A memorable weekend

Mugisa performs her song

Bibi's Guianese presentation

'The Girls'

Morris Dancers

Part of the International Evening audience

The past weekend has been memorable at St John's Seven Kings for two reasons. We have welcomed our new curate, Geoff Eze, into the parish and have been visted by the Rt. Revd. Isingoma, Bishop of Boga, a diocese in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

To celebrate we held an International Evening on Saturday 5th July which featured guests in national dress, food from around the world, and performers from many different countries. We enjoyed songs in English, French, Swahili and Tamil, morris dancing, a quiz on British National Parks, a presentation on Guiana, among other items. The Crusader and Starlight signing groups performed tamil and caribbean gospel songs. Geoff Eze was welcomed with the gift of a prayer book and a card signed by the whole congregation. Bishop Isingoma gave a blessing and his wife, Mugisa, performed a song.

The previous Sunday Geoff Eze had been ordained as a deacon at Chelmsford Cathedral and a group from the parish had been at that service to support him. Geoff says:

"Having been ordained at Chelmsford Cathedral on the 29th of June it is with great excitement and equal trepidation that I have entered the role of Curate to serve not only the congregation of St Johns but the wider parish within Seven Kings. Having been a Christian since the age of 11 (influenced heavily by loving Christian parents) God has led me to Seven Kings (via St Matthew’s in Stratford, East London).

I come to Seven Kings as a man who has lived a little and cried a lot more but with the hope that God can affect Seven Kings for the better. I have a limited knowledge of the local parish having lived in Ilford for the majority of my life but I am living in a vibrant, changing part of Redbridge with its excitements and challenges. It is in those challenges that I believe God is affecting the community just by opening the doors of St Johns to the doors of the entire community. That is exciting. That is exhilarating. It is frightening, but within the tension of all three God has placed me. That is a privilege that intend to honour with the help of my Lord Jesus Christ."

Bishop Isingoma preached to a full Sunday morning service at St John's and was encouraged to be told of a gift in memory of Dr Sugie Davie which will enable motorbikes to be bought for his Archdeacons. These will aid them in visiting parishes across the large Diocese of Boga. The Bishop also met Rachel Page, a teenager from St John's who will be visiting the Democratic Republic of Congo this summer as part of a CMS Encounter. During the Encounter, Rachel will be involved in a brick making project and a children's Bible Club.

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Sounds Of Blackness - Optimistic.

Windows on the world (7)

Villamartin 2008

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Lifehouse - You & Me.

Come as a child

The poem called ‘Song of Childhood’ by Peter Handke which features in the film Wings of Desire captures, for me, something of the openness of childhood when the world lies open before us and we encounter it without cynicism or prior knowledge. The big questions of life are in front of us but we have yet found answers or the pretence that we can know all the answers.

In the poem the child has retained that openness to life and existence as she or he has grown but in our gospel reading (Matthew 11. 16-19, 25-30) today we hear of people who have not. The cynics that Jesus speaks about in verse 16-19 have seen it all before and are critical of people whether they abstain or whether they partake, whether they mourn or whether they party. Nothing is right for these cynics and therefore they cannot receive anything from anyone.

Then Jesus speaks about the wise and the learned, those who think they have the knowledge of what God wants. They cannot receive what God wants to give because they already think that they know it all. Both groups are closed off to what God wants to share, one group because everything is dismissed, the other because everything is known.

Jesus says that those able to receive are the unlearned or children. They are not worldly wise or information wise and, as a result, they are open to what is new and what is revealed. This is how we need to be if we are to receive what God has revealed to us in Jesus.

Tom Wright says this:

“Jesus had come to know his father the way a son does: not by studying books about him, but by living in his presence, listening for his voice, and learning from him as an apprentice does from a master, by watching and imitating. And he was now discovering that the wise and learned were getting nowhere, and that the ‘little people’ – the poor, the sinners, the tax collectors, ordinary folk – were discovering more of God, simply by following him, Jesus, than the learned specialists who declared that what he was doing didn’t fit with their complicated theories.”

Unless you come,
come as a child,
not grasping but trusting,
not arrogantly but humbly,
not resisting but accepting,
not feebly but vigorously,
not giving but receiving,
not self-centred but God-centred,
not teaching but feeding,
not gaining life but losing life,
not leaving but returning,
not closed, but open.

Unless you come,
come as a child,
you cannot enter
the kingdom of God.

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U2 - Stay (Faraway, So Close!).

Welcomes & a farewell

Rt. Revd. Isingoma (Bishop of Boga, Democratic Republic of Congo), Revd. Geoff Eze (Curate, St John's Seven Kings), Mme Mugisa Isingoma (Bishop's wife) at St John's Seven Kings

July, for St John's, will be a time for several welcomes and a farewell. The welcomes began at our International Evening on Saturday 5th July when we had the opportunity to welcome Geoff Eze, our new curate into the Parish. Geoff was ordained as a deacon the previous Sunday and had already spent his first week in the Parish by the time of the International Evening, but for most of us that evening was our first opportunity to welcome him.

Also at the International Evening were Bishop and Mrs Isingoma from the Diocese of Boga in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They are currently visiting our Parish, prior to attending the Lambeth Conference. Bishop Isingoma preached at the 10am service on Sunday 6th July and Mrs Isingoma will speak at a special Mothers’ Union meeting on this evening. We have been looking forward greatly to their visit as it gives us another opportunity to renew our support for the work of Judy Acheson and Agape in Boga.

Next Sunday St John's will welcome Father Ben Rutt-Field from St Paul’s Goodmayes, as he and I will swap churches for that morning and lead each other’s services. As part of the Deanery Vision, neighbouring parishes are being encouraged to look for ways of working together. Father Ben and I are initiating that process for St Paul’s and St John’s by visiting each others churches. In the autumn we hope to take this further by getting our respective Mission committees together to share ideas on ways of working together.

The farewell is to Linda McMurray, the Minister of Seven Kings Methodist, who helped in the leading of the Lent courses held at St John’s this year. Linda and her husband Nigel are moving to Newcastle and Linda’s leaving service will be held on Sunday 20th July from 3pm at Seven Kings Methodist. I have greatly valued Linda’s friendship and prayers together with the opportunity to work ecumenically with her, both here and in Barking.

Our Holiday Club (10.00am – 12.30pm, 29th July to 1st August) will this year be called ‘Champions Challenge’ and will include the usual blend of songs, drama, crafts and games. This year there will also be a Community BBQ (12noon – 2pm, Saturday 2nd August) to which everyone is invited and the Holiday Club service will round the week off at 10am on Sunday 3rd August. After all that we will no doubt collapse in a heap having had a lot of fun and having shared Jesus with those around.

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Delirious? - Inside Outside.

So sublime

On the 50th anniversary of the death of Georges Rouault (1871-1958), the Musée national d’art moderne at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris is showing twenty of Rouault’s paintings in a special exhibition.

I was fortunate to see these wonderful paintings last Thursday during a visit to the Centre Pompidou to review their Traces du Sacré exhibition. The selection focusses on the early years of his career (1905–1914), when he made his first paintings of women in front of the mirror, of sad-faced clowns, of sparkling landscapes but more of Rouault's works can also be seen in Traces du Sacré and in a room of unfinished, but still beautiful, works presented to the Museum following Rouault's death.

Rouault said: “The art that I seek would be the most profound, most complete and most moving expression of what one feels, faced with oneself and with ones fellow human beings.”

Another highlight was seeing the large number of works by Marc Chagall in the Museum collection and also his Homage to Apollinaire in Traces du Sacré.

Traces du Sacré is a significant exhibition both sociologically and artistically. Sociologically, because it recognises the re-emergence of religion (or decline of irreligion) in the 21st century and artistically, because it re-tells the story of Modern Art through its non-Christian spiritual influences. A fuller re-telling of that story, one which acknowledges and highlights the very real influences of Christianity on Modern and Contemporary Art still awaits a brave and informed contemporary curator. When that story is finally fully told, Rouault and Chagall will be prominent within it.

Outside the Centre Pompidou at the Serbian Cultural Centre, I also saw an exhibition by Kosta Kulundzic which included a number of contemporary settings for the Stations of the Cross. The Magda Gallery says that:

"Kulundzic concentrates his work on belief and mysticism in our society. Modern society produces myths and heroes. It offers a priceless quantity of idols and images related to the worship. Kosta uses these images to paint very actual mystical characters, altered divinities, who seem closer to us. They come from our everyday life. Working on texts from the Bible, the artist underlines that the same old story always goes on, and nothing really changes."

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Beth Rowley - So Sublime.

A narrow FOCA?

One of the problems I have with the GAFCON conference and the resulting Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FOCA) is the way in which their arguments deny the existence of any valid Biblical schlarship other than their own.

They begin by setting up a stereotype of liberal scholarship as a strawman against which to rally their troops:

"The first fact is the acceptance and promotion within the provinces of the Anglican Communion of a different ‘gospel’ (cf. Galatians 1:6-8) which is contrary to the apostolic gospel. This false gospel undermines the authority of God’s Word written and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the author of salvation from sin, death and judgement. Many of its proponents claim that all religions offer equal access to God and that Jesus is only a way, not the way, the truth and the life. It promotes a variety of sexual preferences and immoral behaviour as a universal human right. It claims God’s blessing for same-sex unions over against the biblical teaching on holy matrimony. In 2003 this false gospel led to the consecration of a bishop living in a homosexual relationship." (from the GAFCON declaration)

Then this is set against the clarity and undeniable truth of their position. So, for example, Archbishop Peter Jensen said at the post-GAFCON meeting at All Souls Langham Place (taken from summary notes posted by John Richardson):

"First, brothers and sisters, the Bible is clear and the Liberals know it is clear.

Secondly, this is crucial. Sexual immorality leads you outside the kingdom of God, just as does greed. It is not a second-order issue.

Thirdly, if you continue in fellowship you are endorsing the lie and are complicit in it ...

The answer was that we must be clear that the gospel of Jesus Christ is a transforming gospel, which does not leave you where you are — which is what Liberalism does in simply affirming you. The testimony matters. We want to hear you are committed to the path of light and repentance."

The final move is to claim that Evangelicalism is deeply divided (because not all evangelicals agree with the views of the GAFCON participants!) and that we must all unite (i.e. agree with the GAFCON declaration) against the common foe. For example, here is Peter Jensen again:

"English Evangelicalism is terribly divided. We cannot continue our tribal warfare. We need to advance, and it is the gospel and evangelism which will bring us together under godly focussed leadership."

Most of these same components were also in the speech that Archbishop Greg Venables made to the All Souls meeting:

"The doubt being cast on the gospel and the person of Jesus is not the result of modern knowledge, it is the result of what the serpent said to Eve in Eden: ‘Did God say?’ Eve took a ‘modern’ approach: ‘I am modern, I know better than my husband.’ Thank God for those who have taught us to stay faithful to the word of God.

The modern doubt did not begin with modernism and the search for the historical Jesus. It began when the same tempter came to Jesus in the wilderness saying, ‘If you are the Son of God.’ Either Jesus is the Son of God or he is not. If not, Christianity is a sham. CS Lewis: Jesus is mad, bad or God.

In recent times it is about a shift from a biblical paradigm to rationalism, not under the authority of God and his word. The shift was from an open universe, where God can intervene, to a closed universe, where we are subject to determinism and religion is a subjective event for you.
Also a shift from universe where truth and non-truth are opposed to one where truth and non-truth can be brought together to find a new truth. Synthesis is not the way God works.

When the Global South came together they read the word of God together from Galatians 1, ‘I am astonished you are deserting him ...’ This is not about inclusion but about walking away from the gospel. If you want to understand this, go to Packer’s Fundamentalism and the Word of God written fifty years ago: the uninhibited character of American liberalism ... God’s character is one of pure benevolence, sin separates no-one from God, Christ is man’s saviour only as a perfect teacher and example, not divine, God only in the sense of God-conscious, no miracles, Christianity differs from other religions only as the ‘best and highest’, the Bible is not a divine record of revelation, doctrine is not the God-given word.!"

One problem with all this is that committed, responsible Biblical scholarship does exist which arrives at totally different conclusions to those of the GAFCON participants and the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FOCA) emerging from GAFCON. Examples of some such approaches can be found here and here and here and here and here and here (and these are just a few easily accessible internet based examples from a much larger pool). However, this scholarship is either ignored by FOCA advocates or dismissed as being part of the liberal stereotype that is perceived as 'the enemy.'

Last Wednesday I was at a service in St Paul's Cathedral to launch St Mellitus College (a report of what was a wonderfully creative service has been posted at Philip's Tree House). In his sermon Bishop Richard Chartres said the following, which I understand to be a critique of the narrow understanding of the Bible and biblical scholarship that underpins GAFCON and its aftermath:

"We can understand this better if we consider the nature of the Bible which is where we say faith “is uniquely revealed”. We want neat orderly systems which our minds can comprehend and God gives us Himself in the answer he gave to Moses – simply “I am”. We want absolute truth nailed down in propositional form and we are given a huge drama, a symphony of the many ways in which God has related to human kind. We want bottom lines for life and God gives us those and then moves beyond them to the law of love. We want programmes to follow, preferably with SMART objectives and the Bible teaches us to follow closely after God when he calls. We want something tangible and the Bible instructs us to have faith in the unseen. The Bible reveals truth, tragic and glorious; bloody and violent; nurturing and inspiring by breaking in upon our understanding from another realm and taking us by surprise."

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Buddy Miller - With God On Our Side.

Update from Image

The latest Image Newsletter highlights the recent album from Sam Phillips and a collection of essays on the work of Flannery O'Connor:

On Sam Phillips' Don't Do Anything "spiritual themes drift in and out of shadow. "Can't Come Down" was inspired by a popular Los Angeles preacher from the 1930s. Struggling with faith and hope, "Signal" provides one of the album's most beautifully haunting images as the song's narrator looks for a sign, something "Between heart and skin / Through the shoulders where the wings might have been." After more than twenty years of having her ex-husband, T Bone Burnett, work the production helm, Phillips produced Don't Do Anything on her own. The result is an album of precarious and searching urgency. The listener - like many of the song's narrators - is kept slightly off balance, tottering on the brink of some loss or discovery."

"A new anthology, Inside the Church of Flannery O'Connor: Sacrament, Sacramental, and the Sacred in Her Fiction, collects essays by ten intrepid souls. O'Connor studies is now a varied and changing field, observes Jon Parrish Peede in his introduction. Four decades after her death, dominance is shifting from those critics who knew her as a woman to those who know her as a body of work ... Critical essays like these do nothing to diminish the pleasure, shock, and devastation of the stories, and this reviewer knows because she tried it afterwards. Perhaps the highest compliment that can be paid to a book like this is that it makes one want to reread O'Connor immediately."

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Sam Phillips - Don't Do Anything.