northumbrianreflections

The last book in my list is unashamedly an endorsement of my son Joshua’s latest book,
When I read his draft I knew it was a seminal piece of work. It’s a book that if I had had the opportunities, intellectual acumen and time, I would love to have written myself. I haven’t but am very pleased and content that Joshua has used the gifts he possesses to write such an important book that I would commend to everyone. I’d like to think that I made a little contribution to its contents but I can take little credit for the depth and ability Joshua possesses to draw from the realms of theology, philosophy, sociology, history, economics, political theories and literature to write so insightfully on what it means to be a follower of Christ in a changing world.
The author is motivated by compassion. Compassion that comes from God’s heart and his loving and transformative purposes for the world.
The turbulence of the world in which we live should exercise every thinking and caring person. For Christians the task to face fearlessly the challenges of living in a post truth, emerging post-Christendom age, with the attendant global crises, the rise of terrorism and religious fundamentalism, the fragmenting of Europe and the rise of nationalism, populism and the breaking down of Western democracy, is immense.
Joshua’s book seeks to offer a transformative theology and a way for living for all of us in these changing times. He challenges, provokes and encourages the Christian community to embrace the Gospel imperative and to live out the faith and bring hope in an age of cultural despair and moral fragmentation. Theology, insists Joshua, must not be confined to the academic classroom!
The changing times in which we live call for a new vision of Christianity that connects with the crises of our times. As Kate Coleman, a great theologian herself and the founding Director of Next Leadership and a former President of the Baptist Union of Great Britain says of the book;
“Searle’s call for a radical rethink of what often passes for ‘theological training’ is both welcome and long overdue. Many of his assertions expose fundamental shortcomings in historical and current preoccupations that are often bereft of prophetic imagination and revolutionary practice. This is a provocative, faith-full, and deeply passionate book.”
Joshua insists that theology is a transformative enterprise that changes the world. Theology is to be experienced not just behind a desk, in an armchair, or in a church, but also in hospitals, in food banks, in workplaces, and on the streets. Theology is to be lived as well as read.

I could write more but I leave the last words to Joshua himself and sign off this list of 10 books that have shaped my life by thanking Anne Dyer for offering me the challenge and for the many people who have written or messaged me in response to my posts, (apologies that I am unable to respond to everyone – capacity issue). It has been a delightful and encouraging experience and one that I hope has been a source of enrichment to others.

Asked by a magazine editor about his book, Joshua wrote:
“What does theology have to say to the homeless people on the streets of our own cities who die in solitude, unknown and unpitied without anyone even to mourn their loss? What difference does theology make to the lives of children confined to an AIDS orphanage in Eastern Ukraine? How does theology speak into the plight of the starving, the refugee, the dementia patient, the cancer sufferer, or the war-traumatised child in Syria?
What does theology mean to the wretched of the earth, to those without status, wealth, or power? How does theology connect with the lived experience of the poor in spirit?
These are some of the questions I raise in my new book, Theology After Christendom.
For a long time I’ve been frustrated by the usual view that theology is nothing more than a dry academic discipline or a nerdy hobby of a few eccentric Christians. For many people in the world today (especially for so-called ‘millennials’ like me), God seems to have died or is viewed as so boring and irrelevant that they don’t bother to give Him a second thought. I think that part of the reason that God seems to be dead is because he has not been served well by so much modern theology, which has tended to belittle human beings and reduce God to a one-dimensional caricature.
In my book I try to explain that all Christians have a theology; if you’re a Christian, it means you are a theologian – whether you like it or not! This is because theology is simply a technical term that describes the way you think not only about God, but about life’s ultimate questions, such as, ‘What’s the meaning of life? Why am I here? What do I really believe in? What do I hope for? What are my values? Who am I?’, etc.

As I explain in the book, the choice for a Christian is never between either having a theology or not having a theology. The choice, rather, is always between having a good theology or having a bad theology. A good theology is one that is life-giving, life-enhancing, and faithful to the biblical teaching, whereas a bad theology is one that is shallow, thoughtless and life-denying. Therefore, one of the main themes of my book is that theology is not a dry academic discipline, but an inevitable and unavoidable part of the life of every Christian.
Having made this key point, I go on to describe what a good theology looks like in theory and practice. I argue that theology today should be more concerned with what God is doing in the world than with what Christians are doing in churches. In other words, theology needs to put much more emphasis on the Kingdom of God, rather than focusing too narrowly on the church. I make the case that theology should primarily serve not the church, but the Kingdom of God. In simple terms, whereas theology used to say, ‘Church, Church, Church!’, theology today needs to say, ‘Kingdom, Kingdom, Kingdom!’
The future of Christianity today, I argue, depends on whether it can meet the challenges of the new times. The painful travails of living in a secular world and the gradual disestablishment of Christianity from an institution to a movement are like birth pangs that presage the beginning of a new era of hope and renewal.

Amid the prevailing crisis of faith and the apparent dominance of secular humanism in today’s society, I have a presentiment that the genesis of a new Christian movement, unleashed from its institutional church trappings, is under way in the world. The Kingdom of God is poised to break into world history and yield its mighty harvest. The problem is that while the harvest is plentiful, the labourers are few. My hope is that this book will make its own modest contribution to persuading more people to help make the Kingdom of God a visible reality in their own situations.
I confess that in my book I haven’t held back from criticising a lot of what goes on in churches today. I’ve called churches to repent of the ways in which they have so often allowed Christianity to be shackled by demonic religious structures of power and domination, which have inhibited the freedom of the Spirit, suppressed the truth of the gospel and impeded the coming of the Kingdom of God in the world.
The most important chapters from my perspective are chapters 5 and 6, because it’s here that the book starts to unfold a positive vision of the difference that a Kingdom-focused theology could make towards the transformation of the world. Chapter 8 is also significant in this regard, because it’s here that I give the specific example of the Northumbria Community (where I grew up and came to faith) in order to demonstrate what the vision of ‘Church Without Walls’ looks like in practice.
In chapter 6 I offer an outline presentation of a theology that is attuned to the dynamic movement of the Holy Spirit in the world today. The fundamental realities of freedom, compassion, and creativity are proposed as core elements of a transformative theology today. I suggest that these three concepts offer an appropriately Trinitarian focus for theology, since each spiritual reality exemplifies the basic principles of Father (freedom), Son (compassion), and Holy Spirit (creativity), and expresses the unity in diversity of the Sacred Trinity.

While I offer some constructive criticisms, my aim ultimately is not to bring down, but to build up. I hope this is clear from the following words in my conclusion:
‘A day is coming when Christians will finally realise that they are sent by God not to serve and sustain the church, but to redeem the world in the power of Christ’s compassion. In the coming years, we will witness a flowering of solidarity among diverse Christians as the walls of denominationalism and sectarianism come crashing down. Tribal identities will evaporate like the morning dew in the light of God’s glorious new order in which all who follow Jesus will come to see that they are one in Christ. Instead of institutionalised religion, there will be a gospel movement of compassion that expresses itself in a new vision of church without walls. And God will delight in this…’

I have been blessed by many people and experiences that have enriched my life. Among these blessings was the partnership that we shared as a community with IBTS, the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague. The partnership afforded me the opportunity to visit and teach there for several years. I bought Prague Winter because of its title and my interest in politics. It’s author, Madeline Albright, was appointed by Bill Clinton as US Secretary of State during his second term in office from 1997 – 2001. She was born in Prague in 1937. Her father was a Czech diplomat and fled with his family to Britain following the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938. Following the Second World War the family returned to their homeland only to flee the country again, this time being granted political asylum in the United States in 1949. Fleeing not from the Nazis but the murderous hands of the local Communist Party. Albright’s father, Josef, became the Dean of the University of Denver’s School of International Studies, where interestingly he taught another future Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice.
Albright’s book grabbed my attention from its openings pages. She writes with intelligence and intuition. The book takes us on a journey that includes her compelling personal exploration of her family’s Jewish roots as well as giving the reader an excellent history of Czechoslovakia from 1937 to 1948. The book is insightful and informative and brings vividly to life so many pivotal historical events including descriptions of the German occupation; the assassination of Heydrich “the hangman”, the murder of the heroic Foreign Affairs Minister Jan Masaryk by Czech Stalinists and the subjugation of the country by a communist party that behaved no less brutally than the Nazis. Albright paints a picture of happenings during a period that was to shape the ensuing years that correspond with my lifetime.
And all the time I was reading the book, often sat in a café in Old Town Square in the beautiful city of Prague. Learning about a really important period in history I couldn’t help thinking that without the sanctuary Britain offered Albright and her family she would have died in the Theresienstadt or Auschwitz camps like many of her family members. Instead, she went on to become the first female US Secretary of State. Reflecting on my reading of the book and my travels across Europe in recent years I am mindful and fearful of happenings across the Continent today. The chronicling of happenings that led to conflict and the Second World War, the schemes that fuelled hatred and led to war are being deployed again. Exploiting the prevalent fears, insecurity and ignorance, fanning into flames the seeds of popularism, nationalism and racism, deploying skilful narratives that proport simple ‘solutions’ to capture the hearts and minds of the masses – evidenced in the 1930’s are seen today in Britain and across Europe.
I write this on the morning when our former Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson is accusing Theresa May of “wrapping a ‘suicide vest’ around Britain and giving the EU the detonator”. An appalling, dangerous and damaging statement that has been cleverly and strategically released to divert attention from the less than savoury stories that report on his affairs, flings and the ‘love’ children left in his wake. The attack on our Prime Minister follows up his description the other week claiming that “women wearing burkas look like letterboxes and bank robbers”. A statement that triggered attacks on innocent Muslim women. Very disturbing and trouble making.
A Prague Winter addresses not only the past but has some very pertinent things to say to us in a turbulent and troubled Europe today.

Pioneering and planting on an urban council estate in 1980s Teeside, privileged to see many people coming to faith, baptisms and church growth there was no disguising the fact that we were living through a period of devastating injustice and crippling unemployment. The implementation of Thatcherite policies saw the closure of steelworks, shipyards, engineering works, foundries and manufacturing plants. I saw firsthand the impact of political dogma on the lives of individuals, their families and the community. The disregard for the urban poor and the lack of compassion for those disadvantaged stirred our hearts as a church and moved us beyond simply preaching the gospel and focusing our efforts solely on the church growth. Evangelism, charismatic renewal and social action belonged together. The Good News is not good news if it is not good news for the poor.
Privileged to be part of an amazing church community who were prepared to put people before programmes, relationships before reputation and who to this day continue to live among, share and serve those who most churches have neither the heart or ability to reach.
It was during this time that I came across Robert Tressel’s book. It tells the story of a group of hard-working men who are joined one day by a journeyman-prophet who shares with them a vision of a society where justice and compassion reign. His denunciation of the greed and dishonesty of the capitalist system ignites and inspires his fellow men from their passive acceptance of things as if nothing can be done to resist or change them.
It’s a classic piece of writing that combines humour and political passion. Together with my reading of Scripture and living in an urban north-east community suffering the consequences of the government’s economic policies, it propelled us into a whole series of initiatives and actions that would be deemed now as political.
For me personally, the book heightened my interest in politics and the belief that the church has a prophetic role to play within society, that prophecy is more than bringing an insightful or helpful word to an individual within the church worship context and is more about speaking truth and justice in the public realm.
Interestingly, I’m writing this on the day that Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury who has written for the Daily Mail, (don’t get me started on that toxic, dangerous newspaper..). The Archbishop has strategically written for the Mail a piece that will inevitably invite a mixed response as his article is headed: ‘Why I believe we need to tax wealth more’: In a bid to help lower middle income earners, a controversial declaration from the Archbishop of Canterbury. see:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…/Archbishop-Canterbury-says-nee…
Thank God, for someone of his position and influence, together with his background working in the city, to speak out on such an issue.
Maybe he too has read the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. A must read book.