While many of us are still coming to terms with Generation X, Generation Y sneaks up on us unawares!  Leaders in missions will be starting to encounter this generation, and they’ll be starting to realise that Ys aren’t quite what they expected.  People working in short-term have been dealing with Ys for quite a while now, so will be coming to terms with the fact that they do things differently to previous generations, but these people are now coming through into doing long-term where their differences will be rubbing their leaders up the wrong way.

Generation Y is the unimaginative name given to the generation following on from Generation X, and consists of those born (roughly) from 1980 to 2000.  They’re also called Generation Next or Millennials, but I’ll stick to Y as it’s easier to spell.  These people grew up connected, having mobile phones and computers from their youngest days.  Their families may have been broken, leading to a highly important need to belong, but their parents will have invested heavily in them so they are used to getting feedback and encouragement.  They also grew up after the end of the cold war, so they were promised peace, but now find that their lives overshadowed by the war on terror.  This can lead them to distrust authority and value honesty, authenticity and integrity.

What are these people going to be like as your co-workers? Their workplace expectations are not that different from those of previous generations, but they are far more reluctant to toe the line in the way their parents or grandparents might have done.  Older people might think of them as lazy, uncommitted, overconfident, disrespectful and impatient, but those are the flip side of great strengths:

Lazy?  These people are digital natives.  Because they grew up in a multi-media world they are able to surf Facebook, send text messages, listen to music and get on with their work at the same time.  But they don’t live to work.  They’re flexible and will be more concerned about getting the overall task done than by being at their desk at the right time.  They might be working at home at 10pm, not because they’re workaholics, but just because it works better for them.

Uncommitted?  Well, they’re not committed to things just because you think they ought to be.  Duty is not a word that features frequently in their vocabulary.  But they will be highly committed to things they believe in, even though it may not look like it to older generations.  Their desire for authenticity leads them to reject much that is latently hypocritical, but when they find something genuine, they will embrace it.

Overconfident?  Because they’ve had a lot of positive parenting, Ys believe in themselves, and because they’ve seen through authority structures, they won’t tolerate spending ten years doing the filing before they’re allowed to have an opinion.  They believe they have a contribution and they don’t understand why they can’t make it now.

Disrespectful?  They respect people, not positions, so if you aren’t confident as a leader and hide behind your position, they’ll see through you.  They respect people who show that they care, make wise decisions, and don’t try to give them corporate flannel.  If they speak out of turn, it’s only because they can see a problem and haven’t had a good answer for it.

Impatient?   Ys were born connected.  They get the answers they want off the internet in seconds.  They instant message their friends.  They just want to get on with things without being held up.

So as Ys become your partners in mission, how do you need to treat them?

Teamwork.  Their whole life is made up of connections, so the idea of working alone doesn’t exist.  They’ll share problems, bring in specialists, and network with anyone they need to.  So create a flexible team structure in which they can thrive and don’t tell them they can’t talk to someone in another office just because you have a territory dispute with another manager.

Managing.  Top-down hierarchies don’t work.  These people have had positive parenting.  Create for them an environment in which they can learn and develop skills.  Feedback to them regularly.  Don’t impose rules, explain reasons.  Don’t manage the process, mentor the person.

Communication.  Give them all the facts and explain why you’ve made a decision.  They need to know the reasons before they can believe.  Your answer doesn’t have to be 100% logical; you can bring in emotions as well.  Let them ask challenging questions.  When they see you communicate openly and honestly, and allow them to be part of the solution, they will trust you and become committed.

Fulfilment.  In the secular workplace, Generation Y is more concerned to find a job they can believe in than one that pays well (although they expect to be fairly remunerated!).  This is true in the Christian world as well.  You need to ensure that they believe in what they’re doing in order to get the best out of them, and try to make sure they feel they’ve been treated fairly.

Obviously, these are huge generalisations, and individual personalities differ greatly, but this information may help to explain to you why people under 30 seem to think and act strangely at times.  These generational characteristics may not be so pronounced in Christians, since they have also been subject to the unique influences of Christian discipleship and training in church, community and possibly Bible College.  However, they grew up in the same conditions as non-Christians, were educated together with them, and used the same media, so will demonstrate similar generational characteristics.  Get to know them better, and you’ll all end up working better together.

You may have heard about the tent village which has been set up outside St Paul’s cathedral in the heart of London, to the consternation of many authorities.  The occupants are part of the global Occupy movement.  They represent anger at the excess of greed with which large financial institutions have caused the current economic crisis, frustration at the apparent inability of governments, shareholders and ordinary citizens to rein in these excesses, and a fundamental rejection of the capitalist system which they believe is morally flawed.

The Occupy movement began in New York in September 2011 and has rapidly spread to nearly 100 cities worldwide, inspired by Arab Spring protests, particularly in Cairo, and also mass demonstrations over the summer in Spain.  In October, demonstrators set up camp in public spaces in London and 15 other British cities.

The occupation outside St Paul’s was initially opposed by the police, but the Dean said he was happy for them to stay, and 150 tents sprang up.  A few days later he asked the protesters to leave the immediate vicinity so as not to impede access to churchgoers and tourists, but they refused, realising that they had gained valuable publicity as the UK media blew the issue into a crisis.  The Dean announced the closing of the cathedral on ‘health and safety’ grounds, much to the outrage of the press, who reminded us that the cathedral hadn’t been closed to visitors since it was bombed during the Second World War.  Although the cathedral reopened only a couple of days later, the crisis forced the resignation of three senior cathedral staff.  The police have not helped to calm the situation, seemingly treating the Occupiers aggressively and adding them to their lists of terrorist suspects.

It is possible that the real reason for the confused response of the St Paul’s leadership is that they are morally compromised in this issue.  While wanting on the one hand to be a voice for the poor and needy in society, St Paul’s is painfully aware that many people who work in the surrounding financial district form part of its congregation (and are therefore donors towards its massive upkeep costs) or are people to whom the cathedral is trying to reach out.  While the cathedral was closed to the public, it was alleged to be losing £23,000 a day in donations from tourists.

Meanwhile, the British public, egged on by the media, seems more concerned at accusations that the Occupiers are anarchistic workshy layabouts who are living on state handouts than they are about considering why people are driven to protest, in hostile conditions and worsening weather.  The stoic British are more concerned about their lovely cathedral than they are about the issues which inspire people to protest against capitalism and demand global democracy.  Are the Occupiers in fact unsung heroes like the Greenham Common Women or Brian Haw?

So what do the Occupiers think they can achieve?  They claim to be trying to initiate a dialogue about finding a way forward in shaping a more equitable society.  They hold public meetings and claim that many people who work in financial services are engaging with them, albeit very quietly.  They are also working hard on their public image, and while the camp appears scruffy it is free from litter and other waste matter.  While there have been isolated accusations of graffiti and urinating in the churchyard, the Occupy leadership are at pains to encourage the appearance of  responsibility.  One small example of this in action took place when I was visiting Occupy on a cold and very wet day in December.  I watched while one of the volunteer cleaners swept a huge puddle on the public pavement towards a drain, and when it failed to disappear, he lifted up the drain cover, thrust his hands into the mud and pulled out litter until the drain was clear.

Are they making an impact?  They have a well-presented information tent and even on a miserable midwinter day there was a steady trickle of visitors, making donations, signing the visitors book, and finding out more.  They have over 35,000 followers on Facebook and nearly 25,000 on Twitter, so there is a good groundswell of interest.  Yet they have not yet found a forum to get their voice heard nationally, which is why they can so easily be portrayed as a group of idealists dropouts.  And although left-wing heavyweights like Tony Benn and Billy Bragg have been public in their support, Occupy is (almost by definition) so outside mainstream that they are failing to attract wider political or media patronage.

The Occupiers originally tried to occupy Paternoster Square, right outside the London Stock Exchange, but were ejected by the police on the grounds that it was private property.  So they set up camp next door in the grounds of St Paul’s.  There is an interesting irony in this location which has not been noticed by commentators.  Could it be that deep in their subconscious the Occupiers are looking for a voice that will speak out on behalf of the poor and marginalised, that they are seeking moral leadership from the one institution that they know should speak out?

But are they looking in the wrong place?

Just in case you missed some of our more interesting, exciting or just plain helpful blogs, here’s a review of some of Syzygy’s epic blog moments of 2011.

We introduced the new Syzygy corporate identity as the fifth emergency service, and launched the Syzygy Prayer Network.  We were given two new cars for our popular car loan service.  We started a new Devotional feature which included thoughts on God’s provision for our financial support, our motivation for loving, the power of the timid prayer, and the significance of Harvest Festival.

Our For Your Information feature covered such diverse topics as the Arab Spring (and the lack of a Bamboo Spring), the Eurozone crisis, the implications of Islamic Democracy, the legal situation of UK Christians and why London’s Burning.

Our Featured Missions included ICF, Project Gateway, Urban Neighbours of Hope and OscarActive and our Guest Bloggers talked about How To Write a Good Newsletter, the challenge of being counter-cultural, whether ‘failure’ at short-term mission is necessarily a bad thing, and the impact of change on a TCK.

We reviewed Rob Bell’s controversial new book, considered the state of church planting in Europe, and reflected on the heritage of non-conformism.  We thought about the reason for doing short-term mission and gave quite a bit of space to dealing with stress, in particular thinking about tools for self-analysis, how we can say ‘no’ more often, and ‘unpacking‘ our experiences.

Tech notes introduced us to new technologies such as Google+ and Dropbox, explained why we need to be using social media, and helped us clean out our computer and develop strong passwords – which gave rise to my favourite quote of the year: Treat your password like your toothbrush!

We hope you have enjoyed the experience of reading our blogs.  If you have, please recommend this site to your friends, so that more people can find out about the valuable ministry Syzygy exercises in supporting mission workers worldwide!

With every blessing for fruitful ministry in the New Year,

Tim Herbert

Director of Operations

Some of you living abroad may have heard confused rumours of cataclysm in the Eurozone, that the UK is leaving the EU, or that David Cameron has left us marginalised and out in the cold.  Certainly a meeting in Brussels last Friday will have momentous consequences, although it’s too early to tell whether Cameron is Neville Chamberlain or Margaret Thatcher.  This week we will look at the Eurozone crisis and why it has arisen.

The Eurozone consists of 17 EU member countries who share a common currency, the unimaginatively-named Euro (€).  The UK is not one of them.  The new currency was introduced in 2002 in an attempt to bind Europe even closer together.  However the inventors of this plan overlooked the obvious fact that serious stresses would appear in the system if there were a) no common fiscal policy and b) no strong central government able to implement said fiscal policy.  This left a situation where many of the Eurozone countries are able to run their economies in ways which actually result in economic divergence.  This problem was not immediately apparent as the economic growth of the last decade obscured it.

However the crisis in the finance industry has led to liquidity problems in several governments, with many having to pay increasingly impractical rates of interest to borrow money.  So they are slashing spending, which leads to domestic discontent and higher unemployment, thereby reducing government revenues and increasing the need for borrowing.  These countries include the relatively minor economies of Ireland, Portugal, and (most notoriously) Greece, though Spain and Italy are also under pressure.  In the past, these countries would have devalued their currencies, and we’d all have gone there for cheap holidays, bought their cheap exports, and everything would get right in a few years.

The Euro prevents that happening, so these governments have to be given huge handouts.  The only Europeans  with enough money to do this are the Germans and (paradoxically) the UK, which finds itself forced to help the Euro out as the Eurozone is our major trading partner and Euro-chaos affects our exports.  But Germany is picking up the bulk of the bill and is getting increasingly annoyed about it.

So the Germans are trying to fix the problem.  They argue that they are not going to keep pouring money into a bottomless pit, and are particularly aggravated about having to bail out the Greeks, who retire earlier, pay less tax, and (allegedly) don’t work as hard as the Germans.  So heads of government spent the last week in Brussels discussing a new European treaty which would enforce some Germanic discipline in governance, and resolve the problem.  Part of these deals would mean more regulation on financial institutions.  David Cameron had already made it clear that the UK will cede no more sovereign power to the EU, and insisted that an exemption for UK financial institutions was his price for agreeing to the changes.

Europe said non.  Instead they made a separate deal to strengthen the Eurozone, with only the UK left out.  Some argue that Cameron has stood up for the UK, others that he has betrayed us.  The word being used a lot is isolated – some argue that by taking no further part in the discussions, the UK will have no say on important issues that will affect us.  Others claim that we are now effectively isolated from a coming Euro-disaster.

It is too early to tell whether Cameron’s action is heroic or suicidal, but one indicator is that the Standard & Poor’s credit rating agency last week threatened to downgrade the credit ratings of all the Eurozone countries.  This means that S&P thinks that they are less able to pay their debts, and their cost of borrowing will go up.  The UK however, continues to maintain its coveted AAA rating.  Which means that the UK government can borrow money at the cheapest rate for decades.  It could be a good time to invest in sterling.

Pro-democracy demonstrators in Tahrir Square

In recent months there has been much discussion about the form of government that will ultimately evolve in the countries that threw off their despotic leaders during the Arab Spring earlier this year – so far only Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.  One term which is frequently mentioned is Islamic Democracy. Some western leaders are keen to point out that Islam is not necessarily incompatible with democracy, and frequently cite Turkey as a good example of a secular state in an Islamic country.  In November US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even promised that the US would not oppose Islamic political parties which emerge in the new democracies.  But then the Obama administration is keen to demonstrate that it is not inherently anti-Islamic, unlike its predecessor.

But is this Islamic democracy necessarily going to be a good thing?  Forgetting its impact on western hegemony for the moment, and just considering what happens in the country concerned, let us examine the paragon, Turkey, and see what lessons it has for us.  Turkey is at the moment in the process of drafting a new constitution, and some proposals are causing great concern among minority communities.  There is the possibility that clauses guaranteeing citizenship to all Turkish-born people may be changed, allowing only Muslims to be citizens.

Although the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is self-consciously promoting human rights and equality in an attempt to join the EU, it is clear that many of the Muslim population have no sympathy for other religions and do not agree with the government policy of promoting equality.   Life is far from easy for Turkey’s various minorities, including Greek, Armenian and Syriac Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians as well as Kurds, Jewish people and Alevis.  As well as routine discrimination they suffer legal restrictions on internal governance, education, places of worship and property rights, although recent legislation has begun to affect the latter.  And of course, there are periodic persecutions and lynchings which, though not necessarily state-sponsored, seem neither to be prevented or investigated by the police.  Proselytising is not illegal, though people who change their religion may be subject to harassment.

So Turkey is not an example that would inspire confidence in our Christian brothers and sisters in North Africa.  How might such Islamic democracy develop there?  The question of Sharia law is the principal concern for Christians, since it would introduce a legal system which is clearly prejudicial to minorities.  For example, in Iran and Pakistan, which both operate Sharia, it is illegal for a Christian to testify in court against a Muslim.  So if only Christians are the witnesses of injustices perpetrated against them by Muslims, they cannot legally defend themselves.

The largest opposition group in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, is in favour of introducing Sharia law.  The Brotherhood, though not a political party, is a significant political force in most near- and middle-eastern countries, and inspires many of the largest Islamic parties.  While in Egypt it has public pretensions to non-violence, in Gaza it is the inspiration behind Hamas.  Life is, of course, unbearably hard for Christians under Hamas, and completely impossible for Jews.

Protesters outside St Mark's Cathedral in Cairo

Life is already becoming harder for Egypt’s nine million Christians.  In October Christians protesting peacefully against laws which restrict the construction of churches were savagely attacked by the army and police, who then tried to blame the unarmed Christians for attacking them.  26 died and over 300 were injured.  There are reports of stones being thrown at women in the street who are not wearing burqas.  This is a glimpse of the future should the Muslim Brotherhood win an election and introduce Sharia law.

For the sake of our brothers and sisters in Islamic countries, let us pray that Islamic Democracy does not live up to its worst potential.  We should remember that other secular democracies with majority Islamic populations include Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Indonesia, Syria and Azerbaijan.  All of these countries are high on Open Doors’ persecution index, and are not good places for Christians to live.

A north London carpet warehouse in flames

London was most spectacularly on fire in early August and it was not a Christian revival.  Many of you may have seen pictures of serious rioting and looting and wondered what was going on.  So too did many people living in Britain, as this conflagration seemed to burst from nowhere.

The rioting began a few days after police shot dead a man in north London, in circumstances that still have to be adequately explained, and then failed to give a full account of the event to his family and wider community, who accused the police of operating a shoot-to-kill policy.  A community protest march to the local police station became violent, and outbreaks of rioting rapidly spread to other parts of the city, and then to Birmingham and Manchester.

It is tempting to compare these riots to the disturbances of 1981.  Then there was a fairly new Conservative government making huge spending cuts leading to high unemployment.  There was a tough-talking Prime Minister threatening to be strong on law-and-order and there was a lot of deep-seated unrest in urban centres.  Many racial minorities and working-class people felt marginalised, leading to a sense of despair.  They felt the government didn’t really care about their problems.

So was this an action replay?  While this situation seems on the surface familiar, the roots of the past summer’s problems are different.  We must remember that Britain has changed significantly in 30 years and has different problems now.

The cause of the widespread rioting becomes clearer when the statistics are examined.  According to the Home Office there were 2,800 arrests, with 1300 people being charged.  It later transpired that three quarters of the 1000 people who have already appeared in court have a previous conviction or caution, the average number of previous convictions being 15.  One third of them had already spent time in prison for another conviction.  So it would appear that many of the participants were career criminals taking the opportunity to cause some havoc and enrich themselves with some free consumer goods.

A further 20% of the 1000 were juveniles, with estimates that as many as half the people taking part in the riots were school age.  The irony of this is that many of the activities for young people which normally take place during the school holidays have been scrapped this year due to government spending cuts.  Many of the looters used social media to alert their friends and to publish photos of cars they had burned or goods they had looted.  This may well be Britain’s first instance of ‘recreational rioting’.  Millions of pounds worth of property was burned, including shops, pubs, buses and cars, and a lot of goods were looted not only from large stores but also small family-owned businesses.  One man in Birmingham was killed trying to defend his shop.

A clean-up event in south London

This situation gives us a good opportunity to reflect that Britain is not a happy place at the moment.  Government cuts are holding wage rises below inflation, pensions reforms are triggering industrial dispute and unemployment has risen to 2.51m.  Nearly a million 16-24 year olds are unemployed.  Despite the fact that the UK is the world’s 6^th largest economy, there is a general feeling that we are not as well-off as we should be, and things are only going to get worse.  Against this background, one can understand why people might feel like rioting.

One ray of hope though: in the aftermath of the riots thousands of ordinary Londoners turned up with brooms and bin bags to help clear up the mess.  Someone even set up a website to link volunteer cleaners with clean-up events.  The spirit of the Blitz lives on.

The legal situation of Christianity in the UK is something that has been slowly giving cause for concern over the past few years, and has become more serious in recent months.  Although our religious freedom is obvious to the many millions of Christians worldwide who can be oppressed, imprisoned, or even lynched with impunity because they lack any form of legal protection, an aggressive secularist agenda has been building up momentum, prompting well-known Christian apologist Michael Ramsden to observe recently that whenever Christian rights come into conflict with rights based on sexual preferences, they will be trumped.

Much of this situation has resulted from the Equality Act 2006, which (quite rightly) made it illegal to discriminate against anyone on the grounds of their religion or sexuality.   However this left an area of uncertainty over what happens when rights collide, resulting in a number of court cases as pressure groups (and their lawyers) endeavour to get more clarity.  We report on a number of cases so that you are informed about the issues.

Cross – For many years the wearing of a cross has been a issue which emerges occasionally in the popular press.  It is not unusual for employers to ban the wearing of jewellery in the workplace and wearing a cross is not deemed to be essential to Christianity (unlike a Sikh Kara bracelet).   A BA employee was banned from wearing a cross and in a high profile case BA was found not to have discriminated against her.  A Christian taxi driver was ordered by York City Council to remove a palm cross from his cab in case it caused offence to passengers, though the council subsequently relented.

Public witness – two Christians were warned by police that they were committing hate crime by handing out tracts in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham.  A university CU was reported to police for handing out gospels to students.

Homosexuality – A Christian couple running a B&B in Cornwall refused to let a homosexual couple share a double bed.  They argued that they were not picking on homosexuals, but because of their beliefs only supply double rooms to heterosexual married couples.  The court found them guilty of breaking the law, but reduced the fine out of respect for their religious beliefs. This couple subsequently admitted that they knew they were breaking the law but felt they had a right to set their own standards for their own business.

Faith in the workplace – A Christian doctor with an unblemished record may be struck off after discussing his faith with an adult patient who agreed to the discussion.  A Christian nurse was suspended for offering to pray for a patient.  A Christian registrar lost her job for refusing to officiate at same-sex civil partnerships.  It is now illegal to advertise for a Christian to fill a job in a Christian organisation if when the job could be done just as well by a non-Christian.

Gay marriage – Earlier this year the Government announced plans to create same-sex marriages on the same basis as heterosexual ones.  At the moment homosexual partnerships are recognised on a different basis to a marriage and there is no requirement to carry them out in churches.  There are significant concerns that once gay marriages are legalised, it will be a discriminatory offence for a church minister to refuse to perform one.

After centuries of Christendom in Britain, Christianity is now actively being relegated to an obscure private viewpoint which is not allowed to have any impact on how Christians behave or speak in public.  Christians are not actively persecuted yet, but it is clear that attempts are being made to disempower Christians so that they have no legal defence for traditional Christian activities and opinions.

While each of the above cases is worrying in itself for Christians, it is clear that the purpose of the law is good: that Christians can no longer discriminate against others because of their beliefs.  The result however is bad: that others can discriminate against Christians because of their beliefs.  Lions: 1 – Christians: 0

For further information visit The Christian Institute‘s website.

In February, we considered the prospects for the Arab Spring, but almost as soon as pro-democracy demonstrations broke out from Morocco to Syria, the Chinese government moved quickly to nip any green bamboo shoots in the bud.

Since the infamous Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, the government of China has come to a tacit agreement with its burgeoning middle class: the government will deliver ever-increasing prosperity in exchange for domestic order.  And, by and large, this agreement has lasted.  As bicycles give way to BMWs on the streets of Beijing and Shanghai, demands for change have been few and far between.  The more the average Chinese citizen owns, the more he risks by protesting.  As long as the massive Chinese economy keeps powering ahead, the Communist Party seems secure.  So it has skilfully deprived any potential protest movement of many of the educated middle-class people who might be expected to co-ordinate and propel it.

But are the cracks beginning to appear?  Last month’s National Geographic Magazine reports that there are estimates (accurate figures are not published by the Chinese government!) of at least 100,000 strikes and demonstrations taking place each year.  Most of these are protests against low wages, poor working conditions, or land takeovers, but once people feel free enough to protest over economic issues, they are equally free to protest against a political system that disempowers them and causes their economic condition.  And despite the rising prosperity of China, there are still many millions of poor people who are not enjoying the benefits that the factory owners are experiencing.  That creates a potentially revolutionary situation, which could easily flare up into mass protests, as we have witnessed in Egypt and other countries.

This is a situation which will make the Chinese government very nervous.  Aware of its vulnerability, it has been quick to pre-empt any challenges.  While it is perhaps not surprising that China has cracked down on high-profile protesters like artist Ai Weiwei and Nobel prize-winning writer Liu Xiaobo to prevent them becoming leaders of a protest movement, what does this mean for the church in China?  Although the government has relaxed its opposition to the church in recent years (see our report in July last year) it still recognises that the church owes no specific loyalty to the government, and it has therefore taken steps to demonstrate that it is not going to tolerate the church becoming the nucleus of a protest movement.  In the last few months there has been a significant crackdown on unregistered churches, and church officials across the country have been detained.

One such target church is the high profile Shouwang  ‘house church’ in Beijing, which has about 1,000 members.  In April it was told to leave the premises it met in, and has subsequently been meeting in a park.  Its pastor has been under house arrest for nine weeks and many members have been arrested for praying in public.  Prior to the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre on 4th June, many church members were threatened by police or put under temporary house arrest to make sure they couldn’t demonstrate.  However there is no evidence that this church was planning demonstrations, although its persistence in meeting together is technically civil disobedience.

Another interesting development is that following a number of extremely positive articles about the church in China in the official state website China Daily in the last couple of years, the last article specifically about the Chinese church was published on 11th April in response to Shouwang church’s open-air meetings, and was a clearly political appeal to Christians to abide by the law and to stay away from open-air meetings.

It is abundantly clear that despite its efforts to show the world that it is positive towards the church, the Chinese government distrusts the revolutionary potential that it believes the church represents.  There could be more difficult times ahead for Chinese believers.

Please pray for the church in China, that it would:

• continue to meet together without fear
• have the faith to resist intimidation and not capitulate to threats
• see God at work powerfully despite the challenges

Building the church?

Last month (see ‘Researching Mission in Europe’) we told you about the Report on Missional Church Planting in Europe which Syzygy is producing for Eurochurch.net, and today Syzygy is  proud to release the Interim report.

Nearly 400 people involved in church planting, leading mission agencies, churches and  networks, and working academically in universities and bible colleges have participated in our research.  They work in 35 European countries and represent all the major churches, and are ministering in a wide variety of contexts both within their home cultures and as cross-cultural mission workers.  It is believed that this is the largest study of its type carried out in Europe, and we hope it will be highly influential in linking together and supporting church planting individuals and networks.  One notable academic commented that we have succeeded in identifying and involving all the key church planting individuals in his country.

The report contains overviews of the missional environment in each country covered by our research, and a directory of the 318 participating individuals working in those countries who did not ask us to keep their details confidential for reasons of confidentiality and security.  It brings together practical church planters and academic missiologists and will hopefully stimulate discussion and help people working in different roles to network together more effectively and further develop church planting activity throughout the continent.

The overall impression gained is of an immense variety of activities being carried out by a large number of denominations and networks, who do not always seem to be linking together and networking effectively.  One story that emerged in the process of gathering information concerned some church planters who felt called to go to a particular city to prayer walk, and did it for a month before bumping into people from a different organisation doing exactly the same thing.  We hope that our work will be able to reduce such instances of duplication and promote co-operation.

97 of the respondents to our survey are working in the UK, which is understandable since the existing networks we used to start our research are primarily based here, and we hope in future to be able to increase the number of participants in the several countries where we have few contacts.  The other countries where we had a good response are Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland.

Following the formal release of the Interim Report at the Hope II conference in Budapest this week, Eurochurch.net will be organising consultations in various European countries to promote co-operation between church planters and to investigate the potential for future networking.  The final report will be delivered following these consultations.

The final report will be released by October this year so it’s still not too late to be included.  People involved in Missional Church Planting in Europe can participate in our research by completing a short survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/eurochurch or by contacting info@syzygy.org.uk.

Syzygy produced this report in partnership with Nova Research Centre and Springdale College: Together in Mission, and the research is being sponsored by the McLellan Foundation.

Popular inspirational speaker and church leader Rob Bell has created a storm with his latest book Love Wins in which he challenges the church’s traditional understanding of heaven and hell.  Bell, pastor of the 10,000-strong postmodern church Mars Hill in Grandville, Michigan (USA) and producer of the popular Nooma dvd series, has never been considered a theological heavyweight by evangelicals, despite the fact that he clearly makes every effort to make his teaching biblical (as he sees it) and this book is no exception.  Bell’s strength is communicating Christian truth in an entertaining and simple manner for a postmodern generation.

Bell’s favourite technique is to ask reductive rhetorical questions to help people realise the absurdity of the traditional view of heaven and hell.  Examples include:

God is loving and kind and full of grace and mercy – unless there isn’t confession and repentance and salvation in this lifetime, at which point God  punishes forever.  That’s the Christian story, right?

A loving heavenly father who will go to extraordinary lengths to have a relationship with them, [will] in the blink of an eye, become a cruel, mean, vicious tormentor who will ensure that they had no escape from an endless future of agony.

Many have heard the gospel framed in terms of rescue.  God has to punish sinners, because God is holy, but Jesus has paid the price for our sin, and so we can have eternal life.  However true or untrue that is technically or theologically, what it can do is subtly teach us that Jesus rescues us from God.

Bell is not in fact saying anything that erudite theologians in reputable seminaries haven’t been speculating about for decades, a point which he claims in his introduction to demonstrate his ‘alternative orthodoxy’.  Where Bell is different, however, is that he does not follow the traditional liberal line of beginning with a God of love and rejecting the authority of the Bible where it contradicts love.

While he begins with the problem (which all of us, in truth, grapple with) that an ostensibly loving God will condemn billions of his own creatures to burn forever, he seeks a fully biblical solution, looking at the teaching of Jesus and all the terms used in scripture for hell.  He explains that what Jesus and his listeners would have understood by heaven and hell are not the same as the image the church has inherited, and proposes a solution drawn from the parable of the prodigal son, where the older brother is invited to the party, still has the option of going to the party, but doesn’t.

The book itself is written in Bell’s engaging and accessible style, with plenty of rhetorical questions ridiculing the point he is criticising.  However, like Velvet Elvis, it starts with a big impact but gradually fizzles out.  It’s long on argument but short on proposition, and ends up being unable to answer coherently the questions that it has raised.

Technically, it fails to tackle head on some crucial texts (e.g. Matthew 13:47-52, Mark 9:47-48, 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9, Revelation 20:10, 15) while claiming to have fully examined everything the Bible has to say about the subject.  While Bell is also quite correct by arguing that ‘everlasting’ (aionios in Greek) can be translated ‘for a time’ as validly as it can be translated ‘forever’, he doesn’t deal with how this can apply where ‘everlasting punishment’ and ‘everlasting life’ appear in the same sentence (Matthew 5:46).

Bell concludes that there is (or will be) no such place as hell, if by hell you mean a lake of fire.  He implies that he might believe in purgatory, and clearly anticipates a beautiful future for most of us, Christian or not, unless we choose to reject it.  And although he doesn’t actually say it,  there may  be a possibility making that choice after death.  And if we do reject it, the consequences won’t be hell, though it’s not clear from this book what they might be.

Whether you love or hate this book will depend on whether you are modern or postmodern.  If you are the latter you will be thrilled that someone has had the courage to recontextualise biblical imagery to create a new paradigm empowering us to live life like it really matters.  If you are modern, you will be furious that a high profile public figure will so undermine Christian tradition and challenge orthodoxy.

Bell has not succeeded in providing any answers, and while many Christians will be encouraged that the fate of their loved ones who have already died might not be as awful as they had previously believed, many more will be confused by this controversial and ultimately unhelpful intervention.  I can’t wait for John Piper to reply, probably by writing a book defending hell.

Many evangelical Christians will be outraged and offended by Bell’s views, but it is lamentable that they care so passionately about defending the traditional understanding of hell, yet do so little to prevent their neighbours being sent there.

Despite the prevalent perception that Europe considers God is dead, and that churches are in terminal decline, there is much going on in Europe for us to be excited about.  Many postmodern young Europeans have a willingness to explore their spirituality and engage with God in a way that would puzzle the preceding two generations, who have mainly felt that Christianity is increasingly irrelevant and discredited.  A new generation however, being largely unchurched, has no such reservations and is often interested in the Christian faith while being untouched by the cynicism of their predecessors.

The upshot of this is that there is a great deal of evangelism, mission and church-planting going on right across Europe.  Much of this is carried out by small mission organisations, simple churches, independent mission workers and informal networks.  Often focussed tightly at specific groups – young people, bikers, Moslem-background believers, ethnic minorities – these many, diverse operations add up to an evangelistic explosion across the continent.  While established denominations and sending agencies also see significant growth, diversity and informality have been particularly effective.  More evangelistic activity is taking place now than at any time over the last 50 years.

The result is that the picture of evangelism in Europe has become so localised and complex that no single person or organization has an overall picture of all the developments, initiatives, networks or new organizations even in an individual country, still less across Europe as a whole.   For this reason Syzygy is pleased to be co-operating with Eurochurch.net, Nova Research Centre and Springdale College: Together in Mission to undertake research that will identify the significant missional organisations and networks functioning within the nations and across the continent of Europe, and determine in what ways they can be more effective either by being part of an existing network or by tacit co-operation with other networks.

It is our conviction that this information is crucial to academics, church leaders, networks and agencies for forging strategic alliances which will facilitate the work of mission throughout the continent.  The objective is to produce a comprehensive directory of all churches, agencies and individuals involved in church planting in Europe.  That knowledge will be used to form a map of activity which will then be made widely available to denominations, churches, organisations and individuals who would find it helpful to know what it happening.

The preliminary results of our research will be presented at a seminar at Hope II in Budapest in May and there will continue to be follow-up consultations in a variety of European locations to determine with other participants how better to foster cooperation between the various agencies, individuals and groupings involved in this massive task of taking the good news back to the least reached continent.

If you are involved in any way in European missions and are willing to spend just five minutes completing an online form to help with our research, please contact me on tim@syzygy.org.uk.

Pro-democracy demonstrators in Tahrir Square

Following recent events in Egypt, many in the West are thrilled at the prospect of democracy emerging in this regionally strategic country.  There is a euphoria that keeps us watching the news updates, willing the demonstrators on.  We believe these are historic times.  There are, in fact, many parallels between the current popular demonstrations which have taken place not only in Egypt but in several other countries in the Near East/Middle East/North Africa (NEMENA) region, and the uprisings against Soviet rule in much of east and central Europe two decades ago.  There is a similar sense of hope and optimism that people power can unseat dictators and topple regimes.

Before we get too excited, we should remember that democracy has not yet broken out either in Egypt, where they have merely replaced an unpopular military dictatorship with an untried one, or in Tunisia, where individual government members have changed but the regime continues.  Other leaders in the NEMENA region may have reshuffled the government to make a show of listening to their subjects, but in reality may be more than willing to use force to crush opposition demonstrations and maintain their grip on power.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989

We should also remember what happened to those European countries in the post-Soviet era.  In the period between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet Union, 18 European countries gained independence or toppled a communist regime.  However, far from being rosy, their subsequent history has largely been squalid and violent.  While there have been some success stories, these countries are in the minority.  Some of the others have subsequently broken up, many have experienced civil war or open conflict with their neighbours, even undergoing genocide in some circumstances.  In several, democracy is far from stable, often compromised by military power or mafia dollars, and some experience little freedom of speech or freedom of religion.  Many are still cripplingly poor and life expectancy is short.  Even the former East German states are still significantly poorer than their West German counterparts.  It seems that in Europe, the democracy which we prize above everything else does not necessarily bring all the answers.

How then can we expect it to be any different in NEMENA?  Many countries in the region are already in circumstances similar to those outlined above.  Civil war, armed conflict, totalitarianism, corruption and poverty are no strangers to these countries.  Is democracy really going to be able to offer a solution to these problems?  Has the ‘democracy’ which the West imposed on Iraq made that country a safer, wealthier, fairer place to live?  The Christians living in Baghdad would not think so.

Toppling dictators who oppress their own people and enrich themselves at the expense of their countries’ poor cannot be a bad thing.  What replaces them can, however, be equally bad.  Into a post-dictatorial power vacuum can step ruthless forces, whether economic, military or spiritual, which can hijack a fledgling democracy for their own nefarious purposes.  Often the general public, having experienced years of corruption and poverty, are only too keen to vote for a strong man who offers peace, security, wealth and… salvation.  In this volatile region, the last thing we need emerging is a false messiah.

Let us pray for these countries: that God’s hand will be on them, for His will to prevail, and for the Christians to be bold in their affliction, and comforted in their suffering.

If you are involved with Christian work, there comes a time when it’s necessary to keep supporters up to date with what’s happening. Whilst modern technology provides various ways of communicating, it still means that most people send a regular form of newsletter. Whilst some have natural skills in writing, others struggle with this whole area of communication.

As the Alumni Co-ordinator for a Mission Training College, I have the privilege of receiving over 350 newsletters per year!  You can imagine that there is every conceivable type of newsletter that arrives on my desk, but the great thing is that each one is a reflection of the person who has sent it and a small window into each situation that they are living through.

It is not an easy job to be able to communicate all that you are living through onto one sheet of paper (or one brief email), choosing how to balance both the good things and the challenging aspects of life.  Communicating reality without being too negative or too positive is a skill that often develops over time.

Given that you send the newsletter to a diverse list of supporters, some of whom you know well and some who you don’t know very well, is a challenge in itself.  I don’t think there can be instructions for the ‘perfect’ newsletter but here are a few pointers that may help you communicate the things that you want to impart.

The Title – Having a letter that is clearly marked by some title is good, perhaps a memorable rhyme or phrase using the surname of the authors of the letter. One of the best examples I’ve seen was  ‘The Heintz Catch-up’ written by the Heintz family! It is also good to see a prominent indication of which organisation and country the writers are working with (this may be different for those who are in ‘sensitive’ situations … we will tackle this later).

The Body of the Letter – Most newsletters take up one or two sides of A4 at most. Some will fill every corner and have you reading the extra notes written in the margin all the way around the outside of the page. It’s good to write enough detail to involve the reader whilst also keeping it ‘readable’. Most folk include photos, which always brightens up the letter. It’s good to have one of the family occasionally, but perhaps not necessary every time.  I was very pleased to see that one family I write too added a photo of themselves in their newsletter recently as I had been writing to them for four years or more and I didn’t know what they or their children looked like.  Now I stand some chance of spotting them if they come to visit.  It also seems to help with praying for people if readers can picture them.

The Family’s Viewpoint – Some families get each member to write a paragraph or have a children’s section. This can be good as the view of life is often quite different for the job holder, as it is for the spouse or the 8 year old child.  It also means that readers remember the needs of the whole family and not just the work that they are there to do.

Situation ethics – Involving readers in your situations is good. There is one couple who have a section called ‘Going Deeper’ where they pose several questions asking ‘what would you do in this situation?’.  Most of the time there is no right or wrong answer but it allows readers to see some of the day to day dilemma’s that you are faced with and it gives them a good insight into living and working cross culturally, allowing them to pause and consider.

Living in a Sensitive Situation – Having a role which you can’t be so open about (e.g. because of security), provides challenges for communicating through newsletters. Some organisations give guidelines on what you should and shouldn’t write, along with instructions about using secure email. Some give very little. A few points of advice for sensitive situations is to never mention names (of places or people), to avoid using overtly Christian words or terms (like mission and evangelism) and to always think what the consequences might be if your newsletter got into the wrong hands. It’s good to explain to your readers that writing certain things might endanger your family or your work. The reader then knows to take a step back and read ‘between the lines’ in order to discern how things are really going. It is ironic that those who face the most difficulty in communicating their news due to their situation are often those folk who need the most support and prayer.

How Regularly? – Having a regular pattern to sending your newletters is good. The traditional stance has been to send a full letter 3 or 4 times per year. However, the ease of online communication means that you can send a brief update more often enabling your supporters to walk your journey with you, rather than only meet you at the staging posts along the way. Some people do this monthly, the keen ones weekly! Beware, however, that more often doesn’t always mean more interest. Some readers will be fatigued by the amount of communication if you send it too often.

Prayer Points – One of the main reasons of writing is to ask for prayer, and having a few ‘prayer points’ is a really helpful way of guiding the thoughts and prayers of supporters.  It is encouraging to see how God has answered previous prayers so having some points of thanksgiving is good too. This also helps the writer to stop and give thanks rather than just have a rolling ‘shopping list’ of prayer.

Whilst not comprehensive, maybe this has given you enough inspiration to get writing. Perhaps my final point would be to encourage you to remain true to yourself. Don’t try to dress it up too much but just write about what you are doing and what you are facing. That way your readers will get a true window into your situation and will feel privileged to join you on the ups and downs of your journey.

This article was written by Cheryl Frith and originally appeared on the Oscar website – http://www.oscar.org.uk.  It is reproduced with permission.

This week’s guest blogger is Rev Dr Martin Robinson, Principal of Springdale College: Together in Mission.  This article first appeared on www.eurochurch.net in September 2010.

Tom Wright, the recently-retired Bishop of Durham and leading New Testament scholar, marked his retirement bygiving a significant interview to the BBC in which he reflected on the situation of the Church of England.  During that wide ranging interview he picked on the theme that we are not becoming more secular, in fact if anything we are becoming more religious.

What he described applies to Europe more widely.  In a world of ‘posts’ – post-empire, post-modern, and post-Christian – we can now add post-secular.  A number of European commentators have picked up on this theme.  Europe is increasingly post-secular.

How do we make sense of such a situation?  How can we have lost touch with the founding roots of Europe and become post-Christian and yet now be rejecting the root of that criticism, secularism itself?

The clue lies in the contrast between being ‘religious people’ and ‘spiritual people’.  The people of Europe don’t think of themselves as ‘religious’, by which they mean to identify with a particular religious organization or institution but they can think of themselves as ‘spiritual’ by which they mean interested in God, in prayer, in a sense of wonder and mystery about life.

No more empty church buildings?

The root of this rejection of religion lies partly in the ancient European worry about religion as embodying conflict combined with a more recent rejection of institutions of all kinds  - whether they be political, social, or even educational.  We are now radically individualistic with all the angst that such a choice produces.  More worryingly there is also a gradual severing of the relationship between the idea of spirituality and the idea of morality.  You can be a ‘spiritual’ person without having to think too deeply about a particular moral code beyond the requirement to do no harm.

The depth of this shift of sentiment helps to illustrate the painful lesson that the church has learnt these last 20 years: the answer to the question of the decline of the church does not lie in a particular programme or model of the church.   Instead we have to learn how to do mission – in our cultural context – deeply contextualized and profoundly local.

In a recent interview with a church leader in Wales, I learnt that most of the historic churches in Wales are still declining but that a few  congregations in their midst were seeing good growth.  One or two of the smaller historic denominations are beginning to turn the corner and that some of the newer and independent churches are seeing remarkable growth.  The single factor that connects these very different expressions of church is the willingness to connect with and to serve at a deep level the communities in which they are located.

One of my students who is exploring the growth of some ‘traditional’ congregations in Scotland is making the same kind of discoveries in that very different context.  The exploration of this kind of mission is precisely what Eurochurch.net as a network of practitioners and thinkers is committed to locate and debate.

Martin Robinson

Last month the world went back to Cape Town for the second time this year, but this time not for football.  The third Lausanne Conference on World Evangelisation was being held there.  In a truly worldwide consultation, 4000 church leaders and representatives, from nearly 200 countries, were joined virtually by remote participants at 650 different venues across the globe where live streaming of the events was shown, and by over 100,000 individuals observing online.

John Oh embraces an Asian believer after she shared the story of her family's struggles as Christians.

This was a marked contrast to the historic Edinburgh Convention which took place 100 years earlier, and which is being commemorated in this and several other missions conferences taking place in 2010.  On that occasion the delegates were overwhelmingly from northern Europe and North America, and no Roman Catholic or Orthodox delegates were invited.  The Cape Town conference, however, brought together people from diverse cultures and denominations, who brought colour and spectacle to the proceedings by dressing proudly in a variety of ethnic and ecclesiastical clothing.  This time round, over 50% of the delegates represented countries which would been considered largely unevangelised by the delegates in 1910.

One contingent sadly lacking was the Chinese church.  A constitutional commitment to global evangelisation was required from churches wishing to send delegates, and since the official Three Self Patriotic Movement does not have this, it was anticipated that China would be represented by leaders of various unregistered churches.  Sadly they were all prevented from leaving the country at the last minute.  The absence of this dynamic delegation representing one of the world’s largest Christian communities was deeply significant.

Another notable absence was former Archbishop of Cape Town Desmond Tutu, who has recently retired from public life.  A tireless and prominent campaigner against apartheid, and subsequently a vocal advocate of forgiveness and reconciliation, he would have been a highly visible testament to the conference’s twin motifs of faithfulness to historic Christian truth and a call to radical action encapsulated in the conference’s theme: ‘God in Christ, reconciling the world to himself’ (2 Corinthians 5:19).

Nevertheless, many global leaders made significant contributions to the proceedings.  Billy Graham and John Stott, founders of the Lausanne Movement who are both now too old to travel, sent recorded greetings.  Other headline names led expositions of Ephesians but significantly many of the speakers were from Africa, South America and various parts of Asia, often representing areas not traditionally considered Christian.  It was encouraging to see the western world relinquishing its traditional dominance over such events, since it now represents so few Christians in comparison to the rest of the world.

Perhaps the most significant outcome from the conference is The Cape Town Commitment, a statement of faith and a call to action.  A draft of the first part, a declaration of belief crafted by evangelical theologians representing all the continents, is available at

http://conversation.lausanne.org/en/conversations/detail/11544.

The second part is due for publication later this year.  The aim of this document is to provide a firm evangelical commitment to truth and action to inspire the church globally in its mission.

Lloyd Estrada (Philippines) tells a Bible story.

After the second Lausanne conference in Manila in 1989, over 350 missional partnerships between different churches and agencies were started.  Syzygy hopes that Cape Town 2010 will give the global church the impetus and sense of urgency needed to finish the task of global evangelisation in this generation, which ironically was one of the objectives of the conference in Edinburgh one hundred years ago.  Let us pray that this generation achieves even more than that one did.

September sees the first ever state visit of a Pope to Britain.  Yes, I know the previous Pope visited, but that was a ‘private’ visit – the visit of a spiritual leader to his church.  But on this occasion, Benedict XVI was invited by Queen Elizabeth and comes in his capacity as head of state of the Vatican.

He arrives in Edinburgh on 16th September, where there will be an official reception for him in the grounds of Holyrood House, hosted by the Queen.  The Pope will later hold an open-air mass in Glasgow before flying to London, where he will meet the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury, and will celebrate evening prayer in Westminster Abbey before holding a vigil in Hyde Park.

Arguably the most significant event of the visit will be an open-air mass in Birmingham where Cardinal John Henry Newman will be beatified.  The prominent 19th century Anglican priest joined the Roman Catholic church in 1847 and became a leading figure in the Oratory movement, founding the English-speaking world’s first oratory in Birmingham. Cardinal Newman became eligible to be beatified (which means he will be referred to as ‘the blessed’ Cardinal Newman) following the Vatican’s confirmation earlier this year that the inexplicable recovery of a Massachusetts man from a spinal disorder was attributable to the intercessory intervention of Newman.  A further miracle, which is already under investigation, will need to be confirmed before the Cardinal can be recognised as a Saint.

Cardinal Newman, from a painting by John Everett Millais

Cardinal Newman’s beatification is not without controversy, since for many years there have been suggestions that he was gay.  Although there is no direct evidence of this, it is true that he shared a home with a male companion for many years, and the two were buried in the same grave.  An attempted excavation of Newman’s remains in 2008, to move them to the Oratory in direct contravention of his instructions, was condemned as ‘moral vandalism’ by gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, who suggested that the church was attempting to hide embarrassing evidence.

The Pope’s visit also takes place against a background of muddle and overspend which has been an embarrassment to the team organising the visit, and the high cost of security, which falls to the UK government as this is a state visit.  Moreover, there continue to be ongoing rumbles of concern that, while still a cardinal, the Pope was involved in (or at least complicit in) the cover-up of cases of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests.  Whether this is true is not certain, but what appears clear is that the Pope is personally greatly pained by these accusations.  There is no indication yet that the Pope will have any contact with victims, or make any statement of apology or regret.

It is to be hoped that his visit will bring great encouragement to the many millions of Roman Catholics in Britain, and will lead to effective dialogue with the protestant churches.

More details can be found at the visit’s website http://www.thepapalvisit.org.uk/

In a move which clearly prioritises principle over church unity, the Church of England voted on Saturday night to reject a proposal to provide for traditionalist parishes to opt for male bishops to preside over formal events once women are installed as bishops.

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York had both laid their personal authority on the line in an appeal to maintain the unity of the 400 year old church after some traditionalists had threatened to leave if women bishops are introduced.  Yet the General Synod narrowly voted down the Archbishops’ compromise measure, paving the way for the introduction of women bishops in the near future.  Interestingly, the majority of Synod members voted for the proposal, but the clergy didn’t, and since changes have to be accepted by all three houses of the synod (laity, clergy and bishops), the clergy effectively vetoed the will of the wider church.  Whether this was out of loyalty to the principle of male leadership, or simply dislike of working for a woman, is not clear.

Liberals have accused the Archbishops of being weak in their concessions, suggesting that the church has dallied over this issue for far too long and that traditionalists who don’t want women to become bishops can ‘go to Rome’.  Pope Benedict XVI already muddied the waters by last year holding out the promise of ‘fast-track conversion’ to disgruntled Anglo-catholic priests.  Yet many of the conservative clergy who voted against the proposal would not have been traditionalist Anglo-catholics, but evangelicals.  They will have no desire to join Rome, so will be faced with the dilemma of staying within the Church of England or leaving it.

Liberals are also disgruntled over plans to appoint a new Bishop of Southwark to succeed Tom Butler.  In an apparent leak from the Crown Nominations Commission (which may have been orchestrated by conservatives) it was suggested that Canon Jeffery John was in line for the post.  Canon John was forced to revoke his acceptance of the role of Bishop of Reading in 2004 after an outcry over his long-term relationship with another male priest.  They subsequently entered a civil partnership together.  If the traditionalists’ goal in raising a hue and cry over Canon John was to prevent him being considered, it seems it has worked, as the CNC has confirmed that his name is not on their list of candidates.

Over the centuries, the C of E has been remarkably successful at not being dogmatic about belief and creating room for those with differing opinions to shelter under the one roof of a very broad church.  These two issues do however seem to be in danger of tearing the C of E apart as the liberal and conservative wings become increasingly strident in their demands.

Please pray for the members of the General Synod as they continue to debate these issues till Tuesday 13^th July.  Pray for the Archbishops to have wisdom and grace as they lead a dividing church.  Pray for a spirit of unity to prevail, and for a loving sensitivity to be shown among Christian brothers and sisters who disagree passionately about these issues.

Fans of popular evangelical writer Tom Wright will no doubt be pleased to hear that the theologian, who publishes his more academic works under the name NT Wright, has announced that he is taking early retirement from his role as Bishop of Durham in order to concentrate on his theological work.

Wright’s work has some influential followers such as James Dunn, Rowan Williams and Tim Keller, despite having been challenged on a variety of fronts  - particularly his ideas on the key doctrines of justification and atonement – by both liberal Christians and conservative evangelicals, notably John Piper.  This controversy has not dented his popularity and his works have been bought enthusiastically, and even read, by thousands of Christians worldwide.

Being freed from the work of a bishop will allow Wright to return to the world of academia, and he is taking up a role as Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St Andrews.  The academic and ecclesiastic worlds are two passions which have long struggled for pre-eminence in Wright’s life, since he studied both classics and theology at Oxford, before studying for the ministry.  He then resumed his academic career, which he combined with chaplaincy before becoming a dean, canon, and bishop.

Tom’s departure will be keenly felt by the Archbishop of Canterbury, for whom he was a crucial ally in holding the Church of England together.  As a leading representative of the centrist evangelical group, he is a figurehead for a large group of Anglicans keen to maintain the traditional teaching and values of the church while remaining committed to staying within the existing church.

It would appear that Wright has finally realised that being a bishop is a full-time job that does not sit easily with being a writer.  In a statement issued by the Diocese of Durham he said

This has been the hardest decision of my life. It has been an indescribable privilege to be Bishop of the ancient Diocese of Durham…. But my continuing vocation to be a writer, teacher and broadcaster, for the benefit (I hope) of the wider world and church, has been increasingly difficult to combine with the complex demands and duties of a diocesan bishop.

Syzygy hopes that he will continue to publish vibrant, readable yet challenging books for many years to come.

For Your Information is an occasional series of reports informing missionaries abroad of the current state of the church in the UK.  Today we consider the on/off relationship between All Nations and Redcliffe.

Friends and family of ‘Just Good Friends’ couple Redcliffe and All Nations who have been out buying new hats will be disappointed to hear of another hitch in the turbulent  relationship between these star-crossed lovers.

They will remember how many years ago the couple nearly made it up the aisle before realising that they weren’t ready for everlasting commitment.  Last year the pair, who have remained on amicable terms ever since, delighted their many wellwishers with the news that once again they were engaged.  Yet despite many late-night heart-to-hearts, it seems that the course of true love is determined not to run smooth.

The unhappy couple, who clearly continue to be on good terms but whose compatibility is questionable, are believed to have been unable to resolve many differences, the chief of which was an inability to agree on where to set up the conjugal home.  Both have attractive properties, one in fashionable central Gloucester, and the other in delightful rural Hertfordshire, but clearly could not afford to maintain both properties.  Despite their evident desire to move in together, neither was willing to leave their home of many years.

So the posh frocks are going back in the wardrobe, at least for a few years.  It seems that the clock is ticking for the ageing singletons  who are reluctant to surrender their independence for domestic bliss – but are there any other potential suitors out there?  Apparently not.  Could they be dooming themselves to lifelong loneliness?

For never was a story of more tragedie

Than this of Redcliffe and of ANCC