To tithe or not to tithe?

Come ye into His courts, and bring an offering with you – Psalm 96

Now that the conservatives in the Church of Scotland are stirring themselves gently in a schism-ward direction, with Holyrood Abbey the latest congregation announcing its desire to leave the fold, there’s been a story in the Sunday Herald about the potential loss in income from congregational offerings.

That set me a-googling. The Kirk helpfully provides a whole bunch of stats in its Supplementary Reports, showing that in 2011 its income from offerings (before tax recovery) was £60,488,000, and this from an enrolled membership of 432,343 souls. I'll admit to being a bear of very little brain when it comes to arithmetic and accountancy, but I've got a clever calculator, so here goes . . . 

If we divide the total “givings” by the total membership (which does not include regular adherents or casual visitors), the result is £139.91 per annum, or a measly £2.69 donation per person per week.

Okay, so maybe it’s expecting too much of them all to attend every week. Let’s say that only half of them attend regularly, or that they all go but only once a fortnight. They’re still only giving a fiver a week each … and that ain’t no tithe.

My sums could well be wrong, and if so I’ll stand corrected. But I’m really surprised people are giving so little. I have wondered throughout the year whether I’ve been putting enough in the plates at the various churches I’ve attended, especially since I’d be writing about them all (and not always to praise them), but by these standards I feel positively munificent.

On the other hand, maybe the membership figures are seriously overinflated. Who can say?

Central: Jesus at the Heart

Central: Jesus at the Heart

Morning gathering, 10.30am, Sunday 15 June 2013

Led by: Kirsty (with no apparent surname)

Preacher: Kay Cathcart

What you’re about to read isn’t positive, so I’ll start with a caveat. I was in an irritable mood today, what with the traffic and the road closures and the slow service in the coffee shop and the looming deadlines and trying to juggle too many commissions at once … but hey, what harm could it do to throw one more task into the mix? I’d managed to stick to my plan almost every Sunday this year, and it would only be for an hour, right?

Wrong, because the whole bally show went on for an hour and three-quarters. Strike 1. Then there was the awful modern praise music, my thoughts on which I’ve expounded before. Strike 2, although the lead singer did have a cracking voice, but why she wastes it on this banal drivel is beyond me. Oh yes, and she said Hayellula, instead of Hallelujah, but let’s call that a slip of the tongue.

I found myself playing a little game of "spot the liturgical and/or scriptural source or inspiration" to get me through the worst of the music. Some of it’s easy … There is no one like our God, and the new-to-me Noah built the most enormous boat (with actions), but some of it less easy to pin down, such as Waiting here for you, a dirge I also encountered at the Elim church and which contains the bizarre lyric, “we’re desperate for your presence”. Why be desperate for the presence of an omnipresent deity?

Apart from that, I wrote a shopping list and wondered whether to patronise Waitrose or Morrison's (Morrison's won), and I amused myself by admiring the stained glass windows and wondering what the organ must have sounded like when the place still belonged to the Methodists and they still played it. Easily the biggest of the unplayed organs seen so far this year, now its majestic pipes are a mere backdrop for Miss Hayellula and the Sound Systems.

Okay, so that was strike 2. Were the boisterous kids strike 3? Not quite, because they left after a little while to go to their “kids and youth programmes”, held variously in rooms called Lewis, Skye, Islay, Jura, Harris and Room 10. Could they really not think of another Hebridean island?

No, strike 3 was the sermon, given by a woman with the most grating voice I’ve ever heard. It’s something about the accent, the misplacement of certain vowels on the resonator scale … I was already irritable, but I found myself gritting my teeth every time she said “peepul”, which was often, because she spoke for an unconscionably long time. Yes, that was strike 3.

What was she on about? Well, she said she would be “digging around in 2 Corinthians 10”, and so she waffled on about St Paul being gentle with “peepul” but strong against the enemy, and about how we should be consistent … with a little detour around social networking and how she didn’t like the look of the bulldog-type sheep (Beltex is my guess, and they were splendid specimens too) we’d seen in a video about the Happy Hens farm mission project supported by the church.

But at long last the sermon was all over, and all that remained was for her to pray, inviting those who felt they needed particular categories of prayer to stand up at the appropriate times (it’s all right, “peepul” will have their eyes closed). In particular she prayed for those who feel a critical spirit rising up in them, that their hearts may be softened … and for those who cling to the negative, remembering little irritating things and forgetting to see the big picture. Guilty … and guilty. But I didn’t stand up.

I haven’t been so glad to get out of a church since the deeply unpleasant Tridentine mass at St Margaret's and St Leonard's. What was it that irked me so? Could it really have been just the music, or just Mrs Cathcart’s voice? At any rate, I’ve had a bellyful of that kind of worship format, so I’ll be consciously avoiding any churches that go in for it from now on.

Ah! No, wait. Is there such a thing as strike 4? Because I’ve just remembered possibly the most irritating thing of all. The description of God, on father’s day, as “the dad of all dads”. Yeuch! Why does that set my teeth on edge? After all, there’s no one like our God, no one like our father, etc, etc. And yet … and yet … I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me. As I said, I was in an especially irritable mood today. 

City of Edinburgh Methodist Church

City of Edinburgh Methodist Church

Morning worship, Sunday 09 June 2013, 11am

Led by: Deacon Belinda Letby

Preacher: Rev Eric Potts

I commented a few weeks ago on the great church building reshuffle that’s been going on in Edinburgh recently, including the sale of Methodist Central Hall. I don’t know what the Central Hall congregation had shrunk to by the time they decided to sell up, but Methodist numbers must be dwindling all over town, because the building in Nicolson Square wasn’t exactly bursting at the seams this morning.

It would have been an impressive interior at one time, but it’s sacrificed much of its charm to years of white gloss painting, and the upstairs gallery is a storage space for stacking chairs and old Christmas trees. It also boasts the least comfortable pews yet encountered on my mission.

But it does have a fantastic little choir, all nine of them, who belted out a rip-roaring gospel anthem, Ev’ry time I feel the spirit, and provided harmonies for all the hymns, opening with Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation, and rounding off with Charles Wesley’s own O, for a thousand tongues—seven glorious verses to the tune of Lyngham, one of my personal favourites.

The sermon, or more correctly “the message”, was delivered by Rev Eric Potts and divided into two parts, each following the relevant reading. 1 Kings 17:17-24 and Luke 7:11-17 both recount miracles of a dead son being restored to a widowed mother. Potts twice called Elijah “Isaiah” by mistake, but he can be forgiven that slip of the tongue since he imparted so much else that was of interest—a comparison between Mary Queen of Scots and Jezebel, for instance, and an explanation of the use in this and other passages of Luke’s of the word εσπλαγχνισθη, whose rendering into English as “his heart went out to her” or “he had compassion for her” apparently fails to convey the full import of the sentiment. The other two passages are the parable of the good Samaritan and that of the prodigal son – yet another lost/dead son restored, in keeping with the theme. I bow to Potts’s superior knowledge. It’s nice to learn something from a sermon.

Would I go back? For the singing, yes. It’s right up there with the Salvation Army and St Columba’s by the Castle on the music front ... and I should have mentioned that there's an organ. And I’m tempted by the prospect of hearing one Rev John Knox (yes, really) lead next week’s service. But there are lots more churches to get round, so for the meantime I’ll award a generous mark to the Methodists and move on. 

Life Church

Life Church

Worship Service, Sunday 02 June 2013, 11am

Pastor: Adrian Galley

If shouty, clappy, hand-waving worship music is your bag, and if you also fancy a little dance into the bargain, you’ll feel very much at home at Life Church, an independent pentecostal congregation that used to call itself the Apostolic Church. As at Hope! Church and Edinburgh Elim, the music was loud, percussive and as generic as a genre can be. I’ve said it before, but there’s nothing about this kind of music to engage the ear, mind or spirit – limited vocal range, dumbed down lyrics, bland melodies, etc, etc. – and yet the faithful were instantly on their feet, throwing some shapes with their hands a-waving as the band launched into a 50-minute praisefest in which one forgettable chorus segued seamlessly into the next. I joined in, of course, for everything except Jesus, you’re my superhero, which I’m afraid I just couldn’t bring myself to sing. That one was for the kids, in case you were wondering.  

The musical frenzy calmed only for the odd word of prayer, and here’s my first question. The worship leader told us in one of her few non-singing moments about God’s “unconditional love”. I’m wondering now, where in the bible are we told that God’s love is unconditional? Maybe I missed that bit, because God’s love seems to be very much conditional – on obeying his commandments, for instance, or in believing in the divinity of his son. The old testament is all about a god who makes a contract with people who find it difficult to fulfil, and the new testament is about a god who finds a new and more complicated way of striking a different kind of deal with a wider group of people. But every deal comes with conditions attached.

Howsomever, that’s just a little niggle about an unguarded but no doubt sincere comment from the worship leader. The main teaching was given by Pastor Adrian Galley, who quoted from Hebrews, Romans, Peter, Ephesians, Philippians, and Corinthians (nothing from the old testament or the gospels) as he expounded his theme of maturity in Christian life. St Paul chided early Christians for being mere infants in Christ, and the problem persists to this day among “old Christians” who still haven’t grown up. Freedom comes in a moment, but maturity comes over a period of time, said Adrian. There’s nothing else that God needs to do for you once you become a Christian, but there is more that you have to do, and you have to take personal responsibility for achieving that growth in your walk with Jesus. It’s like fitness, apparently. Talking to a really fit person about their training regime won’t actually do you any good; it’s up to you to get down the gym and start working out for yourself, and there’s no shortcut.

What he didn’t tell us was exactly what all this growth and maturity entailed. My own experience is that the more you read the more you uncover the inconsistencies in scripture, so unless maturity brings with it an ability to reconcile the irreconcilable I’m not sure how anyone achieves the growth from Christian infancy to fit-for-heaven maturity, which is why I don't reckon I'll be fit for heaven any time soon. It’s also a rather disappointing message for anyone who’s taken to heart the promise that salvation is theirs simply because they’ve accepted Christ … now there’s a yes/but rider to the bargain, and no great clarity about exactly what you’re supposed to do next. Although, if you're saved anyway, what incentive is there to mature? Why not remain like a little child? Isn't the kingdom of heaven for such as these? So many unasked and unanswered questions. Woolly, woolly, woolly. 

On the plus side, the people were all very friendly and welcoming. This is something the evangelical churches are good at, to judge by my experiences so far this year, and certain of the more mainstream denominations could take a leaf out of their book. 

God, the universe and everything

So the Higgs boson goes to church, and the priest says, “Thank goodness you’re here. We can’t have mass without you.”

Boom, boom! (which might be to emphasise the punchline or it might be the distant echo of a big bang)

Marathon road closures thwarted my efforts to attend a city centre church this morning. I was similarly thwarted a few weeks ago by the half marathon—note to self: don’t just put those circulars from the council straight in the bin—but on that occasion I managed to make it to New Restalrig, which happens to be on my side of the barricades. Not so this morning. Eleven o’clock came and went and still I was stuck in a contraflow.

So in lieu of a church review, I thought I’d set down a few observations about creationism, which is all over the religious TV channels like a rash but hasn’t actually cropped up in any of the churches I’ve visited in the past six months. Odd that, and I’m not sure why. I’m also quite disappointed, because I’d be up for a good tussle with a creationist one of these Sundays. Maybe I haven’t been to enough independent evangelical churches, or maybe they keep the really loopy stuff back for a while and impose the requirement to believe what is scientifically disprovable only once their initiates are warmed up a bit.

The thing that puzzles me about creationism is why it’s become such a touchstone for faith in our times. It didn’t used to be a problem for people to believe both in God and in science, but now religion and science are presented as two competing and incompatible paradigms, not only by the evangelicals but by the Dawkinsian atheists too.

Was it ever thus? Well, the paradigms clearly don’t align, but thoughtful people who concerned themselves with this misalignment used to find ways to reconcile scripture with observable evidence. I’m thinking, for example, of Hugh Miller’s suggestion that the six “days” of creation were geological eras long enough to have formed the rocks he studied; his scientific enquiries didn’t dent his faith any more than his faith dissuaded him from pursuing geology. These days, Hugh wouldn’t get a look-in with the creationist hardliners, and many of today’s “bible-believing” Christians would laugh that founding father of the Free Church out of town if he didn’t toe the party line.

If any readers are unfamiliar with the central tenet, it’s basically this: the bible is 100 per cent true and Genesis describes exactly how God created the universe and all that it contains in six literal 24-hour days, and the theory of evolution is untrue and evolution does not take place and never has. Then, in response to questions from incredulous rationalists, or to pre-empt them, there’s a further layer of theory about Noah’s flood, dinosaurs, fossils, carbon dating, etc, etc.

The entirely joyless “Dr” Grady McMurtry gives some especially snoozetastic lectures on carbon dating, oft repeated on Revelation TV. He uses lots of scientific terms and claims a comprehensive knowledge of a range of scientific disciplines, but I hae ma doubts. I’ve linked before to his credentials, courtesy of Gordon Hudson’s blog, a must-read for every recovering evangelical out there. I'd like to say the man's a buffoon – Grady, I mean, not Gordon – but, alas, he's an intelligent man peddling a corrupt philosophy, all the while assuming an air of authority, which makes him all the more despicable. If he were simply a fool, I might be able to pity him.

Dr Richard Kent makes similar polymathic claims. Now he really is a doctor, albeit a medical one, but he’s no more a physicist, biologist or chemist than McMurtry is. He isn't pretending to be, of course, but it’s got to make you suspicious when a lecturer jumps from subject to disparate subject, claiming expertise in all of them … now let’s look at the human eye (created, not evolved) … now let’s consider the dust on the surface of the moon (evidence of a young universe) … now let's measure the beak length of Galapagos finches (Darwin was lying or wrong) ... now let’s switch disciplines again while I give you yet another example of how science gets it wrong and I, armed with my trusty bible, get it right. It’s laughable, and what I can’t work out is how the faithful don’t see through him.

But if you want the proper baying-at-the-moon crazy stuff, you should check out Ken Ham and Kent and Eric Hovind. The most worrying thing about Hovind senior, apart from his criminal record, is that he seems always to be preaching to a crowd of primary school children who are being taught that humans and dinosaurs co-existed before the flood. What? Yes, really! And this has got to be with their parents’ knowledge and blessing.

This kind of thing makes you see why the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is performing such a vital public service, as well as giving us all a good laugh. After all, you have to take this stuff with a big pinch of salt, or a ladleful of carbonara. Oh yes, and they call their followers “pastafarians”. Classic!

I think there’s a kind of Christian machismo among the creationist evangelicals, as if believing more and more unbelievable things proves how strong your faith is. It also builds up interdependency, or even codependency (and I use the term advisedly), among the faithful – they would call it “fellowship” – because they are investing so much in membership and solidarity. Asking questions is unacceptable, as I've mentioned before, so if anyone points out that the emperor has no clothes, it serves not to embarrass the emperor but only push the dissenter to the fringes, from whence he or she will eventually detach from the group. 

At some stage in the next six months, I hope I will actually come face to face with a real live creationist. I can think of only one person I know who believes in the young earth theory, or admits to it, but the last time we met it wasn't the time or place for a theological debate. Next time you're in town, N, we'll have that bottle of wine! So if any readers can recommend a church where I'm likely to hear some loopy, or even some well argued, creationist preaching, do let me know. As I said, I'd relish a good old tussle. 

Greyfriars Tolbooth & Highland Kirk

Greyfriars Tolbooth & Highland Kirk

Service for Pentecost, Sunday 19^th May 2013, 11am

Minister: Rev Dr Richard Frazer

followed by

General Assembly Gaelic Service, 12.30pm

Preacher: Rev Donald A MacSween

Prayer leader: Rev Kenneth D Macleod

Precentors: Alasdair MacLeod & James Taylor

Moderator: Right Rev Lorna Hood

It’s a busy week for the Church of Scotland. The General Assembly began yesterday and they’re all set to tear lumps out of one another tomorrow over gay marriage. More of that anon.

But today was Pentecost, “the birthday of the church”, and Richard Frazer’s sermon kicked off with a frolicking leviathan – always a good start – and the sudden clarity of vision which inspired the psalmist the day he wrote Psalm 104. This same spirit was at work on the day of Pentecost, heralding an awakening and transfiguration, a moment of ecstatic realisation, when the ordinary becomes infused with the extraordinary.

Frazer referred to the holy spirit as “it”, then swiftly corrected this to “she”, which made me plumb the not very deep depths of Hebrew 101 to recall that yes, in fact, רוּחַ is feminine. Not noteworthy in itself, except that during the later Gaelic prayers the Rev Kenneth Macleod used the emphatic masculine pronoun “esan”. “Spiorad” is grammatically masculine, but the contrast seemed somehow more conspicuous than it needed to be. Of course, there’s no neuter gender in either Hebrew or Gaelic, but there is in English, and if Frazer had stuck with “it” and not drawn my attention to the matter in the first place, I probably wouldn’t be boring you with all this now.

So we’ve had a leviathan and a little grammatical detour. Now for Frazer’s stance on gay marriage. In the passage from Acts describing that first Pentecost, Peter is a witness to the new paradigm of the gospel of grace. The law was to be superseded, modified, renewed, revoked where no longer relevant – as, for instance, in the case of dietary restrictions – and remnants of the old Torah were to be replaced by the law of love. There should be no laws that hamper our true attainment of who we are as children of God, said Frazer, and that’s about as clear an endorsement of gay marriage as you’ll hear from a kirk pulpit.

It’s a far cry from the Free Presbyterians of Inverness, that’s for sure.

The music was reasonable. There’s a choir and an organ, but the usual reluctance among many of the congregation to open their mouths. It’s not as if the hymns are difficult. It would have been nice if the spirit had inspired a bit more singing, considering the occasion.

So then there was half an hour to kill while the church officers reset, and I went out for a little walk in the smirr and returned to find them all ready to start again. How many of the English congregation had stayed I couldn’t tell. There were about half as many people now, but many of them would have been newcomers who were attending the Gaelic service only.

The minister and the moderator, bless them, had to sit through an hour of what was no doubt Greek to them, unless by some precedented miracle they were granted the ability to hear what was being said each in his or her own tongue. But they were treated to the vocal delights of Lothian Gaelic Choir, who opened with O Rìgh nan Dùl and closed with O Thì as Àirde, and to the four metrical psalms (tunes: Moravia, Morven, Evan and Kilmarnock) chosen for the congregation to sing.

Now, as I’ve said before, I love a Gaelic psalm, and I love to sing. But I’d made the assumption that I could just sit anywhere and everyone would be joining in. Wrong! I didn’t realise that all the members of the regular Gaelic congregation were sitting in a clump up at the front, and the people around me were either non-Gaels or non-singers, because I heard not a cheep out of them. But that didn’t stop me, and the precentors did a smashing job between the two of them.

A copy of the sermon was provided, and Rev MacSween deviated not one iota from his script, other than to explain that despite his devotion to Ross County he would not be attending a match this afternoon. His theme was Christian unity and the great need for it at a time when the church faces decisions on potentially divisive matters, not least gay marriage, which he had rendered in Gaelic as “pòsadh feise”. This struck me as an odd turn of phrase, because really what it means isn’t “same-sex marriage”, but merely “sex marriage”.

MacSween, incidentally, is opposed to what others might with more political correctness call “pòsadh co-ionnan” (equal marriage). Still, we’ll let the lexicographers fight over that one.

He also mentioned a race that the ancient Greeks used to have in the Olympics, running with a lighted lantern. The winner was not the one who finished first, but the one who finished with his lantern still lit. We’ll see how much heat and light gets generated this week, and if anyone’s flame is still alight by the end of it or whether they've all blown themselves out.

The final word went to the moderator, attempting what we were told is the most daunting task of any moderator’s year in office, pronouncing the benediction in Gaelic. Agus is math a rinn i.

Today was also the day for Heart & Soul, the Church of Scotland’s open-air, multi-venue festival of faith, and Princess Street Gardens are but a stone's throw from Greyfriars. The avenues were indeed thronged with slow-moving folk who looked as if they might at any minute begin to enjoy themselves, but it was misty-moisty weather and not the best day to be watching mime artists on a bandstand. St Cuthbert’s church promised drier seating, if you could stand the soupy smell from the café and the over-ambitious rendition of Be Thou My Vision, but on the whole it was underwhelming. I didn’t tarry. I’d killed two birds with one stone at Greyfriars, and that was enough for one day.

Postscript (Monday 21st): Trust me to get it wrong. I've been conflating two debates on similar issues. Today the kirk voted on gay clergy. Meanwhile, the UK Parliament debated gay marriage. But everything else reported about yesterday's sermons still stands.

First Church of Christ, Scientist, Edinburgh

First Church of Christ, Scientist, Edinburgh

Morning Service, Sunday 12^th May 2013, 10.30am

Led by: two woman whose names I didn’t learn

Christian Science is one of the few religions I can think of that's been founded by a woman, Mary Baker Eddy, author of Science and Health, which is the key text of the denomination, alongside the Bible.

I wasn’t sure what to expect … a few more attendees, perhaps? There were only twenty of us all told. I certainly didn’t expect any miraculous healings there and then. I knew that they don’t go in for that kind of throw-away-your-crutches palaver, although they do believe in spiritual healing. In fact, they believe that everything is spiritual, and that the physical, and therefore anything that can go physically wrong, is an illusion which can be transcended.

What surprised me most was how prescriptive the order of service was. The Christian Science Quarterly sets out the texts which are to be read each week, from the Bible and from Science and Health, and these texts (about 35 minutes’ worth of them) comprise the sermon, the leaders taking it turn about to read from each source. So prescriptive is the list of citations that it even specifies which word within a Bible verse the reader should begin at. There doesn’t appear to be any wriggle room, nor any requirement ever to write an original sermon.

Not only were the Bible verses interspersed with Mother Eddy’s interpretations and reflections, but even the Lord’s Prayer was taken line by line with explanations in between. The sermon was preceded by a set-piece statement and the service concluded with the “scientific statement of being” and “its correlative scripture”. Somehow it seems odd that a relatively new religion should have adopted such a strict liturgy.

Listening to the excerpts from Science and Health, I seemed to recall that Mark Twain had described Eddy’s writings as “chloroform in print”. Of course, I had to check, and it turns out I was wrong. That’s how he described the Book of Mormon, but it would have been equally apt for Science and Health. No need for anaesthetic with this lifeless prose to hand.

Thumbs up for the music, though. Very accomplished organ playing for the hymns and voluntaries, and a mezzo solo setting of verses from Revelation, although the singer then disappeared for the rest of the service … perhaps to the Sunday school downstairs.

So that was Christian Science. Pretty dull and badly undersubscribed for the size of building they maintain. It’s another one to add to the list, but not inspiring in any way.