BlackPhi Webitorial Ramblings

News & Comment From A Christian's Perspective

Justice Or Peace? - Posted 26th January, 2008

Churches, political groups, media, charities: all talk about 'peace', but often as a negative - an absence of violence. There's more to peace than that! When lack of violence equates to acceptance of abuse or injustice, then that really doesn't count as peace.

The recent election in Kenya was blatantly rigged. In a properly functioning democracy there would be a process for dealing with such problems, so that irregularities could be investigated in a transparently fair way. In Kenya there is supposed to be a mechanism for doing this, except that the people responsible are presidential appointees. Reasonably enough, the opposition don't trust them.

So what can the opposition do? They could wait for the next election; but African history has many examples of leaders who get away with fraud at one election, so they are encouraged to do worse at the next. Zimbabwe is the horror example. Or the opposition could call their supporters out onto the streets, in protest. Even if it means violence - lack of 'peace'.

This is what Raila Odinga, the opposition leader, did. Deeply held resentments over old injustices led to ethnic violence against Kikuyus - especially in the Rift Valley region - whilst unarmed opposition supporters were shot by Kenyan police.

In the early days after the protests started it was noticeable that Mwai Kibaki, the sitting president who 'won' the election, was willing to negotiate. But as soon as Odinga responded by calling off protests then Kibaki's approach suddenly changed: to inflexible and confrontational. Soon the protests were back on, and so was the violence. So what else can the opposition do? Condone injustice or trigger violence - is there any third way?

Of course, Kenya is in Africa - far away and full of alien people. But the dilemma isn't. In households throughout the land, the question remains: what alternative is there to condoning wrong behaviour and wrong attitudes apart from violent confrontation? What does a victim without power do?

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America From The Outside - Posted 19th January, 2008

News stories about the non-western world in western media often have a slightly baffled, slightly off-centre feel to them, as the reporters struggle to explain events from one culture in terms that make sense (and are relevant) to another, very different, culture. So it was rather fun to read today a report on Al-Jazeera about the forthcoming US Republican primary in South Carolina. Here are a few excerpts, but you'll get the best flavour by reading the full article:-

Evangelical Christians are an important voting bloc in US politics - their strong support was crucial to George Bush's narrow victories in 2000 and 2004. Among the top issues for Evangelical voters in South Carolina and all across the United States are gay rights, abortion, and what they see as a threat to America emanating from the Islamic world.

At the Cathedral of Praise in the town of Charleston in South Carolina, pastor Mike Lewis says the September 11 attacks, the war in Iraq and events in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories have affected Evangelicals thinking. "I think it's very real they're determined to do exactly what they said, which is to push Israel into the sea and to take America who stands with them."

[Evangelicals] oppose abortion and same-sex marriages and most support prayer in public schools and taxpayer funding for religious schools. Many also call themselves Christian Zionists, believing that God has given the Jewish people the divine right to rule over historic Palestine. They also believe that the state of Israel must exist to set the stage for the return of Jesus.

Even among Democrats who traditionally talk less about religion, candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, are this year openly discussing their faith. But Evangelicals are overwhelmingly Republican and many are backing Huckabee. He's an ordained Southern Baptist minister, staunchly conservative on social issues: he would ban gay marriage and abortion.

In American politics, private matters of faith become public concerns and what emerges from the house of worship may be the key to winning the White House.

It's an interesting image: as "they" push Israel into the sea, along with that tiny incidental state, America (sic). It's also interesting the picture the article uses to illustrate its theme: not exactly stereotypical Republican-voting evangelicals.

This article is at least as accurate as most other coverage - Al Jazeera are a very professional media organisation - but it somehow paints a picture of US politics which looks even odder than the coverage from the UK. There are a lot of US evangelicals who would object strenuously to the simplistic anti-gay, anti-abortion, pro-Zionism tag - but even this is a lot less simplistic than most US media portraits of Shiite beliefs and cultures, say.

This is one reason, among many, for getting news from a variety of sources. Every report tells a story, and truth often needs several stories to provide a fuller picture.

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Christmas In Baghdad - Posted 19th January, 2008

Shortly before Christmas, the Wall Street Journal published a blog entry by an Iraqi Moslem, Sarmad Ali, talking about Christmas in the US, compared with Baghdad:-

Before coming to the U.S. in 2004, I had no idea that Christmas was on the 25th of December. I knew it was sometime around the end of the year, but was not sure when exactly. I grew up seeing the churches, the bells and the lights in Baghdad’s Christian neighborhoods, but my friends and I, who grew up in predominantly Muslim neighborhoods, didn’t have much context for the holiday. As a matter of fact, when we watched New Year’s Eve celebrations around the world on TV, we thought that was Christmas.

There wasn’t much way to know otherwise; I didn’t have Christian friends until college, and considering that the colleges were also predominantly Muslim, when Christian holidays came around, Christian classmates just took the days off and didn’t say much about how they celebrated.

It's a pleasant enough blog entry; but it has a slightly odd feel to it. I think that's partly because so much in it seems tailored to preconceptions I, and presumably many other westerners, have about Iraq and Islam. So it was interesting to see a very different view from Treasure of Baghdad (who also now lives in the USA):-

Christmas was a holiday shared by most people, Muslims and Christians. Followers of both religions would buy Christmas trees and celebrate Christmas and New Year’s Eve with Christians. Before Christmas day, many shop owners in Baghdad would hang the decorations on their shops' windows. Santa whom we call Baba Noel is very famous. Christian and Muslim children adore him. Like many others they think he is real because he comes at night and brings presents.

Even though this war has left some scratches in the relations among people in Baghdad, Muslims this time did not forget to celebrate Christmas and New Year’s Eve with optimism. Many people took to the streets and bought the holiday decorations. My sister and brother-in-law bought a beautiful Christmas tree and decorated it with Baba Noel (Santa Claus.) Presents from my parents, my sister’s in-laws, aunt, and grandmother were piled under and around the tree. They all gathered, sang, celebrated and ate sweets hoping the New Year would bring happy and sweet days.

It seems that Sarmad was not interested himself in at least asking why there were Mass on TV on December 25, or why there were Baba Noel’s posters and decorations in Baghdad. He made it seem like all Iraqi Muslims were like him, unaware of when Christmas is celebrated and that only here, Muslims would realize that Christmas Eve is not New Year’s Eve! It makes me feel sad that what he said came from an Iraqi, an educated one working for a major business newspaper. Yet, when I think back of who bought the paper recently, I realize why he said what he said in this general way of speaking.

It's a curious difference, I thought. Were Sunni parts of Baghdad that different to the Shia ones (Treasure is a Shiite; I get the impression from Sarmad Ali's piece that he is Sunni, but could be wrong)? Is it just a matter of different people's memories? Or is Treasure right in appearing to suggest that, under News International, the Wall Street Journal is now in the game of pandering to people's prejudices?

There are some interesting comments on the Treasure entries, mostly from Iraqis. A couple of excerpts that I found relevant:-

I left Iraq in 1994. Years before then, my Muslims friends celebrated Christmas with Christians just like the Iraqi Christians celebrated Eid Al-Adha and Eid Al-Iftar with them.

And:-

I posted a comment on that story, saying that we all knew what Christmas was and many families celebrated it. But the Journal, unfortunately, did not publish it with the other comments. They did not publish any comment that disagreed with the lie that they published.

It is one of the challenges for those of us who like to try to follow world news, that a lot of our sources are biased - sometimes deliberately, often without even knowing it.

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The Misnamed Bishop Of Buckingham - Posted 11th January, 2008

As I came towards the end of my stint in full-time education, there was only one thing that tempted me in any way to stay on to do a post-graduate degree: I could have had the letters M.A. D.Phil after my name!

I was reminded of that a couple of days ago when I came across the Bishop of Buckingham's blog. His profile points out that he has an MA from Cambridge (boo, hiss) and a DPhil from Oxford. Therefore he is entitled to call himself MADPhil. The trouble is, his name is Alan.

Nevertheless his blog is well worth a read, not least for an up-to-date estimate of the cost of the Iraq war, in people and dollars. At the time of writing, the financial cost is given as just under $485,000,000,000 - even allowing for dollars not being worth much at the moment, that is a LOT of money: clean water plus primary education plus vaccinations plus who knows what else for the whole world amounts of money.

Caversham locals will probably remember Bishop Alan as Alan Wilson, ex-vicar at St John's Church in Lower Caversham.

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Kenya - Back From The Brink? - Posted 8th January, 2008

Between 1968 (just as I started secondary school) and 1971, my family lived in Kenya. I was sent to boarding school in the UK, so I only got out there during the summer and Christmas holidays. It is a beautiful country and spending that time there has left me with an interest in the place and its people. After we married, I took BlackLin there on holiday: it was a wrench coming home.

Up until recently, Kenya was seen as an African success story. Different ethnic groups appeared to be working together peacefully, by and large, and the economy was healthy - although with a vulnerably large tourist sector. Now it seems that corruption has brought the land to the brink of chaos.

Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's first president, introduced what was effectively a single-party democratic system, with that party being for all ethnic groupings - thereby avoiding the worst of the political/ethnic divisions that plagued many newly-independent African nations. He also managed a policy of 'Africanisation' gently enough not to scare away economically important white Kenyans, whilst providing opportunities and openings for black Kenyans. (That was why my father was sent out there: training accountants in the Kenyan Air Force). Asian Kenyans - important as a merchant class - remained fairly welcome too, unlike in neighbouring Uganda.

During Kenyatta's reign a small group of his cronies, the Kikuyu Kiambu Mafia, managed to benefit disproportionately from land reform. Nevertheless, on his death there was a peaceful transition to a new president, Daniel Arap Moi, who was a Kalenjin - a smaller but economically important tribe from the fertile Rift Valley region.

Moi centralised power, banned political parties other than his own, repressed and tortured political opponents, and took corruption to new levels, crippling the Kenyan economy. Eventually the West forced him to reinstate multi-party democracy and stand for election. He did this and won two terms, in part by manipulating ethnic divisions. After his two terms the constitution forced him to retire and, despite an unfair election, a (finally) united opposition won an overwhelming victory to bring Mwai Kibaki to power, on an anti-corruption ticket. (The Wikipedia article on Kibaki, linked to above, is quite fun, as large parts are clearly written by a keen Kibaki supporter).

Although Kibaki has succeeded in improving the Kenyan economy, the anti-corruption drive ground to a halt as soon as it began to implicate important people. An attempt to amend the Kenyan constitution split his 'Rainbow Coalition' along ethnic lines; following a failed referendum he dismissed his entire cabinet and rebuilt it primarily with fellow Kikuyu. This effectively created an anti-Kikuyu opposition, led by Raila Odinga: exactly the sort of overtly ethnic split that Kenya didn't need.

The Kenyan presidential election in December was essentially between these two men. Both parties appear to have indulged in electoral fraud (one area saw a turnout of 115%, for example); Kibaki, as incumbent, probably more effectively. The result announced by the electoral commission gave Kibaki the victory by only 232,000 votes, well within the margin of fraud. Anti-Kikuyu rioting promptly broke out across the country. International observers declared the election flawed; the US initially congratulated Kibaki on his victory despite these concerns, then (on January 2nd) declined to confirm this recognition.

So far hundreds of people have been killed (600 appears to be the current best estimate) and hundreds of thousands displaced. The economy has been hit by a breakdown in transport, the tourist industry - slowly recovering from the bomb and missile attacks of a few years ago - is likely to be badly hit, and land disputes leave cash crops vulnerable to any continuing violence.

Reports of peace talks between the two sides this week have to be welcome, but putting the genie of ethnic division back in the bottle will be a difficult task; particularly since this is tied in with land-reform, another nitroglycerin issue in African politics, and the always contentious drive against corruption.

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Born To Shop - Posted 3rd January, 2008

According to our local paper, the Oracle shopping centre had almost 60,000 shoppers on Boxing Day.

Who on earth are these people? Is it 60,000 people who don't have families, so they can't find anything better to do? Or maybe 60,000 people who do have families but don't want to spend time with them? Maybe even (scary thought) 60,000 people whose idea of a good family experience is going shopping together? Whatever, they are clearly 60,000 people who want to make sure that shop workers throughout Reading don't get the opportunity to spend their Boxing Day with their own families. Shop workers who had, in many cases, already spent the entire previous weekend serving the needs of such shopaholics.

Reading through this, it does look rather judgemental. But then I see news reports that UK debt levels are running at around a trillion pounds, with the average Briton's unsecured debt being around £4,000. And I see forecasts for difficult economic times next year, with lower employment levels and falling house prices amid a general economic slowdown. And here are 60,000 people so desperate to spend their money (or their bank's money) that they have to rush out to the Oracle on Boxing Day. It's like lemmings heading desperately for the nearest cliff.

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Christmas Ramblings - Posted 28th December, 2007

A happy third day of Christmas (and fourth, and fifth ...) to you all, and every blessing for 2008!

After a grim week last week, this week has been brilliant. Last week BlackMatt and I both went down with some unpleasant virus that was doing the rounds. He had to go into school to do his mock GCSE's - in the end they sent him home - and I had to go shopping in the Oracle mall, breathing air that a thousand people had already taken the goodness out of.

I ordered a big batch of presents online this year, mostly from Amazon. This got really rather tense when a problem came up which looked like it might delay the main present-order 'till after Christmas, but thankfully they sorted it. It paid off on Monday though - for the first Christmas Eve ever, all my presents had all been bought, so I could focus on other preparations.

Three good church services in three days helped this week off to a much better start: the carol service at Caversham Baptist Church on Sunday evening was great, then Midnight Mass at St Barnabas, and back to Caversham Baptist for Christmas morning, where our pastor led an excellent informal child-friendly service, which was thoroughly appropriate to the occasion. We even had real carols! Not only proper words and tunes for the old ones, but a couple of good new ones written by church members. We really ought to sing these more often, rather than just once at Christmas then forget them for the rest of the year.

Christmas Day was great - if a little long: BlackSar was up at 5:30! Although she didn't deliberately wake everyone else up, she was so noisy looking at her stocking presents that she managed to anyway. After church we came back to a house filled with the delicious smell of roasting turkey. I had planned to try Catty's idea of using the giblets in the stuffing, but ran out of time so stuck with sausagemeat instead (with chestnut puree, red wine, seasoning, and breadcrumbs to absorb the wine). In the small end I put my normal breadcrumb and herb stuffing, as the kids haven't previously liked the richness of the main stuffing (this year they did, so I'm not sure whether that is because their palates are maturing, or whether I did it differently). After lunch - less than an hour late, which is amazing for one of my Christmas lunches - we relaxed: opening presents, playing with presents, chilling out; then we popped over to one of my sister-in-laws to do pretty much the same thing there. I got told off because she got me a brilliant book - Hen's Teeth by Manda Scott - so I started reading it.

I've had a whole three days without looking at either email or the Internet, which was a nice break (they are both work and hobby for me) - except this morning I had 282 spam emails! Luckily my spam filter separates them out; normally I check them before deleting, but not today.

My other sister-in-law decided she wanted to have a girly get-together (the three witches sisters plus kids, so BlackMatt lucked out) today, so I have the house to myself for a few hours. Just enough time to do a little shopping (bread for lunch, mostly), do a little washing up, then browse some blogs for a while. And maybe do a little reading in peace - either Hen's Teeth, or maybe Eric Clapton's autobiography.

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Christmas, Christmas, What Is Christmas? - Posted 17th December, 2007

"Eating too much, Drinking too much, Buying too much and Doing too much!"

It's that time of year again: time for my annual rant about The Real Meaning Of Christmas.

We had some drama in church this morning, from our secondary age group (11-16, roughly) and a few younger adults. This was really rather good. It interweaved the basic nativity story with a stressed-out mum (who kept repeating the title and opening sentence of this entry) and with people in need at this time: a homeless man, an elderly woman on her own, villagers from a drought-stricken African village, etc. The best thing about it was that it raised the questions, the parallels and the contrasts, then left us to think about our response. It was open-ended, rather than trying to force a particular 'real meaning' onto us.

Just for a moment, it left me feeling decidedly uncynical. Then the adults took over. We got "The real meaning of Christmas is Easter", again. Just once, it would be really nice to hear someone point out, at this time of the year, that the real meaning of Easter is Christmas. It would be seasonal, it would be relevant, it would be different ... it might even be interesting.

So, once again, I'm feeling tired and cynical. Still, Christmas is coming: a time of wonder and joy, of signs and miracles and God doing unexpected and unimaginable things; a time when everything changes. It should be fun ... and it won't be Easter!

What was it The Man said? "Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven". Sometimes we forget.

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Readifolk: His Worship And The Pig - Posted 4th December, 2007

On Sunday evening I finally got to Readifolk's new home at The Gardeners' Arms in Emmer Green, to see His Worship And The Pig perform their Christmas gig. If you know the Gardeners' Arms, then you go round the back to the skittle alley on a Sunday evening to find Readifolk. This is rather more out of the way than their old venue at the Clifton Arms, but it is quite a bit more spacious and I don't think Sunday night's turnout would have fitted in the Clifton back bar. Beer at the Gardeners' is Greene King IPA, which is okay if not particularly exciting (actually, I didn't get through much beer during the evening, so next time I'll probably see how well they look after their Abbott Ale).

His Worship and the Pig did two sessions during the evening: a little mini-session of their usual songs - a mix of humorous songs with more serious songs about The Potteries - and then, after the break, their Christmas show: A Christmas Tail. They are a duo, both of whom sing and play guitars (and guitar-like instruments - mandolin, banjo, etc) in a traditional style. In between the songs is a lot of banter.

I thought their mini-session was really very good. They opened with The Aardvark Song (chorus: "It's 'Ard Vark Being An Ardvaark", which maybe gives an idea of their sense of humour). A more serious song, Black Hill, was interesting. Lyrically it is a cheerful song about a spoil tip from a local mine being removed, allowing sunlight and grass to be seen from the cottages that had been in its shadow. Musically, though, it sounds rather sad and nostalgic.

A Christmas Tail was great fun, but musically rather thinner, in my view. A sad tale of Father Christmas's marital problems (his wife's name is, inevitably, Mary), it includes such memorable titles as: Mary Christmas, Red Nose Blues and The Lone Reindeer. Songs were accompanied by appropriate hats, wigs, glasses and red noses, to help the audience follow the plot (I think there was a plot).

All-in-all it was a good evening. As their encore they did a song about the problems of reaching fifty, with a chorus that ended with something about the worst thing being losing your mind ... or perhaps your memory. If I could remember it, I'd quote it here; as I can't I'll end with the final chorus from another song, Rough Justice, about hooligan youngsters today:

Let's flog 'em and flay 'em and hang 'em,
Let's bring back the birch and the cat.
Let's give 'em what for, the strong arm of the law,
The thumbscrew, the stocks, and all that.

Course we could give 'em jobs and a future,
And their chance of a place in the sun.
We could give 'em fair shares and a country that cares,
But it wouldn't be half as much fun.

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Melissa Etheridge - Live ... And Alone DVD - Posted 29th November, 2007

Melissa Etheridge doesn't look like a major pop star in this DVD: she looks like one of the mums from school, and very tiny standing in the middle of a large stage in the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. Then she starts to play, and all you notice is her immense talent.

When I saw her live, way back in '90 or '91, she was something of a cult act on these shores - a singer/songwriter who (whom?) few had heard about, but we few knew she could do amazing things with guitar and voice. She had a backing band on that tour. By 2001 she was a big star, especially in the States, when she decided to go on tour without the band - just like back when she started out played in bars (although with a few more people).

This DVD is a record of the final show on the US leg of that tour. It's two hours long, but you hardly notice that. Thankfully, the sound quality is first class, and the filming is unfussy: just showing her playing and singing. There is movement and variety in the shots, of course, but nothing distracting.

Musically, I think the high points are an intimate rendition of You Can Sleep While I Drive, seated on the edge of the stage, and the raunchy Like The Way I Do, played and sung flat-out as the first song of her encore. The emotional high-point, though, is Scarecrow, a song about the homophobic murder of Wyoming college student, Matthew Shepard. This is the only song with a backing track - percussive - so that she can just concentrate on singing, whilst the video screen behind her shows evocative images.

As if two hours of excellent music weren't enough, there is a second DVD packed full of extras - including bonus tracks, an interview (daftly enough, the interviewer doesn't seem to be miked so you get the answers but not the questions), plus commentary on the songs from Melissa herself. Also thoughts and feelings about the impact of 9/11 on the tour.

This is a fantastic DVD, I can't recommend it too highly.

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Consequences - Posted 24th November, 2007

It seems to me that many religions have a core which is about helping people make free choices - maybe in order to escape into enlightenment; maybe for bettering yourself; maybe to qualify for Paradise by choosing submission; maybe to become a closer follower of Jesus. It also seems to me that most cultures then try to subvert this: to transform the religion into an agent of social control, something that restricts choice, that promotes subservience rather than freedom. Possibly as a result of the priorities of our media, this is most obvious in places like Iran and South-Eastern USA, but you can also see it in Southern Asia (slavery under Islam in Pakistan; the caste-ridden cultures of India; and the superstition that Buddha's teachings have become in Vietnam, are all examples); indeed anywhere in the world.

What interests me, though, is what happens when we blow it? When we make bad choices, deliberately or by mistake? As Iridescence recently pointed out, many religions have their own way of stating that choices have their consequences: "you reap what you sow" in the Bible; karma in many eastern-derived religions; even "what goes around comes around" in popular folk-wisdom (and Terry Pratchett).

I'd like a get-out clause. I'd also like something that recognises things aren't as crude and mechanistic as these quotes suggest. The cruel and corrupt are sometimes rich and content, whilst the caring and humble are sometimes trodden underfoot. Two churchgoers have cancer; the church prays fervently for both: one lives and the other dies. Is that because the one who lived was a better person, had sown better seed; or maybe the one who died was better and so got to be with God sooner (pity about his kids, though)? The reality is that we live in a world where good things can happen to anyone, worthy or not, and so can bad things. "We reap what we sow" - maybe, sometimes, or on average, or after we die perhaps. In the meantime, in the here-and-now, people who treat others well are happier on average - on average means not always. People who trust others often encourage those others to be trustworthy - often means not always. Cancer survival rates are better for those with positive attitudes - survival rates really means on average which means not always. And so on.

I still want a get-out clause. How about a Get out of jail free card? It doesn't matter what you've done, or who you've done it to, God'll let you off anyway? Steal from the poor, exploit the weak, rape the innocent ... do you really think you've got a place in eternity? Nuts to that for a game of soldiers! It's a strange picture of heaven that has people there doing that sort of thing.

But ... I do still want a get-out clause. I want something that says I'm a messed-up individual who needs help, and I can get it. Someone, perhaps, who sets an immensely high standard for entry to eternity - because otherwise eternity won't be heavenly - but who then helps me to change to meet that standard. This would take a journey that lasts a lifetime, and it'd be a journey that has just one entry criterion: I have to choose to go on the journey; I have to choose to change; I have to choose to accept the help.

Choices have consequences; some consequences are more far-reaching than others.

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Choices - Posted 24th November, 2007

I came across an interesting exchange in the comments section of Laughing Boy's blog:

Glugster: I was under the impression, and was taught as such, that your salvation is pre-determined. Thus even when born into this world, it is already determined whether you will be save or not.

Laughing Boy: I agree with this. The bible makes it clear, not just in a verse here or there, but in the grand themes that run from Genesis to Revelation that those who come to saving faith are those, and only those, to whom God has shown irresistible grace. The bottom line of this doctrine is just as you say. God chooses us based solely on His grace without any regard for our 'good' deeds, 'good' thoughts, or any other quality of our life or character.

Laughing Boy also makes the point that this is a question that has been debated for a thousand years or more. These days, the view that Glugster and Laughing Boy put forward is mostly associated with the Calvinist tradition in churches, which is particularly influential in the US through such groups as the Southern Baptist Convention, and in South Africa through the Dutch Reformed Church.

This view reminds me of my 'killer argument' as a teenage atheist: if God created everything exactly then surely anything we do, right or wrong, from the Fall onwards, is a direct result of how God created us. Therefore it's all His fault. That argument rather fell apart when I learnt that science since the early 20th century paints the universe as non-deterministic - there is room in current scientific pictures for choices and for free-will.

In the Bible there is a tension between two big themes: one theme is that God is in control and that His purposes will prevail; but another, equally big, theme is that of people making choices that matter. From the choice in the Garden of Eden, through the climactic passage in Deuteronomy ("I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live"), through Jesus' choices in the wilderness and in the Garden of Gethsemane, and on to choices made, or not made, in the apocolyptic drama of Revelation. In the context of Glugster's 'salvation' (by which I assume he is talking about Heaven or Hell, sigh), the key passage is in John's Gospel: "this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light". How do we respond to light - love, truth, beauty, whatever? Do we turn toward it and seek out more, or do we turn back to the darkness and look for negatives? Where we look affects what we find.

One of the depressing aspects about the church at the beginning of the 21st century is that it is the anti-choice groups which seem to be most visible. On one wing you have groups who say that the choices we make are so important that we shouldn't be allowed to make them - we should just do what religious leaders tell us, even down to what clothes we can wear in some cases. On the other wing we have the message that any choice is equally valid - in effect that our choices don't really matter at all. As I read the Bible, the choices we make are very important, but we are called to make these choices ourselves. This is part of what it means to be made 'in the image of God'.

Some choices are about life and death, some choices are about building or disrupting community, and some choices are purely personal. These choices are all ours to take, and their consequences are our responsibility. Choices matter, in my view.

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A Cartoon - Posted 24th November, 2007

No postings for over a fortnight - sorry about that. Here's a great cartoon from CartoonChurch to make up for it.

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The Johannine Comma - Posted 9th November, 2007

Anorak alert! This post is probably best avoided unless you are interested in words, history, the Bible, or cocking a snoot at the more literalistic members of the religious right.

The King James Version of the Bible (aka the Authorised Version) was a major milestone in the English language and in English religion. It took the best available copies of the original language Scriptural texts and it translated them into clear, but majestic, English. A little earlier, Luther's translation of the Bible did the same for German. Both followed the Protestant principles of faithfulness to the original texts combined with clarity in the contemporary language of the people. Curiously, though, the King James Version includes a short clause (the original meaning of the word 'comma', before it came to be used for the punctuation marks that separated a comma from the main sentence) in John's first letter, which was not present in the Luther Bible - the Johannine Comma.

This clause is also omitted by most modern English translations. Here is 1 John 5, verses 7-8, with and without the comma:-

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. (KJV)

For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. (NIV)

As it happens, we know where this extra section came from, and how it came to end up in the KJV. The first point to note is that we do not have the very first versions of the original language scriptures on which translations are based - we have copies of copies of copies of.... In the sixteenth century, a guy called Erasmus (pictured above) collected together the best Greek texts of his day to provide a comprehensive Greek New Testament. Lots of people pointed out problems, which he corrected to produce a second edition. This is what Luther used, and it didn't include the Johannine Comma.

The official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church at the time was the Vulgate - a Latin translation, which had also been copied many, many times by Erasmus's day. The 16th Century version of the Vulgate did include the Johannine Comma, so the Vatican had a quiet word with Erasmus. He is said to have refused to include it, because there were no Greek texts which contained it. The Vatican found one for him (the ink still wet, almost), so Erasmus included it in his third edition - the edition the King James Version is based on.

If you track back through older copies of the Vulgate, you can see what happened. Some time around 800, the comma seems to have been added to a copy of the Vulgate as a margin note - effectively as a bit of commentary, relating this verse to other bits of the Bible. A copyist has then copied it into a later version of the Vulgate as if it were part of the main text, and from there it became accepted as part of the Scripture, and even back-translated from Latin into Greek.

These days we have access to many more early Greek texts, none of which contain the comma, so most modern translations of the Bible exclude it. This wouldn't matter, or even be of much interest, if it wasn't for the oddities of the Protestant Religious Right - in the US especially, but also in England - with their obsession with literalism, with inerrancy, and with the King James Version of the Bible.

For someone like me, who believes that the Bible is true in its meaning, the Johannine Comma isn't really that big a deal: it may not really belong in the Bible itself, but what it says is just a summary of what the Bible does say elsewhere. After all, it started life as commentary. So both the KJV and the NIV Bibles can both be true, even though the former contains a clause which the latter omits. For the literalists, though, every word in the KJV is divinely preserved as the literal and inerrant expression of the 'God-breathed' original. For them, the comma has to be in the original otherwise all their traditional beliefs fall apart. In other words, their tradition takes precedence over the textual evidence.

As bible.org puts it: "If the King James translators knew that this would be the result nearly four hundred years after the completion of their work, they’d be writhing in their graves."

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School Parents' Evenings - Posted 7th November, 2007

Strange things, parents' evenings. Especially for parents of a fifteen-year-old. It made obvious sense for our eleven-year-old daughter: she joined the school this September - she seemed to have made a good start, but it was good to see whether her tutor thought so too (she did).

With my son, though, it's a bit different. This is his GCSE year, so it's an important year, but at fifteen he's really old enough to be responsible for himself, and for his own work. So what's the parents' evening for in his case?

Highdown School made use of their shiny new school hall for the evening - there were several dozen teachers sat around the room, seeing parents in ten-minute slots. Not enough time for deep and detailed discussions! (Actually there was one new, keen teacher who clearly thought in-depth was the name of the game; she might even have finished by now).

All these teachers, plus the parents, spent their early evenings on this exercise - was it worthwhile? Actually, I think it was. It's not that we, as parents, can do very much as a result, I don't think that is the point. The point is that communication between school and parents is sustained, and that the importance of education, especially in this exam year, is demonstrated: not just through words but by parents (and teachers) spending time and effort on it.

It is part of a process that started when Blackmatt went to nursery school, and will continue until he leaves full-time education. A process that says we care about him and about the opportunities that education can open up for him. That's the point of it all, and I am pleased that Highdown School encourages as many parents as it can to take part.

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Or Is Maths Logical? - Posted 3rd November, 2007

The Capt replied to the Maths/Religion cartoon that maths is very logical. He's right, of course, most of the time, but how about these questions:-

1. "One plus one equals two" - is that logic or is it dogma, something that just has to be taken on faith?
2. You can write the above simply as "1+1=2". Why can't you do something similar with "one plus the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle equals ... whatever-it-is"?
3. Three divided by three is one, two divided by two is one, one divided by one is one: what is zero divided by zero?
4. The square root of one has not one but two values (plus one and minus one). You might find that logical (?), but how about the square root of minus one? This has no values, but in maths it is sometimes given one anyway: called i, for imaginary unit. How logical is that?
5. How many whole numbers are there? How many fractional numbers are there between one and two? One of these is (much) bigger than the other - which?
6. Going back to 1. above, if you take one apple and add one peanut, what do you have? What about one apple plus another different apple? If the apples aren't the same, what logical sense does it make to talk about two apples?
7. Why do North Americans abbreviate 'Mathematics' to 'Math', rather than 'Maths'?

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Maths Is A Religion - Posted 30th October, 2007

Found on The Last Laugh blog

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Tithes, Taxes & Taking Responsibility - Posted 28th October, 2007

"Praise the Lord and pass the collection plate"? How did this come to be seen as characteristic of churches? Televangelists and travelling extravaganzas must take some of the blame, but I think there is a fundamental conflict of interest in many churches. The pastors and preachers who teach about money are usually paid out of the cash they raise from their congregation!

A couple of years ago, I read an article in a Christian magazine about tithing. It came up with the dubious theory that since the Jews, who lived under the Law, were told to give 10% of their income as tithes, then Christians, who live under Grace, ought to give much more than 10%. This wasn't the first time I've seen people try to turn Grace into legalism, nor, sadly, the last, but it is certainly one of the dafter versions. The article went on to claim that actually the Old Testament demanded more than 10%, because there are lots of other things the Israelites were called to give, so Christians should give more yet. Actually, this was interesting, because it gave lots of examples, mostly in Leviticus. When I looked them up, I found that they weren't the sort of joyless legalism that the writer was employing, but actually calls for the early Israelites to have lots of parties - long parties, mostly barbies, to which they were to invite family, friends, neighbours, and the poorest members of their communities.

Last December, I heard a decidedly Scrooge-like sermon about Christmas. The preacher spoke about God's gift of Jesus that first Christmas in Bethlehem, and said that our response should be to give our money 'to God' - by which he meant to the Church. Like most preachers talking about money, he quoted from Paul's letters: "God loves a cheerful giver", and suchlike. What is never mentioned on such occasions is that Paul was writing about famine relief, not regular giving for paying local church leaders and maintaining the building.

In Christian terms, the killer comment on tithes and church taxes is Jesus' statement at the end of chapter 17 of Matthew's Gospel:

"What do you think, Simon?" Jesus asked. "From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own sons or from others?"
"From others," Peter answered. "Then the sons are exempt," Jesus said to him.

The logic of tithing in Ancient Israel was straightforward: there were 12 tribes, one of which (the Levites) was set aside to work full-time as priests, serving God and the people. So everyone else supported them: 11 tribes, allow for a bit of loss, you need 10% from everyone. Similarly the Temple Tax was meant to pay for the upkeep of the Temple in Jerusalem (probably - it is not really that clear where this tax came from, nor how it worked).

Mainstream Christianity says that Christians are, individually and collectively, temples of the Holy Spirit, and that we are a royal priesthood (from Paul's letters, somewhere - ask in a comment if you want more precision - and from Peter's first letter, chapter 2). So the old tithes and taxes are obsolete, along with the Levites and the Jerusalem Temple. Nevertheless, we do benefit from full time Church ministers of various sorts, and we do like to have a nice warm building to meet in on a cold winter's morning; these need paying for.

The old legalism of tithes and taxes is out: the replacement is simply taking responsibility. If things we value need paying for, then we should pay. It is not hard to see how much it costs to run a church and then divide that by the number of members earning a wage - plus a bit for unexpected costs and opportunities. Then do the 'cheerful giving' bit for the poor in your community, for disaster relief, and for the poor in the world community.

Of course, this isn't just about church taxes. In democracies then our local and national taxes go to cover the costs of running our communities, among other things. If taxes are not collected then it is the poorest among us who suffer the most. Tax avoidance (and tax evasion) is rife at all levels of society. It is time we all took responsibility.

Note: the picture comes from www.e-z-smith.com, where it is part of a seriously wierd photo-story. Click the picture to go to the original.

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Abortion - Posted 23rd October, 2007

It's forty years since Britain passed the 1967 Abortion Act, and abortion is in the news: on the BBC, in the papers, and even in New Scientist. The last one of those was interesting, because it actually had some hard facts behind it, mostly from a study published in The Lancet:-

An estimated 42 million abortions were induced in 2003, compared with 46 million in 1995. The induced abortion rate in 2003 was 29 per 1000 women aged 15–44 years, down from 35 in 1995. Abortion rates were lowest in western Europe (12 per 1000 women). Rates were 17 per 1000 women in northern Europe, 18 per 1000 women in southern Europe, and 21 per 1000 women in northern America (USA and Canada). In 2003, 48% of all abortions worldwide were unsafe, and more than 97% of all unsafe abortions were in developing countries. There were 31 abortions for every 100 livebirths worldwide in 2003, and this ratio was highest in eastern Europe (105 for every 100 livebirths).

The article in New Scientist goes on to say:-

Tellingly, the number of abortions fell almost exclusively in rich countries where terminating a pregnancy is both legal and safe. In poorer countries, where access to abortion is often restricted or illegal, there has been very little progress in reducing the number of abortions, says Shah [lead author Iqbal Shah of the WHO].

In Britain there were 193,700 legal abortions during 2003 in England and Wales, according to Abortion Review, and few if any illegal abortions. To me that represents a terrible loss of life and human potential. Vested interests and rigid ideological positions dominate this debate, and all the language is loaded: is it a foetus that is aborted, or an unborn baby? A distinct individual being or a part of the woman's flesh? Whatever, it is surely relevant that abortion rates are at least as high in countries where abortion is illegal as where it is legal, but the suffering of the women involved is much greater (frequently leading to death or permanent incapacity). So the loud debates about whether abortion should be legal or not are pretty much irrelevant for anyone who is interested in reducing the death toll.

The New Scientist article higlights a particular abortion blackspot: Eastern Europe. The Lancet extract above reckons that in 2003 there were more abortions than live births there! The reason seems to be that until recently abortion was freely available in these countries, but contraception was not. So people used abortion as their main method of family planning, and the abortion rate soared. However, the figures also show that as contraceptives have become more available then the abortion rate has fallen dramatically - by more than half according to New Scientist (although their article has a misprint, so I can't tell what time period this was over). So the evidence is that the most effective way to reduce abortion is to increase the availability of effective contraception. There have been other studies showing that improvements to women's health and education also reduce abortion rates.

Over the years the Roman Catholic Church has been firmly against both abortion and contraception; and in recent years US conservative evangelical groups have used their financial clout to block aid that might be used to encourage contraception, particularly in Africa. These attitudes have particularly damaged the fight against HIV/AIDS, as well as boosting abortion rates. In general, I have a great deal of respect for the RC Church (rather less for the US religious right), but on this issue I consider their activities to be nothing less than sinful.

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