LONDON RAMBLINGS

Three years on from moving to Poole from SE9, I am sometimes asked if I miss London. My answer to this is invariably, “No, not at all. Well… I miss central London.” And it’s true – there is a not a lot I miss about suburban London (which is not to say I didn’t appreciate where I lived, or have a lot of friends and connections there, or find it very hard to leave); and the reality is that most of the 32 London boroughs are rather unexciting suburbia. Poole is an altogether more attractive and interesting place in which to live. But I have always loved central London – that small patch at the heart of the great suburban city.

So it was good to be in London on a spring day (which is when London looks its best) for the Everything Conference on Saturday. The conference itself was a great success, and it was a privilege to have a small part to play in it. And it felt very good to be in the heart of Westminster. Apparently some people had been put off attending because of the TUC march that was happening at the same time, but for me that simply added to the buzz of the day.

On Friday evening, after an Everything dinner, I hired one of Boris Johnson’s bikes (didn’t have those three years ago) and cycled along the South Bank, to Westminster Bridge, across to Parliament Square (which I raced around a couple of times), up to Buckingham Palace, and then down the Mall to Trafalgar Square, before parking the bike at Charing Cross.

That was a lot of fun.

The tang of spring, and the thousands of people filling the streets, and the general throb of the city created an energy that was pretty irresistible.

At the Everything dinner I had a rather strong debate with a researcher for BBC radio – she defending such appalling offerings as Woman’s Hour and You & Yours, me lamenting Radcliffe & Maconie being given the boot from Radio 2. (Apparently – the researcher explained – Radcliffe & Maconie only appeal to people who are interested in music, and Radio 2 listeners do not fall into this category.) One program we did not debate was Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time, but this is one of my favourites. Bragg is also a fan of central London, and I rather liked this description of his perambulations in this weeks IOT newsletter:

Off, then, down Regent Street where spring has sprung wonderfully. In Cumbria the lambs, freed from snow, are gambolling; in London, the brave souls who sat at pavement tables in winter are now glowing in the sun; and everywhere the sap is rising!

Time to hurry about St James’s Park, already in mid-morning crowded with troops of schoolchildren, although never too crowded to be visited.  Blossom out in full now, daffodils still flourishing, pelicans still pecking their downy chests; everything sparkling because the sun has got his hat on and has come out to play.  At last.

Into the Westminster Abbey complex to find the Jerusalem Chamber where I’m to be interviewed.  It’s quite extraordinary to be inside the Abbey buildings – let alone the Abbey itself.  You can feel its presence as a community separate from all that goes on around it and yet feeling central to it.  Boys from Westminster School in their grey jerseys and grey trousers playing football on the lawn.  People in various degrees of clerical dress, swanning around the yards and the closes on their way into, or out of, the Abbey itself.  Higgledy-piggledy stairs.  And the wonderful Jerusalem Chamber with its magnificent tapestries and its history, including being one of the places where the King James Bible was finalised.

Out on the pound again to Victoria Station to renew my senior railcard.  What volumes of people there are on the pavements.  What an extraordinary number of different shops. A cigar shop that looks as if it came out of Dickens – no, way, way before Dickens; the scent of Dr Johnson emanates from its interior.  And a little side street market, wall-to-wall as brisk and Cockney as anything in the East End.  What a swirl of a place it is. Some shops are quite cosy and local – little barbers’ shops, little sandwich shops – some are achingly huge.  There’s Westminster Cathedral on the left, standing back splendidly in its own courtyard; there’s the Victorian Apollo Theatre on the right with – still invaded by the North – Billy Elliot.  And on to the concourse of Victoria Station. When is it not thronging, as if every hour was rush hour?  Sometimes the centre of London seems about to burst.  The pavements are already not broad enough.  I tried to sum it up in a word or two, the word which was the common denominator of everybody I passed.  I’m quite sure it would be “intent”.  But intent on what?  Themselves?  Not bumping into others?  Their phones, often snugly held to the ear?  From above, it must look even more like that scene so disparaged by Orson Welles in The Third Man, where he callously talks about the ants (is it ants?) down there on the ground who don’t matter. And yet no face different.  A world of its own really.  More snatches of foreign languages than the English language.

Brilliant! And yes, I miss that London.

PRAYER 'N PIZZA

A friend sent me this fascinating link from USA Today. Apparently, while being good for overall health, attending church is more likely to make you fat. According to the report,

Young adults who go to a religious event such as worship or Bible study at least once a week are 50 percent more likely to become obese by middle age as young adults with no religious involvement, according to new Northwestern Medicine research based on tracking 3,433 men and women for 18 years.

Researchers, who present their study this week to an American Heart Association panel in Atlanta, say they don't know if it's the pepperoni, the potato salad or maybe the sedentary nature of prayer that hits believers in the belly.

Matthew Feinstein, the study's lead investigator, speculated: "It's possible that getting together once a week and associating good works and happiness with eating unhealthy foods could lead to the development of habits that are associated with greater body weight and obesity."

Well, better to be overweight (a very arbitrary term anyway I think) and happy - and saved! - than thin as a rake and miserable.

However, I have been paying more attention to my weight than normal, as with running a marathon it is helpful to slim down a bit. Less weight means less pressure on the joints, and probably a faster race. I thought the weight would just drop off me with training, but when I started in January I was 198lb, and ten weeks in I was still 198lb! It was then I realized my problem - always having seconds of Mrs Hosier's delicious cooking. Cut out the extra portions, and suddenly the pounds began to fall away.

In just over two weeks time the running will all be over, and the day after the race I go to the USA for a week to attend a conference. I expect I'll come back up to 198lb again...!

TIDES & TURNINGS

Because the moon was at its closest point to the earth in 20 years last night it looked unusually large and bright. With the proximity of the moon we have also had massive spring tides, and Poole Harbour was practically drained of water this afternoon.

Next Sunday the clocks go forward and suddenly it will still be light at 7.30pm.

I've nothing very profound to say about all this - just that I like it!

BOOK REVIEW: THE QUESTION OF GOD

The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life, by Armand M. Nicholi, Jr.

Dr Nicholi is a psychiatrist at Harvard and has been teaching a course on Freud and Lewis there for decades – a course on which this book is based. In the epilogue Nicholi paints a tantalising scenario in which Freud and Lewis may have met, but this is far more conjecture than certainty. However, from their respective writings Nicholi has stitched together this fascinating dialogue between the two men.

Lewis is of course a Christian hero. While not an Evangelical himself, he has been adopted by much of evangelicalism as the model par excellence of intelligent Christian interaction with the wider world. Freud, on the other hand is “the atheist’s touchstone,” and along with the likes of Darwin, Nietzsche and Marx one of the true giants of intellectual and social thought of the modern era. Lewis was an atheist until his conversion in his thirties; Freud remained an atheist until his death, though fixated on the concept of God.

Freud built on foundations laid by Feuerbach and claimed belief in God to be an illusion and infantile. For Freud, faith is a fairytale. Yet he was preoccupied with faith throughout his life, quoted liberally from the Bible, and his favourite books had “Christian” themes. He also regarded believers as intellectually weak. In all this it is easy to see a prefiguring of our own dear Dr Dawkins, and indeed Lewis’ rebuff of Freud is very similar to the one many have made of Dawkins, “When he goes on to talk general philosophy he is speaking as an amateur… I have found that when he is talking off his own subject and on a subject I do know something about… he is very ignorant.”

In discussing the question of conscience, Nicholi exposes the weaknesses of both mens approach. Freud justifies himself by comparing his own behaviour with that of others and concluding, “I can measure myself with the best people I have known.” Lewis does not make this mistake, but does appeal to a universal or natural law – something innate to all humans. While this is consistent with Roman Catholic moral teaching, it fails to do justice to our need of revelation in Christ to truly understand what is pleasing to God. This is why Lewis is of more use to Christian apologists than to systematic theology!

An intriguing chapter is that in which Nicholi assesses happiness. The evidence indicates that Freud was not a happy man, whereas – after his conversion – Lewis was transformed into an optimist, quick to laugh, and generally at peace with life. Lewis’ generally more cheery attitude is seen in his approach to that most Freudian of subjects – sex. Lewis sees the innate comedy in sex, as well as its incredible seriousness, and enjoyed a robust sex life when he married Joy Davidman, relatively late in life. Intriguingly, Freud had no sexual experience until in his thirties, was sexually faithful in his marriage, and ceased having sex even with his wife after his last child was born. As Nicholi observes, “Sometimes it is hard to fathom how Freud became an international symbol of sexual freedom.”

Freud saw all love as sublimated sex, whereas Lewis makes the classic distinction between the four loves, of which only Eros is sexual. Freud’s narrow view means he is unable to comprehend the biblical commands to love our enemies and to love our neighbours as ourselves.

As well as sex and religion, Freud also obsessed about death, and approached it in a very superstitious way. Freud feared death and ageing, while Lewis “appeared to enjoy the process.” This contrast was exemplified in how the two men died – Lewis peacefully shuffling off this mortal coil while at home; Freud requesting his doctor to euthanize him.

I do not know what Dr Nicholi’s personal beliefs are, but by the end of this book it is fairly clear his sympathies lie more with Lewis than Freud. And while “he would say that wouldn’t he” Lewis also makes a more appealing case to me than does Freud. Freud comes across as a restless, unhappy man, whereas Lewis displays a greater contentment and joy. Meeting Freud would have been fascinating, but I think Lewis would have been more fun. In the end, Freud’s lifelong fight against God seems to only have left him exhausted and bitter. His influence on the development of contemporary culture might be considerably greater than that of Lewis, but it is built on a very shallow foundation compared with Lewis’ hope in Christ.

BOOK REVIEW: REACHING MUSLIMS

Reaching Muslims: A one-step guide for Christians, by Nick Chatrath

I’m preaching through 1 Corinthians at the moment and am currently in chapters 8-10. In these chapters Paul explains to the Corinthians how they should be in their city but not of their city, how they should be culturally accommodating while remaining faithful to the gospel, and how they are not to stand on their rights, but do everything for the benefit of others and the glory of God.

Many of the issues Paul raises in this discussion find a striking modern parallel in the way that Christians in the West respond to Muslims. Is our response one of fear or aggression – or of friendship? How should we feel about very practical matters like whether it is acceptable to eat halal meat or not? How should we dialogue with Muslims without compromising key Christian doctrines such as the Trinity or the person of Jesus?

In seeking to answer questions like these, Nick Chatrath has done us a great service is writing this short book. Reaching Muslims started as a paper for the Newfrontiers Theology Forum, but Nick quickly busted the 10,000 word limit we set for these papers. So, alongside a shorter paper for the Forum, Nick went away and wrote up this superb book. It is remarkable how much he has managed to pack into it, and it is getting great reviews (For example, this one from the Daily Telegraph).

   

Nick begins with unfolding a road map to help us understand Muslim history, culture and beliefs. This is a very useful section, and will help to dispel a great deal of misinformation and misconceptions about Muslims. The next section gives tips for developing friendships with Muslims. Part 3 is a wonderful resource, providing a number of outlines to help Muslims understand what Christians believe – if you want to invite Muslim friends to a church event, or run training sessions for Christians wanting to connect with Muslims you need look no further than what Nick provides here. The last section of the book deals with some hot potatoes – questions about whether Christians should call God “Allah”, when converted Muslims should get baptised, and eating halal meat. There is then a glossary, further study guides, and a list of useful resources.

I really don’t know how Nick managed to pack all this into just 150 pages, and cannot recommend it enough.

If you want to see more, there is a short video of Nick talking about why he wrote Reaching Muslims on Amazon.

Islamophobia is not something Christians should succumb to. Instead we should take up with relish the opportunities for sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ that having Muslims in our towns give us! This is what Paul would have done in Corinth. It’s what we should do now, and Nick helps show us how.

OK FOLKS, I'M BEGGING...

One month today and I shall be taking part in the Brighton marathon. Due to a niggling ankle injury my training has not gone quite as I had hoped, and until getting through a couple of long runs recently I had been wondering whether I would have to drop out. But I am now fairly confident I will be able to get round, even if it won't be as quick as it should be.

So here's the thing - I'm running in aid of Friends First, a charity that works with the homeless, and am committed to raising £750. Take a look at the widget to your right and you will see I am still a long way from this target.

So this is the beg: Please sponsor me!

All you need to do is click here.

Thank you!

LUKE 2:1

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, and Lent begins.

Mrs Hosier is intending to give up alcohol and coffee during this period. I shall be raising a glass and cheering her on.

Lent is the period of 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter Saturday, which is actually 46 days, but the Sunday’s are not counted, which takes it down to 40. Why has the Church celebrated this season? Well, there are some practical reasons: The word “Lent” comes from the Anglo-Saxon “Spring,” and in pre-industrial society this was the hungriest part of the year, when the previous years harvest was all but used up and there was as yet little to harvest from the new season.

Spiritually, this is the season of preparation for Easter. The 40 days of Lent are a time to remember the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness – hungry and tempted. Christ’s earthly ministry is bookended by these 40 days in the wilderness at its beginning, and the events of Easter at its end.

In our rushed, 21^st century lives, preparing and remembering are not things we are good at.

The 2011 census form arrived on my doorstep today. A census is for the purposes of preparing and remembering. As it says on the front, the census “is used to help plan and fund services for your community,” and when census information is released in a century it will serve as a means of remembering for historians and those compiling family trees.

Because it involves preparing and remembering, filling in the census form feels a rather Lenten activity. It also feels Lenten because it is somewhat unpleasant – with six members of my household there is just the sheer schlepping of completing a lot of boxes. And there is then that inner sense of rebellion and resentment at being asked personal questions. Some of these questions I can understand, but it is less clear why the Office for National Statistics might need to ask others. As well as knowing that I am a church minister, why do they need to know the name and address of my employer? How will that help with planning? And if anyone is that keen to remember me in one hundred years time they could find out such information by means other than the census. I dislike having to tick-box my ethnicity. What I want to say is, “A human, made in the image of God,” but there isn’t the space given to write that. Why is how I describe my national identity an issue? I live in the UK – why isn’t that information enough?

So in the end it is the power of the law that means I have sat down and answered all those questions.

How different from the power of God’s grace which is mine because of Christ. Which is why Easter always trumps Lent.

GO WEST YOUNG MAN!

I'm just about to head out the door for our regional 20's weekend, which I am leading. We've got 300+ attending, in Bude, Cornwall, and it's going to be great! I'm not a great fan of driving on Britain's congested roads, but I always like pointing the car west. In large measure this is the legacy of childhood holidays in Cornwall, and the inbred sense that heading west always means fun. Traveling east implies more congestion, and flat landscapes, and estuary English. Going west means rolling hills, clotted cream, and (now rightly esteemed!) Cornish pasties.

Since moving to Poole three years ago, going west has also meant being part of a movement of churches that is an especially dynamic part of the larger whole that we call Newfrontiers. We are actively planting churches, involved in many exciting things overseas, and able to do things like have a 20's weekend where the only limiting factor was lack of venue capacity rather than lack of interest. Over 1,000 people have booked into Westpoint, our summer camp since booking opened on Tuesday, and there is a real sense of momentum among us.

So I'd appreciate your prayers this weekend - I want to see a big crowd of young adults getting fresh vision for God's global mission. And then we can send them out to bless the world - to the west, yes, but also to the north and the south and the east.

GOING TO LONDON?

The news that Iran is threatening to boycott the London Olympics because the logo spells out "Zion" has caused a certain amount of amusement in what has been an otherwise fairly grim news week. I wonder why the Iranians have only just noticed this? Perhaps they were so dazzled by the utter hideousness of the logo (which is of the "My five-year-old could do better than that" school of design) that it has taken them all this time to see behind its fiendishness to the obvious intent of London 2012 being less about sport than a Zionist strategy for world domination. Of course, the Iranians should be pointing the finger of blame at that well know Zionist Ken Livingstone, who was London mayor at the time the logo was launched. The Zionist intent of the Olympic logo also explains why Ken was so keen on having the likes of controversial Islamic cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi come to visit while he was mayor - surely simply a cover for his real intentions.


Rather more seriously - for me anyway - having downloaded a complete program for the games I realize that (like the Iranians) I am unlikely to be attending. Since London won the bid it has been our family intention to make the Olympics our holiday activity next summer. However, the price of tickets for the events we would like to see (like everyone else, the athletics and cycling) means that we could perhaps attend two events before our budget ran out.


It would be cheaper to buy a TV and stay at home.


Or perhaps we could visit Iran - which I've always wanted to do. I guess there may be some bargain flights to Tehran next August...

PRAY FOR THE PERSECUTED

The news that Pakistani Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti has been shot dead this morning is just one more piece of evidence of how tough life is for Christians in much of the world. As the only Christian in the Pakistani cabinet, Mr Bhatti was always out on a limb, and he has now paid the price for his beliefs.


As change and turmoil engulfs so much of north Africa, the middle-east, and the wider Islamic world, let's keep praying for our brothers and sisters in Christ in these lands. We can pray with confidence, knowing that the nations are Christ's inheritance, and that he will gather for himself a people from every tribe, nation and tongue. We should pray with compassion, weeping with those who weep, and feeling the pain inflicted on the whole body as one part of the body of Christ comes under attack. We need to pray that the church responds with dignity and grace, even when confronted with injustice and suffering. We must pray with faith, trusting Jesus that his church will not be crushed, but that opportunities for gospel advance will open even through current circumstances.


God is great, and Jesus will have the victory!

THE DIVISION BELL

Today’s judgment by the European Court of Justice that insurance companies cannot charge men and women differently is interesting.

Objectively, this is a crazy decision. The evidence is plain – young men crash their cars more often than do young woman, and therefore their insurance costs should be higher. Men die on average three years before women do, and therefore the cost of a pension annuity should be higher for women.

Subjectively, however, the claims of gender equality are now counted as outweighing the factual differences between men and women. Whether one feels that this subjective approach is the right one or not will be shaped by your presuppositions. If you are the parent of daughters rather than sons, this is a time to rail against the stupidity of subjectivity – when it comes to car insurance time, this decision is going to hurt you! But if you have a prior commitment to all gender distinctions being erased, then the court ruling will seem fair.

In a somewhat analogous case, the decision of the High Court that Eunice & Owen Johns should not be allowed to foster is further demonstration of how the “equality agenda” now trumps all others. Having raised four children of their own, and fostered 15 others, and with the UK needing an additional 10,000 foster carers, objectively it would seem to make sense to allow the Johns to carry on fostering – the risk that they might damage a child by saying they do not consider homosexuality appropriate might seem worth taking if it were to mean children being brought up in a loving and stable home. But if your primary concern is normalizing homosexuality, then the court ruling will seem eminently sensible to you.

All of which is simply an introduction to me making a cautious step into the internet maelstrom that has erupted over Rob Bell’s latest book.

On one level, I find it rather odd that Bell appearing to declare himself a universalist (or as near to it as makes no difference) should kick up such a storm. Surely this is not surprising news?

My closest encounter with Bell was a few years back when I somehow got onto the rather select guest list for an event hosted by Premier Radio at which Bell was speaking and introducing Nooma 014, Breathe. My abiding memory of that event was the totally embarrassing representative from the Evangelical Alliance who got up and said (without irony), “We should be doing videos like this – all you need to be able to do is walk backwards while talking to a camera!” – completely failing to display any awareness of Bell’s unique gifts as a communicator, or the fact that each Nooma cost $100,000 to produce.

The second stand-out memory was watching Breathe and while finding it beguiling and beautiful also thinking, “He’s saying God is in everyone – he’s promoting panentheism.” From that point it was obvious to me that the trajectory of Bell’s theology was an inclusivism that would end in universalism.

Bell was writing the script for what was the spiritual equivalent of the equality agenda.

Many of the comments posted about what Bell is saying now, reference what he wrote in Velvet Elvis, in which he appeared to question the virgin birth, but actually came down on an orthodox position. I was never too exorcised about that example, because it seemed clear what Bell was doing – setting up a straw man argument just to show how poor it was. However, I always felt the bigger problem was with the analogy Bell used which became the paradigm within which his wider argument was framed – that of whether we view doctrine as like a brick wall, or more like a trampoline. The problem with this metaphor was that it was its own straw man. Bell was effectively making the claim that his metaphor, and his paradigm, was the correct one to define how we should do theology.

But what if it wasn’t?

What if a better metaphor would be to describe doctrine more like a piece of cloth? A piece of cloth is not hard like a brick, more flexible like a trampoline. But here’s the thing – if you pick at a thread on a piece of cloth and keep on picking, pretty soon you don’t have a piece of cloth, just a useless pile of tangled thread. And reading Velvet Elvis and watching Breathe it felt to me that that was the likely outcome of where Bell’s theology was headed.

So I am left surprised (though sadly not that surprised) that #robbell has been trending on twitter.

(A lot has been said on this, but – for what it’s worth – of all the posts that I have read on the subject, the ones that I have found most helpful are those by Liam Thatcher, Trevin Wax, and Kevin DeYoung – so you might want to start there too.)

In the end, we’re all fighting for the triumph of our worldview and in the end we all have to make judgments. My view? Boys should pay more for their car insurance than girls. And hell is terrifyingly real.