Article

Belief

Creed

General Election 24

Politics

21 June 2024

3 min read

The one thing we won’t bet on

The election gambling row highlights an odd outlier.

James Sampson-Foster

James is training to be a priest in the Church of England.

A cartoon depicts a slot machine opposite the Houses of Parliament

Nick Jones/Midjourney.ai.

I’m not a betting man, but I’ll wager you’ve seen a gambling ad recently.

In fact, I’d put good money on it – or at least somebody has.

If you’ve been watching football you’ll see ads for betting companies in the ad breaks, on billboards – sometimes on the kit itself.

And then there are the grinning celebrity endorsers, each advertising a wonderful world of chance-based amusements.

That’s a lot of money on billboards and sponsorships.

And on our high streets up and down the country, you’re never very far from a betting shop, each of them with windows guaranteeing the best odds and offering free bets on well, almost anything, really.

If you can think of it, you can probably bet on it.

Sports fixtures? The results of reality TV shows? The date of the next general election?

Can you bet on it? You betcha!

Betting is everywhere, though it’s fair to say there’s a bit more of it in some places than others.

Betting shops are 10 times more likely to be found in the most deprived areas of the UK than its most wealthy ones.

Still – even if you happen to find yourself without a betting shop in walking distance, with smartphone betting now there’s no need to even pop into a bookies.

The fun needs never stop.

All this proves is that gambling is everywhere and that people will put a bet on almost anything.

With such universal access, I shouldn’t have been surprised that people have been betting on the date of the next general election.

I have heard many people say that a little flutter brings a bit of excitement to things – and if anything is in need of a bit of excitement, it’s a general election.

Perhaps it was this need to alleviate the tedium which has led to the seemingly improbable number of people from the Conservative Party now under investigation by the Gambling Commission. At current count, there are two candidates, as well as the Tory director of campaigning and his wife. Oh, and one of the Prime Minister’s police protection officers.

By the time you read this – there may be more. And no, please don’t place a bet on that.

Am I disappointed that public officials may have been using insider information to gain an advantage at the bookies? I suppose so. But that’s not what I find interesting.

All this proves is that gambling is everywhere and that people will put a bet on almost anything.

And well, I already knew that.

No – what is interesting is that in our society people will bet on almost anything. Or more specifically – everything, except one thing.

When it comes to betting on whether England will score, or who will win at Strictly, a hunch is enough. A gut feeling is enough to separate us from our hard earned cash.

But when it comes to whether or not there is a God, nope.

We’re going to need hard evidence for that one.

We’re going to need absolute certainty, incontrovertible proof.

No margin for error.

We’ll bet on anything else – everything else. But not that.

Which, I have to say, strikes me as odd.

Why won’t we take out a bet that costs us nothing?

Most of us in Church are there because of a hunch. A gut feeling. We call it faith, and it’s a free gift.

Do you care for a wager?

Article

America

Creed

Justice

5 November 2024

6 min read

Is it okay to be mean as long as you are mean and right?

Here's what a mean street preacher really taught me.

Nathan Betts

Nathan is a speaker and writer on topics related to faith, life and God. He lives near Seattle, Washington. His writing is featured frequently in The Seattle Times. nathanbetts.com

Behind a passer by a street peacher holds up a large yellow sign with a message on it.

Street preachers on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

LaTerrian McIntosh on Unsplash.

A few months ago, my cousin was visiting my hometown of Seattle for work. We planned to meet one evening for a Mariners baseball game during her visit. I suggested that we meet near the wonderful Ken Griffey Jr. statue near the stadium gates. What I hadn’t realized was that this was the precise spot a street evangelist had also decided to station himself in order to share (mostly shout) his message of judgement and destruction the same evening. Kind of like a pre-game verbal hors d'oeuvres. I arrived at the meeting point a few minutes before my cousin, giving me ample time to hear the preacher preach.

Now, I grew up in church, and, in fact, am myself a speaker and writer on topics involving faith and God. In other words, I’ve had over 40 years to experience the church’s, umm, “quirks”. I’d like to think that very little coming from the mouths of faith preachers could shock me. Alas, I was wrong.

As I began to listen to the preacher, lines like “weeping and gnashing of teeth” scorched through the preacher’s megaphone. Yep, nothing new there. The preacher used the word “judgment” a lot. Actually, impressively a lot. I’ve never before heard the words “God” and “judgment” used in conjunction more times within a two-minute span. There was a raging intensity to the sermon, but still in the range of normal for street preaching.

Then, my cousin texted me that she was outside the ballpark but might have gotten the location wrong. I realized she and I were at two different locations. While I texted my cousin back, I tuned out the preacher’s message. That is until I heard him shout through his megaphone, “He hates you.” I stopped texting. I looked up at the preacher. Did he just say that God the Almighty hated all of us outside the ballpark? Families, little boys and girls, and elderly? Did God hate all of us lining up for the game? It was “bark at the park” night so even the dogs were casualties in the preacher’s line of fire. If nothing else was gleaned from the man’s message, it seemed, we were all to understand that God hates us.

Minutes later, when my cousin and I finally found each other, I told her that she had had the good fortune of missing out on the street preacher informing her that God hates her. She replied, “Oh, I have plenty of others who tell me that!”

Sadly, many of us have received that negative message from different sources in our world and too often from people sharing some association with God.

In America, as election season comes to the boil, I’ve noticed (and maybe you have too) the not-so-subtle attitude that it’s okay to say mean things about another person as long as that person is on “the other side”. A verbal dig here, an eyeroll there, name-calling and slanderous nick-naming the enemy for the sake of ridicule have become all too common, if not a soft virtue in political discourse. It has become hard to discern where the moral line is, or if such a thing still exists within political dialogue.

Conversations like the following happen so frequently following a political debate or interview, they’ve become cliché: “I almost cannot believe he said that!” Response: “Well, yes, that was pretty bad. But he’s right, isn’t he?” Translation: it’s okay to be mean as long as you are mean and right.

Evangelicalism has gained a hard edge with little resemblance of the good news from which it has its very name.

The meaning of the word ‘evangelical’ here in America is a complex thing, to be sure. But perhaps one of the reasons it is understood as a political word more than a religious one is because the combative and rude nature of discourse seen in politics has become increasingly acceptable even in Christian settings. As a friend of mine said to me years ago, “It feels as though Christians have turned rudeness into a spiritual gift.”

The thing is, you probably don’t know the preacher I heard in downtown Seattle, but you’ve probably heard or know a person who makes Christian claims in the same kind of rude ways. The result is that evangelicalism has gained a hard edge with little resemblance of the good news from which it has its very name.

I’ve had the privilege of speaking to audiences on topics of faith and God for around 20 years now and I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve met who feel unlovable, already hated, and unforgivable for the decisions they’ve made in life.

So when I hear a preacher shouting a message through a bullhorn in the name of God and I hear not words of hope, peace, grace, love, and forgiveness, but strictly judgement and burning, I fail to see how this God can be the one who came to earth out of love for people in the person of Jesus Christ.

It’s true that the Bible does depict God enacting justice and judgement. But equally true is that the Bible not only displays, but out-and-out defines God as being love. My concern with the street preacher’s message is that although he might have communicated the justice of God (albeit in a warped way that would make old-time revivalists look tame), his message left little room for hearing about and feeling the love of God.

If there is anything we need to hear today, it is the message that God, in his very nature, is love. One particular writer of antiquity, and a close friend of Jesus Christ, once penned a letter to first century churches. In attempting to explain what God is like and what people of faith should be like he wrote: “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

For those of us who have never been to a church, we only need to watch or attend an American football game to see a sign with the words John 3:16. That reference, taken from one of Christ’s biographies states that, “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.”

This is a message we need to hear. It’s something we need to let into our bones—that those of us who feel beyond the reach of love, are in fact loved by God.

In a strange way, I can’t help but admire the guts those street preachers have, banging out an unpopular message to strangers in crowds. The problem lies in the fact that often their message, so boldly proclaimed, is God’s disappointment, disapproval, or outright hate for people.

Because this is the truth and too important to miss: God doesn’t hate you. He loves you. He always has and he always will.