Theology Everywhere

by Catrin Harland-Davies and Afon Harland.

Catrin:

In May 1997, aged 19 and having just voted for the first time in a general election, I stayed up all night to watch the nation become a different place. I had only ever really known one party in government, and suddenly new things felt possible. It wasn’t just about my own political preferences (although I will admit that it played well to them), but also the idea of change, of new ideas, of fresh energy and enthusiasm. I was on the cusp of my adult life, coming of age into a whole new era.

This week, July 2024, I sat up all night with my 18-year-old to watch the country change once again. I had nearly three decades of adult cynicism under my belt, and (although it once again played to my party political preferences) was well aware of the realpolitik which means that compromises and pragmatism are needed to win an election. And I was deeply upset at some of the narrative of hostility and hatred which surfaced at many points during campaigns in many constituencies. But still, I couldn’t resist the thrill of watching a nation change leaders and change direction.

But I wondered what my 18-year-old, also voting for the first time in a sea-change election, made of it…?

Afon:

Undeniably, the chance to participate in an election that brought about a fundamental change of government was exciting. The chance to alter the direction of the country from the only path I can remember kept me engaged in all the debate for the long six weeks (although I must admit, as a politics student I am easily excited by the debate and choices that come with an election campaign).

In contrast, I am that fresh-faced 18-year-old filled with idealism. As a politics student, I am firmly rooted in my ideas and the reasoning behind them and so it can be hard to accept that everybody else doesn’t have the exact same views. I struggled a bit between wanting to support a party that matched my ideals, and wanting to see actual change in the country. I joined, campaigned for and voted for a party that I had some problems with, but which stood a chance of being in government and making a difference. But I still feel a bit, I guess, disappointed that it falls short of what I’d like to see.

Catrin:

Perhaps it’s too easy to see any government through the lens of disappointment – the failures, the decisions with which we disagree, the decline into in-fighting, the heavy defeat at the polls. Some combination of those things always happens. And the positives often seem so fragile. There may be improvements in the economy, but some people will still live in poverty. We may work for peace, but the world still always seems full of wars. We may see greater equality, but we also hear voices of hatred and fear. But perhaps that’s always what the Kingdom of Heaven is like? Jesus talks about some single moments of transformation, like finding treasure or the world’s most improbably valuable pearl. But most of his ‘kingdom’ stories are about seeds, coins, sheep – ordinary things, which might seem a bit insignificant.

And when I think back to 1997 (or any term of government, probably), I can see glimpses of hope, some of which grew into tangible differences in people’s lives. There were things I noticed at the time, and other things that happened so gradually that I hardly noticed, and took them for granted. There are always things that leave me feeling betrayed. But there are also things that feel, when I look back on them, like glimpses of kingdom values. Of course, many others will see individual policies and actions more or less positively than I do. The mechanics of how kingdom values are brought about (and sometimes what those values look like in practice) are very much debated.

But I wonder if there’s a deeper question here, about how far we should rely on our elected politicians to bring about change for the better. Isn’t that our responsibility? Is the problem that we often look to elected politicians – especially when they promise much and suit our own political outlook – to be some kind of messiah or saviour? I wonder if we fall into idolatry, placing our political leaders on a pedestal, rather than seeing ourselves as partners with them in the work of seeking God’s Kingdom?

Afon:

I think that’s right. I recognise that the country as a whole isn’t necessarily going to vote for what I want, and that leaders of parties have to be pragmatic and compromise. I think it’s hard to accept change, even when we want it, if it doesn’t come in the shape that we want. But if you look at the ways in which the Kingdom of Heaven is portrayed in the Gospels, it’s not just  surprisingly small, but also not quite what lots of people expected it to be? I’m not suggesting that the new (or any) government is the same as the Kingdom of Heaven!! And I’m certainly not wanting to call any politician ‘Messiah’. But there’s also a danger of thinking we know what the Kingdom will look like, and how it will come about. After all, I’m not the Messiah either!

Catrin:

<Resists making a Life of Brian reference…>

by Graham Edwards.

A few weeks ago, on the Spring Bank Holiday, I was at Cliff College for the festival. As I wandered about the site, I could not help but remember the days when I was an undergraduate student there over twenty years ago. I remembered people, and events; I remembered that the college doors were locked every weeknight at 10:30pm and the creativity needed to get in if you ended up locked out; I remembered the challenge of morning prayers at 7.45am! A rush of nostalgia filled me. “Ah,” I thought “the good old days…”  Nostalgia is an easy thing to fall into, and sometimes it is a nice, comfortable thing as we reminisce with friends and family. Sometimes of course, nostalgia can move us to say “it was better in the old days” or some variation of that. In the life of the church I sometimes hear things such as “it used to be so full in here you had to stand for a service”, “in my day the minster visited every member once a week before dinner on a Monday”, “we used to have a hundred children in our Sunday School” and so on. Nostalgia is, perhaps, natural, but I wonder what it might do as we share life of the church.

Firstly, I think nostalgia can help us preserve the heart of our communities. The memories that we have and share, hold a meaning-making power in the community of the church. Clay Routledge, Tim Wildschut, Constantine Sedikides, Jacob Juhl and Jamie Arndt (2012) point out that nostalgia has four psychological functions:  it generates positive affect; enhances self-esteem; “serves as a repository for social connectedness” (p. 453) and fosters understanding of positive experiences. As we tell stories of church experiences, we remind ourselves to look beyond our current experience, the stories enable us to recognise that our history connects us to something ‘larger than [our]selves’: and when we are trying to make sense of our present challenges, we are reminded that our belonging is rooted in that larger context (Sakaranaho, 2011, p. 153). Nostalgia and memory does not, as Hervieu-Léger (2000) argues, simply transmit religion and faith from one generation to the next; it is how we continue to build community. Rooted in ‘our experience,’ and the memory of ‘us,’ our memories enlighten the present, we tell the stories because they remind us who we are and what we are about, so that we might make sense of the present.

Secondly, nostalgia can become a form of lament. Sometimes we want to acknowledge what we feel we have lost, the things that have changed, and the things that we wish we could recapture. Lamenting the changes in our experience of church might frustrate some, but it can be important. John Swinton (2007) argues that the church needs to reclaim the process of lamentation. He understands lament as providing a language through which pain and anguish can be brought to God, and therefore he says it becomes an act of faith. He writes ‘lament spurs movement towards God at a time when our natural instinct is to move away’ (p. 114). It would be wrong therefore, I think, to claim that directing anger or frustration toward God in a time of suffering, sadness, or challenge is inappropriate, rather it may be considered an act of true faith, seeking to bring those emotions before God. The telling of stories, the shared nostalgia may sometimes be a way in which we hold our experience before God and seek a response.

There is, of course, another place where we tell stories and sometimes engage in nostalgia – a funeral. We tell the story of the deceased as we grieve and offer thanks for their life, and to remind ourselves of those things we loved and found challenging about them, as we gather to celebrate the promise of new life.

Perhaps, then we should enjoy some nostalgia, enjoy telling our stories, not simply to wallow in the past and “how good it used to be.” Rather, we remind ourselves who we are and what we are all about, to lament the things we have lost, as we gather in the community of the church with God’s promise of new life.

Hervieu-Léger, D. (2000). Religion as a Chain of Memory. Polity Press.
Routledge, C., Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Juhl, J., & Arndt, J. (2012). The Power of the Past: Nostalgia as a Meaning-Making Resource. Memory, 20(5), 452 – 460.
Sakaranaho, T. (2011). Religion and the Study of Social. Temenos, 47(2), 135-158.
Swinton, J. (2007). Raging with Compassion. Eerdmans.

by Ben Pugh.^[1]

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Some parts of this post have been adapted from my “A Second Conversion? Reflections on a Recent Experience,” Methodist Recorder (10 May 2024).

As a Pentecostal, with a specialism in Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies, I have long been familiar with the importance of experience, but my 12 years of working within the Wesleyan environment of Cliff College has further confirmed its importance to me. As all Methodists know, it makes up the fourth and vital element in the famous Wesleyan Quadrilateral.

Four years ago, after coming to the end of a three-book project examining the atonement I had emerged with a very strong participation-in-Christ theme, and I knew this needed exploring as I contemplated what to follow the atonement project with. I picked up the threads of a long fascination I already had with Paul’s concept of being ‘in Christ’ and published a popular book: One With Christ: 40 Biblical Meditations on Paul’s “In Christ” Idea. However, I wrote all that without as yet experiencing any of the ideas I was talking about. I was becoming conceptually clearer and clearer about something that experientially almost wholly eluded me. This pattern continued as I then became engrossed in the Eastern Orthodox doctrines of recapitulation and theosis. I also soon rediscovered the writings of the nineteenth century Higher Life movement, as well as Wesley himself. By the beginning of this year, I was focusing my attention on the theme of abiding in Christ in John’s Gospel, helped in my devotions by Andrew Murray’s classic Abide in Christ. In February I prepared a sermon on the Vine and Branches passage of John 15. Then, quite suddenly, something happened. On the morning of 2 March, the day before I was due to preach it, I had just returned home from a routine car trip dropping my 16-year-old daughter off at the café where she works on Saturdays. I sat down to write this in my journal:

He has always been there, of course, but now I know he’s always there: I always in him and he always in me. It’s like the release of dying and going to heaven, except I’m still here. I sat in the car for some time once I arrived back home, soaking up how good this was. It was like a safe haven I’ve been trying to reach all my life and now finally I’m here and I can know for sure that everything is always going to be alright because I will always be in him and he in me.

This experience turned out to be a lot more than just a passing moment of illumination. That evening, I found myself saying to my wife, ‘I feel like I’ve been born again, again.’ There was nothing special about that morning’s 5-minute trip out in the car – and definitely nothing special about the car – but something in me had changed.

I carried on feeling noticeably different. It was as though Christ had just moved deeper into my life. I had been taking medication for high blood pressure, but my blood pressure plummeted instantly. I was filled with peace, joy and a social confidence that was unusual for me. All forms of anxiety or stress were either gone altogether or very much reduced. I had been a devout Christian for 34 years, but this was like the ‘second conversion’ that William Boardman described. My experience also had some resonances with the experiences described in Wesley’s A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, which I then read with renewed interest. But the main way I would describe the experience is that I became happy. In the months that have elapsed, the great waves of emotion have settled down somewhat, but there is still a steady, unshakable happiness, like the ancient Epicurean aim of ataraxia or, imperturbableness.

I hesitate to define the experience as sanctification. In fact, there are some days when I am just as amazed by how little I’ve changed as I am on other days by how much I’ve changed. In fact, I have wondered whether the big mistake was that so many holiness teachers defined this deeper experience as ‘entire sanctification.’ The terminology was unpopular, of course, because it could generate either disappointment or dishonesty when it was found that the experience did not, after all, eventuate in perfection. Modern bloggers in the US who still object to such ideas object more on the basis that claiming such experiences can create two classes of Christian: the haves and the have-nots, the holy and the not-so-holy.  

I find Boardman’s description hard to beat. He called it a ‘deeper work of grace, a fuller apprehension of Christ, a more complete and abiding union with him than at the first.’^[2] I think this is potentially very good news in a world so lacking in real peace and joy, and I hope to find ways of bringing it. Maybe the mistake of our forebears was to view these ‘second’ blessings and deeper works as something reserved for those who are already Christians. Maybe this ‘more complete and abiding union’ is meant to be that complete and abiding from the very start.

However, my main point in writing this is just to confirm again for us all something that I trust we all agree on: the vital importance of experience in our ongoing task of thinking theologically.

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[1] Some parts of this post have been adapted from my “A Second Conversion? Reflections on a Recent Experience,” Methodist Recorder (10 May 2024).

[2] William Boardman, The Higher Christian Life (New York: Appleton, 1859), 48.

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?