After the storm, a still small voice

In the eye of the storm, and in its aftermath, comes a surprising silence, surprising because it reveals to us that human beings still have the capacity for good. We can still reach out to our neighbour, still brave great physical danger to save a complete stranger, still speak the truth even if it costs whoever does so a few votes  in the coming elections. The source of that good and the sheer will power and determination to do what needs to be done, seems to come from within the energy itself, an energy which mirrors that of the dynamic energising love of God's grace.

The world is watching what is happening on the eastern seaboard of the USA, not just because for once it is happening to us and not, apart from Haiti and the Caribbean, to those who have learned to accept such things as part of their lives, but because it is revealing the best of what human beings are capable of becoming. In the context of adversarial politics, for example, one high profile Republican has openly thanked the President for the practical and emotional support he has given to the people of that state, a republican one. The loving kindness of God is beginning to be felt and with it courage, generosity and common sense. People are also being encouraged to be neighbours to one another, on the basis that a neighbour can do more for those living close to them than any number of rescue teams or emergency services.

These things are signs of hope. How strange it is that so much destruction has had to take place for us to realise that there is such a thing as hope - and here is a paradox worth noting, for those inclined to place apocalyptic interpretations on this event, and that is that in the fearsomness of it all, there is a kind of holy anger at work, signs of a God who is impatient for his love for us to be requited, a still small voice reminding us of who and what we are. The storm is teaching us that we are responsible for one another before him, as Christ made himself responsible and answerable  to the Father for us. The storm is teaching us that we are answerable for every human being's happiness, temporal and eternal, and for the well being of God's creation, beginning with this planet.

God's love energizes human beings for the good. This energy is his grace and it is inexhaustable. So there is reason for hope, beginning with our becoming more fully human, more generous and truthful in word and deed and more courageous, like the republican who spoke out for his political opponent. In the eye of the storm, and in its aftermath, lies the possibility for peace and reconciliation not only between neighbours, but within a nation which is still deeply divided. It was perhaps a storm for our times.

Why I Write What I Write

Our local church holds about 200 people. It is packed at Christingle and at the midnight service on Christmas Eve but on Sundays we rarely see more than 30, so where are the remaining 170? They can't all be visitors.

This familiar scenario is one of the reasons why I write. I don't believe people have lost interest in God but I do believe that the Church is not helping them connect with him. People are looking for a real encounter with Jesus Christ and many feel that they are unlikely to meet him in the context of church services. If they did, more people would come to church.

I write books for people who are asking questions about the Christian faith, and about the Church, and not  finding answers, or finding that their questions are seldom addressed in a way which makes the Christian faith meaningful for them in their particular life contexts.

Making Sense of God's Love: Atonement and Redemption (SPCK 2011) is for those who find it hard to square the idea of retributive punishment with that of a just and merciful God. The book is for those who feel that the things which Christians teach and profess to believe in, both publicly and privately, do not connect with the way most people have to live their lives.

I also write because I am passionate about reconciliation between Christians. By One Spirit: Reconciliation and Renewal in Anglican Life (Peter Lang 1999) proposes a different way out of the deadlock situation which the Anglican Communion has experienced for more that 10 years, the way of reconciliation at the deeper level of its shared inner, or spiritual, life. This spiritual life, and that of many Anglican churches and dioceses, has become heavily politicised. The politicisation of Anglican life as a Communion, and the increasingly secular mindset of many churches, blocks the dynamic work of the Holy Spirit who seeks to connect with all of God's people, whether or not they come to church. Blocking the ongoing dynamic life of the Spirit creates a static and ultimately life-denying situation within what many consider to be an institutionalised Church.

I write in the belief that what we call the truth about Jesus Christ is there for all of us to understand and connect with at the deepest level of our individual and shared life of faith. Christians need to rediscover this by learning to understand and speak each other's 'truth language' so that they can begin to connect with one another at a deeper level. I grew up speaking French and Spanish fluently and this taught me that speaking another person's language enables one to understand what makes that person who they are - what makes them 'tick'. Understanding and being willing to speak other Christians' truth language has the same effect. We learn to understand and love them because we realise that at the deeper level of our shared inner life we are all loving the same Lord. When Christians rediscover their shared love for their Lord they will have more love to bring to the world and to our own loveless and increasingly materialistic society. Finding God in Other Christians (SPCK 2012) brings all of this into the sphere of ordinary Christian discipleship, as I experienced it in my own ministry as a university chaplain. Christians need to be 'bilingual' in the way they  think of themselves as part of the wider Christian community if they are to understand what makes other Christians 'tick'. It involves a particular kind of radical hospitality whereby seeing Christ in the other, and welcoming that other unconditionally, is what it means to be church in the fullest sense.

For this reason, I also write for people who want to connect with God at a deeper level in the context of everyday life. The Really Useful Meditation Book (Hodder and Stoughton 1995) provides the reader with a short reflection along with one or two focused actions, one practical and the other having to do with prayer itself. I think there is a longing for deeper prayer and the kind of inner silence which enables people to grow in what scripture calls wisdom. Wisdom involves understanding, the kind of understanding which enables us to have a sense of how God is working in his world and what he requires of us as Christians and of all people of faith.

Quotes from Making Sense of God's Love: Atonement and Redemption

In judging sin from the cross, God is also effecting the ultimate judgment on evil. The desolation of Christ is a conflict with evil, the inverse or opposite of the ancient mythic conflicts of God and Baal or Marduk. These mythic conflicts involve active battle in which God conquers the enemy and brings order out of chaos. In the conflict of the cross God allows himself to lose the battle by being literally 'God forsaken', in order to win it by meeting human beings in their own desolation.

Confidence in God's love runs counter to a marketing-consumerist culture. Consumerism thrives on the basis that it is possible to persuade anyone about anything which is likely to improve how they feel about themselves...Persuading people that they can feel better about themselves is not necessarily a bad thing. The problem comes when shame and low self-esteem are used to persuade people to buy products which promise what is not in their power to deliver. As a general example, television and internet advertising for cars, clothes and cosmetics operates on the basis of a tacit understanding between advertisers and consumers that the consumers, if persuaded, will respond to a blurring of the truth about themselves as persons. In other words, advertising relies on fantasy in order to achieve its desired ends. Fantasy is not in itself bad, unless it leads to unmanageable debt and the kind of anxiety which comes with the disintegration of a person's inner life and sense of contingency with the world and society. Ironically, advertisers want to persuade the individual that he or she is unique and valuable, but valuable to whom? And why? These questions return to us unanswered, from a spiritual vacuum.

Quotes from Finding God in Other Christians

In order to understand one another better, Christians try to be real when they join with others in reading scripture or in worship. By this I mean being oneself first and Evangelical or Anglican, or Catholic, later, if at all. Learning to understand others in the way they speak about God also means listening more deeply to what is being read...We try to listen and pray together as the people we are. We begin to do this by listening to the language of others, how they fashion words into ways of worshipping and speaking about God which resonate with their understanding of him, but which are also true to who they are as the people we know in daily life, outside the church context. As we listen in this way, we begin to understand subtleties and have a better sense of the meaning of what they are saying.

A living organic truth is one which helps us make sense of our changing lives and of ourselves as a diverse people who are held together within God's greater truth, within his love, a love which leads to deeper understanding. Problems arise because, on the whole, we do not dare give truth the freedom it needs for this deeper understanding to become possible.

Quotes from The Really Useful Meditation Book

On the Parable of the fig tree (Luke 13:6-9)

Without forgiveness there can be no growth. Our treatment of the environment ought to be patterned on the way we ought to treat one another, for we are all part of one living organism which depends on love for its survival. The earth, and its creatures depend, like us, on mutual patience and forgiveness, and on the loving discipline which we, as responsible vine dressers, are able to give it. Kindness to the earth and mercy on others are central to the parable of the fig tree, but there is also a sombre note of warning. If, next year, the tree does not bear fruit, it will be cut down, but not necessarily uprooted or killed. It is not for us to dispense judgment, only to help others realise their full potential while we look to our own growth, making sure that we continue to bear fruit.