I 
have been asked by several friends who reading my blogs have detected a change in how I voice my faith how and why my theological position has shifted.
I guess it would be helpful to start at the beginning of my faith journey to show how I have moved and changed...
I was not brought up in a Christian home and so have no childhood denominational baggage to carry about, this also meant that I came to the learn the Bible as an adult and did not have the disadvantage of hearing child friendly versions of Bible stories. On the other hand I did not have the advantage of having Godly living modelled to me in any way.
This lack of Godly role models and a rather chaotic upbringing led to my own life also being somewhat out of control, but along with this I had a deep desire to connect with God somehow, I attended church with a friend a few times in my teens and by the age of sixteen was a regular attender...but my take on the message was skewed, I felt that I had to earn my way into Gods good books and set about trying to do so....
I have often in testimony likened these years to my Jekyll and Hyde period trying to be good whilst being bad, looking back I sense I was being very hard upon myself, for I was looking for love and affirmation wherever I could find it, both in the church and in a series of disastrous relationships.
My faith journey has continued from that point with a series of definite landmarks which have caused me to stop take stock. I grew into an Evangelical faith, where it was important to obey the rules and where the Bible was a book never to be questioned, the Creation account for example was accepted not in the literal 7 day sense but with the qualification that a day is like 1,000 years etc, and God could do what he liked anyway....
I found this life stifling and hard, and no matter how I tried I could not live up to all of the rules, I felt like a second class Christian, obviously unworthy, and possibly unacceptable. The Holy Spirit I had been taught was not there to help the disobedient.
One break through came on an Evangelistic mission with TFM, where talking to people about Gods love I sensed him saying I love you too you know, and I began to discover grace... God by his Spirit was full of grace and wanted to help me to live the life he had called me to. All I had to do was to want to change and to ask.
Still the rules and laws held me,I was worried about doing or saying the wrong thing in case God felt unable to accept me. Lots of reading and praying but I always sensed that I was missing something...
During the years that followed we moved to Texas where we found it hard to settle into any church...moving from rural UK to Houston was mind blowing.
In short in all this time I do not believe I really thought about the nature and character of God too much beyond what was presented to me on a plate. I took that plate and ate what was there, attributing any bitter taste or hard to swallow portions to my own lack of obedience and shortcomings. Most people I spoke to endorsed this thinking. I saw only one view of the atonement (penal substitution,) only one way to understand Gods purposes, and all other religions were quite simply wrong! I also struggled with what I discerned as my call to lead and preach against a backdrop of teaching that had no place for women's ministry unless it was confined to women's groups or children's work. My participation in Evangelism was sharply criticised by those who felt my place was in arranging flowers or baking cakes.
Things began to change as I began to study for the SCE and also as I was invited to be a part of the Journey Into Wholeness project.
As I read I gained a wider view of God, I came to know a God who brought me out into a spacious place (Ps.18:19). A place where I knew that no matter how I tried I would not be able to discover the true fullness of God, for I am too small
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
EPH 3:20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Does Paul pray that we should be able to know all of this or simply to know the vastness of it?
I began to read afresh the encounters of Jesus with ordinary people, setting them free from the religious yoke of the Pharisees and inviting them to take his yoke...The Message brings this to light in an extraordinary way
Matthew 11:28-30 (MsgB)
"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. [29] Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. [30] Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."
In learning to preach the gospel I had learnt presentations such as the Four Spiritual Laws, and although still useful I believe that they produce only a reduced view of God, and if we become confined within patterns like this our faith will be likewise reduced.
Journey Into Wholeness made me think not only about language but also about the mystery and otherness of the God I worship, I shifted from an acknowledgement of the Trinity with an emphasis on Jesus, to embracing the Trinity in what I hope is a more holistic way. The challenge to ascribe female characteristics to God, calling God She, on occasion was also presented to me as I worked through the task of producing literature for the New Age community....I became convinced then that God is truly other, and that we in male and female form are made in the image of one who transcends us all... This is a mystery, there are many mysteries surrounding God that we will not fathom.
Again as I studied my views on the Bible changed, I had come on a journey from a place where questioning the word was unquestionable and wrong, to one where it was OK, a place where looking context, and considering who the Book/ passage was written for were important if not essential. I do agree that the Bible is the revealed word of God, a Book that reveals who he is and rather like an Icon, gives us windows on to the divine. Having said that I also believe we need to consider its many authors and how their words speak into our culture today.
I have learn ed the joys of meditation and centring prayer, finding that there is a wealth of tradition to be drawn upon. This is reflected in my writing and preaching, as well as in my everyday life, where issues such as the environment play a more prominent role in my discipleship than before. I have come to appreciated the rhythm and seasons of the liturgical church and gained a richness that my faith lacked before hand.
As far as other religions and spirituality's go I have found there to be more light in these than I would have liked to acknowledge, and I believe that dialogue is in many cases more useful than preached apologetics. Although apologetics can never be dismissed as unhelpful... I would like to embrace the hopeful universalism of Karl Barth, but am not sure that I can...
In short
I believe in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit
I believe in the Virgin Birth
I believe in the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
I believe that by his life and teaching Jesus showed us a new way to be human, in his death he took upon himself the brokenness of the whole world, and in his Resurrection to use the words of C.S. Lewis death started working backwards.
I believe the Bible is the revealed word of God but will reserve my opinion on inerrancy and infallibility.
I believe that Gods love for his creation,this world, its people and animals is greater than anything we can imagine
I am on a journey of discovery, and have discovered it is OK to question and OK to doubt. I believe that God has set his boundary lines in pleasant places and that I have a delightful inheritance
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;surely I have a delightful inheritance.Ps16:9
As for the comment I made about being a Post Evangelical, I will let Dave Tomlinson speak for himself:
Several people have suggested to me that saying post-evangelical is just a fashionable way of saying ex-evangelical, but this is not necessarily the case, properly used the word post means something quite different from ex. "Post" which means after has connotations of following on from, whereas ex implies ceasing to be. To be post-evangelical is to take as given many of the assumptions of the Evangelical faith, while at the same time moving beyond its perceived limitations.
....one of the strands of postmodern culture is a longing for spirituality which had been squeezed out by materialism and rationalism. In his excellent book "What is the New Age saying to the church" John Drane has shown why this hunger has been largely directed into the New Age movement rather than into the church. The post evangelical impetus however is to search for this fresh sense of spirituality in the symbolic and contemplative traditions of the church rather than in the New Age Movement........Post evangelicals also have a heartening appetite for theology. They not only want to feel the surging of a fresh spirituality, they want to understand their faith, yet the influence of their culture turns them away from the certainty and absoluteness of much evangelical theology.
It is this journey I find myself on!
amily stuff ....
asn't too stiff to sail as we went for a long bike ride over the fens on Friday (our day off)...hadn't meant to go too far but ended up going over 10 miles. Not bad for the first ride out this year.
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