These thoughts have been provoked yet again by this morning’s Times newspaper with the headline, “Rotten culture at heart of England rugby” and the comment about the failed England World Cup Ruby team, “Many of the England players … were motivated by greed rather than ambition”. Also on the page is the story of yet another cabinet member in a lobbying controversy, the second in the last month. Meanwhile on the inside pages the investigation into press phone tapping continues. The concerns over grooming young teenage girls for sex work continues as a worrying story.

All told we have ongoing echoes of self-centred behaviour (that the Bible would call ‘unrighteous’) that emanate from a godless society – and the two thing DO go together. This will be sufficient to just tap in another of those markers that say to this society, “Weighed and found wanting”.  The thing is that wherever you look in our society here today, these self-centred and godless markers are appearing, in every level of society.

We are at an ‘interesting’ time in our nation (rather like the Chinese curse – ‘may you live in interesting times’). We are in financial difficulties but I hear calls for rich people to become givers. It set me thinking. There are three levels of the Christian experience that we ought to be aware of – and you’ll see where this is going in a minute.

The first level is the foundational level – the basics of the Christian experience, founded in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Without that nothing else makes sense.

The second level of that which is our response to that level and what happens to us. This level is the level of testimony. The epitome of this  is the blind man of John 9 – “One thing I know – I was blind but now I can see.”  This doesn’t try to rationalise it, but simply state it. We’re often not very good at this – recognising the amazing changes that take place when a person is born again and becomes a new being (as Jesus put it in John 3).  The reality is my life has been dramatically changed and, if you’re a genuine Christian, so has yours been. We just to stop and give serious thought to the various ways they have changed so we can verbalise it when challenged.  There is an ocean of testimony out there that is of immense value.

The third level is the good life that I can now live and, again, we’re often not very clear about this or very good at working it out I may risk saying. The truth is that God has saved us to be salt and light and we are that when we express His love and goodness to the world around us. Now this is actions far more than words.

When I consider my Christian experience of the past forty years, I think we in the Christian world have  focussed on level 1 a great deal, level 2 of little bit and level 3 not much – there are notable exceptions –  but for the vast majority of us, we have been happy to tell about Jesus life, death and resurrection, but haven’t been  very good at articulating the changes that have come about within us, and therefore have had little confidence to be major players in bringing goodness to the world.

Briefly yesterday I heard Baroness Cox on an early morning radio programme and was struck by her brilliant clarity to speak some of what I have been saying here. Very often we Christians have focused the “Good News” on the historical events involving Jesus but it is staggeringly more than that – it is about life transformation and then even more of bringing God’s goodness into this world.

And that’s what bring me back to this whole question of giving or, for that matter, bring goodness and help in whatever we can into our ailing society. When Israel were carried into captivity into Babylon, God’s instructions to them were,  ”seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.”  (Jer 29:7).   The call was to look for the good of this godless nation and through that God would work.

So what talents and abilities are we sitting on that God can take to bless this nation?  What resources do we have – money, possessions, talents, businesses etc. – that God can take and use to enable us to be salt and light. When the world sees our genuine goodness (not that done to impress) they will ask, what is it about you that has you doing this? Then we will testify about the life changes that we’ve experiences (WHEN we’ve genuinely thought through what they are) and then they will be open to believe the level 1 foundational information which will then start the process off in them.

Jesus did the good (healed and changed people) THEN taught (testified of his Father’s love) and THEN gave his life as a ransom for us all, and on which we now focus our faith. Let’s genuinely love and serve this world and then they might ask questions and then thing might change. Have a good week!

In the last few days the news has broken about a dealer for a Swiss bank who has accumulated a debt for the bank of two billion dollars. How did he do it? According to the press by ‘betting’ on the direction of share prices and other assets.  Once upon a time banks were the pillars of society and trust was the name of the game. Now banks are mere gamblers.  Excuse me but didn’t dodgy trading have something to do with the whole financial crisis of three years ago?

Hedge funds I am told have only been around a decade or so and were the canny idea of a bunch of financial smart characters sitting around (literally) one day reflecting on money management. But who at the top agreed to this practice of money laundering, because that is what it is.

Stop and think about the very basics of money economics. At any one time there is only a finite amount of money in existence. If you go into the bizarre world of money handling it can be infinite as long as it remains on paper or on a computer screen and as long as it doesn’t have to be called up.

So here we have ‘the emperors clothes’ that don’t actually exist except on computer screens. Banks tolerate or encourage  it because it means that at the end of the day their funds have gone up (if the dealer is clever and clever here means able to make other silly people believe there are clothes there). But here I find a problem, a very basic problem I referred to above. Money is finite so if your pot gets bigger someone else’s gets smaller, so if at the end of the trading suddenly your ‘clothes’ become real and you are in hock to the tune of 2billion, (not even millions!!!) that means your pot has a big hole in it while somewhere somebody else is smiling happily with a bonus of 2billion.

So where do these ‘pots’ come from to start with?  Well if you are an ordinary bank, from the assets they hold which may be money, stocks and shares or property – and that is where you, me, companies etc. etc. come in because much of that is ours. If you are are hedge fund trader you either accumulated large sums by some means or you conned others with large sums to believe in you with the believe that you are a great gambler and can increase their money for them – and it’s better than going to a casino – but it is gambling.

So a bank or whoever has this finite pot which goes, they hope, up most of the time by clever gambling – but Casino’s don’t lose money because the odds are always stacked in their favour – yet as re cent years have shown the system is not foolproof and sometimes the charade is shown for what it is – a means of a very limited number of people getting very rich and if the pot is finite, it means ultimately that a lot of others of us are not as well off as we could be because they used our money  and got it for free.

Isn’t it time somebody shouted stop? You see, it seems that again and again this charade is being brought to the public’s attention and again and again, we the mass of the public are thinking, “We’re being conned,  and these fat cats are ripping the  rest of us off – and it can’t go on,” and that may have far greater social consequences than most of us realise. Stop this world, I want to get off before it gets really nasty!

Let’s go back to the beginning: the police were after a man who had, according to the media, a somewhat questionable reputation. They had information that this man was dangerous and was quite likely to be carry a gun. When they close in on him (and I am only repeating what has appeared in the media) he puts his hand in his pocket when challenged, an act that any sensible man faced by armed police would not do unless he was intent on a shoot out. The armed policeman promptly shot him through the heart. The media (TV especially) leap on this and interview his parents who make him out to be a good guy who surely wouldn’t carry a weapon – he was and it was capable of shooting people. There is the first level of frustration with misguided parents who obviously lost the plot years ago and a media that makes the police look bad.

Now there is a subtle further frustration because many of us no longer trust the police because over the past thirty year they have shown themselves often to be very human and very fallible and when you are supposed to be the bringers of justice you must be above that. There are, on the other side, all those fighters for civil rights who also lose our respect when they sound hurt, shocked and surprised when in today’s climate a suspected criminal carries a gun and they don’t expect a bad outcome! Can we not simply say quite openly, if you give the authorities cause to believe you are involved in criminal activities and you then carry a gun, please don’t be surprised if you are shot if you make any move apart from putting your hands up when challenged by uniformed police.

Next frustration: the media who use the word ‘demonstration’ when people in the street set fire and vandalise property. Call it what it is “unacceptable rioting”. At least as the days have gone on the media who stopped using the word ‘demonstrators’ and not call them what they are – looters and rioters.

Next frustration: parents and teachers. I cannot help but feel in total agreement with the shopkeeper who cried, where are the parents, what are they doing let their young kids out. The truth probably is that the parents make excuses fro their kids. Teachers? Well when the photos start going up on the TV screen of looters, I would expect teachers to (after parents who are probably going to keep their heads down) say, I recognise him/her, they’re in my class. But then comes the bigger frustration that as a society we’re going to make excuses for these kids.

Yes, it is an unfair world, yes there are people who have well paid jobs and the younger generation don’t but actually not all of the younger generation behave like this. yes, they’re frustrated that they can’t get a job in the present climate  but they go out and do volunteer work to get known or to build up a portfolio of experience for when times get better and jobs start being advertised. Who is going to get that job? The kid who has sat around doing nothing or the one who has been volunteering and learning on the unpaid job. Easy answer!

And let’s not play the colour card either. There are plenty of good coloured kids who are doing what I suggested above. No this is a ‘defeated culture’ mentality and it starts with parents and the rest of us give little encouragement. Let’s start having some honesty on the streets. As has been said by many, much of what we’ve been seeing has been mindless, self-centred, greedy, spiteful, criminal acts. Let the law take its course and may they be punished.

Which brings on yet another frustration.  Community Service? Prison? Isn’t it time we started thinking outside the box. Number One: Parents stand in the box alongside their delinquent child and  if they plead “They’re out of control,” then let the options be, either YOU will do Community Service as well, or you will attend two months worth or parent training for parents with teens to see that it’s not completely impossible to bring change. Number Two: how about completely different punishment – how about putting this rioting teenager in solitary confinement for a week and I do mean in a room for no TV, no music, no mates or no phone or anything, no company, just a bed, a drinking fountain and a toilet (all vandal proof) and no means of committing suicide, with the warning that if you re-offend, you’ll be in for three weeks and so on. Think about it. If you don’t like that I’m sure there are so other better ways than what we have at the moment. (Six weeks working in a refugee camp in Africa??)

But of course our biggest problem is not the credit crunch but the fact, as I wrote in my previous blog, that we have lost our moral compass and have no absolutes, so it is little wonder these kids have no compunction about destroying or stealing what is not theirs. That may be a reason but it’s not an excuse, for there is no excuse in a civilised society, but we might ask, is a society without any moral base founded by God, civilised any more?

Running a close second to that is our tendency to pretend that everything is all right in our society when it is clearly not. Government will need to do some rethinking (that’s what they volunteered and are paid for!) and the Church needs to come out of the woodwork and be a demonstration of a viable alternative society that has answers, God’s answers that work, as well as being caring and compassionate and there for the underclass. Frustration is a sign that things are not right and that we feel powerless to do anything about it. Are we, I wonder?

I mean how many of us us still think about the bankers and money movers who essentially caused what we now refer to as ‘the credit crunch’ by their greed? They are past history and as imbibers of modern media we simply move on to the next big news item – but their greed is still there waiting to emerge when given a chance. Since then we had the scandal of MP’s expenses – again greed  stepping over acceptable boundaries, but again that is now past history.

The present chaos has become an even bigger mess of wrangling people who stepped over acceptable lines – MP’s,  journalists, news proprietors, and police, they’re all in the mix and what a messy mix it is. Jaded opinion says, they’re all as bad as one another. Jaded opinion says the MP’s are out to get the Press for having exposed their fiddling. Jaded opinion says the Press involve the police just to spread the muck and involve the MP’s. Pigs fighting in the mud in the sty it seems.

But why are we surprised? This site has a Christian dimension to it and we and many other Christian commentators have been saying it loud and clear for a number of years – when you remove God from the equation you have no other absolute by which to measure what is right and wrong, and therefore our society is left not so much as that famous quote at the end of the book of Judges – “everyone did as he saw fit”, but more as “everyone does what he thinks he can get away with.”

And there is the folly. You can shout as much as you like that there isn’t a God but the fact is, there IS  and He does act into His world and what we are seeing is one of the many proofs of that. The Bible portrays it and we’ve been seeing it – God who brings out into the open all the dirty goings on so that they may be seen and judged.

A number of us have also said, that the ‘credit crunch’ was but a warning and worse would follow if there was no repentance. Well the repentance is not obvious so get ready for worse. When the IMF warns that Europe is on the edge and may cause global financial collapse don’t be too hasty in breathing a sigh of relief when ‘historic’ packages seem to be agreed.  It may be that or it may be something else, but we have been warned. The only problem is, as I have found many times, sin is equated with stupidity. So often, in retrospect, we look at what has now been revealed and wonder how people could be so obviously stupid as to step over such ethical lines and put themselves in such positions as they now try to squirm out of. Well, sin is equated with stupidity.  Saying sorry genuinely (not merely because you’ve been caught) and changing outlook and behaviour is the only answer. In the absence of that, watch this space for the next episode in the ongoing saga of sinful, godless men and women who still think that “they can get away with it.”

I am trying to think clearly. We live in a strange age where emotions often rule over cold logic.  The sentence that set me off on this train of thought was this: “The Slut Walk through London drew 5000 marchers, angry at the assumption that immodest dress invites rape.” Now this is a page which, by its very title has a strong Christian edge to it. I sometimes think that we Christians don’t realise the importance of the world view that we have and how opposing views contravene common sense.

Before anyone throws a brick, verbal or otherwise, at me, I had better say that I am utterly against all form of rape and find the very concept of rape horrendous. But it doesn’t stop there, or at least it shouldn’t. In Common Law, contributory negligence declares that if you contributed towards the harm caused by another’s negligence your damages will be reduced, which brings us back to the suggestion that immodest dress invites rape.

So let’s be right upfront about this: no it shouldn’t – if you lived in paradise (or heaven), but we don’t!  In a perfect world we, the male population, would look on the scanty beauty passing by us (or sitting infront of us in a bar) and go, “Wow! How beautiful!” but if anyone thinks that is how a large part of the male population thinks, then they have lost track of reality.

So here is a person on a diet, and you offer them a burger. Is that kind? Here’s a guy fighting to stay off drugs and you offer him a free supply. Is that kind? Am I equating sexual availability with food or drugs? Not quite but in today’s climate, it’s not too far off!

The words that come to mind to describe the ‘slut mentality’ are hypocritical, ingenuous, or at best naïve. Does the modern woman not know what drives a male – especially in their younger years? If she wants to attract a male what does she do? Dress to attract, or perhaps undress to attract – at least in today’s climate.

My wife and I (presumably for lack of anything else to do) have recently been watching early episodes of the American hospital drama series (well fifteen series actually!), ER. These were made quite a number of years back but what is “normal” in these episodes are the couples jumping in and out of bed with each other so easily. Yes, they do confront unwanted pregnancies and AIDS but that doesn’t stop it happening. We live in a sex-soaked society and if you are a young male with the Internet, pornography is just screaming at you, and with that increased desire. From every angle the media tell us that we live in a totally permissive age where everyone is sleeping around – at least that is how some perceive it.

Here’s where the Christian realistic perspective kicks in. Yes, rape is bad, and yes rape shouldn’t happen, but in a Fallen World where people do bad things, if you lead them up to the line of acceptability, when all other standards are being made flexible, don’t be surprised when a number of men, having sex draped infront of them, push the line of acceptability back a bit.  After all, may go their thinking, if you have been behaving like a slut and have had sex with six different men in the last six days/weeks/months, what’s the big deal with you having it with me, because everything about you says you want it.

Of course that’s wrong says you and me, but I say it from a God perspective where God knows how we best work and he respects each and every person, but if you haven’t got that perspective, if you’re still trying to pull the “Respect me because…” line without such an absolute, I have to suggest you have lost touch with this society of ours and cannot read the minds of men who you’ve been leading on.

Rape is wrong? Of course it is, but so is leading men on. You can’t have it both ways in this modern permissive culture. Walk and demonstrate all you like, but all you’re doing is making yourself look foolish to many of us, and even more tempting to others. Not a smart move! I don’t agree with the permissive male thinking I’ve been referring to, but I believe our society has accentuated it.

There are times, I am aware, when thoughts rumble around just within the conscious threshold and stay there until somebody says something that brings them rushing to the surface. A little while ago I wrote about loving feet of clay, meaning being aware that we all have negative aspects of our lives but should not stop us appreciating people who usually have many sides to their lives. But that can only go so far.

It took a Times article today to bring me back to the keyboard. It was the comment, first of all, by a Times writer who shall remain nameless, about adultery. Of course this flows out of all the hubbub in the media that has been rolling around for the last week or so about super-injunctions and the things that celebs etc. want to cover up.  The comment that started me off spoke about, “the old-fashioned (to me) idea that Tiger Woods, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Fred the Shred, Andrew Marr and Ryan Giggs deserve to be exposed as betrayers, and that this betrayal somehow matters other than to the people affected by it.”

Now the argument being put forward is not a new one, that what you do in private should not affect your role in public life. I have been waiting for the last week or so for someone to comment about the things that are being covered up. If you are a child molester the courts appear, from my experience at least, to be only too happy to let the media know all about it, but when it comes to the ‘great and the good’ not being so good, suddenly various judges now feel that such things should be kept from the media. Now there is a sense that the media has brought this on themselves for both TV and press reporters often appear to lose their humanity in the cause of hounding the guilty and, (let’s not forget this) in order to sell papers or attract viewers.

But can we backtrack on ‘adultery’. It seems according to later parts in the times article I have in my sights, that because so many people are doing it, it’s all right. Listen to how he goes on: “I looked around …..  and took it as read that we now lived and let live, suspending our judgments on the foibles of others, or reserving them for criminal cases. Why wouldn’t we, being what we ourselves increasingly are? A third of marriages end in divorce; in a quarter of those break-ups adultery is cited as the reason and is, one imagines, a factor in many, many more. Motes and beams, dear friends, stones and glasshouses.”

There it is; everybody does it so don’t be nasty about others when they do it. Ethics by guilt. But, intriguingly, he later goes on to try and excuse what even he describes as bad behaviour: “Many, many people believe that if you betray your spouse, lie to them, break your vows, hide your phone, tear up your credit card receipts, book hotels under assumed names and creep around in the night, then this says something palpable about you.”

Well, actually, yes it does! A liar is a liar is a liar. If you lie to your spouse it means you are quite happy about lying and if you are a public figure, I’d rather you weren’t part of those running my country. Now that may appear rather naïve and the cynic may say that politics is all about lying. If it is, that is just a sign of how far we have sunk in our moral and ethical deliberations.

And something else: the evidence is so great today that only an idiot can argue that marital break up through infidelity hurts and harms. Talk to the abandoned wife and listen to the anguish of rejection. Talk to teachers and hear mutiple tales of children suffering through divorce. Divorce causes untold financial and emotional hardship; it is a proven fact, so let’s stop talking about it casually.

But there is a reasonableness that comes through in the writings of such people as I am quoting. Motes and beams and stones and greenhouses? In other words, if you do it, don’t throw stones at others. But I’m not doing it and if, heaven forbid, I did, then I am guilty of being utterly self-centred, indifferent about my partner’s or my children’s feelings, sufficiently callous that I won’t go for counselling to put my marriage back together and. almost certainly, a liar and a deceiver. I am, I am guilty, and if I ever do that you can say that, for that will be the truth. I may make every excuse under the sun, but for whatever reason, that is me – guilty! I gave way to temptation, focused entirely on my wants for that moment, and totally disregarded everyone else. And if I am a man in a public position, I can no longer be trusted and I ought to step down. It happens in the church and it should happen outside of it! Trust takes time to be rebuilt.

Finally, if you are a public figure, you are seen as an example. We accepted that with footballers and their behaviour on the pitch. Why have we changed and said it doesn’t matter what sort of lives these public people live off the pitch?  Sorry, one last thing. If it was a one off fling that is one thing; we all do stupid things, but if it was an ongoing affair then we have set our course and we deserve everything said about us. Own up, be a man, stop hiding from the truth. You blew it – and there are consequences. Live with them or start again. There is always hope, but sometimes that has to be dressed in courage.

But it’s the way He sometimes disciplines us, and what has been challenging me is the thought that sometimes His discipline is in the form of giving us what we want!  He comes to us and He finds that we have our hearts set on some particular course of action or way of life. He tries to speak to us to warn us that that is not the best thing for us but we are so set on it (and indeed our own will) that we are deaf to His words.

This is where it gets nasty: He gives us what we want! The result? It becomes a burden to us, it wears us down. I have watched one young man of great ability desiring to get on in business and reasoning out his path – and God has let him! So he got a new job, a bigger and better one, only a year later to realise that if he had stayed where he was he would now be better off. God is teaching Him to learn to listen to God’s will and be content with what he has. Then God will bless him with abundance.

I have watched another man demand leadership and demand a certain style of church. His demands were unrighteous in the way they came and so, set in his ways, God gave them to him, and now they are like a millstone round his neck. He now struggles to cope and to justify his actions, but the truth is he is struggling and will continue to do so until he realises the truth – God knows best.

I know another who criticised church leadership and declared it was authoritarian. His years of ongoing criticism were rewarded by God by giving him the leadership he wanted but now he is authoritarian and people fear him.  There is this expression, isn’t there, “What goes around, comes around.” What we try and dump on others, God brings round and dumps it on us, to teach and train us.  Is He being unkind?  No, He is simply disciplining us to bring us to our senses, so that we see the truth.

Then there is the one who has been yearning for riches and so God gave it to him and now he is too busy administering it and making more to enjoy life and his spiritual life is withered.  One day he will come to his senses and realise that wealth is not THE all important thing, but a relationship with God. It will happen but it will take time.

The fearful thing about all this, is that I wonder if I am set in my ways, in my directions, in my wants, so that God will give me what I want and not what is best until I come to my senses. I hope not.  The heart is so deceitful. I desire to be open to the Lord and have asked for His help, so I must trust I will be open to Him and His will, for that is best.  How many of us in today’s individualistic world are doing our own thing and are mistaking God’s discipline for His approval? The comforting thought is that He still loves us even if we are self-willed. But that means He WILL do something about our self-will rather than not do anything about it. He will act against it, BECAUSE He loves us. Oooops!

It seems my blog writing is like London buses. Nothing for a long time then several come together. This particular one has been stewing in the back of my mind for a number of weeks and just needs speaking out. Remember, this is supposed to be a blog about faith and the Christian life.  It concerns the quality of preaching today. Over the last three months my circumstances have changed (I’ve retired) so my wife and I have been free to try out a variety of churches and we’ve also been to Spring Harvest, the focus of which this year was all about the Bible. The following are some of the things that have cropped up as we have listened to a variety of preachers in this time.

1. The Preacher Whispers.

This particular speaker had a rather ineffective microphone and spoke very quietly. No one has taught him that out there are people who would like to hear him, and so he has obviously never learned to project his voice. Don’t preach unless you want people to hear you and you are willing to put effort into projecting your voice!

2. The Preacher is Tired

At least this was the conclusion when listening to one particular preacher and in a measure he has my sympathy. Being a one-man ministry and doing all the pastoral work and preaching every week (which is what I think this man does) is tiring and it is difficult to maintain power in preaching. If this is you – give others space, take a rest and get renewed.   Both this man and the previous one convey that the message is not very exciting. Read sermons by Martyn Lloyd Jones and almost every time he conveys that this is THE most important message in the Bible.  If the Bible doesn’t excite us, don’t preach!

3. This Preacher is Chatty

This message came over like a chat over a cup of coffee. It was largely unstructured but most of all it lacked authority. Authority in preaching comes from a man who is given over to God, and who has the word of God burning in him, and who has spent long times in the Word and knows his Bible. The more you know it, the more authority you will have. Until you have that authority, sit down and read your Bible.

Linked with this is a failure to realise the purpose of preaching. It is, I would suggest (without resorting to ML Jones or John Stott’s books on preaching) to convey the truth of the Bible in such a manner that it is understood and it then moves people into action and change. It is the truth revealed by God in His word that will change lives and change the world.

4. This Preacher declares only Law

This preacher conveys guilt and pressure by the use of the words, “ought” and “should”, instead of conveying the possibilities in God and by the enabling of His Spirit, that have been opened up to us by the finished work of Christ on the Cross. There are imperatives in the New Testament as well as the Old, but unless we also preach the means of achieving them in Christ, we simply set people up for failure and more guilt. The wonder of the Gospel opens up the way for people to move into a new experience of being enabled by God to become the people He has designed them to be.

5. This Preacher bores with principles.

Yes, he quotes Scriptures all the way through, in fact so many you never take any of them in, but he never takes time to apply them, open them up and illustrate them. Principles thus become rules which are tedious and hard to work on. This preacher asserts that he believes the Bible implicitly, but has obviously never meditated on it because all we receive is a surface glossing over of proof texts.

6. This Preacher only tells stories.

This man has been told we live in a TV age and so realises that illustrations are all important, but along the way he has never taken in the wonder of the word itself and realised that this is the truth he is to be preaching and not merely emotive stories.  The stories may be highly emotional but unless we are left with the sense that the Scripture has been conveyed to us, its understanding opened up and applied to our daily lives, all we are left with is an emotional buzz which soon evaporates. Our will has not been impacted and changed by the truth of God’s word that He has conveyed to us.

7. This Preacher has never been taught discipline

I have no problem with 50 minute sermons if they have all the matters above taken into consideration. This particular preacher declared his intention to cover two chapters of the book of Revelation in his sermon, and no, it wasn’t a skeleton overview of the big issues of the last days, he was going to cover it all in detail, which suggests he has little knowledge of the book or of his audience. At the opposite end of this scale is the preacher (probably from a particular denomination) who has been schooled to preach the message in ten minutes. The only trouble is that he still leaves his congregation hungry. However concise, however compact you are able to be in that period of time, you are indirectly conveying that actually the Bible isn’t very important and isn’t worthy of our time and effort on a Sunday morning or evening. The result is people whose lives have not been changed y the wonder of God’s word, applied in the power of the Spirit, by God’s faithful servant who has spent time and effort to bring it.

And to summarise….

So often it seems we are being presented with a sketchy view of Scripture, together with a shallow understanding of it because preachers have failed to read and absorb the Bible, be moved by it and become utterly convinced that this is THE truth of God that saves people and transforms people, so that they have the most exciting task in the world, to present the most exciting truths in the world. Please can we return to that!

Well yesterday was the great day and we were full of hope and excitement; the day of the Royal wedding had arrived. From early morning TV was bringing us pictures of the gathering crowds and speculation about ‘the dress’ came to the fore every now and then. We were told that about two billion people across the globe would watch this event.  So we watched the great and the good arriving and were eventually rewarded with the sight of the dress.  So far, good stuff.  Britain does excitement well.

Then we came to the Service itself. Of course the crucial part of it was their vows. We were part of a group of about thirty watching it. Most eyes remained faithfully watching throughout but dreary music does not make good television. Yes dreary music! The hymns were expected and traditional but lacked any punch; the singing in a small enthusiastic local church would have been better (the establishment doesn’t allow enthusiasm!). And who chose the rest. Yes, I expect I could pick out one of two bits that might have stood out but basically it was a dirge. Who in their right might thought that the sight of funnily dressed choir boys or, worse, men, singing with apparently zero emotion would convey a picture to the world that would say, “This Christian thing is really good, this is a nation we’d do well to emulate.”  In fact I conclude that as far as the service itself is concerned, mostly, the sooner it is forgotten the better – and I’m sure the rest of the world has already done so. Slow paced, tedious singing that goes on and on, is not the thing to capture the hearts and minds of an unbelieving world. I should think Richard Dawkins was chortling all the way to the atheists’ bank.

But in one sense that was all a lesser thing in the wider perspective. The Times on the day pointed out how most of the Royals have been divorced and we could not help but remember Diana and Charles and the failure by the possible next head of State and head of the Anglican Church.  All our hopes are on William and Kate. Will this couple be able to walk a different path or will they turn out to be the memorial stone for the monarchy of this country?

Now I have been a groom and I have watched a large number of brides and grooms and one thing I am certain of: by the time the vows are over, they are done for! They will be operating on autopilot, and I have said to various couples, you won’t take in what I’m saying so just listen to the tape or see the film afterwards. I say that because Richard Chartres, Bishop of London, did a pretty good job, but what worried me were the looks on the faces of William and Kate.  It may be they were really struggling to hold it together in their tiredness – and if that is so they have my total sympathy – but if the looks that were coming through that tiredness conveyed anything it is worrying for the future. William looked totally indifferent to all that was going on or being said. He looked in another world. Kate looked more interested but not exactly thrilled by what she was hearing. There was no sense of “Let’s listen for this wisdom from the wise leader who might have something to say that might help us in the years ahead.”

So OK, here is a couple who the Times tells us had been living together (before their marriage, as so many godless modern couples do) and who don’t seem to espouse the faith of his grandmother, tolerating the wise words of a senior leader in the national church. If that toleration was born our of shear weariness, that is one thing, but if it is tolerance of another world that has no relevance to ‘me’, then all our hopes may be groundless. The word on the street has it that Diana was seeking spiritual reality before her death. Perhaps if there had only been someone in high places who had a living faith, and who would have spoken to her, she might still be with us today. Is there any such person today who might speak to this young couple? If not, then the pressures of being part of ‘The Firm’ may mean that history repeats itself. May it not be, please!

Thus far Kate has conformed to public wishes and presented a smiling face but if she is to survive, it will need far more than just a smiling face because public expectation and requirements of the job may do a lot to keep that smile in place, even in the face of weariness (of which there will be much if she is to live out the hopes of the British people) but if, underneath that smile, there is not a power and a faith to uphold her and guide her, the future will not be what so many of us are hoping for, and the republicans will win. It doesn’t have to be a faith for public demonstration, but it does need to be a real one. It is not to be faith in the establishment, because we saw the lifeless display they put on yesterday, but it needs to be a faith that brings life to her, to him and hopefully to the nation. Time will tell. William and Kate put on a great show yesterday and we wish them well, it was a good day overall. Pity about the Christian element in it though!  Let’s pray.