Mandela's Christmas wisdom on human relations

"Coexistence": poster for a peace exhibition I saw 
in Belfast some years ago

Whatever else he was and whatever else he did, the late Nelson Mandela proved to be a master of reconciliation. As the commemorations of his life now fade from the news agenda, it’s still appropriate to reflect on some of his words as we enter the Christmas season of peace and goodwill. Mandela offered peace and goodwill towards people who had opposed and imprisoned him.

In his autobiography Long walk to freedom¹ he writes of things he learned as a child. “I learned that to humiliate another person is to make him suffer an unnecessarily cruel fate,” he wrote. “Even as a boy I defeated my opponents without dishonouring them” (p10). Another lesson was gleaned from tribal meetings, where everyone had a say. “I have always endeavoured to listen to what each and every person in a discussion had to say before venturing my own opinion” (p21).

Those principles – honour your enemy and listen to those you disagree with – were the foundation of his much later work as the first black President of South Africa. So, with good cause, perhaps, to want to wreak revenge on others, he emerged from prison knowing that his freedom did not give him the liberty to take others’ freedom away from them, and that “the man who takes away another’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness” (p617).

“In prison, my hatred towards whites decreased, while my hatred for the system grew. I wanted South Africa to see that I loved my enemies even while I hated the system that turned us against each other” (p559). And writing of the then President De Klerk, who he had previously criticised heavily, “I never sought to undermine Mr De Klerk…To make peace with an enemy, one must work with that enemy, and that enemy becomes your partner” (p604).

Nelson Mandela has given us a lot to think about as we reflect on our relationships with and attitudes towards others. But he was doing no more than applying in practice what Jesus had taught almost 2000 years before.

In the sermon on the mount Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:43-48).

That teaching is echoed by the apostles. “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse….Do not repay anyone evil for evil….As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay'….Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good’’ (Romans 12:14-21).

But there’s an even greater reason to take the example of Mandela and the exhortations of Jesus and Paul seriously. It is that reconciliation is what God himself is all about, which is also at the heart of the Christmas message. Paul writes, “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.” And, he adds, he “gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18-21).

The Christmas image of the baby in the manger can sometimes obscure the fact that the Christ child came into the world with a mission to bridge the moral gap between erring humans and a perfect God. Perhaps Mandela’s death just before Christmas could be seen as God’s gentle reminder to a conflict-ridden world that the event we celebrate contains a call to adopt a peace-making lifestyle all year round.

 

Think and talk

1.  Look up the full Bible passages from which the passages above are quoted. Make a list of all the implications they have for the daily life and relationships of ordinary people.
2.  Think of situations where you either need to seek reconciliation with others or where you can seek to act as a peacemaker (Matthew 5:9). Make these situations a matter for prayer, and then look for opportunities to exercise a ministry of reconciliation.

Reference

1.  Nelson Mandela, Long walk to Freedom, Little, Brown and Company, 1994

 

 

God and the biblical slaughters

WW1 training trench unearthed in Sherwood Forest;
a reminder of modern slaughters

There has been a long gap in these reflective blogs partly because in preparing this one I found two books – one with 800 pages – which helped my thinking and delayed my writing. They feature later. An early draft was also much longer; this is necessarily a summary.

How the critics see it
Broadcaster and comedian Marcus Brigstock has said, “For me, that God [in the Old Testament] is a barbaric, inconsistent, jealous and murderous entity.”¹ Renowned atheist Richard Dawkins wrote, “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser.”² 
 
You can see their point in passages such as “Do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them…as the Lord your God has commanded you” (Deuteronomy 20:16f). So, as two conservative scholars write: “We have a deep problem to grapple with”³ to which “there is no easy or simple solution”.⁴ Some explain the slaughters away as fiction and propaganda (the archaeological evidence for them is thin), but the attribution of them to God’s initiative remains. There may be better, if harder, ways to approach the problem while also acknowledging the historical framework of the Israelites’ invasion of Canaan.

The historical context
From 2000BC onwards the near east was a permanent war zone. Independent tribes vied for scarce living space, water and pasture. Immigrants were brutally repelled. Given that the loose confederation of 12 Israelite tribes were returning to the homeland of their patriarch Abraham, they had little choice but to fight their way in. It was kill or be killed. It is hard to see how they could otherwise have become a (relatively) cohesive community there.

How many they killed is debatable. The bald figures suggest about 100,000⁵ but no-one is entirely sure how large numbers were calculated centuries before Greek scholars got to grips with maths. As archaeology suggests that the population was smaller than the figures given in the Bible, the extent of the slaughter may be similarly exaggerated. That doesn’t, of course, justify any, but it may suggest that we’re not looking at such large-scale genocide.
 
Then there was a mental outlook we find impossible to identify with today. All peoples at the time believed that God (or, in most cases, the gods) determined the fortunes of the tribe which paid its religious dues. The Israelites were no different. Success was seen as divine favour; failure as divine disapproval. It was fatalism: what is, is what God decrees. The Israelites were immersed in their contemporary and brutal culture. God is a craftsman who can make silk purses out of sows’ ears. The raw material he began with was raw indeed.

The theological context
The OT isn’t primarily a history book; it’s a religious book. It contains a selective account of key incidents in the Israelite story but its primary message is that there is one God (most other tribes believed in multiple gods) who is “holy” (that is, he expects disciplined human lives not selfish indulgence). It traces the development of the Israelites’ theological understanding as it changed over time. This is crucial. God did not impose on or reveal to the early Israelites principles which were later explained by the prophets, Jesus and the apostles, just as he never imposes himself on people unwilling to believe or behave.
Conservative scholar Leon Morris wrote, “There is progression in the Bible. Earlier revelation is filled out by later. We must not expect to find the full revelation at the earlier time.” He refers to John Stott’s example of an artist’s preliminary sketch: “The sketch is not the final shape. But it is adequate at the stage at which it is produced.”⁶

This may be a matter for regret to us but it is consistent with the way in which God deals with individual people oin their journey to and in faith. He accepts us as we are (“Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling”) and sets us on a life-long path of discipleship in which we learn (often slowly) to implement the ideals of godly living as part of a transformation process. Most fail; some spectacularly and even scandalously (as did the Israelites), but God never gives up on us. Enter my recent reading.

Stephen Pinker’s tome on the history of violence comes to a surprising but statistically underpinned conclusion: “that violence really has gone down over the course of history”. He shows that as tribes settle into larger communities, as government becomes more centralised, and as legalised brutality (witch hunting, slavery, duelling etc) was outlawed, so violent deaths decrease.⁷ Even blips such as the First World War resulted in fewer violent deaths per 100,000 population than when tribal warfare ruled the world.

That tallies with the Old Testament narrative as early Israelite aggression under Joshua gave way to peaceful co-existence under Solomon, followed by periods of civil war and defence against invasions of superpowers who wished to control Judea as an important buffer and highway.

My second book was William Young’s novel The shack, the story of a man battling with God over tragedy and guilt. It has two key messages. One is that God neither plans nor initiates evil things, but is great enough to weave out of the chaos of human society something positive and good. The other is that we may not yet be able to see what that good is; God doesn’t answer all our questions (and our minds are too small to be able to comprehend the answers) but he asks for our trust that it is and will be so. Our judgement of his apparent actions and the cause and meaning of our circumstances is likely to be flawed.

So why did God apparently endorse genocide? He got hold of a group of tribes in their cultural context and began to shape them into something different over a period of centuries. He revealed that he is not an indulgent sugar-daddy but a parent who sets boundaries for his charges (as in the Ten commandments and ceremonial laws). Their battles showed that there is a spiritual war against superstition and wrong-doing (the Israelites had a paranoiac fear of the dilution of their faith by accommodating other gods). And he travelled with them on their error-prone journey from crude religiosity to the moral high ground of the sermon on the mount, from fearful nationalism to the warm embrace of all humanity through faith in Christ and reformation of manners through the Holy Spirit’s transforming presence.

Seeds of change
There is one more important matter to note. The OT is not “one long celebration of violence” as Pinker claims.⁸ There are signs early on that this was not God’s preferred way or ultimate interest. On the night before his successful defeat of Jericho, Joshua was confronted by an angelic warrior. Joshua asked whose side he was on; “neither”, came the reply (Joshua 5:13-15). Justice does not support “my country right or wrong”. Later OT history shows how God removed his support for the erring Israelites. 
 
The Israelites also had rules of engagement they were meant to follow. They were to show compassion to foreigners and offer peace before attacking, neither of which were normal practice at the time (Deuteronomy 10:17-19; 20:10-15). They were to decommission captured chariots (the OT equivalent of fighter jets) by laming the horses that pulled them (Joshua 11:6-9) and to respect the environment when conducting a siege (Deuteronomy 20:19f). And like people everywhere, they looked forward to a time when war would cease and all humanity live together in peace (eg Isaiah 2:3-5).

In other words, the God revealed in the New Testament has left traces of his presence and purposes in the Old Testament. His ways are still beyond comprehension. But this hard question about the past need not be a barrier to faith in the present.

Think and talk
1.  Look up these NT passages to see what they say about God’s progressive revelation:
Matthew 5:17-48 (notice the repeated references back to the law); Galatians 3:24, 4:3f (compare this to the sentiment of 1 Corinthians 13:11); Hebrews 1:1-3; 11:39f; 1 Peter 1:10f.
2.  Progressive revelation does not annul the principles that can be found in the OT. See 2 Timothy 3:16 and 2 Peter 1:20. How might we distil timeless principles from the time-bound events of the OT – what questions should we ask of OT passages as we read them?
3.  When tragedies happen, people often ask, “why has God allowed this?” From what you have read here, how might you begin to approach this issue?
4.  God in the OT is sometimes depicted as stern, while God in the NT is pictured as soft. Look up Deuteronomy 7:7-11 and Hebrews 10:26-31 and discuss the similarities and differences.
References
1.  Interview in Christianity magazine, March 2012.
2.  Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, quoted by Giles Whittell, The Times Magazine, 7 September 2013
3.  John Wenham, The goodness of God, IVP 1974, p.120
4.  Richard Hess, Joshua, IVP 1996, p.42
5.  Matthew White, Atrocitology, Canongate 2011, p.192
6.  Leon Morris, I believe in revelation, Hodder & Stoughton, 1976, p.139
7.  Stephen Pinker, The better angels of our nature, Penguin Books 2012, p.xx
8.  Stephen Pinker, ibid, p.7
 

 

Help the weak

Above: Photo of late 19th-early 20th century workhouse girls
in the Southwell Union Workhouse museum
Below right: one of the dormitories in the workhouse

There was universal condemnation recently of a British lawyer who called a 13 year-old girl a sexual predator during the trial of a 41 year-old man who had abused her. The act may have been consensual, but it wasn’t responsible on the man’s part. She was vulnerable, seeking attention and love; sometimes we have a duty to say no.

In other trials defence lawyers were accused of harassing rape victims, regardless of their feelings; one witness committed suicide after her courtroom ordeal. There were also reports about cyber bullying and a lack of care and compassion in some hospitals. Such stories offend human sensibilities, and if there is one indisputable and universal rule of social conduct in the Bible, it’s that vulnerable people are to be protected. The strong are to care for the weak.

We’re all vulnerable

The list of vulnerable people is long: children; teenagers pushing boundaries; elderly, sick and infirm people; physically and mentally disabled people; unemployed people (there are 2.5m unemployed in the UK and not enough suitable jobs to go round); people on low incomes facing rent, fuel and transport price rises; people who lose out to unscrupulous scammers. If you think of more, add them in the comments box below.

Then add yourself, because we’re all vulnerable. Not just at low spots in our lives, but we’re liable to make mistakes and errors of judgment at any time. That fact is at the heart of the Christian message. God knew our spiritual vulnerability and sent his Son to give us fresh starts and fresh strength: “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person,” Paul argues, “but God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:7-8).

The apostles were in no doubt about the implications: “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11). A care-less Christian is a contradiction in terms.

Survival of the weakest

There have always been ruthless people who trample on others to gain wealth or power. The biblical narrative recognises this from the beginning, and makes clear provision to curb its excesses. Competition is fine in sport, but in society all are born equal; selfishness spawns suffering, competition creates corruption.

There was no civic welfare system in the ancient world. (Indeed, there was virtually none except the workhouse in the UK until the “welfare state” was introduced in the mid 1940s; one such is pictured right.) So people most at risk – widows, orphans and disabled people with no male supporter, and immigrants who had settled in the land (called “aliens” or “strangers” in some Bibles) – were singled out for special care from the wider family and community. Those who failed to care were said to be subject to God’s judgement. References are below.

Jesus demonstrated his compassion for marginalised people in his miracles and teaching. He promoted the protection of children, and threatened their users and abusers with judgement. He castigated posh people who neglected the poor. The mid-20^th century American spiritual writer, A.W. Tozer, pointedly remarked, “The Pharisees were bad not because they entertained their friends but because they would not entertain the poor and the common” people.¹ 

In the early church the first “order” of ministers (deacons), apart from the generally-recognised apostles, was not to feed the soul but the body, forming a structured welfare service for needy members (Acts 6:1-6). The New Testament is littered with injunctions to act kindly and share compassionately. There is just one cautionary note. Then, as now, a minority tried to take advantage of other people’s generosity. The solution was neither to despise needy people and label everyone as scroungers, nor to withdraw benefits, but to create what was then a culturally appropriate form of means testing (1 Timothy 5:9-16).

An obligation, not an option

In the Bible care for vulnerable people is an obligation, not an option; a priority, not an afterthought. Then, of course, charity did begin at home, with extended family and clan members obliged to shoulder responsibility for sometimes distant relatives, but the wider community chipped in too. In today’s different social environment we can’t shunt all welfare needs onto smaller and fragmented family units; community responsibility remains. We are our brothers’ keepers.

Throughout history Christians have been at the forefront of charitable support. They still are. For example, Green Pastures provides accommodation for 450 homeless people around the UK and has just announced its desire to encourage every church to have a house for homeless people.² The Trussell Trust which oversees food banks, many of them staffed and supported by church members, claims 13m people in Britain live below the poverty line and in 2012-13 has provided emergency supplies for 346,992 people of whom 126,889 were children.³ Currently the Archbishop of Canterbury is encouraging local churches to help to develop more credit unions so that people on the edge of survival can avoid exorbitant pay-day loan companies and sharks⁴.

The needs are as great as ever, but the attitudes of many people, Christians and some parts of the media and government included, seem to have hardened, perhaps because of the stress of coping with recession themselves. When the UK faced the privations of the second world war, its now elderly survivors speak of everyone helping each other out. Perhaps that spirit needs to be rekindled, and who better to do it than Christians whose primary commandments are to love God and to love their neighbour as themselves.

Think, study and talk

Look up some or all of the following passages and put into your own words the principles which they enshrine. Discuss with others, or write down on your own, possible contemporary applications for each one. Then ask how these principles and applications may suggest changes to your current attitudes and actions.

1.  God’s care for vulnerable people: Deuteronomy 10:17-19; Psalm 10:18, 146:9

2.  How to care for vulnerable people: Deuteronomy 24:14-15,17-22; 26:12; Romans 12:13’ 1 Thessalonians 5:14; James 1:27-2:7
3.  Examples of care: 2 Samuel 4:4, 9:1-13; Luke 10:25-37; Acts 4:32-35, 6:1-6
4.  Jesus’ acts of compassion: Matthew 19:13-15; Luke 7:11-15, 8:26-39, 13:10-17, 17:11-17, 18:35-43, 19:1-10
5.  Warnings against exploiting vulnerable people: Exodus 22:22-23; Deuteronomy 27:19; Isaiah 1:23-26, 10:1-4; Amos 2:6-8, 4:1-2, 5:11-15; Matthew 18:5-9, 23:23-24; James 5:1-6

References

1.  A.W. Tozer, We travel an appointed way, OM Publishing, 1992, p.80
2.  http://greenpastures.net/
3.  http://www.trusselltrust.org/foodbank-projects
4.  My colleague Ian Black provides a perspective on this at http://canonianblack.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/strapped-for-cash.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+blogspot/jleIP+(Ian+Black)   

 © Derek Williams 2013

Leisure is a state of mind

Seventy-five years ago, in July 1938, the Holidays With Pay Act gave some 11m UK workers the right to one week’s paid holiday, plus bank holidays, each year. Today most have at least 28 days plus bank holidays. Yet according to the Office for National Statistics, in 2011 only 15 per cent of adults said they were highly satisfied with their work-life balance; about 36% had “medium satisfaction” and almost half “low satisfaction”.
Does that mean we are fed up with work and want yet more leisure? Or are the stresses of austerity getting to us? Summer is a good time to reflect on how to make the most of leisure.

Leisure in the Bible

Recuperation Leisure is built into the fabric of the world. A weekly day off work is essential for wellbeing and is commanded by God (Exodus 20:8-11). In addition, the Old Testament sanctioned numerous “bank holidays” and “wakes weeks” which had a religious basis but were times of relaxation, feasting and fun (e.g. Leviticus 23). And when work demands increased, Jesus took his disciples for a short break (Mark 6:30-32).

Enjoyment  Paul says God gave us everything “to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17); we can’t enjoy things we don’t make time for. The OT wisdom literature advocates taking pleasure in all things (Ecclesiastes 3:12,13; 5:18-20). Jesus attended weddings and contributed wine (John 2:1-11). He went to dinner parties so often that he was accused of enjoying himself too much (Luke 7:34). However, the Bible frowns on the self-indulgent extremes of hedonistic pleasure-seekers (Amos 6:4-6; Luke 12:19; Ephesians 5:18). Pleasure is a by-product of leisurely pursuits; when it’s sought for its own sake it’s subject to the law of diminishing returns.

Reflection The Sabbath was intended to take our mind off daily existence so that we stop to focus on the big things of life. While that includes remembering and worshipping our creator, there’s more to reflect on than that. The songs of the Bible express wonder at the physical creation (Psalm 19; 104). Solomon’s wisdom was based on leisurely observation of, and reflection on, the natural order (1 Kings 4:32-34). And Jesus told us to “consider the lilies” as we contemplate life’s priorities (Matthew 6:28). In our busyness we can lose our appreciation of, and connectedness with, the world around us.

Leisure and the church

The church has a chequered record on leisure. Tertullian (2^nd century AD) said pleasure turns people away from God. Augustine (4^th century) said eating was sinful if it was done for pleasure. Calvin, by contrast, in the 16^th century said that God gave us food both for sustenance and enjoyment. Medieval Catholicism had 115 holy days (holidays) each year, many of which were observed as and feasts, but as urbanisation increased the numbers were reduced. John Milton in the 17^th century saw education as a useful preparation for both life and leisure.

The Puritans encouraged leisure pursuits but hedged them with many fussy rules.¹ Some of these persisted in conservative Christian groups well into the mid-20^th century. Today, perhaps, the pendulum has swung the other way and restraint isn’t always regarded as cool. ”Having a good time” can mean throwing off restraints; drunkenness and “recreational” sex and drugs are accepted as normal. Excess or misuse devalues that which is intrinsically good.

Making the most of leisure today

Leisure is time given to doing what we choose to do, as opposed to what we have to do. In a 24/7 society where leisure is an “industry”, it’s not easy to set aside some time, let alone a whole day, for rest, reflection and enjoyment. Maybe some things can be left out of (or left for) a “sabbath” day (not necessarily a Sunday), just to make it feel more restful. But leisure isn’t simply about doing (or not doing) things, nor about set holidays. It’s an attitude of mind.

Psychologists talk about “mindfulness”: “a state of being that focuses on what we have at this moment” and remembering that “I am not a human doing, I am a human being”.² Mindfulness is a deliberate pause, a kind of meditation, in which we become conscious of our breathing, our existence, our surroundings. It’s only a short step from this to Christian contemplation, which focuses on the presence, gifts and attributes of God. Even a few minutes’ such reflection can calm and relax us: “A poor life this if, full of care, / we have no time to stand and stare.”³ Or time to pray to and worship the source of that life: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

Mindfulness can turn unpaid home-making from a chore to a meaningful activity. Think of it as a service: “Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, / makes that and the action fine.”⁴ Or use it to stimulate wonder and gratitude: look around at all you have – the vacuum cleaner included – and be thankful for it, for the human ingenuity that designed it, the electric supply that powers it. Or adjust the definition of “necessity”: I don’t have to cut the grass but the garden is nicer and more enjoyable if I do.

 

People with young children may have to sacrifice solo leisure pursuits for a while, but playing in the park is also a leisure pursuit: whether we enjoy it depends entirely on how we approach it. Retirement can make everything blur into a continuous activity. Making a distinction between say cleaning or gardening (and calling it “work”) and going to the theatre or for a walk (calling that “leisure”) can bring a degree of balance and rhythm into our life.

If we’re not careful leisure can become another tiring round of activity. Like the archetypal tourist hurrying from site to sight, we collect experiences but don’t give time reflect on them, to allow them to soak in, as it were, and enrich our “soul”. Some people find it hard to switch off from work; many admit to checking work emails on holiday. Even social media can clutter our leisure. A survey by eBay found that two out of five women cannot go for more than an hour without checking their phone or tablet for messages; 48% have taken a call while on a date; and 17% said they had taken a call while making love.⁵ We hate to miss anything.

Doing nothing is not a waste of time. Doing nothing in a mindless, sleep-walking way is. Leisure is a precious gift; unwrap it carefully, enjoy it mindfully, and be thankful!   

Think and talk

1.  Keep a record of how you spend your time each day for a week, in 15 minute segments. Include sleep, personal care, housework, meals, commuting, work, family activity, hobbies, outside activities, TV – everything that takes time. Where might you need to make some adjustments?
2.  What can you do to mentally and physically separate “work”, “chores” and “leisure”, giving adequate time for all?
3.  Give yourself time to look up the Bible references above, and reflect on what message they may have for you.

References

1.  Historical information is taken from Leland Ryken, Work and leisure, IVP 1989, chs 3&4.
2.  Andrew Bienkowski & Mary Akers, The greatest gift, Simon & Schuster 2009, pp. 100,103.
3.  William Henry Davies
4.  George Herbert, “Teach me, my God and King”.
5.  Reported in The Times, 15 July 2013

 

Sweeten someone's day!

Here’s an obvious food fact to add to all the rest we get: you receive more energy from honey than you do from vinegar.

And what’s true in the physical realm is also true in the emotional and spiritual realms: people generally achieve more when their lives are sweetened by encouragement than when they are embittered by criticism.

Encouragement raises the spirits and motivates the mind, and is said to increase productivity and stimulate creativity. Criticism does the opposite.

Demoralised workers

In a recent Channel 4 Undercover Boss programme (1 July) Phil Couchman, CEO of DHL UK found many staff felt undervalued, and as a result were tempted to leave. They were under pressure to perform to (sometimes unrealistic) targets, but no-one appeared to appreciate their achievements. He vowed to remedy the situation.

Years ago the former Secretary General of the UN, Dag Hammarskjöld, told of a conscientious worker whose behaviour had an adverse effect on everyone. When things came to a head the person said, “Why did you never help me? You knew I always felt you were against me. And fear and insecurity drove me further along the course for which you now condemn me. One day, I remember, I was so happy: one of you said something that I’d produced was quite good.”

Hammarskjöld admitted, “We had allowed our criticisms to stop us from giving him a single word of acknowledgement, and in this way had barred every road to improvement.”¹ Criticism without creative support may only increase bitterness and negativity. It leaves a sour taste. It’s a sign of self-centredness, and a lack of compassion and empathy.

But that, according to a head teacher quoted in a recent survey, is how we are training the next generation to live. “We train children to be successful, ruthless, greedy and selfish; our virtues are money, fame and looks. We do not reward kindness, do not value loyalty, do not care about courage.”² That’s vinegar. Here’s some honey.

Encouraged ministers

John Coleridge Paterson went as a missionary to Melanesia in the 19^th century. He planted churches and trained local people to be pastors and evangelists, becoming the first bishop of the area. He was killed when he was mistaken for a slave trader, or in revenge for slave trading. But the church continued, because his ministry of encouragement had prepared and equipped others to serve God.  

Maybe he took as his example the apostle Barnabas. His name means “son of encouragement” and he lived up to it. He was the first person to trust Saul of Tarsus after the future apostle’s dramatic conversion on the Damascus road. Barnabas took the renamed Paul under his wing and helped him to grow in his new faith (Acts 9:26-27; 11:25-26). We wouldn’t have Paul’s teaching today if it hadn’t been for Barnabas’s patient mentoring.

Barnabas also turned John Mark from a failure to a success. Mark was the young man who fled from the Garden of gethsemane when Jesus was arrested (Mark 14:51-52) – not an auspicious start. Later he joined Paul and Barnabas on a mission trip, but this proved too much for him as well and he went home (Acts 12:25, 13:13).

When Paul and Barnabas were setting out again, Barnabas wanted Mark to tag along. But Paul refused, and they split. Paul took Silas, and Barnabas went with Mark (Acts 15:36-41). We next hear of Mark near the end of Paul’s life, who tells Timothy, “Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is helpful to me in my ministry” (2 Timothy 4:11).

 

We don’t know what had happened in those intervening years. But clearly Barnabas’s patient encouragement turned Mark into a talented Christian who had something to offer Paul.

Spoon out the honey

So be generous with the honey and sparing with the vinegar! A few words of encouragement, a helping hand, some gentle guidance can do more than just sweeten someone’s day. It might have longer-term benefits too. In an age of austerity, the last thing we should be cutting is encouragement. It’s a source of growth and effectiveness.

Think and talk

1.  Read the story of Barnabas (references above) and try to imagine (or discuss) the scenarios. What sort of tensions would have been evident? What might other people have thought about him at the time, and how might he have coped with that?

2.  What practical advice about encouragement can you find in Isaiah 35:3-4; Romans 15:2; 1 Thessalonians 5:11; Hebrews 3:13, 10:25?

3.  What unchanging truths can we fall back on when we feel discouraged? See 2 Chronicles 32:6-7; 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17.

4.  Everywhere, there is pressure to perform, targets to reach. How can we help to inject some humanity and reasonableness into a world where people are often expected to behave like machines?   

References

1. Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings, Faber & Faber 1964, p.47
2. Quoted in the Sunday Times, 9 June 2013.

© Derek Williams 2013

Peel off those labels!

This photo taken at an open air arts festival is (for me) iconic. I’ve no idea who the women are, where they come from, how they earn a living. They’re just labelled “acrobats”. We hang labels on people, and the labels define how we regard them. Labelling someone can make us think we have them “taped”: that’s all we need to know about them.

But it isn’t. For example, I was never a great fan of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Whatever good she did in reforming structures seemed to be at the cost of individual and community welfare. She was labelled harsh and insensitive. However, recently I read her daughter Carol’s biography (see left). It revealed a softer side to the “Iron Lady”. Seeing someone through the eyes of a person who loved them illuminates their humanity in a way that our restricted view of their public actions or reported statements does not. Labels are at best partial and often misleading. They’re a cheap excuse for a lack of empathy.

 

Trolls prowling

Internet “trolls” spread fears and smears by attaching abusive labels to people. Professor Simon Wessely, an expert on chronic fatigue syndrome (ME), found a third of his patients recovered after both physical and psychiatric treatment. This drew the wrath of trolls.

“It’s constant stalking, harassment, attempts at intimidation,” he said. “I’m accused of calling ailing patients malingerers, neurotic cripples, of throwing boys into swimming pools, stealing things, plagiarising, misconduct, falsifying data, being in league with Pharma or the lackeys of insurance agencies…that everything I do is part of a vast conspiracy to deny the truth – all of which are grossly, professionally, defamatory.”¹

Debate on professional matters is a necessary part of life; truth in the scientific world needs rigorous testing. But abusive labels are a lazy substitute for thought, which achieve no more than making the abuser feel clever or superior.

Academic Joan Freeman found that children who were labelled as “gifted” by their parents were far more likely to have emotional problems than equally gifted children who were regarded like any other. She also found that the problems had their roots in troubled home backgrounds.² The labels, coupled with other pressures, were counter-productive.

Temperaments growing

Jesus used pejorative labels on three occasions. In a message to Herod he called the king “that fox” (Luke 13:32), that is sly, untrustworthy. He used the Jewish term for Gentiles (“dogs”, Matthew 15:21-28) in order to draw out a Gentile woman’s faith and show his critics that God loved her too. And he likened some critics to “whitewashed tombs” (Matthew 23:27f). In each case he was speaking directly to the people concerned, not making cheap judgements about people who couldn’t respond.

Jesus commanded that we shouldn’t judge others, which is what labels do (Matthew 7:1-5). He also warned against using terms of abuse (Matthew 5:21-22; raca is a term of angry contempt). James outlawed verbal abuse because all are made in God’s image (James 3:9-12). Labels reduce people to objects, and mask their unique personalities.

C.S. Lewis once asked why some Christians are labelled as less nice than some non-Christians. “God has allowed natural causes, working in a world spoiled by centuries of sin, to produce in [Christian] Miss Bates the narrow mind and jangled nerves which account for most of her nastiness. He intends, in his own good time, to set that part of her right.” Indeed, he says, the real question is whether she might be worse if she were not a Christian.³

None of us is perfect; all of us are slowly changing. So maybe we’d be happier if we stopped labelling and name calling, and began to look at people with empathy instead. When Bishop Wilson of Singapore was tortured in a POW camp in Japan in 1943 he coped by seeing his torturers “not as they were, but as they had been. Once they were little children, playing…and happy in their parents’ love…and it is hard to hate little children.”⁴ That’s one way of making a start. Here’s some more.

Think and talk

1.  Consider making some mental adjustments (perhaps discuss with others how to do them) such as:

·         Remember hatred uses more energy than love and damages you emotionally and spiritually; spare yourself the pain.
·         “To humiliate another person is to make him suffer an unnecessarily cruel fate” (Nelson Mandela).⁵ To be truly human, resist cruelty and maintain dignity.
·         Soccer players wear “respect” on their sleeves; think “respect” when you encounter or consider other people.
·         Kind words and actions can have unexpected results. When the princess kissed the frog, she didn’t turn into a frog; the frog became a prince.
·         Think of someone you despise, then listen to Jesus’ words: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” (John 8:7). How does that change your view of the person?

2.  Look up Luke 10:25-37. What attitudes towards others are we encouraged to adopt?

3.  What do you think God feels about the labels we give to people?

References

1.  Interview in The Times, 6 August 2011.
2.  Joan Freeman, Gifted lives, Routledge 2010, pp.10, 205f.
3.  C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Fontana Books 1955, pp.174-176.
4.  Quoted by Adrian Hastings, A history of English Christianity, Collins 1986, p.385f.
5.  Nelson Mandela, Long walk to freedom, Little, Brown and Company 1994, p.10

© Derek Williams 2013

Live and let live

Life is fragile: a newly-fledged great tit chick in my garden

Life is amazing, beautiful and tenacious. Buddleia sprouts from walls, foxes make dens on waste land. But life is also fragile. One estimate in January 2013 listed over 2,000 endangered species. Human life is fragile (and sometimes endangered) too.

We may be top of the food chain but violence, disease and self-centredness cause widespread physical and emotional suffering. Recently there were four highly-publicised murders of young people in the UK: April Jones (aged 5), Tia Sharp (12), Georgia Williams (17), Lee Rigby (25). Time, perhaps, to explore a Christian view of “life”.
 

Life is precious

All life owes its origin to God the creator and sustainer, whatever your view of how it’s developed over time. That’s not just claimed in Genesis 1; it’s in Psalm 104:24-30, Isaiah 42:5, Acts 17:24-28, and elsewhere, too.

They suggest that human life is unique because people “made in the image of God” (Genesis 1:26, 2:7) are able to seek and know God. Humans are also endowed with enhanced self-awareness and creative and communicative skills. We don’t just survive; we build culture. We’re so precious that God set his love on us and took human form in order to put us back on the path to fellowship with him and each other (Philippians 2:5-8).

Life is protected

Psalm 8:3-8 and 116:15 give people a higher status than animal life, but less than angelic life. Yet that doesn’t devalue animal life; common birds are still precious to God (Matthew 10:29-31). If we have anything precious, we care for it and look after it. The “creation mandate” of Genesis 1:28, 2:15 tells us to “nurture” not “exploit”; conservation and sustainability are ancient ideas recently re-discovered and not widely observed.

The unspoken answer to Cain’s rhetorical question “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9) is emphatically “yes”. People who care for others are commended and those who don’t are condemned (Matthew 25:31-46). We don’t have the right to rob another person of life. The imposition of the death penalty for murder in Old Testament times was a sign of the crime’s magnitude. In modern times, judicial execution has largely been abandoned (although there are still people on America’s “death row”): many people feel even that is a step too far.

Life depends on a mindset

For most people, killing someone is emotionally difficult. It’s often achieved by regarding victims as sub-human. US soldiers who went berserk in the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam “didn’t consider the Vietnamese human” ¹. Hutus who slaughtered Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994 saw their victims as cockroaches to be exterminated². And abusive US guards at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq said: “It was told to all of us, they’re nothing but dogs”³.

Murder begins in the mind. Jesus virtually equated hatred and anger with murder (Matthew 5:21,22). He was saying “as people think, so they are”. We may not hurt or kill a person, but our attitude further poisons that relationship, contaminates others, and is toxic to our own spirituality. Hating someone diminishes my ability to receive God’s love for myself and to reflect it in the world. It shrivels the soul.

That’s important to remember when we look down on the local gangs as “pondlife”, wish ill on a difficult neighbour or work colleague, or even feel pleased if something befalls them; “it serves them right”. But Jesus said “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you (Luke 6:27). Flowers or a card achieve more lasting good than private or public curses.

Hard as it seems to us, God loves the people we can’t stand. If I value life, I will cherish all human life, and not physically, mentally or verbally trash the people who irritate or annoy me. We’ll explore another aspect of this in my next article.

Think and talk

1.  Look up the biblical references above. List the things they suggest about the value of human life. Which of these do we most easily forget or ignore, and why?

2.  A basic biblical command is “love your neighbour as yourself” (Mark 12:31). Yet the world is full of conflict. What little things can we do to reduce tension and promote harmony?
3.  Jesus said God cares for the sparrows, but we’re more valuable than they are (Matthew10:29-31). How might caring for non-human life help us become more sensitive to other people’s fragility?
4.  Jesus also said he came to bring fullness of life to people (John 10:10), yet “religion” is often viewed negatively. What do you think he had in mind?

References

1.  Reported by Celina Dunlop in The archive hour, BBC Radio 4, 15 March 2008
2.  Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer effect, Rider 2009, p. 14.
3.  Ibid, p. 352.

Creating our own image

Is this a true image of a person?!

We all want to look our best. For some, that means investing in the latest fashion. But clothes don’t make the person; we also create an image to project the character we want others to see. Yet underneath, that’s rarely the true “me”.

Crafty deception

A minority of people craft an alter ego, a Jekyll and Hyde existence as two distinct persons. Anthony Blunt was one. He was a renowned art historian and worked with the Queen, but while a student he had been recruited as a Russian agent. His friend Victor (later Lord) Rothschild, an eminent zoologist, didn’t know that and recruited Blunt into the British security service (MI5) during World War II. Blunt duly passed on all he knew to his Russian handler.

Although Blunt confessed to his treachery in 1964, his double act wasn’t made public until 1979. People were astounded. Rothschild, who had described him as “a saint”, “found it almost impossible to believe”. A former MI5 secretary was more graphic. “My God, he was a charmer. We were all a bit in love with Anthony. It was exactly like being in an earthquake – or on a quicksand, I couldn’t believe it….I mean the whole world shook. It really shook for me.”¹

Mixing the palette

Few of us go that far. Driven by ambition or our perception of other people’s expectations, we’re more like the character in T.S.Eliot’s The Cocktail Party  who is

                        “…dressed for a party
            And going downstairs, with everything about you
            Arranged to support you in the role you have chosen.”²
We select our roles, our images, from a palette of options: how do I want to appear to this person or this group at this time?

Management guru Charles Handy did this in his younger years. Later, he reflected that “in trying to be someone else I neglected to concentrate on the person I could be….I was, in retrospect, hiding from myself, a slave to the system rather than its master. We find ourselves through what we do and through the long struggle of living with and for others.”³

A crumbling image

The images we create for ourselves often fail to fulfil their potential and sometimes fall apart. Handy saw the problem and sought to remedy it. By contrast diplomat Ted Mundy in John le Carré’s Absolute Friends became disoriented by the habit. “He no longer knows which parts of him are pretending. Perhaps all of him is. Perhaps he has never been anything but pretended man.”⁴ Into that scenario the New Testament offers both hope and advice.

The biblical perspective

God is not deceptive: “I the Lord speak the truth; I declare what is right” (Isaiah 45:19). In return, he expects us to demonstrate inner truth (not just external conformity, Psalm 51:6). Deception is almost natural to us (Jeremiah 17:9) yet contrary to all that God stands for (John 8:44; 2 John 7) so cannot be part of Christian lifestyle, 2 Corinthians 4:2. (The context here is personal life and ministry. Some security or diplomatic roles might require individuals to assume identities or be economical with truth. There may be exceptional grey areas in public ethics but that is not our concern here.)

Rather, we’re “made in the image of God” (Genesis 1:26), that is, with moral and spiritual consciousness and creative potential. We’re to allow the renewal and development of that image so that we more resemble, or reflect, the guileless character and attitudes of Jesus (1 Peter 2:22; Colossians 3:10). He returns us slowly to become the people we know we could and should be, better even than the surface image we put on every morning. It’s a cultural change, not a cosmetic one. 

Think and talk

1.  Why do we create images for ourselves? What are we afraid of, and what are we trying to achieve? What can we learn about this from the historical and literary quotes above?

2.  Read Colossians 3:5-17. Put in your own words the old and new “images” which are described here. Take time over this and consider all the implications for personal life and corporate relationships.  
3.  Some people work hard at projecting an image. Others don’t care what people think of them. How do we strike the balance between honest “what you see is what you get” and insensitivity?

References

1.  Christopher Andrew, The defence of the realm, Allen Lane 2009, pp.219, 270; B. Penrose and S. Freeman, Conspiracy of silence, Grafton Books 1986 p. 141.
2.  T.S. Eliot, Complete poems and plays, Faber & Faber 1969, p.362.
3.  Charles Handy, The hungry spirit, Arrow Books 1998, p.86f.
4.  John le Carré, Absolute Friends, Coronet Books 2004, p.198.

© Derek Williams 2013

 

Should we intervene in conflicts?

Russian guards in Moscow's Red Square

When someone is in trouble we’re faced with a dilemma: do we step in (and if so, how?) or refuse to get involved? The dilemma becomes harder when one party is powerful or violent, or when it’s clearly a case of “six of one and half a dozen of the other”. Western nations have a history of intervention in other countries’ conflicts, with mixed results. Civil war in Syria is currently raising the question at an international level.

Christians are often divided over such action. The New Testament is set in a conflict-ridden society and focuses mostly on personal conduct and church discipline. But it does suggest principles which have implications for wider situations, with a common thread: prevention.

Prevention of conflict

The New Testament knows nothing of the blame culture; it focuses on “us” not “them”. So we’re to “love our neighbour as ourselves” (Mark 12:31). Violence stems from self-centred desires for something (from a product to promotion) or to control people, property or resources (James 4:1-2). The first step in preventing violence is to eliminate selfishness from ourselves.

Peacemaking

Then we may be able to prevent a conflict escalating. We can “turn the other cheek” which implies forgiveness (Matthew 5:38-42) and “love our enemies” by doing good to them (Luke 6:27-33), neither repaying evil with evil nor taking revenge (Romans 12:17-19). If we do seek justice, it’s to be proportionate not punitive (only “an eye for an eye”, Exodus 21:24).

Jesus, Paul and James encouraged active peace-making (Matthew 5:9; Romans 14:19; James 3:18). When people fall out, Jesus says go and talk, if necessary with mediators (Matthew 5:23,24; 18:15-17). There’s a theological basis to this; “reconciliation” is at the heart of the Christian message (2 Corinthians 5:18-21). Having been reconciled to God, Christians are to be reconciling people.

This always demands patience and usually requires privacy. When former Finnish President Martti Ahitisaari was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008, hardly anyone knew that for 30 years he had brokered peace in numerous places including Namibia, Aceh, and Kosovo. The watching world demands progress reports but warring parties need to find face-saving solutions away from public glare. So do private individuals locked in conflict.

Victim support

While the process of conciliation is going on, people may be suffering. Throughout the Bible God shows himself sensitive to the cries of oppressed and vulnerable people, from the Israelite slaves in Egypt (Exodus 3:7) to the common people exploited by rich landowners in the 8^th century BC (Amos 5:7-24). Jesus commended the Good Samaritan who assisted a stricken Jew (Luke 10:25-37), and told of the positive spiritual effects of social service (Matthew 25:31-46). We can offer practical help through charities, and church leaders can raise public awareness and encourage political action through statements and letters.

Enforcement

Finally, there may come a time when further conflict can only be prevented by physical intervention. The New Testament recognises the authority of legitimate government to take decisive action against wrong doers (Romans 13:1-7). The “just war theory” gives Christians a yardstick to assess possible action. It requires that intervention should be a last resort; in defence of aggression; for limited ends; to restore peace; be proportional; and respectful of non-combatants.

However, there’s also a caveat. Why are we intervening in this situation and not that one? There are numerous conflicts at present, often unreported but all causing suffering: Sudan, Kenya, Mali, Congo, Somalia, Yemen, among others. We come back to the personal question: what really motivates my (or my country’s) actions? Discuss!

Think and talk

1.  Re-read the text and look up the Bible references. To what extent might your previous views need to be modified by them?

2.  You don’t love your enemy by killing him or exacting revenge. Loving enemies is counter-intuitive, but a mark of the radical new ethic of God’s Kingdom. Think of practical ways to apply this in personal and corporate conflict situations, real and imagined.

3.  Find out about organisations involved in conciliation. Try these to begin with: Fellowship of reconciliation, http://www.for.org.uk/; Concordis International, http://concordis-international.org/; Bridge Builders, http://www.bbministries.org.uk/. Aid charities such as World Vision (http://www.worldvision.org.uk/what-we-do/) and Christian Aid (http://www.christianaid.org.uk/whatwedo/) include advocacy as part of their work to relieve suffering.

© Derek Williams 2013

 

Whatever the weather

We blow hot and cold over the weather. When it’s fine we praise it; when it’s wild we curse it. When it delays our travel, disrupts our commerce and devastates our agriculture it’s “terrible”. We regard it as if it’s some toddler throwing tantrums, instead of what it is: a mysterious, powerful force before which we can only bow in submission, and adapt our personal and corporate lives to its ever-changing moods.

I try not to complain; weather happens, period. But the past few months of “unseasonal” rain and cold in the UK (and extreme weather elsewhere in the world) have tried everyone's patience. It’s made me ask what the Bible says about weather.

The answer is surprisingly little, given that the ancient world was even more dependent than we are on the regularity of the seasons for life-sustaining seedtime and harvest. What isn’t surprising is that Old Testament writers see an intimate relationship between weather and God. Job 37:1-18 is one of several poetic descriptions of the Creator’s elemental control.

It’s the exceptions rather than the rule which gust through its pages. They too point from the events to the God who engineered them. Exceptional rains precipitated the series of plagues in Egypt, one thing in the ecosystem leading to another (Exodus 4-12). Rain and wind triggered the conditions for the fleeing Israelites to cross the Red Sea and then inundate their pursuers (Exodus 13-14). Later, battles were won and lost when weather intervened (e.g. Joshua 10:11).

Frequently prophets thundered that exceptional weather was a warning or punishment from God for corporate misdemeanours (e.g. 1 Samuel 12:16-19). Elijah predicted a three-year drought as a punishment for national idolatry which was relieved after a temporary spiritual revival (1 Kings 17-18). Much later Haggai (1:10-11) saw drought as God’s punishment on self-obsessed people who had neglected to rebuild their Temple.

They couldn’t preach that in western societies today. Ancient Israel wasn’t a democracy or dictatorship; it was a theocracy. It had a unique covenantal relationship with God and everything from marriage laws to foreign affairs was determined by religion. The nearest governmental equivalent today is a Muslim state ruled entirely by Sharia law.

Jesus didn’t cloud the issue with such icy blasts. He and the apostles were hardly candidates for judgement, yet they were caught in a ferocious storm on Galilee (Mark 4:35-41). Paul was shipwrecked after a 14-day storm in the Mediterranean (Acts 27).

Instead Jesus shone a warm ray of hope on the world by declaring that God isn’t (and never was) capricious. “He sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous alike” (Matthew 5:45, echoed by Paul in Acts 14:17). He taught that tragedies are not “deserved” by their victims (Luke 13:4-5). And the early church responded to weather-related hardship not by deepening people’s depression but by pioneering emergency aid (Acts 11:27-30).
 
Of course, the law of cause and effect still holds true. There have always been climatic fluctuations. There was a long warmer-than-average period in the 10^th-14^th centuries and a “little ice age” in the 17^th century. But even if current climate change is partly “natural”, global warming has undoubtedly been accelerated by human mistreatment of the environment: pouring CO₂ into the atmosphere and removing nature’s cleansing agents from forests. Wild weather is tortured nature’s mouthpiece pleading for respite.

But if a butterfly in Brazil can set off air currents that trigger a hurricane in Haiti then little acts of environmental kindness and restraint in our back yards might yet reap a harvest of peace. Meanwhile we can learn to live with inclement weather when it rains on our party. It isn’t organised for our personal convenience. We can control the atom, but not the atmosphere. It’s awesome. It calls us to patience and flexibility.

Think and talk

1.  Read Job 37:1-18. List any good things you can think of about each kind of wild weather described. How might we learn to be thankful whatever the weather?

2.  Jane is praying for fine weather for her camping holiday. John is praying for sustained rain on his crops in the next field. What principles might guide our prayers about the weather?

3.  “Bad” weather plays havoc with our transport systems. How should we regard the people who struggle to maintain them?

4.  What “little acts of kindness” can you do in your “back yard” to care for the environment?

(c) Derek Williams 2013