The Sound of Silence

The expression 'personal relationship with God' is one I hear often. And it is a good challenge to those who see God as a far off deity that made the world and left, or for those who want nothing to do with God at all. God is personally interested in humanity, and in you.

 The downside of this expression, I have found in my own life, is that it has a tendency to remove the reverence I might, and should, have for God. And if the God I worship does indeed exist, he deserves utter reverence; he has the power and right to sweep the carpet from underneath the feet of the universe whenever he so chooses. He has in his control the destiny of every living thing, he exists eternally and beyond anything we can comprehend. Our response to this must be one of trepidation and awe.

Somehow, "God" has become second hand for "personal assistant". I have found in my own life a tendency to make it all about my 'personal relationship with God'. I am so desperate to know what it is God wants me to do with my life, I am so desperate to seek spiritual discipline. I seek God's will in my life for direction and forgiveness, for comfort, for peace. I chat away about my own life so freely to God. But it is generally about me. It is a relationship and a faith centred around what I might gain- where I might go next; which career will be fulfilling, which wife I might enjoy the most, which Church I might be most respected in. If I'm honest, I use 'God' to serve my own needs often.

Jesus says: "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." 

Should I seek God's will for my life? I should seek first his kingdom. Should I sell all my possessions and go serve the poor? I should seek first his kingdom. Should I seek to be spiritual disciplined? I should seek first his kingdom. Should I apply for this job? Should I marry this girl? Should I go on this conference? Should I go into Church leadership? I should seek first his kingdom. This statement is a conversation stopper for any question I might ask. I should seek first the kingdom of God. Whatever the question is- that is the answer.

Kierkegaard suggests that the response to this is silence. Silence before God; utter reverence of the one who created everything. It seems to me an apt response to the kingdom of God. His glory surely silences and puts into perspective whatever it is that is keeping us up at night. When we seek first the kingdom of God, the worries of this world surely fade into nothingness, like staring at an endless sky of glittering stars which go on for billions and trillions of miles. How absurd does my life and worries start to look when I stare into the kingdom of God?

God is not my personal assistant. He is not a disposable item I use to assist my short time on planet earth, an interest I take up to make my life more manageable and fulfilling. I want 2012 to be a year when I can say with confidence that I am seeking first his kingdom. I want to be able to say I sought God in silence, with reverence and that I was a part of something bigger, something gloriously eternal.

 2012 is crying out for people who are prepared to break the spirit of individualism; in our culture, in our Church, in our world. What would it look like if we sought after the kingdom of God first, and left our own desires and will behind for 2012? What would it look like for the answer to every question I might ask to be- "Seek first the kingdom of God".

Don't neglect the personal, deep and intimate nature of God this year. It is life changing and life giving. Don't stop praying about every worry you might have. I am not claiming we ought to leave behind 'personal relationship with God', but rather that we get a bit of perspective on it. It is for his sake, not for yours. It is for his sake that you are changed, it is for the kingdom of God, not for the kingdom of Josh. 

Basic Space

Sometimes we are in danger of forgetting that the claim "there exists a God" is an extraordinary claim. Especially when we get bogged down in mundaneness of every day life, and every day Christendom we forget how amazing the existence of anything at all really is. 

If you look on my facebook page, and the facebook page of many of my close friends you will see under the tab- 'religion' is the title 'Christian'. That word is very much a part of the fabric of this country and of the world. But the underlying truth statement of that set of beliefs is- there exists a God. There exists a being so unlike human beings that he exists eternally, he created the entire universe, he sees all, he knows all. He is unlike anything we can ever conceive or comprehend. That is a bold claim. 

Yet, somehow I seem to end up in a position of living in which Christianity, spiritual discipline, 'Church' has become mundane and at times lifeless. If I'm honest, it has been a while since I've felt sparked, passionate or fully engaged with the concept of God. But as I sat in a dark room, lying in a bath of luke warm water tonight, it suddenly dawned on me that what I believe, what I have faith in is utterly outrageous. But I believe that it is true. I believe there is something, some being that pre-existed this system, this universe that we now know. 

Somewhere along the line, I have lost my reverence for God. He has become a concept in a shoe-box, an ideology that improves human living that I reach for when I have my 'serious hat' on. But the core claim of Christianity, is not that there is a code of ethics, it's not that there is a way of life which can improve my living, it's not even that I can be saved for eternity- there is a statement that precedes all of that which is this- "God exists". When you strip away all of the teachings of Christ, all of the spiritual disciplines I strive for, when you strip away the Bible, the existence of human beings, the existence of the universe, we are left with God. A being, a power, a person. The question is- do I really believe that. Do I really believe in him, in his existence? 

I cannot begin to comprehend what that question really even means, but my answer is- yes. Yes, I believe there is something, when everything else is stripped away and I meditate on this fact, I am amazed at God. I am amazed that there exists anything at all. And I am so grateful that I have faith. Basic, simple, powerful faith. 

Tomorrow I will get up. And I will pray a prayer of sheer thankfulness, a prayer that I often pray when I don't know what else to say. "Thank you Lord that there is something rather than nothing. Amen". And I will take that prayer into my day, and revel in the simplicity of existence.

Simple Twist of Fate

"Philosophy is perfectly right in saying that life must be understood backward. But then one forgets the other clause- that it must be lived forward. The more one thinks through this clause, the more one concludes that life in temporality never becomes properly understandable, simply because never at any time does one get perfect repose to take a stance- backward." (Kierkegaard, Early Journal Entries, 1843)

I am struck by these words as I teeter towards my next steps in life. I'll be getting married next September, and at the moment I have no idea what I'll be doing for a job, which city I'll be living in, how I'll earn a living. Kierkegaard is spot on when he says that life must be live forwards, but only understood fully backwards. I feel at the moment a little lost in the prospect of my future. Big decision lie ahead in the next few weeks and months.

I think often the idea of 'calling' and of God's guidance is like this. Looking back, I feel that I was strongly called by God to studying Philosophy, to coming to York, even in starting going out with Ellie. I do believe in guidance in some capacity. It seems relatively easy to look backwards and speak about calling, and God's guidance in situation X.

It is much more difficult to apply this looking forwards. At the moment I don't know if I feel particularly whole heatedly called to a specific path. Sure I feel passionate about the Church, about leadership, about philosophy, thinking, faith, music, coffee. I have passions. But at times I look at my passions and my situations and the future just seems a bit of a blur.  I reckon Kierkegaard was right.

We need to learn to not spend too much time looking backwards. I know that I'm guilty of it; noticing God's presence in places in my life that have past and getting frustrated that he isn't clearer now. The thing is we can never live backwards, we can never take up that perfect stance. That's so frustrating. But I wonder if part of the notion of being a follower of Christ, of living in 'faith' is that it's pretty easy to see where you've gone and not always possible to see where you're going. All I can do is take the next step. And at the moment those feel like particularly small steps. Daily steps.

It's reassuring for me that I have something to follow. And I need to remind myself daily that I'm following. I need to learn to trust. Even looking back over the last few weeks I see where God has moved, and how things have changed. And I need to learn not try and adopt the backward stance, not to kid myself that I was certain of anything. Now it's easy to say that X was the right thing to do. At the time that decision was filled with doubts and questions; it was just a matter of following. It all makes sense now, but life can only be lived forwards.

And so today, as I step another foot forwards, I appreciate the present, I appreciate the cloud of the future. I am thankful for where God has led me so far, and I am excitedly apprehensive about where he will lead me next. And in a way, as annoying as it is, I'm kind of glad life cannot be understood forwards, the excitement of not knowing keeps me edging forwards. 

Marry You

So on Sunday night I proposed to the beautiful Ellie. She did not see it coming. Even though we'd spent all weekend talking about weddings with her family, she was not expecting it as soon as we got back. Some very good friends of mine had set the room of our favorite coffee shop up beautifully with photographs of us both, yellow roses, a bottle of champagne (or cheap M&S cava), our favorite food and coffee and then more candles than you've ever seen in your life. I got down on one knee and asked a woman to spend the rest of her life with me, after a few tears and five minutes or so of euphoria it started to become quite difficult to breathe. Turns out it wasn't overwhelming excitement, but rather quite a lot of toxic smoke. I turned round to see my beautiful wool coat and rucksack full of my favorite clothes and books up in flames.

So you could say that my romantic plans weren't quite executed perfectly. My worldly possessions went up in flames as I made a commitment to spend the rest of my life trying to care for one person.

The ritual of marriage is seen as pretty outdated in our society today- but let me tell you, I fully intend to spend the rest of my life with one woman- give everything I have to making our marriage work, even when it's pretty tough.The bible uses the imagery of marriage quite often to refer to his Church. The 'bride' of Christ (the Church) will one day meet the bridegroom (Christ) and be united for eternity in a new creation. And that in my mind is a pretty good piece of symbolism for belonging to the Church, for having faith.

We need to realise sometimes that committing to God to have faith in Christ and become part of his bride is not always 'feel good', it requires sacrifice. In order to leap fully into following Christ, we have to let go of what we're holding. And sometimes we have to see things we are attached to go up in flames. Sometimes this is our stuff; I think of a rich guy in the Bible who wanted to follow Jesus but couldn't give up his possessions. Sometimes it's our ambition. Jesus even tells us that following him will result in people we love turning against us.

I think too often we over glamorize commitment. I know full well that I will have to give up some of my ambition, some of my money, some of my stuff in order to love Ellie fully and be fully committed to her. I know that sometimes she will do my head in, sometimes I will feel like giving it up. But that's not the point. The point of marriage isn't that I find someone who can make me euphoric for the next sixty years, but I do believe that the sacrifice I make to commit to her will be worth it. And it's the same with faith. We might paint 'conversion' as a glorious thing, and rightly so- but there is a cost of faith, there is a cost of belonging to the Church. Jesus says:

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.

I am challenged by those words. Ultimately I know that Jesus is more trustworthy than Ellie is. I know that commitment to him is worth it. But it means letting go of things, letting go of my self centered attitude. Interestingly Jesus claims the two most important things you can do with your life is to "Love God" and "Love others", that is a total reversal of the strongest instruction of culture: "Love yourself". Faith means taking my eyes off myself, letting go of what I'm holding and committing to someone who is worth placing trust in.

I don't pretend that is easy. I have to daily struggle to do that. In a strange way I'm kind of glad my stuff went up in flames, as irritating as it was, it gave me a sense of perspective. Compared to spending the rest of my life with Ellie, a wool coat is nothing. Compared to being a part of the Bride of Christ for eternity, what I have in my hands is nothing. 

Jigsaw Falling Into Place

When my friend became a Christian she said one of the reasons she felt prepared to commit to faith is that she was amazed she could be a 'hand of God' on this earth. I think there's really a beauty in that sentiment. Although it might be a testimony that some might claim doesn't encapsulate her forgiveness and redemption- to me it echoes one of the key things about 'gospel' and about Christ that often we overlook.

I've written it before, and I will write it again, I will preach it, I will talk to you about it, I will think about it; you are part of something bigger than yourself. 'Salvation', whatever that means, whatever that looks like, has to be a placing of a jigsaw piece into a glorious tapestry. The whole point of 'salvation', of forgiveness, or redemption is: The Church.

Whatever you think about that word, whatever connotations, however boring 'Church meetings' are, however screwed up the institution is; it is the light of the world. I'm personally frustrated daily by how the Church functions; by its hypocrisy and short-sitedness. But I'm optimistic that the Church is worth fighting for, that it can stand for something, that it can bring hope. And like my friend, I'm so amazed that I can be a foot or a mouth or an ear of Christ on the earth.

The 'body' language is borrowed from Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:

"Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many."

The imagery is very deliberate I think. Paul could easily have used another piece of imagery; we are the 'ship' of Christ, some of us masts, some of us sails and so on. But I think that kind of misses the point. Elsewhere Paul tells us we were 'raised with Christ' (Colossians 3v1). The Church, (or if you don't like that word- the body of those that have come into faith) are today the very embodiment of Jesus. The word body is so important- because at the resurrection something beautiful was birthed; not only the bodily resurrected Christ, but another body- the hope to the hopeless, the kingdom of God, the community of faith, the body of Christ. And done right, I really believe it has something to offer.

Sadly, it is often pretty bad at this. But that's not necessarily the point. A part of entering into faith, and a vital component of 'gospel' is that we become part of something. In the same way that there is no point in saving a jigsaw piece from isolation unless we place it on the puzzle, there is no point being 'saved' if we are then not put in the puzzle of Christs' body. The Church's focus is often on 'getting people in', on evangelism. But the sad thing is that all to often what happens when we only do this is that although people come in they just fall out the other side.

And this is why I'm so frustrated by the 21st Century mentality that 'Church' is that thing you attend on a Sunday. No! I'm so frustrated that it's often led by professional Christians and attended by 'regular folk'. No! The Church cannot be constrained by four walls, by a one hour slot, by how it is defined. The Church must learn to outgrow its meetings. It must learnt to allow 'communal time together' on a Sunday to simply be an overflow of its community and not the sum of it.

I will spend my life trying to seek what this might look like. To rethink tradition when we need to, and to hold onto it when appropriate. But in an age of frustration with culture and society, where consumerism is starting to look like it might not have all the answers; I believe that we have something to offer. And I for one am proud to be a part of something glorious, but by myself I can't achieve it.

If Only

I sometimes wonder; what if? What if my theology impacted my life so much that I changed and impacted what was around me. I sometimes wonder what it would like if what I wrote on this blog actually had a mirroring in the world; if I didn't just aim to challenge thinking, but to create change. What would it look like if I did something about it?

These are lines from previous blogs. What would it look like if they had some bearing on my life, on 'Church', and on my society? That's not an abstract question. I'm genuinely trying to figure out how my thoughts and hopes and frustrations can bring change. I'm struggling to live what I believe, and I want your help. Practically, how can we make this work? If you have thoughts on this, please comment.

It isn’t about getting names on a dotted line; it’s about transforming people, transforming communities, and transforming the earth

The church needs to find a way to become true communities, that stray away from consumerism and to focus on the big picture.

The real question is- why don’t we talk about doubt more? 

Faith is all about finding the balance between believing with my mind; doubting and questioning but still seeking relationship with God in my heart, trying to be obedient to him even when I can’t explain everything

Think of the darkest place you know. The place where there is a real absence of God, where people are just longing for change but can’t get it. Be light there. That’s distinctive.

The reason that sin is so destructive is because it destroys you. It’s not just that sins stops us from being close to God, but that it stops us being who we really are. Jesus offers real freedom in the present. 

Prayer is me getting in step with God, it is me learning to notice what he notices, see what he sees. It is being the answers to my own prayers

We need to stop the attitude which says the only things that are of value, the only things that are worshipful and the only things which are focused on Christ are the things of organised 'Church'. I'm challenged to rethink what 'Church' is, what following Jesus means 

Do we believe the truth? And on what grounds? Unless we're prepared to properly engage and understand scepticism and disbelief I think we are in danger of alienating a whole generation of people who just can't believe.

I refuse to put God in the box that everyone does. The one labelled 'for church' 'for prayer time' 'for that godly conversation'. Because if God is here he's not a distant force who created and left. He built his house & moved in.

We belong in the Premier league- Jesus Christ is Lord of all. At the moment we're playing Sunday league football. There's a long way to go.

I'm finding it difficult to believe recently.

I want to be the person with enough faith to say, I don't worry about tomorrow because I know God will provide, I know God will direct me. I want to be defined by Christ, and I want to say "I will not worry about my life".That's pretty hard.

Of late I feel like I haven't invested much time in 'relationship with God'. Sometimes I'm not even sure if I understand what it means. I feel a bit like one day soon I'll get a bit more passionate, that I'll get 'better' at this. But generally I'm apathetic about faith.

I'm wondering recently if at times our view of 'the gospel' is inherently selfish and individualistic. I wonder if concentrating on my own salvation and restoration as the full extent of God's rescue that we miss something astounding.

I cannot stop believing until I stop loving.

Does our philosophy of mind effect the way we view Christianity? Ask that question to about 99% of Christians and I think you'll get a negative response. But I'm convinced that it really does matter what we think about mind, body, soul, spirits

I leap every day into what sometimes seems paradoxical and unknown. My hope is that other people will see the power of faith and choose the same.

We need to learn how to be consistent. Communities of people who believe what we believe and act what we believe. There is a lie that says that putting a brave face on, of acting like everyone else is acting is the right thing to do. It is a lie that belief doesn't matter

I think we'll only gain real maturity in faith when we start to know what we really think about things, what we really believe, when we're able to learn from people who think differently.

I'm free on any sort of level that matters. I find it difficult to dispute that. It's pretty obvious to us that we are free, we're free to choose almost all the time. It's what we do with our freedom that's important, it's how we choose and what we do with our lives.

The truth is- the Church needs innovators desperately. But no one is going to pick you. Stop waiting to be picked. Step up, pick yourself and dare to do something no one has done. Dare to be radical

Why do you believe what you believe?

In a world full of pain and suffering, there is beauty. In a world where death looms round every corner, there is hope. As Paul puts it in Romans 8- creation is under bondage, but it is crying to be released, it will be brought to beauty and glory. In those moments, I understand this, I understand what it means to see beauty in the universe, to see hope. And whilst we live in this broken world, it is so important to get those glimpses of beauty. To stop and see the sunset, to meditate on the beauty of a piece of music, to get lost in a moment.

I want to be the kind of Christian that acts as consistently in front of my computer as at work, in the street, with my girlfriend, in Church. Very simply- I want honesty. I want to belong to a community of honesty.

What Do I Want?

"Very simply- I want honesty". I want our behaviour to reflect our hearts. I want people to be risky enough to say what they're really thinking. I want people to be brave enough to embrace and confront their doubt. I want people's stories of faith to reflect their true journey and not some embellished version that we might find more encouraging.

I want to be the kind of Christian that acts as consistently in front of my computer as at work, in the street, with my girlfriend, in Church. Very simply- I want honesty. I want to belong to a community of honesty. Sometimes I see glimpses of this in the Church. Other times I see crowds of masked 'Christianese'; people who know what the right thing to do is, the right thing to say.

I was talking with a friend recently whose going through a bit of a crisis of faith. Part of me thinks that the situations he finds himself in haven't helped his faith. But sometimes I wonder how much room there was for him to be brutal, vulnerable and honest in the Church.

If the Church is a community of believers, living together, sharing everything, how does it get to the point when people say things that surprise us, express doubt, question the 'orthodox'. For my faith, without the opportunity to question even some of the most basic assumptions, to confront doubt, to be candid about what I believe, I know I would have left by now. I can't hack the front of Christianity, I can't pretend I'm excited and passionate when sometimes I'm not.

Very simply- I want honesty. The title and opening line of this blog, I steal from a very influential thinker: Soren Kierkegaard, who wrote an article in 1855 on the same topic. He was frustrated by the Danish Church, the official "Christianity" and the comfortableness of its members. He refused to call himself "Christian", because to him, "Christianity" didn't reflect what Jesus taught, what the New Testament spoke about.

I wonder how Kierkegaard would have fared in the 21st Century British Church. Whilst we may have rediscovered some of the core of what Christ is about in some ways (compared to the Church in his time), in other ways we still desperately lack honesty. And in some ways, we fail to question the core of what Jesus is about. We are sometimes scared of asking basic questions, it is often easier to 'present' ourselves as coherent and together than to be ourselves in front of others. I am often frustrated this.

Perhaps you don't agree. Perhaps you think it's good that the Church isn't too over-personal and frank It might get a bit messy if we have to listen to what everyone actually thinks instead of the official line. It might be discouraging to hear skeptics voice their opinions at risk of stopping others coming to belief. It might make people who are firm in their faith begin to doubt.

 But I do wonder if we're risking honesty at a high price. I wonder if people like my mate might have firmer foundations when the hard times come if they were encouraged to wrestle with doubt more, if they were forced to say what they really thought about things.

Very simply- I want honesty. I am exploring what that means, and perhaps it starts with myself, it starts with you- being prepared to be honest with people. Being prepared to paint our journey of faith as a messy, difficult, glorious, doubting, tiring, but rewarding story. Being able to tell people our struggles, being able to share our doubts with others. It starts with us modelling honesty, and creating a culture of it. I wonder sometimes if a culture of honesty requires a complete upheaval of the structure of 'Church'. But I'm optimistic that we might make this 'Church' thing work somehow.

Don't Ask Me Why

I've just watched Laura Marling in the Minster Chapter House. The Chapter house was built in 1286. It is an absolutely stunning piece of architecture; a round, finely carved stone room with a domed roof and intricate stained glass (look at it here). A woman one month older than myself stood for 50 minutes and plucked a stringed piece of wood whilst singing down a microphone. And honestly it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever experienced. Hard to explain why though.

There was something deeply spiritual about that experience that I found fascinating. It's incredible how just sounds, just bricks can create something so special. I was just fixated by her performance, by the beauty of her song-writing, by how her voice echoed round the room, the skill of her playing. I was stuck to my chair, almost trance like. And I suddenly thought; the human being is incredible. Music is incredible. And I don't understand it. It makes no sense that mere sounds can make me feel like this.

But people have been doing it for centuries. Every time I hear 'don't think twice it's alright' by Bob Dylan or 'Clare de lune' by Debussy it sends shivers down my spine. I don't know if other people experience this phenomenon, but I can only describe it by saying that it moves my soul. I don't necessarily mean that in a metaphysical way, but what I mean is that there is something totally beyond me in those moments, there is something I cannot reduce down to just electrical impulses and neurons firing (in actual fact, it is likely that this is the cause of the phenomenon, but this is not to say it can be reduced down to this level.)

I re-watched the film American Beauty a couple of weeks ago. There is a guy in that film who is fixated by beauty. There is a scene in the film when he films a carrier bag flying around in the wind for fifteen minutes, he claims it is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. I'm not convinced personally, but he makes a good point when he says:

"Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can't take it, and my heart is just going to cave in. "

And that's precisely how I felt as I watched Laura Marling sing to 200 people in a small room in an ancient building. It was one of those moments I wanted to capture and revisit.  There is something so beautiful about the universe, so beautiful about the human mind, about music, I have to ask why. I have to seek something beautiful, there has to be something creative behind the fabric of the Universe. Not in a way I can ever prove, or in a way that won't seem foolish if you're already sceptical, but in that moment in time, in those snapshots of beauty, I could not doubt that there was a God, I could not doubt his presence.

In a world full of pain and suffering, there is beauty. In a world where death looms round every corner, there is hope. As Paul puts it in Romans 8- creation is under bondage, but it is crying to be released, it will be brought to beauty and glory. In those moments, I understand this, I understand what it means to see beauty in the universe, to see hope. And whilst we live in this broken world, it is so important to get those glimpses of beauty. To stop and see the sunset, to meditate on the beauty of a piece of music, to get lost in a moment.

Call me soppy, pretentious, naive- I don't particularly care. But I believe, in the infamous words of the philosopher Samwise Gamge, 'that there's some good in the world and it's worth fighting for.' 

Unfinished Sympathy

I don't know if you usually read my blog or not. But I'm fascinated with the phenomenon of faith; why and how we believe. I wanted to try something different. I reckon all too often we keep busy, we don't often strip back belief to the core. And some of the time we forget why we ever believed. But I'm interested. Why do you believe what you believe?

This blog isn't finished. That's because you're going to finish it. Please, if you've read this far, leave a comment below. It won't take you very long. Please don't leave this page until you've written, I'm interested in what you have to say.

What I want you to do is to start your comment with: "I am a Christian because" or "I am not a Christian because" and finish the sentence. If you don't know the answer please post that. Please don't attempt to respond or argue with any other comment, just write your own.

Please post your comment anonymously, it will be more fun. Be as honest as you can, no one will know who you are. At some point I'll write my own response. But I guess you won't really know which one is mine.

Please pass this on to as many people as possible. The more responses we get, the more interesting this could be.

I reckon by the time we're finished we'll have quite an interesting blog read....

Rebellion

I went to a conference on Friday full of world class speakers on global leadership. There was a guy that really stood out to me called Seth Godin. He spoke about the need to innovate, do be creative, to do something for the first time. Our culture is changing before our eyes, Godin claims we are entering the death of the industrial age. We used to live in an age where the people that owned the means of production controlled the world- the factory owners, the publishers. Today the means of production is the small humble laptop. Until relatively recently, I would have had to get this published for anyone to notice it. But now anyone, anywhere can get their voice heard. Godin claims we are entering the age of the artist, what will get noticed, what will make a difference is those people that are doing things that no one else is doing, not those doing what everyone else is doing.

That is pretty counter cultural, we've become so institutionalized, we're so used to doing what we're told, that it takes a pretty strong will to act against it. The thing is, there is no map anymore. There is no right way of doing things. There is no right way of being unique, of being an artist. It's an open plain field to create the future. I don't know if that excites me or scares me silly.

The  question is, if Godin is right, if we're on the brink of a new revolution- of recreating society, where is the room for the Church? To put it bluntly, the Church needs to adapt or die. Church has reflected the culture for the last two thousand years. Godin describes the Church in recent times of being in the business of "teaching people to fit in so we can ignore them". That has pretty much been the message of society too- buy nike, buy coca cola, be like everybody else. Creativity has been squashed. Everyone has become ordinary.

There is opportunity like no other to stand out. To be heard. To think differently. But it involves risks. It involves thinking outside of the box, being controversial. "Everyone has seen brown cows. If we just make more brown cows, no one will notice it, everyone is making brown cows. We need to make purple cows". As I see it the Church has tried to reinvent itself- it has tried fresh expressions. And sometimes it's paid off, sometimes it's achieved fresh, relevant Church which isn't compromising on the truth. But I still think we're making brown cows- we're taking the model of the "talk, worship song sandwich" and putting it in a pub, putting it around tables, putting it on the beach. Is this the only way to proclaim truth, is this the only way of making purple cows? Surely it can't be.

I was talking to a Church leader at the conference with a dying congregation of 25 eighty year olds, who weren't interested in doing things differently, being radical, being missional. And he was so fustrated about how to make a difference. He also told me about a pancake event he put on when he gave away 400 free pancakes to people in the community. I asked him if any of them came to Church, he told me they hadn't. I wonder, what would it take for his pancake event to be 'Church'. In some ways, it was more Church than his preaching the lectionary and singing 4 hymns to 25 stubborn old ladies- it was missional, it was serving the community. If he kept giving away pancakes every week, and then found some way of sharing truth, whether it was by conversations, by media, or maybe even preaching- he would have himself a thriving Church. But we need to dare to be.

We need to dare to fail with the Church. We need to dare to be challenged. It is pretty obvious that the Church is dying in a lot of places. I think the reason for this is primarily stubbornness. "The world needs to change and not us. We're doing things the 'right' way." The truth is- the Church needs innovators desperately. But no one is going to pick you. Stop waiting to be picked. Step up, pick yourself and dare to do something no one has done. Dare to be radical. There is a new time dawning and it needs new leaders. Are you going to sit back and watch others lead, or are you going to dare to put yourself on the line? 

Leaders Of The Free World

I quite wanted an early night on Tuesday night. Turns out I ended up talking about free will with my new housemates until pretty late. I've done quite a lot of that since I've been in York; I wrote my final essay of my degree on the subject. After wrestling with the concept of free will for three years, in the end I became satisfied that free will is only really the presence of a felt choice; it's an illusion of sorts (at least compared to what we might usually think it is).

Christians get pretty worked up and frustrated when it comes to free will. It's not surprising if they want to believe in a creator who is both powerful and knowledgeable and who also intervenes in the course of human history. Free will looks like pretty slim pickings if this is the case; if God knew and created the world exactly as it was, then he surely knew exactly the consequences of his creation, which happen to include every choice I make. A lot of Paul's writing in the New Testament talks about us being 'predestined' and 'elect' by God. That bothers people.

I have a few observations about free will that I've come to accept over the last few years.

The first thing is that no one is in a particularly good position. Whether you're a theist or an atheist, free will is difficult to account for. It's not only God that makes free will difficult, the physical world poses some issues as well. The physical world is a world of causes; all physical events are caused by previous physical events. So if all there are is physical things (which I assume most atheists would want to say), then the laws of nature and the past dictate perfectly the contents of the future. It doesn't look like there's much room for free will there either; your actions are just the consequences of a physical system of causes and effects.

So if you want to maintain that there is 'free will' in the strong sense, you must deny that free agents are part of the physical system of events. And even then, you must also deny that there is a God who knows and controls the universe. As far as I know, there aren't many people whose philosophy of human beings and of the universe would allow free will in this strong sense. No one is in a particularly good position to argue for free will in this strong sense of being 'totally uncaused'. Even if we did come to the conclusion that in actual fact human actions were uncaused, it strikes me as a kind of freedom that I don't really want- actions are merely the consequences of randomness if they are uncaused.

The second thing I've noticed, is that we aren't always on the same page when it comes to talking about free will. When we talk about free will, we usually mean it in this strong sense of being 'uncaused'. But actually we aren't very clear on what we really mean by free will most of the time. I think, if pushed most people would be happy with the kind of free will I endorse. I came to the conclusion that all that we can mean by free will is the feeling of choice. And that is quite enough. It's quite enough for me to decide what I'm going to do next Tuesday, it's quite enough for me to choose what I want for my lunch. It's quite enough for me to choose to follow Jesus. It's my intention that matters rather than what caused it. I could never really know what caused my action after all.

The third thing is that at times we all have to hold in tension that our actions are both caused and free. Sometimes this doesn't make much sense when we try to reconcile it. But maybe we shouldn't try and reconcile it at all. I wonder if the problem is one of perspective. Metaphysically speaking my actions are caused; in other words- zoom out to the level of looking at the universe as a whole, on that level everything causes everything else; the future is just a part of the track that the train of the universe hasn't got onto yet. On that level we're caused. But free will is not something which we can discover on that level at all. Actually free will is something which occurs on a very everyday level; we need to zoom in a lot to get to me at 7 O'clock on a Monday morning choosing which one of my housemates' cereals to steal; I'm perfectly free to choose any of them. Free Will is an everyday thing, it is something that occurs at the level of consciousness and human existence, and not at the metaphysical level. I agree that there is still some sort of tension there, but it's one I'm happy to hold.

The fourth thing I think that is important to think about from a Christian perspective is that at times we have been guilty of constructing human theories around Scripture. When Paul speaks about the things God prepared for us in advance to do, or when he speaks about Christ preordaining our salvation, he firstly and foremost makes a pastoral point. The purpose of most of the New Testament, which is where we get a lot  of our theology on free will from, is primarily to encourage and build the Church. It is to build up leaders and fix people's eyes back onto Jesus. It is a great encouragement when we feel like we are worthless, or that we aren't good enough, to know that actually God has chosen us to be a part of his plans. Of course there are theological consequences of this. But I wonder if it's sometimes risky to take these letters of encouragement, and then take poetic lines from the Psalms, which are beautiful pieces of poetry written to glorify God, and couple them together to make complex metaphysical points about our free will. I'm not saying that these ideas are not there in the Bible, I just sometimes wonder if we're danger of skewing the purpose of some texts in order to build a nice, solid humanly understandable systematic theology which ties all the ends together.

The last thing, and perhaps the most important thing I've observed about free will is that it makes little difference. The causal state of my being makes little difference to which cereal I want tomorrow morning. You see the thing is that tomorrow morning the Calvanist, the humanist, the determinist, the libertarian, the Christian and atheist will all live their lives with perfectly free will. What I mean by that is that as soon as we put down the books, as soon as we stop discussing and debating the level of free will of the human being, we discover that free will is unavoidable. It is right there in front of us as Sartre might say- it is at the heart of our being. On a basic, everyday level, whatever you think about free will has little bearing on what you actually do and how you actually behave. I mean this as an encouragement; sometimes free will is actually not worth worrying about too much, it does not alter how you live, it does not come into play at an everyday level really. I guess we'll never really know how free we are, and it strikes me that we ought to not let it mess with us too much, we ought not to let it cripple us. I don't think anyone actually knows at the end of the day.

I'm free on any sort of level that matters. I find it difficult to dispute that. It's pretty obvious to us that we are free, we're free to choose almost all the time. It's what we do with our freedom that's important, it's how we choose and what we do with our lives. 

Forever Young

After a heated debate about evolution and creationism I once told my housemate "never let me marry Eleanor Matthews". If you know me at all, the irony will not be lost on you. I've now been dating said Eleanor Matthews for nearly ten months. I kind of regret saying that now.

Me and Ellie were brought up in very different traditions of Christianity. These days I prefer to avoid the labels, but if it helps she came from quite a 'Conservative Evangelical' background. My background is typically more 'Charismatic'. Before I got to know people who thought differently to me, I pretty much thought they were wrong. That they didn't have much to offer, and that I did things the 'right way round'. They were loopy conservatives who took the Bible too literally, thought the holy spirit was dead and stood on street corners condemning people to hell.

There's such an arrogance in that. For years, I have sat comfortably in my own opinions, read books by people I agreed with, listened to talks from people that from the same school of thinking as me. And pretty much all that does is confirms your own thinking. It narrows your mind. I had been so caught up in 'Christianity as told by Josh Cockayne' that I had little room for the opinions of a girl with something vastly different to say.

 The problem with that is that you close yourself off to anything valuable that other people, and other schools of thinking have to offer. It's so easy to scoff, to criticise, to pick holes in people's theology. It's easy to say that Conservative Christians are nutjobs and that Charismatics are wet and spineless. It's so easy to spend all of our time squabbling over the right way to do things, and the right way to read this passage. What's difficult, and what I'm trying to learn to do more and more is to recognise the good that people have to offer. To take my head from out of my own bum and allow myself to try learning from people who might be able to teach me something new. It's really hard to break prejudices, opinions that have been lodged for so long. It's hard to see past someone's theology, the way someone reads the Bible and to listen to what they actually have to say.

What I'm not endorsing is unanimous relativism, the thinking that says "everyone is right in their own way". I'm not even saying we shouldn't disagree with people. I just think we could try and understand people a bit better. I know for me, I often judge what someone has to say before they even speak, before I even open the first page of their book. It's valuable to be able to disagree with someone for what they actually have to say. And actually, we might learn something from them. We might actually find they've got a point.

I've learnt a lot since I said "never let me marry Eleanor Matthews". I think we both have. I think I'm still pretty caught up in my own prejudices. I get unreasonably defensive any time I'm challenged. But I think that I'm definitely more open to being taught. At the end of the day, all Conservative Christians are not nutjobs. I still disagree with a lot of what they think, but I have a deep respect for Christians with the consistency to follow through what they believe and what they think God requires of them. I think I can learn a lot from that.

I am wrong quite a lot of the time. I know that. I reckon that most 'breeds', boxes', 'denominations', (whatever you want to call them) of Christianity have flaws in their thinking. I think most of them have plenty wrong with them. I think some are probably closer to 'truth' than others. But importantly, I think we can learn something about God from all of them. The minute that I'm not prepared to listen to what someone else has to say, I've missed out on something vital I could learn from them. At the end of the day, I don't want to be a 'Charismatic Christian', I don't want to be liberal, or evangelical. I want to be able to follow Christ. I don't want to be comfortable in the box I started off in, I don't want to have the same opinions in ten years time as I have now. I want to be in a position to constantly be challenged, be rebuked, be wrong. I want to be in a position to learn from John Piper, Rob Bell, Brian McClaran, John Stott, whoever the next liberal/ conservative pinup boy might be. I'm pretty sure they've all got something to teach me.

I think we'll only gain real maturity in faith when we start to know what we really think about things, what we really believe, when we're able to learn from people who think differently. If we just feed ourselves the same,  unchallenging, belief embedding content we've always heard, then I think there's the risk that we stay forever young in faith; never challenged, never thinking differently. It's quite an impoverished position to be in, because at the end of the day, we deny ourselves some quite profound and life changing perspectives on life and on faith.

When did we become so cut off from each other as Christians that we have made each other the enemy? When did we get so arrogant in our opinions that we denied what others had to say before they even opened their mouths. How did I get to a point where I could dismiss what might just turn out to be my future wife after one theological discussion? I really hope that I am able to stop counting out what God might have to say to me, what he might have in store for me because of my own ignorance and my own prejudices.

Don't Think Twice, It's Alright

Desperately procrastinating from writing what I hope will end up being more regular blog entries, I stumbled across a provocative little gem. After making about the third espresso of the day I sat down to read the BBC news feed for the fourth or fifth time and found an article titled: "Can Religion tell us more than Science". The joys of going to an afternoon Church.

It started promising and interesting. John Gray maintains that the New Atheists have kind of missed the point when showing religion to be an inadequate scientific thesis. Which I agree with. But the main opinion of his text I fundamentally disagree with. The crux of his position is summed up in the last sentence of the piece:
"What we believe doesn't in the end matter very much. What matters is how we live."

Religion, he maintains, is all about behaviour and not particularly about belief at all: "Practice - ritual, meditation, a way of life - is what counts. What practitioners believe is secondary, if it matters at all."

It got me thinking- is that really true? I realise that some of my thoughts on faith might come across a little bit that way. I think that faith is absurd and rationally inexplicable, I don't feel particularly like new atheism has much threat to my faith. But surely what we believe is vital, its central to how we act. Otherwise our actions, our behaviour might be fulfilling and enjoyable on one level but surely they're ridiculously inconsistent. I don't quite understand how we might believe without it moving us to action. It is beyond me.

Consistency is probably one of the things I value most in a person and one of the things that I think might be lacking in a lot of modern Christians. I find it troubling that someone's indifference and agnosticism towards a deity might lead them to attend worship devoted to one every week. But it scares me. This attitude towards faith is only increasing. And honestly I find it totally and utterly at odds to the teachings of Christ. It makes no sense to say "what matters is how we live", inferring that to follow Christ's teachings is somehow valuable in its own right. The idea of following the teachings of Christ without any faith, without any belief is one that I think Christ would have found utterly ludicrous. You only need to pick the New Testament up and read it (which surely is contained in the notion of religious practice) to find that belief matters.

Matthew 22:36-40. "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Love God, love people. That is the heart of Christianity. It escapes me how I ought to love something or some being that I don't believe in. It escapes me that my devotion and practice of daily devoting my life to Christ might be an empty gesture. It is actually pretty offensive. It is only from belief that true behaviour can stem. Sartre calls this notion 'bad faith', the idea that we pretend that we are only objects like trees and rocks. He describes a waiter who 'plays the part of a waiter', he is so wrapped up in 'being a waiter', he denies that there is any choice, any belief involved. This notion is at the heart of Sartre's account of morality.

And that strikes me as the heart of the problem of the dying Church of the UK: Apathy and inconsistency Thousands of people acting and living out the 'Christian life' in Bad Faith. Ticking the 'I go to Church' box on their conscience. They are Christians as objects, they live their lives in complete bad faith. But they never let the radical words of Jesus transform them, never let worship escape the box they put it in. They don't allow their minds to be transformed. And most of them don't have a clue what they believe.

I believe that faith can change your life. That Christ can change your life. I believe that. We might see new atheism and passionate unbelievers as a barrier to this. I don't. Dawkins might be quite an angry, influential speaker and commentator on modern religion. But at least he's consistent. At least he acts on what he believes. To be honest, good on him. And I hope that he wakes people out of apathy. Out of the lie that what you believe doesn't matter. Because it does.

Christianity needs to learn to do the same. To wake people up who are sleeping in their Churches. Who are filling pews, who have been 'living' without belief in complete bad faith. Consistency is so important at the heart of modern radical Christian living. We need to be people who are brutally consistent. If we believe that Christ's promises are true, we need to live them in our lives. If we don't, if we are feeling doubtful and far from God, why go through the motions? We need to not to sing "In Christ alone my hope is found" when we don't really believe a word of it. We need to not preach that Jesus has changed our lives if we don't think that he has. We need to learn how to be consistent. Communities of people who believe what we believe and act what we believe. There is a lie that says that putting a brave face on, of acting like everyone else is acting is the right thing to do. It is a lie that belief doesn't matter. And it is dangerous to live in bad faith. This is what Jesus says about it:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’"

I find that terrifying. That is a stark warning against apathy, bad faith and inconsistency and it is one we need to take a little more seriously than we do.

Running on Faith

I believe because I can do no other. I wasn't argued into faith, I wasn't persuaded into faith. I became self conscious and I believed. I'm not alone in this. Others can remember the first time they had faith. My mate James for example became a Christian 5 years ago. He was at a festival with me and my friends when he got out of his seat and went to the front to respond and never looked back since. I don't think anyone persuaded or argued him into it. He just got up from his seat and walked into faith. Today he is introducing people to Jesus left right and centre, he is devoting his year to serving God and his Church. It astounds me. All because of that one moment when he leapt into faith.

 Recently I can't get away from the absurdity of faith. Understand me when I say 'absurd'. I don't mean absurd in the sense that we might often hear it. Absurd carries quite a few negative connotations, we might say "The big bang theory is an absurd theory." When we say this we usually mean it's unreasonable or that we disagree with it. When I say that faith is 'absurd that's not quite what I mean. Sartre uses the notion of absurdity to refer to all of existence. Things exist and we are confronted with their existence but there seems to be no meaning behind them. There's some pretty hilariously pretentious pieces (apologies Sartre fanatics) when Sartre talks about being confronted by the absurdity of a tree trunk as a form which confronts his senses but which has no meaning, when we strip away the names we give it, when we experience things as they actually are, we see that they're utterly absurd.

For me that's a pretty good account of faith. I've become increasingly disillusioned with apologetics, with the whole McGrath/ Dawkins spat. It once used to fascinate me, I used to want to be able to argue any atheist into the ground. Now I can't really be bothered. Partly because the arguments don't always convince me, but partly because I think that faith isn't a proposition to be proved at all. Don't get me wrong, there's a use in discussing apologetics if it helps people to see that the Christian faith isn't absolutely bonkers. But it irritates me.

Kierkegaard argued that faith is a paradox, he held that the rational mind cannot ever comprehend God fully or prove that he exists. Faith is all about risk, faith is about leaping into something absurd. I daily leap into the absurd. I choose daily to trust in God. You might have read up to here and think that I'm actually a bit of an idiot. That I've lost a grasp on rationality and am just looking for a way to cling onto some stability that has been indoctrinated in me. Surely that's a possibility, but I don't think it's the truth. You see the thing is we daily leap into the absurd. All of us. None of us can fully understand the universe, the existence of consciousness, life our own existence. When we confront things as they really are, stripped away from all the meaning we bring to them, all we have left is absurdity. Christianity isn't a proposition at all. It's a complete overhaul of my being.

I endorse Christ to you wholeheartedly. I believe that he has redeemed me. That he has set me free from my own self centered universe, I believe that he offers me life eternal. But following Christ is a total worldview. It is a lens that infects every aspect of my existence. It is not something I can be persuaded of in the same way that I can be persuaded that there used to be dinosaurs walking on planet earth. I believe that faith in Christ is the ultimate fulfillment and it brings hope and truth to everything.

But at the same time it's utterly absurd. I cannot tell you why I believe. I believe because I can do no other. I am transformed into faith. That is why I am increasingly frustrated with the limits of rationalism. At some point we all have to leap. That is why Kierkegaard claims that faith is so offensive to rationalism, it threatens the very basis of it. It is a frustrating splinter that cannot be removed, even amidst the tightest argument, there always exists the slightest doubt. I have chosen to leap fully into Christ, and into his promises. I'm not an irrational idiot. But I will constantly fustrate the humanists of this world with my faith. Because faith cannot be eradicated by debate. When we start to enter into the view that rationalism is the only option, faith might diminish, might fade into the background. But I cannot escape the absurd, I cannot shake off faith. It is the most real thing to me.

We need to show faith, we need to model it. That is why I think my friend James leapt into the unknown that day; he saw faith amongst him. I leap every day into what sometimes seems paradoxical and unknown. My hope is that other people will see the power of faith and choose the same. 

It Ain't Me Babe

With risk of sounding like a broken record, there's something I feel the church desperately needs to embody. I've written about 50% of my blogs on here about the big picture of the gospel. But I find it so frustrating and I think that now
more than ever it is important to realise this.

Jesus speaks to his people right at the beginning of his ministry and tells them: "you're the light of the world! A city can't be hidden if it's on top of a hill....you must shine your light in front of people! Then they will see the wonderful things you do, and they'll give glory to your father in heaven."

Throughout history this has been the case with the most famous growth in the church- they offer something bright, something distinctive. The church today however, is seen as behind the times, struggling to keep up with post modern, relative culture. I sincerely believe we have a message which is the light of the world.

My knowledge of politics and economics is pretty bad. But it's pretty clear to me that capitalism is in a bit of a mess.
The crash of western economy, mass unemployment, the awful riots that have emerged up and down the UK. Something isn't working.

Capitalist culture is all about me. It's all about the consumer; what I can get. I want an out of season vegetable grown in north africa; I've got tesco. I earn my money, I work hard, I'm entitled to spend it on what I want. I can get pretty much anything I want and get it now. We are very independent but not very self sufficient. If every supermarket shut tomorrow- the UK would be in crisis. We have no community; I cannot pop down the road to my mate bob who grows carrots and my uncle gregg who can get me some milk from his cows. We depend largely on the global market.

And to some extent the church has followed suit. Whilst we might have reformed away from dependence on priests and rituals, we've pretty much replaced them with preachers who know their theology. I wonder what would happen if every church leader dropped down dead tomorrow. What would our churches look like? Who would do the preach? Who would lead the meeting? We've made church into part of our consumer culture. The number of times we say things like "that's not the kind of worship I enjoy" or the number of churches that are filled with pew fillers who come in, hear the talk and then go their merry way. We are consumers of Christianity, not participants.

To me this is sad. It's not the way I think the church was intended and it reflects a deeper truth we need to hear: You are not the light of the world, I am not the light of the world.

The gospel doesn't revolve around my salvation and my relationship at all. It revolves around Gods plan for humanity of which I'm a part, of which you're a part.

Tom Wright claims: " 'you mean I don't have to do anything ? God loves me and accepts me as I am, just because Jesus died for me' ought to give once to a deeper realisation down exactly the same line 'you mean it isn't about ME after all? I'm not the centre of the universe? It's all about God and his purposes?' "

Thats it- he totally hits the nail
on the head I think. It's not about me- it never has been. The church needs to learn this lesson- because if it does, I really think it has the potential to be light in an awfully dark world. Society doesn't need something 'relevant' right now, it needs something different. We are longing for it, society is longing for it- the truth that actually, it's not about me at all.

The world teaches the very opposite- it's all about me. Why do you think it's called the iPhone? Marketing is tailored around making the individual happy, fulfilling the individual needs. But we know it's a lie. Its not about me, it's about us. We are part of something much bigger.

The church needs to find a way to embody this- to become true communities, that stray away from consumerism and to focus on the big picture. We need to start figuring out how.

I've Got Soul But I'm Not a Soldier

Does our philosophy of mind effect the way we view Christianity? Ask that question to about 99% of Christians and I think you'll get a negative response. But I'm convinced that it really does matter what we think about mind, body, soul, spirits. Our ontology (the study of what things exist) impacts our theology, or at least it should.

What do you think a 'soul' is? When Jesus says: “be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body”? or “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and lose his own soul?”, what is he speaking of. Ask the majority of people to define soul and I reckon the response would largely refer to an immaterial substance which inhabits our physical body, a 'thing' or an 'entity' which dwells in the human being. Whether or not they believe in such a substance is irrelevant.

This definition of the ontology of human existence is usually called 'Dualism'. Descartes famously argues for the existence of our ego 'I think, I exist' and that this was the only thing we could not doubt the existence of. He condenses the fundamental of human existence to a spirit, a mysterious, invisible, non physical thing which inhabits a broken, imperfect, physical body. Descartes makes a sharp divide between physical and non-physical, between mind and matter. Minds are the souls of human beings, they think, they believe, they have thoughts and memories and dreams, they exist in a non-physical sense. Souls inhabit physical, temporal, divisible matter. The problem with Substance Dualism as an interpretation of the word 'soul' in scripture, is that I don't think it is entirely coherent.

To do this subject real justice, I would need to spend years and years researching, studying and I could probably write pretty lengthy book on the subject. Maybe one day. But I just want to challenge you that the notion of soul & body that we often speak of is not very coherent and not actually all that biblical.

It's pretty obvious to me that I am a physical thing. Spear me through the brain, and chances are you will change my personality, my memories, my temperament. Whilst there might be still so much we don't know about neuroscience, it seems pretty obvious that I am being who is wholly physical. When I'm my physical body is tired, it effects my mood. When I ingest alcohol it seemingly makes changes in my 'soul'. The brain and the 'soul' might not be completely reducible into the same thing, but it seems pretty obvious that they're pretty intimately connected.

And this seems to fit with the Bible's dichotomy of man. It says in Genesis that God formed Adam from “the dust of the ground”. It says later when God kicks them out from the garden: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return”. Human beings are made out of dust. I'm not convinced that this perfect creation that God made in his image was only the spiritual inhabitant of an imperfect body. He made man physical. He made man with physical hands, legs and brains. He didn't make man and then place him in a vessel.

This also seems to fit with the notion of the resurrection. Jesus walked the earth a physical man. He died a physical death. He rose again physical; he ate fish with his followers. To eat I'm pretty sure you need a physical mouth and a physical stomach. Granted, there was something 'beyond physical' about Jesus' resurrection; he seemed to appear different but recognisable, he could pass through walls. He was different, but he was still physical.

Why do we think that our destiny is any different. The New Testement teaches that we will one day be resurrected. It talks about Jesus being the 'first fruit' of the resurrection to come. And we know that Jesus was resurrected physically. In fact the whole of 1 Corinthians 15 is a chapter which is all about why the resurrection is a physical, real thing. Paul says “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.” It is essential we focus our hope on the hope of resurrection. But the whole concept of resurrection is about coming back, returning, it's not about departing physicality, but about perfecting it. Jesus became more than physical because he became a perfected version of God's creation. And we too, have the same hope of resurrection. Resurrection as a physical reality, the chance to enter into true physicality.

So what then do we mean by soul? Tom Wright argues that what the New Testament writers would have understood as the 'soul' is the concept of selfhood. Our identity, our personality, our character. Does this imply anything non-physical? Does this imply a sharp divide between 'physical' and 'mental'. I don't think it does. Actually those aspects of my being seem to be deeply routed in the physical.

Human beings are deeply spiritual beings. We love, we feel, we pray, we encounter God. We do all of these things in a very physical way. Spirituality is so tightly part of the physical, that it seems impossible to make any sort of divide between spiritual and 'physical'. We are dust creatures, breathed into by the breath of a God. But I don't think God calls us to hate the physical and embrace the non-physical at all. In fact we need to learn to embrace our physicality as a part of spirituality; if we are tired, this effects our faith. If we encounter God at all, we surely encounter him as a part of our physical being.

You might think this makes no difference to anything. A lot of technical nonsense that has no bearing on faith. I would sincerely beg to differ. We preach a hope which is centred on physical resurrection, we live in a beautiful physically created universe which the creator God made. And ultimately we are dust creatures, the physical is not a shell that we will one day shed. But something glorious which will one day be perfected. I could write so much more on this. But I think that will do for now.

Limit to Your Love

I've suddenly realised of late that it's all about love. If it wasn't for love, I would have no faith, the words of the Bible wouldn't move me, the evidence for the existence of God wouldn't convince me. Love is so central to faith, that without it, I think faith is utterly inconceivable.

I've just graduated from three years of studying philosophy; it's been such an interesting, challenging three years. I've read so much, I've been exposed to so many different ways of thinking. I've learnt to think differently, to structure arguments well, to read the densest texts, to pick apart worldviews, ideas and concepts. I honestly think that philosophy is such a useful subject for any human being, the ability to think is vital to a life lived to the full. And philosophy is something that the Church needs to learn how to use; as theism becomes a less and less fashionable intellectual position, we need to be able to show that we believe because it is true, not just because.

But I realised something the other day, I was having a late night whisky with my housemate who also studies philosophy. And I asked him “Do you know anything now that you didn't know when you started? Are you any closer to the truth?”. And I realised, actually philosophy hasn't brought me closer to the truth. I might be able to argue why I'm a naive realist, or why I think scepticism is an incoherent position, but it has little bearing on reality. Don't get me wrong, I think those things are useful to think about, I think reason and argument is so useful to our society, but I'm not sure they bring me closer to truth.

It's hard to explain why I am committed to Jesus, why I have surrendered my life and my will to a deity that seems unknowable at times. It's hard to explain why I can believe in things which I think are genuinely contra to reason and logic, like the doctrine of the trinity or the incarnation. But I do. And I sleep intellectually sound at night. I'm not a deluded fool. I think, I debate, I argue. But I firmly believe there is more to life. I firmly believe that I am created by a loving God. The evidence supports my beliefs; the historical evidence for Jesus the Messiah and his resurrection, the arguments for theism, the change I have seen in the lives of my friends. They're all perfectly reasonable 'reasons' to believe. But it doesn't convince me beyond doubt.

“The one who does not love has not known God, because God is love” 1 John 4:8

I've realised recently that it's all about love. I can't explain love, I can't pin it down, I can't argue for it, I can't argue against it. But honestly, I can't deny it. In my mind, the biggest failure of reductionism and humanism is that it provides a thin vision of humanity. You can tell me that love is a sequence of chemical reactions and releasing of endorphins. But it just doesn't cut it for me. That's such a limit to my experience of love. I don't understand what love is, I don't understand why. If all that exists is this universe, matter, energy and decay, this is all meaningless. There is no love in that world view. But I cannot live without love. It is so undeniable to me. The spirituality of mankind is such a reality to me; the way a piece of music can move me to tears, the way a close friend can hurt me so deeply, the bond between me and my parents, the longing I have for justice. I can't deny that love is central to who I am.

Love moves me to faith. The bible says that God is love. If that's true, it makes so much sense that love is such a tangible reality, but such an irreducible concept. The bible says that everything else in this world will cease, religion will die out. It says that I can be the most moral person, the most intelligent, the most faithful person but if I lack love in my life, it's all pointless.

I know, more than anything else in this life, that love is real. It is inexplicable and it is undeniable. It is all about love. And because I know this, I know God. I know more than any argument could ever show me that there exists something more than what we see, something more than what is reasonably evident. I cannot stop believing until I stop loving.

Helplessness Blues

I'm wondering recently if at times our view of 'the gospel' is inherently selfish and individualistic. I wonder if concentrating on my own salvation and restoration as the full extent of God's rescue that we miss something astounding.

My 'shift' in thinking is summarized really poignantly by a song I've obsessively listened to since it was released. Occasionally you find a piece of music which speaks exactly where you are at, as if you'd written it yourself- the opening line of 'Helplessness Blues' by the Fleet foxes is:

"I was raised up believing, I was somehow unique like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes unique in each way you can see. And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather by a functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me. "

I don't think that Robin Pecknold is singing about the majesty of God's rescue plan for humanity for a second. But for me it epitomizes something that's been running round my head for a while; what if our focus on my redemption from sin is at times an unhealthy one. Don't get me wrong, I'm not for a second saying that Jesus didn't die for me, that he didn't forgive my sin or that the gospel isn't about freedom from sin.

Let me put it this way. Suppose someone creates the most beautiful jigsaw puzzle that's ever been created. It's a unique work of art, carefully crafted; each piece individually molded and shaped to fit the other. Each piece carefully and intricately detailed, painted and beautifully glazed. Now suppose there's billions of pieces to this jigsaw, and each human being is allotted a piece of the jigsaw. I could marvel at the beauty of my piece in the jigsaw, how sublime it was, how detailed and how I am so blessed to receive it. I might even spend my time trying to tell those around me how beautiful their pieces were, and help them to see.

In my mind, if I only do this, I have the risk of missing the beauty of the jigsaw as a whole; my beautiful piece of jigsaw is tiny, you wouldn't even really notice if it was missing. And despite it's beauty, it just doesn't compare to the beauty of the whole jigsaw.

Maybe we have a tendency to do this with 'the gospel'. It is breathtaking that God loves me, Josh Cockayne, so much that he would die for my sins. But how much more breathtaking is the full picture than that? So much of the imagery in the New Testament is about the Church, about the restoration of Israel, about the Bride of Christ. At the end of the day, if I was missing from the Bride of Christ, it wouldn't look much different, it wouldn't be that much less beautiful. I'm humbled to be a cog, a speck, a jigsaw piece in the redemption of humanity.

At the end of the day, God came to rescue us not me. It's not that I'm denying that God cares for me, or that I matter to him, but rather that focusing on me and how great it is that I've been forgiven is dull compared to the majesty of God's saving plan for humanity.

The 'me centered' gospel not only misses something majestic, it also makes us incredibly blind in some ways. It becomes all about each individual, and creates a one-up-man-ship evangelism. I remember a guy I once met who tallied how many souls he'd saved in the front of his bible, like medals on an army uniform. At the end of the day, his work might be impressive, but compared to the body of Christ, it's pathetic. Although we never say it, there is sometimes an underlying competitiveness about Christianity, who can reach the most people, who can pray the best prayers, who can make the most profound point in cell group.

I wonder when I'll realize that it's not really about me. That God never intended to save 'Josh Cockayne'. I've heard people say that "if you were the only person on earth, Jesus would have still died for you". I'm not sure if that's actually true to be honest. The 'gospel' in its richness and its fullness is about humanity and not about humans. It's about the Bride and not about her dress, it's not about how good she's done her hair or how nice her shoes are. Whether you like it or not, we come as a whole, we come as a Church, and as a bride. We need to start thinking a bit more like one.

And at the end of the day, it's true, I would actually much rather be a functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me.

Any Day Now

Sometimes I'm not very passionate about Jesus, sometimes I go along with it without really feeling it very much. Sometimes I feel the pressure to fit a certain mold, to be a certain person and I just run away from it. Of late I feel like I haven't invested much time in 'relationship with God'. Sometimes I'm not even sure if I understand what it means. I feel a bit like one day soon I'll get a bit more passionate, that I'll get 'better' at this. But generally I'm apathetic about faith.

I don't really understand why I'm apathetic. I think probably it's a bit of a vicious cycle- The less time I spend investing in my faith I end up less passionate. If only I were more passionate I might spend some more time doing it.

But in all honesty, some of time I feel I've heard it all before, that nothing can really excite me or inspire me. That's not true at all, firstly because I don't know it all; my knowledge of the bible is poor, my time spent in prayer is dismal. And secondly things do inspire me, things do move me if I give them the chance. But a lot of the time there's this shell which comes out when I enter Christiandom. From the outside I look impenetrable, impressive, Christian. On the inside I'm skeptical, apathetic and selfish. I might be able to sing that I surrender my all to Jesus, I don't really mean it. Not usually. I might be able to respond well when someone asks me what I think. But I've had a lot of practice.

I've known about Jesus, that my sins are forgiven for as long as can remember. I've known that God loves me before I knew that water is H2O. I find it difficult to be surprised by these things, because I don't really know what my life would be like without them. I totally take for granted the grace of God, the peace of his presence, the impact he has on my life. I really do envy converts who have come to Jesus and turned away from their old life. I find it hard to sing "I once was lost but now I'm found", because I don't really feel that at the age of four (or however old I was) that I really was lost. And consequently I find it hard to get excited about being found. It's not that I don't think I've ever sinned, but more that I don't feel particularly like I have an 'old life' to turn away from.

Bringing people up with bedtime stories of Jesus and teaching them of grace and prayer and the love of God is brilliant. I imagine that I will want to do the same if I ever I have a family. But sadly I also think it's responsible for the huge amount of people that shield themselves to God in later life. "I've heard it all before" "My family are all Christians" "I used to believe in all that nonsense" are sure ways of stopping the truth and power of God ever effecting your life. Sadly, it also fills Churches with thousands of apathetic people who believe but are utterly apathetic. People who build shells around them that look and behave exactly like they should, but don't really care. For them Church is what they do on Sundays, it's where their community is. But ask them to die for it and they'd be the first out of the door.

How do we reach the generation of Christians that don't get excited about this, who build a Christian shell that never really reaches down to the core of their being? If the Church started to be persecuted in the West, then I'm pretty sure we'd kill out apathy. But it isn't. Apathy is like a bacteria that is so difficult to attack but which grows and grows alongside genuine, passionate Christianity. I don't really know what the answer is. But apathy has the danger of holding back something which is life changing, risky, passionate, dangerous and exciting.

We need to start getting vulnerable about faith, about what we really think. About what we really struggle with. I want to be the person who is consistent to the core, that is as passionate on a Sunday afternoon as I am on a Monday morning. I want to break down the shell, and I don't want to be apathetic. I don't really know how to do it though.

The Graduate

Jesus says "do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is life not more important than food, and the body more important than clothes....Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own"

I think that's a bit mental.

I've never really understood the potency of those words until now. I was born, brought up, went to two different primary schools from the age of five until I was ten. Then I left to go secondary school. At the age of fifteen I moved to Wigan and joined another secondary until I was sixteen, then started at a six form college. After that I applied to study philosophy at York University, and have studied here until now, aged twenty one. Since I was five years old my vocation has been set in stone. Sure, I've had choices to make along the way, which college, which a levels, which university. But on the whole I've pretty much had my path set before me. I've studied as a full time thing- it has been what I do with the majority of my time for the past sixteen years. Last Friday I handed in two essays. And now that's it. I am no longer a 'student'. I am no longer defined by that little word, I no longer spend all my time studying. At the moment, I'm not really sure what I am instead. Nothing defines me.

So what now?

I am left with an uncertain future, I don't have a clue where I will be, what I will do, who I will be.

One of my favourite films is the Graduate, the character Benjamin has just graduated from University and is experiencing the same anguish that I'm talking about. He ends up having an affair with an older woman, and then falling in love with her daughter. In the end he runs away with the daughter. At the end there's this absolutely brilliant shot of him sat on the back of the bus with the bride he's just stolen from another man. And the look on his face is still the same discontent- he doesn't really want this. He doesn't really know what he really wants. He just kind of jumps at what takes his fancy. But ultimately he doesn't have a clue who he is, what he's living for, or what he will be.

Benjamin Braddock says "I don't have a clue who I am, what I want from life" Jesus says- "Don't worry". I say to Jesus "I don't have a clue who I am, what I will be, where I'll go". Jesus says- "don't worry Josh".

Until now I haven't realised how astounding advice that actually is. When I'm facing such an unknown, when I have no stability, when I have nothing that defines my every day Jesus simply says: "do not worry about your life". I can't even begin to take what Jesus says seriously. Trusting God when I have a plan is really easy. Trusting God to help me with my a levels, point me towards the right university, help me be a Christian on my course- not worrying about those things has been pretty easy. But trusting God now is so hard.

I have to tell myself those words every day. I have to begin being defined by a life living for Jesus. Because now it's about the only stability I have left. I don't want to be like Benjamin Braddock, who jumps at whatever makes him feel alive, who is never really content with his decisions, who uses people to define his life. Because he isn't satisfied and ultimately, he's still probably pretty worried. I want to be the person with enough faith to say, I don't worry about tomorrow because I know God will provide, I know God will direct me. I want to be defined by Christ, and I want to say "I will not worry about my life".

That's pretty hard. Maybe I'll get better at it eventually. At the moment I'm still having difficulty really shaking worry.

Believe

I'm finding it difficult to believe recently.

Jesus doesn't offer us a theory or a proof to be grappled with and criticised. But I have a tendency to think like that. Probably something to do with studying philosophy for the last five years. The problem I find with philosophy is that it does not offer us a firm foundation to anchor ourselves on- I can spend three months debating, reading and thinking about the best model of consciousness- but my conclusion doesn't seem to have any bearing on my actual life. Outside of the philosophy classroom determinists, libertarians, sceptics, realists, logical positivists, empiricists- they all act the same. There's huge differences in their arguments and their perspectives, but it doesn't alter how they spend their Saturday afternoon or their bank balance. At least in my experience philosophy rarely has any bearing on my actual life, yet it makes some strong and demanding claims. On every level of life, soceity, medicine, science, art, perception- it has something to say. Somehow I find it difficult to ever really apply. As a philosopher I'm an ardent supporter of common sense realism, anti-scepticism, compatibilism and monotheism. None of these things change or have any effect on how I live.

Jesus claims that he comes to bring life, and life to the full. Jesus doesn't offer us a doctrine to leave in the classroom, a theory to grapple with and then get busy living. Unless belief infiltrates every aspect of who you are- how you spend your Saturday afternoon, what you do with your money, how you think, how you act- then it's not true what Jesus says.

The Church in the UK has been dormant for the last century in some cases, and despite being a 'Christian country', we're on the whole a nation of apathetic non-believing agnostics. Partly I think, because we're have been fascinated with Christianity as a concept- as basis for our laws, as a basis for state, as a concept. But Jesus doesn't give you that option. That's not Christianity.

I'm struggling to believe because I'm stubborn, because I'm lazy, because I don't allow Jesus to radicalize my very existence, to transform everything I have. It's easier to think of this is a concept to be grappled with, as an argument to be won. But let me ask you, do you really believe? Do you really believe that a God made you in his image and sent himself as a human to die? Do you really believe that the world will be restored and reconciled with its creator, and that you'll be resurrected into a perfect eternity? I'm sorry but if you really believed that, you'd do more; it wouldn't be something to be grappled with, something to prove or disprove- it would be something that would radically upset my me-centered universe.

I'm the sort of person that can't pretend very well. I don't do the whole 'Christian' thing very well I don't think. If I look like I'm not engaging with 'church', I'm probably not. If I look like I'm ready to give my life for this, I probably am.

I'm trying to challenge myself to go beyond belief. Belief is a philosophers game that can be argued for and against eternally but eventually makes little difference. I'm striving to be Christ like at the core. That's really difficult.

Downfall

I took my girlfriend to her first ever football game this weekend. It was dire. Sheffield Wednesday vs Notts County- Wednesday lost 1-0 to a penalty. The rest of the game was just lobbing the ball from one end of the field to the other, with barely a chance on goal. I grew up a Wednesday fan, I remember watching them take on Premier league giants like Chelsea at Hillsborough. I remember the late nineties stars- DiCanio, Carbone, Kevin Pressman, Des Walker. It's got pretty bad since then. I remember the relegation from the premier league, then the relegation from the Championship. The nail in coffin was losing 3-2 to Crystal Palace on the last game of last season and sinking back down to League 1. This season we've lost a manager, half of the squad, half of the fans, and are sitting comfortably in 17th place. Brilliant.

I've never seen Hillsborough as empty as it was on Saturday. I was taken aback a bit when the announcer said that the attendance had been nearly 17,000. That's pretty low for Hillsborough. That felt pretty empty. That's a sign of how bad things have got.

Let's not get delusional about the state of the Church. It is exciting when you get 80 people along to an Alpha course. It's brilliant. It's 80 more people that might get a chance to hear that God can transform them. I don't want to belittle that.

But we need to realise how serious this is. My Church is way above average for Church attendance in the UK- about 150 people come along on a Sunday. That might seem a lot. But it's not. 17,000 people are willing to watch an awful game of football. About 1% of that are coming along to my Church. What's going wrong?

People just don't want it. If you asked the majority of the people at Hillsborough on Saturday they would tell you that Church is dull, it's irrelevant, they don't need it. Are they right? Part of me looks at those numbers and is tempted to give up to agree with them. Let's just let this thing die out and stop clinging on to the dying remains of an irrelevant world view that has no place in our culture.

But if we really believe that this is true, that Jesus can transform people and save them, we can't just keep plodding along. We can't give up either. This is desperate. There is no room for complacency and half heartedness in the Church any more. If we really believe this we need to step up, and get on with it. If we don't, we need to stop clinging onto this for the sake of security, attention and something to do on a Sunday. Because there isn't any room for that. The stakes are too high.

We belong in the Premier league- Jesus Christ is Lord of all. At the moment we're playing Sunday league football. There's a long way to go.

Everything in it's Right Place

If I believe in God, it isn't surprising that I see him everywhere. He is part of the heat radiating from that sun, he is part of the passion in Justin Vernon's voice as skinny love fills my ears. He is part of the feeling I get when I see my girlfriend approaching in the distance. He is part of my longing to see Christians who are more intellectually engaging; he is part of the 800paged philosophy book I'm reading. He is part of that guy sitting and reading, of the beauty of the sky.

This is not some kind of crazy pantheism; where God is reduced to just the things we see, but it is my belief that God created all things, that he is part of all things, that he is making all things new. Every glimpse of beauty, every passion, every joy, every sorrow. He sees, he knows, he made it. I refuse to be cynical about the phrase "everything is spiritual"- despite what the world tells me. I refuse to believe love is a releasing of endorphins, that passion is a brain state, that music is just a collection of notes.

I refuse to put God in the box that everyone does. The one labelled 'for church' 'for prayer time' 'for that godly conversation'. Because if God is here he's not a distant force who created and left. He built his house & moved in.

God's voice is in the cool breeze on my neck, in the intricacy of that leaf, in the joy of relationships.

He spoke the world into being. His word brought life to the stars, and to the earth- and I don't see why I should believe that his voice ceased. If there is still life, then he is still speaking. His word creates, his word sustains and he speaks to all of us, all the time.