Brother shall rise up against brother.

Nothing much going on at the moment so let me take you back a couple of weeks to a matter that deserved comment before I had got this blog up and running.
In The Times 15 October 2008, under the heading "Parishes urged to rise against liberal bishops" it was reported that "Evangelicals at a conference in Central London were told that the Church of England now consists of two religions, one liberal and pro-gay and the other conservative and strictly biblical". Presumably the statement was made by someone who considered themself to be in the latter camp as the conference attendees were then urged to seek alternative oversight from another bishop if their own diocesan bishop expounds "unbiblical" teaching from the pulpit.

This stance is fundamentally flawed. It assumes that "conservative" Christians are biblical and that "liberal" Christians are either not biblical or only partly so. I have not got time to go into all the arguments at the moment, so I'll just outline the two most obvious ones.

1. By urging splits and dissention in the Church the speaker himself is being just about as unbiblical as you can get. Jesus prayed that his disciples "may be one", just as he and his father are one. To advocate finding another bishop just because you don't like what your own bishop says hardly gives the impression that this man is following the will of Christ.

2. The general reviling of "liberal" Christians as somehow "unbiblical" conveniently overlooks the fact that Jesus himself was a liberal. That may come as a shock to the rather blinkered "conservative" group, but it shouldn't do. If they are as biblical as they claim, they should have realised that all the evidence points to the fact that Jesus was the prototype liberal. The Concise Oxford Dictionary has three main definitions of "liberal":-
(i) "directed to general broadening of mind" - which Jesus certainly was. He spent most of his ministry not destroying the existing system but trying to show people what was really important in life; trying to show the Pharisees that they were not "wrong" just extremely blinkered.
(ii) "giving freely, generous, not sparing of " - again the definition fits Jesus perfectly when we consider the feeding of the five thousand, the wedding at Cana, his teaching on giving etc.
(iii) "favourable to democratic reform and individual liberty" - See Luke 4: 16-21 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me....He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners...... to release the oppressed........ Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing".

Jesus kept on saying "He that has ears to hear - let him hear." So what is the problem with these so called "conservative, biblical" Christians? Do they not have ears? Or do they just not listen to what Jesus himself says?

The Atheist Bus

What on earth is the world coming to? A group of individuals is now raising funds to pay for advertising on the side of London buses that states "There's probably no God - now stop worrying and enjoy your life." What is this message supposed to mean and who exactly is it aimed at? Presumably atheists are already enjoying life knowing that there is no God. Religious folk are already enjoying life knowing that there is a God. And agnostics probably don't really care either way - they are too busy enjoying life to have time to really consider the issue. I have come across some agnostics who are "searching" but I don't think I have ever met one who is "worrying", certainly not to the extent that they are not enjoying life.



Or is the message supposed to mean that religious folk don't enjoy life? If so it betrays a sad misunderstanding of the situation. Certainly there are a few miserable looking individuals who go to church but, as far as Christians are concerned, one of the "gifts of the spirit" is joy. Statistics also show that people with an active faith life have, on average, a longer life expectancy than those without.



It seems like a sad case of sour grapes to me. The atheists are fed up with seeing various Christian slogans on the side of buses and elsewhere and are trying to retaliate, just to let everyone know they are there. But what is the point of trying to sell nothing? It's like Sainsburys taking out a full page ad in the Times to announce the fact that they are NOT selling bread this week. The atheist lobby, apparently, claim that it is wrong of religious folk to make out that atheism is an absence of anything. Instead, they say, it "constitutes a body of belief in humanity and its virtues". They want it to be known that they have a strong moral framework. ......... exactly what most religious people would claim. The only thing that makes atheists different is the negative aspects. They want to claim the glory but they don't want to acknowledge where it comes from. Christian tradition has it that there was once an angel in the same position - and he came to a rather unfortunate end and has been reviled by most people ever since. Certainly not something you would want to advertise on the side of a London bus!