1. How did you become interested in the subject of children in the Bible?

When my son Jonathan was little he was watching rain on the car windscreen when he said ‘rain is what clouds do best’. I was interested in that and asked him what he meant. He then said that he thought the maker of clouds and rain was proud of how the rain looks and works. That’s how I got interested in what children teach us and in their spirituality, especially because I still think of what he said whenever it rains.  And so then I wondered where we learn about how God relates to children, and the Bible is an obvious place to go to find out about that.

2. The subtitle of your book is a ‘fresh approach’. Why did you think this was needed?

First because I find there are a lot of assumptions about children in the Church: that they are empty vessels to be filled up; that they are the ‘future’; that they are somehow incomplete human beings. My reading of the Bible, asking what we can find out about God in relation to children, challenged all of that, and I wanted to write about that challenge. I won’t pretend that the ‘fresh approach’ isn’t uncomfortable, even to me, but that’s one of the wonderful things about theology; once you take the God’s eye view of things, it really changes your perspective.

3. The Bible is the work of many different writers. Is it possible to summarise what the Bible says about children?

In my view it is, as I say in the book, that God finds children worthy of call, salvation, commission, healing and blessing. I find that breathtaking in its scope, revealing the generosity and fierce love of God for the smallest and weakest in the human community. I like Walter Brueggemann’s idea that God’s passion for children is evident in the biblical phrase ‘like a she-bear robbed of her cubs’. I like to think of the mother bear roaming the forest looking for her cubs is like how God searches out each one of us in love.

4. Do you have a favourite child in the Bible? Why?

I have a fondness for the little servant girl in the story about Naaman the Syrian in 2 Kings 5. We don’t know her name; just that she is a captive from a raid on the Israelites and now a servant to Naaman’s wife. You would think that her little voice wouldn’t have any real effect in the dealings of warriors and kings. Yet her suggestion for Naaman’s healing turns into an amazing unfolding of events which results in showing the mysterious workings of God. Because of her, Naaman receives both physical healing and a change of heart and faith. Fantastic stuff.

5. You are National adviser for mission theology, alternative spiritualities and new religious movements for the Church of England. What does your job involve?

I’m convener of something called the Mission Theology Advisory Group and we provide lots of creative resources to help Christians share their faith appropriately with people outside the Church. But that means that we have to understand the spirituality of those people outside the Church as well, and that’s where the other part of my job comes in, learning about and engaging with people who believe and practise in very different ways from Christians. What are they looking for? Usually the same kinds of things as we are. So we have much to share, including the richness, surprise and variety of the Bible. You can see some of what we do at www.spiritualjourneys.org.uk and at www.dispossessionproject.org

God, whose brooding Spirit brings life to birth
and in Christ restores us to new life,
bless all mothers as they care for their families.
Feed them as they nourish and sustain;
strengthen them as they protect and shelter;
embrace them as they love and cherish,
that children may grow on secure foundations
and all may flourish to your honour and glory. Amen.

Ian Black, Prayers for all Occasions

God our heavenly Father, Lord of peace, God of love, we pray you guide all children who have lost their parents and are living in hard times. Lead them in everything they do, send you love into the hearts of those caring for them. Let this group know your love for them and they will praise you.

Penina Tito Bazia, Sudan, Prayers Encircling the World.

‘As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.’ 
Isaiah 66:13

For Mary, Mother of Jesus, we give you thanks and praise, O Lord.
We thank you for her example of trust in you, and for h er obedience to your will. 
We praise you, O Lord, for her spirit of acceptance, and for her care and love for the child of Bethlehem.

Church Army, England. Prayers Encircling the World.

Eternal God, you are constant with your people. Like a mother you draw all your children to your heart … Guide us in the ways of truth that we may rejoice in your bountiful goodness.

God our Father and Mother, you allow us to share in your creative purpose. Sustain and keep all parents and children that through the love that is shared our lives may be blessed … Be with all for whom this day brings pain and regret to the fore. Transform us through your brooding grace.

God our succour and protector, in times of plenty and need, you cradle our life in your hands. We entrust to your care all in any kind of need … Encircle them with your love and keep them ever within your tender mercy.

Ian Black, Intercessions for years A, B and C

Taken from the SPCK site.

Alister McGrath: My Top Five Books

It’s hard to name your favourite books. Some books mean a lot for special reasons, perhaps because they speak to us in moments of sadness or discouragement. When the occasion passes, they recede into the background. Yet I find that I keep coming back to Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Why? Partly because I keep coming across phrases and images that I thought I knew well, yet which seem to speak to me with new clarity. Yet perhaps the real reason is that Lewis seems able to convey the intellectual power and existential depth of the Christian faith in ways that seem to elude some writers – myself included. Lewis somehow manages to find the right words to engage his audience, making a winsome appeal to both our reason and imagination in his presentation of faith.

I try to read something improving every Lent. It’s a great discipline, and I find that it has led me to discover some remarkable works that I might otherwise have overlooked. Yet the medieval devotional classic The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis remains one of my favourite works. Not because it’s a comfortable read. I find it profoundly disturbing and unsettling, challenging my spiritual complacency. I now prefer to read this in the original Latin, as too many of the published translations use archaic English when rendering the biblical texts that play such a central role in the book’s exploration of Christian discipleship. Why do we have to use ‘Thou’, ‘Thee’, ‘doth’ and ‘wilt’ when modern English conveys the original sense more effectively and directly? I’m tempted to produce a new translation myself of this perennially rewarding text.

When Lent passes, I shall get back to reading less disturbing books. It’s hard not to like G. K. Chesterton. (Sadly, I missed the recent BBC adaptation of the ‘Father Brown’ series). My favourite work by Chesterton is The Everlasting Man. Chesterton’s ebullient style helps him land his theological punches effectively and amusingly. How does he manage to write such great prose, while making such important apologetic points? I wish I knew. But it remains a great read – perhaps one of the best pieces of theological journalism ever written.

Then, of course, there are theological classics – the works that somehow always seem to have something to say to us that we missed the first time round. Or perhaps we weren’t ready for some of its ideas when we last read it. The older I get, the more I’m inclined to think that some books are best read earlier in life, and others later. Augustine’s Confessions – especially in Henry Chadwick’s scintillating translation – remains one of my firm favourites. I read it once a year, and invariably find something new to savour and ponder. It’s interesting to set it alongside C. S. Lewis’s Surprised by Joy, and see how each writer works God into their conversion narratives.

It’s always good to get away from works of theology, and read works which convey the saltiness and earthiness of the everyday. Thanks to a Christmas gift, I’m enjoying Andrea Camilleri’s series of witty detective novels based on Inspector Montalbano. What I like best is their sense of place – the distinct ‘feel’ of Vigàta, and the willingness to work with its grain. Crime fiction appeals to one of my core instincts as an apologist – wanting to make sense of things. Yet Camilleri takes the genre in a new direction, using it as a lens to explore the darker side of Sicilian life and the messiness of human relationships. Perhaps that’s why I also like Augustine, whose realism about the complexities of life I find reassuring. But Camilleri writes better detective novels than Augustine!

Revd Professor Alister McGrath is Head of the Centre for Theology, Religion and Culture at King’s College, London. His most recent book for SPCK is Faith and the Creeds.

Trystan, what led you to write this book?

In many ways, this book is a natural companion to my last book, Finding Hope and Meaning in Suffering, which is about how we think about our own suffering. The Compassion Quest is about how we act when we see other people suffering. When I was younger my faith was very much in my head. I completed my doctorate in theology, and then spent years talking about theology as a lecturer in universities and in conferences worldwide. It was, however, only when I went to Oxford to train for ministry that I truly began to relate those words to action. During my training, I worked as a chaplain’s assistant at an asylum seeker’s deportation centre, where I sat with many tearful and fearful asylum seekers; I helped at a college chaplaincy, where I comforted students facing the tragic suicide of their nineteen-year-old friend; I spent a summer in Washington DC, where I assisted in a homeless drop-in centre; and I spent time with the dying and bereaved in local hospitals and hospices. Facing such situations, and reflecting on them biblically and theologically, made me certain that the truly Christian way to live our lives is with hearts of compassion and hands of action. Words about faith are useless if we don’t put those words into action in our everyday lives!

You talk about the need for ‘interconnectedness’ with both creation and each other. How do we start to do that?

In reality, we don’t need to start to be interconnected with creation and each other – we simply need to recognise that we already are interconnected! Recently, numerous Hollywood films have explored how people and circumstances are interrelated; films such as Crash and Babel, both successful at the Oscars, show how diverse lives and events can seamlessly interweave with each other. Increasingly, science is also recognising the importance of interconnectedness, with the scientific fields of systems thinking, ecology, and quantum physics leading the way in showing that relationships are at the heart of the universe, whether at a quantum or an everyday level. Such a concept is not novel as far as our faith is concerned. For Christians, at the root of interconnectedness is our compassionate God, who beckons all into relationship with him and each other. This should have huge consequences on how we act. The word for compassion that is used in the Old Testament (rachamim) is related to the Hebrew term for womb (rechem). In other words, our faith teaches us that we should treat others as if we had shared the same womb – as if we were twins! Furthermore, Scripture claims that we should also extend our compassion to other living things and to our environment. So, we should be treating each other, animals, and nature as if we were all brothers and sisters. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu put it: ‘I hope we can accept a wonderful truth – we are family! We are family! If we could get to believe this, we would realize that care about “the other” is not really altruistic, but it is the best form of self-interest.’

You write that Christ ‘lived out a limitless love’ (p. 76). How do we balance showing compassion to those who are suffering with the need to avoid burn out?

The English word ‘compassion’ derives from the Latin words cum and pati, meaning ‘to suffer with’.  Living out a ‘limitless love’, then, means we should be standing alongside those who are suffering, as if we were going through exactly what they are facing. It is, however, not only people’s suffering we should be sharing, but also their joyful and happy times. As an old German proverb puts it: ‘A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved; a joy shared is a joy doubled’. Often, we think that being kind, compassionate, and loving means being there for people in their times of darkness and tragedy. Christ, however, shared people’s joy and happiness, at wedding feasts, dinner parties and visits to friends, as well as standing alongside them in their times of pain. This is a great model for us of true compassion. Still, as those of us in ministry or undertaking other pastoral work know, we do need to guard ourselves from burnout, compassion fatigue or stress. It is important that we should, therefore, extend our compassion to ourselves also, especially by being realistic about what we can achieve and by putting in place support networks to guard us becoming disheartened or disillusioned.

You quote statistics that show that churchgoers are not necessarily more compassionate than others. How can clergy and other church leaders encourage greater compassion in their congregations?

There is much psychological and sociological research that shows that people of faith have no more inclination towards compassion than agnostics or atheists do. Many Christians who hear that fact are shocked, and so we should be! It must, however, not dishearten us. Rather, we should be inspired to buck the trend. The first step of church leaders should be to encourage congregations to look to the example of Jesus himself. We are so busy debating doctrinal, ethical, and liturgical issues, that compassionate action sometimes becomes side-lined. Many of the recent high-profile debates within the Church, for example, have shown little love and compassion, while the secular world looks on with bewilderment at our internal squabbles. Yet the New Testament does not show Jesus debating doctrine with the Sadducees, the group who held very different views to him (they didn’t, for example, believe in God’s involvement in everyday life, the resurrection of the dead, or the afterlife). Instead, Jesus was far more concerned with the outward actions of the hypocritical Pharisees. For him, it seems, faith is meant to be lived out, and compassion is at the heart of what it means to live out God’s love. In fact, the gospels use two different Greek words for “compassion”. The first word, eleeo, is the word used by those appealing for healing. The second word, splanchnizomai, literally meaning ‘to be moved in one’s guts’, is used for Jesus’s reaction to those pleading to him, and it expresses a more passionate form of compassion. Jesus, therefore, responds to those who plea for basic compassion (eleeo) with a compassion that is intimate and intense (splanchnizomai). We can do no better than to encourage our congregations to follow him, not with pity or sympathy for others, but with a passionate and intense compassion for each other and the world around us.

Your last book, Finding Hope and Meaning in Suffering, was very well received. Why do you think it had such resonance for readers? And has anything exciting happened as a result?

Initially, I think the success of Finding Hope and Meaning in Suffering was due to the fact that suffering is a universal thing – we all suffer, in all sorts of different ways. But, once people began to read the book, I think its impact was the result of a realisation that this wasn’t primarily a book about suffering, but rather a book about hope and meaning! I think many people were surprised that a book that was rooted in my own suffering (having been diagnosed with a degenerate spinal condition) and the suffering of others (from characters in Scripture to Holocaust survivors) was engaging, lively and sometimes even humorous! It was also able to include chapters on such diverse areas as the arts, nature, memory, and laughter. We need to deal with suffering and pain with sensitivity and utter seriousness, but we must also leave room for the hope, love, and joy that Christ brings into all our lives, however difficult a time we are facing. The book became the Archbishop of Wales’s Lent Book for 2011 and large sections of it were serialised in the Church Times. One of the most unusual things that happened, though, was that William Paul Young, the author of the 18 million-copy bestseller The Shack, quoted Finding Hope and Meaning in Suffering in his second book, Cross Roads. In fact, he only used twenty quotations in the book, so I have found myself nestling alongside names such as Bobby Kennedy, Oscar Wilde, C.S. Lewis, Paul Simon and Abraham Lincoln! In many ways, the quotation that he chose summarises both Finding Hope and Meaning in Suffering and The Compassion Quest: ‘Pain may well remind us that we are alive, but love reminds us why we are alive.’

The Lion’s World, Rowan Williams’ exploration of Narnia, which we featured here has been chosen as the ‘Big Read’ for Lent 2013. The Big Read website has house group materials for each week and a host of other useful supporting material. Click on the logo to explore:

Uncovering Sin: A gateway to healing and calling

Rosy Fairhurst

Sin is an unfashionable topic, both in our society as a whole and within our churches. For many of us, it is associated with negative and judgemental attitudes or individual acts. As Rosy Fairhurst, a priest at St Martin’s in the Fields, argues, ‘we associate “sin-talk” with being made to feel worse – more condemned, more blamed – rather than anything potentially liberating’.

In this new Lent book, Rosy encourages us instead to look honestly at sin, seeing it as a gateway to healing and salvation.

Rosy provides seven weeks’ worth of material, with Biblical passages, examples from contemporary culture and questions included. Ideal for personal devotional reading or for use by groups.

Read an extract from the first week’s material here.

Uncovering Sin extract by spck_publishing

Friends, Foes and Families: Lenten meditations on Bible characters and relationships

Judith Dimond

In this Lent book, Judith Dimond, author of Gazing on the Gospels, focuses on the tricky subject of relationships. With readings and reflections for each day of Lent, she looks at the stories of Biblical characters, challenging us to find in their sometimes complex stories insights for our relationships today.

Each of the seven weeks has a theme: Fathers; Couples; Siblings; Mothering; Friends and Strangers; The Powerful and Relationship restored. This is a perfect book for personal devotional reading or discussion in groups, and includes many new prayers by Judith.

Read an extract here.

Friends, Foes and Families extract by spck_publishing

The Resurrection of Peace: A gospel journey to Easter and beyond

Mary C. Grey

Professor of theology Mary Grey takes us on a Lenten journey to peace, following Jesus’ journey from the Sea of Galilee to Jerusalem, and then, post-resurrection, back to Galilee. Along the way, we revisit ‘the sacred places in the land called holy by Christians, Jews and Muslims’. The book is full of real-life stories of those living through conflict and working for peace in the Holy Land today, and each chapter includes discussion questions to provoke both thought and action.

Read an extract here.

The Resurrection of Peace- Chapter 1 by spck_publishing

And finally, in Christ in the Wilderness, Stephen Cottrell reflects on a series of paintings of the same name by one of his favourite artists, Stanley Spencer. Click here to read more .