Next week, trains permitting, I am presenting my first academic paper that relates to my PhD research.  The Conference is the British Sociological Association: Sociology of Religion Study Group gathering in Edinburgh.  The proposal is below and the full paper should appear as a pdf attachment below.

‘The Changing face of Christianity in the 21st Century”

The BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group Conference
6-8 April 2010 University of Edinburgh

Liquid Faith: looking for anchorages in 21st century cultures

Given the rapid changes in C21st Christianity, counting membership and observing new forms and hybridisations capture only part of the picture.  There is a strong historic approach by which to define Christianity, which represents a break from the more institutional language and categories used to trace changes in religious groups. One that is grounded in the practical and in the everyday relationships that a Christian lives within: with the Divine, with the community of believers and with those outside the faith [Charry 1999].  This relational approach focuses on these unique social bonds within the Christian worldview.

Taking a lead from work by Gordon Lynch [2002, 2003] and early experiences in the field within evangelical communities suggest that Bauman’s [2000 - 2008] Liquid metaphor offers a significant key to understanding the changing nature of these social bonds.  Focusing on these unique social bonds, this paper will allow Bauman to draw out how the Christian experience has become increasingly individualised, how much poorer it is as a result of the loss of it’s own public vocabulary and how individuals cope with that responsibility.  The results will be a much richer understanding of declining numbers and new forms within contemporary Christianity.

Having suffered too many seminars and workshops at the hand of lecturers.  Having wasted too many hours listening to stuff I already have experience of or knowledge already acquired or learned.  Having sat for so long on uncomfortable chairs calculating the number of hours represented by the group that equate to each minute spent listening to someone say “We’ll skip that bit because we are running out of time!” I just want to ask… is there not a better way?

The real situations of which the previous paragraph is an emotional caricature are usually a room full of adults, with plenty of mixed life experience, passionate about the subject or at least the macro-subject of which a particular workshop or seminar is a part and, usually as a result of the aforesaid, have options, perspectives and questions about the subject in question [or not actually in question as is often the case].

Ok, let’s get really real: I was in a room of 18 adults, a good proportion of which were [and of course still are] parents; all of which had had some lay experience of volunteering in a church in a leadership position; all of which will have completed a CRB application and check and therefore will have some familiarity with a child protection document; all of which had been or about to be ordained into orders in the Church of England; at least two in the room had at least 10 years experience as a team leader of children’s and youth ministry; one person some years experience as a police officer and I am willing to place money on there being at least one person with full-time teaching experience, one with full-time nursing experience and one with some form of social worker experience. To this group of people someone thought it would be a good idea to give a 2 hour lecture on child protection issues with 2 short group exercises, straight after lunch having already being in the room for 2 hours previously listening to someone else.

As an exercise in learning this does not score highly…!

OK, rant almost over… breathing deeply now…

It seems to me that we spend far too long talking about whatever instead of allowing people to participate in the learning process. In the late nineties it would have been fairly easy in the Christian conference and training circuit to find oneself sitting listening to some talk about the encroaching condition of postmodernity in our culture and how this would affect life as we know it and, usually, the threats this would bring to both being Christian and any evangelistic and mission activity we might have or imagine. Almost certainly one of the points to be made in this talk would have been to describe the fragmentation of life, relationships and imagination, highlighting one of the most obvious indicators as an increasingly short attention span as we adapt to the flickering plethora of information and entertainment invading our senses. Almost certainly… you guessed it… these words of truth were delivered lecture-style whilst the subjects and illustrators were sat on, almost certainly, uncomfortable chairs for about a hour, and more if you were lucky!

Research indicates that 7 mins is about the concentration span of adults… by now it has probably taken you about that long to read this so I’ll…

I realise there are several approaches, but when I do a jigsaw…

As I pour the pieces out of the box there may be some pieces that are still stuck together from the last time the puzzle was done, or even from manufacture. I may also spot certain attractive pieces that I recognise from the finished picture. I may even put these to one side. But the first real step is to sort out the edge pieces and do the edge. Once I have the edge done I can place those few pieces that are still stuck together and even those pieces that are easy to place because of their colour or texture.

I have this same technique when doing jigsaws with my kids. I tend to focus on getting the edge done which means that they then find it very easy to place the inside bits.

I find theology very similar.  There are lots of interesting bits, colourful and attractive – Jesus on the cross, heaven, feeding the 5000, love in 1 Corinthians. These bits in and of themselves obviously have depth and meaning and can be sources of inspiration and life change, but can become disconnected stories and theories without an edge. As with the jigsaw, the edge defines the relationship between the individual aspects of the picture and the stories those parts represent. It also provides a way into the picture as a whole. If the top of the edge is blue and the bottom is green these are clues as to the setting of the whole picture. The relationship between the blue and green tells us where the horizon is which in turn is a clue as to the content of the picture. It may even allow us to begin to tell what is in the foreground and what is in the background. The few exciting colourful pieces of the puzzle that together hold a picture of, say a hot-air balloon, are put in their place by the edge. The extent to which this hot-air balloon controls the whole picture is defined by the edge.

By now this metaphor and its insight into theology may be apparent. We can so often get caught by the beauty of a few pieces of the puzzle that we forget to do the edge and thus allow those pieces to be put in their place. In so doing we can become so blinded to the whole picture that the story of the few pieces become slightly distorted and disconnected.

I remember the time clearly when I realised this and stopped trying to think about the exciting pieces I had in my hand and started to focus on finding the edge pieces and putting the frame together.

What then are the edge pieces? My starter for ten is Trinity.

I can only encourage you to get a copy details here. You might also be interested in looking at the Lenten Blog by Jason Clark which is based around this book and even has the author commenting to the posts!

As a MTh group we were encouraged to watch the video Romero, which is the story of the conscientisation of Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador.
Basically – we can’t appreciate how easy we have it!

She was brilliant and was very fair in her presentation about where her thoughts were and where the limitations and the lacking in her thoughts were. Apart from that she described (almost) exactly what I (am many others i’m sure) have and are doing at the cutting edge of leadership in church life.

Essentially – what is theology if it is not doing it! What is pure theology? does it exists? Surely theology is talk about GOD at the point where it really matters – in real lives.

In suggesting we reclaim ancient and traditional focus of formation of character and community identity ‘pastoral / practical / applied theology’ is put back in the driving seat of theologcal education.

I will try and put post a link to my notes later

But not so obvious as it seems at first…

Surely there is no such thing as ‘pure’ theology – is there!  Can we really talk about GOD outside of our interpretive cultural framework of time, language, space, hope?  I don’t think so. But if that is the case then is all theology ‘applied’ in the sense that it is what we say today.

My first systematic theology lecturer had a phrase – ‘all theological statements are interim statements’.  What I say today might be different tomorrow, but on what criteria are they allowed to change.  Just because I feel good today and bad / depressed tomorrow does that mean I can change my theology? Just because we are current in boom but when tomorrow comes we find ourselves in crash, does that mean we can change our theology?

What is the process of discerning our theology?