Drawing Hands

Drawing Hands
M. C. Escher

Saturday 24 December 2016

Vicarious

I just finished watching a TV series called the newsroom. It's brilliantly written and as I watched its final episode I did what I seem to do at the end of any show where the characters are well written- I cry.

I know it's fake and I know that these characters are not real but the thing I find hardest is that you get to see into the lives of these characters/people. You get to see what they do when they are alone and what they really think and feel- you get to see behind the mask. While I accept the irony of the following statement, it rings true- you get to who these people really are.

The reason I cry at the end of these shows is because I have to grieve people who have let me see them. In some false way, I connect with them and feel a sense of love, care and investment into their lives.

Some of you will probably find such an admission really sad. The reason why it is a truly sad statement is because that is what I long to find in real life but struggle to allow myself to do. I've said it before but I find it easy to be honest with people but hard to be vulnerable. To say it slightly differently, I struggle to live my life without having walls up around my heart.

I find that when I see others in candid, real and, perhaps, vulnerable moments I love them. It makes me feel safe and their candidness disarms and lowers the walls around my heart.

So in a somewhat strange and sad way I lost some friends today.

The reality is that real life is harder than fictional characters. It is scary to let your walls down and allow people to see you rightly, especially those who can and will hurt you. I guess that the enjoyment of watching other people's lives pales incredibly in comparison to the fulfillment of having people know, love and accept you.

Maybe it's time to let my walls down for those who can influence my life 24/7 rather than for 1hr approximately 20 times in my life.

Thursday 22 December 2016

The Gospel, Heresy and Indifference

Anyone who has ever had to sit down and talk with me about the church will have heard me regale them with the one thing I learned at bible college. (In fairness to the quality of education I received, I learned many more things- this is just my most used).

The one thing that sticks with me is an idea. Ideas, as we well know, are dangerous. I'm not sure Karl Marx envisaged that his ideas would lead to such suffering and in fairness I am not sure the father or mother of capitalism envisaged the damage that idea would do either. My ability to politically ostracise myself aside, the idea that stuck with me was from a "radical" theologian called Karl Barth. His idea was this:
"The greatest threat to the church is not heresy. Rather the greatest threat to the church is apathy and indifference."
This thought has stuck with me. Barth was an incredibly intelligent man and, although he was not considered orthodox, I have spent a great deal of time reflecting on this idea.

I grew up in the conservative church. Something I am very grateful for and indebted to. However, as part of the formation process I was always taught that heresy (false teaching or ideas about God from within or outside of the church) was the thing we were fighting against. Of course, Satan was the great exponent of heresy. After all, if you want to bring down an establishment you attack its core and heresy attacks the core beliefs of Christianity.

Heresy is often expressed as open defiance or disagreement with the central or key aspects of Christian belief. Barth believed that such questioning and disagreement from outsiders (and occasionally insiders) caused those in the church to reexamine and solidify their positions on why they believed what they believed. In other words, handled appropriately heresy acts as a purifying fire that helps to protect, refresh and renew correct doctrine. Barth even goes so far as to suggest that any healthy church will have heresy being expressed in and around it all the time. His reasons for this are best explained, I think, by his use of the term indifference. And the best way to illustrate this idea is by looking at Jesus' use of parables.

Most theologians agree that Jesus told parables in such a way so as to leave his audience with no ability to remain neutral. As people were listening to his stories Jesus would tell them in such a way that a person was forced to respond to the ideas being put forward. For example (although not strictly a parable) he tells his followers in John 6 that if they want to follow him they have to eat his flesh and drink his blood- no man listening to that can remain indifferent, it will evoke a response. The chapter actually says many stopped following him as a result of this teaching.

The point here is simple. When Jesus was telling parables he was not concerned by those who would openly question or deny his declaration (heresy/heretics). What he always avoided was allowing people to remain indifferent to his message (apathetic). The "heretics" (or those who believed differently to Jesus) were forced to ask questions, reject his belief or qualify their own beliefs as a result of his proclamation. What was not possible was the ability to think that what he had to say had no bearing on their life.

Indifference is such a great enemy to the church because it declares that we have not been preaching the gospel correctly. It is such a great enemy because those who need to be confronted with the truth of the gospel have not understood the gravity of the situation. When the church cannot break through the indifference of those outside it, it has failed in its mission. When the church embodies the indifference of the outside world in its own doctrine, it has let go of a part of the God that characterises it.

No church is perfect but if heresy is present within a church it is possibly because it has new (and some old) people in the church who are still forming a right view of the God they believe in. Heresy, in Barth's eyes, causes a church to grow and perform mission more succinctly that leads to new converts and more heresy. (This idea is not talking about an endemic heresy where the pastor/leader rejects central and key tenets of Christianity leading to cultism etc)

Indifference leads to a community that is disinterested in the message of God and a church that is asleep to the magnificence of their saviour.

There are a few flaws to this idea but I love its principles. Does your church have this kind of heresy in it? If not, has it grown indifferent as a result?

Tuesday 6 December 2016

Love and Loneliness

I sit at home tonight....alone.

Everything in me wants to feel sorry for myself. It's easier that way. The world is to blame and I am the victim. A sad thing happens to humanity when we feel this isolated- we seek to survive.

One person may want to run into a corner, curl up in a ball and rock themselves gently to sleep. Another person may choose to fight and take companionship by force- or desperate act.

I'm told relationships are hard. I bet they are. I don't have someone constantly challenging me to live a different way and to think of them. I'm told there is wonderful freedom in my current single state. I believe them, I'm just not sure it's better.

I believe one of the greatest truths to life is understanding that although Jesus came to set us free he lived by a greater conviction. Despite his glorious freedom, Jesus chose to give it up in order to love others. Love involves limitations. Not because it demands a laying down of freedom but because by nature some freedoms will become "counter-loving".

For example, if your spouse is anaphylactic then, although you may wish to occasionally indulge in peanuts, you choose to restrict that freedom out of love. It is ironic that in this place of constant sacrifice that we learn how fulfilling it can be to put others first and just why freedom pales in the presence of love. (In fairness to the philosophers/romantics- there is no true love without freedom. While cut from the same cloth, freedom is the foundation, love is the fullest expression). I guess to take this slightly further, the greatest expression of freedom is the ability not to use it. That's what makes love so meaningful.

My point is this. Freedom is great but limitations for the sake of love fulfill freedom. Therefore, tonight, despite my shocking inability to love others well, I'd prefer to be in the shoes of those who have someone to make life hard.