Winter's Bone - Chillingly Good

Once again it's taken a film to kick my bum back into blogging.  (The advert that was my last post doesn't really count.)  Said film?  Winter's Bone (Directed by Debra Granik; starring Jenifer Lawrence) A very good film indeed. 

A teenage girl searches for her missing father while caring for her mentally ill mother and her young brother and sister.  Dad's due in court and the family house and small holding will be forfeit if he fails to show.  There's your narrative mainspring which is wound up just tight enough to move the film along.  But it's stuff other than the story that do it for me.  This stuff:

• It is thoroughly human in ambition and scale.  This is a film a bout people.
• It handles its setting, the bleak back-woods of the Ozark Mountains, in way that breathes mood and atmosphere into the story from start to finish.  Place matters here; it's Hardyesque.
• It is utterly menacing without being remotely spooky.  Menacing but mundane.
• It is concerned with both human evil and human good and skilfully renders both facets of our shared condition.
• It knows that individual human qualities matter, but so do family, community and wider society.  Deprivation and neglect grip people and squeeze them into often ugly moulds but personal virtue can still be potent.
• Its heroine, around whom the entire film revolves, is utterly engaging and superbly rendered. 
• It has an unexpected centre-piece scene that has a Shakespearian air of horror.
• Its child actors are good enough not to spoil the show.
• It includes what I reckon is the best bit of chain saw action in any film I've seen.
• It knows full well that when it comes to terror, less is more.

Tension Mounts As Prophetic Voices Day Conference Draws Near

Re-posting this cos August happened.  Bookings coming in steadily.  Get yours now.

Advance notice of a tasty-looking day conference.  Northern Baptist Learning Community and Luther King House are jointly sponsoring the Northern leg of the Voices From The Margins national tour.  Roy Searle and Stuart Murray Williams will lead us as we look at what today's church can learn from the prophetic voices of three radical church groups: Celtic Missionary Monasticism, Anabaptism and the contemporary movement known as New Monasticism.  It promises to be a stimulating event.  Click here to book.

A post in which I am rude about the Church of England

First of all let me say that some of my best friends are Anglicans … and now you know straight away that this week’s offering is going to be slagging off the Church of England.  Nonetheless that first sentence is not just a formality.  I really mean it.  We even have one of them on the staff here at NBLC.  Nope, I definitely like Anglicans.  As a matter of fact my wife was thinking of becoming an Anglican nun until we met.  Seriously.

What’s more not only are some of my best friends Anglicans but there are all manner of things about the established church that I really admire: things like their habit of reading big dollops of scripture in their services; things like their commitment to serve the entire country, every community and every square inch, as best they can;  things like the way they do communion and things like their bishops, well some of them anyway.

But then there’s the other stuff.  The stuff that gets up my nose and makes me want to tear my hair out.  The stuff that means that even if I wanted to become an Anglican (and there have been moments) I simply couldn’t bring my self to do it.

The stuff I have in mind is the priestly stuff, the deferential stuff, the hierarchical stuff.  Take the way they do church leadership for example. I mean to say, “My Lord Bishop”; “Lambeth Palace”.  Did I miss something the last time I read the gospels? Am I being simplistic?  Is it just me?

Then there’s the  whole clerical caste system thing.   “We get to dress up because we are special.”  Yes I know that’s not what they intend to say but it is what the fancy togs and the rest of the paraphernalia of the priesthood actually communicates, intentionally or otherwise.  And don’t get me wrong here, it’s not that I object to dressing up, but why can’t everyone join in?  Chasubles all round!

But hang on a minute why bang on about this in a newspaper aimed at Baptists?  Preaching to the converted?  A cheap and easy way of winning back a bit of approval after upsetting people with the last three columns?  Not really, more a concern that we as Baptists don’t become blind to similar tendencies in our own midst. 

You see, there’s much about Baptist church culture that irks me (as you might have spotted) but our avowed commitment to the priesthood of all believers and our anti-establishment, anti-hierarchical, inclusive, congregational ethos are not among them.  But how easily we forget these things. When we venerate pastors because of the position they hold, when we lust after ministries because of the power and status they will afford us, when we fail to do everything we can to mitigate the inherent tendency of fallen humanity to fall in love with status and position, then we betray our own heritage. 

We also fail in our ecumenical responsibility to serve the wider body of Christ by holding firm and holding out to others one of the treasures of our tradition.  You see this C of E bashing is really a way of being a good ecumenical.  No, really.  If relationships between different branches of the family are going to count for anything we’ve got to go on  sharpening our distinctives and using them to help each other to identify our blind spots.

Now, where’s my Church Times?  I wonder if it has an article on how to screw up the gospel … Baptist style.

My turn to do a month's worth of opinion pieces for the Baptist Times' "Outside Edge" column has come round again. With the agreement of the editor I'm posting my BT article here. To check out the Baptist Times as a whole click here.

Why we should ban evangelism

My turn to do a month's worth of opinion pieces for the Baptist Times' "Outside Edge" column has come round again. With the agreement of the editor I'm posting my BT article here. To check out the Baptist Times as a whole click here.
 
I’m really pleased that Chris Duffet is going to become president of the Baptist Union.  Chris is an evangelist.  His love for Jesus and his love for other people are truly infectious. He’s also an innovative thinker and a bold practitioner.  Those of you who know him will agree that he doesn’t need any advice from me when it comes to evangelism.  Those of you who know me won’t be surprised that I’m going to give him some anyway.

I think Chris should use his presidential year to promote a total ban on evangelism, a moratorium of at least five years. Let’s see if he can’t get us to cancel our Alpha courses, tear up our Back to Church Sunday leaflets, forget all about friendship evangelism (please God let’s forget about friendship evangelism) and call off the search for the next Billy Graham immediately – there isn’t one.

Evangelising is so central to following Christ that we have to ban evangelism.  Unless we do we will never learn what it’s all about.  You see we have a problem.  Evangelism has become something it was never meant to be.  It’s become a thing.  Worse than that it’s become a particular thing. A special thing.  Something that requires a method (preferably one that “works”) and ideally a programme (the very latest if at all possible).

Over the years since big Billy Graham style rallies became unfashionable and unworkable I’ve lost count of the various projects and schemes that have been heralded as the next big thing: JiM, Minus to Plus, Power Evangelism, Challenge 2000, Alpha, Fresh Expressions.  Each one was seen as the answer. None of them “worked” – not really.  And in the process we’ve lost sight of something truly precious:  the idea that all of us are called to bear witness to the good news every day of our lives. 

Evangelism has come to be seen (first and foremost) as the domain of the specialist organisation and the uniquely gifted individual.  Something they do and which from time to time the enthusiastic among us get to join in, for a while.  It’s nothing of the sort. 

Each and every follower of Christ is called to bear witness.  The things we say, the stuff we do and the way we are, these are the beating heart of goodnewsing, helping people to hear, see and experience gospel for themselves.  It’s meant to be a part of who are, our very identity: witnesses of Christ.

We could learn a thing or two here from our cousins, Jehovah’s Witnesses.  Not only is the word in their name, it’s how they see themselves, it’s written right through their sense of who they are, it’s why they draw breath.

As Baptists with our rightful insistence on the Priesthood Of All Believers we should be the first to champion that  other great reformation doctrine, the Evangelisthood Of All Believers. 

OK, so I made that last bit up.  And yes, it will never catch on as a title.  But I still think I’m right.  This is too important to be left to the experts.  It’s a job for amateurs – literally those who do it out of love, even if they are not especially skilful.

And no, of course evangelistic programmes and special events are not ultimately incompatible with personal witness but I am serious in my belief that our obsession with method has ripped the heart out of goodnewsing.  And my tongue is poised but certainly not fully planted in my cheek when I suggest that a moratorium would be good for us.

So, how about it Mr. President?

Inception

Inception is a very good film but it's not a great film.  Inception could have been a truly awful film. 

You can easily imagine the production process setting out to tick as many boxes as possible.  Love story? Tick.  Car chase? Tick  Cool special effects? Tick.  Psychological drama? Tick?  Dash of James Bond?  Tick.  Leading man who can be relied upon to provide a solid performance?  Tick.  Cameo from loveable old English actor for added likeability? Tick.  Cameo from much respected senior English actor for a bit of added gravitas?  Tick.  Sexy female lead?  Tick.  Youthful central character for the younger audience to identify with?  Tick.

The astounding thing is that despite this, the film worked on so many levels (no pun intended) all at once.  It could have been a complete mess.  I could so easily have been left wondering, "Why on earth didn't you make your mind up what kind of film you want to be."  Could have, but wasn't.  Thriller, action movie, special effects fest, love story.  Yes, yes, yes and yes.  All of these in one very effective and coherent package just148 minutes long.  Top notch directing. 

So why not great?  The central theme of the subconscious. 

While the film plays around with dreams and the virtually inaccessible depths of the human mind in an intriguing way it doesn't seem to me to present any particularly new big ideas.  Some people have made comparisons with the Matrix.  The Matrix was better.  Whereas both films examine issues of perception and reality the Matrix was far more zeitgeisty.  The notion of the subconscious has indeed been a world view shifter.  But it's a concept that's been around for yonks and has probably already done most of the shifting it's going to do.  Artificial intelligence and the relationship between humanity technology, truth and reality on the other hand; loads more mileage.

Then there's the film's particular vision of the subconscious.  Seems to me that most people's mental nether regions are probably considerably darker and weirder than the film allows.  It's nowhere near as dark as The Dark Night.  Perhaps Terry Gilliam should be given the sequel - and told to forget the 12A rating.

So, while I found the film entertaining, moving and intriguing - not quite the full five stars.  Still the best film I've seen this year though.

A really short post on the mission of the church

Etre is not our raison d'etre.

Piccadilly Gardens and Christ the Windhover

While I'm going on about urban retreats I thought I'd share this with you.  The week before our little experiment I was chatting with my daughter about the idea of seeking the presence of God in the City.  She got a bit excited.  She reached into her bag and pulled out her sketch book to show me the picture that accompanies this post.

It's a quick sketch she'd done a few weeks earlier while she was in Piccadilly Gardens in the heart of Manchester when everything went "quiet".  A police helicopter was hovering right over the gardens.  Everything stopped.  Everyone looked up.  Including her.  She noticed that the helicopter was kind of cruciform, so, as she is wont to do, she scribbled down a quick sketch to catch the image.

What my daughter didn't know was that there's a Christian tradition of seeing the Kestrel as an image of Christ.  Another cruciform hoverer on high.  To accompany the sketch here's Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem The Windhover.

To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.