In the famous Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, Jesus tells his followers to be the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world.” But what does this look like in the modern workplace? How are working Christians, from the boardroom to the classroom, heeding this call from the New Testament? In Barna’s recently released study on vocation, produced in partnership with Abilene Christian University, we found encouraging signs that Christians are living out their faith with integrity. Previously on Barna.com, we’ve covered data about the sacred value Christians perceive in their professions, the challenges working parents face and the Church’s important role in encouraging faith and work integration. Here, we’ll look at the specific values and virtues that define today’s Christians’ work ethic.

Encouragingly, working Christians say they hold to standards and virtues of professional integrity that represent the Church well. They are rooted in a conviction that Christians should act ethically (82%), speak the truth (74%) and demonstrate morality (72%). On an even more spiritual level, respondents say working Christians should make friends with non-Christians (66%), withstand temptation (59%) and do excellent work in an effort to bring glory to God (58%). Most believe people of faith should be guided by an attitude of humility (63%) and service (53%), while also looking out for others by speaking out against unfairness or injustice in the workplace (53%) and bringing grace and peace to others (48%). The trend is clear: most employed Christians want to do good in their places of work—but not always in a way that stands out. They appear less inclined to see it as their responsibility to be influential: one-third believes they should help mold the culture of their workplace (35%). In addition, only one-quarter says sharing the gospel is a responsibility (24%), pointing to a general wariness of speaking explicitly about faith, an attitude not uncommon in today’s climate. However, the more exemplary Christian workers in this study show more spiritual boldness with a higher willingness to share the gospel than the average Christian worker.

Read it all.

Barna: What Faith Looks Like in the Workplace. Encouragingly, working Christians say they hold to standards and virtues of professional integrity that represent the Church well. https://t.co/pK0KiaJITp

— Randy Bell (@RandyMBell) November 5, 2018

I believe that America needs a European-style social safety net. I also believe that we have an epidemic in our country, not of toxic masculinity, but of entitlement. Demands and unilateral action have taken the place of debate. It’s a bipartisan epidemic, and it’s not gender specific.

I wish we could #cometogether.

Read it all.

America’s real epidemic? Entitlement via @FT
https://t.co/ZB4YIgDr5z

— Rana Foroohar (@RanaForoohar) November 8, 2018

Lift up our souls, O Lord, to the pure, serene light of thy presence; that there we may breathe freely, there repose in thy love, there may be at rest from ourselves, and from thence return, arrayed in thy peace, to do and bear what shall please thee; for thy holy name’s sake.

At that very hour some Pharisees came, and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ”˜Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course. Nevertheless I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ”˜Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”

–Luke 13:31-35

Keep our high school students in prayer this weekend…

Read it all.

The complaint contends Strode and Gonzalez harassed Lizarraga through 2015 because of his Islamic beliefs, at times referring to him as a terrorist and calling him other derogatory names, and complained he was “too slow” due to his medical condition..

“Mr Strode and/or Mr. Gonzalez often told the plaintiff, ‘Why don’t you quit?’ or ‘You are going to get fired anyway,’ ” the lawsuit alleges.

After Lizarraga’s work restrictions were lifted, Strode and Gonzalez increased his workload and assigned him tasks that should have been undertaken by other workers, says the complaint.

“Despite this unreasonable and unfair workload, plaintiff still completed it, ” according to the suit. “Still, Mr. Strode and Mr. Gonzalez would unjustly complain to the plaintiff that he was too slow and continued to tell him he should quit.”

Read it all.

On Friday Oct. 26, the highest governing body of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut (“ECCT”) — its Annual Convention — changed the internal governance of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Darien putting the church directly under the authority of the Rt. Rev. Ian T. Douglas, Bishop Diocesan. This action was taken as a result of the refusal of its elected lay leaders to participate in reconciliation efforts with its Rector, the Rev. Canon George Kovoor.

The action changed St. Paul’s status in ECCT from a “Parish” to a “Worshiping Community,” which puts it now under the exclusive supervision, direction, and control of Bishop Douglas. While the change in status does not affect the worship life or the property of St. Paul’s, the change ended the authority of the previous lay leaders of the church, the Vestry and Wardens, whose job it had been to oversee the property and business affairs of St. Paul’s.

St. Paul’s is one of more than 165 Episcopal Parishes and Worshiping Communities in ECCT, spread across the state. The life of all ECCT Parishes and Worshiping Communities, as well as church-related actions by the bishops, priests, deacons, and elected lay leaders, are governed by church laws known as “Canons.” The Canons require that “Every Parish . . . live within a system of support and accountability that links its life and ministry to that of the Bishops and with those of other Parishes in the Diocese.” The Canons also require that lay leaders of a Parish comply with a godly judgment of the Bishop, and authorize changing a Parish to a Worshiping Community if the leaders refuse.

Read it all.

Statistics from st paul's episcopal church in Darien #connecticut #religion #parishministry #usa pic.twitter.com/7Ioshckb3r

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) November 8, 2018

A seismic shakeup in the South Carolina political landscape reverberated nationwide Tuesday night.

While the Lowcountry’s 1st Congressional District race garnered attention for months as a potentially competitive contest, Democrat Joe Cunningham’s victory over Republican Katie Arrington still stunned many political experts.

Dave Wasserman, the top U.S. House editor at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, sized up the result in a district Trump won easily in 2016 as the second biggest Democratic upset of the night nationwide.

Read it all.

A trivia question for you- when was the last time we had a First District Congressman with a BEARD- before Joe Cunningham? pic.twitter.com/7WwZUO0Vwv

— Bill Sharpe (@BillSharpelive5) November 8, 2018

A Dutch “positivity trainer” has launched a legal battle to change his age and boost his dating prospects.

Emile Ratelband, 69, wants to shift his birthday from 11 March 1949 to 11 March 1969, comparing the change to identifying as being transgender.

“We live in a time when you can change your name and change your gender. Why can’t I decide my own age?” he said.

A local court in the eastern city of Arnhem is expected to rule on the case within four weeks….

Read it all.

Regarded as one of the greatest and most innovative poets in the English language, Gerard Manley Hopkins’s revolutionary work had an influence on T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas and W.H. Auden — despite being completely unknown to the wider public in his lifetime.

Now a priceless archive of his work and hand-written notes and letters has been saved for the nation.

Kept by his friend, the then much more celebrated poet Robert Bridges, one document in the trove suggests he did not rate Hopkins’s work as first class at the time.

The collection also includes Hopkins’s so-called ‘A’ manuscript of 74 of his poems, many of them written in Hopkins’s own hand.

Tragically, he died young — of typhoid, in Dublin, aged just 44 in 1889 — whereas his friend Bridges lived on well into the 20th century, becoming Poet Laureate.

The literary gold mine has been acquired by the nation through the Acceptance in Lieu Scheme (AIL), which allows people to hand over artworks to cover inheritance tax.

Read it all.

Gerard Manley Hopkins was born on this day in 1844. Celebrating the Jesuit poet's life & work: http://t.co/6j7cWJnRkg pic.twitter.com/vlGUYhICqv

— America Magazine (@americamag) July 28, 2015

O Sweet Jesu, increase our faith daily in us more and more; that at the last, through Thy goodness, we may be made perfect and strong men in Thy holy religion, and show ourselves both before Thee and before the world truly faithful, by bringing forth plenty of good works, unto the glory and honour of Thy Name.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

In thee, O LORD, do I take refuge; let me never be put to shame! In thy righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline thy ear to me, and save me! Be thou to me a rock of refuge, a strong fortress, to save me, for thou art my rock and my fortress. Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man. For thou, O Lord, art my hope, my trust, O LORD, from my youth. Upon thee I have leaned from my birth; thou art he who took me from my mother’s womb. My praise is continually of thee. I have been as a portent to many; but thou art my strong refuge.

–Psalm 71:1-7

The following message from Bishop Mark Lawrence was sent to the Diocese on November 7, 2018.

Dear Friends,

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ; and with abiding gratitude for the partnership we share in the gospel.

I write to inform you that on Monday, November 19 there will be yet another step on this long legal journey in the State case. Beginning at 10:00 a.m. in the State Courthouse in Orangeburg the Honorable Edgar W. Dickson will hear arguments on the various motions before him. Please pray for wisdom and clarity for our legal team, particularly Mr. Alan Runyan, Ms. Henrietta Golding, and Mr. Mitch Brown. Pray also for Judge Dickson as he decides upon the many issues before him. Indeed, pray also for those who stand opposed to us, ECUSA/ECSC, as our Lord has taught us to do.

Perhaps it will not escape your attention that this court date falls just a few days before Thanksgiving Day. In spite of the many challenges we have faced in recent months we have much for which to give thanks. Indeed, as the Holy Scriptures remind us,

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.  Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:4-7)

So please note how the apostle teaches us to knit and interlace our petitions and requests with prayers of thanksgiving. It is astonishing just how enkindling of faith such grateful prayer can be.

Yours in Christ,

(The Right Reverend) Mark J. Lawrence
Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina

Polling throughout the year has shown that white, college-educated men are now essentially a swing group, available to either party and tilting, in fact, slightly toward Democratic candidates.

These men account for nearly one in five voters in competitive House districts, polling shows, and so their candidate choices could be enough to provide the margin of victory in some races on Tuesday.

Politically speaking, this group has traveled a long distance in recent decades. In 1994, 62% of white men with bachelor’s degrees wanted Republicans to control Congress, while 29% preferred Democrats — a net tilt to the GOP of 33 percentage points, Journal/NBC News polling found that year. Today, the picture is far different.

That’s a substantial change, especially when compared with white men who don’t have four-year college degrees. That group, often called working-class white men, remain core supporters of the Republican Party and overwhelmingly back President Trump.

But in 1994, when Journal/NBC News polling started tracking the trend, it was the white men with college degrees who leaned most heavily toward the GOP—as they did for years afterward.

Read it all.

In Tight Races, White Males Are the Swing Voters to Watch https://t.co/1IasrPNER6

— Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) November 5, 2018

Shortly after the end of World War II Douglas Jay made a comment that summed up the way many people then thought. “The man in Whitehall,” he said,“really does know best.” The war had been won by technological superiority and careful planning, now it was time to apply those resources to refashioning society.

Alan Jacobs describes views of five Christian intellectuals – WH Auden, TS Eliot, CS Lewis, Jacques Maritain and Simone Weil – who worried about the modern technocratic emphasis on efficiency and sought to use the resources of Christianity to create a renewed humanism.

Other people feature as well in what is a wide-ranging and very readable survey of how many Christians were thinking during the years of World War II and especially in the year 1943 when it became apparent that Hitler would be defeated.

Jacobs begins in his native America with an account of the views on education of the president of the University of Chicago, Robert Maynard Hutchins, and Mortimer Adler of the same university with their concern to give students a broad, humane education and their rejection of pragmatism and positivism and ends with Jaques Ellul’s great work The Technological Society.

Although the five main subjects did not coordinate their thinking, Jacobs makes a good case for arguing that they were all taking a similar line. What he is less successful at doing is arguing that they grasped the real challenge that confronted the world after the war was over.

Read it all.

For once, it all happened more or less as we foresaw — and by “we” I mean risk-averse political commentators who hugged the polling averages and projections tight while resisting both Betomania and the occasional flashbacks to 2016. A good night for Republicans in the Senate. An excellent night for Democrats in the House. The Trumpian Upper Midwest swinging back toward Democrats. Red-state senate voters sticking with the G.O.P. The mobilize-the-base strategy falling just short for Democrats in Florida and Georgia. A rebuke to Trump in the overall returns, but not a presidency-ending repudiation. Two years of chaos and hysteria ending in a return to stalemate.

Between their Senate gains and a few surprising gubernatorial victories Republicans probably have enough consolation prizes to feel O.K. about the outcome. Trump critics on the right will feel a little better than O.K., since now the House can check and investigate our morally challenged president while the Senate keeps confirming conservative judges.

But this election confirms that, contra certain Trump enthusiasts, the #MAGA era in right-wing politics is essentially a defensive era, in which G.O.P. leverages a fortunate Electoral College win and an advantage in the Senate to fill the courts and delay liberal ambitions for a time — but fails, conspicuously, to reap political rewards from the current economic expansion and to build an actual popular majority.

Read it all.

O Lord our God, who dost call whom thou willest and send them whither thou choosest: We thank thee for sending thy servant Willibrord to be an apostle to the Low Countries, to turn them from the worship of idols to serve thee, the living God; and we entreat thee to preserve us from the temptation to exchange the perfect freedom of thy service for servitude to false gods and to idols of our own devising; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

7Nov 739: d. St. Willibrord #Echternach #otd Northumbrian missionary, with wine barrel, 1626 (BM) @PeritiaEditors @VoxHib @17thCenturyLady pic.twitter.com/9MVXPf7F9z

— John McCafferty (@jdmccafferty) November 7, 2016

O heavenly Father, the author and fountain of all truth, send, we beseech Thee, Thy Holy Spirit into our hearts, and lighten our understandings with the beams of Thy heavenly grace. We ask this, O merciful Father, for Thy dear Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ’s sake.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And there was a woman who had had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years; she was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. And when Jesus saw her, he called her and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your infirmity.” And he laid his hands upon her, and immediately she was made straight, and she praised God.

–Luke 13:10-13

You can listen directly there and download the mp3 there.

Now let’s turn from the biblical narrative and take a look at the narrative of secularism. I am going to cite several influential scholars, who articulate the ideas behind the ideology. Most people will not recognize their names, but their ideology is conveyed everywhere in sugar-coated form: in movies, in rock concerts, in advertising, and in social media.

Some twenty years ago, Professor Anthony Giddens, a noted sociologist and former Director of the London School of Economics, established himself as an evangelist of the Gospel of Sexual Intimacy with his book The Transformation of Intimacy. “Sexuality” and “intimacy,” according to Giddens, are terms that convey a revolutionary new meaning.

Giddens speaks not of “two sexes, one flesh” but rather of plastic sexuality. Giddens does not use “plastic sexuality” as a pejorative term, suggesting artificiality. On the contrary, it represents the emancipated varieties of sex “severed from its age-old integration with reproduction, kinship and the generations.” The two marks of plastic sexuality, Giddens observes, are female sexual autonomy and the flourishing of homosexuality.

The advent of plastic sexuality, he says, makes possible confluent love. Confluent love is an opening of one person to another for the purpose of self-realization and self-enhancement. Specifically, confluent love makes mutual sexual satisfaction the sine qua non of an intimate relationship. “Confluent love is active, contingent love, and therefore jars with the ‘for ever’, ‘one-and-only’ qualities of the romantic love complex.” Whereas romantic love fastens on one “special person,” confluent love is realized in one or more “special relationships.”

The kind of relationship formed by confluent love is termed by Prof. Giddens the pure relationship: “In the pure relationship, trust has no external supports and has to be developed on the basis of intimacy.” Intimacy or commitment in this sense must continually be negotiated in what Giddens calls a “rolling contract.” Lest intimacy slide into codependency, partners in a pure relationship must be willing to grow or break apart: “It is a feature of the pure relationship that it can be terminated more or less at will by either partner at any particular point.”

Read it all.

Michal Bilewicz of the University of Warsaw outlines three categories of anti-Semitism. The “traditional” kind is based on Catholic teaching (since abandoned) that Jews killed Christ, and on medieval blood-libels (accusations that Jews killed children to mix their blood with Passover flatbread). The second, “modern”, sort is based on a belief in conspiracies by powerful Jews. The last kind, “secondary” anti-Semitism, holds that Jews abuse the history of the Holocaust. Others seek to categorise the miasma differently: eg, as racist, economic, cultural and religious; or explicit and coded; or soft and violent.

Many see a “new anti-Semitism” that developed after Israel’s victory in the six-day war of 1967. The Soviet Union and its vassals purged Jews on the grounds that they were Zionists and thus agents of America. This overlaps with Muslim Jew-hatred, which not only denounces Israel but also presents Jews as the enemies of Muslims since the time of the Prophet Muhammad. This form has proven the most murderous in recent decades. Global jihadists say they are fighting against “Jews and Crusaders”. In the West anti-Semitic acts by Muslim migrants tend to spike with rises in Israeli-Palestinian violence. Speaking at a protest against the war in Gaza in 2014, Appa, a Dutch-Moroccan rapper, blurred the line between politics and religion: “Fuck the Zionists! Fuck the Talmud!”

A wave of jihadist attacks against Jewish targets in Europe in 2012-15 resulted in 13 deaths in France, Belgium and Denmark. Increased security, and caution by many about revealing their Jewish identity, led to a drop in attacks on Jews. Attention shifted to anti-Semitism on the radical left. Britain’s Labour Party, the main opposition and political home of many Jews, has torn itself apart this year over which kind of criticism of Israel should be regarded as an attack on Jews. Jeremy Corbyn, its left-wing leader, agreed only grudgingly to accept that utterances repudiating Israel’s right to exist, or accusing it of behaving like the Nazis, were anti-Semitic.

Yet it is odd that right-wing anti-Semitism, obsessed with Jews at home, and the left-wing variety, focused on Jews in Israel, survive at all. The number of Jews in the world is quite small—about 6m apiece in Israel and America, and another 2.5m scattered elsewhere. Indeed, some talk of “anti-Semitism without Jews”.

The Pittsburgh murders were a stark reminder of the threat lurking on the far right, particularly among white supremacists who lump Jews in with blacks, Muslims and other minorities as objects of hatred. American far-right groups benefit from a greater degree of free speech than do European ones—and easy access to guns.

Read it all.

Jew-hatred keeps mutating to survive – Anti-Semitism in the West https://t.co/8BsFf0Hv3G

— Rabbi Sacks (@rabbisacks) November 6, 2018

From here:

Lord of every time and place,
God of integrity and truth,
we pray for wisdom as we prepare to vote in the [this] election.

Let us give thanks to God, saying, ‘we thank you, Lord’.

For this land and the diversity of its peoples,
we thank you, Lord.
For all who work for peace and justice in this land,
we thank you, Lord.
For leaders who serve the common good,
we thank you, Lord.
For robust democracy and freedom to participate in public life,
we thank you, Lord.
For media scrutiny and open debate,
we thank you, Lord.
Let us pray to the Lord, saying, ‘Hear us, good Lord’.
Bless those who administer the electoral process,
that they may uphold fairness, honesty and truth.
Hear us, good Lord.
Impart your wisdom to all who propose policy,
that their promises may serve those in greatest need.
Hear us, good Lord.
Give integrity to party leaders, candidates and campaign workers,
and keep them from deceit and corruption.
Hear us, good Lord.
Protect all engaged in public life, with their families, friends and colleagues,
that nothing may demean or do them harm.
Hear us, good Lord.
Direct those who influence opinion through the media,
that we may listen, speak and vote with sound minds.
Hear us, good Lord….

God, bless America,
guard our people
guide our leaders
and give us peace;
for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen

(Slightly edited for the American midterms-KSH).

Both for perplexity and for dulled conscience the remedy is the same; sincere and spiritual worship. For worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of the mind with His truth; the purifying of the imagination of His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love, the surrender of the will to his purpose and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin. Yes, worship in spirit and truth is the way to the solution of perplexity and to the liberation from sin.

–William Temple Readings in St. John’s Gospel (Wilton, Connecticut: Morehouse Barlow, 1985 reprint of the 1939 and 1940 original), p. 67

Remembering Archbishop William Temple, 15 October 1881 – 26 October 1944

On William Temple's day, giving thanks for 6 years here as Team Rector. pic.twitter.com/pS0mO6WLa8

— Stephen Edwards (@smeddytweets) November 6, 2018

O God of light and love, who illumined thy Church through the witness of thy servant William Temple: Inspire us, we pray, by his teaching and example, that we may rejoice with courage, confidence and faith in the Word made flesh, and may be led to establish that city which has justice for its foundation and love for its law; through Jesus Christ, the light of the world, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Most loving Saviour, we would abide in Thee: make our hearts Thy dwelling-place; fill our minds with the thought and our imaginations with the picture of Thy love; take away whatever in us of selfishness or weakness hinders our hearing or obeying Thy call; teach us day by day to live closer to Thy side, which was pierced that we might live.

–Frederick B.Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

Thankfully remembering William Temple today. pic.twitter.com/93F2u6w0mD

— Phillip Tovey (@tovey_philip) November 6, 2018

Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer; from the end of the earth I call to thee, when my heart is faint. Lead thou me to the rock that is higher than I; for thou art my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy. Let me dwell in thy tent for ever! Oh to be safe under the shelter of thy wings!

–Psalm 61:1-4

A national church is suing its former followers in Fresno in a real estate battle launched by the church’s decision to accept [non-celbiate] gay…clergy members.

Attorneys delivered opening arguments Monday in the case pitting The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of San Joaquin against St. Columba Church and its congregants who split away from the religion.

The Episcopal Church says the administration at St. Columba and its pastor, Rev. James Snell, illegally took possession of the church on Palm and Shaw in 2008.

Read it all.

…when the heads of our Anglica­n schools wrote their open letter, the subject at hand — stated quite clearly — was religious freedom, the right to run a school in accordan­ce with its tenets, beliefs and values. They pointed out that schools never used these exemptions in the area of sexual identity and orientation. They neither wanted them nor requested them. To do so would have gone against the very ethos of an Anglican school, which welcomes all ­students.

However, the publication of the open letter has poured a vat of vitrio­l upon the heads of some of the most respected schools in the country. Reaction to gossip across social media has galvanised signatures on petitions for a cause with which the heads of schools are in fundamental agreement.

The open letter’s reference to retaining the exemptions (for exampl­e, allowing single-sex schools to enrol only students of one sex) was in response to a bill from the Australian Greens, which sought to delete the entire section. Besides, for 35 years this has not been an issue in the public sphere, despite our own criticism of the lack of a positive protection for religious freedom. Yet any fair reading will reveal that the thrust of the letter was to advance the case for protecting religious freedom for Anglican schools in particular, and across the educational sector as a whole, including schools of different faiths and those of no faith.

I commend the heads for their courage in sending this message to the members of federal parliament. I also commend them for their resilience in the face of such stringent opposition and mis­understanding from some alumni of their schools, who have simply missed the point. Given the misleading nature of the “exemptions” regime, I can understand their confusion, but the landscape of Anglican education has not changed. Anglican schools neither discriminate against gay students nor do they want the right to do so.

The heads want the parliament to provide positive protection for religious freedom. When the presen­t vacuum is filled — not by rumour and misinformation but by the release of the Ruddock report — we can finally leave behind our broken mess of exemptions and move toward the positive protecti­on of religious freedom.

Read it all.

This frightening agenda, inviting us to march boldly into the lions’ den, is exemplified almost at once as Jesus stands before Pilate, and argues with him about kingdom, truth and power. Our world is just as confused as Pilate was on all three counts. Different forms of kingdom have been tried and found wanting; truth has collapsed again and again into fake news; the only constant – as with Pilate – is the power of violence. The Farewell discourses and the trial before Pilate, ending with Jesus’ own death, constitute for me the centre of the New Testament’s political theology: Jesus gathers his followers and charges them to a life of unity and holiness, not so they can forget the world but so that they can hold the world to account, even as they are living out in themselves the new creation, the new way of being human, which will carry its own conviction.

I could give many examples of communities that are doing this, though as I said they don’t normally make the news headlines, so the church can easily be portrayed as stuck in its own ever-shrinking mud. I think of food banks, educations projects, drug rehab centres, marriage counselling, peace-making and so on. A high proportion of volunteers in our country, in these and other areas, are Christians. But I want to finish with this. The vision of new creation, and of Jesus’ followers as the new humanity called to model, announce and implement that new creation already in the power of the Spirit, will flow out of and flow back into worship.

I am deeply concerned about the unthinking slide, in the last evangelical generation, into a free-floating, disordered non-liturgical worship in which the Psalms are seldom if ever used, in which scripture is not read extensively in public, in which the sacraments are often perfunctory and apologetic, in which most of the sung lyrics, and the music which carries them, are essentially postmodern, with deconstructed fragments of dogma and devotion matched by the deconstructed fragments of tunes. This postmodern format, though perhaps a necessary protest against an over-formal earlier style, cannot be the right place to stay. Non-liturgical or even anti-liturgical worship is the liturgical equivalent of Brexit: it may be making a protest against the formality of an earlier modernism, but it cannot express or point the way into that post-postmodernism which our culture, our politics, desperately needs. Good liturgy isn’t everything, but bad liturgy isn’t anything.

You see, our culture is stuck because we have the wrong story in our heads. Non-liturgical worship allows that wrong story to go unchallenged. Good liturgy acts out the right story, that world history reached its climax in Jesus. Our culture is stuck in an Epicurean mode, the split-level world in which heaven and earth are held apart. Much evangelical and charismatic worship allows that to go unchallenged, merely relying on Plato to get the soul in good shape and on its way out of here. Good liturgy holds heaven and earth together, relishing the points at which, in physical beauty and movement, the life of heaven is portrayed here on earth (yes, with all the attendant dangers). Our culture imagines that ‘progress’ – social, cultural, even moral! – is automatic. Good liturgy challenges that with the drama of Jesus’ death and resurrection and the ever-fresh outpouring of the Spirit.

To put it starkly: if you never sing Psalm 72, how will you be reminded that Israel’s Messiah is already ruling from one sea to the other, from the River to the ends of the earth, and that his reign is what the world needs because he, and he alone, will deliver the poor when they cry, and rescue the widow and the orphan? The EU won’t do that, and neither will the Brexiteers. The Arab Spring didn’t do this, and neither will Trump or Putin. If you never live through the eucharist as the enacted drama of salvation, how will you be able to challenge the dominant narratives of our culture?

Read it all.