inter-mission

2005-07-23T08:12:00.000Z

[37.1] MTAG IN THE NEWS ON HARRY POTTER

While the publication of the latest edition of children’s author J K Rowling’s acclaimed Harry Potter series has been the expected commercial and media sensation, rumours abound that Pope Benedict XVI is less than thrilled by the young wizard’s antics – even though he is massively outselling Dan Brown’s 'Da Vinci Code' story, a definite subject of Vatican ire.

Press reports are claiming that the Pope believes the Potter stories “deeply distort Christianity in the soul”. Other clerics, such as Anglican priest, the Rev Richard Billingshurst, who triggered the scrapping of a school event based on ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’, also say the novels make fun of evil and are harmful.

For a number of years preachers in America’s Bible belt have been denouncing young Harry, but other Christians take a very different view. Back in 2002 the Mission Theology Advisory Group of the Church of England and the ecumenical Churches’ Commission on Mission produced some reflections on Christian engagement with contemporary culture which said that churches should read Harry Potter as a morality tale. [full story]

See also Harry Potter and the birth of crossover fiction by G. P. Taylor, in the Church of England Newspaper.

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2005-06-25T22:22:00.000Z

[36.1] WORLD FAMOUS EVANGELIST BOWS OUT

International evangelist Billy Graham, who is 86 years old and in increasingly poor health, has addressed 60,000 people at New York’s Flushing Meadow as part of what will almost certainly be his last preaching tour – though he reportedly has still to decide whether to accept one final invitation to Britain.

Graham’s message was simple and hopeful. Eschewing the public controversies that have plagued American Christianity in recent years, he called on people to put their faith in Jesus Christ and to practice a way of life based on love rather than hate. He also said that poverty was the biggest problem facing humankind.

Billy Graham, perhaps the best known popular preacher of the twentieth century, has mellowed considerably in tone and approach over the years. He has acted as pastor and counsellor to ten US presidents, and has toured some 185 countries to preach before an estimated 210 million people.

Compromised by his earlier dalliance with the disgraced Richard Nixon, Graham, who is seen as a key figure in the worldwide evangelical movement, has subsequently distanced himself from the religious right and hard-line fundamentalism in the United States. [More]

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2005-06-24T22:41:00.000Z

[35.1] GROUP FOR EVANGELIZATION UPDATE

The Group for Evangelization of Churches Together in England has a newly developed web area here. GFE member David Spriggs of Bible Society is also a long-term consultant to MTAG. GFE has recently appointed Church Army officer Jim Currin as its executive secretary. He begins on 1st September 2005. Among current Group projects is one on 'Evangelising contemporary spiritualities'.

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2005-06-24T22:28:00.000Z

[34.1] FAITH AND REASON EXPLORED

A reader of this weblog has written in to recommend a website exploring different ways in which faith and reason have been handled in relation to one another throughout Christian history, and not least in recent science and religion discussions. The source is the University of Tenessee at Martin, USA.

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2005-06-22T10:04:00.000Z

[33.1] BISHOP URGES CHURCH 'TO GET OUT MORE'

The Rt Rev Ken Good, Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, has written to all parishes in his diocese urging Christians to 'get out more'.

Accompanied by a seven minute DVD which urges Christian presence at car boot sales, pub quizzes, and night clubs, his letter comes ahead of Church Army Sunday.

Church Army, the Anglican society of evangelists has made Get Out More the key theme for this year’s Church Army Sunday which will take place on 25th September.

A seven minute DVD has been produced to give churches an insight into how Church Army is reaching out with the gospel in relevant and effective ways, and special materials and fact sheets have been created on the Church Army website to help equip churches develop and effective Christian presence in a variety of situations.

"We all recognise the need for encouragement to be more outwardly focussed, and in this diocese we are well aware of how effective the Church Army is in helping our churches build valuable bridges into the community." [More here]

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2005-06-20T09:51:00.000Z

[32.1] NEW FAITH JOURNEY WEBSITE ON THE WAY

The Mission Theology Advisory Group is working hard on a new website, to be launched in the autumn, which will translate much of the work on Sense Making Faith (and more) into a useable set of resources for church educators -- and for spiritual journeyers per se. The site will replace this weblog, which is more of a diarty-like collection point for issues of concern to MTAG members.

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2005-06-15T10:04:00.000Z

[31.1] MISSION THEOLOGY GROUP LATEST

The Mission Theological Advisory Group is working on the publication of its latest resource, Sense Making Faith, and investigating a new project on reconciliation as a fruit of the Christian Gospel. More information will follow shortly.

In the meantime we have been using this weblog over the last couple of months to highlight Christian engegaments with, or concerns about, culture - and issue MTAG explored (in order to encourage a positive but not uncritical approach) in The Search for Faith and the Witness of the Church.

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2005-06-01T07:33:00.000Z

[30.1] REALITY TV UPSETS CHRISTIANS

While the new ‘Big Brother’ fails to excite British TV audiences and viewers seek ever more ingenious ways of avoiding ‘Celebrity Love Island’, a religious lobby group is encouraging pre-emptive protests against one of a large summer crop of new US reality shows, ABC’s ‘Welcome to the Neighbourhood’.

James Dobson’s influential group Focus on the Family claims that the programme, which has not been aired yet, will portray Christians as “bigoted, self-righteous and judgmental.”

‘Welcome to the Neighbourhood’ brings prospective new families into a suburban cul-de-sac. The white families who already live there have their prejudices tested with potential neighbours who include gay, minority and heavily tattooed couples. The winning family gets to move in.

The ABC series is one of nineteen new-launch US television shows that claim to highlight aspects of ‘real life’ ranging from the mundane to the bizarre. Although ‘Welcome to the Neighbourhood’ has no premiere date, Focus on the Family is giving out the contact details of ABC Entertainment President Susan Lyne on the web so that people can pressurise her.

Meanwhile the president of the American Family Association wants supporters to target sponsors of the programme. "Find out who the advertisers are and contact [them]", he declares. But Mr Tim Wildmon nervously cautions correspondents to “be careful that in your calls to ABC and its sponsors you don't become the stereotype you're protesting.”

Focus on the Family leader James Dobson famously remarked a number of years ago that “[w]hat ... I have called a ‘civil war of values’ continues to rage.”

In Britain some cultural critics of the reality TV craze have tried more positive ways of highlighting its defects.The broadcaster and feminist academic Germaine Greer (who said of ‘Big Brother’, “it isn’t the end of civilization – it is civilization”) decided to go on the celebrity version of the series herself in 2004. But she later quit in disgust.

The international development agency Christian Aid – which works with 40 churches and 600 partners in 50 countries – has offered young people an alternative world view to ‘Big Brother’ through its Global Gang website.The release of the Citizen Ship game for 8-12 year olds was timed coincide with the new 'Big Brother' series that began last week. It is about cooperation and justice rather than competition and hedonism.

Two years ago Christian contestant Cameron Stout, a fish trader from the Orkneys, actually won the UK Channel 4 series. He charmed viewers but was denounced by one critic as ‘terminally boring’.

A 2003 poll revealed that more people in the UK knew the name of the winner of ‘Big Brother’ that year than recognised the name of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

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2005-05-23T05:32:00.000Z

[29.1] CALL FOR FRESH ATTENTION TO EVANGELISM

Following the historic thirteenth Conference on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME), convened by the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Athens from 9-16 May, British and Irish participants are calling for “an ecumenical recovery of the central Christian vocation to announce the Good News of Jesus Christ”.

The request comes in a letter to the WCC’s mission commission, which has been meeting this week in the aftermath of a gathering that drew together participants from 300 churches, confessions and Christian bodies across 105 countries. It was the most widely representative conference of its kind, involving Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Evangelical and Pentecostal delegates from six continents.

The letter to the WCC was coordinated by the Churches’ Commission on Mission (CCOM) of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, and has been signed so far by the Bishop of Maidstone, the Rt Rev Graham Cray, the General Secretary of the Church Mission Society, the Rev Canon Tim Dakin, Fr Philip Knights of the Catholic Agency to Support Evangelization in England and Wales, the Rev Dr Jim Campbell of the Irish Council of Churches, Dr Kirsteen Kim, lecturer in mission at the United College of the Ascension in Birmingham, and Simon Barrow, Secretary of CCOM – which links the work of the global mission departments and agencies of the churches in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

Welcoming the attention of the WCC world mission conference to the work of the Holy Spirit and the vocation of the church as a healing and reconciling community, the letter says that the next step for the ecumenical movement is to learn how to “talk the walk” better. More.

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2005-05-09T07:38:00.000Z

[28.1] BBC SPRINGER COMPLAINTS REJECTED

The media watchdog has cleared the BBC of flouting broadcasting guidelines by televising 'Jerry Springer: the Opera', which attracted a record 16,801 complaints.

Ofcom said an investigation by its content board - the highest level at which complaints are considered - had concluded the show was an "important work" and did not breach its codes.The broadcast was widely criticised by evangelical groups such as the Evangelical Alliance and Christian Voice, some of whom saw the show as "blasphemous" and offensive to Christians.Other religious groups such as the thinktank Ekklesia, however suggested that Christians were missing a vital opportunity to engage with important themes such as the problem of evil and ideas of redmemption.

In in TV and radio interviews, Ekklesia's director Jonathan Bartley also pointed out that the characters in the show were not supsed to be faithful or accurate representations of religious figures, but were characterisations of the show's participants.

The regulator said it had received and replied to 7,941 requests prior to the show's broadcast on January 8 on BBC2 and a further 8,860 following transmission, including 4,264 emails via the Premier Media Group which runs London's Premier Radio - a Christian radio station.The radio station issued a press release about the Opera entitled 'Ban This Sick Show' and gave out the details of the BBC's complaints department on air four times an hour, causing the BBC to complain in kind to Premier for causing their switchboards to jam.

But Ofcom said the BBC had given "clear pre-transmission warnings about the content of the programme", which in its view "did not gratuitously humiliate individuals or any groups... in particular the Christian community".

The regulator said the programme was "appropriately scheduled well after the watershed" and the strongest language relegated until after 10.30pm and directed at the character of Satan."

This was a programme that satirised modern day 'confessional shows' where such language is commonplace... the language was to be expected and could be understood in such context."

Ofcom said it had sought to achieve "the appropriate balance" between harm to religious beliefs and the need to safeguard "freedom of expression".

In clearing the BBC, the regulator said the scene involving Jesus in nappies was a "dream sequence" in which characters in the first act played out a "cartoon full of grotesque images" in the style of the Jerry Springer Show format."

In light of this, Ofcom did not believe the characters represented were, in the context of this piece, conveyed as faithful or accurate representations of religious figures, but were characterisations of the show's participants."

Christian groups said they were disappointed with the ruling. Peter Kerridge, chief executive of Premier Christian Radio, described the decision as a "slap in the face for traditional Christian faith and practice".

He added: "I am extremely disappointed by Ofcom's decision. Freedom of expression should never be sufficient reason to attack the values of any section of the community and this particular programme appeared to set out to do this to people of Christian faith."

The BBC welcomed the ruling, which came weeks after its governors also cleared the show."We are pleased at the finding that Jerry Springer: the Opera was not in breach of Ofcom's code," said a spokesman."We believe that Ofcom and the GPCC's [governors programme complaints committee] earlier adjudication recognise the importance of freedom of artistic expression."

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2005-05-02T21:44:00.000Z

[27.1] TUTU SAYS CHRISTIANITY IS A 'BIG IDEA'

The UK’s fifth terrestrial TV channel, mocked for years as an archetype of ‘dumbing down’, is to run a major new series on big ideas that have changed the world – including Christianity, presented by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

The retired Archbishop, who played a major role in the struggle to overthrow apartheid in South Africa, has been chosen to represent the global significance and reach of Christian faith. Tutu is a household name to millions, and he is popular with many people who are otherwise turned off by what is seen as an 'institutional religion'.

Christianity is often depicted as yesterday’s thing or as a victim of secularisation in the West. But it is still the world’s largest religion with 2.2 billions adherents, and in many parts of the globe it is growing fast.

The Archbishop will present the Gospel of Jesus as a message of radical change for people and for societies. He will emphasise justice, peace and forgiveness at its core. But he will not hide from Christianity's betrayals and problems.

The six 45-minute Channel Five programmes adopt an ‘essay’ format, and feature key public figures talking about major issues. In addition to Archbishop Tutu, these include former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who will explore the rise and fall of communism.

Other presenters include ex-Labour minister Tony Benn on democracy, academic and cultural commentator Germaine Greer on feminism, economist and critic of neo-liberalism Joseph Stiglitz on capitalism, and controversial scientist Bjorn Lomborg on environmentalism.

Channel 5, better known for programmes like ‘Celebrity Detox’ and ‘Cosmetic Surgery Live’, say that the ‘Big Ideas That Changed the World’ series offers a chance to hear people talk about important world views in a way not usually allowed by our sound-bite culture.

“Throughout the history of television there has been a noble tradition of authored documentaries, but this type of series seems to have fallen out of fashion in recent years,” a Channel 5 spokesperson told the Observer newspaper at the weekend.

The programmes are a challenge to the BBC, which has been criticised for pushing many of its more thought-laden programmes off its terrestrial service. The series will start at 19:15 on 31 May 2005. [via Ekklesia]

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2005-04-07T07:35:00.000Z

[26.1] HAS THE PASSION EXACERBATED PREJUDICE?

A new poll has found that 30 percent of Americans believe Jews were responsible for the death of Christ - up from 25 percent in 2002.The survey is interpreted by some as offering more evidence that it has contributed to growing anti-semitism.

But the poll actually found that the percentage of Americans holding "unquestionably anti-Semitic" views declined from 17 percent in 2002 to 14 percent today. The "2005 Survey of American Attitudes Toward Jews in America" was released in Washington at the Anti-Defamation-League's annual convention.

Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" was last month cited by a report as the cause of an upsurge last year in Canadian anti-Semitic attacks, now running at a record pace.The League for Human Rights of B'nai Brith, releasing its 2004 audit of anti-Semitic attacks in Canada, said last year's media coverage of Gibson's film and its alleged depiction of Jews as the "Christ killer" led to an often violent spike in attacks against the Canadian Jewish community.

When the film was released it was labelled a setback to the achievements in Christian-Jewish relations over the past 40 years.. It was suggested that the film was based more on a novel from the visionary meditations of an early nineteenth-century nun than on the gospels. Religious and social activists called on Mel Gibson to donate the profits of the film to causes they suggested truly represented and symbolised Jesus Christ's life, principles, and teachings.

A 'Passion Fund' it was suggested would be an appropriate vehicle for healing because making money from the death of Jesus "is another kind of crucifixion that distorts the true meaning of Jesus' suffering and death." A poll released by the Pew Research Center in Washington almost exactly a year ago provided the first statistical suggestion that the film's box-office success might be associated with an increase in anti-Jewish feeling.

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2005-03-02T07:00:00.000Z

[25.1] CHURCHES NEED APOLOGETICS AND PASTORAL CARE, SAYS REPORT

A report commissioned by a group called the Ecumenical Research Committee (which carried out a church survey in 2003, but is not formally linked to any of Britain and Ireland's recognised ecumenical bodies), says that the decline in church attendance in these islands is linked to two major factors. One is the reduction in effective pastoral care being offered by clergy, in particular. The other is the decline in effective Christian apologetics - the attempt to explain the nature of Christian faith and its plausibility for people in a post-Christian culture.

The findings, reported in this week's Church of England Newspaper, are derived from a yearlong £20,000 survey which attracted 14,000 respondents to a tick-box survey. Some 73 per cent of respondents either explicitly or implicitly referred to a lack of explanation for belief as a reason for the decline in church numbers and interest in Christianity.

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2005-01-20T06:09:00.000Z

[20.1] SPRINGER ROW RAISES GOSPEL AND CULTURE QUESTIONS

The massive protests against BBC2's decision to show Jerry Springer - The Opera on late night TV, especially from Christian groups, raises a mass of questions about faith and culture. The show, which is a stage production that transferred from the fringe to London's West End last year, portrays the sad world of the legendary chat show host's guests. The humour is in combining high art music with 'trailer trash' stories, humour and bad language.

At the end of the first half, Springer is shot by someone who is furious about the humiliation inflicted on one of his guests. In the second half, hallucinating on the brink of death, he imagines the "greatest ever Jerry Springer show" in hell, where biblical figures (including God, the devil, Jesus, mary and Adam and Eve) have a stand up row about whose fault it is that the world is in such a mess. Springer's conclusion is that "there's no right and wrong, everything is holy": a larger parody of his actually "be good to yourselves and each other" closing remarks.

Christian groups have said that the show is obscene and blasphemous, though many of the protests have come from people who have not seen it or refuse to watch it. Ironically, a number of Christians have been involved in the production, and they take a very different view.

A sympathetic review of the issues the show raises is contained in Simon Barrow's article, Jerry Springer - A Post-Christendom Opera? He points to the cultural gulf between many Christians and those who work in the media and entertainment business, the difficulties of handling religious offence, and the theological questions about what Christians are witnessing to in an age where dominant Christian assumptions no longer reign.

Ekklesia's Jonathan Bartley also says that Christians have missed the opportunity for a serious discussion about the meaning of the Gospel by getting hung up about bad language and portrayals of God and Jesus which dissent from cherished Christian understandings. We can't control what others say about us, he says. But we can make a positive contribution ourselves.

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2004-12-24T16:32:00.000Z

***CHRISTMASTIDE AND NEW YEAR GREETINGS***

See you in 2005...

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2004-11-11T07:20:00.000Z

[19.1] REVIEWS OF McGRATH

A number of review comments from leading scientists about Alister McGrath's new critique of Richard Dawkins (see yesterday's post) have appeared at the Blackwell site. Several of them are also Christians. But Francis Collins, Director of the National Human Genome Research Project is not. Google's cache on the book is here. Dawkins has yet to reply. It should be a lively debate, following on from the biologist's public encounters with Keith Ward, formerly Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, in the late '90s.

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2004-11-10T07:34:00.000Z

[18.1] GENES, MEMES AND GOD

Bishop David Atkinson, the Anglican co-chair of MTAG (and a former scientist himself) recommends that we read the new book by Alister McGrath: Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes and the Meaning of Life (Blackwell, Oxford, 22 October 2004, £9.99).

The author writes about this project as follows:

'Is atheism losing its appeal? At first sight, this might seem an absurd question. After all, leading atheist Richard Dawkins recently topped Prospect magazine's poll of public intellectuals, while Jonathan Miller's heavily promoted BBC4 series A Brief History of Disbelief started its run last week, proclaiming that atheism is the wisdom of our age. Only fools and charlatans, it seems, would dare to disagree.

'We have heard all this before, of course. For more than a century, leading sociologists, anthropologists and psychologists have declared that their children - or surely their grandchildren - would live to see the dawn of a new era in which the illusions of religion would be outgrown. Yet there are ominous straws in the wind suggesting that now it is atheism that is in trouble.

'Atheism, once seen as Western culture's hot date with the future, is losing its appeal. Its confident predictions of the demise of religion seem hopelessly out of place.

'Celebrity preoccupation with the kabbalah or New Age beliefs is easily dismissed as superficial - yet it is a telling sign of our times. It reflects a deep-seated conviction that there is more to life than what we see around us.

'Surging interest in spirituality and growing impatience with the intellectual arrogance and intolerance of media atheists is leaving atheism stranded on a modernist sandbank.
Furthermore, its intellectual credentials are under fire. Dawkins, atheism's most articulate and influential proponent, argues that we will - or ought to - abandon religious ideas as children abandon their innocent and naive belief in Santa Claus.

'It is time for us to grow up, he tells us, "leave the crybaby phase, and finally come of age".

'Yet Dawkins' arguments simply do not lead to that conclusion. Nor do they stand up to critical examination. Dawkins' rhetoric implies that the natural sciences constitute an intellectual superhighway to atheism; but his logic fails to deliver on this promise.

'He seems to have made the gradual transition from a scientific populariser to a dogmatic anti-religious propagandist more suited to the 19th than the 21st century.

'In part, my reason for writing Dawkins' God - the first book-length study of how he moves from his scientific presuppositions to atheist conclusions - was concern about the quality of his engagement with religious issues.

'For example, he ignores the awkward fact that the history and philosophy of science raise the most serious doubts about whether any worldview - atheist or religious - can be constructed on scientific grounds.

'Dawkins' approach simply airbrushes away problems, such as the philosophical difficulties raised by moving from observation to theory or deciding on the "best explanation" of what is observed.

'If the great debate about God is to be determined solely on scientific grounds, the outcome can only be agnosticism - a principled, scrupulous insistence that the evidence is insufficient to allow a safe verdict to be reached. Either a decision cannot be reached at all or it must be reached on other, non-scientific grounds.

'As the late Stephen Jay Gould, America's leading evolutionary biologist, insisted, the natural sciences simply cannot adjudicate on the God question. If the sciences are used as the basis of either atheism or religious beliefs, they are misused. So need atheism worry about its future? Miller and Dawkins clearly think not. But I wonder.

'Maybe it was once brave and intellectually sophisticated to dismiss those who believe in God as deluded, unthinking fools. Now it just seems outdated, arrogant and intolerant.

'I hope we can move beyond shopworn rhetoric and have a serious discussion about the evidential basis for atheism and its future.

'As a former atheist myself, though, I wonder how much longer it can rely on recycling the weary and increasingly unconvincing cliches of yesteryear while overlooking the shocking legacy of institutional atheism in the 20th century.'

Alister McGrath is professor of historical theology at Oxford University.

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2004-10-20T05:21:00.000Z

[17.1] INTO THE LABYRINTH - MTAG LATEST

Anne Richards writes:

Imagine entering a labyrinth and traversing its paths. You encounter a heap of wreckage and twisted metal, scrapped cars, all the junk of human waste. What does this mean? What are you supposed to think? A little further on and you encounter a huge cross, hung with wine bottles, pouring with water and shot through with brilliant light. What is this? What is this water and poured out wine? Even further on and you are blasted with the heat of flaming boulders, the earth caught fire. What is this encounter? Is it God?

This story of a Labyrinth experience set the scene for our last meeting and underlines the method we are now using for our work. Our material is not about interpreting people’s experiences, re-reading them and re-presenting them as Christian discourse, but enabling people to have experiences and helping them to name for themselves the God who is disturbing them, calling them, urging them to live fully as they are intended to do.

If we prescribe what we will say and think and feel before we enter the labyrinth, if we’ve already got the interpretation lined up, then we are denying to ourselves the element of awe and wonder, of being surprised by the God of surprises, of being shocked or overwhelmed. David Ford reminds us in The Shape of Living about the importance of being overwhelmed by the power and presence of the living God and this overwhelming is something that our work on the experience of our senses offers.

Central to our discussion at this meeting was the sense of taste: taste and see the Lord your God is good. In our rich western society, eating is largely divorced from the experience of being hungry. We live in the time of the celebrity chef, the chic ambience of restaurants, the pleasure (?) of receiving a coin sized roundel of meat calling hopelessly to the elegant green leaf on the farther shore of a delicate china plate. We go on diets, we binge and fast. We worry endlessly about foods that are ‘good’ for us, foods that are ‘bad’ for us. We are greedy and wasteful. We get fat. We die.

And elsewhere of course, people do not get fat. They have little or nothing to eat. And they die.

The Son of Man came eating and drinking. But who did the cooking and the washing up? The risen Lord cooked breakfast, offered hospitality and the sharing of food. The risen life offers this physical reality and sense experience: taste and see.

So in reaching out to people outside the church, we shouldn’t be telling them about food but starting with real ingredients: taste and see. It’s no good telling them about God and expecting them to believe our experiences offered to them as dream food, beyond their ken. We have forgotten that God’s command is to live. George Herbert knew it:

You must sit down sayes Love and taste my meat
And I did sit and eat.

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2004-10-19T08:09:00.000Z

[16.1] NEW VIDEOS EXPLORE LEADERSHIP FOR GOSPEL COMMUNICATION

Developing Shared Leadership and Leadership Stories – two videos (November 2004) £8.99 each or £14.99 for the set.

Exclusive footage from the 2003-4 ‘Future Church Conference’ of Building Bridges of Hope, the leading ecumenical project supporting missional church.

BBH explores the practicalities of mission accompaniment and communicating the Gospel effectively today.

In the first video (55 minutes) eight church initiatives across Britain and Ireland share their insights. The second video (89 minutes) looks at the ‘how and why’ of empowering church leadership with vision and values.

Containing a group study leaflet, these videos are hands-on rather than ‘made for TV’. The official publication date is 15 November 2004. Email here for further information

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2004-10-16T22:54:00.000Z

[15.1] ENGAGING THE BIBLE

Many people in contemporary society assume that the Bible has nothing to say to the ordinary world of work, leisure, lifestyle, innovation and the political vision for the well-being of society. One of MTAG's consultants, David Spriggs, works for Bible Society, which is currently working in four sectors concerned with making just such a connection: education, politics, the arts and the media.

"We are trying to demonstrate how the biblical narrative can provide an alternative vision for public life. Public theology in public engagement is a project seeking to make the Bible heard in cultural and public life, while a vision for the renewal of public life is an initiative in the Bristol area that aims to put the Bible back into community life and public debate."

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2004-10-15T14:11:00.000Z

[14.1] EXPRESS TRAINS TO HEAVEN?

"Classically, evangelical faith has used this Gospel in a relentless attempt to drive people into heaven. In my world, such threats drive more people out of the church." So writes John Linscheid in a challenging reflection on St John's Gospel which first appeared in The Other Side magazine, which is sadly about to close. "The people I know have diverse spiritualities. We discover God in a million places where 'normal' Christianity finds only danger... Most of us are or once were deeply committed to the Christian church. At one or another epiphany, we turned a corner in our lives. We experienced our turning point as a liberating new beginning in our spiritual as well as our personal lives. But we found the church resistant or even hostile to our new direction."

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2004-10-07T17:47:00.000Z

[13.1] LEARNING ACROSS CULTURES

The 'encounter with the Other' is an everyday affair and yet a tricky thing, potentially prone to misunderstandings. It is not always easy to cope with the outcome of cross-cultural communication. Yet like others skills it is one where conscious learning and awareness are possible, as for example in the intercultural education programme of the Bavarian Church's mission board. This paper was given in the context of an international, inter-cultural seminar for Germans and overseas Christians working in Germany. It raises important issues for the communication of the Gospel in a cross-cultural context.

"We learn [not just by confrontation] but by puzzlement... What does 'learning by puzzlement' mean? In an intercultural situation it is unavoidable that people are puzzled or embarrassed. This is not only a disadvantage but also an opportunity. You just have to help people to use their own puzzlement or embarrassment in a positive way. The intercultural situation provides you with different approaches, cultural views on one issue. What might be a taboo because of cultural reasons for yourself isn’t a taboo for a participant from a different culture. Learning by puzzlement would mean to accept that things can also be seen in a different way."

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2004-09-27T21:16:00.000Z

[12.1] SEARCHING IN THE STARS

A new poll says that residents of Britain between the ages of 18 to 24 were almost twice as likely to believe in horoscopes than in the Bible (62 percent versus 38 percent).

"Horoscopes are fine for a bit of fun and entertainment, but if you take them seriously, they are very dangerous," an unnamed Church of England spokesman told The Telegraph. "The Church is aware of its difficulties in reaching young people, and is looking at new ways of attracting them away from misleading concepts like astrology and towards the message of God and the Bible."

Comments sociologist Robin Gill: "[Such] beliefs, however lacking in social function, may well be symptomatic of problems of personal identity -- as well as a general dissatisfaction with Christianity and secularism alike."

(Picked up by the Christianity Today weblog).

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2004-09-21T09:00:00.000Z

[11.1] BELIEVING WITHOUT BELONGING?

The report of the group working on Christian witness and formation in the context of post-modernity can be found here on the World Council of Churches' mission and evangelism website. It stems from a consultation in Breklum, 2002.

Some of the key learning points were identified as follows:

* Are we willing to be an alternative rather than rushing in to arrogate ourselves as the alternative? Some Christians fear this language, but we see it as an opportunity not a deprivation. The biblical vocation is to say ‘we testify’, ‘we propose’, ‘we witness’ on the basis of the God who dwells with us in Christ and as such is revealed as beyond our instrumental control.
* It would help to revisit the relation between theology and economics, rooted in a re-reading of those biblical traditions that point towards the need for community as the fundamental orientation of life.
* Our founding documents are ‘texts under negotiation’ (Professor Walter Brueggemann), part of an ongoing argument within Christianity about the meaning of God’s ways with us. It is argument not war insofar as it is bounded by fellowship. Within that argument it is necessary to seek biblical and tradition-derived resources for a positive response to human diversity – receiving it in communion, rather than perceiving it as threat.
* This negotiation of our texts can also be part of a dialogue with those of other faiths and convictions, whereby we challenge one another to revisit our own traditions in search for the roots of a fresh kind of unity (one that takes seriously the destructive forces in our midst).
* ‘Not knowing’ can be hopeful – “He is not there” (because he is risen, a fact that means hope coming back to us from ‘off the page’). But sometimes not knowing can also be an excuse for resignation. It ought not to be.
* Authority cannot be based on mere control and ‘knock-down truth’: in the gospel life it arises from tangible authenticity, integrity, encounter and daily lived experience among people. “Don’t tell me, show me.”
* Tradition can be re-evaluated as a call to conversion, as the story of faithfulness in ongoing change, rather than a block on change.
* We can question the contemporary concept of relationship as ‘competition’.
* We need to ask what the basis is of being human – is there some ‘baseline’?
* We need inner and outer dialogue because we are part of the culture. (Complex interrelation between ‘church’, ‘culture’ etc.)
* Actually secularisation gives spirituality another chance – enabling us to lose our ‘shame’ about the gospel, but also challenging us to think what it means and how it is received today, as in every age.
* Construed in certain ways, postmodernism also seems to loosen the taboo on God. But which God and how?
* There is an important task to work out how to discern the ways people express spirituality in secular life and how appropriately to respond to them.
* We need to be in a process of change but also to be able to address the question of the human search for trust and stability in life.
* The need to be dialogical is rooted in our belief that the Holy Spirit blows at will and can speak to anyone anywhere.
*Therefore Christians have to develop listening as a spiritual discipline.

Comment on this post: Mission Theological Advisory Group

2004-09-17T13:50:00.000Z

[10.1] PUBLIC FAITH IN BRITAIN TODAY

Paul Avis (ed.), Public Faith? The State of Religious Belief and Practice in Britain (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2003), ISBN 0-281-05531-9 (pbk), 145 pp.

'The remit of this important collection of essays is both appropriately ambitious and necessarily modest. Ambitious in that it seeks, in the context of renewed public policy interest in matters religious and spiritual, to provide an overview of issues surrounding belief and practice in Britain today; one that focuses both on the statistical, methodological and hermeneutical issues, and on the implications for mission and ministry in today’s churches. Modest because, in the compass of a relatively short book, the detailed contours of such a vast field of interactive enquiry cannot be mapped fully.

'What is attempted instead is a set of vivid, engaged snapshots, backed by thorough investigation, from nine authors who each possess acknowledged expertise in their overlapping disciplines. These include sociology, psychology, ecclesiology, census and survey research, theology, statistics and education. The overall impact is to highlight fresh perspectives, challenges and contentions in the ‘state of belief’ debate. This is achieved for those seeking an intelligent introduction to the subject by pointing them to some horizons and pitfalls, and for existing researchers and commentators by stimulating them towards the pursuit of greater investigative depth. A tricky combination, but one realised well overall. ...

'Anne Richards is especially stimulating. In engaging with the multi-faceted worlds of contemporary spirituality beyond the church, she offers careful but imaginative frameworks for encouraging risky Christian endeavour. She also manages to take human experience seriously, and to combine this with interpretative flair.

'Neither baptising nor dismissing belief beyond the realms of institutional belonging, Richards draws both upon the ground-breaking work of David Hay and Kate Hunt in ‘understanding the spirituality of people who don’t go to church’ and upon the investigations of the ecumenical Mission Theological Advisory Group in which she has played a key role.'

Excerpt from a longer review by Simon Barrow for the International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church, September 2004. More here.

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2004-09-16T18:34:00.000Z

[9.2] NORTHERN IRISH PERSPECTIVES

As we anticipated, the MTAG session with David Porter from ECONI (Evangelical Contribution on Northern Ireland) was extremely fruitful. The history of this network began in 1987. ECONI seeks to explore the ways in which Christian faith has become submerged in the cultures of 'loyalism' and 'nationalism', and to ask what an alternative, biblical witness would look like. It works with both Protestants and Catholics.

The implications of this stance for practical reconciliation of people, communities and memories is considerable; likewise for effective Christian witness in a situation where the language of faith has frequently been colonised and abused.

We noted that all this creates a very different agenda from the one that emerges from engagement with religious / spiritual pluralism on the one hand and and growing secularity on the other. At the present time MTAG lacks Irish membership. But encounters like this one with David are an important corrective to the biases that otherwise creep in to our work.

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2004-09-16T18:27:00.000Z

[9.1] BODY LANGUAGES

Body Languages: Sense-making Faith is the draft title for the MTAG resource book which we worked at during our very fruitful Belfast residential meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Of course we would welcome alternative suggestions... As has previously been observed, it looks at the realm of the sense and the connectivity of the body (individually and corporately) as the place to discover and respond to God's grace. The book will not be an academic treatise. It will be aimed at those working in local churches, in Christian education and evangelism.

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2004-09-14T04:26:00.000Z

[8.2] WHOSE ASS IS BEING WHIPPED?

Anne Richards writes:

'In MTAG recently, we have had some fascinating discussion about how we share faith and how faith sharing through personal witness relates (if at all) to the historic faith of the Church and its traditional teaching.

'Here are two examples.

'We thought about the story of Balaam's ass (Number 22) and what it has to say about telling our story in contemporary society. The context is the request to a diviner to change contemporary events by speaking negatively (a curse) rather than positively (a blessing). We can see this positive/negative speech all around us, from the larger political scene (Lord Hutton's enquiry,; media spin; manifesto promises; denigration of opposing parties and agencies) to the fortune telling of popular culture (horoscopes; psychics; mediums, etc). Manipulation of some 'truth' or other is often the name of the game. Where is God's truth in all this?

'As for Balaam, so for us. The angel of the Lord stands squarely before Balaam in the middle of the road and he just doesn't see what is so plainly before his eyes. Prepossessed by his journey and his mission, he doesn't know why his donkey is acting up until the creature starts talking. The unexpected speech of the dumb animal shocks Balaam into remembering what his gift and purpose is all about. It is God's truth that we are called to proclaim, not some lovely story that we have manufactured for ourselves. It is a tough truth, and many will not like it. But Balaam's words are instructive to us now:

' "I have come to you now, but do I have power to say just anything? The word God puts in my mouth, that is what I must say" (v38).

'MTAG is currently investigating the relevance and use of Christian apologetic in our contemporary culture, awash with different spiritualities and different kinds of truth. We too are on missionary journeys within this culture, but can we 'say just anything'?

'In producing our resources to help people share their faith, we have come across an interesting phenomenon - people can be encouraged and helped to share what their faith means to them, but when it comes down to explaining to others outside the Church what the Church teaches about various issues, people default to their own meaningful story, personal view or sense of moral values.

'So, for example, in talking about the forgiveness that God offers to those who truly repent, some Christians will have their own list of the irredeemable: the Hitlers and the Harold Shipmans and the Ian Huntleys. God, our God, is not for them.

'There is a challenge here which says that Christian teaching, lied out in Christian discipleship, has its own demons and dodgy narratives, filled with blessing and cursing. So are we watching out for the angel of the Lord? Whose ass is being whipped? Whose ass is talking?'

Comment on this post: Mission Theological Advisory Group

2004-09-14T01:18:00.000Z

[8.1] MAKING SENSE OF THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD

In a recent lecture on inter-religious understanding and responses to global violece, given in Egypt, Dr Rowan Williams chose to explain to a mainly Muslim audience the meaning of Christian thought about the nature of God:

The belief that God could have a son is, for the faithful Muslim, a belief suggesting that God needs something other than himself and is subject to the processes of limited bodies by ‘begetting’ a child. How can such a God be truly free and sovereign? For we know that he is able to bring the world into being by his word alone.

Yet these anxieties do not belong only to Muslims. Egypt was, in the first centuries of the Christian era, the location of great debates on just such matters. Indeed, without the contribution of Egypt, Christian theology would have been infinitely poorer, for many of the greatest minds of that period were natives of Alexandria. And one of the great concerns of these thinkers and their successors was this: if Christians say that the eternal Word and power of God was fully present in Jesus, son of Mary, can we avoid saying this in such a way as to imply that God is subject to a physical process, or that God has a second being alongside him? These Christian sages believed as strongly as any Muslim that God was self-sufficient and free, and that he could not be affected or limited by physical processes and did not act as a physical cause among others. They say quite explicitly that when we speak of the father ‘begetting’ the Son, we must put out of our minds any suggestion that this is a physical thing, a process like the processes of the world.

Those Christian thinkers and their successors developed a doctrine which tried to clarify this: they said that the name ‘God’ is not the name of a person like a human person, a limited being with a father and mother and a place that they inhabit within the world. ‘God’ is the name of a kind of life – eternal and self-sufficient life, always active, needing nothing. And that life is lived eternally in three ways which are made known to us in the history of God’s revelation to the Hebrew people and in the life of Jesus. There is a source of life, an expression of life and a sharing of life. In human language we say, ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit’, but we do not mean one God with two beings alongside him, or three gods of limited power. Just as we say, ‘Here is my hand, and these are the actions my one hand performs’, but it is not different from the actions of my five fingers, so with God: this is God, the One, the Living and Self-subsistent, but what God does is not different from the life which is eternally at the same time a source and an expression and a sharing of life. Since God’s life is always an intelligent and purposeful life, each of these dimensions of divine life can be thought of as a centre of mind and love; but this does not mean that God ‘contains’ three different individuals, separate from each other as human individuals are.

And Christians believe that this life enters into ours in a limited degree. When God takes away our evildoing and our guilt, when he forgives us and sets us free, he breathes new life into us, as he breathed life into Adam at the first. That breathing into us we call the ‘Spirit’. As we become mature in our new life, we become more and more like the expression of divine life, the Word whom we encounter in Jesus. Because Jesus prayed to the source of his life as ‘Father’, we call the eternal expression of God’s life the ‘Son’. And so too we pray to the source of divine life in the way that Jesus taught us, and we say ‘Father’ to this divine reality.

But in no way does the true Christian say that the life and action of God could be divided into separate parts, as if it were a material thing. In no way does the true Christian say that there is more than one God or that God needs some other in order to act or that God promotes some other being to share his glory. There is one divine action, one divine will; yet (like the fingers of the hand) there are three ways in which that life is real, and it is only in those three ways that the divine life is real – as source and expression and sharing. It is because of those three ways in which divine life exists that Christians speak as they do about what it means to grow in holiness.

And the Christian also says something which may again be a source of disagreement. God is a loving God, as we all agree; but, says the Christian, God does not love simply because he decides to love. He is always, eternally, loving. His very nature, his definition is love. And the interaction and relation between the three ways in which God lives, the source and the expression and the sharing, is eternally the way God exists. The three centres of divine action, which we call Father, Son and Spirit, pour out the divine life to each other for all eternity, a sort of perfect circle of giving and receiving. And the only word we can use for that relationship of pouring out and giving is love. So as we grow in holiness, we become closer and closer in our actions and thoughts to the complete self-giving that always exists perfectly in God’s life. Towards this fullness we are all called to travel and grow. More.

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2004-09-13T13:12:00.000Z

[7.2] UNDERSTANDING MEDIATING FAITH

'As I began to write [a] review of Jonathan Hill's The History of Christian Thought (Lion Publishing, 2004) a useful distraction surfaced. BBC Radio 4's 'Start The Week' programme, a weekly airing of cultural, literary, social and scientific thought, was broadcasting in the background. The topic was the task of seeking truth, justice and reconciliation in South Africa, in post-war Iraq and in Israel/Palestine. Alongside a journalist, a politician and a psychologist in the studio was an Archbishop. Much of the discussion revolved around religion as a force for both good and evil.

'Most of it was encouraging. Here we had a Christian leader who could acknowledge the deep problems posed by misshaped faith, a non-believing activist who nevertheless considered himself a 'student of the teachings of Jesus', a practitioner interested how our mental / spiritual maps shape the world, and a commentator who brought questions about the internal logic of Judaism and Islam to bear on the issues concerned.

'Nevertheless, even among a well-educated forum, there were some pretty superficial judgements flying around, too. What's more, I couldn't help thinking how difficult it would be to hold a conversation as good as this (let alone better than) in many churches. Whatever is going on ‘out there’, most of our faith communities remain closed in upon themselves -- talking about the wider world as a problem or as an opportunity, perhaps, but often finding it difficult to deploy a wide ranging understanding that would enable us to face the lesions at the core of the Gospel message.

'Jonathan Hill's excellent volume is surely part of the intellectual armoury that can help Christians to shift the balance in favour of faith that seeks understanding and (just as important) understanding that mediates faith. Not 'intellectual' as in obscure, difficult or elitist, I should stress; but as in the necessity of loving God with the head as well as the heart, particularly in a fast-changing, forgetful world.' More.

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2004-09-13T13:01:00.000Z

[7.1] ACCOUNTING FOR FAITH AFTER BESLAN

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, was interviewed by John Humphreys on the BBC Radio 4 'Today' programme last week, following the terrorist killing of around 350 people, mostly children, in Beslan. He faced questions on the meaning of belief in God in the light of such horrors. These excerpts are courtesy of the Church Times:

Where was God yesterday morning?
Where was God? Where was God in the Aberfan disaster? Where was God on 9/11? The short answer is that God is where God always is, that is, with those who are trying to comfort and bring light in any such situation. I would guess in such a situation - and how could one begin to imagine the nightmare in the school - there must have been older children putting arms around younger children. You might see God there.

But, in a world in which human decisions are free - even free for the most appalling evil like this - God does not dictate and intervene.

I suppose we all have the sense that some kind of line has been crossed here: that people can not only calculate that the death of children will serve their purpose, but actually sit with suffering children for days, watching in a calculating way. That is the kind of decision which, yes, you have to call evil.

[On the question of freedom of choice] Freedom is a word thrown around. It is a word that has big and dramatic resonances, but it often means very, very small things, a very small gesture.
But choice is denied to people who are victims? That is what it is to be a victim: your choice is restricted; you are imprisoned.

That is what God allows; so he doesn't give us a choice, does he?
It is a fact that people exercise different levels of freedom. One person's freedom interferes with another's. That is why I do not believe that freedom is the essence of Christianity. It is one of those crucial aspects of it, but I would still come back to the question: what is it, in a situation of this dreadful captivity, that an ordinary child can still do with mind and heart?

Does the Church not preach that God is merciful?
Of course, this is nothing to do with God's mercy, it has to do with the kind of reality that the created world is in, which we make our futures in relation to God.

God calls us to co-operate with what he longs for; what he wishes to see, which is justice, which is love, and we are free to resist. Sometimes people resist violently and horribly, as in this case.

So what do you say to people who say: 'I simply can't believe any longer; this is not a good world.'
What I want to ask is: what is it that makes you find the torture and death of children so appalling? What is it that makes you value human beings?

The faith that Christians hold, and other religious people, is that each person has that absolute value in the eyes of God, which means that it is impossible to treat them as a means to your own ends. It requires of us the most self-forgetful respect, the most generous, the most outgoing engagement with other persons. If there is no eternal love focused on each and every individual, including the most vulnerable, including the most unimportant, then it is possible for persons to be used as tools, as objects. More.

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2004-09-12T13:46:00.000Z

[6.2] OUR CURRENT WORK REMIT

1. In the Mission Theological Advisory Group there has been a tradition of producing lengthy reports for decision-makers and shapers in the churches. This time we are challenged to produce a series of booklets and hands-on resources.

2. We were given the brief of fresh approaches to 'missionary apologetics'. We have actually spent most of our time getting back into the 'Gospel and popular culture' interaction, with an awareness of its religious, political and cultural resonances.

4. Our focal idea is now to produce materials on the senses - smell, sight, touch, sound, taste and intuition/thought - in the context of the body. Bodily existence is a common human experience across time and culture, and in terms of the Gospel it is offered transformation through the death and risen life of Jesus.

5. This approach enables us to be practical, narrative and experimental - rather than theoretical, propositional and dogmatic. It also enables us to share, at least in part, a 'common language' with those outside the Christian household: that doesn't rely on dodgy epistemic assumptions.

6. We don't want to be individualistic either. We want to look at the senses as media for persons-in-relation (a biblical perspective) and to be conscious of the relations between the body and the body politic - as well as what difference connecting these to the Body of Christ makes.

7. That, I hope, gives you a general idea. I should stress that it's my interpretation, and the group are good at seeing things differently - in a creative way!

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2004-09-12T13:34:00.000Z

[6.1] MTAG MEETING IN BELFAST

The Mission Theological Advisory Group will be meeting residentially in Belfast, Northern Ireland, from 14-15 September 2004. The aim of the gathering is to begin the writing projects entailed in the latest phase of MTAG's work, and exploration of the relationship between spirituality and culture through the medium of the senses and the body.

The meeting takes place at St Clement's, a Roman Catholic retreat centre five miles outside Belfast city centre. The group will also meet with David Porter, Director of ECONI, an imaginative and innovative project from within the heart of the evangelical Protestant community of northern Ireland aiming at theological understanding and practical reconciliation.

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2004-09-11T13:23:00.000Z

[5.1] MUSICALS A BRIDGE TO BELIEF?

From The Guardian newspaper - a report and comment on a new SCM Press book by Ian Bradley, Reader in Practical Theology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.

"Churches have a great deal to learn from modern musicals and could usefully incorporate in their services the spiritual themes and the pastoral care they offer their audiences, a new book argues.

"Ian Bradley argues in the book 'You've Got to Have a Dream', to be published next month [October 2004], that musicals like 'Les Misérables' and 'The Rocky Horror Show', not to mention more likely candidates such as 'The Sound of Music' and 'Jesus Christ Superstar', now form a more common means for people to gain their philosophy of life and spiritual and theological perspectives than attending church.

"The book argues: 'One of the main reasons why musicals connect so powerfully with so many people is that they appeal to all the senses and offer a total, rather than just a one-dimensional, experience. They gain their impact through being performed. The same is surely true of religion.'
"Mr Bradley points out that musicals as a theatrical form have northern European and Jewish roots rather than stemming from the light operettas of Catholic southern Europe." More.

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2004-09-10T13:14:00.000Z

[4.1] FAITH AND POPULAR CULTURE EXPLORED

Several people have recommended 'Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in Popular Culture' by William D. Romanowski. Publisher: Brazos Press (April 1, 2001). ISBN: 1587430096

From Amazon.com: "Romanowski writes for the millions of "Christians who drink beer" those who, in tension with evangelical mores, partake of the fruits of popular culture... His scope is ambitious, including a theologically informed chapter on the nature of culture itself, to treatment of sex, violence and materialism, to a thoughtful exposition of the story structure of the typical Hollywood film.

"Grounded in Christian principles, this accessible and engaging book offers an informed and fascinating approach to popular culture. William Romanowski provides affectionate yet astute analysis of familiar, well-loved movies and television characters from 'Pretty Woman' to Homer Simpson. He speaks with expertise on films from 'Titanic' to 'Casablanca' and music from Mozart to Springsteen, bringing sources as diverse as Shakespeare and Allan Bloom into the discussion.

"Romanowski's confessional approach affirms a role for popular culture in faithful living. Practical, analytical approaches to content, meaning, and artistic style offer the tools to participate responsibly and imaginatively in popular cultural activities. A quick and enjoyable read... "

Sample pages here.

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2004-09-06T23:04:00.000Z

[3.2] OUR SITE FEED

The MTAG blog now has a site feed to enable it to be syndicated across the web and throughout the blogosphere: http://inter-mission.blogspot.com/atom.xml. From the middle of September 2004 onwards, when we will be in Belfast for a major writing session, we will be adding new material to this site and catching you up on our plans and activities.

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2004-09-06T22:59:00.000Z

[3.1] 2004 FUTURE CHURCH CONFERENCE

20-21 October 2004
High Leigh Conference Centre
Hoddesdon Herts EN11 8SG, UK

THEME: "Sharing Christian Faith & Values in a Post-Christendom Context"
with Dr Stuart Murray-Williams
Conference Accompanier: Dr Helen Cameron

* How do we share Christian faith in a post-Christian climate?
* How do we share faith respectfully and with integrity?
* How do we share faith with people of different and no faith?

The Conference is inter-active with speakers, accompanier reflections, question time and some buzz groups. An inter-generational, multi-cultural approach with British and Irish input.

Further details here. Book early!

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2004-08-11T09:37:00.000Z

[2.1] WHAT DOES PULLMAN EXPRESS?

One of the series of books explored by MTAG at the end of 2003 was Philip Pullman's trilogy, His Dark Materials. Even more so than Harry Potter, Pullman's darker, ostensibly anti-religious storytelling has excited controversy within church circles. A few months ago Archbishop Rowan Williams made some positive comments about the dramatic production of the books at the National Theatre in London.

The Ekklesia website reports:

What Dr Williams appears to have spotted, which Pullman's critics have not, is that the author's ire is directed less at religious values than at institutions, particularly Catholicism. The author was partly brought up by his Anglican clergyman grandfather.

The Archbishop argues that Pullman has a perverse view of religion. "I read the books and the plays as a sort of thought experiment: this is after all an alternative world, or set of worlds," he said.

"What would the church look like, what would it inevitably be, if it believed only in a God who could be rendered powerless and killed and needed unceasing protection? It would be a desperate, repressive tyranny.

"Pullman's views are clear; but he is a good enough writer to leave some spaces. This is a church without creation, or redemption, certainly without Christ."

The full story can be found here.

Others have condemned the trilogy outright. The Association of Christian Teachers reportedly described it as 'dangerous', and a reviewer in The Catholic Herald suggested it was "fit for the bonfire".

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2004-08-10T17:52:00.000Z

[1.1] MTAG'S WEBLOG - WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?

Welcome to the new weblog from the Mission Theological Advisory Group (MTAG), the people who brought you The Search for Faith and the Mission of the Church (1997) and Presence and Prophecy (2002).

MTAG is what it says on the can: it's a group (made up of nominees from different churches in Britain and Ireland), it is concerned with mission theology (how the church thinks about its vocation in terms of basic and critical categories of faith), and it is advisory (to the Archbishop's Council of the Church of England, and to the Churches' Commission on Mission of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland).

In those terms the Mission Theological Advisory Group is an 'official' group, approved of by one major denomination and by one of the recognised ecumenical instruments in these islands. The people who make it up are not 'church delegates', however. They are persons chosen for their creativity and expertise. Nor does MTAG claim to speak on behalf of the Christian denominations: its role is to offer imaginative ideas and possibilities for re-engaging Christian witness and service as a resource for the churches.

Part of the aim of this weblog is to make MTAG 'appropriately visible'. Let's unpack that a bit.

Much of what we get up to is 'among ourselves' - meetings, email, reading, consultancy, phone calls... the usual stuff of conferring. Then, from time to time, we surface and offer a big book to an excited public. Yup, you've checked the links and figured that.

The trouble is, much of the most exciting stuff doesn't get into the books (we don't want them to be that long), or it gets lost in the immediacy of the moment. So guess what? We thought that a weblog would be a way of letting more people in on the act as things develop.

This fits with our general direction - and with the current strand of work (looking at spirituality in general culture and how that relates to the task of commeding the Gospel in a sceptical and diverse environment). Indeed our current plan isn't to publish another big book, but a number of smaller, pratical resources.

But hang on, what about this 'appropriate' thing? Well, unlike some theological commissions, MTAG likes to let its hair down; to be a bit spontaneous. On the other hand, we take the task we have been given and our accountability to our sponsors (who have granted us a freedom to explore) very seriously. So there are limits to be observed: copyright, confidentialities, and so on.
Overall we hope that this weblog can be daring. We want to share the excitement of the journey of faith we are on. We believe that Christian life is stimulating and creative. But we need to stress that what we are offering here is 'in formation', not finished.

This means that the opinions and ideas shared here belong to those who wrote them - but they are not necessarily the opinion or conviction of MTAG as a whole, of the Church of England, or of the CTBI Churches' Commission on Mission or any of its member bodies.

If you find things in this log which stimulate and encourage you we will be pleased. Tell us so. If you find stuff that annoys or exasperates you, tell us that too. We'll include comments or responses when we can.

We think that this openness (not without its risks, you'll appreciate) is a good way of doing mission theology. We hope you agree.

For further information, please see the sidebar links.

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2004-08-09T06:35:00.000Z

[1.2] THIS WEBLOG IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION

I know they all say that, but it's true. We hope that Inter-mission will be fully operational in a short while. Meanwhile "watch this space", as they say. The intention, by the way, is to put up at least a couple of posts a week. We'll see how that goes...

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