Movement 135

OVC
lssue 135
ent
o Summer2Ol O
Magazine of the Student Christian Movement
*
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I
The Mission lssue
Jim Wallis
Copenhagen Summit
Christian Anarchy
Living in the West Bank
Following Vocation

O
sddent
Christian
Movement
SGM is a movement seeking
to bring together students of all
denominations to exPlore the
Christian faith in an oPen-minded
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"Whffi t gel ofl the whed t'm going lo stop/ And make.amends
to evsyone l've wound&/ And when I nise my magc waru
Tnase'fw who slippd the surty bonds/ Shall ise like salmn
at the sqawning'"
Movement
Magazine of the Student Ghristian Movement
lssue 135 / Summer 2O1O
Movement Editorial
3 The Mission lssue
Movement lnteruiew
4 We're in this Together
Becky Lowe interviews Jim Wallis
Movement Feature: The Mission lssue
8 Year of Jubilee
Portraits of campaigners on issues of poverty representing
six major faiths, by photographer Jane Baker'
12 A Radical Calling
Graham Marlin on why protest is at the core of Christian
witness.
15 Re:Mission
Karen Chalk thought overseas mission was a pretty awful
thing. Then she found out she was doing it"'
18 Vexed about Vocation
Want to go into the ministry? Richard Hall offers some
advice.
20 "l live in HoPenhagen"
One man's experience of the Copenhagen Summit' By
Nathan EddY
Movement Golumns
24 We fought the law: Sinful Treats
Sex or violence: which is worse? Symon Hill knows there's
no contest.
26 Ten ProPositions on Sin
Kim Fabricius tackles the toughest subject of all'
Dorky Bird: Faith, Hope, Charity -Pick Two
2A
Becky Lowe wonders whY we don't care
Movement Fiction
29 TheY'll Have TeacuPs
Part 2. BY Chelsie Bryant.
Closing thought
31 The PraYer of Oscar Romero
A reflection bY Birgit Garthe.

The Mission Issue
Ghurches and Christian student groups bang on
about mission all the time (even SGM was founded as
a rrmissionary" organisation, lest we forget). But what
does that mean, exactly? ln this issue we travel from the
cloisters of the seminary to the streets of Copenhagen to
lntro
the West Bank. Our featured writers are all missionaries in
their own way.
Not one of them has a pith helmet.
Jim Wallis in the news
Writer, Greenbelt favourite and broadcaster Jim Wallis
agreed to be interviewed for this issue. We'd be remiss in
pointing out that only shortly before the issue has gone to
press, Jim has engaged in a high-profile contretemps with
nightmarish right-wing pundit Glenn Beck, earning him the
dubious attention of the public eye over there in the US. No
one's going to come out of this argument changing their
minds, but on balance, I think I applaud it, for the simple
reason that no publicity is bad publicity, and it's nice to see a
progressive being heard... if not exactly listened to.
Farewell
This is my last issue as editor of Movemenf. I've held the
position for nearly three years now, and it's certainly been
fun and interesting.
l
l
I
j
l
I really want to take this opportunity to thank the writers
and artists who have, again and again, provided solid copy
for me, particularly those regular contributors whose work
has appeared in practically every issue I've done: Becky
Lowe, Kim Fabricius, Daniel Miller and Zara Bird-Wood,
with Symon Hill coming only slightly behind in terms of
page count. Other writers' and artists' work has graced
these pages on severaloccasions on mywatch. They know
who they are. I'm grateful.
I'cl also like to thank the folks in the SCM office for their
help and suggestions, and most of all, for the members of
the movement itself, without whom...
Excuse me, I'll stop there. You get the idea.
This is also the last issue of Movement in its current
form. When next you see it, it'll be very different. How?
That'd be telling.
Wood
3

We're
Inftis
T0gder
Movement talks to Sojourners'
Ji* Wallis about Politics,
values, and the illusion of the
invisible hand of the market
WalIis xs
Ji*
bes known AS the der and editor-tn -chief the lnagaz ne
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soJournerst and AS leader the Christian c0m t77unity
that shares its name. Although
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ofttn n his nati,ue USA regarded as a spokes rnan the Religious Ltft, Wallis eschettts
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political labels His books nclude God's Politics: why the Right Gets it Wrong and the
x
Left Doesn T Get It (2oos) tahi ch 'uas ? ublitly
endorsed by Gordon Br0'u)n, and The
Great Auakening: Re,uioing Faith and Politics ,n a Post-Righ t ArnerrcQ (2oos)
He\ been tourin8 to promote his rn0st
recent book, Redisco'ttering Values, but took -t0lne
0 Movement regular Becky
Lowe.
time out to ans'uer s0rne hard questi ns fro ln
RL: Your outspoken criticism ofthe religious
right and firm emphasis on socialiustice has
oflen led you to be characterized as a liberal,
progressive evangelical. Yet many of your
"i"-t - for example, calling for abortions
to be 'made harder' - are aPParently at odds
with the religious left. So where exactly do
you stand, politicallY sPeaking?
JW: I'm conservative theologically and conservative
on a variety of social/moral questions like
parenting and family. After all, I'm a Little League
4
Baseball coach for both my young sonsl But I'm
a radical populist on questions of economic and
racial justice, and don't see war as the answer to
our problems. So I don't fit the usual left-right
stereotype. I've always been very uncomfortable
with ideologies. In my view, neither side gets it
right. I always approach issues on an individual
basis from a biblical and theological framework'
For too long, we've tried to put people in
neat little boxes of left and right' People are
Movement

not looking for a politics that goes left or right, they're looking for
a politics that goes deeper.
I don't recall saying I want to make abortion "harder." What I
have said is that both pro-life and pro-choice people ought to be
able to find common ground in a broad effort to practically reduce
the number of abortions in America.
RL: You've been outspoken, both against the Iraq war and
against President Obama's latest decision to send more
troops into Afghanistan. Would you describe yourself as an
out-and-out pacifist, or are there some occasions where a
case can be argued from a Christian perspective for a just
wat?
JW: Christians should have bias toward peacemaking and conflict
resolution; and Jesus calls us to an active non-violence (I have
never liked the passive sound of "pacifism"). But I think there are
times when the use of force is necessary, as in policing situations,
but it should always be an absolute last resort. What really bothers
This could be ff":i:;ffi1;:'h::#:t;111?:iil::il ;lli:"
last to support going to war and it should be done
a moment
fe-exa111 i "-
tO with great reluctance and tears.
o RL: In vour latest book, ReiliscoveringValues,
th e #; IT"i'* ff,'lJ'"".::ff:ili"ffi;::'f;
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what extent is it a moral or spiritual issue?
We measufe JW: For too long, we had been asking: "when will
Movement
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succe s s, dg :H,fT,liilHil: nf "*:Jl?1il:"*:T"i';
bUSineSS and
to re-examine the ways we measure success, do
live our live s . *"i:;'"'ff i*:n:':::::hi:;:l;:"1#:l
modesty, family, friendship, rest and Sabbath.
Gandhi talked about deadly social sins. Two of them were wealth
without work, and commerce without morality, both of which now
are very diagnostic for where we are right now.
We have been overtaken by new maxims: Greed is good. It's
all about me. I want it now. I have three chapters in the book to
counter those, Greed is Good, not Enough is Enough; It's All About
me, not We're In This Together. Instead of keeping up with the
Jones', someone should check to make sure the Jones' are okay.
I Want It Now. I countered that with this lovely Native American
ethic I called the Seventh Generation Mindset. You evaluate, indigenous
folks say, decisions today by their impact on the seventh
generation out. That would change things.
RL: Who is to blame for the current economic crisis?
Greedy financial institutions for encouraging unsustainable
debt, individuals for believing they could have it all, or
Governments for letting it happen?
JW: I think all three played a part. But there's also something
historically that is very telling. The two peak periods in our recent
history when the salary gaps between the top and bottom became
Movement
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the largest, the first time was the year before
the Great Depression and the second time was
the year before this Great Recession. In God's
economy, there is one dictum; there is enough if
we share it. There is enough if we share it. So the
gaps have become so large, social contracts are
broken, become unraveled and people arc angry.
I talk about listening to the canaries. I have
this friend, a state senator from West Virginia'
This young guy's dad was a coal miner- Of
course, he told me the story about the canaries
they took down into the coal mines because the
canaries have a very sensitive respiratory system
and when they began to cough and wheeze you
scramble out because you're in trouble and you'd
better get out fast. He says the canaries are the
poor in all of our traditions, the metaphor. If
you don't listen to the canaries, the poor, soon,
the air is toxic for all of you, and the poor are no
longer the other, they're right there in the pew,
down the block, in the neighborhood. We haven't
been listening to the canaries and now the air we
breathe for all of us is very toxic.
The role of greed, especially on Wall Street, is
clearly a culprit here, as well as the removal of
historic financial regulations and rules of the
road which has now created a lawless economic
environment for predatory banks.
RL: American economist and lecturer
Richard M Salsman puts forward the view
that the crisis has largely been caused
by the 'misguided altruism' of extending
mortgages to those with poor credit histories
in an effort to close the gap between rich
and poor. What's your view on this?
JW: Did people take out loans they shouldn't
have, sure. But, to blame the crisis on the poor
is simply deplorable. Many were literally tricked
into bad mortgages by predatory lending which
has become a way of life for our biggest banks.
Before Christmas, PICO, the community
organizing group, invited me to join a press
conference on the steps of the U.S. Treasury
with people who were being foreclosed or were
in danger of being foreclosed, all first-time
homebuyers, houses, condos, mostly Latino
and African American. Theyd played by the
rules, they saved their money, and most actually
qualified for fixed-rate mortgages but they got
trapped into these exotic adjustable rate time
bomb mortgages and they lost their jobs.
I mentioned this on a panel at the historic
Riverside Church in New York City and a fellow
panelist, Maya Wiley, Executive Director of the
Center for Inclusion, pointed out that an African-
American family making $350,000 a year was
more likely to be placed in a sub-prime mortgage
than a white family earning $50,000. In fact,
some estimates say that nearly two-thirds of
the people trapped into exotic, sub-prime loans
qualified for a fixed-rate mortgage.
RL: In your book, you quote the Austrian
economist Joseph Schumpeter as saying
twhen you've got no moral framework, the
market devours other sectors and finally
6 Movement

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Becky Lowe is a
freelance journalist,
campaigner, mother
and Movement
columnist.
devours itself'. What has morality to teach
economics?
JW: At Davos last year, I told the gathered
leaders that for too long, we didn't think we had
to bring virtue to bear on our decisions because
the invisible hand of the market would make everything
come out all right. "But what do you do,"
I said, as I held up my hand, "When the invisible
hand lets go of the common good and our most
basic values?" Adam Smith, who coined that
quote, wrote in an earlier book called "The Moral
Sentiment," that the market doesn't work where
there is no moral framework. Morality and values
give the market a concern for the common good
and help it more than simply chasing after the
bottom line. Without the morality and concern
for the common good, the market will eventually
devour everything including itself.
-
RL: What do you say to those who say governments
should not have bailed out the
banks but should simply have let them fail?
Wouldn't that have sent out the strongest
message: enough is enough?
JW: I'm not an economist and so I cannot fully
comment on the ramifications of allowing these
"too big to fail banks" to fail. But, for the future,
if banks are too big to fail, I say make them
smaller.
My wife Joy and I began talking and decided
to take our little bank account from Bank of
America, and move it to a local bank that's
been more responsible. In fact, there's a whole
movement of people who are taking their money
out of the big banks and putting it into smaller,
community banks.
RL: So you've said that what is needed is
an alternative approach to banking which
is values-led and sustainable, rather than
simply profits-based. What might this look
like in reality?
JW: I talk about good bankers and good banks in
this book. One of my favorites is Ron Hermance.
Ron's a banker in New Jersey, a regional bank.
His colleagues said bundle these mortgage securities.
You'll make a lot of money. Ron said, but I
got these customers and we have a relationship.
They know me, I know them, I d lose that. But
you can make a lot of money. He said, I have
enough money. I want to keep my relationships.
Ron didn't need a bailout. His bank did fine. And
he appeared on the cover of Fortune magazine
as Banker of the Year, and he just won the First
Annual George Bailey Award. Do you remember
Frank Capra s lt's aWonderful Life? Rent the movie.
It's about banking. So Ron now tells me, I love
it when people come and they say, hey, George.
There are banks like Ron's bank that are better
places for my money and my kids' college savings
account and all the rest than Bank of America.
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A Radical Calling
Activist and SCMer Graham Martin explains why the
Christian calling to mission isn't what you think it is.
As an activist, I'm usually on a mission.
Sometimes it feels more like that mission has to
do with numbers of people at meetings or "in the
streets", but driving that is a desire for something
to change for the better. But for most of the UK
Church, it's not quite what they expect when
they hear the word "mission". After all, rarely do
I stand in front of a group of non-Christians and
start reeling off Bible verses at them'
In December last year, I was on a "Mission" of
sorts. It did, as ithappens, involve overseas travel,
but my trajectory was distinctly more northerly
than southerly. I went to Copenhagen for the
Climate Summit, and to join with members of the
SPEAK network from across Europe (bumping
into a few SCMers along the way). We assembled
in the upper rooms of Copenhagen's Methodist
Church, ate food, prayed, and went out into the
streets. So far, so similar. But it was here any
similarity with a short-term overseas youth
mission abruptly stopped.
We didn'thandouttracts. Mostofthe shouting
we did focussed on the climate, on "Climate
Justice" and making this world a liveable place
for all. We did sing songs that might be vaguely
familiar; some were sung by Christians on the
streets of South Africa in previous decades and
have more verses about freedom and justice than
they do about Jesus and his Kingdom.
But to me, this is no less a part of the bigger
Mission of the Church today. it would be a very
shallow gospel if it were not tied to transformation
of the world. One would need to cut out
a huge amount of the bible - especially from
the Gospels, the kernel of Good News in the
'middle'.
When Jesus accepted his mandate, it was in a
synagogue in Capernaum, and he chose to do it
reading from the scroll of Isaiah. The words bore
only poetic resemblance to much of the mission
University's Christian
carried out, say, by -y
Union, or many of the churches I have encountered
along the way. Yes, giving good news,
though interestingly specifically to the poor.
How often has the church benefited from taking
its message to the poorest and not to the middle-
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classes (think Wesleyan working class revival vs
US mega churches for authenticity of outcome).
But setting people free from physical chains?
Jesus may have commissioned his disciples to
take his message to the world, but that message
cannot be summed up merely in terms of an easy
deal for cancelling time in purgatory/hell/misery
(delete as applicable) - it includes radical statements
that contradict the political views and
dynamics of his day, and ours.
My involvement in activism, often at the
more radical end of the spectrum, has shown
me that there is plenty of room for this radical
world-turned-upside-down thinking alongside
secular radicalism, interestingly specifically
alongside Anarchism as it is expressed in many
movements. If everyone sought to become
servants of everyone else, we'd begin to unravel
even the most oppressive hierarchy. We would
end the cycle of human abusing human that
prevents each individual fulfilling their potential;
of finding "life in all its fullness". This viewpoint
has been given many names; Christian Anarchist,
Radical Christian, Anabaptist. Perhaps, given the
amount Christ talks about it, it should just be
called Christianity.
This desire to flatten out the injustices of
power is something the formalised structures of
the church rareLy wants to deal with. But experience
continues to show me that people outside
the church are looking for a community that
demonstrates commitment to this 'turning the
world upside down'. It's a common statement
that people are often drawn to the words of
Christ, but turned off by the church. The lack
of willingness to break this cycle of power and
control even within our own community is a
clear example of this problem that I encounter
very regularly.
It's always necessary to have faith in order to
get a mission under way. I find myself relyingfar
more on my faith for support when I'm "in the
streets", out on a protest rather than working at
my desk, usually amongst hundreds of police and
often an unpredictable situation. Occasionally I
have people remark that they couldn't go on big
intense protests because they'd be too scared.
Whilst I was in Copenhagen, there was a moment
when I found myself alone in front of our banner,
with fire-bangers and rocks being thrown a
hundred metres ahead of us; the former at police,
the latter at the stock exchange. At that point,
I did feel frightened, and I had to pray, grab my
mental reserves and calmly give directions to
people behind our banner that thankfully meant
they didn't just run off in a hurry.
Fear is definitely one area where discipleship
comes into play. Keeping spiritual matters
in focus whilst dealing with a major 'bread and
butter' issue is another. As with any mission, if
you had everything you needed to undertake it,

it would hardly be a mission at all. But discipleship
is in no way a clean process' nor a straight
path. Instead i have found myself heading down
dead ends plenty of times, only to have to pick
myself up, go back and try again.
Through events like Climate Camp, where
I and around 25 Christians
ran a cafe serving up drinks
to campers in August 2008.
I've had opportunities to
take part in discussions
that many people will never
experience. Discussions with
hardened atheists around
bonfires where Christianity
gets a second look because it's
something fresh, something
very different from the
religion many see fit to attack. It's amazing how
much more interested in your message people are
when you're prepared to get alongside them and
stand in solidarity with them, even help them to
pursue their own goals of a better world'
Through showing concern for the depth of
injustice in the world around us, Christians can
turn heads towards the more rehearsed parts of
the "Christian message". By demonstrating that
Christianity is about more than giving people a
nice feeling to consume or a social club to belong
The mission
is not easy
to live nor
easy to
communicate,
to, but rather that we really do want to make
dramatic changes in the world, we can provide a
vision of Christ's love. Not only do we need to
feed the hungry, but we need to bite the bullet
and ask why they are hungry in the first place,
and be prepared to act on this. Jesus didn't just
supply a new option alongside
the Romans and Pharisees,
he demanded a new way of
life completely, one that can
be pursued on many levels,
but which ultimately allies
itself with people and their
struggles and not with moneY
or power.
This mission is neither
as easy to live nor as easy
to communicate, requiring
substantially more than a linear, 'pray the ptayer' ,
approach. However, it holds much greater consistency;
after all, what does it say about a loving
God if we are unprepared to demonstrate that
love, or personal God if all we concern ourselves
with are numbers of people in Church. And I
really think non-Christians look to see what sort
of consistency the church is showing, looking for
a connection between faith and politics. It is a
mission I sometimes struggle with, but one I'm
delighted to find myself a part of.
E_t
GrahamMartin
lives inYork, when
he's not inhabiting
Climate Camps or
campaigning.
14 Movement
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Re Mission
Karen Ghalk reaches toward a working model of what
"overseas mission" should be. And she should know...
I spent three months in a West Bank
village, documenting and reporting the ways
in which international law is violated and
human rights are denied. I was there as part
of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme
in Palestine and lsrael (EAPPI), a World Council
of Churches initiative which works with local and
international partners towards jr-ist peace based
on international law and UN resolutions.
My job out there was largly to be there; to be
part of a protective presence, to demonstrate
that there is a watching world,
Thg pOint
to *"':ild report' to activelv
support Palesrinians arrd lsraelis
of bei ns a -,"Ji::ilT:'il lff T;':ji.,,l:
Ghfistian iS and just resolution. Also, rhe
to join in with t";:.'"t''ff",i'l,,ff;: j;Tir$
God in putting [jr""":.J;;"J:T:l;'x';"::
thinss risht. :?ll:n'JHi,*:J*,"*,
Think abOUt
that... itos aS
deep as it
iS bfOad.
and human consequences of the
43-year-old occupation and to
encourage people to act on what
thev know.
, ,,.,r", thought of it as
Mission. To me it's a word that
has incredibly unpleasant connotations -
a kind
of colonial project of persuasion, focussing on
the idea that the two points of being a Christian
consist of the following: (a) subscription to a set
of doctrines, and (b) persuading others to sign
up. There's a home version of 'b'; evangelism.
And an '{away' version; mission. That's too crude,
I know, because I think some home efforts are
cal1ed'missions'... maybe that just signifies
an inappropriate distance between the faith
community working that way and the community
they try to 'reach'. Maybe if you are part of the
world around you you don't have to reach so far.
But perhaps what is better is for me to unfold
my narrow vision of mission; to accept that my
connection to the faith and to people of faith
draws me to the conviction that the point of
being a follower of Christ is to have a good go,
individually and communally, at living in a way
which causes minimal damage, and attempting
to repair damage that has occurred. That to me
is the 'point' of the faith, and pretty much consitutes
the Mission with which I can align myself.
To paraphrase Noel Moules, longtime inspirer
and initator of the 'Workshop' Christian learning
programme, the point of being a Christian is to
join in with God in putting things right. Think
about that... it's as deep as it is broad, and is part
of what stil1 compels me to act in the world and
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to identify that compulsion with something of
the Christian faith.
I went to the West Bank and Israel to learn and
to watch, to listen and to report. We are welcomed
because the people facing the extraordinary
challenges of living under occupation know
that we will go home and communicate what
we have seen and heard it is impossible not
-
to. Sometimes people would express frustration
that we come, we watch, we go home and things
just get worse; I know that is true because I have
not only visited but I have seen that over the last
5 years. I have a theory that everyone living there
under occupation has 100 stories. That's probably
a gross underestimation as I could probably tell
you that many and I've only spent a few months
there. For now, I'11 just tell you one.
What would mission look like in Khirbet
Tana? It's a small Palestinian village in the heart
of occupied Palestinian Tel'rrtor1,
populatedbyaround350people. I haVe a theOry
In 2005 it was demolished by the
Israeli army and was rebuilt with that gvgryOng
the support of Rabbis for Human
,,rr"i- r"r-ing liVing Undef
Rights. It's
"
community, a half hour drive
down a track from * ;"";"r; occupation has
lJT":i'T r*:H::i:1ff'"'#
1 oo stories.
of the Jordan Valley.
When we were there, four tractors were
'confiscated' by the Israeli army. Rabbis for
Human Rights supported the local Municipality
in their investigations of this; I was told by both
that the farmers were required to pay a sum
(equivalent to over f500 each) for the return
of their tractors. Arik Asherman of RHR told
me that the Israeli claim was that although they
were permitted to work the land (as it was their
land, and although this does not give them an
automatic right to work it, they had in fact been
granted permission by the Israeli courts to do
so), they were supposed to report in advance
which parts of the land they would be working.
They hadn't, and this was the justification for
taking the tractors. Rabbi Ascherman suggested,
though, that this indicated that re-demolition
was imminent.
Early on Sunday 10'h January we got the call;
the army and bulldozers were there. By the time
we arrived, the last jeeps were just leaving, and
the homes and school were rubble' One child
ran around playing with a wheelbarrow while his
father began to pull materials from the wreckage
in order to begin rebuilding. His mother made
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Movement

I
t.
cheese; this is what they would have been doing,
there is still a family to feed. There is pretty much
certainly nothing to say in that situation. You
can't bring hope in, it is too devastating. You can
only learn from the strength that has developed
in that community over the course of years; they
are responding by rebuilding. One man told us
that it would be back to how it was in one month.
I hear reports now, a few weeks later, that many
Mission can :j :|!',#lT,ffo:I'f|"iil:
bgCOmg thg
Municipality but building is also
taking place. Repairing damage
a1d nolcausing it; I can't think
of anything better.
act Of inSpifing
the pgOple or," other rhing that we
at home to ::',::l:l
j#,:.*"X1'r^:,T:
learn n to ask, [:]t"t#:t .'",ff::'l,i;ff;
tO Challenge,
international communitv that
' nothing was being done about
tO Speak. the situation. It's not even new,
Karen Chalkis
many things, but
rttost of all slrc
goes out and has
adventures.
it had happened before, received
media attention, and then was forgotten. This
happens; we can't do everything about everything
and our world is broken in so many ways.
I remember constantly the moment in Hotel
Rwanda when a local sees a British journalist's
footage of the atrocities, and the British
journalist apologises for the images. The local
enthusiastically communicates that there is no
need to apologise; it is a good thing, because now
the people would see what is happening on their
televisions and persuade their governments to
intervene and help. The journalist looks crushed,
and says 'No. They will see what is happening and
they will carry on eating their dinner'.
What mission could mean in Khirbet Tana is
to spread the word. It's almost traditional in that
sense... to proclaim, to testify, to stand with the
people who live there by following their example;
carry on, build, restore, keep going, keep going,
keep going. Make cheese... eat your dinner too.
That's part of keeping going.
Mission can become the act of inspiring the
people at home to learn, to ask, to challenge,
to speak. Mission can become learning, asking,
challenging, speaking. Moments of disconnection
(it's far away in too many ways), defeat
(there's nothing we can do) and despair (it's
hopeless and intractable) are likely, I suppose.
Our mission of working to put things right
might just lift us over those hurdles; it's far but
we might feel an empathy with the devastation
that is the loss of a home. We can do things -
we can raise the profile of these issues in our
own minds through learning more, and in the
minds of others by speaking more. We should
learn from history that nothing is hopeless and
intractable; political pressure might work to
speed the process of justice, but it won't if we
remain silent.
To understand our purpose on earth to
be working towards rightness - in ourselves,
among our communities and beyond - opens up
the concept of mission and might inspire creativity,
good humour, and hope. It might just end
up being good news.
EAPPI
www.eappi.org
Rabbis for Human Rights
bit.lylvcSvT
Article on Khirbet Tana
bit.lylbvwUHv
Links
Movement 17

i
Vexed About Vocation
Feeling called into the church? Richard Hall
wants you to think long and hard about that.
What does the ideal minister look like?
My experience of Methodist congregations is
that the perfect minister is aged 32, married
(to a woman, naturally) with 2 or 3 school age
children who always behave well in church'
Although a young man, somehow he'll have 15
years experience of ministry and similat experience
of the workplace outside the church' He'll
be well-educated, but won't take that into the
pulpit. He'll be fully committed to his family, but
won't feel the need to spend any time with them'
He'lI be sensible enough to take a day off, but
he'llbe available to the chrxch24/7.
Naturally, there aren't too many perfect
ministers to be found in Methodism' Perhaps
they're in the other churches.
April 25th is being observed this year
as "Vocations Sunday" in churches of many
different flavours. Congregations throughout
the land will be invited to consider the Call
(that's an important capital C there) of God upon
their lives. Meanwhile, all of the denominations
are considering the recruitment and training
of their ministers. Every church has a process
for assessing those who come forward with an
offer for ministry. The details of these processes
vary, but they're all trying to answer one basic
question: How do we judge whether God is calling
this person to ordained ministry in the church?
It would be so much easier if we could escape
the notion of "vocation" and just deal with this as
an issue of Human Resources: come up with a job
description and person spec, and then base our
advertising and recruitment on that' If we know
the job that needs doing, we can find the sort of
person best able to do it. No need to get caught
up in mystical nonsense about'calling'!
Then there's the question of the training
that ministers need to make them "effective",
whatever that might mean.
Fifty years ago, it was clear. All ministers
spent their time in theological college doing
such things as Patristics, Church History, Biblical
Studies, Hebrew, Greek and so on' There would
be a good dose of denomination-specific stuff
too. Calvin for the Presbyterians. Wesley for the
Methodists. You get the idea'
18
No more. A lot of those things have been
removed from ministerial training on the
grounds that they're not "relevant"' There's no
,re"d to study the Biblical languages with so
many English translations to be had. Characters
like Athanasius and Augustine don't come up in
conversation in your average chapel very often,
so there's no need for would-be ministers to be
burdened with them. The denominational studies
that would once have been taken for granted are
often absent, perhaps because of ecumenical
sensitivities.
I've even read serious suggestions that
illffi:1":"i"li";Hf#:
rhe rirst task
are increasingly thousht of as
Of thg ministgf
branch managers, so the suggestion
that some sort of NVQ (or iS thg faithfUl
even MBA) in the Practical stuff
of church ministry would be pfOGlamatiOn
than a'that
of the gospel.
ffiilt"1:t-1iate
You might be getting the
impression that i think there's something deeply
amiss about all this' You'd be right.
Ministers are asked to do all sorts of things
as part of their day-to-day work and it is all too
easy to forget what the core of that work is, or
should be.
Ministry can't be about 'making the gospel
relevant'. That can't be done. The gospel is
relevant, despite the mangling that the church
has often given it. The first task of the church,
and therefore of the minister, is the faithful
proclamation of the gospel, through preaching,
pastoral contact, social action and all the rest'
To be able to do that requires an understanding
of and commitment to the distinctive
resources that the church has to offer the world:
the word as it is found in the Bible, the heritage of
twenty centuries of reflection on what it means
to follow the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
and the life of prayer. Without these things we're
just political activists and social workers' And,
frankly, not very good ones for the most part'
Don't misunderstand me. I'm not arguing for
the church and its ministers to retreat into a holy
Movement

The mission
of God is all
about sending
his people out
to others and
to be able to
join in that
mission needs
both courage
and curiosity.
RicharilHallis
Deputy D[rec'
tor of the Walt's
Tr.ainirrg Nelraor/t,
resltonsible for the
developtttent oi
Metlndist ntinisters
itr tro.itl[l19.
huddle for a spot of navel contemplation.
It isn't as if the church needs
my encouragement to do that' It has
had plenty of practice over the years.
But we need to be absolutelY clear
that in our ministerial selection and
training and in the lives of our
-
church congregations we're laying
-
solid foundations on which all of our
engagement with the world can be
based.
So. What sort of person makes a
minister? A commitment to learning
is a key trait in my view. The old joke
that you can tell what year a minister
came out of training by looking at
her bookshelves is sadly too often
true.The mission of God is all about
sending his people out to others
and to be able to join in that mission needs both
courage and curiosity. We need ministers who are
committed to learning because we need a church
which is committed to learning and I'm as sure as
I can be that we won't get one without the other.
It isn't that long ago that, as a student
chaplain at Wales' foremost seat of learning
(!), I was talking to a young Christian man who
was studying philosophy. I asked him how his
studies impacted his faith. "They don't," he said.
"Philosophy is something I'm studying to get my
degree. It doesn't have anything to do with my
faith." I suspect that's an attitude that can be
found widespread in the church and I found it
very sad that someone so obviously committed to
the gospei couldn't (or didn't want to) make any
links with this area of his life. Only a ministry of
informed curiosity will enable church members
to make those links for themselves.
That's not to say that all ministers should be
academics. This isn't about formal qualifications.
The crucial characteristic is the desire to learn,
and that can be expressed in many ways. But
the discipline of learning is not separate from
the spiritual life of a believer, whether she be a
minister or not. So alongside that commitment to
learning needs to be an equal commitment to the
life of prayer, the ministerial task par excellence.
And that drives me back to the content of
ministerial formation. If the primary tasks of
ministry ate ptayer and proclamation, then the
studies offered to would-be ministers will focus
on those things matter how otherwise
"irrelevant" they may seem to be.
In the end, the kind of ministers we want are
an expression of the kind of Christians we want.
It's unfashionable to say so, but you can't be a
'professional' minister any more than you can
be a professional disciple. The church is called to
offer the gracious love of God to the world in the
same inefficient, unprofessional way that God
offered himself to us.
A ministry that doesn't remember that is no
ministry at all.
I
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r.i
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((
I Live in
en
en
,,
Nathan Eddy's experience of the Copenhagen Summit.
Except for the police, the freezing cold,
and the tall wire fences, you might have
thought you were at Greenbelt. On the
morning of Wednesday 16 December, the atmosphere
outside the site of the United Nations
Climate Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark,
was festive. The talks had not yet ended in
frustration and farce, without a legally binding
treaty. Non-registered non-governmental agency
representatives had been turned away that
morning, but those already registered were still
allowed inside. Beneath two concrete elevated
train tracks, straight as twin gun barrels, the
crowd danced and milled about and tried to keep
warm.
A woman in a chicken suit handed out vegetarian
tracts in front of signs saying, "The simple
solution is love: We have to follow our heart'" A
group took turns on a bicycle-operated stereo
that was cranking out reggae. A medic circulated
with a flask, handing out paper cups of coffee.
A billboard-sized TV screen and sound system
from Greenpeace pumped out slickly produced
short films about gases in domestic refrigerators'
Dignitaries and no-nonsense media were hustled
through metal chutes. The police were jovial. A
hand-painted banner hung from a window in the
modern apartment building across the canal: "I
live in Hopenhagen."
The mood changed quickly that morning.
More riotpolice filedsteadilyin, helmets dangling
from cargo pockets, foot guards flapping over
heavy boots. The thrum of a helicopter filled
the air overhead. A police officer rifled through
the inside pockets of a young man's coat as he
stood, arms raised; the officer confiscated a
coil of rope and told him he wouldn't need it.
I noticed an armoured vehicle with water gun
turrets at a checkpoint for the first time. As I
travelled silently on the overhead train line,
more disturbing scenes flashed past below A
legal march had arrived from the city centre and
dozens of people were pressed up against a line
of police in riot gear. An even larger crowd was
scuffling with police in the middle of an intersection
a few metres on. The most violent protests
of the week had begun.
Around the same time that day, Revd Leif
Christensen, a priest in the Volkskirke, the
established Lutheran church, was getting reading
for a midday service just a few miles away. The
Helligaandskirken, the Church of the Holy Spirit,
stood on a main pedestrian shopping street in
central Copenhagen. Leif was
in the middle of a busy- day;
HOW deeO
that evening was the perform -l- -
-- - --f
ance of Handel's Messiah in the dOeS a
historic church. Perhaps at that I \
moment he was putting on his banner goi
white robe and deep purple stole
in his offrce, a spare, white room with a cross on
the wall in dark, blocky Danish style. That day he
wore a blue striped shirt. There was a group of
teenagers amongst the worshippers gathered in
the ornate, high-ceilinged sanctuary. Earlier that
day the church had taken delivery of a Christmas
tree. Above the main door of the sanctuary was
a towering banner pinned to the stone: Time
for Climate Justice, featuring the ticking clock
designed by Christian Aid.
How deep does a banner go? As a minister I
know something of the slow work of the Holy
Spirit in the life of a congregation. The creative
Spirit moves in the dark, over the waters
of our chaotic lives. But as I walked to the
Helligaandskirken, I'll be damned, so to speak, if
I didn't feel suddenly a million miles away from
the Gospel urgency of the Bella Centre, I had felt
God's Spirit hovering like the helicopter over the
Bella Centre and the protestors. Here, it was just
20 Movement
I

another quiet Wednesday. I wondered what this
banner, what this church, what the Church I love,
had to do with it all.
So I pushed open the great door of the
Helligaandskirken and walked in. At 12:20 p.m.
that Wednesday the service was just finishing
and the teenagers were making their way out of
the Church of the Holy Spirit,
What did :'.?'J:i",i",1""5*'1f;" ;::1
a ChfiStian
respo nse
to the
next to the burnished. copper
ot a hammerect collectlon pot.
His smile was warm, gentle, and
genuine. As the crowd dispersed
Leif welcomed me into his
t 1 t- office and Poured me a coffee
from a flask on his desk. He
\.-Onlefence
1 1 1.1 f took off his robe and stole
IOOK [Ker ffom andhungthem ona coatrack.
this desk, "It is like getting to the gates
from this
church, at th15
busy time?
day
of heaven and finding them
closed," he said, laughing, his
grey eyes sparkling, about
the frustration of so many
NGOs turned away that
in what turned out to be a major controversy
of the conference.
He turned the flat-screen monitor of his
computer toward me so that we could catch
the latest on the fast-developing protest. On a
Danish news site he translated for me a report
of protestors who had gained access to the COP
by walking across sleeping mats floating on the
canal; we shared a laugh together as the reporter
compared this to Jesus walking on water. Faces
of protestors twisted in anger flashed on the
screen as did images of row on row of police in
riot gear.
Movement

What did a Christian response to the
Conference look like, from this desk, from this
church, at this busy time?
"We take the view that this is also a theological
issue, and we must as Christians reflect
on how to look at the future with hope, as Jesus
said. That's what the Gospels are about; bringing
hope to people," he began.
The churches in Copenhagen, including
members of the Heiligaandskirken, I learned, had
done a great deal already. Dr. Rowan Williams,
Archbishop of Canterbury, had preached to over
1,000 at a service in the cathedral the Sunday
before. Christians helped organize a pilgrimage
to different places of worship in the city with
sisters and brothers in other faiths. Nearly
100,000 marched in a legal event attended by
Williams and many in the churches - the largest
march in recent times, newsworthy also for the
1,000 plus arrests made by police.
For Leif the mission of the Church in times
like ours did not simply proceed from the Church
outwards, but was a two-way process between
the Church and wider culture.
"God is our creator
-
we must take care of the
world as a gift. But we must be in the middle of
the people's lives and in their thinking," he said.
"We must be in the churches where the people
are, in their thinking. We must take part in that
agenda. We must as churches wear the suffering
and sorrow of the people - as Jesus did."
But isn't the Church distant from people's
lives? I suggested. Isn't it a crisis? Isn't it a
scandal? But Leif took a longer view than me; the
Church may not always be in touch with current
movements in society, but God is.
"So it was also at the time of Jesus. The best
we can do as a church is to be where the people
are and to bring Christ's love," he said. "The Holy
Spirit is present also in non-believers."
After I left Leif the protest turned violent,
with police striking protestors with batons and
using pepper spray to disperse crowds as reported
by the New York Times. A group of protestors
from within the COP also left the convention
centre to try to reach the barriers; they, too, were
restrained by police.
If the Church felt distanced from the issue, a
walk through Copenhagen made clearthat climate
change hadlong since passedinto the mainstream
in Denmark. Posters on every street corner
trumpeted businesses' green credentials. Giant
banners welcoming travelers to "Hopenhagen"
hung from subway stations, and conversations
on the trains shifted from emission targets to
how Zermatt had been ruined since the 1970s'
Over 50,OOO thronged through the Klimaforum,
the self-proclaimed people's conference. Siemens
had erected a globe four stories high in the main
city square. At 4 p.m. that day I watched as four
projectors clicked to life, creating an image of
the earth that slowly spun over a small crowd
gathered below. The middle class was here, in
between shopping trips.
The issues had indeed kicked off a controversy
in the Church, I learned the next day. In the
Klimaforum I caught up with Revd. Mads
Christoffersen, the Secretary General of the
National Council of Churches in Denmark, an
ecumenicalgroup of 16 churches. T . .
.l
we took seats ar a folding table Lett tOOK a
in front of the "meshwork wall," 1 '
near the booth the Council had longef VleW
:|'J1"'",J,11"11'J:: 'fi""?:""x than me; the
Church may
;Lf:?n:T.'1"* lllut'u"il
from outside. Near us small not alWayS
groupswereengrossedinconver- { o 1
sation about carbon footprints De ln toucn
andemissions. ..1
Green issues were widely Wltn CUffent
accepted across ,,n" .
O.T*h
movements
churches, but in the build-up
to the conference, Mads said,
in SOCirry,
controversy brewed in the i
churches over a recommenda- DUt GOd iS.
tion made by Danishbishops and
ecumenical leaders that was seen as dangerously
political. The bishops and ecumenical leaders
- including the World Council of Churches -
suggested that churches ring their bells 350
times to mark the maximum parts-per-million
of C0, that the atmosphere can withstand.
Angry letters flooded the independent Lutheran
newspaper, the Kristeligt Dagblad (The Christian
Daily News) focused not on the environmental or
geopolitical issues at stake, but on the bishops'
suggestion. The deepest opposition came from
pastors themselves. In the end, 30% of churches
rang their bells to sound the warning about rising
global temperatures. The majority did not'
"[In Denmark] the idea of the church remains
as a cultural institution," Mads said, adding,
'A lot of the public found it quite nice that the
churches had something to say."
But the Church had a contribution to make,
Mads thought.
22 Movement

"I think we have a certain language," Mads
said. "We are connected to one another; Desmond
Tutu speaks of 'ubuntu.'When the churches speak
on climate change to others in the Maldives,
or wherever, we speak as a people connected as
brothers and sisters. And we
I h ad s e e n };[ ; ji* ::ffJ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,:ophe'fic
that GOd WaS rhe Danish controversy
ak eady
l.'g, }};:f5::H|'#'*,H;:
Unlnvltedr ,"- ho* the conference had
- - : -- - --- -] captured public imagination.
UnfeglstefeClt Elizabeth Knox-Seith was candiwithout
a pass fT::1fi1*f.{:"J;"'fr""";
or ID, as close il:::,'::'tandenvironmentar
and as niaaen ;ffi:fl?.ffi:nTi:;:i,"-t
as th
NathanEiIiIY
is Free Church
ChaPlain to
Higher Educatton in
Manchester.
and its church council, she had
e SnOW. pushed for the Christian Aid
banner against some opposition
from others in the church. Over a coffee down
the street from the Heligaandskirke she shared
her experience.
"For me it was very disconcerting," she said,
shaking her head. "It feels like being bitten by a
snake, a poisonous snake. The whole church body
becomes lame."
"You have to be smart in arguing. I find it sad
and a bit lonely,' she said. "We are a movement
in the Church, but when it comes to the majority,
we have more work to do."
In her view the struggle was not over climate
change per se, but over the way God works in
the world. Can humans actively participate in
God's grace, or just passively? One orthodox
Lutheran position which she deplored held that
"the church should just rely on grace - we are not
saved through good deeds. Therefore, we should
stick to grace, not deeds."
"There is a feeling in Danish circles that we
must avoid political issues. fTheologyJ becomes
an intellectual exercise rather than something
that reaches you on an ethical level," she said.
"The Church takes care of the middle class. The
Church does not define itself as a Church of the
poor."
But she remained hopeful.
"It feels like a long step, but hopefully the
impulse here is a start. It is obvious the bishops
don't dare."
I had been searching for a Christian
contribution which would take its place in the
"meshwork hall" of public debate. But leaving
Elizabeth I realised that I had been coming at the
issue from the wrong direction. Certainly there
are Christian prophets, the Desmond Tutus
and non-violent protestors, who will lead and
inspire. But the response of the Church was the
wrong thing to seek; instead we should seek the
response of God, and how we can be part of it. And
I had seen that God was already here, uninvited,
unregistered, without a pass or ID, as close and
as hidden as the snow. God wasn't waiting for
the Church to take notice; a spirit of reverence
overshadowed the people beneath the Siemens
globe, and a spirit of holy urgency the protestors.
Perhaps, as Lief suggested, the churches at this
time were not called to be the experts on trade, or
the climate, or Western-Chinese relations, but to
be open to these movements, to God, and to one
another. The Church's unity across the nations,
amidst argument, was important in itself as
a model of sharing and listening in the face of
competing interests. Who else is to provide the
"language" of connectedness, as Mads suggested
-- a vocabulary that stretches us beyond selfinterest
-- except faith groups willing to speak
out? Who else is as familiar with the reality of
selfishness and its overcoming as the followers of
Jesus? The Church did have a response to make
- as the Church: open to a living God, open to
a living, changing world, and open to divergent
opinion within itself. It was God's response that
I had been seeking, and God's response I had
found in the protestors and pilgrims and pastors.
Would the Church be on board?
The evening I saw Leif I made my way to the
flat where I was staying. The protests had finished
for the day; people were thrilled at the prospect
of Barack Obama's impending visit. The talks had
not yet ended in disappointment. I passed the
Helligaandskirken on my way home. The crowd
for the Messiah concert was gathering outside the
brightly lit door as people made their way inside
through the small door. Perhaps at that moment
Leif was preparing a few words of welcome to
say to the audience. The banner above the crowd
caught my eye again as I passed: Time for Climate
Justice. It was dark and unlit, but i could still
make out the words.
Movement 23

We fought the Law . Symon Hill
Sinful Treats
A display of snacks in a cafe I used to
visit was labelled "sinful treats". I never
asked in which religion the consumption
ofpeanuts is regarded as a sin.
After a fascinating linguistic journey, the
word "sinful" can now mean "appealing".
On the other hand, many Christians have
become rather embarrassed about the word,
worrying that its use will make them appear
judgmental.
Christian views of sin have undergone
many changes. Jesus attacked the hypocrisy
of religious leaders who condemned others'
sins. But after the Church became linked
to the Roman Empire, Christians gradually
accustomed themselves to Christendom - the
system that united church, state and dominant
culture. The theologian Augustine developed
two major new doctrines that still exert huge
influence.
The first was "just war", replacing early
Christian nonviolence. The second was
"original sin", according to which everyone is
born a sinner. Augustine taught that original
sin is passed from one generation to another
by sex.
Oppressive rulers and church leaders have
made much use of these doctrines. Augustine's
strict criteria for "just wat" have been
stretched out of all recognition.
Contempt for sex, pr""gr"rr.y Many ChUfCheS
and the body have fuelled the .. - - - -
subordination of women and TOCUS
;:H' ":il:'il":;.,t1*"n,n'l
exclusively on
sexual sin of deviant indi- SeXUal ethiCS,
viduals than the violent sin of
imperial oppression. In short, tfgating peacg
:fl',T?,*'Ti:"::1 :l1'ffi and war as
Side iSSUeS.
In Post-Christendom,
this distorted outlook often
continues. Many churches focus excessively on
sexual ethics, while treating questions of peace
and war as a side-issue. And society as a whole
is deeply inconsistent about sex and violence.
The government condemns gun crime while
subsidising the arms industry. The media
scream about paedophiles but forget that
most abused children are abused by their own
relatives. People claim to be sexually liberated,
but unthinkingly use the world "rude" as a
euphemism for "sexual". The ongoing association
of sin with physical pleasure means that
tasty food is advertised as "sinful".
from violence.
Je t'aime, mais, parce
qu'inex licablement
a o
I
arrne
chose
ol
J
en toi quelque
plus que
I'objet petit a
t )
a
je te mutile
r,
!
o
@ l-l
p
o
?
o
24 Movement

SgXUal ViOIgnGe
r
A clearer understanding of sin is vital to developing a more
just approach to both violence and sex.
One problem is that we tend to think of sins as individual
acts such as murder, lying or putting the cheese in the fridge
without wrapping it so that your flatmate finds it's gone hard
at the edges. Instead, I propose we think of sin as a condition
rather than an activity. Sin is the condition that separates us
from God, each other and creation. Actions that perpetuate this
condition are indeed sinful. However, because of the state of the
world, we are all complicit in sin to some extent, for example
by participating in an unjust economic system. We cannot opt
out of the world, but we can, with God's grace and power, work
to change it -
in both personal relationships and political
structures.
Students of peace and conflict emphasise that they are
concerned not only with violence in a physical sense but with
emotional violence, oppressive structures and all that harms
relationships. This can help us to see that violence is something
very similar to sin.
when it comes to considering whether a
r t _. _- - L particular form of sexual expression is sinful, we
lS SInTUI nOt ."r, "rk
whether it is violent in this broad sense.
beCaUSg it iS Forexample,sexthatisnotbetweenconsenting
adults, or involves deceiving someone, is
basically violent. On the other hand, a couple
SeXUal, bUt
- who enjoy spanking each other in a loving
beCaUSe it iS context'aie doing no violence in a meaningful
r r r r sense of the word.
VIOlgnt ln a
Thismethodofdiscerningwhethersomething
SeXUal COntgXt. is sinful is not easy. Different people give
different answers in the same situation. The
level of reflection and responsibility involved
mean that this is not an excuse for casual immorality. This is
an approach that is more concerned with our relationship with
God and each other than with the convenience of prejudice, the
cop-out of tradition or the hypocrisy of conventional morality.
SymonHiIIis a
freelance witer,
trainer, consultant
andteacher of
theology, and
associate diredor
ofthe thinktank
El

Propositions . Kim Fabricius
Ten propositions on Sin
I
What is the nature of our sin
That it deserves so beautifully
To be forgiven?
R.S. Thomas
-
One: Reinhold Niebuhr famously described
original sin as the one empirically verifiable
Christian doctrine. Niebuhrwas wrong. We know
whence his statement gets its intuitive purchase:
the omnipresent reality of self-alienation and
social disorder. But sin is a theologoumenon, antd,
like all theologoumena, it is a matter of faith, not
disinterested observation. To be specific, sin
is a matter of faith because, definitively, it is a
disruption between human beings and God
-
and the knowledge of God is itself a matter of
faith. In fact, it takes the light of grace to expose
the true nature
- and darkness - ofsin.
Two: What is the nature of this disruption? The
fundamental form of sin is disobedience. "The
Lord God commanded . . ." (Genesis 2:16) - and
our paradisal parents did not do as they were
told - for their own good. They transgressed the
"Thou shalt not," they trespassed on the Edenic
orchard. As Paul typologically interprets Genesis
2 in Romans 6, the key terms are Adarn's parabasis
(transgression) and parakoe (disobedience) and,
in contrast, Christ's hypakoe (obedience). It is
precisely as the obedient one that Jesus is the
sinless one, and precisely as the sinless one that
he is peccator pessimus (Luther), the worst of
sinners, the one who accepts the sin we refuse to
acknowledge. The heart of sin is its denial, the
self-deceit of innocence and its projection on
-
others, our scapegoats.
Three: Do I take the story of the "fall" in Genesis
2 tobe "history"? No more than I take the threestory
universe of Genesis 1 to be "science". So
the story of the fall isn't true? Don't be silly!
Only a discredited positivism would reduce
truth to the "facts" of history and science, quite
apart from the issues of contructivism and perspectivism.
Robert Jenson disagrees. He takes
Adam and Eve to be actuai hominids, "the first
community of our biological ancestors who
disobeyed God's command."l Jenson's target is
an idealist understanding of the fall as a "myth",
1 Robert Jenson, Systematic Theology, Volume Il (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 150.
but his palaeo-anthropological alternative is, in
my view, a category mistake. The fall is neither a
timeless idea nor a chronological moment but a
pre-historical narrative disclosure of the way it is
with you and me. The fall is a foil to the history
of humanity.
Four: The fall-as-foil forestalls two other errors.
First, "The Bible knows no 'sinless man' and
consequently no state of innocence"2; thus the
fall "is not a fall in the sense that man after has
become anything else than man was before"3.
And, second, the story of the fall is not an aetiological
narrative; that is, it is not an explanation
of sin. There is no explanation of sin. Sin is sure
and sin is a surd: irrational, non-necessary,
-
nonsensical. Kierkegaard, that
great anatomist of sin, is our DO I take the
teacher here.
Five: After disobedience, there StOry Of thg
11", r::"1"1 contende.rs.tr tn" utall, to be
olaDorlcal crown or rounoational
sin. Pride of place in the ,,hiStOryrr? NO
history of harmatology goes to
- pride, or amor sui; Reinhold mgfe than I
Niebuhrperhaps gives the definitivemodernaccount.
Feminist takg the thfggtheologians
have objected that _r ^ __
this tradition, actually colludes StOry UnlVClfSe
:t":Hr",'"'J-ir:;;i.::ffi of Genesis 1 to
at the expense of self-respect
be ,,Sgignggtt.
and empowerment. Liberation
theologians argue the same
case with respect to colour and class. The point
should be acknowledged. However, rather than
abandon the tradition, I think it would be wiser
to reconfigure our understanding ofpride
- and
to supplement it. Taking faith as ftducia, Richard
Niebuhr focuses on its opposite, mistrust. Karl
Barth, theologian of. grace, appropriately accents
ingratitude. In Thomas Mann's retelling of
the Faust legend, Doctor Faustus, the satanic
counter-commandment is "Thou shalt not love,"
a motif central to Schleiermacher and common in
liberal theology. And to add to the witches'brew,
2 Claus Westermann, Creation (London: SCM Press, 1977),
p.110.
3 Bruce Vawter, On Genesis: A New Reading (London:
Geoffrey Chapman, 1977), p.79.
r
26 Movement

consider Augustine's take on sin as concupiscentia,
disordered desire, a particularly apt category for
evaluating our obsessionally consumerist society.
However, Luther's graphic image of the sinner
as homo incurvatus in se (a man turned inward
towards himself) is perhaps
Wg think W61
the paradigm of sin that best
combines incisiveness with com-
Gall the ShOtS. prehensiveness.
We don't. As ll",li"11;,';#
*ffi:i"";;
Augustine and Luther's insight
that we are (in Alistair McFady-
en's double-entendre of a book
gfaGg gOgS all
the Way dOWn
in God, so sin lj":#:'"l,*.i#;;,':: 'Ji"Tl
goes a| | the ;;:'l]'# ;il,*:1"-""i#'trT.:
way throush ;l,t':1'"T:rfiTi*il:' E:;1:
KimEabricius is a
New Yorker, a baseball
fan and URC
chaplain at Swansea
University. Kim's
book, Propositions
on Christian
Theoiogy: A
Pilgrim Walks
the Plank, is stil/
available.
in hUmans.
appetites". Thus does Calvin
correctly interpret the Pauline
maticarly, .,,"r i:;::;i? ;: ff ::ii:#; rJ*'"t;
beings are vile and loathsome creatures who can
do no good, but that there is no privileged no-go
area that sin does not crash, and no human act
that is altogether uncompromised by self-interest.
We think we call the shots. We don't. As
grace goes all the way down in God, so sin goes
all the way through in humans.
Seven: A Pauline anatomy of sin must also observe
a crucial distinction between sin and sins. Paul's
fundamental harmatological category is not sins
as moral failures but sin as an alien and enslaving
power. Consequently Paul almost never speaks
of the forgiveness of sins, or repentance, rather
he speaks of sin's defeat and conquest - by Jesus
of Nazareth, the sinless One. Indeed that is
how we gauge just how radical and universal sin
actually is: it takes the life, death, and resurrection
of Christ to break it. Deducing the problem
from the solution, Paul sees that without grace
we would never know just how hopeless is the
human condition.
Eight: You know the phrase "ugly as sin"?
Whenever I think of it I picture Duccio's "The
Temptation of Christ on the Mountain" with
its nightmarish figure of the devil. I also catch
a whiff of Luther's shitty Satan. But how could
the utterly repulsive be so totally tempting?
Consider, then, the flkn The Devil's Advocate
(1997), in which Al Pacino plays a Lucifer whose
drop-dead attractiveness contributes as much as
his corporate clout to his guile and persuasiveness.
His text might come from the the Rolling
Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" (inspired, incidentally,
by another modern retelling of the
Faust legend, Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and
Margarita): "Please allow me to introduce myself,
I'm a man of wealth and taste." Sin is no Ugly
Betty.
Nine: On the other hand, the devil is a liar. He
makes sin seem so exciting, both as lust and lure
to power. "Work on their horror of the Same
Old Thing," C.S. Lewis' Screwtape advises his
nephew Wormwood.a In fact, sin itself always
turns out to be unoriginal, recycled, predictable,
dead boring the Same Old Thing. But Satan is
-
so streetwise that, like gullible teenagers or old
folk with bad memories, we are always falling
for his provocative promises. Thus WC Fields
on original sin: 'A sucker is born every minute."
By the way, one of the best antidotes to temptation
is a sense of humour. Like all tyrants, the
devil insists on being taken seriously, so take the
mickey and remove the sting.
Ten: Finally, a crucial pastoral point, based on
an acute theological insight, which Deborah
van Deusen Hunsinger puts powerfully and succinctly:
"The paradox of the knowledge of human
sin is that human beings can ultimately know
themselves as sinners only in the light of forgiveness.
Known sin as such, Barth argues, is always
finally forgiven sin. We cannot fully perceive
ourselves as sinners, he suggests, apart from
Jesus Christ."s Which is why repentance, rightly
understood, cannot possibly mire one in guilt,
shame, and depression; rather, as a homecoming,
it is ultimately an act of sheer joy.
4 C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Glasgow: CoIIins, 1987
[first published in 19 42] ), p. 1 26.
5 Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger, Theology and Pastoral
Counselling A New Interdisciplinary Approach (Grand
Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 1"995), p. 195.
Movement 27

I'd rather be a Dorky Bird in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked -
Dorky Bird o Becky Lowe
Faith, HoFe, Charity (Picktwo)
So, I used to go to this Church. Above the
door, the one which everyone had to go through
to exit the building, it had this big sign, painted
in red: 'You Are Now Entering The Mission Field'.
I used to think that was cool, in a kooky kind of
way.
It just so happened that about the same time I
started attending that Church, I had agreed to join
a friend from work on a sponsored 10k run, raising
money for Oxfam. All I had to do was get some
sponsors.
Simple, I thought. You're part of an entire Church
full of kind-hearted people (otherwise, they wouldn't
be going to Church, right?) A ready-made network of
potential sponsors. Couldn t be easier.
"I'm sorry, I've already sponsored someone this
month," said one. 'Ask me after payday" another,
slightly more honestly. And then, my particular
favourite: "I only give money to Christian missionary
charities. Let the world look after its own"'
Now, that's an interesting one, isn't it. As if, by
becoming a Christian you've somehow signed a pledge
stating that the cares and concerns of the world are
no longer your concerns. Millions dying needlessly of
starvation in Africa? Not my problem. So long as the
Church coffee rota gets organised, I've done my bit for
humanity.
I'm not the only one that has encountered this
strange disconnect when it comes to the Church
dealing with the poor. A friend of mine in a church
which shall remain nameless used to work tirelessly
for a Christian charity, until she was told by the elders
that they would no Ionger be supporting her, having
decided in their mission statement to "focus on saving
souls locally." She has since left that Church.
I do sometimes wonder if I'm reading the same
Bible as everybody else. Because the one I read has
thousands of verses on poverty and hardly anything
at all to say about other topics like the ordination
-
of women, or homosexuality, or the use of this or that
liturgy that so frequently seem to get everyone hot
-
under their dog collars. Homosexuality, ffi instance,
attracts a mere 12 verses, compared to caring for the
poor, which dominates the writing of the prophets.
In recent months, in my own Church and it's
-
a good Church in every other respect I've heard
-
countless sermons on subjects like judgement and
the Second Coming and substitutionary atonement,
but hardly anything on poverty, or about the greed
of bankers' bonuses, or tackling social inequality.
And yet, it's all right there in the Bible. Jesus himself
said: 'It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye
of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven', and
exhorted the rich man who asked what he had to do
to enter heaven to sell all his possessions and give
the money to the poor (Mk10:17-31). Oddly enough,
that's not a sermon I have ever heard preached.
Perhaps it's not that surprising. It's much easier
to sit in judgement over what other people do in the
bedroom. That doesn't demand anything of us, apart
from perhaps a sense of misguided superiority. But to
judge the rich well, that's not something that sits
-
Psalm 84:10
Ii'J,',ilY,T'LX"'J;Y*.,T::I Most of us
we're honest about it, have far more
than we actually """d.
i; t;";; liVing in the
guilty as anybody else. Sure, I give
money to charity. e.rt, iil;'Ltoiurt WG)stefn
about it, it's a pittance compared to
the amounr I spend;,hil;;; wOrldr if wgtrg
ilt#,;Ji?fi:;:n,l:::: - honest about
,"*'jn:.H:i;rHJr;';* it, have far
this, 25,000 children will die for lack
of rood, shelter .t":'"T"'.";:H more than we
""d
#;Jl" ;:fiij,''"'"'"":..;ffi' l:; actual ly need.
three-quarters of world income. As
this happens, the wealthy west is struggling to cope
with an obesity epidemic and dealingwith the growing
tide of debt symptoms of a culture of excess which
-
is taking its toll, both physically and spiritually'
Is the mission of the Church, to quote my evangelical
friend, "to save souls, not to save the world"?
Jesus himself said "The poor you will always have with
you" (Mt26:11), an admission, if any were needed,
that it is not the function of the Church to stamp out
poverty. Except he didn't, not really. Because what
he was actually doing, in typical subversive form,
was quoting an Old Testament passage that said
exactly the opposite. The passage from Deuteronomy
15:11, which would have been well-known to Jesus's
followers, reads: "There will always be poor people in
the Iand." It then goes on to say: "Therefore I command
you to be openhanded toward your brothers and
toward the poor and needy in your land'" The meaning
seems to me to be prettY clear.
But what of the Great Commission
-
the
command in Mt28:1-6-20,to "Go and make disciples of
all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"? Surely, that is
straightforward enough? Making disciples
- 'saving
souls' has to come above helping the poor, in the
-
divine hierarchy. The answer, I think, lies in the second
part of the Great Commission: 'And teaching them to
obey everything I have commanded you". If we take
our cue from the way Jesus conducted himself whilst
here on earth - healing the sick, accepting those whom
28 Movement
r

Becky Lowe
is a freelance
writer, editor and
campaigner
society had cast aside as being unworthy, rejecting the
merely outward manifestations of religion (Mt3:8) in
favour of a radical, whole-life spirituality, I think we
have a pretty clear picture of what is commanded.
And that is a faith that consists of more than simply
converting others.
So, what's the answer to my own particular knotty
spiritual dilemma? Do I abandon my charity in favour
of my faith? Or should I abandon all hope in either? I
do not think so. I do not believe that faith and charity
have to be mutually exclusive. In fact, I would go so
far as to say that, at least for me, one cannot properly
exist without the other.
It seems to me that if we truly see others as made
in the image and likeness of God, it is wrong - blasphemous,
even - to neglect them. By continuing to
ignore the basic needs of those around us, we are
denying God's own work and creation the right to
an existence. At a human level, that is shockingly
immoral. At a divine level, indefensible.
I think St Francis put it best when he said that
it was his duty to "preach the Gospel always, using
words if necessary". The Quakers have a simple way of.
phrasing it: "Let your life speak". The Bible, of course,
commands us to: "Love God with all your heart, all
your soul, all your strength and all your mind, and love
your neighbour as yourself." That's pretty unequivocal.
So how come we're not doing it?
Thelr'll Have
ru.
TeAcups
Fiction by Chelsie Bryant, part two
I see a woman whom gravtty has done wrong.
Parallel ski slopes slide down her chest
and come to points somewhere in the middle.
I think she's missed her bus.
Another moving billboard skeeters past.
Only, the grandma-woman this time
has grown a bulbous mustache
and her eyes are the size of plates
with horns growing out of her head like Satan himself
was staring at me eye-for-eye
or soul-for-soul.
Somewhere in Clifton, Cincinnati,
Catcher the Spirit-Smasher arranges teacups.
There is the one with Princess Diana and Prince Charles
on their wedding day
that his Nana bought him at a garage sale.
"Don't touch this. I hear-ed it might be worth somethin'. Probably
more than yer life,"
he said, holding out to her the blue and white treasure.
Except, on Di's face is a mark;
it looks like someone tried to erase her.
And then there's Charles,
unblemished and
grinning like the Cheshire fiend.
Sweat glistened mY skin
like moss did mY tree stumP.
And there's Catcher the Spirit-Smasher
who says I can't because he says so.
And doesn't give a hot damn
what I amif
that is h"ppy,
or depressed.
And if I were what I am,
which I don't even know,
other than Virginia BIu,
would my words be fewer?
Something like hot cement hits my nasal cavities
and I reel backwards,
into the stop sign.
Then the little man beckons me forward
while my bare-feet argue
angrily with the baking sun beneath me.
V. Blood worked its way up Virginia's neck,
rushing into her head. She slowly unfolded her arms,
laying her hands palms down onto the bed, and
sliding into a bent-stretch position. Gingerly, her
fingers crawled backwards toward her body, arching
her back into a catlike shape, before she rose and the
rush ofblood to her head ceased. Mosquitoes crackled
at the screen like fizz in a can of Mountain Dew. It was
humid again like it always was in a Cincinnati spring
and the only comfort Virginia was afforded was the
slight breeze coming in at the window, knocking the
curtains into a dance.
She flopped down onto the bed again, rolling
over on her back. There were two indents on the
mattress. The left indent was Catcher's. The right,
hers. She let the blood seep in, pooling in her brain
so that it became weighted-the confusion setting in.
And so she lay there and thought white.
At some point in the afternoon, Virginia
must have gotten up and brushed her teeth and gone
to Rohs with her journalbecause she somehow arrived
in Landon's offrce, ripping out pages upon pages of
her life.
"Stop it," he said, latching onto her wrists.
"What are you doing?"
Movement 29

That's when the blossoming of realization
finally settled and the nonsense flying from her mouth
and the jumbles on the pages and the congealed blood
conglomerated into a final'holy shit.'Tears leapt from
her eyes like flying fish from water, the earthquakes
at the ant city sending tremors deep inside. Muffled
squeaks escaped her, as she pried her hands free from
him, saying only, "Let go." He did, only for her to use
them to encircle her waist. She brought her knees up
to her chin and hugged her shins. Landon took a seat
beside hers. He opened his Bible and began reading.
"Fearfulness and trembling are come upon
me, and horror hath overwhelmed me. And I said, Oh
that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away
and be at rest..."
Virginia let out a slight "ha" that neither
stopped Landon's progress nor pressed him forward;
he continued to read as if she were not in the room.
"...I would hasten my escape from the windy storm
and tempest..."
And Virginia just kind of stared at the
wood of his desk, now tracing her fingers along the
images playrng for her. She stroked the brown cat; its
purr louder than the scripture. Gazing at the animal
distracted her from Landon, whom, upon a glance up,
Virginia found to be silently staring. Her eyes dropped
back to the wood where her hands petted the cat. She
followed the grooves of the table, looking for Jesus or
Mary or even Judas, but she found no one. Instead,
she found what appeared to be the roots of a tree,
dangling and trunkless from the corner.
"I haven't had my period in two months," she
said. The instant the words were out, the smell of the
room settled into a mugginess-the old church aroma
dissipating simultaneously. Consternation gathered
upon Landon's face, as he rested his hand on her
shoulder.
said.
"Have you discussed this with Catcher?" he
"No."
Next, she expected him to say something
condemning her to eternity in Hell if she were to get
an abortion or continue to have sex.
"What are you going to do about it?" he said
instead. His hand pressing into her back, rubbing
circles into the channels of her shoulder blades. Index
finger. Thumb. Palm. Index finger.
"Tell him," were the words that spilled out
from her mouth; she knew that this was the answer
Landon was looking for. She didn't tell him that she
saw Catcher's fingers, a joint longer than his, wrapping
around her neck and squeezing until her head popped
off Marie Antoinette-style.
Landon's thumb bunched her skin into his
index finger, drawing red circles in her flesh. Then he
placed his palm between her shoulder blades and drew
her into an embrace while she shuddered like it was a
paperback hand pulling her in.
u.
Kleenex must've been an invention only
second in God's heart to people.
My nose explodes green lava
into what Grannie would surely
call a modern-day "handkerchief"
(pronounced like you were British, if you will,
and add a dash of salt for effect).
Next to my ear is a petite sneeze
kind of like a Pomeranian dog,
barking at a Mastiff.
Then, suddenly, the yappy thing is taken over
(by a thudding one).
And I hear I'ma-Fuck-My-Hoe
over the radio from
what is surely a rolling candy wrapper.
Aunt Flo didn't call.
She didn't say,
"Welcome back to
the hood."
And now I'm waltzing down the Ave.,
writing to Catcher the Tongue-
Lasher.
About how he's gonna be a
Dad...
Dear Catcher,
I know your momma didn't love you enough.
That's why you can't love me
-there is no other reason for it.
Baby, we're going to have a baby.
And I'm going to love him like your momma never
loved you.
Thank you kindly,
The Fucked-Bitch
Me and Catcher got into it
a while back.
He said,
well, I'm not going to tell you what he said,
but he said to go to Hell,
and I couldn't take that,
so I cried real hard
and he punched my gut in.
Told me to get over it,
nailing me in the chest and
knocking the wind so far out of me
I blew my nose ring through the skin.
Oh, Catcher the Tongue-Lasher,
let's lash my tongue
and be done.
Download the conclusion
to this story at
www.movement.org.uk
Chelsie Bryant
lives in Cincinnati,
Ohio,where she
one day hopes to be
the crazy cat-lady
who survives off
chocolate cake.
30 Movement

The Prayer of Oscar Romero
It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforls,
it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says allthat could be said,
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confesslon brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church 's mr'ssion.
No sef of goals and objectives includes everything.
Ihis is what we are about,
We plant fhe seeds that one day wrll grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need furTher development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everythrng, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. lt may be tncomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opporlunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end resu/fs, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master butlders; ministers, not rnessiahs
We are prophets of a future not our own,
Amen.
Sometimes, I feel small and I am not really sure
what to do with myself. I all of a sudden start to
question everything. I cannot be proud of what I have
achieved and then I am suddenly wondering what I actually
have to complain about. Now, I live in England, in a
wealthy country, and I also grew up in a fairly average but
good neighbourhood in Germany.
There are so many others out there who struggle from
illness, poverty, war, climate change... considering this
helps me to put things back into perspective and teaches
me to be content and happy where I am at the moment.
It is really this that is expressed in Oscar Romero's
Prayer... that it is OK to feel this way. That we ought to
step back and take a long view. Personally, this is one
of my favourite prayers and I hope that others might see
what this says about God and our relationship to him.
We are not expected to be per-fect. We do not have to
achieve certain things in order to be loved
- God just
loves us despite every mistake we have made, make and
will make in the future.
We should really remember this in our everyday lives. We
should consider ourselves to be part of this kingdom that
has already begun in our world, as imperfect as it may
seem to us at times.
It seems almost to easy to focus on what is bad, what is
faulty, what is impeffect, what is not ideal... even listing
. those words shows that there is often a too negative per-
spective on how we perceive things around us. Looking
at the prayer can help to remember what we all know:
that "nobody is peffect" and we are not meant to be.
God created us with a free will and he cerlainly knew that
we would thus make mistakes and he accepted this. We
are free to make mistakes as often we learn this way.
Not only do we learn this way but it often broadens our
horizons. We go through a period in our lives which is
hard, and in the moment we might feel lonely, unloved
and lacking all strength to get on with life but then if we
actually come to the point of taking a step back and taking
the long view, things start to look, maybe at first only
a little, better and motivating. We might feel a sense of
"Well, actually my life is not too bad" until we are able to
see that we are actually pretty privileged - at least this is
true for me.
Sometimes we as humans, especially the scientists and
criticalthinkers amongst us, want to explain everything.
There is a hunger for more knowledge. However, maybe
we do not have to know everything. And maybe this
is narVe of me but I accepted this for myself - I do not
know everything and it is OK - as I trust in myself, in the
good of life and God. Of course I struggle sometimes,
but knowing that this is acceptable helps and which is
for me the essence of Oscar Romero's prayer.
Life itself is a gift. We just need to sometimes take the
time to refocus, to change our perspective - to step back
and take a long view.
Birgit Garthe, SCM Manchester
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