Starting to think about Limitarianism

 I came across this article recently that explores something I'd recently begun thinking about. In part I was thinking about it because of recent conversations and also the persistent thought that there must be a limit to how much one can spend in a lifetime and perhaps that should inform a policy about how much one should accumulate.

“I contend,” Robeyns argues, “that for people who live in a society with a solid pension system, the ethical limit [on wealth] will be around 1 million pounds, dollars or euros per person.” 

This lines up with what I had started out thinking. Partly noting that when I was a kid, being a millionaire was a big thing. No-one was, as far as know /knew a billionaire. It seemed to me that multimillionaires had more than enough for a rather nice looking life in material terms.

A lot of people say: ‘I’ve been thinking this all my life.’ 

There is even some recognition among some of the ultra wealthy that something must change:

    Some, such as the Irish-American billionaire Chuck Feeney, who made his money from a monopoly of duty-free shops at airports, have enjoyed nothing so much as giving all their money away. Mackenzie Scott, ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, has been shedding billions of her divorce settlement a year, on the basis that “she is giving it back to [society] where it came from”. Others, such as the entertainment heiress Abigail Disney, or the British-based group “Patriotic Millionaires”, are sympathetic to the fundamentals of Robeyns’s ideas, recognising that “policies that favour the richest are unsustainable”.

All of which reinforces my sense that perhaps we should be talking and thinking about this way more than we do. The thing that I'm most interested in at this point, is the reasons for proposing this and making sure we have a solid basis for making the proposal founded in ethically defensible insights. And I think this bit gets us started on that.

... the idea that any discussion of a limit to wealth must be born out of envy, for example; or that most seductive of all myths, that people somehow deserve the wealth (or poverty) of their lives – that multimillions are made mostly by hard work and talent, not by luck and vast inequalities of opportunity... Despite the fact that “trickle down” economics has long been discredited as an idea, we apparently remain in thrall to the mythology of “wealth creators”

So what sorts of principles would soundly and ethically undergird a limitarian set of policies? Taking the hints above into account. We'd need to have a good sense of 'desert' in relation to wealth 'creation' or accumulation. This would include considerations of 'luck' and social-positionality (aka. systemic factors relating to opportunity). I guess also that the vast multiples in relation to basic wages being gained by the very rich also need to be questioned in relation to the influence power that such wealth buys; it accumulates power because to a large degree wealth is power. In a democracy, we can't ignore this.

However, I think that there are some other fairly fundamental things to pay attention to. Most fundamental of all is to think about how wealth is created and distributed. Another story: when I started work at around 13 years old (part time, I think there was a maximum of 12 hours or so a week we could legally work because we were also at school) I began to think about why it was pay rates were so different. We were told  that a different shop further down the mall paid their workers much better (but then their prices were higher too). I became aware that the more senior one was, the more pay people got. But I wasn't entirely sure why. I had gained the impression that hard work was praiseworthy and so I had an idea that hard work ought to be better rewarded. 'Hard' work being work that was physically or mentally more tiring -and that would include longer hours. I came to appreciate that there may be a case for paying someone for responsibility, that is if they had to make decisions which could affect other people's well-being to some degree. I guess that would amount to a form of 'hard work' in terms of emotional labour -especially anxiety.

In the light of such musings, it does feel ridiculous that someone should be paid multiples of many thousands in relation to the lowest paid. It is hard to find some kind of justification in terms of hard work or even rewarding risk or innovation for such differentials. On the other hand, what it does seem that such differentials are 'rewarding' is the holding of power: power to set rates (whether by rent or positional/hierarchical means). However, power is not necessarily fair, and usually is not unless held to account. Obviously, this consideration of pay and reward, shades into thinking about monopolistic power in markets which is a helpful reference point, I suspect.

Relatedly, there is sometimes an argument made to pay higher rates to attract people to do jobs that might be hard to recruit for otherwise. But it seems to me that this manifestly does not work in the case of menial and dirty jobs which are often among the worst paid and I can't really see why a CEO is 'worth' so much more than a sewage worker. In fact, to me, by standards of hard work and slog it seems to me they may be the wrong way round in remuneration. Furthermore, in terms of the anxiety-labour mentioned above, it seems to me that in actual fact, many CEO's are being rewarded for not caring and are in fact rewarded for failure oftentimes: they "fall upward".

I've just sketched out my concerns about concerns regarding reward and pay. I think that a lot of differentials are actually about social and hierarchical power in a way that is fundamentally similar to the power of monopolies or oligopolies to be rate setters in a market. My concern going forward from here, is to consider what kind of basis there might be for limiting the pay and wealth of the richest. It seems to me that this most fundamentally requires a consideration of 'just' 'rewards'. This would also require us to think about what unjust rewards are and how they work -which I've begun to alight on in considering hierarchical power ("controlling the purse strings", in popular saying). 

It feels now like this is a kind of introduction. I think that I will try to develop some of these threads a bit further is subsequent posts rather than here.

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PS -as many blogs no longer link to an article or other web address at the title, I think that there's a danger that some readers may not be aware of this former custom that you can click on the title to be taken to the main post or article or page being commented on. In case that's so, the article quoted above at several points can be found here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/jan/21/how-much-personal-wealth-is-enough-ingrid-robeyns-limitarianism

Poor talkative Christianity and its discontenteds

 I found this informal survey being reported and the result seemed to me to be something really significant. Something that those of us interested in the future of Christian faith probably need to pay attention to.

We recently asked our Upworthy audience on Facebook, "What's something that you really enjoy that other people can't seem to understand?" and over 1,700 people weighed in. ... one answer dominated the list of responses. It came in various wordings, but by far the most common answer to the question was "silent solitude." Here are a few examples:

"Feeling perfectly content, when I’m all alone."

"Being home. Alone. In silence."

"That I enjoy being alone and my soul is at peace in the silence. I don't need to be around others to feel content, and it takes me days to recharge from being overstimulated after having an eventful day surrounded by others."

"Enjoying your own company. Being alone isn’t isolating oneself. It’s intentional peace and healthy… especially for deep feelers/thinkers."

I think this is significant because it sounds like it ought to be something that religious groups and organisations can offer, encourage and nurture. Yet I suspect that this is not how it's perceived. I suspect that Christians and our churches are perceived as rather talkative, noisy and not having much to offer the more contemplative or any real understanding of silence. 

This despite a history replete with silent, hermit-inclined figures and much teaching about the use of silence and the ways of meditation and self-understanding. What we appear to have managed to project to the wider world is rather more 'busy' and social. 

And it is fine to have that, but I can't help feeling that we could do with expressions of church that lead with the contemplative offer and give support to the intentionally solitary or the solitude and quietness that many people clearly crave.

There's a pitfall to this in terms of strategy. Of necessity a huge amount of what this would look like would not make it to the spreadsheets of church statisticians. It probably wouldn't show up directly in church attendance figures or similar measures of 'engagement' in church life. These might well be people, in the main, who would find many of the main services offered by churches to be too distracting and fast-paced, and find the sermons insufficiently reflective or supportive of meditative spirituality. They may well find the over-certain, and over-defined talkative kataphatic style of worship too hard to bear.

Maybe I'm projecting. But if I am, it's from a background of loving that noisy and social Christianity and now finding it doesn't nourish the deepest parts of my soul. I now find relative quiet and dwelling in the slow reflective sort of spiritual practice to be important. I suspect that this informal survey opens a window onto what we should be sharing from the churches in addition to the other offer.

I'd always felt some pull towards the more contemplative, even in my noisier days. And I do still find I can worship among the noisier and more content-driven. However, it seems like the balance has shifted. I do think we need both celebratory and quiet dimensions to our spiritual practice and we each need to find our own balance and be prepared for that balance to shift and its contents to change over time. There's a definite change in the relation to words in worship and reflection. At one point for me the language was important, it pointed me and helped me to home in on God (at least at its best). Now less so, and I'm more aware of how inadequate the words are; that they cannot contain God or the experience of God and God's world. Again, it's a shift of balance not a total dichotomy.

The other thing in that survey that I find interesting is the appearance of ordinary things (and the assumption that others will not understand the attraction). This is another element of contemplative spirituality:paying attention to 'little' and 'ordinary' things, discovering the joy or at least contentment in the mundane and appreciating it. Again, it's not unknown to Christian traditions, just not presented so much or signposted or even valued, it seems. But if we could simply help it to be known that there are Christ-following ways to integrate these appreciations of the ordinary into spiritual practice and awareness, we'd be a lot more use, I suspect.

"We tried" -an open letter to Manning

(If you want to follow suit before 31 Dec 2023 get some further info here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ew0EjM1b5MQwS8QmmI-UHLuX8xYh49A8JLv1kA8cEVw/edit )

Dear Mr Manning,
As a popular music listener of several decades -more than I care to enumerate now!- I think it's important to draw your attention to what happened during The Big Top 40 Countdown on Sunday 24th December 2023.
During the Countdown, the song “We Tried” by Louise Harris was, very surprisingly and rather shockingly, not played. Perversely it was not announced as no.4. (Mariah Carey given out as no.6, nobody was called as no.5, Wham! was then wrongly stated to be no.4). A recap of the Top 10 was then made, during which Wham! was announced as no.5, and “Louise Harris - We Tried - re-entry” was announced as no.4, and no more than approximately 10 seconds of the song was played.
I've got to say: this came over as suspiciously like censorship wrapped around by a cock-up. 

To be fair and more fully contextual: “We Tried” by Louise Harris was not the only song in the Countdown that wasn’t played in full. Jimin’s song “Closer Than This” was announced as no.26, and about 20-30 seconds of the song was played before moving on. Fred Again’s “leavemealone” was announced as no.21, but then the song wasn’t played at all – only 10 seconds of it was played during the recap of the 20s. And note: these are songs in the 20+ placings not the top 5.

So, my first beef with this is about the omission and shortening of songs in general during The Big Top 40 Countdown. If you're doing a ‘Top 40’ countdown, surely the point is to play all of the top 40 songs. And if you're not going to do so, then have a consistent and easily surmisable policy about it as the random-seeming approach heard on Christmas Eve is unfair on artists and on fans who have invested in supporting these songs – sometimes specifically to get them into the Charts, so that they are played on radio to the masses.
Beef no.2 is specifically about leaving out “We Tried” by Louise Harris. This was the only song in the entire Countdown that was not announced in its rightful place, at no.4. It wasn’t announced at all, in any place – other than during the recap of the Top 10. (Not to forget either that no.5 was mysteriously skipped completely, and Wham! was incorrectly announced at no.4 where Louise was meant to be).

It is very peculiar (or, as I wrote above, "suspicious") that, on the biggest music day of the year (the Xmas No.1 Countdown) on what is advertised as “the UK’s biggest chart show”, such a huge cluster of errors was made. It is even more 'peculiar' that, following the recap of the Top 10 whereby the correct Countdown was announced, the team including yourself as announcer did not seem to notice – nor point out – that this huge mistake had been made. Furthermore, when the Christmas Top 10 list was posted on social media, no apology nor explanation of the error was issued here either. At the very least this should happen and some act of reparation be made -like giving extra airtime to 'We tried' over the next month.

I'm normally a cock-up rather than a conspiracy theorist. However, given the maintstream media's more recent apparent alignment with current government attitudes, it's harder to dismiss the conspiracy point of view.I note that Louise Harris is an unsigned, independent and unknown artist, who was robbed of a huge opportunity for her music to be played to millions of people, who had never heard of her or her song before. This appears to be not only an injustice, but one that aligns with the interests of the big players in the music industry. Recall please that Capital and Heart radio stations both have listenerships of millions, and The Big Top 40 Countdown is advertised as “the UK’s biggest chart show”. Receiving radioplay like this can be the make or break of an unknown artist’s career – with their music reaching a whole new audience, of a whole new scale, for the first (and perhaps only) time.
“We Tried” is a song Louise wrote about the climate crisis, and what will happen if we don’t act. The powerful song and its emotive music video have already touched the hearts of so many people, mine included -the first time for a long time that a popular music chart entry has done so. I think it is important that a song inviting listeners to emotionally connect with the greatest existential threat humanity has ever faced should be played particularly in a season which has among its themes the recollection of the importance of doing good and paying attention to the poor and needy (including those directly impacted by climate change: Do They Know it's Christmas?). Assuming Louise is basically correct (and the scientific community concur) this is a song that could encourage them into collective climate action – which many see as the only hopeful solution left, given the inaction, and deliberate harmful actions, of world governments. And please don't brush this aside as somehow not being the concern of popular music: I've already alluded to the LiveAid single in the 80s, and we all know that a slew of well-selling (and airtimed) singles down the decades could be cited for their social and political commentary -as well as their sales!
If this song had been heard by millions of people, like it was meant to have been, this could have inspired millions of people to help to tackle the climate and ecolagical crises – which ultimately could have saved lives. One person dies every 28 seconds in East Africa due to famine, resulting from crop failure, caused by drought – an effect of the climate crisis. Over 50 million people are starving in East Africa. Right. Now. (Reprise my allusion to Live Aid).The more time that goes by without climate action, the higher the number of people who die unnecessarily. Therefore, preventing this song from being played, and its message from being heard, has hindered the possibility of lives being saved through climate action, and has allowed harm to continue to be inflicted on millions around the world due to the climate crisis. We are running out of time to prevent irreversible climate catastrophe, meaning every day gone by without climate action counts.

I personally felt angry and disgusted  when I heard that “We Tried” was not played nor announced in its rightful place because. And yet I was somehow not surprised given the corporate apparent determination to deny, obfuscate or marginalise anything that seems to remind us of an uncomfortable and therefor inconvenient truth.

There is no way you could ever possibly fully make up for this act of omission, because the Christmas Countdown is the biggest one of the year, with the most listeners. That specific audience, and that specific opportunity, has now been permanently lost. However, there are certain things that you could do, to attempt to make up for this loss and injustice.

You could:
-Play “We Tried” by Louise Harris in full on your next Big Top 40 Countdown radio show.
-During this show, explain, and apologise for, the error that was made on the Christmas Countdown: no.5 was not announced at all, Wham! was incorrectly announced as no.4 when they were no.5, and Louise Harris was not announced at all, when she was actually no.4. Also, Louise Harris’ song was not played in full, like all of the other Top 10 songs were. Explain that this song was written by Louise “about the climate crisis, and what will happen if we don’t act”.
-Post a Tweet, Instagram post AND Instagram story, and Facebook post, on all of your social media accounts (Will Manning, Big Top 40, Capital, Heart, Global & Global Player) explaining, and apologising for, the error that was made on the Christmas Countdown: (for ease of reference when you cut and paste this into your socials I repeat:) no.5 was not announced at all, Wham! was incorrectly announced as no.4 when they were no.5, and Louise Harris was not announced at all, when she was actually no.4. And Louise Harris’ song was not played in full, like all of the other Top 10 songs were. Explain that this song was written by Louise “about the climate crisis, and what will happen if we don’t act”. In this post, tag @louiseharrismusic on Instagram & Facebook, and @louisehmusic on Twitter.

A social media post is requested is because this can help partly make up for the lost audience – as a new audience, your social media followers, would be reached and informed about the song, and the error made.

I appreciate that, as “the UK’s biggest chart show”, you would not want to do a disservice or injustice to unsigned, independent artists, nor to those trying to raise the alarm about the climate crisis.
ɷˡˡ̷
Andii Bowsher
"Was the earth made to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live at ease; or was it made to preserve all her children?” - Gerrard Winstanley, 1649, founder of ‘The True Levellers’I blogWe pray

Foundation, Empire -and the mission of the church

 I've been watching the TV series 'Foundation'. I read the books about 50 years ago (I know!) but scarcely now remember anything but an outline and some character names. A lot has happened in my life since I read the series and now watch it adapted to television. For one thing, I committed my ways to Christ and have a role which involves official ministry in the church's mission.

In the intervening years, a constant companion for me has been concern for ecology, for creation. Latterly this has become a more urgent concern and I have realised that we have collectively run out of time. We are living on borrowed time. In fact, some of us, globally speaking, are not even living on borrowed time. All through my adult life I have unconsciously (I now realise) assumed that we would have time, that there was time to persuade and to change and to head off the worst. That assumption, that naive hope, has now been stripped from me.

The situation of living on borrowed time  needs to be spelled out in greater detail. And this is where the connection in my mind with Hari Seldon and Foundation starts to kick in. In Foundation, the scenario is that the Empire is about to decline and collapse, giving way to a dark age, an age of vast human suffering and misery. For me that scenario has clicked with the likely paths our own current civilisation seems to be on. Whatever happens now, some global warming is 'baked in' and we have already seen the kinds of effects it is having. The prospect is that such effects will continue and worsen. How much worse is unknown. 

It seems likely that parts of the earth will become uninhabitable for humans. It seems that there will be greater extremes of weather, including drought and storms. It is inevitable that coastal and low-lying cities like London will have to find ways to cope with encroachment of tides or be abandoned in part or wholly. The clear implications of that basket of effects will be population movements, migration. We should also reckon on food supplies becoming erratic as land becomes unsuitable for cultivation. This "erratic" food supply will, as usual, be dire for the most vulnerable and stressful for those who are usually less vulnerable. More migration. These kinds of stresses in the past have exacerbated intercommunal and international tensions. We might be unsurprised to see wars or at least armed 'incidents' and also insurgencies, civil disorder and revolutions.

So, in many ways, it wouldn't be unfair to call what we are embarked upon, a "dark age". An age when more and more people die, suffer loss, are undernourished, unhoused and displaced, fall into servitude, are brutalised, exploited and traumatised.

None of this is to imply that things up to the moment have been idyllic (far from it), just to say that it could -probably will- get worse by a number of measures. This too reminds me of the Foundation story. The dark age is relative, the Empire is cruel and brutal in keeping order but one catches glimpses of many people living lives which are at least okay: materially speaking they are well fed, have homes and good things in their lives -provided they don't threaten Empire's power. However, the dark age multiplies the detriments. In both Foundation and in our real world trajectory now, the further dangers are that human collective knowledge and now-how are eroded making reconstruction harder. This can be further triangulated with the medieval period in western Europe -the so-called dark ages*- where the monasteries played a role in preserving information which could later be retrieved and added to. They also, let's note in passing, played a role in healthcare, agricultural know-how and sometimes, at their best, in protecting the interests of ordinary people or at least mitigating some of the worst effects of bad, venial, governance.

It has been interesting to note the portrayal of responses to the prognosis of Seldon and psychohistory in the Foundation story. Again, there are parallels. There is denial on the part of those in charge and a 'shoot the messenger' reaction. Tick: we are seeing that. There is a prioritising of dynastic concerns which minimises the responses. Tick. -Our billionaire overlords seem to be doing something rather like that, abetted (gaslit, cajoled, wealth-groomed) by those who hold the formal reins of governance.

As I've already nodded towards, there is a parallel too in the 'solution'. In the books and the TV series, the Foundation is set up to provide a repository of knowledge for reconstruction, and a means to help shorten the dark age. Interestingly, and making the parallel more visible, the Foundation spawns an order of monks, in effect, whose mission is to try to help shorten the period of darkness and to keep alive the 'light' of knowledge and humanity (in the sense of 'humane'). I can't help thinking that Asimov was giving a hat tip to the role of monastic communities in the European dark ages*.

This is what I think we need to take on board with regard to the mission of the churches in the coming century (or centuries). We need to be asking "what is God doing and calling us to collaborate with?" In answering that question, we may do well to consider the role of the churches (including monastic expressions) at their best during the 'dark ages' in western Europe. We would do well to consider also how they failed or fell short. In writing that, I'm also mindful that I have written 'western Europe' several times. I'm somewhat aware that we might also look at churches in other parts of the world during times of civilisational stress to learn from their experiences. And given that there are commonalities of desire for human flourishing and spiritual disciplines, it may be also that the experiences of people of other faiths can help us to consider our vocation as churches. And that's not to pass up that the encouragement to people of other faith traditions to similarly dig deep to retrieve their own resources to help human flourishing in such challenging circumstances. It wouldn't be the first time Christians have learned from other faiths. It is strongly arguable that the Renaissance was greatly indebted to the re-discovery of classical learning and manuscripts held and preserved by the Islamic nations which became available as a result of the Reconquista in the AD1400s.

We would do well also to consider the understandings we have amassed about sociology, economics, psychology as well as the physical sciences and their related technologies. It may be that capacity for advanced research in the latter is diminished but the ways of understanding and thinking can enable better adaptation for communities to changing conditions and harsher natural conditions. It is important also to consider that we have been coming to understand that some indigenous perspectives and accumulated understandings of biomes and skillful human living in them are worthy in seeking human flourishing. The collective wisdom and learning can inform people settling and/or adapting in new conditions. The attitude, at their best, of respect for natural process and reflexively understanding interconnection, an ecological instinct almost, is valuable. The attitude of considering how we might be good ancestors and trying to take the long view is one that we need to take on board. Not doing so is part of the reason why our civilisation is failing now.

As churches, then, we might consider our own part in Foundation. Not for a galactic empire, but for human flourishing in the long term on the only planet we have. The only planet we have been entrusted with. As churches, 'Foundation' means discovering together God's mission in the present keeping an eye on the likely future. It means adapting and renewing our discipling, our engagements with our communities, our structures (for surely we cannot continue as we are). We will need to listen to the Spirit and one another's discernments to "hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches". We will need to learn disciplines of simplicity of life, corporate discernment, and humble, patient learning. We will need to learn the discipline of sitting light to our preferences and to let of some, perhaps many, of the things we have grown attached to in the way that we 'do church together'. We will need to become peacemakers in earnest and set our hands to the plough of learning how to do that work (and find ourselves blessed in it!). We will need to face and process our own grief and bereavement of the kind of life we have come to expect and hope for, and our collective guilt in making the world worse for our afterbears (opposite of forebears). We will need to learn how to minister among the shocked and traumatised, the cynical and the dispirited (having faced those things ourselves).

I feel like this could be the introduction to a series of fuller considerations of those different dimensions to what I suspect we are called to. And probably some more too. Maybe I'll be able to do that. I'm sensing that the five marks of mission may be a helpful frame to hang some of that consideration on.

Well, a blog post is meant to be provisional, and that seems to be what this is! Let's see if I can pick up some of these strands in the coming weeks and months.

Footnote

*The term "dark ages" is contested by historians because there were at times some very good, hopeful and even progressive things occurred during the period often named such. However, as a label for a time when civilisational collapse, whether partial or more wholly, takes place, it serves. Especially as it is explicitly part of the Foundation storyline.

Religious fandom and the Sermon on the Mount

 The starting point for this reflection is one of this morning's lectionary readings. Matthew 6:1 Beware of practising your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. 

It occurred to me that this might connect with the odd-moments thinking I sometimes do about fandom and piety. This arises from noticing that there seem to be some similarities between the behaviours and attitudes of sports fans (or fans of media celebrities) and some religious people. So I find myself occasionally musing about what characteristics fandom and piety may share. Are fans' attitudes a kind of piety, are attitudes of religiously pious people a kind of fandom?

There is, I think, a very real 'pride' and desire to assert a religious identity, perhaps especially among those who are relatively new to a faith or who gain a renewed sense of its goodness and helpfulness -for whatever reason. I've tended previously to interpret this verse and those that follow as relating mainly /only to those who are seeking human validation or status: using religion as a way to gain esteem socially. But maybe also it applies to those who are wanting more to assert identity or even to impose their religious sentiments on others? The feelgood factor of religious fandom, like football supporters thrusting their team and their love for it in the face of any around them. Especially when in groups or feeling themselves to be representing a group. I used the word 'pride' earlier, it is that but it's also bound up in a kind of joy, and a fulness of self-esteem bolstered by the identification with something bigger than themselves and further by the community of others similarly elated.

There's a much earlier reflection on this blog too.

Why we hate -a book review

The topic of this book is important as we are seeing a rise in all sorts of hatred across many societies. Social media seems not to helping -rather the reverse: fanning the flames. Our global community is increasingly being stressed by climate forcing -related changes which are beginning to push populations into harm's way in terms of forcing people to confront others who are being demonised. And our propensity to emote synergistically with those around us has always been a force for fanning the flames of conflict as we can be induced to hate someone designated 'enemy'. 

I came to this book also with my own questions about how anger and hate interrelate and how our psychology around hate can be manipulated and how that manipulation can be counteracted. 

I thought I'd give this book a try also because I recently became intrigued by this:

Hilge Landweer distinguishes between Verachtung (contempt) and Hass (hate). She argues that contempt fits perfectly into the neoliberal emotional landscape, because it’s a gesture of turning away from, and dehumanising the other person, not taking them seriously. Hate, on the other hand, takes its object very seriously. In a system of class hierarchies, there’s contempt from above and hatred from below. The ruling class don’t have to take the enemy seriously most of the time – unless the working class organises and strikes. But when you’re an oppressed person, you really have to take your oppression seriously, because otherwise you can’t exist. You can’t survive... " https://novaramedia.com/2023/04/17/is-hate-politically-useful/ ...

This was intriguing not least because it recognises the place of power in our emotional responding. And I recognised something in this about where anger and hate might be legitimate and about that adage "love the sinner, hate the sin" -is that sound advice? Or is there more complexity involved? And, as a Christian, is some of Landweer's analysis anywhere near what we might want to bring to reflection on Ephesians 6:1-10?

The book spends a lot of time initially on history and evolutionary  background to violence and discrimination. At this level, it didn't meet with my desire to examine hate as emotion firstly rather than as social attitudes relating to othering. Of course, this does lead me to consider the the relationship between othering, in-group and out-group attitudes on the one hand and detestation or contempt in individual psyches -and indeed the genesis of such hatred as well as the social construction or structuring of such emotions.

One of the things I appreciated was the outlining of good reasons to consider that homo sapiens are fundamentally a co-operative species (which scriptural-theologically I would locate in the narratives of Genesis 1 and 2) though that sociability is capable of being co-opted to ill. And the examination of the move from hunter-gatherer to settled agricultural societies with cities helps to justify both dimensions of that thesis.

I felt that the examination of wars and of just war theories was helpful and nuanced. It was also enjoyable that there is a British centre of gravity in the writing, in an era when so much takes a perspective of the other side of the Atlantic.

So, while this was not what I was expecting, it did throw light helpfully on the psychology and anthropology of war and prejudice. I guess the core thesis is that there are traceable factors that become culturally embedded but as it is 'merely' culture and not hardwired biology that does these things (though biology does play a part but not determinedly) , then we can design cultural ways out and around and beyond these hatreds.

I warmed to the authors deft handling and compassionate and fair-minded approach. 

Links

Why We Hate on Bookshop
Michael Ruse’s Website

 #WhyWeHate

Trinitarian Formation

 I think that formation is one of the key issues going forward for the church in relation to climate and environment emergency. This is because some degree of change -no; damage and loss- is baked in and the only question is how bad it will get and where? And following on from that is how will we Christians respond? In response to those challenges, I think we need, NOW, to be discipling each other in ways that will equip us to be good neighbours in climate and environmental emergencies. So it is vital that we re/consider how to disciple well -or to put it otherly: how to do good Christian formation. So my interest in this book is to enable to make sure my own thinking about formation's current agenda is Trinitarian.

One of the things I found helpful in reading this is the interaction with JKA Smith, where the latter's questioning of the Reformed Christian 'cognitive first' approach is affirmed though the replacement with centring desire/love/worship is critiqued because a more plural and interactive approach is argued to be needed (drawing on Frame's insights) -all of head, hand and heart, so to speak. I think that this is right and found myself calling to mind times when I had noticed in myself and other learners times when different ones of the list are to the fore but noting also that it is interactive, complex, feedback sensitive.

This helped me to become clearer about what the basic model being offered is proposing. I found it helpful too that it was also secured within a Trinitarian theological framework. I hadn't previously come across James Frame's epistempological work and this, for me, was a good way to find out about it.

I think I take away into my further explorations about Christian formation in climate emergency the need to attend to all three dimensions of human learning/formation as well as to consider the ways that they may typically interact and support or reinforce one another. It reinforces my having begun to think about CSF in this sort of multi-pronged fashion and gives me an overview map of the dimensions to consider and how in broad terms they work together. This, I think, should help give me a degree of clarity in assembling and laying out proposals.

Link-Love for this Review

Trinitarian Formation on Amazon
J. Chase Davis’ Website

Tag #TrinitarianFormation

I should mention I received this book for review on the basis that I would review it but I was under no obligation to make the review favourable -or otherwise.