Better off on our own?

On the way in to work yesterday I took a few seconds out from reading the paper to take in what my fellow commuters were up to. We were reading books, papers, e-mail on our Blackberries. Or we were texting, taking calls on our mobiles or taking in a film, playing on hand-held game consoles. In short we were carrying in our hands life-lines to a world of choice: work, friends or just their own personal space.

When we get off the train, we continue to simply inter-act with the world until it meets all our needs. And our world seems to me to offer this gratification as never before. On the way in to work there are dozens of food outlets where I can choose from numerous different varieties of coffee, have an English or Continental Breakfast or something entirely different altogether. At lunch its Italian, Mediterranean, Indian, Chinese, Mexican, Fusion,Vegetarian, Low-fat, Gluten-free: I want it, I can get it. Ten years ago if I wanted to buy a CD I might go to the town and scour the shops to see if it was in stock. If it wasn't I had to order it or - most likely - go to London. No need now: if I want the product, I can order it on-line; if I want to experience the music I just log on to Last FM and listen; or download it. Same too with books and films.

And if I do want to go to a shop I can now do so virtually 24 hours a day courtesy of the local supermarket. Sunday no longer presents an obstacle to my shopping fix either. I am naturally outraged that some stick-in-the-mud people restrict my Sunday shopping to between the hours of 10 and 4 but I guess that leaves a bit of time to just chill. And boy can I do that. Satellite television caters for my every need - football or film mostly but if the urge takes me I can watch repeats of Who Wants to be a Millionaire or America's Next Top Model.

In short I can now design my own world and have it to conform to all my preferences. I can read the news when I want - I can even have it sent to my mobile if I prefer. Mass media communications are increasingly designed to fit the person. And if I wish to respond then the same digital media opportunities present themselves - Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and so on.

In this world where our own desires can be so readily gratified the question that came into my head was this: why should anyone feel the need for God? When the world can meet all your everyday needs and more why think about the transcendent? And just as that thought of why bother goes through your mind along comes a bendy-bus saying "There probably isn't a God so enjoy life". So its not so much a case of "Is there a God" as: well, even if there is does it matter? We're doing perfectly well without God, without religion; we have our laptops and our i-Pods. We have on-line shops and real shops. We have the world at our finger-tips on Facebook. Show me where God is in all this. There is no evidence, after all, that even if there is a God that it affects me personally, is there?

So, one by one, the light switch is being turned as more of us recognise that we can do perfectly well without God. Both from a personal perspective and from that of society as a whole. And for those of us resolved to keep the switch s firmly "On" what are we to say who have set the switch in the "Off" or "Couldn't Care Less" mode.

Why I am a Christian

It is simple as this. I get up at 6:30am. Off to the study for 10 minutes reflection and prayer. Each day, I log on to the laptop and go to the Universalis for the day's readings and I find this.

Luke 17:7-10 ©

Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Which of you, with a servant ploughing or minding sheep, would say to him when he returned from the fields, “Come and have your meal immediately”? Would he not be more likely to say, “Get my supper laid; make yourself tidy and wait on me while I eat and drink. You can eat and drink yourself afterwards”? Must he be grateful to the servant for doing what he was told? So with you: when you have done all you have been told to do, say, “We are merely servants: we have done no more than our duty".

Everyday I make a living in London. The "real world" perhaps. And there are thousands of books out there on how to work, to lead others and to survive or succeed in that environment. Which of them can sustain us better than those few verses from St.Luke's gospel. Just wonderful.

Competition time

With the candles still warm from Hallow'een and the fireworks still unlit a reminder that Christmas is not far off greeted me yesterday at my local Tesco. A huge decorated tree greets shoppers and reminds us that there can barely be 50 shopping days left till Christmas.

I will be keeping an eye out for the Christmas gift idea or product that seems most utterly at odds with the Christian notion of Christmas but is nevertheless offered as a serious suggestion. Hot off the blocks is "The Atheist Guide to Christmas" which is so disappointing because it persists only with the notion that there is probably no God. Have these people lost the courage of their convictions? Just too wet to be taken seriously.

An early front-runner therefore is the Waitrose Food and Home Direct Catalogue (free). This offers seasonal and other fare to would-be entertainers in ready and convenient form. At a price. 15 iced cupcakes at £10.50. 12 afternoon biscuits at £15. Or for Christmas day itself how about mashed potato at £5.50 for 4 or Roast potatoes at £5? Wouldn't we better advised to use our money on something that is more in keeping with the spirit of the season. On somebody in need for instance? Food for thought....

Losing my Religion......

..."That's me in the corner"

If its not already obvious, this blog is written by someone who knows more about balance sheets and football than they do about religion. I do take an interest but I do so without any particular training beyond reading the odd book aimed at a wider readership: Abbot Christopher Jamison or Karen Armstrong, for example; New Directions from cover to cover, obviously; and blogs like Damian Thompson or Ruth Gledhill. I make study of the scriptures a daily habit and they still have the habit of beating the rest hands down.

...."Trying to keep up with you"

But I am no theological heavyweight (or for that matter, featherweight). I am probably much the same as the average church-goer: not ignorant by any means but certainly lacking the

knowledge of someone who feels they have much to offer the debate about the Holy Father's recent announcement of full Communion for disaffected Anglicans. So like the rest of us in the pews, I will listen closely to the debate, to the guidance of our bishops and priests; and above all hope to be guided by the Holy Spirit. But.........

...."Consider this..."

Wikipedia says that "Anglo Catholics believe is fiercely debated, even among Anglo Catholics themselves. " Perhaps that explains the mind-boggling number of Anglo-Catholic "traditions" in the world today. And nowhere is Wikipedia's observation more evident than on the blogs, websites and forums where the future of Anglo-Catholicism is discussed. It isn't just Roman Catholics and Liberal Anglicans expressing scepticism about the nature of these proposals or dismissing this as a move that will change very little. Quite often the controversy is between Anglo Catholics.

For what its worth, this may be the time when the luxury of internal dissent is one that should be put aside; for all Anglo-Catholics to ask themselves the question: what are we for, if anything. Having done so we can at least begin to consider future, not as a loose alliance of Christians but as a group with far more in common than what divides us. Because far from thinking that very little will change I think Anglo-Catholicism could be squeezed out of existence, caught between the pull of Anglicanism on the one hand and the Roman Catholic church on the other. I believe the future is far healthier if Anglo-Catholics consider our response to the Holy Father and to our longer term future as a corporate group.

Because what really is the future otherwise? Some will stay put, others will move to Rome. But overall we may end up even more fragmented than we are now. Whatever critical mass there is now will be lost, probably for good. That really would be tragic

The Holy Father's has offered a way ahead for Anglo Catholicism. Whatever our response, I pray that its a single response.

"....I've said too much"

Losing my Religion......

...."That's me in the corner"

If its not already obvious, this blog is written by someone who knows more about balance sheets and football than they do about religion. I do take an interest but I do so without any particular training beyond reading the odd book aimed at a wider readership: Abbot Christopher Jamison or Karen Armstrong, for example; New Directions from cover to cover, obviously; and blogs like Damian Thompson or Ruth Gledhill. I make study of the scriptures a daily habit and they still have the habit of beating the rest hands down.

...."Trying to keep up with you"

But I am no theological heavyweight (or for that matter, featherweight). I am probably much the same as the average church-goer: not ignorant by any means but certainly lacking the

knowledge of someone who feels they have much to offer the debate about the Holy Father's recent announcement of full Communion for disaffected Anglicans. So like the rest of us in the pews, I will listen closely to the debate, to the guidance of our bishops and priests; and above all hope to be guided by the Holy Spirit. But.........

...."Consider this..."

Wikipedia says that "Anglo Catholics believe is fiercely debated, even among Anglo Catholics themselves. " Perhaps that explains the mind-boggling number of Anglo-Catholic "traditions" in the world today. And nowhere is Wikipedia's observation more evident than on the blogs, websites and forums where the future of Anglo-Catholicism is discussed. It isn't just Roman Catholics and Liberal Anglicans expressing scepticism about the nature of these proposals or dismissing this as a move that will change very little. Quite often the controversy is between Anglo Catholics.

For what its worth, this may be the time when the luxury of internal dissent is one that should be put aside; for all Anglo-Catholics to ask themselves the question: what are we for, if anything. Having done so we can at least begin to consider future, not as a loose alliance of Christians but as a group with far more in common than what divides us. Because far from thinking that very little will change I think Anglo-Catholicism could be squeezed out of existence, caught between the pull of Anglicanism on the one hand and the Roman Catholic church on the other. I believe the future is far healthier if Anglo-Catholics consider our response to the Holy Father and to our longer term future as a corporate group.

Because what really is the future otherwise? Some will stay put, others will move to Rome. But overall we may end up even more fragmented than we are now. Whatever critical mass there is now will be lost, probably for good. That really would be tragic

The Holy Father's has offered a way ahead for Anglo Catholicism. Whatever our response, I pray that its a single response.

"....I've said too much"

Blessings

Ours is a mixed house in more ways than one. For the purpose of this posting its about faith and in particular the challenges of being an Anglican married to a Roman Catholic and reconciling what appears to be the irreconcilable. Our children were baptised Roman Catholics, attended a Roman Catholic school, took their first holy communion at the local Roman Catholic church and in time were confirmed there too. To say that their attendance since has been a tad more erratic would be an understatement. But I have never thought ours was anything but the right decision.

And as a couple in spite of a good deal of mutual accommodation the fact of the matter is that we have always sensed that barriers existed. Some of them we might have put there in our minds but it is no more than reality that an Anglican like myself does not take holy communion in a Roman Catholic church. So whilst the church and its people in both churches have always been very welcoming there is always a slight sense of one of us standing outside the community.

On Tuesday the Holy Father's generous offer of full Communion for disaffected Anglicans may have opened the door for a coming together that I could scarcely have dreamed of even a few months ago. As an Anglo-Catholic I think the advice that we make this a time of quiet reflection and prayer to be the right one. But right now the positives seem to be safely outweighing the negatives.

And by the happiest of coincidences last night we were visited by Fr.Ivan as part of a Programme of Parish Visits with the theme of A Wave of Prayer. Fr.Ivan brought with him an icon of Our Lady which remains with us until it is passed on, like a relay baton to the next visit, creating a wave of prayer across the parish. So it was for a wonderful couple of hours Roman Catholic and Anglican were in the same place, our home blessed both by prayer and a sense that a divide may be coming down. Think globally, act locally is maxim used a lot in the business world. For a while last night the two came together.

Positives

A funny old weekend. I managed to attend the first part of a very uplifting and successful Walsingham Day at Saint John's on Saturday; was cheered by Charlton's return to the top of League 1 on Saturday afternoon -  before writing off my computer keyboard when I emptied the contents of a glass of beer on it in the evening. Heigh ho.

I seem to have spent a lot of time at the keyboard not least because I have a huge amount of various business and volunteering-related  stuff  to do, most of it involving tax returns and Excel spreadsheets. At such times I need distractions and the internet comes up trumps. I got drawn in to a various interesting discussion piece on Father Ed's blog about his appearance on the front page of the Tunbridge Wells Courier.

The origin of the piece was an earlier posting on his blog about the increasingly secular content of funeral services ("My Way" by Frank Sinatra, etc, etc) and Fr.Ed's piece lamented the passing of yet another area of Christianity from people's everyday lives. The tone of the offending blog item was characteristically unambiguous and it was perhaps the absence of the "on the one hand...........but on the other...." that is expected of our clergy that it came in for a bit of a hatchet job from the local paper. The suggestion was that it was rather insensitive to say such things in a time of family grief.  Needless to say the local Humanist rep felt it necessary to put the boot in.  I would reflect that a priest expressing views about  the Christian faith ought not be seen as worthy of  front page news and I hope that this incident does nothing to dilute future content of Fr.Ed's blog.  

From time to time I pitch in with a Christian perspective to an atheist forum. I do so secure in the knowledge that such interventions are likely to attract a  bit of flack. However tonight I received a response to an earlier contribution to a debate on science and religion  that was quite unequivocal about my mental health (Christian = Deluded/Mad/Crazed etc, etc). By any standards of civilised debate, it was not measured. It was a hate and anger filled rant that made me wonder who the real "Fundamentalists" are. 

 It will hardly be headline news but I am increasingly begging to  recognise that my faith is under real attack. Unless something happens and soon the triumph of liberal secularism/atheism/Dawkinsism  is not a question of if but when. That is a real threat to the church. In particular I see real dangers for the Church of England as it attempts to tackle its many internal divisions. Time to put away the Vicar of Dibley, Derek Nimmo and the eccentric/harmless stereotypes with which it is associated in the popular mind. It is really time to recognise that the church's very survival is at stake.