From The Inside

A Divided Nation

We live in a divided nation.  This has been coming home to me more and more in recent weeks and months.  It's not just that we're divided along racial, religious or national lines - although these are there too - but divided along cultural, financial and class grounds.  I'm probably saying nothing new, and am reluctant to say anything for fear of being 'classist' myself. 

I daily meet guys whose background I struggle to identify with.  But lads brought up in a culture marked with anger.  Whose lives as children was often complex, painful and full of memories and experiences no child should have to face.  Lives marked with a lack of hope for the future, void of aspirations and dreams, and lives marked with rejection and crushed self-esteem.  Where drugs and alcohol flourish.  Where survival of the fittest, or strongest, is the order of the day and where fists have now been replaced with blades.  It's a world that thankfully I have never really known.  I was raised with the support of a family more than the support of my peers.  Where I was encouraged to better myself and reach my full potential.  Where the only limitations placed upon me where essentially those which were self-imposed. 

Too many children are born into situations which will determine their futures before they are old enough to make their first decisions.  Is it right that just because of where you are born will determine your future and your likelihood of facing a prison sentence?  We're not even talking different countries
here - but the difference which sometimes 2 miles can make in some cities.  And, (I say somewhat controversially) is it right that it is those who have never had to live in these communities that make the laws, exercise the judgement and pass the sentences on those who are unfortunate enough to have done so?  Is this why those who through greed and questionably legal practises end up costing the country billions of pounds walk away with bonuses - while those who steal a £30 item from a shop face a prison sentence? 

And what does the Gospel say into these communities?  What hope does it offer?  And, maybe more crucially, where is the church in these areas?  If present at all, it's struggling away in every sense of the word, while mainstream church life develops a Starbucks ecclesiology.

I have no answers and don't mean to be critical of the church.  But it troubles me that we, as the church, are content to allow whole ghettos to develop on our doorsteps where so few disciples are prepared to go.  it troubles me that so much talk of "emerging church" seems to pamper to today's yuppie culture, and ignores the millions of children living in deprivation in our own country, the thousands for whom alcohol and drugs are the painkillers of choice, the millions who are disenfranchised from the church's life and community.  What to do?  I don't know.  "Here I am God, send me.  But show me how!!"

Remembrance Day

I’m not sure that we Baptists really know what to do with Remembrance Sunday. Certainly when I was the Pastor of a local church, it caused me a great amount of internal debate each year, and I’m still not sure that I have reached any conclusions. It seemed an unnecessary formality in the midst of an informal service. In years past I dismissed it as being irrelevant given the fact that none of my congregation had anyone they ought to personally remember. As a free church it smacked too much of state church. As those who believed in the way of peace it ran the risk of glorifying war. As a Briton it seemed insensitive to those of other nations – as if God were on our side. Maybe at the time I lacked enough imagination to observe the day in a way which avoided these dangers, and enough creativity to make the affirmations I would now wish to make. Maybe I was alone in this, but given that even today there will be Baptist churches fully observing the day like any good Church of Scotland, right through to those will not have even mentioned the event (like the church I attended), seems to suggest to me that there are others who don’t know what to make of the occasion.

I think if I was doing things today I would wish to put my own interpretation on the day, and make it more of a silence to think of the horrors of war in general, and a stand in silence and solitude against violence in all its shapes and sizes.

It seems almost comical now, in a twisted sort of way, the notion that on the 11^th hour, of the 11^th day of the 11^th month an armistice was signed to end the “war to end all wars.” The history of the last century, including the start of this present one, demonstrates the horrible basic truth – man’s inability to live at peace with his neighbour. But more than that – it has demonstrated the way in which human life can be seen as a commodity to be disposed of by those in power, for a cause that more  and more often seems indeterminable. As we observe another Armistice Sunday, the day itself mocks us – for what actually happened on that day back in 1918? Although both sides acknowledged that World War I was over, they independently chose to continue fighting on that final day, November 11, 1918, until the armistice hour.  It has been claimed that more men died on the final day of World War I than on D-Day a quarter-century later, demonstrating what all war is in its essence – the pointless carnage of usually young lives for no positive purpose, except perhaps the purposes of the politicians and those in power, a fact increasingly apparent as we engage in more and more conflicts which lack an answer to the whole question “Why?”

Below are just a few of those who have lost their lives in the past few months alone. Their families will be marking this day in a whole new way this year. Men full of life, hope and future – men who loved and were loved, who breathed in the freshness of each new day, who experienced life with all its joys and sorrows – in the same way as we do now. May God comfort those who love them. May He look down on this tragic world of broken humanity in mercy. And may the King of Peace come, and come soon.

Scottish Parliament

I've had a nice day out at the Scottish Parliament.  It was the first time I had visited the place - and although the outside still looks quite appalling, the inside does have some nice redeeming features.  Still not sure that it was worth the money!!  (Am I allowed to say that as a Civil Servant??)

One of the other Chaplains had been invited to give the Parliament's "Time for Reflection" - so we all went along for moral support and to cheer him on.  Turns out he is also friends with his local MSP and so she arranged for us to be given a special tour, then took us all for lunch the in Members Restaurant (very nice and she paid!) and then we got to watch proceedings from the Speakers private gallery - so it was nice to be treated as a VIP for a day, and rub shoulders with those we only ever see on TV.  We saw quite a few well kent faces.

Also enjoyed my lunch-time chat with the MSP who, it turns out, is a woman of strong faith - never realised that before.  She had been given an audio version of Dawkins "God Delusion" and her thoughts and feelings were very similar to my own - but it was good to hear it from, and discuss it with, a member of Parliament.

We stayed on and listened to Nicola Sturgeon's statement on NHS Waiting Lists, and for some of the debate which followed.  Was fun - but wouldn't like to be an MSP and have to do that every day - would get a little tedious!  It was interesting to watch all the MSPs come in chatting away to each other irrespective of political allegiance - and then when the formal business began, to see them heckle and attack each other.  It really was quite frustratingly rude at times.  I wonder to what extent serious political debate can really happen in such a circus atmosphere?

Andrew Walls on Translation

"None of us can take in a new idea except in terms of the ideas we already have."

".. the great act on which Christian faith rests, the Word becoming flesh and pitching tent among us, is itself an act of translation.  And this principle brings Christ to the heart of each culture where he finds acceptance; to the burning questions within that culture, to the points of reference within it by which people know themselves."

Andrew Walls on Nationality

(To silence my cynics and maybe generate thought...)

"The translation of God into humanity, whereby the sense and meaning of God was transferred, was effected under very culture-specific conditions."

"..national distinctives, the things that mark out each nation, the shared consciousness and shared traditions, and shared mental processes and patterns of relationship, are within the scope of discipleship.  Christ can become visible within the very things which constitute nationality."

(The Missionary Movement in Christian History)