tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5349120795946331622024-02-07T04:57:27.637+00:00radrefphil wood's anabaptist blogPhilip Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05660845052048868503noreply@blogger.comBlogger276125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-3212418922201500112016-05-17T14:30:00.001+01:002016-05-17T14:30:14.138+01:00Poetry by the Park<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_573b197dd36ca1979277025">
I'm not sure whether Ted Hughes was best poet I’ve ever heard, but he was certainly the most impressive - 6’6” and jaw like a snow plough! I was at school at the time and – sat at the back – grateful to be able to see the man. By the time Hughes was part-way through ‘Thrushes’ – “bounce, stab and a ravening second” - I was willingly locked away in that great poetry prison. I’ve never wanted to escape! <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rachel Mann</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Veronica Zundel</td></tr>
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On Thursday 9th June, at 7pm, the Studio launches ‘P<span class="text_exposed_show">oetry by the Park’, the first of our regular quarterly series of poetry readings. I’ll be joined by the wonderful Rachel Mann, poet in residence at Manchester Cathedral. I'm also delighted to welcome my friend Veronica Zundel, poet and devotional writer. Admission is free. What a bargain! Get the word out and bring a friend. See you there. We'll set up a facebook event next week. Do let us know if you're coming.</span><br />
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Phil Wood <br />
The Studio<br />
Bailey Street<br />
Prestwich<br />
M25 1 HQ<br />
07740 940695<br />
philip.wood@congregational.org.uk</div>
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Philip Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05660845052048868503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-45946529298634285862015-07-23T07:50:00.000+01:002015-07-23T07:50:11.274+01:00Heaven in our embracesI have heard<br />
That we are held,<br />
In the palm of God's hand;<br />
Embraced in love.<br />
<br />
I have found<br />
That we hold<br />
God in the palm of a hand;<br />
heaven in our embraces. Philip Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05660845052048868503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-32071084534543337902015-06-26T19:26:00.000+01:002015-06-26T19:26:59.353+01:00Interwoven<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 15pt 0cm 7.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 18.5pt;">Interwoven (from Psalm 50)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">God gathers the earth<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">We are a pattern of beauty<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">A work of skilled hands<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">From the rising and setting sun<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">In rich variety<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Together made one<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Many voices in chorus<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">From Zion, God shines<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Braids of light<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Woven for strength<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Storm and fire surrounding<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">God gathers the heavens<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">With the earth<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Held to account<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Earth and paradise assembled<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">This gathered creation<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Half-light that falls between trees<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The smartness of jackdaws<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Journeys and the wild ocean<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">God gathers the people<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Renews the call<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">To joyful gratitude<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">A sacrifice of thanksgiving<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Summon the accomplices<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Break the schemes<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Of those who break others<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9FuRmJ6tLCWWFHVpBQPS_wwtS_q6ZLMPVCBc6Xpg0YAzE9TuHE34v5OyQ-GoJYdf0B9HA04QW52bIPVlyP68wlk1Cy0U5YIIwlnv_b4yWGtQc2_dhx03SI603KYCTR2fEImYVk_Of60j0/s1600/roots3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9FuRmJ6tLCWWFHVpBQPS_wwtS_q6ZLMPVCBc6Xpg0YAzE9TuHE34v5OyQ-GoJYdf0B9HA04QW52bIPVlyP68wlk1Cy0U5YIIwlnv_b4yWGtQc2_dhx03SI603KYCTR2fEImYVk_Of60j0/s320/roots3.jpg" width="320" /></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Covert intentions unravelled<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">So, each thread<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Broken<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Restored<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Joyful<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Whole<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Is shaped from sorrow and gold<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">All hopes interwoven<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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Philip Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05660845052048868503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-82222549997574758932015-04-09T19:47:00.000+01:002015-04-09T19:47:05.029+01:00It's Spring, Comrade!<div class="MsoNormal">
Just when I’m tempted to give up on Facebook along comes one
of those life-giving conversations. Our
theme was ‘signs of Spring’: geese, swallows, bats … and lawn mowing! Changing buses in Whitefield this morning, a
pair of pigeons brought to mind something rather more revolutionary. Behind a sculpture on a local supermarket,
doubling as shop front signage, the birds are nesting, strutting dangerously
under the wheels of passing traffic. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So there it is – signs beneath signs. If T.S. Eliot envisages Spring out of time - “midwinter
Spring” -then here is Spring out of place, an insurgency of disobedient
life. Thomas Merton’s essay, ‘Rain and
the Rhinoceros’, is wonderful:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>The rain I am in is not like the rain of the cities. It fills the woods with an immense and confused
sound. It covers the flat roof of the
cabin and its porch with inconsistent and controlled rhythms. And I listen, because it reminds me again and
again that the whole world runs by rhythms I have not yet learned to recognize,
rhythms that are not those of the engineer.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Later he continues, <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>There is nothing in the world of buildings that is not fabricated, and
if a tree gets in among the apartment houses by mistake it is taught to grow chemically.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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It is hard to better Merton’s appreciation of disparate
rhythms, learned and unrecognized. Perhaps,
though, the weakness of Merton’s narrative lies in his relatively undeveloped
theme: ‘rhythms that are not those of the engineer’<i>. </i>The intoxication of the
rain, sounding on the roof of Merton’s cabin at the monastery of Gethsemane, is
overwhelming and exuberantly joyful. I think
however, it lacks a note of revolution.
The rain that falls on the slates of city rooftops may lack the rhythmic
textures that Merton describes, but it is rain where it matters. Merton’s jaded dismissal of the city is a
blemish on his otherwise magical essay.
Today I saw the power of nature to defy the engineers and confront our
fabricated creation, behind its’ own facades, celebrating the essence of an industrial
revolution. It was Blake and not Merton
who came closest to understanding that the city might be transformed and that the
manufactured city does not have the final word. <o:p></o:p></div>
Philip Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05660845052048868503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-53402776916661952962014-02-19T10:50:00.000+00:002014-02-19T10:50:24.419+00:00Disillusionment<div class="MsoNormal">
Disillusionment! It’s
a word that usually carries a pejorative sense: ‘Fred was one of us – one of
the good guys - until he became disillusioned’. I wouldn’t want to speculate
what the ‘good guys’ did with their time but there is something curious about ‘disillusionment’. ‘Illusions’ aren’t usually regarded
positively. Why then should
disillusionment be seen as a bad thing? </div>
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The history of early Anabaptism is a story of expectation,
persecution and migration, but it also illustrates the formative power of
disillusionment. That disillusionment
which followed the failure of the Peasant’s Revolt was the crucible of much
made up second generation Anabaptist life.
The socially and economically focused idealism of the Revolt carried
into the congregational life of Anabaptist communities. The anticlerical thrust of the Peasant
radicals shaped the congregationalism of the emerging Anabaptist Movement. In all of this, disillusionment with Luther’s
Reformation was to play a significant part.
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First generation is littered with the biographies of the
disillusioned, either converts or defectors.
It is worth remembering that the communities later called ‘Mennonite’ were
initially led by Obbe Philips (1500-1568) until around 1540, when he withdrew
from the Movement. By all accounts a
capable leader, what would have happened had Obbe remained, is
speculative. Perhaps today, we would be ‘Obbenites’? The record is sketchy. It does contain Menno’s sharp criticism in
his writing against Gellius Faber, that Obbe was a ‘Demas’ and that ‘Adam
Pastor has left us’ (Complete Writings, 761).
We hear very little from Obbe’s perspective, but W J Kühler
perhaps comes closest, in highlighting the similarity of Obbe’s ideas to
Sebastian Franck’s individualistic spiritualism. That Obbe’s departure might be
construed as a response to a perceived legalism is a reasonable
explanation. Obbe’s recollection is
telling: ‘The prophecies deceived us on all sides and the letter of the
Scriptures took us prisoner’ (Obbe Philips, Confession, p.223 in Williams and
Mergal, Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers).
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All of which comes very close to home. If ‘disillusionment’ were a simple matter of
intellectual change, then it would be a relatively painless liberation. But disillusionment involves heat as well as
light. Where perceived ‘illusions’ are
socially embodied – in relationships or in the ideological underpinning of a
movement and institutions, departure is painful. ‘Disillusionment’ need not constitute a
rejection of everything that went before, but it is at least a signal for
departure. </div>
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As perceptive folks will have noticed, this is more than a
treatise about Obbe Philips and disillusionment. It has something to do with my very recent departure
from Wood Green Mennonite Church. I have no intention of turning a great deal of
private disappointment into a public spat, so that is as much as I am willing
to say here. </div>
Philip Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05660845052048868503noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-56192685096202255992013-08-01T18:17:00.001+01:002013-08-01T18:17:13.798+01:00Red pepper dayOn the 313 again! It's the warmest day of the year; hot enough to poach fish on the red pepper bonnet. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Red Peppers, Creative Commons</td></tr>
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Philip Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05660845052048868503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-53738980459869122512013-08-01T12:25:00.000+01:002013-08-01T12:25:18.065+01:00Are You Charismatic? (Part 2) The Anabaptist YearsAs Wayne Hochstetler asked in discussion of my <a href="http://radref.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/are-you-charismatic.html">'Are You Charismatic'</a> , how would I update the story? My first post dates from 2010. It tells the tale of involvement with the Charismatic Movement from 1978 to 1985. I left London Bible College in 1985. By this time I was already falling out of love with the Movement. There was no 'resignation', or a moment of departure. Instead, increasingly I failed to find in Renewal, a vehicle for my developing social justice concerns. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-ajTAdP8ATNf86-0Zg7AoSesC4yqnTb3DVl5VX7EVTYijY25bq4mUKr4el8r4nrjhbkRj1_HwlL3AzU8fihDVMukzjmVMjuKjBoouHfloxczYQamgrrecnXe8M1sulvQx7gjCDmBZ2l1k/s1600/586px-St_Peters_Holy_Spirit_window.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-ajTAdP8ATNf86-0Zg7AoSesC4yqnTb3DVl5VX7EVTYijY25bq4mUKr4el8r4nrjhbkRj1_HwlL3AzU8fihDVMukzjmVMjuKjBoouHfloxczYQamgrrecnXe8M1sulvQx7gjCDmBZ2l1k/s320/586px-St_Peters_Holy_Spirit_window.JPG" width="312" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St Peter's 'Holy Spirit' window, Rome Creative commons</td></tr>
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With London Bible College I had been co-leader of the open air team, preaching under <a href="http://radref.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/jean.html">the bright lights of Leicester Square</a>. It might as well have been Mars. As the team parachuted in weekly, with our sketchboards and tracts, we were talking to homeless people. As our van made its way back to leafy Northwood, it was business as usual on the Square. I remember taking one young woman to church. She lasted 15 minutes, before heading for the door. It was a well known church, I had visited before. I never went back. If a gulf was evident between the Square and this city centre church, then it was a divide that already existed, in much of Western Europe. I found myself 'minding the gap', situated somewhere in the middle.<br />
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Those conversations in the Square turned out to be life-changing, but not immediately. Karen and I had room for one more heady experience of disillusionment before the direction changed. When we left college in 1985, our intended destination was the mission field - Japan to be precise. We were accepted candidates with WEC (then Worldwide Evangelization Crusade). Their headquarters was a rambling mansion in Buckinghamshire called 'Bulstrode'. We were told that this Gothic pile used to belong to hanging judge Jeffreys, but Bulstrode's judicial past only served to accentuate our sense of isolation and virtual imprisonment. We had half a day off every Saturday afternoon. Slough is not pretty, but compared to this place of Evangelical incarceration, we arrived at McDonald's like Christian reaching the Celestial City. Our candidacy was not a match made in heaven. We asked too many critical questions. We received precious little support from our own 'sending church'. We were not on-message. Their pastoral 'support' was woeful. By the time they dumped us and we left, breathing fire, it was an end of innocence. We stepped out of regular church attendance for two years. In hindsight, it had a devastating effect on our marriage. Though we made up with them later, I am glad we never went to Japan.<br />
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I did what many people do, when they're hurting. I went home. Karen and I returned to Bury, staying initially with family, then moving to a rented house by the River Irwell on Waterfold Lane. Our landlords ran the local fish and chip shop. They were also related to the family who owned Spout Bank Farm, on the hill above our house. It was, so were told, a former Friends meeting house. James Naylor, the early Quaker, leader visited the place. So, what do a pair of unemployed missionaries do for a living? We picked up the connection with homelessness, volunteering at the Bethany hostel, a 30 minute walk from our home. Volunteering turned into employment and within a few months we were installed as Assistant Wardens on a princely £7,000 p.a. It was hard work and I think Karen was better at it than I was. For both of us, it marked a vocational change of direction. I have spent much of the past thirty years wrestling with housing need and homelessness: Bethany, Nightstop and the Churches National Housing Coalition.<br />
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We can trace early encounters with homelessness to our time at London Bible College. The same is true of Anabaptism. It may well have been 1983, but I remember meeting Alan Kreider (director of the London Mennonite Centre) for the first time at LBC. The occasion was a debate on unilateral nuclear disarmament. I don't recall knowing much about Mennonites and Anabaptism at the time, but we were bowled over by a holistic approach that married biblical concerns with peacemaking, social justice and community. When we followed up the debate and met Alan and Eleanor Kreider at the LMC, we discovered a tradition that embodied our own left of centre aspirations. It was only later that I discovered that most U.S. Mennonites vote Republican, but we encountered Anabaptism as a revolutionary movement.<br />
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In the UK it isn't easy to join a Mennonite Church. At the time we were living in Bury, there was only one Mennonite congregation in the UK and that was in London. So, I wrote to Alan: 'hypothetically, if a person wanted to become Mennonite in the UK, hypothetically of course, how would they go about about it'? Alan saw through the 'hypotheticals', pointing us to Doncaster and to Rick and Maggie Coldman. Rick and Maggie, their lovely large family and two other households, had started an Anabaptist community in a working class district of the town. There were joys and disappointments on the way. Years later, we were to join Rick and Maggie again in Cwmduad near Carmarthen, for another experience of Anabaptist community. The fuller story is told in <a href="http://www.themennonite.org/pdf/magazine_pdf_87.pdf">'From Manchester to Mennonites' </a>which appeared in the Nov 2nd, 2004 edition of 'The Mennonite'. <br />
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So, am I Charismatic? I would still say 'yes', but the story has become complicated. I remember interviewing Dave Tomlinson (i.e. Post-Evangelical), at the Harry festival in Harrogate, just before he jumped ship and left the House Church Movement. Quickly, I became aware that Dave was just as concerned as I was, about the Fundamentalist influences on the Restorationist Movement. It was good to know that I wasn't the only one with concerns.<br />
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The Charismatic Movement made an impression on Mennonite Churches in North America, as it did across the ecumenical spectrum. The Mennonite Encyclopedia has a <a href="http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/C4602ME.html">helpful article</a>. Here in the UK there are to my knowledge, only two Mennonite congregations. The Anabaptist Network includes the same spectrum of opinion on Renewal as would be typical of other mainstream Christian traditions in the UK. That said, in the form of Stuart Murray, the Anabaptist movement in the UK has a powerful advocate of the charismatic element in Anabaptist life. Murray's <a href="http://www.anabaptistnetwork.com/book/export/html/173">'Anabaptism as a Charismatic Movement' </a>is an excellent overview. I remember a conversation with Stuart at the London Mennonite Centre in the 1980's, where we talked about the relative absence of a charismatic dimension in John Howard Yoder's theology. Stuart and I have always placed our emphases in different places where the role of Mennonites in the wider UK Anabaptist movement is concerned. We do not, I think, disagree about Renewal.<br />
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When I stepped out of those 'Charismatic circles', it was not with the intent of 'quenching the spirit'. I think though, that recent years have been bruising and difficult. I have found introspection and quietism easier to maintain, emotionally. Though, I rediscovered the mystical dimensions of early Anabaptism, I have failed to broker a peace treaty between my Charismatic and Anabaptist past. Though I discovered in Anabaptist-Mennonite life, a more appropriate vehicle for social justice, peace and community, there is much I have lost in the Charismatic Movement. I think if David Watson were here today, he would affirm justice, peace and community as well as Renewal. It is not freedom in the Holy Spirit I abandoned but the re-configuration of Renewal as right-wing, sectarian and fundamentalist. If Anabaptism can do Renewal without conservatism, then I will be out there riding the wave. We are (as Pentecostals might say), in need of the 'unction'. <br />
<br />Philip Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05660845052048868503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-49636236566915850522013-07-26T11:21:00.000+01:002013-07-26T11:21:35.888+01:00Places Have Prices: retreats and the cost of spiritual refreshmentFor a passionate advocate of retreats, I have actually made rather few of them. This is overwhelmingly to do with the price tag. The question of access is complex. That 'price tag' includes the cost of travel, as well as charges levied by the retreat centre. Of course, cost isn't the only obstacle to accessibility. There are time constraints, family responsibilities and the sense, for some, that retreats aren't for 'people like us'. <br />
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Whatever the disincentives, there is a desperate need for places apart. Such places are precious - increasingly so in a frantic, clamorous culture. If retreats are beyond reach for some, there is at least the sense that ways should be found to bring the barriers down. It is more than twenty years now, since I first went to Hazlewood, but I remain deeply appreciative for the gift of space. There are still Benedictine communities offering hospitality on a donation basis, which serve a real need. Wherever the retreat movement may be headed, I very much hope their approach has a future. <br />
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Retreatants aren't the only ones concerned about the economics of spiritual refreshment. The past few years have seen high profile closures of many well known retreat centres, as cash strapped denominational authorities seek to square the circle between the downturn, declining church membership and the rising expectations of guests. I once heard a Carmelite friar describe their historic rural retreat house as a 'pile in the country'. Many of these 'piles' - Hazlewood Castle, The All Saints Pastoral Centre and shortly Glenfall House, either have closed or face closure. Equally, many religious orders are dwindling and ageing. If ways are to be found, to renew the retreat movement for a new generation, then the Christian communities at the heart of that movement, will have to change. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIGZ1zSmAUL71OrK3S19RsnbKMiE1hC2tVOfiQUdF7e6I-ebkXPuSTS4_XzdZPH29fjyFYFYAPUGMIxm1jwrv602LWfpJVZ5i5W3IScvbBP3YcRXBi8TgDCLawfoGTum8d6DG2fTrbuEum/s1600/The_St_Cuthbert's_Centre,_Holy_Island_-_geograph.org.uk_-_412512.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIGZ1zSmAUL71OrK3S19RsnbKMiE1hC2tVOfiQUdF7e6I-ebkXPuSTS4_XzdZPH29fjyFYFYAPUGMIxm1jwrv602LWfpJVZ5i5W3IScvbBP3YcRXBi8TgDCLawfoGTum8d6DG2fTrbuEum/s320/The_St_Cuthbert's_Centre,_Holy_Island_-_geograph.org.uk_-_412512.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St Cuthbert's Centre, Holy Island. Creative Commons</td></tr>
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I am in correspondence with a number of people who are pioneering new retreat centres. Some are up and running and others are in the process of development. In the main, they are less structured and smaller than the great houses of a previous generation. Largely, they are lay led, or linked to neo-monastic communities. Some have connections to radical nonconformity.<br />
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I am reading a BBC report. It proclaims, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23273448">'rent 'unaffordable' for low-income families in third of UK'</a>. That 'third' includes virtually the whole of south-east England. As an over-heated housing market and Tory welfare 'reforms' drive the poor away from London, I reflect that the UK's only Mennonite place of retreat and refreshment (the London Mennonite Centre), has joined the exodus. <br />
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Wherever the retreat movement journeys in Post-Christendom times, I hope that the geography of spiritual refreshment will continue to locate quiet spaces, within reach of Britain's urban populations. There will always be room for the long road to Iona. Cities, too should have their 'thin places'. As for Mennonites, we are currently on the road. It stimulates the imagination though, to ask what an Anabaptist Retreat Centre might look like. <br />
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<br />Philip Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05660845052048868503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-45454228586824423402013-07-23T18:42:00.001+01:002013-07-23T18:42:24.626+01:00Lonely Mennonite Hearts?This post began as a weighty, serious piece. I'm still entirely serious, but wanted to find a way around recrimination over the demise of the London Mennonite Centre. Presently, my own congregation (Wood Green Mennonite Church) is going through a tough time. Our previous relationship with the LMC offered both a static resource and a ready supply of Sunday regulars. The loss of the Centre leaves us with a difficult transition and a considerable challenge, to grow again without the presence of the LMC. In other words we are looking for a fresh way of being church and doing mission. If you're interested in the background of our congregation Alan Kreider tells the tale in his <a href="http://menno.org.uk/about-us/history/">'History: the Story of the Mennonite Trust'</a>. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wood Green Mennonite Church, 2013</td></tr>
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With all of this in mind I want to ask for you help. You've all seen those lonely hearts advertisements. Some of you may have written or responded to a few. Here's my challenge: write a advertisement for new members of Wood Green Mennonite Church in the form of a 'personal ad'. Here's an example:<br />
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<i>Mennonites - a bit crinkly around the edges, WLTM outgoing peaceniks for LTR. GSOH essential.</i> </blockquote>
If you have any ideas along the same lines, I would love to hear them. Send me a message on radref, facebook or twitter. Once I have enough of them I'll post the results. There's further information on Wood Green Mennonite Church over at <a href="http://wgmc.wordpress.com/">http://wgmc.wordpress.com/</a> <br />
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Philip Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05660845052048868503noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-51501634618873026632013-07-20T12:26:00.000+01:002013-07-20T12:26:11.660+01:00William Blake and the New JerusalemIt is 5pm on the Victoria Line to King's Cross. In the carriage above my head is one of those 'poem on the underground'. I am reading this vision of a transformed London, an excerpt from William Blake's <i>Jerusalem</i>:<br />
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The fields from Islington to Marylebone,<br />
To Primrose Hill and St John's Wood,<br />
Were builed over with pillars of gold,<br />
And there Jerusalem's pillars stood. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">William Blake 'Jerusalem', Wikimedia Commons</td></tr>
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</blockquote>
For most of my life I have found Blake odd, but now I am ready for him. Perhaps I have grown strange, as well. Blake is prophet as well as poet, more so than any other other English writer. Like the biblical prophets, he is not primarily a foreteller but a forthteller. His vision uncovers reality behind the everyday. Born near Golden Square London, one 28th Nov 1757, Blake is the forerunner of every urban explorer and ethnogeographer who searches out the more lucid city.<br />
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So, I am still heading for King's Cross. Half a dozen deaf and blind men have boarded the train. They are relaxed and talkative. I have an impression that the group know one another well. The man in front of me is signing articulately. His hand movements are beautiful. It is almost like watching Tai Chi. I wonder how they communicate with one another and overcome their disabilities. Individually, we might talk of impairment. Together, they make a considerable community. In our noisy carriage, signing has advantages. <br />
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It was T.S. Eliot who saw in Blake, a 'terrifying' honesty. Eliot's appraisal has a contemporary ring to it. It is worth remembering though, that Blake died almost unremembered in 1827. The 'mad' visionary was known by only one poem <i>Tyger,</i> which has found its way into the anthologies. His rehabilitation owes much to the artist Samuel Palmer, for whom Blake was 'a man without a mask'. Richard Holmes' <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2004/may/29/classics.williamblake">'Saving Blake'</a> is an excellent survey of his reputation.<br />
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Finally, I arrive at King's Cross. It is 'cracking the flags', as my dad would have said. I can't find a seat on the balcony, so I am propped against the W.H.Smith's window, looking up at McAslan's vast, latticed roof. As always, I am torn between wonder and resentment. The architect boastfully describes it as the 'greatest station building ever', but it is mostly London's hubris on display. <br />
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Blake's vision was altogether different. I remain a Mancunian in exile, but it is Blake vision that leads me to love the capital and all cities, a little more. His exegesis is offbeat, but I think the English seer is true to Biblical eschatology in at least one key respect. He is patient with the city. He has seen the New Jerusalem. In an insight shared with Jacques Ellul, Blake knows how the story ends. Though Cain's urban project is built on pride and murder, the last page reveals not a restored Eden, but a heavenly city. I confess my discomfort. If I had the money, I might take Ruskin's option. <br />
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<br />Philip Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05660845052048868503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-52954031930514829412013-07-14T10:57:00.000+01:002013-07-14T10:57:17.685+01:00Belfast, Manchester and the News of the World<br />
Last week I was in Belfast. Egypt was in the news. I watched Mohammed Mursi toppled from power on the tiny screen in my hotel bedroom. This weekend, Belfast <i>is</i> the news, for all the wrong reasons. The city is counting the cost after the traditional 12th July march turned violent. Less than a month earlier Barack Obama delivered a measured and powerful speech from Belfast's Waterford Hall. 'Peace comes dropping slow', said the President, quoting Yeats. He is surely right.<br />
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Most of us hear our 'news of the world' at a distance. I saw elson Mandela walk free, huddled around a shared TV at the Swanwick conference centre. My backdrop for Tiananmen Square was a Baptist manse in Cheshire. The most uncomfortable point of view, undoubtedly belonged to the Falklands War. An army base in Germany wasn't the most popular place to be a pacifist. But, however uncomfortable our vantage point, a screen partitions the event. Today's news was rather closer to home. A fire broke out in hairdressers in Oldham Street, Manchester. A firefighter died. I know the hairdressers well. For years I worked next door, with the Churches National Housing Coalition. The Methodist Church and Church Action on Poverty are still based there. not I will be contacting former colleagues at CAP this week, but even so there is a sense that this news belongs to someone else. I did not feel the heat of the flames. <br />
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But talk about the economic collapse or even more, the global ecological crisis, and we're all feeling the heat. This is the real 'news of the world'. If the planet is sick at heart, there is no 'remote viewing', mediation or dispassionate perspectives. We are all in the news. There is no distance between the observer and the observed. Despite the occasional story about bumblebees and butterflies, the global media hasn't yet got its priorities right. <br />
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<br />Philip Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05660845052048868503noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-62126313101288319762013-07-08T18:30:00.001+01:002013-07-08T18:30:29.561+01:00Wood Green Mennonite Church Seek Part-Time AdministratorLondon's Wood Green Mennonite Church are looking for a part-time administrator. Could this be you? For details of the role check out our <a href="http://wgmc.wordpress.com/church-life/jobs-at-wgmc/church-administrator/">church website</a>. Philip Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05660845052048868503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-88422912541818732013-07-02T20:54:00.002+01:002013-07-03T07:46:03.775+01:00Shaving Fume! Stanstead airport again! The customs officer has <i>that</i> look. Whatever it is, I'm ready to confess. I wouldn't put up much resistance. It turns out, I am indeed guilty. She dumps my over-sized shaving foam in the bin with satisfyingly vindicated thud. Maybe she has a husband, children or a plays bingo on Tuesday. All I can see is the uniform. My socks spill out over the polished floor as I repack the bag.<br />
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I am heading to Belfast at the invitation of the Bishop of Down and Dromore. I hope he likes his mission development team unshaven. Somehow I have a connection with Ireland. I do not know exactly what it is, but every time I come here I feel my internal compass has been reset. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Queen's University, Belfast</td></tr>
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It is later now. I am safely installed in my guesthouse, intriguingly owned by the Indian restaurant next door. I'm staying near the Botanic Gardens, in one of my favourite parts of the city. I still have that official on my mind. Yesterday I spoke to an asylum seeker. She faced horrific treatment in Zimbabwe. Every day she fears being forced to return. Perhaps she will walk through customs, past the same grey uniform. I feel suddenly ashamed of my petty irritation. I am a British citizen, travelling in my own country. She is a long way from home. Those borders look a lot more unfriendly, when you're on the wrong side of them. Philip Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05660845052048868503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-81562282182952092942013-06-26T08:54:00.000+01:002013-06-26T08:54:04.967+01:00What's Left for Left When the Right Get Ethical?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The marginalia and minor players of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral aren’t
an obvious source of leftist inspiration. Eyeballing Charles Moore on the steps
of St Paul's though, had me leafing through the press clippings. I hate to say this but Moore's ‘</span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8655106/Im-starting-to-think-that-the-Left-might-actually-be-right.html"><span style="font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: blue;">I’m starting to think the Left might actually be right</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">’ (Daily Telegraph, 22 July, 2011) was my favourite piece of 2011
political reading. Surely, the only joy I have ever had from the Daily
Telegraph, apart from the existence of fish and chips.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Moore's article doesn't amount to a Damascene conversion. He does
however, ask the right questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
that political rarity - an honest moment of political empathy between political
opposites. The phone hacking scandal, our banking crisis - the plight of the
Eurozone, confirms every conviction of the Left. As he admits, "It turns
out - as the Left always claims - that a system purporting to advance the many
has been perverted in order to enrich the few". Moore concludes with a
prayer for the salvation of conservatism. Rather, a bluebottle in the ointment of
rapprochement, I thought. Just for an instant though, the light shone in dark
places. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYgcwMxdgFmfymSSyum7f96B19MrRSoVTNaXvabe1QaaJ0R-sYrbc6Lfwuyzt5SC6RBtHV9D5l29gXzjUdGxUfd2LCItywAd9H4MvgNscpETnrbWzD2CKjM3jj3kP49fqStDnDibj9FlpC/s1600/5836404385_1da917ba02_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYgcwMxdgFmfymSSyum7f96B19MrRSoVTNaXvabe1QaaJ0R-sYrbc6Lfwuyzt5SC6RBtHV9D5l29gXzjUdGxUfd2LCItywAd9H4MvgNscpETnrbWzD2CKjM3jj3kP49fqStDnDibj9FlpC/s320/5836404385_1da917ba02_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/3336/with/5836404385/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/3336/with/5836404385/</a>, Creative Commons</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">In keeping with the mood I consider, is this left/right thing just a
dance we do? Is Paul Trathen right to accuse the left of lazy, gratuitous <i>ad
hominem </i>assaults on establishment hate figures? Trathen’s blog post from
June 7<sup>th</sup>, 2012 ‘</span><a href="http://thejourneyhomeresumed.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/thoughts-about-monarchy-in-light-of.html"><span style="font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: blue;">Thoughts about monarchy in the light of a Diamond Jubilee</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">', makes punchy reading and a contribution to the republican/monarchist
argument. We don't agree on this issue, but he does have a point about
political laziness. Perhaps we need Thatcher, Bush, Murdoch and the Queen?
Tribal identity is so much easier with the perfect enemy. For what it's worth,
the Queen is the odd one out. Gratuitous repetition of the phrase 'grudging
respect' reveals the difficulty for republicans in making a convincing
'spitting image' of the monarch. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">'Left' and 'Right' have a surprisingly recent political history. The
terms describe seating arrangements in the 1789 National Assembly during the
French Revolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To the right were
supporters of religion and the king and to the left, the revolution. The
left/right divide may have periodically devolved to an exercise in political
head-banging but there never has been a simply drawn continuum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover, ‘left’ and ‘right’ are capable of broad
definition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a left of centre
Christian I have never been comfortable bringing God into politics stage right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A suspicion that God is somehow on the side
of establishments – a defender of clericalism, hierarchy and privilege -
persists from those Revolutionary origins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In its attitude to faith 'the Left' is caught between Revolutions. In
the English Revolution there is a similar implicit Left/Right split but a
religious mindset is evident right across the spectrum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>'Right' and 'Left' are grown up theological
as well as political designations. On the left religion proved a radicalizing
agent of change. The difference between the two revolutions has blighted the
Left ever since and is evident in the prickly co-existence of secular and
religious radicalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">For an example of that radicalism we
need look no further than the awkward coalition of secular and religious
elements in the British Republican movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As an introvert I would normally prefer to have my teeth pulled than
accept a party invitation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I made an
exception for last year’s ‘not the royal’ wedding event in London’s Red Lion
Square.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whilst the party was a welcome
antidote to a ubiquitous monarchist media love-in, the chosen location outside the
Conway Hall Humanist Centre, was revealing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As I blogged in ‘</span><a href="http://radref.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/republicanism#!/2011/04/rossetti-and-republicans-at-red-lion.html"><span style="font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: blue;">Rossetti and Republicans at the Red Lion Square’</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">, the sons of Thomas Paine still need us, Most likely, the discomfort
would have been reversed had the venue been a church porch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">In the interests of responding in kind to Moore's foray across the
political divide, it is easy to admit that the 'party of change' and the 'party
of order' aren't simple opposites. The need for stability and the necessity of
breaking up the fallow ground suggest a dynamic rhythm in the left/right
tension. Religion is not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">per </i>se
radical or conservative. Whether this ‘dynamic’ allows a less adversarial
interpretation of the left/right tension is a more open question. At its worst
such revisionism smacks of centrism at its most banal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">"We are neither left nor right but
in-front" says the adopted 1970's Green slogan. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the mood that took Greens to 15% of
the vote in the 1989 European Elections.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Tellingly the most damning criticism of the slogan comes from the
socialist wing of the Green Movement. Where the post-Thatcher consensus has
shifted the centre ground to the right, the middle hardly seems fit for purpose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the same consensus that allowed a consolidation
of the catastrophic widening chasm between rich and poor under subsequent Tory
and Labour administrations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">So, still I reach for the icy bucket. Imagining a 'compassionate
conservatism' is rather like keeping a vegetarian Alligator. It is the flaw in
Moore’s narrative to misunderstand the nature of the beast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ‘market’ was the same animal before the
crash and will be afterwards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is
the fruit of this Capitalist system, the Right love so much? It is a
marketplace of horrors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the
virtual identification of the marketplace with corporations and the very
rich.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a crucifixion of the
poor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the bastardization of
democracy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a high-carbon
apocalypse. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Certainly, forget the <i>ad
hominem </i>demonizing and the tribal war dances. The structural truth about
power is out there. However heterogeneous our fellow travellers, I remain
seated on the left. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-27482378255063232952013-06-17T14:45:00.003+01:002013-06-17T15:32:57.843+01:00It's the Co-op, Jim, but not as we know itIf ever proof were needed that 'small is beautiful', then consider the current demise of the Co-operative Bank. Like millions of other Co-op customers, I woke up this morning to news of a rescue scheme, addressing a £1.5 bn hole in the bank's balance sheet. The deal will be largely financed by converting loans to shares, forcing bondholders to take a loss. For the first time in its history the bank will be listed on the stock market and partly de-mutualized. <br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0JObp7VQphyK_rTO87LKWAz7D5WJjCrd4uw3sp8v02fMqfSyD6ksQ05SzFxv4nggf3Vr5FVnphQdvsCpSnvIsu2THhg0NyPkfDdwZW6AMEJfq08xjxKDxJgCKGeDraayaKbbE9HcjBqUp/s1600/398px-Co-operativeBankHeadOffice20051019_CopyrightKaihsuTai.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0JObp7VQphyK_rTO87LKWAz7D5WJjCrd4uw3sp8v02fMqfSyD6ksQ05SzFxv4nggf3Vr5FVnphQdvsCpSnvIsu2THhg0NyPkfDdwZW6AMEJfq08xjxKDxJgCKGeDraayaKbbE9HcjBqUp/s320/398px-Co-operativeBankHeadOffice20051019_CopyrightKaihsuTai.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Co-op Bank HQ, Wikimedia commons</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The move will be seen by many as a disaster for the Co-operative movement and for the mutual sector. Despite reassurances from the bank the 'bail-in' marks a major shift of ethos which is likely to alienate the Co-ops core customer base. I am a friend of the Co-operative movement and a northern lad, proud of the Manchester based mutual. But, I am several steps nearer the door marked 'exit' today. <br />
<br />
It takes more than history to preserve a robust ethos of mutuality in the current climate. If there is to be 'economics as if people mattered' then size must also matter. The Co-op is only the latest institution to fall victim to the pestilential myth of unlimited growth. The Britannia merger and the abortive takeover of 632 Lloyd's Banking Group branches, invite an assessment of reckless hubris. Whether fault lies predominantly with the bank or with the Treasury, will likely become clearer in the next few months. Recriminations aside, this is a crying shame. This morning Britain became a less mutual and co-operative place. It will not be the end of the bank, but much of what made the Co-op an ethical alternative will not survive this deal. Philip Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05660845052048868503noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-42729248459098340092013-06-14T13:48:00.000+01:002013-08-05T08:22:11.801+01:00Anabaptists, Keep Your Clothes On! In Celebration of Second Generations.<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #272727; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14.39px/15.19px "Helvetica Neue Light", HelveticaNeue-Light, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Name a movement. It could be political, artistic, religious or commercial - any will do. Now imagine that movement as it was in the beginning. What gave .that movement energy? Was that movement broadly uniform or diverse? What did it seek to achieve? Were there struggles or conflicts to overcome? Who were its pioneers? What was their legacy? What you are imagining is a picture, a story of a first generation. First generations are always special. What came first may not be a golden generation, but will almost certainly be in some sense 'normative' for those who follow. Subsequent generations tend to look over their shoulders. What would the founders have done? Are we keeping the faith or measuring up to the vision? For all movements, the dynamic between first, second and successive generations is formative. We wish to be authentic but </span>we also choose to be ourselves - to bring treasures old and new from the storeroom.<br />
<br />
Whatever our differences on other matters, Christians view the genesis of the Jesus movement as special. The first era of our movement will always be weighted differently in a conversation between generations. Anabaptists are no exception to this rule of orientation to a founding vision. Indeed, some Anabaptists have been restitutionists - radically oriented to the vision of a retrievable past. As John Howard Yoder says,<br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #272727; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14.39px/15.19px "Helvetica Neue Light", HelveticaNeue-Light, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><em></em></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #272727; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14.39px/15.19px "Helvetica Neue Light", HelveticaNeue-Light, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><em>There was once a normative state of the church. There was then a "Fall," leaving a degenerate state, so intrinsically deteriorated as not to be reparable without discontinuity. Then there is the radical renewal.</em> (Yoder 1984: 124)</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #272727; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14.39px/15.19px "Helvetica Neue Light", HelveticaNeue-Light, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Of course there are always variations to the pattern. Mennonites (as with many other movements within the Christian family) look back, not only to primitive Christianity but also to the origins of our own movement. The 16th Century origins reveal an Anabaptist first generation. </span><br />
<br />
All of this places second and following generations at something of a disadvantage. The annunciation of an Anabaptist Vision, as for example Harold Bender and especially his more radical successors, have imagined it, enables a critical account of Mennonite folkways, acculturation and historic seclusion. More recently the impact of Stuart Murray's 'The Naked Anabaptist' on north American Mennonites is noteworthy. It is perhaps an instance where the title of a book runs away from the text, overemphasising a perception of pristine clarity. For American Mennonites wrestling with the ambiguities of cultural baggage and declining membership, Murray's inter-continental missal impacts a sensitive target. In reality though, the book is far more nuanced than the title suggests. As Murray points out,<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>... there is strictly no such thing as a "naked Anabaptist". Anabaptist values and practises are always clothed in particular cultures. </i>(p.43)</blockquote>
<br />
For Mennonites in the UK (we do exist!), 'The Naked Anabaptist' presents some ambiguities. We are concerned, not only to be Anabaptist but also to be Mennonite. That is, we wish to be comfortable in our clothes. In part that means owning those parts of the Anabaptist story that belong, not only to the Anabaptist origins but to second and successive generations. Ask a non-Anabaptist to list what they know about the Anabaptist tradition and if they know anything at all, peacemaking will likely occupy the No.1 slot. Amish community life or attitudes to technology won't be far behind. The Anabaptist consensus around peace is the achievement, not primarily of the first generation, but of the second, following the failure of the Peasant's Revolt. The Amish attitude to the assimilation of technology, with all its' cutting edge ecological and social relevance could never have belonged to a first generation - nor indeed to 'naked Anabaptism'. It is a product of Anabaptist maturity.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNCh48id75Jsf-JFrFXq34ai0tFE54KL0BTF6NeyeDaIr9FusRVz3ZLOQNYE3zm3GdkaA23hRFWJApua4MobwnXPuZdfswdmO-9JMFGt8fwPMlO-q61i_ewQn4q45TyZ12JinO9qBVs8vC/s1600/wgmc+007.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNCh48id75Jsf-JFrFXq34ai0tFE54KL0BTF6NeyeDaIr9FusRVz3ZLOQNYE3zm3GdkaA23hRFWJApua4MobwnXPuZdfswdmO-9JMFGt8fwPMlO-q61i_ewQn4q45TyZ12JinO9qBVs8vC/s400/wgmc+007.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wood Green Mennonite Church, London - banner and knife bin!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Along with Stuart Murray we may resist idealising Mennonite life. Many of us would recognise his disappointment with consumerist attitudes, cumbersome decision-making, conventional worship and evangelistic reticence (p. 158). It is unclear at this point which Mennonites Murray has in mind. From the admittedly limited perspective of the two Mennonite congregations in the UK, Murray's critique of Mennonite 'reluctance to share their faith with others' (p.158) is problematic. On the previous page he asserts:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Many years ago Mennonites decided not to plant Mennonite churches in Britain and Ireland or to try to establish a denominational presence there. (p.157)</i></blockquote>
After more than a year of asking people who ought to know, about the origins of this 'decision', I have been unable to verify if any such agreement ever existed. In the absence of chapter and verse, I believe it to be a myth. I would suggest that Mennonite church planting in Britain and Ireland is a logical interpretation of sharing our faith with others. <br />
<br />
The growth of Anabaptism in Britain and Ireland is thankfully, broader than the extension of an ideological or denominational identity. But the question remains, what is the Mennonite future in these islands? <br />
<br />
<br />
<u>Bibliography</u><br />
<br />
Murray, Stuart. 'The Naked Anabaptist: the bare essentials of a radical faith'. 2010. Herald Press.<br />
<br />
Yoder, J H. 'The Priestly Kingdom: Social Ethics as Gospel' 1984. University of Notre Dame Press<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>
<br />
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</blockquote>
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #272727; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14.39px/15.19px "Helvetica Neue Light", HelveticaNeue-Light, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #272727; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14.39px/15.19px "Helvetica Neue Light", HelveticaNeue-Light, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"></span><br />Philip Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05660845052048868503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-43416753504110354462013-06-04T11:46:00.000+01:002013-06-05T08:39:33.777+01:00Theogeography<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.952941); color: #3f4549; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14px/19px "Helvetica Neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">We began with visions of roadside sermons, but some years on and the road is doing most of the preaching. Our <a href="http://radref.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/walking-church.html">'Walking Church'</a> discipline is evolving, steadily growing with the miles. At least, that is my experience. When we began, I thought in terms of what we could bring to the way - prayers, reflections or faith-sharing. But, I had it the wrong way around. The point of the road is the road itself. The message is the pace of the road. The challenge of reflective walking is not to impose some religious template on a pre-determined route, but to become aware of what was already there in the first place.</span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.952941); color: #3f4549; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14px/19px "Helvetica Neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.952941); color: #3f4549; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14px/19px "Helvetica Neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">It takes practice to discover that - not to over-complicate the journey. We can complicate theology, too. Whatever else incarnation signifies, it means that God is found in the everyday and the ordinary. Orthodox Christians talk about "Sanctifying the whole day", a notion that goes back to early monasticism. A later monastic source has the same intent. Through 40 years as a kitchen monk and shoe-repairman the Benedictine, Brother Lawrence found the 'practice of the presence of God' in a busy monastery kitchen. For the Anabaptist tradition John Howard Yoder has a good question: when Jesus said 'whenever you do <em>this', </em>what does <em>this </em>refer to? He concludes,</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>What Jesus must have meant, and what the record indicates that his first followers took him to mean, was "whenever you have your common meal." The meal Jesus blessed that evening and claimed as his memorial was their ordinary partaking together of food for the body.</em> (<em>Body Politics, p.16)</em></blockquote>
<br />
<br />
The point is also there in Buddhist understanding. As Steve Hagen points out "another Japanese word we use for meditation, <em>shikantaza, </em>is commonly translated as "just sitting" (2003:100). The emphasis here, as Hagen makes clear, is on the <em>just. </em>Meditation is not a special religious practice or indeed a practice restricted to sitting. Whatever the circumstances - working, walking , lying down, or playing table tennis - it is possible to practice meditation. Meditation is "collecting the mind" (Hagen 2003:100). Orthodox, Benedictine, Anabaptist or Buddhist - if this is spirituality then it is spirituality that belongs to the whole of life.<br />
<br />
<br />
Just because reflective walking is simple does not mean that it is easy. Although human beings are bipeds, mostly we are no more conscious of putting one foot in front of the other, than we are of breathing. Consciousness requires either a jolt, such as my recent broken ankle, or regular practice. The latter is less painful but amounts to a lifelong discipline. In the case of walking we are largely unconscious, not only of our own rhythm, but of the wayside. Attentiveness is not just self-awareness but brings the journey (people, plants, cityscapes, animals and topography) to life in vivid colour. This attentiveness is reminiscent of what Gerard Manley Hopkins calls 'inscape' or Wordsworth describes as 'spots of time'. People and cities have an 'inscape' too. It's an observation that Jesus remembered in calling down Zaccheus from a Sycamore tree or personifying Jerusalem (Matt 23:37-39). The invisibility of homeless people to casual passers-by, makes the opposite point. We could make an ethical point about reducing people to street-furniture, but mostly this is a failure of attentiveness. <br />
<br />
<br />
So, 'Walking Church' is reflective walking. It is not a religious procession or a ramble with prayers. 'Reflection' may involve prayer, reading or attentive silence, but the aim is awareness - discovery. All of which brings us back to the title of this post. 'Theogeography' is a made-up word. More about that in a moment. The concoction owes something to 'Psychogeography', associated with Marxist and Situationist, Guy Debord. The word has travelled some distance since Debord first coined it in 1955 but it entails strategies for jolting walkers away from familiar paths into a new understanding of the urban landscape.<br />
<br />
Some Christians are bound to regard the occult overtones of Psychgeography with suspicion. The use of terminology from earth mysteries and ley lines prompts a quizzical eyebrow. The urban mysticism of Psychogeography is nowhere more evident than London's urban prophet, William Blake. Neil McDevitt's fascinating piece, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/london/hi/people_and_places/arts_and_culture/newsid_8197000/8197689.stm">'Urban Shaman and Psychogeographer'</a> makes an ideal introduction. Blake is seen to transform London's 'base metals' into 'alchemical gold'. Psychogeographers talk about the urban landscape as alien territory. In order to traverse this terrain they resort to a particular form of reconnaissance, in English usually translated a 'drift'. The means that reveal the territory in a new light may take the form of a jolt - a playful exercise to divert us from habitual urban pathways. Artists from Copenhagen led a walk of New York equipped with a map of Copenhagen. Another strategy consists of reverse shoplifting, placing strangely designed products on shop shelves. Others practice what is called 'generative psychogeography', algorithmic walking probably developed by Dutch artists. Walking the algorithm involves following a pattern; perhaps first left, second right, second left, repeat. There are even applications available for mobile devices that enable the making of drifts. All in all Psychogeography involves a mixture of structure and randomness. Supposedly mundane urban landscapes are transformed through striking and imaginative disciplines. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXCRokIRJv5lV28f9eFtJbzapStJ0XIYgRJJqgvXtlrGJuTinDANavyTEywIUIGsaVADcK-qfvU1sSRGtY1LnBidX2gqnJJi3QdOSjcru-ZRkEO1ohwyoMMC-w4qnwmGCN5REqRcdAT1AE/s1600/William_Blake_-_Sconfitta_-_Frontispiece_to_The_Song_of_Los.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXCRokIRJv5lV28f9eFtJbzapStJ0XIYgRJJqgvXtlrGJuTinDANavyTEywIUIGsaVADcK-qfvU1sSRGtY1LnBidX2gqnJJi3QdOSjcru-ZRkEO1ohwyoMMC-w4qnwmGCN5REqRcdAT1AE/s320/William_Blake_-_Sconfitta_-_Frontispiece_to_The_Song_of_Los.jpg" width="245" /></a></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.19px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"> </span><br />
You may be thinking that I have 'drifted' some way from 'Walking Church'. I hope that 'drift' can be taken in a Psychogeographical sense. As it stands 'Walking Church, London' is a project of Wood Green Mennonite Church. 'Walking Church' originated as an experiment in the South Lakes area. We are very much aware that the practice has journeyed from a rural to an urban setting. As I have already expressed in <a href="http://radref.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/place-hacking-interior-city.html">'Place Hacking the Interior City'</a> I have reservations about seeing 'urban exploration' as replacement for an appreciation of wild places. With that caveat in mind, surely we need Wordsworth and Blake. The disciplines of Psychogeography are not at all far from the older practices of pilgrimage, which find heaven in the ordinary and in particular in, with and under the practice of walking. As Christianity emerges from the delusion that the earth is our possession to be trampled at will, we are rediscovering the road again. It would be intriguing to explore what a Theogeography might mean, combining ancient and post-modern journeying practices? Perhaps we should pilgrimage to an algorithm or retreat to the interior city?<br />
<br />
<br />
<u>Bibliography</u><br />
<u></u><br />
Hagen, Steve 2003 Buddhism is not what you think, Harper Collins<br />
Yoder, J.H. 1992 Body Politics, Discipleship Resources<br />
<u></u><br />
<br />Philip Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05660845052048868503noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-90494055384542397382013-05-22T17:31:00.000+01:002013-05-31T09:02:24.874+01:00Soul of India"What do you <u>actually</u> do for a living"? I'm used to the question by now. The past few years have been a struggle at times. Writing is enjoyable but not always remunerative. Unfortunately, not everything remunerative is ethical. I turned down a lot of work along the way. Recently though, I have taken up a new role as Liaison Person for <a href="http://www.soulofindia.com/">Soul of India</a>, a tour operator specialising in Christian Pilgrimages and tailor made itineraries to India. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicuFH18_5hDHDuu0dPjw4E9Z8H_vrZyxQ0qmCRx8OkwAKddS2EUyz3fZe1Y2eN7x9ZjrcuDXseQJqke41o4TPOA-tq1qoaEFnaYYZXfumMbO440_lgJQY6MMxWWXD4Jc2MnfipKyhlUqK2/s1600/tour5-1s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicuFH18_5hDHDuu0dPjw4E9Z8H_vrZyxQ0qmCRx8OkwAKddS2EUyz3fZe1Y2eN7x9ZjrcuDXseQJqke41o4TPOA-tq1qoaEFnaYYZXfumMbO440_lgJQY6MMxWWXD4Jc2MnfipKyhlUqK2/s1600/tour5-1s.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Soul of India was founded by Kenneth Wilson, a former Church of England minister and author of 'Orange Dust: Journeys after the Buddha'. Kenneth first took a group to India in 1992 - an 'interfaith pilgrimage' for the Waltham Forest All Faiths Group. The tour was widely praised, both by the Archbishop of Canterbury and in the Indian media. Since then, Kenneth Wilson has taken many journeys including 'The Way of Peace' Pilgrimage in January 2013, with the Dalai Lama and Fr. Laurence Freeman O.S.B. <br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrUPSnCzX9Wa51tOUKDNF4yug0au3vrDHkyKT8ZQ0I3aet2503PpHTAwjJ1xTOd8VPj4HvfX6kv5_A9Pt_gerpnvgNGLtmr8AC1gkCv34S4mirPN5jkDHsNMaO_YB3ws-qzg36kjPH_SNU/s1600/tour4-2s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrUPSnCzX9Wa51tOUKDNF4yug0au3vrDHkyKT8ZQ0I3aet2503PpHTAwjJ1xTOd8VPj4HvfX6kv5_A9Pt_gerpnvgNGLtmr8AC1gkCv34S4mirPN5jkDHsNMaO_YB3ws-qzg36kjPH_SNU/s1600/tour4-2s.jpg" /></a>To be candid, I'm not a natural salesman. But, from the beginning of working with Soul of India, the potential of interfaith travel for peace-making has been on my mind. That, and the same powerful connection between physical and spiritual journeying we have also discovered in 'Walking Church'. After years of working in multi-cultural settings in London and Manchester I have concluded that genuine interfaith engagement is patchy at best and in some settings almost non-existent. In Oldham and Burnley I saw a few people doing excellent work, but culturally Muslim and Christian communities living largely separate lives. Considerable ground has been lost through the withdrawal of government funding from excellent organisations like 'Peacemaker' in Oldham.<br />
<br />
Of course it's not necessary to go to India for that kind of engagement but for the travellers and pilgrims that journey together with Soul of India, the journey can be transformative. The opportunity for interfaith encounters, retreats and pilgrimage, has tremendous potential for change. If that rings a bell with you then I would love to hear from you:<br />
<br />
<br />
Philip Wood<br />
Liaison Person, Soul of India<br />
<br />
<a href="mailto:philip.wood@soulofindia">philip.wood@soulofindia,com</a>Philip Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05660845052048868503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-74882610765115008572013-05-19T13:00:00.000+01:002013-05-19T13:00:52.337+01:00A Soap Opera for Pentecost
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<div style="border-color: currentColor currentColor rgb(79, 129, 189); border-style: none none solid; border-width: medium medium 1pt; mso-border-bottom-themecolor: accent1; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 0cm 0cm 4pt;">
<div class="MsoTitle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 15pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Of all the
stories coming out of Syria it isn’t only horror on a grand scale that lodges
in the mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two accounts from the past
fortnight offer more intimate accounts of suffering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first, the <a href="http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=22371"><span style="color: blue;">destruction of
the Franciscan church and convent</span></a> at Deir Azzor, was carried out by U.S.
backed rebels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fr Tony Haddad,
Vice-Provincial of the Friars for the Near East said ‘there are no more
Christians’. He continued, “The church of stones can be rebuilt one day, when a
spring of peace will appear in our Middle East”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuwvrYYO_S4jsFsuXEhREeNOQ2ZX7mNqWPX7fDKsSK-BkCJlaFz2Pq10tI7hcFNURQKEJDmAo-rZoPw3rQIFnTnUyl7aRkn0ikIKpsC7I1M3tmqJMcE_Te_yWPC4iSjeTZ_7O_xxqrHzRX/s1600/750px-Savons_d'Alep_traditionnels.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuwvrYYO_S4jsFsuXEhREeNOQ2ZX7mNqWPX7fDKsSK-BkCJlaFz2Pq10tI7hcFNURQKEJDmAo-rZoPw3rQIFnTnUyl7aRkn0ikIKpsC7I1M3tmqJMcE_Te_yWPC4iSjeTZ_7O_xxqrHzRX/s320/750px-Savons_d'Alep_traditionnels.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aleppo Soap, creative commons image</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoTitle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 15pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoTitle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 15pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22541698"><span style="color: blue;">second account</span></a>, Nabil Andoura,
a soap-maker from Aleppo describes how he fled to Lebanon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Made with laurel leaves, soda and olive oil, Aleppo
soap, is widely believed to be the oldest example of soap-making.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> For centuries, the soap factories
were hidden in Aleppo’s souk and traded in the market.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Last
month however Andoura fled the country, taking refuge in Beirut.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He says, </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">"A person like me - I am 56 years old - I've
lost everything. I lost my hard work. I lost my history." News of buildings
levelled, communities displaced and trades uprooted is the everyday backdrop to
the Syrian conflict.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wherever, war
touches civilian populations, everyday life is often the first addition to the casualty
list.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has been this way for many thousands
of years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is an irony in the
history, that Aleppo’s famous soap was introduced to Europe by returning
Crusaders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 13.5pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The making of soap
has been supplanted by newer and less benign crafts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What clever chemist produced the gas canisters,
reportedly dropped from Syrian government helicopters, near the city of
Aleppo?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same imagination contrived
soap and sarin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 13.5pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Today is Pentecost
and our readings are taken from Gen 11.1-9 and the story of Babel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Read the account of Cain’s descendents a few
chapters earlier and you will soon find a pattern emerging.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same creativity that marks out
craftsmanship or agriculture is turned to hubristic urban planning, military
hardware and self-aggrandizing architectural folly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is technological development that enables
Babel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In place of the hidden intimacy
of traditional skills, the expansionist builders of Gen 11 wish to make a name
for themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 13.5pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever else Pentecost is, it is not only a ‘spiritual’
project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The economy of Pentecost
re-establishes the connection between work, fellowship and life in the Spirit:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The presence of the Spirit is kneaded into
bread and stitched into the fabric of a community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Saul the tentmaker, Lydia the seller of
purple and Peter the fisherman – metalworkers, bakers, weavers, carpenters and
soap-makers: the Jesus movement becomes a community of the renewed mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the meaning of swords into
ploughshares.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The refiner’s soap cleanses
the imagination:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<h1 style="margin: 24pt 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">A Prayer for Soap-Makers<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Creator
God, establish the work of our hands, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Though,
not the evil that we do<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Holy Spirit
cleanse imagination,<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">From the craft
of war.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
the scattered soap-makers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
the truthful writers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
the scientists<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
the makers of good bread<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
the architects<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
city planners<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
those who rebuild the ruins<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
honest police<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
gardeners <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Holy Spirit
cleanse imagination,<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">From the craft
of war.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
the grass roots activists<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
grieving mothers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
troubled beekeepers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
film-makers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
critics<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
church workers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
those who make shoes with rubber tyres<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
bridge-builders<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
refugee weavers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
the scattered soap-makers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Carpenter,
strengthen the hands,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Of
those whose livelihood is a casualty of war.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Amen<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 13.5pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 13.5pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
Philip Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05660845052048868503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-67556766701881153962013-05-10T11:42:00.000+01:002013-05-18T10:37:21.144+01:00Balthasar Denner - Artist, Mennonite and Londoner<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCm9J7mavcbw4P2FMvXhgSaZHv6OehcLuU6ThXCiof392gY9OVFmYV8Qkw1-knUPn2pU2zBrRzZlAckBZx1qhfSmpEQ_lql4LNagjeUnzAfyFJhPiFBOB8gDjrUbtYU_8kvoJmXQUIKfFR/s1600/461px-Balthasar_Denner_self-portrait_1719.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCm9J7mavcbw4P2FMvXhgSaZHv6OehcLuU6ThXCiof392gY9OVFmYV8Qkw1-knUPn2pU2zBrRzZlAckBZx1qhfSmpEQ_lql4LNagjeUnzAfyFJhPiFBOB8gDjrUbtYU_8kvoJmXQUIKfFR/s320/461px-Balthasar_Denner_self-portrait_1719.jpg" width="245" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Balthasar_Denner_self-portrait_1719.jpg">Balthasar_Denner_self-portrait</a>, Wikimedia </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
They have locked her in a cellar! Not that the lady looks any the worse for her captivity. The portrait hidden in a riverside vault at the London's Tate Gallery is a little slice of Mennonite history. Balthasar Denner's, <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/denner-a-girl-in-a-straw-hat-t07322">'A Girl in a Straw Hat'</a> is a fine example of his new broader style, painted just after his time in London.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7wz7L-OMkMewtB9zQXqSzUjHx8vVsUBbHeVhpWzZRFvvk2oJVy41M01MViGgTRH13NwM30Paqsm2xSf4R9GzDkDzNMpjAIcBLeyn_dzjS4aVbbfhNN-D1lbypqv9SvBH3SFWOmEsYJNFJ/s1600/496px-George_Frideric_Handel_by_Balthasar_Denner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7wz7L-OMkMewtB9zQXqSzUjHx8vVsUBbHeVhpWzZRFvvk2oJVy41M01MViGgTRH13NwM30Paqsm2xSf4R9GzDkDzNMpjAIcBLeyn_dzjS4aVbbfhNN-D1lbypqv9SvBH3SFWOmEsYJNFJ/s320/496px-George_Frideric_Handel_by_Balthasar_Denner.jpg" width="264" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Handel, Wikimedia</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Denner (1685-1749) was born in Altona, now incorporated into modern day Hamburg. His father Jacob Denner (1659-1746) was a well known Mennonite minister and pietist devotional writer. He married Esther Winter in 1712. They had six children together. Denner made a preliminary visit to London in 1715 but by the time they settled here in 1721 he enjoyed international acclaim as a leading portrait artist, known throughout the courts of Europe. In the end, after seven years he left the city in 1728 and returned home to Altona. There are conflicting accounts of the reasons for his departure. Ostensibly, the London smog was too much for his delicate health but Vertue suggests Denner was 'not satisfied with the success he met with here'. <br />
<br />
There is much we don't know about Denner's life in London. Our main source is George Vertue, whose notebooks offer an invaluable resource for early 18th C British art history. We do know that in those seven years Denner struck up a friendship with Johan van Gool (1685-1763), who was collecting material for a biographical encyclopedia of Dutch artists. We owe the Dutch painter and biographer a great deal. Denner died shortly after providing biographical material for the work. Johan van Gool lived in Rotterdam but visited England twice, latterly enjoying the hospitality of Denner's family. <br />
<br />
At this point Denner's story becomes sketchy and intriguing. Although van Gool records hospitality in the Denner home, to my knowledge it is uncertain where he lived. The details of his London life are tantalisingly thin. This is a life however, of considerable significance to European Anabaptist-Mennonite self-awareness. Less than 200 years before Denner painted Handel and dazzled the courts of Europe, Mennonites and other Anabaptists were persecuted in England. Contemporary British Anabaptists have an elusive history. The way our story is told, it is easy to come away with the impression that after the 16th Century movement was snuffed out, the next chapter of the tale involves fast-forwarding to the Post-War origins of the London Mennonite Centre. That might almost be true if it were not for Balthasar Denner - artist, Mennonite and Londoner.<br />
<br />
There are different ways to tell the tale. For British Mennonites this is in some ways a detective story. We would love to know where Denner's family lived. Perhaps somewhere there is a memory of the hospitality enjoyed by Denner's friend, Johan van Gool? If you have any light to shed do get in touch. As for that 'Girl is a straw hat', she deserves to see the light of day.Philip Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05660845052048868503noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-164558907298407012013-05-08T10:10:00.000+01:002013-05-08T10:10:31.469+01:00Alex Ferguson Retires<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_XVas3YgA7peqnU_x12d1FT-23Stv6vu065RZSWJ_kIqEBvxBBFel-hBOmEX22YrodYtQZoStM6nyVYz9X4NdLTuWgDzrKezGHCeCOSvHqhJpYywC1hkMaXKneikgtp7gEyv9PSoLoKcV/s1600/561px-Alex_Ferguson_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_XVas3YgA7peqnU_x12d1FT-23Stv6vu065RZSWJ_kIqEBvxBBFel-hBOmEX22YrodYtQZoStM6nyVYz9X4NdLTuWgDzrKezGHCeCOSvHqhJpYywC1hkMaXKneikgtp7gEyv9PSoLoKcV/s320/561px-Alex_Ferguson_02.jpg" width="299" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sir Alex Ferguson, <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alex_Ferguson_02.jpg">Wikimedia creative commons</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
After 27 years as the manager of Manchester United, it has just been announced that Sir Alex Ferguson is to retire. Ferguson arrived at the club in 1986 and led United to an unprecedented 13 titles. It is hard to pick out a memory but I have to say, the 1999 treble winning performance - Manchester awash in a sea of red. The whole city celebrating (with the exception of City fans and road sweepers). Thank you Sir Alex, greatest manager in the history of the game.<br />
Philip Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05660845052048868503noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-6792981553299270572013-05-06T15:19:00.000+01:002013-05-08T11:47:52.174+01:00Blow the Wind Southerly? An Ecumenical Vision. <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
With Pope Francis settling in and enjoying a media honeymoon it is too soon to say if anything much has changed. One commentator picked up on 'evangelical gestures' and a fresh style. It will take more than gestures and some papal shabby chique, but I have the impression that he is waving in our direction. In turn some reciprocal gestures of welcome have been coming from Latin American evangelicals. Luis Palau and Gaston Bruno expressed a hope that the new Pope would help to build bridges between Roman Catholics and Protestants. <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBjVm7Pq3wGyCmMfN5mUkcC6qvWaiuIcJ6dKqgWbPgSSxr0mqNVgXZUqGp7CupNVv56zVPSOTdXt-RO0oqTmfWOshWflCb5PqPSvLn0FZ7vNQVGTudE_XUR_bT8CJ5jtR4kyAcB3ef8u83/s1600/Pope_Francis_in_March_2013_(cropped).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBjVm7Pq3wGyCmMfN5mUkcC6qvWaiuIcJ6dKqgWbPgSSxr0mqNVgXZUqGp7CupNVv56zVPSOTdXt-RO0oqTmfWOshWflCb5PqPSvLn0FZ7vNQVGTudE_XUR_bT8CJ5jtR4kyAcB3ef8u83/s400/Pope_Francis_in_March_2013_(cropped).jpg" width="277" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pope Francis, source <a href="http://www.casarosada.gov.ar/informacion/actividad-oficial/26392-la-presidenta-se-reune-con-el-papa-francisco-en-ciudad-del-vaticano">Casa Rosada</a> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
There is much to do but broadly I share these hopes. With the northern church in steep decline and a burgeoning south, the configuration of global Christianity is experiencing a flux unprecedented since the Reformation. The outcome of this narrative of change is uncertain. Indeed, the southerly breeze may be a reactionary as well as a radical force. Still, movement fires the imagination. There are many causes of disunity, but one of them is the sheer everyday normalcy of schism. The generations of Anglicans and Anabaptists that have come and gone since the Reformation, have known nothing but separation. It seems always to have been with us. With this kind of inertia it is little wonder that 'ecumenism' morphs into little more than boundary maintenance. But faced with centuries of institutionalised disunion might the backdrop of change (of which the shifting demography is part) enable us to dream that it need not always be this way? Though presently the ecumenical movement lies bleeding in a ditch, perhaps some new Samaritan is coming? The appointment in 2012 of Cesar Garcia as the first leader from the global South to the role General Secretary of the Mennonite World Conference is evidence of the same trend. For Roman Catholics and for Mennonites the wind is blowing in a southerly direction. <br />
<br />
In the north however, by most accounts these have been difficult years for ecumenism. In the UK. cash strapped institutions, a perception of ground lost after <em><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dominus</span> Iesus </em>and disagreements on the best way to achieve union, have all taken their toll. A <a href="http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/9653/7.3_ECUME.pdf">May 2012 report from the Church of Scotland Committee for Ecumenical Relations</a> summarises: <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><em>As we said in our report last year,</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<em>one of the weaknesses of the current model of ecumenism </em></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<em>is that it allows the churches to remain unchanged. There </em></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<em>is no “conversion” away from the sin of our divisions, </em></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<em>no dying and rising to a new, as yet unforeseen way of </em></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<em>expressing our unity in the Church of Jesus Christ.</em></div>
</span><br />
Pope Benedict's Ordinariate was an ecumenical low water mark for some. The move angered many Anglicans, who perceived the lack of consultation with former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams as a snub. Perhaps significantly though, the Anglican Bishop of Argentina, Bishop Greg Venables recalls a conversation with then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio reported by the <a href="http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/news.cfm/2013/3/14/ACNS5348">Anglican Communion News Service</a>. Venables says, *He called me to have breakfast with him one morning and told me very clearly that the Ordinariate was quite unnecessary and that the Church needs us as Anglicans". <br />
<br />
Bergoglio's remarks are quite astonishing and I want to return to them in a moment. Firstly, I wanted to say a little of how the UK ecumenical scene looks from the admittedly atypical perspective of this British Mennonite blogger. In recent years I have had a great deal of interaction with mainly traditionalist Catholic bloggers - in particular in the period leading up the creation of <a href="http://guildofblessedtitus.blogspot.co.uk/">The Guild of Blessed Titus Brandsma</a>. The experience has been illuminating, though sometimes admittedly bruising. Even in relatively amicable debates, discussion often devolved into cheering on the team - bolstered by accounts of conversions, one way or the other. From these conversations I sadly concluded that traditionalist elements of the Church (i.e. the Roman Catholic Church) did not want us as Anglicans, Mennonites, Baptists or Pentecostals, only as stuffed heads in a trophy cabinet. Protestant contributors to some of these threads reciprocated in kind. At the time I called it a kind of 16th Century groundhog day. It was not edifying.<br />
<br />
I still think the conversations were worthwhile, not least for the stream of largely anonymous communcation from progressive Catholics. This correspondence confirmed my impression, that Christian community suggests a kinship of spirituality and life that transgresses denominational boundaries. Many of my correspondents belonged to relgious orders. When our three households formed a small Anabaptist commminity in 1990's Leeds, Catholic monastic communities were our closest collaborators. Wood Green Mennonite Church in London (my current congregation) has a longstanding partnership with the Catholic Worker.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8jFqZuoXp2wTN8EMrvQsaQKbjTB0ARNBOf0H1tD_XjS6eMQldRxqQsOiuX3ISpmfHpAQpNG-zgYMqNjmzstDeWLMtlIfnHKcvfTPZTAO3cdC_SO9QjHe8NDpQ3I9ZUypITErHAHaxQbqJ/s1600/P1020704.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a> </div>
North or south, unity cannot be imposed. It does not trickle down from the top, or from the centre to the margins. A spirit of peace and unity arises from community, nurtured by trust in everyday life and service. I believe in the visible unity of the Christian Church. I also warm to Pope Francis' outward looking and less centralized ecumenical vision. Still, for as long as unity is defined from the top and dialogue revolves around the same weary doctrinal shibboleths, there will be no healing. For Protestants only a sense that the 'Reformation has reformed' will do. This will always be a Reformation from below. The task of the Reformation is (as Jurgen Moltmann puts it), for the parish to become a congregation. In this both Protestants and Catholics have failed, as did Luther in abandoning his earlier congregatonal vision. The hope for unity lies in community. It might seem like an unlikely observation but in this Anabaptist communitarianism and Catholic monasticism offer the most consistent witness to first, bright insights of the Reformation. It is no accident that so many of the leaders oF 1st generation Anabaptism had a monastic background. As the wind blows southerly and northern Christians begin to imagine a life after Christendom, the kinship of Catholic monastics and Anabaptist communities is a gift of healing for the broken body of Christ. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-72746355621727922772013-04-30T09:09:00.000+01:002013-04-30T09:09:12.299+01:00Creeds and Confessions: Usage and Abusage<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Considering ministry? Searching the Christian vacancies? Then the job-seeker will sooner or later encounter those 'statements of faith'. Call them creeds, confessions or articles of faith, such statements are at least boundary markers to the treasury of a community's self-understanding. Further, creeds also exclude, separating orthodox wheat from the heretical chaff. In the Christian job-market livelihoods and vocations can stand or fall on the potential applicant's ability to tick the truth box. Historically, far more was at stake.<br />
<a href="http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/6650768/Untitled" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="Wordle: Untitled"><img alt="Wordle: Untitled" height="240" src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/6650768/Untitled" style="border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 4px;" width="320" /></a>
<br />
Though Anabaptism gave rise to some notable Confessions (Schleitheim, Dordrecht, etc) the tradition is marked by what might be called 'creedal reticence': a critical reflection on the Constantinian associations of the Nicene legacy recently accentuated in post modernity. The wider perception of Anabaptism as a menace on the wrong side of a civil or ecclesiastical boundary and medieval mystical influences especially evident in South German Anabaptism perhaps contributed to this. Why should 'chaff' be well disposed towards the truculence of 'wheat'? Not that the Anabaptist family has <span style="font-family: inherit;">always offered an irenic example. Schism has been our fatal attraction. At its best though, Anabaptism has a doctrinal</span> lightness of touch. As Hans de Ries says in his commentary on a 17<sup>th</sup><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Century Dutch Mennonite confession:<br />
<div align="LEFT" class="western" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14px/19px "Helvetica Neue Light", HelveticaNeue-Light, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0cm; padding: 0px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
</div>
<div align="LEFT" class="western" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue Light", HelveticaNeue-Light, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px 0px 0cm; padding: 0px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"The confession is simply a short statement of what we believe we find in God's Word in contradistinction from others who also claim to hold to the Scriptures. And shall we be bound by it? We say no, it is subject to improvement."</span></blockquote>
</div>
<br />
John Howard Yoder insisted that his perspective was "more radically Nicene and Chalcedonian than other views" (2002:101, 105). In practise though, his approach to the historic creeds was at best ambiguous. He noted the absence of an ethical dimension in the creeds, preferring the normativeness of Jesus to a generalised statement of universal principles (c.f. Finger, 2004: 61). A more radical approach in this same direction may be found in J. Denny Weaver (c.f. Weaver: 2000). Weaver perceives postmodernity as an Anabaptist opportunity:<br />
<br />
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<em> <span style="font-family: inherit;"> "the context of postmodernity offers Mennonites an opportunity virtually unprecedented since the early church: a chance to articulate and receive a hearing for a theology shaped specifically by the nonviolence of Jesus" (2000:21)</span></em> </div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Where Yoder refrains from outright rejection of the creeds, Weaver is strongly critical, pejoratively contrasting creedal orthodoxy with a Christus Victor approach. He Accuses Nicea and Chalcedon of "substituting ontological narrative</span> for biblical language" (Finger, 2004: 64). "Theology in general" is Weaver's main protagonist and the creeds are his primary example. For Weaver the creeds are a product of the church's accommodation to violence. To be critical of Weaver, his single minded social-ethical vision is unbalanced. Finger's response, highlighting Weaver's omission of a vertical and personal dimension (2004: 65,66), sums up the caveats. <br />
<br />
Without dismissing Finger's corrective to the Christus Victor approach. Weaver's central argument is well made. Moreover, that argument is not only evidenced in critiquing Nicea and Chalcedon. Many contemporary statements of faith bear a family resemblance to Nicene formulations. That is not wholly a positive inheritance. In the course of looking for work over the past several months I have scrutinised hundreds of such documents. That survey has proven an illuminating if sometimes alarming piece of practical theology. Setting aside the worst examples (homophobic rants, unintelligible grammar and hobby horses ridden to death), how should we assess the purpose and quality of the statements used routinely by local churches and Christian organisations? For followers 'the Way' it seems a fitting ambition to fill our words and actions with the living, breathing companionship of Jesus. The journey of faith takes Jesus' normativeness for ethics seriously. I am highly sceptical of the usage and abusage of doctrinal statements, but if we must then at least the content should reflect the earthly ministry and teaching of Christ and the authority of God over the authority of Scripture. <br />
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Where there is awkwardness around signing up to a statement of faith, that discomfort may be a matter of content or context - the use to which the statement is put. I have sometimes been presented with doctrinal formulations that I couldn't sign with a clear conscience. More often the wording is awkward and assent involves a degree of interpretation. I have problems for example, saying that the Bible has "supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct". This form of words seems to cede to Scripture what properly belongs to God in Christ. The groups and individuals that draft and employ creeds are rarely bad people, but in my view such statements do foster bad process. The implication is that acceptance depends on signing up. Belonging is enforced by a kind of police action - protective boundary maintenance. In a Post-Christendom climate increasingly sensitive to authoritarian abuse the missiological debit is apparent. Confronted by a fence the reaction of most reasonable people is to walk around the obstacle.<br />
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Following the bitter Christ has never been easy but there is no indication that Jesus supplemented the cost of discipleship with a creedal tick box. Broadly, where Christian employment is concerned I think 'Statements of Faith' should be used sparingly and preferably, not at all. It ought to be possible to spell out the requirements of a role in a job description or person specification without marching a candidate through a doctrinal gauntlet. <br />
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Bibliography</h2>
Finger, Thomas. <em>A Contemporary Anabaptist Theology</em>, Illinois, IVP. , 2004<br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">J. Denny Weaver.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Anabaptist Theology in Face of Postmodernity: A Proposal for the Third Millennium.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Telford, Pa.: Pandora Press U.S., 2000</span><br />
Yoder, JH. <em>Preface to Theology: Christology and Theological Method</em>. Grand Rapid, Brazos., 2002</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-6409524848918924942013-04-27T08:31:00.000+01:002013-05-02T06:43:22.485+01:00Phil's Saturday Breakfast<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<strong><span style="font-size: medium;">Malta and the Shadow of Constantine</span></strong></h1>
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What do you know about Malta: St. Paul's shipwreck, the Crusades, wartime history, package holidays or party island? What you may not know is that Malta is one of the few European nations with a functional and heavily enforced blasphemy law. According to a recent report from the U.S. Department of State 99 people were convicted last year for "public blasphemy" and 119 the year before. The law prohibits vilification or giving offence to the Roman Catholic Church. Transgressors may face a prison sentence of up to three months.<br />
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A few years ago we spent Holy Week in Malta. Anna has family there. I enjoyed my close encounter with Europe's most Catholic country. It was however, a glimpse of a receding world. As a Mennonite I appreciate that in most places being one of Menno's folk doesn't routinely jeopardise life or liberty. But it;s still salutary to be reminded of what Christendom meant to its victims. I am mostly grateful to live in a secular State. <br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b>Weekly Blog Roundup</b></span><br />
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Paul Donovan's guest post for the Tablet has a troubling piece on the UK Roman Catholic Justice and Peace network. Just as Pope Francis settles in Dioceses are axing Justice and Peace staff. Donovan asks, <a href="http://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/559/17">'Who will speak out for the threatened Justice and Peace movement?'</a>I am tempted to tilt a quizzical eyebrow towards the impact of funding cuts on the faith based voluntary sector. </li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">David Fitch blogs about labelling over at 'Reclaiming the Mission'. Fitch has more time for communicating by way of labels than I do (he calls it 'parsinsg') but this is an interesting perspective. It's called <a href="http://www.reclaimingthemission.com/me-and-mr-tony-jones-we-got-a-thing-goin-on/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reclaimingthemission%2Fgo+%28Reclaiming+the+Mission%29">"Me and Mr (Tony) Jones: we got a thing goin on".</a></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">In the U.S. black clergy have come together to fight gun violence. Black communities have been dealing with this problem before it came to wider public attention. Adelle Banks has an excellent <a href="http://sojo.net/blogs/2013/04/25/black-pastors-gun-violence-isn%E2%80%99t-just-problem-white-suburbs?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sojourners%2Fgods-politics+%28Sojourners+God%27s+Politics+Blog%29">piece</a> over at God's Politics. </li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Tim Nafziger caught my eye this week with <a href="http://young.anabaptistradicals.org/2013/04/10/disillusioned-conservative-evangelicals-in-texas-drawn-to-anabaptism/">'Disillusioned evangelicals in Texas drawn to Anabaptism'.</a> Tim's conversation with a Texas college professor highlights the movement of conservative students to more progressive peace churches. I was struck by strong parallels with accounts I have heard from members of the Anabaptist Network, here in the UK. </li>
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<a href="http://www.reclaimingthemission.com/me-and-mr-tony-jones-we-got-a-thing-goin-on/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reclaimingthemission%2Fgo+%28Reclaiming+the+Mission%29"></a><br />
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Have a splendid weekend. I'm off to our church away day soon.</div>
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Pax Vobiscum,</div>
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Phil</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-534912079594633162.post-11558931725472343022013-04-23T09:05:00.001+01:002013-04-23T09:05:19.326+01:00Beauty and the Nuclear Beast<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I have a northerner's prejudices: an image of Essex - all chav's and retail parks. The Dengie peninsula is something else. It's a long road to Bradwell-on-Sea, nearly twenty miles east of Chelmsford, then a brief atmospheric walk to the Chapel of St-Peter-On-The-Wall. </span><br />
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St Peter's Chapel, Bradwell on Sea,</span></h3>
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</span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chelmsfordblue/with/1909296878/"><span style="font-size: small;">http://www.flickr.com/photos/chelmsfordblue/with/1909296878/</span></a></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The Chapel looks out over the sea and rich, precarious saltmarsh. Constructed in the 7th C by St.Cedd on the site of the Roman fort of Othona, this has been a place of prayer for 1300 years - arguably the oldest place of continuous worship in the UK. The Othona Community, who use the Chapel for worship, are five minutes away. This open Christian-based community was founded in 1946, offering space to explore peace and reconciliation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Before I turn this post into a travelogue I should say that all this beauty hides an unlovely beast. The beast in question is a decommisioned Magnox nuclear power station on the Blackwater estuary. Like the chapel, the site has a military history - in this case a former World War II airfield. In 2002 Bradwell was the first UK nuclear power station closed through planned decommissioning. That the current government named the site as one of its preferred locations for new power stations is less encouraging news. It seems the beast was merely sleeping!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">The anti-nuclear movement peaked in the 1970's and 1980's. I left school in 1978, a year before the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania. For many of us protest was evidence of the resiliance of hope; a movement for sanity in a M.A.D. world. The prosecution case seemed overwhelming. It still is, but an end to the Cold War and the rehabilitation of nuclear power as a low carbon energy source has blurred the boundaries. </span><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chelmsfordblue/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/chelmsfordblue/</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">With Germany pledging to phase out its reactors by 2022 in the aftermath of Fukushima, we are reminded of an alternative to the UK's continued dependence on nuclear power. But the argument will never be won on the grand scale alone. It also rages in the sediments and saltmarshes of the Blackwater Estuary. This is no pristine wilderness. The fort was there before the chapel. Unique and atmospheric though Dengie is, its peace remains as sedimented and littoral as a tidal ecosystem. All land is like this - memory laid down on memory. Such an ugly beast! Good location for a chapel?</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4