The Deed and the Doer

On a T-shirt, a rainbow, and a play on a sacred word, there is offence enough to summon a mob. 

Yet before we take up arms for our gods, we might ask whether Western Christianity would truly accept an Arabic Christ, and whether we have the sense of the old cow, who eats the hay and leaves the baling wire.

This is a reflection on symbolism, belief, and the fine but firm line between the deed and the doer.

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An AI-generated infographic on the blog content. (Click to enlarge.)

Where Offence Begins

Religious symbolism, individual perceptions, and beliefs provide many opportunities to take offence. This became the core of a conversation in which I was invited to comment on someone wearing a T-shirt depicting a religious personality, with a play on one of the final words of supplication or veneration, all set in the context of human sexuality.

At first glance, there are so many things capable of causing offence, ranging across a spectrum from the merely unfunny, through the disrespectful and the sacrilegious, to outright blasphemy.

Each could attract anything from a simple flinch to an outrage that seeks out a mob for retribution, all in response to this perceived denigration of symbols and language. Such reactions often arise in the quest for an expansionist embrace of all things represented in our humanity; a sometimes-worthy goal, though one that needs wisdom in its deployment.

I will not dwell on the particulars of the item itself, for my concern is not the object but the impulse it stirs in us; the principle interests me far more than the personality behind it.

Confrontation and Its Limits

I would suggest that the confrontational approach sets people up against one another. It might well be a way of challenging norms, yet it is rarely the means by which one wins converts.

In terms of religious figures who walked the earth more than a millennium ago, it is quite unlikely that anyone truly knows what they looked like. The pictures we see of them today are figments of human imagination and artistry, quite awesome and commendable, but not real. For those who claim to have had visions or apparitions, my view is that revelation is only presented to the limit of one's capacity to perceive.

Depictions and Idolatry

Depictions might offer a sensual connection to the unseen, but they do not replace it; to think otherwise opens one's appreciation to a form of idolatry. Then again, depictions can be instructive or misleading. 

For instance, the European masters have in many cases depicted Jesus Christ as Caucasian, with northern Scandinavian features, when, by reason of history and region, He would most likely have looked Arabic. Such features would not have made Him seem alien, nor His parents, when they sojourned in Egypt at the time Herod massacred every boy-child in Judea under the age of two.

The question then becomes this: would Western Christianity have been amenable to an Arabic, Black, or Asian Jesus Christ? Now, that is to court controversy, meddling with images and depictions preconceived to accentuate belief, yet upended by reasonable supposition.

The Lesson of Gideon

I am reminded of the story of Gideon in the Bible, who one night destroyed the idols of his community, so that they rose up to put him to death. His father was able to convince them to let the offended gods avenge themselves.

We should be careful of emasculating our deities by offering to fight for them as though they were utterly powerless, because the deeper issue is this: if a god cannot fight for himself when slighted, what is the power we believe he possesses? Gideon came to be known as Jerubbaal.

Belief and Fellowship

We all believe differently, to the extent of our own persuasion, and we do let the beliefs of others influence us, hopefully to buttress what we know rather than to pull apart and pull down our creeds. At worst, those who choose to meddle with the elements of our foundational beliefs put themselves at risk of forsaking our fellowship, communion, and friendship.

They might be misguided, but it is impossible to read motivation or intent from afar; we are left with our conscience to decide. One may hold an act to be unwise, even unnecessary, without presuming to indict the one who acts; the deed and the doer are not the same thing.

Perhaps I feel quite unperturbed because, in the admonition of one preacher, I have as much sense as an old cow: I eat the hay and leave the baling wire. The beliefs we hold are like seeds sown, which will grow in the ways we allow, for the ground of our hearts tends the seed to be fruitful, affected by heat, thorns, or weeds, for it is in these very things that offence reveals itself.

Keeping Offence in Perspective

Yes, we do get offended, but we must limit the impact to two things. First, the offender acts in a foolishness that does not engender the best of our humanity. Secondly, for all the offender does, I do not attach myself so closely to any man that I cannot cut loose when he is falling into the ditch.

The offender might be worthy of rebuke, and in extreme situations they might find themselves in receipt of mob violence. Even where the latter could be justified, I would not subscribe to it. We are allowed to deviate in how we believe, and to break away if no compromise can be found.

At the intersection of symbolism, language, depictions, and beliefs, the apparent offence of any one thing is kept in perspective. Another's journey, leading to redemption or perdition, is theirs alone; I refuse to follow in folly.

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

How I do religion

Religion saves me

I was asked the other day whether I had taken religion. Because I do not wear it on my sleeve, people might wonder why some of my views carry religious undertones. I have always been religious or spiritual, even when things have lapsed.

Religion is foundational to my existence and wellbeing. I owe everything to the grace, mercy, and love of God, even as I usually stumble in the walk of faith, because the concepts of Christianity and the workings of it that I believe in are much deeper than I give expression to.

Whilst my devotion in terms of church-going is Anglican, my beliefs lie at the evangelical and Pentecostal end of things, where I find a personal trail of conservative liberalism: an entertaining of the human perspective of biblical experiences that inform the wonder we see in lives.

How I think

Like Abraham, who left Ur of the Chaldees with at least seven generations of ancestors still alive, he heard from God, and I am sure he had to convince many people of that fact before he could leave.

Also, why have all angels, with their observation of human beings, not learnt to knock on doors instead of just appearing and comforting those they encounter with "Fear not!"?

However, this is no place for an exegesis. I have experienced different perspectives of religion (good, bad, strange, and just baffling) all from around the age of three. I am always excited by Bible study; there is never just a single story in what is read. Thank you.

The Slave Bible

A grandiose title

“Select Parts of the Holy Bible for the use of the Negro Slaves in the British West-India Islands”, otherwise known as the Slave Bible, a heavily redacted version of the bible that removed about 90% of the Old Testament and 10% of the New Testament. [Wikipedia: Slave Bible]

It emphasised every need for the slave to know their place and removed references that gave any sense of emancipation or freedom to the slave reader. Imagine a book purporting to be a Christian bible without the Exodus story or the Psalms commissioned in the early nineteenth century by the Anglican Bishop of London, in the same year of the enactment of the Slave Trade Act of 1807 for the abolition of slavery.

I learnt of this malevolent piece of evil propaganda masquerading as religious text, reading the first chapter of the book we are sharing for Lenten studies in the Church of England this year. Wild Bright Hope: Reflections on Faith - The Big Church Read Lent Book 2025 has twelve voices and perspectives on hope, life, experiences and what a revelation the first two chapters were. [The Big Church Read]

It was very profitable

I realised how the transatlantic slave trade thrived visiting The Maritime Museum – Het Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam, over twenty years ago. I saw the profit ledger, a human cargo of slaves with the loss of 10% after accounting for all costs, including the ship and voyage, yielded stupendous profits, and that was the value slave owners placed on acquiring cheap or free labour.

Even after multiple visits to the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool (currently closed for renovation), I was not as moved as that other experience in Amsterdam. I have heard stories about how an interpretation and version of Christianity promoted, validated, and justified slavery, it was the bedrock of belief systems espoused by the American South acquiescing to man’s inhumanity to man.

Changing the Christian perspective

What I did not expect to find in my appreciation of slavery was a “Slave Bible”, and you can never know if other versions of this abridged work of the devil did not exist to keep the slave a slave and the slave master as a god.

What was perpetrated in the name of Christianity is unmentionable and you can only wonder what bible the missionaries gave in exchange for land and resources to the natives in the new world to the Europeans, from the sixteenth century onwards.

It would seem the Christian narrative of those times was to serve European commerce rather than God, a consummate love of money being the root of all evil, including the trading in slaves.

This is one striking question asked by a thirteen-year-old, “What do you do when your saviour and oppressor have the same face?” That gives pause for reflection, the depictions of Jesus are rarely of typical middle eastern features, you will think Jesus was Scandinavian from some artist’s impressions, long flowing blonde hair with blue eyes and much else that has seeded our imaginations of who the son of God is.

Acknowledgement is progress

Yet, I rarely think of Jesus Christ in terms of what he looks like, as no one knows, apart from having participated in our humanity and human race over two millennia ago. His presence confirmed by the new birth and the Holy Spirit given to dwell in us and be our helper, brings us to the inclusive sonship of God the Father and a recognition of such great grace that no man can offer.

Indeed, we study and understand history just as we should know who we follow and believe. The Gospel of Jesus Christ sets us free, any other gospel besides that left men in bondage and chains, physically, mentally, and spiritually. However, I want to believe even through the darkness of a rotten slave bible, some light shone on those who received Christianity with purity of heart, prayers would have been heard, though some might have taken much longer to be answered.

Certain Christian denominations need to acknowledge fully the parts they played in slavery and the slave trade; this should be documented for the historical record.

This is not to impute guilt or culpability, but to advance the knowledge of the truth and the positive changes to our common respect for each other’s humanity, as we strive to make the world a better place, and espouse more the human rights to dignity, life, and freedom.

Let us acknowledge the harm, and work to heal.

Please read: The Slave Bible - A Closer Look

An Audacious Anglican

The common allegiance

I was reading an article yesterday about the Anglican Church, someone who had left her for the Catholic Church and now had the advantage of looking in from the outside.

There is an excerpt from the article that best describes the Anglican Church along with other issues that did not particularly concern me.

The good things I could see included the universal parish system; an educated clergy, significant numbers of whom were good theologians; the patrimony of cathedrals and churches; the Bible the Church had so beautifully translated for itself four centuries ago; the liturgy and formularies it had developed; the accompanying musical and choral traditions; and the fact that the dead so often lie in churchyards rather than cemeteries, making the ground, as Philip Larkin put it, a place “proper to grow wise in”.

I also liked the Establishment settlement, so long as that idea is not pushed too hard – the fact that every monarch is Supreme Governor of the Church of England, that Anglican bishops sit of right in the House of Lords, that the Armed Forces, though providing for most faiths, take their spiritual lead from Anglicanism, that most church schools are Anglican, and so on. [The Telegraph: The Church of England no longer seems to understand our common Anglican tradition]

The open church

From the excerpt above, two things jump out to make a significant point, the fact that every monarch is the supreme governor of the Church of England and the much-revered 1611 English translation of the Bible authorised by James IV of Scotland and I of England commonly known as the King James Version was done in the care of the Church of England.

Then, despite the doctrinal issues on women bishops and gay marriage which is more a matter of disagreement in the global Anglican Communion, the entity of England has a more collegiate and open forum for engagement where difference of opinion is accommodated and tolerated than brought to point of irreconcilable confrontation.

Blog: Expecting high drama on the Mount of Olives (June 2008)

Blog: Satan's hand in human stupidity as church splits (July 2008)

Blog: There Will Be No Epiphany (December 2019)

My observation of the Establishment settlement allows the church and its parish clergy to open the doors to all and welcome people of all faiths with a sense of serving the community regardless of what they believe. In civic and state ceremonies, whilst the leading liturgy is Anglican, all faiths are represented in presence and voice. It is a different construct in comparison to any other denomination with the requirements to participate.

A rich Christianity

As I have written before, returning to my Anglican faith has given me a great sense of belonging and bolstered of faith. However, I have been schooled in many aspects of Christian belief that ranges well into the charismatic, Evangelical and Pentecostal statements of faith, as the inerrant and revealed Word of God, the humanity and deity of Jesus Christ, the acceptance of the lordship of Jesus Christ for salvation, the infilling of the Holy Spirit with the manifestation of glossolalia, and the second return of the Christ.

This means, that rather than dispense with all the benefits that have accrued in my Christian walk, I have embraced them all and developed them earnestly to live a more fulfilled life.

Recently, I came upon the idea of attending my regular Anglican services at the Manchester Cathedral in the mornings and seeking out a Pentecostal church to attend in the evenings. I did a few evening services at the Christ Church Manchester in Fallowfield which is ensconced within a student conurbation south of Manchester, about 45 minutes’ walk from my place.

Revisiting the experience

However, given that I had once considered the possibility of making !Audacious Church my church over 9 years ago, I eventually found it a bit on the avant-garde as I reviewed it then after a few services I eased myself out of that fellowship.

Blog: !Audacious Church, Manchester (March 2014)

Blog: In a brotherhood we stand at !Audacious Church (April 2014)

Yet, we evolve and in the process, many things come up for reconsideration and reassessment, in terms of belief and comfortableness in devotion. It informed my decision to revisit !Audacious Church earlier this evening in the quest for a kindling and energy I would not find my regular church. This is not to say that I am not amazingly blessed where I am, but there could be some exhilaration from driving a different car to the same destination, a place of personal affirmation of faith.

It is likely that I would choose a range of churches in which to have the Pentecostal experience in the evenings whilst maintaining my relationship with my regular church. It is the same idea Brian and I hope to carry on in Cape Town where we normally attend St George’s Cathedral in the morning and might choose Hillsong Church for our Pentecostal experience.

Many of the faces fronting the mainly praise and worship service with shared communion at !Audacious Church has changed, but the rock concert atmosphere prevailed along with the energy and presence. The congregation was chiefly youth with some that did not make me look out of place. I thoroughly enjoyed the meeting as long as I did not exert myself beyond the age-appropriate exhibitions of vim and verve.

I guess I am in the daring circus act of riding two horses and at once.

Cobbling Gucci for angels

Abandon the orthodoxy

The way conversations develop spanning anything from the serious to the trivial whilst being downright absurd with searing truth is quite fascinating to participate in and watch.

The constant protests one does field about people saying they are not divas and they do protest much. Then, as if to take advantage of our warped perceptions, one might even say they are an angel, as if that is associated with gentility, coolness, and immediate acceptance.

Yet, nothing could be further from the truth, the sudden appearance of an other being, gleaming with light in your crowded space, startling you as you are gripped with fear. The angelic being, unperturbed then says, ‘Peace be unto you, be not afraid’ as one has read from many a biblical passage.

Diva is all you see

An entrance that grand that you are startled by star or stardom with the immediate calming demeanour to put you at ease is everything you should expect of a diva. I conclude that angels are divas and that is end of the argument.

If you cared to look at the feet, if the devil wears Prada, do angels wear Gucci? Just asking for a friend, such information might come in useful when looking for hellish or heavenly footwear.

RSS Mischief V - The gods with no balls

Mayflower, our nemesis

Traditional school rivalries are inbred, there is rarely an alternative frame of reference that the negative ones so easily begin to define you. Up the road from our Methodist roots Remo Secondary School (RSS) was the humanist strong Mayflower School, Ikenne.

The competition for entry into Mayflower School was stiff that some who attended primary boarding school there did not make the cut and defaulted to RSS.

We seemed to always play the second fiddle to them, in academics and quite evidently in football games. I never knew of a time that we ever beat them, no matter how we tried and that called for extraordinary measures not predicated on our Methodist provenance or the motto of our school, For God and Fatherland.

Pleading to clueless gods

Apparently, the gods, animist, fetish and dreadful had the answer to the nagging big question: How do we defeat Mayflower School at football?

We were woken up by seniors who had consulted oracles and shamans at 1:00 AM and coerced at the threat of violence and severe punishment to contribute funds to procure kurubé (fetish) services of a medicine man to gain advantage of Mayflower School at our next scheduled match.

Why this urgent need could not wait until during the day escaped me, nor did I believe there was any way we could beat Mayflower School without both the luck and the skill, and I was just annoyed that someone was ready to take money from gullible and impressionable students promising something to us that was too farfetched and unreal. Besides, what is to say Mayflower School had not procured similar services and so cancelling the presumed advantage we had purchased?

Snitching for justice

All that together in my mind fired the sense of injustice that led to my writing an anonymous letter about this nonsense and dropping it in the front car seat of the vice principal’s car. They no doubt took it seriously because the principal talked about it the next morning at the school assembly and put out a notice for whoever wrote the letter to come forward without fear of exposure.

Thinking long about it, I visited the principal the next afternoon about the matter, he assured me nothing like this would happen again and the seniors involved will be told off. Then he gave me 5 Naira and send me on my way. For the rest of my time at school, we were no more harassed for fetish seeking contributions and we still lost to Mayflower School anytime we met at the game of football.

Blog - RSS Mischief I - Yikes! A snake

Blog - RSS Mischief II - The fundamentals of fluid mechanics

Blog - RSS Mischief III - Swimming like crabs

Blog - RSS Mischief IV - Post the pots

On the faith of my fathers

Of mixed religious heritage

Something excites me about the notion of the return to the faith of my fathers even though fathers in the plural would hardly be the word to use with regards to generational providence as my grandfathers were quite interesting and radically independent persons.

My paternal grandfather was Muslim, and that heritage goes down the line as many of his relations from the town he originated from were mainly Muslim. Of my maternal grandfather who predeceased my birth by almost 5 years I have only recently been learning of, he was essentially Christian, literate, royal, and an anglophile that he was more commonly known by his very English nickname.

Impactful influences

Then my paternal grandfather married my Christian grandmother and together they had children split down the middle as Christian and Muslim; with my father, the first choosing to be Christian, my uncle, the other male of his siblings was a lifelong Muslim.

I think my great-grandmother’s family on my paternal grandmother’s side probably had an overbearing influence on my father’s childhood and development, she, my great-grandmother and her brother, my great-uncle seemed to have decided together my father will be educated in Western ways to the extent they were able to sponsor and encourage.

Each to their beliefs

In any case, having made the rounds of many Christian denominations and beliefs, I have settled into the Anglican faith of my childhood, at least, for some time, it was where my parents seemed to have some agreement and put up an appearance even if they were eventually persuaded of other things.

Upon review, it appears a majority of the grandchildren have adopted the Christian faith apart from what their parents believed and have chosen names that no longer belie their original Muslim allegiance, I am left literally not recognising who they are now.

A grandfather’s example

It goes to show that each person in their individuality would determine what belief system they would follow, the kind of purposeful individuality that set my paternal grandfather as probably the most moderate Muslim I have ever known because he was amazingly pragmatic and deferential to the choices others made without imposing his views even in the names he gifted his grandchildren.

Each Sunday I attend church in the Anglican Communion, here in Manchester or when in Cape Town, I am caught in awesome wonder, the ritual, the traditions, the ceremony, the uniformity, the congregational setting, all of that suits me well.

Now, I seek to exercise the kind of pragmatism of my paternal grandfather, accepting that the way people believe is essentially theirs to choose and should be respected without interference or a pretended audacity to proselytization, with one caveat; cults are untenable, where freewill and agency is under threat, it must be challenged on all fronts completely without relenting.

The Bible still flies beautifully

A book that flies

An encounter on Facebook suggested I believed in a book of lies, he was referring to the Bible. Now, I would be the first to agree that there are incredible and incredulous narratives in the Bible, but this does not suggest you discount the wealth of knowledge, insight and wisdom that constitutes the Bible.

The things I can believe, I study more, those difficult or impossible to believe, I do not agonise over. For a book that is a human narrative going back thousands of years, there are many things we know now that in the language of those times would not have found the proper expression, explanation, or exposition in words.

Present ignorance to future insight

Even today, there are things we still do not understand and the form of words we use to indicate the absence of insight might in the readings of the future made us look quite ignorant of simple concepts. There is a growth of knowledge and understanding that is progressive and enlightening.

I believe in the extraordinary and the supernatural, much of which I may not be able to explain or articulate in any convincing manner. What I believe does not have to become what others do too as I do not expect to be made to believe what others believe. It is sometimes of conviction or persuasion, quite esoteric and amorphous might be the way to view it.

Rise to the bait, I did not, rather we agreed to disagree respectfully and parted ways, until a thought occurred to me this morning forming the inspiration for this blog without re-entering the conversation that was abandoned on Facebook.

Always find the useful

Maybe, I should have asked if the person had written something to distract me from the book of lies, I would not even seek a hefty tome, just a fantasy of a children’s story would do, a use of imagination or the application of studied observation. There also, I would have offered my compendium of 3,267 blogs, with the hope that one might just be interesting.

For me, the Bible is collection of human experiences and there is nothing wrong in having a look at how people tackled similar problems of humanity in those times and had the opportunity to have their story told. If there is nothing new under the sun, then the Bible is probably as a good enough a manual of life from which I have found much help even when it is difficult to believe I could be helped.

Rather than dismiss things out of hand, sometimes, it is good to find the useful out of what you might think is broadly useless. At the very least, have as much sense as an old cow, eat the hay and leave the baling wire.

Opinion: He was British, what changed him?

He was British

The Manchester bombing suspect has been named as a 22-year old British-born son of Libyan refugees. His parents were refugees from Muammar Gaddafi and they had recently returned to Libya.

Obviously, many questions arise and flags raised about how a person born in England, having attended local schools, was a Manchester United fan and was at one time a student at the University of Salford before he dropped out, became more religiously devout and outwardly hostile to his community before he took on a suicide terrorism quest against innocent people in Manchester.

In some of the news stories I have read, there are words and phrases that worry me, they show tectonic plates of acculturation that stand at the nexus of integration, assimilation, indifference or abnegation within the societies in which we exist.

How do we relate?

Wherever we were born, we have many roads to travel to some sort of self-ideation and completeness of personality and life within the communities and societies in which we live. I was born in England, I was exposed to significant culture norms of my parents but at the same time, I was raised in a culturally diverse community.

There are areas where certain animist activities of my father or the religious extremism of my mother could have impacted negatively on my outlook and worldview, for some reason, there was a part of my education and observation that meant that there was a more independent streak in me, as I have not so fully imbibed any culture, I am more of a world citizen with hopefully a healthy respect for our diverse humanity.

However, we cannot entirely ignore the influence of what the media terms ‘closely-knit’ communities, ethnic minority groups that cluster in areas for social, religious, cultural, economic and traditional validation and affirmation. To say I am suspicious of settings that attempt to create for offspring in host culture the semblance of home cultures long departed by forebears creates serious psychological problems for the children.

Dangers of little-stans

The tendency to create uprooted little-stans and ghettoes to ensure the children do not become alien to the culture of their parents, whilst laudable can be quite damaging too. Culture has become a fluid existence that is an amalgamation of many influences garnered from all the many places in which we interact, that to limit interaction to close-knit communities bereft of accommodation of the wider setting in which they exist is dangerous.

One such significant indication of this is where a cultural predilection to consanguineous marriages amongst certain communities in the UK is the leading cause of child mortality or congenital deformities in the newly born in the UK. The science is clear, but a deference to fatalism seems to reinforce the need to keep the traditional despite the avoidable heartache that comes with it.

The same goes for beliefs and teachings that appear to reject or criticise the norms and values of host communities. I remember whilst looking for a church to attend in the Netherlands walking into two services in different churches in two major cities one Sunday and thinking these were literally slum churches transplanted from Nigeria to the Netherlands.

The language was alien, the teaching was fundamentalist, the views were ultra-conservative that I left with the decision to seek out a church representative of the city in which I live, accepting of the broadest spectrum of humanity from all walks of life with an international and yet integrated cultural viewpoint. I found such in the Christian City Church which was consequently renamed to C3 Church. I felt I not only belonged but I could also contribute without the imposition of some Pharisaic authority over me.

We must attend to it

The process of acculturation is both slow and demanding, yet it is necessary for everyone who departs a home culture for a host culture to have discernment and make the best of every influence to be a net contributor to the fabric of society in which they exist. It means there is less stress on affirming who you are and reduces the necessity to adopt imported practices inimical to a proper and fulfilled life in host communities.

It should cut a swathe through demands of tradition that forbids intermarriage, that requires religious affinity or the person risks ostracism, that supports Female Genital Mutilation which is by terms an evil practice of butchering girls for some deluded idea of tempering sexual expression and worst of the lot, the murders termed honour-killing.

We must be careful what we project on our offspring as culture and traditions that they do not begin to rebel and revolt against sense, sensibility, reason, reasonableness and accommodations of diversity despite our innate beliefs.

What made the young man give up his life to such an atrocious terrorist cause? We may never know, but the signs were there and through the normal cause of minding our own businesses, he in plain sight became the mass murderer whose memory would attract eternal ignominy not only to himself, but maybe unremittingly and unfairly to his family and his close-knit community, when we should all gather together in our shared humanity to mourn the lost, comfort the wounded and strengthen the bonds that celebrate the best of who we are.

#IDAHOT2017: The beliefs that harm us

A welcome picture

Midway through what turned out to be a 4.6 mile (a 7.6 kilometre) walk, at the North Bridge over the Edinburgh Waverley station, a couple I had spotted earlier taking pictures came by and the lady pleasantly welcomed me to their city hoping I was enjoying the views. Somehow, in my curiosity, reading signs and looking at the intricate architectural designs, I had probably exposed myself as a tourist of sorts.

I was attired my usual way that the male partner wielding the camera asked if he could take a picture of me, I willingly obliged and I was thanked for the favour.

An unwelcome digression

With a smile on my face, I had hardly walked another 200 yards when I overheard a man on his mobile phone. “He’s homosexual,” he railed and he went to remonstrate with his friend on the other end of the phone about the men holding hands on the street, that it was the wrong thing to do. The friend probably disagreed with him as he ended the conversation with, “I believe in the bible.”

Whether it was coincidental that a homosexual overheard that snippet of conversation is beside the point, I am writing about it to make an interesting observation. I do not think saying, “I believe in the bible,” is the same as professing Christianity as a follower of Jesus Christ. “I believe in the bible,” rarely has any relationship with the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ who went about meeting people, helping people, healing people, comforting people, saving people and encouraging people.

There is no place where Jesus Christ went pointing fingers except towards the religious establishment who believed in the holy book of the time and restricted entry to others into the grace and goodness of God. The religious establishment was even against miracles of healing being performed on the Sabbath when the law demanded people take rest, but everyone knows that adversity, illness, infirmity, disease and death do not take a rest on the Sabbath, they work every second of day piling on misery upon misery.

I like your Christ

Jesus Christ came with a message to relieve people of misery at every opportunity he had to do that including on the Sabbath. That was his gospel, not one to condemn or indict, but through goodness bringing people to the realisation of a better existence in spirit, soul, mind, and body. Giving people their full humanity, regardless of who or what they were.

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Mahatma Gandhi. If I were persuaded to engage and challenge the man, that is probably what I would have said to him, but I was not part of his conversation.

As the story is told, it was the religious establishment of the day that conspired to have Jesus Christ killed. Many who profess to believe in the bible today would probably in the baying mob hollering at the top of their voices to have Jesus Christ crucified at the behest of their religious leaders.

Embracing our diverse humanity

There but for the grace of God and the preponderance of some modern human civilisation in the lands where some of us exist with a modicum of freedoms, we go. [Wikipedia]

There are other lands where no such good fortune exists, places where that man I overheard would not have the limitation of expressing his displeasure on the phone, but have untrammelled encouragement to join in a mob of like-minded people to lynch other human beings for their difference by race, by tongue, by class, by gender, by sexuality or any other distinguishing feature of diversity that celebrates our amazing humanity.

People who because someone believes a holy tome arrogate to themselves some divine right to judge and condemn fellow human beings in the deluded view that they have an unassailable authority to inflict grievous harm and escape sanction because they are doing God’s work.

They are by terms, a stain on our humanity and no representative of the grace, peace and love that exuded from the founders of the religions they appear to profess. For if they had taken on the teaching, the learning, and the exemplar, they would be radically different, but the mob is an easy crowd in which to find and exploit our basest instincts.

IDAHOBIT

I must however celebrate today, the 17^th of May 2017 which is the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOT), it is a day to recognise those less fortunate than us who have freedom to be ourselves and the liberty to express ourselves with pride and love. [DayAgainstHomophobia]

There are 81 countries where same-sex expression is criminalised and 10 countries in which the death penalty applies, but the 17^th of May commemorates the day when the World Health Organisation removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1990. [WHO] This was 17 years after the American Psychiatric Association (APA) voted to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1973. [TheJAMANetwork]

The science is clear, homosexuality is NOT a mental illness, and even the Chinese Society of Psychiatry declassified homosexual from being a mental disorder in 2001. [Wikipedia]

Why we still fight for the right to be simply human beings

There is still a lot of work to be done, no one is promoting homosexuality even if it appears that some are a bit public about their sexuality. In the main, most people are private, in rural areas all around the world and just want to be treated as human beings, part of our shared humanity, with rights to be treated with respect and never having to face discrimination for who they happen to be. That is why IDAHOT exists.

Many discover their sexuality in isolation of others, unaware there are others like themselves and they struggle to come to terms with this thing, this same-sex attraction discovery that they are not particularly like others around them. That is why IDAHOT exists.

Those who live in fear of persecution, prosecution or societal stigma, are sheared of their dignity and made less of who they can be as productive and thriving members of their communities and beyond, they are signposts of a world that is less equal than it should be and that is why there is activism, advocacy, protest and demonstration. That is why IDAHOT exists.

We do not intend to impose ourselves on anyone, but we must altogether fight to recognise everyone as human beings first, who regardless of beliefs have every right to exist in our global village, choosing to live and love life without the threat of violence, blackmail or violence. That is why IDAHOT exists.

It requires that leaders lead in the quest for a more equal world of human rights for the child, for gender, for race, for freedom of religion or the absence of it, for disability, for sexual orientation, for age and much else, before the law, in the workplace and in the wider community. Nobody born into this world is a non-person, that is the starting point and each is deserving of being given a chance to just being themselves, within the spectrum heteronormativity to homonormativity and everything including bisexuality, intersexuality, and transsexuality. That is why IDAHOT exists.

These things we may still struggle to understand and find areas of conflict within our narrow or broad worldview, people are people, they may be the same, they may be different, and that is what makes our humanity, making everyone same or different feel at home and safe in our sphere of influence whilst influencing others towards a more accommodating perspective of diversity. That is why IDAHOT exists.

That is why we have international days for many things and today it is the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOT). That is why IDAHOT exists.

I have all my purple colours ready to celebrate the day, shirt, tie and pocket square.

Essential Media Information Page. 

Courtesy of DayAgainstHomophobia.org

!Audacious Church, Manchester

A wonderful life

One of the things I do when I move into a new city is look for a place for spiritual comfort, and since I am Christian, I look for a church.

My beliefs which are sometimes accompanied with serious doubts and the self-flagellation of not being what I hope I can be, have sustained me through many difficult times in my life, through cancer and other privations.

If I ever got to write my story properly, I guess I can safely say I have seen my share of amazing success and lamentable adversity all of which I would put down to an eventful life, whenever the end of it comes.

Audacious, it is

Over a month ago, I wrote to the pastor of my old church in Amsterdam, C3 Amsterdam, seeking a character reference and I informed him that I had been attending the sung Eucharist at Manchester Cathedral which sets services by Anglican Church standards.

In his response he informed me of !Audacious Church in Salford. It is evangelical with a Pentecostal leaning and I dare say, quite different from many churches of that genre that I have attended before.

The name of the church alone is audacious and it is audacious too to break English grammar rules and put the exclamation mark before the word rather than after it.

It might be a trend of sorts, but since 2001 I have attended evangelical churches that seem to have an Antipodean provenance. Christian City Church which became C3 Global in Amsterdam and London, Hillsong London and now !Audacious Church all seem to have Australian roots.

Rocking my comfort zones

I guess I am attracted to the broad global diversity of these churches wherever they have broken ground and the liberal embracing community spirit that the church leaders preach and act out. You cannot but feel welcome in the atmosphere of these places. My C3 family was ever so supportive in hard times, love, compassion and grace abounded.

Whilst in the Anglican Church I would have been comfortable with the solemnity of Rock of Ages cleft for me, !Audacious Church praise and worship time does challenge everything about my Englishness, the music is loud, the words uplifting – the lead singer is wild, by my standards, the lights are low – I must eat more carrots to see in the dark, and it is almost like I am in a rock concert.

In the 4 services I have attended already, my 48-year old bearing with a cane sometimes wonders if I have strayed off into a place where I should not be seen. The youthful liveliness of the church is both exuberant and enthusing, you are quite tempted to exert yourself with that daring of someone half your age until you think better of the idea and sway with dignified posturing.

I can stay here

It takes a while for me to commit to a church, I guess for me, I try to find a place. In smaller churches, this is quite obvious and as it grows you already know where you can extend yourself. However, when you walk into a much larger church, it is quite easy to be invisible and whilst we, the English, would easily make conversation with anyone, making acquaintances that then turn into friendships is a much involved process we have nowhere near mastered – I speak for myself in particular.

Most of my friends, I have known for at least 20 years, I’ve become like the Dutch I once castigated for not easily widening their circle of friends beyond those they have known since the year dot.

As questions arose in my mind, the message today seems to have been spoken to answer many of my questions about committing, belonging, engaging, supporting within the church.

I know it would not happen suddenly, but I think for as long as I am in Manchester, I can make !Audacious Church my church. I am getting comfortable, but like we were always advised at Hillsong London, “Just keep coming back.”

The other questions that linger would eventually find answers, and where the conflicts remain, the ability to adapt and have as much sense as an old cow is the way to go, I’ll eat the hay and leave the baling wire.

Decade Blogs - Mister Mobility - Not all those who wander are lost

Decade Blogs

Mister Mobility is a pseudonym and the preferred public identity of a man I have known from the blogging world many years ago when he was a no-nonsense exponent of biblical hermeneutics. I agreed with many of his views and some were compelling enough to force me to comment on some of his blogs.

At the same time he was what I would call a mobile phone propeller head, having owned over 100 devices, he is a compendium of knowledge on mobile device usage and usability.

Then again, he has one of the most grounded heads of my social media interactions, smart, wise and reasonable, he is definitely someone I would love to meet.

I am highly honoured to have Mister Mobility write for my #YourBlogOnMyBlog Series commemorating my Decade of Blogging.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

Simplicity, fun and humour belie a seriousness in the messages and witticisms he shares on social media tweeting with the Twitter handle @Mister_Mobility and blogging at Mobility.ng.

In this article, takes the ordinary and gives it deeper significance, our version of the truth might not be the truth. There is much to learn from this.

Not all those who wander are lost

“There is no-one that I cannot speak the truth to!” Those were the words of my number one mentor some weeks ago when we sat down to discuss certain issues. As I sat there, I reflected on several situations in which he had supposedly spoken the truth to people, and how he had been off the mark to certain degrees, and how his biases had shown through each situation. There is no question about his being a bold, straightforward man. No, his boldness was not the question. Where the question mark lay was what he considered the truth.

I am only in mid-life, but I have seen and heard enough in life to now be amused whenever an individual arrogates sole possession of the truth to himself. More often than not, what he holds to so tightly is his version of what he believes to be the truth. And usually, that version is soiled in some way. That version may largely contain truth, but his outlook and upbringing are likely to have tainted the picture in some way, such that he is missing a key element. And this excludes no-one.

For example, even historical truth is largely a question of who you are reading or listening to. Consider also for a minute, a married couple who have had an altercation, and when each party tells recounts to a third party or counsellor, their two versions do not line up. Yet, neither set out to lie about anything. They have spoken “the truth” to the best capacity of their faculties. Frail, faulty human faculties. They have only recounted the episode as their mortal minds perceived that it happened.

Two pastors might pick up the same Bible, and even though they belong to the same denomination, and perhaps were taught by the same theologian, they still differ to varying degrees on certain subjects. Yet, each believes that he speaks the truth.

Oh, but I am a believer in truth. I believe that there is always a truth to every situation and to every subject. It just seems that God has designed the world and life to mock us each time that we get as smug as to think that we have become authorities on to what is and what is not in every situation. Perhaps He sits and laughs at the frailty of the human mind and our sense of capacity. I have long resigned to that. Perhaps He designed things to make sure that no-one knows it all, has it all, or has it all together. But then, my position might just be off the mark too.

Now, I live at peace with myself, secured in the comfort that I do not have to know it all or have it all together. I remain a learner and keep seeking truth at every point, exploring this huge universe, sometimes threading where others fear, sometimes hitting a wall and then retracing my steps. Life is certainly adventurous that way, though sometimes it hits had. But then, life hits us all hard at some point in time or the other. What do I have to lose? Life as an ongoing adventure works much better for me than life locked up in a mansion, no matter how magnificent and well equipped.

I stumbled upon a phrase some years back, and fell in love with it instantly. It has become one of my rallying cries, a slogan to live by. It is a line penned by J. R. R. Tolkien from the hugely successful The Lord of the Rings. Here is what it says:

"Not all those who wander are lost."

This is the summary of who I have become, the person that I have embraced and the life that I hope to live till my last breath. Perhaps there is another angle to Mister Mobility beyond the field of mobile phones. This is life on the go.

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

From the poem, All that is gold does not glitter in Chapter 10 of the Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of the trilogy of The Lord of the Rings.

My congratulations to my egbon on his 10 years of blogging.

Pope Francis taking us back to the core of our humanity

Pope Francis (L) caresses a sick person in Saint Peter’s Square at the end of his General Audience in Vatican City, 06 November 2013.
Photo courtesy of Washington Post

A man of faith

I watched with billions of others in 2005 as Pope John Paul II slowly departed this mortal coil, frail, infirm, a body so weak, but a spirit so strong doing the service he was called to minister to the faithful.

In his death throes, we wondered about how great a man was about to depart having left deep footprints in the sands of time, difficult to obliterate from our memories because his advent changed the world.

In July that year, I visited Rome for the first time as a birthday gift to a friend and as we queued to enter the Sistine Chapel, we were really in another queue that filed past the tomb of this amazing and great man of God.

A church so solemn

I am a Protestant, school in the High-Church Anglican faith, baptised at 9-years old and confirmed at 16. I took new religion of the Evangelical to Pentecostal kind at 18 and was baptised again, this time by full immersion at 21 but the Catholic Church has always held some fascination.

In 2008, I visited Fatima in Portugal, I watched the solemnity, the stillness, the reverences, the religiousness, the humility and the awesomeness, maybe I should have taken more away from that experience before cancer struck a year later.

Churches serving as sepulchres and places of worship depict an eternity of the circle of life and death that defines our humanity. The Catholic Church is one long continuous documentation of human history, the longest existent human religious and political institution; it is significant even if many ignore it.

A church astray

Today, there are many strands of Christianity, people rising with a gospel and a teaching gathering the wild sheep of people strewn all over the world to tents of great performance and pageantry. Many other religions too bring adherents to temples and synagogues imposing conditions, some easy, some difficult; all to lay hold on some peace on earth and possibly the promise of something in the Great Beyond.

In all this, the simply message of our common humanity is lost, the pain we share, the suffering that is the story of many. The plenty that the rich avariciously aggrandise to themselves stepping on the heads on anything or anyone to fill their vaults with much more without restraint, yet, like a flower we all bloom and then wither away.

For all the riches in this world cannot yet buy immortality, the best we can get is longevity in life, providence willing and being favourable towards us.

Compassion is the message

Back to the Catholic Church, we have a new Pope, his name is Pope Francis, and he is taking us back to where the church the belongs, to where religion serves humanity, to where humility is what draws the hearts of men to a truth that is irresistible, to where compassion is the open door to everyone, and it is a good thing.

Princess Diana with one handshake in 1989 dealt a blow to the stigma of HIV/AIDS, Pope Francis is dealing bigger blows, calling us to service as Good Samaritans, lifting our humanity to the pinnacle of existence above all beliefs, race, sexuality, condition, situation and whatever part of our diversity the unconscionable exploit for gain.

Good Samaritan humanity

In embracing, kissing and blessing a much-disfigured man, the Pope retells the gospel in the letter, the spirit and the acts of Jesus Christ when he walked the streets of Jerusalem and the Galilee, comforting and healing the sick, ministering love and compassion, with unconditional access.

No other story can be told than to see the story the picture tells. We must see, reach, touch, embrace – that is Good Samaritan humanity regardless of what you believe in.

Read the story and see the pictures – here.