Richard's Blog

Being good... is good for you (apparently)

Thanks to a review on the DoableEvangelism blog I've come across a fascinating book - Why Good Things Happen to Good People - not (I'm relieved to say) an espousal of the "Health, Wealth and Happiness" gospel of "God blesses people with nice things if they're good" (a heresy we're trying to nail in our series of sermons over the Summer!), but some research done (not by a specifically religious group) into the effects of altruistic lifestyles.

Apparently:

In 2000, Post launched the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love (IRUL) through Case Western Reserve University’s School of Medicine. It’s a mouthful that may sound a little fluffy at first, but their methods are pragmatic and scientific with a focus unique enough to be quite riveting. The purpose: study love and its impact on physical and mental health and overall well-being.

Some findings on the power of loving behavior:

• Giving reduces mortality.  Out of 2,000 individuals, those who actively volunteered had a 44% lower likelihood of dying.
• Giving reduces adolescent depression and suicide risk.
• Fostering personal gratitude has profound health benefits. For example, the more gratitude a recipient of an organ feels, the faster that person’s recovery.
• Generous giving is linked directly to deeper spirituality, especially among teens.
• Forgiveness alleviates depression and lowers stress hormones.
• Loyalty is a buffer against stress.  The security of loyal, steadfast caring is one of the greatest inhibitors of anxiety.
• When we listen to others in pain, their stress response quiets down and their body has a better chance to heal.

The rest of the review is worth a read too.

The book isn't yet available in the uk (though it's on the US site for Amazon), but sounds quite intriguing.

Do you think it's a good thing to encourage people to "be good" or "loving" by pointing out it's better for them?

The Priesthood of all believers

Another great quotation from Eugene Peterson - in "The Jesus Way" - Page 14 (see an earlier post too)

One of the severely crippling misunderstandings of the Reformation assertion of "The Priesthood of all Believers" is to assume (or worse, insist) that each of us can function as our own priest - "I don't need a priest, thank you, I can do quite well on my own, me and Jesus."  But that is certainly not what Martin Luther intended when he included the Priesthood of all Believers as a fundamental tenet for reforming the church.  He meant that we are all priests, not for ourselves, but for one another:  "I need you for my priest, and while we are at it, I'm available to you as your priest."

The Priesthood of all Believers is not an arrogant individualism that, at lest in matters dealing with God, doesn't need anyone.  It is a confession of mutuality, a willingness to guide one another in following in the way of Jesus, to assist and encourage, to speak and act in Jesus' name, and to be guided by another to speak and act in Jesus' name.  In the community of the baptised, there is no-one, absolutely no-one, who is not involved in this priestly leading and being lead, for even "a little child shall lead them" (Isaiah 11:6).

Which reminds me of the phrase that we are "all ordained on our baptism day"...

HP (not the sauce)

...by the way, (see comments below) - C has finally finished the thing (HP that is) at 11.45pm last night...

...I'm now on Chapter 5.

:o)

It already feels the darkest one so far - there's much more of a sense of brooding evil sitting over these early pages. It fits HP growing up, I guess, that the books become increasingly 'knowing'.

Humility and Truth

A friend of mine from another church emailed yesterday and included this comment (which I've edited to make it anonymous):

I've ...come to the conclussion I am 'postmodern' which is a bit scary since I thought that was a bad thing to be.

I am more and more coming to the conclusion that these days seeking people who turn up at Alpha come from a world which accepts nothing on the basis of 'authority' so it is no longer enough to say 'The Bible says.' They're also suspicious of dogmatic answers. We have to teach them to trust the Bible as a process.

Occasionally I go to help lead a small group where they save up their difficult questions for me and I go and think aloud. They like it that I sometimes admit I don't understand or point out that often other christians would see this different from me. It's a form of teaching that seems to work. Dialogue as opposed to sermons which require people to be passive and give no opportunity for inter action.

Whatever you make of the 'postmodern' label, there is a really important attitude being described here that's pretty fundamental. Humility. And I don't think humility has to make you postmodern - and it certainly doesn't have to weaken your biblical foundations.

I’m happy as a preacher to nail my colours to an Evangelical mast and try and unpack confidently about what I believe the Bible says about (for example) the ‘hot potatoes’…

...but I also recognize that I’m not an infallible, completely independent, thinker and interpreter of Scripture. I know that I come with my own baggage, selected commentaries, upbringing, assumptions and failings. I therefore have to be humble enough to recognise I might be wrong.

I don't have to loosen my commitment to God’s self-revelation and truth, nor to the 'authority of scripture' to recognise that I need to bow before God in humility rather than with an arrogant certainty that I've got it taped.

We’re reading Rowan Williams’ book Tokens of Trust in Digging Deeper and I love his way of unpacking the idea and impact of God's self-revelation in Jesus. God has shown himself, in Jesus (Eph 1), fully enough for us to completely trust him, because we know he has no “hidden agenda” or “ulterior motive”. But that's not the same as saying he has told us everything there is to know, nor that I’m going to always get it right when I try to understand that revelation…

It has to do with getting to know a trustworthy friend in God-revealed-in-Jesus, rather than with placing a sample under a microsope to be at the mercy of my "superior" mind.

Teenagers...

Care for the Family - a Christian organisation headed up by Rob Parsons, prolific author and speaker on issues to do with family and working life - are advertising their latest book on parenting, Teenagers: What Every Parent Has to Know.

I've just ordered my copy from Amazon, since Parsons' previous books have certainly been worth getting.

Here's Parsons' introduction to the book in a recent emailing from Care:

During the past year I’ve been working on a new book called Teenagers! What Every Parent Has to Know. It’s just been published. This is a hard time in the history of our society to be a teenager – a fact that is born out by the statistics on drugs, sexually transmitted diseases, self-harm, eating disorders and even suicide. And if it’s harder for teenagers, it means it’s harder for their parents as well.

But it’s not just the issues hitting the media that affect parents. Every day, worried mums and dads are asking: “Why has he suddenly become so rude to me?” or “Why can’t she see that it’s not a good idea to go clubbing the night before her exam?” And, of course, there’s the eternal puzzle: “How come my two children are so different? What did I do wrong with the second one?”

Going by his previous books, it's likely to be practical and straightforward without trying to give "pat" and "easy" answers - Rob Parsons is realistic about family life, but convinced that it needn't be hopeless! He's aiming the book at the general (rather than "niche Christian" market) and I'm delighted to say that it shows up first on Amazon if you search for "teenagers"... Let me know what you think.

Do nothing...

The Bishop of Reading got some good publicity at the end of last week (BBC website and Telegraph, amongst others) for his new (rather well titled) book, Do Nothing to Change Your Life (subtitled: "What happens when you stop").

He apparently "...handed out egg timers to commuters at his local railway station with instructions to spend three minutes of each day in silent reflection." (Telegraph)

"By learning to sit still, slow down, by discerning when to shut up and when to speak out, you learn to travel through life differently.

"There is new delight and purpose in the mundane and the ordinary things of life. Making tea becomes a treat, travelling to work an adventure.

"For Christians this fresh perspective will improve our relationship with God."

It was said of John Wimber, who founded the Vineyard Church movement in the States and therefore led a major movement of churches and leaders, used to take entire days simply to sit and think. Just think.

Dangerous religion?

With Dawkins lining up alongside Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris et al. in attacking religion in general - rather than just the Christian Faith in particular, Keith Ward's book Is Religion Dangerous? looks like it could be a good read... the problem is that I've already got another of his on my already aching shelves unread and there's just too much of a queue....

...which makes me very grateful for TheCenTriC's summary of the work including a good set of quotations and summaries of the main sections... problem is that it reads so well I suspect I will just end up ordering it anway... :o)

Living between the sunrise and the shadows...

I've just got hold of (and I'm starting to read) the long-trailed book by Ken Costa, Vice-Chairman of UBS Investment Bank, Chairman of Alpha International and leading member of HTB church in London. It's called God at Work - subtitle: Living every day with purpose. See it on Amazon for further details...

Not read much yet, so I'll withold judgement as to its usefulness, but there's one wonderful passage already that caught my attention over the weekend - lots to chew on for a Monday morning (whether at work or not):

Living as a Christian in the world today is like living on a knife edge. ...there is no 'click here' answer to the many dilemmas that we all face at work each day.

A few years ago I went to the Namibian desert with a small group of Christian friends for a short break. ... We prayed and worshipped together, and at sunset one evening, surrounded by silence and the unforgettable darkness of Africa, we had a communion service under the stars on the sand.

Next morning, we got up before sunrise to walk along one of the largest and most majestic sand dunes in the world. What we saw was remarkable. As the sun rose, on one side there was pure light; on the other, a still and eerie darkness. As I was walking along the top of the dune I had the sense that this was a picture of the world in which Christians live. We were called to walk on the narrow ledge of the dune, not in darkness and not always in the sunlit beauty of the light side, but all the time leaning towards the light and away from the shadow.

The life of the Christian at work is a leaning towards goodness. Day by day we can sesne God's presence as we avoid the darkness. We try to walk along this narrow divide, straining towards the light.

[God at Work, Ken Costa, p8-9]

Catching up...

Yet again, rather a backlog in my 'Must blog this sometime...' files - hopefully enough here you'll find something worth pausing for thought (or a smile - sometimes more therapeutic!):

• Adrian has been sending the rest of us involved in leading worship in All Souls links to a new way of learning fresh songs - watching them on YouTube! Here's a couple of recent ones, one of them from Hillsongs, the other from Chris Tomlin.

• A couple of good cartoons courtesy of CartoonChurch.com: What the clergy do all week and What your pew says about you

• Those of you who did the Digging Deeper series on Tom Wright's book "Evil and the Justice of God", might be interested in a review (link is direct to it in pdf format) by Don Carson - it's mostly a summary of the contents (no bad thing), but there's a critique too which is worth pondering.

• An interesting piece in the Guardian online about the takeover of Tescos-and-the-like being like all-pervasive/invasive(?) weeds... "harsh but true???".

• This time from Ekklesia online news is a story saying that a US court has ruled Pringle Chips are not satanic - phew! :o)
  The semi-serious bit of the story comes here:
  

  The stars in fact stand for the thirteen original American colonies. But the arrangement of stars in the symbol was said to secretly spell out the Revelation 13:18 "number of the beast": 666.

  Without examining the facts, many people, most notably evangelicals, signed petitions against Procter & Gamble and boycotted their products in the 1980s and 1990s.

  "Without examing the facts..." - I wonder how many times we all get caught out that way?
  

   

• Finally a quite brilliant piece from Hugh of gapingvoid.com - summarising a seminar he did on blogging to business leaders. If you're in business of any kind, marketing or just interested in the way the internet is changing (...has changed) the landscape completely, it's a must-read. [Cartoon from Hugh's site - click on the image for a full-size version]

Sorry for the somewhat random nature of the collection... enjoy!

Why I Am Still an Anglican

There's just WAY too much to blog about at the moment and hardly a moment to get near the keyboard to do so (hence the lack of posting yesterday)...

A quick one for now - I've just received a book I heard about some time ago, but hadn't got round to laying my hands on: Why I Am Still an Anglican edited by Caroline Chartres (a journalist and also, as it happens, wife of the Bishop of London). It's a great concept - ask a broad cross-section of Anglicans to explain why they, personally, still persevere with this argument-ridden, sometimes odd, always falible bit of God's people.

Where else would you find Ian Hislop (satirist and writer - very, very funny), John Stott (one of the foremost evangelical writters of the last 100 years), Fay Weldon (outspoken novelist) and Frank Field (MP) all in the same book alongside Nicky Gumbel (of HTB and Alpha), Andreas Whittam Smith (founding editor of the Independent) and Anne Atkins (regular Radio 4 'Though for the Day' contributor and writer)?

I've so far only had time to dip in - and I went straight for Ian Hislop's chapter. He's someone I like a lot on TV/radio/writing and whose Anglican connections I knew already:

"I've tried atheism and I can't stick at it: I keep having doubts." That probably sums up my position... If I'm a Don't Know, I'm a C of E Don't Know. [p99]

...I like being part of a church where, after the Tsunami, the Archbishop says not, "I can see God's hand in this", but rather, "A lot of you might think that this proves it's all rubbish" - and then he goes to the next stage and tells you that his faith is still there, and gives you some reasons why, and some examples, and then you begin to go with him. [p101]

A Church that allows for science, biblical theology, unbiblical scholarship, changes in knowledge, and trusts its members to form their own opinions and make their own decisions - that seems to me its strength, really. [p102]

Buying the book also means that I finally have in my hands the source of a quotation I've used more than once in a sermon (and online), without ever having seen it "in the flesh". This time from Revd John Stott:

So I do believe in the Church of England, in the rightness of belonging to it and of maintaining a faithful evangelical witness within it and to it. For I believe in the power of God's word and Spirit to reform and renew the Church. I also believe in the patience of God. Max Warren wrote that 'the history of the Church is the story of the patience of God'. He was right. I do not think we have any liberty to be less patient than God has been. [p15]

:o)