What interests me is that this video has now been touted as the most viral video of all time; not a video of a cat being forced to play the piano, not a video of a celebrity flashing a boob at a live concert, but a 30 minute video showing one of the most dangerous war lords of our time, and asking you to help by creating awareness and fighting ignorance over this issue.

If you don’t know what I’m on about (and have half an hour):

In the midst of all the controversy I’ll put my cards on the table and say that I thought the effort came from a good space. I don’t believe the makers of this video had anything but the best intentions at heart, but the moment this video went viral, out came the knives. The makers were criticized for their tactics, their ignorance, their suggested solutions, and their budget. Now I don’t necsssarily agree with everything they say, but that doesn’t matter really, I’m not appointing myself armchair referee over their attempt to make a difference. What encourages me is the effort, and the concern for people on the other side of world, and the fact that it seemed to capture the imaginations of the public. Surely that’s a good thing?

But there seem to be a great many critics for this sort of thing out there.

I had an experience which higlighted this the other day reposting the following video to my Facebook feed:

One of the responses I got seemed far more concerned about the fact that the ladies were ‘scantily clad’. He bemoaned the use of ‘shock tactics’ in the raising of awareness for human rights issues.

Another comment in the same thread suggested that this was just another example of ‘slacktivism’. This is a term which was bandied around a lot shortly after the KONY2012 video experienced it’s meteoric media rise. In this case I suppose it suggests that videos like this just encourage people to watch a video and pretend they care about the subject matter. It becomes trendy to get the KONY poster, or ‘like’ the video, but little else is accomplished.

Hang on a minute though; surely this is the fault of the end users of the videos: we fat schlubs who sit at our computer screens and retweet the video to our friends feeling like we’ve made a difference. We can’t blame those who actually used blood, sweat and tears to make the video for our own inaction. Their hopes were to create some much needed awareness. Mission accomplished I would suggest, in spectacular fashion in fact.

The makers of these videos aren’t the ‘slacktivists’, we are.

And it’s not ‘them’ making the video that makes us ‘slacktivists’, but rather it’s the video that simply highlights what we already are: people who usually don’t care about anything outside our individual daily reality. Perhaps we are threatened because we know we should be doing more, so our defensive inclination is to point out the flaws of those who attempt to highlight injustice in our world so we can let ourselves off the hook and get back to the latest episode of 30 Rock.

It’s incredibly cynical to criticise those who get off the couch just because we want an excuse not to.

Now I know that, because I don’t shy away from criticism, I am often labelled a cynic, but I’m afraid on this one I am actually the optimist. I think this kind of effort on the behalf of the disenfranchised shows humanity is actually getting better. I really do. I think humans are being redeemed before our eyes.

Specifically: it hit me recently is that humanity is getting a global conscience for the first time in history. Now you are going to have to take a mental step back from the crime in your suburb, the corruption of your government, and the fact that the trains never run on time, to see the big picture with me for a moment.

Not long ago humanity was largely tribal. This meant that small groups looked out for their own interests, and were happy to pillage their neighbors to get more stuff for their group. When the Pentateuch speaks about ‘an eye for an eye’ it was actually a progressive law at the time because it ‘limited’ retaliation. Back then it wouldn’t have been unusual for a tribe to go over and slaughter their neighbors for an imagined slight.

Then humanity began to organise into Kingdoms and Empires. Rulers were charged with taking care of vast tracks of land, and their subjects who dwelled there. Kingdoms formed alliances for the good of their subjects and people were able to live in a relatively more secure world. Rome, in particular, advertised the Pax Romana (Peace of Rome) as they embarked on their conquests. Of course we know that kingdoms work better for those at the top than those at the bottom. Kingdoms also spawn slavery and abject poverty, so whilst it claims to be an enlightened form of society, it has very obvious flaws.

Then we enter the era of Colonialism, or as it should probably be called, “The rape and pillage of the world by white people.” Britain in particular ran all over the globe taking huge swaths of territory for themselves at sword point, or as Eddie Izzard puts it; “with the cunning use of flags”. They sadly valued the strategic geography or the natural resources of a region far above it’s local populace, and it was all justified with an alarmingly elitist worldview.

But as the world became more and more connected colonialism was brought into the cold light of day and shown for what it was. In the west we are beginning to see what we’ve done and many desire to make things right, though few yet know how.

Suddenly we are globalised and we give a damn about others who belong to a different tribe, or those who are poor and have nothing to offer us. The ethnocentricity of the kingdom era and the colonial era is slowly crumbling and we are really starting to see each other as the ‘broad sea of humanity’. All are my brothers and sisters, not just those who look like me, or share my accent. “Who is my neighbor?” Well everyone.

I don’t know if you heard but George Clooney was recently arrested in front of the Sudanese Embassy:

Why?

For these people:

I am very prone to cynicism when it comes to Americans protesting, and I know all the rhetoric regarding ‘white guilt’, and ‘liberal grandstanding’, but I really think these people give a damn; certainly more than those of us who throw stones at them from the side lines.

And I think this kind of concern for people halfway across the globe, who are nothing like us, is new.

No one expected the Assyrians to feel bad for their brutality during their conquests. We never heard of the Romans wanting to fight for the unjust treatment of other tribes unless it was in their interest. But now we have a situation where we care about ‘others’ in a way which is, historically speaking, unprecidented.

Is there a better sign that humanity is being redeemed?

But there is a branch of Christianity out there (a very vocal one) who genuinely believes that any kind of redemptive talk in the ‘here and now’, any call to actually make the world a better place, is a waste of breath.

A few weeks ago I was speaking on this blog about our responsibility to close the gap between the rich and the poor. I said I hoped for a future where there was less poverty and more equality. I had a good friend of mine quote me Ezekiel 13:10-16, in response. It says:

“‘Because they lead my people astray, saying, “Peace,” when there is no peace, and because, when a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash, therefore tell those who cover it with whitewash that it is going to fall. Rain will come in torrents, and I will send hailstones hurtling down, and violent winds will burst forth. When the wall collapses, will people not ask you, “Where is the whitewash you covered it with?

‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: In my wrath I will unleash a violent wind, and in my anger hailstones and torrents of rain will fall with destructive fury. I will tear down the wall you have covered with whitewash and will level it to the ground so that its foundation will be laid bare. When it[a] falls, you will be destroyed in it; and you will know that I am the LORD. So I will pour out my wrath against the wall and against those who covered it with whitewash. I will say to you, “The wall is gone and so are those who whitewashed it, those prophets of Israel who prophesied to Jerusalem and saw visions of peace for her when there was no peace, declares the Sovereign LORD.”

Now I’m used to being bullied with verses taken out of context, so I didn’t take it too personally, but I think the accusation (and thinly veiled threat) is that by speaking about the sort of stuff I do in these posts, that I am just ‘white washing’ the ‘fact’ that humanity is rotten and we’re all going to burn.

That’s cynicism, and I’m sorry but I don’t think the Bible supports you in your view. You may be able to wrestle the odd verse out of it’s context to make it mean “we’re all evil, and the best solution is to build churches and hide away in them”, but the trjectory of scripture is definitely hopeful. Humanity is not going to the dogs, it’s moving in a redemptive direction, and I believe we can see it happening.

Sure there are unjust wars and genocide, crimes, corruption and human rights abuses, but they have always been with us… what hasn’t been present before is a collective conscience about them; a sense of global responsibility for those who are from a different tribe. Obviously this isn’t yet an all pervasive view, but it’s spreading. The bigots are slowly dying out with each generation, and a new love for all of humanity is on the rise.

We are beginning to understand racism and root it out.

We are beginning to make human rights a reality for all.

We are learning that religious tolerance is the only path to peace.

We are making inroads over gender inequality.

It now matters what the working conditions of the makers of your tshirt, or iphone are like… and that is a relatively new concern in global consciousness.

None of these things have been fixed yet, but at least we’re talking about them globally for the first time. We’re writing books, shooting photos, and producing videos which challenge our collective conscience.

Is there a better sign that we’re growing up as a species, and hopefully growing towards what God always intended us to be?

There is much reason for hope.

Take it from a cynic.

Oh no Sean! And here I was hoping that you would give me a neatly packaged answer (paid for by your high cost experience so it wouldn’t cost me anything), all wrapped in a pretty bow of absolutism.

How have readers responded to your book? Have you come across many others who cannot go back to “church-as-usual” but are stumbling in the inbetweeness of “church unusual”?

I suppose the response to the book has been fairly predictable:

There have been a few who are very angry that I would ‘out’ the church, or be negative towards the church in any way. In fact I even had a local church here in Cape Town preach a whole sermon about how I was a ‘False Prophet’ in need of a good shunning. But I think this comes down to a lack of understanding about what I’m doing. I see criticism as good when we’re off the mark. It means we care. The prophets did it. Jesus did it with the religious leaders of his day. In fact throughout church history there have been a constant stream of prophetic voices. From St Francis of Assissi, to Luther, to Bono; they call the Church back to its purpose, and we need these voices because apparently we’re easily distracted.

Richard Rohr (one of our contemporary prophetic voices) says that, “the Church has always needed a 2 party system to keep it honest”. This has been the tension between the priests and the prophets; between the ‘institutional leaders’ charged with maintaining the status quo, and the ‘loyal dissidents’ who challenge us to be better. It’s like the two reins in His hands which provide the necessary lateral tension to keep us on the right track.

I often feel this ‘knee-jerk’ reaction comes without seriously considering the content of what I’m saying, so I don’t take it overly seriously.

There have also been those who have never really had much to do with church who have responded to the simple language and easily accessible concepts which are presented in the book. Our church language can be so soaked in cliche that anyone not familiar with the rhetoric can’t access the ideas at all. The biggest compliment I’ve had was from someone who said, “I’ve always been anti-church, but I would actually attend a church if it were the way you described at the end of your book.” Some people have realized that their bad impression of the church doesn’t necessarily come from the fact that it’s rubbish, but more likely comes from the many bad examples of church out there on public display. Unfortunately in my experience those ‘bad examples’ shout the loudest.

I love that this book is giving people the impetus to rethink things; God, church and life at large.

There have also been church leaders who have pulled me aside and thanked me for the questions the book raises. One local leader said he took the book to his leadership and read through it together, writing down the questions which jumped out to them, and then made some big changes to the way they do church. That’s first prize for me. The point isn’t that people just run away, but rather that they make an attempt at challenging their church to change the things which need changing. Obviously there is a good and bad way to do this. I’m not encouraging that they become reactionary pain-in-the-asses, because that changes nothing. But I think it is time for people who see the holes to begin asking the questions of their own leaders. Being better has to be more important than being comfortable.

I also meet an ever-growing number of people who just can’t do cookie-cutter western church anymore. They are frustrated, and, even though they often can’t put it into words I believe it’s a God-given frustration. The most common response I get to this book is, “That is what I felt, but didn’t know how to put into words. I have felt like I was going crazy for so long, but now I know I’m not alone. Thank you.” The relief people feel is so palpable when they realize there really is great safety in numbers. I’m watching this group grow exponentially at the moment and wondering what will come next. What will these people do? What fresh expression of church will they bring, because I believe the next shift will begin with this bunch? I’m involved with more and more meetings where this is the subject. Mainline church is bleeding out the back doors, but I believe it is going to spring up in new and unexpected places as this dissatisfied group grows, and bands together, and experiments, and fails, and experiments, and fails, and moves us forward.

There is a prevailing controversy surrounding the Modernism versus Post-Modernism debate. What are your views on this and do you think this is some of what we’re talking about here?

I’ve heard the ‘mod’ vs. ‘post mod’ talk for years (in fact I wrote a whole paper on it at Seminary), but what interests me is that this talk is never coming from those who we would place in the ‘post mod’ category. It is always coming from those on the ‘mod’ side of the fence and, to my ears, it has a defensive undertone to it.

I know there is a shift going on. I know that modernity has been shown up for a sham. Two world wars, the aftermath of colonialism, ever widening gaps between the rich and poor, and the recent financial crisis have opened our eyes to the fact that what we have built doesn’t work in many significant ways.

The same is happening in the church. We are opening our eyes to the holes of our modern churches. We don’t believe the way we do church answers the real questions of life, the universe and everything; and rightly so, because it doesn’t. Much of its energy now is spent trying to defend its position and methodology (sometimes with church leaders sitting congregants down on the couch and reducing everything to belittling talk about this ‘postmodern fad’:).

The other side of the coin though is that this is nothing new. The world, and so church, is always changing. We are always transitioning. The reformation, the east/west split, the puritan movement, the charismatic revivals of the last century; all these things speak of flux.

I actually wrote a post a while ago speaking about the Rhythm of change which happens in church, which will give you more on this. Check it out if you’re interested.

It might be necessary to say (and I wish I had thought to say it in the book) that I’m not suggesting that church as we know it will fall apart either, or disappear altogether. The Eastern church is still going strong after the East/West split of the last Millennium. The Roman Catholic Church is still going strong after the 1500′s Reformation. I just think that the forms of church we have at present don’t connect with the present generation (or likely future ones) and that church will have to change and branch out again. The feeling that I get is that this ‘branch’ will be returning this time to something older, something simpler… almost as a reaction to the complex structures we built in the Enlightenment Era, which ultimately didn’t work.

I think the whole point is to make sure that you are seeing the bigger picture, the bigger moves God is making, and asking us to make. Too often though, those who are playing with dualisms like ‘modern’ and ‘postmodern’ are oversimplifying the real shift which is taking place in an attempt to protect their position. In my mind this is why ‘postmoderns’ don’t speak about ‘postmodernity’. For me it’s too simple a label.

(On a side note: it’s also not a great idea to try and identify something by what it’s not:)

So how does one who is going through this spiritual transition learn new ways of relating to God? My current struggle is that I feel stuck… I can’t to go a church anymore to ‘hear from or experience God’ but I don’t know how to connect to God in this new (strange) place that I’m in. Any pearls of wisdom to share?

Forgive me for banging on about it but I think this is the whole point: ‘owning your spiritual journey’.

Don’t get me wrong, I think there is immense value in learning from the traditions of those who go before you. But I think there is a real danger in always accepting what has come before. As I mentioned before, I think the vast majority of those who ‘attend church’ simply cut-and-paste their theology from whoever happens to do the most speaking, and he or she is often only doing a similar copy-and-paste job from the tradition in which they were raised.

At some point every mature follower of God has to think through, question, and assess how they relate to God. In this they selectively reject and affirm truths which they have always just assumed to be true; they make decisions about everything for themselves, perhaps for the first time. I am aware that most people never really reach this point, but I really wish everyone would.

I think it’s what God wants for us.

If you feel like your traditional church model doesn’t connect with you anymore, it’s probably because you’ve already started questioning and assessing things for yourself. Great. Now it’s time for you to explore, and this will take time and effort. That means reading wider than your tradition to see how people in different corners of the world, at different times, have connected with God.

Read from the mystics, the Catholics, the Greek Orthodox, the Celts, the Church in the East, and learn to assimilate Truth from all these spheres. You are now on a brave journey to build your own faith and connection with God; a path you will have to tread carefully and with great integrity. This isn’t a free-for-all opportunity to build your own new religion, but rather a broad and open posture of the heart which seeks to learn from all streams who have followed God through history, not just the one you grew up with.

Warning: it will be lonely, and most will warn you about the dangerous path you are on, and few will encourage you, but don’t despair. It’s likely they are just threatened by your freedom (something Jesus was quite in to by the way).

Those who the church called ‘heretics’, but history calls ‘saints’, are often a great place to start because they definitely went through this process. Read their stories.

But if you learn anything from these guys, you will probably learn that you’ll never ‘fit in’ to a church group again. Your theology is too broad, and doesn’t support the narrow agendas and hermeneutic of your local corner church. At some point you will have to come to terms with the fact that you will forever be a free agent. Your biggest challenge will be working out how to remain a positive influence in the global church, whilst being perceived as a threat to the local church.

It doesn’t mean you can’t slot in somewhere, it just means that you now know too much so it will be tricky, and will take a great deal of maturity on your part.

I can’t… no hang on… I won’t give you a list of new ways to connect with God, because I think the search is important. It’s a vital part of the journey, and I wouldn’t rob you of that happy struggle for the world.

All I can say is:

Keep pressing on.

Keep asking.

Be brave.

Be honest.

And when you feel most alone, remember that while few around you will walk this narrow path, many have gone before you.

You are not alone.

You’ve taken a courageous approach to telling ‘the-whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth’ of your spiritual journey and experience with the Western church. What motivated you to write the book; when did you start and how long did it take?

The simple answer is that I began writing it properly when I left the church and it took me about 18 months, although, I had been collecting ideas as I went along so it wasn’t work done from scratch. I think it rarely is for autobiographical work.

The motivations for writing were pretty diverse.

Firstly, I wanted catharsis. I was fired from the last church I worked at and fortunately I was seeing a spiritual director at the time who was on hand to help me work through what happened. In our conversations on his well worn couches it became clear that there was a history of hurt to my time with church. He suggested that I take the time to write that story down to externalise it, and then be able to see it for what it was. In a real sense, you’re eavesdropping on my therapy sessions, but I like that this is what the book ended up being. I could have edited it to make it sound like I had all the answers, but the confusion felt more honest.

That said, I also wanted people to read and identify their own stories in mine. I have met too many people with similar stories who feel like they’re going crazy, often because that’s what they’re told. It’s very hard to acknowledge your own painful journey with church because it means being critical of the holes in the institution. Such people repress the things they know to be true to avoid conflict. Of course, this stuff usually comes to a head in uglier and more destructive ways in the future. I hope that my story gives people a feeling of safety in numbers. Perhaps as a part of this people would challenge their own churches in the areas where they are hurting people by obsessing about all the wrong things. On the other hand maybe it would give these individuals the peace of mind to finally move on.

I suppose I also had in mind that I wanted people who have left church altogether to rethink things, and realise that what they are actually running from is probably just ‘church done badly’, not ‘Church’ itself. I still think church is the best idea we have, and that’s why I think it’s so important to get it right.

My overall impression of the work is that by daring to be honest in your own journey, you succeed in giving the reader space to acknowledge those things that have been felt but are difficult to articulate. What intrigued me throughout the book was your passion for ‘The Great Task’. I wondered during each chapter how your experiences (which were negative mostly) of institutional church, and its leadership, affected your personal relationship with God?

I ask this question because you mention how you once heard God clearly during a difficult relationship and you touch on aspects of your connection with him, which you admit throughout the book is mysterious and not something that can really be neatly tied up and presented as “this is how I get with God”. I’d be interested to know how your relationship with Him has matured over the years and whether you feel as if everything you have experienced has eventually helped you connect with Him in more real ways?

I suppose the growth I’ve experienced has been slightly different to the average journey. I have had to aggressively ‘own’ my faith. I didn’t grow up in a family who went to church, nor did I attend from a young age. I had very few real mentors, and so I really had to learn to rely on my own connection with God. It was far from easy, but I suppose it did gift me with the ability to see things as they are, because I had no vested interest in the status quo. This goes not only for the institutional stuff, but also for my own relating to God in that if it didn’t work, I tried something else. For example, for a while I was guilt tripped into having traditional ‘quiet times’ until I realised I connected with God more meaningfully on a walk… so I did that instead.

I think there has been a lot of movement over time through the normal stages. I started out with the expected spiritual naiveté, which soon became over zealous religiosity and arrogant bigotry, mostly because it impressed the rest of the church. But at some stage (probably around the ’3 Guides’ chapter in the book) things turned and I began to unlearn my over simplistic views of God, and embrace uncertainty as an old friend. I was now relating to God on my own terms and for the sheer joy of it, not to impress. The angry and fearful edge fell away too, and, as Rob Bell often says, “I became less identified by the things I stood against, and more for the things I stood for”.

I feel a lot more free today in all areas. I still read the bible, obviously, but I see things in it very differently because I’m not reading to support preconceived ideas. I still pray, but not in such a ‘superstitious’ way. I am constantly ‘taking steps back’ too, in order to see the bigger picture. I don’t think standing too close to small ideas about life is useful; it’s how fanatics and bigots thrive. So now I get stuck into history and the science of the world, and the universe beyond, because by seeing bigger and bigger parts of the story I get a bigger and bigger sense of what He’s doing, and how I can get stuck in.

I think the reason that some people might be ‘afraid’ of reading your book, or might dismiss it as “heretical” literature, is because you offer something dangerous: freedom. We have been brought up with rules, with the ‘right way of doing things’.

So anytime anything threatens to ‘rock the boat’, as it were, people don’t know how to handle it. In your book, you say a lot of things about your experience with ‘institutional’ church, which I think most people experience, but are either too scared to say it – or don’t know how to put into words yet (as you mention in your writing a lot).

Do you think that, in some ways, the current model of church is preventing people from reaching spiritual maturity?

Good question. I suppose it was one of my biggest frustrations when working as a Pastor: that people didn’t want to ‘own’ their faith. Attending church, listening to sermons, and singing along with gusto seemed enough for most. They had none of their own opinions, they had just copied and pasted the dominant voice from within their church. To this day it is one of my pet peeves hearing Christians overusing the phrase, “My Pastor says…” in conversation.

But, that said, was it ever any different? I wonder how many people through history have sought for themselves, and asked the dangerous and liberating questions? Have the masses always just attended church, and is that as far as they are willing to go? The leadership, of any tradition, have rarely encouraged independent thought because the outcome is always uncertain, and that’s a threat to the status quo.

I can’t get away from the fact that Jesus seemed to be intent on getting people to think for themselves though. I, for one, and I’m sure it’s the same for you, can never go back. I know too much now, and I will go around and break as many others out as possible. I still have to be sensitive in the way that I do it though. Sitting over coffee with someone I have to feel out how much they’re ready for, because there are some rough times ahead for those who begin to ask for themselves, and they have to have the faith to deal with it.

So, yes, I think threatened church leadership has, and likely always will, discourage independent thought, and this can severely stifle spiritual growth. That’s why I think my job is important, because there has to be a way out for those who are brave and ready.

So what insight can you share with those who have ‘awakened’ to the issues with institutional church and cannot go back to ‘church as usual’? How have you dealt with this dilemma in your own life?

I’m going to be very honest and say that I haven’t dealt with this issue yet. It’s still very much in process and I believe it takes time to do well. That said there are some things which have helped.

I deliberately took some time after leaving my last church to work through some of my own issues. The problem with leaving church is that you can be quite black and white about it. You can blame the ‘big bad institution’ for everything, whilst letting yourself off the hook completely. But my own story was riddled with mistakes I had made, and it was important to take the space to work out where I was to blame, and where there were legitimate institutional problems. It takes time and distance to sort the wood for the trees on this one, but it’s essential if you intend to move forward, and not just run away from it all.

The inevitable happened though, and I quickly felt guilty for not attending some kind of church in the meantime. I had to learn to be kinder on myself and not rush because there is a certain organic process to the big picture story which is unfolding. I really believe that what is happening with my own story is indicative of a much bigger trend happening all over the Western Church. The old is showing some major holes, but the new is not yet formed in this latest movement of the church’s historical growth. We are in some major liminal space. That means that I won’t necessarily find some sort of church context to belong to, because it may not yet exist, and jumping back a step out of guilt is not growth. I have been actively looking, but haven’t yet found a group of people wanting to follow God with similar views on money, community, collective responsibility, cosmology etc etc.

Even the ‘alternative’ house church groups I have visited seem to be an anemic version of ‘big church’, and there is no point in rushing my own situation by joining “anything I can find” to alleviate false guilt, because I will quickly be frustrated. This doesn’t mean I’m not spending a great deal of time talking to people about what could work now, and exploring ideas and building relationships; but it takes guts to stay in that space and not rush to create or join something just to fill a gap.

I would suggest finding people who see what you see. Talk to them. Share stories. You will quickly discover that there is a bigger thing going on here. You have to share this journey too because otherwise you are in danger of just being reactionary. Look for the commonalities with your story and others; it will help you sift the macro picture from your own petty hurts. Deal with your personal wounds with a good spiritual director, and when you’re making headway, take a look at the big picture and what is happening with the western church around the world. Read authors from other streams. Read history. Get a bigger, broader cosmology. Use your new found freedom to expand your vision and see what God is up to globally. It will help you decide what to do next.

I really can’t give specific answers as to what people should do because I think there are as many answers as there are contexts. Some will choose to stay in their church and challenge from the inside. I know some who are starting their own cell groups within churches to explore this stuff. Some leave and join smaller house churches, or ‘fresh expression’ type groups. Some walk away and decide to simply go it alone (certainly not my recommendation). The fact is we are all still fumbling along in the dark here, but if we do it together we will discover the next mode in time. It will take lots of patience and personal security, but I can’t see a short cut.

(On a side note: we have to remember that whatever we move into will also not be “the answer”, it’s only the next step in a long evolution.)

To be continued…

And it’s all bollocks.

As we were commiserating, my friend shared with me a conversation he had with a Psychologist friend of his. My friend had asked the Psychologist why depression seemed to be on the rise? Why are more people on medication? Why are the therapist’s diaries full?

He said something very interesting, “People assume they have the right to be happy, and they don’t.”

We act like we don’t deserve to experience any hardship. Somehow we believe we should be exempt from pain and difficulty, so that when it arrives we are confused, and even petulant.

So we go and bang on the Psychologists door.

Where did we get that idea?

It seems pretty new. When you read history people seemed far more at ease with life in all it’s sadness and celebration than we do today. They hadn’t created the modern bubbles we have. They knew they would run the full gamut of fortunes through their days, and they did so with a lot more grace than we seem able to muster.

Want an example?

Ok.

I’m sure there are many reasons this ‘you deserve happiness’ lie thrives and confuses so many, but I, at least in part, blame Oprah. As well meaning as she may be, she has sat thousands down on her hallowed couch (when Tom Cruise hasn’t been using it like a trampoline), in front of millions of viewers, and told them that, “You deserve happiness. You go get it. You leave him if you’re not happy. It’s all about what makes you happy.”

And the result is that divorce rates rise. I was just listening to a podcast this week where some guy was decrying the ‘church of Oprah’, because every time his wife would watch she would turn off the TV and then lay into her husband concerning all the things she thought he should be, but wasn’t.

They are now divorced.

“Well done Oprah. Genuinely. You saved a lot of women from abusive marriages, but what about the rest?”

Obviously it isn’t really her fault; she is only mirroring the culture around her that tells us that we’re entitled to happiness. But the fact is that 50 years ago divorce was far less an option in people’s minds. Now it seems that it’s too easy for one party to check out because they believe they deserve more happiness than they are experiencing, so rather than sticking to it through the rough times they seem to be respected more by society at large if they ‘stand up for themselves’ and leave.

This expectation is being communicated loudest from the US, but I find it interesting that even in the US constitution it doesn’t ‘promise happiness’, only the ‘pursuit of happiness’. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s a noble pursuit, but even their founding fathers knew it isn’t something you can promise.

Happiness isn’t a right.

It can’t be.

That’s not how life works.

I know one area which touts this lie around regularly is the Pentecostal church, who have somehow confused Jesus mention of ‘blessing’ with the idea of prosperity and happiness.

I had this problem a few years ago. I had just left my job with the church and found myself having to find employment. I started up a freelance business shooting photos and video, and waited tables on the side, and it was a rough time (check out “My Lament”). I remember bumping into someone from the last church I had worked for, and she asked me how I was doing. I told her it was tough, and that there were often months when I wondered how I was going to pay the rent.

Now don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love this individual, and she couldn’t have been more well meaning, but her attempt at being encouraging me was baffling. She said, “You know that God wants you to have a great job don’t you? Are you asking God for a great job?”

As a matter of fact I had been, but it felt more like a desperate prayer shot out with a measure of guilt over having prayed it in the first place. I mean why did I deserve a ‘great job’? I can’t find anything in scripture suggesting that I am more deserving than anyone else.

The fact was that I was looking for work in a country with an incredibly high unemployment rate, in the middle of a recession. Why was I any more deserving than the next guy? I was also white (still am if you’re curious), and living in a country which has been raped and abused by ‘White Imperialism”, so surely in a just world I would be low down on the list of people who ‘deserved a great job’.

I think maybe this well meaning parishioner’s comment came from the assumption that if you’re a Christian that God will do you a favor, because you’re part of His club, like some nepotistic uncle. I can’t find that in Scripture either. The ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’ seem to have an equally bad go of it, or as the bible would say, “The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.” (Matt 5:45). Show me someone who followed God’s call through scripture and I’ll show you someone whose life was filled with heartache and conflict.

The big problem with this false promise, especially in churches, is that it heaps guilt on people. I mean, as my friend told me that I ‘deserved a great job’, I began thinking, “then why don’t I have one? Have I pissed God off? Am I a bad Christian? Do I need to read my bible more or prayer more?“ And that sort of thinking is at the beginning of a very slippery slope into superstition, where I ‘sacrifice more on the altar, and the gods give me more of the things I need’.

You see the big problem with this lie is that every time you triumphantly bellow it from the pulpit, in whatever guise, there is someone in that auditorium who is dealing the hardships of life, and all you have accomplished is to add guilt to his/her already difficult circumstances.

It’s oppressive, triumphant bullying.

So to those who keep promising other Christians happiness on God’s behalf, when He has never promised it Himself, please stop. I know too many unemployed people, too many heart sore divorcees, and too many homeless saints trying their best to seek God through their problems. They don’t want to go to your church because they know you will likely only make them feel worse about their situation. If you have a practical way to help them, go for it, otherwise learn to hold them in their pain and confusion. Stop suggesting they ‘deserve happiness’, and that something must be wrong with their spirituality, or their lives would be just peachy.

Ironically, I think we would actually be much happier if we didn’t think we deserved happiness. We would greet conflict and trouble differently because we’ve been expecting them; not in a morbid way, but because they are as much a part of life as the good times.

I’m talking about people who take 3 or 4 overseas holidays a year complaining about how tired they are, and how they never get a break, when most of the world could never even dream of the luxury of going to an entirely different country just to relax.

I’m talking about people who live in palatial houses moaning that they don’t have enough space when the majority of the world will never actually ‘own’ a home unless they build it with their own two hands out of rudimentary materials, on land which strictly belongs to someone else.

I’m talking about young adults who attend the best educational institutions in the world but do nothing but gripe about having to be there, while the underprivileged of the world look on in open jealousy at the life opportunities it will afford these ingrates (of which I was one not too long ago by the way).

This kind of complaining can only be done by people who have never bothered to take a look around them at the world they are living in. It’s as if, even though they have been given so much, they are afraid of acknowledging how good things really are. They have to constantly compare themselves with the few who are further up the chain of privilege, and then cultivate a permanent feeling of dissatisfaction.

I mean it’s a rare thing today to find people who would say that they have ‘enough’.

But this comparative complaining is only one aspect.

The other is the seeming luxury the rich have to create problems and drama out of absolutely nothing.

We all instinctively know that good stories are ones in which the protagonist has to overcome hardship, or push through adversity, but if you have everything you need then it seems you need to create drama ‘ex nihilo’ in order to get the feeling that your story is a good one.

And so we do.

Check this song out from comedian Bill Bailey:

I’m so sick of hearing the rich and privileged play this game; pretending their lives are so tough, especially within earshot of those with so little. In my country it is still common for people to have a domestic worker who slaves away cleaning house for a pittance; and I cannot tell you the number of times I have watched spoilt westerners complaining about their lot whilst the maid stands at the sink trying to work out how she will afford the taxi home, or food for the family on her pathetic wage!

It pisses me off!

Now some of you will suggest I’m being harsh, and that I don’t understand that ‘rich’ problems are problems too. That may be true on the surface, but the stakes are very different. Often when the rich hit problems they may have to downsize the house, or sell a car; but when the poor hit issues, lives are at stake.

The other tell tale sign is that you have to ‘choose to create space’ in our lives for a lot of our 1st world problems.

You won’t find child soldiers in Southern Sudan concerned over how popular or pretty they are. They have problems like starvation, staying alive, and living with the horrors they are seeing.

You won’t find single parents supporting 3 kids, with as many jobs, complaining about their job satisfying them creatively, because their kids futures are at stake.

You won’t find much of a need for depression counseling in those tribes untouched by western ‘civilization’, who struggle everyday to find enough food to feed themselves.

They just don’t have the space in their lives.

In other parts of the world people don’t have the luxury of dealing with ‘privileged issues’ because they are busy dealing with real life and death problems. So as ‘all encompassing’ as our 1st world pressures may feel, we have to admit that many of them are a luxury, and it’s our job to get a broad enough picture of the world that many of them fall into context at the bottom of the ‘importance pile’.

We desperately need a little perspective.

And the church is no different on this issue. We feel a similar need to create drama, perhaps even more so.

A friend of mine, also named Shaun, came to Seminary to preach in Chapel one day. He had graduated the previous year, but had been asked to return and speak in our weekly meeting. I still remember that message because it struck me as odd at the time. Amidst whatever else he said, he made the prophetic point that the church’s upcoming issue will be an ‘obsession with our own pain’. He suggested that we would wallow in it and our ‘often imagined or inflated’ crises would blind us from the job at hand.

It’s only with hindsight that I realized he was absolutely right.

My experience of Pastoring was often a frustrating one, because I was sick of listening to people moan about their lot in life, when a little perspective would have cured it all. But I was never allowed to give it, because we live with the trendy lie today that every felt gripe deserves credence. I mean, I have a degree in Psychology, but I would probably make a terrible counsellor in the minds of many because I would be telling people to ‘grow up and get some perspective’ on a regular basis. I really think some people just need a kick in the pants. Verifying their felt pain into eternity keeps them constantly looking inwards, and oblivious to the world out there.

I think my advice would often be to go and live with people who have nothing, feed someone who is starving, clothe someone who is naked. It’s the best therapy. When I worked in the church I quickly realized that the soup kitchens I ran were far more beneficial for me and my growth than for those on the street. It pulled my pathetic gripes into sharp perspective, and many of them just fell away. Taking youth groups on mission trips had the same effect, and it always amazed me as I watched teens getting stuck in to help those with so little, and then forgetting to be self conscious and self obsessed, at least for a little while.

Maybe Matthew 25: 31-46 is speaking as much about us being saved from ourselves here and now?

Often when you dig through peoples pain, you find there is nothing under the layers but created reality.

There is no event.

No one said anything.

No one did anything.

It is all perceived.

To some it seems creating drama out of their lives gives them purpose and meaning. It becomes a drug.

I know that’s not a popular thing to say, but I’ve found it to be true.

It doesn’t mean there isn’t real 1st world pain out there, born of real hardship; it just means we have to learn the difference between a created, or accentuated issue, and a real one… because at some point we have to get on with our lives, and become about more than ourselves.

We have to unlearn our propensity to support each others victimhood, and learn to throw our energies at real problems.

I was sitting with a friend the other day and we were speaking about the church, and she made the comment that she believes one of the big problems today, and one of the main reasons people are leaving the mainline church, is because they don’t take people’s hurt seriously.

Needless to say, I couldn’t disagree more.

I think this obsession with felt pain is the reason church today is so insular. I mean with all these ‘desperately wounded’ people, no wonder we have no time for anyone else. Most of it comes from this understanding of church as a ‘hospital for the wounded’, usually because of a bad reading of passages like Luke 5:32 and Mark 2:17. The problem with this is that hospitals tend to be centers who demand that people come to them. But church, as I read scripture, is meant to go out and change the world, and that’s going to be hard to do if we’re all hiding away licking our wounds.

My friend may be right in her reasoning: perhaps that is the reason people are leaving; because they aren’t getting the attention they want… but then maybe they should. Maybe it’s ok. Maybe no amount of attention would be enough.

As I read the Gospels, Jesus wasn’t very precious with people, in fact sometimes He comes across as pretty harsh. He didn’t sit with the woman at the well in Luke 4 speaking about abuse, and marital difficulty, and he didn’t help her spin her story to justify her position as the victim. Instead he told her to get up, go back to the village, pull it together, and tell people what she’d found.

Yes there is real pain, and that needs compassion and care, obviously, but for all the rest I really think we need more of this tough love.

Of course it’s true that living in our modern world carries some unique stresses and strains with it, but we have to rise above them and not obsess over them.

The whole tone of Jesus’ verbal and non verbal message is to move beyond ourselves to the needs of others. How can we do that if we’re constantly creating new ways to paint ourselves as the victims in our own privileged lives?

Time for us to get up, go back to the village, pull it together and tell people what we’ve found!

I often find myself letting loose an internal tirade of expletives at inconsiderate fellow motorists; regularly catch myself thinking, “what did he mean by that?” to the most innocent statements from others.

I am prone to seething on the inside with the ‘inconsiderate and selfish’ I rub shoulders with daily.

But I’m sure most of the things I ‘get offended’ by were never meant as ‘offense’, so why do I take them as such?

So why do we do it?

I’ve rambled on in the last few blog posts about “Falling Upwards”, the new book by Richard Rohr. I’m afraid today you’re in for a barrage of quotes from him, because I’ve found his wisdom so helpful, so here’s the first:

Richard Rohr

“Ken Keyes so wisely said, “More suffering comes into the world by people taking offense than by people intending to give offense.” The offended ones feel the need to offend back those who they think have offended them, creating defensiveness on the part of the presumed offenders, which often becomes a new offensive – ad infinitum. There seems to be no way out of this self-defeating and violent Pin-Pong game – except growing up spiritually.”

I realized some time ago that the person I’m hurting the most with this habit of anger and offense is me. Usually the objects of my anger don’t even know about it, and if they find out they invariably either pity me, mock me, or ignore me. I’m the one who potentially loses sleep over this stuff.

And I’m tired of it.

I like my sleep.

I want to grow up and move past what feels like a very base and childish response to life. So perhaps the obvious next step in my spiritual growth is to pay attention to the things I am offended by and, one by one, ask the question why?

Why am I so angry?

What am I really so angry about?

Usually, I think especially in men, anger is actually a sign of fear, so perhaps the better question to ask is ‘what am I afraid of?’

Some more from Richard Rohr:

“Invariably when something upsets you, and you have a strong emotional reaction out of proportion to the moment, your shadow self has just been exposed. So watch for any overreactions or overdenials. When you notice them, notice also that the cock of St Peter has just crowed! The reason that a mature or saintly person can be so peaceful, so accepting of self and others, is that there is not much hidden shadow self left (there is always and forever a little more, however! No exceptions. Shadow work never stops.)”

Carl Jung

Rohr subscribes to the Psychological ideas of Jung, who suggested each of us has many layers to our person. On the very outer layer sits our ‘persona’, and this is the person we create to show the world; the personality we want everyone to believe we really are.

At our core however sits our ‘shadow’ self. This is the dark part of ourself, the selfish, needy, dangerous part of us which drives us towards our greatest evil. Interestingly it’s the shadow which often drives us to create the persona in the first place, and we will use any and all energy to protect the reality of this game from others.

To be a well rounded, spiritually mature human being we need to realize that both the persona and the shadow are a lie, but before we can do that we have to acknowledge that they are both there, see them for what they are, and then settle into life long ‘shadow work’.

Rohr also says:

“I have prayed for years for one good humiliation a day, and then I must watch my reaction to it. In my position, I have no other way of spotting both my well-denied shadow self and my idealized persona. I am actually surprised there are not more clergy scandals, because ‘spiritual leader’ or ‘professional religious person’ is such a dangerous and ego-inflating self-image. Whenever ministers, or any true believers, are too anti anything, you can be pretty sure there is some shadow material lurking somewhere”

A few blog posts ago I told you about taking some kids on a youth camp a few years ago. The speaker got up on the first night to tell them that (and I quote) ‘non-christians are dead, demonized, deranged and demented’… and he took 50 minutes to yell that at us! He seemed very, very angry that there were people out there ‘behaving badly’ because they weren’t Christians. I mean really angry! He was offended by them!

I remember thinking his anger was very strange.

Earlier this year, I heard that this same guy had been removed from his church because of sexual impropriety… and I wasn’t at all surprised. It makes perfect sense. As Rohr says, any time we are too anti anything, too offended, it is likely that it is saying more about us, than about the object of our offense. In other words offense is often a sure sign that we haven’t dealt with, or often even acknowledged, our own ‘shadow material’.

So coming back to me, because this doesn’t really work unless you make it personal.

I think some of my shadow material is that I’m afraid people don’t value me. My ego is afraid people are not taking me seriously, or not thinking me worth their attention.

It’s ugly, but it’s true.

And I feel that needy thing clawing for attention often, pricking my anger if I ignore it, and then creating offenses to release that anger. The problem is (and it always was) that I need to acknowledge this ‘shadow’ that demands love and attention from those around me; remembering all the time that they too are likely wrestling with their own shadows.

Except God.

He has no shadow to wrestle with and so is able to give love completely. Jesus calls Him my ‘Heavenly Father’. Now my earthly father was a pretty poor example of unconditional love, but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe it exists.

I suppose I just need reminding that I already have it. I have love. I’m not perfect, and that’s ok. No one else is perfect either; we’re broken and wounded, some just hide it better than others. We can’t rely on each other to give us our sense of worth, or we’ll just condemn ourselves to the dizzying highs and lows of daily human interaction.

We have to root it somewhere else.

And this is what Grace is really: knowing the immovable love of God which tells me I’m worthwhile.

Which tells me I’m ok, even though I always have a long way to go.

I’m 33 now, but I still feel like a kid in this and need to remind myself of this stuff constantly. I need to remember that I have to ground my being in the broad reality of life, and in the unmoving grace of God. I need to remember my shadow and take it seriously. I need to remember others are wrestling with the same. And I suppose it starts with being aware of the things I take offense at, and beginning to let them go by reminding myself of the Truth.

Maybe use it as an exercise this week: each time you find yourself offended at someone else, try stopping for a moment and asking yourself what is really going on.

Seeing as I’m on a Rohr-quoting roll, I’ll leave you with this thought:

“The general pattern in story and novel is that heroes learn and grow from encountering their shadow, whereas villains never do.”

This is a graph showing a summary of what they found:

Interestingly this doesn’t apply to the ‘Average Income per Household’ for a country, but specifically to ‘Economic Inequality’. In other words it isn’t about how rich or poor a country is, it’s about how big the gulf between the richest and the poorest is. Our assumption might be that if a country has a higher income per household then they would generally have better literacy rates, lower crime, less mental illness etc. But these studies found no such correlation. What they did discover is that the wider the gap between the rich and poor in a given country, the lower the quality of life.

If you have 15 minutes here is a TED talk by Richard Wilkinson given a week ago:

When I moved to Cape Town a few years ago, I was told ‘not to get a place too close to the train tracks, because crime was high there’.

Why?

Well it’s simple: the train tracks here in Cape Town were one of the old Apartheid dividing lines of the last century, and they still serve as a rough marker between those with little, and those with a lot. These are the zones of greatest proximal inequality, and if Richard Wilkinson’s research is correct then we shouldn’t be too surprised that crime is highest here.

I have said this for a while: the worst crime is not to be found in the poorest communities, but rather in those poorer areas close to relative wealth. Perhaps the poorest communities on our globe, monetarily speaking, are to be found deep in the Amazon, or in the sands of the Sahara, and yet crime is very low in these communities. The highest levels of crime are always to be found where the rich and poor live together in close proximity.

This is all stuff we know intuitively.

Inequality breeds unhealthy human society.

If everyone around you has about the same as you, you’re more likely to be content; but the moment you are presented with people who have so much more than you you become dissatisfied and begin making plans, wholesome or unwholesome, to count yourself among the wealthy ones. Very few people seem to be able to live outside of this base motivation, but we’re going to need more of them to help us find a way forwards.

It seems we’re waking up to this problem across the globe. People are less and less content to sit back as a few rich squander the world’s resources because of some inflated sense of entitlement. From ‘Arab Spring’ to ‘Occupy Wall Street’ people are demanding a new society which serves the people, and not just the elite… and the movement shows no sign of slowing.

This is a short description of the motivation for the protests from the Occupy Wall Street website:

“(OWS) is fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations. The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and aims to expose how the richest 1% of people are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future.”

The break point is here, and it’s picking up a head of steam. People are becoming more and more aware of the injustice and inequality which taints our modern world, and they’re finally fed up enough to do something about it.

I hope they succeed.

I hope we succeed.

So how are you involved?

Well I suppose you have to chose.

Will you be one of the ones hiding behind the tenets of Capitalism decrying the lunacy of these ‘hippies’?

Or do you see the change that’s coming and see it as good and necessary?

I know we’re all scared of words like ‘Communism’ and ‘Socialism’, and everyone will tell you these ideas didn’t work, but at some point we have to admit that Capitalism isn’t working either. The cracks are showing. Capitalism has lasted a little longer than Communism, but it will favour no better in the long run. Human beings are too greedy for this system to work well for the collective good. It will always work well for a few, but not for the majority.

Capitalism.

Communism.

Socialism.

Surely these aren’t our only options.

Surely there is a way forward.

I think we’re living in exciting times because we will be a part of finding that new way. It will doubtless be a bumpy road, but 80% of the world’s population would agree that anything is better than this (you may struggle to agree because like me you find yourself in the top 20%, but it’s no less true).

We won’t throw the baby out with the bath water though. Hopefully we will keep the best of what we have. For example, one of the tenets of Capitalism which I would never want us to lose is freedom. In fact I believe this is where the answer lies.

Rampant Capitalism encourages greed and inequality.

But enforced equality was shown seriously flawed in the communist system.

The third way, and the way forward, seems to be for mankind to grow a collective conscience and begin to exercise their freedom through generosity.

What if the richest amongst us chose to forgo their wealth and instead pay themselves a smaller salary, living a relatively modest existence, and giving the balance away to redress some of the inequality? Madness I know, but what if? What if we had more Bill Gates and Warren Buffets who were willing to part with their millions for the health of the planet? (They have actually challenged other members of the wealthy elite to follow suite as part of ‘The Giving Pledge’ and so far close to 80 have signed up. Check out www.givingpledge.org)

But that means it is left to each of us to chose to give away our excess and live below what our greedy minds see as possible… for the sake of whole.

I know this just seems like wishful thinking, but I believe in a God who is trying to restore all things. I believe He is intent on reminding us of our humanity, and getting us to live from our goodness and forcing our greed to submit. I personally don’t hold to an eschatology that assumes things will just get worse and worse until God comes in vengeance to destroy everything. I believe He asks us to be a part of restoring things now.

Today.

And today, in our newly connected global society, we need to learn a universal sense of responsibility and community which transcends our own selfish wants.

And what about the church?

Well, let’s be honest, we should be leading the charge. It’s no longer acceptable (it probably never was) that we create little empires on every street corner where we horde our resources in buildings designed to entertain us well on a Sunday. It is no longer ‘ok’ to be giving our wealth back to ourselves to create institutions which can match the social standing of the suburb. It’s no longer fine to run our churches like capitalist businesses bent on ‘growth’.

We have to be on the forefront of finding a way forward.

We have to be modeling generosity, sacrifice, and a global conscience.

And maybe we should be ‘occupying’ something too.

If you’ve read the welcome page on this site you’ll know that I believe my role is to speak out about the ways we’re missing it as church today, but I’m also aware that attempting to be any kind of voice which challenges the institutions needs to be paired with some wisdom and grace, otherwise it will just be ignored. I have to somehow ride a line between speaking so abrasively that what I say is just destructive, and speaking so gently that what I say is just ignored.

It’s a tricky business.

But I suppose this is the tension with any kind of prophetic role: where and how do you best deliver your challenge; one that will actually move the right things in the right direction?

You see there are, broadly speaking, two types of people on the spiritual journey. The first are those who are still ‘building their containers’, and the second are those who have reached the stage where it’s time to ‘discharge their loyal soldier’.

The latter need the challenge I have to offer, while the former should be left in peace, for now.

Let me explain.

(I’m reading a great book by Richard Rohr at the moment called ‘Falling Upward’ which has given me the language for a lot of this, so credit where credit’s due.)

1. Building your Container:

Rohr suggests that we all start in life by ‘building containers’. These containers are made up of rules about life and God which help us make sense of the world as we grow up. We basically all begin our journeys as conservatives who need the hard drawn boundaries in order to feel safe enough to grow. And this stage is good. In fact it should be done properly and not skipped over, because it can cause issues later if it’s not lived to the hilt.

Someone like myself really needs to remember this because I can be fairly sniffy about conservatives.

I remember this stage for myself clearly (for those who’ve read the book it’s around the ‘Becoming a Pharisee’ chapter). Not only did I build very rigid rules for myself, I imposed those rules on others, and judged people harshly who didn’t hold to the same. In my mind this is who God was and how life worked, and no one could tell me otherwise. During this phase I took in no new information from the world at large, but built a veritable cocoon for myself filled with voices of those who already agreed with me.

And it was safe in there.

It was the place where my faith could slowly grow and take shape, within the confines of a tradition which held answers to my many questions. It provided me with content.

It’s where faith begins for most of us.

Rohr says:
“The first-half-of-life container, nevertheless, is constructed through impulse controls; traditions; group symbols; family loyalties; basic respect for authority; civil and church laws; and a sense of goodness, value and special importance of your country, ethnicity, and religion. To quote Archimedes, you must have both “a level and a place to stand” before you can move the world.”

And then we post a ‘loyal soldier’ to protect our construction.

I have felt the wrath of many people’s ‘loyal soldiers’ as I have sat over coffee tables with them, and knew it wasn’t yet time to challenge. At the last church I worked at there was one particular girl who would take me for coffee almost every week after I had preached on the Sunday. Something I said had suggested that her container didn’t hold all the answers, and her loyal soldier was cross about that. So we would sit for a couple of hours while I tried to convince her that I wasn’t trying to mess with what she had built.

She wasn’t ready to question any of it yet. The soldier is there for a reason, and sometimes it’s right that he remains, and you must give way.

But… in some cases, it’s high time he were discharged.

2. Discharging your Loyal Soldier:

Rohr suggests that at some point in all our lives we will hit crisis. It will often be circumstances which call into question our simple views and have us wondering whether we may need to expand our understanding of life, the universe and everything beyond the confines of our container. This is hard because you were comfortable with your self imposed confines, and all your friends in your tradition buy what’s in the container hook, line and sinker. It takes a great deal of courage to step outside… which is why many don’t.

Many people hit crisis, ask the tough questions, but end up just retreating back into their container, even though it has been shown lacking. They repost their ‘loyal soldier’ and ask him to protect the borders for the rest of their days.

I was reading a fascinating story recently about Lt Hiroo Onoda. He was sent to the Island of Lubang in the Philippines in 1944 as part of the Japenese attempt to repel the American advance through Indonesia during the 2nd World War. At some point he was given a cell of 3 men and told to head into the jungle and prepare for guerrilla warfare with the enemy.

He trudged off into the trees with his troop and waited.

Thing is, the war ended .

Japan surrendered.

But no one told Lt Hiroo.

The last instructions he received read:

“You are absolutely forbidden to die by your own hand. It may take three years, it may take five, but whatever happens, we’ll come back for you. Until then, so long as you have one soldier, you are to continue to lead him. You may have to live on coconuts. If that’s the case, live on coconuts! Under no circumstances are you [to] give up your life voluntarily.”

When the war ended in October 1945, planes flew over the islands of the Pacific dropping pamphlets to let the guerrilla fighters of the Japenese army know that they could come out, but Hiroo believed the pamphlets to be a propaganda trick to lure them out. So for many years he, and his cell ‘fought’ on. With no Americans to kill they ended up turning on the island populace believing them to be spies. They killed 30 of the locals and wounded over a hundred. After years of fighting his companions were eventually killed and he was left to fend for himself against the enemy he was sure was out there. As the Japanese began rebuilding after the war someone realized that Hiroo and his men were still unaccounted for. They sent search parties to the jungles of Lubang to locate him, but he would hide, believing them to be scouts from an enemy platoon.

29 years he was out there in total, believing he was fighting in a war which no longer existed.

He became a thing of legend. Most assumed he was long dead until a student set himself the mission of locating him on a holiday to the island. He succeeded. And so it wasn’t until 1974 that he was finally found and coaxed back into the real world.

And I feel this way about a lot Christians.

At some point they could see that the fight for a small, safe, conservative view point was useless… but they returned anyway. For some reason they cannot discharge their loyal soldier. There have been many signs that they can abandon the struggle, but they think they’re being tricked somehow. They believe that ‘loyalty to God’ is ‘loyalty to the container’ and so they blindly fight on for the remainder of their days, maybe because the alternative is too hard to face.

These are the people who I want to read this blog; to pick up a copy of my book.

I want to speak to those who sense the ‘fight’ in them for their narrow tradition is dwindling, because they are beginning to understand that ‘defending their container’ and ‘defending God’ are actually two very different things.

I want to liberate people to explore and learn outside of their container, without guilt or fear.

I want to speak to those who are ready to give in, open up, and step from, as Paul would say, Law to Freedom.

I realize though that I can’t do this with a shotgun.

Like I said, some are still building their containers, and that’s good. If I expose them to my message I may ruin some very healthy and necessary growth which is still taking place as they construct their fledgling faith.

So I have to target the ones who need to ‘discharge their loyal soldier’ more deliberately.

I need to remember when I speak to a room full of people that some aren’t ready and shouldn’t be bullied into giving up their containers just yet.

I need to be more aware when I sit over a coffee table with someone that they may just be starting out, and I need to bite my tongue.

I have even begun to look into publishing my book wider, but I have concerns about making this message so available for fear of doing damage to those who are in the early days of their journey.

It’s the balancing act of the prophets; they never went into the Temple to bully the general populace, but they targeted the leaders and challenged those who should know better.

Jesus did the same with His message.

I have to remind myself of this constantly in order to be true to this calling.

Maybe you do too.

I think we’re pretty amazing.

It may sound like a weird thing to say but we seem to live in a world where we paint ourselves as the bad guys. Being a documentary fan I watch my fair share, and it’s very rare that you get to the end of a doc these days without being reminded that WE are the problem.

We are little more than usurpers.

Bad humans!

I know what they mean, and there is a lot of truth in it of course, but this attitude which tells us we are only destructive, evil beings can’t be healthy.

I’ve been watching a BBC series recently called ‘Human Planet’. This series shows how humanity lives in the harshest environments on the planet; from the deserts of the Sahara, to the frozen wastes of the Artic Circle; from the flooded rivers of South America, to the barren tundra of the Mongolian steppes. We are the only species on the planet who has come up with so many varied solutions which allow us to exist where little else can.

As I sat through each episode the self-hatred of our species began to slip away and I realized we’re not evil. Watching the way mothers love children, and fathers risk their lives to feed their families the world over, you have to adjust your thinking and wonder if we aren’t in fact imbued with the spark the divine. We’re making some big mistakes to be sure, but it’s certainly not enough to write us off as a species.

In fact I felt proud of us, which isn’t usually something we’re allowed to do. It’s now much more trendy to beat ourselves up.

And where as this may be a new trend culturally, our self loathing has been around a lot longer in the church.

Our evangelistic routines, for example, usually begin with telling people they are rotten in one way or another. Words like ‘fallen, depraved, wicked, corrupt, sinful, and evil’, get banded around… and that’s just you’re opener with the person. I took a group of young people to a camp a few years ago where the speaker got up on the first night to tell them that (and I quote) ‘all humans are dead, demonized, deranged and demented without Jesus’… and he took 50 minutes to yell that at us! It makes me so mad, and bears no resemblance to the way Jesus interacted with people.

Even once you’re ‘safely in the fold’ you are regularly reminded of your wicked state and how close to being completely corrupt you are. I was sent a tragically funny Youtube clip the other day of a famous preacher screaming at his congregants because they weren’t behaving as he thought they should. I couldn’t believe the haranguing they were getting, and wondered if any of them left church that Sunday considering themselves of any worth at all.

I was listening to a speaker recently who said that the problem is that people like this miss the beginning of the story. They are really into the bible, it’s just that they start telling the story from Genesis 3, and seem to forget there was a Genesis 1. They begin by telling us that we are fallen beings, rotten to the core; but Genesis 1 seems to suggest that our core is actually good, that we are made in the image of the divine, and that when God took a step back He was pretty stoked with what He had created.

The message is clear whether you read Genesis literally (which I don’t) or not: we are good. We have our problems, but if you peel the layers away to the very center of the onion you will find goodness. Any message which starts with anything different is manipulative in my mind, akin to using a marketing tactic to make someone feel their lack, and see your particular sales pitch as the answer.

This may seem like detail, but I think where you start the story, and what you think is at the core, effects everything!

And I think a lot of the theological disagreement we have today comes down to this one question: do you think people are inherently evil, or good?

I suppose the most famous example of this debate, and the one which has had the most far reaching consequences, is the showdown between Augustine and Pelagius.

Pelagius

Pelagius was born in 354 AD in the British Isles and became a Celtic monk. You have heard me speak here about the Celts and their open-ended, life-affirming spirituality. Well this stuff leeched into Pelagius over his years of training. At some point, as was the fashion, he opted to travel to Rome on pilgrimage, but when he arrived he was fairly shocked at the state of the city and, in particular, the way people treated each other. Crime was rife, poverty was pervasive, and morality seemed absent.

In response to these issues he began to travel around the city and teach people that they had a choice, that they could chose how they lived. He even accused those forming the theology of his day that their talk of ‘Grace covering all sin’ had just given people license to live completely morally bankrupt lives as long as they attended mass and got baptized.

Lucky that particular problem is a thing of the past (please read laced with sarcasm).

One of the big messages he sought to teach was that human beings are good! At their core they are beautiful, because that’s how they were made, and so they need to aspire to more. He told the story from Genesis 1.

This flew in the face of the religious establishment, particularly a celebrity Bishop from North Africa named Augustine, who had just published his ‘Confessions’ which were big on this idea of ‘Original Sin’. Augustine said that all human beings are born inherently evil; in fact he went so far as to suggest that you should baptize your new born infant immediately after birth because if it died, even on that first day, without being baptized, God would send it to hell.

That is how evil he believed mankind to be.

Wicked from the moment of birth.

Augustine

This renegade Celtic monk from the misty isles at the end of the Empire was ruining everything with his ‘humans are good’ talk. So Augustine decided to take him out. He called a council of church leaders and had Pelagius branded a heretic. They accused him of completely denying God’s Grace and suggested he was preaching a salvation separate from God (the theological equivalent of pulling yourself up by your own boot straps).

Pelagius fled to Palestine where he lived out his remaining days, and his ideas were anathema. If you were caught spreading his teaching then you would be in big trouble with the powers that be.

It is doubtful if Pelagius was a real heretic of any sort. In a book I read recently by Ian Bradley, called ‘The Celtic Way”, he says of Pelagius:

“Recent analysis of his thinking suggests that (he) was, in fact, highly orthodox, following in the tradition established by the early fathers and in keeping with the teaching of the church in both the East and the West. … From what we are able to piece together from the few sources available… it seems that the Celtic monk held to an orthodox view of the prevenience of God’s grace, and did not assert that individuals could achieve salvation purely by their own efforts…”

But of course history is written by the victorious, and how dare this little British upstart suggest that human beings are good!

Of course because Augustine bullied Pelagius into submission, the Augustinian view point has dominated the thinking of western Christians through the ages. Calvin borrowed most of his ideas from Augustine for his work during the Reformation, and these ideas form the basis of much mainstream theology today. The likes of John Piper and Mark Driscol (the ‘Neo Calvinists’ or self proclaimed ‘Gospel Coalition’) are todays loudest voices pulling this bad theology through the ages.

The popular mindset is that we are born ‘evil’ to the core.

The popular leadership mode in churches is to bully people with a ‘lets make them feel bad so they behave themselves’ methodology.

It constantly surprises me how many churches today find this stuff captivating, and follow it without question. Maybe it’s popularity is down to the volume and vigor with which this message is delivered, because the theology seems well off the mark to me.

A case of the ‘loudest person in the room’ perhaps?

I would obviously agree that we have something in us that needs to be rooted out; a propensity to destroy in order to gain, a greedy desire to take more than we need, or hurt to get ahead (and call this evil ‘sin’ if you like, I just think we’ve ruined that word). And this isn’t a case of EITHER ‘we are sinful’, OR ‘we are deeply valuable’. It’s has to be both/and. But most of our telling of the story focuses on how rotten we are.

But that isn’t where the story starts… and it isn’t where it ends.

Our view of humanity can’t just be that we are these ugly, dirty, naughty things who have to find Jesus, say we’re sorry, and then live the lives of repressed puritans until He comes at some future date to snatch us from our own mess. I won’t suggest, as Augustine did, and as many Evangelicals would begin their evangelistic spiels, that “all humanity is depraved”. The story I read begins in Genesis one, and there we are made in the image of God, and given the breath of the divine to make us live.

As St Iranaeus of Lyons apparently once said: “The glory of God is humanity fully alive.” In other words, crank our core essence up to 11, and we are the ‘glory of God’.

Human beings are fascinating, capable, brave, ingenious, precious beings.

Mark my words, someone who believes this will move very differently in the world to someone who believes we are fallen, depraved, wicked, corrupt, sinful and evil.

We will look at ourselves and others differently.

We will treat this planet differently.

We will pass the story on differently.

I love the story of God destroying Sodom if only for Abraham’s response. He doesn’t agree with God and just sit down to watch Him kill them all for their debauchery, but instead he engages with God by begging for the lives of the people in the city… because he values humanity. He believes people to be good at their middle, and worth fighting for.

I think God wants us to do the same.

The story is more hopeful than you can imagine. We are good, but have gotten into some bad ways of dealing with God, each other, and the world at large. We have gotten off track from our God-given purpose, and we have to be better than that, because our core is Godly. And we WILL be better than that, because God is out to redeem everything, and everyone who is willing. Perhaps it’s time to drop our obsession with managing sin (we were never meant to be the world’s moral police anyway), and start by becoming champions of humanity, telling the story from Genesis 1 again, and reminding all of their worth.

My answer to him was, “You need to constantly be seeing through a wider angle.”

Forgive me a photography metaphor, but this is how it makes sense to me.

My friend Doug is a great photographer. He has an amazing natural eye, but he hasn’t just relied on raw talent to get where he is. He’s also put in the hours of research to hone technique and skill which now make him one of the best in the country. It’s been interesting watching him journey with these skills too, partly because I can parasitically knick the knowledge once he’s done the work to attain it.

Some of the best lessons I’ve vicariously learnt through him as I’ve tried to hone my own photographic skills, have been the simplest.

Case in point: “If you just take a step back, you often take better photos.”

Sounds really silly and simple, but I can vouch for the fact that it works.

Everything looks better with a bit more context, especially if you’re trying to tell a story with your images.

Take a couple of steps back.

Widen the angle.

Include more context.

Sometimes being too close to something ruins it. Without the subjects surrounds we can lose the sense of what we’re actually looking at.

And it’s no different with our spirituality.

Many of us relate to what God is doing through a Macro lens.

A Macro lens is a lens which helps you get as close to something as possible, focusing in on the minute details of a thing, and this is how many people live their spiritual lives in Western Christianity. We’re often so close to our subject (and I don’t necessarily mean God, but rather ‘the way my church does stuff’) that we are closed off to the big, wide world we live in.

Especially in the modern world of ‘church franchises’ which are popping up all over the place. It’s no secret that most mainline denominations are in real trouble, and this has opened up a gap for the ‘trendy churches’ to draw the wandering Christian consumer crowds. When these churches inevitably reach capacity they split into satellite centers which run as franchise versions of the Mothership. Here in Cape Town it’s the ‘Common Grounds’, the ‘His Peoples’, the ‘Hillsongs’, and the ‘Joshua Generations’, but I’m sure you have the same pattern occurring in your own city.

There is nothing necessarily wrong with that; at least some corner of Christendom is making the effort to relate well to people. But the danger is that these groups develop their theology in a vacuum. The celebrity leaders read one particular brand of theology, which is disseminated to their congregants through carefully controlled pulpits, and other world views are undermined, or openly vilified.

This is spirituality through a Macro lens. It lacks context, and anyone seriously seeking truth has to begin ‘widening the angle’.

One of my pet peeves in conversation with people is when they will constantly repeat, “My Pastor says…” I’m sure your Pastor is a great and wise man, but he doesn’t know everything, even if he isn’t brave enough to admit it. If you are serious about learning to understand God, life and the universe, you have to read, question and seek wider than your local church’s understanding of things, because it will be limited. That’s not an insult, any context is limited, which is why if you want to own your journey you have to take little mental steps backwards; you have to constantly take in more context.

So how do you do it?

How do you widen your angle of view?

There is no easy answer to that. It’s going to come down to you cultivating a hunger for knowledge and Truth outside the confines of your limited tradition. This doesn’t mean you’re into syncretism; where you are just trying to amalgamate all knowledge with an ‘anything goes’ attitude. But it does mean that you are looking for Truth wherever it can be found, and then asking the tough questions of your own tradition when it’s knowledge gaps appear, as they inevitably will.

Remember, the goal here is Truth, not defending the illusion that your church is the best and knows everything.

And at some point you will have to pick.

To give an example: one of the things which has helped me widen my angle of view has been watching Documentaries.

I think I have developed a hunger to know more, and documentaries are the easy popcorn version of getting that knowledge. They teach you about the world we live in, about other people in other places, about history, and about the broader cosmos.

I’ll share some of the good ones I’ve found:

For a series which puts on display the awesome forces which make this planet tick, have a look at Iain Stewart’s Series, “The Power of the Planet.” You will quickly get a sense of how fragile this world is, how fortunate we are to be alive at this time, in these rarely conditions, and how reliant we are on forces we will never be able to control.

In the same vein, if you want a brilliant picture of the forces in our solar system, and beyond, into the universe at large, I would recommend Dr Brian Cox’s series called ‘The Wonders of the Solar Systems’, and ‘The Wonders of the Universe’. He explains the huge scales, timeframes and forces which have gone into making our universe, and which continue to change it. Watching this stuff on the screen does strange things to your theology.

For a jaw on the floor view of the natural world, check out the ‘Life’ series by David Attenborough. I don’t know where he finds the creatures he does. I mean, if I didn’t trust the man’s integrity I swear he was making some up. You suddenly realise how diverse life on this planet is, and how complex it’s development. It’s quite hard after this to hold ignorant views about the facts surrounding evolution, or our very human-centric view of the planet: that it was all made for us, and we are entitled to use and abuse it as we choose. Watching this helped me see humanity as co-inhabitants with some great responsibilities.

For a view of the diversity of humanity which live on this spinning rock, track down a BBC documentary series called ‘Human Planet’. For me it reminded me that I, as a white westerner, am not the majority, even though I am part of the race who make the most noise. Watching this series I came to appreciate the beautiful diversity of people alive and well in places I would struggle to survive at all. My culture is not the answer, so what can I learn from people who live differently to me, who respect the natural world more than I do, and who do community better than I ever have?

For a comprehensive picture of the Church’s story to date, you have to watch Diarmaid McCulloch’s 6 part series called ‘The History of Christianity’. He walks you through the spread, and rise, and fall of the church as it made it’s way across the globe. Watching this series I quickly realised that western church is only one part of the story, and that protestantism hasn’t been on the scene very long at all, and that your and my church (which may feel like the final word) is but a blip in the story God is writing.

I think you get the point.

Read history.

Read world news.

Read science.

And listen to stories told by people who are nothing like you.

Open the angle up to include as much of the cosmos as you can manage, and if your theology doesn’t hold up to the Truth to be found there, then I would suggest it has to change, because ‘all Truth is God’s Truth’… and heaven forbid we are found to be defending our church’s Macro theology against Wide Angle Truth. We have to be brave enough to yield our narrow ideas about God to the reality of life as it exists outside our tradition.