Mr Bean goes to church

He is frightfully like me when I sit in the congregation!

The cynicism of capitalism

As war continues to claim lives, watch this weepy video from the US and at the very end see how as always Capitalism sees in war a chance to make filthy lucre.



Click Here for more great videos and pictures!



And to my shame I drive a Ford car!

C Diff and those wretched hospital viruses

I have previously mentioned that my father is in hospital. My aunt is in the same hospital recovering from a stroke and she now has been hit by C Diff which is a particularly nasty hspital virus. I note that the site I have linked to suggests the following;

Hand washing is the simplest and most effective way of controlling the spread of germs

Encourage relatives/friends to wash their hands or use the alcohol gel before touching patients, especially those who have had a surgical procedure or have an open wound.

Ask visitors to wash their hands before and after any physical contact with a patient or if their friend /relative has diarrhoea. This will reduce the risk of infection for both visitors and patients

To protect both patients and staff, relatives who are suffering from a cough, cold or diarrhoea should be discouraged from visiting.

People should wash their hands regularly whether they are in hospital or not. Germs collect on your hands throughout the day and can be spread through contact with your mouth, nose and other people

Avoid close contact with people who have infections as some germs can be spread throughout the air by sneezing and coughing.

I am not always convinced that hospitals are always as effective in encouraging this conduct as they ought to be. It is all too easy for distracted and often distressed visitors to forget such hygienne procedures. Washing facilities and alcohol gels are often badly placed for easy access as in the hospital where my father is. Too often the alcohol gels are empty in hopitals I have visited.

I think that wee need to demand better. In the General Election, hospital viruses were for a time quite a big issue. I think we need some pretty dictatorial figures in our hopitals ensuring that the need to observe procedures and the means are well and truly in our faces. And the public should know that to draw attention to deficiencies will be treated by staff as a helful act necessitating immediate action, not people being awkward.

Should have cleaned those teeth better

It sort of reminds me of Dracula

Male reporter hits on to Fred Phelps Junior

I can think of no better way of handling these bigots.

Hope in the cesspit - A sermon for Easter 4

I cannot claim to be a regular preacher on the Revelation to John. I have often thought of this book which concludes the Bible as being something of a happy hunting ground for cranks, the sort of people who see it as telling us exactly what the future holds - those who see it as some see the writings of Nostradamus.

I am not helped by the fact that it is a type of literature which is somewhat alien to me. It is part of a type of literature that is often described as “apocalyptic.” Such is a type of literature that was popular a couple of centuries either side of Jesus amongst Jewish people - a type of literature that is full of visions, beasts and symbols. It is not the sort of communication with which I am familiar although I have to confess that when several years ago at the time of the 1992 General Election, my wife and myself were staying at my in law’s home whilst I was doing teacher training, Revelation provided me with a moment of joy. You see, my mother in law’s polling card number was 666 which is the anti Christ in Revelation. Needless to say, as we arrived at the polling station, I ensured that the matter caused her maximum embarassment. What a rotter I was!

Anyhow, these things tend to cause me to draw back from Revelation. And in that I am not alone. For even Martin Luther with his emphasis of Scripture alone, made an exception for Revelation about which he wrote;

“My spirit cannot accommodate itself to this book. I stick to the books which present Christ to me clearly and purely.”


Continued

Methodist Blogs Roundup

As alway with thanks to Allan Bevere.

Allan's site is always worth a visit. Without always agreeing with him, once can be stimulated by his writing. As a taster, why not try this fascinating post concerning John Wesley and the redemption of animals.

Happy reading!

Gambling in Scotland

Some interesting information on gambling in Scotland from The Scotsman.

The link has a heartrending story of the suffering gambling causes and the following measure as to the growth in the problem:

GAMBLING in Scotland has hit record levels. Each adult spends almost £1900 a year on games of chance, more than three times as much as four years ago.

Scots spent around £7.5bn on games of chance in 2005, while help group Gamblers Anonymous reports a 200 per cent rise in the number of addicts attending its meetings.

"We see more and more women seeking help and an increasing number of young people," says James, spokesman for Gamblers Anonymous Scotland. "It's difficult to say if that's a direct consequence of internet gambling, but we do know that internet gambling is very easy to do.

"I think of it like an express train - it's 'zoom' and you're in debt, at the same stage that it's taken others ten years to get to."

Anyhow, if you want to know the effects of this gambling disease, Gamcare advises in the same page what symptoms to look out for;

ADVICE organisation Gamcare says it's not always easy to spot someone with a gambling problem. There are often no physical signs and gamblers will refuse to admit they have a problem, concocting stories to cover their trail. Possible indicators, however, include:

• Money and debt problems
• No apparent interests or pastimes
• Criminal activities like fraud or theft of money
• Creating rows at home as an excuse to go out
• Lack of interest in home life or children
• Workaholic attitude, seems to have drive and energy
• Tendency to be competitive


In other words, the fruits of the gambling industry are broken lives. It is an industry that is rooted in sheer evil for one person's wealth comes from the tears of all too many others.

I hope that our Methodist Conference at its 2007 Conference in Blackpool, will give a clear message to Blackpool that if their municipal authority duncies go on with their pursuit of gambling expansion, they will well and truly have chosen death over life. Otherwise, we shouldn't take our money there.

Mr Bean gets abuse

Pity poor Arthur Batchelor. Of course, many of us laughed when we heard how he had cried after being called Mr Bean and having his IPOD taken away. In a sense he added to the gaiety of the nation.

Recently he has been on compassionate leave and because of some messing around in public houses he is now being vilified by much of our media.

But, let's get real. I know that some of his antics were not what Kenny Everett would describe as "in the best possible taste." But the lad is only 20 years old and some of us who are much older still from time to time act in a somewhat irresponsible way. He is just a young man getting over an unpleasant experience by behaving like a young man. And if it is an insult to others, well we wouldn't have known anything of it were it not for gutter journalists sneaking around in the hope of a story. If young Batchelor's conduct has caused hurt, well it is their fault for not letting a young man act as countless others would.

It really is time to grow up - and by that I do not mean Mr Batchelor

Gordon Brown's love affair with the rich

Today my wife and myself received letter from our bank regarding their duty to disclose information as to bank accounts held in recent years in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. No big deal! We worked on the Isle of Man for five years and to be honest any tax gains were more than offset by higher prices for fuels etc.

Yet as this article suggests, Britian has become a tax haven - well at least for the super rich! This is the reality of Britain today:

The IMF has now recognised what everyone else has known for sometime: London has become home to the wealthiest people on the planet because it allows them to part with relatively little cash while they live here.
'Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal and Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich do not reside in the capital for the theatre and abundant restaurants,' said one prominent tax adviser. 'They are here for one reason: non-domicile tax status.'

This is the legal loophole that ensures you do not have to pay tax in Britain on money earned from abroad. For Labour, the super-rich provide an adrenalin shot to the economy, ensuring the Square Mile is the world's most important international financial centre, which in turn allows the capital to subsidise the rest of the UK.

To critics, letting the super-rich pay a tiny fraction of their earnings in tax undermines faith in the political system and encourages capital flight from developing countries. For British-born tycoons, there are alternative legal ways of reducing tax, whether through offshore trusts or non-resident status.

As the gap between rich and poor widens under Labour, the issue of non-doms is rising sharply up the political agenda. In opposition, Labour said it would scrap the rule and the Chancellor said that he would review non-dom tax status. Over 10 years little has emerged.

Quite a reflection of life under Labour and a real pointer as to where our Government's priorities lie.

Go on and read this;

John Christensen, director of Tax Justice International, was a former economic adviser to the Jersey government - one of the most important tax havens - and now campaigns for tax reform. 'I saw, at first hand, how people use offshore structures for market-rigging, insider trading, paying kickbacks, bribing, and other corrupt practices,' he said. 'One day when I raised concerns about a client account being used to shift money illegally out of Africa, the account supervisor told me that she wasn't interested in discussing such matters and didn't "give a shit about Africa anyway".'

The City of London is the world's largest tax haven, attracting super-rich people from across the globe. Not all accumulated their wealth honestly. There are no figures on how much they contribute to the UK economy - although they do contribute to inflated property prices. The UK has become a centre for illicit funds drained from many of the world's poorer countries, and British offshore secrecy prevents those countries from running effective tax regimes. These sums massively exceed the value of Britain's foreign aid contributions. By importing this money, we export corruption, poverty and political instability.

So there you have it. Just as the intervention in the BAE case revealed, our Government has a highly selective view of corruption. And when push comes to shove, it is the rich who are the first priority.

And still, Socialists claim that Gordon Brown heralds a new beginning. Fat chance!

Jews and Muslims in dialogue

We often assume Islam and Judaism to be two religions at each other's throats. Of course, the dispute over Israel/Palestine has encouraged such a notion. Howver, this has not always been so. Indeed, many Jews fled to the Ottomans following the edicts of Ferdinand and Isabella in fifteenth century Spain.

I was delighted today to discover a Radio Salaam Shalom which is a radio station from the Bristol are through which Jews and Muslims talk and share their religious and cultural heritages.It is well worth listening to.

Also there are reports of a conference to encourage European Jewish/Muslim dialogue is reported on Ekklesia. I liked the contribution by Shereen Williams of Radio Salaam Shalom who said;

"There is an increasing understanding that Jews and Muslims in the UK and worldwide have a common history that dates back thousands of years. Now, more than ever, it is time to draw on and learn from our positive cultural experiences."

I can't help but feel that we need more such examples of dialogue between the followers of different faiths

Cynical Election Advert

It sounds nice talking about asking Blair and Brown questions. Sadly, from watching them over the last 10 years, I have marvelled at their ability to get out of answering questions. My experience of writing Baroness Symons concerning Mordechai Vanunu was quite amazing. She answered things I never wrote rather than what I did write.

Let's have less of the gimmicks and a few straight answers - preferably with Blair and Brown attached to the lie detectors which they are thinking of introducing for certain peoples! 30 minutes on Iraq could be illuminating.

Of course it won't happen. This is just another con trick - even if Mr Brown nicely told the taxi driver to keep the change.

Personal Update

I am back from Nottingham. We spend out time there with a splendid group from the Bideford Amateur Rowing Club who were part of the Western team in the Regional Youth Rowing Regatta.

Our youngsters did not win medals but they all including my son in his first competitive two man row, acquitted themselves with honour. Bideford should be proud of this splendid group of youngsters.

My son hopes to take part in the 10 Tors in three weeks time. He will know in next couplf of days if he has been selected. If not, he may take part in the Exmoor Challenge.

Meanwhile, my father is still in hospital after just over two weeks. I think there has been some improvement. Many thanks for kind words and prayers.

Medical effects of gambling

More information regarding the likely consequences of the Government's scandalous attempts to promote growth in gambling comes from two doctors. John Middleton and Farid Latif call for the medical aspects to be taken seriously;

They call on the government to assess the health effects of any new proposals and urge doctors to be aware of problem gambling in just the same way they are with other potentially addictive activities like drinking alcohol and smoking.

The UK currently has a low prevalence of problem gamblers, but this seems likely to increase when the Gambling Act 2005 is implemented, they say.

Gambling affects physical, mental and social wellbeing as well as creating debt. Problem gamblers and pathological gamblers are more likely than others in the general population to have been divorced, had physical and psychological problems, lost a job, been receiving welfare benefits, been declared bankrupt, and been imprisoned.

Problem gambling is also associated with juvenile delinquency and family problems, while pathological gambling is a predictor of violence against intimate partners.

While the authors acknowledge that most casino customers will not be compulsive gamblers, they believe that the minor effects on large numbers of the population previously unexposed to casino gambling will be pervasive.

I think the effects may be minor for most but for some they will be serious. I have no doubt that the expansion of gambling will increase break up in family relationships and cause many children to cry themselves to sleep!

Meanwhile the persistent David Hallam tells us of research that sufferers of Parkinsons may well suffer from the problems of gambling expansion to a disproportionate extent.

All of this reminds us that we are up against a thoroughly evil industry. There is no room for compromise and all proposals to expand gambling must be strangled at birth!

St George was a good bloke

A positive view of St George is offered by influential think tank Ekklesia.

Too often the Cross of St George has been a symbol of bigots but the authors argue that the Saint whose Saints Day is on April 23rd, should instead be remmbered as a Middle Eastern man who resisted the persecution of Christians by Emperor Diocletian in a non violent way.

They support making St George's Day into a public holiday which could celebrate positive values such as

. The role of the English as global citizens, not narrow nationalists
· The need for dissenters to call power to account
· Black Britons as vital contributors to our culture
· Shared values of social justice arising from the past
· Welcoming migrants in an interdependent world
· Exemplars of faith, hope and love, not thin celebrity

There seems to be much sense in this approach. England shares St George with many other countries and whilst as a Cornishman, I celebrate St Piran, I hope that England's Saint can be celebrated in a truly inclusive manner that is fitting for a country which aspires to be genuinely inclusive.

That wretched song

Well, here is the song from Westboro Baptist Church to which I referred in this morning's sermon. Should prove to any doubters that I didn't make it up!





It is just the sort of crazy theology that merits zero tolerance!

God hates the world - not! A sermon for Easter 3

A few weeks ago, I watched a documentary entitled “The most hated family in America.” In the documentary, Louis Theroux spent some time living with the Westboro Baptist Church, a one church denomination, who are dominated by the Phelps family, especially the ageing patriarch, Pastor Fred Phelps.

This church had for some time been infamous for its militant anti gay position and this has led it to a position of stating that the US is under God’s judgement which they see being exercised in events such as 9/11 and the quagmire of Iraq.

Not surprisingly, the have attracted considerable detestation for their picketing the firstly the funerals of gay people and more recently servicemen killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and they have just revealed their intention to picket the funerals of students killed in the Virginia Tech massacre.

Now, they have put a video on the net in which they parody Band Aid USA’s song, “We are the world” which was aimed at helping a humanitarian disaster in East Africa with their own warped religious understanding, “God hates the world”


Continued

Light blogging

Blogging this week has been light. My father who has parkinsons is in hospital and I have travelled to West Cornwall to see him a couple of times in the past week. On Fuday and Saturday, I shall be in Nottingham to see my son compete in a rowing competition - may get some pictures!

On top of that, work is pretty busy (Ministerial Synod today about which in line with Methodist disciplnes I will say nothing other than that it was pretty good!) Hence blogging is a low priority until next week.

More on that Jeffrey John sermon

Illuminating stuff from Ekklesia.

Regardless of whether one agrees with Jeffrey John, it is sad that he received such a level of abuse as a result of misrepresentation by three Bishops who hadn't read his script when they attacked him.

Anyhow let's allow Dr John to speak for himself:

<em>The most recent statement by the Church of England on the meaning of the Cross is the Doctrine Commission’s report The Mystery of Salvation (Church House Publishing, 1995). It restates the view of the 1938 Commission that “the notion of propitiation as the placating by man of an angry God is definitely unchristian” (p. 213).

It also observes that “the traditional vocabulary of atonement with its central themes of law, wrath, guilt, punishment and acquittal, leave many Christians cold and signally fail to move many people, young and old, who wish to take steps towards faith. These images do not correspond to the spiritual search of many people today and therefore hamper the Church’s mission.”

Instead, it recommends that the Cross should be presented “as revealing the heart of a fellow-suffering God” (p. 113).

On Wednesday of Holy Week, I broadcast a Radio 4 talk that was exactly in line with this guidance. The talk, however, was publicly condemned beforehand by the Bishops of Durham, Lewes, and Willesden — none of whom had heard or read the full text — on the basis of a partial and inflammatory preview supplied by The Sunday Telegraph, which published an article with the scandalously false headline: “Easter message: Christ did not die for our sins”.

As a result, before the talk was even broadcast, I received a deluge of hate-filled messages. Most of them referred to my sexuality, and many were abusive and obscene.

I have now received another deluge of messages from people who actually heard the broadcast, overwhelmingly of thanks, including many from people who, like me, were held back from faith by crude presentations of the theory of penal substitution.

These messages confirm the Doctrine Commission’s diagnosis. Ugly, illogical explanations of the Cross hamper mission, and need to be counteracted with explanations that concentrate on God’s identification with human suffering.

The crucifixion did not placate an angry God and change his mind. The Trinity is not divided. Of course Christ died for our sins; but the price is paid not to God, but by God. God in Christ took all the consequences of our fallenness on himself, and, in the supreme demonstration of his love for us, made the ultimate, once-for-all sacrifice of himself which unites us eternally to him.

That is the doctrine the Church has urged us to preach, and we must not be intimidated from preaching it.

Interesting to read that one of the Bishops who attacked Dean Jeffrey John just happened to be the very Bishop of Durham who so vehemently criticised John for criticising the emphasis on penal substitution!

And they wonder why the pews are not full!

From doubt to Easter faith - A sermon for Easter 2

Happy Easter!

I don’t think too many of you are convinced. You may well be thinking that I have my dates mixed up. Surely even a preacher who comes from Cornwall would know that Easter has come and gone.

But, I am not sure that I am wrong. To Christians, every Sunday is an Easter Day in which we celebrate that Christ is raised from the dead and is a living Lord. After all, surely that is why we gather on Sundays as the people of God.

But of course, this Sunday is often referred to as Low Sunday. The excitement of last week - when re responded to the good news that “Christ is risen” with a thunderous, “He is risen indeed!” - all seems so far away. In a sense, we may feel that the world is as it was before and nothing has changed.

Continued

Methodist blogs weekly roundup

With thanks as always to Alan Bevere whose site is well worth a visit!

Let's hear it for StopGam!

An interesting article in the Guardian concerning Professor Jim Orford from Birmingham University.

Professor Orford is man who has headed research groups into the effects of alcohol and drugs on consumers, their families and communities. Now, he believes that attention needs to be given to the problem of gambling.

Looking at the article, there a number of interesting points made.

Firstly, gambling is not a small problem;

"Because it's not a small minority," he insists, "and the growth in internet gambling and the casino culture, encouraged by the government, means that it's growing all the time. The effects of problem gambling on families are relatively hidden. They suffer in silence because there's not a lot of help available, apart from Gamblers' Anonymous. The idea that the gambling industry will impose some kind of self-regulation is absurd. They'd be undermining some of their most loyal customers."

Seven years ago , Orford was the adviser for a questionnaire by the National Centre for Social Research that went out to 7,000 adults. The results provided the raw material for a book he co-authored under the title Gambling and Problem Gambling in Britain. "At the time," he recalls, "we were able to work out that there were around a third of a million in the UK with a problem. Since then, access to the internet has increased greatly, particularly among youngsters, who are fuelling the growth in online betting. The fact of the matter is that the number of people who find themselves dragged into debts beyond their means depends on availability.

"As casino culture becomes more normalised and we're bombarded with advertising, the prevalence of problem gambling will increase. And women will be particularly susceptible because family-friendly casinos will seem a lot more glamorous than bingo halls and infinitely more seductive than the average bookie's shop."


In other words, the Professor who knows a thing or two on this subject is saying that already we have a third of a million gamblers who have a problem already, in this country and the normalisation of gambling along with new opportunities for advertising, will add to that number. And we know that among the consequences will be increasing levls of family breakup and a rise in child poverty. Yes, the very thing that our Government claims to be one of its prime priorities, is at the same time being made worse by the decision of this Government to jump into bed with the spivs of the gambling industry!

Orford is scathing about the political basis for the expansion of gambling. Like me, he cannot understand how a Labour Government of all types of Government, can have done this. And like me, he is unconvinced by the flimsy cover of regeneration benefits;

"It is extraordinary that a Labour government has done this," he says. Extraordinary, too, he says, that a particularly poor part of Manchester has been chosen for the site of the first so-called super casino. Surely, I suggest, that's because casinos are seen as a means of regenerating rundown areas?

"Firms of consultants have confirmed my suspicion that the regeneration benefits have been exaggerated," he says. "Many of the jobs created are low paid and a lot of them won't go to local people. The main beneficiaries in that part of east Manchester will be pawnbrokers and moneylenders."

Yet before, we put all the blame on the Blair Government, Orford reminds us that state sponsored gambling took hold with the Trojan Horse of a National Lottery which was introduced by the previous Conservative Government;

One of the key factors he cites in the change in government attitudes to gambling is the National Lottery, set up by the previous Conservative administration. "It was the first time that the government itself had sponsored a form of gambling that could be advertised," he points out. "Inevitably, that led to other gambling promoters demanding the same freedoms." Equally inevitably, he suggests, successive governments have become dependent on what he sees as a regressive form of taxation. "The poor pay a disproportionate amount for facilities that largely benefit the well-off," he says. "For the first time in our history, the majority of Britons are gambling. Three-quarters of the population play the lottery at some point over a 12-month period."

Indeed, let us be clear that the National Lottery has done its job of preparing us to fatten the spivs and moral deviants who run the gambling industry. Its effect has been to screw money out of the most vulnerable of people who have been so exploited by corporate Britain and for whom any dream will do. But sadly, now we reap the harvest of nightmares!

I am impressed that Professor Orford seeks for his future research not to be financed by the gambling industry as has been the case with the Responsibility in Gambling Trust. He is right. The gambling industry will no more destroy itself than the arms industry will destroy itself. WE have to do it for them!

But just as the evils of slavery were stopped, so to can this form of exploitation be at least rolled back a little. And here is a useful possibility. Read these words of Professor Orford;

"It's in my mind to drum up interest among those who want to stop the spread of gambling in the UK. I have a name - StopGam - and I'm drawing up a list of potential allies."

Well I say, "Go for it Professor!" Fight this insidious industry in the names of the lives which will lose hope as a result of the pursuit of filthy lucre by the unscrupulous people who gain from this evil. And may Methodists not be found wanting in this struggle. We need a clarion call for militant Methodists to be part of a broad coalition that will not hold back from defending the weak and the vulnerable. While children cry as a result of the poverty that comes about through this dreadful form of exploitation, may we have the courage to fight with words and if need be with non violent civil disobedience

So that is why I am a Protestant!

Wife is looking distinctly unamused! I can't think why.


HAT TIP Matt Stone

An Easter message from Wales

I love reading Ekklesia which keeps me up with a range of issues within Christianity. Today I have particularly appreciated reading about the Easter address of the Anglican Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan.

Describing the effect of Resurrection, Dr Morgan's message is summarised as follows;

“Jesus preached about the forgiveness and graciousness of God and sought to free people from everything that enslaved and oppressed them,” declared the Archbishop, highlighting the radical impact of the Gospel. “For him there were no prior conditions for being accepted by God, whatever your sex, status or position. You were a child of God made in his image. His resurrection was a triumph over the forces of evil – the forces of racism, militarism, nationalism, sexism and poverty.”

He continued: “To be ‘in Christ’ then is an invitation to join in that struggle, to take part in Christ’s mission and to fight against everything that enslaves and de-humanises human beings and, of course, to do so non-violently.”

Dr Morgan goes in to speak of a range of oppressions within the world as well as pointing out that on issues such a gender and human sexuality, the Anglican Church is by no means at the promised land.

Dr Morgan's conclusion is a powerful reminder that we need to live out Resurrection;

“In the end it is not enough to believe in the resurrection as a proposition or as an article of faith, because resurrection is not just about a dead Jesus coming to life again, it is about us allowing God’s spirit to work afresh in us as he worked in Jesus. Resurrection means joining in God’s recreation of his world as and when and where, we can.”

To which I say keep preaching it, Archbishop! And dear reader, I recommend you to read the article which is a treasure and offers so much more than this hurriedly written pointer

Easter comes with a calling - A sermon for Easter Day

"Behind the monastery, down by the road,
There is a cemetery of worn out things,
There lie smashed china, rusty metal,
Cracked pipes and rusty bits of wire,
Empty cigarette packets, sawdust,
Corrugated iron, old plastics, tyres beyond repair:
All waiting for the Resurrection like ourselves.”

Those words by Ernesto Cardenal Martinez the Nicaraguan poet/priest who served in the Sandinista government of the 1980s, witness powerfully to the power of resurrection to change lives. For Resurrection is not just an event of two millenia ago but it is a reality that contains the power to bring hope to smashed up lives in the here and now. It is the message of Christ in his risen power, reaching out with an unending passion that however marred the Divine image might be in peoples’ lives, they might once more be enabled to shine with the image of his likeness.

Certainly, the women who came to the tomb, knew what it was to have smashed up lives. They had loved Jesus. They had placed great hopes in him. But now it was all gone! Destroyed! For they had witnessed his violent, humiliating death. Their hopes and dreams lay ruined in the ignominious death of Jesus.


Continued

Alive - A sermon for Easter Day

In that most gloomy of poems, “Funeral Blues”, WH Auden concludes with a dark note of despair;

“The stars are not wanted now, put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.”

The closest friends of Jesus must have felt just like that on Good Friday. Their friend and leader had been well and truly killed. The hopes that they had invested in him, had been completely destroyed. The world as they knew it had caved in. Surely, nothing now would ever come to any good.

Continued

Which church father are you?

You’re Origen! You do nothing by half-measures. If you’re going to read the Bible, you want to read it in the original languages. If you’re going to teach, you’re going to reach as many souls as possible, through a proliferation of lectures and books. If you’re a guy and you’re going to fight for purity … well, you’d better hide the kitchen shears. Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!

Well, I can't say I have read his writings. Still, it's nice to know he agrees with me!

Good Friday thoughts

I have just come back from our Good Friday Walk of Witness followed by a service at St Mary's. I always find the walk a very moving experience and this year the service was very helful with a most thoughtful sermon preached by our Roman Catholic priest, Father Terry O'Donovan.

Yet every year as I hear the Gospel account of the Passion, I get a nagging feeling that this telling of the story from the angle of the family quarrel between Judaism and Christianity can leave us with a negative picture of Judaism. I am told that Easter was traditionally a time in which anti semitic attacks were at their worst. Therefore I offer a sermon I preached at St Mary's two years ago in which Holocaust Remembrance and thi semitism are interplayed with the Passion of our Lord.



I used to find Elaine difficult. She was the first Messianic Jew that I ever met. Time after time she would complain about sermons she heard containing anti Semitism. In my mind I psychoanalysed her and wished the problem away.

Many year later training for the ministry at Wesley House I realised there was a problem that could not just be ignored. We shared our site with the Centre for Jewish Christian Relations, a community of Jews and Christians dedicated to exploring the issues in relations between Jews and Christians. Two and a half years ago their Director Ed Kessler whose family had fled Austria in the 1930s took us to the Beth Shalom Holocaust Museum near Nottingham. We set off as an animated group of students but returned in total silence. We’d known that the Holocaust would be disturbing but what we encountered at this centre set up by a Methodist minister left us shattered. An effort in the midst of Christendom to destroy the Jewish communities of Europe and all memory of them.

For many of us this experience was something we could not let go of. For me it led me to study a course on Jewish and Christian Responses to the Holocaust in my final year. And I began to discover how right Elaine had been. The polemics within scripture which come from what is in essence a 1st Century family quarrel had in the centuries that followed been used to demonise Judaism with outbreaks of violence particularly prevalent at Easter as passion plays led to heightened emotions and prejudices. To me the most disturbing moment was reading the Dabru Emet Statement of Jewish scholars, a gracious statement, which whilst recognising the anti Christian nature of Nazism, also affirmed that were it not for years of Christian anti Judaism the terrible events of the 1940s could never have happened.

In the years that have followed most of the Christian churches have begun a journey of reconciliation with the older brother of Judaism. Hopefully this journey will not be at the cost of another scapegoat emerging in the form of Islam. However, we do well on this Good Friday to appreciate that the cross which is the supreme sign of God in Christ’s sacrificial love has at times been so misused that for others especially Jewish brothers and sisters, there is a shadow side. Such is shown by the story of well meaning efforts to erect a convent at Auschwitz to pray for the horrors that had happened at that place with a cross as a sign of hope only for many Jews to be mortally offended with the result that the Pope intervened to halt the scheme.

I wonder if we haven’t at times got our focus wrong as we look at the Passion of Christ. Increasingly I think that the story reminds of the dangers of the misuse of power by the powerful. We see it in the religiously powerful but also in the political power yielded by Pontius Pilate. Pilate was a man known for brutality, brutality which would later bring his career to an ignominious conclusion. This was hardly a man who needed a crowd to incite him to torture or execution. In a way he was a fore runnner of a long tradition of the powerful using political expediency as a cover for torture, violence and war.

Yet more uncomfortably by setting our attention on others, we often excuse ourselves. Rowan Williams in his book ‘Resurrection’ reminds us that unlike Jesus we are hardly pure victim for we also have within us the characteristics of the persecutor. Painfully we know how mobs of people just like us can like the Easter crowd vent fury, hatred and prejudice on others simply for being in some way other than what we are. We are caught up in what the American academic Walter Wink calls the ’ myth of redemptive violence.’ And if we excuse ourselves there we all know too well the sin of silence when we fail to speak for those who are victims.

I think of Martin Niemoeller the Lutheran pastor who at first was taken by Hitler before realising that Nazism was anti Christian, made his stand, spending years in gaol as a result. Listen to his words;

"First they came for the communists but I did not speak out because I was not a communist

Then they cam for the Socialists but I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist.

Then the came for the trade unionists butI did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews but I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Finally they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me."

And yet there is one who is for us. Elie Wiesel’s book ‘Night’ which tells of his time at Auschwitz and Buchenwald makes for painful reading. Indeed he could only write it many years after the events. In one tortuous episode he describes the hanging of two men and a boy whom he describes as looking like a ‘sad eyed angel.’ The boys takes a long time to die and Wiesel refers to hearing man behind him asking ‘Where is God now?’ before going on to write;

And I heard a voice within me answer him;
'‘Where is he? Here he is….. He is hanging on the gallows.'’

I am not quite sure what Wiesel means by that. It may relate to his struggle as to whether he could continue to believe in a God in the light of the terrible things he saw and experienced. I don’t know. But I put it to you this morning that in a real sense the suffering God is present with all those who suffer injustice and pain. For in the cross we find the courageous self giving love of God in Christ, given for all.

The cross a form of torture, sadly used so often by Christians as a weapon, stands revealed as the means by which God in love embraces a world hooked on the drugs of self interest and violence. Through the cross, is revealed the supremacy of Divine love for as that great hymn of the Welsh Revival puts it,

"Here is love vast as the Ocean".

Serving to the last - A sermon for Maundy Thursday

And so this afternoon we draw ever closer to the Passion of our Lord. As the time of his death draws near, Jesus shares in one last meal with his followers. One more time, they will experience his acceptance in the sharing of table fellowship.

Yet first there is something else to be done. Jesus and his friends have been on the road in a land in which the roads would have been muddy in wet times and dusty in dry times. The normal footwear gave precious little protection against either of these possibilities. And so, at the door of any house there would be waterpots with a servant to attend to the washing and drying of feet - not the sort of job you dream of at school!

Continued

That sermon by Jeffrey John

There are days when I think that sections of the church are on a self destruction mission without needing any help from Dawkins et al. A recent example is the statement by two Bishops released at Spring Harvest attacking a sermon preached on radio by Jeffrey John. The Bihops of Lewes and Willsden offer this critique;

"Jeffrey John ... is saying that the cross is not about anger or wrath or sin or atonement, but only about God's unconditional love. There is, he says, nothing to understand in the cross which is anything to do with sacrifice or Jesus dying for our sins – and we say No. You've got it wrong."

I might take these two men in purple seriously in normal circumstances but when they admit to Ekklesia that they have not read the sermon but instead rely on a brief radio interview and an article in the Daily Telegraph, I wonder what their agenda is.

But I feel that their attack on John is not just a case of yet another manifestation of poisonous religious feuding. It is quite simply a case of bearing false witness. I have taken the trouble to read the sermon and would suggest that readers take this opportunity to do the same.

The sermon deserves to be read in its entirety but regarding the slur thatJohn suggested thatthe cross has nothing to do with Jesus dying for our sins, the lie in this accusation is shown in the following extract;

The cross, then, is not about Jesus reconciling an angry God to us; it's almost the opposite. It's about a totally loving God, incarnate in Christ, reconciling us to him. On the cross Jesus dies for our sins; the price of our sin is paid; but it is not paid to God but by God. As St paul says, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. Because he is Love, God does what Love does: He unites himself with the beloved. He enters his own creation and goes to the bottom line for us. Not sending a substitute to vent his punishment on, but going himself to the bitter end, sharing in the worst of suffering and grief that life can throw at us, and finally sharing our death, so that he can bring us through death to life in him.

Like Jeffrey John, I grew up in an environment in which penal substitution and the wrath of God were regularly preached. Like him, I find that such an emphasis often takes us away from appreciating that love is the nature of God. This Easter I will be preaching on the love of God which is seen at its fullest on the cross and which offers me the forgiveness I need. But I will not preach of a vengeful father.

In his final pragraph, Jeffrey John sums up our hope quite beautifully;

On the cross God absorbs into himself our falleness and its consequences and offers us a new relationship. God shows he knows what it's like to be the loser; God hurts and weeps and bleeds and dies. It's a mystery we can hardly glimpse, let alone grasp; and if there is an answer to the problem of suffering, perhaps it's one for the heart, not the reason. Because the answer God's given is simply himself; to show that, so far from inflicting suffering as a punishment, he bears our griefs and shares our sorrow. From Good Friday on, God is no longer "God up there", inscrutably allotting rewards and retributions. On the Cross, even more than in the crib, he is Immanuel, God down here, God with us.

This Easter I am grateful to Jeffrey John for this offering. As for the two Bishops who have misrepresnted him, I suggest P45s are in order.

Kim Fabricius on Political Theology

Do read Kim Frabricius offering of Ten propositions on Political Theology.

Kim as always leaves me gasping as I struggle to keep up with him but I think that he is offering some real pearls here.


HAT TIP Faith and Theology

Just another Sunday in Bideford

HAT TIP Mad Priest

Time to trouble MPs regarding gambling

Back once more to the issue of the Government of the UK taking on the role of croupier, like David Hallam I feel that we mustn't give up. David has argued that Methodists need to get active in lobbying our MPs to reverse their policy of encouraging us to stake our pensions on a roulette wheel. David is absolutely right.

David has helpfully drawn our attention to Rob Hopcott's "Gambling - God or Evil" blog. This blog contains high quality arguments that can be used in dialogue with our elected representatives. So let's get busy!

Westboro Baptist Church - a demonic force!

A ever so sweet response from Westboro Baptist Church in response to the recent Louis Theroux programme concerning them.

Frankly having followed their antics for some time and watched "The most hated family in America" as well as reading that letter, I can only conclude that there would be something wrong in america if they were not the most hated family. Yet there is something sad about them. Fred Phelps came over as a deeply disturbed individual and I found myself wondering why social services hadn't intervened to rescuse young members of the family. I guess that the programme was a reminder that religion can go badly wrong and become an instrument of hatred rather than of love. The Phelps family rejoicing over soldiers coming back dead from Iraq as well a their joy over cancers, was deeply sick. Indeed, there were moments when I felt that if I met them, I could just about suspend my belief in non violence for a few minutes!

Of course, the Phelps family are an easy target. I know of no Christian who regards them with any respect. They are heretics in the worst possible sense of the word. And yet, we do well to keep alert at little slides down that road.

I suggest that we need to continually reaffirm God's unending love for all and assert that there is no room for prejudice within the church of Christ.

Tell Tony to stop the casinos

Please sign this petition on the Number 10 Downing Street website calling on the Prime Minister to cancel all of the proposed increase in gambling.

Sure he may not listen but we need to keep telling him!

Church can be fun

Enjoy!

HAT TIP Just Pastors

Deportations to Zimbabwe

Not so long ago, there was quite a race row regarding Celebrity Big Brother. As I blogged at the time, I felt that there were other factors involved in what happened. I was also concerned at the way that the media and politicians got a bandwagon going which made them look good and had a devastating effect on the lives of two of the women concerned, one of them attempting suicide.

I felt that some of the reactions were opportunistc and more about people wanting to make themselves look good. Now I believe that racism needs to be confronted wherever it rears its ugly head. I am as repulsed as anyone at an outlook which regards some as lesser because of the colour of their skin or where they origninate from.

Now, I would like to raise the issue of deportations from the Home Office because in recent times some of these have regarded asylum seekers as lesser people even when their lives have been at stake. In recent weeks a number of such cases have been in the press.

Today, I would like to draw your attention to planned deportations to Zimbabwe. On the one hand, our Government and the Foreign Office have drawn our attention to human rights abuses under the Mugabe regime. They have been right!

And so you would not think that we are proposing to deport people to the tender mercies of Zanu PF. Wouldn't you? Well you would be wrong.

Read today's Observer report concerning a young woman who claims to have been raped by one of Mugabe's allies as well as having had her husband a leading member of MDC shot. She is reported to reagrd death as better than returning to Zimbabwe.

There are too many of these reports to ignore them. Surely, if we regard all people as of equal value, it is time to stop the deportation to Zimbabwe until the situation changes.

Enough is enough! It is time to demand humanitarianism in the name of Christ!

Discrimination in the name of Christ

Reading of this gay man deprived f the opportunity to be a youthworker in the Diocese of Hereford, I find myself with a feeling of some despair. The man was clearly felt by the interviewing panel to have the right qualities and indeed his Chrsitain faith is not in doubt. The reason for his not having the opportunity to proceed with the job he was orignally selected for is his homosexuality.

Apart from the fact that I cannot reconcile such discrimination with my understanding of Christ, I wonder if the church is determined to be seen as a block on progress. As with gender issues, are we to be an obstacle to the appreciation of peoples' shared full humanity?

Time to fight Tessa Jowell's gambling idiocy

A letter in the Guardian from Dominic Carman the son of lawyer and gambling addict Sir George Carman is a pertinent warning as to the dangers of gambling. Hre is what he writes;

As MPs vote today on the gambling bill, which will put a new super casino in Manchester, with 16 more casinos elsewhere, they may give some thought to my experience as the son of a chronic Manchester gambler. Because it was in the casinos of Manchester that my father, George Carman QC, an educated and highly successful man, who helped this newspaper triumph over Jonathan Aitken - lost millions at the Black Jack table. Pouring his hard-earned money into the casinos over 30 years, he gambled our house away - twice. Although I do not claim to have had a poverty-stricken childhood, we lived in rented accommodation for 10 years and, during that time, we had no car, nor a washing machine. Given that most people thought we were comfortably off, things were very difficult because of my father's chronic gambling addiction.There were other factors at play: his heavy drinking and domestic violence. Ultimately, these three elements became inextricably linked.

It should be remembered that gambling can and does affect all levels of society - intelligence and success offer no protection. To liberalise and promote gambling - as this government advocates - is a licence for creating misery in the future lives of thousands of children. Perhaps our MPs can help to limit such effects by saying no to the proposed bill.
Dominic Carman
London

This story of the effect of gambling in a family where the addict was known to the public as a highly successful lawyer, show that gambling can wreck any home.

It is time that we stop thinking of gambling as a victimless activity. A comment received recently from Mad Priest makes the point very clearly;

As the son of a compulsive gambler and as a person who identifies sin by effect rather than action, I agree wholeheartedly with anybody who desires its complete abolition. Most children of gamblers and alcoholics (which often go together) suffer severe mental illness later in life.

We are told that there already 350,000 problem gamblers in the UK. That is a lot of people an they are only the tip of the iceburg when one considers the effects on members of their families.

This makes it all the more amazing that a Labour Government should be going to such extremes to expand the gambling sector of the British economy with further casinos. Whilst they may have proposed some protective measures, their intent was revealed when Culture Secretary was pictured in the newspapers draped over a roulette table, looking to all intents and purposes like a gangster's moll.

This week, the Government obtained the support of the House of Commons for the new casinos. MPs who claim to care about child poverty meekly went intothe Government lobby to vote for measures that will destroy the lives of far too many children. Their alliance with spivs following on from the meek way they have been whipped into the lobbies for so many destructive causes, makes me feel that some of them would vote for the slaying of the first born if it assisted their climbling up the greasy pole.

Thanfully, the House of Lords, whose abolition I have long supported, managed to get it right. Their vote has bought a little time. I suggest that this time be well used by the Christian community to pressurise representatives to sink this whole proposal. I want the den of iniquity to be shut for good whether it be in Blackpool or Manchester. It is time that we stood for the victims of a trade that makes billionaires out of spivs like Philip Anschutz whilst wrecking the home life of many a child.

I am fed up with the argument that we cannot turn the clock back. there was a time when slavery was said to be a fact of life. Well, the transatlantic tade was brought to an end. So to can the slavery of state sponsored gambling addiction be taken on. Whether, it be the Trojan Horse of the National Lottery or the new palaces to greed, it is the duty of the church to make a stand.

The time has come for a campaign of non violent civil disobedience to protect the victims!

Palm Sunday - a day of subversion. Palm Sunday sermon

It is time to be honest. I am absolutely fed up with the sentimental donkey processions that in a sickly sweet way, are dragged out on Palm Sunday. I am fed up with Palm Sunday being constantly turned into a day for nice safe religious thoughts. Why? Because there is nothing safe about Palm Sunday for it is a day when sharply opposing worldviews clash, a day that makes the eventual outcome of a torture, a show trial and public execution become inevitable.

For a moment let us imagine Jerusalem on that day. Passover is drawing near. Over three million pilgrims are to be found within the walled city, packed tightly together. Religious and nationalistic passions are running high for this is occupied land, occupied by a power that cares little for the practices and religious sensitivities of these peoples.

Continued