tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70100976424875789582024-03-13T14:44:01.439+00:00Simon SaysSimon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.comBlogger55125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-54153171604611018912019-03-27T09:40:00.001+00:002019-03-27T09:41:03.982+00:00No outsiders?<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="4gq9b" data-offset-key="7iu20-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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<span data-offset-key="7iu20-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">"No outsiders" is a great slogan. One that we feel we ought to sign up to. I expect the parents of the schools where there is controversy about learning around the diversity of human sexuality and family life thought "No outsiders" was a good idea before they realised that some of the "outsiders" were people they wanted to keep outside.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="1st2-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">A few years ago, the Baptist Union of Great Britain adopted Five Core Values. One was being an "Inclusive Community". I remember the first time I saw the Five Core Values poster on the my home church noticeboard on one of my trips back from Geneva. I thought at the time that it was a bold and potentially controversial value. Of course, it arose from a perfectly proper desire to see congregations that were not just white, middle class and upwardly aged. But what it says is inclusive without any qualification. It's an aspiration that many churches don't really want to aspire to because they believe that there are some kinds of people who should be excluded.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="1st2-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">It is very easy and comfortable to adopt a religion of an excluding god and an exclusive community, particularly if you think you are on the inside. Christians, especially during Lent, ought to reflect on the way that Jesus seemed to go out of his way to relate to outsiders, was crucified in company with what good people would have called the dregs of society and that the good news of the resurrection was first brought by women whose gender excluded and still excludes them from much religious practice. We are happy to talk about the love of God. Unless that love is totally inclusive we make God a small, self-centred, narrow minded god in our own image.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="1st2-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">"No outsiders" and "Inclusive Community" will make all of us uncomfortable at times as we are forced to confront our innate, imposed or learnt fears of those we see as "other". It's a discomfort that we all should learn from.</span></div>
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Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-4973402131125188322018-11-28T10:14:00.000+00:002018-11-28T10:14:00.476+00:00Dead heroes are safer - Bonhoeffer, King and Aung San Suu Kyi<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"What would have happened to Bonhoeffer if he had survived?" The question was asked me while we were dutifully reflecting with our neighbour at the end of a lecture on Dietrich Bonhoeffer at IBTSC, Amsterdam*. My immediate response was that we wouldn't have liked him. I've been thinking why I said that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The lecture had already demonstrated why we might not have liked Bonhoeffer while he was serving a German ex-pat church in Spain. He had given a series of lectures in which he showed himself supportive of notions of the superiority of his own people and of the legitimacy of war. He was a product of his times and culture. The theme of the IBTSC lecture+ was that it was while he was studying later at Union Theological Seminary in New York and became involved with a black Baptist church in Harlem, a district experiencing a cultural renaissance (search for Harlem Renaissance, it's fascinating), that he experience a change of perspective. This led to the writings of Bonhoeffer that have been so influential for many of us. An enduring legacy. It may trouble us because there's something in us that would prefer to exercise discipleship that didn't make demands on our comfortable self-interested existences and many of us are so invested in the systems and trappings of organised religion that religionless Christianity seems like an existential threat. But we don't set him aside or traduce him because of that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a similar way, the original question raised itself after watching "King:<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;"> a filmed record ... Montgomery to Memphis". We are still inspired and humbled by King's passion for God and for justice because one demands the other. We are still confronted by the same and new manifestations of racism, denial of rights, poverty and war against which he protested and demonstrated. He still challenges us with his stance of non-violence in the face of the most extreme provocation.</span> An enduring legacy even though he shames our feeble attempts to work for justice.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So why are dead heroes safer? Two reasons, until I think of more.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Heroes are human. They are fallible just like the rest of us. They are likely to get things wrong, perhaps in a disastrous way. Their reputation can easily and quickly shredded. This is why Aung San Suu Kyi is in the title. A prime example of someone who earned the respect of most of the world. Who was lauded for her principles and who would have continued to be if the authorities had found a way of executing her. The reality of her life and actions recently has been been terrible and she has lost her moral authority. Maybe history will take a more nuance view but we cannot know that now. Dead heroes can make no new mistakes - they are safe. They don't disappoint.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can construct dead heroes in our our own image or one convenient to our way of thinking and acting. Both Bonhoeffer and King have been co-opted to all kinds of causes. Their writings and historical actions can be treated like plasticine and moulded into all kinds of shapes. They are not around to gainsay. They are safe to play with.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Who knows what would have happened had Bonhoeffer and King been allowed to live until a ripe old age? We live in an age where we seem to take pleasure in building people up so that we can knock them down. Even if we didn't, we are all only human and we all disappoint, at some time or other, those who expect better of us. Dead heroes are safer.</span><br />
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* IBTSC - International Baptist Theological Study Centre, formerly the International Baptist Theological Centre in Prague.<br />
+ You can see the lecture online - https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=1GaBecIfnJw Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-88729169893306023512018-11-17T12:35:00.002+00:002018-11-17T12:35:46.276+00:00Poverty is a political choice - for the government, that is.<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
The report of the U.N. rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights has come at a good time for the UK government. We are are all distracted by the will she/won't she, will they/won't they of the Brexit draft agreement fallout.</div>
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If we weren't distracted, we would be appalled at his findings. After all, we have just given tens of millions of pounds to the BBC Children in Need telethon. We are not an uncaring society. </div>
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However, it seems we have an uncaring government who have sacrificed the wellbeing of a whole swathe of society on the altar of political dogma. We have a system that is "punitive, mean-spirited and often callous". Child poverty is at a level that is "not just a disgrace but a social calamity and an economic disaster". One phrase is particularly damning: "poverty is a political choice". Just to be clear, a political choice of government not of those who are poor.</div>
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We shouldn't be surprised as we have heard all this before (and had it ignored) from charities, foundations and churches. What on earth has made us believe that the poor must suffer for the economic good of the country? The rich and powerful remain untouched and, indeed, reap the benefits. Just to prove that we humans learn nothing, the Hebrew prophet, Amos, was saying the same thing a few thousand years ago.</div>
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Children in Need drew our attention to lots of creative projects staffed by skilled and caring people that really make a difference. Some of those were of a kind that would have been supported by local government before their budgets were cut the bone. Things do still happen because people want a good society. Voluntary effort, though, cannot on its own compensate for a callous regime.</div>
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Naturally, the government has rejected the report. Well, they would, wouldn't they.</div>
Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-91481613608293266282018-11-14T10:47:00.000+00:002018-11-14T10:47:13.297+00:00Socialism and pacifism in a bombed city.<br />
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My Mum and Dad didn't have many photos in the house. There was only one small black and white framed photograph on the mantelpiece in the living room; of Revd Hugh Ingli James.<br />
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Ingli James had made a profound impression on them as minister of Queen's Road Baptist Church, Coventry 1931-43. They were both young people and then members there. Ingli James was, by all accounts, a powerful preacher, reflecting his Welsh roots - a passionate advocate for Jesus Christ.<br />
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He was an unashamed socialist and a pacifist. He wasn't a Christian <i>and</i> a socialist and pacifist. The two were an inexorable consequence of faith in Jesus Christ. The first might have raised eyebrows among some. The second was a controversial in a city ripped apart by bombing. He challenged people to see that their faith in Christ had to work out in social justice and that narrow patriotism with its consequence, war, should be renounced. During the Depression, the church opened a centre for the unemployed and engaged in political campaigns. Several members became conscientious objectors when conscription was introduced. However, he faithfully wrote to those who, willingly or unwillingly, enlisted and found themselves in hard places.<br />
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Ingli James was not alone in his sentiments in Coventry. Three days after Coventry cathedral was destroyed by bombing on 14 November 1940, two charred timbers were lashed together to form a cross, three medieval roof nails were joined to form a cross and on the wall was written "Father forgive".<br />
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We still need such as him.<br />
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<br />Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-26898034595711475722018-11-14T09:38:00.001+00:002018-11-14T09:38:24.773+00:00Only United in Peacetime<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">"Workers of the world unite in peacetime - but in war slit one another's throats". A remark by Rosa Luxemburg, the German Marxist (1871-1919), I read in an article the other day. </span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">If you substitute Christians for workers, the phrase asks a sharp question about the churches in western europe and north america in the first half of the 20th century (and beyond). We had a rich history of internationalism and developing peaceful relations - not surprising given the nature of the</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> Christian gospel. This is dumped by the majority at the national call to arms. Presuming that our remembrance reflections are not for one day only, it's an issue worth continuing to ponder.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br />A former colleague and friend, Jane Stranz, was reflecting on the German churches' majority support for the Nazis and wrote: "society evangelises us much more efficiently than the gospel does".</span>Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-43241737653960257512014-11-05T09:25:00.002+00:002014-11-05T09:36:15.068+00:00The monster with no name<br />
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Some things are difficult to get my head around. Film and theatre - no problem. Live performances of plays, ballet and opera screened direct to cinemas - a bit strange having a theatre experience in a cinema space but it makes sense. Showing a recording of a live theatre performance in a cinema many months later feels very strange. However, it gave us to catch up with Danny Boyle's acclaimed production of Frankenstein from the National Theatre. The superlatives of the time were justified, in spite of not getting the full effect of being present in the auditorium.<br />
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The new play from the book is powerful in bringing out several themes such as the nature of humanity, prejudice and the inter-dependence of creator and created. But it was the issue of the name of the"monster" that has been running round my head. I use the term "monster" as shorthand but we have to recognise that it is not a name but is a perjorative description.<br />
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Boyle has said that he wanted to give the "monster" a voice. In the play he turns from an incoherent being at his creation into someone who aware, well read and articulate (in content, albeit with a speech defect). But, as in the book, he has no name. He describes himself as an Adam to Frankenstein the creator but he does not claim that name, which anyway is a descriptor.<br />
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So why, I ask myself, does Frankenstein not give him a name and why does he not give himself a name when he has the intellectual capacity and literary knowledge to do so?<br />
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Giving a name or knowing a name is often understood to give power over a person. Traditionally, parents express their authority over a child by naming them. Traditionally, a wife took the husband's name on marriage to indicate whose authority she was now under. People converting to Christianity have often taken a new name, a Christian name, to indicate that they are now under Christ's authority. I could go on about this but I hope it makes the point.<br />
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For Frankenstein to name his creation, it would imply taking responsibility for his work. For the "monster" to name himself, it would mean taking responsibility for himself, becoming his own person. So here we have the tragedy - neither wants to be or is capable of being fully human. The non-humanity is not just a feature of the creation but of the creator too.<br />
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In the end, they disappear from sight, ineluctably bound together in their inhumanity, to their mutual destruction.Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-55632910640175437942014-11-04T09:37:00.001+00:002014-11-04T09:49:27.558+00:00A Greater Manchester mayor?Being old. I can remember things (at the same time as forgetting things). In 1974, England had a major reorganisation of local government. In Greater Manchester, a hotchpotch of smaller and larger local councils were coalesced into 10 metropolitan borough councils with a Greater Manchester council having responsibility for county wide strategic issues. The churches even responded by setting up the Greater Manchester County Ecumenical Council to coordinate their work across the county and to engage with local government.<br />
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Mrs Thatcher abolished metropolitan county councils in 1986 - they tended to be Labour and she didn't like local government anyway. Some of the Greater Manchester county council's responsibilities were given to the 10 boroughts, others had to be fulfilled by several ad hoc coordinating committees. Some of these have been reasonably successful - the development of the Metrolink tram system and support for the arts, for example. However, their success was only possible because they built on what had already been set up under the Greater Manchester Council.<br />
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Now, 40 years on, the current government has had an idea - Greater Manchester would flourish (economically, of course, what else matters) if there was proper strategic planning and direction. Their answer is an elected Mayor with those responsibilities. This does have the benefit of democratic appointment but not the checks and balances of accountability between mayoral elections.
A region like Greater Manchester does need some strategic authority with resources. So far so good. Better a sinner that repents!<br />
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However, I can't help but wonder why a government facing economic problems should decide to give £1 billion to Greater Manchester. Of course, there is great merit in spending decisions being taken at as local a level as possible rather than by people in London. For a government, though, there is the happy position of being able to say, when people complain about lack of funding,that decisions were taken by your Mayor not by us. The reality is that the government's generosity is an illusion. Local government is being systematically starved of funding with ongoing cuts to their budgets with front line services on which many depend being destroyed. Is the appointment of a mayor a way of deflecting anger?<br />
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A Greater Manchester mayor as Trojan horse? Beware Greeks (or governments in this case) bearing gifts!
Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-9000106831385174022011-11-01T16:16:00.001+00:002011-11-01T16:20:19.711+00:00The victory of schooling?It wasn’t that many decades ago when the landscape was clear. Schooling was for the majority – to equip them for their social position and economic role in society. Education was for the few - to make them the cultured and knowledgeable masters, if not of the universe at least of the empire. By their own efforts and by associating together, often in the non-conformist churches, ordinary people claimed education as their right too. Whatever the faults of the education reforms of the inter-war and immediate post-war periods, it might have been thought that things were moving in that direction. Melissa Benn’s excellent descriptive and analytic <span style="font-style:italic;">School Wars: The Battle for Britain’s Education</span> exposes what a mess we find ourselves in, particularly after the efforts of the current and two previous governments.<br /><br />My own conclusion, which has been reinforced by the book, is that schooling has won and education has lost, at least in the medium term. England (the Scottish and Welsh devolved governments may prove wiser) seems to have set itself on a course where we will end up with the majority going to schools which are run by for-profit bodies but paid for by the state. At the other end of the scale a few will go to schools run by non-profit foundations (such as the current independent schools) paid for privately by high fees. There will, of course, be some schools that fall somewhere between the extremes. <br /><br />The schools for the majority will concentrate on useful subjects (that is useful to employers) with measurable results and with a regime that will emphasise unquestioning compliance. If you thought it is bad now, you should look closely at what some ‘flagship’ schools are doing. Financially, they will be squeezed by the desire for providers to pay dividends to their shareholders and the state’s desire to pay as little as possible. An education will be offered by the better independent schools where it will be possible to have resources for music, drama, art and sports; to learn religion and poetry and so on. In other words, all those areas and interactions that enrich our lives and enable us to be whole persons. Already such schools charge fees above the level of most families’ total annual income and that disparity will only increase in the future. <br /><br />So the future begins to look like the past, though without children suffering from rickets – except that a recent news report revealed that rickets was re-emerging as a childhood disease in England. Shame on us.Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-11853269938762552232011-10-28T09:04:00.001+01:002011-10-28T09:07:43.306+01:00A symbol for the church – solid historic building or transient camp?The 400th anniversary of the King James Version, as it seems we must now call it, has reminded us of several aspects of the translation. Not least of these was the production of a version that would support the Church of England against dissenting forms of church. (Also, strangely given the love of the KJV by conservative Christians in the USA, support for the divine right of kings.) Thus, the Greek ekklesia was translated as ‘church’, which people associated with the structured, hierarchical Church of England, rather than its root meaning of assembly or gathering, as often used by other Christians. The word church won out and now appears in most modern versions which makes it very difficult to think of Jesus or St Paul speaking about anything other than a particular organisational structure in a building.<br /><br />The surrounding of St Paul’s by the Occupy camp makes me ask which is the better symbol for the church – the wonderful historic building or the messy transient camp? Now let’s be clear, I’m not making any claims for either to be truly representative of the Gospel so it’s not about a tick list of values and actions.<br /><br />The church sometimes appears to be trapped in its buildings, historic or modern. They seem to have an infinite capacity for consuming resources. They can distort our priorities when we become more concerned about them than what we believe to be God’s mission. They can offer an illusion of protection. Yet they give a sense of seriousness and presence, and sometimes we do use the space creatively.<br /><br />A protest camp is transient by its nature. It can be moved, either at the will of the participants or the force of the authorities. It can easily spring up somewhere else it is needed. It is vulnerable – not a weakness for those who believe in a God who becomes human. If there is permanency, it lies in fundamental values rather than physical structures.<br /> <br />Our tragedy as Christians is that we only seem able to see church in terms of buildings and organisational structures. We need to recapture the sense of ekklesia in terms of an assembly or gathering of people – more a camp than a building.Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-90182189791333441222011-10-27T10:07:00.002+01:002011-10-27T10:11:58.705+01:00Have faith in the city?In the course of the massive project that is tidying and rationalising the study (partly in order to make the spare ‘bedroom’ fit for purpose – ie not filled with books), I came across my copy of the 1985 Church of England report ‘Faith in the City’. The focus was on the urban priority areas where people were suffering deprivation and the churches were weak. Popular interest in the report was built up by the anger of Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative government. These urban areas are still the most vulnerable, especially in a time of reduction in national and local government spending. We still need to be considering the presence and role of faith in the city.<br /><br />However, having faith in the city, in a different sense of the word, also raises the question posed by the occupation that has led to the temporary closure of St Paul’s. The Occupy protest is a cry against corporate greed. We are all against corporate greed. Except that it is the generosity of corporate greed that funds many of our church buildings and projects. Every employee of the churches has faith in the city (in the sense of the activities of the square mile) that the stock market will rise and large corporations will pay good dividends. Our pensions depend on it. And with all our pension funds in alarming deficit we need to have a lot of faith.<br /><br />So it’s not just an issue for St Paul’s whether they put the financial support of their building and their mission above that of the wider challenges of the gospel. An issue that has caused the resignation of Giles Fraser as canon chancellor. It is one for all of us involved in the church. Are we so hopelessly compromised by our buying into a particular economic system that we have no grounds for singing the song that heralded the birth of Jesus – bringing down the powerful, lifting up the lowly, filling the hungry, sending the rich empty away?<br /><br />Or are we about challenging the city with such values? We can’t expect them to pay for us to undermine them. (That’s an issue we are exploring in the MA module I’m tutoring – whether chaplains who are employed by secular bodies are expected to offer individual sticking plasters or a questioning of employment practices.) Are we prepared to take the hit ourselves in our pensions and savings, for past economic success has been clearly related to the effects of corporate greed?Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-5724235949430696972011-04-27T20:17:00.001+01:002011-04-27T20:19:21.298+01:00For the peopleI hadn’t visited the People’s History Museum in Manchester for almost 20 years. Whilst I’ve been away it has expanded from its original home in an old pump house that used to supply the city with drinking water to include a modern building alongside.<br /><br />Its displays trace the struggle for democracy so that all men and women had a vote. It puts to shame a society in which only a minority bother to exercise their right to determine who represents them in national and local government. It also charts the struggle for workers rights from the formation of illegal groups of workers to the establishment of trade unions. These struggles cost people their livelihoods and sometimes their lives. So much that is taken for granted was only obtained at great cost.<br /><br />The large, colourful banners of the unions, carried in processions and rallies, proclaim their pride in their work and a commitment to unity. They believed that their battles against injustice could only be won by standing together. Their view of the world was communal not individualistic. Not my rights, but our rights.<br /><br />Among the cartoons displayed from several generations are those which challenge the rich and powerful for not paying their fair share (or any) tax whilst the poor pay the cost – nothing changes.<br /><br />A kind of motto of the People’s Museum is ‘there have always been ideas worth fighting for’ and its displays illustrate that. Going round them is an exciting and moving experience. It’s also disturbing as I wonder if in this age in England many are so materially comfortable and the rest are so dispirited that the struggle for justice fails to engage us.Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-1190610093705928022011-04-14T10:45:00.001+01:002011-04-14T10:48:42.652+01:00No excuse for not owning upShame on the UK that we cannot even take moral responsibility for the horrific behaviour of those who acted in our name in Kenya in the 1950’s. At a time when we are prepared to exercise our military muscle to ‘protect’ people in Lybia from abuse by their government, we wash our hands of horrific behaviour by our colonial administration not that many decades ago.<br /><br />I had come to know a little of this British behaviour in Kenya from visits there and conversations with Kenyans with whom I worked. However, to say that the reality revealed by recently released documents has shocked me is the understatement of the year. Not just the scale of beatings and killings but the documented torture and castration through to roasting alive. The detail is too disgusting to describe. No one should pretend that the Mau Mau uprising against colonial rule did not produce its own atrocities. That may be the context of the colonial administration’s response but it is not an excuse.<br /><br />The papers reveal the endemic nature of abuse and that it was condoned and, even, encouraged. The existence of abuse was officially denied and officials who raised concerns were publicly denounced. The paper trail leads out of the colonial administration in Kenya to the government in London.<br /><br />In the mid-50’s Colonel Arthur Young, an experience police officer and a Christian socialist, was appointed as commissioner of police for Kenya. In a letter to the Governor, forwarded to the Secret Registry of the Ministry for African Affairs, he observed that the Screening Camps (ostensibly for sorting out the active dissidents from innocent bystanders but in fact a dumping ground for anyone who came to official notice) presented a ‘state of affairs so deplorable’ that they should be investigated. Police were diverted from law and order issues to being agents of repression. Africans who suffered from ‘the brutalities that are clearly evident’ had no one to whom they could appeal for justice because the whole colonial structure was complicit. He called for the ‘elementary principles of justice and humanity’ to be observed. In his measured tones it is a damning letter. Young resigned in disgust after eight month’s service. (http://www.scribd.com/doc/52818588/Col-Young-Letter)<br /><br />Very often people make excuses for not dealing with such things. I’m told that we shouldn’t judge actions in the past by the standards we apply now. This is why Arthur Young is an important witness. His appeal in situ for justice and humanity is the one we would make today. If we fail to name the behaviour of the colonial regime and its agents for what it was, we become complicit. The challenge of Arthur Young and those like him who were prepared to risk opprobrium and loss of job will have fallen on ears equally as deaf as those of the civil servants and politicians in the 1950’s.<br /><br />I have no idea whether the legal responsibility now lies with the UK government or with the Kenyan government as successor to the colonial administration. I am certain where the moral responsibility lies.Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-87536802424044315842010-11-15T09:17:00.001+00:002010-11-15T09:22:22.002+00:00A fragile flower being crushed by heavy agendasThe poppy may be persistent in appearing each year but it is a fragile flower. It is not a chunky, robust flower. Its petals are light and open wide. The red petals may be redolent of the bloodshed of battle but its structure speaks of vulnerability.<br /><br />The Royal British Legion has taken ownership of the poppy as a symbol. The British Legion is a charity which must maximise its income in order to fulfil its objectives. I have strong feelings about a country that sends women and men to be maimed and killed and then fails to take full responsibility. However the question why so much care has to be undertaken by fundraising is another issue. The reality is that many of those we have willed to suffer rely on the work of the British Legion. One must admire the way the marketers of the charity have re-energised their fundraising, particularly under the challenge of newcomers like Hope4Heros who are competing in the same sector. Those former and present members of the armed forces who have protested against the increasing show-biz aspect of remembrance are right and wrong. Quiet reflection does not put money in the bank. Concerts, celebrity endorsements and attention grabbing events do. The red poppy now takes its place with the wristbands and pins of other charities.<br /><br />There are those who are intent on getting us to accept (or at least not criticise) involvement in Afghanistan and before that in Iraq. To question, the subtle message is, would be to deny the bereaved a sense of noble purpose in death and to say to those who have been terribly maimed in body and mind that it was all for nothing. This says much not just about a cynical ability to manipulate public opinion but about our general paucity of understanding of meaning in living and dying. The red poppy used to legitimate wars.<br /><br />Remembrance is both passive and active. It is about bringing into the present the things of the past. It is also about reshaping the present in the light of the experience of the past. The poppy, red and white, calls us to be quiet in the face of the horrors of war both for combatants and for the myriad others affected directly and indirectly. The human lust for power and economic advantage takes us into war and it does us good to shut up and reflect. The delicate, fragile poppy calls us to go on to ‘seek the ways that lead to peace’. Is that the poppy that we have crushed by the other agendas?Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-53628386187525889942010-11-03T11:11:00.003+00:002010-11-03T11:22:51.714+00:00What's the real question?There are some questions it is difficult to answer because of a wrong set of assumptions behind them. When the issue was newsworthy, I was asked whether I was in favour of the ordination of women. It was assumed that the problem at issue was the women part of the question. For me, though, the question was about the baggage that accompanied the idea of ordination. I am not in favour of men or women being ordained if it is seen, for example, as conferring power and privilege over other Christians. There are what I would consider to be unhealthy view of ordination among the churches. The concept, implications and content of ordination need to be thought through. Women should be equal in aspiration and opportunity in their vocations. It is how the churches often package those vocations that’s the problem for me. So a question about whether women should be bishops would raise the same problems.<br /><br />I feel a similar response to the current challenges in England to a legal framework that allows civil partnerships but prohibits marriage to same sex couples. Am I in favour of same sex marriage? I cannot just say yes or no - which is fortunately really because as a minister of the Baptist Union of Great Britain I am not supposed to advocate such things. Such a question almost certainly assumes that the problem is the same sex bit and the marriage bit is unproblematical. There are many views of marriage in the churches and in society and some of them are downright unhealthy for women and men or for same sex couples. A trend for marriage to be seen as lovey-dovey happy-ever-after needs to be examined if relationships are to survive. Older traditional views of marriage as being about property and control are equally in need of examination. Husband and wife are not neutral words that just happen to be applied to a man and a woman. They each carry with them unspoken sets of assumptions about the nature of the relationship. These are just examples of the need to be clear what we think marriage means. Until we are clear what we mean by marriage, questions about who should get married are unanswerable.<br /><br />That God’s love is inclusive and that healthy community requires equal opportunities to participate seem to me to be unexceptionable. It is how we package our roles and relationships that we need to think through.Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-76609634424090532612010-10-08T12:44:00.002+01:002010-10-08T12:47:32.226+01:00Desmond Tutu at Porto AlegreAs Desmond Tutu steps out of public life, a particular memory comes to mind. It was at the WCC 2006 Assembly in Porto Alegre and I was sitting in an area that allowed me to watch those gathered in the hall – sometimes more interesting than the presentations. <br /><br />Desmond Tutu contributed to a session on church unity. He received a universal standing ovation as he took his place to speak. The Assembly newspaper records: “A united church is no optional extra,” said Archbishop Desmond Tutu in an impassioned speech to the Assembly on Monday. It is “indispensable for the salvation of God’s world.” ... Apartheid had continued so long, he said, because the church was divided, and God called it to unity. “Jesus was quite serious when he said that God was our father, that we all belonged to one family, because in this family all, not some, are insiders.”<br /><br />So far, so good. A spirited performance but not saying anything unexceptional for the occasion. But then he went on to spell out what ‘all are insiders’ meant. For example, “Bush, bin Laden, all belong, gay, lesbian, so-called straight - all belong and are loved, are precious.” All those people whom society and the church love to demonise and exclude. It seemed very clear from some faces at that point that they didn’t think that God ought to love such people and that such people were definitely on the outside of any family they belonged to.<br /><br />Desmond Tutu left to a standing ovation but there were some who deliberately stayed seated. It’s an interesting thought that church representatives might protest against the idea that Jesus actually meant what he said. It was Tutu’s gift to be able to confront us with uncomfortable truths not with some economic or social theories but on the basis of the gospel.Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-58684073688267681142010-09-07T10:21:00.002+01:002010-09-07T10:27:10.193+01:0040 Years OnIt only seems like yesterday, but 40 years ago on 6 September 1970 I was inducted as a member of the ministry team of what was then called the North Cheshire Fellowship. Never being one to do the simple and straightforward when something more complex was possible, the whole thing had its peculiarities. The service was also the closing service of the church building where it was held, which bemused the local press.<br /><br />Leaving aside the question as to why anyone should have thought that I was a suitable person to be a pastor in a local congregation, there were things about the situation that were controversial in Baptist circles. Baptists organised themselves in individual (and often individualistic) congregations. A group of 8 congregations, one of which was Congregational, was too radical for some in the denomination. Through rationalisation, overcoming some divisive history, the group settled down to being 5 congregations, one of which was a Baptist/URC LEP. Team ministry was also too much for many devoted to the one man(!), one church model. When my Baptist Union probationary period came to an end, I felt that the committee interviewing me expected an apology for not being in the traditional mode. Of course, I didn’t make matters easier by saying that putting me as the sole minister of a church would be stupid. <br /><br />It was the group and team working that had attracted as well as the context of the small post-industrial towns which had been absorbed into Greater Manchester. The early 1970’s were challenging times economically and socially. Ugandan Asians expelled by Amin arrived in the area. Local government reorganisation gave opportunities for ecumenical engagement with the emerging Tameside Metropolitan Borough. Demanding, frustrating, exciting - I would not exchange those five years for anything.<br /><br />Looking at the Order of Service for the Induction, I am struck by the rightness of one of the hymns:<br /><br />SING we a song of high revolt;<br />Make great the Lord, God's name exalt:<br />Sing we the words of Mary's song<br />Of God at war with human wrong.<br /><br />By God the poor are lifted up;<br />God satisfies with bread and cup<br />The hungry folk of many lands:<br />The rich are left with empty hands.<br /><br />Sing we of God who deeply cares<br />And still with us our burden shares;<br />God, who with strength the proud disowns,<br />Brings down the mighty from their thrones.<br /><br />God calls us to revolt and fight,<br />To seek for what is just and right.<br />To sing and live Magnificat<br />In crowded street and council flat.<br /><br />40 years on, I’ll still go with that.Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-24184183768934950322010-08-13T09:07:00.003+01:002010-08-13T11:04:19.157+01:00Clapping for all occasionsAre we becoming more limited in our repertoire of emotional responses? I have sat in audiences where the desire to express appreciation through clapping has revealed an insensitivity towards the performance. The mood or thread of a drama is broken. At orchestral concerts, even when the conductor has suggested that immediate clapping is not appropriate at the end of an emotive piece of music, the last note is not even allowed to die away before the applause kicks in. Of course, we should show appreciation for what we have experienced. Clapping and cheering is absolutely right in context. But where, in other contexts, has the profound silence gone - not the silence of apathy but the silence that is so thick that you could cut it with a knife? Performers are rewarded by the audience recognising and responding to the emotional atmosphere that they have created.<br /><br />The two minute silence to mark death on occasions like football matches has been replaced by two minutes applause. Public funeral processions, like those for troops killed in Afghanistan, are marked by applause. If we want to be seen as doing something to show sympathy and respect, how is applause an appropriate action? Standing in silence is doing something and, for my money, has infinitely more emotional power.<br /><br />Are we becoming so hyperactive and so much in need of being surrounded with noise that we no longer know how to do silence?Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-46755052362493729052010-05-04T15:02:00.000+01:002010-05-04T15:07:22.649+01:00Confessions of a tactical voter<span style="font-style:italic;">The news today (4 May) seems to be dominated by calls for and against tactical voting in the General Election.</span><br /><br />I confess that I have been a tactical voter ever since 1984. Before that I had always voted for my party of choice. What happened in 1984 was that we moved from Rusholme, Manchester to Warlingham, Surrey and nothing changed when we moved back to Greater Manchester in 1992 to Cheadle Hulme. The real, sometimes only, choice in both Warlingham and Cheadle Hulme was between Conservative and Liberal Democrat.<br /><br />For me, that was no choice because my instinct has always been and remains anti-Tory. Performance in office is another matter. The Conservatives have taken some counter-intuitive decisions like making non-selective education the norm (undermined by governments of both colours ever since). Labour have taken the UK into the disasters of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (albeit needing the support of Conservatives because of the resistance of many of their own MPs).<br /><br />My anti-Tory bias is a matter of personal principles (or prejudices). Even though I am irredeemably middle class, I do not forget my working class connections. I have met relatives who knew what it was like to sweat on the factory floor or on the land at the whim and to the benefit of their masters. Some relatives are still trapped in social deprivation. The Conservatives are a party of privilege where even the demeaning principle of noblesse oblige has withered. <br /><br />I am from a non-conformist Christian tradition and, therefore, from a radical social/political stream that was opposed to the ruling class mentality of the Church of England and the Tories. Things may have changed with part of the Church of England embracing a more critical approach to the state in one direction and an individualistic faith encouraged by evangelicism resonating with a market economy in another. Embracing the radical non-conformist tradition probably may make me one of a dying breed but it does mean that I have an anti-Tory bias.<br /><br />I fail to live up to the demands of the gospel but I do believe in them. I want to see the powerful brought down from their thrones, and the lowly lifted up; the hungry filled with good things, and the rich sent away empty. Political decisions may have to be pragmatic but they should be based on principle. So I want to know where the heart of a political party is as measured by the gospel. I do not say that the other parties embrace the values of God’s kingdom, even (especially) so-called Christian parties. However, my judgement is that the heart of the Conservative party, even as made user friendly by David Cameron, is not in the right place.<br /><br />So, on Thursday my vote will be cast tactically. I can do no other!Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-75994152163440624682010-04-26T10:18:00.002+01:002010-04-26T10:22:21.843+01:00Premium experience - an insulting offer?It’s that time of year when Manchester City inform their supporters how much they will have to pay for their season ticket for next season. The City website carries the information that the area where I currently sit will be upgraded to offer ‘a premium experience for supporters’. This wonderful news carries with it the privilege of paying more and probably increasing amounts over subsequent seasons.<br /><br />So what might be a premium experience? Well, quaint old fashioned thing that I am, for me it would be open attacking football that pleases the eye and excites. It would be skilful and committed players and creative tactics. I don’t expect City to win every match providing they lose to a team that’s better on the day. I know that a 0-0 draw can be exciting. The experience I seek when I go to the stadium is watching football – with all its ups and downs. What more could you want of a premium experience?<br /><br />I’m not looking for a shopping experience or an eating and drinking experience. My boredom threshold is not so low that I need to be entertained before the match or at half-time. I feel quite insulted that the club I’ve supported in good times and bad, as ‘owners’ have come and gone thinks I am so shallow that I need that kind of premium experience.<br /><br />The club did offer supporters a chance to participate in a survey and I answered their questions about what I want. I would be interested to see the results but I doubt they will be published. So I’m left with the suspicion that this was a sham consultation when the decision to offer this kind of premium experience was already planned. And that is doubly insulting.Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-16155953977466776712010-04-19T11:32:00.002+01:002010-04-19T11:45:37.483+01:00The cloud that could corrode and destroy usNot the cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland that has grounded air travel and caused anxiety and frustration for those trapped far from home. Instead, another cloud hanging over the UK General Election. It is sometimes seen in the British National Party and the UK Independence Party but is mainly hidden in the so-called mainstream parties. But it is there with its potentially corrosive and destructive effects.<br /><br />We can describe it as xenophobia, racism, ‘me and mine’ism etc but to attach such labels isn’t really helpful. The cloud panders to a perceived base instinct of people as interpreted by popular papers, who are more interested in headlines that sell their papers than any principles. It manifests itself in a desire for a UK that is ‘cut off’ from the rest of the world, particularly mainland Europe. It parades commitments to the UN 0.7% spending on overseas aid yet talks of delivering that in ways that support particular ideologies and of benefit to the UK military-industrial complex as much as anyone else. It holds on to the mega-expensive Trident missile system for its symbolism of being a powerful nation, even against military analysis. It defends dubious military enterprises by unproven appeal to safety on our streets. All examples of a small and mean political discourse which will do us more harm than good.<br /><br />And it’s all so irrational, even on the politicians' own terms. Without the immigrants we are encouraged to despise and shut out, the health and care services would collapse – a significant proportion of surgeons, doctors, nurses, care assistants and cleaners come to contribute to our well being. Even our football would be diminished by the absence of those who come from other countries – mercenaries, maybe, but ones that contribute to our entertainment. And we British enjoy the opportunity of working or retiring in other countries – yet still often see our hosts as the foreigners and not ourselves as migrant workers or immigrants.<br /><br />Facts don’t count in a discourse of emotion. We are encouraged to huddle together in fear instead of being engaged with a large and generous political vision than can excite.Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-42885059370248988922010-03-20T09:33:00.003+00:002010-03-20T09:36:08.036+00:00Happy 120th Birthday, ServetteIt may be difficult for some people to understand but it really isn’t possible to live without football to watch and a local team to support. All the so called Manchester United fans who live in London and Arsenal fans who live in Leeds, who only watch any football on tv, haven’t got it. I need football to hand to feel at home in a place!<br /><br />So when I got an interview in 1995 for a post with the World Council of Churches, I checked out the football possibilities. Servette FC had a good history in the Swiss league and European competitions. So my visit to Geneva included my personal intention to visit their ground to get a feel for things. However, I found they had a home match so I went along. Yes, I thought, I’d be OK here. So the decision to accept the WCC job was easy!<br /><br />In the 13 years I watched them (when the fixtures didn’t clash with Man City’s home matches) I was able to enjoy a league title win and a cup final. Lots of European matches too. Then came the curse of the new ground. The old characterful stadium was replaced by a new stadium in preparation for the 2008 European Football Championship hosted in Switzerland and Austria. At the same time the club fell into the hands of the incompetent, having goodwill but lacking resources, and finally a fraudster (later convicted). The club went bust. It was reformed and, for complicated reasons, was able to resume in the third level rather than lower down the pyramid. Servette quickly climbed back to the second level where it has become becalmed.<br /><br />So thank you, Servette for giving me the kind of excitement and heartache that is the lot of the football fan. Thank you for giving me something I could share with people who weren’t ecumenicalists or part of the international community.<br /><br />Happy Birthday, Servette! May the next years be more pleasure than pain.Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-1804294677192676102010-03-17T16:13:00.000+00:002010-03-17T16:15:06.896+00:00A mea culpa from the Pope?Hans Kung has his own complex agenda with the Vatican. However, he is surely correct in calling for the Pope to admit his complicity in the scandal of paedophilia in the Roman Catholic church. “Protecting their priests seems to have counted more for the bishops than protecting children,” he said according to the agency swissinfo.ch reporting an interview published in Süddeutsche Zeitung today (17 March). “Decency requires that the primary party responsible for the concealment [of the cases], namely Joseph Ratzinger [the pope], makes his own mea culpa.” Those who have been concerned about abuse in the churches have been aware of the Vatican policy of gaining the silence of the abused and moving on the offender. Not only failing to address the incidents of abuse but setting up new possibilities. This behaviour is sadly not unique to the Roman Catholic church. <br /><br />His call for a reconsideration of the celibacy of priests may be correct for all kinds of reasons. However, sexual abuse is far more complex than just sexually frustrated men working out their drives on children. It would be very dangerous for the church to reconsider celibacy on such a ground – particularly for children.Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-13957902082811960072010-03-13T15:27:00.002+00:002010-03-13T16:45:20.831+00:00'Christianity led me to the party’‘God is not a Conservative, but Christianity led me to the party’ – not my testimony but that of Tim Montgomerie, founder of the unofficial but highly influential ConservativeHome website. It’s the headline for an interview in this week’s New Statesman (15 March 2010). <br /><br />And how did Christianity lead him to the Tories? The answer was ‘because of what I believe about family and individual responsibility’. Not, apparently, the radical message of the gospels in the magnificat, the beatitudes or Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of God. If anything about Christian faith could provide a basis for involvement in politics, I would have thought it should be that.<br /><br />Many Christians do go on about the family. According to the gospels, though, Jesus himself had questions about the family because of its potential to get in the way of the priorities of the kingdom. It wasn’t that Jesus was against loving, committed relationship but just that he wanted to blow it out of the narrow confines even of extended family, let alone our nuclear families - to universalise it. Family values is too small a vision for Christian faith.<br /><br />Individual responsibility – that’s not good even for a ‘me and God’ kind of faith. It smacks too much of ‘there’s no such thing as society, just individuals’. There is a communal or collective aspect to Christian faith. Churches recognise that, for example, in baptism and communion. We collectively, rather than a collection of individuals, are the body of Christ. There is a personal responsibility for our actions and relationships but that is not the same as individual responsibility.<br /><br />How tragic for Tim Montgomerie and for those he influences that a faith once experienced as turning the world upside down should come to be reduced to family and individual responsibility.Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-74000358070542083752010-03-02T11:05:00.001+00:002010-03-02T11:07:56.402+00:00No-cost conscience170 nonconformists went to prison in England in the early 1900s for refusing to pay their taxes. The issue was that the 1902 Education Act had integrated most denominational schools into the state system. As the majority of these schools were Anglican, the nonconformists objected to their taxes paying for a kind of religious education they found unacceptable.<br /><br />Jump forward to 2010 and we have two issue where churches in England want their consciences (or prejudices) assuaged by the taxpayer. On the whole Christians have a good record in promoting legislation for people’s rights – see the story of the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It’s just that in reality churches don’t want it to apply to them – so the anguish about employment legislation on having to treat women or gay people fairly. The state has to bend the rules, apparently, to allow for the churches’ conscience in such matters. Nowhere in the discussion have I heard it recognised that there might be a price that the churches had to pay in maintaining their conscience, if they wish to do so.<br /><br />Likewise there seems to be a feeling amongst many religious people that there is nothing wrong in the state funding their schools and religious education. Although it is wrong to call it religious education, more like specific faith nurture very often done by emphasising the quality of one faith against the deficiencies of others. You don’t, I think, build a tolerant society by using taxes to fund divisive education – a lesson still not yet learnt in Northern Ireland. The creeping religiousification of the state school system in England by taking schools out of local community ownership and into the hands of people with particular religious agendas, however benign some of these may be, is dangerous for the well being of society. If your conscience tells you that you want to nurture children and young people in faith or you want to bring new people into your fold, you are free to do it – but you should pay for it yourself.<br /><br />Having a no-cost conscience is a strange thing to be thinking about in Lent.Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7010097642487578958.post-22013007112102203112010-02-15T11:26:00.001+00:002010-02-15T11:32:03.712+00:00‘Ready Steady Cook’ WorshipFor those not familiar with the BBC tv programme Ready Steady Cook, it is based on chefs being required to produce a meal from sets of ingredients purchased by non-chef participants. Sometimes it looks as though the items were bought with an idea of what might result, sometimes they appear to be a completely random selection.<br /><br />Preparing a service of worship is never easy. It is difficult enough when one is only confronted with the lectionary readings and, of course, the context in which the worship will take place.<br /><br />Sometimes though, it feels as though the ingredients presented are so disparate as to make the worship preparers task a real challenge. This last Sunday, deputising for the pastor, was a case in point for me. The lectionary demanded that attention be paid to the transfiguration of Jesus. It was Valentine’s Day – it’s a reality even if you think it is more a commercial than romantic opportunity. The congregation were to be engaged with the youth group’s project for the year – 10:10 (the campaign to reduce carbon emissions by 10% in 2010 - www.1010uk.org). For what it’s worth, it struck me that for all the extraordinariness of the experience on the mountain top and the desire to permanently memorialise it, when the disciples returned to everyday life they had not been able to be inspired or empowered to respond to the situation that confronted them. The plaintive complaint of a distracted father to Jesus is a powerful counterpoint to the mountain top – We begged your disciples to do something but they could not. <br /><br />So my conclusion (at least according to the scrappy notes I preach from – I have no idea what I actually said!) was:<br />It’s all very well to get romantic on Valentines’s Day but it’s how the relationship works for the other 364 days of the year.<br />It’s all very well rejoicing in the world we have been given to enjoy but it’s how we live responsibly in it every day.<br />It’s all very well coming to church and rejoicing how much God loves us but it’s how faith shapes and enables our behaviour the other 6 days, 23 hours each week.<br /><br />Unless worship is prepared on the Ready Stead Cook principle, attempting to integrate all the ingredients that come from different directions, it will always run the danger of being a great experience (sometimes) but one which makes no difference beyond the moment.Simon Oxleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03345355071966763370noreply@blogger.com1