Monthly Archives: March 2017

Berlin, God, society, vision

False prophecy = false profit

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Last weekend in one of my favorite local cafés, a few students starting chatting with a friend and me, and at some point the issue of church came up. One young guy in particular had a lot to say about the subject and was particularly concerned about the use of prophecy in some churches. This conversation got me thinking.

In the church I used to belong to, the members were so-called charismatics, open to the gifts of the Holy Spirit being used today, including speaking in tongues and using prophecy. If you are not sure about what biblical prophecy is, you can look up some examples here: Acts 19:6 and 1 Corinthians 14.

In practice, usually when gathered together, individual Christians would receive some kind of impression or words from God and share this with those present. Sometimes the words or impressions were for an individual, sometimes they were for everyone present or the entire local church and on occasion for the entire nation or even the world. We were taught that such prophecies should be evaluated by the leaders of the church, and that the more significant the prophecy, the more it needed to be evaluated by leaders. I have to admit that I have seen prophecy used in contexts where it was very exciting and encouraging, and the content foretold really did come true.

When I look back, however, the aspect that bugs me now concerns some of the much bigger prophecies for individuals and for the church across the nations that did not come true.

Soon after I joined the church, there was a lot of excitement about a so-called “move of the Holy Spirit.” To try to be balanced, there was a lot of genuine excitement about going to church and it really did seem at the time that something big was about to happen in the UK.

Often, during church gatherings, people were laughing uncontrollably, making strange noises and falling over on the floor. There were churches in North America where these activities were even more intense and people in the UK saved up money and got on aeroplanes and came back to the UK very excited, bringing with them prophetic words in which God was clearly saying that He was shaking up the UK and blowing a warm wind that was going to bring a religious revival  that would result in millions of people becoming Christians and the whole moral atmosphere of the nation changing for the better and for the glory of God.

In this flurry of excitement, church leaders asked their congregations for even more money, buildings were bought, often large warehouses that were then converted in to large “barns and storehouses” ready to contain the huge harvest of souls that was about to be brought in.

We are now roughly twenty years on and none of this has come true. Instead, there has been no harvest of souls, no revival, no tangible positive change in the moral climate, the big churches in the US have either closed down, split up or their leaders have been caught in serious sin, and where the barns have not been filled, they have been split up into smaller units in order to hide the lack of growth – oh yes, because God is now allegedly saying something different.

When you are on the inside of a sect, you just don’t see this deception for what it is. You are so busy and consumed with God that you just move from one engulfing trend to another: first it was big buildings, then kids clubs for unchurched working class children, then church planting at home and abroad, and then multiple services and satellite meetings (all of which largely see some church growth by attracting disenchanted believers from other local churches).

The real question is this: where is the integrity of the church leaders who were responsible for so-called evaluating all of this? Who has had the courage and integrity to stand up in front of these genuine and committed believers and to apologise to them for the fact that these prophecies about a massive harvest of souls and great move of God were clearly wrong and not from God? Who is going to say sorry to the parents who were wrongly told that their severely sick children would be healed, that their baby in the womb with hydrocephalus would live or that their husband with cancer would enjoy another fifteen years of life?

In one meeting we were exhorted to give an amount of money that made us laugh, a ridiculous sum of money based on the Bible verse: “God loves a cheerful giver.” (2 Corinthians, 9:7).

In the world, if you gave $5,000 for something that you never received, you would want you money back, and you would have a right to receive it. It’s about time the church did the same.

In conclusion, as I said to the agitated young man in the café, even if we forget for one moment the awkward question as to how an omnipotent, omniscient, almighty creator of the universe can communicate in such an unclear way with his/her creatures, surely these church leaders still have responsibility to address this whole issue with their congregations?

What do you think? It would be good to share our experiences on this point, if only in order to try to stop this appalling abuse of so many sincere believers.

Home, home again.
I like to be here when I can.
When I come home cold and tired
It’s good to warm my bones beside the fire.
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spell.

Pink Floyd , Breathe (reprise) Dark side of the moon.

Berlin, Children, Education, God, new writer, society

Home alone

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In a strange turn of events, my daughter has gone on a spontaneous, three-week trip to Cambodia (as you do!) and my oldest son has finally gone to New York for a couple of weeks, leaving me home alone.

I am so rarely on my own that this is a really strange experience. Yet it has given me time to think. On the one hand, it is right that parents let go of their children as they mature, but on the other hand you miss them and want to be there for them.

Parenthood is such a privilege and a challenge. No matter what we parents get wrong (which is usually an enormous amount!), the bond is still so strong. Even as I am writing, I am have just observed a blackbird on my window sill collecting as many dead twigs in its beak as it can in order to build a nest for its next generation of chicks. Outside I can hear the male birds singing their hearts out in order to attract a mate. This reproductive and parental instinct lies so very deep in us.

Today I feel like celebrating my four children. They are all so different, yet the same somehow. Replete with great strengths and weaknesses. A curious combination of both mum and dad, genetics and society, joy and pain, free will and predestination. They have been through a lot, some of which I have shared in this blog before.

A few years ago, we went through an enormous family crisis, and most unfortunately, we were involved in a Christian sect. This sect tried to split our family up. They set everything up to take my wife and children away from me, even paying for the flight tickets from Germany to the UK. Tragically, my wife and two youngest children went along with this evil charade. At first. I was even instructed by the leaders of the sect not to go to the airport to say good-bye to them, can you believe it?

I will never forget that day, 1st October 2013, when I nonetheless secretly went to the airport to watch them board the orange and white Easyjet plane, flanked by two members of the sect. As the tears flooded down my face, I said good-bye to them in my heart, never knowing whether I would ever see them again. A few days later, a leader from the sect met with me and had the audacity to reprimand me for being so rebellious, sinful and stupid as to go to the airport in the first place.

The consequences of the sect’s interference have been very long-lasting. My youngest son did not see his father for one fifth of his life. The emotional scars are plain in him for all to see. My middle son had, amongst other things, his entire education messed up. My poor wife, who eventually realized  that she had been manipulated by the sect into abandoning her two oldest children, decided rightly to return to Berlin and was consequently ostracized not only by the sect in the UK but also the sect in Berlin who all had to do what the sect in the UK told them to do. Just like in “Enemy of the State”, existences were deleted from the web, Facebook sites were abandoned – the whole sect shut down and shut out. So-called Christians in Berlin for whom my wife had sacrificed her life and family. So-called Christian friends, together on a mission for Jesus, for whom she had given up countless hours of her life, caring for them and offering such generous hospitality in our family home. Every single one abandoned her and to this day has no contact with her.

Our two oldest children, who were street-wise enough to see through what the sect was doing, refused to return to the UK and remained with me in Berlin, even though they were told that police would forcibly take them to the airport. They hid and slept on the streets for a few days instead. They too have been unbelievably damaged by the reprehensible actions of this sect. And I am still trying to work it through with them four years on.

Thankfully, this courageous family bond and instinct  cannot be broken by a sick sect. Okay, we are still picking up the pieces, but each challenging day feels like a victory for love, grace and truth.

Am I angry and bitter? Not at all. have I forgiven these people? Definitely.

So what’s my point? First, on this beautiful spring day in Berlin I wanted to write a eulogy to my wife and children. I love them very much and I am very proud of them. Secondly, I would want anyone who reads this to be preserved from having anything to to with the pernicious lies of religion. I can promise you, especially if you are going through a hard time, you will receive so much more insight, truth and grace from the world than you ever will from any church.

Erm, I think I spoke too soon about being home alone. My middle son has just popped by and is hungry. Why do I have this feeling that I am about to kiss good-bye to that tasty piece of filet steak on the second shelf of the fridge?

Seconds later: “Dad, could you cook me that filet steak, you know, medium rare with that herb and mustard topping that you did last time? That was the best steak I ever tasted. Oh, yes, and with some homemade chips (aka fries) too?”

Yes, that bond and instinct runs so deep. The closest thing to altruism I know. It’s time, once again, like the blackbird, to gather the dead twigs and build my family …

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

Philip Larkin

Berlin, European Union, management, new writer, politics, society, vision

What? The UK, democratic?

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Thank you so much for your ongoing feedback. I read and replied to most of your e-mails personally and in this blog entry I’d like to respond to the issue in your e-mails that provoked me the most.

Several of you made the point that, if a political party lays out its plans for the country’s education system in its manifesto and then this party is elected by a majority of the population, then that party has every right to make any changes to the education system that were outlined in its manifesto. The fact that I personally don’t like those changes does not mean that the party is playing ping-pong with the schooling of the nation’s children and I simply need to accept the results of the democratic process.

At this juncture I feel compelled to point out that  the UK government does not really consist of a genuine democracy, but rather a hostile, point-scoring oscillation between just two parties, set in stone by the construction of the debating chamber with its two opposing benches. Compare this with the circular construction of the German Reichstag or the European parliament!

Secondly, the UK  is not a genuine democracy because it has a large group of completely unelected representatives, known as the House of Lords, consisting of church bishops and peers who were simply born into their privileged position and not elected. If anyone thinks that this unelected body has no power, just look at the way that it has twice defeated the government in the last two weeks on the issue of implementing a referendum that was voted for by a majority of UK voters. Democracy? Get real.

Thirdly, there is the issue of proportional representation. We have read in the news this week how the complete absence of any degree of proportional representation leaves vast swathes of the voting public feeling disenfranchised and alienated. The result of this could well entail the dissolution of the United Kingdom as Scotland pulls away from the UK and strengthens its links with Europe. Of course I realise that no system of democracy can fulfil every requirement, but this is no excuse for not having the kind of hybrid model that many other countries have around the world. Neither is the age-old, British argument that any kind of proportional representation would lead to a coalition and therefore a weak government. An argument that is even used to justify moving the electoral boundaries shortly before an election in order to ensure a majority in key constituencies for the party that is in power.

True democracy, irrespective of the precise details of its format, is very costly. It requires lengthy dialogue, exhaustive dialectic, a humble willingness to compromise, cultural understanding, a sensitivity to linguistic subtleties, and much more besides. And there are no shortcuts. Democracy has sadly become a value that we increasingly have to fight for against a backdrop of racism, isolationism and terrorism. The Dutch, today, can be very proud of themselves.

So, write that book, post that blog, take to the streets, however you want to do it, but let’s agree to fight together to keep true democracy alive. And let’s also never forget, there can be no democracy without the freedom of speech.

“A free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize.”  Winston Churchill.

 

Berlin, Children, Cooking, new writer

Lentil burgers

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Time to a break from the heavier contributions and to provide another of my self-made recipes. This is something that I invented for my vegetarian son whose flight to New York for tomorrow has just been cancelled. Darn it! I’ve just made some of these for him to cheer him up.

Method and ingredients

Soak the red and yellow lentils (chana dal) for a few hours and boil them briefly but leaving them a bit firm and certainly not soggy. The burgers will have more of a “meaty” effect/texture of you leave at least the chana dal a bit firm!

Meanwhile fry up the following mix:

  • Onions
  • Garlic (optional and not too much)
  • Peppers (red and green)
  • Mushrooms (lots of)
  • Kidney beans (mashed up)
  • A tomato if you have one to hand
 Season generously with:
  • Vegeta
  • Pepper
  • Salt
  • Sugar
  • Paprika
  • Thyme
  • Mixed herbs
  • Fresh basil
  • Fresh chives
  • Fresh parsley
  • Fresh coriander (small amount if available)
  • Sambal oelek
  • Curry powder (small amount optional)
  • Lemon juice (small amount optional)
 Then mix the two mixtures together (cooked lentils and fried vegetables) with 2 whisked eggs and a cup of plain flour and a sprinkling of breadcrumbs.
Finally, shape them into burger shapes, coat them lightly in breadcrumbs and gently shallow fry until golden brown on both sides.
If desired, add some goat’s cheese to the mix for extra flavour and texture.
If you are not a strict vegetarian, these burgers also taste great sandwiched in a bun with a couple of strips of fried bacon and some ketchup and/or chili sauce.
Enjoy!
Berlin, Education, European Union, new writer, politics, society, vision

Bad grammar

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So, the latest UK budget includes £320 million to fund the return of the good, old-fashioned grammar school. Personally – and speaking as a teacher – I am in favour of a selective secondary education system – provided that it has some safety mechanisms built in so that, for example, late developers can switch schools if they need to.

There are, however, two issues that I find ridiculous about these latest proposals to mess around yet again with the British education system.  First, there is still no hint of any politician with a passionate, innovative, forward-looking vision for schooling that better prepares young people for the unstoppable advances of technology and globalization. A vision that might include, for example, deconstructing the obsolete modernist division of the school timetable into discrete subjects taught in narrow blocks of time. Secondly, I am disappointed by the appalling way that the education system has for the whole of my lifetime been used as political football, demoralising educationists and screwing up the destiny of millions of children.

Hence, as usual, the conservative party blames the labour party for blocking the re-introduction of grammar schools and selective education, as if to forget that it was the conservative party that abolished grammar schools and brought in non-selective, comprehensive education in the first place!

Yet the politicisation of education in the UK is only the tip of the iceberg. The real issue – which seems to receive almost no attention – is that nearly all the children of politicians attend private schools, known actually as “public” schools. (See Footnote 1).

Even to this day, the majority of Oxbridge students  still come from the private schools and go on to be senior politicians (e.g. David Cameron, Theresa May, Tony Blair), civil servants, journalists, diplomats, doctors, lawyers and businesswomen and men. For as long as this is the case in the UK, why should any politician be seriously concerned about the state education system? More than anywhere else in Europe, the UK education system is no more than a socially constructed set of keys that unlock the door of future financial security. It has very little to do with either academic or applied knowledge, applicable skills or life-enriching culture.

A very brief comparison with other European countries, where politicians’ children predominantly attend state schools, serves to confirm this opinion as fact.

Marx was right when he observed that capitalism can only thrive when there exists within its ranks an alienated underclass. Surely Theresa May must know deep-down that her pontificating about meritocracy and access for all is no more than empty, political posturing? Or maybe she doesn’t? After all she went to an independent Roman Catholic school and then on to St Hugh’s College, Oxford.

I rest my case. For today. Have a nice weekend.

Footnote 1: I hate to sound cynical, but maybe the reason this issue receives little attention has something to do with a) that fact that these private schools are called public schools as if to disguise their identity and to imply that they are accessible to all children and b) because many of the most successful journalists also attended public schools and are either blind to the issue or are happy not to disturb a stable, self-perpetuating status quo.

Berlin, European Union, politics, refugees, society, vision, war

The epitome of hypocrisy

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Quite apart from not having a single leadership bone in her body, Theresa May is increasingly turning out to be an incompetent, undemocratic and undiplomatic hypocrite. No wonder she gets on so well with Boris Johnson and Donald Trump.

Today she has had the absolute effrontery to lecture the Scottish First Lady and Scottish Parliament that they should focus more on “raising standards in education, taking care of the health service, reforming criminal justice, helping the economy proposer, improving people’s lives.” How outrageous! These are exactly the areas where May’s government has the worst track record in living history!

She also said, “A tunnel vision nationalism, which focuses only on independence at any cost, sells Scotland short.” Hello? She added, “There is no economic case for breaking up the United Kingdom, or of loosening the ties which bind us together.” Hello? So how come none of these arguments applied to the singularly nationalistic, economically disastrous breaking away of the UK from Europe?

Alex Salmond replied, “The days of Scotland being lectured to by high-handed prime ministers at Westminster, these days are over.” Let’s hope he’s right.

Funny how world politics ultimately relies a lot on chance and the influence of the gutter press as opposed to democracy, sound reasoning and moral values. Theresa May is only in power because David Cameron made a serious miscalculation and the leaders of the former Labour Party (we can obviously forget Corbyn) and the Liberal Democrats had no balls and stood down. I guess Shakespeare understood that when he wrote:

“There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves.                                                       Or lose our ventures.” Julius Caesar, Act 4, Scene 3.

I only hope that this same tide will as soon as possible sweep the likes of May, Johnson, Trump away into an ocean of oblivion and that the new tide will bring in some real leaders like Obama who understand the importance of human rights, democracy and unity and who can articulate these values with supreme eloquence. He was clearly much too good for the Disunited Sates of America and the Disunited Queendom of Not-so-Great-Britain minus Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Berlin, God, politics, society, vision

Is the majority necessarily right?

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From my last blog article, I have been frequently challenged as to whether being in a theological majority necessarily makes you right. After all, even Jesus started out with an absolute minority, challenging the majority religious elite of his day, and most would say that he was right and that they were wrong. So I will attempt to answer this question. And fail.

Whereas I do not wish to maintain that the majority is always right, first off, this is, however, most often the case. Famous cynical quotations apart. For example, most human beings – with or without a belief in God – want to live in a peaceful and fair society. And they are right, aren’t they? Most children do not want to be bullied at school. And they are right, aren’t they? Most people did not want Nazi Germany to take over Europe. And they were right, weren’t they? Most people expect women to receive the same treatment as men. And they are right, aren’t they? The majority of US citizens voted in 2016 for Hillary Clinton, and they were most certainly right, weren’t they? (See Footnote 1).

On this basis alone, I would say that the same principle should be applied to Christianity (Footnote 2). Hence, if your church’s theology is out of kilter with the majority of the worldwide church, you should at least be asking some serious questions. And in the process of this questioning, you need to remain open to the fact that a) it is impossible to maintain that there is only one correct interpretation of the Bible and b) that any interpretation is affected by the historical context in which it takes place (in the same way as, in democratic countries, attitudes towards equality for women are gradually changing for the better over time).

The problem is, however, that the founder of the Christian faith, the Jewish Jesus of Nazareth, turned up to challenge not only the religious majority but also every family on the planet. He himself said, “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” Luke 12:51-53.

I have to assume from the context here that Jesus is here referring to religious opinion. So now we have a problem that is impossible to solve. Jesus is here both a) prophesying religious division if you choose to follow him and b) giving religious minorities the right to say that they are right and that everyone else is wrong.

Hence, in the church I used to belong to, the preachers would often refer to alternative interpretations of the Bible to theirs as “pharisaical, legalistic, liberal, etc.” as if to say, employing Jesus’ model, that the inferior and erroneous exegesis of the misguided religious majority must submit to the superior, uniquely true interpretation of the much smaller, especially blessed and enlightened religious elite. In other words, our sect.

This kind of arrogant argumentation is an erroneous syllogism that per se excludes any other view. It is the essential form of argumentation that enables any sect to defend itself against the majority interpretation. A typical sect will, therefore, always be able to justify its theological, exclusively correct interpretation of the Bible. I cannot even use the argument that Almighty God is surely capable of communicating in an unambiguous manner with his creatures.

Why? First due to historical facts. Secondly, because God is in the business of having his chosen elite (“Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” Romans 9:13) be they Jews or Christians, Methodists or Charismatics. But that doesn’t really matter to the members of a sect, so long as God loves them within the safety of their uniquely correct interpretation of the Bible. All the rest can go to hell. And, according to their interpretation of the Bible, they will.

So, I have to admit that I will never really be able to maintain logically that the majority interpretation is necessarily the most correct. All as I can do is a) to argue that in most cases (see above) the social view of the majority at the very least provides a good measuring rod and b) to provoke those who are in a church to explore seriously the above mentioned syllogism (Footnote 3) and to take the conclusion very seriously.

Which is, in spite of all the above complications, another way of saying, if you are in a church that claims to have a superior interpretation of the Bible to the majority of churches around the world, you almost certainly are in a sect.

 

Footnote 1: Trump’s share of the popular vote, in fact, was the seventh-smallest winning percentage since 1828 and was significantly smaller than the size of the popular vote for Hillary Clinton.

Footnote 2: ‘Most Christian believers tend to echo the cultural prejudices and world views of the dominant group in their country, with only a minority revealing any real transformation of attitudes or consciousness. It has been true of slavery and racism, classism and consumerism and issues of immigration and health care for the poor.’  Richard Rohr

Footnote 3: The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking. A. A. Milne