Blog Archives - Wayfarers

The war against science

31/8/2010

Occasionally I like to have a look at what sort of things the evangelicals are talking about. I feel a little sorry for the traditional British evangelicals. They are discovering that a large proportion of their younger colleagues have come over all fundamentalist. Heavily influenced by the nonsense emanating from the States, they are antipathetic to evolution and seriously regard accounts of creation in Genesis to be taken literally. Furthermore, the world of the internet from which evangelicals have benefited means that the discussions (I use the term loosely) initiated by fundamentalists take over. British evangelicals of a more intelligent sort find themselves mired in a terrible world of unreality from which they cannot escape.

Short-term no doubt the fundamentalists will make gains in the UK. Creationism and its more cunning younger brother intelligent design are counter-cultural to avowed materialists like Dawkins, (as well as being the sort of thing that appeals to iconoclasts). But long-term it gets them into a long war of attrition with science that they can never win but from which they'll find it hard to extricate themselves.

Why I don't like what some evangelicals stand for

31/8/2010

I recently happened across a review of a conservative evangelical book. The title etc don't matter; you can read the same sort of thing in many places. The topic of the book was along the lines of what you need to be if you want to be considered a Christian and it was evidently written so that the 'kids on the street' will get get it. But that doesn't hide the profoundly unchristian faith behind it.   It prompted me to get this off my chest.

I had a Sunday School teacher (Winchester Methodists, Waltham Forest) who told his class that he wasn't going to marry his girlfriend until she became a Christian because otherwise they wouldn't be together after death (she'd be in Hell). I was then a fairly pious sort of adolescent and although I don't remember being immediately horrified, I think it acted as a slowly accelerating conveyor-belt propelling me out of association with that sort of conservative evangelical Christianity. In fact I ended up a fairly militant atheist. And I would maintain still that atheism is a more healthy attitude to have.

Paul said love was greater than faith (or hope) but what matters in that sort of evangelical world is Belief. The criterion upon which you will, or will not, be saved is whether you believe, not whether you've tried to love.

Does this matter? Yes. After you've waded through the gluey adjectives that so many conservative evangelicals use - 'amazing', 'awesome', 'wonderful' - it's not the good news of God's love for the world that is offered, except as filtered through a warped blood-sacrifice. No, the God who offers love is replaced with a God who needs belief.

It is a weak, inadequate, tetchy God.  A God sullenly sitting by his scales and dropping the weights of the sin he has made for us into the balance against us. A God who actually doesn't like us very much but has been prevailed upon by His Son to let us into His house rather than wipe us out.

If God is love, this means that the love we experience in our human relationships must be but a dim reflection (I think Paul used an appposite metaphor here) of that divine love. The self-forgetting, the self-sacrifice, the forgiveness, the understanding (not to mention the sense of humour) that we show to those we love must be as nothing to that emanating from God. Yet these people put forward a theology that on examination places God's standard of love significantly below that which we should expect of any parent.

A God of love doesn't get terribly offended and strike us off the invitation list if ignored or even if we don't believe in Him.  Such a God wouldn't expect us to grovel in supplication, or to be singing endless hymns of praise and staring in rapt adoration.

If we ignore God the loss, in terms of this life and the fulfilment that the experience of the divine can bring to it, is surely ours. God is going to get over it.   No, a God of love is a God of relationship and it is is how we engaged with others that will be the criterion by which we are called to account.

Classic titles of Free Christianity

27/8/2010

A few titles of interest that can be read online.

The history, opinions, and present legal position of the English Presbyterians by Thomas Falconer, 1834

The new affinities of faith: a plea for free Christian union by James Martineau, 1869

Christian Aspects of Faith and Duty by John James Tayler, 1851

A Free Catholic Church by J.M. Lloyd Thomas, 1907

We got there first!

20/8/2010

The July 2010 issue of the Modern Church (formerly Modern Churchpeoples’ Union) journal ‘Signs of the Times’ has an interesting piece on the Trinity and interfaith dialogue by Jeyan Anketell (http://www.modchurchunion.org/publications/st/jul2010/2.htm).

However, it is striking that, once again, there is a whole article on issues close to the interests of Unitarian and Free Christians that fails properly to acknowledge that such people do exist, have existed for some time and, most importantly, had reached a similar point to Jeyan Anketell many decades ago. In this context, the line 'I don't think we should be afraid of considering new ideas' might strike one as somewhat, shall we say, anachronistic.

What is a Free Christian?

20/8/2010

I have been giving further thought to what distinguishes the Free Christian from other liberal Christians. I think the key difference is from where you start. The Free Christian starts with an assumption of ‘creed-less-ness’ and freedom of belief. This is why he or she is likely to be associated with the Unitarian and Free Christian Church. This is a different organisational and theological context to that of the liberal Christian within a mainstream Church. However, the Free Christian accepts that the creeds have shaped the thinking of mainstream Christianity for many centuries and the doctrines set out by them are not to be dismissed lightly. He or she is therefore interested in exploring and seeking to understand them, even if he or she cannot subscribe to them. This again is likely to be a different situation to that of the liberal within the mainstream who might well be finding the obligatory nature of the creeds constricting and seeking looser doctrinal interpretations than are accepted by their Church.

This means, I think that the Free Christian is distinguished from the Unitarian Christian in that he or she finds more value in engaging with the doctrines of the mainstream churches and is likely to be more at home with issues concerning liberal Christians in those churches than with matters of the Unitarian denomination.

These are, of course, theoretical distinctions. I see no reason why one cannot be a Unitarian, a Unitarian Christian, a Free Christian and a liberal Christian; or an Anglican, a Free Christian and a liberal Christian.

Honest to God II

13/8/2010

I ought to have found Honest to God on my wavelength. I sympathise hugely with what Bishop Robinson was trying to do and why he thought it had to be done. But I came away dissatisfied and unconvinced. His portrayal of Jesus was one factor certainly, see my previous post, but it was more than that.

I think it is because he was seeking new ways in which to argue for the relevance of the Christianity of church doctrine, rather than going back to the scriptures from which it claims to come and from which it derives its meaning.

He was surely right to understand ideas about God as metaphors. He noted how 'up there' idea of God in the Bible was superseded by the 'out there' idea of God in nineteenth and earlier twentieth century theology. He, in turn, wanted to replace that with a new metaphor based on depth.

The first problem here is that this removes Christianity another step away from the Bible. The less the Christianity of the theologians connects to the language of the Bible, the more abstract and unreal it becomes. So the Christianity of 'depth' which Robinson advocates, impressive though it might be, comes across as an intellectual construct of dissatisfied theologians. It is interesting how the blunt message of God given in Jeremiah 22.15-16, which Robinson quotes with approval, contrasts with the abstractions all around it.

The second problem is that the 'up there' metaphor for God is by no means the only one found in the Bible. In fact there are many. It is thus misleading to present the Bible as if is is offering only one (obviously antiquated) paradigm.

If, as is surely correct, all talk about God has to be understood metaphorically, surely it is more satisfactory to work with those metaphors you have, rather than inventing new ones even further removed from the source from they ultimately originate and to which they must relate than the 'out there' idea of God that Robinson, rightly, wanted to dispose of.

Honest to God I

12/8/2010

I was reading John Robinson's Honest to God on the train to work today. I confess I'd never read it as a whole before - dipped into it yes - but not started at the beginning and carried on. It is interesting to see how much is still topical and how much seems dated.

Christianity is a faith founded upon Jesus of Nazareth understood as the Christ. Otherwise it is nothing. However, the Jesus of Honest to God is an unconvincing figure. He appears as an empty vessel, lacking personality or any humanity, into which 'Godness' is poured. It is a Christ as a cold, theological construct, manufactured to meet a doctrinal need. It is in fact less satisfactory than the 'Godhead veiled in flesh' of Wesley.

Of course, we all have to understand Christ and his significance using concepts with which we are familiar if we are to find meaning in his life. So Anglo-Saxons could portray him as a warrior, Victorians as a muscular Christian, Bishop Robinson as an idealised Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and some contemporary progressive theologians as a left wing Democrat and anti-Iraq war activist.

What matters is whether we are trying to understand Christ as he was and accepting where that leads us today, or whether we are reconstructing him, intentionally or not, to suit our own agenda.

Everyday holiness

11/8/2010

Jesus’ teaching is that holiness is not to be found apart from everyday life, not in retreat or separation from the world, but in our normal, day-to-day living alongside other people. He gives no instructions on how to live other than loving, forgiving and repenting. It is the simplest and clearest way there is, yet following it consistently, the most demanding. We are, however, not asked to succeed; we are asked to try.

The Way that works

9/8/2010

The line 'hell is other people' is about as unchristian, even anti-christian, a phrase as you can find.

In the teachings of Jesus how we relate to other people is an essential theme. The 'care of the self' figures little. It is the concern for others, loving your neighbour, that is central. It is true that Jesus does say we are to love our neigbour as ourself but this is to emphasise the depth of concern for others, and he does not expand on what loving ourselves might mean.

The reason for this is that the self is not important to Jesus's idea of salvation.

Yet, it is love of others, not as a charitable duty or for hope of reward in an afterlife, but regarding them as fellow children of God and hence as brothers and sisters, that is the way to overcome alienation and to live at peace.

The closer you can be to fulfiling this, the more content you will be. To some this seems to come naturally, others have to struggle. Some arrive at a similar attitude through following other religious or philosophical teachings. But it is the only way.

Wayfarer spirituality

6/8/2010

There is a distinctive, though not by any means exclusive spiritual outlook that is associated with the Free Christian position.

It is a spirituality that is rooted in the conviction that, as Teresa of Avila's wonderful words put it,
Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks compassion on this world
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

This focus on the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth and the implications of that for us, although it follows from the particular theological outlook of Free Christianity, is something shared by trinitarians, unitarians, agnostics and even atheists.

What's here

A quick look at the 'blogosphere' shows that the nature of the medium means it is all too easy for a 'blog' to convey the impression that its compiler is, at best, self-indulgent and verbose, and at worst, a narcissistic bore. Religious blogs are by no means immune from this.

However, while I shall try to avoid sharing my each and every passing thought with you, there is a use for a space for shorter, more ephemeral pieces of writing, and on this website, that's here. These pieces are likely to be frequently revised, sometimes rewritten and occasionally removed.

ewayfarers@gmail.com

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