Family Worship
Andy Beard
Luke 5:1-11 Family Worship Ideas

The Limits of Revolution (ii)

A bit of a detour in this second article with a statement of intent, a clarification, an aspiration and a warning.

The statement of Intent is that in this series, which will likely take us through the second Lockdown, I am aiming to do two things. The frist is to outline the Bible’s teaching on our relationship (as Christians) with civil authority and to seek to learn from others in the history of the Church how to understand that teaching and to put it into practise. It’s interesting that so many of the ‘heroes of the faith’ (though they would certainly disdain such a title, and we should probably be circumpsect about using it) are those who stood faithfully against a state who for a variety of reasons behaved in a way that sought to restrict the life and mission of the Church. Those in government at the time may or may not have intended that to be the result of their policies, but it was the outcome nonetheless. It is also worth noting that many others were caught up in and suffered under the same policies, and often felt they too had to oppose them, albeit for different reasons.

The clarification is that I am not at this stage calling for any form of civil disobedience. I know that will be a relief to some and a frustration to others. My own personal belief is that the time will come in many of our lifetimes, when such things will need to be. But - and that is a crucial ‘but’ - we still live in a society where, relatively speaking, we are free to live and worship as Christians. Many sense that freedom is being eroded, and we may find that precedents set during times of crisis come back to haunt us in the future. But at the moment we would be hard pressed, I think, to justify wide spread civil disobedience. We ought first to explore all legal and legitimate forms of protest and expression of concern, and only when the effectiveness of that is exhausted are we at liberty to begin to think about civil disobedience - and even then within certain limits, as we’ll see as this series progresses.

It might also be worth saying that in pursuing any form of protest or engagement with the legislative process, I for one am not seeking to bring about a situation where people are obliged to gather with the Church in corporate worship. If you have been following my blog since March, you’ll have little trouble surmising my conviction about the indispensible nature of corproate worship and mission. But there is no compulsion for anyone to join in the physical congregation, and we are working hard at MIE to ensure that those who - for a wide variety of reasons - choose not to, are still able to connect with the life and worship of our Church as possible. The freedom to live and worship as a Christian (or not) is a freedom of conscience issue, and should not be coerced. In a way that is the issue lying behind much of the concern and anxiety that we are seeing across the Church in the UK. That freedom has been curtailed. Not by common agreement, but by the force of law. Corporate worship has - in the words of one MP - been criminalised. The freedom to choose whether we gather for worship or not has been taken from us.

And so my aspiration is not to make bloodless martyrs of us all. Let’s not get overly-dramatic. In real terms it would be wildly over-stating the situation to speak of persecution. My own sense is that the situation we find oursleves in has little malice behind it, at least at the level of human decision making. Like many Bishops, Christian leaders, MPs and campaigners, I would like to see our historic freedoms restored, and I have little doubt they will be. In the meantime, I would like to take the opportunity to explore with you the Bible’s teaching on civil authority, and how the Church is to engage with that authority. As I said in a previous post, the situation we are in demonstrates that these are not idle curiosities, but speak very directly into the fluid relationship between Church and State, a relationship that as we have seen, can change inn very rapid and unexpected ways.

And so to the warning. This is a dangerous time for any Church. Our inability to meet as a whole Church since March, and the restrictions that we were subject to even when some of the congregation could meet, will have taken its toll on the Body of Christ. As a Church we need to recognise that there is a wide spectrum of opinion on the situation we are confronting, and given the pressured context we are living in, it is tempting to express those opinions in a strident manner. Some of you think the Church not have physically gathered at all during the pandemic, and that the governments actions are entirely justified; some of you think we should run the gauntlet of civil disobeidence now, that we should just meet anyway and risk the fine. We need to be aware of the bredth and intenstiy of feeling that runs through the congregation. Given the pressure that people are under at the moment, and the levels of anxiety being felt, it is also worth recognising that covnersations can escalate very quickly. It was particularly poignant that we were looking at Eph.4:1-12 on Sunday.

And so back to the series. In our next post we’ll start to explore directly some instances in the Bible where folk felt they could not in good conscience follow the directives of those in positions of civil authority. We mgiht find ourselves looking at some familiar Sunday School stories in a very different way!

Ancient Wisdom (iii)

Why is Ecclesiastes so depressing? Is life really this bleak? It’s a tough place to start, but Solomon’s point is that life ‘under the sun’ is meaningless & futile. Thankfully, he’ll go on later in the book to explain that there is another Son we can live life under… and He is the Wisdom of God.

The Limits of Revolution (i)

The Christian’s relationship with the state is always ambivalent. You’ll have often heard me preach that Christians should be the best and most conscientious citizens. But that is born out of our prior citizenship of the Kingdom of Heaven. This is important to realise: we are not conscientious because we are committed to the cultural and political structures that shape our nation’s life. We may have our preferences when it comes to politics… perhaps even our convictions. But Christianity is not wedded to any particular politcal or social environment. The Church has lived in and through the whole gamut of political contexts, from near Anarchy to liberal democracy to totalitarian regimes. In each she has found ways to worhsip and thrive, and in each she has found that which is toxic to her integrity and existence.

The Church’s default, then is conscientious obedience to the authority of a state, but because of our recognition of a higher Authority. As such, we take with utmost seriousness passages such as Rom.13:1-7; I Pet.2:13-16; Titus 3:1. ‘The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted…’ And we do so even where those authorities corrupt and abuse their position. This can lead to deeply disturbing conclusions. In his epistle to the Romans, Paul is writing to a Church figuring out what it means to be Christian in a context where the state has already become the enemy. Yet he refers to Nero - who infamously persecuted the Church - as ‘God’s servant’, and continues to call Christians to civll obedience. The fact that the State kills and imprisons Christians does not give us a mandate to anarchy. A government’s sin doesn’t justify the Church’s sin.

Are we then locked into an uncritical jingoistic patriotism: my country right or wrong? The question of when and how Christians must conscientiously break the law is one that we haven’t had to wrestle with for many years in the UK. As I mentioned in a previous post, we have lived through an anomolous period in recent years, but one that seems to be coming to an end. It is time to dust this question off and find answers. We may need them sooner than we think.

Passages such as Rom.13 have been used regularly to silence the Church in the face of ungodly regimes. Richard Wurmbrand tells the story of a Communist Interrogator ‘preaching’ to him from Rom.13, seeking to undermine Wurmbrand’s own decision to disobey the Party. In some cases, it has been used to justify the Church’s support of patent injustice. You only have to think of tragic errors of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa, infamously supporting Apartheid; or the UN-confessing Church in Nazi Germany (we’ll think about Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church later in the series), or large swathes of the Church in Spain and Portugal during the conquestadorial periods of their empires. But there are at least three key observations that mean the use of such passages to silence the Church and enforce aquiescense is simply wrong.

The first is that Paul teaches, alongside the Church’s obligation to obey, the rulers’ obligation to do good (Rom.13:4). The Church in the UK has long since lost any sense of being a prophetic voice that calls government to realise it holds only a delegated authority, and as such remains a steward that will be held to account. In short, God will judge those who hold political authority, in large part, on the basis of how they treated the Church within the nation. The old BCP used to teach us to pray that under our governemnt ‘we may be godly and quietly governed’, and that God would grant to ‘all who are put in authority … that they may truly and indifferently minister justice, to the punishment of wickedness and vice, and to the maintenance of true religion and virtue’. Again we’ll come back to subversive Anglican spirituality in a later post, but let’s just notice here that the Church of England prays and believes that the purpose of Government includes creating a society in which the Church may flourish. As in so many other places, Anglicanism, properly understood, is richly Biblical, politically bold, and pastorally sensitive. This all resonates with the defiance of the prophets, which will also occupy our attention later in the series…

Secondly, Paul doesn’t stop his political ethic in Rom.13:7. He continues on to speak about our commitment to another (higher) Law to which we remain indebted. The Law of God, summarised in the command to love our neighbour. There is no evidence in the Bible that God is pleased with a Church that is complicit in legislation that undermines our ability and freedom to love. Similarly Peter teaches both that we should ‘submit [ourselves] for the Lord’s sake to every human authority’, and continues to say that we should ‘fear God … revere Christ as Lord’. The Apostles may be not so much calling for uncritical obedience, as he is providing a series of criteria for discerning the faithfulness with which a government is fulfilling its God’s given mandate. Yes, we give to Caesar what is Caesars, but also to God what is Gods. This is our poltical ethic in a nutshell - and we live in the tension it creates.

And finally (at least as far as this post goes!) Rom.13 is written by the Apostle Paul. It’s worth bearing in mind how much time Paul spent in prison. Likewise, I Peter 2:13-16 was written by Peter. Peter, who in Acts 4:19 and 5:29 explicitly defies ‘human authority’ at the point where it seeks to prevent his obedience to Christ. However we make sense of such passages, we need to remember they were written by those who we prepared - indeed knew they had a divine mandate - to conscientiously disobey rulers where those rulers proved unfaithful to their own God-given role and responsibility.

There is, of course, nothing new in the Apostles’ willingness to stand against human authority that conspires to silence the Gospel, and undermine the life and integrity of the Church. They are standing in a long tradition of men and women who understood that their first and greatest calling is to obey the Living God. At times they paid for their spiritualism heroism with their lives.

More on this as we go through lockdown…

On fear mongering - and when it isn't!

Sometimes when we hear alarming messages about the place of Christianity in the life of our nation, we can dismiss those making them as fear-mongering doom merchants. ‘That’, we assume ‘could never happen here’. WHen as ex-PM stands in parliament and warns about the precedents being set this week, it becomes lightly harder to shrug it off as uninformed hysteria. But as Theresa May said in the House of Commons:

"I just want to make one word about public worship and echo the concerns of others. My concern is that the Government today, making it illegal to conduct an act of public worship for the best of intentions, sets a precedent that could be misused for a government in the future with the worst of intentions, and it has unintended consequences."

As you know, the decision by the government to close places of worship is facing a legal challenge. Whatever the outcome of that may be, there is an established concensus developing that in distinguishing between gatherings, and criminalising gatherings for worship (as opposed to the first lockdown where all gatherings were banned) a rubicon has been crossed. Whether we think it will ever develop into something more insidious or not, the UK now has a legal precedent for criminalising gathering for public worship, aka going to Church.

What we need to realise - and realise urgently - is that in the UK we have lived through a spiritual anomoly. There are things that have happened in the history of our country that have made the place of Christiainity in our nation almost unique in the history of the world. There are strong signs that this anomoly is coming to an end (see e.g. today’s article on the Christian Institute website about ‘Criminalising ‘hate speech’ in homes in England and Wales proposed by Law Commission’). As our anomolous expereince of living as disciples of Jesus is eroded, we will have to come to terms with the fact that the marginalisiation and in turn, persecution endured by the Church throughout most of the world could soon be our own experience.

‘It could never happen here’ are the notoriously famous last words of every free-society…

A Note from our Bishop

Here is a relevant excerpt from a recent email from Bishop Martin to clergy, Chruch Warden’s and licensed minister. I have highlighted the bit that might be of interest. Thanks to all who have written to the Bishops, or our MPs to raise concerns.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

 I am continually grateful for all you are doing and will continue to do as we head into another form of lockdown. I wanted to update you as to where things are in terms of the new regulations from Thursday.

The new lockdown measures coming into force on Thursday will have a significant impact on the life of the Church as the current proposal is to close churches for acts of public worship. I have written to all the Members of Parliament with constituencies within the diocese to ask them to support churches remaining open for public worship. We need to make acts of public prayer for our nation in this time of crisis in our church buildings, and to provide the ministry of the sacrament as well as of the word to sustain the huge outpouring of selfless work to care for the neediest in our communities.  Thanks to your herculean efforts, to the best of our knowledge there has not been an outbreak of COVID 19 that can be traced to a church in Suffolk. The closure of churches for worship is of deep regret and you may want to read my comments in the East Anglian Daily Times (click HERE).

A letter to our Bishops

Bishops Martin & Mike

Thank you for all that you have been doing in these difficult and unprecedented days to steer the Diocese through the Coronavirus crisis.  The complexity of the decisions facing those at all levels of leadership are breathtaking and exhausting.  And the accumulative effect of leading through such a time as this can be costly.  You both remain in our prayers week by week. At MIE we have found the clarity of guidance helpful as we have worked to keep our congregations in touch with the ministry and mission of Church life.

I am however writing to express my concern at proposals that all acts of corporate worship must again cease from Thursday 5th November.  I have also written to my MP (Tom Hunt) as I understand that the draft legislation will be placed before the House of Commons tomorrow.

The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales has issued a statement asking the Government to produce evidence to justify such a ban on public and corporate worship.  Would it be possible that Anglican Bishops might also challenge the Government's guidance?   Such discussion may already be under way, in which case it would be of great comfort to many in our congregations to know that our Bishops are contending for our freedom to gather in corporate worship.

In the previous lockdown, when almost all of society was 'closed', the arguments for closing Churches for corporate worship was, perhaps, sustainable.  But in the current guidance, it is far from clear that this remains the case.

If Churches are able to stay open for socially distanced prayer, on what grounds are services banned, which follow identical health and safety precautions (including social distancing, sanitisation, wearing of face coverings, restrictions on aspects of worship such as Holy Communion and singing).   When a family is able to take their child to school, but not to Church; when people are able to meet in Church buildings for a support group but not for corporate prayer; when Church buildings are open for 'formal child care' but not for formal worship, questions are bound to be asked on what grounds such distinctions are made.  The message being sent out by the Government is that while some gatherings are deemed 'essential', gathering for worship isn't one of them.  As a parish priest, I must register my dissent.  

How is this not relegating religious belief to the category of an optional social activity?  Such a categorisation of an essential expression of their faith is not one many Christians will find it easy to accept, and indeed will find more difficult as lockdowns are repeated, and/or prolonged.

Whilst 'online' worship is helpful in so far as it goes (and for some may be the only option), I for one am reluctant to rely on that phenomena to the exclusion of the physical gathering of the people of God.  Such gnostic disregard for the physical means of grace, and the 'incarnation' of the Church (if I might be allowed to use such a phrase!) doesn't sit easily with Christian theology or spirituality.  Indeed it directly undermines it.

The announcement that our Churches will be closed again for public worship has already caused significant anguish in our congregations.  More than one person at MIE this morning was in tears at the prospect.  Many of us see the gathering of God's people for corporate worship as an integral aspect of our faith, a precious privilege to be safeguarded at all costs.  

At the very least, can we have some explanation for the decisions that are made, and some guidance as to what to say to our congregations, who are already wearied, fragile and vulnerable in the face of the sacrifices they are being asked to make.  People's mental and spiritual health is suffering; there is such anxiety and fear about the future; they are concerned for their jobs, their income and their children.  For many, Church is a place of refuge, where they meet with God and find in Him strength and assurance.  It is being taken from them, and it is far from clear that there is any evidence that such restriction will have any benefit.  Please can our Bishops take the lead in restoring the full experience of public worship to the people of God. 

Thank you for your consideration of these matters, and I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Sincerely,

Rev. Mark Prentice

A letter to Tom Hunt MP

Mr Tom Hunt MP

Thank you for all that Her Majesty's Government is doing in these difficult and unprecedented days to steer the country through the Coronavirus crisis.  I appreciate the difficult decisions that are being faced and the compassion with which the Government is seeking to safeguard health.  The complexities of such decisions must be breathtaking.  

However, as a Church of England minister I am concerned at proposals that all acts of corporate worship must again cease from Thursday 5th November.  I understand that the draft legislation will be placed before the House of Commons tomorrow (Monday 2nd November), and that MPs will have the opportunity to discuss the issues and vote on the proposed new regulations.

I am writing to you as my elected representative to add my voice to those who are asking MPs to reconsider this aspect of the proposed lockdown.  The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales has issued a statement asking the Government to produce evidence to justify such a ban on public and corporate worship.  If Churches are able to stay open for socially distanced prayer, on what grounds are services banned, which follow identical health and safety precautions (including social distancing, sanitisation, wearing of face coverings, restrictions on aspects of worship such as Holy Communion and singing).   

When a family is able to take their child to school, but not to Church, when people are able to meet in Church buildings for a support group but not for corporate prayer, when Church buildings are open for 'formal child care' but not for public worship worship, questions are bound to be asked on what grounds such distinctions are made.  The message being sent out by the Government is that while some gatherings are deemed 'essential', gathering for worship isn't one of them.  How is this not relegating religious belief to the category of an optional social activity, and thus an erosion of religious freedom?  Such a categorisation of an essential expression of their faith is not one many Christians will find it easy to accept.

To echo the Catholic Bishops' concerns, 'To counter the virus we will, as a society, need to make sustained sacrifices for months to come. In requiring this sacrifice, the Government has a profound responsibility to show why it has taken particular decisions.  Not doing so risks eroding the unity we need as we enter a most difficult period for our country'.

Thank you for your consideration of these matters, and I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Sincerely,

Rev. Mark Prentice

a time for heart searching

As the prospect of another lockdown looms there are understandable anxieties and concerns. Many will be wondering if they have the resilience for yet another change to life’s structures… financial worries will be lurking for many, questions about job security and income… fears about the levels of disruption… questions about whether our society and its institutions will be overwhelmed…. what will this mean in real terms for schools, NHS, emergency services…

And in the midst of it all, where does ‘church’ fit?

It has become clear that Christian thinking on this is not at all uniform. Over the last months, and through a previous lockdown, there was a litany of arguments about why we didn’t need to worry about the fact that our Churches were closed. The Church is the people… we’re fine meeting online - indeed we might be better off… the public gathering for worship isn’t essential to Christian devotion… Church buildings aren’t even really necessary, or maybe even desirable in the first place…

Whilst I understand the desire to accomodate circumstances that are beyond our control, and to avoid additional stress at a times such as this, I also wonder if we need to do some heart-searching and some Bible-searching. The impending lockdown has several notable differences to the first one, and those differences raise deep questions about whether the closure of Churches throughout November is a purely health-related decision or an ideological one. When everything was shut, the case for Churches to conform was at least sustainable. But when the Government begins to discriminate between aspects of society, saying which are ‘essential’ (and thus free to remain open and functioning) and which are not (and are therefore shut), we find ourselves in a very different ball game.

The Church in the UK is in danger of uncritically accepting the secular narrative on society and of the place of religion in that society. We are so used to that narrative that it threatens to be simply an assumed part of our thinking. ‘Religion’ is private. You can believe what you want in the privacy of your own home (though the recent proposals in Scotland call even that into question, see yesterday’s post), but your ‘faith’ stays within the confines of your own personal life. It has no place in the public life of society, or your participation in it. Many Christians have already accepted this in principle. We sign contracts that restrict the public expression of our faith in terms of what we wear and don’t wear, what we say and don’t say, whether we pray or not; as Churches and Christian charities we accept funding that allow us to develop projects (sometimes even projects that we style as part of the Church’s ‘mission’) on the express condition that we don’t evangelise; we accept that certain behaviour and speech is not appropriate in schools and hospitals, prisons and even now on the internet. The real-terms erosion of freedom of speech (and action) in the UK is well documented and is often felt by Christians who are uneasy, but who are appeased by Christian leaders who tell us it’s OK really, and that we are still free to be Christians, and that demonstrating the love of Jesus is all we need to do, so let’s not worry about the fact we can no longer declare it. Social commentators have started speaking of ‘self-policing’: the idea that we learn that certain beliefs and convictions - shaped though they are by our commitment to Scripture - are not acceptable, and so we simply stop articulating them. It turns out that Christians are deeply Pavlovian.

In such a world, Church - the gathering of God’s people - is not ‘essential’. Therefore in a lock-down, ‘we’ allow private prayer, but not public worship… In the first wave of the pandemic, when pretty much everything was locked down, perhaps we could tolerate the Government’s banning of public worship. But in a situation where significant aspects of public gathering remain possible but responsible gathering for worship is banned, the lines are much more blurred. When can open our buildings for ‘services’ the Government consider essential (to run a foodbank, or a support group; to provide formal child care, or education), but not for public worship, even if that public worship is conducted within the guidelines previously laid down (use of face coverings, 2 meter-distancing, etc), then it is far from clear that ‘health’ is the only issue being taken into consideration. What’s going on when we can have a dozen people socially distanced in our buildings for a ‘support group’, but not for a prayer meeting, or a service of worship. Some gatherings are ‘essential’, but gathering for worship isn’t one of them, apparently.

It is unlikely that our Bishops will contest this. We painfully remember prominent Bishops encouraging us to civil disobedience by attending political rallies, whilst complying with Government guidance and shutting the Churches. My own sense of betrayal was acute. There is little reason at this stage to assume that those entrusted with our spiritual oversight will take a different course of action this month.

Nevertheless, the question remains: Is the public gathering for worship a necessary part of faithful dicispleship? Any cursory reading of the Bible would lead us to answer ‘Yes’, and to conclude that the loss of this is not something of marginal consequence. We saw in the recent ‘Standing Strong’ conference that the Church elsewhere in the world is bemused - astonished even - by the ease with which we have surrendered this privilege. Before we even begin to consider the legal questions, the spritual realities press in on us.

‘Church’ is the word usually used to translate ‘ekklesia’ in the New Testament. We are often told that it means ‘the people’, not ‘the building’. This simply isn’t true. ‘Ekklesia’ in fact means ‘assembly’ or ‘gathering’. Originally the word had a wider meaning than it usually does today, in that it could apply to political, religious, or indeed unofficial groups. Perhaps that is why Jesus and the Apostles used it. Church is the GATHERING of the people. You’ll have heard me often emphasising this in my preaching. Christianity is a public and corporate reality. It has self-evident personal implications, but it only becomes (exclusively) personal and private or even hidden in the most extreme of circumstances. Where the Church is so persecuted that faith must be secret, there is a deep sense of spiritual impoverishing that our brothers and sisters long to overcome. They will go to extraordinary lengths to meet with other Christians, even risking imprisonment and physical harm to do so. Granted, a building set apart to accomodate that gathering isn’t an essential part of the equation, but the idea has more merit than we are used to recognising.

And it is not simply a gathering for religious reasons. It is naive to think that Christianity isn’t a political reality. We’ll see this in our BRT breakfast in a couple of weeks. The Book of Acts presents the Church and the Gospel that gives rise to it in starkly political terms. Christ is ‘another King’ (Acts 17:7).

So… as we approach lockdown we have profound questions to navigate. Do we accept the Government’s assessment of the place of ‘religion’ in society? Do we accept the idea that my faith in Christ is a ‘personal and private’ part of who and what I am? What is our relatinship with civil authority? When some of us are prepared to engage in protest and (even civil disobedience) in other political and social causes, why are we silent on matters of Church and public worship? How do we see our relationship with ‘the Church’, the gathered people of God? Are some things more important than life and death? Just how important my place in the corporate worship of the living God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

These are no longer academic questions of little consequence. They are no longer the kind of questions we can safely discuss in Fellowship Groups, or over a coffee (or other beverage of choice). When I can take my child to school, but not to Church… when our buildings can be used ‘support groups but not corporate worship… these questions are moving out of the category of idle curiosity, and into the category of consequences. Perhaps we can bear the tensions for a month… but by all accounts this isn’t the last Lockdown we will face. What price will we be asked to pay? …and by whom?

St. Crispin's Day (25th Oct)

We probably have only heard of it because of Henry V’s famous speech on the morning of Agincourt in Shakespeare’s play. In fact, 25th October is renowned for several famous battles that have been fought on it, including Agincourt (1415), and the Battle of Balaclava (of ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ fame) during the Crimean War in 1854.

But who was St. Crispin and why do we remember him, and mark his life and death? Crispin and his twin-brother Crispinian were two Christians brought before the Roman co-Emperor Maximianus in 286, during the infamous persecution instigated by Diocletian. The fact that their case was dealt with at such a high level gives us some indication of their influence. In fact they were effective missionaries in Gaul, spending their days preaching the Gospel, and their nights working as cobblers to support themselves.

After various incentives and promies failed to lure them from their devotion to Christ, Maximianus turned to threats. “Your threats do not terrify us, for Christ is our life and death is our gain. Your rank and possesssions mean nothing to us, for we have long since sacrificed all this and its like for the sake of Christ and rejoice that we have done so. If only you would acknowledge Christ and love Him, you also would give up not only all the treasures of this life, but even the glory of the crown itself, in order through the exercise of compassion, to win eternal life’.

Not the St. Crispin’s Day speech we’re used to!

Maximianus was incensed that they sought to convert him, and handed the twins over to the governor Rictovarus, known for his cruelty in persecuting Christians. The story goes that Crispin and Crispinian were subjected to various tortures, included being stretched on the rack, and - in an act of studied irony - being thrown into a river with a millstone tied round their necks. Incredibly (miraculously?) they survived, and Rictovarius, under conviction, committed suicide, rather than bow to Christ.

Maximianus ordered the brothers to be beheaded, which was duly done.

and it's also worth asking...

At first glance the Kristie Higgs case may not appear that important. "Christian Teacher sacked over Facebook posts loses discrimination case" is the kind of headline that some just skip with a shrug of the shoulders. "O look, another unwise Christian mouthing off unnecessarily, gets her comeuppance – what do you expect?" Others are all set to man the online barricades and retweet endless outrage to those who already agree with them. Can I suggest … that we read beyond the headlines, avoid the judgementalism and instead consider the significance of this judgement.

Doubtless there are lots of things that can and will be said about Kristie – personally I admire her courage and share the concern that she has lost her job for sharing an opinion which I and millions of others share. But I want to focus on one particular aspect of the judgement, which has profound implications for the future of the Church in the UK – and perhaps elsewhere.The tribunal decided that Kristie was not sacked for her Christian beliefs. They also accepted that her beliefs were not transphobic or homophobic. The tribunal also rejected the view of a previous decision regarding Dr David Mackereth that "a lack of belief in transgenderism and conscientious objection to transgenderism are incompatible with human dignity and conflict with the fundamental rights of others and are not worthy of respect in a democratic society".So why did they still find against Kristie? Why did they agree that she had committed such 'gross misconduct' that she deserved to lose her job? Let's go back to the original post which Kristie shared. In October two years ago, Kristie shared a petition on her private Facebook page using her maiden name and not mentioning her employer.

She was concerned about her nine-year-old son being taught that gender is just a social construct and you can change your gender if you wish. She objected to the mandatory Religious and Sex Education, which the government had determined was to be taught to children as young as four. She argued, correctly, that it was brainwashing.

She was concerned about the impact of transgender ideology being taught to young children – a concern which is more than justified by the evidence becoming available which describes the harm that is being caused to children.

But an anonymous complainant went to the headteacher and described her posts as "homophobic and prejudiced to the LGBT community". The headteacher is then reported to have asked the complainant to find more offensive posts. Kristie was subsequently investigated, suspended and fired. The panel which investigated her, said her views were "pro-Nazi" and she was told to "keep your religion out of it" when she tried to defend herself.

According to the tribunal, her dismissal "was the result of a genuine belief on the part of the school that she had committed gross misconduct". Kristie was not dismissed for her beliefs but rather because of the beliefs of the school. I have a genuine belief that the tribunal was being irrational, discriminatory and prejudiced by the criteria the tribunal uses, so that means they should find themselves guilty! Unless my belief is irrelevant, that is, and only some beliefs count.

It gets worse. The tribunal states that Mrs Higgs was found guilty of posting items on Facebook that "might reasonably lead people who read her posts to conclude that she was homophobic and transphobic". Yet that same tribunal admitted that Mrs Higgs was not transphobic or homophobic, nor did they state that the posts themselves were transphobic or homophobic – just that some people might think they were, and thus they would cause upset.

That is why this ruling is so important. If this judgement is allowed to stand, it will mean two things. Firstly, the whole standard of law will now be changed. Guilt is now determined not upon evidence but simply upon the faith and feelings of the prosecuting party! Based on an anonymous complaint, a tribunal decided that a private post (which was not available to the public) was sufficient grounds for an employee to be fired. This means that anyone who finds what someone says to be potentially upsetting or offensive, now has the ability to get them fired. Objective evidence is irrelevant.

Except it does not mean that. It does not mean that ANYONE who finds something offensive can get someone else fired. It just means that only certain approved and protected groups have the ability to use the law to enforce their views. I suspect that the school would not have fired a teacher who posted a message that I would find offensive about Christianity. If this judgement stands, we will have lost the principle of 'all are equal before the law'.

In the Brave New Britain, some are now more equal than others and a society is emerging where pluralism is disappearing and along with it, freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of thought. State approved indoctrination within the schools is now going to be backed up by the law, which in effect bans all other points of view.

It is ironic that Mrs Higgs was accused of holding Nazi-like beliefs by a school which is using Nazi-like authoritarian methods (kangaroo courts, anonymous complainants, transgression of state ideology) to impose its own exclusive ideology.

Just think about this. In Britain, we now have state-authorised indoctrination, which is now being enforced by a legal system which punishes you for daring to express a different point of view – even in private. Think and then pray that we would be delivered from this evil. Then act (write in support of Mrs Higgs to your MP, help her legal fund, ask your church leadership to speak up) – before it becomes illegal even to do that.

The church needs to be united on this and I realise how difficult that is when so many churches have sold out to progressive ideology.  It speaks volumes that Steve Chalke, in light of this case, not only warned that churches who do not accept this ideology face prosecution, but also suggested that even expressing pastoral concern or praying for people with gender confusion or unwanted same-sex attraction was "psychologically abusive". In these times of moral confusion, those of us who love the Lord and want to stand on his word need to stick together.

Article published in Christianity Today, and written by: David Robertson, director of Third Space in Sydney and blogs at www.theweeflea.com

Standing Strong online

Did you miss this last weekend? Watch out particulatly for the section on the Church in China, in which we are told that the levels of persecution are worse than at any time since the Cultural Revolution. How is the Church responding to the worsening situation? There is also a particular focus on the Church in Syria, and the chance to find out a bit about what’s going on in the Church in Nigeria and how they are responding in the midst of persecution, poverty and a pandemic… as well as the politicisation of Food Aid. What can we learn from our brothers and sisters from around the world, especially in a context of Lockdown. Along with ideas for prayer and fundraising, this is well worth a watch!

Quote of the evening: ‘Wong Ming Dao, when he went into jail at aged 60 found that all the great things he had lived for as a Christian leader were taken away from him, and all he to do was get to know Christ in this jail cell. That’s what persecution does, it strips everything away until its just you and Christ and the focus is on the knowing and the receiving of the love of Christ … that’s the benefit of persecution, because it brings you closer to the pereson of Christ and it puts the focus not on serving Christ, though that’s important, but on knowing Him’.

OK - one more then: ‘Chinese Christians really say you’ve got to get together physically because something happens in a group with Christ that cannot happen any other way … if your Zoom service is the same as your service in the Church, don’t go back tot hat Church, because something ought to happen in a Church when you gather round and meet Christ that cannot happen in any other context or in any other way. They are back at Church, and they are astonished that in Britain many Churches still haven’t opened their doors yet’.

It's always worth asking...

…what would we do in the circumstances?

https://christianconcern.com/news/tribunal-rules-christian-could-be-fired-for-facebook-post-raising-rse-concerns/

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/christian-school-worker-loses-tribunal-case-against-sacking/ar-BB19MZZG

https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/christian-kristie-hicks-loses-discrimination-claim-in-lgbt-teaching-case/

…and where is the Church of England?

https://archbishopcranmer.com/kristie-higgs-schoolworker-sacked-transgener-ideology-church-england/

Vision 2020, Bible Study 6, Spiritual Leadership

The Question of Leadership

[Moses] chose capable men from all Israel and made them leaders of the people, officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.

                       (Exod.18:25)

For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.”  And this is the word that was preached to you. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

(I Pet.1:23-2:3)

We started this series reflecting together on the question of authority in the life of the church.   One of the questions I raised was about how our appreciation of the role of leadership would affect how we selected and prayed for our leaders.  But there is a further aspect to this – the question of how we support, encourage, inspire and invest in those leaders. 

We need to be thinking of leadership in its fullest sense.  We’re not simply focussing on the vicar, or the PCC, or the ministry team.  Leadership cascades throughout our congregations: Fellowship Group leaders, those leading our young people’s, or children’s and family’s ministries.  Sunday Group leaders, worship leaders, leaders in mission and outreach, in pastoral care and support…  and beyond the ‘institutional’ life of the congregation into family life with the role of parents.  It’s actually quite a long list when you start thinking about it.

But whatever arena we are exercising leadership, the goal is always the same.  We are leading people to Jesus by the Spirit, and in Jesus we are reconciled to the Father, and restored to His vision for our life as His people.  Whether we are talking about evangelism, discipleship, or worship, always the focus is on leading people to Jesus, on knowing Him more fully, enjoying Him more deeply, responding to Him more authentically.  Leadership is invested in the Church by Christ, so that we may ‘all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ’ (Eph.4:11-13).  

Our reading (Heb.5:11-6:3) seems to be working on the assumption that a normal aspect of spiritual growth and maturing is becoming people who are able to ‘be teachers’.  It’s anticipated that as we grow in our understanding of ‘the truths of God’s Word’, that we will become those who are able to teach others.  We will become those who are able to lead Fellowship Groups, Youth Groups, Sunday Groups; those who are able to sit down over a coffee or a beer or a glass of wine and teach others what the Bible has to say – either in a context of evangelism or discipleship making. 

The fact those who receive this letter can’t teach others yet is a problem.  It’s a problem for them because it’s symptomatic of the fact they aren’t growing; it’s a problem for the Church who don’t have people in it who can teach well and so struggle for Fellowship Group leaders, Alpha / CE table leaders, youth / children’s groups leaders etc; and it’s a problem for other Christians, who aren’t benefitting from having great teachers around them at every level of Church life.  That means they, in turn aren’t growing… 

Leading into spiritual growth – the aim of all leadership in Church life – is a leading into a mature understanding Christian belief.  And this not in some merely intellectual sense, as if Bible knowledge were an end in itself.  Rather truth that is believed, and lived.  Not just assented to by the intellect, but desired by the heart and accepted by the will so that it shapes who we are and how we live.  It is, after all, ‘teaching about righteousness’.  And that can’t be merely theoretical.  It is to be ‘used’, and by constant use such understanding teaches and trains us to ‘distinguish good from evil’ (5:14).  Once we have learned how to so live, we are able to teach, to lead, others.

This interplay between teaching and righteousness is a critical one to appreciate in the quest for spiritual maturity.  When we don’t understand the Bible we tend to assume it is an intellectual problem.  In fact, it might be a moral one.  If we aren’t putting the truth we already know into practise, the Spirit is not likely to reveal more truth to us.  His Word is precious, and the question of Truth is relational.  Our capacity to understand the Word of God is less about IQ and theological degrees, and more about holiness.

Questions

Do you agree that the main point of spiritual leadership is leading others to Christ, and teaching people how to live in relationship with Him? 

What other skills or qualifications would you expect in Church leaders?  Can you think of passages from the Bible to back up your answer?

Do you think we can learn about leadership from ‘secular’ models of leadership?  …or are they too different?

Read Heb.5:11-6:3

Why do you think Christians would get to the point of no longer trying to understand what the Bible teaches (v.11)? (you might find Heb.2:1, 3:7-8; 3:12; 4:11; 4:14 helpful background passages)

Do you think it is reasonable to expect all Christians to be able to teach (v.12)?   Should we cultivate a similar expectation at MIE?  How would feel about it?

Read the list of ‘elementary teachings’ in 6:1-2.  Would this be the list you would come up with if you had been asked to list out the elementary teachings of ‘righteousness / repentance’?  What are the discrepancies?  Are there any teachings in Heb.6:1-2 you’d struggle to explain to others?

What do you think would constitute ‘solid food’ (5:12)?  What is the link between this and ‘maturity’ (6:1)?  What expectations does this put on preachers, teachers and congregations?

Paul & Peter both use the milk / solid food analogy (I Cor.3:2; I Pet.2:2-3).  Do you think they mean the same thing?  How would you explain this analogy to others?

How does our understanding of the Bible affect our ability to live righteously?  If we don’t understand the Bible / Christian belief, how is our ability to live as Christ calls us to compromised? … or is it?

Memory Passage:

Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly – mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarrelling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans?

I Cor3:1-3

For further reflection:

This series could easily have felt like an anti-climax.  There has been no fanfare, no flashing light, no radically new ideas, no revolutionary concepts, no massive reconfiguration of the Church’s mission.  Quite the opposite.  We’ve been quietly and unspectacularly revisiting what the prophet Jeremiah spoke of as ‘the ancient paths’. ‘[A]sk where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls’ (6:16).  I’ve been suggesting that we pursue God’s heart.  I we can (re-)capture His heart for the lost, that will revolutionise us far more than running a training course and launch a new evangelistic project.  If we can (re-)capture His heart for our growing to be like His Son, our hunger and thirst for righteousness will intensify.  If we can (re-)capture His heart that will invest our worship and prayer with a sense of reality and encounter with God that can at times seem so elusive.  As one scholar puts it: We won’t find excellent worship until we stop pursuing excellent worship and start pursuing God.  In a way, that has been the burden of our series, pursuing God, and growing in Him. 

It’s a harder vision to speak about, to envisage, to grasp hold of.  We can’t measure it in terms of finance, or progress against a project map.  There is no glossy vision document with boxes to tick off, and teams to commission, and fundraising targets to hit.  There is simply us and God.  In some ways that is re-assuring, in some ways destabilising.  It demands a humility.  It’s easy, and all too common, to allow our experience of what God has done to eclipse our sense of what God might yet do.  We can, and must celebrate and give thanks for all God has done in us and for us and through us.  But we cannot and must not allow that to limit our sense of what God will do in the future.  We have tasted of God and it has left us hungering for more.

Jesus, Incarnation & Cultural Relevance..?

One of the most common questions I’ve been asked over the last few weeks relates to the question of Church Services and cultural relevance. And one of the most common thoughts raised by those who are pushing back on it focusses on the exprience of Jesus in the Incarnation. When ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us’, He did so in a way that was within a given culture. Put crudely, He dressed and spoke like a 1st Century Jew; He operated in ways that fit with and made sense in 1st Century Middle-Eastern context. Doesn’t the Incarnation then mandate Churches to ‘incarnate’ themselves in a similar way in their cultural context?

Well, Yes and No.

Yes - we are to be culturally … well I prefer to speak of Cultural authenticity rather than relevance. That’s more than semantics as we’ll see. We live in a specific time and place. You’ve heard me say a lot recently that our place in geography and history matter. Culture - though cursed and fallen like everything else in this age - remains nevertheless God’s idea. We are shaped by our culture in ways we can’t even begin to appreciate. At a more obvious level, we dress and speak in ways shaped by our culture, and which would be out of place elsewhere in the world. We can’t escape that, not should we necessarily try (unless those cultural norms violate Scriptural ones).

and No.

To say that Jesus was culturally relevant is at best only partly true. There were also ways in which He transcended His own culture, ways in which He challegned it, and ways in which He remained an enigma to it. If we are going to draw on the Incarnation as our model, then let’s do so consistently. We’ll need to see where Jesus challenged, or rejected His culture and where He refused to be shaped by it, or limited by it as much as where He accomodated it. It seems clear that none of the 1st Century cultures had a category that would allow them to make sense of the Cross. And while there were aspects of Jesus that were distinctively ‘1st Century-Middle-Eastern’, there were aspects of His Incarnation that were trans-cultural, making Him immeditately recognisable and identifiable in every culture. Jesus challenges, condemns, subverts, rejects, redeems, inhabits, celebrates and re-imagines the culture in which He lives.

Which means that the relationship between a Church and the culture(s) in which that Church lives is complex. There are parts of Church life which should be instantly recognisable and identifiable in every Church wherever and whenever they meet. I can read the liturgy of Church services from Jerusalem in the 3rd century, North Africa in the 5th century, Europe in the 16th century, and while the language is different, there is also massive continuity and at times a surprising degree of consistency in what is said and done. We use forms of service and liturgies that were crafted centuries ago, and find they speak to our spiritual need today. I have worshipped in churches all over the world (well, on four continents…). Even when I am sitting in services where I haven’t been able to speak the language, I have still been able to recognise much of what’s going on… sometimes even recognise some of the songs being sung!

It also means that while we inhabit culture, we don’t capitulate to it. Our relationship with culture is one of critical engagement. We are aware that all culture needs to be redeemed. This world is under the control of the evil one (I Jn.5:19). The culture of the nations of this world is created through the synergy of fallen humanity and spiritual forces. Incredibly though, it - like much else - remians redeemable. Indeed, that is arguably part of the role and responsibility of the Church. But - and I think this is key - the Church shapes culture, as much (more?) from without as from within.

And one final thought… the Church is within itself made up of people from different cultures. Few local Churches are completely culturally monochrome. Even a Church like MIE is composed of folk from several different cultures. Some cultural differences are obvious, some much less so. We often don’t appreciate the differences until we trip over them and cause cultural offence. When it comes to the question of being culturally relevant, we are going to struggle - which culture is it we are wanting to be relevant to? Which of our cultures are we wanting to resonate with? This is a much deeper question than may first appear, and it isn’t always clear that we know the answer.

The glory of the Church is supposed to be precisley that it holds together in spiritual unity those from a variety of different and divergent cultures. Whether those are different cultures within a nation’s life, or from beyond a nation’s life. Cultural relevance to one culture is cultural irrelevance to another. This is true in terms of geography as well as history. As one wag put it: the Church that is married to one culture will be widowed to the next.

None of this is to advocate deliberate cultural irrelevance. We are not working for an idiosyncratic or archaic way of being Church; nor are we trying to make it harder than necessary for people to find a spiritual home in the Church. Nor is it to plea for relevance to a culture of 500 years ago.

But just because the Church did something 500 years ago, doesn’t mean that it was being shaped by the culture of its own day, and so should be re-imagined in such a way as to make it culturally relevant in our day. The BCP (for example) was as culturally irrelvant to the various 16th Century English cultures as it is in the many 21st Century English cultures (language and literary style not-withstanding). And where it became more ‘relevant’ it is because the (the doctrine of the) BCP had shaped the culture, not because it had been shaped by it. Archbishop Cranmer consciously modelled (to the point of cutting and pasting at times) the liturgy of the Anglican Church on historic Christian worship dating back to the Early Church Fathers. It is often not appreciated that the Reformation kept significant continuity with the worship of the Church of previous centuries (again, language not-withstanding). Several of the Reformers made the point that they were standing in greater continuity with the Ancient Church than the medieval Catholicism they were reacting against.

When it comes to the culture of our Church (and thus of our worship), some of that (likely the most surface elements) will be generated in conversation with the culture(s) of those who comprise the local congregation. Music styles, language, aesethetics might all be worked out in dialogue with our own cultures. But at the most foundational level of that congregation’s life it will be shaped by a Culture that transcends all culture. All of us will therefore suffer a kind of culture-shock. We will all find ourselves in unfamiliar territory, disoriented and uncertain. But that’s not always a bad thing! Sometimes it is postively good.

But the burden of this series is that some of the most pressing questions about worship might not ever be resolved at this level of culture…