Bože!

There has been a mini-media storm here in the UK cultivated by a number of Christian figures and organisations claiming that “we” [Christians] are persecuted in Britain. Um . . . er. . . . yeah. . . .not so much, no. When I consider that Chinese Christians are imprisoned, Indian Christians are murdered, and Iraqi preists have been murdered, and Pakistani Christians imprisoned, and even executed I cannot take seriously the shrill complaints of some of my co-religionists that they are “persecuted” in a relatively liberal western industrialised state.

Over the past decade I’ve observed, both in the US and in the UK, how some Christian groups employ the term “persecution” as a cipher for “they don’t like us”. This raises some other interesting observations and questions about how Christianity is lived in today’s world of competing religious ideologies and “Christianities”.

It does seem that this shrill complaint about Christian persecution is simply one way of drawing attention to one’s particular Christianity, an attempt at scrambling to the top of the pile. There are however, negative consequences to this method, including an ever-increasing marginalisation of the authentic “voice” of Christianity – the voice of substance and praxis, rather than of perceived slights and hysterical screeching. A brief scan of recent media reports on the perceived slights decried as “persecution” demonstrates that no one is actually listening, rather they are gawking at the silly freaks on the street corner moaning about how nobody likes them.

The fact is – we ought to be looking to those in the faith, regardless of their tradition, who are in fact true confessors, and yes, even modern martyrs, who under the strain of true persecution continue to live the faith, and confess their conviction that the teachings of Christ are transformative.

It seems the TV channels are competing to pack the airwaves with religion lately. Perhaps its related to the upwelling of militant atheism and cooky creationists; maybe its something else. But over the past few weeks Rev. Pete Owen Jones’ series on various faith traditions and their rituals has been on BBC. You can watch some of the episodes and view other related material by clicking here. I confess I’m a fan of Rev. Pete – he’s got a personal style, and openness that is refreshing, engaging and sometimes a bit cooky too. Sadly I’ve not seen all of the episodes – I’m wating for them to show up in re-runs.

Over the past few weeks Channel 4 has offered a series they call “Christianity A History” where different personalities from different perspectives explore a particular element of Christian history.

The series began with Howard Jacobson’s look at “Jesus the Jew”. Michael Portillo’s installment examines the interplay between the church and the Roman empire. Robert Beckford looks at the conversion of Britain to Christianity. Rageh Omar asks if an understanding of the history of the Crusades offers insights into current Christian-Muslim relations. Anne Widdecomb’s look at the Reformation highlights both the positive and the negative results of this tumultuous period in Western Christianity. Kwame Kwei-Armahe bears witness to the effects of other cultures on Christianity – especially in light of today’s growing diversification of “Christianities” within former colonial outposts. Last night’s installment was Collin Blakemore’s look at the emergence of the battle between science and religion. Next week, the final part in the series, is Cherie Blair’s look at the future of Christianity.

With the exception of Rageh Omar’s installment we’ve watched them all. Each one has been worth viewing; even Colin Blakemore’s almost childish rant against religion. You can view all the episodes online for the next few weeks by clicking here. Be sure to post your thoughts on those that you’ve viewed.

I’ve stumbled across two articles this week related to Ekklesia 2.0 (a long running topic here) which are worth a read – and I hope, some discussion. The first is from Christian Today reporting on a recent meeting on “Web Church” such as St. Pixels a project of the Methodist Church in Britain, and iChurch a project of the Anglican diocese of Oxford, that actively bring people together for prayer, fellowship, discussion and study online. Meeting participants discussed familiar challenges such as difficult participants, time commitments, and community cohesiveness. They also explored issues of effectiveness of the project (which we’ve talked about here to some extent). The second article comes from Newsweek and picks up an important thread that we’ve talked about here, and that participants of the Web Church meeting raised, that is, about the “embodiment” of church – thus, touching on ideas of sacramentality.

Two years ago our community experimented with a bi-weekly evening prayer via SKYPE. It was a great experience that brought members together scattered across two continents for prayer and fellowship. Our project also empowered individual members to explore new ways of contributing to the life of the wider community by taking on roles of organising the gathering and/or the discussion afterward. Other OC/IC communities such as the ICCC have recently embarked on similar projects.

It is fair to say that the online assembly, when done well, is sacrament. I do think that there will always be an important need for a live embodied presence of the assembly. Baptism, eucharist, ordination, marriage, adelphopoeisis, these are the core rites of the church, and always serve as a reminder of the intimate, interpersonal connection we share as the “body” of Christ in the World. It seems to me that they cannot be effectively, or validly imparted on line.

Web Church does raise some interesting questions about the awareness of being sacramental, about being community, and about the incarnality of being the ekklesia. What do you think about Web Church? Is it merely an outreach tool? Can it become (as it is for some already) an exclusive experience of “being church”?

We are “signatories” to the Clergy Letter Project – an effort started by Michael Zimmerman of Butler University to give voice to believers (not just Christians) who think that the war over evolution and faith is misguided to say the least. I should add that Michael would like to see more OC/IC representatives on the letter. You can find out more about it, and how you can participate at the above link.

This year is the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his Origin of Species, and has been marked by congregations of various denominations as Evolution Weekend for a number of years now.

As part of our participation – and our effort to create resources for OC/IC communities interested in this topic we’ve collected a few useful links that might help your community or mission to explore/discuss “science and religion”.

From NPR

From Religion & Ethics News Weekly

From Speaking of Faith

From Pew Forum

From the Washington Post

There has been a small flood of articles on “conversion” in today’s religious news round-up. The two that caught my eye are a BBC report (here) on the Church of England’s consideration of a motion re-emphasising its explicit aim of converting people to Christianity; and Andrew Brown’s post (here on Guardian CIFBelief) reflecting on “evangelisation” in relation to the CofE motion. In his post Brown makes a rather thought-provoking observation:

In practice, though, conversion is hardly ever about intellectual conviction, whether it is to or away from Christianity, though it does seem to be more often intellectual when it is to atheism. But it is overwhelmingly about joining a tribe or a people and about shifting affections and allegiances rather than ideas. Conversion to Christianity or to Islam results when people find a tribe or a family they want to belong to; and it is worth noticing that the kinds of religions that concentrate most on conversion also simplify their doctrines as much as possible.

I love this quote, from an Imam interviewed for the BBC piece: “Any religion that believes it’s going to bring tangible benefits – peace, satisfaction and understanding in this life and the next – would like to share that.” Yes absolutely.

What I find curious though is that in our OC/IC context you don’t often see a discussion of outreach outside of the internal conversation of the local community – why? Could it be that all pervasive sense of isolation many congregations and projects feel? Maybe it is grounded in the thick layers of mistrust that have accumulated within the movement over the past few decades? Perhaps it is because so many of our “members” are ashamed or embarrassed about their links to the movement – “let’s just keep this quiet, amongst ourselves shall we”?

Let me throw open the door here and ask – what does your local community do to introduce people to the idea of OC/IC community? What challenges have you encountered? What did you do to overcome them (or better – which ones would you like some ideas on)?

When I first encountered Twitter over a year ago, I frankly thought it was a naff invasion of privacy and walked away. I’ve since done some reading, observing, and re-thinking and . . . well. . . I’m “tentatively” changing my mind. Indeed I figured that it would be useful to give Twitter a fair shake (much as I’m doing with Facebook).

Much of the reading I’ve done that links Twitter to ministry hails Twitter as a great tool – emphasising how it can point to relevant content, re-iterate current topics, and spark discussion and reflection. In relation to OC/IC use, it is easy to see these points working well – even in our smallest communities.

Twitters ability to quickly spark discussion, opening new avenues of exploring a topic, serves two useful functions in our context. Firstly it gives fodder for developing a post on the community site/blog. I’ve already had some success with this. Secondly Twittering on new or evolving points of exploration invites curious strangers into the conversation – and therefore becomes a medium of introducing people to the OC/IC world. Assuming they don’t then encounter some of our nuttier “co-religionists” some of these strangers might in time become friends and members of the living/embodied community.

Twitter is also useful for making flash announcements – for spontaneous gatherings (lunch, exhibit, discussion at coffee house that’s just so interesting people might want to stop by and join in). I’ve not tried this route yet – but would really like to hear from people who have.

Theology is the dialogue between the tradition, and an individual’s experience of the faith.

This is a slightly altered summary of Berger, Questions of Faith. It is nothing new – but gave me a moments thought yesterday. Those following on Twitter/Facebook will know about this.

Today – however, I was struck by the idea of what happens when that dialogue is broken, or misaligned? It is very easy to become caught up in the entropy of the status quo where theology is the technical conversation, the “science” of God, the exclusive domain of “technicians” like me. One need only read through a random selection of contemporary theological books and essays to see how incomprehensible “theology” might be to the outsider – that is the inquisitive Christian!

It is sometimes observed that there is a divide, a chasm between, what is often called the religion of the elite, and popular religion. It seems to me that this is what happens when the dialogue ceases to be an activity of the community and becomes an exclusive preserve of a few.

Nestorius attempted to re-align the technicalities of theology with the devotional fervor for Mary he observed in fifth century Constantinople. He failed in part because the gap was too substantive, and he tried to impose a solution rather than participate in the dialogue. Eighteenth and Nineteenth century Roman Catholicism made this chasm a point of doctrine, proscribing free enquiry, and limiting the access of the laity to education and scholarship. A number of individuals such as Loisy and Dollinger opposed this calcification of the results of such a misalignment; giving rise to what we now celebrate as our shared OC/IC heritage.

We owe it to ourselves to become more aware of that dialogue, to participate in it, and to contribute to bringing it back into the heart of the community of believers – giving voice to our faith.

Last week Lyngine commented: “I’m leaning towards the idea that it may hinge on teaching/helping individual clergy and laity to cultivate a strong, grounded spiritual life and how to sustain that as an OC/IC priest or lay person in the midst of isolation—ministry then flows from that—-if the strong spiritual/religious grounding isn’t there or can’t be sustained, then the rest of it falls apart anyway.”

Cultivating a living grounded spiritual life is, I agree an essential element of stability. I think it falls into that category of “this is what we do as a sacramental community” (emphasis on community). There are some elements of this that are I think worth unpacking – the phrase is deceptively short and simple. What is the spiritual life? What does it do? What does it express about our theology? How does it influence our praxis?

Where this gets really interesting is when we begin reflecting on the inherited language, images, and practices we bring to our new life in an OC/IC community. How often do we individually and collectively sit and ask: is this practice, custom, point of theology, a living example of an OC/IC ethos – or do we do it/keep it because it is “known” and “comfortable”?

I’m not suggesting that we re-invent the wheel here. What I am suggesting is that we are happily free to keep those ideas and practices that cultivate our living spirituality and nurture our identity as OC/IC folk, while leaving the baggage, dead weights, and plain nutty rubbish outside. Indeed, sometimes, it is necessary to pick up a broom and sweep away these things.

The caveat of course is that this process of pruning can only be effective in the context of a well informed, connected community. Too often it seems to me, this essential element is missing – so what ought to be an exercise in cultivating positive results, actually leads to strife, and dissolution.

A solution would be to, as a collective effort, cultivate scholarship, and to draw upon those resources in the local, and wider OC/IC community. This again is another step towards breaking down that terrible wall of isolation many communities, and individuals feel and observe.