GROWTH IN FAITH

Within this project, there is much evidence of people rethinking their positions on issues in the light of changing circumstance, confident of the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

We see the words of John Robinson’s address to the departing Pilgrim Fathers being applied: ‘The Lord hath yet more light and truth / To break forth from his word.’

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The participants stated:

I believe that any religion must grow in order to remain relevant, and there is no currency in thinking that words written hundreds and thousands of years ago can never be challenged. 'The Lord hath yet more light and truth to break forth from his word' . . .
I believe that mental dictatorships have their own downfall built in as much as political ones, and particularly with the coming ecological crisis it is very necessary to both have faith and have reason.

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I valued most in Congregationalism the freedom to explore the faith. I needed to search for meaning in life because my stepfather had returned from the war a damaged man, and the family knew what abuse was. The minister, Rev Frederick Collishaw, had a number of children. One bought books by people like Leslie Weatherhead and I read them. They challenged concepts like the Virgin Birth and the statements in the creed that were set in concrete. I learned within Congregationalism that I wasn’t bound by a stranglehold when I was trying to understand the mystery of God. I was influenced too by J. B. Phillips’ book, Your God is Too Small.

I cannot see that learned creeds are a part of the faith journey. I’ll tell you where I stand with creeds. I need to be able to relate to the young people of the 21st century. I do not believe when I stand to say the Nicene Creed at a baptism at our church that this is the language of today. And these young people have brought their child for baptism, and if I put them against the wall and ask them if they believe, they’ll say ‘We can’t.’ I believe that our creeds should be speaking to us in the language of today. And when our dear minister stands and says, ‘We will say the creed as we stand in the line of the ancient Church,’ I can see that line, but the lack of communication with today’s world really, really upsets me.

I am so concerned that the language of the church should speak to the young people of today.

We have had solar panels since 1991, long before the time of government subsidy. I listened to the Marshall Islands representatives speak of global warming and rising sea levels at the World Council of Churches meeting in Canberra in that year. I came home determined to do anything I could.

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I believe [that] Congregationalism made changes easier for us on the whole because we were always encouraged to respect and be open to others’ opinions, and discouraged from becoming entrenched in any one position.

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I must admit to having been very much influenced in the late 60’s and early 70’s by Bishop John Robinson in his book, Liturgy Coming to Life. This helped me to understand the communion service in the Congregational Church. I learned a lot from the book. It influenced my own thinking and practice.

It is not surprising that I think I have grown in wisdom as well as stature, and also in theological understanding. The songs and hymns that I sang in my adolescence with great gusto, I can’t sing now and I can’t understand how people could have sung them then, except to understand that at that time they were par for the course. Now antiquated eighteenth century theological understandings are quite distasteful to me. On the other hand, I’m looking at the day now and seeing that so much of our own hymn-singing is vain repetition. It is great to have family worship, and songs that little children can sing, but a diet of milk is no good for people who are craving steak and eggs.

There are many hymns in Together in Song which address issues of peace, justice and human relationships in contemporary theology and language. Many hymns to be found in collections decades—even centuries—old can stand up well against many of the hymns, songs and choruses in current use. A good hymn, theologically sound, is a good hymn, no matter of what vintage.

I can’t address God, can’t think about God, in the same way as I did before in earlier decades. In my retirement I’ve been able to do quite a lot of reading. I’ve never been an avid reader, but now I’m doing a lot of reading outside of theology, particularly in science and cosmology. I can’t use the expressions, I can’t think about God in the ways that we used to.

A woman came to me at the height of the drought in 1967 and said, ‘Ministers used to pray for rain.’ The following Sunday I preached a sermon saying that God is not our servant, we don’t ask God to switch things on and off at our behest. God was the God of the Germans as well as of the Allies in WWII. As for the water situation here in Keith in SA in the 90-mile desert, we have marvellous technology—we can build dams, storages for water. We’ve had buckets of water given to us. Where is it now? We haven’t saved it for the lean years. Anyway, I went on to pray, a prayer of thanksgiving for technology, for rain over the years, for billions of gallons of water under our feet, because we were in a sub-artesian aquifer. All I’m saying is that in the 1930’s I would have been happy to pray for rain and bring an umbrella the next Sunday, but I can’t do that any more.

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Next: Chapter 17. The Qualities of Congregationalists

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