The One That Got Away

I have a long litany of lost loves, women that I really liked but for one reason or another, perhaps because I was too shy, never plucked the courage up to ‘chat them up’ and make a move on them, and so here I am again on my own going down the only road I’ve ever known… well, you might know the story.  Life sometimes seems full of disappointments, inevitable situations that somehow steal our joy or make us feel that we only deserve third best, or somehow we are destined for one unfortunate thing after another.  It seems so many Christians are going through trials and tribulations, and although we all know the mantra and we console ourselves with the fact that Christians will indeed suffer in this fallen and imperfect world, sometimes we get fed up with it all, we get worn out because we see no end in sight of it; then we can do one of two things: we can stick it out and lean on God, or we can drift off into the wilderness looking for something that will take our mind off our troubles. 

 

One thing I have learnt being a Christian, and that is that we are in for the long haul, not just being a Christian when things are going well but being a Christian all the time, and not just being good and respectful of others when we feel good, but all the time, and not just being nice when we go to church but every day.  I say nice, but that seems too, well, nice; perhaps I mean that we should always be considerate of other people and respect them, in the same way we hope that they are considerate of us and respect us.  Of course, sometimes you might not feel like being nice at all, but we cannot take our moods out on other people for any reason.  Yes it’s hard learning to turn the other cheek, or being pleasant when we don’t feel like it, but it teaches us to face the world and take whatever life throws at us and whatever happens.  I don’t mean that we should always pretend to be jolly and putting a false smile on our faces, but we learn to stay on an even keel as much as possible, rather than reacting badly to everything that might be a setback or a problem.

 

I noticed with women, when I was in my younger days, that if you really showed any interest in a particular woman, it went down like the plague, and often such a woman couldn’t get away from me quick enough.  On the other hand, if I played it cool, as I tend to do now, not out of vanity or anything like that just that I’m older and more mature I suppose, some women, even the nice ones, became interested.  Problem?  Yes, if I was too keen, they couldn’t get away quick enough, and if I played it cool, then I still never spoke to them!  What a conundrum; why do women act this way?  God alone knows!  I still have many issues around this topic, you know, the whole ‘lurrve’ thing, but I also think that many people do too, both men and women.  Why can we be so cruel to each other?

 

Why does God allow evil, and why often do unscrupulous people prosper ruthlessly at the expense of other people, and in general people who are nasty and have no conscience get what they want in life, while those more loving and conscientious and considerate often get side-lined and ignored?  I think sometimes that God allows rapacious people to do bad things as a lesson to the rest of us.  Why then would God allow evil?  Surely if He created everything then why does evil even appear?  I suppose there could be a number of answers to this.  If we have free will, quite simply, we can choose to do what we like, and we can choose, in the full knowledge of knowing right from wrong, to do something wrong or we can choose to do something right.  But, in the end, it is our choice.  Is it God then who allows evil to enter the world, or us?  We blame God when a plane falls from the sky, or when a hit-and-run driver kills a kid getting an ice cream, or when something doesn’t go right for us, when if we are honest it had nothing to do with God.  The plane might not have been checked due to cost cutting, the driver might have been drinking and when it is us, well everybody has setbacks in life; all we can do is pray and have faith in God.  The fact is, we can all turn a blind eye to someone else’s troubles, sorrows or suffering, or have little sympathy, until we ourselves suffer, and then of course it’s a different story altogether isn’t it?

 

Sorrow and suffering seems to follow us all at some time, and no one is free from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.  Without God, it might not make any sense, in fact it would be like wandering through a desert and going from place to place looking for shelter and water to drink, and finding none.  With God in our lives, even the most meaningless and awful situation can be put into perspective.  Then, we might indeed be going through a desert, but we will find shelter and water.  It isn’t that God is happy to see us suffer, I think that it is just that being human, we will all suffer at some time or other.  The Christian answer to the reality that we all suffer is certainly that we don’t add to anyone’s troubles, but that we should help the other person if we can.  I might add, that we should not add to our own troubles either, or wallow in self-pity either; I have found in life that there is always someone worse off than me.  What God wants for us as believers is perhaps that we stay on an even keel, and we learn to stay physically, emotionally and spiritually sound whatever happens to us in life, good or bad.  Equilibrium.  Balance.  That’s what we need.

The Only Normal Eccentric in Town

I am so normal I am eccentric, and I am so eccentric I am normal.  If a person is really eccentric, then they probably think they are normal and everyone else is eccentric.  I am eccentric because I follow the teachings of a man, who is called the Son of God, who was personally present on earth two thousand or so years ago, who could raise the dead and make the blind see, forgive sins, hey this bloke even turned water into wine!!!  My kind of bloke!!!  Yes, that makes me an eccentric; but I think that I am normal.  I think all those people who pretend to be something they are not, or say things they don’t really believe in, or live lives they don’t really want to live, they are the eccentric ones, not me.  Eccentricity and normality then are all just points of view or perspective.  One person’s eccentricity is another person’s normality, and one person’s normality can be another person’s eccentricity.  To the dyed-in-the-wool atheist, belief in God can seem utterly weird, strange, even eccentric, and to the Christian, not believing in a loving Creator can also seem strange, even eccentric.

 

As a Christian, I have experienced many things in my life that those who are not Christians won’t have done.  Let me make one thing clear; I say I am a Christian because I have a relationship with Jesus and I work on that relationship every day.  In many respects there is nothing remarkable about me, and yet God called in the wilderness, from a background that was not in any way Christian or religious, just ordinary.  But when I say ordinary, we are all ordinary in some ways, and we are all extraordinary in other ways.  When God has spoke to me, not in my head as voices nor popping His head out of the clouds and saying ‘hello’, but through the Bible, or to my heart, or when reading something or even through other people, I knew then He existed; He revealed Himself to me, and I believe simply because I have experienced Him personally in my life, not because I am religious or because a vicar or priest told me what to believe, but because He pushed His way into my life; simple as that!

 

We are all eccentric to someone, and we can all appear normal to another person; it’s all perspective really.  One person’s weird is someone else’s normal.  And if we are surrounded by people who dress and think and act like us, we are all normal to each other, even if everyone else thinks we’re a bunch of weirdos!  So, it’s all perspective.  Christians were seen as weird in Rome, which was pagan with many gods, a god for this and a god for that, and this eventually helped get them persecuted and even killed in various ways.  Believing in a God of forgiveness, a God who preaches love your enemy, a God who tells you to turn the other cheek; are you weird, or what?!

 

So, weird or normal depends on your point of view.  I don’t know about you, but I often have abstract thoughts that make sense and don’t make sense at the same time (like Bob Dylan’s lyrics!), but if I tried to explain these thoughts and feelings to someone, I would definitely sound strange and yet I am generally a rational person not really given to flights of fancy; not always anyway.  What I understand from this, is that we human beings are fearfully and wonderfully made, we experience things intellectually and emotionally that we cannot put into words, nor adequately understand or often really make sense of.  There is more to us than meets the eye, a whole lot more.  To the atheist, it’s all blind chance that we are what we are; to the Christian, we are specifically created by God and there is a spiritual dimension to humanity that atheists just cannot believe because they don’t believe in God.  Weird or normal?  You decide.

 

God appointed a people who would serve Him, worship Him and ultimately be blessed by Him, providing they were obedient to Him.  The Israelites rebelled again and again, so much so you begin to wonder why God picked them in the first place!  Where they weird for continually disobeying God, or was this normal, a rite of passage for all those called by God?  Who can say?  Did they really understand at first at first who was calling them, and why?  I didn’t when I was called, I didn’t really have a clue.  Was I weird not to understand or was I normal?  I wasn’t versed in the Bible and don’t come from a Christian background or family, or any kind of Christian community, so how could I have known?  Weird, or normal?  You decide.

 

When anything new comes along, to shake up all the old ways and old traditions, some people see it as a threat and others see it as something wonderful.  To some, Christianity was eccentric, to others it was normal.  When Elvis burst onto the scene all those years ago, and Rock and Roll with him, some people no doubt thought the end of the world as they knew it was happening right in front of their eyes, whilst others thought it was the greatest and most exciting thing they’d ever seen.  Some thought Elvis, Rock and Roll and everything it all stood for as aberrant, bizarre and weird, whilst others in no uncertain terms saw it as normal and just a natural expression of the burgeoning youth and teenage culture that was really starting in America at that time.  America, the country that gave the world youth culture and popular culture is also the most religious country in the wealthy Western world; two things that at first glance might appear contradictory and opposites that are at best uneasy with each other.  To those Americans who are not religious, I think they perceive those who are to be a little weird.  To those Americans who are religious, however that is manifested, those who aren’t religious appear weird.  Each certainly thinks they are normal.  But, whose right?  As a Christian I feel that I can like all kinds of music and enjoy popular culture, and still be a Christian who serves the Lord on a daily basis.  I know some Christians think this is weird, and know other Christians think it’s normal.  Weird?  Normal?  I really don’t care.

Another England

It seems to me that all my life I’ve suffered, all the things I’ve wanted, really wanted, have been denied me one way or the other, and that nothing or very little went right.  Is this a family thing, or is it just me?  And if God is a good God, and He certainly has a calling on my life, why haven’t I prospered, why haven’t I been happy, why have I spent many years in the wilderness and far from happiness?  If God is with us, who can be against us?  So Therefore, am I my own worst enemy?

 

The stories in the Bible, those about humans, (and I suppose most are) are not perfect, they are chaotic, filled with incident, sometimes sad, sometimes bad, sometimes funny.  They reflect us as human beings and our stories.  Nothing is perfect, things often don’t go to plan, but those whom God called and also those who had faith and stayed faithful to God, almost always won through in the end.  Humans are chaotic, even the best of us, and human societies however good and well run they may appear are the product of the human mind and human invention, so are always in some way flawed.

 

The stories in the Old Testament, the stories of how the Jewish people come into being are to me the most thrilling, enthralling, exciting, interesting, uplifting and wonderful stories ever.  They resonate with so many people and we can certainly identify with them as Christians in our many ventures and our many troubles, trials and tribulations.

 

With civilisation and the rise of cities and settled urban living came many good things, but also many bad things too.  Hierarchy becomes an inevitable part of civilised living in many ways.  The Fall of Man coincides exactly with the beginning and rise of civilisation.  Does this tell us anything?

 

The Israelites at the start are a tribal people, an earthy people, not a people given to abstract ideas and concepts; they wanted a warring God on their side, and that’s what they got!  King David wasn’t a high born educated rather genteel holy person, he was a low born shepherd, a warlord who fought his way to become king of Israel.  In many ways he is more like a rough, tough person from a Working class town in Britain or America, not really what we think of as Christians today.  God picked a lowly people, perhaps partly to let us understand that God is always just, when the world at large is usually rampantly unfair and often unjust.  Religion can sometimes be about the important, the worldly, even the wealthy and powerful, whereas most people are not connected, nor wealthy or powerful.  We might think then that God is somehow concerned only with popes and archbishops, king and queens, presidents and people that in worldly terms have power or are seen as important.  Don’t be fooled; God is no more concerned with the great and the good than He is with us.  We, who often have no importance in worldly terms, may just be the people God calls.  I sometimes wonder when Jesus went to the ordinary people, lived among them, in fact was one of them, the poor, the suffering, and largely turned His back on the religious authorities, that part of the reason they murdered Him and wanted Him dead was because of jealousy, that He didn’t go to them or tell them how wonderful they were or how wonderful their religion was.  The very fact that the religious authorities crucified Jesus, the very reason for their religion in the first place, tells you all you need to know about them.

 

There is another England, away from the tourist places and Shakespeare’s birthplace, far from the dreaming spires of Oxford, seemingly from all that is nice and winsome and gentle, an England that is largely hidden from the world, although occasionally there are glimpses of it now and then when the riots kicked off a few years ago and the careful veneer of a nice jolly England where everyone has a rictus grin on their face, cycles through genteel villages, and all have good jobs, money and live in nice houses gets blown out of the water.  There is poverty here, drugs, social injustice, the rich often exploit the poor, the poor get blamed for all the social ills, and the rich and powerful feel smug because they are far from the sometimes dreadful poverty and council estates many poor people live in.  With the poverty comes the justification, and the barely concealed contempt stoked up against the poor and vulnerable.  This is life for many people in the British Isles.

 

What if Adam, and don’t forget little Eve, hadn’t eaten of the forbidden fruit, hadn’t got into God’s bad books, and decided to do what they were told; I wonder what the world would look like now if they hadn’t been naughty?  Then each of us may ask how our lives would be if we had been continually obedient.  I can ask this many times, and still don’t get any real answers.  What would human history be like if Adam and Eve had just listened to God, and basically did what they were told?  All of us have suffered because of our first human ancestors basic disobedience.  Incidentally, I have often wondered whether Adam and Eve were white, black, olive skinned or even Asiatic in appearance.  But that’s another story hey, for another time?

Sincere Apologies!!!

I get the feeling I've upset people, for one reason or another.  Yes, I am opinionated, but in the end isn't that what blogs are about, our innermost thoughts and feelings?  I don't set out to hurt people, I truly don't, and I apologise if I have done so.  I'm not a fascist or racist, not a Communist either, though I'm pretty much left of centre, and what I am primarily is a Christian, who has lots of questions but few real answers.

 

 

 

What I've always tried to do is create debate, genuine debate, where we don't all have to agree, but where we can agree to be agreeable at least.  One other thing I've always strived to be is honest, ruthlessly honest.  That doesn't mean that everything I write is correct or I am infallible, but it means that my intent is to get to the truth, and not to harm or upset anyone, for any reason.

 

 

 

So, if I have upset or offended anyone, by anything I've written, I apologise unreservedly and say that it was never meant.

 

 

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

There is a thin line, a balance in life, in virtually everything we do and everything we want to do.  If we get out of balance, we might find that certain unintended consequences follow on.  For example, fast food and ice cream, crisps (potato chips), fish and chips, burgers and fries, donner kebabs and all those takeaway treats taste wonderful, but eat too much of it and your health will decline, and unfortunately your waistline will expand too!  Work too much, enjoy too little, and you will also be out of balance here too.  Too much of anything is probably not good for any human being; so I believe life is all about balance.

I must put myself in this post.  I am a middle aged, but young at heart, aspiring writer who sooner hopefully than later wants to be a published author and of course wants to be earning a living doing what I enjoy doing best, which is writing.  I am absolutely certain that I am not the only blogger who wants to succeed as a writer!  My view is this; as a Christian I believe God wants me to have a decent life, where He will always meet my many needs, needs emotional, physical, financial and most important of all the spiritual need.  Yes, I believe I have a perfect right as someone from a poor and very traditional British Working class background to aspire to bigger and better things, and to work towards my dream of being a published author and successful writer.  What I have understood is this: that God is the perfect source for helping me, and you, to pursue all the things in life we want, whether it’s just to be happier and content, or whether it’s something more in line with a successful career or starting a business, and so on.  God is both the God of the spiritual and the material too.  I have also understood something else too, which can’t be overlooked; we must accept that being a Christian doesn’t mean that God will make us millionaires or billionaires necessarily, even though there is no bad thing in being wealthy.  I now believe that God will take care of it all; if I become rich, then God will have a plan for that, if I just become successful and earn a decent living, then He has a plan for that too.  I have learnt that God will always meet our need, and not necessarily our greed.  But, and I digress, I pray regularly that God will help me to work towards my goals and dream of being a published author.  Equally, we must do our part; a book doesn’t write itself, a boxer doesn’t get fit by sitting in front of the telly drinking beer, and no good thing in life rarely ever comes if we just hope for it without some hard work and aforethought on our part.  You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes well you just might find you get what you need.  ‘Yahweh says this: Stop your lamenting dry your eyes, for your labour will have a reward, Yahweh declares, and they will return from the enemy's country.  There is hope for your future after all, Yahweh declares, your children will return to their homeland.’  (Jeremiah 31:16-17 NJB)

 

Prosperity Gospel

Some Christians believe that you have to be poor and humble to really be acceptable to God, and perhaps be acceptable to other people too.  Some Christians though believe that God wants every Christian to be wealthy or at least to be praying for prosperity and wealth as part of their daily prayer routine.  In some Western countries both views can be held in certain Christian communities.  What is more attractive, poverty or prosperity?  And, whatever your view, who would rather be poor than rich?  Is there some truth to the idea of a prosperity gospel?  I believe there is, but there is more to God, a whole lot more, than seeing Him as a granter of three wishes.  We also have to be careful that we are not using God, using our professed faith, for our own greed or selfish agendas.  There is a danger that we begin to lose sight of what God wants for us, and what His will is for us, and we become greedy for more when we really don’t need anymore.  ‘No one can be the slave of two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or be attached to the first and despise the second. You cannot be the slave both of God and of money.’  (Matthew 6:24 NJB)  Let us truly know what God’s answer to the prosperity gospel is, and let us be content when He supplies all our needs first, before worrying about what we haven’t got.  Any Christian in dire poverty should in all ways ask God to alleviate that and have faith He will.  Any of us not in dire poverty, and that probably means the majority of us in the West, should first be grateful for every good thing we have already, and then being honest about our dreams and goals.  And remember this; if we take a lot out, we should always look for ways of putting something back.

 

Love, or Confusion?

I believe that God wants us as Christians, of all varieties and backgrounds, to love each other, to love other people and to love Him, in no particular order I may add.  As a Christian, I think that when we show respect for fellow human beings, be they Christians, or whether they are not Christians, be they our family and friends or even whether they are just strangers we meet on the street or in the supermarket, in the bookie’s or even in the pub, we are loving those people and doing God’s will.  God is love, and we must spread that love any way we can.  I am a fairly big guy from a big, tough city; we are not known for our sentimentality nor are we particularly genteel either.  I am just an ordinary bloke who happens to be a Christian after all.  So, my love for other people comes out in a kind of street way, a joke here, a pat on the back, a friendly way that guys prefer; you may be different.  But I think that when we love, and try to love, other people, it comes back to us, and God is pleased.  We can’t all be highly educated well-spoken vicars and priests, God calls all sorts of people to serve Him, and we can only act sometimes in the manner of the people we are brought up with.  Better imperfect love, than perfect intolerance.  If someone, on the other hand, is becoming a Christian to control other people, to manipulate others in some way, or just to get everyone agreeing that ‘they are right and everyone who disagrees is wrong’, are they really loving their fellow man, and are they really doing God’s will?  For me, this can be what passes for Christianity, but in my humble opinion it is not Christianity at all.  

 

Popes and archbishops, well-educated vicars and priests may know theology and Christology, they may know all the major events in historical Christianity, and may have spent many years in theological colleges and seminaries, but it still doesn’t mean that they necessarily know God any more than any other common or garden Christian like you and me.  If we are truly called by God, we will be determined to want to be living in the truth, regardless of what someone may say, and we must always be prepared to study the Bible, pray regularly and ask the Holy Spirit to be our guide.  No one ever said we had to lose our common sense when we became Christians.  ‘So for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old order is gone and a new being is there to see.’  (2 Corinthians 5:17 NJB)

The Truth About Cats and Dogs

Cats tend to look similar, most domesticated pet cats share more similarities than differences.  Of course, there are the big cats in Africa, India and China, but even these are similar to pet cats in many ways.  Now dogs; well that really is a whole other story.  As a Christian, I believe implicitly in the creation story, I just can’t look at a human being, the marvellous mechanics of the hand, the eyes, the ears, the heart, liver, brain and so on and believe that this is all the result of evolution and natural selection and that life just started by accident; a glorious accident, but in the end no more than an accident.  But whatever you believe, creation or evolution, there are complex questions that to my mind may have been asked but have never been adequately answered.  Why, if dogs are the same species, do they often look so very different from each other?  I mean, look at a Great Dane and then look at a Scotty dog; both dogs, yet so radically different they could be completely different species.  The question we might ask is ‘If these dogs are both dogs, then when did the Scotty dog change and shrink, or when did the Great Dane grow?’ and perhaps as importantly ‘how?’  So there is a conundrum here, a question, or questions more to the point, of epic and cosmic proportions, the questions that beg for answers.

 

So what about human beings then?  Look at someone from Japan, someone from Papua New Guinea and someone from Ireland; all human beings but again quite different from each other; different face shapes and different facial features, different coloured skins, different types of hair, and in many ways being quite different from each other.  The belief in evolutionary circles, at this present time, is that human beings came out of Africa and then spread slowly but surely to the rest of the world.  The creation story is somewhat different.  After the Flood, Noah’s sons populated the earth, one called Ham being the progenitor of African people, one called Shem being the progenitor of Semitic people and one called Japheth being the progenitor of all Asiatic people.

Let’s examine the evolutionary belief.  If all humans came out of Africa, why aren’t we all black and have hair, facial features and the bone density of most black Africans?  How does a white European with red hair and green eyes, or a light skinned Chinese person with straight fine hair and very different facial features, come out of African ancestors?  Another question I am waiting to see answered.

 

Then let’s examine the creation belief.  If God created life, all life and all the species on earth including us, then He also had the power to create difference right from the start.  How else could we explain such differences even in human beings?  And then think of all the different species that just exist in the vast Amazon rainforest that is in Brazil and I think borders a number of other countries in Latin America.  What are we to make of that?  Some evolutionists will say that many of these species are interrelated and indeed have bred from two other different species, so making a new species.  We may find out that some of that is true, and is not standing against the belief of creation.  Certainly, if we look at humans, although I believe we are creations of God and there were only three specific groupings of mankind at the start, many nations are indeed mixtures of these groups, and various admixtures of human beings.  I have noticed though, and I am no expert in this at all, that all human beings seem to be of one, two or three human varieties.  In short, all humans are a mixture of the three peoples that God created at the start.  I mean, look at Europeans for example.  We are all called Europeans, and yet some Europeans look dark like Arabs and those from the Middle East.  Some of us, especially in the far North of Europe exhibit what I would call Asiatic features, with almond eyes and fine hair and high cheekbones.  Then many of us have a Semitic look, larger noses, big eyes, long faces, and a tendency to be quite or even very hairy.  Of course, with this there is a tendency of some overlap with Mediterranean people.  In countries like Ireland and Wales for example, you will find that all these differences exist; some Irish and Welsh people are dark, hairy and have curly hair and a Mediterranean appearance.  Others have a more Semitic look, and others have the Asiatic look.  It is certain that Europeans are a very mixed bag of all the different ethnic groups in the world.  But whatever your opinion on this, be it more evolutionist or more creationist like myself, these realities of our often fundamental differences as humans demand intelligent, open and searching questions from all those interested, regardless of their viewpoint or beliefs.   

 

Janeane Garofalo & Uma Thurman

I absolutely adore Janeane Garofalo, those cute big brown eyes and sweet face, but I also adore Uma Thurman.  Two very different women.  They both appeared in a film I watched a few years ago called ‘The Truth About Cats and Dogs’, and it was a rom-com, usually the type of film I wouldn’t watch being a big hairy bloke who likes action movies and gangster movies and film noirs, but nevertheless I enjoyed it.  I have come to the conclusion that God made us all so very different, and beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder, or on a Saturday night the eye of the beer holder!  Seriously, as a single man who hasn’t had a great deal of success in romantic terms, but who remains ever optimistic of finding love, I believe that we are all more than looks and true beauty really is much more than skin deep.  Beauty is when someone has time for everyone else, treats others kindly and regards no one as less than they are.  A sweet nature, whether it be a man or woman, is beautiful because often those types of people seem to draw in other people.  We know that a loving nature is closer to God than an angry and bitter nature.  In the past, I could have been accused of being both angry and bitter.  Now, I pray earnestly about this and God is dealing with these issues.  I have been called attractive and even downright handsome before today, but I ain’t no Brad Pitt or George Clooney at the same time!  I have imperfections like most people and even had hang-ups about them.  What lasts, as we get older, is the love we have for each other, the love we have for God.  That is beauty. 

 

The Christian Right

I am confused by some versions of ‘American Christianity’ and how it aligns itself with often extreme Right-wing conservative politics; if we are honest, surely basic Christianity has more in common with Communist, Socialist and Left-wing politics, or am I being naïve?  The vast majority of American Christians I ‘meet’ online are exactly like the vast majority of British Christians I meet online who are decent, sweet-natured, easy to get on with and interesting because they are all individuals with different personalities and interests, which is always reflected in their blogs.  So why is it often that the voices we hear in organised Christianity, and in life in general, are those who are not so kind and generous, but have agendas of their own?  In my humble opinion, we should be very careful when we mix any kind of politics, or indeed any worldly thing, with the simple faith of Christianity.  It seems to be true that some people use religion as a mask, as a mark of respectability, to further their own often very selfish interests and in the end to prosper at other people’s expense.

‘No, this is the covenant I will make with the House of Israel, when those days have come, the Lord declares: In their minds I shall plant my laws writing them on their hearts. Then I shall be their God, and they shall be my people.’  (Hebrews 8:10 NJB)

 

God calls many types of people from all walks of life to serve Him and live out their calling as Christians.  But I think that organised Christianity is more about the great and the good and the socially important claiming and proclaiming religion for their own ends and gratification.  In my eyes, much of what passes for organised Christianity is just not that relevant to ordinary people anymore.

 

Faith is more than organised Christianity, it is more than rituals, it is more than men’s traditions, it is something that we might call the inner reality as opposed to the external world of religious politics, worldly religious power and seemingly much that passes for organised Christianity.  I am not talking about atheism or secularism, I am a dyed-in-the-wool Christian after all, just that we need to really think about what we are thinking about, and we need to really know and understand what we are supposed to believe.  I think to many younger Christians and Christians of my generation, popes and priests, vicars and archbishops and the whole paraphernalia of hierarchy that is in the Catholic church and the Anglican church, just isn’t that relevant to many people anymore; it is something that we should be debating as Christians.  The hierarchy in the big denominations merely reflect the social systems of the world.  Isn’t this the worldliness that Christians and Christian organisations should completely avoid?  Maybe the fear amongst those who hold to a more traditional and hierarchical belief is that what would we replace it with, quite simply?  I think there are now enough Christians like myself and modern Christian organisations who’ve proved that we can live Christian lives that offer far more than that which traditional Christianity does.  Well, what do you think?

Trials and Tribulations

It’s certain that all of us at some time in our lives will have trials and tribulations, that we will go through things that we wouldn’t choose and that make us feel miserable or just under pressure.  I write about this because at this time I am going through some trials of my own.  I feel somehow that through them, God is trying to draw me closer to Him.  I have had a serious cold with flu like symptoms and on top of it all I had a painful cough too; no fun at all and frankly I could have done without it.  On top of this, I fell foul of officialdom and struggled to sort things out while I wasn’t at all well.  At the same time, I am waiting for a breakthrough in my Christian life and have been praying to God for many months now for spiritual help and guidance in my life.  It seems I am either suffering or waiting; and sometimes both.  It’s absolutely certain that no one likes to suffer, and few of us like waiting for things; we want everything to be good and we want what we want right now.  But God, I think, has other plans.  ‘My brothers, consider it a great joy when trials of many kinds come upon you, for you well know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance, and perseverance must complete its work so that you will become fully developed, complete, not deficient in any way.’  (James 1:2-4 NJB)

 

Strongholds

I have written about class and social injustice for a long time, and posted many of the posts on my blog.  I feel that God does not want us ever to act unjustly to other people, nor to exploit other people ruthlessly or to simply disregard other people and their wants and needs.  At the same time, I admit that I have a ‘bee in my bonnet’ about it all.  From time to time, I feel it is necessary to debate such issues, but if we do too much, or take too much on, we can become jaded with it all, and it can become like an albatross around our necks so to speak.   It has become a stronghold, and goodness knows, I have enough of them already to deal with!  I have anger issues, because I was bullied at school, and I have issues with people disagreeing with me, because I am (or certainly was) very opinionated at times.  I believe that anger is very much a stronghold, and even if we think we have a good reason to be angry with another person, or just to be angry in general, it can make us miserable and sometimes we can become the person we don’t want to be.  I also have had a problem with women too, as I think many men do, but equally even if we have a good reason to be angry or upset, we can make more problems for ourselves by indulging our anger or our hatred or even our self-righteousness.  Strongholds can also be from a root of bitterness, and I confess that at times I have been a bitter person.  Strongholds and a root of bitterness do not make good Christians, in fact it can send us off on a tangent, away from God and into our own selfishness and self-importance.  ‘For although we are human, it is not by human methods that we do battle.  The weapons with which we do battle are not those of human nature, but they have the power, in God's cause, to demolish fortresses. It is ideas that we demolish, every presumptuous notion that is set up against the knowledge of God, and we bring every thought into captivity and obedience to Christ.’  (2 Corinthians 10:3-5 NJB)  Not only can we develop strongholds, we can become like a stronghold, aloof, proud, lacking in decency and wanting to keep everyone at arm’s length, especially if we have been hurt by people in the past for one reason or another.  We have to take a chance on love, we have to be willing to be vulnerable even if that means that sometimes people hurt us, or take us for granted or otherwise let us down in some way.

 

The Christian Right

I have been reading a book called ‘American Fascists’ by a writer called Chris Hedges.  It talks about the way some Christianity in the United States has been hijacked by certain people and combined with very Right-wing politics and the belief in unfettered capitalism.  He writes earnestly about that he fears that such ideology will take over America and challenge America’s long standing traditions of liberty, freedom, free speech and the desire to live any way any American may choose.  After reading some of the book, I have come to believe that we cannot link Christianity with any worldly and temporal thing.  Even though my view is that genuine Christianity, the faith lived out on a daily basis, has far more in common with Left-wing politics and Socialism, I still don’t feel that we should particularly link the two things together.  In short, our faith as Christians must come first.  I confess that I am a Left-winger and have always been so from an early age, and don’t feel that my faith is compromised by my political stance.  In the final analysis though, I am a Christian first and everything else second.  I believe this is the way God wants me to be.  So, I too am suspicious of the Christian Right, and I wonder what their agenda is and what their aims truly are.  Perhaps we will have to wait and see.

 

The Great and the Good

We have just seen a new pope elected, and so far there is a good vibe about him.  He is it seems a man of the people and lived simply and frugally in Argentina when he was a cardinal and eschewed the trappings of high office.  I’m not a Catholic so don’t have strong opinions either way, but by and large it seems they may have made the right choice.  I may add one caveat; one of the problems I have with anyone born to or gaining high office of some kind, is that somehow we assume that they will have the answers to all the world's problems, or suddenly they will be able to solve all the world’s problems.  It is, of course, wishful thinking.  Many of the faithful seem to invest all their hopes in a new pope, and in England just look at the way some royalists regard Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles; they are treated, along with some other royals, almost as if they are gods and everything they say is of the utmost importance and is filled with significance and meaning.  But, you know, at the end of the day, they are only human beings and they don’t have all the answers however much we wished they did.  As a Christian, I look to Jesus for guidance and He has all the answers we need.  Yes a good pope or a good queen is a blessing to the world, but they are not divine after all.