Today the Texas Supreme Court handed down decisions in the two ECUSA cases pending before it: No. 11-0265, Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, et al. v. The Episcopal Church, et al.; and No. 11-0332, Masterson v. Diocese of Northwest Texas. In the first case, the Court sided with Bishop Iker's Diocese by a closely split vote of 5-4, reversed the summary judgment of Circuit Judge John Chupp which had awarded all of the property and assets of Bishop Iker's Diocese to the Episcopal Church and its rump diocese, and sent the case back to the trial court. The majority held that the trial court had improperly failed to apply a "neutral principles of law" analysis to the issues. The four dissenters did not disagree with that result, but instead believed that the Court lacked jurisdiction to hear a direct appeal from the trial court's judgment in the case.
In the second case, the Court by a vote of 7-2 reversed the Court of Appeals' decision requiring the Church of the Good Shepherd in San Angelo to turn over its building and all other assets to the Diocese of Northwest Texas. The Court definitively ruled that all Texas courts must follow "neutral principles of law" (rather than deferring to an ecclesiastical hierarchy), and that based on such an analysis, the Dennis Canon was not effective under Texas law (or that if it were effective to create a trust, the trust was not expressly irrevocable, and so could be revoked by the parish in question).
The two decisions establish "neutral principles of law" as the governing approach to church property disputes in Texas courts. (The Texas Supreme Court had last addressed the issue in 1909, seven decades before the U.S. Supreme Court authorized "neutral principles" in Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595 (1979).) And under that approach, as we have seen happen time and again more recently, courts are coming to realize that ECUSA's case has no neutral principles going for it.
ECUSA loses under a true "neutral principles" approach because it ignores the Statute of Frauds in its Dennis Canon, and proclaims a trust on other peoples' property of which it makes itself the beneficiary. And in the Diocese cases, where ECUSA does not even have the Dennis Canon available to it, it simply waves its hands and claims to have made an "ecclesiastical determination" that its Dioceses cannot withdraw from the denomination unilaterally, and that even if they could, the Diocese impliedly agreed to hold all of its property in trust for the denomination, and so must relinquish control of that property upon leaving.
This latter fact -- that there was a trust argument also made in Bishop Iker's case -- explains the unusual divisions among the Justices. The two dissenters in Masterson were Justice Lehrmann and Chief Justice Jefferson. They would have deferred to ECUSA's determinations even under a "neutral principles" approach, and have declined, based on the First Amendment, to let Texas corporate law overrule those determinations. For them, the Dennis Canon had "ecclesiastical" force, to which the Texas Courts had to defer. (Query: how does such "deference" square with "neutral principles", when only certain types of denominations qualify for "deference"?)
The four dissenters in Bishop Iker's case were Justices Willett, Lehrmann, Boyd and Devine. But as I noted, their dissent was to the Court's taking jurisdiction of the appeal, and not to the merits.
It is Chief Justice Jefferson who made the majority in Bishop Iker's case -- while willing to defer to ECUSA in disputes between a parish and a diocese, he did not see the basis for any such deference as between dioceses and ECUSA -- at least, on the record as developed below. Undoubtedly he joined with the majority to send the case back for further proceedings, and would withhold further judgment on the merits until after there has been a full trial and a normal appeal. (He expressly did not join in Parts IV.B and IV.C of the majority's opinion, which provides guidance for the trial court on certain issues which will be faced at the trial.)
One might think, given this split, that the "guidance" offered in those latter two sections of the majority's opinion is scarcely guidance at all, because without Chief Justice Jefferson, what is written has the backing of just four of the nine Justices. But that reasoning does not take into account the decision by seven of the Justices in the Masterson case.
In Masterson, the seven justices decided pretty much the same corporate law issues on which the four Justices provide "guidance" in the case of Bishop Iker's diocese. Thus, Texas law will control the issue of who were the trustees of the Fort Worth diocesan corporation on the relevant dates when crucial votes were taken. And that should bode very well for Bishop Iker's chances on remand.
Likewise, the issues of title are to be resolved by examining the various deeds under Texas secular law -- and that, too, should work in Bishop Iker's favor. Title to all of the parish properties is held by the diocesan corporation. Thus if Bishop Iker's trustees are the proper trustees in office, the property will follow the corporation.
I may have more to say after I finish a full review of the opinions, and may change some points noted above, but on the whole, these two decisions score a great victory for neutral principles in general, and for ECUSA dissenters in particular.
Yes!!!! From First Things, Steven Webb totally makes the case. His "In Defense of Dylan's Voice," is worth-while read before you head to see Dylan when he comes to your town, which he most certainly will. Do we expect Louie Armstrong to sing any different - would he want him to? There are times when I think Dylan is thinking of Louie or any the smokey blues singers from the last century. The truth is in the voice and Dylan is capable of doing a whole lot of truth with what he has in his voice. Let he who has ears, let him hear.
If you have been following Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour, online or in person, you’ll notice that a lot of people, even some who are self-professed Dylanologists, have been complaining about the roughness of his voice.
To these critics I say: Complaining about Dylan’s voice is like complaining that your scotch tastes too peaty. If you want something sweet, get a colorless spirit that easily surrenders to the overwhelming invasion of fruit juice. Otherwise, let his voice burn your ears just as it sounds like it is blistering his throat when he sings.
Since it is little more than decayed vegetation, peat is actually not a bad metaphor for Dylan’s voice, which has never sounded fresh and youthful. It was old when he was young, and now that he is old, it sounds ancient. Just as barley dried on a mossy fire adds flavor to whisky, creaky and rusty vocal folds (or so I imagine what a laryngoscopy would find) add timbre to Dylan’s singing. Would anyone really want a doctor to smooth the fibrous tissue or remove the bumpy nodules on his vocal cords in order to make his voice sound “better”?
What I have said about Dylan can be said about beauty generally, but that does not make it less true. Both scotch and Dylan are reminders that beauty emerges out of and redeems, rather than opposes and destroys, the ugly. A little bitterness makes the scotch taste sweeter, and wavering off key makes the difference between a good singer and a great performer ...
... Dylan has always been an unconventional singer, but he knows, to paraphrase the Apostle Paul (2 Cor. 12:9–10), that strength comes from weakness. He knows, that is, how to sing against the weaknesses in his voice in order to reveal its strength just where it is most limited.
That is surely not easy to do, nor is it easy to describe. Indeed, the sonic character of any voice, perhaps because voices are both intimate and invisible, is hard to pin down with any accuracy or detail. If so, consider that it would take a writer as skillful as John Updike, who indeed was sensitive throughout his work to the literary challenges of sound, to describe a voice like Dylan’s. In fact, early in his career, before Dylan became Dylan, Updike took on the challenge, describing him as having a “voice to scour a skillet with.” That seems about right for detail and accuracy but misses what lets Dylan get so deep inside your head.
Dylan himself was skilled at describing the voices of singers. In his memoir Chronicles, he describes how Woody Guthrie “would throw in the sound of the last letter of a word whenever he felt like it and it would come like a punch” and how Johnny Cash’s “voice was so big it made the world grow small.” Dylan writes like a singer, just as he sings like a writer.
To paraphrase the Bible again, this time a comment made about Jesus (Matt. 7:29), Dylan sings as one having authority, not like the pop stars who just want to please. When critics complain about Dylan’s voice, they sound like they are whining, which is exactly what they claim Dylan sounds like. Perhaps what the critics miss most is how Dylan’s voice gives sound to suffering while still being uplifting and, yes, entertaining.
In Chronicles, Dylan documents the period, right before the making of Oh Mercy, where he felt like he was losing his vocal touch. The whisky, he says, had “gone out of the bottle,” and his songs felt like “a package of heavy rotting meat.” He had lost not his voice but his purpose, since he “wasn’t keeping my word with myself.” He needed to recall his music “up from the grave.”
He recovered his voice when, taking a walk one night, he heard someone singing in a nondescript bar. He doesn’t name the singer, but he does try to name the experience he had. “I knew where the power was coming from and it wasn’t his voice, though the voice brought me sharply back to myself.” To paraphrase the Bible one last time (Matt. 11:15), Dylan sings as one who has ears to hear.
Read it all here. Tip of the Tinfoil to Faith - thank you so much!
I put this up a few days ago, but it's a good example of a recent performance of Dylan's that he can use his voice any way he wants - and he chose a lyrical interpretation of one of his signature songs. His voice tells the story as much as the words do. Hope that audience was listening.
Please pray for the people and leaders of The Falls Church Anglican as they take the next step and appeal to the United States Supreme Court regarding the loss of their church home in Falls Church, VA. Pray for wisdom and discernment and grace as they take this step. The freedom to appeal to the highest court in the land is indeed a major part of our justice system in the United States. Please pray for those who will make the decision on hearing their appeal. We should hear later this year or early next year whether their case will be heard.
Please also pray for the people and leaders of The Falls Church Episcopal as well. We are reminded to pray without ceasing. In fact, Paul's words to the Thessalonian Church (1 Thes 5) is a very good guide from Paul on how we may pray for one another, in fact it is an appeal all its own:
But we appeal to you, brothers and sisters, to respect those who labour among you, and have charge of you in the Lord and admonish you; esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, beloved, to admonish the idlers, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. I Thessalonians 5:12-18.
For the White House, he took off his hat. But also, an interesting choice to sing to the President of the United States sitting in the front row and all the DC insider big-wigs in attendance. He's singing this to them - not to the folks outside.
Come writers and critics Who prophesize with your pen And keep your eyes wide The chance won’t come again And don’t speak too soon For the wheel’s still in spin And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’ For the loser now will be later to win For the times they are a-changin’
Come senators, congressmen Please heed the call Don’t stand in the doorway Don’t block up the hall For he that gets hurt Will be he who has stalled There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’ It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls For the times they are a-changin’
Come mothers and fathers Throughout the land And don’t criticize What you can’t understand Your sons and your daughters Are beyond your command Your old road is rapidly agin’ Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand For the times they are a-changin’
The line it is drawn The curse it is cast The slow one now Will later be fast As the present now Will later be past The order is rapidly fadin’ And the first one now will later be last For the times they are a-changin’
“These are books that Scott thought should be required reading,” wrote the nurse assigned to care for F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of one of the greatest novels in American literature, The Great Gatsby.
A photograph of the list, copied down by Fitzgerald's nurse, Dorothy Richardson, appears on Open Culture. The article comments:
Fitzgerald had moved into Asheville’s Grove Park Inn that April after transferring his wife Zelda, a psychiatric patient, to nearby Highland Hospital. It was the same month that Esquire published his essay “The Crack Up”, in which he confessed to a growing awareness that “my life had been a drawing on resources that I did not possess, that I had been mortgaging myself physically and spiritually up to the hilt.”
Fitzgerald’s financial and drinking problems had reached a critical stage. That summer he fractured his shoulder while diving into the hotel swimming pool, and sometime later, according to Michael Cody at the University of South Carolina’s Fitzgerald Web site, “he fired a revolver in a suicide threat, after which the hotel refused to let him stay without a nurse.
He was attended thereafter by Dorothy Richardson, whose chief duties were to provide him company and try to keep him from drinking too much. In typical Fitzgerald fashion, he developed a friendship with Miss Richardson and attempted to educate her by providing her with a reading list.”
It’s an idiosyncratic list. Fitzgerald appears to have restricted his selections to books that were available at that time in Modern Library editions. At the top of the page, Richardson writes “These are books that Scott thought should be required reading.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd Justin Welby, has called for a renewal of prayer and the life of religious communities, saying "there has never been a renewal of the Church in Western Europe" without it.
In a major speech this week at a conference organised by the charismatic church organisation New Wine, Archbishop Welby said there had been "a fresh outpouring of the Spirit in worship" over the past 10 years, saying: "it’s been the most amazing thing to see the depth of worship growing and deepening."
After reading from Acts 4: 32-37, Archbishop Justin said:
Now, first of all, if you’ll excuse me being quite impolite, the trouble with New Wineskins is that they get older. I’m looking around. I look in the mirror. It’s a bit frightening. That may seem shocking and rude, but I’m afraid it’s true, and it is the pattern of all renewal in the Church. As they get older, they accumulate bits and pieces that attach to them; they get baggage.
Now, some of you may have heard this story, but it bears repeating because it’s true, and my apologies if you’ve heard it before. A friend of ours living in Paris, called John Moore - a very old friend, now ordained - used to travel a great deal, and particularly to the United States. We saw them in Paris after he’d just come back from a trip in the middle of winter, and he was telling us what had happened at Kennedy Airport, which is always pretty chaotic.
There’d been snow; the flights were late, everybody was bad-tempered. The person in front of him in the check-in queue was horrendously rude to the poor woman who was doing the check-ins. He didn’t like his seat; he didn’t like the fact the plane was late - it wasn’t her fault; he didn’t like the film that was going to be showed - it was the days when you just had one. He didn’t like anything, and he was really, really unpleasant.
John, who is always courteous; when he got to the front, said, “I am so sorry; I feel ashamed to be a passenger when other passengers treat you like that.” She obviously liked him, and she said, “Well, there’s bad news and good news, Sir. The bad news is that he’s on the same flight as you, going to Paris. The good news is I’ve sent his luggage to Tokyo.”
Now, there are a number of lessons there… One of which is always be polite when checking in on an aeroplane, but that wasn’t the open I was thinking of. But actually, with churches and with movements, there’s a point where we need someone who will do that for us. Because we accumulate baggage, and it pulls us down.
As someone once said to me, when things in the Church are not going well, or in bits of the Church historically, God does not repair; He renews. He doesn’t just stitch it up; He gives us something new. New Wine has been one of the great sources of renewal for the last 25 years. Or, if I were to put it less comfortably, a quarter of a century - it makes it sound longer.
So much has changed in that time. There is a genuine desire in New Wine to be at the front of the wave. There always has been. It’s been one of the characteristics; “If God is in it, we want to be on the front of it.” We have seen that, in our family and in the churches I’ve been in.
Anyone from Southam here? Say that again, I can’t… Oh, back there! Typical blooming Southam; they always sit at the back. That’s my parish church, that is; they’re great. Very nice to see you.
But when we came, 15 years ago, for year after year, we learned from here time and time again. As a family, when we were working in churches where things were often relatively slow, we used to come here, and benefited hugely. Indeed, it was our lifeline, spiritually. Working in small churches, in places that some people think are far away from the great centres of life – they’re not, but some people think that - is a matter of step by step. To spend a week every year, as we did for 12 years, at New Wine, getting a fresh vision; being prayed for; learning; being part of the community, was wonderful.
Less wonderful was trench-foot; babies in buggies above the swirling floods; freezing cold; cooking under a gazebo - which leaked - and conducting family “discussions” in the kind of whisper that can be heard three tents away! Some of you know what I’m talking about.
But it was worth it. Far more than worth it. We remembered what God does, who He is, and by the grace of God found the courage to take risks and step out, and see change. But where now?
In these years, this quarter of a century, the world has been changing dramatically. Attitudes to women have changed, including our own, for the better. Listen to talks and comments from about 1990 and the cringe factor is often through the roof. So have a lot of other things. Above all, in this country, we find ourselves in a revolution of culture and expectation which challenges the churches at the heart of their being and understanding and values. That is nothing new, and whenever the world has mounted a great challenge to the Church, God has moved in renewal and revival. We may be pressed down, but we are always hopeful.
We expect great things, and we expect in the future, in this land, through the Church, greater things than in the past. As Jesus said, greater things than these, if we are obedient and responsive; if we’re on the front of the wave. Look back in history across Europe, at the history of God visiting and renewing His Church in times of change and crisis.
In the fifth century AD, the Western Roman Empire, which had stretched for half a millennium, from what is now the Balkans to Hadrian’s Wall, covering North Africa, fell to invading tribes from the east. The population of Western Europe may have dropped by as much as two thirds. The economy collapsed by perhaps 90 per cent or more. Peace evaporated; security disappeared, for nearly 1,000 years. It was the Dark Ages.
Into that time came one of the most extraordinary Christian leaders of all times: Benedict; Saint Benedict. He started a monastery. Didn’t go terribly well at first; the first one he started; after a few months, the monks found him a bit tough, so they tried to poison him. I just get hate mail, but then I’m no Benedict. He lived in a cave for a while, and then started another monastery. When he did that, he wrote a rule; the Rule of Saint Benedict; a rule for monks. You can get hold if it; it’s very easily got hold of. It’s about 40, 50 pages; quick read, and its first word is, “Listen”. Not listen to each other, not listen to him; listen to Jesus Christ. It’s all about getting to know Jesus and conform our lives to His.
The monasteries grew and spread. There were a few incidental benefits to what he did. He set a pattern of study, work and prayer, and more or less accidentally saved learning. He preserved western civilisation. They started the universities. They started hospitals and schools. They re-founded diplomacy and stopped wars. They renewed music and worship, and spread the gospel as evangelists across the whole of Europe in the most dangerous places imaginable. They built many of our cathedrals as monuments to a faithful God, who calls people back to Him. But they never tried to do that; that was accidental, it just sort of happened on the side. They tried to follow Jesus.
In the 11th and 12th centuries, there was another vast crisis. The papacy was in its most corrupt phase. The Arab armies had pushed north and conquered Spain. They pushed into the Balkans, and many thought they’d conquer the whole of Europe and wipe out the Christian faith. The human answer of the Crusades disgraced the gospel with its terrible cruelty. Then another extraordinary figure appeared: Francis. He called people to follow Christ in love and poverty. He challenged the invaders. He started new communities. He went to the headquarters of the invaders. He preached and he served, and the Church found new life.
We can go on. In the 16th century, God raised people up who translated the Bible in the face of the challenge of the Renaissance, which challenged our whole understanding of who God was. The Bible was translated into people’s own languages, and home groups were started. Although the Church got caught up in terrible scandals of war with each other, in His grace, God opened the way to another renewal.
There were bad moments. There’s a dungeon at Lambeth Palace. It’s currently unoccupied, but there’s always space. In it, William Tyndale was held. The rings are still attached to the walls to which he was chained. He translated the Bible into English and died for it. The Church found renewal.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Industrial Revolution swept away our social structures. Wesley came. He formed small groups that followed a method; the Methodists, and we saw the greatest revival in our history amongst the urban poor, and we did not have the revolution that France had.
There are a million more examples. We can be like the psalmist of Psalm 107, recounting the many disasters, and ending each one by saying, “They cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them from their distress.” This is our song. A God who saves His people; a God who changes His world. We are His people, and we may be hard-pressed, but we are always hopeful.
Today, we face another crisis. As in the past, we cannot see the outcome. Like the apostles in Acts, Chapter 4, the passage we read was just after they had faced their first bout of serious persecution. They come back and report to the believers what had happened, and the believers turn in prayer. The Lord shakes the place where they are, and you get that extraordinary reading: “They were of one heart and mind; they held all in common.”
A few weeks ago, I sat in the House of Lords, listening to the debate on the same-sex marriage act. I took part; I spoke and voted against it, in case you wonder. I spoke against, and I voted against, but I listened, and I heard the roar of revolution.
It came not merely from those one would expect in favour of the bill, but from every side of the House; Conservative and Labour and Liberal and mixed; from every age; from every opinion. Those of us against the act were utterly crushed in the voting again and again and again. More people turned out to vote in the House of Lords than at any time since the Second World War, and they voted against any opportunity to defeat the bill.
Let me be clear: popular opinion is not a cause for changing obedience to God. But let me be equally clear: an overwhelming change that affects the opinions of the majority of people, and especially of younger people - even those who come here and to similar events - is a revolution to which we must pay attention. Not to do so would be as foolish as Benedict pretending the Roman Empire still stood, or Wesley ignoring the Industrial Revolution and the urban poor.
The revolution is not only about sexuality. In other areas, there is a revolution in our economy, and the Church has responded faster and better than anyone else to this revolution. The latest economic outlook forecasts that government spending will be constrained for the next 50 years. World power is shifting. Our society looks different. Medicine gives new possibility. Science moves on ever more rapidly. What do Christians do? They are first to form food banks; first to educate children; first to set up hospices; to care for the poor and ministry with the poor, and that pleases the Spirit of God. We have shown and respond, and this great movement of New Wine has been at the forefront.
But did you notice something in that quick historical tour? That God moves through prayerful communities. People listened to the spirit; sought first the Kingdom; looked for intimacy with Christ. The US Army gave us the expression, “Collateral damage”, which means killing people you did not mean to target. People seeking Christ create collateral blessing. That means changing the world for the better in ways you could not have predicted.
When asked what my own priorities are, I start with renewal of prayer and communities of prayer; what, in the jargon, are called “Religious communities”. Communities that live with a rule in the sense that Wesley had one; Francis had one; Benedict had one. All over Europe, new communities of prayer are starting. They have women and men living together; they have families in them. They have women leading communities with Roman Catholic priests in them. They have communities that live together or just meet together for meals and sharing. Like the people we read about in the Acts, they often hold all in common. They bind themselves together for a few years; usually not for life. Above all, they seek first to know and love Jesus.
There has never been a renewal of the Church in Western Europe without a renewal of prayer and the life of religious communities; never. If we want to see things changed, it starts with prayer. It starts with a new spirit of prayer, using all the traditions, ancient and modern, of prayer. When it comes, it will be linked to what has gone before, but it will look different, because it is a new renewal for new times. God’s created community is perfectly designed for its time and place. It always comes from below; almost always. It comes from Christians seeking Christ, and is often - says I, looking at the one bishop I can see from here - is often opposed by church leaders, and especially archbishops.
We must have a new movement of prayer, and I commit myself to opposing it, because that seems to work. We must have, out of that prayer, lives changed. The apostles went back and reported their persecution. The people prayed and they were shaken. Fear neither hindered their testimony nor caused them to become negative and inward-looking. They were more and more the people of good news. When the Church is real, people see the real Jesus.
The last few days have been astonishing, with this affair over the payday lenders. For a start, the positive comments have outweighed the negative, which, in the letters that come to me, is unusual. What people have commented on is a Church speaking for the poor. When the Church is real, people pay attention. Anne spoke about that very well and powerfully this morning. When we are what we should be; when we deal with issues of gossip and slander and hatred and power-seeking and put them aside.
What are we going to do about it? The change has to start with us. We have to be transparent; accountable; self-aware. It’s one of the reasons in recent weeks that I’ve spoken about safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults. We cannot pretend that the Church has got it right. Everybody knows it hasn’t, so let’s stop pretending and be honest, and repent, and change, because people will see what is right.
Whatever our attitude to the sexuality issue; wherever we stand on this, we cannot pretend that throughout the Church, our attitude to gay people has always been right. We have not loved them as Christ loves us, and that is the benchmark. Some of us have. Many of you have, with great power. Many haven’t; let’s be honest. We are not saints, calling people - we are saints in one sense - but in the popular sense of people who don’t sin, we are not saints, calling people into a place away from the world. We are sinners, calling other sinners to know and love Jesus Christ.
Look what happens as a result to those believers. Having been a Jewish church, in a community that for 500 years had been locked into the belief that non-Jews were outside, they become a people that reaches out to gentiles and Samaritans; that draws them into fellowship with Christ, and this flows from lives lived in reconciliation, with God and with each other. Where diversity is accepted as the gift of God of infinite variety, confronting a world that likes uniform certainty. Our God has created a universe with more variety than all science will ever begin to scratch the surface of, and in our world, we like to put things in neat boxes.
If we’re honest, we’re not always good, as people, at reconciliation, except with people with whom we agree. Or to be accurate in my case, who agree with me. We look carefully, and we see someone, and we say, “Well, yes, he’s alright, Fred. But actually his analysis isn’t quite the same as mine, so actually he’s outside.”
We forget. We forget that my sister, my brother, is never my enemy. We’re told to love our enemies. We’re told to love our neighbour, and we’re told to love each other. If anyone can spot the cracks, let me know, because I haven’t found anyone who can fall through them yet.
Jesus prayed that we might be one. He says this in John: 17 in the last seven verses, nine times, “So that the world may know”. Do we want the world to know who Jesus is? Then we need to be a reconciled people, who reconcile the world. We are reconciled to Christ. We need to be overwhelmed by reconciliation, converted and converting others. Because Jesus died for us when we were His enemies.
Let me give you an example. In 2002, there were riots in a city in northern Nigeria called Kaduna. I went at the end of them; I was working in that kind of work, and in that area. They were huge riots; several thousand dead. I met a number of clergy who’d been caught up in them; who’d lost friends and family and churches. One of them was particularly bitter. He used to preach a sermon in the ruins of his church, teaching people how to disassemble, clean and reassemble an AK47, rather than preaching from the Bible. Probably got more attention than I do, but still not a good thing. He came to the meetings that we had on reconciliation embittered, reasonably. God touched his heart. It took several months; through the scriptures, God spoke to him.
He went to the local imam, and found out where their baker was of the Muslim community, and his community started buying their bread there. The imam came and said, “Why are you doing this? How can we help?” He said, “Well, you can stop people coming round the ruins of our church from your community and lobbing petrol bombs through the ruined windows on Sunday morning, because it sort of disrupts the service. The imam said, “Well… We’ll do that if you come on Friday and stop your lot doing that to our mosque.”
They started there; started with buying bread; stopping attacking each other. Two years later, in that small part of Kaduna, they were digging a new sewage system together. Still arguing furiously, but not killing each other. The reconciled people had overflowed with such miraculous reconciliation that their enemies were able to work with them.
That is the Church that people recognise; a church that overflows. I think one of the things that worries me most is the remorseless power of negative religion in this country. The more we harp on the negative and fail to show love for one-another, and for Jesus Christ, to proclaim service to the poor; ministry to the poor, the more we give in to those who oppose the gospel.
I saw - you probably saw it yourself - a YouGov opinion poll a few weeks ago. 58 per cent of people under 25 didn’t say they opposed the church, or faith; they said it was completely irrelevant. Opposition is one thing; indifference is far more dangerous. That kept me awake at night. “Who cares what these people think?” was their attitude.
So thirdly, my priority - first: prayer and renewal of the religious life; secondly, reconciliation, within the church and overflowing into the world around us; and lastly, making new disciples. If we are to grow the Church numerically; if we are to find life in all its fullness for many of our fellow citizens, we must be the people who show hope in the face of death; steadfastness in suffering, because we overflow with the good news of Jesus to those around us.
A friend of mine is gravely ill at the moment. He’s younger than me. He’s a church leader. He has children, and a probably inoperable cancer. In his hospital ward, nurses come to sit with him, because they say it is the most peaceful place in the hospital. He is winning people to faith in Christ, not through any words, but because he is overflowing with the presence of Christ.
Living Christians make new disciples because in all circumstances, the spirit spills over the edge of their lives. We need evangelists, witnesses, ordinary people, talking and living out of the knowledge of God. God is faithful. He always has been, and He always will be. He will hear our prayer and see our need, and bring what is required.
New Wine has done much; has been a great channel of the grace of God; has changed and trained two generations of leaders. But we are in a time of revolution, and we need another revolution in the Church. What it looks like, I do not know, but I want to be in it. What it feels like is Jesus-centred, fire-filled, peace-proclaiming, disciple-creating, and the Church word for this revolution is revival.
You can listen to a recording of Archbishop Justin delivering his speech here.
