Category Archives: Into Culture

Into Culture: Sheep and Goats

Whilst trying to reacclimatise after my trip to Pakistan earlier in the month I sat in the Cathedral listening to a sermon on the lectionary reading for this week; Matthew 25:31-46. This is commonly known as ‘the parable of the sheep and the goats’ and there is a culturally accepted interpretation and usage of this imagery and language from this famous passage. The interpretation goes as follows:

Jesus/The Son of Man will return and judge us all dividing us like a shepherd divides the sheep and the goats. On one side will be the people who did good deeds; fed the hungry, gave a drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, took care of the sick and visited the prisoner. On the other side those who did not do these acts of charity. When judgement is passed both sides are surprised by their placement asking the judge, “when did I do/not do these things?” The response will come, “When you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” The moral message, so the usual moralistic sermon goes, is that we should do all of these things and be judged righteous by Jesus/The Son of Man.

I have historically always had issues with this reading of the text as it sounds to my protestant ears too much like righteousness by good works. It is a little too karmic for my theological comfort zone. I will be judged by God not by my total dependence on Jesus’ righteousness which he gives me by faith alone but by the charitable deeds I did. Ok, I get it, faith without works is dead and meaningless but I just hope that on the day of judgement I my worthiness of the Kingdom of God is not, in anyway, dependent on my outward acts. Who could stand?

Listening through the filter developed during my time in Pakistan I found myself asking why does my culture focus solely on the actions of those who are being separated; those who have the means and choice to care or not for others? Why do we presume ourselves as those being judged in this narrative? I found myself asking, “but who are ‘the least of these who are members of family’?”

Ian Paul explores this very theme in his regular sermon notes found here. Listening to the same message proclaimed and taught whilst still wrestling with this challenging instinct that the Church in the West is overindulged, coddled and spoilt I was surprised by wanting to be judged not as a sheep/righteous or a goat/unrighteous but, in this image of the final judgement of being safely named ‘a member of Jesus’ family.’ Even if this means that I will be hungry, thirsty, estranged, naked, sick and imprisoned. Again, I found myself so yearning for a more costly discipleship.

But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogue and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify… You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. (Lk 21:12-13,16-17)

If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world—therefore the world hates you. (Jn 15:18-19)

Reading this biblical text alongside the persecuted Church makes me check my cultural privilege and demands the question, why is that the popular reading of the text in the West? Is it not because, even wanting to be virtuous and judged well, we, in fact, prove our own brokenness and addiction to the karmic way of the world? Even as we speak of grace with our lips we betray it with our actions.

Don’t get me wrong, I think doing all the righteous acts of kindness towards those who suffer is good and correct but what if there is a challenge to us in the West to hear not how we are to look out for and welcome the poor and needy but how we are to be poor and needy. To not seek to be a Church for the poor but of the poor. To work to identify ourselves not primarily as people who have power to welcome and include but to identify ourselves as those who will be hated by the world.

I return again to the Shane Claiborne quote which comes to me whenever I hear fellow Church leaders talk about missional relevance to justify certain actions in order to earn morally righteousness in the eyes of wider society.

We are cultural refugees. The beautiful monastics throughout church history were cultural refugees; they ran to the desert not to flee from the world but to save the world from itself… Much of the world now lies in ruins of triumphant and militant Christianity. The imperially baptized religion created a domesticated version of Christianity – a dangerous thing that can inoculate people from ever experiencing true faith. (Everyone is a Christian, but no one knows what a Christian is anymore.) Our hope is that the postmodern, post-Christian world is once again ready for a people who are peculiar, people who spend their energy creating a culture of contrast rather than a culture of relevancy.
Shane Claiborne, ‘Jesus for President: politics for ordinary radicals’ (Michigan: Zondervan, 2008) p. 238-240

Into Culture: Into Pakistan VIII

“Why do you say it is a chapel?”

I am being met with a palpable air of suspicion and restraint. My curiosity is causing private glances between the six people who sit around the table. The meeting had been organised after a brief enquiry about a lost chapel built by Akhbar the Great for his Catholic, Portuguese wife, Julia Magallanes, during the Moghul Empire. A search on the internet had brought up a site within Lahore Fort now called, Seh Dora, where Christian imagery has been found and is now being restored as part of an ‘interfaith harmony’ project by the Walled City of Lahore Authority. I had called it a chapel because that is, before seeing it for myself, what I believed it to be. There are records of a chapel existing, and I thought that this was what had been discovered.

“It certainly is not orientated towards the east and there is, as yet, no depiction of Jesus or a cross, and so it being a place of worship is, as yet, not seen.” I admit.

“It was never a place of worship. Say it.”

“So what is it?”

“A pavilion. Jahangir was interested in Christian paintings and so had them put there.”

“Why the uncommon amount of female saints, particularly at the front as you face out into the courtyard?”

“It was never a chapel.”

This is the first time that I have experienced this kind of intimidation whilst being in Pakistan. It is not a nice experience. I steel myself and force myself to be curious and open. I try to find the common ground. I suggest they connect with the Christian community to help them decipher the defaced images and to help uncover the purpose of the building. More silent exchange of glances.

“We are not that far into the project. We cannot tell what we will do or need.”

The project, funded in part by the US embassy, was, as I say, a project exploring ‘interfaith harmony’. This response to my suggestion that the Authority dialogue with interfaith partners undermines their declaration of openness. I cannot put my finger on why I feel so threatened. Questions as to my background, my ‘interest’ in this work, my presence in Pakistan, all make me feel unnecessarily scrutinised.

I acknowledge that it looks, at this moment, as a pavilion. Their research and current interpretation seem right but I am left wondering why they are restoring this building and the Christian iconography. Obviously, they want to celebrate the Moghul heritage of multifaith (possibly even, interfaith) relations in the Punjab. No one can deny that this co-existence of different religious convictions is long standing and pre-dates the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Anything that rediscovers and recaptures this historic narrative of the land and people is welcome. There is, however, this reticence and caution that betrays this, in my Western mind, positive move in the right direction.

I had not asked for this interrogation. I had not even asked for a meeting. The meeting had been suggested and I had agreed. The ambush has thrown me and I feel unsafe. All my jokes before leaving the UK about kidnapping flash into my head. I hope my wife has the ransom money ready. I admit that reading Declan Walsh’s book, ‘The Nine Lives of Pakistan’, that explores the reasons why he was deported from Pakistan is making me paranoid. I breathe and try to remember the many positive interactions with Pakistanis over the last week.

I have just come from an extremely exciting and hopeful discussion with Refi Peer Theatre Workshop, for example. We discussed art, culture, faith and heritage. Their almost 50 years of experience, particularly in Sufi cultural work, has seen through many changes in Pakistan’s history. The current leadership is globally minded and sanguine about their place within Lahore and the wider Pakistan. It seems to me you need to be agile to navigate the religio-political life of Pakistan, particularly when working in the Sufi tradition.

The Sufi culture is, in my mind, what gives many ‘common’ Pakistanis (i.e. the general population) their openness to other faiths. The peaceful co-existence which the Pakistanis I have engaged with are keen to impress upon me is rooted, I think, in this Sufi heritage. The Punjab region, before British colonial rule, was clearly a place of interfaith harmony. All desires towards this are written on the landscape and architecture. There is, however, a ‘but’ lingering on my lips.

I dare not write what I am about to write, due to the experience of Declan Walsh, but there is a ‘contradiction’ within the Pakistani mentality. The paradox at the heart of this beautiful people must be a result of a shambolic and rushed process called, the Partition. I see the scars in the issues Pakistan still has and I fear that it is not unique to this place/people. The inherent puzzle was created by British diplomatic but religiously ignorant forces that did not invest the time to ask, ‘how would a religiously defined political entity, a nation, embrace and encourage difference to flourish within its borders?’ This, again, remains a question for us all not just Pakistan.

The obvious Sufi influence on the instinct of Punjabis, at least, is, at the same time, treated with suspicion and caution. The double speak of condemning attacks on Christians whilst maintaining a reluctance to expand the blasphemy laws to ensure those same victims are protected under law. This ‘contradiction’ weighs heavy on my heart and when this question is publicly raised, my new found friends struggle to answer it.

I conclude my time in Pakistan asking the same question of Britain. Is ‘multiculturalism dead’? What are the paradoxes within the psyche of the English or wider British people? How do we bring these contradictions out into the open and have the bravery to own them and find some synthesis between the two seemingly incompatible truths of our own identity. At this time of increasing polarisation and extremism there is a fight to avoid the opposition we experience at our very core. No wonder that we are so anxious as a people and defensive to any who might raise a question over our own self identification whether it is race, sexuality or gender.

My own journey ‘into the woods’, that is my trip to Pakistan, now leads me back home. This calls me to try and allow the Mowgli identity narrative, the elixir I fought to find here, to be a gift for those I call ‘my pack’. If I can be brave enough to name my own personal contradictions and paradoxes and to externalise them, vulnerably opening them to scrutiny in the hope of healing and synthesis, then God may use me to encourage others to find the same redemption in the same path. How can I, to quote Martin Luther, be simultaneously justified and a sinner? Accepted yet in need of transformation? Oh, how many people I know who need to the courage to admit their need of Jesus! But, as Tim Keller wrote,

You don’t really know Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.
Tim Keller, ‘Walking With God Through Pain And Suffering’ (London: Penguin Books, 2015) p.5

Into Culture: Into Pakistan VII

I get into the car and my host runs through the packed schedule of our time together.

“We will begin with the Women’s Training Centre set up by Bishop Azad and then we’ll go to Raiwind to visit a Girls’ High School which is supported by the Diocese, followed by the Technical College, teaching young people skills to get work and we’ll finish at the Church in Raiwind’s School.”

All of these initiatives are either established or supported by Bishop Azad Marshall and the Diocese of Raiwind giving a holistic, multi-generational support programme for the poorest and marginal people in Raiwind and Lahore. It takes women who are neglected, abused and poor and gives them a safe place to teach them basic skills; textiles and needlework as well as literacy and numeracy. Then there is a school for the children to go to which is cheaper than other schools enabling the poorest to still get an education. Once they have completed that there is the technical school giving those children opportunity to start work and their own business. All of this is supported by literacy and numeracy and, boldly, discipleship.

I am sat with Mrs Lesley Marshall (she happen to be Bishop Azad’s wife) who runs the Women’s Centre.

“These women come to us in such need needing skills, yes, but also a shoulder to cry on. They need to be shown dignity and love. No one leaves here unless they know they are loved.”

The same message is heard at the schools and training colleges that I visit. All of these are resourcing and equipping, they are teaching the faith to those who would not have opportunity to learn, they are proclaiming, to Muslim students who cannot afford to go to school elsewhere, the Gospel message and they are challenging and promoting a better way of structuring society to benefit the poor. All of this, at no point, forgets the pastoral call to love and serve the poor. Without the gentle tending none of the other ministries will sow seed that bears the fruit that is being seen through these programmes.

We are driving past a patch of land with temporary shelters of a large traveller community on.

“This is our land. We are planning on diverting the water and building accommodation blocks to house clergy and offer others cheaper lodgings. We are also in talks with Islamic universities in other places in the world to offer an exchange programme for students.”

“How is this all paid for?” I ask.

“We are a poor Church. Many of our people do not have money to give in tithe and so the Diocese must cover the cost of clergy and buildings, etc. We do not have much income generation like other places. We rely on external donors but for the last five years the government blocked us from receiving any financial aid from outside of Pakistan. This has now changed but it has been very challenging few years. We are trying to be entrepreneurial and find ways of supporting this missionary work.”

This is apostleship in action. It is prophetic, as the Church’s ministry in education and healthcare (as it always has been) is lauded by wider society and inspires reform. It is also pastoral in that it shepherds those most vulnerable away from danger and abuse into dignity and safety. I am so impressed at how much blessing has been seen in these initiatives. They are creative and bold, not just in their ambition and strategic coherence but also in their holistic approach to mission. Mission that does not silo the five-fold ministry outlined in Ephesian 4 but, rather, sees them work in harmony.

Mission in the UK is so often seen only as one or two of the five marks of mission working at one time. We pick and choose as to which ones to use for any initiative.

“We’ll do some evangelism and we’ll teach the faith and others can do the pastoral work and ensure that we are resourced sustainably.”

This doesn’t work. I am baffled afresh by the lack of joined up thinking and action takes place in the Church of England around mission. For all we talk about it we still have a pick and mix approach to ministry. This is evident by how we talk about ministry. There are so many training streams and titles and opportunities; preachers, worship leaders, pioneer ministers, pastoral workers… We have, for too long, seen the call to ministry as picking from a menu of what we feel we want to do; what we are skilled at; what suits our temperaments and personalities. We take gift audits to decide, like some ecclesial sorting hat, where we fit within the machine that is the Church.

Here in Pakistan, they do not have this luxury. Mission and ministry, the same thing, is the fulfilment of the Ephesian call to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers. We have taken the small and questionable grammatical idiosyncrasy of the Greek to justify our personal selectivity towards these ministries.

Our English translations of Ephesians 4:11 suggests that ‘The gifts he [Christ] gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelist…’ (NRSV) But the Greek does not, necessarily, lend itself to that translation. Other translations read ‘Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers.’ (NLT). But each of these (apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers) are the gifts that Christ gives. He gives these gifts to his people (Eph 4:8) so how can these gifts also be the people?

What if he gives an apostolic gift, a prophetic gift, an evangelistic gift, a pastoral gift and a teaching gift?

“Sure,” you might say, “but which gift is he giving me?”

Why must we limit the generosity of God? Which gift did he give Paul, for example? Apostleship? Yes. Teaching? Yes. Evangelism? Yes. Prophecy? If he wrote in 1 Corinthians 14:1, ‘strive for the spiritual gifts, and especially that you may prophesy’, he must believe that all may prophesy, including him. Yes. Pastoring? Although many want to portray Paul has a heavy-handed brute, in his way he shepherded his people and those he mentored. Yes. So why should we limit which gifts God might give us?

“Ok. But what about the Body image in 1 Corinthians 12?”*

I’m glad you ask, rhetorical interlocuter.

It rests, for me, on Paul’s unanswered questions at the end of the chapter. ‘Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?’ Our immediate response is “No” but hold on. Can God work miracles through anyone he chooses? Yes. Are we not all called to pray for healing? Yes. Should not all desire to, as Paul later writes in 1 Cor 14:5, speak in tongues? Yes. So why do we reject this all encompassing call to a broad and multi-gifted ministry that I am witnessing here in Pakistan?

I think it is because we are reading this through a comfortable and wealthy cultural lens where we acquire things to own and possess. In resource-poor Pakistan there is no guarantee that that which you receive is kept. Anything you have, at any time, may be taken from you. Through this lens the gifts of God are given to be used to build up the Church not our own security and sense of importance. When martyrdom is a reality and the path you walk is truly narrow then there is no room nor time to argue who should and should not to do what. You put your hand to the plow in front of you and work while you have the gift of time.

The unity of the Church is a necessity in the persecuted Church for when your homes are burnt and your possessions and livelihoods are taken from you; when your relatives are killed you need to have the Body of Christ ready to care for you. There is no question of whether that other Christian has the gift or calling to be pastoral: if its not them then it could be no one.

This selective nature of the Western approach to ordering the Church is indulgent and we must start to heed this lesson now and adjust our mindset if we are going to continue to be obedient to God’s call on our lives, individually and collectively. This will mean more closely identifying with the persecuted Church as it is here that I am witnessing, more frequently, Spirit-inspired ministries changing lives, bringing people into the Kingdom of God and encouraging me to live more radically as a disciple of Jesus.

*You can read more about my interpretation of 1 Corinthians 12 in my book, ‘Ash Water Oil: why the Church needs a new form of monasticism’

Into Culture: Into Pakistan VI

We sit crossed legged in the courtyard of the mosque. He talks to me about his ‘philosophy’. It comes from the Sufi tradition of Islam.

“There is one Creator. We are all the same because there is one Creator.”

So far, we agree.

“The one Creator created the universe both outside of us and inside of us. We are all micro-universes.”

I understand the imagery and, have no immediate complaint.

“He is inside us all; this one Creator.”

Now the language becomes slippery. I don’t disagree, but the statement has multiple meanings and the ‘devil is in the detail’.

“There is a principle in Islam of dhikr; a remembrance, recitation of the Holy Quran. We empty ourselves of ego in order that the words of Allah can fill us. We can become like God; his hands, his eyes.”

As he speaks St Teresa of Avila’s words echo in my mind.

Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which He looks

Compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good,

Yours are the hands, with which He blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, you are His body.
St Teresa of Avila, attributed

And at morning prayer the preacher had spoken of the same idea.

“Theosis is when we and God become one.”

I am inspired to speak of this teleological hope.

“Christians believe that we were created to reflect God in the world. We do not fully do this because of sin.”

“Satan is in the heart also.”

“Yes,” I say, “In heaven we will become perfect and be like him as we were meant to be.”

“But some can do this here on earth also.” He pre-empts my point.

“Yes. We can glimpse it in others and, God willing, we can experience it within ourselves. But how can we tell what is God-like and what only seems good but actually is not of God?”

“We cannot know God.” He postulates.

“That is where our religions differ. Why would God create us to reflect him and not tell us what that reflection looks like?”

“He has sent his prophets to tell us.”

“Amen and, dare I say this in this place? Christians, of course, believe that we have seen not the reflection but the image itself. This makes it easier for us to follow God’s will to be like him as we have seen what it is to live like God.”

“Isa was a prophet… You do not mind us talking like this? I am not a holy man. I tell you what I think and you tell me where I am right and where I am wrong. Let me tell you about a Sufi, Manur al Hallaj. He went around saying, “I am truth. I am truth.” He was killed for his belief. There are different strands of Islam and there are some who are authoritarian and do not allow this thinking. Then there is Sufiism which has this thought.”

“We call this idea ‘theosis’. It is our hope to become like Him on earth as we will be in heaven.”

“Enough. I am glad to talk about these things.”

We get up and continue our tour. He returns, at different times as we walk, to the subject of faith and stresses, again and again, his love of ‘interfaith harmony’. He points out in the Walled City of Lahore the different places of worship (most are historic sites, rather than living places of faith).

“See here a masjid and here, a few doors down: the star of David. The Jews and Muslims living side by side for a long time. This is what Pakistan is like.”

I recall seeing a large, disturbing banner on my way into the city. It had a photograph of Benjamin Netanyahu and underneath his face: ‘The blood-sucking killer of the oppressed’. Despite my companion’s emphasis on the desire of interfaith harmony I cannot match that with the banner. Is this down to cultural use of rhetoric/language? I decide not to raise this with him.

I also remember a conversation with another Muslim contact I had made. They had spoken about how they were seeking to find harmony between the different faiths. In Pakistan it seems the major dialogue is between Muslims and Sikhs. This is, obviously, due to the historic divisions between the two faiths. They are also, clearly, the most culturally impactful faiths in the region. My contact talked about how they had encouraged the Pakistani Authorities to pay for the restoration and conservation of holy sites of other faiths to encourage faith tourism.

“I have tried to persuade them about the untapped economic benefit of faith tourism.”

As part of the successful bid to UNESCO to name Lahore as City of Literature, the team produced educational material on the different holy sites in Lahore. The Pakistani Authorities originally rejected them and requested that they focus more on the heritage aspect of the sites. It is complicated for them to strike the right balance, as it is for all governments, between the extremes and the centre ground within their populations.

It seems to me that ‘ordinary Pakistanis’ are much like ‘ordinary Brits’, moderate and open minded. And yet, I sense a lingering suspicion in my own heart and I question their honesty. I am aware that I am being spoken to as a known Christian and a priest, a “holy man”. Culturally they want to offer deference to me. They want to show me honour and to receive honour from me. They would not desire to shame me and my faith. Does this lead them to say what they think I want to hear?

So where does this leave ‘interfaith harmony’?

There is something about prophecy that fascinates me within the dialogue between Islam and Christianity. Islam centres on the term ‘Prophet’.

When City of Culture was announced in Bradford and I spoke openly to many faith groups about being prophetic within the city and leading the culture towards things of virtue and righteousness (whatever we might mean by that). I was aware of the difficulty of using the word ‘prophetic’. How can we be prophets if Muhammed, to a Muslim, is the last prophet? There are different schools of Islamic thought on this. I wonder if the short conversation on this matter with my guide is a common ground to explore with Muslim neighbours. What does it mean to call someone a ‘prophet’? Can there be prophets today?

As for me. I have been a prophet today. I have lived out, in a small way, what it means to mirror the Divine. This is not the same as the historic martyred Sufi mystic who proclaimed that they have become the Divine. Jesus calls me to reflect the glory, truth and beauty of God not so I can be God but so that I can be truly human. I have been transformed as I tell, teach, treasure and tend to the person before me. I, therefore, am participating in mission; the combination of the five-fold ministry of the Church. I felt called to evanglise, to teach, to pastor and to be a kind of apostle through the gift of prophecy.

Prophecy is often depicted as antagonistic; a kind of railing against oppressive powers; ‘speaking truth to power.’ I have long felt uncomfortable about this vision of the prophetic. Ellen Davis, in her excellent book, ‘Biblical Prophecy’ talks about the more contemplative nature of the prophets of the Old Testament. The Old Testament prophets were those who knew God, who were friends of God, who sought after his presence. Prophecy becomes, in this understanding, more like mysticism.

My own experience of the prophetic is a painful but persistent unsettledness in this world. I do not wish to be antagonistic when I am compelled to speak the truth. This contemplative approach to prophecy is hard to argue with. If we are able to stand against injustice, without shouting, without aggression, but with a desire to, at the same time, to tell, to teach, to treasure and to tend then we will see the Spirit moving in the heart of the person with whom we relate.

I head home frantically scribbling notes in my notebook. After yesterday I feel more inspired and I thank God, for that.

Into Culture: Into Pakistan V

I have given up on trying to sort my internal body clock and I lie in my bed attempting instead to consolidate my reflections. Putting aside the theological/missiological questions that have emerged during my conversations with Pakistani Christians, I return to my personal navigation in a foreign culture.

I am finding the lack of language a serious barrier. I walk around silently, loitering in the corners, creepily waiting to be approached. When someone does engage me in conversation, speaking beautiful English, I feel the need to respond in kind; in embarrassingly limited Urdu. I thus present as aloof. When I do speak English with them their understanding is not as full as I first believe and they look at me with such awkwardness and, worst of all, some form of humiliating deference. I just want to say “sorry” all the time.

I find social interactions challenging in my own culture with my own language and it takes me a huge effort to overcome that. I often overcompensate and feel as though I make people feel uncomfortable. I have no gauge as to the tone of conversations and have had so many painful experiences of misreading situations that, as I think of them now, my stomach scrunches up as though it were trying to hide itself further inside of me.

I have decided to make something of the day and attend some local classes for trainee clergy. I arrive, in my mind, just in time for Morning Prayer. No one is here. Pakistani’s, like other nationalities, do not have the same interest in time keeping as us Northern Europeans do. I sit on the opposite side of where I sat last time because, unknown to me, that time I sat on the women’s side. No one said anything, no one pointed this out to me. Why would they? Why wouldn’t they? Thinking back, I assume they were all laughing at my cultural naivety. Today I will do better.

The students who are leading prayers whisper together and look in my direction. I try to ignore them. When one stands up, he speaks in English to introduce the service. I shrink inside. Stupid English man can’t cope… I think about the practice I have adopted back home of saying “welcome” in any different languages that I know of spoken by guests. Is this what they feel? I am trying to make them feel welcomed and cross the barrier but here, on the receiving end, I feel an imposition.

Hello, paranoia, my old friend. I appreciate that you are trying to protect me and that you were invited to take your place inside my head after I realised that people don’t always mean what they say and that anyone, even trusted friends, can be hypocrites. They can pretend to be kind but they will soon disown you or abandon you when someone easier, more charismatic, less problematic comes along. I have tried to listen to you but, today you seem to have a lot to say.

I am now sat in an English language class. It is strangely comforting to hear my own language. Although I am perfectly happy to be in a place and just listen to people talk to each other in Urdu with me not following a single word, it is nice to relax a little and be part of the community for a bit. I am embarrassed afresh as the exercises they are doing are at quite an advance level and I doubt many of us Brits would be able to do them. They begin to read ‘The Fir Tree’ by Hand Christian Anderson. Even those who seem to be struggling with English read it well, the teacher correcting mispronunciation. No one, however, notes my presence. When I make eye contact, people avert their eyes. I remember Mowgli in ‘The Jungle Book’ and remember that I am not one of them.

I haven’t had breakfast yet but they’re all going straight into Urdu class. Obviously, I need this class more than English but I am also unsure as to what is expected of me, so I go for food. The Urdu teacher asks where I am going.

“Naashtaa (breakfast). I am sorry.”

“Will you come back after breakfast?”

I don’t know. I imagine walking into the class halfway through and feel the eyes already burning into my soul.

“What are you doing here, Ned? You’re not learning anything, and you don’t understand a single word they are saying. At any moment they will ask you questions in Urdu and you’ll stutter and look pathetic.”

I say “yes” but have no intention of doing so. I hate my cowardice and leave.

Breakfast is sausage. The other guest has an egg on his plate. The hospitality team have clearly learnt.

As I eat I think about this blog and feel the self-enforced pressure to write something for today. I note my paranoid voice still wittering on in my head and then the voice that always drowns him out.

“I am a bad person.”

I call him, Neddyplod.

He is the voice of my younger self who was always so lost and confused as a child. The vulnerable boy who, no matter how much he tried, never quite fitted in. He has remained buried for many years, decades even, but, recently, since I discovered him on a walk, he has found some courage to be vocal. I am simultaneously grateful for his ‘bravery’ and yet burdened by his wounds. He carries so many accidental cuts and bruises from others who would be horrified to know what they did to him. He knew, even from the earliest days that they did not intend to hurt him but he had no language to express or ask for different treatment.

Here, in this new place, I am becoming Neddyplod again.

Writing this makes me cry. This is too raw. I need to write this, but does anyone need to read it?

“Attention seeking again, Ned, Neddyplod, whoever you are. You are going to post this though, aren’t you? Why? Because you want the affirmation. You want the prestige of being ‘brave’. You want to justify that ache inside you that craves what you missed out on as a child: acceptance.”

I am now thinking about plot structure. I am reading John Yorke’s excellent book, ‘Into the Woods’ which explores the nature of stories and how and why they work. All good stories have a ‘midpoint’.

…the midpoint is the moment something profoundly significant occurs…A new ‘truth’ dawns on our hero for the first time; the protagonist has captured the treasure or found the ‘elixir’ to heal their flaw. But there’s an important caveat… At this stage in the story they don’t quite know how to handle it correctly.
John Yorke, ‘Into the Woods: how stories work and why we tell them’(London: Penguin Books, 2014)p.37 and 58

I am at the midpoint of my trip and, although real life never fits story structure, might there be some treasure today?

Mowgli. A ‘man-cub’ brought up in the wolf pack as their own. He tries to pretend that he is not a human but a part of the pack but the book tracks his acceptance that he is different from the other animals and belongs elsewhere. The only trouble is that when he returns to humankind they do not accept him either. He is caught between. The story concludes with him making peace with his solitary existence as not neither one or the other but both.

In this place where I am different I am being made more aware of how different I am at home. Here, where there are clearer demarcations of difference (language, custom, clothes), I am tempted to long for home but, then, there’s the rub. There, where those differences are not present, I am still not the same. Where do I flee to?

I am tempted to say ‘my people’ are not here but nor are they there but, maybe, ‘my people’ are, somehow both.

I am comforted by Mowgli’s dislocation; his successes of adaptation; even his final torment at the in between place. This might be my elixir. I just don’t quite know how to handle it yet.

Into Culture: Into Pakistan IV

A prepared introduction is read out, in Urdu, in the Central Cathedral Church of the Praying Hands.

“Rev. Canon Ned Lunn is a pastor at Bradford Cathedral. He works cross culturally using the arts to tell people about Jesus.”

The minister who reads this has been to Bradford and tells the congregation of his fond memories of his time there. He talks about how he felt at home there because there were so many Pakistanis in the city. I hear my name and my host ushers me to go to the microphone. As I walk up I regret not preparing what to say and try to pray.

How do I greet them in Urdu? After all my learning on greetings I still am uncertain as to how to begin conversations. Urdu has a complicated etiquette about greeting as it depends on the faith of the person one is greeting. As Pakistan is a Muslim country the usual way of greeting is “As-salamu alaikum” but that will not do in Church.

“Khuda shukriya (Thank you, God)”

It will do.

“Thank you for your welcome. I do feel at home here as there are similarities between Bradford and Pakistan… mainly the driving!”

This is met by laughter. Having experienced only two journeys on Pakistani roads I understand some of my fellow Bradfordians’ frustratingly ‘different’ style of driving. I don’t agree with it but I understand it.

“I send greetings from Bradford Cathedral where we pray for you each week and particularly over the last few months after the attacks in Jaranwala. I have sat and wept with Pakistani Christians in Bradford and we pray God’s protection and redemption over the whole Church of Pakistan.”

I still fear that my writing is dangerous and a pang of paranoia hits me in the throat. Bishop Azad Marshall sits on the other side of the Cathedral but I cannot see him as he is slightly behind me over my right shoulder. I swallow hard and find no words coming to mind.

“Say something profound.” My inner voice screams, but I have nothing. “Well, say something funny then.” Do I mention the cricket? “Say anything!”

“I do not speak Urdu. I am sorry. Shukriya (thank you) for your welcome…”

I stutter to a stop and the familiar wave of self loathing washes over me. I am out of my depth.

It’s after the service and a group of clergy are sat around a small room listening to Bishop Azad trying his best to find a topic of conversation with me. He asks about my trip.

“I am here for three reasons: 1. To learn what it means to be a public Christian community in a majority Muslim population. 2. To learn how Muslim’s engage in the arts and what are the potential fruitful artistic spaces in which we can have meaningful dialogue and 3. To build personal friendships with the Church of Pakistan to deepen the meaning in our diocesan link.”

Bishop Azad considers for a moment and repeats my host’s reflections.

“You are more generous with Pakistani Muslims than they are to us.”

He talks passionately about the history of Christianity in, what is now known as, Pakistan. He reminds me of the apostolic line from St Thomas (never called ‘doubting’ in the Indian sub-continent), the Jesuit, Jerome and his conversations with Akhbar the Great, the Mughal Emperor and of the Christian schools and hospitals that sustained the newly formed state of Pakistan after the Partition.

“We are a public presence in this country but our road to political representation is fraught with difficulty.”

I repeat some of my reflections of the last few days and remember that I am here to learn and listen.

“How was your trip?” (Bishop Azad has recently returned from England)

He sighs. It looks like he is considering whether to be unguarded but decides, instead, to smile.

“It was ok.”

No further questions, then.

“What can we do for you?” he asks.

The Church of Pakistan is a conservative province in the Anglican Communion when it comes to issues of sexuality and gender. This fact weighs heavy in the room. I consider my response.

“Tell your story and continue to witness to the unique story of Jesus, for we have lost sight of the powerful, radical, countercultural narrative of the cross in the West.”

In an attempt to remain hopeful I share the testimony of Paul Kingsnorth and of Justin Brierley’s new book, ‘The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God’ which shows signs that faith is returning to Europe. But I find myself returning to the deepening dissatisfaction and ‘disenchantment’ that our culture is creating and the desperation of my people. I talk about the seeming hopelessness seen in the unshifting increase in suicide and addictive behaviours despite all the many ‘causes’ and proposed solutions to the crises we face.

“Lord, have mercy upon us.”

I pause. I look around at these ministers who publicly declare their faith and who, if they suggested anything like what is being promoted in the Church of England around morality, would face ridicule and violent persecution.

“We need your prayers and witness more than you need ours.”

Do I really mean that? Yes, I think I do.

“It is sad to see,” Bishop Azad responds, “the Church that sent us so many missionaries and grew the Church here in such a state.”

“You could send some back!” I quip.

The apostolic tradition is a significant and undervalued aspect of the Church of England’s discussion on the moral/ethical issues we face. Apostleship is understood too much as the pioneering, church-planting idea of this work. For me apostleship is more about leadership of the mission and ministry of the Church. If Evangelism is the ‘telling’ and Discipleship is the ‘teaching’ the Apostleship is the ‘treasuring’. It is this ministry that doesn’t just point forward to the new but also points back to the trusted inheritance. This is what I think I want from the Church of Pakistan, and indeed, the Coptic Church too. I want an apostolic ministry to remind me of the Early Church Fathers and Mothers, the martyrs and prophets. I want missionaries to come and show me a faith that means something, that is truly countercultural and distinct from what the world is offering.

There is such a need for a grasping, not just of the novel and new but of the ancient and discarded. To believe in the communion of saints isn’t, for me, so much a ghostly orchestra of holy people of the past but a sharing in the life and truth that they lived in their time. This is what it means for me to stand in an apostolic succession. To believe that there is an unchanging, universal way of life; one undeniable truth to the question, ‘what does it mean to be human?’: a singular life that conquers death. This is the apostolic. To lead ourselves and others to the treasure buried in a field.

As I leave, one of the Cathedral clergy stops me.

“I am grateful to God that the Church of England has some of your thought and consideration.”

I am humbled… and then internally dismiss the compliment because it makes me feel uncomfortable.

Into Cuture: Into Pakistan III

Frustrated I decide to walk around my accommodation. I am listening to David Gray’s classic 90s album ‘White Ladder’. My mum always chose an album to listen to on repeat when she travelled to capture memories within music. To this day I still can’t listen to George Harrison’s ‘All Things Must Pass’ without thinking of my trip around Scandinavia. I am frustrated that my plans are not stable, and I do not have ready access to a 3G (let alone a 4G) network in Pakistan and so can’t leave the range of my Wi-Fi connection in case the person I am meant to be meeting contacts me with revised timings.

As I turn a corner a man makes eye contact with me and approaches. I take my headphones off and greet him in attempted Urdu.

“I don’t speak very much Urdu.” he responds.

Join the club!

What follows is a fascinating conversation about life as a Pakistani Christian. The tone is different from my host. This man was born and raised in England to Pakistani parents. He now travels around Pakistan encouraging Christian communities. He talks about how many Christians are forced to live in unwanted land which has bad soil and floods every year. This means they permanently live in temporary homes. Every year the floods wash their homes away and they rebuild. He is working to build bamboo houses which stand on four or five-feet legs. The engineering was designed by bamboo artisans who had only worked on plates and cutlery.

He speaks of things I can not write publicly asking for my prayers. I hold back my tears listening to the story of Esther John, a Pakistani Christian martyr, one of the 12 martyrs honoured on the side of Westminster Abbey. After she was killed the authorities said she had had a lover out of wedlock. They knew about him as she wrote about him in her diary. That lover’s name was Jesus.

He shows me a cross salvaged from a burnt church that he is hoping will be put in a chapel dedicated to the Pakistani martyrs. Suddenly my presence and my planned interactions with the wider Pakistan feels compromised. I reconsider my published writing and return to my room to re-read to ensure that I have not caused danger. This proves fruitless and I spiral into anxious paranoia.

Lord, have mercy.

Why does the request for prayer from such devastating and desperate situations fill me with such impotence and an inner demand to do more? Why is this the first and often only response to offers of help? As a minority community which has faced genuine persecution and where their basic desire to follow Jesus is curbed, it is God alone who can help. Here in Pakistan, Christian security is not guaranteed and at any moment normal life can be interrupted by unannounced attacks which are likely to be covered up or justified by the authorities. Although Christians are given freedom to worship and be called citizens these are not secure. The only security they have is in God and his promises.

In this conversation evangelism is spoken of as first priority. Church leadership of the past is criticised as falling into maintenance mode and the congregation sizes shrunk. I wonder whether my conversation partner focuses on evangelism and conversion as the solution due to his British upbringing which differs from my host who is Pakistani born and bred. Does this man who speaks so passionately about the situation of the ‘hidden church’ carry with him a metamorphized colonial spirit which seeks adventure and expansion of horizons? My host, existing as he has in a large country part of a larger subcontinent amongst millennia long multiculturalism, may opt for the personal discipleship and focus on the community of faith as an expression of this different culture.

There is also a difference between the hidden ministry and the public. Ironically, the public ministry looks to hide its evangelism in Pakistan because of the very real consequences, whilst the hidden ministry is more bold about the telling of Jesus. I am not sure if this is correct but there is something here which requires more reflection.

We find ourselves standing listening to a group of young people singing a song based on a Psalm.

“You are the God who forgives.” They sing in Urdu.

I am touched by their gentle boldness of faith. I note they sing this in a sanctuary but my new found friend leans in and says they have sung this in the desert. I ask what he means and he tells me that they developed this ministry during Covid and afterwards toured it to the Cathedrals and some small churches across Pakistan and ended in the desert to the south. They were expecting 20 people to join them but they ended up having 200 people, some of whom had walked 8 hours into the desert to hear worship sung.

Forgiveness. The breaking of retaliation and revenge. This is the story, whether spoken out loud or lived out in bold acts of defying expectations, that changes lives. I finished reading ‘The Train to Pakistan’ earlier. It finishes with a scene of suicidal violence in the face of longstanding religious hatred and distrust. This tale of how the Partition changed a small, fictional, intercultural village is depressingly bleak. Bleak in its inability to offer a way out of revenge and generational grievance. All peacemakers are silenced with no narrative to persuade or hold to. Redemption never gets a look in. The deaths may be called martyrdom in the cultures in which they are rooted but this form of martyrdom does not sow seeds of new life. The ‘martyrdom’ depicted in the Muslim and Sikh characters of the book offers nothing to those who live except a reason to be mightier and angrier.

This is not the martyrdom of Esther John or her ‘lover’, Jesus. For we who seek to follow him to the Cross do so, not to receive a personal heavenly welcome but to make a heavenly gift for all. We should not seek our own post-mortem security but the establishing of God’s eternal Kingdom and thus security and justice for all, even those who kill us. If the martyr’s blood is the seed of the Church the martyrs are those whose blood is spilt due to acts of forgiveness.

People, particularly young people, are yearning for forgiveness and grace. Our world cannot find a way to justify this. The narrative is not structured towards this. Without Jesus and the good news of his redemption of humanity there is no reason for total and unrestrained forgiveness. Most cultures and religions promote some forms of forgiveness but they are all limited. We cannot continue to allow Christianity to bend towards this temptation.

I pray as the young people sing with beautiful fragility that only young people can.

“Shukriya, Khuda (Thank you, God)”

Into Culture: Into Pakistan II

The night before I had sat with my generous host. He had worked all day with little sleep and had come late to be with me and share a cup of tea. Tea, in Pakistan, is as much a cultural icon as it is in England. There is, in parts of the country, a belief that you are not really befriended until you have shared three cups of tea with each other. Cup one and I am grateful for his hospitable heart towards me, a stranger.

We discussed the recent attacks on churches in Jaranwala. Attacks which had been a catalyst for me to come and visit. Attacks that opened my eyes to how fragile seeming tolerance between faith communities can be. Attacks which inspired the convening bishop, Azad Marshall, to be firm and gracious even at risk to his own life.

“How is it that many Pakistani Muslims in the UK rightly demand equality and freedom of religion and worship, and yet, once they have received it, do not offer the same courtesy to Christians back home?” my host had pondered.

The Jaranwala incident has clearly shaken the Pakistani Christian community. I know this as I have sat with brothers and sisters from Pakistan in Bradford and seen them wrestle with anger, fear and the desire to be faithful to Christ. Bishop Azad Marshall’s stance is clear: as Pakistani citizens, Christians want to know they are safe to live in their own land. This is resonant with other communities elsewhere across the globe. There is, however, not a call for revenge or retaliation in his communication. There is no bitterness towards the people who burnt their churches and Bibles and looted their homes. A simple but firm request for assurances that their lives are valuable.

I wake at 5am to a loud Friday morning adhan/azaan (the Muslim call to prayer) or it may be another liturgical proclamation. It is echoed across the city as muezzins seem to compete to be heard. I am thankful that my wife is not here and I calm my irritable tiredness and mutter my own devotions to God. I feel affinity with a neighbour in Bradford who in a moment of annoyance had complained that we rang our bell at the Cathedral at all hours of the day. I contemplate the challenge of contesting devotional practices in multicultural spaces and how interculturality should encourage a sharing of devotional rhythms whilst maintaining distinctive content to the worship. I drift back to sleep.

I wake again at 6.30am to loud bangs and rumbles. In the darkness I immediately assume it is gunfire and bombs. This same instinct is still present back home when unseasonal fireworks go off at odd times of the day. Here in Pakistan the possibility of warfare is slightly more plausible, and so I get up to investigate. It’s merely a much-needed thunderstorm which, rather than bringing death and destruction, brings lightness and the breaking of the dangerous toxic smog that has engulfed the east of the country. The Punjab region was put under a lockdown yesterday to protect further citizens contracting conjunctivitis from the polluted air. I thank God for his mercy and drop off to sleep again.

I jerk awake just before 9am cursing that my alarm was not set to go off on Fridays and I have missed morning prayer at 8am. I contemplate the consequences of this. No one is expecting me but how am I now to introduce myself to the college community in which I am staying? I acknowledge the irony of missing my own communal worship because the Muslim’s call to prayer had compounded my already disrupted body clock. I get dressed and decide to head to the chapel which doubles as classrooms and see what can be salvaged from the day.

I arrive to find people sitting in groups studying the Bible. I sit and ask God to direct me to a part of Scripture and I feel drawn to the book of Daniel. This is interesting bearing in mind last night’s discussions around interfaith relations with Muslims and reflections on being a minority faith amidst a majority population of a different creed. This is one of the aspects of my research on this trip: to explore what it feels like to be part of a minority faith community. In preparation for coming to Pakistan I jokingly added after telling people this is an area of study,

“…to prepare for the worst.”

My host had been realistic and disarming about the reality. Quoting Brother Andrew

“I was told that ‘one [man] and God is a majority.’”

I read in Daniel the story of a religious minority existing alongside people of different faith. Their witness to peaceable cohabitation whilst maintaining an integrity is freshly inspiring in relation to evangelism. I recall the same missionary approach by St Augustine of Canterbury. I return, again, to the conversation with my host.

What does it take to grow Christian communities in the context of being marginal and outliers? For my host it is focussing on discipleship, an intentional training of the small gathering of faithful people. When evangelism is denied (in the case of Pakistan, legally), a securing of the remnant is key and is seen in the story of Daniel in Babylon.

“Discipleship is always one on one, one by one.”

The stories told of the Pakistan Church facing a shocking lack of biblical literacy and doctrinal confidence is uncomfortably familiar.

“How are we to stand surrounded by a loud and popular religious culture if we are not tethered to our own conviction. This is why I start every conversation with Christians with one question, “Why have you chosen to follow Jesus?””

The use of the word ‘chosen’ is significant in Pakistan as the given religion is Islam. Is it so different in the UK? I have wrestled with this same instinct amongst the congregations I have served. What is discipleship without a choice to follow Jesus? This is not just in relation to the discussions around infant vs. adult baptism for the choice to follow Jesus must be daily. I long to have the mindset of these Pakistani Christians: to have to choose to be distinct and to hold firm to the belief in Jesus as the way of life, the truth of the world and the life to which I was made.

The response in Pakistan to the lack of basis of the faith has been to invest not in evangelistic mission but in teaching in order that wider mission can flow from it. I have long spoken of the UK not facing a missional crisis but a discipleship crisis. I now begin to think about how, in the wider, holsitic view of mission being the 5 marks of mission (tending, teaching, telling, treasuring and transforming) how slowly we have realised that teaching the faith is missional. Evangelists rightly call us to ‘tell’ and bemoan our lack of confidence to do so. There is something about Philip’s model of evangelism with the Ethiopean eunuch, which is both telling and teaching.

The General Synod of the Church of England will meet next week. I am suddenly grateful that I have limited access to the internet and will avoid the usual toxicity of Anglican social media. I contemplate on the state of my denomination. I pessimistically see the Pakistani Church as our future state and pray that, if we are called to be in real exile in our own land, I will be faithful and meet others one on one, one by one and be led by the Spirit to sure up the remnants of faith and tend to the needs of those I meet, tell them afresh the good news of Jesus Christ, teach them the faith as it has been historically handed down to me, treasure the gifts God has given to the Church and offers to them… but finally, I pray that I will, if called to do so, stand firm but graciously to see justice done; not as an act of subtle revenge on the perpetrators of injustice but to establish true justice. True justice being justice to both the oppressor and the oppressed.

I feel the shame of my lack of confidence to go and talk to others and sense their own reluctance to speak to me. The strangeness of social hierarchy baffles me afresh and I regret not asking for more formal introductions and structure to my visit. I sit in a class and pretend to follow. I notice recognisable words spoken.

“Taliban… masjid… Allah.”

If only I spoke Urdu better I could learn so much more from them.

Into Culture: Curated Silence

Conversations are broken

So begins the blurb on the back of Nihal Arthanayake’s new book ‘Let’s Talk: how to have better conversations’. I picked up Arthanayake’s book whilst on holiday and devoured it within a few days. It was a timely read for me as I continue to imagine what is being shaped at Bradford Cathedral in the run up to City of Culture. We have articulated aims at the Cathedral to “be a place where challenging issues facing the world can be discussed and debated openly and safely” as well as being recognised “as the safe place for gathering when local or global events require a spiritual response or an honest conversation.”

So what makes for good conversation? Why is the art of disagreement such a popular idea at the moment? From ‘The Rest is Politics’ podcast’s stated aim “to disagree agreeably” to the Church of England’s repeated mantra to learn to “disagree well”; lots of people are trying to recapture the skills to debate safely in an increasingly polarised world. Public discourse has lost a sense of maturity, calmness and creativity. We can point fingers towards the rise in social media (or, should we call it unsocial media?) or the cuts to education which disproportionally impact the humanities and thus our ability to learn the empathetic imagination required to converse with people of difference. There are, however, many other factors that have led to the erosion of social cohesion and community integration. The Covid 19 pandemic didn’t cause this conversational decay but it has undoubtedly accelerated the degradation of all the skills required to interact with others.

This month we have held 3 events at Bradford Cathedral that I have helped to produce, all aimed, in different ways, to position us as an organisation to fulfil the aims stated above. Each of these spaces, in different ways, used the arts to inspire and/or hold difficult, contested views in the hope of discovering, with people of difference, a new way forward together.

‘Journeys of Hope’ was an exhibition that told the stories of both the Ugandan Asian diaspora, who travelled to Britain in 1972 after being expelled from their homeland by Idi Amin, and ‘the Windrush generation’, who arrived from the 1940s seeking to fill labour shortages after World War II. As part of our engagement in ‘Black History Month’ we wanted to hear different black histories alongside one another to discern the universal experience as well as the nuanced and distinct narratives from different ‘black communities’. The banners that made up the exhibition depicted, in word and pictures, the journeys made by these different migrant communities. The public were invited to engage in the dialogue between the two different narratives.

The launch event amplified the voices from these two particular communities of Bradford. Individuals talked about their experience of having multiple ‘homes’ e.g. both the Caribbean or Uganda and Britain. The contributors began to explore together what they understood by ‘identity’ the painful memories that have shaped them as well as the joyful realisations they have discovered. I chose to give space for those stories, particularly the painful parts to just hang in the air. The silence inviting us to face the uncertainty without the pressing need to respond immediately; to ‘befriend’ the emotions that were stirred.

In the press coverage surrounding the exhibition the media were most interested in the deliberate shift we are making in Bradford from talking about multiculturalism to interculturalism. Multiculturalism carries connotations of a kind of deceptive ‘tolerance’; a meagre allowance of another’s existence. It rarely inspires any creative interaction and, indeed, I would, in some small way, agree that “multiculturalism is dead”. I do not see how this acceptance of the other in my periphery as doing anything beneficial and will, with little encouragement, fall into ghettoisation and conflict. Interculturalism, on the other hand, invites ‘inter’action between cultures. It means, as one local, Bradfordian broadcaster said at a recent Religion Media Conference hosted in our city, “getting up in each other’s business.”

Secularists would have us all believe that the public realm is a naturally neutral space. This is not true. There is no such neutrality because it is always curated by a particular worldview, most often a secularist’s. A healthy and honest public space that encourages healthy, creative conversation around shared political and social goals is hard built and even harder to sustain. Intercultural practice, as opposed to multiculturalism, requires particular skills which are not obvious or easily learnt. One principle is deep, empathetic and imaginative listening. I explore this and a complimentary principle of ‘overaccepting’ in an article soon to be published in the Oxford Journal of Intercultural Mission, entitled, ‘Improvisation as Intercultural Practice’. Essentially I argue that the skills that make improvisatory drama work are the same that make public discourse work: curiosity and mutual trust. This is what is lacking so often in our interactions with others.

We were also invited, by the Council, to host an ‘interfaith service’ to begin Hate Crime Awareness Week. This year’s theme was tackling religiously motivated hate crime. Because interfaith worship/prayers are more complicated than many understand, I decided to invite friends from different faiths an opportunity to share, from a personal perspective, what their particular faith teaches them about relating well across religious difference. This kind of sharing can easily descend into a kind of Faith Battle as individuals feel they must ‘represent’ and defend their position. It was specifically to counteract that temptation that I encouraged contributors to speak only from their personal view and followed it with silence, reflection and, if the congregation wished, to pray privately. This approach disarmed the pressure we put upon ourselves when we talk publicly about a deeply held, identity shaping thing such as faith. It encouraged people to simply accept the offer being made with no need to respond either affirmatively or negatively.

The event was held on 16th October, just 9 days after the atrocities seen in Israel and the subsequent heartache across the region as Israel and Gaza fell again into bloody conflict. This event was naturally overshadowed by the pain, confusion and anger felt by many in our community in Bradford and across the world. Fortunately I had already devised a creative way that we could stand together as people of different faiths in a meaningful way without using words that can regularly, particularly at such times of heightened hostilities, get taken out of context, misheard/misunderstood. We simply lit a single candle from individual candles representing our different faith traditions. We held silence together and allowed one another to lament and be baffled together without requiring a verbal response.

Sometimes the skill of conversation is knowing when not to speak.

Finally we hosted a delegation from one of our Diocesan links. Bradford has partnered with the Church District of Erfurt in Germany for over 30 years. We have regularly engaged in an exchange programme: us visiting them and they us. This year it was their turn to come over to us. As we devised an event at the Cathedral we discovered it had been 90 years since Dietrich Bonhoeffer visited Bradford and made, what became known as the Bradford Declaration. It was the start of the work that culminated in the much wider known Barmen Declaration which spoke against the Nazi regime and led, ultimately, to Bonhoeffer’s arrest and death in 1945.

In honour of this anniversary we decided to host an event that helped us to reflect on the role of faith in politics and politics in faith. We had three speakers: Dr Matthias Rein who is a Lutheran pastor in Germany who gave us a good background to Bonhoeffer and his ongoing legacy in Germany in 21st century, Revd Dr Noel Irwin, a Methodist Minister who teaches community development and organising, political and public theology who spoke about the impact of Bonhoeffer’s thoughts on violence/non-violence during the Trouble in Northern Ireland and Rt Revd Nick Baines, bishop of Leeds who talked from his experience of being a bishop in the House of Lords. Tough questions were raised and some complex ideas began to be unpacked.

Again, in the media interviews I engaged with they focussed on the common request that people make to ‘keep faith out of politics’ or ‘keep politics out of faith’. In the light of the Israel/Gaza situation and the overwhelming complexities involved in that historic, multifaceted issue, such requests are, in my mind, naive and reckless. Whether you ascribe to a particular shared religious doctrine or are not part of an organised expression of belief we all believe in something. This is either a spiritual, political or psychological idea or, most likely, some mixture of all three. There is some set of values which coalesce into some form. This is your faith. This shapes your decisions and choices. Those choices direct your actions and engagement in the social world. This is politics. It is, therefore, dishonest, to suggest that anyone can separate their faith/beliefs from their political choices.

The event was held within the context of a bilingual choral evensong. I had thought that many would only turn up for the intellectual part of the evening but in fact we had all 80 or so audience members from various backgrounds come and experience the sung liturgy which included prayers of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The music, I felt, played a significant part in settling people into our time together and expressed in the hauntingly beautiful harmonies the complexities Bonhoeffer faced in his time. In our own time, as demands are made on us to make choices and to pick sides, I listened to the quartet of voices sing words of trust often creating deliberate dissonance in the melody. I was reminded of a contemporary of Bonhoeffers, Karl Barth, who once wrote,

And he who is now concerned with truth must boldly acknowledge that he cannot be simple. In every direction human life is difficult and complicated… Men will not be grateful to us if we provide them with short-lived pseudo-simplifications.
Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans (Oxford: Oxford Univeristy Press, 1968) p.5

Arthanayake, referring to words spoken by Professor Tanya Byron earlier in his book, concludes by saying,

…we must make sure that our education system encourages rather than diminishes curiosity. The curious may well dive into the online world to find answers to questions they have, but they will also wish to discuss those answers, refine them and even have them changed by new advice or evidence. The curious will have their ears open to empathise with the experiences of others or to process and push back on opinions they do not agree with. The curious will talk to strangers.
Nihal Arthanayake, Let’s Talk: how to have better conversations (London: Trapeze, 2022) p.266

That curiosity should be directed towards deliberately shaped silences in the world around us in order that we can engage better with to the daunting silence we find within. The arts should curate public spaces of silence to invite us, to woo us, into the uncomfortable conflicts that lie within us all so we can hold firm in the conflicts outside. When people declare our silence as deafening or that non-words are hurtful I weep. It’s because they cannot feel the gift that shared silence can be.

Into Culture: Pilgrim’s Progress

At the beginning of August I returned to Riding Lights’ Summer Theatre School. This residential week of theatre and faith was the place and community which brought me back to God. It was also the place and community that introduced me to my first wife, Sarah; it was where I proposed to her and where, for several years, we went to celebrate these two fundamental parts of our identity: God and theatre. The summer school and the wider Riding Lights’ community have been my home base in terms of reflecting on who I am, as a Christian and as a theatre practitioner.

Before last year I had taken a break from Riding Lights’ Summer Theatre School due to bereavement. Sarah died in 2018 and I struggled with the idea of returning without her. In 2022 I received a text message from the Artistic Director, Paul Burbridge, asking if I would consider being a tutor in that year’s summer school. I was to direct, with him, a series of Chekov short plays. I jumped at the chance, not only of returning, but also working, for the first time, with him. It was a delight but it was tinged with sadness as memories came unbidden.

I was preparing to return to summer school this year and had had some brief but non-committal conversations with Paul before he sadly died in April. The shock of Paul’s death put everything, understandably, on hold. When Riding Lights asked me if I would still come and tutor again I agreed and asked what script I would be working with. I was to produce an abridged version of ‘Walkout!’, itself a stage adaptation of John Bunyan’s, ‘A Pilgrim’s Progress’.

Each year Riding Lights has a theme that aims to unite the different courses across the summer school. This year’s theme was, “Rise Up and Find Your Voice”. I have to admit I struggled to know why the text of our show was chosen to explore this particular theme. Don’t get me wrong, I can see how it could be very apt: Bunyan encourages his reader to be confident with their faith and not to be swayed by the many tempting and demanding voices we hear in life that try to silence us as we progress towards the celestial city of God. My question was, knowing that the summer school would produce shows of protest and ‘speaking out’ on all the issues of our day, how Bunyan’s 350 year old text would be received or explored at this politically contested time.

John Bunyan is unashamed in his evangelical fervour and uncompromising demands of faithfulness to the gospel. The adaptation, despite some dated reference, keeps the tradition of the text alive in terms of challenging and questioning political, philosophical and sociological progress and suggests that these lead people away from the historical faith as passed on by the Apostles. Exploring this text as part of the theme made me ask deep questions about what it might mean to ‘find my voice’.

Here’s the rub. Can we really ever ‘find our voice’? How do we know when we’ve found it? Do we have only one voice, or are we a cocktail of voices some of which compete and contradict one another? What is the purpose of finding ‘our voice’?

Regular readers of my writing will know that I struggle with the popular notion and demand of self-knowledge that our culture obsesses over. Thankfully we have seen the end of the popularity of the reality ‘talent’ shows that regularly showed us people who “believed in themselves” and could only do “what they were made to do”, ie. sing/dance/perform, etc. Despite many being told they were not any good they were there to “prove themselves”. This has impacted our society by implying that the self is a singular, static thing that we are charged with discovering and protecting. This denies, therefore, the possibility of change. This is not good for relationships or our mental health and yet our culture increasingly demands we ‘find our voice’. Why?

When directing a piece about faithfulness to God and not being lured away by ‘self-actualising philosophies’ and ‘vain confidence’ I found again the extremes in the current socio-political debate of our time jarring. In our production we chose to rotate the main role of Christian round the cast so that most people got a chance to voice the epitomous pilgrim and, in addition, they would also play a role of temptation be that, Vain Confidence, Hypocrisy or any of the other cavalcade of distractions Christian and his fellow pilgrims (Hopeful and Faithful) face along their progress. We wanted the cast and the audience to acknowledge the different voices we can possess (or, maybe, that possess us). We wanted to explore how we slip into characters that others and wider society want us to perform and how we have a choice as to which voice we find and use.

Thomas Merton, a trappist monk of the twentieth century, wrote a lot about ‘self’ and his writing is still a prophetic challenge against the narcissitic tendencies of the modern world. He questioned the ease with which we talk of ‘self’ outside the context of God and invited us, as does ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’, to find our selves only in relation to God’s desires for us. Merton saw the task of the Christian life, expressed in the monastic tradition, as “an unconditional and totally humble surrender to God, a total acceptance of ourselves and our situation as willed by Him.”

It means that renunciation of all deluded images of ourselves, all exaggerated estimates of our own capacities, in order to obey God’s will as it comes to us in the difficult demands of life in its exacting truth. “Purity of heart” is then correlative to a new spiritual identity – the “self” as recognized in the context of realities willed by God
Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer (London: Darton, Longmann and Todd, 2005) p.83

I regularly find the debates around identity baffling, confusing and disorientating. This is in part due to my neurodiversity but it is, I think, also about the deep dissatisfaction we all feel having pursued the social liberal project to its extreme position. Our deconstruction of social institutions that have formed our civilisation for centuries have not brought peace and balance but the opposite. We have not arrived at the utopian social construct promised to us by the revolutionary movements that have shaped our culture but rather we live in deeper confusion and division. It’s because, I suggest, despite all the conversation about power, we’re not being as honest or transparent about it as we should.

When it comes to power I am of the mind always to know what power/privilege I have and to use it for the benefit of others and, if there is a conflict, to side with the economically poor and dispossessed. Surrounded by a society that asks us to find our political voice in the current social justice culture I have to admit I am not encouraged to find my voice or, worse, the voice that I find is wrong and needs to be corrected. How do I deal with that? When I am asked to ‘rise up and find my voice’ and yet I am left feeling like I’m also being told to ‘sit down and shut up’ do I just accept that I am now dispensable in public life? This, I feel, is a deliberate strategy by certain parts of our society who have ambition not for others but for them selves.

I get it. I am a straight, white man. I know my privileges but my privileges are not, I don’t think, due to my race, gender or sexuality. My privilege is class, education and economic privilege. I want to talk about those things because they are things I can use to benefit others and they are things we can actually change. We are lost in political battles for ‘equality’ which, as Douglas Murray rightly suggests, has overreached itself so now we strive that all are to be equal but, to quote George Orwell, ‘some are more equal than others’. Murrray, a gay man himself, notes the strange situation where ‘straight’ people who come out as gay are lauded as brave but ‘gay’ people who come out as straight are treated with suspicion and doubt. The increased valuing of news items of people ‘coming out’ in different forms and the accompanying demand for others to affirm this new ‘identity’ out of fear of causing suicidal offence remains strangely unhealthy to me. Why do we feel forced to publicly declare our identities? What is the purpose of the obsessive discussion and demands that we affirm one another’s current identity as the definition of ‘loving’?

Rightly or wrongly, I believe that love doesn’t just accept the other as they are but is expectant that the other will continue to change. I am who I am today, but tomorrow I have hope that my voice might be different. I hope that tomorrow I’ll sound less like me and more like Jesus Christ. The voices I hear in the public square at the moment are not ones that I find comfortable or desirable. So I am strangely content to step aside from the competing noise of public life and find my voice in harmony with his, who created me and who desires me to change from glory to glory; for that is what means to be on the pilgrim’s progress.