Good Friday.

We have entered Easter through Palm Sunday, then the journey of Holy Week, until finally we've reached the grief of Good Friday.  This is the most emotionally powerful day in the whole of the Christian calendar, the culmination of the entire story of Jesus’ life and ministry, of the entire story of the Bible: the day they murdered my Lord, the day everything changed.

Good Friday we call it.  And that may indeed seem a strange name when people first see it.  Good Friday. The day my Lord was murdered. Jesus, the perfect man, who loved so greatly, was killed for a crime he did not commit. In the words of St Paul, “We preach Christ Crucified, which is foolishness to the Jews and a stumbling block to the Gentiles”.

But Good Friday it certainly is.  And as I always thought, it's just crazy enough to work.  Good Friday?  The day that our Jesus was murdered.  This day we name good Friday?   Yes, we do, and how could it be any other way, knowing what wonderful thing came from it?  A strange thing it may seem, a true paradox: but so is the true mystery, the wonder, the mixed joy and sadness that defines our human life. Through tears and weeping and brokenness victory comes beyond all the strength of the world.

It is the most perfect name:  Elegant, precise, transcendent.  Good Friday.  The most simple and positive of all descriptions.  A good man, a good day, a good deed, a good life; a Good Friday.

Any more elaborate description would merely make obvious the total inability of description to do any justice.  Far better to leave almost entirely unsaid, to be seen, to be felt, to be experienced.  So the reality can shine through. So nothing is said apart from all that needs to be said.  Good Friday: the very definition of Goodness, the day everything changed.

On the cross of our pain God Almighty was tortured to death, suffering pain we can hardly imagine, for a crime he did not commit. For he so loved the world he gave his life, forgave even those who murdered him, loved even them, to save all men forever from their sins.  Jesus, God Almighty, emptied himself out on the cross, to become less than the least of men: butcher's meat. Another unseen victim of casual brutality and oppression.

Christ died on the cross to take away the sin of the world and so he experienced in his body the pain that sin has caused. He suffered it himself, as all his children have suffered at one time or another.  As he shared our life he shared our pain. Through sharing our humanity our pain could truly flow to him, so also through that sharing his divine power, to overcome all death and fear and hate and pain and weakness forever, could truly flow to us. So we need never fear those things again. God contains all things within him, so when God came into his own creation, he had to suffer our pain on the Cross that he had always carried within him.  It could be no other way.

Just as during his life Jesus healed the sick, gave  hearing to the deaf, sight to the blind, even raised from the dead: to heal physical bodies; so in his own suffering on the cross he healed all the souls of the world.  As during his life he preached how even the least of sinners is held in the love of God, so in his death he became the least of people, and won eternal glory for heaven, even as he descended into Hell.

Christ become one of the least of God’s children, lest in our joy we forget their pain, and to remind us that we may not rest in joy until the least of God’s children are rescued from that pain forever. Since his people suffered pain here on earth, in his salvation of mankind Christ suffered pain as well. So we know that even in our most terrible pain, joy and salvation are assured forever by that sacrifice.

And so the cross of our pain became the tree of our life. He suffered so he can take away our suffering. So from the death of the one perfect human, Life was given to all the Imperfect humans who ever live.  His life was lost to slay death, his blood was shed to wash all clean, his love to cure all the hate in the world: to ensure Love would never be overcome. Good Friday indeed. It could take no other name.

We remember now that pain God suffered on the cross at Calvary for our salvation, so that he could be one with his children as he was in Eden, as though time run in reverse on that fateful day.  For as God walked in the garden of Eden in the evening just before Adam and Eve were divided from him by their sin and rejection, so Christ walked in Gethsemane in the evening before he gave himself up to death to bring Life forever.  Just as our primordial Mother and Father, who represent all mankind, hid themselves in shame before the sight of God after their disobedience, so Christ trembled in fear before the coming pain. But still he submitted himself to that same pain, to bring glory to God by bringing salvation to mankind.  At the end, returning to the beginning, so that God may once more walk in the garden beside us in the evening.


Many Thanks to D_m_i_t_r_y's photostream for the incredible picture of the Crucifixion.

I don't care whether you're for YES or NO. For God's sake please actually go out and vote in the AV referendum on May 5th!

We are now rapidly approaching the 5th May and the long awaited referendum on whether for elections to parliament we should switch from First-past-the-post (FPTP) to the Alternative Vote (AV).  I would like to say that national conversation has been buzzing with the excitement of quite possibly our biggest constitutional change for a century.  I would like to say that campaign has been dominated by thoughtful and accurate but accessible explanations of the different mechanics and likely effects of switching to AV or not. But, that would be an utter lie!

Sadly, the truth is that the AV campaign has so far almost entirely passed the public by. Without the scale and widespread organisation of the main political parties the campaign has just not had the bulk necessary to seriously enter the national consciousness or disturb the thoughts of most of the population.  The Yes2AV and No2AV campaigns have been chipper and enthusiastic but thus far largely ineffective.  With disaster in Japan, War in Libya, Politics at Home, Local and sub-national elections their message has been largely crowded out.

On the other hand this is quite possibly a good thing as the AV campaign has been almost certainly the worst political campaign I have ever seen.  Both sides have barely even tried to wade into the complexity of explaining the somewhat technical differences between FPTP and the proposed AV system. Instead preferring to throw a vast wave of heavily emotive sheer rubbish at the electorate in the hope some of its sticks.  It has been truly awful, with a particular low point from the No side with their Vote No or the Baby gets it line of argument only just beating the Yes campaign's repeated massive non-sequiturs that AV will make politics fairer, MP's work harder, expenses lower and is apparently a more 'modern' system, all without explaining precisely how or why these miracles will occur; not to mention end safe seats (no it won't), make every MP have the support of 50% of his constituents (no it won't), end tactical voting (no it won't) and make election results more proportional (actually in direct contradiction to ending safe seats).  Not to mention simultaneously claiming that it will harm the BNP and also help smaller parties (connect the dots between those two if you can). Both sides have also managed to scrape the barrel when it comes to chasing celebrity endorsement rather than discussing to issues and more widely planning the man rather than the ball.

The campaign over AV has been even worse in quality than our last general election, which was itself a new low. In case you have forgotten that campaign was largely occupied by an argument over making £6 billion of cuts between two parties who were planning to cut £80 billion and £50 billion respectively, shortly followed by an unbelievably silly and impressively short lived personality cult based on one semi-decent TV performance that then fizzled out even before election day two weeks later.  It was pretty grim, but it has been surpassed in sheer balloon-faced stupidity by this AV campaign (from both sides).

It gets worse though.  Largely due to the bizarrely low profile of the AV campaign itself, and also, I think, due to the crass, irrelevant negativity of the two campaigns, there is a record low engagement with this important constitutional change.  At this stage in the campaign Yes and No are roughly equal in the polls, leading to the possibility we could see major constitutional change with the support of perhaps 12% of the electorate.  I call that pretty grim.  Lest you think I am exaggerating let me explain myself.

Turnout in general elections is about 2/3.  Turn-out in devolved, local and European elections is commonly about 35%.  I have seen nothing to convince me this referendum has a higher profile than the concurrent local and devolved elections. And see every reason to believe it will be lower.  People are used to local elections, they are somewhat aware of them as they come along with reasonable regularity.  They are also spurred by the high-profile of party politics.  The AV, as a non-party political one-off, has none of these benefits.  I was recently shocked to discover the people in my office between them knew almost nothing about AV and cared almost less.  These are highly educated people working in one of the UK's top universities.  I would put them in easily the top 20% of the country for expected general political awareness and engagement, and they were barely aware a referendum was even happening.  In places where there are local/devolved elections I expect turnout to be slightly lower than for those, where there are no local elections I expect turnout to be even worse.  All in all this means we can expect a turnout somewhere between 20-30%. On the higher end of that if we're lucky, the lower if we're not.  Combine that with an expectation that the result will be close, and we have AV defeated or accepted with roughly 11-16% of the electorate.

This is dire, you have to go back to the mid-19th Century to find a time when such a small percent of the population got to decide the direction of our constitution. Though, embarrassingly, this time the problem is due to apathy rather than legal restriction. It will be a terrible shame if such serious an issue that so affects us all were decided by a thin majority on a tiny turnout. Something that would quite possibly lead to a crisis of legitimacy for the new or retained system, stuck without any real democratic mandate.  It will certainly leave a legacy of bad feeling and mistrust about such change.   It is in all our best interest, whether win or lose, for as many people to be involved in this crucial democratic decision as possible.  

This is the reason for the headline of this article.  It doesn't matter whether you are for AV or against it.  Please, please go out and vote on May 5th!  If you don't have an opinion then get one. If you know nothing about the issue then please take a small amount of time to get yourself at least reasonably informed.  Whatever the case MAKE SURE YOU GET OUT AND VOTE!!!

Prophetic Witness

"And he has spoken through the Prophets" - The Nicene Creed

Prophetic Witness is something that we are always called to. 

It is not something imperfect man can do at all times but it is something we must always be open to the opportunity for.  Fundamentally it is describing the nature of God to a world that does not know him, and relating this nature precisely and practically to our present world.  It is the meaning of the Kingdom of God and the saving of our troubled world.

As I start it is important to say what it is not.  It is not telling the future.  Rather it is speaking and living the Truth, especially the Truth that is not being spoken by anyone else. 

The meaning of Christianity is God who transcends all reality, in perfection, in value, in power, who is totally beyond all our reality but holds it in the palm of his hand in a manner we can never really describe properly.  But this power and transcendent wonder breaking into our fragile world and our lives of its own choice by becoming a man, God with us, as one of us, and transforming it utterly beyond the ability we, as part of that imperfect reality, have on our own.

This is the purpose and duty of prophets and prophetic witness everywhere, whether big or small, or famous or unknown.  And it is possible for all mankind; both the brave, strong and outspoken, and the quiet, meek and calm; in both extraordinary and entirely ordinary situations and it can come upon a person suddenly, or it can come slowly, through study, prayer or experience, until it becomes so strong it just bursts forth. Because fundamentally it is not the property of one tradition or community, rather it is our common human inheritance. 

I believe that this common inheritance is best described by the example and teaching of the man we know as Jesus Christ, so excuse me explaining it a bit further in those specific terms. 

It is what Jesus Christ taught: that the Kingdom of God is at hand, the breaking into our world of the total power of God and its ability to transform our world beyond all recognition, and our ability to play a part in this transformation, through trusting in God’s power and moulding our lives by the incredible truth he taught.

This was the truth he taught, the possibility of utterly raising our sights beyond the compromises and justifications of a fallen world, like a single shaft of light suddenly illuminating a dark room.  Of acting utterly differently, bringing something of God’s perfection into the world and thus transforming it, at first for one instant and at one single point, but then more and more and spreading out, as the light fills the darkness, until the whole world shines more brightly. No longer resting content with hatred, lies, excuses, half-measures, cop-outs, justifications and fundamentally, imperfection.   

The revelation that no evil, however small, can be accepted forever; and that while we can improve ourselves at all we must do so, for any evil however small, any lack of care, of compassion, poisons the world we share. That we must always act to do more, to give better, to always improve the world and never add to its evil. The rejection of the idea that goodness is a matter of doing just enough to qualify, and then sitting back and being smug, however high that bar is set. And the knowledge that with God’s gift we have the capacity to make that choice to do better each and every day.

This is possible because through the example, teaching and power of Jesus Christ we are given glimpse of a reality that comes from utterly beyond our world and beyond our control, a true revealing of something completely new that thus enriches our possibilities as a miraculous, spontaneous creation.

       

This is the nature of prophetic witness.  Found in Jesus Christ and his teaching, but also in Prophets, Saints, Martyrs, visionaries, heroes and good men and women anywhere, at any time, whether religious or not, that challenges the previously limits with the sight of a higher and better possibility of a more loving and joyful world.

That means constantly attempting to step outside our environment, outside the chains that bind us and our thinking and our compassion. By this I do not mean escapism, seeking to run away from our reality. In fact, precisely the opposite.  I mean to be deeply rooted in your environment, to be acting in direct response to your environment, but to be seeing beyond its horizons and describing what you see that it could be, and how that can enrich the world. 

Christian faith was born in Prophetic Witness, a challenge to the socially accepted standard of that day, and I believe if it is not such a witness, then it is inevitably nothing.  Such a witness is an unavoidable response to being in the world, but not of the world. It can take many forms, and be of great and small sizes, but all share these basic elements, adding that the prophet must always be in a position to speak so the world may hear.  And it is also to step out of the world in such a manner as to drag it with you, all for the purpose of taking it closer to God, the foundation of all that truly is, the unity of all that is valuable, the one who is Love itself.  It is to be utterly concerned with man because one is utterly concerned with God.   

Some of it is, in the modern phrase, to speak counter-culturally, or, in what is apparently a Quaker phrase, to speak truth to power.  But not just the holders of political or financial power, also the cultural, the moral and the social assumptions, whether those working in a single room or across an entire world.  Anyone can do it, just as the prophets of ancient Israel were unremarkable men in every way apart from the fact they were willing to stand up and face rejection, ridicule and violence to speak the full word of God honestly, boldly, and defiantly; of his love and compassion for all and especially the weakest, to a society that just did not want to hear it.

Prophetic Witness, whatever our position, whatever our platform and possibilities, is to be a voice in the wilderness, to speak the words everyone else does not want to hear because it calls always to do better, to try harder and to be more loyal to our duty.  It is not to be puffed up with pride in doing so for there is more joy in heaven at one sinner who repents than at ten righteous men, but rather to humbly exhort and gently persuade, with patience and love, although this may sometimes include anger and frustration as well. 

When true it almost always costs the prophet more than it gains him. It has a place every time an accepted wisdom comes to the fore that accepts as evil and it consists of challenging that wisdom by living or being or just speaking of another way. It is existential for such a person lives and is a different person to the world around him and as such is often challenged physically by that world, even as he challenges it ethically.  Speech is important, because it leads the transmission of ideas, but it is only one part of a person’s expression, and hence only one part of prophetic witness, which occurs with the whole human being.  As such a person’s actions, their tone, their decisions, their attitude, may be prophetic as well.  So often we communicate most powerfully not through words, which are often cheap, but in the actions we take and choices we make that cost us.  It can be speech, action, attitude, thought, choice, song, liturgy, Art or anything else.  

Such a person can say something new and unheard of, maybe by only a little bit, but decisively so, or he can say something old, which is being forgotten, either way as long as he speaks distinctly to the voices around him. I, for one, become more and more convinced that not only is change not always for the good, but that there is nothing more conservative than moral absolutes, although it is something that we speak about today mostly in the mealy-mouthed terms of social justice.  I prefer the 3000 years old language of Amos, "let justice flow like a river, and righteousness like a never failing stream" 

This can be constantly possible for us by acting with our hands in this world but keeping our sight and our inspiration on the New Heaven and New Earth, on the vision of the Kingdom of God revealed by Jesus Christ and by the scriptures and visions and sacraments and Saints and Martyrs, and testified to by prophets of every kind who stand up in their heritage.    

Prophetic Witness then means presenting a better alternative to the conventional language around us whether through speech or action or just the way we live our lives.  It is a constant challenge, that  costs us and we are called to, both to challenge the fallen society we live in with a little bit of God. To stand aside from the prevailing discourse, and place our soul a little bit closer to God, for the purpose of bringing in his Kingdom by being a bridge between it and our society and world. 

It means not taking the evil of the world as an excuse to do evil ourselves, but rather to place one’s feet in the world that must one day be, as truth and goodness are the real Being.  It is of the closest and most real union with God possible in this life, and of the truest meaning of religion, for it is to become a mouthpiece for God's words that would not otherwise be spoken. And it is the possible choice of all people. 

It is something that we can and must do, and, I believe, uniquely through Jesus Christ we are all, always capable of doing this, for he has completely shown the way, and his grace gives us the power to step outside the world's totality and speak, for we have seen the New Heaven and the New Earth and the New Jerusalem and the Lamb is who is above them all “and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of Grace and Truth”.

The Phrase 'Feminist Hero' is used too often these days. . . But not for Veena Malik!!!

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And can I get an AMEN!!


In fact, not just that.  Can we get Veena Malik a Bafta, an Oscar or  

just jump straight to Sainthood.

I just hope it doesn't cost her. . . .   

It is incredibly sad that I have to say that and it be a genuine fear.  But with recent events in Pakistan it is all too possible.

A fantastically brave and courageous woman.   
 
Her utter refusal to be cowed by open bullying (and implicit violent threats) is an inspiration for human decency and tolerance.  
 
God Bless and protect her.  It gives me hope for Pakistan and humanity generally.

I'm a Tory and proud of it. But still, these Sickness and Disability Cuts are Wrong!

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The news for the last year has been dominated by the argument about public spending cuts: how soon, how deep, and what to cut? Between the recession and the previous Labour government, Britain has been left with a £155 billion public annual deficit: 11% of GDP, 22% of government spending, £425 million a day, £5,000 a second. Whatever way you phrase it that is a butt-load of money. The arguments about cuts dominated the general election last year and continues to motivate newspapers, press releases, broadcasts, rallies and riots. There is a general consensus that some cuts are necessary but no agreement about how much or what should be cut. The Labour party were planning £50 billion of cuts pre-election and the Coalition have promised £81 billion. Either way this is also a lot of money and won't happen without valuable services being unfortunately restricted or cancelled entirely.

I'm a conservative: by choice, by temperament, by experience, and by Party. When it comes to debt and the deficit I am a hard-liner. I think we should get our debt and deficit down as fast as possible given the health of the economy and the limits of practicality and morality. I believe this is the most sure and responsible way to ensure our future economic prosperity, by taking the hard decisions now. One of the core reasons I voted Conservative was because they promised to bring the deficit down faster and harder than Labour did, and were the first party to have the courage to stand up and say that serious spending cuts would be needed. Not the easiest message to take to the people in any climate. I'm also proud the Conservative Party took the lead in the election in promising to increase our spending on International Aid to the UN target of 0.7% of GDP, despite the immensely challenging economic climate, something Labour never managed in a decade, as well as ring fencing the NHS, protecting the schools budget and reconnecting the state pension to earnings. All while facing up to the fact that these choices mean harder choices must be made elsewhere. Generally I entirely agree with these priorities and the choices the government has made.

There is one glaring exception to this though. One area where support for some of the most vulnerable people in our society is being severely slashed, contrary to these principles I've mentioned, and that is the support available to long-term sick and disabled people. Starting with the previous Labour government and now the Coalition services and welfare that provide essential support for the long-term sick and disabled are being cut by a total of £5 billion a year. Just for some comparison that is equivalent to the money raised by the government's Banking levy and the removal of child benefit from higher rate tax payers combined. These are extensive cuts across the range of support given to sick and disabled people including Employment Support Allowance, Disability Living Allowance, the Independent Living Fund, Access to Work, as well as Housing, Council Tax and Health and Social Care  (Don't worry if you don't know what those are, I'm going to explain).  And their stupidity is being compounded by a choice of language and lack of communication that is just scaring people for no good reason. People are getting the impression that the government is not listening and does not care. Now, I'm an optimist, I genuinely think that politicians, even most of the ones I strongly disagree with, are really trying to do the best for the country. I think they do care, but they are currently not giving that impression to too many of the more vulnerable people in our society.

There has been opposition to all sorts of cuts.  We've had outraged campaigns against selling forests, increasing tuition fees, removing child benefit from the rich, cutting housing benefit, public sector pensions, closing libraries, raising VAT, cutting EMA, Higher Education, the British Film Council, the Future Jobs Fund, defence, the police, councils, and almost everything else. I pretty much support all of these policies (give or take a few details). I even support some cuts the government have given up on including ending free milk for under 5's, something called Bookstart and re-designing NHS Direct to save money.

This does not mean that it is acceptable to just hack away at random though.  Cuts must be restrained by two minimum principles. Firstly, and obviously, what is good for the economy; and secondly a basic level of service and support for those most vulnerable in our society. This is a matter of sheer morality, but also a matter of political honesty. Before the election British politicians, almost as one, united to try to partially conceal the scale of the challenge of cuts and tax rises that would be necessary to bring the deficit under control, whether using the Coalition's plan or Labour's weaker one. Implicit and explicit promises were made that basic standards of welfare and support wouldn't need to be compromised. Nor is there any need for them to be. Even under the Coalition's program the cuts amount to reducing total public spending by 2% a year. It is rather a matter of choosing, admittedly difficult, priorities.

It is very easy to be NIMBY about cuts. To claim to support cuts in theory but oppose cuts in practice whenever they are to a service or money that I benefit from or care about. There has been a huge amount of this since the election, an orgy of special pleading from those representing almost every imaginable group affected by public spending, on occasions brilliantly coupled with complete loss of perspective. The Labour party is currently making an art-form out of combining these features: Supporting some cuts and tax rises in theory while opposing all specific examples in practice, with occasional, uncontrollable outbursts of total, balls to the wall hyperbole.

This is categorically not one of those issues though. Out of all the cuts and policies I mentioned above this massive, badly planned assault on support for disabled and long-term sick people is by far the most serious. Far more than any of those things these are cuts to essential services, supporting basic financial security and opportunities in our society for some of its most vulnerable and disadvantaged members. These are essential, basic elements for a civilised society more so than any of those other things. I think if you oppose cuts to any of those things, if you consider them a bridge too far, then you must oppose cuts to disability and long-term sickness provision even more, as a priority above them.

Suffering a severe, long-term illness or disability is one of the most difficult things to live with of any of the disadvantages in people can face. Almost by definition it robs people of so many advantages the rest of us take for granted including too much of the ability to take part in society. It is often painful, almost always fundamentally exhausting and draining and always stressful for the rest of a sick or disabled person's family.  It makes life constantly more of a struggle than for well people. It also leaves a person open to a constant flow of minor indignities and general ignorance from a society where many people are still totally clueless about how to relate to disabled and extremely sick people in a human manner. Not to mention more objective stats like the fact that disabled people are the most likely of any group in society to be living in poverty (twice as likely) and to be unemployed (50% are).  I could, of course, go on; the difficulties faced by disabled and long-term sick people are as various as the possible mental and physical conditions people can suffer with, but I'm sure you understand the general idea.But that is enough vagueness.  What is it that I am actually talking about?

A Modest Proposal For Christian Unity

(The first half of this piece is my article on The Importance of Christian Unity. I would recommend reading that first if you haven't already. It also has the slides I used when giving both halves as a presentation. (It can also be found directly below this article on my blog))

I've now explained why I think this issue is so important for Christians. But I don't want to finish with just a vague appeal.  In the spirit of personal commitment I also want to talk about the practical problems of achieving Unity. Fundamentally the change we need to see is in our hearts rather than in the external world. Not because external change is unimportant, but because only from our hearts can this change be achieved and sustained as a reality. There is no point just fiddling with external structures if we ourselves do not change.

However, with the scale and complexity of the problem we must also consider how to drive and effect this change in the meantime. The task is huge but with God's grace nothing is impossible, and certainly not something so close and dear to his will and heart. In this I believe there are broadly three areas that we must be constantly aware of.

The First thing is to recognize who our friends are. I'll explain what I mean.

One question that I haven't answered yet is who I'm including as Christians who could or should be reunited in One Christian Church. I don't think it's possible to give one binary answer to that question but rather to talk about those who are closer or further away from us in unity and doctrine. Most fundamentally, to be a Christian is to be a follower of Christ. The Bible says clearly that "no-one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit". This makes it clear that the Holy Spirit works within all those who confess Jesus Christ as Lord and recognises them as Christian (in some basic sense).

Those who worship God as their Father and Jesus Christ as Lord form a group in humanity clearly recognisable as differentiated from those of other religions and ideologies. Even in the bad old days of sectarianism this was recognised, with those who confessed Christ, but were considered to get serious things wrong, called heretics, in difference to those who weren't Christians, who were labelled infidels. In fact it is possible to go further than this. Almost all denominations recognise the possibility of those who, as the Catholic Catechism states, "through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ" also through the grace of God reaching eternal salvation, whether or not they have ever even heard the name Jesus Christ.

It is definitely possible to be more precise than this vague statement about "Jesus is Lord" though. All the 4 major Christian families I mentioned before: Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and Non-Trinitarian share in this heritage, that Christ is Lord and God is our Father. Taking out the Non-Trinitarian grouping though, which is the most different, both internally and to the others, we are left with Protestant, Orthodox and Catholic. These three groups constitute Trinitarian Christianity and share a huge common heritage and similarity compared to which their differences are, truthfully, small and often downright invisible to those from outside their communities not versed in the history of the conflict.

Most basically we share the concept of the Trinity, a belief in One God in Three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We share a belief that the man Jesus of Nazareth who walked in Judea 2000 years ago is also God Almighty, the Son of the Trinity. We believe he is both fully God and fully man; that he is the single most important man who ever has or will live, and that he came to bring eternal salvation to all mankind. We share a common, complete Scripture, the Old and New Testaments of 66 books and we believe this Holy Bible is the authoritative and divinely inspired word of God. We trust in Jesus' Apostles to have recorded and transmitted the truth about Jesus and we take their interpretation as authoritative. We share our fundamental standard of prayer: the Lord's Prayer, and the three historic creeds (Nicene, Apostolic and Athanasian), with their detailed description of Christian doctrine; the two fundamental sacraments of Baptism and Communion as necessary to the Faith, and various other ceremonies such as Marriage and Burial. We all share a historical basis in Judaism, as well as at least 400 years of history, a joint heritage of early Christian Saints and Holy Men, the folk memory of the persecution of the early Church under the Roman Empire, and the eventual victory of Christianity. We share core theology of the role of the Holy Spirit in bringing strength and truth, of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, and of the importance of Good works to faith, and the mission of all Christians to "make disciples of all the nations" and to make the Kingdom of God a reality on this earth. And I could go on for some time.

This Trinitarian Christian community numbers about 90% of Christians. There is a further subset of this group though that shares even more than this. All Orthodox, Catholics and some Protestants share a common heritage of how Christians should be organised based on the Apostolic succession. We share a belief in the importance of the threefold ministry of Deacons, Priests and Bishops; the Apostolic Succession of Bishops in a line going back to the Apostles and Jesus himself and the importance of Tradition (with a big T) as a source of doctrine and interpretation. (As well as doctrines such as the real presence, veneration of Saints, Liturgy, etc, etc.) And this further subset makes up about 70% of Christians. It is also possible to go further and identify which group within this diversity are closest to each other, and have the most in common down to a fineness. But we would be here forever and it is multidimensional question, so as I mentioned before there is no one clear measure to rank people by or standard to judge with.

Now, I do not by any of this mean to make little of, minimise or ignore the differences that do exist between Christians and Christian groups. These issues are often serious, important and deeply felt. But rather to put these differences in the context in which they truthfully exist. Genuine dialogue and work towards reconciliation cannot occur on the basis of ignoring differences or abandoning one's own beliefs, but rather in being honest and open about the differences and the similarities that do exist between groups, and neither ignoring or minimising either. We will never move forward without a genuine willingness to change and compromise and no church or person within the body of Christ is perfect. We all have our sins and our mistakes, in the past and today, and without the willingness to admit this there can be no progress. But this does not mean that we can start the journey by abandoning the Truth we currently hold. You never get anywhere by watering down or avoiding the Truth because that is the very thing that we seek to unite around.

The Importance of Christian Unity - A Cry From the Heart!

(This is the first half of a two part talk I gave about Christian Unity.  The 2nd half can be found here on A Modest Proposal of Christian Unity.  The slides I used when giving this as a presentation are at the bottom of this post.)

Some of you are hopefully aware that a few weeks ago was the official Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2011. The idea of this week is what it says on the tin, a period where Christians will devote themselves to praying for God's grace in achieving unity and fellowship among all Christians, as Jesus intended and prayed on the night before he died in the garden of Gethsemane.

Christian Unity is something I feel very strongly about.  It is impossible to seriously doubt that Christians are divided, and that once we were united.  We were together when Jesus was here, and after he left us the Bible tells us that "all the believers were together and had everything in common" and that they "broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts".  But over time that unity and love between them was broken.  Over the two thousands years since then the Christian community grew and grew beyond all imagination, across centuries and continents, until today there are Christians in every country in the world and 30% of humanity at least identify as Christian.  But sadly this unity and love and closeness we once had is now gone.

If you wanted to make a list of the different types of Christian you could start with breaking them down into Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox and Non-Trinitarian.  Each of these groups number in the hundreds of millions, and internally bear various similarities of origin and structure.  But even these are families of organisations bearing certain similarities rather than single christian communities.  The Roman Catholic church is the closest, constituting 95% of the Catholic strand, but even here there are other groups.  The Orthodox can be broken into Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Church of the East, the first two of which are themselves communions of a number of, generally, nationally organised Churches.  The Protestant strand is famously disunited, being constituted of hundreds to thousands of organisations, from a huge number of individual independent churches to world-wide families of Churches such as the Anglican Communion. Non-trinitarianism is a vague term for a range of 'churches' who reject the traditional Christian theology in various ways, including Mormons, Christadelphians and extreme 'Liberal' Theology. They are disparate and generally widely different though united by their rejection of the Trinity, and by all being a relatively modern offshoots from the other Christian groups.

This gives the most basic breakdown of the wide range of groups and organisations that claim descent from the Church founded by Jesus Christ, and are based on the joint declaration that 'Christ is Lord'. It is however the most basic of explanations. To properly list all the organisations that fill up these categories would take an encyclopedia all on its own. It would take another one to explain all the (generally far smaller) groups and individuals who don't easily fall into any of these categories.

With the passing of 2000 years and the journey through civilisations, languages, continents and the troubles of war and politics, it is not surprising that some differences and arguments would have emerged between a body that now numbers 2 billion people.  But there is more to the division than a natural floating apart.  At times and in places it has been marked by a brutality, a disregard for others, arrogance, xenophobia and hatred, and too often sectarianism masquerading as principle.  Some of its greatest divisions have grown almost by accident, for reasons that few can recognise even today, but have then gone on to grow into chasms that has led to so much trouble and pain.

Looking back through history our greatest hurt and damage has so often come about not because of any action by those who hate us and Christianity but by our own disunion and inability to work together and love one another. Arguably our greatest loss, the conquest of the Middle East by the Muslims, 1300 years ago, would not have been possible if it were not for the fact the native Christian populations welcomed the Muslim armies, because it freed them from their Government, which had persecuted them because it belonged to a different Christian faction.  And so the land that is now Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Turkey, Iraq, which were once Christian, were lost, and are now overwhelmingly Muslim countries.

Civil Wars are always the most brutal, and for centuries our divisions have led us to do terrible things to each other, and to entrench hatred between nations and peoples.  And in doing so we have disgraced the Gospel and reduced the power of our witness.  Our message is lost and the world laughs at us.  Once upon a time people said about us, these Christians "look how they love one another", but now they say, these Christians, how can we listen to them when they cannot even agree with each other?  How can they talk about how we need to love when they cannot even love each other?  And they ignore the name of God and Jesus Christ because we fight among each other.

I have a great belief in the importance of Christian Unity.  It has always been something I have thought about a bit ever since I became old enough to understand that we were divided. I couldn't understand why.  But it was not something that bothered me a great deal, I just got on with life, went to Church, sang, prayed, thought, played, studied and grew from a child to an adult.  Then something happened.  Firstly, I had begun reading more about the historical events of our splits and divisions, and how many seemed so ridiculous, and how even at the times of the splits themselves, no one involved had meant such lasting divisions to happen.  I also had begun hearing about the persecution of Christians around the world, who lived in countries less fortunate than ours, where they could not worship God in peace.  And that made me think.

And then it was Christmas of my 1st year at University, and I was at home, and I was washing my hands, of all things, and my mind was wandering, as it does from thing to thing.  I was thinking about my faith in a vague kind of way, but then suddenly my thoughts accelerated tumbling from topic to topic and then in an instant I was hit by a profound religious experience.  A message from God hit me like a punch to the chest and for just a second my mind opened with perfect clarity, the breath caught in my chest and my eyes saw straight through the room around me. In that instant I was utterly convicted of my sin, I felt it in every part of my body. It was the strangest thing, it felt like my body was pulling apart into pieces, like I had lost several limbs all at once and I felt the loss.  And it came into my mind from somewhere precisely what the pain was, and precisely what the sin was I was convicted of.  The pain was the pain of the Body of Christ divided.  It was the pain of Jesus Christ felt from his body being torn apart and his children being separated and distant from each other in their hearts.  And what was that sin I felt fully convicted of in that moment?  It was the sin of Convenience!  The sin of neglect!  I had never broken from my brothers and sisters; I have never encouraged division or sectarianism; I had never operated from an assumption that my kind must know best about everything, or that someone else could have nothing to offer because he was different to me.  I had done nothing.

All Night Entertainment for the Lords.

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This is quite funny*.

Labour Peers in the House of Lords are currently having a mass collegiate filibuster to delay the AV referendum bill by endlessly discussing trivial amendments between themselves without anyone from the Coalition saying anything.

They know they can't beat the bill, because the government outnumbers them. But the AV referendum is meant to happen in May. But it takes quite a while to get ready to hold a nationwide referendum, so if the Labour Peers can hold up the bill long enough there won't be enough time to prepare for the referendum, and they'll have to delay it. This would be quite embarrassing and annoying for the government.

So the government's got them debating 24 hours a day (including through the night) until they give up. They're quite elderly though so they've laid on refreshments, food, wine, beds, talks, board games, bridge and toothbrushes to keep them going.

Ahhh, the wonders of Democracy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12212666




(* I obviously mean in the shaking one's head in sheer wonder,  better to laugh than cry sense rather than HAHAHAHAHA that's hilarious.)

"Weak" Secularism.

Sometime ago I posted an article called "Weak" Democracy. This described my idea about what is sufficient for a way of organising society to hold democratic, moral legitimacy. Here I describe an analogous concept concerning the role of religion in society, and the extent to which it is necessary or desirable to exclude particular religious or ideological opinions from the public sphere (for a society to have fair, moral legitimacy), and also why this is important.

“There is no such thing as a right to pretend something you oppose doesn't exist, and no such thing as a right to be shielded from the fact that most people reject your values. So nonbelievers simply do not have a right to live in a society free of religious sentiment. And public displays of religious sentiment - the Ten Commandments, Nativity sets in public parks, the phrase "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance - are a straightforward First Amendment issue. Freedom of speech, which is not, I believe, limited only to individuals. Government agencies and bodies have it too. The public exercises of religion listed above involve an absolutely trivial expenditure of public resources and don't infringe on the rights of non-Christians in the slightest. Opposing these exercises is not about protecting the rights of the minority but about suppressing the rights of a majority, using the courts because opponents have failed to make their case on its merits. But public displays of religious belief send an exclusionary message. Maybe. But the last time I checked, messages of all kinds were protected by the First Amendment. Even exclusionary ones. And if you find yourself being excluded, maybe you might even ask whether you're on the right side of the issues. You'd feel differently if you were in the minority. I've spent a total of two years of my life in Islamic countries. If you're expecting me to buy into the idea that it's a violation of my rights to have the majority express a different religious sentiment, you have definitely picked the wrong person.”
Professor Steve Dutch: Some Issues Where Liberals are missing the boat.

The above passage by Professor Dutch precisely encapsulates my beliefs on Secularism. I support Secularism. The Secularism that means giving each member of society a level playing field and avoiding all use or threat of force against them, or the restriction of basic opportunities on grounds of their faith or belief, is a good thing and an essential element of society.  The same is true of avoiding every type of discrimination on grounds except the direct defense of that same society from immediate force or the threat of immediate force; and the obvious discriminations we make daily on grounds of immediate merit.

This Secularism is about respecting the dignity of each person and that their potential to contribute to society is based on their fundamental and basic identity as an individual human person and not on the basis of belonging to any privileged group, whether defined by heritage or belief. This Secularism is based on the understanding that honest and good men may disagree about complicated issues without one being either evil or stupid, and that it is not the nature or even the coherence of the beliefs one holds, nor the backgrounds one identifies with, that makes a man good or evil, or competent or incompetent, but rather the specifically moral actions he takes and the words he speaks and the knowledge he holds and the merit for the task he outwardly displays.

The idea is to accept that each man holds his conscience in good faith and make as much accommodation for the fallen, fallible but essentially decent nature of humanity as possible. From this basis, and an appreciation of human dignity, secularism wishes to avoid forcing any man to become a martyr because of his conscience. To not force any man to give up his chance for opportunity because of what he believes or who he is.  In other words, to construct a society with the least force must be deployed as possible, on the basis that ideas are the correct means to combat ideas, words the correct means to combat words and force only correct when absolutely necessary to combat force or the immediate threat of force.  This is a pacifist notion, only desiring to use force when it is most necessary, to restrict other immediate force or threat of force, and to utilise different methods the rest of the time.

On the other hand, Secularism that is based on banning anything that may be of religious inspiration or association specifically from the “public sphere” is neither desirable nor necessary. It is the repression of cultural expression that serves no purpose apart from to harass a majority or minority. Culture and belief are almost universally things which have public expression written into their nature. A person’s beliefs should affect how they think and act and as far as a person or group has a public life the expression of a person’s or group’s religious or cultural identity will be public.

Furthermore a majority in a society, or even a minority with a position of authority has the right to express their belief or culture within the fabric of that society. There is no theory of the state or government that says everything it does or associates with must be acceptable to all members of that society, as long as it does not use force, threat of force, or discrimination of opportunity then those of different opinion have no grounds to object on the basis of a lack of moral legitimacy.

The difference between these two types of Secularism, the first I call "weak" secularism and the second "strong", is simple.  It is the difference between what they are trying to achieve.  My idea here is that the driving good behind secularism, and much secularisation that has occurred in society, is not that removing religion or other ideologies from a position of prominence or privilege in society is a good in itself, but rather that it is a good as far as it provides opportunity and space for all persons's to flourish and fulfil potential as their conscience dictates they must.  It is the principle of minimising the force needed to maintain society and maximising the space for opportunity it holds.  It is also a pluralist notion, to trim ideologies back to create as much space and freedom for merit and individual potential to flourish and shine.  

  Weak secularism is based on a mutual respect, and a desire to give each the space to express oneself. This applies both for an established and majority faith and belief for a different or individual faith and the different or individual faith for the majority faith or belief, even if it is embedded in society and the expression of that society. This respect and tolerance goes both ways. Each admits the other the chance to pursue opportunity and human flourishing as they believe they must. It seeks to maximise the possibility for expression, whether minority or majority, whether official or unofficial.

The 2nd, on the other hand, claims to seek to provide space for public expression and flourishing by restricting that same expression and flourishing. It, hence, seeks to restrict what expression may be acceptable just as much as any establishment of religion or another ideology. Its attempt is not to maximise freedom for all, which is the basis of a good secularism, but rather to restrict it. It hence fails as a basis for a society built around a core of eternal moral truth of seeking peaceful co-existence between people, that is seeking to build a society that provides all space, and works with the nature of human beings.

It must also be noted that this applies to other ideologies as well as religions.  As far as a way of organising society restricts potential for development for those who hold certain (metaphysical) views it is not secular, regardless of public religious content or not.  In this model the old Soviet Union was less secular than today's Britain, because in the first you must hold to certain official ideologies and pieties to be allowed space in society, whether Marxism or the rule of the Communist party, whereas in the 2nd you do not.  This is despite the official atheism and 'Secularism' of the first and the Established Religion, and Bishops in the legislature, of the 2nd.

The point is that restricting one type of expression is only a good as far as that expression is directly restricting another.  Beyond that it is just restricting expression for the sake of it and thus directly opposed to the creation of as free a society as possible, with as much opportunity as possible for all.  This is the true aim that makes so much secularisation a good thing, not the underlying removal of religious content and expression itself.  And it is only when we realise this true nature about what is good about the phenomena that we can realise precisely what to do to maximise this.

Dealing with the Deficit (5) - Is the Coalition's Plan "Progressive"? Is it Fair?

On being Progressive, distributional impact, fairness, cabbages and Kings (and why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings - well, not really.)

This article follows on from previous articles outlining the economic arguments around the Coalition's budget plans, introducing the structure of the public finances and the plans for reducing the deficit, looking at the feasibility of closing the deficit by cutting military spending and an analysis of the taxation changes. This is the final article on the distributional impact and fairness of the government's plans.  I've separated them out to try to keep them shorter.

"Progressive", "Fair".

These are undoubtedly the words that have come to define politics in Britain over the last couple of years. Not necessarily in terms of actual policy enacted, but definitely in terms of the language of our political discussion.  We argue about whether policies are wise, whether they are affordable, whether they are right, but more and more we have come to argue about whether policies are fair or progressive. It has been one of the changes wrought by the 13 long years of Labour rule. Today these terms are thrown around like cheap confetti by almost every party and politician of whatever hue or stripe as basically synonymous terms.  This widespread usage by completely opposing politicians to describe contradictory policies may give you the impression that these terms are largely meaningless. And you would be right. But the question is, can we save any precise meaning at all from this avalanche of linguistic abuse?

'Fair' is one of the first words that any child learns, as any parent or child can tell you.  A sense of things be fair or unfair is one of the most basic of human judgements, and arguably the basis of much of our moral sense.  Like all such terms though it has no clear, definable meaning.  We all think we know fair and unfair when we see it.  Roughly, it means equitable, in proportion with what is right.  It is, in other words, a value judgment. In other words, referring to various policies as fair, is little more than declaring you think they are morally right and/or a good idea, i.e. it conveys almost no actual information, since we generally assume that if someone is pushing a policy they think it is good/right.  It would be bloody odd if politicians were pushing policies they personally thought were a load of immoral rubbish. Referring to a policy as 'fair' is generally useless. But what it can do, at best, is to imply a certain, not only efficient but also, moral judgement about the effects of a policy. But beyond that it's pretty empty.

'Progressive' is a slightly different (but equally annoying) kettle of fish. It has become, if anything, even more prominent than 'Fair'as a political descriptive. It sadly lacks 'Fair's basic and understandable connotations.  It is a technical term, just one with a vague definition. For a while after I heard it first it confused me because I had no idea what it meant. From context I could only tell that it seemed to mean 'good' in a vague sense, but I could not at first work out anymore than that. So I spent some time studying it. Taken literally progressive means to to support progress, but that is little more than a tautology. No politician claims to be opposing progress, any more than motherhood or apple pie. So where did this word come from?  The answer is that it came from America, and it became more and more popular first among Labour supporters and politicians in the 1990's to describe themselves, and then among others. As far as I could tell from some study these people seemed to use it to mean Socialism without the state ownership of industries (since that has been discredited since the 1970's). More generally it has come to mean fluffy and friendly and kind and good, and most importantly: us, as opposed to them.  On which basis it was also appropriated by first the Liberal Democrats and then more recently even the Conservatives, and particularly the current Coalition government.

In defence of some of those who use it though. There is one area where the term progressive can be said to have a precise meaning. That is, in reference to fiscal policy.  In particular, taxation.  A tax is progressive if it hits the rich harder than the poor.  This originally could mean just in terms of the amount raised.  these days however it generally means as a proportion of income.  That is, for a tax to be progressive it must take up a higher percentage of the income of the rich than the poor, rather than just a larger cash amount.  The opposite of this is regressive.  To give some examples: Income tax is progressive, because it is charged at higher rates the higher your income is;  VAT is more or less neutral, because rich and poor pay at the same percentage rate; The BBC licence fee is regressive, because it a flat amount charged regardless of income, and thus obviously takes a higher proportion of the income of the poor than the rich.

In extension to this financial system or policy of spending and taxation is progressive if it enhances the opportunity or chances of the least advantaged in society, generally in terms of redistributing money from the rich to the poor in society, or at least hitting the rich harder than the poor in percentage terms.  And is in this sense that we can analyse whether the Coalition's deficit reduction plan is progressive, as the Chancellor claimed, first at the June budget, and then at the CSR. This was an important point, after the Conservatives campaigned claiming Progressive credentials, and also to the Lib Dems

This is a big question.  Is it possible to have  major deficit reduction plan of tax rises and spending cuts that is also progressive, in the sense of hitting the rich proportionately financially harder than the poor?  Or, in other words, how does the government's deficit reduction plan impact people differently across the income distribution.

On the one hand the government has raised taxes on the rich and taken efforts to protect core areas of progressive spending on health, education, welfare and international aid, as well as for children and pensioners.  On these grounds it claims its plan is progressive.  But this has been strongly contested, to say the least, by other groups.  The analysis of the government's plans has been divided into two separate sections.  We have had distributional analyses of the impact of the changes in terms of taxes and benefits, and then separately the estimated impact of the spending cuts.  These can then be combined to give the over-all impact of government's deficit reduction program by income decile of the population (the poorest to richest tenths of the population).

My personal view has always been that the government has tried quite hard to make sure that we are "all in this together" in the sense of the pain of deficit reduction being shared across the population.  But that it would be almost impossible for any significant deficit reduction plan to actually impact the rich harder than the poor, without being mostly consisted of crippling tax rises.  If I had to guess I would say that the government's plan will likely hit the poor two to three times harder than the rich.  Because our system is so progressive anyway, meaning that the least well off benefit more from welfare and rely more on public services, and pay less in tax, pretty much any attempt to reign back what the state does will hit the poor harder in proportion to the rich.  That is, although the rich will contribute more to the deficit reduction plan in terms of cash this will still consist of a smaller portion of their income, due to the disparity in income, and the extent to which government spending is slanted to benefit the less well off, and that raising taxes on the rich is actually quite hard because they pay high taxes already.

Analysis of the distributional impact of the government's spending plans breaks down into two sections: Welfare and Tax changes, i.e. direct cash transfers, and departmental spending cuts i.e. estimated value lost from services received.  The first of these is relatively easy to estimate, as it involves actual cash transfers, whether in terms of welfare or taxes.  The second is somewhat more dubious, as is involves estimating the value people receive from public services in terms of a cash value, and then guessing how spending cuts may have affected this cash value.

The first off the blocks to attack the government's claims of the progressive nature of its deficit plan was the IFS.  The Institute of Fiscal Studies has actually been around for 35 years, but has recently seemed to appear into the media consciousness.  It is a think-tank that produces work looking at the details and effects of the financial and distributive effects of policy.  Since the Coalition took government its pronouncements on the impact of government policy have, for some reason, been received by the media with a degree of trust and authority generally reserved for Holy Writ. This slight oddity to one side though, it is true that the IFS' research is generally very good. And an excellent starting point.

The IFS produced a report on the distributional impact of the Tax and Welfare policy changes by income decile, but not the impact of the public spending changes.  The most relevant graphs is below.  It shows the impact of all the the tax and welfare changes proposed by the government up until the CSR in October, apart from the CGT rise and the Child benefit changes.

That means by income decile from poorest to richest the changes will mean a hit on income of:

Decile	Impact (£/year)	Impact as % of net income
1(poorest)	-£600	-5.5%
2	-£750.00	-5.0%
3	-£800.00	-4.5%
4	-£850.00	-4.3%
5	-£800.00	-3.5%
6	-£900.00	-3.6%
7	-£1,000.00	-3.2%
8	-£1,000.00	-2.8%
9	-£1,200.00	-2.6%
10(richest)	-£3,750.00	-4.5%

From the graph it is clearly visible that by income decile the changes are somewhat regressive across the income distribution from the 1st-9th deciles, though the richest 10th do take a particularly large hit.  It is solidly progressive in reference to the amounts involved, but not progressive enough to make it progressive in terms of the percentage hit to income.