A question from one netfriend: What do you think is Christ’s message to the strong? What does the church say to someone who says… “I feel strong. Strong in body, mind and spirit. I go to church and all I hear is a message for the weak. Your liturgies, your prayers and your songs are all about how God will help me, lift me up and make me whole because I live such a down trodden existence and a miserable life. I do not relate to this life or this patronising God. I feel strong, who or what is God for me?”

This answer from another

An interesting question.. Makes me wonder where he goes to church. The liturgies I experience in my local church don’t make me feel weak – and I cannot imagine writing a social justice liturgy that made people feel like that.

It seems to me that there is a lot in Christianity for the strong – social justice, evangelism, pastoral care of others – various forms of discipleship and spirituality – love of God and love of one’s neighbour is not about weakness, but about commitment (loving God with heart, mind, soul and strength). Discovering the gifts of ministry that the Holy Spirit has given to us, studying the Christian faith and how it relates to life, and using both gifts and knowledge for the sake of other people calls forth both our own strength and the strength that God gives us. Decent prayers require strength rather than weaknesses – the strength to confess, the strength to look beyond oneself to others, the strength to know what it means to offer one’s life to God.

Some of the hymns in the hymn book still pander to the sense of weakness and hopelessness that people had in ages when there was (a) no democratic government, so people were politically weak and (b) a low life expectancy, so people lived constantly with a sense of their own mortality and fear as to what tomorrow would bring. In the age when they were written, people needed comfort and the hymns were appropriate. Now some of them are not appropriate – which is why we have some of the more modern hymns that present God in the midst of life rather than only in moments of sadness, fear or death.