Easter Reflection - 2020

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Easter is difficult for many. What really happened and can we really know? Different people say different things.

 

This Easter, I listened to many church services online - different takes on the story.  With social distancing and few crowds, Vatican services focussed on the splendour of gold candlesticks, painted ceilings, mosaic floors and gold-embroidered robes of priests re-enacting Jesus’ death at the altar. On another channel, a TV evangelist wallowed in the blood flowing from the cross. I say “wallowing” deliberately, as in this interpretation of Easter, the agony of a dying man who defied both Roman and Jewish rulers becomes simply a story about what this necessary blood did for us and our salvation. Other preachers, who realize a man “rising from the dead” does not sit well in a twenty-first century scientific world, also told the story as about us - a metaphor for our dying and rising, old life to new life, defeat to victory, oppression to liberation, despair to hope, avoiding the ‘what actually happened” question. 

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As a scientist in my early days, I struggle with a man coming to life again after three days. In my youthful tradition that read Bible stories literally, this struggle became almost pathological in my attempts to believe a bodily resurrection. Apart from the science, this denies the full humanity of Jesus argued in our creeds – ‘fully human/ fully divine’.  I now know, as a theologian, that stories of a bodily Jesus appearing to the disciples are in the later Gospels, not the earliest one, Mark, which originally ended with the women fleeing the empty tomb in terror and amazement, saying nothing to anyone (Mark 16:8).  In Paul’s letters, written before the Gospels, the resurrection is not ‘bodily’ but spiritual. 

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Different clergy online tried to make sense of Easter this year, in ways comfortable (or uncomfortable) for them. However, as we cannot know exactly what happened, perhaps each of us need to resolve the ‘what happened’ question for ourselves in the way that makes sense to us and focus instead on what we can know. If we are not sure about a man coming to life again, whether as flesh or spirit or a God demanding the barbaric death of an innocent son to reconcile humanity to that ‘loving’ God, we can relate to our fellow human beings, the followers of Jesus. This focus does not appropriate the Easter events as something about us, whether our salvation, what to believe, or a metaphor for our dying and rising experiences. Rather, it allows us to hear the story and, as humans, identify with those who also heard it then and struggled with it.  Remember Peter’s denial, the women’s terror and amazement, the disciples hiding in a closed room, Thomas demanding visible proof - they were not at all certain about what happened. 

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, A professor in my early New Testament studies said of Easter, it is better to start with the post Easter followers. Whatever happened, they changed from defeated to energised people who went out to spread Jesus’ message, even to die like their leader.  What was this message?  Love God and neighbour, thus bringing in God’s reign. And who is our neighbour? According to Jesus’ Good Samaritan story, everyone - and loving them includes seeking justice and having mercy. This extraordinary counter-cultural message for that time changed those disciples when they realized the spirit that was in Jesus was also in them, the Comforter Jesus promised them. 

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This radical message has transformed followers over and over through history. Loving God and neighbours todayencompasses justice for refugees and addressing climate change, poverty, violence against women and racism, to name a few. We may not have the courage of the rebel Jesus - although we do have examples of such courage through history - but we can identify with his followers, many who knew poverty, dispossession and oppression, as they resonated with the vision of an incoming just ‘reign of God’.  We can also imagine their feelings as their leader moved closer to a danger that might also endanger them – his determination to go to Jerusalem at Passover; his anti-imperial challenge of riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, hailed by the crowd, as the Roman army rode in through a different gate; Judas selling out to Jesus’ enemies; Peter denying any allegiance when the stakes became high; and the cross, a punishment for the worst offenders. Then it all goes up in flames, leaving them defeated, discouraged and in danger. 

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Some of you may not be happy with what I write. That’s fine. For many, only the supernatural elements – a virgin birth, miracles, a bodily resurrection, personal salvation and a place in heaven - make the Jesus story important, not a man wanting to change his world and the way he lived. Some may call me a ‘heretic’ or classify me as ‘not Christian’, but these claims are interesting in themselves.  A ‘heretic’ originally meant someone from a particular school of thought’, but once an ‘orthodox’ Christian position was declared in the centuries following Jesus, ‘heretic’ became the label for any other position and led to persecution. Given the thousands of Christian denominations today, there must be both millions of ‘heretics’ and many ‘orthodox’ (correct) positions. As for ‘What is a Christian?’, I like the New Testament description of the first Christians - ‘followers of Jesus’. Enough said.  

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Florence Nightingale: the making of a radical theologian – by Dr. Val Webb

12th May, 2020 is the 200th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth. Consequently, the World Health Organisation has designated this year the Year of the Nurse and Midwife.

The Crimean War (1854-6) gave us a reluctant heroine. Her return to England was much anticipated, with a warship to bring her home, but thirty-six-year-old Florence Nightingale returned secretly through Europe, caught a train to Derbyshire and walked home. While most biographies see her twenty months in Crimea and a School of Nursing as her crowning achievements, Florence’s return began half a century of humanitarian reform. We need the ‘lamp’ in her hand to better illuminate the full scope of her contributions.  

After returning from Crimea, Florence retired into seclusion yet her productivity escalated. She analysed her extensive Crimean notes and produced, with Dr. William Farr, a ground-breaking work of medical statistics (a relatively new discipline). Together, they designed the first hospital record forms and Farr presented their innovations to an International Statistical Congress. From Florence’s reports, Queen Victoria approved a Royal Commission into Army Health, its working party meeting in Florence’s home, often daily, to plot parliamentary reform. The report in 1858 initiated a Royal Commission into British Army health in India, resulting in Florence’s 1863 Parliamentary Indian Sanitary Report. This highlighted health problems in Indian villages, leading to her report for the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science.  By the 1870’s, all Viceroys assigned to India consulted Florence before leaving. Florence’s reputation spread. She was consulted on care of the wounded in the American Civil War and by both sides in the Franco-Prussian War. She drafted the British delegation’s proposal to the Geneva Convention and Henri Dunant, founder of the Convention and the Red Cross, acknowledged her as his inspiration. Colonial officials consulted her about indigenous health. In England, she was busy on poor house reform and reform for women. Florence received many honours, including the first British Order of Merit to a woman, and the Freedom of the City of London.  

The Nightingale School of Nursing opened at St. Thomas’ Hospital in 1860 from a national fund collected in Florence’s honour. Fund directors wanted Florence to start a nursing school on her return, but the call to God’s service she received at seventeen was now clear – help poor soldiers by reforming Army medical services. Florence did submit designs for the nursing school, but was not personally involved for more than a decade. “Florence the nurse” was based on twenty-two months in Crimea and a nursing school she did not start. Even her Notes on Nursing (1858) was written, not for hospital nurses but women caring for sick relatives at home.  Since she was rarely seen in public after Crimea, this image became established through stories of soldiers for whom she had cared. When Florence was buried, aged 90, in East Wellow church cemetery, Hampshire, six of her “children” - soldiers drawn from various army regiments – lowered her into the ground. She had refused burial in Westminster Abbey and asked her tombstone simply read “F. N. Born 12 May, 1820. Died 13 August 1910.”  In my book “Florence Nightingale: the making of a radical theologian”, I wanted to widen Florence’s story, especially her theological ideas. Fortunately, she was a prodigious writer – the British Library’s collection of her work is one of their largest and sixteen volumes of her writings have been published. Besides writing on health, she translated the medieval mystics in preparation for a book and edited the Greek to English translations of Plato by Benjamin Jowett, Master of Oxford’s Balliol College. In 1860, she wrote an eight-hundred-page manuscript offering a new religion for the poor, including fifty pages on how Victorian families ‘murder’ their daughters. When I found her writings, I was hooked, but before I go further, we need more background on this woman who wrote, at seventy, “When many years ago, I planned a future, my one idea was not organizing a hospital but organizing a religion.” 

 

Florence was born in 1820 into an upper class Unitarian family but raised Church of England.  Her Cambridge educated father taught her ‘like the son’ he didn’t have -- languages, history, science and philosophy. The young Florence was religiously absorbed and frustrated with her rich, idle life. The Industrial Revolution had caused havoc for England’s poor, something Florence observed in the villages on her family’s estates. Church of England theology supported this class system, saying God ordained poverty and wealth so it was not open to change. Florence abhorred the charity given by the rich without any reform of their situations. She spent time helping poor sick villagers, saying “to visit them in a carriage and to give them money is so little like following Christ, who made Himself like his brethren.”  At seventeen, Florence received a call to ‘God’s service’ but the family thwarted any attempt to follow this call. Finally, at thirty, Florence went to Egypt and her letters show her increasing commitment. On her birthday, she wrote, “Today I am 30 – the age [Christ] began his Mission.  Now no more childish things, no more vain things, no more love, no more marriage.  Now Lord, let me only think of Thy will.” Unbeknown to family, Florence also visited a Protestant Deaconess training centre in Germany where she discovered her dream - a religious order without vows training women to serve the poor.  When Florence wanted to volunteer in a hospital on her return, the family again squashed her plans and Florence channelled her rage into an autobiographical fiction of a young woman who welcomes death because she cannot alter her fate. She blamed herself for her monstrous ambition – “What am I that their life (her sister and mother) is not good enough for me?” At thirty-three, Florence’s father finally gave financial support and she became volunteer administrator of a home for destitute governesses where she attracted the attention of Britain’s Secretary at War Lord Sidney Herbert who sent her to Crimea. 

 

Why did Florence become an invalid recluse on her return?  Some argue Crimean fever (which she had); others suggest psychological issues; others an escape from family to follow her vocation.  While these add to the truth, I think it was her religious call.  Before going to Egypt, she spent time in a Paris convent learning life-long spiritual disciplines.  She contemplated joining a religious order but, as a priest friend told her, her theology was radical and she could never submit to a Mother Superior!  Florence toyed with forming her own order but, after seeing the tensions in religious orders working in Crimea, she formed an order of one – herself. Her seclusion and disciplined life where people, including family, visited by appointment only, was a monastic life. She did have serious suitors, but knew a Victorian marriage would end her vocation.

 

Challenging the British class system meant challenging the theology that supported it - God ordained rich and poor. Florence wrote a manuscript offering a new religion for the working class. As many had become agnostic, Florence offered them hope without throwing God out altogether. She addressed the working class because, since women could not officially study theology, she assumed she would not be taken seriously at higher levels. There were many theological challenges at the time – German biblical criticism, the Oxford Movement and scientific advances (Darwin’s’ Origin of Species was newly published), all demanding fresh ideas. Florence sent her draft to six prominent thinkers, including reformer John Stuart Mill who urged her to publish and quoted her in his 1860 parliamentary speech on women’s rights. Benjamin Jowett called it “the imprint of a new mind” before knowing who wrote it. 

 

Rather than a nurse who was religious, Florence was a woman with a religious vocation to help the poor, including sick poor. Her four ‘calls’ from God during her life are central to her story. When she and Queen Victoria celebrated jubilees in the same year, Florence dated her fifty years from her first call.  While Florence’s official biographer after her death called her writings a ‘by-work’ before becoming a nurse, eight hundred hand-written pages in dialogue with philosophical, scientific and theological debates of her time are hardly a crossword puzzle to fill the time. Her conclusions parallel those of the Anglican Broad Church movement whose Essays and Reviews, published at the same time, jolted the church and led to heresy trials.

 

Florence was a “mystic”.  “Where shall I find God?” she wrote, “In myself.  That is the true Mystical Doctrine.”  When she experienced mystical moments as a child, she was accused of “imagining things”. She read the Christian mystics, Gnostic texts and books on eastern mysticism and identified with John’s Gospel’s mystical language of abiding in God and God in us. She disagreed, however, with mystics who withdrew from or renounced the world; and was wary of ecstatic states, attributing them to strong will or strong coffee! 

 

Florence espoused Liberation theology before it had a name. Rather than starting with traditional doctrines, she asked, “What is good news for the poor in this situation?” then went back to scripture to find hope for them. In the Bible, poverty is the product of social inequities and injustice and the poor a class held in poverty. Biblical prophets had railed against this – “What do you mean by crushing my people, by grinding the face of the poor? says the Lord of hosts (Isaiah 3: 13 – 15).” In John’s Gospel, Jesus read from Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has set me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” He then said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  Poverty was therefore not something God ‘ordained’ but a central Biblical message demanding justice. Just as Jesus was a liberator of the poor in his day, Florence saw herself as a liberator in her day. 

 

Florence wrote about God. How can we know God’s thoughts, and who is God anyway?  She saw God as embodied(incarnated) in the universe with humans sharing this underlying divinity.  The ‘Good (her preferred term) organized the universe through scientific laws discoverable through statistical study, which Florence called a ‘sacred science’ as it transcended narrow individual experience to reveal God’s thoughts - the laws of the universe. Florence had no use for a God intervening in human affairs, overriding natural laws. That may have worked in less scientific eras but was no longer helpful. When King William IV ordered special prayers against cholera, calling it a judgment on a sinful nation, Florence disagreed, “It is a religious act to clean out a gutter and to prevent cholera … it is not a religious act to pray (in the sense of simply asking to take cholera away).” She advocated a moratorium on God language until God metaphors were reshaped.  When asked “Why do you believe in God?” she would reply, “Which God do you mean?”

 

If God’s spirit is incarnate in everyone, we must rethink Trinitarian theology which localised God’s activity in oneincarnation and one day’s suffering, ignoring God’s suffering and work in the world across eternity. Florence’s ‘Trinity’ was God as universal thought, purpose and will; Son as all humanity indwelt by God (with Jesus as the perfect model); and the Holy Spirit the divine in us communicating God’s will.  She thought the idea that God required Jesus’ sacrifice to appease divine offence was a barbaric interpretation from an era that demanded punishment for wrong-doing rather than reform. She saw no evidence that humans were created righteous or unrighteous, but born with the divine nature within, albeit immature, to mature through learning God's laws. Sin, evil and suffering happened, but by discovering God's laws we move from ignorance with the help of the Spirit within.  Health and sickness, wealth and poverty are not Divine rewards or judgments, but states achieved through observation or neglect of God’s laws. 

 

Florence was also a pioneer feminist theologian, feeling the suffering of Victorian women. Single women in upper class families were slaves, caring for sick relatives and children. In middle-class families, they worked as governesses for rich families. In working class families, they worked in factories, mills or prostitution.  From her own experience, Florence decried women’s lack of identity, waste of talents and mind, trivial, boring lives of driving in carriages, writing letters and endless formal meals and teas.  Women’s education was considered a waste, except for ‘accomplishments’ for marriage. The drawing room was Florence’s ‘location from hell where women read to each other, the “most miserable exercise of the human intellect”. Women in a family were always available to someone else, their own interests selfish compared with a man’s. The family was too narrow a space, Florence argued, to develop a person’s immortal spirit, male or female, since the variety of tasks for which people are destined by God’s gifts cannot be experienced or developed in such a closed setting.  No wonder women embrace marriage eagerly and ignorantly.  If a woman complained, however, other womenblamed her for not being content or for attacking domestic life. Florence would set up her own home without a drawing room and with a male secretary screening visitors and making appointments.  

 

Women’s reform was badly needed.  Upper class women were financially dependent on father or husband -- Florence could not leave home except for a convent or marriage. Until 1857, a husband, even if he left his wife, could claim her inheritance.  A man could divorce his wife, but not a woman her husband until 1896. If she left a drunken or abusive husband, she could not take her children.  In 1870, married women could finally own property, make a will and bring a lawsuit, but unmarried women were still dependent on fathers.  Florence searched for ways to employ single women. She longed for a ‘female saviour’ for women but feared that, if one appeared, there would be an outcry if she prioritized ministerial work over domestic demands! Florence was not involved in the woman’s vote because she knew a few votes for upper-class women (as it would be) would not solve more pressing needs for all women and parliamentary time taken up would be time away from other women’s reforms.  The women’s vote was also a religious issue about biblical male headship, a battle to fight first. Queen Victoria had reacted ‘in royal rage’ – “God created men and women differently – then let them remain each in their own position … Women would become the most hateful, heartless, and disgusting of human beings were she allowed to unsex herself; and where would be the protection which man was intended to give the weaker sex?”

 

These are a few themes from my book “Florence Nightingale: the making of a radical theologian”.  I end with her words:

Live your life while you have it.  Life is a splendid gift.  There is nothing small in it … But to live your life, you must discipline it.  You must not fritter it away … but must make your thought, your words, your acts all work to the sacred end, and that end is not self but God. 

 

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How to be a progressive Christian in the church and in the world.

(Posted October 2017)

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This presentation was given in Perth in September 2017 to a progressive group at Wembley Downs UCA.  Rather than describing the progressive momentum and the various theological differences, I was interested in talking about how the progressivessive movement could celebrate many groups of people who are "progressing" - moving from one place to another in their faith journey - what can draw us together rather than us retreating into specific groups according to differences.

 

 

     For a talk on this topic in Sydney in August 2007, the organisers chose the title - “New Directions, New Faith Paths and New Catalysts”. I like new catalysts.  It brings to mind my long-ago science background where the addition of a substance, a catalyst, initiated a sometimes dramatic chemical reaction from a state of inertia. We have borrowed this metaphor for many things– we talk about a person or event being a catalyst, an agent of change, whether in business, politics or church, but it is also a good metaphor for progressive movements across the world. I also like Rev. Dr. John Bodycomb’s description of “a momentum, a stream of thinking that is slowly but inexorably spreading over the religious landscape like a river spreading on a flood plain”. Both these metaphors remind us of the original meaning of the word “progressive” - moving forward, whether like flood waters or from the injection of a catalyst.

    While progressive groups with which I have been involved formed around the writings of the late Marcus Borg, Jack Spong, John Dominic Crossan and the Jesus Seminar, the “progressive” momentum is much bigger than this.  A great cloud of witnesses from many contexts are on the move, all calling themselves “progressive Christians” because they see themselves progressing from one place to another.  When I typed “Progressive Christianity” into Google, there were 293,000 results. For example, the Emerging Church movement consists of evangelical progressives from fundamentalist or conservative churches, whatever those labels mean, seeking new ways to “do church”. They want a flexible approach to theology with questions welcomed and different beliefs accepted, and an emphasis on social justice and care of the planet. They are progressing, even if they do not make the same theological moves I might. There are progressive Catholics interested in peace and justice and wanting institutional change – they see doctrines and moral precepts more as flexible guidelines, not eternal rules.  There are progressive Seventh-Day Adventists, disagreeing with some key church beliefs, including the observance of a seventh-day Sabbath.  The Unitarians, of course, have been around for centuries, saying what many progressives are now saying. Recently, I found a survey from the publisher Chalice Press to check if you are a progressive Christian. It asked questions about care of the planet, inclusivity, openness to other religions, yet no theological questions about God or Jesus which others see key to their progressing.  This is the diversity – many people on the move, not leaving from the same place or arriving at the same place, or even wearing the same uniform.

      Why this increasing momentum? Despite voices that cry louder than others, the majority of intelligent, engaged people move with the times and need access to new ways of thinking to make sense of their world.  In a recent Eremos magazine, a woman described leaving Sydney Anglicanism when the teaching did not line up with her life experience.  She said, “Someone mentioned the word ‘integrity’ to me and I grabbed hold of it – I wanted to arrive at a place of integrity in my identity, beliefs and behaviour!”  She calls this progressing - “a journey into greater authenticity. For some, this this has taken us out of the Christian faith tradition; for others, it has taken us more deeply into it. Or maybe we are still in that very valid process of ‘becoming’ a newly constructed identity”. [i] 

       Given this diversity, what do we mean by progressive Christianity?  Firstly, “progressive” is an adjective, modifying a noun to define it more specifically. Progressive Christianity therefore, suggests a type of Christianity setting it off from other types of Christianity, whether conservative, evangelical or mainline. But the progressive momentum from the beginning never wanted to be a new type of Christianity, a new orthodoxy – it was about people progressing, moving forward.  Fred Plumer from The Center for Progressive Christianity USA says “progressive” reminds us “we are on a spiritual journey into the Great Unknown. The idea that we are always progressing helps us not only from becoming complacent about our faith, but hopefully it keeps us from assuming we have arrived”. [ii]  We need to reclaim this emphasis on people moving forward rather than suggesting a set of ideas or type of Christianity that separate us from others.  In this way, we can embrace the variety of people seeing themselves as progressing, and find what we have in common in our moving forward, rather than emphasising our disagreements.

       For example, the Uniting Church’s Basis of Union declares itself a pilgrim people on the way, open to “contemporary thought” and “ready when occasion demands to confess the Lord in fresh words and deeds”.[iii]  As for social action, the Uniting Church is a leader in Australia.  It is progressive, “constantly moving forward”, even though some may not see it “progressive” in its theology, while others within its walls would shrink from calling themselves “progressive” because of negative connotations associated with that label. Opponents of progressive Christianity have called it elitism by suggesting the opposite is “regressive” or clinging to the “status quo”. Some say Progressive Christianity smells of intellectualism because it challenges traditional doctrines rather than guarding doctrines of the One Holy Catholic Church or insisting the Bible be read literally. Some say progressives don’t believe anything or are revisionists and un-Christian because of their different check list as to what is “Christian” and which are the necessary doctrines.  As I have said before, despite teaching the history of Christian traditions at university level, I am avoided in some parts of the Uniting Church because I have been described as a “progressive” theologian, suggesting I teach only a certain type of theology.

       I would like us to recover this meaning of “progressing” and celebrate all who are moving forward. To do this, I will take some general descriptive guidelines that have come out of some progressive groups and suggest that many churches and Christians who are moving forward could affirm them. Let’s go briefly through them.

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Seek God, however understood, guided by the life and teachings of Jesus.

As I have already said, with our increasing knowledge of our ever-expanding universe and the natural laws that hold it accountable, we can no longer think about a big man in the sky intervening in this world to change its laws for some and not others, nor limit God to ancient biblical metaphors - warrior, fortress, shepherd - from a small tribe fighting for survival against bigger powers.  It is imperative that anyone claiming to be moving forward today seeks God language that fits with our understanding of the universe.  This affirmation also says we seek God, guided by the life and teachings of Jesus, which is carefully worded, because the God that Jesus talked about is not the God of the later Trinitarian doctrine. Jesus did not claim to be God, but one sent by God to proclaim what God’s reign would be like, just as the prophets were sent before him. Almost three hundred years after Jesus’ death, Jesus as fully human, fully divine was still debated by the bishops. Many scholars are revisiting the Trinity metaphor and are focusing more on the life and teachings of Jesus than on our fourth century creeds. If we see ourselves as followers of the way of Jesus, rather than believing certain things about Jesus, we will be addressing in our world what Jesus addressed in his – justice against unjust powers, and loving God and neighbour.  This is fulltime work and can progress across all sorts of theological boundaries which would otherwise keep us arguing.

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Affirm many ways to experience the Sacred, drawing on diverse sources of wisdom

The 2016 Australian census shows nearly one third of Australians wrote “no religion”. Total numbers of Christians are 51%, with only 60% affiliating with any religion.  This is a reality check about our multifaith/no faith country. Can we continue to insist on Christian superiority and priority in the public arena? And what about our First nation people? We have demoted and destroyed their spirituality and law with our white Christian norm that has filtered down into every aspect of Australian life.  Rev. Chris Budden, in the latest Uniting Church Studies magazine, questions whether our present paradigm of reconciliation is adequate, because it suggests we can just say sorry or talk about reconciliation to our First peoples, as if it draws a line in the sand and we can move on. Budden says, “[This] tends to assume that once people agree on what happened in the past it is then possible to make amends for the past and then leave it behind. There is little recognition of the presence of the past in the present. That is, colonisation is described as a ‘past event’ and there is little sense of the way it continues in today’s society. There is even a recognition of our racist past, but little understanding of how that past still shapes racism in our society”. [iv]

Progressing forward means we move beyond such barriers of exclusivity, whether with our First People or those of religions other than our own. This is not just about interfaith dialogue, because these statistics tell us we are part of interfaith living, with God as Presence within our world also in the Buddhist, the Hindu and the No religion. The wisdom of other seekers can offer language to enhance our own journey and see how our God appears in other lives. Theologian Ursula King says, “If we do not look at religions exclusively from the outside, but discover their deeper spiritual core and wisdom, we come to realize that all the spiritual traditions together present an immensely rich, global heritage that belongs to all”. [v]  Being progressive today means being inclusive of all, not just for their benefit but for ours.

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Recognize that following Jesus leads us to act with compassion and confront evil

This one seems a no-brainer for all people of faith, but it begs the question - what is compassionate action in a situation, and what is confronting evil?  In the current same sex marriage debate, LGBTI people did not want the plebiscite or the postal vote because of hurtful things that would be said about them and their families, and they have been proved correct. Does compassion for these people and their families override what others see as confronting evil, the ignoring of biblical instructions and the breaking down of traditional marriage?  What about refugees we have locked away in dreadful conditions?  Does compassion for them override political desire to stop the evil of people smugglers? What about the sacredness of the confessional?  Should priests be allowed to withhold information about child sexual abuse because of a canon law created by the church?  Does forgiveness of sins for the perpetrator take precedence over abused children?  Showing compassion was the priority for Jesus - we have to decide how best to follow Jesus in this today.  Interestingly, along with all the hate speech in the same-sex marriage debate, we have also discovered many unlikely people “progressing forward” because loving their neighbor has won over the teachings of their church.

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Practice hospitality, celebrating our common humanity

Hospitality in biblical times was more than having people for dinner - it was the intentional process of receiving “outsiders” and changing them from strangers to friends. Who is the stranger, in this country, the other in political speeches, in your professional circles, your local community, your relationships? How do we change them from stranger to friend?  How do we celebrate our common humanity? This is a challenge to the way we see church.  Recently, I asked a lay leader in a small country church about their goals for the year.  He listed five things, all of which were projects to bring people into their church building. We sometimes think a bigger sound system, heating in winter, more activities, better scones, will entice people in so we can minister to them.  Does it occur to us that people may not want to come in?  I once gave a community lecture in our local church.  My daughter said, “Mum, no matter how radical and interesting your topic may be, my friends won’t come.  They are suspicious of the church trying to get them in, so if it is in a church building, they will opt out.” Dwindling churches of the future will have to decide where to change strangers into friends - in the community, or spending their limited energies creating better worship services and programs in the church?  It is always easier to control things on our own turf, rather than following Jesus out into the jungle.  It may also mean rethinking Sunday. Frank Rees, retired principal of Whitley Baptist College in Melbourne, says that breakfast, bike-riding and Bunnings may be a better way to experience the Sabbath than sitting in church [vi] - a time for families, friends, activities, or simply maintaining family life. [vii]  Remember that Jesus challenged the way the Jewish Sabbath had become, saying “the Sabbath was made for humans, not humans for the Sabbath” (Mark 2: 23-28). Rees sees God as Divine Breath filling the world rather than an elsewhere Being communicated through priest and church sacraments, so ordinary lives are filled with the Divine Breath and therefore centres of meaning and value -   “… we need to rethink the idea of the Spirit’s presence precisely to embrace the ordinary, the practical and physical”, he says. [viii]  This challenge will move us from our comfort zones, but those moving forward need to think about it.

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Build communities that accept anyone, without insisting on conformity

            Let me ask you a question – what would be a bridge too far for you in accepting everyone?  It brings up the question of tolerance.  My dictionary tells me, “Tolerance is willingness to accept behaviour and beliefs that are different from your own, although you might not agree with or approve of them”. For many Christians, tolerance is bad – a political correctness that means anything goes. For others, tolerance sounds progressive and accepting, but when, if ever, is intolerance OK?  What happens when free speech becomes hate speech? When people use bible verses to subordinate women or vilify Muslims? What about when politicians rule in favour of the rich at the expense of the poor, or allow mining and other industrial deals to ruin the earth?  A further question: how can we discern whether our intolerance in a situation is more about us and our fears, than about the actual situation? Progressing forward may mean conformity becomes more vice than virtue.

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Know that how we behave towards others is the best expression of our faith

     We sang, as little children, that the church is not a building, the church is the people – and this means all the people.  Churches have not been good at recognizing the role of laity in the world. Ministers wear a clergy collar down the street so people “out there” know they represent the church, but there is no uniform for lay Christians as they work in their trades, professions and homes. Well over 90% of the church are laity and, if we believe that how we behave towards others is the best expression of our faith, there is more preaching of the gospel done by laity working in the world than ever happens in church buildings.  Today, because there are not enough clergy and small churches cannot afford full time ministers, we are celebrating the work of lay leaders within our churches, but what about recognizing the witness of laity beyond church walls? Why not, each Sunday, recognize in worship some tradespeople, builders, doctors, mothers and teachers for how they follow of the way of Jesus in the world. We claim the priesthood of all believers, but that is usually quoted in terms of various tasks within the church. We celebrate community projects our church has launched or participates in, but what of the daily work by lay Christians in hospitals, aged-care homes and schools – is not this about lay people living out the gospel message? At a lecture I gave in the UK, I met the church staff, but then I met an elderly woman who was a street walker.  Each night, she walked the streets of her large city looking for intoxicated women whom she could help get home, rather than leave them vulnerable. Is not she in ministry, following the way of Jesus, so why do we not stop to celebrate her ministry?  To give another example, when I was in the Queensland Synod years ago, an In Vitro Fertilization clinic was proposed at a church hospital. My husband was a gynecologist and on the Hospital Board.  He had attended medical conferences for years where the ethics of IVF had been thoroughly and sensitively discussed by doctors, many of whom were devout church members.  When this issue came into the church’s view, however, rather than consult their lay medical professionals, all discussion halted until the theologians researched IVF from scratch to give the “church’s” opinion.  The ‘church’ is people in the world, not just gathered.

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Search for understanding rather than insist on certainty

            The dictionary says, “Certainty is perfect knowledge that has total security from error, or the mental state of being without doubt”.  This is impossible when dealing with the Mystery we call God – it is arrogant and naïve. I have already talked about uncertainty as both a freeing banner for those progressing forward and a big step for many who have spent their lives striving for certainty. The tendency in many churches when challenges are made, however, is to circle the wagons and declare certainty rather than let fresh winds blow. I see this happening with some theological issues in the Uniting Church where a small number of faculty theologians and our Doctrine Committees can declare truth for us all through official statements. I have already mentioned the neurologist Robert Burton’s book “On Being Certain”. In an interview with Scientific American called “The Certainty Bias: a potentially dangerous mental flaw”, Burton says:

"I suspect that retreat into absolute ideologies is accentuated during periods of confusion, lack of governmental direction, economic chaos and information overload. At bottom, we are pattern recognizers who seek escape from ambiguity and indecision. If a major brain function is to maintain mental homeostasis, it is understandable how stances of certainty can counteract anxiety and apprehension … Sadly, my cynical side also suspects that political advisors use this knowledge of the biology of certainty to actively manipulate public opinion. Nuance is abandoned in favor of absolutes … In short, please run, do not walk, to the nearest exit when you hear so-called leaders being certain of any particular policy. Only in the absence of certainty can we have open-mindedness, mental flexibility and willingness to contemplate alternative ideas". [ix]

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Work together to achieve a just and sustainable world

      This is where progressing Christians can find their place. People bemoan why young people are not involved in churches, but how much attention do we give to this issue about which young people truly care - justice for all and justice for the planet. Christianity has done a poor job speaking up for nature and the planet – we have focused more on a better world in heaven.  Yet if we imagine God within everything, we not only effect ourselves when we rape the planet and ignore scientific warnings - we affect God as well.  Of course, those who see God safely in control in an elsewhere heaven simply refuse to accept planetary destruction, or else see them as signs of God’s end times.  Biblical scholar Norman Habel, in his book An inconvenient text: Is a green reading of the Bible possible? critiques what he sees in biblical stories as violence to the planet - “It is time we [humans] read [the Bible] as Earth beings in solidarity with Earth not as God-like beings who happen to be sojourners on Earth” [x]  Many indigenous people have a much better grip on the earth as sacred, having long built their theology and ecology on this. “You ask me to plough the ground.  Shall I take a knife and tear my mother’s bosom?” a Native American asks. [xi]  Being progressive is to take seriously what our First Peoples can teach us about care of the land and planet.

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      By looking at these general affirmations of people who see themselves progressing, I hope I have shown that all are progressive who are moving forward, following the way of Jesus.  We have the blessing of the Uniting Church Basis of Union as pilgrim people on the way and this can be our banner against those who insist on conformity of belief.  Progressing means to be radical - from the Latin word meaning “root or source” - arising from or going to the source which, for Christians, is the life and teachings of Jesus. Radical also has that rich meaning of challenging the status quo and it indicates to others we have something different from the usual to say.  I end with a quote from Prof. A. J. Brown, quoted in the newsletter of St. Mary’s in Exile in Brisbane: “We should always remember that the future is not somewhere we are going; it is something we are creating. Every day we do things that make some futures more probable and others less likely… As sailing lore says, we cannot choose which wind will blow, but we can set the sail.”

 

 

[i] Linda Turton, Review of “Josie McSkimming’s Leaving Christian fundamentalism and the reconstruction of identity”, Eremos, 40, September 2017, 13-14.

[ii] Fred Plumer, “Asking the Question … Why ‘Progressive’? Aren’t we all Christians?” in Rex A.E. Hunt & John W.H. Smith eds., Why Weren’t We Told: a Handbook on ‘progressive’ Christianity (Salem, Oregon: Polebridge Press 2013), xxvi

[iii] Basis of Union, Uniting Church in Australia, paragraph 11.

[iv] Chris Budden, “Reconciliation and Reparation: Building Just relationships between First and Second Peoples” (Uniting Church Studies 21: 1, June 2017, 39-52), 44

[v] Ursula King, The Search for Spirituality: our global quest for a spiritual life (New York: BlueBridge, 2008), 64-65

[vi] Frank Rees, “New Directions in Australian Spirituality: Sabbath beyond the Church,” Colloquium 47:1, May 2015, 75-88, 76

[vii] Ibid., 77

[viii] Ibid., 85

[ix] Richard Burton, “The Certainty Bias: a potentially dangerous Mental Flaw”, Scientific American, online.

[x] Norman Habel, An Inconvenient Text: Is a green reading of the Bible possible? (Adelaide: Australian Theological Forum Press, 2009), 58 

[xi] Val Webb, Like Catching Water in a Net: human attempts to describe the Divine (New York & London: Continuum, 2007), 95