Two states; dead in the water?

I suspect this will turn out to be the harbinger of a new politics regarding the middle east:
I've changed my mind about a two-state solution | Mehdi Hasan | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk: "The two-state solution, the popular and principled option for so long now, is neither practical nor possible. In the words of Israeli academic Jeff Halper, 'Israel by its own hand has rendered a viable two-state solution impossible.' Its time has passed. So the moment has come, as we enter the teenies, to forget the idea of a Palestinian state existing side by side with a Jewish state, and to argue and agitate instead for the only remaining, viable and democratic option: a single, secular and binational state for Israelis and Palestinians. No longer 'two states for two peoples', but 'one person, one vote'."

Priest pelted with pasta after shoplifting remarks

He was onto a loser with this. This is one of those cases where no matter how nuanced and careful you are in what you say, the story that people are going to hear via the popular media will have filtered out the nuance and turned it into a grotesque parody of what was actually said and meant. This article illustrates how it happens. Priest pelted with pasta after shoplifting remarks | World news | The Guardian: Contrast how it starts with the final remarks reported: "Jones said society had failed many needy people and it was far better that they shoplift than turn to more degrading or violent options such as prostitution, mugging or burglary."
If the guy that attacked Mr Jones had understood what was actually said and meant he'd not have made the reported remark about criminal records, for the options Jones was conjuring with also carry criminal records and bigger sentences to boot.

For the record I think that Jones is right if I read correctly that he is saying that the bigger sin is the social one: that we might only leave people these options... (it would be better for a millstone to be tied around their necks ....) In a society with our collective wealth it is a sad thing indeed if we cannot organise things so that otherwise okay people can't be offered options to help them resist criminality. The real question may turn out to be how often is this the case? It comes under the 'causes of crime' bit of new Labour's mantra -which they seem not really to have done much with ...

Lord's Prayer Rosary

I've been doing a bit of work to produce small prayer book offering a way to pray the Lord's prayer using a rosary -or is that a way to pray the rosary using the Lord's prayer? - either way an initial stage has been to consolidate and edit a series of posts on a former blog which offered reflections from my own experience of using a series of short Scriptures to 'prime' each of the five sections of the prayer. So if you'd like to have a go or at least have a look, then go here Lord's Prayer Rosary | zinepal.com: you can download an e-zine formated document of the posts which should contain full-enough instructions and readings with reflections for five 'rounds' of prayer.

I'd love to hear any constructive comments either here or at the Zinepal page. I'd suggest you have a go for a week or two for the best effect of the way of praying but if I've missed anything typo-wise or similar, do let me know sooner.

"There are different forms of rosary. This guide and set of reflections uses the 'normal' Dominican rosary consisting of fifty beads on the main loop separated by further single beads. ..."

Shane Claiborne and New Monasticism

"Shane Claiborne discusses with Ian Mobsby, his insights around new monasticism as a particular model of ecclesial community, and how this important ancient future approach resonates with today." If you're coming at this in Facebook, you'll need to 'view original post' to get to the link, I think.
Shane Claiborne talks to Ian Mobsby about New Monasticism and new ways of being church - New Monasticism Network:

New Monasticism Consultation talks

In the Autumn I attended a consultation in London on New Monasticism. The sound filse are now available.

Session 1 New Monasticism Network

Questions from session 1 New Monasticism Network
You may hear my voice in the questions.


Session 2 New Monasticism Network


Session 3 New Monasticism Network


Session 4.1 New Monasticism Network


Session 4.2 New Monasticism Network


Final session New Monasticism Network


More at New Monasticism Network - A network of ecclesial communities arising out of contextual mission

Creativity Style?

Reger Van Oech shares half a dozen of his own discoveries about his own creativity tendencies. I recognised a couple (and realised a couple almost certainly didn't apply) The whole articlette is here: Creative Think: What's Your Creativity Style?. And here's a couple of the ones I recognised:

2. If I'm mentally blocked in trying to solve a problem, it's usually because I'm in love with a particular idea — so much so that it prevents me from looking for alternatives. Only when I force myself to become detached from it and 'kiss it goodbye' do I find new answers. Letting go of a previously cherished idea can be one of life's great pleasures.

And part of number one:

I get my ideas ... when I'm away from the problem altogether. I rarely get them when I'm doing routine tasks that require some attention.

In fact, I recognise that I tend to do my best thinking (and praying) when I'm out walking (having a dog is quite a boon from that perspective). I suspect it's something about rhythm, nature, freewheeling thought and random things-noticed. I've omitted the bit about being under time pressures. I'm afraid that tends to make me revert to 'reptilian brain' and I can't get past whatever idea has lodged there already.
I'm pondering what creativity styles there might be and how we'd recgonise them ... thoughts anyone?

Happy Christmas to all

This is an electronic 'sketch' of an eikonic image I'm working on currently. I hope to develop it a bit further over the next few months into a devotional image. I offer this interim image to you in wishing you a happy Nativity.

ChangingThe-Subject

A very interesting exploration of what could be genuinely 'third way' social policy bases resting on emerging insights about human brains and neurology. The .pdf is here. Nov28th2009ChangingThe-SubjectPamphlet.pdf (application/pdf Object)
I'd like to draw attention to part three which begins with a summary of what has emerged in the last few years from neuroscience:

The plastic brain: we learn and think through our brains strengthening and proliferating connections between neurons. These are not fixed and can be rewired even in adult life. Moreover, deprived environments seem to damage the ability of the brain to strengthen new connections.
The social brain: the ‘self’ as an isolated and disembodied decisionmaker in total control of behaviour would seem to be a fiction. A large portion of our behaviour seems to result from automatic reactions to the social situations we are in, as well as a
concern to abide by social norms.
The automatic brain: much less of our
behaviour than we might think results from controlled decision-making; rather it is through our ‘automatic’ brains that we make many decisions.
The habitual brain: we quickly become habituated to new behaviour. But also much of our behaviour results from intuitive judgements that are products of habits of mind’, formed by our automatic brains.
The pro-social brain: far from being solely self-interested, humans seem to be inherently disposed to value co-operation and altruism, and to care about harm done to others and issues of fairness. The myopic brain: we are consistently bad at long-term planning and decision-making and tend to focus on experiences that are closest to us temporally, spatially and emotionally (this is why we have developed social institutions that protect us from these shortcomings).
The happy brain: although personalities and cultures are highly variable, reliable sources of happiness are quite fixed (doing things for other people, a sense of autonomy, ‘flow’ activities,38 activities with intrinsic rather than relative value).

I respectfully suggest that we need to do our theology in the light of these emerging facts. I suspect that it means that hamartology and so soteriology starts to be nuanced differently to some inherited accounts. I would also suggest that our Christology starts to look a little different: what does incarnation mean in such an understanding of humanity?

Urban Verse for How Great Thou Art ...

A couple of months back David Runcorn, in a spirituality lecture, offered a prize for the writing of an urban verse to 'How Great Thou Art'. At the time I was too busy to give it a go. But it stuck with me as a challenge, particularly as there was only one entry in the end which was a send-up of the idea. But I still felt it deserved a serious attempt. Here's what I came up with in a moment of something close to inspiration.

Down dappled street, the shadows play on tarmac,
the joy of children laughing as they play.
The sounds of life and trade drifts down the train-track,
And neon lights claim fading of the day.
Then sings my soul, O urban God to Thee ....

China wrecked talks

I think this might be an important perspective which may have a lot of truth in it; I suspect it may turn out to be a significant view in years to come. See it here: How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room | Mark Lynas | Environment | The Guardian
First off, the summary view:

"The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful 'deal' so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame."

I'm reckoning that this may turn out to be the date from which we date China's accession to superpower status, politically.
Certainly, they 'played' their game cannily:

"The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country's foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself. The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as was the practical implication: several times during the session, the world's most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his "superiors"."

Clever piece of political theatre.
I think that this was China flexing muscle and as such gives us a glimpse of things to come.

The analyst, who has attended climate conferences for more than 15 years, concludes that China wants to weaken the climate regulation regime now "in order to avoid the risk that it might be called on to be more ambitious in a few years' time".
This does not mean China is not serious about global warming. It is strong in both the wind and solar industries. But China's growth, and growing global political and economic dominance, is based largely on cheap coal.

So there you have it folks: China is in the front line of climate change and will be taking it seriously, but ...

A thank you to Eurostar

Next time you see the media having a schadenfreud-fest over someone's apparent failure of care, remember the savaging of Eurostar for some failures and sub-optimal responses to the recent failure of several trains in the Chunnel (made to sound like the whole response was an unmitigated disaster from start to finish) and then remember this letter:
"I was on the second of the Eurostar trains that broke down in the tunnel and am most grateful for the way we were looked after"
Read the whole thing here: Letters: A thank you for Eurostar's marathon rescue | Travel | The Guardian.
There's usually another side and it may be quite significant!

Chaplaincy funding

Church Times - Diocese of Winchester Synod votes to withdraw chaplaincy funding: "The Diocese of Winchester Synod met today and voted through the budget (See Diocese of Winchester proposes cutting university chaplains for background) that will, among other things, mean that funding for the Southampton University chaplaincy is withdrawn."

what’s really distressing is that the same thing happened to me about 5 years ago. Uni chaplain, diocesan funding; cutbacks -post pulled: redundancy.

What I’m intrigued by is the fact that when it happens in Winchester rather than in Bradford, it hits the news. Is this Southern bias?

So all these arguments have been made before, and some others by myself and others when it first happened. I’m disappointed that we’ve not learned and done something more about it.

I think that an overlooked aspect of this for the CofE is the issue of diocesan reciprocity. By cutting chaplaincy at a university, a diocese is breaking a tacit pact and freeloads off others. The tacit pact is that parents and students can have a sense of security that wherever a student ends up studying, there will be chaplaincy provision, therefore we all do our bit to make sure that such provision is comprehensive -like the parish system. By withdrawing chaplaincy provision for HE a diocese lets others down in the CofE while its own people can enjoy it elsewhere.

My preffered solution to address this would be to have a national HE chaplaincy service (perhaps taking a cue from the Services) with a pooled budget from diocesan and inherited resources; it is becoming clearer that dioceses can’t be trusted, necessarily, with a key, missional, opportunity.

That said, I actually thing the missional issue is the more important: HE chaplaincy is working with an age group which is becoming detached from church, it is often doing so innovatively and credibly.

Humanists Need to Give Children Choice Too

"... a classic mistake; the first of which is never start a lang-war in Asia ..." (Princess Bride quote for the unlearned) the second of which is, in this case, for secularists to assume that their perspective is somehow neutral or that it is possible to be neutral about ultimate beliefs. The idea that we can bring children up without a family default commitment is like saying that they should make up their minds which linguistic community they will join when they are old enough, in the meantime they should be brought up without a particular language (though, of course, they will be encouraged to respect all languages -and none- and to learn about aspects of syntax, phonology etc -though of course which medium of communication this might take place in is a moot point!) Anyway, have a look at Kester Brewin's great little comment: Kester Brewin � #Humanists Need to Give Children Choice Too. And one of the main reasons he identifies for the problem is: "The key problem here is, of course, that it’s simply biased. Humanist parents are going to try to encourage their children to see the world in the ‘right’ way that they see it, just as religious parents are too."

Advent Poem | Post-Partum

Hat tip and big respect to Kester Brewin for this poem. Kester Brewin � Advent[ures] in Incarnation [8] | Advent Poem | Post-Partum: "Post-Partum

Amniotics spilt, and semiotics rupture;
there are no words, just raw screams and suckles.
Child of God, child of man – no difference:
new life is unmoored emotion,
a wide sea of tears and sick,
and just one desire:
to feed, gather in, be mother-close.

But God won’t stay.

Controlled crying;
separation an immediate fact post-partum:
we must learn to settle ourselves,
become content with occasional communion.

These all foretastes of a future rupture:
a larger curtain rent, another cry of pain
thrown down into Mother’s hands,
three days to cry,
unknown seconds
before we may leave them.

� KB 2007"

Right Royal Finances

I've never made a secret of the fact that I'd happily trade my oath (actually affirmation) of allegiance to the monarch for one to the head of state (and even more happily trade either for none or some commitment to the welfare of my country and just international order). One of the arguments people make when they discover my republican sympathies is that the monarchy is a net financial gain to the UK. Well, aside from the issue of whether we ought to decide government by monetary concerns (hmmm, what do they call that: kleptocracy? corruption? Plutocracy?), it is almost certain that the monarchy costs the UK some 180 million quid a year -net. And here's what we could buy for that money:
" 10,726 new nurses; or
9,241 new police officers; or
9,089 new teachers; or
3,660 new GPs; or
563 new hospital beds; or
18 new schools"
It's worth checking out this page Republic | Royal Finances: to compare with the costs of elected heads of state elsewhere which is also a salutary exercise.

Our brains build social worlds

The basic kinds of 'mechanisms' in the brain which help build rapport (exploited by NLP practitioners, among others) are becoming evident.

During any kind of social interaction people unconsciously imitate each other, or else show the appropriate complementary action and reaction. When this happens, the parts of the brain that unconsciously respond to the actions of others create a form of resonance. We are not usually aware of this, but when it occurs we feel 'on the same wavelength' as the person with whom we are interacting

This is important, because if I'm right about the emergent and unitary nature of social organisations such that they can be regarded as spiritually significant entities and be regarded as principalities, powers, thrones, dominions etc as per NT epistles, then this gives us a biological basis to the unification of human individuals into coherent /resonant entities. This in turn may be analogous to the way that neurons plus feedback-sensitive interactivity build a brain and mind emerges. Human individuals plus feed-back sensitive interactivity build organisations or societies and Principalities emerge. Human minds are significant spiritually to God, is it really plausible to suppose that the emergent entities of human interaction and co-ordination are not also significant? And being significant would not be represented in scripture somehow?

Originating article: How our brains build social worlds - opinion - 02 December 2009 - New Scientist:

Why your boss is incompetent - life - 17 December 2009 - New Scientist

Most of us, I imagine, have come across the Peter principle noting that many people end up being promoted beyond their abilities. "At some point, then, they will be promoted into a job they can't quite handle. They will, as Peter and Hull put it, 'reach the level of their own incompetence'." I certainly have noted this in action and my informal observations, made in personal conversations down the years, pretty much match the further research. Lazear's research indicates:

... every worker's ability to do his or her job well is determined by their basic competence plus an additional transitory component determined by circumstance. There is no guarantee that this transitory component will be maintained after a promotion, especially if the new position requires different abilities. An electrician doing excellent work on the factory floor might not have the interpersonal skills needed to manage a team of electricians. A skilled and sensitive doctor might flounder when faced with the multitudinous difficulties of running a hospital. A cabinet minister prudently managing the finances of a nation might not necessarily be the best choice to step up and lead it.

And this is why, in my opinion, flatter structures which reward competence rather than position or responsibility are better, along with building teams where it is possible for people to play to their strengths and gain the support they need to extend their skills and competencies at a pace they can cope with.

This applies to my church too. We seem to have a tendency to catch sight of the shiney or clever project or piece of work someone does and assume that the creativity or sparkiness is transferable 'just like that'. It may not be. I myself, in the past, have been asked to do things on the basis of something that has been noticed. The problem is that some of the things asked have actually not really been sufficiently alike the thing that's caught interest. Either it's not been something I'm as interested in, or it's been a slightly different skill-set required or further work is needed to prep than circumstances allow at that point. The problem is, of course, if one knocks back too many 'asks' you stop being asked -only to see someone else doing less well something you know you could do later on.

Concrete examples? Well, one has to be careful of the privacy and reputations of others, but I think I can give one. On the basis of what seemed to be a good assessment of my work in University chaplaincy, I was asked to consider taking a post with a large youth work component in a suburban parish. I didn't take that up: it was based on a fair-enough noting that there are some elements of similarity between youth work and working with students. However, for me the core skills and perspectives were different and I knew that taking such a post would likely mean a less-than-optimum youth outreach and a lot of frustration for me. I would have been 'moved' to a point of incompetence. In addition the energy for me in the chaplaincy came from a broad engagement with the institution of which the work with student groups and individuals was part. Without the fuller, bigger, picture, my work on any one bit would suffer. There is a difference between doing one thing full-ish time and doing a number of things as part of a portfolio and working through and with others.

We need systems that allow people to try-out, find support and if necessary to return to points of good competency without penalty. The problems of promotion to incompetency are reinforced by the lifestyle and long-term implications of higher pay. Co-operatives probably have a healthier approach in this respect.

Of course, what we should note is what this means for interpreting history: "- it means that when things go wrong at the top, it is most probably a cock-up, not a conspiracy. "
Check out: Why your boss is incompetent - life - 17 December 2009 - New Scientist:

Analects of Ministry Wisdom

I liked a lot of these from Bishop Alan. Here are some which gained a particularly hearty 'amen' from me as I reflect on my ministry. Bishop Alan’s Blog: Ministry: Rudiments of Wisdom:

"4. Don't ask until you’ve worked out the question. Only ask people questions they are likely to answer in the way you want. Also, Don't ask when the baby is due until the new lady in Church has actually told you she is pregnant. Never ask a Lawyer “Can we do this?” The question is always “How can we do this?”
...
"6. You do not have their P45's in your back pocket, so always explain, always apologise.
...
9. Schedule your free time as zealously as you would a funeral. Your family are the closest members of the body of Christ. Strive not to be toxic to them, and remember they didn't ask to have you for a parent.
...
12. Rigid faith is often brittle. ...
13. You inherited far more than you realise. Before you go buy a new tool, check the old toolbox you seldom use and nine times out of ten you've already got one. Revolution by tradition!

And of the additcions offered by commenters:

God doesn't ask us to be succesful, but he does ask us to be faithful.
A satsuma is not a failed orange.

I think mine might be:
you can often tell a church that is doing the business by whether it attracts those who wider society finds hard to cope with and if the church doesn't do that, it's probably doing something wrong.
Have you got any pearls of ministry wisdom?

What the web is teaching our brains

It's nice to find an article on this topic that isn't doing the moral panic thing (hand wringing and exclaim 'modern life is going to the dogs ... or hell in a handbasket). This one actually mentions the positive enhancements that our continued interaction with the technology might be producing. What's quite interesting is that one of the downsides noted was actually said about the technology called the book (and repeated when the book became a mass-produced commodity with moveable-type printing) ie memory loss; it's a feature of delegating remembering to other media.
What the web is teaching our brains - Features, Health & Families - The Independent: "While the internet enhances our brain function in some ways – his study found it boosted decision-making and complex reasoning in older people – it can also lead to memory loss. Some research suggests there may be links between excessive computer use and conditions such as attention deficit disorder, depression and anxiety in younger people."

The article goes on to look at different skill-areas and break down their skill-sets. I'd agree about gaming and peripheral vision: I have great trouble taking in all of the info on a screen of gameplay: I just don't practice enough (and have no intentions of doing so at the moment).

Priesthood: ontological change?

One of our students/ordinands very recently was plunged into thinking about this, see here: Re-vis.e Re-form: Priesthood and ontological change
Her dilemma will probably sound familiar to many of us as it probably names something many of us who have evangelical streaks will likewise struggle with: "If, as I heard today at my ordinands' Christmas retreat, that ordination brought about an ontological change in the curate who stood at the front to tell us of his experiences, am I to understand that his essence is changed by this ceremony? Will I be ontologically changed? My essence - changed? If I deny that this can happen am I blocking the power of the Spirit - that I would never want to do? But if I think of myself as ontologically changed because I am a priest, isn't that almost like saying I am super-holy? I don't get it, aren't we all saints (Ephesians 1)? Aren't we all consecrated by God, set apart, if we are 'in Christ'? What does this kind of talk do to the idea of the 'ministry of all believers'? Didn't the reformation aim to break down some of the divides between laity and clergy and isn't a claim to clerical ontological change recreating the divide?"

Now, when she raised this on Facebook I responded by pointing to a blog post I wrote a handful of years back when my wife was ordained. It was kindly noted that perhaps this wasn't expressed in a way that helped address the issue in the way I thought it did. I looked again and thought perhaps it could be clarified (I'm thinking about the last few paragraphs which talk most directly about the issue of this post).

So what might I say further or (hopefully) better?
Well, In the Anglican church, the move to reappropriate more Catholic (vs arguably catholic) understandings of sacraments including regarding ordination as such came with the Oxford movements rallying cry to 'magnify your office'. In this sort of view, the dispensing of valid sacraments depends on a valid priestly ministry: in order to effect the kind of essential changes in blessed bread and wine and water to produce efficacious sacraments carrying the grace of God, an essential change is envisaged as needed in the human agent of such changes. Some Catholic theology speaks of an indelible 'stain' (in a positive sense) on the soul. Now I'm no expert in this, and it's a while since I was reading up on this stuff, so I can't say much more than that. However, I note that this kind of view presupposes ways of looking at anthropology and even ontology which made a lot more sense when the philospohical background to our society had more Plato and Aristotle in it: where things have substances and forms and somewhat dualistic conceptualisations were in vogue. Our problem with some of this, Reformation heritage aside for now, is that we tend to start with the Material and work on from there.

Anyway, because of that I said and still think that perhaps we shouldn't try to decide whether we want to think of ministerial priesthood either in terms of 'ontology' or of 'function' (which tends to be the opposite extreme of the debate). I tend to think of our identity as formed in a nexus between our social locations and the attendant meanings given there, our relating to God and our biological/physical history. I would have to say that I would locate our relationship to Church as overlapping the social and God dimensions.

So, who am I before God? Is 'priest/presbyter' part of that? And if so, in what sense?
Who am I within 'my' social networks? Is priest/presbyter part of that? How?
Who am I physically? Is 'priest/presbyter' part of that? How so/not?

I think that the first of those questions is most likely to yield an answer on the 'ontological' side of things, but I don't think it's straightforwardly so.

Easier to answer, as I did in the previous blog post, is the social one: "...acquiring the 'right' to wear a dog-collar, be addressed with 'Revd' and all those other social and cultural odds and ends that go with being a CofE clergybeing...". So, in as far as we 'are' our social beings (and I think we are) this is an ontological change, but probably not the kind Catholics usually mean. In some way it might gain the sympathy of functionalists -but only if they are willing to recognise that perhaps we don't have some kind of essence that is unrelated to our social roles. I'm arguing, I guess, for an emergent understanding of identity where role and 'being' mutually inform and generate giving rise to something that is more than the sum of the parts. In such an account you can't pull the two things apart, but neither are you thinking in a way that wholly satisfies the previous 'language games' the debate has run between.

Physically/biologically ... hmmmm at first the instinct was to say 'no'. But wait: the 'performing' of oneself as a priest rewires our brains over time and even leaves physical marks on our bodies. And perhaps we need to see that the act of ordination is (among other things) a ritual which has the effect of cementing and activating 'gestalts' (some of which are socially derived some of which are being built in training) which have neurological configurations and so change, as we learn to perform them appropriately, our social being. This has physical correlates in body language and more mundane things related to the decisions we make about where we 'park our bodies' in everyday life.

So back to the 'coram Deo' dimension (before God): part of the deal is that we are acting on a sense of vocation to something that is best, we think, lived out as a public representative of the Church and by being authorised to carry out certain kinds of duties on behalf of the Church. Is that ontological? It sounds a bit functional. But, again, I think it is both and neither. It is ontological in that it concerns who we are before God. It is ontological in respect of the way that God wills leadership, service, public representation etc and so that some people do that stuff because they are fitted naturally and grace-fully for it.

We all have callings, for some people these are best expressed by ordained ministry because this is the way to demonstrate the Church's confidence in and authorising of publicly representative ministries. And this is where it starts to feel functional too: I do think we need to recognise a certain degree of contingency in all of this. Especially given the wide expression of ministry in the catholic (not Catholic) Church or churches. If it was clear that the threefold ministry was unequivocally The Way of doing things, then we could be more confident of a certain 'ontological' givenness about ordination. But if in fact we don't think ordination is a sacrament in the way that Baptism or the Lord's Supper is, then we have to recognise a degree of contingency. And by that I mean that it could be otherwise: if I happened to be a Quaker and had the sense of calling that I do, I might be expressing it by offering to be a Clerk of Meeting or an Elder, perhaps. In the Methodist system, I wouldn't have been ordained deacon (which from my current standpoint I would see as a significant symbolic loss). I think it is hard to be firm about a Catholic 'ordination ontology' without denigrating ecumenical partners' expressions of leadership or pastoral ministry.

So where have I got to? That there is an ontological change but that it is more contingent on particular church polities and our social being than on some God-ordained absolute leadership-ordering and so has quite considerable similarities to a functional account.

However, something else needs to be said, I think. And that is to do with the other issue raised of the priesthood of all believers (a non-biblical phrase to express a biblical concept, captured by the RC recovery of a high appreciation of Baptism in thinking about church order). Part of the reason why the issue of ontology relating to ordination is so big an issue is the issue of comparative valuing of ministries. The practical ecclesiocentrism of the churches manifests itself in an over-concentration on ordained ministries rather than the ministries in the world. This also manifests as 'maintenance' rather than mission (yes I know that's a cartoon, but I trust you'll take the sense rather than quibble just now) and the failure of ministerial priesthood to properly equip and encourage those in missional priesthood -that is living out their baptisms in service and witness in the 'secular' world. Instead we have churches where the actual agenda is to serve the institution and so support the ordained and ordained-a-like rather than where the ordained help to fashion the institution to support the world-facing ministry of God's whole people.

If we could get that more right, it'd kick the feet out from under a lot of the issues about the ontological status of the ordained.

Perhaps that's no clearer than before, but I'm too tired now to improve it further. I'll publish and let comment and discussion, if any, help clarify: the posse is the priest, people! And crowd-sourcing is the name of the game.

Five eco-crimes we commit every day

Quite challenging this. Five eco-crimes we commit every day - environment - 01 December 2009 - New Scientist: "You might think you are doing your bit for the environment, but even if you shun bottled water, buy local produce and reuse your plastic bags, chances are that you have some habits that are far more environmentally damaging than you realise. What's more, if everyone else is doing these things too, their detrimental effects really add up."
I'm considering my response to the ones that apply.

First osmosis power plant

I recall hearing of this a couple of years ago. So it's interesting to read that the prototype is now producing power. It looks like quite an exciting development from a process that I am surprised produces the kind of power it can apparently do.
"In the prototype plant, the two solutions used are salt and fresh water, siphoned from near the point where they meet at the mouth of the fjord. The two liquids are pumped to either side of a membrane, where osmosis creates a pressure equivalent to a column of water 120 metres high. This is used to drive a turbine and generate electricity. Many of the world's major cities are on river estuaries that could be ideal for osmotic power generation. Unlike wind and solar power, it can provide a continuous source of energy, although seasonal river-level changes do cause some fluctuations."
First osmosis power plant goes on stream in Norway - environment - 26 November 2009 - New Scientist:

Less meat -better planet - better heart

Eating less meat helps the planet – and your heart - environment - 25 November 2009 - New Scientist: "explored the livestock industry's potential to help the UK halve its carbon emissions by 2030, relative to 1990 levels, and the knock-on effect on the nation's health.

They found that the industry could slash its emissions, but only if the livestock the UK produces, and the meat the nation consumes, drops by 30 per cent. Farms must also optimise their energy efficiency by, for example, capturing carbon in manure.

The health pay-off would be considerable: 18,000 fewer people would die prematurely in the UK each year from heart attacks – a reduction of 17 per cent – as they would eat less of the saturated fats found in meat."

Thought for the day from Galileo

'I shall concede to you indeed that the way in which God knows the infinite propositions of which we know so few is exceedingly more excellent than ours.'
Face to faith: Galileo's lunar work drew on another Christian iconoclast who had lived 1,000 years earlier, says Mark Vernon | Comment is free | The Guardian: