We want the church without the God stuff please!

That's the condensed version of a five minute conversation with someone who wanted to arrange a wedding in a local church. They were told to ring me because I was 'friendly' and would be perhaps more understanding that their own dog-collar!

My first thought was, "Does this mean their local dog-collar is a miserable old wotsit or does it mean I've become the 'anything goes liberal'?" I thought for a minute and thought that the term MOG (a warden in a former church labelled himself 'MOG' (Miserable Old Git) when he had a renewal experience and announced himself henceforth as 'HOG' (Happy)!) might just apply! Mind you, one man's open and accepting type is perhaps another man's 'liberal' (now there's a thought!).

We talked about the service they wanted and the fact that they wanted it in a certain building but without the dog-collar what lived there. They also asked whether I could do a 'civil' service rather than a 'church' service and could we perhaps not sing any hymns either (they had some CD tracks they wanted to play instead). Oh yeah, instead of the 'love, honour and obey' bit they wanted to say a red Indian (Red Indian? Surely they mean 'Native American'?) wedding promise with lovely words about nature and running water and rising moons and stuff). There was also the fact that they'd rather I din't wear anything because they didn't want the robes in the video or photographs that would be taken of their 'big day'.

The more we got into the conversation the more I realised that we weren't doing anything 'Christian' in the service and the the whole point of the 'big day' was for the couple to have something splendid in a very pretty building. They merely wanted the building as a venue! And so we discussed some more and I pointed out that no one visits the house of someone else without, at the very least, a passing acknowledgment to the person whose house it was and that therefore we'd really need to have some 'God bits' in the service.

I left them to have a think and call me back, and they did. Firstly they be happy with hymns that didn't have the word 'God' in them and suggested 'morning has broken' with a change to the final line so that it read, "Love's re-creation of the new day" and that we'd also sing "Come to a wedding" (which I'd never heard of). They sent me a copy of the 'blessing' and the 'come to a wedding", both of which I share with you here:

"Come to a wedding, Come to a blessing,
Come on a day when happiness sings!
Come rain or sun, Come winter or summer,
Celebrate love and all that it brings.

Thanks for the love, That holds us together,
Parent and child, and lover and friend;
Thanks for the couple, Whose love is the centre,
Source of compassion, knowing no end.

Love is the gift, And love is the giver,
Love is the gold that Makes the day shine;
Love forgets self to care for the other,
Love changes life from water to wine.

Come to this wedding, Asking a blessing,
For all the years that living will prove;
Health of the body, Health of the spirit,
Now to you both we offer our love."

The Blessing
"Now you will feel no rain, for you are shelter to the other.
Now you will feel no cold, for you are warmth to the other.
Now there is no more loneliness, for now there is someone there for you.
Now you are two persons living as but one person in the life before you.
Go now to your dwelling place, and live out the days of your life together.
And may your days be good, and long upon the earth and may the spirits smile upon you."

We dialogued a bit further and a few more 'little' requests were added to the equation (just a few little pagan bits like having hands tied together with a red cord and stuff) and it eventually became clear that there was nothing of Christ in this service and so the couple went off to a local pub and had the service there (and there was a psychic fair being held within the building and so the guests were even more blessed!).

I met the couple recently (hence my recounting it here) and they told me what a splendid day they'd had and how they had their photos on the lawn by the water and how they'd had everything they wanted. They were grateful that I'd pointed them to a different venue because it was better than the church. We are, apparently friends, but not family - which is sad and good in equal and opposite measure.

Should I have capitulated and brought a service into the church building (I'm sure the money would have been useful towards their parish share? Was I excluding them and withholding God's love from their wedding and refusing them His blessing? Am I a liberal because people come to me because, wherever I can make it so, the answer is always 'yes'? I'm hoping the answer is 'No' and wonder whether other dog-collars get telephone calls like these!!!

Tough questions and having met them, something I need to think and pray over (yet again). Still, I can't quite get over the image of them with the Native American bit and me 'wearing nothing' would have been fun (and perhaps could have been a trendsetter)!

Pax

The Spiritual Influence

A couple of weeks back at the annual conference of the Christian Broadcasting Council, Michael Nazir-Ali issued a warning regarding totalitarianism and the threat it represented with regard to conscience. The reality is that it is neither threat, nor 'encroaching' danger, but a clear and present reality as we see both private and public life legislated, regulated and generally controlled.

People of no faith make decisions regarding faith and the part it plays, or more accurately doesn't play. People with little, skewed or no obvious moral standards make rules and decide what is right. What we have is the blind and insane driving the bus and ruling the asylum respectively!

The outworking of this is, as Nazir-Ali rightly says, that we are no longer in a free society but in "An ideology that is seeking to impose its views on us.” Were we in a free society we might have a hope, but this hope is gone as we lose the moral and spiritual values that once valued what was good and right for the hedonistic, self-serving secular society that many crave.

We no longer value that which is good. We no longer have a respect for the sanctity of human life. We know the price of everything and the value of nothing and thus have become shallow and cynical (Thank you Mr. Wilde, just as you rightly identified it!).

We are driven by fear and the desire for a 'quiet life', hence the fact that none will challenge the more aggressive forms of religious group and yet will stand tall at the weak and meek groups, like the Christians. Our society picks its fights and denies that which might make it stop and look in the mirror.

Failing families? The answer is to give the family a place of pride and to offer it support. The traditional parents (married and working at a life-long bond), children brought up in a stable and loving environment (which is about relationships, not income, educational standards and possessions. Oddly, from within this comes a nurturing that encourages aspirations and a culture of self-development and attainment.

Criminal Activity? As unpopular as it seems, there is an answer to this. 'STOP IT!' So many of those I meet today have a morality that supports and defends 'dodgy' ways. The ends justify the means and who cares if the rules are just a little broken as long as we get what we want?

Life? I listened with interest and despair at a broadcast where families spoke of the 'kindness' of euthanasia. It was kind on them because they didn't want to keep visiting. It was kind on them because it was costing a great deal to keep the focus of the care being cared for. It was kind on the aged relative, because their 'useful' life had come to an end and they were no longer in possession of a 'quality of life'.

Faith brings a commonality of purpose and a value for life. Christian faith has done that in the UK for a very long time and I have come to the conclusion that the erosion of Christian values and the decline in our society with regards to family, vales, standards and morality appear to me to be the result of the other.

Faith brings a tolerance (it's people looking for an excuse for their greed who use 'religion' as the reason for war). Faith isn't about being religion but is, in the Christian context, about having a relationship with the Maker and a respect (and tolerance - that word again) for others.

This is why people can burn Korans. This is why people murder and plot evil. They don't know the Maker - they just want things as they, and the god of their making, want them - and this is death.

Pax