Listen

More than anything, we need somebody to listen. Really  listen, that is, not just cock half an ear while they think of the next thing to say. Today's paper says than doctors are being treated like priests; and for sure the most popular medicos are those who make time to listen to their patients. A man I know found his surgery closed and only a cleaner on the premises. He sat on a wall outside and told her his problem, and afterwards he had no need of the doctor. A pub landlord tells me that lonely and troubled individuals are more and more turning up in the hope that he will have time for a chat, or that there will be other customers willing to listen to them. 'They want sympathy more than drinkl,' he says. 'Running a pub is hard enough without being a mixture of priest, doctor, social worker and psychiatrist.' Is this a role for the under-occupied clergy? Lots of them pretend to be 'busy' but when you analyse their day much of what they do is self-indulgent. Ministry can be a sinecure. Clergy set their own agendsas so that they appear to be immensely busy, or more or less idle. Most have not been trained in time mangement so never achieve much. A church could 'adopt' a pub or a surgery to provide willing listeners (not preachers!) to over-burdened landlords and doctors. Chaplaincy is a more useful activity than parish ministry... perhaps also for motorways and pub chains aetc,etc. Too many clergy are wasting their time and training. Discuss...

Belief

Apparently several hundred applications have been received recently from people keen to join the Progressive Christianity Network. As fewer Britons turn away from traditional Christian belief (Daily Telegraph September 29 2011)  they may not be abandoning every form of spirituality, but interested in it via other faiths systems, or no system at all. PCN doesn't ask newcomers to spell out their beliefs, which is as well, because chairman John Churcher says  every member will probably have a different understanding of what Christianity is about and  which bit of it really matters. My experience of churches is that very few of the people who attend could give you a coherent statement of personal belief. And those who are most certain are not necessarily the ones you might like to spend eternity with. A review of the BBC One programme (Sept 28) 'What's the point of Religion' suggested that 'Belonging matters more than believing'. That  is certainly true of most churchgoers, who like to see familiar faces in familiar surroundings, and enjoy routine forms of worship. They do not like change! Does 'belief' matter? Of course it does. Come right down to it, faith needs a reasonably firm foundation and PCN suggests ditching a lot of inherited medieval beliefs in favour of serious commitment to the life and teaching of Jesus, sans virgin birth, miracles and bodily resurrecvtion. It may never be popular in a culture than demands b&w certainties.  But certainty - about anything - is a mirage. Ask the Hydron Collider scientists!

Wonder

How about a new theme for harvest festivals? There is some embarrassment now in churches wondering how to dispose usefully of the fruit, veg and groceries presented for traditionl displays. My former church always had a very large loaf, designed like a sheaf of corn, as the centre-piece. We never quite knew what to do with it; come to that we didn't know what to do with baskets of fruit and veg which old people did not want; they thought it was charity! We sang with gusto the harvest hymns whose theological content is dubious. 'Give his angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast....' Thank you Henry Alford (1810-71)  The theme of thanksgiving is always going to be central, but the more we learn abut the world of nature, and our own mysterious bodies, the more we shoud be filled with a sense of wonder. Augustine wrote: 'Men go abroad to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge wastes of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.' James Le Fanu has written a fine book called 'Why Us?'* in which he describes the quite unaided progression of the human embryo into adult life, and the so far unexplained functions of the human brain, eye, memory, etc etc. A service with the theme of wonder at what we see around us, and how we see it, would be better than chanting about being 'gathered in, free from sorrow, free from sing...' Harvest planning committees - use you loaf - it's amazing.

*WHY US?  2009 HARPER COLLINS £18.99

theology

The media is so preoccupied with conflict, trivia and greed that it rarely takes God seriously. It tends to sneer at those who have something thoughtful to say about eternity, clashing as it may with the here, now, sexy and fiscal. So how a letter from Mr  Brian Wilson of Bristol, slipped through the massed defences of The Times letters police on September 13 is hard to guess. But good for him. He wanted to press the need for a 'new theology...to win the assent of thinking people who have abandoned traditional churches and their outdated mythologies...' Mr Wilson is so right. Amazingly, educated people are still standing up in churches reciting middle-ages creeds when belief has become much more credible and science compatible, in our time. What Mr Wilson may not know, and the media has not recognised, is that new Christian-based theology is up, running and gathering speed around the world. It is known by various names, notably Progressive Christianity, and sustained by exceptional theologians saying things that should meet the intellectual and spiritual needs of the most cynical seeker. Try info@pcnbritain.org.uk or the website at http://www.pcnbritain.org.uk/ Believable, universal, inclusive faith is on offer, and it is not the mock belief system which may have served our forefathers and rightly derided by Dawkins and co. It is somehting firt for this century.

restrain

A hymn we used to sing contained the prayer: 'Those who plan some evil, from their sin restrain.' It's hardly PC to sing it now, because evil in 2011 is not necessarily planned: it just happens, casually as part of the normality of daily life.  *I read of a large increase in the number of children 'permanently excluded' from school. Even at the age of four children check in for full time education already unable to behave in what used to be called a civilised manner. They have had no restaining influence at home, not even perhaps any kind of conversation with adults.  *A report tells of travelling families (Proper Romanies don't  behave like this) leaving sites in such a foul state, with fringe vandalism a given, that communities are outraged. Restraint? By whom? These savages have human rights, accredited by Euro legislation.  *At a whim, armies of unrestrained looters create all the havoc we are still trying to understand. We watch as police  are unempowered and under-resourced to move in to restrain them. *I am about to meet a recently-retired  nurse from an institution for mentally afflicted patients. It  is now closed, because many such patients are cared for 'in the community'.  His training included techniques for restraint, absolutely vital in cases where wild individuals were causing serious trouoble. Can we continue to allow anti-social human beings to behave without restraint? Is it  wrong to cry out in despair for wrongdoers somehow to be restrained? Or is there only one remedy... to go on singing the old hymn. and hope for the best ?

Father

Much of the response to the recent riots and looting of shops has had to do with the question of parenting. Calls for a new 'moral code' suggest that we need to return to the strictures of the Ten Commandments, and in particular the fifth, which adjures us to 'honour thy father and mother'. But it is surely unlikely, as the text then suggests that if we do so, our 'days shall be long in the land.' Why should respect for parents increase our longevity? It is considered by some that the commandment may not refer to parents at all. What if the intention was to advise people to honour 'father' as our spiritual nature and 'mother' as our physical nature? It makes a lot more sense to think that if we nurture ourselves spiritually and physically, then we are more likely to have a satisfactory and constructive, even long, life. Of course it is important to honour our parents, although there are cases in which a child would do well to avoid the example set by a brutal father. Jesus' reference to  his 'Father in Heaven' assumes a concept of father hood of the highest quality. But is Jesus referring to 'the Father' being that spiritual level of reality - the universal fundamental loving energy (God) - which seeks to penetrate and influence our temporal world?  Understood like that helps make for a betterr meaning of all references to 'Father' in the New Testament., and certainly illuminates the meaning of the fifth commandment. They don't, presumably, riot in heaven !.

junkies

The British are news junkies. Is it fear of boredom? Something needs to be going on 'out there' and the more portentous and disgraceful it is the better. We can then lock the door, hide under the blanket and revel in personal safety and innocence. We need news, even if it is only about a change in the weather - anything to up the tempo and help us to feel that life is happening. News should be 'new, true and interesting'. But can we rely on news makers, reporters and presenters to be trustworthy? Does what we read and hear comply with these three criteria? A meeting to discuss this is being held on Sunday September 4 (7.15 at the Congregational Church Newcastle under Lyme) by Progressive Christianity Stoke. There is a limit to the amount of good news we can take. News of conflicts being ended and settled is less compelling than news of conflicts starting and continuing. We feed on the exploits of baddies; Bill Sykes is much more interesting than Oliver Twist. How reliable is the media that feeds us every day? We are aghast at the way phones have been hacked to tease out privated information, but salivate at what the likes of the News of the World was able then to 'reveal exclusively'. We think we have a right to personal; privacy, but gloat over personal information about other people offered in the lurid press. How far should the media go to expose the foibles of the famous? As newspape sales decline and most people now get their news from TV and electronic gadgets will news reports become less reliable? Is society being managed on sensatuional half-truths and lies? How much anyway do we 'need' to know? It's worth discussing.