Category Archives: Church

Kinesthetic and Visual

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I just took the VARK questionnaire about learning styles suggested by Tim Bulkeley. My score came out as

  • Visual: 5
  • Aural: 0
  • Read/Write: 2
  • Kinesthetic: 9

This is not one of those questionnaires which gives you a nice bit of HTML to paste your results into your website or blog, which tends to reassure me that, unlike the source of the last set of such results I posted, this is actually a reasonably reliable site.

So, like Tim, I am basically a “kinesthetic” learner (actually the British, and New Zealand, spelling should be “kinaesthetic”), with a second strength of “visual”. We are

the ones who fiddle with their pens while others are talking, and who walk about or wave their hands a lot…

… (Kinesthetic learners do not like sitting still being talked to, or even with 😉

Note the zero score for “aural”. No wonder I find it hard to learn from sermons without visual content. I always find myself distracted from the sermon if there is anything to see or do. This is why I never download podcasts, even ones only five minutes long, sorry Tim.

Unlike Tim, I have experience tertiary education, of a kind, oriented in part to my kinesthetic learning style. I learned Hebrew from the late John Dobson using in part a total physical response method. I remember learning the Hebrew for “stand up”, “sit down” and “turn around” by actually doing these actions at the teacher’s request, and this part has stuck in my memory far better than most of the course. Perhaps if preachers did a bit more of this I might not forget what they said before I get home.

On the other hand, I hate choruses with actions (perhaps because the actions distract me too much), and I don’t like breaking up into small discussion groups (a different aural strategy). If you are not going to give me something relevant to do, just let me fiddle with my pen or wander round the room.

Convert or Die?

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I have put off responding to Doug Chaplin’s challenge, passed on from John Hobbins, to name my top ten Bible verses. Maybe I will do this sometime, but don’t hold your breath. I always find it difficult to name my favourite anything, and with Bible verses it is harder than ever.

Doug nominated me for this Bible verse challenge as “someone who seems to think entirely differently from me on so many things”. Well, yes, we have big differences on a few issues, such as reservation and adoration of the eucharistic elements. But in fact as brothers in Christ we think very similarly on far more issues – although I don’t so often comment on them on Doug’s blog.

For example, take Doug’s response to the new “Convert or Die” meme, in which he explains why he did not become a Roman Catholic. Although I have never come close to going over to Rome as he did, I could echo all of his reasons for not doing so, although I might also add a point about the Eucharist.

Having refused (for now) to take up the meme which Doug did tag me with, I will now take up the “Convert or Die” meme with which he didn’t tag me, or in fact anyone. If this is breaking the unwritten rules for memes, I don’t care! The meme originates with Nick Norelli, who has made a good choice of WordPress template (!). The question is:

If your life depended on it and you absolutely had to change your denomination/religion, what denomination/religion would you convert to?

Well, how do I answer that one? Continue reading →

A Mighty Deliverer of Mail?

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As my blogging moratorium for Burma has just ended, by British time, I will now post this snippet which I found in “The Month”, the newspaper of the Church of England Diocese of Chelmsford, October 2007, p.5:

‘DYNAMIC equivalence’ is a wonderful thing. It’s when Bible translators use a term which conveys the significance of a word rather than its literal meaning. For example, ‘blood’ may be rendered ‘life’. But it doesn’t always work. When children at the Cathedral School were invited to write their own psalm, in place of ‘Mighty Deliverer’ they unanimously proposed ‘Postman’.

Well, at least our heavenly Mighty Deliverer doesn’t go on strike!

Also this one on the same page:

ASSISTANT Organist at Llandaff Cathedral, David Geoffrey-Thomas, tells me their organ has been struck by lightning and all the electronics fused on ‘loud’. How frustrating to have been the organist when what they really needed was a conductor.

I will point this one out to the PA operators in our church who like to turn the music up really loud. They might find this a useful excuse when people complain about the volume.

Forgotten Ways

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This is not actually a follow-up to my post Forgotten fruit, more to Why does a believer believe?

I thank David Couchman, via a comment at Kouya Chronicle, for introducing me to Alan Hirsch’s blog The Forgotten Ways. I have yet to look into what Hirsch is teaching in any detail. But the interesting extract from his book here is enough to show that he is putting forward a model of missional Christian practice which looks very different from traditional church life, a model which is designed not for maintenance but for rapid growth. The extract is well worth reading, if you are prepared for your church to be turned upside down!

I was struck by this from one of the most recent blog posts, belief in belief:

I have been hanging around Evangelical circles for most of my Christian life. but truth to tell, I was brought to the Lord by some real crazy, chandelier-swinging, Pentecostals. I had a really profound, life-defining experience, through their amazing ministry. They didn’t seem to know much about the faith, but they knew the Holy Spirit. But the interesting thing is that I have come to conclude is that they were real God believers. The comparison with my Evangelical brethren is that I think they can be described as beliving in belief in God. A whole set of ideas, dogma, and doctrine provides an screen of objectivity between the believer and God. Perhaps this is a way of mediating the ‘danger’ of the God experience. But while theological understanding is gained, immediacy is lost through the objectification of God and the God experience. the loss is great. … I have come to conclude that real Penties believe in God, while good, solid, Evangelicals believe in belief in/about God.

Indeed. I hope this is not true of all Evangelicals, but it does seem rather true of some. But on this comparison I think I can honestly put myself as not a good solid Evangelical but a crazy chandelier-swinging Pentecostal. Indeed, I can’t see how anyone can become a believer in belief. But, as I have described, I can see that as someone truly meets and experiences God they can come to believe in him.

Does Canadian Anglicanism have more to do with Anabaptism?

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Maybe quite a few of you my readers, especially those who are not Anglicans, did not read through my rather long essay on the Church of England, despite my attempt to give it a catchy title. Perhaps rather more of you are interested in my various posts on Anabaptism. For your benefit, here is a summary of one of main points of my essay:

According to Rev John Richardson, who takes this idea Bishop Stephen Neill, there is no distinctively Anglican theology, and the only thing which distinguishes Anglican churches from others is their claim to be the catholic or universal church in certain countries, mostly those of the former British Empire. This claim can be traced back to Henry VIII’s presumption in setting himself up as the head of the Church of England. This is thus the very epitome of Christendom, the church being identified with the state. So I wondered how Tim Chesterton could claim that Anabaptism, which stresses the separation of church and state, could have anything to do with Anglicanism, especially in this area.

Tim responded in a comment that his idea of Anglicanism, from a Canadian perspective but also informed by his recent time in England, is fundamentally different from John’s very English viewpoint. For him, the Anglican church in Canada, and indeed anywhere apart from England, is a place for people who are “looking for something more sacramental without the hardline dogmatism of Rome, or something a bit less conservative than the evangelical churches.” So perhaps it is only in England where people are trying to be more reformed than Calvin or more catholic than the Pope while still calling themselves Anglican. This viewpoint is interesting, although I’m not sure it takes into account the position of the Global South group. But it is helpful for understanding the difficulties facing the Anglican Communion.

Meanwhile I am still waiting for the ninth part of Tim’s series ‘What does Anabaptism have to do with Anglicanism?’, in which he has promised in advance to outline “the church as a distinct community from the world” as an area of convergence between Anabaptism and Anglicanism. Perhaps the delay is because he is rethinking his position because of my comments – or perhaps just because he has been taking a weekend break.

The Ugley Vicar on the Church of England

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I have known for a while of Rev John Richardson and his blog The Ugley Vicar. Indeed I have been to a Chelmsford Anglican Mainstream event which he introduced. But I have only interacted with him personally since Wednesday, when the Chelmsford ordination kerfuffle came to my notice. “Ugley” is not a mis-spelled description of him, however ugly some of his ideas might be to some people such as his bishop, but the name of the small village about 20 miles from here where he is the non-stipendiary (i.e. unpaid) vicar.

John has graciously responded to my post here and to my comments on the Chelmsford Anglican Mainstream blog which he also runs. I have also commented about him here. Now he has posted, at The Ugley Vicar, a long essay, originally written in 1997, outlining his understanding of the Church of England. Here is my response to that essay in the context of the current controversy; it is also partially in response to Tim Chesterton’s series ‘What does Anabaptism have to do with Anglicanism?’, which I started to discuss before. Note that I am writing here as a lifelong Anglican, not as an outside critic.

Continue reading →

I want it all too!

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I am right with Adrian Warnock in saying I don’t want balance, I want it all! – although I might have chosen some different role models at the end.

But I also agree with Dave Warnock, no relation, that this all should be for everyone, “Not just white middle class men” like Adrian, Dave and me. So he criticises Adrian for implicitly restricting this by gender and sexuality. On the same basis I agree with Henry Neufeld on this. To be fair to Adrian, I don’t think he disagrees, for he wasn’t writing about leadership, but about matters in which we can all agree that men and women can play an equal part. Of course the entirely predictable responses to Dave’s comments on Adrian’s blog only served to stir up this side issue and detract from Adrian’s real vision, and Adrian doesn’t help by the patronising tone of his comments like

The ladies in our church I speak to feel fulfilled and are serving God in ways consistent with however they are called by God. They can minister, they can lead, they can speak to the church.

– but of course we know that they cannot preach or be elders, and there is no sign of them speaking for themselves on such matters.

But this is not Adrian’s main point. His point is that there is so much that the church is missing out on, because either congregations are going to one extreme at the expense of the others, or they are seeking some kind of balance which pleases nobody. Just as Jesus was not half man and half God, but fully man and fully God, so we should not be half charismatic and half doctrinally sound, or half evangelistic and half socially concerned, or any other half and half balance, but we should seek to be fully all of these things.

A commenter on Adrian’s blog mentioned Smith Wigglesworth’s 1947 prophecy, recently republished by Adrian. Here is part of it:

When the new church phase is on the wane, there will be evidenced in the churches something that has not been seen before: a coming together of those with an emphasis on the Word and those with an emphasis on the Spirit. When the Word and the Spirit come together, there will be the biggest movement of the Holy Spirit that the nation, and indeed, the world, has ever seen.

Whatever we may think of this as an actual predictive prophecy, surely we should take it as wise words for the church today. Those with an emphasis on the Word and those with an emphasis on the Spirit need to come together, to seek together the moving of the Holy Spirit that can bring revival to our nation and to the world. When we stop our public bickering and work together, we can expect to see something truly great happening.

The church: the nation at prayer or a gathering of disciples?

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At the start of a series (five posts so far, 2 3 4 5) at An Anabaptist Anglican, Tim Chesterton considers the questions “What does Anabaptism have to do with Anglicanism?”, “Anabaptist Anglican? How is that possible?” and “How are you still an Anglican?”, and starts to answer the questions. The series is intended to sum up what he has learned during his sabbatical here in England and will shortly take back to the Anglican church he leads in Canada.

This series looks like being important reading, not just for Anglicans and Anabaptists, but for all who are interested in questions like the title I have given to this post (not taken from Tim). For the Anabaptists were the first Christians in modern times to question the assumptions of more than a millennium of Christendom which almost identified the church and the state. The new directions into which they launched out have become many of the major controversies in the church for the last few centuries: Christ-centred Bible interpretation; emphases on evangelism and personal discipleship; rejection of a special class of clergy; believers’ baptism and a believers’ church; separation of the church and state; non-violence and pacifism. It seems to me that these controversies cannot be understood properly without a familiarity with the Anabaptist tradition.

I will refrain from further comment until the series has gone further. But I am personally interested in seeing how, if at all, Tim can justify remaining an Anglican while embracing, as I do, so much Anabaptist thinking.

Fullness of redemption is found in Jesus Christ

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Iyov takes to task the Catholic priest and blogger Richard John Neuhaus for writing

Of course some Jews may be offended at the suggestion that the fullness of redemption is found in Jesus Christ, but their problem is with Christianity as such.

Neuhaus writes this in the context of the debate over the Roman Catholic Church again allowing the old Latin Mass, a debate which I do not intend to enter. The problem is that this Latin Mass includes prayers for the conversion of the Jews, as I discussed a few days ago – although, as Neuhaus points out, in the newly permitted version the Jews are not called “perfidious”. Now Neuhaus seems to believe as I do, that it is normal and natural for Christians to hold that Christianity is the most perfect religion, and would expect adherents of other religions to claim that for their religion. If we don’t believe things like this, if we insist that we have to believe that all religions are equal, we get into the kind of mess of the Anglican priest who has become a Muslim, a situation which Iyov rightly deplores, although with confusing terminology. If we want proper dialogue between religions, this has to start with what we actually believe, not from a version watered down to be supposedly more acceptable.

From the very beginning of the church the apostles and their followers have fearlessly proclaimed to unbelieving Jews and Gentiles that

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved.

(Acts 4:12, TNIV)

Jesus Christ is presented in the Bible as the only way of salvation, and faithful Christians like Father Neuhaus and myself insist on the right to proclaim this. Others may not like it, but we let them make similar uniqueness claims for their own religion or atheism. But let us not allow a phony idea of political correctness or the threats of the Anti-Defamation League to muzzle our proclamation of Christian truth.