Family Worship
Andy Beard
Luke 5:1-11 Family Worship Ideas

Limits of Revolution (iv) Daniel pt 1

The most famous instances of civil disobedience are found in the Book of Daniel. Whilst it is tempting to jump to Daniel 6, let’s take a quick look at Shadrach, Mishach and Abednego first! Their story is found in Daniel 3.

But let’s put it in context. It is remarkable how far these three young men go in their recognition of the authority of Babylon. They are deeply enmeshed in administering an idolatrous, imperialistic, and frequently cruel kingdom. And while they have been invovled in challenging the rules and norms before (Dan.1) it has always been within the limits of the law. They have earned the respect of those who oversee their roles within the civil service, and are already on the fast track in terms of promotion.

It is also worth acknowledging that their uncompromising faithfulness to their God has made them some enemies. That much seems clear from the wider book of Daniel, and I don’t think we’d be reading too much into the story if we imagine a certain glee in the tone of the astrologers who seem to take too much delight in coming forward to denounce the Jews (3:8-12). Notice too how complex the situation is. There are religious elements, in that they are being asked to bow down before ‘an image of gold’ (3:1). Nebuchadnezzar has instituted a kind of national religion that is based around his own defiance of the Living God. According to the dream of Dan.2 the eternal kingdom will be that of Christ, the Rock cut out from the mountain of the Lord (2:45). Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom is a temporary phenomena, represented by the golden head, that gives way to the Persian empire of silver (2:32 & 36-38). But in Ch.3 Nebuchadnezzar sets up a statue of his own - made of gold in its entirity. The message is clear: ‘I am lord of history - it is my kingdom that will last through the ages’. And so the religious elements are intertwined with political and nationalistic elements. And there are personal and relational aspects too: Nebuchadnezzar’s anger at what he takes to be a personal challenge (3:13-15); and of course the professional rivalry and jealousy of the astrologers.

We can barely imagine the pressure they felt as they stood on the plain of Dura. When you read of the immense multi-sensory dynamics, calculated to inspire awe and compliance; when you think of the furnace; the whispering voices that must have told them that this wasn’t the place to make their stand… it was just an empty political act of no real significance… just go along with it all, no-one will read anything into it… you’ve already assimilated so much, one more step won’t matter.

But it does. And they know it… and so when the music played, and everyone else ‘fell down and worshipped the image of gold’ (3:7), three lonely figures remained standing on that vast plain. The simple fact that Nebuchadnezzar had been established by God did not make him God. The Lord has also established limitations. And so they stood. They didn’t instigate the situation they found themselves in. They weren’t looking for martyrdom, or even to make a statement. But they found themselves forced to make one nonetheless. We’ll see in a later study that civil disobedience doesn’t have to be a public spectacle, but in some cases, it’s hard to hide.

And they do it self-consciously because of what they believe about the Lord. The know the God they serve. He is living and active. He is able to save them from retribution, but whether He does or not, whether they live or die in the next moments, they are resolved to serve that God with integrity and faithfulness: ‘we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up’ (3:18). They anticipate the example of Jesus, who ‘did not retaliate …[who] made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly’ (I Pet.2:23). There is a sublime confidence that shapes their disobedience, and their capacity to face the state’s sanctions. This is an important aspect to consider. We’ll see in the thinking of Martin Luther King for example, that accepting the penalty for disobedience is how we continue to acknowledge the authority of government even while compelled to disobey it.

They stand firm in the face of personal anger (3:13 & 19). They are not experiencing the cool, dispassionate process of due legal proceedings. And their resolve does not waver, even as those who are carrying them to the furnace are consumed. There was no intimation that Christ would miraculously save them. Yet, save them He does. So completely that there is not even a smell of smoke on their Babylonian clothes. The point of the story is not to suggest that Jesus will always turn up to save His people. Passages such as Heb.11:37f, or Rev.6:9f, or Acts 7:55f, all teach otherwise. He is always with us in our trials, but at times to sustain and at times to save.

Our point as we draw this article to a close is simply to notice first that God’s people are at times required to disobey earthly rulers, and secondly to recognise that to do so in a godly way requires a clear vision of the power of the God we serve. It is our knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness (Titus 1:1). But also to appreciate the evangelistic power of refusing to compromise. This is a key moment that leads to the conversion of Nebuchadnezzar. We can be so worried about whether our civil disobedience would be a bad witness, that we can forget that in the economy of God, it might actually prove to be a good witness. If nothing else it demonstrates to the world that we have something worth sacrificing for… something we value so highly we will not betray it, even if it means suffering or death. Or better, Someone…

Limits of Revolution (iii) Exodus

As in everything else they teach, Apostles such as Peter and Paul (whose writings we began to consider in the first article in this series) stand in line with what we now call the Old Testament. Their thinking on the relationship between Church and State enjoys the twin privilege of being rooted in the Scriptures and being itself inspired by the Holy Spirit. And in the Law and the prophets there are numerous examples of those who, on the basis of their relationship with the Living God, refuse to comply with the contrary demands of civil authority.

Perhaps the most obvious place to start is in the opening chapters of Exodus. As part of one of the most vicious expriences of persecution the Church has endured, the king of Egypt unleashes a policy of gender specific genocide. Unwilling even to resource the efforts to eliminate the peple of God, Pharaoh delegates the responsibility of killing the male babies to the Hebrew midwives themselves: ‘When you are helping hte Hebrew women during child birth … if the baby is a boy, kill him….’ (Ex.1:16). Of course, this isn’t the last time that a dictator seeks to prevent the birth of a Saviour (Matt.2:16), but that’s for another time! Our focus in this article is on the midwives’ decision to disobey Pharaoh.

Ex.1:17 tells us about their decision: ‘The midwives however feared God, and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do. They let the boys live’. There are two elements to their decision. Positively, they feared God. Their rebellion wasn’t born out of personal angst, or political preference. It is rooted in their vision of God, His commands (Gen.9:6), and of His purposes for His people. It is rooted in their awareness of His majesty and His supreme authority, and that they too are accountable to Him. In this sense their decision is a deeply theological and spiritual one, rather than a merely moral or political one. It is easy to miss this, but it is in fact the foundation of authentic Christian civil disobedience. They do what they do because of their vision of God and of their relationship with Him.

This is also what gives them the clarity and courage required to make their decision. It’s a similar dynamic to the one Jesus articulates in Matt.10:28, when he is again addressing a context of persecution. The basic question is who do I fear more? Earthly or Heavenly rulers? Whose displeasure am I most anxious to avoid? Whose reprisal am I most concerned to evade?

The outworking of that is their refusal to be party to Pharaoh’s brutal cruelty. They won’t simply ‘obey orders’ or follow policy, or just do their job, as if that would have eased their conscience, or helped them to avoid the dilemma of disobedience, and their fear of the consequences. Their fear of God helped them to concude that obedience to God is always the safest thing. Mind you, that is something that it takes great faith to cling to when you are facing the consequences of defiance of earthly rulers.

The midwives are ‘wise as serpents and innocent as doves’ in their subsequent dealing with Pharaoh. There is a huge amount of ink spilt on the question of whether they lied to Pharaoh, and whether this was legitimate. They may well have stood in the grey area between not being completely honest, and actaul dishonesty. Perhaps the Hebrew women were in fact vigorous and gave brith before the midwive’s arrived (1:19), but in the light of v.17, that is unlikely to be the whole story. Perhaps they were mocking Pharaoh as well as disobeying him. Whatever our moral sensitivities and scruples - and it is easier to have them when we’re not in the same position - ‘God was kind to the midwives …’ (1:20). Their preferencing His laws over the unjust laws of human rulers reveals His seal of approval, and their actions had ramifications for global history in their own generation and for every generation that followed. It is worth pausing on that. GOd is pleased with with their civil disobedience. It was a constructive, right and godly thing to do. It was something the LORD took pleasure in, not something tolerated as the lesser of two evils. There are times when to obey God and honour Him demands we disobey and dishonour earthly structures of authority.

We might wonder if their behavious was so wise? After all, the story takes a turn for the worse because of their actions. It is likely that at least some among the Hebrews disapproved of their action given what happens next. Every Egyptian is given authority to throw Hebrew boys into the Nile. Can you imagine the atmosphere of perpetual terror this created? But the rightness o the midwives’ actions is not to be judged by its immediate consequences. It is likely of course, that not every Egyptian took advantage of the order… though some undoubtedly did, and took it upon themselves to police the Hebrew ghettos. The quiet, unspectacular defiance of Pharaoh through passive disobedience, simply not doing as they were told, is not uncommon in a situation where a majority of people recognise that injustice is at work. It creeps even into Pharaoh’s own household, as we see his daughter draw Moses out of the river, rahter than throw him in it.

And in this we are reminded of the place of God’s providence. God is sovereign over the rulers of the earth (something that will be made explicit later in Exodus [see 3:18-22, 4:21 etc], and in the Scriptures, just in case there is any doubt at this stage), as well as over the affairs of His Church. As we work through our series we will have to navigate this colossal theological truth. It provides the context within which we wrestle with the question of civil disobedience, and the consequences that will flow from it when compelled to engage in it.

What is intriguing though is Moses’ own divinely orchestrated strategy. Have you ever noticed that he doesn’t engage in civil diobedience? He could have simply defied Pharaoh and led the people out of Egypt without even telling him that he was doing so. Presumably God could have kept them safe in the midst of such an operation. Yet Moses is sent to confront Pharaoh and to demand that he give permission for the Exodus. There is much that God is doing here in terms of demonstrating His sovereignty over this ancient super-power and the man at its’ head. But it does give us pause for thought, as we realise that civil disobedience isn’t always the appropriate response even to the most evil and cruel of regimes. Alongside the defiance of the Church in the face of oppression and tyranny is a second respnose - that of prophetic confrontation. The two are often intertwined, but they are distinguishable nonetheless.

The Limits of Revolution (ii)

A bit of a detour in this second article with a statement of intent, a clarification, an aspiration and a warning.

The statement of Intent is that in this series, which will likely take us through the second Lockdown, I am aiming to do two things. The frist is to outline the Bible’s teaching on our relationship (as Christians) with civil authority and to seek to learn from others in the history of the Church how to understand that teaching and to put it into practise. It’s interesting that so many of the ‘heroes of the faith’ (though they would certainly disdain such a title, and we should probably be circumpsect about using it) are those who stood faithfully against a state who for a variety of reasons behaved in a way that sought to restrict the life and mission of the Church. Those in government at the time may or may not have intended that to be the result of their policies, but it was the outcome nonetheless. It is also worth noting that many others were caught up in and suffered under the same policies, and often felt they too had to oppose them, albeit for different reasons.

The clarification is that I am not at this stage calling for any form of civil disobedience. I know that will be a relief to some and a frustration to others. My own personal belief is that the time will come in many of our lifetimes, when such things will need to be. But - and that is a crucial ‘but’ - we still live in a society where, relatively speaking, we are free to live and worship as Christians. Many sense that freedom is being eroded, and we may find that precedents set during times of crisis come back to haunt us in the future. But at the moment we would be hard pressed, I think, to justify wide spread civil disobedience. We ought first to explore all legal and legitimate forms of protest and expression of concern, and only when the effectiveness of that is exhausted are we at liberty to begin to think about civil disobedience - and even then within certain limits, as we’ll see as this series progresses.

It might also be worth saying that in pursuing any form of protest or engagement with the legislative process, I for one am not seeking to bring about a situation where people are obliged to gather with the Church in corporate worship. If you have been following my blog since March, you’ll have little trouble surmising my conviction about the indispensible nature of corproate worship and mission. But there is no compulsion for anyone to join in the physical congregation, and we are working hard at MIE to ensure that those who - for a wide variety of reasons - choose not to, are still able to connect with the life and worship of our Church as possible. The freedom to live and worship as a Christian (or not) is a freedom of conscience issue, and should not be coerced. In a way that is the issue lying behind much of the concern and anxiety that we are seeing across the Church in the UK. That freedom has been curtailed. Not by common agreement, but by the force of law. Corporate worship has - in the words of one MP - been criminalised. The freedom to choose whether we gather for worship or not has been taken from us.

And so my aspiration is not to make bloodless martyrs of us all. Let’s not get overly-dramatic. In real terms it would be wildly over-stating the situation to speak of persecution. My own sense is that the situation we find oursleves in has little malice behind it, at least at the level of human decision making. Like many Bishops, Christian leaders, MPs and campaigners, I would like to see our historic freedoms restored, and I have little doubt they will be. In the meantime, I would like to take the opportunity to explore with you the Bible’s teaching on civil authority, and how the Church is to engage with that authority. As I said in a previous post, the situation we are in demonstrates that these are not idle curiosities, but speak very directly into the fluid relationship between Church and State, a relationship that as we have seen, can change inn very rapid and unexpected ways.

And so to the warning. This is a dangerous time for any Church. Our inability to meet as a whole Church since March, and the restrictions that we were subject to even when some of the congregation could meet, will have taken its toll on the Body of Christ. As a Church we need to recognise that there is a wide spectrum of opinion on the situation we are confronting, and given the pressured context we are living in, it is tempting to express those opinions in a strident manner. Some of you think the Church not have physically gathered at all during the pandemic, and that the governments actions are entirely justified; some of you think we should run the gauntlet of civil disobeidence now, that we should just meet anyway and risk the fine. We need to be aware of the bredth and intenstiy of feeling that runs through the congregation. Given the pressure that people are under at the moment, and the levels of anxiety being felt, it is also worth recognising that covnersations can escalate very quickly. It was particularly poignant that we were looking at Eph.4:1-12 on Sunday.

And so back to the series. In our next post we’ll start to explore directly some instances in the Bible where folk felt they could not in good conscience follow the directives of those in positions of civil authority. We mgiht find ourselves looking at some familiar Sunday School stories in a very different way!

Ancient Wisdom (iii)

Why is Ecclesiastes so depressing? Is life really this bleak? It’s a tough place to start, but Solomon’s point is that life ‘under the sun’ is meaningless & futile. Thankfully, he’ll go on later in the book to explain that there is another Son we can live life under… and He is the Wisdom of God.

The Limits of Revolution (i)

The Christian’s relationship with the state is always ambivalent. You’ll have often heard me preach that Christians should be the best and most conscientious citizens. But that is born out of our prior citizenship of the Kingdom of Heaven. This is important to realise: we are not conscientious because we are committed to the cultural and political structures that shape our nation’s life. We may have our preferences when it comes to politics… perhaps even our convictions. But Christianity is not wedded to any particular politcal or social environment. The Church has lived in and through the whole gamut of political contexts, from near Anarchy to liberal democracy to totalitarian regimes. In each she has found ways to worhsip and thrive, and in each she has found that which is toxic to her integrity and existence.

The Church’s default, then is conscientious obedience to the authority of a state, but because of our recognition of a higher Authority. As such, we take with utmost seriousness passages such as Rom.13:1-7; I Pet.2:13-16; Titus 3:1. ‘The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted…’ And we do so even where those authorities corrupt and abuse their position. This can lead to deeply disturbing conclusions. In his epistle to the Romans, Paul is writing to a Church figuring out what it means to be Christian in a context where the state has already become the enemy. Yet he refers to Nero - who infamously persecuted the Church - as ‘God’s servant’, and continues to call Christians to civll obedience. The fact that the State kills and imprisons Christians does not give us a mandate to anarchy. A government’s sin doesn’t justify the Church’s sin.

Are we then locked into an uncritical jingoistic patriotism: my country right or wrong? The question of when and how Christians must conscientiously break the law is one that we haven’t had to wrestle with for many years in the UK. As I mentioned in a previous post, we have lived through an anomolous period in recent years, but one that seems to be coming to an end. It is time to dust this question off and find answers. We may need them sooner than we think.

Passages such as Rom.13 have been used regularly to silence the Church in the face of ungodly regimes. Richard Wurmbrand tells the story of a Communist Interrogator ‘preaching’ to him from Rom.13, seeking to undermine Wurmbrand’s own decision to disobey the Party. In some cases, it has been used to justify the Church’s support of patent injustice. You only have to think of tragic errors of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa, infamously supporting Apartheid; or the UN-confessing Church in Nazi Germany (we’ll think about Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church later in the series), or large swathes of the Church in Spain and Portugal during the conquestadorial periods of their empires. But there are at least three key observations that mean the use of such passages to silence the Church and enforce aquiescense is simply wrong.

The first is that Paul teaches, alongside the Church’s obligation to obey, the rulers’ obligation to do good (Rom.13:4). The Church in the UK has long since lost any sense of being a prophetic voice that calls government to realise it holds only a delegated authority, and as such remains a steward that will be held to account. In short, God will judge those who hold political authority, in large part, on the basis of how they treated the Church within the nation. The old BCP used to teach us to pray that under our governemnt ‘we may be godly and quietly governed’, and that God would grant to ‘all who are put in authority … that they may truly and indifferently minister justice, to the punishment of wickedness and vice, and to the maintenance of true religion and virtue’. Again we’ll come back to subversive Anglican spirituality in a later post, but let’s just notice here that the Church of England prays and believes that the purpose of Government includes creating a society in which the Church may flourish. As in so many other places, Anglicanism, properly understood, is richly Biblical, politically bold, and pastorally sensitive. This all resonates with the defiance of the prophets, which will also occupy our attention later in the series…

Secondly, Paul doesn’t stop his political ethic in Rom.13:7. He continues on to speak about our commitment to another (higher) Law to which we remain indebted. The Law of God, summarised in the command to love our neighbour. There is no evidence in the Bible that God is pleased with a Church that is complicit in legislation that undermines our ability and freedom to love. Similarly Peter teaches both that we should ‘submit [ourselves] for the Lord’s sake to every human authority’, and continues to say that we should ‘fear God … revere Christ as Lord’. The Apostles may be not so much calling for uncritical obedience, as he is providing a series of criteria for discerning the faithfulness with which a government is fulfilling its God’s given mandate. Yes, we give to Caesar what is Caesars, but also to God what is Gods. This is our poltical ethic in a nutshell - and we live in the tension it creates.

And finally (at least as far as this post goes!) Rom.13 is written by the Apostle Paul. It’s worth bearing in mind how much time Paul spent in prison. Likewise, I Peter 2:13-16 was written by Peter. Peter, who in Acts 4:19 and 5:29 explicitly defies ‘human authority’ at the point where it seeks to prevent his obedience to Christ. However we make sense of such passages, we need to remember they were written by those who we prepared - indeed knew they had a divine mandate - to conscientiously disobey rulers where those rulers proved unfaithful to their own God-given role and responsibility.

There is, of course, nothing new in the Apostles’ willingness to stand against human authority that conspires to silence the Gospel, and undermine the life and integrity of the Church. They are standing in a long tradition of men and women who understood that their first and greatest calling is to obey the Living God. At times they paid for their spiritualism heroism with their lives.

More on this as we go through lockdown…

On fear mongering - and when it isn't!

Sometimes when we hear alarming messages about the place of Christianity in the life of our nation, we can dismiss those making them as fear-mongering doom merchants. ‘That’, we assume ‘could never happen here’. WHen as ex-PM stands in parliament and warns about the precedents being set this week, it becomes lightly harder to shrug it off as uninformed hysteria. But as Theresa May said in the House of Commons:

"I just want to make one word about public worship and echo the concerns of others. My concern is that the Government today, making it illegal to conduct an act of public worship for the best of intentions, sets a precedent that could be misused for a government in the future with the worst of intentions, and it has unintended consequences."

As you know, the decision by the government to close places of worship is facing a legal challenge. Whatever the outcome of that may be, there is an established concensus developing that in distinguishing between gatherings, and criminalising gatherings for worship (as opposed to the first lockdown where all gatherings were banned) a rubicon has been crossed. Whether we think it will ever develop into something more insidious or not, the UK now has a legal precedent for criminalising gathering for public worship, aka going to Church.

What we need to realise - and realise urgently - is that in the UK we have lived through a spiritual anomoly. There are things that have happened in the history of our country that have made the place of Christiainity in our nation almost unique in the history of the world. There are strong signs that this anomoly is coming to an end (see e.g. today’s article on the Christian Institute website about ‘Criminalising ‘hate speech’ in homes in England and Wales proposed by Law Commission’). As our anomolous expereince of living as disciples of Jesus is eroded, we will have to come to terms with the fact that the marginalisiation and in turn, persecution endured by the Church throughout most of the world could soon be our own experience.

‘It could never happen here’ are the notoriously famous last words of every free-society…

A Note from our Bishop

Here is a relevant excerpt from a recent email from Bishop Martin to clergy, Chruch Warden’s and licensed minister. I have highlighted the bit that might be of interest. Thanks to all who have written to the Bishops, or our MPs to raise concerns.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

 I am continually grateful for all you are doing and will continue to do as we head into another form of lockdown. I wanted to update you as to where things are in terms of the new regulations from Thursday.

The new lockdown measures coming into force on Thursday will have a significant impact on the life of the Church as the current proposal is to close churches for acts of public worship. I have written to all the Members of Parliament with constituencies within the diocese to ask them to support churches remaining open for public worship. We need to make acts of public prayer for our nation in this time of crisis in our church buildings, and to provide the ministry of the sacrament as well as of the word to sustain the huge outpouring of selfless work to care for the neediest in our communities.  Thanks to your herculean efforts, to the best of our knowledge there has not been an outbreak of COVID 19 that can be traced to a church in Suffolk. The closure of churches for worship is of deep regret and you may want to read my comments in the East Anglian Daily Times (click HERE).

A letter to our Bishops

Bishops Martin & Mike

Thank you for all that you have been doing in these difficult and unprecedented days to steer the Diocese through the Coronavirus crisis.  The complexity of the decisions facing those at all levels of leadership are breathtaking and exhausting.  And the accumulative effect of leading through such a time as this can be costly.  You both remain in our prayers week by week. At MIE we have found the clarity of guidance helpful as we have worked to keep our congregations in touch with the ministry and mission of Church life.

I am however writing to express my concern at proposals that all acts of corporate worship must again cease from Thursday 5th November.  I have also written to my MP (Tom Hunt) as I understand that the draft legislation will be placed before the House of Commons tomorrow.

The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales has issued a statement asking the Government to produce evidence to justify such a ban on public and corporate worship.  Would it be possible that Anglican Bishops might also challenge the Government's guidance?   Such discussion may already be under way, in which case it would be of great comfort to many in our congregations to know that our Bishops are contending for our freedom to gather in corporate worship.

In the previous lockdown, when almost all of society was 'closed', the arguments for closing Churches for corporate worship was, perhaps, sustainable.  But in the current guidance, it is far from clear that this remains the case.

If Churches are able to stay open for socially distanced prayer, on what grounds are services banned, which follow identical health and safety precautions (including social distancing, sanitisation, wearing of face coverings, restrictions on aspects of worship such as Holy Communion and singing).   When a family is able to take their child to school, but not to Church; when people are able to meet in Church buildings for a support group but not for corporate prayer; when Church buildings are open for 'formal child care' but not for formal worship, questions are bound to be asked on what grounds such distinctions are made.  The message being sent out by the Government is that while some gatherings are deemed 'essential', gathering for worship isn't one of them.  As a parish priest, I must register my dissent.  

How is this not relegating religious belief to the category of an optional social activity?  Such a categorisation of an essential expression of their faith is not one many Christians will find it easy to accept, and indeed will find more difficult as lockdowns are repeated, and/or prolonged.

Whilst 'online' worship is helpful in so far as it goes (and for some may be the only option), I for one am reluctant to rely on that phenomena to the exclusion of the physical gathering of the people of God.  Such gnostic disregard for the physical means of grace, and the 'incarnation' of the Church (if I might be allowed to use such a phrase!) doesn't sit easily with Christian theology or spirituality.  Indeed it directly undermines it.

The announcement that our Churches will be closed again for public worship has already caused significant anguish in our congregations.  More than one person at MIE this morning was in tears at the prospect.  Many of us see the gathering of God's people for corporate worship as an integral aspect of our faith, a precious privilege to be safeguarded at all costs.  

At the very least, can we have some explanation for the decisions that are made, and some guidance as to what to say to our congregations, who are already wearied, fragile and vulnerable in the face of the sacrifices they are being asked to make.  People's mental and spiritual health is suffering; there is such anxiety and fear about the future; they are concerned for their jobs, their income and their children.  For many, Church is a place of refuge, where they meet with God and find in Him strength and assurance.  It is being taken from them, and it is far from clear that there is any evidence that such restriction will have any benefit.  Please can our Bishops take the lead in restoring the full experience of public worship to the people of God. 

Thank you for your consideration of these matters, and I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Sincerely,

Rev. Mark Prentice

A letter to Tom Hunt MP

Mr Tom Hunt MP

Thank you for all that Her Majesty's Government is doing in these difficult and unprecedented days to steer the country through the Coronavirus crisis.  I appreciate the difficult decisions that are being faced and the compassion with which the Government is seeking to safeguard health.  The complexities of such decisions must be breathtaking.  

However, as a Church of England minister I am concerned at proposals that all acts of corporate worship must again cease from Thursday 5th November.  I understand that the draft legislation will be placed before the House of Commons tomorrow (Monday 2nd November), and that MPs will have the opportunity to discuss the issues and vote on the proposed new regulations.

I am writing to you as my elected representative to add my voice to those who are asking MPs to reconsider this aspect of the proposed lockdown.  The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales has issued a statement asking the Government to produce evidence to justify such a ban on public and corporate worship.  If Churches are able to stay open for socially distanced prayer, on what grounds are services banned, which follow identical health and safety precautions (including social distancing, sanitisation, wearing of face coverings, restrictions on aspects of worship such as Holy Communion and singing).   

When a family is able to take their child to school, but not to Church, when people are able to meet in Church buildings for a support group but not for corporate prayer, when Church buildings are open for 'formal child care' but not for public worship worship, questions are bound to be asked on what grounds such distinctions are made.  The message being sent out by the Government is that while some gatherings are deemed 'essential', gathering for worship isn't one of them.  How is this not relegating religious belief to the category of an optional social activity, and thus an erosion of religious freedom?  Such a categorisation of an essential expression of their faith is not one many Christians will find it easy to accept.

To echo the Catholic Bishops' concerns, 'To counter the virus we will, as a society, need to make sustained sacrifices for months to come. In requiring this sacrifice, the Government has a profound responsibility to show why it has taken particular decisions.  Not doing so risks eroding the unity we need as we enter a most difficult period for our country'.

Thank you for your consideration of these matters, and I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Sincerely,

Rev. Mark Prentice

a time for heart searching

As the prospect of another lockdown looms there are understandable anxieties and concerns. Many will be wondering if they have the resilience for yet another change to life’s structures… financial worries will be lurking for many, questions about job security and income… fears about the levels of disruption… questions about whether our society and its institutions will be overwhelmed…. what will this mean in real terms for schools, NHS, emergency services…

And in the midst of it all, where does ‘church’ fit?

It has become clear that Christian thinking on this is not at all uniform. Over the last months, and through a previous lockdown, there was a litany of arguments about why we didn’t need to worry about the fact that our Churches were closed. The Church is the people… we’re fine meeting online - indeed we might be better off… the public gathering for worship isn’t essential to Christian devotion… Church buildings aren’t even really necessary, or maybe even desirable in the first place…

Whilst I understand the desire to accomodate circumstances that are beyond our control, and to avoid additional stress at a times such as this, I also wonder if we need to do some heart-searching and some Bible-searching. The impending lockdown has several notable differences to the first one, and those differences raise deep questions about whether the closure of Churches throughout November is a purely health-related decision or an ideological one. When everything was shut, the case for Churches to conform was at least sustainable. But when the Government begins to discriminate between aspects of society, saying which are ‘essential’ (and thus free to remain open and functioning) and which are not (and are therefore shut), we find ourselves in a very different ball game.

The Church in the UK is in danger of uncritically accepting the secular narrative on society and of the place of religion in that society. We are so used to that narrative that it threatens to be simply an assumed part of our thinking. ‘Religion’ is private. You can believe what you want in the privacy of your own home (though the recent proposals in Scotland call even that into question, see yesterday’s post), but your ‘faith’ stays within the confines of your own personal life. It has no place in the public life of society, or your participation in it. Many Christians have already accepted this in principle. We sign contracts that restrict the public expression of our faith in terms of what we wear and don’t wear, what we say and don’t say, whether we pray or not; as Churches and Christian charities we accept funding that allow us to develop projects (sometimes even projects that we style as part of the Church’s ‘mission’) on the express condition that we don’t evangelise; we accept that certain behaviour and speech is not appropriate in schools and hospitals, prisons and even now on the internet. The real-terms erosion of freedom of speech (and action) in the UK is well documented and is often felt by Christians who are uneasy, but who are appeased by Christian leaders who tell us it’s OK really, and that we are still free to be Christians, and that demonstrating the love of Jesus is all we need to do, so let’s not worry about the fact we can no longer declare it. Social commentators have started speaking of ‘self-policing’: the idea that we learn that certain beliefs and convictions - shaped though they are by our commitment to Scripture - are not acceptable, and so we simply stop articulating them. It turns out that Christians are deeply Pavlovian.

In such a world, Church - the gathering of God’s people - is not ‘essential’. Therefore in a lock-down, ‘we’ allow private prayer, but not public worship… In the first wave of the pandemic, when pretty much everything was locked down, perhaps we could tolerate the Government’s banning of public worship. But in a situation where significant aspects of public gathering remain possible but responsible gathering for worship is banned, the lines are much more blurred. When can open our buildings for ‘services’ the Government consider essential (to run a foodbank, or a support group; to provide formal child care, or education), but not for public worship, even if that public worship is conducted within the guidelines previously laid down (use of face coverings, 2 meter-distancing, etc), then it is far from clear that ‘health’ is the only issue being taken into consideration. What’s going on when we can have a dozen people socially distanced in our buildings for a ‘support group’, but not for a prayer meeting, or a service of worship. Some gatherings are ‘essential’, but gathering for worship isn’t one of them, apparently.

It is unlikely that our Bishops will contest this. We painfully remember prominent Bishops encouraging us to civil disobedience by attending political rallies, whilst complying with Government guidance and shutting the Churches. My own sense of betrayal was acute. There is little reason at this stage to assume that those entrusted with our spiritual oversight will take a different course of action this month.

Nevertheless, the question remains: Is the public gathering for worship a necessary part of faithful dicispleship? Any cursory reading of the Bible would lead us to answer ‘Yes’, and to conclude that the loss of this is not something of marginal consequence. We saw in the recent ‘Standing Strong’ conference that the Church elsewhere in the world is bemused - astonished even - by the ease with which we have surrendered this privilege. Before we even begin to consider the legal questions, the spritual realities press in on us.

‘Church’ is the word usually used to translate ‘ekklesia’ in the New Testament. We are often told that it means ‘the people’, not ‘the building’. This simply isn’t true. ‘Ekklesia’ in fact means ‘assembly’ or ‘gathering’. Originally the word had a wider meaning than it usually does today, in that it could apply to political, religious, or indeed unofficial groups. Perhaps that is why Jesus and the Apostles used it. Church is the GATHERING of the people. You’ll have heard me often emphasising this in my preaching. Christianity is a public and corporate reality. It has self-evident personal implications, but it only becomes (exclusively) personal and private or even hidden in the most extreme of circumstances. Where the Church is so persecuted that faith must be secret, there is a deep sense of spiritual impoverishing that our brothers and sisters long to overcome. They will go to extraordinary lengths to meet with other Christians, even risking imprisonment and physical harm to do so. Granted, a building set apart to accomodate that gathering isn’t an essential part of the equation, but the idea has more merit than we are used to recognising.

And it is not simply a gathering for religious reasons. It is naive to think that Christianity isn’t a political reality. We’ll see this in our BRT breakfast in a couple of weeks. The Book of Acts presents the Church and the Gospel that gives rise to it in starkly political terms. Christ is ‘another King’ (Acts 17:7).

So… as we approach lockdown we have profound questions to navigate. Do we accept the Government’s assessment of the place of ‘religion’ in society? Do we accept the idea that my faith in Christ is a ‘personal and private’ part of who and what I am? What is our relatinship with civil authority? When some of us are prepared to engage in protest and (even civil disobedience) in other political and social causes, why are we silent on matters of Church and public worship? How do we see our relationship with ‘the Church’, the gathered people of God? Are some things more important than life and death? Just how important my place in the corporate worship of the living God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

These are no longer academic questions of little consequence. They are no longer the kind of questions we can safely discuss in Fellowship Groups, or over a coffee (or other beverage of choice). When I can take my child to school, but not to Church… when our buildings can be used ‘support groups but not corporate worship… these questions are moving out of the category of idle curiosity, and into the category of consequences. Perhaps we can bear the tensions for a month… but by all accounts this isn’t the last Lockdown we will face. What price will we be asked to pay? …and by whom?