Over the years my coffee drinking habits have changed. I used to favour the cappuccino, with about an inch of froth and foam before you got to the real coffee. Now I prefer my coffee black and strong. In a completely trivial and inappropriate way, I’m now going to use this as a picture for how the way I relate to God has changed as well. What I’m about to share is my own personal experience, it is not meant to cast negative reflections on anybody else’s. I’m also largely referring to things from my own church tradition and I suspect this may be more common in the more charismatic type of church, but I also suspect that other traditions probably have their own forms of froth.
What it all comes down to is a desire for greater reality in my walk with God, in my experience of God. The real coffee, if you will, of spirituality. And I’m increasingly getting put off by the froth – the unreality of certain aspects of church. Sometimes it seems that people are trying to hype things up and to whip things up in worship. Whereas once I might have really got into that and it would have helped me to meet God, nowadays I’m finding it more of a distraction. Its froth that used to taste good to me, but is now just hollow and artificial. I’m finding the volume and repetition of the person at the front telling me to push into God doesn’t actually help me to push into God. Instead its more of a distraction and I find myself standing there thinking “Will you just shut up, get out of the way, and let me focus on God!”
OK, there are some truths I need to balance this with. Firstly – it doesn’t really matter what guys up the front are doing, there’s no excuse for not worshipping because God is always worthy to receive our worship and he’s always there. Also, I’m not saying that I’m any better than others – for them it might be a real and helpful way of encountering God – I’m not prepared to pass judgment on that. Like the coffee in the cappuccino, I’m sure God is in it somewhere.
I guess the interesting question here is can you hype God up? After all he is infinitely more in all possible ways than the hype would suggest. But sometimes I feel that by an “artificial” exaggeration of what we see happening, we maybe miss the bigger picture of who He is and what He’s really doing.
Here’s what I know for certain – that God is there, that He is immensely more good and loving and powerful and involved and compassionate (and I could keep going here) than I possibly could imagine.
I also know that he’s with me all the time, although most of the time I’m just not aware of that and I want to know him with me much more. Not just in lovely, cosy times of worship – actually the times I’ve felt closest to God haven’t always been that cosy, like Aslan – he’s good, but he’s not necessarily safe and being close to him can be literally awe-inspring. But even just mean the wow-moments, I mean a greater awareness of him in the day-to-day, a greater sense of his hand in my life and in the world around, a greater ability to see the divine at work in creation in the little thing he does every moment. Most of all I need a greater awareness of him to lift me out of my self-centred existence and the breakdown the hardness that has grown in my heart. To get there I need a reality in my walk with him, which moves past the froth and to the heart of the matter.
Showing posts with label christianity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label christianity. Show all posts
Friday, 27 April 2007
Monday, 23 April 2007
Christian Politics Revisited.
I attended another hustings yesterday - this time attended by representatives from both Christian parties, the Christian People's Alliance and the Christian Party. Again, although I disagree with them, I must say that the Christian People's Alliance came across as very reasonable. I wish I could say the same about the Christian Party - what follows is probably going to be a bit of a rant, for which I make absolutely no apologies, but the woman representing them really got me worked up.
Firstly, she twice compared the policies of the present government to Nazi Germany - always a lazy and crass comparison to make and to be honest, completely nuts in this instance - favouring gay adoption and civil partnerships versus the extermination of million Jews - not an obvious comparison. I would also think its one that, if anybody took them seriously enough to respond, could easily return to haunt them. After all, the Nazis weren't too keen on homosexuals either.
The leaflets they were handing out weren't much better either - full of horror stories about 5 year old being forced to learn about homosexuality and 13 year olds being allowed to go and live with men and parents being unable to remove them. If there is any truth at all in these stories, it is severely distorted. This is scaremongering of the worst kind, even worse as it comes from a party which claims to be standing fr truth!
They say they want to return to the land of the book, but the impression was more of just wanting to turn the clock back 50 years - there was the call to bring back matron! The details of their policies also would give teachers the right to use reasonable force to maintain discipline in school - note that, to maintain discipline, not to protect themselves or other pupils. There is something about that that makes me very uneasy. Yes, there is a problem with discipline in school and the number of teachers assaulted by pupils is completely unacceptable, but fighting violence with more violence has never seemed that sensible a solution to me. There a many teachers who do an excellent job under very trying circumstances, but there are some who have difficulty controlling themselves, let alone their classes. Take a minute to think which group are more likely to use force and what the outcome might be.
I did find it fascinating that when asked who else on the panel they would vote for if they couldn't vote for themselves, neither Christian party would have voted for the other. Now, what does that say? Colin Fox of the Scottish Socialists came out very well from that question, which seemed a fair response as, whether you agreed with his policies or not, he came across as both a man of integrity and a talented politician. Kudos also to Mike Pringle, the sitting Lib Dem MSP, for admitting that at a European election he did vote Green, because his party's candidate was a complete idiot.
One final thought on christian politics, before I leave the subject and I'm going to tackle that most controversial of all subjects - abortion. I should make clear that I'm against abortion, I think it is a tragedy for both parent and unborn child. It also seems to be an issue that creates the most entrenched opinions on both sides of the debate. In fact, opinions are so entrenched that realistically there seems little hope for any real movement on the issue. Now, here is where I'm going to get controversial, I think both sides get so stuck in arguing the case from a legal point of view that they miss something. What they miss is this - that NOBODY actually wants there to be more abortions, everybody would like there to be much fewer unwanted pregnancies, especially amongst teenage girls. I just wonder if all the energy which currently seems to be spent in futility arguing about legislation where re-directed into preventative work around sex education (including ideas both on abstinence and on birth control), drugs and alcohol awareness, confidence and skills training for young women, so they have the ability and the confidence to say no when they mean it or to insist on birth control when they do have sex, if all that were to happen, would we perhaps make more difference than all this arguing is producing. Of course, that would involve both sides recognising the best intentions and sincerity of the others, and maybe that is a step too far.
As always, please do feel free to comment with your responses or thoughts on these issues.
Firstly, she twice compared the policies of the present government to Nazi Germany - always a lazy and crass comparison to make and to be honest, completely nuts in this instance - favouring gay adoption and civil partnerships versus the extermination of million Jews - not an obvious comparison. I would also think its one that, if anybody took them seriously enough to respond, could easily return to haunt them. After all, the Nazis weren't too keen on homosexuals either.
The leaflets they were handing out weren't much better either - full of horror stories about 5 year old being forced to learn about homosexuality and 13 year olds being allowed to go and live with men and parents being unable to remove them. If there is any truth at all in these stories, it is severely distorted. This is scaremongering of the worst kind, even worse as it comes from a party which claims to be standing fr truth!
They say they want to return to the land of the book, but the impression was more of just wanting to turn the clock back 50 years - there was the call to bring back matron! The details of their policies also would give teachers the right to use reasonable force to maintain discipline in school - note that, to maintain discipline, not to protect themselves or other pupils. There is something about that that makes me very uneasy. Yes, there is a problem with discipline in school and the number of teachers assaulted by pupils is completely unacceptable, but fighting violence with more violence has never seemed that sensible a solution to me. There a many teachers who do an excellent job under very trying circumstances, but there are some who have difficulty controlling themselves, let alone their classes. Take a minute to think which group are more likely to use force and what the outcome might be.
I did find it fascinating that when asked who else on the panel they would vote for if they couldn't vote for themselves, neither Christian party would have voted for the other. Now, what does that say? Colin Fox of the Scottish Socialists came out very well from that question, which seemed a fair response as, whether you agreed with his policies or not, he came across as both a man of integrity and a talented politician. Kudos also to Mike Pringle, the sitting Lib Dem MSP, for admitting that at a European election he did vote Green, because his party's candidate was a complete idiot.
One final thought on christian politics, before I leave the subject and I'm going to tackle that most controversial of all subjects - abortion. I should make clear that I'm against abortion, I think it is a tragedy for both parent and unborn child. It also seems to be an issue that creates the most entrenched opinions on both sides of the debate. In fact, opinions are so entrenched that realistically there seems little hope for any real movement on the issue. Now, here is where I'm going to get controversial, I think both sides get so stuck in arguing the case from a legal point of view that they miss something. What they miss is this - that NOBODY actually wants there to be more abortions, everybody would like there to be much fewer unwanted pregnancies, especially amongst teenage girls. I just wonder if all the energy which currently seems to be spent in futility arguing about legislation where re-directed into preventative work around sex education (including ideas both on abstinence and on birth control), drugs and alcohol awareness, confidence and skills training for young women, so they have the ability and the confidence to say no when they mean it or to insist on birth control when they do have sex, if all that were to happen, would we perhaps make more difference than all this arguing is producing. Of course, that would involve both sides recognising the best intentions and sincerity of the others, and maybe that is a step too far.
As always, please do feel free to comment with your responses or thoughts on these issues.
Saturday, 24 March 2007
The Greatest Jihad
“The Greatest Jihad is the battle against evil in ourselves”.
I came across the above quote (or something very similar – can’t remember the exact words), which I’m guessing is a translation of something from the Koran whilst watching the American drams series Sleeper Cell on DVD. Whilst it might lack the big names, big budgets, frenetic pace and excitement of 24, it interested me for a number of reasons. The main was its portrayal of the battle against Islamic extremism and terrorism as, fundamentally, a battle within Islam. The undercover FBI agent who is the hero of the series is a devout Muslim who sees his actions every bit as much serving Allah and his faith as the extremist terrorists see theirs. Yes, the series is sometimes rather heavy-handed in delivering its message – a scene where the hero is invited to speak at a primary school springs to mind (“My daddy says Muslims don’t eat bacon and hate us”) – but this central idea sets it apart from other shows which tackle the same subject and might be crucial to our thinking on the subject.
Islamic fundamentalism won’t be defeated by Jack Bauer in 24 hours and it won’t be stopped by Western military involvement in the Middle East. Quite the contrary, our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, whether you think them justified or not, have only played into the hands of those seeking to recruit for extremist causes. Personally I think the war in Iraq was wrong, although I don’t think it was part of a religious crusade or even that it was primarily about oil. Although, I do think that there are those in the American administration who have sought to turn the situation to their own advantage and that on both sides of the Atlantic, information was misrepresented in order to create a justification for a war that had already been decided upon. I do believe that both Bush and Blair genuinely saw Saddam as a threat that needed to be tackled, but history will be judge their wisdom in this, and I suspect judge them quite harshly. But I digress, the point is that, whether justified or not, the recent actions of the West seem to only be strengthening the very extremist forces they seek to oppose. I’m coming to believe that the only solution to Islamic extremism will be an Islamic one.
Attitudes in the UK towards Muslims at the moment seem to polarise towards the two extremes of those who attack mosques, blame all Muslims for terrorist attacks and wish to drive them from the country and those who carry political correctness to a ridiculous extreme and to avoid offending Muslims would rename Christmas as Winterval and change the Three Little Pigs to the Three Little Puppies. Of course these are the extremes and many people are somewhere in the middle, but both extremes have this in common – they are not listening to Muslims themselves about what they think and what they want.
I wish I could say that as Christians we displayed a better attitude and there are some Christians and churches who are a wonderful example of reaching out to Muslims in love. However, there are also those who seem to display an ignorance and a resentment towards Islam. Several times over the past six months or so I have heard stories of Christians responding to situations with comments along the lines of “You wouldn’t say that to me if I was a Muslim” and then being offended when this landed them in trouble. Somehow this was being held up as an example to follow. Leaving aside the part of this that appears to come from a perverse desire in certain aspects of the Christian church in this country to see themselves as a persecuted minority (get over it, brothers, and be thankful for the freedoms we have in this country), these comments seem to display an attitude which lacks respect and love for those they speak to, displays resentment and disrespect for the Muslim community. Most of all it is not the kind of thing that I could ever imagine Jesus saying. Yes, there are times when the Muslim community seems rather better at getting their voice heard about issues they find offensive, but I say that’s a good thing – a sign of a society which is prepared to listen to the voices of minorities. Maybe if we lost the chip from our shoulders, we’d be rather better at getting our own voice heard. Instead, maybe more of us should follow the example of those believers who are reaching out to Muslim community in love, engaging them in dialogue and trying to understand. This dialogue need not be based on a relativistic nonsensical idea that we’re all worshipping the same God (most Muslims certainly wouldn’t go for that) but on the basis that we disagree on some fundamentals, we can still respect each others beliefs, find several issues on which we share common ground and can stand together. And I speak to myself here as well, there are areas of Islam I feel very ignorant of, but I would like to understand more, not so I can argue against it (in my experience, such arguments are almost entirely fruitless) but so I can understand where people are coming from better.
Returning briefly to Sleeper Cell, one of the other things that struck me was the international make-up of the terrorist cell. Notably including a Bosnian Muslim who was radicalised by his experiences in the Bosnian war when, whilst the West stood by, extremist Islamic groups fought for them. It is now widely acknowledged that the West did too little too late in Bosnia, it is a scary thought that history might judge that as one of the biggest missed opportunities to form a positive bridge to the Muslim world.
I came across the above quote (or something very similar – can’t remember the exact words), which I’m guessing is a translation of something from the Koran whilst watching the American drams series Sleeper Cell on DVD. Whilst it might lack the big names, big budgets, frenetic pace and excitement of 24, it interested me for a number of reasons. The main was its portrayal of the battle against Islamic extremism and terrorism as, fundamentally, a battle within Islam. The undercover FBI agent who is the hero of the series is a devout Muslim who sees his actions every bit as much serving Allah and his faith as the extremist terrorists see theirs. Yes, the series is sometimes rather heavy-handed in delivering its message – a scene where the hero is invited to speak at a primary school springs to mind (“My daddy says Muslims don’t eat bacon and hate us”) – but this central idea sets it apart from other shows which tackle the same subject and might be crucial to our thinking on the subject.
Islamic fundamentalism won’t be defeated by Jack Bauer in 24 hours and it won’t be stopped by Western military involvement in the Middle East. Quite the contrary, our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, whether you think them justified or not, have only played into the hands of those seeking to recruit for extremist causes. Personally I think the war in Iraq was wrong, although I don’t think it was part of a religious crusade or even that it was primarily about oil. Although, I do think that there are those in the American administration who have sought to turn the situation to their own advantage and that on both sides of the Atlantic, information was misrepresented in order to create a justification for a war that had already been decided upon. I do believe that both Bush and Blair genuinely saw Saddam as a threat that needed to be tackled, but history will be judge their wisdom in this, and I suspect judge them quite harshly. But I digress, the point is that, whether justified or not, the recent actions of the West seem to only be strengthening the very extremist forces they seek to oppose. I’m coming to believe that the only solution to Islamic extremism will be an Islamic one.
Attitudes in the UK towards Muslims at the moment seem to polarise towards the two extremes of those who attack mosques, blame all Muslims for terrorist attacks and wish to drive them from the country and those who carry political correctness to a ridiculous extreme and to avoid offending Muslims would rename Christmas as Winterval and change the Three Little Pigs to the Three Little Puppies. Of course these are the extremes and many people are somewhere in the middle, but both extremes have this in common – they are not listening to Muslims themselves about what they think and what they want.
I wish I could say that as Christians we displayed a better attitude and there are some Christians and churches who are a wonderful example of reaching out to Muslims in love. However, there are also those who seem to display an ignorance and a resentment towards Islam. Several times over the past six months or so I have heard stories of Christians responding to situations with comments along the lines of “You wouldn’t say that to me if I was a Muslim” and then being offended when this landed them in trouble. Somehow this was being held up as an example to follow. Leaving aside the part of this that appears to come from a perverse desire in certain aspects of the Christian church in this country to see themselves as a persecuted minority (get over it, brothers, and be thankful for the freedoms we have in this country), these comments seem to display an attitude which lacks respect and love for those they speak to, displays resentment and disrespect for the Muslim community. Most of all it is not the kind of thing that I could ever imagine Jesus saying. Yes, there are times when the Muslim community seems rather better at getting their voice heard about issues they find offensive, but I say that’s a good thing – a sign of a society which is prepared to listen to the voices of minorities. Maybe if we lost the chip from our shoulders, we’d be rather better at getting our own voice heard. Instead, maybe more of us should follow the example of those believers who are reaching out to Muslim community in love, engaging them in dialogue and trying to understand. This dialogue need not be based on a relativistic nonsensical idea that we’re all worshipping the same God (most Muslims certainly wouldn’t go for that) but on the basis that we disagree on some fundamentals, we can still respect each others beliefs, find several issues on which we share common ground and can stand together. And I speak to myself here as well, there are areas of Islam I feel very ignorant of, but I would like to understand more, not so I can argue against it (in my experience, such arguments are almost entirely fruitless) but so I can understand where people are coming from better.
Returning briefly to Sleeper Cell, one of the other things that struck me was the international make-up of the terrorist cell. Notably including a Bosnian Muslim who was radicalised by his experiences in the Bosnian war when, whilst the West stood by, extremist Islamic groups fought for them. It is now widely acknowledged that the West did too little too late in Bosnia, it is a scary thought that history might judge that as one of the biggest missed opportunities to form a positive bridge to the Muslim world.
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