tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3599283508470313502024-03-13T15:21:05.184+00:00Michael J. LeydenPriest. Teacher. Theologian.Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.comBlogger60125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-52397558536031274882020-02-18T13:53:00.001+00:002020-06-09T11:24:21.144+01:00My new book! Faithful Living: Discipleship, Creed, and Ethics <div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I’m a little late flagging this up here, but my book <a href="https://scmpress.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780334058199/faithful-living">Faithful Living: Discipleship, Creed, and Ethics </a>was released by SCM Press in December 2019 — a little bit earlier than expected (and hopefully in time for a few last-minute Christmas presents!). The basic premise of the book is a bit of a thought-experiment: I am interested in the kinds of decisions and actions that may be inferred or implied for those who believe and regularly recite the Nicene Creed. I don’t pretend this is an exhaustive moral commentary, nor that the basic approach isn’t without some qualification, but I do try and join the dots between the confessional substance of the Christian faith (with which many worshipers are familiar because of liturgical confession) and the every-day choices that most Christians are required to make. It comes from the conviction that doctrinal commitments implicate our moral lives. The blurb summarises it as follows:</span><br />
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<i style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">How can the things we do and say in Church impact our lives and shape the decisions we make on a daily basis? What kind of life is implied for people who believe the things that Christians believe?</span></i><br /><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><i style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Faithful Living attempts to think through these questions and considers the formational impact worship can have on Christian ethics, and therefore on the lives of Christian disciples. It focuses on one of the Church’s regular practices, reciting the Nicene Creed, and offers an ethical commentary on the Creed’s key ideas and themes, challenging Christians from all traditions to think through their faith in order to live faith-fully before God. In so doing, it seeks to hold Christian belief and practice (what are often more formally called doctrine and practice) together.</i> </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">Each chapter addresses one clause from the Creed, attending to its theological meaning, before turning to the ethical implications associated with it. Topics include community, food, politics, disability, suffering, hope, discernment, and catechesis</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">I am very grateful to the Bishops of Lancaster and Kensington, Rt Revd Dr Jill Duff and Rt Revd Dr Graham Tomlin respectively, for their generous endorsements of the book, as well as Professor David Clough, Professor of Theological Ethics at the University of Chester, UK, for his. The fact that bishops </span><em style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">and</em><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-align: justify;"> professors were asked by the publishers to endorse it says something about the nature of the argument: it straddles both the academy and the Church, marshalling insights from academic theology in service of the community of the faithful. I try to bring my experiences as both a parish priest and a seminary teacher into constructive conversation too, showing how the Christian life is resourced by theology (even if, in the end, it is a pneumatic life - as I argue in ch.8). As the sub-title suggests, my focus is the theological and practical sustance of discipleship, and the way in which the more obviously identity-conferring commitments we make in worship and credal confession have radical implications for the rest of our lives. Worship in general, and credal confession as a particular part of that, forms and shapes us by orientating us Godward. So, as the blurb suggests, I spend some time in each chapter overviewing the theology of each of the major claims of the Creed (and sometimes discussing competing theological accounts of the Creed’s meaning), before asking about its implications for our lives beyond gathered worship. The aim is to try to make some practical suggestions about the kinds of decisions and actions Christians might undertake, and point to the wider resources available to help with that. The chapters are as follows:</span><br />
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4. ‘In One Lord, Jesus Christ’: Political Responsibility 75</div>
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5. ‘Conceived of the Holy Spirit, Born of the Virgin Mary’: Disability and Humanity 95</div>
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6. ‘Suffered Death and was Buried’: Suffering 116</div>
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7. ‘On the Third Day He Rose Again’: Hope and Moral Vision 132</div>
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8. ‘The Lord and Giver of Life’: The Holy Spirit and the Christian Life 148</div>
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9. ‘Communion of Saints, Forgiveness of Sins’: The Church and Practical Catechesis 165</div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Each chapter concludes with some discussion questions, making the book suitable for thoughtful small groups in local churches as well as undergraduate seminars in university and seminary contexts. These questions also include suggestions for further reading. I am hoping this will be a useful resource for ongoing conversation since it is definitely not an exhaustive commentary or final argument on the topic. Its originality comes from treating liturgy and worship as a meaningful resource for moral deliberation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In keeping with the overall concern for worship and the formation of the moral self, my current writing project is a follow-up volume focused more specifically on liturgy, taking the different parts of a service of Eucharist and treating them in much the same way as the clauses of the Creed here. Watch this space for more on that...</span></div>
Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-33759163278434989942016-05-17T21:47:00.001+01:002016-05-17T21:57:19.929+01:00There's No Theology Without Prayer<div>
<img height="202" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hzD04ki_3LE/VzuDfPWht8I/AAAAAAAAAdc/4cK0cNzNaNI/s5000/%25255BUNSET%25255D.jpg" style="display: block; float: left; margin: 0px 7px;" width="212" />It’s about fifteen years since I first read Helmut Thielicke’s masterful work “A Little Exercise for Young Theologians” (first English publication was 1962). I have read it at least biannually ever since: it usually takes an afternoon to get through, followed by a week or two for recovery and application! His wisdom is at once simple and profound; his manner simultaneously pastoral and commanding. Thielicke was a churchly theologian who knew the power and responsibility of theological study. It is not something to be undertaken lightly — for it trains those who are called to serve the people of God; nor should it be worn too heavily — for its speech about God is contingent.<br />
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This time in reading it I have been struck by Thielicke’s remarks about prayer as the proper context for theological study. It’s not a new idea, and is certainly something we pursue at St Mellitus College. But there’s a freshness in the way Thielicke expresses himself:<br />
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<em>“Faith must mean more to us than a mere commodity stored in the tin cans of reflection or bottled in the lecture notebook, whence at any time it my be reproduced by the brain."</em><br />
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His objection, which I share, is to the static and archival trap of some kinds of theolgical study, where what was once the lively focus of our Christian faith and life becomes confined by our concepts, entrapped by our langauge, and thus deadened. Such theology comes about because it ceases to happen in the second person address of the prayerful Christian, but solely takes the form of third person observations <em>about</em> God. God becomes the object of our theologizing, rather than, as Karl Barth would have it, the proper Subjective ground of our thinking and speaking — the basis on which we theologize. For the latter to be true the spiritual life — in particular, the prayer life — of the theologian is all important. As Thielicke puts it here, <em>“essentially dogmatic theology is theology which is prayed.</em><em>”</em> The prayer-connection between individuals and God is the substance of the relationship which encourages theologians to speak truly of God, Father Son and Holy Spirit, and not of someone else, for such is the essence of theology. Theologians speak of God, the true and living God, as we are permitted and enabled to do so. But first, Thielicke would say, we must speak to God.<br />
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Of course, there is a certain circularity in this: we all have an implicit theology about God which informs our prayers, no matter how much we recognize it to be true. And even confessional theology which is deeply orthodox and biblical is at best a human craft and work which cannot bear the full weight of scrutiny. But there is something about the openness required by a praying theologian to recognise God’s absolute freedom to be and therefore the limitations of human speech, as well the trajectory of prayerfilled theologizing, which makes all the difference to her theological output: praying theologians speak *to* God as well as *about* God, thus recognising God to be a person who is real, and free, and alive, and about whom, therefore, we may discover more only in the conext of (personal and communal) relationship. In speaking <em>to</em> God, and in hearing God speak to us, we are better placed to speak <em>about</em> God for the Church and the world. Thielicke writes,</div>
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<em>”How all-important it is that a vigorous spiritual life, in close association with the Holy Scriptures and in the midst of the Christian community, be maintained as a backdrop to theological work, and that the unformed shadows of thought always derive their lifeblood from that source…"</em></div>
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It mattered to Thielicke that what enlived faith and gave birth to a vigorous prayer life was not to be found axiomatically within the theologian, but in the work of the living God who speaks in and through the human words of Scripture, and who is present and active in the community of the Church. We may speak, but only because we have first been spoken to, chielfy in Jesus Christ, but subsequently in the witness of Scripture and in the company of Christ’s people. In both contexts the posture of the praying theologian is one of hands and heart and ears open. Only then can s/he be equipped to speak, however faulteringly, to God and about God. Here too, in this context of prayer and worship, our unformed shadowy thoughts are given some light and we see their shape: prejudices, assumptions, wrongheaded ideas, and shortsightedness about God get put right, and good but half-baked thoughts get developed and matured into something better.</div>
Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-32215140434826502672015-11-29T09:00:00.000+00:002017-08-30T15:32:09.241+01:00Truth and Unity with Karl Barth<div>
<img alt="" height="320" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DyX0OoHDm8g/VleDC4J1bXI/AAAAAAAAAaM/YNgiz5kVtvM/s320/%25255BUNSET%25255D.jpg" style="display: block; float: left; margin: 0px 7px;" width="210" />I am enjoying reading Barth’s letters from the final years of his life - <em>Karl Barth: Letters 1961-1968</em> (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1981) - and came across another gem recently. This one concerns the heart of the ecumanical project, and in particular the possibility of closer ties between Reformed Protestantism and the Roman Catholic Church. In a written reply to The Institute of the Sacred Heart of Mary, Belgium, in 1962 Barth thanked the sisters there for their initial contact with him, and their feedback on his own theological work. He then comments on their corrspondence - they must have said something about the importance of loving one another - and he writes,<br />
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<em>'You are right to tell me that much of the route to the unity of the church is laid when we come together again in love. Being the friend of many Roman Catholic theologians, I add that I am happy to affirm that in truth as well we have come closer on both sides than could ever have been imagined fifty years ago. One thing is certain: the more both your theology and ours concentrate on the person and work of Jesus Christ, true God and true man, our sovereign Lord and only Savior, the more we shall find ourselves already united in spite of some important differences. Do you not also think the day will one day come when we shall no longer speak of Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians but simply of Evangelical Christians forming one body and one people? Veni Creator Spiritus.'</em><br />
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What I find striking here is Barth’s willingness, in the face of so many other stark disagreements he had with the Roman Catholic Church, to give light to the possibility of unity in the truth. He does not advocate turning a blind eye to the truth, or overlooking differences in pursuit of some false unity. Instead, the answer to the disunity of the Church is a more intense focus on Jesus Christ. In His light we stand as equally reprobate and wrong, but equally loved. It is an important lesson, particularly in Churches such as the Church of England where the future unity has appeared to be compromised by the quesiton of truth in relation to sexuality and identity, to such an extent that the only way forward seems to be a split or a profound compromise. Barth advocated a better way: careful, deep, and sustained attention to Jesus. This means no shorthand statements ("Jesus is inclusive”) and no oversimplified rhetoric (“the bible clealry states…”), but a more thorough, prayerful, and humble reckoning with God in the mystery of the incarnation. This will always be challenging and surprising; it will be the only way to keep us together in an honest and truthfilled way, too.</div>
Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-4340326602038070072015-11-27T11:56:00.000+00:002015-11-27T15:35:46.354+00:00'...but the greatest of these is charity.' Hunsinger and the Barth-Revisionists<div>
If in some mind-bending moment in the life of the Church of England, I was put in charge of all training for all clergy and lay-ministers, everywhere, I would require that trainee ministers take classes in how to read. I don’t mean remedial English. I mean hermeneutics at its most basic level: how to read and inhabit someone’s argument, thought processes, ideas, and perspective — even, or especially, when you don’t agree with their final verdict. I have sometimes wondered about setting a debate as a final assignment, in which students must opt to argue for a position they cannot stand! The idea is not to increase piety for piety’s sake (though a bit more piety may not always be a bad thing), but rather to increase our ability to dialogue and disagree well, by which I mean in an informed and intelligent way. The latest wrangling in the C of E about sexuality will require exactly this sort of thing (and, so far, it seems to me there has been little attempt to really inhabit and understand the arguments of <em>both</em> sides - though the shared conversations <em>might</em> begin to help). Furthermore, it would be mandatory that, unless time has been taken to really understand and inhabit someone else’s point of view and the reaosns for which they have adopted it, freedom to comment upon the quality of their argument or fidelity of their persepctive be suspended. Hermeneutically speaking, this is known as <em>charitable</em> reading. It is not so much a disposition, but a discipline. It does not withold the need to critique, but makes a virtue of proper understanding beforehand.<br />
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This is the proposal George Hunsinger makes in his new book on Barth-interpretation, <em>Reading Barth with Charity: A Hermenutical Proposal</em> (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2015). From begining to end this book is a critique of the revisionist school of thought, most associated with Hunsinger’s Princeton colleague Bruce McCormack. Essentially the Revisionists accuse Barth of inconsistency and incoherence, and make quite interesting (!) claims about divine ontology in Barth’s <em>Church Dogmatics</em>. Most significant amongst these claims is the idea that it was the divine decision to be God <em>pro nobis</em>, God’s self-eleciton, that gave rise to God’s ontological ordering of God’s self as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In response, Traditionalists like Hunsinger argue that Barth sees the eternal tri-unity of God as giving rise to God’s decision to be God for us in election. Hunsinger’s argument is that the Revisionists’ position is methodologically weak because it 'fails to honour the principle of charity’ (xvi). This is not as simple as saying they haven’t read Barth properly. Bruce McCormack, Paul Nimmo, and Paul Dafydd Jones (the principal revisionists referenced here) are significant theologians of high standing in their own rights, and all have published weighty volumes in support of the revisionist position. Hunsinger’s problem is that none of these scholars has responded adequately to the Traditionalist scholars - Hunsinger, Paul Molnar, Joseph Mangina - who offer an alternative reading of Barth and have published equally weighty tomes defending and articulating their position.<br />
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Hunsinger tries in this volume to overcome the <em>impasse</em> between the two schools of thought by offering a kind of mediating principle in the notion of ‘charity’. In a discipline such as systematic theology, which involves the reading and exegeting of texts, to determine which is the most charitable reading we must ask which is most faithful both to the text and also to what the author of the text was trying to do. It means avoiding the levelling of critiques such as inconsistency unless absolutely necessary. Hunsinger’s point is that in the case of Karl Barth the revisionist critique is unnecessary, and that without much effort a more coherent and more traditionally trinitarian Barth can be discerned within the same texts as those the revisionist cite as indicative of their own position.<br />
<a name='more'></a>In order to do so, Hunsinger describes the key aspects of the revisionist account in detail, drawing attention to the key articles, book chapters, and monographs in which these arguments are made, and then proceeds to offer his alternaitve reading - or at least to highlight the problems with such readings raised in the Barth <em>corpus</em>. Hunsinger’s critique of the revisionist perspective demonstrates the kind of charitable reading he advocates: it is thorough, closely argued, and depedent on trying to inhabit the perspectives of his opponents in detail. But in one significant way it falls short of a putative understanding of charity: the tone of the argument. In several places Hunsinger sounds frustrated with the Revisionists, and thier lack of care in reading Barth. This is understandable; it feels as much like a matter of justice as it does theological correctness - has Barth had a fair hearing? But agitation makes for awkward conversation. I have wondered what the corridors of Princeton must feel like given that two giants of Barth studies teach there, and they disagree so profusely (though I recognise professional disagreement does not necessarily equal personal discourtesy at all).<br />
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And this brings me back to the future of the C of E, and the way we learn and think together over difficult topics. The most dominant voices should not be assumed to be the most accurate or correct. Going forward will require detailed, close listening to the perspectives of others, and close, detailed critique too. To engage charitably is not to hold back, but to make sure when the advance of any argument is made it is accurate, fair, and faithful. It also means getting the tone right: speaking the truth in love, one might say, or else the good disagreement will fail before it has really started. </div>
Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-89414386505696725892015-11-26T21:41:00.001+00:002015-11-26T21:45:46.133+00:00Brief Admonishment from the Old Man of Basel<div><img style="float: left; display: block; margin: 0px 7px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-p33_yVHd2JA/Vld87-0EIEI/AAAAAAAAAZ8/xGxM80t3vDE/s5000/%25255BUNSET%25255D.jpg" alt="" width="317" height="207" />In 1961 Karl Barth wrote a letter to one of his theological students, whom he had recently supported in a grant application for funding to study in Edinburgh, to chastise him about his general outlook on life and his attitude to theological study in particular. It’s a short letter in the collection <em>Karl Barth: Letters 1961-1968</em> (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1981), and is anonymised for the sake of the student in question. The most pertinent section of the letter - the bit I’d like all of my students to read (!) - is as follows:</div>
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<div style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>‘Before one can say (or meaningfully ask) anything, one must first listen, and before one can write anything, one must first do proper reading. If you cannot or will not learn this, you had better keep your fingers out of not merely academic theology but theology in general.'</em></div>
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<div>The discipines of listening and thinking, reading and seeking to understand, are significant not only for young academics but anyone holding a pastoral office in the Church. They are the basis of sensible, coherent, and intellignet output (speaking and writing). Of course, reading and thinking takes time; listening and questioning is a discipline. The busy life of ministry does not always allow for them. And yet, it seems right and proper that those whose duty and joy is the proclamation of the gospel should be those who have listened-in on the conversations of the theologians on the tradition; who have sought to understand the deeper meaning of the scriptures and the creeds in order to feed the sheep they are called to shepherd. To neglect to do so is to jeapordise the general theological task of ministry by removing it from its foundations in the gospel. </div>Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-6070091656702147772014-02-20T14:18:00.005+00:002014-11-12T15:21:07.411+00:00Humble Confidence: The Appropriate Theological AttitudeI've just got round to reading January's <i><a href="http://www.ijst.org/" target="_blank">International Journal of Systematic Theology</a></i> (IJST). I really look forward to it coming in the post: it is the universal problem of research-students-who-are-within a-few-months-of-submission that we become so engrossed in the topic at hand (in my case Karl Barth) that other things pass us by. So, IJST affords me the opportunity to lift my head from the Barthian-pit and read a few other things and have those bits of my mind that remember what it was like to read freely in any area of systematics re-enlivened (avoiding the Barth essays within the journal...for now). Normally I skip over the editorials and head for the articles, but last night I read Steve Holmes' editorial for the January edition. In it Holmes, <a href="http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/divinity/rt/staff/sh80/" target="_blank">senior lecturer in Systematic Theology</a> at St Andrews University, considers with what attitude the discipline of theology must engage with other academic disciplines. He outlines two, before settling on the third.<br />
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The first attitude Holmes describes is imperialistic. He recalls the medieval idea that theology is the "queen of the sciences", and suggests that "on this account, systematics engages other disciplines in order to complete them, to lead them into their proper place in human knowledge, rightly structured." There is something quite aggressive in this approach: it forbids other disciplines from being ends in themselves - their proper contribution to human understanding can only be realised when they're annexed by theology. There is a kind of implicit "evangelism/apologetics" involved in this sort of approach. As Holmes characterises it, "if the claims of the Christian gospel are true, they are necessarily of the very highest importance." The problem with this approach in the academy is that everyone can say it of their own discipline: if it is true, it is of the utmost important. It is therefore not very interesting, and will not engender positive and constructive relationships between disciplines.<br />
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The second attitude sounds much more apathetic to my ear, but it has a distinguished history in the academy: desperation. Holmes grounds his discussion of this attitude in Schleiermacher's <i>Speeches to the Cultured Despisers</i> and argues that the key concern here is not for the purity and power of theology, but for garnering some recognition: "to find a place in the modern university, theology must endlessly reach out, to prove its usefulness or interest in dialogue with other disciplines." The thought of it is exhausting, seeking always to justify the existence of theology within the academy - a requirement of many academic disciplines in our modern intellectual climate. But, for me, this approach betrays something of the impetus for theological study in as much as its orientation is toward its own utility, with the criteria for this being set by external agencies.<br />
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So Holmes offers us a middle way, a different attitude which avoids the imperialism of some medieval theologies, and which avoids begging for recognition from other disciplines before proceeding to its own task. He calls it "humble confidence." I think this is a really good description of what is needed: the confidence grows out of the fact that "the intellectual vibrancy and utility of systematic theology lie in its claims to be an integrative account of all reality" and this integration is historically and culturally pervasive and potent, "therefore it has an important - though not privileged - position is a plural university..." The humility to which Holmes directs us is necessary because, in our post-modern culture, the integrative account we offer must be credible and plausible to others. So we proceed by engaging other intellectual disciplines "not on the basis of demanding their acquiescence to our interpretative schemes, but on the basis of our willingness to show that our interpretative schemes are repeatedly helpful and generative for various areas of thought." Holmes goes on, "we accept that, in our current intellectual climate, others will need to see it working before they even entertain the idea of its having value."<br />
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As I read this through a second time, I could hear my younger (much more conservative) self wondering about the orientation of Holmes' humble confidence: what about the task of the theologian to elucidate and explicate the content of the Christian gospel? Then I remembered that the way Barth has affected my thinking on this topic is more implicit than explicit. In a changing university climate, the academic theologian celebrates and reiterates the gospel in a particular way, by engaging other disciplines constructively, creatively, and Christianly for the sake of the common good. This requires a great deal of thoughtfulness and ingenuity. It also requires prayerful support. So often our academic theologians are characterised as enemies of the gospel - not because they hate Jesus, but because they betray the simplicity of gospel - of trust and obedience - by their insistence on thinking deeply about its content. (This kind of anti-intellectualism is surprisingly common amongst clergy...). But it is as important for the mission of the Church as anything else that we refuse an isolationist policy, most especially in the university, and we engage other forms of human endeavour. Humble Confidence is a helpful summary of the requisite attitude that makes this kind of missional activity possible.<br />
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Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-12210621901665308012014-02-11T14:24:00.001+00:002015-01-23T16:46:07.048+00:00The God We Worship: Liturgy and Theology<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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Following my reading of +Robert Atwell's book on leading liturgical worship, today I came across Nicholas Wolterstorff's latest project in the form of the Kantzer Lectures: <i><a href="http://henrycenter.tiu.edu/resource/the-god-we-worship-a-liturgical-theology/" target="_blank">The God We Worship</a></i>. The videos for each lecture last about an hour, and are really interesting to listen to. So far I've had time for just two of them, but they are quite enticing both because of their peculiar approach to theology and also for the depth of their content.<br />
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Wolterstorff sees his project as something similar to Barth's <i>Dogmatics</i>, which he argues is grounded in the proclamatory activity of the Church (which is essentially, he argues, about preaching). For Wolterstorff, liturgical theology is about making explicit the implicit theology of the liturgy, articulating that, and then defending it. It is at the core of the Church's life because worship is a core activity of the Church called and purposed by God. Drawing on the work of Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmeman he develops his thinking around the claim that <i>"The Church actualises herself in the act of performing the liturgy." </i>Liturgy, here, means not a particular traditioned set of practices, but the points of liturgical convergence between several major ecclesial traditions (RC, Lutheran, Episcopal, Presbyterian), and hangs on the broad definition, <i>"Christian worship is liturgical when it is the scripted performance of acts of worship." </i><br />
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Whatever you think of liturgical worship, these lectures are really worth listening to. They are thoughtful, theological, and full of love for God and His Church. I already feel challenged by how easily I manage to ramble through the liturgy some Sundays, without taking serious time to think about what I'm doing and what I'm leading others in.Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-20583807369960347262014-02-05T21:32:00.002+00:002014-02-05T22:06:28.098+00:00Advice from a Bishop on Worship and Mission<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX7Iy03aXUyNGsB_AU-Baf8K8YeNeqL5r_u8j5EJEMUXYC5DlUq1_Vlw8z5i8pdx-Of8ZQ5RBpJAWLcXHhzrTwfUiyAQP7mxlZVvPCaK4YUp4UvTkrLscc309VAOzySrxUpyi9UrkEgU4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-02-05+at+20.29.35.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX7Iy03aXUyNGsB_AU-Baf8K8YeNeqL5r_u8j5EJEMUXYC5DlUq1_Vlw8z5i8pdx-Of8ZQ5RBpJAWLcXHhzrTwfUiyAQP7mxlZVvPCaK4YUp4UvTkrLscc309VAOzySrxUpyi9UrkEgU4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-02-05+at+20.29.35.png" height="320" width="238" /></a>Recently I've been reading a new book, <i>The Good Worship Guide: Leading Liturgy Well</i> by Robert Atwell, currently Bishop of Stockport to be <a href="http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/Bishop-Exeter-unveiled-Plymouth-Rt-Revd-Robert/story-20471852-detail/story.html" target="_blank">translated to Exeter </a>later this year. It's sold as a "practical guide to leading worship" (p.xiii). This comes with two health warnings: 1) it is about leading worship within the liturgical structure of the Church of England, so not everyone who wants some help with leading worship will find it obviously useful - though there are principles within that apply to any church congregation in any tradition; 2) by worship, +Robert means much more than songs. Although he is very aware of the charismatic movement within the Church of England - he has been a speaker at New Wine in the past - and makes reference to Hillsongs and modern Christian worship music, when he talks about worship he means everything from the welcome received at the door, through to the liturgical event, the songs, the Communion, the sermon: the whole lot. I find this approach really refreshing, because it challenges me to think about everything we do at a service as part of our communal sacrifice of worship. This is more unusual than you might think: often, especially in the low-church charismatic evangelical tradition in which I have been shaped, we have "a time of worship" within the "service". And though there is very little formal liturgy, there is an obvious liturgical structure in which worship is often confined to points in the programme (welcome and notices, 3 "worship" songs, bible reading, sermon, response time of "worship", prayers etc.).<br />
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The most interesting bit about the book is the emphasis Atwell places on mission. His contention is that "worship is the shop front of the Church" and so getting it right really matters both for the formation of the Christian community, and because it is worship which other people most associate with Church buildings. We all know there are countless numbers of people who only come into Parish Churches once in a blue moon, but when they do they expect worship to be offered - and they often expect to be able to join in (whatever we may think about that theologically). Getting this right and making it a good event, for regulars and not-so-regulars, matters because it is the place where scripture is read, the sacraments are celebrated, and where God promises to be in the midst: it is therefore also the place where people encounter Jesus Christ. Though the latter is a work of the Holy Spirit in the sovereign will of God, it is not beyond the wit of Christians to think that putting effort into our deliberate times of worship and prayer might be significant for enabling this encounter. Atwell writes:<br />
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If the readings from scripture are inaudible, the sermon banal, the intercessions poorly prepared, and the music group or organist embarrassing, we should not be surprised when people undervalue church. Without warmth or welcome the liturgy soon feels tired and routine. Without an opportunity for reflection or silence there is little chance of a contemplative dimension emerging. Matters are made worse if those leading lose their way in the service or or lard the liturgy with inappropriate matiness. None of us can get it right all of the time, but we will be justly criticised if we fail to prepare properly or if we lead a service in a slovenly manner. Whatever our churchmanship...we should aspire to excellence. Nothing else will do.</blockquote>
Atwell is not being fussy here: his desire for excellence grows out of love for God and His people which means that our best is wholly appropriate. It also encourages us to get our priorities right. He goes on in the pages immediately after this to question some of our assumptions as regular worshipers. My favourite is his comment about the smell of old hassocks, which many regular church attenders might confuse with "the odour of sanctity." In the gentle humour is the reminder not to lose focus on what matters: we worship Jesus Christ, and in so doing we offer our best. As we worship, we witness to Him and invite others to join with us, to meet this Jesus, and to live lives transformed by His love.<br />
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I'm only part way through this book, and I'm waiting for a serious engagement with Fresh Expression and Seeker Friendly Services. Much of what +Robert has to say is directly applicable to inherited or traditional forms of worship: the church is none the poorer for that. But Fresh Expressions and intentional missional communities have different histories from Parish Churches, and often very different, sometimes implicit, ways of "doing" worship. None the less I'm looking forward to reading more...<br />
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<br />Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-22551411501447634712013-05-28T16:16:00.001+01:002013-05-28T16:16:16.185+01:00Getting by without God?I am now a few years into the life of an ordained minister, and have been taking some time over the last couple of weeks to reflect on the things that have happened, and to revisit some of what I thought was going to happen. This has been a complicated affair, but helpful. As part of my reflections I have been rereading a book by John Pritchard, now bishop of Oxford, which I read when I was exploring my own sense of vocation to ordained ministry. It is called "The Life and Work of a Priest" (London: SPCK, 2007). I was caught short a bit this week when I read the following description:<div><br></div><div>I <i>once went on retreat and was met by a little bundle of holy energy who showed me to my room. I thought I better start in prayer but as I knelt before a crucifix in the room I began to feel worse and worse. I realised that I needed to do a lot of soul-searching. I knew that over the years I had accumulated quite a lot of experience of priestly ministry. I knew about pastoral ministry and mission; I served on synods and working parties; I knew quite a bit about church law and how to stay out of trouble. I'd been involved in parish work, youth work, theological education and was now an archdeacon, and I realised with growing horror that I could do all of these things, if I chose, almost entirely without reference to God, except as a code word or cipher. I had the experience and the skills to get by without God. Of course I didn't want to, but it was a stark warning that priesthood is much more than a set of competencies. No accumulation of skills impresses God. God is interested in the heart of the priest, more than in how impressive his or her CV appears to be.</i></div><div><i><br></i></div><div>Pritchard is painfully honest here. Many of us who train to be leaders in the church accumulate skills and competencies, and at the end of the curacy period we are assessed on these. But no-one assesses us on our prayer-life, or on our ongoing and growing desire to be friends of God - not least because it can't be done. We are left instead to answer this question for ourselves: what is at the centre of my life and work? It can be a painful task to search one's own soul in this way, But it seems to me after my few short years in this role, living this life, that it is a necessary one if I am to remain a person of faith – and lively faith at that, in relationship with God through Christ by the indwelling Spirit – and not some functionary of an institution.</div><div><br></div><div>It is not just for priests and ordained ministers to ask this question, however, but for everyone who calls themselves a disciple of Jesus Christ, and therefore friend of God through faith. God is not impressed by what we do, but by where our heart lies. The hidden danger to which Pritchard alludes is that the proof of the pudding is not always in the eating. There are many of us who walk the walk and talk the talk but for whom too often and too easily there is little substance underneath, not because we have ceased to care – on the contrary, for many of us our lives are taken over by working in and for the church – but because the work has become the end in itself. I feel this most acutely at the end of services on a Sunday morning, when my biggest sigh of relief is given because we have accomplished the service without any major hiccups – regardless of whether or not anyone has actually managed to engage with God, including me. It's not always like this, but it happens often enough for me to find a resonance with Prichard's statement.</div><div><br>So this week I shall be praying differently, and using my time differently. I hope to set new habits, that will help me keep my heart exposed to God and to make sure I can never get by without him.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div>Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-2130593323042497902013-03-15T16:02:00.001+00:002013-03-15T16:11:33.033+00:00John Webster: Preacher *and* TheologianIt's not at all intended as a snide remark when I emphasise the *and* in the post-title: not all theologians are good preachers, and anybody who has been to church regularly for any length of time can tell you that not all preachers are competent theologians. John Webster, Professor of Systematic Theology at Aberdeen University (formerly Lady Margaret Professor at Oxford), is genuinely both. So I'm really excited about the arrival of this book with the postman this morning:<br />
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<i>The Grace of Truth</i> (Farmington Hills, Michigan: Oil Lamp Book, 2011) is a collection of 26 of Webster's sermons, mostly delivered when he was Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. Having only so far read the first couple I can't say too much with authority yet, but what I have seen is a rigorous attentiveness to the scriptural texts, and a keen eye for their application in human lives. There's also a great deal of creativity on display here too, which is as refreshing as it is intriguing: so, for example, the parable of the vineyard owner and the murder of his son in Matthew 21 is here understood as a critique of lying. <br />
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The preface is written by Webster himself, though most of the editorial work is done by two others: Daniel Bush and Brannon Ellis. In the preface, Webster outlines in brief why he thinks preaching is still integral to the life of the Church: because "the Gospel's God is eloquent, he does not remain locked in silence, but speaks." This speech is supremely encountered in the life, death, and resurrection of the Word made flesh - Jesus. It is to Him that the Church must look for its own life and direction. As such "the Church of the Word is a church in which, alongside praise, prayer, lament, sacraments, witness, service, fellowship, and much else, there takes place the work of preaching." Preaching draws our attention to scripture and to Christ in a very particular way.<br />
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It's all very Barthian, as we might expect from Webster, but it is good theology put into practice in service of God and God's people, and delivered in act of preaching. I'm looking forward to reading the rest! <br />
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Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-27298644929597755642013-03-05T08:38:00.001+00:002013-03-05T10:00:21.790+00:00When religion stops us seeing clearly...I spent a few minutes after morning prayer on Saturday wandering around the church building, enjoying the silence. I also had a look at the stained glass windows - most of which are Victorian. It's something I don't get to do very often because I'm too busy. My favourite window in our church building is very recent, only three years old, and is a brightly coloured rendition of Jesus welcoming children to himself. It is in the baptistry, an appropriate place for welcoming children into the family of God.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnqb3WNGPbvSt8v5SX4h1Q4gFPEo2VQSltWoKVrtWJNoerCYZeRYPbAGrn6v1CsUI5AcPqt4tR6HXM5CAVHDGeABAfmytyLBPkFB6Hw7Xki-r4oZLUDFUXD9sJUzgoub1jxAAEJgm5zIw/s640/blogger-image-1314795554.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnqb3WNGPbvSt8v5SX4h1Q4gFPEo2VQSltWoKVrtWJNoerCYZeRYPbAGrn6v1CsUI5AcPqt4tR6HXM5CAVHDGeABAfmytyLBPkFB6Hw7Xki-r4oZLUDFUXD9sJUzgoub1jxAAEJgm5zIw/s640/blogger-image-1314795554.jpg" /></a> I discovered another window today too, which I've never really noticed before - something that surprised me because ours is not an overly large building. It is a large plain window, with clear glass. You can see straight through it to the outside world: across the grave yard to the A-road that runs through the middle of the parish, and on to the homes beyond. I stood for a while watching people heading to the shops, the saturday morning traffic held up by the changing lights at the pedestrian crossing, and the folk gardening around the houses opposite. <br />
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It was a strange experience being inside a church building watching the outside world 'happen'. On a busy saturday morning everything in the church was calm and peaceful, quiet and prayerful: outside everything was on the go. Such a visual contrast left an impression. I've been trying to get my head around why it impressed me, and has stayed with me. These are some tentative thoughts:<br />
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- the stained glass has the function of depicting important biblical stories, moments in the life of Jesus, important Saints, even figures from the history of our churches. There is good historical and social reasoning behind this: until recently literacy levels were lower and depicting stories made them accessible and understandable. This is still true even in a society where literacy levels are much improved. BUT, the images and stories they represent have another function too: reflecting back to us our identity as inheritors of these stories, and as transmitters of them. They may function to give us Christian ideals around which to organize our common life, or virtues to acquire for ourselves. <br />
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- the reflecting function of the stained glass is reinforced when you consider that, in our church at least, the images can only be seen from the inside: you have to be part of the worshipping community to get it. This is nothing new. Church furniture usually (!) has some meaning or other, and this can only be appreciated from inside, so saying that the glass only works this way round fits the general pattern. <br />
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- What this means however is that unlike other windows - the purpose of which is to allow in light and let us see what's outside - church windows keep our vision limited to the edges of our buildings. We are physically unable to see beyond the walls of church, and beyond the boundaries of our own community. Any minister can tell you this happens in church communities from time to time (!), but I found it a powerful image of what sometimes happens to us even for the best intentions. The stained glass helps to reflect and form our sense of Christian identity, but prevents us physically seeing the world beyond. So we can come together in the church building, and the rest of the world happens around us: they can't see us, and we can't see them.<br />
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- I think what strikes me about this is the way in which we often inadvertently organize ourselves as church in a way that cuts us off from everyone else. Sometimes the services we use, the language we speak, etc. is the issue. At other times the building. And this certainly was never the intention. But it is what happens when the surrounding culture changes, and the churches in which we worship fail to be culturally appropriate.<br />
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Seeing through the windows, beyond the building, into the community in which I live and serve and worship touched me deeply on Saturday, especially in the context of prayer (which is what I was dong). Having one clear window in church reminded me of that other aspect of my Christian identity so easily forgotten in church buildings: we are God's people who exist for the good of all people - blessed to be a blessing beyond the boundaries of our buildings. <br />
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Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-12213931435408917682013-02-04T20:10:00.001+00:002013-02-04T20:13:06.392+00:00"Thou shalt judge thy neighbour"This is a transcript of a short reflection I gave recently at a peace and justice service in Liverpool Diocese. I was the invited speaker for the service, the theme of which was "Casting the first stone". John 8 was the reading...<br />
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The ecumenical peace and justice group. <br />
Wavertree URC Church. <br />
29th of January 2013. <br />
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Let me begin by saying thank you very much inviting me to speak to you this evening. It's a delight to be with you, and to know that such groups exist in our diocese is especially encouraging. It is a truth which every Christian must hold that only as we stand together as Christ's church across the denominations do we have any hope of seeing peace and justice come to our world as we move forward together in the light of Christ who is the Prince of peace and Lord of justice.<br />
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By training, I am a theological ethicist. It means that I have been taught and shaped and moulded in such a way that when I think about difficult ethical questions, I immediately turn to the resources of our Christian faith - our creeds, our Bible, and our traditions - to help me answer them. But ethics is a complicated discipline. We often find ourselves thinking and acting, or being required to think and act, at the boundaries of our human experience, at the places where we are least confident and yet are required to act most urgently. There are grey areas, and there are also black and white areas. The key is to know who we are in Christ, what it is we are called to be and do, and to exercise judgement appropriately.<br />
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Some of you may be surprised to hear me say "to exercise judgement appropriately". So often I'm reminded by helpful church-watchers that Christians are not supposed to judge. <br />
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Judgement is something of a taboo term in our society, and in Christian circles, especially in groups that seek peace and justice. And rightly so. For in how many situations, on how many occasions, have we seen the exercise of judgement totally misused and abused to privilege the politically powerful, the elite, the socially acceptable, the majority? In such circumstances judgement is a destructive and poisonous idea, that leads only to further marginalisation. It is easier, and more Godly, in these circumstances to avoid judgement altogether, and rely on something far more noble: compassion. "Judge not, lest ye be judged". Let God's love and compassion show forth in our lives.<br />
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Of course, it's not that simple. A world without any discernment, any judgement, is a world overtaken by chaos. What we need to learn as Christians is how to exercise judgement appropriately - by which I mean in a way shaped by God's loving kindness and compassion. We see something of this proper Christian notion of judgement in our Gospel reading tonight (John 8:1-11).<br />
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<a name='more'></a>The setting is something of a court-scene scenario. Think Perri Mason or Quincy. There are prosecutors – those who have come to accuse. There is the defendant – the one on whom all the attention rests. And there is the jury - those watching, ready to decide for or against.<br />
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The whole scene has all the hallmarks that we've come to expect of the kind of judgementalism that should have us Christian running for the hills:<br />
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There is sexism, as these men bring the woman caught in adultery to judgement. Where is her partner? <br />
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there is the abuse of political power as the rule-makes exercise their authority to publicly humiliate another<br />
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There is the tyranny of the mob over the minority, as they (plural) brought her (singular) before the makeshift court<br />
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There is the threat of violence and death if the judgement goes against the defendant<br />
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There is no justice in this scene. It's not fair - a phrase my 2 year old daughter has learned to say often. It's not fair.<br />
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But, we need to be careful when we read texts like this. The agenda of the text - the agenda of God mediated through it - is so often not our agenda: this is not a story about feminist equality, or liberationist rhetoric for minority voices. It's not even primarily about justice - though it has overtones of a court.<br />
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It's not as it may first appear. The woman caught in adultery is incidental to the story, she is just an excuse by which the Pharisees – the prosecution – can make their case. In fact, Jesus is on trial in this court. "They were using the question as a trap in order to accuse him."<br />
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So often in the rhetoric we use about justice, whether implicitly or explicitly, God is on trial. Like the Pharisees, we find something wrong in our world - and the Church teaches that adultery is wrong - and we wonder how we can believe in a God of love in the world so full of injustice, pain, broken relationships, mistrust and distrust, anger, warfare, and violence. Where is God, and why is this happening? What will you do God when faced with so much wrong?<br />
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"They came to him to test him, using the question as a trap in order to accuse him"<br />
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It's a natural reaction. How do these things fit into the picture of God's love and kindness we construct for others and for ourselves? To that extent the pharisees represent all of us, wanting not so much to accuse God, but to understand and make sense of the ways God challenges our pre-convictions in Christ. How can God be serious about outrageous forgiveness in a world where rape is used as a weapon of war, and where children are murdered in the street for learning to read?<br />
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So what happens? Well, I want to suggest to you that Jesus did judge the woman. This is not a story that teaches us we must move beyond judgement. Instead, it's about exercising judgement well. Jesus did judge the woman, BUT, not in the way the court desired, or expected. He refused to engage with them in the way they wanted: there's no public debate, no slanging match, no argument, no presentations. He remained, as our opening prayer stated, silent. <br />
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Silence is difficult at the best of times, and could easily be mistaken for weakness - as if Jesus had nothing to say. But that doesn't make sense in this story. It seems more likely that Jesus' silence is an act of rebellion - a refusal to join in the condemnation, an act of contemplative witness to a God who is slow to anger.<br />
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Jesus did not get caught up in the inappropriate and unChristian patterns of judgement and judgementalism that everyone else wanted. He stopped and wrote in the sand, silently. We don't know what it was, but it was enough to sideline the prosecution, and make the the crowds - probably through boredom - disappear. He was not going to play their games. <br />
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We too must be careful of this: getting sucked into the worlds patterns of judgement, taking the lead from those around us instead of Jesus, both as progressive liberals and conservative judgemtalists.<br />
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Then, when everyone else had gone, Jesus meted out his judgement. "I do not condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin." <br />
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Jesus names what he sees: the woman has sinned. She is right for judgement, there is no injustice in this situation. He tells her "leave her life of sin." <br />
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But Jesus' judgement does not condemn. It calls and invites us to a life free from sin, free from destructive habits. It does not condemn us to death, but is a judgement laced with mercy and love. <br />
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It is a hard task to say what we see, sometimes. But that old Catchphrase catchphrase is a good theological idea: the ability to speak the truth in love is at the heart of Christian ideas about judgement and discernment. It was the way of the Master, and so it must be with us.Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-51930983185154459172012-11-14T14:20:00.001+00:002012-11-14T14:22:59.054+00:00Aberdeen Master's in Theological EthicsI recently received a message from Michael Mawson at Aberdeen asking me to post this...It looks good to me. Professor Wannenwetsch was my Bonhoeffer tutor when I was an undergrad and is a particular draw to Aberdeen, and Brock and Mawson are also good stuff. Aberdeen looks like the place to go for theological ethics...<br />
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<b>We are pleased to announce a new one-year Master’s in Theological Ethics degree at the University of Aberdeen. Aberdeen’s department of Divinity is currently one of the top-ranked theology programs in the UK, and recent appointments in the areas of Systematic Theology and Theological Ethics have further strengthened the department. The Theological Ethics area emphasizes fundamental texts and thinkers in the Christian tradition for engaging contemporary issues and debates. For more information:</b><br />
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<a href="http://www.abdn.ac.uk/divinity/pgrad/MThTheologicalEthics">http://www.abdn.ac.uk/divinity/pgrad/MThTheologicalEthics</a><br />
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<b>If you have questions or are interested in applying to the MTh program feel free to contact Professor Bernd Wannenwetsch, Dr Brian Brock or Dr Michael Mawson. We will be happy to meet with prospective students at the American Academy of Religion meeting (in Chicago in November 2012) or the Society of Christian Ethics meeting (in Chicago in January 2013). In addition, we would be happy to discuss funding options for prospective Master’s and doctoral students. Among other things, there will be doctoral funding in the two following two interdisciplinary collaborations: ‘Normativity – </b><b>Nature, Narrative and Nihilism’ and ‘Transitional Justice, Peace and Reconciliation.’ We would be interested in supporting Welcome Trust applications for students hoping to work in the area of bioethics. Finally, we are willing to support external funding applications for especially </b><b>strong proposals. For additional information on funding:</b><br />
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<a href="http://www.abdn.ac.uk/divinity/pgrad/awards">http://www.abdn.ac.uk/divinity/pgrad/awards</a><br />
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- Posted from my iPadMichael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-83702071961439276672012-10-31T23:10:00.002+00:002012-10-31T23:10:40.662+00:00Anthony Thiselton major works interviewLatest interview from St Johns College Nottingham is with Anthony Thiselton, commentating on the major themes and books in his life's work...worth watching...<br />
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<br />Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-54609645696110333292012-10-25T15:17:00.001+01:002012-10-26T23:19:04.242+01:00Spiritual Fitness, Church in a Culture of Choice<i><br /></i>
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<i>I have just started reading this book, Spiritual Fitness by <a href="http://sptc.htb.org.uk/staff" target="_blank">Graham Tomlin</a> (London: Continuum, 2006). It is a really good read, and quite challenging in places. I'm not in total agreement with Tomlin in every area, but find him a very stimulating conversation partner (this ought to be expected after his Provocative Church (2002)). The premise of the book is partly as a follow up to his earlier work, and partly as a fleshing out of the question "what would happen if Christians started to put huge amounts of time and energy into developing their spiritual health and fitness?" There is a missional drive to this: such lives would be attractive to others, doubly so in our post-modern world in which people are looking for points of reference (if Zygmunt Bauman is to be believed).</i><br />
<i><i><i><i>I thought I would have a go at blogging my way through, chapter by chapter - partly as good practice for me when it comes to blogging, and partly for fun!<br />So here goes...<br /><b><br /></b></i></i></i></i><br />
<i><i><i><i><b>Ch. 1: Church in a Culture of Choice</b><br />The main focus of this chapter is the introduction of a problem, viz. the place of the Church in a consumer society. Tomlin articulates this problem is several different ways, but settles mainly for the language of <i>relevance</i>. His assessment is quite sharp: "Church for many people simply feels boring, irrelevant and unnecessary". Anyone who has lived as a Christian in the real world knows that this is quite a good account of the way many people feel. But for many of us, it's not a huge problem that our colleagues, friends, or family feel like this about our faith. We learn to live with, and have happy and meaningful relationships with, those with whom we do not agree. Tomlin prompts the Church not to be too relaxed about this though, and not just because we are shrinking in number. He feels that this should be of great concern to the church because "if (Christians) are faithful they will also be relevant". It is not such an unusual argument: church, doing what it ought and remaining Christ-centred will in some sense be relevant to the rest of the world because this is the purpose for which we were created by God who is Lord of the Church.</i></i></i></i><br />
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<i><i><i><i>Nonetheless, the category of relevance makes me slightly uneasy. I think in common parlance relevance is about orientation and agenda. What is it that our customers, those whom we are aiming at, really want? In this chapter its not clear exactly what Tomlin intends by relevance, but i'm really hoping this isn't it - not without several qualifications at least. </i></i></i></i><br />
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<i><i><i><i>Tomlin is keen to press the point, in this chapter, that our surrounding culture is heavily consumerist. It goes without saying perhaps, but it is important not to forget - particularly if we are concerned with making inroads to the society in which we find ourselves as Church. Consumerism has positive and negative aspects: "it is fundamentally about making choices" which is both empowering and isolating. Barry Schwartz's <i>The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less<i> (2004) is a helpful aid to Tomlin's point here, and a source from which Tomlin draws. Choice may not always equal power, and in a consumer society where there is so much choice, having the right sort of moral (?) framework to inform our decisions is a pressing but often absent necessity. </i></i></i></i></i></i><br />
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<a name='more'></a><i><i><i>Tomlin casts a more positive light over consumerism than many Christians have done though. He argues that amidst the clamour to acquire more things, some consumerist outlooks encourage us to shop also for <i>meaning</i> and <i>experience</i>. The objects we acquire are often invested with significance and meaning beyond the monetary value of the object: as status symbol, as class indicator, as a sign of self-identity or image. These objects are often advertised according to the kind of life experiences they will bring for the purchaser. Consumers are seeking as much these things as they are objects.</i></i><br />
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<i><i>consumerism is not simple. Nor is it simply bad. It is merely the way in which we say who we are. In one sense, Christians who buy 'What Would Jesus Do?' bracelets, put fish stickers on their cars, or buy crucifixes to wear around their necks are doing exactly the same thing as shoppers who wear Dolce and Gabbana clothes - they are choosing to say something about who they are and where their identity is</i></i></blockquote>
<i><i><br />The Christian is different from the regular consumer in this case primarily because of the things they choose to consume. If Tomlin is correct about this, and here is where I look forward to the rest of the book, then We are caught up in a tension. One part of me worries that we miss the point a bit: Christianity is surely about more than the rectification of our choices? Nor is it primarily about competing with other spirituality brands on the market? But having said that, culturally this is where we are - or at least need to be, because this is our context. If he is saying that we need to make it easier for people to consume Church, I agree. The world we live in is too busy and overwhelmed with stuff for us to make getting together as the family of God another chore. People simply won't do it! they will stop coming. Tomlin supports his argument with scary statistics: over twenty years, between 1979-1998, 1.6million people voted with their feet and stopped attending institutional churches (see Bob Jackson,<i> Hope for the Church</i> (2002)).</i></i><br />
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<i><i>The problem is complex, and terminal: churches exist in a consumer culture, but are not meeting that culture in a meaningful way. Church is in decline. Is there a way for the Church to engage consumerism without compromise? This is the nub of the opening question of this book. Tomlin's answer is yes. The clue to our human needs, he suggests, is in the proper interpretation of our desires (ideas he borrows from Augustine and CS Lewis). As such, consumerism is a window into the human soul. </i></i><br />
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<i><i>If itis true that we are created by a good and generous God, and that we were made to live in relationship with him, then deep within the human heart we must not be surprised if we find just that - a desire for God. It won't always be expressed in those terms, but the Christian doctrine of creation tells us we must recognize it for what it is, however much it may seem like a desire to find significance in something else.</i></i></blockquote>
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<br />What Tomlin outlines then is a way for Christians to engage constructively, and missionally, in a consumer society - which actually reckons with rampant consumerism as a spiritual as well as physical issue. I think this is an interesting and creative start. Chapter 2 promises a next step: a means of reading, interpreting, and understanding the ways in which the search for God is expressed in our consumer society. I look forward to it.<br />- Posted from my iPad</i></i></div>
Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-12408399207510086632012-10-19T16:27:00.001+01:002012-10-19T18:11:34.652+01:00On Having a Blackened Halo...<br />
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This is a photograph of the East window above the altar-table at Church. It is a piece of religious art I both love and hate. I hate it because I'm not very keen on Victorian depictions of the last supper, on the whole, because they tend to be quite miserable and Jesus is always pale and English-looking. The disciples are all bearded men, dressed wholly inappropriately, and are also pale and English-looking.<br />
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But, there's always a "but" with this sort of thing for me: I love this stained glass window because it is quite unusual. It's a bit small to see the full detail in the photograph, but one of the disciples has a blackened halo. Often on a Sunday morning when I look at Judas I feel quite sorry for him in this image: permanently marked out by the artists as the betrayer, one whose holiness and faithfulness is called into question so very publicly every week. As if to make it more obvious, the artist has represented Judas facing away from Jesus, and away from the fellowship of all those who are called to share in the supper, almost away from his salvation.<br />
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It's an unusual image. There are very few stained glass windows showing Judas in this way; the local historians say only three in the UK and less than a dozen across Europe. What startles me about it is the boldness of the artists to continually name and shame the one who betrayed Jesus, and to do so very publicly. Sometimes I think this must be a great act of cruelty. Other times I wonder if the artist wanted to send home a message to the congregations who sit and face the image each week during Holy Communion: none of us is guiltless.<br />
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For me, the presence of Judas with his black halo is quite a comfort - precisely because he is present. Sure, he is on the edge, turning away, marked out as one who is quite unworthy to receive, but he's there. Jesus has not yet sent him away - not before first dipping bread with Judas. Not before sharing something with him. I'm humbled by this. I know what's coming, what Judas will do, and what Jesus will encourage him to do. But here, moments before all that, Jesus eats with Judas - the betrayer and the betrayed. How easy it is to move from being present with Jesus, to acting against Him. How easy it is to point out continually the failure of others, to expose blackened halos. How easy to forget that I am and can be and will be Judas, and that Jesus, knowing all of that, shares his bread with sinners.<br />
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- Posted from my iPadMichael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-36938128036817003052012-07-10T11:34:00.001+01:002012-07-10T11:34:21.801+01:00Barth on Scripture: George Hunsinger et al.Finding time for anything other than poor quality posting has been a problem recently: parish ministry rightly has first place, and then there's the small matter of a PhD... BUT, I have had time for some reviewing, and have recently finished a review of George Hunsinger (ed), <i>Thy Word is Truth: Barth on Scripture</i> (Grand Rapids: Eedrmans, 2012). It is a really interesting book, and worthy of reading...in fact read my review in <i>Theology</i> when (if?) it is published later this year.<br />
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For now, though, here's a lovely quote from hunsinger's introductory chapter as he explains something of the significance of dialectical interpretation for Barth's approach to scripture:<br />
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The cross and resurrection of Christ, as proclaimed by Paul, were for Barth the paradigmatic case. They were what finally made necessry the procedure of dialectic interpretation. What held Christ's cross and resurrection together, he suggested, was not a concept but a name, not a system but a narrative. Their relation was beyond all unified experience and all unified thought. It was ineffable. Whatever might be said over and above this Name could only be a form of broken or dialectical discourse. No system could possibly contain it. The name that held together this death and resurrection signified a kind of drastic apocalyptic interruption, so to speak, in the metaphysical status quo, a revolution that overturned the old order. It meant an end to metaphysical business as usual. It was an irruption of the new aeon into the old, and the old could not contain it. This Name was the event that could not be transcended, but transcended and embraced all things. The bearer of this Name was not determined by them, but they by him. (p. xviii)</blockquote>
Hunsinger's poetic touch here is also beautifully inviting, and almost homiletic in its communicative ability. It's a flavour of the combination of scholarly rigour and pastoral concern in the pages of this volume. Other contributors include: Robert McAfee Brown; Katherine Sonderegger; Hans Frei; Kathryn Greene-McCreight; Katherine Grieb; John Webster; Paul Molnar; and Paul Dafydd Jones.Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-32923731628235776832012-05-18T11:58:00.002+01:002012-05-18T11:58:44.895+01:00Ascension, Mission, and Birth...I'm preaching on Sunday morning following a period of reflection and feedback in our church: we are need of setting a vision for the next few years, a task we've probably not really done before, and are at the beginning of the process. For most people that will be a daunting experience: it's new, and new things often are daunting to well established congregations. My congregation will probably find it daunting. It requires us to wait on God, and to be open to things new as well as old.<br />
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Yesterday's Ascension reading, Acts 1:1-11, captured some of what is required as I see it. Jesus told the disciples to wait on God for the Holy Spirit to come, to enable them to be witnesses in all the world. If ever there was a manifesto for what it means to be Church, I think that short passage is one of them. Many people think of Pentecost as the birthday of the Church, but I disagree: for me, the birth of the Church (and all the messiness that births often involve) was at Ascension -- all the confusion, clamour, expectation, disappointment, uncertainty is there, and also hope that new life brings, rooted in the word from Jesus that God will fulfil His promises and send the Spirit. To be Church is to wait on the Holy Spirit and as He leads to become witnesses to the good news from God in Jesus Christ.<br />
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As part of my preparation for Sunday I've been reading a book by Michael Moynagh called "Changing World: Changing Church" (London: Monarch, 2004). If you've ever read Moynagh before he brings all sorts of interesting thoughts to the table about Church and its future growth. Sometimes in terms of treating the problems besetting the Church I find him a bit too consumerist for my liking, concerned more about what people want than what we ought to be about, and often concerned that if we dont do something the Church will have no future - as if the Church was our responsibility and not God's. But when it comes to <i>diagnosing</i> the problems I think he is very good. I've been mulling over the following quote for a few days, and think I will use it this week:<br />
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...there is a growing recognition that we cannot go on as we are. Many clergy and lay people know that today's Church is not working, not connecting with people anymore, but they cannot imagine anything different. They struggle on with tried and trusted methods, feeling uneasy but with little vision for how things could change. Others are busting a gut to make existing churches grow, sometimes succeeding, but often wearing themselves out - and their congregations - instead...Still other ministers looks back to the 1970s and 1980s, desperately hoping to repeat what was effective then. But the world has moved on, and so frequently they are disappointed.They burn out, exhausted and disillusioned because they see little fruit.</blockquote>
Moynagh wrote these words nearly a decade ago, and so there have been some radical changes in the Church of England (in which he is a Priest and theological educator) since then, including moves toward pioneer minstry, and, since Mission Shaped Church, towards creating different shaped congregations. Nonetheless, this is not the story across the board, and I recognize still some of what Moynagh is talking about. For me this has meant a need to embrace a concrete sense of leadership as a minister, helping people to get a fresh sense of what we are called to be by God, and how we can embody that in our own context.<br />
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I had a robust conversation this week with someone who has been in our church for decades, and she reminded me that I need to carry people with me and not run ahead or put people off. Once this would have been like waving a red rag at a bull, but I listened hard to what she said, and believe she's correct. Except for one thing: it's not about me and them, it's about us and God. So this week I shall be asking the congregation and myself to wait on the Holy Spirit, to pray regularly and honestly, to be discerning, and for boldness to follow when and where the Spirit leads so that we can be the witnesses Jesus calls us to be.<br />
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This will not be an easy birth for us.<br />Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-76339204344696713512012-05-08T11:40:00.001+01:002012-05-10T16:49:51.004+01:00Emerging Evangelicalism: learning from ethnography?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>"This book is about American Evangelicals. More precisely, it explores how some Evangelicals are consuming and enacting knowledge produced as part of the Emergining Church movement. Even more precisely, it is an ethnographic analysis of identities fashioned, practices performed, discourses articulated, histories claimed, institutions created, and ideas interrogated in this cultural field. Emerging Evangelicalism, we will come to see, is a movement organized by cultural critique, a desire for change, and grounded in the conditions of both modernity and late modernity."</i> (p. 5)<br />
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It only seemed fair to let James Bielo outline his own argument rather than me do it for him, so there you go. I'm reading this book to review it for Anvil Journal (UK) and started off thinking that a) this would be another typical ethnographic study that does not attend to any theology, and 2) that it would concern itself primarily with USA and have little or nothing to say to me in a British context. On the first issue I have been wholly wrong: Bielo may be an anthropologist and ethnographer, but he clearly knows and is attentive to the theological concerns of traditional evangelicalism, and asks searching questions of the Emerging Evangelicals and their theological priorities. On the second issue, it is clear that Bielo is concerned mainly with USA, but the particular Emerging Evos with whom he deals operate on the world stage -- Hirsch, Bell, Warren, McLaren etc. -- and so the import of this study can and I hope will be felt across the Atlantic.<br />
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I have to confess I was a little biased: I'm always a bit funny about reading non-theologians accounts of trends and movements in theological culture (and it seems to me that Evangelicalism is at least partly a theological culture with specific cultural practices that emerge from that), and especially concerned about anthropologists. (I know it wrong, but it's how I feel: I blame my conservative heritage). I suspose I have an innate suspicion about people who are not concerned with dogmatics (I can and am laughing at myself here...) But I have learned so much from this study! It has been helpful and interesting theologically and pastorally, and continues to be so as I read on. Bielo has a real grasp of the major concerns of the Emerging movement, and wants to lay bare its concerns and practices for others to appreciate. This has been its affect on me. What comes out is a kind of mission movement that wants to be culturally appropriate and creedally orthodox: this is inspiring if nothing else. <br />
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So, <a href="http://nyupress.org/books/book-details.aspx?bookId=8005" target="_blank">go and read it... </a><br />
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<br />Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-81777084085459770992012-03-25T23:13:00.000+01:002012-05-10T16:52:11.071+01:00The Holy Spirit - a conference theme?!It makes me smile to say it, both good humouredly and also a little sardonically, but yes - the Holy Spirit is the theme of an academic conference this year: I'm sure He'll be pleased to know. <a href="http://www.theologysociety.org.uk/">The Society for the Study of Theology</a> (UK) starts its annual conference tomorrow at the university of York and runs until thursday morning. Yours truly will be there and will hopefully blog a few thoughts (I said that last year but was so overwhelmed by offering my first conference paper that I never got round to it). Plenary speakers include Rachel Muers, Graham Ward, Alan Sell, and Amos Yong on issues such as envorinmentalism, pentecostalism, santification and various other topics. I'm really looking forward to it! Perhaps see some of you there?<br />
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p.s. Yes. I know I haven't blogged for a little while - it's been really busy in parish for various reasons and Ihaven't had time. But I have been reading some interesting books, including John Piper and Don Carson on ministry and academia, Nigel Biggar on behaving in public, and Ellen Charry on happiness. Will blog reviews in the future.<br />
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p.p.s. For those of you following a little bit of my career and what I get up to, I have recently become a member of the <a href="http://www.grovebooks.co.uk/cart.php?target=category&category_id=283">Grove Ethics Group </a>responsible for the commissioning and editorial work for Grove Ethics booklets in the UK. This is a good move for me and I hope for the Group (that at least I can bring some ministerial experience if not as much scholarly rigour as some of the members), and having been to my first meeting I really enjoyed it and was amazed at the level of thoughtfulness and academic rigour that goes into the ethics group. SO, if you don't already look at Grove Ethics, then do think about a subscription. It's good value and high quality.Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-62515755237479508242012-01-27T17:12:00.001+00:002012-01-27T17:15:03.795+00:00Leadership, Priesthood, and Ministry: Some Reflective StatementsI have been thinking a bit about ordained ministry this week, and the shift of emphasis to leadership - "Church Leaders" - that has happened in recent years. It is a very strong notion in Liverpool Diocese, I suspect because of its evangelical heritage (where the concept seems to be very strong). It is a theme that I have come back to many times in the last ten years or so. <br />
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I have so far avoided blogging on this topic because I have struggled to articulate my thoughts coherently. I'm not now claiming to have gotten to that point, but I feel able to get a <i>few</i> things down and perhaps get some feedback that will help me think more clearly about the area of leadership and priesthood. (When I say priesthood here I really mean ordained ministry - for those of you not from a traditon that calls its presbyters priests.) It is something that genuinely bothers me - not in the sense that I am profoundly disturbed by others' opinions, but because I haven't landed my own thoughts yet and so keep coming back to the question. For that reason I offer a series of statements. Share your thoughts if you have time...<br />
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<b>Statement 1: Leadership is a necessary part of Priesthood</b>. This is a notion that is often lost in traditional accounts of ordained ministry in the Church of England. History tells us (and House of Bishops' reports) that a failing of ordained ministry in the nineteenth and twentieth century was an emphasis on management of the parish properties and services over and against the need for intentionality and direction (i.e. that people needed leading in order to grow in faith and discipleship). The modern emphasis on leadership is a counterbalance to that embedded sense of pastoral care, and helps us to remember that part of the responsibility of ordained ministers is to help people grow in faith and discipleship. Growth is a movement, so stagnation is not an option.<br />
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<b>Statement 2: Leadership is not the sum total of Priesthood</b>. Whilst I think that leadership is an important aspect of ordained ministry, I would contend that a better counterbalance to emphasis on stagnant parish ministry is emphasis on doing good pastoral care, not on making all priests corporate leaders. This needs a bit of unpacking. Much of what I have to study at the minute as part of my Initial Ministerial Education is leadership skills, mentoring, visions setting, corporate governance and management etc. It is the kind of stuff you read right of the pages in a handbook for an MBA degree. I see the need for it: the local congregation is a kind of corporation.What I don't ever have to engage with in IME is prayer, bible study, pastoral care and discipleship, or theology! So I question the emphasis on it at the expense of good pastoral care and practice (that isn't stagnant but wants people to grow and learn as Christian disciples). To me, it gives the wrong impression about ordained ministry to call us "leaders" - we are supposed to be servants. Now, you could say we are servant leaders - great - but nowhere on earth would you hear ordained people referred to as "Church Servants". It sounds degrading. By the same token, "Church Leader" sounds grandiose.<br />
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<b>Statement 3: Emphasis on learning from Business Practice has replaced attentiveness to Scripture.</b> I don't think this is too dramatic a statement. Or at least, let me explain why I think this. There are two reasons. The first concerns the way in which "leadership" is used as a hermeneutical category through which to read huge chunks of scripture in a way that universalises particular ministries. Prophets, kings, queens, priests, apostles, evangelists, pastors/presbyters, and elders all come under the universal category of "leaders" but without much attention being paid to the particularities of each ministry. Kings are not prophets or priests on the whole. There is a distinction and emphasis. They operate differently, and lead differently. We need to attend to these distinctions when reading scripture, and attend to the differences when thinking about the application of leadership language to ordained ministry: the way we lead may not be the same as a corporate manager. In fact, I think, it oughtn't to be. The second reason is really a reflection on experience of sitting through leadership and ministry courses: rarely do the facilitators of these courses ever turn attention to scripture, church tradition, or theology. I was at a course earlier this week, facilitated by someone from the <a href="http://www.cpas.org.uk/">Church Pastoral Aid Society (CPAS)</a> which has developed much of the material on developing leadership and ordained ministry for the Church of England. We were asked to say if there's anything we'd particularly like to cover in the session and to write it down and stick it up on a notice board for the facilitator to see. Someone wrote that they'd like to have some scriptural/theological insights on leadership and mentoring (which was the theme of the morning). None was given. When the session finished two and a half hours later we hadn't opened a bible or talked about the theology of ministry.<br />
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<b>Statement 4: Churches need appropriate leadership, but Priests don't always have to lead.<i> </i></b>The Church does need to be led, principally to Jesus Christ. And this is principally the work of the Holy Spirit who works in and through men and women. We trust also that the Spirit is working in and through our ordinaned ministers. Hence at ordination services in the CofE we invoke the Holy Spirit. It seems appropriate to me then that the kinds of people who are involved in leading are able to be led. In the first instance we want our ordained ministers to be led by the Holy Spirit. But, I would also like to add that there are times when ordained ministers need to be led by their congregations. By this I mean that an ordained person might need to learn something, grow in some way, or be challenged appropriately by their congregation. Who is the leader in this situation? (I have seen this sort of thing happend recently with regard to the development of childrens' ministry in a church where the congregation were miles ahead of the Vicar). Does it create the wrong sort of dynamic to say that the chief priority of ordained ministry is leadership? I don't think even the Apostles would have claimed that (e.g. Galatians 1-2; 1 Cor. 1-2).<br />
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<b>Statement 5: Leadership is part of priestly ministry and must not be overlooked, but nor must the other parts</b>. Church Leaders who dont know the people in their congregations can rarely provide good pastoral care or discipleship modelling. It seems to me that the model Paul gives us is to know people, or to get to know them (as was the intention at Rome). When I visualise my life I think of myself primarily as a disciple; then as husband and father; then as ordained minister. I tend to break the minister bit up into constituent parts: pastor; leader; teacher; pray-er; student; chair-stacker; coffee maker; visitor; friend; vision setter; challenger; listener; confessor; carer; president over sacraments...etc.etc. (I do the same for father and husband too). I could keep going, but the point is that whilst leadership is in there for me, it's alongside some other hefty responsibilities: all of them need attention, and I dont want to drop the ball on any of them.<br />
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I will probably think of more, but I'm glad to get some of that out of my head. I don't even know if I agree with it all, but it's stopped the whirring in my brain! (for now...)Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-36474074382339920762012-01-21T00:07:00.001+00:002012-01-21T00:23:49.919+00:00Floor tiles, theology, and divine interruptionToday I have had quite a cultured day: we had a family trip down to the Tate Gallery at Liverpool's Albert Dock. It was a welcome relief after a long and difficult week. One of the exhibits at the gallery got me thinking - as I guess art should - and also got me chuckling. Finally it got me theologizing. The exhibit was this:<br />
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It is, as you can see, a series of floor tiles laid out in a square pattern. It's called "144 Magnesium Square" by American artist <a href="http://www.carlandre.net/">Carl Andre</a> (b.1935). If you are thinking that there must be more to it, you are wrong. That's it. Tiles laid out and cemented to the floor (not exactly very well either - my dad, who is a professional tiler, would not be pleased). And that's what got me thinking and chuckling. The inevitable question to ask when you witness something as plain and ordinary as floor tiles is "is this art?" For many people viewing the exhibit alongside me today, it plainly wasn't: they were saying so quite audibly. It was clearly a concern to the gallery too, since the installation was accompanied by a video made by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Figgis">Mike Figgis</a> in which members of the public were asked what they thought (interestingly the interviews were conducted in the tiles section of a hardware shop in Liverpool - the installation had also been sent there temporarily whilst the interviews took place). Two views seemed to come out: it is the most significant piece of lived art (you are permitted to walk on it) of the twentieth century; or it's not art at all. <br />
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The dissenters argued that it wasn't special enough. In the middle of the tile section of a hardware shop it seemed positively mundane. The enthusiasts thought it challenged our conceptions about place and context. I still don't know - but I enjoyed the furore it was causing.<br />
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And so to the theologizing. Part of the problem surrounding the installation concerned expectations about the object, and the appropriate context in which it ought to be viewed, and so the relationship between the two. Tiles belong in a hardware shop, not in a gallery (except maybe in the gents). Transferring tiles and reinterpreting them as art messes with our sense of what we think we know about the world and where things belong. You could say that's what art is for (and I'd agree). Putting the tiles down as an exhibit was and is for some an interruption of our sense of how things are with us and the world. I don't think that is too dramatic a statement.<br />
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I love the idea of interruptions as a theological description: the concept is potent. God interrupts us. The history of God's dealings with His people - both the Jews of the Old and early New Testaments, and non-Jewish Christians - could be described as perpetual divine interruption. The purposes, plans, and performances of God encroaching upon a misguided human sense of self, history, and purpose. "Divine Interruption" is a summary of grace: God breaks in and people are changed. There are countless examples: Abraham; Jacob; Joseph; Moses; Saul; David; The Prophets; Mary; Zechariah; Martha; Jairus; Nichodemus; Peter; Paul...the list goes on beyond the written Testaments to the lives of Jesus' disciples today. God is good at interrupting us, always for our own good and His own glory. Interruptions create something new: a way of seeing and thinking that critiques the <em>status quo</em> and offers a new perspective. We see things differently when we're interrupted, and when we're interrupted by God we begin to see things His way.<br />
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The floor tiles Andre has cleverly crafted are not God; they're not religious symbolism either. That's not what I'm saying. Rather, I think there's something in the ability of artists to interrupt our way of thinking about life etc. that is analogous to the work of God, and by extension the theological vocation. The artist brought something so common and domesticated and known into a context in which it arguably simply doesn't belong, and to some was perhaps offensive, but in doing so - defiantly - Andre has interrupted and challenged our normal perception of things. The artist says, <em>this is appropriate. This must be considered here. Floor tiles belong as a gallery installation. </em>So too the theologian challenges our sense of perception, of what is important, and of context, when she defiantly states that God-talk is appropriate in all areas of life and indeed adopts a form of life in which it is so. There is no space - physical or intellectual - in which thought of God is wrongly placed (though the content of such thoughts may be wrong, the act of thinking-God in those spaces is not) or in which God Himself ought not to be. And the theologian has a good reason for thinking this: the witness of the scriptures is that God thinks it.<br />
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So today, whilst my fellow gallery visitors were complaining (or not) about art, I was thanking God for interruptions and praying for many more so that I might see and know Jesus more clearly. I didn't think much of "144 Magnesium Square" as it happens, but I am grateful for the time to think and pray.Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-49153720254232000332012-01-17T21:31:00.003+00:002012-01-20T23:13:04.788+00:00If Jesus had a CV...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQVyHk6Py7i37MHFBv7v8cm2AaukOjPOxO6QcWYDue3hXr8azQC" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="132" src="http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQVyHk6Py7i37MHFBv7v8cm2AaukOjPOxO6QcWYDue3hXr8azQC" width="200" /></a></div>I'm leading a Bible study on this passage tomorrow night -- the first meeting of our new home group! I'm very excited, and really enjoying preparing the study notes.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq"><span class="versetext" id="col1-15" style="display: inline;">He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; </span><span class="versetext" id="col1-16" style="display: inline;"><span class="versenum"></span>for in <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=359928350847031350&postID=4915372025423200033" name="h"></a>him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. </span><span class="versetext" id="col1-17" style="display: inline;"><span class="versenum"></span>He himself is before all things, and in <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=359928350847031350&postID=4915372025423200033" name="i"></a>him all things hold together.</span><span class="versetext" id="col1-18" style="display: inline;"><span class="versenum"></span> He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. </span><span class="versetext" id="col1-19" style="display: inline;"><span class="versenum"></span>For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,</span><span class="versetext" id="col1-20" style="display: inline;"><span class="versenum"></span> and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. </span></blockquote>I've been pondering different ways of approaching a text like this, and I think I may have settled on one novel way to get people thinking. It revolves around the observation that we live in a world slightly obsessed by the need to prove oneself. I suspect it might be a counterbalance to the culture of the late 90s and early 2000s when people appeared on TV and were given celebrity status but nobody was quite sure how or why. There is an undercurrent that requires people to be somehow deserving in order to be worthy of our attention. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS9F7H2CBzupmr458X0wuwpxQrICH1EY7qRjtVkjgEOn4crah_G7A" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS9F7H2CBzupmr458X0wuwpxQrICH1EY7qRjtVkjgEOn4crah_G7A" /></a></div>One way we prove our worth is by telling stories about ourselves. Most of us do this for work purposes: I am always being encouraged to keep on top of and expand my CV so that I am employable in the future. This kind of makes sense. But it's not just a workplace issue -- many times I've seen a kind of competativeness in <i>Church</i>, a holy point-scoring, that is often the result of pastoral failure: clergy simply haven't made people feel valued for their contributions to the life of the community, so members of the congregation feel the need to make themselves stand out. I will often be given a long list of all the things someone has been and has done in church over the last 25 years or whatever, and then there is a pregnant pause when they (rightly it seems to me) await at least a minor gesture of recognition. This is obviously profoundly unhelpful for Chirstian discipleship in the long term, even if it can be given a sensible explanation in the short term. In the middle of that thought, I got to wondering what Jesus' CV might look like:<br />
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Name: Messiah or Christ. Son of the Living God.<br />
DOB: Before All Worlds. Firstborn of all creation.<br />
Address: Right Hand of the Father <br />
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Employment<br />
History: Head of the Body, the Church.<br />
Image of the invisible God. <br />
Firstborn from the dead.<br />
King of kings.<br />
Lord of lords.<br />
Maker of heaven and earth.<br />
Creator of all things, visible and invisible.<br />
The Beginning.<br />
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Key Skills: Rescuing.<br />
Redeeming.<br />
Forgiving.<br />
Reconciling.<br />
Making sinners holy, blameless, and irreproachable.<br />
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It's an overwhelming passage in many respects: the nice domesticated Jesus I meet in many Christian meetings, and hear about in many sermons, is a lot lot bigger than most of us imagine day to day. If this CV landed in your inbox you might rightly feel uncomfortable about interviewing such a candidate: problem is, this is the BOSS's CV. We're not interviewing Him, He is calling us. And there's the real point of value and worth that Colossians seems to want us to reflect upon: our lives are remakable and worthy because God first counts them as such, in sending His Son to transfer us from darkness to His marvellous light. It is because of Jesus' selfless love for <i>us</i> that human beings are worthy of the utmost respect and care. There's is nothing we can do that is more important than what He has done; nothing can improve on it, and nothing can lessen its power.Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-15386708688312917582012-01-16T16:03:00.001+00:002012-01-20T22:17:57.848+00:00Primate Crisis...Attenborough observesI really hope this doesn't lose me my job, but I thought it was too funny not to share. Enjoy!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/JTa0PdrrT4c?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359928350847031350.post-28026288365846811322012-01-14T21:05:00.001+00:002012-01-20T22:18:37.874+00:00Godpod and theological resources<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://sptc.htb.org.uk/sites/sptc.htb.org.uk/themes/sptc/logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://sptc.htb.org.uk/sites/sptc.htb.org.uk/themes/sptc/logo.jpg" /></a></div>I have had a great evening listening to a whole stack of theological podcasts from St Paul's Theological Centre, London, UK. There are over 60 podcasts available from the <a href="http://sptc.htb.org.uk/godpod">St Paul's website</a> or on iTunes that cover a whole range of topics in Christian ethics, spirituality, systematic theology, history, Christian biography etc.with experts from across UK.<br />
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The format is pretty simple: a three way discussion between <a href="http://sptc.htb.org.uk/staff">Dr Jane Williams, Revd Dr Mike Lloyd, Revd Dr Graham Tomlin</a> and a special guest or two each session (I've listenind to Prof. Nigel Biggar, Prof. NT Wright, Dr David Hilborn, Prof. Andrew Walker, Prof. Alister McGrath, and a hosts of others so far). Each lasts a bit less than an hour, but there's plenty to think about and chew over. If you're looking for some really good input, and some fun theological discussion from leading evangelical thinkers, then head over to St Paul's Centre and their Godpod page.Michael Leyden...http://www.blogger.com/profile/14911667056969633903noreply@blogger.com2