So today's Baptist news esweep brings to my attention two very different articles, one that encourages and one that dismays.

On the one hand we have Rick Warren trying to encourage ministers, even if his cookie making analogy is not the greatest, recognising that life includes some pretty grotty stuff and saying that 'God never wastes experiences – good or bad. He wants to use your experiences to make you a more effective minister.'  Then we have a Nigerian Archbishop reportedly telling us of the evils of multiculturalism and inclusivity, and warning newly trained ministers about the evil world beyond the safe confines of the seminary: 'the “consequences” of multiculturalism were “grave. We end up with what looks like Church but in reality is not.” '

As I've thinking about leading services on 'grace' and 'mercy' and re-reading a little book called 'Our God has No Favourites' with its focus on accounts of Jesus inclusivity in a multicultural milieu (scandalous!) the words of the venerable gentleman make me very sad indeed.  The archbishop is probably right in saying we can end up with what looks like church but isn't really - I'm just not sure I'd define 'right' the same way as he does.  And if that makes apostate or a heretic bound for eternal damnation, well, hey, I reckon I'll be in pretty good company! 

I've had some fun today playing around with the idea of grace in the light of suggestions that 'grace', or at least 'charis' has associations with abstract concepts like 'charm' and 'beauty.'  As part of my introduction on Sunday I'm using a picture of ballet dancer and a swimming swan, which are often seen as 'graceful' - the elegance and beauty belying the effort and concentration 'under the surface.'  But the idea of 'graceful' - being filled with grace - as becoming beautiful, beguiling, attractive, winsome and so on appealed.

But if grace is of God, then in some way these words each something of God's Godness - and it is a wonderful challenge for me to contemplate such ideas as the 'winsomeness of God.'  I am reminded of one of my favourite childhood hymns 'God is love, his the care' with its refrain 'God is good, God is truth, God is beauty, praise Him.'

Grace is free in evey sense of the word - not only is there no charge, but it is unbounded.  I am finding that my metpahpors around 'grace' and my metaphors around 'Spirit' are overlapping and am wondering if that matters?  One of my favourite film images of God is in the (dire) film 'Dogma' where God appears as a young woman turning cartwheels (I know I've mentioned this in a past post but am too lazy to check back where, and if it's good enough for the likes Theresa of Avila...).  Might there be a playful delight in grace as well as all the intense doctrinal stuff?

God you are...

beautiful 

beguiling 

winsome

ethereal

real

funny

scary

playful 

serious

vulnerable

powerful

closer than my breathing

yet beyond my imagining or understanding

beyond words

yet word of life...

The photo may not be the 'greatest,' and I make no apologies that neither of the signs is legible, but it is nonetheless a signficant moment.

A 'for sale' board has appeared outside Dibley chapel as it goes 'on the market' today.

I was surprised by how much more 'real' it felt to step out of my front door and see a large red and white sign announcing the fact to all who pass by.  In a few weeks time it will (DV, as my grandmother used to say) no longer be my problem.  My one hope is that whoever buys it gets on with removing the building before the vandals so any more harm...

Watch this space for further updates

No, not the dodgy theology that says sin more to get more grace, but just the abundance of stuff on/about grace and the intense mystery of what it must really be.

This morning I have read no less than four entries in theological 'dictionaries' on grace.  So, the SCM dictionaries of Christian Theology, Ethics and Spirituality and the Oxford Companion to the Bible.  I could also read McGrath on this topic but not Grenz because I lent him to someone else, but my brain is already overflowing with what people think meant by the word 'grace' or the Hebrew and Greek words thus translated (hesed, hen, eleos and charis).

So

Charis - gift, rejoicing, charm, beauty, kindness, goodwill, gratitude, favour, boon, gratification, delight

Hesed - mercy, love, covenanted love

From these comes a doctrine of grace as

• undeserved election
• new birth
• adoption
• incorporation in the body of Christ
• bearing of fruit (charismata/'graces')

Or, forgiveness coupled with participation in the divine life

Or, forgiveness and ongoing transformation/empowerment

And then, if this wasn't enough to boggle the old mind, a whole list of varieties of grace:

• uncreated grace
• created grace
• habitual/sanctifying grace
• actual grace
• elevating grace
• healing grace
• prevenient grace
• efficacious grace
• sufficient grace

And all that before we get onto the topics of 'means of grace' or 'irresistible/resistible grace' and the shenanigans they cause.

I feel like rather than a couple of sermons, I have a whole undergraduate module here!  So, what am I going to do with it all?

Firstly, to acknowledge the mystery (I seem to be getting fond that word at the moment) and complexity of the concept.  Then something about open-handedness of this gift - but even that is impossible to explain adequately (and I have no desire to go through the Calvin/Arminius debates).  Then something along the lines of it as transformative and leading to action as well as attitude.  I think the first week will introduce the theme and concentrate on the 'vertical' (us to God) dimension and the second week on the 'horizontal' (us in the world) dimension.  So in week 1 we'll pick up threads from  Romans (where else?!) although there will be some other stuff too.  In week 2 probably the story of David and Mephibosheth and/or the John 8 adulterous woman (thanks Angela and Julie).

All in all, then reading has served it's usual purpose of confirming that there is a simple sermon to be preached on any topic - and it will simply be inadequate.  And now, back to trying to write the first sermon...

This is (metaphorical) thinking out loud. 

This evening I half watched the Florence Nightingale dramatisation on BBC1, whilst completing a 'difficult' sudoko or two.  Whether this is a female multi-tasking approach to relaxation or just proof I'm stark staring bonkers I wouldn't like to guess.  What really struck me was how 'shot through' with God language the whole thing was, and how much blatant spirituality, if not theology, lay behind the story as told.  Needless to say, as I am pondering the potential for a more explicit writing of 'God' into denominational history, this broke through my stupor and got my grey cells whirring gently.

Obviously, this was a dramatisation under a broadly 'entertainment' banner, not an attempt at serious history or serious theological reflection, but it was based on Florence Nightingale's own journals and letters, so it had a solid basis in historical documents.  It was also biography - or autobiography - so to skip over the religious elements would have been to ignore a large chunk of Florence's self understanding.  Maybe it is more OK for biography to simply report the 'God stuff' than it is for history?  But there some big themes in there - about how one discerns God's will, about the permissibility or otherwise of human frailty and failure, about how God responds to prayer.  They weren't explored, they were simply laid open for the viewer to consider - or not.

So, if it is OK for (auto)biography to explicitly use God language and to explore, or tiptoe round the edge of, theological themes, then why not religious history?  I think there are lots of complex things to consider and combine in some way, shape or form.  I accept fully that historians have no independent of means of verifying whether God did or did not act/speak in a certain situation and therefore can't use blatant God language, yet as people like Paul Fiddes have suggested, sometimes we just catch a glimpse of God's back - something that a few theologies of history concede may be admissible, albeit having ruled out other explanations.  But - and here's where the boundaries start to get somewhat fuzzy in my muddled little brain - if 'history it a set of stories we tell about ourselves' (Rowan Williams) and if this is something about us being part of the story/stories as well as being shaped by it/them, then it has some sort of (auto)biographical character and maybe should be a bit more overtly 'Goddish'? 

Is there maybe some sort of continuum from autobiography via biography to family history to community history .... etc so that there comes a point when the spiritual dimension ceases to be something that a writer is confidently - or competently - able to express? 

Also, (I'm on a roll now!) what is the relationship of biography to oral history?  Presumably there is some sort of fuzzy boundary between the two?  If, in recording an oral history, people attribute actions or experiences to divine agency how does the historian then handle this?  And are more people like to talk of God's involvement than they are to write about it?

What intrigued me about the Florence Nightingale dramatisation was its post modern refusal to tell the viewer what to do with the image of her that had been portrayed.  We were left with the traditional Lady with the Lamp (as expressed via musical comedy) juxtaposed with her own sense of failure and guilt (coupled with a degree of collusion in not making public some of the findings).

Going off at a complete tangent, I was intrigued by the dramatised conversation with the nun who was recruited to go out with Florence to Scutari.  If this was an authentic portrayal of practical ecumenism all that time ago, it is a sad indictment that we have not moved further in a century.

I don't think any of this will help much with what I need to be writing at the moment, but it is all grist to the mill, and suggests that just maybe I am on to something worthwhile in what I am trying to achieve.