Holy Week: An opportunity for Christians to fetishise torture?

A well-known British writer once said that he could never be a Christian because of the way we venerate the Cross. He regarded it as fetishising torture, which seemed just a bit sick to him. It is a wry chattering-classes remark, but doesn't come close to understanding the real meaning of the Cross.

What we remember week by week as we celebrate the Eucharist, and focus on particularly in Holy Week, is an act of self-giving so powerful that it inspires us to persist in countering the self-serving behaviour that is so deeply rooted in human nature.

The Cross is a reminder of what society is capable of when confronted with a force of goodness that it finds threatening to power, vested interests or the status quo. Christ crucified draws our attention away from ourselves and onto innocence made to suffer at the hands of humans. The Cross incriminates us in the daily injustices that the world continues to mete out to those who do not deserve them.

Even if the crucifixion was nothing more than a myth or a parable it would still give pause for thought about our actions and conduct. Imagine a story in which perfect goodness walks the earth. How would we respond? The answer of course is not to embrace it but to become so uncomfortable, so convicted by our own comparative shortcomings and weaknesses, that such goodness would have to be got rid off. For this reason I believe the Cross has something to say to people of all faiths and none.

Christians of course view the cross as more than myth. It embodies the extraordinary idea that a merciful God would place himself at the mercy of flawed and selfish humanity. This is an act of humility so potent that to be reminded of it whenever we break bread, and especially now in the events of Easter, cannot help but challenge us to reorientate our lives away from the gravitational pull of our own selfishness.

As we enter the season when the Cross is most contemplated I will see not only a generous God hanging there but also the suffering of all humanity, confident that the arms of Christ are reaching out to embrace us in another way of being.

gay audiences love a coming-out movie. Christians of all people should understand why.

Last week the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival finished its run at the BFI on the South Bank, albeit a much curtailed affair this year due to funding cuts. Nonetheless, as it has done for the last 25 years, the festival drew on the output of film-makers from around the world in a diverse programme of queer movies.

For all the variety on offer - drama, documentary, shorts, comedy - there are recurring themes found in each year's pick of films. The impact of the AIDS epidemic is one. Or the effect on particular cultures or characters as they encounter homosexuality would be another - last year's Eyes Wide Open powerfully explores a same-sex relationship in Jerusalem's Orthodox Jewish community, and has gone on to wider cinema and TV release.

Films which explore the struggle of the protaganist in coming out are a perennial favourite with gay audiences. Last Monday's matinee, the very sweet comedy Sasha, played to a packed house. What is it about coming out stories that draw gay audiences in again and again?

For many, of course, there will be resonances with their own struggle in coming to terms with who they are (which is not to presume that coming out is hard for everyone). While we are accustomed to think of coming out as the revelation of one's sexuality to friends and family, the first step is coming to terms with, and understanding, oneself. The process of doing so is perhaps a common bond with which gay audiences identify.

It wouldn't hurt those who decry homosexuality as a 'lifestyle choice' to enter more fully into the narrative of those for whom coming out was far from what they initially hoped or imagined for themselves.

A coming out story presents a narrative arc that lends itself well to film-making, and should have an appeal far beyond gay audiences. To become more fully human, to overcome limiting social conditioning of family, friends or self, to realise one's full potential -- these are universal themes in movies of many genres. It is, for example, the subject of Billy Elliott.

Christians from those traditions that more readily embrace spirituality (who perhaps see conversion not as a moment in time but a lifelong process) will also understand the language of becoming more fully human, more whole. Coming to terms with who we really are, learning what it means to be free of the hold that our broken humanity has over us, setting aside lowest common denominator social norms to move on and grow in the love of God, is another kind of coming out.

These days it is hard to know which is more socially awkward - coming out as Christian or coming out as gay.

In both cases there is a learning to 'come home to oneself', an expression Timothy Radcliffe explores in Why Go To Church? He writes:

Repentance is, inseparably, an awakening to God, oneself and each other. Most sin is pretending to be someone else, admirable, or powerful or sexy, who will have value in other's eyes and one's own.

It is in stripping away such pretences and embracing humility - a grounded understanding about who and what we really are - that we can begin the journey towards wholeness that is sometimes also called holiness.

For some gay people the challenge is not to throw off one set of limiting self-beliefs only to become bound by a collective obsession with body image, hedonism or sexual liberation so easily found in the queer sub-culture.

And for Christians the journey towards wholeness must hold us in that place of humility that is far removed from the smug, self-satisfied judgementalism that too often leaks out of the Church and corrodes society.

the world doesn't need another blog about Rob Bell's new book

and he sure as hell doesn't need any more publicity...

But I have been thinking about why some Christians feel so threatened when you suggest Hell might not be real.

You see if you remove Hell from the picture it takes away the central plank of their marketing strategy. Every product or service is the solution to a problem, and a good sales campaign will point up the problem to remind you of why you should buy into what I'm selling. So if you're peddling religion, scaring people with the prospect of eternal torment is a great way to line up your pitch of getting them to become more like you and do what you want.

I have no doubt this works because it is the same strategy they taught us on day one of sales training in the financial services industry. "Mrs Jones, have you thought about how you and the children would survive if your husband suddenly passed away?" And as a look of alarm flits across her face you slide over a form and a pen. Helpfully you've filled out all the blanks. All she has to do is sign, and peace of mind can be hers forever. (At least until she dies and goes to Hell because, friends, I'm really not sure about some of her lifestyle choices...)

This approach was very popular in the middle ages, when the Church's leverage on superstitious and poorly educated people was at its height.

The really good news about Hell as a marketing strategy is that it fits right into the modern Christian's hectic time-poor schedule. No need to waste time on all that tiresome self-examination, or bleeding heart acts of love, welcoming of outcasts or challenging injustice. Jesus, who has got time for all that these days when there are souls to save?

The doctrine of Hell too easily appeals to those Christians who think it is their job to convert people, not the Holy Spirit, and who rely on sales techniques to bring people to Christ. Instead let's focus on living lives of personal example that witness to the love of God, and let him worry about judging others.

should the Daily Mail come with a mental health warning?

An enterprising young man wants to persuade his mother to stop reading the Daily Mail, so has set up a group on Facebook which lists all the paper's cancer scare stories over the last few years. It is an astonishing list, painstakingly linked to each article on the Mail's website - almost 150 carcinogens from flip-flops and hugging, to talcum powder and till receipts. Smoking isn't mentioned.

I remember Mike Yaconelli once saying that good satire doesn't always need to provide witty commentary. Sometimes it is simply enough to hold up a mirror to what someone has said or done. The Facebook list does just that, and speaks for a news agenda that plays on our fears and anxieties.

It is a little unfair, I suppose, to single out one newspaper. The front pages of papers are dominated by bad news, and can leave one gasping for hope amidst the litany of woes that are the headlines. What does our exposure to all this news of greed, violence, and catastrophe do to our state of mind?

Michael Moore's conclusion, in his film Bowling for Columbine, is that the anxiety created by the news agenda in the USA is responsible for the number of people who own - and consequently discharge - guns.

Others have suggested that levels of anxiety, depression, panic attacks and social withdrawal are linked to fear stoked by the news.

But it is not all bad news, of course. The media is limbering up for the overboard coverage they are sure to give the royal wedding. Sometimes a good news story can spread itself across a dozen pages of a tabloid newspaper. And remember the coverage given to the remarkable rescue of the Chilean miners?

There is another argument. We don't actually get enough bad news, because our diet of reality is diluted by celebrity gossip, political commentary or those feel-good 'And finally...' stories. Editors know that it is hard for us to swallow too much depressing reality and must leaven the mix to keep readers engaged. Attention-grabbing headlines, that draw us in by playing on our fears, give way to cheering human interest stories to remind us that everything is fine really.

Writing in the Church Times (£) a few months ago, Giles Fraser suggested that the instinct to tone down the news might have something to do with how we wish to see ourselves.

I wonder why it is women who write best about evil: Mary Midgley, Gitta Sereny, Gillian Rose, Hannah Arendt. Perhaps it is because, unlike men, they do not so readily refocus their distress at hearing [stories of human atrocities] into some passionate expression of retributive anger. This allows time and space for a more disturbing reality to dawn: that we might have more in common with the perpetrators than we are comfortable acknowledging.

News of inhuman treatment towards others is appalling to read. Part of that shock is realising the capacity of some people to do things we would never dream of. And yet perhaps within us is an understanding that what drives people to commit acts of terror, assault, abuse or murder is the same sorry collection of fears, insecurities, shame and hatred that we all have to confront within ourselves. We may not be driven to the same extremes, but which of us hasn't had moments when we could have cheerfully throttled a colleague or family member? Or fantasised about the 'disappearance' of a difficult person from a challenging situation?

Reading the paper may or may not be bad for our mental health. But perhaps it should prompt us to examine closely the state of our spiritual well-being.

there are never enough second-person pronouns around when you need them

The trouble with the English language these days is that we only have one word for 'you.' Even my rudimentary grasp of schoolboy French remembers that our nearest neighbours can distinguish between you, the individual, and you, a whole bunch of people (as well as you, a chum, and you, someone dead important).

That is has taken me this long to notice our deficiency in second-person pronouns suggests that it has not been the greatest obstacle to communication. Mostly we can figure out whether it is one person being addressed or a group of people from the context in which you appears. (While any good Glaswegian will helpfully get round the problem by using the plural youse - as in, "Are any of youse goin' doon the chip shop?")

Difficulties can occur when translating from a language with more than one form of you, into modern English. Sometimes the meaning is lost in translation.

Both Hebrew and Greek, the original languages of our scriptures, distinguish between singular and plural second-person pronouns. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove writes:

"My Greek professor at college was from Oklahoma. He liked to say that most of the you's in scripture are y'all's. That is, almost all of the second-person pronouns are plural in the New Testament. Same is true with the Hebrew. The Bible isn't addressed to a person but to a people."

Along with a wider cultural shift towards individualism, Christians too easily personalise their faith to something that is between God and them. Society often prefers it that way. "Religion is something that should be kept private," is a line columnists trot out whenever a public demonstration of faith makes the headlines.

We should be wary of too much emphasis on me. It is easy to see how the gospel of personal salvation so often preached can lead to a distorted faith that is self-centred rather than focused on one's place in a community as it relates to God.

God calls us to be part of his people, his community of the faithful, through whom we become partners in his mission. From the story of Israel to the emergence of the New Testament Church, the Bible is an account of the way that God is shaping his people to be a force for salvation to the nations.

Our personal faith, then, has to find its place and expression within the context of God's people. When somebody says, "I don't need the church to be a Christian," they are removing themselves from the very body through which God shapes their journey - and that of the world - towards wholeness.

This is why so much of scripture dwells on how we relate to each other. In his Sermon on the Mount, Christ sets out a blueprint for how we should live as part of the family of God. You (plural) are the salt of the earth. You (plural) are the light of the world. In today's gospel reading (Matthew 5.21-37) Jesus spells out how we must resolve disagreements and manage our anger towards each other before it destroys us.

His message, as pressing today as it was when he preached it, is, "Sort yourselves out. God has work for you to do. Together."

John O'Donohue on Prayer

I was looking for something appropriate to include in the parish news sheet, and found the following extract from John O'Donohue's book Eternal Echoes. There is a notion in Celtic Spirituality that some places are 'thin places' where the membrane separating heaven and earth feels like it could just break open. Places like Holy Island and Iona are popular with pilgrims because that sense of holiness feels stronger.

I find that same quality in John O'Donohue's writing, such as this passage about prayer:

One of the most tender images is the human person at prayer. When the body gathers itself before the Divine, a stillness deepens. The blaring din of distraction ceases and the deeper tranquillity within the heart envelops the body. To see someone at prayer is a touching sight. For a while they have become unmoored from the grip of society, work and role. It is as if they have chosen to enter into a secret belonging carried within the soul; they rest in that inner temple impervious to outer control or claiming. A person at prayer also evokes the sense of vulnerability and fragility. Their prayer reminds us that we are mere guests of the earth, pilgrims who always walk on unsteady ground, carrying in earthen vessels multitudes of longing.

To sit or kneel in prayer is visually our most appropriate physical presence. There is something right about this. It coheres with the secret structure of existence and reality, namely that we have a right to nothing. Everything that we are, think, feel and have is a gift. We have received everything, even the opportunity to come to the earth and walk awake in this wondrous universe. There are many people who have worked harder than us, people who have done more kind and holy things and yet they have received nothing. The human body gathered in prayer mirrors our fragility and inner poverty and it makes a statement recognizing the divine generosity that is always blessing us. To be gathered in prayer is appropriate. It is a gracious, reverential and receptive gesture. It states that, at the threshold of each moment, the gift of breath and blessing comes across to embrace us.

it isn't a proper wedding if there isn't a fight

As the evening of my niece's wedding drew to a close, I turned to my sister and said, "What a fabulous wedding. Everything went so well." She agreed, but added, "Hardly a proper Glasgow wedding though, was it? There wasn't a fight."

Setting aside the question of how deserved is the city of my birth's reputation, for most us weddings are more probably associated with joy, love and hope for the future.

So it is fitting that John's gospel records Jesus' first miracle as taking place with these happy themes as the backdrop at the wedding in Cana. The miracle of water turned into wine (John 2.1-11) tells us much about God's generosity - the wine is of the very best quality. And the quantity is silly: gallons and gallons of it. We catch something of the abundance with which God lavishes his grace on us - such extravagance, so much more than we could ever need. God's well of love never runs dry.

The image of water into wine also speaks of the way God offers us the means to be transformed. The ordinariness of plain water turned into the finest of vintage wines reminds us that God invites us to open our lives to his transforming power and love so that we can be renewed. "Changed from glory into glory," as the hymn writer Charles Wesley puts it. God's abundant grace helps us go from strength to strength as we move towards wholeness and fullness of life.

Each Sunday we continue to use wine as a way of remembering the abundance of God's generous love, as we participate in the holy feast of the Eucharist.