Influence, convert or no hope?

Larry Fink, the ‘most powerful person in Wall Street’ was recently in Spain and here are a few excerpts from the interview… But first, who is Larry Fink, I hear. He is the CEO of BlackRock, the largest money management firm in the world. If BlackRock were a country it would be the third largest economy on the planet – behind USA and China. Here then are a few quotes from the interview:

With respect to investments:

It’s a zero sum game. For some to win, others must lose (emphasis added).

I believe everything BlackRock does is sell hope.

Hope for who? Hope for what?

In the recent collapse of FTX (crypto exchange) BlackRock lost $18million. How did Fink respond to that?

We lost $18 million, which in the context of $9 trillion assets under management, was nothing.

It was nothing! And underlying the reply of course is that the only measurement worth using is that of money.

The value system is out there. Money, so-called wealth, over people. The flow has to be one way, some will lose (‘others’ – the majority?). Meanwhile, the Galilean peasant from the first Century hands the money to the thief; talks of a new era of hope for the poor. The flow for BlackRock mirrors what John saw on the isle of Patmos as he watched the boats head for Rome with their 28 cargoes inside, those cargoes including ‘human souls’. And then in a subversive way John drops into the narrative that the Lamb (appearing 7 times) is given for the four-fold description for humanity (7×4).

A big question – hence the title. Can BlackRock (and all like it) be influenced to move toward something more redemptive – by which I do not mean something perfect; can those such as Larry Fink be ‘converted’ in the sense of toward kingdom values; or is the whole system beyond hope – and if so when does the call to ‘come out of her my people’ need to be shouted?

No answers here from this person… the questions remain.

Video: standing against jealousy

A few days ago I made a video on an awareness how certain aspects can conspire to threaten our health. I did not make it in the sense of a ‘1 – 1’ relationship, but presented it as patterns to be considered. I had a number of responses asking me to expand some more, particularly how to respond.

I have centred in on the issue of ‘jealousy’, and I am centring in on Prov. 27:4

Wrath is cruel, anger is overwhelming,
but who is able to stand before jealousy?

Jealousy attacks where and how we are standing.

Last words

A not so subtle last word in Acts

Luke begins his Gospel with a report of the past, as to what started this movement that he is a part of, referring to eyewitnesses of what had taken place; so as a careful historian he sets out his account of what took place in ‘an orderly fashion’ (Lk. 1:1-3). In Acts he bridges into his second volume, placing the Gospel he had written as a record of all that Jesus began to do and to teach, covering right up to the Ascension – and it seems clear that Luke wants Theophilus (and us) to understand that if that was what he began that Jesus is still doing and teaching. The mode of doing and teaching has changed, no longer in an Incarnated singular body but in and through a corporate body. (There might be no significance in the ‘doing’ coming before the ‘teaching’ in the description but what remains significant is that ‘doing’ is as essential as the teaching.)

Then we come to Acts 28, and an unfinished story. There are parallels between the life of Jesus and the life of Paul. Jesus sets his face to go to Jerusalem, for without the a) separation of religion from b) Imperial power there can be no freedom, hence ‘no prophet can die outside of Jerusalem’ (Lk. 13:33); Paul sets his face toward Rome and Caesar as the implication of the death of Jesus in Jerusalem is the transformation of the oikoumene (the civilised world of Rome’s rule). Paul knows that there is no longer any need for death to be in Jerusalem – that work is over. Paul dies in Rome – but this is not recorded for Paul’s death alone is not that which will transform the world. [There are other parallels such as the use of the law and the prophets to teach on the kingdom of God (Lk. 24:44-47; Acts 1:3 – parallel with the teaching of Paul in Acts 28:23.]

And finally to the last word in Acts 28. It is often said that we are in Acts 29 and this seems to be implied with the unfinished nature of the book. It ends with one word, pregnant with meaning:

akōlutōs

The only time it occurs in Scripture, and is the opposite of the verb ‘to prevent’. A good translation would be ‘unhindered’ or if we want to go a little stronger maybe ‘un-preventable’. A good word to end an unfinished work:

proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance (Acts 28:31).

An orderly account… volume 1… a continuation in volume 2 as something was released from Jerusalem that has to continue but in a global setting… and a good final word as we live in what was unlocked in Rome. In the heart of the Empire (basileia) was released the doing and teaching about the kingdom (basileia) of God. From that place there is a continuance – no hindrances; all systems that would seek to prevent it – gone!

Now either we come to volume 3, or the continuance of volume 2. Either way doing the works of the kingdom and teaching the values and ways of the kingdom continue (and it is hard not to understand that this kingdom is an alternative way of society being shaped… we cannot really reduce it something internal).

In these days of collapse be encouraged. There is an akōlutōs around us.

Another date change

Next 'open' zoom

The next of the ‘open zoom’ evenings is now scheduled for Monday April 3rd, 7.30pm UK time. (NB: the change of date to MONDAY APRIL 3RD).

This evening we will have Spencer Thompson with us and the input he will bring will be both stimulating and practical. We have been focused on a ‘Kingdom Economics’ and at the time of writing this already two banks these past few days (with a third I am sure right on the heals of those two) have been suspended, making issues of economics highly visible.

Spencer lives in Edinburgh where he works as an economist in the Scottish Government. He’s currently on secondment at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation where he does analysis aimed at solving poverty in the UK. He also has an interest in theology and writes on the intersection between theology and economics.

Spencer will be introducing some of his emerging thoughts on the theology of counting. Counting appears to be inherent to the universe and innate to human beings, yet it is loaded with historical, philosophical, and theological baggage which needs to be unpacked. Particularly in the modern world, which is increasingly ruled by numbers, we are often blind to the ways that our thoughts and actions are shaped by this apparently neutral act.


Rosie Benjamin was with us last time and notes from what she shared with us to provoke discussion, with insight on both micro- and macro-economics, can be found here.

More off grid podcasts

Noel Richards and I will be the guests for Martin Purnell next Friday 17th… I will get details here later. In the meantime there are two podcasts from Off Grid Christianity with a focus on St Patrick (his ‘day’ is actually the 17th).

To celebrate St. Patrick, Martin interviews Martina Purdy and Elaine Kelly – 2 parts the first is live now and explores where Patrick first came ashore as a missionary and they visit the site of his first church. This episode explains more about who Patrick was and how he went about his role in bringing Christianity to the emerald isle.

Martina Purdy was the former BBC Northern Ireland Political Correspondent; Elaine Kelly an ex-barrister. Go back a few podcasts (Episode 28) and get their story of why they became nuns and how they started the St Patrick Walks around Downpatrick, Northern Ireland.

And if looking for a great former podcast check out Wayne Jacobson:

Very personal, honest and open… a great few sentences in there about the abuse of ‘forgiveness’ as a means to cover injustice and to move on with nothing changing. And Wayne and I have mutual friends, and… Wayne listened to the podcast I did to get a sense of what the whole off grid Christianity was about… so I do need to recommend it!!!

And an easy access to the podcast series:

https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/4104068

Planning ahead

I have hosted a number of Zooms that (more or less) work through one of the books and I, at least, have really enjoyed those and benefited from them. A group have just finished with book #3 ‘A Subversive Movement’, and I will look for a date that will work for them to go through the next book ‘The LifeLine’. So…

If anyone would like to join us for book #4 ‘The LifeLine’ let me know. Maybe you want to go through it again (who wouldn’t!!), maybe you have not gone through any of the books (I would give you a short session on the flow that sits behind book #4 to bring you up to speed). The fourth book seeks to draw threads together and dig into the ‘Pauline Gospel’; the final chapter looks at the cross – God not needing the cross to forgive, hence we have to find another understanding – flowing with where we started that sin is a failure to be truly human… So the process of salvation is to re-humanise us, with the purpose being…

If anyone would like to join us for book #4 ‘The LifeLine’ let me know. Maybe you want to go through it again (who wouldn’t!!), maybe you have not gone through any of the books (I would give you a short session on the flow that sits behind book #4 to bring you up to speed). The fourth book seeks to draw threads together and dig into the ‘Pauline Gospel’; the final chapter looks at the cross – God not needing the cross to forgive, hence we have to find another understanding – flowing with where we started that sin is a failure to be truly human… So the process of salvation is to re-humanise us, with the purpose being…

Drop a comment if you think you might wish to connect on ‘The LifeLine’. I expect the starting date would be the end of April and we would likely run for 4-5 sessions.

If we cannot see God there then he is not here…

A provocative chappy that Stephen fellow

Stephen’s famous speech in Acts 7 is a bit of a ‘well what do you think about this then?’. It comes to a conclusion with ‘God is not in your temple’ and cos you think so you really are a stubborn people, opposing what God is doing. (The presence of the Temple – the place made for God to dwell in was so richly symbolic; it signified to so many that Jerusalem would always be safe. This was how it was in the days of Jeremiah, and in the Roman War epoch. Imagine the rise of faith when the Romans had to go home and sort out home base in the middle of that period, the time of civil war over the future of Rome.)

So he ends with ‘God is not here’, something that was evident with the death of Jesus when the temple curtain was torn top to bottom. And he ends there because he has been emphasising ‘but God has always been there’. He starts with the patriarch Abraham:

The God of glory appeared to our ancestor Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia.

Joseph has the presence of God with him in Egypt:

The patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him.

Moses – born in Egypt:

At this time Moses was born, and he was beautiful before God.

Moses has a visitation in Midian:

When he heard this, Moses fled and became a resident alien in the land of Midian. There he became the father of two sons. Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush.

Miracles in Egypt, sea of reeds and the wilderness:

He led them out, having performed wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years.

A lot of activity outside the land of Israel… then they come into the land, bringing with them the tabernacle, and eventually to the building of the Temple. Rather than present this as the highpoint which would be the narrative of those within the land he uses it with a twist. The punchline is delivered:

Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made with human hands.

Blunt, blunt, blunt. Stephen the Subtle does not seem an appropriate description! Oh maybe there are other nuanced perspectives in the speech, such as,

David, who found favor with God and asked that he might find a dwelling place for the house of Jacob.

Nuanced but the end-product Stephen claims was not approved of – that of building the Temple. God does not dwell there, or in the case of the audience ‘God is not here’. Their history, as Stephen presented it, told them that God was to be found there, outside the safety of the land, outside the city that they knew God would defend; of course he would defend it, the magnificient buildings (occupying around 0% of the entire city) spoke loud and clear – or as they were to find out that not only was God not going to defend it, but there would be an unequivocal sign that it was Jesus, the son of man (human one) who had received the kingdom (Dan. 7:13, 14). In the light of that none of the stones that made up the supposed dwelling place for God could remain one on another. Such a sign revealed a different story to the one the audience narrated. The sign, and Stephen’s speech contradicted their belief that the glory of the Temple surely pointed to the glory of God, and the glory of God promised protection and survival.

Protection and survival? If we desire God here there is a new narrative that needs to be told. God is there.

Asbury: reflections

A lot of excitement about what is taking place (and spreading) at Asbury. I have a friend who spent a few days there and came back with a thumbs up response. The centrality of Jesus, the absence of personalities at the centre, the interflow of male and female, ethnicities and of sexual orientation he said was notable.

This morning I read an interesting response to the Asbury revival. It is worth reading in full:

Noting that there was a previous move in 1970 in Asbury at a time when:

At the time, the Civil Rights movement and Sexual Revolution had created so much tension and pressure that white evangelicalism seemed poised to heed its own prophetic arm and embrace real change. What they did instead is have a revival.

Tim Suttle suggests that there are similar cultural background factors in our era, as illustrated in such movements as ‘Black lives Matter’, ‘Me Too’. The article is not cynical but provocative.

I have not been to Asbury, but I guess there is something deeply genuine taking place. There are lives that will be touched for ever, they will live through a dynamic they will never forget, and underneath, behind, above and in front of it all the voice of God will continue to speak calling for an alignment of heaven and earth.

Reminder – Zoom tonight

A kind of regular Zoom for those interested. Tonight hosted by Ro Lavender and we will have some input from Rosie Benjamin (and all of the rest of us too I hope)… probably a few throw aways that will provoke our thoughts in the days to come, but trying for a focus that will help us think about how we position ourselves in these challenging days and with some thoughts on ‘kingdom economics’.

Link below:

Time: Feb 21, 2023 19:30 London

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5728039267?pwd=NEozVVM0Z1NJSDFKKzNwdG9KUDc5dz09

Meeting ID: 572 803 9267
Passcode: 5GkMTA

Women rising…?

Full tanks for the journey

Last year saw the passing of a number of remarkable women, something that Gayle had alerted me to that would take place through the year. Of course it depends where one is positioned as to whether such a series of events were seen as notable: for us, both in terms of the wider circle of world events and the more personal aspect of those that we have journeyed with, it was very impacting. For some while I have been focused on a two-fold aspect of how those who carry a prophetic mantle can end up in the cross hairs and have to be alert so that they are not ‘needless casualties of war’. A double aspect is if those who carry that mantle are female, and perhaps a third aspect might be if they are also of a generation (or two) after those who have held the space but have now passed on, either through their death or have stepped aside to make space.

I woke this morning with a few things buzzing in my head. Nicola Sturgeon stepping aside after so many years might simply be that she has done her stint and time to leave space for others. But I was deeply troubled when I remember reading that Jacinda Ardern at age 42 was stepping down as PM of New Zealand and stated that she ‘no longer had enough in the tank’ to continue. Weariness.

Then for some reason I went to Moldova in my head and looked up who is president there: Maia Sandu. A couple of hours later I was on Zoom, Jenny Dahmann and myself had a prophetic session booked with someone. All we knew was her name; after we finished we followed the usual pattern of ‘so now tell us a bit about yourself’. Second sentence in: ‘I was a missionary in Moldova… and continue to work into Moldova’.

I have political leanings (of course) but I am not mentioning the above because of any political leanings. They are / were women of a new generation who have stepped up, and as far as I can tell sought to lead with a feminine touch.

Someone like Maia Sandu is in one of the most vulnerable places to be visible in the political arena, bordering the Ukraine and Romania; there are vulnerabilities, but I come back to the words that Jacinda Ardern had said. That is probably the sharp end of the work of the enemy against the feminine rising at this time: to wear them down so that there is nothing left in the tank.

There is a time to give way, to submit and simply walk away. There is a time to stand, to stand in the proverbial ‘field of lentils’ until sunset and to hold it, with a ‘God gave me this place and I am not moving’.

In the recent days because of circumstances I have had a bit of a battle against some powers and come to realise in the situation that the enemy seeks first to have eyes to see where to land and be positioned. I have spent some time on the issue of sight, but two days ago I realised that once there had been a landing that the next element desired by any demonic powers is to have a ‘mouth’ with which to speak. (That being a critical advancing stage in the book of Revelation when the ‘beast was given a voice’.) Speaking in such a way to weaken all resolve; speaking perhaps what might be termed ‘containing elements that are true’ but speaking them as if they are the truth. (Falsehoods – a NT measure – can contain elements that are true… as can wisdom, but if we press in will discover that the wisdom is from the earth and is false.)

In this post, I am simply flaggig up that we are in a year when (younger) women leading politicians will be attacked… and that women of a rising generation in all spheres need to know that there are those that have their backs.

Perspectives