Scottish Baptist College

Good news for "an age scared of bogeymen".

Came across this news item on aol a couple of weeks ago. Got me thinking.

An "age of paranoia is dawning at the start of the 21st century, according to a leading psychiatrist. Dr Daniel Freeman, from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, has spent a decade conducting pioneering research into paranoia and believes one in four people regularly suffer irrational fears of being threatened or in danger.

Paranoia is far more common among the general public than had previously been suspected, and on the increase due to the media and the threat of terrorism, he claims.

"These days, we daren't let our children play outside; we're suspicious of strangers; security cameras are everywhere. We seem to have entered an age of paranoia. And the indications are that things may only get worse."

Dr Freeman, who recently developed a "virtual reality" method of diagnosing paranoia, believes a combination of factors has helped to create an "era of suspiciousness". One is the increasing number of people living in cities. For the first time, 2008 has seen urban populations in the world outnumber rural.

In 1800, just 5% of people around the world were city-dwellers. By 2030, this figure is expected to have risen to 65%. Rates of paranoia are known to be twice as high in cities than in rural communities, said Dr Freeman.

"Social bonds are much looser in cities than in smaller, rural communities where ready-made, relatively stable support networks exist," he pointed out. "Social isolation, a frequent drawback to urban life, is closely associated with paranoid thoughts. In the UK, nearly four times as many people live alone as fifty years ago. Increasing paranoia is certainly one more challenge posed by galloping urbanisation."

Public perceptions of crime and terrorism also contributed to an atmosphere of paranoia, said Dr Freeman. He criticised the media for hyping up these threats and adopting an "if it bleeds, it leads" attitude to coverage.

"Every age has its bogeymen, and ours includes terrorists, hoodies and paedophiles, but the amount of coverage they receive in both tabloids and broadsheets greatly outweighs coverage of our real killers, such as heart disease, cancer, and road accidents," said Dr Freeman.

Dr Freeman said: "Dealing with paranoia at an individual level is relatively straightforward. But if we are really to get to the root of the problem, we need urgent action at a wider level. We need a range of policies to raise public awareness of paranoia, to train therapists and tackle the effects of potentially damaging social and economic trends." 

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Now. If half of what Dr Freeman says is true in the experience of our contemporaries, what are the implications for Good News telling?

In preaching the Gospel of God's coming amongst us in His Son, in proclaiming the death and resurrection of Jesus as the revelation and demonstration of God's mighty love, perhaps the problem people are feeling most is not guilt, or meaninglessness, but fear - paranoia, a loss of trust in others, anxiety about the future, a loss of hopefulness about their own future.

"Every age has its bogeymen" says Dr Freedman. Quite so says Paul, and answers it in Romans 8.38-39. There's a Gospel text for today if ever there was one. I'm thinking about a series of sermons on 'Every age has its bogeymen - but the Good News is....".

Oh, and by the way. Note the connection Dr Freedman makes between urbanisation and paranoia, between city living and the isolation and vulnerability that has become an emotional epidemic. Such clues to the human condition in the 21st century are perhaps as important pointers to the Church searching for relevance as the current reconfigurations of ecclesiology. If Christ has brought the powers under subjection, what would that look like as the Church lives out the Gospel in the great cities and sprawling connurbations? And how do we develop a vocabulary of reassurance in an age of paranoia, without that reassurance sounding like scared Christians whistling in the dark?

Posted by Jim Gordon

The Church exists for mission?

The raison d'etre of the church is mission.

Or so I've often been told. Now and again my uneasiness with what sounds like missional reductionism surfaces. It happened again yesterday when I was reading P T Forsyth's 'great' book ( bibliophile that I am, I use the word 'great' frugally and judiciously). The Person and Place of Jesus Christ is, however, a great book. Talking about what New Testament Christianity is, and isn't, Forsyth raised my theological eyebrows, in surprise and heartfelt concurrence:

New Testament Christianity is a priestly religion or it is nothing. It gathers about a priestly cross on earth and a Great High Priest Eternal in the heavens. It means also the equal priesthood of each believer. But it means much more. That by itself is ruinous individualism. It means the collective priesthood of the Church as one. The greatest function of the Church in full communion with Him is priestly. It is to confess, to sacrifice, to intercede, for the whole human race in Him. The Church, and those who speak in its name, have power and commandment to declare to the world being penitent the absolution and remission of sins in Him. The Church is to stand thus, with the world's sins for a load, but the word of the atoning cross for the lifting of it. That is apostolic Christianity. That is the Gospel. Evangelical Christianity is mediatorial in faith and function. The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, P. T. Forsyth, (London: Independent Press,1961), page 12.

The problem with insisting that the church exists for the purpose of mission is that it makes the church functional, it underwrites and validates our urge to activism, and too quickly draws our best attention away from the source of all motivation, activity and ministry - what Forsyth would call the priestly function of the Church in full communion with Christ. In that sense at least, worship is the raison d'etre of the church, which in the power of the Spirit, and to the glory of the Father, is called to be the Body of Christ, who is its Head. And when the raison d'etre of the church is worship, mission becomes the outflow of adoration and self surrender to the Lord of the Church, and of the world.

Forsyth's great book is my Lenten reading. And now and again as he raises my theological eyebrows, I'll report the outrageously to the point insights of this theologian whose grasp of the Gospel is surprising, and surprisingly reassuring. By the way, P T Forsyth was the guest preacher at the Valedictory Service of our College 100 years ago - no pressure for Professor Larry Hurtado then, our guest preacher at the end of session Thanksgiving service on June 19.

(Posted by Jim Gordon)