How the times are a-changing. Not being inside the UK means that I am not always in touch with what really is being said and actioned. I have come across two recent events: the banning of prayer before the Town Hall meetings in Bideford (see a comment by Dyfed), and a report in the Telegraph that Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has said that once beyond the door of the ‘temple’ Christians are not above the law. He drove home his point with the example that Roman Catholic (and other Christian) adoption agenices do not have the right to deny adoption to homosexual couples under equality laws, regardless of their faith position. In other words, despite what the agency might itself uphold they cannot become an exception when it comes to issues of equal rights for all. His comments are not simply being made at the expense of Christianity for he likewise made points about sharia law.

Although I think there are gaps in his argment that an average driver might be able to manoeuvre through without hitting too many objects, it is not that aspect I wish to open up. However, I consider the two examples are signs of a shift in the times. Lord Carey, former archbiship of Canterbury, has responded with a call to respect the nation’s heritage with an acknowledgement of the CofE as the established religion. Certainly his call to understand the history of a place is well grounded, but through that kind of argument are we expecting more than we should?

So cards on table: I have been seriously injected with a dose (I don’t think overdose) of Anabaptism. Separation of church and state. The requirements of Jesus are for his disciples. Not swearing allegiance, etc.

But back to signs of the times. Yes we can consder that there is a growing disrespect to faith. However, our history has been one of imposition (did the Reformation ‘succeed’ through winning hearts or through the conversion of a ruler?). I am currently reading the spread of the Spanish Empire. The ‘natives’ could have the Gospel preached to them and given the offer of conversion and submission to the crown of Spain. A neat little package all thrown in! General Franco conquered Spain as son of Spain and servant of God. The Catholic hierarchy more or less totally backed his crusade (which for some could be spelt genocide).

Of course ‘we’ can argue that we have not been so bad as that. Maybe.

We are coming to the end of an era. That era has many facets to it but one is that of christendom. I do not consider that christendom was ever valid, and we have to learn to live on the margins again as servants not as rulers.

We have prayed for first century realities in terms of faith, but I suspect to really live in those realities we will need to have a similar context. Faith expressed in the public arena, but not with Christianity in a privileged centralised position.

This is a decade when so much will be unrecognisable by the end of it. The process is something though we will have to embrace. A process where we recognise that change does not take place through no. 10, Brussels or the White House, but in lives that are absolutely committed to follow the Crucified One.

Economies are going to be shaken (this being a pivotal month), circumstances will be harder, privileges will be lost. And in all that Jesus will not need to be defended.

So in the changing times we must resist the temptation to try to restore something from the past. A new day is here with the increasing possibility of first century faith being expressed in a twenty-first century setting.