From the Dean....

The gun went off at dawn this morning signifying the beginning of the Islamic Holy month of Ramadan. At midday the supermarket was packed with shoppers buying inordinate amounts of food for the feast after sunset. During the Holy month Muslims will abstain from life’s normal habits in order to cleanse and purify their bodies and minds and bring them closer to God. That is a very high and noble aim for all peoples, nations and creeds judging by the current state of the world. The new millennium was ushered in with high expectations of a new era of peace in world history. That fantasy didn’t last long.

The illusion soon shattered followed by the inevitable apportionment of blame. We seem to live in a world resembling an infant school play ground of petty squabbles; the only difference being that for infant children this is all part of growing up and the consequences trivial. The change in the pace of life which Ramadan brings reminds me that we Christians have our seasons of penitence and fasting too, when we are challenged to cleanse our bodies and minds bringing them closer to God. Lent, the month or so before Holy Week and Easter is one, and Advent is the other, preparing us for Christmas. Advent this year begins on Sunday December 1st. You probably already have that date in your diary along with the rest of the world as a day when we should be well on with our Christmas preparations. I rarely get much sense of the penitence and fasting which the season of Advent originally signified. There are strident voices in western society that even want us to do away with ‘Christmas’ altogether, and the church seems happy to roll over and let it happen. Muslims have demonstrated that they are not prepared to let such things happen to Islam. Islamic militants around the world dominate the news headlines and capture the imagination particularly of young men. I don’t see much in Christianity having that appeal. You may be saying to yourself “Well no! Christianity is all about loving God and loving your neighbour as yourself.” Many Muslims would correctly concur that something similar applies to Islam. In the Church of England Book of Common Prayer (1662) the great intercessory prayer for the church and the world begins…”Let us pray for the whole state of Christ’s Church, militant here in earth.” It seems that once upon a time the Christian Church, or at least the C of E bit of it, thought of itself as in some way ‘militant.’ Hardly an epithet that springs to mind today. Perhaps over the last few decades we have become so obsessed with our ‘churchianity’ and ecclesiology that we have blunted the edge of our Christianity. We need to recapture our sense of being the church, in the biblical sense of the Body of Christ here on earth, centered on our faith in Christ who was not just a good man, or even a significant prophet, but was God in Christ reconciling the world to himself. So Ramadan Kareem and get ready for Advent! Yours very sincerely, Alan Hayday