Category: The Shaftesbury Archives

Islington. The ‘Sunday Assembly’. The service begins. About 300 are present. No hymns (or psalms!) – instead a congregational rendering of songs by Queen, Stevie Wonder and Nina Simone. There’s a reading from Alice in Wonderland and a PowerPoint presentation from a particle physicist who explains the origins of antimatter theory. In charge of proceedings is comedian Sanderson Jones. No – I’m not making it up. Welcome to the first atheist ‘church’. Views of exactly what it is vary. Some in the congregation are seeking community spirit, without any religious overtones. Some are looking for a way to fill the gap left by abandoning Christian faith. Most do not see this as the founding of a new religion, some fear that it will indeed take on then form of a religion with a structure and a belief system.

What are we to make of the Sunday Assembly? Given the recent assertiveness of public figures like Richard Dawkins in proclaiming their atheism and their very evident antipathy to Christianity, it’s not all that surprising that something like this should appear. For some it is very important for atheists to be offering a comprehensive alternative to Christianity (and to religion in general), especially for those who regard religion as a dangerous influence in society. Some sort of ‘atheist church’ makes sense, if you buy into that worldview. It fits with the advertising campaign mounted a while ago in which London buses carried the slogan ‘There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life’.

The truth is – people are incurably religious. They are made in the image of God, with an inextinguishable awareness of his existence, and the need for a relationship with God is built into all of us. Although sin has distorted that image, it has not been destroyed. Men and women still long for a connection with their Creator, even if they do not recognise that that is what they feel, and even if they deny the existence of a Creator. Hence there is a void in the human heart that is not in fellowship with God. It’s interesting how some of the Sunday Assembly spoke of their need to feel connectedness, a need to feel that they are part of something, a need for community. It is not merely the result of evolution: it is a mark of our createdness. The great theologian of the early Church, Augustine, wrote in his Confessions, addressing the Lord, ‘you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you’. He was exactly right. The Sunday Assembly is just one more evidence of that fact.

Everyone worships someone, or something. That’s true even of atheists. Those who gather at the Sunday Assembly worship Humanity, with a capital ‘H’, man put in the place of God. Not a new idea. The original sin committed by Adam and Eve in Eden was to put man – themselves – in the place of God. Instead of submitting to God as the arbiter of the true and the good, fallen humanity puts itself in God’s place. The devastating consequences are evident all around us. But make no mistake – atheism, or humanism, or whatever name is preferred – is as religious as Christianity. Both have a god. Christians worship the living and true God, the Creator and Redeemer, who has revealed himself in creation, in Christ and in the Scriptures. Atheists worship Man, a creature who spends a few short years on earth, who inevitably dies and who ultimately has to give account for himself before the Judge of all. No amount of science, singing and comedy can conceal the fact that atheism is empty, futile and really rather pathetic. The Sunday Assembly won’t set off any alarm bells. Meeting across the street from this atheist church is a black evangelical congregation – who won’t have far to look for a mission field.

What use is the church to society? You might think that’s an odd question to ask. For one thing, we are not accustomed to thinking much about the ways in which the church benefits the society in which it is placed. Aren’t we here to do God’s will, to carry out his mandate, to seek his glory? To ask what ‘use’ we are to society seems to be asking the wrong question. Whether or not society can see any purpose that the church serves, we have work to be getting on with in obedience to the Lord’s command.

Fair enough. But there are people asking just such a question. The matter is of considerable interest to the Charity Commission which makes crucial decisions about the charitable status of churches and other Christian ministries. In general there has been little problem with questions of charitable status for churches, and the benefits in terms of, for example, receiving Gift Aid refunds, are very considerable. Of late, however, the Charity Commission have been much more interested in asking whether religion, Christianity included, can be said to be ‘for the public benefit’. It moreover cannot be assumed that the answer will be in favour of religion.

Attention is being focused on this issue by the case of a Brethren assembly in Devon. In a dispute that has been running for some seven years the Charity Commission has refused to register the fellowship because its Communion services are open only to members. Now if that is the sole reason, there is cause for considerable concern since most church bodies expect to be able to set the terms on which they administer Communion. Anything less would rightly be regarded as improper interference by the state in the spiritual affairs of the church. If admission to the Lord’s Table is taken out of church control, what will be next?

When elders from the Brethren assembly appeared recently to give evidence to a parliamentary select committee, a letter was produced from the Charity Commission’s head of legal services in which it was stated that churches cannot be assumed to be acting for the public good. The letter included the statement that, ‘This decision makes it clear that there was no presumption that religion generally, or at any more specific level, is for the public benefit, even in the case of Christianity or the Church of England.’ Leaving aside the interesting phrasing at the end of the quotation, the implications of this outlook, should it become standard practice on the part of the Charity Commission or of other government agencies, are deeply worrying.

In what ways could a church be considered to be of ‘public benefit’? It would be hard to prove that the spiritual ministries of the church (or of some other religious body) are of benefit if those making the judgment do not share the spiritual perspective of the church. There is no doubt that true conversion is a life transforming experience that in the course of a lifetime will bring about immense changes in every aspect and relationship of a person’s life. How can that be measured or even demonstrated to be the result of a church’s ministry? Certainly not easy.

Some ministries carried on by various churches may lend themselves to the kind of evaluation which the Charity Commission may favour. Diaconal ‘ministries of mercy’ to the poor and those suffering in various ways might be demonstrably ‘for public benefit’. Other means used to offer assistance to different groups in the community might also come under this heading. Some churches will of course take the approach that their work is entirely spiritual, having nothing to do with meeting material or physical needs, but that is a position hard to square with the ministry of Jesus who healed the sick as well as preaching the Good News, and with the exhortation of Galatians 6:10 ‘Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.’

Whether bodies such as the Charity Commission accept this view is, however, a very different question. The church may have to face the prospect of losing its privileged position in an increasingly secularised society and be prepared to live, as it so often has done during its history, ‘under the cross’, paying the price for faithfulness to its King and Head.

Jimmy Savile – TV star, charity fundraiser, lovable eccentric – reputation shattered. Lance Armstrong – multiple Tour de France winner, elite athlete, victor over cancer – reputation shattered. Two very different cases, yet profoundly similar. Two contemporary icons, in the space of a few days reduced to reviled outcasts. Savile exposed as a serial abuser of young girls over decades, trading on his celebrity status, able to act (apparently) with impunity, safe in the knowledge that any whistle-blower would be dismissed as malicious or a fantasist in an era where abuse was hidden, ignored or denied. Armstrong exposed as a cheat, a leading player in a complex doping system that put winning above every other consideration, a manipulator and corrupter of younger competitors who quickly realised that dishonesty was the only way to success. It is sickening to read of Savile’s activities. To read of the lengths to which top class cyclists would go in abusing their bodies and circumventing the drug testing system almost beggars belief. Savile is dead and answerable to a higher authority. Armstrong is alive and in denial.

Of course, the inevitable question arises – ‘Who knew what when, and what did they do about it?’ In Armstrong’s case it appears that the entire sport was riddled with cheating. It will not be easy to find ‘clean’ competitors to inherit his Tour titles. The sources of evidence against him were all thoroughly compromised themselves. How any credibility can be restored to such a tainted sport remains to be seen. It’s perhaps not too encouraging when we hear an English member of one of the leading teams comment that ‘It doesn’t really matter’. Apparently Armstrong’s overcoming cancer excuses everything.

How the aftermath of Savile’s exposure will play out is anybody’s guess. The BBC, the NHS, hospital administrators, showbusiness colleagues – the list of those being sucked into the controversy seems endless. The Press, perhaps unsurprisingly, is reacting with a high degree of self-righteous finger-pointing. This from publications which have often shown an amazing lack of scruples in ‘digging up the dirt’ on public figures. How did they miss this one? Or did they know and, for once, keep their mouths shut? We shall see.

Now we live in a society which all too often delights in bringing down prominent personalities – the higher the better. It seems that if a public figure can be exposed as a liar, a cheat, a criminal, an all-round bad lot, people can somehow feel better about themselves. ‘He’s no better than us’, appears to be a consoling thought. If he is much worse than us – even better. Self-righteousness seldom lurks too far beneath the surface of the sinful heart of man. It’s woven into the fabric of fallen human nature.

When every allowance is made for such a cultural pattern, the destruction of the iconic status of Savile and Armstrong does seem to be thoroughly justified. They damaged the lives of others – albeit in different ways – and their public profiles enabled them to behave as they did. In their respective domains they provide clear illustrations of the warning of Psalm 146:3 ‘Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal man who cannot save’. The psalmist goes on to speak of how even the greatest must die: in some cases the death of reputation is just as devastating. People can ‘trust in’ public figures in numerous ways – not least as examples of courage, sporting prowess or charitable effort. Absolute trust is absolutely foolish, and often brings great pain.

Such folly would never be found in the church – now would it? And yet the exalting of some Christian leaders into ‘stars’, men whose actions and motivations are almost beyond question, is not all that rare. Even the best are fallible, sinners saved by grace. None should be accorded absolute trust free of all accountability. We must remember our leaders, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith (Hebrews 13:7), but to make a man an icon (even a Reformed one) is very dangerous – not least for the icon himself.

20 seconds – seconds, not minutes – that’s how long his Olympics lasted. A British judo competitor, in his first-round bout, he was caught by his Canadian opponent with a move that he had been expecting. Just 20 seconds into the bout, he was on his back, defeated. Years of preparation gone in seconds. It was a knock-out contest, unlike some of the other sports. No round robin to offer an opportunity to redeem himself. Olympics over: time to pack the bags.

But not just yet. Inevitably, as he walked off the mat, a TV reporter was ready, cameras rolling, live microphone to stick in the poor chap’s face. Of course the question would be asked: ‘How do you feel?’ What could he say? How do you think he felt? Barely able to speak, he managed to say that he has led down his family, his team, himself. He was shattered, overwhelmed, but the reporter wouldn’t let it go. ‘Are there any positives you can take away from this?’ Probably fighting a powerful urge to flatten the persistent idiot, he reply was honest: No, there were no positives he could take away. Finally they let him go.

And yet, it’s true, isn’t it, that there is something in us that pushes us to look for positives in even the worst situation. We may not be able to find them, but we still look for them. Why should that be? Do we just want to find a way of blunting the pain, making ourselves feel a little less bad? Perhaps, but there is surely something deeper at work. The fact is we are made in the image of a God who is the source of meaning, the one who confers significance and purpose on human life. Ultimately we can’t live without a sense of meaning and purpose. If we don’t find it in the Creator, we have to make it up for ourselves. It is no coincidence that some philosophers who have denied that life has any meaning or purpose have followed their philosophy to its logical conclusion and have ended their meaningless lives.

Christians who by God’s grace have been enabled to love and serve the God of meaning know that life has a wonderful purpose – namely to glorify God and enjoy him for ever (as the very first answer in the Shorter Catechism rightly says). We have the assurance that our God is sovereign and works out all things according to his infinitely wise and loving purpose. This truth lies at the heart of the biblical doctrine of God’s providence, which is the practical outworking of his absolute sovereignty. Nothing takes place that surprises him or catches him unawares. Nothing can derail his plan or force him to change direction. In the Bible he may use the language of regret or repentance regarding himself, but he is speaking a language that we can in some measure understand. To borrow Calvin’s illustration, he is addressing us in baby talk, because we couldn’t understand anything else. He is always and everywhere in full control.

The truth of God’s providential direction of all things assures Christians that every experience they pass through has been sanctioned by a loving heavenly Father and that it serves to fulfil his sovereign purpose, including his particular purpose for each of them. That is not to say that we can necessarily always understand how individual events fit into the divine plan – often we are mystified and left with all kinds of questions – but we know that they do. We know that whatever comes to us serves God’s glory and our growth in Christ-likeness. However hard the experience, those positives can be taken from it. No experience is pointless for the child of God.

Now, it might be difficult to see that if you were lying on your back, staring into the ceiling lights, at the end of a 20 second Olympic career, but it would still be true, and by God’s grace that can be our testimony in every situation that the providence of our God allots to us.

Not even one! Can you believe it? Not a single one! On the last climactic day of the football season, every match in the English Premier League was played on the Lord’s Day – no exceptions. Now – we can understand why all the games kicked off at the same time, in contrast to the average week when starting times are all over the place. Both schemes suit the TV Companies whose financial clout enables them to call most of the shots where televised football is concerned. And nobody could have predicted what an exciting climax to the entire season would be provided by the final day. Everything to play for: who would be champions, who would have European football to look forward to next season, who would escape relegation by the skin of their teeth, who would crash into the humiliation of the ‘Championship’ (known in former days as the Second Division, but what’s in a name?). And to have the top spot decided by two extra-time goals – you couldn’t have made it up. But all on the Lord’s Day.

You don’t have to know, or care, anything about football to see the significance of that. The Lord’s Day, for multitudes in the UK, is simply a day for enjoyment, whether shopping, sporting, cultural or of the couch potato variety. Many who oppose Sunday trading, or at least its excesses, do so because they are concerned that another day of regular business makes it more difficult for workers to enjoy themselves. The idea that the day might have some transcendent spiritual significance is quaintly out of date for most, perhaps dangerously fundamentalist for others. Sure, there are people whose hobby is religion and who want to spend some of their leisure time doing religious things, but that’s of no interest to the majority. As long as Christians keep their religious proclivities to themselves and don’t suggest anyone else should copy them, they can be tolerated (just about).

It’s just more evidence for the marginalisation of Christianity in Britain today. Principles rooted in the Bible, which once were generally accepted even by those with no personal faith, are treated with derision or even hostility. Religious practice and principle may be acceptable in private, but they are to be allowed no place in the public square. The present government’s effort to ditch the traditional legal definition of marriage, one based on Biblical principle, is just another example of the pattern which is clearly emerging.

Often rearguard actions are the only option left to Christians, and from time to time these do have a measure of success, more in terms of slowing down the rot than in reversing the downward trend. They should not on that account be disparaged, and those who spearhead such campaigns deserve out hearty support. It may well be the case, however, that increasingly our calling as Christians will be to witness to the truth and, if necessary, pay the price of faithfulness. We must give willing and joyful obedience to the Lord, and leave the consequences in his hands.

As far as the Lord’s Day is concerned, our calling is set out in Isaiah 58:13,14, with reference to the Sabbath: ‘If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honourable; if you honour it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken’. Not a sour, reluctant observance of the Lord’s Day, hedged about with negativity, but a joyful use of the day for God-honouring purposes, for worship, for spiritual and bodily refreshment. A day that is a delight to God’s people, whose use of it is a witness to the grace of God that transforms us and gives us life in its fulness, with the prospect of glory to come in an eternal Sabbath rest (Hebrews 4:9). Our attitude to the Lord’s Day should demonstrate – in an attractive way – that we are citizens of a heavenly country.

Have you ever watched one of those attempts on the world record for knocking over dominoes? Millions of them are set up with supreme care, forming patterns, spelling out words, performing tricks: everything to entertain the watchers. At the appointed moment the first domino is knocked over, and then the fun starts. Dominoes fall in all directions: faster and faster they tumble. Sometimes it seems that one will not fall and the whole enterprise will be ruined, but no – over it goes, and the race goes on. Finally the last domino falls – not one is standing – the record is broken. The whole thing is weirdly fascinating. If the dominoes are set up correctly, once the first one falls, we know the rest will go in due time. It’s the fall of the first one that is essential.

The Bible is a domino: if it falls, by God’s people losing confidence in its identity as the book from God, then sooner or later all the other dominoes of Christian doctrine will fall, until nothing is left. The Trinity, the fallenness of man, the deity of Christ, his atoning sacrifice on the cross, his glorious resurrection, justification by faith alone, transformation into the likeness of Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit, eternal life and eternal death, the personal return of Christ to judge the world: not one will stand if the Bible falls. If unaided human reason becomes the arbiter of what is true and acceptable, nothing will be left.

That is exactly what has happened in the culture around us. As confidence in human reason grew in the course of the eighteenth century so doubts about the status of the Bible as God’s Word written began to grow. Whatever was not in harmony with current thinking was questioned. Distinctions were drawn between parts of the Bible that were ‘inspired’ – the parts relating to ‘spiritual’ matters – and parts that were not – statements about science, or history, or geography, indeed about anything not purely ‘spiritual’. Such distinctions are actually impossible to make. ‘Christ died for our sins’ states a theological truth, but it is also a claim regarding what actually happened at a certain point in history. If it is not true as history, it is nonsense as theology. The fact is that as the Bible’s claims regarding historical, scientific and other matters were increasingly called into question, doubts about its reliability in spiritual matters grew. As a result, in our own day the Bible is discredited in the minds of many as a source of truth in any sphere, whilst the idea that it is a book from God is considered laughably naïve.

As the domino of the Christian doctrine of Scripture (based on the Bible’s own God-given testimony to its identity) fell, the other dominoes of doctrine began to wobble and, one by one, fell with increasing frequency. When submitted to the test of unaided human reason (twisted as it is by sin) no core doctrine of a consistently biblical theology will survive, and in many parts of the professing church they did not. From many pulpits people are offered a merely human Jesus who provided helpful advice and a useful example to those who are not-as-good-as-they-should-be, but certainly not-as-bad-as-they-might-be. When theological teachers have knocked down all the dominoes, there isn’t much else to offer.

We should humbly thank God that for us, and for many brothers and sisters in other churches, the first domino still stands. By God’s grace we have been able to hold on to a high view of Scripture. We believe that in the Bible we have ‘God-breathed’ Scripture, to use Paul’s magnificent expression in 2 Timothy 3:16. Whatever Scripture teaches on any subject is to be received and believed willingly. In the pages of the Bible God himself addresses us, and so we have a book from God which is absolutely authoritative, the standard by which all other truth-claims are to be judged, the perfect guide for life in all its aspects. We must guard out doctrine of Scripture carefully. The consequences of letting it fall would be disastrous. All the doctrines of our faith are interwoven: if the first domino falls, the rest will eventually follow.

Is the gospel message really enough? Can we seriously expect people to respond in faith and repentance to words – spoken or written – and so be saved? Do we not need miracles, signs, wonders, healings, exorcisms? Look at the growth experienced by churches who major on such things, and then look at the number of conversions experienced throughout our entire denomination. Are we not getting something seriously wrong? Are we trapped in a past when people were more word-centred, when they didn’t have TVs, computers and all the trappings of the visual culture that shapes the minds of people today? Do people not need to see God acting in dramatic, visible ways before they will respond to Jesus? Are we doomed to paddle along as a tiny minority in a Christian world that is rapidly leaving us behind? Are word-centred, sermon-preaching churches a relic of the past, only fit to be visited by those who want to see how things used to be?

We could respond in various ways to these questions, though not, I trust, with an ‘amen’ to the objections they pose. We might, for example, unpick the ‘successes’ of the wonder-workers with some hard questions of our own. The challenge issued by a medical doctor some years ago to one of the most prominent of these miracle peddlers to produce several of his best successes in healing for medical examination remains unanswered. You can’t believe all you hear, or indeed all you think you see. We have, however, all too often thought that pointing out the failures of others somehow lessened the significance of our failures, so we need a better response.

Surely if we wanted to justify a focus on the miraculous in mission we could turn to the Book of Acts. Isn’t it full of healings, exorcism, and all the other miraculous phenomena, even raising the dead? Case proven! Or is it? Look a bit more carefully, and you will see a very different picture. Try the conversion of Sergius Paulus, the Roman governor on Cyprus, recorded in Acts 13. Wasn’t he converted as a result of the miraculous blinding of Elymas by the Apostle Paul? Luke does write, ‘When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed’ (v12). The lesson seems clear. But read the rest of the verse: ‘for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord’. The crucial factor in his conversion was the content of the gospel message, the words spoken by the apostle. That was the means of his conversion. The miracle was no more than a visual reinforcement of what Paul had to say about the Lord. The lesson of Acts 13 is not the one we might initially have expected. The word of the gospel is sufficient.

None of this is to overlook the role of the Holy Spirit in bringing the gospel home to the sinner’s heart with saving power. As others make much of the Spirit giving miraculous gifts, we need to highlight constantly the miracle which, according to Scripture, the Spirit will perform in all ages, namely the giving of new life to those who are dead in sin. It is as Jesus said to Nicodemus: ‘unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God’ (John 3:5). To know that this is the case keeps all who speak the gospel humble. It is not our eloquence, cleverness or persuasiveness that bring anyone to saving faith: it is the work of the Spirit of God. If the Lord had not opened Lydia’s heart (Acts 16:14), Paul could have preached to her for the rest of his life and she would not have been saved.

A focus on the ministry of the Word of God in evangelism is essential and in no way detracts (or it should not) from the miraculous working of the Spirit in granting new life to the spiritually dead. Nothing else can act as a substitute, however impressive it may seem on the surface. God has promised that his word will not return to him empty but will infallibly accomplish his purpose (Isaiah 55:11). We should not be intimidated by claims of miraculous phenomena or assertions of their necessity for evangelistic success. Having been born again, every Christian has experienced the greatest miracle performed by the Spirit in human life, and the Lord has promised that miracle in connection with the proclamation of his word, and in no other connection. Our confidence in the gospel is confidence in the Spirit who gives life, and we must never lose sight of that precious truth.

No – I don’t have the solution to the euro zone crisis. That may well come as a shock to fans of this column, the multitudes who habitually turn to this site as soon as a new blog is posted, seeking for the usual wit, wisdom and enlightenment. On this occasion – sorry! Maybe a little wit, but certainly no wisdom or enlightenment.

Have you tried to follow the debates? Few discussions contain as many words and concepts that are incomprehensible to the average reader (except maybe quantum physics, whatever that is). Utterly baffling. But if you think of all the others who are baffled – world leaders included – it probably isn’t a cause for embarrassment. At least you don’t have to try to run Greece … or Italy … or Ireland … or Spain … or anywhere, in fact. Sighs of relief all round.

Of course it isn’t a joke, and the practical consequences for ordinary people could be very serious. Hard decisions will have to be made and painful consequences endured, although possibly not by those who make the hard decisions. The impact of austerity seems to be cushioned somewhat in the upper echelons of government. The incoming Prime Minister of Italy stayed in a four star hotel instead of a five star one – real sacrifice is clearly the order of the day.

Even to the semi-ignorant layman, however, it seems clear that a major factor in the crisis is debt – vast, overwhelming, virtually unpayable debt, ‘think of a number and add half a dozen zeros’ debt, the result of policies which, if you pursued them with your overdraft and credit card would be taken as signs of dangerous lunacy. But governments are different … or maybe Europe is finding out that they aren’t really. Sooner or later borrowing money that cannot possibly be repaid will catch up with the borrowers, and the hole they are in just gets deeper.

Somewhere in the midst of it all is surely the word ‘greed’ – the desire for more and more, whether you can afford it or not. It’s a symptom of the sinfulness of the human heart. It’s one form of worshiping the creature rather than the Creator, as Paul describes the manifestations of sin in Romans 1, and as one of the most misquoted texts has it, ‘the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil’ (I Timothy 6:10). The results are plainly evident all around us. As the previous verse vividly puts it, ‘People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction’ (v9). Sometimes the ruin and destruction are national.

No – we are not suggesting that a few pithy Bible texts offer a simple solution to the current financial problems of Europe. Politicians, economists and various other experts will have to give their best efforts to devising workable solutions to the crisis. Simplistic nostrums will not work. Nevertheless there are biblical (and therefore) God-given principles of conduct that should inform financial behaviour, and not just on the personal level. The God who addresses us in the Bible is as concerned about nations as he is about individuals. You could open the writings of the prophets almost at random to see that.

Avoidance of greed and of covetousness (which made it into the Ten Commandments summarizing God’s requirements) need to be combined with hard work, thrift, concern for those in need, contentment with and confidence in God’s provision, and many other positive principles of Scripture. We know very well, of course, that only a work of the Spirit of God transforming the hearts of men and women by grace can enable anyone to live in this way, or even to want to live thus. Which is only to say that ultimately the only real hope for Europe is a powerful working of the Spirit at all levels of society which will deliver the nations from greet and materialism. A naïve idea to most of the movers and shakers (who are having a taste of being moved and shaken themselves), but the Maker’s instructions are always ignores at our deepest peril.

‘We’re all going the one way’. A standard answer when somebody complains about their advanced age and the down-side of growing old. It’s supposed to afford a few crumbs of consolation, assuring the aged that their situation is not unique, that the speaker will face the same problems, a polite way perhaps of asking ‘What are you moaning about?’ It doesn’t console, of course, especially if the speaker is so far back down the road of life that he is scarcely visible in the rear view mirror. What does he know?

Ageing is of course one of those subjects that most people would like to avoid altogether. It has too many bad vibes, too many things we would rather forget about. Unfortunately, it won’t go away, and as the years pass all too quickly it becomes harder to ignore, even for a relative youngster like the present author.

The fact is that we live in a culture that has little respect for age. To be old – or to be perceived to be old – leaves you on the sidelines of life, as far as most of society is concerned. The old, it seems, have little to contribute, are stuck in the past, are mystified by technology (not a monopoly of the old!), are slow (and usually driving the car in front), and generally clog up the highways of life. At the very least, they ought to stand aside and let everybody get on.

The problems of growing old have been highlighted by a recent report into care for the elderly in NHS hospitals by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Although ‘heartened by the amount of good and excellent care’ it saw, the CQC also found that of 100 hospitals checked, more than half needed to do more to meet the needs of older patients, 20 failed to meet the essential standards of care for the elderly regarding either dignity or nutrition, and 2 fell below the legal minimum for care provision. The report paints a worrying picture.

Most people, especially those in pastoral ministry, will have encountered widely varying standards of care for the elderly in hospitals and nursing homes. Some are outstanding and do everything possible to look after older people, whilst there are others about which you think ‘I’d rather be shot than end up there’. No doubt a range of causes of deficiencies could be offered, many relating to lack of resources and shortage of staff, and all may, up to a point, be valid. Nevertheless, care for the elderly undoubtedly reflects society’s attitude to its older members. If you are considered to be a useless burden, consuming scarce resources that could be spent on younger, more productive people – watch out!

Christians, more than anyone else, should be standing against the attitudes which devalue the elderly. Among the people of God, those who are older have always been held in high esteem as sources of godly wisdom. Those who have long experience of God’s Word and God’s ways should have much to teach others, and those younger in the faith should be ready to listen. The church owes much to the prayers of its older members – those who are likely to say ‘All I can do is pray’. Those are the people we need urgently, and they should be respected and indeed honoured. It doesn’t mean they are always right or that their advice should always be followed, but they should always be heard.

Ageing is a token of the fallenness of the world, and should not be foolishly glamorised (in response to society’s failings). Someone has said that growing old is not for wimps. The physical and mental decline that can come with advanced years can be very challenging, to the sufferer and to carers alike. It is not easy, and we should not pretend that it is. Nevertheless God’s grace extends right to the end of life and will always prove sufficient (Psalm 92:12). In its attitude to and care for its older members, the church should, as always, be profoundly counter-cultural.

Anybody could write a blog about Amy Winehouse. Seriously – they could. It isn’t difficult. All the pieces are ready to hand. The voice, the talent, the prodigious early success, the instability, the drink, the drugs, the long-awaited second album that never appeared, the increasingly erratic behaviour, the boos at a disastrous attempted performance that turned out to be her last, the lonely sad premature death. It’s all there. Like others before her, George Best, Hurricane Higgins, and all the rest, she squandered her talent and self-destructed. Another example of how ability, success and adulation cannot give life meaning or purpose. Another object lesson in how attempts to fill the God-shaped hole at the centre of life with anyone or anything else will lead to disaster. Maybe not as public as Amy’s, but disaster just the same.

An easy piece to write. Anybody could do it. And it would all be true. It’s all the easier because it lets us all off the hook. The talents that most of us have are unlikely to qualify us for lives of self-destructive excess. Clearly the lessons to be drawn from the life and early death of Amy Winehouse are for others. We’re OK. We’re in the clear.

Or are we? Let’s look at it from a different angle. Amy needed the gospel. She needed what the church of Jesus Christ has been entrusted with – the Word of Life. How would she have fared if she had walked into one of our congregations? Let’s leave aside the vocal quality of some of what passes for praise. What else would she have encountered? Would the reactions of a typical congregation have drawn her towards or driven her further from Christ?

We trust that what she heard from the pulpit would, over time, have offered a balanced presentation of the gospel, setting out the seriousness of sin against a holy God and the consequences that it inevitably brings, along with a warm, loving statement of the hope for sinners that is to be found only in Christ crucified and risen, accompanied by an urgent, heartfelt call to believe in Christ for salvation, the kind of passionate pleading with sinners that our Covenanter forefathers were not ashamed to make. And all this in the language of the twenty-first century. We trust that is what she would have heard. Perhaps a little honest self-evaluation would do us preachers no harm.

And what about the congregation? There’s a factor that can undo much that is said from the pulpit. Would Amy have found a fellowship of people who love the Lord, who love each other and who will love anyone who walks in the door? People who delight to worship God and who live out their faith (however imperfectly) in the realities of everyday existence, with its sorrows as well as its joys. People for whom God is real, whose lives are touched at every point by his Spirit. People who do not condone sin, but whose arms, literally and metaphorically, are open to accept sinners as people made in God’s image who may become new creatures in Christ. People who know they are forgiven sinners. People who will extend the same welcome to sinners in sharp suits or designer dresses, redolent of the latest scents, and to sinners in second- (or third- or forth- ) hand clothes, who may struggle with English or who don’t smell the freshest.

We trust she would not have found people who drew aside in judgmental self-righteousness, wrapping their Pharisees’ robes tightly round themselves for fear of contamination. Surely that wouldn’t have happened among us, would it? Well – would it? For the truth is that a gospel not lived out by those who claim to believe it rings very hollow when presented from the safe elevation of a pulpit. Amy sang of ‘going back to black’. She didn’t cross the threshold of an RP church. May God grant that, if she had, she would have found joyful believers living in the light and longing to share it with her.