by the essays of Plutarch (a pagan thinker) discussing oracles: philosophers attributed such prophetic phenomena to the workings of providence, but also recognised they were often very enigmatic. Plutarch suggested that the god deliberately posed problems in the form of riddles or puzzles so as to create a craving for knowledge of the divine. The culture encouraged the idea of revelatory concealment, of hidden mysteries. No wonder then that the entire Old Testament was treated as a system of prophetic symbols and riddles pointing to Christ, if only you worked hard at teasing them out.

So to my questions for today: how do we find a way to encourage contemporary “cultured despisers” to try reading the Bible? And do puzzles have a theological purpose?