Church History

Back by popular demand (from Phoebe), we're going on our 4th pilgrimage walk to Hailes Abbey, near Cheltenham, this Sunday, 15 July 2007.

We did this pilgrimage walk before, back on 12 November 2006, but of course it was out of season and Hailes Abbey was closed. Phoebe asked if we could go back when it was open, so that's exactly what we're doing this Sunday.

Anyone is welcome to join us!

Here's a reminder and some further details for you of our pilgrimage walk this Sunday to Buildwas Abbey in Shropshire.

Buildwas Abbey is owned and managed by English Heritage and they say this about it...

"Impressive ruins of a Cistercian abbey, including its unusually unaltered 12th-century church, beautiful vaulted and tile-floored chapter house, and recently re-opened crypt chapel. In a wooded Severn-side setting, not far from the Iron Bridge and Wenlock Priory."

We'll aim to meet at the church in Sheinton, about 2 miles west of Buildwas Abbey. The route of the walk follows part of the Severn Way, going fairly close to the river in parts, and taking us along a disused railway, so it should be pretty easy walking. The walk is about 2 miles long, so we should get to Buildwas in time for lunch.

Last night we had our third evening on Anabaptism, my personal confession about why I call myself an Anabaptist. The previous evenings were Who Were the Anabaptists? and Anabaptist Lives.

We had quite a full house, including a visit from a tourist on this website, which was great. I had a blast, but then it was an evening about something I'm deeply passionate about, so I was always going to enjoy it, wasn't I?

Anyway, I thought I'd upload the presentation I created to the site, which you can download below. The presentation is in PowerPoint format, and, as before, I've also created a clickable QuickTime to this page.

Here it is.

Last night we had the second of our evenings exploring the roots and routes of Anabaptism. Previously we looked at the question 'Who were the Anabaptists?'. Last night's session was discovering some of the stories of the early Anabaptists, their lives, their impact and their deaths, frequently as martyrs.

Many of the stories are taken from Martyrs Mirror, an astonishing book that is a remembrance of the godly lives and staggering deaths of Anabaptist martyrs between 1524 and 1660 and thousands of other early Christians. Martyrs Mirror records the lives of both well known and anonymous martyrs, many of whom are merely listed as one of a number who died on a given day, nothing more.

We looked at the lives of some of the key figures in the birth and growth of Anabaptism, such as Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock, Michael Sattler, my personal hero Balthasar Hübmaier, Menno Simons (who gave his name to the Mennoites) and Jacob Hutter (I would have loved to have looked at others, such as Pilgram Marpeck, Dirk Philips, Hans Denck, Jakob Ammann (who gave his name to the Amish) and more - but there's never enough time!) And we also read some of the brief summaries of the lives and deaths of less well known Anabaptist Martyrs (taken fom the From Anabaptist Seed section of the Third Way Café site).

Anyway, as before, I've uploaded to this page the PowerPoint version of the Keynote slides I used for the evening, and I've created a clickable QuickTime of the Keynote slides. And there's notes below, too.

Last night we had a Thursday evening gathering exploring the roots and routes of Anabaptism. I suggested doing this because, from time to time, I've slipped into conversation something about an Anabaptist perspective without really saying how why Anabaptism is important to me or indeed what Anabaptism really is or who the Anabaptists were and are still.

This evening was the first of three (also on 22/02/07 - 'Anabaptist Lives' - and 01/03/07 - 'Why I Am an Anabaptist'), and I thought I'd put here on the site a QuickTime and a Powerpoint of the Keynote slides I used last night. The QuickTime is an interactive movie, so you need to click on the slides to make them progress. Obviously these are only bullet points and I narrated much more detail for each slide than is presented. I'll try and put some indicators below.

Well, here's the next post on the current train of thoughts about the old classic phrase of believing, belonging and behaving (constructed in whichever order you want).

Last time around I put together some thoughts on the old paradigm of first confronting people with beliefs. If you read that post you'd know that I suggest we find ourselves in something of a paradox with regard to beliefs. Having beliefs as a starting point can be deeply problematic in our polysemic, polymorphic world, especially when beliefs are held and espoused rigidly and dogmatically. On the other hand, we all hold beliefs, whether we accept it or not. One cannot operate as a human being without believing that certain things are true (murder is wrong, education is worthwhile, a red light means stop, etc). We neglect conversing about beliefs at our peril.

So given the ambiguity about engaging over beliefs, what about connecting through 'belonging' to eachother and to a community beyond?

So, again it's been a while since the last post. Why do we have to earn money to live...?

Anyway, time for some further thoughts on belonging, believing and behaving, and whether that is helpful language in the post-modern world.

In the good old days of modernity believing was always the place to start. It was assumed that the basis for conversation between people was essentially apologetic - arguing, in both the best and worst possible ways, about logical, philosophical, spiritual, theological and ethical issues until one party or another was intellectually convinced of the 'way the world is.'

On this day, January 30, in 1948, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was shot on his way to pray. He had been called Mahatma, great soul, for how he had infused the people of India with a belief in their dignity and humanity, and given them hope and belief in their right to be free.

Gandhi's life of nonviolence is perhaps the most remarkable life of the twentieth century, lived during the most violent era in human history. His influence has spread far beyond the borders of India and has influenced people and movements for peace an justice the world over.

He held to two principles from early in his life: ahimsa, meaning nonviolence, and satya, meaning truth, which he embodied as a method of nonviolent resistance he called satyagraha, truth force (or soul force).

He worked for unity and freedom for all the people of India - Indian or British, Hindu, Muslim or Christian - and it was this ultimately that claimed his life. His 'fast unto death' for peace between the Hindu and Muslim community raised anger in the Hindu militants and on 30 January 1948, one of them shot him dead.

A recent series on Radio 4, 'In the Footsteps of Jesus', had as its final programme a review of the history and modern face of Christianity in India.

In the programme the presenter, Ed Stourton, went to an Ashram community in India, which began life as a psuedo-benedictine monastery. In the monastery almost all the images of Jesus are as a guru sitting in the lotus position. One of the monks described how he related to Jesus as a guru, a teacher, the greatest teacher of all. For their morning mass they also use Hindu-infused liturgy which depicts the whole of the Earth, the cosmos, also worshipping God. In the Eucharist they celebrate not only with bread and wine, but with flowers, another Hindu tradition.

The programme went on to interview an Indian theolgian about the validity of these Hindu-Christian fused disciplines. The scholar described how in the early church there were many 'Christologies' (doctrines or theories based on Jesus or Jesus's teachings) that were held simultaneously by different groups of believers. He also impotantly said that not one single 'Christology' can be universal, not one idea, theory, or depiction of Christ can be valid for all believers world-wide. However, this is very much what has happened in European history with the spread of Christendom across Europe and beyond since the time of Constantine.

Leo Tolstoy, pictured late in life

For my next Advanced Workshop essay I've got to critique the following quote from Mahatma Gandhi:

 
Apparently Gandhi's spiritual revolution was set in motion when he read The Kingdom of God is Within You by Leo Tolstoy (you can also read The Kingdom of God is Within You online). So, I started reading it last night, to try to understand some of the sources of Gandhi's radical approach.

I was blown away!

I can see how it inspired Gandhi now, and I only read two chapters!