Sunday 12 March 2006

Last night saw a heavy snowfall, so Glasgow awoke to several inches of snow today. I slipped and waded my way through thick snow this morning, dodging snowmen, snowboarders, sledgers and snowball fights to make it to church.

This morning was Wellington Church of Scotland, a beautiful building at the heart of the Glasgow University campus. Not that you’d notice – the church seems to have done about as much outreach to the university community as Ian Paisley has in the Vatican, and it was hard to see exactly what community it felt it was serving, if not the one right under its nose. The congregation – severely depleted to around sixty by the snow – was old in profile, and the service lived up to the stereotype of an elderly church. The minister was all robes and monotone, the choir somewhat lacklustre, the singing was awful, and the sermon felt twice as long as the twenty minutes it took. My yawns, I confess, might have been partly due to me being up until 5am watching Lost Series 2 on DVD, but that’s another story. There was communion, too, with the wine served in those tiny wee shot glasses that never allow you quite enough wine to be able to swish it around your mouth and remove all the dry bread stuck between your teeth. The whole Wellington experience was rounded off by your good friends and mine, Uncomfortable Pews.

On the plus side, I must say the welcome was good – a few hellos on the way in, and some friendly chat over coffee afterwards. People did seem rather apologetic that things weren’t livelier and that there weren’t more younger people around – quite why they’re apologising for this rather than doing something about it and fulfilling their potential by reaching out to the 20,000 students on their doorstep on a Sunday, I’m not sure. The building though, as I say, was lovely, with grand high windows, a beautiful ceiling, ornate interior, and distinctive and foreboding exterior. I couldn’t help thinking it would make a fine nightclub venue, which would certainly be more relevant to the local community than its current use.

So, good marks for the welcome, but it’s not a church that particularly packs a punch spiritually or socially and certainly didn’t make me think I’d grow or learn very much there. Wellington gets the boot, I’m afraid.

On my way back I trudged through the oldest part of campus and took some nice photos (see the pictures page), then came home to find an email from David McCarthy, the rector at St Silas which I reviewed earlier this month (see 5 March). I guess it was only a matter of time before my covert church-reviewing would be discovered by a “victim”! David was genuinely grateful for the honest appraisal I gave, which he plans to discuss with others, and copied it in his own blog. I am so glad that one visitor’s description of his experience (good and bad) has given a church something to mull over. I look forward to returning to St Silas soon.

Not sure where I’m going to church tonight yet…

Wednesday 8 March 2006

Jerry Springer – The Opera is on in Glasgow over the next few days, and I quite fancied going until I discovered it’s about £20. I’m no fan of opera, theatre or Jerry Springer, I just fancied going to see what the fuss was about.The fuss, for those lucky enough to have missed it, has been so-called Christians protesting all over the world about this comedy stage production of the raucous television show. If you believe the lunatics, the show is blasphemous, portraying Jesus in nappies and generally taking the piss out of God. The protests, mostly by ghastly fundamentalist Christians, have been vociferous in their condemnation of the show both in the USA and over here.

What angers me is that the protesters have probably never seen the show. In these sort of situations they normally haven’t, they just launch into a diatribe against anything they think might offend their warped values. How dare they judge the show without seeing it? How ignorant is that?

I’ve heard from various reviews I’ve read that it’s not actually that blasphemous – I believe Jesus doesn’t appear in nappies, but rather one actor plays both Jesus and a different character who wears nappies. And all the God stuff (where Springer apparently visits heaven or hell or something) seemingly takes place in the second act during a dream sequence. So what the fundies are saying is that the creative world cannot portray people having blasphemous thoughts or dreams! What sort of art is this, where we cannot portray characters’ dark or unsavoury thoughts??

Maybe my comments have basis, maybe they don’t. The point is, I have no idea, and won’t know until I see it. Which I can’t be bothered spending £20 to do.

But the whole controversy is just another example of the freedom of speech debate raging in this country, where hardline idiots of many faiths believe that we have no right to offend people’s religious sensitivities. The ability to criticise, be controversial and offend people (short of incitement to violence or criminal activity) should be a central pillar of any free society.

Moreover, some of those who protest against things like the Mohammed cartoons have hardly shown a good example of responsible speech or action (or a strict adherence to the principles of their faith, for that matter) in burning flags and property and inciting suicide bombings.

And I find it personally insulting as a Christian that people who claim the same faith as me can take the moral high ground and assume that their values are everyone’s values. I believe in the absolute truth of Jesus as the saviour of the world and all-time greatest sandal-wearer. I believe that I and other Christians should live their lives in accordance with that truth. Furthermore, I believe that all must believe this truth if they want to be liberated from their sins. However, to believe for a second that others do not have the inherent right to reject that truth is a denial of God’s will. He gave us the choice, the ability to say “no”. By imposing our values on others, we deny that choice, and deny God by attempting to be judge in his place.

Long live free speech. Although not for too long… this blog’s rambled enough already.

Tuesday 7 March 2006

This article on the BBC news website today reminded me of the MySpace phenomenon which, along with the likes of Google Pages, has made it very quick and easy for ordinary plebs to get a presence on the web, whether it be for their band, products, artwork, or personal bletherings. You simply log in, write something, load an image, and there you are, you’re on the web!

Call me a snob or geek, but I wonder how good these developments are. I know it’s opening up the world’s greatest and most dynamic form of information and expression to a mass market, but I can’t help thinking that the internet is not necessarily becoming better for all the crap poets, angsty teenagers and bored housewives uploading their grammatically appauling blogs or pointless musings about nothing; it’s simply becoming bigger.

This contrasts with the heroically and pointlessly laborious way I update my website at the moment:
1. Open Notepad.
2. Open the file I want to change (usually this one).
3. Write the changes using raw HTML (the very fiddly code/language sites are written in, which I have only a basic grasp of).
4. Save the file.
5. Publish it from my filespace to my server, using a WS_FTP whatsit-thingy which I vaguely understand.

I’m quite proud of the utterly archaic way I do things because it shows commitment, dedication, and a desire to really feel like I’ve “made” this website myself. Granted, if I am ever to get RSS or a comments feature on this blog, or an interactive map on the photos page, I will have to “sell out” and find a different way of doing things.

But in the meantime, I’ll battle on the way I am: if webpublishing is electricity, then I am the tilly-lamp. Sad I know, but at least it means I’m nowhere near tech-savvy enough to be legitimately called a geek.

Monday 6 March 2006

I can't actually be bothered telling you much about the weekend in Aberdeen, I'm afraid, except to say that it was fun to catch up with everyone, especially Niall fresh from his Korean experience.

This, this and this featured heavily.

I took some nice photos of stuff in the snow though, which I have put at the bottom of the pictures page.

Sunday 5 March 2006

It’s been a full week, with two days in Sheffield for a training course and then the weekend in Aberdeen. More about all that another day though, because I got back to Glasgow in time for my flatmate and I to try out another church, St Silas Episcopal.

St Silas is well known as a lively, studenty, cheerful sort of place (at least in the evening) and it was recommended to me by a number of people. Its rector (episcopalese for “minister”) is a good friend of Gareth Saunders and writes a compelling blog himself. So I was expecting good things.

And to be honest, that’s what we found. A reasonable welcome at the door led us into a bright, laid back and impressively grand interior, with plenty space around the seated area and a stage with a band and huge projector screen. We sidled in towards the back and sat ourselves down on the very comfy seats. The church soon filled up with a steady stream of latecomers which added to the relaxed atmosphere – though nobody nearby spoke to us.

The service started with a few lively songs, and the band was good but the musicians and indeed the singing was drowned out by the over-enthusiastic drummer. Then after a short prayer we were straight into the sermon. Delivered by an “ordinary” member of the church, it was good – around 50 minutes and based on James chapter 5. It was well-presented and delivered, peppered with a few laughs, and most importantly of both practical and spiritual benefit.

After the service – which ended rather abruptly – my flatmate and I sat around waiting for people to speak to us, and we gave the welcome a second chance to prove itself when we went to the counter at the side to get a cup of tea. Lots of people were milling around and talking to each other, but nobody approached us to say hello or welcome… not even my flatmate when I left him on his own for a couple of minutes to nip to the toilet.

It was a bit of a shame and a contrast to last week’s warm welcome at Sandy H. The church had a lot going for it – decent worship, a young and cheerful crowd, powerful and useful teaching, and a lot going on judging by the announcements and intimation sheet. They just let themselves down a bit by not recognising two people who were blatantly new and looking a bit lost (a look I confess to overdoing just a little to see if it encouraged people to talk to us… it didn’t). Jesus is a forgiving sort of chap though, so St Silas bounces into round two.