Christianity - a progressive faith (part 3)

Members of the Progressive Christian Network express their beliefs in a series of 8 points

We are people who

1. Seek God, however understood, guided by the life and teachings of Jesus 
2. Affirm that there are many ways to experience the Sacred and that we can draw on diverse sources of wisdom on our spiritual journeys.
3. Recognise that following Jesus leads us to act with compassion and to confront evil.
4. Place hospitality at the centre of our communal and worshipping life and see the sharing of bread and wine as an expression of our common humanity.
5. Seek to build communities that accept all who wish to share companionship without insisting on conformity.
6. Know that the way we behave towards others is the fullest expression of our faith.
7. Gain more insights in the search for understanding than we do in certainty.
8. Work together within and beyond the Church to achieve a just, peaceful and sustainable world.

In this third blog I wil reflect on the second point 'We are people who affirm that there are many ways to experience the Sacred and that we can draw on diverse sources of wisdom on our spiritual journey."

I write this blog looking out through picture windows to a magnificent view across the Trossachs. The sun is shining, and because it is still early the songs of the birds are stronger and more melodious than  the extraneous sounds which the world will emit later in the day The Lochs and mountains of Scotland are just one part of God"s world which overwhelm us with their beauty and awesomeness. 

More people,have said to me that it is in such surroundings that they feel they presence of God more  than in Church or other holy places. That is not to say experiencing God in Church is not valid but such comments indicate that we, as regular Christian worshippers, are tempted to encage our faith in certain buildings and liturgies. There are indeed many and varied ways in which we experience the sacred and we can exclude none of them on our spiritual journey.

I began with a common experience, that of wonder that the earth and seas and sky are so inexplicably beautiful  that it is impossible to imagine all this existing and evolving, over millions of years, without the hand and eye of a power beyond human understanding, a power we call God. The unseen creator has created all we see around us, and it is ours to treasure or to plunder. If we see it as treasure, then it is also sacred and we should reverence every particle and praise the Creator. If we only treat our environment as a resource to be plundered and despoiled because of our greed, then it will not be sacred to us.

Many primitive religions worshipped all or part of the natural world and their ceremonies and liturgies reflected this. In some parts of the world this still happens. Whilst some Christians would label this as pagan, it does show us that the world was sacred to them and they were servants in the world rather than expecting the world to serve them. We still retain this recognition of the holiness of creation at times such as Harvest Festival and Rogationtide  but this aspect of our worship could be broadened. It is clear that Jesus did experience the world as sacred; read the sermon on the Mount where he described the lilies of the field for example.

The life of a human being is also sacred or holy. If the power we call God is the source of all holiness, then, because we are made in his image, we too must be holy. We see far too many examples today of the lack of worth we attribute to one another. 

Lives  are destroyed without thought or care about what effect this has on families or wider society. Only when every human being  is seen and treated as sacred will God's will be done.

The bible is the Christian's principal source of wisdom because there we find the stories, the myths, the poetry, the prayers and the history of the development pf thefaith of God"s people. Not all we read there is literally true but reflects the different levels of belief of each generation. And because the bible writers shared their faith by writing it down, it is a source of wisdom, and a resource as we try to carry forward the traditions of our predecessors. 

But wisdom is not found exclusively in the bible. There are many sources of wisdom, both religious and secular, which are open to us in our time and culture. Each generation leaves behind a wealth of wisdom and knowledge which enriches subsequent generations. God is constantly at work helping us to find the pearls of great price which lie undiscovered or unnoticed. 

Believing that the bible is the only source of wisdom for the Christian is to deny all human achievement and to accept that nothing that has happened since the death and resurrection of Jesus  is furthering the Kingdom  of God.

God has given us a world where the sacred can be found in diverse places and ways. And God has given us the ability to exercise wisdom and to recognise it..

Christianity - a progressive faith, part 2

Members of the Progressive Christian Network express their beliefs in a series of 8 points

We are people who

1. Seek God, however understood, guided by the life and teachings of Jesus 
2. Affirm that there are many ways to experience the Sacred and that we can draw on diverse sources of wisdom on our spiritual journeys.
3. Recognise that following Jesus leads us to act with compassion and to confront evil.
4. Place hospitality at the centre of our communal and worshipping life and see the sharing of bread and wine as an expression of our common humanity.
5. Seek to build communities that accept all who wish to share companionship without insisting on conformity.
6. Know that the way we behave towards others is the fullest expression of our faith.
7. Gain more insights in the search for understanding than we do in certainty.
8. Work together within and beyond the Church to achieve a just, peaceful and sustainable world.

In this second blog I want explore the first point 'We are people who seek God, however understood, guided by the life and teaching of Jesus.'

Like Christians of all traditions we are searching for God but we each have our own concept of who God is. To the early Jewish people God was so awesome that he could not be named, he was YAHWEH,  'I am who I am',  and no human being could look on him. He could control his world and all that happened was of his making and nothing happened if he did not will it. It was a primitive faith and preceded  an understanding of God which developed following advances in th fields of science iand psychology.

Today, there is a need in each one of us for something which takes us beyond the material world, if you like we are searching for the Kingdom of God where we find the resources to live in the Kingdom of this world. The Kingdom of God is not a separate place but is found in the world whereever we see God at work. Where we see a Kingdom there must also be a King and God's Kingdom is where we will find him. Our search for God, therefore, is also a search for the Kingdom of God, which canb be found within us and all around us. That search will be a lifelong search and will lead us along different paths as we seek the One who is beyond time and space.

Christians are accompanied on their journey by Jesus, by his life and teaching. We find his story in the bible, but in the bible Jesus is presented in two ways.  The Gospels and the letters of Paul and others build a picture of Jesus which is part history and part metaphor. Both lead to the truth about Jesus because, in the words of a Native American story teller,  'I don't know if it happened this way or not, but I know  the story is true.'

When we were children we heard the Christmas stories as literally true but as we matured we began to see them through a different lens, the lens of metaphor. Once we understand them principally as metaphor, we can once again believe them as real in the sense that they record the experience of the writers and of the story tellers who passed  on the stories through generations.  Then we can say, with TS Eliot:

The end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And to know the place for the first time.

Christianity - A Progressive Faith (1. Introduction)

Throughout my ministry as a priest, there has always been nagging doubts about what beliefs and practices help to build and strengthen faith, and are credible, as opposed to those beliefs. which fail to do either of those things because they are no longer credible. The picture of God I have in my mind when I engage in prayer is not that of a supreme human - like figure who sits beyond the scope of human sight, manipulating us like puppets, God is the mysterious, inexplicable ground of all being; He is within me as Soul and Spirit, and He is all around me in the world, a world which has evolved over millions of years. Not having the benefit of modern science, early human beings expressed this mythically using a period of 7 days.

The bible remains a most amazing collection of writings comprising history, poetry, myths, songs and prayers. The Old Testament was a sacred book for the Jewish people, and when the books of the. New Testamenr were added, the bible became the sacred book of Christian churches. It is confusing and I believe misleading to say that the bible is true. It I is true only in the sense that its writers wrote down the truth as they knew and experienced it. The awe and wonder they felt when they looked all around and realised what God had achieved in 7 days was no more or no less than the humility we feel when we learn about the evolutionary process of which we are a part.

It is of course Jesus, the human child of Mary and Joseph, Jesus who worked diligently with his father for 30 years, Jesus who experienced an inner call to use his gifts in the service of God and his neighbour, Jesus who gave his life in the cause of truth, justice and freedom, Jesus who is as alive in us today as he was to the first Christians.

I belong to the Progressive Christian Network (pcnbritain) who express their mission in the following words:

'Members of the Progressive Christianity Netwotk seek a credible and inclusive way to follow Jeeus. We are not afraid to question traditional church teaching. We value contemporary thought and recent-biblical understanding. We do not offer a set of answers but invite you to join us in asking the questions. 

Over the next few weeks I will examine each of the 8 points, concluding with the affirmation: Christianity is a progressive faith.

THE 8 Points

We are people who

1. Seek God, however understood, guided by the life and teachings of Jesus 
2. Affirm that there are many ways to experience the Sacred and that we can draw on diverse sources of wisdom on our spiritual journeys.
3. Recognise that following Jesus leads us to act with compassion and to confront evil.
4. Place hospitality at the centre of our communal and worshipping life and see the sharing of bread and wine as an expression of our common humanity.
5. Seek to build communities that accept all who wish to share companionship without insisting on conformity.
6. Know that the way we behave towards others is the fullest expression of our faith.
7. Gain more insights in the search for understanding than we do in certainty.
8. Work together within and beyond the Church to achieve a just, peaceful and sustainable world.

Pentecost 2017

Whitsun or Pentecost as it is now called in the church. We were in Peterborough and that dawn invasion was a reminder of how the Holy Spirit entered the hearts of those early, disconsolate Christians. Luke tells us that the experience was like an  inburst of wind and fire which changed their lives.

The day before we were in the small, beautiful  Northamptonshire village of Cotterstock. Like Gainford, Cotterstock nestles in a river valley. There the similarity ends. The river Nene (pronounced Nen by the locals) ends its journey in The Wash. Here, it meanders through gently undulating meadows, picturesque Cotswold style villages and ancient market towns.  The poet John Clare would have passed this way as he walked home from the asylum in Northampton to his home in Helpston.

St Andrew's church is a meadow's length away from the river. We were here to see Rita, a brand new treble bell, soon to join her five brothers and sisters in the tower. Rita was cast in memory of Rita Bond, the wife of a former colleague of mine, The Rev'd David Bond. It was a moving experience which brought back happy memories.

The Church had also commissioned a work of art by Bradford artist, Angela Wright, who works in wool. She had installed a stunning work, made entirely from spun wool, which represented the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Wool dropped from the altar like a waterfall and then spread into the sanctuary and the chancel. It was breathtaking in its simplicity and powerful in its interpretation. (see picture above)

As I began writing this piece, I heard the news of yet another terrorist atrocity, this time in London. That work of art in Cotterstock, reminded me of St Paul's list of the gifts of the Holy Spirit which he gave to the church in Galatia: 'the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.'

Pray for those gifts in our world.

Climate change, what now?

Donatld Trump's decision to withdraw from the 2015 Paris agreement on CO2 limits should not have been a surprise to anyone. 'America first' is his motivation but America can only remain  a world leader if it leads the world in tackling the major problems of our generation, among them terrorism, famine, and climate change.

Unbelievably, there are those, Trump among them, who do not accept that our lifestyle is having any effect on the climate. Hurucanes, floods, and rising world temperatures present clear evidence that we are approaching the point of no return. The climate is changing and the effects of this are unpredictable. America is the second largest polluter in the world.

The encouraging aspect of  Trump's decision is that he is being widely condemned across America, and the voices of major industrial companies  combine with many individual states to keep the hope alive that America will be back at the negotiating table. It takes four years for the withdrawal to become operative. We can only hope that President Trump is voted out of office at the next election.

America can then take its rightful place as a world leader, instead of attracting condemnation and ridicule.

Facebook

I appear to have been hacked on my Facebok and have deleted my account. I will post news and info on this blog

The world waits (article from Gainford and Winston Parish News)

We have  installed a rather attractive pine gate in the fence that separates us from St Osmund’s Church. The view that we have as we look through the gate is of a beautiful garden, but not,  as you might imagine, the garden of St Osmund's, which is lovingly cared for and a joy to see. The view is of our own small patio garden, which I love, but in which I do  very little gardening. The credit for our colourful garden is all due to Kathy.

How is it that when looking through the gate I see our own garden? It is because the gate is not really a gate but a very clever mirror device which produces what is called a ‘trompe l’oeil’, a French word which can be translated as ‘deceive the eye’.Our gate is designed to deceive and I feel a little selfish and guilty of providing visitors with a view which is not real.

It may not have escaped your notice, that ‘trompe’ and ‘Trump’ are  remarkably similar words. You will have been living on another planet if you do not know that Donald Trump is the Republican candidate for the Presidency of the most powerful nation in the world, the United States of America. The democratic  election takes place this month and Mr Trump has many supporters willing him to win the election. I think we all know that what politicians say in order to get themselves elected should be taken with a pinch of salt, but some of the pronouncements and promises made by Mr Trump should be taken with a cellar full of salt. There are those who take the extreme view that he is deceiving the electorate when he claims to have the skills of leadership. 

My gate tempts me to look inward to my own concerns whereas God expects us to look outwards  into the world. The mark of a good leader is the ability to take a wider, compassionate view and to persuade others to come with them.. If Mr Trump is elected, time will tell whether he has that gift.

I am reminded of some words from a song , ‘Walk beside me’, written by Mutt Lange: Don't walk in front of me, I was not born to follow; Don't walk behind me, we were all born to lead; don’t walk without me, I might need you tomorrow; walk right beside me, be  the real friend I need.

In  this month of remembering, amongst those we remember on All Souls’ Day, All Saints’ Day and Remembrance Sunday  are people who were leaders of immense courage and compassion).  But on Advent Sunday we will begin our preparations to celebrate the birth of a very special leader, Jesus of Nazareth, ‘in whom there is no deceit’ (John 1 v 47). We must all pray that the next President of the United States of America will remember the words of the song and follow the example of our Lord.

Neil Russell