What is in Kelvin's Head?

Advent and How Religion Works

16/12/2017

Religion is a funny thing. It is on the one hand about doing what comes naturally to people. And on the other hand it is about doing the very opposite.

Let me explain.

Some aspects of religion are about what comes naturally and easily to people – things like prayer and things like the way we celebrate joys and sorrows. Other aspects of religion are more hard work – they are about doing the unexpected thing ranging from the apparently trivial (wearing your hair like this rather than like that) to the extremely serious (“In the name of the Holy Spirit and of the Church of Christ we call you to serve in the order of presbyters. Do you accept this call?”).

The former are to do with the way we are wired as human beings. The latter consists of a whole range of things that can shape life profoundly and change it utterly.

I know it is a bit counter-intuitive to say that prayer is easy. In many respects, prayer belongs with the things that build up a spiritual life. But prayer comes very naturally when we are up against it in the world. When we are frightened for ourselves or even more likely frightened for others, many people find an impetus to pray, whether or not they believe in a God who meddles in the ways of this world.

It is the same when it comes to joys and sorrows. Often we do spiritual things not because that is part of a coherent spiritual life but simply because for some reason we have a need as human beings to mark significant moments in life. For some reason, human beings have evolved to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries in ways that other sentient beings have not. We buy champagne or flowers when we celebrate and we find ways of marking tragedy that are unexplained and untaught. The sea of flowers that appears when tragedy strikes tells us that people care a great deal about the well-being of others. They tell us that compassion is real. They tell us that people simply couldn’t help themselves from expressing the better part of what it means to be human.

Much religion is built from such sentiment.

The Christian calendar mostly arises from people’s need to remember significant things that people have done through the remembrance of anniversaries of one kind or another. It might be the anniversary of the death of someone special, the anniversary of a birth or even an anniversary marking the oh so human moment of actual conception. These festivals have the original character that shares something very much in common with our own desire to celebrate and mark significant moments.

But Advent is different somehow. It isn’t about the anniversary of something. For all it is a countdown to a birth, pretty much everyone who takes Advent seriously is in agreement that it isn’t really about celebrating that birth at all. We’ll get there, but only once we’ve prepared ourselves.

Advent is a bit of an effort.

We’re in the middle of Advent now. And I love it.

There was a time when Advent and Lent were regarded as much of a muchness – penitential seasons that came before a big festival.

In recent years, Advent has changed a bit I think – more about preparation now than penitence. However it is much under attack as the commercial Christmas has taken over the month of December.

Some churches have capitulated and now don’t keep Advent as anything other than proto-Christmas. Thus, plenty of churches are already festooned with decorations and carol services are going on this weekend, just two weeks since Advent began. It is hard to criticise people for this. May those who sing joyful things experience joy in their hearts. However, keeping Advent as an actual spiritual discipline has much in its favour too.

Here at St Mary’s, we keep as full and proper an Advent as we can. That means we don’t sing Christmas carols or put up decorations or anything like that until we’ve kept four Sunday Eucharists of Advent.

This year, with Christmas on a Monday, 24 December is Advent 4 (which takes precedence over Christmas Eve) and so we’ll not be keeping the big feast until later on that day. I’ve little doubt that we may have some people turning up on 24 December in the morning expecting lots of ho ho ho, but what they will get is a bit of Advent ho-ho-holiness instead.

Once that fourth advent Eucharist is done, we might go a bit Christmas crazy and I’m expecting that to be a lot of fun.

Keeping Advent like this is intentional, deliberate and yes, sometimes difficult. It puts us at odds with everyone around us including plenty of other Christians in other churches.

It is that side of religion that is about spiritual practise – holy habit forming. It is about trying to do something in life that affects the soul. The hope of the spiritual life is that it leads to deeper joys than a life not cultivating the soul. Keeping Advent these days and not caving into the tinsel is a metaphor for much in religion.

Would it matter much if we just gave in and sang While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night before the event? On the one hand, of course it wouldn’t. But on the other hand…? Does it matter if you keep a kosher kitchen? Does it matter if you pray five times a day? Does it matter if you turn up to join in receiving communion with others or would receiving it by post do just as well instead? Does it matter if you say morning and evening prayer every day? Does it matter if you practise honesty at work? Does it matter if that child is baptised or not? Does it matter if you fast on a Friday or if you don’t?

The root that people are trying to get to with any spiritual practice is a life filled with joy and overflowing with compassion for others. The habits of religion are a funny mixture. A very great many of them don’t matter that much at all in absolute terms. But it remains the case that religious people believe that adjusting life and doing deliberate things that are counter-cultural and which must seem just plain odd to many, can help someone find a life of greater happiness, empathy and care. That’s what spiritual practise is about, whether or not it is learned within or outwith the confines of any organised religion.

Keeping Advent in the determined, deliberate way that we keep it here is a signpost, a symbol, a marker that at our deepest level we need not dance to the tune that the rest of the world might be singing. Humming along to the Fairytale of New York as I may do in a shop on a Saturday, I know that I belong to a way of life that sometimes chooses to sing from quite another hymn sheet from that of the world around me.

Advent is hard work if you keep it these days.

Hard and holy work.

And I love it.

advent, no carols in church

11 responses to “Providence and Vocation for Liberals in Public Life”

David Evans

29/06/2015

I was one of the Lib Dems who did foresee the calamity in 2015 and actively campaigned to get the party to change leader – after 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 it wasn’t difficult for anyone to see, but it was difficult for many nice Lib Dems to own up to the fact that they had allowed it to happen. I failed, but I don’t think it was part of anyone’s plan that I did (except possibly Ryan Coetzee and a few other true believers).

There’s a lot in your points I can agree with, particularly regarding the naivety of referring to God’s plan, when many Christian’s have a view that his/hers/its plan is to let us get on with it and find our own way to salvation. However, the most interesting question is when you say “The trouble is, these are not side issues, these are my rights.” Do you really mean that you have the right to force someone else to marry you who doesn’t want to and believes it is wrong, even though you have the right to and can get someone else to do the same job for you? Do individuals have the right to insist on being married by the registrar of their choice, or just the right to get married? Are you not perhaps just a bit assuming that your tree is that bit taller than the other guy’s?

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  29/06/2015
  
  I think that people should be able to expect individual people who represent the state not to discriminate against them in any of the protected categories. I think that the equal rights tree is bigger than my tree and the registrar’s tree.
  
  I don’t claim that individuals should be able to force registrars of their choice to marry them, not least because I don’t think it is a very real question – few people want to be married by someone who doesn’t want them to be married. I do think that local authorities have not simply the right but the duty to remove public officials who can’t serve every member of the public due to their personal prejudices.
  
  Reply
  1. David Evans
    
    30/06/2015
    
    I think you are rather changing your ground here from your original piece. You started with “The trouble is, these are not side issues, these are my rights.”
    
    You have now moved onto “I think that people should be able to expect individual people who represent the state not to discriminate against them in any of the protected categories.” So we now have a right to expect, but only against a person who works in the public sector, and even if it is against that person’s conscience and only if you are in a specially protected category.
    
    It gets even more tenuous then as you accept when you then say “I don’t claim that individuals should be able to force registrars of their choice to marry them.” So the right is not to a person wanting to be married at all.
    
    Finally we get “I do think that local authorities have not simply the right but the duty to remove public officials who can’t serve every member of the public due to their personal prejudices.” So the right is not to an individual at all, so definitely not “your rights” but to a public sector organisation. Hardly a human right, more of an employer’s right by your own statements.
    
    I rather think that your equal rights tree, however high you think it is, has decidedly peculiar roots.
    
    Reply
    1. Graham Evans
      
      05/07/2015
      
      David, I thought most liberals accepted the view that in the provision of services to the general public, whether provided by the public sector or private sector, a policy of non-discrimination was an essential ingredient of a progressive society. I accept that there is a notable exception to this rule in terms of the provision of abortion, but this arises from the broad range of medical procedures undertaken by one type of doctor or another. Surgeons are specialised medical practitioners, as are nurses who assist them, so it is most unlikely then anyone who opposed abortion on conscience grounds would actually be faced with having to refuse to conduct an abortion. The provision of most services to the general public is also a specialist activity, and no-one forces people to engage in any particular activity. The idea that a registrar should be able to opt out of undertaking a civil gay marriage represents the thin edge of a dangerous wedge. If such people wish to opt out of doing so, then they should act as part of a religious community, such as a deacon in Anglican Church, which has the legal power to conduct religious marriages, are still recognised by the State.
      
      Reply
      1. David Evans
        
        18/07/2015
        
        Quite simply Graham I disagree with your view that this is a level of discrimination in the provision of a public service of anything like the scale you imply makes it essential that every individual has to comply with it. The “go with it or get out” philosophy demanded of the state by so many in pursuit of their personal view of their rights is to my mind a greater threat to liberty than the fact that Fred or Freda don’t agree with something and don’t want to do it but George, Georgina, Harry, Harriette etc etc etc etc can do it instead. Ultimately you aren’t stopping someone from exercising their right; you are preventing someone from imposing their requirement on someone else.
        
        However, I note Kelvin hasn’t responded to my substantive point and I await that with interest.
Iain Brodie Browne

02/07/2015

Firstly thank you for your posting.
I have been expressing my concern elsewhere that the main voices we have heard in the debate about Tim’s faith have been firstly from those who think that it wholly a private matter and because his opinions are sincerely held and are derived from his faith the rest of us should back off and secondly those who seem to imply that having a religious faith at all is a negative factor. Until your contribution I am not aware that anyone has directly addressed the issue from different Christian understanding.
I cut my political teeth at the end of the 1960s opposing the all ‘white’ rugby and cricket tours from South Africa. The dominant voices from the churches were from Trevor Huddleston and David Sheppard. They effectively contested the assertions of those who told us (and they did) that apartheid was part of God’s plan.
Earlier in that decade Michael Ramsey spoke up clearly in support of what was then called homosexual law reform. David Steel, who pushed through the 1967 Act did so at a time when he was regularly introducing Songs of Praise.
I regret that equal marriage and the removal of other discriminations against gay people –including the issue you raise about Registrars- have not been as effectively championed by Christians as those earlier reforms. It is fair to say that in the minds of those who you describe as ‘decent people in society’ Christians are seen as opposing these reforms. The priority for the churches appears to be to gain protection for those who oppose such reforms. Imagine if that had been the approach to apartheid.
My own experience gives me hope that things are changing. Our local church got a new vicar who immediately began to pray for the defeat of the Equal Marriage legislation, got up petitions and lobbied. His views on women priests were no more in tune with ‘decent society’. In common with many churches these matters had not really been properly discussed. It was heartening how many members did openly contest his views and a significant portion of the congregation felt so strongly the eventually relocated to other churches. There is a good deal more support for liberal values amongst church goers than is popularly conceived.

My view is much the same as expressed in the Independent’s editorial this morning which endorsed Tim but added the rider that : ‘It will be for Mr Farron to make clear to party members, the public at large, and this newspaper, that his faith can indeed be reconciled with a liberal view on matters of birth, marriage and death.’ If faith is the opposite of certainty then I have enough to believe that can be achieved but if would be of assistance not only to Tim but to others struggling to reconcile their faith with liberal views if more church leaders provide a Christian narrative as effectively as did Michael Ramsey and Trevor Huddleston did in their day.

http://birkdalefocus.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/influencial-divine-former-libdem-ppc.html

Reply
Andy

18/07/2015

Personally, as a non-Christian, I find the attack on Tim Farron’s Christian faith distasteful, even disturbing. With the issue of gay marriage, something I wholly support, it is clear to me that Farron was trying to protect freedom of religious thought whilst also legislating for LGBT equality. There is nothing illiberal about that. Freedom of religion is one of the most fundamental human rights, and something liberals should defend. Any definition of liberalism which does not include freedom of conscience, is one I have no interest in supporting.

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  18/07/2015
  
  Thanks for commenting, Andy.
  
  I’m not aware of people attacking Tim Farron’s faith. I am aware of people questioning whether someone who apparently has anti-gay views is an appropriate person to represent the Lib Dems as leader.
  
  When it comes to the vote about the registrars, that can either be interpreted as defending religious thought or as defending discrimination. I come to the latter view because if I substitute a couple who are gay for a couple being say mixed race (something many people would once have objected to on religious grounds) then I see clear discrimination at work.
  
  It is a strange day when people are arguing (as some are) that the leader of the Liberal Democrats has the right to hold distasteful views about gay people in private so long as he defends their rights in public. He does have that right but not the right to be taken seriously as well.
  
  Reply
  1. David Evans
    
    18/07/2015
    
    Sadly there have been many who have been attacking Tim’s faith, some directly and some more with disdain. Comments such as listening to his sky fairy are not uncommon. Also portraying his views as apparently anti-gay are without doubt over egging it massively as opposed to the simple fact that as a liberals we should all have views which take into account the “balance of fundamental values of liberty, equality and community” and that this inevitably leads to differences of judgement on lots of individual issues, but do not undermine the fundamental decency and liberalism of many people like Tim, who have proved it over a great many years.
    
    Reply
David Evans

13/11/2015

Kelvin,

It is a great disappointment to me that you have not come back to me with any further reasoning in response to my post on 30 June 02:19. Have you changed your views, reinforced them with new vigour or simply moved on?

Reply
1. Graham Evans
  
  13/11/2015
  
  David, perhaps you could clarify what your substantive point is. Having reread the whole thread it’s certainly not clear to me.
  
  Reply