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Letter to the Harlow Star following the arson attack on the Islamic Centre

Dear Sir or Madam,

This last week we heard the terrible news of the arson attack at the Harlow Islamic Centre. Our hearts go out to our friends and neighbours. We give thanks there was no injury.

This is not only an attack on dear friends and neighbours; this is also an attack on us all, for it is an attack on worship, or 'worthship', we might say.

Worship ('giving worth') is to do with those people or things we value most. In the traditional Church of England Marriage Service, the groom says to his bride, "I thee worship". Each of us in our own way, gives worth to someone or something, even if we are not religious.

So this is an attack on the people, things, beliefs, each of us value most. For if the things some of us hold dear are attacked, anything special is up for grabs.

Places of worship are places set aside to help us value the important things in life. It has been a joy for many of us in recent months to get to enjoy the warm hospitality of the Islamic Centre. Places of worship help build local community.

In addition, for those united in the conviction that just as there is an artist behind a painting, so there is a God behind the universe - places of worship of God somehow come to represent all that is most precious.

The local Christian community join in prayer for Centre Chairman, Ajaib Hussian, and all the Centre community. Let us all seek to find ways of expressing our concern, love and support for our friends and neighbours.

Yours,

Martin Harris

Chair, Heart4Harlow

Area Dean (Church of England)

Team Rector, St Paul's & St Mary's

Preparing for Sunday Sermon: Luke 12:49-56

Do you want to know if your Christianity is genuine?

Here is the touchstone:
Whom do you get along with?
Who are those who criticize you?
Who are those who do not accept you? Who are those who flatter you?

Know from that what Christ said once:
“I have come not to bring peace, but division.”10 There will be division even in the same family, because some want to live more comfortably

by the world’s principles,

those of power and money.
But others have embraced the call of Christ
and must reject all that cannot be just in the world.

Oscar Romero - NOVEMBER 13, 1977 

Don Crane - Loving God, Loving Each Other, and Loving Life: The reward of dwelling with God today!

A wonderful story in today's celebrity culture..
Don Crane - Loving God, Loving Each Other, and Loving Life: The reward of dwelling with God today!:   One of my favorite missionary stories is of Henry C. Morrison. Mr. & Mrs. Morrison were faithful missionaries who served the Lord in...

As I prepare for this coming Sundays reading on Luke 12:49,50 (etc), plus preaching on John 1 in September, rather enjoying this from Malcolm Guite:

listen to ‘St. John's Eve’ on Audioboo

Quote of the Week

Very helpful article by Jonathan Sacks in the Times last Saturday. The concluding paragraphs:

Idol worship and magical thinking happen when we believe some institution or person will bend the world to our desires, making problems vanish without effort on our part. The idol can be liberal democracy, the consumer society, science, medicine or genetic engineering.

Religious faith says all these things can be a blessing or a curse, depending on whether they are used with humility, restraint, concern for the common good and care for long-term consequences.

Humility involves the recognition that there is something greater than us to whom we are accountable. Restraint means that not everything we can do we should do. Concern for the common good means recognising that others, not just us, are in the image and likeness of God. Care for long-term consequences means believing in something that will last longer than we will.

Religion is not myth or magic. It is the recognition of how small we are in the scheme of things, and how great is our responsibility to others. It is the still, small voice reminding us that there is no achievement without sacrifice, no freedom without self-restraint. Those who worship the idols of the age perish with the age, while the worship of eternity lives on.

Lord Sacks is Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth

We need I think to be making common cause with the cosmologists (such as Brian Cox) and the psychologists, as those who in time help teach us this humility. They are to some extent perhaps the psalmists and wisdom writers of our world - Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Job, some of the Psalms etc. point us to how little we know, how small we are in the vast scheme of things (as so the cosmologists) - yet in the appropriate places eg Psalm 8, show us how significant we are.

Pondering the John Piper mosaic at St Paul's, Harlow

The arts can... re-educate the modern reader of the Bible to read more richly - more traditionally but simultaneously more creatively - than they would otherwise do. They bequeath to us some wonderful exercises in contemplative dwelling in the Bible: inspiring models...
Ben Quash, Abiding. He also explores other aspects of 'abiding' cp. John 15
- place (the community of the parish church)
- care, which is closely related to presence;
- relationships; and
- exile;
as well as exploring abiding wounds and peace.
Most, if not all, explorations of 'abiding' I have come across explore it from a devotional, individual perspective. Ben Quash's approach is much richer, and perhaps gets closer to the sense that John intended, by widening the perspective. Thus he helps relate Jesus exhortation to 'consider the flowers of the field' of Matthew 6 to 'abiding'. Jesus is here dwelling on, I suggest, the art and craft of the Father, as seen through nature.