Dead Wrong?!?

This is Pastor Brian. Know him? Neither did I until a story broke on local Radio that Pastor Brian's Church the Elim Christian Centre in North Belfast had closed its normal Services and was running a healing Service every evening at 7:30pm. It is claimed, and bear in mind that it is only a claim, that many people have been healed from all sorts of illnesses, including chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, various orthopedic disorders, brain tumours, and even cancer.

Someone even claimed to have been brought back to life after having been clinically dead in a hospital operating theatre for 16 minutes, simply through the power of prayer. Pastor Brian was reported to have visited the CIty Morgue with the intention of resurrecting a corpse there, but so far they all remain dead. 

What is happening here is mirrored by similar events in Dudley (in the UK) and in Florida. It's not original, nor is it unique. But is it helpful (never mind 'is it true!')?

I've buried more than enough, in my opinion, of people who died "before their time" (however you interpret that phrase). And tomorrow, I am doing a session as Chaplain in the Cancer Centre in the City Hospital where I will encounter approx. 15 people, all with cancer, and all at different stages - some will be there for treatment, while others will be there for palliative care. All will be hoping that their cancer will go into remission - myself included. Some may also be hoping that God will somehow intervene to 'cure' or 'take away' their cancer. 

Having never had cancer myself, but having met so many who do, or sadly who did have this horrible disease, I want to be as positive as I can be without giving false hope. There are unexplained occasions when a cancer, or illness, seems to disappear. No-one seems to know why, but they do know it appears to vanish. Unfortunately this is a rare occurrence, and for every person that this happens to there are thousands for whom cancer takes its normal course. For those who experience this unexplained change in circumstances, thanksgivings are offered and God is praised, because if it is unexplained it must be a healing work of God! Sadly, this 'god of the gaps' thinking works well in these isolated experiences, but not in the wider picture. For every individual who is 'healed' there are thousands who are buried. For every healing that is shouted from the rooftops, there are thousands of named never mentioned again - yet all of them were prayed for. Foe every person 'touched by the hand of the Almighty', there are thousands, even millions, who do not apparently experience The Almighty's loving hand.

Before you proclaim that I do not believe that God heals, hold your fire! I do believe that God heals, only maybe not in the way that Traditional Theism states. The word in Greek for "healing" is also the same word for "salvation". "Jesus Saves!" can also mean "Jesus Heals!". Jesus heals us from all that would stop us seeing the truth of God in action, if only we would open our eyes. 

Process Theology teaches that God is a persuasive, rather than a coercive, force - God works in EVERY situation in life to call us towards the BEST POSSIBLE outcome. Not an improbable outcome, but the best one within the boundaries of possibility. Cancer is therefore something that just happens. It is not caused by God, but neither does God 'step in' to take it away. It's up to modern medicine to try and combat cancer as best it can - sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't. Cancer doesn't always = death. It really doesn't! Having a positive attitude and a determination to fight it can be beneficial, just as a negative and pessimistic attitude can have a detrimental effect on the treatment received.

In good times as well as bad; through illness as well as health; in times of joy and in times of distress, God is always with us. This idea that God is apart from us and occasionally drops into our world to perform some magic trick is so far removed from the Biblical notion of God (although there is three tiered universe posited in the Bible, but this is a cosmological rather than a theological error). You don't need to ask God to help; God already is. You don't need to go to a special Church or place to experience God; God is already beside you and within you. You don't need to confess or repent before God will help; God IS love, and God IS good.

Claims of healings and dramatic interventions are really just that - claims. They rely on an outdated understanding of the Divine that ultimately leaves people feeling worse, because statistically more will be left 'unhealed' than are magically 'healed' - it often pours out feelings of guilt ("was it an unconfessed sin?", "did I not have enough faith?" etc) or gives people a false hope ("maybe next time I'll get healed").

Pastor Brian's visit to the morgue was more to resurrect a dead faith-model than to provide evidence of God's activity in the world, or in HIS particular branch of the church. God is here now (God's never been anywhere else!) but God can only do what can be done. 

Thought For The Day

Yesterday morning, at the ungodly hour of 5:30am, my alarm clock woke me so that I could get ready to go to the BBC in Belfast for a live Thought.

It's essentially 2 mins 45 secs of talk about a topical issue with a religious, though not always so, twist to it. Sounds easy?! Getting up so early is really the easy bit. The difficult part is trying to say something relevant to people's lives, and to limit it to 450 words. It requires a lot of work and many, many rewrites and alternative drafts. 

So I've four more of them to do, and each time I do a batch of these things I like to try and have an underlying theme that pervades all 5 talks. Last time it was Universalism. This time I'm going to try and tinge each talk with a bit of Process Theology. 

So if you can, why not listen in each Friday at 6:55 and 7:55am. The Radio Ulster link will take you to a live streaming of it

Rocks On! You don't have to put on the last concert!

For those of you with particularly good eyesight the tiny figure on stage holding a guitar is none other than Sting, taken with my mobile phone camera from some 100+ yards away.

Last night was The Police's first, and sadly last concert in Belfast. Around 30,000 people, mostly middle aged, shuffled their way to the Stormont Estate to see The Police on part of their 30 year anniversary tour. Even after 30 years they were not a disappointment. 

They performed all the usual crowd pleasers as well as a few that only die-hard fans (not the Bruce Willis ones) would have appreciated. The sound quality was fine and the screens helped those of us in the cheap area (£64.50!!!) to get a glimpse of them in close up. Not that that was a terribly appealing prospect. Of the three members, only Sting seems to have aged well. The other two looked like they'd given their Care Assistants the slip for a couple of hours. Also, there was little chat - I know that people come to hear the songs but a bit more audience participation would've been nice, or even a few stories to put things in context. Andy Summers said nothing for the duration and there was little or no 'chemistry' on stage, though at a couple of points Sting did try to 'pal' things up, but it looked slightly contrived.

I'm so glad I went now, even though I was on my own (wasn't it Henry David Thoreau who said "a city is millions of people being lonely together"). It was well organised and my only complaint is against not those who organised it, but against those who attended. The amount of rubbish left at people's feet was appalling. Now I realise this makes me sound like a something of a moaner.........and you'd be right, but it did sort of dent my faith in humanity. How arduous is it to carry a few plastic cups to a bin. What also dented my faith in people was the person who dented me. For the last 20 mins a fat, middle-aged, drunk woman proceeded to have a conversation with her male neighbour which obliged her to throw her arm around his shoulders EVERY time it was her turn to speak. Of course, EVERY time she did this she elbowed me in the sternum. And no matter how often I took a step back she seemed to follow me. To be fair to her, for the last 5 mins she stopped hitting me with her elbow, and switched to hitting me with the handbag she'd slung over her shoulder so that she was free to dance badly.

Other than those minor things, it was an amazing night and it made me appreciate the joys of live music, especially when that music is played well. And I also now have a greater respect for Sting as a musician and a live performer. He made the night. 

Vote for me, if you value your life

As the date for the election in Zimbabwe comes closer, the political heat in that beleaguered country intensifies. Morgan Tsvangirai has been arrested for the fifth time and the political opposition to Mugabe's Zanu-PF lives in fear of their lives as beatings and death threats seem run of the mill.

The type of regime run by Mugabe seems reminiscent of the one run by Saddam in Iraq - torture, oppression, fear, poverty being the order of the day. Luckily for Mugabe there is no oil in Zimbabwe and so 'regime change' is unlikely to be pursued by the Americans. 

It's funny how much of a difference oil can make to a Superpower's foreign policy. Not having any can put you very far down the list. What was once the "bread basket of Southern Africa" has now become close to the brink of starvation and its population suffers greatly. Like Saddam, Mugabe seems fueled by his own narcissism, but as he won't effect the prices at the petrol pumps in the West he's safe enough. 

Selective Western interventionism is a source of anger for me, and while I appreciate that the US can't involve itself in each and every individual situation, I can't help but be cynical regarding the ones it does poke its nose into. Iraq and Afghanistan seem to be personally and commercially motivated ventures by the current US President. Darfur, Zimbabwe, and others are conveniently ignored. God appears to have forgotten to tell Bush to change the regime in Zimbabwe. Well, nobody's perfect.   

See No Faith

On Tuesday 10th June '08 Don Cupitt came over to Ireland, for pehaps his last visit, to give a lecture entitled "The Religion Of Post-Christian Ireland". To an audience of around 70-80 people he opined on the death of God and the need for a new expression of 'faith' to arise. He was essentially disassembling the notion of Classical Thesim ("honey, that's SO 18 months ago!") and suggesting that Secular Humanism is the right way forward in the 21st Century. 

To my little mind, and it is very little, he wasn't stating anything particularly new - he was just stating it very well. "Modern people", he said, "aren't looking for salvation from their sins. They want to understand what has happened to us, and how we are to live in the new situation." (for a thought provoking outlook on this topic read Richard Holloway's book) 

And to a degree he's right. The idea of a Fall from Perfection/Paradise and the need for Redemption comes from a pre-Modern, pre-Darwinian worldview. Now Cupitt ditches any sort of God, and I believe he's right to kick the Traditional Theistic God into touch. But I feel he goes too far. Might I suggest, as William Crawley did in the Q&A after the lecture, that Process Theology could well plough a middle ground?! It removes the logical and theological problems of Classical Theism while at the same time allowing for a personal god for those who like me don't want to send God to Coventry altogether (Process Theologians differ in their views on God, especially as to whether God can be personal or not. Opinion is divided).

I, for one, don't share Cupitt's vision of a post-Christian Ireland. But simultaneously I've no desire to see pre-Modern Christianity promoted as the only 'God' option on this island. And therefore I will continue, in my own little way, to search for a faith that relies neither on blind obedience, nor cold rationality for its expression. And to that end, may God (if She exists) have mercy on my soul.     

It's all Jacobean to me!

Verily I say unto ye that it hath come to mine attention that manys a man hast sorely refused to spake in the tongue of God Himself. Forsooth, if such a tongue as espoused by the Court of King James was good enough for ye olde days, then gadzooks, why dost not ye modern curs employ it thus?!

My apologies for the poor attempt at normal conversation in the English of the early Stuarts, but then again why should I apologise?! It's not my language!  I think you get the point lol

Get Realism!

Recently I've been discussing theological things with other people, and having theology discussed concerning me. A lot of these discussions centre around the notion that whatever is in the Bible is right, by virtue of it being in there: "God said it, and I believe it" seems the bottom line in these things. There's no place for higher criticism nor any tolerance for anyone who espouses such. The incidents of genocide, for example, is one that causes some problems especially when it comes to an understanding of the goodness and love of God. The black and white really is black and white.

As I see it, the difficulties arise because of 2 different viewpoints: nominalism vs. realism. Nominalism says that good=whatever God does, therefore if God sanctioned the slaughter in Canaan then it was, by definition, a just and good action. Realism, on the other hand, says that we humans have an innate understanding of what is good and what is evil and so we are able to discern whether an act which is attributed to God is true or not.

The conservative/progressive divide splits roughly down in this fashion. Brace yourselves! I would take the progressive line that Realism, rather than Nominalism, is the only way to go, otherwise we are left with the "do as I say, not as I do" option which grates against me. I cannot worship a God whom I don't respect ethically.      

If 'Meat is Murder', is Quorn wasting Police time?

For the last 8 months now I have returned to a vegetarian, or as it's known today, a 'meat free' diet. I was veggie for 3 years and have decided to return to it.

I do it, not for reasons of health (you just need to look at me for confirmation of that!) but for ethical reasons. Or more honestly, because I myself wouldn't have it in me to kill an animal so I've decided not to ask anyone to do it on my behalf.

I've no problem with people eating meat and would cook it if I had to - I'm not 'evangelical' about my vegetarianism. I just don't want to do it.

I suppose part of it comes from my appreciation of animals as sentient beings (to a greater or lesser degree) and the realisation that most animals, ourselves included, aren't that keen on ending up as a meal for something else. Lesser animals don't have much of a choice - you can't really expect a lion to go vegan. But we humans do have a choice. We don't have to eat meat. We can if we want to, but we're not obliged to do so, and for that reason I do not do so.

Process Theology (good old PT, my new best friend) talks about the relatedness of all live, from the ameba to the human being, and how our actions have both positive and negative consequences for those around us. Now of course, we want to minimise suffering as best we can, and we know that Nature's progression is dependent on death, but that does not mean that I myself need to contribute to it.

So to that end, I make myself the bane of any dinner party and encourage the ire of those who feel the need to cook only one meal. It's a heavy price to pay but one I'll willing to endure.   

I'm back!

After a long hiatus, and after a recent bout of gout from which I was woken early, I decided to fire up the old computer and send El Tel an email under the pseudonym Seamus Meagain. At 7:49am young Wogan read out an edited version of my slightly defamatory, and slightly crappy, gag about Hilary Clinton and Barak O'Bama. The thrill of hearing your pseudonym being read out on the wireless took me back to January 2003 when it first happened. I almost forgot about the gout. Almost! 

Bluebottles, and not the good, Peter Sellers one!

As a vegetarian I am against the killing of animals, on a purely moral (and Process) basis. However..................................

I do make an exception with regards to bluebottles. In fact, I actively encourage their slaughter. All ages should hunt them down and torture them slowly.

Why do I hate them so! I'm ashamed to say it's because they buzz randomly. They don't even try to make it to the open window I've gone to the trouble to open for them to escape through. Instead they make a dash for my ear, much to my extreme annoyance, and then zig-zag around the room in a victory roll, feeling good that they've managed to momentarily justify their pathetic existences. Which they haven't!

I recall spending a good half hour in an hermetically sealed kitchen with tea towel and a red mist in front of my eyes. The eventual slaughter was slow and deliberate. I wanted to look it straight in its 800 eyes as I crushed it beneath a sheet of kitchen roll.

Anyway. In summary, eating animals is bad, but killing bluebottles is perfectly acceptable.  

The General Disassembly of the Presbyterian Church

As I type the opening night of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland's General Assembly has been and gone, and I didn't. No change there then! One of these days I may make it along but not while I can still get out of an armchair under my own steam.

Years ago, the General Assembly was big news, taking up manys a column inch in the local papers. The Tuesday Communion would take place in May Street Church and then the Assembly members would process up to Church House, stopping traffic as they made their holy pilgrimage. The Assembly itself would be packed to the gills and each Congregation would expect their Minister to represent them during the weeks business.

But those days are well and truly gone. These days, the General Assembly is a grey affair and is usually half filled at best. It rarely makes the papers unless it debates something controversial - for 'controversial' please read 'something that normal society dealt with and got over 30 years ago'.

The sad truth is that the Presbyterian Church (as are other denominations and traditions) is becoming less and less relevant. I know that's a trite, cliched phrase, but it's true, and has been true for a number of years. 

So what's the solution? No easy answers I'm afraid. The only answer I can see is through faith, providing we understand faith as being traveling forward rather than clinging on to old ways of understanding. But that's a painful road to follow because there's comfort and security in maintaining what was, even if it's in terminal decline. I love the Woody Allen line, "We've come to  a crossroads in life. One direction leads to hopeless despair, the other to annihilation. We can only pray for God's guidance" (or something like that). 

It's not going to be easy but we, as a denomination, may need to go in altogether new and exciting ways if we're to survive. Otherwise it'll be like being the owner of a sick goldfish - all you can do is watch helplessly and wait for the inevitable.

Here Comes The Sun (do do do do)

What a beautiful last fews days we've had here in Ulster! The sunshine has been wonderful, and SO warm. Some days the temperature got up to nearly 20C! And I'm not joking.

Good weather does something magical to the people of Northern Ireland. It brings them out on the streets (not a great thing in our recent past) and into the parks. With the first blink of sunshine the usually shy Ulsterman and woman dons shorts and flip flops and heads for the  queue at the nearest overpriced Ice Cream Van.

The sun brings out the best in people. People are  friendlier and keener to chat to complete strangers. Parks and green areas are utilised as they should be. The early evening air carries the pungent smell of hastily incinerated meat products. And everyone's arms, legs and face reek of coconut oil - factor 50 for the red heads amongst us.

If only the last were true! So unused to the sun are we, that with every rise of one degree in temperature there is a equivalent exposure of five inches squared of pasty flesh. And there's where the problem is. With so little sun on offer, especially during our Summer, the temptation is to soak up as many rays as you can before it disappears forever. 

Skin cancer is a problem in Ireland, both North and South, for that very reason. We just don't realise the power of the sun and its potential effect on us here. At the moment there is a great drive towards protecting the environment and respecting Nature, and rightly so. But sometimes we forget that we're part of nature too. We too need protecting. We too need to make sure we're around for our children and grandchildren. We too need to enjoy the sunshine sensibly so that in years to come we can enjoy the sunshine.