Posts Tagged ‘God’

christmas poetry

December 20, 2009

When I wrote a few weeks back about Christian bluesmen I forgot, of course, to mention the father of edgy alternative/folk/blues/christian music – Johnny Cash. I’ve since been enjoying a lot of his stuff courtesy of Spotify and am amazed at how the man in black finished his career so poignantly and pointedly in his last 4 records which he made with Rick Rubin. The BBC also ran a Johnny Cash night last month which said some interesting light on the great man – in particular, the little known story of Cash’s attempt to reabilitate some of (or in particular – one of) the men he visited in prison during the Folsom Prison Blues recording. Cash was a man who sang the blues from the heart and in a very real sense tried to use his position in life to pull others, not always successfully, out of the ditch that he knew he could well have been in himself. The films about Cash were an encouragement to me – not because of his charisma – but because they pointed to what Cash was trying to say all along: we battle with the dark man inside but its only the man upstairs who releases us from our demons.

Actually, it’s another part of Cash’s legacy I want to mention here. I’ve been listening to some of a Johnny Cash Christmas. It’s tinsel-y, quaint, American-y Christmas music devoid of any of Cash’s snarling gallows humour but I still find it oddly compelling, mainly because of his distinctive baritone voice. It’s also the essential sound of Christmas for my mother’s generation. At the end of a 2003 release of his Christmas album a bonus track was added – a poem Cash wrote about his own experiences growing up in a poor family from Arkansas. Now, I love the history of mid-C20th States, especially the yarns, culture and music coming out of the South. It appeals to that small part of me which actually is American and hails from the South (at least, that’s what my birth certificate says). And this little number does something for me in capturing a sense of what Christmas meant to society’s lower members some 70 years ago at that time in that place. Here is a very crackly rendition of the poem as posted on YouTube – I suggest you try hear a better copy if you can – but at least you can just about make out the voice of Cash himself recounting his poem. The lyrics are here.

Two more Christmas poems which have proved thought-provoking for me for different reasons in recent days. This was read at a service I attended recently…

If Jesus Was Born Today by Steve Turner.

And this was written by Theologian John Piper and as such comes fully-laden with Calvinistic views of the Sovereignty of God in all matters. Not that I’m complaining. It’s a powerful meditation on a question I never really asked before – why did God choose a girl from Nazareth to give birth to the Messiah, instead of one from Bethlehem?

Mighty Mercy by John Piper.

please watch pastor matt

December 8, 2009

This video explains in a new way what I have been learning in this time of “waiting” about the value to God of both men who do and are done to, who are victorious and who suffer. A powerful testimony published so recently we don’t yet know the end of the story… at least on this side of eternity. To paraphrase John Piper, mircales and wonders are often given as evidence of the power of God. However, it is often the grace given to Christians who are suffering that even more profoundly displays the power of God.

http://hv.thevillagechurch.net/blog/hvpastor/?p=363

lock up your children: dawkins vs evangelicals

November 22, 2009

The Times published two separate stories yesterday which were both about how we (should) raise and educate our young and both cited Richard Dawkins and various Evangelicals in predictable opposition to each other.

Labelling Kids

The first, a light hearted article, poked fun at the Humanist society’s (aka. Richard Dawkins and an atheist agenda) recent ad campaign to encourage parents to refrain from indoctrinating their children with religious beliefs from a young age – instead, giving them the freedom to choose. The article was billed as a poke in the eye to Dawkins and a one up for the Evangelicals as the Humanist society inadvertently chose two children – who appeared carefree and happy – from an Evangelical background from a stock of generic photos. While the papers had fun with that, it was left to the end of the article for the Huamnist Society’s Education spokesman to really explain the crux of the issue: ““The message is that the labelling of children by their parents’ religion fails to respect the rights of the child and their autonomy. We are saying that religions and philosophies — and ‘humanist’ is one of the labels we use on our poster — should not be foisted on or assumed of young children.”

This really is a far more complex issue then just whose picture is on an adert and I feel a tension within myself about it – having thrived in state schools and in settings where I was in a minority as a Christian exposed to many philosophies and religions, I feel my faith as a Christian was strengthened in that it still appeared the best, most complete, worldview even after I had looked at all the others. However, it is clear that I may never have given the Protestant Christian faith as much attention if my parents (and my extended family) had not been Christians, taken me to church, provided answers from a Christian perspective and so on. In the end, my faith is heavily influenced by them although I know I hold different opinions to my parents on some aspects.

As with most things, balance is needed. As a parent of young children I feel the weight of burden on myself to raise my children to be “Christians”. However, this in itself is impossible – despite the most perfect, nurturing family settings, the best Christians schools, churches and resources children can still opt out. And the opposite is true – people become Christians who were raised as athesists or Muslims often at great personal expense to themselves.

I was talking to someone about this recently in the context of infant baptism (don’t let’s get started on this today, please!) and they made the point that infant baptism with a teenage confirmation is a way to nurture your child onto the right path – they have to choose to opt out later by NOT being confirmed but the choice to opt out causes them to regard the heritage they have come from. “Why would you send them blind-folded across a motorway?”, was the question put to me. “You’d want to give them every chance to see”. While I may not agree with this in the context of infant baptism, the point is an interesting one and I agree – if I believe that Jesus is THE way, THE life and THE truth, and my life, my worldview has been revolutionised by the beauty of Christ and His sacrifice for me (and this is the crucial part – I believe He is what EVERYBODY needs!), why I would risk the chance of my kids getting hit by false, attractive or competing philosophies which offer no lasting joy and lead to destruction? Or, to pull in another analogy, young babies put anything in their mouths and parents are always on their guard to make sure what actually gets chewed and swallowed is wholesome food – not bleach or stones or chewing gum or clothes pegs: why even consider them giving them a choice when you know what damage those latters items might cause?

My children will, of course, have to enter the world – and they should. Philosophies are not food – they are grand narratives and concepts, often mixed together, and much more difficult to pin down and throw out than stones or pegs. Keeping the kids locked up in some kind of Christian bubble with only the Bible to read is not really an option, nor is it advisable or sanctioned in Scripture. I will have to send them out onto the motorway but I will give them every chance to see, learn, discover, walk carefully and make valued judgements. I will answer them from the position of a Bible-believing Christian who attempts to marry his beliefs to his lifestyle. And in the background, I will be praying very hard that God does the rest.

Would Richard Dawkins agree with that – probably not, but would he honestly give his own children every chance to openly learn about and experience Christianity knowing that they might find the God he rejected?

Evolution in Schools

The second Times article talked about the tiresome but ultimately important debate of whether Creationism should be taught in schools and whether all schools (including faith schools) should be made to teach evolution as unnegotiable scientific fact. The Tories – backed by some wealthy Evangelicals – may will bring in reforms that leave the schools with the choice, a step backwards for the likes of Dawkins. On this issue then, I may be a Conservative.

Now, I am no educationalist nor am I particularly up-to-speed on the whole corpus of evolution vs creationsim literature. I know the things hashed out below have been said many times before in more eloquent ways. But, simply, I was most impressed with the statement in the article issued by the headmaster of a Christian school in Gateshead, Mr Jonathan Winch who said his pupils were taught “the theory of evolution as the consensus view of the scientific community”. He added: “Naturally this raises questions in students’ minds. Our teachers seek to answer … honestly according to personal convictions.

With a vocal minority of God-fearing professionals many of whom are Christian creationists in the scientific community who are not prepared to go away quietly, it would seem to me a step too far by any British government to proclaim Evolution as an unassailable fact and rule a creationist perspective out of the classroom. Mr Winch’s position seems perfectly valid to me – evolution as a theory does exist and is the current prevailing wisdom – it SHOULD be taught in schools, including Christian ones, but within the context of it being the “majority” belief while the views of others who advocate alternatives should be noted and discussed. Teachers should be prepared to reply to queries about the details of those alternatives, including the creationsit perspective as students probe further. This, it seems to me, would do a whole lot more for allowing children the right to choose, construct and develop their beliefs.

Do Dawkins’ Humanist poster campaigns advocate an end to imposing belief on children, but draw the line when the choice might involve accepting a young earth or Creator instead of the meta-narrative that is evolution? There’s more than a hint of hypocrisy in the air.

Learning through repetition

November 5, 2009

Any good teacher will tell you repetition is needed to help cement what children (and adults!) are learning. As an English Teacher, we repeated and drilled new vocabulary and then repeated it the next lesson to help reinforce it. I remember reading once that you are 45% more likely to remember something if you revisit it the next day after you first learn it. University students take note: last minute cramming doesn’t work if you haven’t been reviewing your notes as you go along.

This week I had another interview – a general one, with Alpha International the people responsible for the popular course that introduces the Christian faith. They liked my CV and my enthusiasm but had no positions to offer. In fact, they probably won’t as they tend to employ administrators/secretaries – the sort of people I am not. However, they will keep my CV and let me know if any temporary work comes along and they will pass it onto other organisations and individuals so you never know. Even so, I finished the day feeling quite discouraged. This was unexpected as I didn’t go the interview with any sense of assurance that I would get a job and in actual fact they were very positive toward me.

But I underestimated the power of rejection to worm its way under the lessons and truths I thought I had already learned and turn them over again leaving me raw and exposed. I didn’t want to go home. I imagined as I sat pressed up against umpteen commuters on the Piccadilly Line that if I was a person without God to lean on (and shout at), I might find a bar to drown my sorrows rather than face Rach and the kids with the news that I had no job. Strange this, as the kids are too young to understand and Rach would never reject me. Must be a guy thing.

So, I did go home and went back to my notebook and re-read some of the spiritual lessons I had learned off the back of the previous interview rejections. Back then, even a few weeks ago, they had felt fresh and exciting – I could see God’s Word powerfully at work in me teaching me new things. This time I went back to those words with a heavy heart. What I found is that the power of the words hadn’t changed. Rather, I was discouraged by my own ability to believe in them, live and breathe them. I was, in other words, being asked by God to learn a lesson through repetition.

We live in a society that praises novelty above wisdom. Even in my academic studies I would occasionally come across some social science Professor bemoaning the continual invention and reinvention of methodologies, concepts and theories that were introduced without the adequate road-testing over a long period of time of to prove they were true or false, useful or useless. My wife frequently reminds me that one of the hallmarks of Generation Y (the generation beneath me) is that they move so quickly between jobs and careers looking for a break up the ladder that they never truly learn a trade or specialty in any depth – something that would prove lucrative and rewarding in the long run both for them and society. These are viscious circles of untested newness.

We need repetition. Repetition, however humbling or even boring, engraves truths in our lives and makes us useful. I am learning this one repeated lesson at a time.

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