View From The Basement

How to live Ethically

This is proving to be a very bust week. On Monday I was teaching at Equip (check out their web site for more info on what Equip is) on How to Live Ethically ...in a confusing world. I had completely forgotten that I was doing this till my wife reminded me on Sunday morning. Fortunately I did not have to start from scratch as I've done this session with them since 2006. That said I think the session has changed in that it is now in two parts, so I needed to figure out why we had decided to split it and what I was going to do in each part!

I'll be doing a reduced version of this session at Engage this Sunday evening. So, for those of you in the Glasgow area, if you'd like to get a flavour as to what Equip is like and as to my thoughts on Living Ethically, come along to QPBC @ 6:P30pm this Sunday night.

As well as this I'm trying to get on with my studies and on Saturday have another training session for Street Pastors (at which I'm cooking 2 different soups for 50 people), followed by family cell.

Interview with James H Cone.

I was introduced to the thoughts of Black theologian James H Cone via the writing of Mennonite theologian John Denny Weaver. There's a great interview with Cone HERE, where in conversation with Bill Moyers he talks about the Cross and the Lynching Tree.

Lament - can a pacifist remember?

Today at 11am marks the 90th anniversary since the signing of the Armistice in a railway carriage in Northern France that brought World War I to an end. As such it has become the day when we remember those who have died in war. Over recent years I've struggled about wearing a poppy, about what to do on 'remembrance Sunday' and how to mark Armistice Day. Can a pacifist, should a pacifist remember? Is there not something hypocritical in a pacifist remembering those who fell in war?

I've decided that a pacifist can and should remember and that it's not hypocritical. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, our remembering of those who fell in war is not restricted to soldiers but to all who died. As such our remembering brings into view again the horror of war. This memory can be redemptive in that while it may not turn everyone into pacifist in remembering we say 'never again' and thus resolve to find other means than war to solve our problems. Secondly in remembering the service men and women who died we remember those from both sides. Remembrance is therefore not an act of solidarity (especially for a pacifist) but an act of Christian love for the neighbour (I'll try to post on the difference between solidarity and neighbourliness another day). Thirdly, it is an opportunity to express forgiveness, to reflect not just upon international conflicts but personal conflicts we may be part of. Fourthly, remembering is not a glorification of war but a lament. Lament is a very scriptural practice and one that at times for the health of a nation needs a national expression.

The Flowers of the Forest is a traditional Scottish lament. It was popularised by Mike Oldfield on his album Tubular Bells but is still best sung or played by a lone piper. The actual song refers to the Battle of Flodden Field in 1513 where 10,000 Scot's fell in battle with the English. Here's a YouTube video someone has made using the Flowers of the Forest song and tune.

Miroslav Volf & Tony Blair share a class

Jesus missing in worship???

One of the things I like about the church I belong to is its diversity. Over the last number of Thursday evenings there has been a contemplative prayer “class”. I only made it to one, but my wife made it to most of them and found them very helpful.

In the “class” I went to we did lectio divina – and I appreciated this scripture centred way of prayer and worship. The evening however started with a centring prayer,

“Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner”.

The idea with this prayer is that it sets up an honest relationship. It reminds us who Jesus is – he is Lord – and who we are, sinners given access to him through his mercy. Taking your time with this prayer is important, repeat it over and over till perhaps all you are repeating is the name of Jesus.

This way of worshiping and praying stands in stark contrast with much of our contemporary worship.

Many of our contemporary songs stand out for the lack of the use of the name of Jesus in them. The name Jesus is predominantly replaced by the word ‘you’. I fear that in this we are losing something that is both valuable and powerful. This is amplified when the use of ‘you’ for Jesus is combined with the language of intimacy and thus you end up with a love some that well you could sing to your wife or girlfriend as easy as you could sing it to Jesus.

The link to this YouTube video (there’s no code to imbed it) is a point in case. The fact that the song mentions Jesus by name twice near the very end does not IMHO rescue it as a Christian worship song.

(PS – apologise if you like this song, but we need to get beyond the feel of the songs we use in worship and take a look at their content)

Hauerwas on Bonhoeffer - Truth and Politics

Dissertation as a word cloud

© 2008 Jonathan Feinberg subscribe

HT to Fernando for this fun application from http://wordle.net/. I put my dissertation in and this is what came out. Wonder what mark I would get if this is all I submitted?

Pastoring in a media age

“In an earlier age the pulpit has, as one Victorian preacher expressed it, been ‘newspaper, schoolmaster, theological treatise, a stimulant to good works, historical lecture, metaphysics etc. all in one’. But no longer was this so” John Briggs, "From Christendom to Pluralism" in Wright, David, Essays in Evangelical Social Ethics, 1978.

The above quote chimed with me as I'd been thinking a little about how people who go to church are formed and informed in their Christian experience. It seems that - as is so often the case - 'Christian' media is following the 'world' in that there is a growing diversity of information streams/media outlets (of which blogs are a part of) and which inform and shape the average Christian punter. Add to this mix of different media streams 'God Tourism' and one has to conclude that the local pulpit is one voice among many.

Pastor's therefore need to wake up to the fact that their sermon is probably not the only sermon many of 'their people' will listen to. They may have listened to a podcast, watched a DVD like the Nooma series, turned on the God Channel (personally I have a problem with the name never mind the content, but there again I am developing into a grumpy old man), watched clips of church services on YouTube, read a Christian blog or two, and bombarded their ears with CCM. Some of this will be good, some of it poor and some of it bad.

So how are pastors to respond to this? I'm not too sure... but have a few tentative thoughts.

Shepard's not gate keepers. I don't think and authoritarian stance whereby Pastors act as gate keepers barring peoples way is an appropriate response. Pastors need to be Shepard's both helping lead people through the new Christian media age and also equipers helping people grow in discernment.

Respect diversity. Pastors need to respect diversity - there are people in your congregation who every week like to swing from the chandeliers, but they also need moments of quite and thus during the week listen to Taise.

People also need to think about what they are listening to and experiencing. Too much rich food can give you gout, likewise junk food well it tastes great but destroys you from the inside out. A balanced diet is needed.

Portraits of Jesus

I passed by the gallery in the Gallowgate area of Glasgow last night that keeps Peter Howson's works.

I find his images of Christ compelling and stopped to look and took a picture of one with my phone.

Howson states that "as an artist, one should always be communicating". His pictures of Christ and the stations of the Cross certainly communicate - the question is what?

If you've ever seen a photo of Howson himself then you will recognize that the above picture of Christ is something of a self portrait. Is this wrong, is this blasphemous? Today reactions to such a question, even from those theologically trained would be shallow, at least compared to the deep theology that the Eastern Church has in connection with icons. Given we live in a visual culture and increasingly use visuals in church, perhaps we need to connect with and learn from this tradition and the Iconoclastic controversies of the 8th and 9th Cents?

Suggested reading;

St. John of Damascus, On the Divine Images

Jaroslav Pelikan, Imago Dei. The Byzantine Apologia for Icons

Ouspensky and Lossky, The Meaning of Icons

Ouspensky "The Meaning and Content of the Icon" in Clendenin (ed.) Eastern Orthodox Theology (2nd ed.), 

Valuing Theology

Went across to New College yesterday to get some stuff from the library, meet some friends for lunch and go to a seminar by Dr Janet Soskice called "faith, hope and loveliness (which was very good) and the Gifford Lecture by Prof. Robert Veatch. It was a good day.

At lunch the old chestnut of finding funding came up. Funding is hard to come by for post graduate theological study. Most funding bodies make awards on a competitive basis, and many have restrictive criteria (e.g. will only consider you if from a particular denomination). For me this raises the question of who values theology?

The lack of scholarships etc. for theology would suggest that the answer is a rather negative one, i.e. not many people value it (or those that do have no money to invest in the next generation of theologians!)