The Dance of Love: Living the prayer of Jesus (2)

Angus Ritchie, Director of The Centre for Theology & Community preached at St Paul’s Cathedral this morning on a theme that had synergies with my sermon on 'The Dance of Love'; the calling of the Church to help us “learn together how to be more fully human, and how to make a more human world.”

Angus said:

"The Ascension is above all about hope. It marks the completion, of Jesus’ earthly work. In him, God has entered the human condition to heal and restore it. Jesus shows us what a truly human life should be. We could say, without exaggeration, that Jesus us the first fully human being since the Fall. Our lives are not fully human. We are only partly the creatures God made us to be, as his image in us is marred by sin and death.

This is reflected in our day-to-day speech. When we have had a refreshing holiday, or are enjoying glorious sunshine like today’s, we say: “I feel more human.” It’s a recognition that we spend most of our lives feeling less than fully human. We have a sense that there is something – a fullness of life, a generosity of heart, a deeper connection with others – something we’re made for, which is largely missing from our lives. We are not who we should be, who we were made to be.

What, then, were we made to be? That question is answered in today’s Gospel. Human beings are made in the image of God, a God who is love, fellowship, communion. When we love one another, we participate in the fellowship which is at the very heart of God. That is why Jesus prays:

As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, … so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one.

That is the purpose of humanity, that is what we were made to be: made to share the very life of God, by living in his love."

Also of relevance from today's Observer:

"... happiness can never result from the exercise of choice alone: we are social beings, and the building blocks of happiness lie in looking out for each other, acting together, being in teams and pursuing common goals for the common good. Families, schools, colleges, unions, newspapers, sports clubs and even firms should all understand that such commonality should be part of their core DNA." (Will Hutton)

and

"The big issue for me concerns isolationism and the rise of rightwing extremism in Europe and beyond. The extremists are diametrically opposed to the EU’s founding values. We forget that this is something that binds us and protects us and that, as one of the posters puts it, is “the largest peace project in human history”." (Wolfgang Tillmans)

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Pierce Pettis - That Kind Of Love.

Just Love: Personal and Social Transformation in Christ

The Contextual Theology Centre has posted a new item, 'Introducing our new Lent
book'

Centre Director Angus Ritchie blogs on his new Lent book, written with Paul Hackwood (Executive Chair of the Church Urban Fund).

Costing under £10, with significant further discounts for bulk buys for study
groups, Just Love: Personal and Social Transformation in Christ will be
published early next month.

The last year has seen two exciting developments for Christians committed to
social justice.  They make it an excellent time to launch a book on the
personal and social aspects of transformation in Christ.

You may view the latest post at http://www.theology-centre.org.uk/new-lent-book/.


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Ed Kowalczyk - Grace.

New Cosmopolitanism and Just Love

The global expansion in migration means large cities like London are becoming home to new waves of migrants. This change has instigated new ideas about social interaction, religion and cultural identity. In October, the Contextual Theology Centre will be partnering with the Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies to host an interdisciplinary conference sponsored by the Contending Modernities project.

The New Cosmopolitanism is a conference considering global migration and the building of a common life which will be held on 14/15 October.  The conference, which grows out of CTC's work in East London, offers:

… a fresh look at a question that is dominating the headlines – how the diverse groups that globalisation brings together can discern and promote a truly “common good”;
… an opportunity to respond to the increasing focus on these issues from Pope Francis, which is catching the imagination of those far outside the Church; and
… a unique blend of academic rigour and on-the-ground engagement, funded by one of the world’s premier Catholic Universities.

CTC are also preparing a new resource for Lent 2014. Angus Ritchie and Paul Hackwood (Chair of the Church Urban Fund) are currently writing Just Love: Personal and Social Transformation in Christ which will use the Gospel readings for each Sunday Lent to explore how Jesus loved, and why this love led him to the cross.

It will draw out the implications of his transforming love – both for our individual lives and for our social and economic order.  Drawing on decades of inner-city ministry, the authors aim to show that “Christ-like love” is more than a compelling idea.  It is a powerful reality, enabling people to live out God’s just love in the most challenging of neighbourhoods.

Just Love will be written accessible language, with testimony from lay and ordained Christians already involved in social action.  Written for both individual devotion and study groups, it will include specific, realistic suggestions for prayer, reflection and action.  It will be written for use by individuals and study groups.

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Aretha Franklin - (To Be) Young, Gifted And Black.

New Contextual Theology Centre website

The Contextual Theology Centre (CTC) equips churches to engage with their communities: to understand and enter more deeply into the communities where God has placed them; to discern and respond to his presence and action, and so to engage in faithful and effective witness.

CTC have recently launched a new website. As well as containing courses and resources for use by local congregations and small groups, the website also has details of events to which you are warmly invited, such as our bi-monthly community Bible study. Visit the website by clicking here. 

A monthly emailed update is also available to inform you about their work, tell you about their events, resources and projects and highlight some of their partner congregations and organisations.

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Alice Cooper - I Am Made Of You.

Faith in the Public Space

In December 2012 the Office for National Statistics released data for religious populations from the 2011 Census. These statistics will be adjusted for parish boundaries over the next two months but you will be able to gain a basic impression of your local area from the numbers for your local authority - more stats details.

The Director of the Contextual Theology Centre posted a comment and Andy Mathews, an intern at St Peter's Bethnal Green, offered an example of how this information can be put to good Presence and Engagement use. All of which points towards a seminar afternoon, Making Sense of the Census, which the Greater London Presence & Engagement Network is arranging for Monday February 18th, 1.30 for 2pm - 4.30pm, at Trinity House, Chapel Court, Borough High Street, SE1 1HW.

Later that same day, The Very Revd Dr David Ison, Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, will give this year’s PEN lecture Guardian or Gatekeeper? Faith in the Public Space and the role of the Church. He will be reflecting on his recent sabbatical research on Christian-Muslim relations. The lecture will be at 6.30 for 7pm on Monday, 18th February at St George the Martyr, Borough High Street, SE1 1JA.

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The Innocence Mission - Brotherhood Of Man.

Census figures: Pluralism is here to stay

Yesterday the Office for National Statistics released data for religious populations from the 2011 Census. Angus Ritchie, the Director of the Contextual Theology Centre has posted a very helpful comment on these statistics. 

In his response Angus suggests that:

"In the midst of the debate which these figures will provoke, it is worth getting some perspective. The majority of English and Welsh people identify themselves as Christian, at a time when wider social pressures give less and less encouragement to such identification. There is no room for complacency – and no point in denying that this number has declined substantially in the last decade. But these figures tell of a striking persistence of religious belief and practice. The public square continues to be a place where people of faith and people of no faith coexist in large numbers – with people of faith forming the substantial majority ...

Whatever else we make of the Census figures, this much is clear: pluralism is here to stay, with a growing array of religious and secular worldviews commanding significant allegiance. Whatever challenges this presents to the churches, it is hardly the world the ‘New Atheists’ have been campaigning for. The task for us all is to negotiate and build a truly common life – bearing witness with confidence and generosity to that which we believe most deeply."

The Contextual Theology Centre’s Presence and Engagement Network (PEN) is holding an event in Southwark on Making Sense of the Census on the afternoon of Monday 18th February – before the PEN 2013 Lecture, to be given by the Dean of St Paul’s, the Very Revd David Ison.
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Bruce Springsteen - Land Of Hope And Dreams.

Lent: Confronting us with reality

This was my Ash Wednesday sermon, based heavily on materials from Call to Change:

"Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: 'Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.'

"Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, 'God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.'"

Jesus commented, "This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to end up flat on your face, but if you're content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself." (Luke 18. 9 - 14)

The prayer of the tax man opened him up to reality – the reality of who he really was – while the prayer of the Pharisee was an exercise in unreality because it was designed to make him look better than he was by comparison with others.

This is one of the reasons why Jesus says in Matthew 6. 1 - 6 don’t perform your religious duties in public and don’t pray where everyone can see you. If our religious duties and our prayers are performed to gain the praise of others then they are not opening us up to the reality of who we are, instead they are poses designed to escape from, hide or mask that reality.

God’s judgment confronts us with reality.  His word pierces through our layers of self-deception.  It pierces through the false gods of profit, popularity and status on which we set our hearts, and through our shell of self-protecting cynicism.

Under the loving judgment of God, we see ourselves as we really are.  We see the futility of our self-deception, the emptiness of our false gods and the destructiveness of our cynicism.  Why does God force this painful truth upon us?  For this reason: it is only when we face the reality of our lives that change and growth become possible.

The prayers and practices of Lent exist to open us to reality.  Their words of penitence urge us to face the truth about our sins and their impact on others.  For example, the chastening words of the Ash Wednesday liturgy ‘Remember thou art dust, and unto dust shalt thou return’ force us to face the truth of our mortality.

We won’t go on forever.  The choices we make each day mean there are paths down which we have decided not to travel, possibilities we have shut down, perhaps permanently.  We need to ask what kind of values we will affirm, in our deeds as well as our words.  As we face our mortality, we are forced to ask: what do I want this life to say?

This question needs to be considered alongside an honest examination of what my life currently says.  What would you say my values and priorities were if you looked, not at the beliefs I profess, but at the ways I spend my time and money, the things that preoccupy and vex me, the ways I treat the people around me?

Lent helps us to explore the gap between the answers we give to these two questions: what does this life say? and what do I want it to say?

These are questions we can also ask of our common life.  In The Rock T.S. Eliot asks:

What is the meaning of this city?

Do you huddle together because you love each other?

What will you answer? ‘We all dwell together

To make money from each other?’ or ‘This is a community?’

Today, many people are asking these questions with a new intensity.  There is a large and growing gap between rich and poor, one which politicians of all parties say they want to see reversed.  And we all live with the ongoing and unpredictable consequences of the global financial crisis for years to come. In the midst of a recession – and the yawning gap between the richest and poorest in our society – there is a growing sense that something needs to change.

So this Lent, two Christian social action charities – The Contextual Theology Centre and the Church Urban Fund – are issuing a Call to Change.  (This is online at www.calltochange.withtank.com and on Twitter at @calltochange.)  It builds on decades of ministry by churches in some of England’s poorest neighbourhoods.  It seeks to draw more people into their work of prayer, of listening and of action for social justice by use of the season of Lent to achieve real change in our local and national life.

The Call to Change is not a call to scapegoat someone else – be they a ‘benefits scrounger’ or a banker.  Each of us is called to open ourselves to reality.  We do this through prayer: as we encounter the ultimate reality of God in Scripture, worship and personal devotion.  We do it too through listening: and in particular, a serious engagement with the voice of England’s poorest communities.

Words are not enough.  They need to take flesh in action.  The experience of churches engaged in their local community points to concrete things every Christian and congregation can do – to tackle poverty, and build an economic system that works for poor as well as rich.

Lent is traditionally seen as a rather gloomy time, when we turn inward in tortured self-examination.  The truth is very different.  The deeper purpose of this season is to draw us outward – into a deeper communion with God and with neighbour. We actually need Lent now more than ever, so that mind, body and spirit can be released from the self-indulgence of a consumerist, individualistic society. The ‘Good News’ of Lent is how much more we believe there is to life than this. This is God’s reality which Lent enables us to encounter.

Lent is mirrored on the way Jesus’ own ministry began: with forty days of prayerful discernment. Only then can our action be part of God’s transforming work. Without prayer, we will not discern God’s purposes or act his power. Without listening, we will not discover our neighbours’ concerns - or be able to harness the power of common action.

Both prayer and listening help us see that Christian discipleship involves a challenge to the values of our broken world. In Lent, we are called to remove the idols of money and power from the thrones they have in our hearts and in our society. In Lent, we are challenged to face up to the reality of our self-indulgence in a consumerist, individualistic society and remember that money and power are to be placed at the service of Christ, and of his Kingdom of justice and of peace.

It is through changes like these, individual and corporate, that we can grow together into ‘life in all its fullness.’ That is the message of Lent. And, more importantly, it is the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, God’s word of love made flesh.

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Keane - Everybody's Changing.

A night that reaffirmed democracy

The Contextual Theology Centre Blog has footage from Monday's assembly with the leaders of the three main parties. Most importantly, it lists the policy commitments which were won from each. These were backed up with a promise to attend future assemblies at which they will be held to their words.

The leaders of all the major party agreed...

- to be held to account by Citizens UK - in assemblies and round-table meetings - during the next Parliament
- a Community Land Trust on the Olympic Park after 2012 - caps on exploitative lending and a stronger mutual banking sector
- Labour committed to a Living Wage for Whitehall workers - something the Tories are also looking to fund
- Labour and the Tories committed to reviewing the practice of detaining children seeking sanctuary
- LibDems committed to ending child detention - and to a one-off earned amnesty for undocumented migrants.

Yesterday's Guardian included Patrick Wintour on the front page ('Battered PM finds his voice'); Allegra Stratton on p. 4 ('Brown triumphs in unofficial fourth leadership debate') and Marina Hyde on p. 5 ('Real people, excruciating stories and a bit of recycling'). The Telegraph had a sketch on p.8, emphasising the role of faith in the event - 'Son of the manse in his element among the righteous'. Online, there was good coverage from the Finanical Times and Reuters. More coverage has come in the Spectator ("Brown's best speech of the campaign") and Mirror (PM is "a signed up citizen") - while Michael White in the Guardian said this was a "night that reaffirmed democracy."

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Flyleaf - Fully Alive.

Faiths together for hope not hate (3)

The Rt Reverend David Hawkins, The Bishop of Barking pictured with Hope not Hate staff, Sam Tarry, Campaign Organiser, and Caroline Alabi, Faith Communities Organiser

The Rt Reverend David Hawkins, The Bishop of Barking, Sam Tarry and Caroline Alabi, with a group of passing students, who asked to join in the photo shoot when they discovered it was to promote considered and informed voting!

The Rt Reverend David Hawkins, The Bishop of Barking, urges all registered voters to get out and vote on 6 May.

Bishop David’s Episcopal Area covers the London Boroughs of Barking & Dagenham, Havering, Newham, Redbridge and Waltham Forest, together with Epping Forest, Ongar and Harlow in Essex. Parties of the far-right are fielding candidates in nine of the fourteen parliamentary constituencies and this part of east London and Essex is a key target of the extreme parties hoping to get a foothold in Parliament.

Bishop David says: “Racist ideologies, seeking to divide people on the grounds of ethnicity have no place in mainstream British politics and I encourage people to vote in such a way as to prevent racist political parties making any electoral gains.”

The Bishop adds: “This election is arguably the most important General Election in a generation. I urge all those who are registered and ready to vote to think carefully about where they place their cross on 6 May. The result we wake up to on 7 May will influence and shape life in our country for the next four or five years and I emphasise the need to carefully examine consider party policies before voting.”

The Contextual Theology Centre writes that:

"David Cameron and Nick Clegg have agreed to attend a 2500-person Citizens UK assembly at Methodist Central Hall on Monday 3rd May at 2.45pm (Gordon Brown is still to confirm).

The Contextual Theology Centre (CTC) is sponsoring this event, and has a limited number of tickets for church leaders who are considering joining the Citizens movement.

The candidates will be responding to an agenda determined by Citizens UK's member institutions, including: The Living Wage; A cap on interest rates; Community land trusts; Ending child detention for sanctuary seekers; and Earned citizenship for long-term migrants.

In advance of the election, CTC has launched two books on Christian teaching and community organising - more information is online at http://www.theology-centre.org/resources/books:
Crunch Time: A Call to Action is a collection of essays by John Milbank (Nottingham) and CTC Fellows Luke Bretherton (King’s College, London) and Vincent Rougeau (Notre Dame) on a Christian response to the credit crunch. This is also available as a free PDF. Faithful Citizens is a book on community organising and Catholic social teaching by organiser, journalist and CTC Fellow Austen Ivereigh.

To keep up to date with the increasing impact of citizen organising on the election campaign, you can follow CTC's Jellicoe Blog at http://jellicoecommunity.blogspot.com

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Thousand Foot Krutch - Phenomenon.

Crunch Time - A Call to Action

The Contextual Theology Centre has just launched Crunch Time: A Call to Action - a collection of essays by John Milbank, Luke Bretherton, Maurice Glasman and Vincent Rougeau. The essays are available as a free pdf, or copies can be ordered for £6.99.

It outlines a community organising agenda to which all the major parties have been responding - with significant commitments on economic policy and on the renewal of civil society. You will see from their recent blog posts that the Centre's partner churches, officers and interns have been playing a key role in this process. They hope that these successes will increase Christian engagement in the work of London Citizens, the capital's community organising alliance.

Also on the their blog you will find coverage of the 75th anniversary of Fr Basil Jellicoe's death. The Jellicoe Community will be involved in a service of thanksgiving in July at which the Bishop of London will preach - and last Friday's Church Times contained anniversary essays by Prof Diarmaid MacCulloch and Simon Cuff (one of the first Jellicoe interns).

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Luxury - The Luxury Theme.

Evangelism & Pastoral Care

Daisy Stephens, from St Johns Seven Kings, with Archbishop Rowan at the Present & Engaged Study Day

I said that I would post a summary of Ann Morisey's excellent presentation on 'Evangelism and Pastoral Care' given at the Present and Engaged study day. There was much that resonated with me in Ann's talk so much so that, at times, it felt as though she were describing what I aim to practice (although consistently falling well short) in my ministry.

My summary of Ann's presentation is below. Other material from the day has also been published including the insightful sermon that Archbishop Rowan Williams gave later in the day to launch the Greater London Presence and Engagement Network (http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/2464). For a full set of materials from the day, email Angus Ritchie, Director of the Contextual Theology Centre, at director@theology-centre.org.

Anne said that: "We are living in troubled times and people have become bothered and bewildered by fragmentation and are tempted into a neo-tribalism. These dynamics have been exposed very clearly in the European elections. Anxiety and fear easily gain momentum and under such conditions our instinctive response is scapegoating and death-dealing.

René Girard begins his explanation of the dynamic of scapegoating by postulating the ‘mimetic of desire’, which is basically a kind of jealousy, but with a twist: we learn what is desirable by observing what others find desirable. Having ‘caught’ our desires from others, in a context of scarcity, everyone wants what only some can have. This results in a struggle to obtain what we want - which in turn produces a generalised antagonism towards the individual or group that seems to be responsible for this disappointment.

The vicious riddance of the victim has the potential to reduce the eagerness for violence, and if not, then the assumption is that more scapegoats need to be sacrificed in order to achieve a sense of appeasement and restoration of the status quo. The removal of the victim or victims – the lambs to the slaughter, gives a temporary re-assurance of the crisis disappearing, and the sensation of renewed possibility. This is a description of cheap solidarity and cheap hope.

Girard concludes his anthropological and literary analysis of scapegoating by examining Judeo-Christian texts, and traces the movement away from the dynamic of scapegoating through the Old into the New Testaments. It was this experience that contributed to Girard’s conversion to the Christian faith. His analysis of the Bible ‘as literature’ led him to conclude:

• That Jesus is the final scapegoat.


• The New Testament is ‘on the side of’ Jesus, the scapegoat. The Gospels are unusual because here is literature that encourages people to see the world through the eyes of the scapegoat.


• The scapegoat in the Gospels refuses to let death be the final word and he rises again triumphant.


• The followers of the scapegoat enact the seizing of the scapegoat, and the scapegoat’s triumph over death, in Eucharistic celebration.

I focus on Girard for two reasons: The obvious one - because of the relevance of his ideas to our context where ‘difference’ – whether faith or ethnicity, easily becomes a threat. But for a further reason: Girard is not a theologian! He, as an anthropologist, is more likely to pass what John Rawls terms “the test of public reason” than the theologian or the clergy, or the committed lay person for that matter. Let me re-code – or decode Rawls’ term “the test of public reason”…. ‘Self-praise is no recommendation’! And of course – in our secular world, all faiths have to submit themselves to the test of public reason if they are to have a right to a public platform.

So on the public stage it becomes possible to offer a new aspect of the gift of salvation that Jesus brings to us: it brings insight into our hatred and murderous behaviour, and endeavours to help people move beyond the anxious laden response of scapegoating – and importantly, it is not just theologians and the churches who say so! The missionary challenge is to find creative ways of helping people to hear and explore this insight, and the pastoral challenge is to help people appropriate, or take this gift of insight into their (our) practice.

Jesus, through his death and resurrection rescues us, as Girard suggests, from scapegoating but Jesus also bring salvation to us by the way in which he lived his life. In his actions and teaching, Jesus shows us how we can participate in a reliable economy of abundance. The tendency has been for the church – and others to assume that economy of abundance belongs to the realm of Heaven rather than earth. This is a mistake.

Jesus lived his life in a very distinctive way. This included: eschewing Power; willing to risk being overwhelmed ; subverting the ‘status quo’; wide ‘fraternal’ relations; avoiding tit-for tat’ behaviour; and investing in the most unlikely. My thesis is straightforward: When we muster an intention to do things like Jesus i.e. to follow Jesus – even in the most modest of ways, we arrive at the portal into the economy of abundance – where virtuous processes flow and grace cascades.
In our troubled times the faiths have to forego investing and promulgating ‘hard-to-believe’ formulaic faith – which for post-modern and troubled times are so hard to believe that the come close to a fresh expression of …. Gnosticism. So for the Church there is a new evangelistic challenge: To enable people to weigh-up whether the example of Jesus can provide a way of making sense of their lives, within a hope filled rather than gloomy future.

However, in troubled times, the expression of pastoral care also brings arduous challenges: by caring and loving, more than ever, we risk having our hearts broken … as much as finding fulfilment; compassionate responses risk being judged as naiveté; and we need the capacity to coach people in the neglected practice of self discipline if not to be imprisoned by our circumstances. And this carries a major challenge to authenticity…

Such vulnerability is essential – because this is the foundation for boundary breaking compassion that can embrace rather than scapegoat the stranger. The solidarity that is rooted in shared vulnerability makes for courageous compassion – and this combination of courage and compassion has not, so far, been called out of our Christian generation.

A resilient theology insists that current hopelessness and passivity are not the final word. A resilient theology enables us not just to see new possibilities, but to garner the intentionality to practice these possibilities. But even more than this, resilient theology continually acknowledges human frailty to the extent that perfection is never expected, otherwise the wonderful, liberating generosity of being treated better than we deserve - this ultimate ‘alternative performance’ that Jesus offers, becomes unnecessary.

Such a resilient theology only becomes possible when evangelism and pastoral care are held together."

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Robert Randolph & The Family Band - Going In The Right Direction.

Present & Engaged

Archbishop Rowan Williams preached and presided at a Eucharist to launch the Presence and Engagement Network (PEN) on June 1st. PEN brings together those ministering in multi faith contexts, and those who train and equip them, in the Church of England dioceses covering Greater London.

The launch event, which included Bishops from each of the participating dioceses, was part of a day of reflection, prayer and celebration on the witness of Christian congregations in multi faith contexts. The Archbishop also gave the keynote address at this study day, organised at the Contextual Study Centre, which looked at the characteristic practices of Christian congregations - and the distinctive opportunities and challenges of multi Faith contexts. Materials from the day will be posted online shortly and I will include a link to them when they are.

I was part of the day as one of CTC's tutors and the author of the 'Living with other faiths' resource pack which was promoted as part of the PEN launch and a copy of which will be sent to every parish in Greater London. My particular part to play was to response to a excellent paper on Reading scripture in Presence & Engagement contexts which was given by Michael Ipgrave, Archdeacon of Southwark.

Michael's paper, which will be included in the materials to be posted online and is well worth reading, considered the four themes of ‘handling’, ‘opening’, ‘revisiting’, and ‘engaging scripture’. In my response I affirmed what he said by adding some stories from my own experience:

I have just finished using the PEN ‘Living with other faiths’ resource materials in one of two courses looking at these issues as part of the Chelmsford Diocese’s Lent & Eastertide courses.
As in previous years it was the realisation by the course participants that the contexts in which Israel, Jesus and the Early Church lived and ministered were multi-faith which really opened up the issue to them. There is a palpable change in the group and their understanding when they see, for example, that, by commending the Good Samaritan, Jesus is challenging people of one faith to receive from someone of another faith.

When that realisation comes, the course participants recognise, as Michael expressed, “that the people of God have already known and grappled with the challenges of living amid religious plurality.”

I recently led a project, through a network called Faiths in London’s Economy, which developed a ‘Shared Faiths response to the credit crunch’; a document that now features on the Faiths debate page of the G20 London Summit website. What was fascinating about that process was the way in which dialoguing with people of other faiths sharpened my understanding of my faith.
One particular debate was with a Muslim member of the group over a statement that in some faith traditions human beings are seen as co-creators with God. Initially, this appeared arrogant in the extreme to him but over email exchanges and telephone conversations we found common ground in the idea of human beings as representatives of the divine on earth. Michael said that these kinds of encounters sharpen our “awareness of the way in which churches handle the Bible.” And that was certainly my experience in this instance.

Finally, in the ‘Living with other faiths’ pack we give several scenarios in which people are asked to think of basic information about other faiths that it would be useful for them to have before making initial contact. One of these scenarios involves an approach from a Muslim group to use Church accommodation for an Islamic Study Circle. Most people’s initial reaction is that Churches should not get involved. That is until we give them a case study of one church that has engaged with such a group. Allowing the group to use their premises led to the building of friendship which led to shared study of their respective scriptures.

While that church was not formally engaged in a Scriptural Reasoning process they also found their Scriptures speaking to them when they were brought alongside the sacred texts of other religions and that experience developed considerably the building of friendship, trust and understanding in their local community.

Michael ended by saying that when we engage with one another’s scriptures “we can sense our human interactions with one another being caught up in, and transformed by … dialogue with God.” The centrality of dialogue to interfaith engagement can, I think, be an entry point for us into understanding the way in which dialogue informs Christian faith. The idea that the form of scripture sets texts in dialogue with each other; that dialogue or exchange is at the heart of the Trinity; and that God seeks to draw us into that dialogue and that Jesus is the self-communication of God.

As one paraphrase of John 1 puts it: “It all arose out of a conversation, conversation within God, in fact the conversation was God. So God started the discussion, and everything came out of this, and nothing happened without consultation. This was the life, life that was the light of men, shining in the darkness, a darkness which neither understood nor quenched its creativity.” If, as that paraphrase would have it, interfaith dialogue is an aspect of that broader dialogue with God then my motivation for getting engaged is all the greater.

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Van Morrison - And The Healing Has Begun.

From the papers

Angus Ritchie, Director of the Contextual Theology Centre, has an interesting comment column in this week's Church Times. Titled 'Social capital can be built by the people,' Angus describes the cross-party support secured by London CITIZENS for a striking array of policies.

Also in the Church Times, Margaret Sentamu describes the input to the spouses conference at Lambeth from Mugisa Isingoma, who visited St John's shortly before the conference and who shared her story with our Mothers' Union.

The Times published a letter today from 19 bishops supporting Rowan Williams following the publication just after the Lambeth Conference of correspondence from eight years ago by Williams on the issue of homosexuality. Their letter states that one can only wonder at the motives of those behind the releasing, and highlighting, of these letters at this precise moment – and at the way in which some churchmen are seeking to make capital of them as though they were ‘news’. One example of attempts to make capital of them can be viewed here while for a much more balanced view click here.

Finally, in responding to the comment by Libby Purves, which I highlighted in Thursday's post, Richard Dawkins, in his letter to the Times, once again reveals his complete inability to recognise the extent to which many Christians are able to engage creatively and constructively with both science and belief.

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Woody Guthrie - Jesus Christ.

One body, many ages

The Contextual Theology Centre’s latest programme focuses on the challenges and opportunities facing young people. Through a Lent course, seminar evening and summer placements, the Centre aims to equip churches to develop faithful and effective responses.

This initiative coincides with major research into childhood in Britain. At the seminar evening in April, Esther Hughes (Head of The Good Childhood Inquiry) will be in dialogue with CTC Fellow Edmund Newell. Canon Newell is Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral. He also directs the St Paul’s Institute, which has been working with The Children’s Society on a season of events related to the inquiry. Both speakers will help local churches learn from this research and reflection.

“Our spring programme aims to identify issues on local congregations can work for change,” explained Centre Director the Reverend Angus Ritchie. “The Lent course is all about the importance of engaging with children, not just as tomorrow’s church, but today’s. They’re not simply future adults, but people whose experience now has something vital to teach us about the Kingdom of God. That’s why the course is all-age: it has to practice what it teaches. We want the learning to be of practical use, and so are planning our summer placement programme to help churches move from analysis to action.”

Sundays from 17 February: One Body, Many Ages Lent course at Bryrant Street Methodist Church, Stratford, London E15. Free — please book. ‘Bring & share’ lunch from 12.15; course begins at 1pm.

Thursday 24 April: Childhood and Formation: a 2020 vision with Esther Hughes and Canon Edmund Newell. In a series organised by the Royal Foundation of St Katharine. Supper at 6.30pm, cost £10. Booking required.

Full details online by clicking here.

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Blessid Union of Souls - Standing At the Edge Of The Earth.

There's inter-faith work going on

I spent this morning at There's something going on, a conference about social responsibility in the Diocese of Chelmsford. One of the positive things about these occasions is the opportunity to find out about the range of work going on across the Diocese.

One of the papers made available (from the Diocese's Inter-Faith Issues Group) described the inter faith work going on. The events of 9/11 and all that has followed from that have stimulated people from all faith communities to find ways of working together. As a result there are now well-established initiatives across the Diocese, many involving Diocesan clergy, for example: East London Three Faiths Forum; Mid Essex Inter Faith Forum; Colchester Informal Three Faith Friends; Redbridge Faith Forum; Barking and Dagenham Faith Forum; Waltham Forest Faith Forum; Southend Faiths' Forum; Faith Sector of the Newham Voluntary Sector Consortium; Faithful Friends (Newham); Newham Senior Faith Leaders Group; Coggeshall – Forest Gate Twinning.

Outside the direct area of inter faith work, but using faith as a vehicle, innovative work has been developed by Revd Steven Saxby in his former role as Deanery Development worker with faith communities in Waltham Forest. Projects have been developed with a positive impact on community cohesion e.g. Health Preachers, a scheme where Community Health Workers use faith as the vehicle for information about health.

Important work is going on in the field of education. The Contextual Theology Centre (CTC) has an ongoing programme enabling reflection on the role of faith in a pluralist society. A resource pack for congregations entitled Engaging with faith communities has been made available by CTC as a free download from its website and materials from the pack are shortly to be used in the Eastertide courses on Living with other faiths that feature in the Diocese's 2008 programme. CTC has also been commissioned co-ordinate the Presence & Engagement process throughout Greater London. The Diocese is a participant in the Greater London Presence & Engagement Network led by CTC based at St Katharine's Foundation at Limehouse, East London. This network is for all who train and equip Christians for ministry in multi Faith contexts. Its aim is to publicise existing work, and ensure new developments are both well-coordinated and responsive to actual need.

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Moby - Hymn (This Is My Dream).

Benedict for Today

Benedict for Today is a study day with Fr. Dermot Tredget (Benedictine monk at Douai Abbey) that asks what can the founder of Western monasticism teach us about ...

...work/life balance
...prayer & spirituality
...building community?

This study day, which has been organised by the Contextual Theology Centre, will be at The Royal Foundation of St Katharine on Saturday 2nd February 2008, 10am to 4pm. Cost (including lunch): £15. Discounts available for unwaged & pensioners. To book, please contact Maureen Toms on 020 7791 9782 or MToms@stkatharine.org.uk by Friday 25th January.

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T Bone Burnett - Earlier Baghdad (The Bounce).

Engaging with faith communities

I spoke to the West Barnet Deanery Synod last night about Engaging with Faith Communities, the resource pack that is being made available to parishes by the Contextual Theology Centre.

In my talk I suggested that the presence of significant other Faith communities is now one of the major contexts in the ministry of the Church. Of the 12,226 parishes in England, more than half include a population that identifies themselves as being of another faith. In 228 parishes the ‘other faiths’ population is between 25% & 50%, in 62 parishes the ‘other faiths’ population is over 50%. As the Presence and Engagement report, from which these figures are taken, says "the wider world of other Faiths has arrived on our doorstep and Muslims, Sikhs and Hindu people are now parishioners with the happy consequence that the universal is now more than ever encompassed within the local parish."

For many of us coming to terms with such a changed landscape is a major task that requires every ounce of our faith and commitment and many of us don’t feel well-equipped or resourced for the task. Again, as Presence and Engagement says "the scarcity of long term experience in such contexts and the absence of tested models other than the standard parochial model, makes it all the more difficult to move on." Church leaders and congregations need resources that fit this changed landscape and it is this need that the Contextual Theology Centre’s pack is seeking to meet.

From the feedback we have received on its use that aim would seem to be being achieved:

• "I wanted to say 'thank you' for today. It has given me much to think about." Revd Roy Dorey, Heythrop College
• "I just read your "Engaging with Faith Communities". I am amazed at all the work that you put into it. It is so powerful." Beatrice Buchanan, St Margaret’s Barking
• "The most helpful Study Day I have attended on inter Faith issues." Revd Colin Marchant, Newham Baptist minister, evaluating a study day based on the Pack

The resource pack can be downloaded free of charge by clicking here.

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Check out Steve Arrington's Feel So Real.

Ken Leech & Terry Waite @ CTC

On Thursday 27 September, 5-6.30pm, Fr Ken Leech will be speaking at the Contextual Theology Centre about his book on working as a community theologian in East London — Doing Theology in Altab Ali Park. The event includes a drinks reception. You may book in for dinner afterwards for £10.

On Tuesday 16 October, 7.30-9pm, Terry Waite, who was an adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury and was taken hostage in the Lebanon from 1987 to 1991, has agreed to speak on
Survival in Solitude to raise money for the Contextual Theology Centre’s work. Tickets for this evening event will cost £10—book yours now! You can book in for a buffet supper (at 6.30pm) for a further £10.

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Check Sabrina Johnston's Peace (In The Valley).

Learning how to entertain beliefs

I've been reading Dylan's Visions of Sin (Penguin 2004) in which Christopher Ricks, in writing about the benefit of listening to Dylan's 'born-again' songs, has the following pertinent warning, from one atheist to others, about the ease with which liberals can become illiberal:

"One of the ways in which art is invaluable is by giving us sympathetic access to systems of belief that are not our own. How else could it enlarge our sympathies? It is our responsibility not only to believe but to learn how to entertain beliefs. In the words of William Empson:

'It seems to me that the chief function of imaginative literature is to make you realise that other people are very various, many of them quite different from you, with different "systems of value" as well.

The main purpose of reading imaginative literature is to grasp a wide variety of experience, imagining people with codes and customs very unlike our own.

It strikes me that modern critics, whether as a result of the neo-Christian movement or not, have become oddly resistant to admitting that there is more than one code of morals in the world, whereas the central purpose of reading imaginative literature is accustom yourself to this basic fact.' ...

I am not myself a Christian believer, being an atheist. One delight of Dylan's Christian songs can arise from finding (to your surprise and not chagrin) that your own system of beliefs doesn't have a monopoly of intuition, sensitivity, scruple, and concern. Most Dylan-lovers are presumed to be liberals, and the big trap for liberals is always that our liberalism may make us very illiberal about other people's sometimes letting us all down by declining to be liberals ... You can believe whatever you like so long as it's liberal: this isn't any less dogmatic than Christianity, and has its own way of being menacingly coercive."

Ricks' warning is one that is generally not heeded by the likes of Richard Dawkins and Polly Toynbee. However, it is an argument that does not only apply to those who view themselves as atheists or liberals. Just as atheists can benefit from appreciation of the art of Christians, so Christians can benefit from the art of those of other and of no faith.

This, it seems to me, is an overlooked implication of todays Gospel reading (Luke 10. 25-37), the parable of the Good Samaritan. In this parable the Jewish character receives help from the Samaritan despite the differences of culture, faith and enmity between them. The contemporary parallel for us to draw may be that of Christians receiving from people of other faiths (or none). We tend to think of the parable only in terms of our giving help to others (and this is clearly a central element of Jesus' teaching here and elsewhere - our neighbour is anyone in need regardless of creed or colour) but the unexpected twist in the story in that the person who sees himself as part of God's chosen people receives help from a person that he thinks is outside of God's chosen people. The challenge of this is that we reflect on what it is that we can receive from people of other faiths and of none. Ricks' argument is one that can help us with this.

The Engaging with Faith Communities resource pack from the Contextual Theology Centre contains resources (including material on the parable of the Good Samaritan) that can help in reflecting of this issue.

Engaging with faith communities

Engaging with faith communities is an informative and accessible resource pack designed to help churches decide how to engage with people of other faiths living in their areas.

Arising out of the Church of England's "Presence and Engagement" initiative, the pack provides a range of accessible materials that include stories of engagement, bible studies, case studies and information on the beliefs and practices of the main faith communities.

Materials are included for running study days and short courses. Congregations can use these independently but tutors from the Contextual Theology Centre in London (who have produced the pack) are also available to lead such events. The pack is available as a free download by clicking here.