Blogging can often seem like a one way “broadcast”. The blogger writes up what interests him or her, posts it, and waits to see what happens. There are many posts, essays, books and articles out there advising bloggers on how to cultivate more engagement with their audience. I have even written a few posts encouraging other Indie bloggers. Indeed I have on more than one occasion argued that we need to be engaging with one another more in the OC/IC community than we currently do (or seem to do). There is however, a notable entropy in blog audiences. A quick survey of the overwhelming number of crackpot and thoughtless comments on the more lively blog comment feeds is enough to encourage any blogger to turn commenting off completely, and thank God for some peace and quiet.

Every morning I trawl through my various feeds and sources to look for interesting items that might be relevant to Indie life, or a snippet of an essay that inspires me to write a post. I enjoy this, don’t get me wrong, but this is still a one sided process. I am choosing things that interest me. There is therefore a bit of a bias, and perhaps because of it I’m not writing posts that could really be interesting not only for me as a writer, but also for you as the audience. I need to find a way to break through the one sided-ness of blogging, to make this less of a broadcast of my ideas and reflections, and more of a conversation with readers, whoever you might be. The basic idea then is for readers – yes, you – to “suggest a post”. I don’t care if you are a regular lurker who silently enjoys poking around the site, or someone who is merely passing by and wants to “see what’s under this rock”, I am inviting you to ask a question or suggest a topic for a post. Who knows, it could be your suggested topic that really gets a conversation going, and I believe that that would be a good thing.

Because successful blogs have a niche that they stick to, and because there are plenty of crackpots out there who just like being cyber-wankers (can I use that term in polite company?) this little project needs some structure, a few parameters to maintain focus and cultivate conversation. So when you are formulating your suggested post, or question please do so with the following in the forefront of your thinking:

• Keep it relevant: your suggested post or question will only see the light of day if it is relevant to Christian theology or practice, and it can be addressed or explored from an OC/IC ISM perspective.
• The importance of being Pith: If I need twenty minutes to figure out that there might be a question or suggested topic tangled amongst the morass of words, then it is unlikely that your suggested post will come into being. Keep your suggestions to three (3) sentences or less. This should be fun, engaging, and not painful for everyone concerned.
• Rudeness will be rewarded: It goes without saying that all thoughtless, rude and spurious suggested posts will be deleted, and you will be banned from commenting in future. Yeah, its harsh, but the goal is thoughtful conversation and not eating our young, or complaining about other communities.

If your suggested post is selected I will drop you a note and let you know when to expect it. This by way of pointing out that no anonymous comments or suggestions are accepted. Occasionally a suggested topic might be best answered by someone else – or by more than one person. When that happens I will reach out to that person and ask them to contribute a guest post (no guarantee that they will agree to it, but I will ask all the same). Generally I try to keep my posts short – between 300 and 500 words. As this post is already pushing 1000 words you can tell that the “ideal” is not always practical. If the answer to your suggested post is substantial I will do what I can to break it up into easy to read chunks. While the long-read movement in social media is gaining ground, I appreciate that many people are overloaded with posts, articles, and videos and aim to make posts here as easy and informative to the reader as possible (barring of course the limitations of my own skill, or lack there of, in writing).

One of the stated aims of this blog is to get the audience talking, and to encourage Indie folk to think and create outside the usual limited set of topics. I don’t want this to be a mere broadcast of my ideas and interests. Your suggested topic or question might be the spark that starts a very productive exploration of an idea or issue Indie folk generally don’t see or touch upon. If this trial run works then I will create a permanent page where you can suggest a post at any time. For the moment – at least once every two weeks I’ll “re-post” this post or reference it. While I am hopeful, I doubt that I shall be inundated with suggested posts. I will be happy to get one a month, happier if it is more, and ecstatic if it means that the actual posts results in a real conversation. Now its up to you, what would you like to read in a post here?

We live in a world of noise. We are surrounded by noise created, projected by others. We make and project our own noise. Years ago, when the Walkman was the iPod of the moment, I had an anthropology professor who talked about wanting to do a study on the effect of the Walkman. He wondered out loud if the increasingly pervasive presence of earphones would have an effect on how people related to one another. Our Christian tradition is all about relating – relating to God, and relating to one another as icons of God. We are surrounded by noise, and we envelop ourselves with noise of our own choosing. What does it say about our individual willingness to participate in communion with one another?

Music, and by this I mean generally other peoples’ music, has become an invasive wall of noise here in the UK. It falls into two categories. The first is public music, the second is pseudo-private music. It is rare to go into a shop, cafe or restaurant and not be bombarded with loud music. This is public music is intended to suggest a mood, or an atmosphere in the establishment. When done well it really does accomplish the task, and can be mildly enjoyable. Often it is not done well, and simply becomes another layer of unpleasant noise. Pseudo-private music is the noise generated by individuals wearing (or not wearing) ear phones. Their music is meant to be private, but often is blasting at a level that allows everyone in the same train carriage to sing along. And it is this phenomenon that attracts my attention. Pseudo-private music is a statement by the user to everyone else. “I’m in my own world,” it says, “stay away, you do not exist here!”

When Moses met God on Sinai he passed through tremor, cloud, and smoke, and spoke to God as “one man speaks to another”. Elijah stood at the entrance of a cave and waited to experience the true presence of God. Wind, crushing rocks, earthquake, fire, none of these elemental phenomena was God. But when he heard the quiet whisper, Elijah knew he was in the real presence of God. Both of these are manifestations of God – that is, they are “theophanies”. In each an individual penetrated the barriers between God and man, in order to relate to God “as one man speaks to another”. The feast of Theophany is different. It is a celebration not just of the manifestation of the Trinity, but also of the elimination of barriers between God and Man. Not just for particular individuals, but for all baptised people.

The noise we make, and surround ourselves with; the noise we create to get attention, or even to deflect attention away from ourselves is a cloak, a barrier. The noise is not me, it is not who I am. What constitutes “me” is hidden underneath the layers of noise. Just as what constitutes you is hidden, underneath your layers of noise. Or more often – behind the ear phones. As practising Christians however, we are challenged by the example of God – to do away with the barriers, to be prepared to relate with openness to “the other” who, like us, is an icon of the Incarnate Logos. If we are to speak of communion with one another, and with God, then we must do so understanding that it means dropping our cloak of safety, allowing others to see the real person while we actively penetrate their barriers and speak to them as one man speaks to another: as friends of God.

Throughout Christian history, error is viewed with suspicion because it represents “novelty” and “innovation” challenging the unalterable “Tradition” and challenging revealed truth.
Thus, error – and the “obstinate” maintenance of error – is treated as somehow being “impure” or “unfaithful” to Christian teaching and life.
Obviously this makes the challenge of understanding and getting value out of “error” all the more difficult. If theological error is presented as impurity, and a lack of fidelity to Christian teaching and praxis, one “naturally” wants to avoid it.
This raises some serious questions about the arbiter of what is and is not “error” or to put it in its more common context – what is and is not “pure” and “faithful”.
In the Indie community we have a particular challenge in relation to identifying and gaining from the experience of theological error. Unlike other traditions we do not have a widely accepted body of experts, “authorities” if you will which, among other things, debates points of “error” and presents solutions.
In most communities, bishops are de facto theological authorities, even though many are ill-prepared for the task. Sadly, few Indie bishops are chosen for their theological acumen and teaching ability. I should also point out that while some, like myself have long argued for a greater reliance on lay participation in this much needed conversation, for a number of reasons it does not seem to be changing anytime soon.
Thus, in the absence of a broader conversation within the movement, and an appreciation for scholarship and teaching within individual communities, the gold standard for theological soundness and authentic “catholic” identity is ritual.
Why ritual?
Because ritual, liturgy, is the tangible expression of Christian teaching and praxis that most people know, and instinctively understand. Altering the ritual, so the unconscious argument goes, must necessarily mean a shift in teaching and practice. Such a shift can be seen as threatening to the core ideas and emotions associated with “Christianity”, “The Church”, and “Tradition”. In essence, altering ritual, alters the effect, which invalidates the sacramental nature of the action, and/or seriously brings into question the core identity of the community of believers. Does this change invalidate our “christianity”? “Innovations” and “novelties” then are errors that must be challenged.
To be sure it is possible to make changes to ritual without causing catastrophic distress within a community – but it must be handled very carefully, even in the most optimal settings.
It is also true that a ritual change is not necessarily reflective of a theological shift – but might merely be a pragmatic, or practical decision to ensure the dignity, and effectiveness of the rite, in for example a given setting or situation.
It is the case that not only in the Indie community but in the Anglican, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic communities altering the rites of the church is viewed as a threat to the members’ fidelity to Christian teaching, and to the believers’ core identity as Christians.
In an Indie setting where many consciously or unconsciously are already insecure in their sense of fidelity or authenticity changes in familiar rituals can (have done, and still do) result in the complete breakdown of the community.

I recently read an article in the Guardian by Alok Jha which made a very good point regarding “error”. Mistakes, he says, happen “all day, every day”. I don’t think anyone can argue with this, it is “fact”. I’ve made a handful of mistakes already this morning and it is not even lunch time!
The question however, is what do you take away from the mistake – the error. I  have been sitting with this for nearly two weeks now and it has opened a small proverbial Pandora’s Box. Why?
Jha correctly observes that outside science, where routing out error and changing our understanding or interpretation because of finding that error, mistakes are a challenge to authority, to the established order of things. There is no better place to see this fact in action than in Christianity. Indeed – it is due to a set of serious challenges to “the order of things” that brought about the Old/Independent Catholic movement.
This leads to a set of interesting questions about theological error in our OC/IC context. Have we asked the right questions about theological error; how do we “understand” it? What do we do when we encounter real or perceived “error”? How does it effect our practice of theology? These and a dozen other questions have been spawning and dividing in my notes over the past two weeks.
The big one, the proverbial elephant in the room if you will, is: Does a recognition of the value of theological error, necessarily require that we re-think our unconscious acceptance of the infallible nature of “The Church”? This is an idea that has been a keystone of “catholic” identity (east and west) since the second century. Has this teaching, and our interpretations of it, distorted our understanding of what it means to “be church”?
I am thinking that over the next few weeks I’ll offer a few posts to play with the idea and see where it goes. In the meantime I invite you to think about the effect of error, the value of error in our OC/IC ISM context, and toss me a bone or two in the comments.

What a curious article over at Big Think! The gist of it is that there is a psychological component to physical cleanliness.

The examples are rather curious. Including one where as part of a study participants were asked to recall a personal immoral experience; as part of the session some were offered a cleansing wipe and the reason that it was part of the protocol for using the public computer, others were given nothing. Those that were given nothing volunteered to do yet more experiments/sessions; while those offered the wipe generally did not. If I’m “getting” the message right – the suggestion here is that those who recieved the wipes felt somehow “absolved” or “cleansed” from the immoral experience they were asked to recall.

Hmm . . .

When I come home after being out for the day the first thing I want to do is shower; or at least wash my hands. Why? Well for one thing it feels good. Ok, fine but lets set that “obvious” reason aside for the moment – why have I developed this . . . . “custom”? Not wanting to put too much meaning into it I find that it does shift my thinking – from “outside” things to “inside” or “home” things. I feel much more relaxed and ready to do new things at home once I’ve come in, had a shower and changed clothes. Thus, the shower or hand washing makes an almost unconscious break or dividing line between the two activities . . . Oh and it feels good!

So what does all this have to do with theology?

Well for starters reading the article made me start to think about baptism – and our perceptions about the nature and value of baptism. Obviously the studies point to ideas about washing and our sense of self, as well as our sense of – as they put it – morality and immorality.

That physical cleanliness (or filthiness) is closely linked to our perceptions of the moral, and the immoral. Thus when participants are shown an image of a dirty toilet – researchers found that they judged others more harshly than those who saw a clean room. This has me thinking about how we perceive and judge others simply by virtue of their physical appearance, or the appearance of their personal space. How this seemingly unconscious perception has a negative impact on how we relate to others.

I think therein lies the key – it is “unconscious” so being more conscious or aware of its negative impace on our thinking and perceptions might enable us to be more objective in our assessments?

Today is the last day of the liturgical New Year.

Throughout the year we celebrate and commemorate various holy-men and holy-women who through their example – whether it is through their teaching, or their praxis – encourage us in our own understanding of, and practice of the Christian sacramental tradition.

Heresy brings another level of understanding to our living the faith. Yes it is true that some of the results of dealing with heresy seem obtuse and esoteric but the fact is our understanding of “being” human, “being” Christian would not be what it is without the tough questions, and sometimes wondurfully wierd teachings of the early heretics.

Remember that heresy is not “anti-Christian” rather it is a result of thoughtful people struggling with one or more questions related to their attempt at living faithfully. That is not to say that we should embrace heretical teaching – rather it is to say that we ought to respect the fact that such teachings (and their teachers) were doing the same thing we are – striving to understand and be faithful to the Gospel.

Christianity is what it is in part because of our historical experience of heresy; for this reason, on this the last day of the year, we commemorate rogues and rakes of Christian history. Not because we want to emulate their example, but because their experiments, questions, and the answers they developed, contributed to the body of tradition, our heritage we as modern believers refer to as our anchor and starting point for all theology and praxis.

I recently bought a Kindle. Yes by and large it was peer pressure – from one particular peer – but peer pressure all the same.

There was also a practical reason for my purchase. I like to read what I call “fluffy” books before going to bed – after a day of reading nothing but history and theology one needs a bit of “light” reading – very light reading as it happens, but light reading all the same so I don’t go to bed pondering theology texts (I get no sleep this way). Fluffy books serve a purpose, they are enjoyable, but they also take up space – lots of space (I have three plastic boxes of favoured fluffy books – many read multiple times – sitting in our loft, not to mention the stacks of them on the various book shelves and drawers around the house). Once I saw that I could get the genre and authors of fluffy books I like on the kindle I realised that this would solve a “real” problem – the need for space – in our house, and decided it was time to give this thing a go.

I have since learned that there is a wealth of good scholarly books also available – some, and this point is rather exciting to me, are chokingly expensive in hard/paperback but when available in kindle are half or a third of the cost making them more attractive. Others of the same vein, are now it seems only available in Kindle format – and again far more affordable than they were when orgininally published.

I think here the case is that these are niche books with a very small publishing run, and probably an even smaller audience (usually institutional libraries and specialists) so publishers like OUP know that the published price while too much for the general interest reader, is realistic for the “niche”. Now with the advent of Kindle and other e-readers, these books can be liberated from the limitations of a formal “print run” and become cheaper and easier for a larger (but still very much) niche.

There is, however, a catch. How do you easily and efficiently use a Kindle for research?

I’ve played with this for a few days now and have devised a “method” – and I would like to know what methods others have found that work (if only to improve my own).

Kindle has (recently?) added the capability of seeing and citing the page number of the printed copy. Apparantly this was a major issue for earlier versions. This is great – as long as the book you are reading was prepared for Kindle after this update in the program. I have learned that some of the Patristics books I’m now enjoying appear not to have this integrated feature “yet” (hint, hint, Amazon – please fix this!).

While this is inconvenient the fact is that most of the books I’ve purchased thus far do have the page numbering feature which means that making a note in Kindle automatically gives the page number with the citation.

Now the fun bit. . .

I’m a keen user of Zotero where I’ve been storing articles, books, and things to look up for my next trip to the British Library. Zotero also is great for taking notes – making them searchable, and interchangeable with various projects all in one place. Another great space saving feature as I’ve got notebooks scattered all over the house from various projects dating back over ten years – notes which because they are not immediately searchable are ostensibly “lost to posterity” unless I remember some fragment of a note and go hunting for it.

Kindle saves your notes and jottings in a text file, which means that when you plug your reader into your computer you have instant access to the notes you took. Double click and it opens in TextEdit (I use Mac, sorry PC users I have no idea what it is in your realm).

Now I open my Zotero panel, if I’ve not already got a file set up for the book in question, I find it on the British Library site (I use the BL because they’re saavy and have the website Zotero ready), click the zotero button, hey presto, I’ve got the detailed bibliography for the book. I can now open an existing note, or create a new one, and drag and drop the relevant note from the Kindle into my Zotero file and its ready to use for my research project. Simples!

“Don’t you think that Jesus is the solution to the problems in the Middle East – that it is only through him that peace will come to the region?”

This is a question posed to me by a door-to-door evangelist a few years ago. It is a question that irritated me at the time, and has remained with me ever since. It is a question, which to my mind, cuts to the very heart of our theology of the incarnation, our role in it, and how we have somehow, over time, surrendered that role.

We Christians describe the person of Christ as “God and Man”, “God with us”. The Patristic writers describe the process of the incarnation as one that required the cooperation both of God and of Man. At the very core of our understanding of the nature and mechanics of the incarnation is the idea that we humans had a function and a responsibility in the process of redemption, and the outcome of salvation. But somewhere along the way – I’m not sure where – we surrendered our active role in this very important process and became passive observers, fatalists. If God wills it, it will happen.

There is another problem with this all too pervasive model – Christianity focuses on the relationship between God and man, and in the context of our sacramental Christian tradition, the relationships shared between people. So if we have surrendered our role and function – our responsibility – in the ongoing process of realising the fullness of salvation, then this essential relationship is broken. That should be a very uncomfortable realisation for all of us.

A consequence of the broken relationship is that the “conversation” is over and all that is left is to obey, or to become a meek, hopeful supplicant. Since many who have joined or converted to the Independent Catholic life, did so in part because they rebelled against “un-thinking Christianity”. That is to be “told” to accept and obey the teachings and decisions from the hierarchy without question – wondering if there might not be a better way to conceptualise, even realise the significance of the idea within the life of the community.

In this broken model there are no active believers, no “Christians” there are only followers, numbers, bums on seats passively absorbing the dictums of an “elect” few. Here, it is easy to see how our broken relationship with God has seeped into our relationships with our “community” and its constituents. With this model – all catholicity is lost because only the hierarchy is in a position to actually do anything. The fullness of the “body of Christ” is not realised – the talents and effort of each constituent member goes uncultivated, uninvited.

The grace of baptism is the gift of empowerment to be participants in the conversation, to initiate creative theology and praxis, to relate both to God (who through the incarnation underwent the most extraordinary expression of his desire to be in relation with us) and one another. In our OC/IC context we are blessed with small communities, and if you’re lucky a decentralised hierarchy where the bishop is a teacher, a guide, a fellow sojourner, one who points the way and serves as a point of reference and unity rather than a “monarch” or “magestrate”. This ecclesiology allows for the community to develop a voice in conversation, and to become a voice in the greater conversation with God. When everyone in the community can sit down at table, share a meal, and explore an issue – be creatively engaged with our theology and come out at the other end with a renewed sense of praxis – then we are active Christians faithful to our underlying belief in the incarnation.

My response to the poor evangelist standing at my door was to point out that no, we humans are responsible for the suffering in the Middle East because we have surrendered our baptismal role in working together, and with God to bring about a fair and just resolution. I’m afraid they went away surprised that someone would talk with them – and  perhaps regretting it.

Free will is a core belief in Christianity – that is of course unless you are of the Augustinian bent. Indeed fatalism (or to use a more appropriate contemporary term – determinism) is considered sinful by late antique Christian writers.

Recent explorations in to the nature of free will have shown that when you undermine a subjects belief in free will, he or she will be meaner and less considerate to others. This raises all manner of questions namely why? The evidence thus far appears to point to issues surrounding a sense of self – if the situation is presented in a mechanistic manner then the expectation is that the subject will indeed be “meaner”. If on the other hand the given situation includes a more human even humane description of cause and effect – the subject re-asserts their sense of free will.

What does this have to do with theology?

I’ve long been fascinated by the whole idea of free will, namely because much of the western Christian tradition is heavily influenced by Augustine’s idea of pre-destination, whereas it does not feature in eastern Christian thought (other than to say that fatalism is sinful).

Pre-destination, as you might expect, asserts that your salvation has been pre-determined, and nothing you can do will change this outcome. Essentially it takes all responsiblity for you, your actions, and your belief or non-belief out of your hands.

My biggest problem with pre-destination – and I make no claim to being original here – is that it undermines the entire reason and purpose for the incarnation and the resurrection. We believe that the incarnation is about God and man together, working together for the renewal of creation. Yes, we are dependent upon God, and must constantly remind ourselves of this fact. But the grace of our having been created in the divine image, infused with the will and reason of the Logos means that our thoughts, our actions, are not in any way pre-determined, or mechanistic. We enjoy free will so that we might better enjoy and appreciate the journey towards the fullness of being in communion with God. As with with the experiments described in the New Scientist article that found undermining free will had a negative effect on how subjects saw themselves in relation to others; Augustine’s pre-destination undermines this essential Christian journey, as well as the relationships that have shaped it.

The other day I saw a retweet of a tweet on twitter that urged people not to donate to Christian charities – for the relief effort in Japan needs “blankets and food, not boxes of bibles & Fundamentalist propaganda”. A little digging revealed that the author was a self-professed Atheist fundamentalist.

I had to laugh. First because one form of fundamentalism is as equally un-helpful – indeed wrong – as the other. Epiphanius taught us this back in the late fourth century. When you attack one extreme ideology from the standpoint of another – you’ve lost the argument. Second because Atheists have an image problem – a number of recent surveys and experiments have suggested that Atheists are generally less charitable than people of faith. But these two tangents, while interesting, are not the point of my post.

Having worked in a number of charities I tend to make my donations based on one qualification only: they get the job done. Do they feed the hungry, give shelter to the homeless, provide medicine and surgical care for those who could not possibly afford it or have access to it otherwise, do they bring relief to the battered, the raped, and the lonely? If they have a proven track record of getting the job done they’ll get my money, my support, and where possible even my time and what little talent I might have to offer.

I avoid giving to any charity that clearly has an ideology not grounded in true relief – that is, if their relief efforts are secondary to their prosletysing, or some other agenda. As a self-professed Christian I find I am very uncomfortable with mixing any form of evangelism with bringing relief to people in need.

A crisis such as we’ve witnessed this week in Japan, and last year in Haiti, is a human crisis, it is not a Christian crisis, or an Atheist crisis, or a Muslim crisis – it is simply a human crisis and it demands a human response. Who cares who is responding so long as it is getting the job done. We, all of us, ought to respond to this for no other reason than, that other person is suffering and needs my help.

Obviously my own reference point is Christian theology – my starting point is grounded in a particular intellectual framework. So I see those who are suffering as icons of the living God, and remember Jesus’ teaching: “I say to you whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.” My faith gives me the language and imagery to understand “human-ness”. My charity is an act of devotion.

There is an important element to devotion that is easily forgotten – “When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do . . . to win praise of others. I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing. . .” The problem with fundamentalism, whether it is Christian fundamentalism, or Atheist fundamentalism is that it significantly narrows your range of options. The fundamentalist says: “I will only help if you accept (or listen to the points of) my ideology”. Or, “I will only donate if you represent my issues”.

The fundamentalist is part of the problem. A fundamentalist is not responding to the crisis because it is a human crisis but because it is an opportunity to be seen in the marketplace, and given the seat of honour by others. “Look how he gave to the ‘right’ charity.” “See how he is promoting our agenda.” The result of course, and again this is from my reference point of Christian faith and devotion, is that the “offering” of devotion comes with strings attached, and is therefore devalued – it is not free, it is not a gift, it is ostensibly an attempt at social bribery.

In my naïveté I’d like to see any organisation that participates in the relief effort in Japan (or anywhere for that matter) have no banners, no logos, no uniforms – nothing that identifies the organisation and its point of reference other than declaring: “food, blankets, medicine, shelter, available here”. Ideologies, because they can (and often do) cloud our judgement and consequently affect our actions, get in the way of getting the job done.