Protected by God in the midst of turmoil, E4,5 SERVICE The 2012 Olympics provide a unique opportunity for Christians to show how their faith leads to
By Amaris Cole he weather may suggest otherwise, but summer is on its way – and this year that means the Olympics will be right on our doorstep. While the majority of the medals will be won in the capital, the whole country is set to experience Olympic fever. But if you haven’t won tickets do not fear – you can still get involved. This is, for many, a once in a lifetime opportunity, as the Games will not be back for decades. You, and your church, have the chance to reach out not only to the international community as they descend on our shores, but also those closer to home. More Than Gold leads Christian involvement in the world’s major sporting events, and has done so since the Atlanta Games in 1996. With their help, everyone can impact those around them and play their part in the Olympics. More Than Gold has identified three main ways both individuals and their churches can get involved – outreach, hospitality and service.
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OUTREACH Every community is interested in
sport – and this will be intensified during the build-up to the Olympics. By creating a link between sport and faith, churches have the opportunity to engage with those around them. This could be done by: • Olympic-themed Children’s Holiday Clubs •Sports clinics for young people •Community festivals •Pub-style sports quizzes •Televising popular events for the community to come and watch together HOSPITALITY Hospitality is always an expression of faith and love. Churches and their members have a unique opportunity to serve athletes’ families and visitors travelling to the UK to watch the games. More Than Gold has established a hospitality programme, with many chances to serve. These opportunities involve: •Hosting families of athletes who are involved in the Games – a practical example of hospitality for those who may otherwise miss the chance of seeing their loved one compete. •Hosting members of the various international mission teams who are coming to London to reach out to the crowds that the games will attract. •Serving at a Hospitality Centre, by giving out millions of cups of water – at Sydney in 2000, 250,000 cups of water were distributed to visitors.
serving others, as Jesus did. Volunteers are needed to deliver these programmes to local communities, as well as services being offered externally, by groups such as LOCOG (locogrecruitment.london2012.com). By signing up to help out, you are sure to be involved in the legacy that the Games will leave. CEO of More Than Gold, David Wilson, hopes everyone will get involved in the games. “I do not think there has been this number of churches working together for at least 30 years,” he said. “This is a chance in a lifetime.” But it doesn’t need to end after all the medals have been won, David says. “We want to get churches focussed on the legacy. We want churches to realise if they want to televise on a big screen, they can do that at any time of the year with any sport event.” For more details, and to order resources for your own outreach event, visit the More Than Gold website – morethangold.org.uk
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Andrew Carey:
View from the Pew
Don’t be deceived by Cameron’s words avid Cameron’s honeyed words directed towards Christians and church leaders during Holy Week should deceive no one. He heads an aggressively secularist government that continues to push Christianity to the margins in spite of his public praise for the ‘virtues’ of Christianity. In his Easter message he talks of a domesticated Jesus whose ‘legacy’ is the ‘values’ of “incomparable compassion, generosity, grace, humility and love.” He says: “These are the values that Jesus embraced … It is values like these that make our country what it is — a place which is tolerant, generous
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and caring. A nation which has an established faith, that together is most content when we are defined by what we are for, rather than defined by what we are against.” This is all very well, but it is only part of the story. What about the picture that emerges through the Gospels of the wrathful Jesus, the one who prizes truth and who adjures sin? By making Christ into one who ‘baptises’ British values, he glibly distorts the gospel. It is all too easy for Christians to be flattered by politicians who appear to take them seriously, but we have no need for Prime Ministerial patronage when policies are
advanced that are so injurious to the health and future of society and the Church. Only two examples are needed. Firstly, the government’s own legal submission to the European Court of Human Rights over the cases of two women who were disciplined and reprimanded for wearing crosses at work. The Government’s testimony is that the cross is not central to the Christian faith as a symbol that is worn by Christians. How dare any government seek to meddle in liturgical and theological matters through the courts?
April 15, 2012 Secondly, the government’s attempt to redefine marriage drives a wedge between civil and religious marriage, and privatises the very institution itself. The oxymoronic extension of matrimony to same-sex couples makes marriage into a vehicle for adult rights. Children, whose own rights to both a mother and a father, will be the primary victims of this change. Mothers and fathers will become ‘Parent 1’ and ‘Parent 2’ and the courts will be left to pick over the wreckage that is left of an institution that has served all human societies for thousands of years.
Questions that need asking ast week I made an unkind comment about the Bishop of Bradford’s blog, this week however the ever-engaging Nick Baines’ rightly puts the boot in over religious broadcasting in a Radio Times article. He points out that for the past couple of Easters the BBC has done rather a good job, but beyond that, on independent channels “religion has been dropped as if it were a toxic contaminator of decent culture”. He adds: “This ideological knee-jerk sees religion as an embarrassing problem (for which there is obviously no audience).” He maintains that religious broadcasting would be improved considerably across the board if the BBC employed a religion editor as it does a sports editor, political editor and economics editor. He asks, “how does the BBC fulfil its public service remit by challenging the ridiculous assumption that the ‘non-religious’ worldview is neutral? Second, how do other broadcasters get beyond their own prejudices and see religion as an indispensable lens through which to see and understand the world?” These are vital questions. It is good to see church leaders asking these and others. Email: carey.andr@gmail.com
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Stirring up prejudice
Jerusalem Syndrome
nyone who thinks faith leaders cause religious strife should take a careful look at current British politics. The evidence is strong that politicians cause strife by stirring up religious division. George Galloway has thanked Allah for his victory in Bradford. He fought a campaign that was deliberately pitched at Muslim voters. To its shame the Labour Party followed the same approach by stressing that its own candidate was a Muslim. Galloway had an answer for that by claiming the Labour candidate drank alcohol (Galloway is on his fourth wife but that doesn’t count). Ken Livingstone, meanwhile, wants to make London a platform for Allah. His disgraceful remarks about ‘rich Jews’ were doubtless aimed at courting Muslim votes. Contrast this with the Church of England as portrayed in the final instalment of Diarmaid MacCulloch’s ‘How God Made the English’. Leicester Cathedral’s warm welcome to people of all faiths showed how, left to themselves without the interference of the likes of Livingstone and Galloway, different religions in Britain are perfectly capable of getting on together. Livingstone appears in an election hustings at St James, Piccadilly on 17 April.
aster focuses attention on the Holy Land. Time, then, to remember the perils of Jerusalem syndrome. Between 50 and 100 pilgrims a year are afflicted by this condition, most of them evangelical Christians. A sad but typical example was a woman convinced she was Mary searching for her baby in Bethlehem. Another man imagined he was King David. It is not uncommon for people to come to think of themselves as the Messiah. “There’s a joke in psychiatry: if you talk to God, it’s called praying; if God talks to you, you’re nuts,” writes Chris Nashawaty in a recent issue of Wired magazine. “In Jerusalem God seems to be particularly chatty around Easter, Passover and Christmas – the peak seasons for the syndrome.” The cure appears to be to leave the Holy Land.
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A whiff of Agatha Christie and a touch of Midsomer Murders
t would be hard to think of a combination better calculated to appeal to the literary tastes of middle England than marrying Agatha Christie with Midsomer Murders but this is what we are promised from the pen of James Runcie. Runcie is about to burst upon the literary scene with a series of six detective novels featuring Sydney Chambers, the Vicar of Grantchester, who is ‘tall, with dark brown hair, eyes the colour of hazelnuts and a reassuringly gentle manner’. To top it all, Chambers is only 32 but is already an honorary canon (presumably of Ely). Unmarried, he manages to find time for cricket, warm beer, hot jazz and the works of Tolstoy and Shakespeare as well as a German widow three years his junior. The German widow doesn’t seem to deter female fans. In the gushing promotional material, Sally Vickers announces: “No detective since Father Brown has been more engaging than Canon Sidney Chambers. Perfect company in bed.” The first volume, ‘Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death’ appears on 10 May. It is all very different from the literary works of the son of another Archbishop of Canterbury. Andrew Carey is more Richard Littlejohn than Agatha Christie.
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Taking on the humanists
art Ehrman must be the least favourite New Testament scholar of American evangelicals. Once an evangelical himself, he went on a journey after graduate school through liberal Christianity to unbelief. He has debated the resurrection with William L Craig and other evangelical apologists. But in his latest book Ehrman has trained his fire on humanists and atheists who argue that Jesus never existed. He was stirred into action by attending a meeting of the American Humanist Association in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to receive an award. While there he was dismayed to find many people who seemed to think that Jesus never lived. It dawned on him that such people are the flip side of Christian fundamentalists. Both were using Jesus to justify their prejudices. The result has been ‘Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth’, a no-holds barred attack on what are termed ‘sensationalist’, ‘wrongheaded’ and ‘amateurish’ accounts of the New Testament. Ehrman isn’t about to change his own beliefs but many Christians are pleased by his latest book: “I wrote Bart a note and said ‘Thank you for doing our dirty work for us’,” said evangelical scholar, Ben Witherington.
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Nigel Nelson View from Fleet Street
Tackling the problems of youth n 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition, the Reverend Thomas Marsham moved to a small village parish in Norfolk and into a four-bedroom rectory he had purpose-built for himself and his live-in housekeeper. Clergy had plenty of money in those days. Some years later the travel writer Bill Bryson bought the house and decided to write a book about it. The result is the elegant At Home: A Short History of Private Life. Bryson does not just write about the house – in fact he writes very little about the house – but more about the history, genesis and geographical origins of everything in it, from toilets to table cloths to telephones. And when he gets to the nursery, not something the Rev Marsham ever needed as he had no wife or children so it remains a mystery why he wanted such a room, Bryson describes the awful plight of children in this country over preceding centuries. I read this chapter at the same time as I was looking at the Riots Communities and Victims Panel report into last summer’s riots and found some disturbing parallels. We do not treat our children as badly now as we did then but we are still neglecting them. It was a surprise to discover Dr Barnardo was not the philanthropic saint one would have expected. For a start he wasn’t a doctor, and when forced to prove his medical credentials produced a forged diploma from a German university showing him to be a fraud and a liar, too. But that’s by the by. More shocking was that life in a Barnardo’s home was scarcely better than the dreadful conditions of the work-
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house: up at 5.30am; work until 6.30pm; military drill in the evening; and boys shipped off to Canada at the rate of 1,500 a year to make way for the new arrivals Barnardo snatched off the streets. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution some children in work had to labour for 14 hours a day, six days a week. Those as young as six, of both sexes, were sent down the mines because they were small enough to work in cramped spaces, and chimney sweeps began their careers as young as five for the same reason, though the youngest recorded was three and a half. These little ones died sooner than any other group, “stooped and ruined”, as Bryson describes it, “by the age of 11 or 12”. Of course the lives of even the poorest children have immeasurably improved since, yet the riots panel identified “500,000 ‘forgotten families’ who bump along the bottom of society.” And as panel chair Darra Singh told The Guardian, until everyone has a stake in society then the risk of mass lawlessness remains. “When people don’t feel they have a reason to stay out of trouble the consequences for communities can be devastating – as we saw last August,” he added. Singh estimates that up to 15,000 people took to the streets to participate in the orgy of destruction and most of those aged under 24 had poor academic records. More early intervention programmes would help, as would more imaginative and ambitious jobs initiatives to prove to young people they
n the Guardian, Diarmaid MacCulloch finds in the fall of the Anglican Covenant in England a particular indictment of our bishops: “Diocesan synods voted against the Covenant, often in the face of great pressure from the vast majority of English bishops, who frequently made sure that the case for the Covenant dominated proceedings. The bishops also exerted a certain amount of emotional blackmail, suggesting that if the scheme didn’t pass, it would be very upsetting for the Archbishop of Canterbury (cue for Synod members to watch a podcast from said Archbishop, looking sad even while commending the Covenant). “Well, it didn’t work, and now those particular bishops need to consider their position, as the saying goes. Principally, they need to consider a killer statistic: as the voting has taken place in the dioceses (and there are still a few to go), the pattern has been consistent. Around 80 per cent of the bishops have voted in favour of the Covenant, but the clergy and laity votes have split around 50-50 for and against, with votes against nudging ahead among the clergy. That suggests an episcopate that is seriously out of touch, not just with the nation as a whole (we knew that already), but even with faithful Anglican churchgoers and clergy in England.” One contributor writes: “Whatever the rights and wrongs of gay clergy, etc, the western churches have attempted to force a fait accomplit upon the developing world churches African in particular. This has led to huge bad feeling at the rightly perceived arrogance of the western churches in simply taking action without consultation or agreement.” At the Telegraph, Dr Peter Mullen asks: “Is Rowan Williams doing a George Carey? It’s been noticeable how Dr Carey obviously felt more able to speak his mind on controversial issues once he had retired. Since Rowan announced his retirement last week, he too has lost no time in addressing matters in public life more firmly and certainly with more clarity than usual. In fact, in the space of a week, this self-confessed ‘hairy Lefty’ seems to have ditched many of the Left’s shibboleths and prejudices – ‘diversity,’ for one. Dr Williams
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Not such a saint?: Dr Barnardo
are not being abandoned. And schools should take responsibility for ‘character building’, an old-fashioned concept perhaps, but one which Darra Singh says determines whether someone makes “the right choice in the heat of the moment.” The report raises concerns that schools are excluding children for the wrong reasons, and if that is the case then the whole policy of exclusion must be looked at again. The panel recommends that schools are fined if children are forced to leave without being able to read adequately. The payment would then be used for extra reading support. Teaching unions have already criticised this, and it is indeed difficult to see how it would work. Also difficult will be tackling the culture of materialism, which lay at the heart of so much of the looting. It was high-value goods that were targeted – designer clothes, trainers, mobile phones, computers – but not necessarily for their monetary value. Many of the rioters simply wanted these things for themselves. The report called for children to be “protected from excessive marketing” and asked the Advertising Standards Authority to help increase the resilience of children to advertising. But that sounds a tall order. So this is where a spiritual revival may have a part to play, though with only half of children now being able to recite the Lord’s Prayer, spirituality in the religious sense does not seem to be high on the teaching agenda. Christians rose to this challenge in the 19th Century, and without them reform would have been longer in coming. It would make a valuable contribution if the Church could now harness the same energy in the 21st as a force for social cohesion. Nigel Nelson is political editor of The People
said yesterday that ‘identity’ has become a ‘slippery’ word. “Well said, Archbishop, even if it is a bit late in the day. Identity politics has always been divisive. For example, by the way in which each minority ethnic and sexual group referred to itself as a ‘community’... But this was to destroy society’s cohesiveness. For the truth is that there is only one community of which particular groups are members. ‘Community’ used of ethnic and other minorities only served to create ghettos.” One contributor writes: “What cohesiveness? All that was blown out of the water by Thatcher’s ‘there is no such thing as society’ philosophy and the creation of a hyper capitalist economic system in which money and wealth are the measure of everything.” The Bishop of Bradford, the Rt Rev Nick Baines, blogs: “Mention ‘religious broadcasting’ in polite company and you might well be faced with finding someone else to talk to. Either that or it’s assumed you’re really wanting more Songs of Praise on the television to keep the Christians (who haven’t gone to church) happy. “Yet, this isn’t the case. Religious broadcasting simply takes seriously the indisputable fact that religion is a phenomenon that has to be acknowledged and understood, if we are to understand the world in which we live. This doesn’t presuppose a religious commitment, conviction, practice or adherence any more than doing a programme about Marxism demands that only Marxists produce it... However, go beyond the BBC (and the odd bit of Channel 4) and religion has been dropped as if it were a toxic contaminator of decent culture.” One contributor writes: “The telly for Easter weekend bears out your argument completely. BBC broadcasting is entirely of mainstream/high culture religious events (the Pope, Easter morning communion, Kings College, Cambridge) and Channel 4 has a bit of weirdness. And that’s it. The best stuff has actually been during Lent, Reverse Missionaries on BBC2 was excellent.”
What the Blogs Say
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From America to Nigeria, Christians tell of God’s protection, whether from the elements of nature or from the depredat
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By Susan Beckman
he Wizard of Oz is reminiscent of a house being lifted into the air, spinning, then crashing down… boom!
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Darrell Gilles and his family never dreamed they would experience this in real life on Friday, 2 March, 2012, in Henryville, Indiana. Darrell recounts: “I turned on the news and they mentioned we had 16 minutes until the storm would hit our area. My wife started packing up a safe place in the closet. “The sky looked pretty decent for a storm. I walked around the corner of the house and there was a funnel cloud off in the distance. I watched it. As it got closer, it kind of started to dissipate. I prayed it would skip us. It decided to drop all the way down. I could tell it was coming right for us. I started hearing it breaking trees. I ran into the house and squeezed everybody into the closet.” Trish told the children: “You’re going to hear loud noises. God’s going to protect you. Just keep praying.” Trish was praying, “God, no matter what, save my babies.” Then she remembers the house spinning. Darrell says: “As soon as I heard the roar, I started hearing stuff break; glass breaking, 2-by-4’s snapping, and you could feel the house shift and lift up in the air. It flipped over on its top and crashed down, one big crash on the ground. Boom! “I don’t think I was out very long. But I rose up and my wife was right in front of me. She was crying. She said her back hurt. I tried to help her, but I could barely move myself. I couldn’t breathe and it hurt so bad. I saw my kids all strung out on the other side of us, not too far away. They were all laying face down, not moving. I decided to holler out to them, but I couldn’t even move. “Caleb was the first one to move. Then Collin started crying. Mia laid there for a minute, then she got up. I tried to help my wife, but I couldn’t. So, one shoe on and one shoe off, I tried to walk over to the kids. The sun came out a little bit and it looked pretty decent outside. “I got up the hill a little bit, kind of rested on a tree where, thank God, somebody saw me. They came down to help. I told them to go down and help my wife. It was taking me forever to walk. “We started to go up the hill. That’s when I looked back to see what was going on with By Baroness Cox hen you set off for church on Easter Day, did you think how fortunate we are to be able to do so without fear? Did you remember that in the last few weeks there are Christians who attended morning service – but never lived to see the end of worship? On two Sundays in recent weeks, this has been the fate of Christians in Jos, in Plateau State, Nigeria. Whilst most of Nigeria enjoys relative peace, many States, including Borno, Yobe, Kano, Kaduna and Bauchi and Plateau States have suffered from inter-communal violence, with thousands of Christians killed and countless churches, homes and businesses destroyed over the past two decades. In the village of Dogonahauwa in Plateau State, 450 Christians were killed in just one night in March 2010. But it is hard to relate to statistics or to appreciate the personal faith, courage and resilience of the people, so I offer some extracts from recent bulletins received from a friend in Jos.
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Trish. Right over the same horizon there was a great big tornado working up. It was all swirling around. It hadn’t made the exact funnel yet, but it was coming. That guy turned around to see what
I was looking at and he saw it. He picked up a piece of plywood and covered Trish with it as best he could. Hail started falling.” With every rib broken, a punctured lung, a broken sternum, clavicle, and jaw, Darrell pressed on. “All I could find was some little pieces of drywall. I squished the kids together, put everyone’s head together and covered our heads up with drywall. Pretty much got beaten to death with baseball-sized hail. I was hit in the base of the skull. That lasted probably two or three minutes. Not knowing if that tornado had dropped or not, whether it was coming or not. “Just staying there with absolutely no protection at all. “That finally passed and we got up and somehow made it to a neighbor’s house. I was trying to call 911 myself because nobody’s phone was working. Every once in a while you could stick a call through. I tried to call 911; once I got the lady to say
were killed and another caught by the security forces. The number of worshippers killed, however, was very small indeed: we have not been given exact figures, but probably not more than about three, but with quite a few others in hospital. That was miracle number one. Miracle number two was that apart from some volatile reaction and burning in the immediate area, and rioting in one adjacent area of the city, Jos remained outwardly calm and did not erupt into widespread violence, burning and killing, which was surely what the attackers intended. Outwardly life has continued “as usual”. That is amazing. We were to hold an Ordination service in the
Sundays in Nigeria
Februar y 26 ‘At 7.30am there was a suicide car bomb attack on the COCIN (Christian Church in Nigeria) Headquarters Church in the centre of Jos. The explosion was heard for many miles around. There were many people in the church. I don’t know the details of how the car approached, but the car was blown to pieces (although the engine number remained visible). I understand that one, if not two of the bombers
north of the city, but when the Bishop got caught in the middle of rioters our plans had to change. Thank God (again!) he got out and got home safely, and we eventually had a simple ordination service of the one Deacon in a different church near to the diocesan headquarters. Please join us in thanking God for everything, and continue to pray for the Lord’s protection,
guidance and blessing. Pray too for those who plot and plan violence, murder and evil – that God will turn their hearts, and scatter their plans completely. I was talking this afternoon with the Bishop of Damaturu: he has not been able to get back into his diocese for some three months. The Bishop of Maiduguri on the other hand cannot get out of his
Anglican Bishop of Bauchi in one of his churches destroyed in post-election violence last year
April 15, 2012
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hello, but that was it. That’s about all she wrote down. You couldn’t communicate. It was like they were just doing the best they could with what they had. And I would say the people did an awesome job. It was just mass confusion and a big mess. Cell phones didn’t work. “They took the kids to Kosair. I had no idea where my wife went. And I went to Clark. Collin, who hadn’t had a scratch on him, just stayed at Grandma’s house. She didn’t have a scratch on her. So they stayed there and two kids going to Kosair and my wife going to – I don’t know where. I’ll never stop knowing how much we were blessed and how much worse it could have been. The man just right across the street got slammed with a tornado that got him and killed him. A lot of people who had it a lot worse. Just praise the Lord, it could have been so much worse.” Darrell keeps saying: “Another reason I thank God is…” and then telling some other anecdote that showed how much worse things could have gone. One thing is that the tornado brought down many power lines, hissing all over the ground. It was dangerous territory for the survivors and rescuers. But no one was electrocuted. God is merciful and sovereign. Trish said: “There were five little prayers in that closet, all different prayers. But I think all five of them worked. Wasn’t one better than the other, all five of them, God heard them.” They are telling their children over and over how wonderful God was, how much he loves them all and how much they should thank God for keeping them safe. They give God the credit in answering their prayers and miraculously saving their family. “We just had to have angels helping us to land a little softly.” Darrell suffered a punctured lung, every rib broken, a broken jaw, shoulder, clavicle and sternum, totalling 19 broken bones. Trish suffered a shattered pelvis, collapsed lung, and received a shoulder injury. Caleb, age 11, had some bruised ribs and a broken back in two places. He was scheduled to have back surgery, but doctors now say he does not need surgery. He will be in a back brace for at least six weeks and is expected to fully recover. Collin, age 10, only had a couple of bruises. Mia, age 8, suffered a severe concussion and a bruised liver. She was in a medically-induced coma for a short time to allow healing. When she woke up, her first words were: “We survived.” They have little insurance to cover medical expenses and no financial income for the weeks Darrell will be without work. Anyone wishing to donate funds can do so through PNC Bank or by check. Darrell Giles Family Catastrophic Relief Fund PNC Bank Account #: 302866564 ABA/Routing #: 083000108 Susan Beckman is an active member of Calvary Chapel, Jupiter, FL, along with her husband of 39 years. She shares many true-life experiences through her writing. She also enjoys Bible studies, quilting, candlemaking, cooking, herbology, genealogy and gardening
house. Please pray.’ March 4 ‘How different it is going to church in England and going to church here - especially after last Sunday’s car bomb. But then how must it be for Christians in the far North-east of Nigeria, and what about Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Burma ... and countless other places. At least we are allowed to gather... Every church now is making its own provision. Parking inside the church compound is very restricted... No plan is infallible, especially if you are dealing with suicide bombers, but there is a much-heightened awareness and a greater alertness (which is generally treated with jokes, rather than with long faces!). The only real security is the Lord, and that is what we are privileged to witness and to know for ourselves. So we thank God for a peaceful Sunday morning in Jos!’ March 11 ‘Today’s Sunday update: Another suicide car bomb in Jos this morning, at a Roman Catholic church on the outskirts. The blast was huge: the vehicle was not able to get into the compound, but it shattered all the windows and also brought down the ceiling. Some people were killed, but no numbers yet. If they had got to where they wanted, the loss of life would have been much greater. God is really helping and protecting us... We continue to pray – please join with us... Thank you for your care, concern and prayers. What God continues to do is amazing. ‘’O come, let us sing unto the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise. The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. (Psalm 95:1-2; Psalm 46:11)”’.
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March 18 ‘Happy Mothering Sunday!!! A big day in the calendar of the Anglican Church here. As with Christmas and Easter, greeting cards are now almost a thing of the past, whereas text messages ... galore!! The great news, for which we truly thank God, is that — so far – no bombs that I have heard of in or around Jos. That is a real blessing. Mind you parts of Jos, including the city centre, are like a city under siege now on Sundays. Many roads around churches are blocked off with barriers of rocks, tyres, wood, or anything that will stop a vehicle. Individual churches are all working out their own security arrangements, and many have built huge cement bollards on their boundaries, so that a suicide bomber in a car would have to meet something very solid indeed... Then of course we also have to be aware of the possibility of a suicide bomber walking in, so there have to be searches of all kinds, and bags (including handbags) are banned as from next week... But such frustrations are small matters: what is important is that there are no bombs!!! In any case, people in Damaturu and Maiduguri (NE Nigeria), and in certain other countries have a very much worse time than we do here! We truly thank God. So please join us in continuing to pray. With greetings, good wishes, love and thanks – so very, very many thanks for your prayers and concern.’ March 25 ‘Dear Friends, Even at 6.30am it is amazing what an experience driving to church on a Sunday morning can be! Apart from having to allow an extra half hour or one hour... But I eventually made it this morning, and to the glory of God I have not heard of any bad reports from anywhere... The barriers that have now been erected are very substantial and permanent: heavy metal bars and solid cement bollards... Meanwhile people are beginning to say
that if feels as if we are under siege and they are beginning to wonder, “for how long...”. But clearly, very clearly, the Lord is in charge! Thank you so very much for praying. Please continue!!’ April 1 ‘Dear Friends, Just a short note to assure you that all is well – this is God’s doing and it is marvellous in our eyes! Palm Sunday – but no Palm Sunday processions, and obviously there will be no Easter Sunday morning candlelit processions around the town! The great thing, however, is that I have heard no bad reports from any quarter, no bombs... We really are so fortunate and blessed here. When I think of the thousands all around the world who are being tortured, imprisoned and hounded for their faith... Further north in Nigeria, the situation is in many places much worse, especially in Damaturu Diocese, and it is vital that the church on the Plateau stands, particularly as Plateau is in some ways like a gateway. Thank you again for all your prayers. Let us continue to pray for one another: this is our strength. Easter greetings in advance. May New Life, New Joy, New Hope be yours, and may God’s peace rule in your hearts and homes. With our love.’ When I read these bulletins, I am humbled by the faith and courage which they demonstrate: the many references to miracles; the reminders of Christians suffering even more intense persecution in other parts of the world; and the repeated request for prayer support. Therefore, as we celebrate Eastertide in our own churches, in peace and without fear of deadly attack, let us respond to the request for prayer from the churches in Nigeria and on many other frontlines of faith, whose Easter celebrations could become their Calvaries. May they continue to know God as a very present help in trouble and to inspire us with their witness; and may we be worthy of the price they are paying for our faith.
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Celebrating the treasures of Liverpool in a new museum for the north west ritain’s biggest new museum for over a century opened last year in Liverpool and all its galleries are now open. The Museum of Liverpool sits on the waterfront, and if the exhibits occasionally lead to visual overload, there’s always the view up and down and across the Mersey. Danish architect Kim Neilsen’s building is hardly a beneficial addition to the World Heritage Site. You can’t miss it, standing forward of the Three Graces; the words “building line” seem not to have reached the Liverpool planners’ ears. The site is the filled-in Manchester Dock - one of its old gates dominates one wall – and there’s plenty of stuff on the history of the city, and its growth as the older port of Meols on the other side of the river silted up. There’s some acknowledgement that a lot of the city’s wealth was built on the slave trade, but the dedicated International Slavery Museum nearby deals with that in depth. A brief video story of the impact on British tastes and teeth by sugar (“craved but not needed”) ties not just the rich merchants but the working class to the slave triangle. Class and race are issues in the working life depicted. Dockers’ strikes, the Toxteth riots, and a recreation of an 1870s tenement “court” give a flavour of times past, along with reminders of Liverpool’s more famous products like the Ford Anglia, Meccano, and Bayko models of the Empire State Building and Speke airport terminal. The model that attracts most attention, in a topfloor gallery with a view of the Three Graces (a view from upriver ruined by the museum itself) is a large model (with internal camera runthrough) of Lutyens’ Catholic Cathedral. It was intended to be a quarter higher than St Paul’s but the superstructure was never built. Wiser counsels prevailed after World War Two, though its massive crypt lies under the new “Paddy’s Wigwam” cathedral. A carriage from the Liverpool Overhead Railway (the Dockers’ Umbrella) gives a flavour of that long-lost line – the only bit remaining of the overhead railway is ironically a tunnel – and another transport centrepiece is steam locomotive Lion from the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Cue clips from “The Titfield Thunderbolt”. Even with the Maritime Museum a short walk along the sea wall, it is of course seafaring that gets the main transport focus. Recordings provide people’s real stories, and videos have actors doing scripted tales – an officer from the now defunct Liverpool Salvage Corps, paid for by insurance companies to rescue goods from burning warehouses before the firemen doused everything with water, and a Norwegian sailor
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telling us that “scouse” is from Norwegian. Trying to explain the origin of the accent is not easy when, as one clip of a comedian puts it, “I spell chicken with seven Ks”. In most municipal museums, the local stuff can get a bit samey, but the
“Wondrous Place” gallery takes us to popular culture – poets, music, and sport – that is a vital and distinct part of Liverpool’s modern history. It’s a contrast with the City Soldiers gallery, concentrating on the once Liverpool-based King’s Regiment, including an effective and not sanitised story of a First World War battlefield.
The small prayer room is yet to be fitted out, apart from the built-in Muslim ablution facilities, but has a great view of the river. Allow most of the day with or without children. There’s plenty hands-on, three separate education areas, and shop and café. It’s a bit exposed to the weather, all the better to appreciate the dockmaster’s coat on display. Steve Parish The Museum is open 10 am to 5 pm daily, entry free. http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/mol
CD CHOICE Phil Keaggy / Derri Daugherty Both of these guitarists have been high profile in Christian music for many years and both are excellent players with beautiful tone. Keaggy’s Live at Kegworth is essentially a re-recording of his greatest hits. When fans wanted to take away a memento of gigs, he had nothing to offer of a decent quality that had the same songs. So down in his basement studio, he performed concert staples as if he were onstage. This meant using all the looping technology that he employs live – which he does
extraordinarily well. At one point I was convinced that there really were overdubs. The tracks include some George Harrison and Dylan classics, but most are his own compositions. “What a Day” and “Your Love Broke Through” still sound fresh, the former given some jazz inflexions, while the live staple “Let Everything Else Go” is perfectly honed. Try the performance 11 minutes into the Bridges interview on his website www.philkeaggy.com. Despite all the work he has done with his band The Choir and with collaborations, such as the City on a Hill series, Daugherty had never recorded a solo album until this beautiful instrumental Clouds Echo in Blue (http://www.thechoir.net/index.php/main/store). This is no great sonic departure: his delicate guitar still
chimes as its multi-layered lines float and swirl. In places it feels like a wordless version of songs from The Choir’s greatest hits release, especially when the discreet rhythm section joins in. Relaxing, light and ambient, it is easy at first to think that this is a little throwaway. It is when you leave the room and find yourself humming the tunes that you realise just how melodic it is. Derek Walker Scan this code on your mobile device to see the Phil Keaggy interview
April 15, 2012
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A new theological exploration of the meaning of Justification
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ustification is an important theological topic on which opinion has begun to shift in recent years, largely as a result of new interpretations of St Paul. In Justification: A Guide for the Perplexed (Continuum) Alan J Spence, a URC minister, offers a historical overview and introduction to the subject. At the end, the Pauline texts are examined and an attempt is made to say what place Justification can have in the modern world where the idea of divine judgement has little appeal. James Beilby and Paul Eddy, who have already edited a book in which five writers offer different views of the historical Jesus, have now edited a similar work on Justification. Called simply ‘Justification: Five Views’ it is published by SPCK and offers a traditional Reformed view, a progressive Reformed view, a new perspective view, a deification view and a Roman Catholic view. Surprisingly there is no Lutheran view. Beilby and Eddy contribute chapters looking at the historical perspective and the modern debate. James Dunn and Gerald O’Collins are two contributors whose names will be familiar to British readers. God’s Rich Pattern (SPCK) is a book of meditations written for those whose faith is shaken. Dr Lin Berwick, the author, is a very remarkable woman. Born with cerebral palsy and now totally blind and forced to use a wheelchair, she starts each meditation with an incident in her own life. She believes that although we don’t know where God is leading us, his pattern is woven into everything we do. We may think that it is impossible for everything to come right but we have to live by faith and hope, trusting that all will be made clear in the end. This is a richly inspiring book. “Clinical depression is an illness, a medical condition. This means two things. First, we do not need to blame ourselves. Second, we can get better.” These words sum up the starting point of an encouraging book Encountering Depression (SPCK) written by Andrew and Elizabeth Proctor. A large proportion of the population suffers from depression at one time or another. This book will be a huge help to them and their carers. At this time of year we need to remember that Lent leads up to Easter and that all too often Christians spend more time keeping Lent and preparing for Easter than they do pondering the meaning of the Resurrection. Glorious Christianity (SPCK) by Cally Hammond can help to remedy that omission. Hammond is Dean of a Cambridge college chapel and a classicist by training but she has also spent time in parish ministry and is a good communicator. Craig Evans is a New Testament scholar who has written many books as well as coauthoring one with Tom Wright, In Jesus and His World (SPCK) he looks at what archaeology can tell us about the world in which Jesus lived, the accuracy of the gospels, and what the home town of Jesus was really like. He also asks whether the tomb of Jesus has actually been found.
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Fresh thinking on the nature and impact of the Reformation The Unintended Reformation, Brad Gregor y Har vard, hb, £25.00 here are many different versions of how the modern world developed. Pride of place is usually given to the Enlightenment although Radical Orthodox theologians like to stress the role of Duns Scotus. Brad Gregory, who teaches early modern history at Notre Dame, makes a case of seeing the Reformation as the watershed. In saying this he might be thought to reverting to older views that did give an important role to the Reformation in helping to create the modern world but these older views usually saw this happening through the overthrow of priestcraft and an emphasis on the private interpretation of scripture. Weber famously ascribed great importance to Puritanism in the growth of capitalism. Gregory does not entirely disagree with some of the old views but he modifies them considerably. On his account, secular modernity was the unintended consequence of the Reformation. By overthrowing old notions of community and teleological ethics, the Reformation paved the way for a society in which individual choice and the accumulation of personal wealth is paramount.
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Gregory is not afraid to combine moral judgement and historical narrative but although he has his own point of view it is one he is able to support with a good deal of historical knowledge. His book has to be read as whole to appreciate the theme but he divides his work into six, interrelated chapters, looking at the impact of the Reformation on faith in God, belief in Christian doctrines, control of the churches, understanding of morality, the growth of capitalism, and the universities and the pursuit of knowledge. Although Gregory discusses complex and intricate questions, he writes with verve and the excitement generated by the argument carries the reader along. He certainly tries to be fair and never attempts to downplay the corruption of the Catholic Church on the brink of the Reformation. On his account (which some Protestants will want to challenge) it was not theological weakness that let the Church down but a failure of clerics to live by the gospel they preached. Gregory is clear that Protestants, no more than Catholics, wanted to see the growth of unrestricted capitalism. “The great irony of the Reformation era with respect to economics,” he writes, “is the fact that, despite themselves, Catholics, magisterial Protestants, and radical Protestants collectively forged the very things they condemned.” Given the low esteem with which capitalism is currently held, it is Gregory’s remarks on the economic impact of the Reformation that are likely to attract the most attention
but those drawn to the new atheism should pay careful attention to what he has to say about the discrediting of revelation and the emergence of a univocal metaphysics that saw God as one being among other beings. Gregory agrees that a univocal metaphysics already characterised late medieval concepts of God but claims it was given a big boost by the Reformation. Eucharistic theology was unable to make sense of the real presence when God was seen as merely one actor among many others. Gregory is able to draw on the work of other scholars such as John Milbank, Michael Buckley, and Alasdair MacIntyre, but he is not afraid to disagree with them at certain points. As well as the magisterial Reformation, he gives attention to the radical reformation as well. But the Reformation is only a starting point as Gregory continues wth the story down to the present, paying attention to such figures as Adam Smith, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche and Descartes. This is a formidable work of intellectual and religious history that is likely to provoke considerable debate. While I find the overall theme persuasive, questions remain. Given that Gregory admits that seeds of new thinking were present in the late Middle Ages one wonders if the Reformation can be ascribed mainly to corruption in the church. Didn’t a philosophy like nominalism also play a major role? Gregory writes as if there were no divisions or basic doctrinal divisions in the medieval church but what of Eastern Orthodoxy or the debate with Islam, seen by some medieval theologians as a Christian heresy? Paul Richardson
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April 15, 2012
By Paul Mileham hat’s the difference between ‘O’ and ‘Oh’? Hymn writers use both lavishly, but often without distinction, it seems to me – and not only in more modern songs. OK, no one need go to the stake over this; and you may ask why I, as a lay theologian*, spend time over such trivia. I’ll come clean. It’s because I’m a pedant. End of story. The word ‘O’ (for it is an English word) does not exist in everyday Latin. In ancient Rome, when addressing another person, one would use the vocative case of the proper noun. A prayer in Latin might begin ‘Domine…’ which translates to ‘O Lord…’ On a more secular level, Shelley’s ‘Ode to the West Wind’ begins “O wild west wind…”; and Keats’ ‘Ode to Psyche’ opens with “O Goddess!” So ‘O’ is an intrinsic part of addressing a person or deity (or object, poetically at least). ‘Oh’, on the other hand, is an expression of an emotion such as sorrow, annoyance, surprise or delight. ‘Oh’ is often followed by another word such as ‘bother’ – and yes, I believe there are stronger alternatives but I wouldn’t know about them. ‘Oh’ seems to have emerged in this meaning purely to
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O Dear!
distinguish it from ‘O’ in the vocative sense. And here I come against an anomaly. The Chambers Dictionary lumps them together as if they were the same! O dear. Or indeed, more correctly, oh dear. Chambers seems to believe that ‘Oh’ becomes ‘O’ in lyric poetry. Now that’s plain confusing. You see, for me the title of this article is not an expression of sorrow, but rather a way for a lover to address his or her beloved. The vocative case, remember? Let’s look at some examples among songs, which is where I started. ‘O Lord
my God, when I in awesome wonder’ is a correct use. ‘Oh, oh, oh, how good is the Lord’ (not one of my favourites, but it makes the point) is also correct. But ‘O what a gift’ (see Mission Praise 526) should surely be ‘Oh what a gift!’? And similarly, older hymns such as ‘O the bitter shame and sorrow’ and ‘O praise ye the Lord’ surely need amendment? Of course, you could argue that this is the use of the poetic ‘Oh’, spelled ‘O’. But I contend that simply causes confusion. There’s poetry, and then there are songs.
Janey Lee Grace Live Healthy! Live Happy!
Work that Body eep fit to beat the blues’ the elderly were advised last week, hopefully whatever your age after the excesses of Easter (is it just me who can’t stop at one hot cross bun?) you’ll be off to the gym, the swimming pool or at least taking a brisk walk. The recent study on the effects of exercise on mental health is interesting: we know that exercise releases ‘feel good’ hormones and yet for many it’s just too … well, exhausting. Researchers from the University of Western Australia analysed data from over 100,000 men and women aged over 65 and found that those who experienced ‘physical limitation’ and did not exercise, reported far more psychological problems. Of course we know we should remain active, not just for our psychological health but also for mobility and energy levels. Our physical health is affected too, in fact studies show that regular exercise could prevent 14 per cent of
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male deaths and 20 per cent of female deaths from cancer in the UK alone. Christopher Reeve once said on television addressing the growing number of obese viewers in the States: “The one thing that you can all do is movement.
Let’s not allow lyricists to get too far above themselves. OMG is an interesting one. Here I think the O stands for – well, actually IS - ‘O’. But wait – if it means ‘Oh my goodness’ then it’s an exclamation, but if ‘O my God’ then it might conceivably stand as a prayer. Hmmm. This is going to be more complicated than I thought. One way to distinguish which to use when is to mentally add an exclamation mark after the ‘O’ or ‘Oh’ to see if it still makes sense. In the case of the vocative ‘O’ this will separate the O from whatever or whoever is being addressed, and will thus make a nonsense of it; but in the interjectory sense it will still read well. Try it! In conclusion, I maintain that there are two distinct words here. It’s clear that the first is the word ‘O’ used as vocative before the person or thing being addressed; and the second is ‘Oh’ used as an expression of some emotion or other. It’s only those d**d poets of old who have blurred the boundary by using the first when they really meant the second. Oh dear, oh dear. Paul Mileham is a Church of England Reader (*Readers are also know as ‘Lay Theologians’) St Mark’s Church, Leamington Spa
Those of you that have the gift of movement that don’t use it insult those of us who have lost that ability, it’s the one thing I’d love to do more than anything on earth. I’d gladly be 500lb overweight: give me three years and I’d lose it because I’d move my body every day.” Despite formally being rather lazy and finding regular excuses not to exercise, I do now move my body every day because I’m able to, as you age you eventually realise that you’re able to only because you’ve moved your body every day! You wouldn’t really expect an old car to start if you left it stationary for years, similarly your starter motor needs regular revving up –and, no, moving three paces to grab the TV remote control won’t cut it! The key is finding something you enjoy. I’m not a fan of gyms, I find them unhealthy – if that sounds daft just think of the sweaty aerobics studios that often have those awful automatic air freshening devices fitted. They release a potentially toxic artificial fragrance into a room full of people breathing deeply! The other problem is once you’ve exercised you may try and grab a snack at the gym café, most stock a range of calorie laden sugary snacks! It’s whatever works for you though, running, jogging, rowing, swimming, hula hooping (yes there are classes) or just brisk walking. Dancing is fantastic too and for me I’ve finally found my ideal form of exercise. Nia is a blend of movement forms done barefoot to very inspirational funky music, suitable for men, women and all levels and abilities. I loved it so much I trained to be a teacher! I’m hosting a one-day workshop with Nia, talks, EFT (emotional freedom technique) and a relaxing sound Gong bath in Herts on Sat 28 April – still a few places left – see events at www.janeyleegrace.com