CAN THE MEDIA SEE BEYOND VIOLENCE?

You are invited to a discussion on Making peace headline news, on Tuesday 26 June 2007, at St Ethelburga's, 78 Bishopsgate, London EC2N 4AG, starting at 6.30pm. Ends by 8pm. All welcome. Feel free to spread the news.

"War reporting is long established, but the press often struggles to pick up on peacemaking and conflict transformation initiatives. Simon Barrow, co-director of the religious think tank Ekklesia and a journalist with 25 years experience, talks with other practitioners and interested observers and participants about how to get peace into the news in an age of conflict. Practical examples and ideas for at all who need to work in, or with, a fast-changing media environment."

Suggested donation £5 for the session. You can let St Ethelburga's know you're coming here. The Centre is five minutes walk of both Bank and Liverpool Street stations (Zone 1). You can walk over the bridge from London Bridge Station in about 15 minutes. View the location online at Streetmap.

SEEKING REFUGE TOGETHER

Refugee Week is a UK-wide programme of arts, cultural and educational events that celebrate the contribution of refugees to the UK, and encourages a better understanding between communities. Refugee Week 2007 is taking place from 18 to 24 June. That is, right now.

As in 2006, there will be no specific theme for Refugee Week 2007. Rather, the week is a space of encounters between different communities and an opportunity to use more creative ways to bring refugee experiences closer to wider audiences.

Every year during Refugee Week hundreds of events are organised across the UK. Last year, there were over 450 small and large events, ranging from big music festivals and art exhibitions to political debates, film screenings, conferences, school activities, sports and community events, church and faith groups meetings, and so on.

Definitely worth supporting, and obviously a concern which is highlighted in one particular week - but actually vital for the other 51 in the year.

HIGHLIGHTS AND SHADOWS

"To go into the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is travelled by dark feet and dark wings." (Wendell Berry)

NEGOTIATING THE SPIRIT OF UNREASON

Since I co-run a think tank (and in the process write, comment, speak and occasionally broadcast on issues of religion in society), some people readily assume that I must "enjoy the cut and thrust of debate". Well, I don't mind a good argument, and I'm happy to participate in serious (and enjoyable) conversation about things that matter to me and others. But actually, much of the bruhaha about religion right now - both from 'religious' and 'non-religious' sources - strikes me as bad (rather than good) argument, and a great deal of it is faintly depressing... not because of the validity or otherwise of what is being said, but because of the way it proceeds.

The level of anger, disrespect and sheer inattention to the fabric of argument and what makes people different can be truly numbing. Remarking on the trail of insults that invariably follows any attempt to talk about religion in any register whatsover on The Guardian Comment-is-Free (hmmnn, haven't written anything in my column on there for a bit), a friend of mine, no believer herself, remarked: "Well, any idea that if you call yourself a rationalist you must be rational looks to me to be just as incredible as the idea that if you call yourself religious it makes you spiritual. The evidence suggests it is often otherwise."

It was that thought (thanks, Jane), together with some reflections earlier on this blog, that lead me to write my latest Ekklesia column, Religion, anti-religion and the perils of being right.

That and the encouraging advent of The O Project, which "champions the contributions that humanists and other atheists make to wider society and encourages good relations between atheists and religious people." If they'll forgive me, I say "amen" to that, and not just because they are kind enough to quote me.

It is a true sign of humanism (which can be both a religious and non-religious virtue, and which doesn't, incidentally, have to sink into anthropomorphism or speciesism) that we value the humanity of those we disagree with above the actual disagreement -- either because we believe that humanity is in the end all we've got, or, in my case, because we see the gift that makes us human as precisely that (a gift, and therefore a pointer to a 'giving' that transcends our capacity to imprison gifts in networks of assertion and reinforcing interest).

Reason (the ability to recognise and act on the coherence that holds our living and thinking together), like faith (which is essentially trusting that 'the good' is neither ephemeral nor pointless - and therefore to be lived), is a distinctly human capacity. That means it proceeds not just by abstract rational construction, but by feeling, experience, relationship, instinct, embodiment and sensate response. To "be rational" is to learn, in conversation with others, to sustain the relationship between all these things -- not to reject or suppress one at the expense of the other. And for that you need people who are different to you, who see things at variance, and who can point you to new experiences, analyses and possibilities.

That's what makes a good argument - one that enhances the good, rather than one which ensures 'victory'. Sadly, this isn't what is widely perceived as making "a good story" in the media. For that you need warring parties asserting incommensurable claims, apparently. So, lo and behold, that's what you get! The bridge-builders are often written out of the script or accused of being vacillating or "over-complicated". To which the only response should be: tough, you destroy and see where that gets you (and the rest of us). We'll go on building, thank you.

It's called hope. And if you are a Christian it resides in the fact that the Word comes to us through flesh, not stone.

[See also: John Milbank, “Can a Gift Be Given? Prolegomena To a Future Trinitarian Metaphysic,” Modern Theology 11, January 1995. Picture: Goya's The Sleep of Reason]

WITHOUTING THE 'WITH-IT'

On an entirely theologically and socially void point, there's something about the term "rock-and-roll vicar" which brings a deep chill to my spine. And not in a good way. So when the TV fantasy-property show A Place In The Sun (just lurking in the background while I do some Important Things - honest!) used that very term to introduce one of today's house hunters, there was only one thing I could do... anticipate some delicious car-crash telly. This, of course, is unfair and unworthy of me. And to give "parish priest and rock musician Andrew Harding and his wife Leanne" who "are looking for a heavenly retreat in Western Crete" (latest7) their due, he seems a nice bloke. Indeed he's rather archetypally vicary, that tell-tale earring aside. Plus he almost certainly cringed at the intro, too, and he thankfully spoke not once of "divine guidance" or "gettin' dahn wiv da posse" (yeah, yeah, cod rap not r&r). So if The Village Green Preservation Society can be the result of an, um, "credible popular music combo", why not Hoo St Werburgh Parish Church, I ask? Let's, like, totally rockit, dudes.

AAAGHHH... A Place In The Sun is over (phew), but there's a titanic toilet roll bust-up just starting on Big Brother. I mean, Fateh and Hamas? Get real, this is serious. Pampered bottoms are at stake.

Hang on, who said modern life is rubbish? Blur, if I recall correctly... But the best comment on BB has to be Germaine Greer's. "People say that Big Brother is the end of civilisation as we know it. Wrong. It is civilization as we know it." Checkit.

Update: they're onto a nuclear-sized "whose f*****g bananas?" crisis now (see pic). Somebody call the UN!

GETTING THEIR PILLARS IN A RIGHTEOUS TWIST

The recent Church of England strop over Sony using part of Manchester Cathedral as a backdrop to the game Resistance: Fall of Man echoes back to Canterbury Cathedral's wrangle with Koch over one called War on Terror exactly a year ago. My London housemate Mark Clapham, a good urban atheist, has written an eminently sensible GI.biz piece to add some 'insider' context. You can find his article ('Reality Bites') here. He points out that even Tony Blair has now felt the need to chip in on the debate, adding: "Doesn't he have packing to do?"

Mark observes: Regardless of the legal merits of the case, discussed widely on this site as well as legal blogs, the Church's position is far from incomprehensible. A church is, after all, a place of peace, and it is understandable that the sight of such a building as an arena for a gun battle - no matter how fantastical - might cause offence, especially considering problems with gun crime in the city.

I suppose you could say that Ekklesia's response (Church on the wrong track in suing Sony over war-game, says lawyer - scan to the end) has been a little less sympathetic. The Established Church frequently lauds its links to military endeavour. Its buildings are, as I pointed out in my comment, stuffed full of insignia and memorials. I've no objection to that. It's part of history and it serves as a useful reminder of the traumas and tragedies that are part of all of us, in different ways. But it also reminds us that the Church has, on many occasions, wrapped itself in the flag, sought the comfort of arms, and blessed all kinds of dubious weaponised conflicts. It is far from innocent either of organised violence or its imagistic perpetuation. When striking a righteous pose, you'd think it might just be a bit mindful of this. But that connection just doesn't seem to occur. Why not?

The answer, partly, is the overwhelming 'Christendom mindset' (the assumption that what the church wants and values is what everyone else should be made to want and value). This entices church leaders to reach immediately for their high horses, dictats and lawyers, it seems. The tenor grates with many people, myself included. When the Canterbury row surfaced (May 2006) Ekklesia did some radio and newspaper comment, having written to the Dean and Chapter suggesting that a more positive media strategy could be pursued - in everyone's interest. Emphasise the positive: use the 'Warrior Chapel' for an exhibition on conflict mediation/transformation, invite the games company to support it (or make it refuse to do so); try an approach which is a bit more imaginative and community-focussed rather than instantly confrontational. We got a note saying they'd get back to us. They never did, and the case itself was dropped. Little has been learned, apparently.

From a strictly legal viewpoint, it's hard to see that the Cathedral and the Church are going to get very far with Sony. That isn't to say that there aren't interesting and even significant issues involved; just that the balance of forces in an adversarial process will struggle to surface them constructively. Moreover, rather than merely trying to 'defend' its symbols, buildings, texts and trdaitions as 'intellectual property' (a commodity to be fought over), might the Church not be better seeking to develop those resources positively as cultural and spiritual resources for the twenty-first century?

To put it another way: The Gospel message is about the power of love subverting the love of power. I'm not clear how throwing legal threats around is designed to demonstate this. And they're darned expensive. On the other hand, try to scrounge a few quid from church institutions for peacebuilding initiatives in Somalia (let's say), and you'll find "sorry, there's just no money". What was it Jesus banged on about? "Where your treasure is, there too is your heart". Hmnnn...

Mark Clapham (whose roll back... and mix blog is here) also draws an interesting distinction about the Sony game here. "This is fantasy games violence, heroic rather than criminal." Good point. And one which nods in the direction of 'just' rather than 'unjust' violence, upon which the Church pinned its doctrine in defence of the Christian Empire it became identified with. But of course 'heroic' killing is much more dangerous than the criminal kind, because it enshrines what theologian Walter Wink calls "the myth of redemptive violence" - the idea that slaughter aimed at making people good (or at least bad and dead) is normative, efficacious and morally fruitful. That's the unhelpful - and in many cases disastrous - lie that human beings have been telling themselves, with sanction from both religious and non-religious ideologies, since ancient Babylonian times.

Wink's own view is that TV and gaming simply institutionalises this myth as entertainment. To an extent that's obviously true. But it's also in danger of becoming a rather two-dimensional argument. Fantasy violence has cathartic properties too, and learning to distinguish between imagination and reality (though the two can never be separated) is a vital part of learning how to think and behave responsibly. Philosopher and intellectual guerilla Jean Baudrillard famously stirred the hyperreal plot by suggesting that, in a sense, the first Gulf War "didn't happen", because most of it was actually played out as a real-time computer game. And wouldn't it be better, he added, if we abandoned actual killing and handled all conflict 'virtually'?

It's a tantalising thought that begs a lot of further questions. Violence and revenge are primal urges built into our evolutionary survival mechanisms. Civilization is about learning to reframe and re-channel (rather than simply deny or suppress) them. That's why conflict transformation rather than "resolution" is what is needed. And why the Christian tradition speaks of 'redemption' (literally re-deeming things) as a relational process of moving from anomie to connectedness. Not banning things. (The Decalogue is a description of the commitments that make a moral community possible, not an arbitrary set of prescriptions to be imposed).

So... reality and fantasy does, indeed, bite. And in ways which are more interesting and challenging than a slightly naff spitting match between C of E Plc and an entertainment giant.

Don't play the game, people. Change it.

Also on Ekklesia: Canterbury Cathedral invited to turn tables on war games (29/05/06); Canterbury Cathedral urged to turn wargame row into peace pledge 26/05/06; Religion not solely to blame for global conflict, says WCC chief (08/07/07).

IT'S A CRAZY, CRAZY OLD PLANET

You think the relationship between (deformed) religion and (degenerate) politics is pretty mad in the US and other parts of our beautiful, tragic world? Just imagine how it must look from an intergalactic perspective... Working for Change recently offered this amusing cartoon take on 'faith' and 'ideology'. The solution, it suggests, is to stop believing this rubbish. Quite right. But the real issue is: what could persuade human beings to stop chasing fantasies, whether in the name of religion or some other totalising claim?

Many early Christians were among the first to be given the honour of being called 'atheists' - because they refused to bow the knee to the Roman pantheon. What they disavowed was not the life-changing taste of unconditional love they had met in the community of Christ (a love so manipulation-free that they realised that it went beyond all human bargaining). Rather, they rejected attempts to reduce the gift/giver/giving of this love - the God beyond 'gods' - to 'religion', the kind of packaged spiritual system which proves itself amenable to bolstering self-serving political ambitions. Modern disbelief, on the other hand, seeks to fight superstition by refusing any notion of transcendent value, believing such a notion to be nothing more than unprovable metaphysical speculation.

This is a rather damaging category error, to put it mildly - but it is one the church kick-started itself. The reasons why and how this is so are set out by Michael J. Buckley in his subtle, compelling and significant book, At the Origins of Modern Atheism (Yale University Press, 1987). It is the ultimate 'baby confused with bathwater' story. For if the Gospel is to be believed (that is, tested and validated through prayer, thought and action - rather than dogmatically asserted), God is neither a metaphysical proposition competing for space with human reason, nor a tribal deity who sponsors our religious fantasies and props up our damaged egos. Rather, God, improbably enough, is best understood as the kind of vulnerable, inviting, non-coercive and costly love that we meet in Jesus; one who shows us in word and deed what it is like to experience life as a gift rather than a possession. [Thanks to Johan Maurer for the cartoon tip-off]

FREED BY THE DARKENED IMAGINATION

"Mainline theology needs to understand [both] how we are part of the problem and how resistance can be formed. The primary issue is not first of all advocacy, in the form of doing things for others in ways that leave the self intact, but self-critique." [Joerg Rieger, God and the Excluded: Visions and Blindspots in Contemporary Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), pp. 190f.]

Karl Marx once said that the premise of all criticism is the criticism of religion. This was, in its own way, a supreme compliment, because although he disavowed its transcendentalism (which he wrongly mistook for nothing more than philosophical and political idealism), Marx recognised the power of "religious" language and sentiment to deal in hopes and possibilities which the grinding wheels of production and consumption otherwise drain out of people. In the end he substituted a myth about history and a messianic class for religious eschatology, living up to his reputation as the last (and least obviously theological!) of the great Hebrew prophets.

Of course it is no more or less meaningful to talk of "religion" in the abstract than it is to talk of "humanity" in the abstract. People are not one-size-fits-all. They only come in gendered, cultured and socialised forms - in different, sometimes contradictory shapes and sizes, that is. So it is also with religion - a fact which those who try to sweep it all away with a cavalier hand and an indiscriminating mind fail (or refuse) to notice.

It is unavoidable, then, that Riegler is talking here, in the first instance, not about "religion" but about Christian and Hebrew theology - where (though you might not know it from the behaviour of many of their adherents) self-critique is, in both traditions, constituitive of any capacity they have for meaningful speech and action. It isn't an add-on, after-thought or optional extra.

For example, there is no Christianity which can properly avoid its own confrontation with the Cross, the place where our human and religious propensities to demand sacrifice, to create systems that kill, and to legitimate injustice are exposed to the searing and unanswerable criticism of the innocent victim - the one who has to be killed becuase his existence exposes the non-necessity of such regimes.

The cross is also the place where the perpetuators of the cycle of violence are undone by a response which is truly radical precisely because (at great cost) it refuses to perpetuate the core problem: "Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing...". By contrast, to strike back is to "curse the power [at night], and live by it by day."

In the midst of its internal warring and its external anxieties about cultures which are less well disposed to it, organised Christianity urgently needs to re-capture that sense of theological self-critique. Criticism of its own failure to live truthfully in the light of unconditional love should become the premise of any criticism it engages in the wider culture. Not out of masochism (as some will claim), but out of reflexivity and faithfulness.

At which point the same question also reaches out to Muslims, to humanists, to those of many faiths, no-faith and anti-faith. Where is the self-criticism intrinsic to your patterns of thought and behaviour which enable them to acknowledge betrayal and victimisation - and not just to see betrayal and victimisation as someone else's fault? This is the truly redemptive question of the darkened imagination.

ETHICS, BOOKS, FILTHY LUCRE ... AND DOVES

Has Ekklesia sold out to a global conglomerate to raise a few more bucks? We certainly hope not. And you can still buy books from Metanoia (our peace, justice and theology online bookstore) and from Eden (a general bookstore where our affiliate deal puts cash back into the work we support). In fact I'd urge you to do so. But for more info on how and why we have started to allow Amazon links on our pages too, see here: Buying books helps to fund the quest for peace with justice.

Your comments really would be welcome. Write to me on this email rather than the one on this blog (which is largely a spam-blocker, though I do check occasonally). Promoting alternatives and surviving with some ethics in the financal jungle isn't easy. But we're trying. We value the help and critical support of those who use and contribute to Ekklesia's work.

Meanwhile, happy reading ;)

Oh, yes: the logo/artwork here ['Cross into Dove'] belongs to our friends at the London Mennonite Centre, who run Metanoia Books. It was originally an exquisite piece of fine art by Priscilla Trenchard, who now lives in the US, I believe, with husband Lynn Failing and at least one child, Charlotte. They're wonderful people who I have sadly lost contact with. And, surprisingly, Google hasn't helped on this one. So if they (or anyone who knows them) reads this, hopefully the link can be re-established. That would be terrific.

Incidentally, I recall that Priscilla wasn't hugely thrilled that the design had been adapted as a logo, though she understood why. And it is undoubtedly the case that the subtlety, scale and detail of her work is somewhat smudged by all-purpose and low-res versions in different sizes. Another "wise as serpents, gentle as doves" challenge in the advertising viz-a-vis truth'n'beauty arena, huh? But I can think of few images which convey the integral character of peacemaking to the Gospel than this one. It has inspired many, both within and without the Christian community. If you use or reference it please don't forget to credit and link LMC.

ENCOUNTERING STUFF AND GOD

Three ways to make sense of one God (Ekklesia). To some the ancient and central doctrine of the Trinity looks to be modern Christianity's intellectual achilles heel in a rationalistic age, but Simon Barrow argues that rightly understood it points to the coherence of God-talk as well as the challenges the Gospel poses.

JESUS' SUBVERSIVE 'FAMILY VALUES'

This Thursday (31 May 2007) there is a unique chance to engage with Professor Deirdre Good about why the church may - ironically - be overlooking Jesus and the Gospel message of inclusive community in its increasingly anxious quest for 'family values'.

The event, sponsored by Ekklesia, and chaired by Fr Kevin Scully, will take place at St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace - a couple of minutes' walk away from Liverpool Street Station, from 11 AM - Midday. Refreshments, and interviews afterwards. Full details here: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/5297.

Dr Good is Professor of New Testament at General Seminary in New York, USA. Her new book Jesus' Family Values is available now. It argues that Jesus replaced his family of origin with differently configured communities and households.

All welcome. Please pass this on to people you know in the London (UK) vicinity, if you see this before the event.

TREADING (BLOG) WATER

Apologies for the lack of updates here (and, indeed, on Ekklesia). Both my hard disc and I have been unwell of late - and we have had various contingencies 'in the office', too. Things should be getting back to normal from tomorrow...

TALKING SENSE ABOUT MOVING PEOPLE

In the UK tabloid media, migration is "an issue". Actually, it's about people - and often their great pain. This much is made clear by Christian Aid's splendid new report, which (inter alia) blows the lid on the paranoid fantasies of The Mail and The Express - who are always talking in lurid and threatening terms about 'economic migrants' (people disenfanchised by the institutional inequity of the global financial system), asylum seekers and refugees.

What Human Tide makes clear is that there is a migration crisis. But it is at its greatest in the South, not the North; and equally its causes lies in the kind of policies we try to protect with barriers, not in the vulnerable people we scapegoat for their plight or the consequences of their exploitation. Of course there is the sickness and corruption of the people-trafficking trade, too. But again, many media portrayals segue the victims into the perpetrators. They fail to point out that movement takes people 'out' as well as 'in' (part of the issue behind a sane migration policy for Europe is how to help people move as a result of choice not compulsion). They don't recognise that development and security are the things that help people take root rather than being displaced. And they ignore the fact that in a word of dissolving borders and transparency to instant capital movements, trying to cage people just doesn't work - apart from being based on immoral premises.

None of this makes solutions to the global crisis that Christian Aid describes easy, of course. But it does suggest that the parameters of a sane and humane conversation about migration will look radically different to the one we have now, where electorates are scared by papers hunting fear-fuelled profit, and politicians bow to the climate of prejudice - in spite of their denials - with a weather eye to their electoral fortunes.

There are all kinds of reasons why Christians should care about this: about people, as well as policies. Among them is the simple fact that Christianity itself is constituted by journeying - in mission, in pilgrimage, in hospitality, in aid, and in flight from mistreatment and oppression. It is our history and our desiny we are talking about - and a growing understanding that the 'we' is a human family, not a self-preoccupied tribe. The Gospel, rightly understood, is always about enlarging the circle of our love, and developing our habitual capacity to respond to a barrier-breaking welcome which goes beyond the limits of human specification and subjectivity. God's, in other words.

Meanwhile, you can download Christian Aid's report, Human Tide: The Real Migration crisis here: full graphic version) (2mb *.PDF- this file may take time to download) or low graphic version (748kb *.PDF).

INVESTING IN THE FUTURE

People are more and more wary of 'religious charities' these days, fearing that good-will can easily become a cover for proselytism or self-interest. No doubt collectors for Christian Aid Week 2007 will face this kind of suspicion in some quarters - but Christian Aid is one church-backed organisation that unequivocally works with those of all creeds and none, builds alliances for social justice, and supports some of the world's most effective NGOs in combatting poverty and inequality on the ground in five continents. It is also a leading campaigning organisation on debt, aid, trade, corporate accountability and global warming. I've seen its work first-hand and have no hesitation in commending it. This week Ekklesia will be specially highlighting the work of CA. You can donate online via this link. This year's Christian Aid education materials feature inspiring stories of how poor communities in El Salvador, Senegal and Afghanistan are growing a future in spite of seemingly impossible odds. With a bit more help they can make an even bigger impact.

MISSION IMPROBABLE

Last week the Archbishop of Canterbury made an important statement in Malaysia about the purpose of Christianity. “Our mission”, he declared, “is not to conquer the world, to subdue others… our mission is to draw people to the company of Jesus; new words to speak, new thoughts to think and new love rising in their hearts.”

If the church really did take that as its starting point, and if it fully recognised that Jesus was crucified by precisely the kind of religio-political system it has historically been tempted to impose, a huge amount could change in its life, and in the life of the world.

It isn't too much to ask. But it is still an awful lot.

KEEPING FAITH WITH THE SCHOOLS DEBATE

Earlier this month, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) decided to have a meeting on faith schools at its annual conference - following up on their constructively critical position paper (pictured below). I spoke at it, on behalf of Ekklesia. So did Andrew Copson from the British Humanist Association. The organiser tried hard to get speakers (especially an Anglican and a Catholic) who would put the view for advocates of religiously-affiliated schools.

When the Church Times reported this on 30 March 2007, they said there was "an 11th-hour invitation had been sent to the C of E and the RC Church to attend the ATL debate". That's funny, because I know from my own correspondence that the organiser was making approaches two weeks beforehand - and that the union got some, shall we say, "sniffy" responses in some quarters.

It has also been suggested to me that "the timing was wrong for the churches, because of the run-in to Holy Week". This is an interesting argument. First, having worked both for the C of E and ecumenical bodies, I know that, although it can be a busy period, people are available. If clergy can't be, there are many lay people with plenty of professional experience in the area.

Second, the complaint once again illustrates "the Christendom mindset". When the church and its message was fully ingrained in the culture and its institutions, it could be taken for granted that other people would know and fit in with the Church Calendar. But that is no longer the case. Indeed a couple of people who I chatted to after the ATL meeting had little or no idea what Holy Week was.

If Christians wish to engage with others, they can no longer assume that it will always be on terms which are convenient to them. The onus is on them to go out of the way (in a manner that Jesus described the priestly class as struggling to do in the parable of the Good Samaritan). And insofar as this represents a shift away from ecclesiastical presumption, it is a healthy spiritual state of affairs for the church, I'd say.

The ATL argues that publicly-funded educational institutions should be accountable and open to all, which is not the case when faith schools are almost wholly financed by the taxpayer but can turn down pupils and teachers because they have the wrong beliefs . On Ekklesia we go further. We think that privileging the interests of church-going parents and children over others goes against the Gospel message of favour-free love, and we think that a "Christian school" would be one that favoured those excluded or at the margins of society, not people who have the time, money or possibility of jumping church admission hoops.

The Church of England and the Roman Catholic hierarchies see things very differently. So there is a debate to be had, and it shouldn't just be conducted in the corridors of power or at the Athenaeum Club (where Jonathan Bartley and I were invited for one conversation some months ago). The defensive shields need to come down and the talking needs to get more positive on the part of those who run religiously-affiliated schools.

That's why I welcome the ATL's position. Not just because I agree with their concerns, but because they are trying to address them constructively. They also have a lot of Christians on their side, even if they are not official church spokespeople.

See also: Teaching union defends its calling of faith schools to account and Time to end discrimination by faith schools, says teaching union. ATL's position statement on faith schools can be accessed here.

A SOCIETY OF STUFF AND STRANGERS

As New Labour contemplates a degree of electoral meltdown on Thursday 3 May, the word from the camp is that its new idea is "progressive self-interest" - trying to make social justice more amenable by showing how everyone can benefit from a fairer society and will lose from a more divided one. That was, of course, the logic of the Brandt Report on world development in the 1980s - but the gravitational pull of market liberalisation, individualisation, game theory, organisational change and consumerism has been in the opposite direction, and democratic politics struggles to move to a different drum. The role of civil society initiatives and movements is vital in keeping alternative visions alive, and those who have lived within the constraints of Westminster politics know this too.

Turning to the bigger picture Clare Short (formerly Labour development secretary, now independent, MP) declared today: “You can’t take the evil of slavery out of the world and abolish it without making the world more just. You will never prevent people living in bonded labour or from getting caught up in sex trafficking while they are so desperate that they have no other choice but to sell themselves. As long as we in the West crave ever more excess, we conspire in their desperation, exploiting it and make ourselves sick in the process. We are well off, yet our society has never been more miserable. We suffer today from the disease of excess, from obesity, drug and alcohol abuse and resulting family breakdown. We must change the way we live, change the way the world is governed and create a new world order, both for ourselves and globally.”

She will, of course, be accused of miserablism for her initial judgment and damned for idealism with her last flourish. But the essence of Short's complaint (which is not invalidated by criticism of her own past performance, either) is based on stark realism, albeit of the kind we are ill-inclined to recognise. I'd put it this way. A society over-mesmerised by acquiring things has become more and more a collection of strangers who clash legally, struggle politically, by-pass socially, divide economically, narrowcast culturally, turn inwards spiritually and plunder environmentally.

You don't have to be a sandal-wearing Cassandra or a denier of the numerous benefits of modernity to see this downside, and to recognise that the most basic question we have to handle is what constitutes our common humanity over and above the technologies that mediate it. Given the magnitude of the forces that maintain us in our current materially-bound dilemma, steps in a different direction are going to seem small. But they are vital. And they will only be sustained by faith - not dogmatism or refusal of evidence, but reasoned trust in a greater future rooted in something that cannot simply be reduced to a function of what now-is and now-rules. This is what "undergoing God" (as James Alison delightfully puts it) is all about, and those who do not see that as a possibility have a responsibility for elucidating the grounds of hope, as much as those who do have a responsibility for elucidating the grounds of belief.

THINKING FOR THE DAY...

One of the trials of writing commentary for a wide audience is that you are always having to ask yourself, "how could this be misunderstood?" Then you try to be clearer. Then you have to face up to the fact that you still get it wrong. The onus of communication is on the communicator, but it's a two-way street... more than that, it's a multi-channel zone with loads of interference. Getting heard is a human privilege. Getting through is a grace.


All of which is a prelude to saying that, after some useful feedback, I changed the title of my latest Ekklesia column from Why we need to rid ourselves of 'God slots' to this one: Why we need to rid ourselves of the 'god of the slots'. The reason is this: given that there is a question in the air about 'Thought for the Day' on BBC Radio 4 (some of us want it open to people of different life stances, the churches and its producers only to "the religious"), it could have been construed as somehow anti-TFTD. This is far from the truth. Ekklesia - which has a stake in the programme, since Jonathan Bartley is a contributor - wants to see it as a slot for a wide range of takes on life, not a narrow "God slot" (as people like to call it). This article is, in a sense, a contribution to that debate, but its main concern is to show wht "the god of the slots" in culture is the equivalent of "the god of the gaps" in science -- a related, but distinct, issue.

As I've also added: "TFTD is an important space for looking at how beliefs-in-practice view the task of living, but it does not have to exclude those who do not fit a questionable definition of "religious". See some more detailed comments on: Losing our (radio) religion?

NOT EXPECTING SOCIETY TO DO GOD FOR US

Why we need to rid ourselves of 'the god of the slots' The church looking for ‘God slots’ in relation to culture is like religion seeking a ‘God of the gaps’ in relation to science: a huge mistake. The Gospel points us elsewhere.

In a post-Christendom era, Christians cannot expect the education system, government or the media to do their job for them or make other people Christians. If they do that they will be constantly disillusioned, they will be despised, and they will lose the capacity for independent thought and subversive action.

There are two sides to this: exercising freedom, and recognising limits. Rowan Williams put it well in his BBC Newsnight interview on Tuesday 24 April 2007. First, in response to the question about whether Bush and Blair had prayed over the Iraq war, he turned the issue on its head. Politicians are not there to pray. But if, by chance, these powerful individuals had prayed, maybe they would have opened themselves to a decision that went against their instincts and interests – maybe the Prince of Peace, whom they both name, would have convinced them not to put their trust in armies. Who knows?

Then Dr Williams said this: “I don't expect government to be talking religion. I do expect government to be giving space and opportunity for the kind of moral discussion informed by religion, as by many other strands of humanistic thought.”

That is both pluralistically defensible and theologically appropriate. Taking “religion” to mean, in this case, the life and testimony of a group of people (rather than the institutional abstraction I have criticized), the Archbishop seemed to be suggesting that both those of faith and those whose commitment to human flourishing is otherwise defined should be part of a conversation sustained by public space, but without expecting government to talk their language or do their work. (He then spoiled it all by defending bishops in the House of Lords, but no-one is perfect).

All of which makes me wonder… if Christians were to stop bleating on about protecting their preferential “slots”, and were instead to focus on what they had to offer in terms of peacemaking, hospitality, community-building, forgiveness, and many other gifts of the Gospel, people might just be interested in broadcasting them – not because of a “religious label”, but because they had something worthwhile (and a bit quirky) to say. More here.

BLOG ON EKKLESIA

I am splitting my endeavours between FinS and my Ekklesia weblog, which is here: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/blog/3