It is worthy of note that today (Friday) the Church Times has a leader entitled Fundamentalism. I have noticed over the years that the word is one that is normally avoided in articles and comments in the paper. I suspect that this reluctance to use the F-word is based on two fears. One is the fear of being misunderstood and the other a fear of giving offence. There are of course some precise definitions linking the word fundamentalism to Christian groups in the USA in the 1920s which stood firmly against the ‘evils’ of modernist tendencies in the church and in society. Also in a looser context the word is sometimes used to describe people of a religious conservative bent you do not like. Many Christians of an evangelical background hate the word and bristle at the thought of being identified with Creationists or with people who work tirelessly to keep women in church under strict control. The Church Times leader, no doubt aware of all the problems of using the word, helpfully provides a definition from a 1992 article. It goes as follows: ‘(fundamentalism is) the belief that there is one set of religious teachings that clearly contains the fundamental, basic, intrinsic, essential, inerrant truth about humanity and deity; that this essential truth is fundamentally opposed by the forces of evil which must be vigorously fought; that this truth must be followed today according to the fundamental, unchangeable practices of the past; and that those who believe and follow these fundamental teachings have a special relationship with the deity.’ The leader comments in its conclusion that such a system of belief for Christians fails in one important way – namely in its attitude to outsiders. Jesus himself gave special attention to those who were unclean, those who could be argued to have the least claim to a ‘special relationship with the deity’.

It is unsurprising that the press both secular and religious is now using the word and giving particular attention to extremism in religion in the context of the terrible events in France. Philip Collins, the Times columnist, today writes that ‘when people lay claim to certainty about ultimate questions, sooner or later there is going to be trouble. If the truth has been in some way vouchsafed to you by the divinity then dissent is not reasoned disagreement, it is blasphemy. I am no longer an interlocutor, I am an infidel.’ This Times opinion piece can be summed up by some words that I wrote on the topic fifteen years ago. ‘Fundamentalism cannot and will not listen’.

I want to unpack my own pithy definition of fundamentalism, acknowledging that the other quotes I mention with approval provide a background of explanation about this slippery word. My own definition tries to preserve two aspects of the phenomenon of fundamentalism, one to do with the thinking intellect and the other to do with psychology. The extent to which the non-communication is intellectual or emotional will vary in every case. To say that someone cannot listen to another person in a situation of potential dialogue or communication is on some occasions, I believe, to do with a failure at an intellectual level. Here the conservative Christian (or Muslim) cannot deal with more than one explanation of truth. As the CT leader said, ‘there is one set of religious teachings’ for the fundamentalist. If that is true, then logically there will be, as my definition states, an inability to hear or listen to anything else from another person. For someone to be in this place of intellectual deafness is a sad plight. How they end up in this place is not clear but one cause would be a failure to be exposed to the norms of educational process as we understand it in the West. ‘I cannot hear you’ may be statement about a weak education. It may also be the result of a long term conditioning which we recognise as having created a closed mind.

The second part of my definition picks up the emotional and psychological aspect of being a fundamentalist believer. In this second case, the reason for the deafness is that the believer chooses not to listen. Listening or hearing something that would disturb a settled point of view and belief is uncomfortable and to be resisted. According to this way of thinking, discomfort of this kind is interpreted as the forces of evil mounting an attack and these must be vigorously fought. There is of course a desperate need to remain in a place of stability and certainty. Space forbids me going further in my description of the fundamentalist stance beyond the basic observation that there seem to be these two aspects or components, the intellectual and the emotional.

For the final part of this post, I need to say why I believe, as my title suggests, that religious fundamentalism is a place of danger. Most of what I intend to say on this has already been suggested in what has been already written. First, would any of us want to place a child in charge of those who cannot allow the cut and thrust of discussion and debate? Would any of us leave another person with a view on life that denied the possibility of anything new being discovered? Would we ever be happy for ourselves to have our lives controlled by a existing fixed set of rules? Can we imagine that every conversation with another person would have to be checked by an internal censor for fear that it might lead us into areas of unsoundness? The world that I am describing is indeed a place of danger, and the danger arises from the fact that important aspects of a wider humanity are suppressed or denied. When we think about the fundamentalist universe, it is hard to distinguish who is being harmed the most, the abuser (teacher) or the pupil-victim. Simply living in this paranoid universe is opening oneself up to the infection and danger of having one’s full humanity damaged and partly destroyed. How far we are here from a master who said ‘I have come that they may have life, life in all its abundance.’

When I reflect on some of the stories of Christians abused by Christians, one of the common themes, that often seems to come into the accounts, is the word ‘fear’. A lot more could be said on the topic as to the way that fear is such a mind-numbing and dispiriting experience for the one experiencing it. I want here to reflect not on the experience itself but why this emotion appears so often in the process we describe as Christian abuse. Abuse, in whatever context it occurs, normally takes place because certain individuals enjoy power. One thing that sets up an appetite for power is that the individual seeking power has at some point in their lives felt insignificant and less than appreciated. Exercising domination over others, through the exercise of authority and power, seems to relieve a void of powerlessness because there is another person who looks up to you in some way. To have someone frightened of you seems to satisfy this longing for domination.

The desire to dominate other people has always seemingly been a part of human nature. Sometimes entire nations are encouraged to feel superior over other groups or nations. The Germans as a nation were taught by their Nazi rulers to despise Jews, Slavs and other non-Aryan races and this was seen to be an aspect of their vocation to be the master race in the world. Indian society is riddled with the imbedded caste system which is a socially sanctioned system of power abuse over despised groups on the part of the privileged. We see the effect of power hierarchies and the bullying they create everywhere, whether in the family, the school, the company or the church.

For domination to work there has to be the possibility of sanctions. The master has to be able to punish the slave for disobedience. The soldier in an army of occupation has to be to able threaten the civilian with punishment and the child in a bullying relationship with another threatens to make life a misery for his victim. These implied threats cast a miasma of fear over a dominating relationship. Even if a stability is achieved so that actual violence rarely happens, this possibility, the threat of violence and the fear that it produces, can pervade the atmosphere of an institution or relationship like a fog.

The miasma of fear arising from bullying and an authoritarian structure is something that exists in certain churches. The members of these churches of fear have, paradoxically, often become so acclimatised to the atmosphere that they have forgotten that coercion and domination are built into the system. They have avoided encountering the sanctions built into the authoritarian system by keeping their heads down. The attitude that places all responsibility for thinking out problems on to the leaders has been adopted. Pastor So and So has been to college so he understands the difficult parts of the bible. I can rely on my Pastor because that is what Bible says I have to do. The no-questioning and no-challenging of the leaders seems to work and an un-eerie peace is allowed to prevail as a result. But in that peace there is a recognition that, were it to be challenged, the Pastor could make life very uncomfortable indeed for the questioner. Peace is ultimately preserved through fear, just as the Soviet system appeared to ‘work’ for countless numbers of its citizens.

The Brentwood situation to which I often refer in this blog is one where the miasma of fear allowed a situation of cruelty, deceit and power games to prevail for 30 + years. The habits of fear are still around even as the constant challenge of Nigel Davies through his blog undermines the pretentions and hypocrisy of the leaders. While the leadership can suppress questioning within the group, it is less successful when an ex-member, who has cast off the fear-laden attitudes of the past, questions and challenges. I am one of those who offers support from the outside. A battle against past and present fear is a battle well worth fighting.

What are the weapons that can induce fear in the victims of church abuse? The first is the one we have already mentioned, the right of a Christian leader to demand absolute obedience from members of his flock. This demand, backed up by select number of bible quotes, still seems to work in more churches than we would expect. The second fear-inducing tactic by some Christian leaders is one which claims to have the right to decide whether or not the church member is going to enter heaven or not. There was a story in the press in the past week where a Baptist church in the States refused to take a funeral service for a 90 year old member of 50 years standing on the ground that she had stopped coming because of illness, thus not paying her dues. The effect of this kind of decree on the other elderly members in the congregation could be massive, as the funeral service would be seen as crucial to eternal salvation. This power to hold and withhold the keys to heaven is a serious matter. Third the authoritarian church holds all the cards in the matter of interpreting Scripture. One simply cannot challenge or discuss if the minister comes down heavily, for example, on matters of sexual conduct. One has to listen as the minister condemns, divorce, gay relationships or whatever is fashionably ‘un-Christian’ at the moment, This might mean hearing that members of one’s own family are beyond the pale. Fourthly, we have to face the possibility that the Church leader may be given to angry outbursts, sexual misconduct or generally dominating conduct which makes life unpleasant for everyone, not least himself.

In a piece of 1000 words, I now need to come to my conclusion quickly, though no doubt I shall return to this topic again. Jesus would have had absolutely no time for any of the antics in churches that produce fear or the threat of fear. He never threatened anyone with hell; he never blackmailed people into behaving in a particular way. The words ‘Perfect love casts out fear’, are the words of someone who wanted to repudiate creating fear in others as a weapon of control. Jesus saw all the power games that were played by inadequate people, the pomposity and hypocrisy that went with them. Jesus saw right through all that took place among the religious leaders of his day. A great deal of what he thought about power can be summed up in those words from Mark 10. ‘..in the world the recognised rulers lord it over their subjects …..That is not the way with you.’ Service is to be the hallmark of their mutual relating to one another.

Since starting this blog, I have become more aware of the power of the internet to do many of the tasks with which we are concerned. In the first place information about churches and individuals that abuse is freely discoverable. I am mindful, of course, of the laws of libel that should protect individuals from malicious gossip, but there is nothing to stop an observant resident of Plymouth, UK walking around a huge derelict cinema complex, making a short video, and asking this question of God TV. How is this building going to be ready to be an international Prayer Centre in 2015 when the builders have abandoned the site for six months or more? When are you going to tell the thousands of viewers of God TV the plans you have for the money which has been given for this huge £3 million project? It is thanks to the Internet that such questions can be asked, and one hopes that accountability among Christian enterprises can be in this way sharpened up. Also when an individual in a church setting acquires a bad reputation, either as a power abuser or is guilty of financial malpractice, these facts come to show up through an internet search. More and more people are running such searches to find out something about Church leaders as well the most ordinary people. Few of us have left no trace at all on the internet.

The second thing that makes the internet helpful for our cause is to discover that there are other people on line who have interests similar to one’s own. Thanks to Twitter, which I have recently joined, I have encountered a man in America, Benjamin Corey, who writes some very good thoughtful material on the topic of this blog. Today I unashamedly intend to plagiarise some of his material. His background is that of a typical American evangelical but, through the passage of life, he has come to question many of the old certainties with which he grew up. The reason I do not just give a reference to his material straight out is that I myself also want to comment on two of his insights. The particular post I have in front of me is one with the intriguing title: ‘5 reasons why American Evangelicalism completely lost me’. (I will give a link at the end of my post.) The first two reasons apply more to the American scene and its deep involvement with the politics of the country. That is of course of interest but I need to leave these points to one side for now. The third comment is one that is dear to my heart and it is an accusation that this blog has made from time to time. He states: ‘Today’s Evangelicalism seems generally unteachable and unwilling to wrestle with theology’. He makes the point that there is, in certain churches and church cultures, a willingness to learn, but only if that learning reinforces what is already believed. To quote his words direct, ‘There’s little room for growth, reinterpretation, or the constant need for contextualisation of the scriptures. For a movement that prides itself on following the scriptures , I’m repeatedly shocked at the unwillingness to see what the scriptures actually say, and a willingness to malign those who attempt to point the movement back to the source.’ To interpret his words, he is pointing out to us, once again, that the leader/interpreter has the dominant voice in the way that scripture is encountered by Christians in the pew. The invisible ‘system’ has already decided what is written there, how to interpret it and how to iron out ‘problems’. There is thus no freedom to discover anything new or indeed make fresh discoveries beyond the received interpretations. That is a form of bondage in the Christian life, never to be able to read the Bible as though for the first time and let it speak afresh to the reader.

The other ‘reason’ out of the five in Benjamin’s piece on which I want to comment is his final one. He notes that ‘today’s Evangelicalism punishes people by withholding of relationships’. As visitors to this blog may remember, this is a theme which I resonate with very readily. Indeed it is to be the topic of my presentation to the International Cultic Studies Association meeting in Stockholm next June. Benjamin speaks of his own ostracism by his former church family and the pain that this caused. It is an isolation that affects not only him, but also his family and he speaks movingly of the incomprehension and pain of his own daughter at the loss of old friends. As I have pointed in previous blogs, conservative churches frequently offer a total environment, where all social and emotional needs are met. The price of this is that when the individual questions the system, the emotional ties are swiftly cut. In Benjamin’s words: ‘Today’s Evangelicalism does this to folks who think outside Evangelical lines – it strips them of relationships, cuts them off, and severs ties.’

I hope that some of my readers will go to Benjamin’s blog and read the full piece and other things that he has written. For myself I have noted a piece by him on Calvinism where he succinctly describes why he is unable to worship the God that is presented by Calvin. It is outspoken stuff but my long-term readers will recognise that it closely resonates with the tone of my own writings on scripture and church tradition. I am indeed fortunate to be able utter fairly stringent points of view without losing my livelihood and my place in the church. There has been, by all accounts, a high price that Benjamin has had to pay for uttering ideas, that are by the standards of this blog, fairly mild and uncontroversial. I shall continue to search out other heroic bloggers who are writing on both sides of the Atlantic. Their work will be acknowledged in this blog. Meanwhile it is good to find someone who is doing something comparable to surviving church, even though we have started in different places.

But Here’s 5 Reasons Why American Evangelicalism Completely Lost Me

A further discussion on God TV can be found on this blog written in May 2015 survivingchurch.org/2015/05/05/god-tv-blessing-or-scam/

For some time Chris has been urging me to watch the God TV, a British television station run by Christian Communications. My excuse for not watching has been that my television (Freesat) does not have it. Needless to say it is not difficult to find these broadcasts online, so it is probably laziness that I have not followed up Chris’ invitation, together with a visceral dislike of ‘Christian’ broadcasting. I finally got round to watching a little when Chris alerted me to a scandal that has broken in the past few months, the departure of one of the founders of God TV following a ‘moral failure’ during the past 12 months. Apparently the founder, Rory Alec is now living with a woman, not his wife, in South Africa. His name no longer appears with that of his wife, Wendy, as one of the directors of the enterprise.

Having finally gritted my teeth to watch a little of this broadcasting which apparently goes all over the world, I found it to follow a fairly predictable pattern in many ways. Being rooted in the theology, known as Health and Wealth Gospel, it is all about persuading the viewer that God wants them to possess the blessings of plenty, wholeness and success. The presentation is slick and the presenters are well dressed and superficially attractive. For me, this whole way of selling the Christian faith arouses considerable distaste. I find that the type of showmanship that is combined with this broadcast preaching makes me feel somewhat nauseous. There is little attractive about the make-believe sugary world that the viewer is offered. People are being encouraged to think that the sending of money to the television station will enable them to sort out all the problems in their lives. They will then have the same ‘miracles’ which are being enacted by the likes of Benny Hinn in America. An internet search on this particular man will show considerable interest by mainstream evangelicals in America questioning both his theology and ministry claims. Any study online of individuals who conduct television ‘ministries’ leads one to conclude that the ‘Gospel’ is being regularly milked to provide the maximum financial benefit for the organisers. I do not, in fact, know of any reputable church leader who has used the medium of television for honourable ends. Perhaps one of my readers can tell me if there is in fact a place where one can view wholesome material.

To return to Rory Alec and his ‘moral failure’. Chris believes that this failure will discourage thousands of vulnerable people who have come to depend on God TV as their spiritual home. Their faith in the founder, and through him in God, will waver when they see him disappear from their screens and their lives. My own reaction is more sanguine. Other television ministries in America have survived scandals, such as those affecting Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart. Their television channels have continued, albeit somewhat reduced for a time. Already I have looked at the comments columns connected with the ‘scandal’ and already earnest Christians are telling Rory that God will forgive him and is willing to restore him. Returning to his wife is, in fact, apparently not an option so the tidy solution of repentance and restoration that they would like to see, is not going to happen. In other words the typical supporter of Rory Alec is unable and unwilling to process what has actually happened to their hero.

What is it about tele-evangelists that open them up to moral failure that causes their down-fall? But before attempting to answer this question, I would comment that, from my perspective, the twenty years of preaching the Health and Wealth Gospel to tens of thousands of vulnerable people is by far the greatest moral failure in Rory Alec’s life. Enriching himself at their expense and offering promises that cannot be met, is just as intolerable as abandoning his wife for another woman. It is strange how sexual sin is always portrayed in some Christian circles as the worst possible kind of sin. It is of course serious but there is something equally bad in betraying people, cheating them by taking their money and cynically creating in them a dependence on a version of Christianity that at best is corrupt and at worst a cynical perversion of anything that Jesus stood for. The viewers of God TV have been thoroughly let down long before Rory Alec decided to leave his marriage.

I have already indicated in a previous piece on my blog the reasons why I believe that the sexual exploitation of women is a constant theme in some churches with a charismatic flavour. The reason for this, in summary, is because the leaders of these church become addicted to the exhilarating sense of being at the centre of the power generated by the worship sessions. It is but a small step to becoming addicted to power for its own sake. This blog has before explored how power addiction generally expresses itself in three ways, sex, money and being the constant centre of attention. Some leaders stray into all these areas. It seems appropriate to these leaders, in their power-obsessed consciousness, to feel entitled to all the trappings of power – wealth, adulation and constant access to sex. The psychological drama that is being worked out in this scenario is one that I have written about before, and it concerns both addiction and a diagnosis of the personality disorder involving narcissism.

The ‘scandal’ of the God Channel is then, in my perspective, not just the moral failure of the founder going to live with another woman. I would indeed be surprised if such episodes had not occurred before and the gossip mill does suggest this to be the case. Sexual misbehaviour in this type of charismatic environment goes with the territory. The greater immorality, and indeed evil, is the drip, drip undermining and exploitation of the naivety and idealism of countless would-be Christians. They have been and continue to be betrayed by such men and women of God. Their desperation and longing for help of various kinds is being ruthlessly taken advantage of. Chris tells me that he knows personally some of these people and their situation is tragic and sad in the extreme. This blog would love to do something to help them.

I was pleased to see that an important lecture which was given at the ICSA Washington conference last July on cults and the law by Alan Scheflin has been put on You-Tube. My readers may not want to spend 37 minutes watching it in its entirety but it is worth-while, I feel, giving some account of its content, in that it affects the concerns of this blog.

The issue that has bothered all those who seek to help those affected negatively by religious groups is whether they have any recourse in law. It is in fact not easy to persuade a judge that an individual has been emotionally, sexually or financially exploited by a religious leader because the individual concerned can be said, arguably, to have made an adult choice to join the group. The law apparently will always assume, unless it can be argued strongly to the contrary, that we always preserve our adult reasoning and thus are free to make irrational or foolish decisions if we so wish. There is no such thing in law as brain washing or mind-control, concepts that have been popular in the popular imagination when talking about extreme religious groups for some decades.

The one area of law that has proved to be relevant to judgements connected with religious groups is the notion of ‘undue influence.’ The law in most countries recognises the potential power of a religious leader to coerce an individual to change a will in favour of the group, particularly when in the last stage of life. This state of vulnerability when dying, is seen to be potentially a situation when a person’s free choice is compromised. Thus any pressure exercised in this context by a religious leader, can make the testator’s decision inadmissable if it is challenged by other parties. Cases connected with this issue of the disposal of an individual’s assets after death have been heard for the past 300 years. But the definition of ‘undue influence’ still remains elusive, especially when attempts are made to suggest that this idea could be applied to another area, that of an individual in full health submitting to the unequal power relationship which we associate with high demand religious groups.

The California Supreme court defined ‘undue influence’ as ‘pressure directly brought to bear on the testamentary act sufficient to frustrate the testator’s free will, amounting to coercion destroying the testator’s free energy.’ The writer on cults, Margaret Singer, wrote that virtually anyone can be ‘unduly influenced if the influences and techniques used against them are powerful enough’. Another American court ruling of 80 years ago in a will case agreed with this, by saying that ‘soundness of mind and body does not imply immunity from undue influence’. These statements appear to recognise that undue influence arguments could be applied not just to financial cases concerning wills, but could apply in other areas, such as financial or emotional exploitation .

There is clearly a line to be drawn between an adult making a free decision and someone who is coerced into an action that would go against their better judgement. The problem is where that line should be drawn. The law will always find it difficult to judge in this area because it has to deal with opinions about a situation and not definite facts. But the law needs to find that point where a reasonable person is able to say to him or herself, you can’t treat people like that. Legal protection should be able to operate in places where abusive treatment of individuals is proved to have taken place as the result of coercive behaviour.

In America one area of protection afforded to religion, good and bad, is the First Amendment which gives freedom of religious expression to all. This has made it extremely difficult to challenge anything that happens in religious institutions, even when, from a common-sense perspective, it is abusive. To take an extreme example which few would argue against, would anyone claim to bring forward the First Amendment in favour of the Boko-Haram kidnappers of the Nigerian schoolgirls. Should no one attempt to rescue the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls, who were shown reciting the Koran, on the grounds that they had changed their religion? Their rescue would surely be considered an act of liberation, whatever the words of faith uttered by those girls in the bush. Common sense would suggest that coercion is being applied. Although most of them are children and presumably have some protection in law, no one would seriously argue that those over 18 had had any real choice in the religion that was being forced on them.

The lecture by Professor Scheflin then went to review some the new theories and categories in social psychology and in the study of social influence. This material may make it possible for the courts soon to be able to admit new forms of expert testimony in cases connected with cults etc. One powerful argument that suggests that this development may not be far away is that there are some new social evils in society that need dealing with definitively from a legal perspective. For example we have the horrifying fanatical events in the so-called Islamic State and the growing recognition that the so called ‘grooming’ of children by adults is a phenomenon that happens in situations which sometimes involve adults. This was exemplified in the recent case of the Marxist cult in London and also in the widespread incidence of human trafficking. In each of these examples we have the grotesque abuse of power which involves ‘undue influence’ of a kind which does not involve money. We may soon see the term ‘brain washing’ re-enter the courts and legal arguments as a valid category. This time it will be a concept backed up by a new academic and expert rigour which make it robust enough and able to stand up to the scrutiny of legal dissection.

The lecture is important because it shows how the legal world is slowly moving towards the possibility of protecting some of the abused individuals who are the concern of this blog. The common sense arguments that readily identify certain places as being dangerous for the mental and emotional well-being of individuals have not hitherto been backed by the law of any country in the world. That may soon change as the research of social psychologists and researchers on the concept of social influence refine their methods and show, beyond all reasonable doubt, the mechanisms by which the strong can manipulate for malign purposes those who are weaker. The time when those abused by religious organisations can easily have their day in the courts of our land will be a day of great rejoicing. May it come soon.

There was an interesting comment today (Friday) from one of the Times’ columnists, Janice Turner. She was talking about the Archbishop of Canterbury and saying that generally this has been a good year for the Church of England under his leadership. But then she commented that he was given to a ‘simple-minded sloganising’ when he frequently comes out with the expression ‘the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ’. She likens the slogan to something that you hear in a supermarket, an ‘inelegant formulation …..that isn’t very English.’

The columnist has a point; we do hear many clichés uttered in the course of sermons that, when they are left unexplained, are, no doubt, a source of confusion for those not initiated into this sort of language. In this particular case there is some unpacking to be done. I would however begin by saying that the expression the ‘good news of our Lord Jesus Christ’ is not one that I personally would ever use. But let me begin by giving an explanation of what I believe the ‘good news’ of the New Testament is in fact all about, taking, first, the perspective of the Synoptic gospels. Right at the beginning of Mark’s gospel, we have that memorable sentence (chapter 1. 14-15) when it is said of Jesus that he ‘came into Galilee proclaiming the Gospel (good news) of God’. The Greek word for Gospel here is often translated as good news, so we can regard the English words as identical in meaning. What is the good news or gospel as Jesus understands it? The passage goes on to explain what this good news is all about. Jesus is reported to say, ‘The time has come; the kingdom of God is upon you; repent, and believe the Gospel’. We would be correct in taking the natural meaning of these words and see that the good news is closely identified with whatever Jesus means by the ‘kingdom of God’.

I can still remember the moment in my theological studies when it became clear to me that the understanding of this term ‘kingdom of God’ was the key to understanding much of what the synoptic gospels were about. In particular it was a term that was the key to unlock the meaning of the parables and thus much of the teaching of Jesus as a whole. Recalling a lot of reading from almost fifty years ago, I can remember how the writers like Norman Perrin and Joachim Jeremias opened up the meaning of both ‘Good News’ and Kingdom of God for me. The overriding idea of these terms was that Jesus believed that in his words and actions, God’s rule or activity was becoming visible. Those who attached themselves to his ministry could encounter God reaching out to them through the acts of healing and forgiveness that Jesus performed. Among the most vivid announcements and outworkings of this Kingdom were the meals with the ‘tax gatherers and sinners’. Here both forgiveness and outreach to the outsider were being powerfully enacted. The Lord’s Prayer itself was a prayer for the kingdom of God to come into the here and now. The ministry of Jesus was summed up in the words that were sent to John the Baptist when he asked if Jesus was indeed the one that was to come. The answer that was given (Luke 7.22-23) ‘The blind recover their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are made clean, the deaf hear, the dead are being raised to life, the poor are hearing the good news…’ Here the good news (gospel) is about a new vivid encounter with God brought about through Jesus.

I suspect that the Archbishop’s summary of ‘good news of Jesus’ owes very little to the words of Jesus and far more to the use of these words by Paul. We get the flavour of what Paul understands by good news or gospel in the very first words of Romans. Here we see clearly that the good news has nothing to do with the teaching and ministry of Jesus but everything to with what Paul believed about the act of God in the death and resurrection of Jesus, now called Christ. The gospel has, in thirty or so years, changed its meaning from being something that was experienced to something that is an interpretation and understanding of an event in the past. The Gospel, to quote again from chapter 1 of Romans, is the ‘saving power of God for everyone who has faith’. It is beyond this blog post to go much further into Pauline theology to expound this beyond emphasising a second time that there is a marked contrast in understanding what the Good News (gospel) actually means according to Jesus (as understood by the Synoptic writers) and Paul. But what exactly does the Archbishop understand by these words?

This blog here makes a stab at an interpretation that seems to explain the Archbishop’s use of the words. I have in previous blog posts indicated that modern evangelical theology has a great loyalty to the particular theology of Christ’s death known as ‘substitutionary atonement’. This is a preference for certain ideas that can, no doubt, be read out of various passages in the gospels and epistles. This theology states that Christ’s death in some way ‘satisfies’ God so that he can free humankind from their sin. Once again I am skating over huge areas of biblical and dogmatic theology to make a point in summary. But I want to say that this particular reading of the significance of Christ’s death is one among several in the New Testament. It’s popularity, if that is the right word, among many Protestant and Evangelical theologians, is that it dovetails neatly with another central feature of conservative theology -the theology of conversion. Evangelical theology has always placed a great emphasis on human depravity and sin and the need to escape the ‘wrath’ of God. This preaching emerging from this theology always seems to lead into the creation of a ‘crisis’ where the individual discovers that Christ has taken his/her sins on to the Cross. He offers now a new life, a redeemed life where one can escape everlasting damnation and the threat of hell. The new life always takes place within the setting of a authoritarian institution where the leaders always have the last word as to how this life is to be lived in practice.

In summary the ‘good news of Jesus’ according to the Archbishop seems to be the promise of conversion from sin to salvation by an act of faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ. Perhaps the one who uses the expression, the ‘good news of Jesus’ with this meaning, needs to explain two further things. The first of these that this ‘good news’ is not what Jesus actually taught or understood by this word. Secondly it needs to be explained to those outside the Evangelical circles, the agnostics and intelligent journalists among others, that the good news of Jesus is far more varied (and exciting) than simply escaping the wrath of God. It is in fact about entering a new life of unimagined richness and depth of experience – the human life shown to us by Jesus.

I was talking to Chris recently about a poem he had written, which had the image of a person, himself as a child at an aunt’s house, looking through a window at a procession of people. The observer was warm and comfortable while the objects of his observation were poor, cold and victims of various kinds. Chris also mentions that the observer had no ‘thought or feeling for what he saw’. Gradually, through the process of growing up and life’s experience, there took place a crossing over, from being the warm observer to experiencing life from the same perspective as the victims of cold and deprivation. He had become one of the victims himself. And yet in reflecting on this divide in society between the observers and the observed, Chris notes the way that the way the gap between rich and poor has been normalised and not felt to be worthy of comment. The division between the two is symbolised by the double glazed window; on one side is warmth while on the other side cold and hunger and nobody seems to care or see anything strange in the situation.

I make no attempt to say more about this poem, but to note that it has created for me an image that leads into a Christmas reflection. In my imagination, I see, not a warm comfortable child watching the world go by, but God looking down through his double glazed window on a world, not just cold, but weary with the evil of rampant selfishness in the people. If God could be said to be able to have a conversation with himself, it might go as follows.

‘What can I do to make a difference in that place that is stuck with everyone trying to gain power and advantage over everyone else? How can I show to humankind another way to exist beyond that of getting one over their fellow human beings and using that advantage for their own selfish ends? The one thing I can do is to live there myself and show them what a human life can be. It may be able to teach them to live in a different way, the way of generosity, compassion and love.’

After this imaginary conservation, we can see God going on the other side of the double-glazed window to live a life alongside power-obsessed humanity. What happens to the one who lives out the life of complete generosity and love? He becomes the victim of the dynamic forces of constant power seeking in human beings. He is the victim of crucifixion.

But before God experiences this cruel punishment, he sows the seed of a different way of living among a group of followers. A light and a longing for something different is sown in the hearts of humanity. They are given a picture of what life can become if each individual can see others, not as the target of exploitation in any way, but as fellow beings who can be on a journey to living a different way, a way transformed by the love of God himself. But still more important is the realisation that after God has come through a ‘double-glazed window’, that that barrier has been broken down for ever. The words of Jesus resonate through the ages, ‘where I am, there you will be also’.

The Christmas story is the beginning of a fundamental shift in the way things are and the fact that the barriers between life and death, between earth and heaven, between God and man,
have now been breached. Christmas is about the passing through the ‘double-glazed window’. Because of the act of identification, human beings can experience a surge of hope and joy within them. Emmanuel God with us.

Since my last update on the church in Brentwood, things are moving on. I will assume the reader is familiar with the material in two previous reports mentioned on this blog. We left the saga at the point where Nigel Davies, the campaigner and blog master received the silent treatment at the hands of the Trustees of the church on the 6th December during a meeting when he presented about past abuses at the church. This looked like a action calculated to intimidate Nigel, by not allowing any of the Trustees to speak to him or ask questions.

The latest reports from the church show that the intervention of the Evangelical Alliance in the person of its director, Steve Clifford, has created a momentum of its own. After the Trustees’ meeting on the 6th December with Nigel, another meeting took place between two trustees and Steve Clifford four days later. Nigel had an email about this latter meeting and the first impression was that Steve was allowing the church to run its own investigation, free of any external supervision by the Evangelical Alliance. On Tuesday 16th, a fuller picture began to emerge. The proposal was that there should be a Commission set up to examine the wrongs of the past. This will still be internal but would have an independent chairman recommended by the EA.

The length of the statement on Tuesday and the mention of corrupt leadership makes it look like the Trustees are at last beginning to recognise the nature of the cultic culture that has been the mark of their church for decades. They appear to understand far more of the past problems by using expressions like ‘wrong culture’, ‘past wrongs’ and ‘errors of the past’. They have even spoken of ‘toxic behaviour polluting the church.’ The Bible is referred to and in particular the passage from Mark 9.35, ‘Whoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else’. The whole statement still implies that the ‘wrong culture’ is the fault of Michael Reid,(illustrated above) but there is a recognition that his influence is felt in the church today. One of the interesting passages concerns the recognition of the fact that it has taken six years to come to the point where they feel the need to ‘analyse our culture’ . They talk about shock, anger and hurt but they do not really offer any insight into the defensive nature of the church over all those six years and their reluctance to seek out the many hurt victims of the church. It is they on whose behalf Nigel has been so tirelessly campaigning.

Before setting out on Tuesday for an appointment, I rattled off a quick response to this lengthy piece on Nigel’s blog. I mentioned one issue that concerns all the survivors of Peniel and Trinity, the issue of finance. The abuse of cultic leaders, like Michael Reid abuse is played out in one or more of three ways. One is the enjoyment of power for itself, as a way of feeding the leader’s narcissism. The second is the exploitation of sexual favours from congregants. This needs no further comment and was in fact the actual cause of Reid’s downfall. The third is the use of the church’s funds for the benefit of the leaders. The history of this church has been marked by financial irregularities, not least the extensive selling of insurance policies to members. This was alongside an insistence that everyone should pay a tithe to the church. Over the years this has allowed a number of questionable and secretive financial transactions to be made, in one case drawing on £500,000 of church money to allow Peter Linnecar to avoid bankruptcy. Also the various properties appear to have been registered in the names of the leaders so that the church found itself, on at least one occasion, buying a property twice. It would seem that whatever the truth or otherwise of these rumours, the church needs to be investigated thoroughly in this whole area of finance. Recently former members were writing in to the blog with estimates of how much they had given to the church while they had been members. The sums involved came to a half million in one case. Clearly there have been large sums of money floating around and there needs to be a complete forensic look at the finances of the church if there is to be a real attempt at openness and transparency about the past.

Nigel’s blog comment which accompanied his reproducing the new Trustees statement on Tuesday, did touch on the financial question. He also raised the issue on everyone’s mind as to how Peter L can remain pastor of the church when such strong statements have been made about the dysfunctional past of the church and in which Peter played a full part. We await to see whether the indirect but strong criticism of his identification with the ‘wrong culture’ can be ignored. It is significant that a meeting could be held by two Trustees with Steve Clifford and make concrete proposals about a Commission without, apparently, consulting the other Trustees and the leadership. Such independent functioning would never have been allowed in Michael Reid’s time and one expected it would not be tolerated under the present regime – until the present crisis!

Stop Press. A further testimony from a Bible Student indicating how constant bullying over weight from the Peniel leadership led to an eating disorder. It is a powerful testimony, not only because it is well written but also because it names two individuals, Carolyn Linnecar and Meidre Cleminson who are both still very much around in the leadership. This naming of current officials means that it is hard to see how the Commission will be able to avoid recommending that there should be a complete ‘clear-out’ at the top, including Carolyn’s husband, Peter.

The discussion about binary thinking, right-wrong, black-white, clean-unclean, has led me to thinking about the prejudices that infect our society. The oldest prejudice was to hate the person not in your tribe, as alien and a presumed enemy. Over the years, as people learnt to live in social groups larger than one’s blood relatives, so the objects of emnity shifted. Enmity was felt towards anyone who was ‘different’, whether because of language, colour or simply being a stranger. It is possible to trace this instinctive hostility to the stranger to a need for self-preservation, a protection from the unknown and potentially dangerous. But over the centuries we have begun to learn to see the one who is different from us as offering us the possibility of learning something new. In short, most of us most of the time have grown up away from the kind of response that makes everyone either a friend or an enemy.

In the past few days in the UK, politicians of different parties have been caught in unguarded moments of expressing comments which reveal a deep homophobic or racial bias. In short they have been shown to be still mired in the old thought patterns which have become, not only politically incorrect, but also, in some cases, against the law. One suspects that many other people, apart from politicians, are still trapped in a world-view that can only distinguish between an us and them, friend or enemy. Social expedience and tact may reduce the times when this kind of prejudice is in fact uttered, but it still seems to exist just below the surface.

Let us think about what are the reasons why many people sometimes regress into what might be described as a primitive tribal way of thinking. The first reason is one we have already discussed – the capacity of the stranger to make us feel threatened and unsafe. That feeling may be traceable to experiences in childhood or to some deeper unconscious process. This desire for safety, as we all know, is not just a concern for our physical well-being; it also extends to feeling safe in our social environment. I am here referring to the unique ways in which each of us navigate through life, learning what has to be done to enable us to feel we belong and avoid those actions which can cause us to experience ‘social death’. This power to keep us conforming strongly in the social areas of life is often rooted in a real fear of being ‘left out’. It is likely to act more strongly on the young than the older population, the former feeling more acutely their social vulnerability. How do I keep my head above water, my acceptability intact and avoid all the social slip-ups that I am in danger of committing? The easiest answer to this dilemma is to ‘follow the crowd’. It may involve following an individual, whether a fashion guru or charismatic leader; it may involve joining a particular church. Each one of these can offer a haven to keep us ‘safe’, free to exist without falling in one of the many traps that spell, at best, ridicule and at worst, ostracism from the tribe that we want to be identified with, our gang or favoured group. The problem is that once we start to belong, we find that we take on the pattern of thinking that belongs to the particular group. That, after all, is part of the conditions of membership.

I have said in previous posts that many people live with a measure of unacknowledged fear in their lives. In this post we have been touching on the fear of a social gaffe that may put a person outside their favoured ‘gang’ and this is not a trivial emotion. Older people, who have a life-time of experience in creating an identity, can forget how fragile identity is to a younger person. The places that offer a packaged form of identity to these young people, are going to be places that often deal in simplicities and clear rules. Keep these clear rules and follow the leader and you will be safe, safe from the fear of being outside and safe from not knowing who you really are. This identity and this belonging however come at a definite price. The ‘gang’ that offers membership has, of necessity, to deal in generalities. If you join us, you will take on the persona of the gang, whatever it is. It may be one who hates Communists, gay marriage and ascribes many actions that we disapprove of as coming from the devil or Satan. These are the sort of generalities that are sometimes thrust on new aspiring members of a church. Equivalent demands are made on those who join political parties. The objects of generalised hate are here members of other parties or particular groups in society, whether they be bankers or Trade Unionists.

This blog post is perhaps claiming that black-white thinking may be one of the prices we pay to belong to any group that appeals to us. The church, in this respect, is no different from any other group, in that it often demands that we adjust our thinking to run along certain particular tramlines. In making this statement, I am perhaps simultaneously accepting and criticising a way of thinking that exists widely across society. It is wrong to think ill of groups of people who do not deserve such prejudice. At the same time, would we wish everyone to abandon the groups and parties who provide belonging and safety to so many? Prejudice may in the final resort be part of the price we have to pay for people to feel connected. I do not know the answer to this paradox. Perhaps we need to imagine a better way for people to bond together, other than in sharing the same ‘tribal’ assumptions which, according to this blog, are harmful to those whom they touch.

One of the things that is becoming clear in the reporting of extremism across the world is that fanaticism and good education are not natural bedfellows. The Nigerian extremist group, Boko-Haram, places rejection of Western education at the heart of its reason for existence. Their name in fact is translated as ‘Western education is forbidden’ in the local language Hausa. Recently a Muslim woman, Runa Khan, who had advocated jihad in Britain and posted a number of inflammatory pictures on her facebook account, was sentenced to five years imprisonment. One interesting comment was made at her trial by her defence lawyer. He said that she was given to thinking only in a ‘binary’ manner. In short, for her, everything to do with the Muslim faith was good and everything else was evil and fit only for destruction.

These first two examples are taken from recent stories connected with Muslim extremism but the same ‘binary’ pattern of thinking is embedded among many Christians. Recently I had an email from one Jonny Scaramanga who runs a blog concerned with the scourge, as he sees it, of Accelerated Christian Education. This is a course of teaching which is used by some 30 ‘Christian’ schools and also is followed by home educating parents. Jonny referred me to a recent apologist of this system of education who had written in the Times Education Supplement. He asked me if would write a response. I dutifully wrote a reaction to the article, which may or may not appear in next week’s TES. The scheme for ACE is strongly flavoured with an American Right wing approach to life. It is strongly imbued with laissez-faire economics, right wing political views and above all it is profoundly conservative and reactionary in both theology and morality. It takes an strong anti-evolutionary position and follows the so-called ‘young earth’ theory which dates creation to around 4000 BC. The thing that, for me, really discredits it as a system of education, are not the wacky ideas that are presented as facts, but the method of presenting them. The whole pattern for ACE is the centrality of work-books. Filling these in systematically enables the child to learn approved facts on a variety of subjects. Each work book is completed when the child has ticked the right answer for each question that is asked. The implication is that there is only ever going to be one correct answer. In other words binary thinking, right-wrong, black-white ideas are THE way to think. When you see the actual ‘facts’ that are presented in these work-books, you realise that the child will never have a chance to sort out fact from opinion, bias from truth. I quote from my TES letter. ‘One way perhaps of teaching history from a ‘Christian perspective’ is to ignore totally every other point of view. One quote that will give the flavour of the way that Christian/Right Wing rhetoric is fed into the curriculum is as follows. “The United Nations was created by Communists and has always been used by Communists to further Communist goals… Satan is the real force behind man’s efforts to achieve world government.” To present any subject like this and suggest that there is only one correct understanding of history is a kind of anti-education.’

I realise reading this kind of indoctrination that I have been fortunate indeed to have had a good education that allows one to sift facts before arriving at a conclusion. The conclusions we individually have come to on the topic of politics, religion or even science are always going to have a certain provisionality. Life itself allows one to change and grow into new insights. What a terrifying thought it would be if everything about life could be translated into a ticked box in a workbook. But, sadly, a large of Christians live in this binary universe where everything is good or bad, true or false or evil or sacred. This way of binary thinking feeds into the way that Scripture is read. Every statement in the Bible is literally true, it is claimed, otherwise the whole of Scripture cannot be trusted to be the word of God. Chris illustrated for me the crazy lengths to which this kind of thinking can take one. An earnest Christian woman that he knew, claimed that, of course, dragons once existed. They are mentioned in the Book of Revelation! Somehow in this woman’s education, the notions of metaphor and poetry were never introduced. What an impoverished education she must have had, not to mention the ways in which her thinking was permanently in a state of fear and confusion, having to deal head-on with all the passages about God’s wrath and anger.

In drawing this blog post to some sort of conclusion, I have to declare my understanding of education. I believe that it is about the ability to understand and communicate with other peoples, cultures and languages across the centuries. This requires the gifts of imagination, empathy and insight. These allow one to penetrate patterns of thought that are not your own but have existed in the past or in the present. This gift of empathy that enables this ‘culture travel’ means that one values language, while simultaneously being aware of its limitations. In my final year in charge of a parish, I spent the five weeks of Lent speaking about the ‘real’ meaning of five Biblical words. In every case it look more than a half-hour to tease out the nuances of meaning that were implied in these words. Thinking like an Old Testament writer is not possible for us now, but we can, with a little imagination, penetrate some of the key words that are used to deepen our understanding of what he spoke about.

Binary thinking is the product, not of education, but of ‘anti-education’. Our government and all citizens must see in this kind of crude simplistic thinking something that is deeply abhorrent and ultimately destructive. It destroys not only the well-being of the individual who thinks like this, by making them feel outside the mainstream of society, but also it is a way of thinking that ultimately is responsible for conflict and even violence in the wider society. Let us make it clear. The world is not made up of blacks and whites, but there are a glorious number of grey tones in-between. Let us rejoice in those shades of grey!