Me Too, Church Too

The Peril of Fallen Leaders

The thought is scary: the number of prominent Christian leaders who saw amazing growth in their congregations and whose charisma touched lives globally have revisited what they once believed to the point of reassessing or abandoning the faith.

I am writing this having gone down the rabbit hole of a Facebook post. The author spoke of his conservative and evangelical background, 15 years of pastoring, and then realising the people he was taught to fear were just as much flesh-and-blood good people deserving of respect, courtesy, and consideration.

This led me to a podcast, The Rise & Fall of Mars Hill, a journalistic examination of the growth of a church plant in 1996 that collapsed dramatically in 2014.

A Fall From Grace

The fall of Mars Hill was not because of pastoral impropriety, but attributed to bullying, abuse, arrogance, and elements of narcissistic personality disorder found in the public figure leading the church, who resigned in 2014.

It makes you wonder about how Lucifer, in his exalted position in the presence of Almighty God, acquired that situation declared as, "Iniquity was found in him." I have agonised over how, in such a holy setting, a creature could turn wrong and take a third of the angelic host with him. How did Lucifer convince those angels of a better place than at the throne of God?

There must have been a cult following, where focus shifted from the principal or the principle to a personality.

When Personality Eclipses Purpose

The same happens in church, at work, in school, and in politics. In the Church, the focus should always be Jesus the Christ, regardless of how the vessel is used to bring the gospel and healing to the people.

Charisma can shift focus from the important, but with that comes the facility for actions that allow leaders not to be held to account and, consequently, not to be accountable for what they do.

Those who should stand up to authority are made to plead fealty with the admonition that straying out of line will be considered insubordination, rebellion, or even heresy. The leader posits as a god amongst mortals: untouchable and unassailable, infallible and literally inerrant.

It is a dangerous place to be, but this is evident in many congregations as the flock are led as sheep to the slaughter. Worse still is that these leaders do not stand alone; they are enabled and have enablers that create the myth and mystique that allows an untenable situation to thrive.

My Own Engagement With Church

In my engagement with the church, I have studiously compartmentalised things. The congregation is a meeting of people; the leadership have an onerous responsibility to "feed my sheep" according to the exhortation Jesus gave Peter before ascending to heaven.

I have participated in help or service roles but never sought leadership, even when such positions were offered because of my commitment or my knowledge of the Word.

I have not been inclined to lead and have viewed so-called leadership classes with suspicion, knowing just how power can corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Knowing my human frailties, I have consideration of how inadequacies are faltering stumbling blocks. I depend on the grace of God, knowing the things beyond me are possible with God.

The Lure of Hero Worship

Naturally, I am not given to hero worship. I have always operated from the perspective that the only person to fear is one with two heads, and I have never met one.

Subscribing to a cult of personality probably fills a void somewhere in the psyche of the followers. I do not know for sure, but I have seen the damaging effects on the victims of such settings: from those adoring prophets in tune with familiar spirits, revealing things that imitate the word of knowledge (a gift of the Spirit given as he wills to the church), to those in unsupervised congregation settings where the leaders are now celebrity superstars worshipped by their followers.

When the structures and frameworks of these cults excusing abuse collapse, what do people have left if they had long stopped looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith?

A Call to Reflect

I can only recommend you listen to the podcast because it is as revealing as it is educational. We are all working out our salvation with fear and trembling.

This blog is hardly exhaustive on the many issues that emanate from beliefs, doctrines, allegiance, and faith. This is a contribution to the broader conversation.

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of 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.

Feeling the warmth of a community church

Decisions for the good or the bad

We had a decision to make about where to attend a church service today without making the mistake of visiting a church with a self-absorbed worship team entertaining a congregation that was failed out of not being spiritually fed. At least that was our impression of the Hillsong Church in June.

We dared think of returning hoping that our first attendance was an off day, but we wrote to both the Cape Town campus and the mother church in Australia, and we received neither an acknowledgement nor a response. We had better go to a place where they are courteous and welcoming.

Blog - Between haughty Hillsong and bounty biltong

Planning without yawning

From Muizenberg to the St. George’s Cathedral, quite unlikely; when getting Brian out of bed on a Sunday morning is a herculean task at best, just perish the thought. So, I did a survey of churches in Muizenberg and two evangelical churches caught my interest, small, out-of-city, new, and growing. We set our minds on staying in Muizenberg.

It would have been a 45-minute walk or thereabouts, but we called an Uber taxicab to convey us to the Main Road of which there might be hundreds in South Africa, we had to be specific before I repeated the mistake of finding myself 33 kilometres from where I intended in Johannesburg, some 9 years ago.

Welcoming warmth and feeling

On arrival, we saw the church flagpole, but unsure of ourselves, we waited outside before someone came to the door. They were friendly and welcoming, and as she invited us inside, introductions followed. They all came to welcome and greet us.

Interest and engagement were evident in a small community church that espoused our Pentecostal beliefs. It was there that we learnt that a priest we knew at St. George’s Cathedral, the cousin of a congregant, had passed away last year.

As we were similarly attired, they wondered if we were band or choir members, we tend to turn heads on Sundays. I said we were partners, but they heard brothers even as I repeated myself. We eventually acquiesced to whatever they wanted to identify us as.

Simple yet impactful

It was low-key, intimate, and friendly. I was called forward to be prayed for, and the sermon was informal and easy-going with contributions from other members of the congregation. I began wilting later in the service but survived to the end before needing the use of the gents.

I took the offer of rooibos tea which I rarely have, sweetened without milk, it tasted good enough, I however do not intend to form a habit of it. We had a splendid time at church before walking back home. We will probably be returning next Sunday.

A Sunday of shifting devotional gears

An early start

What a long Sunday it was, a full engagement in religious activities that were a great blessing. I had set the alarm for 8:00 AM to get up for my first service which I had intended would be for the 9:00 AM service at !Audacious Church.

It has become an occasional activity to give my Christian experience on a Sunday the widest latitude. Over time, I have acculturated to the kind of vibe in that atmosphere than I found able to adapt to about a decade ago. Its evangelical and Pentecostal slant is quite an energetic early start to a Sunday morning. The praise and worship music and ministration of the word, are scripted into just under 75 minutes.

Blog - !Audacious Church, Manchester (March 2014)

From contemporary to traditional

With just half a mile (0.8 kilometres) between !Audacious Church and Manchester Cathedral, on days I am not on the rota to be a church steward at the cathedral, I can have a brisk walk in about 10 minutes to the cathedral for the Sung Eucharist at 10:30 AM.

The gears are totally changed between church customs, my familiarity with both and the way I feel quite blessed with participation in one and the involved community of the other is something I cannot explain that well. The former is quite a youthful contemporary church with some songs sounding like what you would hear on an Oasis album, at least I felt that way this morning.

The solemnity of a choir accompanied by the Stoller Organ singing traditional tuneful hymns with a structured service format and the Holy Communion registers a different yet impactful devotion. The congregation has no pretensions, the doors are open, and the setting is welcoming.

After the Sung Eucharist, I participated in the bible study which for this month is about women in the bible, the topic was on the character, leadership, and activities of Deborah and Jael. In the book of Judges, chapters 4 and 5. It was a robust and lively conversation of thoughts and views that ran for over an hour. [Renew.org: Deborah and Jael: Unexpected Leaders]

The bishop in the Village

Returning home, I did not have much time to prepare for the Village Church, an initiative supported by the Anglican Church to support the spirituality of the LGBTQ+ community in the centre of the Manchester Gay Village. The LGBT Foundation lends its premises to this ministry for free on Sunday afternoons every second and fourth Sunday of the month. [Anglican Diocese of Manchester: Village Church launches in Manchester]

This has been happening for almost a year and is just around the corner from my home. We had the pleasure of the Bishop of Manchester as the president and preacher for this Sung Eucharist. It exemplifies the sense that our local Christian community does not just pay lip service to inclusivity but involves itself fully in allowing spiritual expression and fellowship, regardless of persuasion.

Blog - Stewarding at the Pride Eucharist (August 2023)

Jesus died for all, and the diocesan leadership have determined to encourage, embrace, and serve everyone genuinely yearning for Christian fellowship. As we finished and cleared up at the venue, it was almost 6:00 PM. I might have retired soon after, at home, if I had not entertained some congregants.

I felt a sense of wanting to be involved, engaged, contributing, giving and participating, the broad lesson at the beginning of All Together which touched on Tithes (resources), Talent (skills & abilities), Time (capacity), resonated with me, it is this kind of mindfulness that prepares you for a great blessing. It was a wonderful day that the Lord hath made.

Memento, homo, quia pulvis es

Chant of the Heart: Miserere Mei (Psalm 50/51)

Influenced by many beliefs

I do not make much advertisement about my beliefs or faith, though, in many of my writings I might allude to how I am persuaded of things, views, doctrines, life, and much else.

My Christian journey is interesting and varied, first seen through the inclinations of my parents, their siblings, and their friends who all attended different denominations from Anglican to which I was both baptised and confirmed, the Christ Apostolic Church that my mother attended before her marriage, the Cherubim and Seraphim Church that my younger aunt attended, the Methodist Church that my elder aunt attended and the Methodists founded my secondary school in February 1946.

Filling in forms the other day, one of the options included Charismatic Christian, which I found interesting as until then, the broadly Christian cachet was used. I embrace the charismatic demonstration of my Christian experience which I encountered 40 years ago in April and even with the many characterisations of belief, unbelief, or disbelief I have been exposed to, the relearning of what the dispensation of grace pertains to remains more pertinent.

Ash Wednesday in practice

I had planned to make pancakes for Shrove Tuesday, but I inadvertently had to be in Edinburgh for an engagement and returned quite late on Tuesday, too tired to do anything other than go to bed. I also wanted to return on Tuesday, because I was on the rota stewarding the Ash Wednesday Sung Eucharist with the Imposition of Ashes.

The ashes are part of a ritual signifying penitence where typically the palm fronds from the previous Palm Sunday are burnt to have the ash for marking the sign of the cross on the foreheads of adherents kneeling at the altar. At the imposition of the ashes, the priest would say words to the effect in Latin or in the vernacular, “Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.” (“Remember, man, that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.”)

In addition, the priest said, “Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.” It was a solemn occasion of awareness, mortality, and the eternal purpose to which we are called. The individuality of knowing yourself in the congregation of the many, your own heart seen and known by God is humbling. I may not essentially be fasting for Lent.

Combining my devotional allegiances

In the background, the Choir as we all met in the quire sang Psalm 51 as canticles in Latin. The high church traditions of our Anglican community could be quite fascinating as we the stewards took the offering and ushered the congregants first towards the imposition and then later to the Communion.

These activities would barely, if ever, be seen in a charismatic church gathering, but I find that I enjoy practising my Christian devotion primarily in the Anglican Church, occasionally in a charismatic church, and generally in listening to messages and sermons by evangelical preachers. An amalgam of community and beliefs that suits my expression and understanding with the assurance that I have found love, truth, mercy, grace, and favour.

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.

And they see the fruit of the Holy Spirit in Donald Trump

It just beggars belief

That I find myself writing this just after the blog I posted yesterday just points to how scary the situation is. A conversation I had yesterday revealed to me the how the Pentecostal and Evangelical strains of the Christian denominations have bought into what is essential the cult of Donald Trump.

Blog - How God laughs at the thought of being a voter

As apparently God’s chosen one and I have heard that from many religious people I hold in quite high regard, he can do no wrong, he protects the church, espouses deeply conservative values packing the US Supreme Court with conservative judges, responds to a radical Zionist agenda especially with the moving of the US Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.

A man apart wronged by all

Donald Trump is the wronged man assailed from all ends and denied legitimacy through the term of his presidency, the whole idea of Joe Biden traipsing the corridors of power as the President-elect is not only anathema, Donald Trump not conceding even though none of what he has suggested was electoral fraud has been proven where it matters, in court.

It was conspiracy theory upon conspiracy theory reinforcing a pack of improbable suppositions that they have become an article of faith, a standard to which they have nailed their flags and which they will not be persuaded.

Every example for a saint

To add insult to injury, someone suggested we have been blind not to notice the fruit of the Holy Spirit in Donald Trump. You have got to be kidding me. Yes, he is apparently the embodiment and personification of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, in expression, in character, and in example, a good Christian man. [Wikipedia: The Fruit of the Holy Spirit]

I need to put a call to my spiritual, mental, physical, and paranormal optician for a new eye test, for whoever is seeing this is indeed seeing things. Yet, I must curb my scepticism, because Donald Trump might well be a different man, why he does not show it, escapes me.

!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.

Thought Picnic: My old ways in new church services

A church for Sunday

Much as I have the tendency to seek out an Evangelical church with a Pentecostal leaning, I have many times before harked back at my Church of England, Anglican roots.

The order or service, the hymns, the read prayers, the confessions of the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, the solemnity and the ceremony that accompanies Sung Eucharist still excites me.

Spending the weekend in Manchester, after searching for church where I could give thanks, I decided on the Manchester Cathedral. At the very least, because I am a confirmed Anglican, I can also partake in the Holy Communion.

Books and pamphlets

I arrived just as the choir were doing a processional hymn and I was offered a hard-covered green book and two pamphlets.

It took a while for me to catch on about what I needed to do to follow the service. I thought the book was a bible and the hymns were in the pamphlet, but then I realised it was the other way round. It appears the laity are allowed to participate in the singing and recitations but the bible and its interpretation is the job of the clergy.

A modern-day version of the Levitical priesthood, at least in the church setting. However, the readings between Isaiah and Matthew heralded the coming of Jesus Christ and it did not occur to me until this morning that Galilee was of the Gentiles and not of the Jews, much as it might have had a significant Jewish population.

The old and new

As we service progressed, I found that my knowledge was based on the Book of Common Prayer (1662) but the recitations were based on Common Worship (2000), I suddenly realised I am quite old school, Old English, cut from Ancient and Modern practice. Christ! I was confirmed 33 years ago.

It appears my ‘thou helpeth me as I prayeth to thee, O God’ was no more the vernacular, where have I been all this time as the Church of England moved on?

At Communion, I did not drink from the cup, rather, I dipped my wafer in the wine, this I learnt from the fear of catching colds or flus, how we have been seized upon but such modern ideas.

Water and tea

At the end of the service, I join the congregation for tea and then made conversation with a lady who happened to walk in with a watering can in one hand and a cup of tea in the other.

Mischievously, I quipped about how unusual that combination was as she watered the flowers that should have gone into the nave but for constraints of time before the service.

She had the office of the Head of Flowers and to me that was just as much a calling and ministry as any in the church. That is something I miss about church when I was in Amsterdam and in London when I attended C3 Church, there was always something to get involved in, the ushering or the cleaning up was always a pleasure.

For convenience of travel in London, I recently started attending Hillsong London that meets at the Dominion Theatre, which offers the choice of one of four services on Sunday, though, I think I would just find a church to attend on Sunday and critically, it must reflect the community in which it is set.

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.

Thought Picnic: The Love of Money in the Church

Money and the church

Two articles over the last 24 hours seem to have brought into focus a crisis of confidence in the way church finances are being gathered and consequently disposed of.

There is a wider issue here and I dare say it is somewhat bordering on endemic and you will appreciate that view in a moment.

First, it was the way demands were being made to engage in a partnership commitment with the church the scriptural basis of which is no doubt suspect but the arguments put forth by the writer makes a compelling case for serious reflection. [NigeriansTalk – Casino Pentecostalism – Ebenezer Obadare]

Scandal in Britain

Then a news story in a UK tabloid suggested worshippers in the UK were being fleeced to maintain a situation in Nigeria. The story stated 73% of offerings contributed in the UK went off-shore and it was not clear if this funding was a primary charity activity undertaken by the UK church or the moneys were just been extracted for the ministry of the church leader. It included calls for a Charity Commission investigation. [Daily Mail -Laughing on his private jet - the £93m pastor accused of exploiting British worshippers]

Back in 2004, it was the second largest Pentecostal church in Britain that was involved in a multi-million pound scandal. [Rick Ross - Scandal in the second biggest Pentecostal church in Britain.] In 2005, it was the turn of the largest Pentecostal church in Britain being investigated for financial irregularities that have not been fully resolved yet. [The Telegraph - 'Wealth' church leader practised what he preached.]

Evangelicals tainted globally

Out in the United States, it was a Senate inquiry into the finances of 6 televangelists. [USA Today - Televangelists escape penalty in Senate inquiry.] In Ukraine, the biggest church there has been embroiled in a serious financial scandal too on a failed business venture that frittered away about $100 million. [Christian Today - Ukraine: Megachurch pastor in business scandal.]

Over in Singapore another megastar preacher with a superstar wife and all the accoutrements of amazing wealth was arrested on suspicions of false accounting. [Singapore News - City Harvest's founder Kong Hee, four others arrested.] Then a more bizarre case in Canada where congregants were left out of pocket by reason of “affinity fraud” that gained support from the church leaders. [The Vancouver Sun - Evangelical church in $14-million financial scandal.]

Practice lagging doctrine

All the citations above are not so much to castigate any of the organisations, many of the issues are still sub judice but this calls for serious comment and I am sure this is just a subset of a larger issue with regards to churches of this type.

I mean type because all these churches, ministries and the ministers that run them identify as evangelical and/or Pentecostal and they seem to all have similar teachings based around what is commonly known as the Prosperity Gospel.

There is scriptural basis for this slant of teaching but its projection and expression leaves much to be desired. One finds that these wealthy preachers are not modest and reserved in their show of riches that it is unbecoming, vulgar, hedonistic, ostentatious, bragging and almost evil.

Room for grave error

It excites covetousness and greed; believers are led to believe that a bartering and exchange system exists between God and man short of saying they have to pay God for blessings of health and prosperity. An objective reading of the first reference in this blog could easily imply this and it is dangerous presaging a slippery slope into error where the love of money sets people up for being agents of evil.

However, that is a different matter; the most critical issue is that these church leaders are not doing much to offer a transparent and sombre reflection such that we are found in debates about excess and abuse rather than being profitably engaged in preaching the gospel.

On the wrong side of controversy

I am saddened that many have confused the kind of controversy they are supposed to excite that should make outsiders curious about Christianity rather than being critical of practising Christians.

Churches, church organisations and leaders of such establishments should be the vanguard of probity, rectitude, accountability, transparency, honesty, clarity, responsibility and trustworthiness. It is disgraceful and beneath contempt and well as contemptuous of the gospel to find churches so remiss in character and honourable conduct.

If the church cannot give good example, the world we seek to change is definitely lost. We find church leaders behaving like new-money types with nothing to separate them from the ostentation and showiness of drug barons or hip-hop artistes. They have become outrageously acquisitive and excused this as proof of God being a rich God.

No sombreness

Then see the really rich people around the world, either scions of genteel old-money or the likes of Bill Gates or Warren Buffett who can buy anything they want but have given themselves to works of stupendous charity and unsurpassed philanthropy that puts literally every other billionaire to shame.

Then you read articles in the Forbes magazine about Richest Pastors in some country and the whole context of the article has nothing to say about the gospel but the personality and the grand lifestyles that are worthy of opprobrium because in all the investigations that I have highlighted the biggest failing of these organisations is no clear separation of ministry finances from personal finances.

In secular organisations, that will be grounds for bringing charges of financial impropriety and possibly fraudulent activity.

Responsibilities matter

Any organisation that collects money by persuasion, inducement, cajoling or proposition from the public even if the said public have willingly subscribed to the project owes the public full accountability as to how the moneys are being spent for whatever reasons along with full justification for such expenditure and where that appears to be lacking they should expect secular government organisations to wade in and sanction bad practice.

It goes without saying that the preachers should repent and change their ways, it stinks to the high heavens and it portends the odium that emanates from the pits of Hades, the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been corrupted into a Gospel of Mammon – it ought not to be so. [Wikipedia - Mammon]

Beyond their responsibilities that matter, perceptions of being completely above board matter the most with the view of not bringing the name of Jesus Christ and the body of the church into disrepute.

Celestial Church gets Pentecost early

Not Pentecostal fire

I was reading the Evening Standard yesterday and in the News in Brief section there was the news piece - East London church gutted by fire - the unfortunate event took place in Poplar where 40 firefighters fought the blaze and brought it under control.

(I could not obtain a link to the electronic version but the London Fire Brigade does report a church fire in the area.)

Somehow, I subconsciously took exception to the adjective used to describe the church, it was termed Evangelical, one suddenly realized I had been conditioned to assume everything evangelical is closer to the Christian right and charismatic circles that take on the "Born Again" epithet.

A sect so vibrant

Having this used to describe the Celestial Church of Christ can be termed a bit of a misnomer; I have however seen it better described as a sect.

Now, before the whole church hierarchy from laity to the Assistant Deputy Vice Supreme Superior Senior Evangelist descends on that last comment, a sect is simply - a group adhering to a distinctive doctrine or to a leader - according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary - Cele as they are known in Nigerian parlance does have distinctive doctrines, and that should suffice for all objectivity.

It would however appear that the church has suffered a number of fires all around the world, one in New York was attributed to an electrical fault.

The office of the prophetess must be in abeyance for these events to occur without premonition and precaution.

Incandescent Candles

Beyond that, one would not be surprised if certain fires have not been as a result of the careless handling of naked candle flames; the church literally sustains the candle industry wherever it thrives.

At times I am enthralled by church uniform which when worn is supposed to give you spiritual shoes; well, you have to be bare-footed to wear the holy garments which have colourful girdles depending on your ranking in the church. I have always wondered if these spiritual shoes are wearable in Northern Hemisphere winters - there is no telling, when in regalia, the impossible can be done, miracles might require some grand inferno of candle light pyrotechnics.

My commiserations on the total destruction by fire of the church; like the Yoruba would say, it offers the opportunity to build something bigger and better.

Seven Hallelujahs to the four corners of the world.

Pope in Brazil gives no abortions message

Where are the Catholics?

The Pope has landed in Brazil and there is no doubt that he would be thronged by faithful adherents of the Roman Catholic doctrine and dogma as they gather for a message of hope, of peace and of love.

And that is to be expected, the encouragement to keep with the truth and the admonition to keep away from trends and fads that have no religious bearing on bringing succour to the people.

There is also a kind of disaffection amongst worshippers, people are looking for a livelier God, a kind of worship that includes reverence but also involves the whole of their being in vision, hearing and motion - the type that you would find in Protestant Evangelical churches to which Brazil is haemorrhaging followers.

A message for now?

It would appear the message of hope that the Pope takes to Brazil is the anti-abortion message, one that was at variance with medical realities - a few years ago, a 9-year old girl whose life was at risk if she took the pregnancy to term and the parents decided on an abortion - her parents were excommunicated because the life of the unborn child was more precious to keep than that of the suffering child who might not survive the ordeal of giving birth.

In that circumstance, the parents refused to risk the possible lose of their daughter and prospective grandchild to be succoured with the epithet - God giveth, God taketh away. Nobody, not the doctors nor the church could guarantee the survival of either party should the foetus have come to term.

Of doctrine and of relevance

Indeed, unborn life must be protected, but a humanity of circumstances has to be involved too; religion was made for man to help achieve peace, contentment and balance, it is not an ideological set of dogmatic rules upon which man should be offered as sacrifices to maintain an unconscionable status quo.

Too many times through history, we have allowed such machinations to deprive others of the right to live or exist; driven by some force that portends to speak and act for God, men arrogate to themselves powers that do not belong to any man on earth to exercise terror and dominate the pliant; this should not be so.

We know of the poverty, the disease, the illiteracy, the crime and destitution in certain communities in Brazil - the followers of Catholic doctrine must ask their Holy Father one question - How does the anti-abortion message change our lives for the better, how does it raise Brazilians out of desperate circumstances?

Basically, does the anti-abortion message have any relevance to those who hunger, who suffer, who are deprived and who need a different kind of help?

Even I am listening for an answer in the comfort and security of my Western affluence.

From His Disgrace to Her Grace

The trap of gay marriage

Just in the month of November 2006, 2 notable religious people captured our imagination with one overtaking the headlines as the US elections came upon us.

At the centre was the issue of gay marriage; one supported the notion in the church and the other spat hail and brimstone from the pulpit excoriating every thought of that idea.

As we know, the issue of gay marriage was supposedly used to swing the votes in undecided states in favour of the President George Bush’s re-election in 2004 and the same thing is being mooted for the election that is currently taking place today.

The party of sins

The received wisdom is if this juxtaposed against Republican or Democratic candidate, the gush of liberalism that has been used to tarnish the Democrats would lead religious conservatives, namely, evangelicals to vote for Republicans who have arrogated to themselves the seeming moniker of the “Party of God”.

If anything, it now appears the Republican Party has become the party of sinners from lobbying misdeeds (Abramoff), fundraising indictments (De Lay) or inactivity to sexual predation (Foley), just to mention a few.

Against gay marriage but for divorce

The gay marriage issue which I have written about a few times is quite a hot-button issue in America, but the more interesting part is that it has no relationship to the protection of traditional marriages.

Massachusetts, the only state to legalise gay marriage has the lowest divorce rate in the United States, whilst the highest divorce rates can be found in the Bible belt where they are implacably against gay marriage as research reveals.

It is like a case of they cannot keep together and would not allow others to get together, bizarre but true.

Daytime saint and night time sinner

However, lightening struck when a gay escort went public accusing a leading evangelical leader of having a sex relationship lasting 3 years and abusing drugs. In what is outrageous cant and brazen shameless hypocrisy, he was having homosexual pleasures privately and condemning gay marriage publicly – that is just not on.

So, he resigned his appointment and he was, as it were, defrocked, just about the same time, someone else was taking on the frock.

A woman attended her investiture as the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States.

Not only have we moved beyond the ordination of women, she supported the consecration of a gay bishop which is causing schism in the church she has not taken a negative stance against gay marriage.

Obviously, the police do have to go back to investigate the peddling of drugs by the gay escort amongst other possible misdemeanours, but that is not news, in the midst of what is a religious earthquake.

In one week, we move from His Disgrace to Her Grace, the way of religion is sometimes unsearchable.

References

US Divorce rates

Episcopal Church elects female leader

Church forces out Haggard for 'sexually immoral conduct'

First Woman Elected as Leader of US Episcopal Church

Katharine Jefferts Schori