Thursday, September 15, 2005





Stan and Eddie dropped in one day.......... I am reflecting on a vivid memory - and learning from it ........ and sharing it with you .............

I had last seen Stan when he first came out of prison; our relationship has developed via many letters. I don’t think I’d seen Eddie for about five years. Both were twenty-seven years old now. So we sat on the juke-box, drinking coffee and just reflecting. But then, in the midst of talking about how drug use was an accepted part of life in the East End of London, Eddie said, ‘We’ve done everything now – booze, thieving, drugs, girls – there’s nothing else to do.’
‘What about God?’ I asked, ‘or does God not fit the East End image?’

This provoked a conversation about the Government and the ‘Old Bill’: ‘There’s a lot of poverty around here now, Pip. Once the pubs were crowded – now they’re half empty and even our mates ponce (beg) drinks all night … there’s going to be riots … people are going to join with the blacks and there’ll be riots.’

What they were saying was fascinating in itself, but what struck me with such force was that they were talking about God in the same breath as the Government and the police. So, with controlled enthusiasm, I talked with them of the ‘underside Jesus’ who, when physically on earth, spent his time with the leper, the prostitute, the thief, the stigmatised. He did not act as one in authority and with status.

Stan and Eddie were writing off God as they do a distant oppressive authority! We have got to come down, as groups of people, and not stay ‘topside’ in positions of safety, comfort and status. ‘Get lost’ theology is risky, a ‘Get out’ theology isn’t for me, you could say. The Church Missionary Society used the following on their adverts: ‘Has God called you to stay where you are?’ Unless someone moves - Ethiopia stays as it is and the inner city stays as it is. I am aware that there is more to this argument, but you can see the point: ‘If you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem.’

Some inner-city Christians say to humans who wish to come into tough areas ‘keep out – you do more damage than good!’ That is true – unless the ‘underside’ way is taken and people come in to learn, not to give.

Bishop Roger Sainsbury presented a paper at a Greenbelt Festival some years ago, describing the cultural attitudes and norms that need to be abandoned by the middle-class people coming into the inner city. The differences he outlined were:


Middle Class .......................Working Class
Individuality .......................Group loyalty
Judgmental .........................Accepting/kind
Privacy ................................Openness
Stiff upper lip ..................... Vulnerability
Facts ....................................Feelings
Meetings.............................. Meeting

Joy, a voluntary team member, speaks of herself and others as coming as middle class, ‘from outside the area … from a culture that is “dominant” … from those sections of society which have power and control’. Once when starting a Christian discipleship group Joy admits that it was Joyce, a local Christian woman with her own children and grandchildren, ‘that caused the group to happen. The fact she was local and respected … without her it would have disintegrated. She was the girls’ point of reference. I represented Christianity to them, who they didn’t really know, understand or even like …’

I believe that Jesus spent thirty years learning from the people. Like a sponge He soaked in the culture – everything that was meaningful. As a child He ‘grew and developed in body, mind and spirit’, the Bible says, ‘ in favour with God and man’ (Luke 1:80; 2:52 Living Bible).

Why are there so few humans who decide to live in a community which is needy?
Why do so many stretch their budget to buy property in a better area than the one they are in?
Why do so many humans spend all their time with people of the same social standing?

I have just received a DVD Film of a story I have been trying to find for years. It is the cartoon version of 'The Selfish Giant'.
He was famous for building a wall to keep others out ............ and keeping himself IN !

I weep ................


.