Faith After Doubt

Faith After Doubt

Brian McLaren

A longer book review on the way. This book has been really important for me. It may be equally helpful for others on similar journeys.

I came to faith through the ministry of a church youth group in suburban Birmingham in the early 1970s. I didn't know anything about the range of style within the Church of England at first. Soon I understood that it was a Conservative Evangelical church.

That youth group was run by a talented and tireless curate called Don. On the 'divisive' issues of the day he was not extremely conservative. He was a huge supporter of women's ministry and ordination, and forgiving on divorce and remarriage. That said I regularly heard sermons that promoted creationism over evolution.

Fast forward a few years and I'm married, have a son and am pursuing the possibility of ordination. That journey came as a surprise to me and is another story. I headed off to St John's College in Nottingham and a degree in theology.

I wasn't a great student but I was fascinated. Getting to grips with theological reading for the first time in my life I was also angry. Why had I been a member of churches for ten years and no one had so much as hinted at this sort of thing? The very idea that the Bible contained a range of material, not all of it history, started to help me make sense of things. Others who had the same experience struggled with their faith. But a reasonable summary of my years since then has been a desire to make sure people were not as uneducated as I. But how to do that?

As McLaren himself says, '...the better the job that colleges do in actually training their student to be responsible theologians, the more out of sync those future pastors will be with churches that hire them to maintain the status quo.'

It has not been a matter of asserting things that would start a fight. It has been a matter of patiently and gently suggesting things such as:

• Genesis 1-11 is not history
• In the Gospels some words are put on Jesus' lips by the writers
• Some biblical teaching is limited by the culture of its day
• Substitutionary atonement is a model, not the model

For the last 25 years Brian McLaren has been a companion on this journey, although we have never met. His trilogy of books about the sorts of things I have listed above, and his journey in conservative churches, were helpful. (1)

Since then, along the way, he has been true to his original aim of helping us to discover how a new kind of Christian leads to a new way of being church.

Which brings us to this - Faith after Doubt. It's sub-titled 'Why your beliefs stopped working and what to do about it'.

There have been many fine attempts over the years to categorise stages of faith. Fowlers six are the best known. All seem to suggest that the arrival at sage-like dotage just before your death bed is the ideal.

Here are McLaren's stages:

1. Simplicity

Epitomised by a desire to divide the world into yes or no, good or bad, in or out. Likes to belong to a church with clear black and white rules about ethics and doctrine. All that is required of a member is unquestioning loyalty.

Me 1971-76

2. Complexity

Here the question is 'How can I be successful?' Things are no longer known and knowable but learned and doable. Moving away from authority figures as soon as you discover they have flaws. Maybe start looking for a church community more like you. Exchange the joy of being right for the joy of being effective.

Many members of the faith community never get beyond this stage.

Me 1976 - 1996

3. Perplexity

Those who do not want to settle down in stages 1 or 2 often leave. For those who don't 'Come join a community of people who don't know what they believe any more but want to talk about it' is not an easy recruit. Plus the leaders have no answers or certainties. Many ministry students experience this in their first term of theological education. And having built something wonderful as we moved from stage 1 to stage 2 we find ourselves knocking it down again. Members of this group often have humility (I don't know the answer) and courage (Let's journey into the unknown together and see where it leads). Not moral relativism but challenging incomplete morality.

I got here quickly (hold the humility) and spent 1981-96 crossing over. I since have been here for about thirty years. The reason Faith After Doubt is so good is that it encouraged me to go on with the journey

Me 1981-2023

4. Harmony

Many members of the Society of Friends (Quakers) laugh at the slowness with which western Christians get to this point. It is the stage at which one sees love as the driving force steering us through 1-3. It is the point at which we accept, rather than reject, all the disparate bits and pieces of messy life which have got us here. The new music is of appreciation, empathy and wonder. McLaren adds love. No wonder being present in stage four can feel like being lost for words, or maybe lost in wonder, love and praise as the hymn puts it.(2)

I once got in a big dispute by arguing that all change comes from dissatisfaction. I stand by that although the discussion was passionate. I don't think I can persuade you to change your mind until you are dissatisfied with the status quo. And conversely I must value the doubt I developed about my stages 1-3 faith for without the doubt I wouldn't have reached here. Reached where? Well, reached the start of the journey, a journey most people never discover and few have the privilege of joining.

Me, now.

If you're ready, read this book.

(1) A New Kind of Christian (2001)
The Story We Find Ourselves In (2003)
The Last Word and the Word After That (2005)

(2) Love Divine, All Loves Excelling

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.

Credibility Gap - Article 8/39

VIII. OF THE THREE CREEDS

THE Three Creeds, Nicene Creed, Athanasius's Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles' Creed, ought thoroughly to be received and believed: for they may be proved by most certain warrants of holy Scripture.

Credo. I believe, in Latin. The first word(s) of most creeds. It is interesting that a corporate statement of faith used to be made by many people all saying 'I believe' at the same time. Now that many versions seem to start with 'We believe' the mood is changed somewhat. For I cannot be certain that everyone in the room with me believes the same thing.

In fact, a few years back, I attended a very conservative evangelical church having moved from Durham. I had expressed some limited support for Bishop David Jenkins. I discovered that when I said the Creed some people were looking across at me to check I said every word. This is not a joke, folks. It happened.

Yet what are words but a deep metaphor for truth? How many Christians could say 'I believe in God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth...' and be sure that every co-professor meant the same?

So our Article points us back to Scripture. There you will find the God about whom we have been making affirmations to whom we try and listen.

Thought for the Day

I sit on the editorial panel of a small magazine. Our regular meeting was yesterday. We were thinking about the next issue's theme - Hope in Uncertain Times.

There can be no doubt we live in uncertain times. On an international stage we are uncertain about future European relationships, threats from terrorism and climate change.

On a national stage we are uncertain we have provided safe housing for many who live in high-rise blocks with modern exterior cladding.

The local issues with which BBC Radio Bristol regularly deal include, today, uncertainty about care for sick children, provision of accident and emergency care in hospitals and the protection of an ancient tree.

Uncertainty.

Yet certainty is often less available than we think. I took for granted that this studio chair would take my weight. That the journey in would last the regular length. Emma trusts her alarm clock day by day (although her Twitter followers know how she feels about getting up). But there is no certainty.

We all live a little bit by faith, hope, trust. Without it we would disappear into a black hole of checking and double-checking. Checking everything all the time. Never trusting anyone or anything.

The Christian story is of a man who put his trust in God to such an extent that he died refusing to believe that this was anything other than God's will. Abandoned to die on a cross. Yet somehow still part of the plan.

Those of us who follow that man, Jesus Christ, must determine to do all we can to bring hope in uncertain times, to be servant as well as supervisor, good news when news is bad and light in the darkness. And that is the Gospel my friends.

The Latest Book Review Ever

In the mid 1970s, probably staying up to watch football and waiting for it to come on, I caught what must have been an early version of the Late Review or Newsnight Review. Given that my house was a liberal chattering classes free zone I had never watched the programme before. Anyone invited round who was not a true blue Conservative was explained to me before and afterwards, 'Well they are socialists you know', as if that made everything they said and did irrelevant. They probably lived in one of the slightly cheaper detached houses on the other side of the road and lectured at the university.

And that night one of the books being reviewed was Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I can't recall much of the discussion except that my interest was caught. I don't think I knew that books could have titles like this.

I did nothing about it.

Fast forward ten years. In that time I had moved out, married, had two children and headed off to train for the ordained ministry. I wasn't much of a studier. Scary. I worked out how to write acceptable essays and pass exams. I captained the football team, co-wrote a musical, met some people who were actually politically engaged and I enjoyed their company.

How little I knew myself then. I swear that, given my character and knowing what I now know, if you had deposited me in college for three years and told me to find out what I thought I needed to know to be ordained I would have made a fist of it.

The study days I remember best, and learned most from, were those when there was no essay to be produced or exam to be passed. They were days when I pursued reading on a subject that had made me curious.

One such day was the day, browsing in the library, I came across Robert M. Pirsig's book. There probably was an essay deadline on something else looming but I would have had an intuitive sense that it was not so near that I couldn't take some time out to skim this book.

As I recall I read the first page standing at the shelves, the first chapter back at my upstairs library study cubicle and the whole book pretty quickly.

As a Christian with a conversion experience I had already had my life changed more than most and, if I'm honest, more than I wanted. Yet here was I reading a book with a sub-title:

This book will change the way you think and feel about your life

I think the Christian truth that sometimes you need to wait, hope, rest and pray came home to me more deeply by reading this book than it had through years of Bible study. It taught me what Rob Bell today calls punk wisdom. If you can't make sense of the information coming at you don't hide - take in some more. If the Director wanted you to know what that scene was about she would have told you. The greatest skill available to anyone, for free, is that of observing the surroundings and making connections.

I don't like motor cycles. I like the way Pirsig describes taking them apart. He likes looking around at the scenery as he rides long. I like looking out of the window. Sometimes, when I do that, I catch a glimpse into my soul. It's not that bad.

Pirsig died recently. Here's a key thought. It's a life-changer. He discusses fixing his bike. At the top of the page of notes (it can be an imaginary page) he writes:

Problem: fix bike's electrical system

This is a mistake, he says. Even if he is 90% certain that the problem is in the electrical system and it is the first thing he is going to check, he may have taken a major wrong turning. He should write (and again the page can be imaginary):

Problem; fix bike

Followed by:

Theory 1; check electrics

Then, when he finds the electrics working, he won't have run out of ideas.

The same sort of thinking applies (I now apply this thinking) to idea-generating. If a group of people are bouncing ideas around do not put the first idea generated in the top left hand corner of the flip-chart page. If you do that you impose an order on the ideas that, psychologically, suggest that the best one comes first. Start in the middle and work out. Make the connections and collate after all ideas are out. If you are doing an ideas-generating session without a flip-chart or other visual display I can't help you any more.

I have more important things to do than write this piece but, as it happens, while I was writing it one of the problems I should have been attending to solved itself and went away.

I described myself as a Zen-Christian once, this upset some people from the Hezbollah wing of the Church of England so I stopped.

But hear this from chapter 25:

I think that if we are going to reform the world, and make it a better place to live in, the way to do it is not with talk about relationships of a political nature,...

...or with programs full of things for other people to do,...

...The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.

Christian sentiment; Zen expression.

Oh and this. If you believe in the ultimate inter-connectedness of all things. Yesterday there was a bit of fuss on the news about a female red-winged blackbird that had accidentally found its way across the Atlantic to the Scottish Isles. I just re-read page 1 of the book and there is a father trying to impress his eleven year old son by pointing out a red-winged blackbird. The son is unimpressed.

Five years after reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance I became a bit interested in birds. Female red-winged blackbirds don't have red wings.

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.

Was It OK?

Well the idea wasn't bad. Sit in a pub for an hour or so and allow folk to bring their questions about life and faith. Nothing off the table. No holds barred. No bars holed for that matter. No right or wrong answers but simply honest exploration.

First two or three went well in autumn 2014 and guests said they loved it.

Repeated with three more in spring 2015. Numbers never went beyond eight. Three regulars and me made up half of that.

The two or three genuine seekers and questioners from beyond the church gates all said it was good but no-one made a repeat visit.

Tried a different pub in Autumn 2015 but the numbers plummeted. Considered stopping but was urged to continue by most people who had been once before.

Went back to the same old pub in spring 2016 but no progress on numbers was made. This week the other three guests, all regulars, had brought no questions to discuss.

So to the sixteen folk who came at least once, and to the supportive regulars who came most of the time, thank you and goodnight.

We need to try something different. Ideas gratefully received.

A Word of 2015 Testimony

Stephen Fry said recently that you can't believe in a God who allows parasites to eat the eyes of African children. It's an imagination failure really. People find it very hard to imagine a thing, a being, an essence (words fail us) who inhales bad and breathes out good. Someonething so amazing that their very existence encompasses all that is evil and redeems it.

It is amazing that some of these people with such a limited imagination are actors.

Almost fifty years since we moved beyond the god-of-the-gaps idea - that God is what you have left when science has reached its limit - still there are people who carry the idea of a too-small God around with them in case they have to do some emergency debunking.

The faith community can live with this. We laugh at it. We know that it is better debating style to select the strongest expression of your opponent's case to argue against. At least, some of us do.

We do not all recognise the God the atheists hate.

But we also chuckle at the way some people, who pronounce themselves members of the faith community, actually have put their trust in something they think they've proved. They believe in God on the basis of evidence, the balance of probabilities. That's not faith my friends. But sadly, neither is it science. It's pseudo-science and it deserves to be ridiculed. Even the very sad expression 'intelligent design' suggests that other human theories, by comparison, are unintelligent. This is, on the one hand plain rude, and on the other placing far too much infinite value on the earthly word 'intelligent'. Don't ascribe human characteristics to God. That way lies a barren land of omni-this and all-that. Take your shoes and socks off instead.

Faith is acting as if something is true because in doing so it becomes real for you and makes sense of your story. It provides a meta-narrative (and I know we are a bit suspicious of meta-narratives these days) which guides, points and helps. Neither a crutch, nor proving it but simply a theory of everything. Now where have I heard that expression before?

We all prefer to live in hope. My missing child will return. My cancer will be cured. I will find a job. And no, putting those three things in the same paragraph is not to confer equal seriousness upon them. So living, in what the Church of England funeral service describes as the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, is not counter-intuitive at all. It helps us live.

And so from this standpoint we observe the scientific community describing the universe as we know it beginning at a Big Bang, then refining the theory to suggest a series of bangs and crunches ad infinitum backwards and forwards (whatever that means in a multiverse we may have to now know as eternal). And as we observe we posit the existence of the infinite, the ultimate, the beyond-our-ken, the logos, the ground of our being, God. And for some of us it nourishes and sustains us to hope there is more than this, to live as people of faith that this life is not the only one on the market.

Not that we can tell with certainty if our atoms are to be redistributed around the universe or if there is to be a general resurrection. Most thinking Christians have jettisoned the whole damned-to-an-eternity-in-torment thing.

Wise guy once suggested this was the equivalent of seeing through a glass darkly, stealing an idea from Plato. And same guy suggested that in Jesus of Nazareth there were more clues to the other-world than in anyone else.

Which means that many great human stories and metaphors were told to try and get the truth of this man (somehow human and yet divine) taped. God's son? The lamb of God? The son of man? All make a point yet all fall short. No construct of words will ever get anywhere nearer than shoes and socks off time.

Trying to make sense of his death - some call the attempts 'theories of the atonement' - has led to all sorts of forms of words. Christus victor? Substitutionary atonement? Victory over death, sin, the world, the flesh, the devil?

For the evangelical community substitutionary atonement has become more than a model. It was, they say, what actually happened. Christ died in our place. So any member, or former member, of that community in all its breadth, is ostracised for daring to suggest that this might not be the whole truth.

I made this point in a Twitter conversation a few months back and the great Richard Dawkins said something along the lines of 'You mean God sent his son to die for the sake of a metaphor. That's worse.' Meaning that it was worse than all the other theories of the atonement with which people were wrestling and he was disagreeing. I love Dawkins. He writes well. He has helped me understand complex science. And he has had the humility to pull back from his rather aggressive stance against people of faith. He now acknowledges that friendly conversation works better. Respect.

I promised to write a bit more about it and it has taken until today to say this. Believe in God or not. It is entirely up to you. But make sure, if you don't believe, that the God you don't believe in isn't too small for anyone to believe in. Any creed, metaphor or historical account that is raised beyond the level of faith to actual, real, historical truth about the one we hope and trust is the creator and sustainer of the universe has become an idol. And we don't do idols in the Christian community.

Christ did not die for the sake of a metaphor. But metaphors are all we have to describe the sake he did die for.

Quote of the Day

1175. ... religion ... - it is the asylum to which all poor crazed sinners may come at last, the door which will always open to us if we can only find the courage to knock.
(James Robertson, The Testimony of Gideon Mack)

Quote of the Day

1064. ...fundamentalism is in fact a defiantly unorthodox form of faith that frequently misinterprets the tradition it is trying to defend.
(Karen Armstrong - The Case for God

Quote of the Day

942. Science has supplanted religion as the chief source of authority, but at the cost of making human life accidental and insignificant. If our lives are to have any meaning, the power of science must be overthrown and faith re-established.
(John Gray: Straw Dogs, page 18)

Quote of the Day

940. ...human knowledge is always provisional, and always demands some form of personal commitment. In this respect, at least, the human race is one big faith group.
(Nick Spencer, LICC, 'Consenting with Culture' 26/8/05)

Quote Book Index 631-640

I've had a month off this job but regular readers will recall I am indexing my quote books ten at a time and recording the best of each ten as I go. Today's from Pete Ward's (ed.) excellent book, 'The Church and Youth Ministry':

636. Don't tell me what you believe. Let me observe you and then I will tell you what you believe. (John Allan, quoting an old S. American saying)

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')

When Good Religions Go Bad?

Did you hear the one about the Christian, the Rabbi and the Muslim? I did.

Frances Spufford, author of the wonderful Unapologetic, Rashad Ali and Rabbi Laura Jenner-Klausner were joined by Lancaster University's Professor of the Sociology of Religion Linda Woodhead and refereed by The Independent's (thanks for the free copy) Paul Vallely.

An hour long discussion ensued in the Guildhall at today's Bath Festival of Literature. After about five minutes it became apparent that an hour was never going to be long enough. I'd have listened to any of the panelists for an hour alone.

Introducing the topic Spufford suggested that Christianity can easily be seen as lawless because its laws are clearly seen as impossible by most people - unlimited generosity, self-sacrificial love for instance. In this climate people have ended up captioning every one-off, positive experience they have as religious and God-with-us-now.

Rabbi Janner-Klausner spoke of religion as being a mix with different ingredients - narratives, shared history, space, music and humility are necessary but so, she said, suggesting that many overlook this part, has to be having no idea you are right. For her the key words about religion are doubt and love, rather than only and certainty.

Woodhead talked about how difficult it was to label a whole faith good or bad. She cited the example of Roman Catholicism in Northern Ireland where good things were done to keep the peace by priests in an environment where bad things were done to individuals. She described her own job thus, 'Sociologists of religion spend their time looking at religion like journalists but a lot slower.'

Responding to a thought about the social dimension of religion Spufford said that it '...tends to work because it isn't people's motivation for doing it.' In other words people don't go to church for company (some might I guess) but they find it in the like-minded. He added that the C of E in particular may not be bad but it does need to escape from being seen as nice. When people discover monotheism they don't necessarily exclude all the other understandings up to that point and 'restrict God's garden to a domestic plot.' But the story is told as if they do.

Getting on to Richard Dawkins, the panel agreed with the opinion of Rashad Ali who suggested Dawkins had a particularly Christian form of atheism. That is to say his world-view is shaped by the western Christian way of talking about things although he would not admit it. He, apparently, finds it almost impossible to have his God Delusion discussion with Muslims. Ali said,' Dawkins ought to study philosophy for a while so he can be clear what sort of argument he is having - empirical or philosophical.'

It was one of those slightly lovey-dovey discussions which only rarely got excited or animated. Rabbi Laura had a delightful turn of phrase in the tradition of great rabbi story-tellers. Spufford seemed clear that his brand of Christainity worked for him but evangelism, again for him, is more take-it-or-leave-it than urgent. Professor Woodhead was interested in religion but it felt like she was an outsider looking in. She nailed no colours to anything. The white, retired audience asked predictable questions.

It was terribly nice and therefore not a little C of E.

Is there only one God? Yes I think they'd say so. Do all roads lead to God? We can't know and are not supposed to. The panel didn't reach universalist conclusions but I think the train stops there next. But nobody would say so because that would be certainty.

Faith Matters - conclusion

Some folk have suggested frustration that my two-day chronicling of my perilous faith-state then lurched into silence. If chronicling can lurch and silence is a direction, that is. Well I went on holiday and had a lovely week on and around The Gower. I didn't go to church on either of the Sundays, I didn't take a Bible with me and apart from 'I'm still listening if you want me' didn't pray any particular prayers. It was great.

I waited for the mixed-bag of stress related minor ailments to hit, as they usually do once I relax, and soon embraced itchy skin and mouth ulcers like old friends.

Back at the ranch busy weeks set their first challenge - do I go to everything my diary suggests I ought to go to or do I keep my public promise and make being with Mrs WWA one night a week a priority? I opt for the latter and thank those who will be disappointed by my occasional absence for their understanding.

And gently, quietly and unspectacularly, in the everyday life of talking to people, chatting to enquirers, meeting strangers, helping the bereaved, trying to fix a vision and generally curing souls I recall who I am and what I should be doing.

Then last Sunday I arrived, in front of a small congregation at a Book of Common Prayer evensong ('We like to do something different on a fifth Sunday evening'), at that lovely verse from the beginning of 1 Samuel 3 which ought to set the tempo for our lives far more than the spectacular:

In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions.

It reminds me that feeling empty and faithless is normal for most of the people most of the time. It reminds me to wait, hope and trust.

Which I will gladly do. Thanks for those of you who were concerned and offered words or hugs. Kind of you.

January 4th Faith

So, as some of you know, I got dressed yesterday and did some work. It helped. What helped particularly was meeting with a very ordinary bunch of, yeah let's say it, not that young, members of a local church who wanted help with learning to lead worship, pray in church, read the Bible and preach. Doing this sort of thing is an absolute priority for me. Partly because it clears my diary of having to plan services because others can do it and partly because delegation is the business I am in.

This morning I said Morning Prayer with two other guys in a cold church. They have faithfully done this every Wednesday throughout a vacancy that is nearly two years old now. Only recently have I begun to join them. I don't think there was any clear articulation of why it should be done. It just seemed right to them to carry on and so they did, come rain or shine.

Routine is a good way to keep faithful. You follow the patterns laid down in the past because then the journey is familiar. Footpaths tend to lead to the same place every time, unless you are at Hogwarts or something.

Every time I have posted, over the last eight years, in a manner such as I did yesterday, or indeed ventured that sort of information in a conversation, I have found it tremendously rewarding. Not rewarding in the sense that everyone says 'there, there, buck up' even though they do and it's OK, but rewarding in the sense that it seems to be a helpful thing to say. Judging by the feedback on Facebook and in the comments box I suspect that I am being more helpful to people when I say how I really feel. Obviously not the sort of thing to blurt out on a bereavement visit but you know what I mean.

I used to enjoy a quote that said something like;

Tell them about your certainties - they'll have enough doubts of their own.

I think it was the late David Watson who said it, or at least popularised it. Thing is, that leaves the impression that the clergy are the only ones with 100% clarity of faith all the time. Clergy can come across as just a bit over-sincere - you know that thing we do with slightly more eye contact than everyone is comfortable with.

After prayers I went shopping for a bit - a wander ponder if you like and anyway I had to buy some birthday presents. Another reason January sucks is that half the family have birthdays in it and that is joined by the car insurance renewal and my balancing tax payment for the year.

So the current state of me is that I am bright and breezy and not particularly stressed that the world is currently a place of godless truth and beauty. I will attend tonight's prayer time with a clear conscience and maybe even say a few myself.

In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions.

It's from the beginning of Samuel. We don't quote it often enough.

January 3rd Faith

I have to ease myself into it. Like getting into a too-hot bath it has to be done gingerly. Subtle difference is that, once entered, a bath is by-and-large pleasant.

It's not the work I worry about. I can do tasks after Christmas. I can get stuff done.

It's the faith. Where did it go?

There are several mornings a year when I wake up not believing in God and have to do that Descartian locking myself in a metaphorical cupboard thing until I can face the possibility of spiritual questions. Not quite cogito yet. You?

Let me show my working. It may bother you but it gets me going.

Suppose there is no God. It's easy if you try. Then put on a dog-collar. Ha. Weird isn't it? Why are you wearing a symbol of spiritual support to others if you don't think there is a God? Take it off for a bit.

Now look around you. You have a job with very few responsibilities and a nice house and a salary that works as long as you are sensible or have a partner who works. All you have to do to keep those things is to make a few glib and platitudinous statements once a week and pitch up when expected at various occasions. Far more than you could possibly imagine can be delegated. Could you manage that? You may be a con-artist but you are quite a good one.

OK. So that's a starting point. You can come out of the cupboard now. You are a hypocrite but aren't we all? You know you have felt like this before and getting on with things will move you on, or at least has in the past.

Your next step is to decide if any of the things you are going to be talking about can be said to be true in any sense. The world kinda needs a meta-narrative and the Christian one is a good one. Triumph of good over evil; live pessimistically but hold on to a grand hope etc. If there is a God he would be like a good father; if he cared for us he would enter our world, his glory veiled possibly. So that was Christmas.

Just a few days ago I was singing that we might let:

Our happy voices rend the jocund air asunder

Tried it at Trendlewood Church New Year's morning. Never seen a bunch of people less likely to rend the air, jocund or otherwise.

Maybe others feel like me too. Or just went to better parties where they weren't the driver.

But that is where I have reached currently. There may be no God but I will carry on acting as if there is for a bit until he catches up with me again, or I with him. If he is there he won't be hiding.

I'll add some new bricks to this wall over the next few days. I thought it might encourage you to know that you are not the only one who feels, from time to time, that everything has been in vain, but your pension is probably not tied to it quite so tightly.

Happy new year.

Gentle Racism

I want to have a bit of an explore of the subject of racism again and may, because that's the only way to do it, risk getting it a bit wrong in order to see if I am right. I'll explain.

Last night George Kovoor, Principal of Trinity College, Bristol, spoke at the Nailsea Churches Together Lent Course. There is a recording of what he said available at the Methodist Church if this post prompts anyone to want to listen.

George is Indian. Proudly Indian. He reminded us of the multi-cultural melting pot that is India and the mixture of people of major faiths in his country. Even the minor faiths have millions of adherents.

He told a couple of gentle, fun-poking jokes about Indians. He said that it was OK for him to tell them but if we told them it would be racist. One was so old that I think I told it in the school yard before I knew what racism was. He gave testimony of the appallingly ignorant way he was treated by a Church Warden in a Midlands Church. No way to treat a Chaplain to the Queen. Mind you he describes himself as The Chaplain to the Queen which suggests he is the only one. There are many.

He told us India was mentioned in the Bible, although anyone looking in the Book of Ruth, as he suggested, will be disappointed. It's in Esther.

Now in this context he said one or two things, in a jokey way, about English culture. Why don't we smile more? Why do we boil potatoes and serve them without spices? Is the former a useful corrective or a failure to understand a culture? Is the latter a massive generalisation in a country that is learning to cook better?

Now one thing about being a mature ethnic grouping is the ability not to care terribly much if someone takes the piss out of us. We recognise stereotypes when we hear them knocked and laugh too, because we know we're not all like that but we can be or have been.

Here's the punchy bit. We have stopped telling jokes like that ourselves because we know that other, less mature ethnic groupings take offence as part of the state of coming to maturity. Is that a fair thing to say?

His subject 'A God for All Faiths?' was not treated the way we expected but was treated fascinatingly and grippingly. He is one of those speakers who leaves you hanging on his every word because you are convinced he is about to say something outrageous. That he never quite does is a matter of brilliant technique to keep an audience listening long. I have no problem with 75 minute talks if they are like that. I have some problems with dull 10 minute talks.

It was a great, thought-provoking talk on many levels and revisited quite a few texts which white, Anglo-Saxon Caucasians may have misappropriated.

Now, I wonder whether being a church with a reputation for a bit of gentle craziness will be an antidote for the 'boring' tag with which the church in this country has been labelled. Time to write that Press Release.

A Bit of a Clean Up

As promised some months ago I am retiring off the blog name Mustard Seed Shavings. My book of that title is published today. What do you mean you didn't know? Click on the sidebar link at once to buy two copies (one to give to a seeking friend). It's relatively cheap, short, easy to read and contains a joke.

Thanks for the cards and champagne Mrs Mustard. She's a scream. What shall I call her now?

So I pondered for a while and chatted to a few people. One day I will call something The Third Thing I Thought Of which is currently my favourite title for anything. I explained why here. But for the next phase of its life I wanted another metaphor for someone grasping for the raw stuff of faith in a material world.

Please welcome the new look and strapline with your usual aplomb.