Losing trust in God?

Trust in God

In the western world, believers have lost a great deal of doctrinal certainty, even if they talk about it loudly. There has been a loss of confidence in our ability to trace the works of God and broadly relay to the world what God has said. (P22, being dispel, Rowan Williams)

I often ask myself if the church has lost faith in God and for good reason: “Numbers attending church services have fallen by 12% in the past decade, to less than half the levels of the 1960s.” This was the first result I got when googling falling church attendance. The Methodist church is losing members at an alarming rate and our churches seem emptier by the day. Sometimes it feels easier to accept personal losses then this collective loss. 

I suspect this loss is made all the harder because we never talk of it So I ask you, people called Methodist do you trust God with the care of his church anymore? 

If we can’t see God at work in the church then it is no surprise we have lost our ability to see God at work in the world (trace the works of God) and to speak of God to those around us. 

So Let us assume that we see God as some benevolent absentee landlord. How are we going to abide in Him and He in us anymore? 

Gods answer: Trust me for just one more day, today! Just one more day, think of all the love I’ve shown you in the past and give me just one day. Seek me at work in the world, come to where you see me and reside with me there. Just one day is all I ask 

I truly believe Gods answer for our spiritually wounded church is rebirth. It just so happens that our church is limping through PMC (along with all the others). It is seeking God, learning to trust, learning that he was never absent just beyond our vision. It’s rather like rediscovering joys we felt long past. It is like entering into a relationship. There is a lot of confusion, inaction, debate but a wish to continue and a call from God to be in relationship with Christ and through Christ with him.

So can we trust God just for one more day? 

An Open letter to the conservative party.

I have oft been asked to defend pretty foul ideas. The idea that it’s actually acceptable to deny a person their daily bread because they have offended a bureaucrat at the job center really takes the biscuit. Mr. Cobyn's economics may be fantasy but in a race between fantasy and 5 more years of austerity, after 7 years of the same, I can understand why people would opt for fantasy.

So we lost, Yes lost! And we will be exiled to the wilderness if we don’t accept that fact. We may have got a higher % of the vote and more seats but that is down to the thankfully short election. Every day May sits in power with the homophobic DUP is a day more worth of toxicity added to the eternal austerity party and a day more we will be exiled from the British people affections. 

Another election is coming, I very much doubt this liaison with the DUP will last long and I would be shocked if it can last through the Brexit negotiations. It would be better for us to allow Mr. Corbyn to form a minority government and fail. Let his saintly promises be crushed by the realities of leadership. Allow him to drink from the poison chalice that is Brexit.  Let people see what the progressive alliance would achieve and what chaotic government is like to live through. Corbyn will have to renew Trident!

Better this then another election with May as leader, or a hasty leadership election just before an election with Saint Corbyn’s myths and reputations untarnished. He would win this election, and he would have a majority. Empowered with a majority he would forever, destroy the city with his Robbin Hood tax. With a majority, Corbyn would chase all the foreign investment from the UK or forever alienating the Saudis with his pro-Iran foreign policy. A minority Corbyn slowly destroying himself is containable a majority Corbyn destroying the UK is not.

And what should we do in opposition? Well, one contain Corbyn. Secondly, elected a new leader, one with proven ability in debating and handling the media and one with some popular touch. Thirdly and most importantly rid ourselves of our idealization of neo-liberal economics. A true conservative holds no ideal as perfect and the market is merely an idea. It is an idea that is now irrevocably tainted and it is time to move away from it. I am not advocating turning Marxist like McDonald. All I am saying is that we once again acknowledged that if we cannot promise a slice of the good life to those who work then they will not vote for us. We have for far too long excused taking very hard actions because the market (that great deity) has demanded it. Well, that was okay while the market was delivering these improvements. After 7 years of stagnation, it’s now time for a change.