Days when you know someone has been listening...

With Reformation day upon us, and my eldest daughter full of questions and thoughts, I was quite blessed by something she said this morning. I had flicked onto one of the 'God' channels because they have a sweet little childrens programme which is harmless and better than The Tweenies first thing in the morning.
We were maybe a minute early, and the previous programme was just ending. It was one of the prosperity teachers, and it was rounding off with a 'product offer'. the smooth voice-over offered a book-and-tape package on hope with the words "for an offering of just $35, you can find peace and hope..yada yada yada".

My eagle-eyed and eared 5 year-old said "That's not right!"

"Why's that, then?" I asked.

"Because he's teaching people to trust in the church and not in Jesus."

Succinctly put, I thought.

The Green Indulgences?

I've been pondering climate change. Only the other day my husband and I were talking about how it never snows at Christmas like we remember when we were children.
OK, I'm being slightly facetious. I'm afraid I'm going to admit to being not entirely convinced about the climate change panic setting in. I'm even more convinced that many of the 'proposed measures' for tackling climate change will do nothing of the sort.

All this is rather ironic, given that I am something of a fan of self-reliant, off-grid living. My mother taught me, long ago, to turn off lights, close doors, compost, and collect rainwater in a butt for the garden. Our family has a legacy of cultivating allotments and we never leave the tap running when we clean our teeth.
I would be more than happy to live a mostly electric-free lifestyle, largely because of a big streak of not wanting to be beholden to someone else for the essentials of life, and the care of my family. When I'm fit, I even make my own bread ;-)

Now, the recent news in the UK is that big fat taxes are going to be slapped on people who selfishly use cars and do all the things that 'contribute' to global warming. We're quite likely to get boshed over the head by these taxes, because we have a number of children to move round at the same time, and we sometimes like to be able to do it after 6pm when the buses stop. My husband even gives a lift to his colleagues, but this is unlikely to cut any ice, because they could be using filthy, unreliable buses instead, of course.

Now, given my mobility problems, I find myself completely guilt-free about using our 'gas-guzzler' (gas-guzzler, dear politicians? I got petrol that last time we filled up *cough*) - especially as we live in a pedestrian unfriendly town.

I imagine many people living in rural areas who rely on cars because of the disgraceful state of public transport may well feel the same. In fact, given that we use our car to get us from A to B, it's always full of passangers when we use it, and we don't drive round in circles twenty times a day spewing out diesel fumes, I actually think we're considerably greener than your average bus, anyway.

Anyway, might as well face it, Eco-fascism is the new state religion, backed up with people with lots of letters after their names saying that there is now no doubt that unless people in the UK return to pre-war living, we will all be swamped by melting glaciers in 50 years.
But they don't stop there, of course. If threatening suburban disasters of Hollywood proportions isn't enough to have you nodding sagely while the government picks your pocket everytime you leave the telly on standby, then they'll wheel out some library footage of African drought.

Everyone knows how powerful stock images of African people wandering round dust-bowls can be - and oh yes, it's all your fault. So the government you see, simply has to increase taxes to stop us all doing those wicked things like driving and leaving the bathroom light on so the kids don't get scared of the dark.
But you can feel ok about that because of all the starving people in Africa, safe in the knowledge that by you being taxed more, the people in Africa will be fine.

This time of year, when my thoughts are very much on Reformation Day, and Martin Luther's crusade against the Indulgences the Roman Catholic church was selling to free you, or a loved one from purgatory, I can't help but see a parallel. Because The Roman Catholic church has never had the power to get people out of a non-existent place, and the money was just a manipulative sop to conscience that just lined the pockets of the powerful.

And lo, the problems of Africa are not in the gift of Britain to fix anyway, even if it does chuck great globs of money at it. So these extra taxes, billed as some magic remedy to stop the poor suffering in Africa will do nothing of the sort, but simply line the coffers of the Chancellor, presumably to be used for the next fiasco building project like the Millenium Dome.

Pay your indulgences, if you will. They won't stop climate change, and they won't help Africa.

Sharpen your sword!

I take part in an online-homegroup that has proved to be a real blessing in many ways. One of the things we do is work through certain scriptural books, or themes, usually patterned on a series of question threads, which works well for a message-board format.

It's very much a broad-church environment - there are people from all shades of Christian belief there, but I've found that to be quite a helpful challenge. After all, we're not saved by the correctness of our theology, and I don't want to be some arrogant fool who believes she has it all nailed down. Neither, of course, do I want to compromise on that which there really can be no argument - like the deity of Christ, or what constitutes the gospel. Being in a place where I am required to defend some of the distinctives of my faith is a good and profitable exercise, which is also one of the reasons I blog.

Now, the most recent topic of study has been Romans. I love the book of Romans, actually, and I was one of the people who voted for this particular direction this time around (the other possibility was 1 Timothy, and that's just asking for trouble given my views of female ministry!!). It's been a really good study, really delving into the meaning of words like justification and righteousness, and the vital understanding of the position of faith and works in the lives of believers.

One of things I've noticed, however, is that many people find it quite a difficult book, and one of the responses to that has been to talk about how difficult it is to reconcile different parts of scripture to one another, and also how no-one has come to a definite conclusion as to what it means.

At this point, I find myself parting company with some of my sisters there, and this has occured in other home-group settings before now, in real-life situations.
I don't believe we can have our cake and eat it when it comes to scripture. True, there is much in scripture that we will disagree on. There is a sense in which we will have to live and let live on certain issues. But it will not do to leave the whole thing hanging and allow a pervasive attitude of live and let live when we find ourselves believing that scripture says things which are irreconcilable. We cannot both be right - and indeed, I may the one in the wrong.

Those who believe the 'new perspective' on Paul may be right, but those who oppose such a view cannot also be right. It just isn't intellectually or spiritually sensible to have cosy dialogue set up in which both are right and it doesn't really matter. An issue like that goes to the heart of what it means to be in the kingdom of God, and cannot be fudged. I sometimes think that this is one very good reason why expository preaching is so vital to the health of the church. We must get to grips with what scripture means, not just content ourselves with vagueness, or knowing the 'stories' in scripture, as is so fashionable now.

There are a few simple reasons for being diligent about this. Firstly, scripture tells us to be. Secondly, we are very vulnerable as believers if we do not study the word - and not just to the place where we can say we've read it and thought it through a bit, but where we can say, 'yes, this is what Gods word says'.

This is important, because all around us there are those who would pluck truth from us, or knock us off balance, or outright deceive us - and we can certainly do all those things ourselves with our own hearts.

We can be caught so easily by legalism, or license in our own hearts. We can be caught by those who would impose their own convictions upon us. There are people who would knock on our doors with deadly interpretations of scripture, and if we do not know what the Word means, they can lead us badly astray - and indeed are trained extensively to do so.

Lord forbid, but there are even those who would deliberately deceive the unwary. The word of the Lord is a weapon - for use in attack upon our own sinfulness and in defense against the wiles of the world. But it will not do us any good to have it sheathed and to pat it occasionally to reassure ourselves that it exists. Scripture is not a talisman to be waved, it is a weapon that we must equip ourselves with to use.
Keep your skill with it sharp, by the power of His Holy Spirit.

Being a big cheese.

I've been mulling over significance. One of the previous churches I attended was very keen on working out who were the 'key workers' in the church. There would little evening events organized by the body we were affiliated to, in which the church was encouraged to bring along 'leadership' - especially future leaders, by which they meant young people who seemed likely to be leaders and already displayed 'leadership qualities'.

To be honest, at an invitation-only event, this sort of "You have potential, you don't" behaviour was not very wise in terms of church unity - or even personal holiness. More than a little envy and pride was stoked up by such behaviour.

The main leader of the grouping of churches we were under is a man who is very keen on name-dropping. He's the kind of man who likes to let you know he has the ear of movers and shakers. Now, I don't want to be uncharitable and pretend to know his motives, but I do know what his publicly-owned thinking is on the issue, and that itself is worth commenting on, because I see it in many places.

The idea is that Christians rightfully belong in positions of power and influence - that in fact, this is part of the gospel mission. 'Moving in the prophetic', which this man also claims to do, is a a big part of this. As those in government and so on find out that Christians can give them messages from the almighty, they will put them in as advisors, in much the same way as the police sometimes use mediums.

Now this is on the wackier fringe, perhaps - although the man is quite acceptable and mainstream within the Evangelical Alliance in the UK. But this strange attitude can be seen all over the Christian world when Christians get all excited when they learn that someone in a certain position is a Christian, or when they hear that a celebrity has converted. Christians are thrilled when they see a Christian on the telly, or when they hear that so-and-so's book is on the best-seller list.

All this begs the question - is the gospel spread by significance? Is this message of foolishness best propagated by those whom the world fetes as much as the Christians do?

I am not against men and women who undoubtedly are in positions of worldly influence giving glory to God for that providence, and trusting the Lord for help to be used in that position. I think of John MacArthur and his appearances on American National television, and how he never fails to use it to talk about the gospel of Christ. But that's a world away from an insidious thinking that essentially means that the church ends up with the same tunnel-vision as the world in terms of what is of value.

This thinking that God wants Christians to have worldly success or influence so that they will be listened to is complete and utter nonsense, and not borne out by the testimony of the early church, either. I recall seeing Jackie Pullinger speak on this issue, and pouring scorn on such prideful foolishness. It is surely precisely what the letter of James warns us away from.

In the providence of God, and for His very specific purposes, there have been times when believers were given great influence - Joseph and Esther are good examples. And though Paul certainly was given the ear of some fairly important people in the world, he did so from the position of prisoner - and his message was Christ.

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. 1 Cor. 1:27.

We talk of a crucified saviour whose resurrection was even a strangely small and secretive event. If we think our purpose in this is to win great friends, I think we have lost sight of the foolishness of our message.

If you're tempted to believe that you need to be 'influential', or if you've been made to feel worthless in the Kingdom because you aren't a 'mover and shaker', then re-read that verse in 1 Corinthians a few times, and regain some perspective. I am a little person, and I influence a circle of little people. And this is what the Lord has chosen to be his Kingdom method, because He wants all the glory, and He will not share it with prideful man.

Being joyful.

It was the 'all-age' service today, which I've always found a slightly baffling concept. Anyway, our girls were well-behaved and engaged. My gregarious five year old was overjoyed to see an eight year old friend whose house she had stayed at when I was giving birth to our youngest.

She was bursting to tell me all about the service, and how excited she was to go to 'the next service'.

She then admitted, with the un-self-conscious glee that small children master;

"My heart was brushed away because Lydia was there!"

I thought it was an apt description of joy. I hope your heart has been brushed away recently.

What are you like, Dave?

"I don't think that's what I'm like." - David Cameron.

Go on then, Dave, what do you think you're like? Tell you what, given that you like consulting and focus groups and all that touchy-feely stuff, I'll give you some pointers.

You are very much like one of those people that has a witty retort ready ten minutes after the actual moment has passed. Or the guffawing bore who talks about how bad care-homes are on the day someone's granny has died in one. In fact, you're very much like the political equivalent of the emerging church - you're changing, morphing the conservative party into a kinder, gentler beast, less concerned about the detail, and more concerned with the 'bigger picture'.

You smile and nod and simper for all your worth to whoever you happen to be with, be it business leaders, rappers or the dredlocked eco-activist children of the people who may have voted for your party at one point.

You decide to put some distance between the US and yourself on the day they remember an act of gross and unjustifiable wickedness perpetrated on their people.

And yesterday, while crooning weasel words about those opportunist politicians who have questioned the place of a symbol of separation and spiritual superiority in our society, you opportunistically show how much more enlightened you are by making a comment on a hot topic, days after everyone else has said their piece.

Now, no doubt, I will be told this is all part of a clever strategy to be elected, and that once in power, you'll turn out to be a man of principle and backbone. I know what I think, Dave.

Is God emerging?

I keep getting an e-mail newsletter from an umbrella church organization in the place we used to live. I really don't want to get it anymore, as it's wholesale junk, full of everything that's grim and contradictory about the modern church. Liberal social-gospel types rub shoulders with overt new-age-style 'prophets' and prosperity gospel teachers.

It's like reading the spiritual equivalent of the bottom of a bird-cage. I'd like to get off their mailing list, but I've yet to find the way to do it. It's like being caught in a vortex of evanjellybeanism and being unable to get out.

Anyway, I just wanted to tell you where I got the following quote, because, honestly, I don't go trawling around trying to dig this kind of thing up. This was in the editorial part of the e-mail, and this was the section that most jumped out at me.

In fact if what we have is living, it must change, because the definition of life is to change, death means to stay the same. We describe new an innovative way of doing church as 'emerging', but the church if it is true to its calling has and always will be emerging, always re-imagining the call of the King and the values of the Kingdom and the shape of it's gatherings.

Now, the clear implication here is that change is good, because it's equated with living. The church is the church of the Living God, so it certainly should be involved with what is living, right?

But there's a few things about that which bug me. For a start, there are plenty of changes among the living which are not good. I am getting older, and I'm changing everyday. Leaving aside the troublesome changes of my current health, I am slowly stiffening up, and drooping and generally changing in ways that don't having me jumping up and down for glee, shouting "I'm alive! Oh, how I enjoy not being able to digest things as well as when I was younger!"

In fact, each of these inexorable changes lead me closer to death, and death, is the big full stop, at which no more change occurs. But even that's not true, really. At death, this physical form doesn't just stop still in a form of stasis. It decays and degenerates even further than and more radically than in life.

Now, of course, there are changes that are very good. I was an utterly wretched sinner, and my course was changed by the sovereign grace of God, and thus, so was I, and yes, thank the Lord, I am still in that process of change. But to believe that change in and of itself is good, and to equate it with life, and contrast it to that which stays the same, and further to equate that with death, and thus badness, misses some fairly crucial pieces of the puzzle out.

This definition of emerging as something constantly in process reminds me of nothing so much as 2 Timothy 3 - Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

But is the gospel really something fluid, morphing ever so often into something else, dependent upon the surrounding culture? Perhaps more importantly, who is God the King? Has He called us to a constant round of emergence and 're-imagining'. Is He truly the Living God? Scripture, our firm guide to His nature, tells us that He is. Is He, therefore, according to the simplistic definition of 'living', constantly emerging and reinventing Himself?

Let Malachi 3:6 answer;

For I [am] the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

And what a precious thing that is! Without it, how could we, mere wisps of vapour as we are, have any security at all?

Now, I am not against reforming, refining and growing in holiness. All these are aspects of change that utterly vital to us, both as individual believers and as the corporate church. But re-imagining the call of the King, and the values of the kingdom? These are eternal things, and not subject to change.

The heart of the emerging problem, and why it rubs people up the wrong way, is not that Christians are against change. It's that the 'emerging mindset' sticks it's head in the bucket marked 'change' and makes no sensible distinction between what is good change, and what is not. In fact, they've often discarded any solid way to discern something on that basis.

Having a body of believers committed to acts of mercy in their communities and a growing understanding of grace is one thing. Deciding which biblical doctrines you think are a touch outdated is quite another.

...like ministry.

I was blessed with a visit today. A woman I have never met came to my house with her five children, bought cake and homemade marmelade, sent me to bed and her and her able and delightful children tidied my house, did some dinner preparations and played with my exuberant daughters.

Although we had never met in person, we knew each other reasonably well through interaction on this marvellous blessing of the internet. She is a faithful, charming Christian woman, stay at home mother who home educates her children, and today provided a beautiful example of what people certainly should see when they look at Christians interacting with each other. I mostly know her by her screen-name 'Dipsy'.

It all came about through time spent on a message-board, sharing posts about current affairs, parenting, and all manner of spiritual issues, and blogging. Why, it's.. it's almost like ministry.

Hello? Anyone home?

I find myself in a place of almost total uninspiration. I'm avoiding most news and current affairs blogs at the moment because I just find myself intensely irritated, and that's not good place to be. So many of my normal online haunts just depress me to the point of flatness. Right now, the idea of perusing a site like Slice feels like deciding to spend half an hour washing my hands in the toilet bowl.

Kim at The Upward Call wrote something the other day about losing confidence in blogging, and I relate to that. I had a post prepared about a quote from my old church website. I've shelved it for future reference as I'm just a bit weary of looking around and seeing Christians tearing strips off one another all over the place.

In our own life circumstance, we've made the very difficult decision to begin attending a closer church for the forseeable future. It's a fairly traditional Anglican church, but it is 7 minutes drive away, which means I don't arrive in tears. It's not an ideal church, but in all reality, the church we have been attending isn't one of those. (Clue: 'cos they don't exist) Witton has the best regular preaching I've ever heard in my life - but you know what? What good are fantastic sermons that you never hear? What good is it to have a 'good church' that you can never get to, and because of that, your children don't attend regularly either?

I'm willing to bet there will be things about the new place that will drive me absolutely nuts - but right now, my husband and I have come to the conclusion that it is more important to be part of a church community, to be involved in some sensible service, and to hear the gospel (which they do, thankfully, preach there - the first sermon we ever heard there was a paraphrase of something from St Augustine, and it was short, but good) with our children.

So ultimately, I suppose that I'm trying to shift into a mindset that isn't overly sensitive about differences. I'm not talking about checking out discernment at the door, but I do think it's poor form to attend a new church with a beady-eye on the lookout for problems. Anyway, if there's a bunfight to be had in the comments, go ahead. But this muffin is, for the moment at least, an Anglican Muffin.

It's not a cut. It's not even a flesh wound. Honest.

Patricia Hewitt is busy trying to convince the country that cuts in public service are a really, really good thing that we should all want.

"What I think will happen in the next few years is we will have a limited number of regional specialist centres that will treat people who need that particular type of treatment. But that is an improvement, not a cut," she said.

So, what they're doing when they close my local maternity and gynaecology departments and moving any accessible maternity care further away is for my benefit and a great improvement on being able to get to the delivery suite in time to give birth.

Perhaps by 'community-based care', Ms Hewitt means 'Giving birth in the back of an ambulance near a housing estate'.

Time for something lighter

I am around 16 weeks pregnant at the moment, so perhaps 'lighter' is not the right word. Something to 'round out' the blog then, ha ha.

I've been enjoying my girls this week. I always make a point of enjoying my children, but sometimes, shall we say, it's easier. My two year old is very good at spontaneous affection, and will throw her arms around a suitable neck and say, with heart-stopping sincerity "I love you". I challenge even hard-hearted 'I-had-an-abortion-and-I'm-proud' types not to be softened by that.

My youngest, who has had some developmental delay, spends her days next to anything that will enable her to stand up and giggle proudly when she's done it. The giggles of a 1 year old - priceless!

And my eldest daughter is one of my most faithful intercessors in our present trial. One of the things that blesses me greatly is her utter dependence on the Lord, even at 5. Like any 5 year old, she has behaviour struggles. She recognizes that sin-creature hiding in her members, and she wants to fight against it.

She is a remarkably well-behaved little girl, and her father and I have worked hard to help her. But she herself has worked hard too - especially using the indispensable tool of prayer.

Time and again, when she's been helpful, kind and obedient, and is commended for it, she will remind me that she prayed that morning to be all those things, and God helped her. She will always give Him the glory for her good behaviour.
She's always a good lesson for me. Sometimes, it's really easy to claim the good things I do for myself, and reach a spiritual hand around my back for a self-congratulatory pat.

And then there is the "dangerously misleading" ;-) baby in my tummy, turning somersaults already and having afternoon naps. It's nice to have a bump now, and not just be in pain with no obvious reason. I look at my girls and I am reminded why I'm doing this - children as real, 100%, bold-as-brass blessings. Could I possibly be richer on this earth?

No, no, they're not really babies, it's a dangerous trick!

Scientists warn that 3D scans are dangerously misleading.

Yes, be warned. Those images of babies being all babyish in the womb are, and I quote 'Incredibly dangerous'. Those sneaky little children are performing an elaborate con-job on you, and as soon as you acknowledge that you are, in fact, looking at pictures of children, they will jump out of the screen and garot you to death with their umbilical cord.

Right. So in scientist school these days, I presume they're teaching them that when faced with an unpalatable truth, paranoia is a good defense.

Gun control? heart control is more important.

I've been watching the Amish shooting story unfold with no small sense of horror. A recent spate of school shootings on the American continent will, I have no doubt, lead to discussions about gun control.
Some people remark upon the grim irony of a pacifist group being taregted in such a manner. I believe that people have the right to hold to pacifist convictions - but then I also believe that the state has the duty to punish extreme wickedness with the sword, which would often protect those whose consciences did not allow them to bear arms.

That aside, it's worth remembering that the mere possession of a gun did not cause this dreadful thing to happen. I believe the Amish themselves possess guns for the purpose of shooting animals, and yet gun crime is unheard of among their communities.
We do not have freely available guns in the UK, though this doesn't stop an illegal trade in them. However, it would be foolish to think that because we have strict gun control here, we have solved the problem. Our school children do not not shoot each other - they slash at each other with knives.

It is not the available weaponry that is the problem. Take away guns, there are knives, take away knives, there are stones and clubs and bats. In a culture has an undercurrent of despair and hopelessness - when we teach our children that they are accidental blobs of cells, and that concepts of duty and service are outdated and irrelevant - we shouldn't be surprised that even recreation becomes something as cruel as happy-slapping passers-by and recording it on their mobile, never mind that they take up arms to deal with the emptiness inside.

Charles Roberts wasn't kidnapped by his guns, driven to the Amish schoolroom and marched in there while the gun forced him to kill those girls. As is becoming increasingly clear, it was Charles Roberts own dark heart, bearing a grudge from years before that drove him to pick up weaponry and commit murder.

It is the heart of a man that is deceitful and desperately wicked, not the contents of his hunting cabinet or kitchen drawers. Only when we deal with the heart can we honestly talk about gun control. I do not remove all the things that my children should not touch from out of their reach - I teach them that there are some thing that are not right to play with, and there are consequences if they disobey that.

But ultimately, their hearts are what will determine their actions. And no legislation on earth can reach hearts. Thankfully, there is a law that will - but it is a heavenly one, exemplified in the gospel, and supernaturally written on hearts. It's only when our society remembers that - and it did know it once - that we can begin to address the deep-seated problems we have created for ourselves by attempting to run the world without reference to the Almighty.

Rubbish blogging

I'm blogging light at the moment - sitting at the computer for long enough to compose a coherent post is a little challenging. So, I'm cheating today, and piggy-backing off another post you should read here.

I've said it before, he's said it before - plenty of logical and rational people have said it clearly enough - we delude ourselves if we think we have any moral high-ground over the Nazi eugenic system when we continue to kill disabled children, and elements of our society push for the acceptance of euthanasia.