Holy love

‘To not come clean about the impoverishment of our soul is to leave ourselves impoverished concerning the greatest drama of them all. Again, we will be left with what Forsyth called those “nicest, kindest people” who can run programmes but cannot make disciples because they have never known grace. In other words, our churches lose their apostolicity to the extent that they lose their instinct for the basic gospel drama. Precisely because the believers within them have never really plummeted the depths of their own depravity, so they will never experience the astonishment of sins forgiven.’ from Ian Stackhouse's book, Primitive Piety.

primitive piety

Another great book, being published in September, is Ian Stackhouse, Primitive Piety. A couple of comments from others will suffice today: ‘This is not a “nice” book. Do not read it if you like your life, your church and your God to be “nice”. But do read it if you want to be stirred, challenged, confronted and inspired to rediscover a gutsy, real, and authentic spirituality' - Emma Ineson.

‘A wonderfully vigorous book, which challenges the anodyne pieties of modern suburban Christianity. Strong, raw and honest. I am glad that I read it.' - Timothy Radcliffe. 'This book will provoke, stimulate, disturb and encourage its reader to constructively critique, reflect and help to engage with an issue that no serious believer can ignore.’ - Roy Searle. Is our Christianity too 'nice'? That's the question. How would you rate yours? How do I rate mine, in middle-class England? More strikingly, how does God rate it?

God of comfort

Here's something from David Cohen's book, Why O Lord? Praying our Sorrows: 'An engagement with distress opened a pathway from relational isolation to greater intimacy with God. While doubtless each person held in high regard God’s ability to respond to their distress the emphasis shifted from a focus on that perceived power to the significance of divine presence. The perception of divine presence in distress cannot be underestimated. This single factor contributed the most to people being able to embrace their experiences of distress, reflect on them and make some sense of them.' Fascinating! I've found this. In a sense we need to know something of God's power in situations of distress, but it's divine presence that really comforts and consoles us. 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in our affliction . . . ' 2 Corinthians 1.3

Faith and lament

Walter Brueggemann, shrewdly speaks of the use of lament psalms as ‘an act of bold faith, albeit a transformed faith’. He suggests this for two good reasons: first, because their use insists that ‘the world must be experienced as it really is and not in some pretended way,’ and, second, because it insists that ‘all such experiences of disorder are a proper subject for discourse with God’. I've just read through David Cohen, Why O Lord? Praying our Sorrows (publishing it in 2013) - a brilliant book about lament, about keeping the faith in difficult times, about somehow locating the absent God, and about faith retaining a sense of the divine Fatherhood. Helpful in explaining what lament is; useful in applying that to our present situations of anxiety and distress.

Have you ever used lament psalms in times of adversity? As a Christian community? Individually?