The Grace Pages

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?

I believe in judgment

Woody Allen can be a brutally narcissistic and cynical filmmaker at times. Just look at an indulgent, cruel film like Deconstructing Harry (1997), and you'll see what I mean.

At his best, however, his films are tempered by a genuine warmth and a sense of grace. Take Broadway Danny Rose (1983), for instance, probably my personal favourite of all Woody's movies. Danny Rose is a loser, a no-hoper agent with a tendency to latch onto the least talented of acts, and whose heart is usually too big for his own good.

Broadway Danny Rose is a beautiful parable of grace and reconciliation. Talking with Tina (Mia Farrow) over a coffee, Danny (Woody Allen) philosophizes that guilt is good because it stops people doing devastating things to each other. At this stage, Tina's philosophy is 'take what you can get', and pretty much to hell with other people if they get in your way.

But a transformation occurs. Tina does Danny a wrong, and she loses sleep over it. They've spent only an afternoon together, and yet his words have stirred something in her. Having double-crossed him, her conscience is pricked, and she loses all life and vibrancy. Something has melted her cold exterior, and she cannot rest until she seeks out Danny and for forgiveness and friendship. Reconciliation. (Augustine suddenly comes to mind here: "You have made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.")

Even Danny, as big-hearted as he is, finds it too painful to welcome her back at first, but his conscience is awakened, too, and it is time to put his words about forgiveness into action. The movie ends with a warm reconciliation as Tina - having lost her street-smart, worldly-wise veneer - is invited back to Danny's shabby apartment to share a plate of frozen Thanksgiving turkey.

I wonder: Is judgment part of the beauty of reconciliation? Is the pain of being searched and found guilty all part of the wonder of grace, forgiveness and the restoration of friendship with God and with each other? Guilt is, as Danny recognized, a blessing that deters us from hurting each other or, in Tina's case, that provokes us into seeking reconciliation.

Paul says an interesting thing: You have been reconciled to God in Christ - therefore be reconciled (2 Corinthians 5:19). It's a paradox: God has already reconciled us, and yet reconciliation is a future event that requires our response. That response is not the futile effort of arbitrary religious acts, but the simple acceptance of God's offer of friendship. And it is judgment - the painful awareness of having been examined and found guilty - that moves us towards reconciliation.

God has removed every obstacle, loudly proclaiming in Christ that he does not hold any of our wrongs against us, declaring us totally forgiven. Will we wallow in shame or turn around and take his hand?

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.

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.

New or renewed? Fed up with a cultural obsession

I hate this obsession with "new". My city is preparing to be the Capital of Culture in 2008 and everything's just got to be new, new, new. There are huge long roads leading into town that are nothing but row after row of boarded-up shops and abandoned buildings, but no one's doing anything with those -- it's all got to be new, new, new. I look at those places and I see cafes, bars, music venues and community centres; I see a whole part of town coming alive again.

Ironically, one of the first things they did when we won the Capital of Culture bid was decide to demolish Quiggins, a thriving cultural centre in the city. Why? Well, so they could build something, um, new. State-of-the-art, no doubt.

Now the city promises to create a new "gay quarter". I'll be generous and not suggest that it's just a cynical attempt to cash in on the so-called "pink pound" rather than create real community; aside from that, why are they not doing something with the gay quarter that already exists? Can they not clean up the existing gay part of town, breathing new life into it? Nah, it has to be new.

Meanwhile, in my borough the plan is to demolish all the high schools and replace them with something -- you guessed it -- new.

I love this prophecy of Isaiah's:

And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks.

This speaks of regeneration and renewal, not replacements. The philosophy of government at the moment, certainly in Britain, seems to be to replace everything with something new, bigger, better; not making fresh and alive again what already exists, but demolition and replacement. I think it's going to be down to people themselves to start taking back their communities , because the government sure isn't going to help. They'll tear down and they'll put up something new, but they don't have the faith to make something out of the beauty that's already there.

Got screaming kids? Bring 'em on!

Some folk get really uppity when kids start making noises in church. I don't even have to look around to see the reactions, 'cause I can feel the slight shift in the atmosphere as twenty or thirty pairs of elderly eyeballs all roll at once.

Yesterday during the intercessions at church, a kid -- little more than a baby, really -- started getting a bit restless. In between querying, "Mommy?" (Grandma was looking after her in Mommy's absence), she kept barking like a seal. It was enough to provide the choirgirls with some amusement.

I must admit, my reaction whenever I hear kids squeaking and squealing in church is usually the same: I beam from ear to ear. To me it's a sign of life; and even when it's a massive interruption, it's a sign of the messiness of being 'church'. It's a reminder that we're not supposed to be a company of shining talents pulling off a sparkling performance for God each week, but a community of diverse people.

We're something of a motley crew, in fact, and our only qualification for participation does not lie in ourselves, but in the grace of God that reconciles us as one community.

Just when you thought it couldn't get more crass...

...you come across this. Seriously, I thought it was a parody when Greg linked to it.

At this church you can experience a "deep and passionate encounter with God" in Tent 2 or, if overwhelming experiences of the numinous aren't your thing, try "country music, boots and buckles" followed by "line dancing for novices" in the Worship Center. There's always the hula dancing in Room 404 if you want something even more relaxing, and that's followed by a potluck on the first of every month. If a potluck sounds unappetizing (you never know where people's hands have been), "grabbing an optional lunch" is on offer at "elevation" -- although it's singles only, I'm afraid.

All told, there are nine different services to choose from at Saddleback Church. And the fact you can bring your coffee into the service is such a bonus, the mere statement deserves an exclamation mark! YES! You can bring your coffee into the service!

God help us. Part of me wants to laugh my ass off reading this guff, and another part of me wants to cry. It's not because I have some evangelical fervour for making worship "holy" or "honouring" to God. It's because the Church exists to overcome divisions through community, and yet the whole ethos behind this consumeristic model of "worship" is anti-community and just reinforces divisions.

At a conference about Anglican ministry a few months ago, some folk suggested the future of parish churches was to have separate congregations for different groups, eg a "youth" church on one side of town and (presumably) some place to shove the oldies on the other side of town. Ugh. This is exactly the kind of ghettoization that I was glad to get away from when I left evangelicalism. Back then the focus was always on how we could best cater to different people, and usually the answer was to split up the church into dozens of compartments. The worst of all was the "youth" because after all, what could young people possibly have in common with anyone over the age of 25? (Very little, as long as you keep them in their own ghetto, I guess.)

Can we not find ways of integrating people into the same community instead of fostering divisions based on taste, of all things? Popular culture does a good enough job of compartmentalizing human beings without the Church following suit. I'd happily give up my right to have a coffee cup in church if it meant we could all strive to be one community.

A GP Classic: Melting cakes and misplaced recipes

(This was originally published on 20 April 2004)

Certain songs have become to me, at certain times in my life, like anthems. Know what I mean? Like a song was written just for me at that exact time in my life, expressing just what I was feeling or going through, giving voice to things I hadn't quite put into words yet myself.

Recently I went through a period where These Days by Nico seemed to match my circumstances perfectly. Before that, things weren't all that much better, and Gordon Lightfoot's In the Early Mornin' Rain was the one that seemed closest to what was going on inside me.

But let me take you back a few years before that. It was a time in my life when nothing was as it first appeared. Everything was changing for me. All the things I once took for granted were now being questioned, and the world I had been living in for several years was beginning to crumble. It was the beginning of my break with fundamentalist, conservative Christianity. And the words that summed up the process for me were from the song MacArthur Park. If you know it, you'll also probably be of the opinion that the lyrics are crass, confusing and fairly artless. Actually, I totally agree. What's more, it was made a hit by a guy who, frankly, couldn't sing a damn note (the late actor Richard Harris). Still, something in the chorus totally resonated with me:

    MacArthur Park is melting in the dark,
    All the sweet, green icing flowing down.
    Someone left the cake out in the rain.
    I don't think that I can take it,
    'Cause it took so long to bake it,
    And I'll never have that recipe again,
    Oh no!

Don't ask me what MacArthur Park is or was, because I don't have a clue. Don't ask me either why the "park" metaphor suddenly becomes a "cake" metaphor, because I don't know about that either. All I know is that at that period in my life I couldn't have put it any better myself: The icing was falling off the cake for me, and I'd spent so long baking it, I was shit-scared I wasn't going to put it all back together again.

Put in plainer terms, I had grown up in a certain type of charismatic, fundamentalist Christianity, it had become my life, and now everything that seemed so real and unquestionable was starting to lookfalse. Let me throw in another metaphor: Humpty Dumpty had fallen off the wall, and it didn't look like even all the King's horses and all the King's men had a hope in hell of putting him back together again. I was scared. I was feeling like a stranger in a foreign land. I'd spent so many years learning the recipe and baking the cake, and it looked like it was all going down the pan with no hope of retrieval. (Forgive the mixed metaphors. I'm on a roll here.)

Some of you identify with that feeling, perhaps. The journey away from fundamentalism has been a scary one, and maybe the most terrifying thing is that after so long putting that world together bit by bit, you've lost the recipe and can't find it again. Well, here's what I want to say to anyone who's scared they lost the recipe and aren't going to get it back: That's the whole point. For years they told us there was a recipe. For years Christianity was presented to us in the form of strategies and technologies for spiritual success: Do this, do that, jump up and down and through the hoop, and you'll be acceptable. For a long time someone convinced us that there was a formula we had to follow, a long list of ingredients and instructions we had to get right to build our perfect, holy and acceptable-to-God religious world.

For a long time, even after I had given up on fundamentalism and conservative Christianity for good, I still had this feeling that I had to get the recipe right. I mean, I had got rid of this and that belief, dispatched of this and that doctrine, and for a while I had this worry that I needed an alternative to replace them. Now I think, Hold it there: Who says I have to have the recipe figured out? Who says I can't just say, "Don't know"? Who said I had to have everything sussed?

I know it's painful moving on. It's not easy, even when we know it's the right thing to do, to leave behind things we gave our life to. And it's a scary path, that's for sure. But it's a while since the icing melted on my religious cake now, and I have a peace about where I am, a peace I doubted I would have when I was watching all that sweet, green icing flowing down and wondering how I was ever going to get it back. And if things started to change again, I doubt it would be that same scary process, because the path I'm on now is an adventure in faith, where no turn the road might take is worth being scared of.

I think I've probably said more than I wanted to say, and probably not in as articulate a manner as I wanted to say it. (There's always the "edit" button for anal-retentives like me.) I just wanted to give hope to anyone whose cake is melting at the moment. No one decreed you needed a recipe -- that fiction was part of your old world. Don't sweat it.