Faith-loss -a few questions and observations.

The book which publishes the research underlying this article is now on my 'to read' list. Part of my interest is from having been vicar at a church where I was told, when I was interviewed for the post, that the church had a big front door but a large back door too (ie it was good at welcoming people to the church but also had a good few leaving). Since then I've been interested in the issues that flow from that.

One of the things that the article does is give an overview of some of the 'risk factors':

 people who lose their faith tend to have certain personality traits, and underlying beliefs and values (the ingredients). These include having an above-average intelligence, and low tolerance for submitting to authority and for right-wing political ideas; valuing self-determination and being in control; and being open to experience.

As I read that I realised that I'm in the risk category on every count. So I wonder, then, what keeps me, and others like me, in Christian faith and whether there is something to be learned from that.

In fact, it leads me to ask whether there are a lot of people in this hanging on in there sort of category and what our collective experience might tell us. My suspicion is that it tells us something about Christian formation in the long-haul and the way that churches need to collaborate in long-term discipleship.
This goes to one of the other things the article mentions as a probably pathway to faithloss: "when parents or churches mistakenly equate their unique take on Christianity with the essentials of Christianity itself"
I could characterise that as 'our way or the highway' -and certainly I do come across people for whom that seems to have been the way out. The sadness is knowing that there are expressions of faith and church 'out there' that would have been able to support and hold that person but they had been demonised and that route for faith development had been closed off psychologically. That's why I'm interested in the way that we can collaborate across different expressions of church to make it possible for people to be 'blessed out' of one expression of Christian faith into another. Of course this requires a certain degree of maturity and restraint -but it has happened and does still in various parts of the church universal. Evangelicals will collaborate even while disagreeing vehemently about some things. They will put evangelism and 'by all means win some' as a higher priority and in doing so recognise that a common basis of faith is enough even if it doesn't clear up well-founded disagreements; there's a recognition of bona fides. More recent Anglican conservative Evangelical and Anglican Catholic collaborations have demonstrated something similar. So it is possible if the stakes are understood and high enough.

I do have another question about this, though. I generally take a perspective that everyone has faith: we all, as humans, seek meaning, live by values and have beliefs about how and why such things do or don't reflect reality. It's not radical -the declarations of human rights recognise that atheism is a form of belief, for example, and so cannot be used to deny someone their human rights and is protected in terms of its manifestation.

From this perspective, it's not that people lose their faith, it's that they change it. And I wonder whether that's a more fruitful way to think about the matter. In fact towards the end of the piece we almost get to that:

Marriott reports that “the vast majority of deconverts” whom he has interviewed “felt that a weight had been lifted off them and that they were now free”. They spoke of being “set free” and “liberated” — language that is usually associated with conversion stories, not their reverse.

Which story I have also heard from people shifting from, say, narrow fundamentalism to a more liberal or sacramental version of Christian faith. Or in some cases from a 'tired' or stultifying sort of church life to something with more vibrancy which felt confident about having something worthwhile to share. The difficulty is that some versions of Christian faith make it seems that their way is all-or-nothing or that it is better to drop out altogether than go over to the within-faith enemy. That's what we need to get past and perhaps help churches to recognise other churches in such a way as to bless people on the next stage of their journey with another kind of church polity or style. At different stages in our Christian development we may find in helpful to have a different approach in various ways, and to embrace that positively rather than to discourage it and risk losing some altogether might be a better way forward. In the past in this country that has happened through church splits and churn. Maybe now it's time to be more intentional. Also, it might help address this:

maybe some values and assumptions and expectations that this person holds that are a result of living in a 21st-century, modern world that aren’t necessarily indicative of just some sort of pure rationality. They are also part of a construct. . . And maybe they should ask themselves some questions about some of their underlying assumptions and some of the values that they think are very important

In other words there are elements of faith in whatever approach to life we adopt, it's the plausibility that is at issue. But if we conceive of it not so much as losing faith as changing faith, we may begin to have better conceptual tools to respond -as the article indicates that the book gives us.


What causes people to lose their faith?:

Time to ditch ‘We pray for . . .’

I really read this article because I am having a bit of a bugbear at the moment about the use of the word 'pray' and 'prayer' in worship and, in fact, prayer meetings. I'm starting to find the ubiquity of it feels like overuse: I no longer know what I'm supposed to be doing when some says 'we pray for ....'  And this seems to be part of the concern of Geoffrey Wilkinson who wrote the referenced article in the Church Times. Towards the end of the article, the author suggests,

“We pray for” is not prayer. At best, it is an invitation to the gathered assembly to pray for a particular concern" 

And I think that this may touch on part of my frustration with the phrase. It does depend, though, on what else is said. I agree that if a bare 'We pray for xyz' is used with no other qualification or elucidation, then the best we can do is bring a brief frisson of concern before God. Perhaps more than brief if the prayer leader gives pause and has signalled it. But often we will hear 'We pray for xyz and pqr and efg ...' without much gap to engage inwardly. I think this is what Mr Wilkinson is concerned about, at root.

However, I'm not sure how fully I agree with other points in the article.

By using the phrase “We pray for”, the Intercessor ceases to be a mediator between the people of God and God, and becomes instead a prayer leader. The proper meaning of “intercession” is thereby immediately lost.

I'm really not that worried about the distinction being made there, personally. And if I did, I think I might just come down on the other side of the issue. You see, I'm not really sure that the CofE means 'intercessions' in this part of the service: I think that the word was used because it has a certain gravitas but that what was really meant -and what is meant in practice- is 'petitions', 'requests', 'concerns', 'desires' and if we were honest to what a lot of people do, 'hopes' and 'wishes'. I'm not sure that 'intercession', as I understand it, is actually really suitable for regular public worship. The 'standing in the gap' stuff which involves the hard work of emotional engagement, empathy, patience, identification with others and so forth is really not something the average Sunday congregation is equipped to do corporately and most would probably find the intensity of it hard to be part of.

And, in fact, I'm not really sure I want to conceive of my role when I lead 'intercessions' at communion -or would want others taking that role- as mediating "between the people of God and God". I think I'm trying for "expressing requests and concerns" as a kind of spokesperson-in-congregation. I actually think that the kind of role described at that point feels uncomfortably close to usurping the role of Christ. I think that intercession is more like standing between God and the situation/people concerned -and we do that as a response to a vocation and as part of our ministry (lay or ordained) and, crucially, it's something we do in Christ -we take a share of the mission of God in the ministry of Christ. This is not what those Sunday morning prayers are largely attempting. Though I think that there is room for a conversation about how we situate our corporate petitions in the mission of God and our apprehension of it.

I'm also not fully with the assumption behind one of the remedies offered in the final paragraph:

THERE are two main ways of extracting ourselves from the “We pray for” mire in which we now find ourselves. The most obvious is to address God throughout the prayers, without faltering.

My main quibble with this is the assumption that it is not what is being done. I agree that the literal grammar of the phrasing suggests that we are, in a sense, describing what we are doing. However, I do actually think that most people who say this actually conceive of the phrase performatively, that is in saying 'we pray...' they are actually doing what they describe and bringing the matter to God, they do not conceive of themselves as merely inviting others to 'think their own thoughts prayerfully'. I guess that I am taking issue with that first quote I repeated: for a number of people it actually *is* prayer and the words are performative in intention. Now you might, as I do, wonder whether we can't do better, but I don't think quibbling about grammar is the right way to go to address that.

So, I guess the question then devolves to what I think could be done, going forward.

The article I'm reacting to is found here: Time to ditch ‘We pray for . . . It is possible that it may be behind subscription /limited sign up barrier.

I'm thinking that we actually need to encourage people to think more about what could be meant we the/we say 'we pray...'. One way to get a sense of that would be to ban using the phrases 'we pray...' or the word 'prayer' in our corporate petitions. This would make clear that what is often going on is a truncation of petitionary activity; we are coming to think that the word 'pray' is sufficient to say something. But what something?

So, take a phrase like "We pray for our government." Now, sometimes that may be followed up with some concerns which would be actual prayers in Wilkinson's terms: things like 'that they might have wisdom in their deliberations" for example. And if we followed up the ban on 'pray' we might just come up with an alternative like, "We ask for our government to have wisdom ..." or "We request you to send your Holy Spirit to work through the deliberations ..." The use of words like 'request' or 'ask' more strongly require a transitive construction than 'pray' now seems so. I suspect that once upon a time, when 'pray' was only just taking over from 'bede' or 'bid', it would have been nigh on impossible to say 'we pray for the queen.' Full stop. Without feeling it necessary to complete the sentence which was so obviously felt to be unfinished.

To refuse to use 'pray' might also encourage or even force us to consider what we are doing in terms of specifically asking for something or mainly giving expression to our concern. Those are not opposed matters; the latter can run into the former. Our concerns should be expressed before God: 'We are worried about ...'; "We fear for ...."; "We hold N in high regard"; "We hope ....". With those latter examples, we start to shade into naming our requests.

But there is one other component needed in leading public petitioning of God. That is the 'according to your will' or 'in the name of Jesus' dimension. This involves making requests that we truly believe are part of what God desires and is working for by the Spirit. This is no light or mean thing. In many, perhaps most cases, therefore, we will want to be restrained and perhaps a little imprecise. Perhaps we will want only to name our concern and encourage ourselves to hold it before God with a degree of unknowing about what the right thing to ask for us, seeking God's further wisdom and enlightenment. Perhaps sometimes that is what we need to say in public rather than being quite so bold before we understand better what we might be asking and best to ask.

Perhaps we should give up 'praying' for Lent! -Instead let's be 'asking', 'requesting', 'petitioning', even 'imploring' or just 'bringing our concern'. In taking up the challenge to 'say what we mean', we might just also discover that we say less and enquire more: that we learn more fully to 'wait on the Lord'.

Atonement and The New Perspective: a review

I've loved getting this book into my hands (well, more accurately, onto my screen). It is addressing a missing piece in current thinking about Israel and Christian continuity and discontinuity -and a logical next step. It is written particularly with Evangelical concerns about atonement in mind and is well aware of the history of the doctrine before and into the Reformation and beyond into the Evangelical movements. It is undertaken with critical sympathy and there is a really helpful outline of both the new perspective on Paul and on the main points at issue in the Evangelical conversation about penal substitutionary atonement. This book then brings these things together and explores the implications of NPP for PSA -yes, eventually you do have to get used to those acronyms otherwise it would become tiresome since they are used frequently enough to need shortening.

What I enjoyed was having a tour of the NPP introducing some important voices and basic differentiations of position. There was a helpful laying-out of atonement theories with a very useful reframing of it in relation to biblical evidence. It is approached with sympathy for the Reformed position and offers an alternative approach which actually is related strongly to Reformed core theology.

It was good too that there was discussion of the issue of supercessionism in relation to atonement in a way that takes seriously Evangelical concerns -and explicitly so. It doesn't dodge the difficulties but does a nice job of reframing the debate with extensive examination of the religious background of Paul and reminding us of the inaccuracies of our lazy contemporary readings of first century Jewish and Christian religion. I think that the way that Burnhope plots to take things forward is likely to be productive and helpful. For some who are wedded to PSA, however, it is going to be challenging to have to take seriously that it probably doesn't make sense to hold onto that. A good case is made, however, for a mixed economy and plurality of ways of thinking about the cross, but the covenant-making motif offered here is probably about right by the evidence and by the systematics.

I'm likely to be thinking about this and integrating its insights into my reflection and preaching for some time to come.

(99+) New Title from Stephen Burnhope: Atonement and The New Perspective: The God of Israel, Covenant, and the Cross | Dr Steve Burnhope - Academia.edu:

By way of disclaimer. I received and e-copy of this book for review purposes. In doing so I was in no way obliged to review favourably (or otherwise) simply to review within a reasonable period of receiving a copy.

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Childhood's End -in relation to computing

Just came across this, which says, more-or-less, something I've noted as a result of thinking about corporisations.

These new hybrid organizations, although built upon digital computers, are operating as analog computers on a vast, global scale, processing information as continuous functions and treating streams of bits the way vacuum tubes treat streams of electrons, or the way neurons treat information in a brain. Large hybrid analog/digital computer networks, in the form of economies, have existed for a long time, but for most of history the information circulated at the speed of gold and silver and only recently at the speed of light.

It's from an article by George Dyson (not to be confused with James) Childhood's End | Edge.org. I think the important thing he is saying in this article is that we imagine that humans are controlling these systems but in fact we aren't. That seems to harmonise with the corporisations insight from scripture -resting in the ancient world's view of things -only with the electronic and algorithmic integrated into the thinking.

Cory and The Seventh Story -a review

This is a lovely book. I love that in reading it with children, many adults would be given pause for thought. The illustrations are lovely, making the book a desirable artefact in itself. The story is simple yet with a profound point about the way that the stories we tell ourselves justify and shape the way we respond to others and enable or disable good relating to other people in our society. The overall story has a parabolic feel but without being too didactic. This has the potential to be one of those fables that gets re-told and becomes a reference-point for conversations. If it helps lots of people to gain a vocabulary to speak about the kinds of stories we tell and to make better choices as a result, it will have achieved much and I hope it does.



I liked also that it doesn't have a 'happily ever after' ending but rather a 'where are we/you in the story' sort of ending which invites reflection and response. I do hope that this book gets a wide readership before the inevitable take down by the foxes and the badgers gets underway.



In terms of my less positive comments, I think I was slightly disappointed that the implicitly-critiqued stories in the book didn't really include the redemptive violence trope (though it does show up by implication). I was rather hoping that this would have been more directly challenged, but I see that the aim of this book wasn't quite consistent with that, so I do not fault it for not being the book I thought it might be. On the other hand, this does point to the need for us maybe to find ways to demythologise also the myth of redemptive violence for children and young people. I hope that more progressive writers will attempt to produce good stuff for children (and those who read to them, of course). This is a model of what could be possible.



Children's Book — The Seventh Story

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I received and e-copy of this book for review purposes. I doing so I am under no obligation to write a favourable review, merely to review it within 30 days of receiving it.

I've been noticing signs of this a bit lately with some of the people I work among.

It would seem that younger males especially are being bombarded with hyper-idealised images of not only what females “should” look like, but also how they themselves “should” look. By watching those fit, hairless (but presumably sexually successful) specimens on television programmes or on social media, it’s as if the famed “male gaze” is being savagely and pitilessly turned back on themselves.

It's not the first time I've remarked on it. but I do think maybe there's another question to ask that could potentially help in understanding this. It's rooted in my own pre-adolescent experience and reflecting on how that played into growing up subsequently. As I wrote there;

As an 8-year old boy I can distinctly remember two interacting issues being a part of my life. One was reading comics of the superhero genre; especially Spider-Man. The other issue was that I was very thin (mostly as a result of having thin bones). The problem I had with these two things together was that I was taking in images on a regular basis of male bodies which were well muscled, though not body-builder beefy, and graceful (lovingly drawn?) This male body shape filled my imaginative space and what I take to be my mimetic instinct drew me towards a desire to be something like that image. 

What I'm now reflecting further on is what stood in the way of myself and, presumably, my peers following through in the way that many young men do in the studies the linked article report? Clearly the incipient pressures were present -and the Charles Atlas body-building adverts in our comics and the 'Boy's Own' articles for training regimes were trading off (literally) some concerns that pre-pubescent boys had but what made the difference so that we largely followed a trajectory which didn't involve such body modding and extreme body-image issues? (And while I'm asking that question, I'm wondering what was the experience of my female peers at that time?).

I know for myself that part of what helped was seeing pop-stars who were slim or even thin and not fulfilling the film-star 'good looks' paradigm. In doing that, I was able to begin to re-calibrate my sense of what counted as beautiful (or at least okay) and to critique the given images. I think I began to think that a set of norms that excluded so many of us were suspect.

It's worth thinking about some more. My question remains, how to help other and many more young people to be weaned off toxic imagery and norms.

From the Inside Out -review

This is a nicely written book about mission. It's nicely written in that it's based in personal experience which is well-narrated and gives a good understanding of why the author has grown and evolved in their understanding of mission. It's nicely written too because it's just the right amount of challenging!

I helps us to understand what mission is and, more importantly, helps us to decolonise our thinking about mission. One of the main objectives of the book seems to be to help us to understand the way that mission by western churches for a long time has tended to mirror the imperialism of our host /sending cultures. And, given the writer is USAmerican, 'imperial' in this context includes the USA.

One of the big themes that emerges is one that is really important for us to understand: that when we conceive and execute mission as a delivery of a package of care, aid or message to passive recipients, we get it wrong. Now Kuja is very kind and gives more than due concern for the cultural-cognitive disabilities of those who end up doing 'imperialist mission' (my words not his). This means that people are charitably assumed to be operating according to their lights and the best motives are assumed. In this he is a model of civility in argument that Christians (and others) in our times would do well to note and emulate.

'Imperialist mission' gets it wrong because it assumes that mission is one-way. Kuja challenges us to see that it is two-way; there is mutuality (something we see Paul wrestling with in the first chapter of Romans imho); we have something to bring and to receive. God has things for us to learn whether as recipients or donors, missioners or en-missioned. We might do well to recall the sending of the 12 and the 72 in Luke's gospel: there we see the apostles instructed to receive the hospitality and the "peace" of those among whom they are sent. Enforced mutuality; reversed power dynamics.

I'm certainly considering recommending this book to my students who are being trained in mission. It might well appear on next year's book list. I might even recommend a chapter as an inter-session reading.

By way of disclaimer. I received and e-copy of this book for review purposes. In doing so I was in no way obliged to review favourably (or otherwise) simply to review within a reasonable period of receiving a copy.

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Ryan Kuja