Can you truly say the Lord's Prayer?

 Here's my May magazine article:

Ascension Day, forty days after Easter, is on 13th May this year and it again marks the start of the 11-day global prayer movement called 'Thy Kingdom Come'. The title is taken from the Lord's Prayer, the prayer that Jesus taught his followers as a pattern for our praying as well as a prayer that we can make our own. The familiarity of that prayer means that we can lose sight of the radical nature of what we are praying for, and perhaps the most radical part of the prayer is the most over-looked: the opening two words - “Our Father.”

Our Western civilisation is so saturated in Christian thought that it is quite natural to think of God as 'Father'. However, this is unknown in Greco-Roman culture and unthinkable in Islam (hence the famous account of Bilquis Sheikh's conversion from Islam to Christianity entitled “I dared to call him Father”). Even in the Old Testament, God is the Father of the nation of Israel, and only of certain special individuals such as David. Conversely, the Christian-soaked Western world takes the idea of the Fatherhood of God too far the other way: as God is the Creator and originator of everything, the thinking goes, every human is therefore a child of God.

Jesus' radical message saves us both from a distant deity and from a conception of our position as God's children that is so wide that it becomes meaningless. John's gospel opens by telling us that Jesus would be rejected by many “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). Paul tells the Christians in Galatia: “you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26 New King James Version) and “God sent forth His Son...to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons...Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ” (Galatians 4:4-7 NKJV).

These verses tell us important things. Firstly, only those who believe in (in the sense of putting their faith and trust in) Jesus are truly children of God. Secondly, adoption as a child of God is a result of redemption, i.e. by repenting of our sins in the faith that Jesus' death has paid the penalty for those sins. Thirdly, we are adopted as sons. This last point seems to be sexist, and indeed most modern translations of the Bible in these verses will render the Greek word 'son' as 'child'. However, Paul deliberately uses the word 'son' for a particular reason: in the society of his day only males could inherit, so Paul wants us to understand that those who are adopted as God's sons will share in everything the Father has. This distinction might also help us today for though it could be said that by virtue of being created by God we are all children of God, only those who are redeemed are sons of God and thus inherit the kingdom / salvation / eternal life.

The Lord's Prayer is therefore a family prayer – the prayer of those who have been adopted as God's sons through faith in Jesus. Can you truly say that prayer as part of that family?

Brenda, elections and the Archbishops

Here's my article for the June magazines:

You may agree with Brenda from Bristol, and when thinking about the forthcoming General Election exclaim “Not another one!” But whether we like it or not we are having another election. Brenda's reaction perhaps reflects a more widely held weariness about yet another chance to 'have our say'. That is why the Archbishops of Canterbury and York wrote in their recent letter to the Parishes and Chaplaincies of the Church of England that one of their obligations “at these times is to set aside apathy and cynicism and to participate, and encourage others to do the same.”

It is easy to take for granted the privilege we have to vote in democratic elections but the example of the Suffragettes and the Chartists to name just a couple should remind us that the right to vote was one that had to be fought for. And we only have to look around the world to see places where free and fair elections are not possible. However, that doesn't mean that we can be so naïve as to think that democracy is a perfect system nor as arrogant as to think that we should impose Western style democracy on other nations. But here in this country we do have the right to vote and we should use it.

The Archbishops also say that Christians have the higher obligation to pray for those standing for office, and to continue to pray for those who are elected. They encourage us “to engage prayerfully with the candidates and issues in this election” and to “recognise the enormous responsibilities and the vast complexity of the issues that our political leaders face. We are constantly reminded of the personal costs and burdens carried by those in political life and by their families.” This will involve the criticising of policies for their logical, economic and moral flaws and perhaps holding these policies up for ridicule but in our examination of the issues and policies we should not forget that the politicians are all human beings.

However, importantly, the Archbishops say that “Contemporary politics needs to re-evaluate the importance of religious belief.” This might seem an obvious thing for them to say but their further statements show that this is deeper than saying that religious belief should be respected. They say “Religious belief is the well-spring for the virtues and practices that make for good individuals, strong relationships and flourishing communities” and “The assumptions of secularism are not a reliable guide to the way the world works.” They are reminding us that none of us are neutral or impartial in our outlook, all of our actions and thoughts stem from particular worldviews; some religious, some non-religious. A point of view should not be dismissed merely because it is a religious view. In fact, only religious viewpoints make sense because without a belief in God, concepts like good and bad, and right and wrong cease to have any objective meaning: they simply describe whether we like something or not (see the video "Can you be good without God?" by Andy Bannister).

However you decide to vote, and whatever the result, the Christian prayer to God remains the same “thy kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven.”

Thy Kingdom come

Here's my article for May's magazines:

There's lots of talk about kingdoms at the moment. On TV there's the second series of Bernard Cornwell's 'The Last Kingdom' about the struggle between the Saxons and the Danes, and also the second series of 'Versailles' the drama about the rule of Louis XIV, the Sun King. In the first the kingdoms are won and held by battles and bloodshed, and in the second the kingdom revolves around the whim and will of one person, the king.

This month, however, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has invited us to think about a different kingdom, the Kingdom of God. Under the title 'Thy Kingdom Come' Archbishop Justin has invited Christians around the world during the time between Ascension and Pentecost (24^th May-4^th June), not to fight for a kingdom but to pray for God's Kingdom to come. He has deliberately echoed the words of the Lord's prayer, in which Jesus taught us to pray “thy kingdom come: thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. And this phrase gives us a clue as to what the coming of God's Kingdom looks like. God's Kingdom is all about God's will being done on earth, but unlike the absolute rule of Louis XIV, God's absolute rule is one of justice and peace to give us all abundant life, not just to please the king.

It also reminds us that the Christian vision of life in God's Kingdom is not really about what happens to us when we die or at some future time, it's about what happens in the here-and-now. God's Kingdom on earth started with Jesus' death, resurrection and ascension so it's something that he invites us to be part of and also to help bring about. And we become part of it by following God's will in our lives.

This is easier said than done, but it starts with having a relationship with Jesus and a living faith in him, so the focus of the time of prayer is not just to pray for people's needs; personally, locally, nationally or internationally but to pray that people will come to know Jesus and that Christians would be empowered to speak about their faith.

As usual on the days before Ascension, we'll be having our 'Rogation Day Blessing Service' where we will be asking God to bless the parish and the midweek services will have a particular focus on praying for God's Kingdom to come, so please feel free to join us as we pray or to send us any requests for prayer.

As Ian Adams has written on www.thykingdomcome.global “To pray 'Thy Kingdom Come' is to pray for a shift in the world around us...But to pray 'Thy Kingdom Come' is first to pray for a shift within ourselves.” Are you brave enough to pray that prayer?

The EU and the CofE

Here's my magazine article for June:

On Thursday 23^rd June, voters will be able to have their say over the future of the UK's relationship with the EU. This will be, and indeed is already being, preceded by lots of comments from religious leaders about the issues, followed by lots of criticisms of religion 'meddling' in politics.

Those who don't approve of religious leaders speaking out on political issues (although they tend only to disapprove if the religious leader holds an opposite opinion!) often make two mistakes. Firstly they assume that faith and politics are separate; that one's faith is a private matter whereas politics is about public issues and never the twain should meet. This is a false division as any faith worth its salt has an outward dimension and has a view about how humans should interact. Indeed, Jesus taught us to ask our heavenly Father “thy kingdom come” and Jesus himself was executed because he represented a threat to the political and religious authorities of his day. The second mistake that is made is to think that a discussion about politics can be held in a neutral, value-free, completely 'rational' environment. We all have a world-view that shapes our thinking about society: for a lot of people that world-view is influenced by their religious beliefs for others it is influenced by their secular beliefs.

So I offer my ha'p'orth on the referendum, two reflections both based on the experience of the Church of England, but on different sides of the argument. Firstly, one of the founding principles of the Church of England was that it was not subject to Rome. Henry VIII reasoned that as he was appointed by God, he was answerable only to God, and therefore that he, not the Pope, was the head of the English church. As the Church of England spread around the world, this principle went with it, so that each national church had the authority to decide matters for themselves without looking to England. Therefore, all the churches of what is now the Anglican Communion have different liturgies and different views on certain issues. Thus the principle of each nation being in supreme control of its own area is central to the history of the Church of England.

On the other hand, the Church of England makes no grand claims for itself, it simply states that it is “part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.” It doesn't claim to be the true Church, or the Church in its entirety but just a part of the Church. There's a recognition that it is part of a larger whole and so that it is dependant on, and in partnership with, the rest of the Church

These two reflections show that it is possible for a Christian to be on either side of the debate, and indeed www.reimaginingeurope.co.uk is “a space for Christian reflection and debate on Britain’s future relationship with Europe” with views on both sides. However you decide to vote, and whatever the result, the Christian prayer to God remains the same “thy kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven.”