Radical roots and broad shoulders
director, can stand tall at the front of packed events -in
Stephen’s case, very tall.
Rob Carr
I’ve an admission to make. I’m not at work this afternoon.
I was, but I’m not now. Andy has gone down to Spring
Harvest and I’m supposed to be manning the office,
keeping the ship on an even keel and all that.
But I’m not there.
Oh, I forwarded the phone and email to
mobile. So I’m virtually there. But in
ality, I’m sat in the pub. It’s a lovely
old-fashioned pub with
photographs of music hall
performers on the walls, a
working polyphon in the
corner and even a photo
of the Queen mum
pulling a pint behind
that very bar. I
would bet that,
barring the odd
flat screen tv,
the place has
changed
very
little in
50 or 60
years.
my
re-
Upstairs, there’s a
dining room with a few
tables in there, probably enough
seats for 20 or so people. It’s called
the ‘Empire Theatre Bar’ which is very
evocative but somewhat confusing as we’re
nowhere near a theatre. There may once have been
one over the road, but now all I can see is the side of one
of the world’s most famous hospitals. Maybe they mean
surgical theatres. Again, it feels like it’s changed little
since the 50s. Maybe a coat of paint or lick of varnish, but
otherwise it’s easy to picture people having sat here
decades ago doing much the same as me. Ok, I’m doing it
on an ipad which would blow their minds, but still the
principle is much the same. There’s continuity there. And
that’s what I came looking for.
There’s something that’s been niggling at me for a few
months now. Our launch as Christians on the Left since
5th November last year has been very successful. Our
website, phones, and staff are busier than ever. Doors that
we couldn’t even see have now opened to us, Narniastyle. Our reputation – always positive – continues to
grow exponentially. In short, we’re doing pretty well.
Stephen Timms, our chair, and Andy Flannagan, our
But my niggle is that there will be some people who think
we’ve just burst onto the scene with a lot of energy and
really nice logo on Guy Fawkes’ night. I love the
compliments, the feedback, the general mood about
where we are and what we’re doing . It’s all great. But –
and I think this is the curse of a history degree – I wonder
how many people are loving what we do without realising where we’ve come from.
The roots of Christians on the Left are both deep and
broad. No matter what our name is changed to, those
roots are strong and going nowhere.
It might surprise you to know they go back,
not to last November, but hundreds of
years...
Of course, we can and do
take our roots back to
1st century Palestine
and the teachings of
Jesus.
Mark 1: 14-15 says ‘Jesus
came into Galilee preaching
the Gospel of God and saying
“the time is fulfilled and the
Kingdom of God is at hand.”
The phrase ‘the Kingdom of God’
sums up the social hope of the Old
Testament for an actual corporate society
upon earth in which all men should be
judged of equal value, in which there should
be no exploitation or oppression but complete
justice between all people, a Kingdom in which
the will of God was perfectly fulfilled.
Before the birth of Jesus, came the Magnificat where Mary
said that Jesus would cast down the mighty from their
seats, to send the rich empty away and to fill the hungry
with good things. When Jesus was presented in the
Temple, Simeon sang that Jesus would be the glory of his
people Israel and a light to lighten all the nations of the
world. These two songs indicate that the Kingdom was to
be established on behalf of the poor and humble and that
it was not to be national but international.
Basic to the whole teaching of Jesus is the idea that you
cannot serve God and Mammon. The beatitudes
(Matthew 5) show something of the character workers for
the Kingdom must assume and especially interesting are
the remarks that the Kingdom is to be inherited by the
poor and that the meek (those prepared to share with
their brothers and sisters and keep their place as one of a
community) shall inherit not the sky but the earth.