USAican RW Christians misunderstand "socialism"

 The other day on Mastodon, I came across an article about left-wing politics and Jesus. It appears to have been written from a Christian-nationalism sort of perspective and, well it seems so far off: it's a straw-man misunderstanding coupled with prejudice.  I feel it deserves comment at least for my own interest. The first para is odd, really, an 'argument' that needs unpacking to see that it is more a pretext for a prejudice, I think. 

"One of the most bizarre arguments for “Jesus was a socialist” comes from people who say, “Jesus healed and fed people for free; therefore, He was a socialist.” When governments can feed people for free by multiplying loaves and fishes, heal people by touch or a word from a government agency, or raise people from the dead, then I’ll become a socialist. The thing of it is, people who want free college and free healthcare and politicians who promise such things believe that government is god and can turn stones into bread. Our nation’s motto is “In God We Trust” which means in practice “In Government We Trust.” As often as they try, governments can’t perform miracles."

There are several things going on in this. First, though, I think that I've not really come across Jesus offering 'free healthcare' as an argument for socialism in the way laid out there. The argument doesn't get made that way; the author is mischaracterising the thinking for the sake of dismissing a label. I think that perhaps the author has seen some people taking issue with right-wing perspectives which seem to argue that there's a Christian moral imperative not to have government providing things like healthcare for free. 

Some rhetorical responses do indeed suggest that the Jesus that right-wingers purport to follow did actually give this away for free at the point of need. It's not an argument for socialised healthcare when used like that, it's a device to indicate that the right winger has a potential incompatibility hidden in their presuppositions. It is to suggest that there may be more discussion to be had and that perhaps the right-winger has missed something about how the values they espouse might actually need more consideration. 

The actual arguments for socialism from a Christian value base lie elsewhere and are more widely drawn. So to dismiss 'socialism' this way fails to deal with the main arguments of Christian Socialists and contributes to a straw man approach which may make supporters feel like they are 'owing the libs' or something, but really fails to convince people who actually do hold the position.

There's also a practical theological issue about the matter of miracles and healthcare (or other things that a government might do). I think my concern about the gesture towards a position outlined in that blog post could be illustrated as a big contribution to problematising the position as stated.

I have known several Christian medical doctors and health workers during my life. They believe the healthcare they offer and the health improvements they bring about by their service and efforts are God's work. They consider that in some way they are continuing the healing work of Jesus albeit by normally non-miraculous means. They are using their God-given talents to bring about a life which is more abundant for those they treat. Is that not God's work? Or does only 'miraculous' healing count? The lack of 'miracle' (and what is that exactly?) to accomplish something does not mean it's not something that God wants. I think that feeding hungry people using logistics  to transport and distribute food from places that have enough to share is godly. I don't dismiss it as a Christian simply because it doesn't involve miraculous multiplication. I don't dismiss God's provision because the money arrives in a bank account as a result of a contract rather than from the mouth of a fish.

Assuming that we are happy to acknowledge that a medic's work, in broad terms at least, is God's work, then the next matter to consider is this. Is it good or not for them to seek to work in such a way that the poorest of their patients are able to access their help? Is it a bad thing for their care to be free at the point of access? Or are we going to be comfortable with situations where only the relatively rich can benefit from good healthcare? As a Christian I can't be comfortable with that latter situation. 

-And by the way that's not, strictly speaking, 'socialism' -many who are not socialist in parts of the world that have systems of healthcare that are free at the point of use nevertheless consider that it is right and proper to have free healthcare, right wingers included. In my own country, even right wingers make arguments about healthcare provision explicitly reassuring their audiences that they think it should be free at the point of delivery. They have even framed it as helping people to participate in the (capitalist) economy.

Back to that article: it is simply not true that people who think that healthcare, education etc should be free at the point of access, believe that the government is God. Nope. Never happens. I know no-one, not one single person, who does. 

Ironically, of course, it can appear that the kind of nationalism espoused by RWers seems to raise questions about idolatry -of nation. (And it's not enough to claim that a nation and its government are enacting God's agenda -because that's a claim that can be made, and has been made, for other nations and forms of government. It's only the start of a discussion not an end).

So what does drive many Christians toward 'socialist' approaches to thinking about public life and government policy?

Well for most it's rooted in considering the outworking of loving others as oneself, loving neighbour. Let's recall that such love is about willing and working towards the best for our neighbours. To be a bit more explicit: loving others as ourselves? -Well, on the whole, I exercise a degree of care towards myself by going to a medical appointment when something is 'up'. I therefore think that loving my neighbour as myself means making sure that they can do the same. (I vote accordingly and I lobby politicians and involve myself in political debate to try to retain that situation and to have it improve if possible; I see that as part of the outworking of Christian discipleship in pursuit of Christian values.) 

I note that this is still not 'socialism' but socialism is one of the political options that it is compatible with. However, a further consideration is a critique of capitalism. Let's say to start with that for Christians on the left, capitalism looks a lot like 'Mammon' and the 'love of money' -which 1 Timother 6:10 reminds us is "a root of all kinds of evil". Left-leaning Christians, then, on the basis of Jesus' and apostolic teaching are decidedly skeptical about letting what appears to be the idolatry of wealth be in the societal driving seat. It's hard to read James 2 and not feel that supporting making the rich richer and further impoverishing the poor is a major incompatibility with Christian discipleship and constitutes giving a pass to the moral hazard wealth clearly is in Christian teaching -don't forget James is merely expounding Jesus's warnings about wealth, selfishness and the value of each person including the poor and marginalised. 

Note also that James 4:1-6 seems to suggest that wealth is, in effect, stealing from the poor. It is the result of power relations that enable the haves to further extract value from the have-nots to their detriment. That passage implies that God considers that even the humblest in society are due the means to live dignified lives. Jesus's teaching and ministry indicate that the poorest are at the heart of God's concern (and incidentally, this fulfills the teaching of the Hebrew scriptures). To maintain an argument for the Christian-ness of capitalism, it has to be be convincingly argued that it both places the poorest and improving their lot at the heart of policy and concern across society and that there are effective and present ways to mitigate the moral hazard relating to wealth accumulation.

Coming back to James ... "Ah but...!" "Well, actually ..." Yes, yes: there is more to be said to close the gap between then and now and the circumstances in view. But let's note that the RW Christian perspectives often need similar further investigation and more careful extrapolation too. I'll not do that here and now. But I have written about related matters and will continue to do so. Suffice to say, for now, that I think that the most natural politics to come away from Jesus' teaching with is a politics that places improving the lot of the poorest at the heart and which is very skeptical about allowing greed and wealth accumulation to be in the driving seat of society. It also adds weight to the observation that 'trickle-down' economics doesn't seem to happen in practice. This is not only an observation of the last 40 years of western governmental policies, it is an observation of several thousand years.

Ultimate Rest -a review.

 A number of years ago I had a sea-change in my way of receiving communion and recently one of my colleagues in ministry confided that they had undergone a similar change. It was a move to recognising that it was all about the gift, about God's grace and allowing God in Christ to bless us. Previously he and I had been schooled in a free church sort of tradition that had the effect of making it all about our remembrance and somehow we'd imbibed the notion that we had to make it effective by having the right sorts of holy thoughts as we chewed and sipped. 

It seems to me that this approach is very consonant with what David Hewitt is exploring in this book: the change in posture from striving to receiving and resting.

The subtitle is 'The Essence of the Beautiful Gospel" and that is a helpful description. The beautiful gospel is that in Christ God as done everything to bring us into the divine life and so we rest in what God has done. As I read, the old song  'Do not strive' kept coming into my head. This book is an extended meditation and exploration of entering into God's Rest. It was good to be reminded latterly in the book that "if the version of the gospel you have heard doesn't sound to you like good news, then you've not heard the gospel". And I also found it helpful to be reminded that "the gospel has often been presented as a proposition, when in fact it is an announcement." I think that definitely bears reflecting on further.

The exploration and reflection takes us through various biblical passages and this is a strength of the book -that it is scripturally based but in a way that is not picking at minutiae but pulling out a major theme. I felt the approach to the early chapters of Genesis was helpful by focusing on the spiritual dynamics as they relate to contemporary readers which must surely be the right sort of approach.

I was intrigued by a reflection on the word 'insouciance'. David takes it positively as a state of mind of being unperterbed. This challenged me as my associations for the term are drawn from Peter Pan where the insouciance of youth is more focused on a sense of not caring about others.

I found the contemporising of Philippians 4:7 quite helpful too. 'Talk through everything at the beginning of the day or before things happen. And (if you cannot understand it all) be thankful for what you can see God is doing. God's peace becomes the hallmark of the day.' (Though I think that some of the meaning of the preceding verses is carried over into that rendering. The single verse goes like this: "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."). I felt that this was a useful peace of advice.

I think that this is a book to be read a chapter at a time and reflected on rather than read all the way through. As a reviewer I was asked to turn around the review in a month. I think I'd have liked to be able to take longer in order to really let some of the thoughts sink in before feeling I had to move one

I have to confess that I enjoyed too that this is a book written from a British context (Scottish to be more precise though he was brought up not far from where I was brought up in the English midlands) rather than north American. Not that I have anything against the latter but it was just nice to see something by a fellow Brit. I enjoyed too that the theological underpinnings of this mentioned names like the Torrance brothers and Karl Barth. Welcome too was the inclusion of insights by Julian of Norwich. There are a lot of quotes also from John Crowder.

I liked too that there are appendices with a practical slant and that these have been written by other people. I commend the collegiate approach especially in a book that has clearly been written from a community base.

I've also got some homework to do following on from reading this. David uses a couple of English language Bibles which I'd not come across before and I felt that their renderings of the passages discussed were helpful in putting things across and opening out layers of meaning. These weren't the only versons; David seems happy to use a variety (ESV, The Message ...) choosing according to which seems best to convey the meanings that he's wanting to emphasise. One of them I need to look up is The Mirror the other is the Passion translation.

I think whan I wanted more of was ways to help me/us to rest in God in practical terms. Now the appendices do this and there are nuggets of this in the text. It probably says more about where I'm at with it, but I did have a sense of 'yes, I know this' but what I am looking for is things that will help me to interrupt those times when I move away from acting out of peace or rest, to recall me. I recognise there are no easy ways in this respect; knowing the truth and picking oneself up to start all over again is the most likely rhythm of learning in this.

One of the strangenesses in the e-text as I received it, was the occasional changing colour of the typeface. I read white on black text most of the time because I tend to be reading these in the evening and I'm resting my eyes somewhat. So the fact that paragraphs, seemingly randomly (sometimes a sentence or two in) became grey or blue was disconcerting and sometimes required me to alter the light levels to see clearly. I imagine this as an artefact of the preparation of the text for publication which probably didn't show up to a proofreader who would have been simply reading in a more conventional way dark type on a pale background.

 

Links related to this review:

Ultimate Rest on Bookshop

Ultimate Rest on the Rethinking God with Tacos Podcast

Ultimate Rest on the Eat Me, Drink Me Podcast

David Hewitt’s Website

#UltimateRest

 

Retelling atonement forgiveness centred (10)

After quite a while, I return to this consideration because Richard Beck wrote a very interesting blog post about forgiveness. It's provocatively titled "God cannot forgive us", and is definitely worth a read. Interestingly, because of that title and the forceful way the argument begins, it might look as if Richard is taking a different and oppositional stance compared with my own as developed in the foregoing posts of this 'retelling atonement' series. I do not believe that this is the case on closer consideration.

I think the crux (!) of the point being made is this: "God is impassive toward human sin. God doesn't have emotional reactions about our sin. This is what Julian means when she says God "cannot be angry." And maybe even that needs further explication: "what it means to say God is impassive toward sin. God doesn't have triggered or conflicting emotions. Nor are there emotions within God that demand satisfaction or reconciliation."

I think that the essential thing here is something about divine timefullness (some might use 'timelessness' -but there are further philosophical issues there) and sovereignty meaning that God is not triggered (and that's a good theological use of the word!) by our sin, injustice, cruelty etc. God's loving nature is always merciful, always (and this is where I bring in the perspective /trajectory of this series) pushing against harm to the beloved with self-giving compassion.

Richard goes on to state:  "We cannot find a season in the heart of God (like the interval of time between the Fall and Jesus' death) when we were not forgiven. And if we cannot find a season in the heart of God when we were not forgiven that means we've always been forgiven." And again, this is consonant, I think, with what I've tried to develop in thinking along the lines projected by this series. In proposing the idea of the cross (and resurrection) as an eikon of forgiveness, I was making the point that these are a playing-out in our space-time of God's eternal forgiving-ness. The whole of creation, if we expand on Barth's point cited in one of the earlier posts, is built around this.

I think that this is very congruent with what Richard writes towards the end of his post: "if by "forgiveness" you mean a change in the heart of God, this is impossible. God cannot "forgive" if you are describing forgiveness as an emotional flip-flop. Forgiveness can only ever name God's eternal posture of mercy toward human sinfulness, something that never wavers or changes."

My addition to that is to say that the cross/resurrection is an eikon -an incarnation of mercy and the 'reconciliation' of love and love in a pluriform universe such as the one in which we find ourselves.

For the start of this post-thread, go here.

Grievance politics -ethical?

 Reading an article about the way populist leader turn grief into grievance and then to support, these sentences gave me pause for thought.

 pretty much every 

successful populist or authoritarian leader finds ways to riff on shared loss — falling living standards, defeat in war, loss of empire or status or prestige — as a source of grievance and thus political power.

My pause was around these two questions: how would a left-wing version of this go? And; would it be ethical to do so?

I guess the answer to the first is readily found in history. There have been revolutions and uprisings which have "riffed" on the losses experienced by the downtrodden (losses of just shares in wealth, of security, family life, respect etc) and the grievances turned (with some justice) upon those who perpetrate injustices and violence directly as well as upon the wealthy who operate and direct the systems to their own advantage. There is an element of a zero-sum situation. In such cases wealthy people and their collaborators have been targeted. Often there has been some justice in this: they have been people who have been held to account for real crimes small and large. Sometimes (and there are still arguments about how frequent or inherent) relatively innocent people have become suspect and 'rounded up' and the situation has become an opportunity to settle old scores that have little to do with justice.

The left wing version then would focus grievance on holders of structural power, usually mediated by holding much wealth particularly from being a rentier. And this raises the issue about how deserved the opprobrium may be.

Grievances can be deserved or relatively undeserved. To me, it looks like having a sense that there are powerful people who are maintaining their power (usually correlated with wealth) by inflicting degrees of misery on many others. The injustice of that deserves grievance. Blaming migrants for trying to make a better life and avoid misery seems relatively injust, particularly if on further investigation we discover their migration and seeking a better life is driven by the injustices of the aforementioned powerful.

Structural injustice isn't solely or even mainly about people, individually or collectively. Focussing on persons leaves the probability that removing office holders or staff leaves the system intact. One despot replaced by another despot still leaves oppression in place. And yet people still form the system and can be appealed to in order that they might not co-operate, or may sabotage. Leaders might, sometimes, be prevailed upon to make significant changes.

An ethics about this would recognise the harms that change might involve and what kind of changes might invoke what kinds of harm. Obviously that would be considered alongside the existing harms and the 'price' of business as usual.

I note a further dimension, captured later in the article:

how do we defuse this grief to grievance pipeline? If, as Vamik Volkan argues, it’s through a process of collective mourning, then what would that even look like in cases where what we’ve lost isn’t a person whom we loved, but a way of life, a sense of hopefulness about the future, or a healthy group identity with confidence and self-respect?

Now that's really interesting.

Formation for participraying -a PS

 Yesterday I started to read 'Answering God' by Robert Ellis. 'Towards a theology of intercession' is the helpful subtitle. The reason is that I discovered the book on my shelves, unread, and realised it looks like what I've been thinking about lately in the participraying short series of posts. I became interested in the lack of reflection on this topic in the meetings and I felt that it would be good for me to now feed the soil of reflection by seeking further input. 

The book seems to promise a somewhat philosophical approach to what is involved theologically in the issue. Much of it so far echoes thoughts and perspectives I have come to over the years of reflecting piecemeal on it. -But it's only the first chapter!. 

Anyway, one of the things I've been thinking about is the phrase "unanswered prayer" and I'm reminded by it's being mentioned in the book. For a long while I've felt it was a misleading or unhelpful characterisation. If it's right that God always hears our prayer and that God cares deeply for each and all, AND that God is always, in some sense, communicating with us (or striving to) then there can be no such thing as unanswered prayer. The issue is how is the prayer responded to by God. 

It might be better to consider the phenomenon being gestured to in the phrase 'unanswered prayer' as something like, "unrequited prayer" (I quite like that phrase -it might be a good title for an article on the matter). I also wondered about "unfulfilled requests" or "~petitions" but that seems perhaps a bit too like the phrase I'm troubled by. I think we need a phrase that at least hints towards the possibility that God wants to invite us into conversation of some sort about our requests. The request or petition is perhaps meant to be a starting point and not merely a seeking of a short answer but an exploration of our motives and defaults, of God's character and purposes and of the way the world is and how God and we relate to the wider world and creation; singly and together.

In terms of the 'participraying' dimension of this topic, I think that it raises -or, better perhaps, underlines the matter of corporate discernment processes. If we are to respond to God's responding to our raising a matter of concern (whether a request or something more tentative), then we need to be able to question our own motives and assumptions. Doing that corporately raises some delicate questions about developing a group who have the emotional intelligence (or maybe simply the kind regard that characterises neighbour-love) enough to understand how to challenge, or to raise a question that could be quite 'personal' in the sense that it may touch on deeply held convictions and or emotionally-laden matters and beliefs. It also invokes the need on the part of those challenged to respond well to such challenges. These are matters of individual and group formation. 

I can imagine scenarios where this might mean someone's concern or initial request is met within the group with something like, "I understand that this matters to you deeply, I feel something of your anxiety /anger" (Maybe others might chime in affirmatively here). "Could we sit with that for a bit? Would you unpack it a bit to help us to grasp what drives your concern emotionally?"

And in such a scenario, we shouldn't necessarily be assuming that the emotional response is awry of of God's concerns. The point is to understand whether God is in it to affirm, challenge or a bit of both? And, of course, this kind of dynamic could apply also to someone feeling that they have a sense of what God might be communicating about the topic. 

I think that this can be tricky: often there is a church culture which discourages us from pressing the questions that should be offered. Maybe from fear that it would cause affront (and that alerts us to the need, when we offer such insights, to offer them tentatively, inviting 'testing' and finding an inner posture of curiosity rather than being too certain at that point. That in turn would mean learning how to speak about our own inner experience to some extent. Learning how each of us processes possible insights from God, promptings of the Spirit and how we each pass up things that we suspect might merely be our own stuff. It would mean us becoming comfortable with discussing our theology and learning together about how to think about Providence. It would involve bearing with one another as we learn to process all of this. It would involve trust and some intimacy.

I guess we should also acknowledge that because God dwells with people and in situations, we also have to note that these processes may also 'carry' God (this is an image related to that phrase in the psalm about God being enthroned of the praises of his people). This questioning, exploring, self-examination, opening up to mutual scrutiny, mutual vulnerability is participating in God in prayer. It is part of prayer. It is Jacob wresting with the unnamed man at the Jabbok. It is Abraham dialoguing with God at God's instigation at Mamre.

Formation for participraying

As I've been thinking about the difference between group processes for intercessory (rather than 'merely' petitionary) prayer meetings (see previous post if you've started on this one). It has been occuring to me that there are certain characteristics of behaviour and attitude that are needed by participants -this then is about Christian formation.

I've been aware too, as I wrote, that some of what I've been suggesting is quite like Quaker discernment practices -so that's a cross-reference point. I have long thought that part of the unspoken (!) underpinning for Quaker practice* is a set of internalised rules about conduct in a meeting. It is this sense of  the processes needing a good human habitus that I'm trying here to sketch out.

So, what is required, humanly speaking, for a group intercessory prayer process to work as well as it can?

Well, the things that most readily come to mind are as follows. They form a sort of core competency list which suggests some things that are necessary in initial Christian formation (discipling, baptism and confirmation preparation -probably). They are in no particular order. Though perhaps the first really is foremost.

Listening to God. As a gateway to this, I'd suggest a thorough grounding in lectio Divina or a robust version of the Quiet Time. It seems to me that the core of this discipline (I take they view that they are basically the same thing differently contextualised), is hearing the words of scripture with openness and sifting our own responses to note what in our own reactions may indicate God's Spirit drawing us to a particular word or phrase and being prepared to stay with that long enough to understand how and why it is settling with us.

Listening to others. This means not only hearing and understanding (which may in turn imply we ask some questions sometimes to improve our comprehension) but dwelling with what is said in such a way that we can suss out what it in resonates with us, unpick our own responses and so weigh up what is of God in it. It's rather different to listening for the next cue or gap where we can say our own piece. It requires patience and self-control (fruit of the Spirit). Asking clarificatory questions well will require gentleness and kindness (also fruit of the Spirit) in attitude to enable a genuine sharing and not trigger defensiveness or anxiety in our conversation partners.

Self awareness -related to the previous paragraph; being aware of our own responses and being familiar enough with our habits of response enables us to own our own 'stuff' and so refrain from projecting onto other humans or onto God.

Self examination. Being aware of our own motivations and being prepared to notice and take responsibility for our own reactions. This enables us to offer things to the group with less entanglement from the less worthy side of us. It won't go away except by us becoming aware and dealing with it appropriately. So we may want to set aside time to consider our participation and what drives it.

Becoming comfortable with silence. Much of what is written above requires us to be able to give attention to what our inner world is doing. This is likely to mean that we (and others) are quiet for periods of time to do so. We need to be okay with that for enough time to let things happen.

Loving challenge: kind and respectful speech. It is likely that from time to time, we find that we sense that something is mentioned or shared that for some reason seems 'off'. Obviously we need to examine ourselves to understand better why it may seem 'off' to us. However, if having done so we feel we should try to put things right or back on track, we will need to offer a corrective or at least a question. As we do so, we do well when we recognise that the person who shared has probably done so in good faith and may feel somewhat vulnerable having done so. Loving challenge recognises that and seeks to reassure that person that their effort is appreciated, that they are respected even while questioning what may have been shared. It may not always be explicitly said, depending on the level of trust and friendship in the group, but it should always be conveyed by the way that things are said and by choices of words that are not derogatory or shaming. We want people to feel that they can continue to be wrong sometimes without being derogated for it. Being wrong is a great way to learn how to be right more often. We'd want that encouragement for ourselves, so we should model it ourselves in relation to others. Having a meeting which is slow and thoughtful, will help in this since we are less likely to 'shoot from the hip' in such an atmosphere.

 There's a PS to this short series here.

Starred Note

*I'm not a Quaker but I have long been interested in their origins and sympathetic to their historical roots. I dissent from their standing aside from the dominical sacraments. I value their conviction that there is that of God in everyone -I'd elucidate: the Spirit is at work in all. And I value their experience in  developing ways to listen to the movements of the Spirit in individuals and collectively. I think that churches could and should learn from their discernment processes.

Participraying processes

Following up the previous blog post...  which I nearly delayed posting because I wondered whether to write more. Instead I've opted to write this further piece having now published the previous one. Very near the end of the prior post, I set the agenda for this post:

how do we change a typical prayer meeting from a collecting of concerns in prayer leading to a serial presenting of requests (more or less elaborated), to a sharing, naming, listening and discerning mode in which we begin also to share what we think God is responding and discerning those promptings and tentative suggestions we begin to sense?

 In some ways the answer is there; implicit in the list: sharing, naming, listening and discerning. I think that there also needs to be a further stage about how we then pray after significant discernments. I think that list probably names some tasks, but not necessarily a step-by-step process.

Sharing is fairly typical in the conventional prayer meeting. Either a leader or leaders suggests some matters of concern or the members of the group are able to say what they'd like prayer for. Typically, this involves giving a bit of background and then usually anyone in the group can then make a prayer of that, usually that happens once everyone has had a chance to share what they would like prayer for*. This might be still a part of a more intercessory meeting but there needs to be consideration for the amount of work involved in processing a suggestion for prayer. So a way to sift suggestions (what would be "requests" in a conventional petition presenting meeting) is probably going to be needed. In fact group intercessory prayer might be best to try to focus on one thing at a time. And there may be need to processes to help centre in on one. So there could be a time of discernment and various ways to capture a sense of what people are feeling drawn to pray about if there are several possibilities on the table. One could be to delegate to a leader or leaders, possibly before the meeting. They would then present the matter at hand, perhaps with some background and perhaps with initial thoughts about the character and ways of God which might give clues as to how to start reflecting and dialoguing with one another and God. In other cases a process of quiet reflection on what has been brought to the meeting for potentially deepening of prayer, and listening to ones heart individually with a means to then share what seems to be 'settling' with group members. All this takes time.

Naming is perhaps not a separate item, really -I think it is the outcome really of the previous process of identifying what is to be held and explored in prayer. But we should be aware of how the way that we describe and term things can be helpful or unhelpful in directing our attention and our thoughts. A good naming enables insight, a less good naming may distract or frame our thoughts misleadingly. It would be wise, I think, also to consider naming in relation to discerning (see below).

Listening is where the nub of things begins to be identified. What are we drawn to pray about? What do we think God's stake and agenda might be? It's a process of hearing one another as we try to listen to God and to make sense of the various things that seem to be implied or relate to the matter at hand. Listening to the situation and context: what is actually happening and what does it mean? What is at stake to whom? What do we not know? Listening to God alongside all of this: are there things in what we are sharing and learning that seem to us to draw us, lectio-divina-like; things that seem to carry a mark of God with them?

Discerning -this is about becoming aware and more sure of what it is that God is pressing upon us or inviting us into. I'm envisaging activities of sharing 'weighty'** intuitions and insights -prophecy, if you will. I'm envisaging these resting on core disciplines such as lectio divina which (it seems to me) is pretty much what lies at the heart of the classic evangelical Quiet Time practice. Same rose, different name. Same rose, different traditions' gardens.

In a group context this means both attending to our own sense of what God might be highlighting to us and also sharing that with the others and then applying the careful listening and weighing up discipline to what is shared. This might look a bit like contemplative dialogue: people offer something in a gentle tentative way -after all this is offering a thought or possible insight for discernment, this is not the time for 'Thus says the Lord" but rather "I think God may be drawing my attention to...". The rest of the group sit with it, holding it before God. This takes time in quietness. In time others respond -or even offer further thoughts or insights.

In my experience of contemplative dialogue (which is not necessarily oriented to particular issues or questions), people share things that sometimes don't seem especially connected to what has been shared just before. However, over time threads and themes emerge. There is a degree of 'trust the process' -or, as I would gloss it: "trust the Spirit in the process".

In broad terms, then, a process of group intercessory prayer might go like this.

The group, or leaders beforehand, considers what is to be prayed about. There is some exploration of what is involved. This exploration itself is contemplative, that is it involves listening, questioning, weighing, getting a feel for the issues in relation to God, there might be sharing of scripture, theological perspectives and all of this (and more) in a quiet way giving time for people to hear and to weigh up what they hear before sharing further. There should be room for people to express how they feel before God and one another (this could be direct address to God -but resisting the habit*** of turning that into a petitionary prayer).

In time themes and guidance emerges. The group take note of these and there is an iterative process of receiving, weighing and discerning. Each time also expressing to God how we feel with honesty -think Abram at Mamre, or Amos's cry that Israel is too small! Processing those feelings in prayer is as important as the more cognitive dimensions. This kind of emotional honesty is also quite hard to acquire in prayer. At least I have observed it to be so both in myself and in groups I have prayed with. There's a tendency to take a message from the normal habits of not expressing how we feel (despite the example of the psalms). Well, certain things we feel: it's okay to show or express mild emotions and the Charismatic and Pentecostal movements have made some enthusiastic emotions almost mandatory in some circles. However, lamenting, expressing anger etc ... we tend to (self-) censor. We anticipate and move to the next stage without really allowing ourselves to sit with the difficult emotions. 

Yet again, scripture does actually model this. I've just mentioned the psalms and we can read again Jonah's responses, or Jeremiah's, or many of the prophets' writings. There's Elijah's post-competition depression, Jesus's weeping. Sometimes these things are described as taking 'many days'. Many days to process the enormity and the impact on ourselves. Perhaps this indicates that intercessory prayer groups need to factor in that their meeting together is not the only thing they do. There is work (self-work and God-relating) to be done between meetings. Which also implies groups need to spend time catching themselves up with one another and events in between.

The culmination point of this sort of (iterative) process of discerning may well be a sense of what is to be asked of God because this is what God wants us to participate in by praying. And maybe not just praying petitions but more bodily prayer, acting in ways that align with the prayer that is emerging from all the discerning and travail of heart.

And, I would suppose, that there comes a point of rest too. A sabbath before the next intercessory engagement.

I'm looking back at what I've written here and thinking that the clear process I thought I had in mind, does not seem that clear after all. I think this is because it is iterative and organic and may vary according to the kind of group and leadership involved. I hope it is clear that at the heart of it is making time for people to listen inwardly to what the Spirit may be pressing upon them and to find ways to allow people to share in a way that invites further discernment. And in addition to be open to the revelation that affective knowing brings as well as cognitive.

Next post in this brief thread.

Footnotes

*There's a whole other consideration that could be undertaken about the dynamics this creates around people remembering properly, about the fear of disrespecting someone because their request is forgotten, about an unwritten rule that the person who requested prayer shouldn't be the one to make the prayer, not to mention that the whole thing seems to suggest that God doesn't hear the prayer until the group has explicitly said it to God rather than to each other. I've written about this elsewhere.

**"Weighty" here is trying to indicate the sense that it has something of God's weight behind it: it seems significant and godly, wise or insightful. It has greater heft than a merely human thought.

*** A habit born of the normal format of prayer meetings that most of us have been socialised into. I've observed how deeply engrained this 'liturgy' is -to arrest it may require leaders or the rest of the group finding care-ful ways to stop themselves and each other running on into it as the habit is laid aside.