Nowt else t'say?

This is not an academic treatise, rather it is a pulling together of my theological opinions developed over a few years.  A law degree and a diploma in theology instilled in me the need to understand the difference between fact and opinion as well as a penchant for critical evaluation of theories and evidence.  I  am deeply suspicious and cynical concerning the motives and activities of politicians, economists, sociologists, philosophers, church leaders, theologians, judges and journalists.

Should you be seeking a learned theological exposition I advise you to clear off pronto. You won't find it here. What you will find are my personal thoughts on social justice leavened by the ideas of others: so as not to bore you rigid. 

It strikes me that in seeking to understand theological concepts, indeed any political, economic, social or legal ideas, we must escape from a silo mentality, or consideration of concepts in a subject-matter vacuum.  We have to understand the interaction of concepts from a broad range of disciplines. Above all we need to study the reality of the consequences of the application of concepts.  We must flee the halls of academia into the outside world. 

Be on the lookout for gatekeepers, sentries, sentinels and guardians of the 'truth'.  Treat them with caution, do not succumb to their blandishments or threats. Be wary of opinion formers on social media. It is your opinion that matters, not theirs.  

At the outset, cards on the table. I ascribe to postmodernism having considered the writings of Jacques Derrida and Don Cupitt amongst others.  Their ideas provided the spark leading me to review my understanding of the bible and thence my process of deconstruction.  The following quotations are ones with which I concur:

'The Christian story does not drop from heaven fully written. It grew and developed over a period of forty-two to seventy years. This is not what most Christians have been taught to think, but it is factual. Christianity has always been an evolving story. It was never, even in the New Testament, a finished story.'

JOHN SHELBY SPONG 

'I let go of the notion that the Bible is a divine product. I learned that it is a human cultural product, the product of two ancient communities, biblical Israel and early Christianity. As such, it contained their understandings and affirmations, statements not coming directly or somewhat directly from God.....I realised that whatever "divine revelation" and the "inspiration of the Bible" meant (if they meant anything), they did not mean that the Bible was a divine product with divine authority.'

MARCUS J BORG 

'Properly understood the Bible is a potential ally to the progressive Christian passion for transformation of ourselves and the world. It is our great heritage. Along with Jesus, to whom it is subordinate, it is our greatest treasure.'

MARCUS J BORG

'My point is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are not smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.'

JOHN DOMINIC CROSSAN 

'The Bible is based upon the construct of theism and anthropomorphism as its primary literary vehicle for expressing the reality of "God." Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. 

The ultimate authority of one's life is not the Bible. The highest truth is not confined between the covers of a book. It is not something written by men and frozen in time. It is not from a source outside oneself. One's ultimate authority is the voice of truth within one's own innermost being.'

JIM PALMER 

'The danger that a mythology understood too literally, and as taught by the Church, will suddenly be repudiated lock, stock and barrel is today greater than ever. Is it not time that the Christian mythology, instead of being wiped out, was understood symbolically?'

CARL JUNG 

Do you believe in God?  It is impossible to prove the existence of God, whether of the theist, pantheist or panentheist varieties.  It is all conjecture.  For me, God is the trigger, the ultimate norm, the spark that set in train the process to form the universe, but I have no idea what the trigger is, or was. I have found the writings of John D Caputo helpful in forming my opinions.   I recommend his book What to believe?

It follows from the last paragraph that there is no point in praying to God in the hope or expectation of receiving a response.  Prayer has value in setting out an agenda of what we would like to happen and convince us of the need for us to act to bring the change prayed for about, insofar as it is within our power or capability so to do. Soren Kierkegaard puts it well:

'The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.'

Having demolished, sorry, deconstructed my belief system now is the time to move on to reconstruction. I find compelling the teaching attributed to Jesus in the bible. It doesn't matter if Jesus was a real person, or a symbol, or a metaphor, or a myth.  What counts is the message, a message of love. Throughout the Old and New Testaments there is a strand affirming the requirement for love, for justice for individuals, for societal change to improve the lives of the poor, the marginalised and the excluded.  The message of Jesus is not a book of rules: it is a set of principles applicable to all cultures, all societies, at all times. It is profound. It is a call to action.  Similar calls to action are to be found in the tenets of other faiths and those of no faith persuasion.

Since the 1990s I have engaged in the pursuit of social justice, as a councillor, as a member of a churches' social responsibility group and been active in the voluntary sector, driven by the desire to follow the teaching ascribed to Jesus and also the concept of liberation theology with particular reference to Leonardo Boff, Gustavo Gutierrez and Jurgen Moltmann. 

A quotation from Gutierrez:

'The poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go out and build a different social order.'

This I read as a call for positive action. Compare and contrast with this statement by James H Cone:

'Liberation theology is not a the theology of revolution, but a theology of the cross that call for ongoing resistance against all forms of oppression'

My opinion is that liberation theology embraces both resisting oppression and demanding systemic change. 

The basis of Moltmann's theology was his conviction that theology must always be related to concrete human situations and that the teaching of Jesus about the Kingdom of God requires of his followers commitment to the overthrowing of everything in the social order that is contrary to its demands. No ivory tower, armchair theology. Moltmann was active in the field, participating in demonstrations. The task of the theologian he stated is not to promote the ideal of a distant utopia, rather to get on with seeking to effect change, to tackle current issues, an argument similar to one made by Karl Popper.

My theological 'position' therefore is to follow Jesus: for individuals to be assisted at point of need, and to campaign for social justice, for systemic social change. From a faith perspective I have deconstructed everything else.

I concur with the concepts set out in the following quotations.

His teachings and behaviour reflect an alternative social vision. Jesus was not not talking about how to be good and how to behave within the framework of a domination system. He was a critic of the domination system itself.

MARCUS BORG

Christian theology needs to speak of social revolution, not reform; of liberation, not development; of socialism, not modernising the prevailing system.

GUSTAVO GUTIERREZ

Jesus called people to follow him in a way of living. He does not require his followers to accept a catalogue of religious beliefs or adopt a set of spiritual practices. Rather, he offered them a new way to live their daily lives. As a result, the earliest members of the Jesus movement were known as followers of the way.

 KURT STRUCKMEYER

God is calling the Church to something new, but we hold things back when we do things according to tradition as opposed to partnering with God in the new way.

DOUG ADDISON

The Church is not memories; we are not just looking in a rear-view mirror. The Church is moving forward and needs new perspectives. 

 OSCAR ROMEO

Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty, truth and compassion against injustice and tyranny and greed.

 WILLIAM FAULKNER

Always be sure that you struggle with Christian weapons. Never succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter. As you press on for justice, be sure you move with justice and discipline, using only the weapon of love.

MARTIN LUTHER KING JNR 

What is needed is a realisation that power without love is reckless and abusive, and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.

MARTIN LUTHER KING JNR

The Kingdom of God is not a matter of getting individuals to heaven, but of transforming the life on earth into the harmony of heaven. 

WALTER RAUSCHENBUSCH 

Your 'yes' to God requires your 'no' to all injustice, to all evil, to all lies.

DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

We cannot profess our solidarity with those who are oppressed when we are unwilling to confront the oppressor.

HENRI NOUWEN

How can we be the church of Jesus unless we reflect the ministry of Jesus? Is the church a radical incarnation of the ministry of Jesus or a private social club?

YVETTE FLUNDER

The prophetic tasks of the Church are to tell the truth in a society that lives an illusion, grieve in a society that practices denial, and express hope in a society that lives in despair.

 WALTER BRUEGGEMANN

I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.

POPE FRANCIS

We must talk about poverty, because people insulated by their own comfort lose sight of it.

DOROTHY DAY

If we try and have a Christianity without social justice, we cut out the beautiful beating heart of Jesus and we are left with only a lifeless corpse of religion to drag around.

JOHN PAVOLITZ

The measure of a society in found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens. 

JIMMY CARTER

Any talk about God that fails to make God's liberation of the oppressed as its starting point is not Christian.

JAMES CONE

When the Church hears the cry of the oppressed it cannot but denounce the social structures that give rise to and perpetuate the misery from which the cry arises.

OSCAR ROMEO

The rich and powerful should act with justice towards the poor, not oppress them. Faith calls us to lift the down-trodden, not to follow those who crush them.

POPE LEO X1V 

The eternal destiny of human beings will be measured by how much or how little solidarity we have displayed with the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, and the oppressed.  In the end we will be judged in terms of love.

LEONARDO BOFF

and finally....

Any religion that professes to be about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them, is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.

MARTIN LUTHER KING JNR

Well, dear reader, thank you for your patience and perseverance.  The fight for social justice continues..........

 

 

 

 

 

 

Into the long grass?

The Salvation Army's International Headquarters published material in 2018 entitled Let's Talk..About Sexuality and Relationships.   So here we are in 2025 and we are informed that in the United Kingdom & Ireland Territory there is to be an eighteen month period for faciliated conversations on the issues of bride price, dowry, divorce & remarriage, married life, partner abuse, pornography, same-sex relationships, sex outside marriage and singleness.

To what end is all this talking directed?  What action may ensue?  A clue from this week's Salvationist. 

"International policy isn't changing as a result of these conversations, but they have the power to change relationships at a local level, to impact how people live their lives and relate to each other."

No encourgement then for those seeking equality of treatment for LGBTQ+ individuals apart from let's be nice to each other. Shameful.

On faith and scripture

A Salvation Army officer holding a senior post in the UK stated recently:

"In terms of doctrine 1, which sets out The Salvation Army's understanding of the authority of Scripture as the divine rule of Christian faith and practice, it is completely irrelevant whether Paul wrote the Pastoral Epistles, or Ephesians and Colossians. It is completely irrelevant whether Moses wrote Genesis. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as we receive them from our forefathers, are understood as given by inspiration of God and are therefore the foundation of our faith."

Set against the above, the following from a number of theologians:

The Christian story does not drop from heaven fully written. It grew and developed over a period of forty-two to seventy years. This is not what most Christians have been taught to think, but it is factual. Christianity has always been an evolving story. It was never, even in the New Testament, a finished story.

JOHN SHELBY SPONG 

I let go of the notion that the Bible is a divine product. I learned that it is a human cultural product, the product of two ancient communities, biblical Israel and early Christianity. As such, it contained their understandings and affirmations, statements not coming directly or somewhat directly from God.....I realised that whatever "divine revelation" and the "inspiration of the Bible" meant (if they meant anything), they did not mean that the Bible was a divine product with divine authority.

MARCUS J BORG 

Properly understood the Bible is a potential ally to the progressive Christian passion for transformation of ourselves and the world. It is our great heritage. Along with Jesus, to whom it is subordinate, it is our greatest treasure.

MARCUS J BORG

My point is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are not smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.

JOHN DOMINIC CROSSAN 

The Bible is based upon the construct of theism and anthropomorphism as its primary literary vehicle for expressing the reality of "God." Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. 

The ultimate authority of one's life is not the Bible. The highest truth is not confined between the covers of a book. It is not something written by men and frozen in time. It is not from a source outside oneself. One's ultimate authority is the voice of truth within one's own innermost being.

JIM PALMER 

Further to the quotation from John Dominic Crossan above,  this from CARL JUNG:

The danger that a mythology understood too literally, and as taught by the Church, will suddenly be repudiated lock, stock and barrel is today greater than ever.  Is it not time that the Christian mythology, instead of being wiped out, was understood symbolically?

   

Very sad

On another Facebook page it was stated that sex (heterosexual) outside of marriage is a sin. I had the temerity to suggest that this was not the case, nor was it a sin for same sex couples to have intimate relationships outside marriage. The anticipated avalanche of vituperative comments duly arrived along with the associated personal abuse.  

I know I shouldn't be surprised by these reactions from so-called Christians for whom the concept of love, and most certainly inclusive love, has escaped them at best or been rejected at worst. My overwhelming emotion is one of deep sadness that the message of Jesus is lost on them.

The bile I received has strengthened my resolve to call out homophobia.

The way of Jesus

The article below in quotations is by Stuart Delony.  It struck a chord, it mirrors much of the jottings in my blog.

"I’m not interested in theological gymnastics that try to explain how God is one essence and three persons without stepping into heresy. The Trinity, as doctrine, has been a church gatekeeping mechanism for centuries—but for me? It’s never been the thing that made faith feel real. What has? The way of Jesus. Not the “believe in Jesus” part. The walk like him part. You know, the inconvenient stuff: Confronting corrupt power. Standing with the outcast. Refusing to play religious games. Loving your enemy. Rejecting ego. Moving through the world with justice and humility. 

That’s the kind of “orthodoxy” I care about now. And if your belief in the Trinity doesn’t lead you to that kind of life? Then congrats—you’ve nailed the theology exam and missed the actual point. Arguing about doctrinal purity while people are being crushed by systems of violence, exclusion, and religious manipulation is just ecclesiastical masturbation. It’s for people who want to feel spiritually superior without getting their hands dirty in the real work of healing and justice”.

The way of Jesus is well-stated by Kurt Struckmeyer:  

"radical love

 lavish generosity

extravagant forgiveness

inclusive hospitality

compassionate action

selfless service

a passion for justice

creative nonviolence 

simple living."

Of course similar attributes are to be found in followers of other faiths and those of no faith.  They are not a Christian monopoly.

Love of neighbour is a call for social justice, for systemic change as required.  From a Christian perspective the writings of Martin Luther King Jnr, Gustavo Gutierrez, Leonardo Boff, Jurgen Moltmann, Desmond Tutu et. al call for justice for all, for inclusion, for love.  They are beacons of hope.

One can be a campaigner for social justice without being a Christian, or for that matter a follower of the way of Jesus.  For me the ideas attributed to Jesus provide a framework, an example, to follow.  The Jesus of scripture was a radical, a revolutionary, a challenger of entrenched attitudes held by the religious and state organisations of his day.  In other words, following a line of Old Testament prophets, he challenged a society to change.  He was a campaigner for the poor and marginalised, he took the battle to his opponents, face to face.  No armchair critic, not an academic in an ivory tower.  

The unsung army.

 Up and down the land there are thousands of individuals who are directors, trustees, governors, treasurers or secretaries of voluntary organisations.  All are unpaid, yet have major legal responsibilities for the organisations they administer, in some cases even standing to lose their personal assets should things go awry.  Many serve 'below the radar', receiving  little or no recognition for the work they do. Without them the voluntary sector would collapse.  They are an unsung army,  planning, organising, maintaining and monitoring services not provided by the statutory sector.  (In some instances, such as school governors, they are part of statute-based organisations. Some voluntary organisations are commissioned to undertake work on behalf of the statutory sector.)  Think of them who are responsible for sports clubs, foodbanks, lunch clubs, homelessness  charities, mental health charities, community groups, arts organisations, church councils to mention just a few.  

My focus is on the voluntary sector's engagement in issues of poverty, discrimination, marginalisation and exclusion, particularly in areas of multiple deprivation.

 At the outset I wish to point out the dangers of cultural appropriation whether in terms of ethnicity or class.    The UK is a multi-ethnic society and also one of rampant class distinction. Generalisations are easily made, but they do not reflect the mosaic, inter-connectedness and differences within society.  It is impossible to pin down a precise definition of working class, lower middle class, upper middle class and so forth.  We attach meaningless labels to individuals and groups.  

So, what is an area of multiple deprivation in England?  The country is divided into what are known as Lower-layer Super Output Areas (LSOA) and typically cover an area of between 400-1,200 households equating to between 1,000 and 3,000 residents.  The Indices of Deprivation applied to each area cover seven factors:

Income, Employment, Skills & Training, Health & Disability, Barriers to Housing and Services, Living Environment.  

LSOA's enable statutory and voluntary organisations to identify areas of need. They are not fool-proof, as very small pockets of deprivation in urban and especially rural areas may not be identified.

For faith groups and secular voluntary bodies wishing to engage in support for individuals in areas of multiple deprivation SLOA's provide an excellent basis for understanding the problems of an area and what services should be targeted towards them.  Foodbanks, lunch clubs, soup kitchens, clothes banks, advice, and so forth can be directed to areas of need.  However such provision is a mere palliative.  The real need is for faith and secular organisations to foster community engagement, for the people of an area to be encouraged to demand systemic change to policies affecting the deprivation scores in their area.  Whilst many of the necessary changes require decisions by central government nevertheless local government and health trusts have it within their power to redistribute funding to improve conditions in specific local areas.  Such changes do not have to be expensive.  Small gains can have significant impact.  

A lurch to the right. We should be worried.

Yesterday's local government elections in England witnessed a lurch to the right in British politics.  The Conservatives were virtually wiped out in areas where they had previously been strong.  Labour also suffered major losses, particularly in areas where until recently they had a stranglehold, areas such as the fomer mining and industrial areas of Northumberland, Durham, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Are the results a protest vote against the policies followed by the Conservative and Labour parties, or is there a much more deep-seated and possibly enduring reaction to years of failure by the parties to understand the concerns of people?

Sadly, both the Conservatives and Labour between them have ramped-up the anti-immigration rhetoric, have attacked those forced to survive on benefits, pensioners, LGBTQ+, homeless individuals.  In other words the vulnerable members of our society have become fair game for financial cuts whilst at the same time there is a failure to deal with the causes of poverty, discriminaton and marginalisation.  The right in British politics has not been slow to identify whom to blame, aided and abetted by the failure of Labour and Conservatives to tackle and remedy the causes of social injustice, a failure to initiate and carry through systemic change.

So, yes, I am worried about the future direction of political decision making in this country. Will the political parties pander to the false narrative that those suffering social injustice are to blame for the economic mess the country is in?  

I seek to follow the injunction of Jesus to love my neighbour  There is precious little love on display from the political right.  We need a sea-change in the policies of government, embracing systemic change, not seeking to outbid the right in its nastiness.  Now is the time for political bravery and also for faith groups to speak out.