What the shopping riots show us about the UK’s post-secular culture

August 14, 2011

I have just put up a blog on the Moot Community’s Website about the link between what happened in the UKs first shopping riots and the bleak side of our emerging post-secular culture.  I think in the UK we face serious issues - and these have an impact on how we the Church respond in mission to this increasingly unhealthy and unjust situation.  To see the blog - please click here

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Language we use to talk of God

July 30, 2011

Now that I am again in the South Pacific amongst some of the most post-colonial and post-secular people, I am reminded how anachronistic is the language we use for God.  When speaking of God, we tend to use majestic language - of monarchy - of Kingship and of Lord.  In a world that is increasingly discovering a more mystical and spiritual sense, this majestic language creates negative connotations around power, hierarchy and outdated forms of governance.

So what language should we use for God?  How can we be authentically Christian yet contextual?  This is the argument that Sallie MacFague uses in her writings and I don’t think we have been able to make much progress.  She suggests the importance of metaphorical theology - the use of metaphorical language in our pursuit of using affirming and accessible words for God.

In the Moot Community we have used words such as Creator, Redeemer and Companion as functional metaphorical language instead of Father, Son and SPirit. But we still have a long way to go.

In countries like Australia, I am reminded that contemporary culture is much more interested in premodern modes of expressing spirituality.  There is great interest for example in the pantheism of Australian Aboriginal culture oppressed by colonisation in the modern period.  So in our now post-secular culture, premodern language finds new resonance.

So how do we express the deep mysticism of Christianity in a language that is accessible to post-secular seekers.  Well for me it starts with a re appreciation of how the Hebrews developed a language for God coming from experience.  This is the judeo-christian tradition at the heart of the faith that finds its fulfillment in the Holy Trinity.  So we need to increasingly find post-patriarchical and non-power language for naming God.

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Post Secular Religion and Politics

July 28, 2011

Just read a really interesting Article in the Australian Newspaper which interviews Tony Blair about politics and religion.  It is an interesting reading about the rise of a global post-secular culture, and the dangers of religious radicalisation.  Although I don’t agree with Tony Blair about a few things, I think he is right to point out these issues.  To read the article see here.

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Speaking in Australia

July 24, 2011

Well I am now in Sydney in Australia in Paddington, catching up with friends. Tomorrow I head off to Melbourne and Bendigo to speak at an Anglican gathering and then a community called Seeds, followed by a gathering emerging church types in Melbourne. I hope this will promote exposure of the book on Ancient Faith Future Mission: New Monasticism as fresh expression of the church.

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End of Over busyness and visit to Australia

June 25, 2011

Dear Friends.  First a big apology for blog silence.  We have been amazingly busy launching the whole new venture of the Moot Community at the Guild Church of St Mary Aldermary, and in particular, gearing ourselves up for the Lounge Project, an attempt to have an arts and spiritual and cafe space to promote wellbeing, right living and the Christian faith and spirituality.  Nothing like starting a big project in a world resession!!

So I am pleased to say I have the good fortune of going back to Australia to have a bit of a rest and catch up with friends, and do a bit of speaking and encouraging of emerging/fresh expressions/new monasticism.  I will post more about this when it is clearer… I will be in Oz from 23rd July to 4th Aug.

Really pleased to say that Moot will be doing 3 services at the Greenbelt Festival on Sat, Sun and Mon, and I will be speaking on one panel and one meditation and prayerful session in Soul Space on the Friday night.

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Fresh Expressions, Dechurched and Unchurched

March 6, 2011

This week, I have had the wonderful good fortune and opportunity to be able to teach at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge MA USA, with a finale of giving the keynote speech at this years Episcopal Village Day Event at the Episcopal Cathedral in Boston.

From the discussions, I have been struck by something I had missed before.  Many of my pioneering and missioner orientated colleagues in the UK have been frustrated, that the projects they have incarnated out of hopes and dreams, seem to have started with not being able to make an impact on the totally unchurched - the primary focus, and instead have started with a ministry that began with the dechurched.

Now, it has struck me that this is my experience too in the Moot Community, something that we have faced some criticism for in the early days.  But - it has struck me, may be this is the intentions of the God outside of our own needs and desires.   Jesus himself in the Gospel, very rarely goes directly to the unchurched from a Jewish perspective - I can think of the Samaritan Woman at the well and a few others.  No, instead Jesus associated with those who were Jewish who were outside of the powerful temple system to build up a new community of disciples with jews who were very similar to the dechurched. It seems that Jesus was intentional about gathering around him a community of the dechurched, who through God’s death and resurrection are empowered to become the Apostles, and the beginning of the Church through mission to the Gentile unchurched.  May it just be that ecclesia, and the building of ecclesial communities begins with pioneer missioners building small communities of the dechurched to create deep and radical Christian community that then has the maturity to start and sustain mission and evangelism to the unchurched.

In the Moot Community we have spent 7 years building up a community of the dechurched, which now is intentionally starting out to seek to service God by reaching out missionally to the unchurched.  Maybe - focusing on the dechurched first is right strategically, as long as this then is matched by a commitment for the previously unchurched to mature into the call of seeking to serve the unchurched.

So pioneering missioners, don’t be disappointed that what you are doing seems to attract the dechurched and not the unchurched, just maybe this is the starting place to build community to be able to reach out to the unchurched effectively.  I think this is true…..

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New Book launches in Feb and March 2011

January 28, 2011

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Multi-Authored New Book New Monasticism as Fresh Expressions of church

December 31, 2010

Really pleased that the new book New Monasticism as Fresh Expressions of the Church, second in the Ancient Faith Future Mission Series is now out and available. It’s a good read with a number of experienced authors in the UK and US that includes Andy Freeman from 24-7 Boiler Rooms and the Reading Reconcile Community, Ray Simpson from the Aidan and Hilda Community, Tom Sine from the Mustard Seeds House Seattle, Shane Claiborne from the Simple Way Community, Pete Askew from the Northumbria Community, Diana Kershaw from the Order of Mission, Philip Roderick and Tessa Holland from the Contemplative Fire Community, Mark Berry from the Safe Space Community in Telford, Bp Graham Cray the Archbishop’s Missioner and leader for Fresh Expressions and Abbot Stuart Burns, a leading UK Anglican Benedictine and I.  It’s a great read.

There are going to be a number of planned book launches in the UK, Australia and other places.  Ones planned so far are in London and Manchester in the first week of February.  For more information click here

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Letter I sent to the Church Times referring to Bp Stephen Cottrell’s review of the Milbank and Davison’s book “For the Parish” which was not published

December 9, 2010

Sir, - I was really pleased to read Bp Stephen Cottrell’s informed and measured review in Issue 7706 of the Church Times concerning the recent Milbank and Davison book “For the Parish” entitled “The baby and the parochial bathwater”.

Whilst I also endorse the view that the Mission Shaped Report was not a full theological exploration, it should be remembered that it was never intended to be a full ecclesiological exposition - it is a church report!

I was also pleased to see that Bp Stephen mentioned New Monasticism as an example of good practice arising out of the Fresh Expressions initiative, which seeks to be ‘ancient future’ in vision. New Monasticism as Fresh Expressions of Church, (the subject of a new multi-authored book to be published shortly by Canterbury Press) has a comprehensive theological self-understanding and connection with the ongoing tradition and calling of monastic and apostolic mission.

Many of us involved in Fresh Expressions of Church were dismayed by the position of “For the Parish” which seemed to compare the most romanticised and perfect expression of the Parish Church with the worst ‘dumbed down’ forms of Fresh Expressions. As Bp Stephen states, this impoverishes the argument of “For the Parish”.

As well as the examples the Bishop of Chelmsford gives for what is not said in the book – I would take this argument further. Where is the missiological engagement? I read much on ecclesiology and the importance of the Church but little on missiology and the importance of the Kingdom? Too much focus on the Church and too little exploration of the Kingdom creates the danger of idolatry – ‘Seek you first the Kingdom of God’, (Matt 6:33). Where is the theological engagement with Models of Church and the work of Avery Dulles or contextual theology and the work of S B Bevans and Niebuhr and other theological disciplines? There is a conspicuous absence of a wider theological engagement. It is a great arrogance to believe that the discipline of Ecclesiology is the only real form of theological discourse, and it is disappointing that a more systematic approach has not been taken holding ecclesiology and missiology in tension.

There is a deep paradox in this book that talks up dialogue and mediation as a model but then continues to set up a dualism – parish good, fresh expressions bad, typical of a polemic that is not particularly helpful for a comprehensive theological reflection. The truth is we need a more ‘both-and’ position, both traditional and experimental, conservative and progressive.

The danger of this book is that it seems to propose a return to a specifically Christendom theological mindset, where salvation and authentic mission can only be found within parish forms of Church, with a translation model of contextual theology which arrogantly downplays the contextualisation of the gospel and the church. No one expression of church can fully be a vessel of the gospel, hence why there has been a diversity of form of church in the Church of England for sometime - parish alongside monastic and friar orders, chaplaincies and missions. This is not new. The Missio Dei is at its heart the mission of God in God’s Kingdom. It is not about maintaining ‘unity in conformity’ as a particularly institutional expression of church. This is the weakness of the model of ‘Church as political society’ or Christendom which the authors suggest we should return to in our post-liberal times.

We remember that mission and evangelism in this country in the Romano-Celtic, Saxon and Norman times was not completed largely by Priests and Deacons, but rather by evangelistic Monks, Nuns, Friars and Bishops. In more recent times, in the Oxford Movement we see a Church renewed through the resurgence of the religious life in response to cultural change and the calling of the Holy Spirit. May be fresh expressions and New Monasticism are such a resurgence of non-parish forms of the Church led by the Holy Spirit in response to our increasingly post-secular context.

Surely the way forward for the wider Church is a renewed partnership of the best of Parish and the best of Fresh Expressions in ‘mission-informed’ engagement to a culture which is increasingly post-church and post-Christian. Mission and Evangelism are part of our apostolic calling. We need to avoid setting up false-dichotomies.

Revd Ian Mobsby

Moot Priest Missioner, Associate Missioner to the Archbishop’s Fresh Expressions Team and member of the Church of England’s College of Evangelists.

The Moot Community
St Edmund the King Church
Lombard Street
London EC3V 9EA

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Lecture on New Monasticism at Cramner Hall, Durham UK

November 24, 2010

I had fun last night and today hanging out with Michael and Rachael Volland in Durham, and then lecturing a gathering of methodist and anglican ordinands on the subject of New Monasticism.  This was also a mixture of those seeking traditional and pioneer vocations.  I talked of New Monasticism as a particular model of church based around small missional communities that draw on a Trinitarian mystical communion model.  I also talked of a Rhythm of Life as a key missional tool as it allows people to belong to work out if they believe and also focus on the faith in terms of a subjective orthopraxis.  This is key in the context of post secular spiritual seekers.  Anyway had fun, and learnt a few things from the responses and questions.

I am really impressed by the set up at Cramner, so if you are thinking and trad or pioneer training, I commend talking to Michael Volland.

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