[346.1] BEYOND SACRED AND PROFANE

Giles Fraser wrote recently in The Church Times (in an article entitled Why do Evangelicals like purity?): "They want to build up the barriers between the sacred and the secular — contemporary equivalents of the holy and profane." What the purists, who come in many shapes and sizes, miss in this separating of the holy from the secular (gliding, as it is, on the word “profane”) is that from the beginning, the im-pure, the un-touchable was the Holy. The un-touchable was untouchable precisely because it was Holy, not because it wasn't pure. And yes, the great breach with tradition was [losing touch with the notion that] that the righteousness, the holiness of God is life, overflowing and transcending any categories of pure, sacred or profane. (Hat tip: Göran Koch-Swahne)

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[20.55 GMT] Father of dead Canadian soldier supports white poppy (Ekklesia). And kudos to CathNews Australia, who corrected the first paragraph of their story on the 'poppy saga' and have added a response from me at the end. By contrast, The Times have categorically declined to change their misleading account (which others followed, including some BBC reports), and have also refused to publish a letter about it. They used to be a 'paper of record'. But that was pre-Murdoch, it would appear.

[347.2] OFF THE RELIGIOUS RADAR

One of the things that struck me with renewed force from appearing on Vatican Radio and a couple of other 'Christian radio stations' about the 'poppy affair' [see below] yesterday is that it simply never occurs to many people of faith that the "Jesus justice and peacemaking stuff" (as someone put it to me) should ever impinge upon their understanding of religion, let alone the way they think and act generally. It's all about holding an abstract doctrine and/or upholding an institution that provides comfort or dogma, apparently. Plus God-and-national remembrance elide naturally together. So they quite literally had no clue what Ekklesia was "banging on about" (as someone else expressed it, in another media context).

This is a good reason for many people not to not bother with church, for reasons unconnected with either apathy or hostility. Indeed, an interesting sociological phenomenon in Western countries at the moment is the number of people - especially younger people - who consider themselves followers of Christ (rather than just nominally Christian) but don't go to church at all. Because they see the two things as having little to do with each other. It's not hard to see why. This is an interesting feature of what we are calling post-Christendom.

The other day someone wrote to me saying, "Ekklesia seems to want to bring the official church to its knees." I wrote back and said, inter alia, "er, yes, isn't that the point". Prayer being about how we might view the world as gift, rather than an occasion for control.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[347.1] THE WHITE POPPY BLOODBATH

Well, not quite - but the idea that we might think about peacemaking and nonviolent symbols alongside war remembrance has been variously described to me (in a string of media interviews yesterday, from BBC to TalkSport to Vatican Radio) as 'unacceptable', 'barmy' and 'despicable'. But the notion that this means the assumptions of the existing set-up must therefore be at least implicitly pro-war does not really register. It is a huge blind-spot. But not unexpected.

Ekklesia's proposal (I quote from our news release) was that "Whether you are from a 'Just War', or a pacifist tradition, Christians believe that there is no redemption in war. Churches, who host so many services of remembrance, should at least give people the choice, and make white poppies more widely available, alongside red ones." Both The Times and the Express 'interpreted' that as a call to "dump" or displace the red poppy with a pacifist white one. And these are the people who read and write English for a living... Ah, well.

At least The Sun got it right! Ye, of little faith... The Google News feed on the coverage (a lot of it) is here. And yes, we have raised questions about whether the red poppy is really 'neutral'. The violence of the reaction would, ironically, undermine the case that it isn't. And the official Poppy Appeal site quotes Admiral Lord Nelson: "England expects every man will do his duty." That, in case you didn't know, was about forming conflict resolution teams. Ahem.

The material which will tell you what we are really saying is here, by the way: Proper debate about war 'honours those who have died' 9/11/06; Violent solutions not 'normal' but mythic, says theologian 09/11/06; Challenge to political correctness of the poppy 09/11/06; Canadian war veterans attack peace activists over white poppies 08/11/06; Controversy over sale of white poppies. More on the roots of the "myth of redemptive violence" here. Walter Wink is Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City, USA. His books may be purchased at Metanoia Books. To buy white poppies: http://www.whitepoppy.org/; British Legion appeal: http://www.poppy.org.uk/givemoney.cfm.

Meanwhile, here's a newspaper letter I was invited to send back to a correspondent who had got very much the wrong end of the stick, but also wanted to accuse us of being Hitler-appeasers.

Ekklesia has not called for red poppies to be"dumped". We have suggested that churches can make white ones available alongside them, to remind us that the dead are honoured when we commit ourselves to alternative ways of resolving conflict.

We cannot remake history, but we can learn from it. The Second World War defeated Hitler, but the First and its aftermath produced him. Latterly, largely nonviolent means overcame entrenched tyranny in Eastern Europe and South Africa. But war in Iraq, while removing Saddam, has resulted in worse bloodshed, not a 'solution'. Meanwhile the 'war on terror' is reinforcing what it fights.

TV culture constantly conveys the dominant assumption that killing solves problems. But it is might that wins wars, not right. Our point is that the the poppy and the Cross are symbols of death, but while the former implies that violence can deliver us, the latter declares the power of love to be non-violent sacrifice.

Ekklesia supports the difficult work of conflict transformation in war zones. We think this is where the priority should be right now (especially for the churches, who often seem more interested in-infighting). That is a fine way to honour those who died in the hope of an end to war, but whose dreams are not being answered by its perpetuation across the globe.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[346.1] WINDS OF CHANGE IN NICARAGUA

It is hard for those of us who witnessed first-hand the attempt to build a new kind of society in Nicaragua in the 1980s not to feel deeply moved by the election of Daniel Ortega, even acknowledging the difficulties and failures of the FSLN. The Sandinistas, for all their faults, ended brutal dictatorship and brought literacy, democracy, the abolition of the death penalty, land reform and ground-up energy for development to a people trapped in despair. The US-backed insurgency helped destroy many of these gains, and ensured the state over-militarised in both attitude and economic terms. The 1990 post-defeat descent to corruption disillusioned radical Christian participants in the experiment, especially, and with the growth of conservative religious forces inside the country and continued US pressure from without, it will be interesting to see what Ortega can achieve. Activists say that grassroots initiatives and international solidarity campaigns to back better aid, fair trade and just debt and finance polices will play a not insignificant role in helping to moving a social justice agenda. The US Nicaragua Network has already pledged its support. The Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign in Britain and equivalents in other parts of Europe will be doing likewise.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[345.2] SYMBOLS OF HOPE AND CONFLICT

My colleague Jonathan Bartley will be on BBC Radio 4's Today programme tomorrow (around 06.50 a.m.), arguing the case for white as well as red poppies in remembering the war dead and victims of conflict. He is also being syndicated on IRN. In an article in tomorrow's Church Times, he writes: "The Christian tradition, and specifically the crucifix, have a great deal in common with the poppy. Both are linked to sacrifice. Both take a location of bloodshed and violence and make a statement about it. And both attempt to give us hope in the face of death. They imply that those who died did not do so in vain.

"But whilst apparently banned from wearing one symbol of hope (the cross), public figures in Britain are simultaneously urged, indeed in many cases, required, to wear another (the red poppy) – almost as an article of faith. There is a 'political correctness' about the red poppy, which often goes unnoticed.

"But there is a crucial difference between the red poppy and the crucifix. Whilst the red poppy implies redemption can come through war, the Christian story implies that redemption comes through nonviolent sacrifice. The white poppy is much more Christian, in that respect, than the red variety.

"The historical alignment of churches with Governments and the national interest has meant that churches have often giving their blessing to war. However as was seen over their widespread opposition to the invasion of Iraq, churches are increasingly willing to oppose military action, as churches become less aligned with both the state and British culture.

"Whether you are from a 'Just War', or a pacifist tradition, Christians believe that there is no redemption in war. Churches, who host so many services of remembrance, should at least give people the choice, and make white poppies more widely available, alongside red ones.

"The crucial question is not whether we should remember. The question is how we should remember. And how we answer this question affects not just the memory of those who died, but those who are still dying in wars around the world."

[06.06 AM] Haggard revelation exposes evangelical confusion about sexuality (a report and opinion piece).

[345.1] A TALENT TO DISTURB

Would Jesus demand privileged treatment? Colin M. Morris questions some current religious special pleading... Before moving on to work with the BBC, Morris was President of the Methodist Conference, and before that a "turbulent priest" involved as a missionary involved in Zambia's struggle for independence, justice and dignity. Out of that crucible came some radical and highly contextual theological reflections: provocations which certainly inspired me in my youth, trying to make the connection between faith and politics. I'm glad he hasn't lost his dissenting edge, unlike so many church figures who move from the margins to the corridors of power (or at least, the corridors that pass the offices of power).

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[344.1] BOTH YEARNING AND AFFIRMING

These days I'm constantly finding myself pointing out that as a generic descriptor, 'religion' is an ethnographic trope for a certain kind of anthropological instrumentalism - one that rapidly becomes meaningless to the point of disinformation when you stretch it to include both Theravāda Buddhism and Jerry Falwell, say. (Richard Dawkins, please take note). But as a word denoting a set of impulses towards the world, it begins to acquire meaning. As Dutch missiologist Bert Hoedemaker has suggested - 'religion' can be thought of, in these terms, as our primal response to the contigency and waywardness of life, while its partner 'rationality' is about how we order the world in workable ways. 'Faiths' are thus organised attempts to build bridges between these two, to construct - on the basis of observation and intuition - inhabitable negotiations between our simultaneous senses of displacement and placement. (We have these congruent and contradictory experiences of life whether we care to define ourselves as 'religious' or not, by the way.)

Of course religious impulses, as primal expressions of this kind, can be fearful or hopeful, life-giving or life-substitututing. They are not neutral. Nor are they all 'one type of thing'. Religiosity is plural and complex. Writing out of a radical Christian tradition, here is a positive construal of what it can mean from the late Dorothee Soelle, one of the important theological voices of the second half of the twentieth century. When I read it, it reminds me why I and others feel so 'unaccounted for' in a book as sadly simplistic as The God Delusion:

The religious need is the need for experienced meaning, the yearning for a truth that has been promised and that is becoming increasingly visible. Religion is the attempt to regard nothing in this world as alien, hostile to human beings, a matter of fate, without meaning. Religion is the attempt to change everything that is experienced and encountered in all of life and to integrate it totally into a humane world. Everything should be interpreted in such a way that it becomes something ‘for us’. Everything that is rigid should become flexible; everything that is change, necessary; everything that appears to be meaningless should be regarded and believed to be true and good. Religion is the attempt to tolerate no nihilism and to live an unending and unrefutable affirmation of life.

From Dorothee Soelle, The Inward Road and the Way Back, translated by David L. Scheidt (Darton, Longman & Todd, 1979).

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[343.1] SECURITY AND SAFETY

"To live securely is to know no enemy can endanger our deepest values, but for physical safety there are no guarantees. For us to live in fear and anger might suit the agendas of some politicians, but it's hard to imagine that kind of life being labeled 'secure.' " (Johan Maurer)

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[342.3] BLAIR CONFUSED ON CREATIONISM

There's no problem, according to the PM. Which is one way of letting it burrow away until it becomes more of one. Gee, thanks Tony! My response on behalf of Ekklesia indicates why the issue of teaching deformed Bible study in science lessons is one we shouldn't ignore - better to get it sorted out, and move on. The parliamentary statement from the Schools Minister Jim Knight on 1 November 2006 was a step in the right direction, and we are in conversation with DfES too. There will be more in the Times Educational Supplement on Friday. Meanwhile, some background on recent developments can be found here. See also Rob Blackhurst's piece in the Financial Times Magazine (Who are you calling old?), tracking a creationist on his UK 'educational tour'. I'm quoted in it, and I also contributed some wider research.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[342.2] THE THREAT OF CHRISTIAN VIOLENCE

Back in July 2006, my colleague Jonathan Bartley's book Faith and Politics After Christendom included an observation-cum-prediction that some extreme and reactive Christians, frustrated with the pace of Christendom's demise and their consequent disenfranchisement in the corridors of power, might end up considering or using violence to assert themselves, as elsewhere in the world (the bombing of abortion clinics, for instance). On Friday we published What are the chances of a holy war?, partly in response to the row about the BBC TV drama 'Spooks'. Then yesterday, The Sunday Telegraph included this piece by John Wynne-Jones: Christians ask if force is needed to protect their religious values.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[342.1] AN ELITIST FUNNY-BONE?

Over on Shiny Shelf, where a couple of my friends are regular contributors, pleasure-surfing the pop culture zeitgeist, Eddie Robson has a good piece on two decent 'n' recent TV comedies, 'Extras' (BBC2) and 'Lead Balloon' (BBC4). Among other things, he notes: The argument over whether the comedy of humiliation has run its course still goes on, but it features in both of these sitcoms and whereas recent episodes of ‘Extras’ have far overstepped the cringe mark, I’ve found the style to be deftly handled in ‘Lead Balloon’. The pettiness of Jack Dee’s character, Rick Spleen, and his propensity to become obsessed with minor inconveniences, owes a substantial debt to ‘Seinfeld’ and ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’. Eddie also contends that Ricky Gervais and Stephen Marchant's traducing of BBC1 lowest-common-denominator sit coms in 'Extras' series 2 is too easy and, frankly, slickly uninformative - quite apart from being a dubious example of literati mean-spiritedness. I agree on that, though personally I've found E2 much funnier than series one. I like to think that the excesses of comedic cruelty (as with cartoon-style portrayals of violence) serve to highlight the absurdity of the real thing, rather than to endorse it. But perhaps that's wishful thinking. The fatuousness of a lot of celeb-axiomised life is certainly enough to make many of us want to pick up the cultural equivalent of a blunderbuss (Charlie Brooker or 'whitened sepulchres', anyone?). But it doesn't make it right... though in skilful hands it is likely to prove cathartically satisfying for one's noir side. The review also welcomes the BBC's policy of nurturing offbeat comedy material on their new channels, allowing the material to find the audience, rather than always requiring writers and performers to pitch big and brassy. Amen to that. Rage against the machine. Nicely, though. [Pic: Jack Dee]

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[341.1] MORE TAKES ON RICHARD DAWKINS

I have made a number of modifications to my own response on Ekklesia, especially in the footnotes, which seek to illuminate some of the many methodological confusions in his 'anti-God talk'. There is a thoughtful review from Bishop David Atkinson of Thetford on Fulcrum (I worked with him both in Southwark and during my CTBI days, lovely man - a scientist by background. I am less disposed towards onto-theological definitions, however). See also Jim Holt writing in the magazine of the New York Times; The Fear of Religion by philosopher Thomas Nagel in The New Republic; Dawkins the Dogmatist by Andrew Brown in Prospect magazine; 'Is God a Delusion? Atheism and the meaning of life' [download MP3] by Alister McGrath, author of Dawkins' God (Blackwell, 2004) - reviewed with generosity by the secularist Dan O'Hara here. Have a look also at McGrath's St Edmund's (Cambridge) public lecture, Has science disproved God?, which includes a detailed critique of arguments Dawkins has subsequently repeated in TGD. His comments on Dawkins' failures of reasoning, grounded in the history and philosophy of science, are well argued and astute. On 'religious language' and its discontents, incidentally, see this fine thought-piece by Catharine Madsen. It is the editorial from the latest issue of CrossCurrents, the journal of the Association for Religion and Intellectual Life. There's a Dawkins discussion on their board, which has an unusually high proportion of light to heat (based on what I've been reading elsewhere, which is frankly rather depressing). Also a thread on rationality in relation to belief. Meanwhile, Howard Jacobsen has a pastiche of Dawkins' on the Decalogue in the Independent (06.11.06, subscription), and Mary Riddell, herself an avowed non-believer, avers intelligently that Dogmatic atheism will never trump religion, while equally sensibly calling for a separation of church and state (Observer).

[340.1] ON NOT RESPONDING IN KIND

Having read and re-read Terry Eagleton's response to Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion several times, I still think that it's one of the better reviews that I've seen. But it doesn't really get beyond the (supposedly righteous) anger Dawkins' book flows from, and is evidently designed to illicit. Yes, it's hard for those of us with a lifetime's familiarity with theology not to feel annoyed and frustrated at the crude caricatures that the holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair parades - not quite in the spirit of the 'public understanding' that his Oxford post is otherwise meant to uphold in the realm of science, but as part of an (over?) personal anti-religious crusade.

I came across a response to Eagleton via the rationalist site, Butterflies and Wheels, which takes its name from an injudicious attack on Dawkins by the philosopher Mary Midgely. She 'dismissed him back', and though she has valid things to say about his speculative shortcomings, she managed to get him rather wrong in terms of what he says about natural selection - thus opening herself up to a volley of return fire. Not much mutual listening or comprehension there. A similar pattern reproduces itself on the website, though. B&W has some interesting stuff on it, but much of it is the kind of overconfident dissing that seems to me to be part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Plus it can be utterly self-assured (and impatient) in what it is willing to bracket as 'nonsense'. (I speak as someone who has, of course, committed these sins myself, and therefore in a repentant mode.)

Recognising that, I still thought it might be worth trying to point out (see comments at the end) that when Terry Eagleton uses narrative to refer to God, he isn't necessarily violating the idea that God is beyond description - since (as a life-long literary and cultural critic) he certainly understands the metaphoricity of language, and the distinction between reference and description. The bridge between these two is phenomenology, though it is a bridge which we can never actually cross, except (it could be argued) in moments of ego-displacing prayer or self-giving.

Needless to say, I didn't get anywhere. Within a certain sphere of the rationalist mindscape there is an utter determination to reduce God to a 'provable proposition', and to believe that the 'technical' language used to do this can somehow escape the anthropomorphism that is a characteristic of all language (in different ways), because it is , well, er, a human activity. This is a point Nicholas Lash keeps coming back to in suggesting that a consciously metaphoric use of language about God (biblical imsages, say) might end up being less self-deceptive, in recognising its obvious limitations, than much apparently sophisticated 'speculative' talk which claims 'truly' to demarcate what it refers to. That is especially true for those of us who think traditional metaphysics is a dead end, incidentally, but who do not thereby abandon logic.

Anyway, although I clearly didn't get this thought recognised within the discussion (much of which remains solidly dismissive) a useful lesson was (re)learned by me in the process. Don't respond in kind, if you can help it. Unless the 'kind' involved is both illuminative and, hopefully, kind. It's a hard lesson to take, of course; rather like acknowledging that you aren't (and shouldn't be) in charge of discourse. So, in congruence with a couple of other agendas I'm pursuing at the moment, I decided to see how I might 'take Dawkins on board' in a different sort of way - with this: Turning God into a disaster area Nov 4, 2006; Simon Barrow says Dawkins is right to attack facile God-talk. See what you think. I probably only half-'succeeded', at best. But there I go again ;-)

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[12.01 GMT] "Jesus does not refuse to assert power and authority; rather, he refuses to be powerful according to the world’s greed for control and domination. The power of Jesus is love that will suffer on behalf of others." (Caroline Westerhoff)

[339.1] RE-LEARNING HOUSEHOLD ECONOMICS

Like the words ecumenical and ecology , economics is rooted in the Greek [New Testament] word oikos , meaning household , and signifies the management of the household—arranging what is necessary for well-being. Good economic practice—positive ways of exchanging goods and services—is about the well-being, the livelihood, of the whole household. . . . While the notion of “home” in American culture has shrunk from meaning one's town or region to meaning only one's own house or apartment, at the same time, paradoxically, it has become less possible to isolate our individual households from the world around them. As we try to defend the security of our private home, we are simultaneously rediscovering the economic-ecological truth of our profound interdependence within the small planet home we share.

Sharon Daloz Parks (1997), quoted in Plain Living: A Quaker Path to Simplicity, by Catherine Whitmire (Notre Dame, Indiana, Sorin Books, 2001).

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[338.1] SEEKING THE PAIN OF AUTHENTICITY

This powerful observation from an interview with the late Anthony Bloom, speaking from an Eastern Orthodox perspective (hat-tip to Johan Maurer):

"It seems to me that today the whole Christian world... has distanced itself terribly from the simplicity, integrity, and the joyful beauty of the Gospel. Christ and his group of disciples created a Church that was so deep and wide and complete that it could contain the universe. Over the centuries we've made the church into one human social group among many. We're now something less than the world we live in, and when we talk about that world coming to Christ, we are talking about everyone, as many as possible, becoming members of that limited social group. That's our sin, it seems to me.

"...[W] stand accused in this world. In its rejection of God and the church, the world says, "You Christians cannot give us anything we need. You don't offer us God, you offer us a worldview. And it's a moot point if God is not at its core. You give us instructions on how to live, but they're just as arbitrary as the ones other people give us." We ourselves must become Christian--Christians according to the example of Christ himself, and his disciples. Only then will the Church obtain, not power, that is the capacity to coerce, but authority, the capacity to say words that make the soul tremble and that open up the eternal depths within any soul.

"... We confess faith in Christ, but we've reduced everything to symbols. So, for example, I'm always struck by our Good Friday service: instead of the cross on which a living young man dies, we have a wonderful service that can move us but that actually stands between us and that rude and ghastly tragedy ... Of course that reworking does reach us, but we so easily begin to get a taste for that horror, even deeply experiencing it, being shaken and then regaining our calm; whereas the vision of a living person who is murdered is something quite different. That remains as a wound in the soul, you don't forget it; having seen it, you'll never again be the same as you were. And that is what dismays me. In some sense, the beauty and depth of our worship must break it open, and must lead every believer through that opening to the terrible and majestic secret of what is actually happening."

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[02.19 AM] Politics is bigger than the parliamentary game - in a comment column reproduced on Ekklesia and in the latest Third Way magazine, Simon Barrow asks what really happens when Christians 'join the party'.

[337.1] IDENTIFYING DAWKINS' DELUSIONS

It's not the gentlest piece of writing, but doyen literary and cultural critic Terry Eagleton, a sceptic once associated with the radical Catholic 'Slant' agenda, has written an appropriately devastating review of Richard Dawkins' best-seller, The God Delusion, in the ever-stimulating London Review of Books. No mere 'religious troll' he; I thoroughly recommend Eagleton's Figures of Dissent (Verso, 2003) - which celebrates and excavates the intellectual awkward squad. Everyone from The Frankfurt School to Slavoj Zizek, via Wittgenstein, Northrop Frye, W. B. Yeats, Stanley Fish, Norberto Bobbio and a cast of other unlikely and angular characters.

For his LRB polemic, Eagleton begins: "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist we have had since Bertrand Russell, are in one sense the least well-equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don’t believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince. The more they detest religion, the more ill-informed their criticisms of it tend to be. If they were asked to pass judgment on phenomenology or the geopolitics of South Asia, they would no doubt bone up on the question as assiduously as they could. When it comes to theology, however, any shoddy old travesty will pass muster."

Terry Eagleton is the John Edward Taylor Professor of English Literature at the University of Manchester. His latest book is How to Read a Poem.

[Graphic (c) The Guardian. With grateful acknowledgment]

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[336.1] ACCOUNTING FOR THE SHAPE OF HOPE

Occasionally I get sent surveys or asked research questions. Sometimes they are quite complex, at other times deceptively simple. My instinct is to feel sympathy for anyone so down on their luck that they seriously think I’m going to illuminate their darkness. But that’s just an inverted form of arrogance, so I usually try to offer something back. A couple of weeks ago I was asked if I could provide “abbreviated responses to the following questions: what is Christian faith? What does it mean to be a Christian?”

Er… right. No getting out of that one. Or is there? The former Archbishop of York, John Habgood, was once asked by a popular magazine for a simple twelve-word definition of Christianity. He refused to respond on the grounds that a proper answer could not be trivialised in this way. He had a point, but ended up sounding unbearably pompous. On the other hand, Karl Barth, one of the towering intellectual figures of the twentieth century (whatever you make of his theology), was not too proud to respond to a similar enquiry by quoting, without embarassment, a children’s hymn: “Jesus loves me, this I know; for the Bible tells me so.”

It is immediately obvious to me (as to you, I’m sure) that I possess neither the status of Habgood nor the humble wisdom of Barth. But I decided to have a go, anyway. Fools, angels, daring to tread – you get the picture. I’ll tackle the first question today, and the second one tomorrow or the day after. Just to be predictable. And my initial response, below, is unashamedly modelled on the (shorter) answer that David E. Jenkins gave when pinned down by a group of students. You can look up the original in God, Jesus and Life in the Spirit (SCM Press), one of the trilogy of essay-collections he compiled partly in response to ‘the Bishop of Durham Affair’, during which his off-the-cuff comments about aspects of Christian doctrine were reduced to those unfair media stereotypes that have followed him ever since. But that’s another story. Anyway, the Christian faith, from my point of view, might reasonably be crystallised in these four short statements:

God is.
God is as we meet God in Jesus
(life embracing death and transforming it into love)
Therefore there is hope.

The world is.
The world is what it is in the Spirit's gift
(renewing energy in the face of decay).
Therefore there is value.

Persons are.
Persons are what they are in God’s image
(freed from all fixed forms and ideologies)
Therefore there is a future.

The church is.
The church realises itself as peaceable community
(a fallible experiment in forgiveness)
Therefore there is purpose.

Yup, this begs a lot of questions, I know. Confessions are never the final word (which doesn’t belong to us, and is abused when we think it does). They are an invitation to hopeful-but-critical experimentation. So over to you…

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[335.1] INTERFACING FAITH AND CULTURE

I see that a network within the Methodist Church in Great Britain has launched a new weblog aimed at providing a general discussion forum for people interested in the connections and interaction between Christianity and culture. It's called Interface, and contains sections on arts/entertainment, the environment, politics, religion, science/medicine and social issues. Nothing too notable or in-depth on there at the moment; but it looks accessible and is, as yet, in its online infancy. They are seeking more female commentators, especially. Web punditry seems to be a bit of a 'guy thing', and as yet (sadly) women hold up much less than half the cyber-sky. Or maybe it isn't sad at all, just sane {cough}. There's currently an on-site poll on whether 'virtual churches', like St Pixels, are valid alternatives to actual church communities. I wouldn't mind betting that the responses to that question are gendered in a particular way, too...

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[334.1] PRESSING THOSE CONVICTION BUTTONS

This weekend saw two constrasting forays into the 'religion and public life' debate. The first was a call (by the Evangelical Alliance UK) for Prince Charles to guard his cudgels as Defender of the Christian (and, specifically, Protestant) Faith at his Coronation. The second was, contrastingly, a feature in The Sunday Times asking whether it is time to take 'God out of the state' altogether. In this context Ekklesia is urging a radical change in the way that the debate about religion and politics is framed. Well, actually, we've been urging it for some time. But those who get an adrenalin buzz from a simple, brutal clash between two lumbering monsters called 'belief' and 'secularity' continue to make much of the running, unsurprisingly. This is because most public argument about religion (actually an ethnographic fiction which disguises as much as it reveals) has become pretty much tone-deaf to nuance, and is therefore ready prey for the mutually reinforcing rhetorics of self-assertion and other-bashing. It's neither an edifying nor a life-giving standoff for any concerned, be they wearers of religious or anti-religious clothing. But it will continue until and unless we can find ways of resourcing the 'debate' with more light and less heat, more engaged humanity and less homogenizing abstraction.

One of the subterranean consequences of the demise of Christendom in the West, of course, is that people both outside and inside church communities have increasingly lost touch with the depth of the language of faith - substituting for it (in some quarters) a blithe assumption that it amounts to little more than a child's comforter, and (in others) that it subsists in the knock-down authority of the Bible, the magesterium, or some very tribal version of religious imagination. Here lies the road to nowhere. Somehow this glorious noticeboard blooper [see picture] sums up where we're all at. Hopefully we'll start to get the joke - and realise that it may be on us.

Meanwhile, on the matter of confusing God and governance, haven't faith groups and secularists yet noticed that civil society exists precisely to provide a mediating space between state power and communities of conviction? And what is the EA on about? It claims to exist for the sake of 'biblical truth'. So how come it is urging Christians to put their trust in princes and their realms, rather than the Lamb Who was Slain (by the powers-that-be, lest we forget)? Neither reason nor the New Testament seem to get much of a look-in.

It's all very odd...

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[19.34 GMT] APOLOGIES to those of you trying to get through to Ekklesia on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Due to a server problem at our ISP, the site was down for a full 48 hours. There have been a number of shorter 'outages' of late. We are looking at the possibility of a new host. Meanwhile, I've just got from a fascinating trip to Brussels and Bruges, accompanying a group of Anglican clergy from the South of England as they reflected on what "a soul for Europe" might look like in the light of EU expansion... My paper, 'A European state of mind?' is currently going through a remix after some useful discussions.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[333.1] THE GOD WHO ABANDONS US TO EXCESSIVE LOVE

W. H. Auden, without doubt one of my favourite wordsmiths, famously observed that the true poet is a person unreservedly in love with language. That ought to be profoundly true of the theologian, too - one committed to the precious beauty of the fleshly Word. Of course there's an inherent paradox here. To speak of God, we need language which continually exceeds what can be said, in order to portray (but never capture) the truth that God is beyond all we can imagine, say, believe or disbelieve. On the other hand, the theologian is also there to point out that the radically new language is actually that which we surprisingly inherit - not just something we arbitrarily make-up. And, crucially, (s)he is there to help Christian speech to find ways of distinguishing between faith and fantasy, praise and pathology. To explore, in the helpful formulation of my friend Johan Maurer, "examples of people using Christian rhetoric either to seek or to avoid reality".

Both Auden and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to whom the following famous poem is dedicated, were involved in precisely such a vocation, in startlingly contrasting ways. Friday's Child is about the breathtaking implications of God's refusal of force. I consider the limitations of the male pronoun a necessary chastisement...

He told us we were free to choose
But, children as we were, we thought---
"Paternal Love will only use
Force in the last resort

On those too bumptious to repent."
Accustomed to religious dread,
It never crossed our minds He meant
Exactly what He said.

Perhaps He frowns, perhaps He grieves,
But it seems idle to discuss
If anger or compassion leaves
The bigger bangs to us.

What reverence is rightly paid
To a Divinity so odd
He lets the Adam whom He made
Perform the Acts of God?

It might be jolly if we felt
Awe at this Universal Man
(When kings were local, people knelt);
Some try to, but who can?

The self-observed observing Mind
We meet when we observe at all
Is not alariming or unkind
But utterly banal.

Though instruments at Its command
Make wish and counterwish come true,
It clearly cannot understand
What It can clearly do.

Since the analogies are rot
Our senses based belief upon,
We have no means of learning what
Is really going on,

And must put up with having learned
All proofs or disproofs that we tender
Of His existence are returned
Unopened to the sender.

Now, did He really break the seal
And rise again? We dare not say;
But conscious unbelievers feel
Quite sure of Judgement Day.

Meanwhile, a silence on the cross,
As dead as we shall ever be,
Speaks of some total gain or loss,
And you and I are free

To guess from the insulted face
Just what Appearances He saves
By suffering in a public place
A death reserved for slaves.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[332.1] PROBING THE HEART OF DARKNESS

A recent and contested BBC programme has highlighted once more the continuing terror and tragedy of sexual abuse in the church. Even more devastating is the US film Deliver us from evil. A recent article on Slate.com makes it clear why institutional denial and defence are entirely inappropriate responses to what is at stake in all this. We are dealing with profound sickness, not mere symptoms.

"What may be hard to stomach for some Catholics is Amy Berg's intimation that cases like Fr Oliver O'Grady's [pictured] are not merely terrible moments in the church's history, but intrinsic to its structure. After all, as a psychologist specializing in clergy abuse points out, if all sex acts outside of marriage are regarded as sinful by the church, what's to differentiate child molestation from adult consensual sex? Another interviewee, a scholar of the church, points out that 10 percent of graduates from one well-known seminary are known pedophiles and wonders whether the church's refusal to relinquish the celibacy requirement might not be attracting sexual deviants to the priesthood.

"Former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating's comparison of the church to the Mafia drew widespread ire when he made it in 2003, but Berg's rigorous investigation of the O'Grady affair can't help but give it some credence. Watching Cardinal Mahony lie, mumble, squirm, and lie some more in taped court depositions also can't help but evoke the Watergate hearings—Mahony even looks a little like Nixon. But whether you think of the pedophilia scandal as organized crime, as political allegory, or just as a tragic aberration, Berg makes a compelling case that it went all the way to the top. Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, helped tweak church law to prevent the internal release of documents that might incriminate pedophile priests. After Ratzinger took office as the new pope, he requested immunity from investigation from George W. Bush—a favour he needn't have asked for, since all heads of state are automatically granted diplomatic immunity."

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[331.1] TAKING TIME TO THINK AGAIN

"Learning to tell the truth takes time, attentiveness, and patience. Good learning calls no less than teaching does, for courtesy, respect, a kind of reverence; reverence for facts and people, evidence and argument, for climates of speech and patterns of behaviour different from our own. There are, I think, affinities between the courtesy, the attentiveness, required for friendship; the passionate disinterestedness without which no good scholarly or scientific work is done; and the contemplativity which strains, without credulity, to listen for the voice of God - who speaks the Word (s)he is, but does not shout." Nicholas Lash.

['Cacophany and Conversation', from The 2002 Prideaux Lectures delivered at Exeter University]

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[337.1] WATCHING TRUTH DECAY?

Yesterday's exchanges between Tony Blair and David Cameron in the House of Commons ('Question Time') were highly entertaining. Pure theatre, indeed. Cameron, mercifully blessed with a PR talent that has so far enabled him to avoid spelling out what the supposedly nicer Tories would actually do, laid into the government's shambolic presentation issues. And he actually managed to get an obviously rattled PM to admit, entirely inadvertently, that there are cuts ("er... changes") going on in local health services. Mr Blair, meanwhile, rehearsed his usual litany of statistics to prove that New Labour was spending more and transforming wider than any government in history. All great puppeteering fun. But let's not forget that when it comes to basic orientation (managing global capital, the war on terror, marketising society, preaching green and acting lean) these two stand shoulder to shoulder. And while investment in health and public services has increased, and the situation is neither as apocalyptically bad nor as gleamingly good in the NHS as either suggest, there are real causes for concern. Moreover, it is difficult to feel that the system is safe in either's hands when spin and point scoring seem to win out so regularly over the hard graft of politics. This is a side show on a perilously squeezed centre-ground that remains in danger of bypassing the real issues.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[06.54 GMT] The veils governing our own thinking Oct 11, 2006 - Simon Barrow says bridges not barriers will help relations with Muslims. (A revised version of my earlier extended comment piece on the Jack Straw hijab saga.)

[10.04 GMT] As the Anglican row about sexuality rumbles on, and 'global south' primates seek a division of the Communion predicated on what they perceive to be their own unassailable rightness, other voices are making themselves heard -- rightly challenging the idea that there is a monopoly of tradition and exegetical wisdom in this group. The best known critics are from Africa -- including ex-Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and his successor in Cape Town. Nick Holtam, rector of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, has also written this very good open letter on the theological and ecclesial issues. Hat tip to Thinking Anglicans.

[336.1] I'M AFRAID IT'S NOT ALRIGHT, JACK

Good governance needs bridges not barriers in relating to Muslims
Many people will no doubt argue that Commons leader Jack Straw has been brave and comparatively sensitive in raising the question about whether the full veiling of Muslim women is an impediment to positive community relations in plural Britain. But irrespective of the view one takes about the specific issue of coverings (and it is a very complex one), Mr Straw’s approach reveals, yet again, a subterranean negativity in its relations with diverse Muslim communities. What is being promoted is the policing of boundaries, rather than the positive building of bridges. In considering the purpose and impact of Mr Straw’s remarks, and in highlighting constructive alternatives to the government’s ‘boundary control’ strategy, it is important to see them as part of a wider pattern. Continued.


Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[335.1] THE TROUBADOUR OF GOODNESS

A poem by Georgene L. Wilson

It took an indulgence of insights
And a mess of memorable moments
To grind the life-lens
That granted gazing wisdom
To Francis of Assisi's deep heart.
Once he perceived the epiphany of
"All is God"
He became the perfect mirror image of
"All is Good":
Grace grown glowing in simple grandeur!Francis disrobed himself of
Fame, fortune, and facade.
He donned habits of
'No-holding' yet All Embracing'.
He sang blessings on the creature and the Creator.
Self-empting was filled with the trusting abundance of Holy Poverty.
Perfect joy issued celebrative chants of Goodness.
Pardon and forgiveness bore the fruit of reconciling Peace.
Still now he is missioned:
To shine as light in darkness,
To breathe hope in despair,
To fathom freedom in fear, and
To channel unity in diversity
Through you and me,
As instruments of peace and goodness.
This way of seeing life is deep love:
Incarnating grace,
Engaging compassion, and
Dialoging harmony,
Is a simple spiritual practice.
Bless with beauty, truth and goodness!
Offer a heart of praise and affirmation.

Georgene L. Wilson is a Wheaton Franciscan Sister. She is poetry editor of Interreligious Insight (found in IRI V2 N3 July 2004). The (c) of 'Francis: Troubador of Goodness' is the writer's. Its insights are gifted to us all. I share it in that spirit. Many thanks indeed to Peter Challen for passing it on to me and to others.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[20.42 GMT] TRAGICALLY HIP... Ekklesia has acquired a MySpace site, which you can visit at your leisure. The 'age' is an averaging of mine and Jonathan Bartley's.

[334.1] WHY ST FRANCIS SUBVERTS OUR LINEAR LOGIC

Heads up to David W. Critchley of Winslow, Buckinghamshire, for his letter in The Times yesterday, acutely undercutting the lastest version of various simplistic 'clash of civilization' theses. This stuff may sell airport books by the bucketload, but it doesn't help us to get to grips with the actual complexities of the world. Apart from setting up unhelpful self-fulfilling prophecies, that is... Anyway, Mr Critchley writes:

Anthony Gee argues that the world is witnessing a clash between moderates and extremists (letter, 28 September, 2006). Into which category would he place the rich young man of Assisi who took to wearing a beggar’s clothing and kissing the hands of lepers, driven on, according to his contemporaries, “by a very intoxication of the divine love”, St Francis?

Quite. As I often like to say: there are two kinds of people in the world; those who think there are two kinds of people in the world, and those who don't. I count myself in the latter category. (I should note, for those who haven't, that today is the 'saints day' for Francis of Assisi. There is a free online biography courtesy of the Gutenberg Project to be found here.)

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[333.1] A DEFINITE CASE OF SLOW LEARNING

In another fit of establishment condescension, the Church of England has put out an astonishingly disingenuous statement on church schools and their admissions policies. They seem to be counting on a small act of generosity detracting from a larger problem, and as usual will try to dismiss critics as 'bitter secularists'. But this is untrue and unfair. Faith schools have their religious critics too, and there are good theological (as well as sociological and educational) reasons for disliking the current mess.

The Church's stance remains wholly inadequate since it continues to use church-going as a way of assigning publicly-funded school places. This is not only wrong, it is also fundamentally un-Christian in principle, as far as I'm concerned.

The chair of the Church of England Board of Education, the Rt Rev Dr Kenneth Stevenson, Bishop of Portsmouth, has written to Education Secretary Alan Johnson to say that all new Church of England schools should have at least a quarter of admission places available to non-Christians but Parliament should not expect the same commitment from other faith Communities. But the heart of this policy remains discriminatory. It is nonsensical to claim that it promotes social cohesion and inclusivity, when a range of religious schools practice a variety of admissions policies with religious observance as a criterion.

The Church of England's latest announcement is simply a gesture towards social and educational inclusion in the face of an overall policy which is, at heart, designed to privilege church-goers over others in publicly funded schools. It is entirely inappropriate for Christians to seek to give themselves advantages of this kind. Self-interest stands in opposition to what the Christian Gospel is about. A truly "Christian school" would be one that seeks to be open to all and which pays particular attention to the needs of marginalized and poorer communities.

Remarkably, the C of E Board of Education does not even know how many of its schools actually operate discriminatory admissions policies.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[332.1] BEYOND NATIONALISM AND CENTRALISM

[O]ur thinking about the nature of the European Union can be enriched by the kind of mutually nourishing pluralism [arising from] the theological language of our [Lutheran and Anglican]traditions. The society of states needs just the same balance between supposed autonomy and competing self-interests on the one hand and bureaucratic, rootless centralism on the other as we need in the life of the Church. And if we are to avoid centralising strategies for economic and social justice, we have to foster, as Christians, a vision of society within each state that will realise mutual responsibility and a vision of the community of states that will produce structures of co-operation and consultation, in economic life especially, capable of addressing the crises that no isolated state can cope with – the needs and rights of migrants, the control of the trade in arms, large and small, ecological pressures, the management of disease prevention as a cross-national concern and so on. If we believe in a common hope for humanity and in the possibility and imperative of mutuality in working towards this hope, we as people of faith are bound to be concerned with transnational structures in some degree, not out of utopian convictions about transnational government, but in order to discover how we specifically and concretely take responsibility for all the things that are beyond any definition of national interest alone. (Rowan Williams, from his recent Frieburg Lecture)

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[331.1] ANOTHER PEST IN THE LOCALITY

Dealing with religion can certainly mean entering "the danger zone", one way or another. So the generally fabulous St-Matthew-in-the-City in Auckland, New Zealand, have put up the notice you see before you at their front entrance. Writes vicar Glynn Cardy: "This is our new billboard, put up in conjunction with the annual SPCA service. There is of course a deeper truth here, for the God we preach does not promise security or safety." St Matthew's is in the forefront of transformational Christianity, with an emphasis on peacemaking, inclusion (welcome for all), social justice, community life, and challenging abusive thought and behaviour that uses the name of God to justify itself. It calls itself "a progressive Anglican church with a heart for the city and an eye to the world."

Way to go St M's... though [small aside] I do hate the word 'progressive' (yes, I know, we use it on Ekklesia, too, and I belong to a blogging network with that name). It is meant to indicate openness to engagement with the world, and a questioning of reactionary approaches. Which is good. But, to many, it so easily suggests a dubious attachment to the post-19th century doctrine of 'progress' or to a particular kind of centrist political agenda. Whereas the Gospel is actually about the future God gives us beyond manipulation, and the much more radical impact that can make on our present polity as church and as a community of people engaged in the public square - if we will allow it. 'Transformative' is the alternative word I'm pitching. I'm told it isn't as 'sexy' in communications terms. Too bad, I say. Let's challenge the inherited labels.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[330.1] SORRY, WHAT'S A NEIGHBOUR EXACTLY?

In the midst of the UK political party conference season's media blandishments, the Guardian's Simon Hoggart can be guaranteed to puncture pomposity and put the spinmeisters back on a wheel of their own making. But the columnist's mockery of Bill Clinton's reference to the African concept of ubuntu (during his recent Labour speech) suggests that he lives a very solitary existence. Or perhaps on another planet. Quoth Hoggart: "It turns out to mean 'I am, because you are.' No, I haven't a clue either. But the speech was a mighty success, certainly compared to Alan Johnson's." Que? The concept of inherent human interdependence is that difficult to grasp for the champagne-drinking commentariat? Or their dictionaries don't do U, only non-U? What is the liberal left coming to... Ah well, someone give the good man a copy of Paul E. Stroble's Reconciliation: The Ubuntu Theology of Desmond Tutu (Pilgrim Press). That'll really confuse him.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[01.54 GMT] An article on the Department for Education and Skills' statement, and the excellent US Clergy project on religion and science: Government says creationism is off the agenda in UK school science (Ekkklesia).

[329.1] CONFUSING MESSED-UP RELIGION WITH SCIENCE

It has been interesting to see the response to Ekklesia's teaming up with the British Humanist Association on the issue of ensuring that 'creationism' (what I think could fairly be termed a thought disorder within Christian and some Muslim and Jewish thinking) doesn't creep onto the science curriculum in our schools. The galvanising issue is the emergence of a well-funded group (misleadingly) called Truth in Science which has sent 'teaching packs' and DVDs to 5000 heads of science in UK secondary schools. This venture has been well critiqued by geologist and Anglican priest Michael Roberts. The Times Educational Supplement and The Times reported on our letter to the education secretary, Alan Johnson today, and the BBC has also run a story.

Meanwhile, my email inbox is stacking up. On the positive side, there's a letter from the Faraday Institute on Religion and Science in Cambridge, a 'thank-you' from a leading Christian scientist and a note of appreciation from a 'self-confessed secularist'. On the negative side there are abusive missives from people assigning me to the devil, and - this is the most interesting - puzzled letters from ordinary Christians who assume that to argue against 'creationism' (which, let's recall, is about denying 140 years of science in the name of a woefully simplistic misappropriation of ancient texts) is somehow to argue against seeing the world as God's good creation.

That otherwise educated people could be so poorly informed in thinking about God, the world, the Bible and the interaction of faith and science is a truly alarming indictment on the pedagogical failings of our churches. Christians are being ill-equipped to live in the real world, and are being cossetted in the assurance that their convictions need little intellectual effort beyond the reiteration of supposed verities - a viewpoint shared, ironically, by both secular and religious hard-liners.

Of course there's a wealth of good writing on science and theology - but most of it gets circulated among an intellectual elite removed from the pews. It's good to hear that a major science-religion education project may soon get off the ground in the UK, aimed at churches. But one also wonders why scientist-theologians and others seem so absent from the wider media discourse. I'm about to write an Ekklesia column on 'Misconstruing God and the world' - essentially why creationism and its cousin-in-a-lab-coat Intelligent Design are (no matter how gently one tries to put this) non-sense, non-science, non-biblical and theologically defective, basically. In the meantime, this from the coda to today's story:

Ekklesia points to the work of bodies such as the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion (University of Cambridge) and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (California) as among the major places where scientists, theologians and philosophers enjoy positive interaction.

A spokesperson for Faraday explained: “We don't prescribe a viewpoint, but we take the opportunity provided by these courses to critique ID and creationism as they come up in discussion. We also think that the education of church leaders is critical in this context, and in fact we have a course especially for them at Wolfson College, Cambridge, from 7-9 November 2006.”

Simon Barrow of Ekklesia commented: “People advocating creationism try to exploit legitimate arguments within science for their own entirely non-scientific ends, and they also mislead believers into thinking that Genesis offers a theory of origins. This is wrong on both counts. When Christian theology speaks of ‘creation’, it means that the whole world process, which we can now explore and understand through science, may be received as gift rather than as something to be manipulated or regarded as valueless.”

Ekklesia says that the job of the churches and of thinking Christians is to explore and develop such questions. “Exposing the falsity of ‘creationism’ and ‘Intelligent Design’ are issues the churches and religious communities should be confronting. But such arguments aren’t for science classrooms, where children are there to learn about findings and questions in the sciences thorough methodological investigation of natural phenomena.”

He continued: “Without doubt, ‘creationism’ is a serious religious problem. In essence, as the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has said, it’s a category mistake. Genesis wasn’t written to explain how the world comes into being, it was written to contradict other ideas in the Ancient Near East that regarded the world as bad. Also, it has no one ‘literal meaning’. That idea is nonsense. If you read it, you discover it has two main accounts which differ in detail, and several other poetic ways of inviting us to see the world as God's gift. To read it as a modern propositional account about how the universe unfolds is illegitimately to impose (very narrow) modern expectations on an ancient, figurative text."

Concluded the Ekklesia co-director: “In Christian history biblical texts about creation have been understood allegorically. In modern times careful theologians have understood the contingency of the evolutionary process as giving us the freedom to invest it with meaning and value – or not. Human beings are constantly confronted with life or death choices.”

See also: Theologians and scientists welcome Intelligent Design ban; Schools minister says creationism has no place in classroom science; Exam Board rules out creationism in UK classrooms; Vatican astronomer says creationism is superstition; Archbishop of Canterbury criticises teaching of creationism; US churches celebrate 'Evolution Sunday'; Creationists target schools and universities in Britain; Dawkins attacks creationist plans; Faith schools may allow extremists in, say critics; Creationists plan six more schools; Christians to explore values in science and technology; New Christian academy rejects creationism as 'rubbish'.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[328.1] THE DANGEROUS DESIRE FOR VICTORY

... is spread far and wide today, both among the faiths (many forms of Christianity included) and among the non-religious too. Christendom is about 'winning'. Calls for the Pope's humiliation are about 'winning'. Richard Dawkins' attempt in The God Delusion to traduce all religion (as if it was all the same kind of thing, and with more heat than light) is about 'winning'. Not necessarily about flourishing, enduring, and life-giving - which demand more of us than triumphant rightness. With regard to Islam, Rowan Williams put it well a few years ago (2001, to be precise). His final comment is not, I think, a hidden arrogance - it is saying that, if it means anything, trinitarian language is about endless divine dialogue, which (I'd add) can elude Christians as much as anyone else.

"Islam has a wonderful vision of divine majesty, generosity and glory,and its demand for unreserved loving obedience has great nobility. But it is a faith that cannot readily find room either for the idea that God longs to share his [sic] very life, or for the vision of a God who can only win through defeat. It is not intrinsically a violent faith, but it is one that sets high store by victory. And it is not able to pray to God in God's own 'voice', to say 'Father' in the Spirit of Jesus."

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[19.15 GMT] ON A LIGHTER NOTE...

"To be is to do." -Socrates
"To do is to be." -Sartre
"Do be do be do." -Sinatra

[327.1] WAGING HOPE ON TERROR

This from policy analyst Michael T. Klare, Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum (Owl Books) as well as Resource Wars, The New Landscape of Global Conflict:

"...[S]uccess in the global struggle against terrorist movements can only be achieved by a multilateral effort entailing the vigorous application of police-type investigative methods and a moral campaign designed to invalidate the legitimacy of indiscriminate violence against innocent people. The unilateralist, shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach of the Bush administration has demonstrably undermined such efforts. The upshot is bound to be but more terrorism and a greater risk to American lives. Only by cooperating with other countries on an equitable basis can we diminish this risk.

"A retreat from empire would also force us to use oil more sparingly and this, in turn, would enable us to address another critical threat to American security: the danger of catastrophic environmental damage caused by global climate change. As Hurricane Katrina demonstrated, our shores are highly vulnerable to powerful hurricanes; and higher ocean temperatures, caused by global warming, are producing increasingly violent ones. Global warming is also contributing to the extreme drought and susceptibility to voracious forest fires in many areas of the American West.

"By reducing our petroleum consumption and relying more on ethanol, bio-diesel, wind power, solar, and other domestically-produced, alternative sources of energy - but especially by putting our money into the development of such alternatives rather than to imperial expansion around the globe - we can, in the long run, reduce our exposure to violence abroad and to environmental catastrophe at home." More here.

Some of us will remember Klare from back in the days of the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[00.47 GMT] Good piece called The death of debate, by Sunny Hundal from Pickled Politics, on the debilitating decline of sensible public discourse on the BBC (and elsewhere).

[326.1] RISK, SECURITY AND THE FOOLISHNESS OF THE CROSS

I am very grateful to Johan Maurer for pointing me in the direction of Emmanuel Charles McCarthy's extraordinary booklet, The Stations of the Cross of Nonviolent Love, now available as a PDF file here. Here is a brief excerpt:

It is easy to find hope, security and a future in the GNP, a national anthem, a football team, military technology, Disneyland, drugs, fashion and alcohol. It is nearly impossible in a capitalist society to find hope in the patient, secret commitment to the omnipotence of Christic love. Such a use of life is incontestable folly by all standards except one—Jesus’ teaching that the cross of nonviolent love is the power and the wisdom and the will of The Source of all Reality.

To those who do not believe in Christ’s cross of nonviolent love, its truth is folly, a scandal, an unrealistic waste of life’s time. To those who believe, it is nails, thorns, spears and suffering for others until the blind can see, until the lame can walk, until the imprisoned are freed, until the hungry are fed, until the oppressed are liberated, until the naked are clothed, until the sick are healed, until the rich are saved, until the homeless are at home, until the unlovable are loved, until all sins are forgiven. The believer in Christ’s nonviolent cross breathes in deeply the sufferings of humanity and breathes out freely his or her happiness in order to spread the healing power of nonviolent love as Divine Yeast in the dough of humanity.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[10.18 GMT] Here's a cluster of pieces from Ekklesia, relating to my article on the Pope and his Muslim critics. The first two include some additional comments from me. 'Christendom ideology' hampers Christian-Muslim relations, says think tank 22/09/06; Cardinal faces criticism on Turkey-EU issue 22/09/06; Mennonite seeks dialogue on Iranian president’s letter to George Bush 22/09/06; Christians and Muslims meet for religious dialogue in Iran 21/09/06.

[325.1] WHY CHRISTENDOM IS THE POPE'S REAL FALLIBILITY

Amid the acres of comment about Benedict XVI’s remarks concerning Islam in his recent German university speech, very little has been said so far about the core issue – the continuing confusion of Christianity with the dominant assumptions and institutions of Western society.

Instead, while noting obvious historical wrongs, the analytical stress has been on trying to add up the balance sheet of this particular pope’s opinions on questions such as Christian-Muslim relations. The difficulty with this is that it places too much emphasis on an individual (albeit a rather crucial and highly symbolic one), and demonstrates little comprehension of the power nexus out of which that leading individual speaks... Continued.

See also: Redeeming Religion in the Public Square, by Simon Barrow; and Faith and Politics After Christendom: The church as a movement for anarchy, by Jonathan Bartley]

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[21.47 GMT] Jim Wallis of Sojourners has entered the world of blogging with a high-profile space on BeliefNet. Part of the agenda is to enter into dialogue with those on the religious right, as well as promoting the progressive agenda of Call to Renewal. SojoNet is also promoting various new mailings, including a daily digest and the reflective Verse and Voice.

[02.05 GMT] For what it's worth, here (Why Rowan Williams helps stem the drift to idiocracy) is my take on the current argument about the Archbishop of Canterbury's Nederlands Dagblad interview, documented well on Thinking Anglicans.

[14.22 GMT] School student interest in religion raises problem of complusion (Ekklesia, 28/08/06) - including my comments on the situation of Religious Education in schools. Once again, the policy debate is unhelpfully fixed by those who want to push a particular religious or anti-religious line in public education. Or those who confuse the role of educational institutions in a plural society (which is to provide a phenomenological understanding of the belief systems that shape and influence us) with the role of faith communities (which promote formation in, and communication of, specific traditions). We all need some better ways forward.

[12.16 GMT] Liberation after Christendom October 13-15, 2006 - A d-i-y style weekend on subversion, spirituality and struggle. All welcome. Email me for more details.

[12.18 GMT] Life in the political twighlight zone. The UK parliamentary recess is often used to allow policy to go under the radar, as with the current war on terror and Middle East questions. What's more, the notion of 'a break' rarely extends to more than a brief respite in the debilitating round of backbiting politics-as-usual. The recess, whch now runs from July to October, could be developed in a much more radical way, this article argues ... by reflecting on the now-hidden meaning of the Jewish and Christian Sabbath tradition. And by thinking about civic, not just parliamentary, forums.

[11.00 GMT] Snakes on a plane, flies on a plain... a small contribution to what, in Britain, is called 'the silly season' for journalism. Hopefully the long-suffering residents of Wiltshire will not feel too cheaply dealt with.

[324.1] TELLING IT LIKE IT IS

Rowan Williams identifies 'the religious issue' with typical clarity and vigour in a review article in The Tablet, 10 November 2001: “Freud was wrong. The fundamental problem we human beings face is not how to negotiate with the voice and image of the Father, but how to stop ourselves regarding our brothers and sisters as displaced 'fathers'. We have one real Father, the transcendent source of our identity: a father who is not part of the competitive world in which the power of one means the weakness of another. What we must learn is how to live fraternally with human beings. The chief task of human maturing, therefore, is to get beyond ascribing sacred authority to other human beings, with all the rebellion and resentment, the longing to invert existing power relations rather than transform them that this involves, and rediscover the inclusive and hospitably eucharistic love – fraternity, in other words – that allows us to live together without murder. This is precisely what Jesus once and for all makes possible by his teaching, his death and his resurrection. This is the Gospel; this is what the sacraments enact.”

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[05.34 GMT] I may have quoted this before, but it bears repetition - and reminds me that I must go and see the new(ish) movie Silent Voices about the tragedy of El Salvador in the 1980s and the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit. "Even when they call us mad, when they call us subversives and communists and all the epithets they put on us, we know we only preach the subversive witness of the Beatitudes, which have turned everything upside down"— the late Archbishop Oscar Romero

[21.18 GMT] ON LETTING GO... "Our invitation as we go out into the world, is to lay down our fear and love the world. Lay down our sword and shield, and seek out the image of God's beloved in the people we find it hardest to love. Lay down our narrow self-interest, and heal the hurting and fill the hungry and set the prisoners free. Lay down our need for power and control, and bow to the image of God's beloved in the weakest, the poorest, and the most excluded."
Presiding Bishop-elect of the Episcopal Church, USA, Katharine Jefferts Schori

Christian Peacemaker Teams activists face court charge for Israel military aid vigil and protest (Ekklesia).

[323.1] TALKING SENSE ON ASYLUM

Following on from yesterday's post... the "asylum debate" in the UK rumbles on ominously: the latest instalment being new Home Secretary John Reid's hectoring stance towards those (a minority, so it's good to see they have some impact in Daily Mail-land) who believe that many of the assumptions of the "debate" are brutal, ignorant and racist -- which, frankly, they are.

One of the many disturbing features of the news coverage about migration, refugees and asylum in the papers that shape governing opinion on the subject in Britain (the tabloids and the conservative broadsheets) is the extent to which they overlook both global trends and the particular stories and experiences of people at the sharp end.

For the stories behind the news, you need to see publications like CTBI's Asylum Voices (by Andrew Bradstock and Arlington Trotman)... or go to the website of the aforementioned Praxis, the admirable multi-agency centre for displaced people in East London - the location, by history and tradition, of those placed 'outside the gate' by kings and rulers in the capital.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety