Category: Religion

Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn AnglicanismLeave a comment
The Holy House, Walsingham
The Holy House, Walsingham

I’ve just returned from pilgrimage to the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in Norfolk. It was my first visit, and I wasn’t sure how it would be, but am glad to say it was entirely positive.

I first had opportunity to go to Walsingham while at theological college in St Michael’s College, Llandaff. The organisers were a couple of fellow students of the all-too-common pompous and precious branch of Anglo-Catholicism, rank and file Forward in Faith. I didn’t go when offered, knowing these colleagues to be theologically shallow and unpleasant to be around. And that was that: Walsingham remained in my mind associated with an exclusive and unwelcoming sect.

That was thirteen years ago. This time I went to Walsingham with my parish: my vicar and nine parishioners. Walsingham remains a centre for Forward in Faith, a place where Anglicans opposed to the ordination of women can pilgrimage and feel at home. However, there is a substantial section of Anglican Catholics, who might also wish to be described as ‘traditionalists’, who not only fully support the ministry of women, but is led by women priests. It is important that this section of the church continue to be represented at the shrine, stopping it from becoming an exclusive gentlemen’s club.

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How Arab learning laid the foundations for the European Renaissance

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn Christianity, Islam5 Comments
Alcázares Reales, Seville
Alcázares Reales, Seville.

I’ve just spent a restful evening on my sofa watching the last of Bettany Hughes‘s somewhat epic series of documentaries The Ancient World with Bettany Hughes: When the Moors Ruled in Europe. It’s always tempting to criticize this kind of documentary (as I have done in the past; mea maxima culpa!) on what it simplifies or leaves out. However, Bettany Hughes has been helped by having a two-hour time slot on More4 (or Mo-Fo as I’ve heard it called) for each episode.

Never explicitly mentioned, When the Moors Ruled in Europe is clearly set against the 21st-century backdrop of the War on Terror. Aired on the evening before the general election in which two parties — UKIP and the BNP — have anti-Islamic policies in their manifestos, this episode serves as a corrective to the unthinking assumptions of white/European/Christendom superiority. For here we glide endlessly through the mesmerising earthly paradises of Al-Andalus, through Granada’s Alhambra and Córdoba’s Grand Mosque (and not to forget Al-Karaouine University, Fez, Morocco), all set against a backdrop of golden mountains. Here we have liberal, tolerant and highly educated Muslims teaching ignorant Christians about ancient Greek learning before finally falling to the Talibanesque Spanish Inquisition. Although this was a little overwrought in places, there are plenty of moments in the documentary in which the complexities of Christian and Muslim relations and politics are explored, especially setting the Reconquista in the context of stability and cooperation among the northern kingdoms and the reliance of the southern kingdoms on mercenary soldiers.

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Thoughts on the Second Sunday of Easter

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn ChristianityLeave a comment

There is something especially visceral about that Locked Room at the moment. The first and second Christian Sundays, were evenings where the nascent congregation gathered in fear, they were terrified, as depicted in the Gospel for Easter 2 — John 20.19–31. A small yet prominent section of the Church of England have picked up on and imported the persecution complex of the US Religious Right, compounded with manufactured cases of religious discrimination towards Christians. The disciples were fearful of a very real persecution beyond that Locked Room, we just have to look at the companion reading from Acts, and the other arrests, imprisonments, beatings and executions bear witness to this. Yet this meeting with the risen Jesus transforms hidden cowards into brave martyrs who throw back the bolts, step into the street and proclaim that ‘You may kill me, but this life in me and this message of life cannot die!’

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Persecution or privilege: the Church Defensive

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn Christianity, FeaturedLeave a comment

Not PersecutedDuring Holy Week, I had a couple of episcopal moments. On Palm Sunday, six bishops signed a letter in the Sunday Torygraph that didn’t use the word ‘persecution’, but the resulting headlines did, and one sermon I’ve heard since has. Archbishop Rowan felt it necessary to say publically that they should get things in perspective in his Easter Letter: hear, hear!

The next day, on Maundy Thursday, the Bishop of London felt it necessary refute ‘persecution’ claims in his chrism sermon, but then he went on to talk about how Christians have to fight against the discrimination aimed at us and battle the tide of secularism (this clunkily segued into the twice-repeated materialist motto ‘love is not an emotion’).

On Easter Sunday evening, Nicky Campbell brought out a TV documentary asking whether Christians are persecuted. The show gave fairly free reign to those who wanted to ramp up the persecution fears, but also got the sane voices of the Bishop of Oxford and Theos think-tank in there. I quite liked the clear outline of why the persecution fear exists: that it is based on

  1. the complex secularising of hegemony,
  2. increased non-Christian immigration
  3. and human-rights legislation.

Whereas the fearmongers, like Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, would point to the secularisation of society as the cause, and crusade for the re-Christianisation of our public spaces, the documentary’s outline gives us more substantial handles for what is happening.

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Meals with Jesus V: Home cooking at Bethany

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn BibleLeave a comment

This article is the fifth in a series on Meals with Jesus which formed part of this year’s Lent course. This fifth is on the pericope of Mary’s anointing of Jesus, John 12·1–11.

The Anointing by Stephen St. Claire
The Anointing by Stephen St. Claire.

There’s no place like home, and this place offers security, love and comfort in the midst of spiraling tensions in Jesus’ ministry. Perhaps we all got too comfortable, and when the love and friendship overflowed in an attempt to push those fears aside, they came right back in with fears and hates expressed by one thought to be a friend.

This house in Bethany — the House of the Lord’s Grace — is the place of Jesus’ greatest victory, raising Lazarus from the dead. Here the Pharisees would only point and whisper, not confront and condemn.

It had been a long journey, with little comfort, so reclining on cushions around a table laden with food, surrounded by friends, was a joy. We were looking forward to celebrating the Passover in Jerusalem, but there were fears of what it might bring.

We smelt it first, as Mary came in with the box after dinner. We didn’t know that scent, but it was Matthew Levi or Judas Iscariot who, in hushed tones, told us of this precious Indian plant. We shifted on our cushions, cleared our throats and examined the patterned cloth that covered the dining table. We couldn’t watch this embarrassing display, and Jesus’ accepting of it. We wished someone would say something.

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My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn Bible, Featured2 Comments
Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani
Eloi, Eloi, lama Sabachthani? by Ann Kim. Oil Stick on canvas, 1998, 50″ x 70″.

Yesterday, being Palm Sunday, we read the Passion Gospel. Even though we should have been reading Luke’s Passion because we are in Year C of lectionary, we ended up with the shorter version of Matthew‘s Passion for some reason. Afterwards there were a few questions about the words of Jesus from the cross, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’. So, I thought I should write some words about this phrase, which appears in both Matthew and Mark:

Mark 15.34:

At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’

καὶ τῇ ἐνάτη ὥρᾳ ἐβόησεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς φωνῇ μεγάλῃ· ελωι ελωι λεμα σαβαχθανι; ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνεθόμενον· ὁ θεός μου ὁ θεός μου, εἰς τί ἐγκατέλιπές με;

Matthew 27.46:

And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’

περὶ δὲ τὴν ἐνάτην ὥραν ἀνεβόησεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς φωνῇ μεγάλῃ λέγων· ηλι ηλι λεμα σαβαχθανι; τοῦτ’ ἔστιν· θεέ μου θεέ μου, ἱνατί με ἐγκατέλιπες;

The main difference between the two versions, apart from Greek grammatical differences are the spellings of the call on God: Mark’s ελωι and Matthew’s ηλι.

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Meals with Jesus IV: Tea with Tarts and Traitors

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This article is the fourth in a series on Meals with Jesus which formed part of this year’s Lent course. This fourth is on the pericope of the Calling of Levi, Luke 5·27–39.

Eating with the tax collectorHe had given us this look that cut off our complaints and told us to go with him to see. What would our families say if they saw us? We hoped no one we knew would see us.

We knew we were not great and holy men, but he must have called us because we are the ordinary, downtrodden Jews. Just like King David, he would raise us from obscurity to splendour. We have great respect for the priests, don’t get us wrong, but they are a bit too lah-di-dah for us. They keep on their Temple schedule without speaking out about the injustices we face under Roman occupation. We always had suspicions that they were in league with our oppressors, and here we find this Levite collecting funds for the Romans and lining his own purse in the process.

We were sure he would do something to rebuke the sinful Levite traitor. We were straining to see and hear as he strode up to the booth. But what he said was familiar, it was those words that filled us with dreadful challenge on the beaches of Galilee, that told us we were his chosen men — “Follow me!”

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Óscar Romero on sin and the liberation struggle

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn ChristianityLeave a comment

Oscar RomeroTomorrow, 24 March, will be the thirtieth anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Óscar Romero of San Salvador. San Romero is remembered for his radical faith that compelled him to take a stand against the US-backed right-wing military government of El Salvador. Although often associated with liberation theology, the Marxist theological movement that began in Latin America, Romero rose through the ranks of the church as a staunch conservative, demanding obedience to the church hierarchy and the government, and being openly critical of Marxist priests and the guerilla fighters.

However, it was the assassination in 1977 of Romero’s friend, the outspoken Jesuit liberation theologian Rutilio Grande García, who set up base church communities (Christian worker’s communes) in the poorest districts of the country, that was something of an epiphany to him, and foreshadowing of his own death. Romero said, “If they have killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path”. Óscar Romero began to speak out against the assassinations and in defence of the poor. He remained critical of the Marxist guerillas, but grew in sympathy for liberation theology.

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Meals with Jesus III: Living on the Edge

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn BibleLeave a comment

This article is the third in a series on Meals with Jesus which formed part of this year’s Lent course. This third is on the pericope of the Gleaning in the Wheat Fields, Luke 6·1–5.

Ruth gleaning
Ruth gleaning.

It’d be wrong to think that it was a whirlwind of dinner invitations that sustained these thirteen vagabonds over their years of wandering hither and thither. Sometimes you must eat what the Lord provides and be thankful for what you can get. Sabbath prayers were over, and the thirteen were on the road again, and their sustenance was the wheat growing at the edge of the fields — plucked, rubbed between the palms of the hands and eaten raw.

The Pharisees saw them, and saw they had committed the serious sin of letting the world of work, politics, poverty and foreign occupation into the sacred time of the sabbath. “By the seventh day, God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.”

Blinded by the need to protect the sabbath from all worldly intrusion, they forgot that it should be a day for the satisfaction of good and right. For the hungry vagabonds on the road, the leftover ears of grain, left in observance to the commandments, was an answer to the sabbath prayers — no more fishers of the seas, but gleaners of what could be found, and reliant of God’s good provision each day.

“Give us today our daily bread” — each day just enough for the day, like the manna in the desert.

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Meals with Jesus II: Creative Catering for Campers

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn BibleLeave a comment

This article is the second of a series on Meals with Jesus which formed part of this year’s Lent course. This second is on the pericope of the Feeding of the 5000, John 6·1–15 [25–59].

Feeding 5000

We could have popped out to the shops to get some sarnies before we came, or boiled some eggs or scrumped some apples, but we didn’t. We could have looked out the hiking boots, change of clothes, tent, sleeping bag and rucksack before we came, but we didn’t. In fact we felt pretty stupid stuck all the way up there in the Golan Heights with nothing but our sandals and the shirts on our backs. Perhaps we thought that there would be catering laid on, but that seems a little daft now: Zebedee’s lads might be good at catching fish, but they’re no Rick Stein!

We came not because we had planned an expedition, but because we had to. There are foreign soldiers on our streets, watching what we do or say, thinking that every one of us could be a Jewish insurgent. In the midst of our national humiliation a new leader came — someone who could inspire and heal and make us feel human again. So we didn’t think, we went, and we followed him and his group up and out to find some space to breathe in great lungfuls of the freedom we desired with all our being.

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