Parachurch

All the excitement at the weekend reminded me of this cartoon by Jon Birch. Personally speaking the Paralympics has been quite an education, one of the minor gems was the #isitokto hashtag from Channel 4's late night show The Last Leg, on what it's ok or not ok to do or say around disability.

Olympic Anthems - the Reserve Squad

With everyone now heartily sick of the Chariots of Fire theme, Spandau Ballets 'Gold'  and anything by the Beatles or Queen, here are a few musical suggestions which could have worked at the various Olympic venues and events.

Torch Relay - There is a Light That Never Goes Out (The Smiths)

4x100 Relay - I Started Something I Couldn't Finish (The Smiths)

4x400 Relay - Oops I Did It Again (Britney Spears)

Boxing  - Hit Me Baby One More Time (Spears)

Taekwondo  - Aint that a Kick in the Head (Frank Sinatra, at a guess - I'm not really with it on jazz))

10m Diving - Vertigo (U2)/Going Under (Evanescence)

Archery/Shooting - Dont Want to Miss a Thing (Aerosmith)

Velodrome - Round and Round (New Order)

Horseriding - Jump (Van Halen) or if that fails Whip It (Devo)

Weightlifting - Lifted (Lighthouse Family)/Lift Me Up (Howard Jones)

Pommel Horse - Teenage Kicks (Undertones)

Vault - Head over Heels (Tears for Fears)

Beach Volleyball - On the Beach (Kirsty MacColl, or Chris Rea)/Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini (Black Lace, I think)

Closing Ceremony - Rio (Duran Duran)

But what a fantastic couple of weeks, and it looks like the Paralympics might be a sell out too, as people can't get enough of the Olympic spirit. How we build on the goodwill, sense of a job well done, success and fun of the last fortnight seems to be up for grabs - the BBC didn't help by ending Sunday night with a downbeat song and then a trailer for a series on Jack the Ripper. It almost made me long for a 4th song by the Who.

Massive congratulations to the atheletes, coaching staff, volunteers, organisers, army, LOCOG and everyone involved. It's been brilliant.

Marginal Gains for God

Dave Brailsford, on cycling success, from the BBC Olympic coverage:

Brailsford has also been expanding on the idea of 'marginal gains':

"The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of an improved it by 1% and put it back together again you will get a significant increase.

"There's fitness and conditioning but there are other things that might seem on the periphery like sleeping in the right position, having the same pillow when you are going away and training in different places, hygiene.

"Do you really know how to clean your hands? Without leaving bits between your fingers? If you do things like that properly, you'll get ill a little bit less. They're tiny things but if you clump them all together it makes a big difference."

Has got me wondering what this looks like in discipleship terms. What are the small changes in small areas that, added together, will make us significantly more Christlike?   There's also more than a trace of Pharisaism here, which at its best is attention to detail in obedience to God (read 'the year of living Biblically' if you're not convinced). Attention to detail is an expression of devotion, an act of worship, a declaration in the small things of the big things that are most important to us.

Obstacles, a 30 second tutorial.

Enjoy. I'm sure there's a great parable in this somewhere. Will probably get an airing at tomorrows Cafe Service Sports Day, alongside Chariots of Fire.  Ht CVMs' 'Man Friday' ebulletin.

BouncyHenge

A life-sized bouncy castle version of Stonehenge is touring the country from tomorrow. Oddly named Sacrilege, most of the venues are London based, but the SW sees a few as well, including Exeter and Bristol. This is either the coolest, or most bonkers, thing associated with the Olympics yet.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

This very John Majoresque idyll of cricket, countryside and arteficial rainclouds will be part of the Olympic opening ceremony. The only bit of actual UK countryside being recreated is Glastonbury Tor, top right. Driving past it today, it still had the church tower on top that has graced it for centuries. Danny Boyle's version has substituted this for a tree. To be honest it now looks more like Wyndham Hill in Yeovil. I'm not a great fan of obsolete bits of church building, but surely the Tor tower is what makes it distinctive, and links to the religious heritage (both real and mythical) which makes Glastonbury so distinctive?

Looks like fun though. There's some close ups in this BBC report.

Olympic Sponsors Parade, aka the Torch Relay

Went to the centre of Yeovil at crack of dawn today to watch the Olympic torch relay. First stop was bacon butties at the United Reformed Church, then we joined the growing crowds and waited.

After several local buses, an middle aged boy racer showing off his car, and various police bikes, came a parade of sponsors carnival floats, complete with freebies, logos and people trying to whip up the crowd into the nearest thing to excitement Yeovil can manage at 7.30am. Then, to the sound of church bells and local radio, came the flame itself, the thing we'd all come to see.

Arriving home, my inbox had a link to this piece by Jarrett, our local college chaplain. A local man has recently offered to sell advertising space on his body to support charities. Human billboard Chris Watson will have logos tattood onto his skin, in exhange for donations. Channel 4 have already spotted the story and are planning a documentary, which should boost the cash take considerably. Is this sacrificial giving, or the ultimate victory for marketing?

Jarrett writes of... the sheer volume and invasiveness of modern advertising. The places you can go without seeing advertising of any kind are rapidly depleting. Our recognition of company logos is an accepted norm in modern society. Students last week were showing me the highest downloaded free app on the iPhone: a Logos Quiz. Logos are displayed fully or partially, and you have to guess which company it is. Enough correct answers takes you to the next level where (yay!) more logos can be guessed.

The colonisation of the Olympics by branding and sponsorship (just watch Chariots of Fire, then compare and contrast with this: 14 logos and invitation to 'be part of it' by buying merchandise. Yes, if you haven't got £400 for the last remaining seats for the beach volleyball, you can always pretend you're there by shopping online.

Won't be long now.....

Chariots of Fire resources

Chariots of Fire is back in the cinema in July, in time for the (warning, copyright violation ahead) Olymp*cs. Damaris are producing a suite of resources, video clips etc. for churches to use alongside it, like the one above. Good discussion starters, and a great movie. And hardly a sponsors logo on show. Those were the days.

Olympic Torch Prayers

There's some 'official' prayers for the journey of the Olympic Torch, for those of you looking for an alternative to 'Let the Flame Burn Brighter' as a liturgical response to the arrival of the torch. Or you could just send everyone out to buy honeycomb flavoured ice cream. See, the subliminal marketing is working already...

Capitalism 2 Sport/Free Speech/Democracy 0

Here are the Olympic Rings.

I wonder what would happen if I put them into my blog title bar, or changed my Twitter avatar to a picture of the rings. A spell in prison looks like a possibility, with some draconian brand protection going on around the Ol****cs.

Meanwhile the engine noise at Formula One drowns out the sounds of protest and death in Bahrain, because it wouldn't do to let the sponsors down. Do Formula 1 and its bosses care? Do the drivers have a conscience, and how much contractual freedom do they have to exercise it?

Though at time of writing, there may still be time for Jeremy Clarkson and the boys to break into the pit lane and paint 'Free Bahrain' on the side of all the cars. Or for all the drivers to don 'Pray4Bahrain' t-shirts, to be unveiled at the podium ceremony. It's maybe a bit much to make parallels with the Hunger Games, but is it possible to win in such a way as to make a statement about the parameters of the competition?

Discussions in other places

Madpriest had a gentle dig at a former Somerset vicar who talked about powers of evil in Portishead in a parish magazine article, drawing heavily on Tolkien. Just to spoil people's fun, I posted a comment reminding folk that Jesus recognised powers of evil as well, and that's now turned into a whole new debate over at MP's place. Is evil a 'power', or are there just very nasty people?

Bishop Alan is blogging from the Willow Creek leadership conference - I'll be really interested to see if he does a 'compare and contrast' post with Lambeth - with pithy summaries of the various speakers. There are video-based versions of the conference in the UK in October: we took a small group last year and found it very helpful.

SPCK have issued a statement, which Phil Groom has posted in full. One of the many matters debated in the last few weeks was the role of SPCK in entrusting SSG with the retail arm of its business, which was losing money rapidly and was unsustainable as it stood. It's worth reading the entire statement, here's the last couple of paragraphs:

We have been greatly upset by what has happened. We have been actively trying to do something about it, and are engaged in legal activity on a number of fronts about which it is not currently possible to say much. This and working with other interested parties and individuals has taken up a great deal of Simon Kingston’s time over the last year and continues to do so.

The Trustee body continue to have the shops as an item at every meeting, and spend a deal of time discussing what is best to do. A great deal has gone on (and continues today) which is not public knowledge. It is simply not true that we have ignored the situation. And with legal issues outstanding, we simply cannot wade in with public pronouncements. Indeed, some public comments (including, frankly, one or two contributions to the various blogs) serve to make matters worse rather than better.

SPCK and its trustees are truly saddened by the situation. We made a decision in good faith, and it has not turned out well. We are really sorry at the turn of events. But breast-beating makes nothing better. We are doing what we can on a continuing basis, and this may take another year or more before it has run its course.

The next few weeks will see two of the former SPCK shops in formal re-launches under new ownership. Let us all hope that other sites also find happier times once more.

Simon Kingston, SPCK General Secretary and Chief Executive Officer The Rt Revd Michael Perham, Bishop of Gloucester, Chairman of the SPCK Governing Body 12 August 2008

Phil's blog is the place to discuss this, and judging by the penultimate paragraph, we are in for the long haul here. Please pray for Simon Kingston and everyone else involved in this, for a resolution that is good, fair, and ideally that doesn't require lawyers to sort out the fine print because people are able to deal constructively with one another.

Finally Matt Wardman has a few Olympics links - personally I'm just enjoying the sport, but it's useful to be reminded of what else is going on here. And Johann Hari reflects on the decision not to publish the novel 'The Jewel of Medina', about the child bride of Mohammed, and what it says about our ability to have critical dialogue about Islam. The book may, like the Da Vinci Code, be a pile of cobblers, but now it's been pulled, everyone will want to have a copy if it ever finally comes out. Sounds familiar.

These People are Hosting the Olympics, 3

Remarkably, Damian Thomson has written something I agree with. It was posted a few days ago, about the persecution of Catholics in China. The human rights issue is more than just Tibet. The danger is that the momentum will die away after the torch procession, and everything will go back to normal.

Bishop John Han had spent years doing forced labour before being ordained priest in 1986 and bishop three years later. He was imprisoned on 11 separate occasions and spent about 35 years of his life in prison, labour camp or house arrest.
I wonder what he would have made of Sunday's events. I like to think he would have been cheering on the protestors.

Matt Wardman is also doing his bit to keep the fire stoked, including how to get your blog banned in China, and then how to get round the ban. Nothing like creating work for yourself...

Another Good Reason Not To Eat MacDonalds

If you've ever watched Super Size Me, or paid attention during the McLibel campaigns a few years ago (the McSpotlight website seems to have ground to a halt sometime in 2005), and were running out of reasons not to take your kids to MacDonalds, help is at hand.

They are one of the sponsors of the Beijing Olympics, a fact noted by Madpriest, who is now drinking the undrinkable and has switched to Pepsi. So if you wanted to sell your VW, cut up your visa card, throw away that old Kodak camera, stop jogging to Staples office supplies in your Adidas trainers whilst checking your Omega watch, then you can now do all of that and claim that it's on moral grounds.

The Olympic torch relay already seems to have become an unoffical competition over which country can put on a better protest than the one before. There are now real questions about who will be at the opening ceremony, and whether there will be some sort of boycott. Macavity already has a diary clash.

Whilst most of us won't get an invite to Beijing, and the chance to wrestle a policeman in London has gone, so what else can we do? I don't know how far the Olympic sponsors are using their financial muscle to lean on the Chinese authorities. I expect not much, as they'll be keen to keep their market share, rather than have it handed over to someone who makes less noise. As the MacDonalds experience shows, companies will change if they are put under pressure by their customers. A consumer boycott is on the agenda, but there are big questions about whether it will do any good, or whether it will sour relations with China at a time when we need them onside for negotiations over climate change etc. But as Thabo Mbeki's craven attitude towards Zimbabwe has shown, appeasement doesn't work. Also, if it is international companies who are modelling change through their working practices, acceptance of free speech, allowing Chrisitans and other religious groups to gather freely on their premises etc., then maybe that's more likely to make progress.

So far, not very encouraging. When a coalition of human rights groups took on the relatively soft target of China's support for the Sudanese government (rather than their internal record), here was the response from the Olympic sponsor companies:

Coca-Cola: "Not our role to give suggestions"
Lenovo: "Not Lenovo's place to comment on politics"
Adidas: "Governments have responsibility"
McDonalds: "United Nations should drive solution"
Panasonic: "Support for the Olympics is independent of local contingencies"
BHP Billiton: Failed to respond
Staples: Failed to respond
Snickers: Failed to respond
PricewaterhouseCoopers: "No comment"
Volkswagen: "I'll get German office to call you"
Visa: Failed to respond
Microsoft: Failed to respond
Samsung: Failed to respond
Eastman Kodak: Failed to respond
General Electric: Failed to respond
Omega/Swatch: Failed to respond
Manulife: Failed to respond

Pathetic.

(PS. For reasons of balance, McD's have a corporate responsibility website. Wonder why they felt the need to do that?)

Update: this is clearly blogging issue of the day - the Huffington Post (premier league US blog) has blogged on the topic today. "The only way to clearly denounce the corrupt behavior of the Chinese government is to withdraw corporate sponsorship from the Olympics"

These People are Hosting the Olympics: 2

A few weeks ago, Open Doors published its list of the 10 worst places to live as a Christian in 2008. Here it is

2008 World Watch List
1. North Korea
2. Saudi Arabia
3. Iran
4. Maldives
5. Bhutan
6. Yemen
7. Afghanistan
8. Laos
9. Uzbekistan
10. China.

The Open Doors USA site has a full article covering the offending countries, including this paragraph on China:

China is a large country with many contradictions. There are Christians who are restricted in their freedom to worship, but there are also areas where the situation is not as tight. Sometimes the government crackdowns against Christians were motivated by preparations for the Beijing Olympic Games in August 2008 and not by anti-Christian grounds. The government wants to make sure that there is no risk for any instability during 2008. The way they want to achieve this differs per area and situation. Sometimes unprecedented politeness is used, but there are also reports of house church raids and arrests.

And the raids and arrests, false imprisonments torture and beatings all continue.

News report here, HT ars gratia.

These People are Hosting the Olympics, Part 1

An open letter from the president of the Chinese House Church Alliance has revealed the relentless persecution he and his family have endured under the hands of the Chinese Government.

Pastor Zhang Mingxuan, who heads the Chinese House Church Alliance, issued the letter on Monday to the international community out of frustration over being driven from house to house by officials with no response from the central government or the judiciary system to his appeal for justice.

Zhang, who converted to Christianity in 1986, is used to persecution after having been stalked, arrested, beaten and imprisoned 12 times for his activities in the house church movement.

But the latest incidents have been more intense and frequent, forcing the house church leader to write two open letters to President Hu Jintao and a third open letter to the international community for help after receiving no response from the government.

As detailed in his letter, high-level Chinese officials visited an orphanage – which is supported by the house church alliance – last October after which authorities forced the foreigners teaching the children to leave, drove away the students, cut off the power supply to the building, and began to monitor Zhang’s movement more closely. The orphanage was forced to relocate after the energy company refused to return electricity to the building.

In a period of a little over a month, Zhang moved six times.

Full story here.