Rant against Christian bookshops

I find it very hard to like Christian bookshops. I feel very uncomfortable in them, and always come out feeling angry.

Why?

I find it hard to put my finger on. Certainly the fact that the science sections in most I’ve been in are full of dreadful, dreadfully ignorant and misleading books doesn’t help. But it goes much further than that.

I find the middle-of-the-road worship music in the background very irritating. I’m not sure what I *want* to hear, but this stuff sounds insincere, hyped up and unimaginitive.

I find the range of books disturbing. Sometimes it’s the unthinking, reactionary, judgmental books that I don’t like. On the other hand, sometimes I’m upset by the books that seem to have lost touch with the truth. I know it’s a good thing that people have the freedom to look at a whole range of books, but that doesn’t stop me feeling unsettled, and even secretly wishing that certain books weren’t on offer in this particular forum.

I don’t like the commercialism. These bookshops sometimes feel just like rather aggressive vendors of any other product. We seem sometimes to have bought into exactly the same marketing ploys, however cynical, that are around outside the church.

If you like these bookshops, or work in one, feel free to disagree with me! But at the minute I find it a real chore when I have to go into one of these places. What do other people think?

Friendship

I know people I like.

I know Christians I like.

But I didn’t meet them at church.

What is it about church that makes relationships made there so worthless?

I think it goes to the very heart of what’s rubbish about church.

A very long time ago I did a children’s talk when I was in the church youth group. I cut up a lot of oranges (my visual aid) and talked about how church ought to be a place where we remove our “skin” of pretending and be real.

Over the years that image stays with me. Church is a place where we pretend to be good and respectable. That’s such a basic mistake!

Of course, there is an exception. When we have “strayed” but now we’ve got it all sorted again it is perfectly acceptable to talk about it. The whole concept of straying, as if we basically get it all right most of the time but sometimes go wrong for a bit, is a lie.

This false environment provides a strong barrier to forming proper relationships with people. In order to become friends with someone from church I have to disassociate them from church in my mind. We have to meet enough at home or somewhere else that I no longer see them as a church person, but as a person who happens to go to my church.

This is so the opposite of how it should be. Where is the acknowledgement of what life is really like?

My “church friends” are not friends at all – they’re people I can talk to at church so that I’m not standing there on my own. The whole business is a complete waste of time and I only go out of duty.

What can we do to make it better? What can I do?

No Guilty Expression

I don’t really sin – ok occasionally I could spend more time praying or reading the bible. But to be honest at the most my white robes have smudges on the collar and cuffs.

From time to time, I sit down to ask God for forgiveness for my sins only to find that really none spring to mind.

Am I alone in this?

I really feel that there is something lacking in my attitude to sin. I feel that many of us could do with being a bit more convicted of what we do wrong. Jesus did die to free us from our sins – but as long as we act as though we were still ruled by our sinful nature, we are sinning and hurting God.

Obviously there are those that are of the opposite extreme that are be haunted and weighed down by their sins. But that is certainly a trap that I definitely manage to side step.

Why can’t I bring to mind all the hurts, failures and pride of my day? I have at times felt convicted of my sin but this is rare and normally caused by a particularly bad transgression [in human terms.] I feel that my blank mind comes from two causes: the devil and my lack of interest. I think that throughout the day and especially as one comes to review the past hours, days and weeks, the devil carefully shades our eyes, distracts our minds and dwells much more on our own hurts and fears. Our own natures seem to work in harmony with this; I feel that I am not truly interested in noticing my sins. Sins do not jump out at me, either during their perpetration or later in recollection because deep down I don’t want to know and don’t really care.

Yet I remain convicted that I should care – that I owe Jesus so much, that surely I could take the time to notice the sins I commit that helped nail him to the cross. So how can I make myself more ‘sin sensitive’?

There seem to be two courses of action.

The standard Sunday school catch all of prayer. I feel that I should ask God to lift these sinful blinkers which make my shortfalls slip by unnoticed. Though of course you have to be careful what you ask for – do I really want to know? This seems a pretty scary option.

The other?

I could ask someone else to tell me…

Is Christianity a socialist faith?

I have been reading 2 Cor Chapter 8 13 – 15 (and Exodus 16 which it refers to). As I read the words of Paul I get a strong feeling that being in a Christian Community should mean equality and when we have plenty we should give it up. This to me fits in with socialism. I don’t mean the Labour Party but I do mean a political ideal. Was Christ a socialist? If so should we be?

What Job Said

This week I was planning to write an article summarising everything that’s come out of the page called WhyGodAllowsSuffering on the wiki. However, when I came to think about it, I decided to try and add a different way of looking at it instead of gathering it all together just yet.

What I’m doing here is really supposed to be an encouragement to honest, especially with God, and especially about your feelings, on this site and in your everyday life.

You may have noticed I recently added a quote to the front page of the site. It’s a quote from God about Job, and it says, “You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” In other words, what Job said was right.

And what Job said was deeply shocking. Bear in mind as you read that God said that Job spoke of him truthfully. Also bear in mind that Job’s friends, didn’t like what he said – this might happen to you.


“The arrows of the Almighty are in me, my spirit drinks in their poison; God’s terrors are marshalled against me.” Job 6:4

“Therefore I will not keep silent; I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep, that you put me under guard? When I think my bed will comfort me and my couch will ease my complaint, even then you frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions, so that I prefer strangling and death, rather than this body of mine. I despise my life; I would not live for ever. Let me alone; my days have no meaning.” Job 7:11-16

“He is not a man like me that I might answer him, that we might confront each other in court. If only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand upon us both, someone to remove God’s rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more. Then I would speak up without fear of him, but as it now stands with me, I cannot.” Job 9:32-35

“I will say to God: Do not condemn me me, but tell me what charges you have against me. Does it please you to oppress me, to spurn the work of your hands, while you smile on the schemes of the wicked?” Job 10:2-3

“Though I cry, `I’ve been wronged!’ I get no response; though I call for help, there is no justice. He has blocked my way so that I cannot pass; he has shrouded my paths in darkness. He has stripped me of my honour and removed the crown from my head. He tears me down on every side till I am gone; he uproots my hope like a tree. His anger burns against me; he counts me among his enemies.” Job 19:7-11

“But if I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him. When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.” Job 23:8-9

“As surely as God lives, who has denied me justice, the Almighty, who has made me taste bitterness of soul, as long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils, my lips will not speak wickedness, and my tongue will utter no deceit.” Job 27:2-4


It sounds weird but I just love these bits of Job – the really bitter, unambivalent complaints against God – accusing him. They inspire me, energise me like no other parts of the Bible. I hope they’re good for you too…

At the end of Job God does not answer these accusations – he just tells Job that he could never understand.

This is the real God – this is Jesus – life is not simple and God never said it was. This is a God I can worship – a God who wants to hear my complaints just as much as my praise – a God who loves me how I am, not how I feel like I ought to be – a God who suffers minute by minute, second by second unimaginably much for the decision he made to create me – a God who knew all this pain would come to him when he made the decision and knew that that pain would not be limited to him, but would be shared by his beloved children – this is the reality of Christianity – it truly provides an answer, not a blindfold to the agony and ecstacy of being.

Downs and Ups

Over the last week I’ve confronted some stuff and wobbled, and felt better, and worried about that, etc…

C.S.Lewis talked about the “Law of Undulation”* by which he meant that human beings just don’t notice that their feelings about everything go up and down no matter what they do. I’ve had a bit of that this week.

* in his book, “The Screwtape Letters” which I would recommend to everyone everywhere.

About a week ago I was talking to my wife (Pia) about how we felt about things and about our relationships with God and so on. We realised that in many ways we were feeling very far from him and afraid to go near.

I’ve always had to force myself to go to church – sometimes I enjoy it when I get there (sometimes not) – but the thought of it always makes me negative. Often too I don’t like the thought of praying.

We tend to pray together just before we go to sleep, and we realised that we had become quite slack at this, still doing it but not putting in any effort and just getting it over with.

Meanwhile, I’d pretty much stopped doing any other praying or Bible reading on my own and we hadn’t read the Bible together for ages.

We thought about why this had happened, and I really felt that for me it was because the thought of praying or spending time with God (i.e. remembering he exists) made me terrified. So I’d been squeezing it out because it was unpleasant.

Now, we could spend ages talking about why I feel like this, and perhaps we should, but anyway I’m going to tell you what we did about it instead.

So, in a monumental effort, we admitted all this to each other, and decided we should do something about it, so we agreed to read the Bible and pray together every day when we got back from work, and also to spend time apart doing this, and prepare stuff to say when we were together.

The next day, we sat down on the sofa and tried to do this. To be honest, I was expecting it to be a lot easier than I expected (as it were) because God often does stuff like that. But it wasn’t. It was just as bad as I thought. We didn’t know what to read (so we started with Revelation in the Bible), we didn’t get anything out of what we read, we didn’t have anything to say to each other and we didn’t want to pray. I asked for forgiveness for our neglect of God, and nothing happened. We tried, and I thought God would surely reward us for all this effort by making it easier next time.

But the next day was just as bad, and by the end I felt pretty despairing. I sat there and said to God, “Look we’re really trying – you know how hard we’ve found it to confront this, and how hard it has been to act on it, and now we need your help to make it work.” But nothing happened.

After this we had a conversation about what to do and we decided that the next day Pia would choose a Psalm she liked (she’s got into Psalms recently) and we’d read that. I thought I’d choose a song out of a Christian song book (aaaaaaargh!) and use that as a prayer to help us pray.

So we had something to do the next day; we weren’t completely lost, and actually it felt like God was there. because I had this crutch of reading out something someone else had written I felt freer to pray myself, and I was able to thank God for stuff and ask him for forgiveness and help. The song even allowed me to “worship” a bit I think.

Since then we’ve missed more days than we’ve done, but through forgetfulness and busy-ness rather than fear I think. I’ve found that when we pray I’ve just got more words to say and I don’t feel so terrible. Basically I’m more comfortable with the concept of being “in God’s presence,” whatever that means.

So what’s the moral of the story? Well really it’s that I was a bit silly to be in despair. I was dead right that God would want to take 10 steps towards us when we took half of one faltering step, but it actually took 3 days for me to be able to feel I had made progress, but 2 days for me to give up on him.

Never forget how short-sighted you are.

(Unless you’re not me and therefore not so short-sighted.)

Another moral of the story is that it could be helpful to use “crutches” like reading from a book if you’re finding praying difficult. Check out the wiki – there’s a discussion there on how to get closer to God that is about that kind of idea.

Women in leadership roles

Ok. I’ve thought about it and having said there’s no way I’d write an article…

Have been reading stuff that people have posted and there are occasional comments kind of bordering on this but I’d like to hear what you all have to say. I don’t mean women as vicars/priests/etc but more general: in leadership in any capacity.

Is something which suddenly has more meaning in my life and not sure what I think about it. Have heard a lot of people say that women shouldn’t take on responsibility and leadership and most of the people I remember as leaders are male.

So ok, that isn’t a brilliant article but it’s what I think. Expecting my opal fruit now…

Egalitarian Marriages

Andy suggested that I write an article about what constitutes an equal, or egalitarian marriage, so here goes:

Introduction

Before I went to university I was surrounded by people (Christian and non-Christian alike) who believed in (and, if they were actually married, lived out) an egalitarian relationship. Of course, I was aware that there were some Christians in the world who disagreed with the idea of gender equality, but it wasn’t until I began to attend my university’s Christian Union that I actually came across them.

Their attitudes towards women and their supposed inferiority frustrated and annoyed me exceedingly, and continue to do so.

While it might be possible to justify their arguments with a prejudiced, erroneous interpretation of the Bible (unfortunately one which still holds sway in many circles), it is not only impossible to justify their views by common sense, but also extremely difficult equate their notions with the teachings and character of Jesus Christ (who always treated women and men as equals).

What is an egalitarian marriage?

Well, I believe that marriage is basically an extension of a really good friendship. People don’t usually marry one another unless they’ve been very good friends first. This might seem obvious, but I think that the ‘friendship’ element is a very important feature of a marriage. A friendship is just about always regarded as an egalitarian relationship, so this egalitarianism should be brought into and maintained in marriage.

But what exactly do I mean by an equal relationship, or marriage?

An egalitarian marriage is one that is founded on mutual love and respect. In a marriage of equals, each spouse desires to see the other grow in their gifts and improve in their abilities; each spouse helps and encourages the other to realise their potential. The couple enjoy spending time together, talking, laughing and listening to one another. Each spouse provides comfort and support to the other when they are disheartened, and the couple remains honest with and faithful to each other. Neither spouse automatically assumes responsibility for anything, whether it be decision-making or child-rearing, because both members of the couple understand the value of the other’s opinions and thoughts.

If there is an important decision to be made and the couple disagree, then the opinion of (1) the spouse who will be more affected by the outcome of the decision and/or (2) the spouse who is more knowledgeable about the particular area of the decision should carry more weight. They should also pray about it (if they are Christians/believe in God).

So that is my definition of an egalitarian marriage. One in which the couple love, respect and submit to one another. Of course, things can go wrong – in any relationship there are going to be arguments and disgreements – but – I believe that if a couple truly love and respect one another, they will be able to work through these conflicts that arise.

Of course, in most relationships each spouse has their different talents and abilities. For example, let us say that in a certain relationship, the wife is considerably better at handling the finances. If the couple agree that she should therefore take control of handling the finances because of her obvious expertise in this area, then I see no problem in this. I do, however, see a problem and much injustice in someone imposing his will on his wife and family simply because he is a man (this is what characterises an unequal marriage). A man who does this does not really have any respect for his wife.

I also believe that even if one spouse is clearly more dominant and the other clearly more passive, although the dominant one will inevitably take more of a lead in the marriage, I think that they should attempt to make their relationship more evenly matched, because this will give the more passive spouse a chance to stand on their own feet. ‘Christians’ who maintain that the husband should always make the decisions and take control of the family are (1) placing an unneccessary burden on the husband and (2) by absolving the wife of responsibilities, they are denying her the opportunity to develop and grow in wisdom.

Conclusion

I believe that if two mature adults (whether they are Christian or not) who sincerely love and respect one another get married, neither spouse WILL WANT to dominate over the other. Each spouse WILL DESIRE to listen to the other. Egalitarian relationships are not only Biblical, but they also make perfect sense. It remains of great importance to understand the damage that can be caused by forcing people to assume roles based on gender rather than recognising each person as individual. For, as Sue Bridehead declares in ‘Jude the Obscure’

‘…the social moulds civilisation fits us into have no more relation to our actual shapes than the conventional shapes of the constellations have to the real star-patterns.’

Well, hopefully it is understandable what I have been trying to say! If you wish to read more about gender equality in marriage and in the church (and written better and more clearly than I have done) then I recommend the website www.cbeinternational.org. In the Free Articles section there are some articles on equality in marriage.

God’s Personality

We’re supposed to have a relationship with God, so he must have a personality, right? You can’t be friends with a force …

So what is he like?

I’ve been thinking about this. I know that for most of my life I don’t really operate as if God is a person, but he is, isn’t he?

I’m hoping others will come in with some ideas about what he’s like, and I’m going to set the ball rolling with something myself. Maybe:

God is Subtle

He doesn’t seem to like big miracles. Some examples are Jesus’ miracles, the manna in the desert, and in fact the resurrection. The moment of Jesus’ resurrection was not witnessed by anyone. They had to work it out from some fairly subtle signs left for them.

It just strikes me that God didn’t have to do it like this. Why did he?

There are a few examples of big, unsubtle miracles, especially the Red Sea. Why doesn’t God work like this all the time?

One slight answer might possibly be that God likes the way he’s made the world, and doesn’t like breaking the rules all the time.

What do you think?