Parliamentary Chaos: we could all do better - couldn't we?

Our hearts skip a beat, our excitement is almost uncontained, the sky is blue, the Members of the the UK Parliament are going to spend the day parleying.  

Whilst this is - as the name suggests - what they are supposed to do, their parleying is usually about what the Government of the day is doing or about to do.  Today they are, as far as we can tell, just parleying.

And, it so happens, our Church has a meeting to conduct business this very same evening.  There is a natural instinct for us all to feel we could to better than the current Members of Parliament are doing.  But can we be so sure.

1653.  Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell is trying to sort out Parliament, and the Bible and the Churches are figuring large in the Protector's consciousness.  They decide to go for a thoroughly Biblical 70 members - the same as the Jewish Sanhedrin.  (An irony here, for the Sanhedrin proved less than perfect in the light of Jesus the Messiah's encounters with them.)

Not enough, it proved: So 144 (12x12) was settled upon as a larger, thoroughly Biblical number.  Thence to the appointment.  A few were appointed more directly, but to this Nominated Assembly churches of various kinds - including baptist-type churches - were given the power to elect Members of Parliament from their ranks.

Such a godly, Biblical set up.  What could possibly go wrong? 

To be fair, starting in April, the Parliament achieved some notable benefits for the nation.  But then the religious arguments broke out.  The State Church shouldn't be the State Church, said some Baptist and Quaker types.  Yes it should, said the State Church types.  Doing to that Parliament what Brexit has done to this one it all descended into acrimonious chaos.  Cromwell sighed and dissolved the very Biblical Parliament.

Perhaps the clue is found by pondering the Gospels observation of the 12 disciples as they bickered and misunderstood their Lord.  Whatever we think of the current crop of politicians, to err is certainly human: it is not uniquely their problem.

Brexit and the folk on Thorney Island

Brexit has preoccupied another week of UK news, and it has taken (briefly) the horror of the New Zealand terrorist attack to dislodge it.  Brexit has proved and is proving a very thorny issue for the House of Commons.  Just round the corner is a street that perhaps makes that point:

Perhaps a Lord Thorney was a nobleman, or a mayor of Westminster or the owner of a big house in the street.  But no, this street is named after the island once nearby - Thorney Island.

The island was formed by the Tyburn River dividing as it entered the River Thames. It was surrounded by mud, almost fully flooded when the rivers overfilled and it was populated, we assume, by much wild, thorny vegetation.

Its inhospitable, isolated setting explains why it was chosen by the monks of the first millennium for their house and abbey.  The abbey was unsurprisingly called Thorney Abbey.  In relation to the East Minster in London, this abbey became known as West Minster and, as you know, the name has stuck.  A king added a Palace and then a Parliament arrived.

The monks, to put it mildly, would be surprised to find the Westminster of today.  Perhaps, though, they would not be surprised to find that all the collected wisdom of the 650 (actually 642 thanks to Sinn Fein abstentionists and the ever present spectre of death) souls who famously occupy the spot amounts to nothing much more than the thorns they cut down long ago.  The journey from prayer to palace to parliament to pandemonium is an invitation to complete the cycle back to prayer.

Happy Birthday Pratibha!

Today is Pratibha Patil's birthday.

Pratibha was India's President and to date the only woman to have held that office.

As our Parliament - of which we are supposed to be so proud - mires itself ever more deeply in the swampy jungle of Brexit two of her comments (about the Parliament of India) are poignant, to say the least:

It is important that the decorum and dignity of the House is upheld at all times.  The image of Parliament in the public mind should be one where proceedings, debates and discussions take place with a view to resolve issues through a constructive and co-operative approach.

Parliament of the country is the repository of the sovereign will of the people and its successful functioning is the responsibility of both the Government and Opposition.

Quite.

Bunched

A disconcerting life-fact is the way that the truth of our thoughts comes out a little more when we are wound-up than when we are calm.  My mother has always sounded more Welsh (occasionally repairing into Welsh words even) when she is more worked up.

Yesterday, in the frenetic atmosphere of Prime Ministers Questions (an atmosphere that he himself has encouraged however) Mr Cameron splurged out his collective noun for migrants trying to reach Britain from their staging post in the Calais area.  A bunch of migrants, he called them.

It was part of an insult thrown at Jeremy Corbyn who is unlikely to be much affected by any more insults.  However, plenty of hearers concluded that it was more of an insult to the people wanting to migrate.  There was added poignancy on Holocaust Memorial Day as no other day of the year more accurately reflects the dehumanising of groups of people than that day.  In Jerusalem great care is taken to record as best as is possible the names of everyone who was killed in the Holocaust precisely because in their death they were simply a bunch of Jews.  Here is the Hall of Names:

I am struck by the story told by the Lord Jesus.  (He, remember, was a Nazarene [i.e. one of the bunch from grotty Nazareth] - oh, and God manifest in the flesh).  There were, his story goes, a bunch of sheep.  Strangely the shepherd - the god-figure - leaves that bunch and goes across hill and valley to find one lost sheep.

So it wasn't the outsider that was God's bunch but those in the fold.  Kind of like Ali (who has a degree in Economics and a masters in Business and who owned a chain of supermarkets in Syria) who is on Calais waiting to join a bunch of Britons, David.

Election

Last Sunday we had an Election Hustings at our Church.  We were very grateful that all the candidates were willing to turn up (which was something the BBC didn't achieve with the party leaders . . .!).

One reason why they turned up is probably connected to the work of the Churches in the community and this was referenced by several of them.  Indeed, in a manner not noticed on TV when MPs are interviewed they were almost all keen to stress some participation or support for the work of the churches.

The Bible didn't do as well.

The issue, as ever with the Bible, is the issue of authority.  No candidate is overly keen to feel bound by an old set of books.  Whilst the Churches represent something splendid in community voluntary work the Bible represents something like the Monarch's throne in parliament - a piece of history that represents an old, discredited authority.

The tour guide in the Palace of Westminster stands by this painting in St Stephen's Hall, the place where the Commons formerly met. She explains some of the momentous things that happened here in days gone by.  She cites most approvingly the efforts - at this very spot - by which William Wilberforce led the brave and challenging political fight against slavery.  She omits to mention the picture,  It is of the English people reading the Bible despite persecution.

So much of what is strong about our nation is not, historically, attributable to the Church.  It is attributable to the Bible.  This has been recognised at coronations as on the walls of parliament.  If only it were recognised in the Palace of Westminster; in this society; in the church, even.

Passed!

This being the day when my daughter passed her Practical Driving Test I'm reminded of my own.

If we can clear up the boasts first of all:  I passed first time after only 15 hours driving (not necessarily as good thing, but our family didn't have a car to practice in).  I thought you'd be impressed.

On the other hand, my daughter passed almost flawlessly today and that I cannot say for myself.  In those days the test ended with a series of questions on the Highway Code.  One of mine was, what signal follows amber?

In the whole realm of questions this one is very easy.  After all, when you know that the other two are red and green and that red and green never appear at the same time you are left with a choice of two.  I chose green.

It was a regrettable choice but for reasons I have never fully understood I was given a pass. Presumably I had already demonstrated in my driving that I did not really believe my own answer. 

What you do when warned of danger is down to two pedals - the accelerator and the brake.  As we move toward a General Election I think that moving back to London has helped me better understand the political life of our nation which is so firmly based here.  London seems to regard amber lights as a reason to hit the accelerator.  So many nation-changing decisions made during this outgoing parliament has been of the same kind.  People have warned about messing about with welfare caps, with marriage, with numbers of biological parents (good grief . . .), with freedom of speech and a host of other things only to find the accelerator pushed down.

I made a nasty mistake.  But I'm not alone.

The Bitter Fruit of Freedom

As a Baptist Christian I celebrate the freedom of our Parliament to make law on behalf of the ordinary people.  It was not a freedom inherent in the place or in most historic government.

 

The emperor or monarch could make the laws.  While it is hard to see how this policy could have survived into the 21st century it took the spilling of blood and many an imprisonment to make it happen when it did.

 

Every November 5th we are supposed to remember that outside powers have longed to hold sway on this island, powers that include religious ones.  The people thus could have been enabled to do only what those authorities told them to do.

 

Or it could have been the landowners, or the men, who made the laws.  For years it was. The majority of people thus excluded by poverty or gender from representation.

 

Or we may have had the Third Reich.  What would a provincial government of that have looked like in Westminster?

 

And so to today, when our Parliament took upon itself the role of improving God's idea of marriage.

Freedom brings responsibility.  Before and again, like many a teenager leaving home, those who have a sense of authoritative freedom have disregarded and will disregard any limitations that might have previously constrained them.  Who cares what the Queen thinks?  Who cares what the Bible teaches?  Who cares what millennia of marriage has meant and its place in our story?  Who cares what the Church thinks?  Who cares what the Pope thinks, or the Islamic world thinks?  We can make our own, more perfect world.  Look, they think, we just did.  'An important step forward', David Cameron (and Ed Miliband) called it.  At least we can agree that it is an important step.  On that the redefiners and the Creator of marriage do agree.

 

We celebrate freedom not because it gets things right but because it reinforces human responsibility.  There will be no Britons of this generation who can look God in the eye (if that were possible) and say, "They messed about with your idea of marriage".  Do we seriously think that this Parliament would be redefining marriage if 90% of the voters were strongly opposed?  If a United Kingdom Marriage Party had been formed and UKMP had 55% in the opinion polls would the Bill voted on today have received the same support?  We all know that exactly the same MPs in exactly the same Parliament would be whistling a very different tune.

 

Freedom means this is our Parliament, our decision, our law, our redefinition, our responsibility and either God sits in his heaven tonight toasting the enlightened way we and David Cameron have improved on His original idea or the Bible is true and He's starting to look away until he calls us to account later.

Young

Yesterday we had an Evening Service where the average age of the participants was under 20 years old.  And no-one was as old as half my age.  I like that.



I thought about it when I read about the UK Youth Parliament.  I think that is a great idea too.  But what I noticed about that is that it is three days - not three full days mind - in the summer hols.  I am confident no young person I have met even knows it exists.  I am not entirely convinced that most politicians know it exists.

Here's the blurb: 'For the last ten years MYPs from all across the UK have come together to take part in workshops, debates, and develop the UK Youth Parliament’s campaigns for the year ahead at our annual summit.'

Laudable, but definitely not powerful.

When young people - indeed when children - lead times of worship and reflection on the much greater things of God the amazing thing is this: they are often more able and powerful than adults.  And certainly, as heaven looks down, heaven does not think,

'Oh, it's just a Youth-led Service tonight'

Undecided

Here we are, the Sunday after the Thursday before, and we still don't know who'll be Prime Minister next month or which party(ies) will form the next UK Government.

A hung parliament.  It's all so wonderfully post-modern.

Nothing is certain.  Nothing is absolute.  Nothing is true for us all.  Nothing is inevitable.  Anything is nothing if I want it to be. 

I guess the financial markets, which are not so post-modern, will get some decisions made shortly.  And that reminds me that while everything seems to be relative, the opposite is actually true.  The future only has a single destination when it comes to bowing the knee.  Yep, Jesus has the Hung Parliament thing well sorted in the long run.

Expenses

Passing this notice outside the parish church of the House of Commons I couldn't help thinking that its communicants, given recent revelations, should have been able to find imaginative ways of raising the necessary funds . . .