Faith and Failure

Should we judge those who judge?

Danny Webster 4 Comments

Judge not, that ye be not judged, at least that’s how the Authorised Version puts it.

Words followed words today, tweets followed tweets, judgement followed judgement. All in an oscillating cycle between being right and in being right, or thinking you are right, being wrong.

It was Mark Driscoll’s tweet that set the cat among the pigeons:

I took a moment to take in my shock. But only a moment. I thought I was managing to stay above the fray by tweeting a link to his without any judgement.

But who am I kidding? There was judgement in those words, bucket loads. And predictably it got the retweets I thought it would. And the responses from those agreeing and adding their disdain that he could say such things.

One response, however, stood out from the crowd. It was not an affirmation that I’d backed the right horse, but a gentle prod that perhaps I shouldn’t have got on my high horse.

I cannot do anything other than speculate on the motives Mark Driscoll had for his tweets. I can only comment with any certainty on those driving mine. I was confident I’d get support from those perpetually outraged by his statements. I thought it might even earn me a little kudos in the twitter world.

What I was really doing was looking for support in me being right and someone else being wrong.

I was judging. I could build a defence, I could argue that Jesus saved his harshest words for the judgemental Pharisees, I could say he was representing a view of God that is flatly contradicted by the man Christ who called us to take the plank out of our own eyes before pointing out the speck in another.

That’s what I’m doing now. Publicly taking the plank out of my eye. My tweet was based on wanting to serve my own purposes and rubbish another. And the sneering tone that lay beneath my words made that worse.

But it also leaves me with a question: when and how should we respond to those who judge? Do we let their words go unquestioned, do we let them paint a picture of God that is not who we worship? I simply do not know. I think there’s a space for criticism, there is a space for rebuke: I think that can be healthy. I even think that can happen on twitter and blogs, but I know for me it’s not a forum where that is easy.

I think it’s all too easy to write things in order to provoke a response, words that inflame and do not inform. It is too easy to build an audience, too easy to like attention, too easy to judge the wisdom of your words by the hits or retweets. I know that I have to be immensely careful of my motives when I write. It is also easy to see criticism as an affirmation that you are saying something worth being said.

For now, I simply apologise to Mark Driscoll for judging him this afternoon.

Update:

I like to think that this blog is a place where I think out loud. I do my best to be as honest and open as I can. It’s also been pointed out by Annie Carter in the comments that her tweet to me was actually referring to Mark Driscoll’s original tweet. Yesterday’s post caused a bit of a stir, was I trying to stop people disagreeing? Was I saying to deny what you thought? What role is left for anger?

Simply, I wanted a better tone of conversation. I think it is possible to disagree without judging, and I think there is a place for rebuke. It’s just in my case I was judging and I am not convinced that twitter is the best place for rebuking someone. I think this opens up a much wider conversation as to how Christians do disagreement in public, and my hunch is that we should do it a whole lot less than we do. And I think in a context such as twitter were conversations get confused and responses are short, the potential for perceiving something that wasn’t quite meant is manifold.

I think Anger can be a good thing, I think it highlights things that are not how they should be. But anger unmediated and detached from a relationship can be harmful, and that’s where I think we have to act with care.

I found Mark Driscoll’s comments objectionable but what I had missed until it was pointed out to me was Cornel West’s objection to Obama swearing the oath on MLK’s Bible. So here’s a thought to ponder: why did they provoke such different responses?

It’s been one of those days

Danny Webster 2 Comments

FNT compassionIt was one of those days when I all I could find to take down details of a voice mail message was a paper plate.

I suppose today started at 10.30 last night. I got an email. The Times had the story: Steve Chalke supported active monogamous gay relationships, you can read all about it in Christianity Magazine. I knew a day destined to be busy because of the European Court of Human Rights judgement on four religious freedom cases was about to get a whole lot more hectic.

And through the day one thing turned over and over in my head. If we’re to call for civility in society and civility in dealing with situations where Christian beliefs rub up against differing prevailing views in society, then we need to model civility

Civility doesn’t ignore difference, but it seeks a way for us to live together despite our differences.

I work for the Evangelical Alliance (I might as well be honest about my affiliation) and that put us at the centre of today’s storms. When the role of faith in public life is under question, and potential legal coercion, it is a subject of interest – we want to articulate in a calm and reasonable manner what the upshot of these cases is, and also what it might not be. And when a figure with huge profile in the evangelical world makes statements such as Steve Chalke’s today, then it is something requiring a response.

But how to respond? How to speak honestly and thoughtfully on an issue such as homosexuality which carries with it such depth of personal experience and highly charged emotions. This answer is patently not to ignore it and hope it will go away. The answer is to search once again for that balance that lies at the heart of the Christian life: truth and grace.

It sounds trite, it sounds simple, it also sounds like a way to take a swipe at someone while parading Christian credentials. But I cannot think of two things that are needed more, in either of these discussions. But it is still how we should try and respond. In neither case would everyone be pleased, in neither case would everyone think the content or the tone was correct.

Disagreement might not always be nice. And in fact it rarely is. But conflict is also part of life and we cannot ignore it. I’m not going to set out the theological issues in play here, because I am both ill equipped and I think Steve Holmes has provided a strong but careful critique of Steve Chalke’s position. What I am going to float is that having a view about what is or is not the best way for a Christian to live does not stop Christianity, or any particular church from being inclusive.

Because if you take the opposite argument to a logical conclusion it makes it hard if not impossible to promote any values within the life of the church. This is not what Steve Chalke was saying, but the critique of the church for holding a certain view of homosexuality does not hold water if to change it is solely in pursuit of inclusion. The church believes in discipleship towards the likeness of Christ, and that means there are things we should do and others we should not. And it promotes a way of life in accordance to those goals. What this is definitively not is a threshold of moral achievement that allows us to call ourselves Christian or a ticket into heaven.

Instead it is building a community where we live in full acknowledgement of our frequent ability to get things wrong, but also set our sights on something else.

How the church can be more welcoming, more inclusive, is a challenge that cannot be ignored, and it is vital if we are ever going to get close to civility. But it cannot mean that the church just changes its teaching so not to risk alienating those who disagree. It is also where the difficult task of speaking truthfully comes in, being prepared to speak when we disagree, and most of all not forsaking our relationships with one another for the sake of being right.

That’s a tough gig. But it’s one the church has to rise to.

Moments and movements: the big hitters of 2012

Danny Webster 1 Comment

I wrote this in two chunks, one in February, and the other in June, and then rediscovered it today. I thought it summed up 2012 pretty well. It is very long for a blog post, I’m almost sorry about that!

They say that sometimes there is a moment between when the dice is cast and when it lands. At least, it was quoted on the West Wing so I assume it’s true.

They say that there are moment when if missed the chance is gone for good (for more on this one see the Romans, the empire not the book of the Bible, Carpe Diem and all that). Moments that last but an instant but whose impact lasts a lifetime.

Maybe there are such pivotal moments. Times when a decision is made at a fork in the road. The choice to turn back or plough on ahead. Maybe these moments matter more than I think. But perhaps each individual moment only matters as part of the movement it lies within. Rather than a beautiful note sounded on its own, the whole symphony within which so much more makes sense.

Movements matter more than moments. Because moments are just an instant. They come and go, they can be good or bad, or somewhere in between. They can stand on their own, they can be disconnected from reality. It can be a good time or a bad time, it can be the best of times. But movements are reality, the heights and the depths, and the life that strings them altogether.

Take the bride and groom standing at the alter on their wedding day. It is a day of joy and celebration, a day into which so much planning and preparation has gone. But it is only the end of the beginning – marriage is about much more than a day of flowers and dresses and table plans and speeches.

For the single person much thought and attention goes into deciding who you like, trying to decipher whether they like you as well, and plucking up the courage to ask them out. The infatuation that so often forces you past your own hesitancy to seek something greater. It is just the beginning.

Moments seem vital in their own time. It feels as though destinies will stand or fall on a pinhead. When you turn and see that a chance has passed, a girl you like is attached to another, the role you seek already taken, the deadline for a job application past.

I’ve never quite got all the fascination with New Year’s Eve and the desire to have a night that will trump all others. Likewise the focus on days obscures our need to celebrate and enjoy things all year round. Too often birthdays, Valentine’s day, anniversaries and all the other days designed in a greeting card marketing department are just there to encourage us to part with our cash. Because if something is worth celebrating it is worth taking the time and effort to do so all year round and not just when the display stands tell us it is time to do so.

The same can be true of our spiritual life. We look for the excitement and ecstasy of a moment that will lift us out of the drudgery of our daily life. We think that if only we can see something of God alive in our lives then everything else will be fine.

And sometimes that is what happens. Sometimes we have an experience of God that profoundly changes us. We see God in his glory and majesty and that causes us to worship. We see him work wonders in our lives and those around us and we are reminded of his power. We see how far short we fall of his perfect way and it forces us to our knees.

Yet too often these moments pass. Too often we forget the enthusiasm we once had. We doubt that the God we saw heal can do it again. And we live our lives with faces set against God, the God we claim to love but so often offend.

Because we are weak, and we are frail, and we forget. Because although God is great, we are not.

Because the moments that we long for are the products of God and not God himself. If all we want are signs and wonders then what is the God that we are worshipping? When we pray so desperately for a moment, even for a specific thing, there is a risk we end up wanting that thing more than we want God. Whether it is a job or a wife or healing, all good things in themselves, they can run the risk of becoming idols.

Moments are not wrong, often they can be very good. I want to turn and be overawed as my bride walks down the aisle. I want to experience God in my life in a tangible way. But I cannot just want these things alone.

There is a movement of relationship in both these scenarios that takes time and effort. It means me working hard to love another, and it means me falling on my knees in worship of the Other. It means that there are times of triumph and times of tears, of easy joy and painful resolution. Of love and forgiveness, of sorrow and joy.

Because what effort would it take to worship a series of moments that answer to my whim?

Moments are not just the highlights of life, they can also be times of intense disappointment and tragedy. Of times when our heart aches and our soul cries. And these moments never seem so fleeting as the passing joy we wish would linger longer to soothe our spirits and calm the turbulence of our mind. Too often the moments of sadness follow each other in a haunting litany of escalating sorrow that build to a crescendo that overwhelms. Too often it is in these moment that we most recognise the movement we are a part of. And it’s not a movement that seems to rise and fall, it’s not a cyclical process that we take in our stride but a path that becomes gilded by our frail emotions. All the time it offers some false comfort in the familiarity of our stride, mixed together with fear of what we know lies ahead.

Life is not just a set of staccato moments that we string together, hoping that one fuelled by sadness will be followed by another sown in joy. And this means maybe we don’t look for that experience that will exhilarate, or a single time with God that will change us forever. Perhaps it is instead as Eugene Peterson titles his book, a long obedience in the same direction. About knowing the bigger picture surrounding each moment, which whether great or dreadful or simply mundane is just one part. Where we see the cost of the climb, and the boredom of the valley as part of the same life and same movement as the instant we pull ourselves over the final crag and stand and pause atop the mountain as we gaze awestruck at the world around.

The movement is a mixture of our dreams and our desires, and all of that which lies outside our control. It is the effect of people around us in the way that we resent their presence or pine in their absence. It is society we live in, it is our neighbours and our friends. It is the actions of a God in Heaven who even when I am plagued with the deepest of doubts loves me more than I could know.

And they are not just our own. That’s often what I get so very wrong. It is an intricate dance of interlinking actions, sometimes coming together, other times tearing at the seam. It is the movement between two movements, responding to the effect of each, showing that life is never, despite our frequent desire, lived alone. It is always played out in company. It is always about us and not me. And when I do not realise this I strike a discordant note that separates me. But it does not leave me unaffected. As I withdraw, the movement in which I dance takes a different turn, I spiral out of control in the absence of others to temper the excesses of each twist and turn. And it affects others too. They are not the same if I am not a part of their movements.

Now that is what I struggle to believe.

It is where my doubts and weakness surface in their pathological splendour. They try and convince me that my dance is only ever my own. That no one would assent were I to take the steps across the room to ask her to join me in the next dance.

I cannot believe that others are ever affected by my absence as I am changed by theirs.

Worth. That’s what I doubt. I doubt that I have any worth, anything valuable to contribute. And what I might plausibly consider as my strengths and qualities are barely more than functional abilities which detached from me could be replicated with ease. I am not sure what I bring, what special talent or trait which without any group or person would be poorer.

I think I can live my movement on my own, without needing to condescend to compromise, or alter course to fit within the scope of another.

But then I do. I change my plans. I allow them to shift and morph according to someone else. My frenzy becomes focussed around making space for them – even if this is never an acknowledged condescension. I alone do not dictate what matters most, my inclination towards another means they force a different hue onto my priorities and desires. No longer is time alone so attractive, or even living a life of active friendships without their particular presence.

Movements are interconnected, they rise and fall, they take us on a journey with a place to work towards. They are the product of a sophisticated and complex interplay of many other separate waves of life that weave in and out of the movement we walk through.

They are lived out loud. Too often I dream of grand plans, I imagine myself in some colossal context of winning the day with my wit and wisdom. I conjure thoughts of what my life might be like.

And the next time I move on from my daytime slumber I drift with the flow. I do not act on my dreams. I do not forge reality out of my desires. Instead I leave them in their halcyon undisturbed state where they cannot disappoint.

I like temporary things. Like the cinemas that pop up for a few days in the summer and then vanish. Like the moments of attention when something significant happens. Like the early throws of infatuation when each moment spent together is the very thing that could make you complete. Like the thrill of completing something after working like crazy to meet a deadline.

Or the passion of worshipping God in an ecstatic moment. Or the almost involuntary rising to your feet when they ask who want to recommit their lives to God and serve him with all their heart.

I like those temporary things. They offer enough of a hint of an exciting future without the need to engage with the realities of making it happen.

But the next morning. Or when we arrive home. Or if the project is completed, or the girl has hooked up with someone else. The dull ache of dejection and disappointment is assuaged by the subconscious recognition that it was only ever a moment of excitement. Not anything more. Not anything that would require hard graft.

Sometimes the short term moments of excitement can set off a chain reaction. They can spark and segue into a larger movement, they can provoke you towards a long term vision. Sometimes the opening notes of a movement are framed in the the explosion of an instant clash of cymbals. When the risk that is attractive in the immediate is the very commitment to the ebbs and flows of a movement that swiftly winds out of view.

When you act in a way that is counter intuitive. When you do things that don’t really make sense, the thrill of the moment that pushes you past your inhibitions and allows them to fade. Could that be what lets you embrace something bigger which otherwise you would shy away from. Could it be what pushes you off a cliff?

It is not the heart overwhelming the head, it is the heart giving voice to your desires. It is putting steel in the spine of the thoughts that alone your wouldn’t allow yourself to entertain. It lets you imagine the way that things could be. It brings hope into darkness, joy into despair.

The power of moments to play their part in a movement. The frailty of our hearts to be moved to action at the whim of some wanted attention. The fortitude it takes to detect when we are being led a merry dance by our emotions.

The ability to say yes to what is good. And no to what is not.

And take the jump when we don’t know, learning to know consequences and not fear them.

Learning to hold our dreams and desires loose enough to let them go. But close enough not to forget.

And we watch the dance that unfolds before our eyes. We see the interaction, the complex and the confused. The intended and the accidental. We see the love and the loss. We see the hope and the fears. And we wonder. We embrace wonder like a child and we let ourselves wonder what might it be like if our dreams and fears existed in the same place?

We let ourselves run riot with dreams of faith, of the way that things could be.

We gaze in sorrow at the wretched failures we so often are.

But we know that failure is not the end.

Ecclesiastes and Emmanuel: God with us in all times and seasons

Danny Webster Leave a comment

The time when love came to earth. Love not in gifts of gold, frankincense or myrrh. Love not in the adoration of the angels, or the presence of the shepherds. Love not even in the parental pride at a new born son.

But love in a God who came to be with us. It feels like that is the only refrain you can hear this year. Maybe it is the horrific shooting in Connecticut that lingers in the shadows, casting doubt on any joy that could be shared. Maybe we have lost our own loved ones in unpublicised tragedy. Perhaps it is the difficult relationships, awkward lives we lead. Maybe we have been rejected from jobs we wanted. Maybe life is harder than we ever hoped it would.

The message of Emmanuel. A constant refrain that does not fade.

The first time I ever spoke in any kind of church service was my Granddad’s funeral. It was a few years ago, and like now it was the run up to Christmas. This tragedy, an expected one unlike the Newtown shootings, was tinged with similar sadness. Someone who you loved dearly would no longer be with you.

My Granddad had lived a long life, and senile dementia had made his last few years especially hard. When I spoke with my Mum of plans for the funeral I had the sudden and definite sense that I wanted to speak. I had never done anything like this before, my sister was the prodigy preacher in our youth church.

When I moved house a couple of months ago I found the typed text interspersed with scribbles of red biro telling the tale of last minute edits. It was Ecclesiasties and Emmanuel. The times that come and go and the God that is always with us.

I was nervous as I spoke. A Methodist chapel in South Yorkshire is not my normal church environment. A congregation of family some of whom are not Christian, and members of the local community with whom he had attended each week until his final years made it too hard.

There was a cycle of reinforcing theology that pushed me forward. God was with me as I spoke of God being with us.

Speaking in public isn’t something that comes naturally to me. I am not confident in my voice, I am reluctant with my words, unsure if people will like or agree with what I say. I am always hesitant when I have to do it, even when I choose to the reluctance does not go away.

Unsurprisingly many of life’s challenges come with such a hesitancy, an uncertainty of whether to proceed, whether the goal is worth the cost.

But sometimes there is also a knowledge that this is what you need to do. So you get on and do it. There are moments in life when you are able to push aside the rationality and reason and do what you know you have to do.

My wrong turns do not become any righter, but I slowly learn that I have a God and a Father who does not abandon. Not even in the hardest of times. Not even in my most recalcitrant of ways.

Beyond belief – God speaks

Danny Webster Leave a comment

The planning meeting broke up and God pulled Gabriel to one side. “We’re going to need some help on this one. Not so much a pre-announcement announcement, but an announcement to warm up for the pre-announcement announcement.”

“That’s a lot of announcing,” joked back Gabriel.

“Well they’ll be someone who comes before Jesus to prepare the way on earth, but we need to soften up the ground for those who are going to give birth to Jesus and to the one who prepares the way.

“I want you to go and tell the men and the women who will bear both my Son and my messenger. But play nice Gabe, don’t freak them out too much. They’re precious souls and they need some reassurance.”

“So should I just take the one flaming sword?”

“No flaming swords, but I think you might need a couple of tricks to get Zechariah to play ball. Maybe just strike him dumb for a short while. To be honest seeing Elizabeth pregnant will be enough of a shock, I remember when we made this play with Abraham and Sarah back in the day, they took it well enough in the end.”

Gabriel started to rehearse his lines, he was also pretty stoked to be able to get back down to earth, even if he wasn’t packing and it was just for a couple of brief deliveries – it made for some variety from supervising the Heavenly Gardeners.

For Elizabeth it was the joy of bringing longed for good news, and the added bonus of some quiet relief from the infernal jabbering of her husband. He had needed some forthright persuasion just as God suggested, but silenced enforced by the hand of God made him see what was going on and the gift that God had given.

Mary. She was the stunner. Just a little slip of a girl, liable to be blown away by a misdirected wafting of Gabriel’s wings. And he did his usual ‘don’t be afraid’ routine, and for some absurd reason it worked. To be honest, he could have probably swung his swords as he entered the room and she would have greeted him with the same unnerving peace. Of course she was confused, baffled, bewildered, the whole non-sex related pregnancy is enough to set anyone wondering if mental health treatment didn’t need to rapidly advance a couple of millennia.

But Mary took it all in her petite stride. She didn’t howl and scream, she didn’t refuse the truth that was about to become her son. She turned and worshipped God.

Joseph was in a bit of a predicament, after the magnanimous actions of his betrothed he was caught either having to pretend they’d copulated already or she’d been off with another man. Or stick to the lines given him by Gabriel and become the mocking boy of Nazareth. And boy, did he man up when the time came. He stuck with her.

Gabriel headed back to his gardening duties stunned that God’s hair brained scheme might work out after all. It might not have been the way he would have done it, but God seemed to have a handle on the situation.

Heavenly strategic planning

Danny Webster Leave a comment

God called together his partners and senior advisers for the annual heavenly strategic planning session.

“Right, this year I want us to step back and going forward do some big thinking. I want us to push the envelope, get some four dimensional blue sky thinking going on. Let’s pre-prepare for a holistic incentive driven marketing plan. We need a product evangelist and some 360 degree thinking before getting this into the product pipeline.”

Some of the angels were a bit staggered by the change in tempo. Usually the annual meetings were a formality, meeting to agree that they would continue with the plan as they had for the past 400 years.

“I’m serious,” God went on, “it’s time to move things along. I’ve been watching and waiting, and the time has come for something a bit different. I’ve got a few ideas I want to bounce off you, but let’s have an idea shower to get the juices flowing.”

Michael was never one to keep quiet when given the opportunity to have a say. “We’ve got this new Roman dimension to play with. It’s been sixty years since our people lost their independence, but the Romans seem quite happy to delegate power, maybe we can work with that?”

“Maybe we just need to be a bit more proactive,” piped up Eremiel, “we’ve got one of ours on the throne, why don’t we just send some missives to Herod so he can get with the programme?”

It was Raphael who sounded the note of caution. “I know we work with all sorts of people, I can still remember that strategy session when we came up with the donkey ploy – we really got Balaam with that one. But, Herod? Really, I think we’d have to pull off something pretty spectacular to get him in line. Why don’t we try something new, find a new leader, get someone who will stand up for the people, maybe even take the throne from Herod?”

“Yes, we could really give people the freedom they want, maybe we should have backed Judas Massabaeus. This time we can go down and give them a helping hand – I’ve been sharpening my flaming sword just this morning.” It was Eremiel who remembered back to the last time the Jewish people had their freedom.

“No, that’s not how we’re going to do it. It is time for an intervention. Not just nudges and hints, the time has past for gentle shifts in emphasis. Now is the time that God comes to earth.” It was the Holy Spirit that spoke into the growing confusion of ideas and schemes.

“That’s more like it, we’re going to wield so holy might!” Eremiel was already halfway to the door to get his sword.

“It’s just me that’s going. It is time.” Jesus started towards the door and ushered Eremiel back towards his seat.

“And it’s not going to be with flaming swords. Not this time. It would be easy to win by might but it would be meaningless. We come as the lowest of the low. We come in a form unrecognised by the high and the mighty. We live to serve the world we created.” God closed down the conversation in that way people sometimes do. For now the final word had been spoken.

The deafening sound of silence

Danny Webster 4 Comments

In Francis Spufford’s Unapologetic he talks about the time when you cry out to God, when you summon the energy to convince yourself he might in fact be there, and you are met with nothing but silence. To more precise, not quite silence, more like the empty static at the end of an old vinyl record. Almost the sound of where something should be but is not.

It’s the silence that intimidates because there is a voice that should be there. It is the silence heard when a young man goes into a school and shoots a score of children, their teachers and his family. It is the silence we hear when we want something to hear.

I had the idea for this post, and the series I will post each day this week, before the shooting on Friday. But the tone would have been different. It might have been slightly hectoring against the tendency to commercialise Christmas. I might have made the point that Advent is to be a time of waiting, but in fact we spend it rushing to and fro frantically doing all the things that we do not need to do. Only to be able, for those few precious days, relax and do nothing. We precede inactivity with a frenzy rather than waiting and then moving towards action.

In a way I suppose I have done what I said I would not, even in the act of saying I am not doing it.

Silence is a funny thing. It leaves things open. I could have just not said I was ever going to discuss anything else. Any break to the silence, any interruption, changes things. When someone speaks they cannot unspeak. It’s not about hearing what you want to hear, silence isn’t waiting to get the answer you want. Silence is waiting.

Silence is pregnant. There is something about silence that is temporary, otherwise it would be unremarkable. It is a pause, a step before something is said. It is the pregnant expectation that something is coming.

Silence is hard. We want answers, we want reassurance. When there is violence and hatred, and exploitation and suffering we want someone to say everything is okay. The outpouring of grief could cause people to cry ‘where is God at a time like this’, but those voices are pre-empted by those ready to tell whoever will listen exactly where God is. For a few it is he who sits in judgement orchestrating actions to punish our decadent ways, for others it proves his absence. For some it shows he is distant, unconcerned with the tragedy that befalls us all at one time or another, but particularly acute in a corner of Connecticut this weekend. For others he is there with his arms flung around the parents grieving the loss of children that will not see another Christmas Day.

For four hundred years the people of Israel lived in the midst of such deafening silence. A God who had spoken through their forefathers and prophets appeared to have left the stage. They wanted answers.

But the attentive could still here static in the background. This was not an absent God, he had not walked away.

Silence leaves room for hope.

Newtown shooting: when the ocean between us is full of tears

Danny Webster 1 Comment

I was listening to Joy to the World as I read the news of the shooting in Connecticut.

I checked my annoyance that Newtown was misspelt in the hashtag #prayfornewton.

I wrapped up pass-the-parcels, as many layers across the three packages as lives lost in a small town today.

I prepared games for a party, knowing that for a score or more there would be no more parties.

I followed twitter, with voyeuristic attention. I listened to the words President Obama summoned to describe the sickening feeling a nation, a world, felt as lives were ended and more traumatised.

I saw him wipe away a tear or two.

I felt the anger of those calling for gun control laws.

And the heartbreak of those wanting to postpone the politics until another day.

The aromas of the Christmas cake baking in the oven wafted through my flat, as I wondered whether there could be joy in this world. As people quoted the West Wing as the source of solace far removed from reality. A world where Presidents can quote scripture and it leaves tingles on your forearms and not tears in your eyes.

When ‘joy cometh in the morning’ is a scriptwriters gift and not a statement confounded by reality.

I have no children to hold a little closer tonight. But the fragility of life is closer than before.

Somehow, I try and and remember that joy to the world is not just a neat lyric in a carol we sing at this time of year.

Somehow.

Unity for the love of God

Danny Webster 6 Comments

Yesterday was not a great day for Christian unity. But sometimes good things come out of not such good days. I hope it was one of those.

Under the gaze of intense public scrutiny, from both Christians and the mainstream media both UCCF and Bristol CU changed their positions yesterday. And they did change, even if they were presented as clarifications. Bristol CU moved from a position of only allowing women to speak in certain rather restrictive circumstances, to now committing to open up all their speaking engagements to men and women. For UCCF a former position of not having a position seems to have morphed into something more robust, stating that it would be “wholly against the UCCF basis of faith and the advice of UCCF staff” if a CU devised a policy not to have women speakers for some or all events. That’s not the same as not having a position, and while I welcome the change, let’s be frank and call it what it is.

**Update** All is not as simple as this! Pod from UCCF has been in touch and defends the absence of a change of policy. UCCF have always held that the Basis of Faith as the only requirement for speakers, and for CUs to prevent a speaker on other grounds goes against the unity at the heart of the basis of faith. From the sounds of it, rather than a formal change in policy, it is a more robust application of it. **End of update**

A lot of talk went on yesterday and most of it was fairly respectful and gracious, most of it was from people committed to the witness of the church as well as the full use of all people and their gifts and talents. I think there is a place for public debate, and I don’t think all church matters and discussions of theology and practice should be decided behind closed doors or in private. Light is brilliant and shows up what might be wrong and we should not be afraid of the light.

Even so, I worry that as the world looked on yesterday, as the papers ran their stories and journalists sought out a fresh angle, what was shown was not a body of believers committed to working together for mission but a gang of factions, each desperate to get one over another.

And I spent a lot of time thinking about unity. Thinking about what unity looks like, what it requires, and what it is for.

What is unity for?

Unity is for mission, it is so that the world may see. It is not to provide a warm and cosy feeling. It is not to impress the world. It is not to do away with differences. It is not to suggest that all roads lead to God.

It is so together we can present Jesus to the world.

What is unity?

Unity is not being a doormat. It is not compromising on everything in some false attempt to keep everyone happy. Nor is it an attempt to sideline secondary issues in order to focus on core doctrine and mission, because that logic leads to a lowest common denominator when those who are most conservative or keen on the status quo win out. Take for example the issues of women speaking or the exercise of spiritual gifts. The logic that all are happy receiving teaching from a man but only some are happy with a woman teacher, so we’ll just have men, is a false unity. So to is the idea that because we all agree that the Holy Spirit enables us to understand and receive the teachings of the Bible we’ll stick to just that because some might not agree that the Holy Spirit speaks today through prophetic revelation.

Unity is tough. It is being fully aware of our differences and agreeing to work together. It is loving each other more than we love our own doctrine.

Unity is not about creating or maintaining a monopoly. That’s another thing that sometimes bugged me with the CU when I was at university, the idea that they were the bastion of unity and everyone else were dissenters and trouble makers. Maybe I put it a bit strongly, but a strong idea of unity does not try to take over or incorporate those who think and operate differently. It finds a space to exist together and work together.

What does unity require?

Unity would not take any effort if we all already agreed. And if would be nothing more than a saccharine soaked beauty-pageant-esque call for world peace if it had nothing to unite around.

Unity is also not the same as working together. I am willing to work with just about anyone, and I think churches and Christian organisations should show willingness and initiative to do so. I work with people whom I disagree on many things but we come together for a common cause. We come from different places, and ultimately our goal is different, but for a segment of the journey we can help each other out. To give it a technical term, it’s called co-belligerence.

Unity requires a common goal, but it also requires a common cause behind reaching that goal. The UCCF Basis of Faith is similar to the Evangelical Alliance’s, but with a couple of important differences. Probably chief among these is the commitment of UCCF to the infallibility of scripture compared to a concept of the Bible as supreme authority and fully trustworthy for faith and conduct in the Evangelical Alliance’s basis of faith. The challenge for UCCF is that not only is it an evangelical organisation, of which it should be proud, but it requires a standard for unity that some evangelical Christians might not agree with.

The question, and the challenge, is what level of core agreement is essential, and what draws too tight a circle? At what point do we stop working together because our differences have become too great? And who judges if and when those differences become too great?

It is easy to say that mission is our common cause, but that is hard to do. I have seen on the ground the challenges of churches working together in evangelism. What happens when people commit to following Jesus, which church do they go to? I’ve seen jointly run Alpha courses run aground because of differences about baptism.

Unity requires a humility that this is a hard road to walk and we haven’t worked out all the contours. It requires a humility to accept when we get it wrong, often when we are too eager to prove that we are right.

Why unity?

We work together because the church is the bride of Christ. We commit to overcoming but not dismissing our differences because we are called to be united. We are committed to unity because we want the world to see Jesus, and to see the difference He makes. And that makes it worth the effort. It makes it worth the heartache, the headaches and the disagreements, it even makes it worth the rather messy and not always wanted public disagreements.

It is hard, it is challenging. It will frequently be frustrating and we will often get it wrong.

And when it all goes wrong, when we want to tear each other apart, instead we fall over ourselves to serve one another out of a love for God and a commitment to make Him known.

Bristol CU and finding grace in hard places

Danny Webster 7 Comments

Ten years ago I was a fresher at university. I arrived fresh from a charismatic church environment heavy on the use of spiritual gifts and where my younger sister sometimes spoke at our Saturday evening youth church meetings.

Three things caused an immediate dissonance between my experience of church and what I encountered with the Christian Union. One was the absence of any practice of the spiritual gifts, no prophetic words, speaking in tongues or prayer for healing. Secondly was the friction which later become outright hostility between the CU and Fusion which I had been introduced to and had expected to be the predominant feature of my spiritual life. Thirdly the bar on women preaching or serving as president of the CU.

I had a minor leadership role within the CU during my second year and argued fiercely against the position vis-a-vis Fusion. And when the elections were held to confirm the nominated committee I spoiled my ballot, I believe only witnessed by one other. The election was a formality, the people filling the posts had been chosen by the previous year’s committee – a process which enshrined the conservative position.

I also found the position around women speakers nonsensical, Damian Thompson alludes to this in his Telegraph article on the current furore. When does teaching become teaching, for example women were allowed to give evangelistic apologetic talks but not speak at the evening main CU meetings. Leaving Fusion to one side for now, the justification behind the CU’s position on women and spiritual gifts was that these were secondary issues not foundational to the Christian faith, and therefore to take a position on these would damage the unity of Christian witness on campus. To some extent I got their logic, I didn’t want to see a charismatic CU, a conservative CU, a CU that had spiritual gifts but not women speakers, maybe one backing infant baptism and another supporting adult immersion. However, the logic was also flawed because it defaulted to a conservative position that kept those against various things happy and those wishing to see a missed aspect feature alienated.

I also sat in on the university council meeting where someone brought a motion to disaffiliate the CU because of its positions, I can’t remember the details, I suspect it was either around not having a women president or its views on homosexuality. The details are not important. What was important was that a body separate to the CU felt they had the right to decide what was or was not a legitimate aspect of Christian belief.

I know different CUs take different approaches, some are charismatic, some have women speakers, some work alongside Fusion in relative harmony. I think there are two massive challenges here that are worthy of note, firstly CUs are good as organic student run societies led by people who know the community they are reaching. But this means those in leadership will often be relatively inexperienced.

Secondly, CUs are not churches, but operate and exist as quasi-church entities, that means that for students they are often the place where most of their spiritual interaction and input occurs. For this to work and not displace the primacy of the local church it requires local churches to support and guide the work of student led ministries. It requires local church unity. It means that they don’t try and place their style of worship above another, or use a default conservatism to maintain a status quo that actual does damage the unity of Christians on campus for mission.

I don’t know what’s going on at Bristol CU at the moment, but I know plenty involved in CUs who have got caught up in student media storms, or pressures from the student union. I think they need our prayer as a matter of urgency. I think they need the support of the local churches, I think they need wise counsel. And I think they need our grace. I think they have tried to handle a difference of opinions in the best way they felt they could. It maybe that they’ve got this wrong, but don’t we all from time to time?