Jesus Wore Silk Knickers

Jesus Wore Silk Knickers Part One: The Rose & St Cliff

I’ve been chewing something over the past couple of days since Christmas.  Listening to Radio 4 on Christmas morning Aled Jones (the lad who actually didn’t walk in the air with the snowman) interview Rosemary Conley of the diet fame about her faith.  Nothing wrong with that.  She explained as many do how she came to God during a real dip in her life; Divorce, death,  illness and business problems.  It’s not uncommon.  My own faith story includes some of the major fuckup scenarios that lead people to ask the big questions about life and to seek the answers through spiritual doorways.

It was a typical interview full of clichés (she even selected a Cliff Richard song!). 

“I suppose I considered myself a Christian but I was really just going through the motions,”   “I didn’t have a personal relationship with God. After I came to him, my whole life changed. Now prayer is the most important part of my day, not something I rush through mechanically. “I love morning prayer and reading Scripture. I often pray before important business meetings. God is my guide in every aspect of my life, whether personal or business.”

The thing that annoyed me most though was her presumption that you have to all but down and out before you begin your soul search or can live a happy life.  This is a common theme that runs within the christian faith.  The presumption is that everyone who “doesn’t know Jesus” must be having a really crappy life, that those who don’t “accept Jesus as Lord” are “Lost”.  Rubbish evangelical statements like “life to the full” is only available to christian believers is dished out relentlessly.

This is not true. Let’s take those three themes (and there are many more) and just unwrap them a little over the next couple of weeks:

Knowing Jesus:  Christians are in the main talking of “the personal relationship” with Jesus.  It’s sold as a true 1 to 1 relationship, face to face like the Pete and Dud monologues.  Total trust is put in the “fact” that when they talk to God then he hears every word and responds, just as if you were sat across the table from him.  It’s a lovely thought isn’t it?  Very comforting.  Especially if you are feeling delicate, lonely and vulnerable.  To be fair it’s also taught that even when you are in a good place you should “bring everything to the Lord”.  

"The fing is God - I'm not sure you exist like this"

My point in this section is that I reckon in having faith (total belief) that Jesus hears your prayers and responds to every request is setting yourself up for disappointment. 

When the prayers and requests fail to be fulfilled we are told, “ah but God’s ways are not our ways”.  The more fanatical Christian will tell you that “everything happens for a reason”.  Try telling that to the parents of the children massacred in the U.S. just before Christmas.  I’m sure even if the Right To Bear Arms was completely revoked (which it won’t – sale of guns and even armour plated kids backpacks have gone up!!) they would think the bloody murder of their infant was worth it.

My personal relationship with God is just that – Personal.  It goes much deeper than the my little pony, touchy feely relationship of a Father God and me his child.  Spiritually, I’m certain that I have had personal contact with the Almighty, even down to hearing an audible voice on a couple of occasions.  However, despite that I reckon that my day to day life goes on without the interference of a well meaning cuddly father xmas figure saying in a Harry Enfield voice “you don’t want to do it like that”.

Only Me!

For far too long I took (and offered) the advice of people who the church told me were well placed to offer me that advice and “authorised” to do so. -  Even when they had no experience of a particular life problem or situation.  -  Duff advice was therefore on occasion dished out.  The usual get out clause of some that had no real advice to offer was to “give it to the Lord” – pass the buck in effect – “take it in prayer to God and all will be well”.  In minor situations, the relief of worry by faithfully passing the buck, was indeed sufficient to bring a bit of peace to the situation.  But in truly serious situations the ramification of faithful abdication can be disastrous.

Some of faith have icon’s, figures of “saints” to whom you can offer prayers to who will intercede on your behalf to God.  This is a strange one to me as it immediately puts a barrier in front of the 1 to 1 personal relationship.  

The Christian commercial industry makes a literal fortune of selling merchandise to bring us closer to God.  Pennants, posters, bracelets, DVD’s and music, all designed to assist us in focussing in on the one “we love and who loves us”.

I can see a value in looking towards the wisdom of the Almighty, but I’m fucked if a fluffy Easter chick saying Jesus Loves You, will convince me of such a fact.

I have bits and bobs stuck about my study, pearls of wisdom, some from the Bible, some from Richard Branson, Winston Churchill, Nelson, Mandela, Gandhi, Mother Theressa.  I don’t worship any of these people as God, neither do I worship Jesus as God due to the hard sell of the Bible.  As I’ve said before, the Bible helped to teach me about Jesus but it aint Him.

My faith is in a Spiritual God ( I believe Jesus WAS a human manifestation of God).  Putting my faith in the Spiritual does make a difference because it assists me dealing with the negative thoughts in my mind and replacing them with those of a higher order and importance than my measly existence.  

Sometimes when I’m in a difficult “life situation” I look at all the people on my study walls, my mentors alive or dead and ponder that they all took a chance of doing what they really believed in.  I take comfort in  that this is the same for me, be it in my understanding of “Knowing Jesus” or in the day to day events of life, no matter how hard either of those things may be.

To finish this Part 1:  I recently read a book by John Suk, “Not Sure”.  It’s about a pastor struggling with doubt and faith:  He takes no prisoners when he turns to the widespread belief that the essence of Christianity is a personal relationship with Jesus. His contentions are the following:

1. There is no theoretical consensus what this means.
2. Different religious denominations don’t offer official ideas on what it means.
3. Personal relationship has become what the person says it is.

 “The bottom line is that the huge emphasis contemporary evangelicals put on a great personal experience of and with Jesus as the be all and end all [don't overcook this "be all and end all"] of Christian faith has little or nothing to do with Scripture and everything to do with taking from our culture [individualism precipitates a longing for the personal] what it thinks human happiness is all about”   

In other words, they are creating their own designer religion.

The Personal Relationship demythologises God, it humanises God, it diminishes God, and makes religion cuddly and therapeutic.

Suk has pondered the Bible concerning this and says:
1. God is present; Jesus is present with us.
2. Jesus is especially present when we serve others.
3. God is sometimes distant; Jesus spoke of his absence (John 7:33, 34; 8:21).
4. Jesus’ absence means the presence of the Holy Spirit.

We want the same kind of relationship we have with a spouse but, Suk says, we can’t.  I agree.

Me and my bessie Big J

So what is faith? Faith is trust in the promise of God, a promise that says in Ray Bramfords case “ I believe that Jesus proved the existence of an Almighty God”  Instead of saying “I have a personal relationship with Jesus” I say “I believe in Jesus”.   My Faith is to believe in God and to love others (1 John 3:23). 



Next Time: Midnight at The Lost & Found.

Celebration Day

It’s been a long time since I rock n rolled on this blog thingy.  In terms of my “soul searching” or spiritual crusade, I suppose that is a good thing.  I reckon it’s an indication of how I am at peace in my spiritual skin these days.  It’s taken a long time to detox from the church.  There were so many restrictions, so many rules, so many controlling factors that I had to gradually set myself free from.

In doing so, as my rants last year show, I had to get a lot off of my chest.  I felt compelled to react to certain things I was reading or things that were being said both in the real world and on t’internet.

In the main this year, I have kept my mouth shut.  To the casual observer it would seem that I don’t have a spiritual perspective on issues.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  If anything my faith in God has grown.  I suppose what has happened is that I have stopped evangelising and or proselytising.   I used to believe that it was my duty to “preach the good news”.  These days I’m of the opinion that I should be the good news.  That’s not a new concept though is it.  The church encourages a show and tell mentality, but there is always an agenda – i.e. that if you share your belief you would like folk to join the club – whether you admit to that or not.  The thing is I don’t think that there are points to be earned by sharing your faith; unfortunately there are plenty of folk who still seem to think that there is.  My understanding is that if there is a creator God , then there’s nowt we can do to earn his love or attention.  It’s a given.  Equally, that love and attention cannot be diminished.  We can of course choose to reject Gods’ existence.   The fact that we choose to accept God’s existence is the beginning and the end of the “personal relationship”.  The moment when we choose to accept God is when the connection between “heaven and earth” begins.  The spiritual electricity starts to flow with a God realisation.  That is when we become aware of the enormity of Grace.

What has been interesting this year has been to observe the severity of extremes in both believers and atheists.  Atheists seem to be as bad if not worse than most people in their vehement and religious fervour towards God . The irony being is that they rant against a God they don’t believe in!?

A case in point recently was a very sad situation where a child of a friend of my brothers died. A truly tragic situation.  My brother an atheist, chose to vent his anger by posting a video of Depeche Modes’ “Blasphemous Rumours”.  I read the lyrics and it is indeed a rant at God about the injustices of life and death.  The point is though, how can one blame a situation on God if you don’t believe in them?  The problem is I suppose that is when bad things happen, we look for someone to blame.  Why God? 

The reason for that possibly lies in the upbringing of previous generations.  The church played such a vital and influential role in society, in terms of education / schools, politics and of course religion.  The UK used to be a Christian society.  Our history was shaped by the ruling classes adhering in principal to the teachings and control of Orthodox Christian belief.  Religion was indeed the opium of the masses.  The moral structure of society and law was directly influenced by the church and the churches teaching from the bible.  We were taught that God was everything.  That God was in control of everything.  That God was the Almighty King that divinely ruled over us as a benevolent parent.  We accepted this in the main. 

We were also taught about evil and Satan (Lucifer) who is the antithesis of Gods love.  We were taught that the ills of the world were the doing of Satan.  We forgot this in the main.

My point is this.  Deep in the psyche of most folk in my generation and above (50 upwards) is the notion that God Almighty exists.  A good chunk of society rejects that now (a real shame in my opinion).  However, what I’m finding when I talk to people about lapsed faith or non belief, is that they have actually rejected the church for its hypocrisy and its attempted control over them, rather than rejecting God.  Ergo when the shit does hit the fan, the person they want to blame is the one that the Church told em would love protect them i.e. God.  Not the evil one whose “dominion” or control over the earth they were taught was the bum deal over rebellion of angels and also the bird, snake and apple debacle.  No they blame God who they don’t believe in!  Bit of a fucked up theology really don’t you think?

Now.  Back to important stuff.  Back to me.

I’ve had my (un)fair share of pain and tragedy in life.  Most recently I lost a good friend who died..  A good friend who was a good man too.  Only in his early 50’s.  5 sons and a baby (daughter) on the way.  Died of a sudden heart attack.  Fit bloke.  Pillar of society.  Christian.  Where’s the justice in that eh?  There is none.  

Was it Gods fault?  No is the answer. 

I spoke at his funeral where the congregation numbered hundreds.  The service had to be relayed outside over loud speakers.  It was the biggest turnout that little church had seen in decades.  What did the vicar propose to do about reconciling the awful tragedy to the grieving mourners?  He attempted to isolate and exclude them. 

How?  By insisting that the funeral service came straight out of the book of common prayer.  That there was no room for deviation and no room for allowing folk to speak out publically – he didn’t want them “getting all emotional”.  The problem with this vicar bloke is that he is so tied up in the religion of the church that he’s forgotten who his church was built in honour of – Jesus.   Jesus arguably the most famous person ever to walk the earth.  Jesus the man who spoke the most incredible wisdom ever recorded.  Jesus who to those who accept Him as God, defied death to demonstrate Gods love for all.  The vicar forgot about Jesus.  The organised and orthodox church seems to have forgotten about Jesus.  Jesus would be interested in talking to the people who were hurting and suffering during that funeral.  Luckily he found his voice.  Along with the family and a couple of other speakers we high jacked the service.   Words of celebration for our dear friend were exchanged; words of comfort and support for the mourners were passed on.  Together we united.  Together we said Shalom.  We communed with each other and a higher force that day.  The vicar simply complained that heresy was preached.  He was a tit.  He knows his theology but he is ignorant to The Olgy of a united people – he misses the point entirely.

Since I gave up the Pastoring thing I don’t attend churches any more.  But I’m still interested in certain people who do.  One of those people is the ex Bishop of Durham Tom Wright.  He’s written recently a piece that better explains what I’m trying to say;

“With Jesus, it’s easy to be complicated and hard to be simple. Part of the difficulty is that Jesus was and is much, much more than people imagine. Not just people in general, but practicing Christians, the churches themselves.
Faced with the gospels—the four early books that give us most of our information about him—most modern Christians are in the same position I am in when I sit down in front of my computer. My computer will, I am reliably informed, do a large number of complex tasks. I only use it, however for three things: writing, e-mail, and occasional Internet searches. If my computer were a person, it would feel frustrated and grossly undervalued, its full potential nowhere near realized.

      We are, I believe, in that position today when we read the stories of Jesus in the gospels. We in the churches use these stories for various obvious things: little moralizing sermons on how to behave in the coming week, aids to prayer and mediation, extra padding for a theological picture largely constructed from elsewhere. The gospels, like my computer, have every right to feel frustrated. Their full potential remains unrealized”   -        N. T. Wright~ Simply Jesus

We live in a new age.  The world is so much smaller.  We share common languages via the internet – It’s like a new Babylon.  Theoretically we should all get along but the virus of intolerance seems to infect the lot of us and we can’t let those who think and speak differently be.  Equally though there seems to be a one-upmanship to religious and irreligious differences.  Each seems to have a need to be right.  Here’s the bottom line.  Theres no proof of right or wrong to the argument of whether god exists or not.  Personally I am certain – but I could be wrong.  But I put my trust and faith in the “fact” that I have met with the Almighty (on several occasions) and you can’t tell me I didn’t. 

  I suppose I could have been pissed though?

Mumford and Sons (the band) have a new album out called Babel.  Its title song is interesting in its discussion.  It seems to imply (to me at least) a really simplistic moral ; don’t overstep your boundaries – know your limits.  There’s also a possible warning of trying to get too close to the divine. Babel and Babylon is somewhat a story of confusion.  Perhaps the message is that is our inability to communicate and tolerate that leads to a breakdown in community.

Over the centuries Babel was inhabited by the Amorites, Semites, Hittites and Kassites –

The Babylon I am living in seems to be inhabited by Gobshites.  I am one of them.

There’s a great line in the Mumfords song and I’m adopting it: 

“Cause I'll know my weakness, know my voice
And I'll believe in grace and choice”.

Peace on You Folks!

Shalom

PS:  Depeche Mode is named after a French magazine and that name roughly translates as “Fashion News”.