Author: Jayne Ozanne

“Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin”?

by Canon Simon Butler, Vicar of St Mary’s Battersea, Prolocutor of Canterbury

My old friend and fellow Archbishops’ Council member Ian Paul and I engaged in a minor online debate this week about “Things Jesus Never Said”. In its course, I remarked that one of the things Jesus never said was that old Evangelical nostrum, “love the sinner, hate the sin.” Ian felt it had what he calls “the warrant of Scripture”, while I felt it unhelpful. As a result of the exchange, I said I would write something for Via Media this week and Ian would respond soon on his own blog, Psephizo.

It’s a timely matter to reflect on. Some Evangelical commentators in Britain and the United States have recently distanced themselves from what was, for many years, almost an article of faith within that tradition. As we prepare in the Church of England for the General Synod’s engagement in the Shared Conversations, this phrase is bound to be used at some point by someone and it certainly shapes a lot of attitudes. As one former diocesan bishop said to me once (not realising that I was gay myself), “we must love the sinner but hate the sin, Simon. But never forget that these people (yes, he used those exact words) are sinners.”

The more time I spend in pastoral ministry, the more I realise that we humans are, as Psalm 139 puts it, “fearfully and wonderfully made.” We are all a mixture of saint and sinner, whether we are believers or not. I always remember a story of Gordon Oliver’s from my theological training about distributing Holy Communion to his congregation. As he gave the sacrament to each person, he found himself mentally acknowledging both the brokenness and sin he knew in the life of each person he pastored, and their belovedness in Christ. The doctrine of creation and the doctrine of the fall start by a commitment to human goodness and the complexity of real humanity that is both a gift in creation and a consequence of sin.

Because of this goodness and complexity, it seems to me almost impossible to separate a person’s identity from their actions. For readers who find it hard to accept those of us who are LGBT it is important that you recognise that this is something really important to us. But not just for us: it is an important truth for everyone. The older I get, the more I realise the depth of my own brokenness and the profound gift of the love of God in Christ. But my identity and my actions are so interwoven that any attempt to distinguish one from the other – which is what “love the sinner, hate the sin” rather simplistically tries to do – is doomed to failure. It may make sense as a theological cliché, albeit rather an unsophisticated one, but psychologically it is damaging and harmful. Nowhere in Scripture are we commanded to hate any person: I have never yet heard an adequate argument which convinces me that, at the level of pastoral psychology, hating sin doesn’t result in hating people.

But it also seems harmful to those who use it. Behind the phrase can easily lurk an air of spiritual superiority, the implication than one set of sins is more serious than another (LGBT Christians know this more than most: we have been the target of this phrase’s use more than any other group by those who like to use it). Like that diocesan bishop, what can easily be revealed is a sort of hierarchy of sinfulness, and therefore of human worth, and a qualification to the command to love that is at the heart of the radical teaching of Jesus. I have never yet met a Christian who doesn’t possess a sort of inner inventory like this. “Love the sinner, hate the sin” is a contributing factor in the subtle qualification of the absolute call to love.

I have recently been through the most testing experience of my parochial ministry. I am grateful to God for the support and prayer of many people. It was a truly testing time and one that required me to have a good look at myself, my attitudes and behaviour. Naturally, sinfulness played a part. But, now I am beyond that testing time, I find myself unable to say that it is possible to separate my sinfulness from my giftedness; indeed, the former is in some way a consequence of the latter or, as my work consultant put it, my gifts with the volume turned up too loud. Western, juridical models of atonement, based as they are binary views of sin and goodness, fail to acknowledge such a profound reality and, at some level, prevent us from overcoming (befriending?) the fallen, shadow, sinful aspects of ourselves. A more Eastern perspective – of sin as a disease or a divided heart – allows us to see ourselves not as victims of an angry God, but as the beloved of a worried Parent, who can be loved into befriending and finding wholeness in the parts of ourselves where sin can so easily master us.

Love the sinner, hate the sin? No thank you. I’ll just stick with “Love”. Love covers a multitude of sins.

Picture of “The Woman Caught in Adultery” available on Photobucket.

April 26, 2016
“Ambition, Power and the Gospel”

Reflections on the race for London’s Mayor by Canon Dr Angus Ritchie

Would you like to have more power?

The word “power” usually produces a pretty negative reaction, especially among religious people. Our immediate reaction is often to focus on the ways it can be misused, not its potential for good. But, at its most simple, power is the ability to act. How can anyone look at the world around them – its injustice, its brokenness, and yet its extraordinary potential for beauty and goodness – without wanting to act?

Each year, I teach a number of classes of ordinands and interns about organising for social justice. I used to begin by asking “what is your reaction to the word ‘power’?” The answers were usually negative. Now, I often begin with a different question: “How is the word ‘power’ regarded in the New Testament?” The answer to that question is almost uniformly positive. It is power that the risen Christ promises his apostles at Pentecost (Acts 1.8). The message is underlined again and again in the Epistles – perhaps most strikingly in 2 Timothy, where we are told God has given us a Spirit “not of timidity” but of “power and love and self-control”.

At the heart of the Christian faith is a redefinition, not a rejection, of power. In John Stott’s words, we are called to be ambitious for the Kingdom:

Ambitions for God, if they are to be worthy, can never be modest. There is something inherently inappropriate about cherishing small ambitions for God. How can we ever be content that he should acquire just a little more honour in the world?

Christians should be eager to develop their gifts, widen their opportunities, extend their influence and be given promotion in their work — not now to boost their own ego or build their own empire, but rather through everything they do to bring glory to God.

When I look at the changes happening to my East London parish – families uprooted from their neighbourhood because of the housing crisis; the growth of new forms of gambling which prey on the poorest and most desperate; the effect of poverty on life expectancy – I believe Christians need to rediscover a godly sense of power and of ambition.

If this is true of my local context, it is equally true of the wider political scene. The rise of politicians who feed on people’s sense of impotence (perhaps seen most disturbingly in the candidacy of Donald Trump) reminds us that powerlessness can also be poisonous. When people case to hope, when they cease to believe in the positive potential of common action, they all to often look for scapegoats.

Of all people, Christians have reason to be a people of hope. We follow the One who died to end all scapegoating. In the daily prayer of the Church, we celebrate the fact that, in Christ, God has “shown strength with his arm, and has scattered the proud in their conceit, casting down the mighty from their thrones and lifting up the lowly.” As the Magnificat reminds us, the poorest and most marginalised are the agents as well as the beneficiaries of God’s power.

In my last column, I wrote of the Via Media approach being taken by Pope Francis and Archbishop Justin. These two leaders have spoken passionately about the need for a church which is truly of as well as for the poor; of the role of the most marginalised people in the evangelisation of our wider culture. Here, for example, is Pope Francis addressing a congress of popular movements in Bolivia:

What can I do as a craftsman, a street vendor, a trucker, a downtrodden worker, if I don’t even enjoy workers’ rights? What can I do, a farmwife, a native woman, a fisher who can hardly fight the domination of the big corporations?… A lot!… You, the lowly, the exploited, the poor and underprivileged, can do, and are doing, a lot. I would even say that the future of humanity is in great measure in your own hands, through your ability to organize and carry out creative alternatives, through your daily efforts to ensure the three “L’s” (labour, lodging, land) and through your proactive participation in the great processes of change on the national, regional and global levels. Don’t lose heart!

It is not only in Latin America that communities are organising for justice. Here in East London, 6000 people will gather at the end of this month to hold the candidates for Mayor to account on these same three “L’s” – calling for affordable housing and a genuinely Living Wage. It’s no coincidence that the Bishop of London will open the assembly, or that many of the delegations there will be from inner-city churches. As this recent report shows, the methods and the platform of this organising alliance have deep roots in Christian social teaching. It’s an inspiring example of what it means to have our understanding of power and of ambition reshaped by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

April 20, 2016
“Who Am I?” – The Hidden Key to Reconciliation
Reflection (written before last weekend’s revelations by Archbishop Justin Welby) by the Rt Revd Dr David Walker, Bishop of Manchester

One of the great privileges of being Bishop of Manchester is that I get invitations to meet with remarkable people. I learn far more from human engagement than I ever glean from books, academic articles, and (dare I say it) blogs. So the chance that came my way last month, to meet with two people from very different backgrounds and faiths, yet who are colleagues in an organisation working to bring peace to the deeply conflicted region of Kashmir, was not one to let pass by. Their work is a powerful testimony to the contribution that individuals who are prepared to engage with their hearts as well as their heads, and who are willing to have their own presuppositions and ideas about the “other” challenged, can make. The very name of this blog, Via Media, suggests that finding new ways through persistently conflicted situations is a key part of why we are here. So let me offer a few reflections and see if together we can build on them.

What struck me most in the conversation was not just that these two workers for reconciliation managed to emphasise the importance of the personal over the political, but that they did so whilst avoiding the trap that such efforts usually fall into. Two short statements summed up for me the approach; they are worth quoting in full:
- We can choose to find our own personal answer to the question “Who am I?”
- Engage with this paradox – change starts with you but isn’t about you.
I’ve been tussling with them ever since.

It’s a widely held view that traditional methods of debating and addressing conflicted issues, based on ideology, principles and supposedly rational argument, privilege the powerful. As a famous piece of graffiti put it, “It doesn’t matter who you vote for, the government always gets in”. A necessary counter to this has been the growth in recent times of various types of “identity politics”, based around key aspects of human beings, such as gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation; issues which have traditionally been the basis on which significant sectors of society are marginalised. Each of them has developed its own theological counterpart. Engaging with these constructs helps me to recognise, at least some of the time, that when I think I am being rational and somehow “above” identity, I may well be simply rationalising the interests of the dominant group to which I belong. More importantly, identity politics has had genuine successes. However, at the end of the day it remains politics. It can win or lose battles, but is far less able to unite, reconcile and work for the level of mutual flourishing that may be the only way to move beyond a particular conflict.

So what I’m now interested in exploring, in the light of my Kashmir conversation, is whether there is an extended and distinct role for “identity” in conflict situations, one that doesn’t collapse into identity politics, and which can be helpful both in secular and religious contexts. The two statements I’ve quoted above give me hope that there may be.

My own answer to the question “Who am I?” is (in words movingly echoed by Archbishop Justin Welby since I first drafted this article) that I am first and foremost a deeply beloved child of God, with infinite and eternal value. You may phrase that differently, and we may all build on such a core definition in different ways. Almost certainly, somewhere early on in constructing our sense of identity we would give key importance to aspects of ourselves, such as our deepest relationships and belongings, that lie far deeper than any externally provided political construct can reach. If, by God’s grace, I build the foundations of my answer on firm enough rock, that may be enough to allow me to engage with conflicted situations without selling myself (or my soul) to politics of either the conventional or identity brand. Will that then enable me to be part of a solution where other methods have failed? Will it in fact give me the strength and confidence to let change began with me, without feeling that such change as ensues will either be a direct threat to, or a necessary condition for, my understanding of who I am?

Picture of the Rt Revd David Walker, Bishop of Manchester, by Paul Heyes, Wednesday June 5, 2013.
April 13, 2016
Shared Confidences – Why “It’s Good to Talk”

A Reflection on the Shared Conversations by Jayne Ozanne, Editor of ViaMedia.News

“It’s good to talk!”

The macho cockney voice of Bob Hoskins (pictured) encouraging men to pick up the phone (back then a landline almost certainly owned by BT) and talk still brings a smile to my face. It was one of the most successful consumer advertising campaigns of the 1990s, and upheld as the gold standard by all of us budding marketing executives. Aware that women were much more likely to talk than their bill-paying husbands, BT set themselves the daring objective of wanting to change attitudes towards communications. It worked! BT grew their business by £5billion over 5 years, despite already being the clear market leader with no significant competition

Key to this success was getting the BT Executive to understand that they weren’t actually in the telephony or technology business, but rather they were in the “reciprocated confidences” business. As the brilliant brand strategist, Norman Strauss, explained to them – they were in fact in the business of enabling an exchange of confidences between human beings, so leading to better communications and ultimately deeper relationships.
So, it’s good to talk – as many of us can testify following the Regional Shared Conversations.

I must admit I have been pondering why they have been called “shared” conversations, given that the whole exercise has been designed to keep them as confidential as possible. To be fair, understandably so given the sensitive subject matter and the need to protect those for whom this is a deeply personal issue. But shared? A conversation is by definition between more than one person (unless you have an unfortunate habit of talking to yourself), which of course is where the “sharing” takes place. But sharing that conversation further afield was never part of the agenda – quite the opposite in fact, all flipcharts were to be shredded and no report kept.

So I’d like to suggest that what this exercise was really all about was enabling “shared confidences” rather than “shared conversations”. Indeed, the whole programme had carefully been crafted to ensure that trust and confidence was built, so that eventually – when we were asked to form triplets to share our own personal stories – we had enough of a foundation to be open and vulnerable with each other. From all the feedback and reflection sessions that I am aware of this is certainly what people appeared to value the most. I would also suggest that this is when we heard each other the best, and where our conversations were most effective.

For me, it was in the sharing of confidences that we became fully human with each other – we could see (and hear) the Christ in each other, and we witnessed and treasured the vulnerability that worked as an invisible chord binding us each together. It was here that we spoke in the first person singular, rather than in the first person plural – where we interacted as precious individual brothers and sisters in Christ, with open hearts and minds. Our goal was not to change or challenge each other, but rather to understand and so respect each other.

Outside of the Shared Conversations I have noticed an increasing tendency amongst certain evangelicals to say that they don’t want to hear any more personal stories, but that they want to “just focus on what the bible says”. I hear this as code for “please let’s just be rational and non-emotional about this”. There appears to be a reluctance, despite the normal reliance on personal testimony in the evangelical tradition, to engage the heart in the pain and trauma of the out working of theological views. Instead they would like to take refuge in their “minds”, where they can safely and confidently stand on what they believe the bible clearly says.

The best proof I have of this is when I share my testimony, which I frequently do now, and explain how this issue has cost me virtually everything – including very nearly my life (twice!). People listen patiently and then say quite politely “thank you” before moving on. Hardly ever is there a pause to say how awful the story is, or how sorry they feel that I have been through so much pain. It’s as if they can’t possibly afford to do that because they will then be giving some ground, under no circumstances should their emotions sway them from the truth. They need to remain resolute in their belief and not allow any compassion or loving kindness to be shown.

I find this very sad, and if I’m truly honest deeply concerning. For any form of communication to be truly effective – be it with our creator God or with each other – we need to listen with both our hearts and our minds. We need to engage personally, in the first person, with the reality of those who Christ has placed before us – human beings, with human stories about their divine encounters, with divine revelations.

I therefore believe it’s not only good to talk – to share, to witness, to engage with each other – it’s essential! It’s what our relational God desires for us more than anything. For it is in sharing confidences with each other that we learn to see each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. It is in sharing our stories that we realise that we are each just trying to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind, and our neighbour (even if we disagree with them!) as ourselves.

April 6, 2016
From Brussels to Jos – a Lesson in Countering Terrorism (Part 2)

Rev Canon Hassan John, Jos, Nigeria

Part 2 – The Key to Countering Terrorism

Reflecting on the Brussels bomb blast and indeed the attacks in Europe by the Islamic state, there is this worry about the seeming daunting task of nipping these attacks in the bud.

The challenges are however very clear. Whether it is the analogue approach of the Nigerian security agencies’ method of addressing the challenges or the swift high tech effective manner in which the western world is able to curtail hundreds of these attacks and only these relatively few slip through, the challenges of dealing with Islamic insurgencies are the same.

I believe that the best people to help fight the radical Islamists are Islam Muslims. Now this is a sensitive issue but let me attempt to walk the thin line.

Soon after each bomb attack in Nigeria (pictured), most of them against churches, there are deadly reprisals that follow. Muslims have been attacked by youths who felt frustrated by the incessant attacks and mass murders that have preceded these attacks. The Islamaphobia had increased with each incident.

As long as there are Islamic extremist who attack and kill so also will there be people who are Islamaphobic. It is the sad reality playing out. We need to jointly fight this phobia.

The fact is that very few people and families who are directly or indirectly involved and traumatized by any of this attacks will have any positive feeling towards Islam especially if they are from a different ethnic or religious backgrounds. Every attack creates terror and generates fear. It disrupts peoples’ routine and some permanently. Each attack impacts and changes our social landscape no matter how minimal. Many people will definitely not like that and we really shouldn’t. But I believe that we must focus, despite our different backgrounds and beliefs, we must unite to fight this evil.

It seems that the burden will be much more on Muslims all over the world to be the vanguard and the flag bearers of standing up with their fellow Muslims to fight radical Islamism. I think it is not enough to play safe and try to distant Islam from the radicals. It is not enough to claim Islam is a peaceful religion and Muslims are peaceful people and the radical Islamist are simply distorting Islam.

It is not enough to wait for the west and non-Muslims to fight the radical Islamists while other Muslims hope that the world will see the difference between the radical and non-radical Muslims. Calling those who cannot seem to see the difference Islamaphobic is not going to help the situation. Many societies are already divided on this.

This terrorism is a war against Islam as it is a war against civilization and it behoves Muslims, as everyone else, to be fully part of and engage in this war against terrorism. The war on extremism can mostly be won on intelligence gathered. To a large degree, I think, the Muslim community can work at providing this from their mosques and madrassas, schools and even homes as they begin to notice signs from those who are out to destroy Islam by radicalizing the followers.

To help counter the radicalization in Europe and all over the world, Muslims must be seen and heard supporting the war against terrorism, especially the ones they agree with which is currently against ISIL in Syria. To keep quiet gives the impression of a western aggressor against Islam.

The Umma and the Muslin clerics must find the courage to declare the Fatwa on those of its members who are out to kill and destroy those against their own ideology.

Now I do admit that this is not as easy because the truth is that Muslims all over the world do not all agree on what is radical Islam and what is not.

The fact also is that the fundamentalists, the extremists and the liberal Muslims hold onto and use the same Quran and Hadiths. While ‘peaceful’ Muslims in Europe will condemn the attacks in Paris and Brussels, we know that ‘peaceful’ Muslims in northern Nigeria until very recently, supported Boko Haram and some still sympathize with the terrorists. Others had supported and mourn Osama Bin Laden, as the Pew Research Centre on global attitude showed in 2010.

It is possible that western interventions in Libya and Syria have catalysed the attacks in Europe, according to some experts, but is Islam really ready to transform itself and can it do some house cleaning and house keeping?

An African proverb says ‘a lame man can not complain that the man carrying him smells of sweat, even if indeed he does.’ The Muslims should therefore not expect the world to be politically correct all the time and should not cry ‘Islamaphobia’ when certain truths are presented.

Each time I travel, as a Nigerian with a green passport, the passport and border control in airports will take their time to scrutinize me much more than they will do many nationals. I do not and will never hold a grudge because the past activities of Nigerians with drugs and fake documents have necessitated that they be more thorough. No security officer has the capability to look at me and see a saint. It is part of their job to find out, that means being called out. That can be described as profiling, well is there a better way? Maybe, maybe not but I think what needs to be done has to be done. That how I see it. It is therefore important that we do not assume that people should know that all Muslims are peaceful. We must work together. It is not ‘us’ and ‘them’ our young men and women must see us all united in ‘we’.

We all are in a war. Radical Islamists and terrorists will not spare anyone who does not agree with their ideology. We therefore all must come together, in love and truth and sincerity, fight this war otherwise we will be with it for a long time.

The attacks in Brussels have stirred up quite some emotions for me and possibly for so many who have experienced these attacks at some point; security agents and the medics who have to go through the scenes, soldiers, police and families. The impact can be very present if you have had any experience at all with this terror. May we ever be united against evil, where ever it is and in whichever format it appears.

“Part 1 – The Horrors of Terrorism” was be posted on Wednesday 30th March

Canon Hassan John

The Reverend Canon Hassan John is Vicar of St Christopher’s Anglican Church, Rayfield in Jos, Nigeria. Following a career in the media he is also the Information officer of the Anglican Diocese of Jos. Hassan is the founder and coordinator of the Rayfield Peace Project that brings together Christian and Muslim women and youths in a peace building initiative that builds trust and rapport between the Christian and Muslims in Jos. He is currently on sabbatical studying Christian Apologetics at the Centre for Christian Apologetics in Oxford.

April 1, 2016
From Brussels to Jos – A Lesson in Confronting Terrorism (Part 1)

The Revd Canon Hassan John, Jos, Nigeria

PART 1 – The Horror of Terrorism

As the news broke out on the media Tuesday morning 22^nd March of the Brussels bomb attacks, and the tragic events unfolded, I felt the tightening fear in my heart and the deep sense of tragedy because the reality of the desperate determination of Islamic extremists to destroy what they do not agree with anywhere in the world sank in even deeper for me. It is like reliving past experiences again.

I come from Jos, Nigeria, where Boko Haram cut its teeth in the spade of bomb blasts that have become the hallmark of the terrorist group since 2010 when they detonated the first bomb on that Christmas Eve in Jos.

Boko Haram is a terrorist Islamic group that has the Wahhabi Islamic ideology and set its goal first to destroy the church and Christianity, then anything that is western especially education, which they see as corrupting Islam, and then any Muslim who does not agree with their interpretation of the Quran. Since their emergence in 2009 in North-eastern Nigeria, they have killed more than 7, 000 people and displace about a million for the region. The Global Terrorists Index, in 2015, declared Boko Haram the most deadly terrorist group surpassing ISIS.

I have been a witness to the aftermath of some bomb attacks in Jos and have been very close to three of the bomb blasts; the Christmas day bomb blast in Jos in 2011, at the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Church, the bomb attack at the Church Of Christ In Nations (COCIN) headquarters compound church on the 26^th February 2012 (pictured) and the St Finbars Catholic church bomb blast on the 12^th of March 2012.

As I watched the breaking news of the Brussels attacks, instinctively I asked myself what I would be doing if I were at Brussels at that moment, assuming I survived and I am uninjured. Well Europe is completely a different context. Almost all support structures and agencies are available to rise up to the challenges as we see in the news.

Back in Nigeria the situation can be very chaotic.

On the Christmas day bomb attack in 2011, I came out of my house, not far from the church, and was thinking of where I would buy some milk when there was a loud explosion, the ground shook and there was a large smoke rising just ahead of me. I was startled and at first did not know what to make of the blast that shook the ground under my feet. But it soon dawned on me that it was Christmas morning and this was certainly a bomb blast. I ran to the scene, and there were people covered in dust, women and children screaming and one of the first casualties emerged from the dust, a man covered in blood. There was a stampede as people ran off in different directions and then a car crash as the drivers desperately tried to flee the scene. Many more people arrived at this time and we did what ever we could to help the injured. The military and police came and cordoned off the area as we were all cleared from the scene.

The bomb blasts at the Church of Christ in Nations, (COCIN) headquarters in the town centre and the blast at St Finbar’s Catholic church in Rayfield, Jos, will always remain indelible in my mind. Both had similar characteristics. They were both cars with suicide bombers. Both came with their handlers who, the church security said, waited about a minute outside the church gates until the vehicle gained access and came within a close proximity to where many people were before detonating the bombs.

In the COCIN church attack, I was driving just past the church that morning and I felt the blast in the car and the dust that rose behind the car as I looked into the mirror and with the St Finbar’s Church blast, I was in another building, a few metres away when the roof of the building vibrated, the window glasses rattled and cracked and the ground shook.

The blood, the body parts and mutilated bodies are too graphic to describe here. The injuries were massive. Buildings near the church buildings showed cracks from the explosion. The car carrying the bomb was a mangled piece leaving a crater where the car used to be. People quickly moved in to help and those who had cars desperately grabbed who ever was injured and rushed off in the direction of whichever hospital they felt was closest. The National Emergency Management Agency the only organization empowered to meet these types of challenges and the Red Cross arrived sometime later to take the injured and the dead. We do not have paramedic and Ambulance services except the very few owned by few hospitals. The police and military also arrived shortly but were insulted by the crowd out of frustration and anger. The soldiers and the police were forced to retreat from the the scene of the COCIN church bomb blast, but at the St Finbar’s church incident, the soldiers, either out of fear or for show of power, shot at the crowd injuring many more people. A bullet hit a man who was standing beside me shattering his shinbone. We all ran for cover and came out later when the shooting stopped. We quickly pleaded with someone who took the man to a hospital.

In both incidences, in swift reprisals, frustrated youths went on rampage on the street (pictured) attacking anyone that looked like the ‘enemy’, in other words a Muslim and to some extent any soldier who they see as ‘complacent’ in all the attacks that plagued Jos for over 5 years. A lot of people were attacked and injured in these reprisals.

Tragedy loomed in the town of Jos for weeks after each of the so many bomb attacks it has experienced. Families went through traumatic experiences and the enmity between Christians and Muslims deepened.

At incidences like this in Nigeria, there are no large street memorial services for the dead. The police and soldiers have phobia for any large gatherings, which can be potential targets. People and families are left to find their dead and bury them and if they don’t, the government will take the dead to a mass grave and bury them. The hospitals have no adequate facilities to cope with the hundreds of deaths from these attacks.

The churches will conduct funeral services for their individual members. We would go from one family we know to the other, to console them and pray with them. We then help in any way we can with funeral arrangements while for the injured we assist with whatever amount we can to cover some of the bills. Relatives would take those that were not Christians back home or to their villages for burial. The matter usually ends there and people simply hope that the next one is not as deadly or people hope and pray that they do not become victims the next time. This is the life in the Boko Haram insurgencies in Nigeria.

This is what made me very sad and anxious at the Brussels attack last Tuesday. But the situation in Europe is different. People are united in the massive condemnation and the paramedics and security organizations know what to do.

In the Nigerian tragedies, the police and military are usually there to secure the scene for the anti bomb squad, to retrieve what is left of the device, if ever it is found amidst the hundreds of people that invade the scenes. They try to keep people away and search for any other unexploded devices while they wait until a high-ranking officer both of the police and military visit the scene and a politician come to make a statement.

Very little is known of the counter terrorism efforts of the Nigerian security agencies, either out of bad information management or lack of the capacity to handle these insurgencies. Committees are sometimes set up and ‘on going investigations’ declared after each incident but the public is rarely is kept abreast of any developments. In the wake of some of these attacks, the security agencies are reported to have discovered bomb making factories and various types of IEDs that Boko Haram uses. They are said to have arrested unwilling suicide bombers; little girls as young as 10 years old used by Boko haram and have arrested people with weapons. But these are always too little too late.

In general the frequency of these attacks in Nigeria give the impression that the security agencies are overwhelmed and frustrated. They do not seem to have answers to these challenges or are ill trained and ill equipped to deal with terrorism.

Families are left to mourn and bury their dead. Some are not able to find their relatives because the remains of those blown to pieces are collected and mass buried. Those that have not been able to find their dead, empty coffins are placed in their memory and buried.

Many who are not critically injured, go to pharmacies on the streets to treat themselves while many others go away with their wounds to care and pay their own bills and to live with the trauma and scars for the rest of their lives. Sometimes, to score political points, politicians offset some of the hospital bills.

Somehow you get the feeling that as soon as one incident is over, there seem to be an anticipation and a waiting for the next to happen and the circle to be repeated again. The efforts of the Joint Task Forces in Jos and in the north east are so covered in controversies, accusations and allegations that many people have resigned themselves to personal protection while the soldiers simply become the security presence in check points on the roads in the country.

In the North Eastern part of Nigeria where Boko Haram is fully operational and has militants in the villages, the YouTube social media is perhaps the place to find some of the tales. Brave soldiers and policemen have died and many injured in this campaign. They must be acknowledged. But many more senior officers and politicians have struck goldmines also in these campaigns. Boko Haram still seems to have the upper hand for now. Perhaps the foreign interventions now will make a difference. These are some of the few differences between the terrorist attacks in Nigeria and the ones in Europe.

“Part 2 – The Key to Countering Terrorism” will be posted on Friday morning at 0900

Canon Hassan John

The Reverend Canon Hassan John is Vicar of St Christopher’s Anglican Church, Rayfield in Jos, Nigeria. Following a career in the media he is also the Information officer of the Anglican Diocese of Jos. Hassan is the founder and coordinator of the Rayfield Peace Project that brings together Christian and Muslim women and youths in a peace building initiative that builds trust and rapport between the Christian and Muslims in Jos. He is currently on sabbatical studying Christian Apologetics at the Centre for Christian Apologetics in Oxford.

March 29, 2016
All in This Together?

by the Very Revd Dr David Ison, Dean of St Paul’s

On 18^th March Iain Duncan-Smith resigned from his UK government Cabinet post as Work and Pensions Secretary. His resignation letter said, ‘The latest changes to benefits to the disabled and the context in which they’ve been made are a compromise too far. While they are defensible in narrow terms, given the continuing deficit, they are not defensible in the way they were placed within a Budget that benefits higher earning taxpayers… I hope as the government goes forward you can look again… at the balance of the cuts you have insisted upon and wonder if enough has been done to ensure “we are all in this together.”’

That final phrase is a quote from the 2010 general election campaign, much used before then and since by Conservative (and other) politicians. David Cameron’s first Conservative Party Conference speech as Prime Minister used the word ‘together’ twenty times as a rallying call for a united country where ‘fairness includes asking those on higher incomes to shoulder more of the burden than those on lower incomes…. It’s fair that those with broader shoulders should bear a greater load. And I think it’s time for a new conversation about what fairness really means… fairness means giving money to help the poorest in society. People who are sick, who are vulnerable, the elderly – I want you to know we will always look after you.’ And whether or not that’s still true is what Mr Duncan-Smith’s letter is wondering about.

The subsequent few days have produced a torrent of comment and analysis, briefing, counter-briefing and spin. But there are two questions which Mr Duncan-Smith has highlighted and which are in danger of getting forgotten – indeed, which some might want to see well buried. Is the principle that ‘we are all in this together’ – which the Conservative Party freely adopted as its rallying call – being put into practice? And who is ‘we’?

The politics of power in human institutions, whether a government, a country, a church, a hospital or a family, often revolve around questions of justice and belonging. Politics as a profession is about the exercise of government; but all of us are involved in politics, just as everyone is involved in religion even though only some are ministers of religion or theologians. And, as with Mr Duncan-Smith, we do need to wonder about how just and fair our institutions are; and whether, when we say ‘we’re all in this together’, we really do mean all, or whether we actually mean ‘we who have power and those who we think are on our side’. Who gets left out of the ‘we all’ that includes ‘hard working people’ and hopefully ‘the sick, vulnerable and elderly’? What of asylum seekers, disabled people, LGBTI people, ‘foreigners’, black people, young people, Muslims, unemployed people, ‘shirkers’, prisoners… the list can be a long one.

Giving voice to wondering about justice was the job of the prophets in ancient Israel, as in God’s name they called rulers and powerful people to account for their partiality. Who are the prophets now? Pundits, bloggers, committees and commissions, pressure groups and tweeters all do some of it, and yet all have their own axe to grind as well. As Jesus pointed out in the Sermon on the Mount, we’re very good at pointing our finger at the shortcomings of others and very good too at ignoring where we ourselves fall short.

If we’re to avoid the fruitless conflict of mutual accusations of self-interest and unfairness, then we need two things. The first is an absolute commitment to the equal importance of every human being: the commitment to define ‘we’ as everyone with no exclusions. Otherwise, justice becomes partial. The Bible that inspires the preferential option for the poor, the weak and downtrodden by calling on the powerful to act with justice also contains the injunction not to be partial to the poor either (see Exodus 23), because justice is equal for all. Underlying this impartiality is God’s love for each of us, and God’s judgement for each of us: we are all equal before God in love and in falling short of the glory of God… It’s not comfortable, but then God’s love seen in Jesus isn’t comfortable: it requires us to love the stranger and the enemy. For politicians it means caring for those who might vote for someone else; for religious people it means that God loves those who we think have got it wrong – or at least, wronger than we have.

And the second thing we need is the commitment to love our neighbour at least as much as ourselves, to put the interests of others alongside or over our own. Modern prophets may challenge the government about how it allocates resources fairly; but they might also call on each one of us who gains from income tax cuts to increase our giving to charities for the disabled by at least the amount we get from the Budget (and Gift Aid it) – and while we’re at it, hand over to charity also the money we might have paid in extra duty on beer, spirits and cider. One thing that Jesus and the Hebrew prophets teach us is the need to be the message we proclaim: that holding those with power to account is only a just activity if we ourselves speak and act with justice and compassion in our own lives.

From a Christian perspective, the furore about benefit cuts highlights the challenge to the Church to be the justice and compassion it proclaims. Of course we accept the principle of loving our neighbour as ourselves, and that in the Church ‘we’re all in this together’: and yet we may then define certain groups as being outside the bounds of the Body of Christ, so that our togetherness is partial and our love is compromised. Whether it’s the scandal of ecumenical division (which we hardly notice because it’s been going on so long), institutional racism and sexism, failure to care for victims of abuse, the silencing of LGBTI people; whether it’s in our local church or denomination or international structures of belonging – we need the voices of prophetic lives to re-call us to God’s love and justice for those we overlook, in church as well as society, and to learn to become those prophets ourselves.

‘I wonder if enough has been done to ensure “we are all in this together.”’

March 23, 2016
Why R & R is Good for the Health of the Church

“The Theologians Have Only Interpreted the World…”: Responding to Martyn Percy’s Critique of Renewal and Reform

by the Revd Canon Simon Butler, Prolocutor of Canterbury

Last week I attended my first meeting of the new Archbishops’ Council. We met for two days, first to establish relationships in preparation of five years’ working together, and secondly to begin to pick up the ongoing threads of the Council’s work, especially the programme of Renewal and Reform (R&R). This extensive programme of change – fostering vocations, developing discipleship, prioritising lay leadership, resourcing ministerial training, redirecting diocesan finance and simplifying our cumbersome legislation – seeks to respond to the reality of numerical decline that is projected to become precipitate in the coming years and to refocus the church on numerical and spiritual growth. It is an attempt to shift the institution of the Church in a missionary direction. In as much as there is a centre in the Church of England, R&R is the centre doing its bit to reverse that decline.

But not without criticism. Most trenchantly, Professor Martyn Percy, the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, writing for Modern Church, has attacked R&R as based on “secular reasoning, business-think, spiritual zeal and passionate intensity”, lacking in “ecclesial comprehension, spiritual vision and theological depth.” He describes the church R&R attempts to create as a “Zombie church”.

The space allotted to Via Media articles doesn’t allow for a full response to Martyn’s criticisms. His insight merits proper consideration, once the regrettable polemics have been acknowledged. In this short article, however, it seems appropriate to offer a more balanced perspective as a critical friend of R&R.

Professor Percy is undoubtedly correct to say that there are insights from the secular and business world present in R&R. There are also undoubtedly passionate, committed Christians with a zeal for mission and evangelism, lay and ordained, committed to the work. None of this should surprise anyone. It is difficult to understand how this should present a concern to Martyn, whose own ministry as a Principal of a theological college and now as a Dean of a Cathedral, will have and will require all of these elements in the mix of institutional life.

Had such insights been all that Renewal and Reform was about, as it seems Martyn wants to claim, we should naturally be anxious. Were there no understanding of the nature of the breadth of the Church of England, were there no prayerful and contemplative elements, were there no theological commitments driving the work, then perhaps we ought to be worried.

But this is palpably not the case. To witness Archbishop Justin at work in Lambeth Palace will see him in a praying, thinking, reflective community of leaders and advisers is to see it challenged. Initial experience of the Archbishops’ Council (including theologians, parish priests, lay leaders and mission practitioners, and a variety of appointed members whose experience and commitments are grounded in the reality and breadth of the Church of England), does not suggest this is a body to be easily-steamrollered into a sort of City-driven groupthink. And the House of Bishops, whose own lack of university-based theologians does highlight the never-wider gap between the Church and the Academy across which Professor Percy speaks, nevertheless are more aware than most of the cultural and missiological challenges facing the contemporary Church of England and the need to speak the Good News of Jesus Christ with many and varying voices in our society – from healthy, vibrant parishes to imaginative “Fresh Expressions.”

So there is plenty of that which Professor Percy claims is absent in Renewal and Reform and I am hopeful in the coming months we shall see a more explicit theological narrative and spiritual resourcing. These are there already; but I agree with Martyn that it needs to be more visible and, for many, it needs to be seen to be driving the agenda more. If Renewal and Reform can help us all to dream dreams and to catch a vision for the work of the Spirit in the life of the Church, and to help us to live the “hope that is set before us” it will have done all it sets out to do. Good communication, however, is essential.

What cannot be doubted is that Renewal & Reform is a huge cultural change in a Church whose approach to change can be generously described as ‘leisurely’. What I hope its detractors and its supporters can share in is a commitment to the first of the words in its title – to Renewal. Whether or not the statistics stack up, whether or not the decline of the Church of England is imminent, we can all share in a desire to see the Spirit at work transforming lives and communities. The Holy Spirit changes lives and hearts before the Spirit changes institutions. As my sub-title suggests, those whose primary commitment is theology and those whose primary commitment is institutional change, could both be helpfully reminded that change – sanctification to give it a more theological slant – is at the heart of what we long for. Perhaps we can unite around that.

March 16, 2016
Modelling “Both-And” Christianity

by Canon Dr Angus Ritchie, Executive Director, The Centre for Theology & Community.

Pope Francis and Archbishop Justin have a striking amount in common. Both reject the idea that religion is a matter of ‘other-worldly’ piety. Both are outspoken in demanding justice as well as compassion for the poorest in society. And both challenge the stereotype of a church divided between ‘liberals’ (interested in social action and inter-faith engagement) and ‘conservatives’ (doctrinally orthodox and committed to evangelism).

These two Church leaders are ‘both-and’ Christians: committed to social justice and doctrinally orthodox; serious about inter-faith engagement and committed to evangelism and church growth; deeply rooted in prayer and active in the wider world. Their approach – confident in the truth of Christianity, serious about spreading the faith, and yet keen to work with those outside the Church – reflects developments within grassroots church life which defy the usual stereotypes. Social action is no longer seen as a distraction from, or a pretext for, evangelism.

‘Both-and’ Christianity is serious about social justice as an end in itself. It is unapologetic in its desire to spread the faith and make disciples. There is a strong and simple theological basis for this ‘both-and’ approach. It is summed up in one word: love.

Love is the word with which Jesus sums up ‘the whole law and the commandments,’ and it makes sense of both social transformation and personal conversion as complementary aspects of the church’s mission. The church does not feed the poorest, fight for a living wage and support Credit Unions in order to make converts. It is commanded to show practical love and fight for justice as expressions of unconditional love to believer and non-believer alike. As Pope Benedict wrote it his encyclical on social justice (Deus Caritas Est)

“Love is free; it is not practised as a way of achieving other ends…. a pure and generous love is the best witness to the God in whom we believe and by whom we are driven to love. A Christian knows when it is time to speak of God and when it is better to say nothing and to let love alone speak. He knows that God is love (1 John 4.8) and that God’s presence is felt at the very time when the only thing we do is to love.”

By the same token, part of what it is to love someone is to share that which you hold most precious. As Mark Russell puts it, “If a church doesn’t do evangelism, it is effectively saying Jesus changes lives, but this is only for us.”

We don’t work for social justice in order to convert, and we don’t evangelise in order to do more social action – both are expressions of love to the neighbour. But there is an increasing amount of evidence that social justice and evangelism are mutually reinforcing. A report on church growth which is about to be published by the Centre for Theology and Community (CTC) argues that the practical embodiment of Christian love is vital to the credibility of its proclamation of the Gospel, and also makes the obvious point that churches which grow numerically have a greater capacity for social action (what Bishop Paul Bayes calls “a bigger church to make a bigger difference”).

In a context like east London, where alongside so many people of other faiths and of none, this ‘both-and’ approach makes obvious sense. Local churches work with people of other faiths and none to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless – and to organise for a Living Wage, affordable housing and ethical lending.

As these public relationships develop, it is inevitable that more personal conversations occur. In such discussions, neighbours of other faiths and of none have sought to persuade me of the truth of their convictions. Far from finding this offensive, I welcome it as an act of friendship and indeed of love. To take me seriously as a fellow human being involves sharing what you believe to be of ultimate significance. Likewise, for me to love my neighbour involves sharing what Pope Francis calls “the most precious thing given to me: Jesus Christ.” I don’t care for my neighbours in order to make them Christians. Sharing my faith is one of many expressions of that care.

The approach of Pope Francis and Archbishop Justin – humble and confident, frank and engaging – is indicative of a church finding its place, and its voice, in increasingly plural societies. ‘Both-and’ Christianity is well suited to these new and challenging contexts. It has the even greater advantage of being faithful to the breadth of Jesus’ message, which has always challenged the neat categories of those who seek an ‘either/or’ approach.

March 10, 2016
Rediscovering “Good Disagreement”

by the Right Revd Dr David Walker, Bishop of Manchester

Back in my days as a vicar, some time in the mid 1990s, we had a very good piece of mission work going on in my parish. Ten years or so later a term was coined and popularised for such activities: they were to be called Fresh Expressions of Church. Bestowing a name, as a parent on a child, or as a researcher identifying a new phenomenon or object, doesn’t only reflect identity, it helps establish it. If the term Fresh Expression had been around at the time, we would have understood better what our activity was about, and maybe how to help it grow and develop to its maximum potential. And I could more easily have fended off the occasional church council member who grumbled that all these people didn’t seem to be coming along to the traditional Sunday morning services.

Naming things matters. And at the moment one of the key new names on the Church of England block is “good disagreement”. Its birthplace can be found in the process of Shared Conversations that lies at the heart of the C of E’s attempts to respond to the deeply divided views around LGBT Christians and their place in the church. It’s a useful term to identify that there can be a meaningful (perhaps even transformative) outcome to a conflict that does not involve either one side winning or the achievement of a largely agreed compromise. Yet a name that applies to only one specific circumstance carries an inevitable weakness. If good disagreement is only defined in relation to sexuality, then our attempts to develop it as a concept, even for use in that specific case, will be limited. Can we take the notion away from its origins and nurture it in ways that will give it strength, perhaps by finding examples of where, like my 1990s parish, we can discover we’ve already been doing it, before the name was invented?

Over the last three or so years I’ve done quite a few rounds of media interviews on the topics of migration and refugees. The subjects are emotive, and after every set of TV and radio appearances I could guarantee a little wave of angry, and often abusive, emails. Quite early on, resisting the temptation to make a sharp or witty response, and avoiding the desire simply to bin them, I decided that any that had a name and address to respond to, and that managed to include at least one point of view amid the abuse, would get a courteous reply that attempted to engage with their viewpoint. What happened next surprised me. In up to half the cases I then got a second email, almost always deeply apologetic for the tone of the first. My views on the subject matter didn’t change hugely, but they became better informed and more understanding of why people might with integrity differ from me. It was clear that in many cases their perceptions of me had also changed significantly, because I’d taken the time to respond. And their views too were becoming more reasoned and reflected.

What I am contending is that even such a limited process as this goes beyond a simple combination of courtesy and agreement to differ. What was happening was that me and my correspondents were ceasing to be ciphers for our views and attitudes, and becoming real human beings to each other. A very basic level of relationship was being forged. Relationship lies at the heart of our Christian Faith. The Father sent his son rather than a rule book, and sent him that we might have a life changing and life building relationship with him here and now. Our doctrine of the Trinity teaches us that relationship is central to God’s own self. Good disagreement, whatever the topic, is in its essence relational. It represents the conclusion of a process in which the other has been met as a fellow human being and Christian, even if we might still think that they hold views incompatible with both our sense of the canon of scripture and the trajectory of God’s Kingdom.

Applying that to this January’s meeting of Anglican Primates convinces me that it was precisely the depth of relationship, forged by the efforts of Archbishop Justin in visiting each of them in their own provinces, sustained by worshipping and loving together at Canterbury, and upheld by those surrounding them in prayer, that enabled all bar one of them not just to remain through the process but to make an explicit commitment to continue in fellowship. It seems to be what has happened for a large majority of participants at the regional Conversations. The immediate challenge is how to incorporate that relation building process into the July General Synod, recognising that what is possible in smaller groups becomes much more complex in large gatherings. But the wider challenge is, I believe, to develop an understanding of what Good Disagreement means which can take us far beyond the presenting problem within whose crucible the term was forged.

March 2, 2016