andybastable.com

Ok, so this blog *might* be coming back to life - but that’s a big *might* - and this is all work in progress, k? Check back here if you are bored enough.

Blogging is a bit like evolution, only the strongest survive. Those without much to say just post more and more sporadically until you can’t really find any words to type anymore. Facebook probably hasn’t helped the situation - it helps busy people to share their thoughts in bite sized chunks; a bit like “eating thinly sliced slugs”:http://stevetilley.blogspot.com/2007/10/slugs.html.

So, I’ve decided to formerly put this blog to bed. Maybe sometime in the future I’ll have more to say. But for now I’m looking forward to being a dad and enjoying life’s little moments without feeling guilty at not writing about them for the world. Ok, so I never actually felt guilty - but you get the gist.

And the two people in the world who aren’t on facebook yet? Get your asses on there please. It’s only a collosal waste of time if you let it be - and it’s probably the best way to keep in touch with me whilst I’m in parenting-hermitude. Yes, it’s a word.

See you all soon. Andy

Just a quick post to let you know that Pip, my darling sister-in-law has written another article for the Times this week (even making it onto a box on the front-page too!). You can read it “here.”:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/features/article2208833.ece

Anyone who has half an eye on the media would have seen that the subject of “truth” has been in focus lately. It all started with Richard & Judy and the phone competition that (shock) asked people to phone in long after the winner had already been picked. This boiled over to GMTV and even (shock of all shocks) Blue Peter, who went that extra special step and paraded a studio guest as the winner of a competition that was not won.

But it wasn’t just competitions that came under scrutiny. An innocently “sexed up” clip of the Queen storming out of (or in to, as it was later revealed) a photo shoot begged the question about the duty that documentary makers have to represent “truth”. A Question Time interview was revealed to have been edited to show Gordon Brown becoming increasingly agitated with his interviewer, when in fact the sequence of events was reversed. An ITV documentary claimed to show a pivotal death scene in a heart-wrenching story of lives affected by Alzheimer’s only for it to later be revealed that the death happened a few days later than shown. Suddenly the question that Pontius Pilate asked when deciding Jesus’ fate has suddenly been on the typewriters of journalists everywhere; just what is truth?

Ok, so on one level this is an easy question to answer. In the case of documentaries “truth” is “what happened”. But it is an established scientific principle that can be extended to life in general that the very nature of observing something changes the outcome. Stick a camera into a situation and people will react to it. Politicians find media-friendly sound-bites and kiss babies - fame-hungry chavs cannot help but perform for the audience. Is that “truth”? Should we expect it to be so?

In the case of dying man in ITV’s Alzheimer’s docuflick was the truth of the matter the accuracy of the events, or rather our reaction to it? If the “truth” of the piece was that we should be emotionally moved by the plight of sufferers and their family - then that piece was “truer” on an emotional level than the piece would have been without the specific scene present.

The philosophical debates about what is truth are nothing new, of course; thinkers from the centuries have tried to explain what truth is and how it works. I am currently reading my way through a wonderful biography of Søren Kierkegaard, who has long been a hero of mine, and he was one of the first of the “modern” thinkers to challenge the thought that truth could be considered to be objective - that is universally true for everyone in all situations.

The idea that truth is objective has generally been a staple of the Christian message - so with the advent of “post-modern” thinking where universal truths are considered with skepticism - it is no surprise that our message has been lost somewhat. The prophetic question “what is truth?” has never been more relevant.

Another one of my philosophical heroes “Blaise Pascal” once suggested that people will believe whatever they “want” to believe - the trick (as it were), then is not to try and change their beliefs, but to _make them want something else to be true_.

Which is a real challenge for the church to grapple with. Is our message attractive? Do we portray it in a way which makes people *want* it to be true? Or do we instead wrap it in a casket of rules and regulations, with a mixture of exclusion for others (women, gays, foreigners - depending on your predisposition) thrown in for good measure?

“Ah yes”, the old skool believer says, “but our message offers eternal life, that’s something that is attractive!”. Well, yes, I suppose it is - but only if you believe that eternal life if possible. If you don’t then we are back at square one - see Pascal above. Does our message offer something real and experiential for the here and now? Well, too often not - and ironically the “truth” of our message can be lost because we are too cautiously protecting the minor things.

The “truth” of our message is one of freedom - freedom from the “Law” of religion and the social “isms” that bind us (consumerism, materialism, sexism, racism, classism etc…) - yet too often the rules that come with our “truth” indicate the opposite. Like a badly edited clip, we show the King walking out of, rather than into the reality of our lives.

What is truth? We would do well to ponder that question in our hearts.

Went to hear Tony Campolo speak the other day at a local “Leadership Lunch” (it’s nice to be thought of as a potential leader!) and he was stonkingly good.

The main thing he touched on was that consumerism is rampant in our society, just as much in the Church as anywhere else - and he described this as the #1 thing we need to address, particularly in light of the relative lack of comments from Jesus about the theological hotspots at the mo (women/gays/atonement) compared to our command to look after the poor and not to serve mammon (money/stuff). Powerful stuff.

Got me thinking though - because whilst B and I have definitely embarked on some soul-searching about this recently (not least because of the little one on the way) we still are relatively comfortable, and probably always will be.

I must confess there is a large chunk of me that wants to be radical, and would love to live on the edge, buying the bare minimum and making my own clothes and such - but the reality is somewhat different.

I have a mortgage - not a massive one, but one enough that will require me having to work to afford. We could sell the house and rent another, but rent, as any economist will tell you, is wasted money - and we are called to be good stewards - and anyway, to live in the community local to our church (important!) would cost us rent of a scale comparable to our mortgage.

We could sell all of our worldly possessions - but actually, our possessions are worth quite little. Our furniture, whilst it looks nice (mostly because we are quite tidy people - yes, me too) is on the cheap side of things - and most of the technology was either bought second (or third) hand or is many years old now. Ours isn’t a house of flashy bling ornaments and the latest gizmos.

And yet, I do hear of “radical” Christians who, in a pursuit of Jesus’ teaching, give up everything and live radically - in communal houses, and make their own clothes - eating only food that they have grown, that sort of thing. Monastic living is creeping back in and that’s a good thing, I guess. We all need to tread a little lighter on the world, and consume less, and anything that makes that happen is a good thing, no?

Well, whilst I find part of that attractive, and I really do, it also scares me, because it borders on the wacky. And wackiness, for me, is the enemy of being relevant to the people you are trying to reach. I just imagine the reaction of some of my non-Christian mates if I rocked up to work one day, wearing clothes that I’d made, and talking about the joys of “shared parenting” - and can’t help thinking that it would push them further away, rather than toward, the love of Christ. Is our message to the average person lost the more extreme and withdrawn from ’society’ we go?

I know that a radical approach can be attractive to some. Jesus didn’t mince his words with the rich young ruler (”go sell everything!”). But then, there are numerous examples of Jesus *not* telling people to sell everything. Mary & Martha had a house, and were excellent hosts to him, which one guesses they wouldn’t have been able to do without having some “stuff”.

But then, doesn’t me thinking “phew, I don’t have to sell everything” feel like a bit of a cop out? I don’t know. I don’t have the answers, I’m just throwing it out as a discussion starter.

So, any ideas? Should we be completely radical? Or is there a too radical-bordering-on-bonkers? Have your say…

Ok, this has got to stop.

It’s been over a month since my post about Spiritual Attack™, and things have got worse. Fair enough, our church has been going through a major rough patch, with lots of people (and relatives) very unwell, and I really don’t want to make light of the situation - because it is really hard at the moment, not least for the people right in the middle of it - but the “spiritual attack” line keeps popping up, and I’m still really uncomfortable with it.

Yesterday, from the front (in an unofficial capacity) we were informed that we should always “expect opposition [from the Devil] when we try to invite the Holy Spirit in to our community”. Really? Where does it say that in the Bible? In fact, where does it say anywhere what criteria the “rulers and authorities” have for applying “opposition” - and indeed what form that “opposition” may come in?

B hit the nail on the head yesterday when she pointed out that this kind of talk reinforces the incorrect assumption that life should be fine and dandy, and that if it isn’t, there must be a reason for it. But that’s not what the Bible says about life. We live in an imperfect world, and it’s hard, and it’s crappy - but that’s life. Sometimes good things happen to bad people, sometimes bad things happen to good people - but the rain falls on the good and evil alike.

I wouldn’t mind so much if this was presented as a theory, or a ‘feeling’ that someone has - but it’s always, always presented as fact. “We *are* in a time of Spiritual Attack”, “The Evil One *doesn’t like it* when…”, “We *should expect* opposition when…” etc. And the problem is that there are a whole bunch of people who are encouraged by the idea that we are on the right side of a bigger battle (which we are, just not in such explicit terms) and so the statements get repeated and repeated, and finally this conjecture gets uncritically repositioned as fact.

The same thing (in fact, from the same people, it seems) appears to happen when people get a picture or a vision, or a “word” from God. Rather than describing it as an idea or a feeling which _could_ be from God, it is instead declared to all who will listen as a defacto communication straight from the BigGuy™ to the brain of the would-be-prophet. Thus it becomes “The Lord has told me…”, “The Lord has given me a picture of…”, “The Lord has been teaching me recently…”, etc. I was even “lucky” enough to be a part of a service recently in which a time of prophesy from one herald was ended with the words “Thus sayeth the Lord.” Erm, shouldn’t that be up to us to judge if it is from the Lord or not?

I’m sure at this point, a few of my Charismatic readers (and I know there are a few) will be feeling rather defensive and will want to stick up for the spiritual gifts - and rightly so! I’m not knocking the reality of prophecy, or the edifying power it has for the Church - but what I will protest about is the deceit that promotes pictures/words/visions as unquestionable direct communications from on-high. No, we need a touch of reality about this, because otherwise it leads to good people who desire but don’t get “direct communication” from God feeling like somehow they are spiritual non-leaguers - nowhere near holy or spiritual enough to hear from God. I know, for I am that person, and heaven knows how close I have been throughout the years from walking away from my faith by the expectancy that this kind of event is “normal”.

So, people, let’s sort it out. Thus sayeth me. But who knows, maybe it’s the Lord too.

Just a quick one, this.

My sister-in-law: the ever talented Philippa, now has a snazzy website to showcase some of her work. If you’ve visited our house, you’ll know all about just how moving her artwork is - so it’s worth popping along to see some of her recent work, which really is amazing.

Check it out “here”:http://loadedbrush.me.uk.

For those who missed her newspaper article recently, “here’s a chance to read it again”:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/features/article643078.ece.

Plus, there is a book coming soon too. Watch this space.

This one has been bugging me for a while. Ok, we’ve all been there. We are in a church meeting where someone is updating us on how [insert generic Christian project] is going. Things aren’t going well. The project has been welll supported in prayer, but there are personality clashes in evidence, the OHP/Projector/Minibus/Coffee Machine/CD Player didn’t work, and now one of the original members of the project has a cat that is sick. It can only be one thing: Spiritual Attack.

The argument goes like this. Things aren’t going well, but we are doing the Lord’s work - therefore anything untoward that happens must be the work of the *EvilOne™*, because “he” can see the potential in what we are doing, and therefore must stop it at all costs - this, it seems, can best be achieved by generating friction amongst people, making pets/family members sick and introducing gremlins into electrical equipment.

Is it just me that has a low tolerance to this stuff? I’m not suggesting that there isn’t an “Evil One” but as this “easy-to-read article”:http://www.thirdway.org.uk/past/showpage.asp?page=3944 suggests, either we don’t need one, or we need one that is a damn sight more evil than the mischievous devil that we frequently assume he is.

I think the thing that annoys me most is that it completely overlooks the human responsibility of things. I’ve been involved in countless church services where the “technology” has failed because the person setting up the projector only left 20 minutes before the service started to get it working (normally only achieving this just as the service starts), and didn’t bother rehearsing thoroughly beforehand. Is that Satan? Well, only in so much as it’s normal human behaviour. To blame the hoofed-one for our lack of planning is hardly sporting though, is it?

And heck, don’t we all just get stressed in the run-up to something new, especially something inevitably birthed out of a shared passion that inevitably points in slightly different directions. Should we remain calm and composed? Of course. Is it Satan’s fault that we don’t? Nope, it’s us all being crap.

And people/pets get sick. Not because it’s a convenient way to ruffle one’s feathers - but because people get sick. If Satan seriously had the power to strike down people at will - don’t you think he’d aim a little bit closer to the people involved, rather than knock off people close to us? (Yes, theology students, Job was got at indirectly, but don’t get me started about that).

Maybe, just maybe, we use this spiritual warfare language because it makes us feel better about what we are trying to do. It makes us think we are a small part of a big war, and one that’s ultimately been won by God. Yay us! But the Bible doesn’t paint a picture of Satan wondering round trying to play pranks on us. It talks of real evil being part of the world, and us being a real reason why that is. We simply can’t put the same sort of Evil behind the gas chambers of the Holocaust, or the killing fields of Cambodia on the same level as a cheeky imp that mixes up the words for the OHP. We just can’t.

Turn from the Devil and he shall flee, says the Bible. Seeing him hiding in every minor annoyance does nothing to help our cause - it only trivialises the very Evil that’s present in the world - and the very Love that came to redeem the world from it.

It’s very easy to get overcome with annoyance at the way the world is at the moment. We have a massive rich/poor divide, illegal wars, religious (and secular) fundamentalism - and a kind of spiritual malaise and cynicism in the west which just isn’t healthy. But right now the thing that irritates me more than anything is the culture of ’spin’ that is so entrenched in our way of life.

Being able to see first-hand the demoralising effect of the NHS on it’s workers - and to hear daily of funding/management/bureaucracy issues leaves me in absolutely no doubt that the NHS is in a very, very, very bad state. What I want, more than anything, is to hear the government admit this — the first step to rectifying anything is to learn from past mistakes. But instead, we get the standard line from Patricia Hewitt and her many spokespeople - “there have never been more doctors and nurses, than there are at the moment” (the inference being that things are improving). The trouble is, that rather than being a statement that inspires confidence and trust - it’s rather obvious that it’s a statement of denial, meant to preserve reputation. It is true in the letter of the law, but not the spirit. It is a truth meant to deceive.

The growing discontent towards the war in Iraq is, I think, in large part, because we no longer trust the reasons we are there. We were taken to war because of the threat of “Weapons of Mass Destruction”. When these were not forthcoming, it became of a war of liberation, of regime change, of ‘freedom’. It was spun - and no misleading was ever admitted. It was, again, a truth meant to deceive.

And it’s not just politics. The England football team has been struggling with this of late too. After appointing a coach, who was, at best, 4th choice for the most important job in English football - we have been told that each insipid performance was “good” in “difficult conditions” and that everything is fine. The vitriol aimed at him after a lacklustre performance against Mediterranean part-timers, was in part because of his smug spin - we don’t want a coach who is blind to our weaknesses but someone who can rectify them.

Of course, a large reason for this culture of spin is the very aspect of our western lives that we are most proud of - our ‘free’ democracy. By allowing everyone to have a say in who we give power to, we open ourselves to the very potential of being misled. We elect people based on “how they seem” rather than what they actually do. If one guy tells us that he is brilliant, and another admits that he is not - it’s a fair bet as to who will win that election. It’s all rather depressing.

Our advertisements lie to us (and successfully too). Our celebrities and politicians live double lives, and the dominant truths of our western world are accepted uncritically because those who spin the image of our world rely on them. What price a freedom that ends up enslaving us, eh?

[Update] Seems like Charles Clarke “agrees”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2045112,00.html with me.

You’ll all be pleased to know that I’ve fixed some of the commenting woes some of you have been having recently.

In particular, forgetting to put in a valid e-mail address, or not ticking that pesky “Not Spam” button will no longer throw away your perfectly crafted comments, but will give you a chance to copy the text and try again. It’s all goooooooood.