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THE BapTisT TimEsThursday, November 22, 2007

Finding space to develop our Christ-likeness

RECENTLY I spent a three-day retreat at Worth Abbey in Sussex, where BBC TV’s The Monastery series was filmed. My own introduction to the series - watched by 3 million viewers - was the book Finding Sanctuary, written by Abbott Christopher Jamison in response to the interest generated by the programme. The book inspired me to get copies of The Monastery programmes to watch in our men’s house group. The impact on the group was profound. For those who haven’t seen the series, The Monastery involved five very modern men living the Benedictine

monastic life for forty days and forty nights. We watched these five men struggling to live in community, as the monks supported them patiently and lovingly. But the monks also had deep insights into the issues pulling each of the participants down, and were able to challenge them in a way that penetrated their defences. The other thing that impressed us was the Christlikeness of the monks, and the power of the monastic way of life, with its emphasis on silence, solitude, regular patterns of prayer, as well as living in community. My own prayer life has

blown hot and cold and got stuck on many occasions, and so I found myself immersed in the monastic life at Worth Abbey for three days. I remember being very struck by Iraq hostage Norman Kember’s comments that Baptist spirituality hadn’t prepared him for captivity. I talk to many folk who say Baptist spirituality hasn’t prepared them for old age. So what is Baptist spirituality? In many cases it has become about activity, doing things, being busy. A disciple of Christ, says Dallas Willard, ‘desires above all else to be like Christ’. The recent research from Willow Creek on www.

revealnow.com affirms what I have believed for a long time - that activities don’t make us Christ-like. Only the practice of personal spiritual disciplines does that. John Robinson, an early Baptist, said: ‘The Lord hath yet more light and truth to break forth from his Word,’ suggesting that our radical forebears were both Word and Spirit people. At the heart of Baptist spirituality, therefore, should be a consistent desire to be changed, transformed, renewed into the likeness of Christ. As Baptists we are suffering from historical drift in that fundamental goal. We arrived at Worth Abbey on the Friday night and spent

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SHAUN LAMBERT

Faith matters

the Saturday following the offices of prayer, singing at least 15 Psalms as well as other passages of scripture. In a four-week cycle the monks will sing most of the Psalms. If Baptist spirituality is about being people of the book, we need to learn from this tradition where scripture is simply allowed to speak for itself. This communion with the Word is further enhanced by the monks through the spiritual discipline of lectio divina, a slow contemplative reading of scripture. One of the other aspects of Baptist spirituality is a passion, a warm heart, not just an intellectual faith. One of the attested fruits of the Jesus Prayer developed by the Desert Fathers, forerunners of the monastic movements, is its power to set hearts on fire, through the repetition in a reverential way of the name of Jesus. Both the Benedictine Prayer of the Hours and the Jesus Prayer are a response to the biblical command to pray continually (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Another early element of Baptist spirituality was the practice of church discipline. We need to recapture that early desire to help to people on their spiritual journey, by learning from those who have a similar desire, but who have developed deeper models of offering spiritual direction. I read with interest of the different roles created for regional ministers. I would love to see people set

aside whose role is simply to develop a life of prayer and offer spiritual direction. I am excited by windfalls to the Baptist Union of Great Britain from the sale of properties like Newington Court for £3 million. I love Baptist House at Didcot, but I don’t think our only national building of witness should be an office. Let’s build a place of sanctuary, where some of these messengers of spiritual direction can help us develop spiritual disciplines that will make us Christ-like, that builds on the pioneering work of groups like the Baptist Union Retreat Group and the Baptist Religious Community of the Prince of Peace in Alfreton. This should be to support the local church which is the hope for the world. Let it be a place where Bible college students need to spend three months developing the personal disciplines of prayer. Yet another fundamental aspect of Baptist spirituality is the desire to witness, and evangelise. To paraphrase a saying of St Seraphim of Serov, a Russian Orthodox monk who practiced the Jesus Prayer, ‘Acquire a Christlike spirit, and around you thousands will be saved.’ Are we too busy to develop Christlikeness? Non-discipleship, to quote Dallas Willard, will lose us a life penetrated throughout with Christ-likeness. The Revd Shaun Lambert is the minister of Stanmore Baptist Church, Middlesex

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Sanctuary - Seeking out places of solitude are essential in recapturing one’s intimacy with Jesus and encouraging disciplines like prayer

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THE BAPTIST TIMES Thursday, November 22, 2007

Hippocratic Values

comment • 13

DESPITE the deadly practices of GP Harold Shipman and the more recent involvement of several hospital doctors in the attempted bombing of Glasgow airport earlier this year, the extent of public trust in the medical profession still remains remarkably high. The head of BMA health policy and economic research recently reaffirmed this, citing a survey showing that 90 per cent of people in the UK trust doctors to tell the truth – a higher percentage than for any other profession. This high level of trust partly stems from the commonplace understanding that doctors have all sworn the Hippocratic Oath. Katherine Murphy of the Patients’ Association, quoted in the press recently in connection with the superbug scandal, is typical of this view: ‘Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath not to harm patients but by not washing their hands they can be harming patients.’ But do doctors take this oath? I certainly didn’t and only around half of British medical graduates take any oath at all on qualification. Even when they do, such an oath rarely contains all the key elements of that attributed to Hippocrates. Perhaps the Hippocratic Oath’s opening

gambit partly explains why this is so? ‘I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygeia and Panacea and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witness, that I will fulfil according to my ability and judgment, this oath and this covenant...’ ‘Heavens above! Gods and goddesses! Surely young doctors shouldn’t have to recite all that polytheist mumbo-jumbo?’ the post-modern materialist immediately reacts. It is also true that Christian doctors could hardly invoke pagan Greek deities in pledging their allegiance. However, the Christian shares with Hippocrates a sense of the importance of the transcendent in medicine, which the materialist worldview totally lacks. I tell all my medical students in the early days of their attachment to my practice that whether they have a faith of their own or not, spiritual and religious elements are an important part of many patients’ lives and they will encounter the reality of this every working week, if not daily. Sure enough, each week this proves true. Professor John Patrick, a convert to Christ after many years practising medicine as

trevor stammers

moral medicine

the Christian shares with Hippocrates a sense of the importance of the transcendent in medicine

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Believing in transcendent values gives doctors more reasons to behave ethically

a self-confessed pagan, tells a wonderful story about an agnostic Jewish palliativecare physician to illustrate this point. She was called to a patient who wanted to die at home but had begun to suffer severe pain and was on the edge of convulsing. Having done all she could, the patient was no better. The unwanted death in hospital seemed inevitable but, before the family agreed, they first called the church music group, where the patient was a member, to

sing at his bedside. As they began to sing in the small hours of the morning, the patient relaxed and was at peace. When they stopped, he deteriorated; when they sang, he improved again. So for 24 hours, they sang in relays until he died peacefully. The agnostic physician simply said to her colleagues, ‘I tell you this story to remind you that there are things out there we do not understand.’ As those who believe, it is the job of Christians in healthcare to witness to

the ‘things out there’ and especially to the Person ‘out there’ who loves us. As Professor Patrick points out, ‘The physician who believes in transcendence, particularly where that belief includes the ideas of moral consequence and ultimate accountability before judgment, has reason to be ethical because he fears God appropriately.’ I recently had to teach a class of MA students about the rationale of one eminent UK professor for his belief in infanticide, if it was judged

the infant’s life would be one of intolerable suffering. I concluded by asking, ‘Would any of you like Professor X to be your child’s doctor?’ There were no takers. Belief in the transcendent does not, of course, mean that Christian doctors will not do wicked things – only that they have more reasons for not doing them than the average materialist. Dr Trevor Stammers is Lecturer in Healthcare Ethics, St Mary’s University College, Twickenham

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