Monthly Archives: May 2013

Politics, change & wishes

In Albury-Wodonga, the weekly free newspapers used to include a column of reflections. They were written by local  ministers, or similar (authors included a local Baha’i leader, as well as someone from the local humanist society branch). I don’t know why they stopped. Equally, I don’t know if they achieved anything!

Cleaning up my computer, I found a few of mine. In the interests of recycling, I will re-release them on this blog.

How did your vote go? Did it count for something? Are you happy with the outcome, do you think you made a contribution?

I write this before the federal election, but am already sure of one thing: no one will be completely satisfied. You might prefer things a little different, or completely different. Either way, our dreams have not been met.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a man who wanted things different. As a Christian minister in Germany, he opposed Hitler, and during the war was imprisoned and executed. He wrote something very helpful about our desires, what he called ‘wish dreams.’ His claim: we need to give up our wish dreams.

So there’s no point saying, ‘If only our politicians were fully trustworthy.’ Or, ‘If only my family had more patience.’ Or, ‘If only the church was perfect.’ (Bonhoeffer was writing specifically about churches.) We need to get past the ‘wish dream’, and work with the reality before us.

As Bonhoeffer put it, “What may appear weak and trifling to us may appear great and glorious to God.”

God proved that appearances aren’t everything by working through Jesus and his execution on the cross. These look feeble and empty. The unjust execution of a poor Jewish teacher 2000 years ago does not sound impressive. It sounds positively shameful. Yet the Bible says that Jesus mocked this shame and weakness and chose to endure the suffering. Why? Because the cross is real power: it is where God changed the world, offering forgiveness to anyone.

Perhaps you have had wish dreams about God. That he’d do something spectacular and showy. That he would suddenly change everything about life that you don’t like. Forget the wish dreams. The reality is much better. It’s trusting Jesus that changes life. He may appear weak and trifling, but is great and glorious to God.
October 2004

 


 

Good-bad or good-better

You have a decision. You want to choose something good. But what will you call the option you don’t choose?

There are two ways of viewing this choice. Both are helpful, in the right place. I think one has come to dominate our thinking, unhelpfully. What I call good-bad thinking has taken over. I want to keep it, but also hold on to good-better thinking.

Good-bad

Good-bad thinking is just as the words suggest. We choose what is good, and what we reject is bad. I choose to drive at the speed limit (good!) – and choose not to fly through the red light (that would be bad).

Politics and election advertising communicates is always good-bad. Choose Party A, we’re good. Reject Party Z, they’re bad.

Unfortunately, the good-bad division has become a reflex way to think. It’s automatic. It’s so deeply-held that, when we say one thing, our listeners hear two things.

We say, ‘Evolution fails to explain all reality’ and people hear, ‘We reject science.’
We say, ‘Same-sex relationships are not marriage’ and people hear, ‘I hate gay people.’
We say, ‘Evangelism is of utmost importance’ and people hear, ‘Don’t bother caring for the poor.’
We say, ‘Don’t legalise euthanasia’ and people hear, ‘We don’t care about suffering.’

We did not say that second thing, yet it becomes the centre of the discussion argument.

Good-better

Some decisions – perhaps even the most important decisions – are good-better decisions. There might be two options, both of which have appeal. There might be a large distinction between choices, or the merest hint of a difference – and yet a decision has to be made.

Good-better thinking admits that life can be messy. The non-preferred option might simply be a lower priority, or less clear, or slightly more difficult. A single man might have a couple of ‘just friends’ he could ask to the end of year formal – and feels bad because he does not want to offend one. Because of the expense, a church has to decide between new PA system or new heating. A family has to consider moving away from family for a job, or staying close with uncertain work prospects.

There are plenty of times in life when decisions are both messy and unavoidable.

At such times, it hurts people if we slip back into good-bad. All that does is stick the knife into someone who is already sore! ‘If you move away you’re abandoning family.’ ‘If you put the PA system in you’re ignoring the old folk who feel the cold.’ ‘You asked Grace to the formal because who haven’t forgiven Pearl making that joke about you.’

So what?

My advice – my advice to myself – is to listen better. Do a James 1:19. Be quick to listen, be intent on truly hearing what is actually said. Do not rush into implications, therefores and hasty conclusions. Keep a lid on the righteous (!) anger but hasten to understand. That surely is the better thing to do.

 


 

It’s all about me

In the ethical universe, there are no ideas bigger than good and evil. If good and evil mean anything, then they indicate something bigger than me, greater than the present, more important than any culture.

Yet even when confronted with the largest concepts, we humans are wonderfully adept at turning the focus on ourselves. So very easily we explain good and evil in words that scream, ‘It’s all about me.’

Try this for size. Ask someone to explain their reason for doing something good. Or why they should avoid doing something bad.

The Good
I’ve heard plenty of people explain to me why they want to do what I think is very good – share in Christian ministry. ‘Why do you want to serve Jesus by teaching Sunday school/leading a church/going to the mission field?’ I feel that this fits my gifts and personality. I always get lots of positive comments when I lead a Bible study. My minister encouraged me to pursue this.

It’s me, me, me. A bit of a worry, don’t you think? I’d hope that ministry is about Jesus first, and serving neighbour second.

No wonder people are so uncomfortable even with gentle criticism, or the suggestion they are not really suited to the task they’re doing. If it’s about me, then every negative word is heard as a personal attack.

The Evil
This happens with evil, too. ‘Why should we not lie?’ Lies come from me being insecure and lies pander to that insecurity. A lie will rebound and end up hurting you, anyway. Someone who lies is not being authentic. If I learn to lie now, it will weaken all the relationships I have in the future.

Again I wait in vain for any thoughts about God, or the larger moral universe. Perhaps the idea that God is true, and the author of truth – and that the devil has been a liar from the beginning. Perhaps the idea that words matter because ‘in the beginning was the word.’ Something bigger than, ‘Let’s talk about me for a while.’

If good and evil count, they call me to humility instead of selfish babbling.

What do you think? Is there a problem of self-focussed ethics-talk? And, if so, what is the way out of the problem?

 


 

 

Faith before reason

There is a simple way to see that faith comes before reason.

We universally hate being lied to.

That probably requires some explanation, I accept, but it captures all that I will say.

Firstly, though, why bother thinking about this? It’s because there’s a prominent line of thought that places an absolute divide between faith and reason. ‘My total authority is reason, I have no place for faith.’ It’s a claim that any faith is always irrational.

This is – oh, the irony! – a creedal position. It is propounded as an unchallengeable tenet that must be believed.

(I do not think this position is held widely, but it is held loudly. The faith-reason dichotomy has some devoted and insistent public defenders. Plenty of people who opt not to hold the Christian faith, however, know that 100% of people exercise faith.)

This post is not to argue that we all have faith before reason, but to illustrate it, So, again, this is the illustration: We universally hate being lied to.

A lie hurts, profoundly. To lie is to speak a word, and break it. The liar makes a promise: ‘I will do this’, ‘This is true’, etc. Every promise is – at the same time – an invitation to faith. ‘Trust me!’ And we do exercise faith: we trust, and our trust is betrayed.

Now, what has this to do with reason? It shows reason to be secondary.

Reason tells me that lies are everywhere and from all people. Men and women, young and old, every culture … we are liars. Could anyone disagree? If reason were primary, we should be able to stop lies affecting us. Logic would change us to expect lies and simply treat them with equanimity. ‘Oh, a lie – yes, that makes sense and has no personal effect on me.’

But instead, our strong faith continues. We believe that words should mean something. We trust that a promise will be kept. We rely on information from other people. We cannot shake our faith – faith is a bedrock reality of human life. And it’s a good bedrock!

Faith is not against reason. But faith is before reason.

 


 

That confusing church meeting

At Albury Bible Church, we recently put together a tool to help us plan what we do. We think there are three main things: Welcome. Grow. Serve.

Welcome: in the gospel of Jesus, God welcomes us to his family. Therefore we will tell people of that welcome, as well as welcoming them into our church family.

Grow: it’s normal for God’s children to grow in the obedience of faith. Therefore we will make Christian growth normal for our church members.

Serve: Christians do not grow for their own sake, but in love. Therefore we encourage and train for service, both in church and in the wider community.

‘OK’, I thought, ‘when we launch this, I’ll talk about how it works for Sunday’s 10am church meeting.’ So I spent time pondering how our Sunday morning expressed these plans. What we do – and we’re not very unusual – is a mixture. And that mixture is both a help and a hindrance.

alburybiblechurch_leftThe mixture
Sunday church is a mixture. We welcome, because people walk in off the street. We announce that Jesus is Lord and invite people to follow him. We grow because we always read and hear God’s word for instruction, encouragement and challenge. We serve because … well, have you seen how many people it takes to run even a simple church service! Sunday at 10am is everything – welcome, grow, and serve.

So helpful
It is very helpful that Sunday @10 is such a mixture. It contains elements of all the things we want to do. If you wanted a full taste of Albury Bible Church, but in just one meal, the best place to go would be Sunday church. Despite being nowhere close to perfect, you’d find out what we say about God’s great welcome. You would also see something about the ways we encourage Christian growth. By looking around, you would also see quite a lot of serving going on. I hope you would be able to say, ‘I get what this church is about.’

That has to be a good thing. It also is an encouragement to be very clear in church each week. Church is not humdrum – it is a bright spotlight on ourselves and what we think really counts.

The three-in-one nature of Sunday @10 is helpful in another way: for a church health test. We should ask ourselves how we are going at welcoming, growing, serving. Easy to ask – not always easy to answer. Perhaps the place to start is at church. Is there evangelism on the agenda on Sunday mornings? Are new or shy people welcomed further into relationships? Do Christians grow there, or do they stagnate? Are more people serving? Are long-term servants receiving support to stop burn-out? The answers might be confronting. But good to know.

A hindrance
The three-in-one nature of Sunday morning is also a hindrance, a risk to our church ministry. Simply because it can’t do any of these three things at great depth. Church is good, but it’s not enough.

If we were to rely on Sunday mornings to do our evangelism, we would be doing very little evangelism. If Sundays were the only point of welcome, our relationships would be paper-thin. If Sunday morning was the only time of help for Christian growth, we would all be stunted in faith. If this were the single focus for service, the opportunities would be limited and the people soon exhausted.

I reckon that to think ‘Sundays are going OK’ is a risk to ministry. The risk is a false equation – that ‘Sunday is OK’ equals ‘We are going OK’. They are not equivalent!

How this factor works out will vary from church to church. For our church, we see the need to complement Sunday morning with a whole range of further ministry. We specifically evangelise in a dedicated programme called Connect, reading Mark’s gospel together. We need to make more of our church membership. We emphasise our Open Bible Groups as the primary growth-focussed ministry. And Night Train is just one way we support and develop serving. As the fanatical texters say, YMMV* but, to thrive as faithful communities, all our churches will need to do a good job away from the main Sunday meeting.

It feels like I have re-discovered what is obvious. But that’s the type of discovery I like to major in! What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear more and to engage in discussion about this. Comment away!