Church and state...?

Yesterday evening saw the main 3 parliamentary candidates for Dartford taking part in a hustings organised by the local churches. It was a very good event, well supported, and all the candidates will have done their chances no harm, it seems to me. They all came across as genuine, passionate about the area, committed to public service and prepared to give honest answers to questions even when they knew they might not be saying what their audience wanted to hear. Which I suppose brings it back to a choice about policies, which isn't a bad place to be.











The questions (that had been submitted in advance) were interesting. They focussed for the most part on issues that aren't party political; issues, that you could say cynically, are stereotypical issues of concern for Christians - life issues, conscience issues (wearing a cross to work etc), social disorder issues (alcohol, prostitution). In one way that was disappointing, particularly as there were no questions around global poverty and justice (the, admittedly unscientific, very small sample poll on the WCF website makes this Christians' number 1 concern). The answers were interesting, too, and underlined that Christians' views on many of these issues are simply out of step with the rest of society nowadays. Maybe now, more Christians will realise that, and we can begin to order our lives as an alternative society, rather than trying (unsuccessfully) to impose our way of living on everyone else. That doesn't mean we give up on the rest of society, as if God's ways are only relevant for those who profess to know Him. But it probably means that our primary means of persuasion needs to be the quality of our life together. Now there's a challenge for post-christendom.

Westminster Declaration

Well, I have now added my name to the Westminster Declaration. Despite a few misgivings that I mentioned in my last post, overall I think this gets it about right. It's not about imposing Christian views on anyone else, but on making sure that the right of Christians to hold those views is acknowledged. Have to say that it may not make a great deal of difference in the long run; and that our duty as Christians is to be faithful to our understanding even if it's not widely accepted or understood, and to do so in a gracious and positive way. But, taking the declaration at face value, I felt it was valid to support the other Christians involved in this, even if their agendas might not always be identical to ones I'd feel comfortable with. So why not have a look?

And they're off

So, at long last, the election race has officially begun. After months of thinly disguised campaigning, the masks are off. It will be an intriguing few weeks. No doubt frustrating too, and by the end of it we might very well all have had enough of it. And it means that, if you're as undecided (and generally unimpressed) as me, then we now have 4 weeks to make up our mind.

On a related note, I've just come across the Westminster Declaration. Not sure yet what to make of this. On a first read through it all seems very admirable at face value. And maybe that's the level it should be taken at. But I just have this suspicion about some of these things, that it's another attempt to turn back the clock almost and re-assert Christian influence in a confrontational, "let's defend our rights" kind of way; which I struggle to reconcile with the way of Jesus. But maybe I'm being paranoid in this case. Something else to think about carefully.

Biblefresh

Went to the London launch yesterday of Biblefresh, the name for an initiative aimed to tie in with the fact that next year is the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible, with all the influence that has had on English language, literature and culture. The aim of the initiative is partly to re-enthuse Christians for the Bible, and partly to provide a platform for others to engage at a variety of levels with the Bible too. The beauty of it is that the outworking will be locally-driven; it's not about following a centrally dictated programme. It all has potential certainly. How it works will depend on what individual churches make of it.

Telling stories

Flashforward is back on Monday evenings, and just as confusing as ever. What was interesting last night was how the episode worked. In terms of new events, happening in the "now" of the story my guess is there was probably about 20-30 mins of action. Take out the inevitable adverts and the full 5 minutes recap of previous epoisodes and the rest of the episode was flashbacks to events in the past which have a bearing on current plotlines; or even, flashbacks to people's memories of their visions of the future, which is a fairly mind-boggling concept.

What the whole concept does, and is underlined by the structure of last night's episode is to heighten suspense by altering the normal straightforward chronological sequence of stories. Of course, this isn't terribly new; lots of stories do that in many different ways, and have done for years. And in doing so, they highlight that the present moment, the now, does not exist in isolation from either the past that has led to it, or the future that will follow, however unknown that is to us.

In one sense, Christians should get this more than anyone. The events we remember this week in particular, of Jesus' death and resurrection, are events in the dim and distant past. Yet our claim is that they shape us now in a more significant way than anything in our personal history, at least in theory. And they point to a future that shapes us too in the now, even though we don't know all the details. As one of the characters in a previous episode of Flashforward put it, "I've seen the future and it's changed my life". I guess we should add our "Amen".

Multi-voiced?

I've been thinking quite a lot recently about the practise of open or "multi-voiced" worship. It's very much part of our practise at WCF, arising from a mixture of both charismatic and (in the dim and distant past now) brethren influence. And while there are "risks" involved and issues to handle, there are some wonderful examples of things being shared from the body of the church that have far greater impact than the official voice of the pastor. But sometimes the best bits are when not much seems to be happening. This quote from Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon Days, reflecting on his (fictitious?) childhood in the brethren, says it all:

There was a lovely silence in the Brethren assembled on Sunday morning as we waited for the Spirit. Either the Spirit was moving someone to speak who was taking his sweet time or else the Spirit was playing a wonderful joke on us and letting us sit, or perhaps silence was the point of it.

Song and dance...

Have somehow ended up watching Glee on a Monday evening recently. We've decided that it's basically High School Musical for adults; or maybe not adults but the post-pubescent anyway. Which isn't to say that it's not entertaining in a slightly odd way. What it does illustrate quite well is the value system that dominates the media and the generation a little bit younger than me....

There are some very positive features to this; not least it's commitment to being inclusive of all, non-discriminatory etc. The only downside to that (and this is hardly a new insight) seems to be the inability or lack of desire to ever make a value judgement about certain lifestyle choices, particularly in the area of sexual ethics. But this isn't a whinge. It seems to me that's just the world as it is now, and highlights one of the challenges to Christians who are living a different way.

All that being said, it's fascinating that some of the basic themes explored in Glee are all the things I remember writing about in 'O' Level (yes, that dates me) English essays about Shakespeare. In particular the whole thing of appearance and reality. "Nothing new under the sun", as someone once said.