Counter-Cultural

Jesus Christ was the most readical person who has ever walked on this earth. He came to change the world by changing people and societies from the inside out. He did that from the top down by getting people to respond, thus changing society from the bottom up. When He returned to heaven he left behind two very important agencies of His grace- The Holy Spirit, whom he called the paraclyte or the one who was called to be along side us, and He also left behind the church. Church is really not a great name for what is really His body on earth. His body on earth was intended to be a movement of people but, unfortunately it has become an institution. One of the reasons why so many people today have rejected the church is that it is little more than an institution- whose chief interest and ambition seems to be servicing the institution rather than developing the movement. The movement that Jesus wanted was one more concerned for the people outside the gate than those within the walls. The movemnent He wamted and still wants is one which is interested in feeding the hungry, helping to empower those who are impoverished or imprisoned. A movement of His people who see themselves serving their community by getting alongside people.

Because our churches have buildings to maintain and their own organisations to bolster up we end up giving inordinate amounts of time and money to maintaining the fabric of the church rather than reaching out to those who are in need. Look around and you will see churches which are far too big-some are too big because the community is much smaller than once was the case but others are too big because they view themselves as mega churches- they think that "big is best". Jesus, on the other hand never told us to build bigger churches, he never, for one minute suggested that we make ourselves stronger, quite the opposite in fact-He suggested that we invert the values of this society, he was a counter-culturalist.

Here are some questions for the counter-cultural church-

* Is the gospel bigger and more powerful than sectarian or racist attitudes?
* When is a church too big?
* Are we more concerned with our purity than we are in the welfare of the community?
* Do we love this community enough to actually live here?
* With the changes in our society where more money is coming into the city centre and people are wanting to return to live there, will many of us evangelicals feel the need to move back into the city from the suburbs?
* How are we going to demonstrate our love for the poor and the marginalised? Will we welcome even those we call anti-social?

Crying out for leaders

In many places today I hear the deep seated cry for leadership. There is the cry for political leadership at a time of deep concern for the future. Then there is the cry for leadership from the churches, both from those inside the walls and from those outside the gates. The cry is for moral guidance and an engagement with the community that, they say, has become adrift in recent years.

In a short while we will be celebrating the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade in the United Kingdom. This was due to the unstinting leadership of William Wilberforce, who gave twenty years of his life to the cause. Along with William Pitt he worked for the transformation of British society, not just in this area but in a whole range of areas including prison reform, better conditions for children and animal welfare. At a time when the majority of the nation thought it was a horrible but necessary trade he laboured on. Even when his team managed to get enough signatures for the petition parliament dragged its feet until the war with Napoleon made it an unpatriotic thing to even consider he held to his principles. When the cause won the day eventually it was because of political manoeuvring.

Wilberforce was a man committed to the transformation of society. Today we would call him a transformational leader who embraced his place within the community and worked for its transformation from the inside out. What we need today are leaders who will not stand on the outside looking in and directing operations from a safe distance but will share in the life of the people they serve. They will lead in such a way that we can share a common vision. This is the leader who is truly radical and worth following to the very end. Jesus of Nazareth was such a leader whose philosophy was service and that inspired the disciples to follow him. Here are a few thoughts from the pen of Dietrich Bonhoeffer which I find very inspiring:

The leader shares the pain and is at the heart of grief. He describes community as what we have, not what we dream about. It is not the visionary conception but it is the present reality. “If I do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.”

The transformational leader is a person who has a vision to share, and a life to match, which will inspire others to follow. Bobby Kennedy once said: “you see things as they really are and ask, why? I dream dreams of how things could be and ask, why not?

What is our vision for a better Belfast?

Will take a gamble?

This is the response of Crumlin Road Presbyterian congregation in Belfast to the proposed legislation on Betting and Gambling.

In stating these views we wish to make it clear that we are willing to do whatever we can to support those who have become addicted to gambling. Our desire is to be a positive people ready and willing to play our part in the making of a better community. We are making no moral judgements. We are against the proposal to lift the ban on Sunday gambling, bearing in mind that we have a Betting Shop next to the church, for the following reasons:

We consider all gambling to be a tax on those who can least afford it. We are disappointed that this has come from a government which has moved irredeemably from its roots as the working man’s party. The only people to profit from this proposal, as far as we can see are those with vested interests.

We consider the government would have been better putting more resources into helping those who are trying to recover from an addiction to gambling. Giving more opportunities to gamble will not help those many families who have been destroyed by the addiction.

One of our biggest concerns is that we have no confidence that workers who have an objection to working on a Sunday will be protected by legal legislation.

We object to a policy which has underpinned the false hopes of many that they can make their fortune without any effort.

We see this as another morally slippery slope. The attitude appears to be that if we cannot stop people from gambling then we might as well make some money from it. That is morally reprehensible to us.

We have no desire to be brought into line with the rest of the UK if that means encouraging people to do something we have a moral objection to.

We accept the fact that people should be allowed to do what society accepts but we are also part of that society and wish to make our feelings known. Since we accept the reality of gambling on the other six days of the week we think it would be a fair compromise to leave the seventh day free.

VICTIMS

Moses was used by God to save the children of Israel from the slavery of Egypt. If you know the story you will remember that he was hidden in the bullrushes so that he would not be sacrificed. His mother found herself in one of life's hard places. She couldn't just give him up to be killed so she had to find a way. In the end she hid him in just the right place for the princess to find him. I often wonder if she had done her homework and knew that this was a place where the princess went and that she would just love to have ababy all of her own. Did Moses's mother plan it all so that she would get paid for looking after her own son ? What would we call that today? Doing the double? Many years later he found out that he was really a Hebrew and not an Egyptian. When he saw that Egyptian beating one of his people he saw red and, making sure that no one was watching he struck out and killed the bully. What he failed to realise was that he was seen but not by the Egyptians, it was a Hebrew. The next time he interceeded to separate two Hebrews from fighting he got an unexpected reaction which caused him to flee the country.

He discovered that compassion and good intentions are not always good enough. You would have thought that all the Hebrews would ahve been united against the common enemybut here they are fighting each other. Years of being at the bottom of social and economic structure diminished their capacity for hope. The text tells us that God heard the groans of his people from Egypt and delivered them to the promised land "but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and bondage".

As a community we are possibly on the verge of a new era in community relations but after so many years of the bondage of the "troubles" can we hear the good news? The last 30 years of conflict and disruption and community mistrust we are ALL damaged. We are all victims. Little did the Egyptians realise it but God was setting them free as well as the Hebrews. Both Hebrews and Egyptians were brutalised. In every conflict the oppressor and the oppressed are damaged its just that oppressed know they are damaged the oppresor does not. But what about the situation where there is no clear oppressor or oppressed? Does that make it all the worse?

When people are damaged they need help to put their lives together again. So who needs help in Northern Ireland? How are we going to get that help? Perhaps the place to start is by recognising that we are all victims and we may even be able to help each other instea of fighting each other just like the Hebrews!

Letter from America

Take sa walk down the streets of a city like Seattle in Washington state and then, as if by time travel [Dr Who's Tardis for the British or by Scotty's mythical beam], take another trip down any Belfast street and you will begin to understand the transition that our world is in right now. If you were able to take that same mode of transport and walk down the same city streets 50 years ago I think you will have your observations reinforced. At one time the majority of people in the world were white, today they are mostly yellow and brown, followed very closely behind by black. Today Indiaand China are in the acendency. At one time the world was an agricultural place but today 50% of the people live in the cities. Every year 30 million Chinese are moving from the countryside into the cities which is the equivalent of the entire population of Canada. Today there are more children in Mexico city than there are people in either New York or London. When I was at school London was the biggest city in the world, not so any longer.

Just a matter of weeks ago I visited a member of my congregation [when I say a member I mean someone who is on the edge and only through his aged father] anyway he complained to me for over an hour about all the foreigners who are taking over our country. By our country he meant Northern Ireland. He said that they were getting our houses and being supported by the state. He complainmed about the wave of Muslims who were not integrating into the community. At that time the news was full of arguments about whether or not Muslim women should be allowed to wear the veil. Now the issue of enculturation is a valid discussion but his complaint was based on the fact that this country is a Christian country. The problem was that he neither went to church nor believed in God. He just could not believe in a God who brought suffering into the world and, anyway "no one can prove it".

He was like many people in our society today, a "cultural and political Protestant". While he was calling for the integration of the Muslims he is part of a community who will not live in integration with their Catholic neighbours.

For the Christian this transition from a single identity community to a pluralist society brings opportunities as well as problems. Today we are living in a society which is becoming secular as well as pluralist and the Christian church is going to have to learn how to take advantage of it. To people like the late Leslie Newbigin the world is returning to a situation like th one the early church was faced with. For many years Unionists in Northern Ireland have said that the Catholics will one day outnumber us [they expressed it in much more colourful ways!] and for years we have been told that the Chinese will one day outnumber us. If we take a look at the New testament church we find a small group of Jesus followers trying to practice their faith in church and outside church as part of a polytheistic society dominated by the pagan Roam Empire and they did not loose their faith. When they had to work on Sundays they did so- they worked around the problem by working and worshiping much as modern Christians do in countries like Bangladesh were the religious day is Friday.

What I am suggesting is that we embrace the pluralism we are faced with, not in an attitude of defeat and nostalgia for the good old days but with optimism because, after all our praying for the fulfillment of the Great Commission. The cost in sending a missionary to a country like China or India is great in financial and other ways but today God is actually, by his grace, bringing many Chinese, Indians and others to our shores- the cost of their travel is not on the shoulders of the church but on themselves and the host government so can we praise God and learn how to welcome them and love them? Why would we love these people? Because God loves them as he does those of us who have white skin so we are to lve them also even if we were not commanded to. "Red and Yellow, black and white all are precious in his sight" or do we not believe the Bible?

For the last two weeks I have been studying in America with other Doctoral students from all over the world looking at what the bible has to say about our current world and how to reach them for Jesus Christ. We come from different denominations from Orthodox to Baptist and Presbyterian. We have people working among street children and the women of the night as well as pastors from a great variety of churches. Some of us have white skin, some have brown skin and some have very black skin. On Monday the world will remember the life and work of Dr Martin Luther King jr who reminded us that we are all God's children. That is not some airy fairy universalism but a recognition that God made us all in his image. If that is so how can we be racist? How can we reject the foreigner jus because he is not one of us. The nation state is breaking up and we are returning to the city state and to the alignment of nations and peoples into loose confederations. Today I am more than British, I am more than Irish, I am a European and , at the same time I am primarily a man from Belfast.

Is it not time to embrace the changes and take advantage of them because my task is not to make more people like me, God forbid, but to help them to become the people God intended them to become.