Proud parent

Front page - send your friends!

Sorry - this is not very much about writing, but I was so excited about it, that I felt I just had to share it with anyone who I'm connected with.

We (that is, The Good Book Company that I work for) have just launched a new website designed to help people with questions about faith have them answered in a straightforward and simple way.

www.christianityexplored.org

Would love you to check it out, pass it on, blog it up, tweet it down, facebook it across, and generally big it over. It has been know for some people to actually speak to each other face to face about things as well - weird but true!

Be massively grateful for feedback, as the development of this site will be a long-term project for us.

Enjoy.

Creative writing

One interesting thing to share purely from a writing front about this was how we came up with the strapline. One Life. What's it all about?

We had a fair bit of "smoke filled room" time with the other creatives the editorial team here. Carl, Anne, Alison, Martin and me. We did some brainstorming (and yes - we are still allowed to call it that, despite the politically correct naysayers - see this link at the epilepsy society for confirmation). We filled sheets of post-its on the wall with ideas, drew mind maps etc. thinking about the questions people ask, and how that might connect with the Christianity Explored course, which is basically, a walk through the Gospel of Mark.

In the end (don't know who it was) Carl and I put together the two phrases that had been suggested separately and in different contexts, and realised that it perfectly described both ends of the equation. For the person asking their questions about life, it is a summary of what they may be feeling or thinking. But it also points to the One life of Jesus that is the focus of the course, and suggests that we can find the answer to our question, by discovering the meaning and significance of His life.

I know that all sounds like a terribly clever piece of copywriting by an able creative team. But, pretty much, it happened by accident (or through the providence of God if you see things that way - which, incidentally, I do).

But my writing process observation is this:

1. Don't panic: we know we needed something great, and soon. But putting ourselves under pressure would have strangled the process
2. Don't rush: We did some short sessions of idea generation, but then left it and came back to it repeatedly for more reflection over the space of 10 days.
3. Good things happen by accident: don't throw stuff away to quickly - it may take you a little time to see how brilliant it actually is!

The truth about fast food

nuff said

How heresy helps us

Rob Bell's latest book has been stirring the emotions of bloggers and commentators worldwide. Get a flavour for it here.

The explosion of words and emotions over Rob Bell's latest book remind me of other, past experiences with a similar flavour. Steve Chalke and the cosmic child abuser. The Shack and representations of God as a woman. And so on back to my time as a theological undergraduate when we were anxiously clutching copies of The Myth of God Incarnate, and arguing intently in corners of the common room.

And, of course, the story repeats itself back through Christian history, right into the pages of the New Testament as Paul argues passionately with the Corrupt Corninthians, and false teachers of all kinds get a lambasting from Peter and the Lord Jesus himself.

Our greatest fear is that popular, articulate teachers who have a big following after establishing their  will lead the weak and vulnerable astray into "another gospel" that has no power to change or sustain.

But there is a good side to heresy. Many will default to lining up behind their own Christian guru, and declaring Bell "offside" without engaging with his writing themselves. But others, we hope will take the opportunity to step back and think again about this important foundational doctrine. 

It is true that an unexamined faith is no faith at all. And many of us cruise through our Christian lives never really questioning large parts of the doctrine that we have received from those who taught us. And because they are unquestioned and unexamined, they bound to be held less passionately.

And Hell is a good case in point. If it is really true that our friends, family, work colleagues and neighbours face an eternity of torment without Christ, and we really believed it, we would walk over broken glass to bring the gospel to them, and them to the gospel.

But the fact that our evangelism is so sloppy and irregular, and our prayers for them so half-hearted shows that we do not really believe it at all.

The controversies of the early church gave us the creeds. The controversies of the reformation gave us back the right of private interpretation. Maybe this controversy over hell will make some of us go back to our Bibles, and start to really believe what we read there.

"Threes" in storytelling

Continuing to pick away at Christopher Booker's monumental work on storytelling: The seven basic plots.
His chapter on The Rule of three is particularly revealing. He outlines four (!) ways that threes are used in archetypal storytelling:

1. Cumulative three: each of the elements has the same value - all three have to be brought together in order for the plan to work. eg: the three treasure caves that Aladdin must go through before he gets to the lamp.
2. Ascending (or descending) three: where each is of more value (or more dangerous) than the last. This is a natural progression that leads to a climax. eg: Little Red Riding Hood's three questions: what big eyes, what big ears, what big teeth, or the three little pigs.
3. Contrasting three: where two of the three are there to give counterpoint to character or gifts of the third. eg: two ugly sisters are the contrast to Cinderella.
4. Dialectical three: This is the most sophisticated, where the first two are wrong or flawed for different reasons, before the best, or middle way is found in the third. eg: Goldilocks - the bears' porridge, chairs and beds, where two are tried and found faulty for different reasons, before the third is found that is just right.

This threeness finds its expression not just in story devices, and character interplay, but also in terms of the whole action of the plot.

Wetting the baby's head

Baptism has been in the news this week, as various parties have called for, or denounced, the revision and updating of the wording of the liturgy so that "it makes more sense to those taking part."

The birth of a baby is such a momentous occasion, we feel compelled to mark it socially, spiritually, formally in some way. After church one evening, I remember talking to a wild-eyed guy, who, on a moment's whim, had just rolled into the building after witnessing the birth of his first child. He was bursting with gratitude and a sense of amazement, and in an unfocussed way, simply wanted to express it somehow, somewhere, to someone.

 

The phrase in the headline refers to the similar, but arguably less noble, practice of new dad getting together with his mates for a night on the lash to celebrate his newfound status as Father.

The Church of England still baptises some 139,000 babies a year , and one suspects that many of these parents are there not because they are committed to the covenant view of inclusive salvation within the family for those who are not yet of age to decide for themselves (or indeed any other theoligcally relevant position for paedobaptism), but because they want to mark the birth in some formal way - and baptism is what you do. You get your kid "done".

Doesn't harm your chances of getting into a superior-performance church school either.


But the debate this week has been about the theological language that is wrapped around the rites for Baptism within the churches liturgy. It is just too complex, and does not connect in any meaningful way. This is undoubtedly true for the many who present for baptism who are "church outsiders", but I suspect that the meaning and relevance are also pretty opaque for the majority of insiders as well.

It's the godparents who suffer most, however.

Often chosen to cement or honour a family connection, rather than their spiritual qualities, the Godparents are a sight to behold. The stand, embarrassed and shell shocked at being at the front of a church, mumbling the responses, or staring wide-eyed in horror at them, as they read them for the first time in front of their friends and family. It's a hilarious and sad sight.
It's just that they are so very definite!

Do you trust in Christ?
Thinks: I don't know what that means, and I haven't thought about Jesus since my last RE lesson when I was 15.

Do you repent of your sins?

Thinks: Not really - "sins" is not a category that I like to think in

Do you renounce the devil and all his works?
Thinks: I remember this bit from The Godfather. He says this and lots of people die. Better keep quiet.

When I spoke about this to an old minister friend, he said that he found this particularly difficult. He is asking questions of people he deeply suspects are giving ingenuous answers. His answer? "I just keep my distance from them as they answer, so that I won't get hit with the lightning strike."

And here is the heart of the problem. People want the rite of passage, and potentially it is the greatest evangelistic opportunity the church has. But it is a largely untakable opportunity.  They want their child "done", but by and large they do not want to prepare or train themselves for it, or to understand what it is they are doing, according to the words of the liturgy. And rarely do the Godparents have the opportunity to attend a meeting, or series of meetings where they will have it explained to them.

Tinkering with the wording may do something to clarify things - but it will not address the real problem, or create any greater opportunity for helping people to genuine faith.

When is a Cynic not a cynic?

Been reading a patchy book about ancient philosophy called The book of dead philosophers by Simon Critchley. It's a bit of a miscellany of stories about philosophers strung together with the question of their attitude to death, and their experience of it.

What struck me most was the way that names have so significantly changed. Stoics, for example, would happily blubber and shreik if they stubbed their toes in the shower, and you would be unlikely to find an epicurean with rows of fine herbes in their kitchen cabinet. But the bigger surprise was to discover the Cynics were not in the least bit cynical.

The Cynic philosophy originating in classical Greece essential holds that the purpose of life was to live a happy life of virtue in agreement with nature. This meant rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, health, and fame, and by living a simple life free from all possessions.

Its most famous exponent was called Diogenes, who lived, naked, in a barrel in the marketplace, masturbated in public, and ate raw squid.

By contrast, modern cynicism is marked by a tendency to decry any noble motivation in how people live, preferring to reduce any character trait, organisation, political movement or idea to some base, or selfish motivation. Scepticism is often scornful and pessimistic; and emotionally jaded and filled with negativity. Not what you want to encourage in your kids.

another cinquain

Been holed up for the last few days with a horrid cold. Thought I'd celebrate my return to consciousness with these attempts at some more cinquains (see my first here):

cold cough

head thump life drain.

Ask facebook for advice.

hocus pocus mucus circus

replies

swim hard

vomit water

olbas oil on jim jams

cider vinegar once a day

or wait

zest gone

detest puking

never worn jim jams

vinegar tried face screwed tight, so

I wait

25 Rules of journalism

Great post on the Guardian blog of science writer Tim Radford on how to be a great Journalist.

http://ht.ly/3O4a6

Among my favourites are:

1. The reader is the most important person in your world. You are working for them
2. The next sentence you write is the most important in your life. You may feel obliged to write, but no reader is obliged to read
3. No one will ever complain that you have made something too easy to understand.
4. The classic error in journalism is to overestimate what the reader knows and underestimate the reader's intelligence.
5. Don't even start writing till you have decided what the one big thing is going to be, and then say it to yourself in just one sentence.
6.  Words like shallow, facile, glib and slick are not insults to a journalist. The whole point of paying for a newspaper is that you want information that slides down easily and quickly, without footnotes, obscure references and footnotes to footnotes.
7. Clichés are, in the newspaper classic instruction, to be avoided like the plague. Except when they are the right cliché. 
8. Remember that people will always respond to something close to them. Concerned citizens of south London should care more about economic reform in Surinam than about Millwall's fate on Saturday, but mostly they don't. Accept it.

CHICKEN AND EGG

Brilliant quote from G K Chesterton's book What is wrong with the World? which gives a new perspective on the old question. I've rewritten the quaint English for modern readers...

Evolutionary materialists paint for us a vision that all things come from an egg - which somehow laid itself by accident. The Supernatural school thinks that this world of ours is an egg brooded over by a sacred unbegotten mother hen. And this egg exists to become something more... 

How to have happy children

A recent study by the UK Department of Education here has discovered the top ten factors in having happy children. Some surprises, but a lot of great encouragement for parents. Here's the list:

1. Being able to talk to parents when worried. 

2. Having one or more good friends. 

3. Not being bullied. 

4. Not often feeling worried about parents or family. 

5. Often sitting down to have a meal with people at home. 

6. Being able to talk to friends when worried. 

7. Not often feeling worried about the way they look. 

8. Being a boy. 

9. Being pre-teenage. 

10. Eating fruit and vegetables.

So worth persevering with family meal times, keeping the lines of communication open and bigging up the brocolli. But you might also check out Luke 6 v 20-23 for some challenging thoughts on how your children will be truly happy...

Losing your way

A Mystery: Why  Can't We Walk Straight? from NPR on Vimeo.



Cracking video that is just crying out to be used as an illustration for something.

Suggestions?

Life's a bitch

Today is officially "Blue Monday" -- the most depressing day of the year. The nights are long, Christmas is gone, the weather is rubbish (in the northern latitudes of the UK at least), and we dare not open the credit card statement that has just dropped through the letterbox for fear of what it may contain.

Oh, and it's raining.

But Christians should feel different, surely. Don't we have an enormous amount to be thankful for? Aren't we the ones who are blessed, even though we are poor, mourning, weeping and persecuted? Don't we believe that life is a beach, rather than the other?

Yeah but… no but…

Surely there's a middle path to walk here. Not the grim depression of living in a world and a body that is dying and hopelessly fallen; nor the glib "happy clappy" optimism of those who think the only reason a dark cloud appears is so that a silver lining can drop on our heads. But the way that knows I am both incredibly sinful, but amazingly loved; that weeps over the pain and futility of life, but trusts in the wisdom and power of our sovereign God; whose moods have grey days and sunny days, but who has a joy in God that distrusts the false optimism or pessimism of them both.

cinquains

Youngest has come home with a project to write a Cinquain. First I'd heard of this form, but thought I'd start to flex my writing muscle on it. Discovered here that it was invented by Adelaide Crapsey. Thought hard about what joke to write there, but couldn't come up with anything remotely original.

Dear Adelaide created this form of syllables: its 2-4-6-8-2:

Youngest

making cinquain

chews pen, furrows brow, looks lost

but then words flow and she smiles wide

proud dad

Lines upon the death of a rodent

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Linked in

Don't want to disappoint anyone who links back from The Good Book Company website (it's new, it's wonderful, it's here!) I'll mostly be posting my unedited versions of the the blog pieces that appear in The Good Book Blog here - so it might get slightly repetitive.

Although, you will also get to see the dark and curious inner workings of my mind on other subjects like the books I'm reading and the stuff I am trying to write when I'm not at work.

Greet the Goblin!

As we sat around with Friends on New Year's Eve, we tried to invent a new global tradition. After all, we have a Santa who leaves presents, a tooth fairy that exchanges worn out molars for money and an Easter Bunny that dispenses chocolate for no discernable reason - why not a Resolution Goblin that sneaks into your room on New Year's Eve and leaves suggestions for how you can improve yourself in the coming year? 

We all started writing things on slips and sneaking off to, ahem, give them to the Goblin, who duly settled them under the relevant pillows. Of course, no-one could wait til the morning, so we had a great time reading out the suggestions and guessing who they came from. 

So if all goes according to plan, this time next year I'll be two-stone lighter, more generous to my children, actually finish some of the writing projects I start or dream about, be fantastically wealthy and have cleaned out both the shed and the under-stairs cupboard. 

Of course, this will be all achievable when my three daughters magically transform into homework doing, tidy, respectful, vivacious and delightful human beings, who never, ever, ever throw temper tantrums. My lovely lady wife, is, of course, already perfect, so that rustling sound is the Goblin sweetly sliding past her without disturbing her downy headrest.

Check back next January for an update on this miracle transformation...