Theology Everywhere

by Tom Greggs.

I find myself this month at the very end of the first part of a fifteen year project; it has in fact taken me seven years to get this far. More accurately, I’ve been working actively on this part of the project for seven years, but thinking, preaching and writing about related issues for much longer. Seven years ago, I decided to embark on a three volume Ecclesiology (a theological account of the church). I am just putting the final editorial touches on the first of these three volumes which should be finally published in about a year’s time. Somewhat to my surprise (shock perhaps!), the volume is very long—280,000 words just for volume one!

But after all that repetitive strain injury from typing, I find that there is one thing above all else that time and time again I want still to say and it is this: the grace of God’s work of salvation involves not only putting humanity right with Godself but also (and equally through the grace of God) God’s work of salvation seeks to put us right with one another.

The origins of sin arise from the human breaking a relationship with God through disobedience: in the fall story, Adam and Eve disobey the one command God gives to them in the context of God’s superabundant grace in creation; they eat the forbidden fruit. But the immediate consequence and effect of this act, even before the description of the rupture in the relationship with God that follows, is a pronounced awareness of individualism as a primary identity. This individualism is accompanied by a sense of the strangeness of the other, a relationship of fear towards the other and actions of blame of the other in comparison to the self: sin causes the heart to turn in on itself, and this turning in on itself alters not only the relationship with God but also other humans.

Sin is the prioritisation of the self, one might say, over the divine and created others. Having eaten the fruit, the man and woman understand themselves to be naked in front of each other, and cover themselves, aware and ashamed of their alterity and difference (Gen. 3:7).  Furthermore, having hidden himself from God because of his nakedness when God walks in the garden, Adam immediately seeks to divert blame away from himself and toward Eve, and indeed through this to God: the fault (according to him) cannot be his, and self-preservation of his individual self over and against the other (even the most intimate other) transcends unity and co-humanity and relationship to God who gives all things. The woman then also redirects blame away from herself toward the serpent (Gen. 3:13). Sin alters the relationship that exists not only between the human and God, but also between human beings themselves. Because the human no longer seeks to be orientated on God and to share in the good gifts of God’s grace, the human shifts the focus of her orientation onto herself.

To overcome this situation of sin and its effects requires divine salvific grace. So often, we think God sets us right with Godself, and we are the ones in creation who work on the human level to sort things in our own human strength. But that is a form of ecclesial Pelagianism. Humans in our lapsed condition always tend, not towards the overflowing love of God towards all that which is not God, but towards the self-preservation of the individual in the heart turned in on itself. It is an act of the grace of God, indeed a participating in that grace for the human to be able to be orientated towards another—both God and other human beings.

Even in the church’s simul iustus et peccator (and often frustrating!) state, we need to remember that through God’s grace, we are given community in the church and given the other in creation. And we should seek to form community not based on utility or on attraction, but on the very givenness of the other person as a fellow member of the body of Christ. We should seek to form community because in that we share and move in the movements of God’s grace, being orientated towards the other in creation. In community, our hearts are turned outwards to the other who is also beloved of God, and we learn what the movements of grace that God has shown us are. And for this to take place, for us to become the church as an anticipation of the Kingdom, we must pray ever and again for the grace of God to set right our relations with one another.

Let us give thanks for God’s grace in giving us communion and ask and rely ever more on God to help us to move within the movements of God’s own grace in the life of the community of the church. Even after 280,000 words, this is still a wonderful thing to meditate upon: the other through grace becomes for me a locus of God’s salvation as God puts right my relationship with them alongside my relationship with God through the Holy Spirit’s work of incorporating me actively into Christ’s body.

by Michaela Youngson.

It’s overwhelming – the constant account of gloom and despair that is coming at us daily from the news, whether from traditional sources or social media. Famine, war, Brexit, Trump, earthquakes and the displacement of 68 million people worldwide. We find ourselves caught up in a litany of lament which leads easily to despair. This can induce a number of reactions – apathy, ‘What’s the point, it’s all too big and I can’t solve it all, so I won’t try.’ Anger, ‘Why should I bother, I didn’t make the mess, leave it to those who did!’ Despair can lead to depression and a burden of guilt at our own part in systems that oppress the vulnerable and continue to harm children, women and men.

Lament, as Jill Baker helped us to see last year, is an appropriate response to the complexity and grief within us and around us. It is a ‘from my lips to God’s ears’ response – a recognition of our own part in the chaos and a plea to God to hear our cry and to notice the cries of those who are suffering.

The Prophet Jeremiah had every right to lament, we read in Chapter 32 that he was hemmed in on all sides. He had made it clear to Zedekiah, the King of Judah, that his and his people’s days in the promised land of milk and honey were numbered. The Babylonian King was poised to invade, to trash the temple and all the wealth of Judah and would take the leaders and educated of the land into exile. This infuriated Zedekiah and the Prophet was thrown in prison in the palace guardroom. Jeremiah did not despair however, he demonstrated hope in a future for his people, even if it was not a future he would share in. He bought a piece of land and had the deeds placed in an earthenware jar, so that they would be safe for generations to come. This was an act of confidence to offer hope to the King and to the people, that in the end, they (or their descendants) would return to the land they had been granted by God.

In the midst of the inevitability of climate change and our increasing understanding of the effects that human beings are having on God’s creation, it is easy to remain in a posture of lament. True lament allows us time to grieve and to acknowledge just how grim things are but it is also a space to listen to God’s words – sometimes given clearly, as they were to Jeremiah, often whispered amidst the cacophony of a chaotic world. God continues to offer us hope and to counsel us against our own worst habits. If we see our world, or even the part of the world that we live in, as a land of milk and honey, then we need to look carefully. We have milked the cow dry and even the bees that make the honey are in trouble. We have filled the seas with plastics, mountains with nuclear waste, the air with pollutants and the fields with pesticides and landfill sites.

As we begin a new Methodist Year, it’s natural to wonder what lies in store for our Church and our world. Like Jeremiah, we might find ourselves on the wrong side of those in power for asking difficult questions and pointing out unpalatable truths. Methodists have an honourable tradition of raising our voices against injustice and in calling for good stewardship of God’s earth. The alternative is to stay silent in the face of the oppression of children, women and men in all sorts of desperate situations. The alternative is to turn our backs when the politics of hate is preached instead of the ethics of love. The alternative is to ignore the consequences of our own use of the world’s resources. We are called to respond to God’s message of hope and the demands of the Gospel, the challenge is to choose where to focus our prayers and our actions in a way that honours God and demonstrates love to our neighbours.

What would be an equivalent act to that of Jeremiah’s purchase of the land? What might we do to demonstrate our hope in God’s future? 1,000 churches have now signed up to be Eco-Churches, taking practical steps to reduce the harmful impact that our activities can have on creation. To choose to be good stewards is an act of hope – and we can do that in our personal lives as well. Despair says, “I’m too small to make a difference.” Hope says, “How can I play my part, along with others, to make a change?” I wonder too if there might be ways of ‘reclaiming the land’ – by working with agencies such as Christian Aid, working to lobby governments and to work with the United nations to prevent the forced removal of indigenous people from land that is stripped for palm oil, or is flooded because of dam construction. We might ‘reclaim the land’ by supporting All We Can in their work with refugees – those, like the people of Judah, no longer able to live in the land that was their home. What act of hope in God’s future might any of us take, moving us from lament, through confession, to an active confidence that God is with us in our efforts for a more just and sustainable world?

Resources:

‘Hope in God’s Future’ can be downloaded here:

https://www.methodist.org.uk/media/3201/higf-report-and-study-guide-0514.pdf

For details of how to sign up as an Eco Church:

https://ecochurch.arocha.org.uk

Christian Aid’s Campaign on Climate Change – The Big Shift Global:

https://www.christianaid.org.uk/campaigns/climate-change/the-big-shift-global

Christian Aid’s Work with Displaced People: – Uprooted – Overlooked

https://www.christianaid.org.uk/campaigns/uprooted-overlooked

All We Can’s Resources supporting their work with refugees:

https://www.allwecan.org.uk/resources/fundraising-packs/refugees-to-all-the-people-we-can/

by Christopher Collins.

Take a fine Indian silk scarf in your hand. Feel its smooth texture and marvel at the skill of the weaver. Hold it and let me take you on a deepening journey of reconciliation through the Punjab. Travel with me and my fellow pilgrims on our peace pilgrimage.[i]

And let me tell you about our time in the Jallianwala Bagh memorial garden for the massacre of Sikh pro-independence protesters at the hands of the British Army in 1919. Imagine how awkward we felt when a Sikh man drew alongside and asked us where we were from. His response was only words of welcome.

Let me tell about a chance meeting with a Sikh couple in a hotel lift. We talked about being Christians on a pilgrimage and as they got out of the lift they cheerfully said, “well there’s one God after all”.

Let me tell about the meeting at the Golden Temple with Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh (the leader of the Sikhs at the Golden Temple). We asked him “what is one thing we should do to bring about peace”. After a moment of consideration, he replied, “in my view, we should recognise there is only one God”

These conversations were especially poignant in the year of the 70^th anniversary of the partition of India when a relatively arbitrary line was drawn on a map to divide a people who didn’t realise they needed to be separated. Villages that once lived harmoniously, took against each other in acts of sectarianism.

This arbitrary line made me think about the borders we might draw in all sorts of contexts. The carefully guarded borders between religions where our different texts and experiences of the divine become our guarded borders. The lines between us and all who we dare call “other”.

What unites all such borders is our desire to dominate and to be better which is a trait we perpetuate with alarming frequency.

But, the three conversations pointed me beyond the signs of division to a deeper understanding by giving me a glimpse into what we can do to overcome division.

Firstly, there was forgiveness. In its truest sense, forgiveness is an act of our will that determines that a past wrong will not define and confine our future. It would have been easy for the gentleman in Jallianwala Bagh to see us as a threat – but instead there was a welcome. The past was not going to define our present or future relationship and a border was overcome.

Secondly, the call to see God as one across different faiths unites us beyond borders. It comes down to letting down our ego to honour divine truth in others and learning to live together without trying to outdo each other.

So back to the scarf. It’s made up of thousands of individual strands woven together. Each is unique and exists in its own right, but it only becomes a scarf when it is woven together with other individual strands. And then they become something much more useful. And each strand ceases to be one on its own. As we wrap the scarf around our neck, we can bend and mould the blanket and each fibre moves with the others to maintain the form of the scarf. No strand takes precedence. The boundary between each strand is blurred and it’s not important what each strand is on its own but what it becomes together.

The silk scarf is a metaphor for reconciliation. We find deep reconciliation when we blur our boundaries and discover that we are all made in the image of God and we can be a better people when we see God in the other: the familiar, the stranger, and the refugee.

The way to blur our boundaries is by following the way of Jesus – the sacrificial love that led him to the cross as the expression of God’s for the world. The love that people of faith are called to follow. For the gospel according to John tells us that Jesus is the way.

As Anna Briggs puts it in her hymn “You call us out to praise you”:

For changing hues and textures
new patterns, still you search
to weave your seamless garment
the fabric of your church
our tattered faith you cherish
reclaim from wear and moth
we praise your name who twine us
the weaver and the cloth.

Reconciliation is like being woven together to find new patterns hues and textures that allow life to come in all it’s glory and fullness.

[i] Christopher was travelling in an ecumenical group of sixteen pilgrims on a “Pilgrimage to India: Christian Witness as a Minority Witness” led by Rev’d Dr Inderjit Bhogal.

by James Morley.

Delegates at a Methodist gathering were asked to engage with the Biblical tradition of lament – an expression of “grief or mourning”.[i]  The invitation came as part of a response to the latest Statistics for Mission from the Methodist Church of Great Britain presented at the 2017 Conference which state that:

“Since the previous triennial report (2014), membership numbers have fallen annually by around 6,780, or 3.6 per cent year-on-year… This is high in historic terms”.[ii]

Leaving aside the question of membership figures being a meaningful measure for Methodism today, the numbers alone suggest that Methodism is in a different place now to where it has been in the past.  Whether this is necessarily a cause for lament and/or for sensing opportunity and possibility may well depend on individual and corporate discernment of God’s mission.

Watching coverage of Glastonbury in the summer those Statistics for Mission were published I felt that lament was also being voiced in the fields of Worthy Farm, Somerset.  For example, Stormzy paying tribute to, and demanding accountability for, the victims of Grenfell.[iii]  Then there were the chants of “Oh Jeremy Corbyn”[iv] by thousands of the so-called “snowflake generation” who, rather than melting, expressed their grief at the current world situation by cheering their agreement with a call on President Donald Trump to “build bridges not walls”.[v]  There was also the prophetic (forth-telling/speaking out) poetry of Kate Tempest giving voice to the injustices, fears and hopes felt by her generation.  For me, Tempest’s prophetic lament is powerfully loud in her work Europe Is Lost. [vi]  For example:

“I am quiet, feeling the onset of riot
Riots are tiny though, systems are huge
Traffic keeps moving, proving there’s nothing to do
‘Cause it’s big business, baby, and its smile is hideous
Top down violence, a structural viciousness
Your kids are dosed up on medical sedatives
But don’t worry ‘bout that, man, worry ’bout terrorists
The water level’s rising! The water level’s rising!
The animals, the elephants, the polar bears are dying!
Stop crying, start buying, but what about the oil spill?
Shh, no one likes a party pooping spoil sport
Massacres, massacres, massacres/new shoes
Ghettoised children murdered in broad daylight
By those employed to protect them
Live porn streamed to your pre-teen’s bedrooms
Glass ceiling, no headroom
Half a generation live beneath the breadline
Oh, but it’s happy hour on the high street
Friday night at last lads, my treat!”[vii]

If Methodism is in a different place then it allows us to ask, with the lamenting Psalmist, “how could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”[viii].  Perhaps it is lamenting prophets like Kate Tempest who allow us to step into, and have a map for, the terrain which is now a context for God’s mission.  If we respectfully engage with this new context we may find that, instead of the babble of Babel, the lament voiced by Tempest and her generation coming from a place of concern for people and planet is a common language shared with all God’s people who believe in a creation that carries the divine image and which has been seen to be good[ix].  Maybe then, the conversation in this contemporary context might synthesize[x] into something new as, together with Kate Tempest, we counter-culturally articulate the theology that is already everywhere and we all sing the Lord’s song in this strange land – a song of justice, peace and hope.

[i] Coogan, Michael D (ed) 2001.  The New Oxford Annotated Bible.  New York: Oxford University Press, p. 2278.

[ii] The Methodist Church 2017.  Statistics for Mission 2017 [Online].  Available at: https://www.methodist.org.uk/downloads/conf-2017-42-Statistics-for-Mission.pdf.  [Accessed on 10/08/2018]

[iii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4ixU_UbCx0 [Accessed on 15/08/2018]

[iv] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVO_pQIUER0 [Accessed on 15/08/2018]

[v] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6uzzZr_O8E [Accessed on 15/08/2018]

[vi] Tempest, Kate 2013.  Europe Is Lost [Online video].  Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YCcL0aj-9Y.  [Accessed on 23/02/2018]

[vii] Tempest, Kate (2015).  Let Them Eat Chaos [Kindle].  London: Picador, pp. 13-23.

[viii] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Ps 137:4). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

[ix] Genesis 1:1-31

[x] Bevans, Stephen B 2002.  New Models of Contextual Theology.  Maryknoll: Orbis.

by Neil Richardson.

What has Brexit got to do with the wrath of God – if anything? Whatever the answer, the UK is in the throes of the greatest crisis of my lifetime. Of course, we should normally avoid the expression ‘wrath of God’; it is easily misunderstood. But what the Bible means by it, and the effects of that wrath are urgently relevant in this crisis.

Let’s start with its effects – darkness. That is the biblical symbol for the effects of the divine wrath.  St Paul writes of ‘darkened hearts’ (Romans 1.21 – compare 11.10),  ‘Isaiah’ of the Lord hiding his face (64.7), the very opposite of the Aaronic blessing: ‘may the Lord make his face shine on you…’, (Numbers 6.25).  The Biblical sequence is clear: idolatry leads to our dehumanization, which, in turn, leads to  dysfunctional relationships and disintegrating communities, (Romans 1.18-32, Psalm 115 etc).

Unlike the Bible – especially the Psalms – we prefer not to speak of false gods.  Yet we create false gods when we give our hearts (thus Luther) to something or someone other than our Creator. (There is plenty of room for other affections and passions within the love of God). In the life of a nation, a false god can be identified as that which is above criticism and question (1). Half of America worships its gun laws, and the constitution which underwrites them. In Britain, money and property come close to divine status, as do ‘Efficiency’ and ‘Economy’ (2).

Psalm 82 has been described as the most important passage in the whole of Scripture. And this from a distinguished, if controversial New Testament scholar, (John Dominic Crossan)! The psalm doesn’t use the word ‘wrath’, but that’s what it’s talking about: both its meaning and its effects. False gods can be distinguished by their oppression of the weak and the needy (v.4); false gods ‘walk about in darkness’ ; ‘meanwhile earth’s foundations are all giving way’ (v.5).

Isn’t this a bit ‘over the top’ – theology in the service of melodrama? Well, consider the contemporary scene: the neglect of personal relationships, a national ‘epidemic of loneliness’ (thus a recent headline), a dysfunctional political system (national and local), and the erosion of the common welfare through savage cuts in public spending. (As usual, the poorest people bear the brunt).

To quote a famous hymn, ‘the darkness deepens’, even though, thank God,  there are countless people in whom the light of compassion and love still burns. But this is the effect of ‘wrath’ – the consequence of marginalizing our Creator and setting our hearts on other things. In the gathering gloom, we can no longer see what matters most, or clearly distinguish truth from falsehood and illusion. (A society which has set its heart on false gods will happily settle for ‘fake news’).

In this growing crisis, the outline of a Christian programme for action becomes clearer:

• A silent waiting on God which alone can give us the poise, the discernment and the wisdom we need.
• A commitment to truth – the Truth which alone sets human beings free.
• A commitment to our Creator’s ‘kingdom’ of love, justice and peace.

And the meaning of the divine wrath? Love – that is its meaning. The hour of the crucifixion of the Son of God was the hour of judgement and of atonement. For the Creator of the Universe, the mysterious ‘I AM’, the Heart of our own hearts, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is love.

The meaning and the effects of the wrath of God are the ‘flip side’ of God’s non-coercive being – the very meaning of  our own creation. When the divine DNA is stamped all over us (Genesis 1.27), how can we humans and our communities thrive when we turn our backs on love, justice and compassion?

As for Brexit, it’s time to stop the shouting, the posturing, the soundbites, and listen to each other – within the Church, within the UK , and in Brussels, too.

And listen to God, ‘Heart of our own heart’. Where is God in Christ leading us? ‘The world has not left Jesus behind; it is getting to the point where it can just see him, far ahead, blazing the trail’(3).

1. Richardson, Who on Earth is God? Making Sense of God in the Bible (Bloomsbury 2014), pp.223-5).
2. John Austin Baker, The Foolishness of God, (DLT 1970), p.348.
3. Baker, cit. p.331.

by John Howard.

Working in the Holy Land the question of the biblical understanding of the “Land” is a very significant one. In Naim Ateek’s latest book “A Palestinian Theology of Liberation,”[i] he draws attention to the story of Jacob’s ladder (Genesis 28 10-17) and the use Jesus seems to make of it in John 1 verse 51.

In the dream the writers of Genesis describe a ladder stretching from heaven to earth with angels going up and down. The story leaves Jacob conscious of the holiness of the place. Of at least equal significance is the words God in the dream says to Jacob, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, your father, the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring….” It is a very familiar passage, a part of the Jewish identity with the land of the western Levant.

In John 1 verse 51 Jesus says to Nathanael “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God descending upon the Son of Man.” There does seem here to be a conscious echo of the Jacob’s ladder image but there is a very unexpected difference. Where as the ladder has its “top,” heaven and its “base,” the earth, in Jesus’ words the place of the “land,” so special and sacred to the people Jesus is speaking to, is taken by “The Son of Man.” The ladder to heaven, or rather the ladder between heaven and earth is now the ladder between heaven and Jesus – not the land.

I leave aside the question of whether the change above, and the one looked at below are those of the Gospel writers or of Jesus himself, I would accept the arguments that these are very likely passages that go back to Jesus – but don’t have the space to argue that here.

Another place where Jesus adapts the Old Testament is in the passage in Luke 4, 16-19. This is the passage sometimes referred to as Jesus’ manifesto. In it Jesus is fundamentally quoting Isaiah 61verses one and two. He makes some slight changes of emphasis towards the ending of verse one, very likely conflating Isaiah 58 verse 6 with the word from 61 1. The structure of the passage is however clear – as his direct quoting of the beginning of verse two “to proclaim the year of our Lord’s favour,” makes clear. What is remarkable here is where he stops. The flow of the verse in Isaiah continues with the words “and the day of vengeance of our God.” This is a very well known passage to Jesus’ listeners. They could have quoted it to Jesus, and no doubt were doing so in their minds as Jesus read it to them. They would have continued beyond where Jesus finished – and the absence of these words from what Jesus spoke, would have spoken much more clearly than the words said themselves. Jesus it surely seems – consciously missed off the words “and the day of vengeance of our God,” as it didn’t fit into his self understanding – it was not “a part of Jesus’ manifesto.”

The common ground in these two passages is the way that Jesus seems to use two passages, very well known by his audience but adapts them for the sake of communicating his own message. He clearly feels free to change quite fundamentally what these passages mean, in the first example by placing himself – or rather “the Son of Man,” in the place of the “Land,” and by omitting the ending of the passage from Isaiah reshaping the very nature of the God the people are dedicated to – not a God of vengeance (so often this seems to be the Old Testament character of God), but it seems Jesus is having no part of it. If we have any doubt about this then we have an echo again of this a few chapters later in Luke, when in chapter 7 verse 22 Jesus again goes back to Isaiah 61 (this time in response to the questions John’s disciples ask Jesus) and again he avoids the phrase “and the day of vengeance of our God.”

There is, of course, much more to study in Jesus’ use of the Old Testament, and such more extensive studies are available. My issue in this essay is the ability of Jesus to take well known passages, adapt them and as a result make very different theological points than the original passage indicated, while at the same time asserting an orthodoxy through associating with the passages at the heart of the orthodoxy of the faith. Is there here perhaps a lesson for us in the use of Scripture for issues such as same sex marriage – that seem to need a radical departure from the understandings of the past without a loss of the orthodoxy of the subject?

[i] Naim Stifan Ateek, A Palestinian Theology of Liberation: The Bible, Justice, and the Palestine-Israel Conflict (2017, New York: Orbis Books)

by Tim Baker.

There is something in the air at the moment – something connected to the New Monastic movement, something to do with a way of life, a community gathering, an opportunity to grow closer and deeper. It’s something very Methodist (though clearly borrowed from elsewhere too), entirely ancient, and yet as fresh as the sunrise. A brief glance at our monastic heritage might show us something of why it is experiencing a resurgence.

As with any church at its best, the monastic movement was born out of a combination of abstract thinking about spirituality and the practical issues of the time.  The desert fathers and mothers in Egypt around 330-460 AD were responding directly to their own encounter with God in seeking solace and poverty, but they were also escaping and rejecting the excesses of the established church, the ‘career clergy’ and the dangerous alliance of religion and state.

Monasticism raises a variety of theological issues: the interplay between individual and communal faith, the dangers of excess, an earthly ‘poverty’, silence in worship (see, for example, the Benedictine rule chapter 52), a focus on prayer and the use of liturgy.  All these reflect a theological position which involves a withdrawal from the world in order to encounter the divine.  Not all monastics, however, remain in that mode of isolation. Rather, they took the experience of God back with them into the world with a clear sense of mission.

To touch on one of these ideas – intentional worldly poverty – shows us why monasticism is helping us to stretch, regroup and ‘emerge’ as a church today. A monk’s commitment to poverty was born out of a scriptural understanding of God as ‘for’ the poor, coupled with the recognition that material things can be an obstruction to our relationship with God. Jesus in the wilderness becomes the model to emulate here: turning away from worldly things, resisting the physical temptation of food and the more abstract vices of the world – the opportunity to show off and to claim power. It’s important to note, however, that this asceticism does not represent a rejection of the body, but a desire to rediscover the interconnectedness of body, mind and spirit. In Jesus, God becomes fully human and the monastic tradition understood something of the respect for the human body that this incarnation calls us all to live up to.

In the writings of Abbot Jamison (Finding Sanctuary),[i] Joan Chittister (Monastery of the Heart)[ii] and many others, we see an application of this idea of ‘lack’ for our times.  The twenty-first century version of capitalism is more rampant and more materialistic than ever.  The age of personalised and targeted advertising (particularly prevalent on social media) pushes its materialistic message into our eyeballs all the time, trying to sell us the next solution, the next product.

We are just beginning to understand the negative mental and physical consequences of the society we have built.  There is much temptation to eat luxurious high-calorie food, or satisfy hunger with fast food and ready meals, many of which are high in salt, fat, cholesterol and sugar.  As the expendable income of the average person grows, we seem to develop new and more dangerous ways of spending it.

In this context the church needs to apply the ideas developed by the monks over a millennium – that it is important to resist the temptation of the worldly things in order to experience the divine.  As we desire material wealth for ourselves, for our chapel, for our circuit, our Connexional funds, our multi-million pound mission schemes, to need to retain a theology of poverty too. As with early monasticism, and the monastic movement at its purest throughout history, perhaps this will remain a niche idea kept alive by a minority, but my instinct is that we need it now more than ever. How can we discover again the power in choosing to go without? What would a movement towards sacrifice, towards lack, look like in your community?

To conclude, Diarmaid Maculloch in his History of Christianity points out that Monasticism always contains an element of ‘silent rebellion’, against the church but also against the excesses of society in general.[iii]  There is a great deal of monastic theology and practice to which we need to return today in order to keep that rebellion alive.  The challenge will be to keep finding ways to learn from the often-rebellious monks and begin again the revolution of going without so that we might experience in full.

[i] Christopher Jamison, Finding Sanctuary: Monastic steps for Everyday Life (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2006)

[ii] Joan Chittister, The Monastery of the Heart: An invitation to the meaningful life (London: SPCK, 2011)

[iii] Dairmaid Maculloch, The History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (London: Allen Lane, 2009)

[1] Dairmaid Maculloch, The History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (London: Allen Lane, 2009)

by Inderjit Bhogal.

I first came across Sadhu Sundar Singh when, aged twenty two [1975], when I came across a photograph of him. It showed him as a bearded man, wearing a turban, a full length robe, and sandals. I took it to be a photo of a Sikh gentleman.  I was staggered when I was told he was a follower of Jesus Christ. I determined to find out as much as I could about Sadhu Sundar Singh.

Popularly known as The Sadhu [the term Sadhu means holy person], Sundar Singh wrote a number of books, and many books have been written about him. Most of the books about the Sadhu have been written by western theologians interpreting him as a great Panjabi and Hindi speaking evangelist who, at the beginning of the twentieth century, was God’s gift to help hasten the “evangelisation of the world in this generation”.

My interest is in who Sadhu Sundar Singh was, what defined his spirituality, and what he had and has to say. I am intrigued by the fact that some writers have questioned whether his background and upbringing was Sikh or Hindu. An element of this puzzle entered into my mind too. His name, especially his middle name Singh is clearly of Sikh derivation. Singh is the name every Sikh male has.  It means “lion”, and goes back to the seventeenth century and specifically to the Tenth Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Gobind Singh. Singh designates Sikh.

I am researching the life of Sadhu Sundar Singh. My research has included visiting the village of Rampur, in Panjab, where Sadhu Sundar Singh was born and brought up. His descendants still live there. I like to meet with them. Most significantly I met with Harpal Singh Mangat, the great grandson of Channan Singh Mangat, the brother of Sadhu Sundar Singh. I discuss with Harpal, my primary source, whether Sadhu Sundar Singh was a Sikh or a Hindu.

Rampur is almost hundred percent populated by the wealthy Mangat family who are all Sikhs and farmers. Harpal has no doubt that Sadhu Sundar Singh was a Sikh, who was deeply influenced by his mother who respected the Sikh and the Hindu faiths, and related well to Hindu and Sikh religious leaders. His immediate family now are “Amritdhari Sikhs” [baptised Sikhs]. A photo of Sadhu Sundar Singh hangs in his family home which has become a place to visit for pilgrims like me. His family hold important memories of Sadhu Sundar Singh. They are “neutral” to Sadhu Sundar Singh, “neither proud nor embarrassed” but honour the fact that “he served Christ, and that is good”.

Sadhu Sundar Singh’s description of himself is clear. “I was born in a family that was commonly considered Sikh but in which the teaching of Hinduism was most essential”. He was familiar with the scriptures of Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims. He was a Biblical theologian. The reluctance of some scholars to accept his Sikh heritage may be rooted in their reluctance to acknowledge that there are people of Sikh background who have been prepared to follow other Gurus than the Ten Gurus, and the Guru Granth Sahib [the Holy Scriptures of the Sikhs acknowledged as the ultimate living Guru].

The inspiration I find in Sadhu Sundar Singh is that he followed Christ in his own way, refused to be institutionally reduced by the established Church of the western mode, courageously chose to be himself adopting a distinctively Indian spirituality and demeanour, and that he reflected Christ. The Church throughout the world was fascinated and inspired by him. His contemporaries, like his friend Rebecca Parker, commented “how like he is to Christ”.

Sadhu Sundar Singh is remembered as one of the great followers of Christ by the Church in India. He is listed among the commemorated saints and honoured on his birth and baptism date 3^rd September [born 1889, baptised 1905].

In the forty three years since I first came across the photo and story of Sadhu Sundar Singh, I have found that one of my biggest challenges in church, ministry and personal life has been to be myself while many people have wanted me to be someone else. The loneliest part of my journey over the years has been that I am the only Sikh born and Panjabi Presbyter in the Methodist Church in Britain. I describe myself as a follower of Christ with roots in the Sikh faith. Sadhu Sundar Singh has been a good companion. I remind myself that Jesus’ first disciples followed him as Jews. Paul found confidence and pride in being a “Hebrew of Hebrews” [Philippians 3:5].

by Anne Ostrowicz.

Having just started one-to-one Theology lessons with a pupil considering studying Philosophy and Theology at university, we found ourselves discussing the first chapter of “Proverbs of Ashes” [1] which outlines six different theologies of the cross, the authors explaining the difficulties they have with some of them. For each approach I asked him what sort of God was being presented, and what sort of people it assumed we are and should be becoming. This pupil started life in a village in China to which Christianity had only newly arrived, embraced by some of the older villagers and expressed in a theology mediated by individuals with limited learning, and which endorsed the existing patriarchal social structure.

“When I came to England”, my pupil said, “I thought how very rational everything here is in contrast with life in my village. However, when I go to the Christian Union [he identifies as an atheist] I find reason, science, human experience, all sometimes abandoned. I have great trouble with the idea that two people sinning thousands of years ago somehow affects each of us today, and that God wants ‘atonement’ for our sins. Some of these other interpretations of the cross make more sense to me, but my Christian friends seem unaware of them.”

He went on to say that he was delighted to study religion at school in England but it wasn’t the intricacies of kosher, or variations in practices like eucharist, that teenagers needed to learn about. Far more meaningful to them are the fundamental ideas asserted by religion and philosophy which underly these practices, like the one we had been discussing, ideas which require deep consideration, with potentially major possibilities both for individuals and societies.

At the risk of being controversial, I mention that in the last two years there has been a government-led change in focus in RE in schools, more to learning the facts about “what people of a particular faith believe and do”, less on engaging with what I would regard as a more in-depth study and discussion of theological, ethical and philosophical concepts and issues. In many schools, numbers of pupils opting to study the subject at exam level have suffered.

Much of my own thinking has been engaged in asking, If we focus in RE on deep discussion of central ideas in religion, which concepts and ideas are really significant and of value and interest for our teenagers to study? My own list includes exploring what faith might be; where theists ultimately get their ideas from; why people believe and disbelieve; modern movements in theology to realise it is an ongoing , organic, exciting area of study, responding to political and social conditions; the  reality of the range of interpretations of a text within any one religion; some of the significant overlaps between religions; understanding the idea of what a personal, living faith might entail as well as engaging with the idea of the possibility of God as a Mover in history and in what sense this might be; exploring the concepts of forgiveness and of non-violence. As long as these concepts are grounded in a specific text, individual or event, they become something young people can understand, find genuinely stimulating and are keen to discuss.

Turning to our religious communities, I wonder if we need to think carefully here, too, on what our teenagers really need from us. Do we create an environment where they feel able to ask their deepest questions? Are we aware of how interested they are in the possibility of the existence of a spiritual reality and in what that might consist? Can faith and reason co-exist? Do we have serious study and discussion of a range of views and interpretations of issues? Do we realise how very much they are able to understand, and often need to understand in order to find enduring faith in a world with so many contrasting beliefs? Do we come alongside for a time, ultimately trusting to God’s ongoing work in their lives?

A few weeks ago I found myself with some of my sixth-form pupils in Berlin’s Gemaldegalerie, standing in front of Rembrandt’s powerful painting of Jacob wrestling with the angel at Jabbok [2]. This ‘wrestling’ with questions of spirituality and morality seems fundamental to humanness, to the way we acquire understanding, appreciation and eventually wisdom. And that includes teenagers!  Satish Kumar writes, “There is no destination outside the journey” [3].   Wherever we encounter teenagers, may we give them the best spiritual journey possible.

[1] Proverbs of Ashes, Rebecca Ann Parker and Rita Nakashima Brock, Beacon Press, 2001

[2] Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, Rembrandt, 1659, Gemaldegalerie, Berlin

[3] Earth Pilgrim, Satish Kumar, Green Books, 2009, page 23

by Roger Walton.

Methodist Conference is often known for interspersing its debates and conversations with exuberant singing.  In recent years, we have added video, dance, drama and, what one liturgist has named, ‘generous silences’.

This year’s Conference included several invitations to enter into a period of silent prayer but, once the noise of people talking and the shuffling of papers, bags and chairs ceased, we discovered that rather than entering into silence, we become aware of a background wind-like sound, whistling gently around the hall.  It was probably something to do with the ventilation but was interpreted by some, metaphorically, as the breath of the Spirit among us.  This was an evocative thought but it made me realise that silence was not an accurate description of what we were doing.  We were not in silence; but we were still.  We were practising stillness.

Stillness is not an easy concept in Methodism.  John Wesley was distrustful of the ‘doctrine of stillness’ or Quietism, which he encountered in the Fetter Lane Society around 1740.   This was the notion put forward by the Moravian preacher, Philip Molther, urging members to wait passively for the gift of faith and to abstain from the means of grace until they had received it.  Wesley rejected this idea believing that the Lord’s Supper and other ‘means’ were converting ordinances and accepting the earlier advice of another Moravian, Peter Böhler, to ‘preach faith till you have it; and then, because you have it, you will preach faith.’  Molther’s view of stillness caused John Wesley to separate from the Fetter Lane Society and, despite some lines in Charles Wesley’s hymns advocating waiting on God, the implicit ecclesiology forming in the 18^th century fresh expression of Church called Methodism was activist.

Methodists are perceived as being activist in social, political, ecumenical and evangelistic spheres.  Our churches are often busy places.  Our ministers are busy people. Our Calling delineates discipleship in activist terms – worship, service, learning and caring, and evangelism.   Even our prayers are activist – we want things to happen.  As a result, stillness does not come naturally to us.  A two-minute silence, in a regular act of worship, is hard for us to hold and most preachers ‘bottle out’ before the time is up.

In Hebrew, there are several words translated into English as ‘silence’ or ‘stillness’.  The two texts that are most often translated as an exhortation ‘to be still’ are Psalm 37.7 and Psalm 46.10.  Two different Hebrew words are used.   In Psalm 37, the word means something like ‘motionlessness’. It is used to describe the sun standing still in Joshua 10.12.  It conjures up the experience of staring at a beautiful scene or gazing at a work of art and losing track of time.

In Psalm 46, the widely quoted phrase ‘be still and know I am God’ uses a different Hebrew word.  This too means being still but it has a slightly different set of connotations.  It carries a sense of being at ease, even being lazy, relaxing or sinking into the reality of God, because all things are safe in God’s hands and God is at our side.  Imagine sitting quietly in the presence of someone you love, with no need to speak, and you get the idea.

Both texts invite us to focus on and wait on God.

The other place where we find ‘stillness’, is 1 Kings 19, the famous passage about Elijah on Mount Horeb.  Following God’s absence from the wind, fire and earthquake, there is something else.  The preferred translation of v10 currently is ‘the sheer sound of silence’.  Previously it was rendered ‘a gentle breeze’, ‘a quiet whisper’ or ‘a still small voice’.  The truth is that the verse is difficult to translate.  The word at the heart of it is a word that speaks of calm after a storm or stillness when all sound is removed.  You might translate it ‘an intense stillness’.  Interestingly, at this moment of stillness God speaks again and Elijah know exactly what he has to do next.  The action becomes clear.

When I taught student ministers in training in Durham alongside Roman Catholics, my Catholic colleagues would recognise and admire our activist spirituality but described their own in terms of ‘contemplatives who take action’.  In other words, those who wait on God are shaped by that contemplation and then, as a response, take action in the world.  Quakers takes a similar approach.  In the spirit of receptive ecumenism, we might have something to learn here.