Phatfish - In the beginning

I quite like Phatfish.  They've written some really good stuff and are decent live performers.  I've listened to their music for over a decade.  A few weeks ago I saw them at Spring Harvest.  It was mostly a good gig, but one song in particular drove me up the wall.  It's called In The Beginning.

I can't find the lyrics online but as far as I can tell they go like this:

You’ve got Dawkins standing on a pedestal

Shouting at the creatures God is dead

You’ve got people thinking that they’re scientists

All agree the notion God’s not there

But please tell me in this theory

Explain how life ever first began

Could such genius precise details

Just appear without a master plan?

In the beginning God

In the beginning God created

Life exploded

In the beginning

You’ve got people telling us the science deal

Answering the questions, hows and whys

You’ve got mockers scoffing at the Bible

Thinking they are smart and faith is blind

But the leap is so much greater

To think chance is alone responsible

When I’m faced with love and beauty

There’s just one explanation plausible

In the beginning God

In the beginning God created

Life exploded

In the beginning

Right at the start there was the word

And the word was with God

Right at the start the word was God

Yes the word was with God

And through him everything was made

Nothing made without him

In him was life and that’s the life

That’s the life I’m wanting

This song makes me angry.  Not just because I disagree that science and Christianity are as opposed as the song suggests.  Not just because the lyrics suggest that you can't believe the Bible and agree with evolution.  Not just because the song is critical of scientists like myself.  Though these reasons alone would wind me up.

It's because it's by Phatfish.  One of the longest-standing Christian bands we have in Britain, and one of the most popular.  They should know better than to write a song about such a divisive issue from such an extreme standpoint.  Not only could this song alienate Christians who accept evolution, like myself.  Not only could it confirm the fears of well-meaning but confused Christians who don't know enough about evolution but suspect it might be against Christianity (it isn't, but the way).

Songs like this could alienate other people from even giving faith a chance.  This song presents Christians as paranoid fundamentalists who feel threatened by evil scientists.  Some research has suggested that one of the most significant things that prevents young people from becoming Christians is the perceived dichotomy between science and Christianity.  Regardless of the personal views of Phatfish on evolution, they should know better than to write a song that could present an extreme viewpoint as a middle-of-the-road one.

Prophecy - part 2

A few months ago I wrote about the theme of prophecy in my two favourite series of books, Harry Potter and The Belgariad.

The summary is here:

“In The Belgariad the prophecy is a conscious personality, one of two destinies, trying to set things up to its own advantage.  One of the two prophecies will be fulfilled, and one will not.  If Garion’s prophecy is fulfilled, things will look very different from what will happen if it is not fulfilled.

In Harry Potter, the prophecy is a prediction that may or may not be fulfilled.  The fulfilment or otherwise determines the fate of many characters.  In a way, the only difference is the consciousness of the prophecies.  In both stories, characters can choose to follow the prophecy or not, but the fact that The Belgariad’s prophecy is conscious means that it has much more of a direct say in what happens.  This is paralleled in Harry Potter by the character of Dumbledore, who knows the prophecy and helps Harry deal with it, giving him advice and instructions.  The combination of the spoken prophecy and the character of Dumbledore combine to have a similar role to that of the conscious prophecy in The Belgariad.”

A friend read the post and suggested a follow-up post comparing prophecy in these two series and Christian prophecy.  So here are a few thoughts.

In the Belgariad, the Prophecy is conscious, rather than just a message given by someone to someone else.  It guides its own fulfilment, though another prophecy is working against it for the opposite outcome.

In Harry Potter, the prophecy is a message rather than a character.  Like the Belgariad prophecy, it was given at a certain time through a certain person (Trelawney), but, being non-sentient, it cannot work towards its own fulfilment.  Dumbledore takes the role of guiding characters towards the fulfilment of the prophecy, acting like a chess grandmaster, much like the consciousness of the prophecy in the Belgariad.

In Christianity, prophecy is a message from God, given through a person.  Like the Harry Potter prophecies, is it not conscious and can take no action.  While Harry Potter prophecies seem to be predictions of the future, Christian prophecy is not necessarily.  In Christianity, prophecy is a message from the all-powerful character (God), rather than being the all-powerful character itself (as in the Belgariad), or having the all-powerful character act on its behalf (Dumbledore in Harry Potter).

This can be summarised in the following table:

	Belgariad	Harry Potter	Christianity
Consciousness of prophecy	Yes	No	No
Given by	Itself	Unknown	Deity
Given through	Human	Human	Humans
Given to	Group of humans	Everyone, via the Hall of Prophecy	Humans
Enacted by	Itself	Very powerful human	Deity

Christian prophecy is more similar to the Belgariad, because the Prophecy in the Belgariad is basically a god, who speaks to humans.  In Christianity, God speaks to humans, but the prophecy is the message, rather than God himself.  But the difference is only one of terminology.  In Harry Potter, there is no god, and the prophecy is the message.  Dumbledore plays part of the role of God in Christianity and the Prophecy in the Belgariad in terms of guiding humans to fulfil prophecy.

Bruce Almighty

I’ve seen Bruce Almighty several times, and at last have got round to what I’ve wanted to do since first seeing it: writing down all the different things it covers with respect to religion, faith, God etc.  I think it is quite remarkable how much is crammed into this 90-minute film.  Here is a list of the themes and ideas that crop up (no particular order or structure to this list).

The contrast between the first and last scene in Bruce’s attitude to his job and life in general

A reference to Chariots of Fire– a film about conflict between faith and profession

Bruce’s wife’s name is Grace, and she embodies that to him

Bruce’s initial view of God as either ignoring him completely or as a mean kid with a magnifying glass burning ants

God sending signals/signs/messages through mundane things such as pagers or road signs

Tongue in cheek jokes e.g. omni-presents, ‘smite me o mighty smiter’, many references to the number 7

God saying that his light is bright for most people who live their lives trying to hide from him

God’s complete knowledge of Bruce

The big questions of the film are how to handle ultimate power and how to make someone love you without affecting free will

Other themes include abuse of power and how and why God does or doesn’t answer prayers

Biblical references such as walking on water, parting red sea

The futility of using power for one’s own life and petty gain

The problem of God just saying ‘yes’ to all prayers

Everyone wins the lottery (classic prayer) one cause of the mass riot

Music includes ‘God-shaped hole’, ‘You’re a God’, ‘What if God was one of us?’

Even God can’t force love – Bruce tries

‘No matter how filthy something gets, you can always clean it right up’

‘Since when does anyone have a clue about what they want?’

Promotes everyday miracles e.g. ‘a teenager saying no to drugs and yes to an education’

Bruce’s life changes as he starts ‘being the miracle’ (helping people rather than just himself)

Reconciliation with arch-rival Evan

Honesty of Grace’s prayer vs token flippancy of Bruce’s, then Bruce’s true prayer

Bruce’s surrender to God’s will finalises the change in him, even via a road accident

The only time Bruce asks what God wants him to do, God says he wants Bruce to pray – about whatever he really cares about

Bruce understands what it means to see people through God’s eyes

Subverting Christmas

I've written about Christmas before.  This post, in a way, summarises my thoughts towards it.
Christmas is celebrated on 25th December, right?  It is thought that this date was chosen because a pagan festival to the sun was already celebrated on this day.  Basically, Christianity subverted the festival that was already their and turned it into a Christian celebration of Jesus' incarnation.

Fast-forward a couple of thousand years.  Christians now find themselves living in a culture which holds what is essentially a pagan festival on 25th December.  And it needs subverting again, to turn it back into a celebration of the incarnation.

Specifics to follow sometime.

Reluctant praying

Why are most Christians (either in the world (I doubt), the West (possibly), the UK (likely), or my friendship group (it certainly seems so)) reluctant to pray?  I don't mean in general, but in certain situations.  Such as saying grace.  Or 'opening in prayer' (or closing for that matter).
I think it might be because these situations happen so often that it seems hard to be original and to say something that doesn't appear mundane and generic.  How many ways are there, really, to say thankyou for food?  And opening in prayer is such a generic thing, 'thankyou that we can meet here together, please be with us and speak to us blah blah blah'.  People don't like to volunteer for these things because they don't know what to say while still sounding genuine.
I don't know any solutions to this yet.  But it's a bit worrying, and this is a bit of a tip of an iceberg-sized rant on prayer and how we do it, which is not yet formulated enough to write.

...and all the Kings men

About a year ago, I read a book called 'Why Men Hate Going To Church', by David Murrow. It was basically about why and how the church is geared more towards women than men. One thing the book discussed was the relative proportions of women and men attending church services.

I decided to find out what sort of 'gender gap' my own church, Kings Church Durham, has. Each Sunday service from September 2009 to July 2010 I counted the number of over-18 men and women at Kings. I decided on the over-18 cutoff because young children are generally brought to church by their parents, rather than of their own accord and, while teenagers tend to have more choice, I had to make a cutoff somewhere.

I counted numbers at each different type of Kings meeting – Morning Worship, Crux, Connecting with God, prayer evenings, evening services, evening guest services and the AGM. I used the numbers to produce a simple percentage – the percentage of the congregation that were male. I also calculated a 'minus team percentage' – the percentage if the 6 female and 10 male staff and interns are discounted, as they are required at the services as part of the job.

All this resulted in many Excel spreadsheets and graphs, but the most important are below:

The average totals for each service are interesting but not that unexpected. For reference, the most people at any service was on 11^th October, at 313 people. This was the first Sunday of the student year. The highest at Crux was 48, Connecting was 149 and prayer meeting was 52.

The male percentages are much more interesting. Here they are in table form:

Service type	Male %	Male % minus team
Morning Worship	43.26	41.5
Crux	61.32	60.48
Connecting	41.61	38.59
Evening (joint)	39.66	34.51
Evening Guest	42.59	40.41
Prayer meeting	49.87	42.19
AGM	55.56	51.72
Average over all services	43.9	41.31

So, overall, Kings has averaged 43.9% this academic year (41.31 excluding team). Morning worship is typical of this percentage. Connecting, joint evening services and evening guest services are slightly lower. Prayer meetings, the AGM and Crux get successively higher, up to 61.32% male at Crux (60.48 excluding team).

A few comments:

• 
  
  Surveys seem to show that male % in churches is generally below 40%, so Kings is doing better than average, but still well below 50%.
• 
  
  Possible explanations for the variations in services are: Connecting and similar services have lower percentages because they are more 'emotional', crux is higher because it is more 'academic', prayer meetings and AGM are higher showing a balanced (or even male dominated) 'core' in the church but a female dominated periphery or studentdom.
• 
  
  This survey does not examine male percentages within certain age groups.
• 
  
  This survey is purely attendance based, it does not look at involvement in cell groups and other church activities (though I would hazard a guess that the only church activities which are male dominated are setup and worship).
• 
  
  The December 2009 address list give a male % of 44.29%. The most up to date cell list gives 43.93%. These are consistent with average service attendance.
• 
  
  Not all services were counted. Sometimes I was either absent or not in a position to count.

The overall message?

1. 
   
   Kings, like almost every church, needs more men.
2. 
   
   There is something about Crux, prayer meetings and the AGM that attracts more men than women.

Feeling Christianity

Over the past 5 year, 38 young adults have undertaken the Internship program at my church, King’s Church Durham. At the start of the year, inters do a Myers-Briggs personality evaluation. One of the dichotomies of this evaluation is “Thinking-Feeling” which is about how a person makes decisions. “Thinkers” more naturally make decisions based on their thoughts, “feelers” more naturally make decisions based on their feelings.
Of the 38 interns, to my knowledge only 6 have been “thinkers”. That’s less than 16%. I have done no further research, but I would guess that this trend would follow across Christians in general, not just King’s Church interns, though perhaps not to quite the same extent.
A common misconception about Christianity, and faith in general, is that it requires the suspension of reason. Therefore people who tend to make decisions based on rational thought rather than gut instinct would be less likely to have faith of any kind, including Christianity.
As someone who loves thinking, and loves discussing my thinkings with others, this distresses me. I’m not sure what should be done about the situation though. Thoughts?

Why Men Hate Going To Church

‘Why Men Hate Going To Church’ by David Murrow is the best and most important Christian book I have read.
As expected from the title, the book is about the gender gap in Christianity and explains why many men are disinterested in church. It looks at spirituality, psychology, biology, and clearly explains how most churches are geared at women rather than men. It explains why this is such a problem, and why it is crucial that the church is called back to men. It also suggests many things that churches, leaders, and Christians in general can do to change the situation.
I won’t attempt to describe what the book says, because I will end up just quoting it all. Every page is packed with so much truth it’s incredible. Every minute or so I found myself getting very excited about how right the book was in what it was saying. By the way, Murrow is clear that he is not suggesting a male-dominated church – he’s suggesting a balanced church, but the church at the moment is very unbalanced.
I am not exaggerating in saying that this is the one book I think all Christians should read. Seriously – what this book says could completely change Christianity and solve the problem of the gender gap. Sorting out the problem will not only balance the genders however, it will revitalise the church in every area.
Read this book! Get it from Amazon here, or ask to borrow my copy.

International God

We currently have a French guy called Fabien staying with us. He’s over here to work with our church for a couple of months. One of the most exciting things about this is hearing him pray in French. It’s a great reminder that God isn’t English and that he understands other languages, even if we don’t.
It reminds me of when I went on a mission to Norway to work with a church out there for a couple of weeks. I particularly remember singing Ancient of Days, with the Norwegians singing in Norwegian and the Brits singing in English. It sounded amazing. Spine-tingling. I love it when Christians from different countries unite together.

Boring Christians

I was sitting in the Spring Harvest big top last week, looking around at the people in there.
Most of them just looked very boring and out of touch with reality. They looked uninteresting, soppy, week and disillusioned. Now, this is not a judgement about these people, just a comment on how they appear.
The scariest thing about what I was thinking was ‘I wouldn’t join this!’ If I wasn’t already a Christian, on the basis of what I saw at Spring Harvest (generally considered to be a large, exciting, contemporary festival), I wouldn’t be interested in finding out more about Jesus.
In terms of what I heard in the teaching, and the experience of Spring Harvest, I would want to find out more. But just on the basis of how people appeared, which is likely to be the first judgement people make, I wouldn’t be interested.
I think it was partly the age range, partly the hair and clothing styles, and partly the general behaviour that combined to the overall look of boringness. Also, they didn't look excited to be there. They looked indifferent - massive turn-off. It’s hard to describe in words, but it scared me.

N. B. If you were there, this isn’t intended as a dig at you – you may have been one of the interesting-looking ones!