This Sunday just gone I lead my first service in German. This involved bringing the different aspects of the service (such as music, preaching, notices, advent candle etc) together, as well as providing the opening and closing prayers, blessing and intercessory prayers.

As this in a second language, and one I don’t yet fully at home in. It meant that I had to think about every single word I used, especially in the prayers.

The question that was continually at the front of my mind was ‘how can the story of Advent best be told through everything that happens in this service?’.

I wanted to reflect on the reality and welcome of God even at times when we feel broken, bent, weak and full of worry.

To put it briefly – I had to relearn how to think liturgically.

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The web has been alive in the last few days with conversations about the over-feminisation of worship songs, with many concerned that the lyrics, images and sentiments in many songs are excluding a lot of men.

As someone who has benefitted (if it is right to use that word) a lot from what the modern worship movement, and especially the Vineyard section of it, has to offer, I am slightly ambivalent to the whole discussion, though I can see how it could be a problem

What I found interesting, however, is the juxtaposition between the concern about the over feminisation of modern worship songs and a recent blog post by Mark Driscoll – the Seattle based pastor who is known for having a vendetta against ‘effeminate’ worship songs (and worship leaders).

Driscoll’s article presented his views of what makes a good preacher and, to my eyes at least, presents a far more worrying, far less obvious, form of gender in-balance: the over-masculinization of preaching.

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Yesterday morning, Christian worship leader and blogger Vicky Beeching wrote a post asking whether people were happy or unhappy with wearing the badge of ‘evangelical‘ (which, it seems fair to say, probably describes the great proportion of her readers). This post in itself is playing into a discussion and conversation that has been going on for at least the last three or four years, and arguably for about twenty, ever since David Tomlinson first wrote the book ‘The Post-Evangelical’ – indeed, Andrew Marin (author of the fantastic ‘Love is not an orientation’) also wrote a post yesterday on the Sojourners blog asking ‘What is an Evangelical?‘

The problem is, so the thrust of the conversation often goes, the word evangelical has become associated with so many negative stereotypes, images and attitudes that we would do better to leave it behind in favour of other terms. Evangelicalism, it seems, has a problem.

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Last week saw the majestic Canterbury Cathedral play host to a conversation between Rowan Williams and Frank Skinner. The time spent listening to the conversation is well rewarded – as anyone who is familiar both with the work of Rowan Williams and Frank Skinner’s comedy and radio shows will recognise, this is a meeting of two very thoughtful, interesting and intelligent minds.

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My interest was caught in passing by a discussion going on about Christian books and profanity at the home of fellow St Andrews student blog Goannatree in response to her conversation with another blogger on Twitter about profanity and wilful disobedience. In this post, Anna talks about the presence of profanity in Christian books, what this looks like, what effect this has and how useful the term ‘Christian’ actually is as a category. I was particularly interested given that I had also attended a Greenbelt talk, ‘Sex, Death and Christian Fiction‘, by novelist Simon Morden which makes many of the same points as Anna is making.

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According to a recent report by NGO ActionAid, up to 50% of women living in South Africa can be expected to be raped during their life time. Many of these rapes are brutal, violent and often result in the victim being murdered. Worse yet, a great proportion of these rapes are ‘corrective rapes’, carried out by South African men in an attempt to ‘fix’ lesbians or as an expression of male aggression.

Victims of these horrific attacks include Sizakele Sigasa and Salome Massooa, abducted, gang-raped, tortured and then finally shot in an execution-style killing; Nomawabo, who was raped at school when she was 15 and then abducted and raped again by a gang when she was 17; Eudy, a national soccer player who was raped and then stabbed by a gang of men; and Noxolo Nagwaza, who was raped, beaten and stoned so that her face was left unrecognisable.

More sobering yet, the stories of these women represent just a small proportion of reported cases – and it is estimated that the vast majority of cases in South Africa go unreported.

Legal protection

On the face of it, South Africa should be one of the last countries to experience such a wave of sexual violence. In 2006, it was one of the first countries in the world to legalise gay marriage and there are strong laws against sexual violence.

However, the legal framework and rights of women prescribed in law often don’t match up to the response on the ground. Women are often terrified of reporting sexual violence, police are known for not taking reports seriously and according to some reports 24 out of every 25 men tried for rape in the courts end up walking free. Even when there are convictions secured for murder or torture, judges often fail to recognise the sexual violence that is at the root of the crime.

Normalisation

The motivations behind the attacks are unclear and sometimes random. At times, the motivation seems to be ‘corrective’ – the notion that forcing a lesbian women to have sex will ‘correct’ her sexuality. According to one survey done by a national support group, 20% of men interviewed believed that the women raped enjoyed the experience and ‘were asking for it’.

The idea of corrective rape plays into myths about normalisation – the idea that there is a ‘norm’ to which all members of society should conform. Those that deviate from the norm are seen as abnormal.

This isn’t just a sexuality issue – the issue of normalisation causes problems for mental illness, learning disabilities and other areas, where those who are outside of societal ‘norms’ are seen as being ‘abnormal’ and as a result subject to treatment that attempts to correct the perceived imbalance.

In recent years, there has been a lot of work in medical ethics and pastoral theology, for example, in correcting the assumption that those with learning disabilities should be normalised, instead suggesting that we should instead look to these individuals to enlarge our view of what it is to be normal human beings and pose a challenge to our assumption that normality is best expressed through rationality – and this viewpoint has to a large degree made its way into common public understandings.

However, the same leg work and thinking has yet to fully catch up with the idea of gender norms – feminist criticisms and LGBT action groups have done a lot to raise awareness, but there is still a structural discrimination within many legal systems and perceptions of those who are lesbian, gay or bisexual – resulting in the sort of violence that corrective rape epitomises. It is an expression of violence against those who dare to go outside the boundaries that a misogynist culture lays down: the feeling that lesbian women ‘deserve’ what is happening to them because they are different.

In fact, Archbishop Desmond Tutu went as far in 2007 as to compare the violence of corrective rape to South Africa’s struggle against Apartheid: “We struggled against apartheid in South Africa, supported by people the world over, because black people were being blamed and made to suffer for something we could do nothing about; our very skins. It is the same with sexual orientation. It is a given

“We treat them as pariahs and push them outside our communities. We make them doubt that they too are children of God – and this must be nearly the ultimate blasphemy. We blame them for what they are.”

The church’s response

This gets to the heart of the problem for the church. It is no secret that the question of sexuality is one of the most pressing and tense areas of debate in the church, often characterised by more emotion and rhetoric than solid theological debate and argument. Furthermore, various studies have shown that churches are often notoriously bad at tackling the issue of sexual violence – often, issues of cognitive dissonance (this person we know from a Sunday can’t possibly be doing that to his wife, neighbour, friend!) muddy the waters and prevent the church from acting with clarity.

However, as Desmond Tutu points out, our primary calling is to proclaim that every individual, regardless of race, colour, religion or sexuality, is a child of God and a creation of the God who doesn’t make mistakes.

It is within this framework – and not any other – that the discussion must take place and be furthered, so that even denominations that want to say something more conservative about sexual lifestyles (such as my own denomination, for example) become primarily known for their grace, stand for justice and refusal to accept any treatment, rhetoric or violence that degrades another human being’s status as a loved, valued and accepted child of God.

That’s why I’m also proud to be part of a church, part of the church, that puts money into lobbying for the equal rights of women, that puts money into informing women about their legal rights, that speaks against violence of all sorts, and that seeks to educate women.

However, this is very far from being a solution to the problem and there is so much more that needs to be done. The church needs to do more reflection about the nature of sexuality and its connections to violence, including, for example, being open-eyed about how many constructs of gender are in themselves power-based and political.

Even if this means that we come out of the process still wanting to say something conservative about sexuality (and personally I think we probably do), it means we also become aware of all the other issues that go kicking around when sexuality is discussed.

It means we become aware that when we are talking about ‘norms’, we are bringing in language that is exclusive not just in terms of morality, but often in political, social or event violent terms as the moral discussion is carried through into other spheres of life.

It means that we keep lobbying for international pressure to stop this disgusting, violent and horrific crime wave, both in South Africa and in other countries where sexual violence is seen as acceptable. It means that we keep pushing for structures, programmes and laws that raise the status of women in the world both in legal formalities and on-the-ground realities.

It means that we keep telling stories of women such as Sizakele Sigasa and Salome Massooa, believing that their story is part of our story because we have been called to share their sufferings and pains and make them our own.

It means that when we are talking about one particular lifestyle choice as maybe being the best one, we are equally clear that under no circumstances does degrading oppression or rhetoric, violence or alienation of the ‘other’ belong to the Kingdom of God.

And it means that we remember that when we are engaging in reading the Bible, in thinking theologically, in facing the lived experiences of those who have different sexualities, opinions and lifestyles to our own, the first response we must always face is “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner”.

Although it is tempting to wonder aloud whether Alister McGrath is in fact trying to make a career on the back of Richard Dawkins’ writings (this is not the first book he has written in response to the New Atheism movement), it is undeniable that this is an important contribution to the public discussion about New Atheism and the confused rhetoric that has been floating around popular debates about God since the publications of books such as ‘God is not Great’ (by Christopher Hitchens) and ‘The God Delusion’ (by Richard Dawkins).

A scientist and theologian by training, McGrath writes in clear, lucid prose and engages directly with the primary sources of the New Atheists whilst taking the time to situate their arguments within the wider context of discussions about rationality, science and faith. The result is a book which is readable and easy to engage with on a popular level, yet one which responsibly and clearly shows the New Atheist movement to be lacking both in the terms of their understanding of current debates about philosophy, science and faith and with regards to their understanding of religion as it is in the real world.

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The removal of America’s AAA credit rating this week and continued worry over the sovereign debt crisis in Eurozone have caused stock markets across the world to fall once more, with the six o’clock news reporting that the FTSE has just reached a milestone: today was the first time in the 27 year history of the index that it fell by more than 100 points 4 sessions in a row. Clearly, people are jumpy and worried.

Interestingly, I have just finished reading an essay by one of my favourite novelists and essayists, Marilynne Robinson. In her book “The Death of Adam” she explores the legacy of Darwinism (a social interpretation and reading of a natural process rather than the process of evolution itself) and its effects in the social and political sphere and begins to sketch out a theological critique of the economic system that has lead to the present uncertainty.

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A few years ago now I wrote a post on the role of lament in worship, which proved to be one of the most popular posts this blog has ever had. Today I have the honour to feature a guest post by one of my favourite theological sparring partners, great friend and the best worship leader I know, Jesse Duley, who adds a unique and insightful perspective to the conversation.

Every quarter, Vineyard Music produces a small magazine called Inside Worship. Edited by Dan Wilt, a man who has been a catalyst for great leaps in my own development as a “Worship Artisan”, it regularly explores both ancient and modern expressions of worship, asking how we might grow in maturity as a worshipping community.

The latest issue (Inside Worship Vol 73) is themed “The Heart-Cry of Lament”, and I’m not surprised by this – the idea that lament is a missing element in modern worship is one I’ve heard quite a bit recently.  It’s not hard to understand why – as Ed Gentry states in the opening article of the magazine:

 ”The disparity between Israel’s songbook and a modern worship notebook or hymnal is remarkable. In both you will find songs of adoration, exuberant praise, and bold declaration of God’s unfailing love and faithfulness. What is conspicuous by its absence in our worship corpus – modern or traditional – are songs of lament or complaint.”

It’s absolutely true. It’s also absolutely as it should be! In my humble opinion, of course.

We are people of the new covenant, not abandoned but moving in the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit! I certainly don’t think our worship corpus ignores the pain and anguish we experience in our daily lives, which we often interpret as God’s absence as similarly expressed through the psalms. Some examples….

• “Let the pain and the sorrow be washed away…” (Brenton Brown)
• “Though I walk through the wilderness… on the road marked with suffering… though there’s pain in the offering…” (Matt Redman)
• “I’ve had questions without answers, I have known sorrow, I have known pain…” (Tim Hughes)
• “Broken, I run to you… I am weary…” (Kathryn Scott)
• “Take me as you find me, all my fears and failures…” (Reuben Morgan, Ben Fielding)
• “Without you I am hopeless…” (Audrey Assad)

I agree that it is an essential part of our expression of worship – without it there is no integrity or reality – but is it really necessary to seek it more? Those of you who are fellow Brits surely agree that we have got complaint down to a fine art; we certainly don’t need an occasion to get together to do more of it. It is a relief to have a regular opportunity to surround myself with the sound of truth, recalibrating perspective on all my trials.

Personally, I am no stranger to anxiety and anguish. I have suffered from depression for many, many years. In my own exchanges with God I sound more like the psalmists. “Where are you God? I can’t go on like this. I’m holding on to you as tight as I can but I feel like I’m trying to hold onto the wind.” The beauty of corporate worship is that it lifts my gaze towards the truth and the hope that I know is there despite my experience.

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit”, as the psalmist says (Psalm 34:18). “Never once did we ever walk alone”, as Matt Redman sings on his new live album. Saying these things is an acknowledgement of both the trials and the hope. This is how we have and should continue to frame lament in our worship.

Jesse leads worship at the Kingdom Vineyard church in St Andrews, Scotland. When he isn’t leading worship or asking provocative questions, he is working on his albums – I strongly urge you all to check them out. If you liked the post, why not drop him a comment to let him know!

It’s official: I have actually read every single book in my bedroom. And, being back at home in Didcot and far removed from the hallowed halls of St Andrews theology library (or indeed any decent library at all!), I was running out of things to read – which lead me to my Dad’s bookshelf and two new additions: “The Word on the Wind” and “The Wild Gospel”, both by Alison Morgan.

Being a full-time theology student, and therefore a self-confessed snob when it comes to books about God, I was expecting a slightly wishy-washy account of faith with the normal talk about re-imagining church that one gets in the slightly angst-ridden world of pop Christian publishing. What I got instead was a razor sharp review of the state of modern Christianity both in the UK and abroad, a brutally honest assessment of the issues we are facing and a hope for the future that was deeply rooted in the ongoing action of the God who made himself known in Jesus. Frankly, my breath was taken away.

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