What authority does the Bible have and why do I keep coming back to it?

To clear up a couple of myths to start with: the conservatively minded umbrella body the ‘Evangelical Alliance’ says in its basis of faith “We believe in…The divine inspiration and supreme authority of the Old and New Testament Scriptures, which are the written Word of God—fully trustworthy for faith and conduct.” Not 100% geographically or historically accurate, not a definitive guide to physics, chemistry or any other science (what did ‘science’ mean in the first century?), but ‘fully trustworthy for faith and conduct’. Faith being what people believe, conduct how people live their lives. Still a mighty big claim, I’ll grant you, but best to be clear what we’re talking about.

OK: ‘supreme authority’. This is far more problematic – what does it mean in practice? In the seventeenth century Theology used to be known as ‘the Queen of the Sciences’. It used to ‘sit over’ all the other ‘subjects’, which would derive their axioms from assumptions about theology, but be free to explore from there. Now, nobody’s claiming that the Bible says anything specifically about the failure of world trade talks this week, but it might be possible to draw principles about just and fair exchange of goods from the Bible and apply them. The same might be true of all other subjects. If God gives us minds to create, explore and discover within his creation all scientific, social science and arts disciplines become an opportunity to glorify God and know more about Him.

Notice that it was Theology, not the Bible that was Queen of the Sciences and the ‘supreme authority’. The dictionary defines theology as ‘The study of the nature of God and religious truth’. Christians turn to the Bible to find out more about the nature of God, but Christian theology involves interpreting what is in the Bible. Interpretation immediately brings the experiences and knowledge of the interpreter into play and therefore different interpretations. Some Christians in the nineteenth century tried to side step ‘interpretation’ by calling on the fallacious doctrine of ‘inerrancy’. This meant that they believed every single word of the Bible text was literally ‘true’ – whatever that meant. In a 21st century world that is used to textual criticism, genre and relativism this concept is outlandish – we take it for granted that what one word means to one person in one moment of time in one sentence can mean something completely different to the person sitting on the seat opposite. Luckily all the many writers of the Bible, who were used to dealing in myths, stories and parables to explain truth would be similarly mystified.

So the Bible needs to be placed in the context of wider enterprise of figuring out who God is called Theology – otherwise we’d be missing out on other ways God might make himself known and also disastrously ignoring our own ‘cultural spectacles’ and preconceptions. Christians tend to include amongst other things, knowledge of God through Creation; personal experience and relationship with God; and tradition. Tradition in these terms means the cumulative experiences and learning of Christians down the centuries – what Godly men and women have found to be true in their lives and those of the church. Therefore tradition is living and ever-growing – when I am inspired and encouraged to become more like Christ by Godly people around me they are part of and adding to the Christian tradition. Personal experience and relationship with God means seeing answers to prayers, listening to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and taking the risk to trust and follow God and finding His promise of ‘life in all its fullness’ to be true.

It’s here that the Evangelical Alliance’s belief the Bible is the ‘supreme authority’ comes into play. If I believe that God, by His Holy Spirit has told me to steal my next door neighbour’s X-Box, the Christian tradition says that the authority of the Bible telling me not to takes precedence over my personal ‘authority’ which says I should. Likewise, if there was a church pastor who told his congregation that the best way to be happy was to get rich as fast as possible, the ‘supreme’ authority of the Bible would come before the authority of ‘the church’. God can guide me and work through me, but will not speak outside of His written teachings. This sounds like an excellent idea at first - a kind of check and balance system to prevent abuse and stupidity. The Bible is unambiguous about some things, through both Old and New Testaments. For instance, it’s difficult to argue that the Bible as a whole doesn’t claim that there is One God; we are to follow Him with all our mind, heart, soul and strength and it matters to God whether we choose to do that or not. Therefore in some senses ‘the Bible’ could be treated as a ‘supreme authority’.

However, the Bible is not a ‘how to’ manual (how boring would that be). It is complex and logically paradoxical and is therefore nonsensical to talk of the Bible as a ‘supreme authority’ for all matters of faith of conduct without having some generally agreed interpretations. Supreme authority without recognised interpretation equals inerrancy. Generally accepted interpretations within the church (whether implicit or explicit) are that the Old Testament should be viewed through the ‘grid’ and understanding of the New and that it’s important to take different genres in the Bible into account. Interpretation has generally come from Church Tradition, which is the sum of Christian’s experiences and thinking down the ages, who themselves have been influenced by the Bible – the strands feed into one another and the boundaries blur.

I therefore prefer to think of the Bible not as a supreme authority, isolated from other authority, but the thickest of a number of shoots of a climbing plant, (creation, personal experience, tradition being others) woven around one another for support and strength as they grow. Not one of them could stand alone – they would all collapse and break.

This still all begs the question – ‘why do I believe what the Bible says?’. For me the simple answer is I’ve found it to be true in my life. However much I try to ignore the Bible or think that I’m bored of it I always get pulled back to the wisdom and life within its pages. That doesn’t mean that I understand it all or agree with it all or don’t find it confusing or difficult, but that it’s worth sticking with it like no other book. I frequently find stories or chapters in the Bible that in other books I would immediately dismiss or ignore, but if it’s in the Bible I’ve learned that it’s worth preserving, grappling and contending with.

A few years ago I heard Brian McClaren say that maybe what should unite our view of the Bible as a church was that we ‘take it seriously’. At the time I was horrified and couldn’t imagine a more wishy-washy way formulation. Now, although I’m not sure it’s how I would put it I have a sense of what he was getting at. If we, as a community of Christians take what the Bible seriously, really seriously - seriously enough to engage in thorough, honest studies of it bringing in all the analytical and spiritual skills we have at our disposal, to pray with it and take time with it - we invest it with authority as we communally find that it enriches our faith and lives.
Samuel Coleridge put it even better, as described in ‘The Church in an Age of Revolution’: “Coleridge held that if men would but read [the Bible] without preconceived ideas about its plenary inspiration, and see whether it did not speak to them with convincing power, they would be assured of its authority. It should be read and studied like any other literature, and then it would be found it be unlike any other literature...” (p81)

That’s my experience of the Bible. Somehow, against all the odds, God has fashioned a collection of books by working with deeply flawed human beings over thousands of years which are divinely inspired and therefore hold great authority in all matters of faith and conduct.

Welfare Reform - For the many, discussed by few.

Last week the government published a bill that will directly affect three million people in the UK, indirectly touch millions more. Its success or otherwise will have a major impact on the long term health of our economy. It received some newspaper and radio coverage, but virtually no analysis or comment. Amongst other things, the Welfare Reform Bill aims to restructure benefits for people unable to work because of ill health or incapacity.

At the moment there are two benefits for people unable to work: Incapacity Benefit is based on previous National Insurance contributions. This is worth c.£58 for the first 26 weeks rising in two stages to c.£75 per week for a single person. Income Support, is income based and worth about £57 a week for a single person. The two benefits interact in convoluted ways and the government is rightly combining the two to create one ‘Employment and Support Allowance’ (ESA). It’s also abolishing the crazy system that means that the longer you stay on Incapacity Benefit the more money you get.

However, the real problem with the system at the moment is that it draws a false distinction between fit and healthy job seekers who get assistance and support in finding work and those on IS or IB who get put on benefits and forgotten. In fact, most people who go onto IS or IB want to get back working as soon as possible. So the government is planning to implement its ‘Pathways to Work’ programme, already piloted, which gives support to people with their health and employment to get back into work. This will be compulsory for those people deemed to have a non-permanent disability and failure to cooperate will mean a cut in benefit down to Job Seekers Allowance level of around £57 per week. Those who are deemed permanently incapacity with no chance of work will be given a higher rate of benefit and not be forced to engage in support programmes.

The cost of the Pathways to Work programme is estimated at a tiny £147 million per year. My back-of-the-envelope estimate suggests that only 30 000 claimants per annum need to come off benefit for the scheme to break even. The pilot areas have almost reached that target by themselves over three years.

Compulsory attendance at interviews with the threat of benefit cuts can be both helpful and fair, as long as this ‘stick’ is wielded justly, as a last resort and as discipline not retribution. Ultimately claimants need to be aware that they are being supported by the wider public and need to take responsibility for their actions and progress. Knowing that their actions matter could be beneficial for some claimants. If no-one cares what you do and how you progress towards work you are more likely to experience apathy and low self esteem. The lost benefit could be reinstated after a period of six months if the person was ready to reengage with training.

The success of the scheme will depend on two main factors. The first is the level and type of support. Is the DWP going to be able to provide individually tailored support, built on a relationship with a personal adviser that deals with mental health and stress, through to industrial injuries and lost limbs as well as retraining? It’s a huge ask and there is little evidence to suggest that the benefits bureaucracy can change its ways. Therefore the government’s plans to contract out some of the support services to the voluntary sector, whose ethos on relationship and developing individuals skills and gifts would be well suited, is to be welcomed. If the DWP succeeds in this area it will be a monumental turnaround and worthy of the epitaph ‘A welfare system for the 21st Century’. It would mean that claimants would be able to believe that the system is there to enable and support them rather than demean and dismiss them and treat them as an unwelcome statistic.


The second success factor is far wider ranging. Can the government lead the remodeling of the economy to promote more highly skilled part time work, anti-ageist practices and government-business partnerships to retrain people? Many people on IB can’t go back to working full time immediately or sometimes ever and need to gradually build up their hours over a period of years. By not modifying business practice to encourage more part time working the private sector are missing out on good people entering their organisations. If the government is going to retrain people they will need the cooperation of businesses on a significant scale. Central government needs to equip local authorities and Job Centre Plus’ to engage in partnerships that can produce win-win solutions and offer a package of incentives to businesses to engage. These changes are partly out of the government’s hands and will rely on the vision and expertise of political and business leaders and local and national level. As the population ages this remodeling is crucial for the long term stability of our economy.

The Welfare Reform Bill may not be much talked about, but it has the potential to transform Incapacity Benefits for the good of millions of claimants, the tax payer and the economy as a whole. Whether the government and the DWP can successfully legislate for and implement the changes remain to be seen: if they do manage, we should be talking about their achievement for many years to come.

Space for doubt…especially on Saturday.

Book Review: Reaching for the Invisible God
by Philip Yancey

Philip Yancey compares ‘Reaching for the Invisible God’ as a progression from doubt towards faith, a journey which he says he himself has travelled. He addresses what it means to try and have a relationship with a God who can’t be seen or touched, often doesn’t appear to be there and is vastly more powerful than we are, but apparently doesn’t feel inclined to use much of his power.

The opening sections of the book are a place of loss and hard questions. Just as Yancey found a church who ‘formed a safe place for my doubts’ Reaching for the invisible God is a safe space to ask honest, challenging questions, knowing that you are in the company of not only the author, but Christians, atheists and agnostics down the centuries. As Yancey says ‘We all need trustworthy doubt companions’. The reader is encouraged to ask the same questions as the people in his stories: “Really, what can we count on God for”, “why does God allow horrific suffering?”, why does God not answer all our prayers and seem to remain silent when we most want Him to speak?. ‘

Doubt can eat into people, leaving them paralysed by uncertainty or it can prompt people to dig deeper for truth. Yancey doesn’t leave the reader to wallow in doubt, thrashing around in despondency; being destroyed by uncertainty. He leads us, by seeking out the lives of writers, saints and otherwise ordinary people, who have spent their lives reaching for an invisible God and asks what we can learn from their endeavours. Their lives produce a sense of reassurance (‘Yes, that’s how it’s meant to be – there is a way forward’) as well as immense challenge (‘How I’d love to be more like that’). Yancey offers a way in to the variety and richness of Christian tradition. Yet he never loses the puzzlement, mystery and amazement which keep him from offering trite soundbites and solutions. I finished ‘Reaching for the Invisible God’ feeling enriched and peaceful, but knowing that I have not just indulged in escapism. At the end of his book Yancey quotes George Steiner: “We know of that Good Friday which Christianity holds to have been that of the Cross. But the non-Christian knows of it as well. They know of the injustice, of the interminable suffering, of the waste, of the brute enigma of ending, which so largely make up not only the historical dimension of the human condition, but the everyday fabric of our personal lives…We know also about Sunday. To the Christian, that day signifies an intimation, both assured and precarious, both evident and beyond comprehension, of resurrection, of a justice and a love that have conquered death.”

By asking ‘where is God?’ Yancey catches us where we are, in between Friday and Sunday, without trying to hide either from us.

Greens - grow up

The last year has seen a huge upsurge in the intensity and urgency in the climate change debate. Hurricane Katrina, the first climate refugees in the Pacific, the next generation of nuclear power stations, dire predictions from respected scientists such as James Lovelock, and the BBC’s climate chaos series have all contributed to the sense that climate change is happening now and has the potential to be catastrophic. Many climate change scientists argue that we have thirty years maximum before we cross the ‘tipping point’ when cataclysmic climate change becomes inevitable. Some say that we may already have passed it. A year ago it was mainstream to say that environmental issues were very important, but not the number one priority. Now most prominent public figures accept that climate change is very urgent and very important. A growing number of businesses are also pushing for a greener regulatory framework to promote investment and business solutions to climate change.

The Green movement should be pleased by this new found concern, but also has to adapt to the new reality in which it finds itself. The Green movement has its roots in the new ‘identity’ personal politics that began in the 1960s, along with gender and politics of sexuality. Its emphasis has been on living sustainably, building communities and making individual ‘green’ choices such as recycling, not owning a car and buying organically. Green campaigns, directly or indirectly have predominantly been about changing individual consumer’s behaviour rather than macro green policies: do your bit – we can change the world one by one.

The problem is that China is building as many coal power stations in a year as the UK operates in total – the Chinese have plans to build a further 544 coal power stations. The growth of the car market in India makes our vehicle journeys insignificant by comparison. As James Lovelock puts it: “Nothing we do in Britain is going to make a hill of beans of difference.” Trying to reduce the number of car journeys in the UK is a bit like putting all our energy into buying egg cups for people so that they everyone can help put out a fire, whereas what we really need is to club together and get a few aeroplanes with water jets. There may be ways of avoiding the worst excesses of climate change, but it’s not going to be through each individual changing their behaviour. Instead we need to be investing billions in clean technologies such as carbon sequestration techniques and transferring them to the Chinese, Indians and Brazilians as quickly as possible. The Green movement should be lobbying our government for the biggest investment in scientific research in history. If we’re going to prevent millions of climate refugees and the world’s poorest people being hit time and again by unnatural disasters we need to think big and quickly.

But can the green movement adapt? The idea of individuals taking responsibility for their own actions by changing their own lifestyles is deeply rooted. It rests on the assumption that doing good for others is also good for our own happiness, fulfilment and contentment – it’s a win-win situation. I have no doubt that this is true, but it is not the whole picture. The Green movement has always critiqued the descent into an atomised, consumer lifestyle, but like the rest of society has reacted against organised large scale, coherent collective action. We’ve focused so much on encouraging individuals to make good environmental choices we’ve lost faith in the potency of collective political lobbying and large scale human endeavour and scientific research. It’s time to “practice the latter without leaving the former undone.” It’s time to work with businesses, engineers and research companies to find large scale solutions to catastrophic climate change, without forgoing the critique on a wasteful, materialistic society out of touch with it’s environment. It’s time for the Greens to grow up.

What would you do?

Last week the Joseph Rowntree foundation published ‘need, not greed’, a report which analysed the reasons why people take informal cash in hand work. The findings make fascinating reading for those familiar with the one dimensional government approach of enforcement and cracking down on benefit fraud. Every week I meet people who want to find legitimate work, but are frustrated by the benefits and tax system.

Andrea (20) had been out of work for a few months after personal problems before she found herself a 16 hour a week job in a hairdressers, which earned £88 per week. She wants to get back into full time work, but doesn’t yet feel she has the confidence to do so. The government estimates that she needs £45.50 a week to live on and therefore stops paying her Job Seeker’s Allowance. In addition, two thirds of the money above £45.50 a week that she earns is deducted from her Housing Benefit claim. She is £14.36 a week better off. However, because her hours and her pay vary from week to week she has to inform the Job Centre and the Housing Benefit department every time she gets paid. Sometimes she is not paid on time by her employers and she has to trust that she will not get caught out by inefficient, impersonal, unhelpful benefits administration that might delay the payments she needs for rent and living expenses.

Is it any wonder that people take on cash in hand work, whilst staying on benefits? If Andrea had taken cash in hand she would be £88 a week better off without taking the risk of being without money for weeks if her job stopped and she struggled to ensure she got the right benefit payments. There are numerous non-financial advantages to working part time rather than staying on benefits. It raises self esteem, helps people to get back into the job market, makes it easier to access privately rented housing and crucially, averts boredom and a downward spiral into lethargy and depression. When people ask me about cash in hand work I advise them that legally they must declare their earnings, but I would much rather they worked cash in hand than not at all. There are extra problems to cash in hand work over legal work– you are more liable to be exploited, be paid less than the minimum wage or not get paid at all, but in the context of the immediate minute to minute financial needs of most people on benefits these risks are worth taking.

The government is right that you can survive on the Job Seeker’s rate of £57.50 a week for over 25s, with the help of Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit. But imagine not being able to afford birthday cards and presents for your family; not being able to treat yourself once in a while without knowing that it will put you into debt at the end of the month; not being able to travel to visit your grandma for want of what is often just a few pounds. People don’t just want to survive, they want to live.

This is not an argument for increasing benefit rates. We need to encourage, equip and support people back into work in as many ways as possible (education, training, preparing CVs, fare to job interviews etc etc) and a higher weekly allowance will not achieve that. Neither would it reduce the amount of work in the informal shadow economy. We need to make a bigger financial differentiation between benefits and work, through significantly increasing the minimum wage and allowing a greater ‘run-on’ of benefits for the first few months when someone finds work. We also need an efficient and accurately run benefits administration. The ‘faceless bureaucrats’ which Gordon Brown and Oliver Letwin fight to cull have an important job to do in ending Benefit dependency.

The informal cash in hand economy can be an insecure and difficult financial environment, but it can be a lifesaver for those on benefits and I rarely feel the need to reach for the phone number of the government’s Benefits Fraud Hotline.


Name and some of Andrea's details have been changed.

Men - Go Crazy!

It’s still the men who are REALLY interested. It has reached a mass male and female audience for the first time as shown by the endless stream of merchandise from pushchairs to tents, but most women can take or leave football. It’s the men who drive the fever, the passion and the wall to wall media coverage. Them, and the kids. For many kids football is the only thing that they see their dads and their dad’s mates get really excited about. Kids love adults getting excited about things – most of the time they are so sensible and boring: “stop running around, be quiet, calm down, I’m trying to have a snooze”. When the football comes on kids are encouraged to shout and wave their flags and jump up and down.

We are role models to the kids around us whether we like it or not and whether we’re parents or not. The only question is what kind of role model we’re going to be. Both genders can be role models to all children, but because boys and girls (to state the obvious to anyone who has any contact with kids) are very different, boys need male role models and girls need female role models.

There have been rumblings over the last fortnight about the ‘feminisation’ of school – the curriculum now suits girls’ style of learning and teachers, especially in primary schools are overwhelmingly female. Therefore, boys, so the argument goes, are bound to underachieve, because the system is weighted against them. What we need is a curriculum that boys can learn through as well, especially in secondary school. In Australia, although boys are behind the girls in the same way as in this country in more academic subjects, they aren’t seen as struggling because of the emphasis put on sport. More hands on learning is needed through apprenticeships and other work which provide a context where older men can garner respect and therefore authority over male teenagers. Before we go any further, let me be clear: there are multiple masculinities and some boys will always excel in the school system and society, but we can’t deny that there is a problem in the way that boys are growing up, coping in schools and maturing just for the sake of political correctness.

There is a stereotype that churches are ‘feminised’ domains too. In this stereotype a few older, weak in character, possibly gay men are in charge of a female congregation who prefer flowers, hymns and touchy feely emotions where everyone is terribly nice to each other. Like all stereotypes, this one contains some truth for some churches, but is far from always being the case. The Frontline Church in Liverpool, amongst many others exhibits a great model of Christian masculinity. Men play stupid, physical, games with each other, are highly competitive and are also demonstrably passionate about God. The church meets in single sex cell groups of up to 12 people (guess where they got that idea?!) with mixed ages. Boys and younger men learn emotional literacy and character development through discipleship and being around older men. Men who show that they can love their wives, give each other a hug and cry whilst still jumping into a freezing cold river, owning five guitars or going ballistic at a football match.

The best thing about Frontline is that, although I’m sure they would be the first to say they’ve got loads to learn, they share what they’ve got. Every week they run a 'Kidz Klub’ for over 500 children with as many boys as girls, as many male leaders as female. It’s telling that it’s only possible to properly discipline and teach the kids when particular leaders have a strong relationship with them. This does happen cross gender, but especially as the boys get older it comes from men. Good relationships beget respect and respect begets authority. It is in this environment that learning takes place. Jesus offers a great model of learning, mentoring and discipleship in the gospels. The church has a huge amount of tradition, learning and expertise that it can offer society when it comes to masculinity, male role models and mentoring relationships. Let’s freely give through our churches, projects, schools and time the good news that we have and show the next generation of boys and young men that we’re crazy about more than football.


This article was first published in a free monthly newsletter called 'IMPACT' run by the Christian Political Forum, which takes a thoughtful look at political issues and events. If you want to sign up email CPF-online@excite.com .

Nostalgia IS what it used to be.

“If you weren’t born when and where you were, where would you have liked to have been?” In the late night discussions that followed I imagined myself taking part in the student protests in 1968 Paris, when the majority believed that it was worth trying to change things and were prepared to risk their degrees and futures to do it. You can picture my pleasure when such idle dreaming found its way to the top of the charts last week through Sandi Thom’s first single ‘I want to be a Punk Rocker’.

The song taps into the richest seams of nostalgia – yearning for a lost innocence and a rose tinted affection for previous fads and trends. However Thom’s nostalgia goes a step deeper. She yearns for a time when an individual’s actions counted and there was the freedom to imagine that a completely different and better society was possible. The implication of the song now is that we’re stuck with what we’ve got and that fighting against the capitalist and mass media dominated system is futile. We were born too late and our generation can’t be change makers.

Thom may well be speaking for a generation unhappily caught up in the corporate machine of work to live and live to work, but her defeatist attitude is wrong and self perpetuating. Firstly all those punkrockers and hippies of the 1960s and 1970s are now in their 40s and 50s and running the country. You only have to look at the background of current Labour ministers to see that the leftie protest generation made it into power – Jack Straw, Harriet Harman and Charles Clark to name but a few. This generation did make huge strides campaigning for gender and race equality and against apartheid. They also campaigned against the imperialism of Vietnam and the proliferation of Nuclear weapons. It’s great to look back on the 1960s and 1970s with a touch of nostalgia, but it’s important to remember that the idealism of the 1960s contributed to and then got swallowed up by the consumer society and family breakdowns of the 1980s and 90s.

Our generation does care – it cares about making poverty history and the Iraq war and is the first generation to grow up with the environmental movement. It cares about stable families and long lasting friendships. However it doesn’t have the confidence that it’s possible to do anything about it. Adrift in a world of individualism it doesn’t know the power of and doesn’t think it has the time for sustained grass roots organised mass action. As a result people only offer shallow commitment to ‘Make Poverty History’ hoping it will do something, but not really believing that it can. This can change. We too will become the generation that runs the country, but in the mean time we desperately need to find, grow and equip leaders and change makers so that we can show that we weren’t born too late and that radical change for the better is always possible.

The technicalities are circling

David Blunkett’s critics accuse him of failing to declare a directorship with a DNA testing company to the standards watchdog within two years of leaving ministerial office. Contacting the standards watchdog was not compulsory, only advised. He did not hold the directorship whilst he was a minister. Indeed he resigned the post as soon as he was reappointed to the cabinet. On present evidence David Blunkett is guilty at most of a minor technicality. His opponents delight in tripping him up with an insignificant speck, because they sense he is vulnerable to pressure. Let’s hope that they remembered to check their own eyes first.

Public accountability and transparency of our leaders is to be welcomed, but as David Blunkett’s experience demonstrates technicalities in relation to dishonest gain carry disproportionate weight. We demand resignation for minor infringements in this area partly because there is no agreement on what other behaviour we expected from a minister.

The following questions are a suggestion of what criteria we should be using to judge ministerial conduct. They do not touch on the substance of the decisions made, which are rightly left to political argument.

1) Does the minister make decisions which s/he considers in the long term interest of the country even when these conflict with short term self-interest or political expediency?
2) Does the minister speak with integrity in public? Is the minister prepared to accept responsibility for mistakes as well as successes?
3) Does the minister promote good governance by making every effort to work with ministerial colleagues and overcome personality differences?
4) Does the minister lead his/her department in order that it is managed efficiently, develops a culture of honesty and integrity and seeks to bring out the best in its staff?
5) Does the minister ensure on a continuing basis that s/he listens and responds to a genuine cross section of informed and honest opinion and not become beholden to any one interest?
6) Has the minister used his/her office for dishonest gain?

Was David Blunkett’s misuse of his office to fast track the visa application of Ms Quinn’s nanny sufficiently serious, in the context of the other criteria that he should have been forced to resign?

If there are any ministers who could consistently answer yes to questions one and two it would be surprising although I’m sure that some could answer yes to three to five. However, because there is never discussion about these areas of a minister’s character, integrity and performance we simply don’t know. If we are to avoid the ludicrous scenes surrounding David Blunkett of the last forty-eight hours it’s about time we found out.

Happiness is.... [book review]

We all desire happiness and spend a lot of our time looking for it. Jon Piper spends over two hundred pages arguing that not only do we look for it in the wrong place, but that we don’t look hard enough. Piper quotes CS Lewis:
“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
From this foundation Piper argues that in everything we do, whether it be spend money, pray, help others or praise God that we should aim to enjoy it. If we’re not enjoying it we are dishonouring God.

The book is clearly aimed at those who think that if you’re enjoying something you’re being selfish and not doing good. Duty and misery are the emblems of a do-gooder. Most of us probably don’t operate in this way, but it’s a useful reminder that if we give and help others purely out of a sense of duty it is likely to be embittering and we’re probably missing out somewhere. As far as the Bible goes Piper is on steady ground – the psalms tell us to ‘delight in God’, Paul exalts us to be a ‘cheerful giver’. This is no shallow outward conformity, but a deep rooted understanding that a good God created each of us and that we are incomplete and unhappy without Him.
This far, Piper is enriching and a reminder that doing good is a win-win situation, that in a moral economy there are no zero-sum gains. As John Donne famously wrote ‘when the bell tolls it tolls for thee’. We are all interdependent and only complete in relationship with others and with God. When other peoples’ identity is marred by poverty, broken relationships and sin so are we.

It is with the language in Piper’s book that I struggle. Enjoyment, pleasure and hedonism all have connotations of immediacy, short-termism and seeking a ‘buzz’ out of something. God never promised anyone this life all the time and we shouldn’t be seeking it. Piper understands this, but ends up tying himself in knots trying to explain it, whilst insisting on the framework and language of hedonism. He spends much time arguing that to enjoy God that you need to feel pain, cry and go through troubles, which boils down to the absurdity that to enjoy life you shouldn’t enjoy it – an absurdity. By majoring so much on enjoyment Piper implicitly discounts the pain and struggle of the vast proportion of the world’s population and history.

His argument makes far more sense couched in the language of underlying fulfilment and contentment. This doesn’t preclude joy, but allows for the pain and sense of injustice that we need to feel if people are to transform society rather than live in a happy bubble. An emphasis on a long term underlying fulfilment and delight would bring out the point that in order to pursue justice and compassion that is pleasing to God we must also seek completeness and our own happiness in God. Yet, by insisting on the framework and language of hedonism Piper skews his argument and partially hides the inspiring, intriguing and yes, delightful messages contained in ‘Desiring God’.

Desiring God was first published in 1986.

Know Thyself

Tony Blair set off for Washington today to try and convince George Bush to sign up to his anti-poverty agenda for Africa. They’ll argue and probably disagree on how much aid and debt relief is needed, but also on what strings should be attached to those receiving aid. Conditionality is as old as aid and debt relief itself. It’s partly a consequence of country’s desire to exert economic and political power and control over other countries – raw realpolitik. However, it is also the product of the West’s view of its own development.

Both George Bush and Tony Blair are confident that the way to create development in Africa to develop is to let the invisible hand do its work and let trade and economic markets do their work with minimal interference. This is the way, they argue that the West developed to be the prosperous and civilised society that it is today. If Africa could just establish the rule of law and an open system of trade then their problems would disappear. From this perspective, attaching conditions to debt relief and aid is benevolent paternalism – a nasty dose of medicine that will be good in the long run. However, all this is based on the absolute conviction that the West has developed in the best way possible.

But what if the West’s way isn’t the best way? What if economic interactions aren’t the overriding way that human relationships should be viewed? What if human happiness isn’t dependent on a nation’s GDP as figures from the UN suggest? If we take a closer look at our own development then how we view the progress of the African continent is turned on its head.

The western model of development since the early 19th century has lifted huge numbers out of poverty, made people feel safer and created half a century of peace, but has also dramatically increased economic inequality, relational poverty and environmental degradation. We should look at our own development not just through an economic lense, but also from social, political, religious and cultural perspectives.

Bearing this in mind should inspire humility in our approach to international development. Bush and Blair should not be forcing people to follow our own, flawed development path, but offer to help find a different way forward. If they do so they may find that their own perspective worldviews develop and the strings they end up attaching to aid and debt relief will be very different.



If you want more info on alternative pespectives to development I recommend dipping into 'walking with the poor' by Bryant Myers. It's quite hard going, but an inspiring read.

Hands up if you want a debate!

‘Would those who would like to discuss whether or not we have a debate please raise your hands now?’ Listening to the news this week I thought I’d been transported back to the Students’ Union. People from across the political spectrum were arguing about whether or not we should talk about abortion. Each morning I would turn on the radio anticipating that the debate would actually have started. Each morning I was disappointed. Just another hand raised in favour of debate.

If and when a debate does start let’s hope it’s a proper one. The early signs are not encouraging. The focus has been on whether the law should allow abortions at 24 weeks, 22 weeks or 20 weeks. This is tinkering around on the edges based on an unspoken consensus that a) we shouldn’t abort babies who might survive apart from their mother with the help of science and b) we shouldn’t abort babies who look like babies. The fact that if the parents waited another couple of weeks it would survive / look like a baby seems to be conveniently forgotten. If it was remembered the discussion seems almost irrelevant. A debate based on this consensus is a debate on quicksand.

We need an alternative starting point. A simple statistic can provide it. In the UK in 2003 were 695000 births and 181600 abortions. Factor in an estimated figure for miscarriages and 19% or almost one in five of recorded pregnancies in the UK is aborted.1 Whatever your view on a women’s right to choose or a baby’s right to life everyone should be able to agree that are too many abortions happening in this country. Whether a woman or couple choose to abort a baby or not the psychological trauma involved is huge and often life long.

I’m not sure I am in a position to tell a woman or couple whether or not they should have an abortion in a unique and difficult circumstance that they find themselves in. I do know that we need to find ways to reduce the number of women that face that choice in the first place. If we’re going to have a debate, these are the things we need to be talking about.

Note
1. There are no official statistics on miscarriages, although approximately one in eight pregnancies miscarry, mostly before ten weeks.

Stories of Grace

2005 is the twentieth anniversary of the musical Les Misérables, based on the epic book by Victor Hugo. What is it that continues to appeal? The music is fantastic, but if you want staging and lighting there are many other performances that would up stage Les Misérables’ simplicity. It is the story, which starkly contrasts the costly, unlimited grace of the central character Valjean, with the harsh, uncaring, measured justice of Javert that continues to enthral.

Valjean’s story starts when he steals some candlesticks from a kindly bishop, but is caught. When the police arrive the bishop says that they were a gift and then gives Jean Valjean the rest of his silver. A reformed and almost unbelievably godly man Jean Valjean is placed in the maelstrom of suffering and poverty of 19th Century Paris. He then helps a prostitute, rescues a man trapped under a cart and saves the life of his future son in law at risk of his own life. Finally, he forgives and spares the life of his decades long-persecutor, the officious and just policeman, Javert.

The story is inspiring, but ultimately remote. The grace so costly, the poverty so harsh that it seems difficult to relate to our own times and place.

In his book ‘the Idiot’ Fydor Dostoevsky, like Victor Hugo, parachutes pure grace into a harsh landscape, this time full of ‘empty headed people’ obsessed with money, looks and power. The reader watches as different elements of St. Petersburg high society misunderstand, are broken by or refute the accepting, forgiving, innocent, unmanipulative actions of the ‘simply good’ Prince Mishkin.

In the Idiot, the moments of grace seem more within our grasp than in Les Misérables. The characters deficiencies are writ large, but Prince Miskin’s actions are smaller, accumulating gradually rather than immense actions of a superhero.

In ‘the Terminal’ Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks), a man speaking no English becomes trapped within a busy, brash US airport. Passengers push past, always in a hurry and the staff are unhelpful and rude. In this arena Navorski helps passengers with their bags, stops them from slipping on wet floors and slowly breathes humanity into the staff.

In many ways ‘the Terminal’ is just another formulaic feel good film, but it also translates some of the stories of grace that we find in Dostoevsky and Hugo into a modern setting. (This is probably the only time you’ll hear a Spielberg movie compared to Dostoevsky, so enjoy it while you can.) The airport typifies our individualist, time poor, consumerist culture just as Dostoevsky compounds the wretchedness of St. Petersburg society and Hugo rubs in the poverty of nineteenth century Paris. Like Myshkin, Navorski steps in completely powerless and ignored, but with time and a natural inclination to serve. His actions are everyday and almost unnoticed – this is grace writ small.

Where are the small acts of grace in our society today? Grace is both hard to define and hard to find. In his book ‘What’s So Amazing About Grace?’ Philip Yancey starts by saying that he wants to ‘convey grace rather than explain it’. We need stories of grace if we are to understand, experience, enjoy and pursue it. We need the mountain peaks of Jean Valjean which can inspire and clarify our vision. But we also need stories in the foothills where we live our daily lives. If you’ve got any stories of grace, the smaller the better, please post them up or email them – I’d love to hear them.

Tea in Westminster

Last Monday the prayer and campaign network SPEAK launched its creative petition the ‘Big Dress’. For four years SPEAK have been collected 15cm2 squares of fabric with people’s pictures, prayers and words calling for trade justice. These have been sown together to make a huge, tent like patchwork dress which was erected in Berkley Square, London. The Bishop of Barking led a fantastic, moving and visual service of repentance for the UK’s and our own individual failure to pursue justice in world trade. This was followed by a mass lobby of MPs at Westminster calling for accountability of UK based multi-national companies.

I was amazed by how easy it is to lobby your MP. We queued up for ten minutes at St.Stephen's entrance, before bypassing the streams of tourists and making our way to the central lobby. There you fill in a short green card explaining why you want to speak to your MP who is then legally obliged to speak to you if the House is in session, he or she is there and not speaking in a debate. You don’t have to make an appointment (although this helps) – you can just turn up. Although my MP wasn’t able to speak to me his researcher came down almost immediately and spoke with us and agreed that we should set up a meeting with the MP in our constituency. Others spent between five minutes and an hour with their MP, one group getting a cup of tea in the House of Lords!

So next time you’re in London pencil in a discussion with your MP on an issue of your choice over a cup of tea in the palace of Westminster!

To find out who your MP is visit www.theyworkforyou.com

Does Michael Howard have a point?

Last week Michael Howard decided that his party was going to “tell the truth about immigration”. He quoted the government’s community cohesion panel in his speech on asylum:
"… inward immigration does create tensions … communities will perceive that newcomers are in competition for scarce resources and public services. The pressure on resources … is often intense and local services are often insufficient to meet the needs of the existing community, let alone newcomers"

For the vast majority of people in the UK the arguments and worries about asylum and immigration have no direct bearing on their daily lives. Their concerns and fears come through media coverage and a vague feeling that Britain isn’t ‘as it should be’. For instance, there were only625 people who described themselves as from an ethnic minority in Worthing, a town of 100 000 people, in the 1990s.

In contrast, almost seventy-five percent of all asylum seekers come to London. Asylum seekers, refugees, legal and illegal immigrants tend to end up in poorer parts of London where they can get support from their communities.
These are the areas that have the highest unemployment, lowest life expectancy and where it’s virtually impossible to register with a GP. The housing situation in the London Borough of Newham is appalling. Families of five or six people living in a one bedroom flat for years are not uncommon. The standard of accommodation is low – with damp and rotting windows being the most common complaints.

Since 2001 very few asylum seekers have been housed by Councils in London. They are ‘dispersed’ to other parts of the country where there are more houses. However, when they are granted refugee status they often return to London where they can get the support and help they need from their communities. When they have been living back in London for a period of time they are then eligible for housing support from London Borough Councils. The already desperate housing situation is exacerbated by a continual rise in the population and people seeking houses. People coming into the country are therefore effectively depriving the existing community of houses.

The perception is exacerbated by the fact that all Councils divide all their housing into two lists. The first is a waiting list for long-term accommodation where you and your family, when successful, become a Council tenant, basically for life (unless you exercise the right to buy or get evicted). The second is for temporary accommodation. All Councils have a statutory duty to house people that are homeless or severely overcrowded. This has to be done immediately and so they reserve property to this end. However, because of the severe shortage temporary accommodation can become quasi-permanent. If a refugee or immigrant is eligible for help in the borough they will get offered temporary accommodation immediately of the right size for the family, like anybody else. When an overcrowded family who has been waiting for a permanent home for years (the wait for a 3 bedrooom house is about a decade) sees an immigrant family move in next door to them it looks like they have jumped the queue. Explaining that it was a different queue is unlikely to be much comfort. Reacting by labelling these people ‘racist’ without acknowledging and addressing the issues under the surface is not going to improve race relations. It’s difficult to assess exactly how much additional strain immigration (legal and illegal) and asylum put on boroughs like Newham, Haringay and Tower Hamlets, but the perception that those coming into the country put strains on housing and health services has at least some truth.

Michael Howard is also right to say that the asylum system is in chaos. It’s virtually impossible to force someone to leave the country after their asylum claim has failed. Disappearing into the cash economy is easy, especially in London. It’s virtually impossible to track down illegal immigrants in the same situation – the government has no idea how many there are. Unscrupulous private landlords will accept illegal immigrants knowing that they can charge exorbitant rents for atrocious properties, because they can’t complain. The government has no idea how many illegal immigrants there are in the country. When in the country for more than a couple of years illegal immigrants will normally try and ‘go legal’ with varying degrees of success. Periodically the government offer amnesties to failed asylum seekers (the last one was issued by David Blunkett in 2004) that have ‘disappeared’ and eventually their position is regularised.

Michael Howard is right. Illegal immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers do put extra strains on demands for housing, health and education services in parts of the UK. However, it is also true that Britain can easily afford to allow all genuine asylum seekers into the country. We should be able to welcome asylum seekers and assume their stories of rape, torture and imprisonment are true. Why do the Home Office arbitrarily decide that people can’t stay because they ‘don’t have the evidence’? Why are we talking of imposing quotas on Asylum? Why do we leave a relatively small number of poorer areas to cope whilst the media and ‘middle England’ worry aimlessly from the sidelines about the threat to ‘Britishness’ or tut tut at growing racism?

The answer is that that it’s just too complicated and uncomfortable. We need to be pouring our time, effort, political will and money into resolving the problems of housing, health, the black market in our inner city areas. We need to find ways actively breaking down barriers between different races and religions. This doesn’t mean working only for tolerance but also the much more costly works of building relationships between people in different communities, whilst recognising the diversity or those different communities. We must demand that our hotel workers and cleaners are paid a just wage whatever part of the world they are from and be prepared to accept the rising cost of our own daily lives. We need to face up to our responsibilities in the developing world – to deal with debt, unfair trade and aids, to actively encourage good governance.

Until we as a nation start tackling the issues behind immigration and asylum rather than name calling, immigration and asylum policy will always be a fudge and a bodge job. Michael Howard’s reactionary, headline grabbing ‘solutions’ wouldn’t help the situation any more than the current governments. They wouldn’t prevent illegal immigrants entering the country and they wouldn’t relieve the acute problems in the boroughs most affected. Michael Howard may have a point, but he’s still not “telling the truth about immigration”.

Mediation for parents

Yesterday’s government announcement on reforms to family law were desperately needed. I’ve been surprised by the number of fathers I’ve met in the past few months who, however hard they try, are having problems getting any access to their children.

Conciliation seems a sensible step, and is the first time, as far as I’m aware, that a anything resembling a reconciliation and mediation programme has gone mainstream in the public sector on this scale. Thames Valley Police have been leaders in restorative justice (a form of conflict mediation between victim and offender) since the late 1990s. Mediation has also been used by some local authorities to try and deal with neighbourhood disputes, young offenders and schools – see www.mediationuk.org.uk for more information. A number of conflict mediation charities exist throughout the country (e.g. the Christian inspired Conflict and Change) , from which local authorities sometimes ‘buy in’ expertise.

However, my (relatively limited) experience suggests that their services are not well integrated and tend to be called upon as a last resort, by which time it’s too late.

Mediation between parents to try and avoid damaging and painful court cases must be welcomed as a positive step. Whether a service run by Cafcass (Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service), a court based organisation, are the right people to run mediation I’m unsure. By the time people have applied to the courts in many cases it may already be too late and conflict mediation can be driven by those wanting to cut costs. A lot will depend on the expertise already existing within Cafcass and their ability to adapt to their new role.

As usual all the announcements yesterday focused on ‘what’s best for the children’. Protecting children is of course hugely important, but the rhetoric conveniently sidesteps and ignores what happens to the parents involved in the breakdown. The fact that relationship break-down is one of the most stressful events that can happen in your life, causing knock on effects to friends, jobs, the economy, mental health and the NHS, parents are simply left to ‘reap what they sow’.

The long term aim must be to develop a culture where asking for input into your long-term relationship or marriage becomes the norm, not just for those whose relationship is on the verge of breaking down. Relationship building is a core value in many churches (and other faith groups) , who potentially have a great to deal to offer wider society. Christians that have them don’t need to be defensive about the relationship-building skills that we can bring to people in our towns and cities. I don’t know anyone who wants to grow up as a single parent or see their relationship fail. A survey by the Scottish Council Foundation ‘identified [a parent’s] highest priority, both during pregnancy and after the baby is settled at home, as having the full support of partners and family members’ . However, the question is how churches can move beyond ‘marriage courses’ (excluding large segments of the population) and assist those wanting to work at long-term relationships, whilst still upholding the importance, benefits and sanctity of marriage.

Tsunami thoughts

Like everyone else I’ve been encouraged by the response in the UK to the horrific tsunami in South East Asia. Peer pressure is usually used with negative connotations, but the past few weeks illustrate its positive aspects. It’s become expected that businesses and websites should collect funds and publish the contact details of the DEC. Between Christmas and New Year that callers were contacting Radio 5 Live to ask how much supermarkets were donating in the crisis. A spokesman from Tesco was hauled onto the programme and held to account. The ‘moral economy’ has been re-emerging for a few years now, but this is another boost as it continues to gather pace.

In the same way, politicians have been assessing the political importance of the public sympathy for the tsunami. For the first time, commentators are arguing there are votes ‘in’ international aid. In fact, there’s been some votes in international aid since the Jubilee 2000 campaign. Local MPs are always willing to meet church groups that are campaigning on aid, because they know that they are likely to vote. However, the government won’t see the tsunami’s political import purely in terms of votes. During the Jubilee 2000 campaign Gordon Brown urged campaigners to keep the pressure on him to act. Public pressure is one way to create political capital for politicians with the right ideas, but who need to clear ‘blockages’ of vested interest in the system. Hence the chancellor’s and the UN’s recent attempts to divert some of the political capital from public sympathy over the tsunami to assist in the Aids, debt and trade problems of Africa.

I’m not convinced this will work, because I think one of the reasons (although not the main one) that the British public were so generous in response to the tsunami is because no one was to blame. Debt, unfair trade and poverty in Africa are man-made problems. Their root causes lie with exploitation by the west of these nations and our consciences are touched with guilt at the thought. Even disasters caused by droughts or floods leave a niggling feeling of doubt in our minds as the spectre of man-made pollution and global warming springs to mind. If it’s our fault something is happening responding requires a change of behaviour on our part to restore justice. The politics is messy and repentance is costly. The tsunami gave the opportunity for grief, generosity and empathy unbridled by guilt.

Such emotions are God-given. Responding in this way makes us, as a nation, more like God wants us to be. The church needs to find ways of fostering and encouraging this into gifts that we practice regularly in the UK. In a couple of weeks the tsunami and it’s devestating aftermath with disappear from our screens. What ways can the church find of keeping interest alive, of providing a valid outlet and opportunity for people’s interest and feelings? I don’t yet have answers to that question, although the possibility of churches initiating links with churches or other faith groups in affected areas springs to mind. If churches across a UK town had the courage and vision to make links with a town in say, Sri Lanka over time it should be possible to draw in schools, businesses and local Councils into a connection that could be fruitful for all involved.

Jerry Springer

The outrage of Christians at the Jerry Springer Opera worries me. I’m desperate to see Christians have the confidence to engage in public life and politics (small p), but this type of target is a red herring. Many Christians who wrote to the BBC did so with the best of intentions – to stand up for Jesus in a society that has forgotten Him. But to the rest of the country it makes us look defensive, over sensitive and interested only in protecting ourselves. If we are to engage distinctively with our society we must defend and raise our voices for others. There are more than enough pressure and lobby groups shouting their own interests.