The Grace Pages

Remembering old (hell) flames

After last week's hate mail, it was a pleasant surprise to receive a letter thanking me for exposing the world's most shamelessly manipulative piece of born-again evangelism.

Chris wrote:

I'm glad to see that I'm not alone in how I feel about that trash. I too participated in a performance of this affront to decency and compassion.

I'd have to agree with him when he writes:

It does need to be stopped. I wish there was something to do about it.

I guess we can all do our bit simply by exposing these things if and when they come up. There are times to be quiet and let sleeping dogs lie, but Heaven's Gates, Hell's Flames is no sleeping dog. It's a blatantly abusive propaganda tool, and I see from the website that it is still alive and well, including in the UK.

Welcome Gill to the blogdom of God

Please welcome my old friend Richard "Gill" Gillingham to the blogosphere. Gill is a bit of a theological and philosophical boffin with Anabaptist sympathies. According to one of those "Which theologian are you?" tests, he's Neo-Orthodox in the vain of Barth. His recent entries deal with John Howard Yoder, Pentecostalism, pacifism and Elmer Gantry. He used to be in love with Meg Ryan, but I think she has been replaced in his affections by Reese Witherspoon. I think lots of you guys will like him.

Hate mail

Not often I get genuine hate mail, but this puzzling comment arrived from a certain Frederick Wierschke this evening, with the heading "Your Comments About Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames":

What makes you think you know anything? From reading your article it’s apparent that your own IQ is barely above a cucumber. You’re so legalistic in your line of theology that you’d blow your brains if you tried to sneeze and fart at the same time.

Do those of us who do not adhere to legalism a favor. Go blow your brains out.

Charming. I have no idea how any comments I've made about Heaven's Gates, Hell's Flames can be construed as legalistic. Anyway, I think I'll pass on blowing my brains out, thanks all the same, Fred.

The last few days have been quite exciting, as I've been researching for an article on "ex-gay" ministries in the UK. Talked to lots of fascinating people. I'll keep you posted on when and where it will appear.
 

Is forgiveness back in vogue?

If forgiveness isn't back in vogue, at least it has been in the public eye a lot recently.

Gee Walker, mother of teenager Anthony Walker, who was murdered last summer not two or three miles from me, wore her Christian faith on her sleeve in the aftermath of her son's racist killing. She said she felt no bitterness towards his murderers, but forgave them - and the media praised her for it.

Jill Saward, the vicar's daughter raped in the most unimaginably brutal way twenty years ago, again reaffirmed her forgiveness towards her attackers this week.

Of course, not everyone can bring themselves to forgive - and I can't blame them. Forgiveness is an ideal, but not always a realistic one in a complex world. A vicar whose daughter was killed in last year's London bombings resigned this week because she could not forgive the terrorists.

Most interesting, in my opinion, has been the recent storyline in Coronation Street. I confess, in the last six months I have become utterly addicted to this show, which is still the one of the finest dramas on British television after forty-some years. In the latest plot turn, Emily Bishop - generally a tremendously dull character who hasn't had a good storyline to herself in eons - comes face-to-face with the now-genuinely repentant killer of her late husband, and sinks into a deep depression trying to reconcile her feelings of hatred with her devout Christian faith.

On last night's episode she forgave. I suppose some might find her turn-around hard to accept, even grossly unrealistic. All the same, I think Corrie was bold to tackle repentance and forgiveness head-on with this storyline, especially since the ambiguities of the situation defied easy answers.

Even the soap operas seem to be getting in with the forgiveness trend.

I've just realized the common thread linking these stories is that they are all about women. What's with that?

It's the most ironic time of the year

I don't know whether it's just me, but the Lord seems to have a habit of flagging up the irony of the whole thing at this time of year. You can pretty much guarantee that however well things are going  for me the rest of the year, by the time Christmas comes around, something has happened to turn life sour. This year it's to do with the bank and the phone call they made me earlier this week. The timing made it a phone call worthy of Ebenezer Scrooge.

This isn't a sympathy drive, by the way. This is just a reflection on how irony -- the main theme of my life, as I've probably said several times -- is central to the Christmas story. The beginnings of Jesus' life (setting aside arguments over how historically reliable the gospel account is) are every bit as ironic as the end of his life. What could compare to the irony of a crucified Messiah? Try the King of the Universe born into a trough and receiving a bunch of sheepherding peasants as his first guests.

I think it's the irony of the gospel that has kept me clinging to it despite change of mind I've been through the last few years. It's an irony that resonates with me and is true to my experience -- that riches come out of great poverty, and life comes out of death. Hell, if I didn't believe all that, what hope would I have when the shit hits the fan? To me, death is just a precursor of resurrection.

One of my enduring Christmas memories is of standing in the middle of a hospital ward, in only my dressing gown and slippers, reading John Betjeman's poem Christmas to a dozen old ladies. It was another of those ironic festive moments -- me spending the week before Christmas 2001 in hospital (gallstones, *ouch*) with a bunch of old dears for company. I love the way Betjeman (right) encapsulates the irony and the meaning of Christmas in the last few verses. I'll leave you with them as I wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year.

And is it true? and is it true?
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?

And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant.

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was Man in Palestine
And lives to-day in Bread and Wine.

Church review: St Mary Magdalene's, Alsager

If I'd planned in advance, I could have done a full report for the Mystery Worshipper on my visit to St Mary Magdalene's yesterday, but I shall suffice with a short review on here. (Besides, you need to know I'm still breathing.)

I stayed with friends in Staffordshire on the weekend, and on Sunday morning I and my friend decided to to pay a visit to nearby Alsager for the the Eucharist.

It was fairly low-church, despite the robes and everything. They followed the liturgy from Common Worship, but chose the shortest and simplest bits every time, and dropped a few parts altogether. There were only four in the choir (which the chap I spoke to afterwards assured me was an anomaly due to the school half-term), but they did remarkably well, and even managed an anthem by Schubert and a very nice Lamb of God, which they'd nicked from a parish I attended while I was at my alma mater.

The service started with the deacon doing some storytelling from the Old Testament, and she had the Sunday School help her out with a bit of dramatization. She was an oldish lady, the sort you'd like to take home and have as your granny. I kept thinking all the way throughout that first part that this was the Christian faith as it should be expressed -- in stories and through imagination, rather than in doctrinal propositions and statements of faith.

Coincidentally, the preacher went on to talk about stories, and had a bit of a jab at the postmodern notion that we all inhabit different stories, and we should just appreciate the diversity. I have a lot of sympathy with that aspect of postmodernism, since if my experience has brought me anywhere, it has brought me to the place where I really don't think I can make absolute truth-claims about some indisputable metanarrative; I'm quite happy with my faith as my way of expressing an experience that may well be shared by other people who express it in different ways and through different stories.

The granny-deacon got up again to lead the intercessions, and prefaced each section of prayer with a flute solo. It was quite beautiful.

I couldn't say the Prayer of Humble Access, because every time I tried, I couldn't help but slip into the words of a parody I once wrote ("I am not worthy so much as to gather up me plums underneath our Mabel, but thou art the same Maude, whose nature is always to have Percy").

The church lacks a hall at the moment, which I actually thought was quite fortuitous, since it meant they had to turn the back of the church into a meeting room. It meant the area for "worship" and the area for "fellowship" (tea and biscuits) ran into one another, and there was no escape. Sometimes I need that push.

Unfortunately, it also meant there were no washrooms, and I had to borrow a key for the public conveniences across the road.

I enjoyed the morning, however. I always feel that worshipping outside my own parish on the occasional Sunday is like "seeing how the other half lives". But it's always refreshing, and always reminds me that some places do exist where things are done differently.

IVP moves into 'The Onion' territory

Inter-Varsity Press seems to have branched out into the satire market with A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality. (What my mother would have given to have this important volume in her hands twenty-some years ago!) Here's a classic comic moment from the introduction:

I told her, "Mom, you saw me play with Barbie dolls. You allowed me to use makeup and to fix my hair in front of the mirror for hours. My brothers never did any of this. Why didn't you stop me? What were you thinking?"

Later on it gets even more devastating:

"Doctor, ... my son Stevie ... [is] a beautiful little boy, a special child. But..." She hesitated. "Stevie's fascinated with little-girl things. Even more so than my daughters. In fact, he just loves the colours pink and red. He even... well, plays with Barbie dolls and... dances around the house on tiptoes like a ballerina."

As I listened, Mrs Johnson gave me a few more specifics. Her son was five.

"I've been noticing this kind of behaviour for almost two years," she explained.

To me, that length of time was significant. It is okay if a little boy wonders what he would look like wearing long blonde curls and so he tries on a wig, simply to be silly. There is nothing particularly alarming about that. But if he keeps on doing it and has little interest in "boy" things, there likely is a problem.

I am finding it very difficult to believe such stuff can actually be written -- by doctors no less -- without tongue firmly in cheek.

Sometimes grace takes longer...

Our town has an annual service for Church unity. I just found out that the next one will be at the Pentecostal church -- my old Pentecostal church. Our choir is also supposed to be singing. I would happily worship with the folks there, for all our disagreements, but this is the church whose pastor, less than six months ago, received a  very blunt letter from me detailing his abuse and manipulation. It's not a forgiveness issue; it's just after a letter like that, you can't just turn up at someone's church having not seen them face-to-face in a couple years and sweep history under the carpet.

I think the choir are going to be a tenor down. Sometimes, grace just takes a little longer to work in the real world.

The Green reaction

 Mark Greer registers his reaction to the appearance of Stephen Green on last week's Question Time. He writes to the Beeb thus:

    I am a Christian leader and it is very frustrating when people who represent a small minority of Christians are chosen to represent Christians in such a high profile way.

    Unfortunately it seems that whoever shouts the loudest and most extreme views gets to be heard. This is not helpful and there are many other more discerning and representative Christians who could be given a chance to give a Christian perspective on the issues of the day.

In fact, the Beeb had a fairly good spokesman for Christianity in the form of MP Simon Hughes. He directly challenged whether Green represented his evangelical faith.

Meanwhile, the reactions on the BBC website are, um, interesting:

    Did you ask Stephen Green onto Question Time just to ridicule him because he fought against your awful programme Jerry Springer - The Opera? I thought you were supposed to have a cross section audience. I didn't sense there were any Christians present. Shame on you.

I think the writer meant there weren't any extreme fundamentalist Christians like Green. Another writes:

    Can Janet Street-Porter please refrain from calling Christians a minority group. Perhaps if more of our fellow citizens read the Bible and listened to the words of Jesus - as many of us do - then we would live in a fairer society, less prone to greed and war.

I think Janet was in fact exposing the fact that his own peculiar fundamentalism was a minority group, and not representative of Christians in general. Still another complains:

    Mr Dimbleby used very aggressive tactics against Mr Green on tonight's show. The protests Stephen organises are not aggressive, but the legitimate right of UK citizens to protest. Isn't this the very thing people were so shocked was being stifled at the Labour conference.

I don't remember the BBC heavies coming in and removing Green, which is what happened at the Labour conference. In a similar spirit, another protests:

    I think the audience was misplaced in this - they acted like the stewards who refused to allow a dissenting voice.

Alas, a better comparison would be with the the unfortunate 80-something-year-old ejected from the Labour Conference last week; the audience protesting Green's views were doing nothing different.

Weekend waffle

Stephen Green's appearance on the Beeb's Question Time last night did not really justify the uproar I witnessed on some gay forums. There was outrage that the BBC were giving him a platform, but he only ended up making himself look utterly ridiculous, which I'm sure the Beeb knew very well when they asked him to come on the show.

He was quiet for most of the programme, actually, and when he did open his mouth he only made a fool of himself. The rest of the programme was unusually flat by QT standards, I thought.

Onto other things: Despite the overblown title, this is an interesting film about hysterical overreaction to alleged "discrimination" on a few American university campuses; its main virtue is that the tone of the documentary itself is generally not overblown, and it contains some enlightening interviews.

If you're too sore from the last time a Republican whupped your ass to appreciate the documentary, here's some lighter fare: a sneak preview of The Shining (QuickTime required); proof that you probably shouldn't trust movie trailers.

Oh, and here's some parting advice: Think young.