In Rochester Cathedral, a cross executed in memory of Lt Archie Harris of the Royal Engineers “[s]hot while in pursuit of a Pathan robber on the Afghan frontier”, 11 October 1889.
History doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme.
“A scrimmage in a Border Station-
A canter down some dark defile
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail.
The Crammer’s boast, the Squadron’s pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!”
– Rudyard Kipling
Readings – James 1.17-27; Mark 7.1-8,14,15,21-23
“…be doers of the word, and not merely hearers…”
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“The Western mind is like a tuning fork calibrated to one frequency: the Christ story. Hit it with the right Christ figure, and it’ll just hum deafeningly in resonance.”
I read this remarkable sentence this week in article by a commentator who is not, as far as I know, a Christian believer, but is someone who understands the profound impact Christianity has had on Western culture.
“The Western mind is like a tuning fork calibrated to one frequency: the Christ story. Hit it with the right Christ figure, and it’ll just hum deafeningly in resonance.”
This sentence referred to the international outpouring of anger that followed the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis last May: the brutal public execution of a criminal by morally corrupt authorities behaving with terrible cruelty. The resonances with the story of Holy Week are obvious. Perhaps that is why it inspired such fervent proclamation of salvation for the oppressed through rejection of the currently dominant systems of political power which are transparently compromised.
George Floyd solidarity protest in Amsterdam, 1 June 2020. © BAMCorp and used under Creative Commons 2.0
In countries like ours’, the Christian story is woven deeply into every aspect of our mindsets. A few recent decades of triumphalist secularism has not yet undone the work of 1,500 years. Because Western civilisation became the first truly globally dominant one, it is easy for us to presume that the principles Christianity teaches about right and wrong are universal. But it certainly wasn’t part of Græco-Roman culture to exalt the weak or proclaim salvation for the oppressed.
Familiarity can blind us to how strange Christianity is – how wonderfully strange! – how subverting of the way that the powerful, clever, and rich try to invent clever ways of making that seem like the natural order of things is for them to dominate others. Only a very strange religion makes a tortured criminal its symbol of divinity, and puts the instrument of His execution everywhere from the tops of its temples to the jewellery around His followers’ necks.
Continue readingThis post originally appeared on Slugger O’Toole
The Soviet Empire was undone by three things – firstly, overstretching itself, especially through the acquisition of a series of Global South satrapies from Nicaragua through Ethiopia to Vietnam in the 1970s and 1980s; secondly, misrepresenting realities to itself so as to fit Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy; thirdly, because its leaders no longer believed in that political religion even as they presided over a system that permitted no alternative.
Mohammad Najibullah’s government hung on in Kabul for three years after Soviet troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan in 1989; Ashraf Ghani’s kleptostate didn’t even survive until America’s withdrawal date. US and other Western experts were more wrong about Afghan society than the famously self-deluding late Soviet Union; in terms of plain logistics, the US executed a shockingly less competent withdrawal than a USSR on the brink of collapse; and in the shape of Ghani and before him Karzai, it backed rulers so monumentally corrupt that they seem to have been less palatable to devout Afghan Muslims than actual godless Communists.
In the dying days of 1979, Yuri Andropov, then head of the KGB, fought an initially successful internal battle against Soviet intervention in the country after the Communist coup, convinced that invading Afghanistan would end up in failure; it was feuding between Afghan Communist factions once in power that dragged the USSR in, and fear of losing face in the propaganda game of the late Cold War that kept it there for a while. But it only took the Soviets seven years to realise they weren’t actually being welcomed as defenders of material progress and women’s rights against religious obscurantism, and they were gone in nine. America took twenty.
Soviet APCs depart Afghanistan as part of the first phase of troop withdrawal in 1986. © RIA Novosti archive/ Yuriy Somov. Used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Yet all the while, the people directing the war in DC knew it was going badly and simply lied, as the Washington Post exposed in 2019 when it got access to the US government’s own report on its failures in Afghanistan. The Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations all lied, knowingly, not just to the public but much of the time to themselves; they couldn’t have sustained this war for 20 years otherwise. Countless experts colluded in the lies, spending time and money to create analyses to fit a consciously deceitful official narrative, nodding along because dissenting voices find their careers limited while nodding dogs get to bill four-figure daily rates.
Governments lying to themselves with the encouragement of experts well-paid to silence truth-tellers is a pattern of behaviour familiar from the story of toxic mortgage bonds and the 2008 financial crisis; something similar will probably turn out to surround the pandemic’s origins and how influential Western medics helped Beijing cover them up. This is not just an American problem. Lying is just as embedded, for example, in the UK, where the political class and punditocracy spent yesterday arguing about the ways in which Britain could have saved Kabul from the Taliban when the same people know British combat troops left Afghanistan in 2014.
Truth is now entirely subject to political ideology in the West, but being liberal democracies rather than a single-ideology state, various nexuses of deceit sell different sets of lies to their own groups of followers. The progressive/left take is that jihadism only exists because of colonialism and White supremacy with British Labour MP Richard Burgon even demanding reparations be paid to the Taliban. The soi disant sensible centre-left-to-mainstream-right were the actual architects of the Afghan disaster, with neocons and hawkish liberals like Blair inventing for themselves an Islamic world crying out to be bombed from the air so they could be free. And, of course, the post-Trump GOP is so far down the rabbit-hole of QAnon-lizardmen-paedo-pizza conspiracy that it doesn’t worry that its lies sound like they come from the secure wing of the local asylum.
Continue readingThe Chapel of the Holy Spirit in Ripon Cathedral represents a sadly stillborn Anglican Space Age tradition of church furnishing. Completed in 1970 in honour of the previous year’s Apollo 11 moon landing, it is very much of its time.
I have seen some horrified reaction on social media to my photos of it, complaining at such a supposedly jarring presence in one of the finest buildings of the Romanesque-Gothic transition anywhere in Europe. Let us not forget, however, that the places of worship on this site have been substantially altered many times, including by St Wilfrid himself in the 7th Century, and even destroyed and completely rebuilt once. Perhaps most obviously, the Victorian restoration was imaginative but also far more inappropriate than this: yet Ripon Cathedral would not be what it is today without that and without a few fine pieces of Edwardiana and post-Edwardiana that are hardly redolent of the High Middle Ages.
Having long since passed through its groovy phase, to my mind the Chapel of the Holy Spirit has also by now finished its naff phase, and is becoming established as the sort of quirky period piece that any great cathedral must have many of from many different eras.
Located at the east end of the south choir aisle the chapel represents the Holy Trinity in themes astronomical and astronautical themes.
The hanging pyx represents Christ, who is sacramentally present within it, as this is where the Cathedral reserves the Blessed Sacrament.
The design of the pyx is essentially copied from the reaction control thrusters for the Apollo Lunar Excursion Module. Really, I’m not making that up.
Readings – 2 Corinthians 4:7–15; Matthew 20:20–28
“…we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.”
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
You are all a terrible bunch of Christians! I mean really, really, deeply flawed followers of Jesus Christ; and in the main you have very mixed motives for coming to church this morning and you should repent – repent – of your sins.
The Scallop Shell symbol of St James. © Chris Light and used under Creative Commons 4.0.
I’m sorry for that start to the sermon, but I’ve always wanted to rain a bit of fire and brimstone from the pulpit and this morning’s readings gave me the perfect opportunity to do so. It was worth it to see the looks on your faces.
Of course, you’re all deeply flawed Christians; I know this partly because I am myself a deeply flawed Christian and a deeply flawed priest and, like you, I need to repent of my sins, on a regular basis. That’s why we call our sins to mind and pray together for God to forgive us them every Sunday in the first part of the Eucharist.
I know how flawed we all are for another reason, too. Over the course of my life, I’ve been privileged to get to know well a few people who had a deserved reputation for being saints; and the better I got to know them, the more I saw that they all had real character flaws and could, just every once in a while, be quite horrid or quite hopeless.
I wanted to put that prelude into your minds before we turned to today’s Gospel reading, which is both hysterically funny, toe-curlingly awful, and very true-t0-life. When I play this scene out in my mind as if it were in a film, the bossy mother is always played by Maureen Lipman. What makes the encounter even more cringe-making is that this episode happened very late in Jesus’ final journey to Jerusalem, immediately after he told the twelve apostles that he was soon about to be handed over to death.
Continue readingIf you’re here because you heard about my #50kInADay walking fundraiser – click here to find out more and support me.
An invitation to celebrate the Eucharist in a village in the Diocese of Hereford where some good friends live provided not only the opportunity for my first ‘away match’ since my priesting, but for some final preparatory walking before my 50k in a day fundraising effort. A march along the Marches border, as it were.
Herefordshire has some glorious walking country, especially when the thistles and foxgloves and buttercups are at their finest and the countryside is full of dancing butterflies and buzzing bees.
St Swithun seemed in good form on his feast day and we will not have to deal with rain for the next 40 days, it seems. It was, however, a frustrating day of blocked or unmarked rights of way and being forced onto main roads. But 30km was walked as planned, albeit on a different route to that originally planned. Some of it was quite steep.
Friday, which was the feast of St Osmund, was very hot indeed. There were fewer access problems as I walked Offa’s Dyke Path from Kington to Hay-on-Wye, shuffling back and forth across the English/Welsh border. This does not take the most ‘efficient’ route, but spends a lot of time going through sheep farms at the 300m+ level before ascending and descending very steeply indeed when it goes through a village. Idyllic scenery though, and squadrons of Red Kites at times.
A Wiltshire clergyman plans to walk five miles more than a marathon in one day to raise funds for his churches, and to help the victims a brutal but often ignored conflict.
The Rev’d Gerry Lynch, Curate of St John with St Mary, Devizes, will attempt a whopping 50 kilometre sponsored walk on 20 July to help cover the income his parish lost during lockdowns, as well as for colleagues in the frontline of caring for those fleeing an ISIS insurgency in Mozambique.
The Rev’d Gerry Lynch said:
“Like many organisations, St John with St Mary lost several income streams during the pandemic, with potential consequences for what we can offer to the people of the town if we can’t fill the hole.
“But others have things more difficult than we do. My friend Manuel is the bishop of a city named Nampula just outside the area of the ISIS insurgency in northern Mozambique. This city of 750,000, already home to a UN camp for 17,000 refugees from other countries, is now struggling to provide food, clean water, and shelter for half a million fellow Mozambicans who fled their homes in terror. Many, including children, have witnessed traumatic events and mental healthcare is also urgent.
“I thought I could raise some money both for our needs in Devizes and for friends in another part of the world dealing with a situation we can scarcely imagine.
“I have a BMI over 30 and a 25½ inch inside leg so my build is not what anyone would call athletic. Still, long countryside walks were basically what kept me sane during the lockdowns and my endurance has gone through the roof.
“When I first considered a sponsored walk, I thought I’d walk a marathon distance. Unfortunately I did a 43.4 km walk a few weeks ago and posted it on social media, and people worked out it was more than a marathon! So I’m going to have to go the extra five miles for a full 50k in one day –just over 31 miles for those who prefer old money.
“People can support me at justgiving.com/crowdfunding/50kinaday or by making out a cheque to PCC St John, sending it to the parish office on Long Street, Devizes, SN10 1NP, and marking it ‘50k in a Day’. Your generous gift will go straight to where it will make a difference.”
Readings – 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19; Mark 6: 14–29
“‘He went and beheaded him in the prison, brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl.”
In the name of God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Salome receiving John the Baptist’s head on a platter is one of the most grizzly images in the Gospels. It remains shocking not least because so many Christians have died throughout the ages for telling powerful rulers truths that they don’t want to hear. When you next go to Salisbury, look at the rows of statues which adorn the West Front of the Cathedral – there is a helpful Wikipedia article which has information on each one of the one hundred and ninety-six of them – and note how many of them were martyred for their faith.
The last few decades have added to the numbers of those martyred for speaking truth to power. I think of St Oscar Romero, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Salvador, who was shot dead by members of a far-right militia as he celebrated Mass in a hospital chapel in 1980; or Jerzy Popiełuszko, the Polish priest hunted down four years later by secret policemen of the then Communist regime in his country. In our own Anglican tradition Janani Luwum, the Archbishop of Uganda, was martyred in 1977 by Idi Amin for protesting that dictator’s murderous rule. Few people seem to know of the seven brave Anglican monks of the Melanesian Brotherhood, murdered in 2003 by a warlord in the Solomon Islands as they tried to mediate during a period of interethnic fighting. So, let me remember by name from this pulpit Nathaniel Sado, Robin Lindsay, Francis Tofi, Tony Sirihi, Alfred Hill, Patteson Gatu, and Ini Paratabatu.
Nor have these martyrs all been clergy and religious. Brave laypeople have also given their lives for refusing to collude in the lies of repressive régimes, like Steve Biko, the practising Anglican and founder of South Africa’s Black Consciousness Movement, beaten to death by the police of the apartheid state.
David Russell praying with victims of homophobic violence in Cape Town, 26 August 2011, © Gerry Lynch
Indeed, it was in South Africa that I definitively got to know a prophet: David Russell, who was Bishop of Grahamstown from 1987 until 2004. David radiated the peace of Christ and was very good to me at a difficult time. He could have had a much easier life than the one he led. South Africa-born, he came to England to train for the priesthood and studied to postgraduate level at Oxford. As such an able man, he could have become a Prince Bishop of the Church of England, and campaigned against the repressive government of his homeland from a powerful pulpit. Even in South Africa, he could have ministered in a White suburban parish, and challenged the government from there. That wouldn’t have been entirely comfortable, but it would have been a lot easier than what he chose to do. Instead, he rejected the arrant heresy that a priest must be of the same race as the people he or she serves by ministering in illegal shantytowns on the Cape Flats, home to people banned from living in the second city of their own country simply because of the colour of their skin. This led to several years of house arrest, an actual spell of imprisonment, and being constantly spied upon by the security services. It also led him to meet his wife, to become a highly respected bishop important in his country’s transition to democracy, and in the fullness of time to become an officially honoured national hero. While some prophets face death, David lived to find a sort of Resurrection in his later years.
Continue readingThis article first appeared in the July 2021 edition of the parish magazine of St John with St Mary, Devizes.
Among my closest friends are the three remaining Anglican Benedictine monks from what was once Nashdom and then Elmore Abbey, now resident in Salisbury Cathedral Close. When I first came to Wiltshire in 2013, they were four, and Dom Kenneth Newing, who had been Bishop of Plymouth before taking monastic vows, was one of the dearest, wisest, and holiest friends I have ever had.
Dom Kenneth Newing on the Diamond Jubilee of his ordination to the priesthood, at the tender age of 93. © Gerry Lynch, 30 September 2016.
I first met Kenneth when he had just turned ninety, and he already showed signs of mild but definite cognitive impairment. He took time to process complex conversation and find the precise words in response, but he remained an acute observer of people and retained excellent memory for both the immediate and distant past. For those with the patience to take time to talk to him, he was wise and perceptive in conversation. He remained so almost until his death five years later. In his last years, he contributed much to the Church and the life of those he lived and worshipped among.
The Church of England has set itself the task of becoming younger and more diverse. On the surface, nobody could object to this. Scratch deeper and this objective is riddled with problematic assumptions. The Church should seek growth, just as the leaves on the trees do at this time of year. That’s one of its jobs. Must new or revitalised Christians, however, necessarily be young? Are the older members of our society redundant passengers to be ignored in favour of those likely to have more years of active Christian commitment? Similarly with diversity. We must absolutely reject anything in ourselves that refuses to embrace as equals everyone regardless of race, class, gender, or sexual orientation. But are congregations that look less like our metropolitan centres and more like our provincial small towns of less value to God?
Continue readingReadings – 2 Corinthians 5: 6–17; Mark 4: 26–34
“‘With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed…”
Mustard Seeds. © Eugenio Hansen, OFS and used under Creative Commons 4.0
May I speak in the name of God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
I suspect many of you remember a BBC comedy series from a decade ago called Rev. For those of you who don’t know it, it is about the trials and tribulations of an East End vicar, the Reverend Adam Smallbone, and his congregation in a gentrifying but still sometimes troubled parish. His flock isn’t very large, and sometimes their motivations for being in church are frankly mixed, from the lady of a certain age who is, shall we say, often very taken with gentlemen in clerical collars, to the incoming middle-classes who turn up to get their children into the parish primary school, without remotely taking anything that goes on in Church seriously.
A consistent theme is Adam’s sense of his own inadequacy. Adam feels inadequate compared with the vicar of the lively parish down the road, with its in-house rap artist and huge congregation of young people, and inadequate compared with his very clever pal from theological college who has a column in The Guardian and a regular slot on Thought for the Day. Yet every once in a while, an encounter happens that makes Adam realise that he is indeed called by God to be the person he is, moments of grace where only he, precisely because of his transparent flaws, can bring the light of Jesus Christ into a situation where a grander or more self-confident person would never be allowed to enter.
“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation”, says St Paul in today’s Epistle reading, from the Second Letter to the Corinthians. It is natural to feel inadequate when faced with words like that. I don’t know about you, but my faults have remained persistent throughout my journey of faith. Following Jesus Christ as my Lord hasn’t turned me into a heroic crusader against evil who makes sinners repent by the sheer radiance of my goodness. I am as flawed, as self-centred, as inclined to take the path of least resistance, and sometimes as plain annoying as I always have been.
Yet: “There is a new creation.” This is where context matters, because St Paul wrote these words to a new and immature Church in Corinth, the Eastern Mediterranean’s sin city, a city of sailors on shore leave joining the locals in hard partying and loose living. We might think of it in our terms as Amsterdam multiplied by Ibiza. Paul didn’t write those letters to the Corinthians because they were the example of what a Church should look like, but because they were the most troubled of all the churches he established – sometimes immoral, obsessed with wealth and bling, and rather selfish. And yet St Paul didn’t give up on them. They were at the beginning of a journey that they didn’t even seem to understand: but they had made a start. Great things often have small beginnings, and the people who start them are never perfect. God called the Corinthians to follow Him in His Son Jesus Christ, not because they were the models of sainthood, but because they were the people He needed to fulfil his purposes, there and then.
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