Just To Make Myself Clear…

My last post probably wasn’t clear enough, so I thought I better explain in a little more detail about my current thinking about postmodernism and consumerism and how I’m not so sure anymore that within Christianity, the former’s solution to the latter actually works.

Although I love the postmodern movement within the church, I’m really worried that I’m starting to believe that its view of Christianity is the truth, that any metaphysical statement about the reality of God and heaven truly is irrelevant, to the point that they might as well not exist. Rather instead, perhaps it should just be a tool of deconstruction, to show some of the errors in our thinking.

To return to the example of heaven, by believing in the reality of heaven we perform good deeds precisely because of the potential reward in the next life. Of course, we don’t believe in salvation by works, but we instead will work to get others into heaven, playing the numbers game. Or we just reject doing good works altogether because with salvation by faith, they’re not needed, right?

Recently, I’ve been thinking that it’s our consumerist society that makes us think that we’re supposed to trade one thing for another, which just disrupts our views of heaven and God’s grace entirely. So this is where the postmodern movement comes in to say that heaven’s actual existence is irrelevant, we just need to listen to its call, which is a call to bring heaven here on earth and let God’s will be done. But although this seems to highlight our errors, solve the misunderstanding and challenges us to live like Jesus, I wonder if it brings about its own dangers.

By holding fast to postmodern Christianity in this instance, are we just creating a dualism, where in our religious life we’re able to ignore the relevance of consumerism whilst just following it blindly in the rest of our life? Do we instead need to hold strongly to our belief in heaven and tackle the problems of our consumerist society at their very root and hence save not only our religious belief but the whole of our lives?

If our belief in heaven screws us up, then maybe it’s us that’s the problem, not heaven, and that’s what we need to deal with. Or maybe, as ever, the truth is somewhere in between…

Postmodernism and Consumerism

What do promises of heaven do in a consumerist culture, where everything is defined by economies?

The promise of an eternity in heaven is a gift, but in our world sadly nothing can ever be seen as such. We can either feel that we need to work to earn it in the first place, so heaven is just like a salary, or we believe we’re in debt or act out of guilt. Even when we try to be unequivocally clear that there is nothing you can do to earn salvation, we replace orthopraxis with orthodoxy, meaning that although you may not have to do the right things, you certainly have to believe in them.

This is where the postmodern movement comes in, using Derrida’s deconstruction of the gift. To Derrida, there is no such thing as a perfect gift, since either in giving we serve our own purposes, or in receiving we only become indebted to the giver. So then, should we stop giving? No, of course not! We still have to give without thought of return, even if there inevitably is a return. The gift, the perfect gift, if there is such a thing, is what calls us to go the extra mile, forget about our own personal gain and to love with all of our being.

If there is such a thing. Although the existence of the gift may be in question, its calling certainly is not. In fact, its existence is irrelevant because its calling can be heard irrespective of its very being. You might even say that non-existence is preferred, for then there is no distraction, no physical entity, no burden of the economies of return. In its non-existence, its call can be heard louder than ever before and all you can do is listen and then heed.

“There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain!”

Do you hear the call of heaven? A call to bring about the kingdom of God here on earth? A call to change yourself and everything around you? The call of a gift, the perfect gift?

And now we return to where we started, with heaven as a gift, preciously given to us by God. Yet to we who consume, it is just another commodity to place on a shelf, another marketing message to blend into the background noise and another item on our shopping list. Thus I fear that our only solution is to destroy heaven itself, to erase it from both our memories and from existence. Only then will its song rise again, filling our hearts, our streets and our cities with a new hope for a new world.

Maybe then we will have returned to where the hope for a new world originated. In the ruins of a conquered Israel and Judah and in the hearts of an exiled people, a hope arose. A hope that Jerusalem would be rebuilt as a true light for all the nations that would never go out. A hope that all the pain and the suffering would and could never be repeated. A hope for justice for the fallen who God surely would not let perish. A hope for a new Jerusalem and a hope for a resurrection. A hope for heaven.

“Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.”

With this new hope in my heart, another arises. That I would never forget about heaven, but that I would forget to consume.

A New Church?

As some of you might know, my friend Dave is planning on planting a new church in the near future, so he’s just started up a blog to express some of his ideas on the subject and to hopefully engage people and begin discussions on what a church should look like.

Dave and I tend to think alike, so I’m really looking forward to finding out what he has to say over the coming months. It’s great to have an opportunity to begin church anew and to start at the very foundations, and build something that will have a massive impact on the people and community around it.

So if this sounds good to you, just head on over to A New Church? and start contributing!

(There’s only one post on there so far, but it already uses a photo of mine, so it’s definitely worth a visit…)

St James in the City

St James Church, Toxeth

Christmas is all over, as is my month-long holiday from work, so everything has started back up again. I’m back in Liverpool and today, like so many other people, I returned to work, and wondered how I ever managed to sit at a desk for eight hours at a time all last year. I imagine I’ll quickly relearn…

One thing hasn’t returned yet though, and that is church. Given that we meet in a school, it’s often awkward to meet in school holidays, so we don’t usually meet on the first Sunday in January. So Dave and I decided to visit St James in the City, a relatively new church in Liverpool that we’d heard plenty of good things about so were delighted to get the opportunity to visit.

The most amazing thing about them is that they meet inside a tent… inside St James Church in Toxteth. I’ve never camped out inside a church building before, so this was a new experience for me, even if there wasn’t a campfire or sleeping bags (but we did manage a few songs!). To explain a little bit, they’re an Anglican church that plan to renovate St James Church, which although is in a prominent place on the outskirts of the city centre, has been left unused for years. As such, it’s pretty empty inside and needs a lot of work doing to it. But because it’s empty, there’s enough room for the tent, which makes it easy to heat which we were definitely grateful for yesterday.

Although they’re Anglican, their services look very much like a Vineyard, or most other house churches in fact. Worship, sermon and prayer, in that order. But outside of their services they have a very missional focus, just like Vineyard, which I love. They’re based around a set of values rather than a set of beliefs, and enact this through their purpose groups, small groups designed to explore and act upon a specific vision, often working with and involving non-Christians too. Then of course there’s their major plan of the renovation of the building alongside that, but I think since that’s mostly going to come from grants, it’s a little bit of a separate task.

Most importantly of all, there were lots of really friendly people there and we felt right at home. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay around to chat afterward as I was heading around to Joe’s, but hopefully I’ll get a chance to the next time I pop around. Given that they meet at 4pm they don’t clash with Vineyard’s morning service, so I’m sure I’ll be able to visit again.

It’s just great to meet other like-minded Christians in your city. We don’t seem to do enough to work together in my opinion, because I’m sure that sharing visions, collaborating with different people and listening to different voices could only make us stronger. Hopefully things will advance in the future.

Christmas Eve

Happy Christmas everybody!

As usual, I’m back home here in Highworth to spend Christmas with my family. All the presents are wrapped, the cakes are made, Christmas dinner preparations are underway and the house has had a bit of a clean, so I think we can safely say we’re all ready for Christmas. All we need now is the snow to make it complete!

It seems as if the weather is following me. When I was up north, it was snowing down south, and now when I’m down south, it’s snowing up north. As you can see from the picture below, everything was nicely covered in white when I arrived home Monday evening, but a few days later with no fresh snow and a little bit of rain means that there’s very little of that idyllic scene left. Maybe Father Christmas can pull some out of the bag for us tonight, I can’t remember the last white Christmas I experienced.

The view from my bedroom window

As I mentioned above, all the cakes have been made, so I thought I’d show you a picture of our Tunis cake, a bit of a tradition in our family at Christmas time. We have Christmas cake and pudding as well, obviously (we’re very traditional), but for me it’s the Tunis cake that really matters. An orange Madeira cake, covered in thick chocolate and decorated with buttercream and (here’s the key part) marzipan fruits.

Tunis cake

It usually lands on me to make the fruits, which is good as I need at least one artistic outlet during the year. You have to carefully sculpt your miniature fruits before carefully painting them in a blend of food colourings, then finally topping them off with cloves for stalks. Every year a guaranteed masterpiece. And it tastes absolutely amazing too.

As a matter of fact, I think we’re about to begin cutting it now, so I’d better go as I really don’t want to miss out. Once again, merry Christmas to you all and I hope you all have a great day tomorrow and a happy New Year.

The End

Last summer at church we did a series called Grand Designs, where we looked at various characters and stories throughout the Bible, discussing God’s plan for their lives and correspondingly God’s plan for our lives. We began in Genesis, and I had the privilege of ending the series in Revelation, speaking about God’s plan for the future.

I thought I should share this with you all, so below is the audio recording of the sermon, plus the Powerpoint presentation if you wanted to read along at the same time:

Grand Designs: The End (MP3, PPT)

So, if you don’t have the time to listen, what is God’s plan for the future? I’d suggest that the following verses form a good starting point:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Revelation 21:1-4

If this is God’s vision for the future, then shouldn’t it be ours too? Shouldn’t we be striving for a future of no more death, no more mourning, no more crying and no more pain? And doesn’t this vision consist of heaven coming to earth, not earth going to heaven like we Christians are so prone to aim for?

So let’s help heaven come to earth right now. Let’s join with God in achieving his vision.

Houston, We Have A Problem

I’ve recently been reading through the historical books of the Old Testament, in a vain attempt to know my Bible better and to actually understand a little bit more about Jewish history, such as how the divide between Israel and Judah came about. So far I’ve covered Joshua, Judges, Ruth and 1 & 2 Samuel, with 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther next on the agenda.

Given that I’m reading mostly to take in the big picture, rather than the small details, you might think that a little lack of comprehension might be forgivable, but what’s astounded me the most is how little I’ve understood. For a start, I’ve even missed a lot of the big picture I’ve been aiming for and realised that a lot deeper study is needed rather than just a cursory reading. But it’s the small details that have baffled me the most, the increasing realisation that the people you’re reading about lived in a very different time, a very different place and in a very, very different world.

At this point, I see people, believers and non-believers alike, throw their hands into the air and give up. Either the text is plain wrong, or it’s weird and ridiculous. Even those who get closer to the truth when they see it as a reflection of ancient culture, beliefs and practices often seek to belittle it by simply labeling the authors and those they wrote about as primitive, stupid and long since superseded.

I’d like to send out a message, loud and clear:

The problem isn’t with the text.

The problem isn’t with the authors either.

The problem isn’t even with those they wrote about.

The problem is with us. All of us.

~ybwtk

Bank Robbery

My mate Dave recently came up with this very hands-on illustration of the atonement that I felt was too good not to share with you all:

Let’s rob a bank! I’ll supply the hockey masks and then we can discuss the theological ramifications of Christ’s sacrifice as we place a large explosive device on the vault door. As the titanium crumbles under the explosion we could take a moment to think about how bank robbery is a wonderful metaphor for Christ’s love for us, bursting through all our barriers and setting the captives free. Just that in this case, the captives are gold bars and not lost souls.

(Note to any law enforcement officers reading: the suggestion to rob a bank was in no way serious.)

Dave Weaver Day

I honestly can’t believe I forgot it was Dave Weaver Day today. I should probably mark it in my diary or something, since those corporate fat cats and self-serving politicians don’t seem to want to have anything to do with what has to be the most important holiday of the year. Joe and I even made a web site which asks the very pertinent question, “Is it Dave Weaver Day?” but I’ve been forgetting to check it in recent months. Maybe it needs an RSS feed or something.

December 8th is Dave Weaver Day

Dave Weaver Day was inaugurated with a tea crawl through Albert Dock and Liverpool City Centre, but we haven’t reached such heady heights since (possibly because it fell on a Saturday). Last year was low key, with two simultaneous celebrations in Leaf and the Spademan household. This year will be even more low key, with a group of us attending a movie quiz in FACT, where hopefully tea will be on sale, since we all know that tea is the traditional Dave Weaver Day drink.

So, for what’s left of it, have a very happy Dave Weaver Day everbody. Drink tea and be merry!

Update: we went to the film quiz, where we failed spectacularly, finishing last and scoring a miserly 25/90. However, since only three teams entered we scooped the third place prize, which consisted of three movie posters, a DVD, two free cinema tickets, three pounds and a load of sweets and chocolate! However, the drink of choice was Leffe, not tea, so…

Dave Weaver Day FAIL

Visiting Mars Hill: Saturday

At last, sunshine! Unlike the overcast and rainy previous two days, we were finally going to see Chicago in the sunlight. Which is just as well, as we only had the morning left to do so. Check out at the hotel was at 11am, so we aimed to get all our remaining sightseeing done before then, and then just make our way to O’Hare even though our flight wasn’t until 5pm.

We hadn’t yet seen Grant and Millennium Parks, despite the fact that they were right next to our hotel, so they were the only thing on our agenda that morning. After a quick but satisfying breakfast at the café adjoining the hotel we headed across the railway tracks into Grant Park, lingering on the bridge to see if any trains went past for Dave to take pictures for his train-mad son. No such luck, so instead we contented ourselves with looking at the sculptures dotting the park, because it wasn’t as if we hadn’t seen enough this trip. The whole of America is covered in this stuff…

The Chicago skyline from Grant Park

…and then suddenly Dave was off and running. I don’t think I’d ever seen a man move so quickly. Then I heard the sound too and everything clicked: there was a train approaching and Dave wanted a picture. The things parents do for their kids…

Last stop in Grant Park was Buckingham Fountain but that was closed (out of season, again) so we moved onto Millennium Park and the Cloud Gate. This bean-shaped structure was impressively shiny, I honestly can’t believe it hasn’t got scratched and vandalised yet. But maybe everyone just appreciates art, as it was in a great location reflecting the Chicago skyscrapers towering all around it.

There was lots of other art in this park too, including two big video screens that show faces of Chicago residents. A little spooky but fun to watch for a bit. And of course, there were the standard pieces of sculpture littered around again. Someone should tell these artists to pick up their rubbish, save the environment and all that. Maybe you can’t blame them too much since the Art Institute of Chicago is right next door, so there was bound to be some bad influence.

The Cloud Gate in Millennium Park

That was about all we had time for that morning. We quickly stopped off at the Lincoln Statue at Grant Park we missed on our first walk through, before checking out of our hotel and lugging our bags through the city up to Jackson to catch the “L” back to O’Hare. But that proved more troublesome than expected. First we didn’t realise that the Blue line that we wanted to catch had a separate entrance, and then when we finally found the correct entrance, it was blocked off since it was closed that day, with the nearest operating station being up at Clark & Lake. Undeterred, we began walking…

Eventually we got to O’Hare and checked-in. Given we were there early there was no problem with moving our seats next to each other, so we were spared the hassle of the trip over. Next was security… and then I remembered something. When I went to GDC earlier in the year, my manager had warned me that there was nothing in O’Hare beyond security. At the time we thought he was wrong, since there was loads of stuff, but we’d flown in and out of a domestic terminal and this was international… it clicked but it was too late. We were through and there was just a few massively overpriced concessions stands to entertain us for a four hour wait.

The flights home were surprisingly pleasant. From Chicago to Amsterdam there weren’t enough business class passengers so they’d replaced their seats with economy’s, but kept the leg room. And guess where we were sat?! We first had to overcome a minor problem – when they’d moved our seats they obviously hadn’t realised that someone was already sitting on one of them. Thankfully he took it all in good humour… and cottoned on pretty quick that he could get moved to first class, which is what happened. The flight seemed much quicker, maybe an hour shorter, than the other direction too, perhaps because it was carrying both people and cargo.

On that short last leg we had three seats between the two of us and amused ourselves trying to work out our air hostess’ accent, which seemed to be halfway between Dutch (it was KLM) and well-to-do English. Dave’s wife was then on hand to meet us at the airport where his children were very pleased to see him again, and I was lucky enough to score a lift back to my front door.

And that was it, it was all over, the trip I’d been looking forward to for months. All I had left were the memories, plus the jet lag that would take a few days to get rid off. But the trip had served its purpose – we’d seen as much of Mars Hill as we were able, plus managed to spend a lot of time chatting through our ideas about church, aided by our choice of reading (the excellent The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claibourne). At some point soon I’ll have to share some of our thoughts on the matter, and note that I don’t use the word conclusions because we’re far from that.

But for now I’ll close by saying: if you’re ever in the area, give Grand Rapids a try, even if it’s just to hit the bars.