Malcolm Bowden

Some of you may have heard Malcolm Bowdens 4thought.tv slot this last week, where he claims that depression, and other mental illnesses, are the choice of the individual who suffers from them.

He says that a "true" Christian can never be depressed, because it is incompatible with their faith.

He says, on his website, that he has been involved in counseling many people, with what he calls "True Biblical Counseling".

There is so much I could say about him, but I would pick up a few for now. Firstly, he seems to have a real thing about "True" Christians, as opposed, I guess, to "False" ones. This always sounds alarms for me, because, in the end, what he means is Christians who agree with him. It means that people who don't agree, or - more significantly - people who are not helped by his "counseling" are not "True" Christians.

That will really help someone if they are already suffering from depression or self-esteem problems, to be then told that they are not really a Christian either.

The other problem I have though is far wider than this. My problem is that he given Christianity a bad name. Now most people I know will happily acknowledge that his opinions are not representative, but people I don't know may assume that this is a representation of evangelical Christianity.

And what bugs me most is this quick-fix approach to mental illness. Actually, I see it in other places, although this is a particularly bad form of it, where the assumption is that some short term counseling, or a few prayers sessions, can cure everything. The real challenge for the church communities, for evangelical Christians as a whole, is can they live with, work with, and support people who have mental illness over years. Can we provide the long-term care and concern that people need? Can we get away from the quick-fix mentality that is so common in society, and pray with people, spend time with people, support people over the years they may need it?

I hope so. And I hope that Malcolm Bowden and his like are seen as a dangerous and minority extreme, and not the genuine, real, caring side of Christianity.

The Hunger Games

This book and film are very hot at the moment, so I decided to read the books, and see what the fuss was about. I recommend it, because the first book at least is a good read.

However, I was also intrigued to see that the story, while being set in the future, is just as true today. Today, we are living in the era of the hunger games.

In the story, the less privileged  have to fight harder for food than the more privileged. Which is completely true in the world - and even in the UK - today. The less you have today, the more difficult it is to provide for yourself and your family. The poorer you are, the harder it is to eat well, to therefore be healthy. And even where there is supposed to be a level playing field - as in the number of entries into the pot - the more common it is that the poor are the ones who suffer.

Even across the districts, the poor ones suffered more than the richer ones. Poverty - and the problems that it produces - goes from generation to generation, in a spiral. Those districts who do not win cannot provide the support for their winners in the following years. So their chances are reduced. And so it goes on.

The parading of the young people before the media is so reminiscent of freak shows like Britain's Got Talent and X-Factor - they get dressed up, they pretend, but this is a show, not them.

And the core message that the Hunger Games gives - that to win you need to kill your opponents - is one we far too often give out. Katriss shows the alternative, that sacrifice is another way. If we sacrifice, if we deal with others as human beings, then we beat the system. Just like Jesus did.

Who gives you your meaning?

Of course the answer is always God. We know that. But is it the truth? I am reading a book at the moment, "So you don't want to go to church anymore", and it has made me think a little bit. Very substantially, I agree with what I have read, but this question is a significant one.

For some people, they find their value, purpose, meaning in their work. And when work rejects them - as it does to everyone eventually - people lose their meaning. Others find their meaning in family, and when their family reject them or disappoint them, they struggle to find their meaning . I could go on.

But what really worries me is that some people get their meaning and purpose in life from the church. Those who are ministers, or childrens workers or members of the congregation, it is easy to define yourself by what your role or position is in church. What is worse, there is a danger that this is seen as finding your meaning or purpose in God. And for so many people, it avoids the real challenges that finding ones meaning in God implies.


The truth is, finding ones meaning and value in God means that these other things will be important, but not driving you. And when they let you down, as they all do very regularly, that will be unfortunate and difficult, but not challenging your personal value. Let me be clear, just because the church tells you to piss off, does not mean that God does. Just because your work and your family tell you that they no longer need you, that doesn't make it the truth or diminish your value.

When you find your meaning and purpose in God, other things may be useful, helpful, productive and help you find more of God. But maybe they won't. And if they don't, then move on. Because your value in God is the most important thing ever. And you need to find those things that help and support that, not diminish it.

TLDR? Find your meaning in God, not some second-rate substitutes.

Fabrice Muamba

Last week, Fabrice Muamba collapsed during a football game, with a cardiac arrest. He was dead for 78 minutes, but was rushed to hospital, and is now recovering well, sitting up and talking. All of which is very good for him, and clearly shown the importance of getting treatment urgently.

However, there has been, since that point, calls to Pray for Muamba, by the family initially, and others since. It shows something else, I think. There has also been criticism of this too, at the very least because there are more important things for God and prayer to do.

Surveys in this country indicate declining belief in God, declining church attendance, a general declining level of defined spirituality. But the Pray for Muamba campaign seems to have taken off and been seen on football players shirts and on the front page of the Sun.

I think this is cool. Because I think that, whatever else we believe or don't believe in this country, we still think that prayer has an effect. His incredible recovery might seem to indicate that it actually works.

Actually, prayer works, and it works in all sorts of ways. It does, I believe, encourage God to intervene. But it also encourages us to do something, to change, to act to fulfill our prayers. And real prayer is about listening to God, and hearing what he has to say too - that will change us.

We are a nation who will pray, and prayer works. But prayer works as much to change us as anything. To listen to Gods desires and priorities. To drive us to make a difference. It may be illegal to advertise that God can heal, but God answers prayers. Just not always in the way we want.

Sorry I have been slow in blogging, BTW. I have been working on getting my book ( see side menu ) published. It is called Bubbles, and is written by Schroedinger. It is currently available in e-book format, on kindle, and in good old-fashioned paper.

Responses and the ABC

I have had some interesting feedback about my posts, and my site www.boredwithchurch.info, so I think there are some responses to make. This is not intended to criticise anyone who has commented, or go back on anything I have said elsewhere or to people specifically. It is a chance to accept and understand these, and look a little bit closer at them.

Some people have expressed that I am opinionated or aggressive. Well, part of that is the nature of a blog, that I am trying to express strong views and opinions, to address one part of the argument, not presenting a completely balanced argument. That is the nature of blogging, of expressing opinions. It doesn't mean that I don't accept the existence of other views, just that I am trying to outline my views, and give perspective to those.

Others have told me that their church does not exhibit these features, their church is not like that. Excellent! But most of what I post is perceptions of the entire church, expressed in some local expressions. It does not mean that all churches are like that, but I try to take a wider view, looking at the wider church. A wider perspective is not focused on what a particular church is doing, but what is happening across the country. And individual churches will not survive the collapse of the church nationally.

Which brings me on to the announcement by Rowan Williams that he is retiring. I know that a lot of people think that Rowan has been a good Archbishop. I don't quite know how to judge him, because the church is still in turmoil, and the real challenges of women bishops, gay clergy and gay marriage are all still in the air. He has kept the church together through the last decade, but is the church actually in a better state now than it was? I have no idea. It will take some time, I think, to see whether his Archepiscopacy has been successful or not.

The real question is who will succeed him. There are all sorts of names being thrown around, but would any of them want the job? The problem is that the job is impossible. It is somewhat like the England football managers job, or even the Chelsea manager recently - very high profile, but the likelihood of being liked or considered to be doing a good job is minimal. The chances of having a disaster is extremely high.

The next Archbishop will have to tackle a shrinking - maybe even dying - church, riven by serious and important divisions. What is more,they will have to deal with the fall out of whatever the women bishops agreement is. What is more, however well the next archbishop deals with these and any other issues that come up in the next decade, there will be those who will criticse him. And maybe, his successor will be a female - that would cause even more problems.

Undermining Marriage....

There has been a lot of talk of late about allowing gay couples to get marriage, would undermine marriage.It made me think that the starting point has to be a definition of marriage.

Well the truth is that marriage has been, for most of our history, a civil agreement between two parties. At its most basic, this is two people who make a mutual agreement to be married. No religious ceremony, no witnesses, nothing. At other times, it was a civil agreement, made to some authorities, rarely a religious event. One of the more famous ones is the "jumping the broomstick" ceremony used across Europe - a ceremony in front of the community. All of these were simple commitments by two people in the community.

It is relatively recently - 250 years or so - that the idea of marriage as a religious ceremony came in. There is probably nothing that redefined marriage more than the religious involvement in the ceremony. Alongside this, civil ceremonies meant that all marriages became formal, civil or religious ceremonies. Now it seems that the biggest redefinition of marriage is this insistence of a ceremony, requirement for doing something formal. Not that I have a problem with this, but it did redefine marriage.

Now gay couples have, throughout history, had personal agreements to stay together. For much of the history in the west, this is the essence of marriage. Gay couples have been married for centuries, should they wish to be, and it is only the formalisation of marriage that has disallowed this.

One thing that has changed in the last 2 centuries is the status of women. Up to a century ago, women were treated as possessions of their husbands - and their fathers before that. If you want events that have changed the definition of marriage recently, then the rights of women to own property and be their own legal entities must be the biggest redefinition ever. Related to this, the establishment of a married couple as a separate entity, and the legal benefits of a married couple changed the institution of marriage fundamentally. This has fundamentally and critically changed the nature of marriage in our society.

And of late, there has been a tendency for couples not to marry at all, or not until they have saved up for a big do. Marriage today seems to be far more about a big celebration than anything else. This has also redefined marriage - for far more people, it is a celebration of a partnership that is already happening and is already committed to - the civil agreement has been made previously, and the wedding ceremony itself is about a big event, a family occasion.

So redefining marriage? Redefining it from what? And why not, as we have redefined it repeatedly throughout our history. Allowing gay couples to marry will permit them to make their personal commitment to each other into a public statement, and enable them to benefit from the legal entitlements. All of which seems perfectly reasonable to me.

I am just bitter...

I was reading a post by Naked Pastor, and it got me thinking. You see, if you go through the process of trying to become a vicar, and are rejected, then everything negative you ever say about the church again, is considered to be a reaction against this, coming out of bitterness, and so can be disregarded.

Which is odd, because to get anywhere along the process, there has to be something that indicates that you are someone with something valuable to give to the church. In fact, they make that clear at the selection process in the Anglican church - "if you are not recommended, it does not mean that you are rejected, just that this is not the right ministry for you at this time". But there is a strong sense that you are rejected, and your views are no longer considered.

Of course, I am only saying this because I am bitter about the church. So I would suggest that you ignore it.

Now it might be true that many such people do talk out of their pain and bitterness. But the truth is that so many people are hurt by the church in some form that these people might be the ones who speak the truth more clearly. Yes, they might be bitter, but they might also not see the church with rose-tinted glasses, and actually have some realistic but harsh things to say. It may be that they are the ones who see - and can discuss - the church through and through with a true sense of realism.

As it is, the people who are listened to in the churches are primarily the ministers or clergy. These are the people for whom the system has worked, and so they are liable to be well disposed about it. And so the cycle goes on - those for whom the system does not work are ignored, those for whom it does work are listened to, and so everything in the garden is, apparently, rosy.

In reality, there is a bit of both. Yes, some of what I say comes out of hurts received, and the pain of my experience. So some of it is undoubtedly rubbish. But some of it is also, I believe, from taking a different view and perspective of the church and the world. If nothing else, it comes from an assumption that the church might actually be wrong and broken. That is a perspective that is worth listening to.

Of course, I am only saying this because I am a bitter twisted person. If I were you, I wouldn't listen to a word of it.