Brian McLaren and mission and other religions

Brian McLaren is one of those ‘love him or hate him’ figures. Every book he writes seems to be greeted with cries of ‘heretic!’ or heralded as the book that will save the church.

Even though I’m not always on the same page as Brian theologically, I’ve welcomed his writings. I like to read books that challenge me, causing me to wrestle with my beliefs and how I live them out. And Brian always does that.

His latest book Why did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? is no exception. Brian believes the church needs a ‘grand reformulation’ of its doctrine, liturgy and mission, if it’s to develop enriching relationships with the world’s other religions.

While I might not agree with all the aspects of this proposed reformulation, this book deeply challenged me and my relationships (or lack thereof) with other religions.

Within a short walk of my house we’ve got a Buddhist meditation centre and a synagogue, and while I have met people from both, I haven’t developed an ongoing relationship with any of them. Brian’s book as inspired me to renew my commitment to getting to know these people.

As Brian reminded me in the interview, Jesus was always crossing the road to engage with ‘the other’. So if I want to be authentic followers of Jesus then I too need to go out of my way to connect with people of other faiths. 

Carl Medearis and Jesus vs. Christianity

We’ve got a cracking interview for you this month. We’re speaking (via Skype) with author and missionary to the Middle East, Carl Medearis.

Carl’s book ‘Speaking of Jesus’ really resonated with me, and articulated what I’d been feeling and experiencing working as a pioneer in Nottingham.

Good communication is not so much about what you say, but what people hear. We can feel we are being very clear and precise in what we’re saying, but our audience can hear something very different.

So the question is, what language should we be using when trying to communicate the gospel in the sub-cultures we’re a part of?

The young adults I hang round with are spiritually curious (in varying degrees) but anti-religion. With only a handful of exceptions, I’ve found that as I’ve used words like ‘Christian’, ‘Christianity’ and ‘church’ to describe myself and what I do, conversations inevitably come to an abrupt end! A recent survey brought this into sharp focus. 85% of people surveyed only had negative things to say about ‘Christianity’, but 100% only had positive things to say about Jesus.

The answer for me seems pretty obvious. To effectively communicate within the sub-culture I’m a part of, I need to stop referring to myself as a ‘Christian’, or an adherent of ‘Christianity’. I’m not saying there is anything inherently wrong with these words, simply that when I use them people are hearing something very different from what I’m trying to communicate.

In fact the name ‘Christian’ only appears a couple of times in the Bible, and may well have started its life as an insult. Instead the early followers of Jesus referred to themselves as just that, followers (or disciples) of Jesus, and they referred to the faith they were a part of as The Way. People weren’t joining a ‘religion’ they were embracing a Jesus-centred spiritual lifestyle.

So I’ve decided to stop referring to myself as a Christian and instead call myself a follower of Jesus (or more precisely, someone who is trying to follow Jesus). I’ve already found that this opens up conversations where the name ‘Christian’ had previously closed them down.

Tim

Alastair Gordon and mission in the arts

We’ve got a great interview for you this month. Dave and me travelled down to London to meet the professional artist Alastair Gordon. Ally is an accomplished artist regularly exhibiting his paintings and drawings in this country and overseas. He’s also a committed follower of Jesus.

Knowing very little about the art world, I was really surprised to learn from Ally the suspicion that exists in the art community towards people with a genuine faith. I’d wrongly assumed that this community would be more open and tolerant that most, but it turns out that faith is one of the final taboos.

So it’s rather tricky for people like Alastair to successfully navigate this world. Although Ally doesn’t produce ‘Christian Art’ (i.e. art with Bible passages stuck on them, or doves, or crosses, or cute kittens etc.) he does still have to live with the tension of forging a career in a community that would view his faith with derision.

So we were keen to speak to him about what being a follower of Jesus within this community means, and what mission might look like. Ally didn’t disappoint, and gave us some really well considered and insightful answers.

Check out the podcast to find out more.

You might also want to have a look at Morphe Arts, the network Ally is a part of that networks and supports Christian artists. 

Andy McIntosh and science vs. faith (part 2)

We got some very quick responses to last month’s interview with prof. John Polkinghorne. Some of our listeners were concerned that we show that Polkinghorne’s worldview is not the only one, and that Christians can understand the origins of life in a very different way. So we got in touch with the professor of Thermodynamics and Combustion at Leeds University, Andy McIntosh, to talk about an alternative worldview.

Like Polkinhorne, McIntosh presented a clear, coherent and consistent worldview. The difference between the two seems to lie in their starting points. Polkinghorne seemed to start with a scientific view of the world, and then interpreted the Bible (Genesis in particular) through this lens. Whereas McIntosh seemed to be starting with a literal reading of Genesis, and then interpreted science through that lens.

I certainly found McIntosh’s creationist worldview more consistent with a loving creator who is on the side of the weak and vulnerable (which flies in the face of the death and suffering required by evolution). But obviously to hold this view one has to stand in opposition to prevailing scientific opinion. And so unless you happen to be skilled in multiple scientific disciplines, it’s a hard position to defend.

What do you think? Is this an issue you’ve wrestled with? Is it an issue as central as organisations like Answers in Genesis would have us believe? What conclusions have you come to?  

John Polkinghorne and science vs. faith

I suspect John Polkinghorne is the most educated guest to appear on the podcast (and the first ‘Sir’). So he seemed like the right person to speak to for some answers on life, the universe and everything.

We were mainly looking for some insights in the relationship between faith and science. Predictably though we came away with even more questions!

John seemed to be coming from the starting point that the world as we have it now is the world that God wanted. So John has tried to reconcile this world with the Bible’s creation account. And so he rejects the traditional understanding of the ‘Fall’ and understands death as being part of God’s plan for life.

But regardless of how literally you take the Genesis creation account, I struggle to see any evidence in the Bible that death was part of God’s original intention for us. Surely the biblical narrative shows that our broken relationship with the life giving God has led to death, and that Jesus died to deal with this broken relationship and to overcome death, so that we can be in relationship with God forever. Consequently, death has lost its sting, and will be banished from God’s new creation. 

So I don’t think God original intention was for this world to be filled with death and suffering. This leaves me with the problem of how to reconcile this worldview with the apparent evidence of the process of evolution that requires death and suffering. But I think I’d rather have this conundrum, then the one that I think John is left with, that of reconciling these death filled processes with the belief that the God behind them reveals himself as the source of life and love.