Sèa & Islands Post 25

Community or Constituency

Now all human communities contain an element of politics. We may describe this without a capital ‘P’ but it exists, whether we like it or not. All of us, whether in leadership or not, have a constituency and this very fact means we will be drawn to speak and live in ways that affirm our position within what are perceived to be acceptable boundaries.

We may well, from time to time, develop thoughts and ideas that would be seen as being at odds with the demands of our community but we will be drawn to establishing political patterns of behaviour and modes of speaking that seek to confirm our place within the status quo.

Through a Glass Darkly

During my fifty plus years of life, most of which has been as part of a church community, I have grown somewhat tired of hearing emphatic statements in church.

Don’t get me wrong; I haven’t stopped believing. I just feel concerned about the way we present God and the expectations that we place on people’s lives. Once secure in the knowledge of our certainties, we begin to defend our new territory with the kind of fervour that the world find objectionable.

I am mindful that the Apostle Paul, arguably one of the most definite writers in the New Testament, accepted that his views were limited.

After nailing the context for Christian love in 1 Corinthians 13, he seemingly groans and offers his confession that we see these things, indeed all things, through a darkened glass.

This seems in stark contrast with the stand of certainty some Christians often take when discussing many of the subjects that our dear to us. Such a stance leaves little room for dialogue with other church people, let alone other religions or indeed agnostics and atheists.

It is my conviction that these positions of certainty produce a limited view of God, his creation, and his purposes. Here is the main point of my argument. It is the very limitation of our understanding on which the whole thing rests; or at least our acknowledgement of this limitation.

It is quite another to have such limitations and yet know that you see in part. It is one thing to have a limited view, yet believe that you see fully.

The latter can lead to a halting of dialogue, as individuals and churches defend their view as complete and absolute. The former can lead the pilgrim to hold their belief as a signpost pointing to a greater truth.

It is impossible for us, for example, to understand love fully. We engage with it in a context; in a time and space. When we attempt to describe God’s love, we are immediately confronted with the inadequacy of our words.

I read the gospels and find the Lord Jesus grappling with the problem of explaining eternal truths in an earthly context and I wonder why we believe that certainty is the goal.

Jesus seems to present one parable about the kingdom of God suggesting that it is like a tiny mustard seed that grows into the tallest of plants (51). Then, almost as if to deconstruct his own example, he offers his listeners another parable about a woman working yeast into dough (52). Following this, he offers many other parabolic examples pointing to the kingdom.

It’s as if Jesus is presenting his followers with one glimpse of what the kingdom of God is like and before they can build ‘The first Church of the Mustard Seed’ he indicates that this picture is not enough to explain it.

In light of this we must be wary of thinking that doctrinal expression can ever be enough to express how amazing is the love of God.

Indeed, as we hit some of the more perplexing parts of what it is to trust in the providence of a loving God, we are tempted to run in two seemingly opposite directions. At times the insecurity that we face makes us rush towards things that have the marks of certainty. We need solid ground; we crave a place that gives us hope in something more definite than the sum of our fears.

There are other periods when the questions break us out into new pastures; into ideas, thoughts and hopes that seem to rest on things less certain. Here we feel comfort from the freedom found in asking questions that we feel sure cannot be answered.

It seems odd at times to think that both directions, both responses, have Bible verses that support our newfound place of rest. It is at this point that perhaps we look to those on the other side of this divide and judge them by our own selection of verses.

We need to recognise that all of us view such things from a vantage point constructed by our experience and the theology expressed by our tribe. In this respect, we are being political and engaging with our own constituency.

I hope that it is not too much of a caricature to suggest that a Calvinist Evangelical might stand upon the idea of justice to view and interpret a theology of the love of God. Similarly I would prefer to stand upon the idea of the love of God in order to view and interpret justice. It is the acknowledgement that we occupy a particular viewing point, that makes questioning such an attractive and useful exercise.

For what it’s worth, I have found hope in the place of questions for which there are no answers this side of eternity. I find comfort in this from the way that the Bible leaves room for the providence of God to work outside of the construct that I and my tradition have made; the Centurion with greater faith than the religious, and the Samaritan woman becoming the first evangelist to her own tribe.

Certainty provides the comfort of believing that we can know definitive answers to deep and meaningful questions. Mystery says that the answers themselves are, as N.T. Wright (53) states, only 'signposts into a mist'.

As mentioned earlier, I was taught in my theological training that the Bible offered a systematic understanding of the world. I soon came to realise that the Bible is not written this way. When we take disconnected verses, out of their context, in order to make a systematic theology we often fail to hear the eternal echo of the true message.

This lack of system can seem strange to those who are looking for certainty but I believe it brings a freedom that often is not found in religious life. It means we read scripture to find the story or narrative that is being presented. We try to read it in context with a healthy respect for the writing style and the author's intent. In this endeavour I hope to find others on a similar path with whom I can travel.

God promised us an anchor for the soul, not certainty for the mind

Sea & Islands Post 18

Rootedness

I have attempted to describe the oblique journey as having an irreducible core of belief that is rooted in both the biblical narratives and the testimony of the historic church. In one sense, because this is a highly personal process it has to be contextualised. Even churches that suggest that they take the Bible literally, employ convenient contextualisation when it suits them.

In practice however, and because our faith is intended to be of a corporate nature, we will always need to offer explanation, so that others can learn from our journey and, in return, we can learn from them.

The central component of this irreducible core is the person, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I would locate this centrality in a Trinitarian understanding of the story.

There are, of course, other elements to this core but this is not important for what I am attempting to describe here at this moment. What matters here most is that we begin a journey to discover our own irreducible core in which we might become rooted.

It seems to me that churches, that develop too wide a core at this point, risk including ideas that limit the possibility of discussion within the group and with other churches; for example ideas about eschatology and ecclesiology are often held with an unhealthy reverence. This core should be focused upon both orthodoxy and orthopraxy because our faith is dead without works.

I mentioned earlier that I started my church journey in a denomination that had expressed their core as twenty-four doctrinal statements known as Fundamental Truths. To be fair, they weren’t much fun and they were usually decided by men!

In practice, judgements of orthodoxy at an individual level were more a question of behaviour than belief. Unless someone openly questioned these beliefs, they could remain in the church so long as it looked as if they were living within the perceived norms.

Over time the list was reduced and renamed as a Statement of Faith because the senior leaders realised that the original list was potentially a block to unity with others.

The need to describe a central set of beliefs and practices is both understandable and necessary. We just need to do so with care.

I would encourage you to discover an irreducible core within which you can find your rootedness.

The revelation of God in Christ means that some Bible texts cannot be reliably interpreted in ways that show God as a monster

Sea & Island Post 2

There is no Good Place to Stand

Having four daughters has an effect on both how you see the world and how you live your life. I have probably spent more than my fair share of time on shopping expeditions for clothes and other daughter related products. The majority of these consumerist exploits have been spent outside the changing rooms of various department stores.

I have developed a theory about such things that I feel is worthy of sharing at the beginning of this book. It centres on the idea that on these occasions there is no good place to stand. If you position yourself too near the changing rooms you tend to look a little odd. If, however, you stand too far away, you will not hear your wife calling from behind the curtains for you to exchange one of her items for a different size. Either way, there is no good place to stand.

It often seems like this when considering the key themes involved in leading church. Wherever you stand, there will be those who will criticise your choice; this can mean that sometimes it becomes easier to make no decision at all, rather than risk making the wrong one. We are left with a set of unspoken issues that remain unchallenged, for fear of standing in the wrong place; we are left with a kind of theological dissonance.

A little too close in one direction and you may well be dismissed as unorthodox; move too far the other way and you may well be seen as irrelevant to the community in which you serve. I have decided that it is best not to let the fear of being labelled ‘unorthodox’ stop me from wrestling with some very important questions.

Finding a good place to stand can only be a temporary exercise for anyone called to be a pilgrim