Quietly Getting on with It

Hey, Christians,

How do you feel when someone urges you to be more passionate for your faith? Maybe you are already pretty much on fire and feel 'This is not about me'. Perhaps you are nowhere near passionate yet and need an intermediate step before your funeral will be full of eulogies describing you as such. Or possibly you (and this is me, OK?)  don't particularly do passion in that way. You live your life with the passionometer slightly below central leaving you content in all things but rarely angry or enthusiastic. You don't tweet about your excitement before a gig or curtain up. You have never, knowingly, been stoked.

And how do you feel when someone tells you that the problem with men today is that we no longer know how to lead. They mean the family headship thing and 'they' is almost always a heterosexual man who goes to the gym but not to do CV, has at least five children and can hold his breath longer than you while his beautiful wife looks after the children.

And how do you feel when a leader describes their priorities in life as if they were on a things to do list? You know:

1. God

2. Family

3. Church

Having the word 'God' on that list confuses me. It is a category error. Why isn't 'breathing' on the list? Surely it's a priority, unless you're holding your breath for now.

This is stick preaching more than carrot. Or, if it is carrot it is from the Malcom Tucker playbook, who will use the stick to shove the carrot up his victim's arse.

I feel the 'this doesn't apply to me' thing so much in the face of evangelical preaching these days. Even in the midst of doubt I am not discontent.  I am accepting of the fact that it is me who is doubting  - dubitatio ergo sum - which proves my existence and would please Descartes if not the Alpha Course.

No. In the routine, grass roots of life and faith I am content. It is OK to stumble through the long grass finding occasional paths and much local beauty. Not everything is a competition on doctrinal precision. Not everything is divisible into man task and woman task. Quiet inner peace is not a passion fail.

Occasionally my church commitments have meant disappointing my family. They are nice people. They understand. They certainly do not want to be on any list that includes my work tasks.

Leaving Alexandria - A Book Review

I preached a sermon a few years back when I admitted to doubts about my faith, perhaps a little too candidly. It was a Marmite sermon. People came up to me either with genuine gratitude or suggestions of resignation.

I haven't read this author before. The little voices of my rapidly-fading evangelical credentials whispered, 'Don't touch.'

But I recall hearing him speaking about an earlier book 'Godless Morality'. He argued that if you use God in any way in an ethical discussion the response 'I don't believe in God' is final. No more can be said. So, he said, Christians must learn to do their arguments informed by God but expressing them differently. Holloway ending up chairing the ethics committee of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. So he had secular clout.

Unusually for a thought-provoking Christian author Richard Holloway can write like a dream. It makes it easier to follow. Sometimes you have to, in the words of John Habgood, '...be determined not to let this idiot of an author prevent you getting to grips with the subject.' Not so here.

And that is a good job because the subject, as the sub-title says, is faith and doubt.

So here's a question, which I have asked myself many times: if you have doubts, does it demonstrate more faith to offer your life and career in Christian service than if you are clear and convinced? And if you do so offer, doesn't that prove that you had faith all along? It's complex, paradoxical.

Don't worry, this will be a book review.

Faithfulness is a fruit of the Spirit says Galatians 5. Faith is a gift of the Spirit says 1 Corinthians 12:9. This apparent contradiction suggests that somehow one can serve God in the gap between experiences of his existence. There will be times when this gap appears. 1 Samuel refers to a time when the word of the Lord was rare and there were not many visions. Yesterday's lectionary reading at Morning Prayer had Saul enquiring of the Lord but getting no answer. The disciples once had to wake Jesus and asked, in a boat mid-storm, if he cared whether they died. In other words, God is not asleep at the wheel, but sometimes it feels like that.

So this book is the story of a man who was convinced by Christian service and Catholic expressions of religion, but not so much by the heavenly destination his faith pointed to. His ministry, especially to the poor, whilst struggling with the reality behind the faith that had led him there was remarkable. He ended his stipendiary life as Primus (Archbishop) of the Scottish Episcopal Church. His learning and scholarship saw him become Gresham Professor of Divinity in the City of London.

Maybe the Catholic repetition and ritual of worship carried him on long after it had been drained of content; duty not joy. At the end he could go no more. He resigned his post and slowly, painfully left the church. He did it without great fuss.

He observes that an institution in crisis spends far too long in meetings discussing its purpose and future. Perhaps the one sentence I take away and wrestle with is the thought that out of certainty comes great evangelism, but out of doubt comes great pastoral work. Does the genuine consideration that the reward is in heaven take the edge off our desire (or need) to help the poor. In which case a belief that this life is all there is will make us determined to improve the suffering of all.

How often we reduce '...the mystery of what is beyond all utterance to chatter.'

I didn't end this book feeling sad but with gratitude for its honesty and the realisation that there is only so much honesty in this area you can exhibit as long as others will want you to retain your post. To be honest.

Quote Book Index 151-160

Indexing my quote books ten a day and sharing a good one each time:

160. Believing is by no means a question of what I believe in, but always a question of against what I believe. For faith must always struggle against appearances. (Thielicke quoted in Derek Tidball's 'A World Without Windows')

Doubting and the Baptist

In asking for ideas for writing about John the Baptist yesterday I didn't explain that I was preparing Bible study notes for 11-14 year olds. So a massive theme of doubt, as requested by some of my Facebook friends and Twitter followers, may be a bit too complex. But it was a brilliant thought. We preach certainty far too often. It's not there in the Bible as often as we think it is.

The Old Testament prophecy of a voice in the wilderness (Isaiah) and a new Elijah (Malachi) had lain dormant for four centuries. Was the Lord going to do something? People surely doubted.

John's Father Zechariah met an angel in the temple. 'You will have a son.' He doubted and was struck dumb.

The baby is born to Elizabeth in old age. How do the people greet the news? Questions, alarm and astonishment. Or doubt, to put it another way.

Some years later John starts preaching in the wilderness. He baptises Jesus and there is some heavenly vocal work with special effects to authenticate the Son. Later, in prison, John sends a message with his disciples to Jesus, 'Are you the one, or is someone else coming?' Doubt you see. Even in the face of apparently overwhelming evidence. The John who John's Gospel (a different John) told us was certain was unsure all the time.

Later Herod is tricked by his lover's daughter into having John killed. He seems to doubt the wisdom of this. But he cannot back down from a public promise. So John dies. Randomly. Cruelly.

Can we be sure of the authenticity of all these tales? Can we, who haven't seen, have the faith of those who had but still doubted?

Acting as if something is true, without proof. That's faith. If there was no doubt there would be no faith.