Peacemakers

“Blessèd are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” (Matthew 5:9)

I remember my first Remembrance Sunday service as a minister. The Anglicans and the Methodists gathered together every year in the parish church. The vicar didn’t like preaching, and always delegated that to the Methodist minister. He chose the Beatitudes of Jesus as the Bible reading. I’m sure you don’t see any parallels with this morning, then. 🙂

In my naïveté, I felt I had to expound the whole passage. I said something about every one of the nine beatitudes. So – here we are, another ecumenical Remembrance service in a village parish church, settle back into your pews … 

No. I’ve learned. There is enough in one of these Beatitudes to fill our thoughts on a day like this. I could have chosen, “Blessèd are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled”, but instead I selected, “Blessèd are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” What might these words of Jesus mean for us on Remembrance Sunday, and what might they mean for us generally in following him?

Peace with God
We cannot understand the mission of Jesus unless we see it as being out peacemaking between God and human beings. He said that he “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for the many” (Mark 10:45, italics mine). Jesus came to bring reconciliation. He came with the message of God’s grace and mercy for sinners. He demonstrated it by his outrageous association with the most unworthy members of society. He accomplished it in his death on the Cross, where he took the blame for the sins of the world. In his Resurrection, he made the new life of God’s kingdom visible and possible.

In the Gospel of Jesus, peacemaking bridges the gap between God and people caused by our sin. The apostle Paul says that God in Christ appeals to us to be reconciled to him. That happens through the Cross, when we respond by turning away from sin to follow Jesus and trust him. It is the work of Jesus as the Son of God to make God’s appeal to us and to make the bridge-building possible.

So what better time to find peace with God than Remembrance Sunday?

Peace with Neighbours
At college, a friend of mine bought a book of cartoons about the symbol of reconciliation at Holy Communion services, the sharing of the Peace. The cover had a cartoon showing one character offering the Peace to a rather frosty person. Its title? ‘No Thank You, I’m C of E.’

Some people think the introduction of the Peace into Christian worship is one of those touchy-feely happy-clappy trends that don’t fit with traditional worship. In fact, it’s a much more ancient tradition than the Book of Common Prayer. Only one tradition of Christian reconciliation is older, if you want to be truly traditional, and that is Paul’s command that we greet one another with a brotherly kiss. I don’t hear traditionalists calling for that too often!

But my serious point is this: a liturgical action like the Peace symbolises the fact that if we are at peace with God, we are called to be at peace with our neighbour, insofar as our efforts allow. That is why the Book of Common Prayer invited all those who were ‘in love and charity with [their] neighbour to take [the] holy sacrament to [their] comfort’.

In other words, we cannot have the blessings of reconciliation with God as a private possession without striving for reconciliation with people. Children of God will be such peacemakers. We will forgive those who have wronged us, not by pretending something didn’t happen or didn’t matter, but by separating blame and punishment. We shall take steps to apologise and make appropriate amends when we know others have been hurt by our actions. This is what those who have been adopted into the family of God do. God has built a bridge to us in Christ: we build bridges to others.

Peace with the World
Here’s the thorny problem with this text on Remembrance Sunday: if Jesus calls his followers to be peacemakers, should we ever go to war? Clearly, Christians have disagreed about that for two thousand years. I’m not about to settle it in one brief sermon. 

It’s worth noting that there was a political application to Jesus’ words here. If peacemakers were to be called ‘children [sons] of God’, then that would have struck a chord with his first hearers. In Jesus’ day, you will recall that his homeland of Israel was occupied by Rome. There were different Jewish responses to the fact of occupation. The wealthy Sadducees ingratiated themselves with their rulers. The Pharisees prayed for change.

And the Zealots were the freedom fighters. Rome would have viewed them as terrorists. What did the Zealots call themselves? ‘The sons of God.’ At very least here, then, Jesus repudiates the use of violence in advancing the kingdom of God.

It may be a different matter when it is not a matter of forwarding the Christian cause as one of justice for others, where we defend the oppressed. Jesus would have had the Hebrew word for peace in his mind, shalom. Now shalom is not peace simply defined as the absence of war. It is about the presence of justice and harmony in society.

Thus if promoting justice and harmony meant taking forceful action against the wicked, we might in some ways be peacemakers. However, that is something that needs weighing carefully and only pursuing in ways where we guard as much as possible against descending to the level of the oppressors. So, for example, that is why – although I disagree with Barack Obama on issues such as abortion – I welcome his commitment to close the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay.

An Anglican priest from Kenya once told me, “If I am attacked for being a Christian, I will not fight back. If I am attacked for being a black man, I will.” Whether you agree with him or not, he was trying to distinguish between the fact that Christians may not seek to advance the Gospel aggressively or violently, but we may use force if it is a matter of justice for others. However, let us exercise caution. Force should only be exercised with reluctance, not enthusiasm. 

One final area of peace to mention this morning:

Peace with Creation
This may seem an odd thing to talk about, and perhaps the moment I said ‘Peace with creation’ you thought this was going to be an excuse for some trendy talk about the environment.

Well, this point is about environmental concerns, but it is thoroughly rooted in the text. In the Old Testament shalom peace includes harmony with creation. This is not some ‘Hello trees, hello flowers’ approach, or viewing our planet as a goddess called Gaia, as some do. It is about taking seriously our stewardship of God’s world. If in the kingdom of God the lion will lie down with the lamb, if nothing will be harmed or destroyed on God’s holy mountain, and if the throne of God is surrounded not merely by humans but by ‘living creatures’, then we have a vision of harmony with God’s created order.

Even without this vision, we would surely want to fight to make peace with the environment for the sake of our children and grandchildren, just as many fought for a just peace in World War Two.

But the Bible’s vision of the future is a large and compelling one. It is not, as popularly supposed, one where the material is vaporised and we are all ethereal spirits floating on clouds. Rather, it is one where just as Jesus’ body was raised in a new physical form, so will ours be. It is one where heaven comes down to earth, and God inaugurates a new heaven and a new earth. Creation is redeemed with a new creation. Peaceable creation care today anticipates God’s future. It is in harmony with it.

Blessèd, then, are the peacemakers. Children of God are those who have been reconciled to their heavenly Father through the Cross of Christ. In response, they offer that same peace to others, they seek reconciliation with their neighbours, justice in the world and the well-being of creation.

May the Holy Spirit help us all to be peacemakers.

1

Links

I thought I might collect some of the links I’ve found interesting but not necessarily saved to my delicious account. I know several other bloggers do this about once a week, but most of my best ideas are borrowed! Anyway, here goes:

Three little words so hard to say: in the week of the Obama landslide, an investigation into why politicians are reluctant to say “I don’t know”.

Brother Maynard nails some of the nuttier ‘prophetic’ responses to Obama’s victory.

Meanwhile, Erika Haub describes voting in the US election.

A primer on today’s missional church: can’t remember who tipped me off to this page, but J R Woodward collects a huge resource of web articles, videos, bios of missiologists, book reviews, blogs and reources for all who want to explore the good ship Missional.

Glad to see this: New lifeline for Bletchley Park. A few years ago when he did his MBA, my brother-in-law sorted out their ecommerce.

Were these Christians worshipping a modern-day golden calf?

Spring Harvest, King’s College London and Paternoster Publishing are hosting a one-day conference on how Jesus taught and we learn.

The cult of Mac: why Apple is more than a corporation, it’s a religion. And how does ‘branding’ affect our faith?

This picture reminds me of friends who used to mime the action of birds when it came to the ‘I’ll fly like the eagle’ line in Geoff Bullock’s worship song ‘The power of your love’.

Well, that will do for a first attempt. Do you find any of this useful?

2

Mathematical

Your result for The 4-Variable IQ Test…

Mathematical

10% interpersonal, 10% visual, 35% verbal and 45% mathematical!

Brother-from-another-mother! Like mine, your highest scoring intelligence is Mathematical. You thrive on logic, numbers, things representing numbers, and sets of things that are sets of other things, with numbers nowhere in sight. You probably like the online comic called XKCD, and if you don’t, check it out.

You probably knew you’d score “Mathematical” as you took the test, and mathy types are usually super-high scorers on this axis, and low on the others. Why? Because you (we) yearn for math.

Anyway, your specific scores follow. On any axis, a score above 25% means you use that kind of thinking more than average, and a score below 25% means you use it less. It says nothing about cognitive skills, just your interest.

Your brain is roughly:

10% Interpersonal

10%Visual

35%Verbal

45%Mathematical

Take The 4-Variable IQ Test at HelloQuizzy

Via Peter Kirk and Sally Coleman.

0

Accounts

My best subject at school was Mathematics. I hoped I would read Computer Science at university, and was absolutely certain that one thing I didn’t want to do with my aptitude for numbers was become an accountant. So when I went for one job interview and they said they’d like me to train as an accountant, I found reasons right in the middle of that interview to get out fast.

Thus it is that one thing I hate doing every year is my accounts. Most ministers are in the invidious position each year of having to complete a form of agony devised by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs called a self-assessment tax return. On the television you see assorted celebrities from year to year proclaiming something jaunty about their completion. To me, it is dullness of the lowest order.

You see, our employment situation as ministers is ambiguous. We are not run-of-the-mill employees whose tax affairs are taken care of by Pay As You Earn (although our main stipend is taxed that way). Some in our church would like us to be their employees so they can boss us around, but legally we’re not. Nor are we self-employed, even though in employment law our employer is God and we lack protection against unfair dismissal – although the current Government has been looking to change that. Nor, obviously, are we company directors, however much we would like to tell people what to do.

No, we fall into that smallest of employment categories, along with Superintendent Registrars and a few others: we are ‘office holders’. And although most of our income can be covered under PAYE, we receive other fees that need taxing, and claim various expenses that can be set against tax. Thus we have to complete a return each year. Although I meticulously keep all my papers and receipts for the year (a challenge for a constitutionally untidy person like me), I have to put aside a whole day to enter data on a spreadsheet that I then send to my wonderful accountant in Glasgow, with his well-deserved fee. Anyone who can spend their working days dealing with these trees has the admiration of a woods person like me.

This year, I had been putting off the evil day, until today. I am typing this as I have just finished printing off the final sheet and covering letter. The challenge for me is to undertake this annual chore in a Christlike way. As I’ve indicated, the skills and temperament it requires don’t sit with my gifts and personality. 

Here is how I see it. When I was considering whether I was called to the ministry many years ago, I once quizzed a speaker at Spring Harvest. I explained that I thought I was being called, yet I was by no means certain whether my gifts matched the calling. His reply was that there are some things God simply calls us to do as servants.

It was a comment I remembered a few years ago when a colleague explained how he came to terms with those parts of ministry he found uncongenial, or those where he believed the Methodist Church had got it wrong and should change, but hadn’t. “I regard some things as my calling, and others as my job,” he said.

Today, I’ve had to remember that this was job and not calling, but I am equally called to undertake this tedious task as an act of loyal discipleship (to Christ, not HMRC!). If I’d really thought about it, I would have practised the presence of God. Not that I would expect a wonderful spiritual experience while typing numbers into Microsoft Excel, but because I believe God is as pleased with the faithful fulfilment of these tasks as he is with those we find rewarding, or where others compliment us.

Right now, I’m just glad it’s over for another year.

2

Burma

Just received this from Avaaz:

Dear friends,

Burma is far from the headlines – but we’ve found a real pressure point, the insurers who prop up the junta’s economic interests. Read the email and take action now!

(Meanwhile a new US president is about to be elected — watch out for our post-election campaign…)

A year after their crackdown, Burma’s military dictators remain entrenched, propped up by dealings with Western companies. But the Burmese democracy movement has found a powerful pressure point — many of the Generals’ West-linked business ventures depend on one insurer: Lloyd’s of London.[1]

Lloyd’s is the world’s oldest, most respected insurer, and cares a great deal about its global reputation — by pointing out Lloyd’s blameworthiness as key insurance deals come up for renewal, we can shift their cost-benefit calculations on support to the Burmese regime.

If enough of us email and call key decision-makers at Lloyd’s this week, we could shame them into pulling out of this dirty trade, undermining the hardliners and creating pressure for human rights and the release of political prisoners like democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Follow the link below to lend a hand to the Burmese people:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/shame_lloyds_on_burma

The Burmese people’s struggle is long and tough. But as in South Africa, international pressure on the regime’s exploitative ventures could tip the balance. Because it’s hard or impossible for them to continue without insurance, this is an effective and wide-reaching approach for citizens everywhere to have a real impact. Burma’s democracy movement decided on this strategy because the benefit of these ventures flows overwhelmingly to the generals, while the Burmese people have grown ever poorer.

Lloyd’s of London is the umbrella and overseer for hundreds of specialist insurance syndicates, and it can stop their dirty trade if it so chooses. Already many big global insurers have stopped insuring junta-linked businesses – after Lloyd’s, the generals will start to run out of options. We’ll ramp up the pressure by alerting the media to our campaign, specialist insurance publications included. Even the British government has begun to ask Lloyd’s to cease its business with the Burmese military junta.[2]

We can win this campaign, so let’s flood Lloyd’s with emails and phone calls all this week — on the campaign page we provide key numbers, email addresses and suggestions for what to say — just follow the link below now to take action:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/shame_lloyds_on_burma

If we win, the regime will be thrown onto the back foot, Burma’s people will be immensely heartened, and the UN Secretary-General will have a greater chance of securing the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and other prisoners this December.[3] Together, our individual small acts are becoming irresistible. We can’t forget Burma.

With hope and determination,

Paul, Alice, Iain, Graziela, Ricken, Pascal, Paula, Brett, Veronique, Milena — the entire Avaaz team

For updates on Avaaz campaigns: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/report_back_2/
You can also view reports on our campaigns in support of the Burmese democracy movement and the $2 million of aid Avaaz members provided in the wake of Cyclone Nargis.

Sources:

1. The Observer: “The baron who holds Burma’s purse strings”, 2 November 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/nov/02/oil-total-burma-lloyds-levene1

Reinsurance Magazine: Big insurers including Marsh, Swiss Re, AON pull out: http://www.reinsurancemagazine.com/public/showPage.html?page=787739

Arab Insurance Group and XL also pull out:
http://www.mizzima.com/news/world/962-campaigners-hail-arigs-decision-to-pull-out-of-burma.html

2. “Foreign Office warns Lloyd’s over Burma”:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/sep/28/insurance.foreignpolicy

3. As Ban Ki-Moon prepares to visit, Asia-Europe summit in Beijing calls for release of political prisoners:
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/independent/2008/10/release-aung-sa.html

———————————

ABOUT AVAAZ
Avaaz.org is an independent, not-for-profit global campaigning organization that works to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people inform global decision-making. (Avaaz means “voice” in many languages.) Avaaz receives no money from governments or corporations, and is staffed by a global team based in Ottawa, London, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Paris, Sydney and Geneva.

Click here to learn more about our largest campaigns.

Don’t forget to check out our Facebook and Myspace and Bebo pages!

0

Coins

Yesterday, I visited my parents. It was a good opportunity to see how Mum was getting on since we heard she (thankfully) had TB, not cancer. Dad has since been prescribed antidepressants: the strain of this episode, preceded by Mum’s fall last Christmas, and the prolonged saga of the house move last year have taken their toll on an eighty-one-year-old.

They treated me to an excellent lunch at a favourite pub. Then we returned to their flat for conversation, before tiredness meant they needed a rest and I made an earlier than expected departure.

During that chat, I mentioned a story from the other day. Rebekah had been looking at some coins and had noticed the date. This had fascinated her, especially a twenty pence piece from a galaxy far, far away known as 1982.

Dad got up and went out of the living room. I thought nothing of it. However, he returned with a bag. It was a collection of coins, many of them specially minted for state occasions and still in their presentation sleeves. There were crowns to mark the funeral of Winston Churchill in 1965, the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977 and Charles and Diana’s wedding in 1981. There were two wallets of Britain’s first decimal coinage. Then there were assorted loose coins, including some old sixpences. One of these came from the reign of King George V in 1922. 

Dad explained that he wanted them handed down the generations of the family. He asked me to keep them safe for our children. While they would be worth more than their face value, they would not be especially valuable, because many of them had deteriorated. However, they would be a fascinating and educational possession. I was delighted, and locked them out of sight in the car boot when I drove home.

It was a joy to come home and tell the children I had a present for them from Grand-dad. In the short time before bath-time, it was impossible to explain the significance and context of these coins to Rebekah and Mark. How on earth will I explain pre-decimal currency to them? I was only a fortnight shy of my eleventh birthday when Britain was decimalised.

And if Rebekah finds 1982 hard enough to comprehend, what price 1922? George V is three monarchs before the current long-reigning Queen (I’m including Edward VIII, even though he was never crowned). 

Pounds, shillings and pence and early twentieth century kings will take a lot of patient dialogue and explanation. There are so many foreign concepts to go through in order to make sense of Grand-dad’s gift.

Is it not similar in evangelism today? With, say, three largely ‘unchurched’ generations there is a huge gulf between the Christian community and most of society. (And that gulf may go some way to explaining the misrepresentations of our faith in the media – it isn’t all wilful, much is a genuine lack of understanding.) Evangelism is about being in for the long haul to explain the faith in a context of dialogue. I see the point of those who say that a contemporary repeat of Billy Graham’s Harringay crusades in the 1950s with their remarkable levels of conversionss most likely would not happen today. It isn’t that I think God is incapable of it – of course the Holy Spirit could – but it is to recognise that Graham was able to appeal to a residual faith and call people back to it. There is hardly any such residual faith today. 

Our faith is like a 1922 George V sixpence. To most people it appears not to be legal tender.  It looks battered, but it is valuable. Nevertheless, to explain the significance takes time.

But the investment of time into relationships as we gossip the Gospel is immensely worthwhile. We are sharing treasure with people.

0

Varnish

We had bought a ‘Meal Deal’ in Boot’s, on our way to lunch in the park. There was one more item that Debbie placed on the counter for the woman who was salaried to scan bar codes. Nail varnish.

“It’s for my husband,” she said loudly for effect.

She was right. For the first (and hopefully the last) time in my life, I needed to buy nail varnish.

Why? Had I decided to become an aging Goth or New Romantic? Absolutely not. I may be part of a profession that is mocked for having ‘men in dresses’, but this wasn’t a matter of make-up.

It was all to do with allergies. Recently, I had developed red, peeling skin on my wrist, under where I wear my watch. My sister had looked at it and declared it was allergic dermatitis. The gold plating was wearing off the watch, exposing nickel. It appears I have a nickel allergy. I’ve added that to my collection of other allergies: to the adhesive in sticking plasters (I use Micropore), and to antihistamines (they don’t just make me drowsy, they make me depressed; I choose cough medicines carefully).

You will gather I found the whole experience embarrassing. I have known about the allergy for two or three weeks now, and the suggested solution of coating the exposed nickel with the nail varnish. Thoughts of going to a chemist’s and buying some (“It’s not for me, it’s for my wife”) have so filled me with dread that I have been keeping my watch in a trouser pocket for a fortnight.

Not even the encouraging story I heard about guitarists wearing nail varnish to strengthen their nails for plucking steel strings pushed me into action. Besides, it must be ten years since I got my guitar out in an attempt to learn to play it.

Embarrassment is a huge hurdle for many of us. How much of that is a British cultural perspective, I don’t know. But embarrassment is an efficient producer of inertia. It is also a powerful social stigmatiser. The fear of mockery prevents many from doing what they believe to be right.

How potent it was when Paul talked about being ‘fools for Christ’. One major issue for Christians is the courage to overcome the fear and risk appearing fools. Not in the sense that we sometimes back outright stupidity, but in the risk of unpopularity.

Getting the balance right can be difficult. I found that tonight when a mother and daughter called at the door to do Trick Or Treat. I gave the girl some sweets, and she looked at four-year-old Mark, who doesn’t understand it yet. “He’ll do it when he’s older,” she said.

I smiled and said as gently as I could, “Maybe not.” 

It wasn’t the time for an extended conversation, but I simply indicated to the mother that it was a matter of religious conviction for us, and hoped I didn’t sound judgmental.

She apologised for causing offence, and I moved quickly to say that I wasn’t offended and I hadn’t expected her to know. I hope they left on good terms with us, but I also hope I was clear about our beliefs without being condemning. Too often in my life I have tipped to one end of the see-saw or the other, either fiercely denouncing something or ending up compromising my beliefs out of a desire to be on good terms with folk.

May God help us to risk embarrassment with grace.

5

Ubuntu

Thought I’d put out a couple of help requests here, which I’ve also posted at Ubuntu Forums. (If you want to find me there, the user name is ‘davefaulkner’.) But I thought I’d mention them here, in case any techie readers can help.

The back story is this. I’ve given up the idea of trying to get a dual-boot computer between Windows Vista and Ubuntu Linux. (Despite checking the MD5SUM, Ubuntu has never installed properly on the hard drive.)

So I decided that since I wanted to experiment with Linux, I’d run it inside Sun’s VirtualBox 2.0.4. Well, it installs fine, and runs fairly fast in much less memory than Vista – surprise, surprise. But there are a few problems:

1. I can’t get any sound – e.g., if watching a video on YouTube. Error messages tell me I might need a Gstreamer plugin. I’ve googled ‘Gstreamer’, but the results are not the sort that a newbie to these things can understand.

2. Ubuntu only shows up in a monitor resolution of 800 x 600 pixels. It won’t detect my monitor (a Dell 1907FP Digital, if you’re interested). The card is an NVidia GeForce 7900 GS. So I’m stuck with a ridiculously small window for a 19-inch monitor. It’s useless for looking at most websites, for example. I need 1280 x 1024 or at very least 1024 x 768. I also can’t change the refresh rate from 61 Hz. 

I dearly want to like Linux and have a usable alternative for the times when Vista increases my rate of hair loss. I understood Ubuntu was about the most user-friendly, but these are not the problems I’d even expect to encounter with badly behaved Microsoft products.

If anyone has any constructive ideas, please leave a comment, or email my ‘personal’ or ‘backup’ email addresses as listed on the Contact page of this blog.

Thanks.

5

Election

Not being American, it’s pointless to a degree my expressing a preference between John McCain and Barack Obama. Except that the winner will be so influential on the UK and the world that it matters.

So I was pleased to read this open letter from James Emery White to whoever the victor is. It is the measure of a Christian attitude. It is so different from what I have read elsewhere from some Christians. Take Focus On The Family Action’s hysteria-inducing hypothetical letter imagining what the USA would look like in 2012 after the first term of an Obama presidency. (One reaction has been a bipartisan Facebook group opposing it.) Or whole blogs like Ohnobama. Or the incredible nonsense that Sarah Palin prophetically is Esther.

Now I’m aware that all the stuff I’ve denounced above is from one particular camp – the religious right. I know that filth exists on the left, too. Certainly Palin (while she cannot be a modern-day Esther – who was the king and who were the other concubines? :)) has been the victim of misrepresentation of her faith. One article on Huffington Post comes to mind. It is a mixture of genuine research and tangential ‘guilt by association’ insinuation.

And I know too that none of this should be surprising. It exposes the gulf between claims that people want high office in order to serve others and the reality that it is a grab for power. If you want power for yourself or whoever you support, you’ll adopt a ‘by any means necessary’ approach. 

Nor is this about a Brit wanting to have a go at Americans. Whatever our more reserved characters, we know enough about aggressive politics. PMQ, anyone? And neither Biden nor Palin have ‘done a Prescott’:

And my complaint isn’t about wanting to treat politics as if it doesn’t matter. It does. Christians can’t disregard it. Just concentrating on evangelism and dismissing a so-called ‘social gospel’ is sub-biblical.

Surely as Christians we can model something different for the world, where we are passionate about what we believe, even when we differ among ourselves, yet do so with humility and love. It seems to me that James Emery White’s tone models such a spirit.

I can sympathise with some of the reservations about Obama. I find his stance on abortion awful. (Although if I am to be pro-life – and I am – then that extends after the womb and takes in issues such as war and poverty, too.) I also have concerns about McCain. His tax proposals appear to favour the wealthy. (Yet on the other hand I think his stance as a Republican on green issues is noteworthy.) So it’s easy to see why Christians with particular areas of concern gravitate strongly for or against a particular candidate.

What, then, has made many Christian voices so indistinct in tone from secular ones? We have a regular problem in the church of being squeezed into the world’s mould, as J B Phillips put it. But are there particular factors either causing or exacerbating the situation?

I suspect that at least as far as the religious right is concerned, we ought to take a look at the ‘prophetic movement’. It’s been in play for several years, and led to the view that George W Bush was God’s anointed, and woe betide any Christian who disagreed. A British Christian friend of mine who works in the States with a charity that is developing drug treatments for people with AIDS couldn’t believe just how true the picture was of evangelical alignment with the Republican Party.

Yet that wasn’t going on so much a few months ago in this campaign, if I understand correctly. Disgruntlement with how McCain viewed certain issues dear to the Christian right’s agenda meant was surely a major reason why evangelical and fundamentalist churches weren’t holding voter registration drives with such enthusiasm this time. My hunch, watching from a few thousand miles away, is that it all changed when McCain announced Sarah Palin has his running mate. Not seeing that McCain surely thought of her for pragmatic reasons: he needed to pull a rabbit out of the hat so as to bring a major Republican constituency into the voting booth, suddenly Palin was the person God had kept everyone waiting for. No wonder ‘prophetic words’ began to flow. (And, please note, I believe in prophetic words. But I also believe in testing them.)

Is it part of a lust to believe we are living in times that are comparable to biblical ones, and therefore they have to be graded as such by prophecies? Are these things some kind of sign taken to mean that we are in some sense more faithful to biblical spirituality? Are we just not content to get on with days of small things (Zecharaiah 4:10) and be faithful in a few things (Matthew 25:21, 23)?

Put this approach together with the ‘grab for power’ I mentioned earlier and we have a flammable combination that leads Christians to spend more time ‘praying against’ rather than the ‘praying for’ which White exemplifies.

I don’t wish to make it sound like White’s is the only sane voice around. That would be arrogant and ignorant. It didn’t take too long to find this sane post from Rob Harrison, a Christian Republican, arguing moderately in favour of the Grand Old Party, expressing deep reservations about Obama and explaining why he thinks Hillary Clinton would have been a better Democratic candidate. From a different stable comes Jim Wallis’ post, ‘My Personal ‘Faith Priorities’ for this Election‘. (Wallis has also called on James Dobson to apologise for the ‘2012 letter’.) I know Wallis is technically independent, but most of his faith priorities lean in Obama’s direction.

So it’s galling to keep hearing the nonsense when there are thoughtful voices in the debate. Somewhere a big section of us in the church has lost a grip on servant leadership and that we see through a glass darkly, not clearly.

There is something to be said for Derek Webb‘s view that you’ll never find ‘A Savior On Capitol Hill’

even if I don’t share what sounds like a cynicism in the lyrics towards all politicians. Nevertheless, it is a timely warning for all those who offer Barack Obama semi-messianic adulation or who see John McCain (but really Sarah Palin?) as God’s anointed.

Is it too late to hope for more Christlike tone as well as content to Christian contributions regarding the election, both in terms of an increase in quantity and a greater prominence to the careful voices that are in danger of being drowned out? It’s so close to the end of the campaign that for anyone to say this now is humanly a forlorn hope. I’d like to think it might be different in four years’ time. For that to happen, the church will have to have been chastened. That might mean a whole run of failed ‘prophecies’, but it would take a lot for even that to lead to repentance in some circles. My fear is that even something that goes against the grain will just lead to a reframing of them.

But you never know. We might learn humility one day.

11

Golf

Golf is one of those sports I find thoroughly boring. (Unlike cricket, which is subtle, tactical, and brain-engaging. Really.)

But crazy golf is different, and little Mark discovered a love for it on our summer holiday. So today – while his sister got taken to Colchester Zoo by friends – we took him to a nine-hole crazy golf course in Chelmsford. Somebody on another website had labelled it ‘the world’s least crazy crazy golf course’, but were we deterred? No!

It was less fun to arrive and find the entrance to the free car park blocked by a tractor and some traffic cones. That meant parking across the other side of Waterhouse Lane in Meteor Way, a cost of three pounds. Thankfully, when Debbie told the guy at the course our story he knocked that off our charges.

Then we set off to find the course. As soon as we found it, we had to agree with the other website: it is the world’s least crazy crazy golf course. I managed a couple of rough pictures on my phone. Here’s one: 

It shows Mark in action, and what you see corresponds with the photo on the other site. It’s the – er, exciting hole. For a little lad like him, the lack of windmills, houses and other obstructions didn’t matter. He was a picture of happiness as he took his child-sized putter and tapped his ball from start to finish of each hole. Well, almost to the finish. After about half a dozen ‘shots’, he generally picked up the ball and threw it in the hole. We let him play on his own – he is an introvert like his Dad – and it wasn’t long before he was lapping his parents as if he were not Padraig Harrington but Lewis Hamilton.

So is a little four-year-old boy easily pleased? Maybe. But isn’t it also a lesson in simplicity? Like some drug addiction, we adults want more, bigger, better, faster. Yet a small boy can take a simple pleasure and find great joy. I think it’s something for us to chew on, when we talk about simple lifestyle.

3

Create a website or blog at WordPress.com

Up ↑