[368.1] DISARMING CHRISTIAN SOLDIERISM

On 3 December 2006, Observer columnist Nick Cohen wrote an article about the often aggressive defence, or re-assertion of, Christianity in British public life. As a critic of 'establishment faith' I sympathise with many of his concerns, but he seems to write all but the most controlling kinds of religion out of the script and therefore produces an account which is in danger of veering into caricature and offers no way beyond "a plague on them all" or a war of counter-assertion. Before his piece was filed, Jonathan Bartley had briefed Cohen, at his own instigation, on the post-Christendom argument and some alternative takes on 'Christmas wars' et al. He chose not to pursue these angles, but the reference in his subsequent article portrayed Ekklesia as 'the left wing' in an intra-Anglican row. Which misses the point at more levels than one. This week The Observer published my response (below). Incidently, they entitled it 'Cohen's phoney war'. I had, of course, referred to the phoney war described by Nick Cohen. Which is different. And consciously so:

Nick Cohen ('Let's not sleepwalk with the Christian soldiers', last week) portrays my organisation, Ekklesia, as part of an 'internal conflict' within the Church of England. On the contrary, Ekklesia is an independent think-tank with no denominational affiliation.

Our argument is that when establishment Christianity puts civic self-interest before equality and justice, it betrays its own radical origins, as well as making the world a nastier place. Many religious and non-religious people are recognising this to be true in their traditions, too.

Voices for change are, however, lost in the phoney war Nick Cohen describes. That's why we need a conversation of civilisations, not the kind of clashing that only encourages sectarianism.
Simon Barrow, co-director, Ekklesia London EC1

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[367.1] CONCEIVING SECULARITY AS AN ECUMENICAL VIRTUE

Two unhelpful approaches are dominating debates about the role of faith in public life right now. One is the increasingly assertive voice of organised religion defending its privileges and questioning cultural freedom – everything from what plays we should watch to who ‘owns’ Christmas. The other resides in the anxious criticism of many ‘cultured despisers’, who see public religious expression only as a problem to be contained.

Ironically, these opposing approaches do not cancel each other out, they egg each other on. The more religious communities try to assert themselves in controlling ways, the more strident secularist voices become. Likewise, when non-religious advocates say that faith should be abolished from the public square, it only increases the sense of grievance and anger among some religious people.

This is a deeply unproductive antagonism. Rather than enriching public life with a range of perspectives, we are in danger of retrenching further into “competitive grievances”, a war of position between vested interests trying to assert themselves through a narrow interpretation of their own self-understanding.

But there is another way. Ekklesia has been arguing for some time that it is possible for both the religiously committed and for advocates of a plural, secular society to find a place of mutual accommodation. We don’t have to choose one ‘camp’ over the other. We can be in both. Continued. [Graphic courtesy of LICC's secular-sacred divide debate page]

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[00.31 GMT] Making a meal of moderation - Colin M. Morris shows why radical religion does not have to be a bad thing.

[13.31 GMT] Christianity is a radical call to peacemaking - by Norman Kember.

[366.1] FITTING THE FACTS AROUND THE NEWS

It's been an absolute pleasure and privilege to work with former Iraq hostages Norman Kember, Jim Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden over the past 72 hours. Jim and Harmeet came to London to meet up with Norman, and to make a media statement that clarified why they feel that forgiveness and restorative justice are the way forward in relation to the men who captured them and held them prisoner for 118 days. Ekklesia was honoured to be asked to coordinate the media bids and yesterday's press conference, and the resulting coverage has mainly been pretty positive so far - recognising the integrity of the men's position and the challenge their action poses to the terrible cycles of violence which have been ripping Iraq apart - as Jim said, during the years of Saddam's brutal dictatorship, and then in the context of US-led war and occupation and the horrific aftermath - 3,000 deaths a month, and some thousand people fleeing every day.

Still, it is salutary to be reminded that some sections of the media not only don't get it (comment is, rightly, free) but appear rather more interested in what will make 'a good story' than what is actually the case (fact is rarely determinative of journalistic construction these days). For example, here is Norman Kember - writing in today's Daily Telegraph, and re-iterating what the three Christian Peacemakers have been saying again and again for much of the past two days: "Although we are all absolutely opposed to the death penalty, we do not have, at present, enough information about the working of the Iraqi court system to discover if we can best help these men by refusing to testify, and asking for clemency outside the court system, or by agreeing to take part in the trial and ask[ing] for clemency within the court process." And here's how that was translated in The Guardian (surprisingly) Former Iraq hostages refuse to give evidence against captors in trial and (more predictably) in The Times Kember: I will not testify at trial of my kidnappers. Also: Hostages explain refusal to testify (ABC Online, Australia). As they say, "spot the difference". The Guardian, to its credit, ran additional stories: Kember pleads clemency for his kidnappers and Former hostage forgives captors. Mostly, the emphasis of coverage has been on forgiveness and restoration - but as Jim Loney has been at pains to point out, that doesn't necessarily mean unwillingness to testify, and it certainly doesn't mean a simple 'bang them up or let them free' choice - it is about seeking the middle round where rehabilitation and change remains possible.

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[00.54 GMT] Forgiveness not revenge for Iraq, say former peace hostages (Ekklesia).

[00.15 GMT] LATEST ON IRAQ: The Iraq Study Group has still not understood what people in Iraq well know, says Sami Ramadani: that it is the United States military occupation of Iraq itself that is fuelling the violence there (OpenDemocracy). Christians welcome new dynamic of Iraq Study Group report (Ekklesia).

[18.17 GMT] Press Conference by former Iraq hostages Former Iraq hostages Norman Kember, Harmeet Singh Sooden and Jim Loney are to issue a statement on Friday 8 December 2006 (in the morning), as their alleged captors face a trial which could end in the death penalty. The event will take place at St Ethelburga's Peace Centre in the City of London, and is being coordinated by Ekklesia. The three men went to Iraq as part of a Christian Peacemaker Teams' delegation in November 2005, and ended up being held for four months. Prior to their release in March 2006, one of their number, Quaker Tom Fox, was murdered by the kidnap group. The others were released in a non-violent operation coordinated by intelligence and army officials. Loney is from Canada, Sooden from New Zealand and Kember from Britain. Fox was a US citizen.

[01.31 GMT] Not being enslaved by 'life as advertised' - Simon Barrow explores the way that the Gospel message turns servants into free agents. (Ekklesia column)

[365.1] SOMETHING TO CELEBRATE?

There's an excellent article in yesterday's Guardian, by Stephen Tomkins, on why he is giving up Christmas for Advent. As he rightly points out, it is a bit rich for Christians to complain that their festival is being nicked by 'pagans', when they stole it from honest hedonists in the first place. Rather than whining about his image (or its absence) on seasonal postage stamps, it might be better for the churches to start taking the narrative of Jesus seriously as a shaping factor in their own identity - you know: hospitality to the outsider, peacemaking, celebration, justice-doing, enemy-loving. That kind of thing. For the more Christianity is turned into a civic vehicle for 'culture wars', the more commitment to genuine discipleship is obscured and compromised. And the more it feeds the fear of those who believe that religion is nothing but a malevolent fanstasy aimed at lording-it over others. [On another tack... Fair Trade Christmas ideas here]

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[00.06 GMT] Inter-textuality given a new twist: Learning to reason scripturally - Nick Adams from the University of Edinburgh explains why deep reasoning and careful friendship are key to the fruitful reading of texts, both within and across traditions. This is an edited excerpt from his superb book, Habermas and Theology (Cambridge, 2006). See also the work of Peter Ochs and the website for The Society of Scriptural Reasoning.

[364.1] CHRISTIANS SHOULD NOT BE NICE

You can't win, really. So it's best not to try. Winning is for losers. And here's why: Christians and other "religious people" are routinely accused of being intolerant, impatient, ignorant and unpleasant - not without reason sometimes, sadly. But according to a piece in the latest Sunday Times (a profile of John Sentamu, though it wanders a bit) the problem with Rowan Williams, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, is that he is none of these things. Instead he's pleasant, thoughtful and commends careful listening ahead of hasty action. This, apparently, is even worse. How dare he refuse to adopt the commandeering manner we expect of our "real leaders". String him up! Oh, hang on, they did that to someone else, didn't they? Maybe this Christian lark isn't supposed to be brutal and simple after all....

[Dr] Williams, hailed as a new broom on his appointment in 2002, is now perceived as an unworldly academic who ties himself in rhetorical knots while his church tears itself apart over the ordination of women and gay priests. He sounded too clever by half in John Humphrys’s recent radio series, Humphrys in Search of God, when he spoke mystically of “silent waiting on the truth, pure sitting and breathing in the presence of the question mark”.

“For God’s sake, man . . . why are you so nice?” one newspaper demanded recently. Last week the tone became harsher, when a Daily Telegraph comment piece announced, “The archbishop’s days are numbered.” It suggested that Williams, undermined by a feud with Lord Carey, his predecessor, will step down early to make way for Sentamu.

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[363.1] SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

Explains ever-inspired cartoonist Dave Walker: "Th[is] drawing illustrates the fact that people cannot often be subdivided into those who talk continual sense and those who talk continual rubbish. Life is more like B) than A), although I would be unwise to generalise." [Pic (c) the artist]

Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

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[06.40 GMT] Christian Unions warned against legal action (Guardian).

[362.1] UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE

United We Stand? [*.PDF file] is a new report from Ekklesia on the recently escalating conflict between Christian Unions (which, despite their broad name, are evangelical societies) and Student Unions and Guilds on university college campuses across Britain. The purpose is to promote more constructive avenues of approach to the litigation which is being darkly mooted in some quarters. Issues of freedom of speech, fair and access and equal opportunities are all involved. But matters have not been assisted by some less-than-reliable reporting and comment in the media. See also: Legal action not inevitable for university Christian Unions, says report; NUS backs report on university Christian Union conflicts. The full National Union of Students statement is here.

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[361.1] WHOLESOME AND DANGEROUS

The history of a dangerous idea was explored on Radio 4's Start The Week (available to listen to online for a week) by the American writer Mark Kurlansky yesterday. Non-violence, he argues, is one of the rare truly revolutionary ideas, a threat to the established order. A clue to its subversive nature lies in the fact that there is not even a 'proper' word for it, except as an expression of what it is not. Kurlansky explores political and religious views towards non-violence in the context of wars throughout the centuries and asks why religions, which reject violence in their teachings, are so often the cause of war. Appropriately, his book has a foreword by the Dalai Lama. The work, Non-Violence: The History of a Dangerous Idea, is published by Jonathan Cape. Mark Kurlansky is also appearing in a debate with A. C. Grayling at the Purcell Room (London's South Bank Centre) on 28 November at 7.45pm: Fighting Talk: Pacifism, War and International Relations.

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[11.20 GMT] Good comment from Tom Allen, who I used to work with years ago, on the BA cross issue.

[10.24 GMT] US Christians oppose violent fundamentalist video game (Ekklesia).
"[R]ather than seeking to close the gap between neighbours, as Jesus did in his ministry, the game's purpose is to drive a wedge between people, teaching teenagers that what God intends is for them to slaughter those who do not share their beliefs. Because of the predominance of Christian fundamentalists on television and radio in the past generation, the American people have been left with the false impression that this strange way of interpreting the Bible is what Christians have always believed and taught. We are here today to challenge that view and to name it for the error that it is.” On a related issue, see this by Jonathan Bartley - What are the chances of a holy war? Nov 4, 2006, and a very helpful piece on 'hard line' responses to violent Islamism by Robert P. Baird from Chicago.

A creative interpretation of an annual alternative tradition from Maggi Dawn.

[360.1] POLITICS AS ENGAGING THE OTHER

Rowan Williams in his recent lecture on St Benedict and the Future of Europe: "Borrowing a Hegelian insight refined by the late Gillian Rose in her political philosophy, we must say that every initial self-description of a person’s or a community’s interest is necessarily involved in error to the extent that it has not yet fully engaged with what is other to it, with the stranger whose presence may first be felt as a threat or a problem. Good governance and government is always about an engagement with the other, a developing relation that is neither static confrontation nor competition, but an interaction producing some sort of common language and vision, a common vision that could not have been defined in advance of the encounter."

About the last days of Gillian Rose, one of our finest philosophers. "[Two] years before her death, she was told she had cancer. It spread swiftly throughout her body, but her indomitable mind refused to accept the finality of life. She carried on thinking and one day, to everyones surprise, asked Simon Barrington-Ward [a close friend, and then Bishop of Coventry] if he would baptise and confirm her [into the Anglican Church] and give her her first communion. Characteristically she wanted to make a party of it. She invited some professional philosopher friends to her baptism - Jews, Christians and atheists alike, who were all coming to Warwick University for a conference she had long planned. But it was too happy an ending to conclude in that way. Just a few hours before the agreed time, the hospital 'phoned to tell the Bishop that Gillian was slipping into a last sleep. He rushed to her bedside and was just in time to baptise and confirm her. She could only make her responses with a squeeze of the hand ... But Gillian's party went ahead. The Bishop told of Gillian's baptism and her friends, believers and atheists alike, wept and rejoiced for a friend whose journey was over." [ACNS]

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