Practise

The Prime Minister has created a pre-Christmas stir by calling on the nation to r


The Prime Minister has created a pre-Christmas stir by calling for a revival of 'Christian moral values'.The nation's 18,500 clergy in the main Christian churches will be calling for this every week, but it takes the PM to get the idea onto the front pages. Mr Cameron says that he is personally only a 'vaguely practising Christian' and is 'full of doubts' about theology.  That leaves him where most non-churchgoers stand, and begs the question of 'what is a practising Christian'?  What changes a nominal Christian into a practising one? The immediate answer is that a practising one attends a church regularly and takes part in the prayers, and sings the hymns, and listens to the sermons. Can you be a Chistian withluout actually doing all that? Increasingly, the answer is  that perhaps you can, because church is what has been manifestly rejected. Dietrich Bonhoeffer asked: 'Can Christ be Lord, even of those with no religion?' What a good question !!Christian Research tells me that in 2010 there were 1.3m Anglicans, 1.5m Catholics, and other categories, adding up to roughly seven percent of the population. That hardly makes a 'Christian country' if the criteria is churchgoing. But perhaps the meaning of 'practise' is to have a general belief that there must be a God and that Jesus told us as much about him/her/it as we can hope to understand, but it matters as much as it matters that the sun has risen again. Do we derive moral values from a nominal God, or from one who has offered us a recognisable code from which we get moral guidance? And if he has, how can we neglect it? Practising surely means taking seriously what we have been shown about the nature of God and what he requires of us.  TWO Addenda: Matthew Parris, an atheist Christian prophet, writes brilliantly in The Times today (December 17), and I have heard a scientist say of his new-born child that she is all he will ever see of the 'God particle.' Brilliant !!










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