The Magician's Nephew: Evil

The Magician's Nephew (CS Lewis) is a brilliant distillation of the nature of evil and probably my favourite Chronicle. In the book you have basically two kinds of evil presented to us: foolishness/ignorance (represented by Uncle Andrew) and pure wickedness (represented by Queen Jadis). It is fascinating to see how Lewis gives us insight into evil in its different shapes and forms.

Uncle Andrew is selfish and conceited, but also foolish and silly: “Oh, I see. You mean that little boys ought to keep their promises. Very true; most right and proper, I’m sure, and I’m very glad you have been taught to do it. But of course you must understand that rules of that sort, however excellent they may be for little boys - and servants - and women - and even people in general, can’t possibly be expected to apply to profound students and great thinkers and sages. No, Digory,. Men like me, who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures. Ours, my boy, is a high and lonely destiny.” He is unable to hear Aslan at the creation because of his unbelief and so he only hears roaring. And throughout he is unable to relate to Aslan or any of the talking animals. He only sees animals, not talking animals. He reduces reality to empirical truth. His naturalism makes him, ironically, not wiser but blind to reality, "the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed." Aslan laments such human foolishness,“Oh Adam’s sons, how cleverly you defend yourselves against all that might do you good.”

Queen Jadis (the white witch) is, on the other hand, a depiction of real wickedness. She is very attractive and very strong. She demonstrates the unity of aesthetics and cruelty and reminds us of how attractive and seductive evil can be. She demonstrates a character that has lost all conscience and that has become absorbed in itself. Jadis is essentiallly pure power gone evil - she sees herself as living beyond the moral law. She kills all who stand in her way, using the "deplorable word" in her home of Charn, even killing her own family. When Polly objects to her killing everyone “Don’t you understand?.... I was the Queen. They were all my people. What else were they there for but to do my will?” (p.42). People exist essentially for her. She is beyond all moral accountability, “You must learn, child, that what would be wrong for you or for any of the common people is not wrong in a great Queen such as I.” Charn had been a great and powerful city and yet had become incrediby twisted. Its civilization/culture/power were incredibly developed and yet had also become horribly wicked and violent. One can't help seeing a picture of Western culture here with our own version of the deplorable word (nuclear weapons).

Yet, powerful and frightening as she is she is also self-deluded. She fails to see that her own power is sovereignly limited. 1. It is limited in other worlds, not working on Earth (when she tries kill someone with a spell nothing happens and the intended victim thinks she’s mad or drunk) 2. She does not understand the deeper magic 3. She is no match for Aslan. When in Narnia she encounters something frightening for her, “Ever since the song began she had felt that this whole world was filled with a Magic different from hers and stringer. She hated it. She would have smashed that whole world, or worlds, to pieces, if it would only stop singing.” She tries to kill Aslan by throwing a metal bar at Him “The bar struck the Lion fair between the eyes. It glanced off and fell with a thud in the grass. The Lion came on. Its walk was neither slower nor faster than before; you could not tell whether it even knew it had been hit. Though its soft pads made no noise, you could feel the earth shake beneath their weight.... The Witch shrieked and ran...” Up until that point in the story the Witch was the most powerful and intimidating figure but then Aslan comes and she seems very small. What a wonderful reminder: Christ has absolute power over all evil. The iron bar becomes the lamp-post and becomes the source of light to Narnina!! The Witch’s evil deed turns against her. Evil is absorbed and transformed by the power of Aslan/Chrsit.

The Subversive Christ

A meditation on Col 1:15-20 by Brian Walsh

"In an image-saturated world
a world of ubiquitous corporate logos
permeating your consciousness
a world of dehydrated and captive imaginations
in which we are too numbed, satiated and co-opted
to be able to dream of life otherwise
a world in which the empire of global economic affluence
has achieved the monopoly of our imaginations
in this world
Christ is the image of the invisible God
in this world
driven by images with a vengeance
Christ is the image par excellence
the image above all other images
the image that is not a facade
the image that is not trying to sell you anything
the image that refuses to co-opt you
Christ is the image of the invisible God
the image of God
a flesh and blood
here and now
in time and history
with joys and sorrows
image of who we are called to be
image-bearers of this God
He is the source of a liberated imagination
a sub-version of the empire
because it all starts with him
and it all ends with him
everything
all things
whatever you can imagine
visible and invisible
mountains and atoms
outer space, urban space, and cyberspace
whether it be the Pentagon, Disneyland,
Microsoft, or AT&T
whether it be the institutionalized power structures
of the state, the academy or the market
all things have been created in him and through him
he is their source, their purpose, their goal
even in their rebellion
even in their idolatry
he is the sovereign one
their power and authority is derived at best
parasitic at worse
In the face of the empire
in the face of presumptuous claims to sovereignty
in the face of the imperial and idolatrous forces in our lives
Christ is before all things
he is sovereign in life
not the pimped dreams of the global market
not the idolatrous forces of nationalism
not the insatiable desires of a consumerist culture
In the face of a disconnected world
where home is a domain in cyberspace
where neighborhood is a chat room
where public space is a shopping mall
where information technology promises
a tuned in, reconnected world
all things hold together in Christ
the creation is a deeply personal cosmos
all cohering and interconnected in Jesus
And this sovereignty takes on cultural flesh
And this coherence of all things is socially embodied
in the church
against all odds
against most of the evidence
In a "show me" culture where words alone don't cut it
the church is
the flesh and blood
here and now
in time and history
with joys and sorrows
embodiment of this Christ
as a body politic
around a common meal
in alternative economic practices
in radical service to the most vulnerable
in refusal to the empire
in love of this creation
the church reimagines the world
in the image of the invisible God
In the face of a disappointed world of betrayal
a world in which all fixed points have proven illusory
a world in which we are anchorless and adrift
Christ is the foundation
the origin
the way
the truth
and the life
In the face of a culture of death
a world of killing fields
a world of the walking dead
Christ is at the head of the resurrection parade
transforming our tears of betrayal into tears of joy
giving us dancing shoes for the resurrection party
And this glittering joker
who has danced in the dragon's jaws of death
now dances with a dance that is full
of nothing less than the fullness of God
this is the dance of the new creation
this is the dance of life out of death
and in this dance all that was broken
all that was estranged
all that was alienated
all that was dislocated and disconnected
is reconciled
comes home
is healed
and is made whole
everything
all things
whatever you can imagine
visible and invisible
mountains and atoms
outer space, urban space, and cyberspace
every inch of creation
every dimension of our lives
all things are reconciled in him
And it all happens on a cross
it all happens at a state execution
where the governor did not commute the sentence
it all happens at the hands of the empire
that has captivated our imaginations
it all happens through blood
not through a power grab by the sovereign one
it all happens in embraced pain
for the sake of others
it all happens on a cross
arms outstretched in embrace
and this is the image of the invisible God
this is the body of Christ."

Is it OK for middle class Christians to employ cleaners?!!!

I had a chat with a friend about this today and thought I'd be put down some thoughts. Here are the main issues:

Against:

Humility - it is good for me to clean my own toilet as it grounds me and reminds me of who I really I am. I am just an ordinary man no more special than anyone else. The danger is that I outsource something that actually does my pride a lot of good. It can easily reinforce social pride and self-importance in me. I think one of the most important things I do as a pastor is to clean the toilets of the church I work in. It gives me an (often undesired) object lesson in servanthood and 'washing feet'.

Time - on the one hand it gives me more time for other more important things and priorities, but, on the other, perhaps I am trying to do too many things. If I am too busy to clean up after myself then perhaps I am too busy?

For:

Justice - employing a cleaner may be exploitative and perpetuate someone's low-wages (and implicitly reinforce ethnic divisions as most cleaners have a non-British ethnic origin). This, however, is easily remedied by giving someone a decent, just wage which they can live off and will, of course, give someone employment. That's got to be a great thing and a good opportunity for a Christian.

Money - one might object to it on the issue of money - couldn't money be better used elsewhere? But, in addition to point 3 above, that is the case with anything I do. We spend our money on lots of different things and it is the overall use of money and my total budget that is the issue, not one thing that someone determines to be 'inappropriate'.

Bethlehem

When you read in Matthew 2 of how Herod tries to kill Jesus, you are reminded that the Christmas story is really a shocking story of violence and massacre. It's not full of people rocking around the Christmas tree, but of mothers wailing and crying for their children. It is a story of man's opposition to God and His promises, prefiguring the violence of the cross. We see the real world of evil, love of power and oppression. That's repeated all over the world this Christmas, and, ironically, we also see it in the very birth place of Jesus this Christmas - in Bethlehem. Bethlehem is now an open prison, encircled by a huge military Berlin wall (picture above). The economy of the people has been destroyed and their freedom of movement very heavily curtailed. Draped over the entrance to the town, on the separation barrier, hangs a huge banner put up by the Israeli tourist board for foreign tourists. It says "Shalom" (Peace). The irony of this banner hanging on a fortified wall, surrounded by guns and soldiers, seems to be lost on the Israeli tourist board. The people of Bethlehem are certainly not experiencing shalom this Christmas. You cannot have shalom until you have justice so let's pray for justice in the Occupied Territories this Christmas. For more on the separation barrier see here.

The Myth of Redemptive Violence

Check out this fascinating article by Walter Wink on the violent myths underlying our culture and the way we think.

Postmodernity and persecution

Assumption: the age we live in is enamoured with the idea of tolerance and acceptance of every belief, except, of course, any belief which is held absolutely. This will increasingly lead to the persecution of absolutist faith beliefs.

Implication: in the future, voluntary and humble suffering of persecuted Christians, ironically persecuted by a 'tolerant' postmodern culture, may be the one way we will eventually convince our culture that we know the true way of Peace. When people see their own inconsistency, highlighted by our non-retaliatory, willing absorption of any suffering we are given, our culture may well start to believe in the cross.

Conclusion: our standing firm in the gospel and absorbing any suffering that thereby comes to us, may well be the means by which the gospel re-connects with our culture.

Where does crime come from?

I've just been reading Charles Colson's book "Restorative Justice", which is a thoughtful book on the penal system and origins/solutions to crime. Interestingly, he critiques both right and left for failing to properly deal with crime. The Right have seen harsh sentencing/incarceration as a solution to crime. But Colson argues that this approach views crime as a rational choice based on estimates of future happiness/displeasure (i.e. threat of imprisonment deters crime). He argues that this is basically utilitarianism and that it's shown to be inadequate by the re-incarceration rates (70-80%). It fails to understand the real issue of personal sin and evil that lies behind crime. The Left, on the other hand, externalize the causes of crime into social ills - poverty, racism, mental imbalance. They thus rob the individual of moral responsibility and view crime as a sickness. Incarceration here is for the purpose of rehabilitation. He quotes CS Lewis's famous essay on how this ultimately leads to tyranny. The similarity, however, between Right and Left in their view of crime is that we have to build more prisons! To what extent this is true now, I am unsure, but it has been the case historically.

I think Colson's critique is good and interesting, but it also left me dissatisfied. For, even the notion of sin is not really a sufficient explanation of crime. It explains evil in general, but not crime in the particular. The burning question is: why do some people sin in these ways? What leads some people to kill and others not to? Given that we're all sinners, why does our sin look different? It seems to me that a whole number of explanations have to be used in this scenario, but social evil is probably the most significant. The less educated, the poor, ethnic minorities are all over-represented in prisons. This must be connected to certain social factors. While I think that externalizing the cause of crime is wrong, social/psychological factors are undoubtedly an important context for the origins of certain kinds of crime. External, social factors do not make me a sinner, but they may serve to exacerbate my sin in certain directions.

Some of the problem with Colson's reasoning, in my opinion, has to do with the common understandings of sin as only a personal, individual thing - and not also a social thing. But surely, theologically, we can say 3 things simultaneously: 1. I am sinner responsible for myself 2. I am sinned against as a victim 3. I participate in a whole number of social sins (e.g. environmental destruction) that cannot be easily reduced to my individual decisions. The person that I am is wrapped up with all these different levels of sin. So, any analysis will need to maintain all of them at the same time or it will fail to deal with Biblical, psychological and social realities. Thus, any explanation of crime must take seriously every one of these levels of sin and not simply reduce crime to an issue of personal evil and corruption. It would be interesting, for example, to look at how the OT ideas of corporate responsibility for an individual's sin was reflected in the way the community dealt with. Justice should, therefore, take into account the whole context of someone's life and not reduce it to one thing.

300

I happened to watch the film 300 this week with a friend. The film is adapted from a graphic novel, based on the ancient Battle of Thermopylae between the Spartans and the Persians, and is shot with that kind of aesthetic. But I have to say that it wasn't the most edifying film I have wacthed - it had plenty of violence and a couple of erotic scenes. The fast forward had to be used a number of times. Neither was the film interesting - the characters are one dimensional and the plot predictably bland. I kind of regret watching it now.

However, my real problem with the film were its ethical undertones, which were far more disturbing than the violence and occasional sex. What do I mean? Well, it doesn't require a great flight of imagination to read this film against the background of contemporary world politics - the courageous West against the wicked East. The Persian baddies (Iraqis and Iranians?) are vicious, enslaved and under the boot of a self-exalting tyrant. The Spartan goodies (the West) are under the leadership of their strong, courageous king and constantly speak of freedom. The small group of Spartans, militarily far superior to the Persians but completely outnumbered, gladly give their lives in defence of their country. There is, therefore, a strongly jingoistic flavour to the film. Further, the Spartans are harldy attractive heroes or models. Their culture is violent, proud, patriarchal, militaristic and fascist. They evince the worst kind of masculinity. And it is a reminder that courage for a bad cause is not really courage. To be honest, I thought the best ending would have been if everyone had just wiped each other out and we could start all over again....

Were the politics intended? The producer says no, but can't producers at least take responsibility for the ethical implications of their work? It would not be hard for film watchers to draw implicit ethical lessons from this film. You can't just present things as heroic in a film context and not take responsibility for its effect on people.

Doing justice

Gary Haugen, the boss of International Justice Mission, comes with a big challenge to us on the issue of engaging with injstice in the world. This is taken from his book "Good News about Injustice".

“Many who lack faith will shrink away from the distant, dark world of injustice. Still others will water down the Word and imagine that they can love God without loving their brother or wanting to ‘justify’ themselves, they will invent elaborate quibbles with Jesus about who is and is not their neighbour.... To these the Lord says: “When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. ....Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. (Isaiah 1:15-17)”. (p.35)

This is a great challenge to those of us in church leadership. To what extent do we see a concern about justice as a normal part of ministry? To what extent is it part and parcel of doing the whole gospel and church thing together?! We cannot choose whether to love people or not, we cannot choose whether or not to be just. As Christians, it just isn't something we can opt out of. As churches it can't be optional extra. How can we speak of the just Judge who calls all to account and not demonstrate that in our own living?

Why was the early church so successful?

Helmut Koester (of Harvard Divinity School) says this...

"Now we have increasingly in the Christian churches, in the time up to Constantine, the establishment of hospitals, of some kind of health service, we have a clear establishment of social service - everything from soup kitchens to money for the poor if they need it. We have the very important establishment of the institution of widows, because a widow in the Roman society who had lost her husband and did not have money of her own was at the very bottom of the social ladder. One of the first welfare institutions we find in the church was all the widows who were recognized as virgins of the church, considered particularly precious possessions of the church; they were paid by the church and therefore were rescued from utter poverty in most instances.

Christianity really established a realm of mutual social support for the members that joined the church. And I think that this was probably in the long run an enormously important factor for the success of the Christian mission. And it was for that very reason that Constantine saw that the only thing that would rescue the empire is to take over the institutions that the Christians had already built up, [including], by that time, institutions of education in reading and writing, because Christians wanted to have their members knowledgeable and capable of reading the Bible.... We find that in administration of the last pagan emperors, before Constantine, at the very end of the third century, a large number of the people in the imperial administration are Christians, because they could read and write. Which constituted a big problem with the persecution of the Christians because they were thrown out of their office first when the persecution began, and suddenly the government didn't work anymore.

One should not see the success of Christianity simply on the level of a great religious message; one has to see it also in the consistent and very well thought out establishment of institutions to serve the needs of the community."

Repetition

I was reading through my spiritual journal this morning and it struck me how so much of the Christian life is really about repetition. It's about going back over the old thing again and again, learning the Scriptures again and again, hearing again and again. We need, undoubtedly, innovation and newness, but the mainstay of our spiritual lives (and actually the whole of life) is repeated action and acknowledgement of truths. This is partly because of sin. We are constantly leaking spiritually, constantly wandering off and our hearts are always hardening. So, we need to repeatedly apply the gospel and the means of grace to ourselves. The persistence of sin needs repeated grace. But repetition is also an integral part of holiness. You can't be godly without repeated action - what is faithfulness or love but repetition of good actions and intentions? Character is essentially what we repeatedly do. Perseverance is simply the repetition of godliness in adverse circumstances. My repeated actions and words tell me who I am. Of course, then, the big challenge is what this means for contemporary culture, which hates repetition. Boring, humdrum repetition is the one thing we loathe - it is the opposite of self-realization (which is always found in something new). The concept of discipline is a difficult one in our culture. Yet how can any serious goal ever be reached without repeated, disciplined action? So, let's guard against a dislike for the familiar, repeated patterns of spiritual disciplines, church and persevering love. Let's learn to repeat ourselves.

Meaning and History

Some thoughts based upon Leslie Newbigin's book "The Open Secret"......

Given the reality of death, a big problem for us is to know how to keep together the meaningfulness of both our own personal histories (i.e. me) and big public, world history (i.e. humankind). How can both matter and have meaning at the same time? For example, you can choose to abandon public history and just care about myself. In religious terms, this means that my hope is for individual life after death in another spiritual reality or world. Many religious ideas cater for this and focus on this. Of course, this means that public history is meaningless. What happens in this world is not really significant as it's all 'going to hell'. Society, institutions, politics, world events, the body - none of these things really matter. On the other hand, I can abandon personal, individual meaning and history in favour of Progress. What matters is humankind, poverty, society and the world. The problem with this is, firstly, that I am cut out of the imagined future by my own death. I won’t enjoy it! Secondly, though, the danger is that individuals disappear in the grand scheme of things. The personal and individual no longer matters. It has no value - only ‘mankind’ counts. This is basically where you find Marxism, for example.

Now, the wonderful thing about the gospel is that it holds both the personal and the public together. The gospel of resurrection deals with both. It gives us the hope of a new body/life but also the hope of a renewed world. My personal history and longings matter. But public history also matters. God is working to transform both. Death is not the end of either of them. They are kept together by Jesus. The resurrection, then, lays the foundation for the meaning of the world.

Mercy Ministry

"....it is not simply this part or that part of our theology that compels us to show mercy; it is everything in the whole Reformed system of doctrine. To reiterate: it is not just part of our theology that calls us to mercy ministry; it is everything in our entire theology. We must never forget that every doctrine that is taught in every part of Scripture from creation to the final judgment compels us to show the mercy of God to lost sinners, in the gospel of His Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit."

(Philip Ryken of Tenth Presbyterian Church)

The Parable of Sheep and Goats

What an amazing parable this is! I've been thinking about this for the last week or so and have been very struck by its profundity. Just a couple of remarks on its message...

1. Though it has a strong bent towards provision for the family of believers ("the least of these my brothers), I think its scope of application can hardly be limited to that (e.g. the "stranger" mentioned, Parable of the Good Samaritan, Gal 6:10). Even if we were to limit its scope just to believers we have absolutely more than enough poor Christians in the world to keep us busy for several centuries.

2. Care of the poor means tangible provision and support for practical and obvious need. This covers a wide range of things - food, relationship, acceptance.

3. Care for the poor is a necessary sign of personal and corporate regeneration. If we do not demonstrate care for the poor it calls into question whether or not we know Jesus. The whole point is that the goats don't recognize Jesus, they don't seem Him. They have a false Jesus in view and so are 'surprised' by the judgement. So, when you neglect the poor you neglect Jesus. To do nothing for them is actually to do nothing for Jesus. The real sin at work here is, then, not so much the sin against the poor, as the sin against Jesus. That is the deepest reason for why I am judged. As 1 Jn4:8 says - the man who does not love his brother, does not know God.

Working among the marginalized

Here are some more great titbits from the book Total Church (Timmis and Chester) on work amongst the poor and marginalized.

"He [Jesus] has come to call sinners and welcome them home. God is the God who eats with is enemies.' (p.69)

"Indeed part of our evangelism to the rich is our evangelism to the needy. We subvert their preoccupation with power and success as they see us loving the unlovely." (p.71)

"Many of the divisions within evangelicalism are as much about social class as theological differences." (p.74)

"So in any Christian ministry, including ministry among the poor, proclaiming and teaching the word of God must be central. And that is because the greatest need of the poor, as for us all, is to be reconciled to God and so escape his wrath." (p.75)

What is poverty?

"In part it is about having no money, but there is more to poverty than that. It is about being isolated, unsupported, uneducated and unwanted. Poor people want to be included and not just judged and 'rescued' at times of crisis..... [it is about] lack of resources, physical weakness, isolation, powerlessness and vulnerability....It is to be lacking social connections and community. The poor are, by definition, those who are powerless and marginal...... Our first instinct when faced with someone in need is to give something to them or do something for them. 'Rescuing' the poor, as Mrs Jones puts it, can be appropriate in times of crisis or important as a first step. But if it never moves beyond this, it reinforces the dependency and helplessness at the heart of poverty. The poor remain passive. It does not produce lasting or sustainable change. This is why a central theme of the literature on development is the importance of participation." (p.77)

"When we look at the church throughout the world, God is choosing the weak and lowly to shame the power and wealth of the West. It seems that God's response to the imperialism of global capitalism is to raise up a mighty church in the very places this new empire marginalizes and exploits." (p.81)

"They [the poor] do not want to participate in projects. They want to participate in community. A woman told me: "I know people do a lot to help me. But what I want is for someone to be my friend." People do not want to be projects. The poor need a welcome to replace their marginalization; they need inclusion to replace their exclusion; to replace their powerlessness they need a place where they matter. They need community. They need the Christian community. They need the church." (p.78)

Holiness and culture

Here are some great questions developed by Mark Driscoll to tease out the way we engage with culture and, particularly, lifestyle choices and decisions. These help me work out what it means to love Christ as I engage and participate in our culture and daily activities.

1. Is it beneficial to me and the gospel (1 Cor 6:12)?

2. Will I lose self-control and be mastered by what I participate in? ( 1 Cor 6:12)?

3. Will be doing this in presence of someone who I know will fall into sin as a result (1 Cor 8:9-10)?

4. Is it a violation of laws of my city, state or nation (Rom 13;1-7)?

5. If I fail to do this, will I lose an opportunity to share the gospel (1 Cor 10:27-30)?

6. Can I do this with a clear conscience? (Acts 24:16)

7. Will this cause me to sin by feeding sinful desires (Rom 13:13-14)?

8. Am I convinced that this is what God desires me to do (Rom 13:5)?

9. Does my participation proceed from my faith in Jesus (Rom 14:23)?

10. Am I doing this to help other people, or am I just being selfish (1 Cor 10:24)?

11. Can I do this in a way that glorifies God (1 Cor 10:31-33)?

12. Am I following the example of Jesus to help save sinners (1 Cor 10:33-11:1)?

Road Rage

This week, my wife, after having nearly been knocked off her bike by one driver, was subjected to a whole string of totally unjustified expletives, honking and the 'finger' by a second (female) driver. Women tend to be a lot less aggressive so it was a bit surprising. But this woman had clearly 'lost it' over nothing. Perhaps the driver was having a bad day... who knows? Apparently, the UK has one of the worst road rages in the world. We certainly have anger management problems. I've always suspected that underneath the traditional politeness there is a lot of violence and anger wanting to get out. We English are a repressed bunch, I think.

The roads are a mirror to the soul and it's where our raw selfishness and narcissism come out most clearly. Thousands of egos are competing with each other for limited space. Thinking about road rage biblically, it seems to me that it reflects a desire to want to be (a rather nasty version of) God. It's like I feel I am in charge of the roads and everyone has to do what I bid them to do. No-one should cross me and if they do I will vent my wrath on them. I need to control everyone else around me and if they don't do as I desire then I will crush them. Road rage increases to the extent that I demand that everything and everyone be ordered around me and my needs.

How do you defuse it? By recognizing that I am not God, I am not in charge, I cannot control the world and that people will always do things that cross me.

Work

A good sermon on work on Sunday got me re-thinking and remembering the significance of work in God's plan for the world. Again, I was reminded that ministry is not something one does in the workplace or alongside work, but work is ministry. How transforming this is! My work, as work, is also God's work if I do it remembering HIm and depending upon Him. Work, as work, is worship.

A life centred on Christ expresses itself in many different ways. I pray, read the Bible, spend time with my family, serve my local neighbourhood, fellowship with believers and work. All these are valid and good ways of serving God and all of these honour Christ. Christ is in all of these things and all of them are necessary, and they all have different functions. This saves me from thinking the following: "Christ is in my quiet time or at church, but when I go to work... well, this is stuff I have to do to pay the bills but it doesn't really have anything to do with Jesus. The best I can do is to tell my colleagues about Jesus... and perhaps earn some money to give away to church." I haven't wasted my day working, nor I have done something 'secular' - rather I have worshiped Christ by doing my job well and under His Lordship. I have been in God's ministry while I have been at work, I have fulfilled God's purpose for me as a steward of His world, I have (hopefully!) served my fellow man and done good. How liberating this is!

Engaging in politics

I was involved in a panel discussion after church on Sunday on politics. It was great to learn from others and to be forced to think more deeply about this. Here are a few principles I came away with.

1. All life is politics - from the details to the official world of Politics. Everything we do in life is political and involves the distribution of power and the administration of the social good. There are no purely individual actions in that everything we do has an impact upon others. We need to see all actions as political. The key issue is to be conscious of what we are doing and as involved as we can be.

2. This general observation is also confirmed by the way the Bible speaks on politics. There was no distinction in the ancient world between 'politics and religion'. And if you look closely, loads of the NT's vocabulary is deeply political. That is, Jesus has a kingdom that is re-ordering the world according to His purposes and challenging the present powers that be. It's not that Christians care about 'spiritual things' and not politics, but that they construe politics in a different way. They have a different identity. Imagine a political journalist in conversation with the Christian community in Acts 2.

"What are you - socialist?"
"No".
"Are you, then, an anarchist commune?"
"No."
"Well, are you basically rich benefactors giving to the poor?"
"No."
"Well, what are you then?"
"We're Christians."

It just doesn't fit any label.

3. The gospel subverts every party political label. We can not be beholden to one manifesto or agenda. Of course, those involved in the official world of Politics must choose who to be involved in and where to locate themselves. And we must also vote for someone (or at least choose not to vote). Yet we should also frequently find that, if we are being faithful to Christ, we will not unoften find ourselves alienated from the party we 'support' (we are aliens and strangers in this world).

4. There are 2 errors - to have too much faith in our ability to order the world or to withdraw from involvement. Our problem in the UK is most likely the second one. So, we must leanr how to be more involved in our world, to do good and to serve.

Getting back to the mundane

I can't help feeling that we live in a culture that hates routine and the mundane. It's a culture where the worst thing is to 'waste' your life doing ordinary things, living an ordinary kind of life. We feel that we have to transcend the everyday with newer, bigger, more exciting experiences. In a sense, it's a kind of religion where we lift ourselves out of our little worlds by doing new things, breaking routine and opening our horizons. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that, in one sense, and yet its intensity and centrality in our lives has got to be problematic. Obviously, it engenders a high level of self-preoccupation, and it also has danger of being transferred into my spiritual life, but one other thing has struck me about this; it simply fails to realize the value of the mundane.

The mundane, humdrum and everyday is not worthless but is rather filled with value.

FIrstly, it is filled by God's presence. Every detail and boring bit of my life is given by God and filled by God.

Secondly, holiness can only be realized in and through the mundane. It is only in the context of ordinary everyday relating that I can learn to love, forgive and help. Dramatic moments have a particular role, but there is much about me that can only be changed by regular, everyday obedience. Discipline, for example, can only be learnt in mundane, everyday life.

Thirdly, the mundane is about living in the present. If I am over-preoccupied with some future goal or experience the danger is that I simply fail to live now, today. I don't do what needs to be done now.

Fourthly, escaping into new, bigger, more challenging experiences is often something that only wealthy people can do as it requires money, opportunities and freedom to do it. It is, in a sense, the religion of the liberal elites, and so it easily leads (ironically) to a very blinkered view of the world where the suffering, poverty and problems of many are 'glided over'. Surely, I would find more self-realization by engaging myself in the everyday suffering/problems of people around me?