Breaking the Law

I have struggled to decide whether to include this in ‘Crossing the Line’. 

On the one hand I promised not to speak about it.  

On the other, government policy in China today has not changed and if anything, it has become even more aggressive towards people of faith. Many things have changed beyond all recognition over the last 30 years but the continuing arrest and imprisonment of Christians and the latest “Re-education Camps” for Muslims, show that intolerance for religious freedom remains as strong as ever in the Peoples Republic.  

Indeed, religious persecution is alive and well across the world.  It is often systematic, well-established and long term.  Each small story shared builds the picture so in the end I have decided to include it here.  I hope it will be a reminder of the lengths to which regimes will go to suppress religious freedom and the risks which people of faith live with day by day...

Crossing the Line - part 28

While I was working with drug addicts in Hong Kong, I also came across a different Christian group who were on a mission.  Their mission was just as committed, just as dynamic and required just as much courage.  They supported Christians in mainland China who were being continually persecuted for their faith, risking arrest and practising their faith in secret because of the Communist government’s policy.

For Chinese Christians in the latter half of the 20^th Century, life was difficult.  From the beginning of the Cultural Revolution until 1976, all religious expression was banned in China, but churches continued to meet in secret and if anything grew in number.  In the early 1980’s a different tactic emerged, with Christians being invited to register and join the newly resurrected (and state-controlled) Three-Self Patriotic Movement.  Although this might have appeared to be a welcome relaxation, it was a way to monitor and control those who registered, while anyone who did not would still be liable to arrest and imprisonment if caught practising their faith.  This could be for attending unauthorised meetings or having Christian possessions.  Bibles were classified as pornography in China and being found with one was a serious offence.

While some Christians registered, most did not and the greatest desire among underground Christians in China was for Chinese Bibles.  The group I came across smuggled Bibles into China and I volunteered for a trip into the Peoples Republic.

All of this sounds very brave and exciting, but for a westerner, it wasn’t really brave at all.  Such was the desire to keep the persecution of Christians an internal and hidden issue, foreign nationals caught with Bibles were merely given a telling off and then allowed to continue their trip without the Bibles they brought.  The authorities would even give receipts to foreign nationals for any Bibles confiscated which could then be used to reclaim the Bibles when they left the country.  The people who took the real risks were the Chinese nationals who received the Bibles.  For them, the future could be very bleak if caught.

This in turn created an opportunity however.  Foreign nationals could be useful in smuggling Bibles across the border from Hong Kong into China, reducing the risk for Chinese Christians at the border.  I volunteered, booked a few days off, and waited for instructions.

The day came and I was paired up with another English man (let’s call him Andy) who had also volunteered.  We were given 2 back-packs full of Bibles, along with travel documents, tickets and verbal instructions for where and when to hand over our precious cargo.  We found ourselves on the express train from Hong Kong to Guangzhou with our heavy backpacks and hearts beating a little faster than usual.

It was only a short journey – just over 100 miles – but looking out of the train window as we crossed the border into China revealed a very different world.  It felt like travelling back in time as famers came into view, ploughing with water buffalo or working their way across the paddy fields in long human chains.  Rural life in China was just the same as it had been for centuries and I wondered what these rural people made of our sleek, modern express train cutting its way through their landscape.

Andy and I both knew that crossing the border was the easy part.  There were no formalities on the train.  All the document checks would take place at the station in Guangzhou, along with the x-ray scanners for all baggage.  Everyone would disembark and be processed before being welcomed as foreign guests into China.  Foreigners were very welcome in southern China because of the foreign currency we brought.  At that time, visitors could only exchange their dollars or pounds for Foreign Exchange Certificates (FEC) rather than regular currency to ensure that the government received it all.  What is more, FECs could only be spent at authorised shops and restaurants which were owned and controlled by the state, so it was a win-win for the Communist party.

We had our FECs along with our visas but getting through the station in Guangzhou would be the challenge.  To ensure no undesirable foreign material came into the country, every bag was scanned, and then opened if anything suspicious was seen. 

There were only two tactics which could enable Bible smugglers like us to get through. 

The first was to pray, and we had been told how many times this had worked with scanner operators distracted just for a moment when bags went through or technical problems blacking out the screen at the crucial moment.

Secondly, if you were one of first passengers to reach the border controls, there was a chance that the bag scanners were not yet being monitored, as the security staff only started getting themselves ready once the train arrived.  The quick passenger might just get to the scanners before they were fully functional or before the operative had focused on the job in hand. This wasn’t easy however, because the sight of someone with a heavy backpack running from the train through the crowds would look more than a little suspicious.  Drawing attention to oneself was not the way to get through!

So inwardly we prayed and practically we took our places at the train doors as we approached Guangzhou, hoping to be the first out.

When the train arrived, I got off first and couldn’t believe what I saw.  As I stepped onto the platform, there was a Chinese state guide meeting a small group of American tourists in the next carriage.  She was shouting at the small group. “Quickly, quickly, follow me to miss queues!” and immediately led them off at high speed through the station to the border control!  I tagged onto the back of the group and found myself being led by a state official and waved through all the preliminary checks until we reached the final obstacle – passport stamping and the scanners.  I was there in record time and without arousing any suspicion! 

Then I simply peeled off from the group, went to different booth and presented myself to the border guard.  He checked my papers and asked me the purpose of my visit.  I pointed to my backpack and said “Back-packing!”  He stamped my passport, and signalled for me to put the backpack onto the conveyor belt.  I did this with my heart in my mouth, but as it moved through the scanner I realised there was no one sitting in the scanner monitor’s chair yet.  My bag came out the other side.  I picked it up, swung it onto my back, and walked slowly into the crowd of people waiting to meet friends and relatives on the other side.  I had done it – or rather, God had!

My colleague Andy was not so fortunate.  We had deliberately planned to exit from different doors of the train and he hadn’t seen the group I latched onto.  Not knowing which way to go, he ended up being swept up in the crowd making their way slowly to the controls.  As soon as his bag disappeared into the scanner, the belt stopped, and two police officers appeared at his side.  He was led away into a side room where his backpack was unpacked slowly before his eyes in silence.  The intention was intimidation rather than threat of action, but it felt like one and the same.  After what seemed like an age, a more senior officer entered the room and spoke to him in English, asking him why he was bringing pornography into China to corrupt the people.  Then he was shouted at, photographed and left on his own for a while.  After another long period in lonely silence someone else came in, gave him the empty back-pack, passport & a receipt for the Bibles before letting him go.

Meanwhile, waiting in the station my initial joy and elation was changing to worry.  As the last passengers emerged from security I knew what had happened. Andy had been caught.  As I stood in the crowded station getting increasingly anxious, I found it hugely ironic that people kept coming up to me, openly trying to sell me drugs in broken English.  Some contraband was clearly less important than others in China.

When Andy finally emerged, He saw me but headed off in a different direction.  He and I had both thought the same thing - was he being followed?  Were the police checking to see if he was on his own?  For about half an hour he and I wandered separately around the huge station square outside, looking at stalls, consulting guidebooks, and looking for a tail.  Only when he was sure there was no one following him, did he come over and tell me what had happened.  He was shaken but his greatest concern was for the people who would be let down, and that he didn’t compromise their safety. 

Our rendezvous to pass on the remaining Bibles in my backpack was not until dusk and as it was now late morning, we had a most of the day to fill so we decided to carry on with the day as planned. We had been told of an amazing restaurant for foreign visitors and had a map of tourist sites in Guangzhou, so we pressed on, hoping that the drama of the day was now behind us.

Making our way to the restaurant was a crash course in true Chinese culture.  Hong Kong could feel like it was Chinese, but in the 1980’s it was very different to the reality of the People’s Republic.

The first thing we noticed was that everyone seemed to dress and act the same.  Chinese tunics, baggy trousers and sandals seemed to be compulsorily with only slight variation in colour, age and condition.  Then there were the bicycles which were everywhere!  The only cars we saw were taxis for the tourists which ironically, had to drive at the same speed as the bicycles because there was no other way through the throng.

We also became aware of older ladies sitting at the corners of each road junction.  With their red armbands and Mao’s Little Red Book overtly sticking out of their tunic pocket, they simply sat there with inscrutable faces and watched.  These were the committed party members I had heard about, who were paid a token to watch their neighbourhood every day and simply report back anything which was out of the ordinary.  In China, it was ‘Big Sister’ who was watching you!

But the thing that really caught us out was very practical.  

Every sign was written in Chinese characters – street names, directions, information – everything was in a language we could not read.  It may sound obvious, but this came as a completely disempowering shock.  While I was learning spoken Cantonese, I had no idea how to read.  In Hong Kong, all signs were bi-lingual, appearing in Chinese and English; here in China, trying to read a language with no alphabet left us lost. I remember thinking that I now knew something of what it must be like to be illiterate in a strange place.

As a result, we were totally unable to find our way around and after giving up trying to find the restaurant, we finally flagged down a taxi.  We pointed to it on our tourist map and were there in no time.

When we entered the restaurant, we saw yet another side to China.  Sheer opulence.  Inside the ornate doors of the restaurant, we found ourselves in a 3 story lobby with a huge ornamental waterfall cascading down rocky pools with exotic birds perched on the intertwining vegetation.  Around the waterfall, a double marble staircase curved its way up to the main restaurant, which was sumptuously filled with lacquer furniture and traditional carved screens embedded with jade.  The waiters were immaculately turned out in white uniforms and all spoke English. 

It was such a contrast to the ox-ploughing farmers, the throngs of bicycles, and the clothed uniformity of their riders outside.  This was the China which the People’s Republic wanted to showcase to visiting tourists spending their FECs and ordinary Chinese people were not allowed in.  We felt immediately under-dressed in our trainers, jeans and tee-shirts, but without hesitation we were welcomed and shown to a table with its own bamboo tree growing beside it.

The greatest shock was yet to come.  As we were handed the menu which was more like a book with its 30 or so pages, we opened it up to the first page.  After being relieved to find it printed in both Chinese and English, we looked down the list of dishes.  They were all priced in both FECs and US dollars, and to our horror, none of them cost less than $100 per dish!

We couldn’t afford that!  We had less than $100 dollars in FECs to see us through the entire trip.  What were we going to do now?

Hurriedly we turned the page and found the dishes on page two were a little cheaper, if still beyond our means.  Page three prices were a little cheaper again and this continued as we made our way through the menu until finally, on the very last page were a list of dishes in small print, priced only in FECs.  At last there was something we could afford!

But now the issue was that they were too cheap.  Each item on the last page cost just pennies, the most expensive being the equivalent of less than £1 sterling.  Surely these must be tiny side dishes, given the prices in the rest of the menu.

So when the waiter came to take our order, we ordered from this last page, and we ordered lots of them, eight I think, to make up for the bite size morsels we expected.  For just a moment, the waiter looked at us with some surprise breaking through his professional, inscrutable expression but he wrote down the order and returned to the kitchen.

A few minutes later our food arrived, or rather a procession emerged from the kitchen.   The first person in the procession was carrying a table; the second, clean table linen to place upon it; the remaining waiters were each carrying the food we had ordered which were not tiny morsels, but rather silver serving trays piled high with each dish on our order.

To our great embarrassment, the food we had ordered filled both tables!  It was a banquet which would have fed a dozen people and here we were, sharing it between the two of us!  There was food everywhere and it was excellent!

As we tried to sample at least some of each dish, we wondered how on earth this could be, but then noticed that there were a few Chinese eating in the restaurant.  They were smartly dressed.  They had an aura about them, as you would find in someone of high status.  We watched the way in which the waiters served them, with even greater deference than they gave to the tourists.  They also had dishes like ours.  We realised that they must be senior Communist Party officials from the city, who were allowed by virtue of their party rank to eat there, but would not be able to pay the prices aimed at foreign visitors.  By working our way through the menu, persevering out of necessity to the page we could afford, we had stumbled on the page for local Communist Party leaders and dignitaries.

It was the biggest, cheapest meal I have ever been served in my life.  The whole bill came to less than $10 and our only shame was that we couldn’t eat more.  I hope the food did not go to waste.

Emerging from the restaurant an hour later feeling very full, we could see in the distance the high-rise White Swan Hotel, which was another place on the tourist map.  It was in the old diplomatic and trading quarter of Guangzhou where, in colonial times western nationals lived under their own laws rather than Chinese law.  It was an enclave of western power and culture when Canton (as it was known) was the only foreign gateway into the huge Chinese trading market.  The tree lined avenues of colonial style buildings were still there, and it was a peculiar contrast to the rest of the city, even in their shabby dilapidated state.  We decided we would walk off some of our lunch, heading towards this landmark. 

It was during this journey that we realised that we were not alone after all.

As we made our rather hap-hazard way through the blocks of streets towards our distant but occasionally visible goal, we realised that one man was making the same turnings we were.  We tested our suspicion by sitting in a park for about 20 minutes.  He seemed to disappear, but then when we set off again, he re-emerged behind us.  

A chill went down our spines.

Had he been there right from the railway station?  Had he been dispatched because Andy had been caught with Bibles?  Did he suspect that I still had a back-pack of Bibles and would be meeting someone to hand them over?  That would be an enormous risk for the local contact we were due to meet.  We couldn’t lead our follower to the rendezvous or else the consequences would be catastrophic for the local Chinese Christian.

In a rather more sombre mood we continued to make our way to the White Swan Hotel and sat down for coffee in their spacious lobby.  He didn’t follow us inside but a cursory glance through the front doors half an hour later revealed him still to be outside, waiting for us to leave.  There was no mistake.

Somewhat nervously, we hatched a plan.  We would carry on as normal, visiting the tourist areas and using the White Swan as a base until the time approached for the handover.  If he was still there we would swap over the Bibles to Andy’s back-pack and split up.  He could only follow one of us, and our hope was that he would follow me because I was the one who was not caught at the railway station.  If this happened, then Andy would make the rendezvous as planned as I led our follower in the opposite direction.  If it didn’t work and he was still being followed, we would take the Bibles back to Hong Kong with us.  The risk would be too great.

As dusk started to fall, we transferred the Bibles in the toilets at the hotel.  We walked out of the front door, exchanged a short conversation, and went our separate ways. My heart was in my mouth and we were both silently praying for him to follow me.  To begin with, I couldn’t see him as I walked away.  Had we called it wrong?  Or was he hesitating, trying to decide what to do?  After about five minutes I stopped by the Pearl River and sat down at a viewing point.  As I looked around at the boats, the buildings along the waterfront and the continuing throng of cyclists behind me, I saw him leaning against a tree.  It had worked!

Some distance away, Andy made the rendezvous and handed over the Bibles without a hitch.

The only thing remaining for us was to get back to Hong Kong.  We were booked on the overnight ferry which made its way down the Pearl River to Hong Kong at its estuary.  As we prepared to board the boat, we had to go through passport control once again. Then as we boarded, we saw the Red Ensign flying from the stern and realised that we were now technically back in British jurisdiction.  The feeling of relief was palpable and we both broke into spontaneous nervous laughter!

As the boat made its way slowly out of Guangzhou we began to relax, and then to reflect on what it must be like to live under that kind of tension all the time.  For our Chinese brothers and sisters who would be receiving those Bibles, they would carry with them the possibility of being discovered every single day.  For them, this was not some day trip with minimal personal risk.  This was a costly way of life.  Being found with a Bible would have grave consequences for them and their families – and yet having a Bible meant so much to them.

In that short journey I learned so much about the commitment of Christians around the world who live in countries where it is not safe to be a Christian.  Despite the threats of governments, lynch-mobs and terrorists, Christians today in countries like China, Pakistan, and Egypt face so many untold dangers alongside the few we hear about in the West. It is not just Christians who suffer this of course.  Rohingya and Weija Muslims are both being persecuted by different secular regimes in different countries with different motives.  Sikhs and Christians are both being persecuted in India according to UK Members of Parliament who raised the issue with the Indian president this year.

What is remarkable is the steadfast faith of those who are persecuted.  I was deeply inspired by Chinese Christians who chose to risk their freedom by having a Bible.  I bet they read it more than we do in our comfortable western democracies.

They love it enough to live their lives in a constant state of breaking the law, aware of the consequences and wholly dependant on God.  They are the real heroes and this story is for them.

Click here for an Introduction to Crossing the Line

Growing in confidence

Crossing the Line - part 27

As the weeks and months at Tai Tam went by, I began to grow into the pattern of life there.

I developed my own kind of harmony with the routine of day to day life.  I discovered my niche in our ever changing community of brothers and helpers. I discovered the things I liked to do on my day off each week and the things I didn’t. 

My fellow western helpers were a wonderfully mixed bunch of people, drawn mostly from the UK, USA, & New Zealand.  I got used to being called ‘Beenie’ by my Kiwi colleagues and ‘Ah Bey-neigh’ by the Chinese brothers.  We were also blessed with 2 or 3 Chinese helpers at any one time, themselves ex-addicts who had stayed within the ministry to help others.  They understood 10 times more than us westerners of what was being said around us and had the wisdom to share with us the things we needed to know, without telling us too much.  Sometimes, in difficult moments, it was better not to understand what was being said to you in Cantonese, making it easier to remain calm & collected!  One of them also acted as translator for us in meetings and in 1-1 chats with individual brothers – a role which was very demanding.

Living in a Cantonese speaking world with 20 teachers, (all the brothers at Tai Tam) the basic Cantonese which my vicar back in London had taught me came into its own.  What had felt unnatural and incomprehensible in London, now felt very natural and I started to learn quickly without making too many mistakes.  In a tonal language it is easy to get things wrong without realising.  In an airport for example, the same words with different tonal inflections means ‘to catch a plane’ or ‘hit the waiter’.  One of our helpers got confused between the words for sorry (Dur’me ju) and praise the Lord (Jan’me Ju) and wondered why people looked at her strangely when she bumped into them on the busy Hong Kong streets and immediately exclaimed “Praise the Lord!”

The Cantonese I learned was rather peculiar though.  Within a few months I could talk about drugs, being filled with the Holy Spirit and receiving the gifts of the Spirit but couldn’t order a meal in a Cantonese restaurant.  I also learned when to speak Cantonese and when to speak English.  Given that most of my teachers were ex-triads, the Cantonese that they taught me was more like learning English from a mobster in New York.  Occasionally I was invited out to lunch or afternoon tea with some of the more respectable members of the Church congregation.  I soon learned not to try out my Cantonese there as I could see their eyebrows rise or their jaws drop at the street Cantonese which came out of my mouth – English was always the better option there!

On my days off I enjoyed doing 2 things – breakfast and walking.  The best place for breakfast was the YWCA in Wanchai.  Back in 1988 it was right on the harbour front and its restaurant had the most beautiful panoramic view of Hong Kong, Kowloon and the harbour in between.  Their international buffet breakfast was served from 7:30am – 11am and you could eat all you wanted for $20HK (less than £2).  I would go there to eat, drink coffee and write letters most mornings on my days off and then decide which district of Hong Kong I was going to walk around for the rest of the day.

I also found that my guitar was in demand after all.  I played for the evening worship time at Tai Tam most evenings, and learned to sing in Cantonese. Most of the brothers wanted to learn to play guitar too, so I would try to teach them as best as I could.  Soon I learned the fluid, effortless way of leading worship in English and Cantonese which fitted the sung worship at St Stephens Society.  When the time came for our worship leader at the weekly helper’s meeting to return to the UK, I was asked to take his place.  This was an immense and unexpected honour. 

The weekly western helper’s meeting was the only time all of the westerners came together from the different parts of the ministry.  There were between 30-40 of us and Jackie Pullinger would be there to lead the meeting as a whole.  It was a cross between prayer, praise and therapy as we could all let our hair down for a couple of hours, share the things which had been happening (good and bad) and support one another with a hug of empathy, a smile of encouragement or prayer ministry for strength or healing.  Sung worship would normally fill about half of the two hours we spent together so being asked to lead this was huge.  Soon afterwards I was also asked to join the Sunday worship group for church on the Sundays I was there.

I learned so much from both these experiences about what brings people close to God, and how to lead worship simply, without manipulating people’s emotions, while letting God do what he wants to do in their lives.  For all Jackie’s fame as a Charismatic icon, she was very down to earth, and hated seeing people manipulated by overly emotional songs or over-spiritualising everything.  I remember Jackie being prayed with at one meeting because she was feeling particularly low and tired at the time.  Someone shared a picture of a wide river which she was trying to cross, where the current was so strong that it almost swept her away.  Then a word of prophecy was shared which said, “Don’t worry Jackie – God is with you and you will reach the other side safely.”  After everyone had finished praying with her, she leaned over to me and whispered, “I can cross the rivers – it’s coming back to get everyone else that gets me down!”

Most of all though, I learned a different way of Christian life and ministry, one which would change my whole outlook and sense of calling for life.

Jackie Pullinger’s approach to ministry was simple.  Start with the poor.  Jesus always started with the poor, and if you minister to the poor, the rich will sit up and take notice.  So if you want to reach the world with the Good News of the Gospel, start with the poor.  This might not sound that radical, but it was completely different to my experience in the Church of England where anyone looking in on our congregations would assume that Jesus came for the educated middle class and little else!

Jesus’ first sermon at Nazareth sets the scene.  He read from the prophet Isaiah,

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
Because the Lord has anointed me,
To bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted,
To proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.
(Isaiah 61)

As he passed the scroll back to the synagogue official he said, “Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4)

Today this passage is often referred to as the Nazareth manifesto.  Jesus setting out his stall at the outset of his public ministry, and of all the thousands of verses in the Old Testament, he chose these as the heart of what he was about – good news to the poor - and here in Hong Kong, for the first time, that is what I was witnessing.  The poor were being put first.  The broken hearted, prisoners and captives being set free and healed, not as an afterthought, but at the very core of God’s plan.  I knew there were those in the UK who advocated this.  David Shepherd’s book “Bias to the Poor” made similar arguments in the early 80’s, but the Church of England is a slow and ponderous institution and there was also a backlash to the suggestion that God might have favourites (especially if you were not one of them!)

Here I saw the poor being put first and valued as I had never seen before.  I saw love transforming lives and began to read the Gospels afresh.  I saw that almost invariably the first people Jesus went to were the sinners, outcasts and sick; those on the margins of society; those who were looked down on by the religious and political classes. Why should the church of today be doing things any differently?  Perhaps because we have become the religious and political class of our day?

I also realised that it was the difference he made to people’s lives which resulted in them putting their faith in him.  He didn’t bombard them with clever arguments and then ask them to decide.  He simply poured out the Father’s love upon them and left the response to them.  In the ‘enlightened’ west, we focus on intellectual argument.  The church tries to convince people of the case for Christianity, of the historical evidence, of the philosophical integrity of the Gospel.  That is what most evangelistic sermons are about; putting together a case for the Christian faith, and hoping it will persuade people to sign up.  But the poor are not interested in intellectual arguments.  If you don’t know where your next meal is coming from, the intellectual integrity of a belief system is not your top priority – what you want to know is ‘Does it work?’!

I referred in Walled City to faith in a god called Jesus who helps heroin addicts.  When addicts came to our meetings in Walled City, they knew nothing about Jesus except this and just as we read in the New Testament, God poured out his love upon them.  They met with God within a few minutes of walking inside the door as they were filled with the Holy Spirit and chose to put their trust in him.  They were still heroin addicts but God poured out is Spirit on them.  They were still triad members, but God poured out his Spirit on them.  They would be going home from the meeting into their often horrendous way of life, but God poured out his Spirit on them.

This in turn challenged my unspoken understanding of how God works.  All through my Christian life, I had mistakenly thought that you could only experience more of God if you understood more about him and changed your life to be more like him.  Yet at Walled City and Tai Tam, I saw God pouring out his Spirit on people who knew nothing and had not yet changed!  On people who were drug dealers, pimps, enforcers, and thugs.  Why?  Because they knew their need of him.  They didn’t have to believe the right things before God would work in their lives.  They simply needed to open their hearts to him.

I saw this in many different ways.  There was one brother at Tai Tam who was always difficult and eventually he ran away.  As often happened when brothers ran away, he came to the next Walled City meeting regretting his decision to leave.  He was visibly high on heroin and he looked a mess.  We prayed with him, more out of duty than conviction.  Yet when it came to our time of worship, God used him to bring a message to the whole meeting.  It was one of the most beautiful words of prophecy I have ever heard, and as a result, half a dozen hardened men broke down in tears and asked for prayer to live a new life. He was used by God more powerfully than anything I did that night.

In the Gospels I began to realise that Jesus poured out healing and love on people unconditionally.  Whether they chose to follow him or shout “Crucify”, he healed, blessed, forgave and set people free.

I saw that when he called the disciples, he didn’t give them a lecture and a theology test before asking them to be his disciples.  He simply said follow me.  It was as they spent time with him, that they slowly (often very slowly) began to understand who he was and what he had come to do.  Now I was beginning to understand in a new way too.

I mentioned last week in Tai Tam to our evening worship time, when songs of praise were sung with heart and soul, but that didn’t always make me smile.  During a particularly difficult time with some brothers, I remember looking at their angelic faces during one of these times of worship and thinking, “You hypocrites!  An hour ago you were being manipulative, selfish and putting us through hell!  Don’t think you can simply put on your worship face and pretend it never happened!”  In the quietness a few minutes later however, God was gracious enough to speak to me and said, “When you see them praise me, you are looking at who they really are.  That is the real person I created.  And now I have given them new life and that is what you see in worship.  The person you see when they make life difficult – that is not them anymore.  That is their old life which is passing away.”  It was me that had jumped to the wrong conclusions, and it was my way of thinking which needed to be turned on its head!

When Jackie was asked about the success rate at St Stephens Society, she always said it was 100%.  This often puzzled the journalist or visitor who was asking because they knew not everyone stuck with the programme.  For Jackie however, success was not defined by the outcome in their addiction, because even if they dropped out, they went away with Jesus in their hearts and whenever they came back, she welcomed them as brothers in Christ, ready for the next step of their walk with him.

In Hong Kong I discovered a new God.  A God who is generous beyond our wildest dreams.  A God who loves the poor, the broken-hearted and the captive, and puts them first.  A God who uses the most unlikely people to bless others.  A God who doesn’t let go.  A God who pours out his Spirit on people according to their need, rather than as a reward.  A God who, having given everything on the cross, still gives more.

This God is called Jesus.  I knew him before, but much more dimly.  I thought I knew him well, but I

discovered that my understanding of him had such a long way to go.

After a few months, I finally got my hair cut; not because I was pressured or bullied into it; not because I was threatened with having my pony tail it cut off as I slept (although I was!)   It was because I came to realise that my long hair was a barrier between me and some of the brothers who found it hard to accept.  We made the event into a celebration at Tai Tam with everyone gathered around as the scissors did their work and a huge cheer went up as I was handed the hair, held together by a hairband.  We ate celebration cake together. 

I did it because I saw that it stood in the way of our relationship as brothers in Christ. We are all equal before God and all pilgrims on the road. 

Sometimes less is more.

Click here for part 28 - Breaking the Law

Click here for an introduction to Crossing the Line

Walsingham Baby

Today, on his birthday, we interred my Father's ashes in Puddletown church yard, alongside my Mum's.

After his death last year, I posted 'Shilvia Shishishons' - a tribute to his calling to ordination.  Today, I would like to post a short joint tribute to him and my Mum, in gratitude for the way in which I came into the world.

It has taught me never to dismiss the faith of others - even when it may seem very different to my own...

"Getting into parish life did nothing to soften my parents’ Anglo-Catholic fervour.

My dad never seemed to be out of his 39 button cassock with biretta on special occasions.  They were both Oblates at CSMV, the convent where mum had been a nun, and they made regular pilgrimages to the Shrine of Our Lady in Walsingham.

After a second curacy in Doncaster, they moved south to High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, where dad was priest in charge of the church at Downley.  He was responsible for a daughter church of the infamous parish of West Wycombe where Sir Francis Dashwood founded the ‘Hellfire Club’ in 18th century and carved caves out of the chalk beneath the parish church for their hedonistic rituals.

The church of St James the Great at Downley Common was much less salubrious.  The initial builders planned a huge church, but only the Sanctuary was ever built which left one whole side of the building sheeted in wood and corrugated iron as a makeshift wall.  Nevertheless life on the Common was a long way from the industrial north and they embraced this new environment.  Irene took on her role as ‘vicar’s wife’ and David served the village community as priest and kept close to his roots by joining the Labour Party.

There was one thing missing from their lives however.  Irene in particular, longed for a baby – but they tried without success.  Long term medical concerns about the health of her womb did not help and they began to wonder if they would ever have children.

Then in 1962, they made the journey to Walsingham with a special intention.  They drank the water from the sacred well, and lit a candle at the shrine of Our Lady, and asked Mary for her prayers for a child.

The thought of not having children grieved Irene deeply, and I am reminded of Hannah praying for a child in 1 Samuel 1 “in deep anguish… praying in her heart… pouring out her soul to the Lord”.  Hannah made a deal with God that if he heard her prayer and gave her a son, she would dedicate him to God for all the days of his life.  I sometimes wonder if Irene made a similar deal with God.

Whether she did or not, their prayers were answered.  From Walsingham, they went for a short holiday in Dorset, and 9 months later I was born in January 1963 at “The Shrubbery” in High Wycombe – a most peculiar name for a maternity unit.

Just as Hannah named her son Samuel ‘because I asked the Lord for him’, Irene and David named me Benedict which means blessing.  Every year in my childhood, we would make the trip to Walsingham to give thanks at the Shrine of Our Lady.  Often this would be during the big annual pilgrimage in May, and we would join with other pilgrims in the great procession and open-air Mass, singing the Walsingham hymn as we processed past the demonstrators from the Protestant Truth Society who were condemning such idolatry.

As an Evangelical Christian now, I am not sure what I think of such overwhelming devotion to Mary, but I can never forget that I was born after heart-felt prayer at the Shrine of Our Lady in Walsingham.  Sometimes it feels like a private joke between me and God, when I hear fellow evangelicals being disparaging about a more Catholic spirituality, but it has also taught me an important lesson.  We may not always understand the faith and spirituality of others.  Sometimes we are too eager to dismiss other expressions of faith as mistaken or wrong.  But if God is happy to be at work through those expressions of faith, who are we to dismiss or condemn.

Much later in my teenage years, I remember hearing a South American Pentecostal preacher called Juan Carlos Ortez talking about his children when he returns home from a preaching tour.  His son would come up to him and ask him to play tennis, “Oh dad, I’ve been waiting for you to come back so I can play tennis again.”  Then his daughter would come up to him and ask him to play tennis, “Oh dad, I’ve been waiting for you to come back so I can play tennis again.”   So he would ask them, “Why don’t you play tennis with each other?” and they each had their reasons why they wouldn’t play together; excuses like “He always hits the ball too hard” and “She always loses the balls”.  In the end, he would play tennis with his son and he would play tennis with his daughter – but he also longed for them to play tennis with each other.

Too often that is what we are like as Christians – all wanting to play with God, but full of excuses why we won’t play with each other.  We often separate ourselves from other Christians or other Churches.  We choose who we will play with, work with, pray with – but in the end, we are all children of God.

So in the end, I thank God that I am a Walsingham baby, even if it does not fit my neatly worked out theology.  It reminds me that walking with God is often much messier than our well-ordered categories, and being a Christian is, above all else, about walking with God.

Modern Parable for the CofE

So I went to my local cinema with a friend.

We got to the box office to buy our tickets, but when we said which film we wanted to see, the cinema usher suddenly looked uncomfortable.  The colour slowly drained from her cheeks.

After an agonising pause, she finally said, “I’m sorry but this film isn’t really for you.  It’s for other people… you know, people who aren’t like you.”

My friend and I stood there, caught somewhere between amazement and incredulity.  We began to argue with the usher.  “What do you mean – it’s not for us?  Why can’t we go in?  What sort of cinema is this anyway?”

The more we argued, the more uncomfortable she looked, mumbling things like, “I know, I know... it doesn’t seem fair…  If it were up to me, I would let you in… you are more than welcome to see other films, but not this one – its company policy.”

We stood our ground, continued to argue and after a while, she offered to talk to the cinema manager and see what he could do.  While this was far from ideal, we reluctantly agreed and she disappeared into his office, leaving us standing there wondering if it was really worth staying.

In the end, we decided to wait, and eventually she came back with a smile.

“I’ve talked to the manager, and he doesn’t agree with the company policy either, but his hands are tied.  We can’t sell you tickets to that film – but we can get around it!   If you want, I can sneak you in through the side door, and sit you in a corner where no one will see you.  I’m afraid you won’t be able the whole screen, but you will get the gist of the film you want to see.”

Now we were completely incredulous.

“But” she continued, “you have to agree not to tell anybody, and you mustn’t let anyone see you, and if you hear certain words – words like ‘thanksgiving’ or ‘blessing’ or ‘marriage’ or ‘ring’ – you must put your hands over your ears and remember that those words don’t apply to you.”

Now we didn’t know what to do.  We really wanted to see the film.  We had been looking forward to it, ever since it came out.  We had made a commitment to each other to see it together.

Yet now, faced with all these conditions… faced with the way we were being treated… faced with all the difficulty our presence was creating… we just felt a mixture of angry, deflated, and sad.  All the joy and excitement had gone.

Should we stay and take what we’ve been offered, even though it’s not what we want?  Should we walk away?  Find another cinema?  Surely they can’t all be like this? Perhaps we should just wait for the DVD? But that wouldn’t be the same either...

The cinema usher asked us again, “So… do you want me to sneak you in?”

Tell us, Church of England, what should we do?

Soundtrack for Holy Week - Maundy Thursday

Now the momentous events of Holy Week really start to unfold.

The tension of the week has been building as we approach the story of the Passion - and today it begins.

I have always associated Maundy Thursday with sadness.  The poignancy of the Last Supper - the anguished prayers in Gethsemane waiting for Judas and the guards to arrive - the betrayal, arrest and midnight trial.

I have been fed by songs like "Stay here, keep watch with me" from Taize as I have kept the watch of prayer after the Maundy Thursday service.

But there is another side to Maundy Thursday - the sense that finally, it has all begun.  All that Jesus was leading up to - all that he had been preparing for - everything his life had been waiting for, was now about to unfold.

Time and time again Jesus has told his disciples of coming arrest, death and rising in Jerusalem, and now it was underway.

So today's song is not one of sadness, but one of steely determination and quiet confidence.

It is 'Hello Hurricane' by Switchfoot - the waiting was over...

I've been watching the skies
They've been turning blood red
Not a doubt in my mind anymore
There's a storm up ahead

Hello hurricane
You're not enough
Hello hurricane
You can't silence my love
I've got doors and windows boarded up
All your dead end fury is not enough
You can't silence my love, my love

Every thing I have I count as loss
Everything I have is stripped away
Before I started building
I counted up these costs
There's nothing left for you to take away

Hello hurricane
You're not enough
Hello hurricane
You can't silence my love
I've got doors and windows boarded up
All your dead end fury is not enough
You can't silence my love

To view the other Soundtracks for Holy Week follow the links below:

• Palm Sunday
• Monday - Mary anoints Jesus
• Tuesday - Judas
• Wednesday - Peter
• Maundy Thursday
• Good Friday
• Easter Eve
• Easter Sunday - He is Risen!

More or less human..?

Hollywood and  a  prominent scientific body are both addressing the issue of bio-medical ethics in very different ways this summer.  Both are highlighting  the issues behind the use of human tissue and DNA in animals for research.

Predictably, the Hollywood approach in 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes'  (released in the UK this week) treads the well worn apocalyptic  route - the scientific creation of a 'more human' ape which is then mistreated and rebels, leading to a battle between humans and apes for world supremacy.

The Academy of Medical Sciences, on the other hand, is calling for better regulation on the increasing use of human material in animals for medical research.  This is necessary, they argue, otherwise  we might find ourselves faced with a scientific 'fete accompli' of genetic hybrids with increasingly human attributes.

In short, the creation of a mice with 'human' livers is one thing (and already exists) but an ape with a 'human' brain would be quite different.

Potentially this is a huge issue.  As genetic and stem cell research develops, the ethical issues about using human material in animal research raises significant moral, theological and ethical questions for the human race.  The definition of what constitutes a 'human being' may in time come under increasing scrutiny if elements of 'personhood'  in animals are artificially developed in such experiments.

And yet the ethics of making animals 'more human' seems to make few waves in the Church.  The Church of England did contribute to the Academy's consultation last year, although my guess is that few people are aware of the document, never mind its conclusions.  (Find it at http://www.churchofengland.org/media/45701/achmresp.pdf)

The Church's response to the Academy takes a pragmatic approach.  It considers possible definitions of what constitutes a human being as well as potential issues of 'personhood' in relation to developing animal research.  It concludes that most current experiments would seem to be ok, but there is a line to be drawn when we create something which is more human than animal (wherever that line might be).  It seems to be ok to make animals 'more human' as long as we don't go too far.  The response is measured, sensible, and well argued, despite the fact that the balance it tries to establish will not engender universal agreement among Christians.

When I compare this to the church's debate of homosexuality, I find a huge contrast.

Unlike bio-genetic research, the church's position on homosexuality makes huge waves, and it is not at all pragmatic.   While giving the green light to making animals 'more human' , the church's response to homosexuals is to make them 'less human'.  It does this by telling them that God requires them to set aside a fundamental part of their humanity -  their longing to give and receive love in a mutual intimate relationship with someone they love.  The potential for such relationships is at the very heart of what it means to be human and when we deny LGB&T people this possibility, we reduce their humanity in the name of God.

In short -  the Church of England seems to think that it is ok to make animals more human, but not ok for homosexuals to be fully human.

The irony is that many of the issues which the Church of England has grappled with in human/animal experiments resonate clearly with the Church's ongoing e debate on sexuality!

In its response to the Academy, the Mission and Public Affairs Council of the Church of England deals with the question of what is considered 'natural' or 'unnatural' by noting that:

'Research may challenge some of our most fundamental beliefs and presuppositions but this is not sufficient reason to prohibit or to restrict it.'

and yet there are many Christians today who continue to regard homosexual relationships as 'unnatural' despite evidence to the contrary and the Church colludes with this world-view.

It goes on to say that.. 

Many scientific or medical techniques and practices that most people currently accept, such as organ transplantation or the use of psychiatric drugs were once widely deemed to be unacceptable because they challenged prevalent interpretations of human identity and personality. Fundamental beliefs may, at times, act as an initial defence mechanism against untrammelled experimentation but it is correct to challenge such beliefs and to engage in thoroughgoing discussion with regard to their veracity and significance.

and yet the Church has not allowed such an open approach to developing understandings around perceptions of sexuality.

The response also considers other concerns  which resonate with debates over sexuality, namely that such experiments on animals

·         will lead to moral or societal confusion

·         is an affront to human dignity

These concerns are often raised by those opposed to the acceptance and blessing of same-sex relationships, and yet the CofE considers none of these to be insurmountable in bio-genetic research.  So why are they insurmountable when it comes to allowing LGB&T people to express their humanity fully?

Perhaps this confusion arises from a misunderstanding of the role of God's laws.   I recently heard an evangelical theological college lecturer teach that "God's laws are there to make us more fully human". 

If this is the basic premise, then those opposed to blessing same-sex relationships can claim that obeying laws against same-sex acts makes homosexuals more human, not less.

But there is a fundamental error in this understanding of God's law.

It is God who makes us fully human at our creation in the womb - we are all born fully human irrespective of obedience or not to God's laws - and anything which is fully human cannot be made more fully human!   The purpose of God's law is to enable us to express that humanity fully in our interactions with God and others.  We can see this in Jesus' statement that loving God and our neighbour is the heart of the God's law. (Matthew 22:34-40) and in Paul's radical statement in Romans that 'love is the fulfilment of the Law'. (Romans 13:10)

So the test of any of the many laws we find in the Bible (often written in the context of specific cultures and points in history) is whether they enable us to express our humanity more fully , or whether they reduce it.  The experience of the vast majority of LGB&T people is that setting aside or denying their sexuality reduces their ability to truly express the fullness of their humanity. 

Should we allow unbridled experiments on animals using human tissue or DNA in the name of science?   Like the Church of England - I think not.

Should we continue to lessen the humanity of LGB&T people by telling them that God wants them to live in way which sets aside their sexuality?  Unlike the Church of England -  I think not.

And perhaps there is a wider issue here as well - that while the church continues to dehumanise LGB&T people, we lessen our right to be heard on other issues of humanity - and that is not a path we should follow.