I had this mad idea to preach a a series of three sermons on linked pairs of words viz:

Hope and Fear

Love and Hate

Faith and Doubt

The idea being that rather than seeing these as polar opposites, one bad the other good, they actually exist in some kind of tension.  Insterestingly I discovered today one of the Hebrew words usually translated 'hope' means 'twist' or 'cord' or 'tension' cue spooky music.

Anyway, I naively thought that somewhere in one of my numerous general theology books would be something on fear.  Nah.  Nothing.  Not a sausage.  Not even 'fear of the Lord'.

So, here's the request for help:

Can anyone point me at some constructive theological writing on any of

Fear

Hate

Doubt

It's probably too late for this week's service on hope and fear, though I have managed to find some stuff I can work with, but any or all ideas welcome. 

Also more spooky music as I found Stan Grenz expressing the 'same but different' ideas I'd used over Easter in a part of a book I'd never read before.  I love it when that happens.

Answers to the usual address!

Check this out for a wry smile.  HT BUGB e-news sweep.

Been and done it - my three votes on three different colour-coded voting slips posted into the appropriate ballot boxes.  From a simple 'yes/no' on the referendum to a roll of wallpaper for the Scottish regional representation, it reflected the diversity of democratic process.  Now we have to wait to see how the results pan out.

At least here I am reasonably confident that far right parties won't make an impact.  I had a quick look to see who was standing in my old local government ward of Dibley and discovered that the far right guy who got in last time is standing once more - this time as an independent as, it seems, the far right party he was part of wasn't far enough right enough for him.

After the local council election at which that candidate was elected I preached one of my few overtly political sermons as a response.  My one non-white, non-UK born, church member thanked me, because he was genuinely afraid of the potential consequences.

This week I've been thinking quite a lot about injustices and how difficult it is to address them, that sometimes it has to be one at a time, that sometimes former victims become perpetrators, that sometimes despite our best efforts we end up as hypocrites.  Baptists claim to believe in freedom of conscience, but we don't always think that through terribly carefully.  The far right people have the right to hold the views they do, and even to test public perception by standing for election; however, we have a responsibility both, where and when we can, to speak prophetically in response and to get out and vote for other candidates.

Whilst I was typing this, the postman delivered the postcard I'd completed a few weeks back at the closing gathering of the Glasgow Poverty Truth Commission on which I, like others, had been invited to write down one thing we would do as a result of what we'd heard.  I wrote this:

I will: continue to work for a just society where all are valued as of equal worth

Even as I wrote it, I knew these words were far easier to write than to enact.  Sometimes it seems like one step forward and two back.  Sometimes it seems addressing injustice A means living with injustice B.  Sometimes it seems there are so many injustices it's impossible to know where to begin.

I am reminded of words in a song sung by Cliff Richard back in the days when he was just about the only Christian singer I knew of:

It's a drop in the bucket, I can hear you say

But the bucket gets wetter, I know we'll fill it some day

And I think there is some truth there - what I, or anyone else, does may be just a 'drop in the bucket' but all the drops slowly and steadily increase the amount of water in the bucket, until one day there is enough to wash or drink or simply enjoy.  I guess the challenge is to avoid inadvertently kicking it over.

So, as ever on voting day, my aim is to get you to vote, and to do so bearing in mind the privileges and responsibilities of democracy, the challenges of challenging injustice and the value of every drip and drop.

Zap number 15 this morning means there are only ten left to go.  It is a routine I've now got very accustomed to and can almost do in my sleep.  I can chant with the radiographers '98.6 and 9 to the right.  Go to pin and raise by 5.... withdraw MLC....'  Don't know what half of it means (I know what the MLC is, and I know what a port scan (which they'll do again tomorrow) is) but it has a kind of almost liturgical feel to it!

Since I began my treatment I have seen other people come and go - some on 5 zaps, some on 15 and one on 29 (unusual number!) - and had some enjoyable, if brief, conversations with them.

This week the hospital has juggled all the zapping teams round - something they do every so often.  I guess it keeps them on their toes, treating different kinds of patients and working with different colleagues.  Probably it avoids slack practice or collusion in bad habits.  This morning there was a queue at my zapping chamber and only one staff member ready, whilst next door there were two staff and no patients... common sense prevailed and one of them came over to get things going.

So, 60% across the 'river' with only two full weeks left to go.  Although there is some skin soreness (more at exit sites than entry for some reason) and odd waves of fatigue, I seem to be doing pretty well on it.

Step by step, on and on, I'll walk with Jesus til the journey is done... as the kiddy song says.  Sounds a bit twee, but theologically it is good to know that God is with me in all of this.

It has been interesting reading the blogs of those who have been at Blackpool, most of which say the big underlying theme was 'inclusion'.  It's a great theme, and a great topic, but actually living it is not always so easy.  There's the hypothetical level of inclusion 'what would you do if...?' and the real life version, 'what do you do now that...?'

Sometimes people ask me what I love about my church, and I usually answer 'the diversity'

Less often people ask me what is the biggest challenge of my church, but the answer is also 'the diversity.'

Being inclusive, and being diverse, means being open to trying to hold together, in a creative and healthy way, sometimes contradictory viewpoints and understandings, each of which may be equally earnest and equally hard won.  Sometimes it seems that the good of the whole has to be at the expense of the hopes of others; sometimes a bigger picture has to supplant a smaller one, at least for a while. (Note deliberate use of 'a' not 'the'; how post modern am I?!)

It is easy to say a church is inclusive, less easy to live it.

It is easy to say a church is diverse, less easy to be it.

Far easier for a church to be exclusive or prescriptive or uniform.

I love my church because it works so hard to be inclusive.  I love the graciousness of those who keep silent out of love for others, I love those the willingness of most to engage with new ideas, I love that God keeps sending us challenges to our understanding of diversity that stop us ever getting smug and thinking we have it cracked.  I love that sometimes I struggle to know how best to lead this crazy, wonderful group of seekers, servers and followers of Jesus.

Sometimes, when people ask me about my church, I say 'I hope heaven is like this' and I do.  But this isn't heaven, it's real life, and sometimes we get it wrong and sometimes we get it right.  Sometimes it has the potential to be like the other place if I, or we, foul up.

Some of my readers may think I am alluding to them at various points in this post, and maybe I am, and maybe it's the people who think the oppsoite from them, and maybe it's both. We aren't a perfect church, not everything can satisfy the needs, desires or beliefs of anyone.  But with God's help, we keep living the experiment of inclusivity.

So, I am really glad to hear that BUGB was picking up questions around age, gender, sexuality and race and trying to think what that means for inclusion.  For people not steeped in British Baptistness the import of this may be lost.  God's Spirit is at work among British Baptists - well at least the BUGB branch thereof anyway - to frog march us into the 21st century, to smell the coffee, and to start thinking what inclusion really looks like.

I have just ordered a reocrding of the whole of Assembly (how sad!) and look forward to hearing what was actually said and how it might relate to the lovely, crazy, church of which I  am privileged to be part.