“Luke, I Am My Father”

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OK, a slightly odd take on the trinity! 🙂 (with a Star Wars tip)

“I am my father”

However, it is a serious point. The majority of Christians say that God is three persons in one, according to the standard doctrine of the trinity which was formed in the early centuries AD.

By the way, I would define a person as being a individual with which one can have a relationship that is distinct to other individuals that one can have a relationship with (but perhaps in the same group).

However, I can’t see where we get it that God is three persons.

I can see that God presents himself as three persons (God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit), but I’m not quite sure that I can make the leap to say that he actually is three persons, especially when you get phrases like ‘I and the father are one’ (John 10:30) (or in the context of a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away ‘I am my father’).

I think that I prefer the less well defined understanding of God, that he presents himself as three persons – as opposed to the definition that he is three persons. I’m not sure that we are supposed to understand the mystery of God quite that well.

If we really thought that God was three persons then we wouldn’t say things like ‘God is my friend’, which is a phrase that is grammatically incorrect if he is three persons – because ‘a friend’ (singular) implies one person with the emphasis on both the word ‘one’ and the word ‘person’. Only persons (or should I say people, which is the plural of person) can be friends – organisations or other units cannot be friends, as friendship always entails a relationship with a person (or relationships with people) – so either ‘God is my friend’ (one person) or ‘God is my friends’ (three persons) would be correct depending on your concept of God.

If we look at history we see God presenting himself as one person and then presenting himself as three persons. God is the same throughout eternity, so we cannot assume that he changed, but rather it is merely the way he presents himself (for our understanding) that changed – he used to present himself one way and now he presents himself another way – neither way being incorrect.

What is perhaps unfortunate is that perhaps the ‘three persons’ doctrine was rather pushed by various people through history to the extent that any other interpretation has been pushed to the margins. This has perhaps even lead to certain groups coming up with wildly different understandings of God, that they think avoid the contradictions of the ‘three persons’ idea – groups such as Jehovah’s Witnesses who don’t believe that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are God.

Anyone got any firmer pointers as to why we should believe that God is actually three persons?

SALT Oslo

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I have uploaded the slide from the sessions (see talks and Presentations) I did earlier in the week on Youth Ministry in Post modern culture. The first session is look at the links between youth ministry and emerging church, there is also some stuff on contextualisation, theological reflection and church. So it is quite a big file with around 80 slides.

Church Worker Wage Levels

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There is an interesting call from Church Action on Poverty to ensure that the hourly wage of Church workers meets a minimum of £6.80.

This is expanded on by Ekklesia here.

This relates to my recent item Exactly Who is Doing the Giving?.

My two comments are:
1. The Poverty line in this country is a relative income which is a certain proportion of the average (or perhaps median, I can’t remember) income. This is a bit bizarre because as society gets wealthier the poverty line moves up – so getting further and further from the ‘real’ poverty line. Some countries use a ‘real’ poverty line where the calculation is based on people being able to afford certain basics including food and shelter.
2. Providing the legal minimum wage to a worker is often a way of getting a balance between the worker giving and the worker being provided for (and the providers of the wage doing the giving) – see my post mentioned above.

For a Christian worker to get a high wage and then give money to other things is very tax uneffective. For example the incremental tax rate (including tax credits, NI contributions, etc.) for two parents (of two kids) on the minimum wage is around 62% – i.e. if they earn an extra £1,000 in one year (perhaps doing overtime, or perhaps through a pay rise) they only see a net increase in income of £380. This is a massive tax rate which is interesting to compare with the rate of tax refund on ‘Gift Aid’ giving of only 22%.

Basically if you want to give it is better to be able to do this by accepting a lower wage (and effectively giving of your time to some degree) than having a higher wage and giving money. This is more tax efficient to the tune of £400 per £1,000 extra pay (in certain circumstances).

Press Release

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Young People As Prophets

www.ypap.org.uk

To coincide with the launch of the Grove Booklet, Young People As Prophets, Frontier Youth Trust (FYT) is delighted to launch a new web site initiative to help young people speak out on issues that are important. Bishop Roger Sainsbury (chair of NYA and CYM) is one of the authors and he says, “I hope this booklet and web site will be used by youth workers to encourage young people to speak out in the tradition of the young biblical prophets on issues such as poverty, racism, the environment, injustice, peace and the worship of money and power. Our world needs their revolutionary voices as much today as it did in biblical times.�

Young people are often denied the opportunity to have their say. Even when they do speak their voices are often pushed to the margins and paid lip service. The YPAP web site gives the opportunity for young people’s voices to be both seen and heard and also enables young people to see what other young people are saying.

Dave Wiles, Chief Executive Officer of FYT and co-author of the YPAP Grove Booklet is delighted that the new web site has been officially launched. “This web site is a valuable tool in helping to get young people’s voices heard. I would encourage all those who work with young people to invite them to make use of the site.�

The web site is free, easy to use and also offers youth workers some free resources and tools to help young people take advantage of the opportunity to speak out. The Young People as Prophets web site can be found at www.ypap.org.uk

The ‘Young People as Prophets’ Booklet can be purchased from Grove Booklets on 01223 464 784 or e-mail: sales@grovebooks.co.uk

Further Information from:

Frontier Youth Trust

Unit 208b

The Big Peg

120 Vyse Street

Birmingham

B18 6NF

0121 687 3505

www.fyt.org.uk

Frontier Youth Trust is a Christian network dedicated to advancing the Kingdom of God by supporting, resourcing and training those working with and on behalf of disadvantaged young people. FYT is working with young people at risk towards justice, equality and community. Company Number 3264908 Registered Charity number 1059328.

Charity Fundraising Costs

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As we all know, most charities spend a proportion of their income on generating further income. Also, we are aware that charities cannot spend 100% of their income on fundraising, otherwise they would not be spending any money on their charitable purpose. So there must be a level at which fundraising expenses are acceptable.

However, there are hidden fundraising ‘costs’ that are not on the accounts sheet. For example Christian Aid displays the following figures on their site:
Out of every pound we receive, we spend:
* 52p on long-term development projects
* 17p on responding to emergencies
* 12p on campaigning and education
* 18p on fundraising
* 1p on administration

The unseen item is how much resource do external fundraisers contribute. We can see that Christian Aid spend 18p in the pound on fundraising, but in addition to that we have the time and money that external fundraisers (the people who do sponsored bungee jumps, etc) commit to fundraising for Christian Aid. This time and money only adds to the 18p in the pound fundraising figure above – the money raised is already accounted for in the above figures. So even though these people are acting on behalf of Christian Aid, their expenses (and time) are conveniently off the accounting sheet.

To better appreciate the amount of resource that a charity (including it’s supporters) is actually spending on fundraising you need to estimate the time and money that is off the record.

From the figures available for Christian Aid (for example) it is very difficult to assess this cost as their income stream does not differentiate between income from external fundraisers and income from fundraising where the costs are directly to the Charity itself (e.g. the cost of letters asking for money).

For the estimate it is worth including both the time and money of the external fundraisers (this is what is accounted for if the fundraiser is an employee of the charity, after all). If we monetise the time spent by fundraisers then at a guess I would estimate that the final figures must fall into the range of 20p to 35p in the pound compared to the 18p in the pound published figure.

Please don’t assume that I’m questioning the published figure – I’m not. I’m just trying to add to that figure the fundraising costs that are external to the official Christian Aid organisation as incurred by it’s external fundraisers.

So, if we could actually have a reliable estimate of the true costs of fundraising by charities what would our response be? Charities that spend a large proportion of income on fundraising are criticised for that and they usually attempt to reduce that proportion.

There are probably some charities that have no ‘off account’ expenses for fundraising, but probably also other charities that have no ‘accounted for’ fundraising costs because it’s members freely give of their own time and resources to fundraising (i.e. it is all ‘off account’). Just because they can claim zero pence in the pound fundraising costs does not mean that they (in the larger sense than just the accounted for organisation) has zero fundraising costs – it always costs money to receive money even if it is just to check your bank statement and to write it into the accounts. The time and money of voluntary fundraisers should be taken into account by donors, in just the same way donors are interested in the official figures.

So bear in mind that a charity with a zero fundraising cost may, in this slightly different way of looking at things, actually have a 50% or higher fundraising cost.

Here the Charity Commission states that it will take up complaints where people identify that “fund-raising or administration costs that are excessive”.

The Meaning of Life and the Practice of Christianity

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An interesting and thought provoking answer to the question of ‘why is there suffering if there is a God’ is the line that life does not gain meaning from wealth, happiness, toil, oppression, slavery, hunger, life or death but rather is about the eternal matter of knowing God. This relates well to the idea that it is the showing of love, not the relief of hunger, oppression or pain that is important. Whilst we show love through doing these things for others, it is the love that is the point of what we do. The means are the actions we do, the end is the love we show. Oppression and suffering are facts of life, they aren’t about to go away, they have to be lived with.

The freedom that knowing God brings transcends things like oppression and suffering. You can be free whilst still oppressed, have peace whilst embattled.

Now a question that I see as deeply linked with the above is ‘how can we show God to people’?

One thing that most Christians seem to do is to attempt to change people by imposing laws on them. Many Christians see value in trying to get ‘good’ laws brought in. This is because they see that those laws can bring a ‘good’ result and relieve things such as oppression, slavery, hunger or death…

…oh, aren’t those the things that we said weren’t actually meaningful in the big picture and that it was only showing love that was meaningful?

So perhaps imposing our morals on others isn’t beneficial to them because it doesn’t bring people into a relationship with God… Perhaps only showing love is actually beneficial?

I’ve put the word ‘good’ into single quote marks above because I’m using it from a very human perspective of what good is which contrasts with what I believe God’s view of good is. I believe that the only way to do good in God’s eyes is to do His will – doing ‘good’ things isn’t actually good if it isn’t out of obedience to God.

Serving Up the Communion

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Suddenly it dawned on me this morning during communion at church how odd it was that they only had appointed deacons serving communion to the congregation. I guess that this is a legacy of the Old Testament ‘High Priest as intercessor to God’ thing.

To be honest all they do is go to the end of the row so that it can be passed along – it’s not even as if they have some magical incantation to make as you receive the bread or the wine.

Seems a shame to keep this tradition – which seems unnecessarily exclusive.The Last Seduction full

Criticising Other Christians

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Jonathan at Ekklesia has just accepted a news item from me about one group of Christians criticising another group of Christians over the issue of support for Israel.

This has got me thinking about criticism between Christians. I’m fine with the idea that we should be able to criticise each other and hold each other accountable (1 Corinthians 5:12) but should this just be for those you have a close relationship with and the context to crticise constructively with a positive outcome? Or should we be able to criticise more widely – perhaps a bit like Old Testament prophets or Jesus destroying the market stalls in the temple – within the church?

Any thoughts?

Christmas at Greenbelt

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Greenbelt did not disappoint. As we had the children with us the festival had a very different spin for me. It was great to see the children get so much out of it, and thanks go out to those who made the festival work so well for families. Stuff like the drumming, statues, artwork, etc around the site was great for us, the shed camera obscurer was fantastic, and Jo as ever loved the sacred space on the top floor of the grandstand. Also the programmed family stuff was great fun, the twist and children’s festival, don’t let the pigeon drive the bus etc.

The one seminar I really wanted to go to I made – Pete Rollins who spoke about faithful betrayal, which was excellent. I recently read his book How not to speak of God which I think is a very important contribution to the current dialogue, I recommend it as the best book I have read for ten years. His talk begins to pilot a theology of redemption as a rupture and gives a great background to some of the issues I raised in the series of post about redefining church, for example see point 4 in this post.

Greenbelt for me is better than a family Christmas, I see so many people I have good relationships with, who I know are on a similar journey. People I now only reconnect with at Greenbelt, but who get me, and as ever the whole festival was a thin place where heaven and earth were a lot closer.