Adrian Chiles: God on the Med

'My Mediterranean With Adrian Chiles' - doesn't give you many clues to the subject matter. Football stadiums on the med? One Bloke in a Boat? 

It's so much better than that:

“Jesus said, ‘The meek will inherit the earth.’ Well, they might do but they get no press along the way at all, they’re completely forgotten,” said Chiles. “And I’m not just talking about Christians, I’m talking about [all religions].”

The football presenter hosts a new religious series beginning tomorrow night on BBC2, for which the working title, Holy Med, has been replaced by the less religious-sounding My Mediterranean with Adrian Chiles. “The fourth word in it is ‘God’. It’s as though they think everyone will have lost their remote control,” the presenter said of a series which opens with him saying “I believe in God”, and in which he spends time with Christians, Muslims and Jews.

Judging by his interview, the BBC took any reference to religion out of the title. Here's a summary of what it's all about: a personal tour of the Med, meeting Christians, Muslims and Jews, and trying to deal with his own questions about God and faith along the way.

There were three striking things about last nights episode. I'll start with the most disconcerting. Chiles made his confession to a Catholic cardinal, speaking about his divorce in particular. Rather than offering grace, the cardinal suggested an annulment. I'm not surprised Chiles wasn't satisfied, it's an outrageous suggestion: the marriage happened, the divorce happened, but the idea that the solution is a paper technicality rather than the amazing grace of God is an insult to the gospel.

The second was the people Chiles sought out. The series was a deliberate antidote to religious fanaticism, profiling people from all 3 religions whose main goal is to do good and bless others. "I want to show that religion actually does more good than harm. I won’t be seeking out the religious zealots – they get quite enough airtime if you ask me. I just want to find the majority; the nice, normal, gentle people who happen to be religious.” It was a welcome counter-narrative to the extremists and atheists usually paraded by the media, and by radicalising groups: that we have more in common than we think, and less to be afraid of than we're told.

Which fed into the third striking thing, which was Chiles repeated argument that Jews, Muslims and Christians all worship the same God. There was a stress on the unknowability of God, and therefore the provisionality of our approach to him. Chiles said he has “more in common with a liberal Jew and a liberal Muslim than I have with even a conservative Roman Catholic”. He added: “Does it calm you down or fire you up? If it’s the latter, I think you are missing the point but who am I to judge? It’s [religious] fervour that frightens me more than anything else." Fervour was equated with wanting to convert people. 

There's more than one way to show religious fervour: you have to be highly committed to make religious vows, or to run a Catholic school with 80% of Muslim children that tries to build bridges. The peacemakers need to be just as zealous as everyone else. 

Adrian Chiles was a very engaging presenter, and last nights episode was refreshing, informative, well-paced and personal. It's a reminder that practice can often make more sense to people than theology (though the section where he tries to work out the prayer practices in a synagogue is hilarious). But the internal logic of each faith involves uniqueness: a chosen people, 'the prophet', the son of God. That didn't seem to fit with the narrative. I can understand that: Chiles (oddly for a football fan) is discomfited by passionate adherence, and wants to know that we can live together happily. But to be acceptable, we have to give up being missionary. What would Jesus do?  

Well done to Adrian Chiles for sticking his head above the parapet, more of this sort of thing please.

If I think x is wrong, does that make me x-phobic?

Odd piece by Giles Fraser in the Guardian a couple of days back, writing about Operation Christmas Child:

this literature promotes an exclusivist version of Christianity in the form of innocuous-looking comic book with the sinister message slipped in: “There is only one way to be friends with God.” In many places these boxes are distributed, this is thinly disguised code for: Islam is wrong.

I have two problems with this:

1. To say that something is wrong doesn't make you a phobic. This is a trick that goes all the way back to Freud, and probably long before: 'Disagreeing with me is nothing to do with my bad logic, it is an emotional flaw in you that is the problem'. Some things are right/true/correct and some things are wrong/mistaken/incorrect. Pointing out that something belongs in the later category, whether it's a system of thought or an answer in to a maths question, isn't a psychological condition. 

2. Last time I looked Giles Fraser was a CofE vicar, a Christian. Christians believe that Jesus is the incarnate Son of God, the Messiah, God in human form who dies for our salvation and rises again so that we might rise with him. (plus some small print). Jesus is both the fullest revelation of God on earth, and the God-given path to a restored relationship with God now an in eternity. That's what Jesus said he was, and that's what Christians believe. The leaflet simply paraphrases this: does that make Jesus himself sinister?

So someone else then turns up a few hundred years later, be they Mohammed or Joseph Smith, and claims to have a better idea than Jesus about who God is, how he is at work, and how to live in response to this. No Christian can logically go 'oh well, that's fair enough, you're just as likely to be right as Jesus'. There are flat contradictions between the Koran and the Bible. Jesus and Mohammed cannot both be right about themselves and about God. God isn't going to turn up in person to save the world, and then a few hundreds years later go 'oh that didn't work, I'll just go back to using prophets'. 

I believe Islam is wrong because I believe Jesus is who he says he is. (To put this in perspective, I also believe there are certain traditions of thought within Christianity that are wrong, along with capitalism, communism, buying t-shirts made in sweatshops, texting during a conversation, and using Facebook as a form of therapy. I'm a mass of phobias) But lets have an adult, reasoned discussion about it, rather than chucking abusive labels at people who don't see things the way we do, closing down the debate before its even begun. 

Justin Welby at Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast

An inspiring, challenging and encouraging talk 'the global church in the 21st century' by the AB of C at the Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast earlier this week. The full text is here, video here, below are some snippets which jumped out at me:

whatever else the Church is, I hope and pray and we will never just be useful – what a dreadful condemnation that would be. There have been moments when we’ve fallen into that trap, and the walls of Lambeth Palace are lined with Archbishops looking useful [laughter], a bit like Hogwarts. But it’s always happened when we’ve lost sight of the fact that at the heart of being a Christian is knowing Jesus Christ, so that together as we meet with Him and share in worship, we find ourselves renewed and strengthened for the call of carrying the cross and following Him.


"The Church, though, is a suffering church in this century. It is growing and in growing it suffers. It carries a cross. That is as true today as ever, and the last few years have demonstrated the truth and cost of that reality. A couple of weeks ago, Caroline and I were in Lahore in Pakistan....  We met some of the clergy and the Bishop of Peshawar who were involved in the bomb explosion last September at All Saints Church, an Anglican church, in which over 200 people were killed. And you ask them: “How are things recovering? Are people still going to church?” “Oh,” they said. “The congregation has tripled.” It is a suffering church and a church of courage.

all Christians belong to one another as sister and brother, not as mutual members of a club. Through all our differences of culture... and we belong to one another not because we choose to but because God has made us that way; you can choose your friends, but you’re stuck with your relatives, and I have to tell you that all who follow Christ are relatives, so you’re stuck with me and I’m stuck with you, so we’d better get used to it.  And that last point is essential to understanding how we act as the Church in the 21st century. We do not have the option, if we love one another, of simply ditching those with whom we disagree. 

In the Church of England we are seeking to start a radical new way of being the Church: good and loving disagreement, a potential gift to a world of bitter and divisive conflict. What can be more radical than to disagree well, not by abandoning principle and truth, but affirming it – agreeing what is right, acting on it and yet continuing to love those who have a different view?

"The poor are not served by a divided church obsessed with inward issues.

even 20 years ago it took months to reach the far corners of the earth now, as we know, take seconds. Instant reaction has replaced reflective comment. That is a reality that you deal with in politics, and it demands a new reality of ways in which we accept one another, love each other, pray for each other. The best answer to a complex issue on which one has heard a soundbite from a sophisticated argument is not always given in 140 characters.

"International aid. The Church of the 21st century is among the most efficient and the best deliverers of help for the poor that exists on the face of the earth... Isn’t it wonderful, let’s celebrate what’s good – it’s easy to be cynical about politics – but let’s celebrate what’s good: that with cross-party support in this country we have maintained international aid at 0.7 per cent of GDP.

"In the South Sudan, again in January, Caroline and I were there, and we were called a couple of days before we got there by the Archbishop, Daniel Deng, one of the great heroes of the faith, and he said: “Would you come up to Bor with me?” A town in the middle of the fighting zone. Well, we did, with a slight objection from some people, but we did. And we went out and we found the town that had been taken and retaken four times. Bodies on the streets, the smell of death in 40 degrees of heat everywhere. Mass graves to consecrate. And what does Daniel do? He goes on national television in the South Sudan and calls for reconciliation. Isn’t that extraordinary? Doesn’t that speak of what the Church should be? And in Sudan, the Church is also speaking heroically for an imprisoned woman and her two children, Meriam, for whom truth matters enough to die. A 21st-century global church loves the poor and the victim, and stands for human dignity, challenges oppressors and supports victims. It speaks for women killed in lynchings called “honour killings”, or for those imprisoned under blasphemy laws. It does all that despite its own suffering. Truth and love embrace.

"And it’s a forgiven church because it’s a failing church. The Church is always full of failure, and I’m sorry to say that’s because it’s always full of people. Without wishing to be controversial, you’re sinners, and so am I. I once said that in a sermon and someone came up afterwards and said: “I’d never have come and listened to you if I knew you were a sinner.”

"And lastly we are a hospitable church in the 21st century if we follow Christ – utterly at home in a world of numerous faith traditions. Open about the hope we have while listening to others. In Lent I spent some time with Ibrahim Mogra, the remarkable Muslim leader from Leicester, and we shared together our scriptures: I read bits of John’s Gospel with him, and he read bits of the Qur’an with me. Hospitable. That belonging to one another, being different, diverse and yet authentic to oneself and to one’s tradition and the truth, is a gift this world needs. It’s the opposite of all this Trojan Horse process. It is a generosity of spirit and openness to listen. The 21st century Church knows that the good news of Jesus Christ is a gift which is to be shared in witness. 

"The church is not an NGO with lots of old buildings. It is the Church of God, rejoicing in the realities of cultural diversity in a way never known before: global, cross-bearing, confident and welcoming. The Church holds for the world the treasure of reconciliation, and offers it as a gift freely given out of its own experience of struggling with the reality of it, of being reconciled ourselves through the sovereign love of God in Jesus Christ. The global Church is above all God's church, for all its failings, and in passionate devotion to him will offer the treasure He puts in our hands, unconditionally, always pointing in worship, deed and word to Jesus Christ.

Sorry, that's a lot of snippets, but there is a lot of good stuff in there. Well worth a read/listen.

Some links to the media coverage of the breakfast here

Islam: Presentation or Content?

With the 'Trojan Horse' reports due out today (update: now published, very serious stuff), Charles Moore puts his finger on something that's been bothering me for a while now:

The question for the rest of us lies in the issue itself. How big is the problem with Islamist extremism, and why is dealing with it so contentious that it splits all the parties?

Stand back and think of some news stories in the past fortnight or so. The search for the 300 Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram; the Sudanese government’s death sentence for apostasy on a pregnant mother; murders in the Jewish Museum in Brussels; the exchange of Taliban prisoners for their dubious American captive soldier Bo Bergdahl; alleged election-rigging in Tower Hamlets; the revelation that some jihadists in Syria are British citizens; and finally, the row about the Birmingham schools.

All these stories are about a religion in ferment. I do not agree with the growing numbers in the West who see Islam itself as inherently violent. All great religions contain so much of the human story that nasty bits can always be extracted by nasty people. (There was a time, remember, when many Christian adherents were more bloodthirsty than the Muslims, let alone the Jews, whom they persecuted.) What is happening, rather, is that the “ownership” of Islam is in contention.

The loudest voices in this struggle, unfortunately, are of those who turn their faith against the free, Western world. In their story, an amazing Muslim civilisation has been trashed by Christians, Jews, white men in general. No blame for misgovernment and economic failure attaches to Muslim countries themselves, except to those leaders (“hypocrites”) who sell out to the West.

You can add to Moores list the stoning to death of a pregnant woman in Pakistan, and the longer-term reality for Christians in just about any country you care to name with a Muslim majority. For example, when Saudi Arabia makes it illegal to convert from Islam to Christianity, and brutally treats anyone who helps people to do this, is that an aberration from what Islam is really about, or standard practice? 

Maybe it is simply that the concentration of power, whether in a state, a London borough, or a school network, warps the hearts and minds of those who have it, as historically it has also done with the church. Even so, Islam still has a problem, because it is set up (via Sharia law etc.) as a system of government as well as a spiritual path. Jesus consciously resisted political power, or anyone seeking to set it up (e.g. Acts 1), insisting that God's kingdom was of a different nature. Christianity doesn't have a system of state government and law built into it in the way that Islam does. 

Maybe, along with the BBC, I'm just hoovering up a narrative that only bears a partial relationship to the truth. And asking questions of Islam will mean asking questions of the church too. But here's my question: are the headlines of the last few weeks mainly a presentation problem - that there are just as many good news stories but they aren't told because they don't fit the media narrative, and don't, in Charles Moore's words, involve the loudest voices? Or does this sorry catalogue actually express something more closely at the heart of  'true Islam'? If there is another side of the story, I'd like to hear it. 

(and why do I feel so wary in blogging these questions?)

Christians 'the most persecuted religious body on the planet'

A very sobering piece in the Spectator today, following a thread that's started to be picked up by some journalists, after recent comments by Justin Welby. There is a steady drip of stories of Christians being attacked - Peshawar, Kenya, Nigeria, Indonesia, Egypt, Bangladesh, but the focus is usually on the perpetrators, not the victims. But the victims of atrocities, most of the time, are Christians:

According to the International Society for Human Rights, a secular observatory based in Frankfurt, Germany, 80 per cent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed at Christians. Statistically speaking, that makes Christians by far the most persecuted religious body on the planet.

According to the Pew Forum, between 2006 and 2010 Christians faced some form of discrimination, either de jure or de facto, in a staggering total of 139 nations, which is almost three-quarters of all the countries on earth. According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, an average of 100,000 Christians have been killed in what the centre calls a ‘situation of witness’ each year for the past decade. That works out to 11 Christians killed somewhere in the world every hour, seven days a week and 365 days a year, for reasons related to their faith.

In effect, the world is witnessing the rise of an entire new generation of Christian martyrs. The carnage is occurring on such a vast scale that it represents not only the most dramatic Christian story of our time, but arguably the premier human rights challenge of this era as well.

Worth reading it all, but it's hard reading. Lord have mercy.

The Queens Speech

Here's what the Queen said

Prince Philip and I are delighted to be with you today to pay tribute to the particular mission of Christianity and the general value of faith in this country.

This gathering is a reminder of how much we owe the nine major religious traditions represented here. They are sources of a rich cultural heritage and have given rise to beautiful sacred objects and holy texts, as we have seen today.

Yet these traditions are also contemporary families of faith. Our religions provide critical guidance for the way we live our lives, and for the way in which we treat each other. Many of the values and ideas we take for granted in this and other countries originate in the ancient wisdom of our traditions. Even the concept of a Jubilee is rooted in the Bible.

Here at Lambeth Palace we should remind ourselves of the significant position of the Church of England in our nation’s life. The concept of our established Church is occasionally misunderstood and, I believe, commonly under-appreciated. Its role is not to defend Anglicanism to the exclusion of other religions. Instead, the Church has a duty to protect the free practice of all faiths in this country.

It certainly provides an identity and spiritual dimension for its own many adherents. But also, gently and assuredly, the Church of England has created an environment for other faith communities and indeed people of no faith to live freely. Woven into the fabric of this country, the Church has helped to build a better society – more and more in active co-operation for the common good with those of other faiths.

This occasion is thus an opportunity to reflect on the importance of faith in creating and sustaining communities all over the United Kingdom. Faith plays a key role in the identity of many millions of people, providing not only a system of belief but also a sense of belonging. It can act as a spur for social action. Indeed, religious groups have a proud track record of helping those in the greatest need, including the sick, the elderly, the lonely and the disadvantaged. They remind us of the responsibilities we have beyond ourselves.

Your Grace, the presence of your fellow distinguished religious leaders and the objects on display demonstrate how each of these traditions has contributed distinctively to the history and development of the United Kingdom. Prince Philip and I wish to send our good wishes, through you, to each of your communities, in the hope that – with the assurance of the protection of our established Church – you will continue to flourish and display strength and vision in your relations with each other and the rest of society.

Brief thoughts:
1. Did Prince Charles write this? It's a clear exposition of the CofE as 'defender of faith' - an established church which doesn't rule and exclude (as it used to), but has evolved into one which holds the ring for all faith voices to be heard. Is this the kind of 'confidence' that Baroness Warsi was calling for, the kind which doesn't need to be right all the time?

2. The 'sense of belonging' bit is important. There are some aspects of Christian faith which are hard, maybe impossible, to put into words, no matter how well worded the survey questions.

3. And I just found it encouraging to read, as a very undemonstrative, British affirmation of the church and its role in society.

good Guardian editorial here.

A 'Christian Country?' BNP rhetoric and reality.

According to the BNP themselves, 3,000 people have registered to be signed up as members following Question Time. Unsurprisingly, their site is getting way more hits than those of any other political party at the moment – Alexa rankings are proudly displayed at the bottom of it. A poll carried out since the programme found that 22% of those surveyed would ’seriously consider’ voting for the BNP.

Some of that may be Brits siding with the underdog, as we traditionally do, but there’s nothing to be gained by simply dismissing these figures. As the BBC report puts it “more than half of those polled said they agreed or thought the party had a point in speaking up for the interests of indigenous, white British people.” Baroness Warsi made the point during the debate that there was more to the BNP vote than disillusionment over expenses: “there are people who feel the pace of change is too fast.”

A Christian Country?
Nick Griffin referred to the UK as a ‘Christian country’ several times during the debate. Do a search for ‘Christian’ on the BNP site, and most of it is articles against Islam and political correctness where that impinges on the church. It’s a defensive statement of cultural identity (’we don’t want Islam’) mre than a positive one of religious identity. ‘Christian country’ is a piece of branding, the language of resistance, looking back to where Britain has come from, and trying to hold on to it. Christian groups have made it clear that Griffin speaks only for the BNP when he seeks to portray them as defenders of the faith.

Britain is in a transition phase: post-Christian without being non-Christian. We still have many of the institutions, but culture and personal ethics have slipped their Christian moorings for the open sea. ‘Life of Brian’ would scarcely raise a murmer now – witness recent attempts to create ‘outrage’ stories over religious imagery which, 40 years ago, wouldn’t have needed any media help in causing a storm.

But it’s not a clean break: recently two councils added 3 other religious holidays to the normal closures for Christmas and Easter. Despite relatively small numbers of Sikhs in Newham and Waltham Forest, Guru Nanaks birthday joins Eid and Diwali on the holiday list. The ensuing lively debate has caused a review of the policy.

The stated aim is, you guessed it, ‘community cohesion’. The result is often the opposite: there will no doubt be another row over ‘Winterval’ some time in the next 2 months, as Christmas is rebranded, and ‘we don’t want to offend people of other faiths’ is cited as the rationale. Result: people of other faiths are blamed for the decision. Winners: nobody. Except perhaps the BNP.

Given the use the BNP makes of ‘Christian Britain’ language, Jonathan Bartley questions whether the church should give up the ghost on trying to preserve the remnants and rhetoric of Christian identity in the UK, but I’m not sure the church should give the BNP the right of veto over the terms of debate. If the opposition starts to colonise our language, do we abandon it, or try to redeem it?

Aside from a reference to freedom of worship, there is no statement about religion or Christianity in the BNP Constitution. However a BNP leaflet from May/June this year, calls for a ‘Day of Prayer’ and attacks the Church of England for selling out. It’s since been taken offline, but points the finger at ‘Judas Archbishops’, who in the next breath, bizarrely, it calls for dialogue with. It doesn’t take much digging to find BNP members with religious views which range from the bizarre to the scandalous. But is it enough simply to dismiss them?

Issues

Back to the data at the top. Ridicule may make us feel better, and more righteous, but what else does it achieve? Whether we like it or not, the popularity of the BNP raises a host of knotty issues which our politicians have been tiptoeing round for years:

– What is the nature of British identity, and what is the place of Christian faith, and the Christian roots of our society, in that picture?

– What is the true nature of Islam? I live in Yeovil, which is almost entirely white, and went up to London for a day conference earlier this year. Westminster seemed to be swarming with police, and young Asian men with backpacks. You know, the kind you see getting onto the Tube in those CCTV videos. I was nervous, I couldn’t help it, even though I know that Al Qaeda is a crackpot minority. Can we talk in the UK about, for example, Muslims persecuting Christians in Pakistan, without it being branded as hate speech and quickly ushered offstage? When Nick Griffin quotes from the Koran, how many of us know whether those texts are foundational to Islam, or peripheral?

– Apart from appointing a few ‘Community Cohesion Officers’ at local councils, how are we dealing with immigration? If the population projections are right, we can expect 180,000 new immigrants per year for the next 20 years. It’s either that, or raise the retirement age to 80: increased life expectancy means that 15.6m people will be drawing their pension by 2033, and with a low birth rate, immigration is the only way to keep a balanced demographic.

- Without some crass ‘back to basics’ campaign, how do we have a debate between the values of the past and the values of the present? In two generations, public morality has changed out of all recognition, whether you look at race issues, the environment, or sexual ethics. There are both gains and losses. In areas like sex and culture, schools are encouraged not to teach a set of beliefs/morals, but to promote an informed choice. The continued epidemic of broken families, and the stubborn persistence of racism, show that this isn’t really working. Is there a place for a moral framework, and in post-Christendom, where do we get that framework from?

Wrapping Up
It’s easy to dismiss the British National Party and what they stand for, and it would be wrong to let the BNP tail wag the dog of the British body politic (sorry, metaphor decay is setting in here). Most of the liberal chatterati can’t understand how anyone could support Nick Griffin. But until we start to understand their appeal, and start addressing some of these questions, British soil will remain a fertile place for the BNP.

this article is cross-posted from Touching Base, a regular column at the Wardman Wire.

on the same topic, different angle, but well worth a read, is John Richardsons piece today.

Seen elsewhere: Blair, Blessings and Beginnings

Superb meditation on Genesis 1 by Gary Alderson
This is a parody of their creation myth. And it's a challenge to it. This God is not to be compared to the scruffy random gods who create a universe through family squabbles. This is a God who, when he says it - it happens. Who really is in control. This is a God who creates a world that can be trusted to be coherent, consistent, understandable - and above all - good.

Thinking Anglicans draws attention to the anomaly in who Church of England clergy are obliged to marry, and not marry. Here's a bit of it:
Thus we find ourselves in the curious position whereby Church of England clergy (i) are under a legally enforceable duty to solemnise the matrimony of atheists, non-believers and adherents of other faiths; (ii) have a statutory discretion to refuse to marry divorcées, transgendered and certain others exercisable in accordance with their conscience irrespective of the religious beliefs and affiliations of the couple; and (iii) are canonically prohibited from conducting a service of blessing following the registration of a civil partnership. Ironically, devout Christians in the latter category are denied the ministrations of the Church by way of a blessing whereas Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews and non-believer couples can compel the use Church of England rites and liturgy and the ministrations of its clergy. The pastoral damage which might result from this mixed message cannot be adequately explained away as an anomaly of the historic accident of establishment in a plural society.

Cranmer on Tony Blairs faith, 'tolerance' of other faiths, and how Blair is making up for lost time in 'doing God'.

If you'd like to stretch yourself, try this exam paper on the lyrics of modern Christian worship songs. Put down your coffee first in case you spill it.

Start the Week is back live after a summer break, lots of links and stories on mission and fresh expressions.

It seems you can now get credits for chatting to your mates on Facebook. Actually, there's a bit more to it than that, but Fuller seminary are now offering a module in Internet Evangelism and Cybermissions. Not entirely sure what I think about this.

Bruce Hood, the scientist behind the 'have we evolved to be religious?' story of the last few days, corrects a few things in the original news story.

staggering new Hubble Space Telescope pictures.

'Penitents Compete' for the Ultimate Prize

A Turkish TV gameshow is pitting a rabbi, an imam, a priest and a Buddhist monk against one another, to see which has the most success in converting atheists. The prize for any convert will be a pilgrimage to Mecca, Jerusalem or Tibet (depending on what they convert to!!)

'Penitents Compete', sounds like a cross between The Monastery and Big Brother (Channel 4 must be kicking themselves for not coming up with the idea) but it claims to have loftier goals:

The programme's makers say they want to promote religious belief while educating Turkey's overwhelmingly Muslim population about other faiths.

"The project aims to turn disbelievers on to God," the station's deputy director, Ahmet Ozdemir, told the Hürriyet Daily News and Economic Review.

That mission is attested to in the programme's advertising slogans, which include "We give you the biggest prize ever: we represent the belief in God" and "You will find serenity in this competition".

Only true non-believers need apply. An eight-strong commission of theologians will assess the atheist credentials of would-be contestants before deciding who should take part.

Converts will be monitored to ensure their religious transformation is genuine and not simply a ruse to gain a free foreign trip. "They can't see this trip as a getaway, but as a religious experience," Ozdemir said.

Ht Start the Week. Is this using all means to save some, or the ultimate trivialisation of the gospel? Discuss....

Obama in Cairo: on Religious Freedom

Impressive speech by Barack Obama in Cairo, the full text is here, below are some excerpts.

So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the co-operation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end.

I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings....

The fifth issue that we must address together is religious freedom.

Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition. I saw it first-hand as a child in Indonesia, where devout Christians worshipped freely in an overwhelmingly Muslim country. That is the spirit we need today. People in every country should be free to choose and live their faith based upon the persuasion of the mind, heart, and soul. This tolerance is essential for religion to thrive, but it is being challenged in many different ways.

Among some Muslims, there is a disturbing tendency to measure one's own faith by the rejection of another's. The richness of religious diversity must be upheld – whether it is for Maronites in Lebanon or the Copts in Egypt. And fault lines must be closed among Muslims as well, as the divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence, particularly in Iraq.

Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together. We must always examine the ways in which we protect it. For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That is why I am committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfil zakat.

Likewise, it is important for western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practising religion as they see fit– for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism.....

It is easier to start wars than to end them. It is easier to blame others than to look inward; to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share. But we should choose the right path, not just the easy path....

...The Holy Koran tells u: "O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another."

The Talmud tells us: "The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace."

The Holy Bible tells us: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."

The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God's vision. Now, that must be our work here on Earth. Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you.

Around the TV in 81 Faiths

Channel 4's 'Christianity, A History' and BBC2's 'Around the World in 80 Faiths' both wrapped up last week. I've caught more of the latter than the former, but both series left me frowning.

Christianity: A Good Kicking was an 'interesting' take on the history of the Christian faith, starting with a polemic against anti-Semitism, and ending with the 'science v faith' debate presented by Colin Blakemore, an Oxford neuroscientist who is convinced that science wins hands down. The final programme gave a semblance of even-handedness, but 2 of the 3 Christians interviewed were a young earth creationist and an atheist priest, so it was a bit like watching Manchester United play Lark Rise.

The life of Jesus was dismissed without any reference to the evidence or historical sources, and the debate between science and faith would have been much better serviced by an interview with a prominent Christian scientist like David Wilkinson or Sir John Houghton.

There were also various tweaks on the facts presented: the founding of the USA was presented as a triumph of science over religion, airbrushing out the fact that the Pilgrim Fathers, and most of the founders, were Christians and theists who just wanted to be free from a controlling church. The separation of church and state is based on a view of a different role for religion in civil life, not its complete absence. At the same time the shameful history of the church in persecuting those who didn't toe the dogmatic line is a historic fact, but opposition between science and faith was presented as pretty much the whole story of the last 500 years, and it isn't.

The programme concluded with the faith statement that science would ultimately explain everything, and religion would die out. I remember Marx saying something similar over 100 years ago.

Around the world in 80 faiths concluded in Europe, juxtaposing Christian persecution of Lapland pagans with Communist persecution of Latvian Catholics. It ended by contrasting the decline of Benedictine monasticism in the Italian Catholic heartland with the rise of a New Age community which treats all religions as equals. Peter Owen Jones thesis seemed to be that any inclusive religion/faith is a good thing, and an exclusive faith community is a bad thing.

The series' greatest strength was also its greatest weakness. Watching Jones throw himself into every religious ritual he came across probably gave us more insight into them than someone who stood on the outside and simply watched and analysed. But at the same time there seemed to be little discernment or critique beyond how it felt, or how inclusive it was. Jones spoke about 'the divine' a lot, but after 8 programmes we knew nothing more about 'the divine' than when we started. Whether there were 80 ways to God or just one, you wouldn't have been any the wiser.

Both programmes are, at time of writing, still available on Catchup/Iplayer respectively.

TV - Christianity, A History; Around the World in 80 Faiths pt 3

Channel 4 doesn't do straight religious documentaries, so it's probably not fair to expect 'Christianity, A History' to be objective. It clearly isn't meant to be: Howard Jacobsen's polemic on the Jewishness of Jesus and how Christians have obscured it, and Michael Portillo's meditation on Constantine the politician, each presenter so far brings such a strong lens of their own to the subject. It's hard to know whether you're being presented with history, or a sermon.

In fact, though historically rooted, both programmes have been highly selective in the historical events they highlight, and the significance given to them. For instance, Jacobsen paints Paul as a lone voice for the Jesus movement embracing Gentiles, when several of the other apostles (Peter, Philip, John) are involved in evangelism of Gentiles too. Portillo claims that the final version of the New Testament was put together by Eusebius, Constantine's spin-doctor, which is a claim you're unlikely to find in any history book. Even more peculiar was one scholar arguing that there couldn't have been a Roman census at the time of Jesus birth because Judea wasn't in the Roman empire. Hello?

Notable by their absence in either programme was anyone who took issue with the presenters point of view. So what we got was a selective and partial presentation of the facts (or 'facts') as though they were the whole truth. Meanwhile, for events from the life of Jesus, the Jacobsen programme gave us some kitsch images from old black and white movies on the life of Jesus - deliberately chosen for how silly they looked? Surely not.

There was plenty to learn from watching both programmes, but there was also such a clear agenda from the presenters that it became a major job sorting out fact from interpretation, which spoils the programmes.

Other views: Ekklesia in conversation with Jeremy Dear, producer of the series

Ruth Gledhill has some sizeable quotes from the Jacobsen programme. The comments are well worth a read, with several people surprised that Jacobsen was presenting Jesus Jewishness as some kind of new revelation to Christians.

Kings Evangelical Divinity School blog The overall effect of the programme was to leave the general viewer with the impression that the blame for the treatment of the Jewish people over the past 2000 years should be laid squarely on the shoulders of Christians.

the Independent has 2 reviews, this one thought it was 'great TV', and Tom Sutcliffe recognises that the series isn't quite what the title suggests. This isn't a part-work history, through-composed by someone with a seat in divinity. It's a collection of pointedly personal essays, loosely arranged around the evolving chronology of the Church.


Meanwhile over on BBC2, Peter Owen Jones made it to Africa (he looks increasingly knackered with each programme) on part 3 of Around the World in 80 Faiths. Avoiding the frontlines of religious life in places like Nigeria and Sudan, he took in 3 variants of voodoo, an ancient tribal hunting dance in Botswana, witch doctors in Africa, and finally Ethiopian Orthodox Christians. You learn a bit more about the faiths because POJ is willing to throw himself into the project, walking out only when the voodoo gathering started to dismember animals. (Worth remembering, though, that this is basic to Old Testament religion too).

He was clearly most moved by the Ethiopians, though whilst they had their 18 hour prayer vigil up the mountain, Jones retired to his camp to get a full nights sleep!

It's still all very much about people's personal connections to 'the divine' or 'the spirits' - no faith yet has been shown in practical action (apart from his comments about the hospitality of the Ethiopians in the midst of dire poverty), and there's been nothing much about faiths active in mission: they are all pretty self-contained, set within their culture. The Middle East is the next one, which will be fascinating.

Around the World in 80 Faiths, Part 2

Already falling behind with this religious travelogue - episode 3 (Africa) is tomorrow and I've only just watched no.2 on Iplayer (where you can still watch it for another 43 days from today). Rev. 'Indiana' Peter Owen Jones tours the Far East in search of exotic religion, taking in Taoism, Confucianism, Korean Pentecostalism, and a very strange 'all in one' Vietnamese religion which seems to centre around a giant bauble with a single eye in the middle of it.

It's still a fascinating programme, Jones contrasting the orderliness of some Far Eastern societies with the chaos of some of the rituals - one which involves lots of men dressing up in white, getting hopelessly drunk, lighting hand-held firebrands, and then racing one another down a flight of stone steps in the dark. Health and Safety it was not.

It hardly seems to have set the BBC message board buzzing: perhaps that's because there isn't very long spent with each faith, and there isn't the time to really see a practitioner in action. There was a lot of interest in Father Lazarus, the monk featured in the final episode of Extreme Pilgrim last year, but we got to see and hear him at length. With 6 minutes per religion, it's hard to get that kind of acquaintance here. It's also quite hard to see the distinctives, though POJ does his best to sketch out the core beliefs of Taoism, Confucianism etc.

The other frustration I have is that most of the appraisal is aesthetic: apart from applauding the inclusivity of the Vietnamese eye religion (CaoDao I think it was called, they have statues of the prophets of every major religion in their main temple), most of Owens comments were about how beautiful, peaceful etc. something was. At prayer mountain, standing in front of hundreds of prayer cells built by Paul Yonggi Cho's church in Seoul, he remarked on how beautiful it was to hear people praying, and about how you could get yourself sorted out with God in one of the prayer cells. My understanding of Prayer Mountain was that the focus was more on intercession, asking God to move in Korea, North and South.

That avenue doesn't seem to be one which the programme explores: instead it's the direct mystical experience of God, and the meaningfulness or otherwise of rituals. It's quite privatised, and in a sense quite touristy - to evaluate things on how much they appeal to us, whether we enjoy them, and whether they give us that sense of the exotic that a far-flung foreign trip is supposed to impart.

Faith and Recession

Following the success of Back to Church Sunday, the Sunday papers speculated about whether the credit crunch is forcing people to reassess their values, bringing some of them back to church. (Ht Start the Week). Meanwhile comment is Free at the Guardian is hosted a series of articles last week on 'Can Religion Help Us Through the Slump?' Here's the line-up

Monday's response - Julia Neuberger: Whether you're religious or not, what matters is the desire to make a difference to other people's lives

Tuesday's response - Francis Davis: Across the country it will be priests and imams who stand with local people in their moments of need . Davis is one of the authors of Moral but No Compass, which surveyed the charitable work of the church, and pointed out the inadequacy of the Governments dealings with Chrisitan charities.

snippet: While Gordon Brown's response (to the recession) has been to lead us into even more borrowing, there will be thousands for whom a hug will be just as crucial as their gas meter is ripped out in front of their eyes or as they find themselves locked out of their houses by insistent lenders and landlords.

In neighbourhoods across the country it will be priests and imams who stand with local people in such moments of terror. They are, after all, often the only "professionals" to have the courage to actually live among the people with whom they work.

Wednesday's response - Ishtiaq Hussain: Like other people of faith, Muslims are enjoined to be charitable; crucial during times like these

Thursday's response - Graham Kings: When belts tighten, do they have to tighten around the necks of the poor?

Friday's response Nick Spencer: Some varieties of religion prey on the poor, others offer them help. Both kinds will flourish during the recession

Ht Thinking Anglicans.

... with a whole host of carol services coming up, I'm challenged by all of these about the message I'll be preaching. Often I try to tie Christmas in to something in the news, or something topical, and this year the challenge is to relate it to the recession and the implosion in global capitalism. First main one on Weds (Yeovil College), I'll probably post a full list later this week.

Face to Face and Side by Side: the good, the bad and the government jargon

Had an email today about a consultation event in November: part of the blurb (bold is all original, red is my emphasis)

This summer the Government published a new framework for building inter-faith cohesion and harmony in a multi-cultural Britain. ‘Face to Face and Side by Side’ sets out how government will work with faith based groups to improve community cohesion and interaction, as well as initiatives to support faith organisations in delivering public services. This commitment will be backed up by £7.5million worth of investment at national, regional and local level to build the capacity of faith based organisations and help them work and have dialogue with local authorities and regional development agencies

Delegates will have the chance to engage with the panel in investigating key questions such as:

- What are the key practical steps that local authorities can take in supporting inter faith community relations?
- How to integrate faith relations into wider strategies for community cohesion and empowerment and ensure dialogue and good relations between faith groups and local decision making bodies?
- How best to promote understanding and awareness of different beliefs and religious practices?
- How can faith based organisations best utilise their unique capabilities, access funding, and develop their infrastructure in order to deliver public services?

Since the email has the usual disclaimer at the bottom, I won't put the rest of it up for fear of being sued by a Texan, but most of the above is public domain anyway. A couple of thoughts:

1. I'm glad that this is going on. There are plenty of countries where a Christian presence is met with violence, persecution and death. Here, we are invited to partner with the government. That's good. The government is also starting to recognise the contribution churches and faith groups make to society at large. Again, good, though a recent report questioned how deep that recognition goes. To its credit, Face to Face and Side by Side tries to deal with some of the issues raise in Moral but No Compass?, including the need for an evidence base. Simply reading through the reams of local initiatives, and seeing that they are recognised by the government, is very encouraging.

2. If there's £7.5m to build the capacity of faith based organisations (highlighted in red, above), the best way to build capacity is to increase committed membership. I wonder if we can use some of that money to employ an evangelist? Just imagine having that kind of budget on your next Alpha course.....

3. The strong pragmatic leaning of the questions - 'practical steps' 'utilise capabilities' etc. Nothing about building a common vision/philosophy of a multi-cultural society. As I commented the other day, in political life we have seen the death of every 'ism' except pragmatism. As the common values which underpin our society have dissolved, the political class have fought shy of trying to spell out a vision of life, society and values which we can all sign up to. This comes naturally to religion, and is one thing we could really contribute to society, but lines about 'understanding and awareness' speaks to me of wanting to keep the really challenging questions at arms length. 'Sure we'll try to understand what you're about, but engage with it.......?'

It's interesting that 'Face to Face and Side by Side' spells out what the government would like to see, but misses the chance to spell out a Christian, or Muslim (or etc.) perspective on the same issues, and to show where the common ground is. In 132 pages on faith, God isn't mentioned once, which is either a triumph of even-handedness, or something else.

4. Labour is very keen to get the 'third sector' (charities and faith groups) involved in welfare delivery, and the direction of this consultation seems to be about how - with a financial incentive -faith groups can be bound into a clearer commitment to delivering government policy. Community cohesion, understanding of faith groups, these are familiar terms to anyone who's ever read a Home Office document or the national curriculum. Of course these are good things, but is this the government 'working with' faith groups, or faith groups working for the government and being paid for it?

5. You could reword the 4th question as 'how far can faith groups change their organisation and priorities so that they can become an arm of government?' Put like that, it sounds a bit less enticing. Yes there are areas of overlap between our priorities and the governments, but in the overlap, who is on top?

I'm all for partnership wherever it can work. Here in Yeovil there is lots of it - over youth, community, policing, new communities, poverty relief, homelessness, childrens services etc. But the ultimate community cohesion is that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave or free, and that God was in Christ reconciling the whole world to Himself. If we are going to be part of this conversation - as we should - then we need to be as confident in using our own language and worldview as the Government is in using theirs. Whether Christians are then penalised for this will show how serious the state is in engaging with us as equals.

Questions asked by 11 year olds

... apart from the obvious ones like 'Where's my SATS result?' here are some questions fired at me by a Year 6 group at our local primary school last week.

Why did you want to be a Christian?

What age did you become fully committed to the Christian religion?

What training do you need to be a vicar?

Are your family religious?

Do you have to read the Bible to be a Christian?

What do you think of other religions?

What is involved in being a vicar?

Do you have to be Christened to be a Christian? (good one!)

What is the most important rule to you?

If you were not a Christian, do you think you would be a different person? (brilliant!)

Why are you a Christian, not a Buddhist etc.?

Do you enjoy your commitment?

plus a whole load of others like
'who made God'?
'which day were the dinosaurs created on, because they aren't mentioned in the Bible?'
'who did Adam and Eve's sons marry, as they didn't have any daughters?'
'what do you think heaven will be like?'
'do you belive in the afterlife?' and so on.

We had a fascinating hour, plus a 30m extension as several stayed behind to carry on quizzing me, great fun, a great challenge, and hugely impressed with the thought and quality behind the questions.

Why Do God-Botherers Bother?

...is the title of the latest Touching Base column at the Wardman Wire. To tempt you over there, here is a picture of a sign in Nempnett Thrubwell, which has a starring role in the post.

Here's an excerpt:

Has God spoken? If the answer is no, then all religion is informed guesswork, following the clues we think the divine being has left in creation, human personality, the cosmos and whatever else we think points towards God. The trouble is, if we don’t know what God is like, we don’t know what points in his direction. If you don’t know where London is, then you have no idea whether any signs which say ‘London’ are pointing to London, or to Nempnett Thrubwell. So either you bet on all the religions at once (Bahai), or you have to stay neutral about all of them. As Homer Simpson puts it “what if we’ve chosen the wrong religion? Every week we’re just making God madder and madder.”

Tony Blair on 'Faith and Globalisation'

Some extracts from Tony Blairs lecture today at Westminster Cathedral. BBC report here, but its much more productive to actually read the lecture: full text here. Lots of good and interesting stuff, from someone who's clearly done a lot of thinking. I hope people engage with the substance of the lecture, rather than focusing on a few soundbites.


religious faith is a good thing in itself, that so far from being a reactionary force, it has a major part to play in shaping the values which guide the modern world, and can and should be a force for progress. But it has to be rescued on the one hand from the extremist and exclusionary tendency within religion today; and on the other from the danger that religious faith is seen as an interesting part of history and tradition but with nothing to say about the contemporary human condition.

....Today, precisely because all the fixed points of reference seem unfixed and constantly in flux; today is more than ever, when we need to discover and re-discover our essential humility before God, our dignity as found in our lives being placed at the service of the Source and Goal of everything. I can’t prove that religious faith offers something more than humanism. But I believe profoundly that it does. And since religious faith has such a strong historical and cultural influence on both East and West, it can help unify around common values what otherwise might be a battle for domination.

....For religion to be a positive force for good, it must be rescued not simply from extremism –faith as a means of exclusion; but also from irrelevance - an interesting part of our history but not of our future. Too many people see religious faith as represented in stark dogmatism and empty ritualism. Faith is reduced to a system of strange convictions and actions that, to some, can appear far removed from the necessities and anxieties of ordinary life. It is this face that gives militant secularism an easy target. It mocks certain of the practices and traditions of organised religion which they define as ‘faith’. ‘Faith’ is to be found in the cassocks and the gowns and the rituals.

Reading the Dawkins book – The God Delusion – I am struck by how much the militant secularist and the religious extremist need each other. The God Delusion is a brilliant polemic but rests entirely – as does the more reasonable The Blind Watchmaker - on the view that those who believe in God believe in Him as a means of exclusion, as a frightening, irrational piece of superstition and mumbo-jumbo which then justifies the unjustifiable.

...Faith is not something separate from our reason, still less from society around us, but integral to it, giving the use of reason a purpose and society a soul, and human beings a sense of the divine.This is the life purpose that cannot be found in constitutions, speeches, stirring art or rhetoric. It is a purpose uniquely centred around kneeling before God.

Actually, looking at the line-up of speakers and topics, every single lecture will be worth a look. Maybe it is worth living in London after all.

(Update: a few blog links: Cranmer is not convinced, Theos today links to some of the media response, Stephen Bubb was there but it sounds like he spent most of his time picking up the names he carelessly dropped ;-), New Humanist also posts on the story and links to various media stories. Ruth Gledhill , who seems to get younger with every new picture of herself, picks out Blairs reasons for not 'doing God' as PM, something he now seems to be liberated from. )

Extreme Pilgrim 2

Caught most of Part 2 of the fascinating Extreme Pilgrim last night. There are clips from the episode and previews of next week here. After spending a month with the Shaolin Monks, Rev Peter Owen-Jones moves to the other side of the Himalayas to join a Hindu 'sadhu' (holy man) as he makes his pilgrimage to the Ganges along with several million others for the Kumbh Mela festival. "Forget Glastonbury, forget Piccadilly Circus, there are 7 million people here at this festival, a sea of seething humanity."

The programme was a fascinating exploration of Hinduism - Owen Jones gives us a good summary of the basic ideas of the religion, a bit on the pantheon of the gods (over 100,000 - that must take a heck of a lot of organising), and a lot simply watching the way it works.

At the same time you can't help but be impressed by the way he throws himself into it. There can't be many Anglican vicars (myself included) who'd happily wrap themselves in nothing but a thong and do bad headstands by a river whilst crowds of local kids watch, and a camera crew films it for national telly. It reminded me of Jesus saying about becoming like little children: trust and enthusiasm, rather than being too aware of reputation, status and what people think.

One thing towards the end struck me. POJ heads up into the mountains to live in a cave near a poor village as a sadhu (the day he arrives it rains for the first time in 3 months - very interesting!). He comments that its the first time for 15-20 years that he's really got away from it all and had time to think. But why? Okay he had a bad time at theological college, but hopefully at some stage someone talked about retreats, prayer, and having time to reflect. There's a really nice place near Tiverton I could point him to if he wants to get away from it all without having to go all the way to India.

I guess there was more to it than that - living in a cave, without a home, posessions, etc. is a level further in detachment than simply going on a retreat. However I'm convinced that every Christian leader has a duty to themselves, and to the people they lead, to get away from it all regularly and have time to think and pray.

Sadly, the programme finished rather abruptly: amoebic dysentry struck, and as we saw Peter trudge off in search of a toilet the voiceover for next week suddenly cut in. I was waiting for the bit where it all got summed up, but maybe it was ok not to have it - life isn't neat, discipleship isn't neat, and we do sometimes abruptly go from the mountain to the valley. Straight after his transfiguration, Jesus walks into an argument over why his disciples have failed to cast out an evil spirit.

There will be a big contrast next week. For two weeks the programme has focused on religions of detachment - the focus of Buddhism and Hinduism is to liberate the self from human life. I found it odd that a chap as life-affirming as POJ didn't pick up on the massive downer these two religions have on human life, basically seen as a prison to escape from. It also seemed quite individualistic, a personal quest to get enlightened. Next weeks Christian monks will (hopefully) focus on Jesus - the worship of God incarnate, and something that's not about us, but about Him. Jesus who deliberately chooses human life, in order not to liberate people from it, but to transform it.

The danger of going as an individual pilgrim through all this stuff is that you don't critique the system, and what it does to a society and a culture. I hope there's a bit of space next week to compare and contrast.

Michael Nazir-Ali on 'no go areas'

The Bishop of Rochester is in the news today for claiming in a newspaper article that some parts of the UK are now no-go areas for non-Muslims. He's been accused of scaremongering in some quarters, but some of the responses to the story (see the feedback on the first link) indicate that he's right. Of course the story is about bigger issues than that.

Michael Nazir-Ali argues that the 'multiculturalism' agenda has failed, creating local sub-cultures rather than integration, and that behind it is an implicit secularism which levels out all faiths - corroding the distinctives they have, and undermining traditional chaplaincy provision in schools, hospitals and educational institutions.

He calls for a fresh national vision of what kind of nation we want to be. A vision which doesn't include an explicit faith statement leaves the playing field open for whoever has the loudest voice or most influence. The modern secular state has jettisoned Christianity but replaced it with the Cheshire Cat of multiculturalism. In fact, this is simply cowardice, a failure of nerve on behalf of our political system to articulate a proper vision of humanity and society.

The article is worth reading in full. (And if you want a laugh visit the National Secular Society homepage, which claims that his article is an argument for secularism. ) The 'multiculturalism' agenda (it doesn't really qualify as a 'vision') is the dominant paradigm in health, education, politics, social policy and media. It's time it had a Christian rival in the public sphere, well done to the Bish for having the guts to get the debate going.

Update: more links on this story at Thinking Anglicans, see the entry for Saturday 5th January.
Update 2: a good article on the Ekklesia site, and MadPriest and Cranmer also have their 2 penn'orth.
Update 3 And some evidence for Bishop Nazir-Ali's case from Irene Lancasters blog and the chairman of the Muslim forum writing in the Mail