Monthly Archives: February 2017

Berlin, God, society

Am I in a sect?

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Thank you for all your e-mails! Evidently, as I dare to become a little more contentious, I am hitting on a few more raw nerves and my modest blog is becoming more widely read.

This week I have received many questions along the lines of, “How do I know whether I am in a sect?” Although I wrote back to most of you with a few web links that, in my opinion, answer that question, still the request often came back as to whether I could provide my own personal top four.

Why four? No idea. Obliging as ever, here we go then, with my top four sect-testing criteria:

Theology

Is the overall theology of your church in line with the majority of the established churches around the world?

A classic checklist here would include your church’s interpretations of the Bible with regards to: a) women governing churches, b) non-believers going to hell, c) giving at least 10% of your gross income to the church, d) attitudes towards homosexuality, e) the mission:social engagement ratio, and  f) democracy.

In the church I belonged to, for example, in contrast with the majority of churches around the world, women were not allowed to govern churches, all those who did not personally accept Jesus as their saviour were condemned to eternal hell, you were expected to give at least 10% of your gross income to the church, homosexuals were regarded as demonic deviants, evangelism/mission took precedence over social engagement and leaders made all the decisions.

What does your church look like?

Change of expectations

Sects, like businesses, are always looking for recruits who can ultimately help pay the bills and fund their leaders. Tactics are used to win new recruits. Therefore, you will notice, if you are in a sect, a change of the ground rules between before and after joining your church that you would not find in a mainstream church. For example:

Money: before joining the church, you will be invited, for example, to an Alpha Course, where for several weeks you receive a free dinner and warm hospitality and are told that everything is free and that the church is not after your money. Once you are in the church, you will hear a different message: namely that you should give to “God” at least 10% of your gross income.

Salvation: if the church you are looking to join is a sect and you turn up initially with the question, “My husband/teenage daughter has just died and did not believe in God/Jesus, is he/she now in heaven or in hell?”, you will get an answer along the lines of, “We cannot be sure, but God knows the secrets of our hearts and He will graciously judge you husband/daughter upon their death.” Once you join the sect, however, you will find out the truth, namely that everyone who does not believe in Jesus is being punished in eternal hell fire. That includes your husband/daughter. But by then, however, you will no longer be thinking about them since you will only be concerned about your own salvation. Phew!

Sex: if you are already in a, even faithful, long-term, extra-marital relationship when you first start going to your church, you will be told that that’s okay. Once you want to join the church, however, you will be told that people having sex outside marriage cannot join the church. The same applies to prostitutes, homosexuals or trans-gender people, in the unlikely event that they ever get as far as even visiting a church.

Drugs: if you smoke cigarettes or cannabis (or whatever) when you first start going to your church, you may be lucky enough to be told that that’s okay. Once you want to join the church, you will be told that you should not smoke/consume drugs any longer.

There are more, but these examples should suffice for now …

What does your church look like?

Transparency

If you are in a sect, it will appear at first to be completely transparent. Yet if you begin to ask straight-forward questions that require genuine transparency, you will be at best turned away without an answer or otherwise told that you are being out of order. I can 100% guarantee you this.

As a litmus test, try, if you dare (and “dare” is evidence in itself that you most probably in a sect), to ask some of the following transparency questions of your church/sect leaders: a) Exactly how much do your leaders earn? (The salaries of teachers, civil servants and politicians are freely available on the internet). b) Can you see the balance sheet and profit and loss statement of the church’s accounts for the last three financial years? c) Can you see exactly how much of your church’s income (all funds) is given to the organisation that oversees your church? (By the way, if there is no organisation overseeing your church, you are definitely in a sect!)

What does your church look like?

Adherence before genuine friendship

This is a bit tricky, since you may need to do something wrong in order to put this issue to the test, as I did. When I did something wrong in the church (VERY wrong, by the way), every single friendship closed down on me. Adherence to the sect ultimately took precedence over genuine friendship. Just two examples: a) When I got into difficulty, I desperately needed at least two long-term friends from my church to come to visit me. They wanted to, but their leaders didn’t allow them to, so they never came. Result = sect adherence > genuine friendship. b) Please remember that I have four dear children whom I had dragged into my obedience to church-planting in Berlin. Once the crisis came, the church sect completely wrecked my family by coercing my wife and four children to return to England. The two older ones rightly refused to get on the plane and remained in Berlin. The sect promised in writing support for our  two older children which it later without further notification suddenly withdrew, leaving our two children literally to live on the street and in the subway for two months until I was free to help them. Once my wife had come to her senses six months later, she returned with the younger two children to begin the long-haul process of rebuilding our family. We continue to rebuild and to pick up the pieces from the consequences of belonging to a sect. In the meanwhile, has any friend from the church come to visit? Of course not.

What does your church look like?

So, to those who have written to ask whether or not they might be in a sect, I recommend that you work through the above issues. And if the result is that you are in a sect, even though you thought you were in a wonderful, grace-oriented church, for God’s sake, get the hell out. It will be the best decision you ever made.

“If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion.”  Edmond de Goncourt

Berlin, God, new writer, refugees, society, war

What is truth?

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Okay, so my blog entry from last week about God’s and many christians’ attitude to the persecution and murder of children in Syrian prisons caused a bit of an angry reaction in some readers. Sorry about that. It was not really my intention.

So here is my reply, in particular to the preacher who took objection to my “ridiculously naive, unacademic and fundamentalist” interpretation of Romans 9:8 or Galatians 4:23 and John 14.6.

I admit to feeling humbled and challenged by what she and others wrote. Including those who wrote that I am bitter and sour and just want to get my own back on the church for what happened.

I’d like to deal with the second point first because it is more straight forward. I am not bitter and sour, largely because I have been attending an amazingly high quality therapy for the last three years that has helped me to come to terms with all that has happened. Through this therapeutic process, I have learnt both not to bear any grudges and to accept the full responsibility for what happened. I have absolutely no one to blame except myself.

If I were to have an agenda, it would be simply to provoke others to question seriously whether or not they are trapped in a sect, as I was, or whether  they are living  their lives in a liberated, responsible and meaningful way.

Now to the second question. We are often taught that the truth is an absolute, otherwise it cannot be truth. That is, however, a singularly western non-sequitur. And the objections of Frau Dr. D. that my suggested interpretation of certain Bible texts was arrogantly naive provides significant evidence for this.

I honestly believe that this woman is a very sincere, studious, devout Christian who truly believes in Jesus and in the text of the Bible. Her underlying conviction is that my suggested interpretation of is based on a specific culturally-determined interpretation of the texts that is out of kilter with reality, history and the most respected methods of textual interpretation. She argues, and this cannot be denied, that, according to the Bible, Jews, Christians and Muslims all have the same roots in the one and the same God.

Ultimately, what this has shown me is that, even if I were to accept that the Bible alone is the infallible word of God, the breadth of completely differing interpretations by sincere believers ultimately transforms infallibility into subjectivity.

Believers who want to argue differently set themselves up as arrogant know-alls with a superior level of revelation and the obvious result is division, persecution and conflict. Which is in itself an abomination in the eyes of a loving God. It also means that God’s word cannot ultimately be regarded as infallible since subjective interpretation takes precedence over his ability to communicate infallibly with his creatures. And how absurd is that?

So, back to the bizarre syllogism that the truth is an absolute, otherwise it cannot be truth. Ultimately, both Dr D. can be right in her interpretation and so can the fundamentalists.

Therefore, paradoxically, there is a reality even higher than the truth itself, and it is this: that the truth is always subjective. I rest my case.

‘Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.’  Mahatma Gandhi

Berlin, Children, Cooking, new writer

Crispy Chicken or Falafel Wraps

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Woe! My last blog caused a bit of a shitstorm of e-mails! Even the preacher wrote to me (how did she know I had written about her?) massively challenging my interpretation of Romans 9:8 or Galatians 4:23  and John 14.6.

Still, dialogue is always healthy and I will write another entry addressing all the main concerns expressed in the e-mails, but I need a few days to do some research. TGIF.

In the meantime, the friends of my kids keep telling me I should share some of my recipes because they love my food so much. So, I have decided to publish a few recipes as a light-hearted alternative to all the heavier issues.

Here is the first of my self-made recipes. The real beauty of this recipe is that there is something here for everyone. If you have guests or fussy children, I would recommend laying out all the ingredients on appropriate plates/dishes and allowing them to make their own, choosing the ingredients they like best. Nonetheless, these wraps taste at their best, like a good Döner Kebap, when you include everything.

Ingredients
Wraps
Falafel
Butter
Humus ( a must!)
Iceberg lettuce
Cucumber
Peppers
Cherry tomatoes (optional)
Radishes (optional)
Giant white beans (optional)
Sweet corn
Fresh herbs (optional)
Lemon juice (optional)
Red onion (very thinly sliced)
Salad dressing
Sweet chilli sauce
Feta cheese (optional)
For a non-vegan version
Chicken nuggets or chicken schnitzel
Bacon ( must!)
Butter
Method
Fry the falafel/chicken and bacon and prepare the salad. The wraps are best if the falafel or meat elements are still warm when you serve them! Once everything is prepared, warm the wraps either in a flat-bottomed pan or in the microwave quickly and then butter the wraps lightly (if non-vegan) and coat them with a generous layer of humus. Next, layer the salads elements of your choice over the surface of the wrap (onions go on last) and lightly cover in salad dressing and a little lemon juice and fresh herbs. Then add the falafel or chicken and bacon and sprinkle with chilli sauce before folding into a roll.
Tip: the wraps can be wrapped in tin foil and eaten later cold. The foil also helps the wraps to hold their shape while you eat them!
To improve the presentation on the plate, you can also add some chips (AE) or crisps (BE), shaped radish, a blob of extra humus, guacamole, peanuts, salsa dip, chilli sauce or anything you fancy that would look nice.
Bon appétit!
Berlin, God, new writer, politics, prison, refugees, society, vision

Has God trumped himself in Syria?

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I don’t know whether you’ve noticed this too, but in recent weeks the first items on the news have been dominated by this uneducated, politically inexperienced, racist old bastard called Donald Trump.

Just like the United Kingdom with their Brexit, the North Americans have played beautifully into the hands of the Islamic State. Unlike the UK and the US, IS understands that racism takes precedence over democracy … if the voters are stupid enough. Proof is: Trump tries to ban people from states whose citizens have never committed a terrorist crime on US soil.

Very much secondary in the headlines is the random persecution and murder of men, women and children, yes, children, in Syrian prisons.

I ask myself the question, therefore, a) how can a so-called God of love allow a nation whose population largely claims to be believing Christians allow such a fucking idiot to rule over their nation and b) how can this God of love sit by and watch these children, women and men be terrorized, abused and murdered in this way?

I went to church last Sunday, and the preacher, Frau Doktor D., assured the nervous congregation from Genesis, Chapter 16, that through the story of Hagar and Sarai, Jews, Muslims and Christians all come from one God and are members of one family and that they should ultimately get along well as such in the long term. This should give us all a reason for optimism and hope.

I don’t suppose that the dear doctor preacher has ever read Romans 9:8 or Galatians 4:23 , John 14.6,  etc, – which give Christians the right to say that only they are God’s true children and that all Muslims will go to hell. We do come from one family, she is right, but our dad loves only some of his children. Conditionally.

Whatever the case may be, Christians sit in their pews around the world, feeding their spiritual bellies, one step below the yoga class next door to my office, and most do almost nothing to bring peace to Syria.

If Jesus really did exist, it is very clear that he expected a radical, world-changing movement of people who were prepared to sacrifice everything to change the world. Rather like the IS, actually.

Instead, we have a group of largely passive, sedentary people who massage their butts and shout “Amen” to the likes of pukey Joyce Meyer and who ultimately do, let’s face it,  …..

nothing.

What gives me the right to be judgmental? Nothing, really. Though I did once lead a church in the UK that was pioneering and radical, rather like a Bugatti. Now, like all churches after a couple of generations, it’s become sadly no more than a Vauxhall Zafira church. Grey, compact, boring, predictable, neat and tidy and full of air bags.

Plus, I was the only Christian in a movement of about 50,000 people in the UK who was prepared to follow Jesus and to do something radical. But not one smug soul was prepared to come with me. The result: I failed.

My big question remains. What can I really do to help the plight of the people in Syria? Joining the church sure won’t help. So, can you help me? Comments welcome, as always.

 

 

Berlin, Children, Cooking, Education

AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD’S WISDOM

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Last weekend my eight-year-old son wanted to do some cooking with me. I’m pleased to say that he likes my food and he understands that his dad loves to cook.

In terms of ingredients, I already had to hand some chicken breast, potatoes, broccoli and carrots. I also know that many children will eat more vegetables when they are smothered in Sauce Hollandaise, which my youngest son likes to call “Holiday Sauce”.

So, as a die-hard teacher, I decided first to show him what to do, then to let him do it while watching, and then to let him carry on without me watching.

From this experience I learnt at least three fascinating things.

First of all, how little many young people today understand about where our food comes from. For example, my son had no idea that chips (fries) come from potatoes! He had no idea that potatoes and carrots are roots.  He had no idea that a chicken had to die to provide him with his meat intake or that the part of the chicken the likes the most comes from its breast. (As an aside, one day I will give him the book “Eating Animals” to read, which my oldest son has read and who is now a vegan).

Secondly, I learned that often the smartest creative ideas come from just doing things together. I suddenly realised that we could cut the potatoes into the shape of his name, which he did and then fried them, as in the photo above.

The final, for me more interesting, issue happened during the third of the three above-mentioned teaching processes. While I was deliberately busy doing something else, my son, while he was frying the home-made schnitzel, suddenly noticed that I wasn’t at all watching or paying attention to what he was doing. He suddenly commented, “Dad, why aren’t you watching me?” I replied, “Because I trust you and have every confidence in you at this point that you can do this on your own.”

He seemed really surprised and added, “But at school the teachers are always watching you and criticising you for getting things wrong.  It’s as if they don’t trust you.”

I know as a teacher of course that school is different from home. Yet I suspect my son made an important pedagogical point.

He also ate more than I have ever seen him eat before during one meal, including his vegetables and holiday sauce. That was probably in order to impress. Be that as it may,  I am unlikely to forget this culinary experience with an eight-year-old. And I guess too that we all learn better when we have the impression that our mentors trust in our success?