The blog of Richard Hall, a Methodist Minister in Wales.

If wearing silly trousers wasn’t enough, now there’s another reason not to take up golf. Apparently it can damage your hearing

Players who use a new generation of thin-faced titanium drivers to propel the ball further should consider wearing ear plugs, experts advise.

Ear specialists suspect the “sonic boom” the metal club head makes when it strikes the ball damaged the hearing of a 55-year-old golfer they treated.

They outline the details of this case in the British Medical Journal.

The man had been playing with a King Cobra LD titanium club three times a week for 18 months and commented that the noise of the club hitting the ball was “like a gun going off”.

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You open your morning’s post to find an unexpected cheque. It’s for you, no strings attached, to be spent as you like. But the giver would like you to do something with it that you wouldn’t otherwise do.

What’s it to be?

Would you simply give it away? Buy a book you couldn’t otherwise afford? Buy someone a nice meal? Be honest now…

(Oh — and a happy new year! I’ve been away, but now I’m back)

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This will be a rather brief post as I prepare to welcome in 2009 (already a fact in some distant places ), but as I find myself in the somewhat strange position of opposing the appointment of Caroline Kennedy, whom I greatly admire, to fill the U.S. Senate seat (New York) that Hillary Clinton will vacate on becoming Secretary of State, while supporting Rick Warren of Saddleback Church to give the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration on January 20, I wanted to comment at least briefly on my reasoning.

First, I think Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy, is immensely talented and gifted and would surpass the service of many already serving in the Senate. As well, it is not that she has held no elected office. Many others, including Sen. Clinton hadn’t, either. Nor do I resent the fact that she comes from a wealthy and powerful family. I’ve contributed to political campaigns or organizations related to her uncle Sen. Edward Kennedy and to her cousins, Joe Kennedy II and Patrick Kennedy (U.S. House: D-Rhode Island). I’ve exchanged e-mails with her cousin Kathleen Kennedy Townsend regarding the former Maryland Lt. Gov.’s book Failing America’s Faithful: How Today’s Churches Are Mixing God with Politics and Losing Their Way, about which I have been planning to post for a long time. At a fundraiser for Patrick Kennedy in 1995, I engaged him in conversation, rather briefly, in asking him if he had ever been to Oklahoma. He answered “once, I think, when my father (Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass) was running for president. At the end of the fundraiser, I shared an elevator ride with Joe Kennedy (former U.S. representavive, D-Massachusetts). Notwithstanding my little name-dropping here, none of the Kennedys would “know me from Adam.”

No, my concern here is that she has never shown a great taste for public life overall (though she has on many occasions engaged in great public service) nor has she been tested in the public forum. Her uncle, Sen. Robert Kennedy had never held elective office when he ran for the U.S. Senate from New York in 1964. He had, though, engaged greatly in the give-and-take of public life and been exposed to significant questioning from the American media.

With respect to Rick Warren, whose book The Purpose Driven Life greatly exceeds the drivel written by so many other Southern Baptists and religious conservatives in general, represents a significant part of the electorate and its religious thinking. Further, the inaugural ceremonies and speech are not for the purpose of advancing a particular theology or faith. That does not mean that I have no concern about Pastor Warren’s views on inclusivity (his denomination, the Southern Baptists, do not recognize the authority of women to be pastors, for instance). Rather, it is Obama’s task to set a moral tone and ethical course for the direction of U.S. national and international policies over the next four years within the context of leading a politically and theologically diverse nation. I would not want to see Warren appointed to fill a vacant Senate seat.

Yes, to Rick Warren (with some apprehension), and no to Caroline Kennedy (with regrets).

Disclosure: I contributed $970 to Obama’s presidential campaign, with most of it directed toward the primaries, as I saw Obama with more than sufficient funds for the general election. By way of comparison, I made $3,992 in charitable contributions, mostly to my church.

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Johan Hari in today’s Independent is well worth your time…

Johann Hari: The true story behind this war is not the one Israel is telling

The world isn’t just watching the Israeli government commit a crime in Gaza; we are watching it self-harm. This morning, and tomorrow morning, and every morning until this punishment beating ends, the young people of the Gaza Strip are going to be more filled with hate, and more determined to fight back, with stones or suicide vests or rockets. Israeli leaders have convinced themselves that the harder you beat the Palestinians, the softer they will become. But when this is over, the rage against Israelis will have hardened, and the same old compromises will still be waiting by the roadside of history, untended and unmade.

To understand how frightening it is to be a Gazan this morning, you need to have stood in that small slab of concrete by the Mediterranean and smelled the claustrophobia. The Gaza Strip is smaller than the Isle of Wight but it is crammed with 1.5 million people who can never leave. They live out their lives on top of each other, jobless and hungry, in vast, sagging tower blocks. From the top floor, you can often see the borders of their world: the Mediterranean, and Israeli barbed wire. When bombs begin to fall – as they are doing now with more deadly force than at any time since 1967 – there is nowhere to hide.

Read the rest

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In light of the escalating conflict in Gaza over the last 24 hours, the Methodist Church is calling for international pressure on both Israel and Hamas to bring an end to the violence.

Steve Hucklesby, Public Issues Policy Advisor, said; “The devastating death toll resulting from Israeli air strikes has shocked many. Rather than improving security, this action by Israel could compound conflict in the region. It is also likely to make it more difficult to bring regional powers together in a search for solutions. Both Hamas and Israel must respond to the UN Security Council call for an immediate end to all military operations.

“We call on the EU, United States and the UN to bring increased pressure on Israel and on Hamas to refrain from violence. At this time of year when the focus of Christians around the world is on the Holy Land we pray for courageous leadership in the cause of peace.

“Before the recent outbreaks of violence, Gaza was already suffering a dire humanitarian situation has not been helped by Israel’s blockade and restrictions on relief supplies. Now food, fuel and medical supplies are needed urgently.”

(From the Methodist Church News Service)

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LET earth and heaven combine,
Angels and men agree,
To praise in songs divine
The incarnate Deity,
Our God contracted to a span,
Incomprehensibly made man.

He laid his glory by,
He wrapped him in our clay;
Unmarked by human eye,
The latent Godhead lay;
Infant of days he here became,
And bore the mild Immanuel’s name.

See in that infant’s face
The depths of deity
And labour while ye gaze
To sound the mystery;
In vain; ye angels gaze no more,
But fall, and silently adore.

Unsearchable the love
That hath the Saviour brought;
The grace is far above
Or man or angels thought;
Suffice for us that God, we know,
Our God, is manifest below.

He deigns in flesh to appear,
Widest extremes to join;
To bring our vileness near,
And make us all divine:
And we the life of God shall know,
For God is manifest below.

Made perfect first in love,
And sanctified by grace,
We shall from earth remove,
And see his glorious face:
Then shall his love be fully showed,
And man shall then be lost in God.

Charles Wesley

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Breaking my blog fast — a more-or-less complete computer fast, actually — just to wish everyone all the joy and peace of the Christmas season.

Ho! ho! ho!

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Top left an angel
hovering. Top right the attendance
of a star. From both
bottom corners devils
look up, relishing
in prospect a divine
meal. How old at the centre
the child’s face gazing
into love’s too human
face, like one prepared
for it to have its way
and continue smiling?

Mother and Child

No clouds overhead;
no troubles freckling
the maid’s eye. The shadows
are immediate and are thrown

by upholstered branches,
not by that angled
event that from beyond
the horizon puts its roots

down. This is Eden
over again. The child
holds out both its hands
for the breast’s apple. The snake is asleep.

Hill Christmas

They came over the snow to the bread’s
purer snow, fumbled it in their huge
hands, put their lips to it
like beasts, stared into the dark chalice
where the wine shone, felt it sharp
on their tongue, shivered as at sin
remembered, and heard love’s cry
momentarily in their hearts’ manger.

The rose and went back to their poor
holdings, naked in the bleak light
of December. Their horizon contracted
to the one small, stone-riddled field
with its tree, where the weather was nailing
the appalled body that had not asked to be born.

Blind Noel

Christmas; the themes are exhausted.
Yet there is always room
on the heart for another
snowflake to reveal a pattern.

Love knocks with such frosted fingers.
I look out. In the shadow
of so vast a God I shiver, unable
to detect the child for the whiteness.

The first king was on horseback.
The second a pillion rider.
The third came by plane.

Where was the god-child?
He was in the manger
with all the beasts, all looking

the other way where the fourth
was a slow dawning because
wisdom must come on foot.

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I am singing my Advent anthem to you, God: How all year
I’ve felt your thrusts, every sound and sight stabbing
like a little blade - the creak of gulls, the racket
as waves jostle pebbles, the road after rain, shining
like a river, the scrub of wind on the cheek, a flute
trilling - clean as a knife, the immeasurable chants of green,
of sky: messages, announcements. But of what? Who?

Then last Tuesday, a peacock feather (surprise!)
spoke from the grass; Flannery called hers “a genuine
word of the Lord.” And I - as startled as Mary, nearly,
at your arrival in her chamber (the invisible
suddenly seen, urgent, iridescent, having put on light
for her regard) - I brim over like her, quickening. I can’t
stop singing, thoroughly pregnant with the Word!

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Having told us why he is glad to be a Methodist, Dave Warnock owns up to some stuff that worries him about the Methodist Church. His post, and the subsequent conversation, is very helpful. Meanwhile, Kim’s comments here contribute a critical friend’s reflection on whether there is any continued need for a seperate Methodist denomination. Dave’s first worry dovetails neatly with Kim’s thoughts. Here’s Dave first

I worry that the Methodist Church will not exist within in a relatively short period of time. Obviously I am not alone, anyone who can read basic numbers and look at an age profile would have significant concerns. Yet there is also plenty of encourage reports on change and response to change. The church will certainly need to look a lot different in 5 or 10 years which could be a fantastic new start for us or a very rapid disappearance.

And Kim

Methodism began as an evangelistic and social action movement within Anglicanism, i.e. it was a supplement. John Wesley himself was never kicked out of the Church of England, and he always insisted that Methodists were ancillaries to the C of E and should never leave it. “Methodism,” observes Martyn Percy, “is rather like Wales - you can see the point of it, granted. But it is a distinctive principality rather than a full-blown country.” …
Methodism is too tied to the theology of one man, viz. John Wesley himself. Or at least it was until Wesley’s theology seems to have become adiaphora in UK Methodist training colleges themselves! Okay, there is also Charles, the second greatest hymn writer. Two men then. Furthermore, name me a really great Methodist theologian…
On the subject of theology, there are no really distinctive doctrines in Methodism that cannot be found in other confessions, with the exception of Wesley’s doctrine of perfection, which, granted that it is usually misunderstood…

I understand Dave’s worry. People have been predicting the demise of the Methodist Church for a long time. Sooner or later, those predictions are going to come true — I can say with confidence that the Methodist Church is dying because I know for certain that the Methodist Church is not eternal. One day, just like every reader of this blog and every organisation that they might belong to, the Methodist Church will be no more.

It doesn’t matter that we’re dying. There isn’t anything anyone can do about that. Death isn’t failure. It’s an inevitable part of life. What matters is what we do with the knowledge of our mortality. That’s as true for an institutional church as it is for an individual. In any case, death and resurrection are central to the Christian gospel. To quote Will Willimon, “We serve a God who lives to raise the dead–even us. Therefore, we work with hope–not hope in ourselves and our efforts, but with hope in Christ.”

Which brings me to Kim’s contribution, most of which I accept completely. (The quote above is an extract, you should really read the whole thing) If we were atarting from scratch, you wouldn’t invent the Methodist Church. It arose, humanly speaking, by accident. John Wesley had no intention of starting a new denomination. But it was John Wesley’s own actions that made seperation from the Church of England inevitable. He put pastoral considerations ahead of Church order: by consecrating Thomas Coke as a Superintendent for the work in North America, Wesley opened a can of worms which led to the creation of the Methodist Church. It might not have been Wesley’s intention, but ‘blame’ for the Methodist Church most definitely belongs to him.

It’s that pragmatism that continues to attract me to the Methodist Church. The truth is, the people called Methodist are apt to act first and do the theological thinking afterward. The way I read it, every significant development in the life of the church has been driven by practicalities rather than the outcome of a theology. One example will have to suffice. The Methodist Church in Britain has a body of lay preachers who are the envy of other denominations. On any given Sunday of the year, most Methodist pulpits in Britain will be occupied by the Local Preachers, trained, tested and authorized by the church for the conduct of worship and the preaching of the gospel. But the office of the Local Preacher was not dreamt up as a response to thinking through the implications of the ‘priesthood of all believers’. It came about because there simply weren’t enough ordained preachers to serve the growing number of Methodist societies. Pragmatism, not theology, called the shots. Since that time we have developed a robust theology of lay preaching and I would argue that our Local Preachers are a model to which the wider church should pay particular attention.

I’m not very disturbed that Kim can’t think of any great Methodist theologians. Truly great thinkers are not thick on the ground in any discipline. But quality thinkers? I’m confident I could name more than a few if pressed. Much more importantly, the Methodist Church remains for many a place where God’s love is found and shared. That’s what excites me about the church, what keeps me within it despite its many shortcomings.

Of course, God’s love is to be found in many other places too. But the people called Methodist are my spiritual family. That’s not a bond I’d give up lightly.

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Archaeologists working at a dig just outside Jerusalem have recently discovered the first ever Christmas round robin, from the Holy Family itself. You can tell it’s a round robin from its relentless cheerfulness and the adulatory description of domestic life. And, of course, it is written by the woman in the family. Happy Kitschmas!

To All Our Dear Friends,

What an ab fab year it’s been, but, my, hasn’t it flown! First I got engaged. Then I got pregnant. And ignore the gossip - of course it’s Joe’s, and he’s been an absolute angel. There really must be something in the water, because Auntie Elizabeth has just had a baby too. Zechariah (he was speechless), you frisky old dark horse!

And then there’s the fantastic holiday we had, thanks to Caesar Augustus. The rabble asks, “What have the Romans ever done for us?” But we’ve never had it so good! There’s the new investment in the infrastructure (aren’t aqueducts amazing?); the chariots are running on time (we’re saving for a classy birota of our own); the cuisine is fantastic (Joe’s favourite is dormouse meat trimmings with Palmyran dates for dessert - and the vino!: when Joe gets drunk he’s always singing the old Plautus hit “I’ve wined, I’ve dined, I’ve concubined”); and then there is that wonderful war being waged against those dreadful terrorists in the provinces.

And the poll tax - a quite brilliant idea! Not only for the revenue - it isn’t cheap running an empire - but for the way everyone had to return to their birthplace to be enrolled, a kind of universal homecoming, rah-rah-rah. Travel does so broaden the mind. Okay, there was the slight inconvenience of it - I was due at any moment - and we’ll never use Nazareth Rent-a-Donkey again. Still, the five-star accommodation at the Bethlehem Hilton made it more than worthwhile. Mind, the town was packed with tourists, but Joe played his descendent-of-David card and doors opened, I can tell you. And the birth went swimmingly: I pushed, the midwife pulled, and Joe passed around the cigars.

And the afters! The local Shepherds Union sent some reps with some nice woolly jumpers and a year’s supply of mint sauce. Then - would you believe! - royalty arrived, three kings who brought amazing gifts: vouchers for Lord (& Taylor), Channel No. 5 Parfum as well as Douceur Satinée pour le Corps, and they did our own personal horoscopes. Did you know the little one is a Capricorn? Finally, the Lord Mayor of Jerusalem, Herod himself, paid us a state visit. He said he couldn’t be happier if the child were his own. Then he broke out the champers and proposed a toast: “To a long, healthy, and happy life!” And he shared with us the great plans he has for the welfare of the youngsters in the city, to keep them off the streets. Such a nice man.

Now that we’re back in Nazareth, it all seems like a dream, but things continue to go so well. Joe is back at work, the business is thriving despite the recent credit crunch, and he’s been appointed to the executive committee of the local Rotary Club. I’m feeling fantastic - no post-natal depression for me! - and I’m quickly slimming down. Salve magazine has been in touch. They want to do a spread on us, with the baby as the centrepiece of course. He is such a lovely little cherub, perfect in every way. I look at how some of them turn out: no family values; teenage angst and anger; skiving off work; giving the rabbis a hard time with impertinent questions; hanging out with loose women, etc. But not our Jesus: he’ll be nice as pie.

This year we hope to visit Rome: the Colosseum, the Circus Maximus, and Joe is dying to see the crosses on the Appian Way to check out the timber. We’ve started learning Latin phrases like (for Joe) Da mihi fermentum (Give me a beer), and (for me) In hac tunica obesa videbor? (Will I look fat in this dress?). I do hope the shekel stays strong against the euro.

Well, must go. So much to do. Ta-ra. Have a great Hanukkah! And may You-Know-Who bless you in the coming year.

Mary, Joe, and Jesus

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Dave Warnock has a couple of very useful posts:How I came to be and stay a Methodist and What keeps me in Methodism are both well worth your time.

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“Men of narrow minds, far from confessing ignorance and maintaining Truth mainly as a duty, profess … to understand the subjects which they take up and the principles which they apply to them. They do not see difficulties. They consider that they hold their doctrines, whatever they are, at least as much upon Reason as upon faith; and they expect to be able to argue others into a belief in them … They consider that the premisses with which they start just prove the conclusions which they draw, and nothing else. They think that their own views are exactly fitted to solve all the facts which are to be accounted for…. They conceive that they profess just the truth which makes all things easy. They have their one idea or their favorite notion, which occurs to them on every occasion. They have their one or two topics, which they are continually obtruding, with a sort of pedantry, being unable to discuss, in a natural unconstrained way, or to let their thoughts take their course, in the confidence that they will come safe home at the last…. They have stiffened in one position, as limbs of the body subjected to confinement … They have already parceled out to their own satisfaction the whole world of knowledge; they have drawn their lines, and formed their classes.”

John Henry Newman, Fifteen Sermons Preached before the University of Oxford (University Sermons), 3rd edn., Sermon XIV. 41-42, pp. 305-7.

Mark A. McIntosh, from whose excellent new book Divine Teaching: An Introduction to Christian Theology (Blackwell, 2008) I lift these lines, comments: “Newman’s acidly comical description suggests personal acquaintance with such types of persons - as well, perhaps, as the recognition, which we surely all share, of an uncomfortable (and not quite escapable) sense of describing oneself. Perhaps the chief symptom noted here is a kind of hectoring sureness, laboring uneasily with an unconscious feeling that everything must be kept in order just so, lest the whole edifice of faith begin to totter” (p. 53).

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Just for fun.

Which songs do these lyrics come from?

1. I´ll be your clown or your puppet or your April Fool / If you´ll be my sunshine daisy from L.A

2. Each time I remember the day you went away / and how I would listen to the things you had to say

3. Smiles in the sunshine and tears in the rain / Still take me back to where my memories remain

4. How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat yer meat?

5. At party time and Christmas too / We know that she’ll be there

6. Now five years later on youve got the world at your feet / Success has been so easy for you

7. Wonder if you’ll understand / It’s just the touch of your hand / Behind the closed door

8. (Here’s to you) raise a glass for everyone / (Here’s to them) underneath that burning sun

9. Tell me, tell me that your sweet love hasnt died / Give me one more chance to keep you satisfied

10. A time for living, a time for believing / A time for trusting, not deceiving

11. Bittersweet memories / That is all I’m taking with me

12. Now I don’t know where we are / Although I know we’ve drifted far

13. Time to get busy / Such a lot to do / Building and fixing / ‘Til it’s good as new

14. The dreams in which I’m dying / Are the best I’ve ever had

15. Everything changes, but beauty remains / Something so tender I can’t explain

That’s enough, I think. Special bonus: what do these songs have in common?

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Give more Christmas presence this year.

via maggi dawn.

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I’m a little bit early with this, but give it a few more days and everyone will be heartily sick of this song. So here’s a bit of seasonal Slade, ukulele-style. It made me smile. Hope it does the same for you.

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Allan Bevere provides the latest round up.

Enjoy it — it’s the last one of 2008.

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Christ, whose glory fills the skies,
Christ, the true, the only light,
Sun of Righteousness, arise,
triumph o’er the shades of night;
Dayspring from on high, be near;
Daystar, in my heart appear.

Dark and cheerless is the morn
unaccompanied by thee;
joyless is the day’s return,
till thy mercy’s beams I see;
till they inward light impart,
glad my eyes and warm my heart.

Visit then this soul of mine;
pierce the gloom of sin and grief;
fill me, radiancy divine,
scatter all my unbelief;
more and more thyself display,
shining to the perfect day.

Charles Wesley

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It sounds like the opening line of a joke, but it’s not.

Solace invited Rowan Williams to share a question-and-answer session in a pub in Cardiff today. Sounds like it was an interesting session, with questions including “Can God mend broken Britain?” and “What’s hell like and who’s going there?”

One quetion stunped the Archbish, though. “Who’s he voting for in The X Factor?” I can’t say I’m surprised. He must have more important things to do on a Saturday night.

I speak as one stranded in front of the X Factor final. And I gave in and let my daughters vote for their favourites (Alexandra and Eoghan, as it happens) I’ll be glad when it’s over.

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