THE BEDFORD BLESSING
PART 1: THE COMING OF A PRIESTHOOD

In 1995 during a church family weekend an attempt was made by a visiting group of Baptists from Bedford to introduce Dereham Road Baptist church to the Toronto Blessing. A couple of years later in 1997 I wrote three essays in response to this weekend entitled respectively “High Pulpits”, “High Priests”, and “The Bedford Blessing”. The first essay, which was an analysis of the pulpit-centric architecture of Dereham Baptist Church, was circulated in 2000. However, the other two essays which concerned the actual “Blessing” at Dereham Road remained in my private collection ..... until now. I intend releasing the contents of these two essays in parts. Here is the first part.

History can be ruthless. The 70 year quantum of human life ensures that no one person's experience is measured in centuries, and so experience is constantly being destroyed and remade and old themes return as if they are new discoveries. In the sea of faith new spiritual life forms appear in response to changing spiritual environments and they are likely to have different attitudes to hi-pulpits and what they stand for. I saw one of these newer life forms one day in the early spring of AD 1995 when the Church on Dereham road had invited a Baptist minister from Bedford to speak for the day. This warm mannered bearded Bedford Baptist spoke intimately, if not profoundly on his theme, the "Father heart of God". He did not use the pulpit at any time during the day, but instead used the lectern at the side and below it, a position not unlike that of mediaeval times. At one point he indicated he would not be so presumptuous as to use the pulpit "up there", and his voice may have held a hint of contempt. Perhaps he knew that he needed nothing to stand on, because he stood for something else, for as the day developed a feeling grew on me, as it has done on other occasions, that I was seeing before my very eyes the formation and modern rediscovery of a spiritual ministry that recurs down the ages. Gone was the didactic logic and reason of the pulpit to be replaced by patriarchal expressions of feeling and warmth; one did not grapple with this stuff with the mind so much as with the emotions. In comparison to this “voice of the heart”, the sound of pulpit polemic would, to some, seem distant, and without the the ability to touch the inner most being. But the owner of that voice wasn't here primarily to talk, and a ministry of words was not what he was here to give; the purpose of his visit was to confer a blessing; a blessing that had its origins in a church in Toronto, Canada. The Baptist minister had recently visited this far flung church, and this visit no doubt made him better qualified to supervise the conferring of this blessing. Thus, in due time the assistants of the Baptist Minister moved amongst the congregation, praying over them for this strange blessing to come. It was as if they were custodians of some hidden spiritual power, holders of a mysterious gnosis that could not be imparted by expository logic, but only through their hands and upon those of sufficiently submissive and expectant attitude. I had seen it before; they were those kinds of believers who, apparently initiated into the inexpressible secrets of the Holy Spirit, are often sought out by those anxious for some deep experience of God, and those who fear divine disapproval if blessing is not claimed or taken. The ostensive qualities of the Bedford Baptist’s demeanour, their apparent agency to some mysterious blessing, the submissive, expectant, and dependent attitude required of those who were to receive the blessing were all things that were highly reminiscent. The members of religious cultures from the neolithic period to Salt Lake City would probably have been able to identify which class in their own communities this Bedford group most resembled and would have had little trouble finding a title for them: The Priesthood.

NCBC Guided Tour. Anglo Saxon Norwich

(The updated version of this tour can be downloaded from here: 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzLwnl6qE_yeazNQQmsxaDJoZlE/view)

Below are my tour guide notes for the Wensum valley walk from Norwich Central Baptist Church to the Cathedral and back. These notes are likely to be enhanced as new information comes to light.

History: Looking back we see ourselves in perspective. We can see repeated themes and ask ourselves if our world view really works when seen in the context of a larger history. The enhanced experience sample provided by history can change the significance and meaning of our own smaller subset of experience.


• This is a picture of St Mary’s Baptist church (now NCBC) before it was destroyed by bombs in WWII
• Baptists came to this site in 1744, but built this structure under the popular and famous minister Joseph Kinghorn in 1811.
• Why does it have a classical Georgian facade? Why did the nonconformists fail to find satisfaction in the protestant Church of England?
• Why did the Norwich Baptists emerge during the 1600s?
• Why are the 1600s are such is a pivotal century for non-conformity in England?
• Answers to these questions take us right back to Saxon times
• Saxon government was closer to a kind of protection racket model whereas the feudal/serf system introduced by the Normans was closer to a slave model. This gave rise to Saxon discontent.
• Saxon England never really took to the feudal system and the Normans themselves become saxonised in attitude.
• This may have helped create the conditions needed for religious dissent, the rise of parliament, and the industrial revolution and science – the seeds of the modern world.
• The NCBC tour around old Norwich takes us around the ancient urban theatre that hosted the history behind these questions and issues.

SEE THIS LINK FOR A MAP OF ANGLO SAXON NORWICH

• The tour takes us along the Wensum valley to the Saxon centre of Norwich, Tombland a name which means “Open Space” or “Empty Space”
• In Saxon days Tombland was the centre and market area of Norwich
• The valley is densely pock marked with churches evidence that this part of the city is older than the higher parts of Norwich
• Major routes into the city still lead to Tombland: for example King street, Magdalen Street, St Benedict’s.
• Many of the street lines we will follow are Saxon.
• Notice that many street names in this area end in “gate . This ending is derived from the Danish word “Gade” which means “street” (“wick” or “vik” may also have Danish origins)
• The Normans (after 1066) moved the market place to the apron of the newly constructed castle.
• This castle dominated old Norwich in the valley: it was built to see and to be seen. These were the new men in charge.
• The current centre of Norwich (i.e. the castle area) was created by the Normans and not the Saxons


St Mary’s Plain
NCBC
• Baptists first came to this site in 1744 (at the start of industrial revolution) under John Stearne.
• Expansion of the congregation under the popular and famous Joseph Kinghorn resulted in Kinghorn laying the foundation stone of a Georgian building in 1811. (see picture above)
• Where is his grave?

St Mary’s Coslany Church
• Anglo-Saxon style tower, possibly the oldest in Norwich and may be pre-conquest.
• Note V shaped heads of tower widows as opposed to Romanesque arches.
• About 400 years separates tower and nave. Latter built in perpendicular style with large windows.
• Cotman was baptised here.
• The church became very dilapidated in Edward times. A newspaper correspondent described the church as being left to the mercy of “Stone throwing street urchins”. A sign that working class people had left the church in droves as a result of life style changes.

Zoar Chapel.
• Strict and particular Baptists separated from General Baptists in the 1600s.
• They were strong Calvinists: They believed Christ’s saving work only for those elected to be saved.
• The General Baptists believed all men have the potential to be saved.
• The Baptist Union was formed from a merger of the Particular Baptists and General Baptists.
• Zoar chapel are the strict and particular Calvinist dissenters who maintained a closed communion.
• Zoar in Hebrew means "small" or "insignificance." Zoar was the town of Lot’s refuge as he escaped from Sodom and Gomorrah. (NCBC = Sodom?!!)
• It is a coincidence that they are next door to us? Research has not been able to uncover a link.

Roman Roads
• A north-south Roman road from Ber Street or King Street ran along Oak Street.
• An east-west Roman road ran from the cathedral area and then along St Benedict street.
• The roads may have crossed at Charing cross (?)


Muspole Street
• Possibly part of the Saxon street system
• “Muspool”. A pond used for drinking.
• Interestingly there is a very old water fountain at the Colgate end of the street.
• Another source claimed that Muspool derived from a pool of refuse!

Colgate East
St. George’s Church.
• Notice the ‘Basilica’ design: This was copied from the Roman forum design. Christians avoided the temple design with its association with idolatry.
• Nave built 1459, Chancel 1498, aisles 1505 (north), 1513 (south).
• Probably not the site of a Saxon church.
• This was the Renaissance period of perpendicular churches. They are called “perpendicular” because of the predominance of vertical lines and edges.
• Perpendicular churches were light and airy with big glass windows; perhaps a sign of increasing human technological confidence. In comparison Norman churches are dark and cave like.
• This church would have looked really up to date and modern in its time.
• These churches are evidence of the end of feudalism and the rise of a merchant class who helped subsidise them.
• It was these merchants who were to fall out with the monarchy and they found common cause with the non-conformists.
• Norwich was getting rich on the wool and textile trade and also confident.
• Perpendicular churches are the wool merchants churches. They are very prevalent in Norwich and have all but wiped out the early medieval designs. Their prevalence is a sign of a Norwich grown rich on the textile trade.
• John Crome worshipped here.

Henry Bacon House.
• Houses in this area belonged to wealthy (textile) merchants.
• Henry Bacon, a Worsted merchant, built this house in Colegate in the 16th century. He was Mayor in 1557 and 1566.
• Quote: “As Sheriff in 1548-9 he entertained the Duke of Northumberland at the time of Kett’s Rebellion, putting the Duke’s emblem of a ragged staff above his door. The lintel of the front doorway has a merchant’s mark balanced by the arms of the Grocers’ Company and his mark also appears over a window to the left as well as high up near the south-west angle”.
• The merchant class rising to a place of power and influence in society is a recurring theme in the Wensum valley area.

Norvic Shoe factory.
• A Victorian building.
• In times past shoes would all have been made and bought locally.
• The factory system produced a local surplus. Hence trade became more global and distant economies became linked. This is where the profit makers have taken us: if one economy falls over, it can take all the others with it!
• It is not known why Norwich should become a shoe making centre.
• By 1830, however, the textile industry in Norwich had decayed, but not the shoe industry. This may be because textiles are power intensive whereas shoe making is labour intensive.

Octagon chapel
• Originally the site of a Chapel for the Black friars.
• Dr John Collinges, vicar of St Stephen’s dissented under Charles II in 17th century, and set up the chapel with his Presbyterian followers.
• This is our first location with a link to NCBC in that it has a common ancestor; namely the disaffection with the established Church of England under the subliminally catholic Stuart dynasty of the 1600s
• These Presbyterians built the Octagon in 1756. The architect was Thomas Ivory (architect of the assembly room and many alterations to Blickling hall)
• John Wesley visited in 1757 and admired it. First of its kind in England.
• The Martineaus worshipped here (An influential Huguenot protestants) .
• Presbyterianism is the Scottish version of Congregationalism with a preference toward national centralisation.
• The congregation here had become Unitarian by the early 19th century. Was this connected with the enlightenment?
• Notice the pattern here: dissenters worship in a private house first and then create a building fit for purpose as the congregation expands and becomes more established – we see this pattern today.

Old Meeting House.
• Built in 1693 after the toleration act. The roots of the congregation go much further back to the disaffected Congregationalists who first met in private halls and houses.
• The Baptists that eventually became NCBC came out of the Congregationalists.
• Notice the classical architecture: they were disaffected enough to want to get away from churchy gothic looking buildings. There is irony here: when the early church started building churches they took their model from the Roman secular basilica, the public forum. This was a reaction against the religious temple with its associations with idol worship. Later as the nonconformists integrated with the establishment they started building pseudo gothic churches – see for example Dereham Road Baptist Church.
• Men and women entered the building by different doors. “The arrangement is similar to that of the Unitarian chapel in Ipswich, which began life in almost exactly the same way and is from the same decade.” Congregationalists still meet here and the liberal Jewish community meet here.
• Note: Congregationalism in Norwich goes right back to 1580 when Robert Browne set up a congregation: its chief characteristic is that of a rejection of a centralised church government in favour of local government.

St Clement’s Church:
• St. Clement was the patron saint of sailors. Churches of this dedication are found near the crossing point of rivers.
• It is the site of a Saxon church.
• Largely a perpendicular church with some older parts suggesting it was one of many perpendicular rebuilds. Some of its older parts can be seen; see for example the east end window which from the 1300s decorated period and also the corner stones on the west wall next to the tower showing that the nave was once narrower.

Fye Bridge Street
Fye bridge
• Had a ducking stool that records say was actually used.
• This was one of the first bridges and started as a ford in Saxon times.
• Its vicinity to the important space of Tombland is evidence of the antiquity of the crossing.
• It isn’t true that ‘fye’ minds ‘five’, but it so happens that this is the fifth bridge to be built.



Tombland
Augustine Steward House:
• Augustine Steward (1491-1571) was a common councillor, a sheriff and then later an MP for Norwich.
• During the time of the Kett’s rebellion in 1549, Steward was Deputy Mayor and the rebels ransacked his home but he managed to escape. Merchants tend to side with law and order because that is best for business.
• His merchant’s mark and the arms of Mercers Corporation can still be seen on the building.
• He was another textile money maker.
• Ultimately this merchant class clashed with Stuart King Charles I in parliament over demands for money (Now, that really does upset the merchant class!). This lead to the civil war off 1642 which intimately impinges upon the history of NCBC.
• Inside the building the undercroft has blocked tunnels that lead to the cathedral across the road. The purpose of the tunnels is unknown. (Symbolically undermining King and High church?)

Tombland Alley:
• Follows the line of the east-west Roman road that crossed the north-south Roman road around Charring Cross (?)

St George’s Tombland:
• This is where we pick up the story of NCBC again.
• The Rector of this church, Rev William Bridge (and also of St Peter Hungate) became disaffected with Stuart King Charles I high church.
• He left for the Rotterdam in about 1635 and joined the English Chaplaincy in Holland where he had a freer rein.
• This Chaplaincy ministered to English merchants in the lowlands.
• Once again notice that the merchant wealth makers are figuring in the subversion of King and the established Church.
• Congregational dissent started to brew amongst the English Christians in the Netherlands.
• When the Congregationalists returned to England after the Civil War they asked sympathetic established church ministers to pastor them.
• The first was Rev Henry Amitage in 1647 who was associated with St Michael’s church in Coslany.
• The second was Rev Thomas Allen in1655 who was rector of this church (St. George’s) and St Peter Hungate.
• The early Congregationalists used this church for their services and a gallery (long since gone) was built for increased numbers, but they were thrown out after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660.


Cathedral Close
Norwich School
• Originally a free school for poor boys set up by the Benedictine monks in about 1300
Cathedral:
• Notice the basilica design. Notice also the Roman “viaduct” look of tier upon tier.

Elm Hill:
A very dilapidated Elm Hill was up for demolition by the council in the 1920s but it was just saved by one vote by the newly formed Norwich Society.

St Simon and St Jude church
• Goes at least as far back as the Normans. The chancel is from the 'decorated' period and is older than the perpendicular nave. Contains the famous monuments of Sir John Pettus.

Pettus House
• Fifteenth Century Merchants house.
• Original diamond leaded lights on top floor. Has a Georgian shop front.
• Sir John Pettus was knighted by Elizabeth I. Major of Norwich 1608.
• As Pettus got wealthier he moved to an estate at Rackheath. He was aping the aristocracy with their large estates.
• House owned by the Pastons at one point. The Pastons have their roots in the peasantry. Their rise to wealth was contested by noblemen.

Strangers Club
• Started in 1927and intended to have a 50-50 mix of locals and foreigners
• It is now an elite club of professionals. The phenomenon of such clubs goes back to the Free Masons. Once again notice the mercantile connection.
• The house was owned by Augustine Steward who lived here around 1545.
• The club badge is adapted from Stewards coat of arms.
• The Club has entertained dignitaries such as Queen Mary, Princess Alexandra, the Lord Mayor of London, the Netherlands’, Belgian and Mexican Ambassadors, Lord Birkenhead, Lord Baden-Powell, Sir Henry Wood, Sir Alfred Munnings, writers, actors, politicians and overseas visitors to the City who are brought to see the Club Premises.
• Professional gentleman’s clubs were very important in the industrial revolution as the seed bed of new ideas and their dissemination.
• The Mason’s had their roots in the enlightenment and the notion of God as a rational architect.

Britons Arms: The only building on Elm hill to survive the 1507 fire. Medieval doorway. Home to a group of religiously minded women.


St Andrews Area

St Andrews Hall:
• Built in the “Decorated” period: about mid 1300s.
• The most complete friary complex in the country.
• Friars lived to serve the community rather than live the detached lives of the monks. They were popular amongst the people. They depended on gifts of charity.
• They were established in the late 12th Century as a reaction to the wealth and power of the monks and monasteries, which is ironic because monks started out as religious ascetics.
• However they were not exempted from the dissolution.
• After the dissolution Augustine Steward sent a proposal the Henry VIII that the City buy the building from the Crown and this was accepted. This insured the buildings survived.
• Hence from 1540 the city took possession and the building has served as a church, a priory, school granary, workhouse, and mint. It contains the country’s largest selection of civic portraits.

Anchoress/Anchorite cell:
• An ascetic of the Middle ages who lived for prayer and the Eucharist.
• They were bricked up permanently in cells against church walls and sealed by the Bishop in a special ceremony.
• A Squint hole enabled them to hear and receive communion.
• A hole facing the outside world enabled them to receive food and give advice and counsel.
• Maintenance of Anchorites may be provided by wealthy people: whilst the wealthy tried to make their name in this world the anchorite helped make sure their names were also heard in heaven.
• Julian of Norwich who lived in a cell off King Street is world famous for her teaching.
• Many anchorites and Anchoresses in Norwich.

St Peter Hungate
• The second of Rev William Bridge’s churches; the rector who defected to the Rotterdam congregations.

Cloisters, East Granary,
• By 1667 under Daniel Bradford the Baptists had split from the Congregationalists over the issue of child baptism. Bradford is the name of the first minister that appears on the NCBC history of ministers.
• In 1688 the catholic Stuart monarch James II was deposed. Sometime after this date the Baptists under their minster Henry Austine took the lease on what was originally the dormitory over the cloisters of the of the St. Andrews friary.
• However they left the East Granary circa 1720 for a house in Coslany. (There is a plaque on the Granary referring to the Baptist presence)
• These Baptists came out of a melting pot of religious dispute amongst non-conformist protestants.
• Congregationalists heart ached about the loss of the Baptists from their number: “….they have not only forsaken the churches for want of the ordinance of baptism, but also judged all churches no churches that were not of their mind or came not up to their practice” says a congregationalist source.
• There were other divisions amongst the Protestants: ‘Kingdom Now’ Anabaptist extremists even went as far as wanting to overthrown Cromwell’s puritan government in order to help usher in Christ’s rule with His saints.
• There were disputes between Baptists and Quaker “Charismatics”. The latter suggested that the Baptists water baptism was on a par with St John’s baptism and inferior to Christ’s baptism with the Holy Ghost.

• The 17th century was a century of intellectual and political turmoil.
• It was a century that looked for the right balance between leaders and the people, between materialism and spirituality, between science and revelation.
• What should be at the centre of things? Earth or Sun? People or King? Mind or heart? God or man? Or most sinister of all: was there any centre at all?
• The Copernican revolution and what it means was by now well underway and is still ongoing.

St Georges Street
Art College: Now “Norwich University College of the Arts”

Black Friars Bridge: Not an original Saxon bridge.

Colgate West
Duke Street:
• So called because the Duke of Norfolk had a palace here in 1540.
• In former days it was probably only a small lane and Colgate was the main thoroughfare and had priority.

St Michael Coslany Church
• This church figures in NCBC history. In 1647 Rev Armitage of this church was asked to pastor the Congregationalists after they returned from Rotterdam (This was before the NCBC Baptists came out of the Congregationalists).
• When Armitage died in 1655 they moved to St George’s Tombland, and Rev Thomas Allen’s ministry
• St. Michael’s is obviously a perpendicular church. (That is, a church built on wool money)
• The fine flint flushwork has been likened to the inlaid ivory of cabinets.
• The flushwork on the south and east walls of the chancel is a late 19th Century copy.
• The south side is the most decorated face because this is the side that faced what used to be a busy street. Duke Street which cuts off this end of Colgate may only have been a small lane rather than the main thoroughfare it is today.
• St Michael’s is now the Inspire centre whose purpose is “...to promote and encourage the discovery and enjoyment of science by all members of the community using hands-on exhibits and related activities." Very appropriate. The merchants helped subsidize the perpendicular churches, and in the long run their search for profit promoted science as a side effect.
• The conflicts we have talked about resolved in favour of commercialism and nonconformist religious freedom.
• Ultimately this commercialism lead to the industrial revolution and this revolution in turn helped to promote science.
• So at St Michael’s science has come home: Norwich’s glut of perpendicular churches was down to the wealth of the merchants and it was the merchants who ultimately (if a little inadventantly) laid the seed bed of non-conformity, parliament, and science

Old Baptist Meeting House:
• This house was situated somewhere beyond the west end of St Michael’s.
• The Baptists moved here from the East Granary circa 1720.
• The house was extended at one point to accommodate increased numbers, but in 1744 they left for a house situated on the current site of NCBC.

Rosemary Lane:
(Before and after photo)

Thomas Pykerell House
• Built late fifteenth century by Thomas Pykerell.
• A mercer (textiles again!) who was Sheriff in 1513 and Mayor in 1525, 1533 and 1538. He died in 1545 and was buried on the north aisle of St Mary’s Church.
• Quote: In 1860 the building was an inn with the sign of the Recruiting Sergeant, and the yard at the rear was even then known as Pykerell’s Yard. It was later the Rosemary Tavern, but by the 1930s was being considered for demolition under a slum clearance scheme.
• One of the few thatched houses remaining within the city walls.
• It had the characteristic medieval hall layout of an entrance with a hall (then the living space of the house) on one side and private withdrawing rooms attached. On the other side of the entrance were three doorways into the pantry (for bread & associated foods), buttery (for meats and alcohol) and Kitchen (for food preparation).
• The site of the kitchen was probably that now occupied by the Zoar chapel.
• The spandrels over the arch would likely to have contained some sort of heraldry.


Self Link

SMITH VERSUS REEVES

I am currently talking to an ‘anonymous’ contributor to Network Norwich (here) who, for various reasons, I refer to as Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith is a Christian dualist: that is, he sees the cosmic drama very much in terms of a superior spiritual world set over against the inferior world of matter. Mr. Smith attempts to resolve those notorious ghost/machine incompatibilities via the introduction of a third component that he identifies as the soul which acts as the medium between incommensurables.

It is precisely this kind of dualist dichotomy, real or imagined, that I have been putting under the spotlight for a long while now. And for good reason too: so much human angst, so much existential heartache, so much religious alienation from the cosmic context, are bound up with man’s perception or misperception of his nature and place in the greater scheme things. Atheism is inclined to the view that we are no more or less than a configuration of a small subset of the matter we find in abundance around us. There is a consequent anxiety, even paranoia, that because we therefore apparently occupy no special or sacred place in the cosmos then perhaps one day the material cosmos, either in the form of machines or natural calamity, will visit us with disaster. Moreover, unconscious matter, rather than sentience seems the dominant and even primary cosmic phenomenon. Deep space views delivered by the Hubble telescope show more of the same: just more and more starry whirlpools of insentient matter indifferent to human affairs. The huge star fields over our heads are surely more than a mere façade painted onto a canopy. Billions of galaxies and eons of prehistory, we instinctively sense, must have a noumenal existence, thus making our place in the greater scheme of things seem insignificant. We experience great pains and passions, but extreme materialism not only sees humanity as ultimately fading without trace but even denies the reality of those ephemeral pains and passions.

As a reaction against all this Dualism is a seductive philosophy. It seeks support in the intuition that the activity of matter is mechanical, absent of sentience and has an independent ontology very distinct from our self aware selves. Although this intuition is not shared by animistic societies it is a common perception of industrial societies who have exorcised the haunted environment and now view it purely instrumentally and mechanically. And so industrial societies are acutely aware of the dichotomies of mind and matter, will verses mechanism. Ironically religious dualism doesn’t question the materialist’s assumption that an independent gritty matter is a real ontology. Instead it sees matter as a potential upstart and rival to the sublime spiritual world. Religious dualism is humanities way of reaffirming the specialness and sacredness of humanity by attributing an extra spiritual ingredient, an extra zing that sets humanity apart from and above mere matter.

And yet dualism as a philosophy is by no means obvious: Idealism challenges it by suggesting that matter cannot exist without mind, and moreover that matter is a phenomenon of mind. Berkley’s idealism sees God’s Mind as the substrate ontology and matter as an ephemeral concept that floats for while inside that Great Mind.

THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT.

In this article posted on the Christian Web site ‘Network Norwich’, the minister of Surrey Chapel, Tom Chapman (seen above with his wife), describes his struggle with a serious brain tumor. After quoting Isaiah 43:2 (“when you pass through the waters I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers they will not sweep over you.”) he goes on to say:

This is not, I think, a guarantee that we will always be aware of him holding our hand. That was not my experience, and don’t think it is the Bible’s promise. The point is not that we will never feel alone, but that we will never be alone. Cue “Footsteps in the sand.” Of course, if this promise never touched our emotions in any detectable way, we might reasonably start to doubt its reality – experience matters. But we must never reduce what is true to what feels true. And so I got wet, but didn’t drown.

We see here an age old theme, namely the interplay between feeling and knowing, between sensing and believing, between perceiving something and thinking something. Specifically we find, in this case, feeling, sensing, and perceiving the presence of God being contrasted with knowing, believing, and thinking God to be present.

As I have written elsewhere: “Ideas Versus Experience!” is a slogan expressing the uneasy relation between what we think the world to be and what our actual experience suggests it is. Experience makes or breaks ideas.

So much of our thought turns on this dichotomy. So much of thinking life is taken up with the attempt to make sense of a world for which our immediate perceptions only ever provide a small sample. The struggle to join the dots of our experience into the wider understanding of a theoretical framework is a ubiquitous activity. The struggle is particularly poignant if a theoretical framework tells us that in spite of the immediacy of troubling experiences, things will turn out to the good in the end.

But although the dialectic between experience and theory is part and parcel of the human predicament there is often a great yearning to short cut this sometimes-tedious process. In particular, the devout have a tendency to be seduced by the promise of a direct connection with the Divine through sublime mystical experience. They are therefore more likely to be susceptible to the instinctual and inscrutable prepackaged conclusions of the intuitive 'right side of the brain' than to the analytical ‘left side of the brain'*. In this context there is a spiritual premium on sublime emotional contact with the divine; anything less is considered to be spiritually inferior.

Large swathes of evangelical Christianity are in denial about the fact that all of us see the cosmos through theoretical frameworks. They hate the taint of the theoretical; They despise so-called doctrine and ‘head knowledge’; They affect to have a direct communion with God via gnostic connections and frequently express fideist sentiments; Viz:

If you always process salvation through your mind you will never enter the fuller things in your walk. You must move from a place of cognitive reasoning ability to a place where faith and belief flows through your spirit and not your head … God is beyond your logic.

.... they don’t want a faith contaminated by the analytical mind; they affect to have a rustic faith where ‘just knowing’ is all there is to it; a plain and simple faith uncomplicated by whys and wherefores. But the view I have quoted above is inconsistent as it is itself an expression of a theoretical position, albeit an incoherent one.

The struggle that Tom Chapman relates is very candid, very true to life, and above all, very moving. Sometimes it seems that Christians who find themselves in the valley of the shadow of death have to be almost apologetic about not being on the mount of transfiguration. It is a perverse gnostic logic that estimates high spirituality to be measured by transfiguration experiences; accordingly those who are not exactly on the mount of transfiguration confound a popular spiritual paradigm and thus are to be applauded for having the courage to own up to the actual reality of their spiritual life. True spiritual values are, in fact, the very opposite of gnostic values. Those who traverse those dark valleys where hills hem them in, where they cannot see the horizon, where immediate experiences seem at odds with their grasp of the big picture, are facing a spiritual test that few of us wish to face. In that test, knowledge, theory, and analysis, objects so despised by today's touchy-feeley spiritual paradigm, provide the vistas onto a wider perspective that feeds hope and faith.

My prayers and hopes are with Tom Chapman and his family. I applaud his intellectual integrity as he drinks from the cup chosen for him. We all dread this cup and feel relieved that it hasn’t (yet) been served us; but there is no good reason why one day it might not come our way and who knows we may fail at the test; one works out one’s faith in fear and trembling. Tom Chapman’s integrity is to be cherished in the face of an evangelicalism that is so often inclined to compromise its authenticity by affecting to glory in the act of sacrificing intellectual integrity to the murky waters of fideism.

Footnote

* The intuitive right side vs the analytical left side is an over simplification of brain operation, but it serves as an approximation and metaphor in this context.

DIFFERENT PLANETS

The NCBC web forum has recently been removed – hopefully archived and then removed. The active life of the forum ran from late summer 2006 to about the end of 2007. During its 18 month life the forum accumulated many postings and even hosted discussions with gravitas and significance. But apart from myself there have been few postings since the beginning of 2008 and perhaps it has become an embarrassment that too many of the discussion threads were terminated with latest comments by yours truly.

After first notification of its impending doom, I suggested that the old forum at least remain available as an archive, perhaps with the possibility of adding further content should the need arise. This request, as expected, wasn’t granted and so I took the precaution of archiving some of the material that interested me. I may reproduce some of this material on this blog in order to reestablish its much-deserved WWW exposure.

In theory NCBC web activity has moved on to its facebook pages. But looking at these pages, and especially the related facebook group, there has only been a trickle of light and innocuous activity during 2007, and very activity little since the beginning of 2008. Compared to the first year of the forum NCBC facebook looks as though it has been struggling from day one. Other than some light chat and occasional news items NCBC facebook, in spite of its 70+ members, may be suffering in part from novelty and subject exhaustion as a consequence of sustaining the forum for over a year.

And yet there is evidence on NCBC face book of a casting about for something and a sense of where to next? The discussion board kicks off in April 07 with someone pointedly asking, “Why do people join groups but not contribute anything?” and in March 07 someone else asks “What do you think I should talk about to appear interesting?” There is also a hint of that sense of brooding and of marking time before a much hoped for revival of religious fortunes or ‘shake up’ as someone puts it - often associated nowadays with Gnostic revival and ‘swoon for Jesus’ worship; a common reaction in these days of depressed spiritual malaise.

I won’t disturb the NCBC facebookers discussing what they are going to discuss or any prerevival blues. In any case my work is cut out engaging some of the issues raised on this and other blogs: e.g. the Wensum valley churches, the feminisation of church, the questions raised by recent revivalists, the Open Gospel, the ID/evolution debate, the polarisation of analytical knowledge and gnostic knowledge etc etc. These subjects appear not to register on NCBC radar at all and that is probably down to different priorities, different perspectives, different problems, different personalities, different planets!

Stop press: The old forum is still available on this URL (but for how long?)

http://www.norwichcentral.org/discuss/Blah.pl

However, there seems to be no link from the NCBC web site.

YOU CAN COUNT ON IT

Tonight in the evening service, still with are eye on the male:female ratio and the feminisation of church, I did a quick count. This returned 30 males against 36 females, which reduces to a five to six mix. This, I suppose, is not far from the four to six mix I was averaging a few months back.

THE RIGHT PITCH

The Sunday evening service was billed as a “Special Football Service”. I’m not the least interested in football and I went expecting to be bored to death by it all, although I would certainly want to concede that churches need to connect with a wide range of personalities, temperaments and interests and so I was prepared to stick it out. However, the whole service not only proved to be very well put together, but even interesting to someone like myself. It included a wide range of fascinating material; from the history of the Norwich Churches league, through the origins that some premier league clubs have in church teams, to the testimonies of Christian footballers. I was reminded somewhat of the old boys brigade where young lives were introduced to discipline, team spirit, and service, against a military looking backdrop. The ethos of today is unlikely to bear something like that, and so football may usefully have supplanted it.

Excellent, well done, I thought. However, that the service was clearly constructed with imagination and lots of hard work puts the contemporary dualist spiritual paradigm on the spot. That paradigm contrasts God’s work – which it tends to only perceive in acts of special dispensation – against ‘natural’ or profane agencies like man. The kind of shipwreck analyses that the dualist paradigm is inclined toward can be seen when it insists that creation was an act of special dispensation about 6000 years ago. In its most extreme form the perspective of the dualist mindset is inclined to perceive something like the NCBC Football Service, which ostensively taps into general dispensational resources, as purely a product of human effort and therefore lacking in spiritual power. The extreme dualist has difficulty registering the presence of God’s work unless it is in the form of ‘supernatural interventions’ and these are so often identified with bizarre religious practices that dehumanize and eclipse personality in favour of ‘blessing fodder’ events.

In the dualist mind activities involving creativity, skill, and interest are likely to be perceived as profane, even Godless activities. Utterly lacking in self-awareness the extreme dualist exempts his own mindset from self analysis, and is therefore unable to identify his perspective as a very facetiously human feature. He cannot see his mindset, but instead sees through it. Therefore that mindset never comes up for review and criticism. Unaware of his all too human perspective he sees himself as through and through a sublime spiritual being, a cut above the skills based Christian.

SPIRITUAL BULLYING
The sermon started well: It was about that nasty third generation Herod, Herod Agrippa I who beheaded James (brother of John). Realizing that moves against the early church curried favour with the Jewish leaders Agrippa went onto imprison Saint Peter. In the New Testament Agrippa is portrayed as the archetypical sinner, the sort of person who puts the ‘I’ in the middle of the word sin. He aggrandized himself with rich clothing and won his position with the Romans and Jews with flattering words and sycophancy. Sometimes it was very difficult to tell if he genuinely cared or whether it was just a ploy to further his own interests and position. Agrippa, it seems, was the kind of person who is so self centered that when they shut their eyes they believe everyone goes away; in effect a solipsism of the worse type. He was utterly superficial, a mere façade motivated by the golden sin: egotism. Agrippa had acquiescenced completely to his egotistical temptations and lived the kind of self seeking life that is the antithesis of true Christianity. Excellent, I thought: this is what our spiritual battles are all about.

However, the Preacher went onto tell us that Peter had been imprisoned and shackled by his culture …. wait a minute surely not Peter’s culture, because presumably Peter had rejected the profound shallowness of the Agrippas of this world? But OK then, fair enough, we can accept that Peter was effectively a victim of a hedonistic culture. So, the preacher deduced, “We must repent of our culture”. Hhmm…, this is getting ambiguous, I thought: humans can’t operate in a cultural vacuum: we are all destined to express ourselves via the medium of some culture or other, hopefully a culture with moral fibre. Just what sort of culture was the preacher thinking we should repent of? To illustrate he went on to relate an anecdote about a Christian friend who far from home one Sunday happened to stumble into a church and who knows it could have been anything from a strict brethren assembly to a church of the snake handlers. However, ‘stumble’, it seems, was the name of the game because at one point in the service, at the cue of the speaker, the entire congregation fell to the floor except our preacher’s Christian friend who decided that he must repent of his culture in order to receive the sublime states of heart and soul associated with the ‘carpet blessing’. So, the take home lesson for us that day was that we should repent of our culture and, who knows, we might then be able receive the carpet blessing. And if we had any doubt about just how bad our culture is, a culture that may be resisting this sort of blessing, there was the illustration of Agrippa’s hedonistic world for comparison!

This sermon was typical of its class and I have seen it time and again amongst evangelicals: in an attempt to foist the idiosyncrasies of one expression of Christainity upon other Christains, a strong hint is dropped as to how sinful they must be if they don’t embrace these bizarre foibles. And what authority is offered to back up these quite extreme demands? None accept opinion, cronyism and vague references to an intuitive sensing of what 'God wants' or what 'God is doing'. It was classic spiritual intimidation.

CHURCH IS A DRAG

The May edition of 'Christianity' Magazine has two articles on the issue that I have repeatedly raised in this blog: That of a church culture skewed toward the feminine. A point that neither article seems to grasp is that the masculine-feminine ‘spectrum’ is an abstraction defined by the clusters of traits that have varying probabilities of being associated with the more clear cut phenomenon of genetic typing. For example, physical strength is more likely (but NOT necessarily) to be found amongst males than females. Once this abstract male-female space is set up, actual genetic males and females may find themselves at different points in that space.

Given this concept of the male-female space, the fact is that churches are a niche subculture that is biased toward the feminine cluster of traits in that space. Males who demonstrate a more feminine mindset are in turn more likely to find themselves in line with church values than those with obviously extreme masculine traits. But there is one exception; the Male ‘Leadership’ patriarch is often welcomed with open arms, and finds a place in an subculture that frequently favours submissive behaviour and a dumbing down of an analytic mindset, whether that mindset belongs to a genetic male or a genetic female. See the restorationists for fine examples of patriarchy.

Both articles in 'Christianity' were written by females. One of the articles ends ironically with what to me is actually a call for the church to become even more feminine in its slant! That is, according to the article writer we should get out of the comfort zone of our safe and highly focused stereo typical roles, connect to the holy mystery of God and the mysteries of the gender gap, generally be more outgoing, relate to one another and learn from one another! Next time I go to church I think I’ll dress up in drag and act in a less focused and more scatter brained way; I might fit in better.

DROPPING ANCHOR AT NCBC?
Last Sunday evening, during the NCBC service, we were presented with a logo of an anchor captioned with “You are my anchor, my light and my salvation”. This brought back memories of a piece I wrote 1995 that reflected on the styles of past and present Christianity. Of the past I wrote:

In those days they knew Christianity was good for you because they knew it to be true, and a good Christian was like the pews; strong, silent, resilient, steadfast and anchored - steadfast and anchored? Where have I heard that before?

“Steadfast and anchored” was in fact the caption under the anchor logo of the outgoing boys brigade. I say ‘out going’ because the boys brigade was soon to be defunct and the youth worker of the day was concentrating his efforts on a young persons group he had set up called “Power pack”. The logo of this newer group was a battery being struck from above by a bolt of lightning. With this in mind, in the same article I wrote:

These are the days when they know that Christianity is true because it is good for you and a good Christian is rather noisy and a bit of a power pack - power pack? Where have I heard that before? .... the newer tradition (often associated with charismatic churches) has a tendency to stress a kind of "intravenous injection” of God's blessing in the form of feelings, sensings, touchings, movings, reveries, ecstasies, and occasional bolts out of the blue.

The demise of the well and truly anchored boys brigade in favor of a group called “power pack” was symbolic of the day. In 95, and the three decades proceeding it, God was about “moving on”, God was about doing a “new thing”, God was about being zapped with power from above, God was about experiencing “more God, more…”, God was about the moving goals posts of God’s latest intimate “touch”. All this somehow seemed to find consummation in the Toronto blessing of 94 and the failed “Diana prophecy” of 1997. Today, however, that’s all forgotten water under the bridge. So perhaps we are getting anchored again.

Sometimes Christains seem so unconscious of the meta-narrative.

THE FOUR TO SIX MIX: AGAIN

‘Christianity’ magazine has run two articles (see February and March) on the disparity in the ratio of males to females in churches. Here are my comments, as promised. As I have been aware of this issue for some years (and have written about it) I’m rather disturbed that only now have I found an article airing the matter. Anyway that’s an important start – my own church remains utterly unaware of it.

The two articles cover an interview with Carl Beech Chief executive of Christian Vision for men. I’ve got to hand it to him, Beech does seem to know how to connect to men, although his take on masculinising the church is to give occasion to the issue driven laddish sporting bravado that many men enjoy and engage in. If Beech’s succeeds here then he would have done the church a service.

In my case the way of being a male is slightly different. I have never been one for the laddish culture, as I approximate closer to that male preserve of the quasi-autistic loner who focuses relentlessly on single goals - stereotypically represented in the media by the likes of ‘The hit man’, ‘the terminator’, the lone hobbyist or geek etc.

But in common with the lads it isn’t just a case of me feeling that church just isn’t getting through; in actual fact it’s more a case of that church being proactively against the masculine model and its various manifestations. In modern evangelicalism conversion is all about a personality change that seeks denial of one’s masculine traits in favor of an intuitive reverie so aptly summed up by the phrase ‘The Heart Knowledge Christian’. What church wants, as Beech puts it so well, is chatty friendly ‘small talkers’, effeminacy, wimpishness, a passive submissive imbibing of homiletic monologues on Sunday, indifference to technical gadgetary, and drivers of cutsie feminine cars instead of real manly cars. As far as masculine pursuits are concerned, Beech says that the signal from the church is ‘Stop it because it’s all really sinful’.

As for the state of worship in church with its male alienating ‘Swoon for Jesus love ins’ Beech seems to understand this as well: “Our terminology is that Jesus is our lover – press yourselves into his arms and let him embrace you”. Beech goes onto to say: “I’m very grateful for the charismatic movement, but I think we need to recast the terminology. Some of the songs which emerged in the 90s were very cathartic.” It was a lot worse than that Carl: the mid nineties was the heyday of the Toronto Blessing when, if you didn't want to be accused of resisting the Spirit, you emulated those 'in the Spirit' and got down on all fours and barked!

Not news really, but having identified the problem what do we do next? In some ways the loner like myself is much better placed than the lads; I can simply ignore all these soppy goings on and pursue my own projects. But what does jack the lad do when he can find no social outlet for his laddishness? He says: "Fuhgeddaaboutit!"

BOOTIFUL
Views News and Pews scoops another NCBC story!

Whilst photographing this idyllic scene at the church weekend at Sizewell Hall I happened to catch a UFO in the frame – an Unidentified Floating Object - and here it is:

A gumboot floating on its own raft? What’s more it’s not an ordinary gumboot; it is elaborately encrusted with colourful hearts. What’s the story behind this high status gumboot afloat on Sizewell hall’s lake?

Well, this boot was floated by none other than the good Rev Mark Tall. The Lord clearly guided the Views News and Pews reporter to be in the right place at the right time to witness the launching so that VNP could bring it to you first - although Mark may have a different view on that. When I caught the Reverend gentleman in the act of preparing this unusual spectacle and snapping it with his camera phone I thought, Ahh haa! Another snappy sermon illustration coming up! After all, Mark is a dab hand at starting his sermons with punchy and relevant homiletic illustrations, and this exhibit was clearly going to be used by him to illustrate what a miracle it is to walk on water; If it takes all of man’s ingenuity – no, make that all of Mark’s ingenuity - to come up with this ruse of a single boot standing on water without anyone actually wearing and walking (or hopping) with it at the same time - think how great was The Master’s feat in comparison!

But no, this wasn’t the idea at all – This was the follow up to Mark’s blog entitled 'Polishing thy neighbour’s shoes'. Mark now goes one better – he treats his neighour’s footwear not just to a clean, but also to a scenic pleasure cruise on Sizewell Hall’s picturesque lake, proving that he is as good as his word. But in creating an illustrative message that effectively alludes to walking on water as well, in one fell swoop of homiletic genius Mark has come up with a three-in-one illustration that combines the lessons of his alliterative blog on Words, Works and Wonders.

About the poor saintly lady who owns the boot you needn’t worry one little bit, because she was recently voted on as one of the church elders. She’s going places spiritually and doesn’t need gumboots anymore – as you can see from the picture below she’s so holy, ethereal and angelic looking, that she really does walk on water.

A spiritually up and coming Holy Jo holds council as eager listeners gather round at Sizewell Hall’s high table - Notice discarded, clapped out (and a whole lot less better looking) saints in the background.

VNP at NCBC: Telling it like it is. Remember, you first heard it in VNP!

CHARIOTS OF FIRE

One of those ironic juxtapositions pregnant with subliminal meaning occurred in church tonight. A song written by Jeremy Camp called ‘Beautiful one’ was projected on the screen from ‘SongPro’. The second verse reads:

Powerful so powerful Your glory fills the skies.

Your mighty works displayed for all to see

The beauty of your majesty

Awakes my heart to see

How marvelous how wonderful you are

.

SongPro often projects its songs with a scenic backdrop. In this case the backdrop was a cloudy skyscape – rather appropriate one might think given the above verse, except for one glaring feature; the clouds were those linear formations generated by jet aircraft! Man’s most advanced application of the discovery of fire, the jet aircraft, Promethean in its vision, scores the sky from horizon to horizon, and the yet song declares: ‘Your glory fills the skies’! This breath taking paradox turned out to be a picture and anticipator signalling the need to proceed with caution with what followed; a sermon embodying the great 'genesis paradox' one so often finds in modern evangelicalism. For some Christians Exodus 20:11 (and the like) have a meaning that is as clear as a blue sky, and yet the Promethean project of science blazes its trail across those meanings. For some the paradox has become a chronic contradiction: How could a creator have created such a proactive world, a world so proactive that if it were not for self referencing problems it would seem to be logically self contained? One easy solution, of course, is to simply ignore those vapor trails and their meaning.

An aircraft emerges from the 'Big Bang'!

THE FEMINISED CHURCH

The February edition of 'Christianity' magazine carries the first part of a feature article billed on the front as "No man's land: How gender imbalance has feminised the church". Have they only just noticed this? Moreover, hasn't it occurred to them that it may be a coupled effect: that is, gender imbalance has caused feminisation AND feminisation has caused gender imbalance. I'll do a longer blog on the subject after the second part of the article is published in March.

GODHEAD AND BLOCKHEADS
In yesterday evening’s sermon an allusion was made to Augustine of Hippo’s “heresy”. Yes, it was heresy as Augustine fell into that well-worn trap which, starting with attempts to resolve the problem suffering and evil, leads to an attempt to disconnect from this world by an escape into the confused religious complex of dualism and gnosticism (specifically Manicheaism in this case). This often has ramifications for the views held on the nature of the Godhead. However, I write ‘heresy’ as “heresy” as I much prefer to be lenient about the foibles and blind allies that Christains often traverse – although, needless to say, leniency is seldom reciprocated by these highly religionised Christains who earnestly indentify satanic infiltration with contradiction of their opinions. They are all too ready to accuse fellow Christians of ‘letting in Satan’! (Yes we’ve had it at NCBC too!)

I was reminded of an article in Reachout’s 85th newsletter entitled “Heresies, Ancient and Modern”. The newsletter listed and described the following “heresies”: Aphthartodocetism Monophysitism, Apollinarainism, Alogi, Arianism, Docetism, Ebionite, Encratite, Eutychianism, Gnosticism (Proper), Marcionism, Monarchianism, Monophysitism, Monothelitism, Monotanism, Nestorianism, Origen’s ‘heresy’, Pelagianism, and Sabellianism. Nearly all of these ‘heresies’ fall over on one or more issues connected with legalism, gnosticism, and most often, the nature of the Godhead. Reachout are good at collecting, compiling and tabulating the facts (at least I hope they are), but are not so adept at evaluating the real meaning of what is in their hands; they make no mention of the common themes running through these 'heresies'

Attempts to define the nature of the Godhead are notoriously difficult and I personally have no issue with those who theorize, even wrongly about the Godhead on the proviso that these attempts are tempered by tentativeness, perspective humility and a studied detachment. After all, theorizing attempts to join the dots, and like all theorizing, theologies may not succeed in joining all the dots and the true nature of the Godhead may be a misrepresented. However, that’s no problem if humility of perspective, tentativeness and a studied detachment are the frame of mind in which the theorizing proceeds.

Perspective humility? Tentativeness? Studied detachment? One may as well run after the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow as expect such values to be held in fundamentalist circles. These are the very things that redneck religionists eschew and interpret as the antithesis of faith, revelation and commitment. But the irony is that this is where the real heresy starts, for those who arrive at, say, a Gnostic view of God, are likely to do so as a side effect of the search for an exclusive club of the spiritual elite and will claim other Christains to be all but beyond the pale of grace. They will then proceed with threats of Divine displeasure or even damnation toward those who don’t follow their line or fail to join them.

HAVING SEX WITH GOD

Sometimes life delivers unreservedly classic film set scenarios and clichés. For example, an owl hooting just as I arrive on a dark starry night at the door of the Old ‘Haunted’ Castle where I work. Or the red cloud streaked sunset of December behind the Castle's East Wing as a gentle warm yellow glow filters out through leaded lights – so Kincaid that if it wasn’t real it would be considered naively kitsch. Well, today at church I had one of those unreal moments, too perfect, too stereotypical, and so textbook and clichéd that you’d think I had invented it.

Shortly after I walked late into the foyer on security duty the congregation struck up with one of my favourite carols ‘O Come Emmanuel’. This carol is packed with allusions and imagery taken from the texts of Old Testament history: ‘Ransom captive Israel’, ‘Lonely exile’, ‘Thou rod of Jesse’, ‘Thine advent’, ‘Key of David’, ‘Sinai’s height’, ‘In ancient times did’st give the Law’. As I listened I wondered how many of the congregation connected with a language that to be understood requires a modicum of OT scholarship. After all, this was the church where I had heard on more than one occasion a negative response to having ‘Yet another Bible study’. Anyway, as I had barely finished mulling all this over the next song started, and it turned out to be a quantum leap from the ridiculous to the sublime – no, make that ‘from the sublime to the ridiculous’.

The mind often filters, generalises and then forgets the data on which its generalisation have been made, and one is then left in doubt about the validity of the mind’s abstractions because the original protocols aren’t there to check against. Thus, my generalisation that parts of the contemporary church has abandoned erudition (whether Biblical scholarship or science) in favour of the much exalted and sought after ‘there and now’ quasi-sensual God experience or ‘God orgasm’ has sometimes felt a little off the wall. But as this new song struck up I felt vindicated. As if to emphasise the polarity of scholarship versus the ‘God orgasm’, starkly contrasting against the obscure Old Testament lyrics of ‘O come Emmanuel’ still sounding in my mind, steamy allusions to the ‘God experience’ now assaulted my ears: ‘Fill us’, ‘Passion!’, ‘Breathe within’, ‘abandoned to you’ ‘Lord have your way with us’, ‘God fall on us’ ‘More than this!’ all packed into a single song. (Note: More! More! Is an ecstatic cry one hears in some churches – I wonder if one also sometimes hears Yes! Yes! Yes!…?)

In spite of all the pretensions of prophetic insight that Charismatic Christianity has brought to churches nowadays, those churches seem so utterly unconscious of themselves!

So there you go, yet another minor adventure so pregnant with freudian meaning and insight that I'm sure I'm dreaming!

THE FOUR TO SIX MIX

The November edition of 'Christianity' magazine contains the results of its reader survey. The male-female gender mix of the survey respondents was reported to be 43%-57%; once again the approximate 4:6 mix ratio pops up. By way of comment ‘Christianity’ adds ‘This mirrors the majority female church attendance in the UK’.

FIGHTING SPIRITUALITY

Whilst trawling through the NCBC archives at the record office I stumbled upon the following typed note. I have no idea what the exact connection was, but it was written at about the time Dereham Road Baptist Church premises were being extended to include a large church hall and more schoolrooms. It appears to be part of an address dating around 1935.

“Now we shall have the building – but buildings alone are not enough. We must have earnest, concentrated devoted service. We who have laboured must strive to make ourselves fit, more willing, more persistent. You who have watched but not put your hands to the plough, what of you?”

Press articles of the day convey that mild intoxication experienced by a group of people when something new and full of hope is in the offing. With the recent renovations of our current building we can empathize with that. But can we empathize with this language? It is the language of different times, the language of a spirituality that was founded in the will, and not that of the late 20th century which equated a quasi-orgasmic perpetual honeymoon ‘experience of God’ with ‘closeness to God’. Instead we hear of labouring, ploughing, persistence, earnestness, concentrated service, devotion, striving. The unknown speaker is saying “OK, many of you have worked hard, but now ALL of you must work even harder”. With the living memory of World War I still very much in the public domain they soon had to face the privations of another war. They were ready.

MORE MALE-FEMALE HEAD COUNTING: A CONCLUSION

Taking the average of figures I have posted on the above subject gives a 42%-58% split between males and females at NCBC services. Last Wednesday night I had the opportunity to take a peek at the list of names of people who have signed up for NCBC’s “Christianity Explored” course. I tallied up the males and females (excluding one or two foreign looking names I was unable to identify as either male or female) and arrived at 14 males against 23 females; that is a 38%-62% split. Once again we have the approximate 4:6 ratio popping out of the woodwork. What makes this result interesting is that the same value now emerges in a rather different situation to the services – namely, the take up of a course which is probably populated by a younger cross section, but nevertheless returns a similar ratio. Interestingly, and I don’t know if this means anything, I got exactly the same 38%-62% ratio in the morning service, a service that includes widows. Is this evidence of “first in last out” effect amongst women?

So what does it all mean? Well, I’ve rattled on about the feminization of Christianity, and that may be a factor, but is this bias toward the feminine part of something more general? After all, the readers of astrology columns and the members of a stage spiritualist’s audience have a female majority. Likewise, although I did no sample counting on the evening, the Benny Hinn rally in Norwich (which I endured for research reasons), looked as though it had a female majority amongst the white members of the audience. Is the female mind more likely to tune into the ‘spiritual’ than the male mind? In attempting to explain all this, my best shot at the moment is what follows.

The mind has at least two modes of working. Mode 1: It uses a series of prefabricated heuristics and algorithms. Mode 2: it is capable of actually constructing new heuristics and algorithms. Mode 1 is often loosely associated with the’ limbic’ system; it is instinctual, intuitive, emotional, inscrutable, mysterious and largely unconscious in operation apart from its end results perhaps. Its pros and cons are that it is fast in producing results, embeds much age-old wisdom, but its inflexibility makes it error prone and its inscrutability makes it difficult to correct. Mode 2 is associated with cerebral and conscious thinking. It is clearly a much more complex and difficult activity. Its disadvantages are that it is painstaking, doesn’t quickly arrive at conclusions and can be indecisive, but it is flexible, adaptable, accountable and correctable.

Now here is the rub: these two different modes can be at odds: in fact industrial society, which is largely the product of mode 2, has created conditions in which the prefabricated mental structures of the intuitive mind often feel like a fish out of water. It’s the old head verses heart cliché in another guise. Religion, which so often uses the limbic as its main resource, may find itself alienated from the products of conscious cognition. Rather than a negotiated peace between two complimentary modes of mind there is, in some religious circles, a war on, a head versus heart war. And one can see this in Christianity. Take for example these two quotes that I have culled from Christian circles:

If you always process salvation through your mind you will never enter the fuller things in your walk. You must move from a place of cognitive reasoning ability to a place where faith and belief flows through your spirit and not your head … God is beyond your logic.A softer and perhaps less objectionable version of a similar thing:

I have met many people over the years who have tried to build their faith in their minds. However the mind is based on logic and sometimes the things of God are not logical! The key, I find, is to have your faith in your heart, here needing to understand every detail is not important as all you believe in is based and surrounded by the ultimate truth that God loves you!
(Interestingly in the audience listening to speaker of the first quote I estimated a 35%-65% male-female mix) These quotes attempt to elevate the 'limbic' by heightening its inscrutable mystique and defame the cerebral by suggesting it is mundane, prosaic, earthly, dead and cold. But the fact is that both modes are human and both modes are error prone and yet at the same time both are deeply mysterious in their operation and function under Divine sovereignty. They are complimentary and they should negotiate and not be set against one another.

Now here is the second rub: the female mentality is slightly more skewed toward the limbic mind than the male mentality and hence (I submit) the 4-6 mix of males to females found in churches and other ‘spiritual’ connections. Religion often exploits the age-old limbic system. I wouldn’t want deny that revelations come via this system, but its inscrutability leaves it wide open to exploitation by charlatans and religious quacks. I would be the first admit that we need different kinds of folk in church: intuitive oracles and conscious thinkers and they should compliment one another. However, it seems that looking back at the recent history of western Christianity the swing betrayed by my male-female statistic is not just a statistic – it is thermometer indicating a swing in values toward the limbic: limbic responses are considered to be a sign of a superior spirituality. As limbic Christians have become more and more alienated from the results of a science based society whose main resource is the cerebral mode of thinking, there has been a reaction against the cerebral in favour of the intuitive, emotional, and instinctive and this reaches its extreme in Gnostic flavours of Christianity.

There is an irony here: Christians place a heavy emphasis on the role of the Holy Spirit in bringing people to faith. That’s true enough, but it seems that the Holy Spirit is not transgressing the properties of His own creation: The same subtle pressures found in the current social milieu which favour a retreat of a cross section of religious people into the inscrutable world of limbic reactions are also found amongst Christians. The limbic appeal of Christian churches, like astrology columns and spiritualist churches, is betrayed by the side effect of a skew toward female majorities. This doesn’t invalidate Christianity but it suggests that the Holy Spirit is working very much within the parameters of His own creation.

How does someone like myself fit into all this? The ‘skeptic’ Larry Moran on Sandwalk, is likely to accuse someone like myself of being a deist. In his own terms he may be right as I am inclined to stress the full range of options that the Divine has available without resort to the overtly miraculous. In defence I would have to say to Larry that with the passing of the Newtonian universe deism is a less clear cut category than it was – the day by day providence of God is seen in the vicissitudes of chaos and randomness. But of course redneck limbic Christains will have none of this: they react instinctively against any thing that goes against their instincts and they have no truck with such fine distinctions. This attitude is at once both conceit and self-deceit.

DARE TO ADMIT IT

Norwich Central Baptist Church is the product of two main events: Primarily: the merger of Dereham Road Baptist Church and St. Mary’s Baptist Church. Secondarily: the decision to use the St Mary’s Baptist Church premises as the venue for the merged church.

The following admission is long overdue. Dereham Road Baptist Church’s view on both of these events was initially wrong, whereas the St. Mary’s congregation were at least right from the very beginning that the merger should take place. Initially, however, almost everyone was of the opinion that if the churches merged the Dereham Road premises would be the venue to use and that the fate of the St Mary’s building would be demolition. However, after the merger of the two churches, minds began to change on the on venue question and in this, as with the merger, the St. Mary’s congregation lead the way.

It’s going to be a tough admission for some, but it is clear that God spoke through the St. Mary’s congregation first; not the Dereham Road congregation. I can say this because I’m the first to admit that I got it wrong on both counts. However, perhaps it was easier for me than some to eventually admit I had got it wrong: at the time I was very careful not to back myself into a super spiritual corner by claiming my (wrong) views were based on what “God was saying” or a superior gnostic insight. The gnostic spirituality that sometimes influences evangelicalism is part of the problem rather than part of the solution. (there I go again, slagging off Christian gnosticism)

So, many thanks to God’s servants at the original St. Mary’s Baptist Church who helped bring us to where we are now. Special thanks should also go to the efforts of Rev. David Milner, Mrs. Mary McLarty, and to Rev. Neil Walker; in particular the latter spoke very well at one church meeting and helped me correct my views.

THE HYPERFEMINISED CHURCH.

After my blog on the hyperfeminised church and the subsequent head counting blogs that resulted, I was interested to read a review in the September 2007 edition of ‘Christianity’ about a book called “No More Christain Nice Guy” by Paul Coughlin. The reviewer (Tony Horsfall) says that the book contains a chapter called ‘Jesus the Bearded Woman’ and that it is a “...hardhitting call for men to rediscover their true identity, which he (the author) claims has been emasculated by radical feminism and the teaching of the church. Rather than being passive, naive and avoiding conflict, men should be proactive assertive and courageous, taking hold of the rugged side of Jesus.”

At the very least, it does seem this is not just another of my own idiosyncratic hobby-horses and that there is an issue here percieved by others. Although I wouldn’t say that I find what goes on in my own church particularly obectionable, I have to admit that I often feel its ethos fails to connect, relate, or illuminate the interests, problems, and aspirations I face in my own day-to-day living. In fact this very issue of hyperfeminisation is one of them. As far as my church is concerned the issue simply doesn’t exist. Moreover it is likely to remain outside the cognizance of the church, and the ‘prophecies’ it receives will in turn reflect its ethos. Surprise surprise!

MALE_FEMALE HEAD COUNTING RESULTS

Here are the latest male-female head counting results at NCBC.
Morning Service 23/7/2007: 48 males and 79 females: 38%-62%
Evening Service 23/7/2007: 36 males and 47 females: 43%- 57%
The evening service ratio remains stubbornly static. The morning service shows an even greater preponderance of females, perhaps because it includes the older members, many of whom are widows.

MALE-FEMALE HEAD COUNTING RESULTS

On the Sunday night service of 15/7/2007 I counted 34 males and 45 females and 34 males – that’s a 43%-57% ratio. At the church meeting of 19/7/2007 I counted 20 males and 27 females and 20 males – that’s a 43% - 57% ratio. So, the roughly 4:6 ratio seems to be holding up. What’s it mean? I’m working on it....

MALE-FEMALE HEAD COUNTING RESULTS

Last night I did another male-female head count at church and got 41 males against 57 females – that’s a 42%-58% cut and very close to the previous cut of 41%-59%. It is interesting to note that although we had 17 more people at the service last night the male-female ratio was more or less constant – that’s suggestive of a general background ratio, although it has to be admitted that it is rather early to be sure about this.

THE HYPER FEMINISED CHURCH

An article in the July ‘Christianity’ reports on the difficulty Christian women are having finding marriage partners because of the paucity of males in church. As a result of this article I did some head counting at last Sunday night’s service at NCBC. I came up with 32 males against 46 females – that’s a 41%-59% cut. I suppose this isn’t really news. Moreover, the article brought to my mind another article in the September 2006 issue of ‘Christianity’ which raised the question of whether there is room in today’s church for the expression of the masculine. Also, I have written before on an apparent imbalance toward the feminine in contemporary church culture.

I think there is something very deep here, something that’s actually bound up with the very fabric of our world. One senses it when one reads a book like H. G. Wells “The Time Machine”, a book that investigates feminine and masculine traits by separating them out into two different branches of human evolution, the Morlocks and the Eloi. Looking back on history since enlightenment times one sees a twoing and froing between the analytical and the romantic, as these two perspectives, like Wells' Morlocks and Eloi, constantly react against one another. The analytical favours the masculine caricature: objectivity, focus, the impersonal, the mechanical, the unfeeling, the categorical, the rational, knowledge, evolutionary competition, conquest, even war. The romantic favours the feminine caricature: subjectivity, holism, the personal, mystery, feeling, the intuitive, the heart, the irrational, the inner life, gnosis, tenderness and pacifism.

Like some deep underlying geological fault line imposing itself on the geomorphology of the Earth above, there is, I feel, a deep dualism in the way the world is being perceived and this dualism is making itself felt here. That psychological fault line is constituted by a perceived dualism between the inner life of the heart versus the ‘external’ world of apparently impersonal things. This conceptual fault line is not only affecting our weltenshauung but even affects our church culture; as that culture attempts to disconnect itself from the impersonal, it skews itself toward the feminine.

COMPLIMENTARITY
I was interested to hear Sweet Pete, during his leading of worship on Sunday evening (06/05/2007), quote from a book by Gary Thomas, a friend of Rick Warren. This is what Warren, in his book “The Purpose Driven Life”, says about Gary Thomas’ view (see page 103):

In his book Sacred Pathways, Gary identifies nine of the ways people draw near to God. Naturalists are most inspired to love God out-of-doors, in natural settings. Sensates love God with their senses and appreciate beautiful worship services that involve their sight, taste, smell and touch, not just their ears. Traditionalists draw closer to God through rituals, liturgies, symbols and unchanging structures. Ascetics prefer to love God in solitude and simplicity. Activists love God through confronting evil, battling injustice, and working to make the world a better place. Caregivers love God by loving others and meeting their needs. Enthusiasts love God through celebration. Contemplatives love God through adoration. Intellectuals love God by studying with their minds.
Warren concludes:

There is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to worship and friendship with God. One thing is certain: You don’t bring glory to God by trying to be someone he never intended you to be. God wants you to be yourself. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in worship.What can I say other than, “I’m extremely relieved to hear this”? I think it is the first time I have ever seen the complimentary role played by personality types amongst the ecclesia not only being acknowledged by prominent Christian leaders but also so clearly expressed. This is certainly not the message that has so often been thrust down my throat by a miscellany of Christian leaders who are apt to define authentic Christianity exclusively in terms of what is accessible to their own personality type. Very well said Gary, Rick and Pete.

SERMONS IN STONE..... is the name of one (yes, just one) of my latest projects. I was asked by the NCBC powers that be to compile an album of photos of our church buildings as they used to be before the recent renovations. This album is intended to be an artifact that people can browse in order to see how things have changed, property wise. This task provided me with an excellent cover story to commence a project that I have had in the background for years: Namely, the “Sermons in Stone” project. It entails using a set of photographs of our church architecture to illustrate a piece of text I wrote ten years ago called “High Pulpits, High Priests and the Bedford Blessing”. This piece briefly explored the architectural significance of the ex-Dereham Road Baptist church in relation to the mediaeval period, through the reformation, to the coming of the exotic sounding “Toronto blessing” (except that the “priesthood” who administered the blessing at the Dereham road venue - and wouldn’t you just know it - hailed from ........... Bedford)

In the cover story of an “nostalgia album” I had the perfect excuse to prize out some excellent photographic material from skilled photographers like Steve Genders and Les Thacker both of who obviously have some class equipment. Because every one at NCBC obeys the leadership to the letter, this couple of poor stooges had to hand over their artistic work to me! The album will, of course, ultimately be published in order to maintain my cover story, but the background project will be a little bit more nefarious. Little do they know!

As I have said “Sermons in Stone” is just one of my projects. Another of my current projects also harks back to the past, in fact right back to 1977 when I was involved with the ultimate mathematical control freaky: a study of randomness that attempted to capture it completely in mathematical equations. There was a paradox here that fascinated me – how can you mathematically characterise unpredictability and chaos by bringing it into the compass of the Great Rationales of Mathematics? Aren’t chaos and unpredictability the antithesis of mathematical order? To embark on this project is the ultimate conceptual imperialism. Right up my street.

This project was partly triggered by a question raised Arthur Koestler in his fascinating book “The Roots of Coincidence”. In chapter 1 he tells us how roulette wheels, the daily frequency of ‘dog bites man’ in New York and the number of lethal kicks delivered to German soldiers from their own army horses, all conform to the mathematical patterns of statistics and then he asks a simple but profound question:

How do those German army horses adjust the frequency of their lethal kicks to the requirement of the Poisson equation? How do the dogs in New York know that their daily ration of biting is exhausted? How does the roulette ball know that in the long run zero must come up once in thirty-seven times?
My mathematical work on this fascinating subject was completed by 1987 and I defined, at least to my own satisfaction, the notion of randomness without resort to algorithmic information theory. I typed up my findings, somehow managing to create all the mathematical formalisms using the limited character set of a mechanical typewriter. Hence, my current project is to transfer this paper to computer format, probably expanding and enhancing it in the process. In some ways this mathematical project does have parallels with my attempts to formulate the Open Gospel – in both cases my desire was to find order and theme amidst disorder and complexity. In the first case the complexity is found in those prosaic patterns of heads and tails generated by the throws of a coin and in the second case the complexity was found in the chaotic varieties of Christian culture.

Why do I do these projects? It’s not necessarily that I am particularly expert at them or that I uncover anything special. There are probably two reasons; the first is that I find mystery to be kind of food, a food that I need to devour in order to sustain myself. Thank God then that His mysteries are infinite in number thus ensuring an eternal supply of ‘food’. The second reason is that if I don’t keep at it, if I don’t keep hunting in this world of mystery, boredom, to the extent of being a mild form melancholy, settles upon me – I find the stimulation is necessary. It’s like having to run to keep warm, or like the shark that has to keep swimming to prevent itself from sinking. If you think that there is something wrong about this then think again. God’s creative activity has pulled all sorts of strange creatures out of the nether world of contingency space. I, along with you weird lot out there, seem to be the strange forms he has graciously extracted from the everlasting limbo of possibility, into eternity.

c 1977, 1987, 1997, 2007