Show me your ID

Chilling words which could become frustratingly and sometimes oppressively frequent in this green and pleasant land. The one bit of the prospectus I like is the idea of only having to have a credit-card sized bit of plastic rather than a passport to go round Europe. But then I recall that in order to have that bit of plastic I'd have to realise that "Once you are on that database, you can never come off it.
'From the moment you're registered you'll have to tell the authorities of any change in your circumstances for the rest of your life - and pay whatever fees they ask for the 'service. You'll never know who's looking at your details. It won't protect our safety. It won't be convenient - except for Whitehall. This scheme is an expensive and dangerous con"
Better off with the passport; except that under the legislation that'll be linked to the same database too. Good job travel will get so expensive with realistic pricing of fossil fuels that we won't want to go abroad in future! Still, it makes me seriously consider emigrating and becoming a citizen of some other country; Eire looks good ....
More at Undercurrents Alternative News: Show me your ID:

Energy in U.S. -signs of hope

It's not as sexy as some sci-fi style techie things but ...Worldchanging: Bright Green: Energy Efficiency Gains in U.S. Could Cut Sharply Energy Use, Study Says: "A crash program to improve the energy efficiency of American homes, offices, and factories could slash energy consumption by 23 percent by 2020 and produce $1.2 trillion in savings, according to a report by the McKinsey consulting firm." Did you get that: nearly one quarter(that's a fourth to our cousins over the pond) of power could be saved. Contrast with The folly of 'magical solutions' and add to the mix the intriguing hopefulness of USAmerican figures for building wind generation capacity in a recession, and you get the idea that USA-China co-operation on climate and energy might just begin to do what's needed. Might. Just.

Non story of the month: Marriage-with-baptism

I am frankly a little surprised about the legs that this story grew. Mainly for all the reasons that the various reports have outlined. The CT report is here: Church Times - Marriage-with-baptism defended. And of course, the most salient facts summarised thusly: "WEDDINGS at which the couple’s children are also baptised have been legal for years, a Church House spokesman said this week. An initiative promoting such services had been criticised for giving tacit approval to sex outside marriage." So it should have been a case of 'move along folks, nothing to see here', but somehow it wasn't. Of course, the sticking point is that it seems to licence extra-marital sex; but hang on let's get over the tut-tut reaction and engage our brains a moment: do we really want to be heard to say, in effect: "We'd rather you just didn't bother us if you have made life-choices we don't like". It does seem to me that we want to be heard saying: "It's never too late to try to get things back on track". Now that's the PR angle.

The other angle is a little more tricky.
The sacramental thing.
Marriage is one thing: it's 'a gift of God in creation' and as such is something the church solemnises as part of celebrating Gods common grace. Baptism is a gift of God in the order of redemption. Unfortunately the CofE has inherited a situation it partly created, unwittingly, where baptism is used in popular culture as a creation-rite (ie to celebrate the birth of a child etc) on a par with marriage, in that sense. So the real rub is not the marriage but the confusion about baptism and that is only a problem in situations where both are contemplated togethr where the couple concerned are not really in a position psychologically or spiritually to attempt to make good on the very explicit promises required of them in the baptism service. It's a different matter if the couple concerned have come to a point where they are starting to respond actively to the gospel: in that case it is very appropriate for wedding and baptism to be held together. However, if that is not the situation it really would be better for churches to have a policy of using a very first rate non-baptismal 'christening' (a suitably well-done Thanksgiving is actually more appropriate to the needs, see my research and various church policies being operated up and down the land without any serious problem).
But then I would say that; I'm on the exec of Baptismal Integrity ...

Why dowsing makes perfect sense -kindo'

We need to pay attention to this kind of thing because it relates strongly for some people to issues of belief and spirituality. The New Scientist opinion piece is not unympathetic and it's value is in drawing attention to one factor involved for some in issues of belief etc. It's here: Why dowsing makes perfect sense - opinion - 29 July 2009 - New Scientist. A concluding sentence from the article gives us the skinny: "We take a perverse pleasure in things that confound our senses, which is why conjuring tricks are delightful and science can seem a killjoy. The physicist Richard Feynman once said that science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. What he didn't say was just how much fun fooling yourself can be."
So for many people involved in New Spiritual Milieu stuff, this is a factor. And, actually, for some involved in some signs and wonders Christian stuff, this is a factor too. I would also suggest that it it part of the popularity of fantasy novels and the like. We have a serious cultural 'thing' going on in reaction to the erosion of mystery and the prosaic-ness of science as popularly perceived. Perhaps part of the difficulty in getting kids to study science is cultural disenchantment? And in such an atmosphere perhaps a greater proportion of those who do are then reacting against the romantic wistful 'magicalism' abroad in some popular culture? That could explain the Dawkins' types to some extent.

How to respond as Christians? Well, I think we have a difficulty; largely the heavy-handed debunking Dawkins-style is not a straightforward choice: there are personal issues related to helping people to mature in belief, for example within the Christian faith and a bull-in-a-china-shop approach to challenging people's beliefs is often counter-productive; gently, gently does better; direct challenge usually produces retrenchment. The same goes for those involved in new spiritual milieu circles: I want to affirm their curiosity and openness to there being more things in heaven and earth than dreamt of in our philosophies, but I also want to question the credulity -especially as it is a selective credulity which not only is incredulous of certain aspects of science but also of Christian claims too. It is a delicate operation to encourage people to emotionally detach from cherished beliefs, especially when they have the frisson of 'confounding our senses' and tapping into that delighted-child emotion when seeing a conjuring trick done well. "If anyoen causes one of these little ones to stumble ... " ?

Cadbury Fairtrade: "This feels like a dream"

There will now be a brief moment of rejoicing. (Sound of chocolate wrapper) Cadbury Fairtrade: "This feels like a dream": "100 years ago William Cadbury chose beans from Ghana. A year ago we founded the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership. And from Autumn 2009 Cadbury Dairy Milk will be Fairtrade certified."

Which voting system is best?

The answer to this is that there is no clear winner for the title of 'best', it depends on the criteria you think most important; so part of the argument is what constitutes a good balance of advantages and downsides. However, as to what are the upsides and disadvantages, well you could do worse than to look at the front running options here with a fair-looking set of assessments. LabourList poll: Which voting system is best? | LabourList.org

We shall see ....

Report here: Labour plans election day poll on new ways of voting | Politics | The Observer seems to indicate a good thing; "plans are being considered to hold a referendum on general election ... called Alternative Vote (AV) ... Government insiders say the plan would be a step towards fairer voting. But they also believe it has tactical attractions as it would force Cameron, a staunch supporter of first-past-the-post, to campaign actively against change and for a 'no' vote ahead of an election. ... 'It has the added attraction that if the Tories won power and the answer in the referendum was 'yes', the first act of a Cameron government would be to do something he was fundamentally opposed to, or overturn the will of the people.'"
It's a shame that it would come about for 'mere' political embarrassment, but it could be a step in the right direction. Of course, Cameron could decide that the logic of his position on reform could push in a still more radical direction and he could outflank by saying 'yes' and press for multi-member constituencies ...

‘Healthier to be wed’

While this sounds like it makes a pragmatic case for valuing marriage and therefore a case to support marriage as part of social policy, I have concerns. The CT report is here: Church Times - ‘Healthier to be wed’ and the guts of the report are, I judge, this: "The Centre’s research found that co-habiting couples were more than twice as likely as married couples to break up, and that, on average, half of all cohabiting couples will break up by a child’s fifth birthday, compared with just one in 12 married couples.
The findings suggested that children from lone-parent families were 75 per cent more likely to fail at school, and 70 per cent more likely to succumb to drug addiction."
It's obviously one of those things to read more and further because what is stated above is tantalisingly brief. The main difficulty is that without a fuller exploration of the factors that produce the figures, it is hard to assess the significance. Why are co-habitees more likely to break up? Is it something intrinsic to either state or extrinsic but collateral? What would it be about lone-parent families that would produce the shocking figures above? It should be noted that it is a right-ish wing think tank set up by IDS.

One of the interesting bits in the CSJ report is a refutation of the idea that there were a lot of informal relationships in times past; it would seem that studies indicate that 98% of cohabitations were supported by records of a marriage (p.49-50).

Liturgical colours -rethinking the tradition

A few months back I suggested we might rethink the liturgical colours. THere are two reasons; one is the ecumenical suggestion of adding a Creation season, the other is the note that for Anglicans, like for the Orthodox, liturgical colours are down to custom and 'local use'. So why not think again? So, having spent an idle half hour recolouring a stole, here's some suggestions.

I actually think that for common time, having something more neutral would seem to be a good idea, one idea for neutral would be grey. So this would replace the current green. This is partly because I think that we can use green better symbolically as you will see further below.

I'd use white still as a possible festival colour. In this case it's here for All Saints, I'd also suggest it for Transfiguration and Epiphany, but I have other suggestions for Christmas and Easter, see further below.

For Kingdom-tide, that is between All Saints and Advent, I'd suggest this indigo (or perhaps a deep, midnight blue)

Then in Advent, perhaps we should keep the purple, which also suggests the royalty implied by Christ the King.

I think that there may be some value in considering whether other possibilities might suggest themselves in Advent .

Then there's Christmas, and here I'm suggesting that we use green both as a symbol of life and also (with a similar root symbolic etymology) to pick up the evergreen theme in much cultural decoration around this time. Also red and white are used a lot, and I suggest we pick those up too. Red is a reminder of blood and white of purity ...

It may be that some would like to use the green/red scheme around Christmas and white on Christmas day itself. And, as mentioned above, I'd suggest we use white for Epiphany.

It may be that white could be considered appropriate from Epiphany through to Candlemas, and then revert to grey. On Ash Wednesday, I'd suggest we move, for Lent, to the colour of earth; to signify humility and also the preparation for frutifulness: so brown it is.

I quite like the idea of red for blood, and so during Passiontide and Holy Week ...

Then for Easter, perhaps something that suggests light and sun, but after Easter day or Easter week, to return to the life theme and symbolising that with green.

I was wondering whether Ascension should have anything in particular. I'm still considering this but, here's a first thought;

Next up is Pentecost. If we're using green for life, then green could be a possible. However, it'd be nice both to use a different colour and also to pick up the tongues of fire thing that the Red of Roman usage uses for Pentecost. So how about a fiery sort of colour?

So we'd still use red for martyrs ...

And perhaps when we got around to Creationtide, we'd still want to use green, but I'm wondering whether blue and green and perhaps yellow might be better still?

So let me know thoughts, further ideas, etc.

How do we get this up and underway? Simply by doing it. I've got some ideas for designs for the Lenten proposal above. I'll let you know if I'm able to do any more with any of it.

Dear Gordon... let's do something about it ....

Press Gordy to have the promised referendum on election day next year: Vote for a Change | Dear Gordon...: "Dear Gordon"
I've just signed a letter to Gordon Brown asking for a referendum at the next election on the way we elect our politicians. As a supporter of the Vote for a Change campaign I believe there's been too much talk and not enough action on bringing about the reform at Westminster we need to clean up our politics.

It's high time that people were given the chance to reform our unrepresentative voting system.

Please sign the letter too and add your name to the thousands of voices telling our politicians it's time for change. You can read the letter to the PM here:

http://voteforachange.co.uk/writetogordon

Police powers for 2012 Olympics

What is intriguing is that we are only reading about these 2006 laws now ... Anyhow, the bit that struck me from this report is this:

"The police should take a deep breath and read the excellent report from the chief inspector of constabulary on the tolerance of protest. We should aim to show the Chinese that you can run a successful Olympics without cracking down on protesters and free speech"

Police powers for 2012 Olympics alarm critics | UK news | The Guardian: Again it seems that this government just doesn't 'get' civil liberties: the mantra that the powers would not be misused and are only be used against real baddies is remarkably naive, and in the light of recent policing issues around legitimate and largely peaceful protesters, is clearly so. (And maybe this is why we are hearing about this set of legal instruments now). I recently read a USAmerican slagging off the UK because of our surveillance and potentially brutal laws in respect of civil liberties, and for the first time in a decade felt that actually the USA might have the better of us in this respect...

Climate change video FAQs

This is just a flagging up post: Climate change video FAQs | Greenpeace International: "These are the most frequently asked questions about climate change determined by you - Greenpeace supporters. Our busy climate campaigners have sat down for a video one-to-one to give you the answers."
I've not yet been able to view them; let me (and anyone else reading this) know what you think.

Fairness and taxing flying

I'm very sympathetic to some of those mentioned in this article.A tax on the Caribbean | Floella Benjamin | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk. I have been too poor, at one time, to be able to go to a funeral in this country of a loved relative because the fare would have meant I wouldn't have been able to pay my rent and eat that month. So while I am about to make myself feel better by having a little rant, please do hold the bigger picture in mind. The rant is set off by thi: "A proposal to raise duty on flights to the Caribbean by almost 100% is unfair"
Unfair? Let's put some perspective here: unfair is that our emissions of CO2 and the methane from animals we can do without eating are what are depriving millions in low-lying countries of land and livelihood. Unfair is that our emissions may deprive our and everyone else's grandchildren of a quality of life we have come to feel entitled to.Unfair is that our flights are contributing to pushing us over the edge climatically and we are not the ones who will bear the brunt of the effects.
That said, The system should be fair, nonetheless in the way that it is applied. But let's beware that we don't take such 'tweakable' details as some excuse not to do anything serious and substantial to begin to address the global issue.

Set before us: life or death

Echoing things I've been thinking for a few years, I've discovered someone who has written about it but somehow I've missed. Here's the nub:

“We are at a point in time in the human experience where we will soon be facing very deep and very rapid changes,” Korten intones. “It is time to begin making some very deep choices both individually and collectively.” Out of this pivotal moment will emerge one of two eventualities: The Great Turning or the Great Unraveling.
In the Great Turning, Korten explains, humanity recognizes its overshoot and begins to turn back from the 5,000-year-old values of “Empire”—exploitation, subjugation and deprivation, to those of “Earth Community”—a life-centered, egalitarian, sustainable way of ordering society based on democratic principles of partnership. In the Great Unraveling, society rapidly disintegrates into a fight to the death for rapidly dwindling resources.

And I think that we should hear this too:

“Empire is not inevitable, not the natural order of things. But in our time, Empire has reached the limits of exploitation that the people and the planet will tolerate. And all the evidence of [our current] environmental and social breakdown all trace back to this unifying reality,” says Korten.
But, he maintains, we can turn away from it. “On a finite planet, sustainability and equity are inseparably linked.”
Korten divides humanity into five essential states of consciousness: magical, imperial, social, cultural and spiritual. The culture of Empire is driven by the first two, the culture of Earth Community is driven by the last two, and those of the Socialized Consciousness—good people who, although taking their cues and values from the dominant culture, play by the rules, expect a fair reward and don’t intend any harm—occupy a vast middle and comprise the literal and metaphysical swing voters with the power to shift us towards the Great Turning

Healthy Living With a Twist - LIME

Private schools entrench privilege

If you're interested in education's role in creating, or not, a just society with opportunity for all to fulfil potential, then this is a must-read article. I seem to recall some of these stats, but collected together they seem to make a compelling case to change the way we organise education in the UK. It's here: How private schools ensure a life of privilege for their pupils | Education | The Observer And here's a taster:

"By the time this September's intake of five-year-olds arrives at the school gates, their futures are already being shaped. A bright baby from a poor background is liable to be overtaken by a less bright baby from a wealthy background by the age of 22 months, boosted by educated parents and a stimulating home environment, according to research first published by the then education secretary Estelle Morris. And that's just the start.

Almost 30% of children on free school meals did not get five good GCSEs last year: two thirds of children from lower socio-economic groups do not make it to A-levels. Children on free school meals represent just a staggering 0.5% of all pupils gaining three As at A-level, the magic circle eligible for places at top universities.

And it is not for lack of innate ability. The Sutton Trust, a charity that campaigns to improve educational opportunities for young people from non-privileged backgrounds, estimates that every year 60,000 pupils in the top 20% of their peer group academically do not make it to higher education. Bright pupils who are educated in poor neighbourhoods are more likely to be steered into NVQs, not academic exams, the trust's research suggests."

I'm particularly interested in that last remark because, making adjustments for era, that was me in the 70's and it is frustrating to think that it is still happening. By dint of opportunity and determination I did manage to get beyond the place in society that was being made for me. However, it did mean that I have played a long catch up in some areas to develop skills and discover perspectives that were 'handed' to those in grammar and private education. It shouldn't be that way.

When did that happen: AN Wilson rejoins Believers

I hadn't heard anything about this until I saw the New Statesman interview referenced here: New Statesman - Can you love god and agree with Darwin?:
And get this answer early on in the interview: "The worst thing about being faithless? When I thought I was an atheist I would listen to the music of Bach and realize that his perception of life was deeper, wiser, more rounded than my own. Ditto when I read the lives of great men and women who were religious.
Reading Northrop Frye and Blake made me realize that their world-view (above all their ability to see the world in mythological terms) is so much more INTERESTING than some of the alternative ways of looking at life."
The comments section is worth a look, but do have a nice coffee or glass of wine as you do so; unfortunately there seems to be a large number of prejudiced and/or underinformed. The unbeliever responses tend to be a bit lacking in understanding of Christian perspectives that actually do deal with the issues that they seem to feel are slam-dunks for atheism, while the real shame is that many of the Christian responses just do not cut it and only really serve to fuel the prejudice of atheists (I squirm at some of them).

Learning -Social And Computational

At one level this is no surprise, but it's always good to take stock of the emerging evidence. Learning Is Both Social And Computational, Supported By Neural Systems Linking People: "principles that are emerging from cross-disciplinary work: learning is computational, learning is social, and learning is supported by brain circuits linking perception and action that connect people to one another"
Now this article is mostly focused on babies learning where I'm more looking for adult-learning related stuff. Nevertheless, we should recognise that we don't entirely leave behind the childhood stuff. I've just been on a conference where I was reminded that learning is still something we do all the time; we are either learning or consolidating or building on or revising our learning so far. "We can learn what to do by watching others, and we also can come to understand other people through our own actions," -we never stop doing that.

In another article on similar themes but analysed differently because the research is related to learning and artificial intellingence.

homo sapiens also draw on three uniquely human social skills that are fundamental to how we learn and develop: imitation, which accelerates learning and multiplies learning opportunities; shared attention, which facilitates social learning; and empathy and social emotions, which are critical to understanding human intelligence and appear to be present even in prelinguistic children.

It's the shared attention that got my attention because of the perspective I mention elsewhere of us always learning (I would say that we are defined in part as learning beings), then classroom or intentional learning has to be social and the chief mechanisms would be about co-ordinating shared attention. It seems to me that most things that we know about good teaching and learning devolve from that ...

Invoking the shadow by positive confession

Now, this seems to confirm what I guess at least some of us have tended to suspect about those positive affirmation mantras. The report is here: The Problem With Self-help Books: The Negative Side To Positive Self-statements. Certainly my skepticism has been evoked by seeing affirmations which were just so dissonant with perceived reality that the attempt to repeat it would simply draw a reaction of frank disbelief. The research, interpreted, seems to suggest "unreasonably positive self-statements, such as 'I accept myself completely,' can provoke contradictory thoughts in individuals with low self-esteem. Such negative thoughts can overwhelm the positive thoughts." That's what I mean, of course! My guess it could work the other way round too. I would guess that positive affirmation is only really going to work where it is plausible or credible to the 'affirmee'.

The other thing to bear in mind in this respect is that there are some Christian teachers who recommend similar techniques for spiritual growth. Positive confession is what it's called, often. I would argue that it is likely to suffer the same difficulty: it will be helpful with those who are well-disposed to believe the particular thing affirmed, but otherwise may actually make matters worse. In pastoral practice, I have seen both scenarios. This calls for discernment; it's no panacea. I'm concerned that uncritical and dogmatic use of such tools may end up also blaming the victim in the sense that those who are least able to make good use of them are blamed with moral failure or bad faith if it doesn't help them when what is needed to help is to start further back and to go slowly and if necessary give the person support, counsel and/or time to grow differently or slowly.

Now this is not to discount the operation of the Spirit, but it is to help us to recognise how the Spirit might work with different people, respecting their history and personhood. It may help us to look for the Spirit's activity in different ways and places with different people and not to expect a one-size -fits-all thing to occur.

health and eating are connected

Ray Collins' newsletter is proving to be quite a help to me in staying abreast of what seem to be the latest discoveries about diet and health, with a useful bit of evaluation thrown in. Now you can enjoy a longer, healthier life... without living like a saint! As a former wholefood shop employee who still takes this stuff seriously, this is a Good Thing! In his latest newsletter, Ray quotes Michael Pollan with some helpful advice about eating couched in terms that may help most of us in a 'rule of thumb' sort of way. They're not all totally consistent -my great grandmother probably wouldn't recognise Japanese or Indian food as food, for example- but in giving pictures of the kind of thing meant, they are pretty useful.

* Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognise as food.

* Avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar b) unpronounceable c) more than five in number or that include d) high fructose corn syrup.

* Avoid food products that make health claims.

* Shop at the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle - processed foods dominate the centre aisles of the store, while fresh food lines the walls.

* Get out of the supermarket whenever possible -shop at the farmer's market or local markets instead.

* Eat mostly plants, especially leaves - This means don't eat too many seed s and seed- based products and oils. Why? Because leaves contain omega 3 fatty acids which are good, but seeds don't as they contain too much omega 6 fatty acid, which isn't good for you.

* You are what you eat eats too - the diet of the animals we eat has a bearing on the nutritional quality of the food itself. A diet of grass means much healthier fats than a diet of seeds and grain.

* Eat well-grown food from healthy soils, this means organic, or well-famed non-organic soil.

* Eat wild foods when you can.

* Be the kind of person who takes supplements.

* Eat more like the French, or the Italians, or the Japanese, or the Indians, or the Greeks,. People
who eat according to the rules of traditional food culture are healthier than people eating a contemporary western diet.

* Regard non-traditional foods with scepticism.

* Have a glass of wine with dinner. The benefits to
your heart increase with the amount of alcohol
consumed up to about four drinks a day
(depending on your size)

Myebook - Praying The Pattern: 1,00 reads

Well, I last reported on 23 June when I had notification of 500 reads.Myebook - Praying The Pattern, Well, a couple of weeks down the line and it's up to 1000 reads.

So that's what they're called: Mondegreens

Misheard -or rather misanalysed- lyrics to songs are called mondegreens. This article gives the etymology. snopes.com: Christmas Carol Mondegreens
My favourite is probably "the hot dogs go on" for "the heart does go on" in 'I will always love you'.
Oh and Desmond Dekker's 'the Israelites' turns out to be the most prolific producer of mondegreens.

How about you?

How does learning happen best?

I've been teaching or rather trying to facilitate learning about theological reflection. I keep an eye on research as best I can to help me to reflect ongoingly on things learning. One of the things I put before students is a bunch of models of theological reflection. The main one of these is an adaptation of the Kolb cycle; the pastoral cycle or spiral (there are others) One of the things I have said to students is that we should regard this as a tool for making sure that the things that happen when we reflect at our best are built into our reflection and become second nature to us: they are the ingredients of good reflection and that therefore we may notice that things are not as tidy as the models would seem to imply. This was simply being honest on my part: my observation of using the pastoral spiral to facilitate reflection on critical incidents or aspects of placement experience showed me that things that fit under the different phases of the spiral/cycle simply do not appear in the 'right' order often. A thought about an action point may actually feed back to analysis because it enables us to see a dimension of the situation afresh. Or it may feed back to reflection by exposing a theological assumption or opening up a theological vista not previously noted. The same kind of feed-back or feed-forward things can be seen with all of the staging points on the spiral/cycle.

So I felt affirmed to have been pointed to this article,
How does learning happen best? in which Phil Race makes a consonant observation: "I maintain that human brains are much more sophisticated than merely to perform sequential operations in any particular order. Our brains work on overlapping areas all at once. Whatever we do, we have feelings about it. We're always making sense of the feedback we get as we do things or as we think things. We're always in the process of making sense of the experience of what we try to do or try to think. In short, all the stages in our learning are going on all the time. Certainly, we may focus on one aspect of learning more than others at a given time, but we don't suddenly stop doing one thing and switch to another."
No argument from me!
He offers instead a ripples on a pond model. I'm not actually convinced that this is better in terms of the diagram, but the idea of feedback is at least conceptually built in. I note, too, that he is looking at learning through a different set of staging points (helpfully recognising the emotional side of the matter too). I'm going to be thinking about the modelling even more now, though ....

Barth Conference: Islam and paganism

Having recognised that many of the positions I have come to are very consonant with things that Barth seems to have said, it was interesting to come across an blogged account of a recent conference on Barth:Via Crucis: 2009 Barth Conference: Day 1
Doubly interesting to read this intriguing comment on Islam and Christian faith articulated by Scott Jones: "Barth saw National Socialism as a 'new Islam,' a false ideology led by a false messiah (Hitler). The compelling question, it seems, is why Barth would have seen this connection between Islam and National Socialism as such an obvious one to make. Why does he see Islam as more akin to paganism than to Judaism and Christianity?
After a bit of discussion of Islam's emphasis on revelation vis-a-vis a text (the Koran), the point was made that 'nothing separates Islam and Christianity so radically as the different ways they say the same thing: that there is one God' (CD II/1, 449). There is in Islam a lack of a coming or a becoming of God. This is a point worthy of further exploration, particularly in Christian-Muslim relations."
Absolutely, though I don't think that latter is a new point; what is ponder-worthy is the kinship Barth sees between Islam and paganism (or should that be with a P?). No doubt a shocking thought for many Muslims and others. Nevertheless, I think we need to counterbalance the Abrahamic faiths lumping-together with a recognition that there is an 'odd-one-out' and it is Islam. However, I remain to be convinced the becomingness of God is the differentiator. Certainly since Maimonides (interestingly, writing in an Islamic context), Judaism has tending to understand 'ehad' more like the Islamic 'tawhid' ... and probably for polemic reasons to some degree (but I'm writing beyond my secure competence here, happy to be corrected and further informed). And I would be interested to know, too, what understanding of 'pagan' is being worked with here. The hint is that it would be Aryan revival ideology rather than the more cuddly neo-paganism of earth-centred spirituality in the post 60's west.

The art of citation

Thanks to Ben Myers, an interesting little post on citation: Faith and Theology: The art of citation: "‘citations in my work are like armed thieves who emerge suddenly and rob leisurely strollers of their convictions.’ He thus uses citations strategically; they are part of the guerilla warfare he wages against the preconceived notions of his reader…. To cite without quotation marks is to offer the idea without the imprimatur of an author or authority. This requires of the idea that it stand or fall on its own merits and not find automatic support from its lineage."
This has got me thinking for a couple of reasons, one is discussions over the last two years with our external markers about, inter alia, the way that students use quotes sometimes to 'hide behind' and so we don't hear their own evaluations and voice in the text, the other is that I'm trying to do some writing and discovering that I'm writing a lot on some topics from the heart with the result that by comparison with stuff I mark and read, it can seem light on citation. Both of these things along with this little reflection are emboldening me to just write and perhaps look at citing later and in a subdued sort of way.
But still thinking (and that's without going onto the practically fraught question of what citation method we should go for at college as standarad!).

Ouch!

Chrisendom: The New Church of England Logo

How bishops are viewed

For those who don't sub to the CT, you may have to wait a couple of weeks before you can view it. But it's worth the wait. It's a summary of Mike Keulmans' research on bishops and in particular some polling about how bishops are seen by some lay people, some clergy and some retired bishops. For me it was, on the whole, encouraging in that my supposition that most of us think that bishops probably ought to be able to exercise a more fully pastoral and 'coaching' role towards clergy was vindicated. The concerning thing was my other hobby horse about equalising of stipends was not. I'm wondering whether this is because actually the issues need more airing.

Anyway, to the nub of the matter. Mike concludes with this statement.

My conclusion, based on the survey statistics and the experience of the early Church, is that it is time to turn the deanery of 25 to 35 parishes into a diocese. We must leave behind all the expensive and irrelevant trappings inherited from medieval prelacy, and instead make the episcopal task more manageable and realistic so that practical demon­stration may be given to the essential warmth and care of the episcopal shepherd, who is meant to mirror the Good Shepherd himself

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I would suggest that this is worth taking seriously. That it implies bishops' stipends should be in line with other clergy and that we should have wider structures to share some minsitries and functions more widely than the mini-diocese. To me this suggests that my previous support of Gareth Miller's plan for ten provinces needs modifying: the dioceses need to be even smaller and perhaps something like four times as many.

Anyway, I wrote to the Church Times. We'll see whether they publish but this is what I wrote.

I wonder whether the results of Mike Keulmans' research fall within
the remit of the dioceses commission, because they really ought to.
Mike's suggestion on the basis of his research really should be part
of any wide-ranging consideration of our practice of episcopacy and
the radical option he points to should be given serious consideration:
that "it is time to turn the deanery of 25 to 35 parishes into a
diocese. We must leave behind all the expensive and irrelevant
trappings inherited from medieval prelacy, and instead make the
episcopal task more manageable and realistic so that practical
demon­stration may be given to the essential warmth and care of the episcopal shepherd, who is meant to mirror the Good Shepherd himself". This conclusion does seem to be warrented by the demands of the role as it should be. And it is not the first time that these columns have seen a call to recognise the deanery as a more appropriate span of episcopal care. Now I reckon that there is some discussion to be had about the number of parishes; at the other extreme I have in mind the example of a diocese in the USA where 90 parishes seemed to produce a vibrant entity for mutual support and mission (interestingly the campanion diocese of Bradford whose recent synodical motion has helped raise the issue for discussion).

This suggestion is added weight, I believe, by taking note of a significant trend and its implications: the pattern of clergy deployment and employment conditions. Increasingly we are seeing self-supporting ministries and part-time ministries of a variety of patterns becoming a more normal part of the ministry patterns in many areas. One of the challenges that has become apparent with these ministries is that they don't fit easily with patterns of mutual care and co-ordination which works ''best' for those with full-time availability. So it is easy for them to be sidelined and that is even more unacceptable when their numbers become proportionally greater. It is in those kinds of circumstances that a bishop with more availability to support clergy of a variety of ministry-patterns becomes important and strategically valuable. The obverse of greater localisation would also be to make sure that there are mechanisms for
sharing of ministries and resources more widely so that each mini-diocese isn't going to try to replicate current diocesan resources but can call on and contribute to officers to help with such things as legal advice, inter-faith issues or resource-development. So we may wish to consider arch-dioceses and/or provincial structures as units of wider sharing of resources.

One of the issues, of course, that this would bring to the surface would be the issue of stipends. Mike's figures show little support for equalising stipends with 'ordinary' clergy. Space may have prevented
him from elaborating on any indications of reasons for this. My guess is that it is an 'instinctive', culturally-influenced sense that seniority and responsibility should be rewarded financially. Of course, this reason would look far less convincing under Mike's proposal of smaller dioceses. Perhaps, though, it indicates also that we also need to have a fuller debate about the meaning of 'stipend' and whether 'responsibility' really washes in a stipendiary framework. With reference to the proposal to reduce the number of bishops in order to save money, it would surely be a better option to equalise their stipends with the rest of us and increase their numbers otherwise we're merely likely to be turning them into figureheads and civil functionaries and that seems a bad use of a stipend, all told.

So can be ask the dioceses commission to research and bring forward proposals for an appropriate span of care for bishops under different models of responsibility and of the measures needed to support such patterns of ministry?

Church Times - How bishops are viewed

Winning the ultimate battle: against war

Not a total surprise if you've been keeping an eye on recent writings about evolution and humanity; particularly relating to neoteny (eg human societies are far less violent that chimpansees' and we manage to live at far higher densities with far less trouble) So go and read this New Scientist article: Winning the ultimate battle: How humans could end war: "rather than being a product of our genes, it looks as if warfare emerged in response to a changing lifestyle. Even then it was far from inevitable, as the variability in warmongering between cultures and across time attests. The Embers have found links between rates of warfare and environmental factors, notably droughts, floods and other natural disasters that impact upon resources and provoke fears of famine."
Much of the evidence seems to indicate war is a cultural construct rather than genetically programmed. The UN idea of building a culture of peace is well-founded. However, that doesn't mean that peace doesn't need working at. The thing is, are we prepared to invesst as much in what makes for peace as we have been in what tends to war?

A targum on James 1

I've been enjoying Brian Walsh's use of exegetical and expository tools. Here's an excerpt of something on James 1:1-18

When you face all kinds of trials,

the infirmities of older age,

the insecurities of being a young person,

the struggles with loneliness,

painful confusion about sexuality,

the collapse of beloved institutions,

a marriage that has seen happier days,

tensions within the family,

you name it!

then again I say to you, this is pure joy!

“Joy?” you ask.

Grin and bear it, maybe.

Dig in and get through the trouble, perhaps.

Maybe even patience.

But joy?

This is the kind of stuff that strips me of any capacity for joy.

Economic anxiety,

worries about the future,

deep internal pain,

that debilitating sense of loss,

that impending death in so many areas of our lives …

and you say we should receive all this with joy?

Pure joy?

Yes, my friends, joy.

I understand that all of this is hard.

I’ve been there, I know.

Whole thing ...

Muslims and Christians ‘can share faith ethically’

Check it out. I've just been considering how we represent the ethics of mission in some of our courses, and this seems to add grist to that mill: Church Times - Muslims and Christians ‘can share faith ethically’: There is a ten-point code of conduct to guide us. Actually seems pretty good. Only the last point might be controversial for some Muslims. The rest are hard to object to in principle. Though, of course, sometimes practice falls short.
"1. both faiths believed they should proclaim their faith by words and attitudes, actions and lifestyles;

2. in language and method, both faiths should recognise that people’s choice of faith was primarily a matter between themselves and God;

3. “sharing our faith should never be coercive”;

4. caring for people should never be manipulated to gain a convert;

5. nor should conversion be linked to inducements;

6. neither faith should diminish the faith of others and each should speak honestly about their own faith;

8. people should be honest about their motivations;

9. they can rejoice with converts but be sensitive to the loss that others felt; and

10. “Whilst we may feel hurt when someone we know and love chooses to leave our faith, we will respect their decision and will not force them to stay, or harass them afterwards.”"

See also Richard Sudworth's comments.

Bishops, more or less

In the general Synod meeting at the end of this week, "there is a diocesan synod motion from Bradford. The diocese wants to reduce the number of bishops and other senior clergy. It points out that, while the number of stipendiary parochial clergy has fallen, there has been no fall in the number of suffra�gan bishops, archdeacons, and other senior clergy.
It asks whether there could be part-stipendiary or self-supporting dignitaries, or whether their work could be shared between teams of parochial clergy. The motion asks the Archbishops’ Council to formulate proposals for a reduction, and bring them to the Synod in three years."
I think we should be asking the kind of question this motion throws us into. My own view is that this is the wrong way to go about the issue. We do need to cut costs, but I can't see how reducing the number of bishops etc will help without a change in their roles. So if we have to consider what bishops etc are for then let's have that debate and decide on that basis. Practicalities impinge: if we stick with episcopal confirmation, then is there a danger that fewer bishops become more focussed on dispensing that particular sacramental?

My preference is to start with the 10 provinces idea which effectively takes a look at the geography and also gives a framework for cutting back on some senior posts and offers savings to dioceses in the form of sharing resources at provincial level. Now, if we baulk at creating more provincial level issues, then I'm comfortable with replacing the idea with that of having 'archdioceses' (like those urban dioceses where they have episcopal areas) but with the aim of sharing across the archdiocese.

I would like to encourage us to consider whether we should do two things instead (and this is a different proposal from the 10 provinces one, though not exclusive of it): one is to extend the equalisation of stipends to all clergy, bishops, archdeacons, deans of cathedrals. I see no argument for calling a salary a 'stipend' if it is going to be differential according to hierarchical status rather than need. Then we can look more sanguinely at the proposal that we actually need more bishops. I would suggest that either bishops cover a deanery-sized area or something the size of about half a dozen deaneries. The aim being to allow bishops to be real supports and coaches to their fellow presbyters (recall, they are still so ordained), they might be also involved in some kind of ministry in a parish or chaplaincy too. Consider that Italian bishops are effectively, I'm told, the bishop for a town or city. That seems a reasonable way forward.
Church Times - July Synod to be leaner, but, with any luck not meaner:

1,000 Quid fines -1k reasons not to volunteer for an ID card

Much though I hate to say it, on this point the Conservatives are right: "how the scheme could be 'voluntary' when they were penalties for failing to provide information for the database: 'If it is a voluntary card, why are there penalties attached for failing to provide that information?' he said, adding that the government should warn people that once they 'volunteer' for a passport or ID card it was then compulsory for the rest of their lives."�1,000 fines to bolster ID cards as�Tories pledge to scrap scheme | Politics | The Guardian:

Christians at Work, some helps

Hereford Dioceses get a hat tip from me for this: CristiansatWork Here's why the issue is important: "Too often we give the impression that work is part of the ‘secular' world and that the ‘real work', God's work, only gets done in church or through the church in our neighbourhoods. It is a fundamental view of the project that life should not be separated into the ‘sacred' and the ‘secular'; all of life is sacred to God and consequently to ourselves. The ‘Christians at Work' project aims to enable people to be more effective in their place of work and encourage Churches to support them, through prayer, teaching and action."
The hat-tip is because they've made materials freely available. I've yet to go through them. Do let me know with a comment on this post if you've seen them and used them and what you think.
Also worth checking out:
The Christian and Paid Work.
Ministry in Daily Life (ECLA).

Talking God in public debate

A heads-up for a useful report from Theos. It's Jonathan Chaplin's Talking God , The legitimacy of Religious Public Reasoning. TalkingGod1.pdf (application/pdf Object) It's particularly useful to those thinking about how secularity and religion co-exist in public space. I recognise useful stuff from the point of being a chaplain in HE and FE as well as the obvious relevance to political debate. At the launch event, the author said something really helpful which encapsulated something I'd been saying for years but never yet found a satisfying way to say.

The majority of commentators appear to think it is inappropriate for religious believers to appeal to their own faith commitments in public debate. The reality is that secular commentators have their own faith commitments. It is just as reasonable for public reasoning to be religious as 'secular'. The challenge for all parties is to ensure that their arguments enrich political debate.

Quite so.

Nuclear weapons: Global Zero is coming

"out of the spotlight, Global Zero, a new alliance of prominent diplomats, military and civic leaders, is beginning to persuade the nuclear powers that there is only one answer to solve this crisis: the elimination of all nuclear weapons.

Presidents Obama and Medvedev are meeting next week. Let's call on them to put their historic pledge into action and lead global efforts to achieve a nuclear free world. Sign the declaration below and help build a massive citizen call to action. Global Zero leaders will deliver it directly to the Presidents of the US and Russia."
Nuclear weapons: Global Zero is coming:

Beggar your neighbour! -The insidiousness of

This ad really got under my skin and not in a good way. The reason is the way that it illustrates and in a sense sanctions or renders unproblematical the notion that happiness may be a zero-sum game: my happiness is increased or bought at the expense of your envy or unhappiness. I think this may be insidious because it legitimises a view of the world where we see happiness or, rather, the things that may contribute to happiness as in short supply and so if we are happy then that means somewhere else someone else has not to be (there has been another seriess of tele ads about similar 'balances'). This could be a slippery slope to accepting gross injustice and inequality ("someone's got to be poor and unhappy, so why should it be me? Alternatively, why shouldn't it be me that's the lucky one: blow the other poor sod.") and it also seems to be relating strongly to the Yin-yang/Force view of the world: it's all about balance. And that latter is only a step away from cosmological dualism; good and evil are equal and opposite forces.

I could say more, but I won't just now as I'm due to help with a Storytelling project run by our church in a local school ...

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