Articles by chris

The history of Protestantism is littered with division and conflict.

Reformation of what has already been reformed.

Schisms of schisms.

Battles over whose truth is truer and whose understanding of scripture is most enlightened.

The legacy of these truth wars can be seen in the countless Protestant descriptive labels/denominations. Here are but a few as they occur to me;

Lutherans, Wesleyans, Reformed Weslyans, Methodists, Free Methodists, Primative Methodists, Baptists, Southern Baptists, Reformed, United Reformed, Assemblies of God, Anglican, Church of Scotland, Episcopal, Quaker, Shaker, Amish, Menonite, etc etc.

This list is in part a noble one. We have learned much from the men and women of God who have celebrated faith within these organisations. Such variety speaks of the freedom that people felt to follow after God in the way they understood him, away from the central powerful control of older forms of religion. It also is a story of fervency, of revival, of movements of the Spirit across whole communities, of great leaders who were bold and true.

But there is a dark side, measured in the truth promoted over love and grace, and in a serial fracturing of the Unity of the Spirit. Such division can be seismic in the violence done to community in the name of Jesus.

I wonder if this kind of spiritual development can become addictive and even infectious. Almost as if all new Protestant church movements carry a destructive gene within their DNA…

Scotland has had more than a fair share of this splintering and fragmenting. Take the recent very public difficulties seen in the Free Church of Scotland, which splintered as recently as 2000.

I have used this picture before- taken in a small West of Scotland town about 7-8 years ago. Two churches so close that they are almost touching- but separated by a chasm of doctrine. I should add the proviso that I do not know either of these churches, and the image may miscommunicate entirely. But I think it makes a valid point about a certain characteristic of Protestantism…

How did we come to this, we followers of Jesus?

How did Agents of the Kingdom of God, sent out into a broken world to form revolutionary cells characterised by love, somehow sign up instead to be driven towards such segregated exclusivity?

Is this more about psychology than it is about theology? Our tendency to seek a point of expansion and accomplishment, and to measure it against others around us- elevating ourselves by finding others wanting.

I wrote this poem in an attempt to understand these things in myself-

Diplomacy

We meet and move about one another
Probing, exploring borders
Negotiating
Presenting our petition
And revealing this badge of office-
Sewn on sleeves whilst our hearts stay hidden
Revealing carefully edited glimpses
Of whom we want to be
But are not yet.

Then begins the measuring
Of the size of armies
The bore of canon
And the reach of your rockets
As we carefully deploy our camouflaged troops
To occupy the high ground
To hide uncertainty behind
A cloak of accomplishment
And capability.

Sometimes it seems that who I am is only revealed
In understanding what you are not
In seeing you
And finding you wanting
In mapping out your strongholds
And avoiding them
And raising up my tattered flag
Above this uncomfortable alliance.

Why is this important now?

Because I think that this is a real challenge to those of us who are part of the ‘emerging church’ discussion, particularly here in Scotland. Some questions-

Is ‘emerging church’ just another Protestant reformation- another fractious denomination in the storming and the forming- throwing stones at those whose truth is not our truth, looking around and finding others wanting.

Or are we a break from modernist Protestantism- a more generous, open, embracing movement that seeks unity, not uniformity and is willing to learn humility and to value the other.

Are we Protestant at all? Where are the emerging Catholics?

If something new and hopeful continues to emerge, in all its flawed beauty- how do we(or even SHOULD we) nurture and sustain whatever we become without following a familiar pattern of splinter and schism?

From my point of view, the story is mixed.

Emerging church has no form and no structure- at least in Scotland. It is not a descriptive definition of any way of doing church- rather it is a loose affiliation of malcontents and hopefuls, defining themselves rather by the fact that they are prepared to question and seek.

And because we are human, friction is inevitable. People compete for prominence, and justify themselves by the rightness of their cause, or the small success of their activity.

But brothers and sisters- I find myself longing for something else. Something a little more of the Kingdom, and a lot less of the Empire.

Something characterised by tolerance and love. (Even as I am intolerant and unloving.)

On forgiveness rather than defensiveness. (Even as I defend and find it hard to forgive.)

Of a willingness to enjoy one another without the need to compete. (Even as my own insecurity drives me to do the opposite.)

And a determination to see community as the origin and the means for all things- with one another and with Jesus. And that the quality of these interactions should become the measure of our success. (Even with my own history of broken community, and the wounds I carry because of this.)

This is the church I long to see emerging.

I have not desire to be part of another schism.

Emphasis is all.

I had a conversation tonight with my friend Nick. We were talking about some planning he was getting into for a programme of Bible study for young people. He was talking about the need to get into the basics of Christianity, and how many of the young people (and some of the older ones) had very little basic knowledge of the tenets of our faith.

I thought about this for a while, and genuinely wondered about what these tenets were- and what I would teach young people if I was in Nicks shoes.

The ‘emerging’ conversation has shaken loose a lot of fixed positions for me. It has helped me see that a lot of the things I held to be basic building blocks for faith were perhaps not always so solid- but rather required robust examination. It made me wonder again about an approach to faith that started with one small group of people telling another larger one what it needed to know- facts and figures of faith that they needed to internalise in order to be a proper Christian.

In my discussion with Nick, I found myself making the following statement-

“I think we modern Christians made two particular mistakes in our attempts to engage with God.

1. We overvalued the Bible- wanting it to provide for us a textbook that creates a Christian, in the same way that a blueprint could make a balsa wood model plane.
2. We overvalued the need to get our doctrine sorted- the finding and adopting of correct positions in relation to all aspects of faith.

That is not to say that these things are not both wonderful and important- but simply that we over-emphasised them- making them perhaps the only way that Christians could discover God. In order to make this stick, we had to pretend that there was only one way to read and understand the words, and to suppress all less tangible and less ‘objective’ spirituality- rendering it untrustworthy and dangerous.

Sure, the Charismatic movement came along and added a whole new experiential encounter with the power and wonder of God, but ultimately, I would argue that the modern Protestant faith was grounded on the two points above.”

This statement is shot through with faultlines, but I think, on the whole, I stand by what I said.

If I am right (and many would strongly disagree!) does it matter?

Does it matter as we seek to engage with young people? Do they not just need to be given some basic truth before we get all post modern and mystical? Perhaps they do. Perhaps the trampoline bouncing that Rob Bell talks about as an image of theology can only really begin once we have set up the trampoline.

But alongside the importance of the written words of the Bible, and the need to establish doctrinal beginnings- I think I would gently suggest that the emergent conversation might challenge us to add in other emphases too. Because people of faith have always encountered God through many other means.

So I am convinced that rightness of doctrine is not the precursor to being acceptable to God. It may be a consequence of this, but as far as I can see, God seems to tolerate a fairly wide spectrum.

And the Bible is wonderful- but many have lived lives in the name of Christ but have never seen one- either because they could not read, or because the canon of scripture as we know it today simply did not exist, or because the Bible was not available to them.

So what other ways to encounter God should be emphasised?

Perhaps we can only start by looking back to the spirituality of pre-moderns, and use this as a set of goggles to consider our own culture. There is much there that we would reject, and count our blessings that we are this side of the reformation- but still…

We see people seeking to engage with God through living encounters- through hardship, pilgrimage and through community. We see lives of service and humility. We see the importance of shared ritual and engagement with God in the passing of seasons and in connection to every day experience.

So might we learn from this as we seek to encounter God in our new changing context? Might we learn again the vitality and meaningfulness of the mundane, and the wonder of small adventures in which the wind of the Spirit blows us into the path of all sorts of opportunities to be shaped and changed?

The Bible will continue to be a gift to our new generations. There will be others too.

So- are ‘emerging churches’ and the people that use the label middle class and self absorbed with their own little slice of post modern spirituality?

Check out this discussion thread, in which Paule Ede, who lives and works in a tough part of Glasgow as part of an ‘Urban Expression‘ church plant. I think the discussion rapidly got a little heated, which is a shame as it seemed to be digging into something that is very important. I have a lot of respect for the things that Paul was saying, and for the challenge it ought to bring to those of us whose lives are led in a different direction.

Poverty is not romantic. It is rarely a choice, and always brings the aspiration of escape- by whatever means possible. It brutalises and robs people of health and opportunity. But the presence of such inequality in our world is as much as anything, our shame. It’s presence in our streets and cities is a sign of our failure.

A consistent theme on this blog has been that of social justice. I have lived my life convinced that the call of Jesus is perhaps first and foremost towards the poor, broken and hungry. It pushed me towards a certain understanding of spirituality, and into a career in social work, and mental health work in particular.

But we can be creatures of contradiction and self congratulation in the face of contrary evidence. I live in a big house in a beautiful place. I have a fairly new car, and a well paid public sector job. Like most men, I have a weakness for gadgets. I have accumulated lots of STUFF- most of which I do not really need. In short, I live a life like most of the other people in our affluent suburbs.

I discussed this with friends in my small ‘emerging’ community the other day, and my thinking changed a little.
My own group is in Dunoon. Dunoon is a fairly affluent area, although has a significant underclass of folk who ended up here, almost washed up ‘doon the watter’ from the big city. We too have lots of difficulties- drugs, under age drinking. We also are a culture that has more than it’s fair share of loneliness, isolation and brokenness.

Last week we watched a Mike Frost DVD as part of a study we are doing around the book ‘Exiles’. Frost was thundering eloquently and movingly about the nature of our calling as Christians to get into ‘Dangerous criticism’ of the empire we are part of (Subordinate and secondary perhaps to our call to BLESS the empire where we can.) He spoke a lot about consumer driven over consumption, and the poor. Following on from the discussions on this blog, I began to shrink a little into the chair I sat in, in my big house, well heated and full of my friends.

But during the discussion that followed I looked around the room with tears in my eyes. Three of us have had serious mental health problems, two addictions, several have long term chronic illnesses, others carry other wounds. Some are on benefits, others are in work. Some will have a posh holiday this year, others will go camping when they can. But we have found a place of friendship and acceptance from which we are seeking means to bless others- particularly the poor.

Then there is the work and activity we do that is a direct result of the faith within us and the call of Jesus. I started to make a list of things that we are connected with-

One of us volunteers on the committee of a local addictions charity.

One runs the ‘time bank’
One supports volunteering opportunities and helps small community groups
One manages a charity that helps homeless young people
Two others work as life coaches and run stuff for young people
Another does suicide awareness training
Another is a counselor and has a particular interest in bereavement issues
Another is seeking to get allotments established to allow folk to grown their own food
Another has set a local charity to refurbish play equipment on the west bay
Another works in Greenock to help kids get some meaningful work experience
Another is a volunteer at a local old folks home
Another is a student who is studying addictions
Another is a reporter in the local paper, campaigning around justice issues

Does this get us ‘off the hook’ then?

Well, no.

I think the call of Jesus on our lives is always destabilising, always calling us out of comfort into the journey with him. As soon as we think we have it sorted- no matter how challenging the context, then we are destined to fall flat on our faces, or descend into mundanity. This is challenge for those of us in the emerging church as much as it is for any church grouping.

And one of the ways that people who have lots of stuff are always going to be challenged is in relation to our comfort and wealth. We are challenged not because these things are bad, but because they can so easily be idolatrous and ensnaring.

So for those of us with big houses and cars- what use are we putting them to? How dependent are we on stuff in the chase for happiness and fulfillment- whether or not we have it, or just WANT it?

These are not easy questions, but Jesus knew that- remember the rich young ruler who Jesus ‘looked at with love’.

The emerging church, in it’s theologising and pontificating is indeed a middle class phenomenon. Perhaps it’s true test will be how it lives out the call of Jesus to the poor.

A little more from my Ecclesiastes 3 ’seasons’ project… there are more available on my main blog here.

Now is the time to dance

There is a time for all things under heaven…
And today we met

You raised a friendly eyebrow-
Quizzical, but not unfriendly
I smile
And make some comment about weather
Or the price of bread
You laugh, and in the music of your voice
I hear the Spirit
And the dance begins

It is not King David dancing naked
Nor the dance of St Vitus
I have no grace, no artistry
But still
We were beautiful

You settled down in a seat close by
And looked out the window
Finding something to examine in the middle distance
And we were quiet
Aware of each other
But without acknowledgment
Between us however, almost visible in the air we share
Are questions
Identity
History
Activity
Humanity

I do not jive to feel alive
Nor dance like an Egyptian
I am the ungainly morris man
Or like an old bloke at a wedding
Who should know better
But still this waltz we begin
Is under our very own
Mirror ball

Outside the sun warmed the winter day
And kids played
You found a hook to hang a sentence on
And dangled it in my direction
So we moved closer to one another
And music swelled
We spoke of the purpose of the day
And a little of the life lived around it
The shape of you showed a little

I can dance a Gay Gordon
Like a church warden
But should I try the disco
I am a herd of elephants
With ants in their pants
But you and me
We are starting to tangle
In tango

We found the rhythm
And something in the music made it possible
To speak of things usually buried deep
And with a surprising cadence
We found ourselves in a minor key
Dealing in brokenness
Pain and hurt
Trust betrayed
Damage done that left deep scars

Some people dance like Salome
To beguile and manipulate
But if you should fall under my spell
Your head will never be upon a plate

The conversation turned to Jesus
And his failing followers
And I held my breath, lest I tread your toes into the carpet
Until in a moment I was Neuryev
My blood flowed like silk
And we were alive
Salsaing with the Spirit of God

Because now
Is the time
To dance