What are archbishops for?

In church this morning we prayed for a new archbishop, one who will serve the diocese of Canterbury in south east England, head the Church of England, and provide a point of focus for the worldwide Anglican Communion - to name just three of the many roles that this person will be expected to fulfil. But as John led our prayers this morning I found myself thinking, "But realy, what are archbishops for?" I think I know why we need pastors, ministers or vicars, and bishops sort of make sense, but archbishops?

Over the past couple of days I have been reading the comments of leading religious commentators on the ten years of Rowan Williams' leadership as Archbishop of Canterbury. Whilst many have praised him for his intellect, his wisdom, his humility and his persistent and painful search for understanding and reconciliation within a fractured Anglican Communion, others have spoken of his failed leadership saying he lacked the ability to "bash heads together" and provide much needed "powerful personal leadership".

Personally I am a great admirer of Rowan Williams and I am quite excited about his move to Cambridge where he will regain the freedom he needs to truely become the prophetic Christian leader he is - the freedom to provoke, question, inspire and lead by humble Christian example. Praise God he has decided to escape the shackles of archbishoping before he becomes too drained to offer what we so much need - spiritual leadership.

As I prayed this morning for the man (it will be a man, at least this time round) who will be chosen to lead 70 million Anglicans, I found myself muttering, "In the steps of Jesus ... please God preserve us from head bashers and powermongers ... give us a man of humility, wisdom and prayer, a man who knows that archbishops, even Archbishops of Canterbury, are no more than the rest of us, simple followers of Jesus, trying to keep close to him and his ways.

Thank you Rowan for ten years of your life, years of pain, struggle and misunderstanding. Now may your leadership blossom in freedom.

High profile pain

What does it feel like when your story goes viral on YouTube? If you are a budding musician it could be your great break - a passport to a whole new career. But what if you are the mother who lost her two sons to the Lord's Resitance Army in northern Uganda, or a young man who lies sleepless every night reliving the traumer and brutality of his time serving as a child soldier?

The fact that 79 million people have watched Kony 2012 in the past ten days has led to a major outcry in Uganda, the nation traumaticed for 23 years by the cruelty and obsenity of Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army. Produced by the California based charity Invisible Children, the 30 minute video powerfully tells the story of the abuse of children over two decades in East Africa. Using the idiom of Facebook-style social networking the story told is of the bond that developed between two boys - one a Ugandan boy soldier and the other a young American turned social activist. Viewed from the perspective of a charity seeking to raise funds and engage American young people in social action this video is at the top of its class. But ...

But if you are a family just beginning to come to terms with the pain of lives destroyed by the personal ambitions of Joseph Kony, a video (and poster campaign which will climax across the US on 20 April) which adopts the catch phrase "Make Kony famous" may not be quite so welcome. Sheikh Musa Khalil, the Kadhi of the Muslim region of northern Uganda said in an interview that the film "is likely to traumatize those who were affected" and Bishop Johnson Gakumba, speaking in Gulu said, "While it publicizes the problem, we see it as being outdated. It should have been released in 2003"

So what are Invisible Children trying to do - disgrace a tyrant, stop a war, generate cash for their charity, or simply raise the profile of their work? When thousands of children have been aboused by the Lord's Resistance Army, a charity is doing good work, funds are short, and a powerful video goes viral, how important are the victim's views?

Who moved?

Don't believe them when they tell you Muslims are taking over the world. In fact there are twice as many Christian migrants moving round the world today as there are Muslims. Amazingly there are 214 million migrants in the world today, 49% of them Christian. What a mission force! - 105 million Christians on the move!

These figures and many more come from the latest study of migration by the Pew Research Center, a report that points out that if migrants were considered as one nation they would be the fifth largest nation on earth. The full report can be found at http://www.pewforum.org/faith-on-the-move.aspx

I was fascinated to see that whereas 25% of all Jews are migrants, only 5% of Christians migrate and 4% of Muslims. Hindus and Buddhists on the whole stay put. And where do all of these migrants come from? The top five 'exporting' countries are Mexico (with over 12 million), China, Palestine, India and Vietnam. And where do they go? Well not too hard to guess the top destination - USA, but the next four might be a surprise - Saudi Arabia, India, Israel, and Hong Kong. Europe doesn't feature as a major recipient of migrants at all.

So what about this migrant mission force of 105 mission Christians who travel to another country for work or for other reasons? Well 78% of them end up in the (nominally at least) Christian countries of North America, Latin America and Europe. The other 28% however still represent an amazing 28 million people. Which church or mission agency could deploy 28 million Christian witnesses in Asia, Africa and the Middle East? But these people paid their own travel costs, found their own jobs, carried their own luggage and even organised their own language learning. What would it take for the churches in their countries of origin to equip them to be effective witnesses to the gospel of Jesus Christ in their new home countries? If only 1% were trained that would be well over a quarter of a million Christians living the gospel and sharing the good news of Jesus right across Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Wow!

This report is packed full of interesting statistics but I must end this posting before it gets too long. So, one last fact ... 16% (2.3 million) of all migrants entering the Gulf States are Christian. Think about it!

A 'both and' faith?

"That's heritical" exclaimed an African mission leader, challenging his Indian colleague. We were in the middle of our most lively debate so far in a week of stimulating discussion at the Faith2Share Leadership Consultation - 25 senior mission leaders from Africa, Asia, North America, Brazil, Europe, New Zealand, the Middle East and Central Asia.

The outburst had been stimulated by a paper from a Malaysian mission leader in which he raised the controversial question of 'dual belonging'. In other words, when a Buddhist or Muslim becomes a follower of Jesus do we Christians need to ask them to make a radical break with all their cultural/religious past or is there some way in which they can belong both to their 'heritage' community and their new found Christian community - both at the same time. In a small group discussion someone suggested that Jesus himself was a 'dual belonger' because he never left the community of Jewish faith but critiqued it from the inside whilst founding his own new community of 'Kingdom belongers'. We were also challenged to explain why we never ask secular Europeans to make a radical break with their former secularism, materialism and Enlightenment beliefs when they decide to follow Jesus, whilst we make very costly demands on former Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists.

Of course no heretics were burnt tonight. And we are still not quite sure which of us are the heretics!

Insiders outside

Insiders outside are coming inside in great numbers in the Punjab. If that makes any sense at all?!

I was listening to Rev. I K Abraham, the General Secretary of the Friends Missionary Prayer Band as he led a Bible study this morning for a group of mission leaders brought together by Faith2Share. He spoke on Ephesians 3:6 "This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise of Christ Jesus." I have read that verse many times but never heard the truth behind it expressed so simply and clearly as Abraham put it this morning - the insiders are outside and must be brought in. If we look with the eyes of God there are no 'outsiders', no divisions, all are 'insiders', but some of the 'insiders' are still outside the fellowship of the church and we need to welcome them in.

Abraham went on to tell us of the hundreds of men and women in the Punjab, India, who every day discover that because of Jesus' love for them (his costly love for them on the cross) they are 'insiders' - they belong, they are part of the body of Christ ... and so the visible church grows by hundreds each day.

Now I'm wondering who I treat as outsiders when they are really just insiders left outside in the cold.

Getting the job done

I had a very interesting conversation this afternoon with a colleague from Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. We had been talking about coaching - not sports coaching but coaching leaders in Christian ministries. Someone else in the group had just said that in 'relational societies' (as contrasted with task orientated societies) it is impossible to get leaders to set goals and keep to them. Over coffee afterwards, Ruslan (not his real name for security reasons) suggested to me that that was rubbish - relational people have many goals, they just don't look like goals to task orientated people because they are not 'task' goals, they are 'relational' goals. Interesting!

As we talked we came to agree that in some societies we set our task goals, our speadsheets, our outcomes, etc. and then as we get going in the business venture, or whatever it is, we begin to form relationships which in the end can become very strong relationships. In other societies, however, we set relational goals - I really want to get to know that guy, I would love to spend more time with her, I could learn a lot from that person, etc. and then as we begin to work on the relationships we discover things we could do together, a business (or a mission or a church) is born and before we know it all sorts of 'task goals' have been achieved simply because some folks enjoyed spending time together.

So ... tasks that build relationships, or relationships that get tasks done - does it matter? Either way the job gets done. The question we parted on and did not answer was, "Did Jesus have "realtional" or "task" goals in his ministry?"

Remembering Shahbaz Bhatti

I just arrived in Turkey a few hours ago, tired from an overnigt flight, but happy to be in the sunshine and to be connecting with old friends, a network of Christians concerned for the witness of Christ in the countries of Central Asia. I opened my Facebook, as very self-respecting technocrat has to do these days within a few minutes of arriving anywhere (!), and the first chat message I saw was from Ken Mwangi, in Kenya. (Thank you Ken.) He began, "I weep and mourn for the work here in Africa", and then goes on to remind me of the sacrifice - unto death in many cases - of the missionaries who brought the gospel to his country. We reflected together how the blood of the martyrs has so often been the seed of the church.

Last time I was at this same gathering I shared fellowship with a great Christian leader from Dagestan, Pastor Artur. He is not here today. He was gunned town in his home town over a year ago. One more martyr from a region which has given more blood for the life of the church than any other during the past century. It is hard to be here without Artur, but we rejoice in the church he planted.

These musings are appropriate today, on 2 March. Today it is exactly a year since Shahbaz Bhatti (pictured above), the only Christian serving in the Cabinet of the Government of Pakistan was gunned down - on 2 March 2011 - as he left his mothers house. Today I will not forget Shahbaz Bhatti, Pastor Artur, Bishop Janani Luwum and so many more. We weep but we rejoice in the blood of the martys.

Science Fundamentalists

The choice not being great on TV last night, I ended up watching the Richard Dimbleby lecture, delivered this year by the Nobel Prize winner, Sir Paul Nurse. Talk about evangelism, he was as good as Billy Graham, but no altar (should that be 'test tube') call. As a scientist (at least by training) myself I was encouraged to hear his powerful advocacy for pure science, science for science sake, and to feel his obvious excitement about scientific enquiry.

But then I started to get worried. He crossed the line. I have come across Muslim fundamentalists, Hindu fundamentalists, and a good few Christian fundamentalists but now I found myself being frightened by a science fundamentalist. According to Nurse science has ALL the answers and there is really no place for politics, religion, belief or conviction, in fact they only get in the way and mess things up.

Towards the end he also drifted into a scary nationalism. Science is to be used to advance the cause of Britain, to make Britain great, to overcome our 'competitors' - he used that word a lot. For me that did not even ring true with science because, in my limited experience, many of the great scientific advances of recent years have come from trans-national cooperation.

Amen, we need more good science ... but science which knows how to talk to faith, to politics and to community. I thought we were learning to live in a joined up world. Obviously not Sir Paul Nurse. "Science is great, long live science"!

Why on earth?

I must have read Mark 1:16 hundreds of times, but this week it just struck me how ridiculous it is! I mean the invitation to Simon, Andrew and the rest to become "fishers of men", to have a role in the mission of God. And that realisation has implications for all our mission.

Let me explain. This call makes no sense at all when you read it in context. In the first few verses of what Mark describes as "the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ" we see the full reality and power of the Trinity. God the Son is found fully present on earth in the person of Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth. The Spirit of God descends and takes full control of the situation driving Jesus first into the wilderness and then into ministry in Galilee. God the Father speaks - giving his full approval to this amazing expression of the Missio Dei, the outreaching of God in creation. The full relational life of the Trinity is powerfully described in these few verses and the focus of that God-life is made clear - the redemption of all creation, beginning with us.

So why is the call of Simon and his mates so ridiculous? Because it is so unnecessary, it adds nothing at all to the action. Son of God, empowered by the Spirit and approved by the Father needs no assistants! But the amazing thing is that He actually chooses to invite our participation.

If you really grasp the truth of that verse you will never again dare even to think you are doing God a favour by participation in His mission.

Prayer discrimination

I opened my email this morning to discover an 'urgent prayer request'. A significant leader in world missions was passing on to me a request he had received from Japan to pray for the serior manager leading the team restoring electrical supply to the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. "As it turns out", so the message ran, "the project head is a Christian. His name is xxxx xxxx, believed to be a member of the First Baptist Church of Fukushima." I was then encouraged to "get this message out to all your networks so that they can pray for this man".

If our Faith2Share website had been running I would probably have written this up as a short news story and posted it by 9.30am this morning, but as it happens the website is off line today for an upgrade. Instead I shared the prayer request with office staff, planning to upload the story tomorrow. Wow, that was a narrow escape! By 2.00pm. other "urgent messages" were arriving. "Please don't mention his name." "Please take down any web items." "Mentioning him could put him at risk." What a blessing a delay can be sometimes!

Having reflected on this during the rest of the day, however, the real issue for me is not the carelessness of someone in Japan not checking whether a story should be public, but rather ... why it suddenly became more important to pray for this guy when it was discovered that he "is a Christian". What if he had been a Buddhist, or an outright atheist, or simply didn't take religion very seriously? Does that excuse us from praying for him? Is praying urgently for Christians whenever they find themselves in a tough spot not rather discriminatory?

I'm beginning to think that it might be more urgent to pray for the guy with his thumb in the Japanese nuclear dyke if he has no faith at all - surely the Christian in that situation already has a head start. Or am I confused?

Bibles released from prison

I just got the news I had been waiting for - 35,000 Bibles have been released from prison (well customs custody actually) in Malaysia. Praise God.

It was in the home of Iban friends in Subu (in Sarawak, East Malysia), over a kitchen table loaded with empty bear cans and chicken bones, that I heard the story last month. As a result of a long runing dispute within Malaysia as to whether Christians can be allowed to call God "Allah", the port authorities in East Malaysia first impounded 5,000 Bibles and then another 30,000 which Christians were trying to bring to their, quite substantial, communities in Sabah and Sarawak. The post authorities threatened to destroy the 'illegal' books. Last week I heard from another friend in West Malaysia, Bishop Ng Moon Hing, that a group of church leaders were mounting a high profile, and internationally publicised, protest. Fortunately Pakatan Rakyat (opposition) politicians picked up the case and today the government ordered port officials in Kuching and Klang to release the Bibles.

So why do Christians in Malaysia want to call God "Allah" in the first place. Very simply because "Allah" is the natural translation of the English "God" and Hebrew "El" in their language, Bahasa Malaysian. They are not alone - many Christians across the Middle East, who speak Arabic and related languages also call God "Allah". Perhaps a more sensible question would be, "Why do British Christians want to call Allah "God", and in so doing adopt an old word from northern Europe with pagan origins!

Language is fascinating and can lead to heated debates. I also heard tonight of another debate raging in certain mission circles about whether we should, or should not, avoid talking of Jesus as the "son" of God when sharing our faith with Muslims - because they find this so offensive. For most Muslims "son" implies a biological (yes, sexual) relationship and so in saying Jesus was the "son" of God we are affirming that God had sexual intercourse with Mary - that's the only possible interpretation. Some missiologists however are now pointing out that even the Qu'ran uses "ibn" (son) in ways that are not biological or literal. Sura 2:177 talks of a traveller as being a "son of the road" for example. So, the arguement goes, we should not give up on the use of "Son of God" but rather help our Muslim friends to see the deeper meanings of "sonship".

Isn't language complicated! But tonight my thoughts are with Iban friends in Sarawak who can once again buy a Bible in their own language - and worship "Allah".

Cosmic Soup

Whilst tsunami waves were consuming whole communities on the east coast of Japan I was proof reading a short document for a Romanian colleague. Nicu, who is professor of theology at the University of Oradea, had sent me the extract of his work on Basil the Great and his understanding of the relationship between science and religion. Nicu sugguests that Basil's "pneumatological vision of creation" and his understanding of the "transfiguration of humanity in Christ" provide us not with an alternative to our scientific understanding of reality but rather the firmest of foundations for such an understanding. Science and religion do not stand in opposition but rather cannot stand at all without each other!

But how does that enable me to make sense of the tsunami, the 'careless' destruction of life I am witnessing on my TV screen?

Allow me one more digression. Earlier this week I watched Professor Brian Cox as he took us through billions of years of the history (and future) of our solar system to explain the second law of thermodynamics - in other words everything always goes from order to disorder (as anyone who watched by desk during the day will already know!). Time is a one way process. Our universe is steadily moving from simplicity, through complexity, to a final state which will be so complex, so mixed up, so disordered that it will actually be very simple - one universal 'soup'. Sadly the content of the tsunami wave as it crossed previously ordered agricultural land in Sendai began to resemble that 'universal soup'.

So where does God fit into all of this? - Romanian theology, tsunami waves and Brian Cox. As a saviour? As the one to whom we cry out in lamentation? Perhaps 'fit in' is the wrong question. As Basil the Great (an accomplished scientist as well as theologian) understood well, the purposes of God do not 'fit in' to science or 'rescue us from' the outworkings of science. In fact it is the purposes of God that give science its meaning. Tsunamis are one small part of the second law of thermodynamics (order to disorder) and that law is just one tiny part of the 'transfiguration of all things in Christ' which is the love and purpose of God.

But don't ask me to understand all that! I'm not God.

Oil Fast?

I'm in a quandry. I was all checked in, bags packed, passport in hand, and ready to board my flight to Nairobi and then I decided to check the Christian news sites. The first item I hit on was from an organisation I had not heard of before. Apparently Operation Noah are a Christian environmental agency in the UK and they had the bright idea to call for an "oil fast". When? Tomorrow just as I board the 1020 to Nairobi and listen to those engines roar and look out my window at those graceful wings that will carry me hundred of miles in just a few hours - wings full to the brim with oil. Do I cancel my trip? Do I encourage others to fast while I go ahead with my trip? Why am I special?

I will fly and in fact I don't feel so bad about it. I quite like flying!

But there is a deeper question here. If we are to take environmental questions seriously how much will we allow them to impact our own life style? Do we just go back to hanging about in trees and caves and eating whatever fruit we can find, or is it OK to enjoy a good DVD on a Saturday night and take a drive in the country on Sunday afternoon. We need to be reasonable about all this but we also need to be serious and honest.

In fact this is the first long-haul flight I have made for a while as I have managed to divert some of my business onto Skype - oil free as far as I know. If you are interested I'm off to Nairobi for four days, on to Ethiopia for a few more and then ending up in Cape Town for the Lausanne III Congress. More reports will follow ......

Poor politics

In the UK you could have been forgiven for not knowing that major decisions were being taken in New York last week effecting the lives of millions of the world's more vulnerable people. The media here were in a frenzy of excitement as the brothers Miliband fought it out to lead a baddly battered Labour party. In the end David nearly cried, Ed told him how much he loved him, and the rest of us are still trying to remember which is which. Meanwhile in New York the great and the good of governments from around the world where trying to out do each other in proving now much they believed in, but could afford to do little about, the MDGs.

The magic year of course is 2015. It is by then that we will have put right all ills, and the poor (who of course won't exist any longer by then) will live happlily ever after. The problem is that when the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) were first drawn up 2015 was a long way off - now its only five years away, and what's more we have a global recession to keep us all occupied. In those heady days (remember the fireworks?) of 2000 the British governmemt wrote (I have the publication in front of me now), "It's not pie in the sky to talk of achieving basic social services like education and healthcare for everyone in the world in the next fifteen years". But what about in the next five year?

To be fair several governments did put new resources on the table last week and my own (UK) government has committed major resources to join Bill Gates in combating Malaria in Africa. But the real problem is that if the poor are to get less poor the rich (that's us) need to get less rich - and who's going to elect politicians who offer to make them poorer?

But there is a hopeful side to all this. In her 2009 provocative Dead Aid, Dambisa Moyo suggests that Aid doesn't work anyway and that if we are going to meet targets like the MDGs then we need to take a very different route - a route that has to do with enterprise, vision, community, and equitable trade. Perhaps that's where China and India may now lead the way to a better world. ... Perhaps? The thought I'm wrestling with tonight however is whether a 'community of enterprise' is more in keeping with the Christian gospel than 'a community of aid'? (I'm thinking of all those parables Jesus told about workers and wages.)

Men allowed?

I shudder to think of all the accusations I lay myself open to when I say this, but ... are men allowed in church? Or to put it another (dangerous) way, has the Christian Church in the UK become a religious insitution run by women for women? Before you all rush to the "respond" or even the "report" button let me explain that I have been a member of "Priests for the Ordination of Women", have voted for women bishops and strongly support the equal ministry of women at every level in the church. I am also not so blind to have failed to notice that senior leadership of the church in the UK is still dispropotionately exercised by men. But still I have a question.

I was singing the final hymn in church last Sunday when it hit me. I was in a church I rarely attend but I was concious that it was not atypical of many I have been in recently. What struck me was this ... The person who welcomed me, the two lesson readers, the intercessor, the organist, the priest, the person who took my collection, the church warden, the people who made me coffee, all these wonderful people had one thing in common - they were all women. I was not alone in my gender - there were three of us males in church that morning - and we were made very welcome, but it was definely a women's place. When I got home I pulled the weekly bulletin out of my pocket (not my handbag!) and read the long list of activities in which I could participate that week - not a single 'man' thing to do!

I suppose this is troubling me more this week because next Sunday is "Back to church Sunday" and I feel guilty that I'm not rushing round inviting all my male friends to join me in church. Help me someone. Has religion always been a 'women's thing' or did we men just loose the plot along the way? Its great that we provide so many activities, and opportunities to serve for women in our churches, and I will rejoice when the first women becomes Archbishop of Canterbury - but let's not forget that men can be Christians as well! Can we. please?

Rebirthing a nation

What a joy it was today to receive a surprise visit from Bishop Andre who leads the 'missionary diocese' of Angola. I first met Bishop Andre a few years ago and we have kept in touch on a number of matters but today he just rolled into the office unannounced - wonderful. Such a humble man, not totally at ease in English (his third language) but listening with a wise ear and measuring his words in reply.

For years the very word 'Angola' cunjured up a deep sense of despair - a civil war raging out of control and a popilation reduced to abject poverty. It was one of those nations you were tempted to write off as without hope. Listening to Andre today, however, I heard a very different story. Angola, a land of sunshine and fertile lands, a place of diamonds, oil, and rich mineral deposits, a country blessed with energetic and hopeful people determined to bless other nations and end any sense of dependence. A bishop, proud of his nation, told me that they have the capacity to feed a third of Africa and to provide the world with all the diamonds we could hope for. But more significantly he spoke of spiritual hope.

The Anglican church in Angola is very small - but growing fast. Desperately short of resorces and with only twenty clergy on salaries, the church is in expansion mode. Most of the leaders, clergy and lay, have full time employment as teachers, farmers, and civil servants, but that does not stop them leading vibrant communities and planting new churches. There are whole provinces of the country with no Anglican churches today - but tomorrow will be a different story I was told! The great challenge is training the leaders, but as Bishop Andre made his farewells I felt a strong sense of optimism - it is a challenge he is up to! Perhaps our small part in Faith2Share will be to provide links with Portuguese speaking (Angola's trade language) mission movements in Brazil and India and so see what they can do together. Angola is very definitely reborn.

How to stop Christian ministry for a day (or longer)

I'm not in the habit of cross-posting on my blog but I'm so tired tonight after so much email traffic during the day caused by one small church in Florida that I decided Jim Wallis could say it much better than I can! Literally hundreds of senior Christian leaders have been engaged around the world on this issue today - just think what other good work this has prevented. Jim's comments on the "Qur'an burning" plans of Dove (that's an ironic name!) World Outreeach Centre in Florida say it all. He writes today, "There has been near-universal condemnation of the Quran burning planned for this Saturday by Terry Jones and his Florida church. Opposition has come from Muslims, Christians, Jews; Republicans and Democrats; civilians, politicians (including the president), and generals.

"What Jones doesn't seem to understand is that the message he is really sending is a sacrilegious slap in the face of Jesus Christ. If Jones and his followers go through with their plans to burn the Quran, they might as well burn some Bibles too, because they are already destroying the teachings of Jesus. Jesus called his followers to be peacemakers, and to love not only their neighbors, but also their enemies; instead Jones and his church have decided to become agents of conflict and division. Jones needs someone to tell him that Americans should not judge all Muslims by the actions of a small group of terrorists -- and I hope somebody tells Muslims around the world not to judge Christians, or all of America, by the actions of a radical fringe like the members of Dove World Outreach Center.

"But just as the proclaimed faith of the terrorists bears no resemblance to the faith of most Muslims, the actions of Jones and his followers bear no resemblance to the faith of most Christians. Jones knows that his actions are legally protected, but if he follows through he should know that he makes a mockery of the teachings of Jesus and even puts our country and U.S. troops in danger."

My network, Faith2Share, has set up a prayer chain for Friday this week. If you want to join it email me on f2s@faith2share.net

Burn, burn, burn

On a golf course in southern Britain a few days ago, early morning golfers discovered a body burnt and tossed away in the bushes. So bad was the burning that it took forensics to determine the gender of this discarded humanity, but now a few days later we get to know this man and his story. Overtaken by life he takes to drugs, lives on the streets, finds a home and friends in a hostel. "A quiet man" say his friends - but someone needed to set fire to that life ... was it out of fear or anger? Why?

Several hundred years earlier three more men were set alight. Not secretly at night but in front of crowds, jearing or silent. A cross of stones still marks that spot in the centre of my city where three bishops (Ridley, Latimer and Cranmer) burnt like candles. They, and many hundreds of others, were burnt by Christians, in the name of Christ, for the sake of truth. Was truth strengthened? Did Christ's kingdom grow out of those ashes?

Now a different fire is proposed. Pastor Terry Jones of Dove World Outreach Centre in Florida has announced that his church will mark September 11 this year as "International Burn a Quran Day". How many lives will that cost? Not in Florida of course, but all around the world such an act is designed to enrage Muslim communities who will have ended their most sacred season of Ramadan just two days earlier. Why are we so fearful of each other? Why do we think that burning things - people and books - is going to solve anything?

I had an email tonight from a senior world Christian leader saying he and others are seeking to meet Pastor Jones and persuade him that there is a more Christ-like way to respond to our Mislim neighbours. Join me in praying that their efforts to meet and talk with be effective. We must stop burning everything!

Disconnecting to connect

In response to my yesterday thoughts on 'Short Change?', Martin came back to me saying, "I'm not sure if the harder questions are the financial ones?" Thanks Martin, that gives me the excuse to write more on this topic. (Plug .... In fact I have already written quite a lot more which will come out at the end of the year as a chapter in the Edinburgh 2010 report.) But back to our discussion now ....

Short-term mission is costly but I agree with you Martin that there are harder questions. I hinted at one of these right at the end of my last piece. I have just been rereading Tom Sine's The New Conspirators (2008 sequel to Mustand Seed Conspiracy) where he invites "followers of Jesus to do the hard work of decoding the cultural influences in our lives" (Pg.90) and I strongly believe that one of those cultural influences is short-termism and its consequent devaluing of sustained relating. It is becoming counter-cultural to have a two-hour conversation with one person - the 'cool' thing to do is to Tweet the world. This buying into cultural short-termism is one of the hard questions but there are others. Perhaps I have space here for just one more ....

Disconnecting in order to connect. Jesus would never have cried "My God, why have you forsaken me" if he had stayed at home, but he disconnected in order to connect - with us. That's tough and it takes time. When I look at the design of most of what goes for short-term mission today I see very little disconnecting. The umbilical cord of text messages and "my life in Africa" blogs back to the home church, the bonded group of fellow short-termers (sometimes 100 strong!), and the return ticket tucked into the passport ensure connections are maintained. So what space (time, emotional, spiritual, etc.) is left for connecting in the host culture? To parady scripture, "My home church, my family, why have you forsaken me?" might be an important step on the road to a deeper participation in the relationship building cross of Christ.

Short change?

Only twenty years ago the mission agency I worked for sent out 'Short-term' missionaries to do 2 - 4 years service. Some extended to six years but they were still 'short-termers'. That was then. In contrast, back in June I had a conversation with an American church leader who was very excited about the dozens of members in her church who offer for 'short-term' mission. I'm not stupid so I asked her what she meant by 'short-term'. "Oh, its normally a two week trip but some do three weeks or even a month." she continued enthusiastically. We were standing in the lunch queue at Edinburgh University and I wished she had been in the session that afternoon when my friend Darrell Whiteman had voiced his concerns.

Darrell shared with us the following statistics for short-term missionaries in the US

1965 under 10,000

1989 120,000

1994 200,000

2005 1,600,000

That's some growth and my first reaction was to rejoice that so many people are offering for mission service. But then Darrell started asking his questions! If most of these 1.6 million Christians are abroad for just 2-4 weeks can they really be effective in mission? What do they understand about their host culture? How do they build deep relationships? Is this more about enriching the experience to US Christians (no bad thing!) rather than mission in Bolivia or wherever? Should we not be honest and call this "cross-cultural exposure" not "mission"?

Just as I was coming to terms with these questions, wrestling with the concept of 'ecclesiastical tourism', Darrell went on to ask even harder questions ...... If 1.6 million short-termers contribute 192 million hours of free labour to local projects across the world is that not a good thing? But what effect does that have on the local economy? How does this help to build partnership rather than dependancy? If 1.6 million Americans had stayed at home instead and sent the US$4.8 billion that they would otherwise have spent (on air fares, accommodation, food, etc.) to the local church what might that have purchased in the local economy?

There are no easy answers but it does make me wonder whether Christians have bought into the 'short-termism' of our contemporary culture and whether anyone will ever again want to do anything long-term.

Who says what's 'orthodox'

It was June and I was in Edinburgh. The evening was warm and I was climbing Arthur's seat. Mark and Mark walked together - my companion, a bishop from Canada ... not a son of France or England or some other colonial power but a true son of the lands that we Europeans decided should be called Canada. Of course they were not nameless before, nor were they without peoples and soul.

I had had a frantic day running sessions for the (history-making?) Edinburgh 2010 coference, but as my steps fell in line with Mark's steady rhythm my mind began to settle and I began to listen to his story - not from the beginning (my mind was too busy to attend at first) but a story which made sense from the middle. A story of indigenous Christian communities across the arctic north of Canada. The Edinburgh air was calm and the sun still bright but I was transported into a world of dark cabins, of hymn singing late into the night, of Bible stories retold in local tongues, of healing and wisdom ... and pain. The pain I remember most from Mark's story came when settlers, good righteous Christians, brought their bright lights of truth into these native cabins to chase out 'misguided' faith and plant 'orthodox' religion. That pain is still felt today - I felt it in Mark as we walked - I wanted to share it, but could not.

Of course 'ortho-doxy' (right worship) is important and we all need to rid ourselves of our own superstitions and 'idol-doxy'. But who says what is orthodox? Dare I?

Not dead but sleeping

So many of my friends have been challenging me to start writing this blog again that in mid-August I finally set myself a target date and now that magic date has arrived. This blog somehow fell asleep in February this year but 1 September seems a good enough day for a resurrection.

My blog may have been asleep I was certainly not. A lot, I mean a lot, has happened to me since February - some good, some bad, some ... well "life happens" as they say. I'm going to use the next few blogs to do a little catching up with myself and if you want to read along with me - welcome!

When I was planning today's resurrection back in August I was reflecting again on what a blog actually achieves. Well, I suppose they all do different things. Some advertise, some vent the spleen, some impart valuable information, some amuse, some (can I be frank?) bore. If I'm honest most of the time I will be writing for myself (to get those muddled brain cells laid out somewhere where I can see them and begin to sort them) - but if you want to listen in, that's fine.

My Malaysian friend just gave me a Russian gift - let me share this 'amazing gift' with you.

Courage to Change - Dom Helder

Come April and I'm off to the sunshine of Brazil, to Recife in the north east to be precise. Yes I am fed up with this cold damp winter in the UK but there are more acceptable reasons for going to Recife - like work! Preparing for a week in Recife with mission leaders from around the world I decided I ought to get back in touch with one of my school boy heros. Despite my 'evangelical credentials' (did I hear you say, 'what credentials?') I received all my secondary education at a Roman Catholic school run by some fantastic religious brothers who taught me how to drink, enjoy worship, and get hooked on theoretical physics! But I digress. My schooling coincided with the Second Vatical Council and the hero of that great meeting in Rome for me was the Brazilian bishop Dom Helder Camara - champion of liberation theology, or more correctly, champion of the poor. He was bishop of Recife.

Not having read any of his thinking for almost 40 years I picked up Francis McDonagh's little book Dom Helder Camara - Essential Writtings, published by Orbis just last year. It has been great to read him again and I hope it is preparing me for something of the reality of 2010 Brazil, but the book also gave me a great shock. McDonagh begins her selection of writings with a short biography of the man and after a few pages I found myself reading about a young man who enthuisatically joined and then led the fascist Integralist movement in Brazil. That just dodn't fit for me - McDonagh must have got it wrong. How could the great champion of the poor, famous for his work with Catholic Action and his support for liberation theologians - a bishop who was often accused (unjustly) of being a communist - have recruited fascists? But it seems he did.

It was only some years after his ordination that his ministry amongst the poor of Recife and his faith in the poor man Jesus led him to reject fascism and embrace a whole new understanding of God's priority for the poor. Don Helder was a man big enough to admit his mistakes, to redirect his life, to change, to move on. We need more big men like him.

He wrote in 1970, "A people united and organised, a people united and relying of the grace of God, will rise up from poverty without hatred or violence, but with decision and courage."

Courage to change - Jack

I very much doubt whether you have ever heard of Jack Sparks - he died in Alaska a few days ago, aged 81. For years I had known, and been fascinated by, Jack's story and then seven years ago I found myself in Alaska (as you do!) and so headed straight off to Eagle River (great name - great place) to meet him, just a year after he had moved there from California. It was an interesting meeting.

So what's the story? Jack was a national leader with the very evangelical student movement called Campus Crusade for Christ in San Bernadino, California during the sunshine, 'flowers in your hair' and LSD years of the 1960s. In his desire to share his faith in Jesus he published a range of rather way out newspapers and then created the Christian World Liberation Front (what a 1960s name!) to minister amongst hippies and students. I was running a few years behind Jack, joining Campus Crusade in 1969 when my hair was very long and my flares very wide (but I missed out on the LSD - honest!) There would have been nothing unusal about Jack's story (Campus Crusade evangelists are not that rare) except that a decade later he, and a group of Campus Crusade leaders, decided to join the Orthodox Church! The crunch came for Jack when he saw so many of the young people he had introduced to Jesus just packing up their faith with their flares when they left university, cut their hair, threw away their CND badges and got a 'proper job'. Jesus, for so many was part of the hippie, student, package but an unafforable luxury when real life came along. Jack saw that Jesus freeks needed to find a home - in a church! He set out looking for the New Testament church and discovered Orthodoxy.

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Jack never gave up sharing his faith, getting young people excited about Jesus, but now he could bring them home - to his home - to the community of Orthodox Christians. It's a long road from Campus Crusade director to Orthodox priest (Jack was ordained in 1987), and it takes courage to travel that road, but Jack was a man of courage and convictions. I'm glad I met Jack, just that once, and I'm glad I discovered Orthodox Christians as well as Campus Crusade - I needed them both.

Pricing Haiti's Orphans

My good friend Harriet Mirembe in Uganda (or the USA - you never know where people are these days in this virtual world!) commented on my last post and linked it to children in Haiti who have become vulnerable to those seeking cheap orphans. I find it incredible that a Christian organisation could even consider taking a 'day trip' to Haiti to fill a bus with good looking orphans which they can then give away to nice infertile parents in the USA - but, if the reports are correct, that's just what they did do.

What is even more alarming though are the stories beginning to emerge of those who have gone to Haiti to acquire children as part of a commercial enterprise which will nett them good profits as these children are sold on to love hungry parents in the rich world, parents who know nothing of the culture, language or background of the kids they adopt - or should I say 'buy'.

As well as getting angry about this trade in suffering kids I also have to ask myself a question. If I condemn the actions of charities that 'rescue' children and traders who 'market' children, what will I do instead? Am I prepared to be part of a better solution - a solution which will provide Haiti's children (not just the orphans) with a viable future in the community, culture and nation of their birth.

That solution is going to be much tougher than a day trip to Haiti.