The values of getting older

Many of us see the second half of life as a process of heading downhill from the 'heights' of our (long) youth - 0-40, roughly.

However, Richard Rohr believes we should look at this differently, and has recently produced a book called, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. It's published byJossey-Bass.

The publishers' blurb says: “In Falling Upward , Fr. Richard Rohr seeks to help readers understand the tasks of the two halves of life and to show them that those who have fallen, failed, or "gone down" are the only ones who understand "up." Most of us tend to think of the second half of life as largely about getting old, dealing with health issues, and letting go of life, but the whole thesis of this book is exactly the opposite. What looks like falling down can largely be experienced as "falling upward." In fact, it is not a loss but somehow actually a gain, as we have all seen with elders who have come to their fullness.

Some of the chapter headings sound intriguing:

1. The Two Halves of Life.
2. The Hero and Heroine's Journey.
3. The First Half of Life.
4. The Tragic Sense of Life.
5. Stumbling over the Stumbling Stone.
6. Necessary Suffering.
7. Home and Homesickness.
8. Amnesia and the Big Picture.
9. A Second Simplicity.
10. A Bright Sadness.
11. The Shadowlands.
12. New Problems and New Directions.
13. Falling Upward.

To get a short appreciation of Rohr's viewpoint, you can read an article entitled: The Two Halves of Life: how did we get them so mixed up?

[Thanks for Paul Fromont for alerting us to this book.]

Problem-solving

“In running a church I solve problems. Wherever two or three are gathered together, problems develop… It is satisfying to my ego to help make rough places smooth.

“The difficulty is that problems arrive in such constant flow that problem solving becomes full-time work. Because it is useful and the pastor ordinarily does it well, we fail to see that the pastoral vocation has been subverted. Gabriel Marcel wrote that, “life is not so much a problem to be solved as a mystery to be explored.” That is certainly the biblical stance: life is not something we manage to hammer together and keep in repair by our wits; it is an unfathomable gift. We are immersed in mysteries: incredible love, confounding evil, the creation, the cross, grace, God.”

From The Contemplative Pastor - Eugene Peterson, pg 65. Quoted by Len Hjalmarson in this post on spirituality.

Australian spirituality stats

I flew to Auckland for a day the week before last in order to attend a conference run by the Church Life Survey people. It was valuable both in terms of meeting people and in hearing the plans for the next survey coming up in 2011.

I spend a good deal of my average week working with stats, both church and government (and any other kind I can lay my hands on), so I have some idea of the state of Christianity in New Zealand. The Church Life Survey is one source of such information. It has some connections with a similar group in Australia, and I've just been reading an article by Rowland Croucher which shows that the church/spiritual/Christian stats in Australia are pretty similar to those here in NZ.

Rowland's complete article is here, but those figures are culled from Shaping Australia's Spirituality: a Review of Christian Ministry in the Australian Context, by Philip Hughes and others (2010). This is a 150 page book (with some proof-reading errors, according to Rowland - the result of a publication date not leaving enough room for thoroughness) and, as Rowland says: ...you won’t find more interesting summary-data on modern Australia and its religions, especially Christianity, anywhere else in one small readable volume.

The book was produced by the Christian Research Association in Australia - we used to have a similar body here. You can buy a copy from CRA themselves, or from some Australian bookshops (not Koorong, as far as I could see).

On work

A couple of items Simon Carey Holt quotes in his essay: My Father's Hands. This is a revised version of a piece he originally published in 2000.

Until now, lay people have not had much help in seeing any part of the work as a spiritual experience. If lay people cannot find any spiritual meaning tot heir work, they are condemned to living a certain dual life; not connecting what they do on a Sunday with what they do the rest of the week. They [ministers] need to rediscover that the very actions of life are spiritual, and enable lay people to touch God in the world, not away from it. - William Diehl.

When people had tribes to go home to, or villages where they could share the seasonal festival, or even neighbourhoods with some personal intimacy, the spirit of community was a part of the natural order of life. But as we approach the 21st Century, our business cultures have become our tribes, our villages and our neighbourhoods...if there is no experience of spirit in our corporations, then there may not be much spirit in the civilization at large. - Jim Channon

During the course of the essay, Holt offers a two-part theology of work, and then follows this up with ten short discussions on spirituality and work.

Two views, one subject

As so often happens two different blogs I read came at the same issue from different perspectives: on Prodigal Kiwi(s), Paul Fromont quotes a writer called Amy Hollywood, who begins an essay called Spiritual but Not Religious: The vital interplay between submission and freedom in this way:

“Most of us who write, think, and talk about religion are by now used to hearing people say that they are spiritual, but not religious. With the phrase generally comes the presumption that religion has to do with doctrines, dogmas, and ritual practices, whereas spirituality has to do with the heart, feeling, and experience. The spiritual person has an immediate and spontaneous experience of the divine or of some higher power. She does not subscribe to beliefs handed to her by existing religious traditions, nor does she engage in the ritual life of any particular institution. At the heart of the distinction between religion and spirituality, then, lies the presumption that to think and act within an existing tradition—to practice religion—risks making one less spiritual. To be religious is to bow to the authority of another, to believe in doctrines determined for one in advance, to read ancient texts only as they are handed down through existing interpretative traditions, and blindly to perform formalized rituals. For the spiritual, religion is inert, arid, and dead; the practitioner of religion, whether consciously or not, is at best without feeling, at worst insincere…

On the Out of Ur blog, Gordon MacDonald writes a gentle post about Anne Rice, her denunciation of 'Christianity', and about other people who have left the faith for various reason.   He begins in this way: 

Best selling author Anne Rice has quit Christianity. She is not quitting on Jesus Christ or the Bible, she says, but she is quitting organized Christianity.  Ms. Rice announced her quit-decision not through a resignation letter (where would one send it?) but through her website and TV interviews.

Anne Rice’s decision to go public with her decision is not the only way people quit Christianity. Some do it quietly, gradually dropping out of the programmatic activities of religious institutions and out of personal contact with people whose devotion to the faith seems solid. One day someone notices an empty seat in the sanctuary and says, “I haven’t seen Bob (or Jennifer) around for a while. Wonder what’s happened to him (or her)?”

He goes on to discuss what's behind people leaving the church, the faith, (and sometimes everything else in their lives too).   He seems to be looking at the same question as Amy Hollywood: can you have faith in Christ apart from His Church?  

The Business of Making Saints

Eugene Peterson says, in a 2009 interview in Christianity Today called The Business of Making Saints: 

The problem was, I hadn't learned a way to live organically out of Sunday. I had two models, and neither could help me.

Where did you go for help?

I started discovering people who did it—Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Bernard, Newman, Alexander Whyte, Samuel Rutherford, a lot of the Puritans, and in particular, Dante. These became my mentors, my teachers, my professors. I lived with them.

We've got this wonderful history of Christian spirituality. We've got two thousand years of people who have been listening, writing, doing this. You're in a company of saints who have done this, and they've done it with great freedom and goodness.

These people weren't gullible. They developed a scent for sanctity; they were alert to the way holiness works, which hardly ever fits the stereotypes.

Some of it's an art, but if you live with these people through their writings, you develop the sense of proportion, a scent for truth.

How long did it take to learn pastoral care from these mentors?

After five or seven years, I realized, I can do this. There is a way to live as a pastor during the week that is congruent with the gospel I proclaim on Sunday. This is a pastor. This is what I want to be. I love this life.

I don't want to paint a picture that I got it all straight. It's not something you "get"; it's not like a diploma you can hang. This is a way of life in which you keep re-immersing yourself.

This interview was originally published 

A Mission-shaped Church for Older People?

We often talk about older people on this blog, the increasing numbers of them, they way they are the mainstay of many smaller churches, the way their skills and abilities are often unrecognized. However, it's still taken me three years or so to catch up with this book: A Mission-shaped Church for Older People? - Practical Suggestions for Local Churches by Michael Collyer, Claire Dalpra, Alison Johnson and James Woodward.

The book is published by Church Army and the Leveson Centre, a group that focuses on the study of Aging, Spirituality and Social Policy. It is readily accessible resource that should be invaluable for anyone who wants to think about the issues, problems and opportunities posed by an ageing population, and then to take action.

In his Foreword Dr John Sentamu says ‘The way the book is set out will be warmly welcomed by busy and hard-pressed church leaders. In the first part, three modules (thirteen sessions including an introduction) are explained and planned - the leader has simply to familiarise themselves with the content and provide supportive material for each session. The second part contains a whole range of helpful related material which should be placed in the hands of anyone who ministers among older people: the range is quite extraordinary.

You can find a good review of the book from the Church of England newspaper, and can buy a copy on the Leveson Centre site. You can also download a copy from the same address.

And another announcement: Brian McLaren in NZ

World Vision and Laidlaw College Present: Brian McLaren - Where Faith meets the World

Tuesday 13 October, 7.30pm
Laidlaw College, Lincoln Road, Henderson

In a time where everyone is talking about global crisis, Brian McLaren is also talking about Jesus and his message for us and our situation. Brian offers a framework where he explores the societal systems we live in: prosperity, equity and security systems.

Instead of functioning in perfect harmony, guided by God, these systems have become misaligned and no longer function as they should. They have become destructive, and this is the problem Jesus came to address. Brian describes these dysfunctions as:

1. Prosperity Crisis – Our pursuit of prosperity is unsustainable ecologically. We demand more resources and produce more waste than our planet can handle.
2. Equity Crisis – A minority of the world’s population is experiencing great prosperity, while a majority is not. This growing gap between rich and poor adds to the pain of poverty and acute sense of injustice.
3. Security Crisis – As the environment experiences greater stress and puts limits on economic growth, the poor suffer disproportionately. Their suffering in turn fuels mass migration, petty and organised crime, war and terrorism. The rich respond by investing more and more of their income in weapons and armies and police, leaving the poor even more isolated and angry.
4. Spirituality Crisis – Our religious systems fail to provide inspiration and the moral will to address these crises. Too often, they legitimise counterproductive responses, or they distract people from constructive action by preoccupying them with other matters.

Having thought long and hard about the world’s problems, Brian says, “ Our plethora of critical global problems (is real)….(but) the fourth crisis is the lynchpin or leverage point through which we can reverse the first three.”

The message of Jesus offers a revolution of hope for our planet and the poor.

This is where mission meets the reality of the world

"We'd better listen to Brian McLaren if we want to bring the reality of Christ into the world as it is and the church as it now is." Dallas Willard Professor of Philosophy, University of Southern California in Los Angeles

More info on Brian at www.brianmclaren.net, or contact mark.pierson@worldvision.org.nz

This will be Brian McLaren's only public meeting in New Zealand.

A N Wilson 'returns' - albeit slowly

In a recent edition of New Statesman, novelist and biographer, A N Wilson, explains why he has decided that his 'conversion' to atheism was a foolish mistake, and that he has come to realise that God, religion, spirituality, are the realities rather than the atheistic arguments. His coming back to faith has been slow and full of doubts, but he now believes he's on the right path rather than the wrong.

A few sample paragraphs:

My doubting temperament, however, made me a very unconvincing atheist. And unconvinced. My hilarious Camden Town neighbour Colin Haycraft, the boss of Duckworth and husband of Alice Thomas Ellis, used to say, “I do wish Freddie [Ayer] wouldn’t go round calling himself an atheist. It implies he takes religion seriously.”

This creed that religion can be despatched in a few brisk arguments (outlined in David Hume’s masterly Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion) and then laughed off kept me going for some years. When I found myself wavering, I would return to Hume in order to pull myself together, rather as a Catholic having doubts might return to the shrine of a particular saint to sustain them while the springs of faith ran dry.

But religion, once the glow of conversion had worn off, was not a matter of argument alone. It involves the whole person. Therefore I was drawn, over and over again, to the disconcerting recognition that so very many of the people I had most admired and loved, either in life or in books, had been believers.

The patient is as well as may be expected

Massey University, in a survey of a 1000 New Zealanders, says results show there has been a 'sharp rise' in the number of New Zealanders with no religious affiliation. However, the 'sharp rise' has taken place over 17 years, and the rise is 11%, from 29% to 40%. Naturally, this survey result has had all sorts of anti-religious bodies telling us that religion is dead, from people on the RichardDawkins.net site to Jillian Whyte, who forecasts the future, to the Society of Atheists, Rationalists and Skeptics.

According to the survey, just over a third of New Zealanders describe themselves as religious, even though the last Census has more than 50% of people saying they have a religious affiliation, be it Christian or Buddhist or Muslim and so on.

As always it would be good to know what questions were asked of the respondents. We can get some idea from these 'results': Fifty-three per cent say they believe in God (although half of those say they have doubts), 20 per cent believe in some form of higher power and about third say they don't believe or don't know.

However, 60% (of parents, presumably) say they would prefer children to have a religious education in state primary schools - with strongest support for teaching about all faiths. Hmm, your children can be religious, but you as an adult don't have to be.

In the media release, Professor Philip Gendall, who led the research team, says the view that New Zealand is a very secular country is supported by the relatively low levels of active involvement in religion. “The survey shows that God is not dead, but religion may be dying," Professor Gendall says. This quote from Professor Gendall has made its way across the Internet in a couple of days. It's catchy, has a ring of truth, and is oddly ambiguous. The survey shows that God is not dead. Well, that's good for God to know!

Professor Gendall adds, “There is evidence that New Zealanders have become less religious over the last 17 years; however, most New Zealanders believe in God and there has been no change in the proportion of those who say they believe in a higher power.” So that bit about the 'sharp rise' was a bit of a headline rather than a reality? New Zealanders have become less religious but most still believe in God: does this mean that believing in God doesn't mean you're religious? I guess it could well do...

“So perhaps the apparent decline in religiosity reflects a decline in traditional religious loyalties - rather than a decline in spirituality as such.” And that may be much closer to the truth, a truth which churches are finding everywhere. People may not align themselves so readily to a particular denomination these days, and there is evidence that many people still regard themselves as Christians (as others probably regard themselves as Buddhists) without actually going to a church (or a Buddhist temple).

The study found that significant numbers of New Zealanders believe in the supernatural with 57 per cent believing in life after death, 51 per cent believing in heaven and 36 per cent believing in hell.

A quarter of those surveyed think star signs affect people's futures, 28 per cent say good luck charms work and 39 per cent believe fortune-tellers can foresee the future.

If religion is 'dead,' superstition is alive and well!

Finding a way home

I've snaffled the following snippet from the Prodigal Kiwi blog - hope they won't mind. (It was written back in August last year.) It comes from a talk (?) by Dave Tomlinson, and may in fact also appear in his recent book, Re-enchanting Christianity, which hadn't been published at the time the PK blog wrote their post (but has been now).

“Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.”
Lenny Bruce

“…People are no less spiritual today than they were in the past, but they are a lot less religious. A disconnect has occurred between religion and spirituality: people no longer see religion or church as the natural setting in which to explore or express their spiritual aspirations. So they are drifting away from churches in droves. However they are not doing so because they no longer believe in God, or because they have no spiritual hunger, but because in their experience church is neither offering a faith they can believe in, nor an existential spirituality that can excite or satisfy the deeper yearnings of the soul. Many long to reconnect with the sacred mystery of life, to discover their place in the cosmos, but they don’t see church or religion as a way of achieving this…I see no future in the twenty-first century for expressions of Christianity that are not Spirited. Our world longs for numinosity: for a sense of awe and mystery, for sacredness, spirituality and enchantment, for something ‘more’ than the purely rational and cerebral. If the church fails to engage with, and cater to, this longing, it has no real future…”

Focal Point

I think I've come across the FOCal website some time ago, but hadn't given it much further attention. Anyway, by serendipity I came across it today again, and thought I'd let others know about it.
FOCal's equivalent of a mission statement is:
FOCaL is set up to give a forum for those who hold to a progressive Christian faith and 'left of centre' political convictions. While not wishing to deny conservative Christians or conservative politicians their right to express their point of view, we feel that our society and the church needs to hear the voices of the Christian left.
FOCal leans towards the liberal point of view, but seems more inclusive - if that's not a contradiction in terms (!)
Anyway, the page I first alighted on was the Links page. This is worth checking out, even if you don't otherwise give the site much time - mainly because this links page will keep you busy for some time as it is!
The links are listed under various headings:

• Christian Reflections on Politics and Society (Sojourners, Third Way, WCC, for example);
• Social Services, Government Aid Agencies;
• Environmental Groups (A Rocha, ECEN, for example);
• Resources for Faith and Spirituality (Spirited Exchanges, Soulscape, Spirituality and Practice, for example)
• Worship Resources
• The "Emerging Church" (which has both Brian McLaren and the Methodist Parish of Dunedin);
• Alternative News Sources (includes Aljazeera);
• Humour and Miscellaneous (dare I say these were quite refreshing after the list above - I'm needing a holiday, obviously! This section includes the wonderful Lego Bible (the Brick Testament), and the rather odd Dog Church Org: The Virtual Church of the Blind Chihuahua.

There's a great mix of stuff here - enough to keep anyone occupied through their holidays....

Jim Wallis

As I speak and listen to large and diverse audiences in every part of the nation, I find a deep hunger, especially among members of the younger generation, for something worth committing one's life to.... The two great hungers of our time are the hunger for spirituality and the hunger for social justice--and the connection between the two has great power to motivate people to action. The world is especially waiting for a new social and political agenda drawn not from bickering partisan loyalties, blatant ideological bias, or corrupting special interests, but rather from our deepest moral values.

Jim Wallis
The Great Awakening