way out west

Support the Robin Hood Tax!

No this isn't a tax on Nottingham Forest Supporters... though now I come to think of it... ;)  No this is a campaign to tax the continuing bonus/risk culture of the banks.  It's no minority political campaign it is supported by organisations such as Christian Aid, Cafod, The Church Urban Fund, Comic Relief, Ekklesia, Unicef, The Salvation Army etc. etc.

http://robinhoodtax.org.uk/

The Robin Hood Tax is a tiny tax on bankers that would raise billions to tackle poverty and climate change, at home and abroad.  By taking an average of 0.05% from speculative banking transactions, hundreds of billions of pounds would be raised every year.  That’s easily enough to stop cuts in crucial public services in the UK, and to help fight global poverty and climate change.  Why now?  Because of the financial crisis, frontline services at home – like the NHS and our schools – are under fire.  At the same time, poor communities and the environment are being hit hard – as aid and green budgets are slashed by rich countries.  So it’s time for the people who caused this mess to pay to clean it up.  Who’s in?  Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel (the German Chancellor) and Nicolas Sarkozy (the French President) have all spoken out in support of a tax on financial transactions.  Plenty of business bigwigs are on-board too. Like Lord Turner (from the Financial Services Authority), George Soros (the philanthropist) and Warren Buffet (US businessman extraordinaire). And then there are the hundreds of economists who have backed the idea, too.  This isn’t some crazy pipedream. It’s a simple and brilliant idea which transcends party politics and which – with your support – can become a reality.

Technorati Tags: Culture: Mission: Politics: Poverty: Campaigns

Guido Fawkes NIght

NB I don't agree with this old Anarchist poster 100% ;-) (we have an excellent MP in David Wright) but it did make me smile and it seemed somewhat timely with the announcement yesterday of the changes to MP's expenses procedures!

Technorati Tags: Politics

The Making of Modern Britain

I've been watching Andrew Marr's interesting "The Making of Modern Britain".  Lots of fascinating stuff, one section deserves a mention because of the way it flies in the face of the medias love affair with the New-Atheists particularly their simplistic view "Science=good, Religion=bad".  Marr leads with a piece on Darwin's cousin Francis Galton.  Galton, the scientist wrote in 1869 the book "Hereditary Genius" in which he says,

a man's natural abilities are derived by inheritance, under exactly the same limitations as are the form and physical features of the whole organic world. Consequently, as it is easy, notwithstanding those limitations, to obtain by careful :selection a permanent breed of dogs or horses gifted with peculiar powers of running, or of doing anything else, so it would be quite practicable to produce a highly-gifted race of men by judicious marriages during several consecutive generations.

effectively launching the idea of Eugenics into the modern world, which within 100 years led directly to the experiments of Joseph Mengele and the death camps of Nazi Germany.  Marr suggests that Galton believed that poverty could be bred out of culture, that only the upper classes should be encouraged to breed.  The programme then sets Galton in contrast to Seebohm Rowntree, the Christian, who conducted a study of poverty in York in 1899 the findings of which where published in the book "Poverty" in 1901 and, when taken up by David Lloyd George, became the seeds of British social welfare reform. 

Technorati Tags: Christianity: Culture: Media: Television

A.N. Wilson rejects Atheism and finds faith!

From the New Statesman

Do people like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins simply not get life?

I think on the whole that's right, that clever as the professional atheists are, they are missing out on some very basic experiences of life.

What's the worst thing about being faithless?

The worst thing about being faithless? When I thought I was an atheist I would listen to the music of Bach and realize that his perception of life was deeper, wiser, more rounded than my own. Ditto when I read the lives of great men and women who were religious.

Reading Northrop Frye and Blake made me realize that their world-view (above all their ability to see the world in mythological terms) is so much more INTERESTING than some of the alternative ways of looking at life.

Can you love god and agree with Darwin?

I think you can love God and agree with the author of The Voyage of the Beagle, the Earth Worm, and most of the Origin of Species.

The Descent of Man, with its talk of savages, its belief that black people are more primitive than white people, and much nonsense besides, is an offence to the intelligence - and is obviously incompatible with Christianity.

I think the jury is out about whether the theory of Natural selection, as defined by neo-Darwinians is true, and whether serious scientific doubts, as expressed in a new book Why Us by James Lefanu, deserve to be taken seriously. For example, does the discovery of the complex structure of DNA and the growth in knowledge in genetics require a rethink of Darwinian "gradualism". But these are scientific rather than religious questions.

ht Jason Clark http://deepchurch.org.uk/

Technorati Tags: Christianity: News: Spirituality

A New Creator?

Watching the TV this morning as I was getting dressed I found myself watching a phone in news/comment show - The Wright Stuff - They where discussing genetic manipulation, in particular the recent news stories about how genetic changes to animals have been passed to the next generation (A Jellyfish gene which causes fluorescence was put into monkeys making them glow in the dark and their offspring glow in the dark too) and I was struck by how often "Nature" was personified... "If we get rid of all the diseases "Nature" will make some more to balance population", ""Nature" made it so species could not breed with other species, so "Nature" wont like us messing with her system", ""Nature" will punish us for messing about", "How do we know that in changing things "Nature" wont come up with new diseases that are even worse" etc. etc.  Is this an implicit creationism?  A new Creator called "Nature"?  Has our cultural language has genetically modified nature from a process/ecosystem into "Nature" a creative entity?  Is "Nature" the female/maternal entity a slow burn reaction to patriarchal religion? 

Technorati Tags: Christianity: Culture: Missional: News: Spirituality

Church shame?

IF this is true as reported - then it is deeply deeply shameful and sinful!  The Church should be 100% honest and open even if it means saying and being sorry for abuses committed on its/our watch!

The Church of England has been accused of conducting a cover up over allegations that it drugged girls in one of its children's homes in the 1970s and 1980s.  Teresa Cooper has been battling to get hold of her files for 18 years

Last month the BBC revealed that nine girls who were heavily drugged in Kendall House in Kent have gone on to have children with birth defects.  Now Teresa Cooper, one of the women involved, has accused the Church of conducting a cover up - a claim the Church strongly denies.

"The Church are very responsible. They haven't even said sorry," says Ms Cooper. "They all just go around and they hide, you know, they hide and pretend. They won't do it because they feel if they give any of the girls support they'll be sued."

For the last month the Today programme has been investigating her claims. It has uncovered evidence that the Church in Society - the department of the Church of England responsible for Kendall House - has deliberately withheld files from Teresa Cooper and that a senior member of staff accessed and removed files from the archive despite assurances that he did not do so.

Technorati Tags: Church: Church of England: News

Jonathan Edwards says we're all to blame

We in the Churches have been tied into the selfishness and materialism just like everybody else. This is an opportunity for a radical rethink.  The sins of the bankers contributed to the mess, but so have all of us.

Can't argue with that!

Technorati Tags: Church: Culture

Sank•tuary - radio witness!

Sank•tuary has been getting significant local radio coverage over the last couple of days, I've done a couple of interviews for the BBC and for Beacon Radio here in Telford.  This morning one of the shows on BBC Shropshire having been talking about it... the presenter, Jim Hawkins is having a phone in which he introduced by talking about us and another story (about a bulgarian couple whose house has been completely furnished by people giving furniture) which he called "Hats off to Humanity" stories - good news stories about people giving themselves to help others for no gain... he also made a point that both of these stories where instigated by Christians!  It was fantastic, really gave me a buzz to here him talking, not because he was talking about us but because in this cynical and "bad news" swamped age Christians where being applauded for being counter cultural, for giving themselves to help others etc.  A few weeks back we had a visit from a member of the Shropshire County Drugs and Alcohol team (not our patch as Telford is a unitary authority) who wanted to see sank•tuary and find out if they could open similar projects in Shrewsbury and Oswestry.  When he heard that sank•tuary is run by Christians he commented...

All the most radical projects, the voluntary projects that go where others would go are run by Church people.  I never thought, in my career, I'd be saying this but... I need to find me some Christians!

Technorati Tags: Christianity: Missional: Radio: safespace: Sanktuary

Channel 4

As our filming day was abandoned due to the Snow and with the show being broadcast this Sunday... time has run out for the production company - so we've been binned!  Oh well, there you go, the media is a fickle mistress! ;-)

Technorati Tags: Media: Television

Ian Mobsby on *that* Radio Programme ;-)

My dear friend, mentor, Mooter, Fresh Expressions associate missioner and "co-star" ;-) posts his views and reflections...

Whilst I found the interviewer to be very cynical/negative, there is much in the broadcast to reflect on. This interviewer called me a 'Guru' in this interview - a title I never asked for and I find demeaning.  I think it was deliberately used to bring a negative feel to what I said, nuanced to make my words sound wishy washy and cultic. Interesting that they missed out my main focus of assisting Spiritual Tourists to become go-travelling Christian pilgrims.  I think the interviewer gives Mark and Safe Space a difficult time, implying that what they/we do is not authentically Christian.  Unsurprisingly, I dispute this, and think the Interviewer has taken a particular track that doesn't go into the depth I would expect of the BBC. You can listen to the broadcast on iplayer  here for the next week.  The argument could be the same as that raised from someone coming from a very traditional perspective.  I don't think the Interviewer understands an understanding of contextual mission or the differences between religion and spirituality - and that at its best, spirituality arises out of authentic religion.  It is a shame that the programme did not explore the place of hospitality and relational mission more deeply.

Technorati Tags: Blogging: Christianity: Emerging Church: Fresh Expressions: Missional: Radio: Spirituality