Author: Danny Webster

Love is a verb: relationships are hard

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I have this idea of how I want things to be. How everything works out so that I am kept happy and other people don’t complain.

That’s really what I want most of the time. Peace and tranquillity. Harmony over hostility. A community of people defined by honesty, integrity and challenge. Not easy, but good.

But that’s not how things work. Not in my life, and not in yours. I don’t have to be a prophet to tell you that.

Yesterday ChristChurch London began a new series on relationships and eased into things with a broad overview of the vitality of relationships for us all. Yet also about how hard that can be.

Bonhoeffer makes this point well, if you parse through the complex language he makes a simple point.

Innumerable times a whole community has been broken down because it has sprung from a wish dream, an illusion a fantasy. The serious person is likely to bring with him or her a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and try to realise it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams

Just as God desires to bring us to a place of genuine friendship, so surely we must be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment, with others, with Christians in general and if we are fortunate, with ourselves. God will not permit us, even for a moment to live in a dream world. Only the friendship which faces such disillusionment with all its unhappy and ugly aspects begins to be what it could be in God’s eyes. As soon as the shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both.

Basically, life with other people is hard.

And that shouldn’t surprise us. God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Our dreams of autonomy, our dreams and ideas of how our life should be. Our vision of happiness and contented lives. Lives that are defined by our standards and not by commitment to others.

When we commit to others that we acknowledge that we do not come first. We give more than we take, we love more than we expect to be loved.

Because that is how God first loved us. He loves us more than we can ever love him. When Jesus asked Peter to tend his sheep and whether he loved him thrice over, Peter did not feel capable to match his love. But in the words of Kierkegaard, when we turn to God we find that He has already turned.

And that’s enough.

It’s a sign of what a committed relationship looks like. It’s the model that we should look to before we start designing the friendships of our halcyon desires.   

Relationships revisited

Danny Webster 1 Comment

When I started blogging I slightly accidentally stumbled into the label of being a relationship blogger. This wasn’t a title I wanted, nor what I wanted the blog to be.

But then again, I didn’t really have any idea what I wanted the blog to be. So for the first few weeks relationships was what I wrote about and that was what people wanted to read. However, I’ve got a small confession to offer to you: I don’t know much about relationships, I just make it up. Yet the more I talk to people, the more I read, the more I realise that this is a subject that people want to talk about, as they too feel as they are making it up as they go along. And regardless of the number of relationships that people have been in, or the experiences they have had, the questions remain.

I recently asked someone what it was about those early relationship related posts that they appreciated. Apparently it was because I was being brave. In talking about issues with openness and honesty I was doing something that other people weren’t.

I don’t feel particularly brave, the number of times I held back from saying things because I was worried about being open in so public a forum, and the frequency with which masqueraded the point I sought to make. On top of all that I was speaking about these issues online partly because I so patently fail to broach them in conversations face to face, they live in the solitary confines of my mind.

Since those early summer days I’ve returned to tales of romance and attraction from time to time but I’ve mixed it up with bits of politics, theology and the occasional more philosophical post which only 27 people read.

Over the next six weeks my church (Christchurch London) will be covering sex and relationships in a Sunday sermon series. And this news has had a mixed reaction. People I speak to individually are quietly fascinated to hear what will be said, but in groups there’s a fair dealing of groaning and scepticism.

What I intended to do is blog alongside this series. Each week I’ll post some reflections and thoughts on the talk, along with a link to the audio for those who don’t go to Christchurch. But I also want to cover some other topics, I’ve got a few lurking in the back of my mind which I plan to cover, but I want you to provide the topics as well.

I want to write with honest and openness, and I hope to create a space where you can join me and we can discuss issues which intrigue and terrify us, and all too often tend to define us.

So please let me know, in the comments here, on twitter, facebook or carrier pigeon, what you want to talk about. It can relate to dating, singleness, lust and temptation, or just about any related issue you have on the mind. And if you want to guest-post during this series, you’d be very welcome, again just pitch me an idea.

Beliefs that dare not speak their name

Danny Webster 17 Comments

I’ve hesitated long and hard about whether to say anything about the debate over gay marriage and the government’s proposals. I’ve held back for a couple of reasons. My work has a view on this. And it seems impossible to say anything that casts doubt on the validity of allowing gay couples to marry without being denounced as a homophobe and a bigot.

Because I don’t think that the plans are a good idea. And that probably makes me unpopular, both with those outside and some inside the church.

Today on twitter I’ve observed a lot of people despairing at the Church of England’s response to the consultation in which they urge the government to rethink changing marriage in the way that is proposed.

Because that is what the government are planning on doing. Whether you support the proposals or not, if these plans are implemented marriage will be different in a couple of years time to what it is now.

I want to make a few scattered comments about this whole escapade. I want to do so in the carefullest possible way as this is a subject that is not detached from people’s individual lives, emotions and identity. Maybe it would help by pulling out some of the slightly spurious points often made against those who would prefer that marriage remained as between a man and a woman.

I believe that there are ways to live that are better than other ways to live. And I know that this means that for some people it will seem as though I’m criticising the way that they choose to live. But I think that sexual relationship should only take place between men and women, and between one of each in the context of marriage. And marriage matters because it is placing the union between two people before God and under his authority. It is about submitting not only to each other but principally to God.

And as far as I can see that means we must do our best to live lives that honour God. Even if that means doing things we find hard, and not doing things which otherwise we may choose to do. For devout Christians who experience same sex attraction may well choose to put their belief in and devotion to God before that, and choose to live another way. This is not something I pretend to understand. It is not something that I pretend is easy. It is not something that I would pretend is not counter to the way that the world would choose to order things.

But as Peter Ould tweeted earlier today, “The moment you argue that Church should ‘catch up with society’ you demonstrate your theology is of man and not God”. Because while the church has so often got so many things so very wrong, and in it’s dealing with gay and lesbian people at times its actions have been horrific, that does not mean it should adjust its view because something is deemed out of fashion, or even intolerant.

The church is accused of inconsistency, and it has so often been guilty of that, but that’s not a reason to drop all of the values it holds to and rush towards a lowest common denominator that does its best to keep everyone onside. The church is told to not think that something is wrong, all the while told to stand stronger against other things that are wrong. Told to worry more about poverty and the injustices of the world because holding a view on sexuality will make people think the church is out of touch. It’s curious that at a time when morality is coming back into vogue, when questions are being asked about the value of money in our lives, or the isolation created by ongoing technological  advancement, the church is told to pipe down.

Many have commented today that the church accepts divorce but opposes gay marriage. Often that’s the case. Divorce isn’t what God wants, but sometimes it’s the best way out of difficult circumstances. Confusing? Yes, but often handling the tensions in the way that we live will look like that. God is redemptive, and although marriages should stay together many will not. So there is hope in the hardest of situations, which is why divorce should be allowed. To introduce gay marriage is to create something new, and in doing so change something old.

And then there is the West Wing argument. About shellfish and mixed fabrics. It’s a neat little charge but it misses any attempt to understand the purposes of different Old Testament laws. This isn’t the place but I think a decent case can be made for those laws to keep people clean before a holy God and therefore not needed since Jesus’ death and resurrection have made us all clean; those laws given to aid the governance of Israel (many of which we can learn from without direct application), and those laws which give us moral guidance on how best to live.

The particular proposals that the government make suggest that a distinction can be made between civil and religious marriage. That’s nonsense, there are civil and religious weddings but they are just two different doors to the same room.

The proposals also allude to the fact that some people are banned from marriage, that’s just not true, anyone can get married, but only to someone of the opposite sex. Trying to allow gay couples to marry is trying to make marriage into something that it simply is not. On one level marriage will always be marriage, and nothing that the government says will change that. It’s like trying to suggest that the government should pass a law allowing two floor bungalows to be built.

A big part of me wants to stay quite about this debate. I want to shut up. Turn off my computer, deactivate twitter for a while and stay away while the government push their case, opponents dismiss it and are subsequently tarred and feather in their virtual stocks.

But that’s actually what makes me speak up and say my piece because I shouldn’t be shamed into silence. It is what worries me most if these proposals go through: that I won’t be able to hold, and promote, a view that marriage is and should be between a man and a woman. I’m not expecting every one to agree with me, much as I don’t expect everyone to agree with many of the things that I believe. When they do perhaps I’m a little too closely following the crowd.

Do I think that the world will collapse if gay marriage is constructed ex nihilo within the legal system? I don’t. Do I think that sometimes Christians have used language in their opposition that has made the charge of bigot stick a little easier? Yes.

But I don’t think that the church, and other opponents, should stay quiet when the government are introducing something which isn’t in keeping with what they believe is best for the world around them. And a world in which Christians are committed to making God’s kingdom come. That means fighting poverty and promoting relationships that reflect God’s desire. It means speaking truth in a way that people see God’s love and truth in the content of what you say and in the heart that lies behind it.

And this is not easy. And I’ve not really dealt with many of the issues in play but this is already plenty long enough.

More information about this topic and a briefing on the Evangelical Alliance’s position can be found here. And you can respond to the consultation here.

What do you think, do you think Christians should back gay marriage? Should they stay quiet about their views? Or loudly make their opposition know?

Freedom and consequence

Danny Webster 1 Comment

What if you got everything you wanted? What if you were able to do all the things that you wanted to do? What if barriers were erased, consequences dismissed, costs discounted?

What would you do? What does it mean to be free?

I don’t think I want a world without consequences. I want what I do to have an effect, I want it to affect me, and to affect other people.

Trying to live in a world without barriers is a quest for the impossible. It is also a depressing endeavour. It suggests that we live in this atomised world that can only ever be a figment of our delusions. It would be a lonely life: I think it would be a life without much purpose. Because we live interlinked lives.

Andy Crouch writes in his book Culture Making about how the things that we do, the things that we create, change the horizon of the possible. By doing something we make certain things possible, but we also make other things near enough impossible. He uses the example of highways across the USA, they make travelling vast distances far easier, but they made travel by horse and carriage much harder.

Likewise, when I do something it has consequences, it changes things.

So when we try and live without consequences, when we try and make the most of this thing call freedom by throwing off restraints and doing whatever the heck pleases us in that moment we are caught in an infinite loop of impossibility. The things that we think will deliver the ultimate satisfaction in the end leaves us cold. They leave us in a lonely place because they have failed to deliver what they never had the power to provide.

Because with freedom comes consequences, and with consequences come responsibility. So we step back and we wait a moment before we embrace freedom for its own sake, or our own sake.

I write a lot for work, but when I write for work I write within certain parameters which restrict what I say and how I say it. In theory, when I write on this blog I can write about whatever I choose to, in whatever way I want. Except when I write something it has consequences. I could espouse views that would put my job on the line, even if I hid behind the ‘it’s a personal blog’ refrain. I could write in a way that would discredit my role or my employer, I could offend people I regularly work with. I have freedom to write what I like, but there are many things that would restrict my freedom were I to exercise said freedom in a careless way.

That doesn’t mean that I won’t write on controversial topics, or occasionally in a way that seeks to provoke a response. But what I choose to write about has consequences. When I write about dating and relationships, it changes the potentiality of any prospective relationships. I chose to say I disagree with Christian political parties, and maybe did so in an intemperate way, that has consequences.

Many of the best examples and stories come from those I am closest to, from my family and my friends. But if I were to write about these situations I would affect, and potentially damage my relationship with them. I had a couple of great examples I could have used in my previous post about women in church leadership, but they weren’t my stories, and it wasn’t my place to make them public.

A couple of weeks back I wrote about modesty with a few scattered thoughts about the challenges that guys, and girls, face in a world where sexuality is thrown around with abandon. And this question of freedom and responsibility is at the core of what we were talking about then. For girls who economise on the clothes they wear, there are consequences of that choice.

Here I’m making a slightly different point than I did in that previous post, and I’m very cautious about my choice of words. But guys will look at girls who are attractive and wearing clothes that make the most of that, and while this probably shouldn’t be the case, and it’s not necessarily the responsibility of the girl for what the guys look at, it is a consequence of that choice. So without excusing in any shape or form the leering looks or crude remarks guys might make, they are not detached from the choice that the girl has made in exercising her freedom to wear what she wants.

As I write this I’m conscious that I am exercising my freedom to write about a topic that I choose. And there may be consequences of that choice. Girls may think that I’m being a prude, encouraging them to cover up and spare a thought for the poor guys struggling with their beauty. While I’m content saying that there are consequences of the choice to wear certain clothes, I am far less confident to ascribe responsibility to the girl for the actions, because the way that guys respond is their responsibility, but that doesn’t mean it is unaffected by the choices that the girl has taken.

And the guys who look at the girls sunbathing on the grass? Well those looks have consequences too. It’s easy to think that a cheeky glance at the exposed skin on offer affects no one. But each time that you look, each time lust is stirred, each time you allow beauty to be read through a lens of sex you distort the way that you view women. And a counter intuitive consequence within the church is to adopt this mentality and to minimise an appreciation of beauty because we associate it with sex and with lust. So even in our mental thought processes about who we might be attracted to we view physical attraction as somehow wrong, and therefore look for more holy motives as ostensible reasons to justify our attraction.

Last night I read a fascinating first person piece in the Daily Mail (not a usual occurrence) from the former editor of Loaded magazine. After eight years dedicating his life to putting more bare breasts on pages than the competition he stepped away from that world, partly spurred by the birth of his son. He realised the consequences and ludicrous nature of what he had spent so much time and earned so much money doing.

When guys look at porn it doesn’t leave you unchanged. It affects the way that you look at women, it affects your expectation of relationships, it contorts and distorts the view of sex. And it makes you think you can have what you want without any of the baggage that comes with it. It promotes the idea of unattached satisfaction by pretending that is what it is providing. That it’s just you and your computer.

What a lie.

We live in an age with unprecedented freedom and an unenviable lack of accountability. I can do things if I want to and no one needs to know about them. But that doesn’t mean I should. And if I choose to use my freedom in ways that serve myself I shouldn’t be surprised to find that my freedom in fact becomes circumscribed. If my horizon of the possible suddenly becomes smaller.

What do you think? Share your thoughts, how do consequences affect how you act?

Maybe women shouldn’t lead churches [mutuality 2012]

Danny Webster 3 Comments

“There are as many differences within each gender as between them.” These were words I wrote in the very first post on this blog last summer.

And then at the turn of this year I meandered around the topic of women in leadership through a few posts of different tone and focus and before long moved on to different topics that captured my attention and garnered more interest from readers. I also asked several women to write pieces on the topic very aware that being a man I had a particular and limited perspective. But that never came to pass.

I’m writing this post as part of #mutuality2012 a blog series and synchroblog hosted by Rachel Held Evans. And as I write I’m faintly conscious of an expectation that subliminally sits on any guys joining in this discussion: how to be apologetic for the way in which men have restricted the ministry of women in church and dominated them in family life, all the time being as fulsome as possible in support of women doing all things men do, and doing so in the most lyrical and disarming tone.

Except I may strike a discordant note, I’m not 100% convinced that all roles within a church should be gender neutral. This issue does not affect me in the way it does many others. In fact there are few people it affects less. I am a man, I am not married nor in a relationship, and I do not lead a church. So the words scattered on this page necessarily do not bear the same connection to personal experience that others may string together.

But then again, lets reflect on the nature of the body of Christ brought together in the church. And maybe what affects one of us affects us all. Maybe the difficulties experienced by some and inflicted by others are not the exclusive preserve of their perpetrators and victims. Maybe, what wounds one wounds us all.

So while I write from an abstract stance I am not disconnected from the issue. I am part of a church with women in it, I lead a small group with one, I have friends for whom this matters much, and others who frankly don’t care. And here comes the crux. I go to a church which would be broadly classed as complementarian, in that there are roles, or more precisely a role (that of elder) which only men hold.

I hesitate long and hard as I write these words. I have chosen to be a part of this church. I knew what they believed before I joined and have found them more open to women teaching than I had caricatured them as. And in choosing to be a part of this church I have therefore the need to respect the decisions the church takes. This is not an absolute abdication of opinion, but it is an awareness of the choice that I have taken.

But I am a nomad. This is not the church family I grew up in: there things were different. As a young child before clear recollection women wore head coverings in my church, until one day the church conducted a volte-face and stocks in conservative female head wear plummeted. One of the very best teachers in the church was a woman and my younger sister preached before I did. The family of churches it now belongs to is firmly in the egalitarian camp.

So I stand at a junction seeing down both routes and here is my hunch. It’s not a theological point of view. Or one evidentially proved. Just a hunch. I would rather the church did all it could to invest in leaders of whatever shape, size or gender.

My biggest problem with restricting roles to men alone, and by extension categorising women into a particular role, is not so much stopping women from holding those roles but the message that it sends which places a concrete ceiling above women in the church.

Maybe women shouldn’t lead churches. But what is the very worst that can happen if they do?

Maybe some of the men who lead churches shouldn’t be leading them.

A regular refrain of proponents of women in leadership is that it’s about gift and not gender. I want to throw that one away. Some of the very worst leaders are those with the greatest of gifts but the weakest character.

But nor is it all about gender. There are as many differences within each gender as between them. There are men that are singularly unsuited to leading churches. If gender is not a fixed set of characteristics, is it simply biology that dictates who should and should not take certain roles?

Yet there are some characteristics that seem more prevalent in one gender over the other, and when roles require such characteristics is it necessarily wrong that one gender is represented more than the other?

If we take a look at the issue through a different lens maybe we may get a better perspective. The push for more women in political leadership comprises two distinct strands. The first suggests that because men and women are equal they should be equally represented in political institutions. The second posits that because men and women have different traits, it is necessary that political institutions have a balance of both in order to benefit from the distinct skills and characteristics that each gender brings.

Is political authority male dominated because the nature of the role demands characteristics that are predominately found in men, or is it because we have defined political authority around the characteristics that are found in the men that have historically and contemporaneously occupied those posts?

Is church leadership male dominated because it requires certain characteristics, or have we defined it around those characteristics?

I like the idea of a church that is prepared to get things wrong. I like the idea of a church that invests in developing leaders.

If we open our eyes to the variety of characteristics within each gender and turn off our presumptions about gender roles we may end up in a familiar place. After all surely something lies behind where we currently are. But we may also end up somewhere different. Maybe more women will lead churches. Maybe more men will raise children at home. Maybe they won’t.

Maybe in the most equitable of worlds we would still have a church whose leadership is overwhelmingly male.

But I remember we don’t live in that world. And we need to find a response that recognises the uncertainties and difficulties and the challenges. That doesn’t deny the disagreements. For me, as someone caught between the egalitarian and complementarian camps, not feeling fully welcome in either, these means we give this thing a go. We embrace mutuality. What’s the worst that could happen?

This post is part of #mutuality2012 a series hosted by Rachel Held Evans

We are God’s idols – Life:unmasked

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You are God’s idol. Humanity is created as God’s idol.

Like a bolt out the blue, like a shock through the heart. Like the words from a page coming to life.

Like the truth that I know and the truth I deny. That God loves me and made me and created me as his image.

But more than that, that he has no need for graven statues to manifest his presence on earth. Because we are that. That is what we are as well as what we do.

When God chose to represent himself on earth we are what he created. When Jesus ascended he did so in bodily form, bearing the marks of his suffering, displaying and retaining his humanity as a sign of the resurrection that is to come.

And that means that not only does God love me. But it means that he wants me. And more than that he identifies in me.

So when I start suggesting to myself that I am really not worth very much. Or that I do not have talents which others could appreciate. Or when I tell myself, in this very parish, or to the quiet of my soul, that no one could ever choose to be with me, or to like me. What I am doing when I do these things is to take a scalpel and carve out of me something which God has placed there.

In a way that escapes the confines of my comprehension the way that I treat myself and think of myself is a choice to treat God in that same way. Perhaps echoing Matthew 25, what I do to myself, as well as I do to the least of these is a reflection of what I am doing to God.

I sit somewhat inadequate in my macbook-less state. With no international preaching ministry or book deal. I feel small beyond my size, I feel lost, sometimes beyond redemption.

But in my better, clearer, more lucid of days I know that these are not the way I should view myself. And perhaps, today, I have a better understanding of why that is.

For the first time today, and in a rather unusual manner given my presence at a theology conference, I’ve joined in with Life:unmasked started by Joy Bennett.

The stimulation for today’s thoughts have been gratefully received from Crispin Fletcher Louis at the Pioneer Summer School of Theology. Much to chew over and think about.

Drowning in the Shallow [review]

StandardDanny Webster 2 Comments

Lying out in the sun this morning I downloaded Andy Flannagan’s new album, released today and debuting on the iTunes singer/songwriter charts at #6.

I listened a couple of times through and decided it was worthy of a few comments. Not really a review, more like an extended urge from me to you to buy it, listen to it, hear the words and take the meaning.

Andy is an Irishman, and his Ulster lilt is in full display in some of the songs, never more so that in the second track ‘The Reason’. Combined with strings playing melodiously in the background, this thumps home the message with resounding strength.

For a long while ‘Fragile’ was the only song by Andy I owned, and this very special song finds a particular home among the tracks on this album. As with many of the songs, the story behind the words make them more powerful when you know them and curious and curiouser when you don’t.

A couple of other tracks to call particular mention to, ‘Ego’ could lull you into a false sense of security with its merry notes, before shattering your pretences with the powerful words “I took so long to realise, that love equals sacrifice”.

‘Addiction’ catches you with the clever rhythm that draws you in, and Andy does things with his voice that really only belong in a boy’s choir. It tells a story that’s both personal and social. It’s a tale that he speaks of as his own but with such resonance for me, and I’m sure many more. The wish to turn our viewing habits into a story of our life, with pause, fast forward and rewind available at will.

The album fits together as a piece of music but each song stands on its own. At times while listening I wished for just a little bit more musical expansion, some of the songs seemed to build towards a crescendo, and then almost flinch away at the last minute. That’s the case with ‘I will not be leaving’ and with the final song on the album ‘Fall’. But that’s as far as my criticism would go.

For some reason iTunes refused to download ‘Fall’ on the first attempt, which meant that when I managed to get it I listened with even greater intent. Having heard Andy play in a variety of different settings I’m sure I’ve heard this one before. I’d struggle to put the album into any particular genre, it’s folksy in parts but it’s not folk music. Likewise while the songs are full of worship, they are not really worship songs. ‘Fall’ is perhaps the exception to that. In the notes on the sleeve Andy writes this next to the lyrics to this track: “I used to rush around a lot trying to change the world. I still do. But without the rushing. And now I realise I’m part of the world that needs changing.”

Indeed. Those are words I need to hear.

All in all it’s a beautiful album, and even more so it’s a reflection of Andy’s heart. I’d suggest you go and spend 799 pennies right now and buy it.

Summer skirts and lingering glances

Danny Webster 12 Comments

The bout of warm weather which has so suddenly graced us with its presence brings to the fore a topic I’ve been mulling over for a little while.

How do we navigate the tetchy waters of modesty in what we, and what other people wear?

The other day someone at work walked in from enjoying the glorious rays at lunch and commented on what she had observed. A girl was laid on the grass in her bra. A guy sat on a bench nearby furtively got his camera out and took a photo of said girl.

The story was recounted with evident and justified shock which I and the other person party to this conversation shared.

But I pondered this a little further. The deliberate act of taking a photo makes this seem particularly egregious, but then I walk through the park and notice the low cut tops and the summer skirts. I see the girls in their bikinis working on their tan. And I wonder, as I try to restrain my gaze from lingering, how best to handle this particular visual challenge that comes with the beating sun.

And related to this, I am wrestling with whose responsibility it is. Is it the guy’s for the glances that they steal and the lust that it may represent? Or the girls for dressing inappropriately and acting the temptress?

The hyperbole in that last line was to deflect some of the inevitable rage it would produce.

Here’s my thinking on this, firstly, I am absolutely responsible for what I look at, why I look and the thoughts that it generates. And while I’m on the topic, men who use what a woman is wearing or the way they are acting as an excuse or as permission to act are completely abdicating their own responsibility. In the most extreme cases men who consider a woman to be asking for it if they are dressed in a certain way are wrong in the most definite and vilest sense.

But, I don’t think that absolves women of responsibility either. This is where it gets tricky. While guys are responsible for their response, I think women need to be aware of the impact of what they are wearing (or not wearing) on guys who are around them.

Modesty doesn’t need to be viewed as a dirty word, as a sort of Victorian notion of propriety which is now outdated. Perhaps we should view it as how we interact in a way that best serves everyone involved. It might also help to think about how we consider modesty in other arenas.

If someone is modest about their skills in a particular area, they are not denying that they have these skills, instead it’s just they are not going out of their way to flaunt them. Modesty in dress is not about denying or neutralising beauty, it is about placing it in its proper context and realising that exhibitions of beauty can be misused in the same way any other ability, talent or attribute can.

In practice what does this mean? For guys in the park when it’s hot accept that it’s tough. There are attractive girls not wearing very much. How we respond around people we know will depend on who it is and the nature of a our relationship. If you’re a girl and with a guy you know likes you and this isn’t how you feel, spare a thought for him.

Let me try and answer one challenge to all this: the beach problem. It goes something like this: girls wear bikinis on the beach so what’s wrong with sunbathing in a bra in the park?

I think it’s got to do with patterns of association and an understanding of normal behaviour. When you’re on the beach people are wearing less clothes so it is normal, when you see someone in a bikini in the park it comes across as more exceptional, it is not what you would expect and I think in some neuro-psychological way that I wouldn’t understand this makes it more exciting.

Take this a step further, bikinis are designed to be worn on their own, whereas bras are (usually) worn under something else. Therefore, in some very real way, a girl wearing a bra in a park is more likely to draw attention, and for guys, be a source of temptation where a girl in a bikini on the beach might not.

Is this fair? Maybe not, but in each and every situation there will be many different factors at play so that what is worn in one context is reasonable, but in another might be unhelpful and even unkind. I’m not making any recommendations about what girls should wear or where guys should avoid in the scorching sun, that would be dangerous territory. And I’ve ventured far enough already.

What advice would you give to guys struggling with skimpy skirts in the summer sun? And would you tell a girl to cover up if you found what she was wearing unhelpful?

Living a story while losing the plot

Danny Webster 3 Comments

I hoped that one day I would write a piece of such heart achingly brilliant prose which would adroitly encapsulate my distorted emotions. I hoped it would help me see clearly through the mists of fear and doubt.

I thought I could write myself into a solution.

I thought if I wrote enough, if I wrote with enough passion. If I used clever plays on words. Wrote short sentences for effect.

Or longer ones. I thought that if I gained enough of a following, if I garnered enough affirmation for the quality of my writing and the wisdom of my words. I thought that then everything would be all right.

But I was writing about nothing. I was a phantom without a cause. I was a writer in need of a following and in search of people to tell me I was good enough.

But it’s not enough.

I sit awkwardly under compliments that I receive and frustratingly hit refresh as no one reads the posts into which I have poured the most of me. I think this is going to be one of those.

For the last two weeks I’ve realised that underneath the labels I wear I feel increasingly hollow inside. Almost as though I have been running on empty for a while but only just spluttering towards a halt.

I assess my life and wonder what it would be like to leave it all behind and walk into another scene.

To pack up my bags and do something completely different. If I were to accept that things haven’t really worked out how I thought they would.

But I never really had any hope for how things would be: I’m not even sure what those things are.

I hoped that would become clear. I hoped I would discover some overriding passion, a cause to fight for. Maybe micro-credit in southAsia, or sanitation in west Africa, or human trafficking on our doorstep. A story that I could jump into head first and would become the defining feature of my life.

Instead I flit from this to that, using skills but not passion. Bringing craft to words but not with purpose. Always dreaming that somewhere down the line I would stumble into the answer. I hid my lack of purpose with elegant prose; I obfuscated with metaphors and alliteration as my vices of choice. I even wrote about writing, the last recourse of one without a cause. 

But life is not like that, very rarely do answers fall out of the sky.

I wanted a story to tell as long as it wasn’t my own. I wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself in order to abdicate my need to address who I am. I wanted a story I could write myself out of.

I live in the hypocritical paradox of both craving approval and seeking anonymity. I cannot even move towards either of these maleficent ends with any conviction.

I am lost.

In my arrogance I think that the world needs to hear what I have to say. Whatever that might be.

In my weakness I know that no one cares.

And in between I try to find a way of living. In part it is a charade, and in part it is an act of faith. It is the grappling with what to do when I don’t know what to do. It is the search for who I am when that seems out of reach.

It is the longing of a heart that wants to do the right thing and it is the cry of despair at not knowing what that is.

It is the strength to see failure as something I must embrace, but the weakness that fears what this might look like.

And through it all I long for God to intervene, but I do not allow him to get too close; or me too close to him. I think I fear I will let him down: that whatever he asks of me will be too much and I will be too little.

I shy away from committing with everything I have because I worry about the cost of it not working out. I avoid opining about quite how frail I have become in case anyone realises just how true it is.

To strip away any pretence: I do not know what I am doing, and I do not know why I am doing whatever it is that I am doing.

But sometimes that’s okay. Sometimes that is the way things go. When mists surround and fog envelopes and doubt is all you know as true. At least it is somewhere to start. It is an authentic emotion where for so long they have felt manufactured. It is an accurate picture of where I am, and it is from where I am that I must start. 

I know this is not a place to linger, or a place where I can find solace. It is not a refuge but a launch pad. On to what, I do not know.

A biblical framework for understanding politics – part 4

Danny Webster 2 Comments

[update: the full series is available as a PDF here]

In the final post in this series we will take a step beyond considering how we should view politics and government and set out in hazy terms what such a government should do.

If you’re only just joining us I would suggest taking a moment to catch up. In the first post I explored the key characteristics of political authority, in the second how we should view government, and in the third what the Lordship of Christ meant for all this.

The purpose of government

We’ve already looked at government as an ambiguous concept, caught in the tensions between it’s created status and its fallen nature, and between it’s legitimate role and it’s evident limits.

The exercise of political authority is often equally dubious. These tensions exist in what the government seeks to do and how it does it.

But we’re invited to the task of living in these tensions and working to bring the redemptive hope of Christ into the outworking of government and across all of society.

Here are three broad areas which the Bible suggests should be within the scope of government.

Commitment to human equality

It’s astonishing that the church has let the concept of equality be snatched from its grasp, because equality is such a fundamental part of biblical teaching.

We are all equal under God, this is true in our created status. It is true in the universality of sin, and it is true in our universal need for redemption.

Jesus was radically inclusive in his ministry, he deliberately sided with the poor and the disenfranchised. He overturned the social order and he overturned the tables of those who would profit from the poorest.

But that wasn’t were equality began. In the laws for Israel there was a strong seem of justice running through them. The laws for the ownership of property and slaves ensured that intergenerational social mobility was not hampered.   Israel was warned against taking a king and the prophets railed against the injustices perpetrated by them.

In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians he exhorts them to generosity, and he uses the old Testament portrait of the manna provided in the desert to point out that those who gathered much did not have too much and those who gathered little did not have too little.

For the common good

All governments promote and seek some form of common good. What this looks like is different in different contexts and sometimes gets lost in the pursuit of just judgement.

Thomas Aquinas noted that the common good existed for the good of the people and not for the good of the ruler. For much of history this was not the way that political authority operated.

The concept of the common good is based on the idea that a community is more than a series of disconnected individuals, it works upon the coming together of those people and their working together for a common cause.

While Christianity has often emphasised individual choice, especially in relation to salvation, it has also affirmed the need for community structures that enable us to live fulfilled lives as part of wider society.

It is the role of government to promote such structures while making sure that they do not dominate them. When the common good comes to the fore it makes sure that no one suffers permanent social exclusion.

This means that particular attention should be paid to those who are liable to experience such exclusion. David McIlroy comments, “The weight of the classical tradition is solidly behind the prioritising of the needs of the weakest, in whom it has been recognised that we see the face of Christ with special clarity.”

Exercise of just judgement

The third core function of government, alongside a commitment to equality and working for the common good is the exercise of just judgement.

The Christian tradition has long acknowledged that the Christian ruler must discern the requirements of Christian moral teaching within and for the complex realities of the society that has to be governed.

This means that there are very few absolutes of what a governing system should look like. I think if we cast our minds through history we can see the rights and wrongs of political systems of every hue. Including those who explicitly reject Christian teaching, and those claiming to govern in its name.

It is not possible to take judgements in a neutral space. It is simply one of the myths of contemporary political thought that there exists a space where all prejudices and conceptions of the common good can be removed and a judgement reached that abides by the rules of justice and nothing else.

Instead, we have to accept that there are many competing claims to subjective morality, and these require us to offer a substantive argument for why the values we hold, and the truths we believe, are for the common good.

And we need to keep one eye on the fact that human concepts of justice will only ever be limitedly just. This means that that the capability of government to promote the good, and exercise judgement, while present, is limited.

Conclusion

The apostles chose to reinforce the radical message of Jesus’ death and resurrection and refused to accept the absolute claims to authority that the Roman Empire demanded.

But they didn’t reject the fact that it had authority, they just saw its authority as limited. They continued to remind the authorities of their duties and responsibilities and reflected the role of the prophets in the Old Testament.

We must remember that neither tyranny nor anarchy are what God desires. The institutions of political authority have good in them as they reflect the nature of our created God. But they are also fallen because they are formed by fallen humans.

But most of all, we must hold to the hope for the ultimate redemption of all things and how we are commanded to have a role in that rebuilding.