This morning, Sunday 6 April 2025, I finished re-reading A Rumour of Angels by Peter L. Berger in 1968. On the penultimate page of the book I read three sentences that jolted and stunned me:
“One must have experienced the grim humourlessness of contemporary revolutionary ideologies to appreciate fully the humanising power of the religious perspective. It is hardly necessary to insist here on the moral demands of our situation, especially in America today; they stagger the imagination. Whether we approach them in a mood of doomsday or of renewed hope in the efficacy of a particular programme of action often depends on whether we have just read the morning or the afternoon paper.
Fifty-seven years later, Berger might have written exactly the same sentences (except afternoon papers have disappeared and the majority of people get their news online or on TV). I am still planning to write more blogs based on what I’ve learnt from A Rumour of Angels but Berger’s quote and a report in the Guardian have motivated me to write now.
Abuse in YWAM – Youth With a Mission
Today’s Observer has a special report entitled Mission Control (from page and pp21-23) about the Christian organisation Youth With a Mission facing allegations of spiritual abuse and controlling behaviour from young people who say they were left traumatised. The allegations span two decades and include claims that young missionaries were publicly shamed, subjected to rituals to “cure” their homosexuality, and told that leaving was against God’s will. It’s no surprise to me that YWAM is infected with the same prejudices and abusive behaviours against LGBTQIA+ people as other conservative evangelical bodies and movements within the Church of England. The Living in Love and Faith process is still not confronting the underlying, supposedly “Christian” doctrines, teachings, beliefs and practices that have contaminated elements of the Church that are seeking independent oversight to enable them to maintain their prejudices.
We are living in deeply disturbing times. Donald Trump’s immature, abusive, infantile behaviour is destroying global relationships and our trust in the institutions that for the past half-century and more have maintained a degree of responsible leadership and maturity between nations. Christianity is confronted with the presence, not only of systemic prejudices created by supposedly “traditional, orthodox” teachings, but by the continued uncovering of abuse in Christian organisations – organisations whose teaching and practice is clearly anything but Christian.
Rumours of Angels
Peter Berger’s chapter about the alleged demise of the supernatural is, for me, a valuable overview of how Christian ideas evolved from the end of the nineteenth century to 1968. He is keen to maintain a supernatural stance on belief in a God who is entirely other. This comes into conflict with his belief that, “starting with man”, theological thought seeking “signals of transcendence” is to be found withing the domain of our ‘natural’ reality but appear to point beyond that reality. I discover, having reached the end of the book, that Berger doesn’t resolve his conflict. He wants to “reaffirm the conception of God that emerged in the religious experience of ancient Israel and that is available to us in the literature of the Old Testament.” He hasn’t entirely abandoned a metaphysical, transcendent belief in God who exists as the ultimate, final authority. But he is also committed to the value of human experience, as am I.
“God is encountered as a God who speaks to man and whose manifestations are to be sought, above all, in the historical events of human experience.”
I’m going to stop here and write in more detail about what I’ve discovered from reading A Rumour of Angels in a subsequent blog. Two other events impinged on my thinking this morning, both on Radio 4. The first was Beyond Belief at 06.05. Giles Fraser’s guests discussed the complexities of interfaith marriage, another area where some Christians hold beliefs that others believe are prejudiced and abusive. The second programme, Sunday Worship at 08.10 was titled “Faith, Courage and Life Together in Difficult Times”, celebrated the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer ahead of the 80th anniversary of his death. The pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, where Bonhoeffer was a pastor in the 1930s, contributed to the programme. Bonhoeffer was imprisoned for a year and half, sentenced to death and executed on 4 April 1945, weeks before the end of the second world war.
No human community is free from the presence of or the possibility of abusive actions and prejudice and the activities of abusive individuals. It hides in plain sight and can be hard to expose.
I am writing this blog because I believe that we are “called” do something about the theologies and teachings and ideas of God and Jesus that are commonplace in today’s Church despite what we are able to explore and despite our supposed evolution from the traumas of a century in which two world wars were fought. I believe experientially and intuitively that the experience of God and the presence of Jesus are innate, present with potential in every human being, here and now, in our bodies, our sensations, emotions consciousness. How, how do we believe this, trust our bodies and experience and intuition, our convictions and discernment, that distinguish goodness, truth, wisdom, love and healthy, creative, flourishing relationships and beliefs from adherence and addiction to abusive, immature, unhealthy religious ideas and practices. Adherence to “our” religion is never the most important thing – discovering and truly living into the divine, sacred, mystical, spiritual reality and presence in which we are immersed in creation and which is incorporate in our bodies and being, that is the most valuable thing.