What is so good about a career?

In the modern world a man or woman with a career is a somebody.  It is the same in modern churches.  Some of the Pentecostals are up front about this - they will tell you 2007 can be the year of your spiritual victory and this will be proved NOT by being found worthy to suffer shame for Christ (Acts 5:41) but by being found worthy to be honoured by promotion.

In other churches career idolatry may be more subtle but is still there.  Who really believes this saying:

You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God. [Luke 16:15]

 There is a fascinating article in the London Review of Books on the legacy of Hannah Arendt  which is packed with interesting observations and points out how careerism inspired Adolf Eichmann and so many other energetic servants of evil.  Whenever a career is seen as good in itself then the careerist becomes a danger to himself and other people.  He ceases to walk with God and walks in the light of his own good image.  He is pursuing promotion instead of virtue.

Please note, I am not saying that the mark of a faithful disciple is a failed career!  Self-control and conscientiousness are a sign of spiritual fruit and a repentant believer may be a model employee.  In some organisations these are highly prized qualities which are rewarded with higher status and pay.  But the character is what matters and not the recognition.

May the good Lord save us from the career bureaucrats, the career politicians and, above all, the career Pastors.

Christmas - my favourite Pagan Festival

Yes, I know Jesus was not born in midwinter, the wise men turned up weeks after the birth and that it was a common thing for Mangers to double as cradles. No, there was no donkey and there was no snow and “no room at the inn” just means the spare bedroom was already taken.

Even worse, Christmas is a hybrid of Nordic and Roman Pagan festivities and nearly all the colourful bits and pieces from mulled wine to Christmas trees have a wiffy background.

Censorious legalists will have nothing to do with it. Quite right too. What’s the point of being a self-righteous prig if no one notices?

Real Christianity is something of a chameleon. It is not defined by cultural separation but by the strange entry of a new life into every believer. It subverts and transforms the blessed sinner from the inside out beginning with the miracle of regeneration, continuing in the discipline of repentance and ending in the Resurrection to come. A quiet beginning and thunderous fulfilment. Like a baby born in a Jerusalem suburb who will call all humanity to Judgement.

Societies are not so much overturned as subverted by joy and hope. There is not - and can not be - a true Christendom until The Kingdom of Christ comes in it’s fulness. So enjoy the party.

In the meantime, may the Father of Christ bless you in your celebrations rather than that sad old fraud, Father Christmas.

Whatever you do, don’t overtake!

There is a narrow road with cars parked on both sides near my house. Buses and lorries often try to thread their way through and hold-ups are frequent. Sometimes careless drivers get stuck half way along the 200 yard “gauntlett” stretch facing a vehicle attempting to come the other way. The resulting standoff can last several minutes as cars queue up behind in both directions.

The result is fuming exhausts and even more fuming drivers while smirking pedestrians try not to show too much amusement at the resulting display of fallen human nature.

Yesterday, I pulled into a gap to let a delivery van pass in the opposite direction and a driver (gender unspecified to avoid prosecution) selfishly overtook me and blocked the way to oncoming traffic. I leapt out and tried to share a few choice insights about road etiquette but she pressed the central locking and stared straight ahead.

She is doubtless convinced she escaped death from road rage by a whisker and that my shapeless anorak was shielding at least a murderous axe or possibly a suicide bomb belt. My wayward beard may give the impression that I am a fanatical Jihadist after all.

Yes folks, overtaking in London can seem dangerous. Overtaking in Baghdad, however, is lethal. There was a news report about six months ago about a carful of men being shot up by US troops as they overtook them. Ironically, they were going home from a funeral but they all died because the nervous Americans thought they might be lining up for an attack. I was reminded of this story by this article on the BBC site.

So little real news is coming out of Iraq now and we have to thank one brave Iraqi reporter for this story. If there is one thing more dangerous than overtaking in Iraq it is truth telling.

Why no time?

All my friends in ministry seem so busy. They rush from place to place, bolt their meals and often have no time for conversation. It is understandable for those who are not paid but this is just as true for those who have the privilege of being paid ministers.

There must be many reasons but one is, I think, because they feel guilty just reading, meditating, praying (and chatting). It seems so passive and lazy. So unproductive.

Everyone else in the congregation seems busy. Sometimes busyness seems to be the only commonly recognised virtue in London. All else is relative. And our role as the Pastor/Teachers of churches is easy to despise when secularism rules. If only people realised how busy we are we would feel justified and so we become busy. We dress and act as busy professionals. “See my diary”, “Hear my phone ring”, “Sorry, have to dash!”

So who will do the work of hearing God speak in scripture? thinking through its implications in a world going mad and churches going adrift? working out what lives we should live in consequence of the faith delivered once for all by the Apostles and Prophets of Christ?

Who will put the Gospel of God in the language of the City of Men? Who will stand before the Lord?

I’d like to think about these things when I am less busy.

The Weapons of our Warfare?

3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.
4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.
5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,
6 being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.

Is this quote [ESV] from 2 Cor 10 true of modern believers?

We are often socially engaged and campaign on issues of rights and justice. Indeed, you will commonly find campaigners on both sides of modern controversies each of whom sees him/herself as obeying God with their efforts.

And there are so many parachurch organisations who want to stir us to action. Write to your MP about debt relief, religious persecution, homosexual “marriage” etc.. Send more money to our organisation which is doing God’s work but strangely never seems to be properly funded by Him.

They all assume the power and the glory belong to the governing institutions - Parliament, UN, EU, etc. or to the Media and (that strange monster) Public Opinion.

The weapons of our warfare are no longer the weapons of the cantakerous Jewish convert who wrote Second Corinthians. Neither are they mighty.