THE STATE AND FAITH COMMUNITIES

There are a number of models for how government, politicians and policy specialists can engage with people of different beliefs in modern Britain.

In thinking about these, the All-Parliamentary Humanist Group will be joined by Simon Barrow, co-director of the Christian think tank Ekklesia, and by a representative of the new organisation British Muslims for Secular Democracy on 14 March 2007, at the House of Commons.
.
"Why has the government chosen to engage with ‘faith communities’ in the way that it has, privileging them as communities of identity, extending the right to run state-funded schools to them and encouraging their involvement in the provision of public services and in the formation of public policy? What alternative models for engagement are there?

"The situation here appears more complex than in other western countries, both because of the establishment of the Church of England and its consequences (not least our large number of state-funded Christian schools) and because of the great diversity of belief that exists in the UK today. Things have been further complicated by the difficulties posed by hard-line Islamism."

These and other issues will be explored.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

LIVING IN THE PRESENT MOMENT

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone. ~ George Eliot (thanks to Maggi Dawn).

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

GIBSON'S PASSION AND JESUS' ANGER

Two different angles from me on faith and rage: a note about the essays concerned with Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of the Christ' in Consuming Passion (here), and a reflection on Jesus' assault on the Temple money system (Violent for peace?). Incidentally, in his Guardian review a few weeks ago, Giles Fraser described Gibson's latest film, 'Apocalypto', as a Mayan follow up to "a Christian snuff movie". Ouch.

THE DANGERS OF INNOCENCE

When I wrote this article (A land beyond our possession) I had a number of thoughts in mind - Lent, Jerusalem, and our very human struggles over identity and security, in particular. Given the focus, I naturally single out the difficult issues faced by Christians, Jews and Muslims, the three faith communities who share (or fail to share) what is supposed to be a Holy City, but is all-too-often a site of unholy conflict.

I wanted to add, but it didn't quite seem appropriate in this piece, that non-religious people and those of other faith traditions, in recognising the characteristic sins of the 'peoples of the book', should beware letting themselves off too lightly, either. None of us is sweetly innocent. The traumas of history in the Middle East and elsewhere are the fruit of malign secular politics as much as religious manipulation. Modern history is too complex to yield simple solutions and cosy attributions of blame.

One of the things that worries me about the 'religionists versus secularists' rhetorical battle right now, is that it conveniently lets everybody off the hook. Each 'side' can (and does) selectively blame the other for all the world's ill, using this to leave its own challenges un- or under-examined. The alternative route is to seek difficult relationship across the divides so that we can share responsibility rather than apportioning guilt. This seems much more productive.

When it made peace with established political order, Christianity forgot the history which produced it. It began in occupied Palestine. Its story involved displacement (exile), moving on (mission), sojourning (diaspora), settling (church planting) and journeying (pilgrimage).

Followers of Jesus are, as Stanley Hauerwas has observed, ‘resident aliens’, strangers in the land. They have ‘no abiding city’ and are constantly in search of ‘another country’, a territory free of domination, the New Jerusalem. A Cross marks the place where the contradiction between this freedom quest and the logic of religious and political order is seen at its most deadly.

What we should learn from this is that possession and conquest are not paths to security. Land alone is not hope or glory. To be at home is to be loved, not to be in control. It is in seeking mutual relationship that we learn a fruitful disposition toward each other and toward ‘the land’.

These are very hard lessons. Christians made a tragic mistake when some of them sought to end their early captivity not by exodus, but by buying into empire. They gained the world but lost their souls. And the Jews paid the price, among others.

Similarly, it is a tragedy that some Jewish people now seek to gain security for themselves not by sharing the land with their Semitic neighbours, but by occupying it and building walls.

Likewise, some Muslims seek to recover their dignity not by the spiritual struggle of the heart (which is what jihad truly means) but by a battle for possession involving fear and bombs.

This land, our land, your land, any land will not be made inhabitable if we seize it (by war), any more than it we neglect or despise it (by greed and ecological destruction). It will only bear fruit when we see it, and each other, as a gift to be cherished and shared. In the process that will involve recognizing each others wounds, not just our own.

Such a change of heart may seem unimaginable in a world darkened by the politics of aggressive counter-assertion. But it is what Lent, the willing embrace of the wilderness, is about. Only from a position of voluntary dispossession can we get a true picture of what is at stake in remaking the city as a land for all: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets … how often I have longed to gather your children together… but you were not willing.” (Jesus in Matthew 23)

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

CHURCHES CALL FOR IRAQ DEMILITARIZATION

PUTTING VALUES INTO PRACTICE

As part of the development of the new Ekklesia website (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/) launched on 1 March 2007, we have put together and revised a values statement which spells out where the think-tank and news briefing is 'coming from', so-to-speak. Here it is...

-------
EKKLESIA is an independent public policy think-tank seeking to examine the role of religion in a creatively critical way. It is rooted in the Christian tradition, but not tied to any one denomination or major church body.

Through its commitment to an honest dialogue about faith and politics, Ekklesia is positive about finding common ground with people of other convictions (religious or otherwise), while simultaneously retaining its own distinctive outlook.

In the media Ekklesia has been variously described as ‘liberal’, ‘evangelical’, ‘catholic’, ‘protestant’, ‘left-wing’, 'traditional', 'progressive', and more. This is perhaps the best illustration that the stance it adopts does not fit conventional categories, trying instead to transform received labels.

Ekklesia’s approach to issues of religion in the public sphere is primarily shaped by a strong theological and political critique of ‘Christendom’ – the historic collusion of institutional churches with state power and vice versa.

Instead, through research, publishing and commentary, Ekklesia seeks to reinvigorate a different understanding of the church as an alternative-generating ‘contrast society’ within the wider civic order: one that is politically active, but not seeking dominance.

The Greek word ekklesia denotes a people's assembly within the public square. It is also a key New Testament term for ‘church’, summoning the followers of Jesus Christ to a fresh form of social existence based on mutuality rather than self-aggrandizement. Continued in full here.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

ALL CHANGE IN BLOGLAND

In case you wondered where I've disappeared to, there's been something of a hiatus on FaithInSociety while I reflect on the future of ths weblog in the light of develoipments on my main project, Ekklesia - which, at the beginning of this month, launched a completely new and redeveloped site. This is thanks in no small part to my amazing colleague Jonathan Bartley and to the formidable Joe Baker at http://eleutheria.biz/. Anyway, we have an opportunity on the transformed Ekklesia to run our own blogs, to link others, and to syndicate more. FinS is currently being run through an aggregator down the right-hand column of Ekklesia blogs, which is still in development. There are problems with this, as you will see -- namely the fact that the header formatting gets in the way. Which is why I have started to abandon it from this post, together with the rather arcane numbering system I adopted back in 2003. Also, I'm not sure how and whether the aggregator, which also picks up the Ekklesia MySpace blog [illustrated], needs prompting. - and, if so, how.

All of which is probably of little interest to you, dear reader -- except to say that it probably makes most sense to roll this venture into my Ekklesia blog. So that's the plan. But, as with many plans executed by the willing but not necessarily able, I'm not quite sure whether and how it will work. So I shall keep FinS alive in the meantime, not least while I figure out what to do with the archives. I will, as they say, keep you posted.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[01.01 GMT] Rebels without a pause Feb 25, 2007, Ekklesia. Simon Barrow celebrates the role of parliamentary troublemakers.

[409.1] REDISCOVERING NON-VIOLENCE?

A seminar: The limits of violence and nonviolence: The moral use of force?

Wednesday 28 February 2007, 7.00-9.00 pm, at St Ethelburga's Centre, 78 Bishopsgate, London EC2N 4AG.

Speakers: Bishop David Smith, former Anglican Bishop to the British Armed Forces in conversation with Simon Barrow (Co-Director, Ekklesia) on the limitations and advantages of military force and the conditions in which it may be justified - or not.

Suggested donation £5. You can reserve a place here.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[18.36 GMT] QUOTE OF THE WEEK. (I don't normally have one of these. But this one was too good to miss.) “There was a great saint who said God was evident when bishops are silent.” Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury. Here is his full sermon on 'Amazing Grace'.

[408.2] ORIENTED FOR CHANGE

'Why Christianity is not homophobic' {MP3} - a popular talk focussing on some of the biblical material from Giles Fraser (vicar of Putney, lecturer in philosophy at Wadham College Oxford, founder of InclusiveChurch, Ekklesia associate) and another on 'Christians, equality and public provision' {MP3} by Malcolm Duncan (evangelical pastor, leader of the Faithworks movement) at this weekend's London conference on Faith, human rights and homophobia. This brought together Christians, trade unionists and NGO workers, humanists and non-believers, and a number of people from other faith traditions. Particularly moving was the talk by Ali Hilli, from the underground LGBT network in Iraq, where sexual minorities are being targetted for assassination. Thanks to LGCM for these links. The final statement from the conference is here.

[408.1] ON ROOTS AND ROUTES

What is radical about Christianity? Feb 19, 2007. Simon Barrow argues that living tradition is about change not fixity (Ekklesia).

"My experience of being a Christian is that of a surprising, continual and contested process of reformation and rediscovery. In the events and narratives concerning Jesus, which remain central to my life, everything I thought I knew about the world, myself, God and humanity turns out to be nothing like what I expected, and indeed finds itself in need of ongoing transformation.

"The social and political challenge of the Gospel flows, it seems to me, from its radical core. But ‘radical’ has become something of a dirty word, implying (for many) extremism, intolerance or violence; and (for others) an abandonment of historic commitments. These are distortions of its originating meaning.

"By radical (radix, from the Latin) I mean something like ‘rooted-to-be-routed’ – a personal, communal and intellectual re-exploration and re-expression of a deep tradition of reading, reasoning and responding to the world which propels us to its most risky frontiers. That is what is at the heart of Christianity.

"Whereas the conservative tends to be oriented to the past, and the liberal tends to regard tradition as baggage or inhibition, the radical seeks to live out of a wisdom which is malleable and resilient enough to go on changing without breaking, and which has a capacity to bring both surprise and coherence in a way that ‘starting from scratch’ cannot.

"...Call the approach I am taking a type of theological ressourcement, if you will." More.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[407.1] GRACE IN ORDINARY

"It is not necessary that we should have any unexpected, extraordinary experiences in prayer and meditation. … Not only at the beginning, but repeatedly, there will be times when we feel a great spiritual dryness and apathy, an aversion, even an inability to meditate. We dare not be balked by such experiences… [W]e must not allow them to keep us from adhering to our meditation period with great patience and fidelity. ... It is here that our old vanity and our illicit claims upon God may creep in by a pious detour, as if it were our right to have nothing but elevating and fruitful experiences, and as if the discovery of our own inner poverty were quite beneath our dignity. With that attitude, we shall make no progress." ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

Details here.

[406.1] MIGRATION NEEDS HUMANITY TO SHAPE LEGALITY

Ekklesia, along with representatives of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales (who commissioned it), is the first to respond to a vital new survey conducted by the Von Hugel Institute: Catholic report shows that migration is about need not numbers.
A university-based Catholic research body at the University of Cambridge has published a report which illustrates the shocking conditions endured by many migrant workers contributing to the economic life of the UK.

“This survey shows that exploitation in an unequal world is the true story of economic migration – not scaremongering about scroungers, which is what the press and politicians often latch onto”, commented Ekklesia co-director Simon Barrow. “These are people contributing to our wealth. They deserve fair shares, but instead they face discrimination.”

Ekklesia says that though the Catholic Church, because of its demography, is especially linked with workers from the EU accession countries and beyond, the human challenge migrants pose is one which humanitarian groups of all religious persuasions and none should face up to.

“The Von Hugel report should encourage politicians, journalists and policy makers to focus on needs rather than numbers in the debate about a just immigration policy”, said Simon Barrow.

Ekklesia is also commending the 'Strangers into Citizens' campaign, which is calling for a one-off “earned amnesty” for migrants (whether asylum seekers or economic migrants) who have made new lives in the UK. The campaign, initiated and backed by citizens groups and churches, argues that migrants who have been in the UK for four years or more should be admitted to a two-year "pathway to citizenship". Ekklesia is currently researching alternative approaches to migration based on global mutuality rather than narrow national interests. {Pic: Westminster Cathedral}

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[405.1] POLITICAL ADVICE

From Brian McLaren to US Democratic hopeful Barack Obama, on the God's Politics weblog (from BeliefNet and Sojourners):

Please don't lie to us. Please forego both the repulsive, deceptive, and twisted lies and also the flattering lies we like to hear. For example, I heard a fellow candidate recently trot out the tired old line, "America is the greatest country in the history of the world." This makes Americans feel good and gets applause. Maybe it wins votes. But it is a lie. Yes, we are the richest country. Yes, we have the most weapons. Yes, we dominate in many fields, from sports to pop music to movies to pornographic websites to resource consumption and waste production. But the seductive lie of superiority is bad for any nation, including ours. Any nation that keeps telling itself that it is the greatest will become a proud nation (if it isn't already), and pride, I have it on good authority, comes before a fall. Pride makes nations, asindividuals, unpleasant and ugly neighbors, and so candidates make a bad long-term decision when they seek to coddle pride in exchange for votes. If they win, they will preside over a country that their rhetoric has made more ugly and more likely to fall.

Instead of telling us this lie of American superiority, please tell us the truths that we need to hear. Tell us, as you just did in your campaign-launch speech, inconvenient truths – that we and our leaders have a habit of making mistakes and blaming others – whether it's in New Orleans or Baghdad. Tell us the truth about our past – from our own original genocide and ongoing apartheid regarding the Native peoples of this land, to our profoundly unacknowledged and unhealed legacy of slavery and racism, to our failure to care properly for this beautiful part of God's green earth, to our desperate and shameful violations of our own principles and ideals around the world, from Congo to Chile, and from Central America to the Middle East. Those who say, "Those things are in the past, we should just move on," would never say that about, say, September 11, 2001. More.

See also: Barack Obama's faith challenge, by Jerome Eric Copulsky. Official site: http://www.barackobama.com/

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[10.17.AM] Independent Jewish Voices today seek a fresh perpective on Israel-Palestine and raise the question of 'who speaks for whom?' - an important issues facing in many religiously defined or shaped communities. It has parallels with with the New Generation Network's stance, and the theological and political issues raised by Christians taking a post-Christendom perspective.

[404.1] USE AND ABUSE OF THE BIBLE

"Fundamentalism has suddenly become a matter of concern for everyone, whether or not they are personally religious. It affects education in science and history; it affects political elections in some countries, and through this it affects international relations; it may affect the question of whether [hu]mankind survives [far] into the twenty-first century. Therefore, if people want to understand the world in which they live, they may find it necessary to understand something about fundamentalism." ~ James Barr, former Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Scripture at the University of Oxford

"I have come to believe that the Bible's multiple voices, far from undermining its importance, actually help to justify its prominence in the Christian faith. For through them we discover the story of an authentic [dialogic] relationship between God and humanity." ~ Susannah Rudge, student leader

From 16-18 February 2007 the Student Christian Movement in the UK are holding their annual gathering near Kidderminster on the theme of 'reading the Bible' in plural and contested contexts. There are a number of significant theologians contributing - including Morna Hooker, Lisa Isherwood and John Vincent. Given both the growth of the fundamentalist mentality on campuses and the relative neglect of mature approaches to the the Bible in the mainstream culture and the churches, this is an important theme.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety

[403.1] FROM RESENTMENT TO REDEMPTION

Giles Fraser has penned a trenchant review of a new book on US Christian fundamentalism for The New Statesman. Inter-alia, in the resulting article, Blind Faith, he touches on the important question of cathartic imagination (which is deeply embedded in both religious and cultural expression), noting:

'Nietzsche famously argued that Christianity is driven by hate. The experience of persecution and slavery incubated a deep hatred towards oppressors that came to be sublimated into the notion of the Judaeo-Christian concept of the divine. The Christian God thus became a vehicle for fantasies of violence. So, for example: Psalm 137 begins with the experience of oppression by the rivers of Babylon where "we sat down and wept". It concludes: "Happy shall be he who takes your children and dashes their heads against the rocks."

'As it happens, I think Christianity has deep resources for the containment of what Nietzsche came to call ressentiment. Indeed, theologians like René Girard argue that ressentiment is an unfortunate but unavoidable by-product of the Christian commitment not to answer violence with violence. For, in reality, turning the other cheek, and not indulging in the satisfaction of returning violence in kind, is always going to result in a world of emotional complexity, of nightly dreams of revenge. And bad dreams may be a price worth paying for a commitment to peacemaking. But Girardian theology is a world away from a fundamentalism that manipulates the explosive power of ressentiment. '

Quite. We should acknowledge, and not suppress, our dark fantasies. But we should also recognise them for what they are, as with the Book of Revelation (which I have always argued is part redemption-song and part revenge fantasy). And we should seek the collective moral and spiritual strength to think and act otherwise in the cold light of day - and in the disturbingly warm ray of divine love. {Pic: (c) New Statesman and Society}

on this post: FaithInSociety

[402.1] GETTING DRENCHED

"Most of what we do in worldly life is geared toward our staying dry, looking good, not going under. But in baptism, in lakes and rain and [water] tanks and fonts, you agree to do something that's a little sloppy because at the same time it's also holy, and absurd. It's about surrender, giving in to all those things we can't control; it's a willingness to let go of balance and decorum and get drenched." ~ Anne Lamott, Travelling Mercies.

Comment on this post: FaithInSociety