Preparing for War

This year we mark the 100^th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War. It is a time when we should be encouraged to remember, to reflect, to study and to debate. By coincidence this centenary moment is likely going to coincide with a pullout of American and British troops from Afghanistan. It is already a couple of years since our British soldiers left Iraq. Perhaps the heightened present of the military in our culture is about to diminish. Time will tell.

So how best can we use this coming time, when images of war, both historically and present-day, will seem further away from our everyday experience? Emotions might become less heightened, debates less controversial.

I would like to propose that it is precisely during these moments of quiet that we are called to re-begin to think about war, spiritually, biblically and theologically. History tells us that war will return. In the moment of crisis there is never enough time to decipher fact from fiction. There is never enough time to go through a long process of spiritual discernment about rights and wrongs. These moments of crisis come as if from nowhere and call us to action, the question is not whether or not we will respond, the question is how we will respond. Doing nothing is always a decision to side with the most powerful.

When the moment of conflict looms (and be sure it will loom again) the nature of our response will be determined by the work we have done during the lull. It is in these moments of quiet, in the space we’ve been given to dig deeper foundations, that we will prepare ourselves to find a way through the confusing fog of war fever.

In 2001 There were 25 short days of calm between the 9/11 attacks and the beginning of the war in Afghanistan. Suddenly the whole world was asked to declare its allegiance; the Church was no exception to this call for polarisation. Christian people across the world were forced to reflect very quickly on ‘what would Jesus do?’ Some chose to actively support the American military, others spoke up for peace, most failed to react at all stunned into inaction.

Given only 25 days most of the Church failed to respond, not because they were not moved by the events unfolding on their screens, rather because they were unprepared, Few had thought deeply about how Jesus might respond to the realities of modern warfare and religious extremism. And so we were paralyzed, the churches either took the road of least resistance backing the home side (so to speak) or we retreated from the public conversation to concern ourselves with raising money for our roofs or to organise another social event.

There are still a lot of people who are justly angry at the way our world is organised; history tells us that it is not difficult for promoters of violence to harness this anger. So we are called to do all we can to work for justice, we are called to do all we can to live much more simply, and to be ready to respond when the next moment of imminent crisis suddenly darkens our horizon.

A longer and more details version of this article can be found http://bit.ly/1rKSyoO

This post has also been published on the Put Down The Sword Blog

Austerity

Bringing the Cuts Home - video

Jesus is a super hero?

An article written by me, recently published in the Carrs Lane church magazine.....

A few weeks ago, during Sunday morning worship at Carrs Lane we sang a new hymn. It was an action song, as we sang about Jesus having the characteristics of various super-heroes we were encouraged to display the appropriate action for that super-hero. As a song it was perhaps simply a bit of fun.

And yet it got me thinking. There is a strong tendency within present-day Christianity to look upon God as if he were a superhero. Much of our prayer is formulated around our belief that an all-powerful God is present to us and is able to grant our requests. We often imagine God in the position of a benevolent king or of a just ruler. We imagine a God who is set apart from our reality, looking down on us from above. This God, like a super-hero, is able to fly in to help us, or to grant us super-natural favours.

If we believe in this image of God, then this belief will inevitably be reflected in our worship and in our practise. We will develop forms of worship which are about offering business deals to God; we will attempt to exchange worship and praise for help and assistance. If we believe in a super-hero God then this will be lived out in our models of leadership; we have pushed God away from our reality into a faraway heaven, and so we will push our leaders away, onto an elevated pedestal, we will emphasise their superiority, their difference from ourselves, their set-apart-ness. In the act of pushing both God and our leaders onto a pedestal we infantilise ourselves, pushing away our own importance and agency.

When I look at the British Church of 2014 I see this ‘Jesus is a super-hero’ theology all around. Such theology has the potential to be very dangerous. How can such a theology deal with human failure? Or with human pain? How can we understand an all-powerful God who chooses not to heal our friend’s illness? Who chooses not to prevent deadly earthquakes and typhoons? This image of God can draw us towards an unhealthy relationship, God is our master and we are slave, this super-hero God is someone we must obey, not a person we can get to know.

At the beginning of the bible we meet a very primitive understanding of God who gives us the impression that he is a super-hero. Then gradually, as we read on, the bible takes us on a long journey of incarnation. The all-powerful image is slowly unmasked, humanity comes to see that God is weaker and more vulnerable than we could have imagined. This God is not a shouter but a whisperer. God is not sat on a heavenly throne directing Kings and Generals, no; he is whispering love into the souls of the excluded, the hungry and the exploited. In the Gospels we meet a God who is not a super-hero, he is human, just like us; he is exposed to the same weakness, temptation and fragility as are we. This God approaches us from below, offering to wash our feet, inviting us into a relationship of love and friendship, not servility and domination. Each of us is invited into friendship, we are invited to follow.

A Church which worships the ‘super-hero’ God will always remain at a distance from those it is called to serve. It will give to others only out of its surplus. Just as the ‘super-hero’ God lives in heavenly comfort so will we. We will emulate the one we worship, and think of ourselves as generous while doing so!

A Church which attempts to follow the ‘incarnated’ God knows that it has received all it has as gift; that which has been received is there to be given in turn. This Church will know that it is no different from those it is called to serve.  Just as God gets down and washes our feet, so it too will get down on its hands and knees to wash the feet of others. Just as God became like a slave; so as it will humble itself to be alongside those who are excluded and exploited by our society. This Church will give generously, not from its surplus, but rather from the very best of what it has, because it knows that everything it has is gift.

Worshipping the ‘super-hero’ God seems attractive because very little is asked of us, while it seems to offer so much. In truth, I believe, such worship only offers us an illusion. It is in following the ‘incarnated’ God that we are enabled to enter the heart of God; it is only there that we will find the inclination to give deeply of ourselves and to discover fullness of life.

The Story of Stuff

I recommend this video, it is a very interesting introduction to the economics of our modern world.

If you want more then take a look at the Econowhat introduction to economics.

Is this really the kind of society we want to live in?

This week has involved much to prove the maxim that all political questions are in the end economic questions, and I might add that perhaps most of our economic questions are in the end philosophical or theological questions.

This week we have seen senior church leaders from the Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, URC and Quaker denominations speak out on behalf of those in food poverty and against the welfare policies of the current government.

Over the last few days in response to their words articles have been written questioning whether Church leaders should get involved with politics, articles condescending them as being naive, articles slurring them as being from the lefty north and articles making (the sometimes valid) criticism that the Church’s own wealth is not always spent on helping the poor.

Alongside these direct challenges have been a number of other articles aimed at undermining their wider argument.  Today’s Sun headline being a clear example: “Welfare Madness Exposed, Benefits made me 23st”. Or the constant claims made by the coalition government that people must take responsibility for themselves and stop relying on handouts. Recent programmes such as ‘benefit street’ or longer ago ‘Shameless’ reinforce this ideological message.

The reality is that the government spends a far greater percentage of the welfare budget on benefits for those who are in work but whose wages are aren't high enough to provide even a subsistence living; than it does on supporting those who are not working. These working poor who receive very little reward for their labour are hardly the irresponsible class David Cameron and Nick Clegg would have us believe they are.

The wealthy beneficiaries of the current status-quo don't want us to understand these realities. Much better that the working poor direct their anger and frustration against the relatively few non-working poor, than that they direct it at their own employers who refuse to give them a living wage or secure contracts. Much better that these “Hard working families” are deceived into believing their bosses earning six figure salaries have to be rewarded for their exceptional talent while they struggle to get by on minimum wage, in some cases needing to visit food banks in their lunch break. Much better that we allow the Sun to find convenient weak scapegoats for our society’s ills.

And what of the educated middle class? Those with a little more money and a little more natural intelligence are normally able to climb a little higher up the income ladder. Their own middle class gifts being “they believe” worth more money than those of the people who clean our toilets and stack our supermarket shelves. The only request which the market economy asks of this group is simply to close its ears and eyes, live in your middle class suburbia, feel a little bit superior to those not so fortunate perhaps throwing them a few surplus pounds not needed for your morning coffee in Starbucks, and throw your energy into following television non-reality shows, the premier league, planning your next holiday or redecorating your home.

Is this really the kind of society we want to live in?