Methinks he doth not protest too much

As a sometimes protester who thinks that it is important we do have the right to protest, I'm concerned at some of the things I've been hearing about the policing of peaceful protest and the collusion of big business with police authorities in what appears to be a political agenda favourable to corporate interests and against those of ordinary people. Too worried? Well, when they came for the Anarchists ... you know how that story goes. See Mark Thomas' opinion piece here: Doth I protest too much? | Mark Thomas | Comment is free | The Guardian Salient points: "Many of those targeted by the police have committed no crime and are guilty only of non-violent direct action. So it is worth reminding ourselves that protest is legal. The very phrase "domestic extremist" defines protesters in the eyes of the police as the problem, the enemy. Spying on entire groups and organisations, and targeting the innocent, undermines not only our rights but the law ... Protest is part of the democratic process. It wasn't the goodwill of politicians that led them to cancel developing countries' debt, but the protests and campaigning of millions of ordinary people around the world. The political leaders were merely the rubber stamp in the democratic process. ... No police, secret or otherwise, should operate without proper accountability. .."
I think that's all reasonable, but we should recall that the price of freedom is constant vigilance and that this vigilance needs to be exercised towards those who are holding power and exercising police powers on our behalf. At the moment, in a post Twin towers collapse world, we need to be more than averagely vigilant.

The future Superpower rivals: China and India

I'm not sure, now I come to think of it, what defines 'superpower', but by most historical standards I suspect China ought to be so classified and India seems not far behind. Have a look at this opinion piece (admittedly written by an Indian, by the looks of it): Superpower rivalry, Sino-Indian style | Kapil Komireddi | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk The final paragraph says: "The Sino-Indian conflict will define the 21st century in a more complicated manner than the Soviet-American conflict characterised the second half of the 20th. So far, this clash has received very little attention in the west. In the not-too-distant future, people everywhere are going to have to pick sides. The troubled peace of today is necessarily a prelude to the impending war."
I suspect that there is a great deal of truth in this and we should begin thinking about it sooner rather than later. Not least, what kind of effect does this have on global Christianity and vice-versa? Both countries have not insignificant Christian minorities which are somewhat on the edge in terms of persecution, that is to say, Christians are tolerated officially but often suffer local persecution (think Orissa) or pressure for 'unregistered' activity. Such attitudes are likely to be imitated by 'client' states and perhaps actively promoted by the emerging superpowers. Of special interest might be Chinese interests in Africa which are already having 'destabilising' effects in Sudan and other central African states because China is far less likely than the west to link aid to human rights issues.

Nick Griffin attacked by BNP

Well, I thought that letting the BNP have the oxygen of publicity might be a chance for them to show what they're really made of and for their positions to be exposed to proper questioning. What I didn't expect was that the collateral damage might be the opening up of fissures within the BNP itself; see: Nick Griffin attacked by his own BNP supporters over Question Time | Politics | The Observer: "Griffin has claimed that he has dragged the party into the political mainstream. But the resulting backlash from those on his own side suggests many are uncomfortable with the BNP's attempts to cloak itself in more moderate terms."

The Pope's little bombshell

Well whatever the Pope's intentions, this certainly looked like crowing:
"In Rome, Vittorio Messori, who has co-written books with the Pope, said that the Anglican Communion was already losing followers because of female and gay priests." See: 400,000 former Anglicans worldwide seek immediate unity with Rome -Times Online: Of course, what no-one (well, hardly anyone) reports is the steady traffic the other way (me, and several people I've met at my college over the past few years). Perhaps 'we' should offer a special deal for the RC women ordained priests, their bishops and supporters (I blogged about it here)?

Any suggestions for what kind of deal to offer? ;)

Oh, and before you mention it: I don't blame the Pope; it's the logic of the position of papal supremacy that drives it.

Windows 7 set to break retail records -outrageous!

Why outrageous? Well, in the midst of this article: Windows 7 set to break retail records | Technology | guardian.co.uk is the clue: "Vista came in for heavy criticism when it was plagued with problems soon after its launch, but signs are encouraging for Windows 7 so far.
Reviews have been largely positive, and high street retailers say they anticipate strong sales of the software."
Basically the Windows product is not good software and the outrageous thing is that customers have to pay even more money to Microsoft to get a better version: MICROSOFT SHOULD BE GIVING THIS TO VISTA CUSTOMERS !
My operating system (Ubuntu) automatically offers upgrades every six months along with odds and ends of little fixes as and when. That's the way it should be.
Break the Microsoft quasi-monopoly: it's bad software and it's bad for document interchangeability.

BBC, BNP, QT, OK

Worth a read: BBC is right to allow BNP on Question Time, says Mark Thompson | Politics | The Guardian And my 'hear, hear' goes to:

Ben Bradshaw, the culture secretary, said: 'I have always thought we have to take the BNP on. I have always thought they condemn themselves as soon as they open their mouths. In a democracy where they have elected representatives not just at European level but at local level it is very difficult for a broadcaster to exclude them … We should not give these people the opportunity to claim they are being gagged.'

Out of body experiences -brain and selfhood

One of the stranger things to get reported and then subjected to religious and spiritual speculation is the OBE. He's some research that anyone with interest in new spiritualities and brain/spirituality stuff should check out (and certainly those of us involved in interface with new spiritualities are likely to have come across it): Out of your head: Leaving the body behind - life - 13 October 2009 - New Scientist And here's your whetting the appetite titbit: "Other brain regions have been implicated too, including ones close to the TPJ. The emerging consensus is that when these regions are working well, we feel at one with our body. But disrupt them, and our sense of embodiment can float away. This does not, however, explain the most striking feature of out-of-body experiences. 'It's a great puzzle why people, from their out-of-body locations, visualise not only their bodies but things around them, such as other people,' says Brugger. 'Where does this information come from?'"
Be aware as you read the article that the question doesn't get answered with experimental data: only speculations, some of which seem reasonably well-founded but the question isn't really answered. There are some who have a vested interest in mind or soul-body dualism who are very keen to interpret such data as we appear to have in such a way as to support the idea of a 'detachable' something which goes beyond the body. I'm skeptical -partly because it raises further questions about the means of sensing and the means of information storage and retrieval without a brain in direct contact; so an affirmative on this idea just opens up a whole can of worms. Not that such a consideration should foreclose the issue; just that it seems it complicates things. I'm also skeptical because a Christian view of personal wholism doesn't need to defend or even propose a soul-body dualism. The idea of the resurrection of the body would seem to indicate that if it were possible that soul or mind could exist independently of material support, then it is not a state to be desired or set too great a store by ...
I could say more but I'll leave it there -for now at any rate.

BNP accept non-white members

Well, actually, it looks like they're not going to contest the order to change the racist clause in their consitution concerning membership eligibility. Article: BNP's Nick Griffin bows to pressure to accept non-white members | Politics | The Guardian. However, this is probably right: "Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said the changes would do nothing to alter the BNP's political views.
'A shiny new constitution does not a democratic party make,' she said. 'It would be a pyrrhic victory, to say the least, if anyone thought that giving the BNP a facelift would make the slightest difference to a body with so much racism and hatred pumping through its veins.'"
I'd have thought that in practice it wouldn't change likely recruitment: I really don't see south Asians or Afro-Carribeans queuinng up to join. But then ... how would it be if about 2 million Asian Muslims joined ... and changed the party's consitution and aims and policies? He he he. Presumably Nick Griffin and his merry men would have to go elsewhere. In a way it shows that such a party can't probably legally continue to exist, not if people were really free to join it and did so: by conforming to the law racists contradict their own principles. That said, I'm not sure whether I prefer that they are forced underground or at least not-legally constituted or kept where we can see them ...

Post-Darwinism: The New Synthesis

Some readers may find this review article intriguing: Post-Darwinism: The New Synthesis :: William Grassie :: Global Spiral. This paragraph lays out briefly why I think it's important to those of us interested in the relationship between science and theology and taking interest especially in the recent selfish-gene wars: "It would be nice to have a simple theory of evolution, as Darwin has provided in his elegant algorithm, but the catechism of random drift, universal struggle, survival, reproduction, and differential selection just doesn’t hack it anymore.9 It is time to embrace complexity, symbiosis, multi-level selection, contextuality, and as we will see, even some aspects of Lamarckianism.10 Along the way we can banish the geneticist dogma of “selfish genes,” because genes do absolutely nothing by themselves. Indeed, it is equally valid and descriptively accurate to talk about “sharing genes."
The book it reviews sounds like it should be important to have a look at -especially the coda of the book (some of it, naturally, is quite technical).
The Book? Scott Gilbert and David Epel’s, Ecological Developmental Biology (2009)

Resident Theology: On the Curious Claim That People "Like Jesus" (But Not the Church)

Quite: "If one actually reads the Gospels, instead of assuming nice pretty pictures of a blue-eyed baby Jesus giggling his guts out in celestial bliss, it is clear that the man from Nazareth -- who lived an identifiable human life in the early decades of the first century in occupied Palestine -- is certifiably not in any discernible accord with what American culture 'likes.' In fact, he seems to stand squarely opposed to much of it."
Resident Theology: On the Curious Claim That People "Like Jesus" (But Not the Church)

Email disclaimers deserve this

With thanks to Ben Myers, Faith and Theology: Pet hate #162: quasi-legal email disclaimers. I've been told we legally have to put a disclaimer at the bottom of college emails. I hate doing so: mostly they are longer than the message and I consider that they state the bleedingly obvious -surely it's obvious that a message has intended recipients and that passing it on without permission is a potentially a breach of 'contract' and that it would be polite to point out if something has gone wrong with that and that we aren't going to maliciously pass on malware which is likely to corrupt our own systems. No doubt someone is going to tell me that it pays to be explicit. Anyhow, Ben Myer's version of these is a very tempting substitute:
"The message that you have just read might possibly be legally privileged and/or confidential and is intended only for the use of those to whom it is intended. We hope and insist that no recipient will ever forward, print, copy, scan, read aloud, film, choreograph, broadcast via radio or other media, podcast, vodcast, tweet, blog, translate into foreign languages, transcribe in crayon, versify in iambic pentameter, or otherwise reproduce this message in any manner that would allow any of the message to be viewed by any individual not originally intended as an intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, STOP IN THE NAME OF THE LAW. We beseech you in the name of the law: please don't ever copy, forward, disclose, speak of, print, report, joke about, or otherwise use this message or any part of it in any way whatsoever, never ever. If you received this e-mail by mistake, please read this disclaimer IMMEDIATELY, then advise the sender immediately, then delete this message, then empty the trash on your computer, then YOU MUST also use an appropriate software program to permanently erase all traces of the file from your computer's hard drive (and from any other hard drive or portable storage device where the information may be stored). Afterwards, it is strictly prohibited ever to mention, discuss, think of, or remember any of the contents of this message. If you do so, YOU MAY BE LIABLE for litigation or prosecution or indefinite detainment. If you were the intended recipient of this e-mail, you have entered into a BINDING CONTRACT with the sender, allowing you to be imprisoned, interrogated, tortured, exiled, lobotomised, forced to read Dan Brown, deprived of all human rights, and other possible measures that may be introduced from time to time. Thank you."

One of my colleagues has come up with a short version (which may not pass muster as a legal disclaimer) and which manages also to be an advert for Macs (clue: it's to do with which kind of system most virii are written for and I should point out that it is an observation that works for linux too).

Please don't roll back the state like this

I think Will Hutton is right in this respect: "the Tories have a problem. The public now knows that markets fail. Without the injections of capital, liquidity and guarantees for both sides of the banks' balance sheets worth some £1.3 trillion, Britain would now be in the middle of a depression more shocking than the 1930s. To argue that government is the problem just a year after an event like that is intellectually bewildering."
Quite so. A level economics, folks. However, let's also be aware that while the Tories consitute the deep blue sea, a Labour government still theoretically committed to the ID card state and stoutly refusing to honour its manifesto commitments to electoral reform and trying to forget the recommendations of its own commission on electoral reform is perhaps the devil of the proverbial phrase. I'm not happy about either likely outcome of the general election next year. We need not to move into a laissez-faire economy but also we need to pull out of soft-orwellian state surveillance and into a system of government that encourages citizen engagement.
See the whole article: Sorry, David, if you roll back the state, you invite disaster | Will Hutton | Comment is free | The Observer:

Evangelism between Muslims and Christians

Bishop Alan of Bucks gives us a useful introduction to the concord on evangelism which seems to have a common ancestry with the recent concordat between Christian and Muslim leaders in Bradford. It seems to me the Bradford concord (scroll down about half the page to get past the newsy personality stuff to the text of the agreement) has one thing going for it, namely the explicitising of an application of the golden rule in the form of not speaking about the other in a way that they would not recognise as fair.

Anyway, the Bishop helpfully sets out some of the reasoning behind the Leicester statement. You can see it here: Bishop Alan’s Blog: Evangelism between Muslims and Christians I think that the difficulty for evangelicals and their Muslim equivalents (I assume) would be point two: "Acceptance that it is God’s providence that both faith communities exist — a theology of “people of the book” or providence, in which believers feel secure enough about their faith to leave it to God to sort things out in the end."
Now, Bp Alan briefly and helpfully evaluates this:
"Positively, this does engage with reality and express tolerance in a way which is attractive to English people. It’s probably where most English people of all faiths and none actually are.
Negatively, it seems to require pure relativism, and requires work to engage with one’s own religion more seriously in its own terms rather than just as cultural identity."
I would add that it requires of those who have some element of exclusivism in their understanding of their religion /faith /spirituality (and that's not the same of being 'Exclusivist' necessarily -I speak from my own perspective in this respect) to pull back from that more than may be warranted. I think that my own nuanced (I hope) position which draws on Barthian insights still would find it difficult to feel easy with the kind of positive regard for other faith systems. Heck, I have problems with the my own religious institutions without having to be nice about other peoples'! What's more, my reading of the gospels seems to encourage us to be leery about religion when it becomes institutional. It should always be under judgement; so I don't want to enshrine religious acceptance in terms that speaks too positively of religious institutions and traditions. That's not the same as recognising, however, that God may not work through them and even make use of them in varying ways and to varying degrees. So while there may be a providential role, we have to recognise that may not constitute a ringing divine endorsement of religion/s. I would like to see this more cautious and 'judgmental' approach to religion more fully expressed in thinking about interfaith relations. I think that the Bradford distinctive mentioned above actually helps here.

For me, this means that the issues of conversion from one religion to another are not simple. Religion may be more cultural than relative-to-God. But that's not to say there is no connection either. There are cultural systems-called-religions which may witness more fully, consistently or effectively to important things but the wider cultural milieux in which they exist may mean that there is no once-for-all-ness about that.

In short, the Leicester background as Bp Alan presents it, seems to ask of me (and perhaps you) to agree that God wills Islam to exist. I'd rather be able to say that God permits it and may use it, but that its existence may testify as much to the failures of Christian discipleship and statesmanship in the seventh and eighth centuries as something that God calls into existence positively. I recognise that many Muslims may wish to hold an analogous position (and do -I've read and heard them). Part of the trick we have to pull off is to recognise this degree of mutually incompatible and, indeed, mutually 'offensive' claims. I think some Muslims at least would want to say something similar of Christianity albeit refracted through a supercessionist narrative.

You can bank on it

Nck Baines made some astute observations in the run-up to the Tory conference last week. It's here: You can bank on it � Nick Baines’s Blog. And this is something that I want to amen heartily: "his nettle still appears not to have been grasped. We are afraid to impose limits – even when ‘we’ own the banks by virtue of having bailed them out of the mire of their own making. And when we hear about the ‘poor’ or the ‘disabled’, we are not talking about ’shirkers’, ‘blaggers’ and ’spongers’. But, even if we were, couldn’t we describe the failure of the banks and their subsequent cap-in-hand rescue by the taxpayers as ’sponging’ (claiming money that isn’t theirs), ’shirking’ (responsibilities to those they damaged) and ‘blagging’ (claiming special rights and threatening government against squeezing with arguments about ‘incentives’ that only apply to them and not those at the bottom of society who don’t have the voice or the power to claim the same)?"
We are naming, I think, the ideological mote in the eye of global capitalism. It comes down to one rule for the rich, another for the poor. It expresses itself in unseen hypocrisies and double standards such as those noted by Nick above. The rhetoric of 'free trade' is used but the reality is of using quasi-monopolistic or creating such powers to disadvantage the poorest. So much for the much vaunted benefits of perfect competition which are used as the bit of economic theory to justify markets but then are discarded because the practice tends towards monopoly and oligapoly which doesn't work for the benefit of the consumer. In banking this is part of the problem: too big to be allowed to fail is not about competition but oligarchy. This is the corruption at the heart of our systems and it's part of the wider issue implicated in unfair trade, global poverty and even somewhat with climate change.

Pentecostal vestments?

It was the Church Times' photo that caught my attention; it looked like Benny Hinn is wearing a very short cassock alb. Doncha think? The anti-vestment people are reinventing them ... just not based on late Roman gentlemanly fashion, but rather late 20th century western mores.

Church Times - Evangelist is turned back at airports

Obama for Peace: Turn Hope into Action

"Obama deserves praise for his compelling vision -- but without more real change, our hopes will be lost. Only by following through with courageous, transformative action for peace can Obama fulfil his promise -- and history judge that this prize is deserved.
Let's define this moment as a challenge to be bold -- let’s send Obama a million messages of encouragement and urgency, pressing him to turn hope into real and lasting change! Sign the petition below, then spread the word so we can deliver a mass of signatures directly to the White House:"
Obama for Peace: Turn Hope into Action:

Demographics of Atheism and Theism

Apparently the blog that this refers back to has been generating a good bit of comment. Here's why (Oh, it's at this page Religion and learning: what we know | Nick Spencer | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk):

"In short, the data seem to be showing two things. First, atheism has historically been a minority movement of better educated and higher-social grade individuals whereas theism has more affinity with the lower and lower-middle class and the less well educated. Second, this is changing, with new theists coming from a higher social grade and being better educated than new atheists."

And it's data in search of a good explanatory theory or narrative, so now's your chance; I'm still puzzling, but I'm interested in any theories or stories to explain it.

St John's Advent Book for 2009

We've just published the college's Advent book (though it goes on past Christmas too). I've written a 'chapter' ... St John's Nottingham theological college ...// Books by faculty members: "These reflections, written by staff and students of St John's, Nottingham, are offered to enable you to reflect on how to live distinctively in the light of what God has done and how he will bring that to completion on Jesus' return. St John's Nottingham has for over 140 years been at the forefront of developing creative new ways of training. The money raised from the sale of this book will go towards supporting current students and funding new initiatives in training. To read a couple of extracts, click here."
It's a snip at £4.99 -that's five pounds in round and includes post and packing; can't be bad.

We live in a stuff-a-lanche.

This is a piece to read in the run-up to Advent; oh yes; most definitely: Charlie Brooker | There's too much stuff. We live in a stuff-a-lanche. It's time for a cultural diet | Comment is free | The Guardian Perhaps the flavour of the article can be well-seen in this excerpt:

"My options need limiting. Last week I watched the first part of Electric Dreams, the 1900 House-style TV show where a family lives with old technology for several weeks. For episode one, they were stranded in the 1970s, with no internet, no DVDs or videos, and only three channels on the TV.... to me the limited options looked blissful. You couldn't lose yourself online, so if you didn't want to watch Summertime Special or World in Action, you had to read a book, go for a walk, or in extreme circumstances, strike up a conversation with a fellow human being."

He goes on to plead for someone to take choices away from him because, as he's said earlier in the artcile: he has passed a tipping point where he would be capable of 'consuming' what he's already bought: the hours written on the backs of the DVDs already add up to more time than he believes he has available -and that's before he reads the books that have mounted up (I can grok that latter point). Of course, no-one's going to do that for him or for us. We have to do that ourselves. But I'm just starting to wonder whether that is perhaps a task for Advent: as we approach the feast of Consumermas; to take stock,pass on (charity shop boom time, anyone?) and focus on the important 'stuff' in our lives ... just a thought ...