For God and Ulster!

>'Look at this!' my friend was whispering. We were in first year Maths and we were bored. His right hand was under the desk and my attention was drawn to the small oval-shaped metal badge, coppery brown in colour, which was in his palm. 'It's an original,' he went on, his voice warm with pride. I'd never seen a Ulster Volunteer Force badge before. I took it, lifted it closer to get a better look, and fingered the inscription round the perimeter - “For God and Ulster”

A UVF Badge

For my irreligious friend the badge was just something cool - a major advantage in the ongoing game of school one-upmanship. For me, a young Christian, a convinced Protestant, a fervent loyalist, the motto resonated. It was like an incantation which summoned from the pit of history the faith of my forefathers - their principled resistance to submersion in an alien way of life; their readiness to voluntarily sacrifice everything for the safety of the Empire - a readiness immortalised in the mud of no-man's land at the Somme; their unflagging conviction that their cause had Divine Right.

These were heady images for someone growing up in South Londonderry at a time when, it seemed, a majority of its population were winning an open rebellion against the lawful authorities. And in course of time it was the same essential convictions which led to my involvement in unionist politics and the loyal orders.

Even after a decade that slogan, along with the sight of an Orange banner or the sound of a flute band, still calls to something primeval in me. Ulster is my home, loyalism my culture and I am proud to be able to call myself an Orangeman and indeed an Ulsterman. But other convictions have also been born in the interim. Maybe it was listening to Bob Dylan: 'For you don't count the dead when God's on your side,' that helped me to think about the price we have paid for our community loyalty to competing theocracies on this island. Maybe it was the growing realisation that the motto divorces the Old and New Testaments, for it sits more easily with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob than with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Maybe it was the discovery that investing political arrangements with divine imperatives makes all reasonable compromise with our neighbours a form of apostasy.

Whatever it was, I now see in my rational moments that For God and Ulster speaks of the tension in which my Christian life is lived out in this world. The ingrained preference for a particular lifestyle which is the product of my Ulster Protestant upbringing cannot be the final arbiter of my behaviour, for it is sometimes in conflict with my loyalty to Christ. This is the same Christ who said: "Render unto Caesar, the things that art Caesar's, and unto God the things that art God's." The motto on the badge now reminds me that it is here, on this space of earth, that Christ's ultimate lordship has to be fleshed out and for such a single purpose I was redeemed.

Life of the Litugy

There are so many different divisions of Christianity – Greek, Russian and Serbian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Reformed, Presbyterian, Baptist and Anabaptist, African Methodist, Episcopal, Pentecostal, non-denominational, Mennonite and Quaker. By one count, there are more than thirty eight thousand Christian denominations. Many people have said that the greatest barrier to becoming a Christian is all the division they see in the church.

God longs for the church to be united as one body. Christ in His longest prayer asked that the church be “one as God is one.” As one old preacher said “We gotta get it together, because Jesus is coming back, and he's coming for a bride, not a harem.”

I truly believe that a divided church is a weak one and I believe that for the Anglican church to be strong we need to incorporate the fire of the Pentecostals, the imagination of the Mennonites, the Lutheran's love of Scripture, the Benedictine's discipline and even the wonder of the Orthodox and Roman Catholics. We need to mine the fields of the Church's history in order to rediscover the lost treasures that lay therein and we need to rediscover the “faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” (Jude 1 v3).

Liturgical prayer is a wonderful way of uniting the church under the leadership of Christ. It was believe it or not one of the main reasons I converted to Anglicanism from the more reformed position. I believe that our prayer lives connect us to the rest of the Body of Christ throughout the world; at any hour of any day in some corner of the world we can be assured that there is a countless multitude speaking the same prayers to God that we are. Liturgical prayer is also a way of connecting us to the past. By the past I don't mean just the 90's or the 70's, 60's, 50's but also from the 1800's and the 300's. Many of the prayers and songs we find in our Liturgy are more than a thousand years old.

As I say I’m new to Anglicanism and new to the liturgy but even I can realise what a miracle it truly is. Listening to the lectionary being read and the prayer being said and knowing that at that very same moment thousands and even hundreds of thousands of other Christians are saying the same prayers and hearing the same words preached feels like hearing the church's heart beat.

For me participating in the liturgy of the worldwide Christian community, no matter the day, is far more than simply attending a service or prayer meeting. It is about entering a story. It is about refocusing our lives around what God has been doing throughout history. It is about being sent out into the big bad world to help write the next chapter of that story. When looking for meaning and purpose in our lives we can sometimes fail to realize how important a story is to our lives. But we know we've found something when we find ourselves in God's narrative.

Liturgy is not about becoming indoctrinated. Doctrines are hard things to love.

It's not even really about education. Liturgy at its core isn't about learning facts and memorising phrases.

Liturgy is soul food. It nourishes our souls just as breakfast strengthens our bodies. It's sort of like a family dinner. Hopefully you get some nutritious food, but more than nutrition, family dinner is about family, love and community. Liturgy is like the family dinner with God. Aidan Kavanaugh who is a liturgical theologian summed it up well by saying “The liturgy, like the feast, exists not to educate but to seduce people into participating in common activity of the highest order, where on is freed to learn the things which cannot be taught.”

Liturgy is not just about learning. Instead it also allows us not only to observe but also to participate in the work of God- active prayer, active worship. Liturgy is a dialogue, a divine drama in which we are invited to be the actors. We become a part of God's story. We sign God's songs. We discover lost ancestors. And their story becomes our story.

Mass in Loyalist Ulster

Peter Robinson has said he is prepared to attend funeral Masses “as a mark of respect” for dead Catholic friends and dignitaries. For those of you who don't know Peter he is the man who was Ian Paisley's deputy for about 40 years. He is also the man who succeeded Paisley as the leader of the DUP (a political party founded by Paisley in the 60's) and who is now the First Minister of Northern Ireland.

To those of you in the rest of the world this may not see like much of a big thing but over here it is a momentous event. After all this will be the first time a DUP leader has ever attended mass and will probably set a precedent for those in politics who often wanted to go to funerals and weddings in Roman Catholic chapels but couldn't due to various reasons.

“We have to be a party that has respect and understanding for all sectors of the community,” he said.

Last year is a good example of the way things normally worked here in Northern Ireland. When Cardinal Daly was laid to rest last year, DUP ministers (that means members of the NI government) Arlene Foster and Sammy Wilson visited Armagh to offer sympathies to the church hierarchy, but did not enter the city's Catholic cathedral or walk in the Cardinal’s funeral procession. 

The Belfast Telegraph notes “Apparently even this caused some awkwardness in party circles at the time.”

It should be noted that Robinson is not softening his theology but is instead sending out a message of friendship and sharing in grief at the passing of a friend, he said: “I would have no objection to attending the funeral of a friend who was a Roman Catholic. 

“I wouldn’t be going as an act of worship, I would be going as an act of respect for the individual.”

He apparently regards this issue as a matter of individual conscience rather than a party matter, and added: “These are personal matters and some of my other colleagues might have a different view on them.”

A precedent was set in 2009 when Jimmy Spratt, the DUP policing spokesman and a former police officer himself, represented the party at the funeral of Constable Stephen Carroll, a Catholic who was murdered by republican dissidents. 

Mr Robinson said: “I have been in a Roman Catholic chapel on a number of occasions but not for a service.” and said that in attending a funeral “There are issues of showing respect to individuals so that (religious objections) would not keep me out of going to the communion service.” 

The DUP’s traditional difficulty with Catholic services dates back to its origins in the Free Presbyterian Church which, like the party itself, was founded by the Rev Ian Paisley.

Mr Paisley set the tone by refusing to attend any function at which Mass was celebrated, describing the Catholic communion service as an “abomination” and “idolatry”. He objects like most protestants to the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, which holds that the bread and wine used in the service actually become the body and blood of Christ. 

Many fundamentalist Protestants shared his objections — for instance, members of the Orange Order like my good self are also expressly forbidden to attend and can be disciplined for doing so. In fact I'm not technically allowed to “have any countenance with the Roman Catholic church” or attend any act or ceremony or Roman Catholic worship” 

Mr Robinson is not a member of the loyal orders, or apparently of any church but it must be noted that this is not the norm. I can hardly be thought of (any more) as a Bible thumping fundamentalist but yet I am a member of all the loyal Orders and the same is true of thousands of other protestants in this country. After all the Orange Order is still apparently the largest Protestant men's organisation in the world. As for church membership Northern Ireland still holds the title of being the most religious part of the UK with church attendance being higher here than in any other part. 

However, Robinson is a bible-believing Protestant and frequently attends an evangelical mega-church in north Belfast. His sister Pat Herron is a minister in the Free Methodist Church.

DUP sources say that Mr Robinson’s willingness to attend Catholic functions, including Mass, as part of his duties as First Minister, raises the question of whether Martin McGuinness, the Deputy First Minister, will now attend functions at which members of the Royal family are present, or funerals of local soldiers killed in Afghanistan. 

So far, he has declined to do so but who knows maybe times are changing. One thing is for sure though....somewhere in this country tonight someone will be calling Robinson a traitor...

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UPDATE!
Well I said some would disagree with Peter and here is the first (11:30pm). The Evangelical Protestant Society published a press release this evening which is certainly mild in comparison to their normal pronouncements but strongly worded none the less. Why not go over and read "NO EVANGELICAL PROTESTANT SHOULD EVER ATTEND THE POPISH MASS" on their site?:

http://www.ulsterbulwark.org/

Update!! and "Thrown religion in the bin!"

I'm having serious trouble with my blog feed showing up on other blogs. So it will probably appear that I'm not posting even though I am so I do honestly beg you to check back often to keep up to date with my wanderings! I've deleted a post or two and republished them to see if it makes a difference but alas it hasn't so I'm just going to keep posting and hope that the situation resolves itself. Anyhow here is my newest article... enjoy!!!

It’s cool among the youth — that's my generation — to talk about throwing institutional religion in the bin and starting over. The plan is for a revolution of real Christ-followers living in real communities without boundaries. Besides being unbiblical, such notions of churc- less Christianity are to me unrealistic. While things may work out fine for a while, maybe even a year or two, I just do not believe that without the God given habit of corporate worship and the God given mandate of corporate accountability we can remain truly faithful.

What we really need are fewer revolutionaries and a few more visionaries. The best churches are full of gospel-saturated people holding tenaciously to a vision of godly obedience and God’s glory, and pursuing that godliness and glory with relentless, often unnoticed yet constant consistency.

We all have dreams of changing the world, and we expect the world to take notice accordingly. But we’ve not proved faithful in much of anything yet. Myself and my generation are no different. We often haven't held a long term job or raised children and haven't even moved out of mum and dad's house. But yet we want global change and expect more money to Oxfam or Help for Heroes to sort things out. What the church and the world needs, we imagine, is for us to be another Bono — Christian, but more spiritual than religious and more into social justice than the church.

No offence but think about it, what’s harder: to be an idolized rock star who travels around the world touting good causes and chiding governments for their lack of foreign aid, or to be a line worker in a concrete factory with two kids and a mortgage, who tithes to his church, sings in the choir every week, serves on the community group and supports a Christian Charity and a few missionaries from his disposable income?

Until we are content with being one of the million nameless, faceless church members and not the next globe-trotting rock star, we aren’t ready to be a part of the church. In the grand scheme of things, most of us are going to be more of an Ampliatus (Rom. 16:8) or Phlegon (v. 14) than an apostle Paul. And maybe that’s why so many Christians are getting tired of the church. We haven’t learned how to be part of the crowd. We haven’t learned to be ordinary. Our jobs are often boring. We don't have the money to buy the things we wanted. We drive to the same places, go through the same routines with friends and even buy the same stuff at the shop. Church is often the same too — same doctrines, same basic order of worship, same preacher, same people. But in all the smallness and sameness, God works — like the smallest seed in the garden growing to unbelievable heights, like beloved Tychicus, that faithful minister, delivering the mail and apostolic greetings (Eph. 6:21). Life is usually pretty ordinary, just like following Jesus most days. Daily discipleship is not a new revolution each morning or an agent of global transformation every evening; it’s a long obedience in the same direction.

It’s possible the church needs to change. Certainly in some areas it does. But it’s also possible that we’ve changed — and not for the better. It’s possible we no longer find joy in so great a salvation. It’s possible that our boredom has less to do with the church, its doctrines, or its poor leadership and more to do with our unwillingness to tolerate imperfection in others and our own coldness to the same old message about Christ’s death and resurrection.

But I believe that the problem is that we talk allot about “authentic community” but we aren’t willing to live in it when we find it. You want an “authentic community”? Then head down to your local church next Sabbath and I assure you that you won't find a more authentic Christian community anywhere else so stop complaining and get on with the job of glorifying God through His church and help strengthen the church militant here on earth rather than dividing it more.

Praying for the Clergy: Pointless?

When speaking with other young Christians on the subjects of Theology (happens more often than one might think) I often find myself having to defend the idea that Christ's death was a penal substitution where He bore in our place the wrath of God that rightfully should have been our punishment for our sin.

This understanding is both biblical and the historic understanding of the church, yet I have realized that this doctrine of penal substitution is increasingly being challenged both by theologians and ministers as an example of “cosmic child-abuse” with no part in the Gospel. This is just one reason why it is important to pray for church leaders.

It is symptomatic of a sad truth. If praying for clergy seems to have gone out of style, perhaps the fact the church often adopts the standards and ideas of the world has a bearing on this. In our pursuit of success where the obvious mark of that success is size, influence, power, and money, our ministers are under constant pressure to produce evidence of growth. There is no place given for prayer, which speaks of a supernatural framework of thought that is foreign to the modern world.

In order to be successful, congregations look to their ministers to be endowed with entrepreneurial spirits and the necessary charisma to meet all expectations. People in this modern world are ready to drive to the other side of the country and in some cases even move home just to hear their favourite preacher (the Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle is an excellent example of this). Superstars are exalted and those who do not have that magnetism are compared unfavourably with those who can generate success. Thus, criticism, not prayer, becomes the norm for congregations. The blame is not solely with congregations though. Often Ministers are the very ones who have reduced Christian ministry to seminars and programs, looking to human plans rather than divine guidance and blessing. Within the Church of Ireland we often read of how the Bishops are travelling to Dublin or Armagh or Belfast for meetings with youth workers, other Bishops, conferences and seminars etc. which often leads me to wonder how often they are in their own Diocese to look after the flock! They are often more like business men travelling to meetings to discuss targets as though the church was a corporation. As a consequence of this, they do not look for prayer as the vital need for their ministries. Divine blessing is seen only in terms of human success.

This is a very different picture than the one offered by the apostle Paul who understanding that the nature of his ministry was essentially spiritual sought the prayers of the congregations to which he ministered.

His requests were urgent because he knew that he needed the prayers of God’s people. The apostle was well aware that the work in which he was engaged was spiritual and had eternal consequences. Entrusted to his care was the proclamation of the Gospel, the careful unfolding of God’s truth, and the defence of that Gospel against all distortion. He recognized that such a ministry required more than human ability and could not be undertaken without prayer. The partnership with the congregations to whom he ministered was vital: “I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf” (Rom. 15:30).

Clearly Paul knew that he faced intimidation and the ever-present temptation to compromise the nature of the Gospel message in the interests of peace and tolerance, which is why he requested and needed the prayers of God’s people. He saw the role of those he served to support him with their prayers. In fact, when writing to the church at Ephesus he was clear that the role of prayerful support created a partnership in the work of the Gospel ministry. As such, he clearly regarded it as a high privilege that involved “striving,” and, far from being passive, was an active and vital ministry: “[pray] also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel” (Eph. 6:19).

He saw that the work of the Gospel is an essentially spiritual work. Paul knew nothing of being dependent upon technique or program to accomplish his work, and his appeal was for spiritual support from the church because he knew that he was battling spiritual powers that were arrayed against Him and were hostile to God and His purpose. Today it is easy to be seduced by the secular mindset into dismissing the spiritual nature of Christian ministry and fail to see that there is a combating of dark and hostile spiritual forces that can be met only with humble dependence upon God, diligence in the study of His Word, and devotion to the Gospel of Christ.

It is the role of the Minister to keep watch over the souls of God’s people. To be effective in this role, as in all the other aspects of his ministry, he needs the prayers of God’s people.

Worship of the True Church

What would you think if you went to Church this Sabbath and a life was sacrificed as part of the worship? What would you think if you went to church this Sabbath and discovered that a Buddhist chant was to take the place of the sermon?

What you should think and know is that such changes would mean that the church no longer worships the same God. The worship of any people will reflect the God they worship. If the Church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, then it follows that her God is God and there is no other, that her God is holy, that her God has authoritatively spoken, and that her God is one. If that is who God is, and if that is what His Church is, then it must first and foremost be expressed visibly in her worship. If the worship of the local body is not declaring that there is but one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, then she is betraying her God and denying her birthright.

It is time for the lackadaisical and man-centered churches of our culture that so easily throw about the labels “Christian” and “evangelical” to realize that their worship must conform to the character of the Trinitarian God. Any substitute is merely using the worship forms of idolatry to approach a God who will not suffer desecration.

Let’s take a moment to walk through the different aspects of the worship of our church and understand how each of those features should proclaim that we are a part of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.

I love the call to worship. We are being called to be a holy people, a people coming apart from the world to worship. We are holy, set apart by baptism from the world for His service. The world does not sing the “Gloria Patri” or the “Sanctus.” At the very beginning as we take part in, or respond to, the call to worship, we are declaring that we as the Church are a royal and holy priesthood. As His priests, we are offering our worship (every part of our worship) as a holy sacrifice to him.

We sing the great hymns of the faith, whether they are hymns of praise, prayer, repentance, thanksgiving, or avowal. As we do so, we are proclaiming God to be the one, holy God who has spoken authoritatively, and who has baptised and ordained people from every race, tongue, and nation to be His. That means the content of our hymns matters. Sincere hearts mean nothing to God when they give utterance to thoughts and words that deny or compromise His character.

As we carefully attend to His Word, we are standing on the same foundation as the prophets and apostles. We are not apostles. We are not of a biological line descending from the apostles. We are the spiritual descendants of the apostles as we stand on their authority, the infallible and inerrant Word of the living God. As we stand and say the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed, we follow in their footsteps. As we confess, we need to ask God to arouse our emotions. We are saying the very words that were on the lips of martyrs as they died, not ashamed of the “faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). The proclamation of His Word and the creedal declarations are the plumb lines which separate His Church from all the others.

It is wonderful when we have a real diversity of age, gender, colour and nationality worshipping together in harmony in Church but we must remember that the diversity seen within our church is not the truest expression of our catholicity. The catholicity of the Church is expressed not mainly in our relationships with each other, but it is expressed in our gathering to worship the Trinitarian God who is one. All of His Church worships the same God and Father, and all are indwelt by the same Spirit, who bears witness with our spirits that we are the children of God, brothers of Christ, and brothers and sisters with each other. Imagine the picture that is seen from heaven each Lord’s Day when people from every race, language, and nation gather before this one God to worship. 

Rev 5:9-10 says “And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth” That is the song of heaven. Our worship is a prelude and preview to that hymn sung and seen around the globe every Lord’s Day.

Every aspect of our worship — our worship in our Church this Sabbath — should proclaim that we are a part of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. This is our calling, our duty, and our joy. It is not easy; it cannot be approached casually as if it did not matter. It requires study and thought, not only by those who plan the specifics of the worship, but also by the worshippers themselves. It requires teaching so that this precious heritage continues in the next generation. It requires constant attention that we might grow in our understanding of worship. Most importantly, it requires a heart filled and energized by the Holy Spirit so that we will not fall into the empty grave of dead orthodoxy.

By our worship, we are known to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.