Simon Says ...

It appears my teenage haircut had deeper influences!

Jesus spent his whole ministry teaching people to see. He complained of those who could tell the weather but couldn't read the signs of the times. He complained of those who looking do not see. He tells a story about those who ask 'Lord when did we see you naked or in prison or hungry?' He also tells his disciples to 'watch and pray'. Watchful praying and prayerful watching are what we are about. We need to take time out, like Jesus had, to pray in order that we can see. We need to spend time in the world in order that we can pray. Prayer is coming into contact with the reality of God. It is therefore the exact opposite of the 'opium of the people', it is the way to be truly awake in the face of numbing addictions and lies that the secular world puts out. Advertising, propaganda and so much else surrounds us all the time that we need to take time away in order to be able to tell the truth. "To go through life with open eyes, to discern...

[picture deleted as it skewed the whole blog] I wasn't going to blog about the windsor report, at least not until I'd read it. But then I found this, which is superb. It's a cartoon summary of the report . Truly superb. Now I'm going to sit in the corner without any tea for a while! More on the report once I've read it and digested it.

The Church Times today has a story about the Evangelical Alliance debate I blogged about the other day . The Fish website has interviews with Steve Chalke and Joel Edwards (head honcho of EA). This is very good. Chalke talks about mission, whereas Edwards gives such politically nuanced answers he could be the Archbishop of Canterbury! You can find a short paper by Steve Chalke setting out his views here . This includes his comparision of the theology of penal substitution to 'child abuse'. Meanwhile, back at the Church Times , Giles Fraser's column talks about Girard's work as a vital part of a Christian response to violence. After all of this I think I want to read Chalke's book. Not a phrase that often crosses my lips!

I've been reading Joanne Harris' Holy Fools . It's not as good as Chocolat , and much less critical of the church. But it has prompted some reflections about the way that the church is, and is seen to be, colluding in the oppression of people. It prescribes modes of beliefs, and uses its power to put down opposition rather than giving good arguments for its position. The church is like this today, but when it had power it was worse. The church made an ungodly mess of things when it had power. The crusades, inquisition etc . are just the tip of the iceberg. In general, it wanted to control people and resisted any real change. Most of all, its sheer complicity in power and wealth is astonishing. And in all of this the teachings of Christ get lost. Not that there was no-one trying to follow Christ, not that the project of 'church' is to be written off. But Harris' novel does, at the very least, suggest that we are reaping the evangelistic effects. And...

I spent Saturday at a conference on the work of Rene Girard . A friend of mine, Mike Kirwan, has just published a book about him, and the conference was to celebrate this. (Check out Mike's article for The Tablet .) You can order the book here . I gave a paper called 'Save us from being Saved', talking about different offers of salvation and the need to take a critical approach in order to unmask false salvation. So, for instance, language of salvation is used around the war on terror or structural adjustment programmes, and these need some critical attention. We also look for salvation in different ways in our own lives. These can be just as destructive. I would be interested to hear from any who have examples of 'salvations' from which we need to be saved. During the afternoon, I sloped off to the pub with Giles Frazer and he told me about a meeting sponsored by the Evangelical Alliance that he had been to that week. This had been called to deba...

Sorry to have been away for so long. A combination of trying to get things done so I could go to Greenbelt and go on holiday afterwards, Greenbelt, being ill and so not getting anything done before Greenbelt/holiday and going on holiday. Pathetic excuse, I know. Normal (sporadic) service will be resumed from now on (I hope). Serious stuff tomorrow, perhaps. For today - here's an early Christmas present suggestion .

The question that I finished with yesterday was how we discern the theologically significant marks of identity in our culture. I don't think I'm going to get much further with this until I've thought it out some more. It's more than possible that my whole question is pointless. What I want to think about are how certain Christian practices work in the middle of a consumer culture. There are many, but I want to think about them in three blocks: prayer, liturgy and fellowship. Each of them (even the three together) can be terribly introverted and self-regarding. But that is to get them wrong. Each should be evangelistic and outward reaching. Today I'll think a little about prayer. Prayer is the space given over to encounter with God. It is inherently attractive. To teach people to pray is evangelism - if they pray then they will come to God. Above all, prayer is something God does in me and that I join in. Prayer, as and because it is encoun...

For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the Law I became as one under the Law (though I myself am not under the Law) so that I might win those under the Law. To those outside the Law I became as one outside the Law (though I am not free from God's Law but am under Christ's Law) so that I might win those outside the Law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, so that I might by any means save some. I do it all for the sake of the Gospel, so that I might share in its blessings 1 Corinthians 9.19-23 This passage seems to me to speak to the church in the midst of a consumer culture. It's basic principle is that of incarnation - entering the world of others, not preaching from a distance. Echoes of Jesus' meals with sinners run through this. Is it right to suggest tha...

"The everyday challenge of consumerism is yet to be fully acknowledged by most Christian communities" - David Lyon, Jesus in Disneyland This has been a nagging thought ever since I read it (in the Mission Shaped Church report). I think part of it is that I'm so deeply embedded in a consumer culture that I can't always see where it shapes and influences me, let alone where it should challenge me. My first thought for this blog was to write a short list of five challenges and five ways of resisting. But then I thought a bit more and began to see that approach as itself deeply consumerist - wanting instant answers to questions; wanting problems to be reducible to easy solutions. If consumerism is as pervasive and as intractable as the quotation suggests, then lists and quick answers will fail to get to grips with it. (Worse, they will suggest that I have come to grips with it and hide my failure.) But there's something inherently consumable about blog...

Darren at The Alternative Hymnal is running a series on songs about Jesus. It's a great mix of songs I already knew and one's I'd never heard of. Hopefully there's more to come. I'd really like to make up CDs of the final selection and give them to our youth group as the basis of discussion. But I suppose there's copyright problems with that. :( Three songs that haven't made it onto Darren's list so far are 'Wake Up Dead Man' by U2; 'One of Us' by Joan Osbourne and 'Jesus Don't Want me for a Sunbeam' by Nirvana. This series has made the Hymnal one of the first things I look at when I go online. Well worth a look.

Here are some links to actions, either online or by snail mail (which I still think of as real mail!) The first is Church Action on Poverty , who have an e-postcard you can send to Patricia Hewitt (UK Secretary of State for Trade and Industry) asking for a legal limit to the amount of interest that can be charged on loans. Then go add your face to Amnesty International's petition to control the arms trade. Finally, write to your MP and tell them what was missing from the trade deal anonunced this week. The World Development Movement have a sample letter to print off. See - it was easy!

The Daleks will be back in the new Dr Who! But can they climb stairs yet? I also found these pictures at Dalek World - brilliant! Try the 'Are you a Dalek' quiz .

This is my 'thought for the day' for Radio Bristol tomorrow morning: Yesterday the Statue of Liberty reopened to the public for the first time since the 9/11 attacks nearly three years ago. In a moving ceremony, the Mayor of New York said he hopes that ‘every child in America and … around the world gets to see this statue.’ When freedom is under threat, it is important to have symbols that remind us about the nature of freedom. At over three hundred feet tall, the Statue of Liberty may be the largest such symbol in the world. The re-opening of the Statue reminds us that freedom requires us to look outwards. The seven spikes in the crown of Lady Liberty stand for the seven seas and continents of the world. But most importantly, she stands facing outwards – away from the American mainland, out towards the sea and the rest of the world. This reminds us that freedom means being open to others, taking the risk of encountering and welcoming people we don’t know. ...

Maggi has an interesting post about conducting weddings. I remember swapping wedding jokes with others on a clergy conference - they're useful sermon starters (worryingly, no-one got mine). I really believe that the role of the priest at a wedding is to lead the celebrations, and nothing turns me off more than going to a wedding and hearing the priest smugly opine that 'it's nice to be marrying two Christians for a change' (as if Christians were somehow 'more married' than others). As well as this note of celebration, I try to put three things in my wedding sermons: 1. A reference to the fact that their marriage is for the benefit of others as well as themselves. 2. A reminder to family and friends that they have (at least in the CofE service) promised to support and help the couple. 3. A mention of the way in which marriage reflects the purposes of God in renewing the whole world. Then it's just down to my bad jokes!

I found this quotation yesterday, and I think it's one of the wisest sentences I've read in a long time. It's from Robert Warren's The Healthy Churches' Handbook . Parties and thank yous make the world a happier place and more like the kingdom. Take time to celebrate.

The clapper board of the first shot for the new series of Dr Who is available here . Can't wait to see what's behind! Edited to remove picture as it led to a fallen side bar!

Over the summer I'm trying to write a course for the young people of the churches I serve about prayer.  Basically, I want to help them to pray.  There's very little available (that I can see) that helps young people learn how to pray, and so I'm writing my own.  All suggestions very welcome!!!   The problem I face is one the one hand to present a range of different ways of praying.  I know different things work for different people, and I want to help them find how prayer works for them.  On the other hand, I don't want to offer so many choices and possibilities that they are paralysed by the range of options.  So I'm looking for something that gives some focus to it.   As I say, I'm right at the start of the process of coming up with this course.  But I'm getting really excited about it.  There's so much to cram into 8-10 sessions (some self-restraint necessary - there's a lifetime to explore prayer), and I'm expecting to...

I came across the site of The Mass , an alternative worship set up in Derby. Looks very interesting in itself, but the site also has lots of great material even if you're unlikely to get to the services. Worth a look.

The latest Affirming Catholicism newsletter has a piece in it called 'Why I am Not a Liberal'. It has me thinking about why I am a liberal! ‘Liberals’ are in danger of becoming everyone’s scapegoats. They are the one group that Evangelicals and Catholics can agree to oppose. But in so doing the variegated nature of the Church, and of the Catholic and Evangelical elements within it, can be overlooked. There are liberal Catholics and liberal Evangelicals; there are catholic Liberals and evangelical Liberals; there are even evangelical Catholics and catholic Evangelicals. Few members of the Church of England can be placed with absolute purity within one tradition and one tradition only. In this rather messy approach, which has come to seem peculiarly Anglican, there is much to enrich the church and one another. Most of us will, at various times in our Christian lives, encountered and been enlivened by a range of traditions and people belonging to them. Some of us cont...