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.

Sabbatical Picture No 4 The Poster

There are few more politicised places in the world than Jerusalem.  The time I spent there was relatively peaceable but 'peace in Jerusalem', despite its Biblical pedigree, seems almost a contradiction in terms.

Mr Trump had visited Israel not long before I was there.  In the UK our Prime Minister invited him to visit almost before he sat down in the Oval office but later reflection has led to some pause as to the wisdom and timing of such a visit.  Outside the USA - and in several parts inside the USA - this poster would not have survived a night, never mind several weeks.  In several parts of Jerusalem it wouldn't have survived ten minutes.  Yet on this and several nearby boulevards it and its cousins hung undisturbed long after Mr Trump had departed West.

Such is the black and white politics of modern Israel.

Will true peace ever come?

By one measure Jerusalem had its chance and blew it.

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!"

But the same Book that tells me of that missed opportunity, tells me that the King of Jerusalem will return one day and, following the End, peace will be the everlasting state of affairs.

Make Jesus Great Again.

Sabbatical Pictures No 3 The Walls

The Walls of Jerusalem are very evocative for Jews and Christians.  So much so that on any given day there were odd (I use the word ambiguously) people standing on the current walls reading passages of the Bible out loud to nobody in particular.

There are several Biblical reasons for doing this if you choose to find them  This, from Isaiah 62,

I have posted watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem;    they will never be silent day or night.You who call on the Lord,    give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem    and makes her the praise of the earth.

As ever Jerusalem provides far too much complexity for us simple souls to know what to do.  The walls on which this and other passages were being read aloud (in English of course, and with a South African or American accent depending on who it was) were built to protect Muslim Jerusalem by Suleiman, whose famed inscription reads,

he who has protected the home of Islam with his might and main and wiped out the tyranny of idols with his power and strength, he whom alone God has enabled to enslave the necks of kings in countries (far and wide) and deservedly acquire the throne of the Caliphate.

I have severe doubts that the readers are intending to promote his 16th century (AD) plan.  Also, the walls are in the 'wrong' place biblically speaking and do not surround Zion with which in the scriptures they are associated.

But this picture from those walls contains a nearly hidden addition to this story.  For, looking out toward Bethlehem, in the far distance it is possible to see another wall, the 21st century wall that divides Israel from the West Bank.  Whether you are Palestinian or Jew - or for that matter a foreign visitor - this is the real wall of Jerusalem.  It, and the issues it represents to Jew and Palestinian alike, are the real cause for prayer.

A Sheepish Perpective on Elections.

For Christians western-style national elections raise huge issues for they are dominated by Party Politics and not the issues themselves.

Political parties are a construct that brings good as well as bad. Whether or not you think well of her, if Theresa May were the same person with the same ideals but an Independent she would not get an ounce of weight in a General Election campaign.

Yet if there are no political parties that does not make all things well.  One ward in the recent local elections had fielded an independent councillor for several years but when she stepped down nobody took her place - so there is now no councillor at all.

Human beings, on the whole, are part of constructs of many kinds.  If the UK (a construct) has a hard Brexit from the EU (a construct) it might have to trade with the EU under WTO (a construct) trading rules.

Something in many a human spirit longs to be free.  In London we have people who live rough deliberately to be outside the borders of society - no National Insurance number, no tax office, no address, no vote, no debt letters, no loyalty cards, no PPI . . .

And many a soul regards church in a similar way.  From the outset it has had expressions of party spirit and it is perhaps no coincidence that UK party politics owes something of a debt to the voluntary structures of churches a couple of hundred years ago.

Yet for all the elements of human construct it has contained, the church of Jesus is primarily a construct of his.  The person who wearily wants to go it alone spiritually is not so much striking a blow at the institutions of religion as at the plan of God.  Which is not such a wise blow to strike.

When, after all, did you last see an independent sheep?

Hear the trump proclaim the Day

The inauguration of a human being as the second most powerful man among men is not just another day.  His power is the more noticeable because of his bombastic, his unpredictable character and because of his great wealth and fame prior to taking office.  It is not easy to find people happy about the new President outside the USA and there are many unhappy people in the USA too.  Coming years are certainly unlikely to be boring.

Americans, deeply divided, cannot even agree on whether, or how, to pray for President Trump. The arch-liberal Washington Episcopal Cathedral has been heavily criticised for hosting its traditional Prayer Service for a new Presidential term.

The reason to pray - we should always pray - is that we pray to the MOST powerful man alive today.  By becoming President, Donald Trump moves into a key Biblical category.  He moves there in the manner of Joseph Stalin, Teresa May, Abraham Lincoln, Idi Amin, Harry Truman (more on him in another blog), Mao Tse Tung, King Henry VIII and Julius Caesar to name but a few.  He becomes a 'Lord' or a 'King' - a ruler for his fellow human beings.

This category has some reserved information provided in scripture.  If Jesus was a carpenter, he is nevertheless not called the carpenter of carpenters, nor described as the healer of all healers though he might be both.  He is, however, named the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

Donald Trump is suddenly very responsible, very directly accountable.  Does he know it?  Looking at the list above reminds us that some leaders grasp(ed) it and others didn't and don't.

But whether Trump gets to grip with his Boss or not - it would greatly help worried people the world over if they will embrace the Ascension truth that (whether in The Gambia or Washington DC) there is always Someone with more power than the one with apparent power.  And that Someone is going nowhere - until the trump proclaims the Day and He holds us all to account. 

Enduring Politics

The current politics of Britain are as amazing as anything in my memory: the leader of the Conservative Party exiting when not required to do by his parliamentary colleagues and the leader of the Labour Party refusing to leave when told to go by his parliamentary colleagues.

In Christian Ministry I have never been much attracted to siding publicly with party politics and when I read the rants of Church leaders that do I am even less inclined.  But as David Cameron left Downing Street yesterday - unable to move straight into his £3.5 million West London home because it is currently rented out at £7,800 plus per month, and humming happily as he returned into the PM's house after making his public announcement - it illustrates a vast contemporary trend that stretches deep into the life of modern Britain.  It is a trend further illustrated in the public faces of the referendum campaign who quickly disappeared from view, at least until Boris was resurrected last evening.  When the going get's tough the tough just go.

Into this whirling world of 'I'm off now - byes' has stepped Jeremy Corbyn.

He represents many strange anomalous things over against proper contemporary politics.  Teresa May decimated the front bench of politicians she sat with but (unless another surprise is in store) she will incongruously face Mr Corbyn at her first Prime Minister's Questions.

Quite a lot of leadership theory seems to revolve around instant departure; in the business world as well as politics, in the church as well as in education.  Yet Mr Corbyn, together ironically (he's a republican) with the Queen represents those outdated qualities of sticking at it.  As such they haunt the swirling world of proper 21st century leaders with the potential value of enduring.

Christians may think all sorts of things about all of this.  But at least they should recognise that the apparently quirky quality of enduring is, in their discipleship and in the church, a very divine quality.

The European Union (3)

After reading some of the comments in social media it is a relief to get to this:
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/5743/eu-referendum-statement-by-archbishops-of-canterbury-and-york

The European Union (2)

My posts have temporarily been absent after the death of my Mum.  In another post or two I'll write about her.  She died at the beginning of June.

So disappointed

I don't have any words left.

I'm just too upset

It is a sad day

am deeply saddened

Just some of the kind of sympathetic, caring things friends and believers wrote to me in my bereavement.

Except that these quotations are not from my sympathy cards but are some of the more repeatable extracts from various believers - including pastors - posting their responses to the electorate making a decision they didn't like about the EU.

My Mum was a believer in Jesus who was saved by God's grace, blessed me, my daughter and very many people over very many years.

The European Union is a politico-economic bloc of 28 nations.

I fail to appreciate why an unwelcome political decision in a democratic country is attributed the same language that folk write in their condolences to me.  But if they think that the UK outside the EU is going to be like me without my Mum then they have a very poor grasp of death and bereavement.

The European Union

Much Christian hand-wringing seems to be going on over the approaching European Referendum.  Several normally opinionated friends of mine have appeared bewildered because, well, they cannot get opinionated about it.  In a Cathedral notice I saw online they are diligently arranging for a Christian from each side of the debate to answer questions in a forum.

I think earnest Christians suffer more in such circumstances because they are very desperate to be politically serious  (if this is you please stop reading now).  While a neighbour might vote on the basis of the niceness or nastiness of the latest East European worker they have met or others on the basis of their favourite or least favourite politician's stance or others because now Stephen Hawking has told them what to think (again) the Christian tries to (and here I quote a friend's conversation) discern what the Spirit is saying to us at this time.

I've decided to stick with my friend's quotation and to wonder whether the Spirit of God is saying anything about how to vote in the EU referendum. 

The juxtaposition of earthly nations' treaties is not irrelevant to salvation history.  It forms a kind of wallpaper in the room of God's activity; it sets a mood, provides a backdrop and is caught unmistakably in any snapshot of God at work.  Most memorably in the Gospel story the Roman Empire and its granted but fraught Jewish autonomy region is there, spreading on into the events of the Acts of the Apostles.  The Old Testament is full of treaties and because Israel was in a Covenant with God these treaties sometimes take on a foreground, theological significance.  This is because an international treaty in that Testament often signified a lack of faith in the covenant with God.

I have read some heavily reasoned arguments  by earnest Christians but if you want my advice it is to trust the Holy Spirit whichever way the vote goes, ignore Stephen Hawking (who is planning a spaceship to get away anyway) and carry on discussing your options with the guys at the pub.

Oh bother.  There goes my last vestige of hope of being invited onto the Baptist Union Faith and Society Team.

Election day

Almighty Father,

whose will is to restore all things

in your beloved Son, the King of all:

govern the hearts and minds of those in authority,

and bring the families of the nations,

divided and torn apart by the ravages of sin,

to be subject to his just and gentle rule;

who is alive and reigns with you,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever.

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.

Falling Apart

A few blog readers will know to whom I refer , but out of internet modesty I will content myself with the relative anonymity of writing that I was recently in a meeting with a Government Minister.  The purpose of the meeting was itself interesting (and not at all confidential).  What caught my attention was a little phrase that the minister used in passing:  referring to the general state of the nations the minister commented, "things seem to be falling apart everywhere at the moment".

 

 

In itself it is plain obvious.  Libya, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Nigeria, Somalia, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Mali and even, in its own way, the (formerly) United Kingdom.

 

I suppose if I'd heard two congregants in Church, two people at a bus stop or two people watching the news on TV saying it I'd have barely noticed.  But a Government Minister?  So even up there at the Top it looks scary?

 

Well, thank God that Top is not the real Top.

 

Among a thousand Bible verses that help - but less well known than most - the disasters of the human story are characterised as God gathering grapes . . .

 

Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, "Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth's vine, because its grapes are ripe."

 

From the real Top it really does look different.

Mandela

It is a rare thing for quite so many people to be honouring one human being in his death as are now lining up to pay tribute to Nelson Mandela.  It is easy to be cynical about this when no politician can afford to be other than fulsome in their tribute of the man.  If anything resembling this honour had been afforded him in his imprisonment he would have been released far more quickly.  In other political times equally heroic people have passed unnoticed into oblivion.

 

On the other hand, his story of forgiveness and reconciliation (not tolerance, as some have tried to suggest - don't western politicians love that word?) is a heart-warming and affirming one to celebrate and to imitate.  This is humanity at its better end.  When we see it cheered it cheers us all.

 

Humanity at its most humane is an awesome creation.  It is easy to focus on the times when the animal world seems to hold higher virtues and standards - and frankly in South Africa that has probably been sometimes true.  However, the image of God has vestiges enough in the human frame that we see glimpsed many lights in a dark landscape and, like the Christmas lights in December, they warm our hearts.  We pray for our leaders and so now we thank God for what he showed us in Nelson Mandella who will remain a lasting hero for so many of us.  Admittedly that is partly because he was outstanding for doing so often the right thing after suffering the wrong thing.  How nice it would be if that was normal instead of shockingly good.

 

I thought I'd wait until the third day to write about Nelson Mandela.

I think he is a true hero of humanity.  But on this third day as we await his funeral and know that what the apartheid regime couldn't defeat death has, I would not want anyone to mistake who is humanity's only truly victorious hero.

And he's living today and is still forgiving and reconciling human beings day by day.



Andrew's Day

A recent blog I read was bewailing why the churches (in England) are not taking more interest in next year's Scottish independence referendum.

 

I think today explains that. 

 

 

 

Eight people died in a horrible helicopter crash in Glasgow city centre last night - someone remarking it was the worst possible beginning to St Andrew's Day (the national day of Scotland - [and Barbados, see last year's blog]).

 

Whilst understanding what they meant, they are also possibly wrong.

 

Insofar as St Andrew's Day is about the Biblical disciple Andrew it was beautifully portrayed in the help that ordinary people gave to one another in Glasgow last night when the helicopter crashed on the city centre.  Andrew the fisherman was as ordinary as any Glaswegian, and he helped, first of all by bringing his brother to the Lord Jesus.

 

And whether Scotland is independent (as it usually has been) or in a union with the UK (as it currently is) the big things like city centre disasters are what the people of God and the kingdom of God are firstly about.  I can't get excited about Scottish independence not because it doesn't matter but because it doesn't matter enough.

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.

A Capital Weekend

It was in the shadow of rising Nazism that a Conference met in Oxford in 1937.  Drawn from many different Christian expressions it wrestled with issues that have since - and not least this weekend - shaped the post-War world too.  It was notable for its clarity, something rarely achieved in Ecumenical conferencing.

As the Greek people vote in the most economic of all elections it is interesting to notice the 1937 Conference's warnings about Capitalism.  It was a feature of the Conference that it refused to identify any overarching political system with the Kingdom of God (at a time when every overarching political  system was claiming to be God's or, in the case of Stalinism, god).  Fascism and Communism have (for a while) had their day, Monarchy fell earlier and now we have Market Capitalism and Democracy which are starting to fall out with each other.

"Could anything, possibly, be wrong with Capitalism?", my Western generation asks, expecting the answer No.

In 1937 the Conference believed it systemically brought the following four negatives  - enhanced acquisitiveness; shocking new inequalities; irresponsible possession of economic power; diminishing Christian vocation.

Last night I returned from visiting someone on a nice new well-staffed ward (yes I know that the NHS has its problems but . . .).  Earlier in the day I had collected a regular prescription and dropped it into the nearest pharmacy I was walking past.  This morning I listened to a Doctor in a Greek Hospital telling how there was one nurse for 50 children and that they had to scour the region for drugs that they needed, sometimes failing to find them.

And I thought.  My generation of Westerners has reaped great rewards from Capitalism.  But the negatives those Christians saw are alive and well in the way it works today; where the added suffering of a sick child in Greece is deemed positive to protect a currency union.  It takes a spiritual outlook to believe that the child will, in fact, outlive money and not the other way round.

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'

Highlights

This week we had the second televised debate between the leaders of the three largest parties contesting the UK General Election on May 6.

Adam Boulton of Sky News who moderated the debate unintentionally damned it with this faint praise.  He wrote afterwards,  .... For me personally this really was fantastic and two moments stand out in particular...

First, talking to the audience before the debate and realising there were people from all walks of life who were pleased to be there.

Then there was the moment when the three leaders came on and took their places behind the podiums.  You could hear the countdown and you realised this really was going to happen.

Oh dear.  The two stand out moments both happened without any of the three of them opening their mouths!

This offered me some consolation this weekend when, beset by a stomach bug, I failed to finish a service for the first time in many hundreds of starts.  Disappearing from the platform in haste I ended up in a crumpled vomiting humiliation in the room behind the platform, the message largely as undelivered as the lunch was undigested.

The singular experience was not so bad for the congregants whom the wall spared from knowing any more than my disappearance.  They were able to continue their celebration largely undiminished, aided by my ever-competent wife who finished the service element in my absence.  Whatever the stand out part of the day was for those attending, I can be 100% sure it was not my message.  On another day I, like those party leaders, might have been fooled into believing it could have been! 

Copenhagen

As the United Nations Climate Change Conference descends gently and inevitably into inter-nation political squabbling, we can only pity those unpolitical scientists who claimed this was the 'most important conference in the history of the world.'

Bombs in Baghdad have simultaneously reminded us that Climate Change takes an early back seat when power takes over. Especially power expressed in war and violence. Tanks running on biofuel? Eco-friendly bombs delivered by low energy bombers? Nuclear warheads that preserve rare species? Dolphin-friendly depth charges?

This is the kind of Conference that only happens in peace time. It has laudable aims but there will come future days and places when human beings are so busy trying to kill each other that the fate of delicate ecosystems will be the last thing on their minds.

The chief planetary problem is in the heart of its dominant species. A heart that doesn't always seek peace, but always seeks more things for itself and its interests. The problem is more Greed than Green.

Christmas, because it points to how God changes souls, matters a lot more than Copenhagen. And the humblest conference, or Carol Service, that applies the lessons of Christ likely offers greater hope than any portentous gathering of the political elite. For we need the power to lay down the power, and that is a very illusive form of power indeed.