Former EastEnders soap star and notorious cocaine addict Danniella Westbrook has become a Christian. Read this interview in The Mirror, which is utterly devoid of the cynicism Christians often expect from the press. Not so the Daily Mail, often the self-proclaimed defender of Christian values, from the snide title of its piece to the snarky comments about finance. Is this a class thing? Westbrook more neatly fits the Mirror’s demographic, yet that section of society generally has a lower attachment to Christianity.
Does God Play Jazz?
I don’t know whether he does, but we had jazz in church this week. My little church at Addlestone is used to hosting concerts in the annual Addlestone Arts Festival, but on Wednesday night we not only hosted a concert, we organised it as well – complete with a pre-gig supper for anyone who also booked that.
One of our church members, Phil Brown, is a jazz trombonist, who leads a band called the Phil Brown Swingtet. Jazz musicians don’t always feel comfortable in church, but we were glad to have Phil and his crew with us. Footage I shot with our Flip Mino can be found below.
I was asked to introduce the band with a short talk. I didn’t want to sermonise (and besides, I’m speaking on Sunday night at the thanksgiving service at the end of the festival – text to follow in the next day or so). That meant doing some research.
Firstly, I found a piece by a Christian jazz musician called David Arivett. He quotes some of the prejudice launched against jazzers. From the Women’s Home Journal of 1921 comes this tirade called ‘Does Jazz Put The Sin In Syncopation?’:
“Jazz originally was the accompaniment of the voodoo dancer, stimulating the half-crazed barbarian to the vilest deeds. The weird chant, accompanied by the syncopated rhythm of the voodoo invokers, has also been employed by other barbaric people to stimulate brutality and sensuality. That it has a demoralizing effect upon the human brain has been demonstrated by many scientists.”
And – perhaps even more worryingly because it comes from as recently as 2007 on an extreme fundamentalist website:
“Like the blues, boogie-woogie, and ragtime, jazz was born in the unwholesome and sensual environment of sleazy bars, honkytonks, juke joints, and whorehouses. The very name “jazz” refers to immorality.” This website goes on to list just about every negative quote on jazz that has ever been written and their main purpose for posting this is to “provide information to assist preachers in the protection of the churches in this apostate hour”!!!! Are you shocked yet? Read on, “the world’s music, in any era, has never enhanced the Lord’s message. The devil was not able to be as blatant in the jazz era as he is in the rock generation, but the same raunchy fellow is behind both styles. Both mediums represent classic worldliness.”
Worse is the thoughtless criticism that he quotes British Christian jazzer Mike Brett as having received:
“I feel that in many Christian’s minds Jazz is a dirty word, so I think for many years now it is music that has been ignored in the church. I have been taken to task for playing jazz as a Christian, the reason given is because of the unsavory and sinful places it has come from in past years. I have been told to get away from it and ‘Touch not the unclean thing.’ Yet the same people who have told me this might have an interest in things like photography which could be used for much more unsavory and sinful purposes like pornography…”
(Oh, and I cite that as one who enjoys photography.)
Well, yes, I know many jazzers have lived deeply broken lives. I recall the line in Steely Dan‘s song ‘Parker’s Band’ (about hearing Charlie Parker):
We will spend a dizzy weekend, smacked into a trance
However, Arivett develops some thoughts about a spirituality of being fully, physically alive that enables us to see things rather differently from these blinkered comments.
Elsewhere, in a sermon I found by Michael P Brown from Canada, we have an argument from history that effectively the roots of jazz are in the church. He refers to two groups of people that moved continent to the USA. One group willingly did so: they were Gaelic-speaking Scots, who brought with them their Presbyterian tradition of ‘line Psalm singing’. One person would sing a line of a Psalm, and others would respond and improvise.
These Scots, to their shame, were slave owners, and that is where the second people group comes in: Ghanaians, who were forcibly transported from their homeland to be slaves to the Scots in North and South Carolina. When the Scottish slave owners took their Ghanaian slaves to church, the Africans heard this call-and-response-plus-improvisation style of singing. They added their own rhythms. Out of that came spirituals, gospel music and eventually jazz.
So we took jazz back to its church roots on Wednesday night (without the slavery, of course). Ladies and gentlemen, will you please welcome the Phil Brown Swingtet:
The Bay Revival
Here we go again
? God TV are covering another ‘revival’ from the United States. Three years after the tragic mess around Todd Bentley and the Lakeland Revival, when many sincere Christians’ hopes were raised, only to be dashed, we now have The Bay Revival. I sat and watched some tonight. While I didn’t see any of the things that alarmed me about Bentley, I can’t pretend I don’t have some questions. Here are a few thoughts.
There was plenty of sung worship, but little prayer, no Bible reading whatsoever and no preaching. No confession and no intercession – except the prayer and laying on of hands for those seeking prayer for themselves. Perhaps it was significant that what seemed to be the most popular song was one with a refrain, ‘You are good’, leading to the punchline ‘You are good to me‘. Now I have no complaint at that thought in itself, but I do have a concern when that is the centre and circumference of God’s goodness.
Then there was the prayer ministry. Unlike the teaching we are following in the Letting Jesus Heal course at present, this was not about ‘team’ but about the ‘star’ who was leading the prayer. Mainly young British evangelist Nathan Morris but also John Kilpatrick, former leader of the Pensacola outpouring in the mid-1990s, the leader is at the centre of all the praying. He calls out ‘fire’ or a ‘mighty flow’, lays hands on people and assistants are there to catch them as they fall. If they don’t fall, he keeps praying. As soon as they do, he moves on. I have no problem in principle with people falling under the power of the power of the Holy Spirit, but I would reject any notion of it as the (almost) infallible sign that God is at work.
Ultimately, the sign will be whether the people so prayed for do show evidence of the fire of the Spirit in their lives after the event. We have no way of measuring it. I hope it will be true, but I am loath to jump to conclusions in the ways that the preachers seemed to here.
And likewise the claims for healing. I so want to believe that cancer of the oesophagus is being driven out, as was claimed tonight. However, it needs testing. On the other hand, though, in fairness there are many videos online showing a woman called Delia Knox getting out of a wheelchair and singing at one of the meetings last year. Others show her arriving back at her home.
This careful evaluation tends to think this is a genuine miracle. On balance, I tend to agree. To me, it looks like this has ‘stuck’. It doesn’t seem to be one of those temporary improvements that then regresses away from the original highly charged circumstances. If so, then although I have real reservations about the style adopted, God seems less concerned with that than me, and more concerned to be merciful to a woman in need. There will still need to be issues handled around those who have expectations raised only to be disappointed, but the healing of Delia Knox looks like the real deal to me, and if so, then may God be praised.
Finally, though, I was bothered by what I heard towards the end of the broadcast. People were invited to come to the front to receive prayer – good. But they were asked to bring their offerings with them. I think it wasn’t meant in a sinister way – bring money in order to be healed – because of the commentary Morris gave immediately afterwards. But the juxtaposition was unfortunate. However, while Morris said he didn’t want people to take away from their regular offerings (tithes) to their own churches, he did exhort them to ‘sow into revival’ – a phrase often heard in these contexts. Apparently the Bay Revival needs lots of money for trucks. And I just wonder whether a revival of God needs high budgets – or am I being unfair? Does it need big venues, world tours and international television coverage (although that is how I came to know of this, I admit)? OK, some Christian projects do. But it’s like the original Pentecost could never have happened, being such a low-budget affair.
So – has anyone else followed this? What opinions do you have?
Doubt And Faith
This coming Sunday in our sermon series on ‘People around the Cross and the tomb’, we shall look at Thomas, or ‘Doubting Thomas’ as he is often known. The subject of doubt and faith is a vital one, and today I have begun typing up various random ideas that I hope will make their way into the sermon.
Among them is the text of a speech I found online nearly six months ago. I have kept it open in a browser tab ever since – probably I should have just saved it in Delicious. However, it is coming into its own as I prepare for Sunday, so I thought I would draw your attention to it now. The Benefit of Doubt: Coming to Terms with Faith in a Postmodern Era is a wonderful lecture to read by the American Old Testament scholar Peter Enns. I shall certainly be including some material at the weekend which takes its inspiration from this wonderful piece. If you have half an hour or so to spare, I commend it to you enthusiastically.
The Questions Children Ask
This video clip from the BBC comedy show Outnumbered has gone viral in the last year or two:
My reaction on watching it again this week is that many of young Ben’s questions to the vicar were all too reminiscent of the attitudes many adults have shown this last week when thumping their fists in the air to celebrate the killing of Osama bin Laden. Why not sort everything out with a quick bit of violence? These attitudes start young.
Probably the best question in the clip is from Karen, when she asks the vicar whether Jesus could have found another way apart from the Cross of saving people.
On Friday, I went into our children’s school to be quizzed by Year 1 and Year 2 children. It was our son’s class. On Thursday evening at the meal table, he told me the class had prepared sixteen questions to ask me. The little so-and-so wouldn’t give me a heads-up on any of them! His teacher was very pleased with that the next day.
Some of the questions were routine: do you marry people? What is a christening about? What does your font look like? Do you pray every day? But some were harder, and especially to give an accurate, succinct answer in understandable language. Why did you want to become a minister? Well, actually I didn’t …
After we got through the sixteen questions, the teacher invited a few additional spontaneous questions from the floor. That yielded one I could only answer concisely, and as briefly as I could in the limited span before playtime: do you believe all the stories in the Bible? A ‘yes’, combined with an explanation of needing to treat different literature differently, pointing to the different styles of books in the classroom.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, while I had questions about baptisms and weddings, I had none about funerals. The questions were about what interested and affected them.
But the honesty and directness were refreshing, and a world away from the spite and hate behind many such debates among adults here on the Internet.
Religion And The Entertainment Culture
When entertainment is the air everyone breathes, it’s natural for people to respond to whatever worship media we use with either “I like that” or “I don’t like that”—even when liking it or not isn’t the point. That’s how you’re conditioned to respond in an entertainment-based culture.
Does this explain a lot of comments ministers receive about worship or other aspects of church life? As well as those comments, I recall turning up at one church as the visiting preacher to lead an act of all-age worship. Before the service, somebody said, “I hope you’re going to entertain us this morning.”
I replied, “I thought we were here to worship God.”
So – thoughts, anyone?
What I do know is that it reminds me of something that happened to me once. I had applied to my bank for a loan to buy a new car. As the staff member took me through the interview in his office, he had to fill in various details about me on the computer. When it came to the question of my occupation, there was no option for ‘minister of religion’ or anything similar. After a lot of deliberation, eventually he said: “I know what I’ll classify you as: entertainer!”
David Wilkerson
It is sad to read this morning the overnight news from Texas about the death of David Wilkerson. in a car crash. His life and ministry impacted millions. No appeals to his supporters for the money to buy a Lear Jet, just a guy who risked his life in the violent Projects of New York to show the love of Christ to gangs led by the likes of Nicky Cruz. Famously, this was recounted in the book The Cross And The Switchblade, and the film of the same name, along with Cruz’ testimony, Run Baby Run.
Then the founding of Teen Challenge, to help young people with troubled lives. And a ministry at Times Square Church, New York, where he still preached regularly, even as he approached 80.
Google the Internet and you will find some of the controversial prophecies he made in recent years, not least on his blog. On some of these, time alone will tell.
His life affected my family. My sister went forward at one of his evangelistic meetings, around 1978 at Loftus Road, Queens Park Rangers football stadium.
Today I give thanks for the life of a courageous Pentecostal preacher, and the fruit of his ministry. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.
David, A Saint For Today
I’m not big into saints’ days – in fact not at all, really. But today I am taking assemblies at our children’s school and as it’s a church school I’ve been asked to speak about St David.
So I’ve had to do some research. Shortness of time has meant the Internet, and I was impressed by the careful article on Wikipedia – it cautiously avoided hagiography. And what I read made me think he is ‘a saint for today’. That is, not merely for the First of March, but for our times.
Here is a famous quote from the great man:
Be joyful, and keep your faith and your creed. Do the little things that you have seen me do and heard about. I will walk the path that our fathers have trod before us.
This man who recommended joy lived a simple lifestyle. Monastic to the point of extremes – a diet of water only to drink and bread and herbs (bread and watercress) only to eat. No technology – his monks had to plough the fields without the help of animals. Emphasis on doing ‘the little things’, despite the miracles associated with him. A sort of sixth century Amish, in a way.
It was all rather radical, and yes, as I said, extreme. But this man clearly knew what brought true joy. Not money, possessions, comfort, adulation or anything else: his joy was connected with ‘[his] faith and [his] creed’. Is it reasonable to assume that David’s deep joy came from Christ alone?
Rob Bell, Universalism And The Christian Blogosphere
Before reading on, may I invite you to watch this video teaser for Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins?
Now tell me how that proves Bell is a universalist? He may be, or he may not. This is far too ambiguous. This video raises the questions. It doesn’t give Bell’s answers. To be precise:
Unambiguously stating that Gandhi is in Hell does raise concerns. If you are an exclusivist (only those who have personal faith in Christ will be saved) you might well say that. But if you believe the biblical evidence leads in another direction, you will be bothered by this. That doesn’t simply apply to universalism (all will be saved, regardless of faith in Christ); it also applies to inclusivism (God will deal justly and mercifully with those who never get the chance to respond to Christ). And there is plenty of evidence for inclusivism in the Bible: take Melchizedek the priest of Salem in Genesis, for example. Take Job, possibly. And besides, Bell at very least may only be raising the questions our culture asks and which need answering.
Likewise, Bell’s portrayal of the Gospel as preached by some that a loving Jesus rescues us from an angry God. What kind of Trinity is that, where Christ is love but the Father isn’t? That certainly should be up for debate.
And as for the slogan ‘Love Wins’? Well, if Christians don’t believe that in some form or another, we’re in big trouble. There is something deeply troubling about a brand of Christianity that is more certain about who is going to Hell than who is going to Heaven – after all, Calvinism has always had a problem with knowing how you are one of the elect.
Oh, and by the way, the publisher’s blurb is correct: eternal life does start now. Read John’s Gospel, especially chapter 17 verse 3: ‘eternal life is knowing you’ (emphasis mine).
As I say, it is possible that Bell might be a universalist. But there is nothing in these two minutes and fifty eight seconds to establish that with any certainty. Therefore it is pretty unworthy for the new Calvinist militants to go after him like this. I say this as one who takes doctrine very seriously – this shouldn’t be the way a Christian theme ends up in the top ten trending topics on Twitter, as this did on Saturday.
I guess someone who commented on Christianity Today’s blog about the controversy got it about right:
Kudos to HarperOne’s marketing team. Job well done. I’d imagine this kind of buzz before the book’s release can only improve sales.
Community Feasting
A press release from the Methodist Church reports that only 17% of people would invite neighbours to share a meal if they had spare food. If anything were a sign that we’ve reduced Shrove Tuesday to Pancake Day, this is it.
All we seem to do on that date (8th March this year) is eat pancakes. It’s another festival where we’ve lost sight of the meaning. Families used to use up spare food and have communal activities (hence even today Mardi Gras) on the day before the sombre fasting of Lent began. Although let us remember that even in Lent the Sundays are still feast days – otherwise you’ll get confused in counting the forty days!
Hence the unwillingness (if it is that) to invite neighbours to a community feast is another tragic loss of our inheritance. It is both a sign of the loss of a Christian value, and a loss of community.
So all praise for the way the Methodist Relief and Development Fund wants to reclaim Shrove Tuesday as not only a community feast, but one that promotes Fair Trade. Their Fair Feast project, endorsed by celebrity chef Gary Rhodes, who has supplied a recipé for pancakes with wild mushroom sauce, is well worth looking at. You can even dovetail Bible study in with a local Mardi Gras event.
How are you going to celebrate Pancake Day Shrove Tuesday this year?
Big Circumstance 