Theology Everywhere

by Inderjit Bhogal.

This Bible story is illuminating, placed in the context of discussions around food, eating habits, and who is at the table. Matthew and Mark present this as a healing story, but both know it embraces much more.

Jesus is hard pressed, and is caught up in controversy. Some of Jesus’ opponents are subjecting him and his disciples to greater scrutiny (Mark 7:1-9). He sees value in taking some time out for respite (Mark 6:31). With his disciples, he crosses the border into Tyre and Sidon, beside the Mediterranean Sea, to have some quite time.

Jesus’ quest for rest is soon disrupted. A woman breaks into the male circle of Jesus and his disciples. She is a Canaanite, according to Matthew, a fact that evokes a historic and deep-rooted prejudice and enmity, and places her as an outsider, someone different.

Canaanite she might have been, but the woman addresses Jesus with a Jewish Messianic title, “Lord, Son of David”. No name is given for her. She enters the scene “shouting” a plea, “have mercy on me”. Her daughter is seriously ill.

How will Jesus respond? I see four movements in the story as it unfolds, and in them can be discerned at least four different responses to those who are different.

First, we note that Jesus says nothing. This is one response. Stay nothing. Is Jesus reluctant to break his quiet retreat? Was he ignoring the woman? Was he hoping she would just go away? Was he thinking before speaking? Was he waiting to see how his disciples would respond?

Second, the response of the disciples, it appears dismissive. Does it reflect their prejudices and hatred towards Canaanites? Were they just being protective of Jesus? They ask Jesus to dismiss the woman, “send her away…she keeps shouting…” Is this an appropriate response from Jesus’ followers to those who are different? 

Third, Jesus then speaks up. Initially he seems to be dismissive too, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel”. Is this another response, we have enough on our agenda, we can’t take on any more? We have to look after our own first?

At least, Jesus engages in conversation, the woman was not easily dismissed, and insisted, “Lord, help me”.

Fourth, If Jesus’ initial silence suggests he is thinking before he speaks, he responds with words that make his hearers think. He has been challenging people to make sure that the words that come out of their mouths are not dirty and hurtful. Mind your language.

What are we to make of Jesus’ words, “it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs”. His use of the term “dogs” provoked a deeper discussion with the woman. Is he being dismissive and prejudiced? Are his words a degrading racist slur. How were his disciples to deal with this language on the lips of their teacher? They go against all the values of Jesus of love and respect, especially for those who are rejected by others and on the margins of society. Perhaps there is something else going on in this interaction. Some commentators say the word translated “dogs” here is a diminutive of the root Greek word Kuon. In its diminutive form It refers to harmless small house pet dogs as opposed to wild dogs who represent dangerous religious falsehood, which feature in Matthew 7:7, Philippians 3:2 and Revelations 22:15. This comment is meant to soften the language. Does it?

Whatever Jesus’ disciples made of Jesus’ language, the Canaanite woman responds with courage, courtesy and challenge. “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table”. She is familiar with crumbs. She wants to be at the table with Jesus.

She draws words from Jesus that affirm her gender, motherhood, and nationality, and show deep respect. “Woman, great is your faith. Let it be done for you as you wish”. The woman’s daughter is “healed instantly”.

Jesus affirms the woman’s faith in him, and does not dismiss her faith tradition as religious falsehood. Jesus’ concluding words to the Canaanite woman challenge his followers to recognize the gifts of goodness and grace beyond the bubbles and boundaries we live in. 

Respectful conversations with those who are different from us can help us to see how abundant is God’s grace, bring us closer to Christ, and grow our courage and persistence in confronting prejudice, and in refusing to be silent in the pursuit of justice.

by Frances Young.

That heading might occasion some surprise. Surely “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20.35); and, according to Acts, Paul quoted that as a saying of Jesus (though it does not appear in the Gospels). That emphasis on giving is so engrained in our tradition, isn’t it? And yet giving can be terribly patronising – even controlling (cf. Mrs. Pardiggle in Dickens’ Bleak House); and receiving with grace can not only be a sign of deep humility but also a way of giving dignity to the one who offers some gift or service:

Brother, sister, let me serve you,
Let me be as Christ to you;
Pray that I may have the grace
To let you be my servant too.[1]

The second half of the verse is surely as important as the first. How difficult I used to find it to accept help, to trust that another might be able to care for my severely disabled son … We surely need to distinguish between proper receiving, with grace and genuine gratitude, and taking, grasping or grabbing, the expression of selfish desire or self-concerned need or want.

And theologically there is even more to receiving than that – it surely lies at the heart of Christian worship. On one occasion recently my Call to Worship suggested something like that, and afterwards a member of the congregation said he couldn’t disagree more with my opening statement… But surely worship is fundamentally a response to God’s grace and blessing rather than something we DO, a task to be performed. The hymn quoted earlier ends thus:

When we sing to God in heaven
We shall find such harmony,
Born of all we’ve known together
Of Christ’s love and agony.

Receiving lies at the heart of Christian prayer – receiving absolution, receiving grace, receiving the Spirit whereby we may say, “Abba, Father” and become new-born as children of God and heirs with Christ. (Romans 8.15-17)

Receiving lies at the heart of Christian identity – receiving from others by belonging, and also through an ecumenism stretching over time (tradition) as well as in the present (experience).

Receiving lies at the heart of doctrine, receiving the teaching which was early on distilled from scripture and the apostolic witness, embraced in the Creeds and embodied in the life of the Church  (after all, dogma (Greek) and doctrina (Latin) are simply the words for “teaching”)… We don’t make it up ourselves or simply read idiosyncratic beliefs out of scripture. Classic questions in our post-Enlightenment world can easily trip up and cause disquiet by putting the focus in the wrong place. We need an openness to receive, to let ourselves be drawn back to the tradition despite those questions. I shall never forget that moment in the vestry before leading a Carol Service: all those questions about the birth-narratives came welling up – the mistranslation of Isaiah 7.14 as parthenos (= virgin) provoking the development of that scientifically-dubious, quasi-pagan myth of a divine being having sexual intercourse with a human woman. But then – was it a Word of the Lord? – Luke’s picture of the Spirit overshadowing Mary recalled the Spirit hovering over the chaos in the Genesis creation-story. The story is about new creation, new birth, and the truth of new creation in Christ surely overtakes  whatever questions we might have about happened literally or scientifically – it has a superabundance of meaning that explodes our earthly categories …  Get the focus in the right place and it is possible to receive the tradition with intellectual humility …

I guess I’m not the only one who cannot give without receiving … nor the only one to have discovered that thanksgiving for all we have received (even from the things we find most difficult, not to mention the darkest things in our lives), lies at the heart of Christian spirituality – along with the trust that comes from accepting them with grace.

Visiting a synagogue once I was struck by the words on their Notice-sheet for the week: “We hallow God’s name by asking for bread.” The explanation was that the request acknowledges our utter dependence on God. That is the fundamental reason why I would continue to defend the claim that receiving lies at the heart of worship – for in God’s presence we find our self is put into perspective –  we empty ourselves to be filled with the Spirit. To receive is to be blessed, and then we can give …

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[1] Richard A. M. Gillard; Singing the Faith 611.

by Josie Smith.

I have always valued the hymn ‘Now thank we all our God’, and when I was an active preacher I used it frequently as the final hymn in acts of worship. Gratitude is something I feel every day (just for still being alive, for one thing!) but it is only recently that it occurred to me what sickeningly familiar circumstances this hymn arose from.

The author was a pastor in a town on land contested by warring nations.  Refugees from the surrounding countryside, rendered homeless, had moved within the town walls ‘for safety’ as first one army, then the other, gained the upper hand.   Farms were abandoned, crops ruined, food became scarce, prices rose, people were constantly hungry, and overcrowding led to infections spreading throughout the population.   Increasing numbers of people simply had nowhere safe to go.   We have seen it, and agonised over it, in so many parts of the world today.   When will we ever learn?

And then came an infection so horrible that people died from it in huge numbers.   The pastor was kept increasingly occupied conducting the funerals of his parishioners, at first in ones and twos, but later things became so bad that mass funerals had to be held, and mass graves dug. 

His own wife was among those who died.   

It was a long time ago – at the time of what came to be known as the Thirty Years War (1618-1648).     The epidemic which killed large numbers of the population was the Plague, which later spread to our little offshore islands and is a familiar chapter in our own history books.   But the pattern is repeated wherever there is fighting over the possession of land.     As though the land can ever be said to ‘belong’ to anyone except the Creator.

And it was Martin Rinkart who wrote this hymn of gratitude and praise.

Now thank we all our God,
with hearts and hands and voices,
who wondrous things hath done,
in whom His world rejoices;
who from our mothers’ arms
has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love,
And still is ours today.

It is difficult to be aware, as we are via the media, of world events as they happen, and not to feel a sense of despair that we as one human race continue to inflict so much terrible suffering on our fellow human beings.   And yet there are lovely human stories all around us of help and healing and hope in the face of all the inhumanity.   

I am writing this late in the day of Pentecost.     May the flame which ignited the early church spread, to counter the plague of human stupidity.

And may we help to fan the flame by being people of hope.

Now thank we all our God!

by Philip Sudworth.

A long time ago there lived a man who loved flowers and plants.  As he wandered around the countryside, he would plant seeds in barren areas and he would encourage plants by removing the thistles that were choking them, by watering those wilting in the heat and by giving them vital nutrients.  If he thought that a plant was too weak to survive where it was, he would replant it near his house so that he could give it special care.  He was able to see the potential beauty in plants that were nearly dead and people were astonished at how he could transform a sickly specimen into a magnificent bloom.

His work, particularly with the flowers round his house, attracted interest and a few people started to help him on a regular basis and to learn from him how to bring out the best in plants.  He had a simple slogan – “Plants are beautiful!”  He became known as “the plantsman”.

One day he had to leave for a distant country where his father needed him.  He left his assistants to carry on his work and they in turn recruited more helpers. 

All went well for a while, but plant seeds are blown by the wind and bees cross-pollinate flowers.  Several helpers became concerned that some flowers were mutating and producing different colours and shapes, and the new generations of others were growing further from the house.

It was decided to build a high wall round the plants nearest to the house to create a garden, so that the plant strains could be kept pure.  Gardeners were appointed to look after the plants within the garden.  They found it easier to work on a simple rule that any plants outside the garden were weeds. 

The head gardener drew up, using stories and letters about the plantsman, details of what each plant must look like to be accepted as beautiful.  These criteria became known as the beauty rules.  Any plant in the garden that did not conform to these rules had to be dug up and burnt.  The slogan was amended to: ‘Only the beautiful are plants’, because they decided that this is what the plantsman had really meant to say.

Gardeners still went out into the countryside to search for plants that had the potential to fit into the garden.  Some were very diligent in this.  If they found any that met the beauty rules, they would try their best to transplant them into the garden, though some of these wilted in the new surroundings.

By now there was no-one left who’d met the plantsman in the flesh.  They eagerly listened to stories about him or read reports of what he had said.  One popular story was that the plantsman’s last words had been that he would be back and they fully expected him to return sometime soon. The gardeners were convinced that with their help he would apply the beauty rules across the world, root out all the weeds and turn the world into one big garden of beautiful plants that met all the criteria.

One day the plantsman did return but his appearance had changed a great deal over the years and no-one recognized him in modern clothes.  Most gardeners were too busy maintaining the garden to take much account of the quiet figure.  He was very sad to see the high wall and the new division between garden plants and weeds that he saw as wild flowers, because he still loved all plants and could see the beauty in all of them. 

He watched what the gardeners were doing and occasionally asked them questions.  Many laughed at the old fellow who couldn’t understand the beauty rules, but some were greatly encouraged by his interest and a few felt strangely challenged by his concern for wildflowers.  Most of the time, however, he spent back at his old task of nurturing and rescuing the plants in the countryside.  Occasionally, he came into the garden unseen and added nutrients to certain plants.  Both in the garden and in the countryside you could see where he had been, because the plants there bloomed at their very best and gave joy to all who saw them.

• Who or what do you identify with in the story?  How does that relate to the church today?

• How do we relate to those people that our society, our church or even ourselves dismiss as weeds, as worthless or outside the scope of salvation.

by Tom Stuckey.

In 2006, as President of the Conference, I stated that we were ‘On the Edge of Pentecost’. Was this a prophetic vision or simply a catchy strap line? Given the traumatic events which have shaken the world since then together with the precarious state of Institutional Christianity in Britain, the idea of an imminent Pentecost for Methodism in Britain seems far-fetched, though the apocalyptic context of Joel (Acts 2.17-21) remains pertinent. I suggest the metaphor now is ‘HOLY SATURDAY’.

Holy Saturday is the waiting time between Good Friday and Easter Day. Contemporary Methodists are like those bewildered disciples who waited in the liminal time gap between crucifixion and resurrection. Holy Saturday is the Christological equivalent of Israel’s desert experience.

Belden Lane – who describes himself as ‘burnt out on shallow religion’– labels Mark’s Gospel as a ‘Desert Gospel’.[1]His temptation narrative is sandwiched between our Lord’s baptism and the start of his public ministry in Galilee. The wilderness provides the link between God’s announcement of Christ’s identity and our Lord’s declaration of his vision. It is the ‘how’ between the ‘who’ and the ‘what’.

The same dynamic is played out in Mark’s truncated resurrection narrative (16.1-8) where both the reader and the women are left hanging on a promise without any resurrection appearance. The disciples have to go back to Galilee, where it all started, in order to have the resurrection validated. Mark’s chapter 16 can be viewed as a commentary on Holy Saturday. Living in the context of Holy Saturday requires us to be brutally honest with where we are and to speak the unspeakable. Holy Saturday encourages us to ‘lament’, properly reclaim our past and receive God’s vision for our future. I understand the word ‘vision’ to be a prophetic gift which awaits its proper time (Hab.2.3).  It has little to do with our modern get-togethers on a Saturday morning for a ‘Vision Day’.

At the end of each Conference we sing: “By Thine unerring Spirit led, we shall not in the desert stray; We shall not full direction need, nor miss our providential way.”   There is irony here because I believe the Holy Spirit is driving us back into the desert so that we can re-discover our providential way.

There were 136,891 members of the Methodist Church in 2022.  When I began training for the Ministry in 1965 the membership figure was 701,306. I am concerned but not worried about our falling numbers or ageing congregations. My theology recognises that the tides of the Spirit ebb and flow. If churches are to be genuine signs of the Kingdom of God then they will reflect strength and weakness, hiddenness and visibility, numerical increase and decrease, vulnerability and power. They are indicators of God’s redemptive purposes in judgement and renewal, death and resurrection. I have written elsewhere that we must rejoice in being small. I think that Methodist Connexionalism is no longer fit for purpose. Our future lies in decentralization and dispersion as we work for justice and seek secular partners.[2] Although we strive to be a ‘justice seeking church’, this should not be the overriding message.  Our primary theme should be ‘grace’. Sadly we hear so little about it today. As someone reminded me recently ‘the heart of the gospel is not that we get what we deserve (justice) but that we can receive what we never deserve (grace). The only claim we have is our need’.

So what next?  Like most mainstream churches in Britain, Methodism will continue to decline numerically. I suspect we will soldier-on with our gruelling ‘cut and paste strategy’ in the circuits and districts. This will probably precipitate further collapse in many more areas though some significant churches may remain. Over and against this I see the appearance of small clusters of local Christians who, regardless of the grinding mechanisms of their parent Churches, will be thrown together. In waiting prayerfully upon God they will weep and lament but their sorrow will be turned into joy. The Kingdom of God belongs to the poor in spirit and comfort is found by those who mourn. As we relive the Holy Saturday experience, God’s unerring Spirit will again move among us and usher in something entirely new.

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[1] Belden Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes, OUP 1998

[2] Tom Stuckey, Covid-19: God’s Wake-Up Call?, Amazon 2021

by Jan Berry and Tim Baker.

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

This is the fifth of the series, which is a report on a group process and an invitation to join in – which we hope inspires the imagination and creativity of Theology Everywhere readers.

As an opening exercise participants were asked to write down five words which had stood out for them during the Spectrum conference, and each person was asked to share one of their words and listed them on a flipchart.

The resulting list was:

withness
sharing
partnership
image
honest
re-awakening
here
patience
unfettered
authentic
community
justice
questioning
space
engaging
reflection
refraction
situated
home
feeling
listening
together
kidneys

We then asked everyone to write a line, phrase or sentence using one or more of these words.

We wrote up some examples:

‘Here is our gathering
authentic community’
‘We were welcomed to share in the passion and inclusive theology of worship that was interesting, engaging and fun’
‘I reflect upon the honesty of engaging with the image of kidney as an authentic metaphor!’
‘With grace we awaken our memory so we embody your justice’

Participants were then given the rest of the session to write their own material for worship, whether hymns, prayers or reflections. Some of these were shared in the final session the following day; here are some of the contributions:

God of WITHNESS — this is our space as well as Yours
Such places are all too rare
Here honest questioning
finds breath
unfettered by the boundaries
of niceness
or need to skirt around
con-tro-ver-sy
Here in this place
passionate pleas for justice find their voice
Crafted by worthy wordsmiths
whilst wizards reveal their images that seal the deal
And gifted kidneys
are hymned in laughter and refractive praise
For here in this blessed community
we engage in talk of God
in-com-pre-hen-si-bly made
you and me
so girls in far off lands may
cycle home for tea
( Rob Hufton)

Here in our gathering,
authentic community,
a home for our heart,
a space for our life;
here in our sharing,
our questioning, our searching
we walk in your light
travel in your truth;
Here in our trusting in you
and each other,
we grow and we flourish
to bring forth good fruit
of justice and care,
compassion and nurture,
to reach out to all
and live in your love. 
(Tony Buglass)

Lord I have questions
large and deep,                                                                  I find it hard my faith to
keep                                                                                        No answers come
when prayers are made                                                                                                      In darkness
black
when all hopes fade
Yet still small voice fair nags inside,                                                     Faith and
trust, though small, abide,                                         Awaken hope and love to
cheer,
Our God unknown is with us HERE.             (Richard Firth)

Readers are invited to do a similar creative writing exercise to share. It could be a hymn, a prayer, a poem, or a piece of prose for use in worship.

by Will Fletcher.

I have a love/hate relationship with tidying up. I hate not being able to find anything for those few weeks afterwards when everything that had been out and handy, is now put away in its supposedly rightful place! However, I love those things I discover that I had forgotten I had!

I recently discovered a forgotten bag of magazines stashed behind an armchair that someone gave me. All the magazines were from a series called Methodist and the publication went out of print in the summer of 1969 to give you an idea of how old they were. I’ll let you decide whether that feels quite recent or not!

It has been interesting having a read through some of them to see what was being discussed in Methodism 50+ years ago. It has sometimes been sad to see the topics talked about then, that don’t feel like they’ve progressed much since. One of them was the whole subject of Church unity.

In one of the 1969 editions there were some reflections on Church unity, which had real hope that it might be over the horizon. Sadly, this has not been the case. In one of the articles the author reflected on some of the prayers that were part of that year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Part of the prayer (a challenge for those of us praying it now as much as then) said:

Keep us, O Lord, from growing accustomed to our divisions:

Save us from considering as normal that which is a scandal to the world and an offence against thy love.

The first thing to say is that there are structural conversations around unity with various denominations, and I’m not really going to address those, as they often feel beyond most of us. However, the work for unity is something which anyone can engage in, in their local context. In my experience I have found that tea, cake, and a chinwag is a good place to begin.

So often it seems as though we approach Church unity from a purely pragmatic position. We seek to work together because we can do more than we could do apart. With churches of many denominations finding it hard to fill the necessary roles, it can be tempting to think that joining together might ease some of those burdens. There is some truth to this.

However, I wonder whether part of the reason that ecumenism can feel so hard, or even something that we can’t be bothered with, is because of just such a feeling. If we seek to enter into these relationships only in order to make our lives a little easier, or for some other benefit, it is easy to break off from them when it feels like it takes too much effort, of the benefits don’t appear forthcoming. Would these relationships and our commitment to them feel any different if we entered into them from a position of love and following the desire of God?

I also recognise that being the Church today is quite a challenge, and seeking after unity feels an extra that we don’t often have time or energy for. However, it feels somewhat disingenuous to preach a Gospel of reconciliation that can overcome any chasm with one breath, whilst in the next saying that seeking after Church unity is impossible or not even desirable.  

As I write this, I acknowledge that making such a desire into a reality isn’t fully within our power. Any relationship of two or more parties has to be mutual and depend on prayer and the input of the Holy Spirit. There have been disappointments of the past and present, that were not, and are not, of our making. I’ve had my share of being shunned or ignored by some clergy because of our position on certain issues, or our church doesn’t seem as glamorous or exciting as others – in fact one such email came in as I was writing this article! So this isn’t written completely with naïvety or blind optimism – just enough in order to keep hoping!

As I close, some questions to ponder:

• What have been the qualities of good ecumenical relationships that you have been part of?
• How has it felt when there has been a negative ecumenical relationship?
• Have we grown accustomed to our divisions? If so, what needs to change in our mindset and practice?
• What could you do where you are to make an inroad, however small?

by Frances Young.

Around eighteen months ago we retired from Birmingham and settled in Sheffield – our 2022 Christmas letter gave notice of our new address. Believe it or not, a contact in the Mid-West of America, prompted doubtless by Wikipedia, responded with the information that there is a Neolithic stone carving in the Eccleshall Woods close by us. For me the woods were already a regular retreat for exercise and reflection, and the search began. Discovery was by no means immediate. Our son eventually found a hint as to its whereabouts and walking “off-piste” in that area I probably passed it at least once without finding it! Then, one day, descending the slope rather than ascending, I almost tripped over a flat rock protruding out of the leaf mould, looked down and there on its top were carved shapes, predominantly spherical – there it was, stylistically similar to carvings we had once seen at Carnac in Brittany, where there are avenues of standing stones and other prehistoric monuments.

Since the discovery I have often included it in my walks, either alone or showing it off to interested visitors. I’ve contemplated it while listening to the amazing variations of a song thrush in spring. I’ve walked to it under the perpendicular fan vaulting of the leafless trees in winter – a natural cathedral. And I have reflected on deep time – the thousands of years that humankind has contemplated the mysteries of which we are a part, responding with art and music, fear and celebration, wondering at beauty and otherness, acknowledging smallness, transience and vulnerability, seeking meaning and truth.

In the perspective of deep time such essentially religious responses to life and its environment are seemingly natural, and in the perspective of multiple historical cultures they are seemingly universal. Yet modernity has produced the first post-religious society, as more than one generation has reacted against the faith of their forebears and deprived the next generation of serious engagement with it. Secularised the world has lost its enchantment. Yet maybe there’s something instinctive in the use of symbols in a search for meaning, something now suppressed by the illusion that truth is mere facticity while metaphor and myth are but the false product of mere imagination?

On a previous occasion I wrote about consciousness and the remarkable work of Iain McGilchrist offering my summary of his work as a neuroscientist with detailed references. His basic thesis is that our culture is dominated by left-brain analytical reasoning and has lost the wisdom that comes from the right-brain’s wholistic response to experience, its capacity to deal with mystery and symbol rather than reduce everything to what is quantifiable, logical and manipulable – indeed, under our control. Wonder, mystery and humility he reckons we need to reclaim: “…while fully acknowledging the problematic nature of the word God, I feel our repudiation of God is not a wise move,” he writes. He affirms metaphor and myth, over against mechanistic reductionism, for “deep truths about reality are likely to appear initially paradoxical” – he cites the way science has uncovered interdependent processes – “flow” rather than “things”. “Mystery does not mean muddled thinking,” he writes; “on the other hand, thinking you could be clear about something which in its nature is essentially mysterious is muddled thinking. Nor does mystery betoken a lack of meaning – rather a superabundance of meaning in relation to our normal finite vision.” He challenges fundamentalisms whether in science or religion – propositions and rationalisation in terms of left-brain analysis may be useful, but such conceptuality needs to be taken up again into the right-brain’s experiential response to the whole. McGilchrist takes on the “New Atheists”, suggesting that other ages and cultures had a wisdom we have simply lost.

Our culture is being challenged from various directions – its exploitation of nature, its casual despoliation and toxic disregard for natural ecologies, its consumerism and constant economic growth, all factors contributing to mass extinctions and climate change… Humankind has over-reached itself – been too clever by half … I guess post-Covid there is more talk of our connectedness to the natural world… but ???

An awareness of deep time – maybe the religious instinct is not quite dead yet … though I guess institutional religion remains problematic for many – there’s a general bias against institutions in our individualistic culture. But might the resurgence of Orthodoxy in the post-communist, once atheistic, societies of Eastern Europe be a sign of religion’s ultimate resilience?

by Anne Ostrowicz.

In January of this year, I travelled to India to take part in the first conference of the newly formed International Education Today Society Tomorrow. The five-day conference was entitled, A Values-Driven Education in a Power-Driven World.

India ETST has been at work for three decades, founded by several highly successful Indian businessmen, disillusioned with the increasing focus of their employees on personal benefit.  Educator delegates to the conference came from all over India but also from countries like Syria, Lebanon and Indonesia.

There is much discussion and writing in education at present in the UK on values and character-building, and I was particularly interested in which values and virtues would be prioritised at the India conference, and also in the practical question of how these values were being promoted in schools.

To my joy key values presented included: honesty, compassion, justice, forgiveness, collaboration, respect (across sex, sexuality, gender, religion, social class, species), love, and peace towards all nature. Educators are challenged to model these behaviours to their students, flowing from regular self-reflection. We experienced guided self-reflections at the start of each day. Workshops delivered practical and inspirational ways of promoting these values in schools and classrooms:

‘The Gandhi Project’ promotes the value of forgiveness and has been taken to numerous countries including to China. (Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi’s grandson and biographer, delivered the conference’s opening address.)  Reference is made to a tribe in Africa who encircle the offending person and then ‘flood’ them with memories of their many good past actions towards their community.

Another series of inspirational lessons focused on a ‘Charter for Compassion’. We met the children who had been part of a project which facilitated the crossing of social class barriers between an affluent city school and a poorer school in the countryside.

I was invited to be on a panel sharing how to promote compassion and inclusivity in a world containing so much violence and extremism. Pertinently, for the very first time a large group of educators from Kashmir had joined the conference, and shared with us the challenges of their difficult political situation.

As a teacher of both Religion and Philosophy I was also interested in the basis upon which the prioritised values of the conference would be proposed. The answer was essentially our shared humanity and what we can see, via experience, brings flourishing to us all. As a foundation this tears down every wall we have created between ourselves as humans; values the insights of science; and is a thread woven into many religions and philosophies (eg. in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas).

Of course, the dangers of not teaching grounding for values includes society simply promoting whatever the majority, or government, propose. Two Lebanese women educators presented citizenship lessons where a good citizen is seen to be not simply ‘participatory’ but ‘justice-oriented’, hence having responsibility to critique societal values including attitudes to women’s rights.

On the final day of the conference I was invited to participate in an inter-faith act of prayer, a fitting and moving conclusion to the week.

This summer I retire after almost four decades of teaching Religious Education. My own approach to teaching the subject has grown in ways I could not have envisaged as a twenty-three year old setting out. Values of inter-faith sharing and of diversity generally, have grown exponentially in recent years, expressed just this last term in my own school in Birmingham in events which included an iftar created by our Islamic Society; a Scriptural Reasoning event where we discussed scriptures from five religions on our relationship to nature; and a garba (dance) celebration created by our Hindu Forum. RE lessons continue to be very popular in many schools in the UK, as are school societies which promote discussions around religion, philosophy and ethics. Whether from religious, agnostic or atheist homes, UK teenagers generally enjoy sharing and discussing with one another, considering the reasons for their views, open to change when they hear persuasive argument and evidence, the most powerful of which is life example.

Today’s teenagers face moral and intellectual challenges which call for each of us in our own unique way to give time to bolster this precious and valiant generation who will be tomorrow’s society. What unfailingly encourages and moves me is the way young people are drawn to the beauty of truth and specifically to those values listed earlier: a most hope-full capacity of our shared humanity.

by Karen Turner.

She walked away from faith in her teenage years, a doctoral student told me recently, but she still remembers a Methodist junior church leader who, at Easter each year, gave her a Mars bar saying that the letters stood for ‘Meet A Risen Saviour’. This wasn’t a quaint memory but carried real meaning for her. 

When my own children were of an age to be running around wildly after church services, I felt that the generous supply of biscuits at coffee time said something significant to them about their place in the community.  I didn’t mind that it might ruin their lunch.  What mattered was the encounter.

In both cases, it wasn’t the treat itself, but the interaction that it signified; one that I am increasingly thinking of as ‘translation’.  How can we speak to one another about things that are holy when there is such a large gulf between us?  With differing ages, experiences, identities; ministry involves translation even if we are seemingly speaking the same language.

If you haven’t yet read R F Kuang’s novel, Babel, there are many reasons to pick up a copy.  Kuang creates a world where all sorts of things are powered by a ‘magic’ that comes from translation.  In this fantasy world (which isn’t too different from our own) there is almost a magnetic power that comes from matching pairs of words from different languages with similar, though not exactly the same, meanings.  The gap between them, or the slight contradiction, is where the magic happens.  Without this, the world literally collapses.

The book has made me imagine the unheard hum of energy in every human interaction as well as the mystical daily encounters that I have with people as a chaplain. Those who listen well are involved in the act of translation; so are those who are able to speak in ways that can be understood. What if ministering was imagined as translating, and actually, just being a willing participant was the most important part?

Towards the end of Babel, the main character, Robin, remembers his friend saying: 

“That’s just what translation is, I think. That’s all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they’re trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.”^[1]

Someone I know who has worked in the publishing world says that the best literary translators talk about almost ‘inhabiting’ the writer that they are translating. Translating is both science and art and maybe magic, too (and currently not done very well by AI).

In Acts 2.14-21 when Peter willingly ‘steps up to the mic’ to explain the noisy co-speaking and how it is that this mystical translation seems to be unconsciously happening, his quotation of Joel contains some contradictions.  This manifestation of the Spirit is completely inclusive, all genders, all ages, all positions in society.  All people.  Yet it is also particular. Only those who call upon the name of the Lord will experience God’s rescuing action. Both inclusive and particular. Holding these statements together is where the power is in all the noise.

Most days I use Northumbria Community morning prayer and the haunting challenges of the canticle stay with me, perhaps because this ‘translation’ of discipleship is so curiously contradictory: ‘This day be within and without me, lowly and meek and yet all-powerful’.^[2]  I often feel that if I could just genuinely inhabit that prayer my work for the day would be done.

Representing one institution to another is not ‘translation’ because human beings are required for the love that holds near-meaning together.  No manner of programming, or on-point messaging can hold this tension together.  Only people can.  Only we can, and frankly this is a bit beyond what an institution can control.  It pushes us into the realm of the Spirit. 

When we look back at our lives, many of us might name moments when a person ‘translated’ God’s love to us.  These things are really hard to describe because they likely come from the provocative encounters, interruptions, and unhurried spiritual conversation that are part of shared life in a community (and, ideally, university chaplaincies).^[3]  They come from difference held together by love.

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^[1] R. F. Kuang, Babel or The Necessity of Violence, London: HarperCollins, 2022. p. 537.

^[2] The Northumbria Community Trust, Celtic Morning Prayer, London: HarperCollins, 2015, p. 18.

^[3] Lucy Peacock, Mathew Guest, Kristin Aune, Alyssa N. Rockenbach, B Ashley Staples and Matthew J. Mayhew (2023) Building Student Relationships Across Religion and Worldview Difference, Coventry University, Durham University, North Carolina State University and The Ohio State University.